Motor Psycho

This past weekend I was on a class trip to Weimar and Berlin. It was fun, but also one of the stranger weekends I've experienced. So, if I even get to describing everything, they will be broken up into many blog posts. 

Last night, my trip was made complete when Hans Peter Söder, our professor and chaperone, decided to buy a DVD at a truck stop for us to watch during the long journey home. The movie was called "Motor Psycho" and he chose it because it was supposed to be a movie about a motorcycle band, fitting in with our class theme about traveling and experience. The movie opens with a shot of a very busty woman asleep on a towel on the side of the road. Her husband or boyfriend is down a little trail that leads to a lake, fishing. She wants to kiss him a little, but he's busy, so she goes back to sleep.

Then it cuts to a crotch shot of a guy on a motorcycle. It zooms out to reveal two other guys on motorcycles, and they drive down the road until they spot her. The leader of the gang is intrigued, and they pull over and watch her for a bit before the leader decides to lean down and kiss her.

She enjoys it until she opens her eyes and realizes it's not her boyfriend/husband, and screams for him to come save her. He runs over and fights the motorcycle gang until they beat him unconscious. She starts screaming uncontrollably and trying to check if her husband's okay, but the leader of the gang pulls her up and continues where he left off.

It then cuts to a man and a very pretty woman in a Jeep. The woman gets out of the Jeep and walks down the road, and there is another crotch shot of the motorcycle leader riding his motorcycle. They spot her and start to harass her, circling her on their motorcycles. Her husband, however, is able to stop them. She joins him in the Jeep and they drive away, while the camera zooms ominously in on the license plate. . .

We watched about a minute more (the man and his wife safe in their house-- but for how long?!) before Hans Peter shut it off and said there were technical difficulties. Definitely not the movie he had expected. I sat there, wondering how the rest of the movie would have gone (does the motorcycle gang just rape different women the entire movie?) and then decided to ask to see the movie case.

H. P. handed me the case and started talking about it. He said that he bought it because the cover looked very cool and sixties, and then showed me the inside of the case, which had a row of sixties movies along the bottom, and asked me if I knew the director. "He must have been pretty famous, because he directed this whole series of movies-- Bosomania". I took the case back to my seat and read the back and then looked at the inside.

The back of the cover was completely normal, "A band of motorcycle delinquents terrorizes the country side, but their fate changes when a doctor, whose wife they had hurt very badly, decides to take matters into his own hands" (Approximately; it was in German and I also shortened it).

But then I realized that Bosomania is the combination of the words Bosom and Mania. A closer look at the row of sixties movies at the bottom and I realized that a few of them had names like "Super Vixens" and naked ladies on the front.

When I told H. P. he laughed, got embarrassed, and then said he got it. "But the cover looked so cool!" he said, "we should use it as the cover of our yearbook."

I can only imagine what the cashier was thinking as this normal-looking man with a group of 20 year olds picked out and purchased this DVD.

¡Viva España!

As many people know, I went to Madrid this past weekend in order to visit my friend Annie. And, of course, to see Spain. It's so nice being in Europe, surrounded by different countries and cultures. I just feel so cool when people ask me what I'm doing for the weekend and I answer with, "Oh, you know, just hopping over to Spain (or France, or Austria). . .". The semester break is going to be so cool. I feel sorry for my friends who are only here for half the year. They're all frantic, trying to see as many places as they can over the few weekends they have left. Suckas.

What can I say about Spain? It's interesting because even though I'm American, living in Germany for the past few months has colored my perspective on things, so I experienced the weekend differently than I would have otherwise.

The first thing that got me was the fact that when I boarded the metro, Annie asked if I had anything important in any of my outer pockets and told me to watch my surroundings. This should be common sense, but since I've been living in the safest city in Germany (and possibly Europe, though I'm not sure) I've lost all sense of fear and danger. I guess I didn't pay enough attention, because sure enough, when we switched trains Annie noticed that my outer backpack pocket was open. There wasn't anything in there but pens, but I was irked that someone would try to pickpocket me.

The Agenda for the night was, of course, to party, because that's what they do in Spain. I hadn't brought any 'clubbing clothes', so Annie dressed me in some of hers. I ended up wearing a short, form-fitting not quite zebra printed dress and purple leggings. . . but it looked good, I swear. We went to a club and danced all night, and then went to one of her friend's houses at 5:30 because the Metro didn't open until 6. They all had a wonderful time, but I found a blanket and fell asleep on the couch. It was still fun, though :). At 9 I returned to my hostel and passed out.

I was supposed to meet Annie sometime I can't remember, but I was a half hour late because I didn't wake up. We had a relaxing evening of walking around the city, window shopping, and eating tapas (which I thought were small plates, but were not that small since we could not finish the three that we split). Then we were really tired and had to go to sleep. See what a night of partying will do to you?

Saturday was pretty sweet because we went to two museums. The first one was free for students all the time (apparently a lot of them are, so jealous) and the second one was all fancy and cost 5 euro. It was awesome. I love the crazy european art that came out of the first half of the 20th century, and there was lots of it: Picasso, Dali, Miró, etc. Afterwards, we went to a little café in order to consume what Annie referred to as hot chocolate and churros, but was actually this strange steaming chocolate pudding like concoction in a coffee mug and things that were like churros, but weren't actually churros (they had ran out). Don't get me wrong, it was delicious. It was also an experience ("Dude, how are you supposed to drink this? It's so thick" "Whatever, Ingrid, I drink it all the time" "Don't believe it" "Just watch me. . ." *Annie attempts to drink* ". . . yeah, today it's just hard to drink because it's thicker than usual. . .")

It was perfect for dipping the churro-like pastries in.

Then we partied until 1:30. I had to leave early so that I was able to catch my morning plane. Made it, by the way.

So Madrid, pros and cons:

Cons: 

The crime rate and feeling of fear. I wasn't afraid because I'm not used to it, but Annie was a little nervous sometimes because of the men. They're a little crazy there. We were sitting at a window table in a restaurant, and a group of guys started taking pictures of us. What are they even going to do with those pictures? Doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, there are girls just as pretty as me online, with the frizzy hair and zits airbrushed out. Very strange.

The city seemed dirty to me. Of course, anything would seem dirty after Munich, the magical land in which literally no one litters, but when I got back to my hostel one night after walking around in flip-flops, my feet were disgusting! I had to be careful not to step in any water anywhere because it would have made mud. Icky.

Finally, apparently in Spain you can't just walk in and use the bathrooms in fast food restaurants and such. Which is stupid. What do you expect a tourist to do? I should have peed on the floor. In Munich, you can walk into whatever establishment you want and use their bathroom. Also, I've heard that not letting someone use the bathroom is inhumane (and possibly illegal) as defined by the UN. I didn't need to go very bad, but I felt very indignant about the lack of human rights in this backward country. F***ing Spain.

Pros:

The architecture is beautiful. Also, the buildings are taller and the streets narrower than those in Munich. Gives one the romantic feeling of always walking through alleys.

The Museums are mostly free to students.

The food. The "hot chocolate" was amazing, as were the tapas we ordered. Yummy yummy.

The weather was fantastic! 60 degrees at the end of November. Awesome.

Well, that's all. Sorry the post is so long, but I had a lot to say, I guess. Sort of funny that even though there's 4 pros and 3 cons, it appears from the size of the lists that I really didn't like Spain. But I did! 

Also, re-reading that hot chocolate conversation, I realize that it could not possibly have taken place because it would have been interrupted by about a billion of those "that's what she said" jokes. But you get the drift.

Until next time,

Ingrid

Well, crap

It's about 3:30 in the morning on a Wednesday night/ Thursday morning. Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day, because I'm flying to Madrid to see my friend Annie. It is also going to be a full day because I have classes and such, so I have to leave my room a little before 8:30 in the morning and go directly to the airport when my class ends at 4:30.

I thought that I would get up a bit early to pack (already have a list), do a little homework, and shower so I went to bed around 10:30. I'm most productive in the morning, so it makes sense to do this instead of just staying up really late.

I was sleeping peacefully until 1 in the morning when I bolted up with the urge to do laundry. There were a few articles of clothing that I was planning on bringing with this weekend that were used but definitely still wearable, along with some other clothes that I wasn't planning to bring with but were nevertheless in need of a wash. I figured that it would be a good time, since I was awake and all, and since I figured no one would be doing laundry in the middle of a weekday night. I was right. I put my clothes in, puttered around, took a shower, and then took them out of the washer to bring them up to the dryer room.

I put my clothes in one of the 3 dryers (there were four, but one of them is broken) , chose the settings I wanted, and put in my dryer coin. It didn't start. Tried to get the coin back so I could try another dryer (had only brought one up with me and didn't want to go back down to my room to get another) but I couldn't do that, either. So I went to my room, grabbed a few coins, and headed back up to try again. I put my clothes in the dryer next to the one I had tried a few minutes ago, chose my settings, and put in a coin. It didn't start. I couldn't get this coin back, either, but I wasn't expecting to. 

Ever the optimist, I opened the third and last dryer, only to see a funny piece of machinery (part of the engine, maybe? It was fairly large) just sitting inside of it.

Hence the title of this post. Not only were the clothes I was planning to wear this weekend wet, I was also stuck with a pile of clothes that would mildew if I didn't find a means to dry them.

I tried to call a friend in a different building, but she didn't answer, which is understandable since it was almost 2:30 in the morning. Luckily for me, my buddy three floors above me was still logged into Skype, and I asked if I could borrow her drying rack. Not only did she say yes, she let me use her heater space so that more important clothes could dry faster! What a lifesaver.

So I guess that things are going to be okay. The clothes I was going to wear should be dry tomorrow, and the remaining ones are hanging safely on a drying rack. I just hope that I don't get the runs; a rumored side-effect of overdosing on vitamin C, which I have been taking like crazy since developing a sore throat Monday night (almost better!).

I really shouldn't joke, though. Someone want to knock on wood for me?

Good night!

Ingrid

A Day of Hurrying

The thing about having your blog posts linked to facebook is that people actually read them. Which is good in that your family can keep up with you without having to go through the trouble of actually going to the blog page and checking periodically, but bad in that people that you didn't necessarily expect to read your blog, do (read your blog).

Like this post. Anyone here in Germany knows that I actually went to Neuschwanstein a week and a half ago, and that it's pretty sad that it's taken me this long to post about it. If it wasn't exciting enough to post immediately, why even write about it?

If my blog were not linked to facebook, I wouldn't have this problem. On the other hand, if my blog were not linked to facebook, my own mother probably would not read it.

Annie would, though, because she's too cool for facebook.

Another embarrassing thing about facebook is all those ridiculously addicting farm games. As much as you tell yourself you're not going to get addicted, you always do. And since everyone else is addicted, you all become neighbors. This should make me feel better about it-- after all, I'm obviously not the only one who partakes. But it gets bad when other people who play the game start commenting about how nice my farm looks and how fast I'm leveling up. Like, "Not only does Ingrid play stupid farm games on Facebook, she plays them so much that she levels up faster than other people; furthermore, she obviously spends time rearranging her farm."

It's terrible. Especially when orphaned animals wander on to my farm. I want my other farm friends to be able to adopt them, so I let Farmville post the announcement on my wall. And then the second the poor wild turkey, black sheep, or ugly duckling gets adopted, I erase the post and pretend that it never happened.

There is far too much self-deception in my life. I wish I believed it.

On to my post:

The Saturday before last, a few friends and I went to Neuschwanstein, the famous fairytale castle built by the crazy King Ludwig that was supposedly the model for Disney's Cinderella Castle. The town that it is in is absolutely beautiful; surrounded by mountains and containing at least two picturesque lakes. I can see why King Ludwig and the royal family decided to build their castles there.

The day started with me being late to the meeting point. I hurried out of the elevator and ran into my friend Liz, who informed me that two of the group had just taken the other elevator up to my room to find me. Very nerve wracking, since I had cut things close and if they didn't come down from my room soon we would all miss the train. They came down with two minutes to spare, and because we ran, we made it. 

The train ride to the town of Füßen lasted almost three hours. I don't know why, since the train ride back only lasted two hours, but it was fun. I read most of a play and talked to my delightful travel buddies. The only problem is that the train conductor kept telling us to take our feet off the seats. Whenever we heard anyone coming, everyone would jump a bit and rearrange themselves. There's just no comfortable way to sit on trains without putting your feet up. 

We got to Füßen and took the bus to the village where the castles are. Basically, it's a valley surrounded by crystal clear lakes and forested mountains with castles on them.

The first castle was nice, and we had a little over an hour before the next castle tour, so we decided to get lunch. We knew we were going to be cutting it close, but were hungry. The map said it would take a half hour to get there (it's an uphill hike), but we figured that we were young and all, and that it would really take fifteen minutes. . . (here I am again, lying to myself)

Well, it took us a while to find a restaurant. We didn't want to eat at the closest one (mistake #1) so we wandered down the hill, farther from Neuschwanstein (mistake #2). When we found a restaurant that suited us, we decided to eat there, even though it was busy (mistake #3).

Unfortunately, there was only one waitress. So even though we ordered relatively quickly, by the time the food got there, we only had about 25 minutes until our tour. We ate so fast. Even though the pizza was burning our tongues. We ate a meal in about 5 minutes. While I helped Ana chug her Radler, Elizabeth went up with the two others to pay. We rushed out the door, and then found that in the hurry and cultural confusion, we had only tipped the waitress a little less than one euro ("I thought we were just supposed to round up to the nearest euro!" "For small bills-- for large ones it's supposed to be about 10 percent" "Well, shit")

I was pumped full of adrenaline: "Okay guys, we have 20 minutes. If it takes normal people 30 minutes to get there, we can definitely make it!" And we started charging up the hill. There was a horse carriage in the distance that I eventually caught up to and passed. After about 10 minutes I noticed that I could only see Emir (one of the group) and that we had lost the others. I back tracked a little to try to give them words of encouragement, but was met by frustration ("INGRID WE'RE GOING AS FAST AS WE CAN").

Unfazed, I kept going up the hill. It took Emir and I 18 minutes. "Damn," I said, "that would not take a normal person 30 minutes." It turns out that we had misread the map, and that it actually recommended allotting 40-45 minutes to hike up the path to Neuschwanstein, so we did pretty well.

We missed our tour. A man who worked there took us to a room to check when the next tour we could join was. The next English tour was in half an hour. Or, we could just join the German tour starting now. Excited, I said, "Können wir?" and a worker sort of chuckled at me and complimented my German. In English. I guess that's life.

It was pretty cold out but we were all stripped down to our t-shirts and tank tops because of the work-out we just had. The Germans stared at us. Germans stare at everything, but especially humans that they think might be cold. You have no idea what it's like to be me on the train every morning. I almost exclusively wear flip-flops, and the Germans just stare at my feet. Occasionally one (usually male) will ask if I'm cold. Come on, people, it's still over 50 degrees outside. If it's not raining, why bother with shoes?

 

The rest of the day was very slow and relaxing. All in all, I had a very good experience.

 

Unfortunately, now my friends are afraid to hike with me.

I tried, I really did

So Sunday evening, I went up to my friend Elizabeth's room. The plan was to do yoga for 30-45 minutes and then go back down to my room for a few minutes to freshen up real quick before meeting a friend for church. I had skipped church the previous two weeks, but had enjoyed it the first time I went, and wanted to return.

I knew something wasn't quite right when I got to Liz's door and there were two cute pairs of shoes sitting peacefully outside her door. As far as I knew, Liz kept her shoes in her room, and besides, they were like no shoes that I had seen her wear. I knocked on the door and found it already open. I walked inside, and there were two young Korean women talking to Liz. Liz explained that they were Erasmus students and motioned for me to sit down.

They introduced themselves and the woman I sat next to said she was studying Theology. They said they were from South Korea, and I was like, "Is that the one with Kim Jong Il?" (Yes, I can be a bit ignorant. But asking questions is the way to fix that.) They looked horrified, said he was from North Korea, and started talking about how his atomic tests were terrible and that it was likely he would bomb the whole world in the "Plague by Fire" predicted in the Bible.

It started to get really weird-- they had a book full of things that looked like middle school science hand-outs that they took out and would point at. They turned to a page with an Atom bomb that said, "Plague by Fire". They then turned to a page with a picture of the Sun and the Earth with lots of scary lines coming out of the Sun that said, "Solar Winds." There was also one that had a picture of a catastrophic possible meteor collision with Earth.

But, they made it clear that if we celebrated Passover with them, we would live on because of God's promise. All of this we (Liz and I) understood. However, they kept on bringing up some vocab that we didn't understand over and over. I looked it up using Liz's computer and found that they wanted us to get baptized.

Liz tried to tell them that she was already baptized, but they made a bunch of sad faces and told her that she really wasn't (because she was baptized in the Catholic church) and that she needed to get baptized again. After a while, they asked her if she needed time to think about it and agreed to come back next week.

When I looked at the time, I saw that I had missed church.

Ironic?

I wish I had a better immune system

On Tuesday I caught my second cold of the season (the first one being almost exactly two weeks before), which is ridiculous. I mean, Monday, I wake up, I'm happy, go to class, contribute, yadda yadda; Tuesday, I wake up, I'm fine, and then. . . Tuesday night. . . one side of my throat is swollen, I have a fever, and I end up coughing all night. No fun. At least it only really lasted two days. And it is sort of funny how diseased my study abroad program is. On Wednesday morning, half the people in class were sick, and it was just ridiculous trying to get anything done. The Professor would say something, and only half the people would do it. The others either wouldn't be listening, wouldn't hear, or would forget within seconds what they were supposed to be doing. Our brains were muddled and our motivation was low. The room was a symphony of sniffles.

Other than that the week was pretty cool. It was the first week of classes, which is always very exciting for me. It was different than usual, though, because here almost all the classes only meet once a week for an extended period of time instead of for 3 one hour sessions. I'm not always rushing from one place to another. Something I'll have to get used to.

At this point in time I am class shopping. Meaning, I am taking way too many classes until I start to do badly in some or decide that I don't really care enough to try. I've already decided to give up on the French class, but otherwise I'm taking 1 German grammar class, a mini class about communicating better in German (working on essay writing and speech giving), 'An intro to German Literature', 'Germany: 1945 to the Present', 'Modern Munich Literature; 1900-1950', and 'Goethe's Italian Journey'. All through my program and all in German. I'm also sitting in on two University Physics classes until I decide whether or not I am going to take them: Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. I really want to take them, and think I understand enough German, but sitting through them this week reminded me that Physics is hard work. I really hope that I give them my all and don't slack off. It would be really wonderful to succeed.

I considered taking a French class, but am now thinking maybe not. I was really embarrassed because I took the French placement test and appeared to have tested into a really low level. But then, I went to the class that I tested into, and was a bit overwhelmed by the rapid French and the intensive grammar review. So confusing! The class was titled 'Cours Elementaire' (translation: 'Elementary course') but maybe I misunderstood. Anyway, seems to be a bit more trouble than it's worth at the moment, and I would rather concentrate on my other classes.

As I said before, I'm on the third day of a cold. I feel fine except for residual congestion, which puts me in a lame situation-- I can't go out, because I want to get completely better; I can't sleep, because of my stuffy nose; and I'm well enough that just sitting around is boring. Ah well, such is life. I'm sure I'll be better by tomorrow and back to enjoying my year in Germany.

Oktoberfest! Another Try

My old room-mate wasn't the only one to visit that weekend; on thursday night, I had to go to the airport to meet an old friend from high school. By the time we got back to my "apartment", it was really late, so we just went to sleep in preparation for the big day.

Sometime in the early morning, we woke up and got ready to go to Oktoberfest. We got there shortly after 9, walked into a beer tent, and asked three german guys around our age if it was okay to sit at their table (at nine in the morning on a weekday, Oktoberfest is already packed and there's no getting a table of one's own-- besides, sitting by germans gives me an excuse to practice). We talked a bit-- they were from northern germany, one of them was working (internship or apprenticeship, can't remember what german word he used and wouldn't know the difference if I did) and two of them were studying mechanical engineering. I think. Might have been the other way around. Luckily, I was sitting closest to them out of everyone at the table, so I got to practice my german quite a bit. I would say something in grammatically incorrect german, and they would reply in english. At ten, the waitresses came by with beers, and the drinking started.

I kept telling them that they could speak german, and as they started to drink a little they spoke more and more. I don't remember everything we talked about, but it involved a lot of pointing at Annie (friend from high school) and saying that she was the only one at our table that didn't understand german. Over and over again. I don't know why I did it so many times, but it was sort of funny because she didn't understand what I was saying.

Inside the tent was so cool. There were so many people from so many places, all brought together by alcohol. There were drinking songs, people chugging maßs (a liter of Oktoberfest beer), and lots of standing on benches and tables. Also, beer was everywhere, making everything quite slippery.

Sometime in the afternoon some guys from our program came over and convinced me and Annie to go to the funhouse with them. The funhouse wasn't that great, but there was a room that spun around so fast that everyone got stuck to the wall. I don't know who's idea it was to have so many rides at a festival full of drunk people.

We went back to a friend's room and she made us pasta. After that, everyone passed out except for me. Around nine Annie and I got back together with two other girls to hang out, but I left early in order to meet two people from my college who were also visiting me that weekend.

I went to the Hauptbanhof, and Annie went to a club. I met who I was supposed to, a friend from college (Katie) and a guy who I hadn't met yet (Daniel), but who also goes to Wooster and is in the same study abroad in France program as Katie. We got back to my room around 12:30, grabbed a beer each, and went downstairs to see if anything was going on. We talked with a few guys until 2 and then went back up and went to sleep.

We woke up around 7:30 to find that Annie had never come back. I went and knocked on a friend's door to see if she was there, and when she wasn't, figured she was a big girl who could take care of herself.

I left a note saying that I would be back in time to take her to the airport with a few hours to spare, and then left with my college buddies to have a second day at Oktoberfest.