Die Uni - Day 10

Yay - I'm almost caught up on my posts!  If I can finish posting this post tonight then I'll be completely caught up.  I have an hour left before midnight...let's see how this goes!

Today started with a yummy breakfast of Schoko-Muesli, a granola based cereal with plenty of chocolate...is there any better way to start of a day?  Oh wait, yes there is: with Nutella, of course, but I had a little bit of that too, so all is well!  We had another information session at JYM, this time about the more practical specifics of how we should go about finding and signing up for classes at LMU, the German university.  The process is very decentralized, especially in comparison to Mary Washington's system, where every single course offered during a given semester is provided in one giant list and registration is completely online.  Here, each department has separate course lists and separate processes for signing up for classes, ranging from sending an email to the professor, to talking with the professor in person, to waiting until the first week of classes to sign up.  I still need to look online to figure out what classes I might take at LMU - I'm thinking an intro to statistics class with Ellie, another math major at JYM, and some kind of German class.  We also got to sign up for the JYM classes that we want to take - I picked Art in Munich, Contemporary German Culture, and Munich and National Socialism, along with the grammar and writing course that everyone is required to take.  My schedule could still change depending on what LMU classes I take, so hopefully I'll have a chance tomorrow to look at the available LMU classes.

After this information session, we grabbed a quick lunch and then met up again for a tour of the university.  There is no central campus like there is in most American universities.  Instead, there is a cluster of buildings around the "main" building, but other department buildings are spread throughout a section of the city.  I saw the building in which I might have class if I take a German class at LMU, but not the math building.  Everything is within walking distance of the JYM building, but there are also trains and buses that we can easily take (have I mentioned I love the public transportation system here?)  Maresa, one of the JYM staff, gave us the tour and also pointed out a few good restaurants and shops in the area.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love Mary Washington and I think that we have a beautiful campus there, but there's just something special about attending a university where there's as much history and beauty in the buildings as there is here.  For example, the main LMU building was where part of die Weisse Rose (the White Rose) movement took place.  The White Rose was a non-violent group of students and a philosophy professor from the University of Munich that protested Hitler's regime via anti-Nazi pamphlets.  I don't know the full story, but how could you not find this much history in a building fascinating?  There's a small memorial museum about the White Rose in the building's basement, which we didn't get to see but that I hope to be able to visit at some point, and there are also a few other markers left in honor of the group:

 This is laid in the cobblestones outside the main entrance to the building.  The papers contain information about the group and their pamphlets, and the pictures are of the group leaders, all of whom were arrested and executed for their actions.
 

This is inside the entrance hall.

In addition to all the fascinating history, the main building is also beautiful in it's own right:

Our group and the courtyard area outside the main building:

After seeing a few of the university buildings, we walked about ten minutes down the road to see another Mensa (student dining hall) that we can use, and passed a few photo-worthy buildings.

More proof that there's a church on almost any street, this church is across the street from one of the main university buildings:

This church is called Ludwigskirche, home to the world's second largest church fresco.


 The Siegestor (Victory Gate) - all sorts of parades pass under this gate and down Ludwigstrasse, from the Fussball team after a World Championship, to Olympic athletes after their homecoming, to state funeral processions:

A seemingly normal street, right?

Nope!  Enter The Walking Man, a sculpture done by Jonathan Borofsky in 1995:

By the time we were done with the tour, we were almost at Muenchner Freiheit, an area of town with several cafes, restaurants, and shops.  I grabbed an ice-cream with a couple friends, and since then (about 4:00), I've been relaxing on my room, enjoying a little quiet time and catching up on my posts.  I also got to eat dinner/lunch with Brenda and Tiffany via Skype, which was quite fun...I ate dinner and they ate lunch and I got to see theirs and a few other friendly faces.  I think I'm now officially all caught up with what I've been doing, and since it's almost midnight I'm going to go ahead and post this!  And special thanks to Uncle Bob and Sylvia for the Top 10 Munich travel book that they gave me, where I found a lot of the random information included in this post, such as the name of The Walking Man.