Skipping Information for FUN

After a tiring morning of phone calls (that in the end turned out to be good), I met up with Anni, Hermina, Kamil and Ming for lunch (which I had missed due to the telephone call, but I went anyway). I had planed to go to some information sessions later on. They had not been too helpful in the past though and so we went downtown to get some cofee/tea.


After that we drove to a driving range and hit some balls, which was really fun. The girls and I had never played goldf before and so we were not too successful on that. It was cool anyway.


Anni's and Kamil's butts


Togo vs. Germany - it's not the size of the bat, it'S the motion ;-)





Hermina on the range

We hung out at Kamil’s place afterwards and had some drinks and played silly association games. We cracked up about almost everything and had a great time tagging each other again.
At the end of the day, only one question remains:
"How did lunch turn into THIS?" - answer (Hermina): cuz... we're HIKE 3 DAAAAH!

The D of E & Pub Quiz

Today I had an appointment with Kate Cummings, the director of the Deparment of English. I now have an academic adviser (Actually a grad student) and on Thrusday I will be going to a "potluck" at her house for all the incoming graduate students. More about that on Thursday.

Tonight was also the FIUTS (Foundation of International Understanding Through Students... I love that title...) Pub Quiz. We had trivia questions about aaall the different countries and some lotto too at a place called "the emigrant".
Slowly, this whole international thing is getting tiresome though. Too many names to remember. But apparently I have a really good Chinese and Turkish pronunciation ;-)

Hike Three - duh!

Camp Arnold in Eatonville near Mt. Rainier aka "rules? why have rules? WE RULE!"

So, the camp was awesome! So we all got into vans that had people going to the same level of hike. Of course I was on the level three hike (duh!) and rode with a whole bunch of cool people in the "Olympia" bus. We had much fun on the road already, playing "Ich packe meinen Koffer" with names and personal details. It turned out we were all pretty much into hiking, cycling, climbing and pretty much all the cool outdoor stuff, so of course we'd be having fun on the trip.

After we ditched our stuff in the cabins, we went to our hike three up Mount Rainier. It was just a five mile trip, but we had loads of fun. We went up to a place called Panorama Viewpoint (guess why) and it was just amazing. I am only putting up a few pictures up here.

More pictures of Camp Arnold can be found on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=96290&l=73dd7&id=1498038121
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=96291&l=bfacf&id=1498038121
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=96453&l=ecceb&id=1498038121
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=96461&l=10b06&id=1498038121
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=96466&l=c0f9f&id=1498038121

So after we got back from our "exhausting" hike three - we decided to have some fun breaking the Salvation Army camp rules. Some refreshment was needed and so we just jumped the camp lake (without lifeguard on duty - OMG! ;-)). Lucky that some of us actually brought an extra set of clothes.

Following that we had a bonfire with some international singing, which was pretty cool.

The night ended with dancing, board games and for some people with a couple of drinks in the near woods (determined not to break more camp rules).

With pretty much no sleep, we got up the next morning and the lake was awesome!

After breakfast we prepared for the upcoming cultural presentations. We Germans were going to do a reenactment of the bulding and tearing down of the Berlin wall in about three minutes. It was the funny version, too where David Hasselhof actually comes to Berlin singing "I've been looking for freedom" and thereby unites the country

(What? You never heard of that version?).

Some time during that morning we had started playing "tag" and on the van ride home, we annoyed people by playing that on the car, but it was so much fun!

Bottom Line:

There is so much more to say about camp, but I don't even know where to start. It was the most interesting thing I have done so far. Not only was the mountain gorgeous (and I will have to go all the way up there. Goal is to be in shape by June), but the people were fantastic. Who can say he has been in a van with a Chinese girl that wrote 4000 kilometers on her bike through China to the Tibet plateau... or with a French guy who changes countries every three years, because his Dad works for the government internationally, or with a guy from Israel, originally from Russia, whose favorite is scuba diving? Not to forget about the Iranian girl in astronautics, the Asianlooking buddy from Togo, who has joined an American fraternity and had that time in his life when he didn't sleep for three days. Then there was the Polish guy with American citizenship who felt he would betray Poland if he did a cultural presentation for America. Then there's the Swedish Girl with Bosnian roots, who has fled from the war and lived in five different countries, adding Germany as the sixth in 2009, the Indian driver, who dates his Russian navigator and basically lives in the woods (well, he likes hiking), the Dutch girl whose actual name makes her blush, because it has a funny connotation in America, and the other Swedish girl who is a total sports freak, most of all soccer.

Now, if that is not a treat for everyone who loves international relations, I don't know what is. And you know what else? Aside from being interesting, these people were incredibly nice, funny and cool as well!

Go Olympia and hike three - duh!

International Orientation BBQ

Today started with more information (like we didn't have any the last few days), but since it was especially for exchange students, it actually did bring some news.

After some reading, squirrel watching (they're a plague and they'll eat food right out of your hand!)

and chilling on the campus lawn with my homeless friends Anni and Hermina we headed to the big international BBQ in Woodland Park.

It was a place to associate and meet with new people. Actually it is kind of hard for us Europeans to meet any of the many Asian folks around, though.

Here goes an assortment of (kind of) random pictures from the BBQ:

Tomorrow, we're are leaving for Camp Arnold in Eatonville near Mt. Rainier. There's no alcohol allowed, but I guess we'll figure out a way to have a fun Saturday night after our hike.

Locals

P.S.: If you really want to know, what life is like in Seattle: check out these two locals. They kind of got themselves on tapes around the Olympic Manor Neighborhood. Enjoy!
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/?CMXID=2120.10BAB5B8-A095-4F3A-A643-379CF2C9CFB8&WT.srch=1

International Orientation Day

After a few kind of slow, yet exhausting days of research and other things and hanging out at the UW with some Germans and other international students , today was going to be exciting again!

Today I have been in Seattle for two weeks!

I took my bike up to University and it was really nice and sunny. The Burke Gilman-Trail is awesome and goes right along Lake Union, passing the Skyline of Seattle in the distance.

When I got there, I was faced with about 800 people from all over the world. We were in a huge ballroom with yummy bagels and lunch, loads of coffee and a couple of interesting and not so interesting talks about what’s ahead of us.

Unfortunately, the most dull talk was given by a German member of the Student Board of FIUTS (the “let’s get all the internationals together-people”). So much for cultural embassadorship.

However, I met so many interesting people today from Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Morrocco, Iran, Sweden, Togo and of course the German crew was there, too. Table 16 Rocks! ;-)

Now, some of us had read in the Daily’s “Welcome Issue” (University Newspaper), that it was a myth that we were going to sit under these cherry trees with a bunch of people from all kinds of different nations and discuss world literature.

But right there, I started doubting this would remain a myth. And if it doesn’t happen by itself, we’ll just have to found a club for it (if there isn’t one already). After that we headed out for a tour of Campus and the University District.

I skipped the Udistrict though and went to the library.
The rest of the day I spent researching and almost got locked into the library when it closed at 5pm(!). Except for opening hours when there are no courses though, the library is awesome. Yo can check out books for almost three months
(“this will be due December 4th” – “Excuse me, did you say December 4th?” – “Yes, but you can get an extension if you need more time” - *jaw drop*)
and you can loan books fro libraries on the other side of this country (“Hey there, New York Public Library”) for FREE! Did I mention I like the library ;-)

And for a finish, just a little teaser for the weekend at Eatonville near Mt. Rainier:

Attack of the Killer Racoons & Bike Swap

So yesterday was a pretty slow day. I did some research, laundry and cooking and stayed around the house all day, desperately watching craigslist for a new bike. Then, suddenly and without warning, there were was a rumble and some loud squeeking and grunting noises outside. The dogs barked and the noise grew even louder. When I looked outside, I was face to face with a pack of middle sized dog large racoons that were climbing fences and shack roofs.

They were not scared, although I wasn't more than 2 meters away from them. The flash of the camera finally made them flee though.

So today I got up really early to go to a bike swap at a bar / grill parking lot near the Boeing airport. Not a pretty sight. BUT I finally found a bike that I like, so I can now scratch that off my list and try to safe the money that I've been handing out that last week. YAY!

I rode my new bike back home, since only weired people seemed to be on the bus today: One bus pulled over and stood there for 10 minutes until the three passengers that were about to start fighting (literally) for a seat in the bus got scared by the driver calling the cops. Nice neighborhood near that airport ... real nice neighborhood.

I rode over the bridge crossing Lake Union however and that made up for all the trouble. The deep blue water was very inviting and I'll have to go down there some time!