I'm going to make a post that spans more than one day since Germany is that boring and heeeeerrreeee we go!
When we first arrived in Germany, it struck me as a very advanced place. Take this smoke station for example.
My mom's cousin, Roman, picked us up from the airport. The first thing I noticed is that everything was so clean and well organized. It's like a country run by perfectionist. Being a perfectionist myself I really appreciated the attention to detail but only got one good photo to demonstrate this. Look at how perfectly designed this little building at the airport is. So simple, so crisp.
We got on the autobahn and everybody was going really fast and naturally this type of thing excites me. Unfortunately after about 3 minutes we got stuck in traffic. We tried waiting it but gave up after 20 minutes and got off the freeway to have dinner. Found a pretty traditional German restaurant hidden on the second floor of some old building. Don't have a picture of the building but I did take a picture of our food.
When we finally got to Schwenningen, it was late so we went to sleep without a drop of German beer. Atleast we had a good laugh about the name of the town though.
The next day we had a fair share of good German beer but let me start with the morning. We strolled down the street to the university a couple blocks away. (Everything in Schwenningen is a couple blocks away.) We checked out the tiny campus and geeked out on the internet for a hot minute. Once I caught up on my life on the world wide web, I went down to the courtyard to chat with some of the students. Most of them spoke English well and were friendly enough but something about them struck me as strange. In Italy, strangers would help keep the conversation going. In Germany, it was a one man job as if they don't know how to talk to strangers. They seemed friendly enough at first but then I realized it was just good manners. I guess people only meet each other through association here and that was a major shortcoming for me. When their lunch break was over I laced up my skates and warmed up a bit. I was surprised and very pleased to find out that I could still jump. I know some of you reading may think otherwise but I absolutely hate spectators. If you're going to watch me as if I'm a street entertainer, you better pay me some money or atleast make with a conversation. There were only a couple people left in the courtyard but I had already tried chatting with them and decided to skate anyways. Of course, they just came to spectate without paying me any money or chattng with me. I think that if you are that curious, say something, don't just stand there making me nervous. I think the best chat I had was with a student named Martin near the end of the day when I got a hang of German culture a little. I mention him because by coincidence I ran into him later.
I met my parents, Roman, and some of his friends at Roman's apartment at about 4. His landlord brings him a bottle of Russian champagne, a pack of cigarettes, and two foldable chairs. It was perfect timing because we had just ran out of places to seat people. It wasn't so perfect timing for the champagne because it cause us to convince Roman to skip German class for the occasion of his birthday. After the bottle was done, Mike, a friend of Roman's, offered to introduce me to some of his friends whose apartment he was planning on using to do his laundry. This is where I meet Martin again. When Mike and I get to his friend's apartment, one of his friends turns out to be Martin's girlfriend and he's on the way to pick her up. He gets there and doesn't even give me a hi. This makes me wonder about German personal attitudes in general.
A few more errands and we meet my family at a beer garden. We enjoy a variety of beers and a German version of pizza which is nothing like Italian pizza but still fantastic.
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