The week, where'd it go?!

This week has been a complete blur! Classes have been good, we discussed World War I after American intervention, how policy is adopted in the European Union, some influential women in the feminist movements beginning (and how Nietzsche is totally anti-feminist), and international relations relating to the creation of Israel and the successive years. Outside of class, we celebrated Sally's birthday, played monopoly again and went to an IEP party (Barbarians and Barbies, it was hilarious!) I'm starting to get things lined up in the way of exams so as I know more I'll let ya know!

Trees

I've been trying to post this for a while now and it won't post from my iphone.

Trees! They're naked now.

They weren't before....

Some strange sort of tree trimming.

Europa Park and Adrian's Birthday pictures

Faces on the flying dutchman

Beefeater

Lee and me

One of the staff joined us for a bit

In the spinny tea cups

Those are both her shirts...

We're flying!

Mercedes-Benz hover boards

How many can you fit in a phone booth?

THRILLER!!! On ice!

The bobsled roller coaster

Halloween-ed Park. He's havin a bath

The bobsled roller coaster

The great Pumpkin!

Sorry for the random order...

Saturday: What a day!

I have been updating this less and less since I've been more active at school and I apologize! Yesterday was one for the ages...

We started at Europa Park, a theme park in Germany about an hour away from Stras by bus. I wasn't originally going, seeing how I'm not a fan of roller coasters, but we were all going and since I hadn't put any other plans in motion (I was thinking about going to London to watch the Chelsea match, which ended up being an epic win 5-0) I "manned up" as Laura said. The group split along the lines of who likes roller coasters, and my group of 4 enjoyed our day. Katherine had never been on any sort of ride so we (Katherine, Clare, Taryn and myself) started slow and built our way up to a proper roller coaster at the end. We also went to "Halloween On Ice" which was more of just the Ice Capades with a few zombies thrown in for good measure. We figured it was a family show but the first act showed us that family shows are a bit different in Germany, the woman's outfit would have been at home on a beach instead of on ice... As the whole park was Halloween-ed, we were horribly disappointed that we hadn't heard Thriller yet (they were playing the halloween song from A Nightmare Before Christmas on repeat around the park) but Halloween On Ice fixed that by giving us a Michael Jackson tribute, featuring the Thriller dance (on skates!) and then broke into Billie Jean (The guy did back flips on ice skates, I was impressed) and finished with a zombified version of Beat It. There is a big geo-desic dome that houses a roller coater and it was made to look like a pumpkin, that was funny. The roller coaster inside was fun too! All in all it was a good trip, even if we were called "the wuss group" since we didn't want to go on the tallest roller coaster in Europe, or a gigantic one designed by Mercedes-Benz. We had our fun at our own pace, and had less time queueing than the other group, our longest was maybe 20 minutes, and they spent maybe 5 hour in lines during the course of the trip...

When we got home we relaxed for a bit then went to celebrate Adrian's birthday. We started at Paul Appel (one of the residences) and then hopped the tram to a different university residence. We ended the night at a club on a boat. It was certainly an entertaining evening, and we got an extra hour because of the time change, and I really love when that happens. And considering that had I not changed my watch it would have been 5 am when I got home, I was thankful for the extra hour... The night bus disappeared yesterday so I hung out with Clare as she waited for it, only for a 20 minute wait to turn into about an hour and a half. At least....

Today, Lee and I are going to watch the Man Utd game against Liverpool and then we'll be playing Risk at Pawels apartment. Pictures arriving in a moment!

Oops

Sorry to have been gone for a bit!

Monday was run of the mill, ran some errands and had lunch, nothing special really. Tuesday I got groceries (some tea since Katherine has an electric kettle and some breakfast stuff) and then enjoyed my 6 hours of class... And today I've gone through a make up class for an hour and now am getting ready for my next class in an hour.

I'm working on setting everything up for my travels with my mom when she gets here. My other project right now is the getting my classes selected for next semester. I had to start with selecting credits my study abroad could fill in for and then see what was left. If all goes according to plan, which it hopefully will, I'll be covered. We'll see.

Tonight is more Champions League football at Dubliner. I hope Chelsea'll be on, but with Man U v CSKA Moscow starting earlier than the rest, I figure that game'll be on one tv with the epic match between the two most successful clubs in europe (AC Milan and Real Madrid) might get priority on one of the others. Honestly, after yesterday's great results (Liverpool losing, Arsenal drawing) todays games seem to be set up for something special. Chelsea v. Athletico Madrid in London, Real v. AC, Bordeaux v. Bayern Munich, lots of good games today. Let's hope they're all thrillers!

Photos from Colmar

This is the moat around the cathedral

A cool lookin old building built in the 1500s

A fountain in the main park in town

The Cathedral

Little Venice

Long Weekends

Good evening!!!

This weeks classes were good, things went smoothly, and all in all it was a good week! I got my LSAT score today (as my earlier post mentioned) and I wish I had done a bit better. I'll be chatting with my advisor in the upcoming days to see what to do next.

We just finished watching The Princess Bride which is a fantastic movie. We all scrunched on to Katie's bed and watched it, and Katherine made fried apples for us (she took over as mom for the evening). Before that we watched the amazing Boilermaker upset of nationally ranked Ohio State. Which was AWESOME!!!! Congrats boilers, well done.

This morning we went to Colmar, a small town south of here. It was pretty and a nice place for a day trip but not really much to do there. I'll post pictures in a bit. I liked the trip because I enjoy the trains, I really wish we had more trains in the states...

Thursday we went to happy hour at a bar called Happy Hour. It was fun, the place was packed. We found out about it the night before when we went there to watch the France national soccer team play against Austria (France won, 2-1, qualifying for the play-off to get into the world cup).

That's about it.

LSAT

156. 68th percentile. I did better than 68% of the people that took it.

We're in Colmar for the day. Not much to do here.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Crisp cold skies

It's cold. Ok so maybe not really cold. 37F, 1C but I don't had a heavyish coat. I've been looking for one and will continue the search Friday, I don't have breaks long enoughto shuffle off to the mall to look at coats.

Classes have been good this week, I've been focused and taking notes. It'll make up for what I miss traveling. We're officially going to Prague the weekend of the the 21st of november! I have trips planned to Amsterdam for a concert (it's a 19 hour train journey from Madrid, I'm leaving after mum flies out) and Lyon for the Festival of lights.

I'm in class so I'll have to write more later!




-- Posted from my iPhone

Bollywood Grill

Indian for lunch after running some errands for the morning. I was actually half way to my next stop but it was raining and I hadn't eaten yet so I figured it would be a good stopping point. I've crossed two of my errands so far, a bank run and picking up a form that will hopefully provide me with money for lodging... Who knows.

The picture is Guttenberg. He has a square named after him here, just south of the cathedral. Well it might be south, I don't know, I have reallignes my compass to use the cathedral a my center point with the directions following the length of the church and then cutting across the face. I am pretty sure that is wrong but oh well.

Had a good weekend, the rain was a downer but we made the most of it. Monopoly and poker Sunday, laundry and an IEP house party Saturday and a get together Friday at laura's. Tonight we plan Prague, and I plan Lyon.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Laundry Day

It's a rainy Saturday and be ause I've got nothing else planned I figured laundry would be a good use of my time. It needed to be don, and the laundrymat is close by, providing a reprieve from my room. Laundry makes me think of Eddie izzard, the British commedien. He has a bit about clothes infiltrating the wash, the colors conspire to send a blue sock into the white load.

This week went well. Classes were good, my new laptop battery holds up beautifuly! There was a game of Risk (which I had never played but found entertaining to watch) at Pawels apartment Thursday night. We decided we would buy the England match tonight since it is only going to be broadcast online (they had sold the rights to the now defunct Setanta broadcast company) and after that one of the international coordinators is hosting something at her place.

I'm planning a trip to Lyon but I don't quite know when. I was thinking this comming weekend but some people wanted to go to colmar (the begining of the wine route I believe) I would be tempted to spend Friday in colmar and go on to Lyon after. We'll see.

That's all for now I guess. Just sort of a lazy Saturday...


-- Posted from my iPhone

My 0.60€ coffee in class

Not half bad. Pleasantly suprised and you can be sure I'll have em more often since they're cheap!

Early Mornin' Tony

I miss starbucks. Not from the actual coffee standpoint but actually from the simpilicity and omnipresence standpoint. My 8 am lecture shouldn't have been all that difficult to go to, and it wasn't overall, but a coffee would have been nice. Places here don't really do coffee to go and I didn't have the time to sit and drink a cup. I miss my espresso machine too, I liked making myself a little somethin somethin in the mornings.

Lecturer talked for 2 hours straight. Referred to the German advance into Belgium during WWI as a violent, pedophillic attack. He is a character.

The professors here are not that food with technology. They use the computers and projectors occasionally but I was suprised by the lack of understanding of how the microphone systems work. If they work at all.

Back to class. Have a great day!
Oh, the title, it's a track by Felt. New album drops next month. They're my soundtrack today.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Epic Monopoly Game

We stayed in tonight cos that's free. We played monopoly AND I WON!!!!! It was epic. I played conservatively at first, getting the railroads and utilities, then the lowly first two properties. End of story I won and had more money than the bank and she even had half the properties. I was proud of myself!



Those are my 7 hotels. I will admit that I was quite lucky to get some good rolls when traversing her 3/4 of the board, landing on my railroads, free parking, etc. But it was fun to finally win a game of monopoly!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Monday Mornings

Mondays aren't all that different here, even if I don't start class until 4pm. The idea of starting classes (and the week in general) again after a weekend is a bit of a downer. But I'm lucky enough to have built a schedule that is manageable.

These cold mornings are becoming more and more common. We chatted about how in December or February/March this weather would be shorts weather, but for now it's sweats in the morning and jeans and a sweatshirt for class. I'm not a fan of it but it'd be the same at home, except I think there might be better insulation in the window area of my apartment compared to the windows here...The steam radiators haven't been turned on yet. I thought I heard them last night but must have been mistaken because it is still frigid...

I am going to put money on my student ID so I can pay for dinner today, they no longer accept cash at the dining hall. Apparently they loose money by accepting cash at student prices. I don't understand how 2.90 is different if it's paid in cash or on a money card but they're the boss.

Today's soundtrack: John Mayer Trio. Both a live bootleg and their official Live release, Try!. Great music!

A Great Day

Fridays

I've always been a fan. Especially since I arrived here and set up my schedule so that I had no classes on Friday. Initially the decision was made to enable me to travel more easily. Now I just like having Fridays free to run errands and whatnot. Today I got my bank card, and successfully made it through the day without losing it to an ATM. I may or may not have written my PIN number on my wrist. However, the arrival of a bank card then led to the arrival of a telephone. I officially have a phone! And it works. I don't have much in the way of talk time, I think it's just maybe 200 minutes a month. but I feel that the unlimited texting was more important for us students here since receiving texts is free, I can be a contact point, a sort of switchboard, for our group of friends. WE had also discussed the option of a Can & string communication system across our courtyard so that Katie, Matt and I could communicate that way. If we get that done, I will definitely post pictures.

I have a pair of pictures I wanted to show earlier, to show an amusing dichotomy in the architecture here. One is what I consider the ugliest building on the Palace Universite campus, just about 3 minutes from our dorm. The other is the housing across the street from the ugly building. How do you get such an ugly school building across the street from such gorgeous housing!?

also amusing: Where germany and France meet:

This is at the square in front of the cathedral. I love the old german half timbered buildings, and I thought it was interesting that it is essentially built into the neighboring building, which is very French.

Welcome to October

October has arrived and I'm not ready to admit that it's fall already. I have been so used to summer, I had forgotten that fall exists. The leaves have been falling off here for a while and I kept questioning why leaves were falling off in summer. Apparently it will get cold but snow isn't likely during the winter. I will miss my flip flops but because I appreciate the balance that my toes provide, I won't be wearing them once it gets cold.

Tommorrow is errand day, I am going to get a new battery and hopefully be able to go to the bank. Now that there is internet in my room I am not in as much of a hurry for my bank card but it'd still be nice.

We have been planning trips and it looks like Prague and the Netherlands are probable, hopefully I'll be able to crash at klara and gary's families to save some money.

It's Tom's birthday so we're going to get tarte flambee. We went to watch the game at dubliner last night and it was great, they had three games on, Man U, Chelsea and Real Madrid. All three of those teams won, but Chelsea still didn't look like they had the cutting edge they had up until the shock loss to Wigan. I am hoping to watch the Chelsea v Liverpool Sunday, assuming they're open...

I have been making pasta at home instead of going to the dining hall because you are required to put money on your student ID card to pay, and you can't do that without a French bank card... I borrowed a pot from a neighbor, whose name I am embarrassed to admit I have forgotten.

I bought a loaf of bread, it is basically a loaf of King's Hawaiian sweet rolls. Delicious but amusing because I just wanted regular bread.