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.