Ich hasse Wäscherei tun

Almost without fail something happens when I go do my laundry. Something terrible.

The first time I didn't know that I had to buy Waschmünze (washer tokens); and the second time I didn't know that you also had to buy separate Trocknermünze (dryer tokens), thus I had soggy clothes litter my room spreading their musk of wet infused with detergent.

Thirdly, all the dryers were taken up, leaving me with wet clothes. Oh, don't be fooled the clothes inside were finished, but the owners were surprisingly absent. Hours went by, and still no one came to fetch the finished clothes. Not wanting to discharge them from the drying capsule for fear of retribution from the owners (whenever they decided to show).

Fourthly, I was in a rush, but could easily finish a load of laundry. After I thought the laundry had finished drying I came downstairs to find (in horror) that I had selected a strange, mystical, dry setting that strangely added an extra hour. This would not do, I said, and began to change the dry cycle not knowing that doing that invalidates the current dry cycle, and demands more Trocknermünze. Trocknermünze I didn't have. Now I, once again, had wet clothes, though this time a little dryer than before.

All of this misfortune is aided by the fact that the only place you can buy these Münze is called the 'Service-Point' and despite being just downstairs from my home it's startlingly inconvenient. They're only open one hour a day, around 7pm.

This brings us to my current dilemma. I don't have clean socks. None. You see, I foresaw this, and decided to do laundry yesterday. Only, the machine ate my Waschmünze. Both of them. No problem, I'll go to the Service-Point. It's around 7pm! I go... They're closed because of some stupid technical problem, even though I have cash to buy the Münze, and the transaction requires no electronic middleman.

So, here I sit. Sock less, after just being invited out to dinner at around 7pm (the opening time of the Service Point, if that fact needed reminding).

Germany... Beautiful. Vast. Inconvenient.

Tschüss

Die erste Woche der Schule

The first week of school is coming to a close, and I have to say that overall I’m not overly excited, nor disappointed. I mean, granted I’ve pretty much had a six-month summer vacation, but I don’t find the impact of school to be that heavy this time around. It’s probably the commute.

You see, Vancouver has the design flaw that there’s no college or university in the east end. There’s VCC, but I don’t go there ‘cause their one and only English class can really become boring to an English major. No, I’ve had to commute ever since graduation. Thirty minutes to Douglas College, thirty minutes to Capilano College, forty-five minutes to UBC; and lord help you if you miss one of the many forms of transportation one has to take to get to any of these institutions. Then you might as well turn around, or kill time at a Subway until your next class (every higher education institution I’ve gone to has had either a Subway or a Quizno’s in it).

No, here I have a ten-minute commute, which includes waiting for the S-Bahn, and walking the block to any of my classrooms, which are all downtown. So it just feels like a visit to downtown. Coupled with the maximum time limit of the classes of an hour, and the fact that with the exception of two the classes only meet once a week definitely makes the experience different than in years previous.

As for the classes themselves: I have an English literature class (taught in English), which hopefully won’t mess with my German language flow. It’s called the American Dystopia, and in it we read dystopia novels, like: Jack London’s The Iron Heel; Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here; and a couple Kurt Vonnegut novels (which I’m psyched about). It’s gearing to be pretty cool, and pretty simple as I’ve put in two reading sessions towards the Jack London novel and I’m half finished already (or am I half unfinished?)

The resident director of the Canadian Year in Freiburg program teaches my next two classes so the only ones that can take the class are fellow Canadians in my program. They’re all right, though so far everything I’ve learned in these classes has been review. Hell, easy credits, right? Mmm… University. By the way, the classes are a Grammar course, and a German Literature course.

And finally I have a class that I’m quickly coming to regret taking, after only one class in which we just took a placement test. It’s called Schreiben im Studium, and it’s pretty much an academic writing course. Now, I could care less about academic writing, even after all this time in University; but I thought it would better my German. It still might, but at the moment it feels pretty dry. Maybe I have to give it more of a shot, but the placement test definitely cut me down to size. Out of the six questions on the sheet, I only answered about half of them, totaling to four sentences. The worst one was the question which stated (though I didn’t find out until later what it meant): “Describe your skill in writing German”, which I left blank.

Ah well… I’m sure I’ll be translating war movies in no time, it’s just frustrating at the moment, when you’ve been here for over a month, and the only thing German you’ve mastered is how to order food. So long as the waitress doesn’t talk back to you, in which case you’re screwed.

Tschüss.

Volle Woche

Things have been busy lately, as Berlin took up this entire past week, and school starts on Monday (tomorrow). I'm still writing about Oktoberfest, which was a really big day, and now my writing has to contend with both Berlin and school.

Berlin was fun, hopefully school will be too. For now, I have a killer headache, and I'm going to bed. Yes, I know it's only 9pm. But I feel like trash.

Tschüss

Kanadisches Thanksgiving

So last Sunday, the Canadians celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. We did this by cooking things. No problem-o, right? Wrong.

In North America we take many things for granted; one of which is Thanksgiving, another of which is the availability of Thanksgiving stuff, such as turkeys, stuffing ingredients, and all the pre-made bits of Thanksgiving that are so special.

Here in Germany they don’t have the illustrious holiday that redefined our notion of leftovers, and comfortable pants; not only that, but Thanksgiving dinner is on Sunday, and Sundays are days where Germans don’t like doing anything. Nothing was open that day except the gas station down the road.

However, despite all these setbacks Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. Everyone brought food (too much food), and I even helped cook a turkey (which I actually thought was a chicken until a friend came to help me bring it over, and told me that I had, indeed, cooked a turkey).

It was nice, overall. We got together, ate, talked, and afterwards had pumpkin pie and cleaned up. It was all pretty makeshift, which really just added to the charm of it all. Now all I need to do is find some Americans and horn in on their Thanksgiving…

Tschüss

Ein paar Bilder

Here's some pictures I meant to post in the past but forgot to...

Here's some of my room when I first got here (it's changed since):





Unfortunately (or maybe not), I don't have any pictures of what the room looked like the moment I stepped in it. But trust me... It sucked.

Here's some pictures of that sweet jacket I bought:




Sorry they're so dark. Actually, I apologize for nothing.

Tschüss

Radler

So I don’t mean to harp on alcohol, as I have in past posts, but it is rather amazing here. It’s almost like a quest, for in between the rows upon rows of pilsner there’s a few diamonds, such as the illusive lager, or a new favorite: Radler.

What’s Radler, you ask? Well imagine if you accidentally poured 7-Up into your favorite beer. “Man!” you say before you look around trying to see if anyone will notice what you’re about to do next. You pick up the drink, put its mouth to your lips and drink the sweet mixture within. Radler is that, but without the guilt.

It’s great, and almost every brewer here makes it in Germany. However, my favorite by far is made by Rothaus, which is famous for its pilsner and for sponsoring the Freiburg Wölfe (the local hockey team).

That’s about it. I’m sure I’ll have more stories for you all when I return from Oktoberfest in Munich, though you probably wont read this for, at least, a few days. I’m going to Munich Saturday the 4th at five in the morning, getting there at noon, and then leaving back to Freiburg at three in the morning on Sunday the 5th. That’s right, no sleep ‘till Freiburg!






Tschuß!

Erster Film

This video is a little dated. I think I made it on my second week here. I don't really know, as I went to go look at the date on the file and it says 1990. I know for a fact I did not make this video when I was 4 so something's amiss.

Regardless here it is. I'll probably make another one soon (I'm thinking monthly). Also I have a pretty sweet Oktoberfest series of entries to make as well. I just have to tackle the daunting task of putting such a magical night to words.



Tschüß!

Project Song

SeeqPod - Playable Search

If you're seeing this, disregard for the moment. I'm using it for a project and I don't have the internet to download it, so I'm gonna save this page...

Wait, I don't have to explain anything to you... Just listen to it.

Deutschland pt.1

Some things about Germany:

No door handles are round. If you see a round door handle, it leads to a fake door; run! Or it’s in the middle of the door, in which case it belongs to an old house. However, since time immemorial they have had door handles. I watched Der Untergang (The Downfall) again and saw that, yes indeed, Hitler’s bunker had non-round door handles.

Germans love their hockey, at least Freiburg does. Last week I went to a German hockey game (I know, me and hockey huh?) and man o’ man were the fans fan-like. They knew the names of all their players and wore the jerseys and everything.

Things aren’t really expensive, even with the exchange rate. I’ve run into a few expensive things (gaming books, clothing), but for the most part food is way cheaper than in Canada. I should say groceries are cheaper than in Canada, buying pre-made food can be expensive, but is often cheap as well (depends where you eat, but isn’t that the case anywhere?).

Radio in Freiburg sucks. I mean, 99.3 the Fox isn’t the greatest radio station, but at least Vancouver has variety. Freiburg’s radio tastes seem to be limited to hits of the ‘70s/’80s, and the junk that passes for hip-hop in what I’ve labeled as the post-Biggie era©. No, wait. I heard some ragtime on NPR the other day, so… I guess that’s something. In fact, when I haven’t been listening to records (that’s right I bought a record-player and some records… Who didn’t see that coming?) I’ve been listening to NPR to help with my German comprehension.

German cashiers are the laziest people on the planet. Customer service definitely isn’t a top-priority in Germany. There are a few places where I’ve encountered top-notch customer service like at the bank, or the Deutsche Bahn (the train station), but for the most part customers aren’t the main concern of customer service representatives. All cashiers sit down on chairs all the time, no matter where you are. If there’s a cash register there, you can bet there’s someone sitting behind it. They don’t even hand you your change, they put it in a dish or an indent in the counter and you have to scoop it up yourself. Oh, and forget about bagging things for you, they wont even offer a bag for the most part. In fact, most bags cost extra (even the crummy plastic ones that North American business practically throw away). I think this is because of the pollution that plastic bags cause when disposed of (something I’ve just noticed North American becoming concerned about, but has really caught on here in Germany).
The lack of customer service can sometimes be nice when you’re not very good with the language and you don’t want to look like a fool as you struggle for the words needed to say “no thanks, I’m just looking,” (“Ich suche mich nur um”) but I really could have used an opinion when I was buying my sweet-ass jacket (picture included).
This is going to be a long topic for as a customer service specialist such as myself I am quite opinionated on the subject. Whenever you need to deal with someone who has anything to do with how you live, you better hope you’re available during the half-hour or so that they are on a certain day. My Hausemeister (landlord) is only available for half an hour on Mondays and Wednesdays. The Internet people are only available for an hour on Wednesday and Thursday; and nothing in this city is open on Sundays. I feel that the last clause is common for all of Germany (Berlin may be an exception). You better have something to do for Sunday (a book maybe?) ‘cause there’s no way you’re going out. I find that many people hang out at parks, or go to a soccer game if it wasn’t played on a Friday or Saturday already.

Germans use the 24-hour clock almost exclusively, that and the Metric system (which may not surprise those of you who have seen Pulp Fiction). I love both of these things! When I come back I want to continue using the 24-hour clock; but I’m sort of put-off by the thoughts of all the stares I’ll get when I say (“oh, it’s 18 o’ Clock”).

Germans are really nice people, and they touch you when you talk to them. Well, the old people do, and maybe it’s just Freiburgers that are nice; but I’ll be damned if old Germans aren’t the cutest people on the planet. This old lady asked me when this microwave dinner expired today, and I could barely stop myself from pinching her cheeks. But seriously, they’re great. Even the young people seem more outgoing.

Liquor is ridiculously cheap. I bought a Liter of Jim Beam bourbon for €12, and a bottle of scotch for €7, and a few days ago I bought a six-pack of lager (Ganter Freiburg Spezial) for €4 (they’re normal North American-sized beer bottles but most beer here is in the half-liter variety and had I bought six of those it would only have been slightly more expensive. I’m talkin’ cents). If you noticed the connection between my liquor purchases you may have noticed that I’m prepping to make me a George Thorogood (based off the song by the same man, where he asks for a bourbon, a scotch, and a beer… Mix, and enjoy).

On the subject of alcohol, they really only have Pilsner or Heferweizen here. I don’t know if this is all of Germany, or just the south, but if it’s not Pilsner, then it’s Hefewizen, and if not that then nothing. This sucks for me, as I find the taste of Pilsner to be revolting. Heferwizen is great, but only in small quantities as the night after Max, Dom, and I drank too many will attest. The hunt for a decent lager is a heavy one. Turns out, Germany exports all of its lager, because it lasts longer. Thus if you want lager you have to ask for an ‘Export Bier’. My favorite at the moment is Ganter (which is brewed here in Freiburg), however it still doesn’t take the place of Red Stripe as my favorite.

I thought I had more, but I can’t think of anything. I guess we’ll make this an ongoing series. My lasagna’s almost ready so I should probably attend to that. Also wanted to let everyone know that I almost have Internet. Next week I walk into the Internet place and hope they have a modem for me. I’m gonna try and upload this at a café tonight or tomorrow so you may be reading this around the actual date I wrote it (keen, huh?), which is the 2nd of October.

Tschuss!