Finishing off the first semester!

Arriving back into Germany from an excellent week spent in Kosovo was, of course, a let-down because I was immediately confronted with the topic of final exams! Crunch time was now upon me (hence the very long delay in blog posts) but I did have a silver lining early in the month of January; my first friend from back at LSU was coming over to visit me in Germany! It was a really cool aspect of studying abroad this year, the fact that a large portion of my Uni friend group all decided to study abroad during the Spring 2015 term. I just happened to be the only one in the group who was coming over for a year, but we all decided that once we touched down in Europe we would all meet up individually at the least, and at the most try to get everyone together on one or two occasions.

Samson came in and spent 5 days with me in Germany, getting to know my city of Bonn and also Cologne, as well as having a trip to Holland and a bike ride along the Rhine river. Picking up Samson in front of the train station was refreshing, and I opted to take the slow train home from Cologne to Bonn to allow us more time to catch up. As soon as we met up we talked non-stop back and forth, filling up the train full of quiet Germans who eyed us suspiciously. Conversation is not something you do in public transportation in Germany. Getting into Bonn, we dropped off his stuff and swung by a corner café for a coffee before heading to get a typical German lunch, at which point Samson asked me to teach him his first German expression….”Nathan how do I say ‘You are very pretty?’ I’m going to go talk to that barista chick.” Laughingly I told him and sure enough he went up and did it, which gained him a smile. Props to you Samson! The whole time Samson is sporting my lederhosen and red and white shirt looking like he’s five weeks early to a Karneval party, but it all gave everyone some laughs.

Prost! "Ja das bier eest gut-en-stein"

Before Samson headed back to start his semester abroad in Nottingham, I got to introduce him to the unofficial food of Germany: döner. I’ve written about this in a previous post or two, but seriously it’s amazing, as Samson found out. On his last day in Germany, after I got out from classes, we went and shot pool in the city center for an hour and afterwards went to a Brauhaus for some Bavarian on-tap beer. After sampling the brews we headed toward the train station in Bonn which is the Mecca for döner stands. Samson, wanting to go FULL THROTTLE, ordered double veggies, double sauce, chicken and lamb meat combo, AND spicy sriracha sauce to top it off. A few minutes after sinking his teeth into it his train arrived to take him on his journey home, and we parted ways. A few weeks later I’d be seeing him for our Karneval celebrations in the Rhineland, so it was only a ‘goodbye for now.’

Wait for it.....wait for it.....wait for that feeling

That feeling when you sink your teeth into delicious döner

Auf wiedersehen!

January seemed compounded towards the end mostly by exam studying and many hours spent in the library pouring over textbooks and additional reading material. Unlike my academic system back home, where we have tests, quizzes, homework, and sometimes attendance grades to keep us on track, my grades here in Germany would be solely decided by a pass/fail grade from my exams, so the pressure to do well was definitely increased! All of my studying paid off because I passed both my Game Theory and Behavioral Economics courses (oral exams), and did relatively well on my German Business and Commerce class (at the time of writing, I haven’t received any feedback, so I’m unsure, but confident). I smashed my Republican Party class out of the water and was happy too, because that was my favorite class of the whole term. In a close second was my Green Utopias/Dystopias literature class, but I didn’t have an exam for that class, but rather a Hausarbeit, or term paper, to write. At the time of writing this I haven’t received word yet on my pass/fail status with the paper, but I was very confident in my chosen topic: the relationship between Thoreau’s Walden and Krakauer’s Into the Wild. Both were fun to re-read and critically examine, so although I was really put-off initially by having to write a long term paper, in the end it helped me appreciate the literature so much more.

With the term wrapping up it was time to celebrate the Rhineland’s version of Mardi Gras, called Karneval. I had been hearing so much about how crazy it was and I was looking forward to reuniting with Samson and seeing Miranda and Samir (two friends from LSU studying in Paris and Torino) to celebrate my end of term kick-off to my roughly two month break between semesters, where I’d be traveling to see new places and old faces. Next post will be a recap of Karneval!