Study Abroad Germany Austria

3rd shift

2011-08-21T13:34:00.003-12:00

The thing that bothers me most about third shift, far more than anything else, is the pity and "special treatment" that those closest to me feel they have to give me. Am I less of a person because I sleep during the day? Is my life so awful because I'm starting to gain financial independence? My situation is the best it has been in the last 4 years. Which is not to say my life is the best it could be, there are lots of things I regret and situations/opportunities I could have handled better. But, that's in the past and there is nothing I can do about them now. Right now I am doing the best I can with what I have, and people seem to think that I am some how diseased with disappointment.

some men are born great...

2011-07-27T06:54:00.002-12:00

some men are born great others have greatness thrust upon them.
-teddy Roosevelt

teddy Roosevelt of all people should have realized that greatness is not only "innate" and "given" but also achievable through planning, determination and shear force of will.

given how he worked his way through his sickly childhood, and his sense of rugged individuality.

I've been thinking

2011-07-06T15:38:00.001-12:00

When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons! What the hell am I supposed to do with these?! Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!

-Cave Johnson, Founder & CEO of Aperture Science

happiness is a luxury i can no longer afford to persue

2011-06-06T15:15:00.001-12:00

2010-09-27T16:42:00.001-12:00

Someone  is  looking  down  at  you  from  a  satellite
with his finger on the death beam. And somewhere, someone
is watching him. But who’s watching them?!?!!

america the beutiful

2010-08-24T07:49:00.002-12:00

were Americans, we don't stop doing something just because we are wrong we just keep doing the wrong thing till it turns out right!

2009-09-03T07:49:00.000-12:00

The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion.: G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

2009-07-10T00:38:00.001-12:00

God runs electromagnetics by wave theory on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the Devil runs them by quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.: Sir William Bragg (1862 - 1942)

2009-04-26T15:04:00.001-12:00

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.: Leonardo da Vinci

2009-04-26T15:04:00.000-12:00

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.: Leonardo da Vinci

2009-01-14T09:04:00.001-12:00

What do the people of America want more than anything else? To my mind, they want two things: work, with all the moral and spiritual values that go with it; and with work, a reasonable measure of security--security for themselves and for their wives and children. Work and security--these are more than words. They are more than facts. They are the spiritual values, the true goal toward which our efforts of reconstruction should lead. These are the values that this program is intended to gain; these are the values we have failed to achieve by the leadership we now have.

- FDR's Nomination Address 1932

possibly a count down timer

2008-01-31T02:50:00.000-12:00

Graduation Countdowns from 123mycodes.com

italy trip day 2 (dec 27th)

2008-01-03T21:01:00.000-12:00

last night got to brescia alright but the website i used to reserve a room did not reserve it for me. so i had to pay full price to get in luckily the hotel still had vacancy. the check in guy did not speak english or german. some how i still managed to get a room.

after checking in i walked out to a castle and sat on the upper walls for a while. i tried to take pictures but my camera hates the dark. had ritz crackers for dinner took a shower and went to sleep early.

woke up and talked to the check out guy (who spoke english) and had breakfast. ( a roll with jelly and chocolate milk and a pastry of some kind) i walked to the train station and bought a ticket. but the maschine said error ticket not valid go see a ticket office person. so i went to the ticket office and asked if he spoke english he looked at me funny. so i wrote "CREMONA 9:30" on the previous ticket and held it against the window. he nodded and gave me a ticket. (it looked the exact same as the one the machine claimed to have messed up. now i'm on the train to cremona. (9:25)

i'm glad im a genious. i took pictures of my computer screen when i looked up maps for how to get to many of the places i need to get to like the strad museum and the davinci museum. i couldn't print them out and now i have all the information on my camera.

the plan today is the strad museum then florence.
non pablo italiano the one italian phrase i know well. it has come in handy so many times already.

its foggy out today. i think it has somthing to do with mornings and me being on trains.

museum was more modern than i thought it would be. i was expecting a preserved workshop maybe with an exhibit explaining it. but it was just a museum with all the forms and tools he used in desplay cases.

it looked like there was a section that was hands on. but i was not gonna touch any thing your not aloud to touch things in museums thats the rule.

to get to the forms and tools i had to walk through a great deal of paintings and art. which i was not intrested in.

the museum it self was harder to find than i thought. even with a map i had a hard time finding it.

after the museum i walked back to the train station and wanted to buy a ticket to florence. i looked for a ticket machine. there wern't any. so i had to talk to a ticket person. the problem was i was not sure how to say florence in italian. i knew it was not florence and was something like ferenzi but not sure. i looked in the dictionary andrea gave me, not there. looked at a mapp in the dictionary, it was in english. eventually i just walked up to the youngest of the clerks and asked pablo engles? she said alittle. i was releaved. florence please she gave me a ticket. i thanked her and sat in the warm waiting room. the ticket had no platform number on it. so i was not sure were the train would come from. looked at the big board and it said the train to piacenza (my first stop ft at the time i wanted it to) was on platform "1 tronco ovest" i figured out ovest was west so i probably ment the west part of the platform which was labbeled. but tronco? does that mean some other platform 1 or is it just a extra word. when the time came the platform changed to just platform 1. which helped alot.

on the train to florence now. happy with my trip so far there have been no major problems.

italian fast food pizza is not great i think i prefer vienna fast food pizza (1:50 pm)
its foggy out still.

the italian phrase book andrea gave me has been invauluble. i just look up the phrase i need write it down and show it to italians.

ok on the 2nd train now. sitting in the hallway (it was a cabin car set up) because 2 italians decided to stand out in the hallway and not let me through. 3:08 pm its still foggy

bought pringles for a possible dinner. italian trains run smoother mechanically than austrian trains. but austrian trains run smoother in every other way.

its colder than the website said it was gonna be.

a brief over view of italy.
its alot like mexico
the houses are all mostly large properties with outer walls and a house inside.
the lanuage is very similar.
the people are jerks (but so am i so i doesn't bother me)
things aren't maintained there are houses with colapesed roofs, the trains are ugly, seems like a very "abuse it till it breaks then get a new one" kinda culture.
stucko houses every were
although there is grass and trees, its fall so every thing is dead looking kinda like a dessert.
(the lack of snow makes it worse)
even its placement on the contenent is similar.
(this is gonna sound very presumious and maybe rude, but i have noticed that the nothern europeans tend to be hard working (like northern USA) and the southern europe seems to be less work oreintated (lazy)(like the southern USA and mexico) and the very high north europeans don't really mater (like canada) ) i have also noticed that the west sides of cities tend to be the more worse off sides. i think there is somthing about people that makes them go certain directions based on there type. (i know its far more complicated than that i'm just making an observation)

4:00 pm the sun is setting gonna get to florence at 5:30pm luckily the hotel is close to the train station.

got to the hotel after walking around the church plaza twice. the streeet i was looking for was under construction so i could not see the street sign. the manager was quite happy to see me. he explained every thing in english slowly for me and then gave me my old skeleton key. (1 tumbler, that just screams security) luckily the floor is tile and i have wood funtiture so if any of that funitutre were to slide across the floor i would wake up imediatly. so i put a chair infront of the door. (i was thinking of putting the table infront of the door and have the chair percariously balanced on it so it would fall down but it would take me forever to get out of the room then.

saw the dome (a big ugly church) and bough my ticket to the next city

had spagehitti the inside was full so i ate out side. felt wierd (10.90 euro)
its 9:00 i'm going to bed.

italy trip day 1 (dec 26th)

2008-01-02T01:21:00.000-12:00

sorry for the lateness of this post but i have been busy not doing any thing (break)
i wrote all these blogs on my palm pilot but i forgot to install the software that i need to make the palm pilot and my laptop talk to each other. so i have to retype each of them.

ok... woke up this morning at 5:00 AM and got ready to go. had spaghetti for breakfast and went to the train station.
here is the plan for the entire italy trip.
1 Venice
2 directly to brescia (a city close to cremona)
3 sleep
4 cremona (Stradivarius museum)
5 florence
6 sleep
7 vinci (da vinci museum)
8 florence
9 direct to venice
10 venice
11 sleep
12 venice
13 vienna (late evening)

the train is just starting to move. the annousments were in both german and english. the conductors english was so bad i understood the german better. still no snow in vienna, it did not feel like christmas yesterday.
i have been thinking about this trip since the second week in germany. but i only planned this trip yesterday and the day before.
packed extremely light for this trip, no cloths or computer. just what i need to survive.
not sure what to expect in Italy. i've gotten pretty good at being a dumb American. that will probably help me alot. andrea gave me a Italian phrase book / dictionary. i should try studying that.
tried to withdraw money this morning. but since its yesterday in america still, and my card has a daily limit of how much i can take out. and i withdrew money yesterday. it would not give me money.

i have a seven hour train ride with 2 italian teenagers sitting across from me. there is no leg room. the seats are set up so that every other row is facing the opposite direction. so we are all facing each other. which makes things awquard for me. there is little leg room because there is a person there. it is dark yet so i can't watch scenery go by.

several hours latter.......

its to bright out. and the snow on the ground out side is making it brighter (it has snowed every were around vienna just not the city.
saw mountains (both smooth and pointy (smooth = granite pointy = chalk (learned that in history class))) also saw a broken (looks like it might have caught on fire and exploded (or bust open at the seems)) any way there is foam (like garage door insulation foam) coming out of the openings. looks like some kind of automatic fire supresion system.

4 hours to go

in italy now
boarder patrol just glanced at my passport and gave the 2 italians across from me the 3rd degree. i guess no one likes having italians in there country. (austria will not let you buy a train ticket into austria with out a ticket out of austria when italy is concerned)
one of the italians accidentally kicked my foot and said "enschudi.... sorry... scussi" (excusse me... sorry... sorry" i laughed.
2 hours to go

not sure how to get train tickets in italy. i hope there are machines that speak english like in germany. although i guess if there is a ticket office every teller will likely speak english. i just don't wanna deal with people.

in venice (finally)
found a ticket machine got a ticket. sitting on the train now. problem is i'm not sure its the right train.
the platform # was not made clear. this is the only train leaving at the specified time so im sitting on it. if its not the right train i'll get kicked off at the next stop and i can get another train.

when got to Venice. i walked out of the train station and saw the main canal. and the buildings and breathed in and said "ahhh..... venice" (i ment to say that when i got there. i was just so impressed with how pretty the city was that i said it unintentionally) the city s beautiful Saturday (when i come back and stay all day) will be fun. i kinda wish i brought my laptop so i could plan out my trip in venice but my shoulders will be glad i did not.
the loud speaker just said i'm on the right train.

day one seems to be going smoothly. looks like i'll get to brescia before sunset. then i can find my hotel and explore the city some.

day 155 (19 days to go)

2007-12-29T19:57:00.000-12:00

wow ben over a week since i last posted. its been an exciting week so i'm gonna try to cover everything.

last friday evening. the dinner with andrea went fabulously. we had steak with mashed potatoes and carrots and cresants. the steaks were perfect. i covered them in a mixtures of taco seasoning italian herbs and garlic powder. then lemon juiced them and wraped them in aluminum foil with a lemon slice on top. then put them in the oven and baked/broiled them (not sure which( ovens here can heat from top or bottom i had it set for both top and bottom and had the shelf all the way up. so probably both baked and broiled)) mashed potatoes and cooked carrots. i bought the cresants pre made at the store and put them in the micro wave for a short time. every thing was perfect.

saterday. i relaxed and helped andrea get ready for her families visit. (mostly decorating)

sunday i don't think i did much but that was a week ago so i'm not sure what i did. andreas family came.

monday i got a call from andrea, who wanted to make the same thing we had on friday for her family on christmas. she had bought pork (not steak but should still work) but could not find taco seasoning at the store (its hard to find. i found it by chance. its in a tiny half shelf mexican section with taco seasoning, tortillas (expensive 2 euro for 8) and taco sauce) so i brought over some and the italian seasoning mix (which i had made from several different herbs) and garlic powder. then i got looped into taking a city tour with the family via strassen bahn. after going to the office i decided to stay back and practice piano.

christmas day i was gonna stay home and plan my trip the next day. but i got a call in the evening. from andrea, she said her father really wanted me to eat dinner with them and it wasn't right that i spend christmas alone. so i came over and had porrk and mashed potatoes and carrots with them. had some great conversations. then i excussed myself and came home and packed and did all the last minute stuff i had to to do for the italy trip the next day.

i wrote out blogs for each day on my palm pilot during the italy trip. then i came back and found out i can't connect it to my computer to transfer them so i have to type them all out.

day 146 (28 days)

2007-12-20T09:22:00.000-12:00

wow its been a while since i posted.

well since the last post several things have happened.
last saturday i went to the technical museum here in vienna. it was fun. the first floor especially it had lots or physics toys. the second floor was dedicated to industrial stuff. like giant machining machines and how iron casting works and so on. the next floor was deticated to cars. i think i saw the fastes car in the world there. i didn't see and liturature next to it so i can't be sure. the next floor was musical instruments and bicycles and other stuff (the example of a modern bike they had there was a joke.) the top floor was mostly aircrafte and space travel.

monday i had a test in german. i thought i did horrably but i ended up passing. the test was on stuff we had started to learn the day before. no one was ready for it.

the next day i had a presentation. i did it on space exploration and i did most of the work for it the morning before class. i was nervous. i had my hand out all done and asked marie to take a look at it. while she was grading it i think i started to pass out. every thing turned a hazy shade of white. i could still force myself to focus but i could not focus on small things like typed print 3 feet away. i realized somthing was wrong and i was likly about to pass out. luckily maries desk was low enough that if i took a knee i could still see the paper and maybe get some blood back to my head. i took a knee and finished with marie. then went to the computer room made the corrections and printed up 16 coppies. then i went to the lounge and lied down for 5 minnutes and thought... "what happened" it was at this point i realized i had not had lunch or breakfast and the dinner the night before was small. i had to get food in my stomach. but i was nervous and my natural responce to stress is to stop eating. so i had to force the bread i bought at the store down my throat.

i was temped to skip that day because of what happened. but i figured if i did pass out the teacher would be better equipt to get me to a hospital than any one, and i may get out of finishing the presentation.
the presentation went smoothly finishing at the exact time it was supose to. during the break the russian lady yelled at me to get my attention then complimented me on how logical my presentaion was. (i did the hand out in bullets (my favorite writing style) in cronilogical order). i thanked her then continued with class.
the next day it was the russian ladies turn to present. i was waiting for this it was gonna be fun. we all know the russian lady loves to argue and tak alot so we all knew the presentation would be atleast twice as long as any one elses and i was hoping the teacher would have to cut her short and she would argue that she was not finished and they would argue for a while.
my wish was an understatement. to begin she argued with the teacher to let her present after the break. about 3-5 minutes he eventually gave in. after the break she had us all sit in the center of the room so we could see her computer screen (when herr schnell first introduced the presentation assignment he said no computers) then she passed out her hand out (3 pages, mine was 1 and some peoples were 2) he said "meine refferate ist über iran" ( my presentaion is over iran) the teacher corrected her "über den iran" (over the iran ( most countries have a gender and you have to use the article before it most of the time)) and wrote "den iran" thez then argued over it for about minutes she read it in a book somplace and her husband told her not to use the article and the teacher said well thats wrong. eventually the teacher gave in (you can't teach some one who won't learn) the entire presentaion lasted about 50 minutes and the entire time she was talking to micheal. (a student with the central program) and micheal talked back. it was funny. finally she showed pictures on her computer and held us all 5 minutes after class. if it wasn't so long it would have been much more fun. after class i went to andreas and hung out for a while

the next day we had a feild trip (in the german class) to walk around the first district and then go to a resturant and eat crazy pancakes. i ordered 2 beef paleschinken (dictionary says pancakes) and was expecting hamburger in pancake mix with some kind of sauce ontop.
when i got was 1 beef thing (i think they are called crebs in english. it was a extrmly thin bread thing ontop of mushrooms and some beef and a huge salad on the side. (with to much dressing) it was kinda disapointing. found out after eating that the turkish kid (who doesn't belong in our level (he ccanot read and doesn't understand the teache 90% of the time. ) got mine luckily when it came time to pay he realized he had mine and payed for it. so i got off easy.

then i came home and went to sleep. i was tired.

i woke up and did laundry and did some shoping. now i'm waiting for th laundry to get done and then i plan to go to class. and then have dinner with andrea.

day 138 (36 days)

2007-12-12T09:12:00.000-12:00

two days ago i walked to the u-bahn station with a grocery store to get food (the stores here were closed at this time) while walking into the main entrance i walked past a group of punk teens. i'm not sure what happened (if they were talking to me or not) but when i walked past they got all up in an uproar and one of the girls was shouting walking toward me. i decided ignoring her was the best option and continued on my way. the second i put foot into the station (on a steel grate) i heard a rather loud "pop!" and i thought immediately "am i hurt?" it took me afew seconds to realize the shot was not loud enough to be a gun shot. but for a quarter of a second i thought i may be seriously injured and there is nothing i can do about it. it took me far longer to interpret the situation than it ussualy would have. after the pop the group of idiots broke off. i still don't know what happend but i realized just how feeble i really am. i could die at any minute. i didn't panic or even break stride i just had a disturbing revelation. its nothing to be afraid of. but i just realized i am mortal.

andrea an i went out last night all around town it was great fun. despite the rain.

today we had a vienna seminar excursion to a art museum with a monet to picasso exhibition.
the building use to be the residence of some one who fought against napolean. and he was great for some reason. i saw lilies by monet. and thats the only famous work i saw. it was a guided tour so we had to follow a tour guides schedual and we didn't have time to look around on our own. its a shame because i saw some nice stuff but i couldn't look at it.

in german we are reviewing for the test. i'm not to concerned i'm more comfortable with stuff than half the class is.

tomarrow i have a test for history. it will consist of 4 questions and maybe an essay. i don't think it will be to hard. its in english so i can fake my way through most of it if necessary.

friday andrea is going to belgium.

over the week and i am planing on going to the tech museum (again) and maybe do laundry.
monday is the german test
then tuesday i have a presentation.
i have to talk for 10 minutes (about) then pose 3 questions and have the every one else discuss them then ask each group what they thought. totaling 20 minutes. so far most have taken between 30 and 50 minutes. mostly due to poor planing. i plan to do 2 things. 1. write every thing out on the board before class. 2. arrange the tables into islands so i can easily say ok, this table is a group that table is a group and so on. (thats were most people gained a lot of time.
still have no idea what to present on.. any suggestions would be appreciated

day 133 (41 days left)

2007-12-08T00:09:00.000-12:00

(there was some confusion about the countdown but this is correct)

today i had planned on going to the technishe museum again but once again i failed to do so. it turns out its a holiday today so all the grocery stores were closed. so in order to get the ingredients for the chop suey i'm making with andrea tomarrow i had to go all over town and find grocery stores that were open and find the stuff i needed. but they didn't have sprouts or those tiny corn on the cobs. so i had to wander through the saterday traffic at the naschmarkt till i found some. i still have not found corn starch. i hope that one of the larger chains by the univeristy is open.

thursday i had history and german classes. geran went surprisingly smooth and history went even better. we have a test in history next week.
friday i just had german. fir the first time i was late to class. the teacher was Überrascht (really surprised) ironically it was during the presentation of the polish girl who sits next to me and is always 10 minutes late and takes forever to get ready for class all while standing in the way of the board. so i didn't feel to bad. the presentation was about louis armstrong. (i knew more than she did but didn't say anything.)

i want to do laundry but i need a laundry coin but the dorm director office is closed for the week end. so i have to live with my cloths for the time being.
i want to go out and get a hair cut my hair is getting just long enough to go crazy and is not long enough to hold itself down. i'm told it cost about 10-15 euro for a hair cut but i'm not sure i'm gonna get around to doing it before i get back to america.

sunday night i have a concert at the koncert house
bruckner orchestra linz
patricia kopatchinskaja on viloin
i think its music fron anton bruckner which means romantic (which means singers (ugghhhh...))

part II

i got corn starch at one of the stores by the university.
while at the naschmarkt i found a man with no legs walking around (on his hands) beging for money. i was kinda surprised he could do that.
acourding to ruth most of the begging that takes place in vienna is organized bagging which means that they take people from other countries (most likly turkey or other eastern countries) and drop them off in hot spots and tell them to beg and they get a certain percentage of what they bring in. that explains why there begging phrases are all the same. she also said that these people are choosen by how many children they have and how disabled they are since they bring in more money. she said its still ok to give to them.
in my mind now, they want me to give them money so they can buy drugs and also pay there boss who is probably none to charitable himself. i know i am cynical but its the only way i can keep from going broke.

day 131 (41 days) :-) :-(

2007-12-05T19:57:00.000-12:00

monday.

i had german class and then music class. nothing really special happened

tuesday,

i went to german class and thats pretty much all that happened

wensday

i woke up early and went to the central office because i had a vienna seminar disscusion meeting. we had to disscuss what was a "critical event" for us. i don't think i had one othere than the break down i had in germany on the first day. but i was not about to tell any one that. every one else had a problem with people being rude. on the public transport people will all pile into the trains and not say excuss me and will not open the door for you if you run like an idiot. and they are so rude. and when walking on the street people will walk into you if you don't get out of the way and so for and so on. i really havn't noticed. i guess i am one of those rude people. thhats probably why i like it so much here.

then i went to german class and we had a presentation on wine. i wasn't very livly in disscussion since most wine tastes like gasoline to me. the only good alchohol i have tried has been sake in a chinese resurant in bratislava. but i still didn't drink all of it.

then after class i went down to the ofice and waited for the class that was going on in the classroom to have break then i asked andrea out for pizza after class before the concert. so i sat and read cosmo (one of the students got it in a care package) (it was hilarious) and then we went out to get pizza and then went to the concert (we were the first ones there and we didn't get lost) ((*bonus points*))
the concert was a pianist and a guy with a computer with sound board. the pianist was obviousy trained in the art of playing piano (i heard the attempts at melodic changes) but for the most part he just spazed out on the key board. then he took out some mallets and started playing on the strings (still didnt sound good) then he started playing on the frame. then he took a piece of stirofoam and squeked in on the inside of the frame. then he took out a bananna and ate it for 2 minutes. then climbed under the pianno and stated hitting thing under neith.
(you don't do that to a Fazioli!!!)
as far as i can tell from the second piece the pianist spazed out on the piano and a guy with a computer and sound board tried to turn it into music (unsuccessfully) he also occasionally added a rusian ladies voice. it got so bad andrea got dizzy and had to leave the room.

then when the concert was over i met her out in the lobby and we walked to the ubahn. then we got on the ubahn and then transfered to another ubahn and then i got on the train that went in the direction of home (when the train started to move i saw andrea still by the train we got off. when i got home and got in bed i think i realized she didn't have her back pack the last time i saw her. the last time i saw her back pack was on the first train. i'm not sure if she has it or not. but i am concerned.

today i have history class. emily is doing a report on the education system here in austria vs. the usa. it should be short. .

then on sunday i have another concert (a violin concert) i have to do a report on it at some point in music class.

and thats as far into the future as i can think right now.

day 128 (48 days)

2007-12-02T21:13:00.001-12:00

towers _________________passageway andrea___________ keep

bus in bratislava (cabble car) ____ me __________________andrea

went to brataslava on saturday and stayed over night. to start i woke up and went to the train station. i got snacks and had breakfast. and went up to the sky way bridge type thing there and people watched until the group showed up. then i went down and said hi to all of them. then we got on the train. we arrived in bratislava and the tour guide was waiting for us. we went on the tour (which was rather pathetic) and then we went out to lunch at a slovakian resturant. i had spagehitti that tasted like spagehitti flavored ramen noodles. then a sunday for dessert. then andrea and i went to the hostel to check in and it took forever. eventually after checking in we went to the room and started to make the beds (we tryed to make them look used so they would not be taken) then the lights went out for the entire floor. so we just decided to go out and explore. we walked through a over packed advent market (i had to push people out of the way and we had to hold hands to keep from getting separated. then we decided to go up to the castle in town (it was starting to get alitle dark out at that time).

on the way up the mountain andrea mentioned that she was starting to be come more aware of her environment after walking through the area the hostel was in (the gehhetto(never stay at the patio hostel in bratislava it is a lousy hostel and a more expensive one is well worth it.) ) then i said "so you have noticed him to?" implying the man following us up the hill. (not sure i should have mentioned it) she said "who?" and i said "the man following us" (i should have played it cool and not told her since i was not certain he was following us at th time)(but i guess im paranoid.) so we crossed the street and stopped at a tourist station and stood around as i watched the man walk by. he stopped at a near by realistate building and pretended to read the adds. (great he actually was following us!!) so i acted like it was fine and we continued up the hill. keeping an eye on him. we got to the castle and after some language problems we found out it was closed. so we turned around to see the man walking towards us about 200 ft away. i said " could you please get on the othere side of me" moving her to my right side. (by this time i had my pocket knife in my pocket with the pliers end out) and we walked down the hill. i kept andrea about 1 foot to my right and kept the man about 2 feet to my left. watching him for any aggressive move fully ready to throw my entire body into him (packed fist first) while simultaneously moving andrea forward (to the area behind the man) out of harms way. but nothing happened he passed us giving me the same attention i was giving him. i think he saw me move andrea so she would be on my right side and mostly safe and realized i knew and was fully ready to retaliate if he made a move.

we had dinner at a chinese resturant. we saw a cool little contraption, it was a plate holder/keeper warmer thing. it was a plastic box with a metal grate top and 2 candles inside (holloween pumkin / poperie candles) they put it on the table and then put the plate of chop suey on it to keep it warm. i'm gonna steal this idea someday when i have time. i'm gonna make it out of oak and fine steel mesh.

then we went back to the hostle to find some one had taken andreas bed. so we had to go down stairs and complain and they gave her new sheets and asked if she could take another bed. then we watched "olive the other reindeer" ( a christmas movie i had ordered online and had gotten in the mail the previous day) and then went to sleep.

that night the guy who took andreas bed came in a 4:00 AM and made alot of noise his breathing was irregular (he was drunk) i didn't really sleep that night i spent the entire night slipping in and out.

the next morning i woke up (kinda) and got ready to go we left for the castle at 9:00AM and found out the bus we wanted to take would only be there an 1:30 so we waited after an hour i got annoyed and checked if other busses would get us close.(we could walk some) and found that bus 28 would get us most of the way there. we waited 20 minutes and took the bus. after we got to the castle we talked to a ticket clerk who we found out only knew afew words of german or english. we asked to 2 tickets at student rate he understood that then tried small talk with us and then for some reason was convinced we wanted to exchange our money so we said no thanks and left. the castle was great. we spent about 4 hours there mostly just sitting on the wall watching boats go by. then we left for the bus station (the sun was setting (3:00 pm). we ate lunch/dinner at mc donalds and then changed our money back and then went to the train station we missed the train by about 2 minutes so we had to wait 50 minutes for the next one. then we rode home and i went to sleep.

it was strange being in a country that did not speak either german or english. after this trip i realized how much german i actually knew and was happy with it. this trip also confirmed another belief i gained in germany , I KNOW ENGLISH! I HAVE IT MADE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

its even stranger that at the castle we could see over the river and see austria (a place were every one sproke german). but literally 100 ft away some people knew no german what so ever. i think boarders (imaginary lines) are alot stronger than any of us realize both culturally and politically.

day 122

2007-11-26T09:40:00.000-12:00

going to Bratislava on saturday for a central excursion. central is only paying for us to go out go on a tour and for lunch. however since we are going on saterday we have an option to stay over night. i researched it and found a real castle by the city (not a glorified mansion). i asked andrea if she would like to spend the night and check out the castle the next day. she said yes. so i booked a hostel and now we are set to spend the night in Bratislava.

Slovakia is technically part of the EU (European union) which should be some comfort to me but the closer i get to the middle east the more wary i become. its only a few hundred miles east of vienna but its in a country that was on the othere side of the iron curtain and i'm not sure how they like Americans over there. i'm sure i have nothing to worry about but i'm bringing my knife any way.

i really hope to avoid almost every one from the central group on the second day, they are annoying especially the "followers". if one of them in in our hostel room and tries to tag along with us either on saterday evening or Sunday morning. I'm not sure how to handle it. i guess we may end up playing strassen bahn tag, (a game that i have played out in my head quite a lot.) i may end up just abandoning politeness and just tell them to get lost.

the castle we are going to see is called castle devin on the austrian slovakian boarder. it was an important strategic point because it guarded the connection of the donau and some other river. so it controlled boat traffic. it has been there since the romans first started defending the empire from the germanians and was finally destroyed when nepolean captured it. for some reason nepolean didn't like castles he would always capture them then blow them up. (i.e. the castle that once stood in graz is now a ring of big rocks around a hill with a clock tower on it)

after the city tour on saturday and the castle on sunday we will come back to vienna. and get back to classes

day 119 (58 days)

2007-11-23T21:29:00.000-12:00

today is saturday. it has been awhile since my last post so i'll bring you all back up to date.

thursday in german class micheal (one of the fun drunken idiots) did his presentation on his intership (tree hugging) he did a very good job it was supose to last 25 minutes but it lasted 40 but the teacher liked how livley our discusion was so i think it counted in his favor.

thanks giving went splendidly. the turkey was huge i think it was actually an ostrige. there were about 30 people there (i was surprised that many people fit so well in the office.)
i eneded up bringing 6 liters of apple juice, 8 liters of various pop, and 14 liters of carbonated water. there was left over. so i got free apple juice. after the party there was clean up. i took control of most of it. vacuming the whole classroom and most of the lounge. afterwards we left and i went home and tried to go to sleep.

i ate only half what i would normaly eat on a normal thanksgiving. (i think i know why americans are fat) because europeans eat so much less than us i have started to lean that direction to. i am curious what will happen when i get back to the US. will i revert to my old eating habits and gain weight or will i just eat less.? i don't know.

the next day i went to lunch with andrea. and hung out around the office and went for a short walk. then i went to class and listened to a spanish kids presentation on what europe is to him and it also lasted 40 minutes however our discusions were not as livley so the teacher was kinda anoyed.

today i'm doing laundry. and going to a market (not the naschmarkt) and going to research for my vienna seminar HW. then i have the option of going to a play with the german teacher (he invited the whole class) i can see the theater out my window so i may as well go even if i don't understand it i will atleast get brownie points. also i decided to not research the italy trip all at once like i have been trying to do. i'm gonna research venice today and one or two cities tomarrow. and then put it all together at the last minute.

monday i have music class. we will be starting a new section. not sure what. i think it will be the period after romantic (i think thats modern).

then on wensday we have a excursion to the austrian parlament. (from what i saw of state legislature on one of our family outings) it should be sufficiently boring.

history class on thursday. then maybe history again on friday (really don't know)

then saturday. we are going as a group to brataslave and i am going to spend the night with andrea and go see a castle about 4 miles north of the city. i hope that no one else in the group is staying in our hostel i don't wanna deal with them. on the last excursion (2 days) i got so annoyed with them by the end that i blew up on almost every one.
the next day we will go see a castle and then come back to vienna.

day 117

2007-11-21T08:23:00.000-12:00

day 117

yesterday went better than i thought it would. i got a 15.4 out of 20 on the german test and i decided to stay over night in Bratislava on dec 1rst.

today went well to. got a hostel reserved.
had a substitute in german today. she was amazing, i actually learned somthing in class today. i got notes that should help me do well on the next test. we all want her to be our teacher.

tomarrow is thanks giving so i have to go the store and buy apple juice and co2 water and coke and diet coke. then go to class and get board and then come down and help every one set up.

having lunch with andrea on friday.

have a vienna seminar to the austrian parlament next wensday

then the trip to brataslava
marrie emailed us and told us we had the option to stay over night (at our own expence) and she would buy tickets that last through sunday.
i looked into it and found out there was a actual castle there (not a glorified mansion, but a castle that would have been used in a war) its 40 minutes outside of town so it defiantly will not be on the tour and we wont have enough free time to go there on sunday. so i asked andrea if she would like to stay over night and check it out. she said sure. also in the town is a christmas market which should be bigger than the one at the rathaus. and there should be more to see than in vienna.

day 115 (59 days)

2007-11-19T20:54:00.000-12:00

sunday was propably the best time i had in europe. monday conversly was probably the worst.

monday i had 2 tests
the german test seemed pretty straight forward and i thought i did pretty well i finished before most of the class which is always a bad sign. but i could not complete the test any more than it already was so i turned it in and walked out of the room. 20 minutes later emily came into the central office and complained about how hard the test was. i asked how long the time was between me and othere people in finishing the test. she said it was big. and when he was grading it he was shaking his head allot. which isn't good.

then came the music test. which seemed pretty straight forward aswell. i finished second well after kim who pretty much wrote her name on it and turned it in. the problems were mostly on the one schubert question and knowing the german. for one of the questions it asked "what can you tell about the time period from the movie amadeous" i wrote there were horses and men wore white hair (didn't know how to say chalked wigs) and drew a picture of a coach. my answers were short and to the point every one else wrote paragraphs. i got all the answers right but i'm not sure if it was in the right form.

also there was a mis understanding involving sarcasm (i can never convey sarcasm well) that i don't wanna go into it to now but may effect a certain area in my life in the weeks to come. (i hate small group dynamics, aristotle was right politics is natural but socrates was right that it is not good) (i'm glad i know enough to predict what may happen and how to deal with it) i'm not posting this because i think the security of this blog has been compromised and also it is slightly inappropriate.

today i only have german class i expect to get my test back and maybe get talked to. i'm gonna fight if they wanna put me down a level. from what i heard every one else did poorly aswell.

wensday is jackies birthday (she is one of the drinkers) she is turning 21 and demands that every one come to her surprise birthday party (ironic i know) i guess she wants to go out and get drunk now thats she is 21 although she has been getting drunk all year, and last year, and maybe the year before that to. also the drinking age here is 18. i remember my 21rst birthday. i had little debbie cake in my room. i guess i just hate parties.

thursday is the thanks giving dinner i'm bringing apple juice coke and diet coke. if it snows i'll fill a bucket up with snow to keep the drinks cold if not i won't.

nothing over the week end. next wensday we are going to the austria parlement for vienna seminar. then i think next friday we are doing a make up history class. and saterday we are doing another make up history class.

day 113 (61 days)

2007-11-18T03:17:00.000-12:00

9 weeks left

yetserday i went to the concert and listened to a french philharmonic and it was rather boring. the music was mostly poorly composed and the players although im sure they were good, were not up to par with most of the profesional groups i have heard in america.

after the concert i went home and went to sleep.

today i woke up and went to cityhall with andrea and checked out the advent market there. then we went to a city outside of vienna and checked out a polka band that she plays in (tuba) somtimes. then we went to a tower in the center of vienna and went up to the observation deck.
it was fun.

now i need to study and make dinner.

day 111 (63 days)

2007-11-15T20:36:00.000-12:00

ok, yesterday it snowed some and last night it snowed some more. it looks like it might stay but it might rain to. it could go either way. today i think i just have the german class. not sure if i have history or not i don't , but its worth checking into.

over the past few weeks i have noticed that the clip on the shoulder strap on the messesngerbag
ways starting to wear and would fall apart soon. and since i don't have the apropriat tools (ie. a hammer and punch) to repair it properly i used a key ring to make sure the strap and clip would not separate. it snaped yesterday in the railway station. at the most inopertune time. the station was full of people and the bag had crushable food in it. i was glad i reinforced it earlier

yesterday i also found out that i have an asignment for the vienna seminar class. (i was told there would be no assignments. i have to go to 2 different vienna markets (like permanents open air farmers markets) and compare the differences. it shouldn't be to hard but the timing isn't to good.
i found out on monday that i have to do actual work for the music class. (which i do have to pass now because of the core focus requirment i found out about 3 weeks ago.) i have an assignment and a test for music on monday. also i have to do a presentation on one of the concerts at some point to.

i also have the german test on monday.

monday will not be a pleasant day.

on saterday i have the concert and i'm probably gonna spend the rest of the week end studying.

they came to spackle the ceiling today. it doesn't look to difficult to do. they have a ladder that is an a frame with a hinge at the apex. it stands about 4 feet tall. the stand over the apex and use there feet to walk it its kinda cool

day 109 (66 days)

2007-11-13T09:11:00.000-12:00

day 109

over the week end i didn't do much. i pretty much sat in my room and researched stuff online.
on monday i got to the office early and prcticed piano while waiting for the thanks giving meeting. while i was practicing andrea came in so i talked with her for a while. then maggie showed up and interupted our conversation. then we all congregated in the lounge and waited for ruth to show up.

we had the thanks giving meeting which took alot longer than it should have because people love to talk
i was gonna go for mashed potatoes but every one wanted to do somthing with potatoes. also since i have class till 5:30 i don't have time to make any kind of food that requires effort or heat. so i volunteered to get drinks. think (i think) mostly involves getting juice and maybe some wine i think that ruth will bring wine but i'm not sure. i dont think they will condone me buying a case of beer or somthing like that. since central is paying me back for the cost of every thing.

i stayed at the central office for several hours because it wasn't worth going back to the dorm to get food so i got a bread roll thing at the campus grocery store and did my home work in the office. then we had german class. first thing (on a monday mind you) we had a mock test to get us ready for the test next monday. we all did pretty terably. then we sat through another boring lecture and we finally got out. then i ran down stairs and started cooking my dinner (ramen noodles) class started as i walked in the door. we discussed the strausse dynasty. and we found out that we will each have to do a 10 minute presentation on one of the concerts. not sure how i'm gonna manage that i guess i'll learn from the first two. we also found out that we will have a music test on monday over hayden mozart and beethoven and other stuff. so music just got allot harder.

tuesday morning i went to the office and was hoping to practice piano but thomas practiced all morning and other people were waiting for it to. so i sat and did my home work then worked on the blue print book worksheets and eventually thomas finished up and the other people waitng had already left so i practiced some. i came back to the dorm and made lunch. (stirfry) then went back and practiced piano some more and talked to the other two people in my class (they didn't get the home work)

then i went to class in class we did excersices to prepare for the test and then after the break he told us that we would have to do presentations. we all mouned. the presentation has to be about 10 minutes of talking and 5 minutes of small group disscusion. and other stuff. then we signed up for times. the plan was to have some one present evey tuesday and thursday every week until christmas. but since we had the test on monday we convined him to have the first on wensday. then he asked who wanted to go first. no one answered. eventually the spainish guy said he could do it but only on that friday. so the teacher said ok then who wants to go on wenday. no one answered. eventually he said ok it will be faster this way and asked who would like to go after the spanish kid. and every one signe up (as long as they wern't first) i realized half way through that there was only a limited # of spots before christmas and who ever didn't have a time slot after he got to december 23 was going to be the first one. i eagerly voulunteered for the 18th of december. micheal (a central student) tried to voulenteer but the russian girl (who i will go off on later) took his time slot. so he was the only one left and he was first. after class we all met up in the central office and talked. micheal (who almost always gets the short end of the stick) was angry (as ussual) and he told me he hates that russian girl, she is so cocky and some day he was gonna "zum biespiele" her til she shut up. (zum biespiele translates into "for example" a phrase the germans love. the context means he is going to crush her in an argument someday)

its true the russian girl (lady i supose (25-30)), is extremly elitest, her arguments are all better than ours and she is also smarter than the teacher. we had to do a speaking excersice about our countries favorite sport. spain had soccer, sweden had skiing, turkey had wrestleing, america had football, russia however she listed off every olympic sport there was. and when the teacher told her there can be only one favorite she went off on him eventualkly he gave in to save time but she kept going. many times he states a fact and she agrees with him but keeps on going. i see now why russian novels are so long.

while we talked after class i suggested that micheal do his presentation on russia, or the bay of pigs, or trenoble. just to get a rise out of her.

then they went to class andi cam back to the dorm and started typing this.

tomarrow we are going (for vienna semanar) to the WWII resistance museum.
and saterday we are going to a string quartet concert. (it called the stradivari quartet but im not sure if that means the program inclued a realy strad or not)
then next week i have that big german test and a music test on monday. and thats as far as i have planed for now

thanks for reading.

day 106

2007-11-10T22:23:00.000-12:00

day 106

this weekend has been very productive. so far i have completed 4 chapter of the blue print book (the first 4 were really easy) i'm going to dedicate one week to each chapter from here on in. the amount of material per chapter sudenly increased. at that rate i should complete the book by the time i get home.
also i looked into the stuff i wanna study on my own while in europe. i have decided to research wood carving.(although i will not beable to practice i will have a rather large knowledge of it)

i wanna prepare for my classes in spring so i'm also gonna look into middle east civilization, modern philosophers, and thomas aquinas.

i am honestly curious why the middle east in such term oil right now and would like to find out why. i plan to start my study with the middle east religions (as every thing seems to be based around religion there. then work my way down to history towards the end of december.

modern philosophers i plan to do a mock version of a plan i had before. for the past 2 years i had wanted to write my own overview of philosophy. using an outline style avoiding sentence and paragraph structure (using mostly bullets and numbers) i planed on having a over all time line with world events and the philosphers living dates ontop. then for every philosopher a smaller timelime thats more detailed then have a breif decription of there life, there major works (with short summaries) and there general philosophy. (of course i realized this entire plan was far to big for me to complete in college but if i only do afew select philosphers and don't go to crazy on it it should not be a huge problem)

thomas aquinas. in spring i plan to take a 300 level course with prof. Ray. profesor ray is notorious for trying to make his students look stupid in discussion. he also is a terable teacher i think he tries to mislead his students. i plan to know thomas aquinas inside and out before i get to his class so i can argue with him on an equal plane and follow his arguments entirly and correct him as much as possible . and also write papers that delve deeper into the subjects than he really wants me to go. (in short i want to crush him at his own game)

i am also learning moonlight sonata but you already know that.

and that is what i plan to study in austria.

the currrent italy plan goes as

dec 27 wake up early go to train station go to Venice arrive at Venice in evening and check in hostel explore some then sleep
dec 28 wake up early spend whole day in Venice sleep
dec 29 wake up early go to train station go to Cremona go to violin workshop check in hostel go sleep
dec 30 wake up early go to Florence check in hostel check on Vinci stuff see Florence go to sleep
dec 31 wake up early go to Vinci come back to Florence sleep in hostel
jan 1 wake up early go to Pompie explore ruins some check in hostel and go to sleep
jan 2 wake up early explore ruins then go to Rome check in hostel explore city go to sleep
jan 3 wake up early explore city all day go to sleep
jan 4 wake up early (either go to train station and go home) or (explore city and then go home at night)

9 days
8 nights

not sure about most of this but its the best plan i have for now. may not go to rome not much i wanna see there. and the pompie ruins maybe closed in winter. not sure if it snows in italy i still have to do more research
on the list of thing i wanna do the violin workshop, venice, and the da vici museum are the most important.

i think thats all for now....

day 104 II

2007-11-09T00:08:00.000-12:00

joe found a copy of moon light sonata online and emailed it to me so i have the entire piece now

day 104

2007-11-08T23:39:00.000-12:00

i just mastered the first page of moonlight sonata. now i have to find a pplace to buy the whole piece

day 103

2007-11-08T09:36:00.000-12:00

day 103

ok, it is actually morning here and nothing has happened yet so i'll type about the past few days. i got a roommate on monday. his name is Mateise ("MATT-tae-iss") he comes from hamburg germany. he says the phrase "alles clar" (every thing is clear) alot i translate it literaly which throughs me for a loop but i think it actually means "alright". some times his german is a bit hard for me to understand but i think i'm starting to understand better.

on monday i had music class we went over beethoven. he wrote a lot fewer symphonies and operas than mozart and hayden but he lived alot longer to. (also his symphies are alot more intresting) we listened to afew of his symphonies (i love #6 movment 4) and also some of his smaller works including a string quartet that sounded allot like jazz (another one of my favorites)
then i came home and went to sleep

my roommate stays up latter than i do, but since all my classes are in the evening i should try to move myy sleep schedual back (its hard to do i'm a morning person)

on tuesday i went to the office in the morning and practiced moonllight sonata for a while. i have everything but the last measure of the first page down. since i stole the first page offline and couldn't find the second page i should really go out and buy the whole work but that would cost money. i think the piece gets harder as you go on. i thought that making the three things move at once was hard at first but then everything started to space out more. i have incredably long fingures and the piece is just short of how far i can reach with my pinky. i think beethoven wrote it to keep people with small hands from playing it. his hands must have been about as big as mine. then after that the left hand starts to move more to.

then i made lunch and went to class and came home and slept.

wensday i woke up and went to the central office thinking we miight have a vienna seminar discusion. but marie was busy with the directors in an all day meetin so i don't think we had vienna seminar. next week i think we are going to the jewish museum. then i made lunch and went to class and came back here and made dinner.

and thats how my week has gone so far..

at the university in the big court yard they are setting up the christmas market. stand after stand we i assume they will sell things. also in the front there are train rides for children. i actually think it starts today. or monday.

on monday we are having a meeting to organize the thanksgiving dinner that we are gonna have on thanksgiving. i assume we are basically gonna sign up for what ever it is we all wanna make. i'm gonna go for mashed potatoes because its quick easy and delicious. i assume every one else will have an idea of what they wnna do. if i do get mashed potatoes i'm gonna have to buy a bigger pot that i have its gonna hvae to serve about 20 people. (gonna need a big pot)

swe tour.. i got an email from mr. lutch saying swe tour is going to boston/newyork at the end of the school year (after graduation) the total cost would be $200 for the trip and $100 spending money. not sure i wanna go after all i won't be a student anymore and i don't have any real friends in swe any way. however i think it would be a good learning experience for me to visit the east coast. it sounds like the tour is mostly free time with optional trips so i think i could very well explore on my own if i wanted to.

the italy trip is starting to annoy me. in order to see how much tickets cost you need to go to the buy tickets page but if you are coming it to austria from italy then i wont let you buy tickets online because austria hates italians. i found a flat rate thing for 29 euro from vienna to venice but i don't think that works with my half off train card.
and further more the cities i wanna visit in italy are small and i'mnot sure trains even go to then (cremona, vinci, pompie) all of which requires more research.

in order to graduate i thought i needed just to fill the core requirments but apparently there was another requirment called core focus. luckily i already had 2 credits in it thanks to the music groups i was in and the music class im in now counts aswell. so when i get back i have to get 1 credit of music groups. so i'm gonna join swe and orchestra again.

also, the registar has forgoten to change my program evaluation online i am currently taking a history course and a music course but it doesn't show up so i have to try to find out the course numbers (which i think are a big secret) again and then send threatening emails.

housing is still not going so great i thik i'm just gonna request the room and see what happens.

i have a german placement/ requirment test on the 19th it shouldnt be a problem. just need to go over everything we have learned.

i got my blue print reading book in the mail today. so i plan to learn how to read blueprints (at least alittle) with my free time in vienna.

had history class today basically he talks about what ever he wants and follows the notes he gives us slightly. he said everything on the test is in the notes so i'm gonna read over those somtime to.

practiced moonlight sonata tonight. i think the directors from all the abroad programs came here to meet and talk about stuff, they were having meeting all week in the piano room so i have not had much of a chance to practice. i think they are finaly done and gone. i have the entire first page of moonlight sonata memorized (about 12 measures) in my head the problem is its not memorized in my fingures yet. so i have to make that work. also i have to get a copy of moonlight sonata so i can continue learning. i have been working off of a pictures of the first page i found online. don't think i will be able to find a second.

after practice (about 9:00 i walked out side and looked at the strassenbahn arival LCD screen thiing and saw i would have to wait 9 minutes. walking to the u-bahn takes roughly 4-5 minutes so i started walking. about half way i thought its nice out i'll walk all the way. so i started walking. i was pretty close, walking past the sex shops that line the u6 line and i looked ahead of me and i saw one lady wearing a fur coat and dress cloths was standing infront of a shop (i was walking past it and the sign of the shop was paralell to me to i didn't see what it was.) she looked perfectly content just to stand there. i thought "ok this is the bad part of town she is either lost or a hooker. but hookers don't dress that nice..." as soon as i got to that thought (by this time she was with in arms reach of me) she steped forward and said grössgott (hello). at that point i thought "yep shes a hooker" and continued walking. with in 10 -15 feet of that i looked to my right and saw a girl on a cell phone standing between 2 parked cars (not facing me) i thought (hmm.. shes not wearing any pants) as soon as i walked by her she turned around and said (in an extremly cheerful voice) "hallo" (not one to reject a cheerful hello) i looked at her and smiled and said hallo, also in a cheerful voice. and continued walking on my way. 2 prostitutes in under 15 feet that gotta be a record of some sort...

today we got no homework. so i have tomarrow mostly free. i plan to research the italy trip more. (i think i know how much most of its gonna cost and how to research more now)

my coriander plant is entirly dead. its now rotting it its pot (i should really throw it out)

GGRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-11-06T08:50:00.000-12:00

i am having people issues with the housing for next semester.
the plan is to have a single room in firth.
i was gonna be a roommate with eric miller who was gonna graduate before i came back.
but he went to a different college
so i talked to the people they said i could have tim as a roommate
i asked tim latter on and he said he wasn't gonna be there next semester
so i looked at the housing application and found out that they (officialy) won't put a single in a double (so its not wise to ask them what i will have to do)
so i asked the people in charge of housing for the frat this year what to do
i got a reply saying they think i might possibly have to sign up both as his roommate and requesst the room maybe, but they aren't sure.

if i were in america right now i would tear off some ones head..

belated day 96

2007-11-05T20:47:00.000-12:00

day 96
yesterday i went to the catacombs in st. stephans cathedral. first we did a tour of the church. it amazes me what the catholics claim is praise of god. the tour comprised mostly of showing us the big unfoldable wood carving of non biblical figures. and then a big marble tower thing with carvings on it. and a sand stone carving of mary. as a craftsman i looked at it from this perspective. every thing in the church was made by craftsmen but the catholics still place a relic type value on them. as a craftsman i have a hard time believing that anything i make has a higher value than my life. also i have a hard time beliving that any craftsman would belives that somthing that he is making with his hands has religious value. frankly it seems to go against the part of the bible were somebody ridicules idols saying that they are made from wood and the parts the craftsman doesn't use gets burned on a fire. well thats all the catholic bashing for this paragraph (if you want more read the next paragraph)
then we took a tour of the catacombs. we walked down there and i looked around seeing 2 hallways that seemed to go on into different rooms and then turned into other rooms making a web of rooms and hallways underground. i told andrea this place looks like fun. but it was actually quit small. we saw he tombs of the bishops and carnidals. then walked to the other less important people. then we walked to what the tour guide called "the fun part" the old mass graves of vienna. the first room was a small cave like room with cast iron bars covering a back lit window with bones scatered around in it. (this was pre plague) the next room was a mass grave room were there was a similar cast iron bared window looking over a bigger pile of bones. the next window was abunch of bones stacked around the window (i was obviously stacked to impress the viewer on the other side of the window.) then we walked up to the street and we all went our separate ways. (now comes the more catholic bashing (cover your eyes if you don't wanna read it) at the beginning of the catacomb tour he said please no pictures because that would disrespect the dead. honestly if i were dead i would be more offened if some people came dug up my grave and stacked my bones along with all of my friends bones in such a way to show my corpse off to tourists. and then charge to let people gawk at my remains.
after the tour i went to the central ofice and checked my email and noticed i hadn't been signed up for classes yet. i emailed my prof and asked why. he said i was not actually a senior i was one credit short (i hate it when people say i'm short!) and i had a debt on 24 cents to the college. i forwarded it to mom and dad and they cleared every thing up. it was amazing. i still can't get registared until monday but with the classes i am taking i shouldn't have a problem getting into them.
today i woke up and found out i still didn't have internet. so i went out to find a ATM. i couldn't find one any place. but i knew i saw one at the naschmarkt. so i went there with the intention of getting money and some bread and maybe a parsley plant. i got there i got the money and i looked at the produce area and everything was closed then it hit me today is a holiday so everything is closed. so i came back to my dorm did some planning of stuff. then went to the u-bahn to go to the central office to check my email. i transfered to the strassen bahn and on the train was a little boy talking to his mother (who wasn't paying attention to him) and he said somthing that i learned last month "er stiegt auch aus" using the seperatable verb "ausstiegen" (to exit a train) "er stiegt auch aus" (he also exited the train) "er stiegt nicht aus" (he doesn't exit the train) i laughed he probably new more geman than me and he was millers age. then a man (i assume the man he pointed at ans said he doesn't exit the train) said somthing i didn't catch. and the kid said somthing i didn't catch. then the man asked "wie hiesst du den" (whats your name) the kid said "ich hiesse tim" (my names tim) then the kid said "wie hiesst du den" and the man said amadeous (or somthing sounding like that) and the kid repeated and the man repeated like 3 times (the kid didn't understand that that was his name) then the mother decided to get off the train. the man and the kid continued to talk. it was fun to listen to. (i didn't remember that ausstiegen was seperatable until the kid said it.)
then i went to the office and checked my email i got 2 emails from my advisor and the registrar. they both wanted to know what classes i was taking in vienna. however my advisor asked about "core focus" classes i was taking. i didn't know what he ment. so i looked at my transcript and the student hand book and found out that inorder to graduate i have to complete 9 credits in one of the core fields. on my transcript it said i had 2 music credits already applied to that field. i started to get worried then i remembered i was taking 3 music credits here in vienna. so that would bring me up to 5. i was planing on taking swe next semester that would bring me up to 5.5 so i have to take another music group class to complete it (either orchestra or community band.)
so i'm still gonna graduate on time
the other email wanted more detailed into about the classes i was taking but i don't know any of that info so i'll ask ruth on monday when she gets back to the office. the email also wanted to know how i want my name put on my deploma. i think i want it to be "Phillip Mark VanderWoude" of course nobody knows how my last names is suposse to be spelled but i like it with the capital W and no space.
then i rode home and started typing this.
tomarrow i have class again. but i doubt any one will show up. if thats the case all the better for me, i like small class sizes.
i already mensioned my plan to ride my bike to yellow stone national park. however i realize that 25 days of camping and biking requires alitlle bit of experience and experimentaion first. so here is my pre-yellowstone bike tour plan. in mid march (spring break) i plan to ride my bike from pella iowa to farmington minnesota, camping in story city and albert lea. the total for camping should be under $50. and the total for food should be under $50 so if i use my workstudy money (which i will have enough of by that time) i should have no problems. a tent would cost about $100 and a tent is mearly a piece of fabric with poles so i decided it would be cheaper and probably lighter to just use a tarp some rope and some poles. the total milage is about 270 it will be split up into 80 the first day then 110 then 80 i would prefer to make the days more even but the choice of camp sites is rather limited. not sure about the rout yet. i know that cycling is permited on iowa highways but i think that they are prohibited on minnesota highways so once i get internet again in my room again i"ll figure it out.

day 100 II

2007-11-04T23:45:00.000-12:00

i have a roommate to
to comes from hamburg germany
i forgot his name
he speaks english and he spend a short time in california..

his name is " mat-a-isss"
not sure how to spell it correctly or phoneticaly so thats the best i can do.

day 100

2007-11-04T20:09:00.000-12:00

it been 100 days

today allot of stuf has happened
1 i got a registration confermation email. it was missing reading in aquinas (one of my more important classes) so i emailed them. i need a signiture to get in this class but it should not be a problem.
2. got a housing email i have to talk to tim and see if he is still willing to be my rommate
3. got a email regarding SWE tour its to boston this year in may (end of the year) not sure if i wanna go the total cost should be about $200 think it would be a good idea.
4. emailed the registrar about my graduation date and diploma name
5. have to talk to ruthg about the classes i am currently taking.
6. i talked to the house master last night about my sink. he came to my room to check on somthing and then i told him about the sink it didn't seem like a problem.
7. have to talk to him again about internet soon.
8. made lunch with andrea and went for a walk yesterday
9. the weather forcast says a little snow on sunday
10. the u-bahn was packed today. i missed 3 trains because they were all stuffed full of people.
11. have a meeting on the 12th to decide who is gonna make what for thanksgiving dinner (i'm gonna push for mashed potatoes.
12. the drop add period for spring is the 25th i start class on the 22 so i will have plenty of time to add the music groups and the ind. study.
13. i'm having a good day so far, justhave to do home work for german class and i'm set for the rest of the day

day somthing

2007-11-01T23:21:00.001-12:00

i have lots of posts ready to be posted just waiting for my internet to work again.
if it doesn't work on monday i'll complain.

i got another plant. a Coriander plant (or celantro) i thought it was parsley but apparently they are pretty much the same thing. i named this one "moritz". i'm gonna wait a week or two till the plants starts looking healthier (it was outside at the nashmarkt for a while and its cold out) then prune it and dry the leaves. then try to keep the plant growing evenly.

day 94?

2007-10-29T20:19:00.000-12:00

well the internet is out in my room again i think i reached my 5GB limit but i'm not sure because i can't sign onto the intranet to check i'll wait till next month then complain if it doesn't fix itself.

in other news my bathroom sink faucet broke so i have to tell the house master and hope my deopsit will cover it from what i can tell the repair should cost 50-100 euro because that particular brand of faucet is really expensive for some reason. i'll see how it goes. i have another blog already typed up on my laptop with more detailed info. i'll post it when i can.

thanks for reading.

day 93

2007-10-27T23:28:00.000-12:00

well its sunday. daylight saving time started (or stopped,, i never know which) this morning i think i was supose to move my clocks back an hour. any way it is now an hour earlier than when it was before.

in my boredom i started planing a tour to yellow stone state park. originally the plan called for a train a bike and a tent. but after some research i discovered that the American train system is only fisable for non-Americans since they are allowed to get a rail pass. for us americans it cost more to use the train than to drive (to go from st. paul to chicago cost $116) (gas would be about half of that) the total cost of going to yellow stone would be $200+ not including food or accommodation or trip back. so i then changed the plan, going by car would be no fun so why not go entirely by bike?, if i broke the distance up into 11 days out and 11 days back my transport cost would be negligible. then i started researching accommodation. i looked up motels in the cities i would stop in the cheapest would have been $50. that would add up to $550 minimum on the way out. so motels were out of the question. there are no hostels in America so i can't do that but i could go camping at about $12 a night. so the total for camping would be $132-$175ish much better than hotels and if i bring my tent i may be able to camp in some places for free (i.e. about 500 yards off the road in a forest). next was food and equipment. if i pack properly i should have plenty of space on my bike for all the equipment i would need for a month. the problem is food would i be able to survive off of camping food for a month? then it occurred to me every town needs a grocery store and in every town i could buy about a meals worth of food for under $3-$5 all i would really need would be a aluminum pot that i could use over either a gas stove or a wood fire. that would also cut the weight of the bike. so the total of this trip would be about $500 not including equipment i don't have yet like the pot, a tent, light weight sleeping bag, gps, bear mace, water filter, bike repair stuff (extra sets of tires). ect....

i expect the total cost to end up around $1000. but thats only if i spend money on good equipment. i really don't need things like a brand name tent or sleeping bag . i could just as easily use a blue tarp and a home made fleece sleeping bag. that would same me roughly $150. so if i minimize the amount of stuff i actually need and compromise with the stuff i do need the cost should come down to about $700. now the problem is when to do it. ideally it would be best done in the summer between may and august. however after college i will need to get a job and work for about 2 - 20 years before i can get 1 month worth of vacation time. it seems that in order to provide for my self and to afford to do things like this i won't be able to.

well as you guest this is merely a plan i made up because i was bored and nothing better to do. in all likely hood this will never happen.

in other news tomarrow i am going to a 4 hour opera by richard strausse "Der Rosenkavalier" its about a guy who loves a girl and some other guy loves the same girl or somthing there is a explanation here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Rosenkavalier

i think its the rainy season here in europe. we havn't had a sunny day in a long time.

well thats all for now

day 89

2007-10-25T00:07:00.000-12:00

day 89

today i had music class in the morning because we had missed the first 2 weeks and we are going to miss next monday because we are going to an opera "die rosenklavier" (the red piano) for the first have we discussed the opera then we did mozart. i came home with 1.5 hours to make lunch and eat it. i made stuffed peppers rice (with jalapeno peppers and red bell pepper.) it is hot!! i also used beef. i saw an idea online to brown the beef with peppers and onions. so i browned the beef with onions and green pepper and then added the red pepper and jalapenos and corn letter. i found out a while ago i could use taco mix in rice to give it a mexican flavor. so after i mixed every thing together i added some tomatoe sauce and cayan pepper. (HOT!!!) its good.

i have enough time to finish eating and maybe do the dishes.

next i have german class. in which i will get board and get anoid at my partner who cansee to write anything with out putting her whole head infront of mine and stare at my note book. then i will go to the office and heat up my dinner (stuffed peppers) and then go to history class. in which i will continue to be board. then i'll come home and go to sleep.

tomarrow i plan on going to the technical museum and stay there prety much all day depending on how intressting the exhibits are. over the week end i plan to do somthing i'm not sure what.

day 87

2007-10-22T22:37:00.000-12:00

today marks the half way point of my time in europe. i'm gonna celibrate by having ice cream and cake. while on the train on the way to graz i thought of two things. the first way a way to effectivly double the max lifting capacity of a tower crane by using a pneumatic ram to extend the counter weight arm. and how to make a computer automatically optimise the wieght and the presure needed to make it work. the second was about my prvious plan to go across america on my bike. (it had somthing to do with watching the foot hills of the alps go by on the train) and i revised it to being a combination train and bike tour to yellow stone national park. however when i looked up trains in america i quickly realized that it would cost about 10 times as much to go with the train than to drive my self. and since it is 1070 miles it would take me 8 days of riding all day to get there. then 8 days back. so i'm gonna research this more thoroughly.

day 86

2007-10-22T22:33:00.000-12:00

day 86

ok its Monday, tomorrow marks the halfway point of my time in europe. i'm gonna have ice cream to celibate. today i plan on going to the naschmarkt and getting some jalepino peppers so i can make a spicyer stirfry. i asked thomas (who is from texas so obviously knows about these things) about how to use the peppers, if there is any special way to use them or what not. he said nope just chop them up and throw them into what ever your making. so i'm gonna make spicy mexican rice some time this week. for lunch and dinner today i plan on having stirfry

i did my homework for today this morning. i had to write a text about a world tour. so here it is in english

first i started my trip in Vienna, since it is known as the gate way to the east i traveled east to Moscow via train and saw red square. then i fly to Beijing and walked the great wall of china. then i took a ship to Sydney Australia and saw a opera in the sydney opera house. then i flew to Wyoming America and toured yellow stone national park. then drove to chicago and went to the top of the sears tower. then i flew to brazil and danced in karnival. then i swam to africa and went on safari in kenya. then i rode a house to paris and saw the Eiffel tower. then i took a train through the chunnel to london and saw the british museum. then i flew back to vienna and took a nap.

now i'm gonna get dressed and go get those peppers

on the way back from the naschmarkt some body checked my ticket for the first time. it was kinda fun.

i just tried a bit of the peppers i bought (they came in a big bundle probly 30-50) it is a whole different animal than a bell pepper. unlike a bell pepper that just kinda tingles (the red ones i mean) the jalapeño tingle the exact same way then continue into burning i don't wanna use to many of these at once. i think i gonna use just one per serving of what ever i make. if they keep they should last me for the rest of the semester.

day 84 - 85 graz

2007-10-21T20:47:00.000-12:00

thomas logan micheal graz_________ stairs up to clock tower ______________my steak

days 84 and 85 GRAZ

on Saturday i woke up and got ready to go to graz (mostly last minute packing and puting expensive stuff in my lockable closet) then i took the U-Bahn to the train station (i was and hour early) so i walked around and got to know the station. i found a lovely spot to sit it was way up high and i could see the entire station. it was fun to see who in my group showed up first and how they reacted to no one being there and then see how people tried to find one another. i went down at the last minute. (no one saw me up there) then we got on the train and went to graz. first we saw snow in some of the mountains (micheal is from texas) micheal asked me "whats that in the mountains" i said snow. he said really then asked ruth. she said snow. then he said i can't believe its snow. then i said "well actually i lied its actually crack cocaine, thats why the hills are so alive in austria." i got a good laugh out of that one. when we arrived in graz we walked to the hotel and put out stuff in our rooms. then we walked to a meeting point for a tour guide. and did a walking tour of graz. (it was cold) the the city or graz payed for our lunch (a big mistake). i had a 20 euro steak. and apple strudel. allong with the wiener snitzel and roast beef the girls refused to eat. it was all so good (except the steak was slightly to woody) then we heard the mayor had extra seats in his box at the opera (carman) thomas and james both jumped at the two that were open and i wanted to go to get a standing place so every one (being the sheep they are) decided to come with. after lunch thomas micheal logan and i were going to go on a walk of the city but every one decided to follow us. so we walked to a park and climbed a tree then we all gathered around a statue surounded by trees and talked then thomas logan micheal and me met up on one side and logan said were should we skip to i imediatly said that way, pointing to the most conceled escape route from the rest of the group. so we skiped across the park and down a hill and behind some trees. (no one noticed we were gone) so we walked around the city and decided to go to the castle the next morning while every one else was asleep. then we went to the opera a standing place was 5 euro. it was in french. and the director did his own artistic take on it so it made no sence what so ever. thomas explained that they were trying to make the protagonist not only a soldier but a museum curator aswell in a vain attempt to conect women to art or somthing. i walked away with out understanding much. then i walked home allone (because i knew were i was going and i didn't wanna wait for every one else to congrigate.

the next morning i got up early and ate breakfast and waited for the others. we ate with ruth and the communications prof (here to study us) and then we walked to the castle it was on a big hill probly 1000 ft high (vertical with stairs going up the face) and sat there talking for about 2 hours looking over the city. then we walked back to the hotel and watched a childrens nature show on tv then checked out and went to a small vinyard city to taste some dead bishops wine. i actually tasted it. and having tasted volitil chemicals before i can say it tasted almost exactly the same as rubbing alchohol and gasoline mixed with grape juice. i hated the bite it had. we tasted 3 different wines and i had 3 swallows of wine and thomas had about 6 glasses (the left overs from mine) so thomas and micheal (who had been drinking most of the day) were pretty well buzzed bye the time they got back on the bus. then we went to a small wine house and had a cold meal and then drove back to graz the senic way and got on the train and went back to vienna. i had to go to the bathroom so i went on the train but the toilet would not flush an had not been for some time. and when i tried to leave the bathroom i found out that the door only works from the out side. eventually a lady came and opened the door for me. then i sat down and watched the senery go by. when it got to dark i started talking to andrea. then maggi thought she was part of the conversation so she sat there and lectured at us in her slow dark deep monotone voice. eventually i got bored and just dissagreed with her on somthing and proceded to argue over nothing. just to get her to shut up. then i came back to my dorm and passed out on my bed.

before we left ruth told us that apparently in all of europe you have to pay for every GB of information you download off the internet. we didn't know this we thought it was only i our dorms. but the office is already over its limit so we should take it easy on the office computers. during maggies lecture she accused me of being the only person who could have ussed the compputers that much. this was coming from the person who actually told the group that she new about the download restriction at the dorms and downloaded stuff at the office because of it. i proceded to tell her knowing who did it is not gonna solve the problem. but knowing her she gonna pass as much blame as she can.

well thats all i can think of for now .

day 83 I have internet in my room??!

2007-10-18T17:15:00.000-12:00

well its friday morning and i have internet in my room again. i hope it stays that way.

since the music class was canceled last monday we are having a makup class this morning when the office opens. at 9:30 it the first class so i assume it will last no more than an hour but i'm bringing a lunch anyway just incase. then i have an hour or two to do nothing and then i have german class we have to do 3 asagnments out of the book and i also have to write about 3 jobs that are odd for a man to have, ( nurse, phone operator, and secratary). class we are going over reflexive verbs which i'm not sure if we have in english or not. after class i'm gonna come back to the dorm make dinner and pack for the trip to graz tomarrow. i'm not gonna bring my laptop, but i will bring a note book and pencil so i'll transcribe if i have to.

the weather is getting colder and rainier. its supose to rain every day this week and the temp is supose to be between 44 and 34. i'm guessing from the fact that all the locals are already wearing their winter coats that this is a cold as its gonna get. if so i should be fine with my long underwear and fleece jackets.

were going to graz this week end. we are gonna take the train (train ride = 3 hours). then we have a 1.5 hour city tour and free dinner. then the rest of the evening free. the next day we have some kinda ride thhrough the wine land. (the schedual is in german but it doesn't translate well) (for about 6 hours) then we leave graz at 5..30 and arrive back in vienna at 8:00pm .
i'm lokking forward to the train ride. hopfully this time i won't be stressed out or have to hold my bike and stand the whole time. so i can just sit back and enjoy the ride.

i'm not gonna bring my laptop. just gonna bring the essentails.
snack food
hygene and health stuff
alarm clock
austria book
italy book
music player
pocket knife
notebook
water bottle
camera
TRAIN TICKET THING
and a t-shirt

this should all fit easily into my messenger bag.

i was planning on going to the naschmarkt to get some jalepeno peppers but it looks like i will have no time. (i don't need them till monday anyway.) i found out that yellow and red bell peppers really arn't that hot. and the chilli powder i got is not hot either. i have ground cayan pepper but that isn't really as hot as it makes you cough after eating it. i figure if i slice up some jalapenoe peppers and add then to the other vegitables it will spice it up quit a bit.

i had tuna noodle cassorol for lunch and dinner yesterday. i had history class right aafter german so i brought left overs to class. it was kinda funny the prof. kept looking at it. (of course the container is orange and when ever he gets stuck on how to translate a word he looks at brightly colored things. (ie. my coat, my tuperware, emilies shirt, pictures on the walls, ect.)

the trees are all changing colors here. its pretty. next weekend i would like to go to this place i heard about. its a big tower you can go up and look at the city. i'm hoping to see the hills outside of vienna.

day 81

2007-10-17T23:15:00.000-12:00

this post is from a while back be sure to look at the next to posts. i posted all the relivant pictures in vienna!

day 81
well yesterday was the first day of actual classes for me. i found out that the music class was canceled because the music prof. (who was on a music tour of japan) came back sick. so i only had german intensive. the german intesive class consists of 16 students and is taught by herr schnell. he reminds me alot of frank stackhower at church he has the same voice and talks the same way. we i found out that two of the people who were in the level below me at goethe are in my class which is kinda surprising but then again i didn't do aswell on the placment test as i could have. however niether of the study. i think that they just reached the first plataue of the language (which is the easiest to get to). the way my german profesor explained it at college is that the first part of any language is easy you learn the vocab and how to construct basic sentences. if drawn on a XY graph with Y being the amount you know and X being time, then it would be a line with a slope of about .5 - 1.5 . then the hard part comes you have to keep going over structure and also learn new wwords and pronunsiation, and all the other stuff that make language hard. this would be best described as a assending sin wave on the XY graph eventually leveling out at fluency. then the even harder part of studing the harder parts of language that even native speakers hate. (i'm not gonna do that part.) we were assigned to write a text about our lives so i plan on writing about how as a child we traveld through america, and the move to minisota, and college and the events leading up to me being in vienna. allong with an explanation of how i am a visual learner and drawing things and writing stuff on the board will help.
after class i went down stairs got my stuff out of the fridge in the central office (i thought i was gonna have music class right after german so i brought a lunch to heat ad eat in class. then i went to the super market to get peppers and carrots. while i was waiting in line i saw some body in front of me with hamburger, so i went back and checked the prices it was about 2.30 for 500 grams i figured i could cut it up and leave it in the freazer and use some for a meal once in a while. so i came home and heated up my dinner and saw an episodeof the simpsons on TV (it was in german) i knew the episode by rote but i didn't understand a word of it in german. and the voices the used were pretty funny they were all high pitched and didn't sound at all like the characters voices in america.
then i cut up the meat and put it in a zipplok bag and froze it. i realized this morning that i didn't compress it at all or wrap it in wax paper so if it does get freezer burn it will happen pretty fast so i'm gonna give my self 3 weeks to use it all. then i will get more and package it properly.
after i choped up the meat i went to the university (which i new was closed) and walked back to my dorm. its a much longer walk than i expected it to be. however i was able to see most of the stuff i don't see on the u-bahn. like grocery stores and so forth. then i came home and went to sleep.
today i woke up and started laundry (i bought laundry coins and laundry detergent yesterday) i should be done now.. ok its in the dryer now. and i plan to make stirfry with meat today because i have eggs that will be going bad in the next week so i have to use them. don't have much else planned for today. just laundry food class food and go to sleep.
we are going on a vienna seminar excursion tomarrow to the vienna museum, i'm gonna check were that is befroe class so i don't show up late
well, i came back to the dorm after class to see if i could get my computer fixed (maggy told me that the tech people were in on tuesday and thursday evenings) i went up to the hiemlieter office (dorm director) and looked at the office hours, she was right the office was open in the evenings on tueday and thursday but from 7 - 9 pm to i made dinner (spagehitti with meat sauce) and then brought my laptop up to see what they could do. i explained that i didn't know how to connect because it was vista not XP or 2000. he said he would take a look he typed in some stuff and without even connecting it to the network he said ok this should work. just click on this and type in your passsword whan you plug it in and it sould work. i cam back and it worked. for some reason at 9:30 it stopped working. i think it may be that they shut the internt down at night or somthing or maybe there was a problem. i'll check again this evening.
new posts and pictures coming soon i'll probably get it done on friday since i'm busy today thursday and saterday and sunday.

but wait theres more

2007-10-17T23:11:00.001-12:00

brönburge schlosss garten. its creepy how every thing is verticle.

part of the garten

the garten by the zoo

a street sign

the picture post

2007-10-17T22:52:00.001-12:00

I know all of you have been waiting for pictures so i burned the good ones to cd and will post all of them in this post with short descriptions

a monument to strauss in the city park

my rosemary plant (fritz)

my room from the door

my room from the window

the gasometers

a U-Bahn station that i really like. it goes from the white walls to stone walls half way through

i was trying to capture the change from one to the other then have the lights draw the eyes to the focal point of the hole the u-bahn goes throught but i think i was to far away.

stuffed peppers

the ugly church by my dorm. i think it will look nicer in winter

the terrible paint on my cieling. it was scraped off by a painter about a week after i took this picture. it was wet pain on concrete so it didn't hold on to well in the first place.

votiv kirche my favorite church. as you can see they put a giant picture of the building up on the scafolding when ever they work on a building. in this case they also hung a huge advertisement

votiv chuch from the back

some church close to the danau its pretty. like a fairly tale castle

the US embasy. this was taken the day after the bomb thing. i was hoping the flash wouldn't go off so i wouldn't draw attention to my self but it did so i walked away quickly.

the UN

votiv church from the lower strassen bahn station

2007-10-16T23:34:00.000-12:00

I had internet in my room!

the network has a limited bandwith and sombody (possibly me??) over used it and now its down (maybe for the rest of the month) each internet user is allowed 5GB of download stuff or somthing per month.
according to the website i used .17GB in about 2.5 hours. but i didn't down load anything i think watching youtube videos counts. any way once its back up again i#m gonna wait till the network is empty (about 5 am) and then update my computer.

HAPPY HAPPY DAY

2007-10-16T05:38:00.001-12:00

I HAVE INTERNET IN MY ROOM!!!!!!

day 78

2007-10-14T19:45:00.000-12:00

day 78
today i'm gonna have pizza bread for lunch and left ovr stew for dinner.

during the semester the central program goes on two excursions out side of vienna. there is one day excursion (1 day) and one weekend excursion (saterday and sunday) this week end is the weekend excursion. we are going to graz that is south and slightly west of vienna. i looked at a map and atractions guide they gave us and from what i can tell there is not much to do in graz. but i guess its better than spending the whole semester in vienna. i think the day excusion (in november or december) will go to budapest. but i'm not sure.

vienna mostly shuts down for the week ends (kinda like minneapolis or pella) most of the grocery stores close and the ones that stay open have higher prices. the trains still go but almost every thing else is closed. most of the drug stores shut down to , but i think that the german speaking countries have some kinda goverment controled pharmacy system. they all have the same symbol over there doors and at any given time one is open in the area. and there are signs on each store saying which ones are open when. also the pharmacies have more power here than in america. in most casses in america if you ned drugs you go to a doctor and he writes you a subscribtion and you take it to the phamacy and they give you the drugs. they act like a ware house. here the phamacy has the power to give subscriptions and diagnose stuff. doctors are mostly used for moree severe stuff. i think this might add to the germans hemophilia. german speakers tend to be very concerned about there health and feel they are always sick.
it seems i always meet my roommates and other people while i'm sleeping. i think i should train my self to say "santa?" every time i wake up. it would be funny.
found out at the naschmarkt yesterday that the same stand i buy the flat bread from sells pack of 5 sesame ring things for 1.25 euro so i may try that this week it looks like it would be more calories for the price. which would be good.

it was in the 30's this morning (i guess) and now its warm enough out to have the window open so i have fritz sitting out on the ledge in the sun. still have to get a spray bottle to keep him clean i can see the mold starting.

i just saw 2 guys walking to the dorm door carrying a halogen lamp and a table. one of them may be my roommate i'll find out in the next 10 minutes. i know i met my roommate once already but i was half asleep and i didn't look at him for to long.

well i went out and came back its now 8:00 pm and i still have no roommate. i'm not sure if i even have a roommate i didn't understand to much of what the guy said on friday night but i think i heard him say check. so he may have been one of the dorm directors checking the room or somthing. i don't know, i think he said he lived here but i'm not sure, if nobody moves in till next monday i'll assume i have my own room.

while i was out tonight i was on a train going to city center to see how the lite up the stephans cathedral. (they did a very good jobit lite up so you can't tell were the lights are and it isn't bright its just glows) and i saw a drug deal go down on the U-bahn, i was alittle surprised after all vienna is a quite little town and it has hardly any crime. but i suposse like any city it has its low lives. on the other hand the drug deal was done very slopily. the first thing i noticed was how tence the supllier was. he was giving him self away by being to annsy. the second thing i notice is both the suppplier and the buyer both turned toward the door of the car and exchanged stuff there then the buyer put the stuff in his outside pocket exposing it to half the train. it was sloppy, the only thing i saw that they did right was exit the trains at different times. however after the supplier left a kid sat down next to me and took 30 euro out of his wallet as well as some change then both the kid and the buyer left the train at the same time and got on the same elivator. sloppy.

i have classes tomarrow at the language program and the central office. my teachers name is schnell (literaly translates to "fast") so i expect class to move allong quite quickly. also i finaly have a male teacher i was hoping this would hapen its hard to learn german from some one of the opposite sex because the tones are different and there are othere dis-similarities. i also plan on going to the dorm director and buying laundry coins and maybe asking about my roommate. then i plan to go to a drug store and get some vitamins. then lunch since i will have no time between classes i'm gonna make 2 servings of stuffed pepper rice and bring one with me to the central office so i can heat it and eat in class. if that doesn't work then i guess i'll have to come up with a new stratagy next week. if i explain that i don't have time to eat then he may understand. then i will go to the german class and learn german for 2 1/2 hours then run down stairs heat my dinner and then run to the class room to learn music stuff. then go home clean my tupper ware and go to sleep.

since i am on the topic of classes here is my strategy
1. pass german class learn as much as possible so if there is a placment test to decided my level i can test out of 300 lvl
2. pass the history class it is a requisit for graduation
3. the music class doesn't really matter i only took it so i could go to the concerts and maybe learn somthing i feel i could drop out of this class in december and still be happy i could also go all the way with it and just fail it. either way, i don't need the credits. although if i can do well in this course it would be a bonus

the actual day 77

2007-10-14T19:41:00.000-12:00

day 77
today i walked through the naschmarkt (its saterday so the people selling there old junk were out.) if you want skis, cobat knives, door knobs, or old tools. the naschmarkt is the place to go. i saw tons of stuff i would love to have but there is no way i would be able to use them here or send them home so i didn"t get any thing. i looked at the meat stands for some kinda meat with a bone in it but could find anything in my price range that had a big enough bone. so i went to the grocercy store to get celery and i found that they sell soup bones there so i bought some kinda bones from a pig and celery
i had spagehitti for lunch (early, about 10:30) then started the broth. i filled my pot with water and started boiling it then after stripping some in the meat off the bone i put it in the water allong with some salt and rosemary. i brought it to a boil then started simmering it. i put the lid on and soon found out that it boils with a lid on so i lowerd the temp all the way down and put the lid on. its still boils with the lid on but not as much. i started it at 11:00 it is now 1:40. at 5:00 i plan to check on it and see how dense the broth is if its thick i'll cut the vegitables small if its thin i'll chop the vegitables bigger and make stew instead of soup. i plan to use potatoes, carrots, celery, tiny corn on the cob things, and peas. after i remove the bone i"ll put the veggies in then let tit go for a while then add the other spices (more rosemary, garlic, oregano.) then put in rotinni noodles and boil till the noodles are done. at some point during this i will cook the meat i have in my frying pan then add it to the mix probably with the noodles. then if the broth is thin i will strain it and have stew, and if the broth is thick i'll just have soup.
after i started the broth and was sure it wouldn"t explode or any thing i went back to the naschmarkt and got more of that flat bread. it should be good with the soup. now i"m wasting time waiting for dinner to come.
in other news, i start classes on monday
german intensive 3:00 - 5:30 13 credits
music mondays 5:30 - 8:00 3 credits
history thursdays 5:45 - 8:15 3 credits
vienna seminar wensdays 10:00 - 12:00 1 credit
from what i understand here is how all the classes work...
1 german intensive- i learn german just like i did in germanynot sure what to expect from this class
2 music - i show up and learn about composers and go to concertswe havn't met yet i may end up doing a presentation or some tests or a paper
3 history- i go to class take notes and do a presention and take 2 tests10 minute presentation on somthing we havn't covered in class about austrian history. its gonna be hard to pick a topic since i don't know austrian history.
4 vienna seminarwe've met once so far and it seems that every other wensday we go on an excursion to some place in viennathen we divided into 2 groups and we have to meet twice during the semester and talk about vienna (using guidance questions)i think all i really need to do to pass is to show up and talk some.

i will have nothing to do in the mornings so i might learn how to sleep in. it might even return to the USA time since it will be winter and day time really doesn"t mean anything any more.
my roommate hasn't move in yet, i expect he will do so either tonight or tomarrow.
just ballance my budget. my spending is going down but its still to high. in germany i could live off of 10 euro a week this last week was 80. but allot of that was on stuff i will never need to buy again so i think it wil continue to decline until the italy trip. when it will spike up for a week or to then sudenly decline back to the previous weeks amount.

fritz (my rosemary plant) is doing well i have to find somplace to get a spray bottle so i can keep him from getting moldy. according to people online rosemary plants that live inside often get a certain type of white powdery mold that shouldn"t kill them but will weaken them. and i wanna keep fritz as healthy as possible for the next three months at least.

since i have nothing better to talk about i"ll go over what i know about the italy trip.

1. i don"t have a euro train pass. (i may end up being cheaper with out it.)
2. i'm not gonna spend 10 days in italy that plan was abit extravegent. at most 6 days probably less.
3. i plan on seeing and doing these things
- go to venice (1 day) not sure what to see. i mainly wanna see the streets and say "ahh, venice" maybe se the library in indiana jones and the last crusade
- go to cremona see stradivarious workshop museum (1/2 - 1 day) theres not much else to see here if possible i would like to make it a stop on the way to florence but its way out of the way.
- go to flourence (may or may not spend time in florence) and then go to vinci to see the da vinci museum (1 day) i just wanna see the davinci museum
- go to pompie and see the ruins (1 day) the ruins are open to the public and they say its a full days walk to see it all.
- go to rome see the city (1-2 days) not sure if i actually wanna go here or not since i'm in itally i may as well but theres not much of intrest there
- eat pasta (its italy)
- eat pizza (its italy)
- other stuff i havn't thought of... (obviously i havn't thought of this stuff yet)
4. my break starts on december 22nd?? and go through january 6th giving me 16 days to do stuff of course i will need to work around christmas and new years since public transport will be insane at those times.
5. no idea how to deal with food during trip
6. i think i'll leave right after christmas day.

for some reason i am always extremly tired here. i don't know why. i don't do to much and i go to sleep early and sleep late. i think its culture shock. but of course thats the solution that central tries to explain every thing thats wrong in europe. for example i was walking and i stubed my toe, blame culture shock. my credit card doesn't work ... culture shock. i got run over by a train, culture shock..

not exactly sure when i did this i think it was last thursday. i went to see the gasometers. the gasometers use to be 4 giant gas tanks (about 100 ft around and 100ft tall.) i think they were for natural gas) that would supply all of vienna with gas. but vienna grew and the tanks got old. so they stoped using them, they were about to tear them down when the historical society said nope they are historical buildings can't tear them down. so they built brick walls about each of them and turned them into small cities. i think there are dorms and class rooms in them and so forth. any way i went to see them. i wasn't to impresssed. some of the students at goethe had to read about them several times. so thomas gave me a very detailed description of their history and so forth.

well the broth was not that great. it was thin and it had no flavor. i think i will stick to fake broth. at least until i learn how to do it properly. i made to much i thought i was making 1 serving i apparently made 3 by accident. and since the tupperware i have can only hold 1 serving i'm forced to eat 2 servings. i also learned that boiling peppers is a bad idea. they get mushy and flavorless. the bones only cost 1 euro so i don't think it was a total loss.

yesterday i was typing my last blog and maggy showed up and saidthe strassen bahn was was broken i said which one she said 43. thats the one from the U-bahn to the office it goes about 3-5 blocks from here to there. then she complained that she had to walk and i said its not that far and she said but its cold out and i said its well above freezing then she just glared at me. at that moment i realized somthing about most of humanity myself included people love to complain (seriously some people won't be happy till you beat them with a stick) but they love their egos more. so when the two come in conflict the ego will ussualy win. in this case maggi complained about the walk but it would dammage her ego to say the walk was to far for her to complete easily. so when the two came in conflict she jumped to complaining about the cold but when those two come in conflict it wasn't resolved she just got angry.
on the walk to the u-bahn .(the strassen bahn was not going). i was walking past a lady with children and she said excuse me do you know were i could get a job cleaning? (in german) i paused because i thought i saw a putzerie (literly cleanery) around the corner. then i realized she was one of the homless croations that always begs for money inthe train station and her citizen ship probably wasn't legal. so she was asking to clean my house for non goverement approved pay. so i said i'm sorry, i don't know. then she got loud and asked if i had somthing to eat and i said no then she told me to give her a euro i just walked away. i don't have the resources, time, or ability to help the homless especially here in austria.

well thats all for today.

day 77

2007-10-11T20:42:00.001-12:00

as you can see i found a away to post the blogs i had on my laptop. my internet still doesn't work i have to talk to some tech guy about it on tueday. i went to the grocery store and got cdr's and coppied all my stuff onto those and i brought it to the officee and coppied it to the blog.

yesterday i went to the naschmarkt and bought a rosemary plant (i named it fritz). i hope to keep it allive for most of my stay here in austria and i can use it to flavor mashed potatoes.and other things to i guess. i went to sleep early last night (about 7:30,, i was tired) and then i woke up to find a guy in my room. so i woke up turned around and said " bist dou mine zimmerfreund?" (are you my roommate?) he said JA , then i said "ich hiesse phill" (my names phill) then turned over and went back to sleep. when i woke up his stuff wasn't there. I assume he decided to not move in that´night because i was sleeping. if that us the case he must be a vienna native. othere wise he would have almost no choice but to unppack right away. or maybe he came by just to see were his room was (and to get his key) and he plans to move in on the week end (the house master office is closed on week ends) if this is the case it is his first time living in this particular dorm. which doesn't help me much. not sure he speaks english but i only heard him say afew words, so i guess i'll meet him again some time.

went for a walk around the nashmarkt again this morning. i love walking there especially when there are only afew people. (on saterdays people are literally stuffed in the walk ways no one has more than 6 inches of space to them selves) but on week days its hard to get around people but its atleast possible. bought a bunch of bannannas and now i'm typing this.
plan to have left over mexican ricce from last night for lunch. and piyya bread for supper. i think thats it for now.

day 73

2007-10-11T20:35:00.000-12:00

day 73
since classes don't start till next monday my weekdays have been incredably boreing. today i went online and found the best wiener schnitzel in vienna. its at a resturant in city center. i went there to check i out (its tucked away on a side street in an alley way) the schnitzel costs 12.50 euro. i plan to eat dinner there tomarrow. tomarrow i also plan to go on a tour of the UN so tomarrow shouldn't be to boreing.
i still don't have a roommate. i'm begining to question if he actually exists.
two days ago i went to the naschmarkt and got chicken boulioun (i have been searching for the past week to find it in grocery stores) it was really expensive (4.50 euro) but it will last 1-2 months so i think it is worth it. especially since it effectivly doubles the kinds of food i can make (flavor i mean).
on the way out of the naschmarkt i saw a stand that sold all kinds of stuff but what caught my eye was a 1.25" round 1.5" think piece of bread that cost only .65 euro. the price said "0.65 st." (st. is short for "stuck" which is german for piece) so i wasn't sure if it ment 65 cents for a piece of it or 65 cents for the whole thing so i decided it was a good thing to find out so i asked for 1 piece and he gave me the whole thing. i was happy. on the way home i thought if i had a bread knife i could cut it and turn it into 2 large pizza bread things. so i went out a bought a bread knife. of course when i tryied to cook it there was no shelf in the oven so i set it on the bottom of course it burned the bottom of the bread but over all it was a good first attempt. i plan to have pizza like that every so often.
since i'm on the topic of food i'll go more into my diet in vienna. it has changed allot form my diet in germany when i first got here i went to the grocery store and bought a lot of rice and rotini noodles and spagehitti and potatoes. allong with spices and oil , green peppers, carrots, butter eggs and othere usfull ingrediants. now my diet consists of about 8 different menus each of which i can change to taste almost entirely different. stirfry spagehitti stuffed pepper rice double baked potatoes mexican rice tuna noodle cassoroll stew and pizza bread.
i am starting to research meat. if i buy a kilo or two of beef i can cut it up and freeze it and then use it in some of the meals somtimes. as long as i don"t eat it straight the cost should not add up to badly.
tomarrow marks 100 days till i come home.
after living in 3 different dorms over the past 3 months i think it must be weird to move into an appartment by yourself. first of all your used to living in a single room with all your valubles and then use a comunal kitchen. but when you get an appartment you have 3-5 rooms all of which belong to you. it must bee weirrd to space your stuff out so much.
found a money exchange place by the main tourist attraction (st. stephans cathedral) and the exchange rate was 1.49 dallars on the euro i laughed . the actual exchange rate is 1.35 dollars to the euro. i have $60 from gramma that i still have to exchange it. if i exchange it there i would get 40 euro any were else i would get 44 euro. i plan to use that money for tomarows excursion, thank you gramma.
i don't think i explained my room yet so here it is. everything is like an ikea add its all mapple venneer and blue fermika. i have a refridgerator in the room. (very happy) i have a closet that has a lock on it (use full for keeping things safe (cheaper than buying a lock box at a bank)). the bathroom in in working order. the toilet is quite intresting, instead of the drain being in the center it is way up front and there is a flat spot that has a small pool of water on it in the center. i don't like it it often takes more than one flush to get the job done and somtimes no amount of flushing will help you have to use the toilet brush to help. the kitchen is communal. at the door way there are 1'x1.5' lockers (about 2' deep) were we can keep our cooking supplies. (i found that i could use a plastic crate thing to keep all mmy stuff organized and when i want to cook all my stuff can come out on the counter in one trip. it works well) the kitchen is actuall 2 kitchens mirroring each other to either side of the door. there are electric stoves (i actually like these, they are the glass top ones that light up when you turn the burners on and they heat up pretty quick.) and a sink and a public fridge (same size as our room fridges) then two tables also mirroring eachother on either side of the room. the outside wall is mostly a giant window. unfortunatly unlike the window at goethe. there is a street out side the window so we can't just through all out biodegratable stuff out the window. which is a shame because that was fun. (at goethe we had a 20 ft. strip of weeds and dirt between our building and a prison wall. we would through vegitable parts and egg shells and water and othere cooking garbage out the window. and somtimes when we had somthing dense enough we would through it onto the prison roof. but if i did that here i would get yelled at.)
i wanna get a fish for the room it would amuse me and add some color to the shelf over the fridge. but i can't find a pet store any were i'm not even sure if fish are a common pet in austria or not. also considering a plant but i would have to keep it in the window which will get cold soon so i don't know of any plants that can with stand the cold or be an indoor plant with out sunlight. maybe a rose mary plant i could use it with mashed potatoes and it if dies i can dry the leaves for later use...
city life is expensive there is nothing to do but shop and spend money. of the 400 euro i started with half of it is gone, of course most of that goes to the monthly train ticket and the room deposite (total 100 euro) then i have the groceries and cooking supplies. i think the only money i really wasted was on candy and bakery goods and pizza at the pizza place at schotentor.
a guy came to look t at the ceiling over my window today. he asked "wie lange war es wie das?" (how long was it like that?) i ment to say "since i got here" (seit ich heir kamm) but i havn't thought in german for nearly a week so i said "von wann ich heir gekommt" (from when I here comed) he looked at me funny then said thanks and left the room. looking back on it, it was kinda funny.

day 70 (i honestly don't remember the actual date)

2007-10-11T20:31:00.000-12:00

day 70
today i woke up with the intention of finding a wooden spoon. (cooking the stirfry last night with chop sticks was harder than it needed to be) so i walked up and down every street i knew that had stores on it. i had over heard the group talk about a shopping center by south train station so i was on my way there when i heard the train voice guy say naschmarkt (basically its a huge farmers market swapmeet like thing. so i got off and walked through it theres lots of cool junk there eventually i found a wooden spoon (with a flat buisseness end) and i bought it.
looked at the time and it was 11:00 so i came home and made stew. potatoes carrots green pepper corn broccli rotinni nodles and beef boulioun. it turned out much better than i expected it to. i"m gonna have spagehitti for dinner tonight.
as a child i was often more cultured than my teachers. (i.e. ms. dumetz) i knew all the major composers and could identify some of there works. i knew art. i knew lots of othere cultural things that my teachers had hardly ever heard of. now that im in austria i realize that i am just as uncultured as my teachers seemed to me. there is so much more culture to study here than i even imagined possible.
people in germany and austria have leg problems. on trains I constantly see people with (european) chutches. the difference between european and american chrutches is american chutches go under the arm pit and suport the weight from the shoulders transfering it to the ground. european chrutches are like a care with a pistol grip comming out of the front of the cane and then a arm suport cup thing comes out the top. so when being used it suports the back of your fore arm and the weight goes through the hands into the cane to the ground. i see theses all the time i wonder why so many europeans have trouble walking. could it be connected with the european hypnocondria?
planning on going back to naschmarkt some time to see what i can see. found huge peaces of bread for about 1 euro but it says stk by the price which think means stuck (peice) so i think 1 euro get you a peaice of the bread need to figure that out i don"t have any thing to do till thursday.
turns out that Iveta actually ment adam jacky and emily. the central people who came here to get ddrunk. so i"m just gonna avoid going out with them. i hate them. they are in europe and the best things they can think to do is complain about every one they know and get drunk every night. every one else i can somwhat respect thomas is a great cook who is a type a personality, logan is quite but smart, micheal makes me smile, james is drunk but he is here for music, maggy is a democrate (which i respect but she is one of those anti republican democrates which i can't respect) but i respect her need to be higher than were she is, andrea is smart although she is a puppet, i don"t know the other two yet. adam is an idiot who can"t perform the simplest tasks (and vomits loudly every morning) (i think he is actually an alchoholic), emily came here to get drunk with adam, jacky came here to chase after james (she has already given up on that) and to "study music" (she really isn't) and get drunk. kim came here to get lost, i can"t respect that but i don"t dispise her for it. lindsey is a virginia tech chearleader so i guess i don"t respect her either but i have no reason to hate her.

day 69

2007-10-11T20:30:00.000-12:00

day 69
well i havn't posted in a while, so i'm gonna try to start off were i left off. i'm not really sure were ileft off but i am sure that i did. this first week i have spent far more money than i think i needed . i bought about a months worth of food on monday (1kg spagehitti, 1kg rotinni, 500 g rice, a bushle of potatoes, various spices, vegitables ect...) along with more resturant food than i have eaten in schwabish hall total. i think i"m begining to undertand city life better than i knew it before. fast food is every were and it smells good so its very temping to skip cooking and just eat a big slice of pizza or while waiting for the train its temping to go to the bakery and get some kinda pastery.
every day i go to the train stop and i see the same two old muslim ladies sitting on the stairs up to the terminal. one has two children. each of them have beutiful voices that sound desperate it sounds almost as if they are praying in arabic. but its obvious that they are begging. i feel sorry for them but refuse to give them money. call me cinicaal but i have no idea what they are gonna spend it on. i"m not gonna pay for their drug addiction. and i doubt that the change i could spare would be enough to help them in the long run.
today i woke up and went out to find a note book. i walked down the shopping street to find a store that i knew sold notebooks in germany. but in austria it looked like thy only sold perfumes and stuff. so i decided to chek the book store by the central office, nope only books. then it hit me, the book store at the university building so i got my note books. then i looked at the time and decided to come back to the dorm and make lunch. i have mashed potatoes with carrots butter cheese and broclli. then i went to the central office to say good bye to mom and dad (who are going on a mission trip) and i saw a "dollar" store (actually it was labeled euro haus) and i found a frying pan (which i deseratly needed) allong with a cooks knife (2 euro) it was a cheap knife so i decided to get a sharpening steel as well total it was about 22 euro. then i went to the office and talked to mom and dad and looked up recipes. then i came back to the dorm and made stirfry. (i forgot i had brocoli) with green peppers the peas i had left over from the tuna noodle cassorol and carrots. it was good. then iveta (a girl whom i just met last friday) (i think she is from croashia or some placce but moved to minnesota) she walked in and said das rieched good (that smells good) i said huh.. still thinking in english. then she invited me out to dinner with a group of people she said james maggi and lindsey (these people rarley hang out together at all) but i think she has trouble with names so it could be adam emily and jaclyn (the three people i dispise the most on the program) so i said no i'm having dinner right now. then she asked if i wanted to go out in the city with them latter. i said sure so she asked for my phone number and i said i don"t know my phone number as i walked to my room to get it. and she laughed and said what!? i said i have never needed to call my self. so i got her my phone number she said she would call me at 7:00ish i"m think of not being here and forgetting my phone so i don't have to deal with them but that would be rude. so i may go out with them and if the drinking starts i"m just gonna leave. if they try to make me stay i"ll kindly explain that i don't wanna deal with there drunken bodies after sitting uncofortable in a bar for several hours.
i don't have any week end plans. i guess i'll try to make the internet work or go out and take pictures or somthing.
the room i'm in is beutifull except i think some one left my window open all the time between semesters so the ceiling above the window is falling apart. when i first arrived i saw it and it looked like the dry wall was deterieorating but now that a chuck has fallen i see it was about 10 layers of white paint that was on a stone/concrete celing that got wet and lost stickyness. so i"m gonna take a picture and keep it so when the dorm director yells at me i can say i wrote it down on the room report and that i took a picture the first day.

day 75???

2007-10-10T22:39:00.001-12:00

i have decided that since i have no idea when i will have internet i will just start typing the blogs here at the central office.

today i went to the naschmarkt and got another flat bread thing and chilli powder (it cost half the price as at the super markt). i plan to make incredably spicy food since its getting so cool here.

on the way back to my dorm for lunch i saw two of the biggest scarriest looking german shepards i have ever seen. they make the moois dog look small. they were each wearing a muzzle (which is required to ride on the train) and they had chain collars make out of three chains and they both had two leashes on the leashes were thick its apparent that any thing smaller and they could have broken through it with out a struggle. there owners looked like they came from the country side one was wearing blues jeans and a red flanned and a beatup leather bag and the other a leather coat with tassles. each with increadably thick beards. whats funny though is both of the dogs were scared one didn't like his muzzle and wanted it off. the othere coward in the corner niether of them liked being in the city or on the train. it was kinda sad to see such frightening dogs so scared.

then i had reheated tuna noodle cassorol (never use garlic soup to make tuna noodle cassorol, it smells awful to make, luckily the tunna mostly canceled out the taste) and some of the flat bread i had bought before. then i came here and now i'm typing this.

planning to make mexican rice for dinner today. i was tempted to buy a red pepper for it this morning but i didn't know how buying fruit at the farmers markt worked i may get one at the suppermarkt latter today. this rice is going to be HOT. i found that i could use taco mix to add flavor to the rice before i add it to the veggies, and then i can add cayan pepper and chilli powder. its gonna be good.

some one broke the glass front door last night at the dorm. i assume that it will be deducted from all of our deposits but since there are atleast 20 people on each floor and there are six floors with people on them it adds up to 60,000 euro of deposits and the replacment glass probably cost 200 - 300 euro tops so at most thy may take less than 1 euro out of my deposit. assuming they don't catch the guy who did it.

found tortillas at the super markt they cost 2.50 euro for an 8 pack. i could make my own for a fraction of the cost.

well i think thats it for now

day 74

2007-10-10T03:21:00.000-12:00

the last post was a mistake apprently blogger installed a new button that translates every thing to hindi. why, i do not know.....

today i planned on going to the UN and eating the most famous schnitzel in vienna which i did. the tour was great there were only 2 of us and he was the talkative type so i got allot more out of it than if i had been alone. the tour guide said it was odd for the group to be so small. the only problem i had with the tour was the other guy kept going on about how crazy the security is and how he can#t see why an one would attack the UN and on and on. i knew the answer but i knew enough to not use the words attack and UN in the same sentence while in the UN compound. so i let it go. the UN onsists of 192 countries and in order to become a member a country has to be recogniyed by all the othere memebers so if egypt wanted to join and isrial said they didn't recogniye them then the would not be aloud to join. the UN building complex was actually build by the austrian goverment out of their own pockets and the UN pays an anual duty of 7 euro cents to the austrian goverment. however the building is not big enough for some confrences so they have to rent out a building next to the complex (the vienna international center) and then they pay the big bucks. while i was there i was not actually in vienna any more or even austria for that matter i was in somsort of UN nation kinda thing. as i understand it i could have killed a man there and it would fall under intenational law. they had an incident with a suicide a while back at the vienna international center but they were having a confrence there so it was technically UN territory so they had a big to do about it. saw a short propoganda film about standing up against poverty. so if any of you hate poverty stand up on october 17th and say you hate poverty.

then i went to the money exchange place and exchanged my money and then went to the worlds most famous wiener schnitzel resturant "figlmüller" and got a schnitzel and gape juice mixed with sprite. the grape juice i guess was made from white grapes, it tasted like watered down apple juice. the schnitzel was bigger than the plate it hung over by about 2 inches evey were. however it was about 3/8ths of an inch thick. its like they ran over a pig with a steam roller and then deep fried it. it was good. the total cost was 14.50 euro but i remembered that i needed to give a tip so i gave him a twenty and said 15. then i went home and dropped off my passport (which is the heaviest doccument i have ever had to carry, it makes me parranoid having it on me). and then i came here to the central office and picked up a piece of apple struesell at the local backery and ate it while typing this.

now i shoud mension that today was made possible by the money grama gave me over the summer. thank you gramma.

gonna post more blogs when i figure out how to makee my internet work in my room.

ह्र्क्क

2007-10-10T03:16:00.000-12:00

notice

2007-10-07T23:46:00.000-12:00

well i know it has been a long time since i last posted but since my laptop is no longer connectable to the internet i can't post any thing.
don't worry i have been typing them i just can't post them. as soon as i get my internet working i will post them all.

so here is a short out line of my past few days
- my room, wow. pretty.
- shopping troubles
- bought cooking knives
- homless people
- so many resturants
- wow im more ignorant than i thought
- health problems in europe
- nashmarkt
- i hate some of my fellow students
- don't have a roommate yet
- i love trains

there is a short preview. if your confussed and intrigued then good.

day 69?

2007-10-03T20:25:00.000-12:00

ok i got the password for the vpn and i signed in but i can't get online yet. could some one ask jon if i need to do anything else. because i'm not computer literate. thank you.

made tuna noodle casorol last night for dinner but instead of mushroom soup i used broclii soup mix. the only problem was the dreid broccli stayed dry. i plan on cooking the soup acording to the direction tonight to fix it. othere than that it was good. it was all green because of the brocli and peas but it was good.

2007-10-02T19:51:00.000-12:00

aparently its a vpn thing or somthing

day 60 somthing

2007-10-02T19:43:00.000-12:00

ok today i have the first vienna seminar class.
i still can't get internet in my room and my computer is crashing more often i'm trying to save every thing of value but my burner won't burn to the dvds i have and my memory stick is only 512 MB so i may lose my music and some pictures and videos. i'gonna try to find a larger memory stick or buy some new blank cds or try to save the info some how then i'm gonna restore the computer to i'ts factory comdition. then i'll figure out how to get online (it has somthing to do with a private network or somthing) and then make the computer work like it use to again. hopfully i don't lose anything important.

in othere news a girl tried to getz on the train this morning she sprinted into the train and the door shut right behind her and her purse got stuck out side of the train.

day 65

2007-10-01T04:50:00.000-12:00

day 65

well last night i woke up to find another student walk into my room at 10:40 pm i was tired and confused so it was hard to speak german. he asked if it was the right room and how long i was gonna be here for then he left. i supose he went to the front desk and told them then he came back and explained that he got another room. i thanked him then went back to bed. i was out of it.

i woke up this morning expecting some one to barge in my room. yesterday i had 4 people enter my room without permission. the thing is that during the school semester this building is a dormatory but during the summer break it is a hotel run by 2 diferent organizations. the hotel people were moving out yesterday which is why they took my tv and my lamps and my mirror. then they probably didn't tell the dormatory people that i was still here so the dormatory people gave the guy last night the keys to my room and thats why i was so confused yesterday. any way today i'm going to move to "haus burgenland II" and meet my roommate. before i do that i pplan to go to the train station and buy a month pass. i'm not elligable for the semester pass since i am not a student at the vienna university so instead of paying 117 euro for the semester i gotta pay 200 euro for 4 monthly passed or maybe less depending on how i handle the last two months. it requirres more research.

i had pizza for dinner last night from a trainstation fast food place. then i walked to a church i like and found out its called Votiv kirche. i might post a picture but with how internnet has been lately maybe not. i should have internet in my room at haus burgenland II but who knows. maybe they were lying to me the whole time. it wouldn't surprise me.

i'm gonna go buy the train ticket now and hope that all my stuff is still here when i get back.

i have the train ticket. on the way back into the building the manager stoped me and asked if i want to registar and i said i have a room then he said ohh your from central college. so it seems its all been worked out i should move out at 2:00 and there should be no problems.

the guy whos gonna move into this room after i leave just moved all of his stuff into my room and left. his main concern was if it would bother me or not. i'm amazed how trusting he is.

if i had taken the train with all my luggage i would be at the dorm by now but marrie had to arrange the taxi to pick us up at 2:00 pm so i'm stuck here playing solitare until 2:00 only 2 hours to go

after i get to the place i plan to drop off my stuff say hello to my roommate if he is there and then go to the central office to get help with my registration form and then bring it back have the RA sign it then i'll go to the distric official and register with them.

just had pizza for lunch. i found this fast food pizza place in a train station the pizza isn't that great or cheap but i know it beter than any other food place. it was cheaper than the mensa anyway. 2.30 euro for 1/4 of a 20" pizza. once i get to my new dorm i'll find out were the kitchen is and srtart making my own food. i already know were a rocery store is in the area (1 kg spagehitti = 0.75 euro)

well guess who was late to move to the new dorm. thats right kim. she got lost...again. so maggy being the nice person she is decided to take her stuff to the new dorm for her. then i got stuck watching there stuff for 40 minutes while maggie tried to go to the trainstation and also got lost then found kim then they got lost on the way back again. and they wonder why i was so pissed off. any way i'm in my new dorm room now and i thinks its newly renovated. however i can't get online here either. i'm starting to get stressed about it. at least at goethe i had about 2 hours a day on weekdays here i'm lucky to get 20 minutes a day. with my battery and the wifi at the university. i'm on the 6th floor which is actually the seventh floor. in europe the first floor is the second floor. i have a huge window but not much of a view. i can see the building on the other side of the street but thats it. i'm gonna go to the institute after alittle unpacking then post this.

day 64

2007-09-30T03:59:00.000-12:00

day 64

today i woke up and tried to decide what to do. i decided to go to down town and see that so i took U-bahn 1 across the donau and i saw abunch of different flags are aranged in a circle right as the doors were closing i realized it must be the UN i took the train to the end of the line so i could see the rest of the city and i turned around and went back to see the UN there was a visitor center but it looked closed i'll have to see what the opening times are for it when i get online tomarrow. i took several pictures the wind was blowing so i got a good picture of the flag. then i took the train back to karls platz and got a coke and a giant cheese stick. coke is expensive here 1.80 euro per bottle ($2.43) for 1/2 liter. but i didn't buy it for the coke i bought it for the bottle. coke bottles in europe are extremly durible. probably 3x thicker plastic than the bottles at home. i can use it for water and it will never break or get ugly. now i'm back in my temp room typing this.

tomarrow i move to the haus burgenland II dorm at 2:00 and probably meet my new roommate. hopfully we are more talkative than my previous roommate. a guy came about 20 minutes ago and took the tv and lamps out of my room. i think they were preparing for the students coming tomarrow. i worked out my list of goals for the rest of this semester since i having nothing better to talk about i guess i'll just post them.

- learn moonlight sonata (the central office has a piano)
- eat a good wienerschnitzel
- see the city
- go to stradavarious workshop
- go to italy
- learn about violin making online
- learn somthing else on line (could/should i sign up for a online class??)
- pass all my classes
- do well in the history class
- go to all the concerts for the music class
- learn to cook gooder
- learn about a profesional trade/skill (ie electrician, carpenter, plumber, ect...)
- take lots of good pictures
- go walking alot
- spend no more than 5000 euro (i'm close to 1000 now so it shouldn't be a problem)
- learn to speak good german
- don't get sick

yesterday i went walking and found a place were motzart once stayed there was a big statue of him (he looked like a pompus jerk)

on the tour of the "ring" on friday we walked past an anti war protest. it was kinda scary although i knew nothing would have happened i knew i looked like an american and if somthing happened it would happen to me or the people around me. also saw a anti CO2 protest people were walking around in giant blue ball costumes that were supose to look like the CO2 molucule but since it was all blue i couldn't tell if it was CO2 or H2O or some other oxygen based molicule. also saw those people who dress up like statues and move when you put money in the box at there feet. they wern't very good. i liked the once in new orleans better. the people here did a lousy job with the makup and moved far to often. the one mozart guy wouldn't stop moving he was having a great time trying to get every ones attention. we also saw strause and chalie chaplin. (by far my favorite was a vampire in new orleans we couldn't tell if he was real or not his eyes didn't even move)

in germany small towns were judged by how big the church in the center was. vienna has atleast 20 churches all of which are gigger and more beutiful than any church i saw in germany (with the exception of st. pauls church in munich that is in the same class as all the churches here)

day 63??

2007-09-29T00:27:00.002-12:00

day 63

ok yesterday i woke up and rode the train systems to school for oreintation.i took U-bahn 1 to karls platz then u-bahn 2 to scholentor then street cars to the school. three days costs 13.60 euro but i can stay on the train all day if i like. i think 50 euro for a month is well worth it the walk is far to long. also since it was my first time using the train system somthing strange was pretty much garentied to happen. i got on to the second U-Bahn and this guy (who looked like charles manson) was sitting with terable posture in the seat on the other side of the train from me behind me. at one point he just kinda yelled somthing in comprehensible at nobody. then the first stop came allong. the people got off and he doors shut and we were just about to leave when the guy sprang up and upened the door then he leaned up against one side and put his foot on the door so it couldn't close. every one on the train looked at him with distaste. then some othere guy said "in oder aus" (in or out) then pushed the guy out of the door. (two other men stood up to help the pusher if nessissary (if i were a citizen i would have helped the pusher too)) the door caught his arm i think then he forced the door open got his arm out then tried to kick the guy through the open door. the kick fell short by about a foot. then the door closed and the train started to move. at this point the crazy guy started to walk away but half way through turning around decided that he had to fight the pushed some more so he chased the train grabed the handle and the door opened about 2 inches before snapping shut again then the guy chased the train making obseen gestures at the pusher aparently ablivious to the other two men who stood up when the guy pushed him. according to marrie the stop that he "got off" at was well known for having homless and crack addicts sleep there during the night.

after the train insident every thing else went smoothly i found the office two hours early and decided to wait since i had nothing better to do. it was raining so i found a archway to hide in and i decided to see if there was WiFi at the campus i found one but the signal was weak so it took awhile to get on and the url bar couldn't be used to go to websites i had to search every thing through google. so i couldn't post my blog yesterday. but i did get an email off to mom and i checked my mail.

then andrea walked buy and asked if i knew were to go. of course i did. it was half an hour early but we decided to try the door bell any way. then a lady came up and pushed a button that unlocked the door. so we got in. later ruth came by and we got into the office.

the office consists of a security door going into a hallway immediatly on the left is a small kitchen (with washing machine) on the right in a computer room (3 computers(none of which allow google talk)) then about 6 feet past those doors are the doors to the office (right) and the bathroom (left) then after that is the mail area (we each get a document tray with our name on it) then the halway goes through a door way into a lounge if you keep walking you will go into the class room which has a baby grand piano in it.

the lounge is the most intresting room. it has a tv with VCR and couches and chairs behind all of that is a big table on which was all the stuff left behind from last year. i managed to get a spagehitti pan (a pan with a lid with straining holes in it) 2 bowls a big plastic container, a tennis ball, a mug, chop sticks and taco mix.

also before leving schwabish hall thomas had bought a water boiler thing its basically a heating coil attached to a AC cord that you put in water and plug in and the watter eventually boils he didn't want it any more so he gave it to me.

any way the pot and bowls i got wern't cleaned so there were some food particles still in place so last night i used the boiler coil inthe pot and got it near boiling (it took more than an hour) and used the hot watter to get most of the stuff off.

any way after we all got the stuff we wanted we started orientation were we listened to ruth tell us the same things again. and eventually we went to lunch with marrie at the university "mensa" (its like a cafeteria but its cheaper) i had wiener schnitzel it cost 4.20 euro and it wasn't great or terrable . during lunch i looked out the window (the mensa was on the top floor of the main university building) and saw a buetiful church it was breath taking.
then we took a tour of the university buildings i don't have to go to. and then we took a guided tour of the city. (my feet hurt at the end of the day) then we went back to the office and had a hour to do what ever i got online and checked my email. then we went to dinner in a resurant on campus (it was nice, they had there own resturant cat, that we took turns passing around) (glad i didn't have to pay for it though) then we went back to the office to grab our stuff and i went back to my temp dorm. and tried to clean my pot and bowls.

this morning i woke up and said every things gonna be closed on sunday i have to get stuff to eat. so i went out with a list and the intention of buying stuff. then i figured out that i wasn't even sure if i had a kitchen in my temp dorm. so i went back and got the direction from the dorm i'm gonna be living in to the office and worked them backwards to find out were it was and went there. i found it then i walked around it in a outward spiral and found a grocery store (before i left i couldn't find a kitchen so i decided to get only food that was ready to eat cereal and pretzels. also i got sponges and soap so i can clean tonight. then i took the train to the office area then came back to the dorm to drop of my stuff and charge the laptop battery so i can go to the campus and see if i can get on that wifi again.

its strange how kim can get lost so easily ruth gave us directions to the campus that were nearly perfectly consice but kim was still a 1/2 hour late infact i think she tries to be late and blames it on being lost (personally i would admit to being late because of somthing crazy that to being lost) i am amazed how little information most of these people take in about the city during the tour. i didn't hear or understand most of the tour but i was astute enought to know which buildings we were in and what they look like and that we didn't take any turns to get to them. but kim has a nack for asking questions that are obvious and not noticing things.

monday i move to my dorm at 2:00 and on tuesday i have a meeting with ruth about my courses i'm gonna see it i can just go on the concert trips for the music ourse with out taking the music course or maybe take it for audit (i don't wanna have to work to hard in it)

there is so much more to talk about but i either cant remember or am to tired to type about it i'm gonna go to the campus now since my batery is chraged an try to post this and yesterdays and maybe talk to mom and dad.

day 61

2007-09-29T00:27:00.001-12:00

day 61

well today was the big day i finnaly got to vienna. its 6:30 and i am tired. the idiots decided to "finish off" all the beer they had left (plus some they bought) so up till 1:00 am thomas was yelling about how he loves space blankets and how loud they are crincling one as loudly as he could. this morning i slamed my fair share of doors at 6:00 am. i got the final packing done and had nothing to do for a while so i just sat in my room. eventually one of the office people came by and said that the 50 euro deposite would cover the oven i was thankfull i was expecting atleast 100 euro. i gave him my key and waited for a van to pick us up to take the luggage to the buss station. then ruth came bye and said that the van would be full so some of us would have to walk our luggage there so i did, i got there first. the bus was a charter bus. and it took alittle more than 2 hours to get to nurnberg then we had a two hour wait till the plane boarded. we boarded and flew to vienna. when we arived thomas deciided to point out every thing he recognized showing how much better he was than all of us. some times i find him help full and othere times i just wanna punch him in the face and say shut up and let me learn on my own!.

found out yesterday at the meeting that hausburgenland II doesn't open till oct 1rst so i have to stay in kirchschlagerhiem. luckily adam pretty much signed out all of our keys there were 6 of us and we got 4 keys 2 rooms are doubles. and also luckily he is a greedy bastard so he took a single leaving a single for me since i'm the only other guy. on the other had the internet doesn't connect to the internet just the local network. since i'm only gonna be here for 3 days i'm not gonna complain i may have access at the office tomarrow. who knows.

i text messaged dad that i was here and now i'm gonna take a nap then figure out were i am then explore the city tomarrow.

there is so much more to type but right now i'm tired so

**********************INTERMISION******************************

ok its tomarrwo morning now (day 62?) ok um....

ok more detail. at the meeting we got maps and a schedual of what we are gonna do for the next week. i have a meeting at the central office at 9:30am and its raining pretty hard so i'm gonna take the train instead of walking like i planed. (gotta find an umbrella). on the bus ride to the airport ruth asked me if it would be ok to have the history course in german since every one else wans the german credits. i said sure i'll probably undestand more than most of the class anyway.

then we checked our luggage (no problems) then i went to the terminal and bought some candy and ate it while i waited (the cashier asked for my boarding pass??) we had to go through the gate then they put us on a bus and drove us to the plane (i was surprised) take was fun the acceleration was faster than any other take off i've ever been on i had apple juice and a chicken sandwich. landing was fun the plane stayed about 20 ft off the runway then sudenly droped onto it. then a bus took us to the terminal and we pcked up our luggage. central hired two of those airport vans and they brought us to the dorms. i got a single hotel room (i love it!!) it has my own shower and every thing. of course i'm only here till monday then they will move me to the haus burgenland II with a german/austrian roommate.

found out that i'm not eligable for a student semester card (train ticket) because i'm not enrolled at the vienna university. so i'll have to buy monthly cards which is alot more. i'm gonna go with a 3 day card at first then try to explore the city more and see if i actualy need the cards or not (it may be cheaper to walk and buy daily cards on rainy days)

there is an internet connection here but it only goes to the local network not the internet. i would complain but i'll only bee here 4 days.

thats all i can remember for now. i have to figure out how to get to my meeting now.

day 59

2007-09-25T23:01:00.000-12:00

day 59

today was the last day of class. i woke up and went to breakfast and did the normal routine then went to class and did my homework and defraged my computer. then the teacher walked in and said your always early i said yeah she asked if i was a morning person i said most of the time yeah then she left and i worked on the homework some more then she started writing the answers on the board and pawel (the russian guy) came in carrying allot of plastic bags the frau buchholz asked what they were and he said gifts so every one in the class got a paper bag from pwel with a thing from russia in it. i got a hat that says russia on it and a keychain. other people got those figurins that open up and have another figurene inside and that one opens up and there is another ( i forget the name but they were impresive) and most fo the guys got a small bottle of vodka one girl got a toy that has two bears with movable arms and if you swing a ball attached to 3 strings on bottom the bears lift and drop there arms. in class we disscussed german history mostly after WWII i knew most of it already but i wasn't about to explain it to a german who had lived through it and a russian so i just sat back and listened to every one elses perspective. at the end we got pictures of the class and every one had to sign every one elses and some people had to get every ones emil address and it got very uncomfortable very fast. at the end we had some kind of german fruit cake ( i think it was plume) i thought it tasted awfull but i remembered a story dad told me about norman schwartzkopf when he was a child.

the young normand schwarzkopfs father was a diplomat and he took his son with him to some country. they were haveing a ceromony or dinner or somthing and they were gonna eat some kind of strange food. the father told the son "this is a delacasey and an honor to these people. you are going to eat all of it and your going to like it." so i ate the whole thing with a smile.

then things got more emotional so i slipped out of the room (which i am very good at) and went to lunch after lunch i went online and talked to mom and dad then i came back here with all my stuff then went to the bike shop to sell my bike.

it took me three tries to walk in the door of the bike shop i wasn't sure how to explain it in german and was afraid they may misunderstand. eventually i walked in with the bike and said "halo ich habe diese rad im august gekauft heir und mochte es zuruck verkaufen" (hello i baught this bike in august and would like to sell it back (i messed up some of the grammar on purpose)) then he got me the manager and he spoke to fast i thought i heard him say no so i asked if he knew were i could sell it then he asked if i spoke english (i was relieved) eventualy he asked how much i would want for it i said 100 he imediatly said 50 i said ok. walking home i realized he wanted to hagle. but having already explained that i needed to get rid of it i was at a disavantage so if i did hagle i probably would have gotten no more than 60 out of it.

i came home and made supper stir fry. i started by cooking the rice the sauteing the veggies (corn peases and red peppers (canned) with garlic powder and cyan pepper) then i adde the rice and mixed it well. i had had a great idea two days before at breakfast (i always eat brezel rolls with honey) what if i used honey in the stirfry it would give it a sweeter taste. so i added honey to the rice vegie mixture then i added an egg and some more garlic powder and cayan pepper. the honey made a huge diference along with the soysauce it was both sweet and sauwer at the same time. i was very pleased

then i sat with the group before there dinner and they needed thing chopped very fast so me and james both said give me a knife so i chopped peppers and i should have chopped a zukini to but i never got one (some one else got to it first) then thomas aske dme to saute the veggie which i did (i like suaeteing) and they started watching a stupid movie so when the viggies were done i started watching to. my plan was to watch the movie with them while they ate but then 3 people from downstairs came up (one of them being adam the loud obnoxiuous person who i can't stand to be in the same room with) on top of that there were a limmited number of places at the table so i went back into my room. on the way there thomas said phill eat with us you did your fair share of work. i said no thanks i'm not a big fan of salad. and went back in my room and played a racing game i download afew weeks ago.

tomarrow i have to pack but before that i'm thinking of going to a tower that andrea told me about to get a better look at the surounding area.
i also have a meeting with ruth and the central people at 4:00 then thursday i leave for vienna i probably won't get on on thursday but i'll post as soon as possible. tomarrow should be a full day.

day 58

2007-09-23T23:42:00.000-12:00

went to the art exhibit today for class it was an edward munch exhibit the first picture is his most famous for the painting "the scream" but that wasn't on display because it was stolen and ruined the next most famous one is the vampire which i did see.

most of his work looks like a kid with a carayon drew them but he could draw when he wanted to . it just seems that he didn't try..

day 57

2007-09-23T23:33:00.000-12:00

day 57

ok today is sunday and i have nothing really to do i'm drying my cloths and the dryer is the worst dryer ever.
i put the cloths in the dryer and on the this is the tird time ii have had to start the dryer luckily i don't have to pay for the dryer.
today i was hopeing to take pictures of schwabisch hall but the dryer takes 20 minutes so i don't have time to go out. so i'm gonna type about my concerns and hopes for vienna.

concerns
1. roommate
2. course load
3. bezerksampt
4. food
5. credits transfering properly
6. getting lost
7. semester trian pass?
8. flight and transport to dorm problems

hopes
1. see lots of stuff in the city
2. trip to italy?
3. eat atleast one vienese wienerschnitzel
4. internet in my dorm
5. take some great pictures

concerns
1 roomate
i am concerned about getting a roommate that is a drinker or partyer or has a girlfriend that he insists on having over at all times. i got lucky with joe as a roommate freshman year

2 course load
the course load right now is 20 credits. 13 of those credits are a "intensive" class that meets for 2 hours a day monday through friday were i learn more german. i have a placment test on the first friday i am in vienna. 3 of the credits are a history class that will meet thursday evenings covering the history of vienna it will be taught in englisch which is good i need these credits to graduate. the final 3 credits are a music class were i will learn about composers and go on trips to concerts. if i need to i wil drop the music class although i will hold out until the withdraw date before withdrawing so i can go to the concerts. i am also considering signing up for a sports class likly a martial art or somthing easy and fun. i am concerned that my days will be to full. and my grades will suffer.

3. bezerksampt
when first arriving in vienna you have 72 hours to register with a district official. (i think its a living place thing) the booklet they gave us says they are not to friendly and not to be offnded which means BE AFRAID. i doubt it will be to big of a problem no matter how much he yells at me i'll still et registared.

4. food
mostly i am concerned about finding places to buy food and finding time to cook it. i'll probably continue my diet of spagehitti and rice and i may find new ways to cook it so i'm not always eating the same thing since i'll have an internet connection.

5. credits transfering properly
it would be a catastrofy if any of my credits didn't transfer over to central properly. i doubt it will be a problem since i'm not taking and uniiversity classes and all the classes i am taking are "central classes" so i assume they are automatically transferable but i'll have to talk to ruth to be sure of it.

6. getting lost
vienna is a big city, like minniapolis. i would hate to get lost. but given my personality i don't get lost easily. ussually when ever i go any place i automatically pick out 2 or 3 points of refference and never loose them. even if i do get lost i am pretty sure i'll find my way back to a place i know but its still a concen.

7. getting a train pass
when i arive i will have to figure out were every thing i need to know about is and then decide if its all in walking distance or if i need to get a train pass (117 euro) thats 1 fifth of what i spent these past two months and 200 of that was on the bike.

8. as i have learned in traveling in groups from before inevitably some one is going to have a problem that wil hold up the rest of the group it will likly be either kim or maggie kim will make a stupid mistake that will slow the rest of us down or maggie will just start complaining or somthing. the rest of us should be good to go (i'm not sure about jackie or emily they are both pretty girly) i know i won't be the cause of the problem thats just the way i am.

hopes
1 see lots of stuff in the city
mom looked up my dorm on google earth and found out that there is somkind of mozart museum thing between my dorm and my classes i would like to check that out and would also like to see what ever else there is in the city (which i should be able to find online with my inroom internet connection)

2. italy trip
the italy trip is looking pretty grim right now i'm thinking of shortening it to 5 days and just going to the places i really want to go see. it will require more research. from what i can tell online if i buy a rail pass i have to use a special train that has diffrent lines and i still have to buy a ticket. it may be cheaper to buy the reginal train tickets. it will require more research.

3. i wanna eat at least one viennesse wienerschnitzel. grant (a former abraod student) told me that they are almost every were in vienna so it shouldn't be to hard to find.

4. INTERNET IN MY ROOM
IN VIENNA I'M GONNA HAVE INTERNET IN MY ROOM SO I'LL BE ABLE TO RESEARCH ALL OF THE STUFF I HAVE BEEN WANTING TO REASEARCH WHEN I THINK OF IT INSTEAD OF HAVING TO RIGHT IT DOWN AND LOOK IT UP IN THE MEDIA CENTER THE NEXT DAY. ITS GONNA BE GREAT!!!!!

5. take some great pictures. i'm not sure if there are any mountains or forests near vienna but i hope to take some good pictures even is they are just of buildings. i prefer to take pictures of landscapes and nature but it all depends on what i have to work with. during some week and i would like to take a train to a city on the foot of the alps and take pictures of them.

well there is every thing i am thinking about for vienna.

i started packing alitlle today and i should have plenty of room in my suitcase we have a weight limit of 45 lbs for the checked luggage so i'm gonna leave my blanket here. (its dying anyway it has half the fuzz it use to have). and maybe mail some stuff home mostly souveniers and paperwork i don't need any more.

well the dryer should be done with the fourth cycle now i'm gonna go restart it again.

i had rice for brunch and looked over my food suply i have enough for an extra meal so i'm gonna have lunner today aswell. spagehitti it should be done after i start the dryer again its on the sixth cycle now i cleaned the lint trap so hopfully it goes faster.

the group didn't go to munich they decided it was to expensive

day 56

2007-09-23T23:28:00.000-12:00

day 56

since my time in germany is coming to a close (5 days left) i feel it only fiting to write an overview of my experiences here.

flew in
transfered through amsterdam
got confused, eventually figured out how trains work
cried for the fist time since my iguana died in seventh grade.
learned german
bought a bike
learned that the other side of the world is still soar about the cold war
went to the mercedes museum
went to a bike race (saw levi liephiemer)
went to rothenburge
saw a tourture museum
passed A2.1 level
went to munich
saw the fraun kirche
saw st. pauls kirche
saw the oktoberfest grounds
saw neuschwanstien castle
toured hohenschwangau castle
had great wiener schnitzel
toured dachau concentration camp
stayed in a hostel in a room with 7 other strangers
got yelled at by train people alot.
lived off spagehitti for a while
started classes at goethe again
signed up for classes in vienna
went to a stuttgart philharmonic concert
went to a catholic church service in german
went to ludwigsburg.
saw a lousy museum
used my philosophy background to mess with some mormans
toured a big mansion
broke a stove
learned just how important parents are for how we turn out (i.e. adam drunken idiot)
signed up to go to frankfurt
frankfurt trip got canceled
found out just how mature i am.
endured drunken parties out side my door almost every night.

and i think thats all...

before i leave for vienna i have to:
1. get rid of bike some how
2. throw out allot of stuff
3. find out how stove thing will work
4. pack
5. mail some stuff home
6. laundry
7. ect...

as you can see its been an eventful 2 months. dad asked me if i got my moneys worth out of my bike and i said i didn't think so but looking back on it i rode it out of the city that one day and i used it in munich (it was a huge help (must have broken adozen or more laws there on it)) and i rode it during the course breaks and other misc. riding. also that one really good corner (down hill 180 at 30 kph the whole time) (fun) i think i did get 200 euro out of it. or atleast close to 200 euro.

classes were benifitial i know more now than when i came in both german and global stuff. i learned alot about group dynamics both in class and in my appartment.

i had some great chocolate.

and learned to live even more spartanly than i already did.

i believe all of these lessons will help in vienna.

i'm looking forward to going to vienna. and am only really worried about afew things
1. will my room mate be a drunken idiot
2. i have to registar with a district office
3. finding my dorm
4. my class credits transfering to central properly
5. the course load being to high.

other than that i'm confident i can make things work.

day 55

2007-09-20T23:37:00.000-12:00

well i think the group is leaving to go to Munich to kill some brain cells so i should have the apartment mostly to myself this week end. found out that there was not enough interest to go to Frankfurt so I'm not going there this weekend (i got my money back)

and i think thats it

i plan to go around schwabish hall on sunday to take pictures (it will be my last chance) then i will get ready for the trip to Austria. tonight i'm gonna have spagehitti again. and tomarrow for luch i'm gonna make either stirfry or mexican rice not sure which yet.

and that its

day 54

2007-09-20T00:10:00.000-12:00

day 54??

two days ago actually at 10:00 pm i went to the bathroom an found thomas cleaning the kitchen apparently the cleanning staff were coming the next day and he wanted to clean up for them we got to talking and he said he was gonna buy some wine and chocolate to leave out for the cleaning staff. i said i would like to chip in. then i went to sleep and woke up in the morning did my home work and went to breakfast, brought rolls back to my room and walked back to the institute. on the way i say thomas with a bag and hee told me that was the wine and chocolate. when i got back to the institute i checked on the price for the frankfurt trip and saw that it was 22.50 euro, i only had 20 euro with me at the time. so during the first break i walked back to the dorm to get 2.50 euro and the cleaning staff was in the kitchen i over heard them saw herr thomas acouple times. (the night before an italian who eats with the group said that giving a gift like that was an insult) i wasn't sure what the german view of this was so i decied not to go up and be forced to explain so i went to the atm and withdrew money (which i need to do any way) and payed for the frankfurt trip. when i walked back to class i ran into thamas again he told me
thecleaning staff love him now (which is good for me and the oven situation) later he told me he talked to marie (the central abroad person) and said that she was gonna email me so i checked my email and ... well i'll just post it. (i deleted names and such because i know othere people are reading this blog)

----
thanks for letting me know! I just got off the phone with Frau Dietrich at the Goethe Institut and she was very friendly and said that while the oven would have to be replaced it was an old oven and the most you would be charged would be the value the oven had at the time it broke. She was very impressed that you came forward and confessed that it had been you who broke the oven and will put that up in your favor. Currently she is unable to tell me what will happen or how much exactly a potential charge may be as she needs to wait for Frau Czerny's return (who is on vacation until next week). Central itself does not have anything in place for this but you might have a liability insurance or your parents might have a household insurance that also covers liability issues such as this. Could you check into that please?

Also, do not worry overly, as far as Frau Dietrich told me the charge would at the most probably be about 200 hundred dollars. So we will keep our fingers crossed and maybe you could find out whether you have insurance in the interim?Keep me posted and let me know if there is anything I can do to help!

Best,
Ruth

this is the email i sent here 2 days ago

Ruth

last Sunday afternoon I accidentally broke part of the oven in my dorm. does central have something in place for when stuff like this happens? I tried to swat a fly on the oven door with an oven-mit (I choose the oven-mit because I knew it was glass and didn't want to break it. I also didn't hit it to hard) apparently there was a magnet sewn into the hanging loop of the oven-mit, that I didn't know about and a hole had worn into it so the magnet could slide out. when I tried to swat the fly the magnet flew out and the glass panel in front of the oven shattered. as far as we can tell the glass was weakened before this incident because there is no way I hit it hard enough that it should have shattered. the house mister is looking into if the glass panel can be replaced or if he will have to buy a new stove (which would cost about 1000 euro) I don't wanna pay that much. is there any thing I don't know about that might help in this situation?

thanks
-----

when i got back to the dorm i talked to thomas again and he said that he walked by the office today and he saw house master and his boss in another room and the boss was chewing him out for hating us. later i heard that the house master came up to our kitchen and cheked the oven mit to see if the actually was a magnet i the oven mit (which there wasn't we took it out because it was dangerous i have it in my room incase any one needs proof.) so in the end we turned every one against the house master his workers, his boss, and we all hated him from the start. i gave thomas 5 euro for the wine and stuff and i think that every thing should turn out fine.

saw a movie in class today. it was about a young man who lived with his grandmother. the grandmothers friends would come to visit every day from the retirment home and tell her to move in with them. the grandson onday took her out for a walk in her wheel chair and she fell asleep so he stoped and left her to go to the bathroom. then the wheel chair rolled into a pond and the grandson saw her walking in the water so he build a strap system that would hold her up and allow her to walk in a line with a caster on a rail on the ceiling. then he had the idea of using baloons he tried it himself first and then he started to fly away his granmother took out a rifle and tried to shot the ballons but hit him in the leg instead then she hit the baloons the next seen showed him walking with a cast and cruches and the grandmother walking with the help of a harnes and ballon system the movie was called "gregors grosses enfindung" i liked it it was funny.

tomarrow most of the group leaves to go to munich to get drunk with millions of othere people. i find it strange they get drunk and film themselves and then watch the videos over and over again and laugh about it (the videos aren't even funny) i don't understand whats so great about being totally out of control and making an idiot of yourself. whats funny is that they feel bad for me not drinking. as if i want to be a drunken bafoon.

thats all for now

day 52

2007-09-18T23:57:00.000-12:00

day 52

well i talked to alexander about the oven and he wrote some stuff down and told me he would keep me up dated. he didn't know anything about money.
i emailed ruth about the oven today and havn't gonnen a responce yet. i talked to thomas tonight and found out that he emailed every one he could think of that would help including his own college. he also set up a meeting with the house master to discuss the sittuation apparently my accident came at the worst possible time. the house master already thinks we are a bunch of imature slobs because two beds broke durring our 2 month stay and one of the burners broke on the stove as well the group that was here before we showed up must have been slobs two because when we first showed up the kitchen was a disaster. thomas is going to go out and buy some wine and chocolates for the cleaning staff and ask for an appology. i'm gonna chip in. a rumor from alexander (the zivi(explained latter)) is that they might only keep my 50 euro deposit which in my opinion would be the best possible outcome. thamas has been a big help
through out this entire prodicament and i think he is the most mature person here he just can't control adam. and when adams out of control othere people think they have the right to get out of control.

ok, in germany there are two options for when you reach a certian age 1. join the army 2. become a "zivildienst" (civil "servant") alexander and christian are zivi's they were asigned to the goethe institute (probably because they know english) and they have to help out with the office functions and housing stuff. at goethe they are pretty much a combination of an RA (resident advisor) and an office secretary assistant kinda thing.

well its 10:30 and i should get to sleep thanks for reading good night.

day 52???

2007-09-17T23:45:00.000-12:00

found out that we will have a predeparture meeting on the wensday before we leave. then we will meet at the bus station the next day to go to the nurnberg airport then fly to vienna. i have a attachment with the first weeks schedual

thats prety much it

day 50

2007-09-16T23:29:00.002-12:00

day 50
today i woke up and ate breakfast (apfel strudel coffee cake) in the prossess i saw a fly on the table. i grabed a pot holder and smacked it hard i thought it was dead but flies in europe have a tendency to come back to life so i choped one of its wings off. not 5 minutes latter i saw it running around the table to i took an empty glass and traped it. after church i came back he was lying on his back not moving when i lifted the glass his legs started to move so i fliped him over and he started running around again i went in my room and started do stuff and i heard micheal say who did that (obviously implying the fly) it was at this point i decided to call him herb. i walked out and looked at herb and saw he was on his back again i said"ohh is herb dead?" it was fun

went to church today it was in german and it was suprisingly short i think most of it was singing but since i was not given a program i had no idea what songs to sing (i think they all had it engraved in there memory what to do). at the end of the service i walked out at noticed people putting money into small boxes in the back so thats were i put the 10 euro i owed them.

went to a thing called friendship day today it was basically a band playing and different nationalities foods.

the nights have been getting quieter since james tried to apologize to me (and i didn't forgive him(speaking of which it is incredably hard to be polite while not forgiving some one)) i thik he told thomas and thomas being the "father" of the group decided to keep it quite.

i don't understand but when ever any one in a group has a girlfriend he automatically becomes the "father" and the girl the "mother". as if they are more mature than the rest of the group.

now i'm eating lunch (stirfry with canned peas,corn,and red pepper and an egg.) its good.

well i just tried to swat a bee with a ovenmit and the tempered glass on the outside of the stove shatered. i can only guess that somthing hard was in the ovenmit and slid out as i swung it. i have it all cleaned up now and am having a delema as to what to do. should i own up to it to the peoplon this floor and to the house master or should i act like it never happened and hope no one notices. the right thing to do is to take responciblity and explain it was an accident this will cost me dearly. (i think getting that replaced would be very expensive). or i could ignore it and if the house master notices i should act surpriced and then every one on the floor will loose their deposite. (however if he doesn't notice no body will lose their deposit). i know what the right choice is but it is not my money its moms and dads, and i don't wanna get yelled at or give sombody allot of money. but given the reputation our group has the house master will look for any reason to keep our deposits.

well i just did the right thing. thomas came up stairs and said "oh my god" and i knew right away he noticed. so i went out and said "i did it". aparently there was a magnet in the ovenmits strap thing and there was a hole worn there and the magnet came right out. it sounds like the floor will have to pay for it but if it comes to it i will. (i'm sorry mom and dad).

my charecter has been tested twice this week end the first time with the money at the church and the second time with the oven. i think i passed both. life will suck for the next 13 days because of it.

day 49

2007-09-16T23:29:00.001-12:00

friedrick shiller

day 49

last night i found out that there was a concert in the big church. it was the stuttgart philharmonic and they layed several song many of which i recognized but couldn't put a name to. there was one violin solo piece it was beutiful. when i purchas the ticket i thought i gave the lady ten euros but she gave me 12.50 back (the ticket was 7.50 euro) when i got back tonight i checked my information and i had 10 euro more than i was supose to have so tomarrow i'm gonna go to church and put it in the offering with a post it saying (for stuttgart philharmonic concert 15/9)

i'm going to ludwigsberg today i have an hour before i have to go still not sure what i'm gonna see but it should be a good excersis for my german and i'll try to learn alot.

thats all for this moring.

over all i had a good ay today. i went to the bs station went on the bus and went to marbach and saw the house schiller was born in (it was only alittle better than the museum of that guy who wrote the ice cream truck song( his museum was in a house that that he didn't actually live in but it might look like the one he live in except for the electric lights and the paint and the furtinure and all the stuff in the museum was basically worlds fair memorabilia from the worlds fair that he may or maynot have gone to) this museum was only slightly better it actually was the house he was born in and they had a video and some example of stuff he wrote an a lock of his hair for some reason. then we went to luwigsberg we were given maps and we had 3 hours to do what ever. i decided to go to a park and eat the dinner/breakfast rolls i brought with me for lunch. no sooner than i had finish the first half my roll two men dressed in black pants and white shirts with ties came walking my way. i remember thinking "please be buisness men, please be buisness men. then one of them talked to me "ugghhh missionaries" he said somthing in german i said "nien danke" then he said "aber dieses ist wrichtige" (but this is important) then i said i don't speak good german then he said "ahh do you speak good english (i should have said "was?" (what?) but i said yes) then i found out that they were mormans (great there religion is the easiest to disprove) so i listened to most of his spiele about how great it is that stuff is good and so forth and then he asked me what i knew about mormanism i used the term "magic rocks" on purpose to annoy him. then we discussed true for a while an how if i read the book and ask god to tell me if its true he will tell me it is. (i didn't bite). then he said the book of morman has never been disproven (now was my chance to strike) i asked were the (magical gold plates" were now. he said an angel took them away and so forth (darn it didn't work) so then i compared the bibles liniage and how the texts could be traced back all the way to it happenings and how the book of morman can only be traced back 200 years to the "magical rocks thing" he replied no they are equally old its just that the plates were hiden during that time. and i said ohh yes the magical plates that are no longer in our coporial reality. its kinda hard to authenticate them isn't it? in the end i think it was a draw i stayed christian he was still a morman and more importantly i didn't get a book. happily ever after

what i should have done was asked about the after life and used the "is there any thing god can't do? question" with the multiple god aspect and ask which god is the greatest god and how do you know its yours? after all god has no wives so obviously he is not the greatest one so why do you worship him? when you could worship a more powerfull god of a different world. and expend on all the flaws in polythesism.

all in all it has been a very religious week end so far mormans want me to read their book , osama bin laden wants me to read the karran (osamas latest video) (which i was planning on doing after college anyway), and the catholics gave me ten euro. i can expect the muslims to do somthing tomarrow and maybe the budists will come after me to..

after lunch in the park i walked around the city (there was nothing to do in the city but buy fresh fruit in the farmers market) and loitered by the castle (giant expensive residence hall) until the group came to take a tour of it. dispite not being a castle it was pretty cool the artwork was insiring and the over all design was impresive.

then we rode home and i ate dinner and now i'm here typing.

(p.s. if you ever have a chance to mess around with a mormans head i highly recomend it)

tomarrow i plan to go to the big catholic church to attend a service and repay my debt. i think they start at 10:00 am (lazy catholics always sleeping in) i hope to get in and out with out getting stuck talking to any of them or doing crazy catholic retuels in german. and then do laundry and defrag my computer and run all the checks it has wanted me to do for the past 2 weeks.

day 47 somthing

2007-09-13T23:41:00.000-12:00

going to ludwigsberg tomarrow not sure whats there i think i has somthing to do with goethe and schiller it should be better than sitting alone in my room.

found out it is unlucky to give a knife or scissors as a gift as it symbolizes cutting off the friend ship. i've never heard of it before.

day 46

2007-09-12T23:35:00.000-12:00

day 46

i think i might be sick. my throat is soar and my nose is alternating between running and being stuffy and i have small head aches ocationaly. i was about to go to the store to get orange juice when i started talking to thomas he offered me some sort of spray (i declined) and asked him were the orange juice was he said in back by the check out and payed me back for the eggs he used last week. i walked there got the juice and on the way back my side started to hurt like when training for the grand canyon i thought i must be sick i have barley walked at all today. when i got back (thomas was making a balsamic reduction (basically he was boilng vinigar and sugar (i think))) when i walked into the appartment my sinuses just started to drain right away. i felt good for a while dispite the awful smell but eventually i had to retreat to my room to avoid the smell and the soar throat is back.

had stew with colored noodles for lunch. last month a brazilian friend told me how he was joking one day with the cook about how he had a big hunger and shee gave him a huge helping and continued to give him big helping from that point on. so i tried it this month and it worked. today she gave me allot and asked if it was enough.

i have 14 days left in germany then i will transfer to vienna. once in vienna i will have 16 days until the german classes start. however the first week of being in vienna i will have vienna seminar on wensday (a two hour class) and perhaps my history and music classes. this should give me ample time to adust to the city.

the drunk group is going to octoberfest some time. (oktoberfest runs from the last week of september throught the first week of october). drinking sounds like an expensive habbit. and further moree i'm not sure any one here really realizes howmuch they are spending. thomas, today, went out on a whim today and bought a cleaver for 6 euro and said its a great deal. i think each of them is easily spending 100 euro a week.

learned somthing about people today for the most part they are egotistical and want imediate gratification with out concern for otheres or consiquences. maggie talked to me today she had a double room alto her self because her roomate left in the first week. and apparently the haus mister (house master (guy who controls the dormatories) wanted her to move to a differt room along with another central student to make room for othere people. she took affence to this saying its not my fault i got my own room i didn't cheat the system i just goot lucky and now i'm being punished for it and its not fair. the haus mister replied you think your being punished? she said well yeah i have to pack up all my stuff and move it to a different room and it isn't fair. i was tempted to tell her that she wasn't being opressed because she is not a minority but i held it back. what makes it really annoying is that she only talks in mooniton with a straight face and she has to tell every one. quite honestly i thiink her argument is flawed in ohh so many ways but my point is that she can't seeem to understand the haus misters point of view. and doesn't understand there is nothing she can do and that there are things bigger than herself.

there is a movie today that i am thinking of going to but given my current health condition i should consider not going as well. i think i will get a seat close to the door and go out when i gets to late but i will miss the quite time that i will have here since the drunks will be gone and as soon as they get back its gonna get loud. i think i will skip the movie tonight and wath it on my laptop some other time.

i got an apoligy from james last night for being so loud and how he didn't realize how loud they were till he stoped getting drunk every night. i was about to say "its alright" but caught my self before saying it. i realized i don't wanna give him permission to do it again. its hard to not forgive some one and be polite about it.

day 45

2007-09-11T01:33:00.000-12:00

not much going on.

a group of 20 - 30 older people showed up yesterday. i suppose they are doing a two week course or something. none of them are in my class but they all eat in the cafeteria its getting crowded in there. i plan to eat breakfast with one of them tomorrow to find out whats going on
i think most of them are americans. they only speak german but they have an indescribable accent. it may just be a lack of any othere accent i don't know. i plan on going to the store today to get more spaghetti and zipplock bags and a sponge (our dish rag is disgusting).

i got the info i need to write a resume online today and plan to work on it tonight and over the week end.

not much else.

have a good day

day 43

2007-09-09T23:58:00.000-12:00

day 43? sunday

i havn't posted blog in a while so i'm gonna write one up now even though not much has happened.

yesterday the group went to neuschwanstien and i stayed back i had the entire appartment to my self. so swept out my room and swep the kitchen and stuff. not much else intresting happened i was hopeing to go to a concert but i had no idea were it was and couldn't find it all i found was a rock concert like thing on the bridge. so i went to the supermarkt and get todays breakfast (apple strudel coffee cake) and on the way there i saw micheal james andrea and maggie. i thought great the entire central group will be here tonight its gonna be loud.when i got back they were making salad and watching movies on a laptop last night was actually the quitest night second to that night that every body was gone and my room mate never came back (i was the only one on the floor all night.)

i woke up this morning and talked to thomas mustafa and james about neuschwanstien. their experience was allot like mine. the castle was a museum and they just shoved you thoughthe only thing really worth seeing was the landscape around the castles. i think my trip was better because i had such a great view of neuschwanstien from the othere castle. then i ate lunch (rice with beef boulioun and a mostly stale roll) and now i'm typing this and i have a soar throat. i have to write a text on a famous american person (again) but i forgot to look up the info (again) so i'm gonna fake my way through george washington as best i can (or thomas edison) i don't plan to do much today i have less than 3 weeks before i go to vienna and get stressed out again. and on top of that i'm running out of vitamins i've been rationing them so i will have 5 left before i go to vienna at this point i don't want to buy a new bottle because it would only add weight to my luggage.

since i have nothing better to talk about i'm gonna go over the plan for getting to austria. in 2 weeks i'm gonna start trying to get rid of my bike (unless the group gets a car and they are willing to transport my bike for next to nothing) i might sell it at the bike shop or to one of the othere central students who is willing to lug it to austria. then i will start packing i will leave my shorts and stuff that i really don't need for winter here in germany or ship it home depending on the cost of shiping (probabaly not worth it). i will wear most of my winter cloting onto the plane and take it off if nessissary. i doubt they will be to conserned with the weight of the carry on since it is a city to city plane and it will be empty anyway. my carry on will be my laptop bag and my messenger bag will go in my luggage. the packing order for this trip is not that impportant. i jusy have to make sure the weights are about right. which will be hard to do since we don't have a scale. i expect my luggage to go slightly over the 45 lb limit but there is not much i can do about that. i'm not sure how we plan to get to nurnburg airport if they will make us go there our selves or if they will drive us or if we all go on the train together i'm not sure. but i expect that we will all be on the same plane so ruth will likley take care of all the paper work for us. then we will wait for a while (or rush like crazy) get on a plane and take off. the flight should take less than an hour or two so it will not be to boring. when we arrive we will all get luggage at the baggage claim together and some one will lose there luggage and ruth will have to sort that out with the airport and she will tell us all to go to our dorms. i'm not sure if she will give us money for the cabs or if she can pay in advance or what but we will take a taxi to our dorms and there i will be. i should have an internet connection and i should be there by late after noon so i'll try to get online to post how it went. then i will have to find out how to survive in vienna. (locate grocerie stores, classes, get train card, register with district official + other stuff i need to live ect....)

i found out that the AC/DC converter for my laptop get hotter here than in america and makes a great heating pad. i put it on my lower back and it works great.

i've decided to start work on my resume as soon as i can get online to find out the appropriate formate stuff. i remember i had a hard time with it before because its not a set form. i'm not sure how i will do this time.

one of the things i don't like about europe is that there are so many people every were even in this small town. in america i can always find a hill outside to sit on and just be alone but the only place to be alone here is in a room. in pella i had the hill bye green lot and the golf course. in farmington i had the park by the water tower and the mountain bike trail. here i have the small court yard on the side of the castle but there are often people there.

another thing i don't like about europe is the cost of meat it is to high. and there doesn't seem to be a code for electrical wiring these places are wired worse than the house in crestwood. on the other hand i do like the architecture of most of the buildings some of them are painful to look at but most of them look nice.

i only need the 14.5 credits next semester which means i may be able to make a violin . however i will almost certainly have a room mate and i doubt he would like me working with sharp tools and getting saw dust all over his carpet. so i am thinking of asking the art profesors if i could do an independant study in conjuction with the music department and use the shop in the basement of lubbers. the problem is that i will only be able to use it on tuesday and thursday mornings and would not be able to get in in the evenings and weekends so i am thinking of making the ribs and othere small hand carved stuff in my room and the larger messier louder things in the art shop. then whn i have the parts done making the whole thing in the art shop or in my room depending on how late it is in the semester. not sure if i'm gonna laquar it or not. i think the laquar only subtracts from the sound but it also keeps the wood safe. i'll consider that next semester.

i'm thinking of pushing up the date of leaving for america to the 18th or 19th instead of the 24th so i will have less of an over lap but with 17-18 days of overlap i'm not sure how early i can leave vienna and still get credit. the exact middle is 23rd but thats a wendsday and i will need a week end to recouperate so i can either leave two weeks early from vienna or be two weeks late for central. i think it would be best to leave vienna earlier and get to my philosphy classes. since my grades here in vienna don't really matter in the grand skeem of things but i need to keep my philosophy gpa high enough to graduate. so i'll ask ruth and dad about that tomarrow and talk to the group about when they are leaving.

day 40

2007-09-05T23:29:00.000-12:00

not much going on

there was an exceptionally loud party outside my door last night i went out to go to the bathroom and found some of the institute staff there. my teacher whom lives somwere around my dorm was about to yell at me for partying to loud till i explained i was pissed off to. the party went till 12:30. so in retailiation i'm gonna turn off the heat to most of the building. i hid the good knife in the back of the drawer. if they look for it they will find it but it should cause some panic.

day 38 II

2007-09-04T23:36:00.001-12:00

day 38 agian.

i just got out of a meeting with ruth (central abroad director advisor person) i talked to her about my credits at goethe and in vienna.

first of all, 2 months at goethe equats to 12 credits at central. (so i won't have to take 17 credits next semester)

second, i was under the impression that the introductory program was all the central college classes they told us about before. but, apparently the introductory program is a continuation of the goethe program in vienna (by a different association (not sure if it is central or not)) but for that i get 13 credits. the central classes are just there for people in the introducory program to take ontop of that (it would be imposible to take them all) i am also reqeired to take vienna seminar (a class that meets for two hours every othere week) which is a 1 credit class. and i plan to take history of vienna (a history course) 3 credits. and music of vienna (learn about composers and go to concerts) also 3 credits.

for the 4 months i am in vienna that totals 20 credits which sounds high (it may very well be). but the amount of time i would spend in class seems negligable compared to america. so i may still have free time if that is the case (which i probably won't be) i would like to sign up for a sport at the sports institute. i was thinking somekind of martial art or billiards but i will have to seee how heavy the course work is. if the course load is to heavy as it is i will drop music in vienna because i need the history credit. bringing me down to 17 credits. which i will suffer through if i have to.

for the whole time i am in germany the total is 29-32 credits which is 5-8 more than i thought it would be. in short i am going to graduate on time unless somthing disasterous happens. when i graduate i will have atleast 6 more credits than i need. happy happy day. :)

my bike might be able to go with the other people but i'm not gonna count on that if the weather stays this way (which i might at this time of the year) i won't get much riding in anyway. so it may be best to get rid of it. i already offered it to the group for 100 euro. but i did it in a way that i can take it back if i want to.

happy belated labor day to you all. hope you had fun (laboring??)

day 38

2007-09-03T23:57:00.000-12:00

today was the first day of class they automatically moved me up to A2.2 and i think i will feel more challenged there maggi decided to fight the machine and i think she might not like the results. i met 2 governers of small cities in turkey in class today. had dinner last night with the central group i had schnitzel and apple juice it was good. the group is looking into getting a car and bringing there stuff to vienna that way while the rest of the group flies one person will drive the stuff. if it works out i might be able to keep my bike to dirt cheap.

i missed eating in the caffiteria the cook recognized me on the first day and now i think we are best friends. i'm gonna eat well for the next 3 months.

i started thinking in german today again. it was kinda cool. i was thinking in english for the past week and now i'm back in german.

i have a meeting with ruth today at 3:00 to discuss my classes in vienna. i should llearn alot over the course of the half hour.

it was funny at the resurant last night (ruth took us out for dinner) the idiots started telling her about the trip to amsterdam and she didn't like that they drove. so they figured that coffee would be a good substitute word for marajuana. ruth is considereding banning all trips to amsterdam after that

day 37

2007-09-02T19:39:00.000-12:00

no placement tests today i just get assigned to the next level. i woke up this morning to find the idots ate my eggs and my carrot. i'm gonna start labling the stuff in the fridge if that doesn't work i'll have to throw one of them out the window. or drain all the colant out of the fridge so its useless to every one.

day 36

2007-09-02T19:38:00.001-12:00

day 36

well i woke up at two oclock because james forgot his keys and decided to play tunes on the door bell. i wasn't about to let the idiot in he was drunk and he deserved to learn a lesson then mustafa got a phine call and went to get the door then they stayed up for a hour and tallked loudly in the kitchen. next time this happens i'm gonna open my window and throw somthing at him and call him stupid and maybe diconect the buzzer in the kitchen. actually i think i maybe able to turn it off using the circut baord. anyway i'm gonna turn off power to his room tonight and see how he likes it. adam palmshimer he gets drunk evry night so when i get baack to central i'm gonna look up his room number and call security on him evry night (i'll be doing a fovor to mankind. he lost his license over a dui just before he came here and he s happy because the time limit will be up by the time he gets back. he is going to be a lawyer. the only way to keep him in jail is if he commits vehicular manslaughter.

its actually funny to listen to them complan about how hard it is to drink at central. and central should become a wet campus so they can get drunk easier. they don't understand the politics involved they just want instant gratification and dam the consiquences.

well i have placemnt tests for tomarrow so i need to study really hard today so i can get into a higher level.

i heard a student say that the prison is schedualed to be demolished in the next month. i saw workers drilling 6" wide and probably 20' deep holes around the prison so either they are gonna use explosives (doubtfull) or they are gonna run wire underground before they do it. or they are working on somthing else and he prison demolishin is just a rummer.

i'm gonna make mexican rice for lunch today i'm not sure how it will turn out.

i think that is all. i don't think they will get drunk tonight because of tests tomarrow but they may get drunk on monday night.

one more month to go before i go to austria.

i have 8 1/4 months before i graduate an have to get a job but i'm still not sure what to do. i don't have any real training in anyfield that i want to work in and my philosphy degree doesn't look like its gonna help any. with most degrees you can get into teaching or engineering or some other field but philosophy is so broad that it seems i can't do anything with it. i can walk up to an employer and say "i can contemplate your existance" but thats about it. i think i may have to go to a tech school to get training to get a career.

5 of those months i will be over here so i will have a hard time getting everything i need to get done before graduation done on time. i should have gone farther in physics but i took the intro class which is a dead end for people who just want to fill the science requirment. i also should have stayed in the managment class. i should have tried to take more credits over all. other than that i think i did fairly well in college.

i've decided that the amount of money i would save and the time that i would use the bike in vienna is not worth getting it there. so i'm gonna sell it. i'm not sure if the bike shop buys bikes or not i'll have to ask them. but before i do that i'm gonna offer it to the central students. who want to take the train anyway. if niether will take it i'll try the goethe institute and if they won't buy it i'll donate it to the institute. if that doesn't work i guess i'll leave it at the trainstation. it will cost more than 100 euro to get it there and thats the cost of trains all semester. and it will be to cold to ride pretty soon anyway so i'll save more money and effort by getting rid of it.

day 35

2007-09-02T19:37:00.000-12:00

day 35

it is september

this past week has been my highest spending week of them all totaling 70.23 euro paper money and 115.63 euro on the credit card unfortunatly this week should be expensive on my credit card as well i expect to get a rail pass for austria and italy $420 and a helmet for vienna. i think i will need it more there being its a city and cars will be about. i plan to buy the helmet online and send it to the central building and pick it up when i get there along with my rail pass.

not much happened today. i woke up cleaned the kitchen came here and typed some then went back out to make lunch and found tom mopping the floor. said "du hast ien map gefunden" (you found a mop) and he said "nien ich habe es gekauft" (no i bought it) then we went on about how disscusting this place is and how the cleaning lad doesn't actually clean she just takes our garbage.

thomas has become accusstumed to my making spagehitti every day. i surprised him yesterday by using garlic powder and beef boulioun in my sauce. i surprised him more today by making stirfry. i have 2 eggs left i plan to have one for breakfast to marrow and make stirfry again tomarrow. then i will have to live with spagehitti and rice with boulioun and garlic powder (still a step up from what i had last month. i think my need to save as much money as possible on food was a symptom of culture shock. i think i'm getting over it now. i'm still dutch but i'm not quite as hyperactive about it as last month anymore. i expect to spend 3 euro a week now of food well actually thats just averaged out i have most of the food i'll need for the rest of the month in my closet already. i just need to get 2 more packs of spagehitti and one more box of rice.

on monday i'll retake the placement test and eat lots of cresants (they have cresants in the waiting room) hopfully i'll test in to B2 (two levels higher than what i just finished.) then that night i will eatdinner with the central group and emily (apparently she lived in my house last semester) this will be her first month here. then on tuesday i will eat breakfast (and steal lots of rolls butter and jam) then find out who is in my class. then i will learn german and prepare for vienna. there should be less people at goethe this month because most othere schools around the world are starting about now so they are all going back to there respective schools. which means classes might go at the pace i want them to go.

i looked into train stuff for vienna i have choices between getting
a semester ticket (lasts all semester) for 117 euro
a monthly ticket 45 euro for each month
a weekly ticket 12,5 euro for each week
and a daily ticket 5.00 for a day

since i will have a bike and the city is not that big i think i will go without the semester ticket. however if the streets get ice and unridable i may consider getting a monthly ticket for the last month of two. and for the days or weeks that it is raining i can get weekly or daily tickets. the amount of time to ride to anyplace seems comperable to the time to take the train there + i can leave at any time and not wait for the train.
even walking would take alittle less than an hour to get to classes so if i wanted i could get an umbrella and walk to class if its raining or snowing.

day 34

2007-09-02T19:36:00.000-12:00

day 34

today i woke up and went to the grocerystore to get some beef and chicken bouiloun, garlic power, rice, eggs, and carots. i was expecting it to be hard to find the boulioun but it was right there on the bottom shelf of the spice area (right were i would put it). i translated it last night it should be kraftbruhe but the packege said boulioun the beef was easyenough to find rind = beef so rindboulioun but chicken should be huhn but i couldn't find a container that said huhnboulioun there was a price for it but none of the pakages said it so i assumed that orange was chicken (like in america) luckily i was right. the othere stuff was no problem to find. buying vegitables is kinda cool in america you put the vegtables in a bag and weigh them and guess at the price and at the checkout they weigh it again. in germany they have an electric scale with a printed on it you put the bag of vegitables you want on it then press a button (in this case the carrot button) and a stcker prints out aand you put that on the bag and then they just scan it at the regristar. i think it may be possible to chet the system (i.e. weigh 5 carrots and put the sticker on and put 5 more in) (i wouldn't do that) however i think thats why the american system is the way it is.

i made stir fry with instant rice carrots and chicken boulioun and garlic powder for lunch today it was good. i plan on spagehitti for dinner and mexican rice from lunch tomarrow.

i got a copy of the schedual of activities for next month there is a day trip to neuschwanstien so i may be able to see it after all.
however there are also allot more activities this month and they are all alot more expensive. i think i will go to three this month and make central pay those off. so far i have gone to the mercedes museum (6 euro) and to rothenburg (8 euro). this month they have a trip to neuschwanstien a trip to ludwigsburg (were ever that is) and a trip to frankfurt. i would like to go to neuschwanstien (29 euro + food) and also frankfurt (22.50 euro + food) i will go to both and give central the recepts for the more expensive 3.

the internet should be open by now. i wanted to get in early so i could research the italy trip in december.
i found a guest house near rome for 2 euro a day but it is 14 miles outside of rome so thats a half hour to rome then half hour back. also rome is very far fom all the cities i want to see. the plan was to make florence my "base of operation" and depart from there every daythat would subtract from my travel time to each location. but all the hostels in florence ar more than $20 a night. that would add up to mare than 200 over all. were as in rome i would spend $20 total for housing. but it would take all day to get to another city and i would have an hour or two before i would have to go back. perhaps i should devide it up into blocks so i would spent two nights in verona two nights in florence and 3 nights in rome. i'm getting ahead of my self right now i have to study the rail systems and get a rail pass (the one i want cost $365-$420 for 8-10 days).

looks like the internet is not opening to day. maybe i should go to the internet cafe. it costs 2 euro per hour. well i just checked with the internet cafe and i can't use my laptop there so i'm not going online today.

well the americans came back. i over heard one of them describing the trip to amsterdam with my room mate and said they smoked alittle to much (marajuana). my only fear is that they brought some back with them that would make my life a living hell for atleast one night. but its nice to have them back its good to have friends i can talk to allbe it in german most of the time. the leader tried to talk to the guy nextdoor but he simple said "my name is peter and i speak bad german" (in german of course).
i have figured out my meal plan for the next month it is bassical the same as last months but this plan invovled making a rice dish every week end for lunch and on wensdays for dinner. (rice dishes include: stirfry mexican rice, plain rice with either chicken or beef boulioun or any combination there of) i also found out i can add beef boulioun to the spagehitti sauce and it improves the taste 20 fold aslo i remembered today that galic powder is gods gift to man. th total cost of this months food should be 15 euro. alittle more than last month but i think the variety is worth it. (remember a euro in europe is equivalent to a dollar in america one dollar can get you a loaf of bread in america and one euro can get you a loaf of bread here)

i ate with the group tonight (thomas loves to invite me to eat when ever it is his turn to cook when its his turn to lean dishes i'll do it as payback) we had steak. it was easily within the top ten steaks that i have ever had. allong with mexican rice and refried beans. it was good. but before dinner every one had to take a shot of tequilla (luckily thomas respects my desicion not to ddrink and since he is the group leader no one else apposed him.) (micheal on the other hand was confused as to why i wouldn't drink i didn't feel like explaing to him why he was an idiot) andrea and kim were there which only left maggi out of the group. kim was distraut because the boy she had a crush on went back to london. and she felt so close to him because they talked about there emotions alot. and all the guys sat up and we had to explain to her that guys don't have emotions. the only time a guy has emotions is when he likes a girl. then she said but he has a girlfriend and we said he was still coming on to you. it was funny i thought only guys could mis signals like that.

they drank until alittle past midnight. adam (whos parents encourge him to get drunk) is going to be a lawyer. i would love to hide a caera in the kitchen and send a video and letter of "recomendation" to every law school in the country. its unfair that people like me can try so hard and avoid alchohol and drugs and people like him can try so little and get wasted every night but i'm still gonna end up working for aguy like him. and the only reason is that he knows how to be social.

day 33

2007-08-29T22:16:00.001-12:00

day 33

the last several posts are new

i've been in germany for one whole month now.

today i plan to skip breakfast and go for a short ride then go to the computer lab and post all the stuff i have been typing for the last 5 days. then make dinner and go to sleep.

my rommate both snores and talks in his sleep. well its not actually talking its more humming/mouning. makes it hard to sleep well that and his weird sleeping hours. 3:00 am - 9:00 am and 3:00pm - 5:00 pm.

today te computer lab is open from 10:00 - 16:30 so i shold have plenty of time to do stuff. tomarrow the llab is open from 10-14 so i'll be kicked of by the time most of you wake up. i don't think i will have internet acces until the 4th of september so i'll have four days of stuff to take care of then.

i need to get a rail pass for vienna and get a copy of the nominative accusitive and dative ending chart from central website.

day 32

2007-08-29T22:12:00.001-12:00

day 32

i'm back in schwabisch hall.

uggghhhh.... i have so much stuff to go over. the backpack when its fully loaded reaks havoc on my shoulders it will take atlest 3 days before they feel right again.

ok i spent 59.01 euro papermoney on the trip (my log says i spent more but the money i counted here says otherwise) however i spent 151.77 euro on traintickets and the hostel. totaling 210.78 euro ($284.56) slightly more than expected. but then i did eat at a resurant almost every night. fyi the wiener schnitzel in fussen germany (just north of austrian boarder) is delicious if you have the means to try it i highly recoment it.

i decided to skip the german museum. it was raining and i didn't want to go to the train station let alone a museum that i din't know were it was and was atlest twice as far as the train station. so i went to dachau and saw the memorial they had audio guides so i got one of them. it was informative (not emotional babling) which i liked.

its 9 pm i'm going to bed

ok its tomarrow but i'm gonna write about today (yesterday). i woke up yesterday at 6:45. got dressed and took the sheets off my bad (you have to take the sheets off the bed and put them in the laundry hamper befroe check out) then i got all of my stuff out of my locker annd went down stairs for breakfast. i ate breads and rolls for about an hour then checked stuff onlline (i had extra minutes from the previous day). and then i checked out. i walked outside and it was raining not terably hard but it wasn't a drizzle either. it was then i desided not to go to the museum i didn't want to ride to the trainstation (about 1 km away) let alone the museum were i wasn't sure were it was and it was atlest 3km away. so i rode , walked and hingout under overhangs to the trainstaion. i was soaked by the time i got there. i bought my ticket to schwabisch hall (with a stop over in dachau. i thought i should really buy a ticket for my bike two. so i thought i did. the train to dachoe nobody checked my ticket. so i got off and looked at a map and thought about taking the bus. it wasn't raining at the time but i figured it would be raining latter (the forcast said it would rain harder latter in the day) so i looked for a maschine to buy a ticket for the buss but didn't find one. then the bus left. luckily i had found directions to the camp on line so i walked there about 2 - 3 km it was about the time i got there that my shoulders started to hurt. i was about to stop and take a break when i saw the audio tour check out place. so i got a tour and walked into the camp.

the words on the gate "arbiet macht frie"

after a while i realized i had spent nearly 2 hours there and the train on my schedual left in allittle more than an hour so i returned the audio tour and took a short break then walked back to the train station were i knew there was a mc donalds. when i got there i ordered a doulbe cheese burger and ate it then i went to the platform and waited (ussually when a train comes it has a picture on the side of the train evry care has a no smoking sign and the picture) i was looking for was a bike but i didn't see it so i got on an stood in the area between the cars and waited for about an hour and a half then the ticket guy came and asked for my ticket and the ticket for my bike i gave him my ticket and the ticket for my bike . he looked at the ticket for the bike and said no this is just for munich so he took out his tiny computer / pinter thing and printed off a bike ticket for me and charged me 4.50 euro then i got onto the next train put my bike in the corner and sat down then about 2 minutes letter (before the train left) a family of about 7-10 got on the train all with bikes my bike was buried. so i asked the father when he was getting off he said at ansbach i said gut me to. then right before the train stopped he started asking me questions and i didn't understand him so i just replied ich wiesse night (i don't know) then he started speaking english do you need to transfer trains here? i said yes so he had to orchestrat his family to help me get off first. which realy wasn't nessissary but i was greatfull. then i got on the train to schwabischhall hessental and went there then transfered to another train and went to schwabisch hall then i rode my bike to the grocery store. i was about to lock it up but then i realized i still had un opened pretzels in my bag and if they searched it i could go to jail or somthing so i rode back to the dorm droped off the bag and grabed the other and rode back to the store and bought some rice and tomatoe sauce. then rode back and made rice and tomatoe sauce for dinner. it was not that great. then i figured out the money for my trip and went to bed. apparently i beat the america group back here. iwouldn't be surprised if they were in prison or stranded on the side of the road.

well that all for yesterday now i'm gonna start on todays.

day 31

2007-08-29T22:09:00.001-12:00

today i woke up at 6:45 got dressed grabed the stuff i needed and got out of the room. then i had breakfast which was al you could eat. but, i think i was more like all you could stand to eat. the orange juice was fresh squeezed which tastes weird it has an extra zing to it. and the only edible thing there was rolls (mostly stail) and bread and various jams and honey. then i rode to the train station bought a ticket and went to fussen on the way the ticketer checked my ticket and yelled at me for not haveing a ticket for my bike. i didn't know i needed one. when i got there i rode around the city got lost so i went back to the trainstation and asked the info guy which way the castles were he said that way and always straight. pointing away from the trainstattion i thanked him and road aboit 5 km to the castles i found the ticket office the line for neuschwanstien was long the line started outside the building and did two rooms like at disney world. but it wasn't effective because the walls were glass. the hohenschwangau castle line was directly to the same place but there was literally nobody there so i decided it was worth it to go with the shorter line. i arrived in at the ticket office at 11:40 and got to the castle at about 11:50 the tour started at 1:15 so i had a hour to wait. if i had gone with the neuschwwanstien castle the line would have taken a hour (atleast) then the walk up to the castle probably 20-30 minutes (big hills long distance) and the wait for my tour group to start would have been twice as long so i would still be there a week from now if i had gone with neuschwanstien.

the castle itself was not a castle it was a mansion which is still privatly owned by the royal family. it was basically turned into a mueseum. lots of gold and silver relics and other shiney things.

i'll post more on that latter

then i road back to the train station locked up my bike and walked into town and found a nice resturant i walked in sat down the waitress walked up and said was morchest du i said eine spisekarte bitte and she came back with an englisch menu and talked to me in english the rest of the time i was there. i had weiner schnitzel and frenchfries it was delicious.

then i went back to the trainstation bought a ticket at the mashine then walked inside and asked the info guy for a bike ticket it cost 4.50 euro then i waited for the train got on and this ticket guy didn't seems to care at all if i had the bike ticket or not. i've never had a problem before so i assume i don't need one and if they ask i'll start babbling in english at them..

when i got to munich i locked up my bike and walked around the trainstation looking for food i found a place that sold pretzels and sprite so i bought a pretzel and a sprite i wasn't to hungry i had lunner already (lunner = late lunch/early dinner) this was either a snack or second dinner. then i rode back to the hostel talked to mom and dad and now i'm in the room typing this now i'm gonna plan for tomarrow.

day 30

2007-08-29T22:01:00.001-12:00

day 30

whoops i skipped a day.

today it is currently 6:30 in the morning i have an hour before my train leaves and i have to make my computer finish the spy/virus sweeps i started lastnight. i would like to defrag as well but i don't have time. when i post this i should be in munich and i should have seen most of the city. any way i'll add more then maybe.

i missed two of my trians today the first left before i got there (my train was 2 minutes late). so i waited an hour and got on the next one then i got the thee next station with plenty of time to spare i got to the platform and a freighttrain went crawling through so i checked the sation arrival thing and yeah the train was supose to arrive already. then i notice the platformed had changed from the hour before. so i ran to platform one and was confused because it was a different type of train and the conductor had just blown the whistle so i wasn't sure i i could board of not and the train went. so i waited for another hour and got on the train to munich and waited for 2 hours.

ok i got to munich just fine but the directions i required me to go on the tram/lightrail thing. i didn't realize how curvey the s-bahn system is here so i found a map and used that to figure out the location of the street. i was wrong but luckily i remembered the photo on line and saw the hostel on the way. so i came in (luckily they speak english) and got my room key. th room is actually two rooms my has 8 beds and the othere has 6 i guess. there is no ac so it is really hot. i'm gonna try to get on the internet now and talk to mom and dad. the hostel is kinda funny there is a price tag on almost everything. i explored the city i couldn't find the fraun kirche for a while it the tallest thing here but every thing else is just tall enough to hide it when you are on the ground.

i see a church in the diastance out my window i'm gonna check that out next. i have to get online to see what and were everything is in munich. i talked to mom and looked up my itinerary and i think i'm ready to go. my batteries going so i'm gonna stop for today unless i can get it charged.

have a great day
bbye

ok i went to all the places here in town
-the frauen kirche
the area in front of the church is so small that you can't get far enough a way to take a proper picture
-the octoberfest place (they are seting it up for october)
it was fairly un impresive it was like a carnival but instead of rides thay had beer tents. however i did see a greek style bbuilding in the back i think it was hephestus the god of going alittle to far.
-the english garten
it was pretty. but small. i think i prefer the kind of nature that is only found in nature (i.e. the mountain bike trail)
-st. paul church
the prettiest church in munich however less popular
-and almost every street in the inner city
the sidewalks are cobble stone but there is a paved potion going on the street side for bike and othere fast trafic.

tomarrow there is an english tour of dochau that is in english and costs 15 euro thats cheaper than what i could do it for. but it would be in the middle of my time in munich and i don't think i could do neschwanstien and hohengua and still make it back to schwabisch hall on time. however i found out that dachoe is on the way home so i could swing over there and then go home. on the last day. neuschwanstien is way south so i would have to do crazy stuff to make that work on the last day.

i'm not sure why but every town in germany has a church and they all are the same. you have the pretty towers in the front and the back is boring tile roof.

i'm not sure why but when ever i go to a place in germany somthing weird happens with my body. on the flight over to germany i got a bloody nose (but i have an excuss i was over a mile high at that point) then i had to pee realy bad between the airport and schwabisch hall. here i got diarea. so i used the bathroom here and went out to lunch. and BAM diarea again so i had to pay 1 euro to use the bathroom (actually it was 80 cents but i put the money in in the wrong order so it had to be 1 euro) and that was the end of that.

i ate burger king for dinner (the first time i have a carbonated beverage in over a month) it was so good to have american food again. then i walked back here and it is curently 8 o'clock

i am going to go to bed soon because i'm tired.

day 28

2007-08-29T21:59:00.000-12:00

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.

day 27

2007-08-23T21:43:00.000-12:00

day 27

Yesterday I went out to the super market and bought all of the food I need for the trip. I got 2 bags of pretzels rice cakes and waffles. I had the waffles for dinner they are terrable so I'm gonna find somthing else. I also went to the train station to buy my train ticket to munich I used my credit card it took 2 tries but it worked. I also withdrew money from my checking acount using a german atm. and booked the hostel and emailed ruth to tell her I would be in munich for 3 days.

Today I woke up and I was confused because it was 7:30 and the american group should have left at 5:00 in the morning but I heared voices but I couldn't understand them I figued it was because I had just woken up and could think german yet. So I got up and walked into the kitchen expecting to see the american group but nobody was there. so I started making pancakes and I saw two arab people walking out of the canadian girls room (she left on wensday). Apparently the goethe institute decided to move the arab people who are going to be here for 9 months (to complete 7 levels of german) into the canadian girls room. I don't like the arab group they are loud childish and look like they think it is the 80's in america. they are all wearing mullots and are wearing 80's like clothing, its disturbing.

today I hope to get online again and research
the times to leave munich to get back here
exact directions to the hostel from the train station
how much it cost to tour dochoe or if I can tour it at all.

In afew hours when it gets warm out I plan to go for a bike ride around the area.
I'll need to pack but I think I'll have to do that sunday.

I found out yesterday that joe is no longer going to central and miller transfered to another school. Then I realized all my close friends at central have either transfered or graduated. and ontop of that since miller transfered my single room in the bottom of firth has been taken by somebody else who will probably stay the whole year so the liklyhood of me getting my own room is rapidly decreasing. which means the violin making plan will need to be revised or thrown out entirly. my only real hope is that tim has his own room and that I can take it when he goes abroad next semester. but I think he has a room mate. I think if I have to have a room mate christa will work on getting me with someone that I already kinda know.

I am considering what I want to do when I get back to central do I want to go with the 20 meal plan, the 1 meal plan, or not get meal plan at all and feed myself. I'm not sure what would be cheaper. if I could feed myself with my work study money I could save mom and dad over $1000. but as I know I'm not very good at picking a variety of food to eat (i.e. spagehitti every night) I will need to raid moms recipe box and pick food based on that.

also I have to decide what I want to do about my independent study next semester patzia has said I could add a credit to one of my existing 200 lvl classes which gives me "modern thought" and "readings in aquinas" since readings in aquinas is a 300 lvl class (which basically means they added enough stuff to the 200 lvl class to make it 300 and add an extra credit to it) and it is taught by ray. I don't want to add an extra creit to it (ray is a loosy teacher). I think I would like to add a crdit to modern thought whch is taught by patzia (the better philosophy teacher) ussually adding a credit means writing a long paper (5 pages) which should take me no more than 2 weeks. and modern thought is probably more easy to write a paper in. I think i would like to do somthing on descartes. maybe somthing on his proof of god and his proof of his own existance and if the two are compatible or not. but I should take a look at the sylibus before I decide any thing.

I'm gonna be busy next semester I will have all the exit interview and graduation stuff and finding a career to do ontop of classes. life is gonna suck for the next two years. I'm not sure what the exit interview entails, and I'm not sure what to expect for graduation stuff any info any of you could offer would be helpfull.

I found an internet room at goethe that is open during most of the break. I went in there yesterday to talk to mom. I was confused why it was two separet rooms about the same size (8'x8') and why there were two large boxes on the floor that wouldn't move. eventually I figuered out that there was tile on the walls and that there were closed off water valves just above the boxes on the floor. I must have been a bathroom at one point. but why they would change a bathroom into a computer room is still confusing me. atleast I understand now why they only have the one bathroom down stairs for the whole building.

I was talking to james yesterday and he was happy, he asked me why is every thing better in germany? I replyied I don't know then he went into how since every one in america came from here you think it would be the place to be, but every thing is better here (in germany) and I replied yeah like the cost of food and gas. then he said yeah but vegtables are cheaper here and I said but meat is way more expensive. I don't think he has seen enough of america to realize how cool america actually is. he has spent most of his life in rural iowa. europe is all the same one over crowded city right next to another america every city is slightly different and out natural land marks are far more impresive. afew days ago james started prasing the randomness of the street systems here in europe and complaining about the grid system in america. he doesn't seem to understand that grids make more sence. I think he will learn that pretty rapidly one his car trip today.

well I've been typing for nearly an hour now and its only 9:30 I'm gonna stop for a while.

day 26

2007-08-22T23:55:00.000-12:00

day 26

the american group is going to amsterdam on friday morning so i will have the kitchen and bathrooms to myself for the weekend

i plan to leave for munich on monday morning at 8:00 and arrive at 11:30 i have to check in to the hostel between then and 3:00 it looks like it shouldn't be to hard to find. i plan to explore the marion platz (town center) and the englisch garten for the rest of the day.

the next day i will wake up early and ride my bike to neuschwanstien and Hohenschwangau and spend the day in there. then i will ride back to the hostel and maybe ride around the city (it i have time)

the next day i will go to the german museum and walk through that. then i will ride my bike to dachoe concentration camp and tour that for a while then ride back to munich (or the nearest train station) and come back to schwabisch hall.

it turns out thtta the media center will be open normal hours from now to next friday so i should be able to post stuff. and during the munich trip i will get atleast 10 minutes of internet free and if the price is right i might get more. or i might find an unsecured network. either way i should remain connected.

since i will have access to a kitchen at the hostel i am bringing spagehitti with me so i cook up some of that. i wil also bring rice cakes, generic waffels (sealed should last forever) pretzels (they are dirt cheap here, actually dirt is pretty expensive here i guess thay are as expensive as dirt in america (not good dirt)) and maybe some fresh rolls for the first day or two.

since some information is hard to get online i'm just gonna play it by ear when i get there and make adjustments as nessissary.

the facilities team is being slow in getting back to me on my questions which means thay are reluctant to help me get a job in their field likly because they feel i should do somthing more with my degree. or they know that i can't get a job there and are putting off telling me.

while i am away mustafa will still have acces to my room and since i don't know him i naturally don't trust him so i think i'm gonna put most of my belongings back in the suit case and put it under my bed or in the closet to help remove temptation.

total the munich trip should be just under 200 euro.

over the week end i would like to get a map of the surounding area and ride to all the small town around schwabisch hall.

in one month i will be going to vienna the program wants to fly me there but i have a bike and my luggage is heavier than the flight will allow so i'm likly going to take the train. i'm not sure about the cost but it will likly b cheaper than getting the bike on the plane and paying for the extra weight. i'll have to talk to ruth to see if i can get a refund or not and i'll have to find out how much a train to vienna would cost.

today i have to
withdraw money from my checking acount.
research stuff
how to get to the hostel from the train station
how to ride to neuschwanstien
how to ride to neuschwanstien and hohengau
how to get to the german museum
book the hostel
buy train ticket(s)
and maybe buy food for the trip. (need geet done before sunday)
find out the cost for dachoe.
and talk to mom and dad
maybe research bread costs.
email ruth tell her i'm going to munich from the 27th to the 29th

the actual day 25

2007-08-22T00:34:00.000-12:00

day 25

apparently today was the last day of classes so we had a big emotional send off and i don't do those to well do i went and ate lunch and now i'm here typing this blog. ove the last months we have had scafolding bolted to the side of the house we use to watch hot ballons from it and use it to go down stairs but they took it down today and yesterday. which is a shame because i really enjoyed eating dinner out there.

any way i'm not entirly sure how internet is going to work for the next week and a half so i might not post stuff for a while. there is an internet cafee nxt to my dorm but it costs a euro for every half hour. so if i do do that i will have to plan ahead for what i wnat to do and get it done in a hurry. today i hope to check the weather for the next week and pick a three day period to go to munich in. then reserve the hostel, and possibly the train tickets. tomarrow i plan to learn all the little stuff that i should have been focusing on before i came to germany like what genders different words are and so for so i can test higher next month.

i have an advising apointment with ruth on the 4th of september at 3:00 and i will ask her all my questions then.

i think thats all for today i'll see what i can do tomarrow.

day 25

2007-08-22T00:32:00.000-12:00

day 24
not much happened today either. I researched the trip i plan to make to munich next week i plan to spend two nights there and three days. i plan to ride my bike to the next station because i can save 2 euros that way then take the train to munich (i might be able to pay with my credit card) then i will walk around the marion platzz (the town center) and loo at the buildings and possibly go up into some of them. then i will check into my hostel which should be very close to the town center (i will pay for this online with the credit card) and sleep fore the night. they should have lugage lockers so my laptop should be safe at night and if they don't i will use my laptop lock cable in conjuction with the smaller luggage locks i have to keep the bag mostly secure. i have an option of

private twin room expensive!!
3 bed private expensive
5 bed mixed dorm less expensive
6 bed mixed dorm less expensive
and 14 bed mixed dorm which is the cheapest

i'm going with the mixed 14 bed dorm. they should have internet connections and wifi (infact i'll just post a link http://www.hostelworld.com/availability.php/MeiningerCityHostelMunich-Munich-5947 )

the next day i will go to tour castle neuschwanstien and Hohenschwangau. that should take all day
then the next day i will go to dachoe concentration camp after seeing the german mueseum.
then i will get on a train and come back to schwabish hall i decided to only go with the trip to munich because there isn't much in nurnburg and it would effectivly double my expences.

i plan to bring with 500g of spagehitti and a can of tomatoe sauce and a pack of rice cakes, pretzels, and fresh rolls. this should all fit comfortably in my laptop bag along with other essentials.

now for the explanation of my fear of not graduating and the solution.
i looked at my transcript and realized that i needed to complete 37 credits between now and graduation. i figured that max i could take here was 17 and the max i could take next semester was 17 totaling 34 (3 credits short). then mom looked it up on the abroad web site and the goethe credits don't count for fall semester they are summer credits however i will either earn 12 or 8 credits at goethe i'm not sure which right now if i complete 12 there will be no problem with graduating i will only need 13 credits to graduate and i will complete 14.5 next semester any way so no problem. however it i only get 8 credits i will need to do 17 credits nexts semester which seems like alot but if i take the classes i was planning on taking and orchestra and a music lessons and play production (three classes that are virtualy imposible to not get an A in my grad point average shold improve and i will graduate however i will have to pay slightly more to take music lessons. also none of these classes will get in the way of my work study. if possible i would like to find a course to replace music lessons but i'll cross that bridge when i come to it. all ineed to do is get infor mation and i should have all the info i need for a long time by sept 4th when i have my advising apointment with ruth.

hopfully i should have responces to my facilities maintenece question my the end of the week. over all i'm pleased with my current situation.

well thats all for today.

day 23

2007-08-20T23:15:00.000-12:00

day 23

today i went to class and then ate lunch and then talked to mom an dad for about 3 hours then made dinner and now i'm here doing nothing. not much doing on today tomarrow nothing is going to happen i'll probably start looking up hostels and stuff.

ohhh. mom looked up my graduation dilema and found out that i might graduate on time after all. i have to ask questions and maybe yell at a few people but its still some what hazy....... again.

i'm cautiously optimistic

well thats it for today.

day 22

2007-08-19T23:59:00.001-12:00

day 22

well the idiots ate all but two packets of my butter stock pile so i guess i will have to start taking more in the morning to have during the week break. this time i'll hide it some how. how do 5 people go though 10 packets of butter in one night?

any way i am planing my trip to munich and nurnburg now. i plan to spend 2 - 3 nights in hostels if possible i will book in advancce on line with my credit card. since i am bringing my bike with me i think i will buy train tickets on the spot incase i decide to ride to the next city or what not. i did some checking and there is no way to get a discount on the german train system because im a student. right now im planing to ride out to munich and explore alittle then sleep then go to neuschwanstien castle and the one next to it. and ride around the city. then sleep. then explore the sights in the city more thouroughly and then either ride to nurnburg or take the train back to schwabisch hall or take the train to nurnburg. either way i will go to nurnberg the next day and spend one day i nurnberg and sleep in schwabisch hall that night. so about 3 days in munich and 1 day in nurnberg with 2 - 3 hostel stays.

i'll probably end up what ever is cheaper the train to schabisch hall and back to nurnberg
or the ride to nurnbeerg and a hostel stay i think it will be pretty close.

i plan to bring my laptop bag because i don't want to leave my laptop here and i may find an unsecured network i can use to post blogs and check the weather and stuff.

i still need ideas for food to bring with. it has to be compact cheap and be full of calories. i'm gonna try to get a hostel that has a usable kitchen so cooking should not be a problem.

terrable news every one. I was bored so I decide to look over my web-advisor thing (graduation plan thing) and apparently i over looked that i need 120 credits to graduate right now i have 83 completed and need 37 to graduate this semester i am theoretically taking 18 but only 17 will count toward my overall credits because of the 17 credit max thing then i will have 20 credits to do my current plans call for 14.5 credits so i will have 5.5 credits to complete after my anticipated graduation. so unless there is some sort of miracle i'm not going to graduate. if I take 17 credits I can bring that down to three credits or one class.

this effects my post graduation goals only slightly i will aply for a job with physical plant then take a single class and gradate the next semester. and if that doesn't work i will get a factory job at pella and work the night shift and work on classes during the day.

what i can do right now is email the registrar and see if there is a way that i can take more credits this semester and next. if i can take 18 this semester and 19 next semester i might be able to graduate on time however i will have no free time what so ever. i may be able to take a summer course. i have to research this. i cannot take on an intership for credit because it is to late for that.

day 21

2007-08-19T23:49:00.000-12:00

day 21

today i woke up and made allot of pancakes about 5-6 and atte them with strawberry jelly. when went back to sleep for an hour then woke up and got my stuff and walked to the bus station. i saw abunch of the students there already so i waited with them eventually a guy walked up and hello to some of us and then a yellow bus pulled up and we all got on then we waited 15 minutes after we were supose to leave to the spanish and turkish people.(they are always late i find it insulting). then we drove through the mountains to rothenburg. i understand why people go profesional in cycling it is so they will close these roads down and they can ride ride down these hills. from what i could tell i could take the hair pins faster tan the buss did on my bike. when we got to rothenburg we split into two groups one with frau ritter (my teacher) and one with heir kurze (a friend of the institut) we walked around the city. it turns out we watched a video by rick steves about this city its the one were they have the glocken spiele with the mayor of the town drinking lots of wine to save the town from a war. also i saw a picture of rick steves in a window of a gift shop. then frau ritter had to go so we were able to go eat and explore the city for 3 - 5 hours. i went to the kings garten park place on the east side of the inner city and ate my rolls and drank some water while loking over the city wall at the mountains in the backgound was a man playing violin with a recording. and there were flowers growing almost every were. it was a very romantic scene. then i went to the torture museum.i used my studet id to save .40 cents. i was rather unimpressed with it since i had been told that it is such a great place. a quote out side said "man kind has never been so creative as when he thinks of ways to torture other humans" i don't think people realized that these torture devices are basically old farm equipment that has been modified. all the stuff there looked alot like the stuff in grampa alkemas garage. with some exceptions.

before i left the group i was talking to jose , whom had been there before. and he said that there was a bakerie down the street so after wards i walked down the street to get some cheap food and found a bakerie cafe. i waasn't comfortable with going in so i found a fast food place and got a schnitzel sandwhich. then i had half an hour before the group was supose to get back together at the town center which didn't give me much time to do any thing so i found a good spot and keeped an eye on the meeting place. when we did get back together there was a total of 5 of us. then i worked its way down to 3 we looked at a church and sruff then we walked on the outer wall then back to the bus. i considered going into the pupet and toy museum but from the sign it looked mostly like puppet and dolls so i decide not to do it.

then we drove back on the autobahn which was also anticlimatic. and wegot back and i went to the store and got some chocolate then made dinner and ate it. now the idiots are drunk and running around the table. micheal (who is ussually quit and reserved like me) is a crazy drunk (he is loud and moves around a lot) which only encourages the others.

i need ideas for food to take to munich and nurnburg
so it has to be cheap, easy to cook (if need be cooked at all), be able to last 5 days un refridgerated, be sterdy enough to be in a back pack for 5 days, and have lots of calories. so far i have come up with animal crackers, ramen, and cereal.thanks.

any way thats all for now.

day 20

2007-08-16T23:24:00.000-12:00

i didn't do much yesterday so i'm not gonna bother posting anything about it and today so far has been pretty boring as well so i'm gonna focus on tommarrow. tomarrow i am going to rothen burg with the goethe program. i will eat breakfast pancakes with jelly this time because i realized thay have jelly at breakfast too. and then be at the bus station at 9:00 then i assume we will take a bus to rothenburg. i'm not sure if they will feed me so i will take two hard rolls with me. and i will eat a bigg breakfast and a big dinner if nessessary. i'm not sure whats in rothenburg i think there is a museum or somthing and old buildings. thats every thing that i know about.

windows vista puts spell check in most windows now however the spll check is worse than the one they had before in xp it can''t figure out how to spell "tom marrow" it thinks it is a name. and also it doesn't see any thing wrong with not capitalizing "i" .

day 18

2007-08-16T00:07:00.000-12:00

day 18

ok, today i started off my doing my hamoe wrok in the morning. then i went to breakfast and made a cresant sandwich stowed it then took a bannanna and 2 rolls. i brought them to the dorm refridgerated the sandwitch and stored the rest in my closet. then went to class. during first break i walked back to the dorm and walked my bike to the bike shop and used there air compressor to fill up my tire. then i rode it back to the school. today we had class photos (during class) then we were let out early because some of us needed to eat early so we could go the mercedes museum. i ate lunch with encar and jose (and girl and guy from my class) we had rice and some kind of meat based stirfry. then i rode my bike back to the dorm to get my lunch and money. then i walked back to the school. i expected to take a bus to the miseim but we ended walking to the train station and using the trains. the first train was short but easy. the second train i was sitting across from the leader so when the lady asked for my ticket i said he has it and pointed at him. when we got the the museum each of us was given a ticket with a barcode on it and were told to go in so we wondered around what was apparently the lobby till we got the the exit then the lady there explained that he had to go up an elivator. i saw lots of cars some pictures should be posted. then on the way home the train was full because it was rush hour so we all got devided up i ended up sitting with a fat man who was pretending to sleep. and the ticket lady came out and i had to explain to her why i didn't have a ticket but some guy farther up in the train had it. then we got to schwabisch hall-hessital (which is actually hessentall) and we took the buss back to shwabish hall the bus was packed but then at the next stop more people got on so every one could barley move on the bus. then i walked back to the dorm to make my dinner when i was invited to eat with the group again. we had rice and schish-Kabobs (its not spelled right but phonetically it is right). and now i'm here typing my blog. any way its 9:30 and i'm going to kill a particularlly annoying fly then go to bed.

under a bridge on the way to the museum i saw graffitti "smash capitalism! stop G8" and another saying "kill capitalism" this was obviously posted recently but when i commented on it james said they have no reason to hate capitalism they were west germany i think this has to do with capitalism not working properly in europe. in america capitalism has mostly free reign but in europe it doesn't seem to work that way (europeans have allways liked putting allot of power in there goverments were as americans want to keep goverment out of there lives and give it only limited power. i have to do more research into this.