Dark Blue

Let me just say, first off, grocery stores in Germany are a complete joke. I just got back from a shopping trip were I was able to find only half of the things on my grocery list. HALF! Granted, I was at the Rewe near my WG, which is a pathetic grocery store even by German standards, but still. Among the things I couldn’t find: dried banana chips, raisins, baby carrots, peanut butter, string cheese, and get this: eggs. I kid you not! I couldn’t find EGGS in a grocery store. I guess they were sold out, but tell me, when have you EVER been to a grocery store where they were sold out of EGGS? Ridiculous. Perhaps some of the items can be found, and I just don’t know my way around yet. (I swear the eggs were NOT there though. I looked for at least 15 minutes)

Failed shopping trip after failed shopping trip makes me wonder how long it takes to figure out the German grocery store organization. Although, I have a suspicion that Germans themselves don’t really understand it. I know Markus doesn’t. However, since Markus is a guy and doesn’t cook much; I probably can’t use him as an example, huh? Well anyway, close to 5 months isn’t enough time to figure out a small grocery store that I shop in a couple times a week. This is one of the reasons why I’ve been eating the same things all semester. I have about 3-4 meals that I rotate around. It’s getting old and I’ve been putting on weight, so I decided to spice things up a bit and try different foods. (Yes, Corky Porky is finally living up to her name)

I just realized that I should have chosen to do this adventurous shopping trip on some day other than a Monday. Dumb move on my part; Mondays never go smoothly. I had a Referat (presentation) today that I wasn’t well prepared for and a grammar test that I also wasn’t prepared for. This time I actually have a fairly reasonable excuse…well, maybe. I wasn’t in Tübingen at all last weekend. Friday I went to Neuschwanstein with Monica and a couple others and then to Koln on Saturday and Sunday with my history class.

Even though I had already been to Neuschwanstein, I jumped at the invitation to join Monica and her Canadian friend who was visiting. It was either go to a beautiful fairytale castle, or sit in my room and work or a boring Referat all day. Easy choice. Maybe not the most responsible choice, but who makes responsible and academically correct choices while abroad? Exactly. I enjoyed Neuschwanstein just as much as last time if not more due to my excellent traveling buddies. We (ok, mostly I) enjoyed making fun of Monica the whole time for finding the castles and scenic landscapes of Bavaria to be somewhat “ho-hum”. Honestly, Germans have don’t seem to appreciate how beautiful their country is. I didn’t take a TON of pictures this time around because I already had several of the angles in ’05.

Oh… Köln. Well I made it there, but not without a bit of panicking. The bus was to leave the uni building at 7:30 and I realized at 7:20 that the bus I had planned on taking doesn’t run that early on Saturdays. Luckily for me, I live only a 15-minute-RUN from where the bus would pick us up. 15 minutes running and I had only 10. So, I began to run awkwardly with my luggage across town cursing under my breath. WHY hadn’t I been more careful when I checked the bus schedule? I did NOT pay for a trip that I wouldn’t get to go on! WHY can’t the bus simply pick me up in front of my WG like it does for all of the Fichtenweg people?? Finally I made it to the bus stop 8 minutes after they said they would leave. I sighed with relief and collapsed into the seat behind Chris only about a minute before the bus started up and took off. (No, they weren’t waiting on me; I just lucked out.)

When we arrived in Köln that evening, we unloaded our stuff in our rooms and headed straight to dinner. It was the first time I had eaten in a youth hostel and I guess it wasn’t too bad. After dinner I set out to explore Köln on my own a bit before heading back to my room to work on the stupid Referat. I soon found a Starbucks and bought a tasty, long awaited frappaccino. (some say I have a Starbucks radar) On my way back to the youth hostel, I encountered my class heading into the city with the professor. I asked Chris where they were all going and he said, “Oh, they’re showing us were some of the best bars are.” Figures. On every class excursion I’ve gone on so far, we are provided with information about/ directions to bars. Do they ever direct us to the nearest Starbucks? Oh, no! No wonder I don’t make many friends. Almost everyone else studies abroad to party and get wasted in as many different cities as possible. I think there were a few people on the trip that actually felt sorry for me. One person asked me, “so…do you not have any friends in class?” Only, the way he asked it, it sounded more like he thought I have NO friends. Period. I have friends. Very good friends. Most of them, however, are back home in the States. (I miss you guys!)

This Isn’t Go Fish!

Last weekend I finally went on another trip. I went to Eltze (a small town near Hannover) to visit Mark and his family. It was pretty entertaining and I was a bit surprised by how different things were staying with them vs. Monica’s family. I enjoyed Mark’s cousin Gustav. He’s a cheerful, plump, 72-year-old German. He knows a bit of English, but we mostly communicated auf Deutsch. Gustav has trouble saying “please” and it comes out more like “pleahza.” He also doesn’t seem to know that we don’t have the same word for please and you’re welcome like they do in German. So almost every time I said “danke” he responded with “pleahze.” lol. It was cute. Gustav and his wife, Helga, found it incredibly odd that I didn’t load up my bread with butter. Gustav would notice that I left it off and shake his head and tell me “No, no. Butter! Butter! You need butter!” I also got a kick out of how no matter how much Mark and I would eat, it was never enough. “Eat, Eat! More bread? You must eat! You’re so thin! Maybe you’re afraid you’ll get fat like me? Ok…it doesn’t matter. Vodka??” (This stuff was said in German, of course, but I’m translating for those of you who don’t know German) An example of how much they wanted us to eat: After a few rolls, a bratwurst, and 3 steaks, Mark finally insisted that he simply couldn’t eat any more. Gustav was a little disappointed but was at least happy that Mark still wanted to drink.

Friday and Saturday included day trips to Hamburg and Hannover. The landscape and architecture in this area of Germany is a lot different from what I’m used to seeing in the south. The cities were pretty, but I wish the weather had been a little better. It rained off and on the whole weekend. And, judging from the forecast, it will rain for another week still. It has been ridiculously cold lately when you consider its late June and all. I’ve been wearing fleece jackets everyday and I’m still cold. At least in Tübingen I can eat my meals indoors. For some reason, Gustav and Helga always had lunch and dinner outside. I mean… if you have to wear a jacket and drape a blanket over your lap, isn’t that a sign that it’s too cold to eat outdoors?? Apparently not. Oh, silly Germans. :) It was an enjoyable weekend.

Monday wasn’t the greatest. Mondays are always kind of exhausting for me because I have class for 7 hours straight with only a few little breaks. In the SAME classroom. Bleh. Maybe the reason I can’t motivate myself to work on my literature Referat is due to the fact that I’m still getting over exhaustion from Monday. I love how my brain gets fried the very first day of the week. How convenient!

Markus left a little bit ago. I swear that guy is going to eat me out of house and home! lol. Just kidding. I prefer cooking for more than just myself. After lunch we played Scrabble auf Deutsch for a bit. I figured it would be easier playing with a German because they would be able to open the board up a bit. Well, Markus had never played Scrabble and kept trying to bend the rules. At one point I said, “Man, I could really use an ‘s’.” He then hands me one of his tiles and asked me if I had an “e”. I was just like, “This isn’t Go Fish, Markus!”

Erinner' mich wie wir am kleinen Schlossplatz 'rum gesessen sind

Well, my original plans for the weekend sort of fell through, but that’s okay. It has been nice to rest after a busy week. On Tuesday Markus came over for lunch, and then I went to a movie with Monica later in the evening. We saw Der Womanizer. It wasn’t very good, but it was in German and it was an interesting experience. In Germany you have to buy as specific seat in the theater. So, the closer you sit to the screen, the cheaper your ticket is. I don’t like that because I can’t stand sitting close to the screen…

Alyssa and I decided to take a short day trip to Bad Urach on Wednesday because it is included in our Tübingen semester tickets. Bad Urach is a small town about an hour away by train and is known for its waterfalls. After checking out the town of Bad Urach and grabbing lunch at a bakery, we set off to find the waterfall. As luck would have it, the signs along the trail didn’t provide directions to the waterfall! Instead we came across signs explaining things such as the water cycle. Sweet, we’re lost in the woods, but at least we know that water evaporates and forms clouds! Awesome, just awesome. After about an hour or more of hiking through the woods with out luck, we decided we must be on the WRONG mountain. So… we went back in the direction of town to find a trail on the other mountain. Luckily, we managed to find the correct trail this time. However, the directions posted along the trails were rather confusing. In the end, we found the waterfall. It was a nice and scenic walk, but I think my body would have preferred knowing the shortest route from the get go!

Thursday Alyssa, Stephanie and I hopped on a train to Freiburg. I had been interested in seeing Freiburg since before I got to Germany because I had considered studying there at one time. Freiburg is the “capital” of the Black Forest. We mainly just wondered around and sampled some fantastic black forest cake. It was a beautiful city and it had a couple of Starbucks, but I’m still glad I chose to study in Tübingen!

Friday was also fairly busy for me. I met up with Markus in Stuttgart for the first part of the day and then met up with Alyssa and Stephanie again to go to IKEA. I had been very curious about this massive home décor store for quite awhile. I don’t know if I was simply too tired, or what, but I didn’t find it that exciting. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I would have to ship anything that I bought back to the States and… idk, it just wasn’t worth it. I think I surprised the others because I didn’t buy a single thing at IKEA. It’s pretty unheard of I guess, but I only have 2 months left… I can deal with what I already have.

Beste Zeit deines Lebens

Sorry about May... I kind of just took it easy last month and didn’t have much exciting news/ travel adventures to report. It looks as if my last 2 months (Is that REALLY all I have left???) will be a little more exciting.

Last Friday I hung out with Monica, her boyfriend, and his roommate. We went to the outlet mall in Metzingen for the afternoon. (I’m quite proud to say that I didn’t buy a single thing!) Once we got back to Tübingen, Alex (Monica’s boyfriend) made this really amazing Indian dish for dinner. It was nice to spend time with a group of Germans again, but also very mentally exhausting for me... Especially trying to listen to Daniel because he speaks REALLY fast. Even other Germans think he speaks too fast.

I woke up bright and early Saturday for the day trip to Basel, Switzerland. The exchange student group organized the trip so that it cost only 16 Euro per person! I can’t get over how cheap and quickly you can reach another country. Insane! Since I still have some Swiss-francs left, I decided I need to fit in another trip back to Switzerland before the end of the semester! Dad suggested exchanging it for Euros, but that’s a silly idea. (Sorry, Dad). I guess I will just have to suffer through a trip to Zurich or something in order to spend the rest of my Swiss-francs. ;)

Yesterday I went over to Alyssa’s to make travel plans and then to Stephanie’s for game night. We played Apples to Apples and enjoyed s’mores with a group of 4 Americans and 2 Germans. Making the s’mores turned out to be pretty entertaining. One of the German girl’s marshmallows caught on fire, and she started waving the stick around like crazy sending the flaming marshmallow flying through the air. The whole episode brought up the question: “I wonder if anyone has ever accidentally burned a WG down while trying to make s’mores?” Well, luckily, we didn’t burn anything down, and had an enjoyable evening. The game was in English, so now I’m on the look out for German games such as Äpfel zu Äpfeln and Scrabble auf Deutsch! I think those would make really good souvenirs!

As for my plans this week, thus far I intend to go to Bad Urach, Freiburg, Zurich, and see a German movie in the theater with Monica. Part of me wants to travel like crazy for my last two months abroad; and the other part of me wants to just stick around Tübingen and hang out with Germans, so I can improve my German as much as possible while I still can. I’ve heard that people who study abroad for only one semester start to feel really comfortable speaking German right around the time they have to leave! That’s probably going to happen to me…I need more time!!!