Am I Being Stereotypical?

It's almost a month since I moved to Germany and it's still quite the adjustment, not gonna lie. There have been several bouts of homesickness-- friends, family, food...and through it all, Ben has been wonderful and supportive.

German people are not unfriendly or stand-offish like people sometimes stereotype. The people that I've met have been very friendly, considerate, and accommodating. I still feel like an awful American stereotype walking around because I can pretty much only introduce myself, ask where you're from, and answer yes/no questions: ja...nein...danke. Not exactly ideal for creating deep meaningful conversations.

Through Ben's friends, I've met and hung out with more Germans. When they can, they usually speak in English, just for me. There can be a group of 4 Germans plus me and they will all speak English just to make me feel welcome and comfortable. I feel so spoiled and a bit awful at times. My German can't improve fast enough. I feel self-conscious about fulfilling American stereotypes. Do I talk too much? Maybe too loudly? Use my hands too much? Am I too energetic? Do I come off as fake? I think I will feel more comfortable as my German improves and I will feel more at home. Although, I am amazed at how well many Germans can speak English.

And when it comes to food, to be honest, I miss eating Chinese food more than I miss "American" food. Ok, all with the exception of peanut butter. I was so excited about the German bakeries, but that has long worn off. I just want some good old peanut butter and honey on toast. I still haven't found a good Chinese restaurant, but I've heard that there are good Indian restaurants around. Also, I found it amusing that Italian restaurants are considered the more low-key restaurants here. Such a contrast to the States where they're considered more "fine dining." Ben and I have found a couple of small Asian stores. They're small and don't carry everything, but I can get some basic sauces. None carry giant 20lb bags of rice though... (not that I really want to carry that all the way to our apartment from downtown)

It's an adventure and I continue to learn. It can be embarrassing at times, but it makes for good stories. :-D

Ok, so I realized that I've only been taking photos of food lately. So here's my compilation:

Döner: Turkish immigrant influence.
Kind of like a Gyro. We had ours with
chicken, lettuce, tomato, onion, and
a choice of sauce. SO DELICIOUS and
now I want one every week.

Ben made bread dumplings for dinner one night.
What a great way to use up stale bread!

Found a "French-inspired" German bakery in downtown.
Ben loves croissants so we had to try the French-German
style ones. They were pretty good.

I have officially experienced the German cafe/coffee culture.
Sat outside a cafe for hours chatting with a new friend
and sipping milk-coffee.

More German baking: Donauwelle, standard
German cake. (Marble cake with cherries,
pudding on top and chocolate ganache)

Famous fries by the University. A.k.a. fries
flavored mayo. Hung out with some girls
Saturday night and had to try the curry-mango mayo.

Maifest

Monday marked the first day of May. In Germany, it was also Labor Day and a holiday. That means that nothing is open (besides some bakeries), just like on Sundays. I'm not going to lie. Knowing that I don't have access to the grocery store for two whole days kind of stresses me out. I need my food. Anyway, I survived. However, Ben and I did do some crazy grocery shopping on Tuesday.

But we did get some good food on Monday.

As you can see~ very smiley faces

There was a Maifest gathering near our apartment on Monday. It kind of reminded me of our small town celebrations like Onamia Days, Isle Days, Wahkon Days, etc. Lots of families come with their children, grab some burgers and brats from the food stands and of course, drink beer. However, the most important activity was: putting up the Maibaum (a.k.a. Maypole). Let me tell you, this was quite the ordeal.

The guy in the blue jacket was the MC.
And some conservative politicians stopped
by to say a few words.

I wanted to add some videos that I took of the Maibaum, but I can't seem to upload them. There were two ceremonies--one at the start of the festival and one that lasted the remainder of the festival. The picture below is from the first ceremony. This Maibaum was much smaller than the second one.

I always pictured Maypoles as tall poles with long streamers hanging down from the top, but these were actual trees decorated with short colorful streamers. There was a committee that was formed (this one had only men) that was created for the sole purpose of putting up the Maibaum. Ben said that the group was formed so that they could be insured... I suppose it makes sense :-D The Maibaum committee members each wore a pointed grey felt hat; stylish but don't do too much for protection against falling trees.

There were nineteen men carrying the Maibaum and the whole thing took about two and a half hours. I think putting up the tree was physically straining, but I think that it took that long was more because of the all the beer breaks the committee took during the event. :-P

But no worries. There was plenty of beer for the observers to buy, plus coffee and cake for sale. It was definitely an exciting event to witness, and kept me on the edge of my seat. Happy May everyone!

Labor Day Weekend

This one's kind of late, but I've been slacking...

Ben and I took a day trip to Leipzig this past Saturday. It was a long weekend because Monday was a holiday here. (Labor Day) We originally wanted to take a weekend trip to Prague but alas we were a little too late in planning it. Turns out Leipzig was a great choice. It is such a music hub and kind of has a hippie-ish feel~ I was a huge fan. :-D

I am an enthusiastic thrift shopper--thanks to my mother--and I was kind of disappointed when I learned that Germans aren't really into buying second-hand clothing. That's why I was SO EXCITED when I saw this in downtown Leipzig. Ben and I think that it was a clothing exchange (grab clothing and leave clothing). I thought about exchanging my jacket...The only thing that kept me from really looking was the fact that I would have to carry it for the rest of the day. :-/ (plus it was kind of cold and rainy)

I've also been slowly learning more about the German beer drinking culture. Ben rode the train Saturday morning to Leipzig. It's only about an hour by train. The train was pretty full for early Saturday morning. A lot of people must've decided the long weekend was a good time for a trip. Just as we found some empty seats, a train conductor comes by and tells us that we should move to the front of the train because there was going to be about 100 soccer fans boarding soon. I found that amusing (obviously I know nothing about soccer).

Anyway, Ben and I ended up in the first class cabin. It was pretty nice. That is, until five soccer fans made their way into the cabin. There weren't really any seats left and the cabin was pretty small. We were grateful they didn't sit/stand by us, but the gentleman they sat by looked very amused (not). I thought that they were coming back from a game since it was only about 8:30am and they looked like they had already drank quite a bit. Oh no...they were on their way TO the game. Can't say it didn't make me miss being in the U.S. where public drinking is not allowed. We somehow ended up riding with the soccer fans on the train back from Leipzig too. Not sure how that happened. I discovered Saturday that many Germans don't just transport a couple of bottles of beer with them to an event. It's more like this:

This photo is from Google

I'm going to have to work on my beer drinking...

Friends, Film Festival, Glühwein

Ben and I went to an outdoor film festival last night with a friend of his and his girlfriend. To be honest, I wasn't exactly sure what it was when I agreed to going. However, from the name I did think that it would be indoors in a theater or a classroom. And two, I thought it would just be that: a film festival. Wrong and wrong again.

As you can see, it was outside. It's definitely colder than I was expecting Germany to be at the end of April. We were told that the festival started at 7:30pm but nothing started at 7:30pm. We were a bit late because we had just come from dinner, but there were already a ton of university students standing around socializing.

Oh and drinking beer and Glühwein... That seems to be what started at 7:30pm.

And so we had to get some Glühwein too. Did I mention that I ordered my first thing in German? "vier Glühwein, bitte." :-D

Ben's friend, Michael, and his girlfriend Alessia

I don't think this one needs a caption...

So, the film festival consisted of 1.5 hours of socializing, drinking some Glühwein and hopping around to music that a band was playing on stage, plus about one hour of watching short films on a projected screen. The films were interesting although slightly weird. ("komisch" as I learned). All in all, a fun and interesting night.

First German Sunday

We tried to go hiking yesterday. There really isn't much to do on Sundays besides hiking and having cake and coffee. It's very much a family day. Ben and I tried to go out for a hike in the early afternoon, but it was cold and rainy. We managed to get out later in the afternoon for a walk. It was beautiful even though it started hailing while we were out.

This view. I decided that I need to come 

up here every morning.

And on our way back, we found closet in a trash pile! Isn't it great?

The doors were crooked and didn't quite close and it's missing a back, but look at those handles! We were still a good 20 minute walk from the apartment, so we had to carry it to the tram station. Can't say it didn't make me miss having a car. Kind of awkward to carry a closet onto public transportation.

Coffee and Kuchen (cake) is a Sunday tradition. Bakeries are pretty much the only thing open on Sundays. Ben and I walked to one nearby and got some cake. There was quite a line.

Raspberry and Popeye-seed 

It was too late for coffee, so we just had cake. I think the raspberry might have been my favorite. MMmm so good!

I have to post two more pictures. Lots of people have heard how meticulous Germans are about recycling. I'm still getting the hang of separating everything, but I learned about glass recycling yesterday for the first time. Glass recycling is separated by color: white, green, and brown. There's an uncle of mine that I think would appreciate this.

 Also, no recycling on Sundays. Oops. Like anyone follows that rule....

Flankyball

I learned a new drinking game today. Not that I know many of them... Ben and I were sitting at the university cafeteria having lunch when we noticed a group of students below on the campus plaza.

This game is called Flankyball. At first, the set-up kind of reminded me of 6-pins in elementary gym class. The goal of the game is to have all your teammates finish all of their beer before the other team does. Someone from team A throws a ball at the plastic bottle(s) in the middle. If they hit the bottle(s), then the each group member starts drinking their own bottle of beer until team B grabs the ball, sets up the bottle(s) in the middle again and runs back to their spot. I am told this is more common among the younger generation. Ben thought it was only slightly strange that they were playing this on campus. :-P

And our lunch from the cafeteria. Sweet potato
chickpea curry. A little bland.

And I also experienced my first time grocery shopping solo. This is the grocery store near our apartment. Notice the group of people standing to cross the street? This is another cultural norm that I am trying to get used to. I had heard that Germans are law-abiding citizens and no pedestrian would dare cross the street on a red light, even if the street is completely empty. This makes me laugh because it's true to a certain extent. It's not so much that Germans are abiding by the law in these cases as they are abiding by social pressure. Everyone will wait for the light to turn green, that is until someone decides that it's ridiculous and proceeds across the street on a red light :-O This then makes it ok to cross the street because that one person has already broken the unspoken "no J-walking" rule.

I made homemade sweet potato ravioli with a dairy free cream sauce. Check it out. Still getting acquainted with the metric system, so right now I'm just guessing. :-D

I love the view from the tram on my way home from town.

Officially Have an Apartment

Snapchat is now one of my favorite apps. Add me if you have one!

Still feeling pretty jet-lagged today. Can't wait until I can sleep all the way through the night. The weather has been wonderful, though slightly cold. Luckily, it has not snowed again since the night of my arrival. I really wasn't prepared for that.



Ben and I walked to the leasing office this morning. Such a beautiful morning! The scenery....blue skies with some clouds and the mountains....I love being able to walk everywhere. Still haven't figured out the tram (trolley), but soon. We, well Ben chatted, with the leasing guy and filled out all the paperwork. We're officially renting an apartment together. So much cheaper than back home. Only a little over 300 Euros with water and electricity included.
The guy's office though...I've never seen an office that clean. It almost felt uncomfortably clean, like I would've been afraid to touch anything. All the papers were piled neatly on the desk. All the binders standing erect on the bookshelf. Even the computer keyboard was completely spotless. I'm a neat freak, but even that was a bit too neat for me. There was no mess and it made the office lack some character.

And of course I have to add pictures of the bakery we stopped by to grab some breakfast. Don't these just look wonderful? No, I did not eat cake for breakfast. I had the boring but more substantial whole wheat rolls (one was pretzel-like and the other was made with potato ^_^) I just have to drool over these. Plus they make for better pictures.



I will try my hand at grocery shopping by myself and making dinner tonight. We'll see how that goes~