(no subject)
okay, so this is a really long entry because i didn't update yesterday and a lot happened yesterday and then a lot happened today too.
okay, so yesterday, being friday, was my last day of manfredness at all. i mean, i didn't have class or anything, but i had to turn in my paper. so, i had finished my paper thursday night at 2am (yes, that is technically friday), but i couldn't print it out because the printer was out of ink. so i went to bed, thinking that the printer would be better in the morning. so i get up around 11 and come down to the computer lab around 11:30 and what do i discover but a still not working printer. so donald was in the computer room and he suggested that i go to the internet cafe. so i head over to the happy internet cafe on mariahilferstrasse and open my thing up and tell it to print. then i go to the counter and the guy is like 'um, the printer just broke.'
(visual break) so then the guy tells me the printer will be better soon, so i go back to my computer for a bit and then go back up to the desk. they, of course, tell me it is still broken and say it will be fixed in ten minutes, so i sit down and come back and it is still broken. this happens again, so finally i tell them i am going to go eat lunch and i will come back. so i do this and when i come back they tell me that it will be 2-3 hours before it is fixed. this is not cool because i need to print my paper and turn it in. so i come back to the dorm, hoping that the printer is magically fixed, which it kind of is. you see, it actually was still having problems stemming from the fact that haxi, the computer boy, is too cheap to install a new ink thingy, but i was able to print my paper and take it to iki and turn it in.
so then i went to westbahnhof, the train station, and got accosted by some stupid teenagers, but yeah.
friday evening we had our farewell dinner at a heuriger, which is basically a wine restaurant that serves a lot of meat (and wine). i was able to get a, essentially, vegetable bag, which was vegetables in a breaded pocket thing, and it was yummy. i also drank more wine than i should have and got a little tipsy, but it was okay. you see, the wine wasn't that good, but they take the white wine and make a 50/50 mixture with sparkling water and it actually tastes pretty decent. oh, and all i had eaten all day was a piece of pizza. so that didn't help.
so after a while i finally left with amber. oh, at the heuriger there was a man walking around selling flowers and cindy bought flowers for me, amber, and deborah. it was exciting. they were roses, even. so anyway, amber and i left and had an adventure getting home because the tram decided to do something weird, but it worked out okay. once we got back to the dorm i hung out with matthew and watched him do his laundry, which is always fun.
okay, so that was friday, now today.
so my plan for today was to go to dachau, a concentration camp just outside of munich. yeah.
so i got up at 6, took a shower and stuff, and caught the 7:16 train to salzburg, because i had to change trains there. i took advantage of this transfer to stop at the yummy falafel place at the train station. so i went to the place and the falafel man hit on me. it was really retarded, but entertaining. anyway, i got a yummy vegetarian gyro which i later had a gyro accident with, creating a stain on my pants from the cheese that was in it. fun fun.
so i finally catch my train to munich and then i transfer to a little train thingy to dachau and then take a bus to the actual concentration camp.
the concentration camp was really interesting. walking up to it i got shivers, it was just such a surreal experience. i mean, you see pictures of these things, but it is a totally different thing to walk around in one. it was really spooky. i mean, there was the huge area where the prisoners had roll call every day and it was just like you see in movies. i can't even explain how odd it felt to be there.
i did an audio guide of the camp and i learned a lot of things about the camp. it was a really interesting experience.
the thing that hit me the most was when i went to the crematorium. i was walking through it and suddenly i found myself in one of those horrible gas chambers disguised as a shower rooms. i think that was really the most shocking part of the whole thing for me. i guess there is no evidence that the gas chamber in dachau was used for mass murder, but they still think that it might have been used for experiments and the like. it was just really disturbing though, because even if the one at dachau was never used, rooms just like the one i was in were used all over at other camps.
i know i have more to say about dachau, but i'm really tired and nothing is coming out right anyway. it definitely was completely different from anything i had ever done before, though.
so now on to more happier things. so after the concentration camp, i swear i was on the bus and train thingy with aneesa from the real world chicago. really. if not, then that was her twin. also, i think i stared at her too much because i have this horrible viennese habit of staring at people. i will have to rid myself of this when i get back to the us. anyway, it really had to be her and it was exciting.
yeah, so i came back and that's about all. i have other exciting news though, although it is really only exciting for me. so we found out that we get money back from the program (i guess there was extra) and we get 66 euro back once we check out as a deposit on our keys and sheets. so total, everyone gets back 134 euro. however, this gets better because i get an additional 110 or 100 euro because i didn't do the second month of intensive german. go me. i'm excited.
okay, well i need to go to bed as i didn't get much sleep last night and travelling makes you really tired in general.
okay, so yesterday, being friday, was my last day of manfredness at all. i mean, i didn't have class or anything, but i had to turn in my paper. so, i had finished my paper thursday night at 2am (yes, that is technically friday), but i couldn't print it out because the printer was out of ink. so i went to bed, thinking that the printer would be better in the morning. so i get up around 11 and come down to the computer lab around 11:30 and what do i discover but a still not working printer. so donald was in the computer room and he suggested that i go to the internet cafe. so i head over to the happy internet cafe on mariahilferstrasse and open my thing up and tell it to print. then i go to the counter and the guy is like 'um, the printer just broke.'
(visual break) so then the guy tells me the printer will be better soon, so i go back to my computer for a bit and then go back up to the desk. they, of course, tell me it is still broken and say it will be fixed in ten minutes, so i sit down and come back and it is still broken. this happens again, so finally i tell them i am going to go eat lunch and i will come back. so i do this and when i come back they tell me that it will be 2-3 hours before it is fixed. this is not cool because i need to print my paper and turn it in. so i come back to the dorm, hoping that the printer is magically fixed, which it kind of is. you see, it actually was still having problems stemming from the fact that haxi, the computer boy, is too cheap to install a new ink thingy, but i was able to print my paper and take it to iki and turn it in.
so then i went to westbahnhof, the train station, and got accosted by some stupid teenagers, but yeah.
friday evening we had our farewell dinner at a heuriger, which is basically a wine restaurant that serves a lot of meat (and wine). i was able to get a, essentially, vegetable bag, which was vegetables in a breaded pocket thing, and it was yummy. i also drank more wine than i should have and got a little tipsy, but it was okay. you see, the wine wasn't that good, but they take the white wine and make a 50/50 mixture with sparkling water and it actually tastes pretty decent. oh, and all i had eaten all day was a piece of pizza. so that didn't help.
so after a while i finally left with amber. oh, at the heuriger there was a man walking around selling flowers and cindy bought flowers for me, amber, and deborah. it was exciting. they were roses, even. so anyway, amber and i left and had an adventure getting home because the tram decided to do something weird, but it worked out okay. once we got back to the dorm i hung out with matthew and watched him do his laundry, which is always fun.
okay, so that was friday, now today.
so my plan for today was to go to dachau, a concentration camp just outside of munich. yeah.
so i got up at 6, took a shower and stuff, and caught the 7:16 train to salzburg, because i had to change trains there. i took advantage of this transfer to stop at the yummy falafel place at the train station. so i went to the place and the falafel man hit on me. it was really retarded, but entertaining. anyway, i got a yummy vegetarian gyro which i later had a gyro accident with, creating a stain on my pants from the cheese that was in it. fun fun.
so i finally catch my train to munich and then i transfer to a little train thingy to dachau and then take a bus to the actual concentration camp.
the concentration camp was really interesting. walking up to it i got shivers, it was just such a surreal experience. i mean, you see pictures of these things, but it is a totally different thing to walk around in one. it was really spooky. i mean, there was the huge area where the prisoners had roll call every day and it was just like you see in movies. i can't even explain how odd it felt to be there.
i did an audio guide of the camp and i learned a lot of things about the camp. it was a really interesting experience.
the thing that hit me the most was when i went to the crematorium. i was walking through it and suddenly i found myself in one of those horrible gas chambers disguised as a shower rooms. i think that was really the most shocking part of the whole thing for me. i guess there is no evidence that the gas chamber in dachau was used for mass murder, but they still think that it might have been used for experiments and the like. it was just really disturbing though, because even if the one at dachau was never used, rooms just like the one i was in were used all over at other camps.
i know i have more to say about dachau, but i'm really tired and nothing is coming out right anyway. it definitely was completely different from anything i had ever done before, though.
so now on to more happier things. so after the concentration camp, i swear i was on the bus and train thingy with aneesa from the real world chicago. really. if not, then that was her twin. also, i think i stared at her too much because i have this horrible viennese habit of staring at people. i will have to rid myself of this when i get back to the us. anyway, it really had to be her and it was exciting.
yeah, so i came back and that's about all. i have other exciting news though, although it is really only exciting for me. so we found out that we get money back from the program (i guess there was extra) and we get 66 euro back once we check out as a deposit on our keys and sheets. so total, everyone gets back 134 euro. however, this gets better because i get an additional 110 or 100 euro because i didn't do the second month of intensive german. go me. i'm excited.
okay, well i need to go to bed as i didn't get much sleep last night and travelling makes you really tired in general.