A few days ago I was releasing some of my wanderlust by exploring the world on Google Earth. I was visiting some of the places I have previously traveled to and written about, places I’ve traveled to and haven’t gotten around to writing about, as well as the various placed I’ve lived. While I was exploring the Giessen area, I stumbled upon a nearby Monastery and was reminded of what may be my most unique “cultural” experience during my time in Germany.
University sponsored parties were already something unusual for me. In Germany, anyone can be served beer in public starting at the age of 16, and the legal age for hard alcohol is 18. So by the time everyone gets to university, everybody is of legal age. Nothing for the universities to worry about. So, at least at Uni-Giessen, university sponsored parties are common place, and there’s usually one at least once a month.
I went to the first Uni party of the semester. It was thrown in the two story academic building that houses four major lecture halls. It was like a gigantic house party, except first of all, it was legal, and two different beer tables (one on each floor) replaced the typical keg(s). In addition to a DJ upstairs, there was live music for half the night on the ground floor. Another table sold shots on the first floor and Vodka-Red Bulls upstairs. Once you got past the idea you were at a party in a school building, it was a pretty typical party.
While I was busy seeing Europe, I missed the next Uni party, which was the same as the first; I also missed the party at the university’s sports complex. Sounds like that party was a good one. It produced some legendary stories…
I finally stopped traveling and was in Giessen for a weekend in the middle of June. That weekend, the Uni-party was in the courtyard of a Monastery. …yes, a Monastery. For whatever reason, the exchange students started dropping out on by one (something about having exams to study for and papers to write… ), and by the time the evening of the party rolled around, Karl and I were the only ones going.
The party was at Kloster Schiffenberg, and the French girls told us there was a bus that ran from the city center to Schiffenberg. As Karl and I were running around the Altstadt, trying to find where the bus left from, we found out that the bus to Schiffenberg only runs on Sundays. Luckily, we also ran into our favorite waitress from the Pizza Haus, who informed us that Kloster Schiffenberg wasn’t actually IN Schiffenberg, and if we were up for it, it was probably walk-able from the edge of town where our dorms were. So Karl and I took the bus back to our edge of town and then walked nearly an hour through the woods as the sun started to set. Thanks to randomly stumbling on a sign with a map on it, we continued our trek onward through a forest I would best describe as some sort of poorly advertised state park with a single hiking trail. We were starting to question where the heck we were when we heard the music coming through the forest from the hill up ahead. By that time, the sun had almost completely set, and hundreds of fire flies were dancing around the trees like fairies or sprites as if I was in some sort of real-life Disney movie or fairy tale.
The party itself was like any other. It was good, it was fun, but it was nothing special. …oh yeah, except that it was put on by the university and located in the courtyard of a monastery, a feeling I never really got over.
University sponsored parties were already something unusual for me. In Germany, anyone can be served beer in public starting at the age of 16, and the legal age for hard alcohol is 18. So by the time everyone gets to university, everybody is of legal age. Nothing for the universities to worry about. So, at least at Uni-Giessen, university sponsored parties are common place, and there’s usually one at least once a month.
I went to the first Uni party of the semester. It was thrown in the two story academic building that houses four major lecture halls. It was like a gigantic house party, except first of all, it was legal, and two different beer tables (one on each floor) replaced the typical keg(s). In addition to a DJ upstairs, there was live music for half the night on the ground floor. Another table sold shots on the first floor and Vodka-Red Bulls upstairs. Once you got past the idea you were at a party in a school building, it was a pretty typical party.
While I was busy seeing Europe, I missed the next Uni party, which was the same as the first; I also missed the party at the university’s sports complex. Sounds like that party was a good one. It produced some legendary stories…
I finally stopped traveling and was in Giessen for a weekend in the middle of June. That weekend, the Uni-party was in the courtyard of a Monastery. …yes, a Monastery. For whatever reason, the exchange students started dropping out on by one (something about having exams to study for and papers to write… ), and by the time the evening of the party rolled around, Karl and I were the only ones going.
The party was at Kloster Schiffenberg, and the French girls told us there was a bus that ran from the city center to Schiffenberg. As Karl and I were running around the Altstadt, trying to find where the bus left from, we found out that the bus to Schiffenberg only runs on Sundays. Luckily, we also ran into our favorite waitress from the Pizza Haus, who informed us that Kloster Schiffenberg wasn’t actually IN Schiffenberg, and if we were up for it, it was probably walk-able from the edge of town where our dorms were. So Karl and I took the bus back to our edge of town and then walked nearly an hour through the woods as the sun started to set. Thanks to randomly stumbling on a sign with a map on it, we continued our trek onward through a forest I would best describe as some sort of poorly advertised state park with a single hiking trail. We were starting to question where the heck we were when we heard the music coming through the forest from the hill up ahead. By that time, the sun had almost completely set, and hundreds of fire flies were dancing around the trees like fairies or sprites as if I was in some sort of real-life Disney movie or fairy tale.
The party itself was like any other. It was good, it was fun, but it was nothing special. …oh yeah, except that it was put on by the university and located in the courtyard of a monastery, a feeling I never really got over.
