Meow meow

Can woman exist on chocolate, beer, and sausage alone?

haha that was a thought I pondered today as I walked home from the Burger Park...the answer seems to be yes in this country. Now I promise those are not the only things I am consuming (I am actually a big veggie fan), but they do those things very well here. 

I'm now at the end of just my first week in Bremen, but it feels as though so much more time has passed. For whatever reason this is now normalcy...very busy normalcy but still normalcy.

Last week I did everything I needed to set up life in a new land: buying a new sim card for cell phone? check. Getting a good German-English dictionary? check. Figuring out how and where to buy contact solution? check (it's far more difficult to find it here than in the US). getting my body to adjust to the new time zone and way of life? halfway check. That darn cat (Lillehhh) keeps waking me up in the mornings! Sie hat meowt (meow = meow in German too!).

On Friday night a group of us decided to find a fun bar to hit up, and I proceeded to get directions from one of my German teachers. We went to a place called Lagerhaus but had to leave really before the party really started in order to be able to get up early for our excursion to Hamburg the next day. Germans go out very late (around 1 am) and party all night long. Soon...

Hamburg was an interesting day trip: It's a huge port city and is much bigger than Bremen. Due to a fellow CBYXer's shenanigans we didn't have seats for the one and a half hour train ride, but I still enjoyed looking out the window as I always do...a guy in our group said one can sum up the German countryside with this: green space, tiny village, green space, McDonald's, green space, tiny village... and er ist richtig. 

In Hamburg we took a boat tour of the harbor, chilled near the beach along the river, and then took a walk-around of the antiquated city center. Excitingly there was also a wine festival going on, and a friend and I sampled some delicious German Riesling to accompany our typical German festival food...sehr gut!

Sundays are very slow days in Germany. Most stores are closed (no 24-hour Wal-Marts here), so it really is a day for relaxation. I joined some friends in the beautiful Burger Park (Bremen's grandiose park near the Hbf)  this afternoon for a saunter and then returned home to prepare for a dinner party with my host family...hearing six Germans speak super schnell Deutsch around you is a bit of a mind garble, but I made German friends! The two very blonde-haired, very blue-eyed, and very nice sons of Ines' friend agreed to show me around town one night this week. 

Already I have had many very positive experiences with German people. I have found that if you at least attempt to speak German, they are usually very receptive and helpful. I think my German has already gotten much better in the one week I've been here, especially in comprehension. On the street trams I often try to listen in on conversations to see if I can decipher what people are talking about and while walking I try to think of words in German. As a bit of a wordsmith, though, it's frustrating sometimes to know exactly what I want to say but not how I can say it...hopefully I will get there. 

Also, I have been very impressed so far with the CBYX program. The fellowship is extremely well-run (by Germans, so of course it is) and we have a lot of support here. Anna, our "tutor," is an absolutely lovely person who answers every question we have...and naturally we have lots.  I really have begun to realize how fortunate I am to be here, doing this, right now. 

The unofficial motto of the program is "it's not good, it's not bad, it's just different" so here are some things that fall into that category:

1. The dogs here are EXTREMELY well-behaved (weenie dogs included!) And dogs are everywhere.

2. Tiny supermarkets (Frustrating to me, but I'm working on reframing my view of this to "different").

3. No open container laws. Nuff' said. 

4. No free tap water at restaurants, and almost no one drinks tap water (nicht so gut for me...i guzzle water at home).

5. "Different" snacks...peanut puffs (which are actually quite delicious) among them.

6. Days that last until almost 10 pm and a still-early sunrise.

7. Eating with your hands always above the table...it takes alot of concentration not to slip back into the plebeian American ways.

Of course there are more, I'm off to discover them :)