I went to Nuremberg--and it was FREEZING

December 15-18

I'm leaving for Italy on Saturday, so I guess I really better catch my blog up before I go. If I don't, I'll just be setting a precedence of laziness, and then I risk not writing about Italy! Now that would be a shame. I know how much you all are looking forward to those incredibly long posts.

Well, this time I'm going to spice things up again with pictures. It gets kinda boring looking at posts with just text. And if I'm saying that about my own blog, then I know it must be boring.

Saturday I took the train to Nuremberg with Judith and Tabea, two girls I know from Gegenwind. We were planning on getting the Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket, which is a really good deal because it only costs €35 and you can use it for up to 5 people. We figured, eh, €10 a person is pretty good. But while we were buying the ticket, two other people came up to us and asked where we were going. When we said Nuremberg, they said they were also going there, had already bought a Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket, and did we want to split it with them? So we each ended up only have to pay €7. It was even better for Judith and Tabea, because they came back Saturday night, so they got a round trip for really cheap.

We got in around 11:30, ate lunch, then went to my hotel so I could drop off my stuff. I was really glad they were with me. I definitely could have found it myself, but it helps having people who speak native German! The trip out to the hotel took longer than we thought, mostly because it was reeeeeally cold. When we got back into the city center, the first thing me and Judith did was buy long underwear. That was probably the best €5 I've ever spent. Long underwear may be dorky, and come up almost to my armpits, but it's warm. We walked around the Christmas market for a while after that, looking at all the booths and food. There wasn't really much different from the Christmas market in Ulm, but this one was way bigger and there were a lot more people. I was surprised by how many Americans (and Japanese) there were. I know this is supposed to be the most famous Christmas market in Germany, but I'd never heard of it until a few weeks ago. Maybe I'm just culturally ignorant.

Anyway, we bought gingerbread and Christmas gifts and called it a day. Judith and Tabea took their train back to Heidenheim and I went back to my hotel. The next day I got up early to take advantage of the free breakfast at my hotel, then I checked out and went back into the city center. It was really really cold again, so I decided I couldn't stand being outside the whole time until Jonathan got there. Instead, I went to the German National Museum, which was pretty interesting. There was an exhibit of silver made in Nuremberg in the 1700s and 1800s. There were also several rooms filled with objects found in a "typical" Renaissance home, which was really cool. Another huge room had all sorts of musical instruments from different periods. Probably the most interesting exhibit was one about changes in clothing in Germany from the early 1700s to present. It was fairly predictable--I think American clothing followed about the same progression--but it seemed like German clothes were always just one step behind. For instance, it seems like women in America started wearing pants earlier than women in Germany. The exhibit went into a lot of detail about the styles of clothing, when they changed, and what caused it. One thing I was really surprised about was that apparently a lot of women, not even that long ago, used to wear black wedding dresses! There were a few examples and several pictures from only about a hundred years ago.

I spent a while in the museum, probably 2.5 hours. After that I went to the train station, scarfed down some lunch, then met Jonathan! He was able to find his way to Nuremberg all by himself. I mean, I did have to coach him a lot ahead of time, but it worked out. We put our stuff in a locker so we wouldn't have to go to our hotel first, and walked around the Christmas market for a little bit. It was, of course, really really cold out, so we didn't stay for too long. We got some food to go and then found our way to our hotel. It wasn't actually that far away, but we had to take the S-Bahn and then the bus, but since it was Sunday, the bus came approx. once every hour and a half. Luckily our hotel was only a ten-minute walk from the S-Bahn stop, but it was freaking cooooold. Oh well, better than waiting outside forever.

The next day we got up semi early and went back into the city. First we went to the Imperial Palace, which is at the top of the old city. On the way, we stopped and looked in a few of the really huge churches, partly because they looked cool, and partly because we were freezing. If it's possible, it was even colder on Monday than it had been on Sunday. We also found Albrecht Dürer's house, but didn't go in because it cost money. When we got to the castle we looked around a little bit, but again didn't go in because we're cheap. Afterwards we walked back down to the Christmas market and got some lunch. It was so cold out that I convinced Jonathan that we should go into McDonald's and I'd buy some fries so that we could sit at a table. Jonathan is pretty anti-McDonald's, but he was cold. After lunch we looked around the Christmas market a bit more then went on a tour of the dungeons under the old city hall. The tour was (of course) in German, so naturally Jonathan didn't understand, but I had a hard time too. The guy had a fairly heavy Bavarian accent. I'm just finally able to understand Schwäbsich--there's no way I can learn Bayerisch too. The tour was interesting, but not very long. Apparently the Nurembergers weren't too concerned with finding out the truth back in the day. Either that or they were very confident in their detective work. They mostly just tortured whatever confession they wanted out of the prisoners.

After the tour we walked around a little bit more, then decided it was way too cold to do anything else and went back to our hotel. We ate at a Chinese place near the hotel (all the German places were too expensive, plus I eat German food all the time) which ended up being pretty good. Then we came back, went to sleep, and Jonathan got up at 4 AM to take the train to Stuttgart to fly back to Atlanta.

Annnd, now that I've finished this post a few days later, I'm off to Italy! Look forward to some cool pictures!

Another Christmas-filled weekend

After my German class on Saturday morning, I took the train to Ulm to visit....the Christmas market!!!!! It was everything I had hoped it would be, and more. Well, except for the weather, which wasn't ideal, but at least it didn't rain much. Get ready for a picture, because here it comes:

As you can see, the booths are adorable! The Christmas market is held on the big plaza in front of the Münster (the huge cathedral in Ulm). It's a pretty big square, but it felt really cramped on Saturday--which could be because it was insanely crowded. I could barely make my way through the crowd. The little alleyways that the booths made weren't very wide, so it wasn't easy navigating down those. And forget about trying to turn around if you changed your mind. There was also, of course, lots of stuff to eat. I ate Schupfnudeln, which I found out (after I ate them) are noodles made out of potatoes. Whatever they are, they're good. Also, all the booths that serve Glühwein serve it out in special "Ulm Christmas market" mugs which are really nice. The way they try to get them back is by charging you €1 extra for it and then giving you the extra Euro back when you return it. Well, I didn't really want any Glühwein but I did want a mug, so I asked how much they cost alone. Turns out, only €1! So I naturally bought three--one for me and one for each of my parents for Christmas. It was probably the cheapest thing in the whole Christmas market.

OK, here's the stuff I bought: two ball ornaments, a regular ornament, an ornament with the Ulm Münster on it, three stars made out of something I didn't recognize, and two Ulm coasters. I know, I know, I went a little overboard, but I couldn't resist! And honestly, when am I ever gonna be back in Germany to buy stuff at a Christmas market? I can't wait until next weekend when I'm at the Christmas market in Nuremberg!!!

That's right, another Christmas market. The one in Nuremberg is apparently the most famous one in Germany. I'm leaving Saturday morning, meeting up with Jonathan on Sunday morning, then staying through til early Tuesday morning, when I'll take the train to get back in time to work. Yesterday I went to some kind of church thing (I'm still not exactly sure what it is--what's a Bezirkstreffung?) with some people from Gegenwind (the youth group). I was talking to Judith afterwards, and she happened to mention that she'd always wanted to go to the Christmas market in Nuremberg, so now we're gonna take the train together on Saturday. She'll be going back Saturday night, but that actually works out really well. That way I won't have to walk around alone all day Saturday, but I'll still be able to spend time with Jonathan.

Oh yeah, here's a few pictures from the Christmas market in Heideneheim, which I went to very shortly again on Saturday before my train left.

Here's a picture of the actual Christmas market. As you can see, not nearly as big as the one in Ulm, but still nice.

Here's a picture of the brass-instrument-wielding Santas that have been shaking up the streets of Heidenheim. They're good, but....they need to expand their repertoire.

Christmas markets...

...are my new favorite thing. I went into Heidenheim yesterday afternoon, and while walking around, I discovered that they have a small one! Apparently it's only through this weekend, but I walked through it and it was surprisingly nice. I thought it would be kinda dinky since Heidenheim's pretty small, but they stuff was all good quality. Pretty much everything I saw I wanted to buy...good thing I didn't have that much money with me. Even without buying stuff, I love walking around these different markets, with Christmas music in the background, and the smell of Glühwein and gingerbread in the air. Normally I don't like gingerbread that much, but my mom and I got some in Munich and it was nice and soft, not hard and cold the way gingerbread usually is. And now all I can think about is getting some more. Man, I love Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, Advent is really big here, which is kind of surprising since it really is not in America. I mean, people know what it is and stuff, but a lot of denominations don't celebrate it plus it is clearly a religious thing, so no one really talks about it. Here, every town that has any Christmas things going on advertises them as "on Dec. 16, the 3rd Sunday of Advent" or whenever it is. Advent shapes the holiday season here--little kids have Advent calendars (which really start on Dec. 1, not the first day of Advent) and Advent wreaths are everywhere. I guess that kind of makes sense though. Here Advent tends to mark the beginning of the Christmas season (no need to say "holiday season" because, let's be honest, not many Jews in Germany) while in America the holiday season "officially" begins the day after Thanksgiving.

I love how no one has objections to Christmas-themed decorations here though, because it makes everything so nice! No one gets angry when Heidenheim puts up dozens of Christmas trees throughout the town. No one writes letters to the editor about the gigantic creche set up outside the old city hall. I fully agree that in the US other religions need to have their holidays represented (although, come on--we all know Hanukkah is just there to compete with Christmas) but that doesn't mean that Christmas should be downplayed. With the exception of some Turks (I assume), most of the people who admit to observing a religion in Germany are Christian, so I imagine there's not much of an objection to decorating like crazy. Also, it looks really nice.

Here are some of the odd things I've seen in and around Christmas markets: guy standing with a llama begging for money; guy standing with a camel begging for money; guy standing with one of those small horses begging for money; sheep with the most gigantic udder I've ever seen; members of a brass quintet walking around Heidenheim, all dressed like Santa.

Munich

This weekend I went to Munich to meet up with my mom. She was in England all last week for business, so she flew down to Munich on Saturday and flew back to the US on Monday. It was nice to see her, and more importantly, it was nice to get out of the house! I feel like I am here allll the time, so it was a relief to actually be able to go DO something. For anyone who complains about not having to take the bus/train/whatever: is it as bad as not having a car and living in a small town in the middle of nowhere? Yeah. I didn't think so.

So, one thing I didn't realize about Germany is that around Christmas, most of the cities have Christmas markets. Can we talk about how this is probably my new favorite thing? I had a little stop-over in Ulm when I was heading down to Munich, so I walked around the Christmas market there very briefly. It looked really nice, but unfortunately it was raining and there were a ton of people, which adds up to a not so fun Christmas market experience. I thought I'd be able to look around more on Monday morning on my way back, but it must open later in the day, so I missed it. The Christmas market in Munich was pretty lame--kind of like Oktoberfest but with some half-hearted crafts. The Christkindlmarkt, however, was great! We walked around there for a while and of course bought some stuff. I got a bunch of ornaments plus a cool little manger scence thing that has candle holders, and when you light the candles the heat makes this propeller-like thing on top spin around. Oh man, I can't wait til I have my own apartment or house so I can decorate for Christmas! Even though I complain endlessly about the cold here, there really is no better place than Germany to be around Christmas. I'm sure next year if I'm living in Atlanta I'll be whining that there's no snow.

Anyway, on Sunday after our disappointing Christmas market experience and our very fulfilling Christkindlmarkt experience, we took the subway out to the Olympic stadium and walked around there a little bit. It really is gigantic. We also went into the swimming pool arena, partly because it looked neat and partly because it promised to be warm (it was extremely windy the entire weekend--I'm still not sure if it was better than the rain). It was pretty awesome to see a true Olympic pool, complete with one of those really tall diving boards. Apparently it's open to the public to swim in, and it's not even that expensive.

After the Olympic stadium we walked over to a BMW building, which I think is a museum, but I'm not sure because another building that wasn't this one called itself the BMW Museum. I didn't find the cars that exciting, but then again, I don't usually. The building was pretty awesome though. We walked around in there for a few minutes and then took the subway back into town. Then we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant where the waiter spoke a mixture of German and Italian to us...the food was good though.

Speaking of food, the hotel we stayed in had an amazing breakfast every morning. It was a fairly big buffet with all sorts of hot food, fruit, breads, vegetables, meats. The day I left I ate there around 6:45 and I was full all the way up until lunch at 1. Ahh....I love food.

Please be proud. This is all I am writing about my trip! I know what you're thinking--without me sharing every single miniscule detail, how will you feel like you are living my trip along with me? Well, dear reader, you'll just have to miss out this time. But be prepared--I'm going to Nuremberg in a week and a half to see their Christmas market/eat gingerbread cookies, and after that Italy, so you have lots of long trip entries to look forward to!

It snowed. Again.

I'm beginning to think that the ground is going to be white until I leave. It's already been snowy here for, what, almost a month? I can barely remember the warm weather. Then again, it never was that warm while I've been here. Snow looks nice and all, but I'm already sick of the cold, and unfortunately it's gonna be cold until, like, April. Man. I'll have to start psyching myself up for that.

K, time to talk about my digital camera. I love it! It has so many more features than my old one, plus it zooms in really far, plus it has optical image stabilization! Which is excellent, because usually no matter how hard I try, my pictures are just a tiny bit fuzzy. The downside is that it sucks batteries dry, even when I don't use the LCD screen. Thank goodness for rechargeables.

Saturday was actually a little bit warm, that was nice. I only froze a little bit on my way to German class instead of a lot bit. And Saturday night I went to Gegenwind again. It was ok...not great. But afterwards we went to McDonald's--that was my first experience actually eating in a German McDonald's (usually I only go in to use the bathroom). It was PACKED. Although I guess that could be since it's the only restaurant that stays open past 10 PM. It actually stays open until 2 AM, which I was very surprised about. Also, it's really expensive! I got ice cream, and it was €1! That junk back in the US is like 50 cents! I didn't even feel like I was eating in an American fast-food chain. I mean, the food was the same, but there was other stuff too, a lot more healthy options (also more expensive). And the inside was actually clean and nice. Plus, there was this McCafe, which was kinda like those cafes in Barnes and Noble, selling coffee and little cakes and pastries.

Sunday...did nothing. It was pretty great. Oh wait, I did do something. I finally booked my hostels for Italy. The only ones left that I have to get are for my last night, which I'll be spending in Rome, and my trip to Cinque Terre. Nothing there is within my price range, but I really really want to go. I'll figure something out. Here is my agenda: Rome Dec. 22-25; Naples Dec. 26-28; Florence Dec. 29-31; Cinque Terre Jan. 1; Milan Jan. 2; Venice Jan. 3-4; Rome Jan. 5; back to Germany Jan. 6. Two weeks in Italy! How great is that!

Monday was alone with Johanna, then Tuesday was alone with Dominik. On Monday the weather was crazy--it was pretty clear out, then out of nowhere, in the space of about 30 seconds, this huge storm of snow comes in. It snowed and hailed for about 15 minutes, then it stopped, after which the ground was completely coated in snow. It snowed even more Monday night, so now we have about 2 inches. Dominik played outside for a while yesterday and built a tiny snowman, which is now sitting on the terrace. Adorbs!

Oh, and I've been practicing some English with the kids too. Just to get you up to speed: they both understand everything I say in English, but really struggle with speaking it, Johanna especially since she's never really been forced to. But yesterday, when I practiced with Dominik, he did a great job! He said full sentences in English, which he has never done with me before! I was so impressed. I think if we keep doing that a few times a week, by the end of the year he'll be able to speak English with me.

I always feel like I have to come up with some conclusion to these posts. Well, this time I'm not. I'm stopping right here.

German is much more efficient at describing my moods

This week was long. That's it.






That was a lie. Obviously I have more to say. I guess I'll start with last Saturday, since that's the first thing I can think of that was exciting since I've last written? I went to Gegenwind again, and instead of it being the normal youth group thing, we went to Schwäbisch Gmünd, a town about 45 minutes from here (I no longer judge distance in length, since I can't wrap my mind around km) to this sort of lecture-type thing. It was some evangelical-type dude talking and there was some music too. That part was....well, boring. I tried really hard to listen, but it was too much talking. It didn't help that I was really tired. Plus it was really warm in there. I actually closed my eyes for a little while. It would have been nice to sleep.

Well, after it was over, we met up with the rest of the Gegenwind people (since we had driven up separately) and went to a cafe nearby. That part ended up being pretty good. I met a few new people who seemed very nice. And, of course, it's always nice to be able to have conversations in German. I always feel like my German is so awful (I know, this is a theme in every post), but whenever I meet new people they always say that my German is good, so that makes me feel much better. And, even better, I asked a few people if I had an accent in German, and they all said not really. Well, they said I have a little bit of one, but that it's not obvious just from me talking in German that I'm an American. That makes me feel even better, since American pronunciation is very different from German pronunciation.

And this week, Jonathan came to visit! I didn't find out until Tuesday morning, and he got here on Wednesday afternoon. Luckily he doesn't have to start work until Saturday morning, so he was able to stay all day Thursday and left incredibly early this morning. We didn't really get to do much since I had to work a lot, but it was really great to see him! The kids were sooooo excited for him to get here, and of course, as soon as he got here Johanna started crying (because he's so tall) and Dominik ran and hid (because he was shy). The next day Dominik warmed up to him and they played Legos for a couple hours, but Johanna never really did. I'm sure next time Jonathan's here she'll be better about it. It was pretty crazy though; Dominik can understand English but can't speak it, and Jonathan can only speak and understand English. Jonathan was able to figure out some stuff that Dominik was saying, but it was pretty funny for me to be translating stuff that Dominik was saying to Jonathan. But overall, Dominik had a great time with him and I think he's already looking forward to when Jonathan comes back in a few weeks.

Nothing else too exciting this week. I've been working on a craft project with Dominik and Johanna for their parents for Christmas, and they're really into it. We're decorating some stuff with glitter, so it's quite a production every time we do it, but they've been working really hard and doing a good job. No matter how hard I try though, all three of us always seem to end up covered in glitter afterwards.

Oh yeah, and I got a new digital camera! I bought it a little while ago and had it sent to Jonathan's apartment and he brought it over with him! It's much better than my old one, and of course since my old one is a whopping 2.5 years old, this new camera was actually cheaper than that one. I thought about waiting until I got home to get one, but I figured I'd get it now since I'll be taking lots of cool pictures this year.

OK, let's talk about how everything is SO expensive over here. Especially electronics. The camera I bought was refurbished, and the price including everything, shipping and all, was $170. The exact same camera (not refurbished) in Germany is €280, which is more than $400. Also, the exchange rate is killer right now! It's up to almost $1.50 per €1. Because of this, I've tried to avoid paying for things with credit cards, because it means that while prices here are staying the same, prices in dollars are going up. Sometimes it's unavoidable though, which sucks, especially since I just discovered today that one of my credit card companies is actually charging me an exchange-rate fee! I hope they realize that they won't be getting any more overseas charges from me.

Snow!

I know I'm such a grinch for saying this, but normally I really do not like snow. It's not so bad here though, mostly because I don't have to drive, I don't have to shovel, and I'm living in a Christmas card.

It snowed almost every day last week, but only enough for us to have a few inches. The kids went crazy over it though! I have to admit, I had fun playing outside with them. We built snowmen, igloos, and made snow angels. Plus, Dominik and Johanna look adooorable in their snowsuits!

They also went sledding a lot, because there's a hill in the backyard, as you can see in the picture above. Dominik and Johanna both have these really cool sleds that have brakes and steering wheels! Their friends came over a few afternoons this week too, and of course they all went sledding together. In fact, they sledded so much that there isn't really very much snow left on the hill.

Hmm, I just discovered this post today (Nov 27), so I guess I'll publish it? I really don't feel like adding any more to it. The kids were adorable with the snow though. It's so fun for them, and for me, because there's a lot more stuff to do outside when there's snow on the ground!

Bratislava and Budapest: The Saga Finally Ends

So, since I know you, my loyal and faithful and no-comment-leaving readers, have been just dying for the final installment of my trip behind the Iron Curtain, I'm here to deliver. Prepare yourselves...for another long, and possibly boring, account.

OK, where did we leave off? Oh yeah, that's right, after lunch on my last day in Budapest. After eating lunch at the extremely cheap Chinese place, I went back to a bakery I had passed while looking for a place to eat and bought these three little chocolate pastry-fudge-like things. The lady was not very nice. I mean, she spoke in English, but when I asked her what things were, all she'd do was tell the name. In Hungarian. And I was like, "...Can you describe it a little bit?" And she was like, "No, not really." But whatev, they ended up tasting pretty good (although a little bit odd) and cost me less than 1 USD. Oh yeah, during my wanderings I came across an Indian restaurant called Kama Sutra. And it wasn't a strip club. I know, because I looked in the window. It looked like a nice restaurant. Either the owners were not Indian and could think of only one thing associated with India, or they were Indian and have so little faith in the general population that they figured they'd better name their restaurant after a sex book. I also saw a restaurant called Nimrod Etterem (Restaurant). I'm hoping, for the owners' sake, that nimrod is a Hungarian word that means something completely different.

After lunch I walked towards the river so that I could walk past Parliament, which so far I'd seen from just about every possible view except up close. The girl who checked me in at the hostel had told me that there was some kind of promenade or something running along the Pest side of the river (where I was) that I could walk along and see all the sights. Well, she neglected to tell me that there was no sidewalk going past the nice buildings, and that the promenade was on the other side of a 4-lane highway. On top of that, there wasn't even a real entrance to it. To get across you have to run across the highway and then jump over the guard rail. Which I did. Just my luck I also happened to be crossing at a part where there was an entrance to the highway, meaning that not only did I have to make sure cars weren't coming from both ways, I also had to check and make sure no one was coming up the entrance ramp. Even though I was mighty tired of walking, let me tell you, I ran across that highway faster than I thought I could. Walking along the promenade didn't really help with views of Parliament, mostly just because it's so large, but there was a great view of the Buda side. Buda looked a lot nicer from across the river than it had looked up close. Anyway, I of course took a bunch of pictures of Parliament, then once again took my life in my hands and ran back across the highway. By that point I was almost at the Margaret Bridge, so I took the tram across, took the HEV up a stop, then from there somehow managed to find the bus stop for the bus I wanted and took the bus to Pal-Volgyi Cave. Apparently there's a huge network of caves running under Budapest, and with my Budapest Card I got into the Pal-Volgyi one for free. One thing I hadn't considered was that the tour would be entirely in Hungarian. A German lady even asked at the beginning if the tour guide spoke any English, and when she said a little bit, the German lady asked if she'd say anything really important in English. Shock of all shocks, the tour guide spoke not one word of English on the entire tour. Not even when she turned out all of the lights in the cave, leaving us standing there in pitch black. I was pretty annoyed that she didn't give ANY warning for that, especially when someone had already asked her to make sure to do just that!

Whatev, it was a cool-looking cave, but the tour was really long and caves are not interesting enough to warrant a long tour in a language you don't understand. But after that, I caught the bus back, took the HEV back, then took the Metro to Heroes' Square, which is at the end of Andrassy ut. I'd been contemplating not going because I was so tired, but I'm really glad I did. It was pretty amazing. It was this huge open square with a statue of the angel Gabriel on top of a really tall pedestal. Behind that statue were two more sections of statues of some kings of Hungary (but I guess only the heroic ones). I happened to be there just as the sun was setting (at 4 PM), so the sky looked pretty spectacular behind the square. After that I walked around the city park a little bit. There was (yet another) castle there. I have no idea what it was called or who originally lived there. It looked nice though. I also accidentally found the Szechenyi Baths, one of the most famous and popular thermal baths in Budapest, while I was trying to find the Metro (fyi: never found it). I ended up having to walk back to my original metro stop, then I took the metro and the tram back to my hostel and picked up my stuff. I asked the girl who was working if she knew of any good places to eat nearby. Her suggestion? McDonald's. Not even kidding.

Needless to say, I didn't eat at McDonald's. I walked back to Liszt Ferenc Square (walked because my Budapest Card had expired, which meant I now had to buy pub. trans. tickets) and found a place to eat there. While I was eating there, a group sat down next to me, and from my eavesdropping I figured out that the girl was American, her boyfriend was something that was not Hungarian (couldn't figure out the accent), they were eating with her Hungarian grandparents, and the girl was at some university there (she also spoke Hungarian). I also learned that her grandparents had just recently been to--get this--Cape May, New Jersey! It was pretty interesting to hear non-Americans describe it to people who've never been there.

After dinner I decided to just go to the train station. I wanted to be there around 8, and it was about 6:30, so I figured now would be a good time to leave. I had enough time to make a short stop, so I took a detour to Dohany utcai Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe. Of course, like everything else, it was closed, but I was able to at least walk around the building and look at it. After that I took the metro, and then the tram, to get to the train station. I had been there before (on my adventure getting to Memento Park), but it hadn't looked so.....ghetto. At night, it looked pretty bad. When I went in, I, like a typical train-goer, looked at the big board to see when my train was coming. It took me a few minutes to realize that it didn't work (I happened to get there at a time when all of the times on the board would have been about accurate). So I was kind of like...umm, I guess I'll just sit here and hope I figure something out. There was this pretty awesome family sitting next to me. It consisted of a woman with THE largest and thickest glasses I've ever seen (if ever you could call glasses "Coke bottle", these were the ones) and her two grandsons. The entire time they were there, the woman was eating these nuts that she had in the pocket of her (10 sizes too large) coat. Her method of eating them was: put the nut into her mouth, crack the shell loudly with her teeth, spit the shell out, then eat the nut. She did this non-stop for about a half an hour. Needless to say, I found this just a tiny bit annoying. Once her daughter got there, though, it immediately became clear: oral fixation. When her daughter walked in, the woman pulled out a pack of cigarettes and started dividing it up between the two of them. Ah, the joys of mother-daughter bonding. Then the whole family walked out so they could have a mother-daughter smoke break.

OK, side note. Topic: smoking in Hungary. INSANE. I thought Germany was bad. After going to Hungary, I'll never complain again (OK, that's not true, but I won't complain as much). I swear, half the population there smoked. One of the cafes I ate in one night, I was literally the only person in there not smoking. And there was no concept of smoke-free buildings. I mean, some buildings and restaurants half-heartedly posted signs, but they were really small and easy to disregard. In Germany they don't enforce it at all either, but at least the signs they put up are really big and don't look like I printed them out on my computer in 1995. In Budapest people smoked EVERYWHERE, including the train stations.

Back to the train station. Around 8:15 I looked at the posted schedule and walked to the track that was on there, hoping there would be more accurate information. Luckily the boards down there worked, so I found where I was supposed to be. Down side: it was freezing down there, there were no benches, and it smelled like pee. It also looked like people had recently peed there. About 20 minutes before my train was supposed to leave, I went up onto the track, because sometimes the trains come early and sit there for a while before they leave. I waited up there until, at about 8:48, two minutes before my train was supposed to come, there was an announcement saying that the train was going to be 40 minutes late. So, I went back down, waited for a while, then went up a little bit before it was supposed to come. Another announcement: now it was 50 minutes late. By the time it got there, it was almost 1 hour late. This all wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been windy and FREEZING.

Anyway, the train got there, and after wandering around confused for a while, I found my train car and my couchette. Those sleeper berths are niiice! I had a blanket, pillow, and sheets, as well as an actual bed. The best part was, it was actually cheaper than the seat I had reserved leaving from Munich. That is the way to travel.

And then, I got back to Munich, took the train to Heidenheim, took the bus to Heuchlingen, walked to kindy, and picked Johanna up. The end. Finally!

Momentous day

Why? Because I saw my first German pick-up truck today.

P.S. I am seriously obsessed with Josh Ritter's music. Like, I think it's getting a little unhealthy.
P.P.S. Despite all their incredibly annoying technical difficulties and insanely sensitive download manager, I love eMusic.

Before I finish Budapest and Bratislava...

Here's an actual Germany update, since I guess I haven't written anything about that in a couple weeks.

This week=pretty boring. Things I did:

• finally finished all my visa stuff (which ended up involving an experience too embarrassing to post on a public website)
  
• took items out of the library for the first time (they charge €1 to borrow DVDs, what the heck??)
• went to choir on Wednesday night (full of old people and one 16-year-old, but it was nice to get out of the house and do something musical)
• went to German class on Saturday morning--in the snow. For real.

I also realized this week that I can understand Stefan and Stephanie's conversations with each other. They talk differently to me than they do to each other. To each other they talk faster and not as clearly--and I can understand them! I paid more attention the rest of the week, and realized that I can also understand almost all conversations with only slightly more effort than when I listen to conversations in English. I still have the usual struggles with speaking and everything, but I'm really settling in and I feel very confident with speaking now. I no longer feel intimidated or nervous when making phone calls, or when starting/participating in conversations (that's kind of a lie, but I'm keeping it in to make myself feel good). I'm also reading a book in German, and I'm about halfway done. It's pretty cool to do that, since I usually feel very intimidated when looking at stuff written in German, mostly because there are a lot of really long words. Actually, I really like reading books to Johanna because she almost always picks German ones and hers are right on my level. ...OK, that's a little sad.

Stay tuned for the rest of my Budapest trip. Unless you're sick of reading my long updates, in which case I have to say....I understand.

Bratislava and Budapest: Part 2

Let's see, I think I left off on barely making the train to Budapest?

BTW, hopefully you guys don't think this is too long or boring to read. If it is, don't read it all. If it isn't, then at least I've provided with tons of reading material for when you should be doing something else. I am forever grateful to other peoples' blogs for my hours' worth of procrastination in college.

K, Budapest. Well, the train got in around 2:30 or something. OK, before I talk about that, let me tell you about this couple that was in my compartment. The train was only compartments again, like the night train from Munich, so I had to find one that had spots that were unreserved. Most had open seats, so I tried to find one with the fewest people already in it. There was this (Irish? British?) couple in the compartment sitting across from each other by the door and another lady sitting in one of the seats by the window. Now, I've already told you how little leg room there is in those compartments. Being part of a couple is excellent, because you can stretch out across the aisle and your significant other doesn't care if your feet are all up in his/her space. But both of these people had put their stuff on one of the seats next to them, meaning that the only actually available spot was across from the other lady. Of course this didn't occur to me until I'd already climbed over the couple by the door and I didn't feel like looking for another compartment, so I just sat down. Luckily the lady across from me got off at the first stop so we didn't have to be uncomfortable for long. But I don't understand why people do that! It was a long trip, plus there were luggage racks. Why couldn't the Irish/British/whatever couple have shared some leg room with the rest of us?

K, Budapest. As soon as I got in I went to my hostel. Thank goodness they had given excellent directions, so I didn't get lost or anything. First adventure in Budapest: taking public transportation. In itself not that exciting or adventurous, but the tickets were. In Bratislava I bought tickets sporadically for the buses and trams, but I could have gotten away with never buying one. In all of the cities I've been to so far, the public transportation profits rely on the assumption that you're actually buying and validating your tickets before you ride the tram or whatever. In Budapest it was the same way. I decided that, to be on the safe side, I'd buy a ticket, even though it looked like I could get away without it. As soon as I came off the escalator getting out of the metro, I was grabbed on both arms by these two random people meanly saying stuff in Hungarian to me. I'd read that in a lot of these countries people will come up to you and pretend to be ticket-takers, tell you your ticket is invalid, then try to get you to pay them. And I didn't understand what they were saying, so I just kept walking. The lady kept yelling at me, so I was like, "I don't speak Hungarian", and she was piossssssed. She goes all meanly, "Ticket." And by that time I was freakin annoyed too, so I was like, "Show me some ID first." She did NOT like that, so she just kept saying "ticket." Finally I got in her face and grabbed her ID, then I showed her my ticket and she huffed away. When I got to my hostel, I asked the girl who checked me in about it, and she told me that it's really easy to identify the ticket-checkers--just look for the ugliest person on the platform.

After I checked in at my hostel, I went to one of the tourist information offices to pick up my Budapest Card, which I'd already bought and paid for. Well, I got there--and it was closed for 4 days for All Saints' Day (seriously, what is with these long holidays they like to take??). So I was pretty confused, since I wasn't really sure where the other office was. I eventually found it on my map and walked there, which took a lot longer than I thought it would. By this time it was dark, because it gets dark freakin early in Budapest! So I ate dinner at a place near the opera house. One cool thing about Budapest is that there are a ton of cool cafes. If that's the kind of thing you like, Budapest is the place to go. I ate in several while I was there. One not so cool thing is that there aren't a lot of places to get take-out food from. It's a lot more expensive to sit and eat, which unfortunately I was forced to do most of the time.

After dinner I went to a concert (Verdi's Requiem) at the Hungarian State Opera House. It was pretty cool because I got my ticket for 1000 Forints, or about $5.50 and I could still see really well (even though I was in the highest section there was). It was even better, because not only did I get to see the inside of the opera house AND a concert, it cost about 1/3 the price of a tour of the opera house. After that I went back to my hostel and went to sleep. Yes, it was only 9, but I was tired!

The next day I got up early so that I could cram as much stuff as possible into my day. And indeed I did. I went to the grocery store first, and got a Coke, a bag of chips, and 2 rolls for less than $2. Man, I love cheap food! Then I walked across the Margaret Bridge to the Buda side of the river (my hostel was in Pest) and walked along the river until I got to the bottom of Castle Hill. I took the bus up, because I was already tired of walking (plus it was free with my Budapest Card). Before I got up there I thought, oh, there's just a castle, I'll spend an hour or something looking around. Wrong. Turns out that in addition to Buda Castle, there was also Matthias Church (where King Matthias or someone was crowned king of Hungary) as well as the Fisherman's Bastion, plus a surprisingly large neighborhood of houses and apartments. Um, yeah, I ended walking around the entire thing. I thought it would be about half as big as it actually was. The views were great and everything was cool, but I was kind of too tired of walking to really enjoy it. I ate some overpriced goulash for lunch (did I mention that I love goulash?) and walked around the castle a little bit. That too was pretty neat and there were some semi-interesting looking museums, but 1) they cost money, and 2) I was really sick of walking and standing. I took the bus back down the hill and decided to go to Memento Park, which is a park in the southern part of the city full of sculptures, statues, plaques, monuments, etc., that the Communists erected in honor of themselves and used to stand all around Budapest during the Soviet occupation. I had really wanted to see this, but not gonna lie, my main motivation for going at that exact moment was that it promised to involve lots of time sitting on the tram and the bus.

This was yet another adventure. I took the right tram to the end of the line...but the Memento Park brochure I had didn't provide great directions. The bus station was hidden behind this huge construction site, plus I couldn't figure out which ticket to buy. Fortunately the lady at the counter saw the brochure in my hand and gave me the right ticket. After that I paid 80 Forints for the bathroom, but only because I was desperate.

The sculpture park was cool, but not as cool as I thought it was gonna be. There were no signs or anything describing the stuff, so I had to pay 600 Forints for an English guide book (not that expensive, but still. It's the principle!). Reading was a little bit better, but it didn't go into that much detail about the sculptures and stuff, a lot of it was more about who sculpted it or something kinda lame like that (hahah, oh man, this makes me sound so ignorant!). All I mean was that it could have been done better.

After coming back into the main city, I decided to go to Franz Liszt house, which turned out to be a Franz Liszt memorial apartment inside the Liszt Academy of Music. It had a lot of cool stuff, but didn't really explain them very well or even that much about the composers life. Apparently he was BFFs with Edvard Grieg, because there were a ton of letters between the two displayed there. Also, thank goodness I can read German, because almost none of the descriptions were written in English.

After that, I went to a museum that was probably the highlight of my trip, the House of Terror. The museum was in a building on Andrassy ut, Budapest's most famous and most beautiful street, that had been the headquarters of the Nazis that occupied Hungary--and was later also chosen as the headquarters for the Hungarian Communists. Unfortunately almost everything was in Hungarian, but in each room there were extensive information sheets about the subject of the room in both Hungarian and English. The info sheets didn't really explain the exhibits, which was pretty disappointing, but it gave a lot of really good background info. The whole museum and all of the exhibits were very well done. In the basement there were recreations of the cells the Communists used to detain and torture people. It was a very modern museum, one that I really wish I would have been able to understand more of. Well, I'm not planning on learning Hungarian, so I guess I'll have to scratch that. Before going to this museum, I had no idea that there had even been a Nazi occupation of Hungary. It seemed like it was mostly towards the end of the war, but it sure explained a lot of the "Soviet Liberation" statues in Memento Park--I guess the Communists thought ridding Hungary of the fascists and putting in place their own dictatorship was "liberation"? It also had never really occurred to me that Hungary had been controlled by the Soviet Union. I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I sort of knew that--most of Eastern Europe was under Soviet control, after all. I just didn't realize Hungary specifically (and actually, I didn't realize Slovakia either) had been Soviet occupied.

Hmm, OK, after the House of Terror...I was starving. So I went and ate dinner in a restaurant on Liszt Ferenc ter, the place where there were a ton of nice cafes. Liszt ter was really the only place around (unless you count McDonald's) that had not too expensive restaurants. After that I was exhausted and went back to my hostel. I definitely way overdid it that day; by the time I got back to my hostel, all I wanted to do was go home and not have to walk around and see stuff anymore. Luckily I got a really good night's sleep and woke up ready for another full day.

Side story: there happened to be two German girls staying in the same room as me, and they were really nice. One of them came in, and asked if she was German (bc I'd heard them speaking German that morning) and she said yes, and was struggling to speak to me in English. I offered to speak German, and she seemed extremely relieved. It was nice to speak German after a few days of only English. I mean, I'm obviously very used to speaking English since it's all I speak with the kids (and, duh, because I speak it as a first language), but I'm not used to hearing responses in English. My little four-day break from German really makes me wonder, though, what it will be like when I get back to the US. I won't have anyone to speak German with, and I know I'll forget a lot of it really fast.

OK, Budapest, full day #2. I got up early again and had a little bit of trouble finding something to eat for breakfast since, like all of Europe, everything was closed since it was Sunday. So I figured I'd find something eventually, so I took the tram across the bridge so that I could take another tram to Gellert Hill. Except I took it a little too far...oops. Once I got to the right stop, I realized that I'd thought the two trams connected up when they really don't, so I had to take another line called HEV, which apparently runs to the suburbs of Budapest. In the HEV station I found a bakery that was open (thank God!!!! It was the first bakery I'd seen since Germany!) and got this odd and kind of expensive muffin. Anyway, I took the HEV, connected up to the tram, and rode to Gellert Hill (I'd learned my lesson about walking too much too early). I started walking up the hill, and the first place I stopped was this weird Cave Church. Yeah. That's right. It was a church in a cave in the side of the hill. There was a service going on, so I could only look at the exhibit right inside. I kept walking up the hill and eventually got to the part right above the cave church, where there was a huge cross. It was pretty cool but kind of reminded me of those KKK crosses that they set on fire...even though it was wasn't wood and wasn't on fire. I don't know, it was kind of creepy, so I kept walking. It wasn't very nice out and even started raining a little bit, but I had come prepared with my umbrella. And even though it was gray and gross out, the trees all looked these amazing fall colors. I went a little overboard taking fall-foliage pictures, but it really was beautiful. And, of course, I saw graffiti. There was some kind of monument that had been completely graffitied over, so I couldn't even tell what it was. And I even saw a tree with graffiti on it. I mean, really, who cares enough to graffiti a tree?

So, I finally got to the top of Gellert Hill, and it was really cool. It was way higher up than Castle Hill and the view was amazing. If it hadn't been so gray and overcast, it would have been a really great place to spend the morning. There was also a gigantic citadel up there with a Liberty Statue. It's so big that you can see the statue from all the way down the river. The citadel was pretty cool, but of course it cost money to go in, so I didn't bother because it was still raining a little bit.

On my way back down I went into the cave church since the service was over and looked around a little bit. It was really weird and not what I'd pictured. It must be difficult to hold services in there. It looked more like a few small chapels coming off of one central point rather than one big church.

When I got back down the hill I walked across the Liberty Bridge. There's a big central market right on the other side of the river, but it was closed! It's usually open every day, but since it was the weekend after All Saints' Day, it wasn't. Instead I took the metro to the botanical gardens, which was free with my Budapest Card. I got there...and it was really lame. It was small and not well kept up. There were, like, 5 flowers. And leaves ALL over the place that I guess they didn't feel like raking up. I'm glad I didn't pay money for it.

After that I was like, ummm, I'm really hungry, but there was nowhere around to eat. Instead I took the metro up to St. Stephen's Basilica in hopes that I could find somewhere around there (as well as go to the top). I decided I'd go up before lunch. Thank goodness for elevators. It was a really amazing view, especially since you can walk all the way around the cupola and see Budapest in every direction, but it was also really cold so I only stayed up for about 5 minutes. I took the elevator back down (I was tired, ok?) and ate lunch at this really cheap Chinese place.

OK, side note about Chinese food. So, if Chinese food in the US is fake Chinese food, how come Chinese food is the same everywhere??? I've eaten Chinese food in the US, Germany, Slovakia, and Hungary, and it was all the same! Did all of the Chinese emigrants get together and decide before they left China that they WOULD NOT under any circumstances reveal what real Chinese cooking is like? And an even better question is, do all those Chinese restaurant owners eat REAL Chinese food at home?

K, this is getting too long again so I'm gonna end it here and start a part 3.

Bratislava and Budapest: Part 1

November 1-4

Last weekend I took my first big trip, to Bratislava and Budapest. I'm really glad I went, although I'm still tired from all the walking I did. I'll try to keep this post relatively short, but I'm not sure that's possible.

OK, I'll start from the beginning. I took the night train heading from Munich to Budapest. Unfortunately there were no beds available on this leg, so I could only reserve a seat. Even more unfortunately, the seats were in 6-person compartments with 3 seats facing 3 either seats. That=not very much leg room. Luckily there were only two other people in my compartment, so we each got two seats to ourselves. The three of us ended up having two languages in common--English and German. One was a woman who lived in Vienna and was heading home, and the other happened to be a Slovak guy who was going to Bratislava! I feel like my trip was characterized by good luck, and here was my first lucky break. I had been planning on traveling all the way to Budapest then getting a train from there to Bratislava, but this guy told me that this train stopped in Austria right outside Bratislava, and that I could ride along with him and he'd point me to the right bus once we got into the city.

My next adventure: trying to buy a bus ticket in the Bratislava Petrzalka train station. The woman who ran the kiosk was...not very nice. I asked if you spoke English, and she shook her head and immediately turned away. I asked if she spoke German, and she rolled her eyes, turned back to me, and gave me a look that said, "Ugh...now I have to deal with you." Then she refused to sell me a day-long public transportation pass, for no reason. I'd read that people at kiosks do not like to cut tourists a break, so I decided not to push it and just bought a regular ticket.

I took the bus into the city, got off at the stop my Slovak bud told me to--and had no idea where I was. He'd told me that I'd be right in the city center near everything, but to me it looked like there was nothing around. I wandered around a little bit and eventually found a city map posted. From there I was able to figure out the direction of the historical center, but I was a good 3 or 4 blocks north of it. I somehow found my way to what I can only assume is Bratislava's main shopping drag. It featured such high-quality stores as Hello Kitty and Converse. It was kind of creepy, because it was completely dead. I didn't realize until later in the day that the Slovaks take their holidays very seriously--meaning no one works. I wandered a little bit more, accidentally walked into a church that was having a mass (it was All Saints' Day, hence everything being closed), and decided to walk up to Bratislava Castle. Big mistake. I still had my backpack on and that hill was steep. The view was pretty good, but I was pretty tired from having gotten approximately no sleep on the night train combined with my thousand-pound backpack weighing me down. I looked around a little bit, broke down and paid 10 SKK to use the bathroom, then walked back down and caught the tram to my hostel.

Now this was an adventure. My hostel wasn't really a hostel. I had reserved a room in a dorm of the Slovak Technical University. I found the building pretty easily, and the receptionist, but here's where the fun started. The receptionist didn't speak a word of English or German, and I don't speak a word of Slovak. Somehow I paid the rest of my balance, filled out the appropriate paperwork, and got my key. We then walked through what looked like a prison. I'm not kidding. Concrete hallways, gates blocking off different wings. The room was actually really good for what I paid. For $20, I had my own room (bigger than my dorm room at USC) and bathroom. Granted, it was pretty rundown, but it was clean. And how many of you can say that you've spent the night in a dorm in Bratislava? So if you're ever in Bratislava, I recommend the Summer Youth Hostel Mlada Garda (as it's called on hostelworld.com).

After finally dumping my bookbag, I headed back into the city center. This time I finally found all the historical stuff. First goal: eat lunch. There was not much open, and most of it was sit-down. I finally broke down and ate in a cafe because I was really hungry and that was all that was around. On this trip I sure missed the all the bakeries and take-away food Germany has.

After lunch I wandered around the old town a bit. There wasn't much to see because almost everything was closed, and honestly, I found the old town a little bit bland. It was nice and all, but it looked pretty generic. There were a few palaces, but they mostly just looked like large buildings. I found St. Martin's Cathedral, where Maria Theresa was crowned empress of Austria-Hungary. That was really nice inside, although it looked pretty ugly from the outside. One thing I noticed about Bratislava is that most of the churches looked rather unimpressive from the outside, but amazing inside. After finishing up wandering, I was cold and tired and decided to get some food to take back with me to my dorm. I found a Chinese restaurant that let me get something to go, so I got it.

I went to bed early that night (like, 8:30) because I was exhausted from no sleep the night before and a long day of walking around. The next morning I got up early to head out to Devin Castle before I got the train to Budapest. About 5 minutes after I got up, I heard a knock on my door. There stood yet another Slovak woman who didn't speak German or English (how do none of these people speak German? It's 15 minutes away from Austria!) who, after much gesticulating, I finally figured out wanted my receipt (still not sure why). For some reason she wanted me out of the room really fast, even though check-out wasn't until 9 AM. Anyway, I left a little after 8, got an extremely cheap breakfast at the grocery store across the street, and started my journey to Devin Castle.

Here's yet another adventure. I had to take the tram into town, take another tram from there, get off that tram, walk to the bus station, then take the bus from there to Devin. Now, all of the buses and trams in Bratislava stop at every stop--you don't have to request a stop unless indicated, which it wasn't on this bus line. The bus stopped at every stop, until about 2 stop before mine. There were a bunch of people waiting to get off, and they all started yelling at the driver when he blew past a few stops. Eventually he stopped at one a few past mine, letting every out. I was pretty confused and not sure where I was, so I asked a girl near me if she knew where the castle was. Coincidentally, there happened to be an American walking right behind us who overheard me, and was also walking to the castle. He said he'd walk with me, thank goodness. He said that he lived in Slovakia and was here with his wife for the long weekend, having a vacation while she was stuck in seminars. He was the first person I'd met who spoke native English probably since I was in Munich. It was so nice to speak English with someone who also spoke it fluently!

The castle was pretty neat. When we got there, it was closed, but apparently the gate was only closed by a latch that was easy to lift up, so we went in. The castle is on the Morava River, which separates Austria and Slovakia, so it was pretty cool to see Austria only a few meters away. The castle also sits close to the point where the Morava joins the Danube, which is also where Slovakia borders Hungary, so from the castle it's possible to see Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia. I'm sure I saw Hungary, but I'm not really sure exactly where it was.

I left the castle around 10:30, thinking that would be plenty of time for me to make it to the train station to catch my 11:45 train. Turns out I was wrong. First I had to find the correct bus stop, since the driver had let us off at the wrong one. Once I did that, the bus didn't come until 10:50, which meant I got back into the city around 11:10. After that I had to take a tram to a place where I could connect with another tram that would take me to the train station. When I finally got to a tram stop that I knew would take me to the train station, I looked at the schedule--and saw that if I waited, I would get to the station one minute after my train was supposed to leave. I decided to walk to another tram stop that I knew ran on a different line, in hopes that I could catch one that would get there earlier. Well, I couldn't find another that went directly to the train station, so I got on one that I knew went in the right direction. It didn't make the stops I thought it would, so I got off a little bit too late. Somehow, with incredible luck, it turned out that the stop I got off at also had a tram line running through it that went directly to the train station, and was scheduled to come at 11:43, taking 5 minutes to get there. With even more incredible luck, the tram came 4 minutes early! The whole way to the train station I just kept hoping and hoping that my train would be just 5 minutes late--that would be enough for me to make it. As soon as the tram pulled into the train station, I jumped off, ran up the steps, looked at the sign--it was running five minutes late! I ran my track and got on the train with about 1 minute to spare. Even luckier than that, the day before I had decided to ride to the train station just to see where it was, and I had bought my ticket then. If I had decided to wait until the next day, I would have missed the train.

OK, this is getting waaay too long. To be continued. Up next: Budapest

Winterzeit

Whew, it's been a long time since I've written. OK, I guess a week is not that long, but still. Last week was really busy. Stephanie was in the hospital having an operation, so that meant that I had to get up early every day and work late every day. I felt bad for her though, because she was supposed to come home on Wednesday, but she ended having to have another operation. Poor gal (hahah). But she came home on Friday afternoon, so that was nice.

The kids were pretty good this week, although Johanna was a lot clingier than usual. I think she was a little bit sick, combined with missing her mama. Side note: the kids call their parents Mama and Papa, which I think is so funny! I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that what I learned in German class wasn't right, since there have been a lot of things that are different than what I learned! (What we learned was that kids call their parents Mutti and Vati, but Dominik told me that none of his friends call their parents that.)

I had an adventure on Wednesday morning when I had to go into Heidenheim to get my visa extended. I had to go to the Landratsamt (I know what it means, but I don't know what it is in English) and that part was pretty easy. All I had to do was give them my passport, my insurance card, and my visa application and I was done. And luckily, they let me take my passport with me so that I'll be able to leave the country this week! (more on that later) After that I had to go to the Gesundheitsamt (an office about health) because I had an appointment with a doctor whose job was pretty much only to talk to visa applicants and figure out if they have tuberculosis. I cannot figure out the obsession with tuberculosis here! I mean, I could understand being required to have a test before entering the country, but I've already been here for two months. If I have tuberculosis, I've been spreading it around to everyone I've met for a long time now. Also, they refused to accept my skin test as valid proof that I don't have tuberculosis, even though that would have saved everyone time and money. Anyway, so I went to the Gesundheitsamt and it turned out...the doctor was sick. And she's only there on Wednesdays. Of course. I made an appointment for this Wednesday, but now I can't go because Dominik has the week off from school. No biggie, it just sucks that this keeps getting pushed back. I also have to get an x-ray (to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I don't have TB), which I couldn't do, because I couldn't see the doctor, because she was sick.

So, in my 2.5 hours that I had to kill until the bus left, I went and got a library card. The library is not exactly huge, but they do have a bunch of DVDs with an English-language option, plus a section of books in English, plus a huge section of travel books which I will be taking advantage of. The only thing that sucked was that I had to pay for the library card--12 euros for 1 year, which isn't bad, but still! If all those taxes the government collects aren't paying for the libraries, what are they paying for?

Hmm, then this weekend I did.....nothing! It was really great. After having to work so much, it was really nice to relax and rot my brain out watching TV and stuff. On Saturday night I went to Gegenwind, the youth group, which was pretty good. I'm getting to know the people there a little bit more, so it gets better every time.

And today, Dominik and Johanna both went to Oma and Opa's at 12, so I had the afternoon off. For lunch I actually cooked for myself (!!!!), soup with carrots, onions, and noodles. I'm impressed, because it ended up being really good. I never really have an opportunity to make stuff that I really want, so it was nice to have some free time! After that I went into Heidenheim and just walked around for a while. It was a really nice day, and (comparatively) not that cold. It was in the low 50s, which was a nice improvement. I also bought a battery charger for my digital camera batteries (10 Euros), and another 1 GB memory card (also only 10 Euros). I am quite pleased with my 1-gig card find. I would really like to buy a new digital camera, but 1) I can't find any I like that also have a viewfinder, and 2) they're all really expensive here! I guess I'll just have to wait til I get back to the US, but it would be so nice to have a new one here, where I'm taking tons of pictures.

And.....finally, the reason I need my passport is that I'm going to Budapest and Bratislava this weekend! I'm leaving Wednesday night and going by night train to Budapest, arriving Thursday morning, going direct from there to Bratislava, Slovakia, spending the night there, and then returning to Budapest the next day. I'm spending the rest of my time in Budapest, then Sunday night I'm taking the night train back, so that I can be back in time to pick up Johanna in kindy on Monday at 12. The only thing that sucks is that there were no sleeping berths left for the Munich-Budapest trip...at least none in my price range. I didn't really want to pay 200 Euros for that. I got one for the trip back, but the train leaves at 8 PM and arrives at 6 AM, so I still won't get a really good night's sleep. Oh well, either way, I think it's going to be a really good trip. The only thing I'm worried about is the language thing, but from what I've read, the two foreign languages spoken most often in Budapest and Bratislava are German and English, so I think I'll be ok.

Whoo, I'm really excited! I've spent quite a bit of time planning this trip, so it sure as heck better pay off! I've also started planning my Christmas trip to Italy--I've already booked a flight, in fact. It looks like I'll be spending Christmas Day in Rome, so I think that will be pretty cool. Oh man, I love planning trips!

Oh yeah, weird thing here: Standard Time starts one week earlier than in the US, so right now I'm only 5 hours ahead. It's also really weird that it starts getting dark at 5 PM. Seriously, why is winter already? Can we please have the warm weather back?

Bleh

I'm in a bleh mood. There's nothing to write about. Except that I know that even though I said that, I'll go on to write a really long post.

For some reason I did not sleep well at all this week. Even the days that I didn't have to get up early, I couldn't get my act together and just go to bed at a reasonable hour so that I wouldn't be tired when I woke up. Then, when I did have to get up early, I went to bed on time and slept badly. So right now, I'm on one good night's sleep in the past 6 or 7 days. I can't really complain though, because I did NOTHING today. But I have to get up super early tomorrow and Wednesday (just regular early on Tuesday), so I'm not looking forward to that.

Things that have happened this week: It was really nice on Monday and Tuesday, nice enough that I didn't need a jacket to go outside, then Friday, Saturday, and Sunday it was freezing. Literally. It snowed this morning. Granted, not enough to actually stick, but it was real snow. It sat on the ground for maybe 30 minutes before it melted. It's October! How is this possible?? I'm really glad that I bought some new sweaters, otherwise I'd freeze to death here.

Speaking of sweaters, can we talk about how my wardrobe is clearly not adequate for a German winter? I guess I'd been lulled into a false sense of security by South Carolina winters, where the coldest it gets is 30, and that's only early in the morning. I think 30 might have been the high for today here. Anyway, I really only have long-sleeve shirts--you know, the ones that are pretty much like long-sleeved T-shirts and provide no added warmth except for keeping a little bit of wind off of your arms. Yeah, that's what my wardrobe consists of. Fortunately, I have some camisole things that I can wear under those, so that helps a little bit, but I had to break down and buy two sweaters, since I previously only owned 2. This was bad for two reasons, because 1) I'm really cheap, and 2) Clothes are really expensive here. And no, I'm not exaggerating. Clothes really are more expensive. My family here always buys stuff from Esprit and they told me to look online and see if there was anything I wanted to get bc they get a 10% discount (they're frequent Esprit customers) so I could use it if I wanted. Ummm, all the sale stuff was like, 40 Euros! And that was the cheapest! Not that I'll ever wear Esprit anyway; I refuse to. I'd only been looking because I was hoping that maybe some stuff was actually really cheap and then I could buy it. But nope, wayyy too much. Seriously though, Esprit! I had no idea their stuff was so expensive. And besides the whole clothes being expensive thing is the exchange rate. So all that stuff that's, like, 40 Euros is now close to $60. It really sucks to buy stuff with a credit card right now because the exchange rate is so bad, but sometimes it's unavoidable and I have to. I ended up buying two sweaters (not from Esprit, don't worry) for about 16 Euros, which is about $22 or $23, so I think that's pretty good.

In other news, I decided that if I ever move to Germany, I'm opening up either a bakery or an ice cream shop, because those seem to be the only places here that consistently do tons of business. I'm always a little surprised at how many people I see walking around with ice cream because it really hasn't been warm out for a while. Everyone always seems to have it though, but that could just be because it's delicious. Really, it's waay better than American ice cream, and cheaper too. Every time I'm in the city I buy ice cream. And Laugenbrot, which I am secretly addicted to. I even go to different bakeries to buy it because I'm ashamed of my habit.

Hmm, other things. I went to Ulm on Friday, but I didn't really do that much. I forgot to bring my camera unfortunately, plus it was freezing out, so all that=go in lots of stores to keep warm, AKA buy stuff. I bought two books in German, because I've decided that reading is how I'm going to get my German exposure. I mean, I hear German all the time and I speak it with the parents, but I don't get to speak it nearly enough. I think reading will really help me. I also bought a hat for €1, which turned out to not be as warm as I thought it would be, but can I really complain for €1? No. I also bought.....a Coke! I have had approx 4 Cokes since I've ben here, so this is a real luxury. I didn't drink the whole thing; instead, I saved it and brought it back here and I have been drinking a little bit every night. I am savoring it; I still have half the bottle left.

On a completely unrelated topic, I've decided to go to Italy over Christmas, and I'm eagerly planning my trip. So far on my agenda I have: Rome, possibly Ostia Antica, Naples, Pompeii, Capri, Florence, Pisa, Milan, Venice, and possibly Cinque Terre. Planning travels is maybe my favorite thing to do, and I'm also planning another trip! I'll have 4-5 days off in two weeks to travel, so I really want to go to Budapest and Bratislava. The only thing is, I have to get my visa extended this week, and if they take my passport, I can't leave the country (obviously). I'm hoping they will either a) be fast (highly unlikely) or b) let me take my passport and bring it back when they're ready to put the visa in it (I feel like this is probably also unlikely). But seriously, are they allowed to just...take my passport? What if I have to go back to the US for some reason? I mean, not that that'll happen, but if they have my passport, I'm stuck here. And while I want to see more places in Germany, I want to save that for shorter weekend trips.

OK, this post ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be. In that case, I'll go back to doing my favorite thing--planning trips! I'm even planning trips that I don't even know when I'll take. It's so exciting!

Remember everything I wrote in that last post about speaking well? I take it all back. OK, not all of it. But I feel like I've taken a massive step backwards or something. I feel like I'm struggling and not doing well again. Is this just how learning a language goes? I make a little progress with speaking, but then I feel like I lose it? It's really frustrating. It's a little bit reassuring that I can understand a lot more things, but I really want my speaking to get better!

Speaking of understanding, I really do feel a lot better with that. I can understand TV shows better, and even just regular conversations. TV might be easier because they always speak Hochdeutsch (where they speak without any accent). Conversations are definitely more difficult though, especially around here. A lot of people here speak the Schwäbisch dialect, which is quite hard to understand. What's funny, though, is that people here acknowledge that they're hard to understand, and other freely admit that they can't understand all German dialects! In the US, you'd never hear a Southerner admit that they don't speak normal English and that they might be difficult to understand, just as how it's totally taboo to say that people who speak Southern are hard to understand.

On a completely different topic, I've discovered playlists on my iPod. I always knew how to make them before, but for some reason I've always found them daunting. I never made any because I didn't feel...competent? I don't know. Making playlists isn't exactly an art, but in my mind I've equated it with deciding the order of songs on an album, which I highly doubt I'm qualified to do.

Anyway, I've gotten past that and now I'm playlist-crazy. Except I haven't really gotten it down, since my way of making playlists is saying, "OK, I'll make 3 broad categories and divide all the songs in my iPod between them." Somehow I put Michael Jackson's "Black or White" (which I love!) in the same general category as a song from O Brother, Where Art Thou? Even I'm not sure how I did that.

I've also gotten a little obsessed with eMusic.com, which I LOVE. If you've never heard of it, check it out. There isn't much music from the big-name artists because the big labels refuse to do business with eMusic--all because their music is DRM-free, meaning that it can be played on any player anywhere, unlike iTunes songs. My obsession with eMusic has frustrated me this week though, because their website has only been working sporadically. They also seem to think that I'm in the US, which means that I can't download music that other people in Europe can. I'm not sure why they think this, since when I first got here that music was available to me. They're also horrible about responding to customer service emails. I've sent them about 5, starting about 2 weeks ago, and haven't had a single response, except the automated ones saying, "Sorry that your eMusic download manager isn't working! We'll get back to you," which isn't even what I wrote them about.

Anyway, except for horrible customer service, the site is great and has a huge selection. It's also really easy to find new music from it. I've discovered soo many things that I never would have listened to without it.

Not much has happened since Wednesday. The most exciting thing that happened was that we had carrot soup on Thursday (maybe?) and it was delicious. I still don't like most soups, but I guess those vegetable ones are really my thing. I plan on eating them quite a bit.

OK, time to get back to music downloading and playlist making!

Gut sprechen

I've been noticing the past few days that German is coming more easily to me. I still feel like I have to agonize over every single sentence, but when I talk, it just comes out. It's not totally natural, but it's a lot better. Lately I've been having this feeling where, after I say something, I'll think, did I really say that? It will be some complex sentence that just a little while ago I really struggled with, but without me even thinking, it came out of my mouth the right way. I feel like this happened all of a sudden, but I guess that's probably not true. Oh well, it's definitely nice! It makes me feel like I'm actually making some progress, since for a long time I was really frustrated about not getting much better. I've been complimented a few times on my German, although I can never really believe it because to me I feel like I'm so bad at it. But the thing that really made me feel better was when Tabea, one of the youth group girls, said that my German is better than either Joy's or Vivien's (two of the previous aupairs) was when they'd been here the same amount of time as I've been. Well, even if I don't feel like I'm doing well with it, at least I'm tricking everyone else!

Monday I had my second cooking class. It was kind of difficult because there were a lot of words I didn't understand, mostly the ingredients. I thought about bringing my German-English dictionary, but then decided it was a silly idea. Next time I am definitely bringing it! Anyway, we made a few different soups, and the one I made with my partner was a vegetable soup, and it ended up being really really good. That is definitely something I'll be making again.

To me, cooking class is a little bit like chemistry lab--I always mess up little things because I'm too impatient to read all of the directions or just because I'm inept at measuring. It's frustrating, but I guess that's how it goes. The soup turned out well, but I think that had more to do with my partner than with me (just like chem lab).

Yesterday...not much happened. Went to the playground with Johanna and she played on the slide for a while. She fell about 15 times but as soon as she stood up was fine; then of course when we got home, she discovered a tiny, microscopic, practically invisible dot of a cut on her wrist and started getting worked up. Of course as soon as I put a bandaid on it she was fine, but it was so cute--she kept saying, "I can't bend my wrist otherwise I'll hurt my cut." Oh, and another adorable thing she did recently: I was putting her and Domink to bed and I saw her doll sitting in the shower. I said, "Your doll is in the shower! Do you want to get her out and have her with you in bed?" And she said, "No, the doll is at her swimming class!" Johanna has been dying to go to swimming class ever since Dominik started, when he was four. She's already excited to go next year when she's four.

And a cute Dominik thing, but first a little background. OK, really the only background is that his favorite food is noodles with tomato sauce. The other day he said, "Know what would be great? If we took all of the windows out of the house, filled it up with tomato sauce, put some noodles in, and then I could swim through it! Naked!"

I think that's a good note to end this on.

It has been alternately boring and interesting here, at least to read about. On Thursday, the highlight of my day was that I found the post office in Dettingen. Reason #1 I could not find it before: it is located in a basement. I'm not even trying to be funny. There's small store that's attached to someone's house, but the store is one of those ones where it's in the basement but you can enter from the street. The post office is in there, and the entrance is at the back on the house. I saw that I had the right address, and I was kind of thinking, hmmm, I think I'm in the wrong place, I'll go in this nice little parking lot and turn around. While I was turning around I saw the Deutsche Post logo. It's not even really a post office; it's more like, the lady who runs the store also sells stamps.


Friday was also slightly exciting. We collected all of the apples from the apple tree in the front yard. It was kind of fun--Stefan got up in the tree and would shake the branches in a certain part and then wait while we all ran around and collected them. It was pretty much only me and Stephanie collecting apples, while the kids "helped". There were a ton though; there is a store that takes the apples to make apple juice and gives out credits towards future purchases of juice, and Stefan said that when they took the apples there, the store said they weighed 150 kg.


Saturday=day of excitement. I went to my German class in the morning, which was fine. We did more stuff with conjunctive, which is getting a little old, but at least now I remember how to say that stuff. Last week all the stuff we did was like, "I would like to make more money." This week we progressed to, "If I made more money, I would buy a lot of gummi bears," and other such complex sentence structures.


After class on Saturday I went to Ulm, which was really nice! I'd only been there on a train stopover so I didn't see much, but it's a really beautiful city. I definitely plan on going back. I of course went shopping and bought two skirts at H&M (only 5 euros each!), then walked through the Fischerviertel (Fisher's Quarter) which was so nice! It was all cobblestone streets and cute German houses and little canals. Then I walked along the old city wall, which runs right along the Donau River (the Danube, in English--why do we always change the names of perfectly pronounceable things?). The Donau is the border between Baden-Wuerttemberg and Bayern (Bavaria--again with the name-change!), so of course I had to walk over the bridge just to say I walked to Bayern. After that I walked around a little bit more, then went into the Muenster, which has the highest church tower in the world. Unfortunately I didn't walk up because I had all my German books with me (those suckers are surprisingly heavy), but next time I'm there I'm totally doing that. The church is amazing though. Like every church in Europe, it's elaborate and ornate and all that typical stuff, but mostly it's just HUGE inside. I took a few pictures, but there's no way to get a sense of how big it is without seeing it in person. It doesn't even look that big from the outside--it mostly just looks tall.

I eventually took the train back from Ulm, got picked up by my fam, and we went home, where I had to eat dinner super fast so that I could shower before going to the youth group. I'm really glad that I decided to go again because this time ended up being a lot better. I rode with two girls who live in a nearby town, and they were really nice. At the youth group it was better too, I think partly because we watched a movie instead of talking about junk I didn't understand. Afterwards, I felt a lot more comfortable hanging out with the people there. There were more people there, which helped, and they also weren't so shy/awkward. I think my German must be getting better too, because I felt more able to participate in the conversations. Last time was tough because not only was there a language barrier, I also didn't know the people. This time I knew them a little better plus I can speak a little better.

I am not good at coming up with titles

Whew, a lot of exciting stuff has happened since the last time I posted! The two big things: I had my first language class on Saturday morning, and I had my first cooking class on Monday night.

Language class: it's pretty much an integration class, so that all us newbies can integrate into the German culture. Fortunately, that means that everyone speaks fairly good German, so I think it will be right on my level. Also, I am the only American and the only native English speaker. Here are the native countries of the people in my class (excluding me): Argentina, the Ukraine, Russia (x2), Dominican Republic, Brazil, Romania, Japan. It's pretty cool though, because that means that we won't all just lapse into speaking English. And there are two other aupairs in the class! Finally! The Dominican Republican (is that right? I don't care) and the Ukrainian girls are aupairs, in Giengen and Sontheim, which are both nearby towns. They both said that they don't know any other aupairs here, but I found out later that Katja (the Ukrainian one) met a French aupair who lives in Heidenheim. Anyway, after class ended I walked around Heidenheim a little bit with Katja. We were going to ask Dianny (the Dominican one) to come with us, but she had already left. There was a market set up on the pedestrian zone so we walked around there for a while. It had mostly tacky stuff, but there was a crepes stand, so of course we ate crepes! The market was PACKED though. The stands were all set up in front of the stores so there was less room to walk than usual, but there were also a gazillion people there. And no one was polite and said "Excuse me" or anything, they all just pushed right through. Anyway, a little later Stephanie came into the city to go to the craft market which was up in the castle, so she picked us up and we went with her. That market was actually really nice. There were a lot of nice craft things, and I bought a turtle made out of bread. (That should not have been one sentence; those two things are unrelated.) I also bought some peppermint candies, which on the bag are called "peppermint pillows", hahaha.

Cooking course: Monday was the first time for that, but it starts at a really inconvenient time. As I'm sure I've said before, the buses here suck. So, one leaves at 6:15 and arrives at 6:40 for my class that starts at 6:30...which is no good. I think I'll prob have to take that from now on, but Stefan said that today I should be on time. Which meant that I took the bus that left at 4:30 and arrived at 5:00. Whatev, it was nice to walk around for a little bit before the class started, and it was a really nice day. The class ended up being good. I was hoping there would be some people my age, but they were all older. There were two old men (like, 60, hahah) and three younger women, but the youngest was prob 30. Oh well, no BFFs for me in this class. But yeah, we made salads and soups, and I made one called Karottensalat (carrot salad), which was made from 500g of carrots (aka A LOT) and one apple, with yogurt and vinegar used for the the dressing. It ended up being pretty good, definitely different than other things I've eaten. All of the salads ended up looking kind of like cole slaw in that they all had shredded ingredients with the dressing mixed in. The other salads were: Greek salad, wurst salad (which had sausage and ham and onions), and something with sauerkraut and some other junk. We also had tomato soup and carrot soup, which were pretty good. I don't think I'll be taking many of these recipes home with me, but at least after this class is over I'll know how to follow a recipe.

Hmm, I guess that's all that really happened. Today is a German holiday (reunification, I think) so of course everyone has off today, and tomorrow and Friday for good measure. It's nice because I don't have to work, but it also means that nothing is open. Oh well, I am looking forward to relaxing. And maybe tomorrow I'll go into Heidenheim and buy the books for my German class (woo woo...can't wait).

So, I was thinking about this blog and how I wanted to keep it to remember what's going on...but I realized that my messages to Jonathan probably more accurately document what's been going on in my daily life. I write a lot more stuff in those messages, plus I write them more often. As long as Facebook's server doesn't explode, I think I'll have a pretty good record of what I did here in Germany by the time I leave.

Weird

I watched "The Life of David Gale" on DVD a little while back because they have a ton of DVDs, but since Stefan burned them all, he opted to burn them without English. So there's an option to watch it in English, but when I clicked on it, there was no sound at all. Oh, well. It's a good way to learn some German.

Anyway! So if you haven't seen the movie, it's about this dude (David Gale) and it's not giving away anything to say that he's in jail. Well, in German there are three forms of "you": you singular informal, you plural informal, and you formal singular or plural. You obviously use you formal as a sign of respect. Shopkeepers say it to customers, younger people say it to older people, older people use it with their peers when just meeting them. It's kind of like how people in the South always say "sir" and "ma'am".

Back to the movie. In the movie, Kate Winslet is interviewing him and David Gale stands up. The jailers tell him that he has to sit down, but! They use "you" formal to tell him! I thought that was highly unrealistic. I mean, I know it's Germany and people here are very polite and all, but come on. What jailer, in any country, would show the inmate that respect? I can't imagine an American jailer calling a death-row inmate "sir".

Also, I found out that there is apparently only one German voice for each big-name actor. Like, "Jerry McGuire" and "Eyes Wide Shut" would have the same person doing Tom Cruise's voice. That's awesome! I would love to have that job. Stefan told me that he watched "The Sixth Sense" in English and thought that Bruce Willis sounded stupid. Hahahahaha, awesome. (Although I really like Bruce Willis's voice!)

Tomorrow is my first German class! I'm excited for it, but not too thrilled about waking up at 7:15 AM on a weekend.