Entry Number 2

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Thanks Nadja for emailing my friends.......and my professors.... It was quite helpful for me. It is still hard to type here and these computers freeze quite a bit and really have trouble with groupwise, which is why I asked her or Stacie to do it... but I didn't expect any professors to ever read my blog, so let's hope they don't. If any of them actually bring that agony upon themselves, I apologize in advance, especially for my unending indecisiveness. I also intend to blame all spelling and grammar mistakes on my keyboard or the fact that I write stuff in this blog that is from my personal journal written in German. Some may notice that I edited my first entry to clean up lazy word choice and typos, etc. Hahahaha. Carissa, I love your comment.

It is still reeeeally hot here. The other day Tanja and I compared the school systems in both the US and Germany. From what I gather, here one cannot psychotically major in everything. But she'd taken a philosophy course or two, but only really remembered reading some of Descartes. Imagine trying to explain Rawls and Wittgenstein in German. Then we talked about religion, and she's a theist but not religious. I actually, thanks to Brahms, could talk about the soul, and (barely) the mind, and God. It was actually really fun trying to hold that conversation. Then we switched to movies, which was much, much, much easier.

I'm also not sure if it's just my host family, but "Southern hospitality" is constant. I finally got to pay for something yesterday when I insisted on buying Tanja's Milchshake. Another thing I've learned is that saying "Das ist egal" oder "Das ist doch egal" is not so good. In English, it roughly says "Its all the same to me" but means at least connotatively "I'm not interested." So one is kind of forced to be decisive, for example when asked if they want tea or coffee. Oops, I've said it before while with my host family. But I think, and hope, that Uschi basically understood what I meant.

In Düsseldorf, there's also a big Japanese element. Apparently Düsseldorf has the largest Japanese population in Europe. There are a few streets with only Japanese restaurants, grocery stores, clothing stores, etc. These are very expensive also. My friend from class, Chieko, says she cannot afford most of the places and that she's found a few cheaper stores and restaurants, but there are really not many.

And every morning in class I hear a flute playing. At least, I think it's a flute. It's really quite pretty, but I have no idea where it actually comes from. I've wondered if it could be a street musician, but the music doesn't last more than a minute or so. Another thing is that the bells in the Catholic church down the road from my house ring for a loooong time. It's more of a song than a bell ringing. I've also heard something about some big piano fest here in Düsseldorf, where people play pianos in the streets. That doesn't sound quite realistic, but who knows, eh?

I'll probably have more to say once I've seen some more cities, and more of Düsseldorf as well. I think this weekend I go to Cologne or Essen, and I hope I can also get to go up to the Netherlands or Belgium. In August, at some point, I will go to Hannover, and perhaps Berlin. I'd love to get down to Münich, Nürnberg, or Heidelberg, but I'm not sure if I can. I have to work on convincing Micha to take me or help me figure out how to go alone. It'd be cool to get over to Dresden too, but that's on the other side of Germany completely. Maybe if I go to Berlin....

Everyone who knows me will be troubled to know that I have learned enough words to be my typical wise-ass self in German. Of course, I have to reuse the same words over and over and over.... Oh, and for Amesy, I will see Pirates of the Carib. 2 in German before English. How sweet is that?

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Comments

[lilklemme]

Hey... is it sad that I just now realized that you left before we could have the SVU party we had talked about? Anywho, have an awesome time in Germany, because it sounds really cool. :)