Marius - Einfach ich

Why I am here

2009-09-06T03:23:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in the canteen of hall 2 on the NTU campus. The smell of fried rice merges with those of the other foods I cannot yet pronounce and creates a unique odour that every canteen here has. I am having ice-cold watermelon juice to pamper my body that I just have forced to obey my will in the gym for two hours. Good life!
Within the last weeks, I have established some kind of a routine and a preliminary week plan that allows me to pursue the completion of my master thesis (Diplomarbeit) on the weekends. Yet, there is no time planned for much travelling. Good thing I do not care too much for travelling...

The weather is changing. Some locals in the gym told me that the rain season has arrived, with swift alternations from heat to heavy rain....or both at the same time. Those rains here are tough indeed. You are completely wet in a matter of seconds. Yes, we have those rains in Germany too, but rarely. Certainly not every few days. My good friend, the small black umbrella, is always by my side. No matter what people tell me (literally every Singaporean warned me about the weather), I really like it. However, it demands a good stamina and a trained circulatory system. My mum would hate it as she never does any sport. So would our dog.

Let's talk about my classes. All of them, apart from one tutorial that seriously sucks, are very interesting. I am taking Singapore Society in Transition, Government and Politics of Singapore and - interestingly enough - Psychology. What is my major again? Business. Does it make sense to study sociology with a business major? Of course. Business I can study anywhere, there is little magic to it. I have studied business for some years, have become accustomed to most concepts. I am finishing my second Master's degree in a business-related field. Why would I study business in Singapore then? Yes, the local business school is good in some rankings. But then again, I know how these rankings are created and I do not necessarily believe in their relevance. Singaporean, or more broadly, South-East-Asian sociology, on the other hand, is something I definitely cannot study in Germany. The curriculum of my studies back home lacked intercultural competence. So I added it myself throughout the years. Needless to say, I am also simply interested in those subjects. It goes with my general attitude to really live out exchange terms. I have seen so many students just partying and travelling all their exchange semesters. Patying are travelling are cool things, no questions asked. But these people took the thing as a holiday and behaved like tourists, with no interest in local circumstances whatsoever. Not only in Germany, but also in the US and of course - right here, right now. People's minds are free - and if those people deem it best to do so, fair enough. For me, this is a waste of time. Tourist, I can be all my life. Diving into another culture without having to work 40-50 hours a week is a rare chance. I intend to seize it.

OK, time to eat. Will get fried rice with fish. Bon appetit for me.

Short Stories about Singapore

2009-08-25T23:46:00.000-07:00

I haven't written for so long, and I don't have time right now either, actually. Why not? Am I doing so much? Not really. Trouble is that in Singapore, everything takes longer. Literally everything. The most apparent reason is transportation. Although, in the public opinion, the mass transport system in Singapore is extremely good - it is not. As in most things, people from Singapore compare with what they know, being mostly other countries in South East Asia that one has to call developing countries. Of course, the system here is much better than in, say, Bangkok. But compared to almost any European city I know (and even Portland, Oregon), the system here shows huge flaws. Do I go into detail? Well, OK. First of all, there is no timetable. There are no timetables! You just go to a bus stop and....well, wait. Sometimes up to 20 minutes. For people that value their name, this is highly annoying. Then, the busses and the MRTs (kind of a metro) are not soundly connected. I would rather describe them as 2 parallel systems serving about the same objectives - there are no real synergies. The system is quite cheap, though, at least for locals. Poor exchange students have to pay for each ride, and I will probably end up spending about 200 to 300 Singdollars per month for public transportation.

Food is another thing. No questions asked, I love the food here. I could eat rice and noodles every day and I do basically. Sometimes I take the wrong sauce and all taste like peanuts or salt, but that is OK. However, it is cultural habit here that people always eat out and basically never at home. This means that....supply demand blabla....the groceries are relatively rare and more or less expensive. One just eats out, for about 2 bucks per dish (1 Euro!!). So when you are hungry, you rarely open the fridge but walk to a food court nearby. Altogether, this takes at least 30 minutes whereas at home, I would eat a bread in 5 minutes. But again, the food is great. It is worth waiting, everything is made for you freshly by usually somewhat friendly and words-in-Chinese-shouting people at the food courts or Hawker Centres.
Another plus: They don't use milk.

Oh! By the way, Singaporeans watch Germany's Next Top Model online on Youtube with English subtitles. God knows why. In general, I have to say that those guys here have nothing against us whatsoever. After England (former colony, understandable), the most soccer jerseys you see here are Germany or FC Bayern. People study German here also. You sometimes meet people in clubs that approach you as they speak your language. I find German instructions and ingregients on almost every goods I buy here as well. OK, I don't really buy Chinese stuff anyway. There will be a bias.

Instructions is another good point. Singapore calls itself a nanny state. This has several reasons, but the most prominent for me is the ubiquitous instructions. If you don't know how to flush a toilet, there is an instruction. If you are unsure as to whether to do or NOT TO DO in the metro, there are instructions. If you are on an escalator, there is an instruction telling you where not to step. And so on. Mostly, instructions are connected with fines. I intend to make a fine-collage, as it is ridiculous what you are supposed to pay here for certain things. I you ride your bike at the wrong points, there is a 1000 dollar fine. A sip of water in the MRT? 500 bucks! And of course, NO LITTERING! To be fair, hardly anyone gets ever fined. Those laws are more of a preventive mechanism. Is Singapore as clean as most people underline? Well, yes and no. There is few dirt on the streets. Not because people here are so clean, but because of the fines. The common level of hygiene can be seen at places where fines cannot be enforced, where there is privacy. Bathrooms usually look horrible. Plain horrible. I recall my Chinese instructor in my lecture on Intercultural communications when he told me "In Chinese restrooms, you need rubber boots. It is not THAT bad, but still.

Singapore is all about malls. And consumption. It is comprehensible. Was our post-WW2-generation that different? No! They treasured what they then could achieve as opposed to before. Same here. The difference is where Germans have their Fussgaengerzone, those guys here value their malls. Pretty americanized. Funnily enough, some malls are considered tourist sights. Malls! Visiting malls! This was the same in Bangkok, by the way. My friend wanted to show me malls there, not temples. I politely rejected. I go to malls to shop. And to eat. And here to watch movies also (by the way, don't go and see GI Joe. Pretty childish). Consumption is some kind of a culture here. Partly because this very young country, similarly to what I wrote about the US, lags a comprehensive history and own culture. As most of you know, I am taking history and social sciences classes here. There are a few dates you just catch within a few days. Date of independence, date of self-governance etc. I made some experiments and asked some college students on campus if they could tell me those dates. The resulsts, even IN my history class, were rather ....disappointing. Do I say that all German students know the date of when the wall came down and so on? I do not. Because we learn about it in school and that is it. Here, in state-run television, it is mentioned all the time, as well as on the thousands of posters here that still celebrate the 44th birthday of Majulah Singapura. From what I can tell, people here are just not that interested in history and concentrate on their daily lives. That is no bad thing, that is just different from what I am used to.

One of the most interesting things here is how all the races (I still hate that word, in Germany, people would be afraid of even saying it, but that is different here) interact. Pretty nicely. Although the government does its best to - from my perspective - promote racial segregation (I just say CMIO - you have to fill in your race at all kinds of official documents), there is no trouble from what I can tell. The different communities do not really mingle, no. There are Indian circles of friends, Chinese circles of friends and so on, with exceptions, of course. But no stress, even none between religions. Good! What most of you people at home would confuse the most is that I am usually the only "Caucasian", meaning white guy, anywhere I go. There are many expat places, point granted. Clarke Quay, a party area, is full of white people, so I hardly choose to go there. That is not why I am here for. But in my lectures, on the trains, when I eat - I am usually the "only one". Get I get stares? Of course, all the time. Especially as I am REALLY fair and quite tall. But I don't mind. Yes, it is a bit weird if people that sit next to you get up and choose another seat in the bus. This happens. But I rather smile, I am not offended. Maybe they think I have to swine flu or something. Most people are rather interested in Europeans, especially at the university. I like studying there.

OK, time is really up, gotta meet a very nice person downtown soon. There will be more pictures, which should especially make Dennis, Daniel and Alex happy (I know you guys just check out pics ;-) ).

There is more to come. In short: I have a very good time here. I am healthy, I sleep well, I like the food, the people are (mostly) kind and each day, I experience and discover something new. Yes, there is more good to come.

Walking home in Singaporean rain

2009-08-10T00:18:00.000-07:00

OK so last day was really National Day. I met with another exchange student to see how the folks celebrate here. It was funny to see that most people tried really hard to dress in the country colors red and white. I was quite a few Turkey football jerseys also.... they just wore what they could find ;-) The celebration itself was crowded and quite militaristic. The army (and some other people in uniforms) paraded in the streets. A couple of helicopters flew around, one of them carrying a gigantic Singapore flag. I also saw three fighter jets and a good dozen of little boats driving around. Yet, the fireworks were a little disappointing and not worth the wait. For people from Stuttgart: The Lichterfest fireworks were about 3x as much as this here. By the way, it seemed to me that most Singaporeans are not necessarily patriotic. The enjoyed the fireworks and the show and cheered a lot. But that was it. America on Independence Day was completely different.
When the event was over (at about 8:45pm), I rode the MRT home to change my clothes – you should not wear long pants during the day, but for going out, you need them. This proved to be quite difficult. Not only had I no idea where the next MRT station was. The police had also constructed barriers so that you could not walk freely. After good 30 minutes, I eventually found Raffles Place. At home, I had dinner. Then I waited for my flat mate to arrive as he wanted to hit the clubs with me. Most of the international students had stayed downtown because they live far off on campus. Hence, they had started long before we eventually arrived at Clarke Quay by cab. From my place, it is only 6 bucks. Great! This makes a true Swabian happy. I found a huge group of the internationals by accident and ran into some 10 others that I had gotten to know before. It sounds weird but you could hear German everywhere at Clarke Quay. Not only from people I know. There were just so many of us – a little bit annoying actually. I didn’t come to Singapore to talk about the Bundesliga with some dudes from Hamburg. Someone decided to go into a club named Attica which turned out to be a very stupid decision. The club was still empty at about 12:30am and filled up very slowly. Trouble was, it was full of expats. Boring! Boring, boring, boring. We met some other Germans, again....
It also occurred to me that there were many “pay-per-visit”-women i.e. hookers. It is unusual that so many women dare talking to me as I usually come across as arrogant, especially when I drink. But it happened a lot of times. However, some of them did a crappy job as I made them buy me drinks. Funny world. Drinking is comparatively expensive in Singapore. Not as expensive as I had been warned, but still. Good thing is, there is a Seven Eleven right next to the clubs so true Swabians go out of the place, buy an alcopop and get in again. At sixish, we decided to leave. However, my room mate had other plans. He just went on to the next club... So two of us were left. I knew that the MRTs start driving at about 6:30am. It was clear for me that I would not take a cab and save some bucks. The trouble was again that we had no idea where we were and no idea whatsoever where the next MRT station was. So we made a smart decision – looking for the tallest building we could see and approaching it. It turned out that this really worked and we did find the station after some minutes. After taking the wrong train at first (it was late, understandable), we managed to jump on the East-West-Line which I left again at Queenstown. I intended to walk home, but it rained a lot. So I went half-way and took the bus from there. At 7:30am, I crawled into my bed, just after seeing my flat mate sleeping on the sofa with his iPod plugs on. He obviously left the other club quite soon and took a cab.

That was a good night.

Singapur hat Geburtstag

2009-08-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

Many things happened within the last days. I am settling in. I am finding places that sell food I can eat. I have registered at the university, opened a bank account and so forth. Life here is starting.
On Thursday and Friday, I went to NTU to “do stuff” i.e. to sign forms, register for events and services and what not. Also, I tried to find my ways on the campus without the shuttle service. This was rather unsuccessful. When I was looking for the gym, I somehow ended up at hall 15 (only NTU people will know how wrong I was...) and thought I’d just have to walk the Nanyang Crescent all the way to the rec center again. Although this was possible and I reached my destination, it took me about 45min of walking in the heat and sun. In the gym, I decided to skip the treadmill because of that.
However, I accidentally ran into 3 other Germans in the gym and about 10 others around campus. I can’t really tell how we recognize each other, but it usually works. There are sooo many Germans here, it is weird. Almost too many for my taste!
I like the food courts here. Not because I have tried and consider it delicious but because there is variety, it is cheap (really cheap, good for students) and they make it on the spot. Also, you can get fresh-squeezed juices for a dollar – I had watermelon juice for the first time in my life yesterday and I can recommend it.
Furthermore, some people organized a party for the exchange students last night. We started at the Staff Club, a rather....common.... bar/lounge on the NTU campus and went on to a club called Powerhouse around midnight. Despite of what most people had told me, clubbing is not that expensive in Singapore. The cover fee (which is waived if you come before 11pm) was 20 bucks – 10 € - and included 2 drinks. Drinks are reaaaally weak here. But still. 10 € for cover charge and 2 drinks is perfectly OK. The music reminded me of US West Coast clubs, and so did the people there. They dance MTV-style which is very nice to watch ;-) Unfortunately, the night ended early for some people that had not brought their IDs. What a pity. Note to myself: Cabs to my place are really cheap! From Powerhouse I paid 8 bucks. Nice. I live exactly on the way between downtown and NTU – so taxis can easily be shared. Today is Singapore’s birthday. Congratulations. You wouldn’t believe how many flags those guys have here. The US was a joke against that. But I have to stop writing now as I still need a few things before Sunday: swimming goggles, a new polo shirt and linen. Will I get all those things in one of the 1000s of malls here? We shall see! After that, I will look out for some Singapore-birthday-related events....

Still alive

2009-08-05T06:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't written for quite some time. This had reasons. In Bangkok, I was busy all the time - in a good way. The days were great. Just great. And I had an almost perfect "One Night in Bangkok". I remained to be a nice guy, though....

The first days in Singapore - this is my third one - were tough. I won't go into detail as this would stir up myself too much right now.

Fact is: I have a cool room now. 19th floor of a condo, two bus stations (equals 5-10min) to a mall (or at least what I would call a mall) and 3 bus stations and a little walking to the next MRT station (Singaporean light-rail). Very clean. Own bathroom. Nice room mates.

The food issue troubles me, both physically and psychologically. But as this is the second time already, first one was US, I will manage.

The view out of my room's window:

Siam / Thailand

2009-07-31T22:22:00.000-07:00

Tag 6

It is almost noon. Nat is golfing so I was some time to write again. We went out last night. However, as Nat wore flip-flops, we couldn’t go to a club. So we were at a bar instead. Let me just say this: You gotta be jealous of Thai boys. Wow. Wow wow wow.

The ride to Bangkok was a bit funny, by the way. My friend has to use an old car at the moment as the newer one has to be repaired. However, the old one has a problem also; the lights don’t work. Luckily, the street had lighting. Still, my grandma should not hear from this ;-) She is worried enough. And after all, we arrived safely.
I also learnt something new which has to do with culture. Here in Thailand, it is rude not to talk to someone when you deal with him. By dealing, I mean things like ordering in a restaurant or having any other kind of interaction. Even if you speak English or German, just say something. Otherwise, you are considered somewhat weird. And do smile! It is curious as it is completely the other way round in Germany. If you speak a language that your conversation partner probably does not understand, like Spanish or Portuguese maybe, you should not simply start talking to that person. It is considered impolite to babble in a language that the listener doesn’t comprehend.
After going to the bar, we were a bit hungry. Luckily, there was still a restaurant open (2am). Have a guess – seafood! Nat ordered something interesting there. Solid pork blood. I tried it, too....distinctive taste. Distinctive. I was very glad with my shrimp fried rice, though!

Nevertheless, there is one issue in Bangkok that makes life a bit difficult (besides the obvious fact of the overwhelming heat): air quality. It really is a bit hard just to breathe when you are on the street. So there are not many people going by foot. They use the metro or cabs instead – and the tuk tuks for short distances.

Now I would like to give you some information about the history of Thailand. As I don’t have much time but yet think that the following is highly interesting and that people should know about it, I shall bluntly copy from Wikipedia. The text is about the time when Thailand became its name (it was called Siam before, as many of you probably know). What caught my interest was that this transformation was, in contrast to many other countries that suffered from colonialism, self-induced by the Thai leaders as an effort to westernize the society:

The military, now led by Major General Phibun as Defence Minister, and the civilian liberals led by Pridi as Foreign Minister, worked together harmoniously for several years, but when Phibun became prime minister in December 1938 this co-operation broke down, and military domination became more overt. Phibun was an admirer of Benito Mussolini, and his regime soon developed some fascist characteristics. In early 1939 forty political opponents, both monarchists and democrats, were arrested, and after rigged trials eighteen were executed, the first political executions in Siam in over a century. Many others, among them Prince Damrong and Phraya Songsuradej, were exiled. Phibun launched a demagogic campaign against the Chinese business class. Chinese schools and newspapers were closed, and taxes on Chinese businesses increased.
Plaek Pibulsonggram

Phibun and Luang Wichitwathakan, the government's ideological spokesman, copied the propaganda techniques used by Hitler and Mussolini to build up the cult of the leader. Aware of the power of mass media, they used the government's monopoly on radio broadcasting to shape popular support for the regime. Popular government slogans were constantly aired on the radio and plastered on newspapers and billboards. Phibun's picture was also to be seen everywhere in society, while portraits of the ex-monarch King Prajadhipok, an outspoken critic of the autocratic regime, were banned. At the same time he passed a number of authoritarian laws which gave the government the power of almost unlimited arrest and complete press censorship. During the Second World War, newspapers were instructed to print only good news emanating form Axis sources, while sarcastic comments about the internal situation were banned.

Also in 1939, Phibun changed the country's name from Siam to Prathet Thai, or Thailand, meaning "land of the free." This was a nationalist gesture: it implied the unity of all the Thai-speaking peoples, including the Lao and the Shan, but excluding the Chinese. The regime's slogan became "Thailand for the Thai."

Modernisation was also an important theme in Phibun's new Thai nationalism. From 1938 to 1942 he issued a set of twelve Cultural Mandates. In addition to requiring that all Thais salute the flag, know the National Anthem, and speak the national language, the mandates also encouraged Thais to work hard, stay informed on current events, and to dress in a western fashion. By 1941 it became illegal, among other things, to ridicule those who attempted to promote national customs. The programme also encompassed fine arts. Fiercely nationalistic plays and films were sponsored by the government. Often these depicted a glorious past when Thai warriors fearlessly gained freedom for the country, defended their honour, or sacrifice themselves. Patriotism was taught in schools and was a recurrent theme in songs and dances.

At the same time, Phibun worked rigorously to rid society of its royalist influences - traditional royal holidays were replaced with new national events, royal and aristocratic titles were abandoned. Ironically, he retained his aristocratic surname. Even the Sangha was affected when the status of the royally sponsored Thammayuth sect was downgraded.

Meanwhile, all cinemas were instructed to display Phibun's picture at the end of every performance as if it were the King's portrait, and the audience were expected to rise and bow. Another aspect of Phibun's growing personality cult was becoming apparent in official décor. He was born in the year of the cock, and this symbol began to replace the wheel. Similarly Phibun's auspicious birth-colour, green, was used in official decorations.

A night in Bangkok

2009-07-31T22:21:00.000-07:00

Tag 5

I am in Bangkok now. Yippie! I have never been in such a big city before, besides NYC. It was amazing to just drive into it. Skycrapers all over the place, but not too many. The house of my friend’s parents is really cute. I live in his sister’s room – I hope, she doesn’t mind ;-)
Although it is late, we will go out a little in a few minutes. On the way to Bangkok, we came across a floating market which was rebuilt for tourists. There were shrines (in which you had to take your shoes off), many small souvenir shops and very few “real” floating merchants in their little boats. Was very nice to see.

One my way to Bangkok

2009-07-31T03:49:00.000-07:00

I don’t have much time today as Nat will pick me up and drive me to Bangkok soon. On Wednesday and yesterday, I enjoyed the beach, the pool and the movie channels. I also used the hotel’s gym – apparently for the first time in weeks. Hence, all the fuses were off and it took me some minutes to get the stuff running. Luckily, I am some sort of engineer…. ;-)
Last night, we went shopping a little and had dinner at another seafood restaurant. This time, it was too much for my European body, though. Will be more careful. I got some insights of the service industry here. While in Europe there is always a certain lack of people, here, you have an abundance. In most restaurants, there were about as many waiters as clients. On the one hand, this is very nice as you have at least one person’s full attention. On the other hand, if you don’t like people watching you while you eat, then you will have get used to it…same in the hotel area. So many gardeners and people walking around doing something. Hardly possible in Germany. I wonder that those guys earn. However, they are easy-going. Sometimes you see about ten of them just sitting at the beach and having fun. And this does not seem to be their break. So it is a trade-off I guess. More people, less money per person, but relaxed work climate.
I ate shark last night. Tastes interesting, but does not match one’s expectations. I don’t know why shark is so famous. Another food story: at a mall, I bought a dragon fruit. Actually quite tasty, very much similar to kiwis. But the look is cooler. And the fruit is bigger as well.

First stack of pictures

2009-07-29T22:18:00.000-07:00

There you go:

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=771380136&k=Z6LX4366UW3FUCD1QB64S3RWTUFA
Should be available also for those that do not use Facebook.

New hotel, cool beach

2009-07-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

Tag 3

I walked the streets of Pattaya yesterday. Had two more Asian dishes and my body worked properly. Maybe, I am already adjusting! Nice.
My friend was right, one should be careful in Pattaya. You are safe when you stay on the main streets. But don’t you try to go on a side street. I chose the wrong one, which turned out to be a “shemale brothel lane”. Not only look these guys a bit like aliens, they are also much more intrusive than the women. They stand in your way and don’t let you pass. Only thanks to my overwhelmingly arrogant look, I got my way out of there. Yet, with a strange feeling in the stomach. But after all, this was my first bad experience in Thailand compared to numerous good ones. Also, last night, the prime minister of Thailand resided in a hotel next to us. There were sooo many policemen! But they are also easy-going. If they recognize you as a tourist (which is quite easy with me), they don’t bother and even let you pass police cordons.
Talking about stomach – Nat took me to a very fancy restaurant last night. Lots of sea food, sitting right next to the ocean….great! He ordered a typical Thai dish – I was more careful. However, I did try a bite of his. Bad idea, my mouth literally burned for about 5 minutes. Unbelievably spicy. Even my dad couldn’t eat that. And he eats tough stuff. Eventually, though,
it turned out that Nat was in pain because of the food, too. But he says that the taste is still worth it. And get this, the whole dinner was 6 Euros for me. Seafood! Would have paid about 40 Euros at home.
I slept in big time today. Until 11am. But I had reasons. Nevertheless, I missed the very good breakfast buffet at the hotel. Had some of the tuna-sugar-mushroom-thingies instead. At lunchtime, I checked out of the hotel and my friend drove me to another part of the town – new hotel, this time directly at the beach. Again, it is clean, free Internet, nice service. Quite empty, though. It is low season in Thailand right now. I hung out at the beach and at the pool. Good life. Unfortunately, the car of my friend just broke down. I hope, he does not have to pay that much for the repair. This also means that I will try to get some food on my own now. I am a survivor ;-)

Pattaya and more

2009-07-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

Tag 2

My first day in Thailand is over and what can I say? I like it! People are so nice and considerate. Perfect service – and compared to other countries I have been, it does not seem that superficial and acted.
Last night, when Nat came from work, we drove to Pattaya into a hotel he had booked in advance. It is about 1500 Baht per night, being around 30 Euros. I shall add pictures soon – room is beautiful, clean and spacious. Nothing to complain – breakfast included and even a gym available that I shall use in about 30 min from now.
After checking in, we went to a mall to eat. Yes, I did it Asian food! I liked it as usual, but this time, my body could also deal with it. Nice. As long as I pay attention on the sauces, I think I am safe. By the way, the whole dinner was 55 Baht. Bitte festhalten, this is about 1 Euro. 1 Euro for a whole dinner, including soup! Unbelievable. Later at night, we walked through Pattaya. Quite hard to explain how it looks like and I didn’t really take lots of pictures (darkness sets in at around 7pm here). Central Pattaya looks more or less like cheap European tourism – many little shops, big hotels etc. But… I know most of you are missing the following fact….the most striking aspect is the women. My mom should not read on now.
It is tough. Really tough. I expected to see some kind of prostitution, yes. But to this extent? Never. By merely walking the main street at the beach last night, we passed probably several hundred (and I am certainly not exaggerating) women and girls willing to sell their bodies. Not only were there girls that were definitely not older than 14, but sometimes, you somehow thought that there had to be a hive of them. And they were quite intrusive. They shout at you, ask you directly if they can come along, they long for eye contact and as soon as you look at them, they sniff a chance. Needless to say, my fake wedding ring had no effect whatsoever. This might be due to the fact that most of men there had one, and I even saw a guy with his son on the one side and a young Thai girl, little older than his son, on the other side. Wow. Creepy. And especially the men, the “customers” are so disgusting. The most common suitor would be around 60, incredibly fat and British. I know that there are supposed to be many Germans around here, too, but I didn’t hear familiar voices. Maybe the German holiday season has not started yet. It is a pain to see those (mostly) really beautiful women or rather girls to walk with such ugly people, not to think about what is going to happen after just walking together. I expressed my repulsion and sadness several times, but my Thai friend seems to be so used to it that he didn’t understand what I was thinking about. Most of the girls there didn’t like what they were doing. If you have some kind of compassion, you can tell this by the look in their eyes when they try to flirt with you. I was told that most of these girls come from rural areas and have to earn money for their villages or families. Nat says that they would have a choice and could also work in a factory, for example. I do not believe so. For women, their body and in particular their sexuality is the most precious thing they have. It takes a lot to overcome this inner urge to control and command what happens to the own body. It takes a lot to lose this kind of self-respect which is inherent in any human being. I am able to compare as my gym in Stuttgart basically is in the red light district. And the women there are different. They seem to be OK with what they are doing and no one forces them as far as my gut feel tells me. But those girls here, those thousands of pretty little women, trained to be seduction machines, their life ahead of them, deserve something different.
At around midnight, having had a nice cocktail for 150 Baht (3 Euros), we went straight to bed as Nat has to leave for work at 7:30am.
I intend to stroll around the city today. Nat insistently warned me not even to talk to anyone on the street as most of those people seem to have bad intentions with nice-looking white people like me. But after all, what can possibly happen? I won’t take anything of value with me but some cash. I actually feel quite safe here. They need the European tourists. I won’t be harmed.
Also, Yiling found me a room. Cool! I will just need a bed which is certainly doable. Will move in in 6 days from now!

The first things that strikes me here

2009-07-27T02:45:00.000-07:00

People in Thailand are SO nice. Not only the Thai people I met in the US, but also here. Even if you have no idea what they say and vice versa, everyone has been nice to me and tried to help even though I didn't need any help yet. And I am not in a tourist place at all.

Ein neuer Beginn

2009-07-27T02:07:00.000-07:00

Tag 0

We are in the air, 10000m above the Indian ocean, will be reaching the Thai border soon.
I am about 10000km away from what I consider home. Again.
This time, there is no anxiety. There is optimism - ich freue mich.
On the other hand, the one who looks forward is often disappointed eventually. We shall see. The trip started rough. I came to Frankfurt airport after very little delay by train. Still, being 2 hours before departure at the airport, it became really close. Why? Because of Emirates, my airline. They only had 3 counters open, for once. This resulted in an awesome 100m queue that I would expect at Ryanair. After more than one hour of waiting and getting annoyed (was 9pm then, with huge lack of sleep), it was my turn. But no, the booking system of Emirates had broken down. They literally had to do every reservation via phone, with only one person available for all flights from Germany. Furthermore, the flight was overbooked. I was offered a free business upgrade, another completely free flight and a night at a luxury hotel if I accepted the flight on the next day. I denied. Because I had to be in Bangkok that soon? No. But if someone offers me a favor, like my Thai friend "entertaining" me for a week and being my guide that pays attention so that I don’t get ripped off, I would never "extend" that favor. I would have come on Monday in the early afternoon. Nat works full time. So it would have been quite difficult for him to get me from the airport. Why do I explain myself? Because I am pretty certain that many of you materialistic Stuttgarters and Singeporeans would have slapped me for that decision. Right? ;-)

Tag 1

Nun ich also in Thailand gelandet – im wahren wie auch im metaphorischen Sinne des Wortes.
One of the first things I noticed was people wearing respiratory masks at the airport. It seems that employees are told to do so since basically no tourist but everyone else had one of those. Thailand is hot. However, absolutely not as hot as I… had been warned in advance. Compare it to a really hot day in Italy, at the Adriatic coast maybe. The difference is, however, that in Thailand, it is always like this. And the weather comes with a nice bonus called humidity. Things do not dry. Be they human bodies that would like to cool down themselves, clothes or simply water on the floor. Nothing dries at 35 degrees out there. This gives you a taste, I believe.
The plane arrived 35min late at Suvarnabhumi International (yeah, go ahead and pronounce that) and it took me about an hour to go through immigration and to get my luggage. Customs checks do not seem to exist. I found my friend Nat at once at the meeting point and then, after about 30min of trying to find his car ( :-) ), he drove me to his place with a short stop at a Seven-Eleven to shop for groceries. They do have bread her – and things that kind of look like sausages. I also got some interesting stuff. Pictures follow, but for now, the ingedrients: The treats that look like little mushrooms contain tuna, sugar, carrots, shredded chicken, onion and potatoes. Even my dad would have trouble to make one meal out of those. The taste is very hard to explain for a European. First of all, it is not bad. I kind of like it. But it is neither sweet, nor salty, nor sour whatsoever. Price for a whole package of those: 20 Baht, less than 50 Eurocents… The other food, some kind of a cupcake, is sweeter, and has taro (Wikipedia tells me that is a plant), sugar, and among others, sesame in it. I had learnt already in the US that Asians like to mix sesame with sweets. My body could deal with it but was probably a bit confused there.
Good news: My jetlag virtually does not exist. I was up and running yesterday (by that, I mean Sunday) until 12:30am when I went to bed. And I slept until 8:30am – my usual sleeping cycle. Maybe I will face some other consequences in the next few days, but for now, I am perfectly fine. Take this, Yiling.
I haven’t seen much yet. On the way from the airport to the house, I noticed that things don’t look too different from what I am used too. Yet, this was only on the way, after about 40 hours of not having slept.
In about two hours, Nat will take me to Pattaya, which is supposed to be a tourist place. Wein, Weib und Gesang. He adviced me not to talk to any local girls there without him being around. I will simply put my arrogant Stuttgart look on. Then, nobody dares talking to me anyway. How do I know? In Stuttgart, I have to pass the red light district every time I go to the gym. The hookers there never even tried to talk to me. I thought they just don’t do that in general until I noticed that they hit on almost everyone else but me. Interesting. But all of this has nothing to do with my trip, I am digressing. Yes, it is no secret that many Thai women are incredibly attractive. And it is common knowledge that they both exploit and suffer from this fact. Yet, those are things I do not wanna be connected with – and don’t have to anyway. I will put on my mock wedding ring that I sometimes wear (it chases away, it really does) and will have a great time.

Cheers

My Portland Report

2008-12-08T05:50:00.000-08:00

In the following, you can find my concluding report about my stay in Portland (German only). Parts of it were published in the newsletter of the University of Stuttgart. So it wasn't that bad, I guess.

ERFAHRUNGSBERICHT

MARIUS BRAND

JAHR 2007 / 2008

PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY

Einleitung

Ich hätte nicht gedacht, dass es so schnell geht. Natürlich wird einem das vorher gesagt, dass die Zeit im Flug vergeht. Aber so schnell? Nach meinem Empfinden bin ich vor ungefähr 2 Monaten hier im regnerischen Portland angekommen. Und nun ist mein kleines Abenteuer fast zu Ende, was ich mit der Hilfe des Austauschprogramms der Universität Stuttgart, der Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg und der Fulbright-Kommission erleben durfte. Ich habe sehr viele interessante Menschen kennengelernt, insbesondere aus Ostasien (damit ist in Deutschland meist China gemeint, hier jedoch absolut nicht). Ich habe die amerikanische Art des Studiums erlebt, die sich doch erheblich von der unseren unterscheidet. Ich habe, das muss auch gesagt werden, unter dem Wetter gelitten und habe die Probleme des amerikanischen Krankenversicherungssystems erfahren. Allgemein kenne ich nun eine Kultur, die der westeuropäischen zwar sehr ähnlich ist, aber dennoch gewisse, subtile Unterschiede aufweist.

Diesen Erfahrungsbericht habe ich in folgende Teile gegliedert – er soll als wirkliche Anleitung diesen können. Vorbereitungen umfasst das meiste, was der Austauschstudent vor seinem Abflug erledigen sollte. Flug und Ankunft beschreibt den Ablauf auf den Flughäfen sowie die Zeit nach der eigentlichen Ankunft, insbesondere die Orientation. Portland beschreibt – es liegt nahe – die Stadt Portland. Im Teil Wohnen beschreibe ich die Preissituation von Wohnheimen oder privat gemieteten Räumlichkeiten, sowie allgemeine Tipps zur Wohnungssuche. Das Kapitel Bank / Geld ist nicht zu unterschätzen. Man braucht es stets und man kann sich in dieser Sache einige Gebühren einhandeln. Universität handelt von meiner Austauschhochschule, der Portland State University. Da die Lebenshaltungskosten und insbesondere Lebensmittel, das „täglich Brot“, mir zu Anfang einige Probleme bereitet haben, widme ich diesem Thema ein eigenes Kapitel. Schlussendlich sollen Reisen nicht zu kurz kommen

Vorbereitungen

Die Vorbereitungen beginnen sehr früh. Das ist erst einmal der wichtigste Punkt. Ich habe zum ersten Mal das Amt für Internationale Angelegenheiten der Universität Stuttgart im Juni 06 (falls ihr euch nicht mehr erinnert, das war während des Sommermärchens) von innen gesehen. Das war deutlich mehr als ein Jahr vor meinem eigentlichen Abflug – und eigentlich auch ziemlich spät. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt war die Frist für andere Stipendien, allen voran Fulbright, schon verstrichen. Ich empfehle jedem, sich für möglichst viele Stipendien zu bewerben. Hier muss man allerdings sagen, dass das Vorauswahlkomitee der Uni Stuttgart überkritisch ist (Fulbright-Kandidaten werden in einer ersten Phase von der Heimuniversität ausgewählt, bevor sie das wirkliche Auswahlkomitee sehen dürfen). Ich habe einige Fulbrighter kennengelernt, denen manche der Kandidaten, die während meines Jahrgangs schon von der Uni aussortiert wurden, in nichts nachstehen. Also – nicht traurig sein, wenn es nicht klappt! Ansonsten gibt es das DAAD-Stipendium, mit dem ich jedoch keine Erfahrung habe (auch frühes Fristende). Die eigentlichen Bewerbungsunterlagen für das Austauschprogramm Baden-Württemberg / Oregon sind im September abzugeben. Aus eigener Erfahrung kann ich sagen: Nicht vom Aufwand abschrecken lassen. Ja, es ist ein Vielfaches mehr auszufüllen als beispielsweise für ein ERASMUS-Stipendium – aber der Zusatzaufwand lohnt sich ohne Frage. Falls für die amerikanische Uni ein sogenannter Statement of Purpose gewünscht wird, sollte man sich zuvor darüber informieren, wie dieser in den USA aussehen sollte. Amerikaner neigen zu einer anderen Schreibweise und insbesondere zu Superlativen. Eigenlob wird lieber gesehen als in Deutschland, aber übertreiben muss man es ja auch nicht. Die meisten Hochschulen haben recht gute Homepages, auf denen man die Mission der Universität lesen kann. Das hilft meistens. Kurz zum Interview mit dem Repräsentanten des Austauschprogramms: Keine Panik, hier geht es nicht um großes Aussortieren. Vielmehr wird geprüft, ob der Kandidat das Land in guter Manier repräsentieren wird. Zwischendurch wird auch mal Englisch gesprochen, währenddessen auch Fehler gemacht werden dürfen. Wenn ihr an genau eine Uni wollt, insistiert darauf. Gerade Studenten der Wirtschaftswissenschaften haben es hier immer etwas schwerer, da amerikanische Business Schools meist teurer sind als andere Colleges. Ich wurde ungefähr 5x gefragt, ob ich auch nach Eugene gehen würde. Hätte ich „ja“ gesagt, wäre ich wahrscheinlich nie in Portland gewesen. Nach der einen oder anderen Bewerbungsphase hält man dann den Brief in den Händen, der einem mitteilt, dass man für ein Auslandsjahr in den USA berücksichtigt wurde. Prima! Aber es ist noch viel zu tun. Im Frühjahr 2007 bewarb ich mich erfolgreich für das BW-Stipendium der Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg (das geht direkt über das jeweilige Auslandsamt der Heimatuniversität, Leute dort wissen mehr) und das Fulbright-Reisestipendium. Letzteres empfehle ich eindrücklich. Erstens hat Fulbright in den USA einen sehr guten Ruf, und zum anderen kommt man in den Genuss sehr vieler kleiner Hilfen und Vorrechte, die ich nicht hätte missen wollen. Auf der anderen Seite ist die Auswahl wesentlich selektiver als beim eigentlichen Universitätsaustauschprogramm. Pro Jahr werden insgesamt ca. 220 Fulbrighter aus Deutschland gefördert. Wer es benötigt, kann nun anfangen, mit Professoren über Anrechnungen zu streiten. Hierfür kann es auch hilfreich sein, den Professoren in den USA zu schreiben und nach Einzelheiten zu ihren Kursen zu fragen. Ein Tipp: Wer in den USA wirklich etwas lernen möchte, möge unter allen Umständen Graduate-Kurse wählen. Undergraduate-Kurse können in der Mehrheit in Bezug auf das Niveau mit Abitursklassen nicht mithalten. Die Wahrscheinlichkeit ist groß, dass die sich hilfsbereit zeigen. Da ich in den USA ein komplettes Master-Programm abgelegt habe, habe ich hierzu keine Erfahrung. Ebenso wenig weiß über die Tagung in Bad Herrenalb, da ich dort nicht anwesend war. Ich empfehle es jedoch, denn somit lernt man schon einmal ein paar zukünftige Kameraden kennen. Dies ist auch die Zeit, in der die Frage nach dem Gruppenflug des Baden-Württemberg-Programms auftaucht. Jener Gruppenflug ist an sich eine recht gute Idee – man ist speziell in den ersten, wichtigen Stunden nicht allein. Jedoch: In meinem Jahrgang hat uns das zuständige Reisebüro Bühler etwas über den Tisch gezogen. Ich habe nur für den Hinflug 579€ gezahlt, wobei im Internet bei Lufthansa.de der Hinflug mit Rückflug für 800€ zu haben gewesen wäre. Ein paar Teilnehmer des Programms haben es konsequenterweise auch selbst gebucht und saßen dann für einen Bruchteil des Preises im gleichen Flugzeug. Überdies war der „Gruppenflug“ eine Mogelpackung. Zwar gab es eine Gruppe im Flugzeug, die zusammen saß. Allerdings enthielt diese Gruppe nicht alle Teilnehmer. Ich saß beispielsweise als einziger Austauschstudent im vorderen Teil des Flugzeugs, währenddessen die anderen im hinteren Teil des Airbus verstreut waren. Allerdings hat Frau Kunze-Ritter, die in meinem Jahrgang für das Baden-Württemberg-Programm verantwortlich war, sich dieses Problems angenommen. Möglicherweise trifft diese Information auf die kommenden Jahrgänge nicht zu. Grundsätzlich ist jedoch der Direktflug Frankfurt – Portland sehr zu empfehlen. Zum einen kann man von der Lufthansa einen hohen Servicegrad erwarten (ich weiß von einem transatlantischen US Airways-Flug, bei dem Teile der Heizung ausfielen). Zum anderen kann man in Portland immigrieren, wo die Leute freundlich sind und es recht schnell geht. Wenn Geld eine große Rolle spielt und man doch lieber einen Flug mit Umsteigen bucht, sollte zumindest der JFK-Flughafen in New York vermieden werden. Das Personal ist unfreundlich, Flüge haben grundsätzlich Verspätung und die Immigration kann hier Stunden dauern. Im letzten Sommersemester vor dem Abflug, bei mir das SS 2007, sollte man sich nicht unheimlich viel vornehmen. Zum einen liegt das an den kontinuierlichen Vorbereitungen, zum anderen schlichtweg daran, dass man zum Prüfungstermin in den folgenden Semesterferien schon weg sein könnte. Welche Vorbereitungen meine ich? Das Wichtigste ist wohl das Visum. Hier hat mir Fulbright stark unter die Arme gegriffen. Dennoch kurz zum Prozedere: Zu einem hoffentlich frühen Zeitpunkt bringt einem die Post einen Brief ins Haus, der das sog. DS-2019-Formular enthält. Dieses ist essentiell und wird euch für die nächsten Quartale auch begleiten. Mit jenem und ein paar anderen Anlagen begibt man sich dann zu einem Konsulat der USA (in meinem Fall Frankfurt), bei dem man vorher einen Termin ausgemacht hat (entweder durch Fulbright oder privat per Telefon). Der Erhalt des Visums ist für Nicht-Fulbrighter teuer. Nicht ärgern, das ist der erste Vorgeschmack auf das Geldverständnis der USA. Noch eine sehr wichtige Information zum Visum: Dieses entscheidet darüber, was man in den USA eigentlich machen darf. Zum Beispiel enthält das DS-2019-Formular einen Eintrag darüber, ob man einen Abschluss machen darf oder nicht. Da ich die Ehre hatte, ein fehlerhaftes Formular mit „non-degree seeking“ zu erhalten, musste ich neues aus New York beantragen, was eine Zeitlang dauern kann. Wenn ihr also einen Fehler findet, sofort bei der ausstellenden Institution (Universität in den USA oder Fulbright) melden. Ist man erst mal in den USA, kann der Visumsstatus kaum noch geändert werden. Mit dem Visum in der Tasche ist man fast am Ziel. Die Flugunterlagen sollten nun alle da sein. Genauso sämtliche Immatrikulationsunterlagen der Universität. Manche bekommen in dieser Phase kalte Füße. Das ist oft nicht zu vermeiden, jedoch im Endeffekt absolut nicht notwendig. Was sollte man packen? Zum Zeitpunkt der Erstellung dieses Textes war der Euro bei 1,57 Dollar. Da Kleidung in den USA sowieso billiger ist als in Deutschland, kann hier gespart werden. Die meisten deutschen Elektrogeräte können auch mit 110V betrieben werden (steht auf dem Netzteil), man kann sie also mitnehmen. Neben ein paar Adaptersteckern hilft hier ein Mehrfachstecker Wunder. Zwar sind Dinge wie ein Föhn hier auch günstig zu haben, jedoch sind mir in meiner Zeit 2 Föhne kaputt gegangen, die ich hier erstanden habe. Wichtig: Was Deutsche immer wieder falsch machen ist, nichts Typisches aus ihrer Heimat mitzunehmen. Diese gut gemeinte Bescheidenheit wird in den USA nicht verstanden, und von den anderen Internationals genauso wenig. Flaggen, ein Deutschlandtrikot oder Ähnliches kann immer hilfreich sein, wenn es z.B. eine International Night in der Uni gibt. Wenn man auch das Packen hinter sich hat, sitzt man irgendwann im Zug (oder Auto) zum Flughafen.

Flug / Ankunft )+ focus

Wer noch nie in die USA geflogen ist (wie ich zu diesem Zeitpunkt), kann am Flughafen den ersten klassischen Fehler begehen. Durch amerikanische Paranoia verlangen Flüge in die Vereinigten Staaten höhere Sicherheitsstatuten. Das heißt, es gibt in Flughäfen Extrabereiche zum Einchecken nach Amerika. Geht man beispielsweise zum normalen Lufthansaschalter, wird man freundlich aufgefordert zum Lufthansaflugschalter für US-Flüge zu gehen. Die Wartezeiten können hierbei recht lang sein. Um auf Nummer sicher zu gehen, sollte man zweieinhalb Stunden vor Abflug am Flughafen sein. Immer wieder interessant sind auch die kleinen Zettelchen, die man auf Flügen in die USA ausfüllen muss. Nicht nur ist die Angabe der zu verzollenden Mitbringsel Pflicht, auch die Angabe einer Adresse, bei der man sofort nach der Landung erreichbar ist, ist erforderlich. Die meisten haben hierfür die Adresse der Uni genommen. Nach dem ungefähr 10 Stunden langen Flug wird man dann erst einmal mit der Homeland Security konfrontiert, die bei der Immigration Pass, Visumsformulare und linken sowie rechten Zeigefinger sehen will. In Portland sind die dortigen Beamten jedoch recht freundlich, verglichen mit anderen amerikanischen Flughäfen. Hat man dies hinter sich gebracht, holt einen hoffentlich jemand vom Flughafen ab. Bei mir waren das Bekannte meiner Eltern, ansonsten könnte es jedoch auch eine Gastfamilie oder jemand von der Uni sein. Man muss eben irgendwie zum ersten Treffpunkt der Orientation kommen, die eine Schlafmöglichkeit beinhaltet (Schlafen ist ein gutes Stichwort, der Jetlag wird nach 2 Tagen abgeklungen sein). Grundsätzlich ist die Teilnahme an der Orientation jedoch sehr zu empfehlen. Die ca. 400 Dollar sind gut angelegt, man bekommt Trips zu Sehenswürdigkeiten in Oregon, einen kurzen Zelturlaub an der Küste und Hilfe im Alltäglichen angeboten. Überdies wird dem Studenten bei der Wohnungssuche unter die Arme gegriffen; nicht nur werden Angebote herausgesucht und überprüft, auch hingefahren wird man. Alle in meiner Unigruppe hatten innerhalb von 3 Tagen eine Unterkunft gefunden – vielleicht nicht die beste, aber immerhin. Nebenbei lernt man den einen oder anderen Kommilitonen kennen und kann sehen, mit wem man im kommenden Jahr den Kontakt vertiefen möchte und mit wem nicht. Im Nachhinein war die gesamte Organisation der Orientation einwandfrei.
Auch irgendwann in den ersten beiden Wochen in Portland wird man vom großen „Garage Giveaway“ hören, was – zumindest bisher – alljährlich von einer Gruppe namens FOCUS veranstaltet wird. FOCUS ist eine Art christlich geprägter Verein von sehr freundlichen Menschen, die einem den Start in den USA erleichtern wollen und das auch sehr gut machen. Neben dem besagten Giveaway bietet FOCUS wöchentliche gemeinsame Kaffeestunden, günstige Trips und sonstige hilfreiche Kleinigkeiten. Was ist dieser Giveaway? Kurz gesagt ein großes Verschenken von Haushaltsgegenständen. Sei es eine Bettdecke, einen Satz Geschirr oder Besteck, ein Verlängerungskabel oder eine antiquierte Schreibtischlampe, die Chancen sind sehr gut, dass man all dies bei der Giveaway-Veranstaltung kostenlos bekommt. Nach dem Zusammensuchen des Gewünschten wird man sogar von den Leuten nach Hause gefahren, so dass man keine Bettdecke im Bus befördern muss. Wer dort nicht hingeht, hat entweder schon alles oder hat etwas verpasst. Auch abgesehen davon ist FOCUS es wert, näher angeschaut zu werden. Keine Panik, man muss dort weder Christ sein, noch besteht Gefahr, konvertiert zu werden oder Ähnliches.
Noch während der Orientation sollte man unbedingt mit seinem Academic Advisor zusammenkommen. Dieses Amt gibt es in Deutschland in dieser Form nicht, das ist eine Art Doktor Sommer für Studienangelegenheiten. Man kann sich – und sollte auch – eine mögliche Kursbelegung für das komplette Jahr planen lassen, bekommt Auskunft über die Kursinhalte, über deren Schwierigkeitsgrade oder anderen wichtigen Entscheidungskriterien wie beispielsweise Nebenkosten (manche Kurse haben Extragebühren oder sehr teure Bücher). Ist man Fulbright-Stipendiat oder hat man vor, während des Jahrs zu arbeiten, holt man sich in dieser Zeit auch noch seine Sozialversicherungsnummer (Social Security Number). Wo das geht und wie, erfährt man im Office of International Affairs. Und schlussendlich kann man noch beim Fahrzeugamt (Department for Motor Vehicles, DMV) vorbeigehen und sich eine Oregon ID oder gleich einen Führerschein holen. Hat man einen deutschen Führerschein, braucht man für Letzteres nur eine theoretische Prüfung abzulegen. Führerschein oder Oregon ID fungieren als Reisepassersatz und sind recht praktisch. Da man in wirklich jeder Bar sein Alter beweisen muss und der Reisepass vielleicht doch zu wichtig ist, um ihn überall mitzunehmen, sollte man sich die 30 Dollar für die ID-Karte nicht sparen. Der Führerschein ist etwas teurer.
Was das außeruniversitäre Unterhaltungsprogramm angeht, so wird den Austauschstudenten während der Orientation von den für sie abkommandierten Mitarbeitern des Office of International Affairs auf Wunsch das Nachtleben Portlands gezeigt. Dieses ist solide, wer jedoch aus Stuttgart kommt, wird aufgrund des geringen Discoangebots etwas enttäuscht sein. Dafür wimmelt es von Pubs – wer diese mag, kommt auf seine Kosten. Zu Portland als Stadt jedoch mehr im nächsten Kapitel. Hat man alle seine Kurse arrangiert, die dazu nötigen Bücher erstanden (vergesst die Bibliothek, hier muss man 99% der Bücher kaufen, aber bitte online und nicht im teuren PSU Bookstore) und auch sonst alles erledigt, ist man bereit für den ersten Vorlesungstag.

Portland

Portland ist eine durchaus interessante Stadt. Für eine amerikanische Stadt untypisch gibt es ein recht gut funktionierendes System von öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln. Zwar sind wir Deutschen gewöhnt, dass es in jeder halbwegs großen Stadt zumindest Busse gibt. Drüben ist das aber anders. Generell kommt man von allen Vororten und Teilen Portlands in die Innenstadt, von ca. 6 Uhr morgens bis Mitternacht. 3 sog. MAX-Linien gibt es obendrein, eine Art Mischung aus Straßenbahn und S-Bahn. Leider aber eben nur 3. Der Streetcar ist ein bisschen wie ein Bus auf Gleisen, unheimlich langsam aber gut bei Regen. Interessant ist jedoch zentral die Diversität. Manchmal kann der Wille von Portlandern, unter allen Umständen anders zu sein, zwar etwas nerven, aber meistens ist es ganz drollig. Fährt man täglich Bus, wird man schnell verstehen, was ich meine. Beispielsweise sollte es absolut nicht verwundern, wenn eine Truppe ca. 12 jähriger Mädchen in den Bus steigt, die allesamt aufgeklebte Bärte tragen. Oder wenn Menschen lauthals die Musik ihres Ipods als Solokünstler ungefragt präsentieren. Einer meiner besten Freunde dort, um die 25, hatte einen Bart, auf den Heidis Großvater stolz gewesen wäre. Auf der anderen Seite gab es beispielsweise Leute, die das Hintergrundbild ihres Handys, in diesem Fall ein Hakenkreuz, so deutlich in die Runde zeigten, dass auch jeder Unbeteiligte das sehen musste. Kurz gesagt, Portland zieht Leute an, die sonst möglicherweise Außenseiter wären. In Portland sind sie das dann nicht mehr, weil fast jeder auf seine Weise Außenseiter ist. Das sollte man wissen, bevor man sich bewirbt. Gerade ein paar BWL-Studenten fanden diese Diversität nur anstrengend und Portland allgemein zu alternativ. Portland ist letzteres definitiv. Die Frage ist eben, ob einem das zusagt oder nicht.
Weitere, harte Fakten findet man in jedem Lexikon oder der Wikipedia. Die ca. 600.000 Einwohner sind auf eine recht große Fläche verteilt, wenn auch downtown verglichen mit dem nominell nur etwas größeren San Francisco geradezu winzig ist. Das ist mitnichten negativ gemeint, es macht Portland sehr überschaubar und auch Neulingen fällt die Navigation leicht. Da der PSU-Campus im Herzen der Innenstadt liegt, ist dieser übrigens auch sehr gut erreichbar.
Falls man schon von daheim beispielsweise über Craigslist potenzielle Wohnungsangebote sichten möchte und sich daher fragt, welche Stadtteile akzeptabel und nahe der Uni sind, folgend meine Einschätzungen. SW (South West) Portland ist downtown, da sind die meisten Studentenwohnheime und viele Apartmentgebäude. Die Gegend ist sehr sicher und es bestehen Einkaufsmöglichkeiten. In NW (North West) Portland ist der so genannten Pearl District, Portlands momentanes In-Viertel. Viele Bars und Restaurants – wahrscheinlich eher teurer, aber guter Wohnraum. NE (North East) hat sehr schöne und eher unschöne Ecken. Besonders nahe der Einkaufsmeile, des Lloyd Centers, kann es bei Dunkelheit schon mal Ärger geben. Während meines Jahres gab es dort eine Schießerei (wobei es jene zugegebenermaßen auch an anderen Orten gab). Ein paar Blocks weiter (schon ein Block kann große Unterschiede bedeuten) ist ein Ortsteil namens Irvington, welches sehr schön und teilweise sogar richtig nobel ist. Einige meiner Kommilitonen wohnten dort und waren sehr zufrieden. SE (South East) besteht weitgehend aus typisch amerikanischen Wohnblocks mit schnuckeligen, kleinen Häusern. Ich muss jedoch anmerken, dass ich dort nicht so oft war, also nicht allzu viele Ecken gesehen habe. Was die jeweiligen Entfernungen angeht, geht man am besten zu www.trimet.org und gibt dort die Adresse der möglichen Wohnung sowie Portland State University als Destination ein. Die ausgegebene Dauer ist aussagekräftiger als beispielsweise Meilenangaben, da beispielsweise meine Wohnung im Südwesten gute 4 Meilen von der Uni weg war, mein Bus aber nur 10 Minuten gebraucht hat, wohingegen andere im Nordosten bis zu 45 Minuten fahren mussten bei knapp 2 Meilen.

Wohnen

Neben der Gegend selbst sind natürlich auch andere Faktoren bei der Wohnungssuche von Bedeutung. In meinem Jahrgang rangierten die Monatsmieten für ein Zimmer zwischen 350 und 500 Dollar (plus Nebenkosten). Dafür darf man ein Zimmer mit eigenem Bad erwarten. Auch bedenken sollte jemand, der nicht so auf Fahrradfahren steht, die Nähe zur nächsten Bushaltestelle und ob der dort stoppende Bus auch oft genug fährt. Viele Linien fahren nämlich nur zu Stoßzeiten bzw. nur bis 6 Uhr abends. Und das ist für Studenten dann doch ein bisschen wenig. Die meisten Wohngelegenheiten sind Studenten-WGs. Daneben haben viele Hauseigentümer schlicht ihr Gästezimmer vermietet, was durch das stets vorhandene eigene Bad problemlos möglich ist. Aber vorsicht: Da Portlander recht alternativ sein können, mag es gut sein, dass man in eine Vegetarier- oder gar Veganer-WG rutscht. Für Menschen mit dem Ziel einer ausgewogenen Ernährung wäre das wohl eher nachteilig. Und der letzte Stolperstein: 420-friendly in einer Wohnungsanzeige sagt dem geneigten Leser, dass es sich um eine Kiffer-WG handelt.
Ich habe während meines Jahres bei einem Berufstätigen gewohnt, der immer auf der Arbeit war, wenn ich daheim. Da die Vorlesungen in meinem Masterprogramm zu 100% abends waren, haben wir uns fast nur am Wochenende gesehen, ansonsten hatte ich prinzipiell mein eigenes Haus. Klärt vorher ab, ob die Energiekosten in der Miete enthalten sind – und fragt nach den durchschnittlichen Energiekosten, falls dem nicht so ist. Durch unglaublich verlustreiche Technik und völlig unisolierte Häuser können diese unbemerkt in die Höhe schnellen (in den Wintermonaten haben wir monatlich ca. 150 Dollar gezahlt, bei Gaspreisen deutlich unter europäischem Niveau….). Könnte ich mich noch einmal entscheiden, hätte ich mich wahrscheinlich für eine Wohnung in der Stadtmitte entschieden. Man ist dann einfach sofort dabei, wird von gelangweilten Freunden spontan besucht und nimmt mehr am Unileben teil. Klappt die Suche nach einer Innenstadtwohnung aber nicht oder sind die Angebote schlicht zu teuer, ist das jedoch auch kein Beinbruch.

Bank / Geld

Daneben, dass Amerikaner kulturell und gesellschaftlich wesentlich monetärer eingestellt sind als wir, ist das liebe Geld ein eigenes Thema. Gleich vorweg: Mit Bargeld kommt man nicht sonderlich weit. Amerikaner zahlen sogar in der Disco (im Zweifel jeden einzelnen ihrer) Drinks mit Kreditkarte. Obwohl manch Deutscher sagen würde, dass das doch viel länger dauert – dem ist nicht so. Ist man erst mal dran gewöhnt, setzt man die Unterschrift im Schlaf und alles ist getan. Ein kostenloses Studentenkonto kann man im Prinzip mit dem Reisepass sofort aufmachen. Eine amerikanische Kreditkarte bekommt man jedoch erst mit einer Social Security Number. Eine Kreditkarte ist jedoch nicht absolute Pflicht, denn es gibt auch so genannte Debit Cards. Diese sind eigentlich nichts anderes als EC-Karten. Da sie aber von Kreditkartenherstellern wie Visa ausgestellt werden, können sie genauso eingesetzt werden. Sie haben die gleiche Anzahl von Nummern und verhalten sich im Zahlungsverkehr identisch. Nur kriegt man eben keinen Kredit, sondern das Geld wird sofort vom Konto abgezogen. Wählt eine der großen Bänke – Wells Fargo oder Bank of America. Von beiden gibt es sehr viele Filialen. Ich kann an dieser Stelle betonen, dass die Mitarbeiter der Wells Fargo direkt am Campus sehr freundlich waren und ich absolut nie Probleme hatte. Wie bekommt man aber Geld aus Deutschland am billigsten nach Amerika? Eine Direktüberweisung ist simpel, aber kostspielig. Gebühren von 25-35 Dollar können anfallen. Es geht auch kostenlos: Die deutsche DKB Bank gibt Kunden eine kostenlose Visa-Karte, mit der man weltweit an jedem Bankautomaten kostenlos Geld abheben kann. Dies trifft auch in 95% aller Fälle zu. Natürlich gibt es auch einige private ATMs (Bankautomaten), aber zu denen muss man ja nicht hin. ATMs der großen Banken sind durch die Bank kostenlos. Prinzipiell geht man also mit seiner deutschen DKB-Visa zum Automaten direkt vor der Bankfiliale seines Vertrauens, hebt Geld ab, trägt es in die Filiale und zahlt es kostenlos auf sein Konto ein. Hiermit kommt man um alle Gebühren herum – es wird auch der offizielle Wechselkurs genommen, so dass keine versteckten Währungswechselgebühren dazukommen. Solltet ihr in die Verlegenheit kommen, Schecks verteilen zu müssen, schaut euch ein paar Vorlagen an. Formulare können sich von Bank zu Bank unterscheiden. Und verschickt zur Sicherheit keine Schecks per Post. Werden diese von irgendwem abgefangen, hat der Übeltäter alles, was er zum Identity Theft braucht (eine sehr anstrengende Art von Bankbetrug). Ein Freund meiner Eltern hatte diese zweifelhafte Ehre und es hat ihn sehr viel Zeit gekostet.

Universität

Die Universität arbeitet anders als man es in Deutschland gewohnt ist. Vor allem anderen ist man hier eher Kunde als „Schüler“. Das bedeutet, man kann einen gewissen Service erwarten, insbesondere an den Schaltern (jedweder Büros u.s.w.). Hat man einmal eine Frist verpasst oder ein Formular falsch oder gar nicht ausgefüllt, wird geduldig Hilfe geleistet. Hierbei gibt es jedoch eine Ausnahme: Das liebe Geld. Ich empfehle niemandem, Gebühren jeglicher Art zu spät zu begleichen. Im besten Fall wird der Student Account fürs Erste gesperrt, was dazu führt, dass man sich nicht mehr für Kurse registrieren kann. Während meiner Zeit gab es einigen Ärger mit Studiengebühren, die für Stipendiaten eigentlich vom Office of International Affairs hätten gezahlt werden müssen. Da dies nicht geschah, konnte sich der eine oder andere nicht für Kurse anmelden. Es hilft aber, zu jedem erdenklichen Schalter zu gehen und eventuell vorhandene Probleme zu schildern. Irgendjemand kann am Ende meistens helfen und den so genannten „Registration Hold“ lösen.
In Bezug auf das eigentliche Studieren kann ich bis auf den folgenden Punkt nur für mein Department sprechen: Hat man in Deutschland schon einige Zeit studiert, ist in jedem Falle die Einordnung in den Graduate Level (Master Level) anzuraten. Das System läuft hier so, dass prinzipiell jeder zur High School geht und ein gutes Stück des Bachelor inhaltlich die letzten Klassen eines deutschen Gymnasiums umfasst. Letztendlich ist der US-Bachelor ungefähr ein deutsches Vordiplom. Also, keine Angst, habt ihr 3-4 Jahre studiert, seid ihr absolut Graduate-tauglich, auch wenn das Englisch noch nicht perfekt ist.
Zu meinem Department: hier war der Arbeitsaufwand für mich anfangs relativ hoch. Man liest viel, schreibt viel und hat vor allem sehr viele Team Meetings. Hierbei war jedoch das wirkliche Niveau (der Schwierigkeitsgrad) für mich nicht herausfordernd. Die Quantität steht im Vordergrund. Damit möchte ich aber nicht meine Erfahrung schmälern. Dadurch, dass ich in Deutschland an sich nie Teamtreffen oder Studentenprojekte hatte, war das amerikanische Studium ein wertvoller Zusatz, den ich nicht missen möchte. Insbesondere durch den Umstand, dass mein Department sehr international ist (ca. 80% Internationals), habe ich unheimlich viel über Arbeitsweisen von z.B. Ostasiaten, Inder oder Saudis gelernt. Zusammenfassend ist die andauernde Projektarbeit mit anderen Studenten der Kern und vom Lerninhalt das Zentrale, was man hier mitnehmen kann und sollte.
Was die akademische Arbeitsweise angeht, so kann man mit Fug und Recht sagen, dass der Amerikaner sehr induktiv arbeitet und lernt, wohingegen in Deutschland eine deduktive Arbeits- und Forschungsweise Gang und Gäbe ist. Das bedeutet, dass man in den USA unendlich viele Fallstudien liest, die prinzipiell irgendwelche Firmen betrachten, bestimmte Ereignisse analysieren und daraus Regeln herleiten. In Deutschland beginnen Studien eher mit einer theoretischen Plattform, die bewiesen und dann praktisch geprüft wird. Persönlich stehe ich als Anhänger des Philosophen Karl Popper dem letzteren Denkansatz näher, aber das muss jeder mit sich selbst ausmachen.
Wenn man sich anstrengt, ist übrigens ein Abschluss innerhalb eines Jahres durchaus möglich. Ich hatte zwar durchgehend mehr Kurse als meine Kommilitonen, aber das ging schon. Die Freizeit kam jedoch besonders im Winter Term etwas zu kurz.
Vielleicht fragt sich der eine oder andere, wie man als internationaler Student oder als Deutscher in den Kursen ankommt. Ich habe in jedem Term aufs Neue mit gewissem Erstaunen zur Kenntnis nehmen können, dass wir Deutsche gerade bei Ostasiaten einen extrem guten Ruf genießen. An meinem allerersten Tag hier, als es um die Teamzusammenstellung ging, war ich sofort von lächelnden Menschen umringt, die nur mit dem Wissen, dass ich Deutscher bin, mich in ihr Team einluden. Im Nachhinein kann ich es verstehen – generell ist es die schon genannte andere Arbeitsweise dafür ausschlaggebend. Genaueres müsst ihr aber schon selbst herausfinden.
Übrigens habe ich von den meisten anderen Europäern sehr ähnliche Beschreibungen gehört. Mit Ausnahmen sollten meine Erfahrungen also auf andere Departments und Colleges übertragbar sein (bis auf den Ausländeranteil).
Ansonsten lässt sich noch etwas sagen, was jedoch in Anbetracht der Gebührensituation hier ziemlich offensichtlich ist: Die Ausstattung, die Angebote und die allgemeinen Möglichkeiten sind sehr gut. Computerräume gibt es in rauen Mengen, moderne Möbel und A/V-Geräte überall. Ist einmal ein Stück Gras auf dem Campus unordentlich, ist sofort ein Gärtner zur Stelle. Gerade wird ein hochmodernes, neues Sportzentrum gebaut, auf das jede deutsche Uni stolz wäre. Kurz gesagt, der Campus ist herrlich, liegt wunderbar zentral und man fühlt sich dort stets gut aufgehoben. Persönlich kann ich die Study Rooms in der Bibliothek empfehlen. Diese kann man als Student am Hauptschalter der Bibliothek kostenlos für jeweils 3 Stunden mieten. Sie verfügen über 1-2 Tische, Stühle, WLAN (wie überall auf dem Campus) und bieten eine ruhige und abgeschottete Lernmöglichkeit.
Es gibt sogar eine eigene Campuspolizei, die ich aber glücklicherweise nie in Aktion gesehen habe (außer bei den Bombenwarnungen, die in regelmäßigen Abständen eintrudeln – während meines Jahres gab es 3 oder 4). Der Food Court (die amerikanische Mensavariante) ist in Ordnung, man bekommt Burger, Chinesisches, Bagels, Smoothies, Pizza und was man sich sonst noch an Fast Food vorstellen kann. Wer nicht gerade einen Campus wie Berkeley gewöhnt ist, der wird an der PSU nichts auszusetzen haben.

Lebenshaltungskosten / Lebensmittel

Auch hier eine allgemeine Warnung: Am Anfang hat man zumeist einen kleinen Schock, wenn man Grundnahrungsmittel besorgen möchte. Nahrung ist sehr teuer, die Qualität ist eher schlecht als recht. Kalkuliert ein, dass 200g Käse im Sonderangebot 3,50 Dollar kosten. Ein Stück Brot (ca. 500g) schlägt mit $2,50 zu Buche, anderes ist entsprechend teuer. Ein Pfund Tomaten ist bei 2-3 Dollar anzusiedeln. Für Gemüse wird euch früher oder später ein Portlander auf den Farmer’s Market schicken. Das ist ein schönes Beispiel für Pseudo-Alternativität: Die meisten Menschen, die dort verkaufen, sehen aus wie Klischeebauern und absolute Gutmenschen. Dazu passt aber gar nicht, dass sie ihre Preise eiskalt der momentanen Umgebung anpassen und sich absprechen. Die Verkäufer verkaufen nicht nur an einer Stelle (die bekannteste ist auf dem PSU Campus), sondern ziehen herum. Interessanterweise war das Obst & Gemüse der identischen Händler auf dem Farmer’s Market in meiner Nachbarschaft (Hillsdale) immer ca. 30-50% günstiger als downtown. Ein Schuft, der Böses dabei denkt. Dennoch ist das Angebot auf den Märkten gut und reichhaltig. Man bekommt alles von Maiskolben über Paprika bis Birnen (und bei weitem nicht nur eine Sorte). Schmeckt auch alles sehr gut – nur ob die Produkte wirklich so organisch angebaut (Amerikaner nennen das, was wir „Bio“ nennen, „organisch“) sind, darf jeder selbst für sich entscheiden. Wenn z.B. Orangen bei Zimmertemperatur 3 Wochen vergessen werden und danach nicht mal den Hauch von Schimmel aufweisen, sollte das zu denken geben. Ich möchte jetzt aber nicht die Illusion einer völlig intakten, familiär geführten Landwirtschaft im Raum Portland komplett zerstören.
Für meine täglichen Einkäufe bin ich meist zu Safeway. Deren Filiale neben dem Campus ist sauber, aufgeräumt und hat eine nette Atmosphäre. Die Preise sind OK. Achtet besonders auf die roten Schildchen mit „Preisaktionen“. Die meisten dieser Aktionen sind ganzjährig und suggerieren dennoch ein Schnäppchen. Und wirklich sind dies meist die besten Angebote. Die „Safeway Club Card“, die man zur Nutzung der Rabatte benötigt, gibt es kostenlos an der Kasse. Bei so gut wie allen anderen Ketten läuft es ähnlich. Gegen Angabe von der Adresse gibt es eine kostenlose Mitgliedskarte, die dem Eigentümer erlaubt, die Angebote der roten Schildchen zu nutzen.
Spezielle Artikel wie eine Elektroheizung (habe ich gebraucht) kauft man am besten online, bei Amazon.com beispielsweise (ja, da gibt es nicht nur Bücher…). Elektronik ist billig bei Circuit City zu haben. Deren Laden findet sich am Washington Square, der direkt per Bus zu erreichen ist. Aber auch sonst ist die Washington Square Mall eine Fahrt wert. Dieses Einkaufsparadies ist geradezu riesig, sehr schön und sieht immer wie neu aus. Sie ist der Mall beim Lloyd Center auf jeden Fall vorzuziehen.
Braucht man Medikamente, wird man feststellen, dass diese überall erhältlich sind (in jedem Supermarkt). Der einzige Unterschied ist die Beratung: Manchmal war sie sehr gut, manchmal haarsträubend. Auch der Preisvergleich lohnt sich. In den USA gibt es weder bei Medizin, noch bei anderen Gütern wie Büchern eine Preisbindung. Bücher sind ein gutes Stichwort. Diese sollte man keineswegs beim PSU Bookstore kaufen (höchstens, wenn es dringend ist und ein gebrauchtes Exemplar zu erhalten ist). Der Powell’s Bookstore ist auch nicht billiger (man darf Powell bei Portlandern aber nie kritisieren, das wird übel genommen).
Empfehlenswert sind Internetangebote wie der Amazon Marketplace (das sind Angebote von anderen Händlern auf der Amazon-Plattform), Abebooks.com oder der Buchladen Cedric’s, der sich nicht weit der Uni befindet. Das Angenehme an diesem oder am PSU Bookstore ist, dass die Bücher kursmäßig geordnet sind. Das heißt, man sucht nicht nach seinem Buch, sondern nach seinem Kurs und findet dort alle notwendigen Bücher.
Mit Klamotten deckt man sich am besten bei einer Tour zu den Woodburn Outlet Stores ein. Diese sind 20 Autominuten von Portland entfernt und bieten wahnsinnig gute Angebote an Kleidung, aber auch Schuhen, Taschen, Schmuck und so weiter. Ein Beispiel: Tommy Hilfiger-Polos, die in Deutschland um die 40 Euro kosten, kriegt man dort für 12 Dollar. Ich war insgesamt 4x dort.

Goodies (Netflix etc.)

Es gibt sehr viele kleine Dinge, die das Leben sehr angenehm machen können. Und da diese ironischerweise in den USA billiger sind als hier (nicht nur aufgrund des Wechselkurses), kann man sich ein paar davon auch als Student leisten. Besonders mochte ich Netflix. Netflix ist eine Internetvideothek, die Filme per Post zum Kunden bringt. Die preislichen Konditionen ändern sich, aber zu meiner Zeit war ein Vertrag für monatlich um die 15 Dollar zu haben. Die Kündigungsfrist belief sich auf 4 Wochen, Mindestvertragslaufzeit gab es nicht. Es war wirklich angenehm, bei Langeweile stets eine neue DVD ansehen zu können. Die Auswahl ist riesig und DVDs werden dem Kunden anhand seiner Favoritenliste zugesandt. Nebenbei kann man mit einem halbwegs modernen PC und guter Internetverbindung viele Filme auch kostenlos per Internet schauen. Ähnliche Angebote gibt es mit Musik (ähnlich denen in Deutschland). Allgemein ist in den USA jedes noch so kleine Unternehmen online – die Öffnungszeiten seines Lieblingsrestaurants sollte jeder schnell finden können; oder eine Pizza online bestellen. Genauso kann man sich Fernsehserien auf den Homepages der jeweiligen Kanäle mit kurzen Werbeunterbrechungen ansehen. Wer braucht da noch einen Fernseher?
Wer einmal seinen Mantel oder Jacke eingesaut hat und eine Reinigung braucht, kann auf einen der vielen Reinigungsservices zurückgreifen, die einen kostenlosen Lieferservice haben. Klamotten werden von der Tür abgeholt und vor die selbe wieder abgeliefert. Das spart Zeit

Handy

Sofern das eigene Handy triband- oder quadbandähig ist, kann man es bedenkenlos nach Amerika mitnehmen. Allerdings ist bei der Anbieterwahl Vorsicht geboten: Während in Europa GSM verbreitet ist, gibt es in den USA 2 Technologiestandards, GSM und CDMA. Handys aus Deutschland beherrschen nur ersteres. Deswegen sollte man zu den Anbietern AT&T oder T-Mobile gehen. T-Mobile hat einen sehr guten Tarif für Wenigtelefonierer, bei dem gegen einmalige Zahlung von 100 Dollar 1000 Minuten gutgeschrieben werden, die 1 Jahr lang halten. Das war zu meiner Zeit der mit Abstand billigste Tarif und mir haben die 1000 Minuten fast das ganze Jahr gereicht. Nervig ist nur, dass in den Vereinigten Staaten nicht nur der Anrufer zahlt, sondern der Angerufene gleichermaßen. Das gilt auch für SMS.

Reisen

Hier muss ich sagen, dass ich wohl nicht der beste Ansprechpartner bin, was Reisen anbelangt. Das interessiert mich nicht sonderlich – und demnach praktiziere ich es auch nicht. Während des Jahres habe ich San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York und Seattle besucht. Die meisten anderen meines Austauschjahrgangs hatten sich auf diverse Road Trips gewagt und allgemein viel mehr Natur gesehen als ich. Ich habe mir sagen lassen, dass es in Oregon sehr schöne Stellen gibt, beispielsweise in den Dünen, am Crater Lake oder auf Bergen wie dem Mt. Hood. Ich verweise auf andere Erfahrungsberichte, die über die letzteren Örtlichkeiten sicherlich mehr zu berichten haben. Was ich sagen kann ist, dass New York eine absolut beeindruckende Stadt ist. Es gibt wahrscheinlich keinen Platz auf der Welt, wo man im Fünfminutentakt auf weltweit bekannte Attraktionen trifft. Nach New York sollte man wirklich gehen. San Francisco ist nett, hauptsächlich wegen der Golden Gate Bridge. Las Vegas ist immer eine Reise wert – teilweise weil die Hotels (zumindest gerade) so unverschämt billig sind und man somit recht günstig eine Woche unter Palmen am Pool verbringen kann. Und zum anderen sind die riesigen Hotels einfach sehr schön anzusehen. Wem Ocean’s 11 gefallen hat, sollte ein paar Gedanken an Vegas verschwenden. Seattle ist eine nette Stadt – ähnlich wie Portland, nur größer und mit steileren Straßen.

Gutes und Schlechtes

Folgend noch ein paar Dinge, die irgendwie sonst nirgendwo hineinpassen.
Viele Menschen gehen nach Amerika mit der naiven Idee des Landes der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten, der dominierenden Weltmacht, eines superreichen Landes, welches die Weltkultur prägt. Wer mit dieser Einstellung in den Flieger steigt, wird enttäuscht werden – oder durch fortwährende Selbsttäuschung diese Illusion für sich bewahren. Keine Frage, Amerika ist ein tolles Land, von dem man sich einiges abschauen kann. Das Leben ist aber nicht besser als in Westeuropa. Statistisch gesehen mag die Wirtschaftskraft des Einzelnen und damit der persönliche Reichtum größer sein: Autos sind größer als hier, Häuser sind größer (wenn auch aus Holz) und so weiter. Im Kern ist die Gesellschaft jedoch deutlich gespaltener als bei uns – und sehr kalt. Die vielen Obdachlosen (es sind wirklich sehr, sehr viele) werden von der Gesellschaft nicht als Opfer betrachtet, vielmehr haben sie in den Augen der Mehrheit selbst Schuld an ihrem Zustand. Dass das Gesundheitssystem eine einzige Katastrophe ist, wird niemandem neu sein. Hier kann ich nicht nur von Berichten sprechen, sondern aus Erfahrung. Nicht nur, dass sehr viele in Deutschland vorhandenen Medikamente schlicht nicht verfügbar sind, man hat auch erhebliche Probleme, nur mal einen Arzt zu Gesicht zu bekommen. Praktizierende Ärzte (so etwas wie ein Hausarzt bei uns) gibt es zwar, sie haben aber meist ihren Kundenstamm und man bekommt als „Neuer“ keinen Termin. Hat man ein Problem, muss man ins Krankenhaus und wartet dort 5 Stunden auf einen Arzt. Oder man versucht sein Glück beim Student Health Center (gibt es bei der PSU), wobei es dort auch 3 Wochen gedauert hat, bis ich meinen Arzttermin hatte. Und im Endeffekt bekam ich nur den Klassiker verschrieben: Pain killer!
Das Essen ist eine eigene Geschichte. Hat man einen starken Magen und ein dickes Portemonnaie, geht es einem sehr gut. Die Restaurants sind klasse und auch für den kleinen Hunger findet sich stets ein Essenswagen (in der Art wie diese Hähnchenverkäufer bei uns), bei dem man asiatisches, indisches oder mexikanisches Essen erstehen kann. Bei schwachen Mägen sind letztere aber weitläufig zu umgehen. Das Ordnungsamt hätte an den „carts“ seine helle Freude, Hygiene wird sehr klein geschrieben. Supermarktessen ist, wie schon beschrieben, reichlich vorhanden, wenn auch in nur befriedigender Qualität (definitiv schlechter als Aldi oder Lidl). Sehr stimmig ist hierbei, dass eine eher gehobene Supermarktkette in Amerika (Trader Joe’s) zum Aldi-Konzern gehört. Grundsätzlich gilt jedoch: Mit dem richtigen Budget isst man auch gut. Falls dem nicht so ist, muss man sich anders behelfen. Zum Beispiel alles selbst kochen, wenn Zeit kein Faktor ist. Daneben gibt es im Ondine-Wohnheim ein Restaurant, bei dem für ca. 1000 Dollar einen Term, also 3 Monate, so viel essen kann, wie man möchte. Dieses Restaurant ist vergleichbar mit einer deutschen Mensa, allerdings ohne wechselnde Menus. Es gibt immer Pizza, Hamburger, Sandwiches etc.
Die USA ist eine stark monetär geprägte Gesellschaft. Der Mammon regiert und wird verwendet, um den Alltag zu strukturieren. Zwar wollen Portlander einem stets suggerieren, dass das im Rest der USA zwar so sein mag, in Portland aber nicht – dies durchschaut man aber schnell (sofern man es durchschauen und sich nicht selbst täuschen möchte, siehe oben). Der Durchschnittsstudent hat nach seinem Studium Zehntausende Dollar Schulden, was niemand irgendwie unfair findet. Wie viele Leute erst gar nicht studieren können, weil ihre Familie oder sie selbst keinen Kredit bekommen, bleibt unbeantwortet. Die amerikanische Demokratie (und selbsternannte beste Demokratie der Welt) ist eine unheimlich gute Medieninszenierung, die von Spenden lebt. Der Kandidat mit den meisten Spenden (egal ob aus der Wirtschaft oder dem kleinen Mann) gewinnt zumeist. Vom Krankheitssystem war schon die Rede – ist man nicht versichert, darf man halt nicht krank werden.
Wem Folgendes etwas sagt; es stimmt schon, dass Amerika sehr individualistisch und universalistisch ist. Dies gilt es zu respektieren.

Nach diesen Punkten abschließend einige der vielen sehr positiven Seiten und Charakteristika, die man während eines Jahres in den USA entdeckt. Menschen sind schlichtweg freundlicher. Ich kann mich nicht erinnern, dass mich ein Briefträger in Deutschland jemals angelächelt hätte. In den USA wird man dagegen stets freundlich gegrüßt. Natürlich ist das oberflächlich, aber es ist auch einfach nett. Grundsätzlich wird einem mehr geholfen, sofern man in irgendeiner Weise ein „Kunde“ ist. Als zahlender Student ist man das beispielsweise. Auf Universitätsämtern ist die Behandlung vorbildlich, man kommt immer zum Ziel und alles geht am Ende irgendwie. „Das geht nicht“ gibt es nicht.
Weiterhin ist die amerikanische Gesellschaft viel eher an Einwanderer gewöhnt und nimmt diese nur selten als Last auf. Sieht man nicht gerade wie ein Mexikaner aus (das ist nicht polemisch gemeint, sondern leider schlichte Realität), wird man immer wieder aufs Neue willkommen geheißen, nach seinem Ergehen in Amerika gefragt und bekommt Hilfe angeboten. Einwanderer in Westeuropa haben es wahrscheinlich schwerer.
Es wird mehr an den Gegenüber geglaubt, man traut Menschen mehr zu. Während man sich in Deutschland schwere Aufgaben hart erarbeiten muss, hat in den USA sozusagen jeder erst mal das Recht, sich zu probieren. Falls man scheitert, ist das dann halt so. Die Chance dazu bekommt man aber. Auch das spiegelt den stark ausgeprägten Optimismus wider, der, neben einer Prise Verfolgungswahn, das Gemüt der meisten Amerikaner dominiert.
Ihr werdet das Jahr nicht bereuen.

Still alive....barely

2008-07-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't written anything in one month. I am such a jerk! Well, this had mainly one reason....football! It was EURO time. And for the first time in a major tournament since 1994, we were the absolute favorites. And we ruined it! If you want to win a final, you have to walk and attack the enemy and not walk away from the ball. As you can see, I am still suffering from it. But I am optimistic, it will be fine again in about 2 years :-)

Because I didn't want to watch the games alone, I usually rode the bus downtown and got into some sports bars with my friends - and made new friends! Besides, I know many interesting locations in Portland now. Not that I would need them in my last 3 weeks, but still.

So, what happened apart from football? I graduated, for example. However, this does not mean that I don't have to work anymore. Since the university has only 1 major graduation ceremony per year (and my department has only one anyway), people who finish their degree in the Summer term (like me) had their commencement on June 13th.

Aren't we gorgeous? And so international. I am the only European in this picture (as usual, actually). What is a commencement anyway? I guess I'll have to explain since we don't have that in Germany. The most important thing about the whole event: You get an awesome fancy hat! Or you rather have to buy it yourself in the PSU bookstore. This means, the university makes money with you even when you're finished. But what the hell, this is America. Making money in ways you could only dream of. In all, the graduation equipment (the material is cheap plastic Made in Mexico) cost about 60 bucks. One could say it's a ripoff, but it is the only US graduation I'll ever have. And if you calculate it into Euros, it sounds much nicer. So I bought it, of course (oh yes, you can keep it, too! Guess what I am gonna wear the next Fasching?)
Having acquired the stuff, it is quite a big deal to put it on. Some nervous women were running around in the "changing room" and hooked up the gone, hood and what not with numerous paper clips to whatever they could find. Eventually, it all worked out, but some people had to hold on to their precious cloth throughout the ceremony...
Next step after attiring. Queuing for the start. You have to walk into the room one by one, similar to a football game (aaaah....football.....) and take your reserved seat. When everyone sits, it starts resembling a German ceremony. The chair of the department gives a speech, some other guy gives a speech (they all wear their old graduation clothes which apparently were a lot nicer some decades ago.....or they just didn't come from Mexico) and so on. Those sayings are all the same. You are our future, you graduate now, you will lead the society of tomorrow, you will shape society of tomorrow, don't forget your private life, but don't forget your career either.....nothing new, really. But it is always true and usually comes from the heart of the speaker. So, it's OK.

After surviving the speeches (and surviving can be understood literally...it was sooo hot in the room, especially with the Master's gown), the big part begins. People queue again in order to go onto the stage, one by one, to take something that looks like your degree (but which it is not, since some hadn't really graduated yet - so you get a nice piece of paper and maybe some letters of appreciation for your loved ones), and to smile to the various cameras that flash at you. I was even reminded to smile by the dean while we took our photo. We don't want that picture to look bad, do we? :-) We also had the opportunity to say a few words to the audience (which consisted of about 50 family members - most people, like me, were there by themselves). I didn't. Who would have listened to me after all? After this was over, we were officially allowed to turn the tassle (that is this little string which hangs from the hat) from the left side to the right. I don't know why, but I did it like everyone else and it was nice.

Now, one thought that one could leave again, but no, there was a show program, too! 2 fellow students sang some songs. I am not saying that they can't sing, they can do that really well. I just don't know why people would do that at a graduation ceremony. I found it a bit weird as it all seemed more like a pop idol show than a commencement. But I'm sure their families were very happy. So it was good.

After that, however, it was over. We all left the room - in a queue!

What followed was a socializing event of about 30 minutes, with some snacks and lemonade. That was where we took the picture you can see above. Oh, by the way, this whole thing was the commencement of my department. There was another event of my college and a really big one (in a sports stadium) of the university. But none of us went there since you have to sit around in the sun for about 5 hours without doing anything (besides being told that you're tomorrow's leaders).

I went to the college graduation (which rather was a ceremony to hand out some special prizes for female engineers) briefly since there was free food once again (not only snacks, real food). A female astronaut who had just come back from the ISS spoke to us. And of course, she had to say the words you always hear from (naive) astronauts: "From up there, you see only one planet. You don't see borders and conflicts and wars." Yes yes, I hear that a lot at beauty contests. But it seemed to have impressed some folks since it was the small talk topic number one after she had finished the speech. People here love small talk to much. And I still can't stand it. Or, let me phrase it this way. I am used to it now. I can...comply.

Enough for the graduation! It was one entire month! What happened besides the commencement and football.......we came in second....again......Ballack never wins anything.....

The weather has become good! Finally! The last days, it has even been above 30 ..... oh, you cannot key in the degree symbol on an American keyboard. Strange! I'll have to write it out then....degrees. 30 degrees. Celsius, naturally. That is more than 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Did you know that Fahrenheit was a German guy? Quite weird when you think that America is the essentially the only country using this German scale. But I go off the subject. Yes, the weather has become great. Unfortunately, I have to write my Master thesis so I miss most of it. And as I had to change my topic 2 times, the whole thing is quite time-consuming. Here, you can see the Roosevelt statue while it is really sunny.

What's also time-consuming is that my landlord decided to sell his house. Frankly, it might not be the best time to to that when you look at all that has happened in the housing market. And that's him. This alone doesn't sound annoying yet. What is annoying is the fact that each time someone wants to visit the house, every resident has to leave and the house has to be super clean. It is really funny, but Americans don't want the house to be neutral when it is being showed. They want all the furniture inside, and even fruit on the table. I was told that this would make it easier to envision the house as your own home. I strongly reject that. But then again, I neither sell, nor buy a house here. Anyhow, in the last weeks, I had to leave the house almost daily. In exchange, I don't pay rent for my last week here, this very week now, until I leave on Saturday. If someone told me now that this here - my home - won't be my home anymore in 5 days....this sounds really awkward to me. I've grown accustomed to it. After all, I have lived here for the last 10 months. That's a long time.

Why 5 days, you might ask. No, I don't fly home this weekend. But I am flying somewhere else - to Las Vegas. A friend of mine and I booked the Mirage Hotel for 4 days. The Mirage is the casino & hotel you know from movies like Ocean's Eleven. It is in the middle of everything (right on the strip, that's something like the main street in Las Vegas) and very luxurious. But the best part is the price. Since Americans suffer from a bad economy at the moment, no one wants to gamble obviously. So, hotels in Las Vegas and flights to Las Vegas are super cheap. Guess what I pay for the "Luxury Suite" for 3 nights and the round trip flight from Portland (it is a 2 hour flight to get there)? 217 Euros. That is so awesome. That is almost as expensive as one night in a comparable hotel in New York, without any flight or anything. I am really looking forward to the trip - although it is going to be super hot. More than 40 degrees there....gotta pack sun screen.

Furthermore, there are so many farewell parties these days. Today was another one, but I came home from Safeway too late so that I didn't want to go there anymore. I am one of the internationals that leave very late, so I can say goodbye to everyone on their farewell parties. When I finally do mine, nobody is going to be here anymore :-) Farewell parties look like this:

And by the way, that's Portland at night:

German in the EU

2008-05-29T00:59:00.000-07:00

German is the most spoken mother tongue in the EU. German is the second most studied foreign language in the EU, second only to English. German is one of the 3 working languages of the EU. But...is it really? Or just on paper? France has a language policy, Germany does not. In Germany, it is rather awkward to complain about these things, e.g. promoting German. Many, even smart people, would consider it nationalistic.

Because of that, French has a higher stats in most EU institutions, just because French politicians speak only in French. Stubbornness wins the game here. But, we might want to be really careful. It is most of all the language that defines and keeps a culture alive. What foreigner would know of German poets and authors if German wouldn't be spoken outside the country? How many Polish poet do you know? Or Italian poet? Those countries do have poets. But other people just don't care because they don't know the respective languages.

But hey! Some people do care. Unfortunately, it is mostly not Germans but other. Interestingly enough, it took Austrians, Italians, Belgians and Romanians to sign a resolution to give German the same rights as French (which it actually should have on paper).

I am pretty sure, 50% of my fellow German international students would not sign such a petition (100% of the French would). "Why promote the own culture? We've been told for decades in school that we are bad people." Our kids will have severe disadvantages compared to French and English when we go on like this even longer.
But when I take a look at my fellow countrymen, I am pessimistic. Those doctrines are just too deep inside, telling us to discriminate ourselves deliberately.

Obama - What did he say?

2008-05-19T10:54:00.001-07:00

I figured someone might be interested in what the next president of the US had to say.
Well, most of it was the preacher-style stuff that you probably know. Uniting America, helping the poor, helping the middle class companies, going against evil corporations and so forth.
However, some things were interesting. Obama emphasized the need for alternative energy, such as wind and solar. Also, he wants to expand the sizes of mass transportation systems dramatically.
We Germans kind of do and have that.
His ideas of a universal health care is nothing new for Western Europeans either.
Oh yes, and he talked about student loans and grants in exchange for some kind of civil service. Really interesting. The US want to become more European. Sweet.

Obama

2008-05-18T23:40:00.001-07:00

I saw Obama today. He gave a speech at the Waterfront, in some sort of bowl. The weather was great (I have sunburns) and the line was about 10 blocks long, maybe 15 (no kidding!). However, the numbers reported in the news (60,000) within the fences are - in my perception - unrealistic. See for yourself.

PS: I was almost in the front.

More good news in bad times

2008-05-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

Even according to the state-owned news agency, China asks other countries officially for help. Why is that a good sign? Because China does not want to pretend that it is almighty and admits weaknesses. It is a sign that the country sees itself as part of an international community, unlike some others.

Earthquake

2008-05-14T09:13:00.000-07:00

Poor East Asians.... one more natural disaster!

There is one little positive thing about all this. Chinas media report on the earthquake openly. They show problems and admit that the own army is not almighty. Of course, this is not much. But it's a start.

World, oh World

2008-05-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

I haven’t written anything for quite some time. Not, because I wouldn’t want to say something. Rather, I don’t have enough time. And also…writing about things that are going on these days would only make me angrier.

Damn, what is happening? A cyclone devastates parts of a country and its regime doesn’t even let aid organizations into the country? Paramedics don’t get visas? Other countries “may” send food and money, but the government wants to distribute it (to) themselves?

The UN is thinking about taking more dramatic measures to help Burma’s citizens – by not taking care about visa issues anymore, basically.

In order to do this, the Security Council has to decide on it. Pretty easy decision, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to help dying and starving people? Who would want to support a government which rather lets its own people die than letting someone see what’s going on inside the country? Who wants to help a regime keep in power that locks off the own people from the outside world, who kills monks and consists of military officers?

Anyone? Yes!

The People’s Republic of China, world’s dictators’ best friend!

What a horrible country.

And some kilometers to the west, Russia is making a military pride parade as if it was Cold War again…

Free world, be aware. Be aware.

The Issues with Cultural Criticism

2008-04-24T17:32:00.000-07:00

So....it seems the world found the successor of the USSR. Welcome to the Dark Side, China!
Besides that I had been preaching this for months, the guys really deserve it. However, one has to emphasize here that I talk about Mainland China only. Taiwan is cool.

Compared to other historic "bad guys", a completely new issue rises: the cultural aspect. Whereas Germany and even Russia (which Putin successfully forced into extra time in that matter...) shared one general perception of the world with its "enemies" (USA, Western Europe etc....what you might call "The West"), China does not. Absolutely not.
Above everything else, it is the individualistic gap. Individualism means that members of a society consider themselves as focal points, not their social groups. For instance, in the U.S., it is you that decides what's best for you, it is you that makes your decisions and so forth. Collectivistic cultures, on the other hand, strongly emphasize the community in which members live.

For Westerners, this often is confusing. Why wouldn't you want to have your own opinion, pursue your own dreams and long for your well-being? Actually, it is very simple and old hat. Think a 100 years back. Countries were quite poor (yes, even the U.S. :-) ) compared to today's standards. You didn't have systems of social security, police, military and hospitals, soup kitchens (well, not in today's standards); a social net which is there for you when you struggle. You were entirely on your own. To mitigate risk...or rather to minimize risk, people formed larger groups, i.e. families, extended families and other communities. Those groups' members could help each other in times when someone was in need. Your sake depended on others, to a notable degree. Hence, you didn't care only for you, but for all of them. And bang, here we are! This very feature of sociology fosters collectivism (need more information? Get the books from Geert Hofstede about cultural dimensions). With today's broad availability of the aforementioned institutions, people don't have to care that much anymore. Civilizations become individualistic. As a result, almost every developed and rich country of today shows individualistic aspects. Undeveloped countries usually do not. One can conclude that the degree of individualism - yet, maybe not in the extremes - can be considered as an indicator for societal progress.

This was a very compressed explanation of the cultural dimension individualism/collectivism. But now, look again to the paragraph before last.
The big issues with China now is the following: When "Westerners" criticize deeds of the Chinese administration or police, Chinese consider this a personal insult as they cannot distinguish between themselves as an individual and their extended community entity China. From their point of view, every Chinese is offended. And feeling offended is not the best way to start a discussion or conversation in general. You can see this effect even more when you read interviews with Chinese citizens. "The intention of Western media is to insult China" is the main theme there. The question remains why the "Western media" would do this, of course. Anyway, criticism is perceived as a national insult.

The West, on the other hand, considers this completely childish and as acting as a prima donna. We demand a certain degree of self-criticizing abilities. Hence, because no problem, weakness or mistake is admitted from the Chinese side, tensions rise and rise.

This is a mess. On the one hand, criticism only boosts non-reflecting nationalism in China. On the other hand, criticism has to be articulated with all the problems (human rights, freedom of press, freedom of speech, democracy, corruption, environment, plagiarism) at hand.

So, what should be done? I, personally, believe that evil must not remain unspoken. One must not be blackmailed or threatened into silence. No matter whether the threats are of economic, political or personal nature. Freedom does not come easily and does not stay effortless.

By the way, to what such foolish nationalism leads can be seen in this story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/us/17student.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

A Chinese girl who dared to talk to Pro-Tibet protesters was exposed on the web (with all personal information). Now, she will have a hard time going back to China again - and her parents had to leave their home. Reading this, I partly understand why Chinese students here often react so ridiculously when it comes to sensitive topics. They fear repressions.

My eee has Windows now!

2008-04-22T16:34:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Linux!
I cannot say that I didn't try. I have had Linux installed on my eee PC for about 3 months now. But the struggle just wasn't worth it. Since I had another legal Windows XP license, I installed it (via a USB stick which was not too easy). Why? Well, Linux is not quite a time-efficient system, to put it simple. For example, a mere update of OpenOffice takes about 30 minutes (and the instructions are 2 pages long). OpenOffice itself has several flaws and cannot compete with MS Office (this made me sad as I was really looking forward to using OpenOffice). For several simple functions, you have to go into the console and key in commands longer than 2 lines. Finding new programs is hard and installing them even more. Therefore, enhancing the functionality is a pain. Finally, hardware drivers tend to be flawed. And there is almost nothing you can do about it (new drivers come out much less regularly compared to Windows drivers). And don't even get me started with installing those.....

Welcome, Windows XP!

Reporters Without Borders

2008-04-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

I make donations rarely. Simply because I am a poor student. Sometimes, however, I find something so beneficial and important for the world that it just strikes me - you might call it impulse purchase.

Today, it was time again. People knowing me can tell that freedom of speech /press is one of the most critical conditions for me to consider a society developed. This is exactly what the Reporters Without Borders, an international organization of reporters and journalists, fight for.

These weeks, they point out the situation of journalists in China. If you want the whole coverage, go read here: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25234.

To make it short: it is devastating. Foreign reporters hardly get into the country. If they do, they are being followed by the secret police all the time. If they want to interview people on the streets, they run away because they fear repression after the interview gets published. Foreign news sources are completely blocked for Chinese Internet users. Even local journalists become victims of physical violence. You can watch CNN or BBC, but all the time, a report about China or another sensitive subject airs, the screen turns black. State broadcaster CCTV offers propaganda of the Communist Party instead. What a horrible regime.

People who oppose such systems and risk their health for their causes are worthy of support. You can buy T-Shirts with this logo:

..for $30. Needless to say, this does not only cover the material cost, but includes a donation for Reporters Without Borders.

Bien

2008-04-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

Aujourd'hui, je suis un peu francais.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jKcQ-zNQrbmhf2zPCTJ5UhBNxVAgD906E3L00
Paris makes Dalai Lama an honorary citizen of Paris.

Well done, well done.

New York - Part 2

2008-04-17T23:12:00.001-07:00

There is and was just sooo much to do! I hardly remember anything. What a city - there are literally dozens of worldwide known sights at your fingertipps, on a small island called: Manhattan.

Erica's and my hotel was basically directly on Broadway. Which was awesome. The walk to the subway was about 30 meters, but be aware! If you go to New York, bring very good shoes. Even though the subway system is very good for the U.S., you will walk a lot. Just because many things seem sooo close when they actually are not.
Since I don't have tooo much time to write about all the things we did, I am gonna give you a list:
-Walked through Central Park
-Went to the Museum of Natural History (that's the one from the movie with Ben Stiller)
-Went to the Guggenheim Museum
-Went to the Metropolitan Museum
-Walked through 5th Avenue
-Were at Times Square a whole lot of times
-Were at Grand Central Station some times
-Had a guided tour through the United Nations (it actually is no more U.S. territory - funny)
-Were on top of the Empire State Building
-Were at Rockefeller Center
-Went to the Museum of Modern Art
-Went to Greenwich Village
-Were in China Town (although I don't recommend it, shady place)
-Went to the remains of Little Italy
-Were at the World Trace Center Site
-Went to the World Trace Center Museum
-Were at Wall Street & NY Stock Exchange
-Made 2 boat cruises
-Were on Liberty Island with the Liberty Statue
-Were on Ellis Island and went to the Immigration Museum
-Took ferry to Staten Island
-Saw a musical on Broadway

..and so on.

It was a great week. We saw and did so much....it was over far too soon.

I came back on Sunday, April 13th. Now, I have to catch up with my studies...10 days don't seem much. But well, people read much stuff here. Also, I have an independent study to write. Finally, I am going to register my final thesis tomorrow...Yippie!

New York - Part 1

2008-04-17T23:11:00.001-07:00

(April 8th)

I haven't had time to write anything. It is Tuesday already! The Fulbright seminar was awesome. Just awesome. Cool people (and very interesting because awkward people), nice things to do, great food. On Friday morning, after a nice 4 hour long night (we went out to some shady yet expensive bar), all Fulbrighters were split into groups of around 5 and went to high schools in NYC. I was at “Newcomers High School”, a school for immigrants only. The kids were nice and interested. However, the teachers hadn't prepared them at all which made the whole thing difficult (we were not prepared either..). Only one thing hit me hard: In every class I went, some dude would ask me what I think about Hitler. This actually only happens in the US and in the UK. Do these kids learn anything else about Germany in school? Maybe, I don't want to know. Other Germans reported the same.

After another great lunch, we attended a speech of 3 specialists on political participation of young people (as far as I remember). It was OK. Later, the press team had its meeting. What is the press team, you might wonder. Well, during breakfast (from 7am to 8am....brrr), people were “elected” (rather drafted by picking their name out of a big bag full of name tags) to be either Democrats, Republicans, Independents, press people – or nothing. It turned out, the latter ones had much less to do, but in the end, that was cool. Anyhow, I was a press guy. We were given the programs of the parties, the schedule of their campaign trail and instructions on how to run a press conference and a presidential debate. It could go into detail, but it is midnight, Erica is sleeping already and I'm not in the mood.

Friday was not over after the press meeting. In the evening, each scholar was invited to local hosts to attend a private dinner. I was together with the nicest and most polite Pakistani I have ever known. Our hosts were a German-American with her Korean husband. Nice food, nice talks; many insider tips for NYC in particular. Late at night (starting at 11 40pm or something), we went out again but could only find a dirty Irish pub. We had fun anyway.

After another short night, the whole Saturday morning was dedicated to the presidential debate stuff. The Republican won. Not because of the political content but of their candidate. A very bright French girl (but possibly the most astonishing thing was, she could speak English perfectly....I remind you, she is French). Originally, after this whole thing, we were promised to go on a city sightseeing tour. Unfortunately, there had been some problems with the reservation. So, it was canceled. We had 3 hours off. I joined some people who went to Brooklyn Bridge. A great place with a great view. I saw Miss Liberty for the first time in my life.

The concluding dinner took place in a supposedly fancy because spendy Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. But, people were not warned. It was a real Chinese restaurant, not Americanized. Many people didn't find anything to eat at all. I was already used to these foods and took much of the eatable stuff. I managed to get reasonably full. Yet, the waiters or basically the whole staff was rude. I had a Chinese Fulbrighter at my table and she told the waiter that he embarrassed her of being Chinese as well. His answer was that he had no time to be polite. Interesting. Rude means, giving people something on their plates even if they say no (because the waiter wanted to take away the big food plates), spilling food onto the table or maybe pants and so forth. Also, it was the first place in the US with a guy in the rest room who wanted money. Fulbright's organization was strange, too. After the third dish (of about 8), they started playing music. Normal people would conclude that the dinner would be over and stop eating. And most people did so and went dancing. After all of that, a nice group of maybe 20 followed a local Fulbright girl to a club. Somehow, she was on the guest list and now, we were so as well. Music in NY clubs is more similar to the German ones. They play not only hip hop, but house and 80s, too.

On the next day, breakfast was until 10am (yippie, more time to sleep). After that, we checked out and 3 other Germans and me made a small tour to the waterfront, Wall Street and Ground Zero. Spooky. I had to tell the others big parts of a conversation I had with a Pakistani woman the night before (in the bad restaurant). She had very old-fashioned beliefs and... was rather difficult. Also, she thought that she'd know more about the European value system than I do. And yeah, according to her, we Germans were responsible for 9 11 because the terrorist manager was studying in Germany. What a convenient world view this woman had.

At about 3, after lunch, the last 4 of us said good bye to one another and we split. I found my new hotel easily (it is about 10 meters away from Broadway – awesome) and checked in. After that, I shopped for groceries in an Aldi-like shop called Fairway) and went to fetch Erica from JFK. Her flight was on time, but immigration took her full 3 hours. Poor girl. And poor Marius stood the whole time in the gate as well. Finally, at around 10pm, she came through the door and we were together again. The trip back to the hotel took about 1.5 hours (JFK is far outside). By midnight, we were at the hotel.

New York - First Day

2008-04-17T23:10:00.001-07:00

(April 3rd)

I arrived at about 4pm at the front door of JFK. There, I quickly found the right shuttle bus that took me directly to the hotel. However, the staff was rude and forced anyone to tip. It's not the West Coast here :-)

The hotel is awesome.Possibly, it is the most expensive hotel I will ever sleep in. The lobby looks like in TV and the room has a flat screen TV. My room mate is from Palestine and seems to be nice.

The dinner was also great. I had good talks with a Canadian and others. After dinner, I was drafted for some kind of press department. More about that later. Now (10pm), I meet with Gesa to have a drink.

2008-04-17T22:58:00.000-07:00

2008-04-17T22:56:00.000-07:00

2008-04-17T22:54:00.000-07:00

UN Security Council

2008-04-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

Empire State Building

United Nations

2008-04-17T22:51:00.000-07:00

Metropolitan Museum

Museum of Modern Art
UN

2008-04-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center

Central Park

2008-04-17T22:47:00.000-07:00

Museum of Natural History
Museum of Natural History

Rockefeller Center

2008-04-17T22:46:00.000-07:00

Grand Central Station
Grand Central Station
Museum of Natural History
DumDum

2008-04-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

2008-04-17T22:43:00.000-07:00

John Lennon Monument

Central Park
Central Park

2008-04-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

The Bull

NY Stock Exchange
World Trade Center Site

2008-04-17T22:40:00.000-07:00

2008-04-17T22:39:00.000-07:00

2008-04-17T22:37:00.000-07:00

2008-04-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

Times Square
Grand Central Station
Hotel lobby
Times Square

2008-04-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

Grand Central Station
Hotel room

Times Square

2008-04-17T22:32:00.000-07:00

Battery Park

Empire State Building

2008-04-17T22:31:00.000-07:00

Liberty Statue
Manhattan
Again
Ellis Island

2008-04-17T22:29:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn Bridge
5th Avenue
5th Avenue
Liberty Statue

Credit Cards

2008-03-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

These days, I am getting "invitations" of credit card companies about twice to three times a week. No kidding! Today, I shreddered the 6th one....

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

2008-03-28T21:43:00.000-07:00

Hilarious! In the front, the original. Then, the two copies. One of them is a Lexus, the other one.... I don't know! Picture was taken at PSU.

Flags at PSU

2008-03-28T21:41:00.000-07:00

2008-03-28T21:38:00.000-07:00

2008-03-28T21:37:00.000-07:00

2008-03-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

San Francisco - The Trip

2008-03-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

This post is gonna be hard. I will forget half of the things I wanted to write, but the other half should be entertaining enough.

On March 23rd, a cold and rainy Sunday, I was standing in the rain in front of the Broadway, a dormitory in Portland. My landlord was taking me and 2 girls and co-travelers, Shoko from Japan and Ann from England, to the airport. Lisa, also known as the queen of small talk, had already been there. Some 4 hours later, we went off of the plane in San Francisco, California. Sun, high temperatures, holiday. We had no problems with the flight and found the train to the inner city without any hassles. However, then, we were too courageous and started to walk to our hotel, which was about 10 blocks away. You wouldn't want to do that in a city you absolutely don't know. After 2 blocks, we were walking in some kind of a ghetto with people lying around on the ground and strange persons rapping at us. We left quickly ;-)
At 6 o'clock, we checked in the hotel and took a short rest in the rooms. Those were clean and well-equipped (the beds were a little small, though). One hour later, we started to walk around, looking for an eatery. It didn't take long for us to recognize that "blocks" are not of the size we were used to from Portland. Here (Portland), I walk 10 blocks twice each day from my bus stop to PSU and back - demanding about 10 minutes each. In San Francisco, multiply this by 3, at least. We canceled our original plan to walk to the waterfront and got into some American restaurant that served decent pizza. Then, we had to head back to (well, we actually wouldn't have had to, but we were nice and did so) the hotel as 2 other friends from Portland had arrived. Greetings, meeting arrangements for the next day, going to bed. Unfortunately, it was only 10pm and me, being used to go to bed at about 2am, made the mistake and complied. My body was pretty accurate, though. At 2am, I fell asleep. :-)

Next day, "first day", about 8:30am, going to a breakfast place. Americans like English breakfast. I had a bagel with egg and ham. Funnily, our English girl had Italian breakfast, meaning: nothing but something to drink. I miss Italy.
The first stop on this day was Union Square. That's basically the city center. It's hard to describe its distinctiveness. It is a square, with the shape of a rectangle. :-) In the middle of it, there is an obelisk. The cable car passes it, too. Concerning cable cars, we bought our 3 day public transportation ticket near Union Square as well. This really helps as it offers you the opportunity to ride busses, streetcars and the cable cars, of course. Nevertheless, we walked to the waterfront from there (the waterfront on the east, to be precise. With view on Bay Bridge). The vista was great. Bay Bridge is almost as beautiful as the Golden Gate, I find it underrated. Ferries were coming in, people and bums enjoyed the sun. And so did we. After about 45min, we left for the next destination: China Town. We good thing: we went there by cable car. I love cable cars. They are so hilariously dangerous as you sit in a position which would make every lawyer happy when you fall down. This doesn't reflect today's American need for security at all. Then again, San Francisco is not the typical American city. China Town was a must-be as we had 2 Chinese in our group. It is understandable that they wanted to see that (although I am pretty sure that my German travel mate wouldn't have been interested in a German equivalent - why looking at a copy when you know the original? Well, different points of view there.). To be honest, all China Towns look the same to me. They might differ in size and age of houses, but there are always many signs in Chinese, many Chinese restaurants in which a fork is something special and many Chinese themselves, of course. A big difference from the China Town is Portland is, however, that people really only speak Chinese. We ate in a restaurant and even our Chinese ambassadors had a hard time communicating. Apparently, this was the first completely un-Americanized or Europeanized Chinese food I have ever had. It was interesting. Poor Ann didn't find anything to eat, though.
Now, it was afternoon already. The next target on our way to conquer SF's sights was Pier 39. As it is highly likely that you have never heard about that, this is the tourist center at the northern waterfront. Many attractions, many shops, many people and some seals, too! What is the sound a seal makes? I will go with oink oink. And then, there was it! The first view on Golden Gate Bridge, the very reason I had decided to come to San Francisco in the first place. I consider it one of the most famous sights of the United States. And I wanted to see it. Even better, we rented bikes and drove over it. A memorable experience. But a tip for you guys: check early where to get the bikes. Ours were in a good shape, but overpriced. Other friends we met paid 10 bucks a day whereas we paid 21 dollars for 3 hours. Yet, I don't regret it.
We returned the bikes at about 7pm (funny thing: when I was handing over my bike to the clerk, he asked me if I liked it. I naturally responded with "yes" and smiled. He went away and I heard him mumbling: "Europeans!". Apparently, he expected me to describe my divine honor of riding a bike in the American way of judging: Everything is great great great. I prefer to be honest. Everything else is superficial and exaggerated. Disrupts the working value system). Dinner time. As we had already crossed the remainings of Little Italy (called Italian District in SF, or rather North Beach) and it was close, we walked there and found a very cute wannabe-Italian restaurant called Calzone's which was entirely run by Mexicans (or more generally, by hispanics). Food and prices were reasonable but compared to Italy, US prices for pizza are always spendy. My girlfriend would probably have broken something in there since the food was soooooooo un-Italian (bad imitations make her mad), but nobody wanted to ruin the experience. So, the food was praised. But to my Asian companions: Let me take you to a real Italian place in Portland. I don't want you to get a false impression of my favorite food. It had become late. And cold. Boy, is it cold at night in San Francisco. Brr! We found a bus which took the 6 of us close to the hotel. From this point, the 3 girls walked and the (lazy) boys, including me, waited to another bus that went directly to the hotel. After 10 minutes, it showed up. And in the meantime, a true San Franciscan explained to us some things about the city, what makes it unique and - obligatory - excused himself for Bush. Americans really feel embarrassed about the guy so please people: Don't judge the population here too fast. Until 1am or so, we were in a bar next to the hotel, "The Brick", where I had a good time although I was forced to play cards and lost miserably. When I don't wanna do something, I usually pretent to be stupid. This time, I had even turned my brain on holiday mode which means an IQ reduction of 50%. Yet, I don't wanna say that I would have been better if I had wanted to. Unlucky at cards, lucky in love. ;-)
Having slept well but shortly, we started the next day (Tuesday) at ....I don't remember. Maybe 9am. Unfortunately, the sky had begun to become cloudy. Some of us were badly prepared and didn't bring a jacket or coat. Brrr again! We took a bus to a point of San Francisco which is, according to the traveler's guide, a very famous motif for pictures. A Victorian house or something. Anyway, from this point, one had a fabulous view onto the skyline. Click, click, click. Many photos. From this point, the Golden Gate Park (which is not next to the bridge but further south) was close. This thing is huge. Really huge. If we had walked from one side to the other, half of the day would have been over. We checked out the flower conservatorium and the Japanese tea garden. Those Japanese gardens always look nice, very peaceful, somehow organized and very....harmonious and peaceful. As it was about noon and people wanted to see different things, we split up into 3 groups and moved on. Chen, one of the Chinese, and I returned to the Golden Gate, Shoko visited a museum and the others went back to China Town and Lombard Street, a street with serpentines.
At about this time, I made a ridiculous mistake and confused two parts of San Francisco. I knew that one had to cross one bridge when one wanted to go to Berkeley. I chose the wrong one. Chen and I had decided to visit UC Berkeley and now, after a stroll through the Presidio and an - admittedly - awesome walk over the Golden Gate, we were completely wrong and out of money (in San Francisco, there are very few ATMs, can you imagine?). A bus driver saved us. This bus operator was driving a tourist bus which is normally about 50 bucks to run with. For our last $6, he took us through half the city to the next subway station. This way, we even saw some nice sights such as the city hall, which is similar to the United States Capitol in Washington, DC.
After a 25min subway ride: Berkeley! What a fantastic place! The campus is the most beautiful one I have ever seen. Studying there must be paradise. But Berkeley is a "real" city, too. In shops, you would see French nannies teaching toddlers their language, 60 year old hippies singing against the war and students, students, students. After Golden Gate Bridge, this is my favorite place in San Francisco (or rather in the Bay Area). We literally walked around for hours, took dozens of pictures (from the campus, you even see the whole SF skyline and the two bridges) and were overwhelmed. At least I was.
For dinner, the whole group had agreed to meet again downtown. As Chen and I arrived too early, we had the chance to ride the cable car once again. The operators are very entertaining. The cable car is not a mere means of transportation. It is a vital part of San Francisco. Dining was at the Cheesecake Factory this time. That name is rather confusing: one gets everything from salads over pizzas to more sophisticated dishes - and cheesecake of course. Good, but expensive.
Generally, this is one point I want to stress for all you people who think about making such trips: don't be too picky about the food. It adds up to ridiculously high amounts (I think I spent well beyond $100 on 2 days only to satisfy my hunger) and takes just way too much time. Why sitting and eating in a restaurand for 1.5 hours if time is scarce? Especially if you are in a city like San Francisco for only 2 and a half days, time has its own value. Grabbing a sandwich at Subway or Burger King might not be very up-scale or glamorous, but the other way is just not worth it. Furthermore, you might want to consider to buy something for breakfast on your own. Most hotel rooms provide a small fridge (although ours had none) and glasses. Buy an orange juice and some cookies, or maybe even more costly things. It won't exceed the price of a breakfast in an eatery. Do that only if you set high value on atmosphere and if you don't have to care about money at all. Just my 2 cents. Back to the topic.
For dinner, 2 other friends from Portland had joined us. They, a couple, are doing a road trip along the coast. I envy them. Having eaten, we went once again to "The Brick" where 4 other people, friends of Shoko, met with us. Nice night, I had good conversations and was not forced to lose at card games. :-) Bed time was at 2am or something. Perfect! Poor Shoko lost her camera that day. Maybe it got stolen, we don't know.
The third day, today, Wednesday, didn't leave much time for sight seeing. As our plane was scheduled to take off at 1pm, we had to be at the airport at around 11:30am. Sleeping until 8:30am, shower, checking out, breakfast, going to the subway, buying some last minute souvenirs, getting to the airport, leaving. The flight back was a bit rough, seemed to be quite windy outside. But nothing too spectacular, I had fun.

Do I wanna live in San Francisco? Hmmm, in Berkeley, perhaps. :-) But that's just day-dreaming. Sweet dreams, though.
"If you're going to San Francisco, you're gonna meet some gentle people there."

PS: Pictures follow after I receive all data from the others' cameras.

Golden Gate Bridge

2008-03-24T22:28:00.000-07:00

San Francisco

2008-03-23T18:21:00.000-07:00

We have arrived.

Endorsement

2008-03-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

Some guy called Bill Richardson (governor of New Mexico) endorsed ye olde Barack this morning in Portland.
Could Portland even be in the national news? Or did a puppy fight with a cat in Illinois or so? The latter could be considered more important by some of the news channels. ;-)

A long time ago

2008-03-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

....in a galaxy not too far away, I wrote my last entry.

This shall change now. What happened? Quite much or relatively little, this depends on your very perspective. The last 2-3 weeks of this term have been very busy. Especially one class, Technology Marketing, took so much time.....we had endless team meetings, sometimes up to 10 hours and often until 11pm or midnight. One time, even my last bus was gone and someone had to give me a ride. The outcome was quite good, though. We won some kind of prize for the best presentation in this class. Our report counts 160 pages and I have gained many interesting experiences and much team leading expertise. Throughout the term, my team created a business plan for a mobile phone of Google. It was quite interesting but also challenging as the project was completely imaginary. There won't be any Google phone. There is no such service. There is only one thing, a half-baked operating system at whose development Google is participating. This was the starting point. And from there, we went on. I learned how important it is to always stay on the ball. And that is depends heavily on the audience whether good ideas win or good speakers with bad ideas. Anyway, this was one part of last weeks' events.

Furthermore, Erica and I booked a hotel in New York. I won't tell the price, but NY is not the cheapest place on earth. She is flying in on April 6th and we both leave on April 13th. And she will bring food! ;-)

Also, I was partying a few times. It's always great, people are very nice - I haven't seen any aggressive guy in a club or bar since I came here. However, this could be due to the fact that I hang out only in student places. I try to avoid sports bars and these kinds of things as best as possible, they are just dirty and ugly, without any atmosphere. I don't want to have 10 wide-screen TVs around me when I drink and chat with my friends. That's just distracting. (I cannot upload any pictures right now since I am writing on my eee in a university building. Pictures are at home.)

What else happened to me? SHAC attack! SHAC is the Student Health And Counseling center of PSU. Basically, it is some kind of a first aid station for students that don't know whether they should spend big money to see a real doctor. Most universities have that. And the one at ours is a dump. I need a certain drug, and for this, I need a prescription. Having had bad experiences with hospitals (you get bills forever and have to deal with the insurance by yourself), I tried the SHAC.I went there 3 weeks ago, had to wait for one hour and then, I had the honor of seeing a nurse. She had absolutely no idea and told me that I needed to see a doctor to get a prescription. Why did I have to wait for her then? OK, back to the front desk. The earliest doctor's appointment was available one week later. I took it, and was without medicine for one week. I came back and they told me the doctor was gone. Just gone. And they "offered" me to reschedule my appointment for another week. Not having much choice, I agreed. After the second week without medication, I arrived at the SHAC and this time, I was told that someone had written down the wrong date on my appointment notice (you get that when you reserve a doctor's appointment. I was one day too late. Even better, since I obviously missed my actual appointment, I had been charged a $25 fee for not coming. Yet, I was able to convince the lady that this was absolutely not my fault. So, the fee was waived. What now? Right! Reschedule! Tomorrow, there will be the next try. Maybe it works then? Anyway, leaving for San Francisco this Sunday, I probably won't have my drug until then. Yippie!

What happened here apart from things that affected me personally? In the park blocks of the university ("campus"), a student organization placed I guess some thousands of little flags into the soil. Each white flag symbolizes 5 people killed in Iraq since the US invasion. Each red flag symbolizes 5 dead GIs. There are maybe 1000 red flags and .....hm....way way more white flags. It is very impressive. Those guys did a good job, but still, I cannot take it seriously. According to the ratio of white and red flags, they took into account all the people that were killed in suicide bombings. This is kind of wrong because at those occasions, Iraqis kill each other and are not killed by US soldiers. In the Vietnam war, this would have made perfect sense. There, Vietnamese were killed by Americans, sometimes even hundreds of civilians. But not in Iraq. For not letting the Liberals out there start to complain, I do not consider the Iraq war a good thing. It was executed horribly. But you have to stick to the reality even if you just want to draw attention to something.

What else was there.... the Euro! It is rising and rising. It almost reached 1,60 dollars. But I'm not happy anymore. I am starting to get worried. The margins of European companies that export to the US become smaller and smaller. That is not good. And now, the FED even lowered its prime rate.

Then, of course, there is Tibet. But this deserves a dedicated article. In short, China does everything to prove my opinion of those guys. It is the biggest threat to global peace in the medium term. It is ridiculous that such a country wants to show the world its greatness with Olympic games but at the same time, they wipe out minorities. But, as I said, this deserves an own entry.

Now, I have the famous "Spring Break". This is basically just a free week between the winter term and (..yes..) the spring term. That is all the folks have here. One week of holidays. That's why they have to party more intensively. It is totally understandable.

But I am getting tired. I've been writing since I came out of the gym. And I am writing only because I am waiting for a friend of mine to have dinner together (but he has a date or something, so I give him time and won' intrude :-) ).
Pictures follow.

Most stupid flight booking ever

2008-03-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

Today, I experienced an odyssey while booking a flight from Bologna to New York. At first, I wanted to book as usual on the Lufthansa homepage. I have an account and they offered the best deal. However, since I didn't book for myself, this turned out to be impossible since the person I was booking for is not from the US. After trying and trying, I found out that the only possible way would be to book in Euros. However, this is a bad idea since that site uses an exchange rate which gives them 50 Euros extra.
Grr!
So, I went on to Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and so forth. But the flight could not be found. There were a bunch of other flights, but not the preferred one. It just wasn't there. Then, I had an idea...I remembered some strange things from my technology education and did the same searches in the Internet Explorer (before, I had used Firefox). And you wouldn't believe it - the results were different. All the "good flights" were there and I could book instantly. I wonder why the folks at Expedia etc. do this. Providing different results for different browsers. That's awkward.

Personality tests

2008-02-29T17:04:00.000-08:00

Do you know these personality tests in those cheap magazines? Everyone has done them. But those are usually about highly important topics like "Would you cheat on your girlfriend?" or "Are you a good driver?". Things, that you know anyway...or better should.

However, there are some interesting and scientific tests, too. One of them is the MBTI-test, which separates people into extroverts/intraverts, sensual/intuitive, feeling/thinking, judging/perceiving. You can do the test here, just about 70 binary questions. http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Now, the really funny thing is: My test result is "The Teacher".
http://keirsey.com/handler.aspx?s=keirsey&f=fourtemps&tab=3&c=teacher
Both my parents are teachers and one of my dream jobs is to be a university professor. More than coincidence.

Outdoor studying

2008-02-29T12:56:00.000-08:00

I am here in the park blocks of PSU, sitting on a wooden bench, and writing papers for my classes. In the sun, with wireless Internet! All thanks to technology, and my eee PC.
I was working here for 4 hours yesterday. Today, it is gonna be just one. But still, some sun is better than none.

One question remains... what will I have for lunch? Last night, I got myself a "stromboli", supposedly an Italian delicacy. But actually, it was a greasy piece of bread with nothing but salami (people call it pepperoni here) in it. A unhealthy thing with 900 calories. Brr! No, thank you, Sbarro.

Suppe ausloeffeln und so

2008-02-27T13:17:00.000-08:00

Man ueberlege sich, was los waere, wenn die CDU mit den Republikanern koalieren wuerde. Einfach nur aus Machtgeilheit.

And here we are!

2008-02-26T14:58:00.001-08:00

The Euro did it.

http://www.heute.de/ZDFheute/boerse/1,1497,,00.html?stock_Id=EURUS.FX1

Weltwährung

2008-02-26T11:09:00.000-08:00

Look at that.... the Euro is approaching the $1.50 milestone. Right now, it equals $1.4930... The countdown is running. Not bad for Deutsche Mark's child. While the Mark always was the world's second most important reserve currency, I believe, the Euro will become the number one (in 1 or 2 decades or so).

Economy of South America? Who knew!

2008-02-25T00:31:00.000-08:00

Having had no idea about the economy of South America, I was curious. To be honest, my knowledge of this continent is...limited. But I found some interesting figures. The combined GDP of all South American countries (about 2,000,000 million USD) is smaller than the one of Britain (about 2,400,000 million USD) or France (about 2,250,000 million USD) and hence, of Germany as well (about 2,900,000 million USD), of course. Yet, with a population of ~370 million people, there is much potential for future growth.
But this doesn't make me learn Spanish either. ;-)

San Francisco, here I come...coughing

2008-02-25T00:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I finally booked the my trip to San Francisco during spring break. I am going with 3 other internationals from Germany, England and Japan. I am sure, it will be a great trip - looking forward to it already.

However, I've been having a cough / cold for days now. Of course, I don't better my condition with all the studying and team meetings in the library (full of other people's germs). But I have no choice, have I? For example, after the booking yesterday, I attended a 6 hour meeting. 6 hours can be long. But being the team leader, there is no excuse for me going home early. My team consists of those guys in the photo. That is the usual distribution here - mostly, I am the only "white guy" (for the Germans who haven't been abroad - it is totally OK to say that here). It is a very interesting experience. I learn very much from it.

Today, there was a wine tasting on the winery of my marketing professor. He invited us - and after all, that was a good deal for him as several students bought a notable amount of the very expensive bottles, of supposedly the wine of the whole North West. I have no idea about wine, though.

Besides all these things, a fruity little guy called Ralph Nader has entered the race for the presidential elections - again. Being a left-wing guy, he always captures some Democrat votes. That, in turn, cost the Democrats at least one election (Al Gore against Double-ya). Some consider him a spy of the Republicans

Was ist los mit n-tv.de?

2008-02-23T11:11:00.001-08:00

Das wird nun nicht so viele interessieren, einige aber doch: Wer wie ich haeufig Nachrichten im Internet verfolgt, wird auch festgestellt haben, dass der bekannte Anbieter n-tv.de seit Monaten immer weiter nach links abgedriftet ist. Waehrend er frueher noch recht neutral berichtet hat (aehnlich wie Tagesschau.de, heute.de etc.), kann man die Seite heute fast Sprachrohr der SPD nennen. Hier ein eklatantes Beispiel. Die Aeusserungen Kurt Becks ueber eine passive Zusammenarbeit mit der SED werden nach so gut wie allen Zeitungen und Berichten, die ich so gehoert und gelesen habe, von der SPD-Spitze ungewoehnlich scharf kritisiert.

Siehe hier:
http://berlindirekt.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/9/0,1872,7161289,00.html?dr=1
oder
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,537332,00.html
oder
http://www.heute.de/ZDFheute/inhalt/12/0,3672,7161484,00.html
oder
http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/landtagswahlen36.html
oder
http://www.welt.de/politik/article1715773/Das_Linkspartei-Dilemma_des_Kurt_Beck.html

etc.

Was sagt n-tv?
http://n-tv.de/923307.html?230220081611
Grosse Ueberschrift: Union erpresst SPD. Im Titeltext wird von steigender Akzeptanz von Becks Vorstoss in der SPD gesprochen. Eine sehr komische Lesart.
Uebrigens: N-tv ist sich haeufig nicht so ganz mit sich selbst einig. Es mag sein, dass der Artikel in einer halben Stunde schon wieder anders aussieht oder gar geloescht ist. Bisschen amateurhaft bei den Damen und Herren dort.

Lunar eclipse in Portland

2008-02-21T12:06:00.000-08:00

My good old digital camera made a few reasonable pictures.

Comments?! Surprise

2008-02-17T23:23:00.001-08:00

I have just realized that it is allowed to write comments to my entries...

I apologize to all those commentators... I had no idea. I was sure that I had turned this option off. Obviously I didn't.

But what I can see is that just those people who have or had their own Internet diary commented. They know the secrets, I guess.

The eee

2008-02-15T21:18:00.000-08:00

Although my most recent widget is already one week old, I haven't had time to make pictures and write about it since I got it. I present the eee PC, an ultra-ultra-ultra-mobile laptop suited perfectly for my requirements. My "real" laptop is a good device, however, it is not the best thing to carry around. Heavy, big... and I don't trust the warranty. Therefore, I started to look for a computer that I could always bring with me, anywhere I go. I had strict price limits. And this is what I found. Based entirely on Linux (but yet, Windows compatible), this tiny eye-catcher is my new "beloved"....
When I have it with me at team meetings, I can be sure that at least one of the guys "needs one, too". The internal Celeron processor is not the fastest, but I don't play at the university anyway. I need something to browse the Internet, check emails, write documents and make spreadsheets. Are the 7 inches of the screen too small? Not for me, at least. I can definitely live with it. How much was it then? When I answer this question, I usually test my class mates and say "3". 50% would ask "3000?" in return. But no, I am a poor student. It was a little more than $300. Convert this into Euros! And it is full-fledged computer. With WLAN and all the things one needs.

Midnight gift

2008-02-15T00:36:00.000-08:00

Annual Report of the Reporters without Borders

2008-02-14T10:06:00.001-08:00

To whom it may concern.... but everyone should be concerned.

Source: http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/rapport_en-3.pdf

German and Romanian workers

2008-02-13T23:08:00.000-08:00

In Germany, there is an interesting discussion right now. Nokia, world's leading cell phone manufacturer, closed one of their factories, and this factory happened to be in the German town of Bochum. Some 2,000 workers are to be laid off, and because of that, there is public outrage.

Many kilometers to the east, Romanians are cheering as they have a new employer. Nokia just shifted its factory eastbound. Workers earn maybe 10% of that what Germans would demand. For Nokia, this step is logic, but it should be quite stupid as well since Nokia ruined its reputation in one of the world's biggest cell phone markets for a time.

However, today, I heard an interesting interview with the project manager guy in Romania who was responsible for the acquisition of the new employer. He had no clue why Germans are so furious about the whole thing. I will try to write down his wording: "This here is nothing for the German population. My god, you Germans are so clever! You have enough culture to create, to research, to develop! You Germans have to do exactly this. Just let the others assemble the devices. What is going on with you? Do you really want to assemble mobile phones in the long run?"(Source: Tagesthemen, 2/11/08). This is somewhat true. Researching countries like Japan or South Korea also leave the "dirty work" of assembling to others, partially at least.

This is the circle of globalization. The industry stage is just a first stage. After that, there is the service stage and then, or rather right now, the knowledge stage is smiling at us on the horizon. Right now, services account for some 80% quarters of the US economy. In Germany, it is about 70%. Modern societies don't need many resources to build things. It's about using them. And inventing them.

Nacheiferung?

2008-02-13T22:48:00.000-08:00

Die USA gelten in der deutschen Jugend noch sehr haeufig als Land der unbegrenzten Moeglichkeiten. Und als das Kulturland schlechthin, insb. der Popkultur. Nicht nur die kleinen Gangsterrapper in Deutschland wollen 50 Cent spielen.
Aber wie sieht es andersherum aus? Schauen Amerikaner nur auf Europa und Deutschland herab? Koennten sie sich vielleicht sogar vorstellen, auzuwandern? Nun, so weit geht die Freude am Neuen weithin nicht, der Patriotismus ueberwiegt. Dennoch habe ich eine grundsaetzliche unbefriedigte Neigung im Durchschnittsamerikaner ausgemacht, von persoenlichen Gespraechen, Medien und Aehnlichem: Sicherheit.

Jene Sicherheit hat grob 3 Dimensionen:
1. Sicherheit im Sinne innerer Sicherheit: Wenn man in Deutschland um 11 Uhr nachts in der Innenstadt Stuttgarts herumlaeuft, kann man sicher sein, viele Menschen zu sehen. Hier nicht. Hier ist man allein, und das aus guten Grunde. Erst vorige Woche hoerte ich zum Beispiel von einer Angestellten im International Office, dass in einer Strasse neben ihrem Wohnhaus jemand erschossen wurde. In der Zeitung steht so was nicht, zu normal. Solches passiert trotz sehr geringem abendlichen Ausgang. Natuerlich gibt es in Deutschland auch Vorfaelle, populaer momentan "U-Bahn-Attacken". Aber das ist ein voellig anderer Massstab. So oft, wie hier in Malls oder Bueros oder - Eltern bitte Augen zu - Schulen Kugeln fliegen, kriegt man gar nicht mehr richtig mit.
2. Sicherheit in Sinne finanzieller Sicherheit: Teilweise bedingt durch das idiotische Kreditsystem hier, teilweise durch unglaubliche Naivitaet oder Selbstueberschaetzung einzelner und teilweise durch mangelnde staatliche Unterstuetzung ist die Armut hier massiv. Natuerlich ist das eine Minderheit, klar. Das BIP pro Nase ist hier schon anstaendig hoch. Aber bei der hiesigen Verteilung wuerde Herr Beck schon allein deswegen platzen. Ich bin beiden Seiten recht gut ausgesetzt. Zum einen sitze ich in der fuer deutsche Verhaeltnisse suendteuren Business School, zum anderen fahre ich taeglich und gerne Bus. Und Busfahren ist hier fuer arme Leute. Nicht zwingend in der Innenstadt, aber von den Vororten herein. Zerrissene Kleider sind an der Tagesordnung - und strenger Alkoholgeruch laesst persoenliches Leid vermuten. Und was fuer mich offensichtlich ist, sage ich lieber noch mal ganz deutlich: Hier schlafen jede Nacht hunderte Menschen in der Innenstadt auf der Strasse, wenn das mal reicht. Spare some change, sir?
3. Sicherheit im Sinne koerperlicher Sicherheit: Vorige Woche habe ich mit einer Bankarbeiterin den ueblichen Smalltalk gefuehrt. Ich weiss nicht, ob die Leute das machen muessen, aber sie tun es jedenfalls exzessiv. Nach der obligatorischen Frage, woher ich denn kaeme, kommt speziell bei Angestellten in den eher unteren Regionen recht oft sofort das Thema einer Krankenversicherung auf. Hat die nette Dame in der Bank denn keine? "No, sir. If I become ill, I will have a serious problem." Koerperliche Unversehrtheit ist im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes existenziell. Nimmst du das einem Menschen, ist Angst fast schon zwingende Konsequenz. Wir koennen noch so zetern in Deutschland, unser soziales Netz ist so dicht gesponnen, wie es wahrscheinlich nicht mal Spiderman hinbekommen wuerde - wo wir wieder beim fuehrenden Popkulturland waeren.

Integrassimilation

2008-02-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

Mal wieder was Deutsches. Ziemliches Geschrei gibt es in der Heimat wegen einem tuerkischen Politiker, der Emigrierte vor Assimilation warnt und tuerkischen Zeitungen, die schon am Tag des Brandes eines Hauses in Ludwigshafen den Knueppel auspacken und Hakenkreuze quer ueber ihre Zeitungsseiten haengen. Ueber unsere Seite wissen wir recht gut Bescheid, wobei es manche wohl eher realistisch, andere eher vertraeumt betrachten. Doch wie sieht es "drueben" aus?

Hier ist ein Zwischenruf einer bekannten, tuerkisch-staemmigen Anwaeltin in Deutschland:
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/Zwischenruf_von_Seyran_Ates/429906

Dann ein netter Beitrag zu der Lage der Minderheiten in der Tuerkei. Man vergesse nicht, Assimilation ist nach Herrn Erdogan ein Verbrechen an der Menschlichkeit.
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/Erdogan_und_Minderheiten_in_der_Tuerkei/429912

Warum eigentlich? Dieses Statement hoert sich ja sehr schoen an, aber irgendwie vermisse ich da schon den kausalen Zusammenhang. Wurde und wird an den Millionen Einwanderern in die USA ein Verbrechen an der Menschlichkeit veruebt, weil sie langsam aber sicher Amerikaner werden? Oder in Frankreich? Nein.
Es ist das alte Spiel: Geschickter Umgang mit Furcht und Traumata. Die Rechtsradikalenkarte oder der "nationalistische Joker" sticht in Deutschland sehr vieles aus. Zum Glueck vergeht das.
Ich bin sicher, noch vor 10 Jahren haette es in Deutschland keine Kritik an Erdogans Aussagen gegeben. Man haette sich lieber im Scham gesuhlt.

American oranges

2008-02-11T22:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I threw away some oranges. I bought them about 3 weeks ago. What struck me: they looked like new! No molding at all, no rotting at all! After 3 weeks uncooled! I really don't want to know what little twists those guys use here in the States.... the oranges were from California.

Japanese Schnitzel

2008-02-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I was eating Japanese. Nothing too unusual, however, a Japanese buddy ordered a dish called Tonkatu. Although is sounds very exotic, this was nothing but a common German Schnitzel. Even with a similar side dish, salad and a citron to squeeze juice over the pork.

The Democratic Race

2008-02-09T20:56:00.000-08:00

Today, Obama won at least three of the primaries of this day. And the results were not narrow, they were landslide victories. In my perception, he has won right now. He won't be stoppable anymore. I am impressed. It is all about the right words.

University justice

2008-02-09T01:33:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I was at the apartment of 2 Japanese watching a movie. After the movie, some friends of them visited them, or us, briefly. I didn't really understand, but I think, they just wanted to take them to another place. However, after some 3 minutes, a not-so-friendly university guard was standing in front of the door and complained about a rule that no more than 6 people must be in one room (apartment) at one time. We were maybe 10. So, he took the personality information of everyone in this room (although I even didn't know that there was this kind of rule) and told us that the university security would call us. This is ridiculous. Of course, nothing is going to happen, however, I hate it when people grab my passport and write down what they want. Especially in times of Homeland Security.

Harry Pothead

2008-02-05T15:11:00.001-08:00

I am watching the new Harry Potter (or rather the most recent). Those guys really should add American dubbing. One just cannot understand what those British children are complaining about....

Rain rain rain

2008-02-05T14:49:00.001-08:00

This weather really makes people depressed. Rain, rain rain. All the time. With short breaks of some hours, allowedly. What has happened? Well, last Friday, I had a funny night with a French and a Thai. After the Italian movie night with a film of Roberto Benigni, we retired with a bottle of wodka. While Alexis (French) and I had no severe problems, Nat (Thai) experienced some skin irritation due to the wodka (according to him, no one really knows). We watched Borat and went to the standard student bar, the Paccini. There, I met a South Korean friend of mine with which I am in a project team. Luckily, he was there. Why? Well, after some...more drinks, Nat and I decided to take a cab home. Unfortunately, I lost my Zune MP3 player along the way. Choi (South Korea) found it and I have it back.
Nevertheless, there is one thing I did lose...or basically two within one week. 2 umbrellas - the first one on Monday, the second one on Friday. But they are just 6 bucks at Safeway, so no worries there.
Was there anything else? Well, today is Super Tuesday with literally dozens of primaries for the presidential nominees. Let's see how this works out.

Last week, or rather last weekend, I was in a club called Aura. Was funny to see how American (girls) dress in a common disco. Some were in prom dresses, some looked like in MTV gangsta rap videos. Nice mixture. The good thing: Nobody cares. If you don't show up with a potato sack around your chest, this should be OK. One particular difference of the American disco dancing to the German one: In the US, people also use their hands. For those of you who don't know (or just pretend to), people in Germany don't do that. Of course, they are in motion, but they remain facing down. Whatever... this is maybe not the most important piece of information. Oh yes, and I saw a basketball player named Yao Ming. It's a Chinese guy and he is quite famous in Asia and in the basketball community here. I tried to make a picture, but I only got his sweater. Too many people crowding around him.

Furthermore, I recovered my old passion for Star Trek - The Next Generation. Due to my Blockbuster subscription, I can get the DVD series via mail. And this, I do. Mister Worf, open hailing frequencies.

However, this weather makes sad.

Engage!

Simpsons for President

2008-02-01T13:56:00.000-08:00

Homer Simpson: Lisa, being president is easy! You just point the army and shoot!

Privacy

2008-01-29T00:51:00.000-08:00

Just read / heard some interesting news within the last hour. In China, the government is building the biggest firewall in world history to the free worldwide Internet from their people and to log every (!) move Chinese Internet surfers make. Source: An interview with a Chinese university professor at Princeton.

Then, I read something about legal studies in Germany saying that it was illegal to scan even number plates on German highways due to privacy issues.

Different worlds.

Wahlen in Hessen

2008-01-28T11:18:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but this entry will be in German.

Eigentlich ist das Wahlergebnis in Hessen - bis auf den Einzug der Linkspartei - eine gute Sache. Koch wurde als Tunichtgut entlarvt und kann sich eine bundespolitische Zukunft relativ sicher abschminken. Für die CDU ist das nur eines: beruhigend. Zwar konnte man einen so mächtigen Herren vor der Wahl nicht einfach schassen. Nach dem Wort des Wählers sollte genau das aber bald funktionieren. Es ist zu hoffen, denn insbesondere der jungen Generation sind Leute wie Koch ein Dorn im Auge. Sie verschieben das Bild der gesamten CDU, und zwar in die falsche Richtung.
Was wird nun passieren? Die FDP wird sich nicht verbiegen, das kann ich mir nicht vorstellen. Sie weiß genau, dass wenn sie nur ein einziges Mal ein Versprechen, nicht mit der SPD zu regieren, nicht einhält, sie sämtlichen Kredit bei bürgerlichen Wählern verspielt. Schließlich sind ihre Fürsprecher genau die Leute, die CDU wählen würden, wenn es da nicht ein paar Themen gäbe, die sie nerven. Und natürlich der Wirtschaftsflügel, der wäre bei Rot-Geld auf und davon. Entweder die SPD wird kippen. Wahlversprechen waren noch nie ihre Stärke, man erinnere sich da nur an den schönen Steuersong, der die allgemeine Stimmung in Deutschland nach der Wahl 2002 widerspiegelte. Auch einen Untersuchungsauschuss Wahlbetrug gab es. Wieso also diesmal nicht? Zwar kommt mir diese ehemalige Stewardess wesentlich glaubwürdiger vor als Herr Schröder, Putins Schoßhündchen, aber dennoch: Die Ministerpräsidentschaft winkt. Also Rot-Rot-Grün? Dann würde in Westdeutschland eine Partei regieren, deren Mitglieder die DDR für den "friedlicheren Teil Deutschlands" hielten und halten (http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,druck-531577,00.html). Welche Partei die ungebildete Unterklasse, oder auch Denkzettelwähler genannt, nun für ihre Zwecke auserwählt, sei es die Linke, die NPD oder die Republikaner - in einer Regierung darf solch eine Vereinigung eigentlich nicht sitzen.
Vieles geht also nicht oder sollte nicht gehen. Was wäre wünschenswert? Ein gesellschaftliches Experiment. Wenn die Realos bei den Grünen die Oberhand inne hätten (wenn also Leute wie Fritz Kuhn oder Renate Künast mehr zu sagen hätten als die linke Claudi oder Herr Bütikofer), ist eine Koalition mit der CDU durchaus realistisch. Natürlich müsste die sich sehr symbolhaft bewegen, was bestenfalls in einer Stürzung Roland Kochs enden würde. Die FDP würde dieser Lösung ohne einen Wimpernschlag zustimmen. Sie braucht Regierungserfahrung und will endlich die Konzepte, die von unabhängigen Instituten in den letzten Jahren eigentlich durch die Bank als die realistischsten und sinnvollsten bewertet worden sind, umsetzen. Die Grünen würden das aufgrund ihrer 68er-Erinnerungen vielleicht Jamaika nennen - andere nennen es schwarze Ampel.
Warum nicht?

PS: Was kaum einen interessiert hat, was aber eigentlich noch wichtiger war als Hessen (6 Mio im Vergleich zu 8 Mio) - in Niedersachsen hat die CDU fast so viele Prozente wie SPD, SED Reloaded und Grüne zusammen.

God damn it

2008-01-24T09:33:00.001-08:00

Foreign politics is a tough one!

http://dailywebb.com/?p=303

Autobahn

2008-01-23T13:35:00.000-08:00

For my non-European friends, I promised to show you how the Autobahn looks like. It is actually a usual road, just the usage is different....
Here is a short video showing the view from inside of our car driving with 180kmh. As you can see, many other cars pass us (for example a Porsche after some 5 seconds). This is common.

2008-01-21T11:41:00.001-08:00

2008-01-21T10:36:00.000-08:00

2008-01-20T20:52:00.000-08:00

2008-01-20T20:36:00.001-08:00

2008-01-20T20:36:00.000-08:00

2008-01-20T20:31:00.000-08:00

2008-01-13T19:18:00.000-08:00

Long time ago

2008-01-13T18:02:00.000-08:00

Hi there,

I haven't written for a looong time. I was at places far, far away. But I am back. And that's what counts.

First, I will just copy a post which I actually wrote in Italy. Here it is:

It is Friday. The jetlag is almost gone. From Monday to Wednesday, I broke my personal record of being awake. Since I did not sleep neither the night before Tuesday (or let's say until 3AM when I had to get up to catch the plane) nor the "night" in the plane from New York to Venice, my "daytime" totaled approximately 50 hours. But even then, I slept only 6 hours as my body considered the time to be sometime in the afternoon. Stupid jetlag. However, on Wednesday morning European time, I arrived in Italy after a 22 hour trip. It is great being back in Europe! After all, this is the place where I belong. However, my views change. Now, it is hard for me to consider Italy a real "foreign" country. Of course, I have hardly any idea about the language. But all those common values.... just cannot be overlooked.

Since I told some Asian fellows that I would take many pictures, here are some already. Erica and I were shopping. It is marvellous to buy an organic (although the whole organic hype is called bio in Europe) for much less than one dollar. One kilo (~2lb) is $3. Furthermore, there is vodka, rum and gin at common groceries. Begone, hypocracy! On the downside, shops close at around 8 PM.

By the way, my suitcases survived the trip. And they even came on time to Venice and not to some other place in the world. Convenient. But there was one funny thing thoug: In New York, at JFK, my plane to Venice (supposedly Delta, but they changed it to Alitalia....) had to wait 30 minutes because the folks were looking for one piece of luggage. After they found it, the plane had to be queued in newly, and the result was, it started with a delay of 90 minutes. Expensive suitcase.

Here in Italy, there is a truck driver strike. And the guys really mean it. They blocked most of the freeways (autostrada) and were able to sabotage the whole nation's traffic system. How? Fuel! They just stopped shipping additional fuel to the gas stations. This makes cars stop ;-)

Let me think whether there is anything to say about the final days of the term. Well, yes, maybe. I have learnt how crucial it is to have a well-performing and harmonizing team. Not being used to all those team projects from my home university, I had let luck decide what team members to choose. Turned out, that was a stupid idea. At least partly. One team was quite alright. What about my grades? To be honest, I haven't looked them up yet. But they should be OK. After Friday night's class, I went to a end-of-term-party of a French guy. It was very good. However, I kind of frightened some of the people there because they had not experienced my frank attitude yet. This is due to the fact that this attitude appears only when I really feel comfortable and if there is alcohol. Both was the fact last Friday. Wow, this is already one week ago. Somehow, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday seems like one day to me.

Alright then. Enough has been said. I am going to read a book now.

Arrivederci (no offense, but Italian is so much more beautiful than Spanish. La lingua mi piace molto.)

OK. I wrote this some days after my flight from Portland to Venice. What happened next? Well, I enjoyed the great, great, great Italian food. My girlfriend's mum is a great cook. But when I am in Italy, it is hard to find something I don't like.
I guess, I should upload you guys some pictures. However, the upload enginge of this service is bad. I will look for a different one and implement it here afterwards. Hopefully...

There are many pictures of snow (!) in Italy, a nice theme park called Italia in miniatura which is - you might know it already - a park in which all Italian and some European sights are modelled. I liked the tower of Pisa the most.
After this way too short time, Erica and me went to Venice for 2 days (just in case there are some frowny faces right now: my plane landed in Venice, Erica lives 250km away).

Venice is the most beautiful city I have ever seen. Period. However, I was there in winter. People tell me that in summer, the place is crowded with Japanese and some residents complain. The City of Light has a public transportation system of ferries which is probably as complex as Portland's. The buildings are just lovely and perfected to the last bit. We spent a night at a nice hotel, walked through the actual isles of Venice the next day and took the plane to Stuttgart the day after that.
And there I was. I was home. To be frank, I felt in Italy a little at home, too. Just because the buildings were older than 100 years and so forth. This was Europe. But I was only really at home im Germany. I don't love Stuttgart, the town I lived in for over 4 years. Yet, there was this distinctive feeling most of you who are or were abroad know. The flight from VCE to STR was on the 22nd. My mother was very happy when she came for me at the airport. The next day, my grandparents arrived and we had our traditional family christmas. If some of you wonder, my family is very small, yes. 3 days later, we celebrated Erica's 25th birthday. She was with me at christmas, her birthday and new year's eve. That's one declaration of love, huh?
On the 28th, we went to Stuttgart again (my parents live near Ulm, which is 100km from Stuttgart) to see some friends. When I saw the city, I knew that I was not ready to come back. In the meantime, I took my grandparents back to their home near Würzburg. I noticed that their house had been built in 1740. It is older than the entire United States. These things occur to you only when you were here, I guess.
What happened next? New year's eve. There was some firework and madly barking dogs because they were afraid of all the noise. So they made their own one.
Then the sad part. The preparations to come back. My parents took Erica and me to Frankfurt one day before our flights (she flew back to Italy on the same day). On my last evening, we found a great little, very traditional, German restaurant and had really good food. Our last meal, so to speak. The goodbye was hard. Very tough. Much harder than the first time. Back then, we knew what was coming and we knew we'd see each other on christmas again. But now? Who knows. I am trying to find an internship for her. She has a Master's degree in translation of English, German and Italian. Naturally, she is fluent in all those languages. And has a heart of gold. So, if one of you people knows a place where she could apply, please tell me!
The flight itself was crappy. It is OK to travel for 24 hours if you are looking forward to the destination. But if you actually prefer to stay at the place of departure, then.... well. It wasn't that good. Just one small aspect was very interesting. People asked a flight attendant (an emigrated German woman, aged around 60) whether she would recommend people to emigrate to the US, too. She smiled sadly and said: "Today, you definitely have a better life in Germany". Times change. My grandfather was also very surpised since I wasn't really fascinated by America. When he was my age, he wanted to move to the country that had liberated his own country from his own fears. And once again, those people working at the JFK airport in New York are really mean. They don't care for anything. I was so lucky that they didn't care for my luggage either because I smuggled loads of sweets.

The first few days were also difficult, but due to deliberate distractions (TV, computer...) I felt better quickly. Even the jetlag was gone after 4 days. The first week of school is over and I have 3 courses. 2 of them are said to be the hardest in the program. Let's see about that.

Last Sunday, I was at the movies. The film was "PS I Love you". A horrible piece of junk. If you want to make people cry, that's easy. And so does this movie.

This week, I read about 400 pages, wrote one article review, made 2 powerpoint presentations, had 3 team meetings and forgot about the rest. Yippie!

And now, I have written enough. Let me think some good pictures now...

Funny Team Meetings

2007-12-05T23:35:00.000-08:00

One thing I like about all the team projects here is the discussions during the meetings. Almost all the time is spent for topics which are not really related to the project. Often, it is about culture, or culture clashes. However, I experience a certain situation again and again which I hoped would be just a stereotype. Culture is deliberately used as an excuse for exploitations, unjustice and unfairness. Whether is is about the women in the Middle East or about intellectual property with Asians (I have to be fair here, mostly Chinese), it is not a fault or wrong - it is culture. And since culture can be declared as a taboo easily, this strategy is pretty convenient. Specifically, it was about software and technology. Should one buy software or should one be able to circumvent patent law? I, being a European, having a specific culture, I better should buy and better not copy. But for Asians, it seems to be culturally OK. As a consequence, they can copy and imitate. Nice going. Westerners are not allowed to copy from others due to cultural reasons, but they other way round, it is fine. But...will this go on forever? No. I still remember my granfather telling me how interesting the Japanese were in German machine factories in the 1960s. They would make pictures all the time. The unsuspecting Germans would allow it. And 5 years later, they were almost broke as Japanese had the same projects at half the price because they did not have to amortise the R&D costs. Today, Japan also is on the side of the intellectual property protectors. Why? They started to invent by themselves and saw that it is not very nice if others can do the same for less money, illegally. In a few decades, this will - hopefully - be the same in China.
However, does this mean that Westerners should leave them be? If you don't care how many inventing companies become bankrupt, then your answer is "Yes".

An interesting day

2007-12-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

Today, I had a team meeting which lasted basically the whole day. The project itself was not the interesting part, but the conversation with the others. I was the only "white guy" with a Korean, a Chinese and a Thai. So we were discussing about wars (was not my idea), about German philosophy (believe it or not, was not my idea either), about Koreans singing the Ode To Joy and a bunch of other things. However, some things struck me. The Thai, a very nice and (seemingly) peaceful person, considered martyrs to be honorable if they die for their country. I have my problems with this opinion as no country in the world is worth dying for. Maybe certain values for which a country can stand. Not not values themselves. I learnt that even smart and modern Chinese consider the Taiwan issue a taboo, making it unable to be discussed. I was kind of shocked when I heard that Ye Olde Mao is - according to the Chinese girl in my project - seen as a great leader who made some mistakes at the end of his career (the mistakes being the deaths of about 33 million (!) Chinese people). My team mates are all of good nature so I guess the respective education system are a little strange in the eyes of a European.
But, in any case, it seemed that I tend to value life more than them.

On the other hand, I learnt many things about relationships between Asian countries in which I am really interested. As most of you don't know, I originally wanted to pursue a Master of International Management with an emphasis on Japan. We learn not too much about this part of the world at school. I wanted to learn more. But my scholarship did not cover the MIM since it was even more expensive than studying at the "regular" PSU colleges. Don't ask me why.
I got to know that a Chinese person can say an unbelievable amount of things just with the tiny word "shen". Having many ways to pronounce it, they use it for ...well.... much. I think, shen can mean 40 and shen shen can mean thank you...
I learnt that South Korea adopted the German scientific programs of the Fraunhofer Institut and Max Planck Institut. But, "of course", they call it differently. :-)
I heard that, according to the Korean that was living in Denmark for one year, one finds pornographic books in Danish elementary school libraries. But maybe, I should doublecheck this information. :-)
And I heard a lot of other things, I cannot think of right now.

It was a very cool day, eventually. Team meetings can be fun after all.

My Zune is here

2007-11-29T22:02:00.000-08:00

Today, some guy from FedEx brought me my new fancy gadget - the Zune MP3 player. Being an Apple-hater, this was a logical choice for me. The Microsoft Zune has more functions and costs less than half of an Ipod. Why do I hate Apple? The products are average, their big competitive advantage is that people just think it is better and cool. But if you ask them why, they have no idea. Cool is cool. And because of that, it is cool. And this is exactly what I do not buy. I don't want to have to purchase something in order to be....cool. I prefer buying what people define here as "the best bang for the buck". My Zune was $110 - with 30GB disk space and a very good screen. Much bigger than the one of the classic Ipod. By the way, $110 equals 74 Euros.....

Much has happened

2007-11-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

I wanted to write about so many things, but I've just had no time so far.
A bit more than one week ago, I received my life saver from Amazon - a safety light. Believe it or not, this is really necessary being a pedestrian in the US....or at least in Portland.
It is blinking very nicely and therefore, it ought to keep me safe.

Last week, my cold became worse and worse. As I slept very bad last Friday night, I decided to go to a hospital instead of the Black Friday shopping. Very annoying to get real ill on this day. But anyway, now, I know, that an American hospital really looks like the one on Scrubs. In addition, I got this fancy bracelet...

But after all, I was much better in the evening then. On Saturday, some Germans, some French and one American made a tour to the coast. Now, I have been to the extremely famous cities of Cannon Beach, Seaside and Gearhart (people pronounce it like Gerhard of the former horrible German chancellor). We drove a really cool, very old school car.
A 1977 Toyota Corolla. It still works....

Here are some impressions of the daytrip.

A German perspective of criticism

2007-11-21T15:21:00.000-08:00

In the last days, I heard a complaint about my blog (of a German. Here, I have to say that it is usual that Germans become very nervous if someone dares to criticize anything in different countries, it is way more convenient to criticize oneself). I would write too pessimistic, tendentiously negative. Well, the thing, is, if you start to read randomly selected reports of people studying abroad, 98% of them look the same. They have this happy-go-lucky attitude. The world is out of flowers, everyone is nice and happy and by the way, the sun shines 25 hours a day. Personally, I consider those ...compositions as unbelievably boring. There is just nothing new about it. And - much more important - these are not based on the truth. Life is not perfect, there is always something annoying. And being the stupid species that we are, we rather care about negative stuff. Just look at the news. How much of a usual daily news show is positive, how much is negative? 20%/80%? 15%/85%? Should be in those ranges. Man's perception is - by nature - triggered in this way. Why? Because if everything works, one does not have to do anything in this specific area. However, if something is really wrong, one better moves and solves the problem. Think of yourself. Do you rather remember negative experiences or the positive ones? If you answer with the latter, you lie. This bias of perception is inherent in people's minds.

Anyway, I am a nice guy and I even want to please people picking on me. Here is my list of things I like about America:
-Winter squash
-Asian pears
-flaggers
-people smile more often
-water dispensers
-humility of the people (the German word Kritikfaehigkeit does not exist in English)
-combined discounts
-the efficient use of the Internet
-manpower, there are assistants everywhere
-the patriotism
-loyalty
-the buildings are taller, and often more beautiful
-malls
-bus drivers say hello and goodbye
-schools pay more attention to the students' physical health (sport is more valued)
-school spirit
-American music
-nature
-more space
-TV shows
-customer orientation
-the simple labor legislation
-extensive use of credit cards
-the cute imitations of European architecture
-people can become American more easily
-video rental machines
-apartment buildings
-people babble all the time
...and of course:
-free refills

OK. Now back to more serious issues.

Sorry for being that silent

2007-11-19T13:52:00.000-08:00

I haven't written much for the last few days. That is due to the fact that I am quite ill. My throat does not approve of all the air conditioning here. It makes the air extremely dry. And it makes my throat sore. Furthermore, I have to do much project work. Unfortunately, I haven't planned anything for the Thanksgiving holidays. I'd have 5 days off which is rare. One idea was to go to Las Vegas. The flights are cheap but I do not think that I would find some company within 3 days. Therefore, I will have time on Black Friday. What's Black Friday? Well, I am not so sure, but what I know is that there are many many (sometimes ridiculous) discounts. The shops open at around 5am (am means in the morning....) and are crowded of people. It's definitely not Las Vegas, but it is...something. A "cultural" experience. So....if anyone needs anything, key in Black Friday at Google Search, find and tell me.