Fashing

The parade on Sunday was on a beautiful day in Mannheim (sunny!), and just a bit chilly... but I was really cold by the time the 80th float went by. They have little booths set up all over town (carousels and little driving games...as well as lots of bratwurst and drink stands) There were lots of people dressed up, and even the bus schedules were different. It was the one time I was glad I live so far away...because the buses were full when we got close to town. :)

Game booth

Even though this is a festival, beer is still given out in glasses. You just pay around a 2e "Pfand" (deposit) that you can get back if you bring the glass back...or you have a glass for 2e. Your choice.

Lots of these stands all over...personally, I think the farm animals are a nice touch :)

Ferris Wheel by the Wasserturm! (Where I watched the parade...and got candy!)

It was cold, but a lot of people worked around that with their costumes. The music playing was also quite eclectic...I think I've heard more Michael Jackson (and seen more people dressed up as him) than I have ever heard in Florida. But you had a Michael Jackson song, followed by the "better shape up because I need a man" song from Grease (but all in German...it was a horrible version), followed by some traditional German song, followed by the YMCA. Weird.

One of the most different things was the amount of people on the float that were drinking. I thought sometimes they were going to splash the crowd with wine from their wine bottles instead of candy! (Although some people did have nice glasses...classy, I admit)

How can you have Karnvaal without people watching from a balcony?

There were also a lot of little kids dressed up as lions...they even had a float with all these kids dressed as lions...locked in a cage. I couldn't get a good angle on that float (I thought at first they were mannequins until I saw one kid move) but here is some little kid in his nice and warm costume!

But here's just some more pictures (and some video) of the parade...although this stupid lady's hat kept getting in the way of my shots!

Red Cow Statue...

Green people

I don't think I got it on video, but the song Brett was singing before I left--"Tikki takka tikki takka oy oy oy"? They really do sing that.

Orc-ish creatures...who grabbed girls from the sidelines and freaked them out, lol

School Begins

Right now everything is about Fashing. People are walking around town in costumes, stores are closed (sorry Mom, I was going to send you a post card...but not even the lobby with the self-service terminal was open), and in the midst of all that, it's the first week of classes. The first week...but not really. It's weird. You don't really register for classes until the class actually starts, and then you hopefully get the time you want. There are lectures, and then exercises, and then tutorials. And you don't really know when the exercises and tutorials are until class starts and you register; and then the exercises and tutorials don't start until the next week because they just told you about them.

Take my internal business tax and accounting class (ACC402). Just for this week we had a meeting on Monday morning for Part B, Monday evening (or Tuesday morning) for Part A, Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning for Part A, Thursday or Friday for Part A, and then 2 lectures Friday for Part B. It's confusing. I probably looked at the syllabus 15 times just trying to figure out what days and times I had to go (because it also listed the 6 different exercise sessions I could go to, as well as the 9 different tutorial times for Part A and the 9 different tutorial times for Part B...but those don't start until next week) And the one on Friday morning (which is just a one time thing) I can't go to because I have another class...but everything is posted online so I'm not worried. Why do they make it so complicated?

The one thing that I'm astonished about is how rude the students are. It's a big lecture hall (a switch from most of my FSU senior level classes...my finance classes usually have 20 students or less, accounting usually around 55) and students are frequently talking while the professor is...and don't even try to hide it. Maybe it's because it's an undergraduate class and they don't have specific degrees, just "Business Admin," so they aren't interested...but still. FSU the professors would ask kids to be quiet, or just plain kick them out of the lecture. Here they just kind of accept it and keep talking. Very strange.

The nice thing is that I don't have to buy any books (so far). I did get the printed book of the slides for ACC402 (only 10e), but the actual book for that class is just online, free to download. (yay!) My other class doesn't have a book, just readings...and I guess we'll see about my class Friday. And the language course book will probably only cost 16e or so!

The payment structure is also a little wonky. You have to put money onto your ecUM card (electronic cash University Mannheim) at a box, and if you want to buy the semester ticket you then have to go to a terminal. If you want to pay for the language and culture classes (15e a piece...I'm not too worried about the cost) you have to put money onto your ecUM card, print out the confirmation pages, and then take them down to the Express Office and they will stamp them there. Then you have to bring the stamped page with you to the first day of class to prove you paid...this just seems inefficient to me. Why can't you just pay at a terminal? Or online?

That's the other thing...their version of Blackboard is called Illias...and makes Blackboard look like the work of a genius. It's kind of complicated just to get from the "Portal," the general page to the individual course pages...because not all courses require registration...and registration for the class is different than registration for exams and for the class site. It's complicated. Then the course "site" is just a list of semi-organized documents...and announcements from the professors are just mixed in with a student forum thingy. So make sure you look at everything carefully!

But once I figure out how to print stuff out (I was just going to buy a printer...but Saturn, which is like a Brandsmart, was closed for Fashing) everything should be good...although I don't think I'll use the computer labs too often. The keyboards are a bit different, so everytime I try to type my name I end up spelling it Kelsez Stroye...the y and z are in different places...as are the #, etc. And if you go into a library you can't bring your bag and coat...you have to put them in a locker and just bring what you need...which is kind of irritating. The whole point in carrying a back pack is so you don't have to carry things individually. But the lockers are cool because they lock just by you pushing the outer lock down with your ecUM card...and you unlock it just by pressing with your ecUM card again. It will just take some getting used to I guess!

I don't think I have any classes tomorrow (I will next week though!) but I have to start working on my prospectus for my Undergrad Thesis. Luckily I have enough info so that I can do an outline of what I want to do now...but time is ticking! It's due the 7th week of FSU classes...only a week and a half into Mannheim semester. But as the semester goes on, I will definitely have more direction into what is different about Germany compared to the EU...but I just have to make something up in the meantime, lol.

This post is long (and a bit meandering), but I am sure I will post more about classes as things get clearer! (We have a group exercise in ACC402...will definitely provide some entertainment...but luckily my group doesn't go until March (it could have been in 2 weeks!)...but this will give me time to actually learn who's in my group and all that.) But it's late now, so Gute Nacht!

Champs-Élysées

After the Arc de Triomphe, we walked down Champs-Élysées, which is actually one of the streets that go to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a pretty cool street...but would definitely be more fun if you were a big spender!



Definitely a lot of people walking down this street!

Here's the Swarovski crystal store...complete with it's crystal staircase. I was walking around Mannheim today, and Mannheim also has a Swarovski store...with it's own crystal staircase. Take that Paris!

This here is actually inside the McDonalds. We didn't buy anything, but we did use the restrooms, lol. Those machines at the back of the picture are machines that you can order from--you can change the language to whatever language you prefer. That's one way to make sure you order what you want!

There were actually a couple of car stores/dealerships down this street as well. This is Mercedes, but there was a Toyota store as well as a BMW one I believe.

 Complete with a car showroom...wonder if all the cars were high end?

The Abercrombie and Fitch store was definitely cool...overstated, but cool. But the prices here are even worse than the ones back home. 89e for a regular pair of pants? I'm not buying...

The gates were definitely pretty impressive. And they had a lot of employees leading the way...all wearing A&F jackets of course. (I wonder if they made them buy them themselves?...)

 The garden on the way to the store...a regular entrance would be too plebeian you know.

 Inside the store. Sorry it's blurry...I didn't have my flash on, and they don't like you taking pictures inside...bleh. But as you can see, it's multiple stores (but still has that overpowering smell...and considering I thought it was overpowering and I had had a stuffy nose...it was waay too much)

After that, we went back to the train station, and back to Mannheim! I was definitely glad to go back. :)

 Paris Train Station

And of course, since we were first class, we got food. Score! Chicken (that actually looks like chicken!) with couscous, veggies, a roll, and some orange juice. Yummy.

Arc de Triomphe (and Moulin Rouge)

After the Basilica we walked to see Moulin Rouge...definitely not a street I would be going on at night. But I can say I've seen the outside at least!

Then we hopped on the Metro and went to see the Arc de Triomphe...another monument that's fun for about five minutes, and then you're done. This is the view from the street when we got off the Metro.

Then we walked under the street, through this surprisingly clean tunnel to get to the underneath of the Arc.

Entrance of the tunnel

The Arc was pretty cool, but there's nothing really to dig into. It has a cool ceiling, names, and some plaques on the ground, but nothing you could spend hours looking at...or if you did, it's because you designed it.