In the morning I met up with the Australian girl at the IZ, and from there we headed to the Stadtmitte campus to go to the Kasse (the cashiers office). There is also a Kasse at the Vahingin campus, but of course, they only have hours on Wednesday mornings.
I should really have started by saying that we were among students receiving scholarships from the BW foundation, which apparently ends up getting paid to us by the univerisy. Originally I had the impression that everything would be wire transferred monthly to our German bank accounts, as is the most common form of receiving money and paying bills in Germany. But oh no. As it turns out, we have to make it to the cashiers office ourselves, bring our passport and sign off on a sheet of paper that we turned in today once each month to get our scholarship money. THEN since I do however have to pay for insurance and internet and rent through Ueberweisungs (direct bank transfer) I have to go deposit the money in my account at some point.
Today however, neither one of us had our German buddy with us, and I didn't remember where the Deutsche Bank was. Soooo, instead I will try to go tomorrow.
When this process was completed, we headed back to the Vahingin campus for a quick lunch before heading to our first day of the intensive German course.
I ate a fairly American lunch today. Yesterday I decided to try frying carrots in a simple flour-salt-egg-milk batter because I was tired of plain cooked carrots. At the same time I had left over creamed-spinach, so I mixed that with flour and fried little spinach bites as well. It was... decent. The carrots were better than I expected though! Think tempura sweet potato but a bit soggy and not very sweet.
So that with a side of grapes was my Mittagsessen.
We also had our first class of the intensive language course. I've been sorted into the highest class. "Wir sind die beste Beste" is how our instructor, Ms. Eva Frans, put it. Oddly, she reminds me of my aunt Jayne both in look and temperament. I don't know if that is my brain just trying to find a sense of recognition in a foreign place, or whether there actually is a resemblance.
But anyway, our class today was extremely informal and therefore awesome. Normally our class schedule will go as follows:
1:30-3:15 class
3:15- 3:45 break- there are apparently some little shops and a coffee house on the same street
3:45- 5:30 class
5:30- 5:45 short break - get a drink, stretch, potty, etc
5:45- 6:45 class
Today however, I found myself very lucky, because I had planned to ask permission to leave early- so I could go to the office where I needed to set up my internet which is only open on Thursdays from 6-7pm- but being the first day, Frau Franz decided it would be good to let us explore the city!
So at about 3pm after going through some basic introductions, she told us we were taking a little trip to the Rathaus.
She was surprisingly a very good tourguide. She told us about a "Hotel" which is completely underground. It's really a converted bomb shelter that I think was probably there during the war, and now the only thing in that area is an giant square called the Marktplatz. Apparently you can't actually stay in the hotel, for some reason or another (it probably won't pass firecode) but you can however on One specific day each year take a tour! I wish I knew what day it was!
The Marktplatz is right in front of the Rathaus, and surrounding it are adorable shops and buildings no more than 6 stories high.
Here are some cool things I learned on our little trip today:
* Stuttgart, being built in a valley between 2 large hills wants to stay a short city, in the sense that they have some rules about not building skyscrapers. ( in case you were wondering, the word for skyscraper in German is Wolkenkratzer. Because the buildings kratzen the Wolken - aka they scratch the clouds. cloudscratchers ~skyscrapers)
* The name Stuttgart comes from the word "Stutte" and "Garten." A Stutte is a female horse, and Garten is (hopefully note terribly difficult to translate) garden. Apparently when it was founded, they either had or wanted to have gardens with wandering horses everywhere.
* Stuttgart is surrounded by hills and green space which is perfect for growing wines, so apparently there are a few wineries here and you can BUY AUTHENTIC WINES AT THE RATHAUS!
* During WWII (the 2. Weltkrieg) Stuttgart was basically wiped out. Nearly everything was bombed. The Rathaus was halfway destroyed so that one half if still the original old construction, and the other half is new. (the whole thing is a U-shape I think)
Furthermore, elevators are not very common all over Germany, so the very old fashioned elevator in the Rathaus is terrifying, It's hard to describe without a picture. But basically imagine a pulling system with boxes on it that have one side open going around and around. You basically jump off the floor you are on into a box thing and wait very frightenedly as it goes upward or downward to your desired floor, and you very quickly jump back out when you get there. How no one has died from this over the years I have no idea. There is no sort of railing to keep you from falling out or getting something stuck between levels. ...It was kind of exciting though. I will do my best to upload a video I took on it! And also the pictures I have to better explain it.
Frau Franz seemed rather amused at how scared we all were by it. Someone asked what happens if you don't get off, and she said she imagines that at the top it goes through a dark tunnel part before coming back down and that she doesn't like the dark, so she has never tried it.
(view of marktplatz)
During this meandering, I walked past another old classical looking building that I walked through with Helly and remembered that there was a café that had the most delicious looking baked goods there. So I stopped in and bought myself a piece of Himbeerkuchen- raspberry cake, which looked like some delicassy dessert from a fairytale, as well as a Berliner- not a person. that's weird. a donut. There are famous donuts in Germany called Berliners which are circular crème filled donuts sprinkled in powdered sugar. I will have quite a delicious breakfast tomorrow :) Futherdown the Koenigstrasse (the main pedestrian shopping street I was on) I walked into a toy store out of curiosity and discovered that instead of My Little Pony, there is some children's tv show called Filly that is very popular and in the cartoon style of old school MLP (Emily: I thought you would enjoy hearing that, as did I).
This is apparently some awesome children's Nintendo DS game. I want it! It' called "Startail: The secret in the magic forest" 
And then, even though I've been trying to cook as many meals as possible at my dorm, I couldn't help stopping at a deli. They had delicious looking sub sandwhiches sitting in the window just waiting to be eaten, and with all the prices listed! (which is actually a norm here for food places). So of course I had to get a Schenken-Kaese Baguette for Euro 2,60. It had a perfect looking piece of lettuce sticking out of it, and indeed the whole thing tasted quite good. It was gone before I got off the train at my stop.
And that for the most part, ladies and gentlemen has been my day.
Tomorrow I will most likely be in a stressful mood after going to the Foreigner's office, so wish me luck!
I also have an oral exam for the German class, because they are going to split us into 2 classes, either the B2 or the C1 based on how well we can speak and comprehend German. C1 is the highest level- it counts as advanced and B2 is high intermediate. Either way I will be happy with my placement.
So,
Bis Morgen,
Love Val
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