Settling In

My first impressions of Germany:

• clean - amazingly so, for a city.  There is NO litter.  Anywhere.
• organized
• everyone follows the rules religiously - a couple of examples: when the crossing light is red, you don't cross the street.  Even if there are NO cars coming and the light is about to turn green in a couple of seconds.  Also, there are no gates in the train stations - if you wanted to get on the train without a ticket, you totally could.  Although if you get caught doing it, the fine is 40€, so I don't suggest trying it.  Even if I've only seen the police on the train once in five days.
• uncrowded (compared to St. Petersburg)
• less diverse than NYC or basically any other large American city, but more so than Russia
• friendly but businesslike - most storekeepers tolerate our mediocre German rather than trying out their English on us (especially since even if they switch to English, we insist on responding in German)

Monday was our first full day in Germany.  We didn't have class but only an information session at the Institute that began at 10.  I really like that on our first day they showed us where the institute was so there was no question (they didn't do that for PiP and Latalia and I had to go searching for it on our own).  Since we all had group tickets until Wednesday, we met at 9:15 to all travel over together, grabbing breakfast along the way.  I bought a cheese-covered roll-pastry at Müllers, a small bakery located in the train station closest to the Wohnheim, for 1,30€.  Food here is surprisingly cheap, which is very good seeing as it will be my main expense.  

Transportation in Germany is quite interesting and deserves a paragraph to itself.  There is quite a system of interconnected S-Bahns (aboveground trains) and U-Bahns (underground trains, aka subways) throughout the city.  Since we live on the last station in the city center, seven S-Bahn lines come through our station.  They all take the same track through the city center and only diverge at the outskirts to travel to various places around Munich.  This means that there is a train heading towards downtown approximately every 2 minutes, so you never have to worry about "missing" your train.  Any of the trains heading to the city center will stop at the Institute station, so it hardly even matters which one you board.  Our monthly pass allows us to travel an unlimited number of times on any S-Bahn, U-Bahn, bus, or tram in the two innermost "circles" of the city, which is basically anywhere we would want to go for museums, parks, concerts, etc.  On the way back to the Wohnheim at night there is only one of the eight S-Bahn lines which diverges before our stop, so we have to be a tad more watchful, but in general the public transportation around the city is absolutely stellar and I've not yet had a problem with it.  Everything is exceedingly well-marked in true German style and there are clear maps of the immediate neighborhood, city, and region in every station.  Although I will to some degree miss the wild adventure of taking a marshrutka through St. Petersburg, hoping that it is traveling in the direction that I want to go in, I am mostly very glad for the high level of organization.  Another thing that makes Germany stand out from both the US and Russia is their attitude on bikes.  They are obsessed with them over here, and bikers are thus given a much higher priority.  Every sidewalk in the city consists of two lanes of bike traffic as well as places for pedestrian traffic, but if there is not enough room, the bikes take priority.  And all of the Germans know not to walk in the bike lanes, because they'll just ring their bells angrily at you and then run you over.  There are ample spaces for locking up bikes at the train stations and bikes are even allowed on the S-Bahn, with special places on each car to put them out of the way.  I think I'm in biker heaven.  Of course, one of my first questions to our German assistants (who are serving their civil service requirement with the Goethe Institute as opposed to a military service requirement, one of which is required for every young person in Germany) was "where in Munich can I buy a used bike?"  I haven't seen him again to ask whether he found a good place (he answered that he knew there were shops where that was possible but would have to research exactly where in the city they are located), and I am debating whether it is worth buying a bike here that I would then have to transport on the train to Clausthal or whether I would be better off waiting until I got there to purchase one (the thought of trying to transport a bike along with two heavy suitcases and a backpack makes me shiver).  

Getting back to Monday, after the information session (which only lasted an hour or so), in which we learned about the course organization as well as received our internet usernames and passwords, we were let free until 2pm.  I quickly joined the group that was going shopping with the intention to end up back at the Wohnheim, and we traveled first to DM (a chain much like Rite-Aid or CVS) for shower supplies, then to a grocery store (Tengelmann) on the way home, which is when it really hit home how inexpensive groceries are here.  I was able to buy a loaf of bread, butter, cheese, yogurt, milk, cereal, chicken, pasta, instant potatoes, applesauce, spaghetti sauce, 5 apples, and some instant soup mixes (much like Raman) for only 20€!  Granted, I sought the cheapest items and my shopping cart didn't display the most balanced menu, but it was still a lot for what I paid for.  Rushing back to the dorm, we quickly connected our computers to the internet and sent off hurried emails to parents assuring them of our safe arrival (or in my case, a terse Facebook status update to kill as many birds with one stone as possible) before heading off to the Olympic park to meet the group.  The big attraction that we were all gathering to see was the Olympic tower, by far the tallest building in Munich, which provided an excellent opportunity to view the entire city (and yes, take lots of pictures).  The park itself is quite interesting, however; it has several hills, but none of them are natural: they were formed from the rubble of Munich directly following WWII, then covered in dirt and planted to create a park.  This sort of enormous reconstruction project happened all over just after the war as many German cities were almost completely destroyed by bombs.  

Once we were all at the top of the Olympic tower, the grad students Hannes and Mareike unveiled their treat - a scavenger hunt (Schnitzeljagd) about Munich!  We broke up into groups of five and received a paper with several questions on it, which we were charged to answer before 6 when we should all meet at a particular ice cream store which they pointed out on a map.  My group consisted of four other people from my German 102-5 class: Dan H, Olivia, Claudia, and Nathan, so I knew we would have a great deal of fun no matter what the outcome.  One of the challenges was to take 10€ given to us by Professor Rankin and spend it in the most creative way.  Earlier I had seen some paddleboats on the lake and suddenly I was struck with an idea: why not spend our money on renting a paddleboat and paddling around the lake?  Finding this to be the best idea anyone had, we promptly followed through with it.  One of the boats was shaped like a giant swan, so of course that was the one I wanted to take.  Olivia and I clambered into the swan and Claudia and the boys in the other, and we cheerfully paddled around the lake for a half-hour.  The most exciting part came when we tried to follow the other boat (which was just a normal paddleboat) under a low bridge and found out that the head of the swan was too tall to allow this - we almost got stuck until Claudia suggested "lean forward" and the shift in weight tipped the boat forward so that the head was lower.  (Who's the engineer, here?)  The rest of the hunt involved dashing around Munich on the sophisticated U-Bahn and S-Bahn network to various sights in the city to take pictures and gather souvenirs.  Unfortunately we didn't make it to the ice cream shop in time, but we had a blast so it didn't really matter to us.

We got back to the Wohnheim at about 6:30, and I promptly made myself a scrumptious supper of tortellini before hopping on Skype to talk to my sister Emily for her birthday (this is the second year in a row that I have been overseas on her birthday).  Before I knew it, the clock read 11pm and I was more than ready for bed, especially since the next day marked the first day of classes.