Day 9 in Tübingen- Outlet City Metzingen

What a beautiful weather.

The city rose out of nowhere, just like how Las Vegas rose in the desolated Nevada desert. The dire hunger of consumerism spurred the growth of this small town.  It took her only a blink of an eye to transform from a rustic village into a giant shopping center, consisting of some of the most luxurious brands in the world-Prada, Hugo Boss, Burberry, etc.

However, most shoes in Nike and Adidas are extremely ugly and expensive. So did Puma. I barely see anyone on the streets wear that kind of shoes. 

Finally, I bought a pair of Timberland. 44.9 euros. Average price of a pair of running shoes here is about 60 euro. Timberland outlet here sells a huge variety of shoes. All of them are cost-efficient, comparing with other outdoors brands. 

My first pair Timberland ! Cheers ! 

In the afternoon, we went to one of the biggest Asian store around university, which is located in Reulingen. Unfortunately, the tastes of vinegar, soybean sauce are so different from those in Taiwan. 

Day 10 in Tübingen

1. After so many years of my life, I finally realize a very simple law that can guide me through      quandaries. That is, always be honest to yourself. Ask yourself, what is the very most important thing you really want ?

2. The essence of international environment is not about nationality, but the exotic experience the environment brings to you.



I can't cook. I don't even know which kind of rice is Chinese rice. Therefore, the rice is by and large a catastrophe. Not a bit similar to what we have eaten everyday in Taiwan. Horrible. The rice is even half-raw.

Let's talk about vegetable. You can see from its unpleasing color that there must be something wrong with it. I cooked it with a pan. Maybe it was because I added too much water.

  

Day 3 in Tübingen - Babenhausen

On my way to the serene,  undisturbed small town Babenhausen,  I came across a beautiful grassland alongside the Waldhäuse street, west to Berilner Ring. I have never seen such immense a grassland in my life. It stretched from the street to the farthest end my eyes could reach. There seemed to be no border of the sea of the bright green. It met the sky, and low hanging clouds at the end of your view. I was like standing in the middle of the ranch I usually saw in the Hollywood movie, where cowboys herd their cows here and there, sky is their roof, grass is their carpet. 

      

I saw kids playing football, which seemed to be their national sport. They play football like Taiwanese play basketball. Weird enough, German call football “soccer” in English rather than its British appellation “football”, which is more wildly-used in English speaking world. Actually, only Americans call it soccer, and they don't play this sport well.

As I just thought,  a horse farm appeared when I walked northward, where people can learn and enjoy a decent horse ride. I would like to try, but thinking of maybe I have to clean the barn as a exchange, the attemp suddenly became a daunting and undesirable task.

I am not sure what is was, but I would guess it should probably have something to do with recycling. German are very environmental-minded. Everyone who has been to Germany can tell their garbage sorting policy is executed quite successful. Almost all packages of food are recyclable, and bio-waste (leftover) can also be recycled. Although Taiwan can also boasts its achievement in reduction of waste, we don't push it to such an extreme that even leaves and grass are recycled. 

After a 15 minutes' walk in the woods, a secret garden disclosed itself to me. The moment I saw the exquisite age-withstanding tower of the medieval church,  I almost exclaimed “Hallelujah”.  The 800 year's monastery is so well-preserved and cloistered in the unvisited rural Germany that its beauty is not known by most part of the world. 

My astonishment was no less than Columbus when he discovered the new continent, only if I have the gift of Goethe to express my feelings.

Right in the middle of the woods, a monastery of 12 century stands as it has been for 800 years. What made all this more precious is, there was not a single stint that could ruin the picture. Wherever you looked at this small village, it is always picturesque. 

The air is so clean that you just can see through it and percept the finest detail of the ornament of the church tower, or the tile of its roof.

                                        

10 minutes later,  I was in the village.  The village, undisturbed by the rolling wheel of time, awed we mortals with its solemn and grandiosity, testified generations after generations, that we humans are only ephemeral passengers of the history, not the master of this world.

   

History tells itself, need no one to edify its magnificence.

Speechless is the best complement 

Timelessness

Makes us ponder which is the way out. 

Our souls are chastened by the limitation of space and time. 

 Renounce what you see in your eye, then you start to see.

Situated in history, we often get lost when we forget to lift our face from time to time.

We feel pressured, hardly can we breathe.

The barriers are so high that we feel we are left without choices.

We feel besieged, nowhere to run away.

We feel freedom is so hard to be reached. 

We envy the agility of birds.

Then we find a window, we find hope.

Who will listen to our prays, and who will answer ?

Convoluted branches of frame not only provide aesthetic feast, but actually showcase the contemporary extreme of technology of civil engineering.  

People die, but try to carve a mark on this world. 

Most of time, it is futile. 

If there were God looking at us, he must sorrow. 

Last glimpse to the village. Sun is setting.

How vast the world is, how infinitesimal we are.

   

  

Day 2 in Tübingen

9 o'clock. We gathered at GTC, setting out for a day's registration work. First, we go to a place (I can't read much German so far) to authenticate our admission letter and our bachelor degree. It is at the opposite side of the old physical institute. There were about a 50 people in it. With the advantage of our number, we occupied one officer, and squeezed all other unorganized students to the other office. Without feeling guilty, we efficiently finished this stop, heading to next stop- residency registration.

Then, we were brought to the City Hall to register our residency. (So beautiful that I regret I didn't bring camera with me.) There were about a thousand student there. It seemed that most foreign students came here and must figure out all problems they would meet by themselves. Hew!

Place we confirm our admission.

Fortunately, GTC( Graduate Training Center, the program I joined.) treated its students very well. They knew this kind of chaos happens every years, and has long become notorious for foreign students. Therefore, we assembled earlier at GTC and went there together, so we can cover each other's asses, and “petition” for a special priority. With the help of our German fellows, every time consuming, much-resented, allegedly-disastrous bureaucratic tasks were handled so adroitly that we managed to withdraw ourselves from the mess without loss of elegance.

We call it a day for today's paperwork. I joined Caitlin and Santiago to have a grocery shopping as Saturn- the biggest appliance& electronics shopping mall at Tübingen.

What is noticeable is there recycle system. They execute the environmental protection policy very thoroughly. Almost all package of their food are recyclable. They use recycled toilet paper, and biowaste (leftover) is gathered in a special bucket.   

recycling

Fruit I've never seen before

I bought a hair dryer and a face cleanse gel, bur apparently this place is not very cheap. so then I went to Kaufland, which is at the southern side of Neckar River. I bought my hangers there, and a pair of clogs as well. Here might be the cheapest place to shop in Tübingen.

I went back, store my food in my fridge, and take a good look at the bag which symbolize my first big shopping in Tübingen. 

And then, something happened.

When I went outside to check my mail box, the fire engine came. Everybody lived in my dorm building came out. Something triggered the fire alarm. I just finished reading my rent contract. Summoning fire engines cost 300 euro. Quite big a number, isn't it ?

It is so cold outside, so I went to a nearby building, where runs a student bar, Kuckuck . In a toilet, I saw a condom vending machine.  Uhmm. 

Universities in Taiwan can be more liberal. By the way, they also have cigarette vending machines around the campus.

Despite the fact that Tübingen is renowned for its tremendous possession of artifacts and historical buildings, it tolerate youngsters to graffiti almost everywhere, including walls which have stood there for 500 years, older than their grand grand fathers !  

I mean, when I was in Singapore, there not a single piece of trash on the ground, and nobody dare to break laws. It makes Singapore one of the most disciplined and therefore most civilized place to live.

In Germany, some people seems to despise laws. Sometimes you see people cross at a red light. Spotting these scenes really make it hard to relate the place to the fact that German is the most law obeying country in the world.

Well, that may be just the two place I visited in Germany, Frankfurt and Tübingen.  They couldn't represent the whole country.

What a amazing country, I will keep on my exploration in this beautiful while strange country.

The first day of Orientation week

 Tiring, but awesome. I think that is the best footnote of my first day in Tübingen.  We almost all of the “new kids”, that is how they called us, have already met each other beforehand.  Joe, a British man, had hosted a gathering at Neckar Müller on Saturday, which is a well known bear garden for local people. Neckar Müller brews their own beer, and people can just drink beer while talking and enjoying the amazingly beautiful Neckar river in Tübingen.

Today is started with a visit to the Sparkasse, the most densely located bank in Tübingen. The staff there nicely expatiate everything we want and need to know, with great patience and friendliness, making me feel Germany may not be that rude or bossy as some of my friends living in other city described.

We also have a third party responsibility insurance purchased there, so should we accidentally damage others property, the insurance will cover it.

The documents are in German, so it takes a little bit longer to clarify the doubts and sign all of the pages. Then, we go directly to AOK for our health insurance, which is located in Mensa, i.e. student cafeteria. 

It is my first time really get into the Mensa, and the staff of AOK is really nice to help us out, even she haven´t eaten her lunch, and the closed time had already passed.

We grab some Turkish food at a stand located right at the head of Neckar Brück. We went back to GTC, inside old anatomy building, and start filling forms for our residency approval.

Then, the German course starts, people are introduced to each other totally in German, and I find most of people actually can speak German quite well. Then we have some scenario practice, in which we pretend we were in restaurant or bookstore. Finally, we go on streets to have some field test of our German. We bought ice cream in one of the best ice cream shop in Tübingen, called Eiscafé San Marco,  in German.

‘Ich mochtet nehmen kugel yugurt ’ then you get a ball of yugurt ice cream. It tastes really good.

We go pass the Plaza where the chocolate fair will be held, and the Klinkgasse which is a very thin ally by which you can get directly to the bank of Neckar, and a Student Jail, almost a signature for any historic campus city in Germany. Unfortunately, the Jail is closed. I must come back someday.

We go pass the place where a plate read “Goethe puked here”, and “Stiftkirchen”a church where open concerts of classical music are held on every Saturday.

We stop at bank of Neckar watching sunset, with a row of punts rest along the bank. Looking at the crimson reflection of the sun in the river,  touched by the twigs of old willows along the river, I feel everything here are melted into a huge oil painting of Monet. How beautiful the city, and how fortunate I am to be able to come here but not some many other culture deserts to pursue my master degree. 

Kepler has lived in here, Goethe has lived in here, and in the same building you still can see students taking class in it. What can be more wonderful when you find this well-preserved old city keeps its charms that captivated Goethe and Kepler ?