A Journey of Interplanetary Funksmanship

Blessed sisters, brothers, damen und herren.  We invite you on a journey of interplanetary funksmanship.  We are a beautiful people.  So many faces with so many stories, so much food with so much drink, so much love with so much funk, hit me in 3-D baby, swing low sweet cherry top.

Prayer breaks for food to be consumed.  Eager individuals leap for the starting line, predicting the wait that will follow an apathetic walk up to the tables full of food.  We all wait our turn,  consumed in conversation, sneaking glances at passing plates, oh the delightful anticipation. 

Go time comes, fork – knife – spoon – napkin – plate, let’s do work baby.  Each of the six, maybe seven, rectangular picnic tables is filled with food, five types of salad, bowls of mashed potatoes, gravy to complement, a tray of enchiladas, bread rolls, green beans, and at the finish line there’s Dr. Rainer, hand slicing a golden brown once living animal of Turkish descent.  Dunkel oder helles? Dark for the dry mouths, light for the wet.  You choose.  I prefer my turkey dark.

As stomachs filled, the conversation previously held around rectangular and circular tables branched out beyond these confining constraints.  A group of athletes took over the engineering lab, taking advantage of the conveniently placed ping pong table, another social scene formed around a circular chest high table outside, members of this social niche brought together under one common commodity of consumption, cigarettes, and various others scattered throughout the building, lounging into leather couches, watching Toxic Avenger YouTube clips, and I believe an Alte Hause was spotted, but this will be filed a rumor for the time being. 

LMU students from each discipline were in attendance, engineering, film, the various majors that make up the New Europe Program, and of course the AIB students from Bonn University coupled with the teachers and administrators that have given their all to make this semester happen.  

If you weren’t there that night, wo warst du? Everyone who had a hand in the production of this event deserves the greatest of thanks, for a day for the thankful, I thank thee production committee.  You made my night a memorable one, and feedback from attendees reverberate such sentiment. 

100 Americans, 15 Italians and 12 Turkeys!

On the 25th of November, 100 AIB students celebrated Thanksgiving by having a nice American/German dinner. Thanksgiving is a time for bringing family and friends together and giving thanks to the good things in life. For many students this was the first Thanksgiving without family, but in a way having close to 100 Americans, 15 Italians, and festive holiday music, there was a nice family-like atmosphere.

The AIB provided the students with 12 turkeys, mashed potatoes, drinks, and also added a German seasonal tradition to the American holiday, by providing Glühwein. The students were in charge of the appetizers, sides, and desserts. This turned out to be a good idea, because it made for an interesting variety of food. Appetizers ranged from artichoke cheese bread, bruschetta, and a nice variety of salads, all the way to chips, guacamole, and mango salsa. The sides were also interesting. We had a huge assortment of vegetables, casseroles, cranberries, lasagna, as well as the german side called knödel. After all that food some people still had room for dessert, which included, cheese cake, muffins, pudding, a variety of pies, and sugar cookies. Many students pointed out that this great assortment of food provided them with more options than they would have had back home.

All in all, for myself this was a great experience. At first, I was actually jealous of my friends and family back home in America. Of course, Germany does not celebrate Thanksgiving so here it was just a normal day. All businesses were open, all schools were open, no parades were on television, it felt a little weird. I got up just like everyday and headed to work, while I'm sure most of my friends and family in America woke up and got to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It would have been great to be home in Texas with them to celebrate the holiday the way that I usually do, but by the end of AIB dinner I felt that my Thanksgiving was in no way a disappointment. This different style of Thanksgiving dinner was an amazing experience that I will never forget.

Welcome to Germany, a home for science and culture!

Have a look at this funny video to get some impressions of the past History of Medicine Study Abroad Program. Shot by our program director Olaf Brodersen and edited by Dylan Gallagher. Thanks for this!

By the way: You can find more videos on our YouTube Channel!

Alumni of the Month – Matt Zuvela

The AIB's Alumnus of the Month feature will showcase some outstanding alumni who are doing interesting and exciting things, or who have made exceptional contributions to their chosen field of profession.

In this month’s feature Matt tells us a little bit about himself and what has kept him coming back to Germany. Matt was a participant in our New Europe Program and is now working as an Radio and Online News Reporter at Deutsche Welle here in Bonn!

Read his complete story on our website!

German-American Cookie Kitchen at its best!

Written by Jana Aßmann

Just a few days before the start of the Advent season, a small group of NEP students came together to bake some German and American cookies. Even though both recipes („Vanillekipferl“ and vanilla cookies with soy milk) contained lots of sugar, butter, and – as the names imply – vanilla, they tasted quite different and revealed some of the discrepancies between German and American cookie baking traditions.

After having bought piles of flour, sugar, butter, margarine, and powder sugar, the students and I met at the AIB and tried to cope with these masses of ingredients! But everything went well; with the help of two hand mixers and some strong hands kneading the ingredients we were able to prepare the dough for the „Vanillekipferl“, which turned out to be – at least for the American students – quite not sweet enough! I was surprised but I understood when we prepared the dough for the American vanilla cookies afterwards: Besides some flour, the dough consisted mostly of brown sugar, vanilla soy milk, and margarine, and it was so sweet you could hear the sugar crunch between your teeth! I must admit everybody loved trying this dough, me too, but the difference between the two recipes was obvious.

The dough of the „Vanillekipferl“ was rather crumbly, it was hard to form horns out of it, while the American vanilla dough was so soft it stuck to your hands all the time. But this was not the only difference: I remember standing in front of the students, two different coffee cups in my hands, and asking them: „ Which size of cup do you need for measuring the ingredients? “ After having received some perplexed gazes it turned out that 'cup' is a measuring unit which doesn't have anything to do with coffee cups!

In the end we managed preparing and forming the dough despite all these little problems. We had about a hundred cookies that we decorated afterwards with almonds, sugar icing, and powder sugar. They looked delicious in their little cellophane bags and the whole AIB smelled of vanilla cookies and Christmas.

For everybody who wasn't able to join us that afternoon or who wants to try baking these cookies, we decided to publish the recipes – even though it's a baker's secret we normally don't give to anybody :-)

We just hit 800 fans on facebook!

In the last two months our page grew up from just about 50 fans to over 800 fans... that's really amazing! Thank you all for making our page grow so big in such a short time!

So, what's up next? No question, we are heading straight to #1000!

You can help us reach the magic number by telling all your facebook friends about us and get them connected to the AIB!

Don't miss it: Atmospheric Christmas Fairs in the City of Bonn

Gingerbread, burnt almonds and Glühwein (mulled wine) - Bonn's Christmas fair will soon conjure up a festive atmosphere in the City. From 19 November until 23 December it will be open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Every year, Bonns Christmas fair conjures up a festive atmosphere on Münsterplatz and Bottlerplatz, on Windeckstrasse, Vivatsgasse and Friedensplatz. Especially the atmospherically illuminated facades around the Münsterplatz form a festive scenery for the market booths. Up until the end of Christmas fair just a day before christmas, a daily changing programme will be performed on the christmas stage: puppet shows, music of all kinds and the visit of Santa Claus on December 6.

Bonn’s Christmas Markets attune everybody to the coming festive days. An unmistakable smell enchants Bonn’s centre, a mixture of gingerbread, potato pancake, fried sausage, burnt almonds, Koelsch beer and Glühwein - mulled wine. After several years only, the popular ice-skating rink on Friedensplatz has become one of its outstanding features. Every year Bonn’s central Christmas market attracts visitors from all over Germany and from neighbouring countries.

The stage at Sterntor will present a new programme every day. Performances by Bonn choirs and music groups will take place in the evenings. On Saturdays and Sundays, popular artists will make their appearance, beginning in the afternoon.

November 19 - December 23, 2010
open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

FITS Europe launches new website!

After a few weeks of pushing pixels and pulling teeth we have launched the all-new, bright-and-shiny online home for the FITS Europe. We've added lots of new designs for better usability, created some exciting new features and are posting fresh content on a regular basis.

Thanks again to AIB’s communication designer Fabian Zöller who first redesigned our logo and then completely designed and coded the sophisticated and minimalistic black & white style of our new website.

So, take a look around on www.fits-europe.de and tell us what you think!

Germany’s fifth season

Written by Lyndon LeUnes

Karneval, or Germany's fifth season starts on November 11th at 11:11am. On this day, in mainly roman catholic regions of Germany, the festival and party season begins. Many festivals around Germany are held that day, but the most popular areas for Karneval celebrations are in the states on the West side of Germany, North Rhine Westphalia and Rhine Palatinate. Cologne has the biggest celebration for Karneval where thousands of people come together to celebrate the opening of the great season.

The season comes to an end on Ash Wednesday in February. Germans love their Karneval time of year and wouldn't want to let it end without a bang. The last week of the season starts on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, and during this time celebrating is the only thing on many Germans minds. That week on Thursday, Friday, and Monday, many businesses and schools close down in the Rhineland and other places in Germany. There are a few parades that occur over the week, and many old traditions are also continued during the last 7 days of Karneval. For example, a very famous custom happens on the Thursday of that week called Womens Day. On this day, women run the show. They are allowed to cut the ties of men and also kiss any man that they would like to. This is celebrated because of the 1824 washer women revolt. Many other customs and traditions are celebrated that week which creates a great environment for everyone involved.

It was a great experience for me and the students that I traveled to Cologne with on November 11th. We didn't know exactly what to expect before we arrived. We pulled up on our train from Bonn all wearing costumes ranging from a banana to a polar bear. After getting off the train we realized a banana and polar bear weren't even close to the strangest costumes. To be in the middle of a huge town square with thousands of people in costumes watching live Karneval music being played on stage was a wild adventure. I can only imagine how fun the main celebration is in February and recommend to anyone who can experience this celebration, to do so.

Halloween in Germany?!

Yes! Although it is still not very common to celebrate Halloween in Germany, more and more people learn to appreciate this holiday and the customs linked with it. A few years ago Halloween was almost unknown in Germany, but now you see kids trick-or-treating on the street and Jack-0'-Lanterns in many dooryards.

Of course the New Europe students did not have to go without carving pumpkins for this special occasion while staying abroad. Once the pumpkins were delivered by the marketer the students began to shape their works of art and taught the German student workers who also took their chances a lesson. Many different shapes and styles came out in the end, and the most important thing: It was lots of fun, as seen above!