Chapter V: In Which I Can Get on the Internet

As it states above, I now have internet at my flat, and I will be able to post more regularly, instead of inundating you with scads at once.

22 January 2007
I hope that not too many of you stayed up too late finishing homework that you should have been doing while procrastinating and reading my last missive. Hopefully this one will not be as long, and hopefully I will have internet by the time you read this (by the end of this week *cross fingers*) and so it will not encompass nearly two weeks of my ramblings. Let me get you caught up on what has been happening this week…

I have again been called ‘un’- American, or rather, this one guy at work is totally stunned that I come from America, and probably thinks that I am a little crazy. My damnation, according to him, is a follows: I walk forty-five minutes to work, and forty-five minutes home (“An hour and a half of walking, do people back home know you do this?” Oh, if he only knew some of my friends…;-D); I speak a foreign language (yes, completely shocking for an American); and I know something about German food (well, that sort of goes hand in hand with learning a language, I have yet to meet a language class that does not introduce the subject of food as soon as they possibly can (and I have started four languages…) “Hello, my name is ___ and I like to eat (insert name of food here).”). In this case is was that I had had Döner-Kabab before and that I was not at all afraid to eat Currywurst for lunch (basically an hot dog type sausage, drowned in curry catsup (we will talk about that later) with some curry sprinkled on top. Quite tasty, if you like curry catsup (which all catsup is here, I have yet to see any other kind of ketchup, spelled in any variety here, and that includes my previous visit in high school). The one problem I have discovered with curry catsup is that it gets cold (it is always served warm) and congeals very quickly, making a nasty soggy cold blob of any french fry doused in it (everything is always drowned in curry catsup) that was not fortunate enough to be eaten quick enough. And that is my lament on curry catsup.

Speaking of lamenting, Lothar (the guy from above), laments that they never get normal Americans here. By normal he means fast-food-eating-fat-lazy-….you know. But what he really wants are some good gun-toting-beer-guzzling rednecks. I think he spent too much time at Virginia Tech (which is where he studied in the States). This was all brought on when I said that I had not yet been to a Mickey D’s or Subway or Burger King since being here and that I really had no thoughts of going, because I do not really like fast food that much.

Anyway. Other than that, I have discovered the wooded way to work (‘over the river and through the woods….’) and I must say that I feel very much like a Hobbit. I will take some pictures of it, and hopefully this post is accompanied by some of them. The only problem is that it is quite muddy (since it has been raining, again) and my shoes are a mess, which means when I try to do my knee exercises and core in the morning, my floor gets quite dirty. Despite the mud, the forest is wonderful, and I cannot wait for it to get less muddy so I can go explore it. Also, there are a lot of down trees from last week and all of the paths are not quite clear yet.

We are still having issues with paperwork, but hopefully we have gotten it all sorted out. I shall get my bank account tomorrow, which leads to internet!!! And then you can hear form me on a more regular basis, instead of weeks with nothing and then *splat* a ton, and then get my visa stamped on Wednesday morning, which leads to being able to sign my contract and me getting paid, so I can pay rent. I have endeavoured to start a list of all of the things that I have needed for paperwork here, so that future students can, hopefully, be guided by it, and not go through quite as much trouble as I have gone through.

And, before I forget… GO COLTS!! Hey hey! What an amazing Super Bowl this will be, at least for school, trapped right between the two, maybe not so much for the coasts… oh the poor networks. I will hopefully be able to watch it, as Dennis is hosting a Super Bowl party (complete, I am told, with PlayStation and Madden 2007, if it can be found, otherwise, it will have to be Madden 2001 *tear*). He is obsessed with American football, and sneers at REAL football. (Sounds like some one should be hit with a ‘Are you sure you are European?’ or really ‘Are you sure that you are not from America’).

That is the news for now, please stay tuned to any further updates…
I mean: Get to work on your sono-thermo-hydrolo-fusion-mass-transf…. um… get back to your neutrons, they are missing you.

26 January 2007
Update: I have a bank account, I have a visa, I have a work permit, and I have a contract. I officially start on Monday, and, if I am lucky, I will have internet shortly thereafter.

An amusing thing that I have noticed is that they have Star Date here. (A five minute daily show about astronomy and astrophysics topics that they play on some public radio stations.) They call it Stern Zeit. I first heard it earlier in the week, and what tipped me off what that they played the exact same music. I will now have to coordinate with my mother and find out if they talk about the same topics on each day. But I found that to be quite amusing.

It has finally become winter here. The temperature has been between -8 C and 0 C (umm…. So about 20 F – 32 F). We also go some snow yesterday, and when I left for work this morning, it was also snowing, and just before I left for my apartment, we were getting almost white out conditions out at the airport. Which, by the way is really cool, the building I am in is directly next to the airport building, so we are parallel to the runway. We have an excellent view of the few aeroplanes and helicopters that are taking off and landing.

My next note will come when I have Internet, unless something irresistible comes up, in which case I will write sooner.

PS: I finally finished Emma. It was better than I expected, but it will still not be my favourite, which is Northanger Abbey. Of whose amazing-ness I was reminded when I finished it the other day...