I'm such a nerd...

I was so excited to go to my International Business Law class today that I didn't read that it doesn't actually start until next week...

My list of classes so far consists of:

• Computer Aided Analysis of Financial Markets
• Strategic Management
• Seminar in Economic Policy
• Seminar in Sustainable Development
• Lecture in Sustainable Development
• yes, the seminar and lecture are two different classes...
• International Business
• International Business Law
• German 2
• German 3
• Cross Cultural Communications
• Information Technology

Color coding is cool!

Red classes are the Important Ones.  They're the ones that will actually matter back at IIT.

Yellow classes are pretty much just classes that I thought "hey, that would be fun!"  (And yes, I get to take German 2 and German 3 all at the same time.  I got a good grade in German 1 and this is an option that they give to the "smarties" in German 1.)

Blue classes only meet twice the entire semester and are done (mostly) before Christmas.

I think I'll be alright.  I haven't officially registered for any of these classes yet, as the registration isn't necessary until October 16th.  So I'll let you all know then what my schedule looks like... =)  Until then, keep checking the calendar at the bottom of the page =)

Ok, I've had way too much fun playing with fonts and stuff in this post... Time to go out with some of my new friends!  (No 8am International Business Law class tomorrow!)

Tschüss!

A short rant on: German Telephone Numbers

German telephone numbers are interesting,  they can range from having anywhere from six to eight numbers.  Mine has the regular ol' seven (not including the area code) which is convenient for me, since I can easily remember 530 2685.  =)  But I've gotten emails from people with their numbers and they range from 67 17 17 to 89 01 24 46...  It's so confusing, because you're never Really Sure that you heard (or read) them correctly...

Anyways, I'm off to my first day of classes (which I'll no doubt blog about later!) so I wish you all the best and hope you have a great day!

 ♥

A more conclusive update:

I've figured out which classes I'm going to take!  Check out the calendar at the bottom of this page.  =)

Random Picture:

This is what I see every day on my walk home from school:

A 5' statue of Lady Liberty

a German flag

and an American flag.

This never fails to amuse me.

Real classes start tomorrow.  =)  I'm really excited.  I'm not positive that my schedule will be how it is below, since I don't have to actually register for classes until the 16th of October (it's a very different system than the one in the States...).  Also, I think that the "Information Technology 2" one needs a pre-requisite course which is only offered in German, so I'm fairly certain that I won't be taking that one, but I'm still going to email the professor and go to the first session and see if it's necessary or not.

The way that the university has their registration set up is you make your own schedule based off of the classes that they offer.  However, unlike IIT, where you know the classes at least a month or two before the semester actually starts, in Germany they don't give you the course schedule ("timetables") until about a week or two before classes start.  And for the International students (like me) they don't even give you information that far ahead in advance.  So, after two information sessions, I get to pick my own classes, make up a schedule and then go to class.  I can "try out" as many classes as I like, and then choose a few to actually go to and register those with the International Office.  Also, if I want to, I can just audit a course or two...I can simply go to the class and then not sign up for the final exam.  (That's another thing they do differently here, you have to sign up for your final exams, they're not automatically included in the course itself.)

The only "problem" I can forsee is that my German 2 course is on Tuesday mornings at 8am and has another 8am class on Fridays...  And that's not really a "problem," just a small inconvenience...


Ok. Bedtime for me now...

Love!

I got a box!!!!!!!

Mail is so exciting to get!  =)

I got a box with my camera! (Thanks Mom and Dad!!! And Robert, for finding it!) The box also included a letter from Mom and a note from Dad.  =)  It made my morning!

I'm going to figure out what classes I'll be taking in about half an hour, so check the bottom of this bloggy thingy for an updated calendar of what I'll be studying!!


Love and hugs to everyone who reads this!!

♥

Quick update =D

1. Newie Party tonight hosted by the University.  =D  I'm really excited!! Might even wear heels....
2. I can't believe I've been here for three weeks.  I miss everyone, but at the same time I'm having a great time.
• Also, comments on this are welcome, of course.  But if you really want answers, emailing me with your questions is probably the best way to do it...  =)

Random Picture of the Day:

An Update!!

So, first of all I would like to apologize for my very spontaneous updating.  I'll go somewhere and be like "WOAH I NEED TO TELL EVERYONE ABOUT THIS" and then by the time I get home I'm so tired that I forget to tell you all about it.

• So, here's what's been going on lately:
• Wednesday (September 16th)
• There's an Irish Pub down by the center of the city and on Wednesday nights after 9pm it has Karaoke!  So I got a bunch of Internationals from my dorm to go with me!  It was a LOT of fun and I ended up staying out until about 2am... And then got to go to class the next morning!  =D  Needless to say, I was a "little" tired for that class, but I made it through!!
• Friday (September 18th)
• The Korean girls who are in my Deutschkurs cooked dinner for a whole bunch of us.  We had Korean curry with chicken as well as a lot of appetizers.  It was SO good!  After dinner, Eunsol, Younghoe, Decky, Ross, Bank, Johannes and I went out for drinks.  The first place we went to had happy hour just as we showed up.  Cocktails were only 4.50 euro!  (As opposed to the 6 or 7 that they were listed as on the menu...)  So we each had a cocktail and then went to a different bar, because Bank and I wanted to try some of the local Bier and there wasn't much of a selection (according to Johannes) on the menu.  So we went to a place called Cafe Prag.  It was a really nice place, very classy.  They didn't have a very good selection of the local Bier there, but they did have a delicious Czech Bier.  (I'll have to ask Bank/Eunsol for pictures so I can report back to you all just exactly what the name of the Bier was...)
• Saturday (September 19th)
• Bank, Younghoe, Eunsol and I went to Bad Wildbad.   (Pronounced "Bahd Veeldbahd")  I took a bunch of pictures that you can see here.  Those pictures were taken with Bank's camera phone, and most of them turned out pretty well!  Bad Wildbad is located south-west of Pforzheim, and we were able to take the train there for free! (Yay for subsidized things for students!)  It was about a half hour ride to Bad Wildbad, and I fell asleep both on the way there and on the way back.  =)  Once we got there, we took a train up to Sommerberg --which is where most of the pictures are from.  Sommerberg is located just west of Bad Wildbad and is about 700m above sea level.  Once we got up there we saw walking paths, so we went for "a little stroll."  The path we chose was 7.7km long!  It was really pretty, though.  And really quiet. 
• That's one thing here that really strikes me.  There aren't any airplanes overhead.  Thankfully it's not too quiet, there is noise from traffic almost all of the time, so it's not too eerie, but that was one thing I noticed right away, the lack of airplane noise.  (wow, sorry about that run-on sentence...)
• Last night (September 21st)
• I discovered that I can cook!!!
• I made a cream sauce using this recipe and improvised to turn it into deliciousness by adding oregano, black peppers, a chopped chili pepper, chopped green onions, garlic, and mozzarella cheese...  Yummmmmmm.....
• Up until last night, Bank and I had been cooking, but we hadn't really experimented with cooking too much.  And last night we got adventurous with our food.  It was a lot of fun, trying to figure out what would taste good with what we had.  I'm sooo proud of that cream sauce, especially since i had heard that cream sauces are kind of hard to make.
• Our Deutschkurs ends on Friday, and if I pass, I get to move on to the A2 level.  Which meets SIX HOURS A WEEK.  Now, I actually do want to move on to the A2 level, because I want to be able to have small conversations with the people in the shops.  But four of those six hours are on Fridays... which means that it might limit the amount of traveling that I can do on weekends.  =/
• I don't actually register for classes until Monday.  There's a meeting for the international students at 10:30 on Monday morning.  Here's a .pdf of what they have planned for us.  I'm really excited to start classes and meet more people.  =) And practice my German, of course!
• Bank is making dinner tonight, he has a Thai soup recipe from his mom that he's going to try.  I'm excited, it should be delicious.  =)

So, that's basically what has been going on with me lately.  Sorry about the bullet formatting, but when I'm typing it's sometimes easier to put my thoughts into bullet form so that they're grouped and remain somewhat concise... =)  I'll be updating the calendar at the bottom of this page with my class schedule when I get it.  =)

Gestern habe ich Bier getrunken.

"Yesterday I drank beer."

=) Very true.

There's karaoke at the Irish Pub every Wednesday night, starting at 9pm.  So I got a group of students from class and the dorm to go down with me and we sang karaoke.

I had SO much fun!  But ended up staying out until about 2am, which meant that waking up for class this morning was rather troublesome...  Especially since it was foggy out.

Naptime now, since I have time for it, and I'll post pictures when I get them. =)

~e

Thursday was, in fact, productive.

On Thursday after class, I was able to go to the International Office, go to AOK and get the insurance figured out and I register my address with the Rathaus - which will allow me to apply for a visa.  I couldn't apply for the visa just yet because I need proof that I can afford to live here (a bank statement) so I'll get that and go back next Thursday after class.  Also, after I got back to my room, I was able to jerry-rig my internet connection, so I have that again. =)



I stayed up really late last night, so I missed a trip over to Stuttgart today, but that's alright, I'll probably get there later this month.  Besides, this gives me a chance to do my laundry and work more on my German.

Bank, Younghoe, Eunsol, Ross and I went on an excursion last night to find a Chinese Restaurant:

Success!

(Picture taken by Bank. From right to left: Ross, Me, Younghoe, and Eunsol.)

I have to say, I felt really tall on that excursion - Ross is from Hong Kong, and Eunsol and Younghoe are from Seoul... ;)  But it was a lot of fun!  It was really funny, at the restaurant, they spoke Chinese and German - but the menu was in German.  =)  So we had Ross go up there and order for us.  It was delicious.  =)  Unfortunately, I can't say exactly what we had...

I was serenaded on Sunday... (along with a bunch of other people...)

So...I just realized that I never told you-amazing-people-who-read-about-my-travels about the guitarist who happened by on Sunday night and played for us...

On Sunday (the 6th), after Bank and I got back from wandering the North side of Pforzheim, we were cooking dinner when Milan, Twang and Slave (pronounced "Sla-veh") mentioned to us that they were going to have a few drinks on the porch that night, if we wanted to join them.  We figured, why not, and around 11pm Bank and I met them downstairs.  After a short time of sitting on the porch talking, a guy with a guitar case and a bottle of wine walked by.  He spoke English with an Irish accent, which I found amusing.  When we asked him to play guitar for us, he said "no, if I do, the police will show up."  But after a short while of talking, he decided to play for us anyways.  Sure enough, after about 5 songs, the police came by!  It wasn't anything serious, though.  Just "keep it down, people are trying to sleep."  They were really nice.  =)

After the police left, it was made known to me that that sort of thing happened all of the time.  There were even times when the police would show up, have a few drinks with the party, and then mention that said party should quiet down.  Apparently it's only a problem when they have to show up a few times in the same night.

We waited and talked for about another 20 minutes and Oliver (I'm pretty sure that's his name, I didn't hear it when he introduced himself, so I don't know for sure...) said he wanted to play some more and we all went inside the lobby of Kepplerstrasse (since it was getting to be a bit chilly) and got an encore.

He was really good!  It was a fun way to start off the week - new friends, good drinks and good music.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to bed until about 1:30am and had class on Monday at 9... But I made it there alright and without any problems =)

Here's a better picture of Oliver.

 





*** so far, all of the pictures that you see are courtesy of Bank, the master photographer =)

Radio silence...

My internet got cut off last night around 9pm, I'm not sure when I'll get it back... Hopefully it'll be tonight!! But until it's back, you're not too likely to hear much from me. I'm sorry!!!

Tchuss!


~e

Today was looking so promising...

As I left class today, I was feeling VERY optimistic about the things that I was going to accomplish. I was going to go to AOK and get my insurance proof for school, then go to Deutsch Bank and see how things were going over there with the money from Bank of America and IIT and stuff, then head over and pick up some groceries and then go home.

Instead, I went to AOK and found out that I need my acceptance letter from school (which is still at home) so I get to go to the International Office tomorrow after class and get a copy of my acceptance letter and then go back down there tomorrow after class before I go to the Rathaus and give over my passport so I can get a visa. (Sorry about that run-on sentence.) I'm not very excited about that.

After I got out of AOK, I went to Deutsch Bank and withdrew some money from my Bank of America account. I'm going to call them after I finish posting this so I can figure out just how to access my account and keep tabs of it online.

I bought some cute shoes at Woolworths today. Only 6 Euro. =) And they're good, Birkenstock-like sandals. Perfect for walking around town.

Bank made dinner, I washed up. It was good stuff. Linguine with sausage and mushroom sauce. =) He cooked, I cleaned up. =) It's a good deal we have.

I helped set up internet for Devika and Angith before dinner. =)

Anyways. I think I'll call Bank of America and see if I can figure things out with them.

Tchuss!
(Bye!)

WHAT????

There's no Pandora in Germany.


=(


This makes me incredibly sad... I had the best idea for a station to make too....


On the bright side, I'm learning German! Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch! (I speak a little German!)

Classes started yesterday, but the schedule is quite full. We're supposed to learn the basic A1 level by the end of the 25th and pass the class in order to move on to the next level. The next level (A2) we can take all semester learning... It's interesting.

I've got a cappella on the brain... Can't get it out of my head. There's a concert later this month, I think I'm going to have to try and get a group to go! =)

There are about 25 or so people in my German class.

I'm getting to know more people because of this class, which is really nice. And they're all really friendly. =) (Why would they not be?)


Anyways, it's beautiful outside, so I'm gonna go out and read or knit or something =)

As always, if you want a "personalized" update, send me an email and I'll let you know what's going on and what's interesting and all that good stuff. =)

<3 ~Erin Here's my class schedule:

The cool thing about this is that when I'm in the regular semester I can update it and it'll be updated here... (I'll try to figure out a way to put it in the corner of the page or put a link to it on the side of this blog so you can all see what I'm doing... =D )

Pretend you're hearing the theme from The Godfather...

I went to Church this morning and got to sit in on an Italian Baptism.  It was SO COOL.  Bank and I went "Church Hunting" aka: I thought I knew where there was a Catholic church which was having Mass, but when we got there, we saw that the 11am Mass was actually at a different church.  So we walked through town to get there, and when we did we found that a) we were only a few minutes late; b) there was a Baptism going on; and c) it was all in Italian.  =D

I was able to understand enough from my (somewhat limited) knowledge of French and Latin to be able to pick out the important bits, which was good.  By the end of Mass I had the hang of the responses and was even singing along with the rest of the congregation.  =)

After Mass, Bank and I went down to the Oechsle Fest (Wine Festival) that was going on in the "center" of Pforzheim.  Maybe "town square" would be a more appropriate description, as the Rathaus (Town Hall) was directly next to where we were.  Anyways, we had lunch and some wine there, and each bought a Souvenirglas.  =)

There was a band playing while we were there, and everyone was having a good time.  The food was good, the wine was good... it was a very good lunch.  =)

After lunch, Bank and I decided to go walking past the north end of the Hbf (hautbahnhof - train station).  We walked about 2 km north, and then had to turn around and go back home, another 2.7 km (this is a very rough estimation based off of Google Maps...)

Overall, it was a very cool morning.  =)  It's about 3:45 now, and I think it's time for a nap.  =D

After I upload the pictures that I took....
(Bank has a camera phone which I feel much more comfortable "stealing" as I get the feeling that it's a lot less likely to break...)

Karlsruhe!

Bank and I decided to go to Karlsruhe today.  We thought that as students we would be able to take the S-Bahn for free, but since we don't have ID cards yet we had to pay for our tickets.  7.25 Euro for a round trip to Karlsruhe. Not too bad.  Took the train from Pforzheim just after 12:15 and got there just after 1300, walked around, and when we couldn't find the Tourist Information center, I convinced Bank to just "wing it."  =D  We walked around and found a beer festival going!  Got some food and some delicious beer.  We passed a booth at the fest that had free engraving on the items there, so I bought a beer glass and had it engraved with

01.09.2009

bis

01.03.2010

Tchuss!

"Tchuss!" means "Bye!"  I thought it fitting to put the first word that I learned in Germany on my beer glass. =)

Bank took a load of pictures, I'll see if I can grab a few from him and put them up here.  =)

Anyways.  We walked around Karlsruhe for about 2.5 hours and then caught the S-Bahn back.  As we got on, I wasn't sure if the train would make it all the way to Pforzheim... I was right.  We had to get off at Sollengren... Fortunately, there was another S-Bahn coming from Sollengren to Pforzheim about five minutes later, so we didn't have to stay there long.

Bank just cooked dinner, which was delicious, so I'm going to knit for a little bit and then go to bed.  =)

Love and hugs,

~e

Updates!

Well, not too much has been going on.  Yesterday, Bank and I opened accounts at Deutsche Bank so we can transfer money from Bank of America to Deutsche Bank for free (yay for international partnerships!).  This'll be helpful because we'll have make wire transfers for money for rent and some administration fees down at school.

This city is beautiful.  Very hilly.  And all of the houses are unique.  No cookie-cutters here.  =)

There's an Aldi type store called Lidl just down the hill from us.  (Literally, if you turn at the first street north of our dorm (I think it's North, but my Lake Radar is so totally off...) you can go down a street and then down a flight of stairs and there's the store.  It's quite convenient.  =) And it's just like an Aldi, too.  Makes me feel more comfortable with things, since now I know where to go to get decently priced shampoo as well as laundry detergent and food.  =)

Well.  It's 10am here, so I'm going to go shower and then I think Bank and I are going to head to Stuttgart to check out a car museum.

OH.  Here's Bank's blog so you can see pictures, since I, unfortunately, don't have a camera...


Love and hugs to all!

~e

ZOMG!!! INTERNET!!!!

September 3 - still on a notepad note...

Still no internet.  I'm a username and password away from connectivity... Bank's neighbor let him use his, though, so Bank has internet.

I have to say, Bank is pretty awesome.  I was kind of nervous when we were first making plans about this trip, but now I'm really glad that he's around.

In other news... I HAVE A PHONE!!!!!  I'm not going to be completely disconnected anymore!!!!  Granted, I'm going to have to put more money on it, as it only has one Euro's worth of calls (not very much) at the moment and I probably won't be able to do that until I get my internet up and running, but still, it's nice to be "connected" even though I only have Emily Hammes' phone number at the moment and, well, I'm not actually "connected" yet.  =D

We bought Bank a power cord thingy for his computer, which means that I get his adapter for my computer.  =D

I have no camera =/  Got a phone, but it doesn't have a camera...  That bothers me a little.  I'm still trying to figure out what to do for a camera...  Bank has offered me his, but he's actually a "photographer" whereas I'm much more of a "woah, shiny! click!" kinda gal...

I've been tracking my expenses... Most of it has been food and things that I "need" to live, like the cat-5 cable and phone.  Ok, true, I don't "need" a phone... but still, it's nice to be able to communicate with people... =p

Took my webcam over to the window and tried to get some pictures... They're not very good, but at least this way you can see the beaiutiful view I have.



Before I left, Ellie tied a homemade string bracelet around my ankle.  It's nice to look down every once in a while and see it firmly stuck on there.  =D  Also, the two beaded bracelets that Sarah Lim and Ellie gave me are firmly on my wrists.



                                                                                                                                                                 


EEEEP!!!!! Bank came in with a username and password!!! I have INTERNETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!  =D  <3  This is so exciting!!!!

Pictures of my view from my webcam...

"Day 1 - August 31 to September 1."

I'll be popping up in italics in this post to for clarification and editing purposes...

On the flight. =) 1734 chicago time.
Watching Black Books and then Goodnight and Goodluck. Then bed. =D

Love it. This is so exciting!!!





"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."





I'm in Frankfurt. In the bahnhaus ... at least, I think it's the "bahnhaus"... Either way, it's the train station. (Actually, it's the "bahnhopf") Bank and I booked a train that would depart the station at 10:54 - extra time to be sure that we would make it through baggage claims and customs and not be too late. Well, we got here at about 8:54... So we have plenty of time.


Mind you, I'm not actually updating live. All of this is actually from at notepad note that I started on the plane because I couldn't sleep, then I got spontaneously paranoid that the excessively tall man a seat behind and across the aisle from me was watching me type, so I minimized it and pulled it up again about an hour before we landed in Frankfurt to write the Hitchhiker's quote and then closed it up again...


So, Currently it's 0220 in Chicago. I've been up for a LONG time. I got about two half hour naps in on the plane, one right after takeoff and the other right before we landed. Brilliant, eh? But I had NO legroom, and my knees were bugging me almost the entire time. Even now, sitting at a cafe in the bahnhaus (yes, I'm going to call it that until I get to free internet and can look it up) my knees are starting to "lock up". They're not really locking up, but if you imagine my knees as a hinge that's rusty... that's kinda what they feel like...

Bank made friends on the flight with a guy named Aaron and a girl named "E" (I can't really hear her when she says here name, so that's what I gathered. got her facebook info later, it's "Yi" ) They went with us from the Frankfurt baggage claim to the cafe where we're now sitting. Except Aaron, he didn't like "loitering" in the cafe (we all bought stuff!) so he went off on his own and is now sitting on the floor about 150 yards away from us. ANYWAYS. Aaron and E are from the University of Minnesota and will be studying in Freidbrugh (I think). They're catching a train at noon from here, so Bank and I will be leaving first.

I turned on my phone while I was here, just to check the time and a) it's still on Detroit time, which I find amusing; and b) it gets signal. So I emailed mom to tell her that I'm safe and alive and waiting on my train.

But now my battery is getting low and I still don't have a power adapter for it (silly me, not buying it before I leave...) So I'll be getting one of those soonly and then I'll update the Bloggy-thingy and get all y'all up to speed on how things are going. =D





By the way - I'm soooo incredibly excited. I can hardly believe that I'm here, actually doing this. It's so amazingly surreal, somebody pinch me! =D


Love and hugs,

~erin


It's currently 2020, and I'm not quite ready to do the shower/sleep thing just yet... So here's an update of what I got to do!
That was all written at the Frankfurt Airport/Train Station. After an excursion which included running up flights of stairs with two big >50lb bags each to catch a train, Bank and I made it safely to Pforzheim and met up with Elena who drove us (and our luggage!) to Keplerstrasse, our dorm.

Upon arrival, we found out that THEY HADN'T PROCESSED OUR APPLICATIONS YET. Fortunately, since we were there with our luggage, they just gave us new applications and set us up "right away." (We got there at 1245 and got our rooms around 1400) ((Sorry about the 24-hr time mode, but it's easier for me to keep track of things this way here, since that's how everyone else does it...)) But between 1245 and 1330, we were frightened by a large, frustrated, German pirate. Ok, he wasn't *actually* a pirate, but he was wearing short pants (floods, maybe?) and had tattoos and an earring. He reminded me of a pirate. He was the hausmaster and turned out to be really nice, but was just really frustrated that we showed up without hearing from them first. (Though, we sent in our applications for housing in JULY, so I think we were justified in thinking that it would be safe to show up, since we had heard no news otherwise.)

After we got our rooms assigned (I'm 220) Bank and I went to the car and got our bags to bring them back to the room. At this point in time I was very tired and frustrated that things just HADN'T been working out the way they were "supposed to". It was the first (and only) time that I thought "Damn, I want to go home." But that thought didn't last very long, because as soon as Bank and Elena had dropped Bank's bags off in his room, they came down to mine and we all went up to the university itself to look around and get something to drink (Bank and I were extremely thirsty!) The university has really large buildings of glass and steel, but they're not as foreboding/prisonlike as the IIT ones are... ;-) Elena signed on to her computer account (Bank and I will be getting our own sometime next week) and let us use the internet access, but I only really had time to email Mom and tell her that I was alright.

After that, Bank and I realized that we needed to pick up a few things that we had forgotten/didn't know we needed. Bank wanted a SIM card for his phone and I wanted to pick up an adapter and we were told that we needed CAT-5 cables for internet in the rooms. Now that i realize that my phone works here, I might pick up a SIM card as well, if I can find an instance where it's cheaper than a pre-paid phone... We'll see, I want to go back down to Pforzheim tomorrow to havre K&M (the computer store in town) order an adapter for me (nobody I went to had one, but they offered to order one for me) and look at pre-paid phone/SIM card options.

So, Elena dropped Bank and I off in Pforzheim. Now, our dorm is not very far from the center of the city, but Bank and I were very tired and apparently not paying much attention to which way Elena was driving when she took us down there. We knew that the #5 bus went from the university to the city, but we didn't know how much it cost (when we get our Student ID cards, it'll be free). So we walked back. It was quite a trek. We got quite lost. =D We ended up in probably the swankiest neighborhood of the city. It was gorgeous, HUGE houses (I wish my phone hadn't died, I would have taken some pictures!) and very green, lots of trees and shrubberies, and really nice cars. We asked two different people for directions back to the dorm (we were getting a bit tired, Pforzheim is VERY HILLY. Especially for an Illinois girl ;-) ) The first woman was very nice, but didn't speak one word of English. And unfortunately, neither Bank nor I have enough German (classes start on the 7th) to get around yet, so we walked off in the direction that she pointed and after about 15 minutes we asked a bicyclist if he knew the way. Fortunately, he spoke English, so we didn't have to worry about miming and he pointed us down the road that we were about to cross and told us that soon there would be signs directing us to the "Hoschule" (University). Thankfully, we saw our dorm (came up from the other side of the building) and made it safely back to our rooms before it even began to get dark.



Ok, this is the transition from "narrative" to "updates" I'm only going to put in a phrase here or there in italics to clarify... Be warned, I was very very very cranky at this point... But internally, I tried VERY hard to keep it inside and not let the situation/heat/frustrations of the day get the overall attitude of the First Day down.



1043 chicago time - 1743 erin time.

I'm tired and cranky. And I want to a hotel. All I really want to do is take a shower and go to sleep, but i'm too hot and tired to move. And I really want to call my parents. But I can't. My phone is dead and I have no internet. This makes Erin very sad and cranky. Put that on top of the fact that she's had a rough 24 hours and I feel bad for everyone who has to deal with me today...

On the bright side, I think I got my toilet to work... =p I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DO THIS. I'm feeling very self-righteous and entitled and angry.

Ok. battery is dying. GR. I don't have an adapter to charge it and I don't know where Bank is to borrow his... GRRRRRR. I'm really hating life right now...



1807 - Bank lives in 211. He's lending me his adapter for now. He's also going to talk to the housing master about what's going on with the internet...



2001 - Wrote the family on Kenneth a letter with some interesting aspects of my day. =) Then decided to clean/organize my room for the first/only time. And promptly fell asleep. Bank woke me up about 15 minutes ago to see if I wanted to go to "7E" aka: the gas station around the corner with him. As soon as I said "sure" and put on my shoes, it started pouring. It rained the entire walk there, stopped while we were inside, and rained the entire walk back. I think Murphy needs to take his laws BACK to America...

Anyways, I'm exhausted, still, and won't have internet for the night, so I'm going to plug in my phone and charge that for a while, email Mom again, and then shower, put on some clean clothes, put on Pride and Prejudice, and go to bed...

Alright, it's 2100, Pride and Prejudice is running, I charged my phone and will be able to take pictures tomorrow when I go down to Pforzheim. (Hopefully I won't get lost this time... Bank's coming too, though! No worries!) I'm going to get some PJ's out and shower and go to bed. (Yes, I know that's probably TMI, don't worry I won't be giving updates like this too often. But keep in mind, I've been walking around German Cities for the last ... bunch (8-ish?) of hours...)

Much love!