Cultural Assimilation?

I did a very German thing the other day...I went to Kaufland with the express purpose of purchasing Leberwurst. Directly translated, that's Liverwurst, just like we have it in the States. Except in Germany, instead of buying it as a cooked sausage and eating it sliced with various and sundry items on a sandwich (not sure I could ever do that with it), people buy it as sort of a pâté-like spread. I first tried it a couple of months ago when I went to spend the weekend with my friend Friedie and her family. They had a couple of different meat spreads out with dinner, and watching everyone else eating it, I figured I might as well give the stuff a try. (Sidenote: I adore the semi-traditional German dinner that is "Abendbrot". Literally, "evening bread", you can sit down and have wine and all kinds of sparkling juice schorles with a big spread of bread, cheeses, meats, jams, etc, and just build your own open-faced sandwiches, essentially. So excellent). With my now-or-never attitude taking over, I spread a rather dainty amount on my bread and gave it a whirl, hoping I wasn't giving away the fact that I'd never had it before and was veeery skeptical. Liking me as much as they do and knowing that I'm American (and also being some of the nicest people on the planet, and presumably not having seen anything like it when they visited my family in Hanover), I doubt they cared or would have been offended, but still, I felt odd. Initially, I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I didn't dislike it, but couldn't decide if I was at all keen on the taste. Then a few minutes later, I just sort of automatically went for some more without thinking and figured, hey, if my hands are putting it on the bread, I'll go with it.


I caught myself thinking about it a few days ago, and decided if it wasn't too pricey, I'd get some for myself at Kaufland. The Leberwurst I got isn't quite as fancy as what Friedie's family had of course, but I think it's quite good, and I've been enjoying it in small quantities on my favorite seeded bread. I've even discovered that it's incredibly delicious (and, you know, super healthy) with herb frischkaese spread on top of it. The trick, of course, is not to have too much of either, so that your bread isn't overloaded and you have a nice balance of flavor (and calories!), but it's preeetty hard to mess it up.

Exams

Well, friends, it's that time again. Exams. Or as the they say here in good old Deutschland, Klausuren (at least in so far as I've been able to determine). I feel like a wimp, because whenever I try to make small talk with my housemates, and this subject comes up, we inevitably discuss how many of them we have. I have a lot of empathy for them, because I know what it's like to have three exams (or at least papers) to do during a short period of time, and I try to make this is as clear as possible with lots of sympathy and understanding. Then they get to ask me what my schedule looks like and I have to admit to them that I just have the one, thanks to my ever-so-kind Latin teacher who decided that, since I don't need a grade and would probably be very unsuccessful at reciting all of the 'rules' he's given us in an oral exam ("Regel! Schreiben Sie bitte GROSS und DICK mit einem Rahme!" "Rule! Write it down big and thick in a frame!" he is always comically saying to us). But it's Ancient Greek, I tell them, and we've been frantically trying to learn about 30 verbs (and their 3-6 principal parts) and 100 vocab words every week all semester, so I'm worried! When I explained this to my housemate whom I ran into on the bus, and then said something along the lines of 'well, plus it's Ancient Greek IN German so I think it counts more as 1.5 or 2,' she just sort of gave me this 'ohhhh yeahh....suuuure I'm pretending I agree with you to be nice'. I don't care if you're studying medicine, I'll give you all of this material in English with a class full of unfriendly Germans and several nice Erasmus students and we'll see how YOU do.

Anyway, in an attempt to bring some joy into our otherwise morbidly depressing exam-lives, our friend Josh had his birthday on Tuesday! Come to think of it, neither he, nor his parents, probably had exam-relief on the brain when they all decided that should be the day of his birth, but that's how it worked out. Saturday night was the big celebration in Tuebingen, and I had what was, hands down, the best time out I've ever had. Ever. His 'dorm', right smack in the middle of the altstadt (not cool), was having a combination birthday and goodbye party for Josh and another couple of students, so they set up some great speakers in this big open space that usually has couches and things and a table, right outside their kitchen. 'DJ's' rotated through duty all night on a laptop, which is a recipe for success when one can snag internet access and a little youtube. At about 1am, the DJ gave us a break from the German hip hop/pop that was fine, but not necessarily fun to dance to if you weren't familiar with it, and brought out a parade of universally-known, verifiable dance hits. Not just new stuff---in fact, I don't think there was any Lady Gaga in the mix to speak of--but I distinctly recall the Jackson 5 and some Spice Girls. At 3am, deciding that we should head out for some sleep when our friends needed to catch the last bus up the hill, Anya and I hauled ourselves over for some doener/veggie doener and then made our way home. The test of any good dance party (which everyone knows is really more karaoke in an enormous group with loud music and some dancing), I awoke the next morning extraordinarily horse and with sore feet. Win! (Speaking of 'winning', ten points for Ivor and the crockery set he found on the way home, and then had the good sense to text us about. Excellent cap on the evening).

On Tuesday we all went out for burgers and drinks at our established haunt, Schlosscafe, and came back to mine and Anya's for some cake. I was in the mood to bake something, so I offered Josh his choice of birthday cake, and he very quickly settled on carrot. I'd never made one, but felt pretty fearless, so I happily agreed. 

I need to get back to my studies (freak snow storm, freak snow storm, pleeeaaaase Tuebingen!?), but I'll leave you with some photos of the cake...and if you care about photos from the party, you've likely already seen them on facebook. (And if you're someone not on facebook *cough* Jane *cough* who might care to view them, just drop me a line).

It wasn't the most stunning of my creations, as philadelphia frischkaese frosting is a little more tempermental than philadelphia cream cheese frosting, but most of the ugly action in this is just cake with raisins in it that were a little stuck to the pan, so please ignore the foreground. Cake was, in fact, quite moist and delicious. 

Home and Away

Well I suppose I left off with the first of the Weinachtsmaerkte, didn't I, which means I'm, as the British contingent might say, weeeellll behind. Shall we begin?

After the beginning of the Weinachtsmarkt season, Gilder came to pay me a very long-awaited visit. The poor guy had some logistical issues with the trains (a place we've all been...can I get an amen??), but after several phone calls to me to keep updating me on his exhausted progress and some extensive patience on his part, he arrived in Tuebingen on the 3-something train, and I went to pick him up at the beloved Hauptbahnhof. I felt a bit like I was in one of those travel scenes in a period film, minus the steam that billows everywhere as the train breaks and cools down. He didn't necessarily know whether I was meeting him on the platform or in the lobby/out front and I didn't know which part of the train he was on and was so afraid he would go down the staircase to the tunnel that takes you under the tracks and into the main building that I wasn't looking toward at any point in time and we would have to do all sorts of phone calling. Luckily, we spotted each other from about as far away as humanly possible (thank you, pink Croker shirt and lots of luggage) and had a somewhat hysterically long (well, it probably only felt like that) fight through the crowd of people to get to each other. Then we did and I almost cried. I kid you not. But, terribly strong person that I am, I kept it together. It's funny, I don't often see glorious reunitings at the train station here, but I've seen obnoxiously couple-y young Germans waiting for trains together (don't get me started), so I couldn't decided if our ridiculous (I like to think ridiculously cute) display that was also entirely appropriate for the public eye wasn't maybe a little bit odd for the Swabians. No matter. We hopped a cab, got the boy a bit of a nap, fed him some pancakes (thank you, Ivor), introduced him to some of my friends over said pancakes, and the next morning were off to visit the parents of a very dear friend of mine (well, of the whole family's) in Neustadt about two hours away by train.

Friedie's parents took exceptionally good care of us, stuffed us full of chicken soup, schnitzel, potatoes, salad, coffee, and German Christmas cookies (Plaetzchen), all homemade natuerlich, and then drove us around to a couple of the Weinachtsmaerkte in the area. We had an absolutely wonderful day with them, and made our way back rather late to Tuebingen so Gilder wouldn't miss the Chocolate market that was still going on.

Now, Tuebingen is a bit of a unique place in that it has a rather compact Altstadt and a rather big charm, such that it is home to lots of markets. A provincial market, a chocolate festival, it's own Weinachtsmarkt...it goes big or goes home. That said, the issue is generally space. The markets are always crammed into the two major squares and accompanying connecting and side streets, which is lovely if you're the only person at the event, and hellish if you're there with a crowd. My first visit to the chocolate market happened on it's opening day, and things were buzzing but not stressful:

We did things like eat Schupfnudeln! Sinead is pretty excited for these...you'll see why...

These are Schupfnudlen. They are big gnocchi-like 'noodles' with bacon and onion and, wait for it....sauerkraut. I know, I know "ew, Catie, you have lost your mind," is what you're thinking, but don't knock it 'til you've tried it. So delicious. Real sauerkraut is not like the canned variety you've ever had at home, so calm down.

There were crepes all over the city for a good week. This was dangerous. I only thrice succumbed. And generally at meal times. I'm so good.

Here is the lovely Josh, enthusiastically waiting for his crepe to cool enough to be edible.

Here is the man dipping my strawberries into the dark chocolate fountain. Yes it was as good as it looks.

Here are Josh and Sinead with their respective white and dark chocolate moustaches. So delicious!

 Chocolate beer. mmmmmmmm. We wanted to buy some but it was a little pricey and, well, we're poor...

This was the thickest hot chocolate I have ever seen or eaten. Not drunk, you heard me right, eaten. They had this at the Weinachtsmarkt, too, and it was literally hot chocolate. As in they melted regular chocolate.

Our day at the chocolate festival also included lunch at Neckarmueller, the brewery on the Neckar River that also serves delicious (and only slightly overpriced) food:

Yummmm Flammkuchen

 Here was mine, ready for it's close-up

This was the key discovery I made about Neckarmueller on this trip. The "Ofenkartoffel" (oven potato) is on the "kleine Hunger" menu, as in, for small hungers, as in...snacks? It's super inexpensive and enormous adn smothered with chives and garlic sour cream sauce. It was also delicious cold later that evening. gold star!

We also traveled to the Stuttgarter Weinachtsmarkt, which was quite large and I thought really impressive. Stuttgart is only 45 minutes or so by train (which feels like zilch since we're always there going OTHER places), and we had a spectacular time. We saw lots of traditional things, like these:

Tried to stay out of the rain (boooo drizzle, even though it briefly turned to snow):

 (this is one tiny fraction of the market, on one square)

And saw some less traditional, and absurdly awesome things, like these Star Wars nutcrackers:

Our biggest trip (other than, for Gilder, the one he took across that whole oceanic business) was by far our long weekend in Amsterdam. We left on a Thursday at the crack of dawn (well, before it, since it was 6:15 or so and the sun doesn't come up until 8 here in the Land of Darkness) and took about 6 hours of trains to get there. I don't really mind long train trips since you can move around easily, have more space than on a plane, get great scenery out the window, and don't feel packed in like cattle. We were tired but it was an easy trip, and we arrived in Amsterdam and checked into our hostel (the Flying Pig Downtown--highly recommended) before doing some exploring. The first thing we came across was the House of Cheese, where we were greeted by a curd-stirrer itself!

 Plus walls and walls lined with cheese. And free samples! These people are complete and utter geniuses!

On our second day, we made a point to get the the Anne Frank House before the crowds. This was at once a   really awesome and extremely haunting experience. The house itself is the storefront (now museum) out of which Otto Frank's business was run, and above which the Frank family lived with another family and family friend, hidden in an annex. The building has been very well-maintained, and once you enter the second floor you are essentially following a tour of cases with artifacts and items and lots of information on plaques as you make your way through. The Annex itself has been emptied of furniture, but photos are up of recreated layouts before the furniture was removed and scale models sit in cases showing you were everything was. The most chilling part, for me, was the pieces of wall-paper that had been left on the walls (the rest was replaced with a matching paper) and covered with plastic casing that still held photos, drawings, and clippings that the Frank girls and other people living in the Annex had pasted on in an effort to make the place more cheerful. We were thoroughly depressed after we left, but I was truly glad to have gone and had the experience of seeing it.

We made a quick trip to the Museum of Torture (....interesting) before deciding we had had it with depressing things and found ourselves some lunch.

By far the highlights of the trip for me were the Van Gogh Museum and the Amsterdam Historical Museum. The Van Gogh has an outstanding collection of original works, not only by Van Gogh himself, but also by other contemporaries and influences of his. Alas I have no photos because they're smart and don't allow you to take them. Nor did the folks at the Amsterdam Historical Musuem, which was one of the best museums I have ever been to. After wheedling our way into getting Gilder the student rate (with only his American student id...most places only accept the International Sutudent Id Card (ISIC)....but as we've learned if you act confused and disappointed about having 'forgotten' it, they usually don't care), we headed straight to the Amsterdam DNA exhibit, that takes you through the history of the city in a highly interactive and seriously multi-media manner, with 6 different stations where you scan your barcode on the back of your brochure and select one of the videos representing an aspect of the section you've just seen is your 'favorite'. At the end, you feel extremely knowledgeable and it tells you what quality of the city (and the Netherlands) fits you best (among things like Freedom, Creativity, etc). Not only was it gloriously informative, but the rest of the museum was great, too! To top it all off, they had a restaurant that had delicious food at reasonable prices.

This is the only tuna salad sandwich I have EVER seen on a menu without celery (which I hate and may be mildly allergic to). When I asked the waitress if it contained celery, which wasn't listed under the description of the ingredients, she gave me a look like I was a little bit crazy and then laughed and said no. I love this place.

Our final educational/cultural stop was at the oldest house, and one of only two remaining wooden houses, in the city. It was in an enclosed area of the city belonging to/inhabited by the Beguines, a group of practicing Catholic women who have inhabited the small sanctuary-like building complex since public practice of Catholicism was first outlawed during one of those oh-so-common historical religious...tiffs, shall we say. That law, of course, no longer exists, but the community does, and it was simply beautiful. 

 Here is the house...

And here's a partial view of the enclosed community

Most of what we saw in Amsterdam looked like this...canals with stunning houses. Rough life.

I have some more photos, but they're on my other camera, so I'll be editing this post with more photos tomorrow! I will leave you with some more photos of food because, let's face it, can you ever have too many? Unless you're hungry, that is...

 Gilder's monster sandwich

 Waffles!

 Frites in garlic sauce

 The amazing pad thai I acquired when Anya and I walked through the Red Light District to get to China Town. I missed any sort of Asian cuisine...this was NOT a disappointment in the least

We returned to catch the end of the Tuebinger Weinachtsmarkt (also way too crowded for words, also have pictures of this on my other (read: non-iphone) camera and will update) and had a quiet few days to recuperate and for me to catch up on work before Gilder returned home. It was sad to say goodbye, but we knew that a week and a half later we would both be in Hanover for two full weeks for Christmas and New Year's with my family, so it was definitely manageable. 

Before heading home, I made sure to fit in a bit of fun time amidst trying to figure out all of my ignored work. 

 I made pancakes for my friends and Sinead tasted maple syrup for the first time. Of course I documented this! What do you think I am, a crazy person?

We celebrated our friend Rachel's 21st birthday (still a big deal for the English, but not for quite the same reasons), made homemade pizzas, and wound up having a little bit of armed conflict with the leftover gluhwein that had turned into some kind of delicious reduction sauce boiling away in the bottom of the pot. Ivor was just one of many unfortunate victims.

With nary a tear as I said goodbye to Tuebingen and the few cm of snow we actually recieved...

(view from my window)

...I headed home for some much needed Christmas relaxation, recuperation, and family time! My Aunt Jane joined us once again, per Christmas tradition, and Gilder made the trek out (more jetlag...joy!), so we had a nice "full" house and were able to sit around and gorge ourselves on homemade German cookies by yours truly and lovingly imported (well, from New York) Zabar's offerings. I won't lie, I essentially spent two weeks doing just about nothing and enjoying myself fully in the process. There was some marathon knitting going on to finish Christmas gifts, and all adult family members (sorry Chris) received mittens in the following pattern with varying color combinations:

These are my mom's, about halfway through, so two more colors and a thumb to go around Thanksgiving!

We did have the chance to spend some time with my friends Steph and Aka, a welcome delight, and even went on a real-person grown-up date where we had some of the best food I've ever eaten at a restaurant in Hanover at the Canoe Club (if you're there, check it out, kids). My pasta with short ribs in a sweet potato sauce (sounds odd, but pureed with cream and veggie stock....mmmmm) re-kindled my desire to learn to cook short ribs, and properly at that. When I asked the waiter what the sauce had been, I expected him to tell me sweet potato and cream, but he blew me away when he gave me a detailed of how the chef creates it (including his use of a vegetable mirepoix...I wanted to hug the man), so this pasta is going to be a future staple, let me tell you. I'm now taking dinner reservations...

While I'm enjoying seeing all of my friends, my English students, and my babysitting family again, it is a little sad to be back in Tuebingen again and away from Gilder and my family. We have three weeks to go in the semester and it cannot end soon enough, because two fantastic trips are in the works, including another possible visit from the man himself. Stay tuned for trip planning and some details on life back in Tuebs!

Shame-inducingly Behind

Okay, so now I'm doing really badly. In my defense, the two main readers of my blog (at least, the two people who mention it to me all the time....yes I'm sending a *look* in your direction if you read and never comment or tell me that you read), my mother and my aunt, were both with me over Christmas and thus got all of the updates and photographic evidence of fun firsthand. Wednesdays are my very busy days, with class from 8-4 and then English teaching, so tomorrow is probably out, but on Thursday, while I'm catching up on my newspaper reading, being shocked about the state of American politics, and (hopefully) some tv shows that have been rather lax about new episodes, I will get in a great, long post (or posts) about all of my fun-having, Amsterdam-traveling, intersemester-break-travel-planning, next-semester-class-selecting, and grad-school-applying glory. I know. You're PSYCHED.

Here is a photo of fun-ness and some fried apple rings to tide you over:

This is totally not us moving the loose 'r' in the courtyard at the Amsterdam Historical Museum to replace it with Gilder.   

We would never do such a thing. We are liberal-arts-educated Wesleyan graduates!

Everyone else got three. The woman cooking these mumbled something in Swabisch about one maybe being small (?), and gave me FIVE. Hellooooooo.