The Time Has Come

Tomorrow class starts back up in honor of the beginning of second semester. It is pretty much a straight shot of 3 months 10 days of school until my flight back to America. We have a few days here and there, but it is pretty much straight through to the end of school. In my mind this is a big moment. The whole trip I have been thinking to myself "once second semester starts, it will all  be over before I know it, and then I'll be headed back home." We are now at that time. On Thursday I will have been here for 7 months. It's weird how so much time is given to first semester and not as much to second. Got here September 16, had 3 weeks of orientation, class started, had 3 weeks for Christmas break, and ended First semester in February. Then 2.5 months and then second semester of 3 months. So relatively speaking, I am 2/3 of the way done my time here in Germany. So what have I been doing and what is on tap?

On Thursday we went hiking at this place called Bodenschneid. Terrible idea. There were still multiple feet of snow and we kept falling through and there was often water underneath the snow waiting to soak our boots and feet when we did. We also had to hike several times rights through the middle of a ski area, which is probably good evidence that it is not yet hiking season. On top of this, the weather was actually really nice, about 65, and not a cloud in the sky, so as we were hiking up the snow and ice, which is extremely tiring, we were sweating bullets and getting sun-burnt. It was generally miserable. There were 2 take aways however. The first was that since it was so clear and there was still snow, it looked really beautiful. Also, going downhill in the snow is actually a lot easier than on the normal ground because you can just throw your weight down the mountain without really controlling it because the snow slows you down and reduces the impact on your knees, so that was nice. But again, generally miserable. We didn't get to the top because someone in our group had to be back to Munich for 6 and we were not going fast enough. It was weird. The sign just kept saying 2 hours to the top. It simply would not change which was really weird, because the time displayed on the signs pointing back to where we came kept going up, and we were definitely moving at a fast pace. We knew we had about 3 hours going down the back side of the mountain, so we had to call it quits somewhere along the face of the mountain and turn back around so the kid could get back in time.

Me in a cool part of this river

So peaceful

A couple times we had to walk across the ski trail

A nice view

I made this hole. My entire leg disappeared and was greeted by this lovely freezing mountain water underneath. This happened a couple times. Needless to say, I was happy to get home and take off my boots

The next day, Friday, a big group of us went up to Kloster Andechs. We had done this earlier in the year, but I am not sure if  I blogged about it. I was really excited because the weather was slated for 70, it is an easy walk up to Andechs, and there are multiple beer gardens up top, and Andechs has their own brewery. So we walked on up and got some food. I got my favorite food here in Germany, which consists of a liter of helles bier, a giant Schweinshaxe (pork knuckle), potato salad, and a pretzel. The whole thing ran me $28 euros I think. But hey sometimes you got to feed the soul. It was all delicious. P.S... more sunburn. Days and meals like this one are what I am probably going to miss the most about Germany.

My favorite meal

A better shot of the Haxe

I am now so close to being home that I have to start doing things to prepare for my time there, for example, that dreaded thing called thesis. By the end of April, I need to have my 2-3 page thesis proposal to my advisor, which needs to include and annotated bibliography. This isn't really too much fun. It makes me really bummed out to think about, so I have been doing very little work on it and have made no real progress. Great start right? Professor Decker emailed me asking me if I want to do a thesis or take a test to fulfill my final German requirement when I get back. I have yet to answer. I don't know what I want to do. Probably leaning towards the test. Go away Bates, I'm trying to relax in Germany.

I am also so close to being home now that people are always talking to me about the things we will do when I get home and stuff like that, which is absolutely killer. I am having a great time here, but when they do that it makes me realize how much I miss the people back home, so now they are actually starting to make me anxious to go home, which I guess isn't the worst thing. I have to go home eventually so this way beats just going home and being bored. But again, just trying to enjoy my final times here!

As for whats to come for me here in Germany, I will start with my schedule. I wanted to try out some history courses at the actual LMU, but was unable to do that because there were none that would have been easy enough for me to take. There was one English one that I could have taken, but that's not really what I am here to do, and I am not pressed to have credits transfer, so I opted for all JYM courses again. I got bumped up from the 1st (worst) speaking group to the 3rd group out of a total of 5. Last semester there were only 4, but since we have 30+ new students here for the second semester, we now have 5 groups. Although I hear one of the professors got really sick and we might only have 4 again, so we will see what happens. My speaking class is my first class of the day, and they moved it from 11:30 to 10:30 am. Not cool JYM... not cool. I am also taking intercultural communication, which includes a lecture at LMU and a review part at JYM to make sure you understood what happened. Also taking Modern Munich Literature, German Drama and Theater, which does not consist of actually acting, and a class called Vienna and Prague. We get to go to Vienna and Prague for this class and word on the street is that JYM will be picking up some, if not all of the bill. I am fortunate enough this semester to have no class on Wednesdays or Fridays, which should leave plenty of time for the beer gardens ( and doing research for stupid thesis)

When I get back to Bates all I need to do in order to graduate is write 2 thesis, or 1 and take the German test, take 1 lab course, 1 GEC course, and 1 short term course. Easy enough. For the fall semester I am registered for History thesis, Vikings (which is my GEC course), Plate Tectonics (my lab course), and French (which is recommended for grad school in History.) So going back to Bates I am basically done, especially so after fall semester, after which I will only have German thesis or test and short term in order to graduate, so I am happy with how I have set myself up.  

There was the housing lottery not too long ago and I am living in a 4 person suite in the village on Russel St with Chris, Jo, and Mike which is what we wanted, so that will be a lot of fun next year. 

Also coming up here in Germany is this great party called Fruehlingsfest. It's 3 weeks I think and is basically a mini Octoberfest. It starts this coming weekend. One day all of JYM is going as part of a special Bavarian-American friendship celebration. We get our own tent and only have to pay for food and beer. Should be a lot of fun. Oliver Stone is currently in Munich filming his coming movie about Edward Snowden, starring Joseph Gorden-Levitt. They have both said they will be in our tent, so that should be cool. Lindo Jo Rizzo will be singing for us in the tent. Will be an exciting event.

That is basically all I think. Will provide more updates on all this madness later