Beautiful German Weather.

For about a week, it has been cold and rainy here. Hopefully it'll make the transition to snow pretty soon. Right now it's 6 Celsius, so it might not get there for a while. Generally I think winters are a lot milder here, as they don't stay below freezing as long as we do in Wisconsin/Minnesota. I've started going to a class in the mornings that is for people that want to become nurses. I'm just there to listen along, so I really don't have to do anything. Usually the family is out of the house until 2 in the afternoon or so, so this gives me some German practice during that time. Plus, it's something I know a little bit about, so it's not so difficult to figure out the vocabulary. I was going to Heidelberg this week on Thursday, but that's been bumped to next Thursday. Right now Florian the youngest is sick, so we're hoping it doesn't spreed to everyone in the house. I'm not too worried due to my ironclad immune system. The renovation to part of the house here is coming along too. Last week we had a little dinner in the renovation zone to christen the new fireplace. It was really just supposed to be a lesson on how to use the thing from the installer, but we ate over there in the empty house and talked for about an hour. Nothing else really happening to me, so I'll let you all get back to what you were doing. See you soon.

Back again

Hello everyone. I've been back with my host family in Bad Hersfeld since last Sunday. I had a great time in Horb, and my German improved a lot there. I only went on one other excursion trip with the group while I was there. We went to Karlsruhe, a university and soccer city on the northern edge of the black forest. They have a cool palace with a really neat garden there, but the city is just a regular city, nothing too special about it. I did get to meet up with 2 of the girls that I met in Munich during Oktoberfest though since they go to school there, so that was cool. I also went on a trip with my host family down there to an indoor swim park, and on the way we made a stop at the top of some mountain in the black forest. It was a nice view. From there one could see the Alps and also France. Not much else is happening around here. My host mother's birthday is Thursday (Thanksgiving - sorry I won't be there) and there will be a party with about 20 people in the house, so Florian the youngest brother and I have been commissioned to be waiters. It should be a nice time. I'm planning on heading to visit Felix in Heidelberg on Thurs 29th Nov for 3 days. I want to check out the city since I plan on taking another intensive course there, if I plan on staying longer. I also picked this date to visit because the Christmas markets begin that Wednesday. And almost every semester in German class, we heard something about how great these markets are. So, I have to see for myself. Other than that, not much else. I'm coming home the 18th Dec, so I'll see you all then.

Guten Tag

Everything is still going great in Germany. My class is great, and I'm getting to know the other students really well. Besides me, the class is composed of 3 Mexicans, 3 Swiss (French speaking Swiss if you were wondering the same thing that I was when I heard this,) and 3 Chinese. So I'm the only native English speaker, but conveniently they all speak some English. On weekends the school offers free excursions to locations in the area. This last weekend we visited the Bodensee, a large lake in southern Germany that also borders Austria and Switzerland. There is an Island in the lake that has a little palace on it, and there is a botanical garden that surrounds it. Only a few dying roses and surprisingly lovely dahlias remained for our cold hike around the island. But, there was a green house filled with butterflies, plants, and birds that was really cool. Next weekend we're going to an old university town in the area called Karlsruhe. It should be fun also. That's all for now. Bis spaeter!

by Stuttgart...

On Monday a place was found for me in an intensive language school in a little town called Horb am Neckar which is close to Stuttgart in southwest Germany. I'm staying with a very nice host family here, and I attend classes about 5 hours a day. Today was my first day, and it went pretty well. I feel I'm at the right level, and can see that this will be beneficial. I plan on only being here for four weeks, and I hope to be flying back in time for Christmas. On another note, here are a few pics from Oktoberfest again. The first one is proof that I didn't just google Oktoberfest and post some random pics. Thats me right there with Franziska, my host brother's girlfriend, and my other friend Steiny.

The second pic features the typical german behavior of text messaging. These were the guys that were nice enough to get to the tent early to reserve a table for the group. More interesting is the Oompa/folk/cover band in the back. They played a crazy mixture of music. I also like the cool wreaths, lights, and streamers hanging from the ceiling.

That's pretty much it for interesting Oktoberfest pictures. Wish I had my own camera, but I still got a lot of nice pictures. Guess I'll just have to go back again with a camera if I want more, oh fiddle sticks.

Back again...

Sorry for the pause after Oktoberfest, I've been waiting for some pictures to post and I don't have a camera, so I just have to get pictures from other people. I had a really nice time at Oktoberfest, and it was much bigger than I ever expected. The whole Oktoberfest field is largely empty for most of the year, but they begin preparing for Oktoberfest about 2 months in advance. There are huge tents for each the 6 main Munich breweries which sell the food and beer. I believe there are also tents for Champagne and wine too. The tents are also surrounded by hundreds of other food vendors, carnival games, and park rides. We went on a roller coaster while we were there, and then headed into the Spaten tent. It's one of the brands that is most commonly seen exported to the States. I think we spent about 7 hours in the tent, where I had a couple Maß of beer and shared a pretzel. Here is where most of the pictures are from.

This first picture is of the Statue Bavaria, the goddess of the area I guess. She's actually very massive. This was our meeting point for the day.


I believe the entire La Crosse Oktoberfest could easily fit in one of these tents. After that we walked around the grounds at night to see it all lit up. It was very cool looking, but I'm sorry I don't have any pictures. This is also when I ate a half meter bratwurst. We headed back to the apartments at about 10:30, so it wasn't a totally crazy night. Even though the train workers were on strike the next day, my 2 trains were unaffected, so I made it home safe.



This second picture is of the friend of my host brother's girlfriend. She was the one who lived in Munich and was the only one sporting a Dirndl, plus the classic "stein" action makes for a great picture.

The final picture to the right kind of gives the scope of the tent, this is about 30% of the tent that we could get into the shot with a bunch of drinking people and the food windows in the back. I'll add more pictures later but this post is getting a little crowded. Plus, it's my host brother's birthday today, so we'll be eating cake soon. Hope everyone is fine over there, and I'll talk to you all soon.

Oktoberfest!

Hey guys! I just found out last night that my host brother's girlfriend will be making a trip to Munich to celebrate her friend's birthday, so I quickly made plans this morning to take the train with her there, and I'll be staying in Jenny's host sister's apartment since she goes to school there and it'll be unoccupied until she moves to her new apartment in a few weeks for the start of the new school year. So I'll be at Oktoberfest from Wednesday until Friday. I'm glad to be going with her because I don't think going there by myself would be any fun. Not much else has been going on. The eldest brother Felix (my host brother) is in Saudi Arabia doing an internship at a law office there. The middle brother Andreas is starting his first year at college in Darmstadt, and the youngest Florian has already started his 8th grade year. I hope to have a great time at Oktoberfest, but don't plan on doing much drinking there. A liter of beer will cost about $11, so I'm planning on having only one so I can say I did, but you can buy half liters at the supermarket for $.90 so saving the party for home is much more economical. I hope many of you came down to La Crosse's Oktoberfest. And if Jill came home for it, I hope Jenny went out with you to carry on our tradition. Many greetings from over here, and hope to see you all soon.

A week later.

So I've been here a week already and I can see some improvement in my language skills, but they are all little steps and I seem to expect an instant jump to fluency. I went to a local night school German class last night. All the students are from other countries, but they are taking these classes to get into German schools, or for jobs. They all seem to have been here for a long time since they all sounded fluent to me. My 6 days didn't quite prepare me for the class. I was just kind of thrown into the homework they had done, so I was perpetually anxious whenever they came to me for a response. I'm probably going again tonight, but it will be the same probably. Hopefully it'll be the last time. I'll need to get to a bigger city for a class more my level I think. Hope you guys are all well across the pond. Catch you later.

Jason

I'm Here!

My trip to Germany started at 3:10 on a flight from La Crosse to Chicago and then after a few hour layover I flew from Chicago to Frankfurt. It was about a 9 hour flight from 7:10 to 4:00 AM. Germany is 7 hours ahead so that means I arrived at 11:00. I didn't get much sleep on the plane, but I found all my luggage fine, and I found the train station in the airport too. I got a cool discount card for train tickets for a year now, and I hope I can get some use out of it. The train ride from Frankfurt to Bad Hersfeld (where my host family lives) was a little hectic. I only had 4 minutes to catch a connecting train and I had to hurry all my luggage up and down some stairs to get to another platform, but I made it. When I got to Bad Hersfeld, I had forgotten to bring along my host family's phone number, and I hadn't exchanged any money for a cab, so I just walked from the train station to their house. It was like a mile, and I was lugging around 130 lbs. of luggage. Not much has happened since then. I've been trying to speak as much German as I can, but I'm still a little self conscious. They had a little party for me yesterday for my birthday which was nice. Not much happening today, but I'll keep you guys posted.

Back again.

Sorry for the year off. I know all of my faithful readers have been hungering for a new post over these last few months. Anyway, I've just returned from my friend Ryan's wedding where I was best man. It was my first look into the inner working of the wedding world, and I quite impressed with all the stuff that goes into it. I also had a great time in Milwaukee during the few days leading up to the big day. As part of the multi-stage bachelor party. We saw the Brewers beat the Royals on Friday 11-5. On Saturday we went clay pigeon shooting (I was 3-6,) and finally on Sunday we ended up playing a few rounds of golf at a free 3 hole course. He's moving back up to Alaska after the honeymoon, so I hope to make a visit up there this summer as I currently have no job tying me down. (If any of you do have one for me, let me know.) I'm also currently in a drug study that I will resume July 3rd for 3 days. It's a diabetes drug already on the market but they want to make it available in 2 forms, tablet and capsule so they're seeing how our bodies metabolize both forms. Pretty easy money, and it's easier to schedule around a wedding and a Vegas trip than a real summer job. I'm also looking very much forward to the Vegas trip with all of you guys. But get to booking your flights, I don't want to be stuck with only Jenny there. I've had enough of her for a while. See you all in a few months, and it's good to be back on here.