Prüfung Stress

Finals are creeping up on Munich and you can tell. You basically have to wait in line to wait for a locker to put your bag/coat in before going into the library (or just drop it in front of the sign in the library that says "please to not store your bags/coats in this area, but use the lockers located outside the door"... this sign is occasionally covered by a coat so one can not actually read it), and once you get inside, you usually end up walking around all three floors several times before you find a free seat.

German finals are a lot more memorization oriented than US ones, and apparently the month before finals here means Germans study, study, study.

But moving past that, not much has happened, but I figured I should update anyway, as it's been awhile. I've been doing a lot of studying. I have my Sociology presentation next Thursday over Gender Roles in Society. Two weeks left of all my other classes.

I worked at the cafe last Tuesday. That means I've worked my 4 times this semester, so I'm good till April. I did go hang out there last night though. It was "Quebec Night". They were showing a French Canadian movie (title: Seducing Dr. Lewis? in English... but they also told me the title in French and German). We watched in French with German subtitles and they served Canadian beer, which tastes extremely different from German beer... which I am indeed finally getting accustomed to. I wouldn't say I quite like it, but I can drink it without a problem, and I don't cringe when I'm offered a second one. But the Canadian stuff was a lot thinner. One of the Germans took a sip and commented that it tasted like they had taken German beer and added a lot of mineral water (carbonated water that they drink here). Though I don't think I'll find a German who will admit that another beer is better than their own no matter how hard I look...

A couple more interesting things. I worked Tuesday with a guy from Russia. He moved her to do his university because TUM had a really good program. We were talking about Germans and I was saying that they were a lot more closed than Americans (as in, it's a lot easier to meet Americans than Germans). His response was that he found the Germans much more open than Russians! I guess I don't want to go to Russia...

Also something that amused me. I was talking to my Sociology class (the four of us...) about why I was in Munich and what I had seen so far. I was saying that I'd been around Munich a lot, or, well, throughout Bavaria, but I hadn't really been to much more of Germany. Well, this brought up a quote from a very Bavarian movie that pretty much sums up just how different Bavaria and Germany are.
"Hi, I'm from Bavaria! That's right under Germany" ...

But... I'm gonna hit a new country this weekend! Ashley and I are going to Amsterdam for the weekend! We decided to just go ahead and do it because we're both interested in traveling and didn't want to end up trying to fit everything in in July. So we leave tomorrow morning, will get there by noon and are flying out Sunday night. It will be a short trip but we're both ready to fit as much in as possible. Current plans are a free city tour, a canal tour, the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh museum and the Rijksmuseum (most famous one there... mostly Rembrandt). We'll see what happens, but I'm pretty excited. It will be a nice break from studying 8 hours straight (or trying to...) on the weekends. Be ready for pictures!