What a week! My mom has been here since the 9th, so I've been busy hanging out and traveling with her. I also still don't have internet in my room, so this past week my internet access was limited to when I was on campus or at the hotel with my mom. She left to go back this morning, but we had quite the busy week.
On Tuesday night (April 8th), I had an interesting experience. I was out with Kalle and we were watching the end of a big soccer match through the window of a bar. We were just up the street from the Hbf. As we were watching the game, an older woman at the payphone started screaming in the phone. She was clearly intoxicated, as well as very angry. I couldn't really understand any of it, so Kalle informed me that she was saying, "You fucking DDR cunts, you fucking left me there!" Excuse the vulgarity, but that's exactly what she was yelling. She just kept going on and on about it. Once she hung up the phone, she walked past us and a few others and kept screaming. Kalle thought it was pretty funny, I was mostly just shocked. If you don't know what the DDR is, it's the "Deutsche Demokratische Republik," or what we anglophones would have called the GDR (German Democratic Republic) when Germany was split. The DDR is also known as East Germany. History in action, folks.
My mom arrived Wednesday morning. She arrived at the hotel around 10am, and I went over to see her before class. After class was over, I went back to the hotel. We had a nice dinner at a cute local place. I had to leave her early because I had to go to the internet genies in my basement to try and finally get internet. I made it back to my dorm by 8, and the other international kids were already waiting. We enjoyed chatting while we anticipated being reconnected to the world again. They opened their doors at 8:30, and the process began. When it was finally my turn, I signed the appropriate papers and had to buy an Ethernet cable. They were having trouble getting my computer to do what they wanted to do, so they handed me over to the guy who apparently knew everything about computers. Long story short, my computer is really messed up (my Dad has renamed my laptop the "Craptop"). Apparently, there is an error occurring on my computer every single second that it is on, even if I am doing nothing. When we were looking at it, 21,000 errors had occurred. Apparently this is also related to my battery. I was under the impression that the battery on my computer wasn't working well because my laptop is old. My computer uses so much battery to do nothing, so the battery doesn't last long. Though this seems like it is not related to my internet problem, just wait. I have a security system on my computer and therefore use that firewall. They need to disable the firewall of the security system so that I can use their firewall. However, my computer won't allow them to open the program. In order to disable the firewall on my computer, they have to re-install my computer. To do that, I need an external hard drive to save all my data. Obviously, an external hard drive was not on my packing list. If I were to go and buy one at a German appliance store, it may not work once I get back to the States. The computer guy advised me to go buy one on base. I'm supposed to do that tonight with Joe. I'll go back to the internet genies tonight and see if they can get my computer working. I never knew it would be so complicated to get internet in this day and age!
On Thursday, I met my mom at the hotel in the morning again. We had breakfast and then I went to class. After class we took the bus over to Wiesbaden where we met up with Joe. He showed us around some of the city and then we went to dinner. Once we got back to the hotel, we hung out for a little until I left to meet some friends at a bar.
Friday is when our weekend adventure began. We took the train over to Frankfurt where we were to begin our Rhein River tour. In a group of about 20, there were several nationalities represented. There were several Americans, Canadians, Brazilians, and Iraqis. We first drove out to Rüdesheim. We took a lift down from the top of a mountain to the Rhine. The bus then came and picked us up and took us to Assmannshausen, where we had lunch at a local place. After lunch, we got on a boat to do a tour of the castles along the Rhine. We must have seen 15 different castles rich in history with some dating back to the 900s. At one point, Mom said, "That's not a very big castle." Some of the people in our group were not very interested in the history, and instead chose to talk loudly the entire time we were on the boat. Mom and I weren't happy about this, as we were trying to listen to the history. I guess I just don't understand why you would pay to go on a tour and then pay it no attention. Despite this, we enjoyed the sights. We were on the boat for about an hour and a half and ended somewhere up around Saint Goar. After the boat tour, we went to a wine tasting at the same place we had lunch. We tried four different kinds of wine, my favorite being the Eiswein, a specialty of Germany. Once this ended, they put us back on the bus and we headed back to Frankfurt. We ended up getting off the bus at the Frankfurt airport, where we jumped on a train back to Mainz. For dinner, we tried to find a local place that the hotel had recommended. It was getting late and we couldn't find the restaurant, so we opted to just try a Bratwurst place. It ended up being quite gross. After dinner we went back to the hotel and then I went home. We went to bed early, as the rest of our weekend adventure was to begin on Saturday.
I'm still not yet used to people speaking to me in German. If someone randomly speaks to me, like a waiter or someone on the bus, I'm still expecting it to be in English. Due to this, I always have to ask them to repeat them selves. I'm hoping this will change soon.
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