Leibe Blog...

I am writing to give news that I probably won't be writing for awhile...I will be too busy having the adventures that make this thing worthwhile.

On Wednesday morning I set out for what will be over two weeks of travel through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and then Germany again. A brief laundry list of what will be seen:

• Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the stereotypical walled German fairytale town

• Beautiful Fussen in South Germany, with a jaunt to Schloss Neuschwanstein...the iconic image of Germany on most guide book covers, and the model for Sleeping Beauty's castle

• Munich...bring on the Hofbrauhaus!

• VIENNA...it waits for me :)

• Salzburg, where the hills will be alive with the Sound of Music once again

• Interlaken, Switzerland...first skiing attempt will be made. Keep your fingers crossed, people.

• Zurich, where I will be celebrating Christmas with the Swiss Moser clan

annnddd finally....Berlin for a NYE to remember (hopefully not because I acquire frostbite while waiting for it to turn midnight by the Brandenburg gate).

For most of the trip I will be traveling with my friend Chrissy and her friend from Texas. Can we three southern girls survive what the winter landscape will bring and have a darn good time? I think so.

Bis die neue Jahr :)

The view...

from outside my window right now:

The snow's a fallin. Bring it on!

It's beginning to look a lot like...German Christmas

Happy Nikolaus Tag! I totally forgot to put my shoes out last night, but luckily the nursing home celebrated it right today. We had a costumed and gregarious St. Nick and some sussigkeiten. I like this holiday!

Germans celebrate the saint's death day every year on December 6 as Nikolaus Tag. The man who we Amerikaners know as Santa Clause comes during the night to put candy and fruit into children's shoes. Somewhat confusing, because they also have a Weinachtsmann who comes on Christmas Eve to bring presents. German children have twice the fun.

I returned to Erfurt on Saturday after 10 days away to find the whole town blanketed in thick snow. I'm not going to guesstimate how much because I've never been good at math or perception, but it's alot of snow. I'm still in the snow honeymoon stage, although my walk to the city center each morning has gotten a bit more tricky. I've come to really appreciate shoveled paths...the streets and paths that are not shoveled have become sandy, muddy, snowy mixes that are not fun to walk on. Lots more snow comes Wednesday, and I want to make a snow man.

With the snow and all the Christmas markets about, it really feels like Christmas, maybe moreso than it ever has in the USA. Almost every German town has a big Christmas market in its city center that sells lecker food, drink, and lovely handmade Christmas presents. It's a wee winter wonderland in the middle of the city. And Erfurt definitely has a great one. On weekends people from all around get on buses by the thousands to come. I'm looking forward to many nights at the markt drinking hot gluh wein :)

Dankfesting three times across Germany was, as expected,  a complete gluttonous blast. I traveled from Erfurt to Mainz to Frankfurt and finally to Dortmund for the three celebrations. A highlight was seeing my great (and crazy when together) friends from Bremen again. We put on a delicious feast and fested late into the night for two days. I proudly made my favorite Thanksgiving dish, my grandmother's green bean casserole, which tasted just like home. Thanks Oma! (And thanks to Chrissy for finding the french fried onions on the military base...it wouldn't have been the same without them).

Straight from Dortmund I headed to Bonn for a week of United Nations role play. Who knew that simulating the European Union could be so much fun? I had the oh-so-fortunate role of representing Greece for the EU Council, a tough job especially when the topic is stability of the Euro ;/ But I fared OK and learned alot about economics and the Euro crisis in the process. Dorky, much? 

Days were filled with endless policy debates, and the evenings with fun activities. I slept very little, and had very much fun. A highlight was a karaoke night where I performed the female parts of "Summer Lovin'" and "Barbie Girl." Ran out of time to sing "You're so Vain," though. Darn. 

I've traveled a good bit in my short life, but I have never been in such an international situation before, and I loved every minute of it. People came from over 40 countries to attend the conference - Asia, Africa, the Middle East, errywhere. My roommates, for example, were from Spain, Ghana, and Ukraine. I loved too, that despite everyone's very diverse backgrounds, we were all able to communicate in English. It made me a bit proud and thankful of my mother tongue, although I still got super jealous when I met people my age who speak 5 languages. I speak one and a half, I joked...hopefully two by the time this year is up.

I also loved that despite the fact that no stereotype is accurate, everyone in some way fulfills a bit of the stereotype of their country. The hilarious guy from Hong Kong had his camera out literally every minute, documenting the entire conference and immediately uploading to facebook (yes, there are videos of me performing the said karaoke songs). The Germans were the ones most likely to be on time. And we Amerikaners have more ridiculous slang words and expressions than anyone else, which we happily explained to our new friends. One of my new favorite past times is now translating American speak to those who want to learn. How does one accurately explain what it means to "open up a can of worms?" 

I think this photo best shows the hilarious randomness of our group:

Whew. It's been a long ten days. I haven't been so exhausted since I first fought jet lag upon arriving to Germany. Now it's catch up time.

Abstaining from the obvious pun, my trip to Prague

I have returned from Prague with a babushka doll and Percy Pigs in hand, enamored with my time spent with the Czechs. (Not enamored with their language though...that stuff is ridiculously hard. I'm more thankful for my German now).

Prague is almost too beautiful. There is so much to look at, and with wide eyes I tried to look at everything I could. My walking speed (some have compared it to the speed of light) aided me in that venture, but one could not possibly see all the beautiful things in Prague in any short time there.

I arrived on Thursday evening and immediately had the sense I was somewhere quite different. Navigating the train station and figuring out how to buy metro tickets was a bit schwer with my nonexistent knowledge of Czech and its crazy letter signs, but I managed, and had a nice evening with Sarah's Czech roomie. Sarah was on an unexpected business trip for the first couple days of my stay, but I was well taken care of.

Friday brought the whirlwind sightseeing tour...Prague castle, Charles Bridge, St. Nicholas Church, aimlessly strolling around the old town. As I strolled I also ate, and I, unsurprisingly, love Czech food. It's similar to German food with lots of meat, bread and potatoes, but better. (Maybe just for the novelty...I've had probably too much German food in the last four months). My favorite was a potato pancake from a street stand. nomnomnom

The Czech Republic is the first so-called Eastern European country I've visited (although I think Czechs consider themselves in Central Europe?) and I definitely enjoyed soaking in the culture. The streets seemed livelier, the people a bit louder, and the food definitely cheaper. Now I think I have the Eastern Europe travel bug...Budapest, anyone?

On Friday night one of Sarah's friends nicely met me for a great Vietnamese dinner (spicy food at last!) and then we went to a local club and had lots of fun dancing it up. Only Amerikaner music, of course. I asked Sarah's Czech roommate to play me some Czech music, but it definitely isn't approp for clubbing. Very happy music, though.

Sarah returned Saturday, and we did a pub tour of Prague and had an amazing Czech dinner. It was so nice to see her and catch up on what has passed since we last saw eachother at USC...we are girls on the move. I can't remember or pronounce the name of what I had at dinner, but it was basically meat in some sweet vegetable sauce  with bread dumplings. Washed down by a delicious dark beer. Beer in Prague is even cheaper than in Germany! A half liter bottle at a grocery store will only set you back 50 cents. I'm not sure Czech beer is the best beer in the world as some say, but it may be the cheapest.

That night we went to another club with Sarah's friends that all the internationals frequent. It has a difficult Czech name but is known just as "five story club"...I wonder what is lost in translation? After which we tried another Czech speciality, fried cheese. Tasting just as one would expect, nuttin bad to say there.

The next day Sarah and I did another walking tour of the wunderschön Stadt and trekked up to the top of a tower with a great overview of all the buildings and spires below.  I also managed to find a lovely Babushka stacking doll (ya know...those dolls with all the little ones inside) and also a Marks and Spencer from which to yet again feed my Scottish obsession for Percy Pigs!

Full of pigs and friendship I boarded my train back to Erfurt...look out East cause I'll be back.

And as always, check out more of my pics here.

Three Thanksgivings

Tonight I embark on what will be three Thanksgivings in four days...the irony. In the US I usually only have one, but here I am in a foreign country about to have three times that many. Bring on the turkey!

Why such a superfluity? Tonight is the American Thanksgiving party for us Austauschers at the Uni Erfurt. Tomorrow I travel to Mainz to see my friend Chrissy and have some InWent-sponsored festing on Thursday in Frankfurt. And Friday I will at long last reunite with the Bremenites in Dortmund for yet another feast. Count em.

In other life news, yesterday it started snowing like...cats and dogs? (Northern people you need to help me with snow metaphors: I'm gonna need lots more.) The snow started coming down while I was in German class yesterday, and despite my teacher's attempts to claim that what we were seeing was not richtig snow, all eyes were glued to the windows. I'm still in the honeymoon period with snow, so I'm hoping it keeps on falling, bringing my visions of what a "winter wonderland" is to life.

I've signed up to volunteer Mondays and Tuesdays at a nursing home in the area. I go and sit with the residents during their afternoon activity. Yesterday was my first day, and when I arrived with freezing hands one of the ladies there took my hands and very nicely rubbed her hands over mine to warm them. That really struck me. I love working with kids, but it's an entirely different experience to spend time with people at the other end of life. I really think I will enjoy continuing to visit.

My time in Erfurt has been short recently with all traveling about and such, and tomorrow I yet again venture away. I won't be back for quite a while, because after Dortmund I will be in Bonn for a week for the Model United Nations conference. I'm curious to see what it will all be about - the MUN we SJA girls attended in high school was so unlegit our teacher wouldn't let us go back - but this one seems to be more so. There will be students in Bonn for all around the world, and we'll be simulating for five full days (hopefully five interesting days). I really need to learn more about Lithuania...

The conference is conducted completely in English, so my German is about to take another hit. I find that anytime I travel away for a bit it takes me a couple days to get comfortable speaking the lovely German sprache again...it is always so nice to take a break though, and to speak to people with complete mutual understanding.

Speaking of, update on last weekend's wunderschön trip to Prague to come shortly...

Singing for their candy...those crazy Germans

Oh goodness I love to plan...tonight I've been planning my Christmas break with my friend Chrissy. She, her friend from Texas, and I will be doing a tour of Bavaria (giddily I will return to the Hofbrauhaus in Munich!), Austria (Salzburg and Vienna), and Switzerland (Interlaken for my first skiing experience i'm scurred!). Following which I will be spending Christmas in Zurich with the Swiss Moser fam. Already I'm very excited. I'm sure the Swiss do Christmas well.

Coming up this week is a trip I planned a while back. First it's on to Berlin on Wednesday for some Harry Potter viewin'. The theater in Erfurt only shows dubbed movies, and there was no way I was gonna let that get in the way of my admitted obsession. I will be seeing it at the IMAX with a group of PPPers, which means there will be more of the magical world of Hogwarts (and Daniel Radcliffe) to see. Then Thursday it's off to Prague to see Sarah, a friend from USC. I have heard great things about Prague and its resemblance to a fairy tale and I'm pumped to czech it out. buhahaha thought it was time for a horrible pun.

Exciting things lay ahead...but for now I'm happy to spend some time just chillin' (Germans have adopted chillin as well!) in Erfurt. This past weekend I made a ton of macaroni and cheese for some local friends, went out a bunch and on Sunday made good use of my student ID to visit one of Thuringen's own Unesco World Heritage sites. I took the train (fo free with my ID) to a town called Eisenach that is home to the Wartburg Castle. The castle itself is absolutely beautiful with great views over the town and the surrounding forest, but what makes it Unesco-worthy is that Martin Luther hid out there for ten months to translate the Bible.

People are pretty crazy about that kid Martin Luther here. Maybe because I went to Catholic school for 13 years he was always a bit downplayed, but here he is all the rage. Every town is very excited to indicate any connection with Luther, and Erfurt even celebrates his birthday with a huge festival, the previously described Martinstag in November.

Martinstag, btw, was really charming. Tons of children and their families gather in the Domplatz in Erfurt with lanterns for an ecumenical mass followed by lots of eating and festing. It's actually a bit like our Halloween (or came before our Halloween, as my roommate pointed out) because the kids go around collecting candy. The only catch is that instead of saying something like "trick or treat" they have to sing first...yes the Germans work hard for their candy unlike those lazy Americans! I was quite tickled to see two youngins sing in a bakery that afternoon.

I love all the little festivals here. Plus all the food specialities they bring (Martin's cake!). It's great to be in such a homey place for this period of time.

On another note, now is the point in the program that it seems alot of people are getting really homesick (following exactly the predicted culture shock timeline). Am I homesick? I don't know. I think some little things are starting to get to me...cravings for a diversity of food, missing the complete mobility of driving (Deutsche Bahn continues to go further and further down on my "things I dislike about Germany" list), having to translate websites, and dreams of California...the weather, my friends, In-n-Out. I don't know if those things will pass, or if they will become more acute as time passes, but regardless I know that all the new things I am experiencing truly compensate. Sometimes it's just a bit hard to see it that way.

One thing conquered: I managed to get my hair cut completely auf Deutsch today. No horror stories to speak of!

Berlinnn

After my too-short weekend trip there, I am oh so excited to move to Berlin! Don't get me wrong, Erfurt is lovely, but it ain't no Berlin.

The city first captured me about a year and a half ago, on my Europa tour with Lilleecat. Lilly remarked that the city smelled of sausages as soon as we got off the plane, and the rest is history.

Why do I like Berlin so much? It's really hard to describe. The city has such a palpable energy, an interesting and exciting blend of old and new, and an overwhelming history. It's a huge world capital with so much diversity and also so much of everything German. So yes, I'm quite excited to be its newest resident come February.

I went to Berlin as part of an InWent-sponsored Media and Politics seminar. Awesome because errything was paid for, and of course I found the theme interesting as well. Accordingly we got a tour of the Reichstag (=U.S. Capitol), went on a bus tour which highlighted all of Berlin's neighborhoods and media centers, and also attended a Sunday morning editorial meeting of the Berlin Morning Post. Nicht schlecht. It was really interesting for me, as a former journalism student, to hear about how the German media differs from ours. Now my German just has to get good enough for me to fully understand a newspaper!

We attendees also took the opportunity to check out Berlin's hoppin night life, and on Saturday night I got to see my lovely friend Chris from Taiwan! We made a Detroit-style macaroni and cheese dinner and I got to meet lots of his great German friends. I am really looking forward to hanging out with him more.

And I'll be back in Berlin next week for the HARRY POTTER GERMAN PREMIERE. Couldn't turn that one down, could I?

This week I'll be finally spending some time in Erfurt, and maybe making some day trips to surrounding towns. Oh and today is a special day called Martinstag which celebrates St. Martin and Martin Luther. I'm still a bit confused, but there is a big festival tonight in the Domplatz involving lanterns (and food, I hope).

You spin my head right round

Living my life in German sometimes makes my head spin just like is described in the Flo Rida song. (Who knew that Flo Rida = a play with the word Florida, btw? I didn't until I actually saw him perform in Taiwan and he had the state tattooed on his back...the things you learn).

But anyways, some thoughts on learning German here:

1) Total immersion is a thing of the past. I try to speak German most of the day and if a German is cheeky and responds to me in English I always answer in German. That said, it's extremely easy to fall back on English here. I know that anyone I meet my age will most probably speak English; They start them early - 5th grade or earlier! In some ways it's nice to be able to throw in an English word here and there, but I also know it's probably a crutch. Sigh.

2) The more I learn German and travel around this country and elsewhere in Europe, the more I realize what an asset it is to be a native English speaker. Along with our passports that get us into almost any country in the world (looked into Russia...it's a bit tricky), English als Muttersprache is such a trump card. I feel a bit arrogant saying that, but it's true. We Americans (or Brits, or Australians, etc.) can march into basically any country we want and most likely still be able to communicate. In Norway, for example, I eventually stopped asking if English was OK, because everyone spoke it almost fluently. In many parts of the world native English speakers can go and make a very good living teaching our language. It raises an interesting query: Yes, it is unfortunate that foreign language is not pushed so much in the US. But, if it's a question of the best allocation of resources, should foreign language be up there with math, science, and the English language?

3) A side note on the last point: Last night I was out at a party with some German friends, and when one girl saw me singing all the words to whatever rap song she stared at me with a bit of wonder and made an interesting point: "You can understand all the words in that song," she said. "Just like we understand everything in German." So yes, I live in a country where I do not have full comprehension of the language day-to-day, but I walk into any bar, club, or even grocery store and the music I hear makes perfect sense to me. And this music informs the culture of so many parts of the world. Interesting.

4) I speak so much better German when I'm not tired. I think my brain has to be completely "on" for me to be able to slip into the mode where I'm not automatically translating everything, but rather just understanding and responding. I love that I have German roommates, but I often find it challenging to go home and attempt to speak German with them (especially Lars with his heavy Bayerish accent) after a long day.

5) I spend alot of time these days analyzing how good my German is. Most Germans I speak to for the first time tell me my German is good, and I always respond by clutching my heart and a bit dramatically saying, "oh danke schön!" I doubt them though...there's so much more to learn, and so much quicker I need to speak! I always have to remind myself that I'm only three months into this experience, with eight months left. I gotta have a little faith.

Was hat passiert?

OK so some Germany tidbits, since that's what this year is all about:

Last weekend I visited my friends Chrissy and Whitney in Mainz, which is in the Rheinland-Pfallz region of Deutschland aka the wine region. On Saturday we attended a wine festival for federweisser and went on a wine tasting tour in the lovely town on the river Bingen. Wunderschön. That weekend also brought some halloween partying in Frankfurt and Mainz, and thus another excuse to rock our dirndls. We even found a Santa Clause to listen to our Christmas wishes!

A note on Halloween in Germany: it's really not so big here. And everyone thinks your costume should be scary. No sexy nurses, no cute lady bugs. And no dirndls. Many people asked us about them. Oh well.

Life in Erfurt is rolling along smoothly. I'm taking one political communication class and four German classes to hopefully verbessern my Deutsch. I really like the classes and the teachers (and also that all my classes are on Monday and Tuesday). Yesterday my fellow PPPer Erick and I gave a presentation about the American media system in the poli comm class. I was born for that! I'm also taking an aerobics and a yoga class in an attempt to compensate for the effects of too much sausage lolz.

My apartment is now basically a war zone. The American guy moved out, and a new girl moved in, and now the kitchen is full of random appliances und so weiter. Should be cleaned up this week, I hope! And apparently the landlord here is a bit like good ol' Mr. Lee back in Los Angeles. We must call him time and time again to fix something simple...apparently the whole system is like that though, say our regional representatives.

Grrr German bureaucracy. I've realized more and more that the country that prides itself on efficiency is really not so much efficient. I like the university, but nowhere is it truer than there. The amount of steps it took to be able to print something at the library was leckerlich (one of my favorite German words meaning ridiculous).

And I've finally encountered some strong anti-American sentiment. On the train back from the airport after my Norway trip I started talking to a police man who, upon learning I was an Amerikaner, told me he hated the US and that President Bush was worse than Hitler? Seeing his gun I kept my mouth shut. The program told us just to nod when things like that happen. It was difficult, though.

This weekend I'll be in Berlin for a media and politics seminar sponsored by InWent. I'm quite excited...we'll get to tour the Bundestag and some German TV stations, and I'll also get to see a friend from Taiwan! I was also asked by InWent to attend a week-long Model United Nations conference at the end of November in Bonn. I'll randomly be representing Lithuania so I'll make good on my promise to learn more about Eastern Europe. And there will be people from all over the world, so should be fun.

Anyone know where I can watch some bootleg CNN? I feel a bit disconnected from American politics right now, but I'm still itching to watch election coverage.

Trekking through Norway

Ahh Wednesdays are glorious...no 8AM class like on Mondays on Tuesdays so I am able to catch up on the winks that I inevitably lose on the weekends...and my blog.

Two weeks ago today I left for my Norway adventure. October and November are some of the best months to see the northern lights, so says Lonely Planet's Europe on a Shoestring, so I didn't want to miss out. The northern lights were at the top of my European wish list this time around, akin to last time's Salzburg and the Sound of Music Tour. Mission accomplished.

Here's a map of Norway: see Oslo, Bergen on the West coast, and Tromso in the far, far north:

I flew from Bremen (yep back to the old stomping grounds, and home to a Ryan Air airport) to Oslo for only 8€. I haven't had the best luck with Ryan Air before (delays, unclean aircraft, horribly unfriendly employees), but none of that this time. It was a pleasant journey, and from the Ryan Air airport out in the boonies I took a 1.5 hour bus trip into Oslo. 


First observation through the windows of the bus: Norway is one big Christmas tree farm. 


Oslo = meh. I only had a few daytime hours to look around, but what I saw didn't do it for me. Also, what happened that night may have something to do with my unfavorable opinion of the city: I was attacked by bed bugs :/


I'm always pretty good about reading hostel reviews online, but somehow I missed that the hostel was infested with bed bugs. Of course I didn't know this until I woke up the next morning covered in horribly itchy and swollen bed bug bites. I raced out of the hostel and into a pharmacy, where I was given hydrocortisone creme and some allergy medicine to take. With these things in hand I got onto my train to Bergen vowing not to let this unfortunate episode compromise my Norwegian adventure. Yuckkk. That's the definition of scheisse right there. 


The 7-hour train ride to Bergan was beautiful, lovely, all of the above. We cruised up into snow-covered mountains and villages and through fjords. All of the "Christmas trees" were covered in white, and it even started snowing on the ride! A novelty for this Louisianan/Californian. 

Bergen itself was also beautiful. It is on the water and nestled between mountains, and what I would considered to be a snow storm greeted me upon arrival. A nice Australian girl who shared basically my exact itinerary (she also had a copy of Europe on a Shoestring) and I explored the city together, walking through the Unesco World Heritage Site of Bryggen, the old wharf, and up to a viewpoint over the city. That night we also shared a delicious fish souffle dinner...still don't trust the seafood in Germany.

A note about traveling alone: Most times I prefer traveling with at least one other person, but for this trip I just wanted to be able to think, enjoy the surroundings, and go at my own pace. Apart from the Australian girl and some other nice people I met on the trip, Eat Pray Love turned out to be a good travel companion. I had been putting off reading the book but thought it would be especially appropriate for my own solo travels in another land. A wonderful read. 


The next early morning brought a flight to Tromso, by far the highlight of the trip. Tromso claims to have some of the most north in the world errything: university, brewery, Burger King. It is an absolutely stunning town (or really an island) with beautiful mountains, the ocean and fjords surrounding it. Just the nature experience I needed.

I stayed at a lovely converted fisherman's cabin with all the modern amenities and a great view of the harbor. I spent my three days there walking around alot and relaxing alot, and when not doing those things participating in more organized activities. On Saturday morning I took a guided horse tour on a neighboring island and had my very own white horse (just like Traveler!) to ride though the fjords and up into the mountains...stunning. On Sunday afternoon I took a cable car ride above the city, and on Sunday night a bus tour to see the northern lights.

Our driver took us to a clear place and we waited. There was so much anticipation...several things have to come together to see some nice lights, and it turned out we were very lucky that night. Twice we saw the lights dancing above us - like a long tunnel of green overhead that flurries back and forth. Once we even saw the green change to pink. My point and shoot camera can't do it justice, you just gotta go.

Quickly, my dears

I wish I had time to adequately write about my wunderschön trip to Norway, but alas I am about to leave Erfurt again for a long weekend. Until I have time to sit at my laptop and describe away about the big Christmas tree farm that is Norway, check out my pics:



Beautiful, no? New favorite country, for sure. I will be back to see those northern lights again! Look forward to hearing in detail about the scenery, my channeling a marshmallow with my winter wear, a white horse named Lua and an unfortunate encounter with bed bugs :/

I've barely had time to get my things together in Erfurt before leaving for my next reise. Tomorrow I am off to visit my friend Chrissy for the weekend in Mainz, which is in West Germany about three hours away. Plans include a day trip to Heidelberg, a wine tour of the Rhine Valley (heck yess), and some partying in Frankfurt for Halloween! Time to bring out my dirndl again...just hope the Germans think it's funny.

A trip back home...sort of

One culinary adventure I forgot to mention in my last post: Erfurt has a restaurant named Louisiana. Yes, like the state in which I was born and raised.

How funny, I thought, when I learned of this. I was also quite skeptical. It is very rare to find good, spicy, cajun cooking anywhere else than the place it was invented. My suspicions were accurate.

I went there on Wednesday night with two other PPPers. Turns out Louisiana is the weekly meeting spot of the German-American society, and a nice Erfurt student extended an invitation to us during orientation one day. The restaurant is a bit tackily decorated in everything American South. There is a mural on one of the back walls depicting riverboats on the Mississippi. The Louisiana state flag hangs in one corner of the restaurant. Etc. etc. etc.

The menu offered many of my favorites: jambalaya, etouffee, gumbo. But the offerings were suspiciously lacking of seafood, a staple in many dishes. A professor from the states sitting with us explained the menu had to be "Germanized" to suit the German palate. Case in point: the etouffee offered no shrimp, no spice, and almost no flavor. It was basically meat and some sparing vegetables served on top of rice. Hilarity. I'd say a step down from the "American-style" burgers we had at a restaurant here called "Texas."

But while the food was lacking as anticipated, I enjoyed my sojourn back to Louisiana. Now just gotta wait ten months to have the real stuff again :)

where i get my noms

The concept of the university cafeteria (or mensa as it is known here) is not foreign to those of us from the states. Big plates of food served en masse to students. I'm not sure if Germany does it better, but they certainly do it cheaper. Lemme explain...

So this week we've had lots of orientation stuff for the university. Tuesday we finally met most of the other international students. There's a large contingent from Eastern Europe, which has been really interesting for me. My knowledge of Eastern Europe is embarrassingly minute and I really want to use this opportunity to learn as much about all the countries ending in -ia as I can. So far I've studied the map a bit so I can give more than just a blank stare when someone tells me where they're from. My geography is only a bit better than my directional sense, which is not saying too much.


The rest of the week involved a scavenger hunt in the city (second place, thank you very much), a German test that thankfully subsequently placed me in the right level (I'm movin' on up baby woo hoo), and a karaoke welcome party wherein I excitedly performed "Country Roads." It still amuses me that almost all of the songs Germans listen to are American. And makes me feel at home. I love that anytime I go to a store, club, or bar here I am reminded of home. 


I also made a trip to the Erfurt Ikea this week to buy some much-needed pillows. Germans are fond of sleeping with one large and extremely soft pillow, but I am not. So to Ikea I went. The one here is exactly like the one I went to in Los Angeles, just with signs and price tags in German. I had some schwieregkeiten navigating the huge store, and my confusion was only exacerbated by my halfway comprehension of the language. What is the German word for pillow case? But now I have the proper lumbar support.


So...this mensa. Bomb.com. Why? It's freaking cheap! In Scotland I benefitted from subsidized meals at the Parliament and here I'm reaping the benefits again (thank you European taxpayers). Most plates are about 2€ and they're BIG. There's usually about 5 choices a day, and so far the meals I've had have been tasty. Alot of German specialties to try. This non-picky eater is quite content. I've taken to hovering around and staring at other people's plates before making my selection - maybe a good way to meet Germans?


Also public service announcement: I've only recently added the sausage count here, but this week I've decided to self-impose a moratorium on my sausage consumption. You know what they say about too much of a delicious thing...


One thing that's sorta funny about Erfurt is that it's small enough so that there's usually only one big party a night. And EVERYONE goes. I always see people I know, even though I've only been here for two weeks. It's like I'm back in good ole Baton Rouge. 


This weekend...possibly a day trip to Weimar. Next week courses start and then I'll be trekking to Norway to chase me some northern lights :)

brrrrr

The lovely sunny weather is gone and I am cold. Currently I'm bundled up under blankets and plotting my German winter weather strategy. What will this southern girl do?

Also I just noticed that one of my tabs visible on the screenshot blatantly shows I had to look up how to take a screen shot on a mac. Lustig, ja?

Onions and Sausages

In Louisiana we have many random festivals...the oyster festival, the strawberry festival, etc. So naturally here I'd be all about an onion festival. The other PPPers and I ventured on Friday night to Zwiebelmarkt in nearby Weimar. As expected, there were many things having to do with onions. I had a strange onion and meat dish served in a bread bowl as well as Zweibelkuche (onion cake). Both schmeckt mir sehr gut!

But that's not all, folks. The onion market was actually pretty fun. In addition to onion mania, it also offered many different stages with German bands and lots of awesome German fair food and beverages.

On Saturday InWent (the organization that takes care of us here in Germany) offered a day trip to Jena, an important university town about 30 minutes away from Erfurt. It is the center for Goethe and Schiller, German authors who we don't learn too much about in the US but who the Germans are crazy about. In my German class at USC, we once had a birthday party for Schiller, birthday cake with his face on it included.

Our tour guide Peter showed us around his home town and also offered insight to how the former DDR town functioned back in the day. He told me about how he and his son waited overnight in line to have the opportunity to purchase a car but nevertheless were beat to the chase. They would go weeks without products like Ketchup in the stores. I want to learn as much about former East Germany as I can while I am here, so I really appreciated his stories. It is so interesting for me to think every day that the ground I walk on was just 20 years ago part of the DDR.

The day included a city tour, a trip up to the top of Jena's highest building, and a viewing at the world's oldest planetarium. We watched the story of men in space, one of my favorite topics! It was so lovely also to see that many stars, even if they were not real. I really need to figure out how to see some stars around here.

Also, readers, I've been amiss in not explaining one of Thuringen's specialities, Thuringer Bratwurst. Yes, I ended up in the Bundesland that created this deliciosity, and I'm pretty excited about it. Thuringer Bratwurst is bratwurst with some type of spice that makes it even more tasty than the regular ones. And good news is that they're everywhere! I hope to start some type of count on this blog with how many sausages I've eaten. Look for that soon, if I am able to muster the technological agility to figure it out.

German doesn't have a word for "pet peeve," but...

Question: "Helen, your blog entries are so positive - what don't you like about Germany?"

Well, imaginary questioner, here's my list so far:

1. Most restaurants don't have tap water. If they do, you likely still have to pay for it. And when you ask for tap water (or leitungswasser as it's known here) it's likely you're being judged as totally plebeian. I miss huge glasses of ice water with lemon for free. Beer is literally cheaper than water here - almost always.

2. The weather. Except for this lovely week in Erfurt, it's been mostly chilly and rainy.

3. How fast the walking signal at crosswalks turns. In many places in Bremen you literally would have to run to be able to make it. And no countdown.

4. That the trains are often late, meaning you often miss your connection or have to haul booty in the train station.

5. Germans' notions of what constitutes spicy is comical. Yesterday I had a choice between mild and hot salsa and bought the hot one. What, dis is hot? i thought once I tried it. JOKES.

6. How unspecific the language seems to be. I've heard that English has twice as many words as German. The same verbs are used for errything! And the hilarious expressions I love so much in English don't exist here. I suppose I'll just have to get better at the language, and then I'll (hopefully) discover German ones. Germans are a bit serious, though.

7. Rarely any free bathrooms.

8. Umlauts. "Cake" and "kitchen" are spelled the same, with just an umlaut's difference. It is impossible for me.

9. Where be the good Mexican food? One of the other CBYXers with me in Erfurt is Mexican, and he said the owner of a Mexican restaurant in Cologne (who was not Mexican) offered that he become his partner so he could teach him how to cook! Hilarity.

10. Very small refrigerators. Not all that much fits!

11. No In-n-Out (lol). Once in college my roommates and I went to In-n-Out 3 times in 24 hours. We had a problem.

Now these are all pretty small things, I'm just feeling a bit whiny today :) Don't worry bout me, the endless supply of bratwurst and hefeweizen make up for it.

Die Sonne scheint!

I've added more pictures to the last slideshow and see here my wohnung (aren't I so technologically savvy? aka I googled "how to embed picasa picture slideshow into blogspot")



A la a request from Lilly, a display of my video journalism skills is still to come!

The last two days in Erfurt have been wunderwar, largely because the weather has been wunderwar. The sun has shown its lovely face in Germany once more! I spent the last two days walking tons around the city and taking naps in the sun. Thus, my pale pale skin finally has a bit of color (I still will probably start university channeling Casper, though). It has been so nice to stroll around ohne jacke, although I know it's a farce - colddd weather to come soon. I had it so good in Los Angeles, sigh.

Yesterday I met my lovely university student tutor Nina, and today she and a friend took me and my fellow CBYXers on a campus tour. Nicht schlecht. This week is free, but the whole next week we will be in orientation for international students. Fun to be had, I'm sure.

Funny Helen story: Last night I returned to my wohnung at night and the downstairs door (which until then had never been locked) was locked. I tried furiously with my key for probably 15 or 20 minutes but to no avail. Freaking out a bit, I started buzzing all the apartments until someone let me in. That person came out of my apartment and turns out he's my new roommate (will be taking the room of the aforementioned American guy soon). And turns out my key works perfectly fine, I was just not using it the right way, as he easily demonstrated to me. Of course. Key problems plague me everywhere.

New guy seems chill. He sports dreds, comes from Munich, and is studying forestry at a fochhochschule.  Annddd he speaks little English, which means I'm gonna have to use German! Woo hoo!

"Klein aber Fine"

Follow here my walking tour of my new home:



I've left die Bremerstadtmusikanten and made it to Erfurt! After a day of fighting Deutsche Bahn's what seem to be inevitable delays (cliche about German trains always being on time = NOT true grrr), I arrived here on Thursday afternoon.

Katharina, my lovely new tutor from the program, was there to fetch me from the train station and bring me to my WG (think shared apartment). I am very impressed, and very happy with my new accommodations. We live on the top floor of a building that is only a 10 minutes walk from central Erfurt. My room is a bit small although completely adequate for my needs, and the rest of the apartment is fantabulous, open, and nicely furnished. We have a large living room with comfortable couches and a big tv, a spacious-by-German standards kitchen with a nice table, and separate bathing room and bathroom. And this bather is especially giddy over the tub...I'm weird, I know, I know. That's how we Mosers roll :)

Pictures to come of mah new digs soon. I've only met my roommate briefly. He's an American guy probably in his late 20s, and he seems to be gone for work alot. Oh and I already epicly failed by speaking English with his German girlfriend...now she probably won't want to speak German with me sighhh.

Erfurt the town/city/what do you call a place with 200,000 people? screams fairy tale everywhere. What I've seen so far is absolutely lovely - unlike many German towns Erfurt was not mostly demolished in WWII so it still has all of the old buildings intact. Most German towns I've visited have one old central square, but Erfurt has many many and even the un-square buildings are medieval. The big squares are connected by cobblestone streets and almost-hidden alleys...nice to look at but not so good for mah shoes.

A local woman we met last night at Erfurt Oktoberfest (yep, what a serendipitous time to arrive!) said Erfurters describe the town as "klein aber fine." (That's Germlish for small but fine). Naturally, I love this.

Note on living in Eastern Germany: I've noticed very few differences yet, but at Oktoberfest they played very few American songs. Same was true at a disco. I've also heard that living in Eastern Germany is a bit cheaper, and the diet coke I purchased yesterday from a bakery was only 1€ (in Bremen or Cologne it was always at least 2€). No causation yet, just observations. The Germans I've met so far here seem to be very,very nice. We spent last night with a group of randomly met graduate students, and they benevolently spoke to us only in German and offered to take us on a stadt tour.

Read here an article from the NYT this week about Erfurt and reunification...sehr interessant and timely!

I'm here with two other CBYX/PPPers right now, and we explored a bunch yesterday. The central square is called Anger and it leads to the main shopping street. Turning away from Anger takes you to the Kramerbrucke, possibly Erfurt's most famous landmark. I believe it's the world's only bridge with homes built on it. Follow the cobble stones further and you find the Rathaus square and then Domplatz, home to two imposing churches that overlook the town. Above the Domplatz is a preserved fortress with wonderful views of the city below.

I'm giddy to be somewhere where it seems I can walk everywhere I want to go (except the university...that requires the strassenbahn, I believe). Already I know my way around fairly decently, and I imagine I will quite enjoy many strolls. And I have much time to stroll haha...classes at the university do not start until October 18!

Nothing else to say but...OKTOBERFEST

When Americans think about Germany, the stereotypes that emerge always include beer, lederhosen and dirndls, and sausages...all can be found at OKTOBERFEST.

Naturally we Amerikaners couldn’t pass up the opportunity to attend the festivities in Munich, and the fact that this year was the 200^th anniversary of Oktoberfest (or Wiesn as the cooler locals call it) made our attendance even more imminent. In so many ways Oktoberfest was just as I had imagined it…four million people raucously celebrating in beer tents, listening to traditional German bands, and drinking beers almost too heavy to pick up.  Total toll.

We arrived in Munich early Friday morning after taking (for me) an almost-sleepless night train. First stop: a Trachten store. (Trachten is the name for lederhosen, dirndls, and all the traditional Oktoberfest clothing). Fifteen minutes later and joyously donning a dirndl, I headed to the Theresenweise, the grounds of the Oktoberfest.

What we came to looked like a gargantuan state fair, with carnival rides and food stands everywhere. And spread amongst all these things were numerous huge beer tents and beer gardens, probably numbering 20 or so. It took about 20 minutes to walk from one side to the other…not so pleasant when you’re wearing a dirndl and it’s raining. We had delightful weather Friday and Sunday, but Saturday was wet. Good thing we were mostly inside :)

The next three days all went something like this: Wake up super early in the morning from our not-so-classy tent campground in the outskirts of Munich, put on dirndls and lederhosen, and then race to the grounds to attempt to get into a beer tent. On Friday we had good luck getting into the Schottenhamel tent, the main and supposedly the best. We stayed there from early morning through the late afternoon listening to the band playing traditional German music and occasionally some American favorites (“Country Roads,” anyone?). As the day progresses, more and more people stand up on the benches and dance. Glee.

I’ve been in many crowded situations in my life, but this took the cake. As non-reserved seats in tents are a bit difficult to come by, the early morning opening is a mob scene. You gotta know what you’re doing and where you’re going, otherwise you’d definitely fall behind. A bit of a war mentality, and the prize – a seat at a table -  is definitely worth it.

The oh-so-famous Oktoberfest beer ladies do exactly what you think. They come to your table, take your beer order (most tents only had one selection – a one liter mass of their special Oktoberfest beer), and then are required to carry every single person’s order back to the table at the same time.  We saw women with 20 huge beers somehow contained in their arms. My wee hands wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Oh and the food…the lecker, lecker Bavarian food. During the weekend I had more sausages than I’d like to reveal, much potato salad, a pretzel bigger than my face,  something called pork bread, many succulent half chickens split with the group, and a plate of kase spätzle in ode to my Swiss grandfather. Nomnomnom.

 On Saturday and Sunday we visited tents named Himmel der Bayern (sky of Bavaria) and the Paulaner tent, respectively. Himmel der Bayern was probably my favorite, as the whole tent was painted as a sky.

 Riding the afternoon train back to Bremen on Sunday I was exhausted and dirty but quite content…give me a few years (or 50) and I may just be back to the festivities again.