An American Furry in Germany

The first week I was here, I did a lot of exploring. Fortunately the public transit system here is very convenient--unfortunately, the price is not so convenient. It's €2.15 each way, which, for a student at least, is pretty expensive. I could by five bars of chocolate in the price it costs to travel to the city center and back!
Fortunately I now have my Semesterticket, so I don't have to worry about that (not to mention I can go as far as Hamburg or Hannover for free). But even when I was paying for it, nobody ever checked my ticket. I wondered if the whole thing was based on the honor system. I'm a pretty honorable guy, so I guess it worked for me--not to mention, I didn't want to risk potentially breaking the law, because that's not something you want to do in a foreign country. I don't even know where the nearest embassy is. So as I shelled out Euro after Euro for each trip, a little pang inside me said that I might be wasting my money.

Well, I finally realized how it works. Today I was on the tram, and suddenly everyone reached for their wallets. I looked around, confused, and saw a couple of nondescript people moving through the tram, checking tickets. So I got mine out, and a few seconds later, they were finished. Then when we arrived at the next stop, they got off. I think they must have gotten on, one at each entrance, and moved towards each other. It was very efficient, but the lack of uniforms was kind of confusing. Usually a person doing a public service is easily identifiable. These people were just wearing whatever--jackets, sweaters, dark colors mostly. If they were wearing uniforms, I would have recognized what they were doing faster. But when I see a group of strangers in casual clothing, moving efficiently and with a common purpose, I don't immediately assume they're working in the public interest. :P

Okay, okay... this might be one of those "you had to have been there" moments, but I think it transcends that. I couldn't stop laughing. First, let me update you on the situation.

Today, after having been in Bremen for 6 days, it was finally time for orientation. At 9:30 am I went to the Hochschule (one of the buildings--the university is actually scattered all over Bremen), and met all the other transfer students here this semester. There was a big group from Spain, and generally a huge sampling of all sorts of countries. Along with me, though, there was only one other American student, and he didn't know any German at all. So finally I get to know more German than someone! Heh, heh. Anyway, I was pretty successful in my attempt to become a social animal. Granted, it was a pretty simple situation, but I didn't hide in a corner with the chocolates the entire time! (Yes, of course there were chocolates. It's Easter time, and it's Germany.)
Unfortunately, registration for the non-Europe students did not occur today. I'll go back tomorrow at the same time, then I will finally register and get my Semesterticket, so I won't have to pay 2 Euros for every tram. (The public transit here is convenient, but a bit expensive.)
Afterwards, we were introduced to the cafeteria, which I think was not quite as delicious as the J (the cafeteria at Humboldt State University), but still edible. Then was the first day of the short, intensive German course. It was three hours, although it didn't seem that long--there were so many different nationalities there, and we all had a lot of fun. (This intensive course was B2, the highest bracket. We all took a short online German language placement test, and only a couple of people were better than B2.)
Anyway. We started off, of course, by talking about ourselves. The girl from Finland mentioned that she was with a program (in Finland) called "Adventure Education"--the professor said it was "Erlebnispädagogik" auf Deutsch. Nobody really knew what this was, so she started out to explain it (in English--she didn't feel capable of explaining it in German). I'm not kidding, these are her words I'm using. (As best I can remember--but not far off.)
"Well, we go to people who need help, like for instance, someone using drugs, or something. Then we take them into the woods (this is the moment where I burst out laughing), and we do things with them (continued, barely stifled laughter). Then when we are finished doing things with them, we take them out, and they can get a job, or an education, or something." (Uncontrollable laughter. Wondering if she thinks I'm laughing at her usage of English.)
Maybe it was funnier in person, but really. Fortunately I had a chance to ask her later, because I really did not understand. It turns out that it's a program to build the self-esteem of disadvantaged persons. They find people who need help, like drug users. Then they take them and give them tasks--one example would be pseudo-boy-scouting, building fires, forestry stuff. Through success in these small things, they begin to realize that they can be successful in life, if they put the effort in. Alles klar?
Heh... it was funny, though. Oh, what a day.