Typical

Today, Monday, April 19th 2010, is the first day of classes for the second semester at LMU and TU Munich.

I had picked out 8 classes to visit this week, thinking that after a week or two, I can decide which classes I do and don't like, whittling my real load down to 5 or 6.

I went to bed early last night and woke up bright and early. My first class was at 8, and I didn't know quite where the room was, so I wanted to be early. By the time my alarm went off at 6:40, the sun was shining, and leaving my building I discovered a beautiful spring day.

The class I wanted to sit in on, Elektrodynamik, is housed in the TU campus downtown. There is no U-bahn stop especially for it, so it was a pleasant 10 minute walk to the building. Nothing could get me down. Walking along the street, I would smell coffee every once in a while, reminding me of work, class and productivity.

When I found the building, it was 7:52, meaning that I still had 23 minutes to find the classroom (most classes at German Universities start 15 minutes after the stated time). I went inside and wandered around, hoping to find room 052.

Long story short, I never did. The building was huge, and I wandered around for 15 minutes not getting any closer before I finally broke down and went to a security guard at an information desk. There were no useful maps of the building to be found.

"Excuse me, do you know where room 052 is?"

Pause for the German man to stare at me like I'm crazy.

"Room 052? Do you know where it is?"

Another pause.

"Does it exist?"

"No. . . I don't think so."

"Oh. Thank you! Bye!"

Right now I am sitting in a park, waiting two hours to go to my next class (I know where this one is, by the way).

Does room 052 exist? I have no idea. But as soon as I get access to internet, I am going to check. It was probably some sort of dumb mistake on my part, but it is also entirely possible that people who work there just don't know where it is. The university system here is not centralized and can be ridiculously confusing. A similar thing happened to me last semester when I had a work group that supposedly took place on the 3rd floor of the main building-- a floor that was mostly boarded off due to construction. I never did find that room, and ended up dropping the class.

That's life, I guess.