Woo!

Hey hey hey, I've very happy today and I'd like to share with you all the reason why! I received an email this morning from the school offering me a scholarship to pay all my tuition fees for the next 3 semesters. Woo! The Haniel Foundation will give me 4500 euros (6160 USD) over the course of the next year and half to finance my studies. Rock on! That's the biggest scholarship I've ever gotten and I'm pretty excited about it because it reduces my education costs a whole helluva lot. By the way, the Haniel Foundation coordinates lots of research and study-travel events and they provide a lot of money for exchange between Europe, Asia and USA. Here's a little note about their goals taken from their website:

The Haniel Foundation concentrates on four main areas in its work. Firstly, it supports young talent with scholarships for study trips and internships abroad and with pupils' academies. Its main focus here is on Europe, Asia and the USA. Secondly, the foundation works with selected universities to establish courses encouraging international knowledge transfer. Thirdly, it sets up platforms for exchanging opinions and experiences. For example, experts from business, politics and society discuss global developments at its events. And fourthly, the Haniel Foundation supports projects which help young people achieve a better level of education.

They have several partnerships with specific programs and one of the biggest beneficiaries of the money is the Willy Brandt School and I know several other classmates that also are receiving money from them. Glad I could join the ranks!

However, I can't take full responsibility for this good news, because the reason I got the money now was because one of my classmates is moving to the Berlin to attend the Hertie School, which is the big name policy school in Germany, meaning I inherited his scholarship money. I'm sad to see him leave because he was a very nice and fun person to talk to. But I am overjoyed that I was given his remaining funds and I hope I can carry on somewhat in his legacy. Here's to you, Lukas!  Of course I also have to be very gracious to my family who have helped me get here, and especially to Erika for living with me during this time. But it's really great being able to breathe easier and I imagine I will have a sound sleep tonight.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the DAAD scholarship which I applied for in November as well. If they select me then I will have to choose between one scholarship or the other, but since I still don't know those results, I'm very happy to have this one in the bag already.

Whew! This news combined with the beautiful weather this month has been an excellent boost of positivity. Today was about 50F, clear and sunny, and a slight breeze. Ich liebe frische Luft! Sorry to hear all the wicked weather news stateside, but all I see is an incentive for people to visit me next year. Although, it worries me that all the good things will come at once and there will be a shitty day soon, but I'll let future possibilities bother me when they are present realities.

EDIT: I discovered the name of my actual benefactor, it wasn't Amit as I had originally thought, but a German by the name of Lukas. So I changed the details around up above.

Video project team

So for one of my classes, we were divided into groups to complete assignments throughout the semester. One of our semester long projects was to create a public policy project to improve something around us, it could be in the university, the city, or even globally. Most of the projects involved the university and improving student life, especially for international students coming to the university. Our group's project was to install some photoluminescent tape in the staircases at one of the dorms. To me this was a pretty good project idea because this particular dorm is very ugly and run down. It was built in the mid 80's I believe and it is very utilitarian- big, blocky, concrete. The hallways have a tremendous echoing effect, the lights are few and far between, and there isn't much for emergency safety in it. A couple fire extinguishers here and there, and all the lights are on a timer, so in the hallways and staircases you have about 3-4 minutes from lights on to lights off. So you can easily get caught in the middle of a flight of steps in complete darkness. Getting to get to the next closest light switch must be done in pitch blackness. I noticed this problem also in my apartment, that if I go a little slower up or down the steps, I'm left in the dark midway through a flight of steps. So here is our project group's video. Originally it was going to be 5-6 minutes long, but we had to cut everything down to roughly 3 minutes to meet the requirements.  So here's our shortened informational horror film. Full screen for better viewing pleasure.

Leipzig

More photos! Wee! Last weekend Erika and I took a trip to Leipzig to visit her cousin and her cousin's boyfriend.  They hadn't seen each other in over 10 years, but now that both live in eastern Germany it was about time for a reunion. Leipzig is about 150km away from Erfurt and is about double the population. It's a rapidly growing city actually, and it's arts friendly attitude attracts a lot of young people and recently the New York Times wrote an article praising the music scene and hip culture as a "better Berlin". We didn't venture into one of these venues, but we did go to the Spinnerei, an old cotton textile factory that has been transformed into an art haven.

Some of the buildings are actually apartments for visiting and in-house artists.

From the outside everything looks pretty raw. I guess it makes for good inspiration. There is a custom bicycle maker: Rotor. Also art galleries and a pretty big art supply store.

But on the inside the buildings are nicely refurbished, but I bet heating can get pretty expensive. Here was a small art gallery that is open to the public

 Their specialty is the steel city bike. Looks pretty nice and I bet it rides smoothly. They have a few bikes prebuilt for sale, but you can also talk with one of the builders to fully customize your own.

Someone want to explain the lever on the left side of the handlebar to me? It connects to the front suspension, so it must be a lever for adjusting the compression on the fly.

A few old racing bikes on display, as well as some of their own creations hacked in half. And a bigass rear hub

Lots of old derailleurs in a glass case

I liked the upstairs office... 

I took some more pictures of the downtown area, but I'll only post a couple more. It was a pretty nice downtown area, lots of shops and people. But as I said earlier, Leipzig is much more for the hip, gritty, grungy, student types, so the shopping center is not the "cool" place to go. Oh yeah! Speaking of grunge, Erika's cousin told us that Leipzig hosts the world's largest goth festival each year. Thousands of people come to show off crazy outfits, piercings, and whatever else is happening in the goth world. I recommend you all google it and check out some of the pics.

This was a very cool cafe in the downtown area. The inside was also gorgeous, but I didn't take any pictures unfortunately. It was originally made around 1908 in the style of some Austria architecture so there was really ornate wood carvings all around the windows and above the bar with deep red velvety curtains and some very nice chandeliers.

One of several Kaufhalles, fancy shops and some historical statues of Faust giving his soul away to the devil. Stupid tourist group was in the way so I didn't photograph that either.

All in all, it was a very nice weekend trip, and not too costly either. Double score. Since gas is so expensive here, there are a lot of people that do ride shares and several different websites that organize them. So to get there we met up with some guy near a highway exit who was traveling from way western Germany. He dropped off one person in Erfurt, and picked us up and drove us to the main train station in Leipzig at a meager 7 euros per person. By comparison, we took the bus home and it cost us 11 euros. I can't believe how expensive the buses are in the US by comparison. $50 to go from Ames to Minneapolis, one way. 18 euros is about $25, for both directions. 

Erfurt Model UN

Aaaah the weekend... It's pretty nice to wear pajamas for most of the day and with plenty of time to do homework. The couple weekends have been very busy, including a block seminar for 8-10hrs on a Friday and Saturday, followed the next weekend by Model UN event that lasted 12hrs on Saturday and 8hrs on Sunday.  But now that they are over with, I think I'm sitting pretty for my upcoming finals.  I'd never done a Model UN event before, but I always kind of wanted to do it, so I signed up for it, not realizing that it would last as long as it did. It was an experience for sure, I can't say exactly what kind of experience, but I did it. I represented North Korea, not exactly the most respected or influential delegation in the UN, so I definitely didn't contribute as much to the activity as other members, but for me that was ok. The topic we discussed was about Israel-Palestine conflict so North Korea did not need to be involved closely with the other groups, but I ended up allying myself with most of the Arab countries. There were about 60 people that participated from several different cities that came to the event, including a large group from the University of Erfurt, so I actually got to meet some other Germans not associated with the Willy Brandt School, which was nice. My other close ally, Cuba, and I ended up talking for a lot of the breaks so I hope to see him around campus some more. Another plus of the event was that it took place in the Rathaus (townhall) which is a really beautiful building with incredible paintings all along the hallways and very nice sitting rooms with awesome wooden carvings throughout. It was pretty awe-inspiring. EDIT: I forgot to mention that being North Korea was pretty awesome. Since I didn't know exactly how to draft a UN resolution properly, I spent most of my time drafting outrageous speeches aimed at attacking capitalism and the West, as well as numerous references to the absolute power of the Supreme Leader.

Slightly blurry photo of me towards the end of the event

Strange painting along the staircase. I thought it would be biblical of some kind, but I don't remember anything with that monster on the right

Close up of the monster with a 3rd eye

 One of the other sitting rooms with enormous paintings along the walls. A classmate told me that they are historical paintings of Germany and that way back in the day Erfurt was much more important, both religiously and politically.

Chandeliers and a grand piano give it a very classy appeal

Beautiful statues. I think Mom and Dad would have liked it here. 

This is the main sitting room we used, it had nice paintings, huge wooden desks and cool chairs for the delegates. And I really liked the massive windows too. 

End of the Model UN so everyone is getting ready to leave. I can find more pictures if anyone wants to see more, but they aren't super exciting, just people sitting around in suits and raising name cards.

Belated New Year's post

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a few weeks! It's not that I haven't had any free time, but rather I've been enjoying my lazy days of Christmas break while they still last (unfortunately I only have a couple days left. On Jan. 6 everything starts up again). But! I did have an excellent Christmas with Erika's family in Friedenweiler, they provided delicious food, good conversation, and were overly generous with the Christmas cookies and gifts. I'm very pleased with the abundance of chocolate in my apartment now, all thanks to her family.

I also thoroughly enjoyed their little town too. It's located in the hills in the Black Forest, nestled in between tall pine trees and narrow gorges with little streams running through. When I first arrived I was amazed at how soft and green everything was for a late December day.

 The day before Christmas it was quite warm, probably around 45F

There's also tons of hiking trails just minutes away from the apartment, you can walk for miles without using the same trail twice. In summer there is space for plenty of mountain biking and horseback riding. A little outdoor lovers paradise (which fits Susanna and Sven pretty well). 

Sisters!!

The day after Christmas was a different story though. It snowed big heavy flakes for most of the morning and we went for a snow hike. 

Thats a public swimming pool right in front of the building there. It looked really nice as we walked by, a kiddie pool, hot tub, and a diving board included. The larger water body is also open for swimming, but not exactly a pool. Apparently nice public pools is common in some of the small towns in southern Germany

Snow for a nice change of pace and color

Tall pines covered in heavy snow

This sign shows the European watershed(?) where one side drains to the Rhein river all the way up to the North Sea, and the other direction drains to the Black Sea. Pretty cool to find in a village hike

New Year's has passed without incidence, amazingly. Germans are pretty crazy about fireworks, and there is very little regard for personal space when launching off explosives. We went to the top of the city, which is actually a historic site to watch the fireworks display at midnight. But I'm still unsure whether there was a professional fireworks display, or if everyone who bought fireworks just waits til midnight to launch their prized explosives. There were rockets going off all around us, people literally lighting rockets at the feet of strangers. No one is safe. Here is a link to a video compilation a classmate made from his experiences on New Years. This is his footage, not mine, but lighting rockets down the tram line, directed at people and businesses... Richard's New Year's video

Also the video clips mixed in with the explosions is another German holiday tradition. It's an old comedy sketch "The 90th Birthday" or "Dinner for One" that for some reason is played on TV every New Years. It's the German equivalent of the claymation Rudolph movie, except it's a 10 minute sketch of a drunk butler. I think the "same procedure as every year" may be pretty appropriate description of drunk Germans on New Years. I'll find out more next year.  Here is a link for the full, original video if you're interested The 90th Birthday

Christmas Break!

Yesssssssss! It's finally Christmas Break! I'm so happy to have a couple weeks without going to class! Though it's definitely not to say I don't have plenty of class work to do, but at least I can veg out a bit before stressing about school again. Here's a list of things I want to accomplish during the holidays:
1. Eat lots of sweets. It's Christmas, and it's Germany. What other reason is there? Right
2. Go hiking in the forest again, we went last year in October and it was really nice, but it's always good to revisit in different times of the year.
3. Find a job for the next few months. Part time/student jobs, or anything where I can use my English skillz.
4. Head start on some projects, to make my life in January a bit less hectic.
5. Bratwursts.

Oh, have I mentioned how excellent the bratwursts are here? Lawdy thems tasty! On Saturday Erika and I have plans to go to the Weihnachtsmarkt again to celebrate the end of her thesis nightmare, and I've heard there is a stand with foot long bratwursts. It's gonna be awesome.

Wish me luck on my checklist!

It's official!

Yay! I've successfully navigated my way through the German bureaucracy! Thanks to all those who've helped, especially Erika for coming to my appointment and making sure I have all the documents ready.  Here is my official German Residency Permit (Aufenthaltstitel) which permits me to stay in Germany for a full 12 months! I'll have to register again next year, but for now I'm happy that I made it.

This is a photo of me from last year. Now I have a new haircut that I self-styled with a little help from Erika. 

Yep it's a selfie, but I wanted to show how well I'm blending in to the Euro culture. There's a few odd spots around the back, but pretty good for a $0 haircut