Busy Week

Well I wrote this as the week progressed, so I'm not sure if all the tenses will make sense by the time I post this, I'll try to fix it up if necessary.

Monday night I ended up cooking a 'real' meal, consisting of chicken and asparagus. It was alright, nothing fancy at all. The international students at the school decided to have another beer pong night so I thought I'd head over for an hour or so since it wasn't starting until 9:40pm, they are night hawks here apparently. I walked over at 10pm, played a game or two, and met a bunch more people. One pretty drunk German guy even knew of Nova Scotia, and is a big Gretzky and Crosby fan, very rare around here. I typically just say I'm from the east coast of Canada by the Atlantic. I ended up staying there until 1am or so, and came back dreading the thought of having to get up a few hours later.

 I had a pretty good Tuesday, despite being rushed in the morning to make my lunch. I did much more testing of the solenoids at work, and was surprised by how much they let me do on my own, given the language barrier,  but it made the day go by pretty quick. I ended up staying until almost 5:30pm because of the bus schedule. I came home to my Nepalese roommate, Suman, cooking a bunch of dishes of traditional food from Nepal for all seven of us in the flat. It was all really excellent food, and it was nice to have dinner with a bunch of people, not something I expected when I decided to stay in student housing. After dinner I met up with Christian, a student that will be going to Canada for a semester at UNB this fall. We had been emailing/messaging for a while, so it was good to finally meet him. We went to an American sports bar where the World Hockey Championship game of Germany versus Russia was on. Unfortunately German lost, but I don't think the people in the bar were really that into it. I'm looking forward to going to a sports bar during the Euro Cup soccer/football championships next month. I tried a variety of different beer, all of it was really good, I didn't have any food, but I'll know where to go if I want some typical pub food (except for fish and chips).

I hit snooze for the first time Wednesday morning. I only slept 5 extra minutes, but I made to the bus with only a minute to spare, then I started to fall asleep on the bus, and I have a bit of a bad track record with sleeping on busses, as some of you might know, but I got off the bus at the right stop. I did more testing at work, and I was invited out to lunch with the guys that work in the lab. We drove about 10 minutes to the other side of town (I think) to a small restaurant that seemed very German. There were only two things to pick from for lunch, rigatoni with ham sauce or goulash, I went with the rigatoni as everyone else did. I was not ready for what came next, it was essentially a four course meal for lunch. First came tomato soup, then a salad, followed by the huge plate of pasta with ham pieces and a sauce, I could have stopped after eating half of it, but it might not have looked good, so I managed to eat it all, and then there was a piece of cake for dessert. It was all really good food, and now I can agree with my travel book that says some Germans eat the biggest meal of the day at lunch. That was 7 hours ago, and I haven't had to eat since! I left work a bit early with my supervisor to go to the Burgermat, which is like the town hall,  to register. I was able to register without a problem, although they took a lot of details, but to get a residency visa/permit was not so easy. I didn't have everything I needed, which is a ton of stuff, so hopefully I can get it all sorted and go back on Monday, although the hours are terrible, so I'm not sure how that'll work. I thought this would all be relatively simple, but Germany loves it's bureaucracy apparently. Wednesday evening I had supper with 5 of my flatmates and 2 friends of theirs. We had two different types of Spanish tortilla type dishes, both excellent, and a salad. We headed to another of their friend's at about 10pm, who was celebrating their birthday, so we walked about 10-15 minutes there, put on actual party hats and went to the apartment, and pretty much filled the remaining space in the place, it was a pretty tiny place. I met a bunch of other people, including a guy who was driving to the Mannheim/Heidelberg area that I was considering going to on the weekend, so I made plans to get a lift with him on Friday afternoon. I chatted for awhile with my Nepali roommate and the two girls that had been at our place for supper, always interesting and sometimes funny to talk with people from such different backgrounds. We headed back around 1am, and I was not looking forward to getting up at 6:30am yet again.

I made it through Thursday at work with no problems, and Thursday evening I caught the end of the International Evening at the university, where I met one of my 'buddies,'  Vanessa, and a few of her friends. She had earlier invited me to this club in a nearby town that the university rents busses and students can go to twice a semester. I wasn't going to go because I had to work Friday working, but hey, it's a onetime thing, so I changed my mind and said I'd go. There was predrinking in the 'courtyard' at the school, and I met some more people, and saw many that I met at beer pong. We didn't leave for the club until after 10:30pm and arrived there around 11pm. It was a great time, pretty impressive club, and some of the music they played, mostly English, was so old it made me laugh. I think the oldest was Mambo #5. We caught the bus back around 2:45am, it was a very entertaining bus ride, with the very enthusiastic Gretzky/Crosby fan from beer pong sitting nearby. I didn't end up getting to sleep until 3:30am. My alarm woke me up a very short 3 hours later, I had to run to get the bus, and had nothing to eat. The bus then proceeded to take a detour so I thought I got on the wrong one, but I only ended up arriving a few minutes later. Thankfully there was food at the morning break because it was someone's birthday, so I survived the morning, and caught the bus back here where I met the guy, Max, driving to Mannheim.

And that's how the week went. Not sure I could handle the partying/drinking combined with 6:30am mornings every week, but it was a fun week. I'll write another post, with lots of pictures, of my weekend trip, maybe tomorrow, depends on how detailed I start writing.

A Rainy Weekend

After walking around Donaueschingen and Villingen, I came back home and fell asleep for 4 hours, I woke up and did my laundry, as I had given money to one of my roommates to buys the tokens I needed, and I really needed to do laundry. I think I used too much soap since my room smelled strongly like soap when I hung my clothes up to dry. There is no dryer, but I'm used to hanging up most of clothes to dry anyways.

I woke up Saturday morning and could hear the rain on my window. I made bacon and eggs for breakfast and headed back to Donaueschingen to check out the festival they were setting up for. Turns out I confused the rock music thing and this festival, the rock thing was Friday night apparently and what I was at translates to 'Home Days' which is an annual celebration that moves to a different town each year. There were many booths set up, I checked out a few of them, but everything was in German, so I didn't really understand much. I heard some traditional German music by a band in traditional German clothing, and saw some traditional dancing. It was interesting to see, despite the steady rain, and occasional heavy downpours. There were large beer umbrellas set up, so I stayed under there with the crowd for a while. I ate a grillwurst, a sausage on a bun, for lunch with a beer, it was very good. It was strange to have the beer served in an actual glass mug, much fancier than the plastic cups we get in Canada. I also tried a piece of cherry, chocolate cake, and it was pretty good too. At one point, during a heavy downpour, an older German couple came to stand under the umbrella I was under. He started speaking to me but I had no idea what he was saying, I said I only speak English. A few minutes passed by and he pointed to the sky and said "bullshit" with a German accent, made me laugh. I walked around a bit more, found a sort of trade show of all the companies in Donaueschingen, and there was a booth from where I'm working and I knew one of the guys manning the booth so I chatted with him a bit, and learned more about what the company does as a whole, it was very interesting. I then attempted to get back home, and it took much longer than planned. Because it was a Saturday, trains do not run as frequently. I probably should have taken the bus. It ended up taking most of the afternoon to get back. I managed to buy a discount card for when I take any longer train rides in the future at one of the train stations, so I felt like I did something productive. 

I tried to get on the internet at the school using my tablet, but it would work. Only seems to work with the laptop. Good thing I decided to bring it. I'm considering looking into how much a USB internet stick would cost me since it's not the most convenient to have to sit in the hallway at the school to use the internet. I had another kebap for supper, and then I went to the cafe by the train station where I met with a bunch of other people belonging to the couch surfing website. I have never done couch surfing, but I might try it this summer. It's where you put out a request looking for a place to stay when travelling to a new city and someone offers you a couch or a floor to sleep on. Much more cost effective than a hotel or even hostel, and often you'll have someone who knows the city well and might show you around. It was a great time, we ended up heading to another bar after a while. I guess I'm lucky in the sense that although I only know one language, it is the language everyone uses to communicate when meeting a group with people from all over. Two were from Germany, one from Italy, one from Russia, and another from India. It was a very diverse group. They all live in the area, so I hope to get together with them again a few times this summer.

I went to go post this at the school but the internet no longer works for me there for some reason, and then I realized my phone had completely stopped working, so I was essentially cut off from the world again. I would have went and bought a USB internet stick right then, but everything is closed. I don't understand how they've managed to avoid Sunday shopping for so long. I headed over to the internet cafe and was surprised to find it open, I was there for a while, chatted with my parents on Skype, and read my messages, it's amazing how dependent we are on technology. I thought my phone had started working again, but I was wrong. Mildly frustrating. Maybe cell service just isn't reliable here. I'm trying to cook something in the oven, I piece of fish of the unknown variety. Hopefully it turns out since I can't read the instructions despite the fact they have instructions in 3 languages. I could make some sense of the French, so hopefully it won't make me sick at least.

Well the fish turned out quite well, I got to bed relatively early last night, after cleaning up/rearranging my room and getting things ready to go to work today. Work was great today, I spent the day in the lab where testing of the product is done, so it was a nice change from studying the German words, and some people were able to practice their English, which I think is part of the reason I am here. I tried to get the bus home at 5:05pm, but I still think I'm not too great at reading the schedule, but it wasn't too bad. There is a store next to the bus stop, so I bought some groceries, and then caught the bus a half hour later. This was the first time I've taken the bus home and it looks completely different than in the morning, probably because I'm half asleep at 7am. I put my groceries in the fridge and went across the street to O₂ and bought the internet stick that is allowing me to post this right now. It's good to have internet access again, although I'm limited on how much I can use, so I won't be able to catch up on any television that I've missed (probably a good thing!), and I'm not sure how much Skype will eat up, but at least I can post these and research places to travel on the weekends.

It's Friday!

Made it through my first full week in Europe, and first "week" of work. They do half days on Friday, so I have this afternoon off. I didn't do much new at work, still doing Solid Works tutorials and trying to learn all these terms. I wish I had internet here so I could do some sort of online course. The week-long bus pass thing worked, I had 4 different cards in my hands and asked 'this okay?' and he waved me on the bus. I was relieved. For lunch I went to an American diner that is just around the corner from where I'm working, and parts of the menu are in English, so that was cool. I had a hamburger and fries, which tasted great, and to drink I had a German specialty, which is wheat beer mixed with coca-cola, sounds like a bad combination but was surprisingly good. Much better than the carbonated apple juice I had later in the day, that stuff was like cider without the alcohol. After grabbing my stuff from work I decided to take a walk around the town I was working in, it took a while to get to the town center, and was lightly raining most of the time, but it was still worth seeing. They're setting up for an annual rock and roll concert that takes place in 7 different towns this weekend, so I might go back tomorrow and check that out. The town is best known for two things I think, one is being home to the most popular beer around this area, Furstenberg, and two, having the source of the Danube River, one of the longest rivers in Europe I believe. The Donauquelle is what symbolizes the source of the river, there was no one else at it, but the whole town  was pretty quiet, except for the workers setting up. And I did see a nice Mercedes towing a Disney Princesses amusement park type of ride, pretty random, I should have got a picture of that. Here are a few pictures from Donaueschingen:

This is where I work

Residential area on the way into town

 Near the center of town, might be part of the brewery

 Cobblestone and dress shows don't work 

well together my feet are killing me again

 The Donauquelle (source of the Danube)

 The church nearby

So much beer, next to the brewery

I then caught the train heading back to where I live in Schwenningen, but I decided to hop off in Villingen, the twin town that I hadn't really gotten a chance to see yet. It was mostly sunny and hot in Villingen even though it was only 15-20 minutes away. I was impressed by this place, lots of shops and restaurants, a very typical European feel. Since I had the paperwork I needed for the transit pass with me, I was able to drop that off at the place I had been the previous two days, so once I get the money wired, I should get my pass next week! Here are a couple of pictures from Villingen:

Stressed Out

May 3, 2012

Today was a bit of a stressful one. I managed to get the bus with no problems, and work was fine, but getting a student bus pass in Germany is not simple, at all. We left work a bit early in order to get to the place that sells the passes before it closes and it was still open when we got there. I stood there not understanding a word being said, but it turns out they need proof of enrollment as a student from a school in Germany, and the money has to be wired to them, you can't pay by Visa or even cash. I bought a week long pass to get me through the next week, or so I thought, it says it is valid from May 7th, to the 14th, so it looks like I'll be paying again tomorrow. My supervisor offered to wire the money and I could just give him the cash, since I don't have a German bank account yet, not sure when I'll find the time to get one of those. Knowing I need proof of enrollment, I went straight to the university when I got back to Schwenningen, know that everyone was likely done for the day. I actually lucked out and caught the two people who work in the international office just as they were about to leave. They explained where to get the information I needed, and that I have to register with city hall and the department of aliens, since I am apparently an alien in Germany. It reminds me of Men in Black haha. And with the terrible hours they have, I'll likely have to get time off from work to go there, but if I don't do it, I, or the company, could get in trouble apparently, since you can only work here for 3 months with just a passport and visa, to work for longer you need a residency permit. I didn't think this would all be so difficult a couple of weeks ago. 

I managed to find a grocery store with eggs, although the eggs here are different than in Canada, so it'll be interesting to see how they taste just by themselves. I've been starving most of the time I've been here, so hopefully now that I have some snack/junk food I'll be able to eat more, although I tried to use the oven and it didn't heat up. I gave up and ate gouda and gebraten, which is some sort of salami. I also tried to do laundry, but apparently you need special tokens, hopefully I'll be able to get some of those tomorrow. Looking forward to the weekend although I think I'm going to stick around here for this one.

Also, I didn't expect to write so much for these posts, I think they'll get shorter once I get settled into a routine, and I'm hoping that'll happen sooner than later...

First Day of Work

May 2, 2012

I should start off by saying that I finally met one of my roommates last night, right after taking my contacts out so I couldn't see very well as I didn't have my glasses with me, and I don't have the easiest time remembering English names, so remembering German names is a real challenge and I can't remember his name. I then met another one this morning right after I got out of the shower, I have great timing.  I passed a third roommate as I was leaving to grab to the bus at 7am, and she had just woke up so I didn't really meet her until after I got back from work.

I got to the bus stop with little time to spare, got on the bus with no idea how much it cost. I held out the money in my hand feeling like an idiot asking how much, the bus driver could not understand a word of English. I then proceeded to ask the whole bus if anyone spoke English, not much of a response. The guy sitting near the front of the bus was young so I asked him and he started to take some of the money out of my hand but the driver indicated that it wasn't right. The problem was that it costs different amounts depending on how many zones you are travelling through, and I didn't say where I was going, everyone else had a pass. I was travelling through 3 zones, which cost 4€, I thought it was a bit expensive. I managed to use the GPS on my phone to figure out where I should get off the bus, which I caught at 7:10am and arrived very close to where I'll be working 20 minutes later. I got off the bus, but not before hitting my head on a bar, I was off to a great start... I planned to have a 25 minute walk from the bus station, but because there is a stop so close to work I was an hour early. I didn't want to go in being that early, knowing that people probably had stuff to get done before I arrived and didn't want to start out being inconveniently early. I walked down the street in this industrial park, and saw a sign for a McDonalds 500m away.  I thought that was pretty odd and I still had 45 minutes so I went to check it out. It didn't open until 8, so I waited 10 minutes and went in to get an orange juice, not knowing if it would take too long to order food. After paying for the orange juice, the guy proceeded to tell me there was no orange juice, so I asked for apple juice, he had no idea what I meant. I later learned that apple is apfel, so it's pretty close. He got the manager, who seemed very happy to speak English, and he gave me two drinks that were 30% orange juice, it was a bit strange. I drank one of those and headed back to the office.

I didn't really know what to expect at all, or how well anyone would speak English. I was surprised to learn that the one person in the place, of 140 people, who spoke English as a first language would be my supervisor. He's an engineer from England who has been in Germany for 7 or 8 years, and is only maybe 5 or 6 years older than me. I had a quick tour of the offices, met a bunch of people whose names I also can't remember, went through the 3 plants, and then went back to meet with a guy from sales who explained all about the company, what type of products they make, and what they're used for. It was very informative, since I wasn't exactly sure what they did, I thought it was all about making electromagnetic car parts, but it turns out the automotive aspect of the company is located in Villingen, the twin town of Schwenningen. Where I'm working makes electromagnetic parts, or solenoids, for over a 1000 applications. I think had a lesson on the theory behind solenoids, a few things were what I had learned at Carleton years ago. 

Admittedly not my favorite topic back then, but to see it in a real world application is much more interesting. We went for lunch at the cafeteria type restaurant just down the road and had extremely salty, but good, french fries, and a skewer with meat (lamb or pork I guess) and onions. It was pretty good. I haven't had anything I've disliked here yet, other than the bubbly water. We went back to the office, finished up the presentation, and then went on a detailed tour of the whole places, seeing most of the processes involved in the manufacturing and testing of the products. I was then shown my computer, which is all in German, so I have to learn it now, and I think everyone at work thinks I should too. We managed to change Outlook Express and Solid Works, which is the CAD program I guess I'll be doing most of my work on, to English, but everything else is German. Google translate is going to become my best friend. Around 5, my supervisor drove me down to the Busbahnhof, which is the bus and train station, in hopes of being able to buy the student bus pass. The guy said it could only be bought in Villingen, so we drove there to learn that it had closed at 4:30pm, I felt bad for making the guy drive so much since he still had an hour drive to get home. He drove me back to Schwenningen and said that we could leave work early tomorrow and try to get the pass. It was unlikely that they would have accepted Visa, so I'll have to take cash tomorrow.

I came back to my place and found all three roommates that I previously said hi to in the kitchen so I was able to explain who I was and what I was doing there. They all seem very friendly and one guy said he was cooking tonight and invited me to eat with them. Once they learned I was from Canada, one of the first questions was whether or not it is really legal to smoke marijuana in Canada because according to the Simpsons it is. I had to laugh at that one. Dinner was excellent, we had a salad and Spanish tortilla, which consists of eggs, cheese, potato, onion, and a few other things I think. We ate late, so we didn't finish dinner until around 10pm. I then headed to this student night at a club to try to meet up with the other German student that I have been paired up with, I failed miserably. I figured I would recognize him from facebook, I didn't, so I ended up paying to get in, and then I went to leave and the female bouncer gave me a slap on the arm, and of course no one who was working spoke English . I had to pay again to leave, I was pretty shocked at that. It was probably I good thing I had such bad luck as I otherwise would have had a hard time getting up at 6:30am. 

May Day

Woke up with a headache and my feet are killing me. I cooked some of the 'American Style Bacon' for lunch, it was pretty good, thinnest bacon I've ever seen, maybe it's like that in the States? Gotta find somewhere to buy eggs, unfortunately everything, except bars and restaurants, is closed for May Day/Labor Day. I went down to the train station, which is also where all the busses stop, planning to take either a train or a bus to Donaueschingen, to see where I have to go tomorrow, but that didn't really  pan out. The train was going to take quite a while to get there, and the bus was going to cost 5€ each way, tomorrow should be fun...

I met up with one of the 'buddies' the international office set me up with, Vanessa, and I met some of her friends, one of whom had a cake in the basket on her bike so we had some cake, it was pretty good. Vanessa has lived in Toronto so she speaks English really well, although I'm still thinking I should pick up some German. We then walked to this marshy place with boardwalks that go through it, like you'd see in a national park in Canada, there were lots of people out walking, seems like people here walk a lot more than back home. She then had to go work on a project, so I came to the university with my laptop, planning to use her login to access the wifi, but the guest network decided to work this time, so now I won't have to pay for internet access. Still no sign of any of the roommates though, I figured they'd be coming back today as they have classes tomorrow.

Here are a couple of pictures from the area around where I'm living:

 The main square area

The bar across the street from me

 

I live in the yellow building, on the 3rd floor

Communication, Finally!

I'm getting closer to being on a relatively normal sleep schedule, still found it difficult to go to sleep last night, but I woke up at 8:30am without an alarm. I figure I'll have to get up before 7 on Wednesday morning as I have to be at work for 8:30am. I'll be working in Donaueschingen, a small town that is about a 15 minute train ride away, or so I've been told. Might try to find it tomorrow although the transit systems (yes there are multiple systems) are on reduced schedules as tomorrow is a holiday here, May Day.

Although it was a pretty uneventful day, I managed to get a few things accomplished. I should explain that the internship that I'm doing was arranged through a partnership that UNB has with a university here called Hochschule Furtwangen University where UNB students come to Germany to do a co-op work term each summer and each September a few German students go to Fredericton to study for four months. I think we get the better deal. So I first went to the university today, which is just a block away, as I have to register as a student, which will hopefully give me access to the wifi there. Unfortunately because tomorrow is a holiday, most people were not in today and the international office was closed, not sure when I'll find time to get back there while it's open, I guess I'll have to take advantage of my "flex-hours." I left the university and went to the mall where I was able to find a bottle of contact solution that says it is meant for a peroxide system, so hopefully that'll work, otherwise I'll be back to wearing glasses all summer.

I then decided that I had enough of being cut off from the world and went shopping for a sim card to put in my phone, something that I find painful enough when it's in my own language. Thankfully most of the people working in the cell phone stores were young enough that they knew some English. People under 30 were likely exposed to English in school, although I've tried to talk to a number of people under 30 who really didn't know English. I went to two cell phone stores in the mall, Vodafone and O₂, I was leaning towards O₂ simply because I could understand the guy better, but I went to the Vodafone store outside of the mall and spoke with someone who know English quite well and ended up buying a sim card for 25€, which included 25€ of credit, so the card was really free. I wanted to add on a mobile internet package but had to go back two hours later to do so. I made lunch and went back and he added it on in no time. Unfortunately the internet didn't work so I went back again (yep, I'm a regular at a Vodafone). He changed some settings but had no luck and told me to come back on Wednesday when the technical guy was in, better than in Canada where they just tell you to call tech support. It wasn't until after I left the internet cafe that I noticed the internet finally decided to work, so at least I won't have to make a trip back on Wednesday.

I headed down to the train station to the tourist office and asked if they knew where an internet cafe was and they directed me to the one that is no longer exists. I went into the casino (which is more like a small smoky room with VLTs) in the basement of the building and the bartender gave me confusing directions to another internet cafe that I surprisingly found. It was 1.80€ per hour to use the computers, so I stayed there for about an hour and a half. Chatted with my mom on Skype for a bit, checked email/facebook, and finally created this blog. I came back and had a kebap from the place next door for supper, and brought my own tap water this time!

I went for a walk through the park and took some pictures with my phone:

 The train station, and the tallest building around in the background

 The Neckarquelle, the 'source' of the Neckar River

 The Eishockey Arena

The park, not the greatest picture

Well I didn't think I'd have much more to write about the day, but as I was writing this I got a call from Sean, one of the guys from UNB, that there was a party going on in one of the classrooms at the university so he and a German girl, Kitty, came and got me to show me where to go. It seemed a bit strange to be allowed to have a party in the school, but things are different here. It was organized by two American students, and they were teaching other people how to play beer pong, as most of them had never played before. It was a good time, I met a bunch of people from all over; Germany, France, Peru, Spain, and there were probably others. We then headed to a club attached to the train station that is apparently the best club in Schwenningen, there was a bit of a wait to get in and it cost 5€ to get in, but it was worth it. It was fun, and it was packed, just wall to wall people. We stayed there until around 5am, since I don't think they have a time they have to close by, and the sun was starting to come up by the time I headed home. I then slept almost until noon, so I've probably completely messed up my sleep schedule again.

Here are a few pictures of where I'm living:

 My room

 The kitchen, complete with Spongebob?