Americans Unite

On Tuesday, I met with three other Americans in the local city of Kassel.  Outside of the Starbucks I met Larissa from San Francisco, Keili from Hawaii, and Saige from Kansas.  I love talking with other exchange students because you instantly become friends and conversations are so easy because it's basically another form of you.  I say this because exchange students are all very similar, each unique, yes, but they all had the same desire to go abroad and they all have the same issues and struggles during the year.  Some tougher and more extreme, but they ultimately still experience a lot to the same feelings, struggles, and triumphs.  Talking with the others makes you feel so much better because then you know that you're not alone and that other people are right there with you, experiencing the same difficulties.  For example, the language barrier is extremely hard for us all, and it's challenging to feel comfortable right away making new friends and adjusting to your life in Germany.  Other exchange students are a great help and make great, long-lasting friends.

We went to a Brothers Grimm museum, which I found particularly interesting because I live in Wolfhagen, the town where they're from, ate sushi from a below par sushi buffet, bought frozen yogurt, which depressingly only came in one yogurt flavor, drank Starbucks, and did some shopping. The sushi buffet's conveyer belt was interesting in that it brought so many different kinds of food.  I'm talking about your usual sushi dishes, but also ice cream, chicken nuggets, pudding, and fortune cookies.  I took a bag to open to see my fortune, but to my dismay, I found that there was no cookie inside.  One of the most displeasing moments in my life.  The feeling of fall officially settled in as I drank my Pumpkin Spice Latte and looked out at the road which was covered in leaves.  Fall is beautiful here and it was a nice day with my fellow American exchangers.

Wait, this is Spain, not Germany

In Germany we are given two weeks in our Herbst Ferien, or Fall Break.

In my first week of break, my family and I hopped on a Ryanair flight and headed to Andalusia, Spain. With the only country outside of the United States that I've been to being Germany, I was quite excited to visit Spain.  While not many Griswold-worthy misadventures happened, it had it's interesting quirks (I'm referencing my last post.) The week happened as follows:

Monday, October 14, 2013

I wake up at 4 in the morning to ride to the airport with my family.  The flight is two hours and forty-five minutes long, in which I watch episodes of The Office and read Tina Fey's Bossypants.  We land, gather our luggage, and find the driver.  The first step I take into the Spanish sun was great.  Ahh, warm weather where you aren't sweating gross amounts like I have sadly experienced in Virginia.  We take an hour long car ride to the hotel, which is nicely situated on the Mediterranean Sea, and unpack our things.  We quickly run down to the pool, which feels like it is making ice cubes, and relax for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

The day we go to La Alhambra and I get attacked by a gypsy.  I won't repeat myself, so if you want to read about my friendly time with a gypsy, you can read my last post entitled My Run-In with a Spanish Gypsy.  Read with a cup of tea and muffin in hand, and enjoy.  I will however discuss the beautiful Islamic palace that is La Alhambra.  I'm still not sure what its purpose was, but I do know is it's easily one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.  My favorite section was a medium-sized outside patio-like area that had a fountain in the middle and you could take a picture with the water reflecting the mind-blowing architecture.  I'm not completely sure how to describe it to do it justice, so here is a picture:

The stupid fountain is disrupting the perfect reelection, but still love it!

La Alhambra has so many beautiful features that I can't list them all.  If you want to see pictures of a lot of them, check my flickr out as I will upload a lot.  In the meantime, here is a picture of me with the lookout over Granada, Spain.  Simply breathtaking, and then there's the city :)

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

We woke up early and embarked on the three-hour drive to Sevilla, a large Andalusian city.  After the hot, muscle-cramping car ride, we arrived near a large wooden structure.  The modern piece is smack-dab in the center chaos.  Preview:

We visited a large cathedral, another Islamic palace, and walked around the city.  You'll never believe, we saw about ten more gypsies.  I was ecstatic to see my best friends.

Street view

The organ of the cathedral

One of the ceilings of the Islamic Palace

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Thursday consisted of relaxing on the shore of the Mediterranean, exploring our town of Almuñécar, and swimming in the hotel pool for hours.  It feels so good not having any stress, swimming for awhile, then reading in a beach chair.  Ah, the life.

Timon in the Mediterranean Sea

Pool

Mediterranean

                                   
Friday, October 18, 2013

On Friday we ventured out to Ronda, which is situated deep in the Sierra Nevada mountains.  This meant that we drove for a very long time looping around the mountains and in the end, I was very dizzy.  If you want to know what our path was like, just think of a cosine graph.  Hurts my head just thinking about it.  The trip was well worth it because Ronda holds one of the oldest bull fighting rings and has an amazing bridge built into the mountains.  It is very scenic and romantic.  We also had tapas and naturally I had to photograph it.  Just to inform you, I took 1739 photographs. . .

Ronda Bull Fighting Ring

Awesome bridge

Las Tapas

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Friday we ventured off to Málaga, one of the largest cities in Andalusia.  This is the city we flown into, but upon arrival we rushed off to the hotel so we didn't have the opportunity to explore.  Málaga turned out to be a very pretty city with the Mediterranean bordering the busy city with dozens of stores, restaurants, and everything else you can imagine.  We walked along the shore, then the marina, then found our way to the city's stores.  Dozens of painted lambs lined the main street, while confusing as to why they were there, they were very cool to look at, all with neat, unique designs.  We went into a church and then had lunch.  There I had the best sandwich I have EVER had.  I'm not stretching the truth at all.  It was simply amazing.  It was a ham and cheese sandwich -- Prosciutto and Brie.  Later we went into a cute pajama store where I fell in love with everything they had.  I gave in and bought a few things, so now I can say that I have Spanish pajamas.  Shortly after we went to another Islamic palace, but this one was much smaller than the last two we had visited, and not as exciting.  

The heads on the processional stretcher

Church

Timon eating his Lecker (delicious) cake

My God-sent sandwich

The head of one of the lambs

Me from the top of the palace

Sunday, October 20, 2013
On our next-to-last day, we took a short trip to a cave in town I am not sure the name of.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to use flash and it was very dark, so a lot of my pictures did not turn out.  Bummer, I know.  The cave was still cool and afterwards we headed back to the hotel to spend a few more hours in the pool where I later got a tan, no burn at all (if you know me well, you know this is a rare occurrence... And I mean rare.)

Inside the cave

You can thank me for contributing to your Spanish vocabulary.
Salida = exit

Monday, October 21, 2013

A week after arrival we fly back from Málaga to Köln (Cologne.)  On the plane I finish Tina Fey's Bossypants and SLEEP!  The trip was amazing and very memorable.

One of the coolest things in Spain is that they have workout equipment on the beach overlooking the glamorous water and landscape of Andalusia.  I think I would be more motivated to workout if I could do it there.  Where's my gym membership to YMBA(Young M

There are many things I realized during my trip to Spain, things I will explain in a later post.  Keep tuned :)

Liebe,

Meredith

P.S.  I figured out how to add icons on my blog, so check out my links to my flickr and instagram, among others, on the left (they're the colorful buttons under "Archive."

My Run-In with a Spanish Gypsy*

In my visit to La Alhambra in Granada, Spain, a kind woman warmly greeted me with a genuine gift with the best intentions of ensuring that my time at La Alhambra to be great.  No, that's not what happened at all.

1. A woman is giving out Rosemary branches (I didn't know she was a gypsy at the time.)

2. No one was taking them and I felt bad (again, I had no idea who she was or what she was doing.)

3. I put my hand out just to take the branch, but instead of simply placing it in my hand, she grabs my hand with a firm grip, not letting me go.

4. I was pretty freaked by now.

5. She places the branch in my hand (mind, she is still grasping it) and starts using her other hand to trace something on my palm.

6.  At the time I assumed she was saying the Rosemary gives you good luck or something with fortitude and palm reading.

7. I explained that I didn't speak or understand Spanish and that I needed to leave, trying to tug my way out of her grip.

8. She starts motioning for me to eat it (I think.)

9. In attempts to get away from her, I put a leaf on my tongue (of course I'm going to eat it.)

10. I finally break free and spit the leaf out on the ground along with throwing the branch under a tree.

11. My throat start itching and honestly, it felt like it was slowly closing.  I started to freak out, wondering if the Rosemary had been coated with something.

I eventually found out that there are several gypsies in Spain and that they are trained pickpockets and I wouldn't be surprised if the lady had dipped the herb into something.  Days later I saw several more in different countries and I would give them a firm no or just run away.  That was my first adventure of Spain.  Such a fun, memorable one, right?!

___________________________________________________________

*The title is set to the rhythm of "My Date with the President's Daughter," so please read/sing accordingly.

A Look into the Middle Ages

Yesterday I went with my host mom, dad, and brother to Fritzlar, a town slightly larger than Wolfhagen, which has some historical significance.  The town has several architectural forms from the Middle Ages, including churches, towers, and other buildings.  Coming from the United States, a country that has nothing to do with the European time period, I found it quite interesting because we don't have these kinds of historically significant towers or whatever in America.  I found the time period to be pretty interesting in history class, so to see places from it in person was great.  We walked around the town, visiting different places, with the tour guide giving detailed explanations of each, but of course I understand next to nothing that came out of his mouth.  I picked up a few words and it was still interesting to see the places and to take pictures.

My host parents and I in front of a crooked house

The tower

A Catholic church

A second shot of the crooked house, YIKES

Marktplatz under construction

Reading

Today I start the difficult task of reading Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Der Besuch der alten Dame, which is plainly called The Visit in English.  My assignment is to read the first fifty pages over break, and frankly  I don't know if I'll get past the first ten with the excessive translating that will need to be done.  Only kidding.  I bought my own book for the sole purpose of being able to highlight and write translations all of the pages.  On the cover it says, "Tragische Komödie Diogenes."  I'm going to hope I know what that means, because if not, and I don't even understand the cover, I think I'll just give up right now and not even open the book.  In all seriousness, I'm going to try my best to read it, even though I'm not technically being required to do so, but I don't want to be clueless in the class for the next two months.  You can expect me to be reading, highlighting, and translating on the plane to and from Spain and in the final week of break.

Liebe,
Meredith

Progress

Yesterday marked my one month here in Germany.  The weeks have been rolling by so quickly that I can't even imagine the pace after I am fluent.  I can definitely recognize that I understand a lot more, but my responses are still not where I want them to be.  I have nine months to work on it, so I'm not that worried.

My goals for now:

• Overcome the language barrier
• Not being afraid to make stupid mistakes and to look foolish
• Make more friends
• Do more 
• Make lots of memories

So one day someone was joking around, saying that we need to live by YOLO for our year abroad, when I brilliantly created the new acronym: GOHO.  It is short for Germany Only Happens Once.  As annoying as those sayings are, we really need to take this to heart this year and make our experience in Germany the most we can make of it.

Countdown to my Holiday in the Sun (Spain):  7 DAYS

Yes, that was a reference to Mary-Kate and Ashley.  

Liebe,

Meredith

Es gibt Essen!

"Es gibt Essen," is a phrase I hear several times a day, which translates to: There is food.  I thought I would briefly outline German meals and their consistencies:

• Frühstück/Breakfast: 7:05 AM
• Brot (bread)
• Milch (milk)
• Butter
• Käse, Fleisch, Marmalade, Nutella, oder Erdnussbutter (cheese, meat, jellys, nutella, or peanut butter)
• Mittagessen/Lunch: no specific time  *Usually the one hot meal of the day*
• Anything hot, z.B. Spaghetti oder Suppe (for example, spaghetti or soup)
• Mineralwasser (carbonated water)
• Abendessen/Dinner:
• More bread
• Mineralwasser (carbonated water)

You think people are exaggerating when they say, "They eat a lot of bread in Germany..."  Well they aren't.  I don't mind it, it was just really unexpected.

They have American food chains here, for example McDonalds, Burger King, and Subway.  Apparently McDonalds is really expensive here, there is no dollar menu, so I don't think I will be going there often.  I've only had the pleasure of trying their Subway so far.  It wasn't the same taste that I had been used to in America, but it wasn't bad.  I was saddened when they didn't have my favorite kind of cheese: American. Also, it was more expensive.  What ever happened to the five dollar foot long?

One thing I love about Germany: their bakeries.  I visited one after finishing my English exam and it was de-lish.  I ordered a scone-type thing with strawberry jam in the middle.  I asked, "Darf ich ein Berliner bitte haben?"  I'm not sure if that is correct, but I felt pretty proud of myself for ordering on my own with no one to help me.

To sum this entire post up, FOOD IN GERMANY IS THE BOMB.