Monday, May 17

first day of class. woke up at 5am. didn't know there was internet in my room, so i basically just sat there for an hour. finally got myself ready and headed off to my bus stop. carol and i met up at the hauptbahnhof at 8:30 and found the bus to the university buuuuuuuuut that literally took an hour. so we were half an hour late for our first class. luckily, cothran was feeling kind that day so we did not have to memorize a poem for being late. we got our books, went over the syllabus and schedules, and talked about german government or something. after class ended at 12:30, we met our tutors and went to get lunch and cell phones. acquisition of the cell phones was quite an ordeal. i could not for the life of me figure out how to get internet on my blackberry with a german simcard. turns out it is nearly impossible. but then we had a couple hours to kill before our welcome dinner, so a group of us decided to go get some one euro beers and sit on the rhein and drink. i mean after all, we are in germany. but of course since i don't like beer, i got a redbull and a flask of vodka. so we sat on the steps of the rhein for a little bit, but then it started raining so we went under the schlossturm and drank on those steps. after about an hour and a half, cothran comes walking up to us and is apparently mad at us for drinking in public because it "gives a bad impression". whatever. so she walked away and let us finish our beers (luckily i had hidden my vodka) and then showed us some boring stuff in the square where we had been happily sitting. dinner was good, i ordered wienerschnitzel and spargel mit hollandaise. not a huge fan of the spargel, but i had to try it since it is a dusseldorf specialty. and of course i had wine. after dinner, we all went home because it was rainy and we were very tired.