For those of you who didn't know, I was
one of about 15 engineering students from UNB given the opportunity
to move to Germany for the summer to do a co-op work term/internship.
I figured a blog might be the easiest way to keep people informed as
to what I'm up to over here.
My parents drove me to the airport
Thursday evening and my flight was scheduled to leave for London at
11:45pm, I didn't think to check the website before leaving the house
and it turned out the flight was delayed by 40 minutes. After saying
goodbye to my parents and clearing security, I went to the bar in the
airport to watch Ottawa lose and have my last Alexander Keiths, but
likely the first of many beer of the summer. Despite the long wait to
board the plane, the boarding process was pretty quick for a full
flight. I had an aisle seat, with a guy from Memorial beside me who
belonged to a group of MUN students going to the UK. The one baby on
the plane was in my row so I got to enjoy some screaming a few times,
but it wasn't too bad overall. For an Air Canada flight it was pretty
good, the food was good and the flight attendants were all nice. I
slept for a few hours on the flight, but the lack of leg room was not
the most comfortable. After circling above London for over 20 minutes
we ended up landing around 10:30am.
I had several hours before my next
flight so I was not worried about making a connecting flight, but
there were a number of people on my flight who had very little time
to make connections. I was talking to one guy who works in
recruitment at UNB (I had my UNB jacket on) and he and his wife had
to run to try to make their next flight on their way to Italy, not
the ideal start for a honeymoon. I had to switch from terminal 3 to
terminal 1 which was pretty simple. Terminal 3 is full of duty free
shopping and smells like a perfume factory, scent free is definitely
not a European thing. I didn't buy anything except for an excellent
prosciutto and mozzarella sandwich at an Italian cafe. There is no
such thing as free wifi in Heathrow, so I paid 2€ to go on the
internet for 10 minutes, although I wasted a couple of them getting
through the security checks on facebook because I was logging in from
a new country. It wasn't until 12:55pm that I found out which gate my
flight was leaving from, I think they wait so long to tell you so
that you have to stay by all the stores and hope people spend money.
It was a solid 10 minute walk to the gate, and once you go to the
gate you're stuck there until the flight boards, which was probably a
good thing as I fell asleep waiting for the flight and didn't get
anything stolen.
I think the flight boarded on time and
was scheduled to depart for Zürich at 1:35pm. We sat on the runway
for 30-45 minutes because the computers monitoring air traffic over
France had crashed. I ended up falling asleep during the wait, but
didn't miss out on the awesome Swiss chocolate that was given out. We
finally took off sometime after 2pm. They served a sandwich on the
flight with bread that had been baked in Switzerland that day, it was
pretty good, I was impressed with Swiss Air. Somehow we even managed
to arrive slightly before the scheduled arrival time of 4:40pm. I
went through customs with no issues and my bag was already on the
carousel by the time I got there, I was thankful Air Canada didn't
lose it! I waited about 30 minutes to catch the shuttle to the hotel
which was pretty close to the airport but the heavy traffic made the
drive pretty slow.
I checked into the hotel, called home
on Skype, and grabbed a shower before heading out to get something to
eat. I decided to catch the train to downtown Zürich, which was
about 15 minutes away, and managed to buy the right ticket I think
(no one checked it) and got off at the right stop. Zürich is a very
picturesque city with the Alps in the distance and the river running
through the middle of the city. I wandered around for a while, took a
few pictures, a went to one of the 'cheaper' places to eat that I
could find. I had a pizza with salami and mushrooms, I think it was
called pizza San Remo, and a beer. It was very good, but cost 22
Swiss Francs, which is about $25 Canadian I guess. I was told Zürich
is an expensive city, it definitely is. I headed back to the massive
train station and caught the train without having to wait at all. I
headed to bed and made sure to set a couple of alarms on my phone as
I was planning to get the train at 10:25am, which would be 5:25am
back home.
View from the hotel room
Downtown Zürich
Impressive Church in Zürich
Alps (I'm assuming) in the distance
I ended up waking up at 7am, took my
time getting ready, packed up my stuff and walked across the street
to a bakery to get an orange juice and a butter pretzel, which I ate
for breakfast along with the muffins my mom sent with me. Since I was
ready so early I decided to head back to Zürich central station
where I'd catch the train to Germany. I'm glad I went early as I had
to wait in line to buy my ticket. I waited in the station for well
over an hour before heading to the platform to catch my train. The
train was packed which was not fun when travelling with a massive
suitcase weighing over 50 pounds. I left my suitcase where a few
others put theirs and sat down, I was glad I could see my suitcase,
but knew I wasn't going to sleep on this trip. I had planned, and
asked for, a trip that would only involve changing trains once in
Rottweil, and would arrive in Schwenningen, the place I'm living for
the summer, at 1:35pm. The guy checking tickets said the ticket was
only good as far as Tuttlingen, at which point I would have to change
trains. I was quite confused, I tried asking someone else, the first
person didn't speak English, and the next had no idea what I should
do. I ended up getting off the train in Tuttlingen and waited for a
train that was to head to Schwenningen. The problem was it wasn't
going to arrive until 2:30pm, and I had told the person meeting me
that I would be there at 1:35pm. This tiny train was incredibly slow
and stopped at every station, twice it stopped for about 15 minutes.
It eventually got to Rottweil, where I would have ended up on the
other train much quicker, and a bunch of people filled the train. The
whole time I was trying to figure out how to contact the person I was
to meet. I had no money on my phone and Rogers wouldn't let me add
money to my account, I tried calling collect but nothing worked. I
was a bit frustrated. I was relieved when the train said the next
stop was Schwenningen Neckar.
I had no idea what the person I was
meeting looked like, so I tried using a payphone to call her, but
that didn't work. I asked someone who didn't speak much English if I
was dialing the number correctly. I was going to try calling again
before someone asked if I was Scott. I was relieved once again.
Susann and two of her friends walked me to the place I'll be living
for the summer, which was only a short distance from the train
station. I was told my room wouldn't be available until Monday, but
the previous tenant moved out on Friday. I was glad, and that saved
me the 80€ I was going to have to pay for another room for two
nights. I'm on the third floor of a building right in the center of
town. There looks to be about 8 or 9 other rooms on the floor, with a
kitchen, two toilets, and two showers, all shared with everyone on
the floor. It's nothing fancy, but I have my own decent sized
bedroom, and should be good for the summer. I unpacked all my stuff,
put on shorts and headed out to walk around town. It was probably
around 25 degrees out, it felt like summer. There were lots of people
out and about, I decided to grab something to eat at an outdoor cafe
by the mall. The waitress didn't speak much English, but I picked
something off the menu that might have been a sandwich. It was salad
and a sandwich for less than 4€, it was excellent. I also had a
beer from the brewery in the next town, Donaueschingen, which is the
town I'll be working in starting on Wednesday. I then went to the
store Woolworth to buy a pillow, pillowcase, sheets, and a bedspread,
along with a few other little things. I ended up spending 50€ which
was not too bad considering last summer I think I spent more than
that on just sheets and a pillow in Toronto. I was glad I managed to
buy the right size as there is no single, double, etc. It is all done
by measurements. I have what would be considered a single bed. I came
back and made the bed and ended up falling asleep for about 4 hours.
I woke up around 9, and decided to go back out and wander a bit more.
There is nobody else in the entire building as far as I can tell and
I had to use my phone as a light to get down the stairs since I don't
know where the light switch is. There is a sports bar directly across
the street, but it doesn't seem much like a typical sports bar. There
were not nearly as many people out, it'll be interesting to see if
it's much livelier during the week when people are back at the
university. I believe there are a few other UNB students living in
this town, but with no internet and a phone that is only useful as a
flashlight, and a poor one at that, I'm pretty isolated at the
moment. It's almost midnight now, and I wish I had bought food, but
I'll try to go to sleep and hopefully post this tomorrow as I did see
an internet-cafe during my walk tonight.
Also, I do not plan to write nearly as
much in the future, sorry for writing a book! If you managed to read
all that I'm impressed.
