Live Blogging #3 December 28, 2009
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Just to give everyone an idea, what’s going on: I’ve been on “the streets of Philadelphia” today and it’s my last day at the east coast. Tomorrow heading for Dallas to take a car to Oklahoma City to get my flight back home. Yes, on Wednesday I’ll be home (if no flights are delayed or canceled or if anything else unforeseen happens) – in Germany, lovely home 
.
Chapter 2: Not only learn about the American culture – also teach the German way of life December 27, 2009
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It was Richard’s birthday (my roommate) in November and he wanted to show the American guys (and the other Internationals) a real German delicious drink: Feuerzangenbowle – or in English “fire-tongs punch”. Tastes similar to “Glühwein mit Schuss” so they get to know a traditional styled popular drink you can find every year on German christmas markets (they don’t have ‘em here and not in almost any other country). And in Hamburg as well as in other traditional university cities (e.g. Göttingen or Stuttgart) in Germany they show the film “Die Feuerzangenbowle” in the universities before christmas. Of course, Paderborn (as kind of “untraditional” and a boring-gray-concrete university) doesn’t do this 
.
But back to topic – we’re exchange students in the United States, hence we primarly “learn” from the American way of life (instead vice versa). Maybe I should tell you more about other general habbits and things, like people are here in Oklahoma and in the university, or maybe I should not, because I did very often in the past. But I don’t care, because this blog is also a kind of diary for me, so I also want to remember these every day things myself later in a few months or years. If you’re bored of this, just skip the rest of this post!
You may know that in North America they have a lot of squirrels. And we have them too, right around our houses or anywhere else. And sometimes you can even touch them (I did by my bike… carefully 
). Unfortunately some of them get hit by cars on the road and if you see this, just as it happens, it makes you feeling sad ;( – because they are so cuuute !
We have a lot of nice sunsets, too. It does not rain very often, so you can see the clear sky more often and enjoy the sunsets. And this definitely was one of the best things of our exchange semester (it just makes you much more happier ). By the way: There’s a lot of wind blowing strongly, too, maybe due to its location within the Great Plains. In the north west of Texas (right to the west border of Oklahoma) they have built the biggest wind park in the world!
Although, as I mentioned, it’s warm and so we sat in the pool and relaaaxxxed – in November
But this might not be a reason for them to put as much ice as possible in every soft drink, because they also do it in the colder winter. Worst thing about it: They always ask “On the rocks?” – “No, I wanna enjoy the pure taste of whiskey, man!” They have no idea about how to drink traditional tasty alcoholic drinks the right way (also what they call “beer” ).
(Thanks, Peter, for the photo )
In the university’s building they sometimes have some pianos, and actually a lot of students play on them very often. Most of the time some pop songs or pop ballads, but hey, they play it well and that’s so cool It seems to me that many students practise very hard in playing piano or some other instruments (Marching Band… okay, that’s not that “hard” ). What I know for sure is that they’re having exercise very often – the bad thing about it: Fashion and style is different here: very often sports clothes, always running shoes and the maroon OU hoodie. I also got exercise very often (5 days a week, in the gym or running outside), but I unfortunately stopped it at the beginning of our Thanksgiving roadtrip and only did it two times the week in the following weeks so then I gained 3 kilograms – damn! *grrrr*
Perhaps pop ballads (like they play on the pianos) are not my favorite kind of music, so this reminds me of something else. Have I already talked about the AC/DC concert? No, I haven’t, thus here some words about it: AC/DC itself is just awesome, the “Rockopas” are still real Rock ‘n Roll champions. However, a concert inside a hall with a closed top (Ford Center in OKC) is not as good as open air and especially if every space is filled with chairs or benches – what the hell?! This is a rock concert!! Well, to be honest, I liked the U2 concert more – open air, much more impressive (show), cool feeling within a big stadium. But AC/DC also did a great job with a “nice” show as well (trailer at the beginning or the – let’s call it – “One And Only Angus Super Show Performance” or finishing with “Fire guns”… do I have to mention anything else?).
That’s it. I think I’ve tried to talk enough about life here in Oklahoma in poor English. Full stop. Fin. Finito. (Of course, there are two trips left, about which I will write, however nothing else about this “general stuff”)
PS.: That’s funny – I often wrote about the weather in November, when it was warm and we were able to go out with t-shirt and shorts. The reason why this impressed me so much is the following (besides the fact that the temperatures here are significant higher in general than in Germany): This year’s October was the coldest October in Norman ever recorded! Perhaps that fact gives you an idea how strange it is, to feel such change in temperatures from cold to warm (and also the opposite direction) within one or two days. Like in December (see post “No comment…”) from one to the next day it changed from a -8 °C low to a 22 °C high.
Chapter 1: Introduction To Roadtrips December 20, 2009
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As I wrote – I’ll make it all up! So here it comes, the first chapter:
This is the “Arkansas crew” from the roadtrip at the beginning of November. Though it was just a trip for one weekend I definitely have to write about it, because it was very nice. Basically our intention was to see colorful “Indian Summer” with trees colored in red, yellow and brown. Instead, what we found were trees with no more leaves and without any color (except gray-brown). Nevertheless, this was one of the best roadtrips I’ve ever made (just because driving along the highways in the plain midwest + perfect country/rock music mix from the 60s to present + cool relaxed people = real roadtrip feeling)!
We arrived in Fort Smith Friday afternoon, a town close to the border to Oklahoma, and spent the evening having dinner at a Burger House with cool Rock music and tasty burgers (even more tasty than in OKC ). Then we left and bought some beers and ciders to relax in the hotel.
The next day we first visited “Fort Caffee” where German soldiers had been prisoned during the second World War. We also had a real delicious IHOP breakfast on that day, with first breakfast sausages, bacon and eggs (the original British way) followed by blueberry/strawberry/anyberry pancakes (the American way) – glorious!
By the way: We were driving a Lincoln Town Car with 6 seats (3 + 3). This is the car of which most of the stretch limousines are made of and it’s a “typische Ami Karre – weicher geht’s nicht!”
After this we began our “real” roadtrip off any interstate highway but along such small mountains:
As I mentioned before, all the leaves had been gone. However the nature in the mountains was pretty nice, a lot of trees and forests (quite a good contrast to Oklahoma):
Beside those mountains with the trees we also had green meadows in between:
Even some colored leaves were left on the trees around there:
On this day we could watch the sunset – 3 times! (By driving up a hill)
At night we arrived in Eureka Springs, which actually is a jewel of a town. It’s “different” to rest of the towns you’re used to have here in the midwest: The people are kind of mind-forward (we went to a bar were some drag queens met later on!), the city is European style (as far as an American town can be “European”) and there was also a city fest with a lot of Harley Davidson bikers and their “girls” – so we could find people on the streets (up to here this was very unusual in all the other cities we had been before in Oklahoma or Arkansas)
Finally we had great lunch the next morning is yet another “colorful” restaurant down in the basement of a building and then left to drive back to Norman, because this took a few hours. Hence, here’re some last three impressions from Eureka Springs (except third picture taken on the way home):
I can only recommend you to visit this city if you’re around there!!
So this was “only” an introduction to an American road trip, the fantastic big one should follow two weeks later in California…
No comment… December 13, 2009
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Unfortunately we’ve to learn for the finals right now…
A Prospect December 2, 2009
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Don’t worry (I also talk to myself ), I’ll make up all the stories about the trips that I did not post yet, including Arkansas and California as well as one (last) post about everyday life and stuff. Perhaps the “report” about Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia & Dallas (after the exams, quasi on the way home) is going to be the final post in this blog. But I don’t want to make forecasts I cannot be sure them to be right, so just be surprised. Guess at the 20th of December (at the latest!) you’ll see a new comprehensive report here…
so long,
Christian
