Exchange Semester to Nuremberg 2011

July is my last month here. I spent the first 2 weeks doing exams on various subjects from renewable energy (easier) to Concrete Design (much harder). It was a decent exam period but not for study. I did a lot of swimming at the local pool and found a million new ways to distract myself from exams.

As soon as that boringness was over, I packed my things and went to Prague. Beautiful city, home of Absynth (the liquor under which Van Gogh cut off his own ear), home of crafty waiters who squeeze every last penny from the unwitting tourists and home of Franz Kafka.

 A little challenge: What are the three styles/periods of architecture displayed above. Hint: #2 in the top right-hand corner isn't one of the primary architectural epochs so extra points for a correct answer.

After years of delaying, I finally got up the courage to do a self-supported bike tour. As most of you would agree, the Bavarian countryside was therefore a nice place to begin. So I borrowed a pretty awesome tent and portable cooker from Berti in my student house (thanks mate), packed my sleeping bag, a kg of potatos, onion, garlic, rice and some lentils and went on my way:


As luck would have it, the weather on launch day was remarkably cheery and the bike path along the Pegnitz river hilly but pristine. This of course set me up for a big let down in the next days, but I enjoyed while I could and went swimming in a lake:

That night it rained cats, dogs and I'm pretty sure a few cows. I was accordingly soaked, not helped by my lazy tent set-up skills. It eventually got better though. On Day 2, I was pushing the whole day to make it to Bayreuth through the hills. On Day 3, I arrived onto the Main River, one of the major rivers in Germany and had a nice time going through all the small villages nestling this majestic river:

The experience of riding through huge grasslands, through forests and on desolate country roads was well worth the effort of pushing up the hills and battling the rain. What really got to me about bicycle touring was the peace of setting up camp at night in a quiet little corner, putting the espresso pot on the cooker, stretching out the tent and admiring your little temporary corner of land, which will be home for those few hours:



On the last night, I camped behind the sheds at a soccer oval. I used some abandoned concrete tank (left) as my lunch table and admired the trains going by at 200kph on the track nearby. It was raining on the last night as well, but learning my lesson from my first night, I put in all the tent pegs and stretched everying out tight so no water could collect on the sides. Wadayano! I woke up dry as a bone and cycled happily onwards to my destination city Lichtenfels. I was hoping to get to Leipzig in the 4 days but underestimated the hilly countryside.

So as they say, all good things come to an end and so this blog post is gonna be my last. Next week I'll see you guys at uni or elsewhere and we'll catch up on all the interesting things I've missed in the fashion capital. Can't wait to be home!


Recently read books
Nick Thornby - About a Boy
Christopher Hitchens - Hitch 22

Subject Marks

Computergestützte Strömungsmechanik(Fluid Mechanics)		1,7
Erneuerbare Energie(Renewable Energy)		1,7
Kulturelle Bildung(Cultural Education)		2,3
Recycling und Altlasten(Recycling and Waste)		1,7
Sprachkompetenz und Sprachbewusstsein mit Übungen(Language Competence)		3,0
Stahlbetonbau 3(Reinforced Concrete)		3,3
Straßenverkehrswesen / Schienenverkehrswesen(Road and Rail Design)		3,0

This month I've been cruising like Thorpie through the various events and challenges served onto my plate. Now I've got a little bit of pain with exams, but i've managed to fit in a few nice weekends and stuff and will share a few pictures as well:

Well first the group of exchange students went to visit some castles in southern bavaria. The most famous, and supposedly an inspiration for the sleeping beauty castle was Neuschwanstein (right). The castle is a massive and super luxurious thing with some of the coolest interior decoration i've ever witnessed. It was built by King Ludwig II who ended up running up a hell of a debt. He had namely a pretty castle addiction and went around building heaps of these things, most of them not even finished cause they were just way too grand and ambitious.


That weekend we also went to a typical bavarian restaurants, they love their beer so much they even made a beer liquor served warm, was pretty tasty. There was dancing and heaps of chants that I didn't know. It was a good weekend overall.




Paul visited me as well, that was nice of him. We had a good time for the one and a half days he was around. I showed him the german beer sorts. We also were gobsmacked by the difference in prices for groceries between Germany and Australia. And I'm not just talking about bananas which would be more economical grown on the moon than in oz. I'm talking about everything: Tomatoes 0.99EUR/kg, Potatoes 1.99EUR/2.5kg, Can Kidney Beans 0.29EUR, Blueberries 1.49EUR/200g. The beer is also pretty cheap and I showed him the typical Weizenbier (or Wheat beer) that Paul's holding in the photo below. It's always served in those tall pint glasses (no such thing as a pot here), and foams up at the top heaps when first poured. Quite good actually:

We went to the Documentation Centre which is a museum of nazi history. This was good. Here's a picture of europe and all the concentration camps spread all over. The black ones are extermination camps, the other ones are labour camps:

It's upside down, but you can see that Germany only really had the labour camps, most of the extermination camps being located in the occupied eastern european countries That big grey part of the map (Grossdeutsches Reich) was the land they occupied during the war. As you probably know, germany is only a fraction of that size now.

So time to sum it up. Things have been going good here. I'm done with exams in a week and a half. I've been swimming heaps -- motivated by Ian Thorpe's return to the sport and wishing I could have a body like his:

Actually, mine's better ;).

Books read in last month:
High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
Lord of the flies - William Golding
Thinks... - David Lodge
Kangaroo - D.H. Lawrence

Things lost on exchange:
Rain jacket
Umbrella
Shirt
USB Stick (not lost but put through the wash)
50 euros
some of my stomach content ... yes that was your fault vodka red bull :(

see everyone soon. only 4 weeks to go.

I've been itching for a while to meet an Australian. Yes, true there's not many aussies here in nuremberg, but i was lucky to meet Katrina in a nearby city Erlangen and we had a nice day catching up.

german latte

We had a nice talk about aussie politics and the differences between a latte in germany and australia. There is a huge difference, that namely being a kilogram of foam at the top. yeah weird ha! no one seems to understand it here. by the time i'm through with the foam, my throat is too bubbled up to even taste the coffee. germans!!! It was cool to catch up with an aussie, she also used to live in fitzroy and gave me some tips about moving out which is on the agenda as my youth allowance is kicking in... can't wait ! :)

I was in Berlin again and now with my good friend Dries. It was wonderful! Really a city that is open to different people, different cultures. some pics:






Unfortunately not in the photos is my friend and former german tutor Anne. It was great catching up with her as well! we rode these really cool electra cruiser bikes around berlin, all the cool suburbs like Friedrichshain and Prenzlauer Berg. We went to a gay bar! Was nice had a mochito cocktail for the first time.

There were also protests about nuclear power on the brandenburger tor of all places. That was cool! The next day the government announced to close all its nuclear power plants by 2023. Still a long time but hey they've reached the stage that the only solution to nuclear energy is no nuclear energy. just don't understand people who are thinking about starting it up in Australia when every other country is trying to get the heck away from it!:

Every day Nuclear is one day too much!

So it's only 7 weeks left but I'm happy and making the most of the last time here. This week I'm cooking for the whole floor in our student house (~20 people). Every week two different people cook for everybody else and what me and Benni have decided on was:

• Basmati Rice
• Side of Dal (modelled on wholefoods dal)
• Side of Kidney Bean Curry
• Salad Olivie (russian potato salad with pickles, carrots, mayonnaise and normally meat but not on my watch)
• Oreo Pudding

Here was my first attempt at making Dal:

Mmmm... appetising. No actually it's supposed to be a little more fluid spices need a rethink, but this was just a small batch for myself, i'm making it tomoz again and i'll make sure to go easy on the salt shaker and maybe a bit more coconut milk. Cooking is hard man, jesus christ sure glad i'm a vegetarian, would hate to have to learn all the meat recipes.

So yeah that's a little cross section of my life at the moment. I'm having a really great time and having heaps of new experiences. The most interesting ones are above. The other more mundane things i won't bother you with (you know stuff like orgies, drug raves, pimping in amsterdam, who wants to here about that !!!)

Almost forgot - I went to a rockabilly gig recently. was great we even stood up and danced to the old covers of johnny cash, tainted love, and sexual healing.

see you (everyone) soon

Hey,

Cultural differences are one of those things that are hard to pinpoint but I've got a brilliant one here... Aussie's dress way more hip than Germans. I don't pretend to be the hippest dresser, but boy I miss seeing guys in tight jeans or girls in colourful skirts and fancy stockings. Here I feel that I'm dressed normally for young guys,, and frankly if I'm the norm then there's a problem somewhere!!!

Berlin was an exception though and it's famed progressive and alternative culture didn't dissappoint in fashion sense:



I miss Australia! It's not hard to spot the signs. Before my departure I couldn't NOT talk about germany, now I'm listening to MTR or 774 ABC Melbourne to hear the latest budget commentary, I've bought cds from The Waifs and Missy Higgins and outside my room hangs an Australian flag. I've always thought that Australia was a great country but sometimes you need a little distance to really remind you of that fact.

Anyway, not to dwell. I did go to Amsterdam. It was the weekend of the royal wedding, and Amsterdam was celebrating its yearly "Queens Day" celebration. This is not, as I had thought, a day for Queen Elizabeth rather for dutch Queen Beatrix. There was a royal amount of drinking!

I did get to stop by the Anne Frank Museum. Anne Frank, for those unaware, was a girl with jewish heritage that hid from the nazis in a secret anex in an Amsterdam house (below). She wrote consistently and very eloquently through her 2 years couped in the small space located above a factory. The hideout was unfortunately betrayed by a neighbour in 1944. She was sent to Auschwitz and only avoided direct death in gas chambers because she had just reached 15. At that time all children sent to Auschwitz 14 or younger were gassed. She succumbed to Typhus though and died while in captivity

tool of trade when in a bush

New CD's:
The Waifs - sundirtwater
Missy Higgins - Sound of White
The Smiths - Meat is Murder (... mmm fitting)

Things I'm gonna cook this week:
Borsch (russian soup)
Salad Olivie (russian potato salad)
Ginger Beer (used to drink it heaps at wholefoods, i can't find it anywhere here so i think i'll make my own)

:):):):):):):):):):)

Hey,

There's heaps to report on. Europe is getting warmer and warmer. That means... picnic!
So that's me on the Wöhrder Wiese near uni. Basically a really huge green field full of people playing soccer (rudely right over our heads). Taking advantage of the good weather, I also took a ride down the old Main Danube Canal that was constructed around 200 years ago.

Canals were so nice back then, this one goes through a forest and there isn't a piece of concrete in sight. It's flat and every 300m there's a lock where the ships can be lowered. I think the reason for this is that if they left the canal at the same inclination as the landscape, then it would be fast flowing and carry sediments downstream. The new canals don't need as many locks because they are concrete lined and there's no risk of sediment build up. (don't quote me on that)

Me and Edmund !!! met in Heidelberg, Germany:


He was over to visit Ina and he treated me to a pleasant weekend. We went bike riding to Mannheim, we ate Kebabs (I falafel) and Edmund got to practice his German. He's very good and for how short of a time he's been learning it, I was pretty surprised at his ability and persistence,,, but in that regard no one ever doubted his persistence.

We also went to the "Long Night of Museums". All the museums in town are open on one night till 2am and its kinda cool.  Ed, his girlfriend, her sister, below, and me perused the city like Night-Owls:






I went to a church...




...and got kidnapped by a sadistic priest
but all was well, he only liked his boys young (don't they all!). Freedom...




Well uni and stuff has been alright. Noteworthy this week we went to a blues club. The average age of patrons was 50, but there were a lot of talented musicians jamming away and entry was only 1 euro. One guy even looked like a cool version of Bill Young (our lecturer in australia, on the right with guitar). the blues were really jamming and a pleasant change from the student parties where you here really old pop like backstreet boys.
...

My new music cds:
Kate Nash
Jack Johnson
Nina Hagen (german)
Clueso (german)

My subjects at uni:
Reinforced Concrete
Renewable Energy and Recycling
Road and Rail Engineering
German History & Culture from ~1871.

Things I miss about Australia:
Bicycle Paths (Yarra Trail, Anniversary Trail, my route to uni)
Suburbs (beautiful sunny suburbs like Ormond and St Kilda)
Friends
Monash Uni (eg. Wholefoods)

see youu.....

Hey. I wanted to update you on Germany and the friends I've met and places I've been. Germany has been good and like everywhere else in the world, the people are friendly and there's always something to see and do.

Like... the BMW exhibition
or go to a bar...

FYI the bar is a little cool place nestled in the city wall called "Zwinger Bar" (Swinger Bar), although I couldn't find any seedy partner sharing and I did look (NOT) :-( I always miss out!!! No but the old city walls are also home to the red light district, there must be something about the old stone walls that encourage people to go back to their primordial urges.

Makes me wonder what happens on the other side of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. You only ever see the one side of it that crawls with scrawny religious folks. I bet on the other side its like a disco or gay club, well prob not but if it was that would be one step closer to sanity in the middle east.

What else... Munich




Thats the olympic stadium where they held the games in 1972. On the right is Dries from Belgium and btw that picture above with the 5 of us is our little group of exchange students, the 2 girls in the middle from Luxembourg and the one on the right from Austria and me with my ridiculously long arms above.

Well there's not much more except... of course... I've got a bike.
That's very exciting and I went for a 50km ride yesterday, finally got my fix. But seriously, I find that a bike ride along a river bike path has healing powers, it's like an anti-depressant. Here's some pictures from the Pegnitz River bike path:

Ok, well good wishes for everyone in australia.

So...

It has been a week since I came to Nuremberg and a lot has happened in this time.
I want to introduce you to my student residence because its a fairly special place:




This 700 year old "Fachwerkhaus" or building where the wooden truss structure is visible from the exterior of the building lies in the Old City. Historically, the building was used a wine store and at times was also employed as a half-way house for lepers or poor families passing through the city. Since the 50s it has been refurbished into a student house and now I live there.

Ok so first day, train at 200kmhr (some lines are 300kmhr) from Frankfurt to Nuremberg. I was met by weather from around 0 - 5 degrees. That's somewhere between "Wow chilly" and "Hey are my fingers supposed to be blue?". No its actually not that bad and the really strong winter weather is luckily over and you see heaps of people hanging out in parks and on the streets:




Here's me with an Austrian friend Barbara also from our exchange program. We were going to the Albert Dürer House and Museum. For those not in the know including me, he's a famous painter. We also visited the Deutsche Bahn Museum which documents the history of trains (1835 - 2011) in Germany. Only England had functioning railway systems much earlier than 1835 and it's interesting to see the oft rapid progression of technology. For fans of Kraftwerk, we also saw the "Trans Europ Express" trains. Other highlights involve going to the zoo and visiting our primeape friend:
She's female but sorry boys, she's taken, namely by a 195kg bohemoth Gorilla called Fritz and you don't mess with Fritz.. putting on the ritz. Haven't got a picture of Fritz because he ripped the camera right out of my hands and gave out a roar who's shockwave probably tore down a few more buildings  in NZ... yes i went there.

Well I have to leave soon, but as a last little trinket here's another view of Nuremberg and I wish the best to all friends at home and feel free to ask any q's per facebook or otherwise
Auf Wiedersehen!