I have successfully survived my first three days of lectures in Passau! Though, Monday wasn't really a day full of lectures, and they aren't too terribly unbearable!
Monday began the official scheduled program of events. We had a university tour in the morning with Janika and Felix, two other students helping with the program. The university campus is on the Inn River, on the other side of Passau, about a 25 minutes walk from our hotel. The campus is a unique combination of historical buildings and modern architecture. It has several little cafeteria places scattered about that would be similar to our little delis or lunch places in random buildings around A&M. Then there is also a mensa that we go to for lunch which is basically a really tasty German Sbisa. Modern art is abundant inside and outside. Though the university only has 9,000 students, it still seems like a pretty large campus. One nice thing I have noticed is that students don't walk around with headphones in all of the time like at A&M. It seems less hurried and more open. Though the long walk can be a bit of a bother, it is really lovely to walk alongside the river in the mornings on the way to class. A few other observations include: Germans are beastly bike riders (girls pedal along in skirts and dresses with no trouble at all!), Germans sometimes stand in the most inopportune places to carry on conversations (which includes the tops of stairways and doorways), and that all German girls dress cute every day. There are no such things as Nike shorts and over-sized t-shirts over here. Every day, the girls are always casually dressed to look like they belong in the store windows of Urban Outfitters and Forever 21. And the funny thing is, it doesn't even look like they are trying. They are just naturally awesome dressers.
After our campus tour, Andi and I walked around town to get some business taken care of. We found a camera store and got her a battery charger. Asked the camera boy where the post office is so I could mail my postcards (oops....you'll still be surprised though!). Found a hair product store to get some conditioner from. And successfully got some lunch. Oh, and the biggest accomplishment of all was finding drinking water! it is like gold to us over here. So far the only successful bottled waters have been those labeled "natural" or "still table water".
Such success could only be followed by meeting the Mayor of Passau that afternoon at city hall. The mayor is actually from the same town as Dirk Nowitski ironically enough! City hall is really pretty and has all of these ornate paintings on the walls telling of Passau's history.
The rest of the evening we spent with the Germans. We had an EU introductory lecture by one of the people in charge of the program, Arne. He is a PhD candidate here at Passau. We had a nice coffee break in between at a cute little bakery! After the lecture, we got time to change clothes before we played get-to-know-you games with the Germans. We also had a mini German course to learn basic phrases. After the activities, we hung out by the river for a while before going to a German culture festival outside. It was a lot like a first Friday in downtown Bryan. It was awesome! I got crepes and heard Bavarian folk music :)
Tuesday real school began. Every day we have three lectures. One from 10-12, then a two hour lunch break, then one from 2-3:45 and then 4-5:45. All of us Americans are there, plus about 15-20 German students. The first lecture Tuesday morning was crazy difficult. I have learned that in German political science, they learn a lot more theories than we do in the U.S., but we learn more quantitative applications of social, economic, and cultural, factors. The first lecture though hinged on many theories, so it was difficult to follow. According to Arne though, this speaker would have ideally come later in the program, but was at the beginning due to scheduling issues. Also, the fact that we walked in late didn't make it any easier. But, as I later discovered, there was a lack of communication on Dr. Robertson's fault, so we weren't in trouble for our not so punctual arrival.
The second lecture was about EU geopolitical issues, which I loved. The speaker was much better than the first because he clearly laid out all of his points. I also found the topic more applicable and interesting. The third lecture was a Passau student presentation on the EU and how it works. I really enjoy getting to have these student presentations because the information is presented in a much more clear manner.
It is so crazy here with our tight schedules! We have class every day from 10-6, then we get to eat dinner, and then participate in the evening activities planned by our German colleagues. Last night was the Pub Crawl. It actually was more like a pub crawl scavenger hunt. We were split into teams with both Germans and Americans and had a list of tasks to do while on a mission to save Passau. It was so fun because we all went to three different pubs together, but had to compete for the grand prize gummy bears the whole time. We started out at Margaritas, which was awesome because we got hamburgers (or wings, or ribs) and they played old country music! (I miss country music...they play American pop over here, but no country :( ). Then we went to two other Irish places as groups. The Germans were so awesome and planned out everything ahead for us. They even dressed up and wore fedoras! My team, The Team 2 Beat, got first place! We had an awesome band tattoo, the best pictures, the most unique coasters, and the most amazing and competitive team members ever! I was elected team captain because I don't drink, haha. But, I also won in the game to see who gets to be team captain as well. Rey, Suzie, Marshall, and Hendrick are awesome!
Tonight we went on a night tour of Passau with a hilarious tour guide dressed in Medieval attire. We learned all about the history of Passau and got to play historic character roles along the way.
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