Happy HawoweeeEEEeeen!

I just sat down to eat a delicious salad that I just made for myself. More so that I can remember how I made it than because I think you actually care, here is what I did. First I sauteed some garlic and salt and sunflower oil in a pan. Then I added a bit of Halloume cheese (delicious grilling cheese from cyprus) and let it sear a bit. When it was halfway done and ready to be flipped, I threw in a cup of sunflower seeds and kept everything moving so it wouldn't burn. I could tell it was done because everything was a crispy light tan color. I poured all of this on top of some chopped iceberg lettuce. Then I made italian salad dressing from a packet with water and oil and poured that on top of everything! It is AMAZING.
At the same time I am watching Love Actually, which one of my 10th grade classes wants to watch as an english movie. I decided to check the German age rating, because in the USA it's rated R. Turns out, in Germany it's rated the equivalent of PG! Any kid from the age of 6 up can see it. Unbelievable. But so funny and typical.
I had a bit of a let down yesterday when I got my new offer from LEK Consulting (where I will work next year) as they lowered my starting salary by $2k. Granted, I am extremely grateful that I still have a job and don't have to do anything extra in order to retain this job even though I signed almost a year ago. But it is peinlich just the same because that means the opportunity cost of passing up LEK for this year and going to Germany is now that amount instead of $0. Oh well, in the long run I hope this will have bigger dividends.
I hung up posters in school today for the English Stammtisch Sean and I will be holding for our students starting on Tuesday. It will be every week for two hours at The Irish Pub in Goettingen and I think that the kids are excited! I just hope that they come. I am also going to start tutoring, if I can. But I am having this problem because one of my students keeps writing to ask if she can meet with me to go over english stuff, I say yes, I give nachhilfe (which means $) and then she is like "well I don't really want Nachhilfe, I just want to go over stuff" to not have to pay. Which would be fine if I were earning more than 800euro to live on for a month. Plus if I help one person for free, then I'll never get any clients because everyone will say "but she isn't paying!!" sooooo i have to find a way.
All the Fulbrighters got invited to a big Fulbright conference in Frankfurt next weekend. It's with all the former German fulbrighters and there is a big session with Boston Consulting Group that I am very excited about. Maybe I can network my way into a job after Business School or whatever grad school I eventually go to. I dunno. Nate and maybe Paul are going too. And we are talking about a trip to Heidelberg for the rest of the weekend. Sean is in Bremen this weekend with his crazy roomate and his friends. I am here because I have to go to a Birthday Party with all of the teachers from my school . . . they celebrate all of the birthdays at one time. I should have a blast dancing with all of the 50 year olds. UGH. I made blondies to bring. They taste awful and I burned the bottoms. Typical.

Capsized

Bonn + some Goettingen
Oslo
Copenhagen
Stockholm
So what you may or may not have known was that while I wrote my last post, I was super upset. I had just gotten an email from the girl whose room I am currently living in (supposed to be working abroad in Shanghai for the year) saying that her job had been terminated and that she was returning to Germany ASAP. This, she said, meant that, despite the fact that I have a year lease for this room, I had to vacate as soon as I found something new. This is still the case, unfortunately, though after speaking with her boyfriend (my other roomie) I have as much time as I need to find something acceptable. So why I can't just have until next july, I don't know. In any case, I'm pretty angry. Basti, parents and friends helped me get less upset but it's a pretty terrible place to be.
Last Friday I flew to Stockholm for the weekend. I loved it there! It was so beautiful and so cool that it is a city made up of little islands. I walked all around the old city (Gamla Stan) took a tour of city hall where they hold the Nobel Prize reception, went to the National Museum -- an art gallery -- because they said they had a Degas called "Two Dancers" that I wanted to see, but after paying 8$ to get in, it turned out it was not on display at the time, then I went to the VASA museum. This museum displays the ship Vasa, which sunk in the 1600s shortly after leaving port because the King of Sweden comissioned it to be built in too short a period of time and wanted the biggest ship in Europe leaving builders to put too many cannons on too small a hull. It was neat and everything was really well preserved. After the museum I walked around a bit more.
Finally, I met up with Fredrik who is a friend of my Uncle's and went back to his house. There I met his wife Camilla and his five month old baby girl, Elvira. We had a lovely dinner and a great conversation that lasted for hours about everything. The next day, I went with them to their summer house on the Archipelago. It was really rustic (as in, I actually had to pee in a pot) and Fredrik's grandfather built it himself! It was beautiful. Camilla and I watched Elvira and walked around the island most of the afternoon and I got to wear this traditional swedish hat that Fredrik's grandmother had made. Then we had a traditional swedish lunch, Kalops, which turned out to be very close to my favorite dinner: beef stew! Only it didn't have celery and was made with an anchovie sauce. Later we went back to Fredrik's house, had dinner and watched There Will Be Blood (stupid movie) and I got to eat real swedish fish!! so cool.
Anyways, now I'm back in Goettingen trying to sort out my life. I got my visa, will enroll at the university tomorrow and probably start looking for apts this weekend. I got into a bike accident today, someone was riding on the wrong side of the path and when I swerved to get out of the way, he swerved too, our bikes locked and we fell into the road. A woman stopped to help me because the guy was being an ass and she yelled at the guy for me. Now my bike is making funny noises but Sean says he'll help me make sure it is okay. My knees are scraped up but otherwise i'm fine. Looking into getting a new cell phone plan. Have to call Katy Garner at LEK this week to discuss my revised offer . . . hopefully the salary at least stayed the same :-/ but at the very least I still have a job, which is good! I think i'm getting fat but i now have almost nothing left to snack on but fruit, soy milk and salami (:-D) sooo hopefully I'll start getting skinnier again.

Wish you would just realize

Hi from Copenhagen! My last few days have been great, well measurably great. Friday through Monday I spent in Bonn visiting Nate and Mathias (BC German TA last year). Friday we started with grocery shopping, and to the Haus der Geschichte, walked around Bonn. That night we joined Mathias and went out in Cologne, a bar and Das Ding . . . not that I remember much. Saturday we watched movies and walked around Bonn. Sunday we hiked up the Drachenfels in Koenigswinter, which was fun but surprisingly more work than it looked like it would be. The Drachenfels is on the tallest mountain of the Siebengebirge, which run through Bonn. It was a beautiful day for hiking, there were two castles and honey mead (a medieval alcoholic beverage made from honey). Monday we walked around Bonn again before my train. All in all, it was a really great weekend with a good friend.
Monday night, I flew to Oslo from Duesseldorf. My flight was 1.25 hours delayed, which meant I didnt get into Oslo until 11 something pm. Had to catch a taxi to the place where I was couch surfing and finally got there around midnight. There I met two New Zealanders, a Nord and another American who were all nice and we had good conversations. In the morning I had to see as much of Oslo as possible before 5, so I started running and never stopped. I got through all of the old city and then went to the Kon Tiki museum as well as the Viking Ship museum. Then I had to rush off to the seaport, where my ferry was waiting. It was so cool! A legitimate cruise ship with a couple of bars, two night clubs and restaurants. My cabin was meant for four people, but I stayed there alone. Obviously. What I didnt realize was that my only dinner option would be a 229kroner buffet (40 or so american dollars). It was delicious, but slightly uncomfortable because I (by myself) was seated next to a couple who was on the boat for a romantic holiday. So there I sat eating amazing food and reading my month old Newsweek. The boat went wild about half way through and dishes and glasses were flying everywhere, it was funny. Then i had the most amazing comfortable sleep ever.
The man on the loudspeaker woke us up at 8 and then I had a 4$ cup of coffee before deboarding in Copenhagen. That is where I was going, btw. So Wednesday, I did the 5 day Frommers Copenahgen itinerary in about 5 hours. I loved it there. It was so beautiful and a neat mix of Germanic, Scandinavian and French-English influences. I got to wlak the worlds longest pedestrian only zone called the Strøget, I went in the palace where the Queen hosts her visitors and saw another palace, the famous Little Mermaid statue ... tons. Then, that night, I went to Giselle by the Royal Danish Ballet. It was really neat because that was the first ballet I ever saw (with Mom in 4th grade on a Girl Scout trip) and I havent seen it since then. I met a guy from Denver working in Copenhagen there, but he wasnt that interesting.
Today I went to Helsingør where the Kronsborg Slot (castle) is located. This is the castle where Prince Hamlet lived for real . . . you know, the one from Shakespeares Hamlet? It was really beautiful and fun to visit. I got to go in the Casemates, the tunnels under the curtain wall and ramparts and such. So Cool! Then this afternoon I went shopping, without buying, because everything is sooooo expensive. And now I cant sleep but I have to hop on a flight to stockholm in 6.5 hours. wOOt. Bis spaeter . . .

I must have done something right . . .

Pics at the bottom if you don't want to read . . .
Before I start: I have become a lover of Soy Milk. I never thought this would happen, but it is delicious. I think from now on, I will drink Soy Milk exclusively.
Yay! This whole Fairy Tale Road trip was such a good idea. Definitely the kind of thing you could/should only do on a trip to Germany if you have a lot of time or have been here and seen the bigger sites many times before, so it is really neat to see these little towns. Tuesday we went to Marburg, which is a university town much like Goettingen. It is famous for having hosted the Grimm brothers as students, among other things Im sure. There we saw the St. Elisabethkirche, under which my confirmation saint (Elizabeth of Hungary/Thuringia) is buried. That was really very cool. Then we hiked up the "hill" (read: steep mountain if it were just bigger), which reminded me a lot of San Francisco, only with German exteriors. Along the way were lots of shops and amazing old buildings, and the top had a great castle that we visited and ate lunch at. In the afternoon, we went to Alsfeld, which is very out of the way, but has a really cool Rathaus and is apparently the setting for Rotkappchen or Red Riding Hood.
Today (Wednesday) we went to four towns. First, Steinau an der Strasse, which has a great Schloss and a House where the Brother's Grimm lived. Then we went to Gelnhausen, which has the remains of a Castle where Barbarossa (Frederik I ?) used to live. Also, it has a Witch tower where they used to burn witches and a really cute downtown area. Next was Hanau, which has the National Memorial for the Brother's Grimm and a Rathaus, the bells of which play Paul Hindemith canons 3 times a day because he was from there. Finally, we had 20 minutes to see Fulda -- not on the Fairy Tale Road, but has a neat castle and pretty FussgangerZone. Unfortunately, it was night time and my camera deleted one of the three pictures I was able to take.
Our plans changed a little bit and tomorrow we will be spending the day hanging out in Goettingen. We'll go to the wochenmarkt, shop, eat cake from the famous Konditorei here and then pack. Friday, instead of Heidelberg, I will go right to Bonn where I will get to hang out with Mathias (German TA at BC last year, really great) Well, that will be Cologne and Aachen, but close enough. Sooooo that's about it. Check out the pics, in ( ) are the number of pics in the album! They really are amazing:
Hiking the Brocken (18)
Bike ride towards Northeim (4)
Hannoversch Muenden and Kassel (12)
Sababurg and Bad Karlshafen (20)
Marburg and Alsfeld (35)
Steinau (Strasse), Gelnhausen, Hanau and Fulda (43)

Hard Day's Night

Sorry it's been so long . . . here's a quick update on my life! Right now it is Fall break in Niedersachsen (for 2 weeks . . .) so I have nothing to do but travel and sleep. Originally, I was going to go to Scandinavia for a week, Duesseldorf, Aachen for the weekend and then to Ireland for a week. Butttt we didn't get paid soon enough for me to go with Sean, so I switched everything up. So for the first week i am being sportlich in Germany, will go to Duesseldorf/Aachen/Heidelberg for the weekend and then end up in Oslo/Kopenhagen/Stockholm for the second week.
Friday I went for this amazing hike up the Brocken (highest mountain in the Harz Mtn range, eastern germany) that followed the Goethe Weg. Apparently, part of Goethe's Faust was based on this path. It was beautiful, green and eery . . . and a lot of exercise! The hike I think was 14 or 16 kilometers round trip so that was great.
Saturday I went for a 35k bike ride to some neighboring towns. In Germany they have these things called Fernradweg, which are basically highways for bikes that are (in general) clearly labeled and (in general) paved. They go all throughout Germany meaning you can get pretty much anywhere on a bike if you are willing to sweat it out. Saturday (too) Andrea (friend from Hannover) arrived to spend the next week traveling with me.
This whole week we are doing the German Maerchen Str. or Fairy Tale Road together. The "road" spans from Hannover to Hanau throughout dozens of small towns that have to do with the Grimm Brother's fairy tales. So yesterday (Sunday) we biked from Goettingen through Hannoversch Muenden to Kassel, this was a total of 60k through mountains and was so painful and hard. It took us around 6 hours if you include the getting lost and stopping for Kaffee und Kueche in Hann. Muenden. The towns were places where the Grimm brothers lived or based fairy tales on. It was a great day and really fun to ride.
Today (Monday) we took a train/bus to Sababurg where the Doernroschenschloss (Sleeping Beauty Castle) is. It is just ruins, but it was really neat to see. There were also a lot of fun statues to different fairy tales. Then we walked 16k back to Hofgeismar where we got a bus to Bad Karlshafen. I honestly have no idea how this is related to the Grimm Brothers, but it was a cute little town on the Weser River and we had delicious ice cream plates. Then we took a train back to Goettingen.
That's my life in short! I'm so tired already I almost need a vacation from vacation. Pics to come

WELL. I certainly have a lot to talk about as Ive not written since last weekend! This week at school was pretty average. The highlight was being invited on a gym class trip to Italy for this coming week (can you imagine this happening in the states?!) by Arne, and if it werent for the facts that I was moving in to a new apartment on Thursday, picking up my Visa on this coming Thursday and hopefully leaving for a fantastic two weeklong vacation next Friday, I would be going. That is really the biggest news: I got an apartment! I actually dont remember if I mentioned this in the last blog, but I actually got two last Friday. One was a bit small, but only 220Euro a month ($300) right in the Innenstadt, a 3 minute walk to the train station and about 10 minute bike ride to school. Best part: completely furnished (except for towels, sheets and pillows . . .). I took that apartment, but I really like the girl who would have been my roomie in the other one, so it was a bit strenuous decision-wise. I think this is for the best. So I moved in Thursday, its great, queen sized sofa bed thingy, amazing desk with a detachable piece Im turning into a vanity, two sets of drawers, plants and about 20 shelf-boxy things. So Cool!
Friday was a holiday here in Germany, the Day of German Unity, celebrating reunification after the fall of the wall. Therefore, everything was completely closed on Friday (just like it usually is on Sundays), which was-is very frustrating. So, I went to Hamburg for the day with Andrea and Paul F. (Fulbrighters to Hannover) for the giant national German Unity day party. There are tents for each Bundesland where they give out free canvas bags and information about their Bundesland. Plus tons of local food and stuff. So I got a bunch of free crap and maps and ate a ton of food, and it was overall a very pleasant day! Even though Hamburg is a bit dreary and cold.
Friday night, I stayed at Andreas in Hannover. I got up the next morning and went shopping for sheets and stuff before the stores all closed and stored them in a locker in the train station, because at 12p we took off for Bremen! Freiestatt Bremen is a Bundesland to itself right in the middle of Niedersachsen. It was a really cute old city with these amazing streets and shops. Below is a link to the pictures where you can find descriptions of the stuff in the pictures in the captions. Also the ones from Prague and Hannover to which I neglected to link in the past.
OH! I forgot something. Last week I met this guy (Rene with an accent on the last e) for lunch, because I had written to him about a WG that I didnt end up seeing (as Id found one) but instead asked if we could meet since I dont have any friends. Except Sean, I mean. So we did, and he was really interesting! And he invited me to a CouchSurfers meeting on Thursday night at this bar called Thanners. CouchSurfing is this american NPO that has become international in which you register like Facebook and if you are going to travel somewhere, you can find people who live there who are willing to host you and you can ask to stay with them or have coffee or have them show you around or all three. It is such a cool thing and really a lot less sketchy than it probably sounds to the American adults reading this. So anyways, the Göttingen CouchSurfers Hospitality Group hosts a weekly Stammtisch sort of thing at this bar where they CouchSurfers in Göttingen and the people who are visiting get together to meet and talk over beer. We met maybe 20 new people who are living in Göttingen and it was so much fun! Anyways, that was a really great find and Im very excited about it :)
Hannover
Prague
Hamburg (Day of Unity)
Bremen

Oktoberfest !!!!!

OMG. I am pretty sure that this was the best weekend of my life -- a phrase that I may or may not overuse. We arrived in München on Friday evening and met up with a bunch of other Fulbrighters from all over . . . drank two Maße (liters of beer . . .) at Augustiner Biergarten and had some fantastic conversations. After staggering back to the hotel with Seans help, talking the whole time with my eyes closed in a redundant subject (sorry, Sean) we slept. Woke up at 8am Saturday to return to Oktoberfest, which was already packed. ***So sidenote, let me describe Oktoberfest. It is a HUGE park in München called Theresienweise that is full of four things: huge amusement park-style rides, huge tents from the major beer brewers in Germany, billions of people in lederhosen from all over the world, and beer. Let me emphasize this last one, lots and lots of beer. The tents are where most of the fun takes place, however, unless you get there at some unGodly hour in the morning, your ability to get into a tent is nil. However, you cannot obtain beer unless you are sitting at a table. So the unlucky billions who are left out of the tents sit at long tables in Biergarten next to the tents, with giant heat lamps because it is freezing.*** We went to the Schoettenhamel Biergarten and most people started drinking, but since I cant drink so early. Eventually, Sean, Eileen Walsh (BC 08 and non-Fulbright stipendiaten to a boarding school in Germany) set off to explore München. That is when I bought the dirndl (see profile picture). TA DA! I am officially a stereotypical German, minus the whole speaks German thing.
The Dirndl was only 50euros and I figure it is great as a permanent Halloween costume. Not to mention, it was sooo pretty and fun to wear. That night, we went back to Schoettenhamel and drank more Maßen, and I ate a Handel of chicken (50% of an herb-roasted chicken) and talked to tons of Germans and Italians -- all in German! It was awesome except for the whole getting spilled on by drunken idiots thing. Sean, Eileen and I ended the night with one of Eileens German friends Anna at a Carousel Bar (it actually is on a carousel) before heading home, where Paul and Dave (Pauls friend from NYU) were mysteriously missing from our hotel room, never to reappear. After desperate attempts to get in touch with Nate, I finally got him by calling his hotel as he had no handy and Alexs (Nates friend from BC) handy ran out of money. We met up at the Hacker Pschorr tent, which was much easier to get into on a Sunday. Jess (another one of Nates friends from BC) had tickers for free Pschorr beer and Handeln, which was awesome except that we only had 1.5 hours until we all had to be at the train station. This was a disaster because earlier that day, Sean and I had locked both of our stuff in the same locker despite the fact that we probably would not be leaving for Göttingen at the same time. Sooo when he had to leave and I was still drinking-eating and not yet ready to leave, he (at my command) had to leave my backpack unlocked in the locker so that I could hopefully retrieve it later. He barely made his train and I arrived minutes after he left, the backpack was intact all was well.
What is missing from this story is the fact that on Friday, the only teacher with whom I work on Monday cancelled my class, so I found out I didnt have to be back in Göttingen until 9:40am on Tuesday. Sooo when, on Sunday, Jess asked if I wanted to go with them to Prague for the next 1.5 days, I said yes, completely spontaneously. And so at 4pm on Sunday, instead of returning to Göttingen, I went to Prague with Jess and Nate. The train ride was great, we talked with these two guys from California studying in Europe for a while. Subjects ranged from "hope" versus "desire" to "what makes a person Bad-Ass" to the definition of "happiness". So much fun. Arriving in Prague at 12am was, however, not so fun . . . and the random man who tried to get us to stay in his guest apartments was also not fun. Finally, we got to a hostel at 1am called the Clown § Bard. Our room was in the roof with two single beds and a loft, a kitchen and bathroom. None of us slept well, but such is life. The next day we toured Prague and hit 4 of the 1001 Places to Visit Before you die! This included the Charles Bridge, the Prague Castle, Old Town Square and 1 other thing I dont remember (? I remember what we saw, just not which one was important). The St. Vitus Catherdral with St. Wenceslass tomb (from the Christmas carol) was amazing, the Jewish Quarter was so interesting to see and we went to The Golden Tiger Pub (the most famous pub in Czech Republic ... Bill Clinton ate there) for some Pilsner Urquell. The whole trip was full of great conversations and a lot of fun. I had to leave at 8:30pm in order to make it back to Göttingen in time for class in the morning, I was so sad to leave. I got back to Göttingen at 7:30am leaving me with 2 hours to get to my apt and back to school and then prepare my lesson for the 9:40 am class. Bottom line: best weekend ever.
Oktoberfest Pictures
Prague Pictures ßß