Freunde [friends]

Happy December from Kiel! Christmas season is in full swing in Germany with Christmas markets open in every city and town providing those who brave the cold with the extremely popular hot, spiced wine known as Glühwein (among other treats). The holiday season has always been my favorite time of year, and, because this is the first time that I haven’t been home during these weeks leading up to Christmas, I’ve experienced my first real dose of homesickness since I studied abroad two and half years ago. But, no worries; I have been feeling much better this week, and with my parents and brother arriving next weekend, home is right around the corner.

Christmas market in Lübeck. Yes, I visited this one, but, no, this is not my camera work.

With Alice’s being 2-3 hours away in Oldenburg, I don’t get to see her nearly as much as I would like to (usually twice a month), but I also have some awesome friends in Germany that have helped make my stay here so much fun. I’ve decided that I want to use this blog post to introduce them, which will, in turn, also update you on some of my undertakings.  

And for the record, I have met so many nice people, and I have super roommates, and my mentor teacher is fantastic, so I can’t claim that these people I'm highlighting are the only ones who have been nice to me! J

Edda (old friend)

Dug up this hot pic of me with Edda at my graduation party in 2008.
Other exchange students censored to avoid confusion.

Edda was one of the two German foreign exchange students during my senior year at West High, and I’m so glad that we’ve maintained a friendship over these past six years. It just so happens Edda lives and studies here in Kiel, so it’s been so fun to be able to meet up with her and boyfriend, Fidi.

The funniest moment this year was when we bumped into each other at the Kiel Christmas Market on opening night. It makes you feel well acclimated to a new city when you start running into people you know.  

Enjoying a cup of Glühwein with Edda. The Kiel cups are (sadly) orange this year. At least I look better than I did in '08. 

The day before Thanksgiving, Edda and Fidi invited me to their annual Grünkohl feast. It was my first time sampling this typical North German dish, but I thought it was delicious. It wasn’t turkey dinner, but it was a very enjoyable evening.

 

Grünkohl (kale) with potatoes, pork and sausage.

Amanda and Valeria (new friends) 

It's always a party when you're friends with Paul.

When the 140 Fulbright scholars who received English teaching assistantships in Germany assembled near Cologne for orientation back in September, it was a huge blur of faces and names from all across the United States. Luckily, Facebook helped link a lot of these names to faces and also allowed us to all stay in contact. While I have met up with most of the teaching assistants up here in the north, there are two ETA's with whom Alice and I have daily correspondence. 

You can choose your friends but not your family.

We call ourselves the "Fulbright Family" with Alice and me in the roles of “mom” and “dad” to our “daughters” Amanda and Valeria. Weird? Definitely. Creepy? Perhaps. But we have a message chain that is never-ending, and it has allowed us to make jokes every single day and also to give each other support… like when one of us had an emergency plane landing in the Netherlands or when we have concerns with what's going on at our schools.

Family met up in Lüneburg in September.

Amanda lives outside of Hamburg and Valeria in Berlin. Sadly, we’ve only had one full reunion since orientation, but we’re working on the next!

Julia (old friend) 

Enjoying lunch with Julia back in the day.

Julia was the other German foreign exchange student back in high school, and it’s crazy how often we’ve seen each other since then (like 2 or 3 times in America and half a dozen times in Germany).

When I was in Potsdam in 2011, I could get to Julia in a matter of 75 minutes, but now we’re several hours apart. However, that didn’t stop me (or Alice) from making the trek down to Leipzig for Julia’s annual Thanksgiving Dinner.

Dressed up (waaay more than we have to for school here) and ready for the feast!

After Julia’s time in the US, she decided to recreate Thanksgiving dinner with her (always nice and hilarious) friends at her apartment every November. What’s unique is that Julia and most of her friends are vegans. So, no, there was no turkey, BUT we had a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner nonetheless. It really did rival a regular Thanksgiving meal at home. After a day spent in our pajamas preparing the meal, we dressed in our finest and gorged ourselves on stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, beans, cranberries, stuffed apples, garlic baguettes, pumpkin pie and peanut butter Oreo brownies. We then had leftovers for brunch, and I went back to Kiel stuffed and feeling like I didn’t miss out on Thanksgiving after all.

Thanksgiving dinner: Alice and I are way in the back.

Thomas and Jenny (new friends)

The fish of Kiel. (I rely too heavily on these stupid cropped photos.)

As I (probably) mentioned in an earlier post, I’m subletting my room from a Master’s student who is doing a semester in Scotland right now. And because I’m enjoying everything she left in her room (like the pink walls, and floral bedspread, and Hello Kitty poster, and I’m going to stop there), I thought it only appropriate that I enjoy her friends, too. When I moved into the room, all my roommates were still on vacation, so the girl I’m renting from gave her friend Jenny the keys to the place. Jenny (German) and her boyfriend Thomas (Norwegian) picked me up from the train station and let me into my apartment, and it’s been nothing but good times ever since. They're the people I have spent a lot of my free time with, and they’ve shown me a very good time in Kiel so far. These adventures include:

Dressing up like Bavarians

and dancing all night long.

Heading to the bowling alley

and getting yelled at by the bowling alley lady for hitting the pinsetter with a bowling ball.
"Are you sure this is the sport for you?" was her final comment.

And our latest endeavor: braving the awful European windstorm "Xaver"

and taking sarcastic photos that were then posted by the local newspaper in Kiel.

Oh, and they have a reaaallllly cute dog named Linus.

I’m going to be so sad when they both leave in a couple months for their practicums. Guess I’ll I have to buy some new friends.