This is a copy of a message I sent to some of my friends on Facebook:
Things are going well here, ive met two times now in classes, mostly in german. Kind of difficult to understand but i think i can get by.
Ive got a class where we're making chairs, desk, and cupboard/bureau from semi-finished materials like fabric, metal stock, plastic, etc. A graphics class where we'll make layered paper cuttings, a CAD class for Rhino, and a class where we'll make a flat-pack container of some kind. I also have a weekly german class.
Classes meet only once a week but i have a class a day for a week. Hildesheim is interesting and fun, 100,000 people but still a small town, there are some cool 3D things on Google Earth for it if you are interested.
Met some interesting people. Germans for the most part are very friendly and very cool people. They don't waste as much stuff as we do in the states. Food and alcohol are ridiculously cheap, we bought a flat of 24 beers for 6 euro ( about 8 dollars) and it wasn't too bad. 2 euro wine, milk is about 1.50 (dollars).
Though today I bought 250 sheets of typing paper for 8 euro and dropped 34 euro on basic art supplies. Fun times. We buy an ID card for 250 euro that we can use to take public transport (buses, trains, etc.) all througout the county of nedersaxon for free which is sweet so i can travel to other cities within it for free.
How are things going at Stout? How are your new classes?
Oh yeah, no radioactive boars as of yet but i have stepped in countless piles of dog shit. Dogs are everywhere and they sit patiently by their owners in resturaunts, happily run beside bicyclists and joggers, and do their general doggy business.
There is a halfway lame club in town which ive gone to and gotten wasted a couple of times but this weekend: München and Oktoberfest!
So yeah, what have you all been up to?
Peace,
Clay
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Edward B. Gordon. Some art stuff and daily life.
More posts and pictures to come!
Clay
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Hallo aus Hildesheim!
Hello Everyone! This blog will be a collection of my experiences studying abroad in Hildesheim, Germany for the next year. As I collect my memories and thoughts here, I hope to gain new insights into my experience here and share this with my friends and family.
My first couple days here have been quite full. I arrived on the 1st of September at Hannover Airport with little knowledge of German and maybe a little underprepared. From there we took a train to Hildesheim. As I looked out the train window and watched the buildings and then the farmland pass by, the enormity of where I was and what I was doing set in for me. Here I am in Germany and what do I do with this time? There are many possibilities for this year and what I can accomplish, many opportunities that I can take and not take. It made me feel like I was in a Choose Your Own Adventure book or something!
However, all of this started to melt away once I was blown away by the beauty of everything that I was seeing through the window of the train. For the rest of the trip I developed a stiff neck and dizzy head from trying to take in all that I saw outside of the train window. When we arrive at the station in Hildesheim we were met by some "tutors," students that were sent to help us with our adjustment. A student sent to help me get to my apartment walked with me there. As we did this, I had a chance to take in Germany at a slower pace.
My first impressions of Hildesheim were that it was larger than I expected. Coming from a small town and going to college in a town of 15,000 is very different from Hildesheim, a town of 100,000. Cars are everywhere, driving very fast. Pedestrians are everywhere, walking equally fast. Somehow, all these zippy little european cars stop perfectly for all these pedestrians and share the road graciously with every bicyclist. The town is a well oiled machine where everything works, and at least for now, I totally don't understand how it does work!
I have also been taking photos as another record of my trip, you can find them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53571798@N06/
My first couple days here have been quite full. I arrived on the 1st of September at Hannover Airport with little knowledge of German and maybe a little underprepared. From there we took a train to Hildesheim. As I looked out the train window and watched the buildings and then the farmland pass by, the enormity of where I was and what I was doing set in for me. Here I am in Germany and what do I do with this time? There are many possibilities for this year and what I can accomplish, many opportunities that I can take and not take. It made me feel like I was in a Choose Your Own Adventure book or something!
However, all of this started to melt away once I was blown away by the beauty of everything that I was seeing through the window of the train. For the rest of the trip I developed a stiff neck and dizzy head from trying to take in all that I saw outside of the train window. When we arrive at the station in Hildesheim we were met by some "tutors," students that were sent to help us with our adjustment. A student sent to help me get to my apartment walked with me there. As we did this, I had a chance to take in Germany at a slower pace.
My first impressions of Hildesheim were that it was larger than I expected. Coming from a small town and going to college in a town of 15,000 is very different from Hildesheim, a town of 100,000. Cars are everywhere, driving very fast. Pedestrians are everywhere, walking equally fast. Somehow, all these zippy little european cars stop perfectly for all these pedestrians and share the road graciously with every bicyclist. The town is a well oiled machine where everything works, and at least for now, I totally don't understand how it does work!
I have also been taking photos as another record of my trip, you can find them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53571798@N06/
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