My first "White Christmas"

So today is not, in fact, Christmas but Christmas Eve or "Heiligabend" as it is known in Germany.  However, "Heiligabend" is the big Christmas celebration day in Germany, so it's kind of like Christmas.  In about an hour I'll head to Louisa's house (a teacher of mine) where I'll be celebrating with her family.  We'll go to church in the late afternoon, eat a big meal and then they will open presents.  Even though it doesn't really feel like Christmas to me, it seems more like I'll be "observing" a foreign, German holiday with a foreign family.  I am excited about spending it at Louisa's house since her two sons will be home, one of which studied in Canada for a year and is on break from his Civil Service period in Bolivia and the other lives in Australia with his Australian wife and child.  Bonus points: the wife doesn't speak much German, so I have the perfect excuse to speak some English!

In addition to the 2-3 inches Hannover got last Friday, it snowed about another inch on Monday night, which has now melted a little bit and resulted in a pseudo-white/slushy Christmas.  Walking back from the grocery store I almost had a major wipeout since there is about a 1" layer of ice in some places.

Well, I should probably get ready to head out, but I wanted to wish everyone a Frohe Weihnachten!  That's "Merry Christmas" in German, just in case you didn't catch that.

It's freakin' cold...

I was originally going to choose a poetic or lyrical title such as "White Christmas" or "Baby, It's Cold Outside," but I can't help but think that "It's freakin' cold" is a little more accurate.  It's currently 18°F or 9°F with the windchill (-8°C/-13°C), which is pretty cold to me--especially considering this is at 3:00 pm.  The upside to this is that Hannover is currently blanketed in about 1-1.5" of snow.  It started snowing around 11:30 pm last night and it has pretty much been light snow since.  This morning I was feeling a little better, so after snagging a few pictures out of my window I went on a short adventure through Hannover with Bill.

I give you pictures of Hannover during the first snowfall of 2009:

 

 

 

 

Things to Know, Part II

So tonight marks the first time that I'm starting to feel a little better after this cold or as my colleagues call it "my flu".  I'm pretty sure it isn't/wasn't the flu, but they all keep on referring to it as die Grippe or flu.  After two and a half days of almost exclusively lying in bed and going through approximately three packs of tissues, I'm starting to feel a little bit more like myself.  To honor this, I thought I would continue a series of posts I started back in September: Things to Know--my cultural observations as an American in Germany.

German fashion can be a bit weird.  Normally it looks pretty similar to American fashion from the 1980s (this means you, Berlin), but there are two fashion trends in Germany that I find particularly troublesome: Fanny packs and Ed Hardy.

• I hestitate to say that fanny packs are cool in Germany, but they are definitely more prevalent amongst the under thirty crowd here.  While in the US fanny packs are viewed as pretty dorky, here they are mostly worn by the urban crowd (as in slightly more thuggish).  Side note, fanny packs are known in the UK/Australia as bum bags because fanny means...well, something different.
  
• Ed Hardy is something I normally associate with white trash whether it's southern or Jersey, but it's pretty much evenly dispersed here.  Makes me wonder why people consider Europeans to have a more developed sense of fashion. 

Germans bring their dogs everywhere.  Seriously, everywhere.  It doesn't matter whether you are in a restaurant, on the subway, in the mall or at a bar, chances are someone has their dog with them.  The one positive side to this is that most German dogs are considerably better behaved than their American counterparts.  The downside is that there is much less of a taboo about cleaning up after your dog.  I've stepped in dog poop at least twice this month alone.  Really Germans, clean up after your dogs. 

Christmas Eve, or Heilige Abend as it's known in in Germany, is more important than Christmas Day.  On Heilige Abend you exchange gifts and eat a large Christmas dinner, usually goose, and Christmas Day is kind of a do nothing holiday with the family. 

Social Etiquette is quite different here in Germany or at least less strictly followed here than in the US.  For example, in Bremen we were trying to take pictures in those little woodcuts where it's a picture and you stick your head through one side and crazy Germans kept on walking right in our picture--even when they saw what was going on they didn't seem to care (and it was quite obvious).  No, this is not universally true, but it definitely seems to be a recurring issue.  Second example, multiple times I've found myself getting cut while waiting to order food at a to go restaurant.  I really don't even think it crosses their mind, but in Germany when you want something you go up to the very front and kind of yell what you want while in the US you politely wait until someone sees you and asks you what you want.  In general maybe this section could be titled, "American Politeness Won't Get You Far in Germany".  A further example: it's not that rude in Germany to stare at someone (makes me pretty uncomfortable on the subway) but smiling at someone can earn you a dirty or at least confused look.

On an unrelated note, it's currently snowing north of here in Germany, and it's supposed to snow in Hannover tomorrow!  Get pumped!

M.I.A.

So you'll have to excuse me for this bit of an absence--after going a little overboard on the "fun" this weekend, I'm currently fighting my first German cold (hopefully).  The only thing that motivated me to get out of bed today was to run to the library to get a movie I could watch in bed and take back a book that was due as well as a quick trip to the grocery store for some provisions including ingredients for chicken noodle soup.

I've also been the recipient of two awesome care packages this week (I feel pretty important, now!) from Sam and my dad so shout outs to them!

Well, my chicken noodle soup is almost done, so I'm going to grab a big bowl and start my movie!
Also, Bill (one of the other two Fulbrighters in Hannover) keeps a blog with his girlfriend Sarah and updates it a little bit more consistently than me (I'm working on it, though!).  Check it out at http://sarahandbilly.blogspot.com/.

Bananas in Pyjamas

So this probably doesn't really count as an adventure, but last night certaintly felt like one.  Bill's girlfriend Sarah is in town for the week from Cambridge so I met up with them, Judy and Paul at this Irish bar called the Dublin Inn which is in the Altstadt near the Weihnachtsmarkt.  Bill chose the Dublin Inn because apparently it has an English pub quiz on Thursday nights--sounds great, right?  Turns out that a pub quiz to the English is what most American bars simply advertise as trivia night.  The only difference this time, was that the lady who read out the questions had a thick Irish accent and was most likely incredibly drunk.

Seriously.  Half of her questions didn't really make sense from the start and the other half were jumbled up so much by her inability to speak that they were rendered pretty much intelligible  Ok, it couldn't have been that bad because we ended up, somehow, getting fourth place (which we had to go ask about since we were the only team whose final score wasn't read out loud).  But really, drunk Irish people are funny though, and we had a great time mostly because we were guessing at not only the answers but the questions as well.

One memorable example, she asked for the four main actors/actresses from Gone with the Wind which as I proud Southerner I quickly figured out with Bill's girlfriend Sarah.  Five minutes later she said she changed her mind and wanted the four main characters from the movie--umm, ok.  Then when she read the answers she only said two (so we had no idea about the other half).  Whatever crazy, drunk Irish pub quiz question reader.

Very Important Person

News Update:


Check out my school's homepage at http://www.bbs-me.de/.  I can't help but feel like my students are going to rib me about this on Monday!

I thought Spring Break was in Mexico?

So today marks the end of another week of school here in Hannover and all in all I'm feeling pretty happy with my current situation.  While some of my students originally were quite shy towards me and sometimes even borderline rude, they have really begun to respect me in a certain sense.  I think I owe a lot of this to the teachers at my school, who really do treat me in many ways like an equal to them and as another member of the teaching staff--my students see this on a regular basis and now view me in that light.  I'm also lucky because since I'm not a full-time, normal teacher, I don't have to worry about some of the formality and professionalism that they must maintain, and I'm able to forge more personal/friendly relationships with students.

It's funny because for a while I was afraid to speak German with my students outside of class because I thought if they realized I don't speak perfect German, they wouldn't respect me in their English lessons.  They don't even seem to bat an eye at me when I misconjugate a verb or use a wrong tense--I guess they realized what I should have realized a lot sooner: I'm here to teach English as a native speaker and to learn German as a foreign language and they don't overlap as much as I thought.  What I mean is, in the US if a teacher or teaching assistant, even in a foreign language class, couldn't speak English that well, students automatically stopped paying attention and would give awful evaluations that they were an awful teacher.  If you are teaching German or French or Spanish it shouldn't really matter whether your English is perfect or not (with the possible exception of introductory courses) but that you know the language you are teaching.  Hell, I taught German to third graders at an elementary school in downtown Columbia, and we weren't even supposed to speak English.  It forces you and the students to communicate and understand each other in the new language which not only promotes learning but also reinforces the usefulness, efficacy and functionality of the new language.

I thought today I would answer a question I get a lot when I talk to family and friends back home--how does the weather in Hannover compare to the weather back home?  Of course, I needed to do this as scientifically as possible (why use words when you can use scientific graphs!).

 

According to the climate comparisons tool on weather.com, it shows that the average temperature in Columbia, SC is 18°F warmer than the temperature in Hannover, Germany.  I think it's interesting how the temperatures in Columbia seem to vary more than in Hannover--there seems to be a bigger difference between not only daily highs and lows but also summer highs to winter lows in Columbia.

Since on numerous occasions I've referred to this year in Hannover as just a "halfway home" before moving to Chicago next year, I decided to check out the climate comparison between Hannover, Germany and Evanston, IL (home of Northwestern University) as well.

 

I thought this comparison was possibly the most interesting.  If you just read the facts on the results table the climate comparison tool gives you, Evanston is on average approximately 1°F warmer than Hannover.  However, if you look at the graph Evanston not only gets significantly warmer in the summer, approximately 8°F, but also a bit colder in the winter.  Pretty interesting, right?

Last but not least, the title of this post refers to a question posed to me by a student this week.  One of my classes had an exam this week when I would normally teach the class, so I went to a different class with my host teacher Martina (one I'd never met before).  I did a short intro of myself and then we had a Q&A session about myself and America which I've become quite adept at here in Germany.  Of course Spring Break, like always, was brought up because through things like Girls Gone Wild and MTV's Spring Break programming, they think Spring Break is some mythical place in Mexico where there is always free alcohol and tons of hot college girls taking their shirts off.  I don't like to completely burst their bubbles, so I started off slowly with the explanation that there is no city called Spring Break, Mexico or anywhere for that matter and it's the same thing as their Spring Break.

I've got the spirit

Now that Thanksgiving has passed, it's time to start getting into the Christmas spirit here in Germany!

There are about seven different Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets) in Hannover with the two biggest ones being the one in front of the Hannover Hauptbahnhof and the other in Altstadt.  Last night, I met up with Bill and Judy at the slightly smaller Christmas market on Lister Meile right where they both live.  One of the most popular traditions in Germany is to drink Glühwein (mulled wine) at the Christmas market--I'm officially now a fan.

 

Today in school one of the teachers I work with, Louisa, gave me a Hannover Adventskalendar which I'm incredibly excited about.  If there is one other German idea I love, it's having a piece of chocolate every day to countdown to Christmas!  I proudly hung it up on the wall next to my desk, and now I just need to practice self control.  The only downside to Christmas in Germany is that Christmas means winter and winter in Germany means extremely short days.  According to the newspaper here, the sun rose today at 8:07 am and set at 4:12 pm.  This picture was taken while I was waiting on the tram right around 4:00 pm.

My Big Fat German Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving was this past Thursday, and I feel like it has completely thrown me off schedule.  Leading up to Thanksgiving Day, when I would normally be scrambling to finish papers and lab reports before the break, was pretty calm and a completely normal week of school.  Tuesday and Wednesday were adventurous days in the kitchen when I cooked a pumpkin pie entirely from scratch.  It's amazing how much more time consuming pumpkin pies seem when you don't use canned pumpkin and a premade graham cracker crust, but I enjoyed the challenge.  Pumpkin is relatively new part of the German diet and not nearly as prevalent as it is in America (or so I've been told).  Right now, pumpkin soup is en vogue in Germany but the idea of pumpkin pie--Kürbiskuchen as my host teacher called it--is a pretty foreign and scary concept to them.

Kürbis in German is kind of a catch-all term for a lot of different gourds and squashes but more often than not refers to a specific type of gourd called a Hokkaido pumpkin.  Tuesday morning I bought two little Hokkaidos, cut them open, scraped out the insides and then roasted them in the oven.  After they cooled I scooped out the pumpkin flesh and pureed it with my roommates handmixer.  On Wednesday I continued my baking adventure and tried my hand at making shortcrust pastry dough--I was quite impressed with my handiwork!

  

The only problematic part of the entire adventure turned out to be my oven.  All of the recipes I used listed cooking temperatures in Fahrenheit which would normally be a simple conversion to Celsius, but my gas oven just has gas marks 1-8.  I found a website which listed approximate oven temperatures with German gas marks, but I'm pretty sure the oven was still a good 50-75 F too hot.  This caused my pie to cook entirely too fast and to souffle a bit and crack.  I still took it to school on Thursday with me for the teachers to try, and they all really seemed to love it except for one guy who unconvincingly said that it wasn't "too bad".

So back to Thanksgiving Day, after I was done with my classes for the day around 3:30 pm, I went back to my apartment and skyped with my family for a bit.  After that I went to run a few errands that ended up taking me past a few of the the recently opened Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets) in Hannover including this crazy two-story nutcracker themed stall near Kröpcke.  After cooking dinner, I skyped a little more with my family, so we could do our annual drawing of names for Christmas.  In all honesty, missing Thanksgiving affected me a little bit more than I originally expected.  I think without the buildup to Thursday that you have in the US, it kind of just popped up out of nowhere--I was really glad I got to webcam with my family as well, but having them all in one room together laughing and carrying on made me realize what all I was missing.  I can't help but laugh at how 4,500 miles can suddenly make me realize just how much family traditions mean to me.  I am looking forward to Christmas here though because I can already tell how important Christmas customs are here.

So even though I missed my American Thanksgiving, I had a German Thanksgiving on Friday at Bill's apartment hosted by him and the teacher he lives with.  She ended up having to work Friday morning, so I went over to Bill's in the morning and helped him prep a lot of the food.  We ended up cooking quite a feast for one of his English classes and a few other assistants here in Hannover.  These pictures are of me and the Chinese assistant and the second is of me supervising Bill carving one of the turkeys after I myself gave up.

 

 

Bill and I started to drink the bottle of Rioja I brought around noon or so, and by the time I we were done eating I was starting to feel pretty good (just extra holiday spirit, right?).  Sara then stopped by after working late, and we stayed up pretty late talking and goofing off and cleaning up a bit.

Saturday was a bit of an extension of the holiday weekend.  I woke up early and baked another pumpkin pie with my leftover pumpkin puree, and then Bill and Sara came over for brunch.  After hanging out a bit, we trekked out to visit my host teacher Martina in Langenhagen outside of Hannover.  We ate lunch with her and then she and her two daughters (and her daughter's friend) tried my pumpkin pie 2.0 which was much better than the first after I corrected for the oven temperature and reduced the amount of ground cloves I used.  After that we played this called game called Wizard which was actually really fun, and I feel like at separate points both of her daughters got over their shyness a little bit.  After making our way back to Hannover and saying goodnight to Bill and Sara, I went home to my apartment where I actually got to listen to the Carolina-Clemson game on streaming online radio...all I can say is Go Gamecocks!!!!!  It also figures that as soon as I leave the country, we finally beat Clemson which I guess makes up for the second half of the season.

A long weekend in Amsterdam

After my morning/afternoon classes on Thursday, I had to scramble to finish packing and run (literally) to the Hannover Hauptbahnhof to catch my train with Bill to Amsterdam.  Because of a few poorly planned errands like hitting up the ATM and letting my monthly transit pass expire, I ended up almost missing our train but thankfully everything worked out.  Our train ride to Amsterdam was fairly uneventful, with the exception of a bit of confusion on our transfer in the Netherlands, and we made it to Amsterdam Centraal Station around 9:30 pm.  After wandering around what seemed like the Amsterdam China Town we ended up finding a nice little place to grab dinner before we headed out to the campground where I had booked a cabin that we would be calling home for the next three nights.  Little did we know that after our quick tram ride, we had to walk halfway across this giant bridge to get to the campground.

The next morning, we woke up around 9:00 am and were having a nice relaxing breakfast enjoying the view of the bay from our cabin when these geese and ducks started following me looking for food.  One goose in particular persistently followed me around for a good ten minutes and even tried to sneak into our cabin to steal some food.

 

We made our way back to the Centraal Station and walked around Amsterdam for a bit before heading to the Rijksmuseum (National Art Museum of the Netherlands) which was my favorite museum of the trip and possibly so far this year.  We then grabbed lunch and beers near the Leidseplein and walked around a bit more before hitting up the Van Gogh Museum.  To be honest, the Van Gogh is a great exhibition space, and it does a great job of showing the development of Van Gogh as an artist, but my favorite parts of the museum were probably this special exhibit they had on Belgian Painter Alfred Stevens who was known for his portraits of "ladies of fashion" and also the top floor of the museum which showed Van Gogh's relationship to his contemporaries and his influence on a younger generation of artists.  While the Van Gogh museum wasn't really much more crowded than the Rijksmuseum, the setup of the permanent exhibit made it feel uncomfortably crowded at times and really took away from the art.  After walking around a bit more we bought some needed groceries and beer and headed back to the campground to play some cards before getting some much deserved sleep.

 

Waking up on Saturday, it looked like it was going to be a gray, rainy day in Amsterdam, but thankfully my predictions were proven wrong and it turned out to be a beautiful day.  We started our day with a walk through the famous Bloemenmarkt (flower market) and then coffee outside of a farmers market near the Waag before heading to the Rembrandthuis--the former residence of Rembrandt which has been turned into a really neat historical museum.  After enjoying a nice lunch on a bench overlooking a beautiful canal, we wandered through this great street bazaar selling everything from used clothes to flowers to souvenirs to art to books--I found a great "Amsterdam" hat that I just had to buy.  We then made our way to the Amsterdam Historical Museum which came highly recommended from Jackie.  Halfway through we decided to call it quits for museums for the day and to finish the museum Sunday afternoon before our train back to Hannover.  We walked through the Jordaan quarter of Amsterdam until we found this great little Italian pizza/pasta place.  After dinner we strolled through the Red Light District for a taste of a major reason Amsterdam has become so famous and then headed back to the campgrounds for some wine and winding down.

Sunday morning I used the last of my shower tokens (you had to pay for showers at the campground, but the facilities were really nice so it was ok by me) and we said goodbye to Camp Zeeburg before heading back to the Amsterdam Historical Museum.  The museum didn't open until 11:00 am, so we waited out a morning rain shower at a cafe on Dam Square.  We finished the museum (which I still can't believe held our attention for so long--quite a feat!), and I made a beeline straight to the first falafel place I could find.  Amsterdam still has a strong Indonesian/Asian influence from it's colonial days and is famous for its falafel stands and restaurants.  After that we walked around a bit more, and I made Bill go into a few stores with me to look for postcards and then a few more to look at coats.  While I did find some postcards, unfortunately my tastes are too expensive in winter coats (since I guilt-tripped myself out of buying one I found).

Upon our arrival to the Centraal Station thirty-five minutes before our train left, we were surprised to find that the schedule had been changed due to construction, and our train had already left.  After a few annoying customer service employees told us "You have big problem", we got everything straightened out and a new return trip route that got us into Hannover only two hours later than expected.  Of course though, Murphy's Law went into effect and our new train was fifty-five minutes late getting to Duisburg, so we missed our transfer.  We then frantically had to run to catch an alternate train to Dortmund (along with a few university students we met who were also headed to Hannover) and then transfer to a train headed to Hannover.  After the day was over, I finally got home right at 1:00 am and only four hours later than scheduled.  Needless to say, I was in less than top shape for my morning classes today, but both lessons went swimmingly!

"A Hard Day's Night"

So I'm not sure what is going on with the plethora of references to the Beatles--it just seems to fit.

After a good, long weekend in Amsterdam with Bill and a return journey riddled with delays, three-and-a-half hours added to our over four hour journey, I'm finally back in my flat in Hannover.  There are tons of great stories and pictures to share, but first I need sleep.  Monday morning classes should be extra fun this week.

I'm so tired I think could speak Dutch if tried.

I should be packing right now...

To start with some long overdue business--two weeks ago as I was walking out of the front door of my apartment with Jonathan to grab some coffee before he caught his train to Berlin, I spotted a wonderful surprise waiting for me in the mail area.  What's better for a midweek pick-me-up than a care package from mom?

Half of an awesome care package

So not only did I get three pairs of thick socks and my new contacts (both badly needed), but I also got a stash of Skittles, Reese's Pieces and Sour Patch Kids (not pictured--halfway consumed at time of photograph).  Shout out to mom!

This weekend Jackie came to visit me from Berlin.  After our unhealthy "junk" dinner on Friday night, we spent Saturday trekking out of Hannover to go see Schloß Marienburg (about 22 km outside of Hannover).  We knew that after our train ride we would have a 3 km hike to the castle (which I knew was on the side of a mountain), but we didn't know that there wouldn't be a marked path from the road.  It turned into a 5 km hike, but it was worth it in the end--the castle was really cool and it has an interesting history around it (ties into the royal House of Hanover in England).

 

 

After our tour, the sun was setting, so we asked about the quickest path down the mountain which incidentally resulted in us hiking down a steep unlit path through the forest at night.  Oddly enough, not the first I've trekked down a forested mountain path at night after touring a German castle.  We then got stuck at this old, creepy train station for an hour before finally getting back to my apartment just in time to start cooking before Bill and Sara came over for dinner & drinks before a night on the town.

                                    

 Waiting at the old creepy train station

This week I also kept up my trend for adventure Tuesdays...last week saw me hiking up a frosty mountain, but this week I decided to go on a long bike ride.  I slept in a bit and had a big breakfast before setting out on my bike adventure, and I somehow managed to time it just right because the weather was beautiful.  For most of the ride, I followed the Leine River (which flows through Hannover) with a roughly northeastern path before looping back to the north of Hannover past the Herrenhäuser Gärten.  The nice thing about Hannover is that it's a pretty nice sized city, but you don't have to go out too far to be in the country with cows and open fields.  On my way back to Hannover I also encountered the mythical Hannover Mini-Golf course which I had heard of but never seen.  While it doesn't look as exciting as the Pirate/Dinosaur/Safari themed courses at the beach, I'm very excited for it to open back up in the spring.

    

All in all it's been a very good week in Hannover.  The weather has been a bit nicer as of late with not quite as much rain and it has been significantly warmer.  But, after staying in town for a few weekends in a row, I'm looking forward to my trip to Amsterdam this weekend.  I'm leaving tomorrow directly after I'm done teaching, and I'll be getting back late Sunday night.  Expect a much more exciting post soon detailing that adventure.

Lastly, I leave with a picture of the front of the Hannover Hauptbahnhof.  This week they have been frantically working to finish setting up this one of many Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets) in Hannover.  I'm starting to get incredibly excited about Advent in Germany!

 

 

P.S. A quick shout out to Carole, who is turning the big 5-0 this year.  Remember, after you get over the hill you just start gaining speed!

"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Harz Club Band"

This Tuesday Bill and I decided to go on a hiking trip in the Harz--a mountain range in northern Germany.  Even though we knew it was going to be cold with an outside chance of rain, we figured you only live once, right?  That is, unless you get sick after hiking in the cold rain and die...luckily, that didn't happen.

The path we followed is called the Goetheweg and is named for the 18th Century German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who hiked this area in 1777 (the hike is said to have inspired him enough to include it in his masterpiece Faust).  The trail begins at Torfhaus in an amazingly well preserved German moor and ends at the peak of the Brocken, the highest mountain in northern Germany at 1,141 m.  The most interesting part about our adventure was the complete change in weather from the bottom of the trail to the top of the Brocken.

By the way, we were trying to come up with good song titles containing the word heart which we could replace with Harz--I think the winning two were "Total Eclipse of the Harz" and "Shot Through the Harz (thanks Jackie, I know that's not the title)."  Things tend to get pretty random towards the end of 16 km hikes.

Notice what I dubbed the "Sweet Tea River"

A new room and a new recipe

I have now officially been in my new apartment for three weeks, and I figured that means an update is overdue!

To recap: My first week in Hannover was spent with Bernhard and Dagmar in the Hannover suburb of Berenbostel.  It was a really nice little town, but it was also about an hour to downtown Hannover via public transportation (a combination of bus and stadtbahn).  It was also a nice way to spend my first week adjusting to life in Germany and getting over jetlag--not to mention the awesome breakfasts and fresh fruits and vegetables from their garden.

I then spent the next month subleasing a room in Linden-Nord in a shared flat with three other people.  Two of my roommates were pretty much out of university (one was finishing his internship) and the third was only in her second year at the University of Hannover.  It was a great place to live, and I got to know the Linden-Nord neighborhood really well, but it never quite felt like home since I knew I would have to leave at some point.

I'm now living in Linden-Mitte, but my apartment is on the north side of Linden-Mitte, so I'm still really close to all of my old haunts on Limmerstrasse in Linden-Nord.  The great thing about my new apartment is that it is in a nicer residential area than my apartment in Linden-Nord, is next to a quiet police station and quite secure and has even better access to Hannover Mitte (the center of downtown Hannover) as well as more nightlife possibilities!  It's always interesting here and the vibe of the apartment is a bit more open than other places.  Of my two roommates, Poisy is kind of the "landlady"/roommate and she is a little bit older than me and works at a big travel company based out of Hannover.  The other roommate Christopher is close to my age and is actually doing his internship at the company our lady works for.  They both work fairly long hours, but we actually have dinner together quite a bit which is a very nice change of pace.  Chris pretty much goes home every weekend (to his parents' house), and Poisy travels quite a bit on weekends visiting friends--so it's nice to be able to relax on weekends and have the apartment to myself when I'm here.

My new home on Lichtenbergplatz (the red building on the left) 

In more recent news, tonight I finally tried cooking a dish that I've been thinking about for a while as a way to ward off the early winter blues here in Germany.  Gulasch (or goulash as it is known in English) is a popular dish in Germany with largely Hungarian origins.  There are apparently hundreds of different recipes and various schools of thought on what or what not Gulasch should contain--but the recipe I used was modified out of German cookbook I bought last week.  It was actually quite simple to prepare, and while I had my doubts at first, it turned out delicious.

German (Hungarian) Gulasch 

• 500 g Rindergulasch (basically small pieces of beef stew meat--could use boneless chuck or beef shank)
• 2-3 Tbsp tomato paste
• 2 small onions (or 1 extra large) onion, chopped into large pieces
• 2 carrots, sliced thickly
• 3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
  
• 2 cups potato, left in large chunks
• 2 Tbsp paprika
• 1 Tbsp cayenne pepper
• 650 ml beef or vegetable broth
• 1-2 bay leaves
• parsley, for garnish
• salt and pepper
• vegetable oil/butter 

Season the beef generously with salt and pepper and brown in vegetable oil/butter (I melted about a Tbsp of butter in vegetable oil and used a mixture) on high heat.  Remove browned beef from pot and mix with paprika and cayenne pepper mixture. Add tomato paste to pot beef was cooked in and stir for about 30 seconds before adding onions and carrots.  Cook onions/carrots until slightly softened (about four to five minutes) and add garlic, stir for another minute, and add potatoes.  After a few more minutes, add beef/spice mixture and stir for a few more minutes to allow paprika/pepper to heat up in oil.  Add broth and bay leaves, cover and simmer on very low heat for at least 90 minutes until beef is tender.  Season with additional paprika/cayenne pepper/salt/black pepper to taste.  Garnish with parsley and serve with bread.  Guten Apetit!

German Gulasch with bread and a beer (the perfect winter meal!)

American Life Over Easy

I have been wondering for the past week or so why it is that I'm attracted to the German (and European) way of life, and I think I've had recently had a few breakthroughs.


Life in Germany is in many ways a lighter version of life in American.  And what do I  mean by lighter?  Life in Germany has the same modern conveniences found in America like iPods, cell phones, Starbucks, IKEA (their invention of course) and frozen pizzas.  The differences, however, are all related in that they are the things I originally was annoyed by but have now come to embrace and appreciate.  For example, almost every single business in Germany is closed on Sunday with the exception of the stores in the main train station (only true in larger cities like Hannover) and most cafés and restaurants.  This gives you three options for Sundays: do your grocery shopping on Saturday, eat out or starve.  What they have in common though is that they force you to slow down on Sunday and actually enjoy the day.  Even though every store is closed, you will see tons of people out on Sundays, even in the winter, strolling around the city center and parks.  As an American this is completely frustrating at first, but when you get in the mindset it's one of my favorite parts of being here.


Another thing I enjoy over here is their appreciation for locally-produced foods/products from produce to meat to cheese to flowers.  For years I've thought that the fierce regionalism in Germany was largely just a result of local pride and inferiority complexes.  I mean, who really cares which region of Germany really grows the best Spargel (white asparagus) or makes the best Klöße (potato dumplings)?  It wasn't until recently that I realized this is just a natural outgrowth of their way of life.  Call it what you will, but it's pretty obvious that the slow food movement (as new of a concept as it is in America) has been going strong in Europe for centuries.  You buy local goods, tend to stick with seasonality and celebrate traditional/regional cuisine.  This also makes you appreciate certain seasonal things more and really lets you celebrate them.  A great example is German Federweisser which is a unaged, "young" wine that is pretty similar to normal sparkling wine but sweeter and tarter almost like lemonade.  Every year in late September/October, depending on the grape harvest, Federweisser is available for two to three weeks.  It doesn't store well because of the residual yeast, so if you miss it during this time you are out of luck.  I didn't realize this while indulging in a few bottles during my stay in Berlin, but now I know why I can't find it anywhere anymore.  As an American it seems dumb that no one has just made an "almost as good" Ersatz Federweisser, but it would ruin everything great about Federweisser season.  You enjoy it at it's peak and then it's gone when you still want more, making you wait anxiously for next year's season.


On a related note, the number of farmers markets here is astronomical--even the smallest towns have them and the larger cities have more than you can count.  Every Saturday (and also Tuesday) there is a farmers market on Lindener Marktplatz exactly two blocks from my house, and it was, by far, better than any farmers market I've been to in Columbia (which have come a long way in recent years).  This is even more remarkable by the fact that it is only one of probably a dozen or so farmers markets in Hannover.  A dozen!  I tried to snag a picture, and I'll try to take a few more next week when I'm not so busy.  You can mostly only see this one stand selling tons and tons of apples and pears (for dirt cheap) because it's that time of the year.  In addition to apple and pears though there were a few stands that were general vegetable stands (with a bit of everything in season) but many of the stands specialized in just a few things like potatoes and onions, Greek/Turkish antipasta, herbs, honey and candles, fish (including the Hannover speciality of smoked fish and eel) and other staples like meats, breads and cheeses.  Trust me, it's a beautiful thing!

Saturday Market at Lindener Marktplatz

To Hold You Over...

This weekend was pretty busy for me (what with giant student parties at the university, shopping and dinner dates and all), and it's looking like this week will be pretty packed as well with a busy week at school, multiple appointments including getting my visa and two different visitors this week--I feel so popular!  I thought I would try to hold you all over with a few selected pics that I haven't posted here yet, and I promise there will be a post soon on my new apartment!

My new friend from Berlin--we have a bit of a "rocky" relationship

 

Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin--the former border between East and West Berlin

The Siegessäule (Victory Column) in Berlin

The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin--Quite Amazing

Jackie in Front of the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station)

 

Hamburg is a Giant Port City with Giant Port City Birds (they were mean!)

 

G. E. Lessing Memorial in Hamburg (famous German author)

Fun cultural fact: Today was the end of Daylight Saving Time for Germany, so for one week we are only five hours ahead of the Eastern U.S. (in contrast to the usual difference of six hours) until you guys catch up next Sunday.  In March, you guys in the U.S. will switch back over to DST a full two weeks before Europe so the time difference will be seven hours.  Crazy right?

Fall Break part 2: "Goodbye to Berlin" and a Stopover in Hamburg

Jackie graciously let me crash at her place the last two nights of my Berlin trip, but perhaps more importantly humored me enough to go on a photo shoot and listen to me decide between which one of two Berlin coffee mugs I wanted to buy (I went for the one with the Fernsehturm).

Me and part of the Berlin Wall

We then walked down Karl-Liebknecht-Straße (the one Jackie lives on) which turns into Unter den Linden when it crosses the Spree River.  Unter den Linden is famous because of the number of famous landmarks that are on it like the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate), the Reichstag (the seat of the German Parliament) and the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral).

Brandenburger Tor

Reichstag

Berliner Dom (with Fernsehturm in background on right)

Because of a complicated chain of events I'll just have to explain later (maybe), I didn't really have a place to stay in Hannover on Wednesday or Thursday night.  Not wanting to wear out my welcome in Berlin, I decided to make a two-night stopover in Hamburg on my way to Hannover.  I found a cheap hostel, booked two nights and jumped on a train Wednesday evening.  Hamburg is one of those weird cities where you always hear good things about but doesn't get nearly as much attention from tourists as other cities in German like Berlin, Munich and Cologne.

There isn't much to say about my trip to Hamburg because I didn't get to see/do nearly as much as I would have liked because it wasn't a very well planned trip, but I still managed to see most of the highlights and also go out for a short night on the Reeperbahn (considered one of the largest red light district in Europe and infamous stretch of bars/clubs).

Rathaus (City Hall) in Hamburg

Binnenalster--Lake in the City Center

Hopefully I will be making it back to Hamburg sometime soon (it's only an hour away from Hannover)...