Parties and The First Full Week of Classes

Contrary to expectations, it has actually been an eventful week.

Last Thursday I went to a birthday party for Nina. The party was at her apartment and mostly consisted of exchange students. For party food, Nina made home made pizzas. We also had some chocolate cake made by Hester (the English exchange students), Kayla and Jessica (another exchange student from Wyoming). At some point during the party, another exchange student from Spain also showed up. One of the Germans that was there could speak Spanish quite fluently, so he talked quite a bit to the Spanish guy. After a while, people started going home and eventually it was just Nina, the Spanish guy and I. It was getting late and I kept trying to go home as well, but Nina insisted that I stay longer. I didn’t actually leave until almost 4 am. That time was pretty interesting though. Since Nina is taking Spanish and plans to go to Spain next year to study abroad again and since I had mentioned I had Spanish for 10 years in school, the Spanish guy decided that we were all going to speak Spanish. So I had my first conversation in Spanish in years and actually I think that is the first real conversation in Spanish I’ve ever had. It really amazed me how much came back to me as I was trying to use it. At first it was extremely rusty and I couldn’t say much at all, but by the time the night ended, I could say quite a bit and actually carry on a conversation.

Last Saturday Kayla, Hester, Jessica, Andrew (another exchange student from Michigan) and I all went to a place called Fun Factory. Fun Factory is a large club that is in a small town called Wildeshausen about an hour away from here. There is a bus that runs between Oldenburg to the Fun Factory that we took. Before going to Wildeshausen, we decided to meet in downtown Oldenburg to go to a pub first. We met at about 9:30, then went to a cafe instead. On the way to the cafe we were stopped by a guy in a large wig and dressed in a baseball uniform that was trying to give away shampoo. That wasn’t the only strange thing we saw though. On our way to catch the bus after we had finished at the cafe, we saw a guy ride by on his bike that was dressed in a military uniform and had a red armband on. He was riding by giving the Nazi salute shouting, “Hitler kommt! Er kommt wieder!” (“Hitler’s coming! He’ll come again!”). Everyone on the street were literally shocked and just stood and stared in horror at him because they are still extremely sensitive to that here. Eventually he disappeared around a corner and a couple of minutes later we saw a police car go that direction.

After that, we caught the bus and even that was eventful. Most of the people on the bus were incredibly drunk already (it’s legal to be drunk in public here). About half way through the trip, they started chanting “Pinkelpause!” (literally: “piss-stop!”) and the driver eventually stopped and most of the people on the bus got off and did their business on the side of the road (which is also legal here). During the course of the bus ride, the others and I were of course speaking in English. There were 2 German guys sitting in front of me and they eventually turned around and started talking to us. They wanted to talk in English and since they were incredibly drunk and we weren’t, we just decided to talk in English. I had about a nice of a conversation as can be had with someone who is drunk with them. At some point during the bus ride, some other German guy who looked quite gay came up to where we were. I was sitting in the 2nd from the back of the bus and he was sitting in the back of the bus, so he was able to hear that we were speaking English. Then pointing to me, he asked the German guys, assuming I didn’t understand German, “Ist er schwul?” (“Is he gay?”). The German guys I had been talking with looked at me in horror and said that they didn’t think so. I turned to the guy that asked and said in German that I was definitely not while putting my arm around Jessica who was sitting next to me. After he went to the back again we all had a good laugh about that.

The club itself was actually kind of boring and the trip back was very uneventful. The club had several different rooms each with its own variety of music. The main room which played electronic dance music also had professional dancers all over the place. We left fairly early (2:50 am) because that’s when the bus came back to Oldenburg.

This week was the first week that I had most of my classes for this semester. I am taking a lot of the German for foreign students classes this semester because nothing else really looks interesting here. Their class selection is atrocious. Last week was the first official week of classes, but the German for foreign students classes didn’t start until this week, so I had only a couple of courses last week and both of them I actually ended up dropping for one reason or another. My schedule now is much better and includes courses such as “History and Variations of American English” as well as “German History” and “German Literature and the Second World War”, which consists of an odd assortment of students. It’s full of American exchange students and old Germans who were around then and remember WWII.

I suppose that’s really everything that’s happened. I’ve also started a new blog concerning American history. I talked with a history professor at Wyoming and I may be able to get some credit for it as an upper-division independent study if I keep it up and it has good content. That will save me some classroom time. Right now I’m working on an article I plan to post on it about the Modoc Indians of what’s now northern California and southern Oregon. If you want to see it, it’s here: http://historyrhymes.wordpress.com.