Amsterdam

Last weekend I was in a trip to Amsterdam in Holland. Only there I could see the difference between the very touristic and friendly "Amsterdamers" and the pretty unfriendly Germans. It was a very nice trip. The best thing about Holland is that everybody speaks English. You gotta love this when you go t a new place. In my German home I can use my English only with foreigners. Never with local people. They usually refuse any attempt of English, even in the stores or public services.
Another nice thing about Amsterdam is that the city is really lively. You have the feeling that it never sleeps. The transportation is available all day and night. The stores and bars are open all the time. I do not think you can get bored. And the parks are really neat. You can find some green spots everywhere you go. But I think that comparing a small city in Germany with Amsterdam is like trying to fit circles in square places.
Anyway, I seem to find fascinating big cities. After Vancouver, I found Amsterdam as another city where I would like to live some day. Or, at least, to be there more often. And Amsterdam is not even big. Just 700 000 people. But it is attractive because it is open minded.
Can't wait to go there again!

Study system in Germany

It has been a month since I started the courses here. Looking at the system, it is somewhat like the one in Romania. But only when it comes to its calendar. Otherwise, there are differences. Biggest one is that you can choose your courses. This is something that I missed back home. And you can choose as many or as few as you want. If you feel you can do more, you can just pick another topic.
The first month is for course hunting. Meaning you don't need to decide what course to take. You go course-shopping and decide afterwards what you like or dislike. I did this with a course of Automata theory. I wanted to do it, but after only 3 lectures I gave up. It was something else than I wanted to study.
Another difference is the use of the Internet. All the courses or study related things are available online. The registration for exams is also online. And the teachers are much more helpful. They have office hours when you can ask anything related to assignments.
The seminars are more interactive. Every student gets a paper and prepares a presentation for that paper. This way, at least he will understand one thing very well and hear about the others.
And the best thing is that the teachers clean the blackboards. :)
Still, the things tend to get pretty chaotic especially in the practical courses. But I can live with that. At least school ends in July.
However, I have heard that not all universities have the same system. But I can only talk from my own experience.

Germany and sports

This Sunday I went to see a handball game at the University. I was invited by my colleagues in the handball practice, as it was their last game in the league. For all the people that don't know, handball is the second most popular sport in Germany, after football obviously. And since my homework could wait (me grinning...) I went to see the game. The game itself wasn't really attractive, more kicking than playing (just like in Romanian football), but what amazed me was that the place was almost full and people were actually enjoying the game and the atmosphere. And we are talking about a seventh league game.
After the game the teams went out together and had a beer and a wurz (national food aka sausage). This was even more surprising, to see the home team invite all the people to a beer and a grilled wurz after the game. I actually found out when discussing with the others (people notice me easily here because I am the only one that speaks English :D) that the trainer of the team went to Iasi and he liked it. I really felt like in a real sporting event. It was like going to a show, not for a beating with some other guys. :)
One thing I noticed a lot here is that people don't smoke packed cigarettes, but they tend to have their own equipment for rolling some joints. I guess they prefer smoking what they know. And, anyway, who cares about smoking when you have a white beer in front of you?! :D The ultimate joy: white beer and wurz.

Germany barbershop

I went today to get a haircut. And since it was a Saturday, I decided to go on the other side of the city, near to the border with France, where there is some big place that looks like a mall. It's called SaarBasar. Now, hearing the name wasn't that convincing, since in my head I could see only one basar, the Romanian one. The Romanian basar is a bunch of people selling usually stolen or alsmot broken things. Apparently, in Germany this is not the case. After a bit of confusion caused by the transportation (at some point I had to change the way of walking), I arrived at the mall. And, what do you know, the first thing in the place was a barbershop called "Figaro".
There were some things different from Cyprus or Romania. The hairdressers were young women, with pink died hair and full of tattoos. That's a new thing to see. I expected to see these kind of people in the mall, not doing haircuts. Also, the magazines available for reading were actually from this week and not from 2 years ago, like in Cyprus. In Romania you can barely find a decent place with something to read while you wait. Unfortunately, they still didn't speak English or French. Just good old German. Good thing I know how to say "short" and "shorter" in German. It helps a lot. You still get a haircut even if you don't know German. :-)
While being there I also tried some pizza place. It was the weirdest serving place. You would pay at the counter and sit quietly at a table of your choice. And at some point some guy would come and scream the name of the food in the place. If you felt it was yours, you would just raise your hand. I've never seen before this kind of restaurant. Might be some new Italian way of serving the food. :D That's why the Italian people is famous for the chaos, I guess.