Amsterdam, Nederland:
The Amsterdam trip was a revisit of the group that went to Copenhagen: me, Chris, Nate, Rob, Scott, and Doug. This was just a recipe for disaster. Here are some highlights of our conversations/insults:
- Doug tried on Nate's coat ... it was funny.
- Chris called Doug "Captain" because he thought Doug looked like he was in a ship's cabin when he was in fact in his bed.
- Scott was afraid of approaching Chris and Rob at Burger King because he thought he was going to walk into a mirror.
- Chris accused Scott of calling him a monkey. It was later determined that Scott did indeed refer to Chris as a "chimp with a piece of fruit".
- Chris exploded a banana all over his bed. More monkey jokes ensued (he set himself up for that one).
Rob was a good leader of the group. No death marches. We ate and slept and were happy.
There were many mutinies during the weekend:
- Nate and I mutinied against Shuarma for dinner one night. Scott joined us and we went to Burger King instead. Later, Chris and Doug came in with their Shuarma's and wish they had come to Burger King too.
- Scott, Doug, and I mutinied against getting Pizza and went back to the hostel.
Moving to Ludwigshafen:
First off ... my last dinner in Braunschweig was wonderful. Chris and I bombarded the Canadians and finally got some to come eat a meal with us (well, it was 9PM), and most of them had already eaten). We went out with Calvin, Jon and Vince to a Chinese restaurant ... and yes, I ate Chinese food ... all can attest to that. So thanks guys for such a great going away. Then Chris and I went back to my room (where he was spending the night, because he was all moved out of his room). The room was a bit of a mess ... all our things were packed and ready to go. About 2/3rds of the stuff was already in our rental car (a Mercedes C180 hatchback). We were a bit nervous about how we were going to fit everything, as the car was already full and we had more stuff ... but we decided to worry about that in the "morning". We fell asleep around 11:30PM/12:00AM.
3 HOURS LATER!!!!!
We woke up. Yes ladies and gentlemen, we got a glorious 3 hours of sleep. Now, you may be wondering why we woke up so early ... let me explain. We had to leave Braunschweig by 4AM, because Chris had to be in Stuttgart by 11AM to check into his new apartment. Since Stuttgart is a 5 hour drive away and we wanted some "getting lost" buffer time, we left at 4. We did managge to fit everything into the rental car (it turned into a Mary Poppin's carpet bag). I have no idea how we fit everything. We did have to sacrifice my rug and my trashcan though. They just wouldn't fit. So 4AM ... we were off, cruising through the dark streets of Braunschweig and on our way to the infamous AUTOBAHN!!! So yeah ... way overrated. Sure sometimes you can go as fast as you want, but with a ar packed full of crap (couldn't see out the back) and the fact that Chris was driving without a license (left his in the USA) ... we didn't want to chance anything. It took us a bit to get onto the Autobahn in the first place. The directions we had (we had 3 sets from different things) were so confusing and there are NO signs in Germany. So finall, we made it (directions were quite wrong at one point actually ... told us to go right when we needed to go left). About 30 minutes later (circa 5AM) I discover our saving grace of the whole trip: an onboard navigational system. Oh yes ... Mercedes rocks my world. I just programmed in his new address and it told us when to turn, when our exit was coming up, our ETA, how much farther we had to drive. It was totally awesome. So then we pu on the radio ... rocked out ot 80's tunes (that's about all we could find) and drove through 5 states in Germany (Niedersachsen, Thuringen, Hessen, Bayern, and Baden-Wurtenberg). We reached Stuttgart around 10AM and found Chris's new apartment beautifullly (thank you onboard navigation!). Now we had an hour to kill (because the landlord wasn't coming until 11) so we just got some pastries at a local bakery and just hung out. Then the landlord came, we checked out his room (very nice) and unpacked his stuff from the car. When we were done, we went back to the car (which for some reason ... was still full ... Mary Poppn's carpet bag syndrome?) and we programmed in my new address into the navigation system. We made our way back to the Autobahn and went north to Ludwigshafen. The drive was really nice ... sun came out, rolling green fields, cute villages ... and then we hit LUDWIGSHAFEN. Hello chemical plant! Nothing pretty about it. Nothing like smoke stacks on the horizon and reactors in full view. Seriouly though, it's not that bad. We got to my new address and it actually looked pretty nice. A complex of apartments about 8 stories high with balconies.
After I unpacked my stuff, Chris and I drove the rental car back to Mannheim and then we went our separate ways. I spent the remainder of the evening unpacking and setting things up. One drawback to the room: no internet. Believe me, I was freaking out. Absolutely miserable. Six months with no internet?! How did people live before internet? My rommate Sarah came home in the evening from work (BASF) and I asked her about internet. She said that people in the complex have internet ... but they have to set it up themselves through Deutsche Telekkom. That's good ... internet can be gotten.
Another thing I wanted to mention ... I've been speaking German constantly since I've arrived ... no English. The landlady said I spoke very good German (woot ... 1 for me). My roommate Sarah said the same thing (2 for me) as did my other roommate Stephanie (3 for me!). Then at work, the HR lady said it was good (4 for me), and my supervisor (5 for me). The head of the department said the same (6 for me) and a couple colleages in the department (7 ... 8 ... 9 for me!!!). So apparently ... I'm doing well. I had no idea.
Now just a little bit about work. I really work for German intelligence or something. BASF is just the front company. Seriously though, the security in this place is intense. Every entrance has a guarded gate (I enter through gate 7). There are 15 gates total (BASF is huge ... 7 km long and 2 or 3 km wide). Everyone has and ID and without this ID, you can't go anywhere. You need it to get throug the security gates and to get into a lot of the buildings themselves. Data can not be taken out of or into the plant, and they'll check you. No cameras are allowed either.