Much has happened in the last 4 days. On Wednesday night, I went swimming with Janina and her friend Tanja. It was a bit too cold to go to the lake, so we went to a pool. It was nice to get some exercise and do some swimming in the water. We bumped into Tatiana, who’s in Janina’s program. Tatiana’s from Moscow and she told me that Japanese food is quite popular there. Apparently, there isn’t a lot of Chinese food. I actually discovered a Japanese restaurant here yesterday at Lago, the big mall. God I miss that food. Unfortunately, before we went swimming, I got locked out of my room. A guy from my German class was supposed to come over and practice a dialogue because we have class on Thursday. He lives in the same residence complex as me. He was supposed to arrive at 5, but by 5:30, he still wasn’t here. I decided to go out and go to his room. Unfortunately, I forgot my keys inside. I bumped into someone downstairs who called Seezeit for me. Because it was after office hours, they had to send someone here to open my door and I had to pay 30 euros! This is ridiculous. No one here likes Seezeit, the company that manages the dorms and they also do a lot of the food service. Seezeit is getting lots of subsidies from the government, yet they still charge quite a bit of money for the rooms. Plus the service is terrible, as you can see. I don’t know why people don’t complain about it. Janina told me that next year’s university class will be much larger because the government is getting rid of the last year of high school. Konstanz is accepting 1000 students for the new fall semester! The university now has 10,000 students, so this is quite a significant increase. There’s already a housing shortage in Konstanz and I don’t know what’s going to happen next year with all the new students. Someone will have to build new housing.
On Thursday, I had my German class. Of course, my partner did not show up, though a lot of other people were absent as well. The class went well, though I felt a little bit lost. I really need to learn more vocabulary. There’s a program here for language exchange and I think I’m going to sign up for it. A lot of Germans speak English very well, but of course, they would rather speak German with each other and I feel excluded. Anyway, speaking of language exchange, my German teacher told me after class that he has Japanese friends coming here in June. He knows that I lived in Japan and he wants to practice Japanese. I’m very excited about this. I haven’t had a chance to speak Japanese for awhile. It should be interesting.
After the German class, I went to Student Services and I registered. On Friday, I picked up my student card. I also went to check out the library. It’s pretty nice. Konstanz has several libraries, but the main one is closed because they discovered asbestos in it. Konstanz has, apparently, the largest university library in Germany with 2 MILLION books! I was able to order some English books and they need to be cleaned. I’ll have to wait about 2 weeks to get the books. I was told that it’s going to take about 5 YEARS to clean the entire library! This won’t be great with all the new students coming in next year. Anyway, on Thursday night, I was supposed to go to ultimate frisbee practice, but instead I went to see a room. If there’s anything I’ve learned in Konstanz, one should see a room as fast as possible. The room was okay. I wasn’t able to meet most of the flatmates. It’s also managed by Seezeit, so I don’t think I’m going to take it. I’m going to see another room today and I’m hopeful about it.
On Friday, I went to school and did some work in the library. I also went to the little Chinese restaurant. They have quite a good lunch special. I got a big box for 5 euros and you can put in lots of stuff. I sat out on the front lawn and ate it. The weather was so beautiful. For the last few days, the weather’s been great. It’s not great for getting work done. On Thursday, I came home to eat lunch and I really didn’t feel like doing anything. I went downtown, ate some ice cream, sat by the lake and then I had to go to Tchibo to get my phone fixed. It’s now Sunday and it still doesn’t work. The customer service has been pretty bad there. When I first got the phone, I was told that I could choose my own PIN, but it turned out that there was a PIN allocated to me. The PIN was a bit hidden inside the welcome package they gave me and the woman didn’t tell me about it. Of course, the stores here are closed on Sunday, so I can’t go today. I’m going to go tomorrow and if it still doesn’t work, I’m going to return it (or at least threaten to return it). I’m excited for tomorrow because there will be an anti-nuclear protest in the pedestrian shopping area and I’m going to check it out. I hope I can meet some people there and maybe record their stories...
I had quite a nice day yesterday, until the evening. In the morning, I went to check out one of the outdoor markets. It was definitely one of the best markets I’ve been to. It’s so much better than going to the supermarket. They sell pasta, cheese, eggs, juice, fruits and vegetables of course, bread, desserts, flowers, etc. I wish we had a market like that in Toronto. I bought some delicious shitake mushrooms, potatoes, apples, and some really good cheese. The cheese is coated on the outside with some herbs. I made some spaghetti for dinner and put some in it. Delicious! Speaking of food, on Friday night, Janina and I made some apple rhubarb crumble. The rhubarb is now coming into season. It’s not at its best yet, but Janina bought some just for me, so I can’t complain. The crumble turned out pretty well and we also made some rhubarb compote. I played Janina some Canadian music, so it was a very Canadian evening. Before that, we had had some ice cream with a few German girls who are going to Canada. Surprisingly, they didn’t have a lot of questions for me. They were mostly talking in German, but I could tell that they were talking about booking flights and finding accomodation, so they haven’t really thought about Canadian customs or anything like that yet.
Last night, I was supposed to go to an 80s and 90s dance party, but I didn’t know anyone else going. I was feeling pretty lonely in this room and thinking that I should go out, but I decided not to. I also wanted to get an early night and get some work done today. It’s really hard to make friends in this kind of residence complex. I feel bad even knocking on people’s doors because I don’t want to disturb anyone. Yesterday, I did meet one of the Resident Assistants and I told her about what happened with my keys. Hopefully she’ll talk to someone about it. It was nice to meet her, but she’s so busy studying because she’s a law student. She welcomed me back anytime, but I somehow think I might never see her again.
So, what have I learned over the past 11 days? German bureaucracy is pretty bad. People here are nice, but there isn’t a great sense of customer service. I got my student card in the university and there was information along with it, but the woman couldn’t explain to me how I connect to the wireless network and the people in the library didn’t know how to either. I have to go and talk to IT services for that and hopefully, they are actually open until 5...
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