See, ma? I really *am* studying while I'm abroad. It's *not* just a marketing gimmick!

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No way. I actually began classes... over a week ago, now! I know, I know, my medal’s in the mail.
But the past 10 days have been action-packed. The first day that I finally had courses scheduled, I actually had two classes overlapped, and I had to duck out of my “Studying and Working Abroad” in favor of attending a meeting about my Melitta design project I’ll be working on for the next 6 or 8 weeks. Yes, friends, that first class *is* being taught in English, and I would tell you more about it, but… I didn’t get to stay and hear about it myself. The Melitta project is a for-real-life thing, which is much more motivating than the for-practice-cause-it’s-good-for-your-health things I usually have at K-State. About 12 people in the product design discipline are working with the company to design kitchen appliances of the future. Totally space-age, dude. As for my other classes, you have to remember that many of these don’t run the entire semester, they are more like short seminars or projects. Cinema 4D is a really cool modeling and animation program I’ll learn to rip it up on. My drawing and rendering course, called “Darstellen” in German, will hopefully improve my quick-sketch abilities with pen, pencil and a smattering of marker. Dreamweaver is another computer program, for building websites, and I can’t wait to get going on that. Renault is holding a competition called Traffic Design Award, and they want entrants to submit space plans for a theoretical building to serve, essentially, as a Park-and-Ride. Another competition is for the company Resopal, who are celebrating their 75th anniversary and want to introduce a commemorative laminate product to celebrate - a fun, short sweet project, and they gave me free promotional items, so I am *not* gonna complain. And finally, Designtage, which is like an open-house sort of affair for Coburg’s Interior Architecture curriculum, a week-long event that is planned and executed entirely by students. I’m looking to help out with some of the off-campus art installations, where we’ll put up small displays in shops around town to interest the inhabitants. I guess it’s an enormous deal here, and you are sure to be reading more about it soon.
Now, I don’t want you to go worrying that now that classes have started I’m not still spending a healthy amount of time playing, I am. Sunday last a whole troupe of us, mostly Latin Americans, armed with backpack-fuls of alcohol and sustenance, took a bus up to the Veste to have a picnic at about 4:30pm. I fondly dubbed the whole affair “Fiesta in der Veste,” and yes, I forgot my camera. Hopefully David will help me out shortly and I’ll get some pictures posted. I left at 10:00ish with a few others in favor of the bars, it being way too cold, and am told the party picked up and we really should have stuck around. I *do* have pictures from the first International Stammtisch (round table) meeting of the semester, a lot of people who are either here as foreign students, or returnees. We took up almost half of this little bar, I think there must have been 40 people who showed up. And just 2 nights ago I went to the Landestheater with Melissa, Esther and Kate to see a production called Karlos. The play was nothing exceptional, but the theatre was pretty cool lookin’.
And at this particular moment, I am… well, I’m typing, but my bed is covered in clean clothes that have to fit in a backpack so they can go to Milan with me. I leave very, very, disgustingly early on a (no doubt) packed charter bus to go to the International Furniture Fair for the whole week, and don’t worry, I’ve remembered to charge both camera batteries and clear the memory cards for your maximum blog enjoyment, so ‘a la ultima semana, amici.’

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Photos

International Stammtisch
Kadir, Agne, Me, Melissa

Landestheater
During intermission: Melissa, Kate, me, Esther