Spring 2007 Abroad in Germany

Here I have advice regarding various topics; of course, keep in mind that most of this advice is based on my personal experience. If you would like advice more specific to Germany and/or Freiburg, be sure to visit the about page.

1. How not to get robbed. This means watching out for pickpockets, laying low, and using common sense. I have some very specific advice now for pickpocket-prevention, since one of my friends was pickpocketed in Barcelona only an hour after we arrived there!
   • Bags: Wear a purse that slings around your chest instead of one that just hangs off your shoulder. The latter is easily snatched, and also is at your side so that someone can reach in and take our your wallet before you notice.
   • Pockets/pouches: Those touristy ones that are flat are great, because they fit under your clothing. Use them for carying your passport and at least one credit card. Maybe even some emergency cash. If you carry your wallet in your pocket, make sure it's a front one! When I was in Barcelona on the Metro, I always had my hand hovering over my pocket to make sure my wallet was not snatched. But if you don't want to bother with keeping your hand at your side all the time, you may just want to keep your wallet in a bag or purse. Yes, both for men and women. There *are* manly purses/pouches.
   • Do not keep all your money/cards in one wallet. Like I said before, keeping one credit card hidden with your passport is good, so that if you do get pickpocketed, you have some emergency money right away. When my friend was pickpocketed in Barcelona, she had absolutely NO money after that and was very fortunate that she had two of us to help pay for her.
     Do keep an emergency reserve of cash, or at least, as I have said, hide a credit card somewhere on your person.
2. Health...
   • Keep some condoms in your room, no matter what your situation! You seriously never know when someone (you or a friend) will need them! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
   • Foods can be different abroad- monitor what you eat and how it settles with you. There's this sunflower seed bread that I used to love to have here, but stopped because it correlated strongly with my feeling sick.

1. Why are you going abroad? Why are you leaving your home university for a semester/year? What are your goals, and what do you hope to get out of this experience? Do you care more about taking classes in your major or about improving a foreign language? Do you want to travel more or study a lot?

   This will help you decide things like, do I want an intensive language course? Should I stay with a host family or in an apartment? I strongly recommend the former if your intention of study abraod is to improve a foreign language. I live in a dorm in Freiburg, and consequently speak more English than I do German. Staying with a family might seem not so desirable compared to having your own place, but it's certainly worth doing. I once stayed 10 days in Mexico with a host family, and I feel like those short 10 days did for my Spanish what 5 years in school would do.

2. Start planning it ASAP. Yeah, things can change, and you want to have flexible plans. But it's really good to start looking early even if you have only a slight clue as to where or why you would go abroad.
   I just remember people were kind of like, "You have time..." but I wish people had emphasized better about planning for it. On that note...
3. Think about the department you're majoring in. Will they accept credits from overseas? Will these count towards your major? Will you have most of your major completed by the time you go abroad? Distribution requirements? I had originally wanted to study abroad for a year, and ended up doing just a semester mostly because I had a lot left of my psychology major to complete.
4. Choose a good program. Ask your foreign language department (if applicable) and/or major department if there are any programs that they recommend for or against. I remember that Gabi Davis (the chair of the German Studies department) cautioned me against IES in Vienna, saying that other students had bad experiences with them.
5. Tip for Music Students: Consider a few things while looking at programs:
   1. Do you want to take music courses while abroad? If yes, proceed to numero dos....
   2. What kind of music do you study? What kind will you want to study while abroad? Do you want performance, theory, history...?
   3. In the States, general universities and colleges have music departments that usually include all aspects of music studies-- performance, educaiton, theory, history, musicology, etc. However, this is may not be the case in the country in which you will study. In Germany the distinction is made between Musik and Musikwissenschaft (musicology, if you will), in that studying Musik means the technicalities and practicalities of music, like performance, theory, education. Musikwissenschaft, on the other hand, is the more, uh, useless and philosophical aspect of music, which I did not really expect. This resulted in my Musikwissenshaftseminaren being the kind of study that really isn't for me; I usually prefer practical/down-to-earth courses of study, whereas these are very philosophy-oriented, like any other humanities courses. And you don't really need to know any music theory for these courses. Theory, etc. is all at the Musikhochschule, a seperate institution from Uni Freiburg, so Uni Freiburg has NO practical music courses. So, I wish I had known that before signing up for these seminars!

1. Keep track of your expenses, especially if you're going to Europe, which is REEAAALLY expensive. See how your spending patterns are for the first month, and from that figure out a budget for yourself. This is a good chance to practice Microsoft Excel, if you aren't familiar with it! I write in almost every expense, from rent to buying a drink at the bar.

1. See "Safety."
2. If you want to see Spain, do not go to Barcelona, no matter what other people or travel guides tell you. It is so touristy... to me, it's like saying you should go to Cancun to see Mexico, or go to Orlando to see the US. Better to go somewhere like Madrid or Seville.
3. Discount airlines in Europe: EasyJet, RyanAir, TuiFly... and many more. I recommend EasyJet, as they go to the most airports, AND their theme color is orange!!! How many airlines have orange? Sweeeet!
4. Validate your ticket. If you're using a metro system or city train of some kind, and you don't see any turnstyles or anything to check that you have a ticket, that means you still have to buy a ticket and validate it, if it requires so. If you're caught with an unvalidated ticket, you're still going to get fined something like 40 euro.
5. There are some good travel books if you go look in the bookstore or online. I bought "Let's go to Europe on a budget" for 15 USD/11-something EURO, and it's pretty good for general info about most places in europe.
6. Good websites for hostels/hotels: hostelworld.com, hostels.com, virtualtourist.com, and lonelyplanet.com. I'm sure there are even more that I have not mentioned.
7. Don't be afraid to use Wikipedia, especially Wikitravel.

1. Buy European shoes, whether before or after you arrive. Preferably before, since shoes and clothes are MUCH more expensive here. By European shoes, I mean basically tennis shoes or "sneakers" around that size and shape. If you wear regular sneakers (Nike, Adidas...), you stick out as American, especially as a girl. I've noticed that while some European boys where them, girls just stick to girly shoes. Same with T-shirts-- if you're female, you have to wear girly shirts. Wearing a regular T-shirt makes you stick out, I've noticed. So much for Germany being more feminist than the US!!!!

1. What number do you think this is supposed to be? No, not a seven. It is a one. Germans decided it would be cool to exaggerate the little tale at the top of 1. Then they realized that this made it look like a 7, so to differentiate between the two, the 7 has a line forming a cross at the stem.