So, I am now located at my permanent host family. It’s weird to think about, but I believe I will be able to get used to it. I woke up at 7 this morning for some reason, so I figured “hey, why don’t I just write my blog.” I was going to attempt to get it done yesterday, but I was distracted by my host family playing Wii Tennis in the living room, and then when I finally came to my room and finished my journal, I was too tired. Plus, there was a marriage party going on at my neighbors house, so its not like I can concentrate with “So ein schöner Tag” und “Das Rote Pferd” (those of you that were in my German class know what I’m talking about. Yes, they really do play those songs.) blasting in the background. Instead I went up to my bed that lies precariously on top of the wall in this weird second story of my room.
School’s out for Summer!
It was my last week in Bonn, so naturally we had to wrap up school. We had an oral final on Tuesday and our written final was on Friday. Monday we had a day of review, I suppose. We played a game where people had to leave the room and come up with an alibi, so that they are not accused of murder. Me and my partner totally owned, because our alibi was what we actually did Sunday night, which was that we went bowling with friends and her host brother (I bowled a 189, I’m so proud of myself). Wednesday we even went to a Cafe as part of our class. It was awesome. After the final on Thursday (they were really not so bad. I think I did alright.) all I had to worry about was the Abschiedsparty.
Party every day!
Or just a couple days in the week. . . Wednesday our group went out to a bar for the last time (yeah, right before finals, I know, but it was the last chance to do so). It was fun; we made a big Prost to ourselves and each other, wishing everybody luck in our permanent home. However, it was not until Friday that I started realizing how much I’m going to miss everyone. Friday was the going away party that was provided by the AIB. It was just a grill out and some of us had things to present at the end of it. I was so focused on preparing my sketch and this collage I made for the teachers and Hartwig, that when the realization hit that I was moving permanently to a town for ten months, it hit pretty hard. Everything went well though. I spent the whole day that day preparing the collage on my computer and then attempting to get it printed out, which was quite the hassle, and then I had to practice the sketch we were going to do. We did “Who’s on first” by Abbot & Costello. It went pretty well and hopefully it thoroughly confused the Germans. Shout out to all you PPP people: Good luck, I hope you're adjusting well to your host families. If not just let me know and I'll give 'em a stern talking to.
Long Train Runnin’
Here comes the interesting part. I got home at a reasonable hour Friday night, but I was tired, so I figured “Hey, why don’t I just wake up early to finish packing (I had a good amount of stuff packed but not all of it) then I can be on my way.” Well, thanks to chaos theory, things did not go nearly as planned. Of course, my alarm was set for weekdays only; I had set it that way, but the day I had to leave was a Saturday, not a weekday. You all are smart cookies; you know by now what happened, but I’ll tell you anyway. I woke up at 8:30 by myself, instead of 6:00 with the alarm. My train came at 9:21. I had not even finished packing. Quickly I woke up, finished packing by about 8:50 or so and got all my stuff out of my room. Then I thought, “where the heck is my host mom?” She was supposed to take me to the train station and she was nowhere in the house. I gave her a ring and it turned out she was already in front of the house with the car ready to load, but I can’t say my heart didn’t skip a beat there. Soon, I realized that I had no idea where my set of keys to the apartment was, and I had to start looking for those. I had taken my lego keychain off of it that very morning, but for some reason put the keys somewhere else. I concluded that I must have packed them somewhere and I would have to send them by mail, and we were on the road by 9:00. While riding in the car I had a last minute moment of inspiration and I found my keys in the pocket of my backpack where I always put my keys, go figure. By the time I get to the train station I have five minutes to spare. I’m really stressed, hungry, and sweating like a pig, but I said goodbye to my host mom, man handled my two suitcases, French horn, and backpack down the stairs and up the escalator in time to see my train rolling it. Unfortunately I assumed that the person who I would traveling with would be waiting for me at the actual platform two minutes before the train leaves, but that wasn’t the case. I got on the train and held the door, telling the train workers that I was waiting on someone. Turns out she was waiting in the McDonalds and struggling to get her bags out onto the platform. Soon, we got all of the stuff on the to the train, and we were off to Köln.
But that’s not all. We had a little bit of time on the train to get our stuff organized and figure out the best way to carry it all. The problem was that she had a big bag with a broken handle, another suitcase, a small duffel bag, two purses, and some plastic bags with shoes in them that were hung precariously on the suitcase. I believe we ended up switching some bags around and using a belt to roll the broken suitcase, but we didn’t figure that arrangement out until the train change in Hannover. In Köln we had only six minutes to get off our train and on to the next one. Fortunately, the platform was simply on the other side of the platform we got off. Unfortunately, the train car was parked about ten miles down the platform. So, I went ahead to try to find the right train car (it was of course the furthest one) and by the time I found it, I had no idea what happened to my traveling partner. She called me and explained that her shoe had ended up underneath the train somehow, and that she is on some other train car, but we both indeed made it on the train. She made two trips to get her suitcases in our car, but eventually we got settled in. By settled in I mean we just put our suitcases in the area near the door and sat there instead of finding our seats and then figuring out what to do with our huge suitcases. It was just a lot simpler this way. The ride to Hannover was two hours, so I finally had time to relax. I went to get some breakfast, and even had time to brush my teeth and shave. The transition in Hannover was a lot more successful and we had a generous twelve minutes this time around, so it was overall just less stressful. By the time we got to Göttingen, I was able to enjoy the beautiful scenery and I got moved in without any problems.
Oh Little Town of Ebergötzen?
I know there aren’t any songs about it, but Ebergötzen is really a nice little town. Well built, good looking houses with gardens everywhere, plenty of greenery accompanied by a little creek, and the Hartz mountains on either side make it quite the picturesque place. Shortly after I got there I walked with my host mom to the soccer game that my host dad was coaching that afternoon. It was a fun game to watch, and I find it so strange that she knows almost everyone. I suppose I’ll have to get used to that. The house is really nice, and quite interesting. Basically there’s a house in which we live on the top floor over two other families, and attached to it is a barn, which is now partly a jewelry shop and the rest is used for storage. There’s some chickens in our back yard too. And there are two cats.
Let’s see. . . what else. . . My family is super awesome btw. The twins are living with us as well for two weeks. They pretty cool as well, and funny. They both enjoy soccer and computer things. I don’t know what, but they are on the computer a lot doing something. Also, Ebergötzen has a sister city in Hungary, where I might be able to travel in October. I’m pretty excited for that, but it’s not one hundred percent yet, because my host dad is going there with his soccer team and is going to see if I can tag along. I hope so.
Coda
It took me a while to get internet access because the Wifi was “unsichtbar” which I now know means invisible. That was an adventure. Eventually the nephew of my host mom came and helped us out, but it was worth it, because I have Wifi now and I don’t have to plug my computer into the wall anymore (it wasn’t that big of a deal before, but now I don’t have to worry about tying up the internet). So now my gaggles of fans don’t have to worry about me not being able to post this blog.
I had a delicious German breakfast this morning. It made me happy.
Skez
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Last Bonnsch Blog
It’s the beginning of my last week here in Bonn. I am sure going to miss the little city. It’s really a nice place to live. It’s not to big, not to small, in the vicinity of Cologne, but not as busy. It’s going to be exciting moving to Ebergötzen to start my schooling and internship, but at the same time it’ll be hard to say goodbye to all the good friends I just made. With that said, a had a pretty awesome second to last week here in Bonn, and I’m sure you want to hear about it. If not, then I think you entered the wrong URL into your web browser.
Köln
I spent quite a bit of time in Cologne this week actually, more than usual at least. We went there for school twice this week. On Tuesday we went there instead of the regular school day to go to an art museum called the Museum-Ludwig. It was pretty cool actually. The art was usually pretty interesting, mostly art from the late 19th century until today. The advanced class had to prepare a two minute speech about one of the paintings in the museum, and I did one called Au Rendez-vous des Amis by Max Ernst, a Dada artist who studied in Bonn. They had a lot of cool Dada and Surrealist paintings there, which I enjoy.
Train Fail!
That wasn’t the end of that day however. Oh no, not by far. I went again to the zoo that afternoon with a few friends, because it was such an awesome zoo and they hadn’t all seen it. I guess it wasn’t the best time to go though, because many of the animals were asleep, especially at the beginning. Maybe it was their afternoon siesta; I don’t know. Anyway, that evening we left Köln in the evening to get back to Bonn, so we decided to take the train that went from Köln over Bonn, Beuel, ect. to the end destination of Koblenz, which is pretty far south of Bonn. Little did we know that “Bonn-Beuel” did not mean we’d be passing through the Hauptbahnhof, but rather through the Beuel part of Bonn. So, we obliviously passed through Bonn and slowly realized that we did not recognize any of the stops we were going through. So we could have A.) stopped in some random place and most likely have to sleep at the train station for the night, or B.) waited until we got to the Koblenz Hauptbahnhof where we could take an IC back to Bonn, although that would cost money. We decided to take option B, because sleeping in a train station really didn’t sound appealing. Of course there was no train until one in the morning that could take us to Bonn and we had to chuck out twelve Euros for it, so that was pretty lame. We just chilled in McDonalds for an hour or so (I broke my vow to never eat at a McDonalds in Germany, because I didn’t have dinner and it was the only place open). The train ride back was thankfully uneventful, although we got there at 1:33 or so, and my last U-Bahn was at 1:20. We missed the first night bus that left at 1:30 and had to wait another hour for the next one. The night buses go in a very round-about route, so I didn’t get to my flat until ten past 3 AM, it was lovely. Oh, and it was raining. Getting up for school the next morning was lots of fun.
Chocolate Museum (mmm. . .)
Thursday I went to Cologne again to get a present for Hector’s (our student guide person) birthday. That was fun; we grilled by the biergarten and almost everyone in our group showed up. The next time was on Friday, when we were supposed to go somewhere and take a boat back to Bonn on the Rhein. That would have been fun, but I had to go to an appointment with the Stadtamt about my Passport and my visa that lets me intern here (which was really easy by the way they just had difficulty finding my papers in Hamburg, so I went there and got my visa and left. I am now legal). So when we discovered that the train was not running today, I was not entirely disappointed, because I couldn’t go anyway. Instead everyone went to the zoo (It would have been my third time, so I didn’t mind that I had to miss it.) After that I rejoined them in Köln for the chocolate museum in the afternoon. The chocolate museum was really cool, but I do love food science, so I’m partial. Basically there’s one section about growing cocoa and the cocoa trade, and then you move into a place where you can see all the machines used to make chocolate and it explains the process. Then you move into a place where they show the history of chocolate and information about many of the different types and brands. At the end you can visit the store of course, which has all sorts of crazy chocolate flavors (or should I say flavours). After that I chilled in Köln for a while longer, because it does look really cool at night, especially the Dom. There was some kind of fest there by the Rhein which had some good food and they were playing random music into the night. Some of it was pretty good, but initially there was a drag queen singing, which was just weird.
Euchre!
Yes, I finally got to play Euchre last week! Go figure nobody else in the group knew how to play. It made me feel like a real Hoosier. But I got my Euchre fix, and I’m happy. Plus I enjoy the look on other people’s faces when I get in the barn. Shortest section ever.
Düsseldorf
On Saturday I went to Dusseldorf (I can’t figure out if there is supposed to be an umlaut on the u or not. I think so, but only in German). It’s a pretty cool city. The best part is over by the Rhein, which seems to be ridiculously far away from the Hauptbahnhof in my opinion. It’s the Altstadt, so much of the cool architecture is there, as well as good restaurants and street cafes. I had some Thai food for lunch, green curry to be exact, and it was delicious (It was no Jasmine Thai, but I’ll take it). Not to mention it was decently spicy, which was nice.
There was also some festival going on in Dusseldorf that weekend, so I’ve come to the conclusion that German cities just always have something going on on weekends, especially during the summer. There was a two man band that we watched for a while that played some classic rock. It was funny because they were both guitar players and singers, so the background was provided via computer. Pretty much the drums and bass were invisible. One guy had a pretty good voice for classic rock in my opinion, and the other just sounded like he was singing AC/DC which was good only when he was actually singing AC/DC. It was lots of fun. Another thing was that along the Rhein there was a bunch of outdoor restaurants where you could sit and have a beer or some food if you wanted. It was a lovely day, perfect for that kind of thing. Hmm. . . let’s see, what else. . . There is a nice park in the middle of the city which is pretty much a big walking path surrounded by woods. I succeeded in getting stuck upside down on a swing at the playground there because I left my backpack on. It was really a defining moment for me. Oh, and one more thing, there was an unusually large amount of bachelor and bachelorette parties going around that day. You can identify them because of they are all dressed similarly and are usually trying to sell something or something like that. I got offered schnapps for a Euro, but I just wasn’t feeling it that night, so I had to turn it down.
Ende
Well that pretty much sums it up for this week. The only other thing is that I went to a museum for calculators, but you don’t want to hear about that (It actually was pretty interesting, but I am a nerd, so . . .). I leave for Göttingen next Saturday bright and early, so I don’t know if I will have a blog up by this time again next week. If not just hang in there; I believe in you.
Shout out to all of you that are starting college in these subsequent weeks. Good luck, have fun, don’t kill yourself with classes as I’m sure you will. I’m gonna go ahead an admit that it’s really strange reading about it all on Facebook without being in the same situation, but I don’t mind, I’m excited for you all.
Skez
Köln
I spent quite a bit of time in Cologne this week actually, more than usual at least. We went there for school twice this week. On Tuesday we went there instead of the regular school day to go to an art museum called the Museum-Ludwig. It was pretty cool actually. The art was usually pretty interesting, mostly art from the late 19th century until today. The advanced class had to prepare a two minute speech about one of the paintings in the museum, and I did one called Au Rendez-vous des Amis by Max Ernst, a Dada artist who studied in Bonn. They had a lot of cool Dada and Surrealist paintings there, which I enjoy.
Train Fail!
That wasn’t the end of that day however. Oh no, not by far. I went again to the zoo that afternoon with a few friends, because it was such an awesome zoo and they hadn’t all seen it. I guess it wasn’t the best time to go though, because many of the animals were asleep, especially at the beginning. Maybe it was their afternoon siesta; I don’t know. Anyway, that evening we left Köln in the evening to get back to Bonn, so we decided to take the train that went from Köln over Bonn, Beuel, ect. to the end destination of Koblenz, which is pretty far south of Bonn. Little did we know that “Bonn-Beuel” did not mean we’d be passing through the Hauptbahnhof, but rather through the Beuel part of Bonn. So, we obliviously passed through Bonn and slowly realized that we did not recognize any of the stops we were going through. So we could have A.) stopped in some random place and most likely have to sleep at the train station for the night, or B.) waited until we got to the Koblenz Hauptbahnhof where we could take an IC back to Bonn, although that would cost money. We decided to take option B, because sleeping in a train station really didn’t sound appealing. Of course there was no train until one in the morning that could take us to Bonn and we had to chuck out twelve Euros for it, so that was pretty lame. We just chilled in McDonalds for an hour or so (I broke my vow to never eat at a McDonalds in Germany, because I didn’t have dinner and it was the only place open). The train ride back was thankfully uneventful, although we got there at 1:33 or so, and my last U-Bahn was at 1:20. We missed the first night bus that left at 1:30 and had to wait another hour for the next one. The night buses go in a very round-about route, so I didn’t get to my flat until ten past 3 AM, it was lovely. Oh, and it was raining. Getting up for school the next morning was lots of fun.
Chocolate Museum (mmm. . .)
Thursday I went to Cologne again to get a present for Hector’s (our student guide person) birthday. That was fun; we grilled by the biergarten and almost everyone in our group showed up. The next time was on Friday, when we were supposed to go somewhere and take a boat back to Bonn on the Rhein. That would have been fun, but I had to go to an appointment with the Stadtamt about my Passport and my visa that lets me intern here (which was really easy by the way they just had difficulty finding my papers in Hamburg, so I went there and got my visa and left. I am now legal). So when we discovered that the train was not running today, I was not entirely disappointed, because I couldn’t go anyway. Instead everyone went to the zoo (It would have been my third time, so I didn’t mind that I had to miss it.) After that I rejoined them in Köln for the chocolate museum in the afternoon. The chocolate museum was really cool, but I do love food science, so I’m partial. Basically there’s one section about growing cocoa and the cocoa trade, and then you move into a place where you can see all the machines used to make chocolate and it explains the process. Then you move into a place where they show the history of chocolate and information about many of the different types and brands. At the end you can visit the store of course, which has all sorts of crazy chocolate flavors (or should I say flavours). After that I chilled in Köln for a while longer, because it does look really cool at night, especially the Dom. There was some kind of fest there by the Rhein which had some good food and they were playing random music into the night. Some of it was pretty good, but initially there was a drag queen singing, which was just weird.
Euchre!
Yes, I finally got to play Euchre last week! Go figure nobody else in the group knew how to play. It made me feel like a real Hoosier. But I got my Euchre fix, and I’m happy. Plus I enjoy the look on other people’s faces when I get in the barn. Shortest section ever.
Düsseldorf
On Saturday I went to Dusseldorf (I can’t figure out if there is supposed to be an umlaut on the u or not. I think so, but only in German). It’s a pretty cool city. The best part is over by the Rhein, which seems to be ridiculously far away from the Hauptbahnhof in my opinion. It’s the Altstadt, so much of the cool architecture is there, as well as good restaurants and street cafes. I had some Thai food for lunch, green curry to be exact, and it was delicious (It was no Jasmine Thai, but I’ll take it). Not to mention it was decently spicy, which was nice.
There was also some festival going on in Dusseldorf that weekend, so I’ve come to the conclusion that German cities just always have something going on on weekends, especially during the summer. There was a two man band that we watched for a while that played some classic rock. It was funny because they were both guitar players and singers, so the background was provided via computer. Pretty much the drums and bass were invisible. One guy had a pretty good voice for classic rock in my opinion, and the other just sounded like he was singing AC/DC which was good only when he was actually singing AC/DC. It was lots of fun. Another thing was that along the Rhein there was a bunch of outdoor restaurants where you could sit and have a beer or some food if you wanted. It was a lovely day, perfect for that kind of thing. Hmm. . . let’s see, what else. . . There is a nice park in the middle of the city which is pretty much a big walking path surrounded by woods. I succeeded in getting stuck upside down on a swing at the playground there because I left my backpack on. It was really a defining moment for me. Oh, and one more thing, there was an unusually large amount of bachelor and bachelorette parties going around that day. You can identify them because of they are all dressed similarly and are usually trying to sell something or something like that. I got offered schnapps for a Euro, but I just wasn’t feeling it that night, so I had to turn it down.
Ende
Well that pretty much sums it up for this week. The only other thing is that I went to a museum for calculators, but you don’t want to hear about that (It actually was pretty interesting, but I am a nerd, so . . .). I leave for Göttingen next Saturday bright and early, so I don’t know if I will have a blog up by this time again next week. If not just hang in there; I believe in you.
Shout out to all of you that are starting college in these subsequent weeks. Good luck, have fun, don’t kill yourself with classes as I’m sure you will. I’m gonna go ahead an admit that it’s really strange reading about it all on Facebook without being in the same situation, but I don’t mind, I’m excited for you all.
Skez
Sunday, August 8, 2010
My Week in Under 2000 Words.
So, its hard to believe that I only have two more weeks left here in Bonn. I am really excited for my next place, but I feel like I have finally gotten adjusted this week. I have a relatively constant routine, I’m used to the way things are and where things are, and everything’s not so awkward anymore. My host family is really great, I had a barbecue today with them and felt totally fine conversing with them, minus the usual language barriers, but that’s just how it always is. I’ll talk more about that later, but those are just my general feelings about this week. I feel like I’ve surpassed a mini hump in my adjustment here in Germany, and I feel much better than I did at the beginning of the week for lots of reasons. Anyway, I’ll start my blog now. By the way, I never really proof read these, so I apologize if you grammar Nazis out there are getting irritated.
Klasse
Everything as far as class goes is pretty much routine. It’s pretty difficult most times, and can be boring sometimes, but mostly it keeps my interest if I’m not particularly tired that morning. We always have class from 9 to 1, so I’ve figured out how to keep my tummy happy during and after this time slot. The building that the classrooms are in, the AIB, has a little kitchen where I’ve been storing food that I get from the Netto, this dirt-cheap grocery store, to make sandwiches, ramen noodles, and such. For some reason this place is way cheaper than anything that we have in the US. I take care of lunch for the week for only five Euro, including soda or juice, or whatever I want to drink.
On Monday during class we learned a whole bunch of Schimpfwörter (for, you know, cultural reasons) which was pretty fun. Now I know what the Germans are yelling when I screw something up, or they’re just in a bad mood for some reason, which is nice. I suppose I would have liked to remain blissfully ignorant, however.
The grammar we’re learning is pretty complicated. We’ve been doing things like reflexive verbs and some complicated passive voice stuff, things that we just don’t have in English (we have passive voice, but it uses the same “to be” verb). And some of the German conjunctions can get pretty obnoxious, but so is life. There’s not really a heck of a lot of new vocab for me during class, but I’ve learned quite a bit.
Friday’s class was especially fun. We went to the Hofgarten, a huge field next to the University building, and played games. We did relay races involving German grammar, a German word game, a dictation race, and this game where you have to tie a balloon to your ankle and run around trying to pop the other team’s balloons. Mine popped pretty early on the grass, because I blew it up too much, but it was still fun to watch. If our class didn’t win than we at least had the best spirit. Our classmate made this awesome Griffin mascot on a piece of cardboard with “Anis Advanced Armee” written on it (Ani is our teacher). We all dressed up in black and had black war paint on, or mustaches. Oh and by the way there was this bum who was there for the first half it, who had clearly spent the night there on his skateboard. He was great.
The best part, however was our little scavenger hunt thing afterwards. Our classes had two apples to trade for as much/the coolest stuff we could find. By the way, the stereotype that Germans are not friendly or warm, is totally not true. Most of them were extremely willing to help, or just laughed at us when we told them our assignment. Even if they didn’t have anything good to trade, they still were willing to talk to us for a little bit. Anyway we ended up with some gummies, a pair of shoes, a pair of flip flops (different sizes), and a flower. It was so much fun.
Update: I still don’t have my visa yet, but I have an appointment with this guy in Bonn about it on friday. I hope it’s just a sit down, sign here type of deal, but am extremely worried that it could be a sit down and let us interrogate you for hours in German about your past type of deal. Then they might deport me or something. Or maybe they’ll give me citizenship. That’d be pretty cool, but impossible.
Excursions!
Let’s see, what excursions did I go on this week? On Tuesday we did a little tour of Konrad Adenauer’s house with another set of German kids who were doing some week long camp for German-American relations, I think, just like last week. This time when we ate dinner with them, we played ultimate frisbee with them too, which was super fun. I hadn’t played since we played that one midnight game in the States, so it was refreshing.
On Wednesday I went with a couple people to the Drachenfelz, just for fun. Everybody else had gone there when I was at my brother’s wedding. It’s one of the Sieben Gebirge (seven mountains) on the other side of the Rhein, where you can hike all the way to the top. There’s a castle in the middle of the mountain, and then really old ruins of another one at the very top. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to hike like that, so it was really great.
Thursday was our last tour of Köln with Hartwig and a pretty good one at that. We went to a Gestapo jail, where they kept many prisoners during the war. They were many different nationalities, and were there to get interrogated mostly. Many of them died there. The cells were so tiny, and they used to be filled with thirty or more people at once. All the writing on the walls had been documented and much of it you could walk by and read in both English and German. Overall it was an extremely powerful place, and it made me extremely depressed for the a long time afterward. We visited another church with the Black Madonna in it, and then went to try some Kölnisch Wasser, aka Cologne, the original fragrance named after the city. There’s a fountain in the store where you can just stick your hands in and put it on, or just take a long sniff of it if you prefer. It really clears the sinuses. After that was more bakery tasting, where I had possibly the best pastry that I have ever had. Ever.
I don’t know if this counts as an excursion, but I also went to the grocery store in Tannenbusch Mitte on Friday to get some butter. Before, the store didn’t make any sense to me. There was only fresh fruits and vegetables, cosmetics, drinks, and other cooking stuff, like pots and pans, but no dairy products, dried food, canned food, baking needs, jam, or anything like that. Friday, however I discovered there was a whole other floor in which you have to go all the way to the back of the store to find. It makes so much sense now. . .
Saturday, I went to the Zoo in Köln. German zoos are much more exciting than American zoos, I’ve decided. There are hardly any cages for the safer animals, such as the birds and Giraffes and such, which is pretty funny, considering that totally wouldn’t fly in the US. (haha, get it? Because the birds are always caged there?) Literally there was this closed in room which you had to walk through where there were buzzards just kinda chilling within feet of you. There was even one on the sidewalk, which I just kinda walked past, and it definitely could have bitten me. I love it, it’s great.
Cookies
Wow, I did a lot this week. I attempted on Saturday to bake cookies for the first time, which was initially pretty fail. I didn’t find enough flour, plus I don’t think my host mom has anything to measure stuff with. Measuring is pretty important when it comes to baking, and I was pretty much eyeing everything, plus it was all in grams. So my first cookies were really ugly looking and not really sweet enough at all. Today, my mother pointed me towards where she kept the rest of the flour, which had been recently invaded by ants unfortunately. So, I added some ant-flour which made them a lot thicker and prettier, then I rolled them in sugar before baking which made them sweeter and more impressive looking. Then came the trial. I gave them to my family to try after dinner (we had a barbecue) with some coffee. Great success! My host brother even took some back to his apartment. I also enjoyed how surprised they were that I put the cookies in the oven as balls, and then they flatten out while baking. I thought that was a fairly normal thing, but apparently not.
Ende
That pretty much covers anything and everything that I would want to tell you and you would want to know, I hope. It’s really super fun here, I even found a good hamburger place that reminds me of Bub’s and the notorious Big Ugly. Have you ever listened to Mr. T speak German? You should give it a try. It’s great.
Shout out to Keith and Gayle. Congratulations on being pregnant!
Skez
Klasse
Everything as far as class goes is pretty much routine. It’s pretty difficult most times, and can be boring sometimes, but mostly it keeps my interest if I’m not particularly tired that morning. We always have class from 9 to 1, so I’ve figured out how to keep my tummy happy during and after this time slot. The building that the classrooms are in, the AIB, has a little kitchen where I’ve been storing food that I get from the Netto, this dirt-cheap grocery store, to make sandwiches, ramen noodles, and such. For some reason this place is way cheaper than anything that we have in the US. I take care of lunch for the week for only five Euro, including soda or juice, or whatever I want to drink.
On Monday during class we learned a whole bunch of Schimpfwörter (for, you know, cultural reasons) which was pretty fun. Now I know what the Germans are yelling when I screw something up, or they’re just in a bad mood for some reason, which is nice. I suppose I would have liked to remain blissfully ignorant, however.
The grammar we’re learning is pretty complicated. We’ve been doing things like reflexive verbs and some complicated passive voice stuff, things that we just don’t have in English (we have passive voice, but it uses the same “to be” verb). And some of the German conjunctions can get pretty obnoxious, but so is life. There’s not really a heck of a lot of new vocab for me during class, but I’ve learned quite a bit.
Friday’s class was especially fun. We went to the Hofgarten, a huge field next to the University building, and played games. We did relay races involving German grammar, a German word game, a dictation race, and this game where you have to tie a balloon to your ankle and run around trying to pop the other team’s balloons. Mine popped pretty early on the grass, because I blew it up too much, but it was still fun to watch. If our class didn’t win than we at least had the best spirit. Our classmate made this awesome Griffin mascot on a piece of cardboard with “Anis Advanced Armee” written on it (Ani is our teacher). We all dressed up in black and had black war paint on, or mustaches. Oh and by the way there was this bum who was there for the first half it, who had clearly spent the night there on his skateboard. He was great.
The best part, however was our little scavenger hunt thing afterwards. Our classes had two apples to trade for as much/the coolest stuff we could find. By the way, the stereotype that Germans are not friendly or warm, is totally not true. Most of them were extremely willing to help, or just laughed at us when we told them our assignment. Even if they didn’t have anything good to trade, they still were willing to talk to us for a little bit. Anyway we ended up with some gummies, a pair of shoes, a pair of flip flops (different sizes), and a flower. It was so much fun.
Update: I still don’t have my visa yet, but I have an appointment with this guy in Bonn about it on friday. I hope it’s just a sit down, sign here type of deal, but am extremely worried that it could be a sit down and let us interrogate you for hours in German about your past type of deal. Then they might deport me or something. Or maybe they’ll give me citizenship. That’d be pretty cool, but impossible.
Excursions!
Let’s see, what excursions did I go on this week? On Tuesday we did a little tour of Konrad Adenauer’s house with another set of German kids who were doing some week long camp for German-American relations, I think, just like last week. This time when we ate dinner with them, we played ultimate frisbee with them too, which was super fun. I hadn’t played since we played that one midnight game in the States, so it was refreshing.
On Wednesday I went with a couple people to the Drachenfelz, just for fun. Everybody else had gone there when I was at my brother’s wedding. It’s one of the Sieben Gebirge (seven mountains) on the other side of the Rhein, where you can hike all the way to the top. There’s a castle in the middle of the mountain, and then really old ruins of another one at the very top. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to hike like that, so it was really great.
Thursday was our last tour of Köln with Hartwig and a pretty good one at that. We went to a Gestapo jail, where they kept many prisoners during the war. They were many different nationalities, and were there to get interrogated mostly. Many of them died there. The cells were so tiny, and they used to be filled with thirty or more people at once. All the writing on the walls had been documented and much of it you could walk by and read in both English and German. Overall it was an extremely powerful place, and it made me extremely depressed for the a long time afterward. We visited another church with the Black Madonna in it, and then went to try some Kölnisch Wasser, aka Cologne, the original fragrance named after the city. There’s a fountain in the store where you can just stick your hands in and put it on, or just take a long sniff of it if you prefer. It really clears the sinuses. After that was more bakery tasting, where I had possibly the best pastry that I have ever had. Ever.
I don’t know if this counts as an excursion, but I also went to the grocery store in Tannenbusch Mitte on Friday to get some butter. Before, the store didn’t make any sense to me. There was only fresh fruits and vegetables, cosmetics, drinks, and other cooking stuff, like pots and pans, but no dairy products, dried food, canned food, baking needs, jam, or anything like that. Friday, however I discovered there was a whole other floor in which you have to go all the way to the back of the store to find. It makes so much sense now. . .
Saturday, I went to the Zoo in Köln. German zoos are much more exciting than American zoos, I’ve decided. There are hardly any cages for the safer animals, such as the birds and Giraffes and such, which is pretty funny, considering that totally wouldn’t fly in the US. (haha, get it? Because the birds are always caged there?) Literally there was this closed in room which you had to walk through where there were buzzards just kinda chilling within feet of you. There was even one on the sidewalk, which I just kinda walked past, and it definitely could have bitten me. I love it, it’s great.
Cookies
Wow, I did a lot this week. I attempted on Saturday to bake cookies for the first time, which was initially pretty fail. I didn’t find enough flour, plus I don’t think my host mom has anything to measure stuff with. Measuring is pretty important when it comes to baking, and I was pretty much eyeing everything, plus it was all in grams. So my first cookies were really ugly looking and not really sweet enough at all. Today, my mother pointed me towards where she kept the rest of the flour, which had been recently invaded by ants unfortunately. So, I added some ant-flour which made them a lot thicker and prettier, then I rolled them in sugar before baking which made them sweeter and more impressive looking. Then came the trial. I gave them to my family to try after dinner (we had a barbecue) with some coffee. Great success! My host brother even took some back to his apartment. I also enjoyed how surprised they were that I put the cookies in the oven as balls, and then they flatten out while baking. I thought that was a fairly normal thing, but apparently not.
Ende
That pretty much covers anything and everything that I would want to tell you and you would want to know, I hope. It’s really super fun here, I even found a good hamburger place that reminds me of Bub’s and the notorious Big Ugly. Have you ever listened to Mr. T speak German? You should give it a try. It’s great.
Shout out to Keith and Gayle. Congratulations on being pregnant!
Skez
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Blog #6 (Blog #5 was deemed "Too German for the Internet" by the FCC)
Ok, so blog entry number 6 . . . Haribo, German project, discount stores, getting lost in the city, WWII tour, scavenger hunt, getting talked to by random German people while I pretend to know what there saying, Ping Pong, eighteenth century castle, and somewhere between all that I slept and ate. Alright, see you next week.
You’re still here? Oh, well I suppose you want more details, right? Geez, so demanding. . .
(Ha, “geez” is a word recognized by spell check. Did you know that? I didn’t know that.)
Haribo macht Kinder froh!
As you may or may not know, Bonn is the home town of one of the greatest contributors to mankind. No not Beethoven, Hans Riegel, father of the gummy bear. The Haribo (Hans Riegel Bonn) factory is located right here in Bonn and I can go visit their store any time I want. On Monday, our entire group went to visit the store, and let me tell you, it was like candy heaven. Not only did I have access to every kind of candy Haribo makes, but a lot of it was really cheap. I went ahead and got a mixed bag of gummy’s that I picked out myself and a mystery 4kg box. The bag had all my favorite gummy’s in it: Frogs, apple rings, and sour strips. That was in case the mystery box had nothing but those awful candy coated marshmallow things and frosted licorice. It was only 1 Euro for quite a bit of candy. It probably would have been about 3 to 4 dollars in the US. The mystery box, however, is where it’s at. 4kg of candy in a windowless box for a discount price, because they’re extras from the factory or something like that. The problem was that I had no idea what was inside. I ended up getting a really good box (in my opinion) minus the miniature rat marshmallows that are only okay.
My German German Presentation in Germany
Yes, I had to do a presentation in front of everybody in German. It was not all that much fun, but at least I found my subject interesting. The trouble was that not everybody could understand what I was saying, because we all come from different backgrounds as far as knowing the language goes. As a result, I had to incorporate English translations into my Powerpoint, something I’ve really never done, and I found it difficult to switch back and forth between German and English. It was not my best presentation ever, but it’s over now, so at least I got it out of the way.
My subject was actually pretty fun. I was talking about the Dassler brothers, Adolf and Rudolf, and their rival companies Adidas and PUMA. They originally had their own shoe company that made the first cleats before the war, and Adolf (Adi) provided these cleats to Jesse Owens during the 1936 Olympics to help him win all those Gold medals. Then, after the war, they had a fallout and started their own companies. The family feud was so big, that even their hometown was split between Adidas and PUMA. They had separate bakeries and clothing shops, separate soccer teams, and even mixed marriages were frowned upon. They were pretty much like rival gangs.
Anyway, I’ll stop ranting about that now and start talking about
Getting lost in the city
I would highly suggest if you’re in any city, in Bonn or elsewhere, just walking around for a while. Go get lost with some friends. It’s tons of fun, you get to know the city a little bit better, and you will most likely happen upon something really entertaining. This week I went walking around in Köln again after our bakery testing (those are always a pleasure). It was semi-raining the whole day but still lots of fun. We visited a lovely park with dangerous and muddy playground equipment. I ended up going down a super awesome slide and getting my pants soaked, as well as a jungle gym, a crazy tilted rotating thing, and a zip line. And then we played Frisbee. I’m kinda curious as to what my host mom thinks about what happened to my pants.
Oh yeah, and in case I didn’t mention this before, our group goes every week to Köln together, because Hartwig absolutely love the city and gives awesome tours. At the end of the tour we get a bakery testing where he gets samples from the bakery for us to try all of their products. It’s fantastic.
Schlacht im Hürtgenwald
Wednesday our Group went with a group of German kids from a different program to a site in the Eifel region where the battle of the Hurtgen forest took place. There were a lot of casualties from both side and there is a memorial site for them there. It was overall pretty depressing and I don’t think the tour guide did a very good job, probably because he had to give the tour in English.
Anyway the German kids were fun to talk to. They were from all over the country and came here to study English for 4 days. We went to where they were staying outside of Bonn and ate dinner with them there. I got to practice a little bit of German, but not much, because they obviously wanted to speak English with us. There was another guy named Tim there. It was awesome.
Brühl
Yesterday I went to Brühl with some friends for the afternoon. There was a cool castle there. Not a medieval one, but it was like a big mansion from the 19th century, I think. Mostly Clemens August, the archbishop of Köln lived in it, but there were other important figures who stayed there, Queen Victoria for instance. It was pretty much this ridiculously huge, ridiculously ornate house. Every little thing was decorated to the utmost detail, it was incredible. Afterwards we went walking around the town, but most everything was closing by then, so we soon went back to Bonn.
Ende
Just some other things to sum up before I sign off.
There’s some kind of anime convention going on here in Bonn, so I have been seeing plenty of random anime characters walking around. These people really go all out when it comes to their costume wearing. The funny thing is that I’m such a nerd I can recognize quite a few of them. I saw some people from One Piece, Naruto, Inuyasha, and others, they all kind of run together as generic anime people after a while. My personal favorite was some guy dressed up as a Gundam. Oh, and there was an Ash Ketchem walking around too. He was by himself which was kind of weird. I saw my brother’s pastor, who did the wedding, in his wife in the train station two separate times too, which was a funny coincidence. They weren’t dressed up as anime characters though.
You know what’s really annoying? Random Germans that go up to you and talk to you about something that you can’t understand because they are talking too fast and slangily and are probably drunk. I just keep on saying “nein” or “nee” to them and they eventually go away. Random Germans who play frisbee with you, however, are awesome.
We watched “Das Wunder von Bern” again by the way for all you people that were in my German V class. Except this time I got to watch it all the way through without stopping to do a worksheet in between, which was nice. There was no German subtitles, however, which made it a little harder. Good movie.
That’s it. I’m probably forgetting something, but that’s okay, because you probably don’t even want to hear about it.
Skez
You’re still here? Oh, well I suppose you want more details, right? Geez, so demanding. . .
(Ha, “geez” is a word recognized by spell check. Did you know that? I didn’t know that.)
Haribo macht Kinder froh!
As you may or may not know, Bonn is the home town of one of the greatest contributors to mankind. No not Beethoven, Hans Riegel, father of the gummy bear. The Haribo (Hans Riegel Bonn) factory is located right here in Bonn and I can go visit their store any time I want. On Monday, our entire group went to visit the store, and let me tell you, it was like candy heaven. Not only did I have access to every kind of candy Haribo makes, but a lot of it was really cheap. I went ahead and got a mixed bag of gummy’s that I picked out myself and a mystery 4kg box. The bag had all my favorite gummy’s in it: Frogs, apple rings, and sour strips. That was in case the mystery box had nothing but those awful candy coated marshmallow things and frosted licorice. It was only 1 Euro for quite a bit of candy. It probably would have been about 3 to 4 dollars in the US. The mystery box, however, is where it’s at. 4kg of candy in a windowless box for a discount price, because they’re extras from the factory or something like that. The problem was that I had no idea what was inside. I ended up getting a really good box (in my opinion) minus the miniature rat marshmallows that are only okay.
My German German Presentation in Germany
Yes, I had to do a presentation in front of everybody in German. It was not all that much fun, but at least I found my subject interesting. The trouble was that not everybody could understand what I was saying, because we all come from different backgrounds as far as knowing the language goes. As a result, I had to incorporate English translations into my Powerpoint, something I’ve really never done, and I found it difficult to switch back and forth between German and English. It was not my best presentation ever, but it’s over now, so at least I got it out of the way.
My subject was actually pretty fun. I was talking about the Dassler brothers, Adolf and Rudolf, and their rival companies Adidas and PUMA. They originally had their own shoe company that made the first cleats before the war, and Adolf (Adi) provided these cleats to Jesse Owens during the 1936 Olympics to help him win all those Gold medals. Then, after the war, they had a fallout and started their own companies. The family feud was so big, that even their hometown was split between Adidas and PUMA. They had separate bakeries and clothing shops, separate soccer teams, and even mixed marriages were frowned upon. They were pretty much like rival gangs.
Anyway, I’ll stop ranting about that now and start talking about
Getting lost in the city
I would highly suggest if you’re in any city, in Bonn or elsewhere, just walking around for a while. Go get lost with some friends. It’s tons of fun, you get to know the city a little bit better, and you will most likely happen upon something really entertaining. This week I went walking around in Köln again after our bakery testing (those are always a pleasure). It was semi-raining the whole day but still lots of fun. We visited a lovely park with dangerous and muddy playground equipment. I ended up going down a super awesome slide and getting my pants soaked, as well as a jungle gym, a crazy tilted rotating thing, and a zip line. And then we played Frisbee. I’m kinda curious as to what my host mom thinks about what happened to my pants.
Oh yeah, and in case I didn’t mention this before, our group goes every week to Köln together, because Hartwig absolutely love the city and gives awesome tours. At the end of the tour we get a bakery testing where he gets samples from the bakery for us to try all of their products. It’s fantastic.
Schlacht im Hürtgenwald
Wednesday our Group went with a group of German kids from a different program to a site in the Eifel region where the battle of the Hurtgen forest took place. There were a lot of casualties from both side and there is a memorial site for them there. It was overall pretty depressing and I don’t think the tour guide did a very good job, probably because he had to give the tour in English.
Anyway the German kids were fun to talk to. They were from all over the country and came here to study English for 4 days. We went to where they were staying outside of Bonn and ate dinner with them there. I got to practice a little bit of German, but not much, because they obviously wanted to speak English with us. There was another guy named Tim there. It was awesome.
Brühl
Yesterday I went to Brühl with some friends for the afternoon. There was a cool castle there. Not a medieval one, but it was like a big mansion from the 19th century, I think. Mostly Clemens August, the archbishop of Köln lived in it, but there were other important figures who stayed there, Queen Victoria for instance. It was pretty much this ridiculously huge, ridiculously ornate house. Every little thing was decorated to the utmost detail, it was incredible. Afterwards we went walking around the town, but most everything was closing by then, so we soon went back to Bonn.
Ende
Just some other things to sum up before I sign off.
There’s some kind of anime convention going on here in Bonn, so I have been seeing plenty of random anime characters walking around. These people really go all out when it comes to their costume wearing. The funny thing is that I’m such a nerd I can recognize quite a few of them. I saw some people from One Piece, Naruto, Inuyasha, and others, they all kind of run together as generic anime people after a while. My personal favorite was some guy dressed up as a Gundam. Oh, and there was an Ash Ketchem walking around too. He was by himself which was kind of weird. I saw my brother’s pastor, who did the wedding, in his wife in the train station two separate times too, which was a funny coincidence. They weren’t dressed up as anime characters though.
You know what’s really annoying? Random Germans that go up to you and talk to you about something that you can’t understand because they are talking too fast and slangily and are probably drunk. I just keep on saying “nein” or “nee” to them and they eventually go away. Random Germans who play frisbee with you, however, are awesome.
We watched “Das Wunder von Bern” again by the way for all you people that were in my German V class. Except this time I got to watch it all the way through without stopping to do a worksheet in between, which was nice. There was no German subtitles, however, which made it a little harder. Good movie.
That’s it. I’m probably forgetting something, but that’s okay, because you probably don’t even want to hear about it.
Skez
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