March 13th, 2013: Death Eaters

The white window in the middle was used during WWII to signal when Jewish 
people could be sent in for hiding. They were put in crates and loaded in at night.
In the morning, the empty crates were "emptied" again to avoid suspicion. 

On Saturday (March 9th), I met up with Stephanie, a student from Darmouth College who is studying in Tübingen on a Fulbright. As I am interested in both Tübingen and the Fulbright Scholarship, I was really excited to meet her. She is a friend of a friend, so naturally my biggest fear was that she would not resemble her facebook profile picture that I had stalked and thus I would not be able to find her in the crowd. Luckily, we exchanged descriptions of what we would be wearing so as to identify one another. It worked.

We first went to a hot chocolate place in the center of Tübingen near the Rathaus. It is called: Chocolat, and yes, there is a picture of Johnny Depp in that movie. Here exists truffles of all varieties, regular hot chocolate, hot chocolate that turns into a warm pudding, and hot chocolate on a stick (I have yet to discover what magic allows it to taste like liquid hot chocolate). Stephanie showed me some cool Sehenswürdigkeiten: the Rathaus, the castle in Tübingen, and a cool building near the Rathaus that was used during the Holocaust as a shelter/safe home. 

Nothing happened on Sunday that was of particular interest except that it rained for the first time since I’ve been here. Despite being in Germany, rain has not regained any of its charm.

On Monday, I began the START Kurs. We took our placement exam (study for it...I didn’t realize we were having a placement exam and didn’t think to study). The placement exam consisted of a paper test, divided into four sections, and an oral test. Test is really the wrong word, it is more of a comprehension indicator. Part A is easiest, Part B is intermediate, and Part C is difficult. The fourth part is simply a writing section centered on your trip to Tübingen thus far. Part A and B were fairly easy. Then Part C arrived and drained the life out of 90% of the 50 or so students taking the exam. A collective gasped resonated through the room as Death Eaters entered and began eating our hopes, dreams, and souls.

Part C really wasn’t that bad, but I definitely knew that I didn’t do well on that section. The oral exam was fairly easy: answer questions about your trip so far, where you’re from, your goals and dreams, etc. There were less death eaters in this section.

After the exam, we took a tour of town and went home. The next day, we were assigned our classes. Class 1 is for beginners or people who have been out of practice for a while. Class 2 is for people with three to five semesters of German. Class 3 is for more advanced students and Class 4 is for the advanced students. I think they just sit in class, sip Champagne, and discuss Nietzsche, but I could be wrong. My class (Class 2) is amazing. The teachers speak at a good pace, not too slow or too fast, and they have a lot of games that are fun and not as terrifying as I thought they’d be. I look forward to Thursday’s class with a combination of dread and excitement. Excited dread. Dreaded excitement.