Dear cyberspace,

Long time no see.. About time for me to let you know how things have been, and what I’ve been up to.

Wintersemester ended earlier this month, and like always, it feels great to have a break from going to class jeden Tag. WARNING: For those of you doing or thinking of doing the UR/ Göttingen exchange be prepared for an absurdly long semester break. Like our winter break, it is the pause between the first and second semesters, but it is much longer– about as long as summer break back home. It is the perfect time to go euro-railing, visit distant family in god-knows-where, grow out your leg hair/ beard or if you’re a real go-getter all three.

Well.. back to the serious stuff. The semester went  well, but Im glad it is vorbei. I’m excited to no longer have to deal with all of the arriving paper-work (residence permit, rent agreements, etc..), which require that you abide by the inconvenient Öffnungszeiten of German bureaucracy. That wasn’t meant to sound wütend. I wish there was a sarcasm font. Donnie, if you read this, remind me to fill you in on all of this (I heard you’re coming to UR next year ; )

Im currently in Südtirol with Alec. It is quite a peculiar place. The territory belongs to Italy, but it is fast auf der Grenze mit Österreich, therefore most people speak German here. In fact, Ive met some Südtirolers who prefer to  speak German than Italian, because they cant really speak Italian. Funny. hehehe. Were here skiing for a couple days. The mountains and the atmosphere here are reminiscent of CO, but with really cool rural, Euro-flair. Fluorescent onesies are legitimate ski attire here, and people seem to wholeheartedly enjoy Schlagermusik– even children. If you want a cultural experience worth every penny, go to Südtirol!

Picture time 🙂

A lot has happened since my last post… Ive successfully located all of my classes, made friends with an amateur bodybuilder (he happens to live next to me), Ive probably eaten an entire pig in total since Ive arrived, and conditioned my body to require water equal to that of a camel.

Seriously though, things are going really well. I started volunteering at the refugee center a couple weeks ago teaching German. Most of the refugees are from Syria, but I taught a couple men from Iraq two weeks ago. They are all so motivated to learn the language, and their progress week to week is unbelievable. Some of the men are in their 70s– imagine trying to learn another language and culture as a grandparent. Some of them are my age, in their early twenties, but most of them are middle-aged fathers who bring their sons with them to class. As you’ve probably noticed, the classes consist of only men. Although the women are more than welcome to participate, none ever show up. Eventually, if I ever feel comfortable enough, Ill ask the husbands to bring their wives and daughters to class as well, but I do not want to overstep a cultural boundary.

This morning we went to the top of my dorm, the “Goldener Turm”, just in time to see the sunrise. It is amazing to think that my dorm alone is older than America…hahha im running out things to talk about..

After coming to the realization that i have probably eaten an entire pig so far, Ive made an honest effort to become a vegetarian. Ive been somewhat successful, other than the couple of times the Uni Cafeteria lied (or maybe vegetarian in german cafeterias means less or well-hidden meat).

It’s been almost a week since I arrived in Germany, and so far it has been quite the adventure! Since I am not able to move into the dorm until the 1st, I have been staying with a good friend, Sebastian Neef (former CPC of the German house) and his family who live in Regensburg. For those of you who know Sebastian, you’re probably well aware of his athletic prowess– the guy is a professional triathlete. Immediately when I arrived we started planning a bike tour. We decided that we would mountain bike from RGB to Passau following a demanding hiking trail called the Goldsteig (approx. 300km or 180 miles). The plan was to average about 75km a day, and sleep in whichever town we found ourselves in at the end of each day. At least that was the plan…

We ended up doing about 65 km the first day landing in the small, farming-town of Zell for the evening. We found a traditional hotel/restaurant and had a feast. I was completely exhausted, and could not imagine repeating that distance on more difficult terrain for the next three days.

Day 2 ..much of the path was too narrow to ride, and I felt our goal of doing 75km a day slowly slipping away, step after step. we managed to make it to Wiesenfelden for lunch, at which point I decided I had had enough hah. Passau wasn’t going to happen. We decided to ride back to RGB after downing couple sandwiches and strudel.

bis nächsten mal!