Week one and Grillen

The first week of classes is now over. Strange, I know... but somehow, my schedule ended up only having classes Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Day one of classes began 9am on Monday with my German Language course at JYM (the program I'm with). It's your typical German language course - we'll becovering everything from vocabulary, to grammar, to writing, to speaking, to colloquialisms, etc. All in all, it's a pretty good course. Not too many people (only about 15 I think) and it's definitely a good group. Our professor is a German professor from LMU so that is definitely helpful!

After a couple hours off, I return back to JYM for the German Literature course, where we'll cover some of the great (usually shorter) works of German authors in the 19th/20th Century - Kafka, Mann, Borchert, Brecht, Kracht, Schlink, Handke, Bernhard, Schulze. The professor is slightly boring, but I think once we begin discussions, things should liven up.

After 2.5 hours of literature, I have to bike over to LMU, for my finall class of the day - European Integration with Werner Weidenfeld as the professor. He might not be that big of a name, but he's one of those inside people that's had a huge impact on German politics. From 1987-1999 he served as the coordinator for German and American relations for the German national government and he often advised both previous Chancellors of German and continues to advise the current Chancellor, Angela Merkel. I heard about the course and figured I had to take advantage of the opportunity to hear about such a complicated, interesting, political subject from someone who knows it firsthand so well!

Tuesday, I tried out a course on the History of the German Language... I definitely will not be signing up for this class to get a grade, but I may stop back in occaisionally to listen in. Just with German not being my mother language, fully understanding all the tiny details and evolution of the language, it's pretty difficult! So I will instead be taking up a class on National Socialism and Munich, since it's also on Tuesday and should be pretty interesting.

Wednesday, I have my German language class in the morning again, but in the afternoon, I have an Art in Munich course, which is an art history course, but focusing specifically on what's here in Munich. So every day we will be going out to one of the museums (Alte/Neue Pinakothek, Glypothek, Pinakothek der Moderne, etc.). We started off at the Glypothek, which is a collection of nothing but ancient Greek sculptures, etc.! So that was pretty cool. The teacher is a young doctoral student, so she's good a keeping it interesting for us and is actually extraordinarily knowledgeable and can explain things very well!

So those are my courses. Outside of my courses, it's been a blast as well. On Monday, I experienced the German phenomenon of "grillen" (grilling). The Germans love to grill. If you're in the StudentenStadt around dinner time and it's a nice day outside, you can see all the students out in the grassy/park area with grills, bratwurst, maybe some veggies, and beer. When I say they love grilling, I mean we were out there at 6:15 and grilled until about 8:15 (we had a large group - probably about 15 people total, about half Germans, half Americans), at which point, we continued to stay out there, standing around talking, or kicking a soccer ball around, or whatever. Just hanging out. At about 10:45 I had to leave to go back to talk with my parents on Skype, but I truly understood now the German concept of grillen. It was actually very fun - just sitting around, grilling, talking, drinking, eating, as the sun slowly faded down into the horizon and the cool night air gently drifted in. It was so wonderful I kind of wish I had my camera with me. But it was also so wonderful, I'm kind of glad I didn't. :)


bis später!