racing, chasing, neighing, and playing

     Last week was not very eventful at the military academy, save for the last few days.
     On Wednesday, Major Pulsinger (the riding instructor) asked us to wear our riding uniform to riding lessons. We weren't sure what he meant by this, so upon further inquiry, we found out that he meant the Dress Grey uniform that all West Point cadets have come to love and cherish. If you have ever seen anyone in this uniform, you could understand how uncomfortable it is. When we got to the lesson, we found out we were filming in order to send a video back to school detailing what we've done with him so far. To show us off and make us look good, we used stirrups for the first time, as well as riding outside. The stirrups made trotting so comfortable. While alternating standing and sitting between each trot you don't even feel discomfort in your most sacred place. We rode with three cadets from our year group, one of which was Rene Poschinger, who is also my roommate. The group was lead by Major Pulsinger, the three Austrian cadets, the four West Point cadets, and 3 Austrian students from the military high school. It ended up being a lot of fun, and we got some great footage too for our "propoganda" video. More to follow on the video. If it gets online then I'll post the link. If not, I'll post it when I find it.
     On Thursday in the evening, 40 cadets from our year group went go karting. In total we payed 980 Euros for 2 hours to rent the place. It was tons of fun. Turns out, all Austrians know how to drive VERY well. Do to a tragic miscommunication on my part, and some slow driving in general by the Americans, we ended up losing to the first place team by 7 laps, and 2 laps behind the second to last place team. Yes, Prestige Worldwide, as we were named, finished in dead last. To my dismay, our team name fell upon deaf ears, as almost none of the cadets had seen Stepbrothers, and those that had didn't get the joke... their loss. After the race, the gokarting place gave out trophies and medals to the top three teams, and there was a champagne shower at the end. Daniel Weicher and Max Koran were two members on the winning team. I forgot the other..sorry. below is a picture of the guys after karting.



After we got back, of course we had to go to the MakCasino to celebrate with a few drinks, which ended up turning into more than a few drinks. Would would've thought?
     On Friday we had a very normal day, concluded with the four hour german course in the afternoon, which I'm still not sure if I'm getting credit for back at West Point. Having class that long with only one break is torture that late in the day before a weekend.. Anyway, after class, Ratzi (an Austrian cadet from my year) left for Linz, the capital of upper Austria. He lives nearby in the city of Freistadt, so it was no trouble for him. When we got to Linz, we checked into the barracks we were staying at that night. This isn't technically allowed, but Ratzi pulled some strings and talked to a guy he knows that's in charge (shh, don't tell anyone). A little while later one of his friends came that is from Linz, and was also a cadet at the academy as a member of the second year by the name of Stitz. However, he had to leave the academy. I think he likes being an NCO better anyway... We started off the night with a few drinks, and then went out into the city. We went to a lot of great clubs, including one that had three completely different atmospheres. One was rock music, another pop, and the other, I don't know what the hell it was.. there was fog everywhere and I couldn't see much. After some time here, we went to the Rox in Linz. For those that don't know, there is also a Rox in Wiener Neustadt. I can now say I've been to every Rox in the world..all two of them. The night ended here for me and Stitz at around O' dark: thirty. Ratzi came back a little while after us, and took some very nice pictures of us sleeping...pretty creepy if you ask me. Anyway, here's a picture of Stitz, Ratzi and I at Rox:

      The next day when I woke up, Stitz had gone out and got breakfast. What an angel. Ratzi had some studying he needed to do for a test on Monday, so Stitz took me into the city to show me around. Linz has a ton of very cool history, much centered around the Second World War. Linz was slotted to be Hitler's city of residence after he conquered Europe, thus all of the industry in the city and pretty sites as well. Something rather interesting, but very morbid at the same time: The following picture was taken atop the mountain where Hitler supposedly decided to go into politics in order to "help" people.

     After tour through Linz, we went back to the barracks to find Ratzi asleep, not quite having accomplished his goal of studying. We woke him up and then went out to get some lunch. After lunch, Ratzi and I went to his house in Freistadt, agreeing to meet up with Stitz later. I met his dad and two sisters. His older sister is 25, and the younger 18. We took a picture, and for some reason they felt it necessary to put on the high heels they had just bought right before the picture. We were all pretty much the same height before the picture, but during...well, let's just say I had to stand on the step. Yes, I was reduced to step-standing for the picture. Nothing agaist them, they are just girls that love shoes I suppose. They were very sweet.
     Later on in the night, we and a few of Ratzi's lawyer and software engineer friends went to the American Chance Casino in the Tschek Republic (another country checked off the list). We stayed there for a few hours until some had won, and some had lost. Ratzi was the big winner of the night, winning 90 Euros on the Roulette table. I only lost 5 Euros on the night..not too shabby. Afterwards we went to a few bars in Freistadt. The first place we went to we ended up staying the longest at. The owner of the place won the lottery and wanted to open up his own place. He doesn't really care about making money, so drinks were dirt cheap. Here we met up with Stitz (who was having a great time at this point, if you know what I mean), and Ratzi's sister Teresa. Later on we went to another place that was really crowded, but Ratzi knew the owner, so all was well. When we were having a few drinks in the back, someone called someone gay, but either way, my tall Austrian friend's honor was at stake, so someone went flying into the bar, and it wasn't Ratzi. This got the fat guy's companions involved, but was quickly broken up. I think Teresa wanted to see another fight, as she antgonized the fat drunk one throughout the night, which was hilarious. On the way out of the bar, I discovered that someone had "mistakenly" taken my jacket, which I was rather fond of. Doing the only natural thing, also under the guidance of my Austrian companions mind you, I tried on another jacket until I found one of equal or better liking. An eye for an eye, and a jacket for a jacket is how the saying goes I believe.
     The next day after lunch, we went to Stitz's grandfather's house, where he gave us a presentation about his time in America serving in the Army. He served the Austrians in World War Two, but was later a sort of police officer in the American sector after the war. Somehow he got to go over to America and serve as a signal NCO, where he was a master sergeant, and eventually sergeant major. He spent his time in Fort Gordon in the years leading up to the Vietnam War. He showed us all sorts of pictures from around the area, which I was very familiar with, being from the Atlanta area myself. It was very interesting seeing everything during this time period, being told from the perspective of an Austrian. This concluded the weekend in Linz and Freistadt. Afterwards, Ratzi and I headed back to Neustadt to start another week.
     On Monday our teacher, Dr. Vazulik came from West Point to see how we were doing. We gave him a tour of the castle in German, by which he seemed very impressed. Obviously, we have all gotten much better and proficient at speaking during our time here thus far.
     Today we had a training exercise with the first year group, which is meant to improve land terrain reading skills. Basically, the task was to determine how to best utilize land against enemy troops. Securing and defending was the central theme. We were kind of thrown into this, skipping the classes that they had taken the previous week leading up to the exercise. It didn't really matter much though...In all we were out for about 9 hours in the cold looking at the terrain, which would have been quite pretty had I not been shivering. Luckily we don't have to do the rest of the training with them this week because the American Ambassador to Austria if coming tomorrow, where we will give him a tour of the castle (a common theme for visitors). On Thursday, we will eat Thanksgiving dinner at his house in Vienna. Until then my avid readers...

It's been almost a month? my bad...

     It's been quite a while since my last blog. sorry about that... I guess it's due to the fact that I've been pretty busy, or just a general lack of motivation to write down what I've been doing. Well, let's get cracking.
     I guess it was the last weekend in October that I did something since my last post. On the 29th we went to the Steiermark, the southern region in Austria known for its many vinyards and something called kernöl, which is basically pumpkin oil. It's quite tasty on salads and bread and whathaveyou. The first place we went to was a chocolate making plant, not unlike Wonka industries. We were able to see the entire process of making chocolate and could also taste the chocolate at all points of the production. It was pretty nasty until they added the sugar. They made all types of different chocolate, from 100% dark chocolate (bleh, no sugar or creme), to chili chocolate (also bleh). Pretty much all types in between were very tasty. At the end of the tour you could taste every kind that they made at the plant, which was upwards of 100. I didn't go very long before i started to feel sick...
After the House of Upset Stomachs..er, chocolate plant, we visited the vacation house of a colonel at the academy. He has a ton of land and makes his own wine, which may be the best I've had so far. We stood around in his cellar drinking wine and eating bread for a while. Not a bad life... After much drinking and merrymaking (which seems to be a common practice in Austria) we made our way to a local restaurant, where we had fried chicken and french fries, not quite a local dish, but good nonetheless. It was however, accompanied by salad with kernöl, which was again quite good. I'm bringing home a bottle to share the wonders with those interested. After all of this we went back to the MilAk.
     The next day (Saturday now), all of the cadets minus one went to Budapest (pronounced Buda-pesht, who knew?), the capital city of hungary. Dan's fiance Michelle (hope I spelled it right) came along as well, as she was staying in Austria for a few weeks to visit Dan. We took a free walking tour of the city, which ended up being a great experience. I'd recommend free tours to anyone, not obviously just because it's free, but the tour guides really have to know what they're talking about because they work for tips. So really it only ends up costing about $10, and you still get to see everything you would normally, plus the guides advice on local eateries and whatnot. Because Monday was a national holiday, we got to stay longer than we would on a normal weekend. Sadly, there weren't to many halloween parties to be found in the city. After the good long weekend we went back to the adademy to start another week of rigorous academics (or something like that...).
     Not much really happened the following week. A few history classes and riding, and then some meeting, but that was about it. During the weekend Seth and I went to Graz, the capital of the Steiermark, with an Austrian cadet named Bernd. We met him during our first week in Austria when he was showing us around Vienna. We went to his house for the weekend. I can't begin to describe how good the food was. I ate enough over the weekend to satisfy an impoverished nation for a month (sorry to those from impoverished nations reading this). He also had a sauna in his basement, which is definitely something I want when I buy a house. We did quite a few sessions in the sauna in the evening after dinner. You may be asking: "But Matt, don't you usually go out drinking in the evening on the weekends? And wouldn't the sauna make you dehydrated, thereby lowering your tolerance to alcohol?" Well, the answer would be yes on both accounts... Fortunately, we were able to prepare ourselves for the evening by having a couple beers in the sauna, a great idea, no? Am I proud of what I did? Well, yes.. you only live once right?

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     After a while we went out to the town for a while and met some of Bernd's friends, including a dance instructor at one of the nearby dance schools. I got to see him in action at one of the clubs we went to, and it was kind of funny to compare him dancing to the feeble attempts of myself and everyone else in the room. The next morning we slept in a bit and then had a very large brunch. After this we ended the weekend a bit early and came back to the academy. I was able to finally get a bit of work done. 

     This past week was pretty much the exact same as the last, Graz included, except this time we went with people from our year group, and more was paid for because we did cultural things as well (yes very surprising I know). One of the places we went to was an armory from the 16th-19th century. There were hundreds of thousands of pieces of armor and weapons encompassing 4 floors of a building. The tour was in German, but I found myself understand the majority of what he said, which is a testament to how much I've learned since I've been here. After doing the obligatory, but always fun, night of merrymaking, we woke up and had a very good breakfast in the city with one of the Austrian cadets. After a while we again went back to the academy.

     It's good to note here that over the past few weeks I earned the Austrian Sportabzeichen, which, for those familiar with the German proficiency badge, is quite tough to get. To get this, one must do a series of track and field events, along with swimming and running a 5k. The list to get the best one is: shotput 8 meters (which was hard for me), swim 300 meters in 8 minutes (too easy, did it in 4:40), run a 5k in 24 minutes (again, too easy, 20:55), sprint a 100 in 13.2 seconds or 400 in 65 (tough, did the 400 in 62 seconds), and high jump 1,4 meters (I knicked the bar as I jumped over, but it somehow stayed up). The paperwork has to go to Vienna to get approved, but I should have the award soon.

Living the life

     Two Fridays ago, the group along with Major Lampersberger and a „willing“ recruit went to Melk, and the surrounding area of Wachau. Wachau is regarded as one of the prettiest areas in Austria. The Donau River runs through Melk to Kremz. The area in between is the Wachau region. We started off by visiting the giant Stift Melk. A stift is basically the German word for a church where there is also businesses, and sometimes a school. It was built during the baroque time period and has some very neat architecture. The library inside is extremely old and has a lot of historical books. The Roman Catholic Church also inside the stift was unbelievable. Before we went inside, the guide said it is probably the prettiest church ever built. Needless to say, it lived up to its expectations.

     After this we went to the local military post that hosts the 3^rd Engineer battalion. We got a short intro as to what they do there, and then we took the motor boats out on the river. They did all sorts of formations, and towards the end I got to drive and attempt to stay in the similar formations. After this we ate lunch and then went to a very old castle, which was very cool. The guy who built it was a robber that stole from people in the surrounding region to fund the castle. He had a balcony high up where he kept his prisoners called the rose garden. The prisoners could either starve to death, or jump to their death. There weren’t big leaves down beneath, so you couldn’t do any crazy avatar stuff or anything like that. After this we went out to eat at a place called a Heuriger. They basically make their own wine and are only opened when they have wine left. We learned all of the steps to wine making. They aren’t allowed to sell most other types of alcohol, and for the most part can only sell food that they make. For example, our meal consisted of a few bottles of wine, a platter of fresh cold cuts, cheese, and fresh baked bread. After much merry-making we headed back to Neustadt.

     The following week was pretty standard: riding, dancing, and a few classes mixed in. I had more riding lessons than actual class lessons. On Friday we had another excursion, this time to another monastery type place.  This place was more for commercial wine, and there was lots of it. We got a grand tour of the winery below the stift. Additionally, we saw an eagle show at a nearby castle, which was very cool. They trained the birds so they would fly directly over your head. There were golden eagles and also a bald eagle. In German, the bald eagle’s name is Weißkopfseeadler, which translates to white head sea eagle. I came within about two inches of it as it was flying over.

     During the weekend I went to Innsbruck in western Austria. We basically went around and saw all of the cultural stuff there was to see. We also took a tram up one of the higher mountains around Innsbruck, which was about 2400 meters. We had to walk up the last 100 meters in order to get to the very top. There was a good bit of snow and ice at the top, where it was also -10 degrees Celsius. One of the cadets from the MilAk showed us around because he’s from Innsbruck, so we didn’t have a chance to get lost. We also ate a lot of the local food, which was incredible. Innsbruck is quite famous for their pork products, and rightfully so. I could barely move after the lunch we had it was so good.

     Monday we had another dance course, where we learned more dances that I’ll never use in my life. One of them was a crazy foot crossing waltz type thing. If anyone out there reading has ever done this dance at any time, please feel free to tell me I’m wrong. It’s a good experience though in the long run, further “culturing” myself. Today (Tuesday the 26^th) was a national holiday similar to our fourth of july. That basically means that people have an excuse to go out the night before and party, and then use today as a recovery day. Austrians always find something to celebrate. Our Commandant from West Point is coming tomorrow, along with several other officers. We have to show them around and basically give a tour. Luckily the general doesn’t speak German, so I can give my presentation in English. This weekend after another excursion with the major, myself and the other west point guys are trying to go to Budapest. We’ll see how that goes.

Hazing and hell raising

     Yesterday was the most school packed day I have had here thus far. I had my four hour german class in the morning, and then two history classes back to back after lunch. The history classes basically just double-tapped the time between the first and second world war. Class let out at around five or so. All week I had heard about the first class initiation into the "MAK casino." This is basically a place where the cadets can go and drink after school or at night. They said be prepared to drink a lot. I decided getting food before would be a good idea, as not to drink on an empty stomach. Dan, Christian and I went to Torino's, our favorite pizza place a little ways from the MilAk. I got a ham and mushroom pizza that was extremely tasty.
     When we got back it was about five till seven, when the festivities would begin. I rushed to get changed back into uniform and went downstairs into the entrance hall where the entire first class was. The class speaker from the fourth year group (seniors) was giving an introduction to what was about to happen. The rules he gave were simple: 1. everyone must leave by 12. 2. You have to be able to leave on your own free will, and on your own two legs. 3. Should your buddy be struggling to get back, you may assist him. Then everyone went down the hall to the MAK casino, which was lined with seniors in ponchos and gas masks. At the entrance of the casino, two guards were standing by the door, dressed in overcoats and gasmasks holding scythes. In order to get into the casino they had to pass a series of tests. The hardest one involved standing on an ammo box and unsheathing a saber. Then the person had to balance a shot on the hilt, and proceed to take the shot. Once they earned the key into the casino, everyone was "baptised" by having their head dunked in a big bowl of water. I participated in this part because we hadn't been formally welcomed to the MAK casino like all the other seniors.
     The casino consists of one main bar, with several smaller rooms. It can hold about 150 people, which is about how many were down there. Upon entering, everyone had a shot and a beer at the ready. The class was christened by drinking a glass of beer and then throwing it in the corner and breaking the glass. This is done on important occasions. It signifies that no one else will drink from the glass from that event. After all this the hazing stopped and everyone just hung out and drank together. They had another ceremony where a member from each class took the saber off the wall and used it to open a bottle of champagne.This is done by unrapping the top part and then basically pushing the saber into the cork. The first two classes that went took about four or five tries to do it. The first years did it in two, which was the best so far. After a few hours of general debauchery, Colonel Fleishman, the batallion commander showed up in his formal uniform. I thought it was to bust up the party, but instead he had a drink with everyone. He then did the bottle opening thing with the saber. I didn't know we had a professional in our midst because he did it in one try. Before he went they said I was next and I had to do better than the colonel. After he went I thought I was going to embarass myself because one cadet from west point a few years ago had to go to the hospital and get stitches from cutting his hand with the bottle. I prepared myself (and the bottle) and gave it a try. To my surprise, the cork popped on the first try, and there was much rejoicing. They told me to keep the cork and busted top as a memento. After a couple more hours of hydration, I decided it was time to head off to bed. This turned out to be a great decision because a group of guys ended up going into the city a little while later and didn't stumble back until 5 a.m. Don't think that these guys are unprofessional or unfit though. I've never seen a group of people that know so much about the military, or are in such good shape. This Friday the west point cadets are going to Melk with one of the majors here to further "culture" ourselves. No other plans for the weekend yet though.

Bratislava and ballroom dancing

     On Saturday a few friends and I ventured to Bratislava, Slovakia. "What might draw you to such a city?" Well, initially it was to take in the culture of eastern europe, and go sightseeing. Then I heard about the cheap food and drinks, and a myriad of attractive women. I supposed these three things couldn't hurt my becoming more cultured. We took a late morning train and got into the city around 2. We had a hostel in mind that we were trying to get to, but had not yet made a reservation. We weren't exactly sure how to get downtown to where the hostel was, so we first tried looking for our bus stop...to no avail. Then we tried the tried and true method of walking in whatever direction seemed most populated. After about 45 minutes we found ourselves back at the train station. After then looking at a map, we saw that our bus stop was on the other side of the train station. About five stops into the city, we arrived where we needed to be and found the hostel. The cheap place we were trying to stay (12 euros a night) was completely booked, so we made our way to another hostel. The next one we arrived at was a little more centrally located, and ran us about 20 euros each.
     We dropped our stuff off and went into the older part of the city where there was more to see. There was a very cool castle and many old tower building things... Then the night rolled around. We had dinner at a KGB themed restaurant, where the waitress didn't speak a lick of English or German. We basically pointed and grunted at what we wanted. The meal was very good and very cheap, costing only about 6 euros total for pork rib with potatoes and a beer (dark- Regular beer in Slovakia is crap compared to Austrian beer). We asked her how to say several phrases, such as "thank you" and "hello", which we promptly forgot... After dinner we made our way around a few bars, where drinks were quite cheap. However, our night came to an abrupt end when discovered everywhere except the trashy places close around midnight. This put a damper on things, but just walked for a while anyway. The next morning we took the train back to Wiener Neustadt.
     On Monday my school day consisted of horse riding at 8 a.m., followed by nothing...In the evening we had our first dance course with the first years. It is tradition that every class takes a dance course in Vienna or simply in Wiener Neustadt. I was with the group of about 30 that went to Vienna, along with the other cadets from West Point. We went inside and all of the men lined up on one side of the room, and all the girls on the other. I say girls because the average age on the "other" side of the room was about 15. There were, however, some older "ladies." quite a few, you could say, would not make it on the cover of Maxim. I got lucky though and danced with a girl my age, who was quite cute. It turns out she is from france also studying in Austria. As a group, we slowly learned the Foxtrot and then the Waltz. I'm not sure what dances are scheduled for next week, but expect a post. Also, today during my riding class we galloped on the horses for the first time. We're still going around in circles, but it's quite an experience.

Ride like the wind Bullseye!

     This week was very busy academically. And by that, I mean that I had four actual classes. On Monday I had the German class again, which wasn't so bad this time. In the afternoon we had sport class, aka: mandatory fun/run time. Tuesday I didn't have anything until 1 in the afternoon. From there the first years had a tour of the "Burg." It was very cool to here and see all of the history behind the MilAk. The church here is pretty neat as well. In the middle there's a big see-through container with a bunch of skulls from important people. They may not be what the guy said because I just made that up, but there really are skulls. Talk about skeletons in your closet (zing zing). After the tour we had a military history class. The teacher basically blazed through the entirety of World War I in an hour and a half. I didn't understand much because he was talking a hundred miles an hour.
     Wednesday was a legitimately busy day. We had the German class in the morning for four hours, then lunch, and then another military history class. This time it was everything leading up to the war, and then again on the war itself, and a little after the war. Right after this we had more mandatory fun time. The middle school kids that go to the military school next to the MilAk joined us. We started off as a group jogging around the sport complex, which is surprisingly big. Then we stopped and did some core exercises. It was funny in a sick kind of way watching the high school kids struggle with variations of push-ups and bridge exercises. I just chilled and did my thing until it was over. After this we broke up into two groups: those that wanted (needed) to run, and those that wanted to play soccer. Having ran the day before, I decided to play soccer. There were about 4 people from the academy, and the rest were from the middle school. The only thing that I really have going for me in soccer is that I can run a lot. Basically all of these kids were better than me, but I could outrun them after a while, so that led to me being decent. I also played goalie for a little bit and had some sweet saves.
     Yesterday was my first day horseback riding. We learned how to groom the horse before and after you ride it, put the saddle on, and all that good stuff. After that we went into the riding hall and learned how to make them speed up, slow down, gallop, and stop with just commands. Then we got on the horse with just saddles, no stirrups. This was just to get confident and improve balance. We rode around in circles, with the horse on a lead. We did different exercises to work on balance. Riding was a lot of fun, and I look forward to getting better as the semester goes on. Supposedly we're going to be able to ride two to three times per week. The instructor was also telling us that these kinds of private lessons with world class horses would usually cost 50 Euros per hour, and we can pretty much ride whenever we want. I think we got a nice deal. We'll see how it goes.

Burgherr

This past week I was put into the rising senior class at the MilAk after the two week training with the first years. I also started a German class that I take twice a week for four hours per session. On Tuesday the other cadets and I gave a presentation about west point to our class. The catch was that it was in German. It was about 30 minutes long and we did a pretty good job. Everyone was a little tired because right before we went up a general had spoken for about an hour. Needless to say, people were not sitting on the edges of their seats.

            On Wednesday we had another German class in the morning. This one was a little harder. It consisted of reading newspaper articles and summarizing them. We also had to match up animals with the sounds they make and where you can find them. Seems easy right? It took me 30 minutes to complete with the help of a dictionary, and Dan sitting next to me. In the afternoon we had a sport festival. It was basically all of the classes against each other. The three other cadets and I ran a relay track event. Seth had the 400 meters, Christian the 300, I had the 200, and Dan the 100. It’s not that we ran slowly, but the people we ran against were incredibly fast. We came in last in our heat by about 5 seconds. However, I think we did better than the other team from our year that was in a different heat. The first years won by a lot, but the “Lehmann” group took second. Apparently our year had taken first every year before, but second was okay today. Naturally, like the end of any Austrian social event, there was lots of beer afterwards. Many a drink was drunk, and many a song was sung.

The next day I met the horse riding instructor for the academy because that’s the sport I’ll be doing here. Something interesting about Austria is that all of the horse trainers are trained to teach at the academy. The instructor, Major Pulsinger is a world champion in military horseback riding. He along with another NCO train all of the horses for the academy and Bundesheer before anyone else is allowed to ride them. This is to ensure that it is a good horse that won’t go crazy when someone else tries to ride it.

            On Friday we had a parade for the graduating class. Fortunately, the west point cadets did not have to participate in this one. We simply stood on the balcony and watched. At the end there was a very cool fire work show. Talking to some of the guys in my year, I learned that the next day (the parade I would be marching in) that the parade would last about three times as long, and would be much more boring. Joy. Because it was the sensible thing to do, we went out drinking with the Austrians. They said that if you weren’t asleep standing up during the parade then you were doing it wrong. I came back home at a decent hour…which got me about three and half hours of sleep. The next day we formed up at 8 to practice for the parade the same day. We wore our full dress uniform, which is infinitely times more uncomfortable than the Austrian parade uniform. During the actual parade, we stood at attention for two hours while a general, the Bundesminister, and the Bundespräsident spoke. The general spoke for about 40 minutes, and pretended he was done 7 times before actually stopping. The president only went for about 30 minutes, but spoke in a monotone voice while mumbling. I would have paid him to stop talking. After they finished we marched out and reformed on the street alongside the academy. There was a parade with a bunch of military vehicles along with several helicopters and two Euro-fighters. We then marched along the street, which was very crowded. We went past the minister and president and all of the graduating cadets. They were yelling “Burgherren” as we marched by, signifying that we were now the oldest class at the academy. Naturally, that night there was a celebration, which everyone partook in. It was also Seth’s 21^st birthday, so it was kind of a double celebration.