Trip to Bodensee

I am exhausted. And not really in a good way. I haven't had a day off since I got to Germany, and I just always have this mental exhaustion every day from so much stimulation. It's driving me crazy. I just want a few days off. But no such luck, as we are leaving for Berlin/Riga tomorrow morning (at 6.00 no less).

I had a busy weekend as usual. On Saturday, I went to this training for Rent an American. I explained what the program is in a previous blog. The training lasted from 11.00 to 18.00. It was fairly interesting actually, as we talked a lot about culture, human nature, and individual personality and trying to differ between them. Which is something that is always really hard to do, but also very insightful and interesting. And alas, I met another Minnesotan. One of the women in charge of the program is originally from Wisconsin, went to the University of Minnesota, and now lives in Germany with her German husband. Oh and I learned something else. It typically takes 12 years of total immersion to truly unearth everything underneath the surface of a culture. And I'm here for like 16 weeks. Good luck, right?

On Saturday night, I went out for about an hour to have a beer with Fabian. He was a German foreign exchange student in my high school, for those of you who don't know him. He is from Konstanz, Germany, but is currently doing his civil service at a youth hostel in Bonn. He was visiting a few friends in Freiburg over the weekend, so he texted me, and we set up a time to meet up and have a beer. And guess who he brought along? Yes, that's right. Another Minnesotan. Her name is Niki, and she is from Falcon Heights. She is studying at the Goethe Institute for a year after high school, I think. So we went to a local bar in Freiburg and had a good talk about life and politics for an hour or so. Oh by the way, apparently political discussion is typically small talk for Germans. How awesome. Americans are typically so afraid to discuss politics.

On Sunday, we went to the Bodensee (known as Lake Konstanz in English). First we went to this little town called Meersburg. We toured this awesome castle. This also happened to be the day of a wine festival in Meersburg. So we spent an hour or so at that. I only sampled one wine though because they were kind of expensive. But I ate some currywurst, which was delicious. And then I was still hungry so I had some rotgrillwurst, which was also good. Then for dessert, I had Italian Eis, which is basically amazing gelato ice cream in tons of different flavors. And it is always good. And usually cheap, too. After Meersburg, we took a fairy to Konstanz. We did a self tour of the city. They have an especially awesome cathedral (Münster) in Konstanz. So we toured that. Although it seems like I've seen so many German churches now that they kind of just meld together in my mind. But it was still cool. We headed back to Freiburg around 19.00 or so, and I studied for the rest of the night, as I had two exams today.

Today was...exhausting once again. My German exam wasn't too bad. Although I couldn't remember the word for grapes. I made a rough translation and called them Weinbeere (wine berries). Which I thought was pretty clever. Hopefully she does too. My exam for my political science seminar was kind of hard though. It was six essay questions basically. She gave us 12 questions on Friday and told us six of them would be on the exam. Which was nice of her. But I think she will also grade it harder then since we have no excuse to do poorly. Anyway, it is really hard to know how much she is looking for us to write on each question. We had 90 minutes for six essays, so it's not like you can write a full five paragraphs for each. So I kind of just did what I thought was adequate. We shall see how nice it is when it comes to grading. I knew every question though because I studied my ass off for that stupid exam. So I hope I did well. It just depends on how much detail she was looking for.

Now I just have to pack tonight for our Berlin/Riga trip. Which is tomorrow until Sunday night. So I probably won't have internet access during that time FYI. And we're having a West Wing party in our flat tonight because we're all poli sci nerds and liberals and we have no homework for tomorrow!

This is at the castle in Meersburg. We're kind of at the top of the castle.

At the wine festival in Meersburg. It was a really cool thing to do on a nice Sunday afternoon. Germans really like to relax on Sundays.

That's the Bodensee in the background. It's the third biggest lake in Europe, I think.

This is in Konstanz. It's in front of this sweet golden clock. Nothing too special. I just thought it was a cool picture, mostly.

This is in front of the Cathedral in Konstanz. Also a sweet picture in my humble opinion.