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!)