Update of the Month of the Year

So, it has been quite some time. After work started up, I was doing enough work where I didn't feel like going home to write some more, but now it's high time.

So what have I been doing for the past two months?

Pretty much everything that they said I would be doing. I have written a speech, done research on several topics and wrote a summary of said research (the topics themselves are subject to a non-disclosure agreement). I have been going to the plenary sessions of parliament; into the Comittee for Environment, Nature Conservation, Construction and Reactor Safety; and in to other various events and meetings where my Member of Parliament (MP) is present. One week, I was "running the office" and had to get the mail and answers the phones and everything. Luckily, it wasn't a busy week.

I have gotten to visit the American Embassy twice, the Dutch Embassy for their King's Day celebration, as well as the Polish Constitution Day celebration. There have been many other events along the way as well which have been less memorable but there is often good food.

As it turns out, the internship is just work. Some people had good luck and gotten good offices and MPs, others were not so fortunate. As for me, I landed in a great office of an MP with the political party "the Left", which is the successor to the "Party of Democratic Socialism", which was the successor to the "Socialist Unity Party of Germany", which was the THE political party of East Germany. As such, the large basis of support for the Left comes from the states which constituted former East Germany. If you look at an electoral map of the Left, you can clearly see where the former borders lay, even within the city of Berlin.

Electoral map of "the Left"

My MP is called Ralph Lenkert. He hails from the state of Thuringia, and more specifically the city of Jena, a historically significant city which is world-renowned for its lens manufacturing, due to a man named Carl Zeiss. Carl Zeiss and his colleagues took the trial-and-error guess work out of lens manufacturing and figured out the exact physics and science behind lenses, in order to make more consistently perfect lenses. Sony, among other photographic equipment manufacturers, use Zeiss lenses on their cameras.

All the MPs with the left are extremely friendly and personable, and they are not overly formal like some of those from the other parties, where my poor friends have to go to work in a suit and tie in the 80 degree weather with 80% humidity. With the Left, you can dress as formally or (almost) as casually as you would like.

What they lack in formal attire, they make up for in parliamentary procedure. All of them are very engaged and constantly working towards making changes in the laws or policies of the federal government, although they have practically no power to effect any real change, due to the small number of them in parliament (64 of 631 seats). They currently find themselves in the opposition with the Greens. The government coalition consists of two of the more conservative parties the CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, often simply called the Union), two sister parties which are the most strongly represented fraction in parliament, and the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany).

What have I been doing for the past two months outside of work?

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

After my last blog post in April and in the week before we started our internships, I was on a trip with 20-something other interns in Franconia, a region in Bavaria, in order to learn a bit more about the Hanns Seidel Foundation, a political foundation that works together with the CSU in Bavaria. We stayed for a week in a former abbey turned hunting castle for the local duke. It was nice to get out of the city for a while and we got to visit the quaint cities of Coburg and Bamberg.

I was able to take a lot of nice photos, but it is difficult to upload them with the poor internet connection I have at home, which means I have to go to the university to do it, which I will do in the very near future.

After spending one night at home, I was off to Warsaw for the weekend to visit a friend there. Although it was cold and rainy, Warsaw has many beautiful sights to offer. After the war, the historic city center was rebuilt in a traditional style, and as such, Warsaw still has the feel of being an old city, whereas in Berlin, that is not the case at all. In addition to the old town, there is also a tower known as the Palace of Culture and Science, a Soviet-era building in the heart of Warsaw, which serves as a point of reference for the entire city.

The rest of April was rather quiet as we were all getting used to our new jobs. We only traveled within the city of Berlin, which in itself has a lot to offer, if not always something good (looking at you, Spandau Citadel). In addition to the start of the internship, the semester at school started up, where I am enrolled in a entry-level Russian course (здравствуйте, товарищи!).

In May, I ended up traveling firstly to Padua and Venice, in order to take in the sights of northern Italy. Padua is an incredibly beautiful city and is exactly what you would imagine a "typical" Italian city to be: old buildings, big squares, many churches, nuns walking down the street, and the bicycles. The largest square of Italy is found there, "Prato della Valle" (field of the valley). There is a large elliptical-shaped island surrounded by a fountain and statues of many famous personalities of Italian history, such as Galileo Galilei.

Venice, of course, is a beautiful city. There is a lot to see and a lot of walking to do, but there are also a lot tourists. My friend and I decided to just get lost in the side streets instead of walking down the main passageway with the enormous crowd of tourists. In this way, we came across the first ghetto (and I learned that ghetto is originally a Venetian word, "foundry"). We also saw a lot of laundry hanging out to dry. After seven hours of walking in the blazing Venetian sun, I was done for the day.

Later, I also took a trip to Jena to see my MP's electoral district first hand. I was there for a week and had many interesting events and meetings, in the Ministries of Thuringia and within the city of Jena itself. There is a planetarium there, that always has the most up-to-date technology, because the technology is produced by Zeiss.

Yeah.

I think those are the major events. I'll write a couple more updates with some of the finer details of the other things I've done as well as photographic evidence that I've done them.

Until then.

Vandalism and Arson by Left-wing Extremists

Among the interns, we have a chat group. Word was going around that there was a large police presence at the end of the street. Curious as to what was going on, I grabbed my camera and my roommate and I headed out.

We indeed found a large police presence, a couple cars, a van, a bus, and a bunch of officers standing around talking.

 


We began with our investigation and the first thing we saw were these tires:



Burned out, but no damage to the ground our cars near them, which was when I noticed that the street was very wet. The tires had been moved there after they were extinguished. We hadn't missed the fire department by much.

There were also many fliers distributed, lying in the street soaking wet.



After researching some of the information on the flier, I found that this is not the first time such an act of arson has happened here. There supposedly lives a neo-Nazi on the street which intersects ours. He is the front-man of a neo-Nazi band and has already been arrested for distributing their CD's. His car was set on fire in February.

After thinking we had seen at all we were on our way home when we noticed that the hostel had also been vandalized with some sort of tar-based paint and one of the windows had been broken:

        

The next day, we found a news article which reflected our theories and gave us an additional piece of information. That that chain of hostels had let the right-wing populist party "Alternative for Germany" have meetings at one of their hostels, and it could have possibly been vandalized for that reason.

Interesting stuff.

It's been a long one

This past month has been quite busy.

After writing the first blog post we have been doing something practically every day except for two weekends and this four-day Easter weekend.

I'll go chronologically through my photos to present what we've done, because a lot of what we did was procedural and really only pertinent for people taking part in the program. The aforementioned visit of the Reichstag:

Some Soviet Graffiti from 1945

The Assembly Room in the Reichstag for the Bundestag

Glass dome atop the Reichstag

The Brandenburg Gate as viewed from the dome

One of the massive flags flying above the Reichstag

These photos were all from the first week.

Monday and Tuesday of the second week included such events as a tour of the Bundestag library and applying for the residency permit. We had Wednesday free before leaving for five days for the introductory seminar in Berlin-Köpenick, in a hotel in the middle of the woods on a lake.

Over those five days we had a schedule of things to do from 9 am to 9 pm every day. It included such events as intercultural training, two simulation games where we wrote a constitution and an emergency summit for a city where there were refugee problems, as well as visits to representatives of various minorities in Germany, such as Roma and Sinti, Jews, and Muslims. In our down time, we played billiards, table tennis, foosball, and a handful of us went swimming in the lake. It was cold.

The high point was the "pluralism evening" in which people put out food from their home countries and there was a variety show by us written in the few hours before it started. There was some musik, a couple good videos, and one piece inspired by Bertolt Brecht's Epic theater. It received mixed reviews.

We finished our five day stay in the hotel on a Monday, which meant we got no weekend that week.

The third week was filled with a lot of touristy stuff that is also tied into the understanding of the modern German culture, such as a visit to the German Historic Museum (photos to follow), a tour of the Bundesrat (Eng: Federal Council, similar to our Senate but still different), a visit to an exhibition entitled "Everyday Life in East Germany" which showed objects from everyday life in East Germany, and a tour of the Deutscher Dom (Eng: German Church), which is not really a church, but rather a former church owned by the Bundestag and serves as a permanent exhibit for the parliamentary history of Germany.

Courtyard in German Historic Museum

Massive Painting with Incredible Detail (Eröffnung des Reichstages im Weißen Saal des Berliner Schlosses durch Wilhelm II.) in which the Kaiser calls the parliament into existence

False hand from the early 20th century

Scientific exhibit which one stood in the Buffalo Museum of Science. There were buttons which corresponded to different body parts. When a button was pressed, the body part would light up and a voice would explain what the body part did.

German Church (Deutscher Dom)

Inside the German Church (Deutscher Dom)

3D illustration of the Reichstag and its various rooms

Assembly hall for the Federal Council in the former Prussian House of Lords

The rest I'll keep short and sweet because most of it is not interesting to the non-politically inclined, and especially those who are not familiar with German politics.

We did a third simulation game where we simulated a session of parliament, including going into the various committees and writing laws or suggesting changes to already exiting pieces of proposed legislation. It was an interesting exercise but too short and rushed.

The third week starting March 20 had us visit three different political foundations in Berlin, where it was explained to us what their positions are, what they do within the country and also abroad. We also had the opportunity to visit the television studio of the parliament and see the control rooms where the various cameras are controlled. In addition, we visited an additional studio of another media company in the city. I visited Deutsche Welle, a company which focuses on reporting international news to audiences outside of Germany, in German and 30 other languages.

After that we had a four day weekend due to Good Friday and Easter Monday. Since the weather was nice, I went out and took some photos. While out and about, I ran into some of the other interns and we made plans to have an Easter dinner at my place since my roommate had gone home for the weekend.

There were two Moroccans, an Egyptian, a Hungarian and myself in attendance for the dinner. There was way too much food as usual, but we finished it all off the next day.

      

All in all, it was a nice, quiet day where we all finally got some rest and relaxation in after all the events we had attended in the previous weeks.

On Tuesday, we visited former concentration camp Sachsenhausen. It was at one point a massive compound but has been reduced in size in the post war time to a smaller, but still quite large memorial to the victims of the camp.

Wednesday was "fraction day", when leaders from the various fractions in parliament came and explained their fractions' and parties' platforms and politics. There are currently four fractions in parliament, and as such we were broken up into four groups, with each group visiting two different fractions, and then at the end, we had to present one of the fractions to the rest of the groups who did get to attend the presentation from the fraction themselves.

Thursday was a feedback day where we shared our feedback with the people in charge of the program and then prepared a presentation for working in German parliament, which were summaries of presentations we had heard earlier in the month from the people who actually work with the various committees, such as petitions, European committee, and others.

On Friday, we had our presentations, five from five different groups. Later in the afternoon, we did a video bus tour, where we watched videos in the bus showing different areas as they were in the past, from the early 20th century to just after reunification and compared them to how they look nowadays.

Here's a link to an album of photos from the first month.

Stand by for another forthcoming post.

The Eagle has landed

Overall, the trip was very simple and agreeable. Nothing major went wrong; no lost luggage, no delays, no getting lost.

3/1/16

I made it to the Humboldt University on the famous Unter den Linden avenue without too much trouble, except for the luggage that I was lugging around. We received our first bit of information about what exactly we will be doing the next five months here, namely in form of a large binder with 10 subsections. We got USB modems for (as usual terribly basic) internet access and were then shuttled to our apartments.

We live in Berlin-Mitte, the middle and oldest part of the city, albeit in a realtively quiet area. Outside at night, no noises are heard at all. Possibly also due to the fact that the street is currently being rebuilt.

We are living on a city block that at one time bording the Berlin Wall, i.e. one city block in East Berlin. The building reflects its East German heritage in that there is no elevator which for some is not a great problem, but it can get rather annoying when you live on the 5th floor like me.

The official program for the day having been concluded, my roommate, a nice Polish lad, and I settld in, unpacked, and decided to go to the various grocery stores around the area to scope out the selection. The results:

Aldi: closest store, abysmal selection, only for basics
Kaiser's: great selection, significantly more expensive that most
Lidl: not too far away, good selection, good prices
Netto: my go to, unfortunately the farthest away, decent selection, good prices

After two hours of walking around visiting grocery stores, it had gotten dark and we made our way home, ate, and called it a day. Having slept very little on the plane to London, it felt like Monday and Tuesday were combined into one day, a "Super Tuesday" if you will.

3/2/16

Although having comleted some but yet not quite enough paperwork on the first day, we were off for round 2. The 117 participants are split up into five groups, so that we don't inundate any one location with too many people at one time.

Four my group, we first went to the Bundestag ID location, where we received our IDs for access to the federal buildings. After that, we had a few hours free during which we went as a group to a cafe in order to get to know one another better, and to the Friedrich Street train station, where I procured a SIM card for my phone while others purchased a month ticket for the public transportation.

After this, we went back to the university, where we signed some paperwork for the health insurance as well as received our student IDs, which double as a semester ticket for public transportation, and other important information for our time at the university. We were then able to get cafeteria cards (although we should not have actually been able to) and ate at the cafeteria. I got a hamburger and fries, which drew a look of contempt from another American in the program, but I'm always curious as to how American foods are prepared abroad. I give it 4 stars.

From here, we took a stroll down Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate for a quick photo op before continuing onwards towards our next destination for a briefing by a chief of the Bundestag police in the Paul-Löbe-Haus, one of the federal buildings which lies directly beside the famous Reichstag and is referred to as the "motor" of the parliament as it affords the parliamentarians a nice work space.

Then we took a group photo before continuing on to the Reichstag for a private tour which started on the western end and ended up on the roof, which was my first time up there. We tried hurrying so we would make it during the sunset which was exceptionally good that night, but unfortunately got there too late. Nevertheless, glass dome and roof of the Reichstag offered a great view of the city, and they are a definite must visit again for later in the semester.

3/3/16

The day started off bright and early at 8:30 in the Paul-Löbe-Haus, where we had an overview of everything we would be doing in this program, from events to excursions, and we finally found out who our representatives are.

I got Ralph Lenkert of the political party "die Linke" (Eng. the left), which is not in the government coalition, but rather in the opposition. In European parliaments, there are generally more than two political parties, so two or more parties band together and make a coalition to decide who will have the majority. The minority coalition is called the opposition.

We also filled out some more paperwork, namely a form releasing our images and likenesses to be used in videos and photos taken during our work as interns to be used by the Bundestag publicly, and another was a non-disclosure agreement about not disclosing what we are working on in the representative's office to outside parties.

After several hours of going over that stuff, we were served lunch in the building. It was typical cafeteria food. We went back to work in from of a treasure hunt that was more of a lesson in how to navigate the federal buildings and so ended our work for the day.

A group of us went shopping afterwards for things that we didn't have, such as irons, laundry baskets, towels, etc. which entailed a lot of walking so by the time we got home, everyone was just wiped out. Straight in bed.

3/4/16

This was a short day. A couple hours in the Paul-Löbe-Haus where we discussed the planning of the welcome event for the interns.

Around noon, we went up onto the roof of the Reichstag where there is a restaurant and had some refreshments before continuing on homeward. Later in the evening, a bunch of us (enough to fill half a pub) went out to a pub quite some distance eastward, saw some interesting types and places along the way.

After the pub, some continued on to a club, and some just went back some since it was already late and we still had quite a way to go before we got home. All in all, a good night where we all got to know each other better.

3/5/16

Today. Nothing super interesting yet, as it's only noon, but I will update with photos later when I get a good wifi connection at the university. Lots of cool sights and insider views.

Until later.

Currently in Toronto

I'm currently sitting in the Pearson Airport, and as far as airports go, this one is pretty decent. There is ample seating and electrical outlets abound. Oh and the free WiFi. They do it right in Toronto, though the woes of the modern traveler pale in comparison to those of even last century.

I still have a little over 12 hours till Berlin, including a 2 hour layover in London. I should arrive in Berlin shortly before midday local time. From the airport, I have to go to the Humboldt University International Office, from where I (and the other participants) will be taken to our lodgings.

I found my car key in my pocket while going through security. It won't do me much good in Europe presumably.

The flight is still on schedule. I hope all the flights go flawlessly because traveling to Europe is enough excitement.

Until London.

What to bring for an extended stay in Germany

So this will be my second time moving to Germany for an extended stay of more than a month, and after my previous travels, I've got it down pretty well. Some of the stuff is common sense, some of it is definitely dependent on the German culture. Six weeks is more than enough to plan out everything you need and find the time to go get it.

This list of course also depends on for what and for how long you will be going, as well as the time of year and exact place. But I will make a general overview for the average American millennial preparing for one or more semesters abroad. Someone who plans on backpacking throughout the country would need a much different list, one which I am not able to furnish, as I have no experience in that activity. A summer abroad is slightly different, but much of the list is applicable.

Let's get started.

I think the most important thing is a comfortable pair of walking shoes or, if you're like me, several. Odds are you will be doing a lot of walking and be spending a lot of time on your feet, and the cobblestone is less forgiving on your feet than the pavement and concrete that is common in the US. Although some sidewalks are paved, far more common are cobble or paving stones.

The second most important object is a wristwatch. You will probably be carrying electronic gadgets that tell time, but they have batteries which die, and on extended journeys, they cannot be relied on. For someone looking for something cheap and easy, I recommend the Casio F91W-1, with its quartz movement, it gains and loses very few seconds every month, it is rugged, and its battery will probably last 10 years. It can be picked up for under $15, or oftentimes even under $10.

For someone looking for something a little nicer, an automatic watch, a watch that winds itself via the motion of your arm, is also not a bad choice. As long as the watch is worn, it will continue to function, i.e. it does not require a battery. They tend to gain more time than a quartz movement watch, but this can be adjusted at watch repair shop. For a cheap automatic watch, a Seiko 5 is never a bad choice. Automatic watches are, however, expensive when compared to the classic Casio.

The more nostalgic types may wish to bring some equipment along to make permanent memories of the travels. I brought a digital SLR with two class 10, 16 GB SD cards for memory. Back in 2012, those cost about $16 each, as of this writing, there is a 32 GB SD card from Sony on Amazon for $8, which would be able to hold thousands of high quality photos. For those wishing to travel with less, a simple point-and-shoot digital camera can suffice, but for both travelers, a travel journal is recommended. Photos of beautiful scenery are nice, but they don't capture your thoughts at the time.

For a camera bag (for a DSLR), I recommend something snug to the body, such as a backpack or sling, in order to keep the camera and accessories out of danger, from a potential snatching if you're in a touristy area, or if you decide to take a walk down/up some nature trails. I found this sling by Case Logic to be a perfect fit for me.

Especially for students, a laptop computer is highly recommended, if not necessary, as you will not have 24/7 access to your school's computers in Europe. In addition, it serves as your connection to "the old country" while you're at home, allows you to play DVD's or watch movies, update your blog and social media, gives you access to video chats, etc. You know what a computer does. It is absolutely necessary for this device to be Windows (preferred) or OSX. I do not recommend bringing a Linux or Chromium system to Europe unless you absolutely know what you're doing.

For your photos, a good photo managing application is helpful. I recommend Picasa, although that's being discontinued next month. I have yet to look into it, but LightZone may also be good for the amateur photographer.

Along side the laptop, I would recommend an external hard drive for backing up photos from your camera (important), and you can use it to store movies, file, games, or programs from home that you may need but will not be able to access remotely (bear in mind that your access to internet at home may be limited). A 1 TB external hard drive can be picked up for around $60 new. I found it to be an indispensable tool during my 10-month stay.

Highly recommended but not absolutely necessary is a smart phone, like the computer, for its multipurpose functions. Most phones nowadays can be used on European and American networks, but ensure your phone is capable of connecting to a GSM network before leaving home. It can be a music player, web browser, video chat device, ebook reader, English-other language dictionary, alarm clock, or a useful messaging device.

For messaging friends back home and where you will be, you need an internet messenger app. You can use Telegram, which is encrypted end to end, doesn't steal your data, and has a desktop application. The most popular messaging app across the world, however, is WhatsApp, which was acquired by Facebook last year. If you value privacy more than ubiquity, then I do not recommend WhatsApp. Mark Zuckerberg and his cronies most definitely mine your data. Both allow you to voice chat and send attachments such as videos, photos, and files free of charge. Of course, if you have a Facebook account, that would also suffice.

A sim card with a data package of 6 GB per month can be purchased for €20 per month, a price far better than you can get in the US. It will not include any minutes for phone calls or texting, but the aforementioned messengers can take care of all of your texting and calling needs, provided that the other person also has the app. Even if you don't get a sim card, the WiFi capabilities should allow you to at least use a smart phone at hotspots, which are becoming more common in Germany.

A dedicated ebook reader is also not a bad idea to bring along, due to their long battery lives, light-weight, and larger screens. Of course, if you're not an avid reader, you can give this one a pass. Schloss Gripsholm by Kurt Tucholsky is a good German novel for those travelling in the summer.

Another indispensable tool is a universal power strip for all your electronics. This allows you not only to plug in your American electronics, but any European ones as well. Friends from different countries can therefore share the one power strip.

In order to schlep all your stuff around, you will definitely need a bag or two. I'd recommend one or two of different sizes for different tasks. A laptop backpack would be suitable for university work, whereas you might want something bigger if you take an excursion somewhere, or for shopping. In Germany, shopping bags are not supplied to the customers at groceries stores. Most people bring their own with them, or if they find themselves needing one in a pinch, they can purchase nicely-sized, reinforced bags at the checkout lane. You can also by reusable totes there.

Something that is always useful, especially in Berlin, is a decent travel umbrella. Beware of cheap ones that will turn inside out the first time they encounter a light wind. Find one large enough to keep you dry, but small enough to fit into whatever sort of bag you bring with you.

As for access to money, I recommend opening a State Farm Bank checking account. The account is hassle free, no minimum balance, and no ATM fees. The first time I was in Germany, I got gouged by Bank of America every time I withdrew money, firstly for withdrawing money from an ATM outside their network, then on top of that a foreign transaction fee. With State Farm Bank, they still do not (to my knowledge) charge foreign transaction fees, and they refund any fees levied by ATMs for withdrawal fees, though it was my experience that German ATMs, at banks at least, do not charge fees.

An alternative is a credit card without a foreign transaction fee, such as a travel rewards card from Bank of America or any card from Capital One. If you have a checking account at BoA, then you can just simultaneously transfer money from your checking account to cover any transactions made on your credit card, thus eliminating any interest that may be charged.

Another alternative would be to simply open a German bank account for the duration of your stay. If you are receiving any sort of remuneration during your stay, you will be forced to open an account anyway.

NB: in small towns, like where I and many of my classmates studied in Eichstätt, cards are not accepted any many places, and where they are accepted, you need a chip card, which means that cash is still king. This is where the State Farm Bank account was a saving grace. A credit card without a foreign transaction fee would not suffice in this situation.


Another small thing to be made aware of include the size of the banknotes. The smallest (both in denomination and physical size) banknote is the €5 note (4.7 in × 2.4 in), which is significantly smaller than the standard US banknote (6.14 in × 2.61 in). The largest banknote is the €500 note (6.3 in x 3.2 in), more than a half inch wider than the American banknote. In fact, every European note except for the €5 note is wider than their American counterparts (and some of them longer), and as such, there is a chance they may not fit in your wallet. You can find exact sizes here.

For nominations under €5, there are 1 cent, 2 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent, 50 cent, €1, and €2 coins. Something to hold all these coins is recommended; the 1 and 2 cent pieces start to accumulate if you don't use them regularly. I still have a collection from 2013.

I would be remiss not to mention a towel. As the late Douglas Adams wrote:

     The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.

     A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value – you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-tohand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. 

     More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have ”lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

A microfiber towel is very compact, perfect for travelling.

This is, of course, just my list of things I found useful during my studies. Many people may not find an external hard drive or wristwatch useful, so feel free to omit according to preference, keeping in mind that the essentials for a student, in my opinion are: walking shoes, a timekeeping device, a reliable method for getting cash, and a laptop.

If you bring nothing else, bring a towel.

Write-Up on Canisius homepage

Currently, my acceptance to the program is on the front page of Canisius College's website. You can find the article here.

This post is short, but I hope to post an entry here regarding what you should bring with you, should you find yourself in the position where you will be traveling to Europe for an extended stay.

Until then.