die hochzeit.

from what i gather,  german weddings are a little different than american ones.  a girl i work with is getting married on saturday.  but it is only the courthouse ceremony (which to my understanding, you are required to have in germany).  she said her church wedding will be august 29th.  i think the people i work with were fairly entertained by the questions i was asking.  

1.  i wanted to know if she wore a dress both times, or only to one?  she wears a dress for the church wedding, but not the courthouse.

2.  when do you take a honeymoon?  after both ceremonies are completed...or do you get to take two? she is apparently taking 2 weeks off of work and she and her husband are working on renovating a house they just bought.  then in september they will take a honeymoon/vacation.  

i'm all for renovating a house.  i absolutely don't plan for it to be what i do the first two weeks i'm married.  also (caroline collum sit down when you read this), engagement rings are non-existent in germany.  wedding rings pretty typically go on the right hand here.  man, i didn't ask about bridesmaids/groomsmen.  i don't know if they exist.  i've seen the bachelor/bachelorette parties, and they look different too.  

my internet has been out since friday.  apparently i went over my monthly limit.  who knew?  how dumb.  when the internet is my telephone, television, email, news source, german translator, etc that is bound to happen.  i'm currently sitting downstairs in a common room that i just discovered yesterday and using the internet here.

today a man asked me...warum kannst du deutsch?  (why can you speak german?)  i thought that was funny.  instead of asking if i could speak german, this guy wanted to know why i could.

over the weekend i went to the rhein valley with rachel (current aupair).  after i get some photos ready, i'll update you on that as well.

wein.

i just bought a bottle of wine at the grocery store.  the guy behind me, who i thought was probably older than me, just got carded for purchasing cigarettes. hahaha.  the only thing the lady told me was, have a nice weekend.

comments.

oh yeah.  and i just discovered that people have commented on this blog.  i thought the parents were the only people actually reading :).

sock and sandal season.

time to catch this thing up.  

last weekend i went to heidelberg on saturday morning and stayed until sunday evening.  it was a weekend full of street festivals.  saturday afternoon rachel and i walked around in town and then got ice cream with ricardo and julie.  in the evening we went to handschuhsheim, which is a district of heidelberg, for a kerwe.  kind of like a fair.  there were rides and food and bier (of course).  handschuhsheim has a little castle called tiefburg, and they had beer and music inside.  rachel and i had a pretty good time watching all the drunk old people trying to dance.  they thought they were amazing.  i didn't take my camera, but when i get more photos (and video. oh oh) from rachel, i'll post them.

the americans: brad, rachel, me

rachel, me, rugby player juan from paraguay, and julie.

on sunday, the whole ziegelhausenlandstraße and neuenheimerlandstraße were closed off to autos and there were bikes everywhere!  all four of the herzbergs and rachel and i investigated everything.  the boys played in a hay maze, we ate bratwurst, and just walked around.  a lot of the stuff at the street festival pertained to the environment and living green(er).

on tuesday, i went to freiburg to listen in on a meeting about project access that i'm helping with.  yesterday i was gone for 12 hours to a little grocery store in a tiny town (dorf) of 1400 people.  it is called a dorf laden.  most of the time was spent riding in a charter bus.  it was an interesting store to see though.  this little town was having trouble because all of their services were leaving, so they came together to create a little store with groceries, a bank, a travel agency, you can get your driver's license, and there are also a dentist and doctor nearby.

and man, what is the deal with socks and sandals?  unattractive.  and what is the point?  it isn't like your feet can get a breeze.

the job.

i'm getting more settled into the internship.  it is pretty relaxed.  most days, i show up around 9ish, and then go when i feel tired of being there.  on monday, i got a key to the building!  woo, i'm official.  i also got an official work space in christoph's office.  he is the guy that picked me up at the train station the first day.  carine, one of the girls i work with, was really sweet and decorated my workspace and got office supplies all lined up and what not.  

i'm also working on her project now.  it is called project ACCESS, which is about finding ways to provide better accessibility to services like groceries and doctors in rural areas.  several countries in the EU are participating; therefore, much of the work is done in english.  a few days this week, i was reading things in german and then filling out questionnaires in english.  pretty good system - my english grammar is better than my german.  later in the summer, i may also get to help with an ongoing project concerning some american army bases.  

starting next week, i'm going to attend a few classes.  one is about the sociological side of planning and the other is about transportation planning.  we will see how much i understand.  the planning school here is much bigger than vcu, and they have planning broken down into city planning and then regional development and spatial planning.  i'm interning with regional development and spatial planning but am quickly learning that a lot of the things i'm interested in - such as public spaces, housing, and slums -seem to fall in city planning.  

hiwis are student workers that also help with some of the same sort of stuff that i'm doing.  one of them tried to help me fix my wireless the other day.  he started talking to me in german.  after three or four sentences, he kind of paused and smiled, and asked in german if i spoke german.  haha.  i think he is now the 4th person or so to ask.   i also attended the studio about rural planning in idaho again this week.  those students are the least friendly people i've met at this university.  but who knows, maybe they think the same thing about me.  the have pulled a bunch of information from the census, so my job was explaining the educational system of the US, and what all the different possible degrees were.  eek.

i went running one afternoon and found an awesome playground in the forest.  it had two little forts built of stones, a really tall (but not very fast) slide, some stuff to climb on, and some that was kind of like a merry-go-round, but it was elevated (and fabulous).  i may have played a little bit.  

yesterday, i went with christoph for some meetings concerning his doctorate work.  i won't even try to tell you about it  because any of you who are still reading will stop.  point of the story, we went to a town called cochem that was really great and typical german.  of course, i didn't have my camera because i thought we were going to be in meetings.  http://cochem.de/tourismus/starten.htm (third link from the photo says 'bilder', that means photos.)

i'm going to heidelberg for the weekend to play with max and tom!  

the grocery store.

german grocery stores tend to to be smaller than american ones.  in some ways, i find nearly everything about them better.  you have to pay for bags, which encourages people to bring their own reusable ones.  you have to pay a deposit on bottled drinks, which means people will return/recycle them to get their money back.  you have to put a euro in the grocery cart in order to unlock it, which means people will certainly return it in order to get their euro back, and no cart boys are going to have to chase them down in the middle of a parking lot.  

there are also no grocery baggers.  i can understand not paying unnecessary people; however, i always feel stressed out when i'm trying to pack my groceries really quickly into my backpack and the lady is already throwing the next person's groceries down the counter.

i've got photos.

on friday at work, i proofed a presentation about sustainability that will be given in english.  (tu kaiserslautern is having a four week course taught in english.)  it is difficult to proofread when you don't know much about the content.  so it was nice that it helped me learn a bit about some german practices.  if i was confused about something, i would ask swantje (the girl giving the presentation), and she would explain it to me in german.  then we would figure out the best way to say it in english.  sometimes i feel that i'm doing well with german, but then there are also moments where i feel like i understand 7% of what is going on and just make up the rest based on body language and hand gestures.

yesterday, i went running, grocery shopping, and exploring.  it felt that 50% of the people i heard in town were american.  this is the closest town to ramstein (which i'm pretty sure is the largest american military base outside of america), so that is the reason for all the americans.  occasionally i feel irritated that i'm in germany and hearing so much english, but then i remember i'm part of that problem.  i also discovered that if i stay in this town every weekend, i will lose my mind.  so, i'm looking into planning some smaller trips that are a few hours away.  i'm thinking trier (oldest city in germany), essen (to see the red dot design awards museum), and ulm (to see a famous cathedral).  also, i talked with nate, a friend from richmond who i know through my roommates, and he will be in germany in july.  i was planning to send postcards from here - since this is where i will spend the majority of the summer - but i don't think they even make them for this place.  it seems kaiserslautern's one claim to international fame is that they hosted some games during the 2006 world cup.  kaiserslautern is a bit more hilly than heidelberg, and it seems there aren't so many bike riders here, but still more than most american towns.

the campus of tu kaiserslautern is located on the edge of the city, and i also live here.  (i've quickly discovered that i miss having a bike!) very few other people live on campus, although there are a few dorms nearby.  because of this, the place is almost completed deserted on the weekend.  considering they have such a reputation for planning, i find some difficulty in understanding why things are the way they are.  it seems there are about 10,000 students here, and a lot of them are male because it is a technical university.  they have things such as math, physics, chemistry, biology, architecture, and planning.  the one place where i tend to see A LOT of students is the mensa (cafeteria).  guess that is to be expected :).

the weather has been really nice this weekend, and i could even wear shorts!  i took campus photos today, and i've been working on editing a paper for a friend.  nothing too terrible exciting.

city map.  blue is the uni campus.  yellow is downtown.

uni campus map.  blue is my house.  orange is the mensa.  green are the buildings where i work.  the bottom green one is the EA and the top right green is the lehrstuhl.

i live here.  gebäude 31. das internationalen begegnungszentrum.

look HERE for more photos.

that was awkward.

so, it is friday morning.  i have to be somewhere at 10 to help go over a presentation that is in english.  i'm showered, dressed, etc and standing at the kitchen sink washing my cereal bowl.  i heard mr. roommate in the bathroom.  well, he comes walking out.  i said good morning and he says good morning.  he had on a shirt and underwear.  what?!  i just looked down really quickly thinking maybe he didn't know i was there when he chose to walk out.  well, he walks in his room, then back to the bathroom again in the same amount of clothes and stops to ask me if i need to get into the bathroom.  hey dude, you are nice enough, but i don't want to have a conversation with you while you are standing around in your underwear.  

yesterday was a holiday, and i did a little exploring.  hopefully it won't rain on the weekend, and i can take some photos of this place.  

and...i've got a roommate.

he is from denmark.  i would guess he is mid-40s, and he researches product use i think.  something like that.  seems like a nice guy.  speaks perfect english, but i think he speaks little german.  he is only staying for a week.  while he is a seemingly nice guy, i was hoping for mid-20s-ish with friend potential.  i have no idea what his name is.  i need to see it written, but it sounds like no name i've heard before.

i have internet. woop woop.

the man in charge of housing stuff came by my room this morning.  that meant i didn't have to locate him in the office.  awesome.  he told me how to get internet. woo hoo. all i needed was an ethernet cable.  i kind of hate how i feel so dependent on the internet, but at the moment, it is my connection to any world outside of kaiserslautern.  he also said i'm getting a roommate today, but i don't see anyone now that i'm home.  tomorrow is another holiday, so i'm going to check out the city and work on proofreading a paper for a friend. 

today at 10.00, i joined a studio that is looking at rural planning in idaho.  they are taking a trip to visit in september.  i feel kind of bad for them that they get to make an out-of-country trip, and they are going to idaho.  idaho.  i mean, what are they known for other than potatoes.  i also got a copy of their 30 page document to read so i can help them with the concepts of counties and regional planning and such.  i don't how i can be much help if i can't understand it all.  herr domhardt told the class that me german was very good and therefore they didn't need to speak in english.  at lunch time, i went with another girl, swantje, to the MENSA, cafeteria, and she showed me how that works.  after lunch, i went by to see nadine, who is working on a joint EU project with people from multiple countries...therefore, things must be done in english.  i started translating a document from german to english.  we will see how that goes.  on friday, i'm going through an english presentation with swantje concerning a sustainability project.  nadine and carine, two girls that work with the lehrstuhl, said that sometimes we should have english hour.  maybe i can be useful!

wenn du mir etwas schicken willst/if you want to send me something:

Alison Alexander

Internationalen Begegnungszentrum der Technische Universität Kaiserslautern - #322

Erwin Schrödinger Straße

67663 Kaiserslautern Germany

i'm in kaiserslautern.

so much to tell.

it was a great weekend in heidelberg.  on friday night, i met up with friends from my german class last year.  tzu-ning, ana, brad, ricardo, julie and i all went out in the city to our favorite bar, sonderbar.  it was fun to have everyone together again, and i accidentally bumped into an italian girl, denija, that i know from rowing last year!

saturday i went into town and did some errands and worked on packing a bit.  in the evening, i met Stefan to go see fireworks :)  it was the first schloss beleuchtungen (castle lighting) of the summer.  friends of sabine and nils have a hotel that is near the old bridge where the fireworks are set off.  at the last minute, sabine and nils and the boys found out they could go to the roof terrace to watch them, so stefan and i joined them.  amazing view.  i love fireworks.  then stefan and i went out in the city and met up with some of his friends.

sunday morning i played with max and tom, did a bit of packing, and then rode bikes with tom to the monastery to eat ice cream.  sabine and nils and brigitte went to the movies, so i fed the boys and put them to bed.  then i finished up packing so i could go to bed before the big day!

monday, 8 june 2009: day of truth.  are my german skills adequate? 

the day started off well, and i woke up to my alarm clocks (unlike tuesday’s failed trip to köln).  i made it to the train station and caught my 7.35 train to kaiserslautern.  i bought my train ticket friday.  i wanted to make sure that i still remembered how to do it, and i wanted to have it in case i was a bit late to the station.  well, apparently this kind of ticket is to be used within thirty minutes of purchase.  oops.  i think a ticket is currently being mailed to sabine and nils house.  the lady was quite nice about it, and i believe she felt a little bad for me.  she gave me a receipt of sorts and told me to mail that back and say i didn’t understand.   it was another live and learn moment. however, at the rate i’m living and learning, i’m going to single handedly fund deutsche bahn’s christmas bonus.  herr scheck from the entwicklungsagentur, development agency, picked me up at the station.  that is what i was nervous about, but it went well and he is a very nice guy.   he then brought me to check into my apartment/dorm room.  it is a three-bedroom apartment, which i currently have to myself.  i’m actually kind of disappointed about that because it is boring, but i should be getting roommates by the beginning of july i believe.  i haven’t really seen anyone else in the dorm yet, but i think it is all foreign students.  the man that organizes the housing stuff speaks with a bit of a dialect and it was difficult to understand him.  luckily he is the only one i’ve met that does.  then herr scheck and i took a quick drive through the city and went to the entwicklungsagentur to meet herr dr. domhardt.  he asked if i spoke german. haha.  they apparently weren’t expecting much.  he then introduced me to the rest of the staff at the development agency and told them all that i speak german well.  lies.  all that comment is going to do is get me into a bunch of conversations where i can only understand about 2/3 of the vocabulary.  we then went to lunch and to meet people from the lehrstuhl, faculty, at the university.  one of the girls there also asked if i speak german.  the whole day was conducted in german.  i was proud of myself.  around 2 or so, i was free to come back home and unpack.  i went grocery shopping later in the day.  there are two supermarkets nearby, and i had to make two trips because i couldn’t carry all at one, so i went to one the first time and the other the second time.   that is when it is nice that i have already lived in germany, and i, for the most part, know what is what.

this morning, i arrived at the entwicklungsagentur at 9, and then i just read through some information and sent a few emails until 11.45.  give me books in german, and I suddenly become a slow reader.   from 12-3, i sat in a meeting/catchup/check-in session of the lehrstuhl, then i worked for a bit to create a cover for an article.  it was a good project considering the language barrier isn’t a huge challenge when using InDesign. i also met frau professor dr. troeger-weiß, who is the head of the regional planning department.  she spoke german to me and had me introduce myself to all of the lehrstuhl in german.  i’m glad i met some of them yesterday or that would have been intimidated to speak in front of 9 native german speakers.

i live and work on the campus, and therefore haven’t really seen the city yet.   it is situated in a traditional campus style setting that isn’t directly in the city center like Heidelberg and VCU.  i’m not really sure where all of the students are.  it seems a little bit deserted, but classes don’t end until 24 july.  there are an abnormally large amount of holidays this time of year though, so maybe people are hiding out.  i’m not sure if the plants have grown so fast that the university is unable to keep them maintained, or if they are always growing wild, but between the plants and lack of students, the place looks deserted from the outside.

from the inside, it is another story, and i saw quite a few students yesterday in the architecture and planning building.  all the people i’ve met thus far have been extremely nice and hospitable.  sabine said she thinks the treatment i’m receiving is pretty unusual.  i’ll just attribute that to the fact that frau professor dr. troeger-weiß and herr dr. domhardt both know my professor at vcu.  i was surprised by how young most of the people are that work at the lehrstuhl and entwicklungagentur.  the lehrstuhl has 3 males and 6 females and 6 of those are in their early 30s or younger I would say.  one girl who is really nice, gave me a giant list of english-german terms related to planning.  we chatted a bit, and she told me she is 26, and she also told me they only use the formal version of you with troeger-weiß and domhardt, which i guess means i should do that and call them by their first names.  she showed me the website with all their photos and names which i can look at to help me learn them.  the entwicklungsagentur employees seem to be slightly older, but not much.  herr scheck and herr dr. domhardt work for both the development agency and the lehrstuhl. 

the big question:  what will i be doing all summer?  whatever i find interesting!  at the moment it is very open.  herr dr. domhardt has given me materials to look at concerning what both the lehrstuhl and entwicklungsagentur work on.  he also said i’m welcome to attend some classes if I like.  I’m excited.  there is a sustainability course taught in english later in the summer, and while i won’t be attending the course, I believe i will be accompanying them on a day long trip.  i meet with the girl in charge of that tomorrow.  every wednesday morning, there is a studio that is working on a rural planning project – in Idaho of all places - and I will be going to that starting tomorrow.  last year they worked in DC, and the year before that the bay area of san francisco.  another girl told me to meet with her at one tomorrow, and we will talk about what she is working on and whether or not it would interest me.  a man that works at the development agency works with deutsche bahn (german trains) – i believe finding ways to reuse their old/abandoned tracks – and he told me i could accompany him to some meetings later in the summer if i like.  next week i may be going along with herr sheck (christoph if i’m using first names), who i think is upper-twenties, when he has some meetings about his doctorate work.  in july, there is a 75^th birthday party for the head of the development agency.  i met him yesterday and he was very nice, but i basically just smiled, so he probably has no idea if i understood anything or not.  near the end of july, the lehrstuhl is going to a kletterpark for fun.  this means climbing – i couldn’t tell from the description if this is like a ropes course or a climbing wall – i think ropes course.  they are all really excited about it.  i’ll keep you updated on what else comes up.

i naturally can’t understand everything that is going on, and i can say far less than i understand, but so far i’ve pleasantly surprised myself.  everything has been conducted in german, and sometimes i will ask about certain words.  hopefully, by the end of the summer, i will be speaking well.  i think it is going to require some extra studying though.  considering i don’t have internet at home at the moment, i may have plenty of time for that.

that was a lot of info.  basically, i’m excited by everything except the weather.

give the world your smile.

schenk der Welt dein Lächeln.

i like it.  it makes me smile everytime i use that crosswalk.

the internship starts on monday.

so.  since the last time:

on sunday evening my friend stefan invited me over for dinner.  he made ratatouille.  it was fun, and i like seeing other people's homes in germany.  if you remember, i was supposed to go to köln on tuesday.  i had already messed up the location of the exhibit.  well, guess what, never heard my alarm.  i stayed in heidelberg.  what happened to me being a responsible human being?  i don't know.  instead, i went to the playground.

wednesday was a nice day in which i did some school work and reading in the morning, and then met my old german teacher, ana, and her american boyfriend, brad, for lunch.  we strolled around a bit, and it was nice to catch up.  it wasn't really so great for practicing my german though because her boyfriend only speaks english.  since that is a language that i can clearly handle, we spoke mostly in english.  then i went to an art exhibit at the heidelberger kunstverein.  in the evening, i went rowing with stefan.  we had fun, but we were awful.  terrible.  then when i came home, i sat by the fire with sabine and nils for a bit.

we saw cecile, eugenie, and thaddeus yesterday!  they are so cute.  eugenie and thaddeus are twins about 6 months younger than max and tom, and we used to play with them fairly often.  we met at the the zoo, which has a pretty fabulous playground that makes me wish i was about 5 years old and fit on the toys.

biggest news of the week: internship schedule.  (ahhh.)

on monday morning, i am to take the 7.35 train from heidelberg to kaiserslautern.  they were kind enough to look up the time and track and everything for me.  once in kaiserslautern, i will be picked up at the train station by herr scheck.  then i will meet herr dr. domhardt - he is in charge of the development agency.  then on to my dorm room, and then lunch with herr. dr. domhardt.  i will find out more about what i'm doing that day, and i have monday afternoon free for exploring.  on wednesday morning, i meet frau prof. dr. troeger-weiß, who is from the university and has helped set all of this up.  i'm very excited.  and nervous.   

i just saw a girl in a wedding dress as i was riding my bike into town. while this isn't a strange sight near the picturesque, historic, romantic-looking bridge, it is about 9.50ish on a friday morning.  who gets married at 9am on a friday morning?

people have asked me multiple times in the last 2.5 weeks for directions.  i must look like i know what i'm doing.  or they are desperate.  i usually understand and am able to help.  not with the normal precision like in english, but living life in germany is, for me, fairly similar to playing one constant game of charades.  it gets the job done.