Latest Update
Wow ... can it really be June 3 already? For those who have tuned in lately to find no updates, my heartiest apologies. I can only say that I have developed something of a social life here now, and have been busy hanging out with friends, traveling, and soaking up the German culture. Oh, yes, I have also been doing some studying. Here are some highlights from the past few weeks.
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Traveling
I have been on a few trips lately. My American buddy AB and I went to Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps a few weeks ago. I think this is mostly known for hosting a famous passion play. It is a nice little town in its own right, although there's not much to do there and a weekend may have been a bit too long to devote to it.
Oberammergau is apparently home to a lot of Catholics who are into woodcarving. There is even a woodcarving school there. It lies kind of in a valley, between a few tall Alpine mountains (which we rode in a gondola to the top of ... both of us had to overcome a pretty serious fear of heights for that to be fun, but we pulled it off).
Scenery-wise, Oberammergau is quite lovely, but there's not much going on there after, say, 7pm on any night of the week. Since AB and I like going out, this was kind of a problem for us. But we did stumble into the one local bar that had any kind of activity at all, and the bar owner was nice enough to turn on the feed of an NHL playoff game for me (Carolina v. New Jersey). I was so happy to see hockey again and I hadn't realized how much I missed it. It was so interesting to watch hockey over here because there was a fight during the game and the German bar patrons, who had not shown any interest in the game up to that point, all got very quiet and focused on the TV. Then the laughter started. They apparently thought it was hilarious that these two guys were duking it out in the middle of a game. I guess the German Hockey Bundesliga doesn't see many fights (or these people didn't watch many sports).
My friend MA came from Los Angeles for a 10-day visit toward the end of May, and she and I took advantage of the warmest day I have experienced since I've been here (more on the weather later) to go down to Lake Constance (in German, the Bodensee) to the lakeside town of Lindau. Wow. Lindau is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to, and I would certainly place it in my top three or four cities in all of Germany. We sat in the sun over a long lunch, wandered around down by the lake, peeked in tiny shops, looked at their beautiful churches, and generally had a relaxing day. It's the kind of place that bids you to slow down and take it easy, which is a rarity in Germany. I can't wait to go back there and see it again.
MA and I, joined by AB, also took a 3-day trip north. We took the train to Cologne, stayed there for two nights, then went on the train down to Koblenz, where we hopped on K-D line boat for a 6-hour ride down the Rhein to Bingen. The trip did not start out all that promisingly. Cologne is definitely a more rough-and-ready type of place than anywhere I've been in Bavaria, and we saw a lot more obvious drug users and homeless people there than we were accustomed to. We also had terrible weather for our full day there (rainy and cold the whole time). However, we enjoyed the Cathedral (one of my favorite buildings in the whole world) and the Chocolate Museum (interesting, and yummy).
This is one of the pictures I took of the Cathedral -- I thought the sky looked cool at this moment.
Luckily, the weather cleared up after that, and we didn't get any rain at all on our trip down the Rhein. To me, that is Germany. I have done various portions of that trip about 5 times now, and I never get tired of it. Bingen is also a lovely little town, next to the Rhein, with vineyards all around.
Our train trip home from Bingen was terrible. I hadn't gotten us reservations, and even if I'd tried I don't think I could have gotten them. The train was jammed full of people because it was Sunday of a holiday weekend, and everyone was in a foul mood, pushing and shoving and generally being belligerent. So stressful! It made us generally grumpy and bewhildered as to why people here have to get so upset over the littlest things. Germans definitely are a lot less likely to laugh things off than Americans are, and they generally have much less patience when it comes to crowds.
This weekend is also a holiday weekend (no one has more holidays than Germany, I'm convinced), but I'm staying in and doing homework, now that MA has gone back to America and it's still freezing and yucky outside. It's the beginning of June and I'm still wearing a coat and scarf! I hope the weather is better by the time the World Cup starts next week.
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Classes
Classes are going better for me. I do quite a bit of reading here, although certainly never as much as I do for law school at home. I am starting to understand more and more of the lectures, and I have personally gone and met with some of the professors. They couldn't have been nicer to me, and I really appreciated how complimentary they were of my efforts so far. It meant so much to me to hear their encouragement and their reassurances that they were there to help me and not to make it impossible for me.
I don't often go to office hours in law school at home but I think I will start going more when I get back. I actually have a few ideas about how I can leverage my experience in law school here to help myself be more successful when I go back. I like the orderly German way of analyzing issues and coming up with conclusions. I think they're much more focused on teaching you the methodology of analysis here than they are in the states. I think that if you have a definite and distinct process of analysis, I think it's a lot easier to keep the rules straight in your head. So I'm going to try to add a little German-ness to my approach to law school at home, and I hope it will help.
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Social Life in Augsburg
Augsburg is generally growing on me. I have been here now for two and a half months, and I know my way around the city pretty well. This would not be a top destination for me if I was a tourist, but it's a nice place to live, I think. I have a nice group of American and German friends that I hang out with. I go out much more here than I do at home -- at least 3 or 4 nights a week. I think there are a few reasons for this:
1. I use public transportation rather than drive, which means I can stay out longer and don't have to stop myself at one beer if I don't want.
2. Speaking of beer, it's delicious here and I really like drinking it and chatting with friends.
3. I'm not as busy with schoolwork here as I am at home. There are also, frankly, fewer expectations placed on me here.
4. I am living alone here, and going out with friends is better than sitting alone in my room.
5. I don't have a TV here.
Don't get me wrong, I would much rather be at home in my lovely house with my lovely husband and my lovely kitty-cats. I also would love to have my car, just in case I need it. But I have established a nice situation here for myself that will work for me for a little while longer. I certainly am feeling less homesick all the time and more used to the life here and having everything be in German. But when the time comes to go home I will definitely be ready.
*********************************************************
Traveling
I have been on a few trips lately. My American buddy AB and I went to Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps a few weeks ago. I think this is mostly known for hosting a famous passion play. It is a nice little town in its own right, although there's not much to do there and a weekend may have been a bit too long to devote to it.
Oberammergau is apparently home to a lot of Catholics who are into woodcarving. There is even a woodcarving school there. It lies kind of in a valley, between a few tall Alpine mountains (which we rode in a gondola to the top of ... both of us had to overcome a pretty serious fear of heights for that to be fun, but we pulled it off).
Scenery-wise, Oberammergau is quite lovely, but there's not much going on there after, say, 7pm on any night of the week. Since AB and I like going out, this was kind of a problem for us. But we did stumble into the one local bar that had any kind of activity at all, and the bar owner was nice enough to turn on the feed of an NHL playoff game for me (Carolina v. New Jersey). I was so happy to see hockey again and I hadn't realized how much I missed it. It was so interesting to watch hockey over here because there was a fight during the game and the German bar patrons, who had not shown any interest in the game up to that point, all got very quiet and focused on the TV. Then the laughter started. They apparently thought it was hilarious that these two guys were duking it out in the middle of a game. I guess the German Hockey Bundesliga doesn't see many fights (or these people didn't watch many sports).
My friend MA came from Los Angeles for a 10-day visit toward the end of May, and she and I took advantage of the warmest day I have experienced since I've been here (more on the weather later) to go down to Lake Constance (in German, the Bodensee) to the lakeside town of Lindau. Wow. Lindau is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to, and I would certainly place it in my top three or four cities in all of Germany. We sat in the sun over a long lunch, wandered around down by the lake, peeked in tiny shops, looked at their beautiful churches, and generally had a relaxing day. It's the kind of place that bids you to slow down and take it easy, which is a rarity in Germany. I can't wait to go back there and see it again.
MA and I, joined by AB, also took a 3-day trip north. We took the train to Cologne, stayed there for two nights, then went on the train down to Koblenz, where we hopped on K-D line boat for a 6-hour ride down the Rhein to Bingen. The trip did not start out all that promisingly. Cologne is definitely a more rough-and-ready type of place than anywhere I've been in Bavaria, and we saw a lot more obvious drug users and homeless people there than we were accustomed to. We also had terrible weather for our full day there (rainy and cold the whole time). However, we enjoyed the Cathedral (one of my favorite buildings in the whole world) and the Chocolate Museum (interesting, and yummy).
This is one of the pictures I took of the Cathedral -- I thought the sky looked cool at this moment.
Luckily, the weather cleared up after that, and we didn't get any rain at all on our trip down the Rhein. To me, that is Germany. I have done various portions of that trip about 5 times now, and I never get tired of it. Bingen is also a lovely little town, next to the Rhein, with vineyards all around.
Our train trip home from Bingen was terrible. I hadn't gotten us reservations, and even if I'd tried I don't think I could have gotten them. The train was jammed full of people because it was Sunday of a holiday weekend, and everyone was in a foul mood, pushing and shoving and generally being belligerent. So stressful! It made us generally grumpy and bewhildered as to why people here have to get so upset over the littlest things. Germans definitely are a lot less likely to laugh things off than Americans are, and they generally have much less patience when it comes to crowds.
This weekend is also a holiday weekend (no one has more holidays than Germany, I'm convinced), but I'm staying in and doing homework, now that MA has gone back to America and it's still freezing and yucky outside. It's the beginning of June and I'm still wearing a coat and scarf! I hope the weather is better by the time the World Cup starts next week.
*********************************************************
Classes
Classes are going better for me. I do quite a bit of reading here, although certainly never as much as I do for law school at home. I am starting to understand more and more of the lectures, and I have personally gone and met with some of the professors. They couldn't have been nicer to me, and I really appreciated how complimentary they were of my efforts so far. It meant so much to me to hear their encouragement and their reassurances that they were there to help me and not to make it impossible for me.
I don't often go to office hours in law school at home but I think I will start going more when I get back. I actually have a few ideas about how I can leverage my experience in law school here to help myself be more successful when I go back. I like the orderly German way of analyzing issues and coming up with conclusions. I think they're much more focused on teaching you the methodology of analysis here than they are in the states. I think that if you have a definite and distinct process of analysis, I think it's a lot easier to keep the rules straight in your head. So I'm going to try to add a little German-ness to my approach to law school at home, and I hope it will help.
*********************************************************
Social Life in Augsburg
Augsburg is generally growing on me. I have been here now for two and a half months, and I know my way around the city pretty well. This would not be a top destination for me if I was a tourist, but it's a nice place to live, I think. I have a nice group of American and German friends that I hang out with. I go out much more here than I do at home -- at least 3 or 4 nights a week. I think there are a few reasons for this:
1. I use public transportation rather than drive, which means I can stay out longer and don't have to stop myself at one beer if I don't want.
2. Speaking of beer, it's delicious here and I really like drinking it and chatting with friends.
3. I'm not as busy with schoolwork here as I am at home. There are also, frankly, fewer expectations placed on me here.
4. I am living alone here, and going out with friends is better than sitting alone in my room.
5. I don't have a TV here.
Don't get me wrong, I would much rather be at home in my lovely house with my lovely husband and my lovely kitty-cats. I also would love to have my car, just in case I need it. But I have established a nice situation here for myself that will work for me for a little while longer. I certainly am feeling less homesick all the time and more used to the life here and having everything be in German. But when the time comes to go home I will definitely be ready.
posted by Jennifer at 11:58
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