Auf den Strassen, Bei den Leute, und Im Garten

My favourite plant from today!

 On the streets, among the people, and in the garten.

I finally have a bed sheet! And a borrowed Kissen (pillow)
from Wiebke.

14:23, Sonntag, 4 Maerz, 2012 - As a general rule, one must explore to learn and so have I done. My german is even bordering on intelligent sounding. I'm sorry if what I write comes out in weird sentence structure. I'm thinking in german grammar now and it is peculiar.

Oskar and Jowalkheim from Sweden.
Good guys, I live near them.

Freitag (Friday) Oskar, Jowalkheim, and I travelled around Konstanz Aldstadt (Oldtown) and met a Frau (Woman) named Wiebke. We bought utensils and got coffee and walked along the harbour. It was beautiful though I sense that the summer will make it more beautiful.

Wiebke, Jowalkheim, Osakar, and I got coffee (Osakar also a Doener) 

and sat at the harbour to relax in the sun. 

Wiebke fell ice skating two weeks before. 

Yes, there was ice only two weeks back!

Later that night I visited a bar with the two Swedish guys, Wiebke, and her friend. Beers were 2.50 euros. Sehr teur (very expensive). I think I prefer buying them in store for 0.33 euros per 500ml can. I'm building a tiny collection beer cans and bottles. Each is worth about a 0.25 euro deposit. Yes, the beer can deposit is worth nearly as much as the beer within.

Vladmir (no picture of him)
and I walked much of Konstanz.

Then, yesterday, which was Samstag (Saturday), I met up with Vladmir, a guy I met on Thursday while looking for my residence. We covered a lot of ground of Konstanz on foot, finding Netto (a cheap grocery store), and Kaufland (a poor Walmart equivalent). We also made dinner together, Kaesespaetzle and beer: Made with Spaetzle (a type of egg noodle), ground beef, speisequark (greek yogurt), pesti sauce, onions, carrots, and garlic. It was good.

Some infected plants in the Garten.

Every night I've been going for a run in preparation for the Vienna Marathon on 15 April. The altitude in Vienna is roughly 500m. Here it is roughly 400m. In Toronto it is roughly 100m. I don't feel too much out of breath but I know it will impact my performance when it comes to running a full 42km in little over a month. I am trying to push my volume per run to about 20km at a steady pace of 12km/h and cadence of 180 strides per minute. I am pretty good at keeping the high cadence even on hill climbs (and there are plenty of hills in Konstanz!), but the 12km/h is tough to keep. My toe shoes naturally cause me to land on the balls of my feet instead of the heel and so my calves are getting super workouts. They are always sore so keeping 12km/h is difficult.

I received eine Fuerlung (a guided tour) from Birgit Albert.
She said I might be able to plant a plant in the green house,
though they are usually only for endangered species.

Today I made a trip to the Konstanz Botanical Garden. Therein I found lots of beautiful things. As an ambassador of the Occupy Gardens movement in Canada I am proud to say the Uni Konstanz Garten supports our cause and would like to learn more about what we are doing in Canada to propagate freedom of food and nature. If you'd like to learn about Occupy Gardens (a play of words on Occupy Wallstreet) visit the Toronto chapter's facebook page. Hopefully, I can set up a chapter here.

The Picture Repository is full of garden photos I took today.

Stephanie is pollenating vanilla because there are no bugs
or bees to do it for her. She's from Berlin.

Today and tonight: get ready for tomorrow, as I start language camp. 30 grulling days of German vocabulary and grammatic structure crammed into my skull. Seeing as it's worth a semester's credit back in Canada it should be difficult. Good news, I don't have to study, just go out and drink and talk to people :p

Also, tonight I won't eat 20minutes before running. My spleen felt like it was going to split open last night, and that would be messy!

You know what I see here Jacob? Soldiers lined up and nearly ready for battle come Fruehling (Spring)!