Random by Lance

Life Update! (mit Deutsch!)

Once again.. It has been way too long since my last update. This time around, a lot has actually happened. Let’s see if I can remember everything..

So a week after my last post, we had a big group get together to go to a nice ‘classy’ bar. The bar was called 20&Up - except I’m not really sure why. Maybe, because the bar was 20 stories up. Anyways, we were told to dress ‘Sport Chic’, which meant that I finally was able to wear something a little nicer than my every weekend-collared shirt. The bar was pretty cool - you could see most of Hamburg from the huge windows, but the place was just too crowded and the drinks weren’t the cheapest things in the world. I enjoyed it, but probably don’t see myself going back there the rest of my time here.

Here’s a picture of a few of us there. Carmela enjoying my tie - city in the background.

The next Thursday was a friend’s last night here. She had to fly back to Italy, so we went out and I was lucky enough to show all my friends how the wonderful game of Beer Pong works. That. Was. Awesome.

Deborah! (I promise you, we’re both much better looking in real life)

Hm, the weekend after that I was able to go down to Bayern to see my Dad! Bayern is a ‘State’ about 6 hours south of Hamburg. Here’s a little Google Maps to give you a visual. Anyways, like the map shows, I went down to Augsburg, which is a city where a partner, of my Dad’s company, is. It was cool seeing the area, and I had heard many times about the differences between North and South Germany (dialect, mannerisms, food..) and well it was totally spot on. The dialect was much easier to understand than I had anticipated, the people were much more open, and the food/beer was just incredible. Seriously, go to Bayern (Munich) and just enjoy the food as much as possible. More than likely you’ll have to do about 2 months of fitness preparation, because the calorie count will go through the roof!

The plan the next day was originally to go up to Nürnburg (which is home to the biggest Weihnactsmarkt in the world). But instead we ended up heading out of Augsburg a little late and going straight to Würzburg, where we would be staying that night. Another visual - you can see Nürnburg almost on the way. Anyways Würzburg was awesome! Totally freezing, but I’m pretty used to that by now. We walked around the Weihnactsmarkt for a while, had some more awesome food, and then headed back to watch some German Talent show on the TV (with me translating). Me and my Dad then said our good-byes, and it was off to bed for our separate super early trains. It was sad to see my Dad go again after such a short time, but it’s always the best time seeing someone from my family again!

Here’s a picture of an extra-long würst in Würzburg and a extra-tall beer in Augsburg.

Um, ya. So last weekend was the last weekend here for two of my good friends, Gaetan and Carmela. Gaetan left for Switzerland and Carmela for Brazil. For their last nights we enjoyed ourselves out on the town. I will miss Gaetan super-bazooka high quality camera, Carmela’s super-intense party attitude.

Gaetan, with 1L Beers!

Carmela (We’re also better looking in real-life)

Anyways. Saturday it was also a Birthday Party for a girl in my class - and we were able to get most of the class together at her party for a picture. So these are the cool kids from B1 Lektion 7.

On Friday I have an enormous test that I paid quite a bit of money for, and will officially ‘certify’ my B1 German ability. I’m going to write out a little bit of 1 of my 3 speaking parts, hopefully to give me a little more practice, and to show off a little of my skills. Also on Saturday, my brother comes and will be spending the next two weeks here! I’ll try to post again sometime before Christmas, but we’ll see how it goes. If not, enjoy my German, have a Merry Christmas, a happy New Year and may God Bless you!

Hallo, mein Name ist Lance. Ich komme aus den USA her aber jetzt wohne ich bei einer Gäste-Familie in Altona. Ich bin in Deutschland, nur um Deutsch zu lernen und nach Deutschland, gehen ich nach Italien, um Italienisch zu lernen. Meine Familie wohnen noch in Texas. Meine Eltern wohnen in einem Stadtteile außerhalb Dallas und mein Bruder wohnt bei seiner Universität. Meine Mutter kommt aus Mexiko her, also ich besuche Mexiko ein oder zwei mal pro Jahr. Ich habe auch Spanien, Italien, die Schweiz, Australien, und Kanada besuchen. Außer Englisch kann ich auch Spanisch sprechen, weil meine Mutter mir es beigebracht hat.

16 December 2010 · Comments

I’m Loving It

Ich liebe es.. ! <— So that would be McDonald’s tagline here in Germany. Ya, so anyways, after the most random start to a blog post in the history of blogs.. let’s talk about life.

My life here has been about the same the last two weeks (yes, I know.. it’s been too long since my last post..) I’m actually getting ready to take a test that will move me onto the next level of my German course, and so I’ve been studying and trying to get back into the feeling of having a big test coming up. After this test, I have another test sometime close to the end of December that, if passed, will give me a German certificate of some sort - basically telling the world that I can work in a company that requires me to speak German. Due to that test, I’ve decided to stay here in Hamburg a little longer - instead of leaving on December 17th, I’ll most likely now leave sometime at the beginning or middle of January. This is also good news because now I’ll have a place to stay during Christmas and New Years, instead of bumming around Europe without a home. Hopefully this also let’s me brother come out to see me and allow me to have a small family Christmas - German style.

Besides the test coming up, not too much is different. Last Saturday, a bunch of people from the school went to a city about 45 minutes away called Lüneburg. It was a nice city, with some cool old architecture - but I’m not sure if it was a place that I would go back to and if I was on a time crunch for time in Europe. Like I said, we went with a big group of people and one of the guys is actually like a legit photographer guy. No no no, I’m not talking about the college sorority girl who buys an expensive camera and then takes ‘focused’ photos of flowers and adds her ‘company name’ to the picture (was that a little too harsh..?). No no, this guy had 3 different cameras with him and each one look like a mini bazooka. In fact, I think he actually named one ‘the bazooka’. Anyways, here’s a picture of me holding his camera that he took with another one of his cameras.

And here’s a few more photos that I stole from him. Here’s one with Igor from Brazil.

Zdenka from Slovakia

Me.. by myself..

Ya, I know. Awesome pictures. So that was Lüneburg, and we did that last Saturday. Oh I’ve also been a little reading spree as of late. I read the book ‘Pillars of the Earth’ in about 3 weeks (1,000 pages) and thought it was amazing. It lead to some sleepless nights, and I would totally recommend it to anyone looking for something to do besides sit on their computer all day. I also just went and bought Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, in German. I’m pretty excited to start that, and we’ll see how much reading in German helps my German sentence structure and grammar understanding. I’m feeling better and better everyday with the language and I’m excited about what two more months in German will do for me.

Oh and how about the Rangers making the World Series and Baylor being 7-2 and ranked! Holy cow, I had to of picked the worst sports year to go overseas. It is so amazing to see both my baseball team and my college having such awesome years in sports. Watching Baylor beat Texas last night (from 2-5am) was so amazing and I know I’ll be up maybe a few times this week (again from 2-5am) to watch Texas try to pull off a comeback against the Giants in this series. Although I am so far away - I’m still making sure my status as FAN is still intact.. now if only I could get my fantasy football team to figure it out…

Hm…. Since it is Halloween today and I’m feeling a little nostalgic about celebrating the holiday (seriously, it is not a big deal here at all..), I thought I would put up a picture of me dressed up for Halloween last year with my two good friends Kyle and Liz. Hopefully neither of them mind how awesome this picture is - because I’m putting it up anyways…

Oh and because I really don’t have too much else to talk about - I’ll go ahead and put up a bonus Halloween picture. This is me, Soey and Sean in picture from about 5 or 6 years ago, in what seriously has to be one of the top 5 pictures ever taken in the history of photography - Enjoy, and until next time - God Bless!

31 October 2010 · Comments

Football Football Football! 1

Football Football Football!

I am so excited for today. Fall weekends in Texas have to be like Christmas weekend to the rest of world. So when I decided to go on over to Europe for a year, I knew I would be missing my favorite time of the year - Fall football Saturdays and Sundays. So in order to prepare myself, I went ahead and bought a Slingbox (yes I know, I’ve put this link up like 10 times, but it is such an awesome idea), so I can spend my Sunday nights watching as much football as I can.

This morning I watched the replay of Baylor beating down Buffalo and I’m uber excited for next Saturday’s game against TCU. I was also able to join a fantasy football league that we all put down $25 and so I’m hoping for a good payday sometime in January.

Anyways - life has been good here in Hamburg. I’ve met a bunch of new people who are now forcing me to speak Deutsch. This has been a good change from last month where I was basically working only on my Spanish (which, I also needed to work on). I feel like I’m making some serious progress, but it’s going to be weird moving from Hamburg to Frankfurt here in two weeks now.

This past weekend we went out to a bar that one of our friend works at. The place was awesome - first off we got in for free and it just so happened to be Salsa night. After struggling to Salsa for a long while, our friend took us upstairs to go and check out the bar’s ‘Ice Bar’ which was totally awesome. It’s kind of completely random that a bar here in Hamburg has a third floor with an Ice Bar. All in all, it was awesome to have met someone who can ‘hook us up’ with a good time.

I really don’t have too much to say. I’m really really still enjoying myself but my week is basically the same. Next week I’m going to Bremen, which I’ve heard is a nice city about an hour and half southwest of Hamburg. I’m also starting to plan the rest of my trip (Spain and Italy), but I’ll update all of that whenever I’ve got that set.

I’ll put up some pictures whenever I get some! Sorry for the lame post, but until next time.. God Bless!

12 September 2010 · Comments

Time for a Post

Sorry sorry sorry! Bitte Bitte Bitte! I haven’t posted in about a week and a half and well, it won’t happen again. The friends that I have made from Spain are set on seeing basically everything there is to see during their time in Hamburg and I’ve gone along for a couple of their excursions. Haha, this has been fun and I’ve seen and done a lot of things, but I’ve come back exhausted and only ready to quickly go to the gym, eat, do meine Hausaufgabe and sleep. Although this hasn’t turned into a lot of cool blog posts, it has resulted in a bunch of pictures that I can now put up. So I’ll try to make a couple of blog posts on pictures from each of these little excursions.

Anyways - I miss home. Ok, ok, I know, it’s only been a little more than 2 weeks and of course I’m going to miss home.. but I was showing my new friends some of my pictures from home and it made me get a little homesick. Also, I’ve heard that the weather has been ridiculously hot in Texas which, may sound crazy, makes me want to be back home. Honestly, it has rained just about every day here - at least for a little bit. Tomorrow there isn’t supposed to be a cloud in the sky and I feel like I should celebrate. Also it’s been about 60-70 degrees F, and I’ve tried to refuse wearing a jacket in August, but I’ve succumbed and officially opened up my winter suitcase.

Alright enough complaining. I still am really enjoying myself and have decided to join my Spanish friends on a trip of theirs to Berlin and we’ll leave Freitag morgan and come back on Sonntag. We’re staying in a hostel, which makes me nervous because the only thing I know about hostels is from the movie…… you know… where people get killed. Haha, so we’ll see!

Uhh - so I’ll make a few posts on only pictures soon - but for now, here’s a couple of pictures of me and my new friends. We’re pretty cool and we know how to take a good picture.

:) Haha, ok that’s it for now. Until next time, God Bless!

German Lesson #3 - Conjugate

Ok, so this is the most basic of conjugating in German. I’m still learning about the 150million verb rules, but this will at least help a little.

Let’s take the verb, ‘Fragen’ - to ask, and conjugate it. First off, I always look at the word and take the -‘en’ off, because basically every verb ends in ‘en’. So take off the ‘en’ and start from there.

Fragen:

Ich Frage - I ask. (add an ‘e’)
Du Fragst - You ask. (Informal - add a ‘st’)
Er/sie/es Fragt - He/She/It ask. (add a ‘t’)
Wir Fragen - We ask. (add an ‘en’)
Ihr Fragt - They ask. (Masculine - add a ‘t’)
Sie Fragen - You ask. (Formal - add an ‘en’)

18 August 2010 · Comments

Arrived! Settling in…

Well I’m here!! My flight went out at 2:40pm DFW time, 9 hour flight, and I landed at 7:00am Frankfurt time. I then zoomed through customs and somehow found the train station with very little struggle. Advice #1 - when at an airport and you feel lost - stop moving and look up at the signs. Airports have a million signs that tell you where anything and everything is. So before you start freaking out, just stop moving and look up and you’ll find where you need to go.

So I planned ahead of time that I would get lost in this huge airport in a different country and booked a train at 9:40, but was waiting at the train stop at about 7:30. Advice #2 - for those who aren’t used to trains - just remember they are exactly like planes, but instead of gates they have tracks. So first make sure you are at the correct train station by looking at the big signs with the station’s name, then find what track your train is supposed to be on and show up at least 30 minutes early just in case your train is early. Then just read the boards that tell you what the next train will be and make sure it is yours.

Anyways, the train was totally packed and so I just found a spot on the floor until enough stops had been made that people filed out to make room. The train was a four hour ride to Hamburg, and I got off to see the lady, who’s apartment I’m staying in, waiting for me. We walked to a bus for a couple blocks and then walked to the apartment. Here’s a picture of the apartment from outside:

We are on the second floor with the patio. Oh and see that weird statue, well Anette (the lady) told me that this is how I would recognize what building to walk into. Here’s a picture of the weird fish/dragon close up:

Seriously, wtf?

Anyways, I got to the apartment and met the other girl (student) who was living at the apartment. By this point I was so exhausted, due to jet lag, my body felt as though it was 6am when it was really 3pm. So advice #3 - dealing with jet lag - my dad taught me this and it works well. Instead of falling asleep for as long as possible, take a 2-3 hour nap. This will let your body get a little rest to hold over until it’s a normal time to sleep. Then you’ll get right into the flow of things If you just fall asleep without an alarm, you’ll most likely wake up at 3am and be totally awake and have trouble getting used to the jet lag for a couple days.

Anyways, I just downloaded Entourage from last week and will watch that before I go to sleep. Oh and find me on skype - lanceob. I’ve got my first language class tomorrow starting at 8:30. So this is about it.. until my next post, God Bless!

1 August 2010 · Comments

Tomorrow Tomorrow

Well, tomorrow’s the big day! I thought I would wait until tomorrow morning to post another deal, but I realized there’s no way I’m going to have time to do it then. So, I’m just going to go ahead and post now.

I think I’m ready. Basically I’ve spent the last two months working, having fun, getting ready to go, and just trying to make the most of my time. I made a giant checklist and have basically everything I need and am ready to go. I’ve got my unlocked iphone, sweet laptop backpack, new webcam, adapters, books, new journal, braces off, headphones, and a bazillion other things needed to live in a different country for a year.

One thing that’s been weird is trying to pack for year. The whole packing all my winter clothes while it’s 103 degrees outside has been kind of weird. I basically managed to pack up everything I need into two suitcases and a backpack. This will give me decent enough mobility while I’m trying to catch trains that won’t wait up for you. Here’s a picture of a year’s worth of Lance’s stuff:

Besides getting all this stuff together, I’ve had an awesome time visiting my friends in Waco and playing golf with my friends and family here. Me and Sean Redmond have been playing golf about once a week and it was nice seeing my score drop from about 100 to the 88-92 range over the last two months. Oh, my dad also decided to get us some sweet tickets to the Rangers game (along with season tickets starting on Aug 10, thanks dad!) Here’s a pic from last night:

Um, I think that’s all I’ve got for right now. I have a flight going out at 2:30pm tomorrow and won’t arrive until 7am German time. It’s a 9 hour flight, so if you do the math, my body will feel like it’s about to be time to sleep right as I’m landing to start a brand new day. Haha, anyways, thanks to everyone who has wished me good luck and read this blog. I hope everyone has a chance to take a couple minutes out of their day and keep up with what’s going on in my life as I continue to update this page! God bless!

30 July 2010 · Comments