Well, it looks to be officially autum here in Germany, now. Even though the sun is out, shining brilliantly today, its still rather cold. The entire weekend was a rather cold and rainy affair too, sunny only for a bit on Sunday. Despite the weather (or maybe because of the weather, I do like fall), I had a really good weekend. Friday night was fun- went over to Alex/Emily's apartment (two girls also in the AYF program) who live just down the way from me in the StuSie complex. They have a really nice appartment, and I got the chance to really meet some of their roommates. We had a "Sing-Star" party, a game that is played by singing songs into a microphone, and which ever team wins the most songs, wins. We played two rounds- my team lost (specatcularly) one round, and won the last round. It was a real good time. Then we played a german card game, kind of similar to an American game I learned many years back, known as "Scum" or "P and A." Strange names, but the german name for it was even weirder. I dunno who comes up with names for card games... but they should probably be fired. Saturday was a really low key day. It rained. A lot. So I stayed in and watched movies, and talked to Marilyn for a while. From the chaos of the week, it was a strange feeling having nothing to do. I felt kind of bad though, I missed my make up call from Emily/Alex, there were some people going to France that morning. I woke up just about the time the bus left. Kind of frustrating, but I got to catch up on some sleep, that I had sorely needed. And besides, who plans a trip on a saturday morning to have to get up at 8:30? Not when I've spent the entire week getting up early and doing homework... I wanted a break. And thats what I got. Sounds like France was a bit of a bust, in any case. At least it didn't rain for them. Yesterday was another low key day. I got a little bit of homework done, read some Harry Potter (shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody by now), and had a lovely Italian dinner with some of the girls from StuSie. It was a lovely little Italien place, we talked about making a sunday night dinner there a tradition. I would love that.

Alright, the day is moving on, and I still have a bit more homework to finish up before I start class in a couple hours, so I must say farewell. Glad to see Michigan State won their football game with ease (and without Dantonio) on Saturday. Big game coming up on Saturday! The program is dominated with Wisconsin students, so I think there is going to be some trash talking this week. I won't get a chance to watch the game, I'm planning on joining some people on a trip to the 200th Oktoberfest! Should be fun.


"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.
-Robert Louis Stevenson

Well, today is friday, thank goodness! I haven't updated my blog in a while, since this week has been busy. Well, busy is putting it nicely. Up to my neck in things to do is another way of putting it. We had a mandatory meeting this morning to talk about scheduling classes. There was a lot of important information, and I'm worried that I'll have trouble keeping it all straight, seeing as how we don't start actually start signing up for classes for about two weeks, leaving plenty of time for me to forget everything I just heard. But I suppose thats why I can always ask the people in charge here for help.

I was supposed to give my presentation yesterday- but my handout didn't send properly via e-mail, so I was one of two people elected to go today instead. I would have preferred to just have it done and out of the way, but this way it gave me a little more time to think about some things I wanted to change. Okay, in reality it just made me more nervous, but at least I got to see everyone else go ahead of me, so I can borrow some of their styles or whatever. There were some pretty good presentations- I suppose thats because I'm in a class with kids who have either lived a decent portion of their life in Germany, or have dedicated a lot of their life to learning German. Not that I'm out of place, just that when you're giving a presentation to a room of your peers, it's a little intimidating.

This presentation is on top of the two tests and paper that was due this week, plus all the regular homework. I'm certainly not bored when I get home from classes, I'll tell you what.

But time is quickly wrapping up for these courses, which is unbelievable, since that means that we're almost entering October. Next wednesday marks one month from being away from home. I don't mean to sound rude, but I haven't really missed home much. Too much going on to think about everyone else, really.

Not much new to add on my end- Discovered a restaurant with unbelievable spaghetti, and from 6-7:30 pm its only 1,80€. Oh, and I've been eating a decent amount of ice cream this week, since the weather was suddenly very pleasant. Of course, being the weekend, the weather decided Friday should mark the first cloudy day all week, and a sharp drop in the temperature. It was even sprinkling a little on my walk over to the AYF Center where I am now.

I went to a soccer game on wednesday- it was a very long day, but the soccer game was really a blast! I liked it more than I liked football back in America. The game was incredible, but Freiburg gave up a goal within the last few minutes. Unfortunate that Freiburg had to lose to their rivals, Schalke. The whole town was wearing red and black on wednesday (SC Freiburg's colors, naturally), and anyone wearing blue was obviously an enemy. The Schalke fans all dressed in blue were rather boisterous, even before the game. I was really hoping that Freiburg would quiet them, and they almost did! So many close chances. Regardless, still a great game.

Well, its time to finish up my Referat (presentation), and then fill out a quick worksheet. Then all I have to do is sit through four hours of classes, give a presentation, and I'm home free!

"I had to experience everything very preciesely... I am such a realist, you know, that I have to see everything with my own eyes."

-Otto Dix

(Appropriate, since I'm giving a presentation on him!)

Strange how whenever I ought to be doing something else, I tend to write a blog entry isn't it? Tomorrow we have a test in our language classes, and then we have a presentation to give on Wednesday. Wednesday is going to be a busy day, because after class a large group of us are going to the SC Freiburg soccer game. Thursday's going to be a long day predictably, since everyone's going to be tired and run down from the night before. Freiburg's soccer club has been doing great so far though- and we have tickets to their rivalry game. Exciting!

I need to start doing my research for my presentation. Maybe I'll take a break from writing my essay and looking up German verbs to start digging a little bit.

I am really glad to hear about the Michigan State game yesterday! It was quite a way to win a game. It's kind of weird to read on Facebook about how all my friends are at the game, and yet I can't even watch it on TV cause it came on around 2:30 a.m. Oh well, I was up late and caught the score of the first half on ESPN.com before going to bed. The thing about having classes at three every day, my sleep schedule is very strange. I do a lot of homework at night or in the morning, not really during the evening. Hopefully when the actual university starts up, things will make a little more sense.

One of these days, I'm going to dedicate a whole blog entry to just posting pictures of Freiburg, and giving my opinion on the whole region. For now though, I'm going to be a good student and starting tackling this mountain of homework and then start studying.

"The call of the year!"

-Brad Nessler, on Mark Dantonio's call to fake the field goal in overtime.

Pictures of Basel, Switzerland

It's been a long while since I've written a decent entry to my blog, hasn't it? I guess its time to remedy that. What a week. Seriously. What a week! Classes are in full swing, which, for the most part, is a good thing. It keeps my busy and keeps my mind off of other things, like people back home for example. I'm really making a lot of friends with other students here though, so I'm certainly not feeling lonely. At the risk of sounding a bit crass, I haven't really gotten homesick yet. It's not that I don't miss home, that's certainly not the case. I suppose it's more like I've come to the realization that things are business as usual back home, and will be for the next year.

Like I was saying, class has been really busy. We have class four hours a day, from 15:00 until 19:00 (thats 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. for you silly American folks). Don't ask me why we have it so late, I'm not entirely sure why. But we're not the only group of people using the building, and its rather small. The "International House in Freiburg" is basically a converted house. At least it has nice big windows.

I have two teachers- Susanne, who teaches grammar, and Corinna, who teaches language and vocabulary. Susanne is the typical German instructor for the most part- kind of old school, lots of worksheets and lots of homework. Corinna is a really goofy lady who's probably only 8 years older than most of the students, putting her about 30 or so. She's a little more conventional, in terms of teaching, and thankfully hands out less homework. We have a test on Monday, covering all sorts of stuff. I probably ought to be studying instead of writing this, but there's always time tomorrow. It's only Saturday after all!

We also have to give a "Referat," or a Presentation, in front of the class on Wednesday. That's going to be interesting. I haven't selected my topic yet, but I'm considering the idea of doing it on "Trümerfilmen," the name given to movies that were made in the ruins of post World War II Germany. It's a very interesting time period for Germany, especially their cinema. One of my favorite German movies comes from this period. I'm excited to look into this a bit more, learn about some other influential German movies. German cinema is a really fascinating topic, if you're into films at all.

What else have I done this week? Right! We had a "wine-and-dine" party with some of the most powerful people in Freiburg on Wednesday night. One of the members of this group had studied abroad at the University of Wisconsin Madison, and every year when the students from the program arrive, he invites them all over for a little party. Only thing was, we were in what everyone in Freiburg considers -the- nicest restaurant in town. Oh, and it also happens to be on top of the highest point in Freiburg, a little mountain, in what used to be a castle. Yeah, it was nice. The food was outstanding, albeit only finger foods. They had the nicest champagnes and wines for us. It was outstanding. The view of Freiburg was unbelievable; I wish I had my camera, it was stunning. I talked (and talked, and talked, and talked, the man wouldn't stop talking!) to a German man who gave us a lot of advice on what to do in Freiburg, and told us to speak German as often as possible. He was very nice, though he chattered on for quite a while. The night was a huge success.

I also got what I might consider the worlds best bowl of spaghetti the other night. The downside? It set me back a whole 1,80€. After you convert that, it probably comes out to be around two bucks. This restaurant serves cheap spaghetti every night from certain times. I'm going to be gaining lots of pasta weight, I can assure you!

I also got to watch the SC Freiburg game yesterday. The "SC" stands for Sport Club. Strange, because the only sport that they're into is soccer. Freiburg's team is doing really good this year, and yesterday they knocked off Frankfurt, 1-0 in the 91st minute! It was quite an amazing game.

Well, I've spent a long time in front of my computer, and I ought to get some lunch and go grocery shopping. Good thing the stores are just across the street!

"Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?"

-Thomas Mann

My internet finally works! So, in the spirit of uploading and downloading, I'm going to upload some pictures of my room for you all to download!

And so, by popular demand- Mein Zimmer. More to come later, but I've gotta ship off to class soon!

"A picture says a thousand words."

-Unknown

I guess I'll see if I have time for another quick blog update. I'm still not able to write these from my dorm room yet, since I have yet to get the internet to work properly. But regardless, Starbucks is a cozy place to sit and scour the internet. And a big ol' cup of Earl Grey is less than 2€. Not bad, not bad at all.

The Innenstadt is pretty busy again today. My weekend was good, but I had lots of homework to do. I think our teacher's goal is to drown us in busywork until our German gets so good we can breeze through the worksheets. Like I said in my last post, nothing wrong with that. My German is only going to improve from that! Sometimes you need that sort of thing. I have to admit, though, I find it strange speaking German to the other students. I guess I'd rather speak German to someone who's German (and can therefore correct me properly!). I guess all the practice is good for me, in any case.

The city is starting to fill up with more and more students it appears. Kaiser-Josephstraße (the main street in town, abbreviated KaJo) is packed with kids that appear to be about my age. Its nice to just walk down the street in the afternoon before class and just soak up the German culture. The buildings all look so authentically European, and the people's fashion is, well, different (and probably better) than mine. Not that there is a great deal of culture shock- on the contrary, I knew what to expect coming to Freiburg for the most part. But there are still some really small culture differences that are interesting to observe.

Also, the food is great. My mom expresses concern that I'm not going to eat enough... but that simply won't be the case. There is too much good food in Germany! Strangely enough, most of their food is a germanized form of other cultures food. That means a lot of potatoes and wursts and Dönner Kebab- essentially a gyro, for those of you who don't know what the delicious turkish specialty is. Pizza and sushi are big here too. There is even a spanish restaurant, and I've heard rumors of there being a few mexican restaurants in the vicinity as well.

The people in Freiburg is also an interesting cultural mix. I've heard a lot of different languages. Obviously German is the predominate one, but there has been a decent amount of English and even some asian languages too. It seems people from all over the world can end up in Freiburg, which adds to the charm of the city in my opinion. Its based in German culture, but its flavored with essentially any culture imaginable. And people seem to be very nice, on top of it all. As much as I miss everyone in America, I'm glad I'm doing this program, very glad. It's almost been two weeks, but it's felt like only a couple of days. I'm excited to see what the whole year has in store!

"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries."

-Aldous Huxley

Well, today is the weekend again. My second saturday in Freiburg already, I can hardly believe it! I have to say, it feels as if it should only be the second day, and I'm already approaching fourteen. I hope the time doesn't quite fly by so fast!

I'm intending on taking pictures of my room today to post on this blog, so those of you who are reading this can see my humble abode. I really like my room, though I still need to go to IKEA and get some some more kitchen supplies. Other than that, things are going very well in Germany. I've been meeting lots of American students, as well as some German ones too (though most of the German students are still gone on their break).

I'm sitting here writing this from a Starbucks- sort of a stupid place to go for an American trying to seek out people of another culture- but none the less, they have free WiFi, and the internet in my room is still unavailable. But that should all change today! I have to say, its been an interesting experience, not having internet access readily available for over a week and a half. It was a little liberating, I confess. But I did start to miss talking to certain people, and Facebook, as commercialized as it is, offers me a great way to connect to the people who I want to talk to.

This week we took a placement test, to see where our German level was. Then we were separated into three different classes, based on how fluent you are. I placed in the highest class, which is a good thing for me, because it comes with the lovely benefit of getting lots and lots of homework every night. After this month, my German is going to be the best that it ever has, and I won't even have started school yet!

I'm making good friends with the other people that are in the StuSie housing complex. All but one of them are girls, Jack being the only male exception excluding me. Lauren lives in House 30, Ally lives in house 40, and I have yet to venture to where Emily and Alex live. I believe it's house 44, but I could be wrong. We spend most of our (limited) free time in Lauren's. Her roommates are really interesting- there is a Korean girl, an Indian Graduate Student (who's a fantastic cook!), and two German students, aiming to be teachers. We've spent a lot of the past week with the two Germans, Jakob and Jasper. They're both good at speaking English, but both also try to improve our German skills.

I've met kids from all over the United States, too. Michigan has the fewest amount of students participating in the program- combined between MSU and U of M, there are only 10 kids out of 35. The majority of the kids are from Wisconsin. The kids from Iowa seem pretty close already- but that hasn't stopped them from meeting all the other students either.

Wednesday we had a birthday: Not just my Dad's birthday back in America, but Trev's birthday too. So we had a lot of singing, and some fun that afternoon before our placement test. I already wished my dad a happy birthday (both a day early and on wednesday too), but I'll take the time to say it here again- Happy birthday dad! I hope it was a good one.

And so now, here I sit, still in Starbucks, but thinking that maybe I should get out and explore some more of Freiburg. Saturdays are a busy day here in the Innenstadt (downtown). The shops are all open, and there are crowds of people! Its really very busy, and a lot of fun to participate in. I might go window shopping for a bit, just to fit in with the other Freiburgers. Because if I'm going to buy anything, I'm gonna have to get a job! I think I'll do that anyway, though.

So I'll leave you now, with just a few more words. It's a beautiful day here in Freiburg, and I can't wait to get out there now and explore!

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

-Maria Robinson

I'm writing today's blog post from the AYF Office, in Freiburg Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemburg. I can hardly believe that it has been a whole week since I last updated this blog! Everything seems to have flown by so quickly. My flight from Detroit to JFK last week was fine, and rather uninteresting. I sat next to a nice lady who was quiet and napped almost the entire time. Arriving in JFK was a nightmare, however. I had no idea where I was supposed to go. I had to completely switch terminals, taking a long tram ride. Then I had to check in at the Singapore Air kiosk, and go through security again. Only thing was, my flight to Detroit got in a half hour late. On top of that, the line to get through security was unbelievibly long- they estimated that it would take two whole hours to get through! Thankfully, since my flight was leaving soon, a nice TSA agent toward the front let some of the people going to Frankfurt cut ahead. So after a frantic struggle to get all my stuff in order after security (and almost leaving my laptop case behind!) I managed to find the gate for my departure and make a few quick last minute phone calls to people in the states.

The flight to Frankfurt was not too bad- Singapore Air is rather nice actually! They come around with drinks, and the variety is rather large, and they don't charge for anything. We had two full meals, and a snack. The food was even pretty good, and we got real silverware. I sat between two people, a young, college age girl about as old as myself (who was feeling under the weather and slept almost the entire eight hours) and another lady named Judy. Both of them were flying through to Singapore, where as I was getting off in Frankfurt, naturally. Judy was a very nice lady, who lived in Melasia. She told me all about it, and she kept saying how nice it was to see students going to study and live abroad.

After getting to the Frankfurt Airport, I waited for my luggage. And I waited. And waited. And waited some more. They eventually announced some names of people who should seek out a Singapore Airlines representative, and I could have sworn I heard my name... but they didn't really pronounce Stohrer correctly, nor did they say a first name. Well, it turns out they were trying to say my name. JFK had apparently decided to not load my luggage on the plane, for whatever reason. So, my luggage was on the next flight out, which would come on Friday, and be shipped to Freiburg then. But the German Post doesn't deliver mail on Saturdays or Sundays, so the earilest that I would get my suitcase would be Monday.

Well, everything went smoothly at Frankfurt after that. I went to the DB (Deutsche Bahn) Office and got my student discount card, and my ticket to Freiburg. Now I was rolling. I had a little over an hour to kill, so I decided to grab at the very least some water, if not some food too. I never did get food, but after I had some water, I felt vastly better. Waiting by train tracks, I ran into some kids who looked liked they belonged in America, and were talking about the same train that I was waiting for. I asked them politely if they were going to Freiburg, and they all said yes. That is how I met several of my AYF classmates from Iowa, who were all very nice and chipper, and sympathized with my luggage problem.

Well, after a week, not much has changed here in Freiburg since the day I arrived. I've been doing paperwork, and trying to get my room all organized. It's going well. In a few minutes here, I have a placement exam, to see what level my German is at, in order to be put in the correct language class for the next month or so. So with that thought, I shall bid you all farewell! I will continue to update this blog a little more regularly, and maybe even fill in some of the past couple day's events! But for now, this post is certainly long enough!

"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible."
-T.E. Lawrence

Well, today is the big day. I'll be leaving for Detroit in a matter of hours, marking the start of travels that will keep me away from Michigan and home longer than I ever have been before. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I wasn't nervous. Looking in the mirror, I couldn't really tell which was greener, my shirt or my complexion. Like all new things, this adventure is a little overwhelming at first, but I'm sure that in no time at all, my nerves will be replaced with confidence and happiness. I could

That being said, I wanted to take a little bit of time to thank some people for all that they've done for me in terms of supporting me. My parents, of course, for their financial and emotional support. My friends and family that saw me off on Sunday, and the others that saw me off yesterday.

Most importantly, though, (and if you don't want to ready anything mushy, you might want to just skip to the end of this post) I would like to thank my girlfriend. She's amazing, and she means the world to me. Hardest of all is going to be saying goodbye to her, because I'm starting to realize just how much I need her, just how much she means to me. If you're reading this Marilyn, just know how much I love you. These next few months may be hard, and will certainly bring new problems into our relationship, but I know we'll manage. I also know that you're going to do great at school! Just keep writing! And don't ever stop loving me.

Alright, I've choked down some breakfast, now its back to finishing up tying all these loose ends.

"Love is what you've been through with somebody."

-James Thurber