Mein Zimmer

All of the JYM students are staying in the StuStadt - the student city - in several different apartment buildings.  We all have single rooms, and there are a couple other girls who are in my building but on different floors.  There's a U-bahn (metro) stop right next to the StuStadt, which is really convenient, and my building is actually the closest to the U-bahn.  It's not quite the same as dorms in the U.S. - everything isn't as centralized, and I've barely seen anybody at all in my building.  Part of it is probably because the semester hasn't started for German students yet, so they might not be here, but the building seems pretty empty.  I have to admit: I like the dorms and apartments at Mary Washington a million times better...they just seem more friendly and welcoming than the building here, but, again, maybe that's just because a lot of students aren't here right now.

 I'm so glad I'm in a single room and don't have to worry about having a roommate that might be out late doing who-knows-what, and it's definitely nice to have a space to retreat to when I need some quiet time alone.  I knew the apartments would be small, but my first disappointment of the semester was my room, especially the bathroom.  The room itself is a decent size for one person, and I don't have too much stuff to fill it with anyway, but it felt a little dingy and cramped, and the bathroom makes me plain claustrophobic.

When you first walk into the room, the bathroom is immediately on your left, and then there's a little hallway with the kitchenette also on the left, before you enter the main part of the room.

Others have described the bathroom as a "space pod":

I just don't understand how anyone bigger than me can take a shower - I'm a pretty small person, and my elbows hit the walls in the shower, so I would think that anyone bigger than me would have quite the interesting time trying to fit in there.

The little tiny kitchenette will be nice to do a bit of my own cooking and save some money, but I have no pots, pans, plates, or food, so I see a shopping trip in my future:

After the little entrance way is my main room.  This is pretty much all there is:

Like I said, I was a little depressed at how drab my room seemed, but I was pleasantly surprised when I opened my bedding from JYM and found a bright yellow sheet and this pretty bedspread:

I slept well the first night, and had nothing to do on the second day (the first full day) until 2:00, so I went to the local store to pick up some food, and some cleaning supplies, because like the slightly high-maintenance person that I am, I knew I wouldn't be able to be comfortable in my room without cleaning it.

My new best friend:

I went though an entire roll of paper towels and half of this bottle of cleaner before deciding that my room was clean enough to unpack all my stuff.

I have a decent sized walk-in closet, which is nice:

The only other part of my room is my little balcony.  I have almost an entire wall of windows, half of which is above my desk, and half of which is a door out onto my balcony.  I don't think many people use the balconies other than to store stuff, or maybe to have a smoke.  Since I have nothing to store, and since I don't smoke, I use it to check the weather.

My balcony:

It's a little weird that there are no dividers between my neighbors and me, but that's okay.

 

From my balcony you can see some of the StuStadt:

Das gruenes Haus (the green house) - one of the StuStadt houses that you can see from my balcony:

I'm in das rotes Haus - the red house.  The courtyard that you can see between my building and das gruenes Haus is a pretty nice place where you can go an sit, and there's a little bar/restaurant on the other side that serves beer (naturally) and some pretty good, cheap food for the students.  In May, there's a big student festival called StuStaCulum that takes place in the courtyard and basically all over the StuStadt.  I was here for some of the StuStaCulum last time I was in Munich, and it's pretty cool.  There's music, yummy food, and of course, more beer.  It will be interesting to be here for the whole festival this year to see what it's like.

So that's pretty much my room.  Nothing fantastic, but it's not too bad either.  Hopefully I'll be able to do a little shopping and make it more interesting soon...