So as I was getting into my tourist groove today and taking photos, I was narrating each photo in my head in preparation for the awesome blog post to come. I dunno if anyone else does this, but I do all the time :P About halfway through my day and subsequent mental narration of my photos, I realised that I left my camera cable connecting dealie in Stuttgart. So yeah, no awesome picspam blogpost until I get back to Stuttgart :P I was especially making an effort to not take millions of photos of buildings. OMG SO MANY PRETTY BUILDINGS IN BERLIN! But I refrained, mainly because I was on a bus, always on the wrong side and photo taking opportunites were just non existant. So as a replacement for pretty buildings, you guys are gonna be treated to numerous photos of food! Yay! But I will have to leave you in suspense until Sunday night, or possibly Monday night, depending on how tired I am :P
Today's recap will have to wait. What will absolutely not wait is my very first viewing of a German language musical! *EPIC FLAIL* Ok, so I saw We Will Rock You, which is clearly an English musical, but you guise! They translated it! Not all of it, just some of the songs and all the dialogue. Anyway, this morning I rang the phone number you have to call for the cheap student tickets from my hostel's phone, because the girl at the desk wouldn't do it for me *huff* The lady on the phone told me that all the student tickets were sold, but there were some available in every section. I decided not to book over the phone, and somehow thought that I'd be able to find my way to the theatre during the day and book then. Yeah, no. I ended up just rocking up just before 7pm (after some misadventures with my awesome memory map reading :P) and hoping for the best. I'm SO GLAD I did because they obviously just sell any seat that's left at the student price when there's only half an hour to curtain :D I ended up in row 11, which was about a thrid of the way up the stalls. I had seat number three, which I assumed was on the edge, but it's not. It's in the middle. The numbers start in the middle of every row and move outwards. There's two number ones next to each other in the middle, and on your ticket it tells you if you're left or right. Crazy Germans.
ANYWAY I totally cried at the awesome. Right at the start they filled the auditorium with stage smoke and although people around me were coughing, I was breathing deeply and lapping it up like a chain smoker. I never realised I liked that stuff so much, but it's been over a year since I've smelt it and oh boy do I miss it *tear* The guy at the box office warned me that the show was mostly in German, which is fine since I know the story after seeing it in Perth. Then I remembered that the jokes are heavily based on the pop culture of whatever town the show is in. There were A LOT of jokes I didn't get, even if I had understood the words exactly I wouldn't have known what they meant. But that's ok, I had my own private little jokes, like the awesome German accents they had when they switched to English. One guy started singing with this random country twang, alternating with the heavy German accent. Hilarious! I thoroughly enjoyes myself :P
There's a lot of changes from when I saw the show. I was still in highschool, so it was before the days of facebook and twitter, and there were lots of fb twitter jokes added. And it's changed from being set on Planet Mall to Planet Ebay. OH OH and right at the start when there's all those important historical dates like Woodstock and the Beetles touring the world, they added 2010, GERMANY WINS EUROVISION. Gold, pure gold right there :P They'd also added this whole thing about German and English. Galileo dreams in English, and sings only in English, but the Killer Queen doesn't like English or something so she only sings in German. Except the entire second act was sung in English. They translated her songs and most of the first act chorus numbers, but also No-One But You, which was interesting. From what I could pick up No-One But You was totally different, entirely original lyrics. But then again I could be wrong :P
The show pretty much looked the same, but 100 times more camp, as only the Germans can do. I loved it! Goodness me. It's really hard to describe the German style of musical theatre, but it is seriously awesome. No one else can pull it off, look at how Dance of the Vampires EPIC FAILED on broadway.
Theatre etiquette is totally different here too. I've always taken it for granted that cameras aren't allowed. No photos. Full stop. It's the same everywhwere. Well, there was a poor usher running around before the show telling people to stop taking photos. They were blatantly obvious about it too, they'd stand up and lean over the balcony and there's be a huge flash. Then a guy behind me gets out his camera, which was one of those things that you assemble until it's longer than you're arm and looks like it can take close-up photos of Pluto. What was he going to with that? Clearly he was going to photograph the entire show.
During the interval everyone was drinking these awesome looking red things with fruit in the bottom. I couldn't even see the bar because of the crowd, so I just went back to my seat like I usually do. Well, these things must have been potent because there was a whole lot more giggling and singing along in the second act in my immediate vicinity. I loathe people singing along to a theatre performance. It's not a concert, these people are not just singing for the sake of it, their character is saying something so you should respect that. Besides, the people that sing along are usually crap :P BUT I can see why people sing along to a jukebox musical, especially at the end when they're just singing all the leftover songs that they couldn't quite squish into the plot :P. I will just judge them quietly to myself.
Ok, I'm tired now. I forgot about dinner until the show was about to start, so I got myself some noodles from a street vendor and I ate them in the lobby of my hotel. But now I am finished and it's nearly midnight. I don't wanna go back up to my room so late that my roomies are sleeping, and have to fumble around in the dark trying to find my jammies and brush my teeth :P Besides, my fingers aren't working properly anymore and it's a big effort to type. Tomorrow I might go on a walking tour, so I can satisfy the urge to take photos of buildings that I managed to suppress today :P
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Train
Right now I’m on the train to Berlin. I heard a rumour that there was wireless internet available on the ICE trains, but Lucinda doesn’t seem to think so :P. I probably have to sign up for it somehow or pay for it or something, but I have no idea how to go about that. Instead I shall just type this up as a draft to pass the time and post it when I get to the hostel, which I know definitely has free wireless :) This will probably be a long entry, simply because I’ve been sitting on this train for two hours, and there’s another three and a half to go.
On Thursday morning Karin, the coordinator of the course I’m doing here in Stuttgart, was pacing up and down the halls and poking her head into all the classrooms. It seems this year we’re an exceptionally quiet, responsible bunch, and Karin was very surprised and elated to see most of the Australians in class on time the day after Australia Day. As far as I know only a few were missing in action, and an American had woken up in some miscellaneous train station with a twisted ankle and no memory of how he had gotten there. He still made it to class, although there are photos circulating on facebook of him sleeping on some desks.
OMG EPIC SNOW! The whole train ride so far has been through picturesque countryside, but no snow whatsoever. It’s actually been really beautiful, once we hit Frankfurt the skies cleared and the sun was shining for a little bit. It’s setting now, so it’s that really pretty dusk time. I haven’t seen the sun in over a week, it’s amazing what a difference it makes to your mood. Anyway, we just passed a few fields covered in snow, but now we’re in a tunnel :P
I woke up this morning to the world covered in a light dusting of snow. It’s really magical, because you can’t hear it like you can hear rain. The world just changes overnight. Of course the first thing that happens in the morning is that people walk along the sidewalk sprinkling salt to melt it all. Of course the traffic on the road melts all that snow, because there wasn’t very much. There’s some sort of rule that if it snows overnight, you have to be up and have the path in front of your house cleared by 7am. This is why everyone hates snow :P if you don’t clean your bit of path and someone slips over, then you’re liable. I’m not sure what the rules are for flats, because I’ve never been up early enough to notice anyone shovelling our footpath, and I’ve never noticed Marina do it either.
Today we went on an excursion into the city with a sheet of questions that we had to find out the answers to by asking German people. I was paired with Josie and we were very proud of ourselves for introducing ourselves as students and asking a girl in a shop some questions, which she answered completely in German and we mostly understood. Usually if we talk to someone and they figure we don’t speak much German, they just switch to English. Although the guy in our kebap shop recognises us and lets us muddle through our orders in German, which he clarifies in German and only switches to English if he needs to. Even if he already knows what we want he’ll patiently let us get it all out :)
I almost didn’t get on the train today. When I got to the platform with fifteen minutes to spare after getting my eurail pass validated there was no train, just a bunch of people with suitcases on the platform. Our train rocked up at the time it was scheduled to depart, but boarding is something like boarding a plane. It takes ages with people dragging their luggage, then putting it up on the overhead racks and finding their seats. The door I was waiting at closed with about three of us still outside, so we were like HOLY SHIT, but a conductor person was holding another door open for us. The train took off with us all still trying to find our seats. I’m not sure about the rules on trains, but I was told I needed to book a seat reservation for a small fee in addition to my actual ticket. I did, but it seems that not everyone does. There were all these people sitting around the entrances and between cars on their luggage, and I had to eject someone from my seat. It seems that if you don’t reserve a seat, you just sit somewhere and hope no one has reserved that particular seat :P I dunno if eventually everyone hanging out in the entrances got to sit, but a ton of people got off at the first stop anyway.
There’s a food place somewhere on board as well. Every now and then they make some sort of announcement about food and a restaurant, but I can’t understand enough to know exactly what he’s saying. People keep walking past with boxes of something that could possibly be some sort of burger. I can’t be bothered investigating, I’ve brought along a stash of chocolate. I ate a late lunch anyway and always intended to get some dinner when I get to Berlin. Train food is probably ridiculously overpriced anyway.
EDIT: Now the announcements have stopped, but a Brezel girl is walking up and down :P There's also a guy with a trolley of softdrink. The guy sitting next to me got up and came back with a pint of beer :P
We’re going backwards. I’m not very happy about this. We were forwards all the way to Frankfurt, then we took off backwards *huff* I don’t like backwards. I’ve been better since I got here and found that there are more backwards seats than forwards ones on public transport, but I still feel slight motion sickness going backwards. Enough to just be a little uncomfortable. I put my book down because of it, but typing this isn’t really much better.
We saw the most ridiculous little doggy today in the city. It was teeny tiny and was wearing a little jumper that had straps that went around it’s back legs. Obviously it found it a bit uncomfortable, because it was waddling along with it’s back legs as far apart as possible. It was pretty hilarious, and the owner looked just like it somehow :P Here in Germany people love their dogs, so much so that they’re allowed on public transport and in shops. The first time I saw a dog in the supermarket all I could think of was Mister Nathan’s Kaylee and how much havoc she would wreak with her big head and tail :P Mind you, I haven’t seen a dog as big as Kaylee here. People only have space for little dogs.
EDIT:
I'm here! Holy crap I'm in Berlin! The Hauptbahnhof is way more hugerer than in Stuttgart, and there's actually little souvenir shops! I've been hunting down some tacky trinkets to bring home as presents, but obviously Stuttgart is too cool for overpriced tourist crap :P The hbf is like an airport, it's bigger than Perth airport, but then again, that's not very hard. My hotel is a lot fancier than the one in Frankfurt, and it's right outside the door of the hbf, talk about convenience! There's all sorts of food places in there, like a Dunkin' Donuts and Maccas and sushi and I passed an Italian cafe with a coffee machine that had about five group heads. I plan to go there tomorrow for breakfast to take a photo of their machine because I find things like that very exciting :P
I dumped my stuff in my room, claimed a bed and found that although there is no luggage or personal possessions in the room whatsoever, there are two beds claimed. I can't tell if the occupants left today or if they're staying tonight. All the beds were freshly made and stuff, so whatever. It's nearly 10pm now, I'm going to finish writing this then go up and maybe watch some tv before bed.
I totally copped out on any interesting food, and had Burger King for dinner. I totally ordered it all in German as well *chuffed*. I found a table and spread out my newly acquired collection of pamphlets to study them and decide what I'm going to do tomorrow. Then when I'd folded them all up and was getting ready to leave two guys at the table next to me started talking to me. I think he asked where I was going, so I said nowhere, I've just arrived. Or at least I tried to, but obviously something went wrong because he switched to English. We chatted for a bit about Australia and he told me it was very dangerous for me to be alone in Berlin and asked if I had a boyfriend. I said no, so he asked if I would be his girlfriend. I was like um.... no. It was very strange. He wasn't even attractive *huff* I am disappointed with these German boys.
Anyway, this entry is already pretty epic, so I shall leave it there. I intend to do lots of exciting things tomorrow and then post photos :)
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Homesiiiiiick :(
Feeling just a tad homesick today. It's Australia Day and it was a lot of fun at uni with everyone running around in green and gold. A couple of the boys in another class went a bit crazy with the green and gold. It looked kinda funny because they were wearing thermals underneath. They sort of looked like athletes? I dunno :P Stevie made a pavlova from ingredients that may or may not have been the usual ingredients she uses. I think she got a bit frustrated with the grocery stores because no one could understand what she wanted and all the information on the packets was in German. She also brought some Australian flag tattoos with her from home, so we all got one of those :P
I've realised that the rain and general drearyness here is really getting me down. After class I went home and looked on Facebook, where everyone was talking about what they were doing back home in the summer, and there were even already some photos up. Everyone in the photos looked so warm and there was sun everywhere, and I just had to turn my head to the left to look out my window at the drizzle and greyness. It was just a bit depressing.
It seems that while I'm in this mood of missing stuff, I decided that what I really miss most of all is my old dance studio. It's been ages since I've really thought about it, and really wished that I still had those classes with that group of people. I haven't done a real proper cardio jazz class since I left Sydney, and I miss that. I miss the loud music and just throwing your body into the steps. I love ballet, but it's a very precise, inner strength based kind of class. I want both back. I miss getting ready for concert. I miss that feeling you get when you're waiting on stage behind the curtain and the house lights go down and the announcement happens. Then there's that moment of hush when the audience is quiet and the music hasn't started yet. That moment seems to last a lifetime and then bam! The music starts and everything is go. Dance concerts for me were just that pure thrill of dancing on a stage, my mind would just go blank and I would just dance.
Musicals are a completely different kind of feeling. There's more involved, more to remember, more to focus on and somehow more at stake. I also love that feeling of actively telling a story, the hard work and focus that goes into every scene, and somehow nothing exists outside of what is happening on stage. It's less of a self indulgence than just dancing at a dance concert, but still just as thrilling.
I've been pondering this as I walked home from the train station tonight, and I guess I wanted to get it out of my head before I forgot it. I missed the bus by one minute, and there was a half hour wait until the next one, so I decided it would be quicker and warmer to walk. It was a good idea I think.
About thirty of us from the course went out for dinner to celebrate Australia Day, at a Swabian restaurant above the one Australian pub :P. Stevie had checked out the pub earlier and other than being really tiny, the owners didn't even know that today was Australia Day. It was a pretty pathetic, empty place that we all passed as we went upstairs. the restaurant we went to was really nice and relatively cheap. I have no idea how much I had to drink. I know I struggled through a glass of Pilsener, then we started getting jugs of beer mixed with lemonade because we're girls and can't handle real beer :P The beer here is at least double the strength of the beer back home, so it was probbaly a good idea to water it down a bit. There were lots of drunken shenanigans, and one girl who had one single can of rum and coke became even more obnoxious than a drunken Aimee after a bottle of Bella :P I'll have photos up on facebook tomorrow :)
I really enjoyed today and my evening out, so don't imagine that I'm sitting here in a corner moping and not having any fun. I really miss home, and some days are worse than others, but I'm not letting that stop me from going out and seeing and doing stuff, and enjoying myself.
~*This random rambly late night drunken post was brought to you by German beer :P*~
I've realised that the rain and general drearyness here is really getting me down. After class I went home and looked on Facebook, where everyone was talking about what they were doing back home in the summer, and there were even already some photos up. Everyone in the photos looked so warm and there was sun everywhere, and I just had to turn my head to the left to look out my window at the drizzle and greyness. It was just a bit depressing.
It seems that while I'm in this mood of missing stuff, I decided that what I really miss most of all is my old dance studio. It's been ages since I've really thought about it, and really wished that I still had those classes with that group of people. I haven't done a real proper cardio jazz class since I left Sydney, and I miss that. I miss the loud music and just throwing your body into the steps. I love ballet, but it's a very precise, inner strength based kind of class. I want both back. I miss getting ready for concert. I miss that feeling you get when you're waiting on stage behind the curtain and the house lights go down and the announcement happens. Then there's that moment of hush when the audience is quiet and the music hasn't started yet. That moment seems to last a lifetime and then bam! The music starts and everything is go. Dance concerts for me were just that pure thrill of dancing on a stage, my mind would just go blank and I would just dance.
Musicals are a completely different kind of feeling. There's more involved, more to remember, more to focus on and somehow more at stake. I also love that feeling of actively telling a story, the hard work and focus that goes into every scene, and somehow nothing exists outside of what is happening on stage. It's less of a self indulgence than just dancing at a dance concert, but still just as thrilling.
I've been pondering this as I walked home from the train station tonight, and I guess I wanted to get it out of my head before I forgot it. I missed the bus by one minute, and there was a half hour wait until the next one, so I decided it would be quicker and warmer to walk. It was a good idea I think.
About thirty of us from the course went out for dinner to celebrate Australia Day, at a Swabian restaurant above the one Australian pub :P. Stevie had checked out the pub earlier and other than being really tiny, the owners didn't even know that today was Australia Day. It was a pretty pathetic, empty place that we all passed as we went upstairs. the restaurant we went to was really nice and relatively cheap. I have no idea how much I had to drink. I know I struggled through a glass of Pilsener, then we started getting jugs of beer mixed with lemonade because we're girls and can't handle real beer :P The beer here is at least double the strength of the beer back home, so it was probbaly a good idea to water it down a bit. There were lots of drunken shenanigans, and one girl who had one single can of rum and coke became even more obnoxious than a drunken Aimee after a bottle of Bella :P I'll have photos up on facebook tomorrow :)
I really enjoyed today and my evening out, so don't imagine that I'm sitting here in a corner moping and not having any fun. I really miss home, and some days are worse than others, but I'm not letting that stop me from going out and seeing and doing stuff, and enjoying myself.
~*This random rambly late night drunken post was brought to you by German beer :P*~
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Esslingen
Guten Abend! Yesterday I went on a little adventure to a medieval town called Esslingen. It was in my little orange schedule book thingity, under "suggestions to do today" except it wasn't really a very good suggestion, seeing as everything is closed on Sundays. Anyway, it was somewhere around -3 degrees yesterday, so I rugged up with my new scarf.
I tuck my hat into the scarf, which is warmer, but if I turn my head the scarf and hat stay in the same place :P I know I look like an idiot and people give me funny looks because apparently it's not THAT cold, but dammit! I'm freezing my arse off here! It's always too cold! I also have some unfortunate news. The little tassel dealie on the top of my hat came off D: I am very sad D: I suppose that's what you get for three euros *sigh*
Anyway, I was sitting on the train half an hour into my journey when I suddenly realised that this was a really bad idea. It's negative three outside and here I am willingly subjecting myself to an afternoon out in the cold. But I was already nearly there so I thought I'd just take a quick look around then go home again. It turns out that this medieval city thing was just like any of the other towns around Stuttgart, except it obviously had no other attractions than it's cute little medieval buildings and stuff. So, more pictures of buildings! I've started only taking pictures of stuff that is different to all the other pictures of buildings that I've taken. So I has this one:
I thought it was funny :P Turns out it's a restaurant. Every old tower like structure I have seen so far in Germany has been turned into some sort of restaurant :P
I thought this was really pretty. It's the Neckar river again, the same one that goes through Tübingen and I got the lovely photo of the sunset last weekend.
There's more, but I won't post them here. I wandered around a bit, then found a museum that was open. It was really tiny and quite boring. Most of the stuff was post 1850's, and there was way more text to read than things to look at, and of course it was all in German so I didn't even try :P I decided to wander back up to the train station after that, because I figured I'd seen everything I was going to on a Sunday. Then I got lost. The streets are all windy and twisty and narrow, so I wandered for ages before ending up in the fields at the very back of the town. There was a steep upwards incline, so I decided I was definitely going the wrong way, and turned around. I eventually found my way back to the train station, but I felt like ice and my hands were so cold they were burning, even in my gloves. The whole train journey back I slowly thawed, just in time to stand in the wind and wait for the bus. I could actually feel again but hadn't started to warm up, so I was shivering uncontrollably and kept making involuntary noises. The one other person at the bus stop was looking at me strangely, as if to say it's not THAT cold. Stupid Germans and their stupid weather *glares*
I've also realised that the cold makes me not want to eat. I don't want to take my gloves off and open my mouth. IT'S TOO COLD. As a result of this I didn't have any lunch, but when I got home I made myself a nice hot cup of tea and some toast with honey and smushed banana. Om nom nom.
Life has been very interesting with Marina's sister visiting. On Saturday night I was just starting to contemplate bed when they started dancing in the hall and announced that they were going to the Diskothek! I felt like a bit of a nanna then :P Sunday morning they all toddled off to church, and got back just before I got back from Esslingen. Then randomly at 7pm they decided they needed to buy train tickets for a trip somewhere the next day, so Marina took them to the main station. I think poor Marina is very distracted. She told me to put all my laundry in the machine so she could do a load on Saturday, but forgot about it. My towel was in there, so I had to retrieve it to have a shower yesterday, and I was about to go retrieve it again for another shower, but she's remembered and put the cycle on. I wonder how quickly it'll dry? Anyway, last night Marina had started cooking chicken for dinner, but then they went out to the station and ate there. I ended up warming up the leftover käsespätzel (YAY!) and having my chicken boob. I have no idea what she's going to do for tonight's dinner :P She just got a phone call from them, saying that they've just arrived at the main station and they're gonna walk home. WALK. In the COLD. It's a long way! Marina just shrugged, so who knows when they'll be home.
Marina has lost her pyjamas. She's been sleeping in my room on the sofa bed, and she SNORES. Her sister's husband also snores, and as they all have the doors open all night and it's a small flat, there's just this chorus of snoring going on all night. Not happy jan. Anyway, Marina has lost her pyjamas, and can't remember of she wore them to school or not. Right now she's wandering around the flat calling them, but they're not answering :P Only another three nights of sharing and then no more snoring!
I tuck my hat into the scarf, which is warmer, but if I turn my head the scarf and hat stay in the same place :P I know I look like an idiot and people give me funny looks because apparently it's not THAT cold, but dammit! I'm freezing my arse off here! It's always too cold! I also have some unfortunate news. The little tassel dealie on the top of my hat came off D: I am very sad D: I suppose that's what you get for three euros *sigh*
Anyway, I was sitting on the train half an hour into my journey when I suddenly realised that this was a really bad idea. It's negative three outside and here I am willingly subjecting myself to an afternoon out in the cold. But I was already nearly there so I thought I'd just take a quick look around then go home again. It turns out that this medieval city thing was just like any of the other towns around Stuttgart, except it obviously had no other attractions than it's cute little medieval buildings and stuff. So, more pictures of buildings! I've started only taking pictures of stuff that is different to all the other pictures of buildings that I've taken. So I has this one:
I thought it was funny :P Turns out it's a restaurant. Every old tower like structure I have seen so far in Germany has been turned into some sort of restaurant :P
I thought this was really pretty. It's the Neckar river again, the same one that goes through Tübingen and I got the lovely photo of the sunset last weekend.
There's more, but I won't post them here. I wandered around a bit, then found a museum that was open. It was really tiny and quite boring. Most of the stuff was post 1850's, and there was way more text to read than things to look at, and of course it was all in German so I didn't even try :P I decided to wander back up to the train station after that, because I figured I'd seen everything I was going to on a Sunday. Then I got lost. The streets are all windy and twisty and narrow, so I wandered for ages before ending up in the fields at the very back of the town. There was a steep upwards incline, so I decided I was definitely going the wrong way, and turned around. I eventually found my way back to the train station, but I felt like ice and my hands were so cold they were burning, even in my gloves. The whole train journey back I slowly thawed, just in time to stand in the wind and wait for the bus. I could actually feel again but hadn't started to warm up, so I was shivering uncontrollably and kept making involuntary noises. The one other person at the bus stop was looking at me strangely, as if to say it's not THAT cold. Stupid Germans and their stupid weather *glares*
I've also realised that the cold makes me not want to eat. I don't want to take my gloves off and open my mouth. IT'S TOO COLD. As a result of this I didn't have any lunch, but when I got home I made myself a nice hot cup of tea and some toast with honey and smushed banana. Om nom nom.
Life has been very interesting with Marina's sister visiting. On Saturday night I was just starting to contemplate bed when they started dancing in the hall and announced that they were going to the Diskothek! I felt like a bit of a nanna then :P Sunday morning they all toddled off to church, and got back just before I got back from Esslingen. Then randomly at 7pm they decided they needed to buy train tickets for a trip somewhere the next day, so Marina took them to the main station. I think poor Marina is very distracted. She told me to put all my laundry in the machine so she could do a load on Saturday, but forgot about it. My towel was in there, so I had to retrieve it to have a shower yesterday, and I was about to go retrieve it again for another shower, but she's remembered and put the cycle on. I wonder how quickly it'll dry? Anyway, last night Marina had started cooking chicken for dinner, but then they went out to the station and ate there. I ended up warming up the leftover käsespätzel (YAY!) and having my chicken boob. I have no idea what she's going to do for tonight's dinner :P She just got a phone call from them, saying that they've just arrived at the main station and they're gonna walk home. WALK. In the COLD. It's a long way! Marina just shrugged, so who knows when they'll be home.
Marina has lost her pyjamas. She's been sleeping in my room on the sofa bed, and she SNORES. Her sister's husband also snores, and as they all have the doors open all night and it's a small flat, there's just this chorus of snoring going on all night. Not happy jan. Anyway, Marina has lost her pyjamas, and can't remember of she wore them to school or not. Right now she's wandering around the flat calling them, but they're not answering :P Only another three nights of sharing and then no more snoring!
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Mercedes Benz
I went to the Mercedes Benz museum today. It was fun. And nice and warm! The museum is laid out so that you start at the very top and wander down from room to room, and move through the history of cars. There's also some little pictures with general world history on the wall of the walkways between rooms, so you get some idea of the context. It was really quite interesting. I took lots of photos. I may put them up on facebook, but they're not that exciting. Just cars :P
It was so cold today! It had been snowing all morning and the ground is now cold enough that the snow doesn't just melt, it actually covers the ground! It was fun walking to the bus stop through the thin layer of fresh snow, but it was a seriously thin layer. It felt soft under my boots, but anything more than that would be annoying. When I got to the main station I went to the Reiseburo to make seat reservations for my trip to Berlin next weekend. There was a tv with news and stuff on it and it said it was -3 outside. We've hit negative numbers and ohmygoodness I think I might die. I was wearing three pairs of socks, one normal cotton sock, one thick cotton sock and one thick woolly sock. My feet were cramped in my shoes and it was very uncomfortable, but they were STILL cold. Contemplating sourcing myself some expensive thermal socks. Even more shocking is that I don't care if they only come in one colour and they have to match, I WANTS WARM FEET. Also, my hands have been freezing through my gloves. I was thinking I'd have to get myself some more thermal ones, but then today I bought myself some hot chips for lunch and ate them as I walked to the meeting point for the museum trip. I had my right glove off so I could eat the chips, and it went painfully cold. It was past the point of numb and was all burny and red. My gloves actually make a HUGE difference, but I never realised because my hands were still cold *wibble*
The museum was lovely and warm, we even checked our coats. I still can't get used to the whole idea that checking coats is normal. I ended up walking around with just Josie, because we lost Catherine right at the start when she took the elevator before us up. We walked through the whole museum, then sat down and had hot chocolate at the little cafe. I had a look at the souvenir shop, but all the stuff in there was really overpriced junk, but serious junk, no novelty stuff D:
When I got home Marina's sister and her husband were already here. They don't speak any German, and barely speak English, so Marina is kind of working as an interpreter for us. Her sister was insistent on showing me a little photo album of her sons, which was kinda weird, but nice. I made all the appropriate noises and stuff :P We had dinner! Marina has been really tired and hasn't been very hungry when she gets home, so we've just been having leftovers and grilled cheese sandwiches. But tonight we had a full on meal. My new favourite thing is Käsespätzel, which is just a fancy Swabische macaroni cheese. We also had horse meat, which I have never had before. It was the texture of a rissole, not sure if that's just how it comes or just how it was prepared. It actually just tasted like a really nice rissole :P We also had what I think must be smoked pork. Like a steak of bacon :P I also really like Marina's sister because she keeps giving me chocolates and sweet lollies from Brazil. They are yummy :D
I'm really tired now, probably from all the walking I did and the epic amount of foodthings I ated. Tomorrow I'll probably go to a little town called Esslingen. It's an old medieval town, and it has epic medieval Christmas markets. So disappointed that the markets have finished until next Christmas, but it should still be an interesting little town. Expect more photos of buildings!
This weekend is probably the last one I'll be spending in Stuttgart. Next weekend I'm going to Berlin, and the weekend after I'm contemplating skipping the planned hike and going to München. If I go on the hike I've just realised that I'm going to need warmer boots/socks, and thermal underwear and ski pants and a ski coat and stuff like that. Stuff I'll probably never wear again. It will be cheaper for me to go to München, and Catherine and Josie were contemplating going as well. The weekend after that I'm meeting Nicola in Vienna *flail* and then my course is finished. Only four weeks of classes left.
Anyway, I'm going to go and read my book to keep myself awake until a reasonable hour. The Brazillians are all making lots of noise anyway, so I expect going to bed early may not be a good idea :P
It was so cold today! It had been snowing all morning and the ground is now cold enough that the snow doesn't just melt, it actually covers the ground! It was fun walking to the bus stop through the thin layer of fresh snow, but it was a seriously thin layer. It felt soft under my boots, but anything more than that would be annoying. When I got to the main station I went to the Reiseburo to make seat reservations for my trip to Berlin next weekend. There was a tv with news and stuff on it and it said it was -3 outside. We've hit negative numbers and ohmygoodness I think I might die. I was wearing three pairs of socks, one normal cotton sock, one thick cotton sock and one thick woolly sock. My feet were cramped in my shoes and it was very uncomfortable, but they were STILL cold. Contemplating sourcing myself some expensive thermal socks. Even more shocking is that I don't care if they only come in one colour and they have to match, I WANTS WARM FEET. Also, my hands have been freezing through my gloves. I was thinking I'd have to get myself some more thermal ones, but then today I bought myself some hot chips for lunch and ate them as I walked to the meeting point for the museum trip. I had my right glove off so I could eat the chips, and it went painfully cold. It was past the point of numb and was all burny and red. My gloves actually make a HUGE difference, but I never realised because my hands were still cold *wibble*
The museum was lovely and warm, we even checked our coats. I still can't get used to the whole idea that checking coats is normal. I ended up walking around with just Josie, because we lost Catherine right at the start when she took the elevator before us up. We walked through the whole museum, then sat down and had hot chocolate at the little cafe. I had a look at the souvenir shop, but all the stuff in there was really overpriced junk, but serious junk, no novelty stuff D:
When I got home Marina's sister and her husband were already here. They don't speak any German, and barely speak English, so Marina is kind of working as an interpreter for us. Her sister was insistent on showing me a little photo album of her sons, which was kinda weird, but nice. I made all the appropriate noises and stuff :P We had dinner! Marina has been really tired and hasn't been very hungry when she gets home, so we've just been having leftovers and grilled cheese sandwiches. But tonight we had a full on meal. My new favourite thing is Käsespätzel, which is just a fancy Swabische macaroni cheese. We also had horse meat, which I have never had before. It was the texture of a rissole, not sure if that's just how it comes or just how it was prepared. It actually just tasted like a really nice rissole :P We also had what I think must be smoked pork. Like a steak of bacon :P I also really like Marina's sister because she keeps giving me chocolates and sweet lollies from Brazil. They are yummy :D
I'm really tired now, probably from all the walking I did and the epic amount of foodthings I ated. Tomorrow I'll probably go to a little town called Esslingen. It's an old medieval town, and it has epic medieval Christmas markets. So disappointed that the markets have finished until next Christmas, but it should still be an interesting little town. Expect more photos of buildings!
This weekend is probably the last one I'll be spending in Stuttgart. Next weekend I'm going to Berlin, and the weekend after I'm contemplating skipping the planned hike and going to München. If I go on the hike I've just realised that I'm going to need warmer boots/socks, and thermal underwear and ski pants and a ski coat and stuff like that. Stuff I'll probably never wear again. It will be cheaper for me to go to München, and Catherine and Josie were contemplating going as well. The weekend after that I'm meeting Nicola in Vienna *flail* and then my course is finished. Only four weeks of classes left.
Anyway, I'm going to go and read my book to keep myself awake until a reasonable hour. The Brazillians are all making lots of noise anyway, so I expect going to bed early may not be a good idea :P
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Friday Night Shenanigans
Marina and I had the most rocking Friday night out ever. We went to... the Supermarkt! We were eating dinner at about 7:30pm, and I was watching the thermometer drop from 0.8 degrees down to 0.3, then as we finsihed eating Marina announces that we are going to the Supermarkt. I was like NO. WAY. Earlier in the day I had felt like my face was going to fall off from the cold. I never realised my chin sticks out so much. Anyway, I bought myself a new giant scarf, so I put on all my epic layers and wrapped the scarf around my head four times. I was still freezing.
So we waited for the bus with all these young people that were obviously going out on the town. We were carrying a couple of bags of empty bottles, I assumed to put in the recycling, but then when we got to the Supermarkt Marina stuck them in this machine and got a voucher for a couple of euros. How about that. Anyway, Marina had brought me along to push the trolley and be a general packhorse. And here I was thinking that maybe she liked my company :P The highlight of the evening was that Marina bought me bananas. OMNOMNOM. I know there's going to be none when I get back to Australia, so I intend to gorge myself now :P
This afternoon I'm going on an excursion to the Mercedes Benz museum. It should be interesting. At least it's inside, unlike last weekend's excursion to Tübingen :P
So we waited for the bus with all these young people that were obviously going out on the town. We were carrying a couple of bags of empty bottles, I assumed to put in the recycling, but then when we got to the Supermarkt Marina stuck them in this machine and got a voucher for a couple of euros. How about that. Anyway, Marina had brought me along to push the trolley and be a general packhorse. And here I was thinking that maybe she liked my company :P The highlight of the evening was that Marina bought me bananas. OMNOMNOM. I know there's going to be none when I get back to Australia, so I intend to gorge myself now :P
This afternoon I'm going on an excursion to the Mercedes Benz museum. It should be interesting. At least it's inside, unlike last weekend's excursion to Tübingen :P
Friday, January 21, 2011
Mehr Schnee!
LOOKIT LOOKIT!!!
SCHNEE! It snowed overnight, so I woke up to this outside my bedroom window :D I was so excited because it was still snowing lightly, but Marina was a bit upset that she had to walk to the bus stop in the snow. On my way to uni I ran into a few Australian students and we were all really excited. It didn't snow very hard until just before our morning break. There was a whole row of Australians sitting in the classroom facing the window, and we were distracted all morning by the snow. When it started coming down harder our teacher just gave up because we were too excited to concentrate. The Americans were really amused by us running around with our arms in the air and stuff :P
This was the view from the door to our floor in the building. We're on the third floor. You can see all the snowflakes and stuff! Apparently this is the warm kind of snow that melts a bit on the way down, so it's all sticky and clumps together. It's perfect snowball snow. The ground isn't cold enough yet, so it just melts as soon as it hits the pavement, but it was collecting on the tops of cars, roofs and on lawns. We didn't really have enough to play with, so we didn't get to make snowmen or have a real snowball fight or anything. By the afternoon it had stopped snowing and now it's all melted away D:
It's really cold now. It was only 1 degree when I left the house this morning. After class I ended up having to stand at the freezing cold unprotected bus stop for over half an hour, waiting for the bus that supposedly comes every ten minutes. Not happy Jan. By the time I got home I felt like an iceblock, and it's taken me ages to finally warm up again. The house is kept at a constant 19 degrees, which is WAY TOO COLD in my opinion, so I might ask Marina if we can possibly turn it up a bit. Right now I'm wearing three pairs of socks, two cotton layers, one woolly dress and two jumpers to try to keep warm. I'm drinking hot tea, which is helping a lot.
I ended up going to Catherine's birthday party last night. It was really fun! We had a table barbecue, which was this thing that had a hot plate on the top to cook little sausages and prawns on, then underneath between the hot plate and the warmer at the bottom were teeny little frying pans. You're supposed to take a pan, fill it with stuff and stick it in the heat to cook it. On the table were things like potatoes and ham and cheese and mushrooms and corn kernels and little onions and capsicum and other small foodthings like that to put in the pans. It was really nice. Catherine's host family are really nice as well, they talked to us in German and spoke nice and slow, and complimented us if we used good grammar bits. We also had some really yummy German champagne.
Right now I would just like to feel warm again. When I have a shower I have to start with lukewarm water and work up to nice and hot, because hot water straight away stings too much D: I can't wait to go back home to summer again. I've only been in Germany for two weeks, but it seems so much longer because so much has happened. There's only four more weeks left of the course, and then I'm off to the UK. It seems like such a short time.
SCHNEE! It snowed overnight, so I woke up to this outside my bedroom window :D I was so excited because it was still snowing lightly, but Marina was a bit upset that she had to walk to the bus stop in the snow. On my way to uni I ran into a few Australian students and we were all really excited. It didn't snow very hard until just before our morning break. There was a whole row of Australians sitting in the classroom facing the window, and we were distracted all morning by the snow. When it started coming down harder our teacher just gave up because we were too excited to concentrate. The Americans were really amused by us running around with our arms in the air and stuff :P
This was the view from the door to our floor in the building. We're on the third floor. You can see all the snowflakes and stuff! Apparently this is the warm kind of snow that melts a bit on the way down, so it's all sticky and clumps together. It's perfect snowball snow. The ground isn't cold enough yet, so it just melts as soon as it hits the pavement, but it was collecting on the tops of cars, roofs and on lawns. We didn't really have enough to play with, so we didn't get to make snowmen or have a real snowball fight or anything. By the afternoon it had stopped snowing and now it's all melted away D:
It's really cold now. It was only 1 degree when I left the house this morning. After class I ended up having to stand at the freezing cold unprotected bus stop for over half an hour, waiting for the bus that supposedly comes every ten minutes. Not happy Jan. By the time I got home I felt like an iceblock, and it's taken me ages to finally warm up again. The house is kept at a constant 19 degrees, which is WAY TOO COLD in my opinion, so I might ask Marina if we can possibly turn it up a bit. Right now I'm wearing three pairs of socks, two cotton layers, one woolly dress and two jumpers to try to keep warm. I'm drinking hot tea, which is helping a lot.
I ended up going to Catherine's birthday party last night. It was really fun! We had a table barbecue, which was this thing that had a hot plate on the top to cook little sausages and prawns on, then underneath between the hot plate and the warmer at the bottom were teeny little frying pans. You're supposed to take a pan, fill it with stuff and stick it in the heat to cook it. On the table were things like potatoes and ham and cheese and mushrooms and corn kernels and little onions and capsicum and other small foodthings like that to put in the pans. It was really nice. Catherine's host family are really nice as well, they talked to us in German and spoke nice and slow, and complimented us if we used good grammar bits. We also had some really yummy German champagne.
Right now I would just like to feel warm again. When I have a shower I have to start with lukewarm water and work up to nice and hot, because hot water straight away stings too much D: I can't wait to go back home to summer again. I've only been in Germany for two weeks, but it seems so much longer because so much has happened. There's only four more weeks left of the course, and then I'm off to the UK. It seems like such a short time.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
SCHNEE!!!!
OMG YOU GUISE!!! I just got off the bus and THERE WAS ICE FALLING FROM THE SKY! SCHNEE! SNOW FALLING FROM THE SKY! THE SKYYYYYYY! FALLIIIIIING! *dies* I was so excited, I was walking all the way home waving my arms around trying to catch it, I probably looked like an idiot :P THERE WERE FLURRIES OF SNOW FLYING AROUND! It was so cool! Then it stopped D: It only lasted about ten minutes, and now the sky is blue and clear, and the little bit that fell is all melted. It's a bit of an anticlimax, I am disappoint D: Now it's just stupidly cold outside which is not fun at all. It hasn't even hit zero yet, it's three degrees and I'm already wanting to start construction on a blanket fort, complete with perpetually warm wheat bags, a neverending supply of chocolate, and my new collection of books. I shall move in and hibernate for the next five weeks, and magically never need to go to the toilet :P It's only 19 degrees in the house, and I feel like an iceblock. It's waaaay warmer than outside, but really I need at least another eight degrees plzthxbye. I might ask Marina tonight if she can possibly turn up the heating.
Anyway, yesterday I went on an excursion with my film/lit elective to the literature museum in Marbach. It wasn't very exciting. The town was really cute, complete with medieval town wall and castle gateway dealie, and more houses and winding cobbled streets. All my photos are starting to look very similar. Buildings. I shall put them on facebook with all the others :P When we got to the museum we met our tourguide, who was really dull. He was a highschool teacher and he just volunteers at the museum or something. He was not very interesting at all. Plus, all the literature is by German authors, in German. There was a little bit of Brecht's stuff, which was kinda cool. On display were just old manuscripts and printed books and bits and pieces. It was interesting to look at, and I took quite a few photos, but that was mainly because I had to fiddle around with the settings on my camera in order to take decent photos without flash. There was a book that had survived Hitler's book burnings, it was all black around the edges. There was also some random stuff like statues of heads and letters from kids and mystery boxes and stuff.
I think the whole class was a bit meh because whilst we could appreciate the idea of the collection, we had no idea of the significance of each of the authors because we just don't know German literature. We also couldn't understand what was written. I think the tour went for just a bit too long. After that museum, we went to the next building, which was a museum dedicated to Schiller, who is some important German writer. He was born in Marbach, which was why there was all this stuff there. That museum was a little more interesting because it had stuff about how he lived, rather than just what he wrote. He also seemed to like collecting bugs, there were lots of trays of bugs :P
Marina went away again yesterday morning, so for dinner I decided to make some awesome fried rice concoction with the leftover steamed rice in the fridge. I totally overestimated the amount of vegies we had in the house, so it ended up just being onion, bacon, rice and egg. And vegemite because Marina doesn't have any soy sauce. Who doesn't have soy sauce in the cupboard? All she has is jam. SO MUCH JAM. Anyway, it turned out ok, even if the rice did go all mushy :P
Today is one of the girls' birthday, and her host family is cooking her a dinner which we're all invited to. I'd love to go and have a real proper dinner, but I just can't be bothered with the whole idea of getting there and back. It's cold outside and it's even colder at night. I'm such a piker, I'm always too lazy to go out once I'm home. Meh. We shall see.
Anyway, yesterday I went on an excursion with my film/lit elective to the literature museum in Marbach. It wasn't very exciting. The town was really cute, complete with medieval town wall and castle gateway dealie, and more houses and winding cobbled streets. All my photos are starting to look very similar. Buildings. I shall put them on facebook with all the others :P When we got to the museum we met our tourguide, who was really dull. He was a highschool teacher and he just volunteers at the museum or something. He was not very interesting at all. Plus, all the literature is by German authors, in German. There was a little bit of Brecht's stuff, which was kinda cool. On display were just old manuscripts and printed books and bits and pieces. It was interesting to look at, and I took quite a few photos, but that was mainly because I had to fiddle around with the settings on my camera in order to take decent photos without flash. There was a book that had survived Hitler's book burnings, it was all black around the edges. There was also some random stuff like statues of heads and letters from kids and mystery boxes and stuff.
I think the whole class was a bit meh because whilst we could appreciate the idea of the collection, we had no idea of the significance of each of the authors because we just don't know German literature. We also couldn't understand what was written. I think the tour went for just a bit too long. After that museum, we went to the next building, which was a museum dedicated to Schiller, who is some important German writer. He was born in Marbach, which was why there was all this stuff there. That museum was a little more interesting because it had stuff about how he lived, rather than just what he wrote. He also seemed to like collecting bugs, there were lots of trays of bugs :P
Marina went away again yesterday morning, so for dinner I decided to make some awesome fried rice concoction with the leftover steamed rice in the fridge. I totally overestimated the amount of vegies we had in the house, so it ended up just being onion, bacon, rice and egg. And vegemite because Marina doesn't have any soy sauce. Who doesn't have soy sauce in the cupboard? All she has is jam. SO MUCH JAM. Anyway, it turned out ok, even if the rice did go all mushy :P
Today is one of the girls' birthday, and her host family is cooking her a dinner which we're all invited to. I'd love to go and have a real proper dinner, but I just can't be bothered with the whole idea of getting there and back. It's cold outside and it's even colder at night. I'm such a piker, I'm always too lazy to go out once I'm home. Meh. We shall see.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Pondering Thoughts
Germans like bubbly drinks. If you order a bottle of water anywhere, you get a choice of big bubbles, medium bubbles or small bubbles. I learnt very early on to order STILLES WASSER, BITTE! But I don't have to very often because the tap water is the most delicious water I have ever tasted, so I'm refilling my bottle straight from the tap. It's really cold too, a nice drinkable temperature but FREEZING when you wash your hands with it. I might start carrying around that sanitising hand gel stuff, as a much more betterer altenative than sticking my already cold hands under the freezing jet of water. Also, no nice warn hand dryers. Only paper towel, that loops down and back up into the dispenser. You need two hands (trust me, one hand does not work :P) to pull down the front of the paper towel, then when you've finished it rolls back up the back of the dispenser.
Anyway, I started talking about bubbles because I decided to be adventurous and try the mysterious apple-juice looking bottle labelled lift, that was sitting in the fridge with the coke and the fanta and stuff. It's bubble apple juice. I do not like it, but dammit I'm gonna drink it because I paid 1.85 euros for it! I decided to employ my usual technique of flattening coke, by shaking the bottle and letting the gas out carefully. Well, it fizzed up.... and stayed fizzed up. What even? Eventually it went away and I tried it again, but it still tastes bubbly and I don't like it *whine* I might leave it a few days and see if it matures :P
Can you tell that I'm procrastinating? It's the only way you end up with a blog post about bubbly drinks and paper towel. I have a test tomorrow for Deutsch class. Somehow I can't seem to conjure up a sense of urgency about this. The thing is, no matter what my actual grade is for this course, I get an ungraded pass, or and ungraded fail. If I scrape through with 50%, I get exactly the same as someone who works their butt off and gets 100%. That's why my presentation about Fatih Akin today was only about two minutes long and pretty much just summed up the Wikipedia article about him, with some random arty quote thrown in for good measure. Besides, I don't really care much for the movie we watched because I already saw it and analysed it to bits in my European Studies unit back in first semester.
The important thing is, I bought four books for 16 euros today when our Deutsch teacher sent us into the city to write stuff about buildings. The bookstore was warm and sold bargain books. Outside was cold and I couldn't feel my hands. There may or may not have been a small argument about who wanted to attempt to write with frozen fingers. Actually, it was more like passive aggressive intense shivering, in a bid to outdo everyone else's shivering in order to prove your inability to write :P
So the bubbly apple juice still tastes like crap. I wonder what will happen if I freeze it? And then put it under the central heating duct to melt it because there is no way I am attempting to consume anything of a frozen nature in this weather. Today we found a frozen espresso bar. It was full of people. That could very well have been because it actually had doors and a cosy looking seating area, whereas most of the food places in the city are outdoors, and people actually sit in the outdoor seating to eat their meal, AND IT'S ONLY 6 DEGREES. I think they were possibly pretending that the sun was actually warm and stuff. It's all an illusion. The sun is seriously weak here. The best place to pretend it's actually warm is inside, where you can actually BE warm and just look outside at the sunshine.
Marina is cooking soup for dinner. It smells delicious. I hope it actually is, and it's not like steamed vegies floating around in warm liquid. I find the food here quite bland sometimes. The proper cold cuts and vegies anyway. Today in my roll from the bakery there was some chunk of dubious miscellaneous meat. It tasted kind of like some sort of sausage, but looked a lot like polony. I love polony, but this didn't taste like polony. I was very disappointed. I think I might stick to lunch at the kebab shop. There's good kebabs here in Germany :P Although if you order pizza, pepperoni isn't actually pepperoni, it's green peppers. If you want pepperoni, you have to order salami :P
Anyway, I started talking about bubbles because I decided to be adventurous and try the mysterious apple-juice looking bottle labelled lift, that was sitting in the fridge with the coke and the fanta and stuff. It's bubble apple juice. I do not like it, but dammit I'm gonna drink it because I paid 1.85 euros for it! I decided to employ my usual technique of flattening coke, by shaking the bottle and letting the gas out carefully. Well, it fizzed up.... and stayed fizzed up. What even? Eventually it went away and I tried it again, but it still tastes bubbly and I don't like it *whine* I might leave it a few days and see if it matures :P
Can you tell that I'm procrastinating? It's the only way you end up with a blog post about bubbly drinks and paper towel. I have a test tomorrow for Deutsch class. Somehow I can't seem to conjure up a sense of urgency about this. The thing is, no matter what my actual grade is for this course, I get an ungraded pass, or and ungraded fail. If I scrape through with 50%, I get exactly the same as someone who works their butt off and gets 100%. That's why my presentation about Fatih Akin today was only about two minutes long and pretty much just summed up the Wikipedia article about him, with some random arty quote thrown in for good measure. Besides, I don't really care much for the movie we watched because I already saw it and analysed it to bits in my European Studies unit back in first semester.
The important thing is, I bought four books for 16 euros today when our Deutsch teacher sent us into the city to write stuff about buildings. The bookstore was warm and sold bargain books. Outside was cold and I couldn't feel my hands. There may or may not have been a small argument about who wanted to attempt to write with frozen fingers. Actually, it was more like passive aggressive intense shivering, in a bid to outdo everyone else's shivering in order to prove your inability to write :P
So the bubbly apple juice still tastes like crap. I wonder what will happen if I freeze it? And then put it under the central heating duct to melt it because there is no way I am attempting to consume anything of a frozen nature in this weather. Today we found a frozen espresso bar. It was full of people. That could very well have been because it actually had doors and a cosy looking seating area, whereas most of the food places in the city are outdoors, and people actually sit in the outdoor seating to eat their meal, AND IT'S ONLY 6 DEGREES. I think they were possibly pretending that the sun was actually warm and stuff. It's all an illusion. The sun is seriously weak here. The best place to pretend it's actually warm is inside, where you can actually BE warm and just look outside at the sunshine.
Marina is cooking soup for dinner. It smells delicious. I hope it actually is, and it's not like steamed vegies floating around in warm liquid. I find the food here quite bland sometimes. The proper cold cuts and vegies anyway. Today in my roll from the bakery there was some chunk of dubious miscellaneous meat. It tasted kind of like some sort of sausage, but looked a lot like polony. I love polony, but this didn't taste like polony. I was very disappointed. I think I might stick to lunch at the kebab shop. There's good kebabs here in Germany :P Although if you order pizza, pepperoni isn't actually pepperoni, it's green peppers. If you want pepperoni, you have to order salami :P
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Tübingen
Last night was our first weekend excursion. We went to Tübingen, which is a university town an hour by train south of Stuttgart. We got there at about 4:30pm, and it was already getting dark. The first thing we did was to go to a pub. It was the most gorgeous, cosy warm looking pub, but the staff directed us straight outside to this little gazebo that had all these little fires in braziers, which took the edge off the cold. I think we were a little disappointed at first that we weren't going to sit in one of the awesome barrel shaped booths :P
We were all busy taking photos and stuff of the river that was alongside the pub, then they brought out this:
And I did! Yay! Just in time too, because our night tour was about to start. Even though it was so cold and I couldn't feel my feet, the tour was fun and interesting. Our tour guide told us all about these gondola races they have every June, where all the teams dress up in costumes and there's lots of beer and falling out of boats. She said that the winners get 100 litres of beer, but they have to pay for the huge after party in which the whole town turns out to and drinks unlimited amounts of beer, but the losers have to drink half a litre of cod liver oil :P The best prize to win is the best costume prize, because then you get a few kegs of beer and you don't have to share it.
The guide also took us all around some old university buildings and to the town centre. It was completely dark by then, and it was really hard to get decent photos. I was playing with the night settings on my camera, so I did get a few which I'll put up on facebook. Our train back to Stuttgart left at 7:30, but we all had an option to stay a bit longer, provided there were at least three of us, because of our train tickets. I don't think anyone stayed :P We were all absolutely exhausted and it felt like midnight before it was even 8pm. We had discussed going out once we got back to Stuttgart (because it's easier to get home from downtown Stuttgart when you're drunk than it is to travel back from Tübingen :P) but we were all nannas and went home instead.
Last night a group of people from my class went out, but I piked because I'm lame like that :P It turns out that all the clubs are open to sixteen year olds until midnight, so the nightlife here doesn't really kick off until then. My classmates ended up finding a good bar, which turned out to be a gay bar, and just had a few drinks before going home. Before the excursion some of them explored in the daylight and I think they've figured out where to go now, so next time I might tag along :P
Marina is away this weekend, so I have the house to myself. She won't let me use the washing machine whilst she's away, because it's brand new and she's really nervous about it. Hopefully I can get some washing done as soon as she gets home, because I'm running out of undies!
Have I mentioned that all the ads on my browser are in German? Some of them are the same ads I see at home, but now they're in German. Also, sometimes when a page is loading it tells me so in German, but only randomly. It's kinda weird.
The sun is out today, but the temperature has dropped to five degrees. I intend to stay in all day. I have a presentation to write for tomorrow, as well as an entire novel to read, so that should keep me busy :)
We were all busy taking photos and stuff of the river that was alongside the pub, then they brought out this:
Om nom nom nom. It was a yummy beef and vegie stew. We all promptly decided we were starving, and started to line up, but half of us got distracted by beer! We all got served this warm beer, which started out really yummy, but as it cooled down it got sweeter and sweeter :P
Here's me with my beer and funny hat :P My first German beer. I was determined to drink it all, despite it being so sweet.
The guide also took us all around some old university buildings and to the town centre. It was completely dark by then, and it was really hard to get decent photos. I was playing with the night settings on my camera, so I did get a few which I'll put up on facebook. Our train back to Stuttgart left at 7:30, but we all had an option to stay a bit longer, provided there were at least three of us, because of our train tickets. I don't think anyone stayed :P We were all absolutely exhausted and it felt like midnight before it was even 8pm. We had discussed going out once we got back to Stuttgart (because it's easier to get home from downtown Stuttgart when you're drunk than it is to travel back from Tübingen :P) but we were all nannas and went home instead.
Last night a group of people from my class went out, but I piked because I'm lame like that :P It turns out that all the clubs are open to sixteen year olds until midnight, so the nightlife here doesn't really kick off until then. My classmates ended up finding a good bar, which turned out to be a gay bar, and just had a few drinks before going home. Before the excursion some of them explored in the daylight and I think they've figured out where to go now, so next time I might tag along :P
Marina is away this weekend, so I have the house to myself. She won't let me use the washing machine whilst she's away, because it's brand new and she's really nervous about it. Hopefully I can get some washing done as soon as she gets home, because I'm running out of undies!
Have I mentioned that all the ads on my browser are in German? Some of them are the same ads I see at home, but now they're in German. Also, sometimes when a page is loading it tells me so in German, but only randomly. It's kinda weird.
The sun is out today, but the temperature has dropped to five degrees. I intend to stay in all day. I have a presentation to write for tomorrow, as well as an entire novel to read, so that should keep me busy :)
Friday, January 14, 2011
The First Week
Guten Abend! I am nearly at the end of my first week of uni. Only five more to go :P. This week was mostly taken up with orientation and introductions to the course, so next week the work starts properly. By Monday I have to have prepared a short oral presentation on Fatih Akin and read a novel for my film and literature elective. So far I've had no homework for my language course, but that may be because not everyone has been able to get the textbook yet. Wednesday morning we met Frank, who is our teacher Wednesdays through Fridays, and he quizzed us to see how much we knew, so he could pick a textbook. After class a few of us went back to Schlossplatz, a journey which only takes five minutes by train, as opposed to the thirty minutes it took us by bus on Tuesday :P We went to the big bookstore there, but there was only one book left. I gots it! Yay me I found it first. Not that it matters, since we can't start using it until everyone has it :P
I've decided that Wednesday night is going to be noodle night. There's an awesome Asian noodle place down the street, and Marina has late classes to teach on Wednesdays. So me and my noodles have the place to ourselves. I know it's not very German, but I love stir fried things and I spend all day eating German bread from the bakeries around our building. Also, steamed vegetables are so boring, and that's the only way the Germans eat vegetables. Gah. The food here is really cheap! You can get a miscellaneous-sliced-meat and salad sandwich for a couple of euros, and coffee is less. We've already been spoiled, because we all hesitated to spend 2,50 euros on a cup of coffee at the overpriced tippy tower cafe :P Going home is going to be a slap in the face with all the overpriced foodthings.
I went shopping yesterday after I nabbed that textbook. It's way too hard to contemplate taking all my layers off in order to try things on, so I just eyeballed everything and impulse-bought. I spent waaaay too much monies, but I has some shiny new things now *glee* Going to stay away from the shops for a while...
Tomorrow I have an early day. We have German class like usual in the morning, but no electives in the afternoon. I have all afternoon off, so unless my classmates decide to go out and do something, I will be home and online at a reasonable Australian hour! All week I've been online after midnight your time, and it's a bit lonely and depressing :P I'll also be online all Saturday morning my time, before our excursion to Tübingen in the evening. If anyone wants to add me on skype my username is banananachips :P
I've decided that Wednesday night is going to be noodle night. There's an awesome Asian noodle place down the street, and Marina has late classes to teach on Wednesdays. So me and my noodles have the place to ourselves. I know it's not very German, but I love stir fried things and I spend all day eating German bread from the bakeries around our building. Also, steamed vegetables are so boring, and that's the only way the Germans eat vegetables. Gah. The food here is really cheap! You can get a miscellaneous-sliced-meat and salad sandwich for a couple of euros, and coffee is less. We've already been spoiled, because we all hesitated to spend 2,50 euros on a cup of coffee at the overpriced tippy tower cafe :P Going home is going to be a slap in the face with all the overpriced foodthings.
I went shopping yesterday after I nabbed that textbook. It's way too hard to contemplate taking all my layers off in order to try things on, so I just eyeballed everything and impulse-bought. I spent waaaay too much monies, but I has some shiny new things now *glee* Going to stay away from the shops for a while...
Tomorrow I have an early day. We have German class like usual in the morning, but no electives in the afternoon. I have all afternoon off, so unless my classmates decide to go out and do something, I will be home and online at a reasonable Australian hour! All week I've been online after midnight your time, and it's a bit lonely and depressing :P I'll also be online all Saturday morning my time, before our excursion to Tübingen in the evening. If anyone wants to add me on skype my username is banananachips :P
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Orientation and First Day
I've had a big couple of days, but before I start recapping it all, I have to show you the most excitingest importantest thing I saw today:
TANZ DER VAMPIRE BUS!!!!!! *epic flail* Tanz der Vampire is in Stuttgart!!!! hngnapsihwfobc *dies*
Anyway, yesterday Marina went to work early, so I spent the morning just fluffing around before going to the uni for orientation. On the way I stopped at a little Italian coffee/gelato place that I'd seen. Somehow I managed to order myself a latte-macchiato. What even is that? The name is a bit of an oxymoron, so I had no idea what I was gonna get. Turns out it's a real proper latte! The whole bigger glass more milky deal. I was a bit put off my the straw, but I have since learnt that here in Germany lattes and hot chocolates that come in glasses are served with a straw. They also come at only about 60 degrees, which I thought is unusual for such a cold climate where people want something warm to drink. Back home I'd get coffee sent back to me if it was under 70 degrees, and the majority of people wanted it super hot. Everything here is served at room temperature, you don't need to keep drinks in the fridge and there is never EVER ice in your drink :P I also have a slight suspicion that they serve coffee with sugar already in it.
After my coffee I decided that what I desperately needed was a hat with flappy bits to cover my ears. My ears were hurting from the cold, since I'd walked half an hour to the shops and it was only 5 degrees. So, first shop I saw I bought a daggy hat for a couple of euros :D I loves it, it's lovely and warm :P
Then it was time to make my way to the uni. At the train station I ran into a girl I knew from my class at home, so we found our way there together. It turns out that there are 21 of us from UWA, and 29 from Adelaide. There's a few from Melbourne, and the rest are from Singapore and various places in the US. There's 72 students altogether. I think there's so many of us from Australia because we can squeeze in this course during our summer holidays, whereas everyone else is missing classes back at their universities.
We had to register and get our little baggy of useful papers and brochures, then we sat for two hours and listened to the course coordinator give us an introductory talk about the course and German culture. After that we hung around a bit before our host families came for the welcome dinner. I has a photo of me and Marina:
Naaaaaw. The party was good, there was a buffet of Swabian food, because Stuttgart is in Swabia or something. Marina has been housing students for a very long time, so she brought some tupperware with her to take home some leftovers :P she's heating them up now for dinner :) We stumbled home at around 9pm, we were both really tired, so I went to bed really soon after we got home.
This morning I had to be at uni at 8:45am for a placement test. Our building is off campus, so I have to catch two buses to get there instead of a train. We're relatively close so it only takes about half an hour altogether. We all did our test and then had an hour and a half free whilst they marked them to place us. We all just hung around and went down to a bäckerei for coffee. I ended up being placed in a class with a whole bunch of my Australian classmates, but also a couple from Melbourne and some guys from the US. There's only twelve of us and we immediately bonded and went to have lunch together.
After lunch we had a guided bus tour of Stuttgart, and us from class 3 were back row bandits all afternoon. I didn't get very many photos because I didn't have a window seat, and anyway the windows were really dirty. The few photos I did take have come out all blurry. During the tour we went to the tv tower, but the way our guide said it all afternoon it sounded like he was calling it the "tippy tower", now I have it in my head that we went to visit the tippy tower :P IT WAS COLD. The morning had been sunny and beautiful, but still cold, but by the time we got to the tippy tower it was all overcast. There was snow on the ground from the last snowfall, which has melted everywhere else. When we got to the top we jumped out of the elevator, took a few quick photos, then went back inside to the little cafe to have hot drinks. We made it just in time, because when we got back on the bus it started raining.
Das ist mich! Here I am modelling my new daggy hat, and a brand new facial expression I have just learnt. I think I'm going to call it HOLY CRAP IT'S COLD :P
At the end of the bus tour we ended up in Schlossplatz, which had some lovely old buildings, one of which is a castle, or Schloss, hence the name of the place :P I took lots of photos which I'll put up on facebook, but it was getting dark and my camera didn't really agree with that. We got a bit of an extra tour dealie with our guide where we walked around and he talked a bit about each building, then I wandered around with my new buddy Elizabeth before catching the bus home.
I just had the second most amazing shower of my life, and now I am feeling quite content in my jammies all ready to spend the evening lazing around and going to bed early. Tomorrow classes start for realz, so I have to be up bright and early to get to school by 8:45am.
Guten Nacht! *kisses*
Anyway, yesterday Marina went to work early, so I spent the morning just fluffing around before going to the uni for orientation. On the way I stopped at a little Italian coffee/gelato place that I'd seen. Somehow I managed to order myself a latte-macchiato. What even is that? The name is a bit of an oxymoron, so I had no idea what I was gonna get. Turns out it's a real proper latte! The whole bigger glass more milky deal. I was a bit put off my the straw, but I have since learnt that here in Germany lattes and hot chocolates that come in glasses are served with a straw. They also come at only about 60 degrees, which I thought is unusual for such a cold climate where people want something warm to drink. Back home I'd get coffee sent back to me if it was under 70 degrees, and the majority of people wanted it super hot. Everything here is served at room temperature, you don't need to keep drinks in the fridge and there is never EVER ice in your drink :P I also have a slight suspicion that they serve coffee with sugar already in it.
After my coffee I decided that what I desperately needed was a hat with flappy bits to cover my ears. My ears were hurting from the cold, since I'd walked half an hour to the shops and it was only 5 degrees. So, first shop I saw I bought a daggy hat for a couple of euros :D I loves it, it's lovely and warm :P
Then it was time to make my way to the uni. At the train station I ran into a girl I knew from my class at home, so we found our way there together. It turns out that there are 21 of us from UWA, and 29 from Adelaide. There's a few from Melbourne, and the rest are from Singapore and various places in the US. There's 72 students altogether. I think there's so many of us from Australia because we can squeeze in this course during our summer holidays, whereas everyone else is missing classes back at their universities.
We had to register and get our little baggy of useful papers and brochures, then we sat for two hours and listened to the course coordinator give us an introductory talk about the course and German culture. After that we hung around a bit before our host families came for the welcome dinner. I has a photo of me and Marina:
Naaaaaw. The party was good, there was a buffet of Swabian food, because Stuttgart is in Swabia or something. Marina has been housing students for a very long time, so she brought some tupperware with her to take home some leftovers :P she's heating them up now for dinner :) We stumbled home at around 9pm, we were both really tired, so I went to bed really soon after we got home.
This morning I had to be at uni at 8:45am for a placement test. Our building is off campus, so I have to catch two buses to get there instead of a train. We're relatively close so it only takes about half an hour altogether. We all did our test and then had an hour and a half free whilst they marked them to place us. We all just hung around and went down to a bäckerei for coffee. I ended up being placed in a class with a whole bunch of my Australian classmates, but also a couple from Melbourne and some guys from the US. There's only twelve of us and we immediately bonded and went to have lunch together.
After lunch we had a guided bus tour of Stuttgart, and us from class 3 were back row bandits all afternoon. I didn't get very many photos because I didn't have a window seat, and anyway the windows were really dirty. The few photos I did take have come out all blurry. During the tour we went to the tv tower, but the way our guide said it all afternoon it sounded like he was calling it the "tippy tower", now I have it in my head that we went to visit the tippy tower :P IT WAS COLD. The morning had been sunny and beautiful, but still cold, but by the time we got to the tippy tower it was all overcast. There was snow on the ground from the last snowfall, which has melted everywhere else. When we got to the top we jumped out of the elevator, took a few quick photos, then went back inside to the little cafe to have hot drinks. We made it just in time, because when we got back on the bus it started raining.
Das ist mich! Here I am modelling my new daggy hat, and a brand new facial expression I have just learnt. I think I'm going to call it HOLY CRAP IT'S COLD :P
At the end of the bus tour we ended up in Schlossplatz, which had some lovely old buildings, one of which is a castle, or Schloss, hence the name of the place :P I took lots of photos which I'll put up on facebook, but it was getting dark and my camera didn't really agree with that. We got a bit of an extra tour dealie with our guide where we walked around and he talked a bit about each building, then I wandered around with my new buddy Elizabeth before catching the bus home.
I just had the second most amazing shower of my life, and now I am feeling quite content in my jammies all ready to spend the evening lazing around and going to bed early. Tomorrow classes start for realz, so I have to be up bright and early to get to school by 8:45am.
Guten Nacht! *kisses*
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Delayed Post - Sunday 9 January, 8pm
Guten Abend! I’m typing this up on my computer to post tomorrow, because Marina is working on her computer so I can’t use the internet. I had a lovely long sleep last night. I went to bed at 8:30 and fell asleep really quickly despite my nap earlier. I woke at 6am, but just lay in bed and eventually I went back to sleep until 9am. We had a lazy morning, Marina put some baguettes in the oven to toast them for breakfast. She tried my vegemite, which she had never heard of before, and thought it was too salty :P. She has a coffee filter, and the coffee was drinkable, though I really really miss coffee from home. As I was drinking it I was thinking how Sunday training would be finished and everyone would be at the pub. I really missed my Sunday afternoon coffee at Mister Nathan’s house today :( Coffee here is just not as good.
Marina is really very funny. She’s from Brazil, and is constantly complaining about Germany and the cold weather and the food and this and that, but she’s lived here for twenty years! She teaches Portuguese for a living, and loves languages. This afternoon we ventured outside and passed a church where they were singing in some language neither of us recognised. We stood outside trying to figure it out for ages :P. The sun was out yesterday and it got up to 13 degrees, and this morning the sun was out for a little while before it went all overcast and rainy again. Marina thinks that the weather is changing and it’s going to be colder tomorrow.
This afternoon we went out for afternoon tea at a friend of Marina’s house. She’s a little French woman called Paulette who moved here just before Marina, and she was Marina’s first friend in Germany. It was a real tea party, with the table set with multiple kinds of tea and little cakes and biscuits. It was very cute. There was this orange tea with a funny name that they made me try, and I actually liked it! I’m not a huge fan of tea, though I like my English breakfast every now and then. Paulette was really cute, the three of us had a long animated chat about language and stuff like that. It was very interesting, because both women would get excited and start dropping into German and French and Portuguese all in the same sentence. I really enjoyed myself. Next weekend Marina is going to München with her class, so she’ll be away all weekend. Paulette invited me over to watch tv if I feel lonely or bored, because Marina doesn’t have a tv :P
Tomorrow is my orientation at uni, but I don’t have to be there until 2pm. I’m going to get up early and go downtown to buy myself some internets and more socks. I have skype! I downloaded it before I left Frankfurt. My username is banananachips if anyone wants to add me. Don’t forget the extra ‘na’ in bananana, for some reason people always miss that small detail :P.
Tonight Marina has been telling me all about her former student boarders. She really is lovely, she’s always had girls, and all of them are “my Sarah” or “my Laura”. She has the most expressive animated face, the expressions she makes are sometimes very funny, and she tells stories with her whole body. I was telling her about my barista course and bits and pieces about coffee, so now she calls me her barista girl when she wants me to set the table.
Right now I’m a bit bored. I’ve spent most of the last couple of days just sitting in my room reading my book. I’ve already finished one and I’m onto another one. It’s just as well I bought one at Hong Kong airport! After tomorrow I should have more things to fill my time, like schoolwork and social stuff, and hopefully I’ll have my own internet as well.
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