"Wer nicht vorwärts kommt, kommt rückwärts."

    Saturday was a busy day. Clare and I went to watch a soccer game in the afternoon at a local park, which was a part of town that I had never been before. There was a really cool playground next to the soccer field. I like discovering new parts of the city. After the game, we walked around for an hour or so. There was a wine festival along the river this weekend, called "Mainzer Weintage," so we walked through it. We then made our way to the grocery store, stopping at a few places along the way. After I went home and ate something, I met up again with Clare and Niall at the Hbf. We walked down to the river where the wine festival was taking place. Clare has a tandem language partner named Svenja, another student at JGU, and we met here there as well as three of her friends. The seven of us drank some wine and chatted for a couple of hours. We walked around the festival a little as well, stopping to get some food. Around 10pm, Clare, Niall, and I left. I had been invited to a party on campus, so we headed there. The party was on the roof of one of the dorms, and I'd never been there. From 14 stories up we could see the skyline of Mainz. We didn't know many people there and it was cold outside, so we left after a mere 30 minutes. It was only 12 and I wasn't ready to go home, so I called Matt and met up with him at schonschön. He was with a friend he met in Italy, as well as five of her friends. After the club, we headed to a pub near the Hbf. We stayed until 2am when the pub closed. I was tired and not feeling well, so my German was pretty terrible. I guess I can just be glad that I spoke German that day. 

    Sunday was as boring as usual. I spent most of the day doing some homework. I didn't have much to do, but I managed to drag it out for most of the day like the procrastinator I am. In the late afternoon, I was bored so I went for a walk along the river, as I tend to do on Sundays. 

    Monday came too quickly, as it always does. I had a relaxing morning. Class isn't until 4:15pm, so I can just kind of lay around and do any last minute homework. The class is on Schiller's "Die Jungfrau von Orleans," so it's difficult. I have to read, re-read, and then re-read the text a third time to understand only two-thirds of it.  I'm up for the challenge though. After class, I went to do some grocery shopping. I also needed some allergy medicine, so I had my first Apotheke experience. An Apotheke is a drug store, except it's not like CVS, because they actually only sell medicine. The workers are also very knowledgeable and helpful. Anyways, I bought some allergy medicine and had a conversation with the guy about when to take the medicine and what not. It was cool. 

     Tuesdays are busier for me. I have my Translation course (1.5 hours) and my language course (2.5 hours) with a 30 minute break in between. Today we translated the first text. This course is in the English Department and therefore should be taught in English, but the professor mostly speaks German. At one point, we were translating a sentence and I raised my hand and suggested the word "rarely." He informed me that I was wrong and that English speakers wouldn't say it.... I wanted to slap him. Anyways, when I said this aloud, I could feel people looking at me. The two girls next to me then asked me (in German) if English is my mother tongue. We had a short conversation about how the professor isn't the greatest. It's easy to make friends by bonding over a bad professor. During my language course, I got my certificate for my intensive language course that I took that week and a half before classes started. The certificate stated my grade, and I got a 1! The German grading score is different. They have 1-7, 1 being the highest. I also got a 1,0, which is 96-100%. How awesome is that! It definitely made my day to know that the awfulness of the course was worth such a good grade. Unfortunately, when my credit transfers back to MSU, I only will get a grade of pass/fail. After class, I met Marcella and Matt at the Hbf and we went for ice cream. I got my very first Spaghettieis! For those of you who don't know what this is, it's a German delicacy. It's essentially ice cream that looks like spaghetti. The "noodles" are vanilla ice cream and the "sauce" is either made of raspberry or strawberry, but I got chocolate sauce instead. It's also served over whipped cream. It was delicious! After ice cream, I had some last minute shopping to do before I headed home. As I was walking to a store, I was passing by this guy when he looked at me and said, "schöne Augen," which means, "beautiful eyes." While I am aware that I have rather unique eyeballs, I've never had a stranger say it on the street, especially from 7 feet away. Another one to add to the books.

The chocolate sauce was a bit much, but you can still see the "noodles" and the white chocolate as "parmesan cheese."

Matt's ice cream. These are ice cream "potatoes." Each "potato" was a different kind of ice cream. They're rolled in crushed almonds, with white chocolate shavings and chocolate sauce on top, all sitting on a bed of whipped cream. There's some other stuff in there too but I'm not sure.