Mein letztes deutsches Abenteuer (my last German adventure)

I'm sitting in Frankfurt airport right now, using my 60 minutes of free Tmobile that I used by faithfully collecting my Deutsche Bahn points, waiting to see if they have a seat for me on this flight.  That's right, I'm on standby.  How do they select who gets put on standby?  I checked in early and it's not like I booked my flight yesterday.  They knew I was coming.  Why did they pick the Erex out of all these other passengers?

If anyone knows how the selection process works, let me know.  But for now let me regale you with my last German adventure.  After the awfulness of missing my flight the last time I flew to America, I was determined not to let it happen again.  I decided to stay up all night so I couldn't oversleep.  then, I decided to take the train at 3:38.  No, buses do not run that early.  Yes, I am too cheap to pay for a cab.  I decided to walk 1.5 miles with my extremely heavy luggage (I had to rearrange at check in to get it on and I ended up with weights of 22.5 kg and 21 kg.  The max per bag is 23--approx 50 lbs).  As I walked out my door, I had the feeling it wouldn't work, but ever the optimist, I pressed on.  With plenty of breaks, you can do it Erin!  I assured myself.  Actually I assured myself in German--Erin, du schaffst das!  I left my keys in my apartment and plunged bravely on.  So carrying 45 pounds in one hand--not a success, as you may have guessed.  I gave up and decided to take a later train (I would've taken a cab, but I don't know the numbers so I couldn't call one.  Carrying a little more than that on my back= almost instant tension headache.  

Since I couldn't get back into my apartment, I decided to sit at the nearest bus stop for a little over an hour until the bus to the airport came.  Unfortunately it was crowded and I almost took out some old people with my backpack.  The bus got to the station at 5:08.  My train left at 5:10.  Could I make it to the farthest track while carrying what I am estimating to be 130 lbs (!!!!) of luggage.  You may have guessed that the answer is no.  And indeed, the train pulled away as I stepped out of the elevator to the platform.  Scheisse! I screamed as I literally shook my fist at the departing train.  But not to worry, I had a 4 train barrier.  I just got on the next one and rode it to Cologne where the elevator to my next platform was broken.  Ridiculous.   I literally barely had the strength left to carry all my crap up to the waiting train.  

And that about brings us up to here, where I am sitting in standby limbo, really really hoping with all my hoping might that they give me a seat and I get to go home after a few really aggravating and kind of sad last days in Germany.  

Don't worry, this may be the last post from Germany, but I really do promise to catch you up as best as I can on what I've been doing for the last month (but I'll cut the crap bits out, I hope) and I plan on taking the blog out like I brought it in to Germany with a "Zum letzten Mal/For the Last Time" post.

Oops.  Just noticed my name's not on the standby list.  Gotta check that out.

Kuchen (Cake)

Kuchen is something very sacred to Germans. In my research group, it's basically required to bring cake on special occasions. There is an Einstandskuchen (when you start in the group), a Geburtstagskuchen (birthday cake), and an Abschiedskuchen (farewell cake). There are about 25 people in the group and although at most 10 people regularly come to coffee break, everyone comes when there is cake. So you have to provide a lot of cake. When one does not bring cake, it is frowned upon. When one brings store-brought cake, it is acceptable, but "es wird nicht gerne gesehen." Store-bought cake is brought mostly by foreigners (the ones who can't speak German) and boys whose mothers don't live nearby/refuse to help them. There is a lot of pressure to bring cake that tastes good.

I enjoy a good cake as much as the next girl, but Germans take cake eating to a whole new level. I'm really not sure how they eat as much cake as they do. I'd say that group members average about three pieces of cake at such an event.

Today I bake my Abschiedskuchen--my leaving cakes. There is so much pressure. Last time, for my birthday, I made Paula Deen's Southwest Georgia Pound Cake and Pineapple Marzipan Cake. It was someone else's last day that day and she also brought cake (store bought), so I am nervous that there won't be enough cake, as there were not toooo many leftovers last time. I'm planning on making cranberry cheesecake to use up the can of cranberry sauce I forgot about at Thanksgiving, as well as Nusskuchen (nut cake). I think this will not be enough, so I'm planning on making something from a mix or picking up one cake from the bakery. I think I will go with the mix option, so I can pass it off as my own.

I have much to document and I promise to try to catch up before I jet off (or ICE off) to Berlin this weekend. I will not fulfill this promise.

Hochzeit

I went back to the America last week to see my little brother get hitched. It was pretty awesome. I'm looking forward to my permanent return in just 36 days.

Here are the highlights of my trip:
1. Doing a shot with my brother on the DL when old people were around.
2. Drinking beers with the Train and Geoffrey after I'd been awake for 23 hours.
3. Going to Cedar Point.


4. The Train leading the Love Train and his generally sweet dance moves. I need to get married ASAP to see these moves again, as well as for the $$$ and gifts (and possibly for love)

5. My mom getting a wedding makeover.

6. Geoff finally tying the knot. I didn't lose a brother, I gained a sister.

Not going to lie, they are pretty attractive.

Spargelzeit and other random things.

This time of the year is Spargelzeit (asparagus season) in Germany. The Germans seems to bizarrely obsessed with spargel in the short time it's available. It started to make it's appearance in April and will be exiting the German culinary stage on 24. June. I guess it is the law that no Spargel be sold after that, or maybe there is just no Spargel left. The Germans like their Spargel white, although they also eat the green variety. I have eaten Spargel three times this week--a cold Spargel salad at the Hofbräuhaus in Munich (more about various trips I've recently taken to come in a later post), green Spargel and sundried tomatoes with pasta that my roommate made, and then my roommate's family's traditional way to eat Spargel--roasted in little packets in the oven with butter, salt and pepper, and then potatoes, smoked ham and parmesan cheese all over it. Delicious. My pee is now back to smelling normal.

It is also strawberry time. A man just walked down my street ringing a bell, calling "frische deutsche Erdbeeren, 2 Euro." He said the part about the strawberries in a singsong voice and the 2 Euro very ... if you know what that means, so listening to him was like listening to cheerleaders or a chant or something. I looked out and he didn't have any strawberries with him, so I was confused and didn't go down to buy some. Maybe next time a random man is selling strawberries...


And maybe it is also renovation time. The building next door to my apartment building is apparently being renovated. As is typical here, the two buildings are right on top of each other, so my bedroom wall is right next to the wall of this other building. Apparently they are tearing the other wall down. For a few days, I was woken up by drilling that was so loud that Seeja (my roommate) and I both has the feeling there would be a hole in our respective walls at any time. She asked them today when they would be done and apparently it will be in November, but they won't always be making so much noise they say. Today I was woken up by sawing. Today is a Saturday. Yes, they will also be working Saturdays.

Seeja's parents are visiting from Hamburg and are very nice. North Germans have a reputation for being unfriendly, but oddly the Norddeutschen I've met (okay, less than 10, so hardly a statistically reliable sample) have been some of the friendliest people I've met here. When I was in Hamburg, people seemed to be just as (un)friendly as the Rheinländer, and sometimes even friendlier. Anyways, Seeja's parents (who by the way are named Burkhard and Birgit--does it get any Deutscher?!) brought lots of food and wine with them. I remember Claudia's parents doing the same (and her mother actually cooking all the meals during their stay). My parents never brought me food when they visited. Americans, do you think this is a German thing, or are my parents just lame (sorry, mom and dad.)?

Parteien (Political parties)

Since writing my last post on the elections, I've learned that this not just any election year in the Schland. This is a Superwahljahr (super election year). The use of the word super is the Spiegel Online's, not mine, although I have a tendency to overuse the word super. The election for the European Parliament is at the beginning of June, and elections for local, state and federal governments come later.

I've also become aware of the existence of interesting fringe parties. One of my new favorites is the Bayernpartei, a party that is fighting for the independence of Bavaria. Unlike the Alaskan Independence Party, for example, the Bayern party is smart--they are fighting the battle on both fronts, it seems, sending the Bavarians the message that they are better than the rest of Germany and pay too much in taxes, while sending the rest of Germany the message that the Bavarians aren't real Germans, they're more like Austrians, and you've always been annoyed by them anyways, so just get rid of them.

"Don't you want to get rid of the Bavarians too? Then vote the Bayern party. For a Germany without Bavaria." I love the image of the stereotypical Bavarian pair striding into a future that doesn't include Germany.

Other parties include:

• the Grey Panthers, a party for senior citizens who I think have become nonexistent after one of their leaders died or had health problems
• the Anarchist Pogo Party of Germany who stand for the Restupidification of Germany, bribed people to vote by giving them beer, and wear shirts that say "Arbeit ist Scheiße" (work is sh*t)
• the Violets (Die Violetten)--a new-age party that stands for "spiritual politics."

There are of course your normal, middle left, middle right, left, right parties, but they are boring. There are also some Neo-Nazi parties, but there's too much infighting for them to actually get together and form a united front. Also, when they have rallies, there are probably about 50-100 people demonstrating against the Neo-Nazis for every Nazi there. Good job learning from history, Germans.

Der Supermarkt

You know the discount supermarket chains in America that not too many people shop at because you have to buy a bag and leave a deposit for a cart and everything's displayed in the cut-open boxes it came in and there are bizarrely named generics? Sav-a-Lot, Aldi (a German export), Price Chopper, etc.? Well, that's what the majority of grocery stores in Germany are like. Also, German grocery stores are like Marc's (for you NE Ohioans) or Acme Surplus/Deals and Steals (for you W Massholes), in that they have some totally random crap, but usually not the random crap that you need.

Here are some annoying/weird things about grocery shopping in the 'Schland (yes, I sometimes refer to Germany as the Schland):

1. Einsperrung! If you go to your local Plus and they don't have what you need (which is somewhat likely), you can't get out. The German supermarket industry is apparently concerned about theft and has installed turnstiles at the entrances to all grocery stores. The only way to get out is squeeze your way out through the giant line (see 2) at the cashier.

2. Schlange! There is always a really long line, especially at the grocery store I stop at on my way home (probably because every other student is also stopping there on the way home). There have to be about 15 people in line before they bother to open a new one, even though there are a lot of employees who appear to be doing nothing. (Update: yesterday, I counted as I waited in line and there were 21 people in front of me and a few behind me before they opened a second line. I don't think I'm asking too much here.)

3. Eklig! The produce isn't always of ideal quality. Sometimes they run out of really normal things. Last week there was no garlic. Once I heard someone ask the cashier if there were any more apples and the cashier replied that they'd get more the next day. It was 11 am. How can you already be out of apples at 11 am? Today I wanted to make a nice tasty salad with lots of vegetables, but they were out of lettuce. Okay, they had a few sad heads of iceberg, but that's not lettuce. That's tasteless green something pretending to be lettuce.

4. Bizarre produce prices. Last week kiwis (I LOVE kiwis!) were being sold for 0.33 Euro a piece. I was going to buy 3, so that would come out to about a euro. Then I saw the box of kiwis for 1.29. I counted the kiwis-12! So 3 kiwis for 99 cents or 9 more kiwis for 30 cents more. I went for the box and we're still working our way through.

5. Generic names. Trendy Cola? Choco Ole brand Nutella ripoff? Other store brand names include "Ja!," "A & P" (Attractiv und preiswert--attractive and well priced), and "Gut und Günstig" (good and low priced). I feel like these names are really dumb. And if you're going to basically name your store brand "Cheapo brand that still tastes okay," you should just not name your store brand. Just label things with what they are. Milk. Flour. Sugar. That's good enough.

6. Geschlossen! Grocery stores, along with all other stores in Germany, are closed on Sundays. I'm pretty much over this one, but sometimes it still annoys me.

7. Pfand! Germans are all about the deposit system. The deposits here are larger than the ones in Massachusetts or other states that have the deposit system, so people actually bring the bottles back, which is good. Having to carry the water bottles back is not as good. And the cashier seems especially unhappy when she has to count them.

Lügen (Lies)

There are some lies that people told me about Germany while I was still in the States. These lies have really confused me or caused me pain (by which I mean, inconvenience) in some way. I would like to share them with you all.

1. Germans always look nice and do not wear jeans. This is not true. Although I would say that German students (the main group of people I deal with) are on average more fashion-conscious than at least Smith College students, they definitely wear jeans. Pretty much all the time, in fact. This Germans wear business casual and not jeans lie caused me to waste room in my suitcase with business casual type clothes that I've never or hardly worn.

2. German keys turn the other way in locks. People told me this and I was worried. They were all like, "Be sure you know, you have to turn the key the other way." So at first I was careful to turn the key the other way. But the keys turn the same way as they do in American locks and I was really confused. I think my lock in Marburg was also somehow sticky, so I would turn in the wrong way, and then the right way, and then the wrong way, and not really remember what I finally did to make it open. But after a few days, I got used to things being the way they should be with respect to locks.

3. You always have to weigh your produce in German grocery stores. Sometimes you do, but mostly not, I would say. This made me terrified of buying produce for my first few weeks in Germany. Or, I would creep around the produce section trying to see what the Germans did. And then I'd get scared and run away.

Okay, those are all the lies I can think of for now. Shame on you people who tell these lies.

Now lie Number 4: Told to me by certain member of the Shea lab who shall remain anonymous, but who is now in grad school at UC Irvine. Europeans don't wear nail polish. Not even on toenails, she said. So I didn't bring my nail polish to paint my toenails in summer. But people DO wear nail polish, so I now I'm probably going to have to buy more.

Die Wahl (Elections--Deutschland edition)

This is a great year to live in Germany (pretty much any year is a great year to live in Germany), but this year is special. In addition to 2009 being the 20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall , as well as the 60th anniversary of the Bundesrepublik, it is the year of the German elections. Not only did I get to share my knowledge and opinions on American politics in the fall, but now I get to see a German election in action.

My impression is that Germans suck at elections. The main form of campaigning seems to be plastering giant close-ups of people who look like tools all over the city. The problem with this is that you have to actually be attractive in order to effectively use your face as campaign material. Most of these people aren't. and the ones who are attractive look like tools (this information is based on a brief survey of campaign literature in Aachen, Trier and Mainz). There are many attractive Germans--why don't those people become politicians?

I will keep you updated as the campaign unfolds.

Die Mensa

I have just realized that in all my time blogging in Germany, the Mensa has never gotten a full post, as it really deserves (It deserves this for its disgustingness, not because it is SO amazing). You folks back home need to know. The Mensa is a ladies with hair nets, slop-glop-slop style cafeteria present in some incarnation at all German (and probably Swiss and Austrian universities). Food in Mensas is usually not very good, it's just fairly cheap, but everyone seems to eat there anyways. In Aachen we seem to have it especially bad, according to the impartial ratings of some student magazine that evaluates German mensas.

When you enter the Mensa, you choose between green, red, and yellow. Red is more expensive and green is always vegetarian (but often weird vegetarian--today it featured a cauliflower-cheese medallion, what ever that is. Other often-served items include broccoli-nut corners. What?). I usually go with the yellow. The yellow features some kind of meat, with the choice of over-cooked vegetables or rotting salad and the choice of some carb (often french fries). On top of the whole plate, the grumpy Mensa Frau will pour sauce (that is not a normal English sentence, but it's kind of poetic, so I will leave it). I don't mind a little sauce on my schnitzel, but why do they pour it all over everything else? My favorite (read: most disgusting) sauce experience involved tartar sauce on a fish Friday. There was an incredible amount of sauce on my fish, so I scraped it to the side of the plate, where some of it went over the edge of the plate. But did it fall to the tray? No! For about 30 minutes, this disgusting glop remained there, dangling, but not really moving or letting a single drop of sauce fall, although I turned my plate around to show everyone the disgustingness.

Apart from the disgusting sauces, another noteworthy feature of the Mensa is the bizarre names they give to foods. One can "enjoy" Countryhacksteak mit Texicanasauce (fatty, oval-shaped processed beef patty with sauce that is supposed to somehow be Mexican or Texan, but isn't really) or Schweinerückensteak Florida mit Curryhollandaise (didn't eat this one--pig back steak Florida-style (??) with curry hollandaise sauce (curry and hollandaise go together? okay.)

Despite the disgustingness of the Mensa and the fact that it's really not that much more expensive to eat at some places in the Pontstrasse, there is a solid group of my labmates who eat there everyday. They complain everyday, yet they return. It is a fact that Andreas will leave hungry because the portions sizes aren't big enough, and that the girls will all offer him the food they can't eat. It is a fact that we all spend a little bit of time sorting out the parts of our salads that have gone bad, and that we glumly eat the disgusting food and complain about how disgusting it is. How does this system continue to work? Germans think Americans are stupid, but I think that the prime example of stupidity is making the same mistake over and over again, and eating in the Mensa is usually a mistake.
There are a few possible reasons: 1. We have no microwave to heat up leftovers, so for those Germans who love a hot meal at lunch, the Mensa is probably the closest and cheapest option.
2. People talk crap about other labmates in the Mensa. If you're there, you won't get crap talked about you. The crap talkers will have to find another venue. You also get to hear the gossip.
3. No one likes change. But when you're in your 23rd semester, how can you not long for a little change now and again?

Edited to add: I once asked one of our temporary research students if he usually ate in the mensa, or just when he was doing research in the lab. He replied that he sometimes did and that the mensa is "nicht so schlecht. Man wird satt." (not so bad. One gets full.) When "man wird satt" is the most ringing endorsement you can muster, I think that's a problem.

Conclusion: My Mensa eating days are almost over. I have already secured the prize as the only foreigner in our lab to stick with the Mensa for than two weeks, so I can be satisfied with that.

Rules of interaction

Germany is a land famous for rules. These rules not only mean that you have to register yourself when you move into a new apartment and sign everything several times, but also that there are unwritten rules that govern interactions with other people. I am not sure what they all are, but I've learned a little bit, mostly about elevator greeting.

Most of the labs here at the Institut für Organische Chemie are housed in a 6-story (7-story, American style) building referred to as the tower (die Turm). The group I'm in is on the 5th floor, so of course we take the elevator (the elevator was recently broken for a day and productivity dropped because no one wanted to walk down to the ground floor to drop off NMR samples). I was in the elevator with some labmates on the way back from eating some disgusting food in the Mensa, and some one from a new research group entered the elevator. They didn't say hi to us, and we didn't say hi to them. When they got out, my labmate remarked that the Rueping lab people are funny because they never say hi. I asked if anyone in our lab had tried to say hi to them, and my labmate answered that they were required to say hi to us because they had entered the elevator after us. Why can't people just say hi?

This rule also applies to when you approach a group of people in other situations, such as walking into the coffee area when people are already there. The new person is apparently supposed to interrupt the conversation the others are already engaged in and say hello. If you say nothing, you will pretty much be ignored. Why didn't anyone explain this to me sooner? I did not know about these rules and thought that people were just unfriendly. I can confirm that people will really just ignore you if you don't say hello first, which seems ridiculous.

You may be thinking that there are situations in which two people approach each other at the same time, for example passing in a hallway. Who is supposed to be the first to greet then? Apparently, the younger person has to be the one to greet. Are there any rules I'm missing? Is this why I don't have many (read:any) German friends?

Another unrelated note about greetings--the email sign-off "greetz" at the end of English emails written by non-native English speakers is apparently very popular. Why have they come to think it is correct? I can understand directly translating the German "Viele Grüße" into "many greetings," which is also not a standard English sign off, but where did they get the idea to ghetto-ize it into Greetz. It reminds me of Bratz, and I don't ever want to be remind of Bratz dolls.

Die Bahn

This is kind of another German product review. This time I'm reviewing more of a service--the German railways or Deutsche Bahn. My review is sparked by an incident that occured on my way home from Sweden.

Here are some facts about the Deutsche Bahn:
1. They have somehow received a reputation for Pünktlichkeit (punctuality). You can set your clock by German trains, people say. No, you can't. You must have them confused with the Swiss. Usually ICE trains are on time, I would say, but you really can't trust Nahverkehr (the ones that don't go too far). When I lived with Claudia and Roger and took the train every day, I basically had the message memorized. "Meine Damen and Herren am Gleis (pause) 2, bitte beachten Sie, Regional Express 4 von Dortmund nach Aachen (pause) Hbf..." If the train is delayed by 10 minutes or less, they offer no excuse. If it's more, they usually offer the excuse of Verzogerungen im Betrieb (delays in operations), which drives me crazy. I mean, what they are basically saying is that the train will be delayed because there are delays. Just say you're incompetent.

2. As Shane pointed out, there is something called the Deutsche Bahn law. It states that if you expect a train to be late, it will be on time. If you expect the train to be on time, it will be late. This basically means that if you're ever running a little late and could use a five-minute delay, you won't get it. But when you're early and especially if you're for some reason really early, the train will be delayed. I have found this pretty much always to hold true.

3. On the Deutsche Bahn website (which they improved in December to be uglier and harder to use), the local bus schedules are somehow linked. Convenient, right? I can type in my local bus stop and my final destination and it will tell me what bus to take to make it to the train station on time. On time, that is, to watch my train pull away after running off the bus to the platform while incurring the wrath of larger German women who get off buses excruciatingly slowly and do not appreciate attempts to get around them. This is not totally the Bahn's fault--part of the blame rests on the AVV (local transportation authority) which should put plus/minus 5 minutes next to all their bus times (Myth of German punctuality: BUSTED!)

Anyways, on the way back from Sweden, I was on a packed Sunday night train back to Aachen (Friday afternoons and Sunday evenings are the worst time to ride trains around here...half the students in Aachen apparently go home to have their mothers do their laundry on the weekends). We arrived at a stop and after the new passengers boards, we just didn't move. We sat there for a few minutes before we were informed that our train was delayed for the reason of people on the tracks and that the police were already underway to get them off. We sat there for about 20-30 minutes and they repeated the same message once, before saying the dreaded words "Dieser Zug endet hier. Die Strecke ist gesperrt." (This train ends here. The stretch of track is blocked off.) Apparently the people on the tracks got hit. So we all stepped off the train into a rainy evening and waited for the promised "Ersatzverkehr" (replacement transportation--usually they'll send a bus or something). We waited about 40 minutes. A few taxis came, and whenever one appeared, 20 people would run out into the rain towards it. Then, a train came going in the right direction. We all started walking towards it. The train driver stuck her head out the window and looked at us like we were crazy. Someone asked her if the train was going all the way to Aachen and she said yes, of course, like there was no reason for it not to go to Aachen. We finally left the station and then at some point stopped in the middle of nowhere. I saw people running next to the train. Then we started moving again. Finally, we arrived in Aachen at 12:45 am, about 80 minutes after the train was supposed to get there and after all the buses had stopped running. Thanks, Deutsche Bahn.

100 days

One day when I was not working in lab, I counted the days left until I return home on July 31. Today is the 100 day mark. I will not go into too many thoughts and feelings at this point...I will save that for the end. Instead, here are two lists--one of the things I miss about America and one of things I think I will miss about Germany.


Things I miss about America
apple cider
contact solution with the flippy lid
Pandora--my music taste is not growing
Watching TV shows online for free in high quality without Chinese subtitles
Sam Adams Summer Ale
my family
Max the dog
solvent delivery systems, analytical grade solvents, stockrooms that are open more than two hours a day, taking my own NMRs
getting a free credit report


Things I will probably miss about Germany
baked goods, particularly the Brötchen and a good German breakfast
Kölsch
the apple juice from my roommate's garden
carbonated water not ever being seen as elitist
high speed trains
Überweisungen (bank transfers)--a logical and efficient system for paying for things, much better than checks.

German product reviews

In this edition, I would like to review two German products. Well, one of them is not German, but I was introduced to it here, so whatever.

1. German contact solution.
Yesterday I realized that I was out of contact solution. Ahhh! What to do? In America, it would be simple, right? Go to any supermarket, drugstore, Target, etc., and you will be greeted by a whole section of contact solution and various contact products. More than you what to do with, really. My first obstacle to overcome in my quest was figuring out which type of store sells contact solution. See, here in Germany, you can only get prescription drugs and over the counter drugs at the Apotheke, not at CVS-minus-prescription-type stores called Drogeries. There is no convenient have your prescription filled while shop in-store pharmacy (I know, Mom, I know! What would you do here?!?) I wasn't sure which of these stores would carry it, or if I might even have to go to an Optiker (you can figure that one out). My preference was for the Drogerie, where interaction is minimal. (You see, although my German is pretty okay, I get nervous when I have to ask for something in a new situation. I practice in my head beforehand and make sure I know the genders of all the nouns that may be involved. Yes, this is overkill. Yes, everyone speaks English anyway.)

I decided to look at an ex-pat message board, which was not helpful, as some people said you could not buy it in Apothekes or Drogeries, while other people swore up and down that they'd bought it in both places. Others suggested ebay. Not quite ready to trust my eyes to Ebay, I decided to suck it up and head to my local dm (think CVS). It was hard at first to find the contact solution. There was a tiny section in the very bottom row, next to the vitamins and under the pregnancy tests and condoms. I debated between Kombi-Lösung and Kombi-Comfort, while a middle-aged skeezy Turkish guy debated between fruity flavors and textures. He ended up going with flavored pink in an 8-pack (8-pack, who's he kidding?). There was only one brand of contact solution at dm and it had the name "eyelike," so I decided to head to Rossman, another Drogerie, for a better selection.

On my way to Rossman, I saw a middle-aged American couple looking confusedly at a map. After hearing them debate which way to go in American english (I have developed Ami-dar in Aachen, because we don't get too many here), I decided to offer my help. At the end of the conservation, the guy friendily put his hand on my shoulder and said "danke" in his Texan accent and I responded with a cheery bitte. Now I am wondering if they thought I was German. Is this how those all Germans speak perfect accent free English rumors got started (people were always telling me this before I came over here)? Because those rumors are not true. As someone whose German sounds strongly of American, I'm not making a judgement, just a statement of fact.

But I digress. I made it to Rossman, where they had a bigger selection and the solutions were logically placed--under the reading glasses, not with the condoms. I ended up settling on the Rossman store brand "All-in-One Lösung." So far I am pleased.


The cap design I find to be less than optimal. It is a screw-off cap, instead of the typical American attached flip-off cap. What if I drop the cap on the floor of a grimy hostel and it contaminates my solutions? I think the Germans are counting on me to be less clumsy than I am.


The second product I would like to review is the Bodum milk frother, which is actually made by a Danish company. I have known for some time that it was possible to make myself a cappuccino, right here in my apartment on Aretzstrasse, but I didn't know how to work the espresso and milk frother machines (I believe I offered Ashlan coffee and when she accepted, said I didn't know how to use the machines. Next time, Ashlan!). Today, as I was avoiding go into work (which I'm still doing at this moment...it's getting really bad.) I took the leap. Well, not entirely...my roommates had already made espresso this morning and I decided to use it cold for an iced cappuccino (iced coffee--something unheard of in Germany, except at Starbucks). The milk frother is amazing!! I love milk foam. If anyone is looking for a housewarming gift for mine and Molly's as yet unfound apartment in Illinois, this would be perfect. Molly, my lovely future roommate, is going to have to live with my European tendencies--mainly a love for cappuccino, bubbly water, and having coffee and cake on Sunday afternoons.

The first cappuccino I ever made. The baby pictures are a weird consequence of living in a subletted room--my desk has a glass overlay and all the pictures underneath are of small children I don't know (presumably Eva, my subletter and her brothers)

I know that I have slacking on the blog front lately, and that I've made many promises to catch on travel blogging that I haven't really fulfilled. I've just been in kind of a slump lately, if you can't tell from the last entry, and have been spending my free time watching Numb3rs on the internet. If you scroll down and page back, you will find some more entries. I like to keep it all in the order in which it happened, so some things are a little buried.

Chemical (de)motivation

One day last week, as I was putting off going into work (as I do everyday, except Thursdays when I have group meeting, I was thinking about how my motivation for chemistry has plummeted since my time in Germany. I decided to make a chart, shown below.

Figure 1. Erin's motivation to do chemistry (in arbitary, unnamed units) vs. time in months.

It's a little hard to make it out, so I'll walk you through it:
first peak: around the time I started working on a new project that I never actually finished (I will spare the non-chemists from even having to read the words that they don't understand). I emerged from some sort of mid-semester slump with the winning of a Fulbright and the K-dawg forcing me and Seiko to be friends again after some fight we'd had after both being really stressed out by making us talk about new chemistry ideas.

Then, I got a little sick of working 40 hours a week and maybe got a little burned out, but then I went to Germany, took a horrible German glass, and drank German beer and wine and ate delicious Brötchen, and started to long for the lab. That is the second peak.

Then, I got to the lab, realized I had to distill solvents for everything, could pick these solvents up for 30 min. each day, that it took hours to get a simple proton NMR back, that the stockroom was only open two hours a day, that I've never actually had a one-on-one meeting with the professor I'm working for, and that my research is kind of pointless, and I got discouraged.

Then, I got into grad school, went on visits, and thought I maybe should use my time in Germany to learn all that I possibly could. This is the third peak.

Then, I came back to Germany, realized that took more initiative than I could muster, and that even if I worked pretty hard, my research wasn't going to get anywhere in the time I had left, and my motivation plummeted.

Let's just hope it picks up when I get to grad school.

At least I get to travel and eat Brötchen. (I know bread rolls shouldn't be that exciting, but if you've never had a German roll, or better yet, a German breakfast with rolls, don't judge. SOO delicious.)

Copenhagen

After Berlin, it was off to Copenhagen. I've always had fond associations with Denmark--Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish butter cookies in the blue tin that Grandma always bought, and I had seriously considered studying abroad there. I ended up not studying there because I took intro chem and choose chemistry over Denmark (who does that? I guess it was the right choice.) So I was really excited to head up north with Ashlan, Marty, Matt and Miya, especially since I only paid 15 Euros for the flight from Berlin and 29 Euro for the train (inc. train ferry! more on that later!)

We arrived in Denmark without event and settled into our hotel, which turned into one giant bed. The next day, we woke up and headed to the National Museum to check out the history of Denmark.The Nationalmuseet was great and very thorough. The above picture is a real Danish couple's living room from the 70s. It had a lot of detailed information about the couple and when they git married.


This is a pastry I ate as lunch/snack. It was so intensely buttery that the grease bled through the bag to the point where there was basically standing grease on the outside.

The cheapest thing you can buy to eat in Denmark--only 19 Kroner including bun. That's about 2.50 Euro or $3.30--still a little steep for a hot dog that you buy from a trailer on the street, especially when it's such a baby hot dog.

I loved taking pictures of boats and colorful houses along water. Everything was so pretty! It made photo editing difficult at the end.

Our viewing of art was interrupted by an especially shrill fire alarm.

Fortunately we were allowed to continue. Someone probably just burnt some popcorn.

We were endlessly amused by the Slutspurt signs. It apparently means something like final clearance.

7-11 is apparently more popular in Copenhagen than in Northeastern Ohio. Who knew??

OMG! I can see myself and my friends multiple times.

Christiana, the free hippie town in the middle of Copenhagen. Unfortunately, we didn't get to explore much because someone got scared of the fact that there were non-threatening drug dealers.

After a mad dash to the train and I really mean mad dash, we miraculously made it onboard, and were on our way to the train ferry. Unfortunately, there was some sort of construction work on the tracks, so we had to load on a bus and did not experience the train boat docking process, which was going to be the highlight of my trip. But, we did see the train tracks in the hold of the ship, and that was almost enough.

Leaving Denmark on the train ferry. I'm leaving on a train ferry...

Spring is here!

The signs of spring--the tentatively budding trees, the refilled fountains throughout the city--have been beginning to show themselves for awhile now, but the last few days have been the first really springlike days. Much welcome after the Scheißwetter of last week--we had a few days of sunshine alternating with hail/sleet/rain. I'm not sure if I've ever described the weather patterns of Aachen to you all, so I will today. Usually it rains. That's about it. People joke that you know it's summer because the rain is warm. I'm usually not anti-rain, but there is something about the quality of rain in Aachen that makes it miserable. I'm a fan of the American thunderstorm. When I worked in Florida for a summer, it rained every afternoon. You could feel the humidity building and building until BOOM! Downpour. Afterwards, the 100 degree heat would be bearable. In Aachen there's no downpour, no thunder, no lightning, no post-rain satisifaction. It's just mostly gray. So you can see why after all this grayness, four straight days of no rain are kind of magical.

Afternoon coffee breaks are now taken on the fire escape, the sun rises at 7 and sets at 8 and the walk home from work, which was never really unpleasant, is suddenly becoming beautiful, a delight, if you will. Perhaps best of all, Anke, one of my labmates, has a bicycle she doesn't want and is letting me use until I leave. I'm picturing riding my bike through the greenness to work, I'm picturing taking my bike on the train to Cologne and then riding along the Rhine (I'm in some ways not over living in Europe--on my way to AstraZeneca I passed a country club, now I pass a medieval city gate on my way to work. In Massachusetts I rode my bike past tobacco fields, here I can ride along the Rhine, past castles. Gate from the 1300s! The Rhein! Castles!), I'm picturing...well, that was about it, actually.

With spring also comes the realization that my time here is short, and motivation to make the most of it. I have some exciting trips ahead, including a spontaneously booked Überraschungsflug to Zürich for Easter, and a trip to Stockholm, as well as some unfirm plans that include the British Isles and Italy. I will try to be more motivated to write up my previous activities--I owe you guys Budapest (so, so long ago!), Brussels, Berlin, Copenhagen, a train ferry, and Hamburg. And Karneval! What a story that one is!

Berlin

After getting back from the States, I immediately went to Berlin for what was supposed to be the highlight of my Fulbright year, The Fulbright Berlin Seminar. If it was the highlight of my Fulbright year, it was because it was a free reunion with my Marburg friends and they put us up in a really nice hotel and fed us a lot. The Seminar itself was fairly lame.

This was the view out my hotel window.

The Bundestag. The line was too long, so we didn't go in.

The Brandenburg Gate

The Holocaust Memorial

A "gemütliche Cafe" (of the kind we don't really have in Aachen) and Marty taking a nap as we prepare for our journey to Copenhagen.

Berlin was really great, and it was so much fun to be reunited with the Berlin Fulbrighters I hadn't seen since Marburg, as well as everyone else. I'm definitely planning on another trip to Berlin before I leave.

Zurück in den USA (Back in the USA)

So I made it to America. Upon my arrival at Chicago O'hare, I boarded the Lincolnland Express to Champaign. I was warned that the LEX, as it's known in the local parlance, would be slow and late, but I was not warned about my fellow travelers. I was accompanied by a few kids who were on their way to "Unofficial," the UIUC fake St. Patrick's Day that's celebrated the weekend before. They had decided to take the bus because they wanted to pregame. They would have just pregamed while driving, but one of them had gotten a DUI in December at the tender age of 19, somehow managed to keep his license, and did not want to get caught again. Then one of them pulled something out of his pocket, and the girl next to them asked what it was, and he said weed. They also had ecstasy on them and debated the right time to take it, since it takes an hour to kick in and they wanted to arrive in Chambana in party mode. Ridiculous.

After finally getting off the idiot bus, I was reunited with Seiko!

Illinois made an excellent impression even though I missed a whole day of the visit. Basically everyone knew who I was because I had been stranded in France. I was also impressed by the NMR facilities.

Next, I made my return to New England. After hanging out with Kate in hipster JP, I visited BU. The people there were also really nice, but I'm not as interested in the research. They did put me up in a nice bed and breakfast and make me cappuccino, so it was tempting.

After finishing my BU visit, I headed off to Northampton. On the way, my luck was about to get worse. I loaded my suitcase in the bottom of the bus, expecting it to be there when I got to Springfield. However, some idiots took it in Worcester. To make matters worse, I had no tag on it, since it is usually a carryon. Two days later, I got a call from Peter Pan saying they had found my bag and would send it up to Northampton. They had dug through my suitcase and found some papers with my parents' phone number, which they called and talked to my mom, who gave them my cell. Well, they somehow messed it up and my bag made a trip around Western MA, with Springfield saying they'd sent it and Northampton saying they knew nothing about it. By the time my bag got to Northampton, I was back in Boston. I was finally reunited with my bag on Saturday morning, the day before I was going to leave to go back to Germany. My bag was missing the chocolate I brought for Lois, my lovely Northampton host, but was otherwise intact.

My visit to BC was a little impersonal. Maybe it was just impersonal compared with my infamy as the stuck in France girl at Illinois and the girl getting a personal visit day at BU, but I felt like the folks at BC didn't even really want me to go there. At Illinois and BU, I got the feeling that people actually wanted me in their program and in their labs. I did get winked at by Amir Hoveyda because I knew what olefin metathesis was (how can you be applying for orgo grad school and not know? Apparently that was the case for some people...), and that was about the most exciting moment of my weekend, other than hanging out with Jennie. BC did not pay for beers and beer is wicked expensive in Boston...I guess I never realized that since I spent my time there in Starbucks using the internet away from my sketchy roommate and in my room watching Netflix. What a great summer!

Anyways, Sunday I made the trek back to the Schland. An epic journey: Boston--Chicago--Atlanta--Düsseldorf--Aachen (to see if my ATM card was there. it wasn't.)--Düsseldorf--Berlin for the Fulbright Seminar. After about 30 hours of traveling, I found my way to Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt, just in time for a boring speech and a free dinner with open bar. Open bar, the most beautiful two words in the English language...more to come.

je déteste Air France (Ich hasse Air France/I hate Air France)

Hello loyal blog readers (or mom, as you're also known)! I am currently stuck in France on the way to graduate school visits. I was SUPER excited to be on my way to Illinois and my reunion with the Seikosaur, and perhaps even some chicken fingers or a bacon cheeseburger or something incredibly American to eat. Everything was going according to plan until my flight from Düsseldorf to Paris was delayed due to...oh, I don't know, they didn't tell us. I like it when they at least make some excuse (unless it's Verzögerungen in Betrieb--delays in operation--like the Deutsche Bahn says. That's the worst excuse ever.)

Upon arriving at Charles de Gaulle (considered by many to be the worst airport in the world), they announced that we would be docking at 12:35. My flight to Chicago left at 1:05. I knew it would be knapp, but I thought maybe I could schaff it if the gates were close enough. And the gates were close enough, but apparently that's not how it works. We (me and the many other people who ended up missing flights to the states) had to take a shuttle bus to a different terminal, just to flash our boarding passes and passport to some guard, and then get on another bus for a 15 minute shuttle ride back to the terminal we just came from. Upon arrival, we had to go through the whole 9 yards at security, although we'd never left the airport. Come on France, trust the Germans to do security. I got patted down in Düsseldorf--the verdammte Froschfresser were considerably less thorough. I then ran to my gate to find that although the plane was still there, I could not board. I dropped the f-bomb in front of a bunch of people, and then walked to ticketing. There, I was informed that there were no further flights to Chicago. I knew there were flights to New York that day and I asked to be rerouted, but they said it wouldn't work out. I still don't believe them. They gave me a coupon for a sandwich and soda and a hotel voucher. They told me I could use the sandwich coupon anywhere, but that wasn't true. And the French were not friendly about it.

After redeeming my sandwich coupon, my next task was to get to my hotel (note here: on other occasions I may have been happy for the chance to spend an evening in Paris...however, due to getting pickpocketed (see as-yet-unwritten Karneval blog entry), my cash availability situation is interesting). However getting out of the airport would be harder than I thought. I started looking around for an exit or some signs to baggage claim, anything! But there was nothing, only the incoming security lines. After more thoroughly exploring, I came to the conclusion that I was going to have to go through an employee only line. I had to show my hotel voucher and passport to a woman who waved me through. Every time I stopped to ask someone where to go, they would want to see my documents and then they would tell me that Galerie 4 (where the shuttle to the hotel was) was very close. This happened about 4 times. I did get my passport stamped, so that was amazing. Finally I made it through the labyrinthine airport and to Galerie 4, where I waited for about 30 minutes for a shuttle that's supposed to come every 15. But alas, I did not know that there were two Hotel Campaniles (there was only one on the sign at Galerie 4), and I went to the wrong one. I found this out after a 30 minute shuttle ride and waiting for about 15 minutes. Then, I had to take the shuttle back to the airport, and wait for another Hotel Campanile shuttle. Oy vey! I was trying to think of how to describe this series of events. Comedy of errors doesn't fit, because it was in no way funny.

So now, at the time I should have been making my descent into Chicago, I am sitting in a hotel room far far away. At least they have free wireless. Another highlight was that reruns of Friends were on TV--not dubbed into French. But I would much rather be in America. Or Germany. Such things don't happen there. And I would like to note that Germans are friendlier than the French...or at least the French who work in Charles de Gaulle.

Die Schönste Jahreszeit (The Best Season)

I am not going to write too much, because I don't remember too much. Not because of the alcohol, but because so many things have happened since and my memory is a little fuzzy.
Karneval is the magical fifth season of the year here in the Rhineland. It begins at 11:11 am on the 11th of November, when some people (I don't know the details. Google it if you care.) meet to start planning Karneval events. The Karneval hubbub quickly dies out as the Weihnachtmärkte open and people are too occupied with the delights of drinking Glühwein and eating gebrannte Mandeln and Reibekuchen (can it be Christmas again??) and doing otherwise Christmasy things.

The week before Ash Wednesday is when things really pick up with Altweiberfastnacht on Thursday. On this day, women get to cut off men's ties, but there is no gender requirement for having fun. I dressed up as a robot, which was very impractical both in terms of moving through tightly packed crowds and going to the bathroom, and went out in the afternoon with some labmates. Karneval consists of people drinking a lot and singing songs. There is a whole genre of songs with stupid words and at least one verse of lalala's, which I liked because I was singing lalala anyways. (My labmates taught me words to some of the songs and then told me "mit lalala bist du nie falsch"--with lalala you'll never go wrong.) They also play classic songs from the 80s (Neue Deutsche Welle!!!! Jaaaaa!) like 99 Luftballoons and Major Tom. Over the course of the 5 days of Karneval I learned at least the important words to most of the songs, and also fell a little in love with them. There should be pictures of my costume somewhere on the lab group server...I'll try to hook you guys up.

The next day I went to Düsseldorf to meet up with Marco, Matt and Marty (aka the Fulbright Saufen Mannschaft + Indiana Jones). We partook in some traditional German food and Altbier (the traditional beer of Düsseldorf) while awaiting Shane, the last member of the Mannschaft. The next day, after checking out the Düsseldorfer mustard store (a must if you are a mustard fan), we went to Köln to meet up with some of Marco's friends.

Köln and Düsseldorf are rival Rhine cities, and this rivalry is represented mostly in the beers of the two cities. The Düsseldorfer beer is Altbier and the Kölsch is the beer of Cologne. I am a Kölsch fan myself, despite the difficulties my American mouth has in making that Ö sound. The picture above shows my hero of Karneval Saturday on the left. This guy's job was to keep all of us supplied with beer during the night and he was amazing at it. Seriously. The way he wove through the densely-packed crowd, responding to the cries for beer coming from all around was just impressive.

The next day, Halley came from Berlin to join the festivities. We weren't planning on really drinking that day, but when we saw everyone else with beer in hand, we thought, "why aren't we doing that?" A common sight during Karneval was groups of people in matching costumes, like the octupi above. They also had their own personal cart on which to carry alcohol. Not a bad idea. This was also the sad day that my wallet got stolen. It had really my whole life inside, but I took it like a man, as my dad would say, and soldiered on in proper Karneval spirit as much as I could. I made a report to the police who wanted to know all the details of my lost IDs and cards--all the account numbers and everything. Crazy. A week later, I got a letter saying they needed more details to catch the thief and asked for all the numbers I hadn't been able to give them before. A few weeks after I received a letter notifying me that the perp had not been caught, but that the case would be reopened if more evidence was found. Thanks, ridiculous German bureaucracy, for being so thorough.

The next day was the height of Karneval, Rosenmontag. There was a parade with political floats that I may have understood better if I knew German politics. The one above is Angela Merkel with the problem zones of the country/her administration drawn on plastic surgery style. A feature of a the Rosenmontag parade is that you scream "Alaaf! Alaaf!" in an attempt to get people to throw you candy and flowers. By candy, I mean giant bars of chocolate. At the beginning of the parade, I was hit on the lip by some flying chocolate. And then I bled and had Germans yelling "du blutest! du blutest! (you're bleeding!), which I already knew. I compressed my bleeding with a tissue, but sported a great lip bruise for the next week. The people in lab thought it was from kissing and did the German-pull-the-lower-eyelid-down-in-skepticism thing to me when I said it was from chocolate.


Halley and Shane dancing in the streets of Cologne post-parade until...

the ever-efficient Germans swept in to clean up the Karneval mess. I think they should wait for the drunk people to get off the street first. I definitely almost got hit.

Weeks after Karneval, my Karnevals-Lieder-Ohrwurm (Karneval songs stuck in my head-ness) is finally gone, along with my bruise, my pickpocket-induced bureaucratic and financial worries are resolved, and I'm looking forward to bringing a little bit of the Rhineland to the heartland of America next year in Chambana.

Der Besuch der jungen Dame (The Visit of the Young Lady)

The title of this post is a reference to Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Der Besuch der alten Dame, which Claudia and Roger took me to see back in October (Much to Claudia's amusement, I was delighted to finally use the stock answer to "Was hast du am Wochenende gemacht?" (what did you do this weekend?)--"Ich bin ins Theater gegangen!" (I went to the theater), which I learned in high school from Frau Schanz.) References are not as fun when they are explained...

Last week I had the pleasure of being hostess to the lovely Jesse, who is now engaged (there goes another one). Since Jesse was a little scared because she can't speak German and I had nothing to do on a Monday night and a Semester Ticket in my pocket, I made the trip to the Cologne-Bonn airport to pick her up. Meeting up was easier than expected, given that she didn't have a cell phone that worked in Europe. However, the next train didn't leave for 30 minutes, so we got to hang out in the airport, where Jesse got to experience her first taste of Kölsch, which may be becoming my favorite German beer. When it was time for our train to come, instead of checking which platform it was on, I just took the escalator on the right, the one I'd taken the last time I was there. Little did I know that I was approaching the platform from a different terminal. We watched our train pull away as we were trying to run up the escalator, condemning us to another 30 minute wait. Herzlich Willkommen in Deutschland, Jesse! Deine Freundin ist doof! The next time we were on the right platform, and good thing, because we ended up catching the last train from Köln to Aachen. We arrived in Aachen at 1:30, well after the buses had stopped running and walked the 30 minutes to my house. (There has to be a shorter way, but I don't know it) We had linguistic adventures as I tried to explain that the duvet cover was clean, but forgot the english words for Bettdecke and Bezug and said "the whatever we call in it english" while pointing instead, and collapsed into bed determined to get an early start for a day of exploring Cologne.

Miraculously, we woke up in time to catch the 9:10 train. I made Jesse schwarzfahr on the bus, because I am a bad friend. Our first stop was the Kölner Dom, which has been described in previous posts, and also happens to be Germany's number one tourist attraction. As I turned on my camera, the heart-breaking message "change battery pack" appeared, so I have no photos from this day. : (
After checking out the Schatzkammer, we climbed the 509 steps up the tower of the Kölner Dom to an amazing view of Cologne and the Rhein (have you heard of it?). Afterwards, with legs shaking, we made our way towards the Rhein for lunch and the Schokolade Museum. The Chocolate Museum was pretty cool. However, the chocolate fountain, which was much-touted by my guide book, consisted of one small sample. Bummer. We had envisioned a chocolate free for all.

After Cologne, we made our way to Bonn to see the good old Hauptdorf. Bonn is a nice little city, and remarkably well-marked, I thought. Our main destination there was the Museum Koenig, a zoological museum featuring taxidermied animals posed in realistic dioramas. Very cool. We also visited Das Haus der Geschichte, a museum which showcases the history of Germany during the time Bonn was the capital (from after WWII until the fall of communism). It was very cool, but English captions were unfortunately lacking, and although I did my best to translate, it's hard to see a museum like that. And at the end of our long day of walking, we were ready for some dinner. I was reminded of why I had been a history major, and in a world where Smith history prof's sabbatical schedules had complied to let me take German history, I could easily see my life having gone in a different direction. But I digress.

On the second day, we saw the sights of Aachen (takes about 3o minutes), including one of my favorite sights--the guy in the main shopping area who sells bratwurst out of this bizarre contraption in which he is enclosed. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture. Then we bought some Berliners for the trip to Maastricht, a town in the Netherlands about an hour away from Aachen.

Some pictoral Maastricht highlights:

A magazine vending machine.

View of Maastricht along the bank of the Maas river

Weird public art.

After getting some shopping done in Maastricht, we headed back home for a dinner party hosted by my roommate. One thing Jesse's visit made me realize is that everyone speaks English. Okay, that is not true, but everywhere we went, when people realized she didn't speak German or heard us speaking English together, they switched over immediately. My roommates also speak excellent English. Why do I speak German with all these people? It is almost silly.

All in all, it was a pleasure hosting Jesse, who, after my entire family has bailed on me, will likely be the only person who visits lonely little Erin, all alone in Germany far away from her friends and family. Yes, that is a shameless attempt at guilting all you Amerikaner into finding a cheap flight and getting your butts over to Europe...do it!

Next in the series of what I've been up to the last month: Budapest!

Das Schimpfwort des Tages (Curse word of the day)

In order to improve my German skills and really experience German culture, I have decided to learn curse words and insults. Therefore, my labmates (really just Marcus) have been teaching me a new word every day. We call it das Schimpfwort des Tages. Here is what I've learned so far:

Arschgesicht- arse face

Plitschkuh- a bitchy woman (this one was apparently invented by Marcus. I'm not sure why he's not teaching me words that are more widespread...)

Schlitzpisser- something like a wuss. I don't totally get this one.

Trümmerlotte- this is perhaps my favorite. It is not to be confused with the Trümmerfrauen, the women who helped to clean up the rubble and rebuild German cities at the end of World War II. A Trümmerlotte is one of those women who is now old and ugly, but somehow has never realized it. She is "total schlecht angezogen and schlecht geschminkelt"--horribly dressed and made-up. Probably she is wearing clothes that are too tight and has horribly fake dyed blonde hair. I think this is a great word because I'm pretty sure we don't have a single word for this type of woman auf englisch. German is such a rich language. This is apparently a new word, because no one has really heard of it except Marcus. But when it is explained, everyone thinks it's awesome.

In order to master these words, I need to use them. Therefore, I have immunity when calling labmates (again, really just Marcus, but I've also received permission from other lab members) these names.

My mother does not think the Schimpfwort des Tages is a good idea and asked me why I was learning these words instead of normal German words. I could of course stand to learn more normal words, so I googled German word of the day, and one of the first words I came across was abhauen (piss off), which fits perfectly with the words I've been learning. Hau ab, du Arschgesicht! (This is not directed towards my mom--it is only an example sentence.)

Hungary? Why wait?

I apologize for my long absence from blogging. I owe my loyal readers (by which I mean my mom and adopted Chinese sister) a few entries, which I will try to finish up in the next few days. I've just been lazy lately. In late January, I took a trip to Budapest with fellow Fulbrighters Halley, Matt and Rachel. Matt and I flew in together from Cologne Friday night and with a flight booked for Sunday morning, we were determined to make the most of our pretty much just one day in Budapest.



In order to describe the hecticness of our day, I wanted to give you all a minute by minute account, but now, a month later, the details are very fuzzy, so I will do my best, but everything after 10:45 is suspect.
0800 hours: leave hostel to buy tickets for tour of Hungarian Parliament.
0855 hours: arrive at Basilika, which is not yet open. Eat bagels and coffee at California Coffee Company and debate the merits of Teach for America.
0915 Basilika. Chapel containing mummified hand of St. Stephan, first king of Hungary not available for viewing. Disappointment.
1000: arrive for Parliament tour. Have a sassy tour guide who tells people not to take pictures while she's talking. Happy.
1045: Walk across Chain bridge to Buda side to check out castle. Walk around a lot. See the prime minister. At some point, we descend into some labyrinths, the lowlight of the day.

Okay, and months later, I have forgotten, so I will leave you with some pictures and a list of non-chronological highlights.

Hungarian National Museum--pretty cool, but not enough English translations
baths--very relaxing. Many couples making out and older Hungarians blessed with amazing amounts of body confidence that led them to wear speedos and bikinis. Uhh, more power to you, old Hungarians, I guess?

What the menu described as a chicken donut. Very tasty

The chandelier in the Hungarian Parlament. Apparently there is a complicated procedure to change bulbs that involves someone crawling up there, so they don't do it a lot.

The chain bridge

St. Matthew's, I think. A church that was turned into a mosque then back into a church.

View of Parlament from the Buda side of the river.

In Erinnerung an (In Memory of)...

eine gute Brille (a good pair of glasses).

August 2004 (Parma, OH, USA) - January 29, 2009 (in a train near Aachen, Deutschland)

Today, on an early morning train to drop off Jesse at the train station in Cologne, I tried to take off my glasses to clean them. I had barely touched them when I heard a snap that echoed through my life. The arm had snapped. I can't say that I didn't see this coming. Various incidents over time had bent the poor plastic as much as it could take. I really liked these glasses. The shape, the color, the way the nose bridge part was narrow. In fact, in 2004 my glasses fell into a river in the infamous I-Poked-A-Hole-In-A-Whitewater-Raft-with-a-Kayak-Incident. I tried to buy another pair, but none of them filled the need left by my glasses that have now been eaten by a poor turtle (or something), and I had them special order a pair that was exactly alike.

Now I am forced to wear my contacts, something for which I am way too lazy. I guess I do have the option of looking like an idiot with my one-armed glasses, but German girls are already so much more well-put-together than I am, so I don't want to make that worse.

Amtseinfuhrungsparty (Inauguration Party)

Yesterday I made the epic journey to Wuppertal to attend an inauguration party hosted by Democrats Abroad NRW Chapter with the NRW-Krew. Okay, my journey wasn't epic at all. It was pretty boring. I met Matty and Marco under the B (B for Barack!) on track 2 in the Wuppertal Hauptbahnhof and we made our way to the party.

As we stepped into The Londoner, we stepped into a bizarre parallel universe where everyone was speaking English (my Englischverbot took a blow), there was English written all over the walls and hamburgers with American flag toothpicks were being served.

Matty and Marco with one of the many sayings. Perhaps a new motto.

Obama being inaugurated

One of my favorite parts of CNN's broadcast was the factoid bar at the bottom of the screen. It said things like "Fact: Joe Biden is the first VP from Delaware." Later it started displaying things which I thought were inappropriate to display in a factoid manner. As in, "Fact: Ted Kennedy has just collapsed at the inauguration luncheon." and "Fact: It has been confirmed that Ted Kennedy has been taken away in an ambulance."

After the main inauguration ceremonies were over and we had witnessed W. and Laura Bush getting into a helicopter and flying away, we decided to order some food.

America on a plate.

Marco examining the strange sauce that was on the hamburger.

I have to say the hamburger did not live up to my expectations. One of the main problems was the disintegrating bun. I have noticed that American-style hamburger buns and bread are not really so great here. Germans know how to bake bread and the German Brötchen is a delicious thing that I will miss dearly when I go back to the States (that and German beer probably top my list), but things just go awry when they make hamburger buns. I think they should just give up and put it on a Brötchen. The hamburger itself was also oddly disintegrating, but the fries were possibly the best I have had in Germany.

Puppy! Dogs are allowed everywhere in Germany!