UI Girls Gone Wild… Abroad
Lauren & Brittney do Europe

Posts Tagged ‘food’

LISTS, à la Brittney.

Monday, May 10th, 2010

Things I’ll Miss About Spain

  • The climate.
  • The overall beauty of this place. The Cathedral, the Giralda, the graffiti-covered path along Guadalquivir River, the Triana Bridge…. the churro stand at the end of the Triana Bridge.
  • Cruzcampo…? I’m slightly more Spanish than I was in January, by virtue of my recently developed love for this shittastic beer.
  • The fact that my life is a sitcom. Actually, there are parts of this that I won’t miss. But sometimes I find myself in such ridiculous situations that I have to look around and wonder when the tech guy is going to press the “canned laughter” button.
  • Drinking in public/never being carded.
  • The Misadventures of Lauren and Francesca. Enough said. Subcategory of this bullet point: abusing the word “jovenes” and speaking like a true Trianera, miarma.
  • Constantly improving my Spanish. Living in Iowa doesn’t lend itself well to interacting with native Spanish speakers.
  • The overall life philosophy. People just don’t stress as much as Americans do. I can’t say that Spain has killed my pragmatism, but I have started thinking more whimsically since I’ve been here. Although I guess this philosophy also explains Andalucía’s staggering unemployment rate… meh.

Things I Won’t Miss About Spain

  • The symphony of god-awful noises in my neighborhood: Triana’s anonymous pan flute artist, the neighbor’s dog who is fortunate to still be alive, the other neighbor whose screaming children obsessively listen to Ke$ha (bless her soul), the guy who clanks giant slabs of metal together midday.
  • The occasional important communication that gets hopelessly lost in translation.
  • Semi-regular cat calls, ass grabs and harassment from slimy viejos verdes and gilipollas.
  • Siesta. Because I never actually sleep, and I can’t even buy a freakin’ pack of gum since the whole country shuts down between 2 and 5 p.m.
  • The lack of culinary diversity. I would do unspeakable things for a burrito, for some shrimp tempura, for some grapefruit.
  • Never being able to articulate precisely what I’m thinking. Although I may not appear excessively eloquent, I’m obsessed with words and sentences and the way they’re constructed. I have a nuanced way of speaking in English that simply doesn’t translate in Spanish, which also kills a lot of the bad jokes I try to make to Spaniards.
  • The overall life philosophy. Going back to the siesta: how does a country operate around a three-hour midday nap? Why is it inconceivable to propose a dinner time earlier than 10 p.m.? Sometimes I’m enamored with this idea of, “Hey we’re in Andalucía, live it up! Don’t take life so seriously!!!” Other times, I want to make this country a chore chart and impose a few new house rules; give the place a sense of order.

PS — The volcanic ash cloud strikes back, this time on Spain. Damnit. And I thought I had escaped it’s wrath… here’s hoping that I can get out of Madrid come Friday morning.
PPS — Ohmygod Friday morning. It’s 10:30 p.m. on Monday and I’ve gone all day without sobbing. 10 points for Lauren. 10 more points if I make it to midnight.

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On leaving my señorita

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

In the past four months I’ve developed a close relationship with Elisa (or, my host lady; or, the woman with whom I live; or, my señorita). I’ve had to attach a lot of names to Elisa to explain my atypical living situation: Most students in Sevilla live with old ladies (to put it bluntly) and the study abroad lingo for an older woman hosting an American student is señora. Simple enough. But my señora, at only 35, isn’t old enough to warrant the title — it suggests a certain age. “Host lady” is a little cold, and “roommate” isn’t quite right; Tyler never did my laundry or met daily obligations to feed me. But compared to most of my college-aged comrades abroad, my living situation more closely mirrored a roommate setup than anything else.

Ever since my first day here, Elisa and I have had some in-depth conversations, at least for a guiri (me; derogatory Spanish term for foreigners) living with a native Spaniard. I remember talking about abortion, the death penalty and the Catholic priest scandal all within week one. Tonight we chatted over fish pizza and Nutella sandwiches about the mortgage crisis. I read a bunch of cheesy testimonies before I came here about how the best language practice is at home with a host family, and I can now confirm that there is something to those cheesy testimonies.

Most people wrote heartwarming accounts: memories of telling stories to their snot-nosed Spanish host siblings. If my program asked, I could come up with 500 words about Elisa’s philosophy on men and marriage. It’s true that I sometimes feel like an idiot here. I’m often acutely aware of my own foreignness, which only heightens my inhibitions. Sometimes I’m more self conscious at home than anywhere else, especially on a hypersensitive day when I’m tired of hearing my accent mocked. We went a few weeks sporadically where I behaved like a surly teenager, moping in my room and blabbing in English on Skype. But aside from these fleeting frustrations, living with Elisa was one of the best parts of my experience here (and in turn, sort-of living with her sort-of boyfriend, who I would equate to that one uncle, or your dad’s creepy cousin — the guy in every family — who moves in as if to kiss you on the cheek but then goes for your mouth. Whatever, I love him anyways). So when I leave in eight days, expect waterworks.

If I hadn’t lived here, who else would have dragged me to a shady discoteca midday on a Saturday 20 minutes outside of the city? Who else would have fed me snails and introduced me to the kickass dual-flavor off brand of Nutella? Who else would have encouraged me to make questionable life decisions every time I went out on a Thursday night (well, maybe I could have found someone to do that)? Who else would have gotten drunk on a Tuesday for my birthday and then dealt with the resulting hangover when she got up for work at 7 a.m. the next day? You may love your 70-year-old señora, and I’m sure she’s a sweetheart, but I wouldn’t change my living situation for the world.

I’ve never been sure if Elisa liked me all that much, but she made a comment Monday night that after me, she doesn’t think she’ll have a better student. I’m the first one she’s hosted. I told her not to make me cry. Then she said how great I am because I’m the equivalent of a human garbage disposal and will eat anything she puts in front of me. So okay, even if she’s hated me this whole time, she at least appreciates how embarrassingly not picky I am. If that’s not a moving cross-cultural bond worthy of being transformed into a made-for-TV movie, then I don’t know what is.

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Leggy mistakes in Spain, second helpings of Portugal

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

An observation, before I launch into a description of Lagos, Portugal, one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in my 21 years:

Shorts are a fashion faux pas in Spain. I could have told you this before I got here, but now that springtime in Sevilla has arrived, I’ve given up my ongoing endeavor to be fashionably correct in Europe.

Last week it got up to almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit here. I, like any marginally sane person, decided the time was nigh to bare a little thigh, but Spaniards dress like they’re traveling to the Iditarod until mid-July. What’s worse is the way people stare when you wander around in shorts here, as if you were meandering the city in nothing but a pair of nipple tassels. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t exactly have the body of a Victoria’s Secret model; people aren’t staring because there’s any novelty to my body shape. And I’m not busting out the Daisy Dukes. I just think it’s high time the locals put away their leather jackets, scarves and boots. I know the summer gets a trillion times nastier than this, but c’mon. Does anyone really need so many layers when you could possibly cook an egg over easy on the sidewalk? Survey says no.

I don’t know how to transition from that into my recap of Lagos, so I’m not going to. I went to Lagos this weekend; it was beautiful.

In April I was lucky enough to see two cities in Portugal, Lisbon and now Lagos, and I’ve got to say; Portugal is a pretty great country. I hope to one day return. Lisbon was urban and quirky, with castles and history alongside a young downtown scene and the backdrop of the river. Lagos was a small beach town with an enormous expat community, and my God it was breathtaking. Six of us decided to take the bus from Sevilla to Lagos — a nauseating six-hour ride, although by car the cities are only about two hours away — and book a hostel together. Coincidentally, we chose to go the same weekend as 500 other students from Sevilla. That mass of humanity went with a student travel agency that organizes different trips, complete with bOoZe CrUiSeS and PrIVaTe PArTIeeZzzzz. We went the frugal route and forfeited the booze cruise, although it wasn’t exactly a dry weekend.

We camped out most of our time at a beach about five minutes from our hostel, tanning and eating grocery store goodies including (but not limited to) sandwiches with wheat bread — a novelty on this side of the Atlantic — and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Also on this side of the Atlantic, I realized it was the first time I swam in that particular body of water. Another notch on my beach belt. We did a little bit of swimming from our beach to another one nearby, going through a grotto or two and avoiding any fatal injuries by rocks. I can’t emphasize how much I loved it… all of it. I reflected not long ago about my striking similarities to my mother and our mutual interest in wine. This weekend I had the same sort of reflection about my likeness to my father. He’s a restless beachgoer, constantly asking Who wants to go for a walk? Who wants to go swimming? Who wants to check out the coral reef? and tirelessly commenting on how amazing the water is, how blue it is, how cool the rocks look, how nice the sand is… this weekend I was something of a Greg 2.0. Imploring anyone in our group to go swimming with me (despite the water being extremity-numbingly cold). Getting restless an hour after laying out and seeing who was ready for a walk. I also pushed hard for a boat tour of the grottos, and I’m infinitely glad we decided to do it. There was a bit of a communication barrier with our Portuguese boat driver, and one or two close encounters when he almost smashed us into a fellow boat and then into the inside wall of a grotto, but I can’t complain too much. I eventually got off the boat intact.

In summary, if you ever find yourself bored in southern Europe, hop a bus to Lagos and it shan’t disappoint. I’m a complete beach fiend, and I’m beyond pleased that Lagos was my one beach trip in this short time abroad. As a rule I become excessively emotional while traveling, always thinking something along the lines of, “Oh my God this is my life? I’m on a beach in Portugal??” Not to sound all Academy Awards, but I’m indescribably grateful to be here, although I still can’t quite grasp that I even am here.

In other news, this depressing new blog countdown has rudely announced that I fly home in 10 days, 8 hours and 37 minutes. Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths.

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I LOVE LISTS

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Things I will miss upon my return to America:

1. Drinking in public.  Germany has no open-container laws; I’ve never bowed down to non-existent legislature before.  If we’re walking to bowling and someone hasn’t finished their beer, they can just take it with them!  How much better would the world be if we could all just pop a beer on the walk home after class instead of remaining sober for the entire journey?  Get your act together, Iowa.

2. Bakeries.  They’re on every single corner, and that is in no way an exaggeration.  It is completely acceptable to be eating bread at absolutely any hour of the day, in any venue or life situation.  Bus, bike, train?  Eating pastries, pretzels, bread rolls.  Before, during, and after meals?  More bread.  Class?  Carbs!  And no one here is 400 pounds!  Germans are CONSTANTLY EATING, something that will be sorely missed by yours truly.

3. D-Bag.  My neighbor, best buddy, and personal therapist– Darin.  I am 100% convinced I would have been mauled by a bear if it weren’t for him.  Knowledgeable from having already been here a semester, he graciously let me follow his every move and showed me the ropes of this sometimes scary, always foreign place.  While it would seem we have little in common save for our extreme sarcasm and general “I couldn’t give a shit less about 95% of the things happening around me if I tried” attitude, our oppositeness played nicely off each other and I’MGONNAMISSHIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4. Sassy German women.  I’m speaking to the ones in the over 50-set– these women have spunk.  Also, while we’re on the subject of spitfire generations, there are plenty of extremely active elderly people (we’re talking geriatrics who have stories from the war) who ride the bus with me every day.  I’m continually amazed by them, mostly because I don’t plan on getting off the couch after I qualify for AARP.

5. Places only taking cash.  I spend so much less money not being able to swipe a plastic card every time I want to make a purchase.

6. To lump many other things together: the beer/ the beauty (everyone told me it’s such a beautiful country, but you don’t realize til you’re here HOLY SCHMOLIGANS that’s a pretty landscape)/ ubiquitous public transportation/ my Slovakian neighbor/ my running trails/ soft pretzels/ H&M/ learning the language.

7. Getting A’s on everything because I’m treated like a five-year-old.  This is perhaps just program-specific, but essentially if I showed up to class even half alive and turned in something by the end of the semester, I was received with heaps of praise.  If I were treated with such kid gloves at home, my grades would be far improved.  Now that it’s over (and as of 12:15 today, I am officially a senior in college) I can say I never got anything less than an A this entire semester.

Things I will not miss:

1. Getting stared at for being obviously foreign.

2. Having four roommates.

3. The entire country being shut down on Sundays/ weekdays after 6 p.m.

4. The language barrier

5. Being a slave to Skype/ Facebook/ Gmail if I want to talk to people from home

6. The USD to Euro conversion rate

7. Germans’ obsession with mayonnaise, their lack of spicy food, and their refusal to acknowledge barbecue sauce as a condiment

8.  Paying for water.  FREE REFILLS, here I come.  Also, paying to pee in public.  I’ve probably spent more money so I wouldn’t pee my pants than I have on beer.  (That was a blatant lie, but I feel a strong comparison was needed to show how unjust I find spending 30-70 cents just to save my insides.)

I’m looking forward to: gas station fountain soda, tortilla chips and salsa, movie theater kettle corn, spicy chicken wings, and Oasis’ falafel and hummus.  Sorry, NPH, but it will be a long, long time before I crave bratwurst again.  Ooh, maybe a nice steak though.  And funfetti cake.  Dammit, I probably shouldn’t be writing this list while hungry.

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Eat fresh: in which I geek out and describe my trip to Subway in great detail

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

As far advanced as Germany is in so many areas, they missed the boat on the whole WINDOW SCREENS thing.  The bee currently buzzing around my room is the third one this week.  My windows have to be open for temperature control, since they also never received the air-conditioning memo.

I saw part of a robin’s egg on my run this morning (ok, my jog this morning.  My legs were not feeling movement today, which proved just fine since I might not have spotted the bright teal little gem if I’d been going at a normal pace.)  I don’t really have much else to say about it, except it made me think of my mom.

A few hours after aforementioned physical activity, there was a rumbly in my tumbly that needed satiated.  My shelves are pretty bare due to my imminent departure, so I ventured into Am Sande for lunch.  Normally only McDonald’s and the Turkish Doner places are open on Sundays (both are pretty barf-tastic) but since everything was closed yesterday for the holiday, most eateries, bakeries, and gelato places were open today.  So where did I go?  For the first time since arriving here… SUBWAY!!!  I figured I’d give it a try, having worked there for over three years during high school, and to hopefully satisfy my recent craving for lettuce.  The menu was in English, and I ordered a toasted turkey on Vollkorn brot (“fitness” bread covered in seeds.  It’s way good.)  You only get to choose between sliced or cream cheese, and they have less veggies to put on it.  I also thought it was hella expensive, but then remembered American Subways aren’t always known for their ease on the pocketbook, either.  I got a meal since I was ready to gnaw off my arm at this point, though their chip selection was much more limited and you’re only allowed to fill your drink cup once.  After inhaling my salt and vinegar chips at the bus stop, I came home and added some of my Regensburg mustard to my sandwich and chowed.  IT WAS SO GOOD.  The turkey tasted (and looked!) like real turkey instead of the slimy fart turkey our Subways have.  Since my best friend Kayla has worked there for, what is it now… 6 years?  7?  Your whole life?– I took a picture for her and will now share it with you (let’s ignore my general appearance, including whatever’s going on with my fingernail polish.)

Post-church trips to Subway can be added to my list of reasons I’m excited to live at home this summer, along with eating at Gateway Market, finally visiting the downtown Des Moines’ farmer’s market, and easily accessible Jordan Creek kettle corn.  And yes, I realize those all have to do with food.

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Labor Day

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

Today, besides being only ONE MONTH from my 21st birthday, is Labor Day in Germany.  This holiday is traditionally characterized by political riots in the larger cities (especially in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin) and insane drunkenness everywhere else.  It was supposed to rain this weekend, but when I woke up– much too early for a Saturday, damn you insanely vivid dreams– the weather could not have been more perfect.  This called for a venture out of doors, and not just because I had seen people setting up bratwurst tents in the downtown area last night.  Since Luneburg is far too family friendly for political unrest, the “gathering” near Am Sande was literally called a Family Festival, replete with marching band, inflatable play areas, and a face painting stand.  When I got there, some guy was on stage speaking in staccato-ed German to a crowd holding party signs and homemade banners against military involvement in Afghanistan.  Essentially, something NPH would have been far more interested in than I was.  I turned my attention to the bratwurst stand, beer tent, and Kuchenbuffet (cake buffet.  Let me say that again: CAKE. BUFFET.)  Since it wasn’t even 11 a.m., I made a beeline towards the tent with the church ladies and their wares.  Sorry, Lutherans schlepping coffee and bars back home, but these German Fraus know what’s up in the dessert for breakfast department.  After much oggling, I settled on some sort of Quarkkuchen with apricots (peaches?) and slivered almonds on top.  As if I need to tell you, it did not disappoint.  The next couple of hours involved me walking around town, soaking in my last weekend here, taking pictures, and wondering why I didn’t get the memo on today’s holiday also doubling as “Large groups of older people getting really dressed up and taking guided tours of the city Day.”

Today could not have been more beautiful (ok, the first part anyway.  The second part involves me attempting to study for my final on Monday but probably catching up on episodes of 16 & Pregnant online.)  This came at a perfect time, because the whole “leaving” thing hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday when I was filling out my program evaluation.  Wondering if I’m mentally ill because of my ever-changing feelings on going home is getting quite old, and I have to agree 100% with Lauren when she said she has much more anxiety about going home than when coming to Europe.  I woke up and I was DREADING everything about America, but then I walked by someone today who smelled like my grandmother and I got really excited to be seeing family again in just a week for Mother’s Day.  D-Bag decided to go all Yoda on me yesterday and explain that all good things must come to an end, and if we prepare for the inevitable good-bye, we can enjoy the time we have left (or something like that, my eyes tend to glaze over at these kinds of pep-talks.)  I did kind of start cleaning my room yesterday, though far too much laundry needs to be done before I can pack, so I settled on starting random piles around my room.  I really don’t have much in the souvenirs for loved ones department (sorry, Grandma, but pastries will NOT survive the flight back) because I don’t know what they’d want and most things here wouldn’t mean much to those who haven’t experienced it anyway.  Oh, feel free to read this about the study abroad experience, something I contributed to The Next Great Generation’s week on education.

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The end’s more mundane than I was picturing

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Today was my very last day of German class!  The final is tomorrow and then I have another final on Monday, then the rest of the week is mine to pack, buy souvenirs, and CLEAN my room before I fly out on Friday.  Is it real?  No.  Have I put that much thought into it?  Not at all.  I’m not chomping at the bit to get home, nor am I drowning in tears about leaving.  True to form, our teacher knocked it outta the park today.  We had a mini-breakfast party with strawberries, cheesy rolls, and Quarkballchen (essentially German donut holes.)  She decorated the room and made us Schuletutes (school cones) something that German students get on their first day of school, filled with candy and pencils and stuff.  Mine was blue and covered in dinosaur stickers because of my motto “Never forget your dinosaur.”  We played a review game, which I won, so I got a little gold medal, a coffee cup with the German flag on it, and we all got shot glasses.  She’s the best!!

The weather this week has been absolutely perfect; coupled with the surprisingly light amount of homework I have makes for ample time to roam about town.  I usually stop for an afternoon pastry and then try to walk it off on my way home (how I will miss you, bakeries on every corner.)  My life is relatively boring, and I’ve mostly just been enjoying the calm before the inevitable storm of leaving.  Oh, on the good news from home front, I was elected Vice President of UI’s PRSSA chapter which I’m pretty excited about.  I was going to pitch a fit if I didn’t get on the exec board this year since I was last year, but thankfully that tantrum will be avoided. Natalie, I’m scouring the greater Hamburg area for keychains this weekend.  NPH made reservations for our first “official” date when I return, so there are definitely things to get excited about on the way to the airport.

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Berlin: a timeline

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Turns out there’s a LOT to see in Berlin.  I will make the bold statement that it’s by far the most historical city I’ve ever been to, or hey, might ever end up visiting, since all fantasies of any ventures outside Iowa for a long time involve  my ass on a beach, drink in hand/ the Vegas strip, drink in hand.  My most tourist-y trip to date started bright and early at 6 a.m. on Friday morning, and here now, a timeline of my weekend:

6 a.m. Wake up.  Throw together a bag of hopefully enough clothes and toiletries since someone stayed up far too late Skyping her boyfriend instead of packing the night before.  Also, wolf down an orange and banana with peanut butter because if I’m going to spending four hours on a bus with strangers, you best believe my blood sugar needs to be at a semi-tolerable level.

6:50 a.m. Get on charter bus, pretty stoked I have a seat all to myself.  I recognize a few of the other students from around campus.  The director lady greets us all auf Deutsch and explains the coming events without using English.  I understand her (this weekend was generally a huge Win in terms of my German comprehension. )

10:00 a.m. We stop at a rest stop, some students have started talking amongst themselves.  I eavesdrop like nobody’s business, about piss myself realizing I can still understand most of what they’re saying in Spanish.  Trilingualism, here I come.  Some people introduce themselves to me, turns out I am on the bus with: Finnish, Spanish, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Colombian, Italian, and Russian students.  Their reactions were mixed when they found out where I’m from.  ”America.” “Ooooh!!”  or “America.”  ”Oh.”

11 a.m.- 2p.m. City tour by bus.  Berlin is extremely clean and cosmopolitan… and yet still completely defined by the Wall.  It’s a beautiful city, though it’s spread out and not up, and I don’t like those kind of cities.  I would say it’s my third favorite city in Germany (Munich and Hamburg, duh.)  There are literally hundreds of famous buildings– my brain was on severe overload from all the new information.  I was never a big history buff, but I found most all of the information gathered on this trip really interesting.

3 p.m.  Lunch at an Indian restaurant with three Russian students.  Note to self: you like Indian food, eat more of it.  Their English was not great, and obviously I haven’t brushed up on my Russian in a while, so we resorted to broken German and hand gestures and comfortable chewing silences.

8 p.m. My first (and I would in no way be offended if it were my last) opera.  We went to Strauss’ Salome.  I can appreciate having been, but I don’t find operatic singing nice on the ears at all.  The lyrics were thankfully projected on a small screen above the stage so I at least got a good German lesson.  From what I could understand, there’s this princess who sees and lusts after this hairy prophet guy who lives in the ground, but she can’t have him.  Her father then has her do a striptease for him, and in return she can have whatever she wants.  She wants the prophet guy’s body, after a lot of, “No!  Anything but that!” he gives in.  Well, kinda– turns out they’d had him decapitated, so really she only gets his bleeding head.  She kisses the head because she thinks he’s still alive (and apparently delusional, it is clearly bleeding all over the stage and herself) to which her father orders her to be killed.  The end scene is her being shot.

10 p.m. We go to a quiet bar.  I have a beer.  The other girls at my table order lemonade or orange juice.  One of them remarks at how quickly I drink.  I try to politely nod and say something about being thirsty.  We go back to our hostel.

Saturday– 10 a.m. Go to the Jewish Museum.  It’s actually pretty interesting, lots of artifacts from the Holocaust.

1 p.m.  I set off in search of the Wichtendahl Gallery.  Thankfully we were giving subway passes for the weekend and a map, so this is not as complicated as it otherwise could have been.  I introduce myself to the woman at the desk, turns out she’s the Wichtendahl who opened it.  She thinks it’s just the Bees Knees that I came and we share a name, so we chat a bit and exchange contact info.  For interested family members, I can fill you in on the details of this visit later.

3 p.m.  I find myself at Germany’s largest mall.  All of the sightseeing and museum-going had my brain a bit tired, so I had coffee crunch ice cream for lunch and went about window shopping.  And then some real shopping; may God bless H&M.  I bought two dresses, ideally I will buy 12 more before leaving (ok, at least two.)  Fun fact for my at home audience: I love dresses.  I love dressing up.  Unfortunately now that I have more of them, I want to buy shoes and jewelry to go with.  But mostly shoes.

8 p.m. We have a group dinner at an amazingly authentic Italian pizzeria and trattoria.  The pizzas for one person are the size of at least a medium back in the States.  They were fire-baked and everything.  I went home afterward and was in bed by 10.  Many of my counterparts went out and didn’t return til 7 a.m.  I need sleep, I LOVE sleep.  Also, if my friends at home aren’t around, I don’t particularly like drinking with strangers.  Not to mention those precious Euros could be used to buy new shoes (see above.)

Sunday– noon to 5 p.m. Tour of the German parliament building.  I was also uncharacteristically interested in this and learned lots o’ fun facts (my Facebook album has more info in the captions.)  The rest of the afternoon was ours to do whatever.  I went back to Checkpoint Charlie, which we’d seen on the city tour, and the wall.  We arrived back in Luneburg around 9 p.m.

OVERALL, this trip was a roaring success.  I’m really glad I did the group trip thing because the anxiety over getting on trains/ finding a hostel/ what to do where and when was essentially eliminated.  There’s so much stuff to see, and I feel I was able to really do it all in a short amount of time.  It was also by far the most intercultural experience I’ve had since coming here with all of our different nationalities and translating things for each other.  Going off on my own was also a growing up experience but ultimately the most fun.  This trip did make me miss my dad more than usual, not just all the WWII stuff, but the fact that I was very thirsty the whole time (he always seems to orchestrate a lot of water-buying when we first get someplace) and DMX’s “Back that Ass Up” came on my iPod during the bus ride home.   It’s one of his favorite songs to dance and sing to in his office, as I’m sure it is for many of your fathers as well.

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An open letter to the nation.

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Sevilla’s Feria de Abril makes me feel like a degenerate.

Dear Spain,

My body can’t handle more than two consecutive nights of drinking a dry sherry and 7up cocktail as if I needed it to breathe. Going to sleep two hours past dawn is a routine that my well being simply does not tolerate. Moreover, my pre-beach-trip waistline is furious about the Spanish tortillas and loaves of bread packed with mystery meat masked as meals that form the base of my makeshift personal food pyramid this week. Feria, you’ve been fun. You’ve been memorable — honestly, because diluted sherry isn’t strong enough to give me more than a sugar headache — but it’s Thursday. This shit needs to stop. Just for one night, I want to go to bed before the birds wake up. I want to go to bed with the birds? Goddamnit, I don’t know what I want, but Feria, I need some space. I guess what I’m trying to say is… why don’t we take a break? I’ll come back tomorrow. Maybe.

With reserved and cautious love,

Lauren

Feria is a flamenco-dress festival slash state fair slash week-long party. I am young; I am supposed to be capable of going weeks without sleep. I am supposed to think it’s badass when I roll back home around sunset. I’m not supposed to be an 80-year-old cat-collecting spinster trapped in the body of a 21-year-old (until my body explodes from carb abuse then deteriorates from sherry abuse). I only made it three nights into the week but I’m already cashing in on a personal day to do things like work on my magazine article, go for long walks by myself in a pitiful attempt to “exercise” and write superfluous blog entries.

Copy editing, if nothing else, has given me some purpose this week. I’ve been hunting for comma splices and pronoun errors by day, unshowered with last night’s sins sealed in my hair, stuck to the hairspray helmet I needed to plaster an over-sized Feria flower to the side of my head. Pardon the melodrama.

Francesca and I in front of the main gate to Feria. One of 20 trillion photos documenting the gitana outfits.

Truthfully, Feria has been a hell of a good time. Last night Elisa let me wear one of her flamenco outfits so I got to look the part of a non-foreigner for a little while, and god knows I love any excuse to sport a great costume (see: Halloween 08-09: Pulp Fiction Uma Thurman, Donatella Versace, babymama hillbilly, Lady Gaga [two versions]). Feria is another prime example of why it’s great to have a young señor(it)a in place of a grandmotherly host lady in Spain: If you don’t know someone with a tent at Feria, you’re not getting in anywhere, and the tents are where you want to be. I’ve been able to tag along with Elisa and her friends all week, so you could say I’m getting the full cultural experience. I’m also getting the full verbal beating from Spaniards who think it’s hil-freaking-arious that I’m so awkwardly tall and awkwardly incapable of dancing. Sorry, my hips don’t lie, nor do they move in a fashion that resembles the way you people dance. My hips are an honest specimen and they’ve made it excessively clear that I have no rhythm… now let’s stop commenting on it, mm?

Alright, this entry has been a little weird, a little schizophrenic, a little internal-monologue-under-the-influence. I swear I’m sitting at home sober right now, recovering from the baby-sized slice of leftover tortilla I ate for dinner and contemplating my own lameness.

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The first of a few on Munich

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

After my arrival on Thursday afternoon, we went to the store to stock up on beer and bratwurst.  Thousands of miles apparently have no effect on my grocery list.  Sebas grilled up Nurnburger brats which we had on hard rolls with my FAVORITE MUSTARD in the world.  I am returning to the states with three bottles and a tube of this mustard; it’s occupying prime real estate in my luggage.  With our case of beer I got a free Paulaner Hefeweiss Bier glass that plays the Paulaner jingle when clinked in a cheers or “Prost!” with another.  He lives in barracks (or perhaps just a dorm of servicemen?) so soon I found myself drinking with many insanely jacked members of the German Army.  They were all very friendly and thought I was the shit, a common feeling people experience when in my presence.  The weather was ridiculously nice all weekend, so I was a bit sad that we went inside on Friday to visit the Deutsches Museum.  I suppose it was cool, but it wasn’t about Germany so much as a museum of technologies throughout history?  Trains, planes, the printing press, mining, metals–  meh, not exactly my cup o’ tea.  But then we got ice cream, the first of four times I had ice cream in three days, so be jealous.

We went to Sebas’ hometown about an hour outside the city that night, after getting stuck in a RIDICULOUS traffic jam on the Autobahn.  Apparently this happens every single day, so while in most parts it’s true there is no speed limit, good luck on finding an open enough stretch of road where you can actually take advantage of it.  Saturday was the nicest day of the year yet weather-wise so we visited the Walhalla.  I’m going to have to direct you to Google on this one—some famous guy built this massive Grecian-looking temple to honor the gods on a hill overlooking the Danube River.  One word: spectacular.  I didn’t realize how much hillier/mountainous Southern Germany is than the part I’m used to.  HOLY AMAZING SCENERY, Batman.  Bavaria is hands down the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen in the world—the views were indescribably fantastic.  I took lots of pictures, but they don’t nearly do it justice.  We continued our scenic tour of the Bavarian countryside in Sebas’ BMW Z4 convertible (I have heard so much about this f@#$ing car.  I’ve seen the engine, know the horsepower… Is there a girl in the world who could care less? Probably not.  But it was a nice ride and oh baby does she go fast.  We did some math on kilometers to miles and at times we were apparently going 156 MPH.)  I only thought my life was in peril at oh, every turn, but at least I was sippin’ on a McDonald’s milkshake—strawberry for yours truly, chocolate for my chauffeur.  We drove around the farm country for a couple of hours.  Tiny villages of just a few houses and a church or two (they’re quite Catholic  down south) would be every mile or two, with larger farms between.  They happened to be spreading manure that day so the smells didn’t really match the picturesque sights, but it sure did remind me of Iowa.

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The motherload

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

I had a religious experience today.  My test went well, I signed up for our group trip to Berlin with only hours til the cut-off deadline, and still made it to the train station with about half an hour to spare.  I’d had a banana and orange with my coffee in the wee hours of the morning, but a rumbly in my tumbly started to grow around 10 am.  With time to kill and fresh Sparkasse Euros burning a hole in my pocket, I went to the bakery across the street from the Bahnhof for some caffeine and (hopefully) something almondy.  Oh baby, was I not disappointed.  First of all, this might be my new go-to hang out for all sweets and treats because it’s ridiculously cheaper than the bakeries occupying prime real estate in the center of town.  They also have quite the range of goods—from regular croissants to every frosted cake you probably can’t even think of, and lots of savory breakfast sandwiches as well.  I took more time making my selection than I do on most decisions of far greater importance, but in the end ‘twas perhaps the most life-altering choice I’ve made in almost 21 years.  It is called Marzipanzopf and it has changed my life.  I am not exaggerating when I say this braided delight was the size (length and almost width) of my forearm.  In fact, and write this day down in history, it was TOO big and I found myself only wanting at most half.  It was regular sweet bread dough, the impossibly intricate colonies of yeast proving its handmade and not machine-produced origins.  Sticky, almost clear marzipan slid between the strands of twisted dough (zopf means braid auf Deutsch) and it was all topped with impossibly sweet powdered sugar glazed and toasted almond slivers.  I needed some alone time with this thing. And yes, I realize I just described a pastry as if this was a smutty novel set after hours in a bakery backroom.  If I had been washing it down with a Diet Pepsi and not a Coke Zero, I’d make the bold statement that this was the single best meal of my entire life.  (But then again, I’m sure I’ll proclaim that after everything I put in my mouth in Bavaria.  My life is so hard.)  It took a while to work my way through it; my body needed time to produce the proper amounts of insulin lest my vision start blurring, I pass out, and miss my stop in Hamburg.

While I was sitting on the train, April sun streaming down on my face as I enjoyed the scenery of rural Germany, the ticket man came around (don’t worry, this part of the story ends LEAGUES better than my train voyage to Munich the first time.)  He asked for my ticket, which is our student pass that lets us ride (most) trains for free.  You also have to show picture i.d. to prove you’re not just using your friend’s pass (this will be a big problem for D-bag who is currently using my expired student pass to ride the bus around town—his perished in the wash.)  He saw my name on the student pass and said, “Ahh Brittney, aber nicht Spears!”  He was by far the friendliest German I’ve ever met on the rails, and he made a pop culture joke about my name and I understood it and we guffawed together.  What a touching intercultural moment.  I showed him my passport to verify that I was indeed Brittney not Spears, and he started to leave then did a kind of double take, “Sie ist Amerikanerin!”  Well yes Sir, I am aware.  He must just not get a lot of foreign kids on his train, or is either really in love with or secretly loathes Americans.  Either way, he left me alone after that, and I made it to the airport in plenty of time for my flight (even though I rode the subway here without a ticket and about had a heart attack just KNOWING I’d get caught.  In my defense, I did try, but the damn machine just printed me out a schedule of subways I could take and then BAM it was there and I didn’t want to wait 10 minutes for the next one.  D-bag and I got caught in Denmark being “Schwarz fahren” [without a ticket] but that was LEGIT we couldn’t read Danish and spent twenty minutes punching at the machine before deciding to test fate.  Thankfully Danish ticket men are a hundred times nicer than their Deutsch neighbors, and the man simply told us to get off at the next stop, but normally he was supposed to get us a fine of over $300.)

SO NOW, I’m hanging in the airport, my body craving vegetables or anything besides the pounds of butter and sugar I’ve fueled it with thus far.  In three short weeks, I’ll be here again (how I’m going to wrangle my two giant suitcases on bus, train, and subway then inevitably pay up the ass for one of them is still beyond me.)  Oh, a big THANK YOU to D-bag for lending me a duffle bag to use as my carry-on.  My backpack simply couldn’t hold my clothes, toiletries, Sebas’ yearbook, AND my laptop and hair straightener.  Last time I came I made the choice between the latter two, really like picking a favorite child I would imagine, but this time I decided I didn’t need to suffer.  I’m gonna go like walk around or pay 18 Euro for a water or something.  The inevitable sugar crash is imminent—perhaps I’ll get a quick nap in on the plane?

Update: I have made it.  To the beer halls!

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Sugar! Caffeine! Productivity!

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

I will try my best to refrain from using lots of bold and CAPS, but my blood sugar is at Seek Medical Attention Immediately levels of high, so bear with me.  Some friends and I just returned from our last CCC Meeting of the semester (coffee, cookies, conversation) and I overloaded on German cake, Girl Scout cookies D-Bag’s mom sent, and sweet sweet caffeine (at 7 pm.  So dumb.)  Today we talked about when people are going home, who’s ready to go, who’s freaking out, and what protocol is exactly for saying good-bye to people who you’re only ambiguously acquainted with.  The general consensus is that most people don’t want to leave, and even I have to admit, I DON’T WANNA GO.  We got an e-mail from the program director yesterday, “Things to do before you leave” and it was my first wait, whaaat? moment.  Here I’ve been counting down the days until spicy food and NPH and stores being open on Sundays, but it’s finally sinking in that I’m not just visiting America for a week again.  I’m going and I’m staying and this dream world I’ve been living in will be over.  Harumph.

In happier news, after my first Intermediate German II test tomorrow, I’m boarding a place to Munich!!!!!!!!!  I think we all know how in love with Bavaria I am, and there aren’t really words for how much I’m looking forward to a weekend of pretzels, Weisswurst, sweet mustard, beer, the Autobahn, and Sebas’ mama’s home-cookin’.  I busted my ass today to get my semester book project done– Monday’s the big day– so I can relax (HA) about it.  My teacher, bless her, is letting me take my test an hour early so I have plenty of time to get to the airport.  Turns out I LOVE airports now, my general thought process is if I’m in one, I must be going somewhere.  I’ll have almost four days of finally tolerable weather, and Sebas said we get to do WHATEVER I WANT because it’s MY weekend.  I like this kid more and more.

A new trend in my life I’m not a fan of: BAD SLEEP.  It takes me a while to fall asleep, then when I wake up I have NO idea where I am, what time it is, what day it is.  I’ve  had insanely vivid dreams since coming here, but lately they’ve gotten kinda scary (I woke up like dry sobbing the other night.  Nice.)  I always wake up at least an hour before my alarm, which I’ve at least been able to work to my advantage since there’s no going back to sleep.  This morning I went into Am Sande before class and walked around the Wednesday morning market.  Holy amazeballs.  This thing puts any farmer’s market at home to shame.  So many fresh flowers and vegetables and fruit and fish and meet and BAKERY CARTS.  I got a giant bag of dried apricots (or nature’s candy as Iowa Girl Eats says.  Couldn’t agree me) for only two Euro, seriously perhaps the best purchase I’ve made here.  I then headed over to one of the bakery carts for breakfast, and giant surprise, ended up with some almond-y.

Um, yeah.  It’s essentially a marzipan cookie, and the ends are dipped in dark chocolate.  Germany will officially be the death of me.  In my last three weeks, I have made a solemn vow to try every almond-flavored thing I can get my hands on– no easy task since the bakery cases are filled to the brim.  On my radar is a Spanish almond cake, though it appears to only be sold in five Euro slabs as big as my torso and well, if I’d like to keep said torso approximately that size, I should not be eating sheets of cake.  (Let’s be honest, people– that cake’s gonna mysteriously make it’s way to my WG by next week.)

Tomorrow starts my two-day blackout of social media (Facebook, Twitter– thankfully not e-mails) for a TNGG experiment. Expect a full Munich recap when I return– IF I return because yeah, it’s that great.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go shower at my neighbor’s because the giant moisture-sucking machine of death is STILL in my bathroom.  Yes, it’s been a week.  No, I haven’t run this week because well, the world doesn’t need to be subjected to that if I don’t have a regular place to bathe after.  If I don’t go for a run when I get back I. will. diiiiiiiiie (I’ve become one of those people.  WHO KNEW?!)

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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.

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Ostern Wochenende

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Props to Germany for making Easter a four day holiday.  Today is Ostern Montag so I slept in til noon, went on a long run, and have been quite productive in cleaning the apartment before my flatmates return (dun dunn duhhhhh.  Not looking forward to that.  Pretty certain I was meant to live alone.)  Any second now I’ll be starting my homework… after I return from an extended trip to Hamburg just for a burrito, of course.  There’s a place called Qrito Burrito that’s essentially Germany’s Pancheros (or Qdoba, or Chipotle.)  It’s interesting  to get all the Americans together and discuss our preferences in these different establishments.  Being from Iowa City, I’ve gotta rep Panch– shout out to Reid if you’ve stumbled upon this in your Internet patrol of all things tortilla related, how creepy am I?!– though my father swears by only Qdoba, and one student is counting down his days til America just so he can hop off the plane and land face first into some Taco Bell.

I am quite looking forward to the country resuming actual working hours tomorrow though because our WG has a bit of a situation and I have zero idea how to deal with it.  The bathroom is, for lack of a better term, flooding.  It started on Thursday with a weird dripping sound that I thought was maybe the heater, so obviously ignored it until the next day when it was quite obvious there was liquid (let’s hope just water) leaking from the ceiling.  My solution was to put down a towel and go about my day.  Flash forward to today where we have three soaked towels and ever-increasing water spots on the ceiling.  D-Bag and I have hypothesized that whoever lives above me most likely committed suicide in the tub and it hath spilled over, or– since bathtubs are a luxury not afforded to us lowly students– someone was doing dishes, had an aneurysm, and died with the water running.  Clearly our imaginations are feeling quite morbid.  SO, if none of my flat mates return today to make the phone call to the Hausmeister, I will be looking up the German word for “flood” and making a trek to the housing office when it opens tomorrow.

I’m not a huge fan of Bucket Lists, but if I had one, I could check off “attend Easter service in a 500-year-old church where Bach played.”  The flow of the service was freakishly similar to any other Lutheran one back home, though there was much less fanfare for the holiday part of it.  For being a country where everyone dresses up WAY more on a daily basis than back home, they sure left their Sunday best in the closet for Easter.  I felt like the town whore (keep your comments to yourself, please) in my just-above-knee-length aubergine American Apparel wrap dress– ESPECIALLY when I went up for communion and ended up standing smack in the middle of the aisle in front of the entire congregation (they do it standing in a circle, I can explain in greater detail to interested family members later) for a good five minutes.  I don’t think I can properly convey the anxiety and trauma induced by this situation.  Apparently I was the only one sufficiently embarrassed by my exposed knees however, as no one said anything, and one elderly German woman even smiled and nodded at me like, “Of COURSE you’re foreign and awkward, but we as a collective people will let it slide as it is an international holiday.”  Danke very, very much kind old lady.

You’re probably wondering how my Easter dinner turned out, as if it were to go off as anything but AWESOME.  My friend Matt (from Las Vegas, turns out we’re kinda soulmates) came over and made hamburgers with me.  The Mensa every day turns out cuts of meat with vegetables and potatoes of some sort with gravy, so there was a game-time decision to make it super casual and just grill (read: fry) hamburgers instead of recreating an actual American Easter dinner.  I’m quite certain I’ll never ever get the smell of greasy ground beef outta my WG, but in retrospect it’s all worth it.  The Bavarian pretzel appetizers and chocolate lava cake with vanilla sauce desserts were leagues better than the actual main course, but dammit if we didn’t have fun in the process.  Matt even brought over a six-pack of Becks because “You sounded sad” (the whole roof caving-in thing) so I’m quite boldly going to say we had the best Easter meal of my whole 20 years.  That evening my father did Skype me in on the entire two hour Easter dinner happening at our house, however, so it was really the best of both worlds.

Not to get you all excited with a teaser, but get mentally prepped for the next post in which Matt and I eat Chinese food then break-in the only Portuguese bar in Luneburg that refuses to serve beer, only fresh fruit-heavy cocktails.  The closer it comes to leaving, the more attached I get.

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April Fool’s (means nothing here…)

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

It’s the first day of April, next month is May.  May is the month I leave Germany.  It’s also my 20 and 5/6th birthday today!  Two months til the big 2-1, the day we can all breathe a bit easier that finally I’m living on the right side of the law.  In the twenty minutes I’ve been at my computer post-Mensa, the weather has gone from kinda sunny and quite windy, to SUPER DARK and raining, to HAILING and covering the ground with white, back to sunny and with all precipitation melted away.  I just purchased my plane ticket to Munich in two weeks– it was cheaper to take an hour-long flight than a six hour train ride.  I’m starting to really love flying, something I never thought I’d say.

Yesterday I cut Greg’s hair.  You may be asking yourself why this happened.  I’m not sure, either.  He said earlier this week that he needed a haircut, and instead of coughing up the eight Euro for a professional one, he quite foolishly thought I sounded pretty convincing when I said, “I can do it.”  Technically, I have cut one person’s hair before, but the circumstances surrounding that incredibly sketchy situation do not warrant re-telling, and the result was bloody awful.  [Side note: it's raining again.  Sideways.]  D-Bag lent us some hair clippers, but Greg figured I should use scissors for the job.  We’re talking like one step up from Fiskers craft scissors, incredibly dull, and in no way fit to cut hair.  The blessed event went down in his room, floor covered in a sheet, towel around his bare shoulders (does it sound to you like I’m describing the opening scene from a low-budget pornographic movie? Because it does to me.)  He has dark hair, and in retrospect I should not have been cutting it directly opposite the only light source in the room, the window he was facing.  I did about five or ten minutes of snipping and was pretty proud of myself when we decided he should go check it out in the mirror.  As he moved into the bathroom and his head became much more visible in the natural light, we both realized it was, erm, patchy.  Like, some scalp was visible on the right side.  And you could basically see where I made each cut– it was that uneven. He’s definitely more vain than any male I know and fah-REAK-ed out.  Turns out he was headed down to Munich to spend Easter with some extended family today and needed it fixed ASAP.  Luckily he was able to go into Am Sande and persuade a hairdresser who was starting to close that his was a desperate situation.  I should be sorry, but I was laughing much too hard to choke out any words.

Today we had our last test in Intermediate German I before the final next week and it was HARD.   We’re in the big leagues now, kiddies– no coddling us with translations in the directions, much much more homework, a presentation due in two weeks.  I could not for the life of me remember the word for “tie” auf Deutsch, and ended up getting it wrong.  After I flung some papers off my desk and proclaimed inevitable suicide later this afternoon, my teacher kindly reminded me it was only worth half a point. Damn first born perfectionism.  Afterward, however, we had AN EASTER EGG HUNT.  I love our teacher.  We had two teams and answered questions for the chance to go find candy hidden around the room.  German chocolate is a million times better than the best Hershey’s/ Dove/ whatever you’ll find in America.  It was ridiculously fun and a nice way to get our minds off the fact that the majority of us probably failed the exam.

Keeping in line with the Easter theme… Germans don’t celebrate Maunday Thursday, though tomorrow is a national holiday for Karfreitag and it seems most of the churches in town have some sort of service.  On Saturday, each town has an Easter bonfire at dusk– not really sure what that’s about, but I plan on checking it out and I’ll report back.  For the main event,  there are three big, ancient churches with giant steeples in town and I’ve gone ahead and chosen a favorite.  Their first service on Easter Sunday is at FIVE-THIRTY AM (I realize Jesus resurrected, but I’m quite certain even he didn’t get up that early) which is followed by a baptism and breakfast, but I’ll be attending the 10 am service with Communion.  Afterward (drumroll, please) I’ll be making and serving Easter dinner for my friends who are sticking around town.  Since I have this giant apartment to myself, and we just got a new stove, and I am my mother’s daughter, her mother’s granddaughter, and my uncle’s niece, I will be throwing THE premiere event of the semester complete with flowers, a ham, napkin folds, place settings, etc.  (Okay, so absolutely all of this is still in the planning stages, but I promise it will be more than wurst on paper plates and a Cadbury egg for all the guests.)  Sadly, hominy does not exist in Germany– after searching for it in the story, the Internet told me it was most likely a no go.  [For all of you besides the four readers who might know what I'm talking about, we have hominy (corn without the hull, soaked in lye?  Or something like that?) for Easter each year because my grandfather loves it.  And while it sounds kinda gross and I gagged on it for 15+ years, I've been warming to it the last couple times.]

My semester book is going together really well.  It’s much longer than it needs to be, and I can’t quite get over the flashbacks of Weems’ “You won’t walk at graduation until this book is done!” threats, but I’m oddly having fun with it.  I had two internship interviews this past week, one over the phone and one via Skype, and I don’t think I managed to flub up either of them too terribly. I’m currently walking the fine line between cautious optimism and realistic pessimism when it comes to my summer plans, but I really really REALLY don’t wanna just be schlepping sandwiches for slightly more than minimum wage for three months.  Why can’t someone just pay me to blog and speak my new trademark language of Spanglerman?

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Copenhagen

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Warning: upon review, this is kinda long.  Perhaps grab a snack or prepare to read it in installments.

Oh, Denmark.  Perhaps the quote from our trip that could best sum up the experience was when Greg (formerly New England, but I feel these pseudonyms are not only confusing but pretty unnecessary) asked us something along the lines of “What would you do if you had one wish?”  David’s answer, “Have enough money so I wouldn’t have to travel around Europe like a hobo,” served as oddly perfect foreshadowing for our less than 48 hours in Copenhagen.

Our bus to Denmark didn’t leave until 11:30 pm from Hamburg on Friday, so a group of us took the train in early to get Qrito Burritos, Deutschland’s version of Pancheros/Qdoba/Chipotle.  Not as good, but darn tasty anyway.  The SECOND D-Bag (his nickname stays because it’s starting to catch on.  And because it’s slightly inappropriate) and I step out the door, the heavens unleash what I can only assume was Germany’s first hurricane.  My umbrella didn’t stand a chance against the freak amounts of water blowing sideways at me, but I wasn’t as pissed about that as I was I had straightened my hair earlier, obviously now in vain.  We managed to wade our way to Hamburg and eventually to the bus stop, soaked and frozen to the core, but pretty excited about our upcoming adventure anyway.  We waited at the stop that said “COPENHAGEN” and tried to board the bus that said “COPENHAGEN” when it arrived, but you forget Dear Reader, this is Europe, thus nothing is ever that simple.  Some Italian woman two cig puffs away from a tracheotomy yelled in broken German that we actually wanted the bus that said “STOCKHOLM” and would magically drop us off in Denmark.  Luckily there were at least 20 other people getting the same direction, so we took faith in numbers and boarded the bus.  The very. crowded. bus.  Sitting next to any of my three amigos was immediately out of the question, so I plopped myself next to a stranger (I’m thinking Danish, approximately a year or two older than me) for the next five hours and hoped to God sleep would come quickly.  Do you know what I didn’t notice about this young man when I chose him as a seat partner?  His abnormally large ass.  Such an ample body part that, when turned to his right to sleep on the window like he did, took up half of my lap.  I won’t take you into a chronological history of my presumed psychological problems, but if there’s one thing the world knows I’m not a fan of, it’s another human coming into physical contact with me.  Do. Not. Touch Me.  Obviously something was going to have to change, so I shifted to my right as well to provide even an iota of neutral air between our hot, mashed up flesh.  It was not comfortable, but we were not touching, thus eventually I fell asleep.  I slept while spooning that Dane.

Quick question: did you know Copenhagen is not on regular Denmark, but in fact some sort of island/peninsula part that requires water-crossage to get to?  If you did, you’re smarter than me.  Imagine my surprise when we were woken halfway into our journey because our bus had pulled into the belly of a FERRY and we had to go up to the oddly cruise ship-like decks during the 45 minute crossing.  It was all quite Twilight Zone-ish, and needless to say I got much less than the five hours of sleep that night I was gunning for.  At a little after 5 am, we arrived in a dark and drizzly Copenhagen, looking and feeling mere heartbeats from death.  Rich enough to not travel like a hobo, indeed.  We hung out in the train station for a while, making game plans and trying to figure out the best way to procure Danish Kroner (because they don’t use the Euro.  Put that little nugget of info in the Things Brittney Didn’t Know Before She Got There column also.)  Our best plan was to find the hostel we’d booked to see if we could drop our stuff off/ check in as quickly as possible and SLEEP.  Using subway maps in Danish and some Internet kiosk Googling, we set off in… completely the wrong direction.  Of course we didn’t find this out until at least an hour after we’d walked toward absolutely nothing of use to us.  I can’t even really say I got to witness a Danish sunrise because the RAIN AND SLEET CLOUDS were taking up most of the sky.  So it’s about 6:30 am, we’re a group of four ever-increasingly soaked American students with backpacks, bleary eyes, not a clue in the world as to where we’re headed, and we all have to pee.  For my comrades, anatomy served them well and facilitated their bladder evacuations without much ado.  I was searching for alleys, bushes, really anything with even slight cover to go ahead and commit my public urination (if you think this was an isolated event during our Danish stay, you are so mistaken.)  Finally along the harbor I see some low-walled children’s playground and have a mental struggle that ends with D-Bag telling me to just man and up and do it.  So I did it.  Where children play.  I am so sorry, children.  It was in a far corner in a very non-child friendly area anyway, so my moral compass isn’t losing too much sleep over this, and afterward it was actually very liberating like Huzzah– I’m one step closer to actual homelessness!

I’ll spare you the epic trek to our hostel, except to thank 7-11 for it’s straight up invasion of Denmark, thus providing us with cheap(ish) coffee and breakfast while getting absolutely dumped on by rain.  I don’t get that wet in the shower.  To say we got some strange looks when we FINALLY (3.5 hours after getting off the bus) arrived at our desired destination would be an understatement.  Thankfully the hostel guys were really cool and invited us to chill on the couches until our rooms were ready, which we did and I got in a quick nap.  We were able to drop off our bags in lockers and explore town; while still overcast, the rain had thankfully ceased.  Copenhagen’s a really beautiful city, much dirtier trash-wise than Germany, and very Americanized.  Absolutely everyone speaks English, and there are many more American shops and restaurants.  Danes are much more laid back then the Germans, and seem freer to express themselves in how they dress, how loudly they talk, etc.  The very best part of Denmark: THEY TAKE CREDIT CARDS.  This is especially good because Copenhagen was oddly expensive, and the 10 dkk to 1 Euro thing made it seem like I was withdrawing ridiculous amounts of money if I needed to go to an ATM.  We ate lunch in an Irish Pub where I ordered the BBQ ribs and may or may not have eaten alley cat for the first time in my life.  That night we did more of the same– enjoying the lack of open container laws and engaging in general shenanigans.

On Sunday, D-Bag and I headed off to the Track Cycling World Championships.  This kid is an insane cyclist so was obviously far more stoked for the activity than I was, but I figured it’d be a cool change of pace, not to mention I don’t often get to hang out in an arena full of Olympians.  I learned more about biking, especially of the track variety (the bikes don’t have brakes so there’s no coasting– every turn of the wheel is because their MASSIVE THIGHS are pedaling) than anyone might ever need to know.  It was actually really interesting and fun to watch, and a 17-year-old American won third place in something.  My feet were absolutely ready to fall off from two days of straight walking and standing because oops I haven’t mentioned that my choice of footwear for the weekend was a pair of ballet flats (read: no support.  At all.  Essentially barefoot.)  Family members, please spare me your e-mails– yes, I am a dumb ass, my feet were in SO. MUCH. PAIN.  My blistered pinkie toes are probably the worst.  Apparently while running I’ve also done some damage to my right calf and that screamed at me the entire day, especially when going up or down stairs.  Oh, and my left arm feels like it’s been shot because D-Bag and I played Dead Arm and needless to say I lost (after one punch.  He claims I punched him later that night like six more times in the arm, but he’s thoughtful enough to not give me the requisite six in return.)  At the end of our journey yesterday, my mood took a nose dive and I wanted to go home NOW.  Not like Germany home, but my big bed in America, why can’t I just drive a car, where the hell is NPH, put me on a plane HOME home.  I realized this was all due to lack of sleep and managed to not flip shit on anyone around me, though now that I’m back in Germany things are looking up.

IN CONCLUSION: I feel kinda like I’ve been hit by a car.  Copenhagen was really wonderful, though not a place I feel I could hang out for more than a day or two.  It’s super expensive and there just generally isn’t THAT much to do, but a really pretty city with amazing scenery of the North Sea and a nice juxtaposition of super old buildings and really modern architecture.

Hey all you Facebookin’ family members: click here for my pictures from the trip.

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The Slovak and running

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

It’s 1:30 pm and I’ve ne’er been more due for a nap.  No, I did not go out last night, though I did stay up too late dancing with boys.  There was also banana bread and an earlier than usual wake up time involved, but these will be explained in due time.

D-Bag’s got a new roommate who has easily captured the title of my favorite European of all time.  He is from Slovakia, has lived in Germany the past ten years, spent a semester in Britain, but became really fluent in English during his year studying in Australia (from where he just returned) thus speaks like our mates from Down Under.  I die.  Not only is he rather easy on the eyes, the Slovak is perhaps the nicest damn person you’ll ever meet.  Yesterday afternoon he popped in to get supremely jealous over how much bigger my apartment is, then we went back to theirs for coffee with another roommate and an impromptu German lesson.  I learned more in that hour than I have in the past week; it was amazing.  During our conversation (more like their conversation auf Deutsch while I tried to absorb as much as possible) the Slovak inhaled almost an entire plate of peanut butter cookies I’d brought over a few days earlier, so we decided trading baked goods for Deutsch lessons is a pretty fair deal.  After my night class, I returned to turn a nearly black bunch of WG 17′s bananas (kinda like my German 713, you could say) into banana bread.  Their kitchen is approximately the size of a shoebox, but four of us managed to fit, and D-Bag and the Slovak both wanted to get hands-on in the baking process.  Now, for my firstborn perfectionist in the kitchen self, relinquishing control over the countertop is not always an easy feat.  I did the majority of the measuring and mashing and mixing, but let the Slovak crack the eggs and D-Bag preheat the oven (<–haha okay that one doesn’t count at all, mostly I just didn’t want to Google what 350 degrees Fahrenheit is in Celsius.)  But then, and I’m only retelling this because I think it was absolutely adorable, Darin gradually added the dry ingredients while the Slovak alternated the mashed banana as I held the mixer and scraped the bowl.  I KNOW.  (Maybe because I’ve been baking since the womb I find this much more endearing than my average reader?)

ANYWAY– we managed to turn out some kick ass banana bread.  We used almost double the amount of bananas we were supposed to (NPH has since informed that there is no such thing as too many bananas in banana bread) which resulted in a super moist, dense loaf that we all sat around the tiny table and enjoyed a slice of while listening to party beats from the Slovak’s laptop.  THEN, some Indian music came on (apparently Australian is rife with Indians) and the Slovak started dancing because he was in the Punjabi club last year.  They performed an elaborately choreographed traditional Indian dance for the Festival of Lights and still remembers most of it, so tried teaching us as well (ok, teaching me– D-Bag kinda just sat in utter confusion and inquired as to where my camera was located because I looked like that big of an idiot.)  It was a ridiculously fun evening.  After the sugar high from the banana-y treats and the multiple hours of rap and dance music, my brain was wired for anything but rest even though it was after midnight.  Sleep did not come so easily.

Why then did I set my alarm to go off an hour earlier this morning?  So I could get my run in and over with (and of course enjoy banana bread for breakfast after.)  Yeah, I’m proud of me, too.  The morning is a great time to run for a variety of reasons, but the one exclusive to German is that I’m seen by less people in my very American running attire.  When I’ve seen Germans out pounding the pavement, they’re always in some pretty serious-looking gear usually consisting of long, dark pants with some sort of dark long-sleeved windbreaker and the characteristic German grumpy face.  Imagine their horror when out of the woods struggles a red-faced, heaving American with a “Relay for Life!” white t-shirt and cut-off high school sweatpants that say TIGERS over the butt.  It doesn’t sound that out of the ordinary, but the foreigner is fairly easy to pick out, and after almost three months here I’m quite certain “Pick the Foreigner and the Judge the Shit Outta Them” is one of Germans’ favorite games.  Also, I’ve only ever seen one of them running with an iPod, whereas I am clutching mine for dear life because God forbid I forget to charge it and am left with just my thoughts (which are usually centered on “Can we PLEASE stop running?!”) for a couple miles.  Yes, I have one of those armband thingies it could safely sit in, but I much prefer it in hand so I can crank the volume when Miley comes on or frantically hit skip because sorry, Iron and Wine, you just aren’t that physically motivating.

In the only slight bit of relevant news you will actually find in today’s post: I need to make plans for Easter break.  From that Thursday afternoon to the following Tuesday I don’t have class and would like to get outta town, possibly the country.  Or if some readers want to come over and hang, that’s perfectly acceptable too, just don’t all jump on a plane at once now, ya hear?  Also, not to get all politically minded, but I (and perhaps Lauren also?) wish I were in IC a teeny bit so I could see the PRESIDENT speak on campus on Thursday.  …oh and… kudos to 219 votes on Sunday night :)  That is all.

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Responsibilities? They have those here?

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Keeping up with this blog has been a challenge in the past two weeks. The unexpected sinus infection mixed with pending midterms and actual homework (?!) hasn’t facilitated writing to, as Brittney says, our “legion of followers.” So combined, five people?

View of La Alhambra from the Albaicín barrio in Granada. SWOON.

I never wrote about Granda, but I absolutely adored it. It was worth destroying my ears on the mountain-y drive up. I would gush about the Alhambra or something, but it’d be 90000 words typed in vain. So here’s a photo.

Adam visited this weekend and by some miracle it didn’t rain. I was able to revisit the Alcázar (!), the Catedral (.) and the Plaza de Toros (…). I’ve also taken to using punctuation marks to express how I felt about each visit. The Alcázar was great because there were peacocks; the Catedral was still a gothic cathedral, but going to the top of the Giralda offered a fabulous and sunny view; the Plaza de Toros robbed us (ok, 4 euros) by failing to mention that half of it was closed and under construction. Under construction? In Spain?! QUE VA. We also got stuck in a Jesus parade in my barrio and together slaughtered two boxes of Don Simon sangria, a 40ish bottle of Cruzcampo and a jar of Nutella, among other bebidas y comidas. Despite the fact that I was on antibiotics and presently live in a makeshift pharmacy, the weekend was an enormous success.

The transition back to real life has been difficult, and it’s only Monday. I have two midterms this week and a mammoth article due in four weeks. It sounds like plenty of time, but not when one of those weeks is dedicated to traveling with my family over Semana Santa, and this weekend is dedicated to Rome (Roma, ro ma ma…).

Despite my debilitating indecision, I finally booked the flight. I’m reluctant to make travel plans here because a) I love Sevilla, b) I’m afraid of Ryanair and c) I’m cheap. But I had to do Rome. My aunt, uncle and cousin live there right now, so I have no excuse not to go. Plus, I think this will be my only trip outside of the Iberian Peninsula in my time here. A lot of my friends have already hit up Paris, Amsterdam, London, Brussels… I’ve stuck to Granada, Córdoba, Jerez de la Frontera, Barcelona. And I’m beyond happy with that. But it will be exciting to see another part of Europe this weekend, to visit family, and to hit the town with the Pope.

I’m beyond flustered that my study abroad experience is already at its halfway point. I’m really going to miss my friends here, Elisa, the lack of snow… and why the hell am I already worried about this? I have two months left, but it’s not enough time. I finally developed some sense of direction — it’s been days, maybe even weeks, since I’ve gotten lost! I listen to my iPod when I’m walking to class because I know the streets well enough to not worry (much) about being plowed over by a batshit Spanish driver. The long-awaited sun has finally arrived, and the combination of endorphins + “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” while walking has been most enjoyable. You could even say empowering. It’s probably because I’m one letter shy of sharing her name.

The Puente de Triana, "my" bridge (by virtue of living in Triana).

Also– another sentiment I don’t share with my study abroad cronies, along with my disinterest in Ryanair-ing through Europe every weekend: missing my university. It’s not even a question. Iowa will be there when I get back, save for the possibility of another apocalyptic flood. Chicago isn’t going anywhere. Naperville will be thriving. My family comes in less than two weeks, so I miss them, but pretty soon we’ll be in close quarters on a bus traveling through southern Spain. Maybe I’m insensitive, truly emotionless — this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve wondered — but I don’t miss Iowa at all. By writing this I’ve perhaps jinxed myself into a panic attack/weepy breakdown by the end of the week due to separation anxiety from cornfields and Interstate 80. I’ll be sure to provide a live streaming update if this happens.

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Spring Break

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

Plan A would have had me drunk in Deutschland with mein Schmetterling D-Bag right now instead of watching my mother start her very own grow house in our kitchen.  Thanks to Delta Airlines, Plan B (<– we should get some Google hits with that one) has me boarding a plane tomorrow at 6 pm and not returning to Germany until Monday afternoon.  I don’t really want to get into intricate details of what an epic clusterfuck my afternoon was yesterday that resulted in me not getting on a plane, but if you are a representative for Delta Airlines reading this, I expect some class upgrades, free tickets, or at least the whole can of soda during beverage service tomorrow.  The jist of it is that Delta sent an e-mail AND called me to tell me my flight would be delayed two hours, but then told me (when I showed up after adjusting my airport arrival time to accommodate this extra time) that the plane had actually come and left early.  Yes, essentially they said “You don’t need to come so soon” but then said “Oh wait, you definitely should have been here.”  Because I’m so great at telekinesis.

What’s a girl to do when she has 48 new hours of unplanned time hanging in her home state?  Go back to Iowa City, obviously.  Shout-out to future roomie Lauren for being my partner in spontaneous crime as well as my Pancheros-loving hungover couch partner this afternoon.  My 713ers were all sadly off on their great Spring Break adventures– NPH and I parted Wednesday for me to have some family time in Adel after mooching off of them for the better part of the week.  My family doctor debunked my German diagnosis of staph infection and instead gave me enough steroid cream and antihistamines to keep this mystery allergy at bay for the next two months.  The mother and I got a pedicure (shamrock green, for me) and I went to Valentine’s Day, the cutest move in the history of time, with Kayla and Sav.  They didn’t exactly share my review of the flick, but does plot even matter when Taylor Lautner is onscreen?  Nein.  I was accused of only liking it because of my recent boyfriend procurement, to which I’ll plead the Fifth because they’re probably right.  Definitely do NOT watch this movie if you’re feeling cynical in the slightest– it will either cause you to breakdown in public and/or become extremely violent to the squealing saps around you like me whose boyfriends stand in the rain at 10 pm to grill them bratwurst after work even though they have papers they should be writing instead.  Not like that’s happened to me.

IN CONCLUSION: I am beyond thrilled I came home for Spring Break, but I am so so so ready/ excited to get back to Germany.  And I would be there right now if it weren’t for Delta Airlines.

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Groningen & Spring Break

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

We set off in gorgeous weather Friday morning for Groningen, Holland with a vague outline of the train schedule and no hostel reservation (or map of the town) for when we hopefully arrived.  We rode the train for free to Hamburg-Harburg, then to Bremen, then to the border town of Leer, and then finally to Groningen.  About 20 minutes into our journey (big shocker ahead for any of you who have traveled with me before:) I had to pee.  Unfortunately we had some time to kill in Hamburg-Harburg and I decided I couldn’t wait to go on the train for free.  In Europe, one must PAY to go to the bathroom.  This to me is a clear violation of my human rights and why the Geneva Convention did not address the Right to Pee Internationally for Free is beyond me.  I went into the bathroom knowing I had literally two cents in my pocket, but thinking that the paying thing is more of a strict guideline than rule. Unfortunately, the 70-year-old 300 lb. German woman working the bathroom did not see this as merely a guideline.  She was not impressed by my two cent offering and instead barked at me in the huskiest smoker’s voice to e’er barrage my auditory system something about “Bitch gimme my money” (or that’s what I’d like to think she said.)  I tried to plead (in German) that this was all I had, and even opened up my wallet and managed to scrounge up 25 more cents.  By now she definitely got the “this foreign girl’s bladder is about to explode all over my bathroom resulting in much more than 50 cent mess” memo and let me in.  After my business was quickly done, I exited to wash my hands, and Big Bathroom Bertha started going off on me again.  I clearly had not desecrated the shoddy hole in the wall she was paid to “keep clean,” and knew my train was coming soon, so wasn’t really in the mood for a quick German lesson.  She then pointed to my right where I saw the sign that said it was an extra 20 cents to wash your hands.  OH OKAY.  That’s not exactly hygienic, Deutschland– if anything YOU should be paying ME to wash my hands.  Anyway, I finished and high-tailed it out of there without drying my hands (perhaps an extra 15 cent charge?) with the lovely German woman cursing my existence the entire way to the train.  D-Bag and New England were not comforting in the slightest about this traumatizing intercultural experience, and instead thought it quite hilarious that I have the bladder of a toddler.

We had a little over an hour to kill in Bremen, so we walked around their historic center and explored the city.  I fell in love with Bremen, possibly because the weather was so nice, but it’s a very clean city with an extensive trolley system and lots of amazing shopping/ restaurants (fun trivia fact: Beck’s is also brewed there.)  I also found coffee that lasted me more than 30 seconds– their XL size was roughly what an American medium would be… and in true European fashion cost roughly $2 more.  By some miracle we made it to all of our trains on time, although we ran to the last train leaving to Groningen (as such, we didn’t have time to buy tickets and miraculously were never asked for them on the train, thus were FUGITIVES once in the Netherlands.  Spring 2010: My life as a bad ass.)  As soon as our train crossed the border into the Netherlands, the sunny weather went away and the sky was an ominous storm-on-the-horizon shade of gray straight out of the movie Hostel.  Also, the one bathroom on board our last train was OUT OF ORDER (I actually said “I can pee, but it can wait til the next train” on the last one.  BIG. MISTAKE) so the last ride was mostly me splayed as comfortably as possible across two seats with my travel companions under strict orders not to make me laugh lest I explode and really put a damper (haha, pun?) on the weekend.

Finally we arrived in Groningen– about six hours after we initially departed– and I paid 50 cents for a NICE bathroom replete with candles and a much nicer Dutch lady who in no way verbally assaulted me.  We then decided it was best we find a hostel (only about half an hour of wandering and one stop for directions) where were able to get some of the last beds in the dormitory for the night.  The rest of the night was spent exploring the city, hanging out, going to an amazingly cheap sit-down pizza place, going to some bar where the Australian bartender (hel-LO Heath Ledger sound-alike) took a liking to us random Americans in his Australian bar in Holland.  Saturday we had the BEST CROISSANT I have ever had– so flaky, so many layers, can’t really talk about it right now without crying– which was cut down the middle then filled with cream (kinda like vanilla pudding) and topped with fruit.  No words.  D-Bag got another one and said something about living under the bakery counter for the rest of his life– they were THAT GOOD.  We decided to go back Saturday afternoon because there wasn’t actually that much to do there, but also because New England and I vowed to never step foot in that hostel again.

I am a very light sleeper.  I have never shared a room with 20 people (let alone STRANGERS) before.  We went to bed relatively early, so imagine how many times in the night I was woken up by various groups of drunk/high/foreign strangers stumbling into bed.  A LOT.  Also, we apparently missed the blanket memo and were individually huddled up in one top sheet plus our coats and any other layers we’d stuffed in our bags.  I’ve never before had to make a mental pro and con list of Which One of my Travelmates Would Be Less Creeped Out by me Climbing into their Bunk for Warmth?  Needless to say, we were the first three out of there in the morning, and if traveling again, I will plunk down many more Euros for a private room or hotel instead of saving a few but getting close to zero sleep.

It is this hostel experience that has me even more excited about my Spring Break plans (as if I weren’t already counting-down-the-days excited before.  Most of you know, but for those who don’t (everyone with me in my program), I am going home for Spring Break.  To Iowa.  I am leaving Europe and voluntarily spending a week in Iowa.  Now, when this was first presented to me as an option by my father, my reaction was “GROSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS NO WAY so laaaaaame, who goes HOME during study abroad?  Puh-lease.  I am so not doing that.  I am so worldly and will travel to foreign places and prove to myself I can go without the people I miss for four months.”  I would change my mind on going back at least five times a day, usually NPH being the reason to visit home, and traveling to cool places being the reason to stay.  In the end though, now that the tickets have been purchased, I am OVER THE MOON about visiting home in 12 days.  While traveling over Spring Break would have been great I’m sure, the cons definitely outweighed the pros in terms of money spent, time spent on trains, sketchy hostels, possibly traveling alone/ with people I don’t really care for, etc etc.  This is not my first or last time in Europe, and I’d much rather come back and see places like Spain and Norway with people I love instead of for a couple hours on no sleep with people I probably won’t see after May.  My week in Iowa City/Adel is already filled with plans, most importantly lots of time at 713, Mesa with Natalie, celebrating Lauren’s 21st birthday a week early, a screening of Shutter Island, perhaps a pedicure with T-Bone, and lots and lots and LOTS of Diet Pepsi and coffee.  A very special thanks to my father for making this trip possible, as well as essentially making the best decision for me because, when getting down to it, I was dead-set on staying if only to prove to myself I don’t need home for four months.  And then come late March we would have had one verrrrry volatile Brittney on our hands, and who really needs that?

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Random updates

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!  (This is my favorite holiday– except for my birthday of course, which might as well be a national holiday.)  I will spare you the stomach-churningly sweet details of all my Valentine back home has done for me and just summarize the whole day as a Win.  My day has been oddly similar to Lauren’s in that I am one of the few students in my program who did not attend some sort of Karneval celebration (most people here took a trip to Cologne.)  I wasn’t really feeling spending the Euros and multiple hours on a train to stand outside and get drunk in costume, call me anti-social if you must.  D-Bag and I did have a fun day of activities that included mimosas, an insane amount of guacamole, my first screening of Snatch, his first viewing of Gone Baby Gone, and Maulwurf Kuchen (mole cake)– aptly named because there’s “dirt” on the top and it looks like a mole hill.

You can all breathe a sigh of relief that my freak finger bite appears to be on the road to recovery.  There were about 30 minutes yesterday where I WebMD’d myself into think I had rabies with only days left to live, just sure a bat’s been creeping around in the night (did you know you often can’t even tell a bat has bitten you?  Until you start FOAMING AT THE MOUTH AND SEIZING?!)

Class is cancelled tomorrow so I have nothing to do until 4 pm.  Our Berlin plans have been nixed for the weekend in favor of scoping out all the Netherlands has to offer.  It has snowed for about 72 days straight, and methinks I’m only slightly exaggerating that estimate.  For Spring Break I will not be attending a Lady Gaga concert (I KNOW, I’m sad too, but I had no one to go with and that woulda just been kinda weird.)  I will be attending Bonnaroo in June instead with the Iowa City loves of my life.  I refunded all of the Diet Pepsi bottles in my room and got like 2.50 Euro back (yes, a lot of bottles, but they also refund much more for each.)  Trying to think of something to give up for Lent– if you’re thinking caffeine you’re absolutely high, alcohol worked well last year but my current location makes that one impossible, I could try to do swearing but would fail miserably 20 minutes into Ash Wednesday.  I wanna go somewhere really cool for Easter, like Spain or Norway, we get quite the extended weekend off for it.

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Upon review, a lot of shout-outs

Monday, February 8th, 2010

I’ve been in Germany for one month, but it feels like I left home YEAAAARS ago .  Do you know what I need but can’t be found?  Giant amounts of coffee.  Ein Tasse Kaffee ist sehr klein, I need my caffeine in more than three swallows.  Good coffee here is like BUTTER, oh my sweet Moses it’s tasty, but generally the good stuff’s not found in the dusty prison-esque machine I visit in the basement of my school building every morning.

Saturday D-Bag introduced me a to a magical, magical treat that will reverse my slight weight loss more than any German beer or Schnitzel could: it’s called marzipan, and I haven’t yet decided if it’s sent directly from heaven or hell.  If you have any backstory on my love for all things almond-flavored, you get why this amazing almond-paste sugar butter awesomeness will be my inevitable undoing.  When he suggested I try this dark-chocolate covered (!!!) marzipan bar for only 70 cents in the checkout line at Edeka, I had what I can only imagine is the same internal debate a first-time heroin user ruminates over before tying one off.  It’s textbook bad, but oh baby it’s so, so good.

This weekend was relatively quiet– I caught up on some more episodes of “Weeds” (when it becomes tolerable to be outside for any period of time, I promise I’ll have better stories to share.)  Friday night we went to Jekyll & Hyde and the bartender was fascinated by our blatant foreign status (it’s a good thing I hang out with people from the coasts, the Germans are half-tempted to ask for D-Bag’s autograph when he tells ‘em he hails from California.  They usually just politely smile and nod when I mention Iowa, so for the first and hopefully only time in my life– I never thought I’d be one of those people– I name drop Chicago and that usually elicits some sort of response.)

I’m glad I didn’t go to the one bar in town playing the Super Bowl (at 11:30 pm our time) last night because there were NO COMMERCIALS.  Due to, I’m not sure, international advertising laws (there’s no ads here after 8:30 pm?  I need to investigate this further) there was apparently just extremely proper German commentary during all breaks.  Congrats to the Saints, I’m glad they finally got theirs (Super Bowl win + Mardi Gras?  It’d be pretty fun to visit New Orleans this week, to say the least.)  On a slightly related note, many YouTube videos are also blocked due to copyright laws.  I can’t see most official music videos (for example, “Sex on Fire” by Kings of Leon.  Sometimes I miss Bryce, so sue me) AND NBC.com’s clips of Saturday Night Live are “unavailable in your area” as well.

If it sounds like I’m chained to my laptop, well kinda.  I’m certainly not letting my time in Europe pass by, but even during foreign study there’s downtime (ALL DAY SUNDAY, anyone?!  Still getting used to that one…)  I was spoiled last week with two lovely Skype dates– my future roomie Lauren and fellow PRSSA hottie Natalie.  Kudos to students who studied abroad pre-Internet, though sometimes having “home” right in front of you but oops not really, just on a screen, almost makes it more difficult.  I actually just had to prepare a chapter on culture shock for my class tonight, and overall I think the whole transition has gone oddly smooth.  Instead of something here making me miss everyone, it’s usually something from home that triggers feelings of less-than-cheerfulness (Furry Raptor tweets, for example.  99% of you have no idea what I’m talking about, but to the one person who does, I LOVED it and thank you.)

GUESS WHAT– we’re having a VALENTINE’S DAY PARTY in class on Thursday.  I can’t produce a squeal of excitement loud enough.  Clearly I will be going way over the top with this, I’m thinking cupcakes and handmade valentines and appropriately colored clothing.  Then perhaps actual Valentine’s Day will be a dawn to dusk drunkfest due to everyone in the program either being utterly alone or miles away from their freund/freunde (fun fact: there is no German word for boyfriend/girlfriend.  They just use “friend” and context clues are needed to figure out how close of “friends” they really are.)

Oh and sorry if you’ve clicked on the Photos tab above only to be met with a blank page– we’re working on it.

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“A clue! A clue!”

Friday, February 5th, 2010

“Here’s the mail it never fails, it makes me wanna wag my tail– when it comes I wanna wail, ‘MAAAAAIILL!!’” (Thanks to years of baby-sitting, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my freak Blue’s Clues’ knowledge.  It is both my blessing and my curse.)  I got THREE pieces of mail yesterday– one from my parents I’d been expecting for about a month, one musical Disney Princess Valentine from my Grandma, and one Step Brothers t-shirt courtesy of my valentine in IC.  Overall, a pretty great way to wake up after an equally great nap.

This morning was my first final (piece o’ caaaaake, or auf Deutsch: eine Stück Kuchen.)  Then it was BROCCOLI DAY in the Mensa; cooked broccoli might just be one of my top five favorite things of all time.  Raw broccoli involuntarily makes me puke up my lungs. Germany’s cooked vegetables aren’t so much steamed as they are soaked in butter with enough sodium to swell a moose ox, but it makes me feel slightly better than eating the mystery battered meat drowned in mystery booger sauce.  I also got some Hot Roomie one-on-one time when I saw him sitting with his friends and had to be all, “Oh hey, favor?  I locked my keys in the apt, can I borrow yours for two minutes?”  If only this were a lame flirting attempt (at least I no longer lock them IN my room, just forget em on the table.)

Do you know what’s different (okay, one of about 3,000 things) over here?  Germans never hang out in their living rooms.  Everyone spends free time in their bedrooms, even when people come over.  This is something Sebas noticed to be totally different when living in the US– he wasn’t allowed to have girls alone in his room for long periods of time, whereas in Regensberg that’s where he’s expected to take his friends.  It’s sehr weird, as most mothers I know would assume we were up there devouring each other between meals.  In many apartments over here there isn’t even a common room– just a kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms.

I’ve finally decided to embrace television auf Deutsch, though Family Guy just isn’t Family Guy without the exact voices (and the jokes are so tailored to American culture that most Germans don’t bother watching.)  The voices for Die Simpsons and Spongebob are actually pretty accurate, and they’re pretty helpful to watch because I’ve seen a lot of the episodes/ generally know what’s going on.  OH and some Sex and the City episodes were on last night, so I learned some new Deutsch phrases, though not really useful unless currently sleeping with a Russian man almost twice my age.  (Slightly humorous side note: In Regensberg last weekend one of my drinks came in a martini glass, and numerous people in the bar ooohed “SexandtheCity!!!” in the unison.  I have no problem being these people’s laptop-pounding, cigarette-puffing late-90s sex goddess.  Especially if a German Mr. Big comes with the gig.)

I’m off to enjoy the Am Sande nightlife with my main amigos New England and D-Bag.  Zero plans for this weekend, though next weekend might be a quick jaunt across the border to the Netherlands!

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Pie party

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

After the excitement of this weekend, the last few days have been nothing to bother writing about.  I’m officially done with my first four credits of German, the final exam is tomorrow.  We can’t really wrap our heads around the fact that the past four weeks of Deutsch would have been spread over an entire semester back home.  Granted we wouldn’t meet for 3.5 hours a day and there  would be at least five times the amount of people, but still– even our teacher said she’s impressed with how far we’ve come.

Last night, Ich kochte mit meiner Lieblings-Jungs and we had another family dinner.  Apparently the theme was pie because we had two kinds– pizza and pumpkin.  D-Bag’s mom sent him all the fixin’s for a pumpkin pie before the holidays so he figured it was probably time to get going on it.  Being the baker extraordinaire I am, I fixed a semi-passable pie crust (did you know the conversion from cups to grams is different depending on what you’re measuring? SO CONFUSING) but the filling was Thanksgiving-grade awesome (quite the feat considered I just used guesstimates for the amount of each spice.)  Pie is pretty non-existent in Germany, especially of the pumpkin variety, so we shared with my flatmates and a few of the droves of people Hot Roomie had over last night.  When we told them it was pumpkin, they said their only knowledge of this word was the “orange thing with a face.”  They thought it was super delicious!  Before we pumpkin pie-d ourselves into a coma, we made homemade pizzas.  Apparently D-Bag is quite the chef and made homemade dough (yeast, garlic and all!) and homemade sauce and they turned out pretty tasty as well.

Afterward I hung around in our kitchen packed full of people and did some more intercultural intermingling (two cheers for the awkward American!)  The first person I talked to was an Albanian student who has been studying in Germany for two years.  He knows like five languages and said that he’s here because German degrees are very rare in Albania and are pretty much a guaranteed ticket to success.  He spoke some Albania to me, which is pretty unique and kind of dying out, and then asked me what I think of the Germans.  He thinks they’re a bit cold, and then went off about how much they drink.  He said the amount Germans drink is “disgusting” and that the drinking culture in Albania is far different.  In his first three weeks here, his friends went out 12 nights whereas back home he drinks maybe once or twice a month.  In Albania they also go out to a bar first and then perhaps to someone’s home instead of the opposite way we do it in America and Germany.  I told him that Germans and Americans drink/ party about equally when we’re at our age, but the adults here drink much more than adults back home.

A girl from the first night I ventured into the kitchen came up and asked how I was, then we talked a lot because she spent six months in America when she was in high school.  She (and every other German who’s visited America) LOVES Taco Bell.  They think it’s just the greatest thing in the world.  She also asked if I lived near a Six Flags because they don’t really have amusement parks like that here, but she wishes there were.  Overall, she said she absolutely loved America and asked why in the world I’d want to come to Germany.  She thinks English sounds much prettier than Deutsch and said America is “like it’s own world” because of the size/ how many different cultures/ regions we have in one country.  We then talked about the difference between American and German boys but couldn’t really think of many, except the overall consensus that American boys are “bigger douchebags.”  She was also not a fan how American boys don’t ask before they kiss you– apparently the German ones do?  Lame.

Last, but certainly not least, I met two German guys who were also fluent in Spanish.  They had each spent their year of civil service in South America working with kids or something adorable like that.  One of them lived in Colombia and when I said I only know one thing about Colombia, he entered into a diatribe about how the country is so much more than cocaine and how great the people are and yes, there is cocaine but COLOMBIA DOES NOT EQUAL COCAINE, OK?!  But he was much nicer about it than this.  Then I made the mistake of telling him I actually have only begun studying German, to which he decided he would no longer speak to me in English because I will never learn Deutsch if people continue coddling me with English.  Um, ok.  I tried– I really did, and I got some words (the other stuff was communicated much more clearly in Spanish.)  They just talk so FAST!  After my weekend in Munich, my German has improved exponentially, especially if I’m reading it, but when speaking my mind still goes completely blank.  He then told me I had to go out with them (which I’m quite certain they never did) but I politely declined due to my still uncompleted Hausaufgaben and early wake-up call for class.

Three friends and I have booked a trip for Berlin in two weekends, our next three-day weekend.  I’m much more confident about my ability to figure out the train system, and am pretty excited to see the wall and Checkpoint Charlie.  I’m mulling over a trip to Spain over our long Easter Break, though cooking Easter dinner here for everyone would be cool, too.  No big plans for the weekend, should probably do laundry and go grocery shopping but the likelihood of either of these things happening is slim to none.

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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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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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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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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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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 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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