Tübingen, Germany
January 5^th – February 4^th 2007

Time flies! It has already been one month since I arrived in Germany. Ein Monat und ich habe nicht so gut Deutsch gelernt! Oh well... maybe by the end of my four months here I will be able to speak a few sentences (correctly) in German.

I am living in Tübingen with a host family, the Petersen’s. Albert and Monika Petersen are in their mid-fifties. Monika works at the Tübingen University and Albert is a pharmaceutical councilor of an Institute, which is involved in health promotion and health care in third world countries. I couldn’t have asked for a better family to stay with. They are so friendly, kind and helpful and have made me feel at home from the day I got here. Their daughter Hanna (22) and son Jan (25) both live and study in Stuttgart (40kms from here). However, I see Hanna often as she usually spends her weekends here in Tübingen as her boyfriend Marcos, lives here. They are fun to spend time with. I have spent many evenings’ playing cards or board games with them.

As for the reason I am here in Tübingen… I am taking German lessons (34 hrs a week) and I will be here for 3 months (till March 30^th). I remember feeling so frustrated with trying to understand the grammar and the basic rules. Nothing made sense. And after 2 weeks when I started to think that I am finally able to make sense of the German grammar, we learn of the multiple exceptions to the rules that we need to memorize. The thing I am struggling most is learning the gender of the nouns. All nouns are Masculine, Feminine or Neutral. Though I am really curious as to how they decide what the gender of a noun is. Now why is a carpet masculine, and a Camera feminine, but a girl is neutral? Maybe one day I will be enlightened. By now, I have learned that I should not apply logic to language. After all, isn’t English one of the most illogical languages?

And about Tübingen.. It is one of the oldest University towns in Germany. It has still retained its old charm, especially around the city center – It is beautiful - with its cobblestone streets, old church, a castle, old houses and of course the Rathaus (town hall) and Marktplatz. The Rathaus has a webcam that over looks the Marktplatz and one can log on to www.tuebingen.de and see what is going on at the city center. The Neckar river runs through the city center. The pictures here are of the houses on the Neckar river, and the other one is of Neckar Muller, the beer garden (a brewery) which is one of the hangout spot for us German Trackers.

Now having spent a month in Tübingen (and taking a few day trips to the surrounding cities/ towns of Stuttgart, Reutlingen and Metzingen) I am ready to get out and explore places which are further away. On the agenda is a trip to the Bodsee (Lake Constance) a beautiful resort where Germany, Switzerland and Austria share its borders, then I wish to visit Heidelburg, Freiburg, Munich and possibly travel out of the country to visit Rome, Vienna, Prague. Now it all depends on if I can get a real cheap airfare to one of these countries. Germanwings flies out of Stuttgart and has some real cheap flights for less that €70 to some of these places. Until then, I will continue to explore southern Germany.