days 76-92: ulm

so it's been a while again since the last post. And I haven't taken any pictures with my camera since July 29th! So some of these pictures are from my camera phone. That needs to change. Starting today.

Lets see...Last weekend was the strangest thing. Flo and I went to a traveling French Village. It was so weird. But kind of cool. When you walked in from the outside it looked like the backs of walls (because that's what they were) then inside it's like a French village with fake stores painted on the walls and a miniature Eiffel Tower and Moulin Rouge.













The weird mushroom looking thing is a booth were the traveling French people sell...mushrooms...

This is my last week of work! Then a day of flying home, day of moving back into the apartment, then classes start...not much left of the summer. But 92 days so far in Deutschland is not so bad. Ooooh, and now it's day 2 of using my visa! wooooooooooooooo

days 72-76: ulm

No pictures this time since I forgot my camera in the car for Nabada 2! Saturday we floated down the Donau and had a bbq after. Something's missing without the pictures :(
Here's something random...noodles on my back...

days 52-76: ulm

So it's been a while since the last post...but a lot has been going on and I hope I can remember it all. At least this post is a little more interesting than last time.
Week 1 of July:
It was the Lasagna Cookoff 2008! Lasagna Cookoff 2007 was really good. Team Slackers vs. Team Make-Lasagna-From-Scratch. I think the Slackers team won. I think the Slacker team won again in '08, even with using the premade spices intended for another dish. That was on Tuesday...Friday was the 4th of July. I celebrated with Flo and the German band, Tomte in the park. They were playing at Ulmer Zelt...even though all the talking was in German it was still pretty good.
Then the next day Flo, Stefan and I went to their hometown in Edertal. The first night I bbq'd with Flo's fam, roasting bratwursts and making s'mores. It was kind of hard with the s'mores because it's almost impossible to get all the ingredients. I got "American style" marshmallows, chocolate and the closest thing to graham crackers I could find, but it wasn't the quite right. Next time I think I'll bring some Hershey's chocolate and real graham crackers from home. Monday we went to Kassel with some friends of Flo from back in the day. We walked up this trail in search of the fake castle, but ended up walking up a closed trail for a really long time then the castle was closed. But that didn't matter, it was still a cool looking castle, even though it was built in the 1800's. Good times.









(the cow is to show it was in the country)

Week 2:
Normal work week...That Friday I experienced my first festival-like event. I don't think I'm quite cut out for the whole festival thing. I like the music most of the time, but it was so cold and wet. The next day was really fun! I promised Laura if she came to Germany I would buy her a beer, so on the 12th I met her in the main town square in Munich and bought her a beer at the Hofbrauhaus. There was a Gay Pride rally in the square. Lots of drag queens and people in slave costumes...We walked around Munich most of the afternoon and she had to meet her group at some beerhall in the Munich suburbs. So after the Hofbrauhaus experience I tried to get directions to the other beerhall and could only find directions to another business on the same street. We took the s-bahn out of the city and got off at the stop and it looked like we were in the middle of a residential neighborhood and a factory...then we started walking through the neighborhood toward the biggest building we could find and somehow found the sign on a random road. that was really lucky

Week 3:

Now! It's been a pretty crazy week. Friday (18th) we went out to eat at Jonas' Asian place, Saturday we met Basti and Sarah for dinner then went to the Light Ceremony, the beginning of the Schwörwochenendes. We went to the Donau to watch thousands of candles float down the river at night.

The picture doesn't really show how pretty it was. Sunday was a pretty chilled out day. Then Monday was Nabada, (or NObada) because of the high water and random trees floating down the river it was cancelled :( So Saturday is Nabada 2, and we'll see if that happens.
Wednesday was awesome! We had our Team Event in Immenstadt. There was a high ropes course for 3 hours, then dinner, then an alpine slide down the mountain. I can't decide what was the best part...either the ropes course or slide...Right this minute I would say the slide because every muscle in my body aches right now because of the ropes. It was kind of hard at first because 1) the instructions were in German and when you're swinging around the trees it seems kind of important to know what exactly that guy was saying and 2) it was really really high.

1. floating candles down the Donau
2. the high ropes course
3. my coworkers, Sven, Michi, me

days 43-52

52 days already!?! too fast. Zu schnell. Not much is new here. I finally beat Flo in chess after about 7 consecutive defeats. After working all the time, there's not much to report back home about. If you want to waste some time, try Grow Island.
Next week there's a concert, the 4th of July, AND trip to Edertal, so the next post should be a bit more interesting.

days 38-43: ulm

Germans are crazy. This video is from the Germany vs. Portugal game where Germany won 3-2. Since Germany now goes to the semi finals for the Euro Cup, it was crazy on the streets:


This one I wish I had more room on my memory card because it cuts off right before the "oompa ooompa" bodyslam song.



And this one is the mob shaking a bus.

days 31-38: north cyprus (part I)

The last few days were soooooooo much fun! Flo and I went to North Cyprus for a nice summer holiday. It was kind of nice taking a holiday during my holiday (kind of holiday) this summer. I think Jonas is reading this blog, so shout out! He even quoted it in the bus today so he gets a special shout out. We left Ulm at 4:00 pm Wednesday, took the train to Munich then hung around the airport until it was time for our flight to leave. Just in case you ever need to spend a few hours in the Munich airport, there isn't much for dinner unless you want to spend around 12 Euros for a nice meal, so go ahead and eat the Burger King outside. We thought about eating outside but then decided there would probably be some in the airport too, but we were wrong. So yeah...our flight was delayed a few hours so we played some Fußball that Lufthansa had out because of the Euro Cup.


Around 3am our flight landed in Larnaca, Cyprus. From there we hired a taxi that took us to the border because you can't rent a car from the South to the North, so we were dropped off at the border and picked up our rental car. The guy didn't speak English and Flo and I don't speak Turkish, so our directions were kind of messed up. He kept making some weird motion with his hands and saying "very improtant" which is what that semi-circle shape is on the picture to the left.
I kept critiquing the roads but they kept getting progressively worse.











We arrived at Burhan's Place around 7am Thursday morning. It felt very isolated there, and the electricity cut off at midnight but that added to the whole feel of the place. Burhan was nice and so were the 2 other staff members, Enver and Mustafa. As soon as we got to the bungalows, we crashed for a few hours then went to the beach for our 100% relaxing/no work at all beach day.
The water was so clear there, one Flo-length deep and I could still see the lines in the sand on the floor from the waves.

One weird thing about North Cyprus is there were lots of half-built buildings and houses. It was like they started building then took a break and kind of stopped sometime before the second half of the house was finished. Or if the buildings were falling down then the people moved out and built a new house next door without tearing down the old building.










We drove around Dipkarpaz and walked around the ruins of the Ayios Basilica built in the 4th century, A.D. It was pretty well preserved for being around for about 1,700+ years.

end of part 1.

days 30-31: ulm

The Euro Cup is making me post more. There are about 25 more soccer games left. They're not boring, but it's a lot of soccer to watch. Germany won last night, and there were riots in the streets. Around 11pm, the game ended and Germany won against Poland 2-0. Cars started making laps outside the apartment and other people with flags wouldn't let cars pass until they honked their horn and showed their love for Deutschland. I thought the cars were going from somewhere to somewhere else, but the
longer you watch, then you could see they were the same people making loops around the city.


I have fallen in love while in Germany.

Not in love with soccer (or Fußball) but with Brunch. Not the mid morning after-breakfast-time-but-before-lunch brunch, but Brunch the spreadable deliciousness I love. It's getting to be a problem. I will eat bread because I love the taste of brunch, not so much the bread. I need to remember to look into ways to bringing this back to the US. Maybe dry ice?
Brunch is cream and cold, like a delicious cream cheese. So far, I've only tried 2 of the 3 flavors, although the "Plain" one doesn't look too good, but I hear it's good under strawberry jam. I would dedicate a whole blog entry to my favorite flavor, but right now it's a draw between the Paprika Peperoni and Feine Kräuter. The Paprika is spicy and tangy but the Feine Kräuter is herby and the first one I tried, and the original source of my Brunch Love.

days 28-30

um...I'm not sure how many days I've been here so far, so that's why I posted earlier today as day 21 but this post was posted on the same day but titled "day 30"...that is going to look weird but whatev. Maybe it would be easier to measure things in weeks, but there's already this counting by days thing going...all the way from last year. It definitely is day 30, I just checked. Here.

The EuroCup is what's in here in Germany. Germany is actually playing right now (and that's why I'm blogging right now). It's Germany vs. Poland. I bet Germany would win 2-1. But now that I've seen them play I think it's going to 2-0.

Also, it's a slow night for news and a pretty laid-back weekend and one of the few posts without pictures, Charlie the Unicorn came out with a sequel!
Here's the original:

and now here's the sequel.

I can't decide which one is better. The more you watch it the funnier it is.

days 21-28: ulm

(alt. title: How to get screwed by the German Government)
I've been having lots of problems with getting my German visa situation worked out. I applied for my visa in January from the Atlanta German Consulate and finally got a response at the end of March.

In case you're Googling how to get a work permit in Germany, here's the step by step things you can do to make the whole process much easier:
- Apply early: it can (and probably will) take up to 3 months to hear anything back.
- Since you have to apply in person, make sure you have everything with you when you get there and make copies of everything! Things you need when you go to the consulate:

• An application form (available at the website)
• Two passport photos. I had to go to 6 different passport photo places to get one that would be accepted by the German government. Wolf Camera was the only place that took pictures that fit the specifications. Even those taken by the US Passport office at the Knoxville courthouse were wrong. See the details of the exact requirements.
• A valid copy of your passport
• A bank statement or a statement of how you plan to pay for your stay in Germany. I didn't have one of these so a contract from my employer worked here as well.
• A statement from my health insurance that I will be covered while working in Germany.
• $68 in CASH, $50 for the fee of processing your application and $18 for shipping
• A copy of my background check signed by the Chattanooga Police Department.

Then wait about 3 months and you'll get your visa. But what we weren't told was that this was just an entry visa. I still needed to register with the foreign office in Ulm then pay an additional 50 Euros (~$80USD) to get the visa extension.

But it's all worth it :) And now I can stay until my internship is finished. Hopefully. Otherwise there will be another frustrated blog entry in August.

days 8-21: Ulm

Well, guess what?!?! I can stay in Germany for the duration of my internship!!!! I will write a post later on how to get a German work/residency visa, but it's late and I have to work early tomorrow.

Last week was the Eurovision Song Contest. We had a little bet going between Flo, Stefan and me. Every country gives out scores after all the contestants sing a song, so we did that too at the apartment. The winner didn't have to do the dishes. I lost. For dinner we ate Raclette in front of the contest. The dinner was so good, but lots of dishes to clean later :( The next day we went to Charlottehöle, a cave about half an hour away from Ulm. I should have taken more pictures to show, but all I have is Flo and Stefan in the beer garden after and there's no shortage on this blog.

This week was filled with the usual working in the morning and coming back home in the late afternoon. Tuesday was such a beautiful day (schön tag!) I took off from work a few hours early and went for a walk and read in the park with Flo.

This weekend's trip was to Stuttgart to see the Indiana Jones movie!!!! Flo and I took a train from Ulm to Stuttgart, about an hour to the closest English movie theatre around. The Corso Kino is this small theatre a short train ride outside the city playing movies in their native language (mostly English!) I found out that's where all the Americans in Germany hang out on Saturday nights. Before the movie, Flo and I made a day out of seeing the city of Stuttgart. It all started with a walk in the park but ended up taking most of the day. I liked it because we walked a good part of the city, saw the royal gardens and walked around the outside of the Wilhma zoo. You don't even have to buy a ticket inside to see the polar bear exhibit! Woohoo! Free sights of polar bears! You can even see some donkeys and ponies too, but the polar bears are so much more exciting. They were supposed to have a baby polar bear, but maybe you have to pay to see that. Come to think of it, you can do most things in Stuttgart for free. We didn't pay to go to the Stauffenberg Exhibition. You can see everything from the entrance and the guy taking the money gave us a German and English pamphlet so we took them and read about the museum exhibit in the park. Even the castle was free. You can go up to it and look through the windows and see inside without going inside (see the picture below). We're kind of cheap. . ...

days 1-8: Ulm

Woohoo!!!! First post of the Adventure Blog, part 2!!! I should have updated sooner, but in a nutshell, here's what's been going on:

The Airport:
I flew Chattanooga to Chicago, not so bad, but had a 13 hour layover in Chicago. I had my whole day planned out: make some phone calls, watch some movies and tv shows, surf the internet blogging, get a chocolate milkshake (around hour 6 or 7), but then my power cord to my computer didn't work so I made an impromptu trip to Chicago. I've never been to Chicago, but the people at the airport told me to take the Blue line all the way to the Washington stop to the middle of the city. From there I wandered for a few hours looking for a Staples/Office Max/Best Buy sort of store but I couldn't find my power cord anywhere :( The rest of the airport was pretty uneventful after that. From Chicago, I had a flight to Frankfurt where I met Flo and Stefan at the airport!!!!




Germany:
First few days were not too interesting to blog about...drove to Ulm, got caught up on some sleep, the usual trans-Atlantic transition stuff. The weather was so nice here Flo and I went to a few beer gardens and read in the park.





Work:
I have an internship with Nokia in Ulm. The building I'm in is pretty cool. It's the Energon: the world's biggest passive house office building, which means it's very energy-efficient. I can't find an English site for it, but the pictures are pretty good.
The people are really nice and last week we got happy hour cocktails:








Some other random stuff:

We went to Ikea Friday to get some boxes. The boxes are a lot better for my clothes than piles on the floor. they look a lot better now and the labels Stefan and I made are sehr gut for my german. last night was taco night...and I finally took a picture of this clock at the Rathaus (town hall)! Every time I walk by there's a group of tourists taking a picture of this clock. I just found out that it's been ticking for over 490 years. This clock tells the time, zodiac signs, and some other things. Also, market time is back!!!!!! The last one is a picture of the Munster with some German flags.