Marcelo's Blocker Blog 2023

Easter is a catholic tradition celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. For easter in Freiburg, Germany, I had the chance through my german class to visit die "Museum Natur und Mensch". I was excited to get my german homework done and also for the kids that would be enjoying easter german celebrations and traditions. The museum had a free entrance and it was full with children. I think me and my friend were the only young adults there with the exception of the kids' parents.  I was fortunate to see Vom Ei zum Küken exhibition were kids would enjoy seeing how chicks live and interact in a little but interactive environment. While me and my friend were in the exhibition, we asked how old were das "küken", and there were some that were born in that same week! The kids were all happy about the chicks little noises and how they ran from one place to another. Kids and parents also have fun mit Ostereir Bemalen, Shoko-Osterhasen essen, und Ostereir s...

My main expectations surrounding my study abroad experience were to make long lasting relationships with Germans and Americans in my program, and also to take advantage of what my study abroad program had to offer. Having just arrived from my course related trips to Budapest and Rome, I have been able to retrospectively think about my living situation and all the cultural differences I have experienced. When I first arrived here, I was excited to embrace a new culture with new rituals on a daily life. As I have lived for two months with Germans in a "Studentenwohnung", I had become aware of a lot of different practices of how German students live their lives.  The culture of these Studentenwohnung is appreciative of students and their space. Vauban, Stussie, and Stuhlinger, the one I live at, are the main student residencies here in Freiburg. All of them have student bar spaces open during the week of classes and they usually get pretty busy. In fact, if you are acquainted wi...

     Am Montag of this week, I got invited to play football thanks to my professor of Finance. I told him I was looking for a club or place to train while in Freiburg to have fun and not loose my touch. He connected me to one of his previous fellow colleagues and he invited me to play. The invitation was from 8 to 10pm so I arrived into a shared map location a little bit early and all I could see was a dark basketball court with some football goals in there. To my surprise, this wasn't the field we were going to play at.       When my acquaintance arrived he showed me the entrance of a high school building/athletic facility, "schule sporthalle". There were locker rooms, showers, and right next to it was the field we were going to play at. It was a high school multi-purpose field were kids do sports and play futsal or Hallenfußball. We were a group of 10 people and we played 5 vs 5 in this small field. Most of the guys that played were in their 30s...

           Last week I had the chance to go on a program trip to Brussels and Paris. I have never been to these cities before and I was super excited. I have to say I was more enthusiastic for Paris but Brussels surprised me by its really good gluten free food options and their amazing EU institutions buildings and environment. Coming from Chile, I never knew much about the European Union and its importance, and having taken specific classes about its history and organisation has taught me its relevance not only in the continent but worldwide. After the recent pandemic and the on-going Ukraine and Russian war, the EU plays a major role in political, economical, and social issues towards achieving peace.       We were fortunate to visit two of the most important institutions of the EU located in Brussels, die Europäische Kommission (executive arm) und die Ministerrat (represents the member states and coordinate - work on adopting law...

  It all started one day before the actual event. My American friends from IES told me there was a parade going on in town in the evening that day or the day after. I decided to miss the one on the evening and go on the next day. I didn't do any type of research about the so called "parade", all I knew was that it started at 2pm on Sunday, February 12th. I went to the gym that morning and since I didn't have any data left on my phone, I decided to go alone to the parade to arrive in time. On the tram, I saw some german students with customs and decided to ask them about the parade. Not even 5 minutes passed and friends from their group showed up from different parts of the same tram! I couldn't avoid seeing t he large amount of people gathered in the streets and as far as that point, these local students kept telling me about people with "masks" on the parade. Long story short,  I ended up staying with them for 2 hours watching the parade and enjoying t...

  My anecdote takes first place one week before this trip, when I was visiting Zurich. I took a FlixBus with 2 friends from Freiburg and we noticed that the driver and his assistant were from Italy. When I was doing the passport check, the Italian assistant was surprised by my Chilean passport and since the Spanish and Italian languages are similar, I was able to understand when he told me was coming from a "killer country". At the beginning, I felt confused and was kind of happy he knew about Chile's existence, but then during the trip when I asked him to elaborate, he told me that both of his Italian grandparents escaped to Chile from WWII, settled in Chile, but were assassinated in the Pinochet Dictatorship. Even though it wasn't my fault, I couldn't avoid to feel a little bit ashamed about the situation. In addition, the day I came back to Freiburg I met a Chinese, half-German student who was rooming with one of my IES friends and he told me he knew about the ...