Four days and counting

I leave Kiel for Göttingen bright and early Thursday morning, 8:12 am, and will arrive before noon. I have only six more classes at the Lektorat, three more dinners with my friends here. We've already lost one... Andrew left this morning for his snazzy Jounalism orientation in Berlin. We went to one of our favorite spots last night to see him off:

What an attractive bunch... L to R: Inese's friend, Inese, Felix, Leslie, Mike, Abi, Jennifer, Amanda (in front), Andrew, and Meghan.

I've got a list of stuff to do before Wednesday. Packing, shipping a piece of luggage, changing my address (again!) at the bank and getting online access set up, University forms, not to mention a little homework. I really don't think I left everything to the last minute this time, but it feels like I've suddenly got a million things to take care of.

The food report: it's been a good week for me. I did dinner on Wednesday and made my brownies again last night. Every time they turn out a little better, which is reassuring. This batch was decorated with a picture of asparagus (Spargle, auf Deutsch) in honor of Andrew. I helped make pancakes with Amanda, and they actually turned out! We had a couple of really good soups this week too. I really should be collecting recipes...

The project for Friday's Schriftliche Übungen class was to give a 10-minute report on a subject of our choosing. I couldn't think of a topic to argue until the night before, but it worked out really well... I delivered a treatise on the benefits of Ballroom Dance (Turniertänze,) complete with a musical example. I translated one of the Kenyon club's favorite quotes and it so amused the professor that she wrote it down:

Tanzen ist eine vertikale Äußerung von eine horizontale Begierde.

Ten points and some German chocolate to whoever leaves the first comment with the English version! The other presentations were great. Jennifer gave an impassioned if controversial speech about keeping half-human half-extraterrestrial babies, and Andrew gave a more formal version of his now-infamous asparagus rant. Apparently the fact that the Germans have an official "asparagus season" (outside of which the succulent spears are difficult to obtain) grates on his native Californian culinary sensibilities.

Friday night was fun. One of our teachers invited us over for drinks and then out to a club. Most of the Burse folks left early to head home and celebrate Felix's birthday, Meghan and Abi and I went out dancing with Sander and his friends until about 4am. Definitely not something I'd do every night, but it was fun.

I don't know if this will be the last post before Göttingen... if so it might be a while before I get my internet access set up. My contract with the Studentenwohnheim (dorm) officially begins the first, but for at least a couple weeks my primary residence will be with my host family. I can't live without internet, though, so getting situated will be high priority. Until then!