Headin' North

After Christmas, as I said in the post before, we headed up to the Osnabrück area to visit my host mom’s family. The trip itself was interesting because I was able to see the changes in architecture and countryside. There are more flat areas in northern Germany, so there’s typically more farm land and the land plots for houses are larger. Houses here are often made from brick, so it kind of reminded me of Pennsylvania. Anyways, we got to Bad Iburg, which was a very pretty, small town, though it has a castle that is about as old as the Dom in Speyer (1000, give or take a few hundred years). We had some fun wandering around it, sehr schön. We also went on a hike in the forest/mountains; at the top was an observation tower, so I could see the landscape all around. It was gorgeous, but VERY windy and VERY cold. It was fun meeting the family; they were all very nice, and one of my host mom’s siblings married an American, so it was fun to talk a bit about America.

When I heard I was going to the Osnabrück area, I contacted an American friend (also here on the CBYX program) there so that we could meet up. Our plans grew into quite an adventure. Firstly, we went into Osnabrück together and wandered around the Fußgängerzone and the Altstadt (old city). The Altstadt was really nice, but the newer areas weren’t so spectacular, just fairly normal. The next day we made a day trip to Bremen (about an hour away with a train). Bremen was AMAZING. Probably one of the best cities I’ve seen thus far, if not the best. The Fußgängerzone was really cool, and the Altstadt was just absolutely and completely and totally gorgeous! We wandered in and around the buildings for awhile (which were also amazing), and then headed through the Böttcherstraße, which is a touristy spot. I’m honestly not sure why, I didn’t really look into it. But it was a cool street with brick buildings, and at one point there were some bells that played a melody. Then we wandered through Schnoor, which is an area of small streets and very interesting shops. I’m surprised we didn’t get lost in there. We then went to the Bremen Kunsthalle (art museum) which was really cool. They had a large Hundertwasser exhibit, an eccentric painter and architect. We looked at the permanent works first, some of which were really impressive. The Hundertwasser exhibit was… interesting, to say the least. “Cow’s Green Digestion of Gold” was the title of one of the paintings there. I’m not a huge fan of his style, but it was cool to see.

I spent New Years with my American friend and her host family. We ate Raclette for dinner, which is really popular here. Each person has a paddle thing that you fill with various foods that you want (vegetables, meat) and cover with cheese, and then set it into this skillet/oven thing until the cheese melts. Yum! We watched “Dinner for One”, which is a really old British short show that somehow became a tradition here, and had the TV on later to know what time it was and when we could celebrate. There was a countdown, but people don’t freak out and scream like we do in America. It was almost weird to quite tamely toast each other with our drinking glasses (I enjoyed me some orange juice :D ) and give hugs. I suppose others don’t celebrate it so tamely… But whatever. So after that, we went outside and set off a lot of fireworks! It’s only legal to buy fireworks a few days before New Years, and set them off on New Years, so a lot of people participate. The atmosphere was rather amazing, the sky was full of fireworks (and I was in an extremely small town!). Lots of fun was to be had, and I even convinced my American friend and her host sister to scream with me because I felt like that was necessary. Happy New Year!

A few days later we went to Hamburg and met up with other CBYX students, and had a great time wandering around the city. Because you have to wander. Hamburg is a big city, and all the seeing-worthy things are rather spread out. So we met at the Hauptbahnhof (which was in and of itself big, impressive, and spread out; we got lost inside it several times) and made a game plan of where we wanted to go. The Rathaus was very impressive and big. There were so many churches that we just walked by them, rather than going in each one. Though, we did find one that was really quite moving. It’s called the St. Nikolaikirche, and only the spire and part of the back wall are still standing after it collapsed from the bombing of Hamburg in World War II. It wasn’t repaired, and is now a memorial to the people who died and suffered in that war. Really, really quite touching. It carried a message that museums just aren’t capable of. Anyways, we then went to the port (because Hamburg is a huge port city, despite it being inland; the Elbe River makes that possible) and looked around some. There honestly wasn’t too much to see (I think), but it was cool nonetheless. The only other interesting thing we did was go to the Mini Wunderland museum thingy. We had heard that it was cool, and figured it was worth looking into. You can “see the world” (or whatever) through these really detailed, tiny models of people, buildings, cars, trains, planes, landscapes, etc. of real places that move and light up and such. It was pretty cool, and fun to look at. Hamburg was a nice city, but I liked Bremen better.

So I’m glad I was able to travel a bit and see some of Northern Germany!

Adventszeit!

            Christmastime in Germany has been really interesting. The Weihnachtsmärkte have been really cool. Some aren’t very interesting and just have food (Crepes and waffles are very popular) and Glühwein, but the good Christmas markets have a lot of gifts you can buy. Hand carved wooden figures, glass stuff, ornaments, jewelery, scarves/hats, all sorts of things. These wooden stalls with lights and decorations are set up in the market area(s) of the town, and it’s especially fun to wander around in at night. Very gemütlich, as my host mom would say. I even was able to participate in the small Weihnachtsmarkt in Wiesloch. They had a Märchenzelt, Fairy Tale Tent, and one night my host mom had volunteered to read something for the kids. She asked me if there were any American/English fairy tales that I could perhaps present, so I thought a bit and decided on the Three Little Pigs. That was really amusing to translate into German (with the help of my host mom). “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin chin!” got turned into “nicht bei meinem kleinen schnucki-putzi-Schnäuzelchen!” You have to hear it to understand how ridiculous it sounds; I nearly died of laughter trying to say it. But the kids (and the adults) were highly amused by the whole thing. I would say the main, most-known lines first in German, then in English, so they could hear it. My host mom particularly liked huff and puff, and someone afterwards asked me to repeat “chinny-chin chin”. Quite a success, I would say. It has even become an inside joke now.

Weihnachtsmarkt in Speyer

Weihnachtsmarkt in Heidelberg

 

German traditions have been fun to experience. They have these Christmas wreaths with 4 candles on them, and they light another one on the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th Advent. The 4 Sundays before Christmas are the Advents. So by the end, one candle is really short, and the others are different lengths. My host family would sing a little song about it as they lit a new one.

 

 

Music is another tradition. They have a lot of different music than we do, and the style is different. There are American songs like Jingle Bells or whatever, but I haven’t really heard them that much. I think they prefer to stick to their own traditional songs, like Stille Nacht (naturally), O Tannenbaum, Kling Glöckchen, O du frohliche, and others I don’t know the names of. Also concerning music, the wooden flute is very popular and traditional. I went to my host brother’s class’s wooden flute concert, and sometimes my host family would get together after dinner and play Christmas songs together. Sooo gemütlich. It was quite cool, and I like the sound. Another tradition is Adventskalender. Um. Advents calendar. You get a small gift every day leading up to Christmas. We sort of have this in America, sometimes, but it’s different. Everyone here has one, and there are different kinds. You can buy some, which have these little doors that you open each day and get a chocolate, or something. I think more traditional though is to make it. My host siblings were so sweet and made one for me. It’s a long string with gold and red bags and match boxes (traditional, so I’ve heard) attached, so I got a little candy or woven-straw ornament each day.

 

 

 Speaking of ornaments, there’s the Christmas tree. I think most often, people here get real trees. So we didn’t have a tree until a few days before Christmas, which was weird for me, because I’m used to my mom’s Christmas-Craziness and 4 (or 5 if you count a foot-tall one) trees, which usually come out before Thanksgiving. My host mom said that they (not sure if “they” was her family as a child or Germans) usually don’t decorate the tree until the day before, and the kids aren’t allowed to see it until present time, because it’s the Christkind who comes with the presents and decorates the tree. As it is, our living room is too open to hide it, so we all decorated it together. Very traditional decorations are red ball ornaments, straw ornaments, and real candles. Not many people use real candles anymore, I think.

 

Christmas tree/Weihnachtsbaum

 

Then lastly, the biggest difference is they celebrate the present-opening on Christmas Eve night, and there are two Christmas days after that. What we did was pretty typical-German-Christmas, so I’ll just explain what we did:

 

We didn’t do much in the morning, just some cleaning and cooking. A bit before 4 we went to the church for Gottesdienst, the church service. There was a cute theater thing reenacting Christ’s birth from some kids, who all looked under 8. Beyond that, it was a typical Catholic Mass, though the minister did wave around this smoking-ball thing, which I hadn’t seen before, so I think they only use it for special occasions? I don’t know. After church, the kids typically go on a walk with their dad and the dog, while their mom stays to help the Christkind (Christ child, translated, though my host mom says he’s depicted as more of an angel). I helped. When the kids came back, there were presents under the tree, Christmas music was playing, and everything was lit by candlelight. Gemüüüüütlich. The kids played some Christmas music on cello and guitar while we sang along (sort of). We were all then allowed to open two presents before dinner. Dinner was very nice, with the best plates and silverware, and lots of yummy food. Salad, soup, potato rolls, goose meat, ice cream. Very nice. After cleaning up, we took our time opening presents and enjoying each other’s company. Relaxing. Chillen (ha, German slang from English “chill”). My host family was really sweet and got me some typical German things. “Die Lieblingsgedichte der Deutschen” (The Favorite Poems of the Germans), because that’s something we joke about all the time, because Germans are very philosophical, poetic, and like to think (according to my host mom). And a wooden handcrafted thing. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it’s cool and I love it, I’ll attach a picture. I think they appreciated and enjoyed the American stuff my parents sent from Kansas :). Overall, it was just a really nice evening.

 

 

From the host fam. :)

 

On Christmas day (or here, the first Christmas day), we didn’t do much. I read almost the whole day… Because I’m silly like that. I skyped with my family, which was great. My host family went to church on both Christmas days as well, but beyond that, not much has been going on. Chillen. Tomorrow we are going to travel up to the Osnabrück area to visit some of my host mom’s family. Yippee! Merry Christmas, or frohe Weihnachten!

Didn't Think of That...

Something I was thinking about is how this exchange has allowed me to encounter so many other things and ideas. So I thought I’d share some. It’s not like we don’t have or do these things in America (perhaps), I just haven’t seen it or thought about it before. (And I suppose there should be a disclaimer here that it’s only stuff I’ve observed where I am at). And I know there are many, many more, but these are just the ones I thought of at the moment.

Worcester Sauce: Um. Normally this goes with BBQ sauce, ja? Because my host mom had NEVER heard of it going with BBQ. And I had never seen it going into a vegetable and potato soup. Go figure.

Stirring on the Counter: People probably do this in America, but I just personally haven’t seen it. I was baking some cookies with some people the other day, and they put all the dry ingredients on the (clean) counter, made a hole in the middle and poured in all the wet ingredients and kneaded it right there. I was just a little surprised.

Bread Toppings: Breakfast here is almost always bread, with various toppings. It is usually normal things like jam, butter, cream cheese, and cheese, but also cottage cheese, yogurt, quark (which we don’t even have in America, I think) or sour cream. It’s surprisingly good when you mix it with some jam. Just hadn’t thought of that before.

Holes in Jeans: I’m REALLY (emphasis on really) not sure if this one is correct, but from some impressions I got, it’s not normal to keep wearing jeans if they have holes? Because people always point it out and ask if you fell down earlier that day. Um. No. I just have a hole in my jeans!

Thick Pieces of Meat: We definitely have this in America, but usually it is steak or chicken… I suppose it’s just typical German to have huge chunks of pig meat. Maybe. And always with mustard.  This probably doesn’t sound very surprising, but you should have seen the thing! It looked like a piece of pink bread!

Sharing Deodorant: That would be REALLY gross if it wasn’t usually a spray. Spray deodorants are more popular here, and I’ve seen people ask during breaks in class if they could borrow someone else’s and spray it RIGHT there. Maybe I’m just a weird American, but… I wouldn’t do that. 

Oats: Breakfast + oats = oatmeal, in my head. So I was just mildly surprised once when they mixed it in with some musli (healthy cereal, basically) and milk and ate it cold. Totally makes sense, but I had never done it.

Applesauce: This gets mixed into the weirdest things. Like rice. Or cereal. Or on top of bread.

Opening Windows: Windows get opened all the time, it doesn’t matter how cold it is outside. During the day, a lot of the time the back door is wide open. And several times a week my host mom will open all the windows for a few minutes to totally aerate the house. In breaks during class, people always open the window. I sit there and usually think “Are you CRAZY!? It’s COLD!” while most of the others enjoy it (though a few do seem to share my views :P)

Fresh Food and where it comes from: This is something we really don’t think about much in America, I think. For example, when we buy fruit, we don’t really care where it came from (California or Ohio or China or wherever), so long as they look and taste good. And who knows how fresh it is??? For some people in America, natural and bio food is important, but here it is REALLY important. A LOT of people buy organic or natural because it’s healthier and the animals are better treated, etc. That’s just something I’ve never considered (and I think I’m not alone), whereas in Germany almost everyone takes into account how good the quality and freshness is when buying food.

Living with another Family: Then there’s this general difference of living with another family, which functions in a different way than what I grew up with (duh, that’s true for every family). The biggest difference is probably religion, because I’m LDS and they are Catholic; there isn’t as big of a difference between the two as I thought, but there are some definite differences. Just encountering these other viewpoints have made me more thoughtful of what I think, and more aware/understanding/accepting of what others think.

 

I realize some of these are weird and totally random, but the idea behind it is that I have encountered a lot of different things that I normally wouldn’t have if I hadn’t come here. We get into these ruts and ways of thinking, and don’t always consider there are other ways of doing things or thinking about things.