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.