Hum drum

If you are an avid blog reader of mine I would say firstly I am sorry for not posting more often and secondly thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings and sometimes pointless drivel. You also might be asking yourself why has he not written more in the month of November. Well to be honest there really has not been much going on. That is to say I have settled down into a routine and am not traveling as much now to save money for later excursions. This weekend I will be going to Vienna on a special that the local airline offers called blind booking. Basically you have six options and from those options they "at random" pick one of the destinations. The funny part of this is that of six of my friends that have done this, all of them have gotten Vienna but at 19.99 euro the price is right. Other than this I have applied for several jobs, had an interview at one that went pretty bad but mostly because I had applied for the wrong job, thank you German language and advisors with horrible advice. This being said I am very happy that I did not get this job as the company was not that great and the person I would have been working with/ under was not the kind of person I would have liked to work with. I hope that this next job opening that I have applied for will be better, and lesson learned, I made sure the translation of the job description was right. I will say that trying to get a job in a foreign country is by far one of the hardest things I have ever done, as the challenges are not merely confined to language barriers but also contract differences and also interview procedures. I do think that the German system of education does offer more opportunity with German businesses to further grow and that internships are much more readily available as every Bachelor student in the Hochschule must complete one and a thesis on how the company they worked for could be improved. It is a very open system to constant change and improvement and I think that this is the way that Germany has remained so competitive worldwide in the export of their quality products. Today I am on my way to BMW manufacturing in Munich for a tour of the plant and hopefully one of the museums. This is a very exciting day for me as the BMW headquarters has always seemed so far out of my reach and today I am finally going to be stepping through the front doors of the hallowed ground that produced some of the greatest cars ever known to man. I have been feeling a little more homesick than normal but I think this is simply from the fact that I have a large amount of free time and do not really know what to do with it. I have been going to more lectures, workout events at the gym, running in preparation for my marathon in May, and yoga. It is nice to finally say, “I have so much spare time, what should I do with it?” hopefully I will make the most efficient use of this time. I miss everyone very much and hope you are doing well and if you would ever like to chat, I am only a skype call away. 

Fall break/Paris

So as  I look over the pictures from Paris I regret to say, I wish I would have written more about it when I was there. As of right now I am on a train bound for Rotterdam, Bruges, and Brussels which will complete my goal of the northern towns I wanted to see with exception of GB. Paris was amazing , to put it in one word. So much music, food, sites, and just overall beauty. I have to admit it was a little hard at first dealing with the language barrier but as I was there more I was able to work around it. The auto show was amazing, so many new models and concepts! I just wish there were a few less people, as you had to fight to get a look at the new models, it was still very rewarding though. After I finished the auto show in Saturday, Sunday was spent walking around Paris with a walking tour that was very enjoyable and informative. I learned about many little secrets about getting in places for free and getting the best food for the best price, as Paris can be very expensive. So in summary Paris was awesome and if you ever get a chance to go, go. School is going well, very busy, I have six classes three in English and three in German. All of them are very interesting and the school that I am going to is Hochschule Reutlingen. It has a very good international program so many of the students are international students, which  unfortunately means English usually instead of German=(. Even though I am not getting as much practice in speaking German as I would like, I have met some really cool people. Currently I am in Rotterdam, Netherlands with a Russian from St. Petersburg named Nik, and I also have found a local German Ultimate Frisbee club that I have played with once or twice but have been too busy to play with them all the time, sadly.  Through school I have seen an interesting side of the Automotive world that I would love to get involved in. Automotive Consulting. A dream come true for someone like me, and hopefully someone with the combinations of experiences I have.  I have applied for a job a MBtech, a consulting firm with Mercedes, so fingers crossed and we shall see! So this post has been in several parts mostly because of the randomness of this trip and the events that have taken place. After Rotterdam we went to Bruges, Belgium and saw the old town center and shared in some wonderful Belgium beers with some new found friends from the UK and Australia. The best part about traveling and staying in hostels is that you get to meet all sorts of people from different walks of life with such different experiences but yet we are all so similar. After this we went to Brussels, Belgium and I have to say I was very impressed with the beauty of the city and the surrounding area. We saw all of the great landmarks and also had a chance to visit some old friends in Bremen. So all in all a amazing trip with loads of waffles, fries, beer, and some good ol fashion boyhood antics. Now it is buckle down time until my next big trip to Greece in December. Until then I need to study harder, practice more, save money and most of all enjoy ever experience that I can. Bis dann. 

Tschüss Bremen, Hallo Reutlingen.

As I sit currently on the train from Bremen to Stuttgart I think back over the past two months in the lovely town of Bremen. The memories made there I will never soon forget and the friends I have from this experience I will always keep in my heart and thoughts. Since my last update it has been roughly a month and so much has transpired in that time, I can hardly recall it all. There was the weekend trip to Bremerhaven for the Sailing Festival, which was pretty cool. Then was the weekend of hanging around Bremen, going to various festivals and always having a great time with the peeps. This last weekend was the trip to the infamous Oktoberfest. One word describes the annual Fest, Verruckt! (crazy) So many people and so much Beer! This was the first year that they did not allow smoking in the big tents and as a result the smell of sweat, beer and thousands of  inebriated  young people, mostly men, was a bit overwhelming at times but also I really could have cared less at that moment. I was in Mecca! Although most native Germans will tell you that Oktoberfest is simply for the tourist and that they never go there, I did meet several there. The most interesting part was definitely going to the bathroom. Picture this, one bathroom six or seven thousand men, and ungodly amounts of beer. Needless to say , many elbows were thrown and much shoving took place. After getting into a beer tent , which holds about 6-7 thousand people, you cannot leave the tent or you forfeit your spot.  So I was in there from 8am-8pm and would have to say I have never sang or danced more in my life! It was very memorable to say the least. After we returned from the weekends festivities, we had to get ready to move to our final placements so which meant loads of busy work and transportation arrangements. We also went out for a fantastic dinner with the peeps at the Ratskeller, which has some of the oldest wine in Europe. I had a fantastic roasted Duck and glass of delicious Spätburgunder, which is a really good German red wine. We also had a chance to tour the Werder Bremen Soccer Stadium which is currently under reconstruction, it was pretty cool to get an inside look at the workings of a Bundesliga Mannschaft. So in conclusion I cannot thank everyone enough for the wonderful time in Bremen, meine Leute, Meine Oma und all of the Bremenites, Thank you!

Norway

So here is my update. I am currently on a bus to Seljord, Norway in the Telemark part of the country. I could not be more excited but to understand my excitement we need to go back a little further. This trip started its’ evolution in the Month of  August the recommendation from a friend that you must see Norway! I thought great, so I booked my trip on Ryanair (a discount service that flies throughout Europe) for the bargain price of 45$ and Started my planning. As I started to search for cheap places to stay I ran into the problem that Oslo is one of the most expensive cites in Europe. Great, ok , so now what? I cannot afford this trip! But wait one sec, isn’t Norway one of the hiking Mecca’s of the world? Yes. And isn’t camping aloud anywhere in the Country as long as you are 200 meters away from a residential area? Yes! So the logically I chose to go to this little town in the middle of nowhere with the most amazing views I have seen, or at least hopefully at this point. So you see my friends I am on the brink of something amazing here I feel and I could not be more excited at this point. I will report back with more details when they are available, but until then peace out world. After I got back it has been non-stop! One thing after another.The trip was amazing, the sky pristine and the stars were the most vivid thing I have ever seen. There was a three dimensional feeling to the sky, as if you could see galaxies beyond. In one word breathtaking. I have some video of the event and eventually I will be editing it and making it into one. Other than that life goes on at a normal clip, one event leading to another, trying to get ready for my move. I miss everyone and hope all of you are doing great. Bis dann!

Monday update

So were to begin. I am sitting here at my computer trying to think of all the events since my last post but I guess I will go with the important ones. On Wednesday we went to a football game or fooßball or soccer game. Werder Bremen is the home team here and I have to tell you it was awesome. We played an Italian team named Sampdoria and it was so much fun to hear all the chants and the excitement. After this we went for

a delicious dinner of Dönner, which is kind of like gyros and of course the team brew for Werder, Becks 12

On Thursday we then had cultural training with Ute from InWent, our program coordinator in Germany. On Friday this was followed up with many hours of more culture training in recognizing the differences between the cultures and trying to be a good example of our culture, while trying to also appreciate the other person's culture as well. I also found out were I will be staying for at least the next three months if not ten and this is in Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg. It seems like a beautiful town, filled with mountains and beauty, while only being 30 mins from Stuttgart!      

Once this was all set, it was off to Amsterdam for the weekend! Got a chance to see the Anne Frank house, which was moving and inspirational. It actually was quite a nice city, but very big and very busy, at all hours. Stayed in my first Hostel with a group of 5 other guys who had just finished their service for the Israeli army so they had a little too much fun both nights, but is was not horrible. Everything was sooo expensive though, so I will be cutting costs for sure over the next month. Today was just a normal day of classes and this week, who knows what the week will bring! Bis dann!

Sunday update.

Since I will be pretty busy these following days I will be doing a major update, as in a weekly recap on Sundays. So here we go:
We got here on Monday the 2nd we met our host families, they are awesome. My Oma gives me so much food, is one of the nicest people in the world! They live in a small neighborhood in Bremen, which is a town with viel Gemütlichkeit, which is a German word that is kind of a mix of hominess or comfort. This being said it is a gorgeous town with many attractions and many things to do and a population of over 500,000. So Monday we went home with our families had dinner and then went to sleep. Tuesday included our first day of classes that went extremely well with our teacher named Andre and the meeting of our new classmates. We had a equal balance of us 6 American students to 6 students from all over, Italy, France, and Spain. It was pretty interesting dynamic for a while but it has since then settled down and everyone has become used to each other. After classes we went on a School sponsored Kneipenbummel, which is a pub crawl. I just love the fact that drinking is not seen as this evil thing but something that should be fun and friendly but under control. On Wednesday we had classes again and then set about getting details cleared, up like bank accounts, cell phones, work visas and the like. Our day usually consist of two one and a half hour sessions in the morning and then a more cultural and historical lesson for another hour and a half. Pretty much a standard week with much friend making and beer drinking and then came the weekend. We went to Hamburg and toured the city seeing many of the famous sites, including the St Nikolai tower and the Rathaus. It was pretty cool and there was many things to see, unfortunately we had to catch and early train back, so only limited sightseeing was available. There really is too much to see, and I just need to remember to keep that in perspective. After that weekend this week has consisted of many things, from a international party on Monday and Becks Brewery tour, which is the local brewery here so everyone drinks becks or hakke becks the regional beer. The tour was great, much beer drinking again and a little insight into the liquid of the gods. After this we had a trip to Norderney this weekend which is a island to the north of Bremen on the north sea. It was a very nice day so much swimming and sunbathing was taken in. After this I had my first Germany disko club experience and I have to say I was not impressed, it was just the same american songs and the same meat market feeling. But still a lot of fun to witness at least once. One thing I will say is different is how long they stay going, the place got packed at about 2 am and was still going at 5am?! It was pretty nuts but no more for me. For tomorrow I will be looking forward to breakfast with my Oma, like every morning with orange juice, coffee, schinken, which is a German cured ham and nutella, which if you have never had it before you do not know what you are missing! I will then ride my bike to class, of which I bought my bike last weekend and it is super sweet having wheels here everything is so connected and bikes are given the right of way and paths everywhere! I love it and wish I had my bike here for some training rides, as my Oma's good cooking and the amazing Beer have definitely filled in a few flat spots, yikes I better watch out. Anyways this weekend is Amsterdam and the next weekend somewhere new and exciting! If you would like to see the photo's accompanying these events they are on my picasa web album. Guten nacht to all of you who got through this horrible post, thank you for reading it and I promise I will not try and fit two weeks of amazingness into a couple paragraphs!

2010-08-04