Karneval and my 21st

So after our first week of classes, a bunch of us in the program decided that we would head to Cologne for Karneval for the weekend.  We figured we would definitely go for the day on Saturday and left it open-ended whether or not we would stay the night and come back on Sunday.  So we left Marburg around 11:30 in the morning on Saturday.  One thing that was really cool is that with the Deutsch Bahn (German Rail) System is that you can buy what is called a Schoenes-Wochenende ticket for which you pay 39 Euro and you are allowed to travel anywhere in Germany for that day for up to 5 people....so if your math is as good as mine, if you have 5 people that means you pay just under 8 Euro a person....quite a bargain when you consider a ticket could have costed us around 50 Euro round trip. After a 3 and a half hour train ride we finally arrived in Cologne.  Upon walking out of the train station my first reaction was something along the lines of "Holy Shit!" As it was hundreds of people wearing costumes and the majority of them all drinking.  From the train station we set off on an adventure to find alcohol so that we could partake in the debauchery that is Karneval.

Side note: Karneval is basically Halloween but then add all the drinking involved with that and add it with the drinking involved with St. Patrick's Day, New Years, and any birthday...oh and throw in a parade with that.

After wandering around for about a half hour we finally found a grocery store where we could buy booze...and boy did we buy booze.  Three people bought a mini keg to split. I bought about 6 bottles of beer and a bottle of vodka to split with another friend. The others bought their fair share as well.  We then assembled back outside and started our day long bender.  We wandered through the streets of Cologne drinks in hand and then we decided to meet up with one of our program's tutors, Raphael, who was also in Cologne.  After about an hour and a half we finally found him and then we proceeded to go with him to his sister's apartment. From his sister's apartment we went out to where the parade was going through.  And this is about where the height of our inebriation began to kick in as well. We, along with many other people joined in the parade and proceeded to dance, march, and drink even more through the streets of Cologne.  The amount of people in the parade was amazing, it almost seemed as though the whole city had come out to this parade. Some interesting bits from the parade: a lady handing us sparklers and us going crazy with them, a man peeing through the parade (yes for real), oh and more drinking!

We finally exited the parade and decided to get something to eat for the first time that day at this quaint little German restaurant called McDonald's.  After McDonald's we were all pretty worn out and pretty inebriated and thought we could try to catch the last train our of Cologne.  So Kevin, Bri, Hillary, Chris, and I headed back to the train station to see if we could make it out. Alas! to our dismay we had missed the last train out and had to wait until morning.  We figured we would try to see if we could find a cheap hotel or hostel but we were pretty much laughed at when we asked if anything was available or cheap for that matter. So we decided that we would just crash at the train station and catch the first train in the morning at 7:30.  So we found an open spot to crash and I quickly passed out for a brief period of time.  In my slumber I managed to miss a few exciting events: Bri singing for money (she got 6 Euro!) and then Bri being solicited for sex (not good).  We then moved into a 24 hour bakery where the 5 of us took up an entire bench and each of us drifted in and out of sleep.  In the bakery we were not the only Karneval-goers crashing for the night.  If I could describe what the scene looked like, I would probably describe it as one huge walk of shame, with the majority of people wearing costumes ranging from pirates, nurses, Buzz Lightyear, Mexicans, and many, many others. Finally 7:30 rolled around and we made our way home.  We arrived back in Marburg precisely 24 hours after we had left it.  We all went home to our respective dorms and proceeded to sleep the rest of the day and night away.

Alright fast-forward to Tuesday night-my 21st birthday celebration.  I met up with all my other IUSPers at the 2-minute-walk-from-my-dorm bar known as Schwartz-Weiss.  I was immediately given a beer from my buddy Kevin and then sat down with other friends.  Then my friends Bri and Christina walked in with a scrumptious cake and everyone proceeded to sing me happy birthday.  I was given a lovely hat, a large shot glass, and a single shot bottle of absinthe (77.7% alc. absinthe).  Throughout the proceeding hours I was given numerous shots and many beers.  I'm not exactly sure how much I had to drink that night but from what I was told and what I remember I had a great time.  At midnight I had the absinthe shot which was one of the most disgusting things I think I've ever had.  I almost threw up after that one! I don't really recall the end of my night but some of the things that I've been told are that I went to leave, but I only made it as far as grabbing my jacket before walking back into the bar to do another shot with everyone. Apparently I thought that was a great idea. I then apparently proceeded to sing the "So Long, Farewell" song from The Sound of Music to everyone as I left the bar.  All I know though is that I made it home safely and that I brushed my teeth and took my contacts out. Huzzah for good hygiene! The next morning was a bit rough as I slept through all of my alarms and then had to find my way to a fitness studio where our class was meeting for the day.  I'm also pretty sure that I was still drunk when I woke up which probably didn't help me find my way.  About 45 minutes later I found my way to the fitness studio where my class applauded for me and my teacher gave me a gift (a healthy snack smorgasbord that went along with the day's theme of being healthy....something that I ironically was not doing)  After a days class I enjoyed a great lunch of currywurst and french fries and then went back to my room for a two hour nap.  I then had to go back into town so that I could use the internet and was able to call my mom, dad, and sister all for free via google phone...which is awesome! I went home, finally got my internet set up for my room and then enjoyed a great night's sleep.

That's all for now. I'm gonna stay in Marburg this weekend and relax and work on a presentation for Monday (thankfully in English!). Not sure where my adventures will take me next, so until then...

Bis spaeter!


ps. I will add some photos later when I get on my other computer

A Long Overdue Post

Since my arrival in Frankfurt over a week ago, this is the first time that I’ve actually been able to sit down and get all of my thoughts down.  After arriving in Frankfurt I then had to make my way to Marburg by means of getting on a train.  At first I tried to manage on my own by using a kiosk, but I wanted to make sure that I did everything right first so I went in to the Deutsch Bahn office and managed to purchase a ticket to Marburg.  I made my way down to where the first train took me from the airport to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (main train station). Once I got to the Hauptbahnhof I was pretty lost.  I wandered around briefly and then kind of started to panic because my layover was pretty short and I didn’t want to miss my next train. A kind old German man noticed me looking a bit flustered and pointed out where I needed to go.  I made my way up to the tracks and got on my next train that would take me to Gießen where I would then transfer (again) and finally get to Marburg.  On a side note, they weren’t kidding when they said that German trains are punctual. The clock stroke 12:22 and we left at that moment.  When I got to Gießen I had to carry all of my stuff down two flights of stairs and then up two more, which is a pain in the ass when you have two bags nearly 50 pounds each. Finally I made it on to my final train and arrived in Marburg about 20 minutes later.  I arrived at the train station and was met by two of the exchange program ambassadors who brought me to the youth hostel in Marburg, where we would be staying for a few days before we could move into our dorms.  After that I was allowed to relax and explore the city a bit on my own before we all met for dinner.  I grabbed lunch with two girls that arrived around the same day that I did (both from Wisconsin actually) at a bistro and ate a sandwich that had probably sat out a little too long and was a bit stale.  At the bistro we were met by a few other IUSP students who had been here since last semester and we talked for a while before heading back to the hostel.  Back at the hostel I met the rest of the students in my program.  There are quite a bit of people from Wisconsin surprisingly.  Two others from Tennessee, two from New Jersey, two from Pennsylvania, a couple from Washington, a guy from Alabama, a girl from New Orleans, three Canadians, and five Mexicans.  For dinner we had a “scrumptious” selection of bread, cold cuts, cheese, and salad (a typical German breakfast and dinner).  Then after dinner we all headed to the bar for a few drinks.  One thing about Germany that’s awesome is the beer.  Beer is not only delicious here, but it’s also pretty cheap for the amount that you get.  The next couple days consisted of getting to know people better, other formalities such as applying for our student visas, getting set up with the university’s internet, and on Friday we took our language placement test.  On Saturday we woke up around 8, ate breakfast, and then departed on a roughly 7 hour bus ride to Berlin for 4 days.

BERLIN WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!! Honestly one of the coolest cities I’ve ever been to.  We got to our hostel around 5 or 6 and after getting settled we ventured around the city a bit and got our first glimpses of Fehrnserturm and Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral).  Also, I have never seen so much grafitti before, and it's EVERYWHERE!! Some of it is cool, but most of it sucks.  Here's one of my favorites that I saw though.

Fernsehturm

Berliner Dom

  We all tried going out to dinner together as a large group and all managed to get into a restaurant, however the waitress we had initially seemed pretty bitchy to most people so a lot of people decided to leave.  Me and three other guys Kevin, from Canada, Joe, from New Zealand, and Brandon, from Wisconsin decided to stay and actually enjoyed a pretty good meal.  We got back to the youth hostel and started making our plans for the rest of the evening.  I decided to go with the group to a techno/house music club called Tresor.  I had always heard about the crazy clubs in Berlin so I figured what better way to start of my weekend in Berlin.  We left around 11 and got there by cab around 11:15, however the club didn’t open until 12 so we stopped by a bar and had a beer before it opened.  When we got there it was pretty empty as we quickly found out that most people don’t show up until around 2ish for the clubs.  We had a great time at the upstairs part and a group of people decided to leave around 2:30, but Kevin, Joe, Christina (who’s from Mexico), and I decided to stay later.  We ventured to the downstairs part where we found a room labeled as I recall “Hell” where it was intense bass beats and super intense strobe lights that made it very hard for you to see. My first thought down there was “This is definitely not the place for an epileptic…….” We stuck around down there for a bit then “ascended from hell”, if you will, and went back upstairs where we danced the rest of the night/day away.  We finally left around 4ish (I think) and got a free cab ride back from some Canadian guy who was staying in the same hostel as us! The cab ride back was hilarious as Kevin (who doesn’t speak German) tried speaking to the driver (who didn’t speak any English) and I had to serve as the interpreter, all while Christina started to remember some basic German and asked the cab driver if he had a dog…..he did not.  We made it back to the hostel around 4:30ish and managed to get about 4 hours of sleep before having to wake up at 9 so that we could leave for a day trip to Potsdam.  In Potsdam we saw two famous former Prussian castles: Cecilianhof and Sans Souci.  I was really excited to see Sans Souci because I had studied it in my AP European History class back in high school.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it is the Rococo style castle built by Frederick the Great.  We only toured the outside of it unfortunately, but it was still really awesome to see it even though it would be much prettier in the spring. 

Cecilienhof

Sans Souci

From Potsdam we headed back to Berlin and when we got back we stopped at a huge outdoor flea market for about two hours.  It was really crowded and there was a lot of really cool stuff, however it appealed more to a female crowd with lots of jewelry, clothes, and scarves.  From there we took an S-Bahn bus back to the hostel.  That night we decided to try to find somewhere to go out again.  In Germany, however, pretty much everything closes on Sundays so we didn’t really find anywhere to go that could accommodate a large group of people so we headed back to the hostel.  On the way back we picked up some beers at a, for lack of a better term, outdoor convenience store and went along our way.  Another awesome thing about Germany, and I’m pretty sure most of Europe too, is that you can drink while you’re out on the street, which we took full advantage of multiple times.  We drank in the hostel lobby/hangout area and then IO made my way to bed fairly early since we had to be up early again for our walking tour through Berlin.  The walking tour was pretty neat.  We started off in Alexanderplatz where the famous Fehrnsehturm is and then continued on to see Berliner Dom, Humboldt Univeristy, the location of Hitler’s bunker (which is now just a parking lot), the Holocaust Memorial, the Brandenburg Gate, and finally the Reichstag.  At the end of the tour we went back to the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag to snag a few more pictures and then we headed back to the hostel to rendezvous with our group again.

Holocaust Memorial

Brandenburger Tor

The Reichstag

I went with a group to Kreuzberg which is a highly student-age populated area that had a lot of cool shops and cafes and I grabbed lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant with my friend Lauren.  We headed back to the hostel around 5:30 and then around 8 we took off for an awesome wine bar that I had heard about.  At this wine bar, you paid 2 Euro for a glass and then you could sample all the wine that you wanted and then when you left you paid what you thought you owed.  I had about 8 glasses of wine and paid 10 Euro….which is pretty fair compared to other places.  I had a few more drinks at the hostel bar with my new friends and then went to bed.  In the morning it was a clusterfuck getting all of our stuff together so that we could be on the bus and ready to go around 10.  From the hostel we left and went to a former KGB/Stasi (East German government police) prison/museum.  It was definitely very interesting, yet very horrific to hear of the isolation and psychological terror that these political prisoners went through in this prison.  It made me realize why you hear about so many European government protests. In recent history, there have been so many people who haven’t had the freedoms that I have experienced my whole life in the US, and I now understand why these people begin to get upset when they feel that their freedoms are being taken away.  We got back into Marburg around 8 o’clock and we finally “moved” into our dorms.  I say “moved” because we only had our bags that we took with us to Berlin, while the rest of our luggage was still at the youth hostel waiting to be picked up.  The walk up to my dorm is a serious hike! It’s all up hill and it was much worse the next day when I had to lug all of my stuff all the way back up to my dorm.  The next morning we started class.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had placed into the highest level German course and we had class until 1:00.  The next couple of days weren’t too eventful…just getting settled in and buying essentials for our rooms.  Still on my list of things to do are: meet some of the people who live on my floor, go grocery shopping, and get the internet set up in my room!

Well I think that covers about everything.  I’m looking forward to actually being able to sleep in tomorrow for the first time in over a week.  A group of us are going to hopefully make it to Cologne for the weekend for Karneval, which is supposed to be AWESOME.  From what I’ve been told it’s like a mix between Halloween and Mardi Gras, so I’m really looking forward to it!!!!

Peace out homies!