Clayton Wollner

And So The Rest Of The Story Begins

2012-07-14T18:23:00.001+02:00

My trusty bicycle and I. One last ride.

I need to write a very important post...a post that needs to be written right now while the feelings I am feeling are still fresh within me. You have been officially warned. What I am about to write is worthy of the Lifetime channel and I am about to get a little "Oprah" on you. I am gonna be sappy and emotional and if you don't like it then YOU should probably live in Germany for a year and see how you feel when you are about to leave. A post like this can never really be written after the fact; the feelings one experiences are almost indescribable at the time and almost fully impossible to describe afterwards. I am, of course, talking about the fact that it is my last day here in Magdeburg and my second last day in Germany. Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday I was in Radolfzell thinking to myself, "Wow, only one month into this journey. I still have almost 11 more months to enjoy in Germany. That is so much time!" Well one month turned into two, two into four, four into ten, and ten into almost twelve. Now I am writing one of my last blog posts in my almost empty room in Magdeburg. All of my things are packed up, save my trusty computer.

When I first arrived in Magdeburg, it seemed I would never reach this place of feeling sadness when leaving it. At the time, that thought was unthinkable. As soon as I arrived in Magdeburg, the weather started to turn cold and all the friends I had made in Radolfzell had somehow been removed from my daily life. I thought that Magdeburg had nothing to offer me...when really it had more to offer me than I could ever imagine. Let me explain...

When I lived in Radolfzell, I lived in an absolute paradise. I lived in a picturesque little town nestled right on the largest lake in Germany. On a clear day, you could see the Alps and in 30 minutes I could set foot in Switzerland. This was the Germany I had dreamt about and wanted to experience. In those two months, I had gotten everything I had expected. When I moved to Magdeburg, I experienced a huge reality check. Magdeburg is a part of former East Germany. It was almost completely destroyed in WWII and was rebuilt under Soviet influence. Because of being rebuilt under Soviet influence, the buildings are all very plain, flat, and industrial looking. The streets are wider than you ever thought a street should be and the land itself is very flat which makes the plain buildings the only thing you can see when you are standing in the city. I found myself almost immediately opposed to living in Magdeburg but told myself, "Clayton, are you really that shallow? Just because Magdeburg isn't 'pretty' it doesn't mean it is a bad place to live." I tried to suck it up and prosper but I always found this sadness creeping into me...at times I even felt envy. I felt envy towards the other people in my program who were placed in, what I considered, attractive, lively places to live like Berlin, Munich, Cologne, or anywhere else really. The one thing Magdeburg had going for it was my awesome host family and my good friend Joe. Magdeburg doesn't have much to do and I found myself getting pretty darn bored. It turns out, however, that I am not the only person in Magdeburg who feels this way. Many of the students who study at the University in Magdeburg leave when they are finished with their studies because they do not want to live in Magdbeurg or Sachsen-Anhalt (the state that Magdeburg is in) for that matter. This is creating a serious problem for Magdeburg. The city has a decreasing population and all those smart, educated kids that get their education in Magdeburg leave and take all of their bright, new ideas with them and benefit other cities in the West. Magdeburg, and most of former East Germany are still recovering from DDR times. Time stood still during DDR time and former East Germany was not able to grow with the rest of Germany when it was separated for all of those years. They need those kids to stay with their education and new ideas. I hope, in time, this difference between East and West Germany will diminish and ALL of Germany can move towards the same future.

So there I was, feeling sorry for myself because I didn't get the Germany that I wanted. I traveled on the weekends to visit other program participants and that made things a little bit better. Traveling reminded me, however, that, even though I was not in my ideal city, I was still in Germany and had so many wonderful things to see. This was probably the beginning of the turning point for me. I started to realize that Magdeburg was not my favorite place in the world but that it was still a part of Germany. Before I left the states I thought to myself, "Get to know Germany Clayton. Experience as much of Germany as you can and embrace it." Well guess what? To embrace something wholeheartedly, you have to embrace the good and the bad. I love Germany and to truly love and embrace this country, I had to embrace all parts of it. The cities I do like and the cities I don't like; it's wonderful present and future but also its dark past. These things all make up Germany and I was beginning to realize that.

As many of you know, my program consists of studying at a Germany University for 5 months and then interning at a German company after the semester portion. During the semester portion, I kind of just went to class and didn't really take much in because I was sad about where I was living. I would travel on the weekends and slowly started to realize that I was still in Germany and that I could still see and experience lots of things while I was in Germany. By the end of my semester in German I was not quite fully there to totally embracing Magdeburg and still did not like it. My internship search in Magdeburg was turning out little results. In my defense, former East Germany has less dynamic, interesting jobs than the West (for now at least) because of all the kids running away from it. So I was unable to find an ideal internship match for me in Magdeburg. I had met someone whose father was a professor in a city called Aachen some time before my internship search. When I couldn't find anything in Magdeburg, I contacted her and asked if her father had any internship spots available. Long story short, I ended up getting an internship offer in Aachen working with a Biology workgroup at the University in Aachen. After some emails and conversations with some supervisors in my program, I was approved to move to Aachen. I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited to experience a new part of Germany. Aachen is as far West as you can get in Germany. It is literally on both the borders of Belgium and Holland. I was of course sad to be leaving Magdeburg, my host family, and Joe but happy to have gotten a good internship in an exciting new city.

Aachen was great. It was hilly with little streets to explore and the city is a University city. 50,000 people out of 250,000 were students. It was a cool vibe and I really liked it. I lived in an apartment with two other guys. They were really cool and it was neat to be able to speak German with them on a daily basis. They were my age so we had some of the same interests. We even made Bloody Marys one night. My internship in Aachen was okay...a bit boring at times. They set me up making Excel spreadsheets of information a lot of times but it was okay. Once, I got to go into the woods for 10 hours and helped look for woodpeckers with a radio that played woodpecker noises. Aachen was great but I did miss my host family and Joe back in Magdeburg and I had this overwhelming feeling that I didn't "belong" in Aachen. I kept thinking to myself, "Clayton, you were placed in Magdeburg not Aachen."

One day in Aachen, I checked my email to see an email from a professor at the University in Magdeburg. Something had panned out with an internship there that didn't pan out before I left for Aachen. I was offered an internship in Magdeburg at the University. It was an internship that was comparable to the one I already had in Aachen. What was I to do? I now lived in a German city that was exactly like the German cities I had envisioned but now had a good internship offer in Magdeburg when the only reason I left Magdeburg in the first place was because I couldn't find a good internship. I could just not tell my program about it and stay in ignorant bliss in Aachen. However, ever since I left Magdeburg, I kept feeling like I had given up on something...that I had ended something too soon. The going got tough so I got going...I quit Magdeburg when I never really gave it a chance. Not to mention that I had a host family back in Magdeburg that signed up for this program just like I did and wanted to experience another culture through me just how I wanted to experience another culture through them. I did not want to cut that experience short for them. I have never considered myself a quitter before and finally realized that Magdeburg was the right place for me to be even if it wasn't the easiest place for me to be. So, after living in Aachen for almost exactly one month, I packed up all of my belongings once more and headed back to Magdeburg to finish what I started.

In the following months, I realized that was the best thing for me to do. My internship was really good for me. I got lots of lab experience. I worked in a lab that studies cow samples (cow poo) and worked towards making methane production more efficient. Methane is a renewable source of energy and can be used to power things instead of using coal or gasoline. Not the most glamorous job I have ever had but working towards a goal like that, that could help the planet, made me feel really good. I gained lots of practical lab skills. I am now a master at using micropipettes and can label even the smallest plastic tube with my hand tied behind my back.

Outside of work, I was beginning to see Magdeburg transform. The weather was getting nicer and Magdeburg was really turning into a beautiful city. The parks in Magdeburg are really great and Magdeburg is a cyclist's paradise. The flat terrain allows you to bike easily through the city and the wide streets allowed for plenty of room for bicycle lanes. I started to ride my bike to and from work everyday and the fresh air and green landscape helped me appreciate Magdeburg. By the near end of my time in Magdbeurg, I actually played hookie at work so that I could ride my bike around the city and take pictures all day. I was also beginning to realize that Magdeburg really had given me everything I wanted to get out of this experience. I wanted to learn more about German culture and I wanted to improve my German. I accomplished both of those things by living in Magdeburg. In fact, I would almost say that my German was better than it would have been had I lived in another city. Since Magdeburg was not what you would call a "tourist hotspot" not that many people know amazing English and there a very very few native English speakers in the city.

During my time in Magdeburg, I got to hear some very interesting stories about how things were in former East Germany and got to have a truly unique experience. There are very few Americans in Magdeburg. It is just not the place that people consider when they decide to study abroad. Because of that, I got to have a German experience that very few people will ever have. I am truly grateful for that. I always considered myself a pretty strong, resilient person before this program but Magdeburg really put that to the test. I experienced untold personal growth during this year. I am still not 100% sure of all the things Magdeburg has taught me that I will be able to use in the future but I am pretty sure even 20 years down the road I will be using what Magdeburg has taught me without even really realizing it. What's really special about Magdeburg is that it is ugly...on the outside. Now hear me out on this one. If you look really closely though and I mean really closely, you realize just how beautiful Magdeburg is. In fact, in order to appreciate Magdeburg's beauty you have to look so closely at and so deeply into it that you end up looking inside yourself and discovering things about yourself. I mean honestly. Really what makes you happy? It's not having mountains, old churches, or a beautiful city to look at is it? If it is, then you are a pretty darn shallow person...I must say, however, that I was that person at the beginning of my time in Magdeburg. I was so torn up about what Magdeburg did not have that I did not appreciate what it did have to offer me; a great friend, a wonderful host family, and a truly unique German experience. My first week in Magdeburg, I went on a very small, very short city tour. We came across the statue in the center of the city that basically represents the city. I was not able to fully appreciate it at the time but now can fully appreciate it and even relate to it. The statue is of two horses pulling one ball in opposite directions. The ball is actually a vacuum and the statue represents the experiment that Otto-Von-Guerricke (the university is named after him) conducted during which he discovered and proved the existence of the vacuum. Yes, the vacuum was allegedly discovered in Magdeburg. What is special about this statue is that one side looks like a traditional statue and the other side is open so that you can see the framework inside that supports the statue. This statue represents that everything has a purpose and that even beneath a seemingly beautiful outer shell, there lies a less beautiful support system but without this support system the statue would most likely fall or be quickly damaged. Functionality is not always beautiful but it is needed. You need function AND beauty. In Magdeburg, the functional part is way more apparent than the beauty (wide streets, plain industrial buildings, and a flat landscape that lends itself well to agriculture and wind energy production) BUT the beauty is still there. You just have to look!

The pretty side of the statue.

Other side that shows the functionality.

So, is Magdeburg my favorite city in the world? I would probably say no...BUUUUT because of all the things that Magdeburg represents to me and has given me, it is very special to me. I learned so much about myself and about Germany in Magdeburg and I got to live with the best host family anyone could ever ask for and I got to experience the crazy city of Magdeburg with my very good friend Joe. I think it is safe to say that our 9 months together in Magdeburg has made an unbreakable bond that only people who have lived in Magdeburg can really ever understand. The city makes you go a little crazy...in a good way.

With all that said, I think you can understand why I am sad to be leaving Magdeburg. It has been the definition of a passionate experience. The lows were really low and the highs were pretty darn high. I can safely say that Magdeburg has become a home for me so leaving it will not be easy. Leaving Magdeburg and Germany is almost harder than when I left the states. When I left the states, I knew that in one year's time I would be returning. Sure some things will have changed by the time I return but, for the most part, the life I left in Wisconsin is waiting for me. Leaving Magdeburg is harder because I do not know when I will be able to return and, if I do, it will probably not be for very long. Magdeburg is a dear friend of mine that will probably never again be a part of my everyday life even though it is so meaningful to me. Sure, Magdeburg and I will share the occasional letter or phone call and even the not so occasional visit but it will never again be a part of my daily life as it was for the past 9 months. It is really something that only someone who has sudied abroad for an extended period of time can understand. I have tried to explain it the best I could but I know a website that can do it much better. Recently I saw a Thought Catalog entry going around on the internet that pretty much perfectly explains what it is like. It would be silly for me to try and replicate these thoughts in my own words when they are already explained so well. The entry was written by a woman named Chelsea Fagan who is a writer living in Paris. Here is the link to her entry:
Thought Catalog What Happens When You Live Abroad

Once you have lived away from your home for as long as I have, you can search and search the house you are leaving abroad looking for things you may have forgotten to pack. This attempt is futile...you will never ever be able to pack up all of the things you have in your home away from home. I am not talking about tangible objects or even things you can ascribe a name to...you will always leave something behind that you can't quite put your finger on...a feeling...a piece of your heart...a memory. This is not to say I will walk through the rest of my life feeling like half a person. I will will have many moments of 100% fulfillment, but, as the Thought Catalog mentions, with every accomplishment, celebration, or memory I will have in the United States, I will forever wonder what I am missing back in my second home in Germany because a piece of me will always reside there...the piece of me that I looked desperately for while packing but also the piece that was never meant to return home with me. It would have been really easy to title this last post "The End" but that is so out of fashion and entirely too final for me. At the risk of sounding wayyyyy too predictable, I really do need to say that the end of this year is not an end but only the beginning of the rest of my story. When I started this program I thought to myself, "This is 'it' Clayton. This is the most important year of your life. Live it up since you probably won't have a another year like this. Make it count." I realize now that I was partially right. This year will probably remain one of the most important years of my life but this is not "it" whatever that even means. This will not be my last time in Germany and this year has really only opened countless doors for me. The only issue for me now is deciding which one of the wonderful paths before me I want to take.

Zu Familie Dulz, (Sonja, Konrad, Christian, Andreas, Katrin, und Oma Ruth) herzlichen Dank für eure Gastfreundshaft und für die Offnung eures Hauses zu mir. Meine Zeit in Magdeburg war etwas ganz besonderes für mich. Es ist meine deutsche Heimat. Ich bin echt ein Magdeburger Kind.

Euere Spatz,
-Clayton-

To my family back home (Michael, Brooke, Dad, Danni, Lilly, Jolene, Nana, and all the others that are too long to name), thank you for being so supportive of this journey of mine...or should I say ours. You guys have been with me the entire time and thank you for patiently waiting for my return. It is almost here. Love you guys.

-Clayton-

Abschluss Seminar

2012-06-23T16:35:00.000+02:00

So I just recently returned from a week in Berlin. My program had a mandatory end of year seminar there. Normally the word "mandatory" would denote something boring, stuffy, or unenjoyable. My week in Berlin was anything but that. It was one of best times I have ever had. If you can survive waking up early for what my program had planned for us, then you can have a ton of fun in your free time in Berlin. Now, I am no stranger to Berlin. I have been there countless times while living in Germany. Besides the people who actually live in Berlin, the people who live in Magdeburg (like me) live the closest out of anyone in the program. Lucky us! But having the other 73 participants in Berlin together gave it a new light for me. We all arrived on Tuesday and basically just checked in to our hostel. I was lucky because my last name falls at the end of the alphabet so I only had 5 people in my room as opposed to 7 or 8. Shortly after checking in, our program took us to a nearby restaurant and we got to eat dinner fo free! After dinner we got to do whatever we wanted. A bunch of us decided to go to this wine place where you pay 2€ for a wine glass. You can then drink as much wine as you want and pay only about 2€ per glass. The thing is, this place does not keep track of how many glasses you drink. It is the honor system so you pay what you think you should at the end. Dangerous huh? We had a fabulous evening and really enjoyed each other's company.

Wednesday was pretty uneventful in the morning. We attended an intercultural seminar where we got to reflect on our year abroad and do group activities. Later that night, there was a big soccer game. It was Germany against the Netherlands. Okay, so when there is a big soccer game like that, there is what is called a Fanmeile (Fan Mile) by the Brandenburg Gate. So we got to watch the game on huge screens in the street in front of the Brandenburg gate. Yes, you heard me right. I got to watch the soccer game on a huge screen...in the street...surrounded by crazy German fans...IN FRONT OF THE BRANDENBURG GATE! How fricken cool is that? If that was the only interesting thing I did this whole year abroad I would have been happy. It was so cool and, on the way into the Fanmeile, we all got a bunch of free swag. I got a Thomas Müller T-shirt, a Thomas Müller scarf, and a leis with German flag colors. When I left to go to the game, I had no indications on my person that I was rooting for Germany...by the time I got into the Fanmeile, I looked like a fanatic German. It was so cool! Germany won, of course, and the celebrations continued throughout the city of Berlin. I guess, whenever Germany wins a big game like that, Kudamm Straße basically shuts down because there is just a huge gathering of people there. Kudamm Straße is short for Kurfürstendamm Straße. So that is where my group headed and it was basically a big mosh pit with crazy people. I, of course, joined in the insanity for about 5 minutes and then safely walked away. Before you gasp and fear for my life after reading that I was in a mosh pit for five minutes, please remember that I survived New Year in Berlin when drunk people were lighting fireworks off in their hands in every direction at street level. If I can survive that without a scratch, I am pretty sure I can survive anything. You also forget, that living in Magdeburg has given me mad street cred.

Me and the gang decked out in our free swag! The Brandenburg Gate is on the background!

My awesome Thomas Müller T-Shirt. His head is on the inside of the shirt so that you can flip it up when he makes a goal. Thomas Müller is a very well known soccer player in Germany. He plays for FC Bayern. This is my favorite shirt of all time.

Thursday we were treated to a 3 hour long boat tour of Berlin. I actually really enjoyed it what with the fresh air and all but it did get a little boring after the first 1.5 hours. It was also pretty chilly out that day so we were all a little cold. It was on the Spree river in Berlin. I got some cool picks but mainly just saw some pretty cool graffiti on building and the Berlin wall. That night, however, something amazing happened to me...one might even say life changing. Our program treated us to a live performance called LOFT by Seven Fingers. I was kind of "whatever" about the whole thing at first. Being a retired thespian myself, I can appreciate live performance but I couldn't help but wonder what else I could be doing that night. Boy am I glad that our program took us to see that performance. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen...ever. It was like Cirque du Soleil on crack with really good music. There are seven performers and they all did at least one performance of their own where they either hang from the ceiling by ribbons, juggle like 10 balls at once, contort themselves, or do something else completely unbelievable with their bodies. I was in awe for 2 hours and I would watch that show on repeat for the rest of my life if I could. I have never seen human beings make art with their bodies like that...not to mention you can't stop thinking about what amazing athletes they are to do what they do. I literally told someone afterwards, and I quote, "It was like they were entertaining my soul."I stand by what I said...it was that good. Okay, I am rambling. That was my life changing experience. Here is the link to the show LOFT. The show is currently playing in Berlin but keep an eye on it to see if they will come to the US. I am sure the other shows put on by Seven Fingers are also amazing so if anything by Seven Fingers is ever being performed near you, GO TO IT! After the performance, we all headed back to the hostel because we had a very important day the next day. We were gonna go to the German Bundestag! The Bundestag is the German equivalent of congress.

Okay, so Friday we all went to the German Bundestag. We had to wake up ridiculously early in order to get through all the security and still be able to see the Bundestag. The great thing about this day is that it was a CBYX day. What I mean by that is there were people from my program for young professionals AND people from the high school program. You may recall that I mentioned that there are separate college and high school programs within the CBYX program. Participants from the separate programs rarely cross paths simply because we are all doing our own thing. You may also recall that I applied to the high school program when I was in high school and got REJECTED so it was weird to see those kids standing where I almost stood. I am glad that I got rejected from the high school program though. If I hadn't, I would not have met all the amazing people I met this year or have experienced what I did. So we got to sit in on a Bundestag session which was about some kind of renewable energy. The room was very warm, I was tired, and the topic was less than thrilling so my eyelids got real heavy for the half an hour we were listening to the session. In my defense, I never actually fell asleep but oh man did I want to. There was also no opportunity for coffee that morning since we had to be on a bus so early. After the session we got to have a Q&A with some of the big shots in the Bundestag including the American Ambassador to Germany. It was cool. Some of those high schoolers were speaking pretty awesome German...and some of them were just plain acting like...ummm...high schoolers. After the Q&A, we got to eat an amazing lunch complete with Magnum ice cream bars that were served to you by a waiter on a platter. Did that really happen? After that, we got to have an open air meet and greet at the American Embassy across the street. It was lovely weather and it was great to speak English so freely. At the American Embassy we basically learned a lot about the Foreign Service and how to get a job in the Foreign Service. We also had some fun. There was a competition to see who could come up with the craziest German word that is actually used by Germans. Someone from my group won with "Schweinsteiger" which literally means "pig mounter" but it also happens to be the last name of a very well known soccer player for FC Bayern. I would have submitted my word but you had to submit through social media and I had no internet access on my prehistoric phone. My word was "Beuteltier"which literally translates as "bag animal" but actually means "marsupial". How crazy is that? Those Germans have some of the most literal words I know of. After the embassy we were free to do what we wanted and we enjoyed our last night in Berlin.

Saturday we had a very short presentation in the morning and then it was all over. As soon as we started the seminar, we were finished with it. I don't think 5 days has ever gone by so fast. I chose to stay in Berlin for a couple of hours longer with some other people. I had my heart set on going to the Ritter Sport store in Berlin. If you don't know what Ritter Sport is, shame on you. They are these amazing chocolate bars that are made in Germany and have a gazillion different varieties. My family has gotten to know Ritter Sport very well because I send Ritter Sport bars home as often as possible. You can buy Ritter Sport in the states but you can only find 3 or 4 varieties. There are so many varieties and even seasonal winter and summer varieties. The big seller right now is white chocolate coconut. At this Ritter Sport store, you can make your very own Ritter Sport chocolate bar. They have all of these fun ingredients to choose from and you can pick out up to 3 to put into your chocolate bar. I made two very fun chocolate bars. I made a dark chocolate bar with chile and pepper. The spicy ingredients are supposed to go well with dark chocolate. I also made a white chocolate bar with marshmallows, sprinkles, and gummy bears. I know the spicy one will be different but how often can you say you ate a piece of chocolate with pepper and chile in it? It is an experience. I can eat "normal" chocolate whenever I want.

That's my white chocolate bar she is making with gummy bears, sprinkles, and marshmallows!

So many ingredients!

So after Ritter Sport, I headed to the train station and headed back to Magdeburg...and so ended one of the best weeks of my life. It was amazing and too short but I am so happy to have had it.

First Soccer Game

2012-06-18T21:57:00.000+02:00

I went to my first soccer game at the end of February. I had watched soccer on television a couple of times but had never been to a game before. Magdeburg has a team called FC Magdeburg. I am trying to have pride for my team but they really are pretty bad. They lose all the time. I hope they get better. I am holding out for those kids not just because I live in Magdeburg but also because their colors are blue and white and I would really love to proudly wear an FC Magdeburg scarf. It would look so cute around my pretty little neck. Anyway, I was never really a sports person but I think I could really enjoy more games in the future. Soccer is great. More action than football and baseball combined (in my opinion) and the games are short enough for me to stay focused the entire game. The particular game I went to was in Magdeburg. We had almost one. The score was 2:1 Magdeburg at the end of the game but then in 5 minutes or so of Nachzeit (overtime) the other team scored. For a second I was a little scared. Magdeburg is not used to their team winning so to have the taste of victory so close only to have it torn away was almost too much for the people in the stands to bare. They were really angry. The day, was great though. It was a clear sunny day and it was just fun to sit in the stands, chat, and watch the game.

Schwarzwald

2012-06-18T21:56:00.000+02:00

While on the way home from Radolfzell, we had to go through the Black Forest. You can imagine our fear considering that our last trip in the Black Forest consisted of me fearing for my very life. This particular day that we travelled through the Black Forest by train, we encountered no weather problems and we were able to stay safe and warm in our train. Nothing really eventful happened on this trip, thank goodness, but I wanted to take some pictures through the train window to show you a little what riding through the Black Forest is like. The pictures do not do it justice but I did my best. The Black Forest is way more idyllic but the really great pictures were always ruined by a tree in the way or the train going way too fast and the picture being blurry and the weather was really crummy.

Birthday in Germany!

2012-06-18T18:07:00.000+02:00

As many of you know, I recently celebrated the big 2-4. My birthday in Germany was wonderful. It was one of those days where so many little wonderful things happened that the day just ended up being spectacular. The weather was perfect and every walk signal turned green as I approached it on my bike ride to and from work. Work was great as well. Yes, I worked because I honestly did not see a reason not to. I didn't tell my coworkers that it was my birthday until the day of because I didn't want any commotion. Once they found out it was my birthday though, they dashed off to the university cafeteria and bought me a chocolate muffin as a makeshift birthday cake. That was so nice of them and I really appreciated it. Work was very relaxed that day and I got out early and enjoyed the weather. When I returned home from work, I found a birthday card waiting for me. It was from my grandmother. I don't know how she does it but as long as I can remember, she has always mailed my birthday cards on the exact right day so that I end up getting them on my birthday...and this year was no exception. I don't know how she does it but at over 90 years old, she somehow knew when to send my birthday card so that I would receive it exactly on my birthday even though I am over 4,000 miles away from home. That night my host family and I had Greek food and ate outside because the weather was perfect. My friend Joe also came over and ate with us. My host family got me a German breakfast set as my gift. I got 4 egg cups (to place your egg in while you eat it out of the shell), 4 egg spoons (little spoons to eat your soft-boiled egg out of the shell with), 4 small breakfast boards (these are literally small plastic boards that you eat your breakfast off of), and an egg cracker (a fun device that perfectly cracks the top of the egg shell off). My friend Joe also got me a little something that included my favorite flavored beer in Germany; Birne-Ingwer Schöfferhofer. It's beer that tastes like ginger and pear. The stuff is only 2.5% alcohol so calling it beer is kind of a stretch. I also got to fit in a Skype session with my dad and got other messages from friends and family. As I said, it was just a wonderful day filled with many things that I am still thankful for.

Presents! Side note, "Gift" in German means poison...my host family did not get me any poison.

My host family and I were treated to a beautiful evening sky.

My favorite Bier!

Amsterdam

2012-06-08T01:25:00.001+02:00

Ever since I found out I would be living in Germany for a year, I made it my goal to go to Amsterdam just once. Who doesn't want to go to Amsterdam? You don't even need to partake in the craziness to enjoy it...simply witnessing the craziness was enough for me. Well I finally got my wish. I went to Amsterdam the weekend before my 24th birthday as a early celebration of sorts. It was great. Three friends and I decided to rent an apartment for three nights instead of getting a hostel because hostels can be expensive in Amsterdam. If you can get enough friends to come with, renting an apartment for the weekend can be just as affordable as getting a hostel. *Disclaimer* As it is an important and interesting part of Amsterdam's past and present, I DO mention prostitutes in this post but don't worry, no pictures and no personal experience on my part.

Our apartment was the perfect size with everything we needed. It had a bed big enough for two people to share, a fold out couch, and a fold away bed. So nobody had to sleep on the floor. I took the fold away bed...it was the most comfortable bed I have ever slept on. I tried to figure out a way I could fold it up and take it with me but it was just too big. The name of the apartment was Plancius Bed and Breakfast. I highly recommend it if you are in Amsterdam and have at least four people. It is within walking distance of everything but away from all the craziness on a quiet little street.

We made every breakfast and dinner we ate to save money...plus we had some great cooks on the trip. I let them cook and then I washed all the dishes as my part.

Self timer semi-success. We christened the apartment by having a glass of wine.

The first day we explored the city on our own and the second day we took the SANDEMANs New Europe free tour. Both days allowed us to get some great pictures.

Group photo.

Just ridin' the tram.

You have to take a picture in a giant clog when in Amsterdam.

Holland is now officially the tallest country in the world...they have the tallest people on average. This is ironic because their houses are also very tall and narrow. Space was expensive in Amsterdam so people built up. Because the houses are so tall and narrow the stair cases are frighteningly narrow and steep...I wonder how all those tall people get up and down the stairs. The houses are also built on a slant and usually have a hook on the very top. This is because people wanted to store their goods in their attics but their doors and staircases were too narrow to carry stuff to the attic. To remedy this, the people built pulley systems at the top of their houses. The forward tilt of the house was to prevent the heavy goods from hitting the house and wrecking it...afterwards, the people realized that they could have just built the pulley further away from the house. Oh well, it is cool to see tilting houses.

Do you see the hooks at the top?

We found the "I AMsterdam" sign! Dogs be playin' in the water behind me.

Group shot on the "S" and "T"!

Magdebruderly love. If you don't get it...you never will.

Dam Square is where it is at. It is basically the center of the city where everything goes on and where people just chill out.

The National Monument of Amsterdam. It is a WWII memorial and is located in Dam Square.

This is a church in the middle of the Red Light District. This is no coincidence. I would call it a symbiotic relationship. The prostitutes did not have modern technology way back when to tell time so they needed the church's bells (which rang every 15 minutes) within earshot so that they could time their sessions. The church also made lots of money by being in this location because men would immediately buy indulgences after their shack-ups with prostitutes so that they would not go to Hell. So it was a win win for both. Our tour guide told us that the oldest prostitute in Amsterdam is 83 years old...and she has a 2 week waiting list. Crazy! No pictures of prostitutes for a couple of reasons. A) Why would I want a picture of a prostitute? and B) If the prostitute sees you taking a picture of them they will open their door and will try to break your camera or they will throw a cup of pee at you.

Amsterdam is great. Normally in Europe there is no way to go to the bathroom for free but Amsterdam has these outside stalls. No running water but still awesome if you really have to go. Sorry ladies, there is not a women's version.

We got to see Anne Frank's house...the line went around the block so we opted to just walk by it.

I almost forgot to mention that our apartment had a balcony and we could see our neighbors balcony...they had the creepiest looking cat ever. It's yellow eyes would burn a hole in your soul if you dare make eye contact with it for more than 10 seconds.

Look away!

In Amsterdam you will see XXX on flags, coat of arms, and in many other places. At first, you would think that the triple X is very obvious. It's because of all he sex, porn, and drugs that the city represents right? The answer is yes and no. The triple X's origins are much older than people think. It's origins are not 100% known but you can hear a bunch of stories as to it's origins but one thing is for sure...it is an old symbol. One of the stories I heard was that it was the three crosses of St. Andrew. St. Andrew was a 1st century AD fisherman who was apparently crucified on an X-shaped cross. There are other stories as well but the modern meaning has, of course, become that of all the "naughtiness" that Amsterdam represents. And no, it does not represent the horrible movie XXX that Vin Diesel starred in. Even Amsterdam wouldn't be associated with that.

We knew it would probably be lame but you can't go to Amsterdam without doing a canal tour. Amsterdam's canals are famous and you need to ride around in a boat in them. The water is terribly dirty so Lord help anyone who falls in. We also learned that about one car per week falls into the canals even though there are curbs and guards along the canal. Haha silly drivers.

I was amazed by the number of Bicycles when I arrived in Germany but Germany has nothing on the number of bikes in Amsterdam. It is a little unbelievable how many bikes and bike riders there are in Amsterdam especially with all the tourists and narrow streets. The traffic is also a bit crazy so I got the feeling that riding your bike in Amsterdam was just a little bit dangerous. Not something I would want to do. The riders themselves are also very aggressive when they are on their bikes. They will call you names and even run into you if you get in their way.

And, of course, we had to partake just a little bit in the local night life.

Uncle Sam Wants You...To Dance!

So children, the moral of the story is go to Amsterdam. It is fun, beautiful, and interesting plain and simple. Do it!

Leipzig

2012-05-28T20:01:00.001+02:00

Seeing as I live only 1.5 hours from Leipzig, I am asking myself why I didn't go sooner. It is a pretty happening place in Sachsen which is also in former East Germany. Because, I live so close I was able to make a day trip with a friend. My current boss works in Magdeburg but lives in Leipzig so he gave me a list of things to see when I was in Leipzig. One of the first things we saw was St. Nicholas Church. This church is kind of famous because it was where some of the first protests were held where people voiced their dissatisfaction with the DDR (East Germany). The protests began in September 1989 and, as we all know, the Berlin wall fell in November 1989. Yay!

St. Nicholas Church. It is kind of hard to get a great picture because it is in the city center and has other buildings very close to it.

The other place we needed to see was St. Thomas Church. This is home of the most famous boy's choir in all of Germany, the St. Thomas Church boy's choir. The choir director of this famous boy's choir has been held by many notable people but, most notably, by Johann Sebastian Bach from 1723 until his death in 1750. This church is also where his remains are kept.

St. Thomas Church with a beggar in front of it.

My boss suggested we see one other thing while we were in Leipzig. It was a monument called Völkerschlachtdenkmal also known as the Monument to the Battle of the Nations. It is a monument that commemorates the bloody battle that led to Napoleon's defeat in Leipzig. The monument has over 500 steps and leads to a platform where you can see spectacular views in all directions.

Inside

Over 500 steps to the top and I still pull it together for a photo op.

We visited the monument on May 5th. Me and Joe realized after seeing this that the 100th anniversary for the monument was only 8 days away!

Leipzig was pretty cool but me and Joe were getting tuckered out. So after getting dinner at the local Vapianos we headed back to Magdeburg.

Ferropolis

2012-05-28T19:09:00.000+02:00

On the way back from Wittenberg, my host parents took me to this other place in Sachsen-Anhalt called Ferropolis. It basically means Iron-opolis because "ferrum" is Latin for "iron". It is called this because this place is the final resting place for huge mining machines. I mean huge. These things are ginormous! Ironically, it was a very hot day so I kind of felt like I was deep in the hot steamy mines with these machines. We started off with one of the gadgets that gave us an audio tour but we soon realized we would be there for hours and "fast forwarded" our experience a bit.

This one was my favorite. It's name was Gemini and, being born on May 22nd, I am also a Gemini!

Wittenberg

2012-05-28T18:00:00.000+02:00

Do you remember that guy named Martin Luther? If not, let me refresh your memory. Martin Luther was the guy who nailed his 95 theses to the door of Schlosskirche on October 31st, 1517 in defiance of the Catholic Church to shed light on some of the practices he thought were wrong like selling indulgences. He also translated the Bible from Latin to German which gave way to a standardized German language. He was a pretty important guy and for a large part of his life he lived and taught theology in Wittenberg which just so happens to be in the state that I live in in Germany. It is about 1.5 hours with a car from where I live. My host parents took me and a friend on a day trip to Wittenberg to see the sights. We saw the actual church where Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses. It was pretty cool to be standing in such rich history. In fact the city has come to be known as Lutherstadt Wittenberg which means Luthercity Wittenberg.

The church where the 95 Theses were nailed!

A replica of the 95 Theses.

The door where Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses.

The church in itself is amazing to see but Wittenberg is also very beautiful little city and we explored it further.

The city square and the Stadtkirche (city church) in the background.

At the base of the Stadtkirche.

Bier Käse Suppe

2012-05-28T17:57:00.001+02:00

Bier Käse Suppe means beer cheese soup! I have been wanting to make this soup since I arrived in Germany because, as a Wisconsinite, it embodies all that I can be proud of. Beer and cheese! I wanted to make it so that my host family could taste a little bit of my home. I am also no cook so it is a miracle that it worked out. Recipes from America are hit or miss in Germany. It can be difficult to find the ingredients you need sometimes and sometimes, when you find the ingredients, they can be a little off. For instance, we would have ideally used sharp cheddar but the best we could find was mild cheddar. It was delicious though. My good friend Nicole sent me a recipe and it turned out great! The ingredients are:

1 onion (diced)
3 carrots (finely chopped)
1 clove of minced garlic
4 TBSP butter
4 TBSP flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tsp onion powder
4 cups of milk
3 cups of shredded cheese
1 cup of beer

I was really glad that I took the plunge to make this soup because now I know what a roue is and I now know just how important it is for a soup. I decided to make the soup when I had another participant from my program visiting. And, of course, Joe had to be included as well. I have never really seen a measuring cup or measuring spoons in Germany. I am sure they exist somewhere in the country but I have never seen anyone use them. To measure we had to use coffee cups and we had to "eye" the butter up. My host mom uses this technique all the time and her cooking always turns out amazing so we went with the flow and estimated. The soup turned out very tasty and es hat so viel Spaß gemacht!

Teamwork.

You just add the beer to the cheese right?

We be adding milk to that roue!

Kate can open a beer bottle with ANYTHING.

Final step...ENJOY!

Oster!

2012-05-26T23:40:00.001+02:00

Oster is German for Easter. I know, I am wayyyy behind on my blogs since easter was awhile ago. The good news is this post will be kinda because it is really just pictures of how the city of Magdeburg decorated the city. That is good because I will have more time to write the next blog. As you may know, I spent Easter in Copenhagen but these decorations were up for almost the entire month of march in the malls in Magdeburg.

You could pet REAL bunnies while shopping at the local mall.

Medieval bunnies in front of the old Magdeburg skyline.

Tokio Hotel is a band that originated in Magdeburg so, of course, they needed to have a Tokio Hotel comprised of bunnies.

GIANT and I do mean GIANT chicks in eggs floating from the ceiling.

Copenhagen

2012-05-24T19:45:00.000+02:00

I am seriously soooo behind on my blogs. You can't blame me though. There is so much to do when you are living in another country. At least I always come back to my blog and post something again. Some of the people in my program posted 3 or 4 times and haven't written anything since October 2011. Okay, now that that admission is out of the way, we can move on to the blog. I went to Copenhagen over Easter weekend. It was awesome. As you can see from the map, Copenhagen is in Denmark which touches Germany at its Northern most tip. Copenhagen, however, is located on an island to the far East. In order to get there you basically can use a bus or a train BUT that bus or train will have to board a ferry and travel across the Baltic in order to arrive at Copenhagen. I used a bus to get there but can you, just for a second, imagine being on a train as that train boards a ferry and then proceeds to travel out to sea? Engineering marvel. My friends and I decided to use a hostel called Danhostel. I highly recommend it. It is close to the train station and the main square which is the meeting spot for many tours and pub crawls. It is also a very tall tower so, if you get lucky, you can get an amazing view of the city like I did. All for around 25€ per person per night. Oh yeah, and the hostel is clean and offers a breakfast buffet in the morning. SIDE NOTE/TIP: If you ever stay at a hostel or hotel with a breakfast buffet eat what you want and then stash something in your backpack for later so that you have a snack while you are exploring in the city. It is a great way to stave off hunger and save some money. The weather in Copenhagen is crazy. It was raining when we arrived, it snowed the next morning, that turned into clear skies but was still very windy, and then, when we left Copenhagen, it was not windy and sunny. Crazy weather but it is an amazing city and Denmark consistently has the happiest people in the world.

View from the hostel room. This is what 25€ will get you.

Our first full day in Copenhagen we took the SANDEMAN's New Europe free tour. New Europe is this company that operates in touristy cities in Europe. They conduct things like pub crawls, free tours (but you should tip the tour guide at the end), and paid tours. Our tour guide was awesome. His name was Filip. That's right. Filip with an "F" and one "L". He was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable. He told us many interesting things about Copenhagen. Only about 5 million people in the world speak Danish which is why almost everyone in Copenhagen can speak English. Denmark had the lowest Jewish mortality rate during WWII. 96% of its Jewish population was saved because brave sailors gathered the Jews and sailed them across the sea to Sweden where they were safe. I was in awe when I heard that. You go Danes! Filip said that that was one of the reasons the Danes are so happy. He said they take care of each other and have a sense of family in their country. They stick together.

We got to see the most photographed place in Copenhagen. The famous New Harbor which is lined with colorful buildings and has a canal filled with ships. Little known fact. The ships in that canal do not leave the canal. There is no way for them to do so. The bridges are too low and the ships are too tall.

The creator of The Little Mermaid, Hans Christian Anderson, also lived and worked in Copenhagen so there is a Little Mermaid monument in his honor. It is very simple. It is just a mermaid sitting on a rock on the shore. Simple but cool.

The currency in Denmark is the Krone. A single Krone is worth much less than the Euro or the dollar so everything seems very expensive in Denmark. You are like "Oh my gosh! I just spent 100 Kroner!" But that is really only about 17 dollars so don't freak out if you go to Denmark. Even after conversion though, things are still pretty expensive in Copenhagen so watch your spending.

Copenhagen is also home to the amusement park Tivoli. A certain Walt Disney went there way back when and was then inspired to create his own now famous amusement parks.

Denmark is also the home of LEGO! LEGO got it's name from the two words "le" and "got" in Danish. It means "play well". In Latin, "le got" means "I put together" so LEGO is basically the perfect word for these little plastic bricks. The LEGO factory is not located in Copenhagen so we didn't get to see it but our tour guide Filip told us something very interesting about LEGO. Per unit, LEGO produces the most tires of any company in the world. I know I know, if we were talking per weight, it would lose horribly but it produces the most single tires in the world. That is pretty interesting!

All in all, Copenhagen was pretty darn cool. Just think. Without Denmark, we would not have LEGO, Disneyland, or The Little Mermaid. I shudder to think. The weather was crazy but even that could not dull the beauty and richness of the city. If you can, I highly recommend visiting.

The ferry ride was beautiful.

The main square.

An awesome fountain of a sea creature thing. Nifty!

New Harbor

Me and a giant anchor...why not?

We went to an English church service on Easter and I do mean English. The priest had an English accent.

Me and a windmill!!!!!!

Awkward Convo

2012-04-18T20:45:00.000+02:00

When you get lost in translation, a lot of awkward things can happen. This particular awkward conversation put a smile on my face the entire day. It was between me and one of my coworkers. I went to lunch with some of my coworkers and we got to talking.

Coworker (to me): Machst du einen Sport? (Do you play a sport?)

Me (to coworker): Nein, nicht wirklich. (No, not really.)

Coworker (to me in English for some reason): Oh, I thought you would have played football or something because of how your body looks.

Me: Danke? (Thanks?)

In his defense, what he said was grammatically correct and perfectly okay to say but it just happens to not be something we would ever say to someone in English because it is...you guessed it. Awkward! We might say "build" instead of "body". It was very funny and I am laughing about it even now as I type this post. I enjoy biking a lot and the occasional long walk but I have no idea why he would say I look like a football player. Hmmmmm I wonder...

Mandala Kinderbetreuung

2012-04-01T21:18:00.000+02:00

Some of you may already know that my program requires all the participants to complete 40 hours of volunteer service by the end of January. If you didn't know that before, you do now. Finding a place to volunteer in Germany is hard. Volunteer service is something that is slowly creeping into the culture but it is not quite there yet unlike in the United States where it is almost expected for things like scholarship applications and college applications. So after searching for months, I found a daycare that wanted me to volunteer by them. Now I am no child person. I am like a fish out of water when it comes to kids. I don't get them. They cry for no reason, they are unreasonable, and they play with their food. Time was ticking though and I needed to find a place to volunteer quick or I was not going to complete my hours on time. So I decided to bite the bullet and volunteer at the daycare. It was called Mandala Kinderbetreuung. I first had a small interview with the boss lady and then, the following week, I was working there. I wasn't ever given a formal introduction to the other employees or the facility so it was really not easy the first couple of times I worked. I didn't know anyone's names, I didn't know any of the rules, I didn't know where anything was, and everything was in another language! This is a German thing though. They don't really give you an introduction. You need to ask questions and get the information. I understand that asking questions leads to answers but if the employees know that I know absolutely nothing about how things are done then why not volunteer information? This is not a rude thing it is just a German thing so I really did not take offense to it. It just made me want to cry a couple of times. Haha.

I don't even know where to begin with the kids. How is it that my first experience working with kids ended up being in a different country and different language? The silver lining was that they were young enough that they spoke such simple German that I could actually understand them...sometimes. And that's the thing about kids too; half the time they make no sense anyway...even when they speak the same language as you. The kids were just like I thought they would be. Silly, loud, dirty, irrational, and REALLY CUTE! By working at Mandala I kind of understand why someone might want to work with children or even have children of their own. For all their downfalls, they are just so stinking cute especially when you are sitting down and they just plop in your lap and ask you to read to them or grab your hand with no warning whatsoever. Have I become a kid person?

There was one girl though...you know the one. Every daycare has one. That little boy or girl that will grow up to be a bully. This girl shall remain nameless. The first day I was at Mandala she was really nice and even competed for my attention. She would say things like "I cooked you some noodles" or "I can count to 10 in English". She even hugged me the second day I was there. That should have been my first warning. It's always the ones that want all the attention. During that second day, however, the kids built a little bridge and were just walking over it for fun. This girl decides to just plop down on it and not move preventing 10 other kids from having fun on it. I asked her to please move several times because it was everyone's bridge and she didn't so I picked her up and set her to the side. Well, that really must have ticked her off because, every other day I worked there, she was super mean to me. She said that I was stinky sometimes and her favorite thing to say was "Du bist böse" which means "You are angry/mean". She said it several times in a row one time while I was playing with a different kid. The little boy finally leaned in towards me and said "Du bist nicht böse. Sie ist immer böse". Hahah so he basically said that I wasn't mean and that SHE was always mean. I love that little kid for coming to my defense. He will always hold a special place in my heart as my little savior.

And now we come to the part that we all think but never say out loud. The favorites. We all have them even with our own children. I of course had my favorites within the daycare. I had two favorites. Even though I would have been blinded by my love for them, they really never did anything wrong. It was a boy and a girl and they were just so well behaved. They never cried, they never fought with anyone, they went to bed when it was nap time, and they were just so gosh darn cute. They both had big blue eyes, chubby cheeks, and blond hair. The blond haired, blue eyed thing wasn't that important but because of that they looked like they could be my children. Haha If every kid was like them I would totally work at a daycare but unfortunately the little bully girl ruined any chances of that happening. The first time I met my favorite little boy, he also had a runny nose. I am sorry but there is nothing cuter than a little kid with a runny nose. It sucks that they are sick but the way they wipe their little noses with their sleeves and hands is so cute. Yeah sure, they are spreading diseases but who cares. They're cute!

I would basically just show up and play with kids all day. They never made me clean anything or change a diaper. I just got to play with kids all day and give them individual attention. A lot of the kids knew German, English, and one other language. A lot of the kids knew Russian (I'm in the east block remember?) so I would always ask them what things were called in Russian. It was cool that these little munchkins knew so many languages but it sure made me feel dumb for being 23 and learning my first foreign language. My favorite part of the day was Morgenkreis. It means morning circle. We would all make a circle and sing a song or tell each other what we were gonna do that day. One time we had a tea light in a bowl and we passed it around to the person next to us and as we gave it to them we had to say "Schön dass du hier bist" which means "It's nice that you are here". It was so cute. I learned patience and how to keep my cool when a kid is acting ridiculous. It's easy to like kids when they are being cute and behaved but you have to learn how to act when they are not being that cute. I have a baby niece back home so I have to perfect these skills for when I return home.

On my last day, I made sure to get a picture of one of my favorites. He will also remain nameless because I really don't want an angry German parent yelling at me for providing information about their kid on the internet...but at the very least you can see how cute he is.

Ahhhhhh! So cute and whenever I would pull the camera out he would say "Guck" which means "Look". He wanted me to show him all the pictures on my camera.

Randoms #3

2012-04-01T21:13:00.000+02:00

All faithful followers of my blog will know what my Random posts are about. Although people who do not regularly check my blog deserve to be punished I will not punish them. I will fill them in. Random posts are posts that contain pictures of things that really did not fit into any other post. So they are basically posts of just pictures with a short explanation about the pictures. They are sometimes groups of pictures taken over a period of months. This one contains pictures from my first week in Magdeburg and pictures that have been recently taken. I figured I should post them quick before I ended up with a post that contained 50 pictures. Here they are. I hope you enjoy the randomness.

This is my Schultüte. It is a tradition in Germany to give this to a child on their first day of school so that they can bring it to school with them. I woke up to this on my first day of German college. They are always a paper or cardboard cone with treats inside. They have so many themes for Schultüten but mine was Max und Moritz themed which is a very well known German child's story. I did not bring the Schultüte to school but it was still awesome that I got one even if they are really only for little kids.

Kinder Überraschung Eier!!!! Some of you may already know how obsessed with these I am. They are a chocolate egg with a toy inside them...now don't even start comparing them to the short-lived Nestle Wonderball. The Nestle Wonderball had stupid toys inside but Kinder Überraschung Eier always have super awesome toys. For instance, I got a little alien dude one time with a head like a paintbrush. He also came with a sheet of water color. So I could paint with my little alien! They are illegal in the US because of irresponsible parents who didn't watch their children. The children ate the toys and choked on them so those bad parents ruined it for everyone. Everyone knows that if you can fit an object through a toilet paper roll that it poses a risk of choking so those parents should have known better. These were Christmas themed Kinder Überraschung Eier.

While visiting the local electronic store, we stumbled across this life size Doby...he lives!

The words on the window do not continue to the right so yes, it really says that and no, speaking German is not an excuse because they know what that word means.

One morning I woke up to a world covered in frost. I walked by this spider web perfectly frosted and just had to take a picture.

All sliced white bread in Germany is referred to as "American Style". It is so funny.

Many people have heard of Ampelmänner which are the little men in the walk signals in Germany. I noticed one day that we had female versions with pig tails in Magdeburg. Ampelmädchen!

We have a lot of really great graffiti artists in Magdeburg. The Dom is a constant construction site and this yellow barrel was laying out one day by the Dom so a graffiti artist decided to make it a bit more interesting.

Döner shops are a dime a dozen in Germany but Magdeburg has a Döner shop that makes you feel like you are in a cave. They had stalactites all over the place.

This was a picture I took through my blinds. German blinds have these little openings in them so the light was coming through just perfectly...and I was bored so I wanted to take a picture.

One of the restaurants in Magdeburg. As you may have guessed, their dishes are mostly chicken.

Me and my first spaghetti Eis. It will proabably also be my last spaghetti Eis. There was so much of it and the center was filled with whipped cream...and not just any whipped cream. It was that super thick whipped cream that sticks to the top of your mouth even after it is long gone. I had to have it at least once while I was in Germany though. If you don't know what it is, it is ice cream pushed through a spaghetti press and topped with strawberry sauce so it is ice cream that looks just like spaghetti.

Karneval

2012-03-28T17:08:00.000+02:00

I'm sure you guys have heard of Karneval. It goes by many other names like Carneval or Mardi Gras. No matter what you call it, one thing is certain. Karneval is super fun. As you know, Karneval takes place before Lent and provides people with the opportunity to get a little crazy before they have to be good for Lent. In Germany it consists of people dressing up and drinking a lot. Karneval is celebrated all around Germany but it is really big in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen so I headed to Nordrhein-Westfalen. I stayed in Düsseldorf with a participant who lives there. Düsseldorf is in Nordrhein-Westfalen and is super close to Köln where all the craziness happens. So, from the 17th to the 19th of February I basically wandered around Düsseldorf and Köln and made jolly with all the other people dressed up and having fun. It was a blast. It was like Oktoberfest but even better because everyone was dressed up and being silly. I really wanted to dress up as something unique and fun. I went to ebay.de and browsed the costumes they had until I found the perfect one. It was a Fliegenpilz costume. A Fliegenpilz is that red mushroom with white dots (toadstool). Germany is really big on the Fliegenpilz and you can find Fliegenpilz themed things everywhere in Germany. Side note, Fliegenpilz translates to "fly mushroom" and it is called so because way back when, people would take the cap of the mushroom and place it in a bowl of liquid where it would float. Flies would settle on the mushroom cap and get poisoned by it and die. So it was a very effective way to keep flies in the home at bay. Yay! I went to Karneval as a poisonous mushroom! It was a big hit and strangers wanted pictures with me. Seeing as Luigi and Mario were the most popular costumes at Karneval, I think it was very appropriate that I slightly resembled Toad from Super Mario Brothers...twins right?

Some strangers who wanted their picture with me. As you may be able to see, it is common for the women to wear lipstick and cover people's faces with smooches.

I found another Fliegenpilz!

This was my costume for the last night. Just a "simple" mask while drinking some Altbier. Altbier is a dark beer that is regional to Düsseldorf. It is served in a tiny 0.3 liter serving size.

Mercedes!

2012-03-24T12:47:00.000+01:00

We have a pretty decent sized mall in Magdeburg called Allee Center and they almost always have some sort of exhibit in the isles. One time it was all these interactive physics puzzles. About a month ago, it was a Mercedes exhibit. I guess Mercedes was celebrating its 125th anniversary. There really were only about 4 cars but it was cool to see the progression of the models from 1954 to present. I really know nothing about cars so I guess you can just looks at the pictures now. Haha. I must say though. Isn't it funny that only really really old cars (say from 1954 or so) or brand new cars look cool. All the ones in between look really horrendous if you ask me. Take a look at the car from 1980 and you will see what I mean.

This one is from 1954.

This one is from 1961.

1970

1980 and see what I mean? This car is ugly but maybe we will look back on it in 20 more years and say, "Wow, look at that vintage car."

2011

The evolution of the Mercedes emblem.

Tangermünde

2012-03-15T20:20:00.000+01:00

This post is about a little town called Tangermünde. It is the state of Sachsen-Anhalt and about an hour away from Magdeburg by car. My host family decided to take me and Joe to Tangermünde because it is a neat little German town to explore and see old buildings. The town is very small and was not destroyed by the war so there are some very old buildings there. Some from the 16th century. The problem is, the town and the state of Sachsen-Anhalt does not have enough money to maintain/restore these very old buildings (which have no owner) so some of them were looking a little rough around the edges, if you know what I mean. It's so sad that they can't be maintained. I am still hoping that someone in the town wins the lottery and can buy all the little orphaned houses. When we went, it was in February and very cold. We walked through the town a bit and along the Elbe. Yes, this city sits on the Elbe river just like the city of Magdeburg. After we walked around a bit, we worked up an appetite. My host parents already knew where we were going to eat. It was this cute little place called the Exempel Gaststuben. Apparently it used to be a school so the place is set up kind of like a "ye old Applebees". By that, I mean there was all this junk on the walls like Applebees has but instead of "signed" pictures of celebrities and random musical instruments, this restaurant had old time school paraphernalia on the walls like chalk boards and school bags. The tables were even old desks. The menu had lost of items and at the back of the menu, there was a section that had meals that were made to mimic the meals that were served at the school way back in the day. I rarely drink (even in Germany) but decided to have a little Bierchen (little beer) this time because Tangermünde had this very very local beer called Kuhschwanz which means "cow tail". Seeing as I am from Wisconsin, I just had to taste a Kuhschwanz! For my meal, I had Pferdeäpfeln which means "horse apples". Okay, I don't really care if what I am about to explain is a little gross. It needs to be explained. If you are from Wisconsin, you know what a "cow pie" is right? That's right a "cow pie" is what a cow leaves behind in that beautiful, scenic pasture after it relieves itself. Well, horse apples are what horses leave behind after doing the very same thing. You may notice in parades when horses relieve themselves, that what is left behind is usually very round and apple like. Well, the Germans picked up on this and decided to make it into this neat little joke just like cow pie is a joke in the US (or at least Wisconsin). The Pferdeäpfeln were pretty darn good. They were like little meatloaf patties (hence the name) served with mustard and a Kartoffelsalat (potato salad). Yummy! The little patties also came in this solid, carved wood dish that you can keep when you are done with the meal because they use a new one for every order. Free stuff score! You know how some restaurants give you a mint when you are done with your meal? Well this restaurant gives you something way better. This town has a little factory that makes these things called Tangermünder bars. THEY ARE AMAZING! They are like dried sugar cookie dough covered in chocolate. According to my host mom, they were a product of the DDR (East Germany). Cocoa was too expensive to buy and import so the people of the DDR got creative and tried using different things to make something that tasted good and then simply covered the product in a small amount of cocoa. My host mom is not really sure what the ingredients are and I am pretty sure no one really knows what are in these little delicious specimens. Cardboard? Fairy dust? Old plastic bottles? Who cares! They are delicious! Sachsen-Anhalt is not the richest state in Germany but I am convinced if the world caught wind of these Tangermünder bars, Sachsen-Anhalt would be the next New York. Nur ein Scherz (just kidding).
These bars are also about 200 calories for one 45 gram bar so they really are enough to ruin your whole day if you are on any kind of diet or are simply watching your calorie intake...but guess what? I don't care! I am in Germany and I will eat a Tangermünder bar if I want. All the walking we do here helps us stave off weight gain anyway. I came to Germany to experience the culture and food is a BIG part of any culture and I certainly didn't come to Germany to lose weight so as long as I touch down on US soil the same weight as when I left it, I will be very pleased. So yeah, when you are done with your meal, you get a Tangermünder bar instead of some dumb ole mint. After lunch, we headed home and we called it a day. I was really glad that my host parents shared this town with me. Sachsen-Anhalt is not what you would call a tourist destination so it was really really cool to see a little treasure like Tangermünde. I spent my Feierabend on my bed and could not have been happier.

One of the well-kept buildings in the town.

Me and my Kuhschwanz!

Frankfurt Mid-Year Seminar

2012-02-11T18:02:00.000+01:00

So the CBYX program has an orientation, mid-year, and end of year seminar for all the participants. I can't believe the mid-year seminar is already over. It was from the 16th to the 20th of January. That means I am over half done with my year in Germany. Sad face. The mid-year seminar was really fun though. It was in Frankfurt and the program paid for participants' travel expenses so we all basically got to go to Frankfurt for free. I had only ever been to Frankfurt when we landed in Germany but we were all quickly swooped away to our dorm building in the woods for our orientation seminar. So it was nice to be able to really see Frankfurt. It is the only city in Germany with actual high rises even though it only has a couple. Even Berlin does not have high rises. We had to arrange and plan our own arrival but we all had to be at the hostel at 3pm at the latest. We stayed at the Haus der Jugend in Frankfurt. It was a pretty nice hostel and it was probably the only one that could accommodate all 75 of us at once. The building looked like it could hold a lot of people. It was four to a room so not what you would call private but it was clean and we all had our own bed. The hostel was also very close to the nightlife. Haha not sure if the program planned that or not. My guess is not.

Frankfurt is so cool. The Main river runs through it and there is an island in this river that is home to all these geese, ducks, and swans. It was so cool to be in the middle of the city and to be able to fall asleep to the distant honking of the geese on the island.

The seminar takes place so that the employees in charge of our program can touch base with us. The first night consisted of a welcome and an Italian dinner. The Italian dinners in Europe are better...just want to put that out there. The next morning we were split into 3 groups and we basically had a sharing circle where we all shared where we were living, where we were going to school, and if we lived with a guest family. We then got stickers and we got to rank different aspects of the program and then we discussed why certain things were maybe better than others. Overall, we were all having a positive experience with the program. Once were were done with that, we had the rest of the day to do what we wanted. I opted to just walk around a bit. That's what is so nice about going somewhere you have never been before. A simple walk is so interesting and fun...and it's free. This particular hostel was also capable of providing breakfast, lunch, and dinner so we didn't even have to worry about meals.

Wednesday we were split up into 3 predetermined groups. Art and Media, Transportation and Finance, and Politics. I chose Art and Media because I really did not have interest for the other two groups. My group got to go to a museum dedicated to film and photography that was walking distance from the hostel. The museum was really interesting. We got to see all the different developments that the world of film and photography went through. We even got too see one of the original costumes from the Alien movies and a mock up of Darth Vader's helmut that was used in the original Star Wars movies. The museum also had this really cool installation. It consisted of 3 projection screens that all played a different movie clip at a time. All 3 clips had a unifying theme. For instance, if it was a dancing theme, all three different movies had characters that were dancing to the same tempo so if you played appropriate music it would look like they were all dancing to the same music. Super cool. Later that day, the Art and Media group went to the ZDF studios. ZDF is one of the biggest German television stations. They also go by 2DF because ZDF stands for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen which means "2nd German Television" so they have the liberty of swapping the Z and 2 since they stand for the same thing and look so similar. Technically this television station was in Mainz but it was very close to Frankfurt. ZDF has stations all over Germany but they are based out of Mainz so it was a real treat to go the the main station. We got to see some stages and control rooms. ZDF's motto is "Mit dem zweiten sieht man besser" which means "with the 2nd one sees better". So they are saying you see more with their station. Also, while you are saying this you have to hold your middle and pointer finger over one of your eyes. I know it sounds corny but it was pretty cool. Check out the video below if you want to know what I am talking about.

ZDF is also known for these little people called Mainzelmännchen. Between the commercials and the shows on all ZDF stations, they play a little 5 second clip of these little guys doing silly things. The Mainzelmännchen are named so because they come from Main and "männchen" means "little people". They have been on the television station since 1963 so many Germans remember growing up with them as a child. They have grown and evolved through the years but one thing has still remained the same...they are silly little buggers. It is also worth mentioning that I have NEVER seen a Mainzelmännchen clip twice. Never. Take a look below.

This is where they draw the lottery numbers. So cool!

Me and Det at ZDF. Yes, the name of this Mainzelmännchen is Det. Mit dem zweiten sieht man besser!

On Thursday, all 75 of us got to see the GIZ tower in Frankfurt. You see CBYX is the name of the program in the America but GIZ handles everything on the German side. GIZ stands for Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit and it means Society for International Cooperation. They handle hundreds of foreign relation programs and the CBYX program is just one small part of what they do although they treat it with great importance. While at the GIZ tower we got to see some presentations on what kind of work GIZ does and we also got to hear a member of the American Foreign Service speak. She talked about what her job was like and what she had to do to get a job with the Foreign Service...it does not seem easy at all. If you don't know at least two languages fluently, you basically have no chance of getting a job. You also need to know an obscure language like Hungarian or something. It sounds so hard to get hired by the Foreign Service.

When we left the GIZ tower we went back to the hostel for a short while. That night GIZ organized for us to see a musical at the Englisch Theater in Frankfurt where all the musicals were in English. It was "The Who's Tommy". If you have never seen it, it is super weird. All the songs are from The Who. It is basically the story of a boy who witnesses a murder and internalizes it but becomes deaf, blind, and mute as a result. It was so strange but I love musicals so I enjoyed it. Here is a clip from the musical where they use the song Pinball Wizard.

As soon as the seminar started it was over. Friday morning we were done and we all headed out. Some people like me headed home and others went on little weekend trips.

Day of Democracy

2012-02-10T16:43:00.000+01:00

"Tag der Demokratie" This means "Day of Democracy". It is a day in January that Magdeburg has every year where local organizations and business who support democracy can set up a stand on the street and you can visit them. The day takes on a different role, though. Me and the other Magdeburgers started to call it Nazi day because it is the day that neo-nazis choose to demonstrate. If I learned one thing from this day it is that Germans haaaaaaaaaate nazis. They hate them. I would to if I was part of a country that was trying to amend its dark past and certain people were ruining that for everyone. Most of the neo-nazis that take part in the demonstration aren't even from Germany. They are foreigners from neighboring countries that are demonstrating in Germany. The town was full of police officers that were there just to make sure nothing happened. I was told that there were over 2,000 police officers and that they were policemen from all over Germany. The neo-nazi demonstrators don't have a very big following so the same neo-nazis have to travel from city to city in Germany if they want to demonstrate there. The policemen follow suit and simply follow them from city to city making sure there is peaceful demonstrating and no violence. I actually had quite a bit of fun this day. It was really cool to see all the interesting ways people advertised against nazis. Some were cool and some were really weird. What I liked most about the day was that the streets of Magdeburg were filled with people. Normally there is not much going on in the city and it was nice to see the city wake up. I personally did not see any neo-nazis that day. I was told that they were all gathered at the university which is the one place I didn't go that day. I was a little disappointed to tell the truth. As someone from a small town in Wisconsin, I have never really seen a neo-nazi and I was curious to see what one looked like. Would they all be skin heads with piercings and tattoos? Maybe not. For all I knew they were all college graduates wearing argyle sweater vests. I have noooooo idea what one looks like. Some people might cringe at the thought of someone wanting to see a neo-nazi but curiosity is a natural human attribute and closing your eyes to a problem like this does not help the situation. My host family is also very open talking about stuff like that and they had no problem that I was so curious about the events of this day. Some people who live in former east Germany think that all Americans think they are all nazis. I personally did not think this before I arrived in former east Germany and I really hope no one else from the US thinks this. It is not true. There are neo-nazis in the US and there are some in the former east but that does not make everyone there a nazi. I also like how fitting it was that the neo-nazis demonstrated on the day of democracy. Even though I completely disagree with what they stand for, I think it is good that people can openly express their beliefs in Germany no matter how crazy and wrong they are. If the police had prevented the neo-nazis from demonstrating it would have been a step back for progress. Freedom is being allowed to freely express your beliefs no matter what they are and allowing people to make up their own minds as to whether or not they agree...the pictures below show that the German people overwhelmingly disagree with neo-nazis...and how wonderful is it that they were given the opportunity to make that choice.

Someone throwing the swastika away...very nice, very nice.

It reads something like "The risks of the nazi marches; read a history book or ask your grandparents."

It says "Colorful against Brown." Brown is the color that the nazi party identifies with so these people are saying we need a future full of color (many different ideas and beliefs) and not just brown (one set of beliefs like in WWII). This was actually a game where you could win prizes by popping the balloons with a dart. This person was clever and filled the balloons with paint to also make the game an advertisement against nazis.

It is hard to see because of the glare, but the swastika on Hitler's arm has been replaced with a heart and it can clearly be seen that he is wearing pink. His fingernails are also painted on the hand beneath the gloved hand and he is wearing lipstick. This particular sign meant to say that Hitler may have been homosexual. I personally do not know if Hitler was or not and some people might take offense to that. I don't think anyone should take offense to the sign because the greater meaning of the sign meant to say that Hitler was a hypocrite. Hitler also wanted to do away with homosexuals along with many other types of people (handicapped, Jewish, etc.) so this sign was calling him out as a hypocrite. Whether or not he was gay is irrelevant. Hitler was a hypocrite but, more importantly, he was a horrible, evil person.

"Bunt Statt Braun"
"Colorful Instead of Brown"

Not really sure what this was or what it was trying to say but I simply HAD to take a picture of it. It looks like a hybrid between a turtle, octopus, and praying mantis. So weird.

Konstanz

2012-02-05T16:33:00.000+01:00

I never really did a nice post about Konstanz...this will somewhat rectify that but not really since I visited Konstanz when it was already dark. Me and Adam visited while we were in Radolfzell since it is only like 15 minutes away from Radolfzell by train. While we lived in Radolfzell, we got train tickets that allowed us to ride as far as Konstanz for free whenever we wanted...those were the days. Now, I can't even get 5 minutes outside of Magdeburg without shelling cash out. Me and Adam decided to visit Konstanz because we had never really visited the church there. I am glad we did because it really is just an amazing church. I highly recommend it if you are ever in southern Baden-Württemberg. You could explore the crypt of the church a little and the church is very ornate. The church even had little sitting areas on the side for multiple saints. It was like a little prayer room for each individual saint. Even the doors were over the top. They were solid wood with really intricate detailing.

Creepiest photo in a church ever!

We also paid a visit to the Statue of Imperia. The statue is a huge statue of a voluptuous scantily clad woman holding two men in her hands. The two men represent Pope Martin V and Emperor Sigismund and the story behind the statue is a harsh satire of the Catholic clergy's morals. In the story, Imperia (who is a prostitute) seduces cardinals and princes and holds power over them. The statue actually spins at a speed of one turn every four minutes and it is located at the end of a dock in the Bodensee.

While we were walking back to the train station we stumbled upon a procession. It actually came upon us quite quickly. We had to take shelter in a doorway so that we did not disrupt the procession. We later realized it was a Fasnacht procession. Not really sure if the fact that is was Epiphany had any significance or not but Fasnacht is usually a pre-Lent celebration to prepare for Lent. The parade consisted of some very cool costumes...some interesting...some scary. It was cool that we just stumbled upon it by accident.

Return to Radolfzell

2012-02-04T18:07:00.001+01:00

A return to Radolfzell was always in the works and I will probably make still one more trip there before I head back to the states. It is just so wonderful and it will always be my first German home. Me and Adam arrived late in Radolfzell Thursday night after our ill-fated Rothaus excursion. We woke up Friday morning and decided we would just wander around Radolfzell for the day. We didn't really have any plans besides making a visit to my old host family to say hello. So we walked around town and passed by all the old familiar places and saw how things were different or the same. I also took pictures of the inside of the Radolfzell church for the first time. I can't believe I didn't take pictures sooner. The church is beautiful. We also got to see that the local Volksbank had been turned into a giant Adventskalender for Advent. We were visiting after Christmas was over but the giant Adventskalender had not yet been taken down. All the windows at the front of this bank were decorated and each was a "door" on the Adventskalender. We, of course also visited the Bodensee to say hello to the water and the swans. After we were done wandering around the town we made our way to my old host family's house. Me, Adam, and the Bottlangs just talked over coffee and cake. My room there had been empty the entire time I was gone and was only going to be occupied with a student that Sunday. It was crazy to think that the best room in all of Radolfzell was unoccupied for so long. It is 2 minutes away from school (walking) and it had its own kitchenette and shower. I guess only very special people like me get to stay there. We, of course, went to the Kaufland where all the CBYXers went during almost every break and lunch we had at Carl-Duisberg Centren. I also visited the restaurant where I had my first Döner. We also went to the market on Saturday like we did almost every Wednesday and Saturday while we were in Radolfzell. We both bought flowers for our host families and dropped them off as a thank you for everything they did for us while we lived with them. Saturday afternoon we headed home. It was sad leaving Radolfzell but it was also a little sad being there without the other original 16 Radolfzellers. It just felt wrong being on the Bodensee without them so, although I am glad I visited, I don't think I could ever live there again because I would just think about all the people that I would be missing.

This is one of the things that I miss most about Radolfzell and southern Germany in general. The natural beauty. The fact that you could just be walking along and stumble across a little creek with a duck in it.

You may recognize this photo as the profile picture for my entire blog. I just couldn't resist taking a similar photo almost 3.5 months later.

Radolfzell church.

The Radolfzell Volksbank Adventskalender.

That used to be my front door!!!! :(

Friday was Epiphany so that meant the three kings were walking around greeting people. Lots of German cities do this.

My Bodensee with more ducks and swans than I ever saw in summer.

The Saturday market.

Saturday afternoon me and Adam departed from Radolfzell and headed towards our respected homes. The trip was so loooooong because we were using a special discounted ticket that only allowed us to use regional trains that are slower. The trip was long but we did save a ton of money and I am all about saving those nickels and dimes.

Rothaus Death Excursion

2012-02-04T12:39:00.000+01:00

Having one beer does not make you an alcoholic but if you risked your life for that one beer, then does that make you an alcoholic? You will soon learn the reasoning behind this question. Read on. So me and my friend continued our Christmas break trip through Germany. After we left Freiburg we decided to go to Radolfzell am Bodensee. You should remember this place since that is where I lived for my first 2 months in Germany. It is my first German home and a place surrounded by breath-taking natural beauty. Adam's old host mom their offered to put us up for free for a couple of nights so there was no way we could say no. Since Freiburg was so close, we had to visit. On the way to Radolfzell me and my friend wanted to visit the Rothaus brewery. Rothaus is a very Baden-Württemburg beer. It is brewed in the Black Forest and it is served everywhere in Baden-Württemburg. I really wanted to visit the brewery and take a tour. We called ahead to make sure they were giving tours. They guy said there would be no tours that day since no one had called earlier to have one. This should have been our first sign that this was an ill-fated trip. We decided we would go to the brewery anyway since we could still look around the shop and watch a 30 minute video on the brewery. Since this brewery is somewhat secluded in the Black Forest, we had to use a train and two different buses to get there. That already made me nervous since it was already around 2pm by the time we started our trip to Rothaus. I was nervous because I did not like relying on so many links in a chain. What I mean by that is we had to count a not one but two buses and a train in order to get us to the Rothaus brewery and then repeat the entire thing again to get out of the brewery and to Radolfzell. I told my nerves to shut up because I have a history of worrying too much and being nervous about things that I shouldn't be nervous about. So we hop on our first train that is heading in the direction of Radolfzell but goes through the Black Forest. 20 minutes into this train ride we sit on the tracks and don't move for almost 30 minutes because a tree or something fell onto the tracks. It was starting to get windy. By the time we started moving again it was full on raining. This was January rain...very cold rain that really should have been snow. We were unable to get all the way to Seebrugg (our last stop on the train) because the wind had gotten so bad that it blew trees onto the tracks further up the tracks. So we have to get off the train in a different city. We then had to wait another 30 minutes for a bus that would take us in the right direction and to Seebrugg which also happened to be the major stop for all the buses in the area and is situated right on the beautiful Schluchsee (although it wasn't too beautiful when snow and wind are blowing in your face) . By now, my nerves were telling me to just get on another train and go straight to Radolfzell. "Forget about the Rothaus brewery Clayton. It is getting late and the trains are already messed up because of the weather." Once again I told my nerves to shut up and that I was nervous for no reason. So we hop on this first bus and it takes us to this little tiny train station called Seebrugg. Halfway there the rain turns to snow because our elevation increased so much. We hop on another bus and it takes us all the way to the Rothaus brewery. I did not have boots with me. When I packed for Germany I figured I would use them so seldom that they were not worth it. I was right since it really didn't snow very much at all in Germany this year. On this particular trip, however, it would have been nice to have them because I took one step out of that bus and my feet were soaked. The rain/snow mixture made it so that all the sidewalks basically had a thick layer of slush that was too thick to run off the pavement but fluid enough to soak your feet. me and my friend ran to the Rothaus brewery as fast as we can because now the snow had turned back into really cold rain. We run through the doors and we are basically the only people there. We were greeted by looks from the employees that seemed to say "Why on earth would you go through all that trouble to get here in this horrible weather?" We put our stuff down and took our jackets off. We walked around the shop a little and watched the informational video in the viewing room. Every brewery in Germany has an educational video and they are all pretty similar (but equally cool). By the time were were finished we walked back out to the lobby and asked them if the trains were going through Seebrugg anymore. They said they were not going through Seebrugg but that we could take two buses that would take us to Waldshut. Waldshut is on the Swish border. They said, from there, we could catch a train to Radolfzell. The guy printed out a sheet of times and stops for us and even pointed out the window to what bus stop we needed to be at. The bus was not coming for another hour though so we could kill some time. At this point I had a false sense of security. I had a Fahrplan (trip plan) in my hand and I knew what bus stop to wait at. We were gonna be okay after all. So we decided to relax and have a Rothaus beer straight from the Rothaus brewery. We got to sit in this really cozy restaurant area and enjoy a beer. Outside the weather had turned to snow again and the building was very quiet because we were the only non-employee people there.

Just having a beer with Jesus.

This is also a really good time to mention that I didn't actually drink a beer. Not a real beer anyway. I had something called a Radler. It is basically half beer and half lemonade. Haha so it only has 2.5% alcohol and it tastes like lemony beer. Please don't judge me. I know I know. I should be able to drink beer since I am from Wisconsin and we are all beer drinkers. I never really liked the taste of beer but decided to work on it in Germany. What better place to train yourself to like beer? I started with Radlers and will hopefully work my way to real beer. I think Radlers are delicious so maybe there is hope for me yet.

The view from the bus stop.

So after having that false sense of calmness and enjoying a beer with my friend me and my friend go outside to catch our bus. We go out there 7 min minutes early just to make sure we didn't miss it in case the bus was running early. On the way out my feet got soaked all over again. We wait and wait and wait. The bus finally came but it came super late. I was really confused at this point but we get on the bus and take it a couple of stops until the Seebrugg stop. When we start to get off the bus, the bus driver asks us what bus we are getting off to wait for. We tell him. He pauses and then shakes his head. He tells us that that bus is done running for the night but that if we wait at the Seebrugg stop we can use a different bus to get to Waldshut but that we would need to change buses once on the way. It was already like 7pm at this time and German public transportation can switch to the late night transportation as early as 8 pm in some places. The false sense of calmness had long left my body at this point and fear was kicking in. So many things were running through my head. It was so late already and we are supposed to use 2 buses just to get to a train station...and even if we get to the Waldshut train station will trains be running from it because of the bad weather? And even if we can catch the first bus in this crazy bus/train combination who is to say the 2nd bus won't be late or maybe it is just not running anymore at this hour. This was not an area that I was familiar with because I didn't live there so I was not 100% sure how the local transportation worked. I was basically taking people's word for it and the guy at the Rothaus brewery had already led us down the wrong path. We didn't really have a choice but to wait. The Seebrugg stop is a tiny train station located in the middle of nowhere in the Black Forest. It was the train stop that our train was originally supposed to let us off at on our way to the Rothaus brewery but couldn't because of fallen trees. So even though we were at a train stop no trains were coming through. Luckily there was a ticket machine there so that I could at least verify that the train station we wanted to get to (Waldshut) had trains entering and leaving it. Waldshut was fully functional that night but we just needed to get to it. It was dark, very windy, the snow was staying snow, and my feet were soaked. I was getting super worried. The bus we were waiting for was really late. A different bus driver even came up to the bus plan and verified that it should have been there already and that he didn't know what was going on. We were waiting there for at least an hour with about 6 other people. Four of them were all together and the other two girls were friends. Eventually the group of 4 called a friend and had them pick them up. It was just me, my friend, and the two girls waiting at this train stop in the middle of nowhere for a bus that was really late and was probably never gonna come. I had lost feeling in my toes at this point. And because the first bus was so late, I didn't even think we would be able to catch the second bus we were supposed to use to get to Waldshut train station. At this point I started to get super worried. Where were we gonna sleep if this bus never came? Would we die? Who would die first? I thought that Adam would die first because he has much less body fat than me and I started to ask myself if I would eat him in order to survive? At this point, I knew how crazy I was becoming and my fear filled me with courage so I walked up to the two girls that were also still waiting there for the bus that was never coming and asked them (auf Deutsch) how they were planning on getting home. The one said that she had called her dad and that he was coming to pick them both up. Just then a white car pulls up. My eyes meet the girls eyes and there was a silent understanding of what I was thinking. She ran up to the car and asked her dad if he could give us a ride. A big burly man appears out of the car and tells us to throw our stuff in the trunk and hop in. Yay! I didn't need to eat Adam anymore!

So this really nice guy, who we have never met before, drove two strangers almost 30 km all the way to Waldshut where the weather was completely calm and trains were coming and going unaware of the nasty storm me and Adam had just merged from. On the way we made a little conversation with our savior but mostly just soaked up the warmth of the car and prayed to God that this man did not come to his senses and drop us off on the side of the road. We offered the man money (gas is not cheap in Europe) when we arrived but he turned us down and said "Grüße nach Amerika" which means "greetings to America". It was my first experience with over the top unnecessary kindness in Germany and the fact that that man did that for us made me almost thankful that me and Adam had almost died...almost. So I have to ask the question. Since I risked my life for this one beer (Radler), does that mean I have a problem?

Two hours later we were sleeping in Adam's old host room from our days in Radolfzell. We had gotten something to eat already and we were warm and safe. I drifted off into sleep and awoke the next day greeted by the Bodensee that welcomed me during my first week in Germany.

Freiburg

2012-02-03T22:36:00.000+01:00

When people think of Germany they probably think of beer, pretzels, lederhosen, the Black Forest, and half-timbered houses. Well, a large portion of those things are mainly Bavarian traditions. The city of Freiburg, however, is a very quintessential German town located in Baden-Württemberg NOT Bavaria. It has the above mentioned half-timbered houses and it is nestled in the Black Forest. The city is filled with old world charm with evergreen covered mountains surrounding the city. It is really something to behold. After me and my friend left Heidelberg, we headed to Freiburg. It was unbelievably close to Radolfzell when we were there our first two months in Germany but a certain visit by the pope ruined a trip we attempted to make while we were in Radolfzell and much closer. You see, when the current pope recently visited Freiburg, no trains were going in to the city for saftey. Ughhhhh! Why does a whole city need to shut down just because the pope is visiting? Anyway, this time we made it to the city with no pope shenanigans. We arrived at night and made our way to our hostel. It was called the Black Forest Hostel which was very fitting because, we were, in fact, in the Black Forest. The whole hostel had a very bohemian feel to it with little mini Buddhist temples carved into the walls. You would be walking through the hallway and smell incense or see fresh flower petals laying on the ground. It also had a yoga/meditation space. There were a lot of people staying at the hostel. Freiburg is pretty touristy and I really couldn't find other quality hostels in the city besides this one. With that said, I feel like every tourist in the city was staying at this hostel. It was okay though because it was big with plenty of space. Me and my friend stayed there for two nights. We had originally only booked the room for one night. When we first checked in we said we might be interested in an additional night and the man at the desk said if we wanted to stay an additional night we would need to move to a group room instead of our private room for the additional night because someone had already booked that room for the following night. The following morning, we went to the desk to tell them we definitely wanted to stay another night but there was a woman there instead of the man. We told her we wanted to stay an additional night...she looked at the room chart and just moved the people who had requested the private room we were in to a group room even though they booked it first and probably wanted the private room. Ahhhhhh I couldn't believe she did that but I am glad she did because I didn't want to sleep with strangers. The next night I expected someone to knock on our door and scream "Give us our room back you thieves!" That, luckily, did not happen. The room was pretty cool. It had a little table for snacking and the door was really interesting.

This building was obviously not designed to be a hostel...stairs going to nowhere?

In addition to exploring our hostel we did eventually explore the city. One of the first things we did was check out the Freiburg Dom (church) while the sun was peeking out for a whole 10 minutes. I have developed somewhat of an obsession for climbing church towers in Germany now. You may recall that this obsession started when I climbed the church in Ulm which is the tallest church in the world. After that, everything seems so easy. This was not the tallest anything in the world but a very beautiful church nonetheless.

After our calves were thoroughly sore from climbing stairs, we decided to walk it off. We ventured into town. A new surprise lurked around very corner in Freiburg. The town had some really neat looking old buildings. I was also able to find something very interesting to eat. It was called a Baden-Württemburger. It was a burger but since were were in Baden-Württemberg it was not just any burger; it was a Baden-WürttemBURGER...get it? It was a pretzel bun with two Klops patties inside. Klopse are like little German meatloaf patties and pretzels are super German so this was a very German experience for me. I was in Himmel (heaven).

Me and my Baden-Württemburger.

One of the city gate towers. Do you see the McDonald's sign plastered on it? Even in old-world quintessential Germany, capitalism and fast food are creeping in.

The Herz-Jesu-Kirche Freiburg. I love how they designed the bridge to line up perfectly with the church.

One of the other city gate towers. They were both just beautiful.

And now we come to the last and my favorite part of this story. If you recall, I have been on a mad search for beer gummies ever since I had them my first day in Germany when we stayed in the dorms at a seminar building. Germany is full of gummy shops. They are just like they sound. Shops that really sell nothing but gummies. They are mostly bear shaped (Haribo) and the flavors are normally not too out of the ordinary. I had been to multiple gummy shops in Germany in search of the elusive beer gummies. They all had the same answer. They either did not have them or they used to have them but did not currently have them and didn't know when they were gonna get them again. Very frustrating. I started to question if I was still in Germany with how hard it was to find beer gummies. We stumbled upon a gummy store right by the Freiburg Dom. I thought they wouldn't have the beer gummies but I figured I would at least try. Good thing I did because THEY TOTALLY HAD THEM!!!!!!!! Endlich I had found them! I bought two bags. One for me to slowly eat through in Germany and one to send home. They are just the most amazing thing ever. I don't even like chewy, sugary candy (just every other kind of food) but these beer gummies are so amazing. The perfect combination of sweet gummy flavor with beer flavor. I even took a picture of them because I can't even find pictures of them on the internet. That is how elusive they are. Try it for yourself. Type "Beer Gummy" into Google. You will not find pictures like these. Sure you will find beer flavored gummies in beer glasses but you will not find beer glass shaped gummies that taste like beer. Amazing, just amazing. I let my host family try some and they said they had never even heard of them before. So some germans have never even seen them before.

My mouth is watering just posting this...

Heidelberg Trip #2

2012-02-02T15:25:00.000+01:00

Steffi's Hostel is bright and inviting.

In Germany, the college semester does not end when Christmas break begins. I know, isn't that crazy? These poor people have to worry about homework and exams while they are trying to enjoy Christmas and New Year. In my program, we don't have to worry about grades or anything with our classes. We just have to go to class, try and understand it, and get a feel for the student life in Germany. With that said, I was actually able to enjoy my two week Christmas break. My break was from Dec. 22 to Jan. 8. I stayed in Magdeburg the first week of the break for Christmas with the family and such but after New Year it was time to explore Germany a bit. Me and my friend decided to make a trip together. I started by first going to Kassel where he lived. We then travelled together to Heidelberg. That was the first stop on our trip. We booked a hostel room very last minute but it worked out great. The hostel was one block away from train station and it was very clean. We even got a two-bed private room so that we didn't need to sleep with 4 or 5 strangers. Breakfast was also inclusive at this hostel so we didn't need to worry about buying groceries in order to have something to eat first thing in the morning. It was called Steffi's Hostel and I highly recommend it if you ever visit Heidelberg. It is walking distance from the main street and it was not very expensive.

We first arrived at night in Heidelberg so we really just unpacked our stuff at the hostel. We did shortly go into to town to get something to eat at one of the restaurants that night but all the interesting shops were closed by that hour so we had to wait for the next day to go into them. Our first and only morning waking up at Steffi's was pretty cool. I hadn't been up that early in a while but the prospects of the day were enough incentive to drag myself out of bed early. We went upstairs to where breakfast was served. The way the sun was spilling over the mountains and through the tall buildings into the city was really cool to see from the breakfast room.

After breakfast we ventured into the town to sightsee. If you recall, this is not my first time visiting Heidelberg. I had visited once before during my Radolfzell days. Things were a lot different this time. It was much colder and a lot less lively. The last time I was in Heidelberg, the streets were filled with people (I can only assume many of them were tourists) and the weather was warm and sunny. Some of the shops we had seen the first time were now closed. I think they were shops that were set up specifically for the tourist season. Last time I was in Heidelberg, I visited the castle. This time, I did not do that. If you've seen a castle once in Germany, you've seen it a million times. Me and my friend opted to wander around the city and climb the church tower. Climbing the church tower was something that we did not get to do last time so we both really wanted to do that. The church itself is very interesting. The church has shops literally built into the church on the outside...and these aren't cute little handmade trinket shops. These are what I call "crap" shops. They are the shops that sell German flags and Oktoberfest hats as well as any other really cheaply made item that a tourist is bound to buy. I was very surprised that shops like these would be allowed to be built into the outside of the church.

Do you see the "crap" shops around the church?

Picture taken at the top of the church with the castle in the background.

The inside of the church was also very interesting. Not sure why but the original stained glass windows must have been damaged or destroyed somehow because the new windows contained modern artwork. It looked almost as if the city allowed local residents to design the windows or something. Why not? The church is a part of the city so why not let the people have a say in how it is decorated.

In this window, one can clearly see a picture of what looks like a pilot maybe.

Last time I was in Heidelberg, I saw a store that was full of gummies. Not just any gummies though. These were gummies that were shaped like beer glasses and tasted like beer. My first day in Germany at the Sparkassen Akademie (where the whole CBYX group stayed our first night in Germany) I got to try these gummies because each room had a small bag with about 3 gummies inside. I had been on the lookout for them ever since. When I first saw this store in Heidelberg I was so excited that I had the chance to buy a whole bag and maybe send it home for my family. I decided not to buy the gummies that trip because I thought I would have an opportunity to buy them later in the year. Wrong! This second trip to Heidelberg contained no beer gummy shop. I am assuming it was there during the first trip because Oktoberfest was around the corner and the shop was capitalizing on the tourism and the seasonal interest in beer. January, however, is another story. Not so much tourism and Oktoberfest is a long way away. So I was unable to acquire some beer gummies this trip but my search for beer gummies in Germany continued. Stay tuned.

My friend Adam, thank goodness, noticed this sign. Jelly doughnuts called Vampire Kisses? Just a little strange.

If you remember, I took a picture just like this for my first post on Heidelberg. I made a point of trying to replicate pictures from last time to see how time has past. It's the infamous brass monkey of Heidelberg.

You can usually tell if a place is touristy by the number of Starbucks it has. Heidelberg has two on just one street. You can also tell if it is touristy if the baristas automatically start the conversation in English...which they did at the Heidelberg Starbucks. Having worked at Starbucks for 5 years prior to my time in Germany, it is always interesting to me to go to Starbucks in other countries to see what is similar or different. Me and my friend needed to use the internet so we decided to go to Starbucks for some coffee, a bathroom break, and internet. I ordered something that I had tried many times during my work years at the coffee giant. A regular coffee and a chocolate cream cheese muffin. It tasted just like I was back at work.

Just getting some work done.

A very beautiful Starbucks...where people let their babies crawl on the floor.

This is also a great place to mention the great length that Germans go to to ensure that people do not get to go to the bathroom for free. Usually in Germany, public bathrooms (gas stations, train stations, etc.) have gates that require payment to get through. It usually costs 50 Euro cents or something like that. The reason being that water is really not cheap in Europe. If you are a customer at a restaurant, it is free to go to the bathroom but the bathroom is usually located at the way back of the restaurant so as to ensure non-customers are not able to reach it unnoticed by the employees. If there happens to be a nice employee working you might be able to use the bathroom for free if you are not a customer or else you might need to buy something or pay a small fee. The Starbucks me and my friend visited went to great lengths to ensure only customers used the bathroom. When you bought something, your receipt had a code on it. You needed this code to go to the bathroom there. The doors each had a keypad by them where you had to enter your code in order to open the door. They meant business!

Do you see the keypad between the doors? Also the "D" stands for "Damen" and the "H" stands for "Herren" which is the equivalent of "Ladies" and "Gentlemen".

One day in Heidelberg (after having already visited the town before) was enough for me and Adam so that night we decided to head to Freiburg. The city is famous for being quintessential old German and for being nestled in the Black Forest. So that night, we got our things from Steffi's Hostel and headed to the train station and caught a train to Freiburg.