Münster Trip 1

Yesterday we took a free train to Münster, 45 minutes away.Pictures here.

It was weird to see abstract stain glass windows in the cathedral. The organ was enormous. I would love to press the keys and feel that room fill up with sound. There was also a “castle” with a Botanical garden behind it. The Garden had an art gallery in it for a man whose name I don’t recall

Unfortunately it was rather Cold and Wet...

I spent the train ride talking to a friend from England about her view on Germany, and what things are the same across Europe and what is unique to Germany. The ridiculous amount of Alcohol in public is unique to Germany. Small cars are European. Working 35-40 hours a week is European (except France where they strike after 32 hours). All British folk learn French and then maybe german or spanish. Germans learn English, then often times french

Also, thinking about what it means to be “Real” or “Genuine” and if that is alway good, bad, or otherwise.

Classes start this week, except for language classes, which means I have Monday off...

Typischer Deutsche Essen

Breakfast: Deli meat sandwhiches with coffee/orange juice. I usually have Müsli with milk (Granola basically)

Lunch: Main meal, Meat with gravy or cheese sauce, vegetables or salad, pudding, and a roll. I find it generally resembles dinner at home. It’s super cheap at the cafeteria so I by it and it ensures I get some veggies every day.

My Evening goes as follows

Evening meal 1 at 4:30: Deli Sandwhich

Evening meal 2 at 8:00: Spaghetti or a roll with sausage

I think Germans usually just have some bread and cheese and maybe coffee at some point.

Since I’m with lots of exchange students I’ve also experienced Turkish Soup, British Cake, French Kish Lorraine, Italian Bolognese, Russian Crepes, and Swiss Chocolate...

Eating is great!

Church Adventure

So today I visited Lebensquelle Gemeinde for church (Spring of Life Congregation roughly translated). When I arrived the worship team was very green. Fortunately they were just doing a light check and fixed it before the service. The gentleman who opened the service was translated into German. But with the chaos of people finding seats and such I couldn’t tell much more than that.

For worship, I knew some of the songs and some of them not. Most were in German but some were in Russian. As a note, Russian doesn’t use our alphabet so I couldn’t read it but the German translation was below. They did, “Here I am to Worship” in German, as well as “Dancing Generation”, and “Hosanna” by Hillsong in Russian (all very well done I might add).

So it turns out that 80% of the church is Russian, so the translation was for the small number of us outsiders... The craziness of Russian and German together when I hardly speak German was a little more than I could follow, so I’ll probably look for another place next week. I had asked someone to recommend a very charismatic church to me and that’s what I got. It was definitely a really cool one time experience, it just won’t be home.

Desk as a state of Mind

Not related to Germany at all,

I thought this was excellent

Also, I still have not made a home for myself at my desk here in Germany sadly

Desk - Music and Sound Design from Aaron Trinder Film:Motion:Music on Vimeo.

Intensiv Deutsch Kurs

So the intensive german class, 5 hours a day this week is not as intense as I expected. Here was the project I worked on today. It helps me conjugate the verb "to be" in German.

Ich bin

du bist

Sie sind

er, sie, es ist

wir sind

ihr seid

Sie sind

sie sind

Köln atmosphere

Plaza in front of Cathedral in Cologne. For more pictures from the days adventures, click here.

a delightful day I must say.

Be sure to have speakers on to hear the steel drums.

drunken fans or a revolution

Don't ask me what it was,

I just know it was loud by my window for a minute