1) I'm on fall break and therefore, unable to teach the children about the joys of Halloween. Which also means I can't dress up either.
AND YET ANOTHER YEAR GOES BY WHERE I WASTE
THE PERFECT COSTUME AND THE CHANCE
TO BE A GINGER SCOTTISH DISNEY PRINCESS.
2) Germans don't celebrate Halloween to begin with, so no delicious Tootsie Rolls or pumpkin shaped Reese's for me.
Anyway, here's Halloween video to get you in the mood if you're lucky enough to celebrate (or stand by the front door waiting for Trick-or-Treaters):
(Oh and if you're wondering, this Halloween, I'm playing the cold and slightly confused American tourist. Melody, my travelling buddy, is dressing up as a backpack turtle!)
I'll be back in Chemnitz this weekend, so expect lots of treats - blog updates that is.
So basically I got to spend the day at the movie theater, seeing international movies and getting to chat with my students and fellow teachers about them. It was a fun day! (And the not-teaching may have factored into that too...)
I got to see the indie film Molly Maxwell, which was made in Canada and so hipster it hurt my soul a bit for not having an oversized flannel shirt and pegged jeans in closet. After the movie, some of the students I talked to told me they had trouble understanding the slang and Canadian accent in the film. I don't blame them, they mumbled a lot and the witty one-liners were hard to catch. Sometimes, I felt like I was the only one in theater who understood the jokes.
I also watched the Dutch film 20 Lüge, 4 Eltern, und Ein Ei (aka 20 Lies, 4 Parents, and A Little Egg). The movie was in Dutch with English subtitles, but the movie theater also brought in a German translator. The 3 languages at times was overwhelming for me, especially when the English and German translations didn't match each other. The students struggled with it too - the 8th grade girl sitting next to me got very indignant, saying: "We can read English, we're not idiots. Why didn't they leave those subtitles?"
Although I enjoyed the movies and thought they were excellent, I hardly would have classified either as children's/young adult films. Both dealt with complex and mature issues with were also ambiguously resolved (or in the case of the Dutch film, not at all, really).
In keeping with the cinematic theme, I was just updating to say that now that I'm on my two week fall break (woohoo!), I'll be traveling all over Germany and also border hopping a bit and I just wanted to give you, dear readers, a sneak preview, a trailer of sorts to all my adventures.
This weekend, I'm heading up to see Wittenberg. Yes, Lutherstadt Wittenberg. Hopefully, after nearly 500 years, they won't throw me out for being a Papist.
I'm also taking a trip with other Fulbrighters to Prague for 4 days. I've never been there and I've heard wonderful things from everyone who's been there.
After a short break, then I'm exploring the north of Germany in Bremen, Hamburg, Schwerin, and Lübeck.
So this is just to say, expect a lot of updates (and photos) in the future!
As the old adage goes, when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade (and maybe invest some vodka, if you want throw a party).
But there are no wise proverbs to go with what one should do with fresh pears and pumpkins, gifted to you by a teacher.
Luckily, Your Humble Blogger knows just what to do with pears and pumpkins - bake tasty things.
I'm an amateur baker at best, but as my dad always says: cooking and baking are really just applied chemistry. (Good thing I liked chemistry in high school!)
Anyway, this weekend, my friend Melody visited Chemnitz and we devised a plan to bake some heretofore untasted (by either of us, at least) pear bread.
We also toured the town, made some rather crunchy (read: slightly inedible) brownies and saw Gravity, which might just be the best 3D movie I've ever seen. (It also fulfilled one of the key phrase I learned in high school German - "Was machst du am Wochenende? Am Wochenende gehe ich ins Kino!")
And we also watched Drei Hazelnüsse für Aschenbrödel (aka 3 Wishes for Cinderella) which is the best DDR film you haven't seen yet.
And the stunning(ly awful) costumes are only the tip of the hilarious iceberg.
I mean, what's in the King's hat?!
WHO KNOWS.
Actually, aside from the costumes, the terrible editing, and three of the longest and most boring chase scenes I've ever had the displeasure to watch, the movie was actually pretty entertaining.
And I have to hand it to the Soviets, their version of Cinderella (who is bafflingly called Aschenbrödel, which isn't even German, it's her name in Czech) is way more badass than Disney's Cinderella, even if she doesn't have a fairy godmother.
Anyway, if you want to catch the all the DDR glory, the full film is on YouTube, because Soviet copyright is obsolete.
But I digress.
Back to the topic at hand, which is baking tasty food.
Despite the hurdles:
- Converting from the nonsensical imperial measurements to metric (What do you mean I can't convert cups to grams?)
- An oven that doesn't do preheating (Are you warm or aren't you?! TELL ME.)
- The utter lack of mixing bowls (Pots are the new mixing bowls.)
- The fact that vanilla extract does not exist in Germany (It also totally explains why German brownies are horrible.)
- The absence of any logical measuring marks on the single measuring cup my house has (Which lead to the comment by Melody: "We need more than 250 grams, but less than nothing.")
We made a delicious pear bread!
Which we ate.
All of.
On the same day we baked it.
Fast forward to today.
I spent 3 hours of my life, which could have been spent doing other things, making some pumpkin bread.
Of course, it would have taken less time had I had a can of pureed pumpkin on hand.
But then again, since I'm not a huge fan of squashes in general, I probably would not go out and buy myself a can of pureed pumpkin. But I did have one small pumpkin of my own!
Luckily, the internet exists and is a wonderful gift to mankind and bakers everywhere, and I learned how to make my own pumpkin puree from scratch!
Have you ever made pumpkin puree from scratch, dear reader?
No, of course, you haven't because you're not poor and living in a foreign country, where you have to use you, yourself, your wits, and a fork to smash the living daylights out of chunks of slightly roasted pumpkin to make a puree. Or something loosely interpreted as puree.
Needless to say, the kitchen was a hot mess and got pumpkin puree over almost everything in the kitchen, including myself.
And then I still had to make the bread batter.
Let me tell you, with the except of cinnamon, which is Zimt in German (doesn't it just sound zippy and delicious?), the other seasonings sound repulsive when translated into German. How would you like your bread with some Nelken (Cloves),Muskat (Nutmeg), and Inwger (Ginger)? They don't sound as appetizing in German as they do in English.
Anyway, after 3 hours, behold the glory of my bake-wizardry:
A perfectly cooked and perfectly delicious loaf of pumpkin bread. (As I'm typing this, I'm baking another loaf, which will (hopefully) be just as perfect for the teachers at school.)
Of course, my roommates now think I'm a domestic goddess.
Well, that is, until I get kitchen and bathroom cleaning duty next week.
Lots of Love,
Your Humble Domestic Goddess
PS. I got another new roommate this weekend from the Ukraine - her name is Katarina (aka Katya)! So now we have a full house!
PPS. The recipe for said pumpkin bread is here, for those interested.
Okay, I swear I will write a post about my school and life in Chemnitz (aka glorious Karl Marx Stadt) soon, but as of right now, here are the things that made my day:
1) It's not cold and the sun was out. This has been an improvement since the past few weeks.
2) I am confident that I have secured the love/undying admiration/devotion/worship of my 5th graders. A whole group of them fervently wished that their teacher was sick so that way I could teach them. Terrifying, but sweet nevertheless.
3) The discussion I led on The Giver went as well as I could have expected on a Monday morning during first period. Luckily, a handful of them stepped up and got into it, so it wasn't a total disaster.
4) My request for a residence permit/visa has been granted and it's being printed by the German government as I type.
This fluffy puppy symbolizes my joy at being legally in Germany.
Also the lady in charge of the visa applications told me my German was "perfect", which is totally not true, but still.
Awww shucks.
5) I successfully made a perfectly delicious banana bread without having any real measuring cups and having to convert into metric. GO ME.
Oh, and one last thing - This blog had over 650 pageviews just last month! Wow guys, I feel so loved. Thank you so much for being there for me! I love writing this blog and I'm glad to know that people love reading it too.
Since I was hardly content to bum around my apartment and lesson plan this weekend, I hopped a train to Berlin to visit a good friend of mine, Claire (who also went to the Alma Mater) and is now in Berlin for the month, studying at the Berlin School of English to get CELTA certified before she joins me in the East Side (insert gang sign here).
Okay, she's actually moving to Leipzig, not to Chemnitz, but close enough.
The point is, Claire is living in Berlin.
And not just anywhere in Berlin, but the heart of Berlin. She's just a hop, skip, and jump from all the major sights in the city (Checkpoint Charlie, the Hauptbahnhof, the Tiergarten, the Reichstag). I'm not totally jealous or anything.
My view of Berlin for breakfast!
You would be sighing with jealousy too.
Anyway, I took the short 3 hour train ride down to Berlin on Friday night after I packed up and took care of things in Chemnitz. (I got my German bank card - I feel like a real person now!)
Claire picked me up from the train station, showed me her apartment, and then we went out to dinner to Dada Falafel, which has the reputation of being the best falafel place in all of Berlin. It's a lot of hype, but when they freshly make falafel in front of you, you know it's good.
Then we may or may not have polished off a bottle of wine at the apartment, while swapping stories and meeting Claire's housemates, who are also at the Berlin School of English.
Saturday morning, we wandered around until we found this cute cafe, called Kaffee Ambulanz (aka Coffee Ambulance, which is very apt for those sleepy mornings!). It's super cute and decorated with old hospital signs and cool artwork. Plus, it's two stories.
I got the most delicious pain au chocolat I've ever had in my entire life there - it was flaky and buttery and delicious and fantastic and made you believe that the world was a good place. And the chai latte wasn't too shabby either.
Hey Claire!
After our breakfast, we sauntered around town a bit and I helped Claire with grocery shopping.
It's the Spree River! Not only is it scenic, it's also super fun to say.
Meanwhile, inside the grocery store, we found this gem:
'Muuuurica.
(Also I have no idea what kind of sauce this is and I'm slightly frightened by it.)
We then went home and after very little persuasion, got one of Claire's housemates, Jess, to drop her homework and wander around with us. We set out for the Tiergarten....
It's the Reichstag! (German parliament)
It's an absolutely gorgeous building and the gardens are also lovely.
We also spotted a hot air balloon for the popular newspaper "Die Welt".
We kept walking and to our delight, we stumbled upon what we thought was a tiny little street festival. We got ourselves some crepes and some Hugo. (Hugo is the coolest new drink in Germany and now that you know you'll be a real hipster and I expect that you, dear reader, bring the Hugo to America before I return.)
Until we turned the corner.
The little festival was actually a huge one. It was in fact, a market to celebrate the Unification of Germany, which happened on Thursday.
In front of the Brandenburg Gate, they had set up a huge stage, where Sat 1., one of the major television channels was filming a concert of the best of Schlager music. This is so typically German to film an all-day music marathon and then replay it over and over again - this one will air on October 15th!
Here's the thing about Schlager music. I know what it is, when I hear it, but I really can't explain it, so just read the link above. Mostly it's just terrible pop-y music from the 80s and it's always played at Oktoberfest, mostly because it has the upbeat rhythms that make it really easy to dance to when you've got a Maß in your hand and you're standing on a table.
They're also ridiculously catchy.
Prime Example: "Schatzi Schenk Mir Ein Foto"
(Which roughly translates to "Sweetie Send Me a Photo"
(Maybe it's the first song about
sexting?) Regardless, it's now
stuck in your head and it will be there
for the rest of the day. You're welcome.)
So we basked in the tacky glory of some Schlager Musik and just wandered around the market.
After we ate a hearty dinner at a German restaurant, we went bar hopping.
Although the service at the "Berliner Republik" was awful (even by German standards, which says a lot), I think this bar is worth mentioning because it has a beer stock market (Bier Börse). The prices of the beers fluctuate based on their popularity throughout the night and the prices change roughly every 10 minutes. You can track your favorite "beer-vestments" on large tv screens which mimic the real stock market in Berlin.
So for any Math and Econ majors out there, this is the place for you.
This street is also littered with all kinds of bars from the Italian wine bar to the upscale after-theater group bar, simply named Brecht.
Old friends... (Claire)
And new ones! (This is Jess)
Also a self-aggrandizing selfie of Your Humble Blogger
For those of you curious, we ended the night at an Irish pub where many songs were sung-along-to, including Oasis'' "Wonderwall"which is played at literally every bar I've been to. I can't escape it.
This morning, Claire took me on another tour of Berlin and I saw the Berlin School of English. But I neglected to take a picture of it, which I guess makes me a bad blogger.
On the way back to the apartment, we saw them rolling out the red carpet for someone in front of the the concert hall.
WHO? WHY?
It will always be a mystery to me.
There's always something happening in Berlin.
I honestly have to say, that the first time I was in Berlin, I was actually very unimpressed by the city as a whole, although I enjoyed certain highlights. This time was different, since I didn't follow the normal tourist path. I had a great weekend in Berlin, just being a normal person in Berlin, instead of doing the checklist of touristy things. I can't wait to go back again.
But alas, I have to lesson plan and lead a discussion with my 12th graders about The Giver. I'm appealing to the spirits of Professors Past for strength and guidance.
I would like to close by including a video of a song that's really popular in Germany (but apparently it's also reached America) and it really makes me question everyone's sanity but it's also utterly amusing in its complete stupidity.
For your edification and amusement: Ylvis' "The Fox"
First, before you think I was skipping school (perish the thought), today is Germany's birthday!
Strange as it sounds, the unified Germany we know today is just as old as I am. (We both look very good for our age.)
The "Tag der Deutschen Einheit" is a national holiday, so I didn't have school today! On the downside, that means everything else in Germany is closed from the banks to the grocery stores.
Since the idea of hanging out in my apartment and doing nothing was not a very appealing prospect, I took an offer from Kaylee, one of the second year ETAs in Chemnitz, to head up into the Erzgebirge (aka the Ore Mountains). Even better, her German housemate, Sebastian, had a car and was willing to drive us.
So we drove up through the winding roads out of Chemnitz and into the Erzgebirge, home to the silver mines that made Saxony very rich. The mountains also form the border between Germany and the Czech Republic, so as we drove along, we crossed over the border a couple of times! The Erzgebirge is also home to the famous wooden handcrafts that are found in most German Christmas markets.
Most famously, the design of the nutcracker is based on the traditional garb and colors of Erzgerbirge mining guilds.
By all accounts from both former ETAs and Saxon residents alike, the Erzgebirge are a happenin' place to be in during the Christmas season.
Today, however, we visited the Fichtelberg, the highest mountain on the German side of the Erzgebirge. During the winter months, it's a popular ski resort, but today, it made for wonderful hiking! (See, I am slowly becoming German - I went hiking on my day off!)
Border sign with sister cities, including the Czech city of Vejprty, which can be hilariously mispronounced in so many ways.
Another border sign.
Once we reached the base of the Fichtelberg in the city of Oberwiesenthal, we took a cable car up to the summit! It was easy to imagine the climb up when it's covered in snow, but the lush green grass was lovely too.
A view from the foot of the Fichtelberg.
Going up!
On the summit, there's a ski lodge and a restaurant, nicknamed "Das Guck" which is a nominalization of the German slang verb "gucken" or "to see/watch".
(It's also one of my favorite German words just because it's so much fun to say!)
Germany!
More Germany!
The Czech Republic!
A mix of both, I think.
Another view of "Das Guck"
The clouds were hanging low and gave all our photos a foggy glaze.
That's about 3,986 feet for those of you playing at home.
Ski lifts and cable car tracks with a view onto Oberwiesenthal.
A cable car, complete with Saxon flags!
The top of the mountain was quite windy and chilly, so we took a hiking path down the mountainside. We took breaks to eat some snacks, take photos, and bask in the warmth of the sunlight. Here are some of the sights we encountered!
As we walked down the mountain, we meandered and went on different paths. We even frolicked across a meadow! (Well, Kaylee and I did. Sebastian was just confused by our American antics and refused to participate in our shenanigans.)
We stopped at a little ski resort to warm up and relax with cups of coffee and hot chocolate before we continued the last bit of our decent.
The lovely Rowan berries (Vogelbeere) were ripe! They make a delicious liquor, but you can't just eat them off the tree - they're poisonous!
All in all, it was a lovely way to spend the day off, enjoying the last splendors of the German fall. But I have to admit, I'm very tempted to return in the winter and practice my rusty downhill skiing skills!
