day 28

day 28

ok today so far i have gotten groceries for my trip again. i researched the price of rice i can get 4 125g instant rice packs for 1.50 euro so i'm gonna try to make stirfry ssomtime in the next month. i'm not sure howmuch rice that is but i think i should last me a while. the america group left some dirty dishes in the kitchen so i'm gonna clean that today aswell (our broom is missing grrrr.) i think i have every thing lined up for the trip to munich i just need to get on the train on time transfer properly and find the hostel before 3:00 then i have a choice of trains home but i'll explain that latter.

i'm gonna go for a bike ride today up to hessental and see if i ccan find the train station there if i can i will be able to save 2 euro on most of my excursions next month.

ok now for a detailed description of my trip to munich

on monday i will wake up at 6:00 AM and make a large amount of spagehitti for breakfast. then at 7:30 i will ride my bike to the train station and wait for my train to come. it should arrive at 7:49 then i will take the train to schwabish hall hessintal and transfer to another train going to ansbach then transfer to a train going to Treuchtlingen then tranfer to a train going to munich i should arrive at 11:33 then i will have to figure out which way to go to get to the hostel basicaly i plan to ride next to the S-bahn tracks as best i can until i get to the street mensioned in the directions then i will ride the rest of the way to the hostel and lock my bike to somthing and check in. then i will explore the city center and th english garten. and maybe ride around the city if i have time. then go to sleep (i might meet some intresting people in my room i'm sleeping in a room with up to 14 othere strangers luckily the hostel has a luggage locker so my stuff should be safe.)

the next day i will wake up early and eat alot of breakfast (theres a free buffet) then i will either ride my bike to neuschwanstien of take a train (depending on distance) i will tour both neuschwanstien and hohengau then come back to the hostel and maybe ride around the city. then go to sleep.

the third day i will wake up and eat a huge breakfast. then go to dochau and tour that then ride back and go to the german museum. then i should get back on the train by 2:30 pm to come back here that will only cost 36.30 euro or if i want to stay longer i can wait up until 5:39 thats the absolute lastest that i can get back to schwabisch hall on the same day (other wise i'll have to spend the night at a train station) however the latter ticket will cost 55 euro so i'll try my best fo be there at 2:30. (thats why i havn't bought my ticket home yet i'm not sure how much time i will need for the museum or for dochoe)

and thats how my trip will go.

i did some research into the courses at vienna today. it seems that i will have to take a placement test. again. and they will put me in a level and then put me into several classes ounce this is complete i will take the following classes at the following times

music in vienna mondays 16:00 - 18:30
liturature tuesdays 17:45 - 20:15
vienna seminar wensdays 10:00 - 12:00 oct 3,17,31 nov 14,28, dec 12, jan 9,16
german gramer and idomatics wensdays 16:30 - 19:00
austria course thursdays 17:45 - 20:15

i'm not sure how the placment test fits into all of this but i'll ask ruth

i think this placment test is also a way of measuring what level we would be at at central to ensure we studied at goethe. but they don't realy mension that at all any place.

i have noticed a huge jump in my spagehitti intake over the last few days although the meals at goethe wern't much they certainly were filling i can tell my budget for food in vienna will have to double at least.

i have worked out a rough regrestion of my spending for the next 5 months and i should be between 2200 and 3000 euro ($2970-$4050). so far i have withdrawn a total of 446.93 euro ($603.36) (i still have 190 some euro ($256) in my room which is included in this number. 446.93 euro is just the amount that i have taken out of the bank or creditcard) i expect that number to be cut into a forth next month. however the the first month in vienna should be about equivalent. and the numbers should decrese till the italy tour then they should shoot back up. and i shouldn't have to spend much more during the month of january.

it is incredably hard to balance my laptop on my lap so that the fan isn't blocked. you think they would put a blower fan in it to suck air in one side and blow it out the other but instead they have it suck in the back and blow out the bottom. the design is flawed.

since i havn't said anything about germany for a while i will type for a while about the way stuff works here (because i have nothing better to do)
the electrical out lets here are inset into the wall so to plug somthing in you need to have a plug then goes into the outlet and has two prongs on it to go into the holes. this is done for two reasons 1. if you inset the outlet into the wall it becomes harder for forgeign objects and fluids to get into the electrical parts of the outlet. 2. as some of you may remember jon ounce got a paper clip to go imbetween an extenstion cord and a plug and made the two prongs ark. with this plug there is no way for that to happen.

the doors here (atleeast interior doors) are shaped so that when you close the door there is a lip going slightly over the door frame instead of the door going entirly into the door frame like in america this may improve heating and cooling cost however that lip subtracts from the amount of door around the latch so i think it could be more easily kicked open.

the door locks here have key holes on both sides i think this is pretty cool it does two things 1. if sombody breaks into your house through your window they have to take every thing with them back out that window because they can't just unlock the door from the inside. second it assured you that you can't lock yourself out of your house. however the keys turn the wrong way if you want to get into the room you have to turn the key out away from the door frame and to lock the room you have to turn into the door frame.

the toilets here mosly have two ways of flushing (i'll let you figure out why) the first way uses less water and the second way uses more water they do this because water conservation is realy big over here. also the water dosn't spin in these toilets its like it gets sucked out really fast but no vortex.

the light switches almost all function like the one i installed in my room (a rocker switch) but it is half the size. also it you want to turn the lights on you puch the buttom down and if you want them off you push the buttom up. this is backwards from what we have in the usa.

traffic here seems to always drive on the right and the steering collum is on the left side just like in america.
however the cars them selves seem to have different lines than the american made cars.in america our cars mostly have smooth long curves. here the cars all seem to have short radious curves (i'm not sure but thats how i view it)

i have noticed all stoves here (atleast in private residence) have been electric this is probably because they don't want to be dependant on gas and also the towns here are so dense and old and the streets are so curvy and rough that if a fire were to break out buy the time the fire truck got here not only would the house be gone but the house five houses down would be gone to.

none of the rooms have vents but they all have windows and radiators i think this is because the houses were built well before central air was even though of. and it it easier to heat water and disperse it to the whole town than it is to put furnaces in ever building.

the windows here are brilliant. they all have a latch like a door handle if you turn it down and oull the window opens like the doors on back of the suburban or the side doors i guess to, but if you turn the latch up and pull the window upons like the back hatch on a pickup truck, and other windows work slightly differently but the same concept by moving the pins in hinges in and out you can control how the window opens. also they are double pain windows but the put an hinge on the inside of the window so you can open up the inside of the window for cleaning.

i hanv't seen this for real yet but there is a company that makes stoves and on this model of stove when you open the door you can slide it under the stove so you don't have to lean over the door to take say a pizza out of the oven.

on almost every roof they have snow fences that look like a tinny lader for a toy or somthing going allong the edge of the roof

all the roofs here are tile roofs however when a tile breaks they don't seem to care what color tile they put back up so you have some houses with black tile roofs with random pink tiles strewn through out and vise versa.

if you buy a pack of cigarettes her instead of having the label on the side that says "caution smoking may possibly be linked to lung cancer and might affect pregnancyes and may promote premature death" in tiny print. half of the front of the box says "SMOKING CAN MAKE YOU DEAD" its funn to read some of the labels while waiting at the super markt yet almost every one in germany still smokes. the first time i saw an advertisement for cigarets at the trainstation i thought it was anti-smoking propoganda but then i saw the packs at the supermarket and relized it was an advertiment and the second largest words on the poster were "smoking can make you dead" (in german of course).

also the media is a lot more lax about sexuality here it is common to see billboards with pictures of fruit with condoms on them and to see mostly naked women advertising strip clubs on the front page of newspapers.

the euro is a tricky currency to get down. in america anything bigger than a dollar is paper and green (with some exceptions i.e. the dollar coins, which don't count because nobody uses them) and change is every thing smaller than a dollar. however here in europe the euro comes in the following ways

1 cent coin
2 cent coin
5 cent coin
10 cent coin
20 cent coin
50 cent coin
1 euro coin
1 euro paper (hard to find)
2 euro coin
5 euro paper
10 euro paper
20 euro paper
50 euro paper
maybe bigger i don't know

but coins, which as an american i think are mostly worthless, have almost as much power as the paper money. infact at the super markt the money drawers are diferent they have one spot for 10 euro notes one spot for 5 euro notes and the rest is all coins. europeans must jingle alot more than americans.

comforters (like bedding) instead of being sown together like in america they have the basically what would be a comforter in america but it has a smooth faberic on the outside and a gigantic pillow case. the pillow case goes around the comforter so when you wash it you only wash the pillow case and you don't have to worry about messing up the stuffung.

i'm not sure whats going on but a guy with a buzz cut just moved into room 5 and a girl with a buzz cut seems to have just moved into room 7 it seems like they are dating but i thought yesterday that the arab guys were moving into room 7 i'm confused it should all become clear after i get back from my break and the othere americans have befriended them. yeah they are definatly dating.

well i think thats all for today i'm planning on making super now and thn maybe going to the store to get a sponge (our dish rag is discusting)
maybe a bike ride and definatly sleep. fom what i've heard the american group will be done with amsterdam on sunday and may or maynot come back here i'm assumming that we will get back at around the same time. but i'm not sure.