Lidl Ticket

So, how do I begin to describe this situation I found myself in recently? Well, let me start by saying there is a small grocery store in Germany called Lidl. There is also a transportation system in Germany which consist of subways, above ground subways, trams, buses, and long distance trains which go all over the country. The fastest and most expensive long distance train is called an ICE (Intercity Express). This transportation system is run by something called Deutsche Bahn (DB). Anyway, every year in December for about a week this store Lidl offers something called a Lidl ticket for only 64 euros and you can go anywhere with any kind of train, round trip, but the ticket only last from January to March 31st. And the tickets are limited. Well, I bought one to use when I went to Köln for Karneval, but that was it. Then a little over two weeks my Area Representative in my program sent me an email asking if I would like a Lidl ticket. She had bought one too many and wasn't able to use it before it expired at the end of March. So, I took it.
I decided to go to Freiburg for 2 or 3 days to visit friends and see the area. Since I live in Berlin which is in the north-east of Germany and was traveling to Freiburg which is located in the south-west of Germany, I was definitely getting a deal. Normally, with an ICE that would have cost at least 200 euro and it's a 6 and a half our train ride with the fastest train in Germany.
I stayed with my friend (brother) Jake, who is in the same program. He lives in a little Village called Schuttern, about 50 minutes outside of Freiburg. I'd never really been to a village before and I thought some of the things Jake told me about it was a joke. Like there is no movie theatre or movie rental in the village. There is only one bakery/small grocery store in the village and one church that the village is centered around. It's a typical German village. From the village it's a 10 minute drive to France and you can see the mountains of France (and Germany, part of the Black Forest) from Jakes house. :)
We went into Freiburg for a whole day and i got to meet up with a couple of friends in my program as well as see some of the city. However, it was raining and grey the day we went didn't get to see everything in the city. My friends showed me around some and took me to eat Black Forest Cake (Schwarzwald Kirsch Torte). It was delicious, of course. Then they took me the the Münster and we climbed all the way to the top. All of these church like buildings are the same here. You go into these tiny stone stairwells and have to climb the never ending staircase. I always feel like Nancy Drew trying to uncover some mystery and it's always slightly creepy. But once you get to the top you get to see the entire city and that is beautiful.
To end my day in Freiburg my friend Mason took me a cafe to drink a glass of white wine made in the region. It was delicious. Definitely the best wine I've ever had. :)
The next day I started to head home but decided to stop in Mainz and spend the day with my hubby, Chris. We walked around a bit, had lunch together and had some wonderful ice cream (which I hadn't eaten since the summer) before I boarded my train and headed home to Berlin.


Schuttern with the Black Forest (mountains) in the background.



The only Bakery/shop in Jake's village.



Me and Mason in Freiburg



Black Forest Cake



In from of the Münster in Freiburg.



The stairwell up to the Münster.



View of Freiburg from the top of the Münster.



Me at the top of the Münster. It was windy.



Church in Freiburg



A square in Mainz. Can you find me? :p



The things you find in Mainz haha



Ice cream in Mainz with Chris :)

Of course

I typically always make a mistake when doing something on the computer. This time i hit post blog instead of save. So, I apologize for any grammatical errors. And here are the pictures from Christmas and the snow that I wanted to post.


My Christmas present from Johannes. :)



Our Christmas tree filled with Candles.



Grandma and Grandpa's treasure chest of Christmas cookies.


Taking a walk with the family a day or two after Christmas eve. Don't Ammar and I look cute. (I'm wearing Ammar's hat :p)

Finally

It started snowing on Christmas eve and it kept snowing all through January and February. Now after nearly two months of snow. It is melting. As the snow slowly fades, the grass underneath is green as it was the day it started to snow. As though it was preserved and just waiting to see the sun again. I feel like that grass. Just buried in something cold, annoying, and beautiful.

I haven't written in three months. So much has happened in this time. Every month here feels like it last about three months. Once the month is over it feels like everything that happened during it happened so long ago. Still it goes by too fast.

Christmas in Germany was beautiful. The glowing Christmas markets filled with people, arts, food, and the ever popular Glühwine (a warm spiced wine). The house and tree were filled with Candles. At night they were the only thing you needed to light. I had so many different cookies with the same delicious hot chocolate. All the cookies were home made by my host grand mother (who happens to live next door).

On Christmas eve we went to the Berliner Dome for Mass. It is probably one of the most beautiful churches I've ever been in. Then we came home, ate a marvelous dinner including duck and potato salad (how german), drank way too much wine and opened all of our presents. I was the first to go to bed at 2 am. The next few days were followed with a trip to Potsdam to see the New York Gospel choir, several big feasts with relatives, playing lots of Uno, and my very first opera (which i experienced with Julia, Ammar, and Bilal).

New Years was spent in a very nice part of the city at my host Cousin's apartment with Ammar, Julia, Bilal, Hector, Austin, and my cousin Robert. We ate, we drank, I made an amazing flourless chocolate torte, and we experienced the craziness of New Years in Germany. There were so many fire works that no matter where you turned the sky was lighting up in green, red, blue, purple, and orange.

Outside Robby's apartment. There was smoke in the air from all the fireworks.



In the beginning of January, I started a new internship at a school. I now work with fourth graders. I spend the first half of my day observing classes and helping the kids or teachers when they need it. The second half of my day is after school care, in which I play games with the kids for about 3 hours until 4 o'clock.

I enjoy my this internship a lot more than I did the last one. The theatre just had no work for me, except to run errands and hand out flyers. I wasn't learning any German in the theatre either and I felt as though I was hardly socializing because I was always out with the flyers. But working in the school has helped my german tremendously. The kids are very nice (with the exception of one or two) and they really seem to like me. Every now and then I teach them about where I came from or play games with them in English to help them learn. The other day I described disney stories/princesses in English and they had to guess which story or princess it was. I will gladly be staying in this internship until may.

I helped some of the boys build a snow man one day. The 4.1 is the class they are in. The fourth grade is split into 4.1 and 4.2.



Now I know this post is getting pretty long, but I only have one more thing to talk about. Since I wasn't in Louisiana, I wasn't able to celebrate Mardi Gras. The funny thing is other cultures celebrate something just like Mardi Gras. They have it in Italy and Germany as well. Except here and in Italy it's called Karneval.

So, for one week I went to Cologne to experience it. Cologne is like New Orleans for Mardi Gras and a city very close called Düsseldorf is like Baton Rouge for Mardi Gras. My friends and I spent a majority of our time in these two cities. Everyone was dressed up and drinking. Just having a good time. It was very similar to Mardi Gras except no king cake and no plastic beads. They threw a lot more candy and random things like rubber duckies and powdered soup at the parades. Oh and no one was flashing for things as far as I could tell. Thank God.

Weihnachtsmarkts, Meissen, Dresden, Gluhwein, and St. Nicolas

This past weekend was filled with so much beauty and fun. And I got to spend all of it with my host family. :) It was a weekend where I got to experience something I could never experience in the States. Old beautiful cities, Christmas traditions, and food.




Friday night I went to a Weihnachtsmarkt (which in English is a Christmas Market) with my host family. My host sister Julia, her boyfriend Ammar, and his brother Bilal, all came in for the weekend. I really enjoy hanging out with Julia, Ammar, and Bilal. It's like having the whole family there. All my brothers and sisters. And it's nice to have a sister there. We get along really well. We like the same music, fashion, and tend to think pretty alike. The guys are pretty funny.

There are so many Weihnachtsmarkts in Berlin that I can't even count, but on Friday we went to one of the nicest ones. It cost a Euro to get in (in order to keep all the drunks and bad kids out). It's located in one of the nicest areas in Berlin as well. In between the German and French Domes and in front of the State Opera House.

The Market was filled with lights, trees, and people. There were scarves, jewelry, and wood carved decorations. Everything unique and beautiful. The tents with food were selling everything from Gluhwein (a warm, sweet wine) to chocolates to cakes to bratwarts. We ate freshly made individual pizzas that were no bigger than a sandwich. You could see them making the dough and the bread was so fresh.




Later that night we went home and drank some Gluhwein and just sat in the living room and talked. The room is filled with so many candles, they are the only light we need. We didn't stay up too late though because the next morning we were waking early to make a day trip to Dresden.

The next morning we woke up early, ate another amazing german breakfast together (filled with bread, all different cheeses, jams, meats, eggs, coffee, tea, and milk), and left for Dresden. On the way we took a detour to a little town called Meissen (which is famous for porcelain). We looked at its tiny Christmas market, some shops, found a giant gingerbread house as well as a church that was built in 1215, and grabbed something to eat in one of the towns oldest restaurants. If the town has a church that was built in 1215, I can only imagine how old the restaurant was. The food was delicious though.







After we were done with our little detour we got back on the road to Dresden.

Dresden was, to say the least, absolutely beautiful. We saw the weihnachtsmarkt, the shops, a few palaces, an opera house, and churches. My family couldn't tell me what most of the names of things were but I'll be looking that up once I go through my pictures again. I loved it though. The only problem is it gets dark so quickly at this time of year, the sky is so cloudy, and you are just freezing in your boots that it's hard to really love the entire experience. I will definitely go back later in the year when it's a bit warmer.










To end our day in Dresden though, we went to a little cafe called Cafe Kunst (which means Cafe Art). Everything inside the cafe is for sale. The walls are covered with paintings, the ceiling has all different lights and chandeliers hanging, and there are even different chair and table sets. All for sale. However, we were more interested in some hot cappuccinos and some traditional Christmas cake called Stolle. Stolle is a little bit like fruit cake except it only has raisins in it and it's coated in powdered sugar. It's good but a little heavy. The coffee was very nice, especially since we just came out of the below freezing weather.




And as a final good bye to Dresden we stopped by the oldest Weihnachtsmarkt in Dresden (or Germany?). It was beautiful and a little small. Lots of people were around through, buying all sorts of goodies and speaking all sorts of languages. This day in Dresden was very nice and I will for sure come back.




The next day we woke up a bit later. When I came downstairs I was pleasantly surprised to see a little stuffed bear sticking out of my boot. That Sunday was the second Advent and the tradition in Germany is that the night before the second advent St. Nicolas comes and fills the children's boots with toys and goodies as long as they have been good. Of course, I'm always a good girl so I had something wonderful in my boot. A little stuffed bear filled with chocolates. I named her Nicole.

Thanksgiving

If anyone remembers their history classes all throughout elementary school, then they will remember that only the U.S. celebrates Thanksgiving.

What is Thanksgiving though? It's different for everyone. For me, its a week off of school, a whole day for me to cook with my mom in the kitchen, stuffing yourself with delicious foods, watching the Macy's day parade, and looking forward to all the leftovers.

But I didn't have that this year. On that Thursday, I knew it was Thanksgiving but it wasn't shown anywhere. It was like living in an alternate universe.

Everyone in the program is in a different city in Germany. There are three of us in Berlin. Hector, T-mac, and myself. Every city has an Area Representative. Mine is named Grit. Some get more involved with their exchange students than others. Grit is very good because she tends to stay pretty involved. We do something with her at least once or twice a month.

A while back she met a man and planned to make a big Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant and teach several people about Thanksgiving. The catch was Hector, T-mac and I had to be the one's to teach about Thanksgiving. We were to "entertain people" before the food came. So, we arranged to talk about a little history and then tell about the day itself now. Then we performed 3 songs. One song was one we wrote ourselves (I played the piano, Hector played the guitar, and T-mac sang). The second song was just a piece I played on the piano and the third was a piece Hector played on the guitar.


Everthing went well and after we performed we got to sit down, relax and have a German version of Thanksgiving. We ate pumpkin soup, turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce. We even had pumpkin pie for dessert. But there was still something missing. The food just didn't taste as good as the food I make with my mom on Thanksgiving. The pie didn't really look like pumpkin pie (even though it was still tasty). Maybe is was the fact that I didn't get to cook with my mom, or the lack of leftovers that last for days, or no Macy's day parade or no black friday shopping. But hey, there's always next year!










These pictures are of T-mac with a breadstache, my plate with turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and some kind of potato thing, and pumpkin pie.

Shit Happens

I know it's been a while and I have a very good post coming after this on about my adventures at the beginning of November but first I must tell you what happened last friday.

I went out with most family on the 21st of November to go to a movie and shopping for groceries. There were no good movies out, so we decided to just go shopping. Believe it or not grocery shopping isn't much different here than in the states. The buggies are a bit smaller and the food looks better (there's a lot more fresh meat, fruit, and veggies). We left the house around 4:30, just as it was starting to get dark. It gets dark so early here. By 5pm it already feels like 7 or 8 pm just because it's so dark. It really messes with your head.

Anyhow, when we came home we took the groceries into the kitchen. We put away the food while making a simple dinner at the same time. Salad with bread and cheese and some fresh meat. We got home around 7:15. We ate our dinner and talked about what we were going to do the next day. We were going to go to a concert and go to their Cabin which is about an hour away in Brandenburg. After we ate my host mom (Andrea) and I started clearing the table, my host dad (Tommy) went somewhere and my host brother (Johannes) went to look something up on his computer.

A few minutes later my host mom and I were still cleaning in the kitchen when Johannes come down asking where his computer was. I made joke with him about it because he tends to lose things. But he said he left it on his bed and he said that I should remember because we were looking at something together on it when he last used it. My host mom went upstairs with him to help find it while I finished the kitchen.

A second later Andrea says that her computer (which was sitting on her desk in the office) was gone. That is when I felt the odd panic set in. "What is going on" I thought. It kind of reminded me of Christmas for a split second. When I was little my mom would take the gingerbread men and woman (and children and any other living gingerbread thing) and hide them in my doll house or somewhere similar. The reason was because on Christmas eve while we're sleeping and when Santa was coming they would come to live because of the magic of Christmas. I loved it.

I ran up to my room and opened the door and turned on the light. I had left my laptop on my bed, plugged in. It wasn't there. That is when my heart sank.

Someone had broken into our house while we were gone for 3 hours and took all of our laptops, half of my jewelry, all of Andrea's jewelry, and my host parents 50 kilo (140 pound) safe. The creepy thing is that besides the fact that all of our possessions were gone, there was no trace of anyone being in the house or how they got in. Later we discovered they broke the door handle of the back door and that's how they got in. The police came, dusted for prints and told us there was probably no likely hood of them finding our things. Which I expected.

Now we all have new laptops, new locks, and a little case of paranoia. We leave light on in the house when we leave and my Andrea almost always has here laptop with her. I hid the important jewelry I have left (I got lucky because some of my jewelry was already kind of hidden, not on purpose) and I kind of hide my computer when I leave. But I refuse to live in fear. That's no way to live.

Things will get better. They already are better. The insurance should cover most everything. Even my computer.

Apres Moi

I've been a busy little bumble bee. Managing my internship, learning German, and keeping a good relationship with my host family (as well as my real family) takes a lot of work. However, the first week of November I was taken on a very lovely trip to Paris, France.
i took an ICE to Nurnberg to meet up with Ryan Kelly (the sweet guy that took me to paris).We had to take two different flights to Paris because of the time we bought our tickets and because waiting just a week or so to buy your tickets can change the price by 100 dollars. So, he left first on his flight and I waited four hours in the airport, wandering around the duty free shop, waiting to take my one hour flight over to meet him.
We stayed in a lovely hotel in Paris that was in a very good location (near the Eiffel Tower) with his grandmother who was doing a tour with a group of people over 70.
We got to see everything in Paris even though we were only there for 3 whole days (four if you count the day we came in but it was late at night). We took a free city tour with a wonderful tour guide. She was so sweet and filled with information and history about the city. It was a walking tour that lasted four hours but when you live in Europe, you get used to walking and Ryan and I were hardly tired afterwards.

So, we went on another tour with the same woman later that night in Montmartre. That's were Moulin Rouge is. It was cool, hip and the tour was filled with loads of interesting facts about artists that used to live there like Van Gogh. The tour also took us to the Basilica which is an beautiful church at the highest point in Paris. So, once you get there you can see the entire city, including the Eiffel Tower. Since our tour was at night we were able to see all the lights of Paris and the Eiffel Tower all lit up. The city honestly sparkles. At the end of the tour we got a free glass of wine. How could it get any better?



The next day we took a tour at the Palace of Versailles. We saw 16 rooms of the 700 hundred rooms in the Palace. All of which were beautiful for the most part with incredible ceilings. Some rooms were a little tacky and overdone but I guess that's just how they did it back then. The Hall of Mirrors was beautiful and the name says it all. It's filled with windows on one side that show the amazing courtyard.



Later that day we took a trip to Musee d'Orsay, Notre Dame, and Le Louvre.



In d'Orsay I saw the original Van Gogh self portrait and some original Monet. Notre Dame was absolutely gorgeous inside and out. Part of my kept expecting to see the Hunchback (okay just kidding). And the Louvre was huge, to say the least. In my opinion the Mona Lisa is definitely worth going to see. The colors of the painting have an effect and are beautiful. Its small but not as small as everyone says. That night at the Louvre there was a full moon and the best part of that trip was going up to where the invisible triangles lie and admiring the view. It was a very romantic night.



The last day, the sun was actually shining!! In November the sun hardly shines and the weather wasn't supposed to be good, so this was a pleasant surprise. We had been rushing to see everything in Paris since we got there and on our last day (the day we were leaving) we decided to take it slow and go back to look at two things we had already seen but a little closer and with more time. We went to the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triumph. We didn't get the chance to go up either one (each is supposed to provide a beautiful view of the city) but that's okay because I have decided that before I go back to the states in June I will try to make another trip to Paris. Or Maybe in the next couple of years I will study abroad there. I've always wanted to learn French.