Getting Situated

So another few days have gone by and I just haven't found the time to write another blog post. I feel like so much happens in just one day that I could write a full-length entry for each of them. The catch 22 is that each day is so full I don't have time to write a blog post for each of them. I lead a rough life.

So when I last left you I had just moved into my new accommodations in the  Sülz neighborhood of Cologne. The area is actually quite nice. It is occupied mainly by families and as far as I can tell, my roommates and I are the only students living in the area. The homes are also well kept and reasonably modern. From what I have seen of the rest of the city this is rare. The city of Cologne is over 2,000 years old and was originally built by the Romans. The city was heavily bombed in World War II and most of the structures seen today were built in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Thus the architecture is not extremely modern. There is also a problem with graffiti and a lot of the buildings (especially those around campus) have been tagged.

Translates to: "You are my baby"

The other remarkable thing about the city is, of course, its extensive public transportation network. There are three main types of transportation available to the citizens of Cologne: the Straβenbahn (a street trolley that runs on tracks built into the streets), the inter-city trains, and the buses. I in particular really love the Straβenbahn. Each lines stops at each station once every 10 minutes during the day, with extended times on weekends. And no matter where I go and when I go, these cars are packed! Even at 4 in the morning I had to stand in the car because there were no seats available. Pretty crazy!

A Straβenbahn car pulling into the platform

Apart from the excitement of the city there are a lot of very interesting people on the list of exchange students this semester. We had our first meeting with the international group on campus (the PIM and CEMS club) on Tuesday the 30th of August. I walked the half hour to the WiZo building with my roommate Zhao. When we got to our assigned room it was packed with students. I met the other two Americans there and we exchanged updates. After a very quick introductory speech by the PIM and CEMS president Rosa, I walked downstairs with the Americans, their German buddies, and a Czech guy named Martin. There we bought our first German beer from a Kiosk (or small convenience store) that was a few doors down the street.

Cologne is famous of a type of beer called  Kösch, a light, sweet beer that is usually served in tall, thin glasses and should be consumed quickly so that the flavor doesn't escape. It was easily some of the best beer I had ever tasted. We stood outside the Kiosk, drinking on the street before going back into the WiZo offices. The ability to drink on the street and even inside a university building was certainly not lost on me. There was no way this would fly in the US. After a time the whole group traveled on the Straβenbahn to a brewery were we had a few drinks on the WiZo student group.


I talked with the other international students in the back room the brewery had provided for us for two and a half hours before catching the Straβenbahn home with Zhao. We didn't have our public transportation passes yet so I punched two of the tickets my landlords had given me in order to get us home. 

The next day I got up early and walked around our neighborhood with Zhao. She was about what I had come to expect from a Chinese girl. Shy unless it came to asking questions and adorable in speech and mannerisms. The first few days she was not very talkative and my own jet lag and preoccupation with all of the logistical things that needed to be done led to some very quiet train rides together. Nikos, my other roommate was not as quiet, though his English was very fragmented, a fact he tried to compensate for my repeating the same thought multiple times, even though I assured him I had understood what he meant. Maintaining a conversation with Nikos required a lot of concentration and eventually began to wear on my patience, though I should be more tolerant once I have established everything here. He was, on the whole, very nice and had taken to calling me his younger brother and Zhao our younger sister.

Me with my new "siblings".

After our walk, Zhao and I went to our first informational meeting, which outlined all of the things we still had yet to do. It was kind of a long, daunting list. After the meeting we walked back home and picked up lunch at a neat little sandwich shop on the way. 

The next day (the 1st of September) I got up on my own and walked 2 miles to the KVB headquarters that was located north-west of campus. KVB was a large transportation company and responsible for public transportation in Cologne. At their offices I quickly purchased a student, discount monthly ticket for the public transportation network that cost a whopping 58 euros. This was apparently cheap though I couldn't help but think of the $97 U Pass in Minneapolis that lasted not one month, but 4.

After that I walked to campus to sit a placement German test to see into which pre-semester German course I would fall. I sat and waited with some of the other international students including the Americans, Martin, and an overly-energetic Frenchman named Antoine. When we finally filled into the huge test room we had to present our passports at the door, a procedure that took about an hour as there were so many of us. When the test finally did start it soon became clear that it was going to be tricky. The test proctors fired off the instructions in rapid German and it took me a moment to understand what they were saying. For the next two hours we labored over a listening section and a fill-in-the-blank section with the most blanks I had ever seen in my life.

When the test finally ended, I walked with Martin to the Uni Mensa (or cafeteria), ate a quick lunch and then accompanied Martin to his new Studentenwohnheim (student dorm). The dorms here were much different than those in the US. The rooms were about the same size but the hallways were larger and much more spacious. They felt more like very small apartment buildings and didn't have that "dorm feel" that US student living had. The elevators were also very small, about a three foot by three foot square. After exploring the dorm I rode back to campus with Martin and then walked to an informational meeting that had ended an hour ago, and then finally home for the day.

That's all for now! Remember if you have questions or would like to hear more about a specific aspect of German life please add a comment to the blog. 

Auf Weidersehen!