Last night was the first time I ever danced to Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero” at Reit’s in the Marburg Oberstadt. Unfortunately the music heathens I was with were not familiar with one of the best tracks on the Footloose soundtrack. Only my British confidant Jamie appreciated the event as much as I did. By the time we got home it was 4 in the morning and 5 by the time I finally got to bed. Thank God for the N8bus and Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund.
Category Archives: deutsch
Random Thoughts
Today after class I decided to walk around Marburg. It felt like die heilige Elisabeth (St. Elizabeth) herself was calling me with her siren song towards her church. I really want to take photos of this magnificent church, which I see at least twice a day on my commute, but there is a reconstruction project finishing up in front of it. Along my wandering I found an abandoned building and some great street art I wish to photograph. I also had an “oh… yeah…” moment where suddenly the layout of the city seemed to make sense.
On Thursday my language course is taking a trip to Wartburgschloß (Wartburg Castle). I have a feeling that of my diverse demographic of friends I may be in the minority with understanding the religious and historical significane of this place. You do not attend a WELS Lutheran grade school and not pick up on the yearly indoctrination.
My search for a Fahrrad (bicycle) turned up nothing this last weekend as I refused to pay the average 500 Euro that most shops were asking. Luck would have it, however, that this Sunday is a Fahrradbörse (bicycle exchange). I will hopefully pick up a mode of transportation on the cheap.
Last night I decided to join my chums on a venture to the Kino (cinema) at the last minute. Cinemas in Germany are different from in the US as they are treated much like sporting events. You receive a designated seat based on the time you arrive or whether or not you reserved a ticket. I’m very thankful that I made the choice to go. Pan’s Labyrinth was a magnificent movie that I had heard nothing about. It was very brutal at times and sometimes the language hard to follow. But the fantasy was so ensnaring that it did not matter. Do yourself a favor and see this movie. Truth be told I shed a tear.
Operation Übertaco Update
Ü-tag + 18
All operatives now work for the front company, which will provide funding for our extended operations. Einhornjäger GmbH is a public service that does what its name says, hunt and kill the nefarious and magical unicorn. All employees are to henceforth be known as Meistereinhornjäger, or master unicorn hunters. Trust me on this one… I know what I am doing.
Austauschstudent bedeutet bezahlen
Just to give you a rundown of current costs of my study abroad. Bear in mind that the US dollar is trading at around .75 to 1 Euro. All prices listed are in Euros unless marked otherwise.
- 170/month for rent
- 170 Rent deposit
- 60 Student visa application fee
- 5 Photos for visa application
- 100 Sprachkurs deposit fee (May be refunded, but we’ll see.)
- 150 additional Sprachkurs fee (Might not have to pay if deposit is refunded.)
- 10 U-Card
- 10 Copycard
- 180 Semester tuition (That is correct.)
- 270 (US) Plane ticket
- 210 (US) Insurance
- 100 Frankfurt hostel stay for three nights
- 30 (est) Transport around Frankfurt
- 80 (est) Entertainment in Frankfurt
- 30 RMV pass for March
- 50 Student RMV pass for semester beginning in April
- 25 Registration fee
- 25 Trip fee for April
- 14 Wrong ticket purchased to Marburg
- 19 Right ticket purchased to Marburg
- 100 Various living amenities
- 35 Toiletries/houseware
- 35 Cell-phone
- 25 Calling plan
- 40 Various mistakes made
This does not include daily costs for food, various minor school related purchases, and entertainment. Nor does it include items that I am certain to have forgotten. These past two weeks I have been bleeding money. Thankfully things have stabilised as I have figured out my surroundings a little better.
Ü-tag + 6
I was able to talk to my neighbor Stefan who runs the internet service for my floor. For only 7 Euro I get faster internet service than at Oshkosh. I’ve begun to upload photos on Flickr and will follow it with detailed accounts later. I just had to take some time to catch up with the rest of the world.
My address here is:
Ken Fager
Wehrda B
Ernst-Lemmer-Strasse 15
35041 Marburg, Zimmer-Nr. 01-16
Bis später dann, Tchüss!
Grrr…
The Uni does not provide internet access where I live. May take a while to post written updates. The Uni does not use Windows on their terminals, but rather the free Linux distribution Debian.
In Germany.
Arrived in Frankfurt around 7 in the morning. More coming soon.
Bis Später USA
My next post will be on the fertile grounds of Deutschland. I’ve waited nearly two years for this day to come. Operation Übertaco operatives are to rally at the Comfort Inn in Gurnee, Illinois before the flight tomorrow from O’hare. To my friends who could not join me, I will find your deutsche Doppelgaenger.
Operation Übertaco Software
I picked up a Palm Tungsten C to handle all of my day to day organization and translation needs. It has an ultra fast 400Mhz Xscale processor, keyboard, Wi-Fi, and the best part is it is not a cell phone. It was cheap on eBay and does what I need it to do. Operation Übertaco operatives should consider installing the following apps.
Documents to Go can handle all my Word, Powerpoint, and Excel documents. Comes in handy when editing this presentation on Homosexuality and High School Education. I got an A+ on this assignment.
Easy Tour is the Swiss Army Knife of travel programs. It has everything from currency conversion, size charts, English to Metric conversion, timers, clocks, and all sorts of alarms. Saves a lot of time and hassle.
Lingvosoft for quick language translation. Simple yet effective. Contains a lot of colloquialisms.
MS Dict is a better dictionary despite its slower interface.
NesEm for all my Nintendo ROMS. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A B A Select Start.
MunduIM for all my messaging needs. Works with Yahoo!, MSN, AIM, and ICQ.
NoviiRemote has about 500 remote codes for various consumer electronics. TVs are thine enemy. Smite them with this.
Wi-Fi Where handles all your Wi-Fi signal locating needs. Notice all the open networks. Notice how dumb people are in labeling them. Gee… I wonder what someone could do with an open network?
I’m in ur networkz, pwnin ur bandwidthz.
This is the reason you lock your network. The above image was censored for the good of humanity.
Shoah – Hebrew for Disaster
Today I went to see Holocaust survivor Henry Golde speak on campus at the urging of my girlfriend. I was not disappointed at his tale of survival through 10 different concentration camps. When finished with his tale I had the opportunity to ask him a question that had been in the back of my mind for quite some time.
The First Amendment of the US Constition guarantees the free exchange of ideas and this area of thought is protected. What can a teacher of German say to someone who denies the holocaust ever happened? Mr. Golde went into detail about a local Wisconsin librarian who attempted to remove books from schools mentioning the holocaust since it was a “hoax.” His account was poignant and even funny in how he dealt with the situation. The thing that stuck out most about his answer though was only a brief snippit. People may deny and/or refute the mountains of evidence, but what happened to Mr. Golde’s family?
Am I to understand that one day millions of people just decided to never see their family members ever again to support a radical conspiracy against the Nazis? Thank you for putting that into perspective Mr. Golde. Shalom.