The spring semester is off to an active start. The first few weeks have been crazy busy, as my fellow students and I pack our schedules full of classes to ‘test the waters’ of available course offerings. We have three weeks to try classes before the registration deadline. That means I’m attending 5 – 6 classes per week as I figure out which ones I want to jigsaw together into a semester schedule for the next four months.

Besides classes, we also have special offerings this semester called “study projects.” Each study project is approximately double the work of a normal class, and they vary widely, from in-depth studies of Berlin during the Cold War, to preparing an exhibit on intercultural interpretation of local heritage, to assisting with the organization of an international summer workshop series.

During this semester (number two of four, for those keeping track at home!), most students take three classes and one study project. Aaaaand of course, that means I’m interested in four classes and two study projects. Why settle for a reasonable 50/50 life/school balance when I could go for a 50/100 life/school balance?

(And yes, I know that adds to 150%. #dreambig)

Add in that we have a new thesis colloquium and ongoing German language classes, and my schedule starts to seem pretty busy. Plus just in case I was worried about having too much free time in my days, I’ve also been volunteering for the past couple days with the annual World Heritage Studies alumni conference, helping with participant registration, event setup, and general assistance. For all that Cottbus was billed as a sleepy city, I feel like I need a time turner to keep up with all the happenings nowadays!

To distract myself from the academic goings-on around campus, I spent last Saturday relaxing in the spring sunshine. Now that the weather is getting nicer, students are starting to use the grills available around campus for outdoor cookouts. I joined some friends for a cookout FEAST and impromptu dance lesson that took most of the afternoon. That night, our university put on event they dubbed “Classics and Clubbing,” aka they had a orchestral performance followed by a DJ set. The classical music started at midnight, which is actually not an unusual time for official events to being here in Germany. The packed audience was clearly fine with the late start time and seemed to enjoy the orchestra’s music. The DJ set afterwards may have been even better attended — I wouldn’t know, since that was waaaaay too late for me!

After the excitement of Saturday, Sunday was reserved for a trip to the neighboring country of Poland. Ah yes…glorious Poland. Specifically, I was going to the German-Polish border city of Guben/Gubin. Why the double name? you may ask. Well, on the German side of the border, the city is known as Guben. On the Polish side (separated by a Very Official sign), the city is Gubin. This spelling difference must have made a lot of sense, no doubt. At some point. To somebody. Somehow.

It turns out that Guben is super accessible from Cottbus — just a short 40 minute train ride. It’s also a super charming city, with a wide boulevard for walking and spring flowers in bloom.

Guben also had some pretty funny/frightening/just-plain-strange public benches. What is going on here? You tell me.

With a mere 20 minute walk from the Guben train station, we were in Gubin. The main draw of Gubin is that businesses are actually open on…drumroll please…Sundays.

This is a Big Deal, because in Germany, Sunday is taken seriously as a day to spend time with family and friends. Almost no businesses are open, and all the common stores close. Even bakeries — beloved throughout Germany — have only limited Sunday hours if they have any hours at all. As a result of all this, all errands have to be run before the end of Saturday. If you’re out of food on a Saturday evening? Too bad, you won’t be grocery shopping on Sunday. Need to run a couple errands? Hope they can wait until Monday.

Gubin is a haven in that respect. The stores on the Polish side are — miracle of miracles! — open on Sunday and thus novelties to us. We trundled over the border, laden down with backpacks and passing the aforementioned Very Official sign.

Barely 10 minutes after we crossed onto Polish soil, we were stopped by a police car, with a not-so-friendly police officer getting out to ask us for documentation. No problem, we’d brought our German residency cards. Except…apparently those cards wasn’t enough. Did we have our passports? the police officer wanted to know. Um, no. We hadn’t brought our passports, having been previously assured that just having our residency cards would be enough.

After a few minutes of stern lecturing (in Polish, so who knows what the lecture was threatening us with) we were informed in clear English, “Big problem. Next time, large fines.” and released by the still frowning police officer. Apparently we look like Trouble, who would have thought.

Pictured below: clear troublemakers.

And a final pic from crossing the German/Polish border. Never again to be crossed without my passport in tow.

Now it’s back to the alumni conference, volunteering, attending classes, crafting a schedule, running around campus, and general life. Back to the Cottbus grindstone!