Hey all,
It's been a little while since I've written. It took me a month after I moved into the apartment to get my things, and a few more weeks beyond that to get internet. The German sense of customer service is very frustrating. It used to be that you call Comcast and they tell you early morning, late morning, etc. Germans just say "all day." I've also kept myself busy with school, two classes for a Master's program (Economic Development and the Making of American Foreign Policy) and an undergraduate class on African Politics and Government, all interesting, but they kept me way busy with reading and writing. The last class was last weekend, for a little while, although I did go ahead and sign up for the basic level of Conversational German they hold on base, it starts Monday and is Mon and Wed for about six weeks. I need to learn the language here, it will make functioning much easier.
I got my car, a neat little MINI Cooper Clubman. I made a short road trip to the Ritter Sport chocolate factory, about 20 minutes south of here. They have a museum and a store. I took a picture of the factory, above, not sure what to expect with a chocolate factory, no big cranes, no trains waiting to transport the finished candy across the continent. The store was interesting, the prices were okay, depending on the exchange rate when compared to the prices on base.
I've got a couple pictures of the car below. The top one is of my parking space in the underground garage here at the apartment. It is the one on ground level. The rack above it rides down and holds two cars. There are four or five of these racks in the garage. I guess it just shows the value of real estate here. I'll have to get a picture of parking on the street, it is insane, especially how they park in the corners, I'll be fortunate if I make it through my time here and have no incident at the corner. Add to that that it is an uncontrolled intersection, so the odd German rules on right-of-way apply. More on that later. The bottom picture is from the MINI website. I haven't had the chance to take a picture of the car when it isn't crowded by other cars, or in the dark or rain. The car looks the same, no roof rack (probably wouldn't fit in the parking spot) and different rims. One other thing, I had to replace the 12" antenna with a 2", otherwise I would have been removing the antenna every time I parked.
One final note, I mentioned dark and rain. It's been exceptionally cool here and we are lucky to be in the 50's during the day. Europe did the whole "fall back" a week ahead of the states. I was looking up the sunrise and sunset here. Stuttgart is about three degrees further north than Minneapolis/St. Paul, so come Dec 21, we will have about 30 minutes less daylight. I was a bit bummed to learn this information, knowing how desperately short the days are back in MN. I do take comfort in how much longer the days will be come June!!
That's about it for now, hopefully I can get a bit more regular with the posts again. I still have some unpacking to do, and that also includes needing to get to Ikea to buy some wardrobes for the closet.
Cheers, Evan
