Room Change

Up until this point I have been in a very small room. Yesterday I asked at the school and they made arrangements for me to switch into the room next to mine when Eleonora left today. So, I just spent the last hour carrying everything over and now I just need to get everything put away and reorganized. This room is much larger then my old room, so I no longer have to place the desk chair onto the bed, in order to open the desk drawers or to get anything from the under the bed drawer. The only draw back is that the heater is broken. In my old room it would not turn on, in this room it will not turn off. It is on high all the time. Luckily this room has larger windows which are currently open, and will remain open until the heater is fixed. This should also help with the dry air situation a little bit by bringing in some fresh air from outside. If only the neighbors would stop arguing so I could take a nap, because after all that moving and cleaning the old room, I am exhausted.

Heldelberger Herbst

Today is the Annual Heidelberger Herbst. There is so much to do and so many people trying to do it, I am glad I got there early. The Altstadt is hosting this festival with an arts & crafts market along the Hauptstraße and a flea market along the Neckar. University Platz has been turned into a medieval town with bands playing & venders selling hand made items.

I did find the flea market a bit disappointing, there were only a few tables with items worth buying, and they were rather overpriced for what I would expect at a flea market. I did however stroll down a side street and found a lady selling wonderful handmade soaps. She spoke some English and let me know she does not have a store but does them as a hobby and gave me her card to contact her if I wish to buy some in the future.

The art market was nice also, although there were many venders with the same or similar items, the variety was good and the prices were right. I got myself a nice scarf to match my coat that will come in handy on these windy days we have been having. I also managed to resist the urge to buy every tote bag and messenger bag I saw, although there are a few I really wanted that were in my price range.

My favorite part of the festival had to be the medieval times plaza. The whole plaza was transformed with shops designed to look like period housing and carts. Everyone was dressed in period attire, bread is being baked in a wood burning oven, and wurst are being cooked over an open flame. I stopped to try a rinderwurst served in traditional bread, baked and sliced like a pizza then split open to hold 2 pieces of wurst across a triangle shaped wedge of bread, although at first it is difficult to hold, it was extremely delicious. Then while I enjoyed my meal I listened to some music & singing in the medieval town they created. There were also crafters practicing their craft for everyone to see, one woman was making leather bags, another man was blowing glass. I was not able to get photographs of the glass blowing due to the crowds but after they left I was able to get a photo of some of the dragons made of glass and his one of a kind dragon head flame thrower used to melt the glass.

Dinner for all

Tonight some of our classmates came and made us a delicious dinner of roast pork filets and scallops potatoes. Unfortunately I still was not feeling well so after dinner when everyone else headed to the bar, I headed to bed (stopping of course to check email and post to the blog for a few minutes.)

No Voice

Today is not a good day. I woke up with no voice and I have had a sore throat much of the day. I think it is due to the dry heat here, but the only humidifier is way out of my price range, so I have collected and purchased some metal and glass containers to set on and around the radiator to hopefully add some moisture to the air. Hopefully I will feel betetr tommorrow, I don't want to miss the big festival in town.

I Saw The Gnome!!!

The illusive Gnome was in my sights today as I wandered along the Philosophenweg (Philosopher’s Walk), a path carved high above Heidelberg & the Neckar River through the mountain, I caught a brief glimpse of him as his friends playing behind a fence hidden in some trees above the path. I managed to snap a few quick photos before they quickly disappeared into the forest.

I also took several pictures of the city and castle from this spectacular height. Unfortunately there was a haze over the city today and the hot sun made many of the shots nearly impossible to see. I will try again next week to see if I can get some better photographs of the Castle and City. I am thinking I will try the walk in the evening rather then midday to hopefully cut down on the brightness of the sun, and allow me to take some photographs that will show how amazing the view is from this path. Honestly however I do not think any photograph will ever do justice to the beauty of this path. After today’s walk I can fully understand why this would be a favorite place for scholars to frequent.

Feeling Short

Today has not been a good day. To begin I was almost run over by a trash truck that made a wide turn and went up onto the sidewalk as i was leaving my house. It almost took out me and the fence of the person who lives on the corner. Then I run to catch the trolley after my near death experience and I get there as the doors are closing and the trolley driver will not reopen them for me, so I have to wait 8 minutes for the next one. This leaves me running for the school when I finally arrive at the trolley stop downtown. I get into class just before the teacher, and decide today is the day I will buy a bicycle.

So, after class the weather is nice I take the trolley to the other side of town where the used bike store is and check out some bikes. Unfortunately it appears adults in Germany are not expected to be 5’ tall because all of the bikes are much to tall for me, I can't reach the peddles let alone the ground. So I ask if they have any large kids bikes, and he takes me to the upstairs room where they have several assorted kids bikes from toddlers to young teens. I pick out the cheapest large kids size mountain bike. It is only 40€ which I can afford, and it is purple and I love purple. I test ride it in thier little courtyard and it rides well but the seat needs to come up about 3 inches. It also needs a bigger seat, because my hand is larger then the one currently on the bike. So the guy helps me find an adult seat from the cabinet downstairs, but he cannot find the tool he needs to attach the adult seat to the junior bike. So after an hour and a half of hoping the guy can find the tool he finally gives up, and I leave without a bike. I did let him know I would come back in a few days, but in the meanwhile I just feel really short.

Mixed Reviews on Collegium Palatinum

After talking to several of the people who are taking classes at Collegium Palatinum there seems to be some mixed reviews. Some of the students feeling they are getting a great deal from the classes, while others feel they are wasting their time and would have been able to learn much more in a different environment. Some of the students are also complaining that the information they received prior to choosing this language school was either exaggerated or completely incorrect.

Personally I am not quite sure what I think about the school yet, but I am sure of one thing…I feel totally lost half the time, and like I am excelling the other half. I do just fine with most of the reading and writing, I am passing all the tests with decent scores, but I feel like when I am in class I have no idea what is going on. The teacher speaks in German and most of the people seem to understand her, but the rest of us are completely clueless, and if we say we don’t understand she says it slower…which does not help. I think I know how every tourist and immigrant must feel in America when they try to ask for help and the people shout at them in clear slow English… no matter how slow or how loud it is said, if you don’t know the meaning of the word, it just will not help!

Sometimes I question if this is the right class setting for me, as another girl pointed out this program is primarily for speaking German and is not focusing on the written language very much, which is what I really want and need. Several of the students are considering leaving the program early because they simply feel they are not getting enough out of the experience. Others who are here for only a short time like a 2 week course are highly agitated because they feel they are not getting the services as described.

The programs here are set up so you pay different amounts based on the amount of time, 20, 25, 30 or 35 hours per week. The problem is you do not get that. For a basic 20 hour week the classes start at 8:30pm and run until 12:00pm with a 30 minute break – which is 20 hours, except that the first day you lose the entire day for placement and orientation. So a student there for only 2 weeks loses 4 out of 40 hours – which is 10% of their lesson! If you pay for 25 or more hours you stay at 12 when the others leave, you take a 15 minute break, then return to class until around 1pm for most classes, some let out even earlier it seems. This adds only 45 minutes to your day, leaving you short over an hour each week. Additionally if part of the class leaves for this final 45 minutes of class then your remaining class simply works on reviewing homework and such, instead of learning anything new. If you pay for the 30 or 40 hours you then have a 1 hour break and come back for an afternoon session several days a week, which you practice speaking in German with a tutor and a few other students. I considered adding additional time and paying for the additional hours, but I am not sure sitting around and just talking will help me right now.

Welcome Back Water

After walking to the grocery store, and using a toilet in the park in the middle of down town Heidelberg that has no doors & only 1/2 a mesh privacy screen, we have water again. Of course it ran brown for the first 45 minutes but it is nice to have it flowing again, just in time to go to bed.

Water Please

this morning just as my classmates and I were leaving our dorm on our way to school the road crew that has been working in front of our dorm hit the water main, causing a geyser and ensuing waterfall. I just arrived home 6 hour later and our whole building is still without water, and it just began to rain heavily. I am hoping this water crew continues to work through the rain to restore our water or this will be a very bad night…

Saying goodbye

Living here in the dorm is a different experience, it is almost like a summer camp, everyone here is staying a different length of time. This weekend majority of the girls here will be leaving. Some were here when I arrived others have been here just 2 weeks, but they have all become my friends. Tonight we sat down together for a big dinner to say goodbye to those leaving, since some are leaving just after class tomorrow and others will be leaving on Saturday. This also means that on Sunday it is likely we will be getting new dorm-mates who may stay a few weeks or a few months. It seems crazy that people I have only known for just a few days could become such good friends so fast.

Speyer Germany

Today I went on possibly the worst walking tour ever. Our tour guide who is one of the private tutors at the language school was completely unprepared for this journey. It began with a 1 hour train ride to the town of Speyer, which we could have reached in 30 minutes by public bus. Upon arriving he announced we would meet back at the train station at 5:55pm to take the bus back, even though our information regarding the trip stated we would arrive home at 6pm. This upset several of the students on the trip who were staying with host families and were intending to be home for dinner at 6:30 with their r host families. Then he states for the beginning class he has the information we were promised in English, which he printed directly from Wikipedia (which everyone knows only correct a small percentage of the time).

So finally we begin to walk towards the town, since the train station is on the edge of town. On the way we stop and see a beautiful old church, as pictured to the above right. After several minutes we proceed to the end of the old town section to the Kaiserdom zu Speyer (the Imperial Cathedral of Speyer). This beautiful domed Cathedral has been masterfully cared for and preserved. Under the main altar for an entrance fee of 2€ you can view the crypts of German Emperors and King spanning almost 300 years beginning in 11th century B.C., and in 1981 was added to the UNESCO world heritage list. (photos to the left)

After spending nearly an hour at the Cathedral the tour guide informed us we would be walking to an old watch tower in the center of town where we could go to the top and take photographs of town, and then we would proceed to a local museum before heading back to the train station. Unfortunately this is where the trip went wrong. After walking though the altstadt (old town) to the tower we were informed it was closed. We then proceeded to walk in a giant 2+ mile circle around the town looking for the museum the tour guide wished to show us, only to find that it was just across the road from the cathedral where we had spent more then an hour. By the time we finally reach the museum is it 5:20 pm, and the museum closed to new visitors at 5:00pm, and we needed to begin the 30 minute walk back to the train station. While we all waited outside for the tour guide to emerge from the museum where he was asking if they would be kind enough to let us in for only a few minutes, we had a few moments to rest on the stairs of the museum and watch the bus pick up passengers directly in front of the museum on it’s way Heidelberg where it would arrive approximately 30 minutes later. It was quite temping to hop on the bus, which would have been free with my monthly regional pass I already possess. Instead I stayed with the group and hiked back to the train station to wait 20 minutes for a train which would go north to Mannheim, only to go south again to Heidelberg, and arriving home approximately 2 hours after I saw the bus heading to the same destination. (to the right Radhika & Paola laugh at Eugen being silly outside the museum)

Ladenburg Town Festival

Today a group of us decided to follow our teacher’s recommendation and head to a neighboring town called Ladenburg for their annual town festival and flea market. We all had a great time as you can see by the picture below of one of our group hamming it p for the camea.

The streets thoughout the old town section were draped with blue and white flags and tables lined both sides of the roads. The center of town near the old church had music and food. It was really fun, and I finally got to eat some bratwurst here. It is funny, the town I am staying in has such a high tourist rate, it is actually hard to find traditional German food in restaurants here.

Walking around this town you could see remnant of the old town wall. We were told this wall dates to the Roman Empire when Ladenburg was a fort along the Rhine River. While walking through town you can see different areas of town have these ruins throughout, many of them are used as walls for current houses, others just run randomly through parks and yards.

On the way home we missed our bus and had to wait an hour for the next one, so after wandering back though town for a bit we finally caught a bus headed to the trolley stop about 20 minutes away. Then just to be more exciting we caught the right trolley but going in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. So we realize this after 2 stops and we get off next to a giant field in the middle of no where, and quickly catch another trolley headed in the right direction. This trolley however does not go all the way to our destination, it only goes a portion of the way, so we have to get off when it reaches it end and wait about 25 minutes in another trolley stop in the middle of no where. The trip that took us only about 35 minutes in the morning, took us more then an hour to complete on the return journey. But we made it home safe and just in time, as our housemates were preparing a huge meal with enough food to feed half of Heidelberg. After this exhausting day I am ready for bed, so while they sit around chatting I am crawling into bed until tomorrow.

This Weather Needs To Go...

When I first arrived here in Germany it was hot and sunny every day for a week, and I was jetlagged and spent most of it in bed. Then, this week I start to feel better and it rains for the whole week just about. Then just to make it better, not only is it rainy but the temperatures went from the high 80’s to the low 40’s overnight. This really is not good for the body; I just feel achy all over and have a horrible cough now. Well, I can’t write much more because I have to get to class all the way across town & I have a test I need to review for on the way…

Classes

Today is the third day of classes; I did not get to write yesterday because I was up until well after 11pm doing homework and laundry. Tonight the work load is a bit less, so I have a few minutes to sit down and write about what I have experienced so far at the Collegium Palatinum.

At first glance the school situated next to the law division of Heidelberg University appears to just be a big house on a hill in the middle of a small park. Inside it looks pretty much the same. The staff at the school are all extremely friendly and helpful. If you need housing they will arrange it. If you wish to travel, take dance or art lessons, they will help you research your options and find places in the area or transportation schedules. The rooms are set up as classrooms with tables in a circle and the average classes are around 10 people.

If you are concerned that you will not fit in based on your age, like I was, you shouldn’t be. This school has students ranging in age from 18 all the up and including middle age. At 30 years old, I am not the oldest one in my class, let alone the school. Some of the students have come to the school to fulfill a school requirement, others for a job requirement, and one lady simply because she wanted to learn German.

New students begin classes here every week and are placed into 1 of 5 levels based on their written and verbal abilities in German. The only classes offered at this small school are German Language. Since I have no prior experience with German Language classes at all I have been placed in the beginners’ class. There are currently 7 students in my class, four from the USA, one from Brazil, one from Ecuador, and one new student today from Albania. Everyone speaks English to some degree but the class it taught primarily in German.

My instructor Michaela Escher-Eisel, who prefers to be address as Michaela rather then Frau Escher-Eisel is very upbeat and friendly. This is very good, because the classes run between 4 and 7 hours per day depending on the level you have chosen. The lessons are taught in a way that anyone can learn the language no matter what your first language is. On the second day of classes you purchase your 2 books, the first is a workbook, with lessons in the front and assignments in the back. The second is a “personal dictionary”, it includes the words you use in each lesson, as well as examples for each, and blank lines for you to write in the definition of that word in your chosen language. Classes are taught in a conversational manner so that you learn the way a word is used both spoken and written, rather then by exact translation. This works well since people are translating German into their own personal language and context as opposed to directly into one specific language. Many techniques are used to help people understand the language such as pictures in the workbook, audio recordings, and Michaela’s assistant Rudi (as seen in the photograph). Games such as one similar to “hangman” are used for practicing new vocabulary in the morning, and rather then the teacher choosing the words, students get to choose a word for their classmates to guess.

So far I find the class challenging but not overwhelming. I think the experience of the staff allows them to guide the class along at a pace that keeps everyone engaged and actively learning without allowing anyone to fall behind. Hopefully the pace will stay this way throughout the remaining four months.

The Rain

Today we the first day of classes, after a brief lesson we took a walking tour of old town Heidelberg. Just as we reached the University it began to rain. Of course, I have been carrying an umbrella for 3 days now anticipating rain, but today it looked clear so I left it at home. By the time we were able to take the bus back, and made it thru the grocery store in a mild rain, it began to pour. So there we are like 4 drown rats standing there with our heads and jackets soaked from the rain, finally huddled under the trolly stop for protection, when a car speeding down the street rides a bit too close to the curb and soaks us with water. Soon we found ourselves standing behind the glas of the trolley stop, because the rain from above was safer then the soaking from the speeding cars. One girl was even using her umbrella to cover her legs from the street while standing under the trolley stop to protect her head. Sorry no pictures of this one, did not want to damager the camera with all the water...

New people

Yesterday all of the boys on our floor left, and today the new people began to arrive. Starting about 5am. I stayed around the dorm most of the day then went for a walk in the afternoon with one ofthe other new students. We walked further then I had before, so after walking the 2 miles almost to the nearside of the old bidge last night for the Castle illumination, today we walked down the far side and onto the old bridge. We followed the Hauptstrasse down to Marktplatz. A few of the stores were open and we wandered through them, including this great retro record store. I am not sure I expected to find a huge store selling records in the middle of town, but I was a bit more shocked when inside I found The Red Hot Chili Peppers classified under the genre of Indie Rock.

3:30pm Once we got down to Marktplatz we found a nice little italian restaurant where w stopped for lunch/dinner before heading back to Bismarckplatz to catch the trolley home. Unfortunatly after waiting several minutes the trolley was no where in sight and still another 15 minutes away, so we decided to walk across te bridge and up to the next stop, by he time we made it there the trolley was close behind.

8:30pm By now my feet are killing me, but we got some more new people so I took time and tried to meet everyone, played a little pingpong in the basement and decided to set a time to meet in the morning to all head to classes together.

11:00pm after just sitting int he kitchen and chatting for a while getting to know all the new people, and taking a shower to avoid the early morning rush it is time for bed, but not for long. Just as I am closing my door for the night a new girl coms running up to ask where her room is and how she gets the keys. Her room is right next to mine, so I check her papers and it says she needs to go upstairs to get the keys so I ventured up for the first time to help her retrieve her keys.

11:15pm all settled in and ready for bed, and there is a knock at the door, the newest girl needs help because she des not have a power converter to turn on her computer and her internet will not connect. One of my adapters is able to work on her plug and after a few minutes her internet finally kicks in and starts working, it was just a bit slow to get going. So, with everything settled it is off to bed again...

11:30pm ...another knock on the door, this one good news. My friend who had been virtually homeless while looking for an apartment, finally found a place. It is at the far side of town but she bought a bicycle already so she will not have a problem, other then moving her stuff over to her new place. And now, it is finally time for bed, and instead I am sitting here typing because now, after all the interruptions, I cannot fall aleep. 7am comes very early so I guess I should shut down the computer and hope for a few hours sleep.

Lighting of the Castle

Dating back to 1613 the lighting of the Castle in Heidelberg is an event not to be missed. Thousands of people turn out to see the fireworks displays along the river near the old bridge. I chose a vantage point a little further along the river to take pictures of the castle illumination, as the area near the old bridge was so packed with people, I am sure I would not have had much of a view. I was able to see the fireworks through the tops of the trees and the Castle illumination was beautiful. As if sparked by a single firework display from behind the Castle, it soon glowed in eerie red lights and smoke as if set ablaze by that single firework. The effect was reminiscent of what it must have been seen by the town 300 years ago when the castle was set ablaze by French Troops. The rebuilt Castle today has scaffolding around several towers and it is evident that the preservation and restoration of this landmark continues as it will for many decades to come.
The image to the above left shows the normal illumination of the castle at dusk. The image to the right shows the spectacular display occurring only three times each summer. I only wish my camera were better at taking night shots, although I am not sure any photograph could do this spectacular site justice. If you are planning a trip to Heidelberg I highly recommend you try to schedule it during one of these magnificent events. More information on the Castle Illumination can be found here.