Sunday Shorts

Fahrradflomarkt: (Bicycle Flea Market) I found two bikes that had potential. I was close to buying both but wanted to bargain the person down. I had no luck though, and walked away without new wheels. I have a hard time spending money, and making a decision on which bike to buy was tough. One was 80€, but they guy wouldn’t take anything less than 70€. I started bargaining at 50 but they guy wouldn’t budge. I came back at the end of the market, but the bike had been sold. Sheise. I guess I’ll be using my Chevro”legs” for a few more weeks.

I finally had Currywurst. It's a typical German street food made of pork sausage in a curry ketchup sauce swerved on a roll (Brötchen) or with french fries (Pommes Frites). When in Rome!

I ran into András, Aniol, Aina, the Greecers, Artur, and Atrem at the Fahhradflomarkt. The Greecers bought bikes, but we didn't. András, Aniol, Aina, and a German girl went to the park to hang out. It's a sunny warm day here, so the park was filled again with people enjoying a casual Sunday. No stores are open for retail shopping, but the food spots are jam packed.

Marburg and Hardcore Music

Marburg: What I thought would be a guided tour of the city by Rita, turned into a super long lunch with shitty service, an average veggie burger, and a self-tour of the city. Marburg is past Frankfurt and the ride took about 1 hour.

 Rita, Vanessa, ?, Alex. It's hard to hang with them because I don't understand anything they talk about. The did do all the navigating for us though. I didn't have to figure out any buses or trains. Vielen Dank. 

Rita's dog joined us. She's a very well behaved dog so the train and restaurant weren't a problem 

Marburg, Germany

Somehow we ended up at an American restaurant. The choices were simple; salad, burgers, pizza, steak. Just to get seated was a struggle. There were 8 of us so we scrambled to congregate around 2 small circle tables. We all ordered without incident, but from then on it was almost comedy. The server couldn’t remember who had which drinks. She came by a few times with drinks that weren’t for our table, or for our party for that matter. She came by a couple times with beer that wasn’t for any of us. She went to the other group of people with our food, then auctioned it off because she didn’t know where it went. We had two girls serving us which was a mistake. Neither one knew where the food went. A guy joined in and still messed things up. Poor Sam didn’t even get his meal until we had all finished. They had forgotten his burger, and still messed it up by putting tomatoes on it when he asked to have them left off.

I was told German service at restaurants was bad, but this was laughable. It’s amazing that Germany can be known for precision, yet have shitty restaurant service. This place must have had no training for their servers. OK, this was one girl’s first day, but that doesn’t account for the other two underperforming. The veggie burger wasn’t worth the headache. It took way longer than it should have. Next time I think I’ll just eat at a doner shop. Turkish fast food may be my go-to. It’s fast, easy, and relatively cheap. Our mood was a little down after lunch so when Rita told us she had no plans to show us the city we were caught off guard. I had seen a castle on our way in so I said that I’d like to see it. I made my decision to go and asked who wanted to join me. Rita and her friends were going to a game shop, and Sam, Lauren, and Andras joined me on a walk up the hill to the castle.

We made plans to meet back at the comic store in two hours. OK, let’s go! I didn’t stick around to discuss further. Decision made – DONE.

 Sam, Lauren, Andràs.

 Two slacklines were set up at the top of the hill by the castle. I guess they're here all the time for people to use. Sam and András

 PHOTO  BOMB!

Can you believe it? I finally found a public drinking fountain! All I had to do was take 2 trains and walk up to a castle to find it. The word for castle in german is Schloss. fyi. 

 The castle as viewed from below.

 The churches are pretty cool too.

 Random wall of animal heads.

These stairs get pretty jammed when trains arrive. We all funnel up these steps so beware the guy in from who falls forward revealing his butt crack! Yes, that happened.

Upon returning to Karlshof, I remembered that there was a concert at Oetinger Villa. It’s a house right next to the dorms that has turning into a music venue/community style living facility. I was told squatters/punks took it over and it’s become theirs. They keep it relatively clean, and the artwork consists of concert posters and graffiti. At least that’s what I saw on the walls of the first floor. The concert had been going for a while, so people were milling about between bands. With the crowd outside it was easy to slip by and go inside without buying a ticket. Pretty sweet, right? Some girls were selling sweets so I decided to buy a cookie. When I asked how much it costs, the girl shrugged and said I could pay whatever I wanted. What? I pulled out a 1€ coin and traded it for the cookie. That was a super delicious cookie.

Concert room wall art.

As I was wandering the interior and checking out the concert room I noticed people had wrist bands on. I was worried that I would be seen without one rendering me suspect and prone to getting the boot. I should support this place anyway, right? I wasn’t sure the price of a ticket, or if there were any left, but I went back to the front table to inquire.

I get a similar response from the guys out front as I did form the girls at the cookie stand. He said he’ll be happy with anything between 5€ and 10€. 10€ for a concert is a good deal, so I paid the guy and got stamped for clearance. Good deal. It turns out I walked into a hardcore show. The music was heavy, contained few melodies, loaded with screams and heavy breakdowns. It was pretty cool. I wouldn’t buy any music from these bands, but it was fun to watch.

 This place may have been started in a similar fashion to the place in Berlin, but it was not 

nearly as smokey and sketchy.

Here is a promo video for the event.

Randoms

I found a natural food store. I've never seen this selection of milks. Hafer means oats. I bought Hafer-Soya Milch last week and thought it tasted different than the other soy milks I've had. It turns out it was Oat-Soy milk. That's explains it. I'd like to try the Hafer-Chai but it's more than twice the cost of normal milk.

 This is the place to go for fruits and vegetables. I haven't bought anything here yet. I have no excuse, but I'm guessing it's more expensive than at Rewe, the market a short walk from Karlshof.

Thursday 27.3.2014

I went on a long run today. I needed to get out so I went way out. I headed up to Rosenhohe for a warm up (about 0.5 mile) then headed out into fields before turning off into the trees (1.7 miles). I followed dirt roads through the trees with minimal turns to keep navigation simple. I could have kept going and going for these roads go on for way farther than my legs could handle. The weather was super nice, the birds were making noise, and traffic was only a dull hum in the distance. It was warm enough to run without me shirt which was unexpected. The past few days have been quite cold. Since I brought water, I was able to get in some distance without feeling like junk. A gel packet helped fuel me too.

I didn’t see many people at all. It’s Thursday late morning so I timed it pretty well for solitude. Checking my Garmin, I saw that I was super close to 4 miles, so I pushed my turn around point a bit further down the road. I’m glad I did because I ended up running along the edge of a wide open field. This would be a perfect place for watching stars. I would just take a long time to walk out here with cold weather gear. At just over 4 miles I turned around. What a run. I made it back to my flat feeling great with minimal soreness.

Rita asked us to head to Frankfurt to visit her while she worked. She tends bar at a place called Alte Liebe which means Old Life. It’s a small bar along an unassuming street a short walk from what I would call Beer Street. First, I’ll tell you a bit about our journey getting there. It took us a bit longer because we made a few rookie errors while navigating the train system. Lauren seemed to know exactly where to go and which train to take, so we followed her. It turns out she didn’t, and we took the correct train the wrong way. We wasted about 45 minutes with the detour, but we all stayed positive.

Once off the train, at the correct location, we hit the street on foot to search for Alte Liebe. My phone was having issues with the maps and searching for Alte Libe. It told me it was along to ocean in north Germany. WRONG! We asked a couple people on the street with no luck too. Then Andras looked for the address on his phone that had internet. His Handy, as they call it here, doesn’t have maps so once the address was obtained I searched for it on my map. I found Alte Liebe and our current location. We were super close. The map was cutting out and losing our location, so Sam took a picture of my phone with his phone to keep the map visible. I felt like such a tourist, but since we actually were lost tourists I couldn’t help but chuckle. The four of us huddled around our phones searching for directions. Once we had the pins sorted out on Google maps, we turned and began walking in the correct direction. 

We walked by the window and saw Rita inside. It was a relief to have finally found it after our detours.  Alte Liebe has a nice warm feeling to it, and we lucked out by going on a day with live music. Sam calls it gypsy jazz. Whatever it’s called, I liked it. The guitar players were super good. Rita gave us the first round free. We had some drinks, a soda for me, and listened to the music. We enjoyed the atmosphere and once the band was done, we called it good and began gathering our jackets.

Even though the first round was free I did end up paying for my soda. 2€ isn’t bad. I was going to tip her generously, but it’s rude to do so in Germany. Rita wouldn’t accept it and was firm about it. I did as I was told and said, “Danke schön.” Sam tried to tip her well too, but he was given the stare like me. “Friends don’t tip friends here.” She said. Ok, I can accept that even though it’s so different than how we operate in the states.

Lauren brought here polaroid, actually not made by polaroid, and snapped this cool picture.

We missed our train home. It was there, but I was hesitant to get on another train without confirming its destination. Even though it said Darmstadt, I wanted to double check. The train was the one we wanted, but our hesitation was too much and it left without us. The next bus was 40 minutes later! We hung out in the Localbanhof talking Titanic and playing on the escalators. Walking up the down escalator backward looks funny. Sam slid down the handrail and almost crashed. Once back in Darmstadt we walked out of the station to find blank buss screens. No more busses means we were walking home. This added another 40 minutes. Still, we kept our “adventurous” spirit and walked home.

 I've never seen graffiti on an escalator. 

We played on the escalator to kill time. It's still as fun as it was when we were 12.

More Rüdesheim Randoms

 Lauren slipped her pass to Aina between checks by the ticket officer. Sneaky, and it worked.

Hmmm. Which schnitzel should I choose? That's just about all there was. Schnitzel or schnitzel.  

 Hooray for jumping pictures!

 I'm going bald. Damn it.

Settling In

During an exchange program meeting back in San Jose we were told that culture shock comes in waves. There is an initial excitement about a new place when the struggles are still seen through rose colored lenses. Once a rhythm is set and the cultural differences become more apparent, that excitement fades and one’s attitude can start to fall. I was told that it can get shitty, but no to a total depression. I think I’m hitting that point. I'm not depressed, but a bit down. I'm not happy with the rhythm I've created and the lack of exercise. Not having a bike and mountains to run is pretty shitty. I did run today in the trees, but it was pretty damn flat. 250 feet over 6.5 miles is negligible. The sound of birds and absence of people and concrete did instill a sense of peace. Quiet. Alone. Running. Unknown paths. Very much needed.

I shall remain positive. Like this ball of concrete.

I've been in Germany for a month now, and I've had plenty of time to play. I've explored Berlin by bicycle, and Darmstadt by foot. I've met some really nice people from other countries. I've had a very nice German girl, Rita, show me around town and simply be a friend. I’ve grocery shopped on my own without incident, and today I even got a haircut. My broken German was enough for a 7€ haircut, and the woman so really nice so I gave her a 2€ Trinkgeld (a tip.) I’ve managed a bank withdrawal with help from a script written by Sam.

This is how we sign up for classes. Course descriptions, and some with signup sheets, are all we have. There is no online registration time. No priority. Just show up and put your name on a list. Rita had to read them all to us.

School started this week, and a pattern is emerging. It’s been fun having nothing to do, and with plenty to explore in this new city I haven’t had too much down time. That “fun” time is now going to be replaced with school work: research, sketching, studying. Oh yes. My classes are in German. Luckily my professor speaks English very well, and is willing to speak with us after our group meetings to clear things up. Also, I’ll be heavily relying on other h_da students to help with translations and design criticism. Not knowing German is really apparent now, and I feel bad about now learning more before arriving. Still, I’m very excited about finally getting started on my purpose here.

Dinner: a microwave meal from an Asian market. It's vegetarian (duh, it's an Indian dish) and went really well with tortillas. Not bad for 2€ and change.  

That is Saskia. She works for the international office at h_da, and she was with us for the trip to Rüdesheim. Any girl with a picture like this on her Facebook page is alright in my book. I hope to spend more time getting to know her. She mentioned a backpacking trip in June, so we'll see if that comes to fruition, or it remains a pipe dream.

Rüdesheim am Rheim

Mini Vacation! Enjoy the photos and brief comments. I should have taken more pictures. We spent a lot of time at restaurants eating. Dining in Germany isn’t a quick occasion. You all told me about it, but I’m still not used to it. I forget sometimes that we need to ask for the check. At least splitting the tab is super easy. The servers add it up for each person on the spot on a pad of paper and you pay right there. Simple enough.

View from the Jugendherberge (youth hostel.)

Evangelos (Greece), Aniol (Spain), Michael Paul (Pennsylvania)

 Dinner Mob

 Between arriving and dinner, a few of us explored the vineyard.

 Faisal (Jordan), Lucas (Brasil), Eduardo (Spain)

 Mackenzie is on the left. He's from our school in San Jose, but we don't hang out with him. He hangs with the other parry people.

 The rooms were pretty nice. The lockers didn't have spots for locks, but we had keys to lock the main door.

 Sam finds a pretty sweet spot to view the edge of Hessen and over the Rhine river to Bingen am Rhein.



We had quite a group walking into town for dinner.

 I saw this in the hall by the bathroom at the restaurant. I think it's awesome even though it's just a print.

 This is a monument to a battle that took place here in the l800s. This was built in 1870, but I couldn't read the rest. Jonny, a German buddy, told us what was written in the stone and it sounded pretty graphic. It told of a battle where everyone fought until nobody could even lift a sward.

 Edu, and Guenael "g-win-aisle" (France.)

 That's Artur from Russia. He's studying some kind of engineering, but he's a funny guy and not nerdy at all.

Along the way to the monument we came across this spot. The above picture was taken standing on this concrete hut. There was also a chiller with wine in a small wooden structure where you could "buy" wine. Chris bought some and did put some money in the container. Quite the marketing scheme.

This dark tunnel was fun. It was only a hundred feet or so, but it was as dark as dark could get. The brave go without lights, but some used their phones or cameras to light the way. Sissies.

 We ended the hike a small village down river. Most everything was closed as I think this is mostly a tourist spot. There isn't much to do here in the off season, so some of use took the train back to Rüdesheim. It was 1 stop and maybe 10 minutes away.

 Aniol capturing the scene.

 Rain came in hard, and luckily we were all relatively prepared. We didn't have umbrellas, but our rain jackets kept us dry (mostly.)

I have no idea how far we walked/hiked. Whatever the distance, it was super fun, relaxing, entertaining. It felt so good to be outside among the trees. I just missed my bike. It turns out the Greeks, Christina and Evangelos, like mountain biking and are just getting into it.

 I climbed a tree. Duh.

 The sun came out for a very short time, and we fully enjoyed it while talking movies and languages by the Rhein. I had heard of most of the movies, but I had no idea who had directed them and actors names. I just listened a lot. Maybe I need to watch more movies and pay attention to who makes them. Or I can keep my pattern of not spending money on movies and putting it toward bike parts.

 I have no idea what the girls talked about. Lauren, Aina (Aniol's girlfriend, Spain), Zaskeea (? spelling, cute, studies architecture, adventurous, very kind, German h_da helper.)

 Don't trust a skinny baker. With the rain pouring down outside, we took refuge here for quite a while. The shop was very nice to let us hang until closing.

 German, Spanish, Hungarian, American. It was good conversation.

 This doesn't do it justice, but the view from the hostel was pretty sweet. The bigger light on the left hovering above the rest is a castle. I really wanted to check it out, but it was a 7k walk one way and the last ferry was at 5:45 or so which didn't give us nearly enough time to make it worth it.  I guess I'll have to come back.

Our transport: bus. A few of the h_da Buddies missed the bus on the way there so they took the train. With only 1 transfer, the train ride to Rüdesheim is pretty easy and free with our student passes.