You asked...I answer!

Yo!

So, here are the answers to your deep, dark questions:

Q: what are classes like?...format?...

A: Classes are here meet once a week for an hour and a half, and it's ridiculously confusing because you can take them for a grade or for only credits, or for a grade towards a certain major, and classes are worth different amounts of credits. Besides making you want to bash your head against the wall, this ensures that Germany has the highest rate of foreign-student-drop outs.

Rutgers makes it pretty easy for us (the one and only thing Rutgers will ever make easy for us); up to 9 credits transfer to German major/minor, and all classes you take are worth 3 credits so long as you get a grade. To count for major/minor credit in other classes, you just have to get permission from the department after you get back, but all credits will transfer. Which is pretty sweet.

The classes that I'm taking really only require papers, essays and oral presentations. It must really suck for the German students, because they have to take like nine classes a semester or something ridiculous like that, but for us foreigners, it's pretty nice.


Q: anything you don't like about Germany?
A: Yeah, here's a list:

1) not to be stereotypical, but the french kids really aren't that friendly.
2) adjective endings and two-way prepositions make me want to shoot myself in the face.
3) the German love of beverage carbonation. Seriously, who else who carbonates apple juice? Nobody. Because it sucks.
4) that everything (from clothes to food to sunscreen) is way more expensive here.
5) that you can only get four types of salad dressing EVER. three, once you take out yoghurt, because honestly, who puts joghurt on their salad? Nobody. Because it sucks.
6) that you can't cross the street when the little light's not green without somebody going "You really shouldn't do that, my friend of a friend's aunt's cousin twice removed got fined by the polizei for that." Everyone seems to know someone who's been fined, but nobody's actually been fined.
7) how German dialects are practically unintelligible to each other, and completely unintelligibe to me.
8) that 90% of the movies are american with synchronized german voices.
9) that 90% of the music is in English
10) that there's only two busses that go to the Uni. You have never seen a bus packed until you've been here. rutgers people, think double EE times ten. Everybody else, think clown car.
11) German love of collateral. You can't get a drink without having to pay so much extra money that you'll get back only when you prove you haven't stolen the glass.
12) the German 'r'. it's the same 'r' they have in french, and I just can't do the back-of-the-throat-r-madness. I sound like an animal dying, and I get laughed at.

Q: How much has your German improved?

A: Bleh. My program director says it's gotten better, but I think she's lying to me. I think it's gotten worse, if that's possible. Or at least it seems like it has, because you don't realize how much you suck until everybody else talks really really fast and in dialect. Our program director says we have to take alot of time to just absorb, and then you really start talking, but again, I think she's lying. When people are talking to me, I can pretty much understand almost all of what they're saying, but when they're talking to each other, I'm totally lost about 50 percent of the time, mostly lost about 30 percent of the time, and somewhat lost about 15 percent of the time. The other 5 percent of the time, I get it, but only with a five-minute delay in comprehension.

Q: Any more near faux pas from misunderstanding a native German's intent (i.e., prepubescent boys "propositioning" you?
A: Nope, nothing that extreme, but I do get words mixed up all the time and get laughed at. Like the difference between "to move" and "to apply", somehow I get the words mixed up every single time.


Q: Have you gone back to that Aikido school in Konstanz, and has your training experience improved?
A: I haven't, and I'm not sure if I will, I might just hold out for America.


Q: You haven't talked too much about differences in cuisine...how is the German food? Tried any traditional dishes?
A: German food is actually pretty good, I've had one or two regional dishes and I've tried wurst, and that's pretty much it. The ice cream is REALLY good (do we have Straciatella flavor in the US? I don't think so, but it's seriously the best ice cream flavor ever.), and the chocolate is awesome, and I pretty much survive on the yoghurt.


Q: are you still a whore
A: Your mom.


Q: how many historic places have you desecrated by dacing abnoxiously in them
A: None! I'm waiting for a certain retarded friend to get here before I Desecrate By Dance.


Q: did you bring dragon and have you and if so why has he not been in any of your pictures
A: Of course, he's sitting on the shelf staring at me as I write this, and make sure you bring the duck.


Q: did my package ever arive to you
A: No, has it been returned to you? Did you mail it to the right country?


Q: have you met heidi klum and if so have you told her about her stiff compition (that would be me)
A: I met Heidi Klum and showed her a picture of you, and she said you would be a great hidden-potential model. This means that you could be excellent, but only if you're exceptionally well-hidden/not in the picture at all.


Q: Seriously...just how outrageously priced are trebuchets? Do you think you could ship one?
A: http://cgi.ebay.com/Bretonisches-Trebuchet_W0QQitemZ320247830547QQihZ011QQcategoryZ8655QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
This one is only 18.30 Euro, which is pretty decent, I think. Unfortunately, the bidding on this item has ended.

Q: are all germans completely obsessed with weird sex? and like...what kind of weird sex?

A: I don't know (I haven't personally investigated), but the largest monument in the city is a giant statue on the harbor of a prostitute holding the pope and the kaiser. http://www.konstanz-shop.de/shopdata/images/Imperia_Luftbild_530x375.jpg

http://www.oesterreich-radreisen.at/wartung/images/upload/Imperia.jpg

Surely that has to mean something.

Q: and what's up with talking about jews there? is it like not allowed?

A: I honestly don't know. From what I've seen/heard, I don't think it's a taboo topic so to speak, but I don't think that people wake up in the morning and say "You know? I feel like discussing Auschwitz with everyone I know today." I've definitely heard it referenced in classes and such, but as to what people actually think about things, I don't know, it's not something I've asked about. But the Germans are pretty mad tolerant.

Alright, so those were Your Questions Take One! Hopefully that was helpful/you learned some new interesting things. We're off to Stuttgart for two days, so I will see you all Tuesday.

Adios!

P.S. new favorite song: http://youtube.com/watch?v=DtKhFaW2Z1E