Schneefrei

The other day, my first class was not in school, so I got to come in late.  More importantly, I got to sleep in.  When I woke up, the view out my window looked like this:

 I began to wonder if I would have a snow day.  I didn’t have the phone number for my school, and I’d had no phone calls on mine yet.  So I waited.  I decided that, because of the snow, it would be a good idea to try to take an earlier train so that I wasn’t set back too much by train delays. 

I brought my library books with me and some other things I needed to get done so that I could do it on my way home.  When I stepped outside, the snow was halfway up my shin and it was still snowing.  I trudged through snow and made it to the train station, barely able to see out the bus windows.  At the train station, the announcement scrolling over every train declared that all transportation in Kiel was stopped for at least half an hour.  Well.  This was going to work out well.  I texted Rainer, my mentor teacher, and waited.  Eventually, they said we could get in the trains, where at least it was warmer.  Just as it was finally about to leave, Rainer texted me back, saying that school was canceled.  I jumped out and did all of my errands.

That night, we had a Feuerzangenbowle at my dorm. We had the traditional drink and watched the movie.  I wore my Viking hat because I was cold.  It went well.

Monday, we had a snow day (called the night before) even though the snow was not bad at all.  So I went to Luebeck to check out the Weihnachtsmarkt.  It was definitely much bigger and better than Kiel's.  

On Friday, I went to Hamburg to have eggnog and cookies at the Consulate, which was an experience.  The weather was pretty terrible, but I got to meet up with some other American assistants and we found our way to the consulate, and then out for some drinks afterward.  The consulate security was interesting.  We identified the building first by the American flag, second by the gigantic Christmas tree, and third by the fence and security guards.  We had to turn off our cell phones, empty our pockets and walk through a metal detector.  I think every one of us set off the metal detector, but the German security guards just waved us through.  

The General Consul was a woman whose first language is definitely not German and may not even be English, we weren't entirely sure.  But she was very nice.  Plus, there was eggnog.  And presumably all sorts of fancy people that we could have networked with, had we been up to the challenge.  As it was, we mostly talked amongst ourselves and enjoyed the decorations, though I chatted with some Ambassador's kids.  Kids are the most fun, anyway.

We were each given large bags with an American flag on one side and an Advents calendar on the inside as we left, forcing us to accept our nationality as we wandered Hamburg.  It was sort of raining and kind of gross out, but we wandered past the Weihnachtsmarkt.  The Hamburg Weihnachtsmarkt looked like any other Weihnachtsmarkt. Until we noticed the Santa and LadyInAFluffyWhiteDress in a crane next to a sled suspended in the air. The Lady got into a cloud suspended below the sled by tinsel and Santa into the sled. Then! Santa started talking in this really deep scary voice (kind of like the second voice in this) that was projected by gigantic speakers all over the Rathausplatz.  Then, "Sleigh Ride" started blasting and the sled with the cloud beneath it took off across the Markt, riding on cables, totally lit up with reindeer and everything. This was possibly the best thing I have seen ever.  It was enough to stop seven Fulbright Scholars in their tracks, gawking at the flying Santa Claus, so I think it was pretty good.

Attempting to find a cocktail bar that Johanna was convinced was near the Rathaus, we ended up in a little Italian bistro, where we told the hostess that we only wanted drinks, no food.  Of course, she pretty much only spoke Italian.  After we had all ordered and were hanging out, the manager noticed us and said to our waiter in Italian, "They don't want food, they have to go."  Luckily, Johanna speaks Italian.  We managed to smooth everything over, and the waiter brought us free sambuca as we left.  We found another place that let us sit and stay for awhile, until we were all really tired.  That is, until about 9:30, when we decided to get home.

On the train, Barbara, Carlos and I met a bunch of high schoolers who were in the middle of a year abroad.  One of them mentioned she was applying to Grinnell and I told her to go for it.  It was one of the more random encounters I've had recently.  

Hanging out with a bunch of Fulbrighters was a lot of fun, and really reassuring.  Everyone has their own horror stories and their own problems making friends with Germans.  It was nice to hear that it wasn't just me.  And now that I've actually hung out with these kids, I have some more people to hang out with and visit in Schleswig-Holstein.  For example, on Tuesday, I can either go down to Neumuenster for a Fulbright party or stay in Kiel for a German friend's birthday party.  

Today, though almost all the snow had melted over the weekend, Kiel got another several inches of snow.  Luckily, I got my ski pants and jacket in the mail.  If there's anything I love as much as my foulie pants, it's my ski pants.  I can now go frolic harmlessly in the snow and not worry about getting cold or wet!  It's great.  Though ignoring all the presents and candy in the box until Christmas in Switzerland is going to be hard.

Einkaufen

At Aldi (or any grocery store, really), to use the shopping carts, you have to stick a coin into a thing on the cart that disconnects the chain holding all the carts together.  They have this in America too; you generally use a quarter.  When you bring the cart back, you put the chain back in, and get your quarter back. 

Now, here in Europe, they don't have quarters.  The Aldi carts will take a 50 cent coin, a Euro, or a 2 Euro, making them a bit more valuable.  I went grocery shopping the other day, but I didn't have any change on me.  But I did have a Canadian quarter, because things like that just hang around in the pockets of my jackets.  So, I put that in the coin slot.  And, lo and behold, it worked.

I happily went off to do my grocery shopping, a task which has gotten decidedly easier since I moved to Berlin junior year.  These days, I actually know the names of the foods I am buying and have some idea of how to put together a meal, which is very helpful when buying food.  Anyway.  I got to the checkout and discovered some ridiculously long lines.  I checked out, bagged my groceries and went to return my cart.  There weren't any carts there so that I could put the chain in and get my quarter back.  And there was a nice old German lady wanting to trade me a Euro for my cart.

But, you see, I hadn't put a Euro in my cart.  And I had conveniently forgotten the word for "coin".  I tried to explain that there was a Canadian coin in there, and so it wouldn't be fair.  In the midst of my bumblings, another lady came up to see what the confusion was and to try to get the cart.  Because my cart was still the only cart at the Aldi entrance.  After a several minutes of "It's from Canada!  It's not a Euro!  It's not fair!", the old lady took my cart to the front of the cart line, where there is a chain hanging from the wall.  She pushed it in, popped my quarter out and put in her Euro.

As I walked out, I made sure to show the other lady my Canadian quarter, so she didn't think I was that crazy.  I'm not sure if it worked.  But, hey, I got my quarter back.

Winterzeit

Well, I went to the Yacht Club tonight, membership form in hand, ready to sign up, transfer 155 Euro and become a member. Unfortunately, all the lights were out. And no one was there. Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated here, so it wasn’t that. Maybe it was the two inches of snow on the ground. Or the fact that it was still snowing.

Oh, haven’t I mentioned? Winter is here. With a cold, snowy vengeance. It started Tuesday, when large clumpy flakes of snow began to fall, melting immediately upon contact with the cement. Wednesday on my bike to school, I noticed that it was pretty cold, mostly because I’d forgotten my warmest hat and my gloves on the train last week. Shortly thereafter, on my Wednesday morning train ride to school, I noticed that the countryside was covered in snow. This morning, there was a bit more snow. Then, around 3, just before it started to get dark, it started to snow. It is still snowing now, at nearly 10 o’clock.

I cannot wait for tomorrow, when I don’t have to work, and I can just run around in the snow with my camera and take pictures. Or head over to Lübeck for the Weihnachtsmarkt there, which is one of the famous ones. Weihnachtsmarkten are pretty awesome. Ours here in Kiel is fairly small, from what I hear. I haven't actually been around Germany in the winter to know too well. Basically, it's little Christmas village with vendors selling food, chocolate (yes, that's separate from food), trinkets, hats, anything you could ever want to buy as a Christmas present, and Gluehwein. And, if you don't your 1,20 Euro back for the Pfand (deposit) you paid on the mug, you get a souvenir mug! It's a great time.

(This is Luebeck, by the way.  Not Kiel.)

Aside from the snow, this is the least Thanksgiving-y Thanksgiving yet. At least in St. Croix, we celebrated it. And sort of had part of the day off. I worked all day, came home, and watched a movie. Then I made myself a Jess Reale (the awesome Roseway cook) specialty: coconut rice with fish and mango. Ok, normally it’s with fresh mahi and mango salsa, but my supplies were limited. Tuna steak and sliced mango, with hints of lime. It was actually pretty good, but definitely not yet up to Jess standards. Some day, Reale. Some day.

Luckily, I think some people and I are going to make a Thanksgiving dinner this weekend. When, how, what, I don’t know. Hopefully, I’ll find out soon. On the topic of fuzzy Thanksgiving details, I tried to explain to my fifth graders the origins of Thanksgiving today. As long as they got something related to Indians, Pilgrims, food, turkey, or football, I feel my job is done. If only I’d thought of it ahead of time, we could have made hand turkeys. I love those things.

Die Heiligturmer des Todes

I think I've finally reached my zen moment for the Harry Potter movies. For a long time, I was rather critical of them but always hypocritically excited out of a long-standing loyalty to the books.

This afternoon, I saw the first half of the last Harry Potter movie. My memories of the book were a bit fuzzy, but I really couldn't wait another day before seeing the movie. I tried to figure out yesterday when I read the first Harry Potter book. I'm pretty sure I was actually eleven, meaning that these books have been a dominating force for half my life now.

I checked out the theaters in my area. There's the big, fancy, new theater down at the Hauptbahnhof and the kind of sketchy looking independent theater a couple blocks away. I'd been meaning to check out the sketchy little theater, so I headed down there.

I got a late start, so I ended up there about eight minutes before the showing. I was a little worried that I wouldn't end up with a ticket and have to kill time until the next showing. I walked up to the counter, and waited for a minute behind a lady in her late 30s carrying a large pink umbrella. She walked off to her movie, and I stepped up.

Now, some days, my German is so good, people don't guess that I'm not German, let alone an American. Some days, I can hardly get a sentence out. Today was one of those second kinds of days. Somehow, I managed to still buy a ticket for the 2:00 showing. I bought a coke in a fancy glass bottle and a bag of Haribo for the movie.

"Kino 1," the ticket lady said, giving me that look that Germans give when they want to make sure that you've understand what they said but they're not entirely sure that you speak German. I nodded and said, "Ja, danke." Or something along those lines.

I checked my ticket and realized there was no seat assignment on the ticket. Most German theaters, when you buy your ticket, you also get to choose what seat you want to sit in. A very sensible idea, I think. But this ticket didn't have that. I worried and fretted for the half-second it took me to walk into the room and have my eyes adjust.

Guess how many people there were! No, really, guess.

Ok. One. There was one other lady in this theater. This movie came out on Wednesday. What. Then I remembered that it has been literally years since I've seen a Harry Potter movie at a showing other than the opening. I don't actually remember ever seeing a Harry Potter movie not at the opening showing. Maybe this is what it's normally like.

I picked my seat and sat down. Then the lady who'd been in front of me in line came in and sat down. It was us three. The entire movie. Three women who had come alone to see Harry Potter 7. Hilarious.

Anyway, typical German movie. All of the previews play, then there is an ice cream ad. Then, the curtains close, the lights come up and you have one last chance to run to the bathroom or go buy some ice cream. The three of us didn't move. We sat there in an awkward silence waiting. Or at least, I thought it was awkward because I was trying really hard not to burst out laughing at the situation.

The film starts. At this point, I have decided that I am just going to set aside everything that I know is going to happen that I won't like. Like the fact that Deatheaters travel in ominous clouds of black smoke. That's the big one.

I almost choked up when Hedwig died. And that's a big deal for me. I had approximately the same reaction as I did when I read it for the first time at 2 am after buying it in Canada at midnight and driving home. This time I knew it was going to happen. I was impressed.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, much more so than most of the others (I'm still a big fan of Prisoner of Azkaban), which I had not expected. Oh, did I mention that the entire movie was in German? I don't know when or where there are English showings in Kiel, if there are any, but I will need to see this movie in English some time. It's not that I didn't know what was going on, but I really love British accents.

After the movie, I returned the glass Coke bottle, went grocery shopping and came home. It was nearly 5, so it was totally dark out, because it's winter in Germany.

So, the movie happened, and it was great, though it doesn't feel quite complete because it was also a giant cliffhanger setting you up for the next movie that doesn't come out until JULY. July is a long time away. I'll probably be in America by then. Maybe that's why I couldn't write an actual film review just now. I'll try again later. Possibly.

Schwarz fahren

I forgot the best part of the train ride back to Kiel!

I finally got to see Deutsche Bahn Sicherheit in action. That is, train security.

There were these loud drunks in the same train car as me, I think they might have been Polish or Russian. I kept hearing the word "Ruski", so that's pretty much my only clue. Anyway, I put in my headphones even though my iPod was dead, so I could more easily pretend to ignore them. Just before the conductor came through to collect tickets, they moved.

I could still hear them shouting in whichever part of the train they had moved to. Then the security started to show up. See, Schwarz fahren, or riding without a ticket, is a very expensive offense. Most of German transportation operates on an honor system based on fear. They trust you to buy your tickets, and don't always check them. But, randomly, they do. If caught without a ticket on a bus or a subway, it can cost 40 Euro. Trains are a bit different, because on long trips, they will always check. And the punishment is about twice the price of the ticket you should have bought.

The security dudes ambled through the car once, and I didn't give them a second thought. When the drunk Eastern Europeans came back and sat down a few seats behind me, I started to wonder. The ticket lady came back through asking for tickets (which doesn't happen often) and she was obviously a bit harried. She was a nice older woman, a white-haired German grandma type. She stood behind the security dudes, your typical over six-foot, bulky, tough, security types. They asked the drunks for their tickets.

Security: Can I see your ticket, please? (Touches the guy to make sure he's awake/alive)
Drunk: Don't touch me.
Security: Ticket, please.
Drunk: Don't touch me.

This goes on for a while. The drunk doing the most of the speaking has one of the worst stutters I've ever heard. Also, this entire conversation is taking place in German. And the drunk is using the familiar you, not very polite.

Security: Just stay here, we'll talk when we get to the station.
Drunk: You and me. Single fight. You want to fight?
Security: What? No. I'm not going to fight you.
Drunk: You and me.

There are some teenagers in the car as well, who think this is all pretty hilarious. They are carrying several beers each and one of them gave me a wedding congratulations card that he had found on the seat. It was empty.

Anyway, I didn't get to see the drunk fight the much larger security guard, because I was trying to catch a bus back home and it was late at night, but there was a lot of singing of soccer songs along the platform into the Hauptbahnhof. It was a Bundesliga night, after all.

Eine kurze Reise

I was going to write about school, but school is pretty much the same. Instead, I'm going to write about my mini-vacation! I've decided that to keep myself sane and entertained, I'm going to try to take at least one trip every month, either inside Germany or outside of it. Luckily, travel is fairly cheap. This weekend, I took advantage of 25 Euro tickets anywhere in Germany and went to Weimar and Erfurt, an extremely historical tour.

I made the extremely smart decision to night train it to Weimar, so that I wouldn't have to deal with two different hostels. I left Kiel at 11:21 at night, and got to Hamburg about an hour and twenty minutes later, where I had to wait until 3:30 am for my next train. Lesson: always always always check your layover times. I hung out in the McDonalds in the Hauptbahnhof for a while because it was the only thing open and offered an hour of free internet. I browsed facebook from my iPod and watched the people who come to the Hauptbahnhof McDonalds at 1:30 in the morning. These people included your usual crazies and homeless guys who get kicked out, but also a disproportionately large number of people in costume. It started with a pair of women, both wearing coats and mostly normal looking. Until I realized one was wearing fishnet stockings (and not much else) and a fake leather cowboy hat. But, really, it's Europe. That's not too weird.

Then the vampire walks in. Not like Edward Cullen sparkly vampire, or Buffy vampire, but Dracula: Dead and Loving It vampire. White face makeup, hair slicked back, cheap fake fancy clothes, a short cape.

And then Robin Hood.

But I digress. I finally caught my train, passed out in my window seat until Göttingen, where I had to transfer at about 6:30 am, then fell asleep again until Weimar. I stepped off the train, threw some extra things into a storage locker and walked into town. Unfortunately, at 8 am, most things were still closed. But I wandered around, grabbed some breakfast and took some pictures. Once the tourist info place opened, I bought a tourist card and a walking tour before wandering off to kill some more time at a castle. Well, just the museum. The palace itself is closed in the winter. As I walked back to the walking tour, it started raining. And the guide never checked our tickets. It was a neat little tour, though the guide spoke too fast for me to catch sometimes and we were battling intermittent gale force winds, rain and cold.

Highlights of Weimar (someday, I'll put up the pictures) include Schiller's grave, Goethe's house, the Bauhaus Museum, and all sorts of history.

I hopped a train (that was twenty minutes late) to Erfurt, found my hostel, texted a friend and made a new friend with the girl sharing my hostel room, who apparently spent two years in Salt Lake City as a teenager. So that was pretty cool. I met up with Katha, a friend in Kiel who's from Erfurt and was home for the weekend, and we went out to the Altstadt (the old, medieval part of the city), with some friends of hers. It was pretty fun and we ended up having a few drinks with a priest and running into some French men who only spoke French and very limited English. Though my "Je ne parle pas Francais" convinced one of them that I did and he insisted on continuing to talk to me even though I very obviously did not know what he was saying.

In the morning, I made a beeline for the Cathedral. And then got predictably side-tracked by the fact that Erfurt is very much a medieval city, full of winding pathways and narrow walks and tallish buildings. But! I found it eventually. I spent a good amount of time at both the Cathedral and the Severi Kirche (Severus Church!), and took a lot of pictures. The Severi Kirche had one of the most ornate and impressive organs I have ever seen, and I've been to a lot of European cathedrals at this point.

Afterward was a full half hour to 45 minutes of an increasingly harried adventure entitled "Why don't they tell you where to find bathrooms in guidebooks!?"

Eventually, I set off on the walking tour recommended by the guidebook, still a little bitter about its lack of bathroom advice. I will have to let the pictures explain, once I get them off my camera. For lunch, I had Thuringer Kloese, or Thuringen Dumplings. They are big old potato dumplings and they come in a gravy like soup. That, and the "selbstgebrautes Bier" (self-brewed beer), made for a very good and German lunch.

Unfortunately, the weather in Erfurt was much the same as it had been in Weimar, so I found myself ducking into buildings or churches, or even simply packing away my camera and wishing I had brought my umbrella. I ended up dodging the rain by going to the Anger Museum. Unfortunately, just an art museum, but worth it for the name. And it had some cool portraiture and furniture set-ups.

Overall, I'd say Weimar was charming, but for one day, it's not worth buying (three day) Tourist Card, though the Goethe Museum is worth every Euro penny. It's a nice little sleepy university town that just happens to have housed almost all German intellectuals ever.

Erfurt was great, but I probably could have spent more time and money there. I'll go back. It has one of the first medieval bridges built with houses on it! Tiny medieval pathways, old churches, one of the biggest Weihnachtsmarkts in Germany, it's a great place.

The train back to Kiel was the smoothest of all the transportation on the trip.

And now, I am drowning in graduate school applications. Argh.

IKEA

On Friday, I went to a fellow teacher's house for brunch with some of the student teachers. It was sort of a last minute thing, so Wiebke, who I was going to catch a ride with, didn't actually have room in her car. So, I took the bus. No big deal. Unfortunately, I actually had no idea where I was going. I mean, I had the address and the town, but not which bus stop or how to proceed from the bus stop. I asked the bus driver and he didn't know either. So, I rode to the last stop. (Sidenote: an old dude got on the bus while we were still in the city and sat right next to me. We were the only two people on the bus at the last stop, him still sitting right next to me) From there, I asked for directions and eventually found Julia's place.

This is relevant because I then decided that the same logic would work for finding IKEA. I hopped off the bus at a random bus stop in Kiel, figuring it's a small enough city that I could find an IKEA, which, as a rule, is a gigantic bright yellow building. Hard to miss. Or so I thought. I walked around for a while, leisurely wandering in the direction that I thought IKEA was. After half an hour or so, I still hadn't found it, even though I had checked a bus map (no streets, only bus stops) and was definitely going in the right direction. Instead, I went home.

Yesterday, I took the direct route: the bus that goes from Exerzierplatz (a couple streets away and where the Farmer's Market is) to IKEA. Much easier. Turns out, I was in the ballpark the day before and had only needed to turn right and walk a couple streets further to find it. Oh well. Anyway, there I was, IKEA.

We had gone to the Berlin-Spandau IKEA on a Wednesday afternoon; it's one of four in Berlin and it was a Wednesday, so it wasn't too crowded. I went to the only IKEA in the area on a Saturday afternoon. It was hilarious. If you are unfamiliar with IKEA, the basic setup is this: you walk around a gigantic show room of sorts along a path dictated by arrows on the floor. In this room are all of IKEA's furniture offerings, each with its own name, like Billy or Ektorp. They are set up not only so that you can test out the sofas and chairs but also so that you can see how they would work in your home. There are fully decorated apartments in an IKEA, all with named and coordinated furniture that you can buy too and set up in your very own small European apartment. You could pretty much live in IKEA.

As I wandered around and admired the furniture that I can't afford, I realized that next time I go, I'll have to bring my camera and try to play sneaky photographer. There was a family of five all sitting on one three-person couch. There was a young couple making out in a model kitchen, while other people also checked out the dining room. There was a young boy testing mattresses. And by that, I mean there was a toddler rolling around on mattresses and grinning wildly. Everywhere, there were people planning out new homes, entirely decorated by IKEA. Strange.

I kept walking and exited the showroom only to enter the Markthalle. Basically, this is where you accessorize. I bought a coffee press and a thermos. Because I didn't have either one and not having coffee at home was terrible for me. After checking out without buying any furniture, I hit up the hot dog stand. Because there was a hot dog stand. And Bine's roommate Steini had highly recommended the IKEA hot dogs last time we went, but we'd had a four hour long breakfast and were not hungry. But anyway. A 1 Euro hot dog! This had to be a good idea. You could also get a free drink with your hot dog, but I opted for a milkshake (the untold and uncompleted mission of Hamburg was trying to find a milkshake). I was handed a plain hot dog, a cup and a milkshake token. The milkshake token activates the milkshake machine which then gives you a milkshake. Then! You get to top the hot dog all by yourself with an array of toppings including ketchup, mustard, snack dressing, pickle slices and what I thought were bacon bits. I have no idea what the "snack dressing" was, pickle slices are not the best choice for a hot dog topping (this is why we have relish) and I'm not really sure what the not-bacon-bits were.

I built my hot dog, got my milkshake and everything while still holding onto my new coffee press. That was a feat of coordination that I wasn't sure I could handle, but it worked out in the end. The hot dog wasn't bad, definitely worth a Euro. And the milkshake was worth the wait. Then I went home and made a pot of coffee. Because I can.

Frühstück!

So, everyone, a question: what do you do with fish?

There's a good-sized flea market near my place every Wednesday and Saturday and they sell lots of good-looking fish. Today, there was even a tub full of live eel! I do live pretty directly on the Baltic, I guess. Anyway, I was looking at all this fish and realized that I do not even know the first place to start with fish. Catching, buying, fillet-ing, cooking, any of that. I pretty much only know how to eat fish.

Basically, what am I supposed to look for? How does one go about buying fish as though one knows what one is doing at a German farmer's market? What fish do I buy? What can I do with fish after I buy it? How soon do I have to cook it? Why don't I still have people cooking for me like on boats and in college?

Other than my fish quandries, the farmer's market was a good time. For about ten euro, I came out with kiwis, oranges, tomatoes, brötchen, a pastry for breakfast and a chai latte. Overall, not a bad haul.

I have also decided in the past few days that Germans do breakfast correctly, Americans do not. When I get back to America, you will all be introduced to a proper German breakfast/brunch. Technically, it's brunch, but at the hour I wake up when left to my own devices, it's breakfast. A heaping basket full of brötchen (crispy little German rolls=), all sorts of varied sliced meats and cheeses, nutella, butter, coffee, orange juice, (okay, only sometimes) champagne, amazing varieties of things to spread on your brötchen. Oh, I wish I woke up in time to make myself a proper breakfast feast more often.

Now, I am headed to IKEA. Musings on breakfast aside, I feel like I need to check it out. Not that I'll buy anything, except maybe a lamp or a thermos, but at least I'll figure out where on earth it is. More on my inability to find IKEA later. Hopefully, after I've found IKEA.

Herbstferien

Last Saturday morning, I packed up my pack and took a train to Hamburg. There, I met my friend John (a fellow Fulbrighter and fellow Grinnellian) in the Hauptbahnhof, near a man dressed as Mario. John and I then spent about an hour wandering the train station, attempting to find Lauren, another Fulbrighter who had planned to spend the weekend with us. This task was complicated by our lack of any sort of contact information or a plan for finding her. Also, the Hauptbahnhof, if you don't speak German, is the main train station. Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany. Poor planning. After walking back and forth for a solid hour, we decided to just stand in one place for a while. Fifteen minutes later, Lauren came down the stairs. It worked!

We called Hilary, a Grinnell alum who's been living in Berlin for the last few years and was also traveling up to Hamburg for the weekend, and discovered that we had several hours to kill before we could celebrate 10.10 (on 10.9). It's a Grinnell tradition. We threw our bags into a train station locker and took off, sort of unintentionally riding the S-Bahn (mostly above ground train) all the way around the city, until we saw a tall ship, where we decided to get off and go see the boat.

Turns out, it was the Rickmer Rickmers and for only 3.50 Euro, we could go aboard and check it out. So we did, me showing off my nautical knowledge and explaining things. John and Lauren put up with my overexcitement quite well. We also saw several large churches and memorials and were good tourists. We settled down in Oma's Apotheke (Grandma's Drug Store), a bar, to begin celebrating 10.10. Hilary met up with us there; it was her idea to do the true Hamburg thing and party through the night and have breakfast at the famous Sunday morning Fischmarket. We gave it a valiant effort, getting kicked out of two bars at closing time, and wandering the Reeperbahn (the red light district) for a couple hours, but then it got really cold and we didn't really want to go inside anywhere on the Reeperbahn. So we went to the Reeperbahn McDonald's. Where I promptly fell asleep (it was about 4:30 am). At 6:30, we walked to the Fischmarket. There, we found a large hall, full of people drinking beer, eating fish and singing along to the really loud cover band. It was great.

After that, Hilary headed back to Berlin, the rest of us found a nice sunny warm park to sit in, then got some coffee and then found the hostel. Lauren and John fell asleep, while I discovered free internet in the hostel lobby and figured out my trip to Berlin. The next few days were pretty low-key, cheap food, a boat trip around the harbor, the Miniature Wonderland, more boats, a museum. Having a bed to sleep in was wonderful.

On Tuesday, Lauren and I headed to Berlin, a surprisingly quick trip. We made it up to Bine's apartment, where we got to hang out with Steini, her roommate, for a while until she got back. I felt kind of bad for Lauren, because she just kind of got thrown into Bine's normal life. While it was fine for me (and my German is good enough that I could deal with it), it was pretty awkward for her. But, anyway. We went to the bank, went grocery shopping, learned to play Skat (THE German card game) and went to a friend of Bine's for dinner. I learned that the German word for "moose" sounds a lot like the English word for "elk" and that what we call an elk, they basically classify as a large deer.

Wednesday was Bine's birthday, so we went to a Champagne breakfast with some friends of hers. It was a four hour breakfast, starting at 11. Afterwards, we went to Ikea. Bine had her eye on a bed, and the Spandau Ikea was the only one with it. And they had only one, so we had to go really fast. But I still go to try out a bunch of mattresses and ride the shopping carts like a skateboard, so it was fun. We went home to wait for the furniture to be delivered, playing Skat, which I was slowly getting better at. A few hours later, boxes of new furniture clogging the hallway, we went out on the town. We rode the newest and shortest U-Bahn (two whole stops) and walked from the Brandenburg Gate to Alexanderplatz. Normally, this is a pretty walk, but that night it was even better, because it was the beginning of the Festival of Lights, so all the monuments and important buildings were lit up in crazy colors and there were fireworks. We ended up at a bar called Yesterday, where the tables were old table games and the decorations were lava lamps and creepy moving puppets and had a few celebratory birthday drinks before catching one of the last S-Bahns home.

Thursday, we put the bed together. Then Lauren and I went out to see the city. She'd never been to Berlin before, and I wanted to see what had changed. I mean, I'd only been gone two and a half years, but it's Berlin. New buildings had popped up, the Palast der Republik was finally gone (they had to take it apart piece by piece instead of blowing it up because of its proximity to the Cathedral), Kunsthaus Tacheles had grown a lot, and a million other little things. No matter what, though, I managed a fairly thorough tour of Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg without the use of a map, which I am proud of. Oh! The East Side Gallery was totally cleaned up and repainted, so that you can actually see the murals on the wall, which was a huge surprise. We met up with Hilary again for a beer, then headed back up to Bine's, where watched Rambo (a great choice).

Friday, Lauren headed back to her Frisian Island and Bine had to work, so I wandered Berlin alone, unfortunately, the weather was pretty terrible. I am unprepared for a German winter. Upon seeing this, Bine immediately threw a sweatshirt at me for me to borrow and told me to get a jacket. But I got to spend part of Friday sitting in a coffeeshop, watching Berlin walk by, so that was cool. Friday night, Bine and I were sitting in her room watching Der Goldene Kompass, drinking Glühwein and eating chocolate (gotta say, always a good choice). Then Hilary called, "Hey, do you want to go to Poland tomorrow?"

So, Saturday morning, I hopped on a train and ended up having a rainy adventure in Schehzin, Poland. We followed a walking tour map for a bit before discovering that the entire path was actually marked on the sidewalk in red paint. We had lunch at a restaurant whose name translates to The Hut. It was underground, fairly typically traditional Polish decoration, Disco Hits soundtrack, large dancefloor, and, thank God, had a Polish/German/English menu. I still ordered by pointing at the menu. The entire adventure was made much easier by the fact that though all five of us spoke German, Hilary also spoke Polish, which made many things less difficult than they could have been. After everyone else picked up cheap fancy Polish vodka (I am running low on funds), we headed towards Berlin. Only to get off the train at one of bleakest looking train stops ever. The small village of Chorin, home to a large monastery, apparently also offers a golf cart safari. Unfortunately, everything was closed. We walked a couple kilometers through the woods to the monastery, which was totally worth it. We decided the monastery would be the perfect place for a DAG wedding, complete with a jousting tournament.

Our hike back to the train was uneventful, but the train ride featured Glühwein (I could get used to this), cookies, tomatoes and radishes. I knew I was going to be getting home late, by this point. I hung out in the Hauptbahnhof for an hour (less than I though) and hopped a train to Hamburg, then waited another forty minutes for the train to Kiel. I got home around midnight. Highlight of the train ride: two teenagers that I'd seen in the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof arguing getting on the train and sitting a couple rows behind me, arguing loudly for over an hour. Apparently, she'd gone to the bathroom and when she came back, a bus was leaving and she didn't see her friends, so she went to the Hauptbahnhof alone and it was all the dude's fault. I felt sorry for the poor guy. I also felt sorry for EVERYONE ELSE in the train (including me) who had to listen to this. Eventually, they walked off to another car with some friends. When I saw them get off the train in Kiel, the girl was crying and the dude was obviously so tired of the entire thing.

Anyway, I caught one of the last buses to my place and went home and went to bed. This next week, I still don't have school, so I'll have to be productive or something. Cheers.

Lauftag!

You know how most American schools have Field Day to get kids' extra energy out? We had a Lauftag yesterday. A Running Day. There's this big old circular trail behind the school, so we took all the kids out and had them run it. For an hour and a half. I never did learn why, but I played hackysack with some of the boys in my class who'd given up early (I ended up with some 10th graders). This being a sort of rural place, there was a giant petting farm in the middle of track, complete with ponies, turkeys, goats and llamas. My favorite moment was when some of the girls in my group squealed over something silly and the turkey GOBBLED back at them, really loudly. Hilarious.

After that, all the kids went home and we teachers had a meeting. Maybe it's because it was in German, maybe because I'm not a real teacher, but these meetings are not fun. Nor do they seem particularly productive. Ah well. There was free candy passed around, at any rate. And as soon as the meeting got out, it was Fall Break! Two whole weeks without school. Today, I am heading to Hamburg for a few days, and then to Berlin on Tuesday. I am super excited. I'll probably not be online for the week, but I'll be back with updates after that adventure.

Das Leben in Kiel

This morning, I felt sorry for myself because it was a Saturday morning and I had no friends and nothing to do. So, I forced myself to go outside for a while. I intended to go to the grocery store to buy some honey to go with my tea, but instead I got lost. And found a giant farmers market! At this farmer's market, I found apples and kiwis and coffee and bratwurst and honey and a Berliner. It cheered me up remarkably.

I moved into my new apartment on Wednesday. It's not so much an apartment as a room in a dorm, but I like it so far. I've met a couple people so far and they seem nice, but I need to work harder at actually meeting and hanging out with people. Luckily, the kitchen is a community kitchen, so I have to run into people every now and then. I decorated part of my room by putting up a whole bunch of pictures and postcards (hint: I would love more), but I still have a whole wall with almost nothing on it. My room basically has two walls. One "wall" has just the door and is covered by the wardrobe, the other "wall" is the window. So there are only two walls to decorate. I'm also thinking I'll have to buy a big comfy pillow (the one that came with the room is just not doing it) and a lamp of some sort. Maybe I'll try to find Ikea this week.

I discovered an small little Asian food store in my neighborhood, complete with bao and, inexplicably, Ginger Beer. So that was pretty exciting.

A couple friends and I have made plans for our upcoming Fall Break. First, a few days in Hamburg, both for fun and to celebrate the Grinnell-only holiday 10/10. Then, to Berlin! I am very excited to head back to Berlin. Sure, I haven't actually gotten paid yet, but it's Berlin! And Deutsche Bahn is selling 20 Euro tickets to anywhere in Germany this weekend, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of German unification.

In teaching news, I made up a Jeopardy game for my fifth graders just before class that they loved. It was great fun. And I helped my eighth graders with projects on tourist destinations in New York City. This Friday, the school is having a Lauftag. Basically, a running day. There's a big track near the school and all the kids run. They all have to run for at least half an hour and can run for up to an hour and a half. Why this happens, I have yet to figure out.

Oh yes! I am also slowly but surely conquering German bureaucracy! I am an official student at Kiel University, a fun process that involved going to at least three different offices, filling out two forms about my academic history, paying 103 Euro, relinquishing my right to University health insurance and explaining, in German, that yes, I did already fill that out. But now I have a bus pass! Which was the real idea. I am also an official resident of Kiel, which entailed sitting at the Einwohnermeldeamt for at least 45 minutes before I got called into the office, remembering my address in Berlin and trying to figure out the zip code there. Oh, and I got lost in the town hall and found these crazy elevators that were literally continually in motion closets that you stepped onto or off of at the correct floor. Made me a little nervous. But now I live here for real. And I have an appointment to get my Visa. In November. Someday, I'll be an official German resident.

Wohnung!

So, at the last minute (nearly), I have found an apartment! I'll be living here this year. I have no idea what the room looks like, but it has all the furniture I need. And, since it's a Studentenheim, I'm basically living in the dorms again, and each floor has a kitchen and the bathrooms are shared. I'm actually really excited. A friend of mine lives in one of the other houses, and says that it's an amazing opportunity to work on your German, because it's full of students and the landlady doesn't really let you speak English. I move in on Wednesday.

The location is great, close enough to the middle of the city that nothing is out of reach and right next to Schrevenpark, Kiel's version of Central Park. I keep realizing Kiel is a much smaller city than I thought, as I have walked almost the entire thing in the past week or so. I love that all I have to do is turn a corner and then I recognize where I am and can figure out where I need to go.

Next step: bicycle!

Nacktschnecken

I don't think that I have mentioned this yet, but it is important. There are more slugs here than I have ever seen before in my life. And not just a lot of them, these things are huge. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but I would definitely be upset if I stepped on one, and then my entire canvas shoe were covered in slime and slug guts. Even better, the leaves that fall on the ground and are soaking wet because it rains every day, are camouflage for these slimy invaders, so I never really know what I'm about to step on. There are several dead slugs as well, though my CSI skills lead me to believe they were not the victims of my Converse but rather of someone else's bike tire. Something about the way that they were cut in half.

Wohnungen

The first two apartments that I was deciding about both fell through, so I have decided to just go full steam ahead with apartment finding. I am also fairly sure that if I manage to actually accomplish this in Germany, finding apartments in America will be no sweat. Right?

Anyway. I visited two apartments this rainy rainy Friday. I don't actually work on Fridays, so I slept in, showered, looked up apartments on the internet and waited for it to stop raining. Of course, as soon as I was a few 100 feet from the house, it started to rain again. Apparently, it rains a lat here. Something about being directly on the Baltic Sea.

I wandered into town, found a teacher friend of mine, and we hung out on the train ride into the city. We went our separate ways because it was still raining, and she had a bike. I went to the mall to look at shoes. I very nearly bought myself trendy knee-high European boots but have decided that those will have to wait until I have an apartments, as a reward.

After several hours in the mall, I wandered towards the apartments, to see the neighborhoods a bit. The first apartment, with a dude named Merten, was cool. Kind of small, has two cats, my room comes with a loft bed and an armoire, it has a fairly good sized balcony. Merten and I hung out for about an hour, drinking apple juice and talking. So, I hope it went well?

The second, with Andrea and Maike, was much cleaner, a larger room that comes with all of its furniture, a bathroom in the kitchen, an actual cleaning schedule, and pretty fun roommates. I hope this one also went well, because the sublet lasts just about exactly as long as I need it, though it starts a bit late.

Learning from my last mistake, I'm not going to get optimistic. We'll see how it all goes.

In which I am bad at being a grown-up

I realized last night that my favorite shirt, that I have had my mother looking for in my house in Missouri and that I've been trying to remember when I last wore it for days, was left hanging in the closet in my room at Haus Altenberg. That is, at Orientation. Well. That's a problem. How do I get that back?

Raisdorf/Schwentinental/Kiel

Right then. Epic train rides. Like I said, it was raining in Cologne. It actually continued to rain, the entire trip north. I rode to Hamburg with my new friend Lauren, who's on one of the Frisian Islands this year.

We were going to sit with another Fulbrighter, but she got a reserved seat, and we did not. And then all of the seats we found for two cars were reserved, so we just sat down. Luckily, we never got kicked out of our seats.

In Hamburg, I had an 8 minute layover before the train to Kiel, so I ran quickly, after helping a nice old German lady with her suitcase, because she told me to. Despite me carrying a giant pack, a suitcase and a computer bag. Orders from old German women are hard to ignore.

A short one hour train ride to Kiel (realization: I'm only an hour from Hamburg! Day trip!) and then I had one more train one more stop to Raisdorf. I eventually figured it out. I got off the train in Raisdorf and was hoping against hope that someone would come get me and it wouldn't end like that time in Boston. And, sure enough, Rainer Lembke came up to me and said, "Christine McCormick?" I was so excited.

Turns out, he's the dude I was going to be living with, with him and his girlfriend Susanna, who also teaches at the Albert Schweitzer Gemeinschaftschule. They took me home, gave me coffee and ice cream, set me up in the basement room and then cooked me dinner and gave me beer. It was great.

The next morning, I slept too late to make it to school on time, but Rainer came back and picked me up. I got a quick tour of the school, and went to observe a tenth grade class. And by "observe", Rainer tends to mean, "Hey, you take half the class and teach them, and I'll take the other into this other room and teach them." So that was a fun surprise. I also learned (remembered) that German schools have breaks quite often. And that it has been awhile since I've been in a classroom. Experiential education is different from regular education.

After work, I went home and started trying to find an apartment. The school day ends around 1, so I had plenty of time before we went to a book reading. The author was a local farmer who started to put his hilarious rural experiences to paper. Some of it was in Plattdeutsch, a dialect which I did not understand, but everything else I got. There was free food and all the drinks were a euro. Champagne, beer, water, soda. 1 Euro. After the reading - which, by the way, took place with the author sitting on a tractor - we all took a shot with the author. Me, and a bunch of old German villagers, and an author sitting on a tractor.

Saturday, I went to the German villager version of Relays. Awesome. I was the photographer for our village team.

Oh! Friday I also went to a Drachenboot Race which some of our students were in. It's like crew, but less series. And the boats look like dragons. And we discovered Museum sailboats in Kiel.

Sunday was mostly notable because it was the second time in three days that I was invited to take shots with old German villagers. 'Cause that's what you do here, I guess.

This week, I've been teaching (actually observing this time), being introduced to the classes, apartment searching and things like that. The fifth graders are my favorite because they are adorable, enthusiastic and they try so hard, despite their total lack of vocabulary. The hardest thing is pretending that I don't know any German, when, in fact, fifth grader German is pretty much exactly what I understand.

I visited a couple of apartments, and may have one. I am waiting on an e-mail, but I may call him to expedite things, because I don't want to miss it.

Einführungstage

Orientation! It began when some lady with a sign met us in the Cologne Hauptbahnhof and led the 160 of us gathered there to three buses. We put our luggage in a trailer, and climbed aboard. I sat next to John, a fellow Grinnellian, because a familiar face was very nice to see. Plus, we could gossip. The three giant charter buses rumbled through very narrow German village streets and I tried not to actually look out the window and see how close we were to hitting things. Anyway. The bus was raucous as you might expect from 140 Americans, 16 Brits, and a couple Aussies and Kiwis. It was so loud.

John told me that he thought orientation was at a castle. We were both unsure how unlikely or likely that could be. I mean, it's Germany. Why shouldn't it be at a castle? We pulled up to a small complex of buildings, got our luggage out of the trailers and walked to the main building, accompanied by the beautiful music of hundreds of rolling suitcases on cobblestone. Walking up, we saw rising before not a castle, no, but a giant cathedral. Awesome.

We laid down our luggage, carried the heavier stuff down to a basement room and were crammed into a hall for our welcome speech. We were given packets, schedules, keys and roommates and told to shove off until dinner. Turns out, my roommate, Barbara, studied abroad in Dortmund with Lissy, one of Steph's friends from Ames. SMALL WORLD.

For dinner, there were exactly as many seats as there were people, forcing us to meet new people. It was a lot of fun. Not a lot of food, but I think everyone went back to get seconds from the nice German kitchen ladies.

During our intro speech, we were told that because this is a church, we were not allowed alcohol. However, as a program, we were allowed to make an exception and would do so, every night. So one of our classrooms was turned into a bar every night, staffed by former Fulbrighters.

The next morning, we split into our Ländergruppe, or our groups by land or state in Germany (there are 14 of us in Schleswig-Holstein), and went over the school system and our role in the schools. Later, we split into Arbeitsgruppen, work groups, and learned more about the teaching systems. We were told to prepare a lesson for the next day, each of our groups being split again into smaller groups, one group for the Oberstufe (11-13 graders), one for 9-10 graders, one for 7-8th, and one for 5-6th. My group was 11-13 graders and we created a lesson about immigration, especially illegal immigration.

Another night at the classroom bar, and we were told there was going to be a talent show.

In class, we all taught our lessons to our classmates, pretending to be German kids. It was quite fun, except we were quite bad at pretending not to know English. I did get to be Big Ben in a skit about British stereotypes, with two British people in our group, so our accents were great.

The talent show later was awesome. I got roped into playing in the jug band, accompanying John on his banjo. So Lauren and I tuned our water bottles so that we each had one high and one low. I also ended up with a set of spoons to play. Other acts included real talent, like piano playing and slam poetry, and one girl from New Zealand taught us "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" in Maori (Upoko, Pakaiwi, Turi, Waewae), and one girl downed an entire beer and then let out a great belch (Keep in mind the recruiting for the talent show was done at the bar), and a girl did the worm really well and then it was our turn.

We went up and sat down. John took off his shoes and socks and rolled his jeans up to his knees, because "You can't play banjo with shoes on." Lauren and I started the jug band while he proceeded to tell the Cheerio joke. If you don't know it, I won't ruin it for you. But this five minute long joke, accompanied by a jug band and banjo, had everyone laughing. Including me. Then, after the joke, we all stopped, and John played a piece for banjo that he actually wrote, which was cool. After the show, the bar was open again for our last night.

At 6 am Thursday morning, we woke up, stripped our beds, packed, turned in our keys and went to our final breakfast. All in the rain. We walked out to the buses in the rain. We waited for our luggage to be loaded up. In the rain. The entire drive to Cologne it rained. In Cologne, we went our separate ways. Mostly.

Epic train rides, next post.

Wieder in Deutschland

In my first 8 hours in Germany, my passport was not stamped to enter the country, I managed to buy a Bahncard 50 in German at 7:00 local time (1 am my time), I checked into my hostel, I found a giant flea market, I found a summer festival and I found the zoo.

After the zoo, I went back to the hostel, put my bed together and accidentally fell asleep. I woke up when two German girls came into the room. We talked for a bit, then I decided that I should probably go get some dinner to counteract the jet lag. So I watched the night settle over the Rhein while sitting at this little restaurant on the bank, drinking a beer and eating bratwurst. It would have been very romantic, had I any friends there.

The second day, I walked forever. I found the Altstadt (old city), the Cologne Cathedral, a wall built by the Romans in 50 AD and took some cool pictures. Then, I walked over the bridge, which is covered in locks (like actual padlocks) representing anniversaries and things like that. I waited for sunset while enjoying a Kölsch, so that I could take the famous picture of the Cathedral at night, but I was impatient and ended up heading back toward the hostel.

The third day, I had to check out of the hostel by ten, so I sat in a nearby park with all of my luggage, writing in my journal. This was also the first day that I woke up for breakfast. I wandered towards the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), put my suitcase in a locker, bought Pride and Prejudice auf deutsch, and then found the other Fulbrighters, sitting on the floor in the middle of the station, surrounded by luggage.

We all hung out for several hours, having arrived very early. At one point, some of us went outside, and discovered ambulances and EMTs. Apparently, a man had collapsed and died on the steps to the cathedral. We headed back inside, were picked up and loaded into three buses.

Orientation, however, will be another post.