End of the First Week of Classes and a 3:30am National Championship

Hello again!! Sorry it's been a while since we last talked, but I'll try to catch you up.

Last week was the first week of classes, but somehow--through a long series of mishaps and coincidences--I failed to attend a single "real" class...leave it to the German system. Some of my classes were delayed until this week, some professors didn't show, some of my classes were moved to different days of the week...and, oh yea, did you know that Germany just jumped forward with daylight's savings time? I didn't. Try telling that to 100 Germans when you walk into their lecture an hour late...

This week was much more successful, however. I attended all my classes and am reasonably pleased with them. I have 3 classes which together meet only 3 days a week:

-- Monday: 4:30-6:00pm: "Upper-level German."

-- Wednesday: 11:15-12:45: "American Romanticism" (an "English" lecture that's really 50% German/50% English)
4:30-6:00pm: "Upper-level German" (Part II)

-- Thursday: 1:45-5:00pm: "Germans in Film." A surprisingly intense German lecture starting with the dawn of film.

Most excitingly, I've met 3 Singaporean students in my classes so far! They all go to the same university where I studied 2 summers ago and are very familiar with UNC because of the strong UNC-NUS (Nat'l Uni Singapore) relationship. We even discovered some mutual friends at NUS and UNC! SMALL WORLD. We're getting together next week for a SE Asian food night!


On another note, however, for all of you who have been asking, I did get to watch all of the basketball tournament. There was screaming, jumping, hugging, crying, and a huge need for chocolate to soothe the nerves.

We watched the whole tournament on various UNCer's computers in high definition, as the NCAA fortunately broadcasts abroad. Three of my die-hard UNC friends and I watched all the games, and a few others joined now and then, depending on who could stay awake. As most of the games started between midnight and 3:30am our time, asking non-basketball fans to stay up for the games was a bit much to ask.

Yet we partied nonetheless and had a fantastic time. I've never missed Chapel Hill as much as I did that night (I wept like a little girl at the sight of Franklin Street), but there's nothing like chanting "TAAARRR" .... "HEEEEEELS" on the streets of Heidelberg. We tried to keep our voices down, but as the birds were already chirping at that point, we didn't really care...


That's it for me, I guess. Tomorrow morning I'm taking the train to Luxembourg with 4 friends for the Easter weekend. I'll be gone for 3 days and will return on Sunday evening (or midday for most of you).

Love to all and Happy Easter,

Lizzie

So proud of our homemade pizza that we made before the Final Four game vs. Villanova

Chopping up our friend, the organic basil plant

Poor John never made it to see our glorious Final Four win. We just couldn't keep this ASU fan going until 5:30am on a weeknight...

(PS...sorry there aren't any National Championship pictures...I'm an idiot and didn't take any. Miss you all!)