Netflix

K, my life is boring and so I've resorted to talking about Netflix. I have, in the past week? week and a half? whenever I figured out that I can use my NU VPN to watch US Netflix, watched a lot of Netflix. Before then I was watching the horrible Mako Mermaids as those of you who saw my status probably know. Since then, I've been through all of Archer, the second half of the second season of Girl Meets World, the fourth season of Once Upon a Time, and now I'm watching Merlin all the way through. I actually watched the first three seasons before, but I got too sad and stopped. But, now I'm gonna finish it :)

My life is boring

Nothing happened today except I've been reading sorcerer heir and loving it. The teen in me will always love these fantasy novels :) Enjoy some random pics from around Magdeburg:

 

New haircut

So title says it all... I went to the cheapest haircut place I could find where my haircutter knew less German than me and told him to do whatever he wanted... and so I look like this now. This is your chance to be interactive - tell me what you think!

What do you think of my new haircut?

It looks good! But not on you...

Ugly, duh.

I actually like it!

Hideous. Oh, you meant your haircut?

Other (comment below!)

Do Quizzes

Ampelmensch

I was gonna post about how I was so proud of myself for not thinking about A&O at all today, but then I realized that me thinking about posting that was me thinking about A&O and then the usual half hour cycle of thought began. Well, at least I survived 6 conscious hours without thinking about A&O... *sigh* anywho, yeah. So, cultural lesson since my life is boring. For German crosswalks, they have lights specifically for walkers/bikers to cross (like we do often in America). But, a cool thing that the former east Germany kept as a part of their culture is something called the Ampelmensch which literally means traffic light people. So, instead of a boring crosswalk light, they have this man with a cute little hat and he stands in a red T when it's stop and is green and walking when it's time to go. Pretty cool stuff :)

Harz Mountains

So, today, Clara, Elliot, and Isabella (I went to Dresden with Clara and Elliot, I got to meet Isabella today!) got up to meet at 7:20 and made our way over to the trains and to Goslar, this cool little town in the Harz mountains... We walked around a bit, got to see an old emperor's palace, and we even went to an actual mine... It was all pretty cool except the town ended up being way less English friendly than I expected which turned out to not be as bad as I thought it would for me, but I feel pretty bad cause Clara, Elliot and Isabelle don't know German... On top of which, we wanted to catch the train from Goslar to Quedlinburg (another city in the Harz) but the train got canceled so we had to take a later one which meant we couldn't see the castle. And then we got dinner at this place... but the waiter took forever and basically, we finished our actual meal at 7:55. From then until 9, we were waiting for the waiter to come by so we could order dessert, he did at 8:15 and then 45 minutes later we just paid and left without dessert because it took so damn long. Then we had to find our way back to the train station in the rain with one phone with data and it being at 1% (Thanks Clara). Basically, the day could have gone a lot better, but I think we had an ok time in the end :) at the very least - good company makes everything a little less bad. Oh yeah, more pics can be found here.

Miner me on the left, a creepy mine passage on the right, and the awful place where we had dinner (literally two couples that came after us got dessert and left before us). So, if you ever end up in Quedlinburg then don't go to Cafe Theophano.

You've Got Mail!

So, after two weeks of being here, I finally got the mail figured out and I got mail today, yay! 

So, I got my bank rejection letter. I read Antrag as contract (which is Vertrag) instead of application so I thought I made an account when I was just applying for one... I got my Sieger Bahncard in the mail. Basically, I paid 79 euros for this card that will give me discounts on train travel throughout Germany for the three months I'm here. In honor of the Euro Cup, you get to predict a winner and if you're right, you get free travel for the entire month of August! So I picked Germany. Are they likely to win? Probably not. But, I don't know much about soccer but this way, I have a cool souvenir with a German flag on it, so yay! Oh and I got a letter from my crazy friend Matthew.

 

The Ghetto of Germany

Alright, so flashback to day one when I was told by the customs police officer that Magdeburg is like the ghetto of Germany... yeah, great day one. Today, I decided to walk to the groceries stores north of my dorm as opposed to south (they're a little farther away, but also bigger so worth). I got an interesting view of Magdeburg I hadn't seen... For reference, here's how a lot of German cities (bigger ones at least) are structured:
Altstadt - literally means old town, generally has government buildings, opera house, historic sites, the cathedral, etc.
Neustadt - literally means new town, generally much more modernized with strip malls, bars, clubs, etc.

Magdeburg has those two (though everything is in Altstadt, Neustadt is pretty dead) but also has Alte Neustadt which means Old New Town. That's the area just north of me. So, basically, at one point it was new town and got ditched, and so, you guessed right, it's the "ghetto" now. Fun s

So, these two are actually pictures from my dorm... there are areas where the wall is just not there... I can't believe I didn't notice til today.

But where is it really from?

Ok, I'm the least creative person ever so throwback to the amazing "But where are you REALLY from?" panel. Today, instead of going to the student dining hall, I went with one of my labmates to lunch and he really liked German-Asian food. Of course, here, it's just Asian because of course, all Asian food is the exact same like all Asian cultures are (extreme sarcasm in case you couldn't tell). But, surprisingly enough, the food tasted just like "Asian" food in the US so that was interesting. The pic below isn't the place we ate at, but the slogan made me crack up.

Seething

Somehow, I'm in a foreign country literally thousands of miles away from Northwestern, yet I can not stop thinking about A&O. What. the Fuck. is wrong with me? idk man. Nothing too interesting German wise, but part of the reason I can't forget is that whenever I'm making travel plans, hostel ads pop up and of course, there is just conveniently a hostel chain in Germany called A&O hostels. Wow my luck. Welp, here's to hoping that tomorrow will end my 13 day streak of not being able to get A&O out of my head.

My dirty laundry

Literally. Ok, well it's clean, but another cultural thing: dryers aren't super common in Germany. They have one here in the dorm and idk if I'm using it wrong or what, but my clothes just came out hot and steamy so not dry at all... hence, I was able to thankfully borrow some twine from Clara (another American here) and drying my clothes the old fashioned way... yup...

Same old

Sad to think I've been here for 10 days and already managed to settle into a routine. Went to work, came back, tried to go to German class but that failed, grabbed dinner, bought some laundry detergent, doing laundry, really same old. I saw this accident on the way to work, but that's about it. this is hardly interesting tbh.

Leipzig

I took a day trip to Leipzig today. The pictures tell the story (But I'll comment too).

So, these are the doors to the train station. Like, Graffiti is everywhere in Germany, but broken windows on a train station is pretty unexpected... not to mention, the doors were locked and the actual way to get in was two open arches that looked like they used to not be open. Idk man. But, i got in the train and it was all good.

So, the pictures below are the St. Thomas Church (Thomaskirche) and I went around looking and I ended up at this creepy gated area which turns out, I was not supposed to go to but the do not enter sign was not visible / I may have accidentally knocked it over on my way into said do not enter area so I didn't see it as I went into said area... lol

So, these are just fun relics from East Germany. The standardized car (Trabi) and this is remains of graffiti or writing on these blocks? Not too sure, but these were from the Zeitgeschlichtes forum - really cool free museum in Leipzig.



















So, the picture to the right is just a selfie of me on the panorama tower and you can see most of the city of Leipzig from here... but nothing special really.

So, back in high school, I did this thing called Pass Auf which is basically German quiz bowl. We were supposed to learn a lot about tons of different things... rather than actually learn, I kinda just memorized cues. So, Leipzig and church always cued to Nikolaikirche. Well, after 4 years of not really knowing what I was talking about, I finally got to see it! Pictures aren't allowed of the inside sadly.






So, just another selfie, nothing too special haha.

So, there's this super famous food place in Leipzig called Auerbachs Keller. Since I was alone, I got put with three other guys who were all together and so I had dinner with three strangers. They were fun people and it was a great experience :)

 So, this is two subways... in the same train station. Like, I obviously love subway, but how does this work!?









For all pictures to Leipzig, check out this link to my google drive.

An old fashioned Hoe Down

So, today was a pretty ordinary day. I went to lunch with two other lab members whom I didn't know too well but they talked in English, I talked in German, we talked about cultural differences and that was cool. After work though, walking around, I heard this music and then came into this plaza/area where this band was playing... some form of country or swing dancing music idk. There were even some people wearing cowboy hats (not pictured) so yeah. idk what was happening, but interesting stuff...

Adulting... Kinda

Fire Emblem on my mind everywhere <3

Today I was an adult! I got my housing contracts completed (finally), got my outlets fixed, registered myself in the city, got my work Visa, set up a bank account, set up wifi in my room so I don't have to deal with going to the library every time. I mean, pretty much, life is good. Except... well, my DS died and the converters I have don't seem to work well with my DS charger so looks like no Fire Emblem this summer :'(

Random Street Shops in Magdeburg! 

Paperwork (Ok boring, but I'm excited)

Router!

Otto von Güricke

So, today was super rainy most of the day and I didn't have anything to do in work, so nothing really happened today. I did stumble by this cool statue of the guy our university is named after!

Utter Rascal

Another post irrelevant to Germany but I'm bored in the lab so whatever. End of the quarter and finals delayed my music following, but Clean Bandit released a new single with Louisa Johnson (most recent and youngest winner ever of X Factor Britain) on May 27. They only have a snippet released on youtube but it's a fantastic song.

Sadness

Man, I really thought I'd been desensitized to shootings, but these two have really hit me hard. I still can't believe Christina Grimmie is gone - it just feels unreal. I'm kinda pissed people are trying to make memory shirts and make profit off of her death. Let her fucking rest in PEACE. #RIPChristina



I've also been feeling guilty that I've been feeling so much worse about Christina Grimmie's death than the Pulse shooting. Watching this video really helped me feel for Pulse like I did for Christina - because it helped me see this shooting as more than an event or a statistic but as real people who had families, friends, faces, names, and their own stories. I don't know how to find a solution to this, but it can't be ok for so many people to be dead because of their sexuality. Not even sexuality though, one woman was only their because she was dancing with her gay son - she was just showing how much she loved and accepted her son for who he was and that love resulted in her death. How could this happen?

Life as Sören

Everyone asks me about Sören and how it became a thing cause there's no real logical jump from Aditya to Sören. To avoid making myself look like a nutjob, I keep it at, I looked at a random list of names and picked one I liked though that probably makes me look crazier than the real story... heh.

So, that poster is in the area where I work because our lab is sponsored by Fujitsu. The lady is just in my peripheral vision and so she constantly creeps me out. The picture to the right is just a fun picture where rain cloud meets bright blue sunny skies with pretty white clouds right above the building where I work lol :)

Culturally relevant part

Also, I feel like a two year old learning to walk again. Germany does this thing where the sidewalk has red parts and gray parts. The red indicating it's a bike lane. Except, they're not always colored differently so I end up in the wrong part. And, the bikers don't always travel in their own lane. And, you cross tram tracks pretty often. Except, pedestrians don't seem to have right of way in any of these situations, so I've nearly been run over like 8 times now... Here's to hoping I make it back to the US in one piece.

First day of Work

So, I've always had this unique talent that I've never gotten jetlagged... this trip ruined that streak :( I was still jetlagged today and tired af in lab and they noticed and my PhD supervisor was literally just like, just go home, you don't need to be here. It's the first day lol. I'm also working on this weird medium between data analytics for Fujitsu and academic research on optimizing software usage. It's cool stuff though.

Interesting comparisons between my US and German labs:

- both love coffee
- both enjoy game of thrones
- both have too many interns and not enough desks
- both have really nice mentors who are super chill
- both leave me a bit confused and out of the conversation (though here it's more of a me not understanding their quick German)

overall, pretty great i would say.
TBH if you're reading this, idk why, I'm boring af

Shootings...

Last night, I found out about Christina Grimmie and was incredibly heartbroken. I'd never gotten the chance to meet her or attend one of her concerts, but I followed her and her music and always expected that I would someday when she was in Chicago or something worked out. I still am in disbelief and want to believe that it's not true. I think it's the story that really bothers me - this guy didn't even know her personally. Yet something made him want to drive to her concert just to try to harm her. I don't get it... Wishing the best for her family through this hard time.


I'm a huge fan of mash-ups, and she made one of my favorites with Mike Tompkins.


Following that news, I woke up this morning to hear about the shooting at the Orlando Night Club Pulse. I'm in even more disbelief. Why? I research school shootings and have read countless stories. At one point, I figured that I'd desensitized myself to mass shootings like this, but I was totally wrong. My heart goes out to all the victims.

Missing Herr Buck

Today, Clara, Elliot (another American student here), and I went to Dresden. I went here with Herr Buck two years ago on GAPP and loved it. I loved it again. It was weird to see how little had changed from what I remembered (though in comparison to Sugar Land and NU where there seems to constantly be developments, that means little...).

To be honest though, this trip just made me appreciate how much Herr Buck was able to fit into our schedules without overexerting us (most of the time). I love being back in Germany, but man am I missing Herr Buck and GAPP 2014 - nothing will ever really compare to those times.

classic Rittersport

American Store last time, Indian Shop this time

Little Street Area where we ate two years ago!

Die Elbe!