Its as if I met Ken Barlow...
So, I went to Frankfurt last night and went on top of the Main Tower which is one of the tallest buildings in Frankfurt and everyone goes up there to look at the entire city. At any rate, I was on the elevator and some guy was standing next to me talking on his high tech cell phone, in German. So, Christof tells me in English that this is the weather guy and so on... So, the weather guy finishes his phone call and asks me 'So, where are you from?' I tell him I'm from the US, from MN and he nods and smiles in recognition of the information. So, I ask him 'Oh, so do you know where MN is?' And, he gives a nervous-embarassed laugh and says, 'Well...not exactly.' So, I inform him and he tells me about how its unseasonably warm in that part of the US and Canada right now. I have no idea if that's true, since I'm here now. Then, a little later on top of the tower, a crowd of people including myself watched this guy give the weather forcast for the nightly news.

The pathetic part of this whole story is that my sister's first weekend in Ireland was more eventful than my entire stay in Germany so far. Figures. She ends up on a movie set and watches the filming...and I meet the local weather guy. Whatever.

We are the champions, my friends.
We may have lost the battle of the chocolate yogurt, but we have surely won the battles of cherry jam and apple pie. Last night, we were able to devour a good amount of apple pie, which only shows are dedication to all things sweet and tasty. The sweet war will continue, and I will assure you that only the strong will survive!

I had my first international law class last week and I kid you not, the only thing I genuinely understood was the sentance 'So, does everyone understand?' Huh. Well, the only thing I can say at this point is that I can only improve. Things cannot possibly get worse. I am bound to learn some new vocabulary. And, the french girl who sits next to me is also just as confused and lost as I am in this german language. Our professor seriously talks as fast (if not faster...I would put money down on faster...) as that guy who did the Micro Machines commercials when we were younger. (I do believe he also starred in an episode of Saved By The Bell!)

Tomorrow night, I shall be going out to dinner and a movie with my host parents. I think we can all equally hope that sometime later in the year the words 'host parents' will be replaced by 'really hot boyfriend' or something like that. But, as it stands, anything in german with german people improves my german. So, I can't complain (despite it sounding rediculously pathetic).

The sweet war...
Case 3243482, Elaine and Amy vs. Dietrich the host dad. A complaint has been filed by Elaine and Amy to Cornelia the host mom that Dietrich eats all of the good food and snacks before they get home from school.

Summary of the complaint:

Afidavit of Amy

'So, we opened a brand new jar of homemade jam on Tuesday and by Thursday morning, the entire jar was finished. It's absolutely insane. I know I'm not even capable of consuming that much jam. And, Elaine isn't either. I know she's at school because we have some of the same classes. It can't possibly be Cornelia because she's teaching all day, so it has to be Dietrich. He's retired and works from home. He's gotta be it. How else is it possible to finish an entire tub of chocolate yogurt in one day when next to nobody is home?'

Ruling:

Cornelia has begun buying separate rations of yogurt for Amy and Elaine and a separate stash for Dietrich. Also, it has been taken into consideration that there needs to be more sweets in the house to meet the demand of about four people (not just three).

I’m type A and cultured. I have been in this country for 11 weeks and I am far more organized here than I’ve ever been. I think it’s the air, or the bread…perhaps it’s the mineral water. I never really drank mineral water on a regular basis until I got here. I went to the opera last Friday night. (Who thought I’d ever say that last sentence?) I actually enjoyed it, despite my lack of knowledge of what the story was about. I saw Mefistofele, an Italian opera (with German subtitles for all of us who do not speak Italian. Unfortunately, there were no English subtitles for us who’s German is crap!) at the Frankfurt Opera. I was able to understand the subtitles; I knew what all of the words meant, and was able to understand it sentence by sentence. The problem was the big picture was totally lost on me. So, I’m going to search for a synopsis of the story now to try and understand what I saw. Thank goodness I had some idea of the Faust story. I was telling Cornelia (the Frau of the houseJ) about how I was going to see this show and it was Italian and involved Faust. She then tried to convince me that I must be terribly mistaken because it was just not possible. So, when I was watching the show, I figured out I was not mistaken and Faust was clear and present. At the opera, I met a UST alum, (which is the reason this all went down in the first place, since he invited me there) and got a little tour of all of the backstage ‘going-ons.’ Now, when I saw Les Miserables in London, I thought I had witnessed the largest rotating stage there was to be seen. However, I was informed by the horse’s mouth that the stage for the Frankfurt Opera (the very stage I walked on) is the largest rotating stage there is to be seen. The sweater. So, Cornelia as lovely as she is, gave me some of her daughters sweaters, as her daughter is studying somewhere in the former USSR now and doesn’t need or want them anymore. As I could only fit so many things in my suitcase and would rather not spends tons of money buying sweaters I’ll throw out before I come home, blindly accepted them. However…there is…this one…interesting…uh…really interesting sweater she gave me. I’m not even sure what to say about it. I mean, there was a clear and definite reason as to why the daughter left this sweater behind. That’s for sure. The sweater is no particular color. I think the knitter was one of those people who like to please everyone because this sweater has every color in it. So, the up side to this interesting sweater is that it will match with everything? I guess. What I can’t figure out is how this sweater got out of a store. In my four years at a university, learning about business among other things, I have racked my brain trying to figure out how it happened. Who was the decision maker? Was it the advertising? Was it an impulse buy? Was it an amazing coincidence of the P’s of marketing that moved someone to bring this particular piece of clothing home? Perhaps, I should go back to school and figure this one out.

All that and a bottle of beer.
So, sorry I haven't written in a little while. I am finally moved in and everything in Mainz. My stuff got here ok, so that is a testament to how much my German has improved since August. But, let's face it, I've got a long way to go.

Well, on Friday, I got all registered for a few classes here and I had my first one today. It was rather funny because I usually get really excited for a new class because it's a new topic and filled with new people...but, today just felt like any other day. Strange. Nonetheless, it seems like an interesting class. Its half foreign students and half german students, so it is guarenteed to be interesting, even if the lecture isn't.

On Saturday, I think I did orientation. I'm still not quite sure. I guess I'll explain the activities and you can judge for yourselves. So, I arrive at school around 3:30 in the afternoon and all of the new and international students stand around getting to know each other and drink sekt until about 5pm. At this time, the 'student council' start administering the official drunken games such as riding around the halls on little kid tricycle things and musical chairs- which also involves drinking when you lose your seat. Then, we go and have dinner at the Mensa and then get on a boat for a ride down the Rhein, which also includes a drink ticket. Whatever it was, wasn't bad. Free drinks tend to be a good thing in my book, but maybe that's just me.

So, one of the orientation student coordinators tried to get me and Elaine to kiss each other so he could have a picture of it. (He was collecting photos of first year students kissing each other...) When we refused, we asked him to kiss some other guy. He said no...and then tried to get us to kiss this other random guy. But, the other random guy said he wouldn't kiss me or Elaine because he had a girlfriend. Then for some reason the student coordinator reconsidered and he kissed that other random guy. I still don't know what happened...but, maybe it had something to do with the free beer at dinner.