Ich komme und ich gehe...

So. Here is the first post for my new blog devoted entirely to travelling and all the cool things I happen to see or do; I hope you enjoy. I'm currently blogging from my guestsister, Lena's, computer, however hopefully once I get to a place where I can hook my laptop up to the internet I'll be posting pictures so you can see a little bit of the beautiful places where I'm going.

Today was my first full day in Ingolstadt, Germany where I'll be staying until the end of June. This morning the other students and professors in my group met together and each of us students found out the community service program to which we've been assigned. Starting tuesday I'll be working at a center devoted to helping immigrants and foreign-language speaker´s-- so exciting! In July when I go to Trier I'll be interning at the Multicultural Center there, working with immigrants as well, so this is good practice and also a fascinating topic to me.

Later Leif, Michaela, Hunter, Ben, Dan and I all went out for lunch. We grabbed some Döner Kebap--the best fast food that has yet to make it across the pond to America. Döner is a special type of grilled meat--usually lamb or pork or a mixture of the two-- that is grilled on a huge spit. They take a warm flatbread and fill it with Döner, lettuce, onions, red cabbage, tomatoes and a sauce that's very similar to tzatziki--Döner coming from Turkey which shares similar tastes with Greece. Afterwards we wandered around for awhile, grabbed some icecream, and then sat at a BierGarten and had a drink. We then met up with our professors and took a walking tour of Ingolstadt to begin getting our barings.

Did you know the Illuminati first began in Ingolstadt? yeah. exciting. Also, Ingolstadt is where Frankenstein comes to study and eventually creates his monster in Mary Shelley's novel. pretty sweet.

During the tour we went to an amazing rococco church. Inside on the ceiling is the largest single fresco on a flat surface in the entire world. The artist painted it so that at only one point in the whole church can you see everything in the fresco in their correct positions and proportions. Otherwise, at different points around the room, images look as if they are looking at you, pointing at you or somehow larger. It was absolutely spectacular, moreso when the tourguide told us that modern mathematicians still are unable to figure out exactly how the artist knew the correct angles and proportions in order to make such a complex illusion painting.

After the tour we all split up and went back to our guesthouses. I ate dinner with my guestfamily and watched a rainstorm outside blow their picnic pavilion across the backyard. Tomorrow we're going to the Audi factory and museum(Ingolstadt is the home of Audi and nearly 30% of the population are employed there). Thursday we go to the City Museum which apparently contains the stuffed horse of the Swedish general who attempted to take Ingolstadt during the 30 Years War. His horse was shot from beneath him, brought into the city and stuffed as a sort of "fuck you" to the Swedes, considering they had at first assumed Ingolstadt would be an easy conquest on their way to Munich. Germans have an odd sense of humor, to be sure.