Europe – Page 187

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA — University of Tuebingen

Hello all! My name is Katharine Wilson and welcome to my first blog! I’ll be spending the next year studying abroad at the University of Tuebingen in Tuebingen, Germany. I chose this program because of it’s language immersion, as well as the fact that I get to spend a whole 10 months abroad! Hope you like the post!

This morning, like every morning, I decide to check my email on my phone. The only message that appears is “inbox storage full, please delete messages to make room.”

Of course.

I’ve always been anal retentive about keeping my inbox clean. I’ll keep the things I absolutely need, but I’m always happiest when my main inbox shows a beautiful, clean “0 messages.”

What the heck is going on here?

Let’s start from the beginning. My name is Katharine and I’m a current student at the University of Denver majoring in English Literary Studies and German. And starting this September, I am going to live and go to school in Tuebingen, Germany for at least the 10 months until I graduate. Woohoo!

How did this happen? I’ll explain: DU is number one in the nation for study abroad participation, and going abroad the first quarter of one’s junior year is a tried and true DU tradition. But I wanted to take it a step further. I’ve been studying German since I was 14, taking it every year in high school and every semester/quarter at two different universities for the past four years. Fun times! I decided upon my arrival at DU to become a German major, and it was one of the best decisions I could have made! The program is pretty great– fun professors, interesting courses and small enough participation that I met almost every other German major in the school, and let me tell you, they are wonderful people! I’ve been confident and happy in my decision to study German since my first class 🙂

When my junior year rolled around, there was no question I wanted to study abroad in a German-speaking country, and my preference was Germany itself. DU had several different programs in Germany, but I wanted something immersive, where I could continue to study literature while learning about German language and culture as deeply as possible. The University of Tuebingen exchange ended up being my goal: one full academic year abroad in Tuebingen, with the ability to take classes primarily taught in German, all while learning and living with mostly native students. Another (slightly terrifying) plus: only one student from DU was sent on any given year, so I would enter Europe with a clean slate, knowing almost no one on the entire continent!

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating when I say I am happy and confident in my course of study. I’m happy, confident, terrified, and incredibly anxious. But I love every second of it!

This is definitely the craziest thing I’ve done in my life, and once I got a tattoo with no one holding my hand! See, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve lived a slightly sheltered life. Before starting college, I lived in the same bedroom of the same house for my entire life. Aurora, Colorado (a suburb of Denver) was my home for all 18 years leading up to college. And then I moved a grand total of 20 minutes away to go to DU, where I stayed with the same roommate for two years. I’ve only left the United States once: in my Sophomore year of high school, my orchestra class went to London for 5 days.

Okay, maybe I’m slightly ashamed.

Recently, I’ve had a crazy strong desire to branch farther away from all the stuff I’ve relied on so long: Colorado, my family, my high school, and everything else about my relatively stable (read: boring) life.

Coming to college was the first step in my big transition: I got two piercings and got my first tattoo; I had my first serious boyfriend; I came out to my parents as pansexual. Not all of the things I’ve done ended up for the best, but it has definitely been a crazy ride when compared to high school. And on top of all of this, 7 months ago I was diagnosed with Persistent Depressive Disorder, which has led to its fair share of life changes. Needless to say, my time at DU has, for better or worse, been really interesting!

But despite this, I’m still craving change, and I couldn’t think of a bigger one than moving an ocean away from everything I’ve ever known! That’s not to say I’m not utterly terrified (scenes of being lost in German train stations or suddenly forgetting every German word I know frequently feature in my nightmares) but I’ve been trying my best not to let fear get the better of me.

So, back to the emails. My inbox currently contains the following: my application instructions for direct enrollment in University of Tuebingen, DU’s study abroad handbook, information on billing, my visa requirements, my official admission letter from Tuebingen, a long string of emails with me trying to enroll in, register, and pay for a month-long orientation course, my flight confirmation, a time change to the flight confirmation, my rent contract for my student apartment, an exchange between me and the head of the German department where I’m trying to obtain a letter stating my language abilities, and a letter to my coordinator trying to get a copy of a payment form (from another email I had mistakenly deleted). Phew!

Packing up and going to study in a foreign country for a year takes a lot of work, but it has slowly been coming together since my acceptance in February. All I need is to pay the first month’s rent on my apartment, open a German bank account, obtain the abovementioned letter from DU’s German Department, send in the registration materials for my orientation course, pay for said orientation course, then pack my stuff and go! Actually, I thought that list was going to be a lot shorter when I began writing it…

And of course, there are other, smaller concerns. I need to seriously downsize, because I can only bring so much stuff on the plane with me. I need to buy a new purse and backpack suitable for traveling. I need to replace my old, slow-as-molasses computer. I need to brush up on my knowledge of German (and American) politics. And a whole host of other things.

So that’s where I’m at right now! Surrounded by to-do lists and mounds of papers in German I can only half-understand, I’m just trying to live in the moment and enjoy what will be my last few months in America until next July or August!

Wish me luck?

Katharine Wilson is currently studying English and German at the University of Denver. On an exchange year in Germany, she is exploring German language and culture as one of Universität Tübingen’s resident stupid Americans. Sie versteht nur Bahnhof.

Hello Internet? I don’t know, introductions are tricky. My name is Kerry and I’m a junior studying English and Spanish. The past month I was studying Spanish and Iberian Culture with a DU program in Santander, Spain. The program is now over and I am spending a little time traveling until September 1st. From then until December, I am participating in the ISA Hispanic Studies and Electives program in Sevilla, Spain. I chose to study abroad in Spain because I want to learn Spanish and experience a little European future and oh boy has Spain delivered. After only one month I can feel my Spanish improving emensily. The post below was written two weeks into my Santander program, so let’s all hop in our time machines and get to work.

English and Spanish at DU. I have been studying abroad in Spain for about a month (!!!!!!) already and I am head over heals in love. The past month I did a program with DU Spanish professors and students in Santander, Spain taking two classes in one month. Then, starting September 1st, I am participating in and ISA Hispanic Studies and Electives program in Sevilla, Spain. I wanted to study abroad in Spain to learn Spanish and to experience a bit of European culture and oh boy has Spain delivered. I can hear myself speaking Spanish with more confidence and fluidity. The blog post below was actually written when I was about 2 weeks into my program with Santander. So let’s hop in our time machines go back to the future¡¡¡¡

I have always been really bad at anticipating my emotions. Before a big event or a change in my life, I am incapable of really anticipate how that change will make me feel. For instance, when leaving school for the summer or for our long December break, I never really completely comprehend how much I am going to miss my friends. I see my friends crying and hugging each other so tightly it must hurt. I do hug my friends tight and say goodbye, but I never cry, or really feel much of anything. But then I leave and I find myself thinking about them at the most nonsensical times and my stomach twists and only then, I feel like crying. For instance right now, I am thinking of my excellent friend Tiffany. She is ridiculous in the most marvelous and fabulous of ways, and she was the one who encouraged me to tryout to be a DU blogger. I wouldn’t be “here” without her. And.. I’m crying. Send help Tiff.

Point is, I have never been good at foreseeing my emotions.

I’ve been in Spain now for a full week and, perhaps inevitably, I feel nothing like I thought I might. Honestly, I thought it would be weirder. I thought I would miss home and DU more. I thought it would be odd to live with a stranger in a home stay program and I thought I would be in a constant state of fear. I thought all of this on the way to the airport. I felt nothing but small waves of excitement the months of June and July and then, on the way to the airport, all my nerves hit me at once. My poor parents where trying to talk to me, the last in-person conversation for five months, and I shut down. Sorry Mom and Dad, I didn’t mean to.

But holy-guacamole I am having so much fun. (also like, guacamole. amirite?) The program I am a part of in Santander is a very work-intensive program. Last week, we had one day to explore the city, 7-8 hours of one class in 2 days and then a full day excursion. woof. These next 2 and ½ weeks are only going to get harder, and I even have a mid-term on Wednesday. Obviously, I am learning a lot. Outside of the many hours inside studying, my time here is invaluable (My time studying is also very important, the other stuff is just more fun).

One of the first notable experiences happened on Friday: the whole class went to this replica of a Celtic village. The Celtic people are a group of people indigenous to the Iberian Peninsula, and then the Roman’s came and conquered as Roman’s do (did). If you’ve seen the movie “Gladiator,” it’s more or less that. (Learned that shit in class last week). Before the excursion, we were told to dress “comfortably.” To us, that meant walking shoes, jeans or shorts, and some sort of shirt—casual, comfy, cute. Upon arrival, we were presented with a sizable hill. It was not that long of a walk up, however the plethora of cow mierda (google it) made the walk a little less enjoyable to say the least. Then, we met Raúl: straight up the smelliest man alive. He showed us how to build a house out of mud like the Celtics did—with water, dirt, and sticks

Then, he told us we were to help repair some damages the snow had caused in one of the houses. He said this is very fast Spanish, so there was a moment when we were all just looking at each other. “He didn’t just say.. no I must have heard wrong.. We’re doing what?” Nobody had any idea that we were going to have to basically roll around in the mud and build a house, and were thusly not dressed appropriately. We immediately bonded over the shared distaste for manual labor, in nice(ish) clothes, in the rain (it was raining). One hombre in my group was wearing new white vans–they were pink at the end of the day; he was so salty about it, but we all just laughed and laughed (parents: salty=angry, mad, bitter). Throughout the day and on the walk back in nice, wet cow mierda, I laughed harder than I had all summer. I realized then, the phenomenal group of people I had been thrown together with would make any walk through cow poop fun. (Mierda is Spanish for shit if you hadn’t caught on or googled that yet.)

Not to get too broad and preachy, but I think that that is a big part of being abroad. You can’t always know what you are going to do or how it is going to make you feel. When you are in a new circumstance, knowing how you will feel coming out of it is nearly impossible. You don’t know that you are only going to learn the Spanish word for shit by walking through it for ½ hour. You don’t know a smelly Spanish man named Raúl is going to, without warning, smear a bunch of mud all over your face for no reason. You don’t know not to wear your favorite, fancy pants to a Celtic village where all of your effort will be put into not ruining them. And you also cannot explain or control your reaction. But, sometimes with the right group of people, you can have a fond memory of cow poop. Study abroad you sneaky bastard you—thank you.

-Kerry Nelson

DU Sophomore

Me in my favorite fancy pants showing the celtic people, and the people of the world, what Fashion really is.

Category: Europe

Vorstellung // Introduction

A Pleasant Memory of Cow Poop