Apr
11
What I have been up to!
April 11, 2009 | by Thomas Flannery | |
Hey everyone! First of all I want wish everyone a happy Easter weekend!!! Because it is Easter we have a four day weekend, yay =) !!! The weather this weekend has been absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!! Its sunny and about 68°F !!! So anyway last week was a pretty busy week. I had to take a Final exam for my orientation course and then a German language test so that the University knows how much German we can or can’t speak lol. Last Sunday I went to a town about 25km east of here called Weimar with my Russian friend Maria. Weimar is a very pretty town and is the home of Schiller, one of Germany’s most famous writers, and is also where Göthe spent a lot of time. So while in Weimar Maria and I visited Schillers house, Göthes House, and then also the “Schloss Museum” which is an old Palace that was converted into an Art Museum. After visiting the museums we had lunch in a charming little café in the city center. Then on Tuesday all of the International Students and about 20 German Students got together for Karaoke night. It was a blast! My friend Michael from the States, Morris from the UK, and Narzhan from Kazakstan (Quite the Mix huh???) sang Barbie Girl together!! It was priceless to say the least! I however didn’t sing on Tuesday… but… I did promise the three Italian girls who are stuying here that I would sing 99 Luftballoons (99 Red Balloons) with them next Tuesday! I’m not quite sure what I have gotten my self into! So that brings us to Wednesday, Wednesday morning we had to get up early to be at the Foreign Ministry to register as Permanent Residents of Germany, and then I will have to go back on the 5th of May to pick up my German “Ausweis” or “identity card” in English. Then on Thursday I had lunch with my friend Sojin from Korean at a Chinese restaurant in the city center and after that we took a tour of the University Library. For such a small University (Only about 5,000 Students) the Library is Huge!!! It totally blows the PCL out of the water! One thing that is kind of odd however is that your not allowed to take backpacks into the stacks, when you get to the library you have put all of your stuff into a locker and then if you want to take anything with you, you have to put it in a grocery basket and carry it with you like that. So Then after that a bunch of us went to see part I of the famous German play “Faust” by Göthe with our Orientation professor at the City’s puppet theater. Lol I know it sounds childish, to go to a puppet theater, but it is actually quite good. It is a very modern style (or at least I think it is modern) of puppet theater. During the whole Play you can see the actors and sometimes the actors portray the Characters themselves and sometimes they portray the Characters with the puppets. And another note I just noticed that I have been capitalizing a lot of nouns, sorry about that in German all nouns are capitalized and I am afraid I have gotten in the habit of doing that and it is spilling over to my english lol. So anyways, Faust was a really good play but I must admit I didn’t understand very much, maybe 15% at the most, but our Professor told us that Faust, and Göthe in general, is very difficult to understand but the important thing is that we saw it. So then after the play we all went to an café in the city center and had a few drinks. So that brings us to Friday. In Erfurt Good Friday is a holiday (Efurt is in a very Catholic part of the Country, ironically though Erfurt is also where Martin Luther went to College (At the same University that I am studying at) and is also where her was ordained as a Catholic Priest before he started the Reformation) so almost everything was closed so I just took it easy for most of the day and then at night went to my friend Fabian’s apartment at night with a few friends. And now that brings us to today. So ironically Holly Saturday isn’t a Holiday here so everything is open. There was a big group of people who were going to go hiking in the City woods today but I decided not to go because I had some things to do in the City. So have been pretty productive today, I went to the mall in town called “Thüringen Park” and bought some groceries and also loaded more money onto my German cell phone account. After that I came back to my apartment and here I am now! Tonight the Italian girls are hosting an Italian Dinner at there apartment which is 4 doors down from my apartment so I will be going to that! I can’t wait to taste their Italian food! Then Tomorrow on Easter Sunday I will go to Mass at the Cathedral with the Italian Girls and a Spanish Girl and after that will just take the rest of the day easy. On Easter Monday which is also a State Holiday here a group of us are going to go to a town about 50km west of her called Eisennach where we are going to go hiking in the “Thüringen Wald” which is the foothills of the Alps and have a bbq in the woods. Then on Tuesday classes start so that will be interesting! And then next weekend I think I am going to be traveling to Dortmund and Köln (Cologne) with my two Korean friends, one of the Italian girls and my German friend Fabian. So that should be a lot of fun! Well that is the update as to what I have been doing lately, I hope everything is good back home in the states and I wish everyone a very Happy Easter!!!!!
Till next time,
Tom
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