IKEA!!! - Day 3, Part 3

IKEA was definitely an adventure.  I got a lot of good stuff at prices that made it worth the hour and twenty minute train and bus ride, but hopefully I remembered to buy everything I needed, so that I don't have to make that trip again. The train ride was easy from the Hauptbahnhof in the center of town, but it brought us to a small little town somewhere south of Munich, where we had to catch a bus to actually get to the store.

IKEA is such a big attraction that it gets its own bus route:

Emily and Gabrielle.

In the back: Chester and me.  In the front: Kathryn and Ellie.

Emelie and Shelby.

We bought A LOT of stuff:

The great silverware exchange!

Waiting 20 minutes for the next train because we missed the last one by about 30 seconds = not fun.

My new and improved room, after the addition of my IKEA purchases:

It's a bit more cheerful now :) 

and hopefully I can cook a bit!

The one thing I know I forgot at IKEA: tupperware.  Guess I'll have to pay the big bucks and buy it in the city...or just eat until I have no leftovers, but that's probably not the best idea.

Another good day.  Tomorrow we're going on a "Raetselrally", which translates to some kind of brainteaser-rally.  Maybe a scavenger hunt around the city - I know someone mentioned that we would be doing one of those eventually.  Guess I'll find out tomorrow!  For now though, SLEEP!

Meine neue Lieblingshaltestelle - Day 3, Part 2

After our group meeting at JYM this morning and afternoon, I went on ein Abenteuer (adventure) with a few of my new friends to IKEA.  It was an hour and twenty minute ride one way, first with das S-bahn (Strassebahn - street train), and then with a bus.  The train station along the way (Haltestelle Ottobrunn) is definitely the most colorful train station I've seen so far - and my new favorite:

(I don't even know what this means - hopefully it's nothing too bad! - I just love all the colors) 

Lots of forms to sign - Day 3, Part 1

Alright, so I've already blogged a lot tonight about my room and about yesterday, and I'm getting tired, but I want to write about today (Day 3) right now, so that tomorrow night I don't have to play catch-up like I did tonight.  So let's hope I'm coherent enough to write about today.

We had to meet up at the JYM building at 10:00 this morning, so I didn't have much chance to do anything before I left, but I did have a bit of Nutella and brotchen first - just as delicious as ever.  (Yesterday I had eine Aepfelrolle for breakfast from a little bakery stand in the U-bahn station that was so yummy...I might be going there pretty often for breakfast).  At JYM, we had a coffee hour (more Nutella and brotchen) and I met more of the others, with plenty of the expected "where are you from, what school do you go to, and what are you studying?" conversation.

From left to right: Jessie, Emily, Ellie (my fellow math major!), and Kit

The girls from das rotes Haus (the house in the StuStadt where I live).  

From left to right: me, Kathryn, Kristin, and Shelby

The JYM building is pretty interesting.  In the main room, there is a pretty good library, and throughout the room they've hung pendants from all the schools that have had students participate in the JYM program over the years.

My favorite, is of course the one in the middle on the right hand side of the second picture, and I thought Mom would appreciate the one on the bottom. I know the picture is a little blurry, so for those of you whose eyes aren't as good as mine, the middle one says Mary Washington College (a little outdated now, but I think I might be the first person to come to JYM since MWC became UMW), and the one on the bottom says Douglass College.

We didn't do anything terribly exciting, mostly just signed forms - our housing/lease contracts, our German health insurance contracts, and information for our residency permits.  We went though all of this in groups, so there were plenty of breaks between forms where we could keep chatting and getting to know each other a bit.

After everyone was done with all the forms, we went as a group to a nearby Mensa - one of the dining halls that are spread throughout the city for students to use.  It was nothing fancy, and there weren't as many options as at UMW, but as Hans Peter (the director of JYM) said, the food was filling, warm, and cheap.  I had a dumpling soup that reminded me of the pancake soup I had in Austria years ago when we went as a family to learn to ski.  I don't know how I remember that far back, but it was good.  I think the Mensas will be a good option for lunches once classes start.  I'm glad to have three weeks of orientation before classes - most days we only have group plans and obligations for part of the day, so we can spend the rest of our time exploring the city and the surrounding areas, which is great, but at the same time, I'm looking forward to figuring out what classes I want to take and getting into some kind of routine.  Once that happens, I know I'll wish for free time again, so I'm going to enjoy the time now as best as I can.

Speaking of free time (nice little transition there, if I do say so myself), we had free time from about 2:00 this afternoon on, so I went with a group of girls to the closest IKEA to pick up some supplies for my room, but I'll make that another post, since I have lots of pictures to share.  After IKEA, I've had a pretty quiet night, which I'm definitely grateful for.  I had eine leckere Pizza at the Tribuehne for dinner, and then I've been relaxing in my room most of the evening, blogging and skyping, and hopefully heading to bed soon. 

I can't believe I've already been here for two full days...these four months are going to fly by!

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!

The real reason I came to Germany...

Need I say more?

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...

Finally in Munich!!! - Day 1

I'm counting Day 1 as the day I arrived, even though I didn't get here till about 3:30.  Today is my first full day (Day 2), and technically, it's after midnight, so it's now Day 3, but we'll stick with Day 1 for now.  I'm pretty much exhausted right now, so I don't know how much I'll write, but we'll see how it goes.


I have no pictures of the planes, the plane ride, or the airports, and nothing too exciting to share about that, other than having a cabin crew almost entirely comprised of pilots, since British Airways' cabin crew union was on strike.  They were really nice, actually, so my flights were pretty good, even the second one (from Heathrow to Munich), which was in a teeny tiny plane with only 132 seats, half of which were empty, but it was good anyway.  And they served a really yummy cookie/snack bar thing too, which was really yummy, as I already said.

So after the flights, I met up with two other JYM-ers (Alvin and Eileen) who arrived about an hour after me, and then together, we were met by two full year JYM-ers (Bob and Alex) who had our apartment keys and information packets.  They were great and helped us with all our luggage as we made our way from the airport, through the city, and two the Studenten Stadt (or StuStadt, pronounced Shtu-Schtat), and to our rooms.

After putting our stuff in the room, I met up again with the others (minus Alex) and we went to dinner at a little Italian place.  I had Gnocci mit Pesto Sahnesoesse, which was delicious, and experienced again the well-known joy of not being able to drink my water because it was carbonated.  I really should learn to deal with that, but we'll see what happens.  Alvin and Eileen were pretty much asleep on their feet, so we all came back to our rooms.  I tried to hook up the internet and failed, talked to my Mom, and called it a night.

Ok, so that was my first day/night.  Coming attractions: My Room and Day 2!  And eventually Day 3, and Day 4, and Day 5, and so on...but it might be time for bed now...

He's just so cute!

This is why I'm going to miss him so much. He looks at you with those big puppy eyes of his and is the sweetest thing in the world!

Less than 24 hours...

I can't believe how quickly the last four months have gone! It feels like I just finished my final exams and started working, but in less than 24 hours (well, less than 22 by now) I will hopefully be in the air on my way to Germany. It all still seems so unreal, and I keep forgetting that all my study abroad plans are all actually going to come true. For so many months, my trip to Germany has been so abstract and so much just a plan, that it hasn't sunk in at all that I leave TOMORROW. I haven't even finished packing yet, which I really need to do, and I don't really know what I'm doing with this blog, but I thought I'd give it a try. Whoever ends up reading this, I just want to say from the beginning, that yes, I did name my blog based on the fact that I know I'm going to miss Salty like crazy while I'm gone, but really, did you expect any less?

Well, like I said, I don't really know what I'm doing with this blog, or what I plan on doing, but hopefully it will be a good way for me to share stories and pictures with everyone while I'm traveling...otherwise, I'll just amuse myself with my own stories and pictures. For now though, I should probably get back to packing...or maybe just snuggling with Salty :)