UI Girls Gone Wild… Abroad
Lauren & Brittney do Europe

Archive for January, 2010

I left my heart in Bavaria

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Unfortunately no blog post could do my current feelings justice—there are no words for how much I loved Bavaria and how amazingly fantastic my weekend was.  (Also, just to set the scene: I’ve just embarked on the train ride back, and my exchange with the ticket man went flawlessly—huge win.)

Arriving in Munich on Thursday night, I was NERVOUS.  I didn’t know if I’d even recognize Sebas or if it’d be super awkward or if he’d decided he had better things to do than pick me up at the station.  <Note to the readers who’ve come into my life post-high school: Sebas (Sebastian) was a foreign exchange student my junior year of high school.  I was his best friend in America—we went to prom together and he was unrequitedly enamored with me.  We haven’t exactly kept good contact in the last four years, but I got in touch when I knew I was coming here and he graciously offered to let me hang with him in Munich.>  Finding him in the station wasn’t a problem; he looks the same only WAY MORE jacked.  He’s in the German Air Force and could easily kill someone with his bare hands.  I suppose one could say Sebas got hot.  It was after midnight so we did some catching up and then went to bed.

Friday morning we set out to explore Munich, a city that at first sight isn’t much to look at, but is now my FAVORITE (and yes, I’m including Vegas in this ranking.)  We went to some giant, old, gorgeous cathedral with a Glockenspiel that plays twice a day and little mechanical characters up that top move around and dance.  We did a ton of walking around and then we needed lunch (awesome perk of keeping company whose biceps are bigger than my head is that he constantly requires sustenance.)  Two words for you: Bavarian food.  Out of this world.  Unbelievable.  Died and gone to heaven.  We went to some adorable restaurant with long tables and benches (come to think of it, that was the seating everywhere we ate this weekend.  LOVE IT) and had Weisswurst and hot soft pretzels.  With the wurst comes a sweet senf (mustard) that is exclusive to this region and so delicious.  Sebas showed me how to properly eat it and we drank and ate and talked and I had a HUGE SMILE on my face because I LOVE BAVARIA.  Unfortunately, the whole time I was thinking of my parents and Neil back home who I wanted so desperately to be there because I seriously can’t put into words how awesome it was.

After lunch we did some more walking then went to a mall to buy me shoes.  I don’t know what kind of drugs I was on when deciding I didn’t need to wear boots, cloth clogs would suffice as my only footwear for the weekend.  Luckily Sebas is a self-proclaimed metrosexual and has more ex-girlfriends than 713 combined so was more than happy to shop with me.  After getting some flats and a shirt more suitable for our evening plan of going out on the town, we went to the Hofbrauhaus.  I’ve been to the one in Vegas so was pretty excited to visit the original.

MY FAVORITE PLACE IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD IS THE HOFBRAUHAUS IN MUNCHEN, GERMANY.

I died.  Life does not get any better.  My wedding reception will be at the Hofbrauhaus (this is only if they don’t let me just have the ceremony there as well.)  If for some horrible reason I procreate, my child will be named Hofbrauhaus.  Upon my death (possibly from choking on a pretzel in the Hofbrauhaus) please bury me at the Hofbrauhaus.

The place was PACKED on a Friday night around 9 pm, but ol’ Sebas fired up his perfect Deutsch and asked a group of four if we could join their benches.  He ordered us each a liter of beer and giant pretzels.  Now when I say giant pretzel, I don’t think you understand: this pretzel was the size of a tire.  Beer and bread?  I just went from six to midnight.  We each had another liter of beer (if you’re asking how my stomach fit two liters of heavy German beer AND a pretzel that could crush a toddler, I don’t know either.  It didn’t feel awesome.)  At a long table kinda near us was a group of four or five old Bavarian men, dressed in their traditional lederhosen and hats.  Sebas was in the bathroom or something, and one of them saw me with my beer so raised his giant mug to me and tipped his hat.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME—adorable.  I “Prost”-ed him back and continued making eyes at this fifty-something overweight bespectacled mustachioed rosy-cheeked Bavarian (who will now on be referred to as my German boyfriend.)  When Sebas returned he asked my boyfriend if I could take a picture with him and to my absolute delight he said of course.  After our adorable engagement photo was taken, he pointed to his cheek for a kiss and then planted a wet one on mine and then we hugged and it was THE CUTEST THING YOU’VE EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE.  He then told Sebas it’d been 30 years since he’d kissed a pretty girl, then one of his drunk lederhosen-wearing friends said he was jealous.  That man totally made my night.  After ze Hofbrauhaus we went to bar/ nightclub thing and drank lots and danced to American 90s music and German techno.

Saturday we drove (AUTOBAHN!!!) to Regensberg, a city about an hour from Munich where Sebas grew up.  His mom made schnitzel and pommes for lunch and his sister made some delicious cake especially for my arrival.  We went into town and saw another super old cathedral then walked along the Danube River.  And then, something wonderful happened:

I ATE AT THE BIRTHPLACE OF BRATWURST.

Wurstkuchl is a teeeeny tiny wooden restaurant that was producing some smoky scents akin to what I imagine Heaven smells like.  The bratwursts are much smaller than American ones (and about a million times even better tasting) and you can order them in 6, 12, 18, so on.  They come with sauerkraut and homemade spicy mustard and there are baskets of rolls on each table should you wish to make a mini-bratwurst sandwich.  The walls of the miniscule, low-ceiling dining room (there were maybe four tables in there) are covered with old photographs of generations of Germans with their bratwurst.  I may have lied when I said the Hofbrauhaus is my favorite place ever—this place was that great.  It unfortunately made me a bit sad because there is only ONE PERSON who I should’ve been eating at the birthplace of bratwurst with.  Luckily there is no way I’m not going back there multiple times in my life, so NPH and I can make this pilgrimage to bratwurst mecca together.

Later that evening we had an AMAZING dinner of Leberkasen (something about liver?  I was apprehensive, it’s essentially a giant pink log with crusty brown casing but deeelicious), pretzels (which his mom bought because he told her how much I like them, I love this family) and Kartoffelnsalat (German potato salad.)  This meal was amazing, perhaps my favorite of the whole weekend (and yes, I realize we ate like 20 times in three days.  Bavarian food is hands down the best in the world.)  SO FULL, but we had socializing to do, so got ready and met some more of his super cute friends in town at the Hookah bar.  After that we did some bar hopping, and I DRANK FIRE.  We had flaming B-52 shots and I only slightly burned my tongue because well, I DRANK FIRE.  If I had a bucket list, this would be crossed off.

Today was the last of my indescribably amazing homemade Bavarian meals, this time it was Knudeln.  Knudeln are the size of a tennis ball and made with potatoes and flour and I’m not sure what, then boiled and they come out a very strange consistency.  Squishy, almost gummy?  It’s super hard to explain.  They’re pretty bland, but not too bad served with a pork roast and lots of sauce (like a very thin brown gravy.)  After lots of talking and playing with their dog Ansel it was time to return to Munich for me to catch my train.

Pictures of me with my middle-aged German boyfriend to come!

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Uf.

Friday, January 29th, 2010

I’ve been here just under two weeks, but it feels like a month. I started my intensive course this week. It’s essentially a general overview of Spanish history starting with the Romans in II B.C., and ending…? At the end of week one, we’re in the 15th century. I’m assuming we’ll skip ahead to Franco sooner or later.

I saw too many buildings/churches/museums/cathedrals/palaces this week to possibly recall. On Tuesday I took a cab over to the Macarena barrio with two girls from class to check out the muralla (giant wall) and Basílica de la Macarena (shiny church). This was not so much a choice as it was a mandate from our instructor. I’m not a practicing Catholic, but being raised in the church has served me well in this town. I can’t imagine how confusing Catholic customs are to non-Catholics. Being Christian wouldn’t help much— I know plenty of protestants and non-denominational Christians who still can’t quite grasp the Catholic mentality. And hey, I’m right there with them.

GOLD

One of several altars for the Virgin Mary in the Basílica de la Macarena.

Sevilla has almost as many Catholic churches as it does churro stands, and if you multiply the number of churches by the number of churro stands, that’s probably how many bars there are throughout town. My advisor was right when she said Spain is a very homogeneous country. I don’t know what the actual demographics are in Andalucía, but good luck finding a non-Spanish, non-Catholic in Sevilla. Coming from an upbringing in west-suburban Chicago and attending the University of Iowa, one might assume that I’m accustomed to racial — even religious — homogeneity. Still, I feel like I’ve encountered more diversity in my Midwestern homeland than I have so far abroad.

/tangent. I was going somewhere with that, before my religion blurb. So, the basilica: shiny, ornate, barroque. Holy crap (no… pun…intended?). It was interesting, in some ways pretty, but it was also the gaudiest, glittery-est place of worship I’ve ever seen. I would probably have a seizure if I went to mass there, or I’d just be blinded by a gold-encrusted Jesus.

I also went to the famous cathedral of Sevilla yesterday, which was not so glittery. Simply colossal. I think it’s the third largest cathedral in the world? Don’t quote me on that. Either way, the size of the cathedral and tall, arched ceilings are incredible. I wanted to get a photo with me in front of Christopher Columbus’ tomb with a cheesy pose… Leaning up against it? Pretending to mack on one of the statue men nearby? But I was with my class, so I resentfully restrained from doing so.

Alcázar

Gardens at the Alcázar.

So far, my favorite tourist trap/historic spot in the city is easily the Alcázar. It was constructed after the reconquest of Sevilla by the Catholics in the 13th century, but it’s all Muslim-inspired design. Estilo mudéjar. One very small part of the alcázar — the mihrab — remains from the original Muslim construction. The rest was built after the Catholics took over Sevilla. I received a pretty slanted, pro-Muslim education at Iowa regarding the Muslim invasion of Spain in 711 and the Spanish Reconquest. Although I’m not sure what to think of this era in history, since the rhetoric in my class swayed in favor of one group, at least the Catholics took heed from the Muslims when it came to architecture. Catholic architecture, at least what I’ve studied, is uninteresting, ugly and arguably dysfunctional. So kudos on the Alcázar, guys. You may have violently pushed the Muslims out of al-Andalus, but the Alcázar is quite nice. Bravo.

When I’m not learning history or being a tourist, I spend a lot of time here with the space heater. It’s freakin’ cold. As I tell everyone, these palm trees are deceiving. I triple layered my jackets yesterday. Dónde está el sol????? Why am I so pale???? Why, why??

Tonight, I intend to go out and stay awake past 2 a.m. Baby steps. I’ve met more people in my class this week, which is good. More people who are similar to me, and can’t function while in a constant daily cycle of drunk/hungover, drunk/hungover, like the majority of the kids in my program. Drunk/hungover is fine, durante los fines de semana.

I also went for tapas with my friend Emily the other night, which was great because a) she’s a fellow Jezzie, b) she despises leggings worn as pants, and c) it got me away from the space heater for a while. Hopefully we’ll salir juntas tonight, along with my new friend/neighbor/classmate Francesca. Francesca and I finally visited the churro stand at the end of the Puente de Triana last night, where we couldn’t enjoy our dessert without laughing because churros are so very phallic, and we are so very immature.

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Why I hate trains

Friday, January 29th, 2010

At about 4:30 I departed the comfort of my frigid, bockwurst- stocked apartment and set about on my epic trip to Munich.  Bus ride from campus to the Luneburg train station, train to Hamburg, world’s longest train ride to Munich.  With my student i.d., Metronome trains from Luneburg to Hamburg are free.  Upon arriving at the Luneburg train station, I discovered the Metronome (read: slow) trains only leave on the half of each hour, not EVERY half hour (come to think of it, Deutsch AND English can both go to hell.)  Luckily, there was an IC (read: fast) train leaving for Hamburg much sooner, though I technically didn’t have a ticket.

In case you weren’t aware, Germans like rules.  So much so in fact, public transportation tickets are purchased on an honor system—very rarely do passengers get stopped by some undercover ticket checker whose job is probably heinously boring because GOD FORBID someone get on a bus/subway/train and try to cheat the system.

Since the slower train would get me to Hamburg one minute AFTER my train to Munich was supposed to leave, I playing well the role of obnoxious American, threw the rule book out the window and hopped on the fast train.  The ride takes 15 minutes maximum—while I’ve never been good at math, statistically I figured the chance that someone discovered my stowaway status in that small window of time was quite insignificant.  Looking back, there is a reason I copied most of my stats final from the kid sitting next to me.  Just when I was settling into my stolen seat, heart rate returning to normal, ridiculous amounts of perspiration finally drying: the ticket man showed up.  Oh fuck.

My fellow American students, who have obviously cheated the system hundreds of times before, had told me that in this situation it is best to play the “But I thought my student i.d. let me ride for free?” card and hope the ticket man wasn’t harboring anymore anti-US sentiments than are to be expected (this must have been near impossible during the Bush administration.)  When in any sort of confrontation, my automatic response is a deer in headlights stammering clusterfuck of an exchange in which any helpful German words I’ve learned completely escape my mind, rendering me either heinously American or mute.  In this situation it was both.  The ticket man spoke maybe three words of English, and he used them over and over as he was telling me over and over in German that my ticket was from HAMBURG to MUNICH, WHY was I on a train TO Hamburg?  He was not pleased with me.  My fellow passengers didn’t even attempt to hide their gawking.  At least the man legitimately thought I was a dumbass and didn’t realize my error “You have to BUY a ticket! To Hamburg!” when in reality I was fully aware of my near-fugitive status.  He punched a bunch of things into his little handheld ticket-checker thing and I was quite certain I’d be given a ticket or death sentence by tribunal.  After a few minutes he said something about “Well at least you bought the ticket from Hamburg to Munich” and left.  So… win?

The whole goal of today was to GET ON the correct train to Munich.  Once settled, I could certainly entertain myself for six hours before trying to find a kid I haven’t seen for four years in a foreign city at midnight.  Well, I got on… now where to sit?  For an extra four Euro, I could have reserved a seat on the train.  But do you know how much beer you can buy with four Euro?  Surely I could find an open seat that didn’t have the word “Reserviat” above it (put there, I am now convinced, by the Devil himself.)  Wrong again, self—today really isn’t your day.  I walked through each car, “November Rain” and Slash’s beyond perfect solos distracting my brain from certain implosion.  I got to the end of the line with no luck, but was resolute in that I would not be standing in an aisle with my kindergartner-sized backpack on for six hours.  Car 1, Seat 43 is where you now find me.  The little light above it said it belongs to someone going to Nurnberg (we have a few stops, at least I’m technically allowed to sit here for the final leg or so.) 

By some freak miracle, the person who was supposed to be sitting here never showed—we’re now far enough into the ride that I can make this statement with some confidence (though with how this trip has gone so far, I am a fool for doing so.)  Upon choosing this seat, I didn’t exactly get comfortable.  In fact, I was far less nervous when giving the graduation speech in front of hundreds in my high school.  My right leg was rapidly bouncing up and down, most likely convincing those around me that I was either strapped down with bombs or still awake after a three-day meth binge.  While other passengers shed their coats and unwrapped over-priced train station sandwiches for dinner, I sat rigidly upright, giant backpack at my feet (in retrospect, only adding to the jihadist-vibes I had going on.)  Each stone-faced German coming down the aisle was surely the rightful sitter in Seat 43, though I figured the worst they could do was send me back down the aisle, tail between my legs, to hide out in the bathroom while trying to gauge exactly how upset my father would be if I made an international cell phone call (read: meltdown) to NPH. 

Once it was obvious to me (and those around me who could TOTALLY tell I was seat-stealing) that I was in the clear, I ate the stale brotchen I packed for dinner and fired up my laptop (no, T-Mobile, I will NOT pay eight Euro for wireless.)  When the ticket man came into our car, I took mine out and gave it to him with only a small amount of visible hand tremors.  But no, Houston had another problem.  This time he asked for my Bahn Card, which I technically own, it’s just not in my possession yet.  This baby gives me discounts on train tickets and will be sent to me in the mail.  Since I’d only recently purchased it, I was to use my Visa as i.d. when showing the ticket.  APPARENTLY there was a SEPARATE SCREEN I was supposed to print from some EMAIL IN GERMAN and just using my Visa didn’t fly.  Thank Jesus in Heaven for the lovely twenty-something frauline next to me who volunteered as translator for this whole ordeal.  Ticket man charged 70 Euro (the amount I saved by using said questionably existing Bahn Card) to my credit card which should be refunded to me at a later time at some magic refund counter.  After each stop when the ticket man passes through, he just kind of smiles at me like some poor wounded animal— a poor wounded animal he can’t wait to get off his train.  Immediately afterward, I cranked “Party in the USA” because isn’t that EVERYONE’S go-to pick me up tune? 

Sudafed doesn’t lie when they say 12-hour decongestant—at exactly 7:15 pm the force of a frying pan slammed my sinuses, so I excused myself to the WC (which by the way, smells like they wash it down with rancid urine) and took another one by sticking my head under the faucet and lapping at the pathetic stream like above mentioned wounded animal.  Since the pseudoephedrine is stronger than the Death Cab that was lolling me to sleep, I’ve fired up Season 4 of Weeds so long as my laptop battery lasts.  Ooh Nancy just admitted to setting her house on fire—this deserves my undivided attention.   If you’re reading this, I’ve made it to Munich.  Go me.

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Essen/ Comida/ FOOD!

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Although it snowed last night, it’s ridiculously warm out today (YEAAAA!!!), yet it’s currently raining while the sun is shining.  If Mother Nature were a pop star, she’d probably shave her head this weekend then check into rehab.

Let’s talk food: the Germans know what’s up with meals.  Their largest meal is at lunch, which we usually eat in the Mensa.  It’s about two Euro for a main dish and side; I usually get some sort of wurst and vegetables.  This meal will leave me ridiculously full for hours.  I’ve never before had the urge to go out and harvest crops by hand for hours, but after lunch in Germany, I always feel fueled enough for hours of slave labor without getting hungry angry until well after dinnertime.  Dinner (supper?) is always lighter, lots of households just have Abendbrot (night bread).  The biggest difference, at least for me, is the lack of focus on low-fat this and no sodium that.  You’re eating real food, not giant portions, but not restricting yourself from bread/ sauces/ real flavor.  They’re not the healthiest eaters (we’re much more concerned about getting our 5 fruits & veggies a day) but as a culture they’re not as obsessed with food as America is, and you can tell by the general look of people.  While many older Germans are overweight, very few of my peers are, and I’ve seen maybe two “obese” people in my almost month of being here.

I don’t really miss any foods from home (kettle corn from the movie theater is an exception, but I miss that even when I’m in Iowa City.)  Not to jinx myself, but my clothes fit better and my belts can go tighter since arriving.  This is thanks to:

1. I try to spend as little money as possible on food.  Also, with the ridiculous filling capacity of the cafeteria food (which isn’t great, but isn’t horrible– I’ve pretty much gotten to the point where I’ll eat anything put in front of me) I only need to buy a box of cereal and some pasta and/or sandwich stuff for my week.

2. The constant state of “Today just might be the day I actually die of hypothermia” has probably revved my metabolism, and constant shaking has to burn calories, right?  Actually, I walk a million more steps each day here, and it’s like a freakin’ Nordic Track whenever I step outside thanks to Luneburg’s inability to PLOW THE STREETS.

3.  I drink less in Germany.  (Shout out to my little brother would responded to this revelation with “Well that’s not hard to do.”)  Yes, in the land of beer halls, ales by the liter, and the setting of Beerfest, I consume less alcohol than in the months leading up to my trip.  This is in direct opposition to apparently every other person in my program– one kid said “I’ve drank more in the last two weeks than I did all last year.”  Before you start planning my intervention, may I remind you of where I go to school, with whom I spend my time (Seven “Today ends in Y so I bought a case of beer” Thirteen), and my sparkling academic record.  Also, it’s physically impossible to drink as much German beer as our piss water back home because it’s sooooooo filling, and it has higher alcohol content so it gets the job done quicker.  It’s also incredibly less socially acceptable to be inebriated here, whereas in Iowa City if you haven’t broken a bone or wet your pants while drunk at least three times before graduation, they might not give you a diploma.

Speaking of food and alcohol, I’m off this evening to Munich to visit our foreign exchange student from high school, my junior prom date, the one and only Sebas.  Say a quick one to the Man Upstairs that I get on the right train and survive the SIX HOUR TRIP from essentially the very north of the country to the very south.  I’m pretty excited because Bavaria (the region I’ll be in) is what we stereotype as German– liederhosen, ze Hofbrauhaus, giant pretzels, and apparently better beer.  Not sure if I’ll be blogging on my journey, but expect a full recap come Monday.

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Sally Field speech

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Holy hot wurst, Batman– she’s getting it.

Today the sun has decided to hang out so I walked the 15-20 minutes back to main campus from my  morning class instead of taking the bus.  On the way, a German girl who was obviously in a hurry asked me (auf Deutsch) for directions to Rotes Feld.  I UNDERSTOOD HER QUERY, told her I could help her, asked if she spoke English (hey, it’s only been three weeks) then gave her correct directions to her desired destination (which, for the record, is in HER country, not mine, I’m awesome.)  I also got an A on my first unit exam.  I always knew I liked Tuesdays.

As all of you know, or have figured out by now, I’m painfully awkward in most all even mildly social situations.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t jive well with being a foreigner, and last night these two very obvious traits came to a clash.

Scene: Kitchen.

Time: Around… 9:30 pm.

Feeling: Kinda hungry.  I had cooked up a bockwurst (essentially a giant hot dog) when I got home from class, but after much voracious Facebook chatting with NPH, mild hunger pangs struck again.  Normally I would go to the kitchen, get a small bowl of cereal or piece of toast BUT– on Monday nights my super cute roommate has lots of people over and they cook together or something.  All I ever knew of it was a lot of doorbell-ringing, passionate kicken playing, music, laughter, lots of food– so I’ve hid out in my room every Monday thus far.  Now, due to my social anxiety for which I’m sure I’ll one day need intensive therapy, I planned on ignoring my need for sustenance instead of venturing into the common area where I would surely be seen by these German strangers who would only know me as That Homeless American Girl.But I think you all know… This (Previously) Homeless American Girl sure loves food.  The thought of waking up not only frozen to my bedsheets but ALSO starving was too much for me, so I threw caution to the wind and LEFT MY BEDROOM for the kitchen.

The entire room saw my entrance; there had to be at least 10 girls talking in a circle, looking chic and European and drinking wine, while adorable roomie and his two friends manned the stove.  (Note: his friends have always been super nice to me.  Saying hi, asking me how I am, speaking English, helping me when I lost my keys.  So really, the question here is: WTF, Brittney.  My mental issues will obviously have to be saved for another post.)  Then, the very worst thing happened.  A girl (who kinda looked familiar, but since I generally look at the floor unless in the presence of friends I have high amounts of comfortability with, so couldn’t really be sure) CAME UP TO ME and said something like, “Brittney, <something in German> essen?”  She was asking me to eat with them.  I understood her question, but still said “Huh?”  She repeated it in English.  I said no.  Adorable roomie’s possibly even more adorable friend turned from the stove and said, “Are you sure?  We’ve made far too much food.”

“No, that’s okay.  Thank you, though.”

“Well maybe you can join us just for the company?”

“Uhhhh yeah, maybe.  I have like um…. homework, that I’ll uh…. finish.  And come back.”  Then I grabbed a random bag of bread since I didn’t want to look like I just went into the kitchen to be a total creep, and went back into my room.  It is at about this point, standing alone in  my freezing room, bag of carbs in hand that didn’t hold a candle to how great whatever they were cooking in the kitchen smelled, ridiculously easy amount of homework obviously not even attempted, that I realized the ridiculousness of the situation.  I brought the random hostage food bag back into the kitchen, and JOINED THEM.

Apparently, this group of 3 boys and 11-ish girls, get together after class every Monday and cook a delicious meal together and talk and have the time of their lives (kinda like 713 only with way more culinary expertise and way less delivery pizza and Keystone Light.)  They had cooked literally pounds of spaghetti noodles, then made HOMEMADE tomato cream sauce and salmon cream sauce (I had the tomato, it was divine.)  All the while the girl who invited me to join them sat next to me, asked me questions, translated the jist of their rapid-fire German conversations, etc.  I ate my noodles with a fork after twirling them on a spoon, didn’t slurp, didn’t burp, didn’t sit like you could drive a boat show through my legs, added to conversation when needed, listen to the Deutsch and actually understood some of it– overall, the evening was a rousing success.  As if that weren’t enough, then we had dessert.  One of the guys (AHEM, American boys, take notes) made this ohmygod diiiiivine chocolate mousse, which tasted like the inside of a French silk pie but kinda more solid and it was DARK chocolate.  Super rich.  Super amazing.  We sat and talked until after midnight, then played kicken for who had to do the dishes, then cleaned up, then I actually did excuse myself to finish my homework.  Next Monday night: thai food, I’ve already been invited :)

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Weekend 3: Homeless

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Once upon a time there lived a very responsible first-born child who, while she could never be considered neat, always knew the location of her belongings and wasn’t prone to losing much except her mind on occasion.  This child was me, but folks, we don’t know where she went.  In the last six-ish months, my list of broken/stolen/ just plain lost items include: jewelry, a laptop, my glasses, multiple apartment keys, my debit card, three cell phones, a digital camera, my wallet (temporarily, though only found after I’d cancelled my credit cards), and probably countless other trivial to moderately important things.  Can I just say first: I do not do this on purpose. I do not know when this mental shift happened, when the cosmos aligned and I began leaving my cell phone in my car overnight.  I don’t like it, yet no matter how hard I try (and AHEM, Mom and Dad– I DO try, and let’s just NOT BRING this up lest you want to see my hereditarily low blood pressure go through the roof) I just plain forget/ lose stuff.

Now, onto why I did not go to Hamburg to watch my first European soccer game this weekend (which apparently was a-okay since “Below Mind-Numbingly Freezing” doesn’t begin to describe how miserable standing outside for the duration of said game apparently was.)  On campus, there is this place called Vamos Kulturhalle where concerts are held, barn dances, I’m not really sure– but it’s also mostly what one could call a “nightclub.”  It’s one happening place.  Friday night was the end of the semester party, since Germans are on a way different class schedule and are gearing up for final exams then high-tailing it off campus for at least a month.  Some of my amigos and I decided to go to said party, where long story short: I lost my keys.

AHA! — you’re thinking– she obviously is a LUSH and had too much to drink and wasn’t paying attention.  Well, maybe, but not really.  Shallow pockets + bulky sets of keys + shakin’ my groove thang = floor.  After lots of searching and really embarrassing “I don’t speak your language so am going to mime at you like an idiot” exchanges, I went home with one of my roommates who were luckily also all out enjoying the nightlife.  Here’s the issue: my bedroom door was locked.  My hypersensitivity to being abroad has me lock my bedroom every time I leave my apartment.  No one else has a key to it.  In America, this would not be a problem because we have spare keys for everything.  During orientation here, however, the housing lady explained how NO ONE has a copy of your key and Germans like to charge INSANE AMOUNTS to change locks around here.  Oh shiza.

Friday night I slept on the couch in our kitchen/ living room.  No big deal except I nearly froze to death, but that’s really just become a common theme around here.  After doing all my roommates’ dishes (because literally, there was nothing else for me to do) I went over to my neighbor D-Bag’s place to share with him my dilemma.  He called Vamos for me (since, you know, Mein Deutsch is slecht) but no one answered.  He was off to the soccer game, which I could now no longer attend due to not having enough money, clothes, bus pass, etc with me.  He did graciously give me a large hoodie to wear so I could make the trek across campus to see if anyone was hanging at Vamos (which they weren’t.)  It is at this point I called another friend from the program who lives only about a block away and gave him the heads up that a hoodrat was on her way to be entertained.

A giant THANK YOU goes up to this friend and his two roommates for letting me shoot the shit with them, follow them around, watch their TV, go to the grocery store with them, etc.  At this point I was expecting to be able to get into my room sometime before the end of the night.  This was only wishful thinking.  I went back to my apartment (ringing the bell each time, hoping one of my flatmates would be around to open the door) and had a bologna and barbecue sauce sandwich, and no I am not joking– that’s what I had for dinner every night this week.  And then I just sat there.  I doodled on some scratch paper.  I explored drawers and shelves I hadn’t really noticed before.  I did some more dishes.  Then, thankfully, D-Bag came home; he said I could come over if I was bored (two days later, he may now be regretting said invitation.)  I spent most of the evening there watching Forrest Gump auf Deutsch, eating some garlic bread he made me, doing some more doodling/ paper tearing/ since when do I have this weird thing where I can’t sit still?  ALSO he had a giantly-warm comforter since he’s some sort of freak outdoorsman and goes cycling into the mountains for days at a time that he gave me to sleep with.  Night number two: couch in the kitchen again (though much warmer.)

Sunday morning: more roommates’ dishes.  Eat the last of my cereal– officially left with only the makings for one or two more bologna/BBQ sandwiches.  D-Bag wakes up, I spend the next TWELVE HOURS in his apartment– watching TV, making and eating cornbread his mom sent him, talking with two of our friends who also come over, wearing more borrowed clothing to walk to the gas station, tearing up more paper, taking Internet quizzes, probably making him absolutely want to MURDER ME or himself.  Words cannot express how thankful I am (maybe I’ll give a more flattering blog alias) to D-Bag for everything he did for me this weekend.  If I were him, I would have kicked me out about two hours in.  Not that I was being horrendously annoying (or not anymore than usual) but he probably hadn’t envisioned his peaceful weekend  being invaded by this unshowered dumbass hoodlum who couldn’t do something so simple as to keep her keys with her at all times.

Night number three: couch in the kitchen.  While I had explained the situation to my flatmates, I’m quite certain they were laughing at me being closed doors.  At least they were quite polite to my face.  I had already e-mailed my teacher about my situation, that I’d probably be late to class since the Vamos Lost and Found doesn’t open til 9.  Since I was the only one in class Thursday, this actually worked out quite well for everyone else’s catching up purposes I should think.  At 9 am I walked to where I THOUGHT this lost and found was, but it WASN’T, and it’s at this point I got reallyfrustratedandwantedtocry but that wouldn’t have solved anything, so tried calling their office ONE MORE TIME, and by God they answered.  Mish-mash of German and English + we’ll call you at noon and you can come look at what we found over the weekend (apparently this happens ALL the time) = me not going to class, possibly going certifiably insane.

Lunch.  Bought for me by a friend who owed me anyway.  Phone call shortly after 12 pm.  They had my keys.  I got into my room.  It was quite cold.  I opened my laptop.  I’m doing my homework.  Thank you to everyone who helped me this weekend.  Overall, I was remarkably unconcerned– I knew they’d show up and I didn’t have anything pressing to do in the interim.  Obviously I missed my bed and being able to go grocery shopping– not being able to Skype NPH was absolutely the worst part of the whole dilemma, but it’s over.  Giant sigh.

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Piropos and ass-grabbing

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

Before I arrived in Sevilla I mentally braced myself to live in a country that’s considerably less concerned with the politically correct than my own. In study abroad orientation I took away that a) Cat calls — piropos — are frequent and inevitable in Spain, b) Everyone in the world thinks American girls are easy and morally loose and c) That I can’t do anything about the piropos or the general misogyny, so get over it.

I wasn’t so worried about b), mostly because it’s not in my nature to wander home with strange men whether it be at home or overseas. Many of you know that I watch a lot of MSNBC documentaries, so I know better than to get friendly with strangers. The piropos in Spain occur from time to time, but it’s not like a girl can’t walk a block without a gang of men hanging out car windows and whistling. We’re strongly encouraged not to react to cat calls, understandably, although I sometimes find them difficult to disregard. In Iowa, if a group of hillbilly frat boys drives by in a Ford pickup and starts hollering, my natural reaction is to swiftly raise a middle finger and make fierce eye contact with the primary cat calling culprit. So far, I’ve managed not to do that here. I worry that perhaps the middle finger isn’t an insult in Spain, but some kind of nonverbal agreement that I’d rather not enter into.

Aside from the hollering and piropos, there is one piggish, slimy move that I cannot ignore — the ass grab.

I was pushing my way out of a crowded bar last night when some local bro boldly grabbed my rear. Mind you, there was no mistaking this ass grab for an accidental graze. When I say boldly, I mean this fellow had an asinine amount of nerve.

To clarify, ass grabbing isn’t a strictly cultural thing. I distinctly remember encountering this at the Picador in Iowa City — perhaps eastern Iowa’s only “hipster” bar — and not a place where I’d expect any skeazy creeps to grab at me like a bread basket at the Old Country Buffet. Unlike cat calls, physical contact penetrates the two-foot bubble of personal space that I prefer to maintain around strangers. Also unlike cat calls, physical contact, in my opinion, is far more threatening and demeaning.

Instead of flipping the bird last night, I simply turned around, looked the jerk in the eye (eep, I hope it was the right guy), and said, “Are you kidding me?” along with a few more expletives. As far as I’m concerned, I kept my cool, but I was still heated. Fuming. Ablaze. Conflagrant.

I don’t exactly know how to articulate the root of my disdain for such brazen physical disrespect. It’s the equivalent of someone walking up to me and saying, “We don’t know each other, but you are a woman, therefor my subordinate, so I can grab you as I please.” No, you can’t, and don’t expect me to respond kindly to it. Granted, I don’t want to get into any kind of physical altercation here — because I will lose — but, you know. I’ll swear at you.

In completely different news, I’ve turned my host lady onto Lady Gaga. This was wonderful initially, but yesterday she played The Fame album at least eight times in a row. Who knew there was such a thing as too much Gaga? I start classes tomorrow, and I was informed that I’m in the group that scored highest on the Spanish placement test. Although I speak like a gringa supreme, my ability to read, write and understand the language must count for something.

I do enjoy Sevilla thus far, but I’m still waiting for the day  I can navigate from point A to B without becoming hopelessly lost. The enormity of my program also doesn’t facilitate making good friends very quickly, but I’m finally starting to spend time with people similar me, who didn’t come here with large groups of BFFsssz and besties from home. If nothing else, I’ve already learned a lot. Namely how to say “hangers” (for clothes), specifics about the drug laws in Spain and all about the Roman ruins in the nearby city of Itálica. And really, that’s all anyone needs to know.

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Alive, in Spain

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Things I’m no good at: updating this blog.

In my defense, I have only been here five days, and my program does a damn good job of ensuring that its participants have minimal time allocated for things like “free time” or “sleep.” But now that I have a few minutes and I’m beginning to recover from an obscene amount of travel + sleeplessness, I think I owe all two of my loyal followers a post from Sevilla.

This city is beautiful. I’d post a few photos to prove it, but you’ll have to Google “Sevilla” til I get my life together and quench my touristy thirst for photos of La Giralda and el Rio Guadalquivir at sunset. Like I said, the program I’m with takes an approach to study abroad that I would call Cramming Way Too Many Activities Into Short Periods of Time. Most of my sleep-deprived American cronies would agree. But now that we’re out of the hotel and living in our homestays, life is beginning to calm down, ever so slightly.

Most students live with a señora — an older Spanish woman whose children have moved out of the house. Other options are a family or a “young couple.” Most kids ranked the family as their first choice… I opted for the “young couple.” I guess I’m the only soulless wench who didn’t want to live with kids. When I received my homestay assignment the other day it listed the name the woman who I assumed was my señora. If your señora has children living at home, the assignment sheet lists their names and ages below her name. Below my señora’s name were the words “chica joven.” That’s it. “Young girl.” I assumed I was living with a single mother and her anonymous baby girl, who went by “chica joven.” I consulted a fellow student, who wisely pointed out that “chica joven” was probably referring to the woman I was living with, not to a mystery baby. As I type this story out, I realize it’s not very good, so ok. Bottom line — I live with a young woman in her 30s, and there are no nameless babies involved.

That said, I’m quite happy in my homestay. My host’s name is Elisa, and she’s lived in Seville her entire life. She’s younger than all of the señoras (you wouldn’t really call her a “señora” because of her age, so I’m not sure how to refer to her in that respect. The woman with whom I live?). It also seems like we have some common interests, and she saw Madonna in concert, which in my book merits a great deal of respect. Her apartment is in the Triana neighborhood of Sevilla — most students are scattered between Triana, Los Remedios and El Centro. The apartment is a solid mile and a half from the Universidad de Sevilla, and the university is currently the only place I can confidently navigate to from home. If you’ve ever had a strong desire to feel like a dumbass, study abroad. More specifically, study in Sevilla. There are street signs from time to time, wherever someone felt like putting one up, on the sides of buildings. I came home twice yesterday and got embarrassingly lost both times. And I swear to god, the doors here are different. The DOORS. You don’t just unlock and open like in the States, or at least not at this apartment. And you can’t even get out of the apartment building without pressing a certain button. I was trapped in the building for a while this morning until I finally swallowed my pride, walked back up to the fifth floor, and explained to Elisa that her stupid American student couldn’t figure out how to get out of the apartment.

When I first met her, Elisa commented that I spoke Spanish well. I think she may be eating her words now that I’ve been here a full day. Several times I’ve responded with an eager, “Si!!” to an open-ended question that I didn’t understand, or I’ve simply stared back at her expressionless after she rattles off a few phrases in rapid, Sevillian Spanish. But for the most part, my Spanish skills are functional. I don’t usually have a problem understanding anyone else, it’s more a problem of Sevillanos being able to understand my spoken Spanish through my abrasive American accent.

I could ramble on further, but soon I must voyage across the river in search of shampoo and other toiletries at El Corte Ingles. How American of me. I’ve met a lot of cool people thus far, although our program has a surplus of stereotypical study abroad drunkards. On the first night here, most of us — the sane ones — went straight to bed after 2342342345555 hours of travel. Several people on my floor, however, were obnoxiously overzealous about their ability to buy booze legally in this country. W0000oooo0oOoO hooooo, I <3 AmEriCa, GeT wasTed! May their hangovers be epic and treacherous.

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Red Letter Day

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

The SUN has made another appearance– this time it’s hanging out for a while, providing light in the kitchen for New England and I to study for our first unit exam tomorrow (he has since retreated to the hall to play kicken with D-Bag.)

Today has been a fabulous day.  Besides showering last night, thus saving me time and a lot of rushing around this morning, I woke up to some great correspondence from friends AND had a banana with my morning muesli (which is the SHIT and gets me out of bed before 8 am.  Brittney’s motivated by food– you’re shocked, I know.)  My Elementary German class only has four people in it and today I was the only one who showed up.  This was actually pretty great  because not only did my teacher let me out super early, I definitely learn better in the one-on-one setting.  It was of course a little awkward to be the only one reading aloud, butchering the pronunciation of words and being the only person there to write on the board (blackboard, apparently Deutschland hasn’t caught on to the whole erasable marker thing yet.)

Lunch today was ahhhhsoooogood.  Wurst.  I love wurst.  This was fabulous wurst.  Tomorrow is our first exam, at least it’s on the main campus about two minutes from my apartment instead of 20 minutes across town like regular class is.  Besides my horrible pronunciation (note to self: JUST FORGET Spanish for now.  Not even similar) I’m pretty excited about how well I’m learning German.  I’ve now obnoxiously started interjecting random German words in otherwise English sentences.  A girl at the bus stop this morning was talking to me about how the bus was late, and I just smiled and nodded and threw in a few “Ja”s instead of telling her “Mein Deutsch is slecht” or more realistically, “Ich spreche kein Deutsch.”  She could have been telling me how she hoped to get hit by the 5012 bus, they talk way too fast for me to really catch anything except numbers, but I knew from her fervent watch-checking the general gist of her diatribe.

Sharing a bathroom with two guys has not presented any problems, though today I opened the door and one of them was standing at the sink (fully clothed, don’t worry) I don’t know, washing his hands or something and it FREAKED me out.  Mostly just scared the piss outta me.  He felt bad and I kept saying “Sorry!  Sorry!”  I’ve imagined all sorts of horrible scenarios in which I forget to the lock the door and have to move out due to embarrassment, but so far so good.

Last night I got a freak craving for chocolate, which never really happens because I’m not a huge chocolate fan.  More specifically, I decided I wanted a brownie.  Since I generally like to share my random thoughts, needs, and wants with anyone around me, I told my neighbor D-Bag via Facebook chat and he just so HAPPENED to have brownie mix.  They didn’t turn out so well.  I’m not sure if the whole Fahrenheit to Celsius conversion got off, or if the fact that we didn’t have a measuring cup so kinda just guessed at 1/4 cup each of oil and water was the real nail in the coffin.  Either way, the top and bottom were hella burnt (we also didn’t have the correct sized pan so improvised with a loaf pan. Nicht so gut.)  The kitchen didn’t smell great.  I was able to form burn victim surgery on them, though, and we salvaged the inside enough to satiate my brownie craving, which had long since passed.  I also got introduced to D-Bag’s adorable German roommate, who was polite and tried a brownie even though it was certain tastebud death.

After the great baking debacle (and a few minutes of viewing Deutschland Superstar, aka American Idol) I watched the movie How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (thanks, New England, for the illegal movies.  Next up: Blow, love that movie.  Oh, SPEAKING OF, have you seen Johnny’s Depp’s GQ cover?!  Google it RIGHT NOW.  No wait, continue reading my riveting tales, and THEN Google it.  You’re welcome.)  It was okay, I was mostly annoyed at everyone in it (apparently this is the point.  There’s a reason the main character loses friends and alienates people.)  Megan Fox’s character was an uber dumb actress, but since I only see Megan Fox as an uber dumb actress, it just made me wanna punch my laptop.

New England has returned.  He is telling me the difference between Star Trek, Star Wars, and Star Craft the video game.  I’m going to go slam my head in the door.

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Hump day

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Scratch that whole “sun” thing… it’s currently snowing like a she-devil.  Big fat flakes keep coming down faster and faster, almost as if someone upstairs is trying to tell me not to go out tonight.  But this simply cannot be.

Yesterday I FINALLY figured out the train Web site (and yes, that is the AP correct way to spell it, not “website”) and bought my ticket for Munich next weekend.  I was incorrect in thinking this would be an easy process, and doubly incorrect in thinking rail travel is relatively inexpensive.  However, I have been informed that Munich is the only place you can buy a real glass boot (a la Beerfest) so this is not just a weekend trip so much as it is a pilgrimage to mecca.

Things I miss: wearing t-shirts.  Apparently German girls only wear them to bed, and I’m trying to not scream FOREIGNER anymore than I already heinously do, so have been rocking nice shirts and generally dressier stuff than I wear back home.  Last night we went bowling (or spectated others while bowling) and got a bit betrunken, so the fact that I could even find my t-shirt drawer this morning is a Win.  I’m currently rocking my new Slash shirt that Little Brother got me for Christmas (a way more awesome gift than what I got him, which has still yet to be determined) and it. feels. awesome.  Maybe I’ll get married in jeans and a t-shirt…

Speaking of things my mother and/or grandmother will e-mail me about (“I will NOT let you get married in a t-shirt, Brittney”) everyone in our program is dropping like flies with sickness.  Perhaps there’s a reason someone from last semester coined the term “USAC Nasties” (it obviously has nothing to do with what you might think would happen when you put together a bunch of like-minded young 20-somethings in a faraway place for months at a time with only beer and each other to keep warm.)  Apparently it’s mostly a sore throat combined with a general I Just Got Hit By a Van feeling (aw, that makes me miss Bryce!)  Seeing as I am doing absolutely nothing to bolster my immune system, I can only hope my turn with the Yuck will come around after Saturday, when we’re going to Hamburg to watch a soccer game and, uh, sightsee on the Raper Barn Reeperbahn.

Lauren is finally in Spain so will be adding more panache to what has essentially become Brittney’s Forum for Random Thoughts Whilst in Deutschland.  Classes started at UI yesterday so I no longer get to Skype NPH 17 times a day.  Usually it’s both of us being on but separately surfing the Web and occasionally telling the other what we’re reading.  So EXACTLY like the couch at 713, just thousands more miles between us.  A new favorite activity is looking up flights from Chicago to Frankfurt and seeing who can find the cheapest airfare (I think the lowest I found was $604, unfortunately still a bit steep.)  Take THAT, seven-hour time difference, even you can’t stop these freak codependency issues.

Good news: contrary to what I believed for a few hours yesterday, my parents are not dead and just apparently don’t like replying to my e-mails.  Dad’s not sure my Gaga-licious Spring Break dreams are the best use of my very limited discretionary income (has he HEARD “Poker Face”?!) and also inquired as to when’s a good time for them to pop over and hang in ze Fatherland.  I suppose this will be good, though weird because they’d be heavily reliant on me to get around– mostly language wise, but also train schedules, major cultural differences, which beer tastes the most like Bud Light (none of them.)  Also, if they could bring an NPH-sized suitcase (yeah, yeah I know– SHUT UP about Neil.  It’s only been two weeks Folks, I imagine most of you will stop reading around the middle of February.)  Overall methinks I’d very much enjoy my parents coming, well I’d enjoy it if EVERYONE I knew could come because it’s so awesome, but mostly because if my dad were here, he would probably spring for more than one soda at dinner.  If you are in America, get on your knees right now and THANK GOD for FREE REFILLS. (But seriously, I think the longest I’ve gone without seeing my parents is a month, so by March I’ll definitely be ready to see them.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a nap I need to take.

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I want your love & I want your revenge

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Ladies and gents, hold on to your hats.  I’ve decided what I want to do for Spring Break, and it’s a doozy.  Lady Gaga is playing in Nottingham, England on Monday, March 8th and I will be attending.  (Okay, so I haven’t actually bought the tickets, but I’ve slept on it, and you only live once, and she’s FABULOUS and it will be the show of a lifetime.  Besides the time I saw Slash.  She’s like my female Slash.)  The most expensive thing will be the ticket, but that money would have probably just gone to German beer anyway…. apparently a LOT of German beer.

We’ve just returned from lunch and four of the guys in my program are here at my apartment playing kicken.  Apparently you’re not just supposed to spin the handles to hell and hope one hits the ball.  I’m definitely acquiring some mad foozball skills, though I’m quite certain these people have only befriended me for my ballin’ apartment and Hulk-like ability to hold my liquor.  In all actuality, the boys here having discovered what most at home did a while ago, that I am essentially one of them.  We were window shopping in Hamburg the other day and I squealed “BOOTS!!!” when walking past well, some really cute boots, and my friend from New England (hereafter referred to as New England) looked at me as if I had sprouted a third arm.  Today at lunch we were discussing putting on a classy formal Valentine’s Day party, and I mentioned it’d be a perfect occasion to wear one of the dresses I brought.  Apparently this is just NOT conceivable and one of them actually said, “You don’t own dresses.”  Contrary to popular belief, I in fact do, and enjoy wearing them.  The word “tomboy” doesn’t really describe me, I’m just a girl who happens to sit like a guy and make friends with guys and contributes to mealtime conversations in which we all give euphemisms for Choking the Chicken.  If you’re into astrology, I’m your classic dual personality-ed Gemini, because OH BABY do I love Valentine’s Day, doing my hair, and Taylor Lautner.  Perhaps I was supposed to be twins but just came out as one and that’s why I’m twice as awesome.

Random thought of the day: I should have brought lotion.  My skin is flaking off a la Goldmember in Austin Powers 3.  Yeah, you liked that movie.

I suppose you’re all wondering how the basement/laundry shenanigans of yesterday went.  My lovely neighbor and friend (hereafter referred to as D-Bag because his name starts with a D and he is completely okay with this nickname) came over and gave me a quick tour of the basement, incuding where the light is, and how to use the washing machine.  ALSO he showed me the super secret far right machine which is FREE!  If I had to play favorites, which I don’t but it’s what I do in my spare time, he is my favorite person here.  This may be because he was here last semester also so already knows everything and doesn’t mind me following him like a dog to learn the ropes.  When ordering things in German, I generally just push him in front of the cashier and let him deal with it, or ask a million times before I go up to the bar exactly how to say what I want.  He’s also extremely handy to have around in the Getrankmart because he’s tried most all the beers and gives great advice on which taste like what.  I’m fairly certain that if the kids from last semester all had debilitating herion addictions, I would just start shooting up, too.  I wonder how they feel about having a whole new semester of students as their minions, or at least about this incresingly red-haired girl (WHAT is in the water over here?!) who apparently has issues with doing her own thing.

Oh, my test last week?  Got an A.  Duh.

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SUN!!!

Monday, January 18th, 2010

It is downright freaky how much mood is affected by the weather.  The SUN came out today– for only like two minutes during lunch, but STILL!  It’s warming up, I didn’t have to wear my scarf and gloves today when going to the grocery store.  I was oddly content going by myself and was able to ask the checkout lady before I started shopping if they took Visa (they do not, only American Express– explain THAT one to me, Germany.)  One giant difference between here and home: 95% of all transactions are cash or have to be, credit cards are rarely taken and debit cards are pretty much non-existent.  I had 25 Euro in cash on me and figured I could spend 20 of it at most.  It was fun in a weird grown-up way to go around the store picking out only the most essential things or the largest quantity of stuff for the smallest price.  Thanks to my mother, I’m pretty damn good at this, and picked enough random things to feed me for at least a week, as well as laundry detergent AND three liters of Diet Pepsi all for 12 Euro.  Mama’s got booze money this week, kiddies.

I’ve never NEEDED to do laundry as badly as I do now, yet the basement is a dark and scary place and I can’t find the light.  Now I’m generally screwed until one of my flatmates and/or American neighbor friend who I often Facebook chat from not even 100 feet away comes home so they can explain it to me.

The warm weather excites me to no end because 1.) It is my firm belief that most of the country is suffering from possible year-round Seasonal Affective Disorder and perhaps warmer temps might at least raise morale around here 2.) Our 20-30 min walk home from the bars after the buses stop running at 8:45 pm will no longer pose threat of hypothermia  3.) I will literally have zero excuse to not run outside because Lord knows I certainly have the time and German beer isn’t exactly calorie-free  4.) I SUPPOSE I will make the trek into Hamburg one of these afternoons and appease my mother by going to (are you reading this, Mom– make sure you’re sitting down) the IMMIGRANT MUSEUM where they have on record 5 MILLION NAMES of people who left Hamburg for America (not just our German relatives, but probably a lot of the Norwegian ones, too.)  Happy Mother’s Day.

Our first three-day weekend is the last weekend in January, and I’ll be traveling to Munchen (or Munich, to you Yanks) to visit Sebas, our foreign exchange student from high school/ my junior prom date.  I’ll be taking the train (wayyy more expensive than I thought, maybe I’ll plan one “big” trip each month) Thursday afternoon, arriving Thursday night, and staying through Sunday.  I’m pretty excited because he lives in Bavaria, and the food and beer there are what the typical American thinks of when they hear German– giant pretzels, the original Hofbrau Beerhaus, leiderhosen, etc.

My parents are in Vegas, lucky dogs (said the girl in Germany…) and I suppose I miss them, or at least the convenience of talking to them.  Skyping Lauren last night was fantastic, I’ve figured out how to call people’s cell phones via Skype so I got to talk to Kayla and Sav, too.  I miss my 713′ers like nobody’s business– I received some very nice sentiments from the least expected ones and I’m very touched/ happy/ makes me miss them more.  It feels like I’ve been here much longer than a week, and the next 15 weeks will FLY BY, but May seems soooo far away.  If any of you have a spare travel voucher lying around, don’t be selfish– give it to  Neil so he can visit me over Spring Break :)

Off to figure out the big, scary basement.

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A few days’ recap

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

I had planned on sleeping ’til 3 today, I guess 11:00′s good enough.  Drumroll, please… IT’S SNOWING again!  Thankfully I literally have nothing to do except laundry, and one probably needs laundry detergent for that.  While I had planned to put it off until the last possible moment (or as one of the guys here calls it, The Three Deep Rule: no need to wash your clothes until someone can smell you three people away) only having two towels and wearing all of my pajamas at once in order not to wake up myself shivering means I’m looking forward to at least one load per week.

My first week of class, which included my first test in German, went well.  One might say I even enjoyed them, save for the fact I have to catch a very unreliable bus to another campus every morning to get there.  After class everyday, we meet at the Mensa (“we” being the other Americans in my program and occasionally some of their German friends.  I usually see and WAVE at some of my flatmates, too– we’re making progress!)  The food is not great, but it’s not terrible, and it’s more of a high school lunch line than the seemingly endless options we had at the cafeteria in college.  They have really great salads, or you can always choose some sort of meat in some sort of sauce and potatoes.  Peas are also always on hand, usually noodles, two different meats (chicken or schnitzel, fish or meatloaf sticks– not their actual name, but apparently very similar in taste.) 

My Wohngemeinschaft (shared living: not really a dorm, but not quite an apartment) is the biggest and quite frankly more awesome than anyone else’s in my program.  Thus I have hosted visitors on occasion, which is nice, but kind of new since in Iowa City I was always the person who went to other people’s places.  Thursday night, my two “best” I guess you could say, friends here so far came over and we COOKED DINNER.  We were just gonna get some beers and a frozen pizza and maybe watch a movie.  While in the store, though, an air of domesticity must have breezed through and we picked up Weisswurst (white sausage, tasted like a bratwurst only WAY BETTER because we’re in Germany and they know what’s up with wurst) broccoli, and a baguette to split because I really can’t pretend to hate their whole “bread with every meal” philosophy.  One of the guys is also my neighbor, so brought over some potatoes he had and whipped out some chopped potatoes/ olive oil/ onions/seasoning foil bag that was mondo-impressive.  We watched Step Brothers (because the other guy brought his external harddrive and has lots of fantastic movies and I will ne’er be bored here again) and had our delicious family dinner and it ALMOST didn’t need the barbecue sauce I bought, but I used a bit anyway as a big Eff You to the country as a whole because my teacher told me, “We don’t like barbecue sauce.”  The Germans do this a lot.

I mentioned buying beer above, and would like to take this paragraph to try and explain the differences between walking into the Getrinktmart (I just butchered that spelling) here, and ol’ Liquor House back home (besides the obvious legality of me doing it.)  The store here is MASSIVE.  Entire walls are lined with every kind of beer (except the “piss water” we have back home) imaginable.  These beers are not in cardboard cases, they are in individual bottles (usually .3L) lining the shelves, with plastic pallets full underneath, if you so choose to buy a specific kind in bulk.  You just walk down an aisle, find one that looks good, take it.  Usually it’s between .80-2 Euro, depending on the type and quality (also, you can see the lines on the bottles where there used to be a label, but they’ve been recycled and used again.)  Either you get a basket or just walk to the front with an armload of bottles, and then hopefully you remembered your backpack or a sturdy sack because they don’t give you any.  Most kids from Iowa City would not fare well here– there’s no grabbing a 30 before you head to a party and splitting it with a friend before you go out.  If we’re pregaming at a friend’s house here, everyone shows up with 3-5 glass bottles for themselves.  German beer is SO HEAVY, in the stomach-sense.  You have one or two, it’s like a meal and you need a nap afterward.  A nice beer here is like a glass of wine back home– not weird to have one by yourself, maybe while reading or doing homework.  The whole mentality is different (not like we’re not having fun here) and each has it’s pros/cons that I internally debate on occasion.

Friday afternoon, I went with three others into Hamburg, only about a 20 minute free (with our student id’s) train ride away.  FELL IN LOVE.  It’s the second largest city in Germany, SO much fabulous shopping, a million times more energy than Luneburg.  We mostly just wandered around their main shopping district, then took the subway to Reeperbahn street and the surrounding area– basically their Red Light District.  Prostitution is legal in some areas of Germany, and apparently this is where you’d go to get it.  On the other side of the street are some great bars and restaurants and LIGHTS and perhaps reminded me of Vegas a teeny bit (sigh.)  We did some more walking/exploring/stopped in a restaurant that was playing FAMILY GUY for a beer.  We went back to Luneburg for a quick dinner, then went to a bar called Jekyll and Hyde.  FELL IN LOVE, again.  It’s a dark/ dungeon-y kinda place with an open fire and plays metal music (Ozzy, Metallica) and is just very different from anything back home. 

Yesterday was our mandatory Hamburg orientation with the group, so spent all day FREEZING around the city, having much less fun than the night before.  The first stop was the Hamburg Museum, the largest museum dedicated to any single city in all of Germany (possibly Europe?)  If I had to make a list of my Top Five Least Favorite Things, museums are probably on it.  Our guide spent over an hour on just the Middle Ages, then skipped way ahead to the early Modern Age, and concluded with a giant fire in Hamburg in 1842.  We then had some time to explore the museum ourselves, so I found the WWII stuff, which was (ironically? purposely?) in the basement.  We then walked to the harbor (and I mean TREKKED in below freezing, lots of wind, might possibly one of the most miserable times of my life) where we had a quick lunch then went on a ferry tour for an hour.  Obviously lunch was my favorite part– my two friends and I went to this tiny place where they served fresh fish sandwiches and wursts and I got a giant essentially bratwurst, they don’t do buns here, with mustard.  The ferry tour of the harbor was fine– at least we got to sit inside with the warmth and talk while looking at… shipping freighters?  And floating ice on water?  The time of my life, let me tell you.

We than WALKED (along the river= wind, setting sun= even colder, we taught our German director the phrase “happy camper” and how I was definitely not one) over an hour back towards a restaurant near the train station.  Along the way, we stopped at this olllllllllllllldddd church from the 1600s that previously had the highest steeple in all of Germany (Europe?)  Part of the church burned down in the Hamburg Fire, but was rebuilt pretty well.  Apparently we bombed the shit outta Hamburg in WWII however, and now all that remains is the giant steeple and some partial walls.  It’s now a museum/ memorial for peace.  This place was actually really cool– we took an elevator to the top of the steeple and saw all of Hamburg lit up at night.  Looking at the pictures in the museum, I was like wow that sucks, but it took a while for me to register that “we” were the ones who did this (I guess I’m so used to being like Damn Nazis ruining everything, but this time it was us.  It was a weird feeling, kind of getting a lot of those.)

FINALLY we went to dinner (after a quick stop in the Rathaus.)  We had pre-ordered and I got my first Weinerschnitzel.  Um, YUM.  A nice culmination to a not-always nice day.  Our train to Luneburg got us back… an hour after the last bus ran, so we stopped at Jekyll & Hyde for some beer jackets before making the 1/2 hour trek back to campus.  After a good 11 hours of sleep, I now have about five minutes of homework to do and the rest of the day in which to do it.

GOOD LUCK to Lauren, who’s finally flying to Spain today!!

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Sevilla: T-Minus 24 hours

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

In exactly 25 hours and 19 minutes, I’ll depart from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago and head to Madrid (at which point I’ll sit in the Madrid airport for several hours, perusing duty-free shops and marveling at signs in Spanish, until I finally hop on my last plane for Sevilla).

I’ve been mentally mapping out my study abroad plans since I was in high school. I’ve literally waited years for this flight, and now that it’s finally here, I’m in denial.

Everyone’s question: “Aren’t you so EXCITED?!” Sure, I’m excited. But mostly I try not to think about it. Thinking too far ahead leaves room for me to begin panicking, like, “Oh shit, what if I forget to pack something crucial?” or, “What if something great happens in Iowa while I’m gone and I miss it?” (doubtful). There are a few things I’ll miss dearly, however, namely my family and my good friends between Iowa and Illinois. I also won’t have the opportunity to watch my younger brother perform a Lady Gaga medley in full drag at his high school talent show, and as you can imagine, I will be mourning my own absence from the event.

I’ve avoided becoming too excited or nervous about my trip by focusing on wholly trivial items and obsessing over my luggage. To give you an idea: I spent 10 minutes deciding whether to buy a pink or black umbrella at Meijer the other day (I went with black, it seemed like the classier rain repellent of the two). I also created a word document with a table divided into categories of what I need to pack. Yes, I am that anal. It paid off, though, because I’m only going to have one checked bag at the airport tomorrow. This is mostly thanks to my mother’s packing expertise, but I still think it’s an accomplishment that deserves recognition. I’m patting myself on the back as I one-handedly type this.

I think my excitement — and the full effect of my unruly nerves — will ultimately sink in tomorrow, after my family drops me off at the airport. I’ve never flown solo, so that will be an experience. Luckily I have three books, two magazines and a bag of Swedish Fish to keep me company. Until then, here’s hoping that I don’t slip into a panic attack at the terminal that ends in me sobbing so uncontrollably that I forget to board the plane. To everyone back home, you will be missed, but I will be here. See you on the other side.

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Phase 2

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

The peak of enchantment with my surroundings has passed, and I’m finding myself on somewhat of a downhill slope (here’s what this beast supposedly looks like):

Don’t get me wrong, this is all still FABULOUS, but now that classes have started and routines have been established, the novelty is wearing off.  We have our first test tomorrow in Elementary German (Ich bin studentin.  Mein vorname ist Brittney.)  I’m not really concerned about it, though the waking up at 7 every morning STILL BLOWS, in case you were wondering.  Today was absolutely “I’ll jump on the next bus that comes, I don’t care if it takes me around town for two hours before getting to campus as long as the heat’s cranked” cold.  The constant state of uncontrollable shivering will pass.  

I miss driving (perhaps because my butt/thighs are so sore from walking on epicly unevenly plowed streets.)  On most sinks in public restrooms, there’s only one knob on the faucet, and it’s– you guessed it– COLD!  The stores only sell 1.5% and 3% fat milk, no skim; it’s hard getting used to the richness, especially for breakfast.  For the life of me I can’t figure out if we have no-stick spray in my apartment or where it’s hiding, and I keep forgetting to ask my roomies.  I made scrambled eggs for dinner and used the teeeeeeeniest drop of olive oil so they wouldn’t stick.  (And yes, I realize there was an earthquake in Haiti and my life is a million times better than 95% of the planet’s– I’m not complaining, just airing some grievances.  You know you love it.) 

I’ve been searching flights on Ryan Air for someplace to go during my first three (I could even leave Thursday afternoon, so almost four) day weekend at the end of January.  A round-trip ticket to Stockholm, Sweden is TWO EUROS.  It’d only be for like 48 hours and it’d be even COLDER there, but for two Euros I am highly tempted to just do it.  There are cheap flights (15-30 Euro range) to other places as well, but the weather at even the southernmost point of the boot of Italy is only 50 something degrees Fahrenheit.  (Reason #263 I’m moving to Grand Cayman after graduation.)  Nicer weather will be much more compatible with all the free time I seem to have– Bergen Belsen isn’t far from here and there’s plenty of old churches/buildings/ small towns around to explore for free. 

Random side note: I am huge on smells.  I smell everything– food before I eat it (sorry), books, my hair.  Grocery stores here smell horrendous.  The bakeries smell as I imagine Heaven might.  Peoples’ scents on the bus every morning remind me of various people back home.  If for some horrible reason I was e’er withchild, I can’t imagine what kind of frenzy my nose would be in. 

I’m so tired I could puke (my own fault, too much post-bowling Skyping.)  Guten nacht. 

P.S. Tomorrow is a month from Valentine’s Day– better get those packages in the mail.  I’m not sure how well In-n-Out Burger ships, but you may inquire to my mother for my address should you having a sudden yearning to shower me with gifts.  For my favorite holiday.  For which I won’t be in a country that actually celebrates it.  One that’s actually quite far away from any semblence of a Valentine I could pretend to have.  You know, alone.  Freezing to death.

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As I sip a Hefeweizen…

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

German beer may have cracked my list of Top Five Favorite Smells.  Being able to go into the grocery story on a random Tuesday afternoon and pick individual bottles of delicious beer for less than a Euro has most certainly trumped anything else on my list of Top Five Reasons I’m Glad to be Alive.

A few observations of my time spent in Germany (all of what, five days?)

– German children are at least 100 times cuter than American children.  I’m not sure if it’s something in the delicious tap water, but these children are the most cherubic, chubby-cheeked, I just wanna steal one and hang out with it for a while group of kids you will ever find.  The fact that most of them get pulled along by their parents on old wood sleds everywhere they go might have something to do with it.

–Americans are loud.  Read: I’m loud.  In public places, at least.  I never thought it out of the ordinary until someone pointed it out to me, and then I thought of how inappropriate it would be here if I did as much shouting at people across campus as I do at home (maybe it’s equally inappropriate there and I just haven’t gotten the memo.)

–Bars universally smell about the same..  Also, an intense Pancheros craving will hit no matter if the nearest location is two steps away or halfway across the world.  Bar + some ambiguous time after midnight = yo quiero un burrito de Pancheros AHORA, usually always ordered in drunken Spanglish.  Lo siento.

–On a difficulty scale, getting by around here without knowing any German is remarkably easy.  99% of the people I’ve interacted with know at least some English, and if there’s ever a problem, nonverbal communication usually gets the job done.  Being born in a country where the primary language happens to also be a universally important one has been a huge blessing.  I’m also getting to a comfortability level where I can go into a shop alone and make transactions/ have conversations with my flatmates in Deutsch-ish with a good amount of understanding (they might secretly think I’m a complete dumbass, but at least I get what I want, and that’s really all that matters.)

I woke up at FOUR-THIRTY THIS MORNING.  Shiza.  Methinks it was a mix of going to bed earlier than normal/ being freaked out about my alarm not going off again/ FREEZING and my lower back and not be able to sleep in a curled ball position anymore/ I  keep having weeeeeeird dreams.  Not the refrigerator one again, thank goodness, but they always have to do with my past/ Adel.  At least from what I can remember each morning, I haven’t dreamt about Iowa City/ Germany once.  They’re also always extremely vivid, and never happy dreams.  Luckily this gave me plenty of time to eat a decent breakfast, shower, and talk to friends online who were just going to bed back home.

Class was, ugh I don’t know, class.  It’s great that we’re learning so much already but it’s over THREE HOURS long.  We start at 8:30 am, so by the time 10 rolls around I’m either starving again or would slaughter a goat to be back in bed.  Today we got out an hour early though because no one– besides Brittney the nerd– had bought the books.  After a lovely meal in the mensa con mis amigos nuevos, I went to Am Sande with two of them and toured the dollar store, got my visa photos taken (when a large German man is posing you on a stool then tells you not to laugh, not laughing is the hardest thing in the world), some other errands (including said Hefeweizen in the title, LOVE LOVE LOVE.)  I now have a Skype date with my Facebook husband and then it’s off to pregame (vorspiel, haha) bowling.

Guten abend!

P.S.  Lauren.  WTF.  This is not Brittney’s blog.  Get on it haha.

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First day of school!

Monday, January 11th, 2010

My first day of classes went surprisingly well, considering my alarm never went off and I woke at 8 to get to my 8:30 class (which is held on a different campus not exactly near the one I live on.)  Thankfully I’d met everyone in the class previously so they weren’t horribly offended by my “Oh hey, I semi-brushed my teeth and threw on pants and my glasses and yes, that’d be me that smells so just DEAL WITH IT” look I had going on.

It could really stop snowing anytime now.  Apparently this is record snowfall for Luneburg and they’ve essentially reached the “Eff this noise, it’ll melt eventually” point of plowing the streets.  I’ve never been so thankful for Christmas gifts in my life (shout out to Grandma for the boots and circle scarf.)  Being cold, wet, and hungry is a permanent state of being around here, I can now kind of empathize with abused dogs and/or that guy with the beard in the Ped Mall.  I’ve gotten used to the numb extremeties and rumbling stomach, but wet socks is one of life’s most unpleasant feelings.

I FOUND DIET PEPSI AT THE GROCERY STORE TODAY.  I was forced volunteered to take some friends who had never been, and boy howdy it was a rewarding trip.  It’s actually called Pepsi Light and is more like Pepsi One, but because of my insane brand loyalty to them, it’ll more than suffice.  Since it had been about 24 hours since my last time of nourishment, I coughed up the .19 Eur0 for a fresh roll from the bakery and was in soda/carb heaven– perhaps the best meal I’ve had since coming here.  Sometime after this divine gastronomical intervention, I met a Spanish boy who I should like to marry.  So really, the whole not waking up for class/sprinting through town with zero idea of where I was actually going/ falling on the ice/ going to the wrong building shenanigans that transpired this morning were more than made up for.

The soap in our bathroom smells like peaches and I wash my hands about ten times a day just to smell them after.

My first German lesson went very well and I’m already much farther ahead in learning the language because of it, along with things I’ve picked up/ been taught over the weekend (though the kids from last semester seem to only teach me the words for diseases and/or things one could only find in a sex dictionary.)  Unfortunately, the language part of my brain that’s been sitting dormant for about three years is all excited and fired up again… to speak Spanish.  I can whip out conversational Spanish/ random words like never before– I’m a walking mix of Spernglish (the English part of that usually being many F-bombs when I realize I’m speaking Spanish/ can’t pronounce things in Deutsch to save my life.) 

Whilst composing this, I have learned that one of my roommates plays the clarinet.  At least he’s good.  And it’s not quite as loud as the tablekicken. 

Since coming here, I’ve had a recurring dream about cleaning out old/bad food from the refrigerator with my family, and it’s never a pleasant exchange.  I have no idea what this means– if you had some insight, I’m all ears.  As far as my family goes, homesickness has not been a factor at all.  I’m sure the whole living on my own in college for multiple years thing isn’t much different– perhaps I’ll start longing after a couple months.  I do miss 713, though not to the point where I’m dwelling on it.  More like an Oh hey, this is cool, <insert name here> would enjoy this.  Honestly, I’m usually having too good of a time to think of people, and then I feel kind of guilty after the fact.  Whenever my Google Reader shows that Bryce has updated his blog I get really excited because he writes exactly how he talks and then I miss him a lot.  Neil sends me the world’s best e-mails, usually when Step Brothers or The Departed is on.  He should definitely just take out a loan and come visit me over Spring Break, or maybe I’ll go to France and get kidnapped and he’ll have to use a particular set of skills he’s acquired to rescue me (oh sorry, just a little Taken tangent.  Blogs aren’t the place for inside jokes?  Well TOO BAD.)  I miss people most when my peers here don’t get me, if that makes sense.  While we’ve all bonded quite well, obviously we haven’t really had the choice not to, and there’s still a lot of adjusting/ people haven’t yet realized that I take my self seriously zero percent of the time and my biggest pet peeve is when others do.

Yesterday I finally tried doner (can someone PLEASE tell me how to get the two dots over the “o”?) and it was delicious, though huge.  The Turkish guy behind the counter stared at us for most of the meal and we got to watch awesome Turkish music videos/informmercials, I couldn’t really discern which.  Apparently we’re going bowling tomorrow night because that’s what Americans do. 

I definitely need to drink more water here, it’s good, I just don’t.  Valentine’s Day is just over a month away, and while I’m expecting a flood of gifts from all of you, be aware that I have to pay to get it out of Customs, and the more food in it/ valuable it is, the more I have to pay and the longer it takes.  So cards with medium to large amounts of Euros in it are always appreciated.  (Semi-joking.)  Maybe I’ll go shower now (completely joking.)

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Cold

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

Everything in Germany is cold.  The weather.  My room.  The water.  The people (haha I kid.  Kind of.)

My flatmates are awesome, just kinda shy and aren’t sure how to get around the language barrier– just like me! Julian, who speaks the best English, asked me how my day was today and we haven’t really stopped talking since.  We started playing tablekicken (my new favorite word, it’s foozball) and added more people inluding our neighbor from LA who’s here in my program– so the homefront’s good.

Friday night we went to go bowling but there were no lanes open so we went to a bar.  Apparently I found the Iowa City of Europe (there’s more bars in this small town per capita than anywhere else on the continent except for Madrid, Spain)  so we just kind of hopped around.  First we went to an Irish pub and ITS’ STILL NOT LOST on me that I can order alcohol without fear of fake i.d.-bustage/ arrest/ generally elevated anxiety levels.  Also, there’s no open container laws here.  I’ve also been introduced to sambuca shots, black licorice (anise, for those of you higher class readers) flavored liquor (or as the Americans introduced it to me: It tastes like Jager but fruitier, kinda.)  There’s coffee beans in them for no reason at all and you have to remove them before you take the shot and then your hand is all sticky with sugar.  We then went to this underground bar/club thing where they had couches and played really loud techno (NEEEEIIIILLLL!!)  A very drunk fat middle-aged German asked me where I was from and I said America and he said I know, where so I said Iowa and then he walked away.

Orientation is mostly over THANK HEAVENS, at least the administrative stuff.  We filled out our visas yesterday and got a serious talking to about how to properly air out our rooms.  Because these buildings are so freakin’ old and have no ventilation, we MUST turn off the heater and open the window for at least five minutes at least once a day to dry out the moisture that our bodies produce (because our bodies are 70% water, as they reminded us …) so mold doesn’t grow and cause major cleaning issues/ certain lung cancer and death.  Also, when we wake up we MUST pull back our blankets from the bedding and air it out because DON’T YOU KNOW you sweat during the night?!  It will be a miracle if I do either of these things even a handful of times during my time here.

Last night we went to a bar/club place that looks like a barn/the Val-Air Ballroom/ ski lodge called Vamos that’s the kind of on campus place but anyone can go there?  Apparently they throw shindigs from time to time.  Mas sumbuca?  Of course.  Mostly we awkward Americans hung around and watched the Germans dance because they don’t touch each other.  Girls have zero problem just standing in the middle of the floor, dancing alone.  When a guy or their friends join them, they just kind of make the motions with a good amount of space around them– none of this bumpin’ and grindin’ stuff we American hooligans are into.  Also, they have a coat check (or robegarde, if I remember correctly) for one Euro.

Although Sundays are completely dead around here, the doner place (with the two dots over the “o” but I can’t figure out how to do it on my computer yet) is still open and we never did try them the other night.  People mostly go into Hamburg on Sundays (for burritos when they’re hungover– apparently the German version is quite hilarious) but the train’s not running today because of all the snow.  And then we’re going to my neighbor’s to watch movies and maybe have an excellent German beer because we have ZERO else better to do and because we’re all super best friends already haha.  But seriously.

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Honeymoon phase

Friday, January 8th, 2010

We learned today during day one of orientation that what I am currently experiencing is the “honeymoon phase” of study abroad and the fact that I LOVE everything and feel like I was meant to be here my whole life and love everyone I meet (HA ok, it is me we’re talking about, but most people) will eventually give way to culture shock and a very “I hate Germany attitude.”  Then I’m supposed to find myself in a happy medium until I get back the States and become a raging bitch for a little while when I experience reverse culture shock.  SO GET EXCITED FOR THAT.

If I am to meet my demise here, it will not be from kidnap, alcohol poisoning, or choking on a baked good (change your bets now.)  I will most likely ignite either my room or head on fire with my blow dryer and/or straightener.  In addition to the prongs being different, there is also apparently a lot more voltage being pumped through over here (thank God for the surge protector) and not only did my hair dryer sound like a wind tunnel when I turned it on, the coils immediately turned orange and began smoking.  GO ME!  Also, there’s a small chance I’ll go to bed and never wake up due to the German’s OBSESSION with CO2 posioning.  The radiator in my room is on full-blast (my own freezing American doing) and if I don’t open my window every now and again everyone has warned me I am facing certain death.  There are actually CO2 monitors in every classroom and when they go from green to yellow someone opens the window.

Something else kinda different is how green they are, most specifically their recyling regimes.  Their everyday recycling, on campus and as individuals, rivals my mother’s (and for those of you who know her, you think this can’t be, IT’S THAT INTENSE.)  We were given little plastic cups for orientation today and told to SAVE THEM and rinse them out for tomorrow because we won’t be given another.  These are the super flimsy ones not even the red SOLO brand ones.  When you buy a bottle of water or soda in the mensa, you pay a bottle deposit, then the cashier pays it back to you if you bring it back and put it in the recyling.

I had my first vurst today (not bratwurst, sorry Neilio) in the mensa.  It was actually called curryvurst because it came with an optional curry sauce, no thanks, so it was actually just a sausage thing that was pretty good.  There are bakeries E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E.  Good thing I have better things to spend my limited Euros on or I wouldn’t fit on the plane back home.  All of the kids in the program met today and we’re already very good friends, mostly because we have to be– the German students are on a different schedule and will have their exams in a few weeks and then clear out for up to a month.  OH AND GUESS WHAT.  We do get a Spring Break, we were all under the impression that the only time we had off was the Friday before Easter.  So we’re planning on traveling any/everywhere.  If you are reading this and thinking this means you should visit/ I’m going to visit you (ahem, Molly hehe) NO PROMISES yet.  Just don’t even ask me about it.  Pretend I never even said anything (except don’t because I”m SO EXCITED for it.)

Tonight we’re going to eat dunner (quite certain I’m spelling this wrong, but I’ve never seen it written out.  It’s pronounced like doo-ner and at first I thought they were just saying we’d have dinner together but it’s actually the word for some amazing German gyro type thing.)  Then we’re going bowling because the American kids who stayed from fall semester made it some tradition, and then (or during) I’ll get to experience my first real German bier.  Living on campus will be good for classes, but not really convenient for everything else– Am Sande is too far of a walk and the buses stop running before 9 pm.  Luckily there are other (more fluent) students who live close by who I can share a taxi with on nights I’m downtown.

I have German class M-Th from 8:30- noon and then my only other class meets Mondays from 4-8 pm.  Fridays are reserved for exams (not every Friday and only for two hours in the morning) so my weekends (and most of my weekdays, really) will be quite free.  EVERYTHING here is closed on Sundays.  Our student i.d. lets us on any bus in the state for free, and one of the places it goes is Celle which is the nearest town to Bergen Belsen.  There is a girl here who’s goal is to get her PhD in WWII so she’s very excited to go with me.

There are 15 new kids in the program with me, most from the midwest, and a couple who stayed through from the fall semester.  One guy is from Iowa and is happy to have another Hawkeye, he’s quite sad he picked last season to not be in IC for football games.  I’m making guy AND girl friends (oh, Brittney– we’re so proud) and many look like people from home/ remind me of them, it’s weird/ funny.  One of the guys is from California and we’ve already discovered our mutual love of all things In-n-Out. While Valentine’s Day isn’t celebrated in Germany, I did find a small window display of VALENTINE’S DAY STUFF in a shop this morning to capitalize on Americans here who celebrate it.  Swoon.  A girl from fall who has a German boyfriend said don’t be offended if your German boyfriend doesn’t give you anything, and I asked her where the list was to sign up for one.  Apparently hers was from before she came here anyway, dammit, but the campus isn’t exactly crawling with lepers.  Now if I could only actually learn the language, we’d be in business.

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I’m never leaving

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

I could be unpacking, but OF COURSE I made getting Internet a top priority so I could share my journey thus far with those of you on the edge of your seats.  Bear with me that I’m forcing myself to stay up and acclamate to the time change, so this will probably just a boring rundown of the day’s events.

Germany = awesome.  The autobahn wasn’t as exciting as I was building it up to be.  Lueneburg is hands down the most adorable town you will ever see.  I was literally SQUEALING when I saw my apartment (or apparently as I’m supposed to call it, flat hehehe).  IT IS MASSIVE.  I have the room right across from the bathroom and has a huge chest of drawers, bed, desk, sofa, TV, phone, iron, stereo, more storage compartment thingys…  My roommates: two German guys Tim and Julian, one Italian guy Gianluca, and a German girl Janina– they’ve all been super helpful, asked if I prefer them to speak German or English to me and I got to whip out my one phrase “Ich spreche kein Deutsch.”  They mostly just kind of awkwardly smile at me and move on, Gianluca was quite confused that I was not Kevin, the guy who apparently lived here last semester and never really said anything about moving out.  On Mondays we each put in some Euros then take turns shopping and we all cook dinner together.

The cafeteria (mensa) is about ten steps from my building.  I got a card that I can load Euros onto and eat there for any meal.  My language buddy Melanie took me on a quick tour of campus and a I got to meet a girl in my program from Idaho who also doesn’t speak English.  Being here I WISH WISH WISH I knew German already, but they speak it so freakishly fast I’m not sure I could understand if I had a few years under my belt.  Everyone’s been very kind in speaking English to me and teaching me new words for things.  We went to the supermarket and how ’bout I just tell you what I bought since I’m SURE YOU’RE SO INTERESTED.  Sandwich bread (bad move– there’s a reason there’s so many fresh loaves of bread around, this stuff ain’t great) peanut butter, strawberry jam, milk, cereal, bananas, clementines, eggs, and a giant bag of frozen broccoli.  How ’bout them apples?!  I also need to bring my own bags to the store, oops.

It is FREEZING here.  Around noon I was like Oh yeah, this is awesome, so much warmer than Iowa!  But the sun sets before 5 pm so walking home from the store my legs about froze off.  Apparently this is out of the ordinary and the snow we’re expecting this weekend (joy!) should be the last of it.  We have orientations tomorrow and Saturday, I’ll ride the free bus (wish me luck!) to the city square since campus is kind of far from it.

I think that’s about it.  I would upload some pics but WordPress isn’t letting me choose anything but Full Size which would take up well over the entire page.  Harumph.  Here’s a link to my Facebook album of them, with captions that pretty much sum up everything from above: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032936&id=1172310090&saved#/album.php?aid=2032936&id=1172310090 Wow.  I should get a life.

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I’m at the airport (YES! That one)

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

Holy schmoligans.  I am HERE.  Sitting in the Des Moines International (ha!) Airport, nary a relative in sight, passport and Euros tucked securely in my backpack at my feet– I really never thought I’d feel so liberated.  I’m like, an ADULT.  But before we get into how I have so much energy I feel I could sprint to Germany faster than my four flights will take me, let me wind the clock back for you…

Yesterday and this morning I was surprisingly calm– sleep came easily, I didn’t wake up in a cold sweat sure that I’d overslept (in fact I woke to two good luck texts, how quaint.)  Then I went to go turn on the light in the bathroom… AND IT DIDN’T WORK.  I flipped the switch in my bedroom, NO SUCH LUCK.  The power was out.  The ELECTRICITY to my HOUSE did not WORK.  In all the freak what-if scenarios I’d concocted over the last month or so, THIS WASN’T ONE OF THEM.  My parents were remarkably unconcerned about this.  Thankfully Mom hasn’t tackled dismantling the Christmas wonderland that is our living room, so I grabbed a candle and set about getting ready.  You may think showering by candlelight is romantic or relaxing.  WRONG.  Have you tried to pop a zit in only the faint flicker of a flame?  NOT THAT EASY (but completely necessary, I’m like a three-eyed freak– the Germans will think whatever is growing between my eyes is some sort of disease and the Obama administration hand-picked me to unleash biological warfare on ze fatherland.)  Sure, the inability to take any appliance to my hair cut down on getting ready time, but I really didn’t expect to make my first impression on Europe with a bush on my head.

ANYWAY, I suppose the whole throwback to Colonial times wasn’t so bad, and the ‘rents took me to Panera for caffeine, carbs, and free wireless.  We stopped off at a bank to buy some Euros, and over an hour and about three new bank accounts later we emerged (free Snuggie in hand!  Stop at your local Wells Fargo today!) and sped to the SPRAWLING HUB that I find myself in now.  My flight’s been delayed 20 minutes, I’ve been assigned a short piece I can hopefully pound out while over the Atlantic, the lady behind the desk told me I’m getting out just in time before a snowstorm.  Wish me luck!!

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I’m at the airport! (No, not that one)

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Bienvenido to my official first post… from the Miami International Airport.  Please don’t put a bounty on my head when I tell you that before I leave for Germany (48 hours and counting– oh, so this is what a heart attack feels like) my family went on a cruise to Jamaica and the Cayman Islands over the New Year’s holidays.  As Lauren correctly speculated, there were numerous daiquiris and pool boys involved (and margaritas, busboys, bellhops…)

I suppose this would be a good time to inform you of my deep-seeded pure straight hate for all things have to do with aiports, airplanes, and flying.  So you can imagine how THRILLED I am at how much collective time I’ll be spending in the air before Friday.  I’ve already made peace with the fact that I will get zero sleep tomorrow night, the night before Deutschland.  I’m quite certain I will wear the wrong things, say the wrong things, eat too many of the wrong things (my language buddy e-mailed me that their primary food group is BREAD and I can buy over 100 kinds. OH OKAY.  I didn’t need to be able to see my feet when I get back to the States.)

I don’t speak German– wait, that’s kind of a half-truth.  My German vocabulary has expanded to the numbers 1-3 and 7 (SIEBEN!!), I miss you, sandwich, I love you, and the present tense of “they are swimming.”  So really I should just breeze through the 14 credits of German I’m taking over there (I’ll be taking the equivalent of two years of German at UI in one semester in Germany.  Pretty boss.)  The worst part will be not being able to text every thought to my best friends back home– well, that and the fact that everyone who’s studied abroad and imparted their wisdom has told me I’ll spend heinously larger amounts of money than I’m already planning to.  Which is just awesome because those wads of hundreds have really  been burning holes from under my mattress.

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Lauren’s first post, and a losing battle with WordPress

Friday, January 1st, 2010

Hello, dear readers (or: friends who I’ve successfully coerced into visiting our humble blog). Brittney is presently gallivanting somewhere near the equator, perhaps with a daiquiri in hand and a few strapping young pool boys at her side. But I’m not bitter. It’s roughly one degree Fahrenheit in Chicago, and I’ve commenced 2010 by hiding out in my room with a mug of tea and a Ghirardelli square as I struggle to understand WordPress.

As mentioned in the first post, we aren’t web gurus. I took a few liberties with the blog theme and it’s looking a little dull right now, but don’t you worry — I’ve got two full weeks to dedicate to the site’s aesthetics before I catch a plane to España.

In the meantime, here’s an actual post to entertain you. That is, if you aren’t already entertained by our fabulous URL. When Brittney sent me the link to the site, I was confused. I braced myself for topless chicks and an abundance of Hawkeye logos (it’s Iowa, after all). I truly did not understand that she sent a link to our blog. My first thought was, “Oh, god. What’s my family going to say about me writing on a ‘Girls Gone Wild’ website?” But then I thought, hell — if the domain name reels in a few more readers (perverts or otherwise), I’m not going to complain. Come one, come all, even pervy Mervs.

Brittney leaves the country soon; next week, I believe? Unfortunately, I have until January 17 to panic about my trip. And I’m a worrier, so don’t doubt that I’ll be panicking. I’m already strung out over plug adapters, finances and horror stories of students who gain 20+ pounds abroad after becoming overzealous about their host culture’s food and booze. I worked at a Spanish restaurant for a summer, so maybe my familiarity with paella and Rioja wines will help to keep my zeal at bay.

So for the next two weeks, I’ll be here. Living at home, without a job, in a foggy haze of voltage converters and pre-departure planning. What does this mean? The pressure’s on Brittney to offer up some interesting posts. You go, girl!

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