March 22 - July 22

Freitag 23 Marz, 2001 2:00 AM
Also, hier bin ich in Oldenburg!! (So, here I am in Oldenburg!!)
| German word of the day: Knoblauch | Ke nob lauch (with that German ch sound that I don't know
how to do phoentically.)
Use: For dinner, Kurt showed me this little cafe and I had a baguette sandwich with Knoblauch sauce. |
Well, it's 2:00 AM Germany time, and 6:00 PM (Thursday) Colorado time. I don't know why I'm awake. I feel tired, and I know that I should be exhausted, but nonetheless, I am awake. So I decided I would put together my first thoughts about being here to share with the world via the Internet!
I don't have my power converters yet because they are in the boxes that I shipped, which are still hopefully in transit and should be here tomorrow...or by Monday for sure. (Maybe they would come on Saturday, but I'm not sure yet if the post office is open on Saturday.) So this should be relatively short so that I don't use up all my batteries (Thanks to my brother Brian I have six batteries for my computer!), but I have a lot to tell, and most of you that know me, know that once I get started, I never stop.
I'll try to make it relatively short.
The trip here:
I left from Denver at 11:30 AM on March 21, flew to Detroit and arrived at 4:45 PM (local time). I left from Detroit at 5:45 PM *Well, the computer on the plane had a problem, so we actually left about 6:30*, and got to Amsterdam at 6:55 AM (Local time). A hint to you if you're a traveler to the Amsterdam airport--ask for help! The airport is huge, and I'm sure it's easy to get around if you know how it works, but I didn't and I was very glad that I asked the airline representative who was there from KLM. I left Amsterdam at 1:05 PM, and arrived in Bremen, Germany, at 2:05 PM. My buddy Michael (pronounced Mik hai el) and his girlfriend met me at the airport and got me back to Oldenburg.
I appreciated them so much today! If it hadn't been for them meeting me at the airport and taking me around (seeing the campus, buying groceries, etc.), I think I might very well still be at the train station in Oldenburg tonight!) The other person who has been a huge help to me is Kurt, a fraternity brother of mine from UNC who is also here. Advice to any future travelers to Oldenburg, make connections before you get here if at all possible! Those people have helped make this so much easier! There's a lot more I could tell about what happened today (the longest day of my life up to this point), but I will move on!
I don't know that I would do a 6 hour layover on the last leg of a trip again. The 1 hour in Detroit was good because it gave me time to get my connecting flight and to go to the bathroom and stretch a bit before getting back on the plane again. However, the six hours in Amsterdam was pretty long. Not that the airport wasn't nice or anything, but waiting around for six hours when what you really want to do is get to your destination isn't much fun... Oh well. I met a nice girl from Austria while hanging out in the airport, so that passed the time a bit quicker.
I would agree with my friend Tara Szabo (in Spain for this semester) who says that if you can avoid getting sick in a foreign country, you should. I actually was coming down with something when I left, and between blowing the nose, sneezing, and just general head stuffiness, I wasn't able to sleep at all on the way here. Which makes me wonder what the heck I am doing awake now--at this point, I've slept about 8 hours in the past 72 hours, because I didn't sleep much before I left--but that's okay! I'll go to bed here soon! Thank-you Mom for insisting before I left that I have some medicines with me. My mom sent me with TheraFlu, vitamins, Humibid, Tylenol, and other odds and ends that I am now glad to have. At this point, I'll take any medicine if it will get me better quicker.
My room is decent for a dorm room. I'd forgotten about the dorm smell (that strange identifying smell that lets you know you're in student housing), yes, they have it here too. :<) My room overlooks a cemetery and some houses and I'll put a picture of the view on here once I get it.
Mullsortieren (Sorting the trash)
I just went in to the kitchen and found a pan to boil some water in (no microwave) so that I could have my TheraFlu. I was glad to have the TheraFlu. It seems to be helping a lot! When I went to throw away my TheraFlu packet, I had no idea which garbage basket to put it into.
Germany has to be much more aware of their environment, because they have 80 million people in a country that is the size of Montana. They can't afford the luxury of large landfills, so they sort all their trash into vier katagorien (four categories). Paper, Glass, Grunenstof (banana peels, food waste, stuff like that), and then trash. I didn't know whether the TheraFlu package was paper or trash because it is made of paper and some other stuff. I ended up just throwing it away, and it is not really that big of a deal, but it is just a small difference which lets me know that I am in Germany. I am still having a bit of difficulty feeling like I am in Germany, even though I spent most of the day today conversing in German and seeing lots of stuff.
It is interesting to me that here, everything is quite similar to what it is at home. (Insert Capri-Sonne Foto). The people are similar-- they get annoyed about the same things, shop for similar foods, seemingly lead a similar lifestyle (maybe not so fast-paced all the time), and act pretty similar.
What is different so far is that everyone has a bike and actually uses it, it is wet and rainy (they say that it is like that all the time--should be interesting to live in a new climate), and the language.
For anyone who may be reading this as a potential future exchangee to Oldenburg, here is what I should have made sure to pack in my suitcase(s). I did pretty well, but am missing some things which I am waiting for in boxes (or decided to leave at home) that I would like to have tonight.
| Pillows, sheets, and a blanket. | You are living in a dorm, pretty much just like in the US. You will want sheets, a blanket, and a pillow the first night you are here. (To the best I can tell, the bed is the size of a US twin bed.) |
| Plastic cup/plastic mug | There are not many dishes in the cabinets (I was luck to find a pan to boil water and a mug...) |
| More warm clothes | I brought lots of warm clothes with me, but today it was 0-2 Degrees Celsius, (32-37 F), and having a winter coat might be a good idea... We'll see as time goes in if I still agree with this, but right now, I think it would be good to have. Mom, don't worry about me not having enough warm clothes, because I have enough, and I don't need my coat, I just might advise it for someone in the future. |
| A teddy bear! :<) |
Here's what I am really glad that I do have with me and glad that I had on the trip:
| Thera Flu and medicines that you know about | I will be a walking advertisement for Theraflu if I wake up feeling better later on. I am glad to have some medicine with me at first that I know about and know how it works. I haven't visited the Apotheker yet, but trying to figure out foreign written instructions on medicine would be pretty frustrating (I think) tonight. If you take over-the-counter or prescription medication, be sure to bring it with you. |
| My laptop | I will get set up with a high speed Internet connection by next Wednesday (hopefully). The computer labs on campus are small, and I can see how they would get crowded in a hurry. They also have a 30 minute limit when using the computer to check email |
| German Marks and Amsterdam Gulden (or wherever your connecting flight is). | So you can buy stuff when you get here, rather than waiting or having to exchange money after you get here. And on your rest stops where you connect to other flights, it is nice to be able to buy food. |
| Water bottle | I carried this with me around the airports and on the plane, they refilled it for me whenever I asked. Water is crucial to getting feeling better. |
| Book | Something to do during the airport wait |
| Rice krispies treats (or something else small and tasty) | Snacks for the airport wait |
Just to give you an idea of what you can get, here's what I got at the grocery store (2 blocks away from the dorm) today.
Bread, cheese, meat, mustard, mayonnaise, tomatoes, onions, orange juice, multivitamin many fruits juice, apples, and margarine. I spent about $15.00
Okay, well I guess that's all for now. I have so much more to tell, but I should try to sleep.
I anticipate getting a bit homesick some during the semester, but I really am looking forward to this experience and am glad that I already have some great people around me to make this experience that much better!
Thank-you Kurt, Michael Ludtke and Emelee, Bob McLaughlin (Uni-Oldenburg), Dr. Kastner (UNC), Will Kreutz (UNC), and the rest of the administration at both universities who have helped to make this a reality!
Thank-you also to Mom, Dad, Brian, Adam, Deanna, Grandma, Oma, and the rest of my extended family for being so supportive!
Thank-you also to Brittany, Becca, Nicole, Jason, and eveyone else who had well-wishes for me before I left!
|
I lived and studied at the German university in Oldenburg which is near Bremen, and about two hours east of Hamburg, Germany. Clearly visible on the map are Bremen and Twistringen, Germany. When I go back, I'd like to visit Hannover and Berlin, as well as Cologne. Also, I'd like to visit more German castles, Because I only visited two in Nuremberg. Click on the buttons on this page to see pictures and advice about studying abroad in Germany (and traveling advice for France), or click the links below to go to strive4impact.com's other pages. |
|
|
Inexpensive calling advice within North America, from North America to the world, and calling from anywhere in the world to North America |
What is VoIP? It lets you make a phone call from your computer to anywhere in the world! I pay only 4 cents per minute to call anywhere in Europe! Cheap rates for countries around the world. |
Helpful Germany Links page and the
Study
abroad advice page
cheap phone calls and Germany calling cards.
Main Page
Welcome
Activities
UNC
Impact
Photos My
writings
Web Design
Massage
Recommendations
Resume
Letters