When in Doubt: Clap. It. Out.

I've come to the miraculous conclusion that I'm probably the worst blogger on the planet. The gaps between posts seem to be getting wider and wider. It's come to the point where I can't even remember what I was suppose to post an update about. Ok that's a lie, but I'm   so far behind in video blogs as well that it's getting a bit stressful..

I don't know how some of the other participants do it! Some of my friends in the program like Shawn and Mike McLaffyTaffy both have video blogs they post and keep updated EVERY week. My homies Alex Booscagaletti, Dawn, and Nancy either do a blog post every week, or "A Photo A Day" or BOTH . How do you guys do it? Is there a secretary sitting in your room taking notes? Surely you have a midget hidden in your backpack snapping photos and doing all types of panorama's, adding those filters, collages, making a small hill look like a majestic mountain, etc.  Yet here I am, weeks behind with so much on my mind I'm sure my thoughts are leaking out of my ears causing anyone walking behind me to slip and bust their wholeee ass.

I last left off with an unexpected 10hr train ride and which started with a saddened goodbye from visiting fellow PPP'rs in Köln (Cologne). It literally felt like the ending of a frickin' Harry Potter movie where they're at Platform 9 and 3/4 balling their eyes out promising to return to Hogwarts, keep in touch, or whatever. Can't believe that was more than 3 weekends ago.... 

Fast forward to a week later which involved the most extravagant, exciting, incredibly thrilling festivals in ALL of Germany.

                        Oktoberfest!
For those of you who've been living under a rock and somehow don't know what Oktoberfest is, it's a huge beer-drinking festival held every year during the third week of September and lasts about 3 weeks well into the month of October. 

To sum up Oktoberfest It was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! At first I had zero idea what to do, expect, or even know if I was going to drink any damn thing. For one I DO NOT fancy bier/beer AT ALL. I'll try it, but ME drinking a full one is something you'd have to see on Ripley's Believe it Or Not. Nonetheless..... 

I downed 3 and half of these 1L Maß opening day...

Let's start things out with friday evening (9/21)... Sprachschule (Language school) ended at 12:15pm, Justin and I were well on our way to Konstanz to catch our bus to München (Munich), oh but WAIT! We didn't check the times for our train to Konstanz and ended up missing the last train that would actually get us there ON TIME. So guess what we had to do..... 


Yep. That's right. Dumb and Dumberer was forced to take a Taxi. It was the only way we'd make it in time for the bus... -__- mind you Konstanz is a solid 30 minute TRAIN ride from Radolfzell.... So that Taxi ride ended up costing us a slick 47€ or 48€ (about $65).

I promise you nothing hurts more than paying for something that you could've done or gotten for free.
The taxi driver made sure he took the longest money-making path ever and got us to Konstanz with like 10 minutes to spare. Justin still had go to an ATM and we STILL had to find the bus station. We literally raced through the streets of Konstanz as if we were outrunning the cops or something. We arrived at the parking lot RIGHT as the bus was pulling out and I did the only sensible thing I could do, I JUMPED in front of it. Luckily he didn't run me over. He let us onto the bus, but was still pretty pissed we arrived late and that we... quote, "threw him 2 minutes off schedule".

Anyways... after 4hrs of a long, traffic-freezing, butt-numbing bus ride... 

We FINALLY arrived in Munich and it. was. beautiful. We met up with our friend Nancy, did a little window-shopping for traditional German lederhosen and then ate some KFC, because that is what Germans do right? RIGHT.

Thanks to my skillful research I had done the week before, I found a cool room on Airbnb.com, which is a website where people rent out rooms in their houses/apartments. We met up with the roommate of the girl's room we were staying in (if that makes any sense to you) and had a beer with her. She's SUPER cool and really nice. Her name is Tina and she had just moved to Munich less than a week or two ago, teaches, and apparently her dad is like a pro sky-diver (which she later offered to let us skydive with her once the weather warms up). The next morning Justin, Nancy, our new friend Tina, and I ventured to Oktoberfest. We arrived around 7:30am at the Augustiner tent stood in line for 2 hrs or so, made some new friendsmates from Australia and raced through the vast amount of tables looking for a table that could sit 6 people.

Oy!!! these are australian friends we made in line. that guy is crying because he wasn't ready.

CRIKEY! would you believe that after alllll of that waiting in line we still couldn't get a beer until the mayor did the official ceremony at 12PM! So instead we ordered Weißwurst with that amazing Süss Senf (sweet mustard) and ate it the Bavarian way!

3hrs of eating and chatting then came the marching band and cheerful sounds of beer happy fools.

Tina, me, und Sam

Strike a pose.

From left to right: my fat face, Sam the Aussie, Tina, Justin the Aussie, Justin #1 und Nancy!

3 Liters of Bier later.... 

retrieved from http://nancygoestogermany.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/oktoberfest/

Apparently I was trying to be the wicked witch of the westside.

Me, Justin #1, Michael D., und Chelsea - retrieved from http://nancygoestogermany.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/oktoberfest/

That experience was something I could never forget, and the über cool Aussies along with our new friend Tina were some amazing people that I'm really fortunate to have met. One of the best parts of this experience was I even taught the guys a little German between "Prost". haha


This past week has been crazy... It was my last week of Sprachschule (language school) and I had so much to prepare for. For one, it hadn't really hit me that this was my last time seeing my Radolfzell people for a longggg time. Last time being literally a 15 minute drive from Switzerland. I grabbed so much Swiss Schokolade those last few days it's ridiculous. 

This past Friday was our LAST day of learning Deutsch in such a small classroom setting. No more eccentric Lehrer (teacher) telling us when we got a präposition wrong, no more Cody in class pulling out his butterfly knife scaring the complete bejesus out of the Nun from Slovakia, no more getting fat with Justin, no more Thadeus flaking on us like dandruff when we make plans for something (hence his the nickname Mr. Head & Shoulders), or our helpful CDC workers/friends Jan und Jenna (side note: Jan's a guy and it's pronounced "Yaawwnnn"). Most importantly, NO MORE AMAZING HOST FAMILY. Oh mein Gott, I don't know how I would have made it through these past two months without their help, as well as allllll the wonderous places they showed me. I still daydream about that Käsespätzle in Bregenz, Austria one of three countries I visited my first weekend in Germany! 
                              


I can now officially say that I have a Deutsch Kompentenzstufe (German Competence level) of A2

I was one of the very first of our group who had to depart on Friday for the University phase of the program. My new home for the next 10 months is Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg. I met up with my professor and my freund Dawn at the Bahnhof (train station) at 6pm sharp, and if I wasn't thankful of my hostparents enough, they VOLUNTEERED to drive me to my new location. I love those folks so much and I'm sure I will visit them again throughout the year. After all, I'm only a couple hours away by train.  I'm living in a really cool dorm right on campus. Each student has there own private room with a small wash area. Bathrooms and Showers are down the hall, and there is a massive kitchen/living room area on each floor. 

So here it is October 1st, classes started yesterday and I am 50 Shades of Confused.

In agreement with our program, for the university phase we must take at least 4 courses in German and of those 4, only 1 can be in English. This is to help us get more culturally immersed and grasp the German language... 

So.. Here's the thing... somehow, me and the others have been thrown into this International Program here on campus where all the courses are taught in JUST english. The professor who's over the international program seems to not be aware of our special predicament... See my problem now? Not only that, I'm only at an A2 level in my language competence. Don't get me wrong, I can listen to German convo's all day and make out what they're trying to say. That doesn't replace the fact that I hardly know the vocab. At the same time, I catch on pretty quick so I can get the gist of what is being said. I can even reply to a certain extent. Even in English, grammar has never been my thing. So I'm kinda stuck in a rut, with a need to study even more now and try to get to a higher comprehension level so I can continue to understand what in the Hell is going on.

Yesterday was a day filled with "wtf" moments. Especially since classes started and I have no type of registration done or class schedule. I don't even have classes CHOSEN yet. Not only that, I've had a strange overwhelming feeling come over me a few times. It may be because I watched the series finale of Breaking Bad and I'm having an emotional detachment to the real-world, something like this hasn't happened since Charmed ended 7 years ago... OR it may be because the other two PPP'rs here at Reutlingen with me are like SUPER good in their German speaking already.  It's only been a couple days since we arrived and I've had one too many moments with my mouth hung open like a caveman trying to decipher what was being sad. I'm resilient nonetheless, but still being the oddball out is never fun... 

My mind has been all over the place lately. I can't focus. I want to master Deutsch, but I keep getting.... distracted. 

                                                     Talk about a brain fart. 

*claps it out*

Part of me wants to be adventurous and see the rest of the city, visit another random country and get lost exploring. Another part of me wants to stay in this room and sit in front of this computer until I turn 30. When did I become such a hermit? I'm exciting and boring at the same time. I don't know where this feeling came from, but I need to shake it off quick. Life stops for no one.

I have a lot planned within the upcoming weeks, and I'm not going to let a few annoyances get me down or in my way. Sounds weird, but I find that if you clap things out as you say it puts more emphasis and as Bri says "You sound so sure of yourself when you clap it out!" Which Is why I say whenever I'm stressed, feeling defeated, and full of doubt. I tell myself things will be alright, and I CLAP. IT. OUT. haha

Until next time... 

Bis später!

Tschüss