Bryce’s Notes

I saw Harry Potter 2 this KinoTag (Movie day - Tuesday is cheaper movies). I went with Luis (Argentina), Ying (China), Kim (South Korea), Matthais (Germany), and another German that was Luis’ friend. We arrived at 7.30pm, and had the option of walking straight into the movie at 7.30pm in German, or waiting till 10.30 for it in English. It was a no-brainer for me, so I announced that I was going to the English version. Some of the group preferred the German version, so in they went, and the rest of us had 3 hours to sit around waiting. We toddled off to a coffee-shop, bought a drink each, and I played a couple of games of chess. Won them both after 1.5 hours, and then we slowly made our way back to the cinema. German films have 30 minutes of ads before them, so the film didn’t actually start until 11pm. Harry Potter 2 has an intermission of 15 minutes half way through, and when it resumes the voices were suddenly in German. There was much yelling and gnashing of teeth from the audience and after about 1 minute, the voices suddenly became English again. Just as well! The movie was quite good, and I certainly enjoyed it. It was 5

Yes, I can’t agree with me more there.

Achtung!

Bryce.

Last Saturday (23-11-02) was Australian night on my floor. This meant that I cook something Australian for everybody. Now, some of you might be privy to the sad fact that I loathe cooking, so you can imagine that I wasn’t enormously keen on the idea. Several of the other nationalities (German & Chinese), however, had already done it, so it was my turn. Apart from Vegemite on toast, I couldn’t really think of anything typically Australian. Meat pies crossed my mind, but were dismissed as being much too hard to feed 18 people with, using only one oven. I then thought to chicken custard. Ahh, my saviour. For those who don’t know, chicken custard is a creamy chicken with rice dish that mum cooks, but not knowing the name for it, it was dubbed chicken custard.

I hopped on the internet and got the recipe from mum by email, and then started searching for ingredients. Does anybody know how hard it is to find condensed Cream of Chicken soup in a can in Germany? Ridiculously hard. I eventually found the non-condensed version in a large supermarket (by German standards, small by our standards). I had already been to about 4 supermarkets looking for it, so I figured that this will have to do. Guess what, it worked! Hooray. I did a test run sometime during the week to make sure that it tasted like it should, and it was perfect. Also, asparagus in Germany is yellow and hard, as opposed to in Australia, where it is green and mushy. Wierd, eh?

The night went fine, but there was not quite enough food I think (even though I maxed out a large pot with chicken custard and 2 rice-cookers with rice). Also, 18 people in our tiny kitchen is much too much. Never-the-less, I enjoyed myself, and the chicken custard tasted great. I was also informed of the correct name of the dish - ‘Hunah Frikassee’, or ‘Chicken Fricassee’ in English. We were close with ‘Chicken Custard’. I am looking forward to Bulgarian night tomorrow night.

Miss you all,

Bryce.

Gday all,

I have decided that it’s not worth the initial and ongoing expenditure of setting up a telephone line and internet to my room for the short time that I will remain here. That means that I will have to continue to head to uni for accessing the net and I won’t have access over the weekend. Sorry.

Cheers,

Bryce.

Gday all,

I had invited a girl that I like over to play ping-pong for the weekend and
so I asked her for her number too. She said that she couldn’t remember it
(she was new to Muenster too), so I should come to a big party that was on
the next night and she could give it to me there. Great, I thought!

I start to get ready for the party the next day, and my friends from my
student house decide that they want to come too. Great, I thought! After
much stuffing around (mainly by Hisham), we finally headed off in a group
of 4 on mainly borrowed bikes. My bike had no lights which is illegal at
night-time in Germany. We were very lucky, because at an intersection we
were crossing, a police car stoped to turn behind us, and I thought we’d
get fined for sure, but they just drove on. We finally arrived at the
party at 1am after about a 25 minute bike ride. It ended up being not so
much a party as more a night-club deal, with paid entry and stamps. It was
about $7AUD to get in, which, while steep, we were prepared to pay. Well,
we were told that they were not letting more people in at the moment
because it was too full. Our option was that we could wait an hour and try
again. We tried to bluff our way in, but the only person that was
sucessful was Hisham, the one who made us late in the first place! Dammit!

We rode home again shortly after in the rain and got back at about 1.30am.
What a night.

Bryce.

A big congratulations to all of my friends who have completed their studies recently. Good work!

Bryce.

On my Florence trip I went via Zurich. I had one full day in Zurich, so I thought that I better go to the chocolate factory first and foremost. It is the Lindt & Spr

Due to popular opinion, I have decided to let you all in on what I am studying. On Monday, I am supposed to go to a German course called Deutsche Aussprache und Intonation, but I haven’t gone yet.
Tuesday, I have 2 lectures in the afternoon, in International Business Management (IBM) and International Corporate Governance (ICG).
Wednesday, I have lectures during the day in IBM & ICG, and then in the evening I have my German language course called Landeskundliche Studien, or Study of the German Culture. This is just an excuse to talk German really.
Thursday, I have a tutorial in InformationsManagement, a group meeting for F

I missed my train to Munich. Crap. I thought it was a 9pm departure but it was a 7pm departure. Fortunately I didn’t have a reservation in a couchette sleeper (a cool$40AUD down the tube), so it wasn’t much of a problem. Apart from the fact that I missed the train I wanted of course. After discovering that I had missed my train, I swore a little, paced around impatiently and was generally annoyed for a few minutes. Then I sat down and tried to figure out an alternative. I discovered that by leaving at 2am, catching fast trains, and changing trains in Essen, Cologne & Mainz, I would arrive at Munich only 4 hours late at around 10am. I decided that I would try and make the most of my few extra hours in a comfortable bed and sleep. I went to Luderic (my next-door neighbour from France) and asked to borrow a bike-lock for my bags and an alarm clock. He didn’t have a bike-lock, but he had an alarm which he lent to me. I then did a knock-around the floor seeing if anyone had a spare bike-lock. Hisham (from Morocco) had one which he lent to me and then I tried to sleep. I was mildly annoyed, agitated and stressed at this stage so sleep didn’t come easily. This was probably fortunate, because after about 45 minutes tossing and turning, I remembered I hadn’t set the alarm clock! Oops - it would have been very bad to miss my first and second trains. After setting the alarm clock, I finally managed to get to sleep.

At about 1am my alarm clocked yelled at me to get up (thankfully) and I leaped out of bed and quickly got ready to get the bus to the train station. I had a bit of a hike from my room to the bus stop and I left 15 minutes to get there. What I didn’t realise was that it was a half-hour walk to get to the bus stop! I really am a lucky bugger, because as this miscalculation was dawning upon me, I chanced upon another bus-stop which was on the same line. I was standing at this bus-stop for about 1 minute before I saw my bus coming down the road. I will say it again - I am very lucky in some respects. Perhaps I am just more observant about options of saving my own skin when things go bad? Would another person just hurriedly walk past this bus-stop, too caught up in their hurry to notice the alternative? I tend to think so, as I have a low opinion of the intellect of the human race in general. And this from an idiot who missed his train! See - stupid, just as I said.

I got to the train station with no problems and sat in the immense cold for a about 40 minutes waiting for the train to come (and no, I couldn’t have just waited for the next bus if I missed the one described earlier, because they come hourly at this time of night). Needless to say it was a moderately unpleasant night sitting-sleeping an hour here, changing trains, sitting-sleeping another hour there, changing trains, etc. I finally got to Munich and changed trains again to go to castle Neuschwanstein. After 1.5 hours we were told to all get out, because we have to go the remaining distance by bus as the track was damaged ahead. Off we all clambered and then clambered into buses… 2 buses… for a trainfull of people. Needless to say, it was quite squishy. Children were made to sit on laps; bags were stacked into towers to maximise standing room; standing people were squished together; and single seats were made double seats. What I didn’t know was that it was a 45 minute bus ride like this! If I had known, I would have rushed much harder to get a seat. As it was, I was one of the last on the bus, and was standing squished near the front. I suppose that it’s all part of the ambience of going to one of the most beautiful castles in the world. Fortunately the castle was glorious. Some history here for those who don’t know: Neuschwanstein was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, or as he’s more popularly known, ‘The Mad King’. He was king around the late 1800’s, loved the operas of Wagner, loved building grandiose castles, built the most beautiful castle in the world, was a complete nutter, bankrupted the Kingdom of Bavaria, was pronounced clinically insane, and then drowned in a puddle. Castle Neuschwanstein is what the castle in Disney

Last night there was a fire on a Night train that killed 10 people. Fortunately I have just finished my weekend to Florence and surrounds in which I spent 4 nights on night trains and you will all be pleased to know I wasn’t one of the 10.

Report coming in the next couple of days.

Cheers,

Bryce.