Rachel’s Red Button

Six American students sitting in a seminar about the Vietnam War with 70 German students. It’s the first day of the class and topic is the class’ knowledge of the war. Discussion turns to the veterans who fought in Vietnam and how they are viewed now as opposed to when they first returned from the war. Though most of the Americans have the sense to stay quiet and listen, one does not… He raises his hand and says many people feel that the Vietnam war was a senseless war. Another student challenges this statement asking which war was not senseless. Rather than think before he speaks, our first student responds by saying that in the United States veterans of the Vietnam War were looked down upon when they first came home and only years later did they gain the respect that was immediately given to soldiers returning from, say, World War II, who were immediately seen as heroes. Now remember where this takes place…and picture the entire room breaking into whispers and shock on everyone’s faces.

Kyle Michelson, everyone. Applause please. He’ll be here every Friday for your entertainment, or at least until he learns to shut up.

Yes, I’m proud to be a Texan!

You may remember that I had problems with the German postal system when I first got here. Well, here’s the latest postal mishap, which frankly, didn’t suprise me much at all. I went to the post office yesterday to mail my absentee ballot for the election. It was larger and heavier than a normal envelope so rather than use the automated stamp machine I went inside to have them weigh it and make sure it had the correct postage. So the woman put a stamp on it and stuck it in the mail. Today I opened my mailbox to check my mail and I find none other than my absentee ballot, in my mailbox. It was supposed to go to the USA!!! Why was it in my mailbox? So I took it back to the post office and the lady didn’t appear suprised at all at what had happened. Apparently they sent it to the return address. But maybe they do that often here, I don’t know. It’s Germany. So she put a blank sticker over the return address and put it in the mail again. Hopefully this time it’s on its way to Houston…

It’s nice to see that someone is finally changing the face of school lunch. Not that I don’t miss cheesy fish Fridays.

Vacation is almost over; the semester starts Monday here and I need to get a little more serious about learning German and life in general. I’m still not sure what classes I’m taking and how this whole thing called university works in Germany, but I’m sure it’ll all work out somehow. Most classes here only meet one day a week, so it’s looking like I will have Fridays, and probably Mondays off- four day weekend every week. That’s the life!
The last couple weeks have been relaxing and fun, and sometimes a little boring. The only people who were around were 3 of the American guys who live at FDH, my dorm, but we tried to make the best of it. As kind of a quick overview, a large group of us went to Heidelberg the weekend before class eneded for Herbstfest. It is a beautiful city with an old castle overlooking it. One of the attractions at the castle is the grosses Fass, or large barrel. Words cannot do justice to this thing, nor can the pictures I took because you can’t get far enough away from it to get the entire barrel in the picture. But, take my word for it, it is a huge barrel, once filled probably with a year’s supply of wine or beer for everyone at the castle. The festival was great; truly a German experience.
The next weekend I went to an orientation seminar for the German-American Clubs program that is sponsoring me here in Kaiserslautern. There were lots of formal activities because this coincided with German-American appreciation day (check out the picture, slightly ironic) but we unwound one afternoon by going to a soccer match against Berlin, and that was quite an experience. German soccer fans are insane! To top off the weekend, I learned a German drinking game, and spent most of Saturday night laughing at some of the very drunk American students.
We spent one afternoon last week in Wiesbaden, but though it is a nice, old city, there isn’t much to do there and after a few hours of walking around we were ready to head back home. Last Saturday I went to the 30th anniversary celebration dinner of the German-American club here in the Frankfurt area. The food was very good, a nice change from cooking for myself all the time. The highlight of the evening, and maybe the most painful part also, was the country-western line dancing group that performed. That’s all well and good in Texas, but I really don’t want to watch Germans line dancing. Nevertheless, it was hilarious for a little while.
Yesterday my dad came through Frankfurt for the day on his way home from a business trip in the middle east. It was nice to see him and we spent the day walking around the city, much of it in the rain. But we caught the only 20 minutes of sunshine all day long while we were at the observation deck on top of the MainTower. It has a great view of the entire city from the 2nd tallest office building in Frankfurt and I can’t believe that I haven’t been up there yet. We went to a typical German restaurant with good food, though huge portions, and the local applewine. I was sad to see him leave, but it sounds like these trips may become more regular so he might come through more often. The agenda now is a trip to the grocery store, and a visit to Mainz tomorrow if it’s not pouring rain.

I know that I promised pictures were coming soon, but it’s no suprise at this point that there are no pictures. My computer still has problems of some sort and I can’t transfer photos from my camera to the laptop. It’s frusterating that there are still all these little problems, but I’m sure they’ll be resolved eventually.

What have I gotten myself into this time???