My friend and I decided last week that we wanted to meet my brother (who studies right across the bride from Copenhagen in Sweden) in Berlin. The train tickets in Germany are not bad when you buy them a month or too in advanced, but are ridiculously high when you last minute plan. Airfare in Europe is random and rather weird too--sometimes you can fly with a cheap airline for 10-30 Euro round trip and sometimes the same ticket will cost you 100-150 Euro. I finally found the solution to cheap, last minute travel in Germany. A website called Mitfahrgelegenheit.de allows you to search "rides" from your city to your final destination. The ride giver puts the amount he wants, the time he leaves, and his phone number to set up a meeting point. The website allowed us to go round trip to Berlin for about 50E, which beats the heck out of the 200 Euro train price we would have paid! If you do use the website, make sure you make an account so you can check out the person's profile who you ride with. I would also recommend you talk to him or her on the phone and find out more about the person to be safe.
Berlin was a great time. I was able to meet up with my fellow Hokies who are studying at our Swiss Campus in Riva San Vitale which was comforting to be with Americans again. We saw a lot, met cool people, and I was able to joke again in my mother language. I'd say that one of the hardest things about learning a language is not being able to joke. Jokes normally come quickly and out of the blue, and if your constantly trying to think before you talk, you rarely think of jokes. Something that surprised me about Berlin was how cheap it is. Granted, I study in the most expensive cities in Germany, but EVERYTHING, even in the tourist areas, was inexpensive. I was definitely happy to come back to Munich though. I love to travel and have had some good trips to Prague, Salzburg, and Berlin, but every time I get back to Munich I always am happy to be back. The city is too clean, too efficient, and too "gemütlich" to not be happy to come back.
So, some tips if you study here: check out mitfahrgelegenheit.de
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Life at LMU
For the last week, I have been trying to get my head around how things work here at LMU and Germany for that. I'll start off listing some of the differences and my thoughts on them:
1. You don't register for most classes. You just go. I love the idea of this, but there is just some security to having your name on the class register that ensures you that you are actually going to get credits. For the classes you do register for, you must sign up only a week in advanced and can e-mail the professor if you forget the date.
2. All the courses are in German. I would say that I now understand about 60% of everything my teachers say, and am confident that in a month, I'll understand almost all of it. Lack of confidence and laziness is the only reason why people don't succeed in learning a language. On this trip, I've met people who tried one language and failed miserably, but are doing great with German. If your one of those people who had trouble with one language and think that your "mind" is not like that, try another language and you'll be surprised.
3. The school is about 65% girls. A big change from Tech's 40%
I'm sorry I've been so short on this..I've got a lot to do now, but when I get back to blogging i'll tell you about Berlin and my weekend
1. You don't register for most classes. You just go. I love the idea of this, but there is just some security to having your name on the class register that ensures you that you are actually going to get credits. For the classes you do register for, you must sign up only a week in advanced and can e-mail the professor if you forget the date.
2. All the courses are in German. I would say that I now understand about 60% of everything my teachers say, and am confident that in a month, I'll understand almost all of it. Lack of confidence and laziness is the only reason why people don't succeed in learning a language. On this trip, I've met people who tried one language and failed miserably, but are doing great with German. If your one of those people who had trouble with one language and think that your "mind" is not like that, try another language and you'll be surprised.
3. The school is about 65% girls. A big change from Tech's 40%
I'm sorry I've been so short on this..I've got a lot to do now, but when I get back to blogging i'll tell you about Berlin and my weekend
Friday, October 9, 2009
Transition
Oktoberfest is over and the city is back to normal--finally! I know it is probably cliche of everyone who studies abroad to "love their city", but there's no exaggeration when I say that I love it here. It's been a week or two since I have updated this blog, so excuse my scattered brain thoughts!
Going out with people from different nationalities is awkward, fun, and very enlightening all at the same time. Like I've mentioned before, we are all in the same boat being international students so it's really easy to just go up to someone and ask to get something to eat or go, kind of like you asked anyway on the playground to play with you in 1st grade. So, with that said, anyone reading this who studies abroad: Don't be afraid to break out of your shell and be really open as you might not be in the States. Also, do NOT expect to be funny in German at all and expect to lower your standards of jokes to a level you never thought possible.
If you study in Munich, join the gym McFit. It's so cheap (16 E) monthly and there are 5 in the city. Also, if you live in Studentenstadt, you can shop at Aldi or Edeka on the stop Alte Heide just 1 metro stop away.
Never talk American politics. Seriously.
Overall my experience is going really great. The more I look around and open my eyes, I see that big risks pay of with big rewards. I think that doing a fully immersion program without knowing anyone has given me a lot of self confidence and has really given me a chance to discover things on my own. I look forward to keeping you guys posted on my next week! There will be some good things in store..
Going out with people from different nationalities is awkward, fun, and very enlightening all at the same time. Like I've mentioned before, we are all in the same boat being international students so it's really easy to just go up to someone and ask to get something to eat or go, kind of like you asked anyway on the playground to play with you in 1st grade. So, with that said, anyone reading this who studies abroad: Don't be afraid to break out of your shell and be really open as you might not be in the States. Also, do NOT expect to be funny in German at all and expect to lower your standards of jokes to a level you never thought possible.
If you study in Munich, join the gym McFit. It's so cheap (16 E) monthly and there are 5 in the city. Also, if you live in Studentenstadt, you can shop at Aldi or Edeka on the stop Alte Heide just 1 metro stop away.
Never talk American politics. Seriously.
Overall my experience is going really great. The more I look around and open my eyes, I see that big risks pay of with big rewards. I think that doing a fully immersion program without knowing anyone has given me a lot of self confidence and has really given me a chance to discover things on my own. I look forward to keeping you guys posted on my next week! There will be some good things in store..
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