A Piece of Texas in Freiburg

Yesterday evening and this morning I was lucky enough to have the company of my always fun and entertaining Uncle John! He is spending some time skiing in Switzerland and he took the train from the ski village to Freiburg and I picked him up at the train station yesterday evening. We got him checked into his hotel then headed out into town in search of a place to eat. We settled on Martinsbräu, which is the oldest brewery in all of Freiburg. I had some good old-fashioned Schnitzel and potatoes and Uncle John had a lamb steak, both of which were accompanied by delicious house-brewed beer. After dinner we headed back to my dorm so I could show him where and how I live here in Freiburg. He was quite a hit with my roommates!

Uncle John became an
honorary roommate :)

This morning I picked him up at 10 from the hotel (and was complimented on my promptness), then we went for breakfast at my favorite cafe, Cafe Aspekt. We had very European breakfasts with lots of rolls, jam, cheese, ham, and OJ. And a Chai Latte for me. :) Since I didn't have class until 2 in the afternoon we wandered for a few hours through the city and visited various shops and sights in the city center. Unfortunately the time flew by and it came time for me to take my leave and for him to catch his train back to Switzerland. I'm extremely glad he came to visit (although I was slightly disappointed that he didn't bring his cowboy hat) and I look forward to the next family member to make their way to Germany, whoever it may be! :) *cough Mom, Dad...*

A Very Merry Viennese Christmas

Well, I'm back from Christmas in Vienna! Have been for a while but I took a few days for myself to recuperate and catch up with family and friends. The task of writing this post is also a bit daunting because I feel like I have so much to say! I'll just start from the beginning.

So I arose sickeningly early at 5:23 am on Sunday, December 23rd in order to catch the 6:20 tram to the main train station.  I showered, quickly ran through my packing checklist, checked my bags one more time, then met Allison at the tram stop and head to the station. Once our train got to the platform we rode to Karlsruhe, transferred and rode to Munich, then our third and final train took us to Vienna.

Hofburg Imperial Palace

Once we arrived we headed to our hostel, a nice place called "Hostel Ruthensteiner" that I would recommend to anyone traveling to Vienna needing a place to stay. The staff was very friendly and it had a relaxing and comfortable atmosphere. Ok, commercial over! After checking in we got a map from the front desk and scoped out a few places to eat and settled on a restaurant called Mariahilferbrau. I had the beef goulasch (absolutely delicious) while Allison had the chili (equally delicious), both of which were complemented nicely with a couple of beers. The next day we headed out into the city and saw the Christmas market, had breakfast at a bakery, and took in some of the historical buildings around town.

The days were nice, but the nights were awesome. I don't know what it is, but Vienna was full of Australians, particularly our hostel. That made for good conversation, a friendly atmosphere, and lots of laughter! We hung out at the hostel bar, went to an "Australian pub" one night (which the Australians hated), and a bar/restaurant called Mozart's that stayed open until 6 in the morning. I won't go into detail,  but good times were had, songs were sung, a guitar was played, drinks were drunk, and dumplings were eaten. Mostly.

All of Schönbrunn Palace that I
could fit on my camera screen

My favorite sight in Vienna would probably be Schönbrunn Palace. Schönbrunn, meaning "beautiful spring", was a summer palace that was requisitioned by the Allied Forces after WWII and used as offices for the British Delegation to the Allied Commission for Austria. Later it was used for important events such as the meeting between John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev (secretary of the communist party in Soviet Union, partially responsible for the de-Stalinization of Soviet Union) in 1961 [Thank you, Wikipedia]. The palace is now a museum and a small number of the palace's 1,441 is open to the public. We took the Grand Tour so we saw 40-something rooms including bed chambers, dining rooms, dressing rooms, libraries, secret meeting rooms, and the ball room. It was truly majestic but hard to believe that people actually lived there because it was so extravagant and had to have required so much upkeep! To top off the experience, there was a huge Christmas Market on the palace grounds to visit after the tour.Vienna was beautiful and a wonderful place to spend the Christmas holiday, but I'd like to go back one day, maybe in the summer time to experience the good weather and open shops!

Sleepless in Freiburg

I'm a real student in Germany now.

...

Honestly, this has been the worst week I've had since I've been here and tomorrow (Thursday) is going to be longest day of the week, complete with having a 6-page research paper due as well as a final exam for my grammar and composition course, with another 5-page essay due the day after. And then there's the small fact that "tomorrow" is actually "today" since I'm sitting in the University Library at 4:30 a.m. waiting for the city trams to start running again. I'm here with friends so it's not that bad, plus I get to admire the illogical way in which the Germans organized their books while learning all about German, British, and American war time propaganda from 1914-1918. But I'm not complaining. Does it sound like I'm complaining? 'Cuz I'm not!

Random watercolor person whom I pity.
I know the pain she's going through... I know it well.

I suppose I brought this upon myself, what with my poor time management skills and all, but I consider this to be a learning experience. It takes more time than I thought it would to pick a research topic, gather information from various sources in various languages, translate said sources (when necessary), formulate a coherent and semi-intelligent sounding thesis in German, think of what I want to say in the body of the paper in English, then translate to German, keeping in mind that some things will not translate the way I want them to. And yes Mom, I actually read through my sources, not just the first and last chapters :)

So after having just finished my first official German research paper, I feel like I can finally call myself a student at a German University! Up until now it's just been a few worksheets here, a couple of reading assignments there, and an oral presentation or two. All of which I suppose are hard work in their own right, but it just doesn't quite compare to the stress of writing a formal paper. With footnotes! I guess it wasn't too bad for the humanities kids, but for someone who hasn't written a non-technical paper since high school, it was rather anstrengend (stressful on the mind/body). However, I've learned my lesson and I'll be ready to tackle the next essay that comes my way!

Hopefully my next post will be more about the wonders of Deutschland and less about my failures as a student! :)

Food Babies and Free Beer!

Turkey! Just as good as the ones in the states :)

Last Friday a good portion of the AYF students gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving together. We had a huge room in the basement of one of the dorm buildings and (almost) everyone signed up to bring some kind of delicious food item to the dinner. We gathered at 6 pm and socialized for a bit to allow the accidental latecomers and the people who are always "fashionably late" to arrive, although there were more than a few grumbles from people's mouths and stomachs alike. Once everything was in order, we had quite an impressive spread which I would say could have rivaled any Thanksgiving dinner back in the states! There were mashed potatoes, fresh grilled vegetables (carrots, zucchini, etc.), scalloped potatoes, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce, green beans, green bean casserole, garlic bread and rolls, and of course Turkey! The dessert table was overflowing as well - there was homemade apple pie, pumpkin pie, and more pie that tasted like sweet potato pie but the baker swears that it was pumpkin. It was delicious either way! We also had a fresh sliced fruit and dip spread and freshly baked cookies.

Aside from the delicious food, the company was great as well! The majority of us present were AYF affiliated, but some brought their friends and/or roommates. A special Russian guitar quartet was also invited and they performed a few songs for us because they are friends of the AYF program Resident Director. All in all it was a wonderful time and many laughs were had! All of us left with "food babies" since we ate so much it felt like we had an extra few pounds in our bellies!

Beer provided by the sponsoring company

That same night there also happened to be a dorm party in my building, so after the dinner I headed back to my place, birthed my food baby (let my dinner settle), cleaned up a bit, and waited with my housemates for the "guests" to arrive. I put guests in quotation marks because of the more than 100 people in attendance, I only knew a handful of them, but it wasn't bad. I met lots of people that night, listened to good music, stopped a guy from stealing eggs out of our fridge, and finally made it to bed at half past 3. One of the guys who lives on the floor below me got the company that he works for to sponsor the party. Apparently if he had enough people in attendance and advertised their products during the event, they were willing to pay for the costs of the party. So we had a packed dorm, free beer, wine, and red bull, and blasting music - all in all it made for a pretty fun Friday night! Although I lost a good chunk of my day on Saturday cleaning up with my housemates :(

Celebrating with my fellow Americans really tempered my holiday homesickness - I'm already looking forward to Christmas!

"Bond"-ing with Germans, Saucy Popcorn, Thanksgiving!

On Thursday I was invited to eat dinner with my tandem partner Christine and her roommates Lena and Sarah (and another girl whose name I can't remember!) at their apartment. It was a wonderful time and I got lots of practice speaking and listening to German, reading German recipes, and watching Germany's version of "The Voice" on television. For dinner we cooked Kartoffelbrei (mashed potatoes), Rotkraut (red cabbage), and Frikadelle (fricadelle), a very German meal. We had a mixture of sparkling water and apple juice to drink, then we lounged on the couch and ate gummy bears for dessert while watching the Germans sing their hearts out.

"Skyfall" movie poster

My tandem partner Christine, Sarah and I went to the movies together Saturday evening to see Skyfall, the new Bond movie! The movie was stunningly excellent, it definitely lived up to the hype, and I think I may have loved it even more because I saw it in German and I understood almost all of the dialogue! That's a milestone for me. :) German movie theaters, like almost everything here, are very logical. The tickets cost different amounts depending on where you sit in the theater, so the lower level seats are less expensive than the higher seats. Also, every ticket has a seating assignment on it, so they really maximize the space and make it less chaotic. For popular movies like "Skyfall", people reserve seats in advance, but if they don't pick up their tickets earlier than half an hour before the show starts, they can be sold to others. It's definitely an interesting system. And of course, since it was my first German movie experience, I wanted to go all out! I decided to get some popcorn and a drink from the concession stand. I was feeling mighty grown-up 'cuz I had my money ready and I already knew what I was going to say in my head. It went quite smoothly until- "Salze oder süße?" The guy was asking if I wanted salty or sweet popcorn, but in my mind "salze" sounded like "soße" which means sauce in English, and I surely did not want any soggy, saucy popcorn! So I asked for süße and munched happily throughout the film, but I learned my lesson and next time I'll go for the regular salty popcorn!

Thanksgiving is this Thursday and AYF is having a group Thanksgiving dinner and I wasn't sure what to bring, but since I've never cooked heavy duty dishes like Mac and Cheese (not out of a box) or stuffing, I decided to play it safe and bake my cheddar/garlic butter biscuits. I finally found extra sharp cheddar cheese here in Germany so I think I'm all set for Thursday!

Later this week I'll do another post about the Thanksgiving gathering, hopefully with pictures!

Bis dann!

Overview of my Winter Semester Classes

I am currently in my third week of University classes here in Freiburg and I seem to have fallen back into the rhythm of the whole school thing pretty easily, considering the fact that I actually went 6 months without having a full semester of classes since U of M let out so early for the summer and Germany's classes didn't start until the end of October. I must admit it's kind of strange not having any technical classes. No math, no science, just literature, grammar, and history. It's different but still enjoyable.

My classes:

The USA in WWI: A University history course about the role of the United States in the first World War. We read texts about the war in English and German and discuss them as a class. We also choose topics to give an oral presentation about each week. This is probably my most challenging class because it's full of native German speakers and the conversations can get a bit deep and beyond my knowledge of German vocabulary. Also, the professor speaks a mile a minute, but I get the gist of things.

Contrastive Linguistics: This is one of my favorite classes. It is an introductory English seminar about linguistics and comparing and contrasting the English and German languages. The professor is this cool, funny old guy from Berlin who speaks a ton of languages (or a least a few words from a ton of languages) and is a fan of class participation. It's basically a large group discussion comparing the languages which is quite helpful for me because knowing linguistically how German and English differ from one another will help me grasp the German language better.

German Grammar and Composition: This is a good class, not because it's particularly interesting but because I know it's extremely helpful. It's basically a continuation of the intensive language course I had during my first month here in Freiburg.

German History from Unification to Reunification: This has been interesting so far, it's just rather difficult since the text we read is long and in fairly complicated German and I spend half of my time looking up words, but on the bright side my vocabulary is expanding! It's not terrible though since all of the students in the class are part of my study abroad program, so we all suffer together and the instructor takes what we say into account. Also, we're taking a class trip to Berlin in January, so that's something to look forward to! :)

German Literature: This is probably my least favorite class, but I've never really been one to enjoy being assigned a book, having to read it and discuss it, and then being told that I'm "thinking the wrong things" or "not getting the meaning the author intended." How do YOU know?! This was written in the 1800s, I doubt you know what he meant either... But aside from that the class is nice. It's a comfortable atmosphere so we feel fine with speaking up and making a fool of ourselves in broken German. Some of the things we've read (poems and short essays) haven't been too bad, but I don't quite know what to think about this section on German Romanticism...

Well, those are my classes for the first semester! And I truly can't complain because this is the first semester that I've never had a Friday class! Three day weekends are wonderful things...

Until next time!

Munchin' in München

The Rathaus or the Town Hall

Almost two weeks ago Tuesday and Wednesday I went with my friends Allison and Tucker on an overnight trip to Munich, Germany. Even though we didn't stay very long, I had a wonderful time! We caught a bus and arrived in the late evening after five hours of travel. Tucker has a friend from U of M who is studying for the year in Munich and he met up with us and took us out to eat at a popular restaurant called the "Hofbrauhaus." I had roast beef with little potato dumplings and a glass of beer. It was wonderfully German and wonderfully delicious! We also saw the Rathaus, which is this big elaborate building that used to serve as the town hall. We lamely turned in early for the night because, after discussing it, we realized that we were all dead tired and weren't really in the partying mood, so we headed back to the hostel and slept. Wednesday morning we got up early, partook in the free breakfast offered by the hostel (bread, jam, meat, cheese, boiled egg, juice, coffee, same old), checked out, and began to head out into the city. Off we went!!! Left right, left, right, le- uhhh, hold up! Where were we going? We realized we had no idea where to go or what to do, so we turned around and head into the lobby of the hostel where there was a huge stand full of pamphlets. Tucker whipped out his laptop to find ideas (and check his email) and I, firmly establishing myself as a tourist, leafed through the pamphlets and picked out a few places to see. We decided on a leisurely sight-seeing day since we had lots of time to kill until our bus left later that evening.

The first place we went was the "Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst München" or "The Munich City Museum of Egyptian Art." I know what you're thinking: 'That's not very German, why did they go there?' And you know what? It wasn't! But it was cool all the same and the free audio guides were auf Deutsch so I got a bit of practice in! We saw ancient Egyptian weapons, coffins, jewelry, hieroglyphic scrolls, cat sculptures, books, sphinxes, scarab beetles, egyptian gods, and more! I've always wanted to learn hieroglyphics or some sort of script language, and ancient egyptian history has always seemed really interesting to me, so maybe I'll read up on it some more in my free time!

Me with the City Garden in the background

The next stop was the City Garden, which was basically this huge expanse of green. Green grass, green trees, green people (as in environmentally friendly). It was beautiful and I got a ton of pictures, but too many to put in this entry. They will, however, eventually be on Facebook! :) After our visit to the City Garden, we became hungry and sought out some food which landed us at some kind of outdoor Turkish restaurant/stand. I had curry wurst which is basically just a weiss wurst in some curry-flavored sauce. It was okay, but it's apparently very popular in Berlin, so I suppose I should develop a taste for it before I visit there! After lunch we had a bit more time to kill so we visited random stores and churches (there were so many churches!) before finally heading back to the bus and beginning the journey back to Freiburg. I thoroughly enjoyed Munich and I would love to go back for another visit. The city has so much more to offer than just Oktoberfest and I'd love to seek out more cool spots that I didn't have time for during this first visit!

With any luck I will have another blog post up later this week detailing my first week of classes!

Waffles and Chocolate - Breakfast of Champions!

I apologize for being MIA for the past couple of weeks, but I was on vacation. Luckily for you I have plenty of stories and photos to share with you about my travels! Three Fridays ago I finished my final exam for our intensive language course, rushed to the main train station, and caught a ride to Brussels, Belgium. We arrived around 11 pm, spent two nights, and arrived back in Freiburg around 11 pm Sunday night. Brussels is the capital Belgium and also the de facto capital of the European Union. Both nights we went out and explored the town and the culture. For being such a popular city, everything seemed to close really early. There was one little street with about 5 bars that stayed open until the wee hours of the morning and that seemed to be where all of the younger people hung out, so we stationed ourselves there for the most part. I met a ton of international students from Spain and France and even one from Germany! I also noticed that most of the beer in Germany has an alcohol content of about 5 percent by volume, but in Brussels the beers were anywhere from 9-11 percent alcohol by volume.

Belgian Waffle with Strawberries
and whipped cream :)

Saturday morning we went out and explored the town. We went to the town square where they had an interesting flea market with fragrances, scarves, handmade jewelry, pottery, and more. We also visited a museum about the famous Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte. We went to a store called the "Beer Temple" where they had hundreds of kinds of beer, we visited many a chocolate shop, and of course we had Belgian waffles. Ohhh, those Waffles...They were amazingly warm and crunchy on the outside and hot and fluffy on the inside. The whipped cream was so delicious and different than in America, and the strawberries were incredibly fresh. And they didn't skimp either; there was a strawberry for every bite! :) 

Brussels Cathedral

On Sunday we had time to kill between checking out of our hotel and heading back to Freiburg, so we walked around the city, visited the Grand Place, got my friend Sonya a coffee fix, and saw the city cathedral. Even though every major European city seems to have a big, historical cathedral, they never fail to floor me with their beauty. Seeing the cathedral might actually rival the waffels for my favorite memory of Brussels. We went on a Sunday and mass happened to be in session, but it was interesting because I noticed that there were actually more people just touring the cathedral that what there were attending the service. The Brussels experience was fun and relatively painless even though the main languages spoken there are French and Dutch. It was funny because I never realized how much German I actually know until I couldn't speak any of the languages around me and found myself responding to the locals in German! All in all, Brussels was a very enjoyable city and I had a good time!

Oktoberfest! Just kidding...

People climbing over the tracks. Shoulda seen the
girls wearing Dirndls and  heels, poor things...

Once upon a time (last Friday to be exact) a group of five intelligent young people traveled to the main train station after their German class and spontaneously bought a ticket for five to Stuttgart for the following day. That Saturday in Stuttgart just so happened to be the Volksfest, a crazy festival/fair that seems like a slightly scaled down version of Oktoberfest. They met at the train station Saturday morning around 8, took three different trains to get to Stuttgart (the last of which stopped on the tracks for a hour and everybody had to get off, climb down the rocks, risk getting crushed in a landslide of dirt and pebbles, then scale a concrete wall and hop the fence), met up with some friends of theirs who had arrived the previous night (and who had had an adventure of their own!), scarfed down some food from the food court in the Stuttgart train
station, then hopped on a tram to where the Volksfest was being held.

Carnival ride from Hell. Not really, but it lasted
forever and I had bruises for days...

Little did these young people know that the following 14 or so hours would be incredibly fun, alarming, hilarious, and tiring. The most tame period of the adventure was during the time they were actually at the festival (only six hours or so). They "snuck" into a beer tent (they still can't figure out if they were supposed to get a wristband or not), ordered huge 1-Liter mugs of beer, danced on tables with the natives, belted out the lyrics to popular tunes that the DJ spun, ate a whole chicken, lamented over the fact that they were going to miss the Chippendale's performance the following evening, ate some pasta and macaroons, made friends with some dudes from Mississippi and Florida (they were battle buddies on leave from the Army for a while), rode a carnival ride (the longest ride ever-it lasted for SEVEN MINUTES! No exaggeration!) and finally called it a night and wandered back to the main train station. Then the real adventure began.

There had apparently been an accident or something that caused huge train delays and resulted in the majority of the tracks being closed. Well now. These young people needed to get home because their ticket was only good for a 24 hour period and they had class on Monday and homework to do! Some dude came by and yelled, "There's a train and it's leaving NOW!" Then it was chaos-these intelligent young people were sprinting madly toward this train, along with everyone else. They just barely made it, having to squeeze together and get cozy with a group of Germans wearing Lederhosen. These Lederhosen-wearing Germans just so happened to be going the same way for two of the three trains, so the young people struck up a conversation and had company on the way home.

The third and last train home stopped suddenly and unexpectedly and announced that it would be having a 30 minute delay. So two of the young people hopped off in search of a restroom (didn't find it) and made friends with a 27 year old law student named Christian who has perfect English because he studied abroad in Ireland. The intelligent young people (and the 27 year old law student) finally made it back to Freiburg at 3:30 Sunday morning, a full two hours after the scheduled arrival time. They then had to walk 40 minutes back to their dorms because the trams weren't running at that time, but that's nothing new!

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, although we were all slightly disappointed because the Germans were not exhibiting their typical punctuality. However, it resulted in a wonderful adventure with wonderful people and I wouldn't change any of it even if I could!

All photo credit in this entry goes to Allison!!!

A few things I've noticed...

I just wanted to write a quick post about a few things that I’ve noticed about the Germans since I’ve been here, some good, some not so good, some funny, some interesting, but all worth writing about!

1. People always say that Germans never jaywalk and they will give you murderous looks if you ever dare to do it, but all I’ve experienced is waiting (for forever!) for the light to change to green while everyone else around me crosses the street while the light is red. Maybe it’s because Freiburg is kind of a college town and is full of young people who don’t care, but that kind of surprised me.

2. I also read an article back at U of M about how the Germans hate open windows and breezes because they’re afraid of getting sick from a draft, but everyone here keeps their windows open! They love breezes and fresh air here in Freiburg.

3. If you’re eating in a restaurant, the waitress will not come up to you periodically and ask you how your meal is, if you need anything else, or if you’d like the check. Once you order, you’re essentially on your own and you have to flag down the waitress when you want to pay. I actually like this system because the waiters/waitresses in America have an annoying habit of speaking to you when your mouth is full of food and all you can do is nod and grunt.

4. If an elderly person comes on the tram and you try to give up your seat, more often than not he/she will refuse it and choose to stand. My intensive course instructor said you know when they want to sit because they’ll look you in the eye and ask for your seat directly.

5. Where are the water fountains? I feel constantly dehydrated and have taken to carrying around a liter bottle of water everywhere I go because I have yet to see a water fountain in this city. Not one. They’re playing “Let’s Hide from the American!”

I don’t know how the Germans do it.

6. Everyone knows this but I’ll say it anyway. Germans are very prompt and on time. They are also dependable, I asked my roommate Temel for the time and place where I pick up my router for my internet and he said he’d look it up for me. Apparently I was out when he came to tell me and he didn’t have my phone number, so he slapped it on my door in the form of a Post-It note and it was waiting for me the next morning!

7. Almost always strangers on the street speak to each other when they pass each other. It caught me of guard the first couple of times but now I’m quick to respond with a friendly “Hallo!”

8. If you start a conversation with a German in German and they can tell you’re American, they automatically switch to English. I’m sure they think they’re being helpful and making it easier on us, but all we want to do is practice our German!

That’s all I’ve noticed for now but I’m sure there will be more things to come!

Markthalle, Reward Hiking with Good Food!

Early last week I ate a wonderful dinner of chicken curry with my friend Allison. We went to a place downtown, which is essentially a food court, but a thousand times better. You can choose from Persian, Indian, Arabic, Brazilian, French, “American”, and Bavarian dishes, and probably a lot more that I’m forgetting! Allison and I both opted to have the chicken curry dish. It was a plate piled with fresh rice, huge chunks of chicken in curry sauce, lettuce, a tomato slice, and a chip (yes, just one), all for just 7 Euros. It was perfectly filling and magically delicious, just like lucky charms!

By the way, this entire entry is going to be about food. Just a heads up!

On Sunday morning, Allison, Michael, Marisa and I met around 9:30 in the morning and grabbed some coffee and something small for breakfast, then hopped on the trap towards downtown. We got off at the same stop where the restaurant that we had the fancy reception party a short while ago is. That restaurant is built onto/into a mountain and that’s the mountain we needed to hike up. The goal was to find another restaurant (whose name eludes me at the moment) located about 4 kilometers up the hiking path that has an absolutely wonderful Sunday brunch. There were a lot of signs along the path so it was easy to get there and the walk went pretty quickly because I was with good people and there was no lack of conversation!

Delicious brunch spread

Once we made it to the restaurant one of the waitresses took our drink orders (the buffet came with one cold drink like orange juice and one hot drink) and told us to grab a plate and head on through the buffet. The spread was incredible: regular croissants, croissants filled with chocolate, an assortment of breads, three different kinds of jams/spreads, little packets of Nutella (they love Nutella here!), fresh fruit salad, fresh sliced tomato and chunks of mozzarella, strawberry and plain yogurt, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, salmon, what I believe was thinly sliced turkey, granola and muesli. The food was delicious and it was the perfect reward for our morning hike, despite a freak incident involving a fork, flying cheese, and an unfortunately placed cup of coffee.

We should make everyone back in America hike before they eat. They’ll enjoy the food so much more!

Until next time!

Colmar, Crêpes and Castles (Ah, alliteration!)

Whew, it’s been a while! So much to tell, so much to say!

So, first off: I think I’m in love with Germany. The people, their mannerisms, the way they advertise things - “Gut und gunstig!” (“Good and inexpensive!”), packs of hotdog buns with the American flag in the shape of a heart, etc. - and the food. Ohhh, the food. I’m actually licking my lips as I write this. Not because I’m a creeper. No, I’m actually eating my dinner of peppered salami and cheddar cheese on crackers. The taste is good enough to try to get every last speck of pepper! :) I was kind of intimidated in the kitchen yesterday when my roommate Temel cooked the best pasta dish I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting, so I decided to go for something simple tonight and just work my way back up to hot foods. Well, that and I’m a bit faul (lazy).

So. What have I been doing for the past week, you ask? Well…last week I took two German tests, one for my intensive grammar course and the other was more of a vocabulary test. I got the German equivalent of an A/A- on both, so I suppose I’m learning something! Aside from taking tests, I also did a bit of traveling and hanging out with friends. I’ll skip the “hanging out” bit; you've seen one club you’ve seen ‘em all!

So on Saturday a group of about 20 of us went to visit the Alsace (Elsass in German), a region about one hour away by bus in France. First we went to “Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg”, a castle that was built centuries ago and changed hands between the Germans and the French over the course of many years. Everybody wanted it, and not just because it’s a pretty nice castle. It lies atop a mountain (hence the translation of the name “Castle of the High King’s Mountain”) and it was strategically built so as to be able to look over the lands below and easily fire upon them with it’s canons. It was laid siege to many times since it was such an asset, but now it’s a museum located in France that many Germans and French alike come to visit. A perfect example of “can’t we all just get along?”

Aaand as I’m typing this, I’ve realized that I’ve lost my camera. I have no idea where it’s wandered off to, so no pictures for you this time. And possibly never again, unfortunately… Gosh, what bad luck. No, seriously, I just scoured my whole room and it’s nowhere to be found. In the future I’ll just have to pilfer some pics from Allison’s camera. :(

*10 minutes later*

False alarm! I left it in Allison’s kitchen! That’s why there's a picture in the post above after all! :D

Anyway, the second part of the field trip was visiting Colmar, a beautiful little Alsatian city with wonderful cafes and streets full of shopping possibilities. Allison, Sophia and I were hungry and settled upon an unassuming little place whose name I’ve forgotten. But when we went in, we saw Ulli (our program Dad), his two sons Benny and Alex, and Sabine Goelz (the program’s resident director). They invited us to join them and I had a wonderful lunch of the French version of Flammkuchen and a glass of Riesling. We also ordered a plate of escargots to share but the waitress forgot them and we were running low on time. :(

After lunch we visited a museum in Colmar called the Unterlinden. The artwork was of the type that I can enjoy; not abstract and imagined, rather colorful and realistic. There were also really awesome things like old crossbows, swords, extravagant locks and skeleton keys, and china. The whole experience was very enjoyable. We even had enough time to snag a crêpe before we headed back to Freiburg. It was wonderfully delicious!

I spent the ride home dozing and listening to my iPod, which I’ve found I don’t do nearly as often as I did back home. Stupid Europe and friends. Stupid traveling and sightseeing. Stupid fun. Sucking up all of the time I should be devoting to my technology. 

Keep your eyes peeled for my next post, it will be up soon!

Basel, Switzerland and Americans Abroad

Today we took a day trip to Basel, Switzerland, which is only about 45 minutes away by train from Freiburg. We all met at the Hauptbahnhof around 9 this morning, ate a breakfast of buttered pretzels on the way there, and hopped off once we reached the main train station in Basel. We got a brief tour from Ulli, our "Dad" while we're abroad, we visited the Münster, a large and old cathedral, and then we broke off and went to explore the city on our own. We saw plenty of clothing shops, wine bars, regular bars, souvenir shops, underwear stores, sex supply shops (at least three in the city; they're not playing around!), fresh markets, and ethnic restaurants. I hung out with my good friend Allison as well as Tucker, a new friend who also attends U of M.

We were awed not only by the beautiful sights that Basel has to offer, but also by the ridiculously expensive prices of everything! The food, drinks, clothing, postcards, everything! We got to the point where we were really hungry, but not willing to pay 30 Swiss Francs for a mid-sized lunch. So we shopped around...Ok, 23 Francs, that's a little better...Oh! Here's an Indian restaurant with meals for 19 Francs! Hmm...Thai food at a shady looking place on the corner for 15 Francs... We weren't really happy with having to bite the bullet and dish out ridiculous amounts of cash for a quick meal, but then someone had a brilliant idea! Let's just go to a grocery store, buy some bread, cheese, salami, grapes, wine, whatever, and have a nice picnic! So we went to Aldi, stocked up, and had an absolutely delicious lunch which totaled to 5 Francs (about $5.40) per person! And we had chocolate pudding for dessert. :)

While we were wandering around we ran into a group of five elderly Americans who recognized us because we spoke "American." They asked where we were from and one of them saw that I was wearing a U of M shirt. She said, "Oh, a very good school! They've gotten lots of money from me!" It turns out that her son had graduated from Michigan! We spoke for a while, told them we were doing an exchange year in Freiburg, and they randomly asked, "So who are you voting for?" The question kind of caught us off guard and and we just "ummed" around, but then the elderly gentleman in the group said, "Obviously they're voting for Romney; they're clearly Mormon!" I recognized the sarcasm and then they laughed and jokingly said, "If you're not voting for Obama, your vote doesn't count!" (I figured you would appreciate this story, Dad.) They were a nice group of people and they told us to stay out of trouble and enjoy our year abroad.

Around 4 in the afternoon we all met back up on the bridge headed back to the main train station and caught the 4:45 train back to Freiburg. We played a word game on the train and before we knew it we were back in our home for the next year! Basel was a nice city, but you definitely have to be making a lot of money to live there comfortably.

Schauinsland, Reception, After Par-tay

On Sunday we took an excursion to Schauinsland which is a mountain area on the outskirts of Freiburg. It's a popular spot to go to and the weather was beautiful when we went. We first hiked up the mountain a bit until we arrived at a museum. The tour guide explained how the people lived on the mountain back in the day, including how they cooked their food and their relatively low quality of life. We had lunch at the museum and continued our hike up the mountain. There was one stretch during which everyone thought they wouldn't make it, but the hike was a nice little workout and the beautiful photo ops more than made up for my displeasure at having to furiously chug copious amount of water!

On Wednesday night the Freiburg-Madison Gesellschaft threw a reception party for all of the AYF students (but especially the ones from Wisconsin) to welcome us to Freiburg and kick off the year on a good note. They do it every year in a fancy restaurant on a hill overlooking the whole of Freiburg. The view was absolutely fantastic! The reception had wine and champaign and absolutely delicious finger food like bruschetta and Flammkuchen, which is similar to a pizza with really thin crust except the dough is better, the cheese is fancier, and the toppings are absolutely amazing.After the reception a large group us went out to Uni Cafe, a pretty nice bar/cafe that's popular with the Uni kids. They even give out blankets to wrap up in when it gets chilly! I tried a Radler (which is actually very delicious!) as well as a Pils and I had a few great conversations with my new friends. Or Bekannter as the Germans would say. We ended up catching the last tram home (around 12:30 AM) and I had planned on crashing for the night, but my Hungarian roommate Fakars had other ideas. I watched some Hungarian news (with English subtitles), listened to some Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald (apparently they love Blues music in Hungary) and we made of fun of some of the terrible audition videos for Hungary's version of "The X-Factor."I didn't stumble into bed until a little after 2:30 but overall, last night was a great night and I got a lot of German practice in!

My Room in StuSie

The sink in the corner with my
99 cent rug from IKEA :)

The desk area. Printer, laptop, lamp, a treat from the
 bakery in the red and white paper bag...

The bookshelf that I use to hold
everything but books.

The wardrobe. The first time in college that
I've had more than enough room for my clothes!

My plants from IKEA. I got a lucky bamboo
 swirl and a cotton branch. They make my
room nicer somehow.

The bed. The red sheets and fleece blanket and Charlie make
it really nice to go to sleep at night! And the alarm
clock was the best purchase ever. Awesome German radio
for only $1. The large rug was also a good buy from IKEA.

Midnight Grocery Shopping, Hungarian Delicacies, IKEA

Remember my roommate Fakars aka Farek? Well, I finally got to know him a bit Thursday night! I was trying to figure out what one of the signs on our wall meant (there were words I didn’t know and didn’t have the resources to look up at the moment) and he came wandering through and helped me translate them. We have a Putzplan (cleaning plan) to keep the flat looking nice and the duties rotate every week, so he detailed what exactly the person “in charge” is supposed to do.

We sat in the kitchen and talked for a while and I learned a lot about Hungary (where he’s from) and Hungarian history. Apparently his family can trace their lineage back over a thousand years and his family is a “noble family”, which he told me pretty much means nothing today. At midnight he decided he needed more beer, so we went to the penny-market across the street where Fakars showed me the layout and explained the German method of bagging your own groceries and how to return your plastic bottles for money. When we got back, Fakars showed me pictures of his family back in Hungary and his university, as well as his work in the forest (he’s a forest engineer).

On Friday, Fakars cooked a Hungarian delicacy consisting of sliced potatoes, copious amounts of paprika, rosemary, parsley, bacon, and bratwurst in a huge pot. Anna had invited over two friends of hers (Enrique and Pablo) from Spain who are studying beginners’ German at the language school and an American (Kenton?) from California who is also in their class. Fakars decided to feed us all his Hungarian meal so we had a feast! Enrique and I were speaking in English and a tiny bit of German and Spanish, I translated from German to English for Anna, Enrique translated from my English to Spanish for Anna if she didn’t quite understand, Fakars spoke a bit of Spanish he had picked up because his ex-girlfriend of four years was from Valencia, Fakars later spoke a bit of Hungarian because we wanted to hear what it sounded like, and Temel was speaking on the phone in Turkish to a friend of his, occasionally contributing to our conversation. It was incredibly fun and rewarding to be able to communicate with everyone and to hear all of the languages. At one point we had four different languages flying across the dinner table! For dessert, we had a thin cake that was layered with fruit and a sweet glaze. Another Hungarian specialty, apparently! We ended up talking around the table until 2:30 am, when we finally decided to turn in. I had a great time- and you can’t beat free food! Since then we’ve all sat around the table every night and talked, some nights until past one in the morning (like last night). I’m definitely starting to feel my age haha! :)

On Saturday a group of us took a trip to IKEA on the city bus and bought a few necessities and decorations for our rooms. I got a couple of towels and washcloths, a big rug for my floor, a small mall for the floor near my sink, and bamboo swirl and cotton plant (they’re so cool!), a fleece blanket, and a plastic bin to use as a shower caddy. Now that my room is pretty, I’ll post pictures in a separate entry! 

Campfires and Irish Beer

Campfires and Irish Beer

We started Wednesday with three hours of lugging our purchases from the flea market to our dorms. Let me tell you: with a small television, a printer, three trash cans, an alarm clock, hangers, and a laundry basket, I had it easy. There are some people who still have to go back later to pick up the rest of their things. I also picked up my German phone, which is an adorable brick of a Nokia. :)

For lunch we all ate at an Italian Pizzeria called “La Piazza.” I had a Margherita pizza- it was on thin crust and the toppings were so fresh! I also had the opportunity to converse with one of the mentors, Justin, who was an AYF student two years ago. The other mentors are also wonderful. There’s Sabrina, who is a native German with the most awesome accent, then there is Myka who is also German, Bryan who is the definition of a crazy American, Simeon, a German who we’ve all decided can only be described as “incredibly adorable”, and Jan who is also German.

Wednesday night we had a barbeque where we grilled bratwurst and peppers. People brought Brot (bread) and Bier, the mentors set up colorful lights and played music, and we talked and had a great time. Afterward, a pretty large group of us went to O’Kelly’s, one of the two popular Irish pubs in the city. We hung out for an hour and a half or so and I got to know more of the program participants. Unfortunately, we had to leave pretty early (around 12:15 or so) because the Strassenbahn stops running at 12:33.)

Today (Thursday) began on a very slow and sleepy note. I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock three times, ambled downstairs to wake up James (who seems to have appointed me as his caretaker), wandered back upstairs, laid down for a couple more minutes, then slowly got ready to head to the Innenstadt (downtown). After meeting up with the rest of my group, we headed to the SWFR office where we signed our housing contracts. Then we took care of getting phones and a prepaid AldiTalk plan, ate lunch in the university cafeteria, and attended a seminar on German finances.

Now I’m at Starbucks (the only place with convenient internet at the moment) typing this and drinking a lukewarm café latte. Tomorrow is the “paperwork marathon”. We’ll also be getting a biometric passport photo (I have no idea what that is) and taking our placement exams for the Sprachkurs that begins next week.

Bis Später!

Der Anfang (The Beginning)

I apologize in advance for this obnoxiously long entry.

Okay, so much to tell! Well, I arrived in Freiburg around 2:30 Monday afternoon German time (so 8:30 AM in the US, eastern time). That was after a looong trip. I caught a plane from DTW to JFK, had a 6 hr layover, flew from JFK to Frankfurt, got lost twice, took a two hr train ride to Freiburg, and finally a streetcar ride to the student living community. Even worse, I had to deal with Allison the whole trip! Just kidding- I’m glad she was with me; she definitely made it all more bearable, even if neither of us can navigate to save our lives. We also ran into James at the train station in Frankfurt, so we all rode to Freiburg together.

I got lost again looking for my dorm. When I found my building, I found out that floor two (which I live on) is actually floor three because they don’t count the ground floor. So I had to carry my 50 lb suitcase and two extra full bags up two flights of stairs (there was no elevator). Then, my room’s lock-and-key-setup is so typically German (complicated yet simple and efficient at the same time), I stood outside my door for 5 minutes trying to unlock it. And that was after I found the right key on my key ring (I have five keys: one for my room, for the mailbox, for the building door, for the bike shelter, and I’m assuming the last is for the laundry room).

Once I finally got in my room, I took a look around. It’s pretty nice! There’s a desk, a huge wardrobe, a bookshelf, bed, nightstand, sink, and tall mirror. There is also a huge window (with blinds, Mom :D). I took an hour to unpack and sweep and relax, and then the AYF program threw the students a pizza party to say “Welcome!” and help us get to know each other. Afterward, a group of us went downtown (those who weren’t already dead tired) to an outdoor Biergarten called Feierling. It apparently has the best beer in all of Freiburg. I personally didn’t like it, but shhh. Don’t tell the Germans I said that!

I also met three of my roommates. The first is called Temel. He was born in Germany and is of Turkish decent. He speaks English, Turkish, and German fluently and is working on Arabic. He’s been very helpful and gave me a grand tour of the Wohnung, or “dorm.” He’s the main person I go to with questions about the German language and how to find places around town. The second is called Vakars aka Farek. I haven’t said much more than “hello” and “goodbye” to him yet, but he seems nice enough. I also met Anna, who has the room next to mine. She comes from Spain and speaks English and Spanish, but not German. It’s easy enough to get by without it here, I suppose. The other 6 roommates should arrive closer to the start of the semester in October. I sat with my Mitbewohneren (roommates) in the living room and watched “How I Met Your Mother” auf Deutsch. The German voices are really terrible which makes the show even funnier!

So, Tag 2 (Day 2):  The day started with opening a bank account at a local branch of Volksbank , which also has branches in other major German cities. We then did a bit of a walking tour and ate lunch at die Mensa, or university cafeteria. The food was pretty good. Sidenote: The deposits for plastic bottles pay really well here in Germany! You can get anywhere from 30 to 50 Euro-cent for returning a bottle, which is approximately 38-63 U.S. cents! There are actually some stores where you can buy a six pack of mineral water or sparkling juice and the amount in bottle returns that you get is more than what you paid for the drinks themselves! I jokingly said earlier that I might just buy bottled beverages and live off the return profits instead of getting a job. It’s just something to consider…

 I got to know downtown Freiburg a bit- it’s incredibly beautiful. And may I just say: The Germans are truly defying all stereotypes! Well, mostly- I just saw a lady wearing socks with sandals. But seriously, they’re nice and funny and so far very cheerful and helpful. And a lot of strangers say hello when you walk past them, which surprised me at first but now I’m used to it. But maybe that’s because Freiburg itself is a warm city. I also love the diversity. I read somewhere that 1 in 10 people living in Freiburg is originally from a foreign country and I can believe it! The only downside to the city that I’ve seen so far is the number of people who smoke. It’s a lot more prevalent here unfortunately, but thankfully all of the shops are nonsmoking for the most part. Oh, and the coffee is sehr gut here!

I also went grocery shopping at a pretty inexpensive grocery store called Lidl. I got shampoo, conditioner, soap, spaghetti noodles, a wine cooler, toothpaste, mouthwash, bread, jam, bananas, milk, and muesli, all for less than 15 Euros. That’s $19! I also scoped out a few good department stores in downtown Freiburg, so I know where to go if I need electronics, makeup, clothes, shoes, a light bulb, etc. The Strassenbahn, or streetcar, is nice and easy to use. It also runs very frequently which makes it convenient. I will need to take the number 1 line to get downtown and to my university classes come October.

I’ve been suffering without Internet since I’ve been here, so I went to a McDonald’s/Café with Allison to use the Wi-Fi. Buuut…you can’t use it unless you have a cell phone for them to send the access code to. And I won’t receive my phone until tomorrow (Wednesday).  So I just decided to type the blog entry now and post it whenever I’m around some Internet. Tomorrow is the flea market pick-up, so I’ll get some colorful bedding, my phone, a drying rack, an alarm clock, and some other stuff I don’t remember. It’ll be like Christmas, four months early!

Obviously I saved the best for last, so…. Today I checked my mailbox and guess what I found? Aside from spam and a clothing catalog, there were three pieces of mail for me from my Dad! He sent me three cards, which absolutely made my day! I don’t know when I’ll talk to you next Dad, so I’ll say thank you through my blog post: Vielen dank, mein lieber Vater!

Well, that’s all for now! I’ll be sure to post some pictures of my room, the campus, and downtown Freiburg soon. Allison is nagging at me to read her blog post; she swears it’s oh-so-lustig (funny), but I’m not so sure…

Tschuss!

Must Be Sunday

Today my father and I visited his friend Sal and Sal's wife who are from Bosnia and live about 40 minutes away. They were very wonderful and incredibly nice and we sat and talked for a couple of hours, working up our appetites before we went for a late lunch/early dinner.

Sal's wife served homemade lemonade mixed with fresh squeezed orange juice and mint leaves from their garden. Alongside the lemonade were delicious Albanian pastries from the local bakery and fresh picked blackberries and raspberries from the garden. We sat out on the back porch and admired the weather and the wonderful view of the garden and talked about Germany, their family, and education.

Blackberry bush

Speaking of the garden...Wow. It was beautiful- healthy and gorgeous. There were blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, eggplant, tomatoes, cantaloupe, bell peppers, kale, beets, and more! Sal and his wife tend to their garden themselves and everything is so fresh and delicious. And somehow the animals don't mess with the food.



When we got hungry we headed out for lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant named La Marsa. The food was plentiful and delicious and everyone had a bit of everything. Fried kibbee, fattoush, chargrilled salmon, shawarma, fresh baked bread- a veritable feast. I had a good conversation with Sal's wife during the meal and got great advice on living abroad and life in general. She was very helpful.

Sooo...yeah. Great food, great people, great times. Must be Sunday :)