So many people to meet! - Day 2

Honestly, the days already seem to be blurring together a bit, at least partially due to jet lag, so it's probably really good that I'm trying to blog every day, even if just to remind myself what I've done.  It's now Day 3, so here's hoping I remember what I did yesterday!

We didn't have to meet at JYM as a group until 2:00 in the afternoon, since the group flight didn't arrive until about 10:00 yesterday morning.  I slept pretty well the first night, then got up and met with Alvin, one of the people I met up with at the airport on Monday, to go shopping at the local grocery store.  We each got food and cleaning supplies, and then came back to our rooms.  I spent a while cleaning, unpacking, and getting settled in my room.  Then, a little before 2:00 we took the U-bahn into town, where we happened upon a couple other JYM girls and did a little shopping with them before finally heading down to the JYM building to meet everyone else.  

This semester's group is the largest group of students in about 50 years, I think.  There are 43 of us just for the Sommersemester, plus about 25 or 30 others who have been here since September for the full year program.  I think everyone was there for the coffee hour at 2:00, and so far I've been doing pretty well with everyone's names, though I don't think I've met everybody yet - actually, I haven't met anyone from the full year program other than the two guys who met us at the airport, so I still have lots of names to learn.  I'm looking forward to getting to know people, and I'm really excited because I found a fellow math major, a girl named Ellie.  There are supposedly a couple other math majors here too, which kind of surprises me.  Actually, it's kinda nice - everyone at home looks at me a little funny when I say that I'm a math and German double major, but just about everyone here is a German and something-else major.  I've met people who are studying physics, physiology, English, philosophy, religion, international relations, and other subjects in addition to German, so I think we'll have a pretty interesting group.  I was planning on only taking German classes while I'm here, but Ellie said she was thinking of taking an intro level statistics class at LMU (Ludwig Maximilians Universitaet).  It might be interesting to try something like that, just to see what math in German is like, even if it doesn't count towards my math major at UMW, so I might try to take a class like that with her.  I'm getting ahead of myself though...we didn't really talk about this until today (Day 3), and I'm trying to finish my story of Day 2, so I'll try to get back on subject...

We only stayed around the JYM building for an hour or so, before we were allowed to break off on our own.  I went with a relatively big group down to Marienplatz, the center of town where there's a large Fussgaengerzone.  I realized that I'm going to end up taking a lot of the same pictures that I took two summers ago, like the one of the Glockenspiel below, but hopefully this time I'll have a chance to play around with the manual setting on my camera and see what I can do with those.

The Rathaus and Glockenspiel, one of my favorite buildings in the city - how could I not take more pictures of it?:

This is a sight I'd never actually seen before, so a brand new picture:

When he could no longer stand still, he made funny faces for the kids that were coming up to him, and then went back to his statuesque business.

Another beautiful building, the Frauenkirche.  Hopefully I'll get to see it up close soon:

Guess who this dog reminded me of...I tried to take the picture without looking too obvious, but he and Salty could be brothers!

We ran into some Manchester United fans in the town center, chanting loudly (and more than a little drunkenly) about how they were going to kill Bayern in the game that night.  Apparently Fussball is a big deal here...who knew?

We broke up into smaller groups and pretty much just wandered around for a bit, stopping a few shops when something looked interesting, before heading back to the StuStadt for a tour and information session with one of the full year JYM-ers about living in the StuStadt.  Doing laundry will be interesting - there are only a few washing machines and dryers in each building, and you have to buy tokens first, but the place to buy tokens is only open for an hour a day, three days a week, so if you miss those times then you can't do laundry.  You can also buy beer and other alcoholic drinks in the StuStadt, and there's a restaurant/diner place called the Tribuehne with pretty decent food for really good prices right across the courtyard from my building, which is nice.

After the tour, a group of us went back downtown to the Augustiner Bierhalle for dinner (and drinks for the others...still no beer for me).  We went as a group to the Augustiner Bierhalle two summers ago with the JYM fellows program, and it was one of my favorite places.  I tried to order Kaesespaezel, but they weren't serving it last night, so I had the Spargelsuppe instead, which was still delicious.

The group I was with for the night.  From left to right: Kristin, DK, Emelie, Chester, Ellie, Emily, Brijhette, Landon, me, Jeff, Corbin, Shelby, and Dan.  I think that's everyone anyway.  You can't really see Emily.  Brijhette, Jeff, Shelby, and I were JYM Summer Fellows in 2008 together, so it was nice to see them again and know a few friendly faces ahead of time.

Guess who the lonely water to the right belonged to...yep, that's right!  Me!  Still no beer for me, though maybe I'll eventually try some.  And only in Germany would the water cost more than the beer, and more than my entire meal (though I guess that's not really fair, since I only ate soup).  But still...


After dinner we tried to find a pub or someplace because people wanted to watch the Bayern v. Manchester United Fussball game on tv, but every Kneipe (pubs) was full (because why would anybody want to watch the game at home?  at least we had the excuse of not having a TV).  Instead, we came back to the StuStadt and watched the last few minutes of the game at the Tribuehne.  Bayern won, what a relief!  I wouldn't have been able to sleep otherwise...

That's pretty much it for Day 2.  Well, I came back and chatted online with a few people, then read a bit on my beloved Kindle, and called it a night.  Not a bad second day if you ask me!