Ready or not…

Posts Tagged ‘flatmates’

Ready or not…

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

….here I come, America!

I got a surprising amount of sleep last night and am already showered, caffeinated, and marzipaned with plenty of time to get to the airport. It’s raining and gloomy; typical Germany refusing to give me one last sunshine-y memory. One of my two suitcases is quite certainly overweight, and just maneuvering both of them through bus, train, subway, and airport is the greatest source of my anxiety right now. Either way, in just over 22 hours I should be coming down the escalator towards my father and Savannah in the Des Moines International (giggle) Airport. I’ve left my flatmates a lovely note (because that’s really the most fitting good-bye considering our relationship) and got enormous bear hugs from the Slovak and my other neighbor last night. I suppose I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, OH AND GUESS WHAT– my friend Katie and I WON karaoke the other night (D-Bag and I left early.) The prize is a 50 Euro tab to be used at the bar, so while I’m sad I wasn’t there to claim my prize or use it, it’s probably for the best. And by “won” I mean they put all of the participants’ names in a hat and randomly draw a winner each week, so it’s not like the judges were super impressed by my coordinated and oft-rehearsed boy band moves.

AUF WIEDERSEHEN, DEUTSCHLAND! ICH LIEBE DICH UND ICH WERDE DICH VERMISSEN!!

Tags: airport, flatmates, leaving
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In which I get a bit hostile at the natives

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

Complete and total academic apathy has set in for all members of my study abroad program. I’ve given up on learning any more of the German language and will consider it a Life Win if I am present for the remainder of my classes. I’ll perhaps save the rant on why track classes are a complete waste for another time (if I wanna learn German, spending an hour having casual conversation with my roommates will teach me more than four weeks of classroom busy work. The other week we were introduced to the Genetiv verb tense by my teacher saying, “We don’t actually use this anymore, but you still have to learn it.” OH OKAY.) The countdown to home is now in weeks instead of months, and I waffle daily on how I feel about this. It seems the longer I’m here, the more hostile I get with the natives, and if I unapologetically get the German Stare one more time while doing something completely harmless to them, I PROMISE YOU I WILL GET VIOLENT.

Yesterday after our requisite weekly testing, we played some volleyball outside then came in for some good old-fashioned drinking games. I volunteered my WG and perfectly sized kitchen table for some beer pong even though there’s really nothing I hate more in this world than that wretched game and thus didn’t actually participate. My flatmate situation has changed drastically since the beginning of the year– I’m now living with two German girls, a German guy, and a Brazilian girl (woman? They’re all my age or older, I suppose the proper term is “female.”) This batch is about a million times more uppity than the last ones (two are the same) and are cleaning ALL THE TIME and tell me how dirty the bathroom is and made a chore chart with all of our names on it. You read that correctly. It’s like I’m in second grade and if I get 100 gold stars I get a trip to Disneyland. This week I’m on trash duty, and absolutely want to burn this place to the ground, if I can just be honest about my feelings. This chore chart combines so many of my least favorite things into one seemingly harmless but actually Satan-sent piece of cardboard: 1. CLEANING; 2. Community, sharing, getting along with others; 3. CLEANING. I realize my deeply-ingrained hatred for all things orderly is the point of the chart in the first place, but what kind of Type A anal-retentive European sat down with a glue stick, Sharpies (they spelled my name wrong, perhaps a large source of this angst) and decided that five adults couldn’t just take care of their own shit? I’m fairly certain a majority of the German population would drop dead if they saw the living conditions at 713. Cleanliness is definitely a huge cultural difference, even when comparing it to normal households and not the barely live-able house of five college guys.

ANYWAY, so after beer pong, we were looking forward to some schnitzel and Pommes at the Mensa for dinner, but turns out they don’t serve it on Fridays. We went into Am Sande to get Döner and gelato, then went to an outdoor bonfire/birthday party for some of the Erasmus (non-German European study abroad program) students. While oddly cold out, it was a pretty great time, and we witnessed yet didn’t actually try Spanish s’mores. Ok, not really s’mores at all, but it involves open flame and a stick, so the Americans thought Aha! marshmallows. It was actually some sort of bread dough brought out in saucepans, and then they’d take some and smear it on the end of the stick (which had been kind of pre-cleaned and cut? But not enough to where a German would eat it HA.) It took a while, but the bread would eventually puff up and cook and it was kinda like a breadstick. I did attempt this, but apparently used too much dough and caused a giant doughy mess on my hands and the stick and the fire– just step away from the carbs, Brittney.

Today we finally satisfied our burrito cravings in Hamburg, and I was able to clear out my pollen-clogged sinuses thanks to the Diablo Habanero salsa. It was good, but not nearly as spicy as something labeled similarly in America would be (Germans DON’T do spicy.) Afterward we went to Hamburger Dom, this carnival type thing that comes around like four times a year. It’s basically the Iowa State Fair with only the light-up, spinny rides and food stands, only the food stands here are way better because it’s German food and every other one sells some sort of beer, pastry, or wurst. I got my hands on perhaps the highlight of my life here so far– Mazipankuchen, essentially a marzipan-filled frosted donut. Holy diabetes, Batman– it was so hot and melty and oily and sugary and amazingly almond-ly delicious. Imagine the last time you enjoyed being naked with another person, take that times 100, and it MIGHT be what this tasted like. I just tried to upload a picture of it, but apparently WordPress only wants to work for Lauren, thus I will just tell you to click here for the Facebook album it’s in.

Tags: drinking, flatmates, food, Hamburg
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Wochenende

Friday, March 26th, 2010

Hot Roomie is moving out today. This is both good and bad– he’s taking his <insert expletive> Foozball table with him and the kitchen will be cleared of the piles of dishes he tended to leave out forever, but overall I’m sad to see him go. No more Monday night dinners with his hot friends, not to mention he was certainly the most outgoing of our WG 18 bunch. A moment of silence may be in order. Our door just buzzed earlier and a woman from the campus newspaper was here, asking if she could ask me a few questions on what I think about the housing. The best part is: she asked me in German and I understood. My handle on the language is near first-rate if I’m reading it, but when it comes to listening and speaking, this is where my brain still gets bamboozled. I was able to reply to her though that yes, she could come in but mein Deutsch ist schlect, to which she said no problem and conducted the interview in English. Score one for the home (away?) team.

In other news, the weather has been in the sunny low 70s so I’ve been spending an uncharacteristic amount of time outside. Apart from setting my alarm unnecessarily early to run in the mornings, we’ve also taken to playing soccer and/or sand volleyball after lunch. This provides heaps of entertainment for the Germans (who do e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. outside once the snow melts) who think we are just the most laughably dumb American group of people to e’er kick a ball around. One group was FILMING us on their cell phone the other day, most likely to show their friends and say “Can you believe they wore that and said this?” To their credit, we knew we were being heinously judged, thus played up our obnoxious inability to care at all what those around us thought. If there’s one thing studying abroad has changed about me, I will certainly no longer think any less of foreign students on our campus. Yeah, they might be weird, but how they act is normal to their culture and it has zero to do with me. You shoulda seen the stink eyes I was getting walking across campus today in flip-flips, rolled up jeans, and a guy’s Marvel comics t-shirt. WHATEVER. I’m all about assimilating to the culture, but on a sunny Friday afternoon post-test, I’m not gonna put heaps of effort into my appearance– priorities, people.

Tonight I’m boarding a bus for Copenhagen with three guys from my program (my mother: “Why do you never hang out with girls?!” As if she met me yesterday.) It’s an overnight bus and we’ll arrive early in the morning for a day of sight-seeing and GIANT COFFEE drinking because Denmark has 7-11′s. On Sunday there’s a bike race we’ll be attending which will be akin to Christmas for D-Bag because he’s a giant cyclist, then we’ll take the night bus back to Hamburg and arrive heinously early Monday morning. I’m not foreseeing much sleep in the coming days, but I’m super excited to visit a new country.

With only six weeks left til the program ends, some students are getting anxious for home and some are going into full-on “I’m never leaving Germany” meltdown mode. Most of the students also here for the fall session absolutely dread returning home, a lot of them it seems because they escaped from less ideal personal situations in the states. Those of us who have only been here since January have kind of kept one foot in Germany, one in America, and are eager to return to our normal routines and friends. While leaving will be HARD and suck and produce days of “Aaagh I miss Germany so much,” I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to go home at all. My life in Iowa is great, and there are people and places I want to return to stat. My last six weeks look like they’ll be filled with travel, and my last weekend will be spent doing some fabulous shopping in Hamburg since I have done little to none in my time here (and someone needs a pretty new dress or ten to celebrate her 21st birthday in Vegas.)

Lastly, I have a project due for my one non-language class next month and it draws on my high school experience as yearbook editor (cue the dungeon music.) I’m making a “semester book” type thing and my teacher wants me to expand it, make it real professional like, and include everyone so they can possibly use it to show future students/ prospects. I’m not too concerned about this (though should be since I was supposed to start like… months ago) but who knows what types of posts written in pure frustration and agony might pop up later. Get excited.

Tags: class, Copenhagen, flatmates, home, semester book, sun, weather, weekend
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Lauf machen

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Sorry to hear there’s snow back home– definitely not any here (knock on wood..) It’s been overcast and slightly misting all day, the perfect weather for my first outdoor run of the season! …oh baby am I outta shape. My legs already hurt, and I didn’t exactly go a marathon distance. While out on my non-characteristic spurt of physical activity, I stumbled upon some sort of Holy Grail nature preserve in almost literally my backyard that put the woods in Iowa to shame (again, Mom– you might want to start working on your German citizenship now.) There is a wide (and clear!) creek and wooden benches and trails and TALL trees and little bushes and lots of wet, leafy underbrush that goes on for acres. You could be naked for quite a while in the area and never get caught– it’s not thick with fauna, it’s just so BIG. After my body said “eff that” to the whole quickened pace thing, I wandered around the trails for a bit, never seeing another person save for the tree fellers (sorry) at one clearing. Eventually I figured I should find my way back to some sort of civilization, not hard to do once I got onto the big main trail. This is where I wouldn’t exactly say I was “lost” more as I was “pleasantly unsure of where my home was.” There was no cause for alarm, though I was a bit surprised when I realized I had gone outside of city limits. I made it back fine, though not without eliciting some full-on stares from my fellow Saturday morning pedestrians. I should learn how to say “Don’t be alarmed, I’m not actually about to fall over dead from a heart attack, my face just naturally turns this bright red every time I run” auf Deutsch.

One of my flatmates popped in for about three minutes today to, I don’t know, make sure the American could actually be trusted with the place on her own. He informed me he wouldn’t back til April when their school break is over (question: can I eat their food??), which I’m more than a little excited about because this whole living solo and playing German house thing has been pretty great. In his absence, his room is unlocked in case I wanna borrow any of his movies. He is so my new favorite.

Yesterday a group of us Yankee students went into Hamburg for some window shopping and HOFBRAUHAUS DRINKING!!! Before I get to the obvious best part of my day, props to my three guy friends who followed me around to… 4? 5? maybe 6 stores before I found an inexpensive yet cute purse. The weather’s getting nice enough that my coat pockets can no longer hold my camera/ cell phone/ bus pass/ wallet/ gum/ Kleenex, and being the sketch backpack girl everywhere isn’t really my thing. I finally found one I liked for less than 20 Euro so that beast came home with me. Hamburg has A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. shopping. I die. SO many beautiful things, so little time, even less money. Did the EU meet up a while back and say, “Hey, let’s charge ridiculous amounts of money for normal things!” Germany, you are killing me. Not that I’m dirt poor over here or need any of these things, but more than once I had the thought, “Man it’d be great if <insert name of someone who has lots of money to shower me with gifts> was here?” At least all of this window shopping worked up a bit of an appetite, so off we strode to ZE HOFBRAUHAUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They have one in Hamburg, not as great as the one in Munich, better than the one in Vegas (some people collect figurines, I visit beer halls.) Two more friends had joined us by this point in our journey and we all had a liter of Bier and Brezels (regular sized, unfortunately.) The waiter originally brought out liters for the four guys at the table, and HALF liters for me and the other girl in our party. Excuse me, Sir– I’m not sure who you think I am or where I come from, but I assure you I can handle the big one, thankyouverymuch. Luckily he asked when he brought the littles one if we’d prefer what’d we ordered (um, yes) so the change was made without too much bodily harm. The NERVE.

Tags: drinking, flatmates, Hamburg, nature, running
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Das Wetter ist sehr Nett

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

IT’S SO GORGEOUS OUTSIDE. I’m not one to usually get all hot and bothered by outdoors stuff, but after this winter (which the US Embassy informed us was one of the worst in Germany’s history) I just want to live outside. The giant sports field about ten feet from my front door is finally drying out so we can spend our days and nights playing soccer. It’s not even noon on Thursday and my weekend has started, I will definitely not be toiling away inside at my laptop. My flatmates have all mysteriously disappeared, glamorous ski vacations in the Alps and such during their time off from school, but you will hear no complaints of this from me. Spring is reminding me of Easter, which is oddly reminding me of my grandmother’s house (shout-out to Lin!) We get a solid four days off for the holiday and methinks D-Bag and I will be heading to Dresden/ some of the smaller surrounding towns. Sometimes I get really anxious that I haven’t been tons of places while abroad, but I like Lauren’s approach that I’m here so I’m going to explore here instead of trying to pack a bunch of 48 hour trips across the continent.

Germans don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but that in no way stopped us Americans from donning green and getting betrunken on a Wednesday. We went to the local Irish Pub, which thankfully was also celebrating and had the green beer a-flowin’. They were also giving out giant cloth Guinness top hats and had green “Tullamore Dew” streamers hanging from everything. I now have a giant pile of these on my floor thanks to people draping them around my neck, making bracelets out of them, etc. The hats were in hot demand and we nearly sparked an international incident trying to snag another before we left, but I’m proud to say one did manage to make it back with us, which D-Bag let me keep (or perhaps I’ve taken it hostage.) There was some Irish guy with a guitar singing songs; he played some Neil Young, Lynrd Skynrd, and after asking the crowd for requests (big mistake) some Guns ‘n Roses. Either he was drunk and sad or wanted the crowd to settle because “Simple Kind of Man” and “Patience” aren’t exactly party tunes in my book, but the crowd’s back-up vocals helped to liven them up, I guess.

I only have SIX WEEKS of class left which I’m sure will fly by. Not exactly stoked about leaving Germany, getting back on Monday was a huge sigh of relief. My body has fallen right back into my German sleep schedule, and as soon as I deplaned for my layover in Amsterdam my brain took hold of the language again. Yesterday I met with my Sprachpartnerin (speaking partner) for the first time and we had a bilingual lunch. Her English is much better than my German, but she was very patient with my “I know I know this word but I’m completely blanking out because I’ve never actually had to speak freely in German before” pauses. My brain hurt afterward, not to mention I was still wanting to say everything in Spanish. We’ll meet up a few times before I leave, and if you’re wondering, I VOLUNTARILY signed up to get a speaking partner. I do believe a pat on the back is in order for stepping out of my comfort zone.

Oh, after my creepy Senatorial stalking, the rest of my trip back was pretty uneventful. I was less than thrilled to be sitting between two people on the 7.5 hour trip from Detroit to Amsterdam, but luckily miracles do happen and I didn’t have to get up once. I watched The September Issue (documentary about “Vogue” and Anna Wintour– LOVED) and Paper Heart (lame pseudo-documentary about love I only watched because Michael Cera’s in it. It was boring and his ex-gf who stars in it absolutely annoys the shit outta me.) I got to sleep maybe four or five hours, mostly I’m just psyched that my passport has a shiny new Amsterdam stamp in it. Off to lunch with my homeslices, or the ones who aren’t bed-ridden all day thanks to St. Patrick, and then OUTSIDE or Hamburg or something WITHOUT A COAT!!

Tags: airplane, airport, drinking, flatmates, Netherlands, Sprachpartnerin, St. Patrick's Day, sun, weather
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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

Tags: flatmates, food
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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.

Tags: Autobahn, bus, flat, flatmates, groceries
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