I think I need to invest in an umbrella.

So there's been a little more of a gap between posts than I would like, but I'll get better. If you haven't seen yet, I got the pictures up from around the city, it was nice to walk around again by myself. I thought I would get lost but surprisingly I made it back without even trying; must have gotten my dad's navigation skills. So since my last update there hasn't been any big events to speak of. Oktoberfest was this passed weekend but I didn't go because it's very expensive. It would cost 50-75€ for the train ticket (one way) and beer there is 7-9€. From what I heard it isn't too special, mostly a tourist attraction. I talked to a friend in my class who went and said she was pick-pocketed and lost 50€ and had her purse stolen on the train while she was sleeping! (München is a dangerous city, like NYC or Philly, you don't sleep on the subways) However she did see a guy with her purse (she knew it was hers because of the big Canadian flag on it) and ran off the train, grabbed her bag, then ran back on. Not saying that any of that would have happened to me, but even though it would have been a nice experience to go to Oktoberfest, I don't think it would have been worth the money.

I did get to celebrate another Chinese holiday. The Chinese celebrate "Mid-Autumn Festival" and "Moon Festival." All we did was go to a new Chinese buffet that opened up down town (a very nice restaurant with over 300 seats), but there were many Chinese from the university and city celebrating the festival as well. And of course the restaurant had the traditional food for the holiday, Moon Cakes!

I also went with Ali to see the new "Resident Evil" movie in 3D. I'm not a big fan of the Resident Evil series but the film was in German, so the dialogue didn't really matter, which was probably for the best, I think it was better that way. It was very interesting to see a film in a different language, surprisingly I was able to follow the plot very well (not that it was very complicated, if you know anything about this series) and I was even able to understand some conversation based on body language and the little German that I know.

Other than that not too much has happened, I've just been spending time with my group of friends and enjoying the German culture. Oh, and of course the weather! It's been so rainy here, it rains almost every day here and its not just a rain for an hour or two, its a steady rain all day long. I've heard mixed stories about the snow here so I'm not expecting one or the either but I'm hoping this rain turns into snow soon! I want to go skiing!! Sorry my stories aren't that exciting yet, once I get my money from my school I'll have some better stories and pictures to fill you guys in on ;) Okay I'm off to get an umbrella (ella, ella, ella, ay ay -- its a song, ask one of the younger folk to fill you in :-p)

Thanks for reading, tschüss!!

Week 2, no more complaining about my lack of posts! ;)

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. This past week has been great, I got to walk around the city which everyone says is tiny compared to most in Germany, but compared to Lewisburg its huge! Unfortunately the day we spent wandering around I forgot my camera, so next time I go I'll be sure to take pictures. Paderborn has a beautiful park in the center, comparable to Central Park in NYC, but not quite as large. Paderborn has a nice little river running through it called the Pader. It's the smallest in Germany but it makes the town very nice. The buildings here are amazing, it's so strange to think that most of them are older than our country itself. Before I left I must have underestimated the amount of globalization that has occurred between the countries in the world. As I walked through the city I smelled something very familiar, as soon as I smelt it I thought, "Oh, that smells like Subway." and sure enough as I looked up, there was a large sign for Subway. We have Subway, McDonalds, Burger King, etc. Germany is not so different from the US when it comes to food. This past week was my first week of classes and I've learned a lot. We covered more this week then I did my whole year of German 1 in high school; it's also nice to learn the language from someone who speaks it. In fact, my professor doesn't know that much English. She can communicate fine there are just a few words she doesn't know but it's good because we speak mostly German in the class, and by we I mean she does and we make failed attempts to :-p I'm still not able to hold conversations in German but hopefully that won't be for much longer. I also got a chance to go with a friend, Stefan, to his home in Bühren, a small town about 20 minutes form Paderborn. His family has a horse ranch there for Equestrian riders; it's a small ranch but their growing and even have a professional rider that practices there. Again, I unfortunately didn't take my camera with me. I'm continuing to meet people from all around the world, it's been a great experience already. In my class there is a lady from the UK that teaches English Economics at the university and wants to learn German so she can communicate better with her students. Another man in my class named Abu, is an Indian gentleman who just submitted his thesis for his doctorate in quantum physics (no, I'm not kidding). As far as the culture goes, Germany is very Americanized, the music that plays here is identical to the radio stations in the US and Germans LOVE American films. The people I've met can quote them better than I can. From the people I've been hanging out with it's not strange to see a move 5 or 6 times. In fact one of my friends says that's not a lot, a lot is 20+ times! That's all for now, my posts should be about once or twice a week so don't get mad when their not everyday :-p

4 Days in and already too much to write about!

Sorry it took me so long to post, I haven't had much of a chance to sit down at my computer since I got here. So far Germany has been great, I've met a lot of great people from all different nationalities (not just Germans) which has been really eye opening. I've learned a lot in 4 days I can't wait to see how much I know by the time I come home. My plane arrived on Monday morning around 11:00am (5:00am EST) and I arrived in Paderborn at about 6:00pm (12:00pm EST), so it was a long trip. I have 3 roommates, Xinfu (in picture on right), Dou, and Du; they are 3 chinese students around the same age as me. They don't speak much English but they are great guys and living with them will force me to speak the little German I know. Xinfu's birthday was on thursday night and we had a party here for him which gave me a chance to meet a lot of other people and eat a lot of REAL chinese food. A Chinese tradition on someone's birthday is to make noodles (MAKE noodles, mix dough and then cut them into noodles), and make a lot of different kinds of toppings on it; we had spicy sauce, fish, pig legs, and they even make chicken wings. Ali, a Tunisian friend of mine made some food from his home country, no one can pronounce the word because it is in Arabic but it was pretty good! Oh, the reason the Chinese eat noodles on birthdays is because the long noodles represent a long life. Besides that I've had a few meetings with the Eurobiz, which is the group that organizes everything for the exchange students, we do parties, day and weekend trips all around Germany and they also showed us around the campus. Through this program I've met people from as far as China and Korea to as close as the USA and Canada. I've been here 4 days and I can already see I will learn a lot more than I thought I would in the next couple months.


Also, I got a 6 pack of beer for less than 4€ ;-)

Departure

Welcome to my blog! I will be updating this as often as I can to keep everyone who is interested informed about my trip. This will be the easiest way to keep everyone up to date on what I've been doing and where I've been going. I'll post some pictures here as well as on my Facebook page.

Currently, I'm sitting at JFK airport waiting for my plane to arrive. My take-off time is 9:25 tonight and I'll arrive at the Frankfurt airport Tuesday morning around 11:15. From Frankfurt I'll be taking a train to Paderborn where I'll meet Max, my 'buddy' who will have the keys to my room and will show me around. Other than that I don't have too much to say right now, I'll try to update again tomorrow night after I get all settled in.