Oy vey. So at the moment it's -10˚C (14˚F) here in Münster, which means jacket time. Thankfully my grandmother made a generous birthday donation so I could afford something nice (because I'm an idiot who doesn't think he needs to bring his jacket to Germany). I still need to buy gloves (apparently I forgot those too, oh well) and maybe even a new hat (well hats are the one thing I buy whether I actually need them or not). At last the Germans will stop asking me, "Aren't you cold? It's almost x degrees outside, you Americans are crazy." I made that last part up, but you get my point. Every time a European asks you a question, the anti-American sentiment is implicit. I kid of course, over the past couple of weeks I've met Germans who love America, Americans and English.
What? You mean you found German people to hang out with?
yeah, I kind of did.
Anyway before I get to that, we should probably go over some of the things I've been doing since it's been a while.
So NRW likes to treat it's FSAs (Fremdsprachassisstant) with some mad respect, which means for 10 euro we all got to go to Düsseldorf for a couple of days last week. Astute readers will note that my birthday was also last week. The two things will come together quite nicely as the story progresses.
Anyway I made friends with a fellow American traveling the same way. We chatted about the ups and downs of the FSA life etc. Fast forward, Düsseldorf, arguing with Brits about the best way to get to the Hostel, checking in, meeting two dudes who are pretty awesome and shared our room with us.
Seriously, Aly and James were both pretty cool guys. James especially, though I don't know what became of him in the end.
They took us to the Landsregierung building, which is the capital building for Nordrhein-Westfalen. The tour was hardly a tour, and mostly Germans waxing poetic about the symbolism of the state government. For some reason the most west German state of all the west German states feels the need to overemphasize the connection between transparency and democracy in their government buildings. We got to meet the minister of schools for all of NRW, which is pretty cool when you consider that most people will never meet their state's school minister. She let us ask her questions and even though I didn't ask her anything I felt as if I had grilled her hard with my mind. She was a worthy opponent, but she was no match for my perceived American toughness.
Afterward a bunch of us gathered at the Weihnachtsmarkt for Glühwein and good company. Christmas in Germany is way better than in America, mostly because people get excited for things like Glühwein, good company and pastries rather than whatever piece of plastic we're expected to purchase for one another. Also Christmas carols play a very small role, small enough that they can be drowned out with Glühwein.
Glühwein is spiced wine, it's very good.
Anyway the first night ended with jovial drinking and watching Sunderland-Everton. The Brits behaved rather poorly and therefore we avoided them (excluding James, who was just as disgusted as we were).
The night ended at a rather rocking pub where the beer flowed freely and the staff seemed to really like us.
Next morning= no fun.
We toured the Ruhrmuseum which is located in an old coal mine. The building itself was way more interesting to me than the tour, and I wished I'd skipped it to go exploring. I'm a huge fan of abandoned industrial landscapes apparently.
From there we moved to a mall that was predictably terrible and way too American. I still don't understand why we were there. It was just outside of a building that had the largest replica of the moon in the world. It was quite impressive, but ultimately pointless I would say.
The day wasn't over however, we needed to stumble around an old steel factory in the dark. While it was cool to go wondering, it was really stupid in the dark.
Anyway it was cold and I wanted to head back to Düsseldorf to get something to eat and maybe watch Champions League.
I will continue this story when I regain interest in telling it.
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