Shawn Huelle

the first Tü weeks

I suppose the catchphrase could be "bureaucratic cluster-f*ck," but that might be a little too strong. Here's a prime example: Yesterday, I bought a wireless router so that I could have the internet in my room (after two weeks without, which was more of a modern nuisance than some sort of huge inconvenience), and the salesperson asked me to sign a piece of paper which stated that I had received the product in its original shrink-wrapping. The salesperson then handed me the paper I signed without keeping a copy for himself. He admitted that it made no sense, but that the corporate office requires it. I told him I would bring it home and stamp it, in order to make it official.

The first two weeks here in lovely Tübingen have been both exceptionally wonderful and bureaucratically annoying. I have moved from office to office collecting and signing papers, having biometric photos taken, signing more papers, having papers stamped, gathering more papers for signing and stamping, and basically getting injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. However! all of these mean, nasty, ugly things were happening in a beautiful city and in mild, sunny weather, and except for a couple of crabby bureaucrats, everyone (seriously everyone) has been really really nice. So I'm not complaining.

I'm also not complaining about the monk's cell in which I now live. I cleaned it the other day, and it only took me half an hour to scrub the bathroom and mop the floors. Plus it has a great view of trees. Here's a picture of it:

through a door into a dorm room

My first night here, the amazing and amazingly helpful Kirsten Sonnenschein (whose last name means "sunshine," (she lives up to her name)) picked me up at the main train and bus station, brought me to my dorm room, and took me shopping. I then went for a walk in the dark to look for a place where I might get a beer and a pizza. There's not much up here in the student slums. I ended up going on a long, and rather circuitous walk, which took me right through the middle of a suburban farm. . . . Anyway, I found what I was looking for, drank the (so so yummy) beer, and ate only half of the pizza. I brought the other half back to my room in the scariest pizza box I've ever seen:

A couple of days later, on another long walk, and during the what turned into (as previously mentioned) a two week quest to get the internet in my room, I bought myself a cereal bowl (because I could not find one in the then pig sty of a shared kitchen here in the dorm (it has since been cleaned by someone who left a fairly nasty note about it, wherein it was threatened that unwashed dishes would simply be thrown out). The bowl is not at all scary or nasty:

an orange cereal bowl with a face including a protruding nose

Also on that long walk, I took a picture of this AWESOME sign:

a German building from the 70s, a neon sign, and a logo that defies description

This last Sunday, after cleaning my dorm room, I packed myself a lunch, and went for a long walk through the woods and over the mountain to the medieval village just north of me. The village is called Bebenhausen, and boasts a well-preserved castle and cloister. You can see all the pictures I took on my walk by clicking on either of these pictures:

a seemingly untouched medieval village as looked at through some trees

castle wall, blossoming tree, yellow half-timber house

The absolute highlight of the first two weeks, however, and despite bureaucratic cluster-f*ckery, wonderful and wonderfully helpful new friends (Holla, Katie!), and several meditative long walks, was a visit from Jess & Frank. Thanks friends; any attempt to describe your visit and its healing effects would be an insult to those effects.