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.

Pech mit Zügen [bad luck with trains]

If you don't have the time to read this whole blog post, this sums it up: if you are on a train, and you see me, get off immediately.

First of all, I need to apologize for my lack of a posting in a long time. I don't want to sound so full of myself that I think people are waking up in the middle of the night and checking their Blogspot subscriptions for word from me, but I do think at least a few people enjoy hearing updates about my year in Germany. The longer I live here, the more accustomed I get, and the less I feel that I have blog-worthy material. I'll try to be better, though!

With that said, there are some newsworthy happenings  (that some of you may have gotten a taste of via Facebook), namely, my continued problems with train travel and public transportation in general. If I had to sum up my first extended stay in Germany, I'd be remiss to exclude my constant challenges with trains: buying a wrong ticket on day three in Germany (leading to a 40 Euro fine) and missing my flight to Edinburgh after some train mishaps are my two most famous train disaster stories. I was hoping that train troubles would be so 2011, but I've quickly learned that, for me, at least, they're still very much in style. 

"The Little Engine That Could" make traveling suck.

Saga #1 Going to orientation and back 

700 km by train. What could go wrong??

 This story is a bit dated, but it's a fun one nonetheless. At the beginning of my stay in Germany, Alice and I had to commute from the Frankfurt area to Cologne for orientation and then onto our host cities (first stop in Oldenburg for Alice, then Kiel for me). We probably jinxed ourselves because Alice and I discussed pre-departure how Alice never has problems with train travel and how I always do. I wish Alice's luck would have rubbed off more. 

Summary of our adventures with trains.

1. Train from Mainz to Cologne:

--Train car 10 (where we had our seat reservations) decided not to show up with the rest of the train, so we were forced to drag our huge suitcases down the train to find some empty seats. To make it even more annoying, over 20 people were doing the exact same thing because they, too, (stupidly) assumed car 10 would be there. 

2. -Cologne to Oldenburg

--1 minute before our train was to show up, we were informed that the train had a 70-(not 7, or 17, but 70!!) minute delay. This would have caused us to miss our connecting train in Bremen, so we had to find another train. Of course there went our paid-for reservations again. 

--Took another train that was like 20 minutes late. Deutsche Bahn (the German railway company) assured us we'd have plenty of time to catch our train in Bremen because we had 40 minutes of layover time.

--20 minutes quickly became 40 minutes by the time we reached Bremen. We arrived one minute too late. Had to wait another 40 minutes or so before we took the final train home. 

3. Oldenburg to  Kiel

-After fighting with the ticket machine for a good ten minutes, I finally got my ticket in the Bremen train station to get me to Kiel.But of course the platform I was supposed to go to was completely blocked off.

--After reading the electronic posting of where I needed to go instead, I was forced to carry two 50-lbs suitcases (by myself) up the stairs to the platform (apparently Tour de France took a detour through Bremen because there was a line of like 40 cyclists waiting to use the elevator).

--After waiting for 20 minutes and still no train, suddenly crowds of people started running down the stairs for some reason. That must have meant that the platform changed, and the only way to find out where to was to pick up my 100 lbs of luggage and walk down the stairs again. Good thing I did because it did change...to the other side of platform I was just standing on. So I hauled my stuff up that same exact staircase one more time. My arms were killing me.

--With no reservation in hand I boarded a train that was packed. I stood for an hour and half in the tiny compartment in front of the bathroom with seven other people. I was lucky enough to be able to stand in the hole created by the step into the train car. 

Saga #2 Going Dutch 

Speedy 3-hour trek...seems easy enough.

~I thought maybe having Emily come to visit us would cancel out some of my bad train luck as we ventured to Amsterdam, Berlin and Prague in October. But I was wrong. While on our way back from Amsterdam, our train suddenly came to a screeching halt. We looked out the window to see the train personnel jumping out of the train and onto the tracks. We didn't hear anything for a couple minutes, but we soon got the report in Dutch, Dutch-German and Dutch-English: "Ladies and gentlemen...we...uh..heet a car." Apparently, there was a car on the tracks (still don't know why), but luckily no one was in the car. Or, as the Dutch train guy said, "Zee accident was nothing personal." 

Emily's patient face on aforementioned stopped train.

"Waarom was de auto hier?!?"

--We then heard things from the loud speaker like, "Um, we don't know what we to do!" as we watched all the Dutch people flee the train. We were stuck with the Germans hoping we'd make it back home by the end of the night. They did give us a bunch of free Coke, juice and water, though. 

--After nearly an hour of waiting, we slowly rolled into the next station where we were rerouted through two forms of local Dutch trains (they were so packed, of course, that I didn't have a seat). We got home over two hours later than we intended. 

Saga #3 Orkan Christian 

My commute from work to my apartment. Surely, this tiny local train route is safe from chaos!

As I've mentioned before, I live in Kiel but work 45 minutes away in the town of Schleswig. Although I always ride with a teacher from my school to Schleswig in the morning, I take the train back to Kiel at least two time a week because the teacher I ride with usually stays quite late. Anyway, last Monday (October 28th) I remember hearing that an "Orkan" (European windstorm is the translation I've found) was coming, but I didn't think too much of it; I really should have. This was a big enough deal to warrant a Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Jude_storm

I finished class at 12:40, and since my ride said he would be at the school till five, I figured I could take my time getting home. Here's how that turned out:

--Walked to train station. It's a 40-minute walk, but I was in no hurry and the weather actually looked nice.

--By the time I was at the station, the wind was starting to pick up pretty badly. I had 30 minutes until my train came.

--Literally the minute the train was supposed be there, we are informed that the trains are no longer running because of the storm. 

--Went to find a taxi and was nearly blown over and had to dodge tree branches. Had to take the taxi back to the school, but because the streets were already covered with fallen trees, we had to take an extremely long way to the school, costing me double the normal fare. 

--Waited in the teachers' lounge for hours because parts of the autobahn were closed.

--Finally left the school at six, but the traffic was so bad that a 45-minute trip turned into a two-hour journey. 

--After getting off at 12:40, I walked into my apartment at 8:00. 

The trains continued to be out of commission for an entire week, causing many more days of complicated commuting. At one point, every train line in ALL of Germany was back up and running EXCEPT mine. 

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The good news is that I stayed home this past weekend and did not step on a single train, and I had a marvelously relaxing weekend. The bad news is I have more train travel planned this month.

Next time, I'm pulling a Harry and Ron.

How to survive a day as Paul, American English speaking assistant in Schleswig, Germany.

(This post attempts to give you a glance into what's becoming my everyday life in Germany. I hope you enjoy it and appreciate how stealth I was in taking all these pictures with my phone.) 

Before School 

The devil takes digital form.

When the alarm goes off at 5:50 a.m., it's time for you to get up and get ready for school. One of the very nice teachers at your school will be picking you up at 6:30, so you must hurry. Give yourself a 5-minute maximum on social media. It's not quite 10 o'clock p.m. in Montana, so all your friends are still awake and active. Sadly, you don't have time to SnapChat out any "selfies" and responding to Facebook messages will take up too much time (you do have time for approx. 2-3 Facebook pokes, however). Don't be too sadened by this whole waking up early ordeal, however, because you only have to do this three days a week. Because the Fulbright program only allows you to work 12 hours a week and your teachers at your school are awesome, you work only Tuesday-Thursday. 

Rigorous schedule

Don't forget to have your raincoat and umbrella with you when you head out the door. This September has been rainier than it has been drier. After a teacher from your school picks you up, you have about a 45-minute drive ahead you from Kiel to Schleswig, where your school is located. Because the teacher you ride with is an accomplished, high-ranking school official/teacher, be prepared to expand your German capabilities by talking about subjects such as election campaign strategies in Germany and the environmental dilemma behind oil drilling in the US. 

Dr. H's ride > Deutsche Bahn

At School 

One part of my school. Parking garage meets skate park.

Outdoor ping pong table at the school. Um, okay...

Your school is called "Berufsbildungszentrum Schleswig," which is a vocational school that offers a variety of programs, including preparation for studying at a university. Most of your students are between the ages 15 and 20 and love trying to add you on Facebook. You also get a couple "non-trads" who are pushing 30. You work with a handful of teachers at the school, and, depending with whom you end up working, you will do different tasks. Sometimes you will prepare an entire lesson about the use of active vs. passive voice, while other times you will be asked to choose an American song and present it to the class (TIP: go for something obnoxiously patriotic like that country gem "Only in America"). Still other times, you will sit at the front of the room and sporadically be asked questions about American English. If you get bored, run to the bathroom. You get to use the "teacher restroom" now!

"WC Teachers" This is worth a teacher's license.

Try not to get lost on campus. There are multiple buildings and everything looks the same after a while. If you stand there for several seconds yanking on a door that is clearly marked "push," play the "I'm-American-and-I-don't-know-German-card." 

"Push"

Don't be alarmed when you have a flashback to the nineties and every room is equipped with a blackboard and box of rainbow colored chalk. 

#throwback 

Doesn't compare to a set of Expos.

Between every 90-minute class (class schedules are more university-style and don't meet every day) you have a 15 minutes break where all the teachers head to one of the teachers' lounges and chill. Contrary to the stereotype that Germans are always obsessively punctual, you'll be surprised to find out that most teachers stay in lounge until the bell rings and then they head to class. Sometimes they will wait to finish their conversations and end up staying a good five minutes into the class period! (To demonstrate, here is a photo taken about 30 seconds following the bell).)

No rush to get to class.

You'll spend a lot of time in the teacher's lounge, since teachers don't have their own classrooms. Sometimes you will be mistaken for a student and asked, "Na, was gibt's?" said in the tone of "What the hell do you think you're doing in the teacher's lounge?" But other times, teachers will be very friendly and thrilled that you're American. But most the time, actually, no small talk takes place, and you can work on your computer in peace. You're more than welcome to write a blog entry during this time, as well. 

Selfie in the lounge.

Pigeon hole

Once you arrange which teacher can drive you back to Kiel (that can range from 1 to 5 p.m.), be sure to use the bathroom first. It's a long drive, remember?

After School 

The ride home takes a little longer because traffic on the autobahn gets backed up. But after you get dropped off, take advantage of all that's near you! IKEA is within walking distance, and as any good German will confirm, this mega affordable furniture outlet also serves cheap--yet delicious--cuisine. The food opportunities on your street are multiple, however. Two grocery stores (Lidl and Sky) are literally one minute and three seconds away from your front door. Please pretend that the author of this did not actually time that. The street is also equipped with several bakeries, cafés, restaurants and the best Döner shop in Kiel. (If you don't know what a Döner is, I feel sad for you.) You can also find an Apotheke, bike shop and even a clockmaker's shop within steps of your apartment. 

IKEA's just around the corner.

Supermarket Central

Haus 69 (my apartment building)

Forgot to pack a key chain.

Now that Cathi, one of your roommates, is back from doing her practicum, you might go shopping together or spend the evening chatting about America with her and her friends in the kitchen (while stuffing your face with something sweet). 

"Here lives . . ."

Although some accuse you of having it too easy, don't listen to them. You know in your heart that you put your sweat and tears into working the past eight months as a substitute teacher and Boys & Girls Club coordinator. And next year you'll be teaching in inner-city Chicago, so don't feel bad at all.  

Have fun and eat a marzipan croissant for me. 

Deutsch-Sein [being German]

I've actually been pleasantly surprised by how easy it's been to readjust to "being German." Even though my semester in Potsdam was incredibly fun, when I think back to those first few weeks, I distinctly remember how stressed out I was--like when I accidentally had the wrong ticket on the Berlin  city train and had to pay a 40 Euro fine? (#throwbackthursday: http://paulgoestogermany.blogspot.de/2011/03/schwarzfahrer-free-rider.html)

This time around, however, it's been quite pleasant. Aside from a stressful series of train rides across the country, I've been settling in just fine. Having a full week with Andreas and Evelin in Alzey made for a relaxing, stress-free start to this adventure.

Having a fine time on the Rhine.

After our time on the Rhine came to a close, Alice and I journeyed to Cologne for the introductory orientation for all the Fulbright English Teaching Assistants in Germany.

Fellow Fulbright friends Amanda (left) and Valeria (right). Note: not a real photograph. 

After orientation I moved into my apartment in Kiel and started work in Schleswig. I'll plan on posting pictures and writing more about both of these places in my next blog post. But I did want to post something to keep up the regularity of this blog. So what I did do was come up with a top five list of "German things" that I've had to readjust to. Obviously, I'm doing some generalizing, but these are observations on life here in Germany that I had forgotten about until I came back.

5. Weather

It's rainy and cold in Germany... a lot. Even though I'd take this rainy mess going on here over baking in a non-air conditioned classroom in Billings, it's still crazy to me to be leaving the house everyday in September with an umbrella and coat. 

4. Paying with cash 

I'm relearning how important it is to have cash on you--and specifically coins. You need cash for a lot things, and often credit cards are a no-go. I've been forced to use cash to buy a 20 Euro train ticket and also to use a shopping cart. 

You want to use a shopping cart? Insert a coin. When you bring it back, you get the coin back. 

This doesn't happen here.

3. Bread

Germans are serious about their bread, and they eat so much of it for breakfast, and it's overwhelming, and there are too many different kinds of Brötchen. 

Brötchen: this much is probably like 2 German breakfasts (Note: dramatization)

2. Vulgarity 

So this has two parts to it: As far as foul language goes, it's amazing how many English swear words Germans know and crazier how often I hear them in class, among teachers, etc.

Also, the topics that teachers discuss with students don't seem to have many boundaries. Granted I work with students over the age of 16, but certain words, terms and concepts that are brought up casually I don't think I ever heard in an academic setting--even at the collegiate level. 

1. Shutting down the small talk:

Add caption

I've known forever--even before visiting Germany the first two times--that Germans don't do "small talk." I distinctly remember learning freshman year in German class that you don't just ask strangers in Germany, "How are you?" like we often include in our simple greetings. It's not that Germans aren't nice people... they just see no need to force conversation.

That being said, I have had a hand full of situations where I've been fighting my inner American, who keeps telling me talk! For example: I was sitting on the train and this lady ran in, sat down, sighed in relief that she made the train, (she even smiled at me!), asked me what the next stop was and then sat right across from me, stared at me and was silent for 40 minutes. I had to fight every instinct in me to continue the conversation. 

I just need to think more like this guy: 

Die erste Woche [the first week]

 One week has passed since I boarded a plane in Bozeman, Montana, and took off for Frankfurt, Germany (with one stop in Atlanta on the way over, which was phenomenally relaxing).

I'm still working out exactly how I want this blog to serve my (and your!) needs and how often I'll log in to post something. I'm hoping that over the course of the next ten months I can collect a series of funny stories, comparisons, contrasts and other observations to share with you, but sometimes this blog is just going to be a travel blog. And for today, I'm just going to post a little bit about my past week in the Rhine-Main region of Germany.

So, here's the set-up: my fiancée Alice was a exchange student seven years ago in this region, and she's stayed super close with her host family. Her host sister Evelin, in fact, came to visit us last summer with her boyfriend Andreas, and so this week they returned the favor by hosting us at there apartment in Alzey, Germany (Alzey lies just south of Mainz in the Frankfurt metropolitan area in the southwest part of the country).

Andreas and Evelin discovering American portion control at the movie theater last year in Bozeman.

Alice reunited this week with her sister Evelin.

Andreas providing me with a much needed Döner--more on this shortly!

To give you a taste of what Alice and I were up to this week, I'll provide one highlight for each day of the week (And I'll go ahead and rule out German sweets now, so that you don't have to read a blog about what Paul had for dessert all week).

Montag [Monday]

I had three very German meals. 

1. Frühstück [breakfast]: in true German style, we pigged out on bread, salami, cheese, Nutella, jelly, honey, smoothies, orange juice and coffee. 

2. Mittagessen [lunch]: Döner--as pictured above. This piece of German-Turkish amazingness deserves its own post.

3. Abendessen [dinner]: Onion schnitzel with fries. It was der Hammer [the bomb].

Tuesday [Dienstag]

I checked another state capital off the list. 

The ritzy part of Wiesbaden, the capital of the state of Hesse.

Germany has 16 federal states, and I've been to 14 of them so far (soon to be 15 after orientation in Cologne). It shouldn't be a problem for me to make it to that 16th state of Saarland this year, so I'm upping the ante and trying to make it to every state capital in Germany. We spent Monday exploring the state capital of Wiesbaden, and  then  Friday in its twin city (and another capital) Mainz, which means I have six more capitals to go! (Düsseldorf, Erfurt, Hannover, Magdeburg, Saarbrücken & Schwerin await.)

Mittwoch [Wednesday]

I met another Fulbright scholar/Chicago Teach for America corp member.

Enjoying lunch in downtown Frankfurt with Whitney.

Next summer after Fulbright, I'm moving to Chicago to begin my two-year commitment with Teach for America. It just so happens that Whitney has the same three years ahead of her. Alice and I headed into Frankfurt to meet her in the flesh. We had a blast, and Whitney was awesome, of course. 

Donnerstag [Thursday]

I met another Paul with German-Russian heritage.

Paul, Paul and Andreas.

Evelin and Andreas took us out to burger restaurant with their friends Jenny and Paul. Paul was born in Russia, and Jessie also comes from a German-Russian family. What was really cool was to find out that all of our families were part of the Volga Russians that left Germany to farm the plains of Russia hundreds of year ago. Obviously, my relatives ended up in America, and theirs eventually came back to Germany. 

Freitag [Friday]

I hung out with little German kids. 

Eating Nachtisch [dessert] with the girls

After a summer of working with younger kids at the Boys and Girls Club, I, crazily enough, have been missing the company of children. Evelin's sister and her two little daughters came over and we made pizzas together. I've never spoken German with kids this young before (ages 5 and 2), but I got such a kick out of it. After lots of asking, the shyer, older daughter finally told me the one word she knew in English: "no."

Samstag [Saturday]

I visited a castle on the Rhine.

Just hanging out at a castle.

No need for further explanation. 

Sonntag [Sonntag]

I had a nice last evening in Alzey. 

Last night with Andreas and Evelin. Photo credit: Alice

We had such great hosts in Andreas and Evelin, and it was a very relaxing way to transition to Germany. Tomorrow the adventure continues as we take of for Cologne for orientation!