Die Schwarzwälderkirschetorte

Yes that is one word, and if you look closely you will actually see that it is a kind of torte, or cake.  I believe in English it's only called "Black Forest Cake," but here the direct translation is actually more like, "The Black Forests Cherry Torte."  If you know anything about this dessert, you know that the Saure Kirsche (sour cherries) are the key ingredient.

I *borrowed* this picture from http://www.genial-lecker.de/archiv/2009/03/rezept_schwarzwalder_kirschtorte.html because ours didn't turn out quite so nice looking (although just as delicious!)  

Saturday was Lin's 21st birthday, so we went out on Friday night so she could have a real American celebration for becoming the big 2-1.  We went to an 80's party in Neustadt, but it was pretty empty and the music was some sort of strange 80's interpretive dance, mixed by two very awful DJ's.  They played some hits like "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and Michael Jackson, but it wasn't what Lin had been hoping for.  The website had promised more, like Depeche Mode.  We still got in for half price because it was her birthday, and one of the bartenders gave us two glasses of Sekt (champagne.)  At first quite a few people were dancing, but they were all definitely older than us.  

It's fun to watch the dancing culture here.  I've never seen a girl make the first move; they usually just dance within a foot or two of the guy they're interested in.  Then if the guy doesn't start dancing with them they kinda just slowly back away.  The girls all seem to do the same sidestep shuffle dance too.  No bootyshaking like we do in the States.  The guys are better dancers than guys in the US though.  Some of them can do some really cool footwork, and they all seem to enjoy dancing (without thinking it gay), which is all in all more fun than the 99% of American guys who bitch every time you try to take them out dancing.  I have to change my earlier interpretation that German guys give girls more space at the clubs though.  For the most part they do, but being encircled by guys only a foot or two away on all sides is quite claustrophobic and awkward.  Plus some of them do try to sneak up behind, and then Lin and I have to give each other "Warning Eyes" and move somewhere new.  It's annoying to have to be always aware of what the guys around you are doing, but at least they're pretty respectful (for the most part.)  There was one guy who kept following Lin around, even though she'd already made it clear that she didn't want to dance with him, but we determined that he was very drunk and probably kept forgetting that he'd already been rejected lol.  At least soon Oli and I will be going out together and then I can let him take care of it!

After the 80's club we went to Club Mensa, which is only a 3 minute walk from the dorm.  It was our first time there and we had our reservations, but it turned out to be the perfect way to celebrate Lin's birthday!  They were having their own club birthday party there, so we got in for free and got a free bottle of Rotkäppchen champagne!  Yummy.  The music was also wicked fun, lots of current German hits like Die Atzen and Laserkraft 3D (they sing that "Nein Mann" song I love so much right now.)  Later on in the night they also played some old 90's Pop Hits, which only Lin and I seemed to know the words to.  They also played some Waltz and Russian songs, which everyone else knew how to dance to except for us.  Lin said they must have learned Russian dances in the DDR lol.  I kinda know how to Waltz from elementary school (I grew up in Wisconsin so I learned how to Polka too), but Lin didn't know that well and I'm not a good teacher.  Plus we already looked obviously foreign by knowing all the words to the English songs and rejecting any guys that tried to dance with us by saying "Nein, danke. Kein Deutsch!"  That line worked surprisingly well, even though I'm pretty sure most of the guys knew enough English to still try to talk to us if they wanted to.  My guess is that they were too drunk to try speaking English, so we got off easy.

On Saturday we got all the ingredients to make a Black Forest cake.  We bought a mix that had chocolate cake mix, vanilla cake mix, creme mix, and chocolate frosting.  Then we also had to buy eggs (thanks Anthony!), milk, sour cherries, sour cherry liquor, sour cherry jam, chocolate sprinkles, whipped cream, and gummibärchen to put on top!  Translating the box was kinda tough, but the real adventure started when we had to start figuring out mL and EL.  It was also a layered cake, so whatever layer we tried to put on would usually start melting off right away and we'd have to let it sit in the fridge for awhile.  That's why the end result turned out rather messy, but it still tasted delicious!  I also created a cocktail to go along with cake that I naturally named "The Lin."  It was one quarter sour cherry liquor, one quarter vodka, and half bitter lemon soda.  Quite delicious and appropriate for a 21st bday celebration!

Meißen

It's been raining all weekend, but Friday was a gorgeous day for traveling!  The train ride to Meißen only took about half an hour.  We went to the Porcelain Factory/Museum first.  Turns out Meißen was the first place in Europe to figure out the asian secret of white porcelain.  Even today, most of it is made by hand!  That probably explains why nothing was cheaper than 80 euro!

I enjoyed being able to look at all the artwork though, especially some of the figurines cast from old models.  There was one of an middle-aged woman and a young man getting married called "Die Geldheirat" (the Money Marriage) and another with a young woman handing a baby to a shocked rich man that read "Die Überraschung" (the Surprise.)  I guess people don't change much over time!

After the ceramics factory we got our last free BU lunch.   I went all out and ordered baked catfish and a local on-tap beer.  Delicious!  Danke B.U.!  Then we walked up to an old castle and church and walked through the museum there.  Everything was medieval-style, and I had fun trying to read the old German love poems written on the walls.  Everything was decorated, either with script (in German or Latin), or huge paintings depicting important events in Kings' and Princes' lives.  Silke and I attempted translating some of the Latin.  She remembers more of it than I do!  I don't even know how many languages that woman knows, but it's unbelievable.  The only language I've trumped her in is Spanish, but she already knows Italian so that's not much of a triumph!

There was a Weinfest (Winefest) going on that weekend, not to anyone's surprise lol.  I have yet to spend a weekend in Europe without seeing some sort of festival!  I didn't have enough money to try any, but sometime I'll have to go back.  Silke said that Meißen is famous for its wines.  Back before telegrams and telephones, the head churches of Dresden and Meißen were constantly in contact through letters delivered by messengers.  The messengers would get so drunk off Meißen wine that a lot of letters would get lost or destroyed.  Therefore the king ordered this famous bakery in Meißen (over 300 years old I think) to bake a bread so light and fragile that even one drop could break it.  The bakery made this big, hollow bread called aFommel, and the king stated that every messenger must bring the bread with him on his journey, and if he was took drunk to take care of it and it broke, then off with his head!

So of course we had to go to this bakery, which is of course still open and probably considered young in terms of German history.  Silke bought each of us one of these breads to take up to the castle with us and then back to Dresden.  Anthony broke his in the first minute because he kept poking at it to see how solid it was.  Jason kept going around trying to poke other people's bread, and he got Jen's pretty early on.  She returned the favor halfway through the castle tour.  The rest of us were doing pretty well, but when I got on the train I figured I'd done well enough, so I smashed mine over Jason's head.

I ate some of it, but it was oddly sweet and chewy.  I wonder who ate the Fommel once the messenger had successfully delivered it.  Maybe they let the messenger take it with him to eat with his wine. :-)

Erfolg macht sexy!

"Success makes sexy!" haha.  I saw that on a bus stop ad while I was jogging the other day.  (Also, I just tried to write bus stop as one word and Blogger corrected me. lol)  I'm becoming more successful in German, but also losing some of my English skills.  I'm finding it difficult to transition between writing in German and English, although with just speaking it's still pretty easy.

Not a very exciting week, but there were a few highlights.  Some of it's rather personal, but as most of you know, I'm not really the shy type.

On Tuesday I went to the Frauenarzt (woman doctor aka gynecologist) to get a new prescription for the Pill.  One of the RA's told me that that would be easier than just trying to go to a regular doctor.  It was in fact incredibly quick and easy.  Kinda made me mad at the US for making birth control so difficult and expensive!  (I blame the Catholics...)  I had expected the doctor to be a woman, since the name was Uwe and most gynos in the States are woman, but when I asked to see die Arztin (female doctor), the secretaries laughed and were like, "Nein, er ist ein Arzt."  Mein Fehler!  So that was a little odd, but whatever.  

The wait didn't take long, and then when I met the doctor I just told him that I was from America and my BC prescription had expired and I would like to get a new one here.  He asked me some basic questions and had me do a quick pap.  The paps here are pretty different.  You don't get a little curtain to put on top, and in the middle of it one of his secretaries came in, sat down at the computer, and started chatting with the doctor.  For being such "private people," the Germans sure don't seem to mind nudity!  It didn't freak me out or anything, but it was rather odd.  All in all, the entire process went much quicker than in the US anyways.

Then the doctor pulled out a sheet of all the different kinds of birth control and had me point at the one I took in the States.  He wrote me a prescription for 6 months and send me on my way to the Apotheke.  I tried to pay for the visit at the door, but they wanted to send me a bill instead.  I must have looked like such a clueless American.  At least I did the whole thing in German!  That's not such an easy task.  At the Apotheke they gave me all the pills for the 6 months all at once (sweet!), and it was only 38 euro.  I wonder if the State subsidizes birth control here or something.  In America it's $40/month, and you have to go back every month to pick it up.  Also, they filled the prescription wicked fast.  I don't even know how the woman did it, but I just handed her the Rezept and then within a minute it had slid down into a tray behind her!  Much better than those 20 min waits at CVS.

So that was my little cultural adventure this week.  Hope no one got too grossed out!  Tomorrow we're going to Meißen to see a Porcelain Factory and a mountain (maybe a castle too, I'm not too sure.)  I'm definitely the most excited for the Porcelain Factory! :-)

Berlin ist wunderschön!

On the second day in Berlin, Oli and I didn't sleep in too late because we wanted our free breakfast at the hostel, so we had an early start on the day.  The one tourist place I really wanted to see was Checkpoint Charlie, which wasn't very far away at all.  It was pretty much just a big tourist trap, but it was fun seeing the old guard house, and there was a historical timeline put up where the wall had been so we could learn a little about it without having to pay to go into the museum.  I paid 2 euros to get my passport stamped with an East Berlin stamp, but it was definitely cool enough to be worth it!

Unfortunately there were no actual pieces of the Wall there (except for "pieces" for sale in the Gift Shops), and I really wanted to see it because I had no idea how high it was or anything.  The wall's path was marked with brick on the road, so Oli and I decided to just follow it for awhile and see what we found.  (I felt like I was back on the Freedom Trail in Boston!)  After about 5 minutes we found some old pieces just lying by the side of the road, so we climbed around on them and took pictures (see above - photo credits to Oli.)  I could have easily just chipped a piece off and had an echte piece of Die Mauer, but it didn't occur to me at the time, and I don't really want to carry a chunk of concrete with me back to the States.  Also, the real wall pieces didn't have as much graffiti as the ones for sales in the Gift Shops presumed.  Suspicious...

Then we went to a shopping center platz to meet some other members of the group for lunch.  Resident Evil: Apocalypse was just released here, and I wanted to teach Oli the American art of getting really messed up before a scary movie and then going to see it in theaters, but we ended up being too tired later that night. :-(  Maybe when I'm in Hamburg we can go.  We had lunch at Vapiano, which is the same pasta/salad place we went to when I was in Hamburg.  It's so delicious!  Definitely gonna be one of those places I miss when I'm back in the States.

Then we went shopping in this giant department store called Ka-Da-We.  It's kinda like Karstadt but bigger.  It's not really a department store because smaller companies sell their goods within it, but it's not set up like a mall either with separate stores for each brand.  I guess we don't really have an equivalent in America.  Anyways, there was a gourmet foods floor with international food, so we decided to go check it out for Poptarts.  As we were approaching the floor on the escalator, a giant display of Poptarts stood right in front of us!  They must have just gotten a new shipment in, because they had almost every flavor available.  (Although half of them were the unfrosted type - what's up with that?  Germans need to get fatter.)  Unfortunately they didn't have strawberry either, but of course that didn't dampen my mood!  I picked out Raspberry and Wild Grape.  They were about 9 euros a box, so I couldn't go too nuts.  Oli was sweet and bought them for me, so I gave him some to bring back to Hamburg because he'd never tried them before.  He said he liked them but they tasted more like cookies than breakfast food! lol

We wanted to meet up with everyone again to see "die alte Kirche" (The Old Church) which was rather amusing because there was an old church around every corner and Oli and I had no idea which church the rest of the group actually wanted to see.  But we met up with them and found this church, which was indeed quite old but also under construction.  We couldn't get inside either. :-(  Everyone else wanted to go see the Holocaust Memorial and Museum, but we were more in the mood for a Schläfchen (nap) so we went back to the Hostel.

We met up with Robin later that evening and got dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant nearby.  I only had Ethiopian once in Boston, but it's so good!  Unfortunately I was the only one who got authentic Ethiopian food though!  For some reason it also took about an hour for our food to arrive.  I didn't care too much, but Robin got upset and tried arguing with the waiter in German lol.  I got the authentic vegetable dish with doughbread that you eat with your hands.  I'm not sure what the official names for everything was, but if you ever get a chance you should try out real Ethiopian food!

Then we had a bit of Vorglühen and hanging out with Robin, but I felt bad for Oli because we ended up talking in English pretty much the whole time.  His English is quite good, but Robin and I were speaking quickly and using American phrases and slang.  It's the same as when I was around Oli and his friends in Hamburg.  I could only understand a little bit of what they said.  

Oli and I decided to go to this House Boutique club we'd gotten a flyer for on the street, and Robin went back to his apartment.  We didn't set out until after midnight, which is pretty typical for clubbing here in Germany (since the clubs actually close at a normal time, not 2 am!)  It took us awhile to find the place because it was in the back of some building overlooking a river.  We almost went into the Ü40 (age 40+) party by mistake!  We found the right building, and we also spent a little time on a dock by the river looking at the Berlin skyline and the stars out that night (romantisch!)  I've never been into a pure House club before.  I was expecting more of a stereotypical dance club like the night before, but this was more like what I'd imagined Germany would be like.  The songs were all House, no Club or Pop or Eurodance, which I find a little slow for dancing but quite nice to listen to.  We still danced anyways, because of course there was a fog machine and strobe lights and a giant artistic movie being shown on one of the walls.  I knew a few of the songs, mostly from Cosmic Gate and Super8, and they played one of Oli's favorite songs too.  Right before we left they played "Nein, Mann" (my faves German club song), so of course we had to obey the lyrics and not go yet!

We didn't do too much on Sunday.  We had our free breakfast and then sat down to do some planning on our Amsterdam trip.  It's only 4 hours from Hamburg, so Oli said he thinks we can just drive there.  The hostels are rather pricey (and most of the einzelzimmer are already booked for the weekend), so we might go for a hotel room too.  I want one close to the Red Light District! lol.  We can also get a walking tour of the Red Light District led by a former prostitute.  I also want to check out the Anne Frank house and maybe the Van Gogh Museum.  Since we're driving, I'll get a chance to see a lot of the countryside too!  Maybe I can see some of those cool old windmills.  Photo opp!

So that was my Berlin trip.  I'm definitely gonna go back again before the semester is up!

Beautiful Berlin

Did my alliteration attract your attention? :-p

We just got back from Berlin this afternoon.  The entire BU program went (37 of us in total), so we had our own personal bus on the way back.  Yet again I was able to enjoy the nice Wisconsin-esque countryside, and I even saw my first cows here!

On the way there we all took the early bird train (departing at 6 am) and arrived in Berlin at about 8:30 or so.  We had half an hour to walk around the Hauptbahnhof, and Lin and I found our first Dunkin' Donuts since Boston!  Of course we had to go, and I must admit, the donuts here are more delicious and have many more varieties.  I got Raspberry-Banana or something like that.  So good!  Then the Libby's and the Bio Students separated for our free "lunch" from BU.  We went to a nearby cafe/restaurant, and of course we were the only ones there because it was only 9 am.  Since this was our free meal, we all stuffed ourselves as much as possible.  I had some delicious minestrone soup and Cheese with Broccoli (technically it was Broccoli with Cheese Sauce and Cheese backed on top), but that broccoli could barely breathe in its little cheese swimming pool.  Too much for my tastes.

Then we went to the Bundestag, Berlin's Parliament building.  We sat in on an economic debate, but I didn't really understand anything they said, although I could tell where the different parties sat by who clapped and who laughed at the speaker.  We walked to the top of the building next and went into the big glass dome.  It has ramps along the inside of the dome so you can circle all the way up and get a great view of the city (unfortunately my camera was broken by then!)  The top of the dome was open to the sky and had a bench underneath that people could lie on, so Lin and I stayed there awhile and looked at the clouds.

That was all BU had planned for us, so our Freizeit (free time) began at 2 pm or so.  The majority of the group wanted to do a Stadtrundfahrt and see the sights, but my budget is tight so Lin and I wandered around for awhile looking at souvenirs.  We met up with my friend Robin from Texas who's studying in Berlin for the year.  He helped us find this Turkish Market that Lin wanted to check out, but we got kinda lost so we only had about 15 minutes to see the market before we met the rest of the group.  It was exactly what I imagined a real market in Turkey would be like.  Everything was kinda dirty and crowded and loud, but mega-cheap!  I didn't buy anything, but it was worth it to see that little cluster of a different culture.  There are a lot more Turks in Berlin than Dresden (they came in the 70's as Gästarbeiter, guestworkers) and have been here ever since.  Their culture is pretty different so obviously there are some racial tensions in those areas.  They make delicious döners though!  I'm gonna miss those in the States.

Robin and I helped Lin find the rest of the group so they could check into their hostel, and then I went back with him to his apartment (he lives with a "Host mom," although she's a bit older.)  We just hung out for awhile and talked about our impressions of Germany, where we'd travelled to, how our German language classes were going, etc etc.  He's only been here 2 weeks, compared to my 4.  We had Thai food for dinner!  I miss Pad Thai so much.  It was almost the same as what you get in Boston (although the portions are much smaller.)

At 8 I left to meet Oli at the Hauptbahnhof because he was taking the train to Berlin from Hamburg.  It was so nice to see him again!  He'd booked us a room in a really nice hostel (with its own bar and everything), but since all the Doppelzimmer were full, we ended up getting a 6-bed room to ourselves!  Great party room!  Oli brought some Bacardi Gold for me (it's kinda hard to find here), and he had Wodka mit Redbull for himself of course (it's quite popular here in Germany.)  Also, for those of you who don't know German, w is pronounced as v so that's why Vodka is spelled differently.  If it was actually pronounced the English way I don't think I would ever be able to order a drink without laughing!  We listened to techno naturally, because this is Berlin we're talking about here.  Although my tastes lean more towards eurodance and the dancier techno (for running and aerobics mostly), we both really enjoy House music and club hits.  Those are better to chill out to anyways.

We went to this Disko called Soda Club, which was quite difficult to get into (and even more difficult to find the bathroom within,) but ended up having good dance music.  There was a spanish/black music room, a Top Hits room, and a techno room (FTW!)  We spent the night between the techno room and the Top Hits room.  I know, you're all confused because I didn't spend the entire night in the techno room, but Top Hits are really good for dancing too!  Plus it was fun to watch all the Bio Students hook up and grind on each other. :-)  It was a fun club, but not what I expected for Berlin.  That came on the second night...

Partial Nudity and Interpretive Dance FTW!

I'm all packed up for Berlin!  We have to meet in the foyeur of the dorm at 5:25 am tomorrow!  I swear to God, they bump up our travel time by one hour ever week!  I don't mind waking up early, but I really want to stay out all night on Friday, and waking up at 4:30 am makes me a schlafmütze.

The play (Kätchen von Heilbronn) was quite entertaining last night.  I'll be honest, I didn't understand most of it, but Ute gave us a run-down in class that morning.  The first 15 minutes or so were just actors talking in front of the curtain (it was supposed to be a courtroom, I figured that much out), but then the curtain came up and things really got interesting.  The play was set in Medieval times, but it was put on by an "Experimental Theater Group," so of course nothing was what we expected.

All of the costumes were a mix of medieval, modern, and a bit of the 1970's too (a gold and maroon paisley suit for instance.)  The "forest" was made from beads of varying lengths hanging down from the ceiling, and the characters would run through them and pretend to hide from each other (or when one of the guys got mad because his fiancee had disappeared, he ran straight through them and tangled them all up - so much work for the poor stagehands! lol)  

The stage was covered in dirt and gravel, with a little pond in the middle (yes, real water) and a secret trap door that released steam (some sort of underground sauna?)  The characters liked to run through the water, or fall in the water, or use the water as an excuse to become partially unclothed.  They also used a lot of umbrellas as props.  I'm not quite sure what they were supposed to represent (no one ever went under them), but the colors matched the mood of the setting.  Also, when a character wanted to represent travel, they would run in circles around the stage multiple times.  I couldn't help but notice that they were all impeccably fit!  The last 5 minutes of the play was filled with interpretative dance to old American music.  We were all giggling, but the older members of the audience seemed to find it quite normal.  The best part was when one guy grabbed two towels and started flailing them and spinning in circles.  Others were doing pantomime dances, or as Anthony called them, "zombie dances."

And now the part you were all waiting for - partial nudity!  The male main character had his shirt off for pretty much the entire second act, but he wasn't much to look at.  The two guys that kidnapped one of the main female characters were pretty ripped, but they didn't fool me no matter how straight they acted.  Yeah, I heard you call him your "Freund"! haha  The other main female character (Kätchen), had her dress ripped off right before the intermission, so we saw a bit of boobies before she pulled it up again.  When we came back from intermission, she was still lying in the middle of the stage in only her underwear.  Poor girl must have been freezing up there!  Apparently our teacher Henricks told Jason, "Now that's a nice sight to see." haha.  Poor Jason.  He wanted to sleep through the whole thing but then he had to sit by the teachers.  At least the partial nudity made up for some of it, and no one could sleep through the dancing!

I just realized that some of you might actually want to know what the plot from the play was, and while I do have a basic understanding of what happened, it's too much of a complicated love triangle to explain in one paragraph.  So I found the Wikipedia article, but of course it's in German.  In any case, if you're inclined to copy and paste it into Google translator (can I get some money for a Google promo in my blog?), here's the link: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Käthchen_von_Heilbronn

Märchen

First of all, I want to say thank you to everyone who's been clicking on my ads.  I've earned 3 euros in the past week!  Thanks for the help!

Also, my stats say that most of my readers are German!  You Americans need to catch up.  I did write the blog in English after all.  And thanks to my parents for all of the "entertaining" comments, I suppose it's better than nothing...

I didn't have class this morning because Ute had a conference to go to, so I slept in, did some Turbo Jam, and put some more money on my prepaid Handy.  I'll probably be using it a lot in Berlin! Oli and I booked a hostel room, and we've already found some clubs we want to check out.  One of them was voted #1 in the world last year and #8 this year, so we're gonna try to get in (although supposedly all of the bouncers are big ass guys with tattoos that try to scare you away.)  I'm not sure what tourist things to check out in Berlin.  I suppose The Wall is a given.  I didn't put much planning into sightseeing before coming on this trip.  All of my planning went into what clubs and concerts I wanted to see!  I figure I can do that tourist stuff when I'm older anyways.

In class we've been learning about Märchen (fairytales.)  That's a lot of fun because 1) German fairytales are notorious for being gruesome and violent, 2) they're written in Kindersprache so we can understand them really easily, and 3) they have pictures! Yay!  I read Die Mäuseprinzessin (The Mouse Princess) and gave a summary to the class.  The book was relatively recent too, so I was able to rip the CD's onto my computer.  Now I can listen to German fairytales as I fall asleep!  They're all princess stories though.  Anthony got one of the true German fairytale books with a boy who sucked on his thumb and got it sliced off and a girl who played with matches and burned herself into ashes.  Kinder FAIL

The sun is finally out, but I have all this homework to do for Culture Course tomorrow.  We have to write a Tagebuch (journal).  It can be in English, but we have to summarize it in German.  I think we only have to show him the German, but if he asks to see the real thing I'll just link him to this site and let him try to muddle through all of my run-on English sentences.  Then tomorrow after class we have our first Academic Advising meeting.  I'm so nervous about taking real classes!  I'm finally at the point where I can understand Ute, but she talks slowly and clearly for us.  How will I be able to keep up with the German students?

Prague continued...

Well I made it home safe and sound.  It's been raining here in Dresden the past two days (no surprise there), so I've just been catching up on sleep and homework.  Oli said that I'm a Schlafmütze (sleepy hat) - my new favorite word!

We had gorgeous weather on Saturday and Sunday.  It couldn't have been a better weekend for traveling.  I hope we'll get the same in Berlin!  On Saturday all 7 of us stayed together and wandered around the city.  Prague is a much older city than Dresden since it was never bombed during WWII.  

We were trying to save money so we didn't do any museums besides The Museum of Medieval Torture.  I think I was the one most fascinated by it because everyone had to wait an extra 15 minutes for me to finish while I read all of the descriptions by the machines.  I had to read the German for some of them because the English wasn't as detailed.  Also many of the machines were invented in Germany or Austria (can I say "no surprise there" without sounding too racist?)  Naturally we saw the Iron Maiden and that one that pulls the body apart, but I found a lot of new ones too.  I always thought Water Torture was when you tied somebody down and just dripped water onto their forehead, but apparently it was when the victim was forced to drink a shitload of water and then lie with their back at a downward angle so the water pressed against their organs.  Ouchie.  The Hausdrache (house dragon) masks were also pretty cool because they had some really creative designs for what the dragons should look like.  Although it doesn't seem fair that only insubordinate women had to wear them and not the men!

The whole group went to a Tea House too.  It was prepared in the special monk style and we got to sit in a little corner on pillows on the floor.  Lin and I shared a Lychee tea, although I didn't taste much Lychee in it.  Then again, my sense of taste isn't that good as most of you know.  There was some sort of 9/11 protest going on in the streets, but of course we couldn't tell exactly what it was about because none of us spoke a word of Czech.  Some guys came out and rapped and one was wearing an Osama bin Laden mask, so I think they were probably protesting terrorism and the US Army's invasion into Iraq and Afghanistan.  I thought about trying to ask one of the workers there what the protest was really for, but I wasn't too sure that I wanted them to know that I was an American!

We stopped by some other festivals too.  One was a concert stage set up downtown.  At first they only played old music videos from the 80's (which we loved) but then a real performer came out.  There was also a 5K/10K race going on that evening, so we stopped by the registration site and I got a free VW balloon. :-)  If I'd known about the race ahead of time I think I would have tried to take part, but I hadn't brought my running shoes with me anyways.  Plus we saw the runners go past during dinner that night, and they had to do a staggered start and run on the streets or the sidewalks!  I guess America just spoils us by blocking off all the streets for runners.

I know most of you visit my blog through the Facebook links, but if you're one of the three or so who don't, you can check out my pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051081&id=1606470007&l=0537b7f225. That should be available to everyone.  The picture above is the astrological clock on one of the churches downtown.  We got to see it move at noon on Sunday.  All of the bells chimed and then someone from the church tower played his horn.

On Saturday night most of the group was tired and went to bed early, but Anthony, Christine, Alex, and I wanted to stay up and make the most of our last night in Prague.  We went out to a local sports bar with the two Swedish guys who lived next door.  Us three girls really wanted to go out clubbing again, but the guys were being really iffy about whether they would come along or not.  We would have felt safer with guys, but a group of three isn't that bad.  So Christine, Alex, and I got dressed and ran to the metro so we could get on before it closed at 12 (I missed the 4 am stopping time in Dresden!)  We went to the same 5 story club as the night before since we knew how to get there and how much it costed.

The music wasn't as good on Saturday night (the techno DJ at least.)  He didn't play any popular songs and his beats were a little lighter.  Alex wanted to dance to Spanish music so we spent quite a bit of time on the first floor as well.  The place was a total sausagefest, so although we didn't have to pay for drinks the whole night, we were also being surrounded by guys pretty much every time we tried to dance.  Some of them wouldn't even dance, they would just come and stand really close to us.  Super sketchy.  We met some Italian guys first because of course they were really forward, but they were all short and well, Italian, so I didn't have a good feeling about it.  We followed two of the guys up to the 5th floor (the Chill Out Lounge) because they said they'd buy us drinks, but then when we got there we just sat down and they already started to get to business with us.  Then some of their friends showed up, and they were like, "Hey, come over here!  American girls!"  Of course we were slightly offended by this, and pretty soon we had to pull the old "We're going to the bathroom" excuse while we ran down the stairs to a different floor.  Definitely a benefit from being in a huge club!

We met some guys from München and Austria, and I felt good being able to speak German again.  They lived so close that they were actually driving back home later that night.  One of them must have been at least 7 feet tall.  I tried asking him but of course he answered in meters and I couldn't convert that in my head.  I mean I'm pretty tall for a girl, but I felt like I should have been wearing 6 inch heels to even hear what he said.  He was nice, but the other guys were kinda scummy and all had girlfriends back home they were trying to cheat on.  We didn't want to tarnish our golden perception of German men, so we left after a bit.

Christine went off to have her own fun, so Alex and I decided to get some food at KFC and wait for the metro to start running again at 5 instead of paying for a cab home.  (We also couldn't remember the address of the hostel and it was too far from downtown to be on the map we had lol.)  KFC was pretty much the same as in America, so that was a nice little slice of home.  On our walk back to the metro station at 5, we ran into two Welsh guys trying to find their hostel too.  They came up to us and said, "Excuse me, do you know what country we're in?"  "Pretty sure this is Czech Republic," we answered.  "Shit, we thought we were in Poland!" haha

One of them was quite the comedian, and we spent half the time giggling at their accents too.  They did some American impressions for us, and we must have spent at least half an hour talking to them on the street.  They were just so funny!  By that time it was getting quite cold, and we decided that we might as well wait until the sun came up to go home so we wouldn't have to cross the creepy footbridge over the train tracks in the dark.  We helped the Welsh guys find their hostel, and the comedian promised to make us some cheese and toast (if he had had cheese or bread lol.)  We hung out with them, and there was a surprising number of people still awake in the hostel or coming back from the clubs.  We went online and they showed us where Wales is (I only had some vague notion of it being a small country in the UK, which of course they pretended to be offended by.)  Alex and I said that it would have been so nice to record them talking and then listen to it and giggle whenever we were having a bad day.  UK accents are the best! lol  My favorite was when they called wi-fi wee-fee.

We didn't do much on Sunday because we were running on only 6 hours of sleep for the whole weekend, but we did see a bit more of the city and the Royal Gardens (we had to walk all the way up a big hill to get to the entrance and then we changed our minds when we saw it costed 50 Krones.)  We met up with the Swedish guys for a bit (they were leaving later that day too) and taught them how to play B.S.  It was their "Travel Europe" card deck, so they were drawing on all of the face cards to represent each city they'd gone to.  After they left, we napped in the park for a bit.  Then we got on the 6 pm bus back to Dresden (luckily I got away with not having my passport again!)  We were home before 8, with plenty of time to finish up all of our homework! Ick.  But my postcard from Oli had arrived!  Yay for mail! (*hint hint* for everyone else)

No class tomorrow because our teacher is going to a conference.  In the evening we're going to the theater to see a medieval love story!

Prague!!!

So in case you couldn't tell from the title, I'm in Prague right now using one of the computers at the youth hostel.

We had to leave on the bus at 6:45 am yesterday morning, but the ride was only two hours or so. When we got here we had to exchange our euros for krones (although most places will accept euros as well.) It was pretty scary being in a new country where we didn't speak any of the language. Silke knew her way around pretty well, so she got us on the metro to downtown. Once there we had an hour to wander around before our Sightseeing Bus Tour. Lin, Anthony, and I found a Headshop that sold Absinthe-Lime slushies, so of course we couldn't pass that up! (Hopefully Silke doesn't read this blog...)

Prague has some really nice old castles and churches, but the city itself seems rather dilapidated. There's a lot of graffiti everywhere, and it definitely reminds me of what I heard about Communist East Germany. Downtown was nice and clean, but our hostel is in the ghetto-fab part of town (at least the food and drinks are cheap here!) Our hostel is really nice too. We got a room just for the 7 of us, so we don't have to worry about locking our stuff up or sharing space with strangers.

We also made friends with two Swedish guys who live next door! They're doing the classic Eurotrip before they start college. They were planning to take a train to Paris from Amsterdam, but the tickets were too expensive so they just got on the cheapest night train, which happened to be going to Prague! I wish we could travel like that. BU or our RA's always try to plan everything out for us, and if we want to leave Dresden we need to fill out an "Official Travel Request" form at least three days ahead of time with our complete itinerary and phone numbers and addresses for where we're staying. So annoying. Even when I only went to Hamburg last weekend I had to send Silke an email when I left and when I got back. Also the RA's are pissing me off because they asked if I wanted to stay in Berlin for the weekend, and I said yes, but then they went out and booked a hostel bed for me without even asking! Since Oli is going we're probably going to stay in a hostel together, and if he wasn't I would have stayed with my friends in Berlin. It's just so annoying when they assume that we can't take care of ourselves. Now I have to pay my RA back for the room deposit! And this is why when you assume something you make an ass of u and me, kids.

Ok, I know you wanted to read about Prague and not just hear my bitching. Definitely the best part of the day (and the reason I wanted to stay the weekend) was Karlovy Lazne, a 5 floor dance club downtown. I thought every floor was going to be techno, but only the second was. The first floor and fourth floor were old hiphop and pop (like 5-10 years old) and the 3rd floor and 5th floor were more 80's and 90's music. Each floor was packed and had sweet laser lights and fog machines (plus light-up floors <3!)

Oh the but the 2nd floor...it was exactly what I imagined techno heaven to be like, minus the creepy guys lol. There was a giant iron woman statue with green lasers all over her body and red lasers shooting out of her eyes. The DJ was on an elevated stage behind a strobe light and fog machine, but I could still see him pretty well. The sides of the dance floor were elevated so people could dance up there at the edge of the crowd, and there was also an elevated section with blue floor pads and red lasers shooting down out of the ceiling! The two shots of Absinthe I drank really enhanced the experience as well. :-) The speakers had the perfect level of bass and of course it was synced up with the strobe lights. The music was all techno and eurodance of course with a bit of House (Swedish House Mafia FTW!)

Ok we're going now! Ciao!

More about Hamburg!

First of all, some of you may notice that there are now ads on my blog.  I checked out this AdSense thing on Google, and basically if I let Google puts ads on my blog and people click on the links, they'll send me a check.  I'm not sure how much that'll be, but if you like reading my blog and you want to hear about more of the wild stuff I do (which requires money, mind you), please click on the ads for me!

On Sunday, Oli and I didn't wake up until really late.  We went to the Hauptbahnhof so I could buy my tickets to Dresden, and then we took the commuter rail out of the city to his hometown.  There we met up with his older sister, parents, and two cousins for lunch.  We went to a American-style Steakhouse for lunch (this is where they were already planning to go, I promise!)  I got an American Salad with American Dressing.  Of course I had no idea what either of those things meant, but the Salad turned out to just be regular salad with chicken, and the Dressing was Ranch.  It was pretty good, and I also got to try out this Apfelsaft-Wasser (Apple juice - Water) drink that tasted a lot like hypothetical apple soda (the water here is pretty much all Sparkling Water, to clarify.)

Then Oli and I went back to his house, and we played the European version of Dance Dance Revolution.  I was almost able to say that I played DDR in the former DDR, but we were a little too far west!  The songs were pretty much all American and not very KONAMI-style at all, but it was fun to get back on my feet again.  I haven't been able to play DDR since my high school days.  

We also watched some German TV.  Lin and I keep complaining that we can't watch any TV here in our dorms, and I've been so curious about what plays on German TV.  It seemed to be mostly reality shows and soccer, but we also watched some dubbed Family Guy and a German Comedy Sketch.  It was more slapstick comedy than dialogue, so I was able to follow along at least!  The best sketch was two guys riding to work on scooters and arguing over who got to park closer to the door (even though the scooter parking lot was only about 5 feet wide.)  Then a woman came and tossed her scooter into her spot, knocking down three other scooters next to it and then letting it roll backwards.  Oli got a big kick out of it because there's a stereotype here that women don't know how to park.  (I guess it's still nicer than our stereotype that women don't know how to drive either.)  At the International Restaurant the night before we watched a car unsuccessfully trying to park for like 5 minutes, and Oli was convinced it was a woman driver, but then when they got out we saw a man behind the wheel! lol

So after watching TV, Oli gave me a tour of his mom's landscaped garden behind the house.  It had a really pretty pond and flowers, plus a porch swing, which Oli told me is called an American-style swing here.  The squirrels here freak me out though.  They're bigger and brown and jump directly from tree to tree, not to mention they make this weird chirping noise like a bird.  On my walk back to the dorm from the Hauptbahnhof that night, I saw some sort of hare-fox crossbreed run (or hop) across the road.  No clue what it was.

Oli's mom's hobby is gardening, but his dad's is restoring old cars.  Then we went to the front of the house and they said 5 cars parked there (for a family of four.)  Oli said they have 7 cars total!  His parents said he could drive me back to Hamburg in the old convertible (I think it was 1950's but I'm not positive.)  Either way, I felt very 50's and wished I had brought a scarf and big sunglasses!  But of course we listened to techno the whole ride, so I couldn't get too much into the mood haha.  I'm not sure how old the engine was, but it used a stick shift and the car vibrated quite a bit when we were stopped.  We went pretty fast, but we didn't have time to go on the Autobahn.  He said that some other day I could try driving the convertible on the Autobahn, but there's no way I'm touching a stick shift! (Das ist was sie sagte.)  I told Oli that I'm a woman, so it really wouldn't be safe to let me behind the wheel lol.  Plus I'm pretty sure Dad would flip out if he found out I was driving on the Autobahn already.  (Dad, you can leave a comment to confirm this!)

We got back to the dorm, and then I had to grab my stuff and head off to the Hauptbahnhof.  A sad goodbye, but I think we'll be meeting up in Berlin when my class goes there in two weekends.  Otherwise I might come back during my week off.  I really liked Hamburg!  It feels much more like a city than Dresden does, although the prices are a little higher.  It was also really nice to meet a German family and see a German house and get a feel for real life away from the universities and dorms.

The train ride back was an express through Berlin, so it only took 4 hours (and only costed 41 euros, which is not bad at all!)  Oli gave me a Red Bull for the ride, so I chugged that and finished up my homework in no time at all.  I really wanted to see Berlin, but of course it was already dark by the time we got there and all I saw were the reflections in our windows. :-(  Not too long until I get an entire weekend there though!

This weekend we're having our class trip to Prague.  All seven of us Libby students are gonna stay the whole weekend in a hostel.  I'm definitely checking out the 5 story techno club I've heard so much about.  I'm hoping people there will know some German since they're right next door, but I'm gonna try to learn some key phrases just to be polite (no hypocrite here! lol)

Moin, Moin 2

I finally mailed my postcards to America!  I was going to go for a run then because it's so nice out, but my knee's been hurting again so I decided to maybe just go for a walk.  But then I decided that I should probably study for my midterm tomorrow and finish up my homework and art presentation.  Then I just got lazy and decided I would continue to semi-procrastinate by blogging of course. :-)

Saturday was another gorgeous day.  Oli and I had lunch at this delicious Italian pasta restaurant.  It was kinda like a Subway for pasta, except way way better!  Das hat mir gut geschmeckt!  Then we walked around for a bit and shopped.  I went to the American section of a grocery store, but all they had was mac & cheese, oreos, and peanut butter.  The mac & cheese was 3 euros, and it was an off-brand too!  Crazy expensive.

I also went to a Gummibär store that had all sorts of fancy, exotic gummi-candies.  (I don't want to just say "Gummis" because that means condoms in German lol.)  They had champagne gummi-candies, beer ones, sour ones, and of course in every weird shape imaginable.  I got a bag of Playboy Gummimänner, which were much more anatomically correct than I expected!  I brought them back for the rest of the Libby's to enjoy with me.  It worked out well since we have 5 girls in the group (although Jason secretly enjoyed eating them too!) haha

Oli and I also went to the Rathaus (town hall) and saw the Stadtrundfahrt doubledecker bus tours like in Dresden.  I wanted to take a ride, but it was 15 euros and I was worried I wouldn't understand that much anyways.  But we talked to the conductor, and he said he could do the tour in English also.  So we got in, and it was such a nice day that we got to sit on the top with the roof down (so at least I didn't get carsick like during the Dresden tour.)  I found out shortly into the tour that I should have just gone with full German, because understanding half-English, half-German is quite difficult.  It's not like the conductor would repeat everything either.  He would say in English, "That is an important building on the left," and then explain why it was important in German lol.

It was still a great tour though.  We saw a lot of old churches, the big harbor on the Elbe, Reeperbahn Straße where all the sex clubs are, an Automuseum (no surprise there!), and a lot of impressive modern architecture.  Sorry Dresden, but I think Hamburg beats you on that one!  The apartments on the waterfront were so schön.  I want to live there when I'm rich. :-)  Even though Oli grew up in a suburb of Hamburg, this was his first time having an official tour and he said he learned a lot too.

We were pretty tired after the tour, so we watched a few episodes of House Season 1 in Oli's room.  I'd bought the DVD at Media Markt here in Dresden, but it was Format 2, which doesn't work on my laptop.  So I gave it to Oli as a present since he likes House too, and then we were able to watch it on his computer.  It came in both English and dubbed German, but dubbing really confuses me because the lips don't match up with the words, so we settled on English with German subtitles.  (Besides, who really wants to hear Hugh Laurie "speak" German?  That takes away half the fun of his sarcasm!)

We went to an international restaurant next door for dinner.  Oli had steak and Schnapps (apparently he's become such a regular that they asked about the Schnapps right away! haha)  I had some baked cheese squares (sounds weird but was actually quite delicious) and that French cream soup with baked cheese on the top.  Of course we also had to have some beer with our dinner!

We did some Vorglühen and watched youtube videos.  I tried to explain to him what hipsters and frat boys and bros are (as well as the Double Rainbow joke), and we watched some College Humor videos.  He has a Travel USA book where he and his friends have been planning their West Coast trip, so I went through that with him and told him about the Grand Canyon and cool places on the East Coast as well (such as Boston and New York of course!)

We also spent a lot of time talking about techno and house music and the club scene here.  I tried to explain what Eurodance techno is, but I realized that "euro" is probably too general considering my present location.  In any case, it's pretty much any techno song with a 32 count.

At about 1 AM his two friends came over to pick us up for H1 (heins), another Disko in Hamburg.  One was Russian and one was Arab, but they both spoke fluent German and talked really quickly (especially the Russian, who was already halfway through his flasche of Vodka.)  I was doing fine communicating 1-on-1 in German, but when I had to keep up with a group I felt kinda left out.  Either way, we didn't pregame for long before we went out.  The Arab friend drove because he's Muslim and doesn't drink.  

H1 was also very trendy, although not as posh as Club China.  We were on the Guestlist again, and I got a nice little VIP stamp on my wrist. :-)  Ballin!  There was a secret bar in the back that we hung out at for awhile, but it was already past 2 and Oli and I wanted to dance.  The dance floor wasn't as nice, but it wasn't as packed either.  TV's on the wall were doing laser shows, and a fog machine kept going off.  Unfortunately there was already spilled beer and empty bottles all over the floor, and I kept worrying about stepping on broken glass.  I think they should make everyone use solo cups.  Broken glass is one of my worst pet peeves!

I'm not sure when we stopped dancing, but it must have been after 4.  We went back to the secret bar where his Russian friend was still drinking and talking to a girl.  Absolut Vodka had set up a little private area with glowing tables that changed color surrounded by comfy couches.  In the center of each table were bottles of Absolut chilling in ice.  So classy!  I was more fascinated with the tables though lol.

We left but the Russian guy stayed behind.  Apparently he likes to stay there drinking until close.  Can I say "typical Russian" without sounding too stereotypical? haha

More later...

Moin, Moin Hamburg!

This is going to be a long one... Still better than studying for my Midterm tomorrow though!

I went directly from Weimar to Hamburg on Friday.  It only took about 4 hours on the train, and I have a 50% off card from BU so the price wasn't too bad either.  I had to transfer once in Göttenstein (I don't think I'll ever get the name of that place right.)  Taking the train was pretty fun while the sun was still out, but every time I looked out the window and saw the landscape and the farms I thought I was back in Wisconsin for a second!  Naturally that made me a little bit homesick. :-(  I was hoping to get some sleep once it got dark, but they kept all the lights on and made announcements like every 15 minutes.

I got to Hamburg a little after 9 pm (the train was 3 minutes late - haha DB fail!)  Oli met me at the Hauptbahnhof and then we went to his dorm at Hamburg Universität.  His dormroom is much better than mine.  The suites there actually have livingrooms  and personal sinks in each room (not to mention real beds with real mattresses!)  I have yet to see any double rooms in German dorms.  Maybe it's a privacy thing?  Maybe Germans don't find as much humor in the Real Life drama that results from sharing a room with someone else lol.

Oli had gone out and gotten me a  mozzarella and cheese sandwich and some apples, bananas, and grapes.  He's so sweet!  He even said he tried to find Poptarts but they weren't even in any of the international food stores.  Oh well, my parents promised to send a package soon!  (Maybe if I'm not too greedy I can make some money selling them to the Science students downstairs!)  Oli had also gotten some Bacardi Gold and Coke for me, and of course some Red Bull for him because he's German and apparently that's all they like to mix with their alcohol.  We pregamed a bit and then went to the Hamburg Stadtfest.

The Stadtfest there was much bigger than Dresden's, and it was so packed we could barely move.  We walked around and got some chocolate-dipped strawberries and more to drink.  Oli played one of the carnie games and won me a rose, but I lost it in the Disko that night. :-(  All of the live music was in English and very American-sounding, which confused me quite a bit.  It felt like a county fair where everything was just a little bit off from the norm.

We would have walked around more, but it was so crowded and we'd already missed the fireworks so we decided to head down to a Disko at Reeperbahn Straße.  This street is famous for its numerous sex shops, strip clubs, and of course brothels.  Oli and I tried to go in one (just to do some window shopping), but they said no girls.  Maybe there's a special street for lesbians?  I wondered how all of these strip clubs could stay in business when they're all right next to each other.  Maybe the guys like to go bar-hopping, except with strip clubs.  I also wondered how one tips the strippers when the smallest paper denomination in euros is a 5.  Are the strippers okay with collecting coins?  Where do they put them?  (These would be good questions for Culture Class, but I think if my teacher actually did the know the answer I would be a little weirded out for the rest of the semester lol.)

The Disko (China Lounge) was really nice and posh, and since Oli was friends with the DJ that night we got in for free. :-)  It was already 11 pm but the place was pretty much empty.  Like I said, the party gets started a lot later here.  We hung out in the lounge until people started showing up at 12 or so.  Then once the party started it really got packed.  There were tables we could dance on, but no one was dancing too crazy (except for me of course!)  My new favorite German song "Nein, Mann" came on at about 2 am, which was kinda funny because it's a song about the Disko closing for the night.  Either way, I was definitely excited to hear some German techno!

Ok, I'm gonna write about Saturday and Sunday later...time for a Pause...

Weimar

I'm falling so far behind!  This post will be about our class trip to Weimar on Friday, and then I'll write one about my weekend in Hamburg next.

We had to wake up early so we could meet our teacher Silke at the Hauptbahnhof by 7:30.  Our train left at 7:50, and of course it was punctual to the minute (I'm pretty sure you could set your watch by the trains here.)  Everyone slept on the way there, although I sneaked in some Stephen King reading time.  I don't think I'm ready to try it in German yet...

Luckily we had gorgeous weather.  We got to Weimar at about 10, and then walked downtown (only took 10 minutes, this was a small town.)  There was a little Stadtfest and marketplace set up, so we browsed that for a bit.  There were handpainted wooden German and Russian toys, and of course Bratwürste and fresh fruits and vegetables stands.  The wooden toy stand had some painted Easter Egg ornaments for sale.  My grandma always hangs eggs on a tree every Easter, but I never knew anyone else who did.  I asked Silke, and she said that it's a tradition here in Germany.  Guess that explains it!  I bought Grandma a handpainted pink egg to hang up next Easter. :-)

We had our "free" lunch at a Shakespeare restaurant.  I say "free" because it was paid for by BU, but of course our tuition was still paid for by us or someone else.  I guess I should be thanking my parents for those free meals!  I ordered some Nudeln mit Spinat (Pasta with Spinach.)  It was pretty good, although more sweet than salty.  They baked a weird cheese onto the top that I didn't recognize.

After lunch we had our Stadtrundtour (city tour.)  It was just a walking tour this time, which kinda sucked because I was trying to break in my new high-heeled leather boots so I could wear them in Hamburg.  The tour was also auf Deutsch of course, and although the tourguide spoke really slowly for us, I didn't know a lot of the vocab.  Honestly I think the tour would have been pretty boring in English too.  Mostly she talked about Goethe and Schiller, two famous classical German writers who lived in Weimar for quite awhile.  A lot of the tour (or at least the parts I understood) were: "This was Goethe's summer house...This was Schiller's first house in Weimar...This was his second...They liked to walk in this park...So-and-so got married here."  The only German author I know well is Kafka, and he's a little more modern than them.

After the tour we were free to wander the city and check out some of the museums (and of course Goethe's and Schiller's multiple dwellings.)  We had to pay for our own tickets however, and I was feeling pretty cheap, and I'll admit, not too interested.  Lin, Jason, and I found a cool Ostshop (East Germany memorabilia shop.)  I got some pins, although two of the three had to do with techno and DJ's lol.  Lin really loved the shop, and she got some pins of the notorious crosswalk guys (green and red) as well as a bag of gummi-crosswalk guys.  We also found some  Schnapps (alcohol nips) from the DDR days as well as little toy Trabi cars.  She said all of this DDR communist stuff reminded her of China lol.  I found an old Glockenspiel (cuckoo clock), but of course it cost over 100 euros.

The next time I have a free weekend here in Dresden I'm going to check out the Fleamarket on the Elbe.  I heard you can get a lot of cheap DDR memorabilia there.  (And yes Melissa, some of it will be for you!)

Cultural Perception and Albertinum

I thought I'd take a break from munching on my pickles to post another blog!  We're heading off to Weimar tomorrow at 7:30 for our Cultural Excursion, and then I'm going directly from there to Hamburg, so I need to go to bed early tonight!

Today was Culture Course (blah.)  I had written up a bunch of stuff for our homework and Tagebuch (diary), but the professor didn't even collect them, he just wanted us to talk about it.  Guess I won't have to do as much for next week!  We also did this exercise where we had to look at a picture and describe what we saw.  The first was a family eating dinner, but of course he told us that "family" was our interpretation, and not what we actually saw.  I said I saw them eating Kartoffelbrei (mashed potatoes) because the bowl had something white in it, and he was like, "How do you know that?"  

"Because Germans love potatoes!"

"And how do you know that?"

"Because I'm German, and I love potatoes!" lol.  Probably not the best reasoning, but I love throwing stereotypes at him just to be funny.  That class can get so boring.  Of course I didn't write only what I saw, I made up an entire story about how the mother had died in the family and the uncle was there to care for the children, two of whom were twins.  The oldest wanted to be a cosmonaut when he grew up (I assumed they were in 80's Germany because the curtains were paisley.)  Apparently that was not what the assignment asked for though...

   

Our next class assignment is to stand in a place for 10 minutes and "objectively" observe everything we see and hear.  Then we have to write our Interpretations and Impressions and present it to the class.  At least I don't have to worry about smell! haha

We read some articles in class too, so we could discuss them.  This part is pretty difficult for me because I can't read something in a foreign language without looking up pretty much every single word I don't know.  Maybe that's a habit I picked up from reading in English?  Sometimes I can deduce the meaning from the content, but I still want to look it up just to be sure.  Doing all this makes me take about twice as long as everyone else to read the article, and I'm usually not done until we're already halfway through discussing it.  Herr Zeuner asks us afterwards if there were any words we need explained, but I have so many that I don't want to take up the rest of the class's time.  I wish he would give us more time to read the articles, or let us know ahead of time what they'll be.  Maybe it's my OCD or just being a Linguist, but I can't let myself read past a word without knowing it's exact definition. 

After Culture Course, we had our little city excursion with the two Deutsch teachers.  We went to the Albertinum, an art gallery in downtown Dresden.  It had a ton of statues which was cool.  They were pretty much all naked too. :-)  For Deutsch class we have to pick a statue or a painting to present on in class.  I think I'll pick this wax statue I saw of two bearded giants wearing hiking clothes.  

The paintings were also really nice.  They went from Renaissance to Modern.  Some interesting things I saw were: a giant painting of only a gray square, Degas' ballerina paintings and sculpture, nude people who do all sorts of things outside and never seem to get burnt, Wanderer translated as "Rambler," and more paintings of squares on top of squares (except this time in different colors!)  There was also this huge, grotesque painting called Der Krieg (The War) painted from 1929-1932.    It showed a lot of body mutilation, soldiers in gas masks, and cities being destroyed.  Underneath the painting was a smaller one with what looked like an old man and a boy lying in a box under the ground with rats.  I couldn't tell if they were hiding or already dead.  It was the most powerful painting at the gallery, and I wasn't surprised to see an old woman sitting in front of it and crying softly.  She'd probably lived through at least WWII and seen Dresden destroyed.  I can't even imagine what that must have been like.  Every American today has the privilege of being able to say that we've never seen a war on our home soil.  Unfortunately we tend to take that for granted.

Anyways, I need to finish my homework and get ready for Weimar and Hamburg tomorrow! Tschuss!