Traditions

In my family, Christmas Eve is the liquor holiday. It's always good to have traditions you can look forward to together. What's your family Christmas traditions?

Christmas Time in Germany and My Journey Home

First of all, the Christmas season in Germany manages to mantain a bit of Christmas magic that I feel has been lost to me in recent years. Of course, shopping crowds on the weekends are just as bed as American ones, but the thing that brought it back for me were the Christmas (Weihnachts) Markets. The started being build late November, and then in that first week of December all the Christmas cheer was released! Wooden stands, with mossy roofs selling everything from ornaments and candles, to fish sandwhiches. On the lake, there is an ice bar (complete with a bar actually made from ice), and a skating rink. Next to the Rathaus, there is a giant Christmas tree made of lights. Of course I realize this is all just Christmas shopping, but it manages to be much more quaint and there are many handmade good available, which I always appreciate. The availability of Gluehwein helps too.

I'm not blogging from my computer, so I can't provide you with photos. I suppose how I got to this computer is perhaps interesting as well.

My last weeks in Germany were filled with hanging out with my friends, and eating at all the cheap Turkish eateries I knew I would miss once I was in the US again. I went to my first Hamburg University party, and I managed to stay out until 6am at the China Lounge, said to be one of the best discos in Europe. I also managed to find time to pack my things, clean my apartment and say goodbye. I'm never the best at goodbyes. Not because I'm sad, but because I always feel like its more of a 'Auf Weidersehen' than a 'Tschuess'. I suppose it doesn't have to be goodbye forever anyway.

So, I loaded my things into the taxi 5:45 Tuesday morning, and arrived 8:15 Tuesday evening at the Sacramento airport. Although I was silly with jet lag, I was coherent enough to have a bit of culture shock. For one, five dollar bills look huge. They just do. Also, you guys changed them while I was gone. I hadn't heard English spoken with a southern accent for quite some time, and I'd forgetten how attached Americans are to their cell phones. I'd also forgotten how much more Americans smile at people they don't know.

On the 18th I'll be returning to NC and I hope to see all your happy smiling faces soon. :-)

The Hamburg Fischmarkt: An Instructional Guide

One thing Hamburg is known for is the Sunday morning Fischmarkt. Every Sunday at 5am. The thing to do is to stay out all night on the Reeperbahn and then get breakfast there in the morning. It's one of those things I had to do before I left. So here's your guide to a successful Hamburg Fischmarkt visit.

Let me introduce you to my associates.

Lilianna, 25, Mexico

Sylvia, 18, Catalonia

10PM- Begin the night with a falafel or doener.


11pm- Arrive on the Reeperbahn. Enjoy your freedom to drink on the streets.

12am- Go to a disco. Dance.

2am- Up your alcohol content at Lucky Star. A bar offering shots for less than a euro each.

From left to right: A Mexicaner (Lili), Jaegermeister (Me), Tequilla (Sylvia)

3am- Get pissed at drunken German for not separating American politics from the rest of America.

3:30am- Take drunken pictures of yourself in the street.

3:35am- Go back to Disco. Dance.


4:45am- Take nap in disco.

5:00am- Refuel at a Turkish run restaurant.


5:45am- Walk to the Fischmarkt. Shop at the wide variety of stands outside, including a stand for giant stars. Don't worry, there's fish too.


6:30am- Go inside the Fischmarkt building and enjoy your last drink of the night/morning...


...or fall asleep at the table.


8:30am- Get home. Sleep.


I hope you've found this instructional and useful and that this guide will guide you in all your life endeavors.

Passing Wisdom Through Generations

A small look into my life as an au pair:

Germany will be the death of me

Since being in Germany, my clutziness has skyrocketed. I've fallen down stairs at least 5 times, once hard enough to give myself whiplash. I fell off my bike twice, giving myself a new scar on the palm of my hand. And once, tripped over unevenness in the sidewalk and fell down. This last trip down the stairs finally sent me to the doctor. I managed to land directly on my foot, which twisted and my ankle made a disgusting series of pops. I tried to pretend I could just walk it off, but the next day it was swollen enough to look like I didn't really have an ankle. So after procrastinating a few more days, and looking in my German-English dictionary for the words 'ankle' and 'sprained', I finally went to the doctor. The x-rays said it wasn't broken, and I was kind of disappointed since I've never had a cast before. I did get this nifty red bandage though.


Anyone wanna sign my bandage?

Eine Kleine Hexe

So... Halloween in Hamburg. I won't say that it sucked. But well, look at how excited that I was about Halloween this year.


Since Trick-or-Treating is apparently somewhat new in Germany, they don't know much about costumes. I just ended up being a witch (hexe). Kristina told me its not even normal to be a cat. Whatever.

Kristina was also a witch. In costume and demeanor. I agreed to go Trick-or-Treating with Kristina and her friends for my Halloween celebration. The main disagreement of the night was over what they wanted to do to people without candy. Apparently they find it appropriate to put toothpaste on people's doors, and if they saw a light on they would pound on the doors and windows and yell rude things, thinking this would make people want to come to the door. So I spent most of the night feeling embarrassed and wanted not to be associated with their hooliganism. These are the people that make Halloween everywhere un-fun.

I did think it was interesting though, that we some one came to the door, they normally genuinely tried to give us something. We were going around a little bit later than the younger kids so some of the people were already out of candy. When they were out of the normal Halloween candy, people would give us whatever sweet they had in the house. One guy gave us some ice cream cones out of his freezer. Another guy gave us a big bag of gummy bears and a packet of cashews. Also the rule about not taking unwrapped candy doesn't apply here. As long as its sweet, we'll take it.

I'm so having a Halloween party when I get back to make up for this.

The Wilda Family Reunion

Two weeks ago my parents and my brother made the flight from NC and California to have a small bit of my Germany experience. It was like American Blitzkreig x 4! Only not really. So we all hung out in Hamburg for a few days, while they recovered from jet lag. Plus Arun was there. Yay Arun! Then we headed off to my favorite city in Germany, Berlin, just in time for my birthday. I nearly killed my family with all the walking, and then they nearly killed me. My birthday wasn't much of an occasion. I did get a piece of fancy chocolate cake at Lafeyette's.










Also for dinner, I bought myself falafel by everyone's favorite artist colony on Oranienburgerstrasse. I <3 Berlin.




After Berlin we took the night train to Salzburg. There we were surrounded by everything Mozart. I think Salzburg was my favorite, partly because there wasn't alot to do there so we could just wander around. And there's enough city to wander around in.

Then it was back to Germany, in Munich. There I got to drink a beer as big as my face. Also, the waitress at the other Beer Garden we went to gets cool points for speaking to me in German and the rest of my family in English. Near Munich is the Dachau concentration camp. I can't really describe what it's like to visit a concentration camp. Although I'm sure you can imagine it's not a happy day.I'll tell the rest of my story through the animals I met. Here's the cat I met in the Black Forrest.



And here's a snail I met in a castle in the Rhein Valley. I didn't pet the snail though.




Ok, I realize this has been an inadequate post. But I can't bore you with all the details and photos of every single place we went. And there are funny stories, but they're stories they stay better within the family. Like peeing the in English Garden in Munich. So you guys are stuck with the snail.

I'll be back in a month and 3 weeks anyway.

Even though it costs 10 EEKs to ride the bus in Estonia, it's not scary

So when I thought about trips I might take while I was in Europe, I didn't even know what the capital of Estonia was. In Potsdam, I made friends with Irinca, a medical student from Estonia. So once, it was time for her to go back to her studies, she convinced me to take the trip. She lives in Tartu (the second biggest city in Estonia), but because the only airport in Estonia is in Tallinn, we met up there. That's how I decided to fly out to this little country next to Russia and across the Baltic from Finland.

Boarding the plane to Tallinn. We got to board from the tarmac. TARMAC! I felt like the president. Except better.









My trip to Tallinn was not at all what I expected. And mainly because I decided to do the Chill-Out walking tour. I met a rather drunken American, a group of Australian guys, a woman just finished teaching English in Japan and made her way across Asia and Russia, and a woman from Canada that had just divorced her husband, quit her job, and is now traveling around the world for a year. Also, my tour leader was a total hippie. The Chill-Out walking tour is run by young people who have an information tent set up, and it's connected some how with some Tallinn hostels. I don't do walking tours often... or really ever, but this one sounded cool and I wanted to learn about the city. It was so random. Our leader started out by playing a song on the guitar that she'd written while in the woods somewhere. Then we learned some about the history and some about her family. Since it was cold out, we stopped for about an hour for coffee and tea. We all thought the tour was over, but she was like, 'you guys wanna learn more?' Sure, why not? It was totally worth it, just to go to the look out point.







After another hour of walking and education, our leader ended the tour with a bongo solo. I've decided all tours should end this way.













Afterwards, I went with the other women on the tour to an Estonian restaurant/rock club. I had a very exciting meal of lentils and local mushrooms. Then we met back up with the male half of the tour group. First we went to the 'Tent party', celebrating the last day of the Chill Out walking tour information tent. I got to meet other Estonians, and we played the most random, awesome game ever. I can't really describe it, and I don't think everyone appreciated it, but we are totally playing when I get back. Then we went to a karaoke bar. My first karaoke experience in my whole life, and it was in Tallinn. Because I'd gotten up at 4:30 that morning, it was then time for bed.

Day 2 Irinca came up from Tartu to hang out in Tallinn. With her I got to see Tallinn outside of the Old Town. We went to a giant park, and I got to see the president's house. The government is trying to provide the whole country with free wireless internet access. One of the advantages of living in a small country, I suppose. We also saw an exhibit at the Estonian modern art museum and the beach. Oooo... I almost forgot, we also ate at a Cafe dedicated to chocolate. The cake almost beat me, but I showed it who was boss. Since Irinca is a med student and all she had to go back to Tartu in the evening. I thought that was it for me for the day, but then I started talking to a British guy at my hostel. So I was convinced to partake in one last cheap, and tasty Estonian beer. I decided that when you travel to Estonia you meet people that are really hard core travelers. This guy had just last year traveled to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. Everyone else I met had already been traveling since July, and were going to try and continue for the rest of the year. I think that means mostly hard core travelers go to Tallinn.

On my last day, I had a bit of time before heading back to the airport. I went to the Russian market. This was the only time I did think Tallinn was a little scary. Not that it really was dangerous, I just didn't take any pictures because it didn't really feel like a tourist kind of place. A bit later a ran into the drunken American and the Australian guys while looking at Communist and Nazi paraphernalia. They just HAD to show me the ceiling in their hostel, and it actually was a cool ceiling. It seemed to be made out of a jelly substance.

Then it was time to get the plane back to Germany.

I love you Estonia! I would totally go back...someday.

It's Easy Being Green

I have recently discovered a new appreciation of green. Mostly due to a green dress I bought in Italy.

I'm apple green!

You Are Apple Green

You are almost super-humanly upbeat. You have a very positive energy that surrounds you. And while you are happy go lucky, you're also charmingly assertive. You get what you want, even if you have to persuade those against you to see things your way. Reflective and thoughtful, you know yourself well - and you know that you want out of life.

What Color Green Are You?

I'm not sure if that's accurate, but what does the internet know about me anyway?

Goodbye to a Friend

On September 15, 2006 I said goodbye to a dear friend. They were with me for my akward first day of high school. They stayed with me for those angsty years. They even remained with me as I ventured off to college. They experiemented with me as I tried on activism, modern dance, and random costumes. They graduated with me. Came with me to my first 'real job'. They were even with me for my first 'crap job'. They were with me for my F-ups and my accomplishments. They were there to play tether ball. They were with me for my latest chapter in my life here in Germany. But, as we've all learned at some time in ourlives, nothing stays forever.

After ten years it was time to say goodbye to my Birkenstocks.

Here they are before taking their final journey: A burial at sea.



For the ceremony I attached them to a raft, set it on fire, and sent them off out onto the Elbe River.

My Birkenstocks

1997-2006

My weekend in Copenhagen, or How I almost got fined 600 Dkr

My journey started rather early in the morning for my weekend in Copenhagen. Things were going smoothly on the train, when we got to the Denmark border. I didn't totally pay attention to what the conductor said, I just heard him say we'd be stopped for about 45 minutes and the train drove into a tunnel. At first I thought it was just the border check, but then the train doors opened and all the passengers started getting out. So then I thought, for some reason we were just stopping at this train station for awhile, so I might as well get out and use the bathroom. While I was in the bathroom, I got a weird swaying feeling. I left and looked out one of the windows. I was on a ship in the Baltic Sea! The train had taken the more direct route to Copenhagen of the ferry to the island. Even though it was incredibly windy I spent most of my time on the observation deck.


The short version is, I wore myself out walking around Copenhagen because everything, including the public transportation is expensive. I did buy myself Sunday brunch at a cafe called Pussy Galore's Flying Circus. I mean, once I heard the name I pretty much had to eat there. And I did use the public transportation to go to the Carlsburg Brewery, because it was just too far to walk. I successfully bought a one use ticket to get there, and I did have my ticket checked by an official. On the way back, the ticket machine was completely uncooperative. I didn't have the right change, and it wouldn't take any card I gave it. Plus, there was absolutely no English on the machine, and I was kind of buzzed from the free beer I got on the brewery tour. So I thought 'Well... since I got checked on the way there, they probably won't check tickets on the way back.' We were almost to the Copenhagen main station (it was only two stops), when the train official steps into the car. With my heart pounding I show him my technically no longer valid ticket. Luckily he doesn't bother to look closely at it, says 'Yup.' and moves on. Thus I avoided the 600Dkr fine. Whew.

I ended my visit with a trip to Christiana. Christiana was created in the 70s, when the Danish army no longer needed a set of barraks, and a bunch of hippies came in and declared it a separate state. Copenhagen shrugged its shoulders and said, 'ok'. And so Christiana was created and stayed as a social experiment. Tourists aren't allowed to take photos inside, but its pretty awesome. Graffitti covered, laid back, dirty. Of course I wanna hang out there. The status of Christiana may change due to politics, but for now when you leave the sign says 'You are now entering the EU.' Here's the only photo I can offer:



Here's some more photos of Copenhagen:

There she is, The Little Mermaid.



Cool spirally church, where I dropped my wallet at the top of the spiral, but luckily it landed on the little ledge...



And here's the view of Copenhagen from the top of the spirally church.

A Little Competition?

In response to Justin's attempt at You Tube fame, I decided to dig out this video made at his 'Anything Asian' party like, a year and a half ago.



Ha!

Always.

Wal-Mart. They make more in a year than the GNP of Denmark. They've had more class action lawsuits than any other corporation. And they hold a special place in my heart. It's that place in my heart for things that I pretty much hate. Wal-Mart hasn't taken over Germany, they way they have the US, but nevertheless Wal-Mart calls Hamburg home.

I've been fighting my curiosities since I got to Hamburg. I thought I was going to be able to win. Today I lost the battle.

So here it is:



Notice the razor wire on the outside. Germans know how to make sure no employees can escape.



The Hamburg Wal-Mart serves as a meeting place for all the homeless people to sort the bottles they've collected, and return them for money.




Onward to the inside!

Keeping to the American Wal-Mart tradition, they have more check out lines than you'd find anywhere else.



In many ways, the aisles looked the same at what you'd find back home.



But, what's up with this floor? Are the cracks going to get bigger and then the flames of Hell will engulf the store?



Whoa! Here's something you don't find at the Wal-Mart back home! Is that corn liquor only ‚€ 5,28?! I guess Wal-Mart in Europe has its benefits...



So that's it. Luckily Wal-Mart is pulling out of Germany. America stop sending your crap over here! And take Paris Hilton's music with you!

Hamburg Street Musicians

Less than a minute after thinking to myself, 'Why is every Fing street musician in Hamburg an Fing accordian player? If some one could play something more interesting, I might give them some money.', I came across this:



Since my thoughts were answered, I gave him 70 euro cent.

Der, Die, or Das?

Der, die or das...? There's always a one in three chance I'll get it right. These three little words give me this biggest pain in the ass while trying to learn German. All three translate to simply 'the'. But German, being German, of course it is not so simple as 'the'. Every noun is either masculine (der), feminine (die), or neutral (das). There is no actual reasoning as to why a noun is put into one of these categories. The word for 'woman' is feminine. Makes sense... but the word for 'girl' is neutral. Many words ending with 'er' are masculine, but 'nummer' (number) is feminine. With as much as Germans like rules, there's just no der, die, or das rules. I've just been wondering if when a new word is invented, like 'ipod', if there's some word council that sits down and decides whether it should be Die Ipod, Der Ipod, or Das Ipod. And if so, do they just go by whichever sounds best?

To make things more complicated, the form of the article changes depending how the noun is being used in a sentence. In the accustive form, 'der' changes to 'den', but 'die' and 'das' stay the same. But then they throw dative in there. Which the concept of dative in the first place is difficult, and I don't even feel like trying to explain it. Here, 'der' and 'das' both change to 'dem' and 'die' changes to 'der'. After that there's genetive, which I only kind of understand. Then 'der' and 'das' change to 'des' and 'die' is once again 'der'.

This rant doesn't even really cover all the complications, but a rant was needed none the less.

Now just because:

I think this is the hardest part of the marathon...

I have reached/passed the half-way point in my little Deutschland adventure. It's kind of like the 12 hour mark at the Dance Marathon. You're relieved and excited that you've made it so far, but then you realize that this is only half-way and there's still time for plenty more to happen. I've already had to adjust to moving to Germany, then moving within Germany.

There are many things here in Hamburg to appreciate. There's always some kind of random festival going on. Last weekend, I went to the wine fest, where I got to experience wine from the vineyards in Southern Germany, and see men in liederhosen. Then a block away, in the middle of the afternoon, I came upon disco balls, blaring techno music, and even a man wearing leather shorts of a different style. It was Hamburg's gay pride festival.

Hamburg has its own "beach" area on the Elbe, where you can relax and watch the carge ships go by. You can party all night on the Vegas-like Reeperbahn, and then continue the party at the Fischmarkt starting at 5am on Sunday mornings. I've found independent movie theatres that are definitely cooler than the ones in Chapel Hill. The shopping in the Neustadt offers nearly every designer brand available.

I am not ready to go home yet, but I am ready to start thinking of going home. I am ready to apply for grad school, and look for plane tickets home. Even though the end is in site, there's still plenty to do, and plenty of time for plenty to happen.

Roam if you want to...

So I’ve been traveling again. This time I made it down to Switzerland and Italy. There’s so much, I’m not really sure where to begin.

I started out in Geneva. My favorite thing in Geneva was watching the people play chess in the University Park.



Plus, look how pretty the lake is.



I also wasn’t really planning on touring the UN while I was there, but when I was outside of it trying to take a picture of the building, this guy from the Isle of Mann asked me where the entrance was. So I went with him to find the entrance, and by the entrance we got mixed up in this tour group of university students and younger students. I guess the trip leaders weren’t familiar with all the students, because they thought I was one of them. The Isle of Mann guy had to go, but I stayed and posed as a student from this group. I guess it didn’t help that when the leader guy asked if I was with them, I said yes. I also managed to convince him I was German. It got me into the UN for free anyway.

After a couple of days in the Lake Geneva area, I headed over to Zurich to meet up with Nicole. Everyone, meet Nicole.



Nicole and I had only previously met at my going away party before I left for Germany, but we actually traveled really well together. She’s spending the summer doing the backpacker thing, and we happened to want to go to Zurich and then Italy at the same time, so why not go together.

Our first night in Zurich, we spent in a rather nice hotel, although pretty much anywhere in Switzerland is nice. Then we canceled the second night because we were being smart and wanted to take the night train to Florence. Of course the train was booked and we couldn’t get a train until the next morning. So since we decided we’d rather going swimming in Lake Zurich than spend lots of time looking for a hotel, we just decided to spend all night clubbing. We spent most of the night in this club way on the outskirts of the city. It was a hip hop night. I never knew how much the Swiss loved their hip hop, but it was pretty cool hanging out with a bunch of thugged out Swiss. So we danced until 5am when the place closed, and then kept ourselves awake in the train station until we could crash on the train to Florence. I did wake up long enough to say “Look how pretty the Alps are!” I even slept through the passport check, which I learned that if you’re asleep on the train the Italians won’t really bother you for stuff like passports and train tickets.

So in Florence we managed to hit the ground running and pretty much walked straight to the Piazza Michelangelo overlooking the city, armed with sandwiches and wine in the kind of box orange juice normally comes in. Check out the view:



I think my favorite things in Florence were watching Nicole get sold a leather jacket and the food at Mario. Mario is this little family run restaurant, which pretty much any travel guide can tell you about, because it is totally amazing. For €5 you can get really, really good pasta and a decanter of wine. So then you’re all buzzed on good food and wine when you walk out into Market.

Next was Rome. Everyone says there’s so much to see in Rome, which is true, but since I’ve never taken any kind of classics or Roman history classes I didn’t know what the stuff I was seeing was. I did see all the important stuff like the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, and the Palatino. We also spent a day doing the Vatican museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica. While standing in line for the Vatican museums, we spoke to a couple from Texas who were traveling around Europe and doing some hiking and stuff. (Remember this couple; they come into the story later.) The Sistine Chapel was pretty freaking amazing, by the way.

So on our last day in Rome Nicole’s friend Mary Susan joined the trip. I’m not quite sure if she was ready for the “eating nothing but bread and cheese, and sleeping in mixed room hostel” lifestyle, but she did well at adjusting. The next morning we headed off to Venice, where one of the coolest things I saw was a boat of hippies cruising down the canal just chilling out and playing music. Then we became overwhelmed with the romanticism of Venice and Nicole proposed to me in the Piazza San Marco.



Then on the bus back to our campsite in Venice, it turned out I was sitting next to Josh Bickerstaff. Most of you don’t know who that is, but he graduated the year after me from good ol’ South Iredell. Just one of those “it’s a small world” moments.

So the last stop on the tour was the Cinque Terra national park. Basically there are five small towns on the west coast of Italy and you can hike between them. The views are amazing. While hiking, we ran into the couple from Texas who we’d met by the Vatican. Another “it’s a small world” moment. But anyway, check out this view:



The other awesome part of the Cinque Terra is getting to swim in the Mediterranean.




After Cinque Terra it was time for Nicole and Mary Susan to head on to Spain, and for me to go back to Hamburg. I managed to make it pack to Hamburg on a night train, with only a seat to sleep in, no air conditioning, and an Interrail pass that I wasn’t sure was valid for me in Germany. But I made it!

Weltmeisterschaft 2006

It started slowly….
One day in April I went to Berlin and these statues had appeared. First, next to the Reichstag there was a giant aspirin. Then when I walked over by the new train station there were these giant soccer cleats.



The motive became clear. Berlin was preparing for the madness that would be gripping Deutschland June-July 9th. They wanted to show off German accomplishments for the many visitors that would be filling the streets.
When I moved to Hamburg, they had a slightly approach. They had placed these rather ugly neon blue soccer goals all over the city. The goals were a bit more captivating at night though.



So as June approached, everything started to look like soccer balls. Grills, hamburgers, brötchen, hair cuts, kiosks…. Everything was soccer balls. Any company sponsor tried to show their support whenever possible.



On June 9th, it was official. The Weltmeisterschaft 2006 had begun. Melinda and I managed to get a seat at the local beer garden to watch Deutschland v. Costa Rica. Even though it was only the first game, the Germans celebrated like Chapel Hill did when UNC won the NCAA championship.



Later in the week, me and Melinda wanted to watch the game, but we didn’t know where to go. So we decided to follow people dressed up for the game, and see where they were going. That’s how we discovered the Hamburg Fan Fest. Every city hosting a game has a Fan Fest. Every country in the tournament has a tent serving the traditional food of that country. I think the USA tent had popcorn…



Yay America!
The Fan Fest also included games, like Human Foosball.



And of course the Fan Fest has a gigantic television screen and stadium seating for all the people without tickets to the games. Here I saw Brazil v. Croatia.



So as the Weltmeisterschaft went on, Germany kept winning. And the people kept celebrating. I even got into German football spirit.



Germany’s most exciting, and maybe most celebrated win was after Germany v. Argentina. Look how happy everyone is!



The police did have to come tell the people to get out of the street.



Not so valiant as Tieneman Square, but soccer is important here…
A party invite brought me back to Berlin for the weekend as the final. I don’t think the atmosphere was quite as buzzy as if Germany were in the final, but I did get to see the giant soccer ball in front of the Brandenburger Tor.



I had to head back to Hamburg before the final started, but as I was walking to the train station to go home I found myself surrounded by fans funneling into the Berlin Fan Mile.



On the train back to Hamburg, the conductor made announcements as to the status of the game. The electronic signs in the Ubahn stations flashed the score every few seconds.
Soccer brings the world together.
2010! Let’s go!