The following was written yesterday, but I just attained
internet access today, so here is my Journey:
Traveling alone makes journeys much more internal and thoughtful. Prepare for a very long account of a very long day.
I left San Francisco at 11:00 am on Monday and arrived at Chicago at 5:20pm. As we taxied to the gate, I saw an army of 20 snowplows getting ready for the big storm that hit a few hours after. You don't see that at a California airport.
The gate for my connecting flight to Munich was only a few gates away. I headed over there and sat down for all of 10 seconds when they called my section to board. Good timing. Being an international flight, we were on a 777, a plane that I adore and know far too many facts about. Did you know the fuselage of the 737 fits inside one of the 777's GE90 engine's?....but I digress. My plane needed to be de-iced, so that took up a half hour and I dozed off to the drone of the engine.
Even though I had a window seat for both flights, the view was less than spectacular. Maybe 90% of the flight or more it was cloudy. It did make the times that I could see things very special. I woke up as the plane was taking off. The engines revved up and we got over the clouds. It was dark by then and for some reason I was still expecting to see the sun above that cloud cover.
You can do a lot on a 10 hour flight. I watched the Social Network, read a book, then tried for a few hours to get in some sleep time. It never came, but resting my eyes was enough. The last 3 hours of the plane ride I just watched the window; it was dark until the last 2 hours. Every now and again I could see bright lights from ships in the Atlantic. As we neared land, the sun started coming up. A gorgeous sunrise, but it still allowed no view of the earth - just clouds. When clouds are all you have to see, they get interesting themselves. Patterns arose and in some spots you'd see divots in the blanket, leading to sheer cloud waterfalls. In other spots, abnormalities made inverted icicles or cloud hills that you just might want to build a castle on.
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| Sunrise over Europe. There is a cloud waterfall on the left, too! |
Customs was easy; the inspector said nothing. I got my bags (bag carts were free!) and headed out of the airport. Immediately out of the airport there was a spectacle. Audi had rented out a space, allowing people to drive Audis up a ramp at a good 60º angle, see-saw at the apex of the "ride," and then ride down another steep hill. I stayed to watch a bit, but decided that I should stop gawking at German engineering and get on. I had a choice then: either take an $80 cab ride or a $13 train ride. As I hobbled with my luggage to the train station and took over a whole seat with it, all I thought was 'That's $67 for more German beer.' I'm a frugal beer freak. At one of the train stations, I helped a pair of American middle-aged vacationers to find their stop on the map. Thank you University Chorale of BC for allowing me to remember the system layout.
The 50 minute ride from airport to downtown was eventful. I saw upwards of 30 construction cranes, most of which were in motion. There's definitely no recession in Germany. I also saw two funny ads that helped me realize that my German reading skills were still on par. An Ad that said "Barbie, ich will dich zurück." with a bubble going from Ken's mouth. That mean's Barbie, I want you back. The ad was just for a Barbie doll too. Another add for McDonald's that had a couple just about to kiss. It said in German that every good moment starts with a good cup of coffee.
The supposed 5 minute walk from the Karlsplatz station to the Goethe Institut, my first destination, turned out being 20 minutes because of the awkwardness of rolling two large suitcases, especially in cold weather and on ice. I didn't get very many weird looks, which made me happy that the Germans weren't judging me…or at least doing it in their peripheral.
At the Institut, I took the second part of a placement test (Einprufungstest), the oral exam. Problem: I haven't slept for more than 30 minutes in the last 20 hours, I'm hungry, and I really don't want to speak a language (that I'm insecure with) to people who speak it fluently.
Solution: The people at the Goethe Institut were extremely nice. They had food out for my hunger and all of them were more than willing to switch to English. I'm sure just by my look and smell they could tell I had been through a lot.
As I walked up the Institut's stairs, I saw Dylan and Matt, two guys in my program with me from BC. Dylan also lived on my floor freshman year. They had finished the exam and said they didn't do so well. Under the "write a story in German" part, Matt had written one about a woman named Thema, as he thought the directions said. Thema means "Theme" in German, and luckily they pointed that out to me so I didn't make the same mistake. I took the test and my tester was pretty nice. She understood my grammar-less German. My "Thema" for the written part was a "Reise nach Deutschland" - a trip to Germany. I wrote about what I want to do during this trip in the most complicated words I could muster, but it was still childishly simple. She gave me level A-22, which is the second starter level.
I finished that up and was led to an Information room, where there were teachers speaking German, Italian, French, and English to all of the soon to be German speakers about general Munich information. I swooped in on an English information session that had just started and the lady was so nice. I have a bunch of brochures and maps now, but they are all extremely necessary - you know Germans and efficiency. She also talked about the Goethe Institute trips and tours which tour Munich and the surrounding area. Some are even free!
After the test, I had a half hour before the Gasthaus (Apartment) opened so I wandered over to the only place in Munich I know, Marienplatz. I needed some Euros and I knew a Deutsche Bank was there. I walked with conviction trying to look like I knew where I was going. I probably looked like a fool. It was nice seeing the city again, the old and new, the thousands of people still walking the pedestrian zone when it is 20º out. I picked out the phrase "Winter Anchlussverkauf" (winter end sale) on a lot of store windows. I also heard a pack of kids walking home from school singing Disco Pogo and one was even beat boxing the bass line. That was definitely one of the highlights of the day.
Then it was off to the Gasthaus. Not wanting to deal with the luggage and train, I got a taxi with 2 other language students, both form Brazil. We each paid around 6 euro each for the cab, which for the ride seemed a little steep, but I did arrive.
Three Zivis welcomed us. "Zivis" are in the civil service branch of the 1 year volunteer service (the other branch is military). I was shown to my room. It's huge and I have my own bathroom and minifridge….micro rather. Each floor has a shared kitchen with all the pots and pans and utensils given. After the tour by the Zivi, I started unpacking. I realized how bad I smelled and decided to take a shower. After the shower, I looked at the view out my window. I was scanning and saw a person from the other apartment building across the courtyard waving to me. with just a towel on, I found this alarming at first and shook my fist at them. They jokingly shook their fist back. I closed the curtains, put some clothes on and looked out again. The person just looked at me and shrugged as if to say, "I'm sorry if that was weird, but I hope you laugh at it later." I'm laughing at it now.
Dylan and Matt came up to say they were off to the Supermarkt. If there is any place that's both the worst and best place to shop while hungry, it's a German supermarket. Everything is SO small. Only quarter gallons of milk and cereal boxes that will maybe serve me 4 times. That was good because I was buying a lot, but it ended up being a little. The worst part was the chocolate AISLES (as in plural), which I didn't give into (except for Nutella). Another bad part is the beer. All half liter bottles were less than a dollar, some 59 Euro cents. A good amount of a great beer for that price? I bought three bottles. The total came out to 40 Euro, but many of the things I bought are for the two months I'm spending here. I thought I did pretty well. I forgot that you had to buy your own bags…so I held up the line going back, getting bags, and buying them. I'm moving up the German learning curve.
Just unpacked and now it's off to the Gasthaus orientation. First class tomorrow
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