Feb/March

So it was a rather eventful trip in. A lame snow storm kept my flight grounded at JFK for three very boring hours (de-icing isn't exactly the pinnacle of excitement). This meant that by the time i got to heathrow my connecting flight was long gone. After waiting half an hour in security and then another half hour or more on a line to rebook my connecting flight, I finally got on a plane to frankfurt. Frankfurt to Heidelberg was another hour long bus ride and by the time i arrived it was already about five hours past when i was supposed to get there. Of course somehow i had copied down the contact info for my program directors wrong so I couldnt figure out how to call them to tell them I'd finally gotten to heidelberg and that i needed to get to my dorm somehow. Finally figured out what was wrong, got in contact with the director, who picked me up from the bus stop and dropped me off at my room. Missed out on the welcome dinner but he brought me some pizza and a coke. By this point i was pretty exhausted. I unpacked a bit, showered, fell over and slept like a rock.

So yeah, the first month or so of the program was a preliminary language course to prep us for the DSH (Deutsche Sprachprüfung für den Hochschulzugang), basically a proficiency exam for Uni-Heidelberg. If you passed you could take whatever classes you want, if not, you were pretty limited. The prep course was incredibly boring, basically it consisted of us going around the room doing exercises for several hours a day out of a book. It wouldn't have been so bad but some people in the class didn't know some grammar that you probably learned the first week you took german and it drove me batty. But, anyway, it did actually help alot in preparing for the exam and I ended up passing (hurrah!) I was actually super nervous about it since the full year students in the program had said only 5 or 6 people (out of 20 something people in the program) had actually passed the exam during the fall semester. Plus how much German do I actually know after only 3 semesters of learning it? Enough i suppose. The best part of the exam was that to indicate that you registered they stamped a cute little turtle on your hand (some people got penguins).

Anyway, this exam was actually after a week long break or so following the preliminary course (this was at the end of March..i suppose this counts as our spring break). During that time I actually spent five days in Paris with one Miss Shannon Dobson whose host family kindly put me up in their apt. It was a lovely lovely time, I realized i could actually still understand French decently well and it was just nice seeing a familiar face again. I was at this point kinda disappointed with the most of the people in the program and it was great being with a good friend. I also hit one of my ultimate lows (highs?) in stupidity on my way to Paris. I packed all my stuff and booked it to the bus stop to take a bus to the Heidelberg train station. Of course, being me, it was the last bus I could take if i wanted to catch the S-Bahn (a more local type of train, kind of like a commuter rail) i was planning on taking to Mannheim where I would transfer to my EuroCity train to Paris. Just as I reached the bus stop I realized I had totally forgotten my train tickets in my dorm room. Thankfully I was still able to catch a later S-bahn and make my EC train.

So..Paris.

I can't exactly remember what we did on which day but..the first full day i was there was a thursday and shannon still had class. So, armed with a map, I wandered about on my own. It was a bit rainy, but still quite nice. I walked towards the Seine, took some pictures of the Musee d'Orsay and then moseyed on over to the Louvre. I met Shannon again for lunch, and then it was back to class for her and time for me to attempt getting to the Pantheon. Of course it closed at 5 and i got there at 5:15. This would be one of several attempts to get to the Pantheon, all of which failed. Pretty sad about that, I wanted to go pretty badly. I could've walked among the bones of Voltaire, Rousseau and Marie Curie! And that big ol' Foucault's pendulum. Ah well. I have pictures of the outside. Plus, when I was denied during the first attempt, I went to a neat little church behind the Pantheon. It had a corner of posters about the history of the church written in French, German and English and I spent the better part of an hour seeing if i could really read all three decently. Then Shannon's host family made dinner for us which was super nice of them. I get really nervous when I eat with people's families because I'm always terribly frightened of being unintentionally rude or improper because I usually eat like a slob and that's okay with my family (mainly because my dad's usually even messier).

Day 2 was time to begin being super tourists. Started out, of course, with la tour Eiffel. Waited on line for a good long time before finally setting up the stairs to Floor 2 (which is alot of stairs, mind you) and then took an elevator from there. I also accidentally led a couple astray when they asked how to get up to the top from the 2nd floor. Oops. Here's where things get fuzzy but that night we went to get some dinner with one mister John Lian from Amherst (who was actually studying abroad in England but happened to be in Paris) and walked over to Notre Dame, where there was a crowd of people hanging out and some street performers, quite a bit of fun. My pictures came out crappy because my camera bites the big one at night.

After this, I cant really get the order in which we did things straight. So, I'm going to just list them as I remember them. Luxembourg gardens were gorgeous. They had pony rides that I really wanted to take but it seemed like it was only for children, booo. Went to the Pasteur Institute museum/former home of Louis Pasteur. His crypt is pretty amazing; it's walls are almost completely covered in mosaic. No pictures allowed, unfortunately. On Easter Sunday, Shannon went to see family friends so I hung out on my own on Ile de Cite (ah, i dont know how to do french accents on the computerrr..) where I attempted to actually see the inside of Notre Dame (ha! ha..bad idea on easter sunday) and ended up just hanging out at a small pet market on the island where there were bunnies and guinea pigs you could pick up and play with. Then I met up with John at the Louvre. It would probably take a lifetime to really go through there properly, but we managed to get to alot of things in an afternoon. Then pho for dinner (this was incredible after being so deprived of good asian food in Germany) after some miscommunication in trying to meet up with Shannon again for dinner. Also went for Japanese food the night before, where I chatted it up with the chinese owners and scored some free sake for us. I also enjoyed the french pastries. That's probably one of the things I miss the most about Germany/Europe actually. Being able to pop into a bakery and buy some cheap and delicious brezel, croissants, cakes and bread..mmm.

Also on other weekends in march, I went on some smaller trips around the area in Baden-Württemberg. Notable among these was a trip to the spa town of Baden-Baden to enjoy the thermal spas. It was something like 16 euro for 3 hrs there, but man was it worth it. Super relaxing, hot thermal pools (indoor and outdoors; sitting outside in a 38 celsius pool while it was snowing is a pretty cool experience), steam rooms and saunas. Went to the Caracalla spa, which apparantly isnt quite as nice as the Friedrichsbad spa there, but Friedrichsbad required nakedness and it was co-ed, so we decided to opt for the former (required bathing suits in the main areas). We also wanted to wander around more in the actual town of Baden-Baden, but the weather was absolutely nuts that day (thunderstorms/torrential downpours/snow/sun) that we abandoned all our efforts after a trip to a modern art museum and booked it to the spa.

Hrm, so i think that's basically what I did in march. After coming back from Paris I studied like crazy for the DSH, and then went to Salzburg and Berlin, but I guess that belongs in April.

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