Magdeburg Zoo

Every year my host family goes to the zoo on the 26th of December. This year I got to tag along. Not much happened so this blog really will be mostly pictures but the animals were pretty active and really didn't hide that much. They really put on a show for us . I guess the animals in Germany are more active than the ones in the United States. Also, at least at the Magdeburg zoo, the zoo puts much less space between you and the animals. For instance, the penguin cage literally just had a short fence between us and the penguins. No plexi-glass or wide dugout. Just a little fence that I could have easily jumped over. Needless to say, I did not jump this fence but it was cool to be so close to the animals.

It was a pretty cloudy day when we went and the zoo itself wasn't too colorful so this guy really "popped" when we saw him.

This right here is a tapir. It is a pretty sizable animal about the size of a very large pig. What's funny is it made this little high pitched chirp the entire time we were there. Such a large animal with such a small voice.

Giant guinea pig! 

Porcupine

In da jungle, the mighty jungle...

A Very Magdeburg Christmas

This one is gonna be a long one kids...and I literally mean long. I have so many pictures from Christmas time in the Mag and we all know how I like to post my pictures very large (better detail). That is why I predict this post will be at least 4 computer screens long...is that even an accepted form of measurement? If not, just know you will need to scroll a couple of times.

First things first. You need to know that my friend Adam came to visit. He is also a participant in the CBYX program. He lives in Kassel though and lives in an apartment and does not have a host family like I do. For this reason, the Dulz family adopted him for the holiday season so that he was not all alone during the holidays in his empty apartment. I just figured I would let you know so you could stop asking who that stranger was in all the photos.

What Christmas would be complete without a Christmas tree? That is where we will begin. Below you will find before, during, and after photos of the tree. Trees don't usually go up until the 24th of December in Germany and they usually stay up until Heilig Dreikönig or Epiphany as we call it in the states. It seems like such a short amount of time to have a tree but when you think about it, do you really need to have that tree up for a month?

I want to mention the Adventskalender my host mom set up for me here. While all of you were popping small chocolate pieces out of a cardboard box I was having a mini adventure every morning. I would sit on my steps and search for that special little bag that had the day's date on it that would hold a pretty decent sized chocolate. My Adventskalender was awesome and very creative.

My awesome Adventskalender. The bags were not arranged in order so I had to search very morning.

Below are some pictures of the Magdeburg Christmas market. It was pretty cool. Not very big but it got the job done. It was also open until the 30th so I was able to get some special after Christmas deals on last minute Christmas gifts. The Christmas market is set up every year in the alte Markt which is the opening right in front of the Rathaus.

Those stars are a very typical tradition. They are called Herrnhuter Sternen. They come in all colors and sizes and can be bought at the Christmas markets.

A pretty little side path with the Johanniskirche straight ahead peeking out of the darkness. 

The Rathaus with the ferris wheel in the background.

This was the "food isle" as I liked to call it. This was like the food court of the Christmas market. Quarkbälle, Kartoffelpuffer, Crepes, Knoblauchbrot and so much more!

Yet another wonderful example of a Weihnachtspyramide.

Now you can really see the details of the Weihnachstpyramide and you can very clearly see Johanniskirche in the background.

Now, at the Magdeburg Christmas market we had a little side walkway that was lined with Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Each one was motorized in some way so that the characters moved. I, of course, took pictures of all of them and will try and give a synopsis of each tale. I have also seen Brothers Grimm fairy tale displays like these at other Christmas markets so it must be somewhat of a German tradition to display them at the Christmas markets. Why not? The Brothers Grimm are from Germany...in fact, the Brothers Grimm Museum is in Kassel, Germany.

This is Schneewittchen und die Sieben Zwerge or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in English. I am not going to go into a synopsis for this one since I think we all already know how the story goes.

Der Starntaler which means something like "star coins". I guess "taler" is the plural form of a word that means something like a coin in German. It is the story of a little girl whose parents both die. All she has left is one piece of bread, a hat, and a jacket. She selflessly gives all these things away to people in need. She is then rewarded by the heavens by having coins fall from the sky and she becomes rich.

Die Gestiefelte Kater or Puss in Boots in English. I think most people know the story behind this one but it is basically the story of how a very smart cat makes his owner rich after his owner decides not to kill him to make fur gloves. I recommend looking the story up and reading the full story...there's more to it than what the Shrek spinoff lets on.

Rumpelstilzchen or Rumpelstiltskin in English.

Dornröschen or Sleeping Beauty. 

Das Tapfere Schneiderlein or The Brave Little Tailor. Another not so well known Brothers Grimm fairy tale. The story becomes kind of lengthy but the title comes from the fact that this little tailor allows everyone to believe that he killed 7 men in one blow when really he only killed 7 flies with one blow. If you look closely at the table in the picture you can see the tailor's bread with jam and the big flies that are also on the table. When the flies landed on his bread he swatted them and killed 7 at once. And there you have it.

The holidays were also, of course, filled with a lot of food. I took the opportunity at dinner once to take a group photo.

From left to right: host dad Konrad, host mom Sonja, host brother Andreas, host grandma Ruth, and me.

Me and Adam decided to walk around Magdeburg on Christmas Eve and decided to poke our heads into the Magdeburger Dom to see what it looked like for Christmas. It was very simple but still Christmasy.

That's my Dom! 

They turned the lights off at one point.

Christmas in Germany would not be complete without chocolate...lots of chocolate. I mean lots of it. Not only were their various chocolate Santas scattered throughout the house and bowls of random chocolate treats but I was given my own personal chocolate Santas. By the time Christmas was over I had received about 4 decent sized chocolate Santas and various other chocolate goodies. I am still trying to widdle my way through it all. I am saving my special edition Ritter Sport bar for a special occasion though. It is a Ritter Sport Goldschatz wich means gold treasure. Hmmmmmmmm I wonder what lies beneath the beautiful gold wrapper. I felt like Charlie with his golden ticket when I got it.

Berlin Trip #4

It seems like only yesterday I was writing the blog entitled "Berlin Trip #1" yet here I am almost 4 months later writing "Berlin Trip #4". Berlin has been my go-to destination if I get antsy to travel but don't want to spend a lot of money or don't want to stay overnight somewhere (although I usually have the offer to overnight it in Berlin from one of my friends) . The train ride to Berlin from Magdeburg is about 1 hour and 45 minutes and 13 Euros. The 13 Euros is not exactly cheap for a 105 minute train ride but it usually ends up being cheaper than my other travel options. So Berlin wins. I decided to go on this particular trip because the other guy in CBYX that lives in Magdeburg was departing to visit family in London. He was leaving from the airport in Berlin so I figured I would ride with and then explore Berlin a little more once he left. This trip was in December so the Christmas markets were still up in Berlin and I wanted to explore them. I really did get much done in the couple of hours I wandered around alone. I visited 3 Christmas markets. One was at the Schloss Charlottenburg, one was at Alexanderplatz, and one was at the Fernsehturm. I got pictures at each one.

Schloss Charlottenburg Christmas market.

Typical stand at a Christmas market...see the sign for Glühwein? If not, it is right under the roof-mounted nativity scene that I just happened to notice as I posted this picture.

Alexanderplatz Christmas market. Can you see the Weltzeituhr (World Time Clock) that Alexanderplatz is famous for?

Fernsehturm. I went on a foggy night so the Fernsehturm looked really cool. It is lit up so it was like a bright beacon in the foggy darkness.

This is the Christmas market that was at the base of the Fernsehturm. 

I walked by this Luis Vuitton store and had to take a picture of their window display. From now on, I am going to say "We are all ignoring the pink and orange, argyle elephant in the room."

I would also like to say that this was the first time that I used Berlin public transportation all alone. I didn't get lost at all. I am becoming a city slicker. Watch out!

Dresden

Okay. So shame on me. I have not blogged in over one month and I am now paying for it. Here I am, it is 1 am where I am, and I can't sleep because the anxiety from all these backlogged blogs is keeping me awake. So I decided to start chipping away at the huge pile of blogs I have waiting for me. My trip to Dresden happened way back on the 16th of December so it really has been a while. So yeah, I decided to go to Dresden in December with some of the other participants in CBYX. We really wanted to go in December so we could catch one of the many wonderful Dresden Christmas markets. Dresden is known for having really great Christmas markets. Let me tell you...Dresden did not disappoint. Dresden had many Christmas markets but the main one was really great. It was large with a pretty old ferris wheel. Plenty of food and plenty of little knick knacks.

I am gonna go off on a tangent now to tell you a little about the German Christmas markets. They all basically have the same knick knacks. They all have a wood work stand filled with wooden ornaments and other things made out of wood (although it was kicked up a notch in Dresden because Sachsen, where Dresden is,  is where all those beautiful wood ornaments are made). They all have a blown glass ornament stand and they all have a candle holder stand. Now, just because they have mostly the same things does not degrade them in any way it just means that you don't need to feel like you are missing out on any great Christmas gifts if you don't live in a certain area. Just buy them where it is most convenient. The food and drink can vary from region to region though. I was very lucky that my Christmas market in Magdeburg had fried mushrooms. Not everyone is that lucky. Almost every single Christmas market in Germany also has a Weihnachstpyramide. You can see two of them in the above picture. They are basically a wooden pyramid with people dancing around them and there is a fan on top. Now they don't really spin without a motor with those huge ones you see but the smaller models (that you can find at every Christmas market) really spin without electricity. The smaller Weihnachstpyramiden have places to put tea-lights. The warm air produced by the tea lights rises and pushes the wooden fans around causing the Weihnachtspyramide to actually move. Gotta love those German engineers! Every Christmas market also has Glühwein! It is very sweet wine served warm. It is a German tradition and the stuff can be found everywhere in Germany during the holidays. I would also like to say that the Dresden Christmas market did have one pretty awesome nativity scene. It had real sheep in it. It was like a petting zoo!

Real sheep!

Dresden also had this really cool medieval Christmas market. It was in the courtyard of a building and everything was medieval themed. It even had a hot tub that you could sit in for a certain price. It was so strange to be walking through this market, in the cold, in a winter jacket only to have someone run past you in a swimsuit to get to the bathroom. Haha I really felt sorry for that poor soul...I hope he was able to make it back to the hot tub in quickly.

Dresden is also in former east Germany and was also destroyed in WWII much like Magdeburg. Dresen, however, did a really good job of restoring the destroyed structures and trying to give people a sense of what the city used to look like. The two main rebuilt structures I saw were the Frauenkirche and the Kreuzkirche. On both of them you can see very dark bricks with some very light ones. The light bricks are the new ones and the dark bricks are the old salvaged bricks from the original that the city used to build the new ones. They rebuilt them as close to the original as possible. The Frauenkirche is fairly new. I believe it was completed in 2005. One of the participants that lived in Dresden even told us that the Frauenkirche is so newly built that Google Earth still shows it as a construction site. Crazy!

Kreuzkirche, Dresden

Frauenkirche, Dresden with a little Christmas market around it. See the different colored bricks?

The inside of the Frauenkirche. It was very white and gold and very pretty.

The participant that we were visiting in Dresden was nice enough to look into a candle light organ concert that the Frauenkirche was having that weekend. We attended and it was very nice. I am not gonna lie, if you are human with blood coursing through your veins, you will get bored at least a little bit during an organ concert. It is only natural. There you are, sitting for almost and hour just listening to the organ music. I am just saying that to be honest but it was nonetheless very nice. Candles everywhere and organ music playing.

Beautiful right?

CBYX gang's all here.

Below I have included two special pictures from the weekend I spent in Dresden. One is of a santa statue we saw. Here I thought I was going to Germany where Santa was going to be very traditional and tame but instead I find a statue of him that makes him look like he is performing in the World Wrestling Federation. I mean sheesh! The other is a photo of me holding a cookie I designed to look like the state of Wisconsin. The Dresden CBYXers had already made friends with people who were not in the program...they were just in Germany on their own accord. We were invited to their house for a bit and one of them brought out this big ol' ball of dough and invited us to make cookies of whatever shape we wanted. I was at a loss so I just decided to make a cookie shaped like Wisconsin. It got a little warped in the oven but you can still totally see the peninsula.

Can you smell what the elves are cookin'?! Ahhh Santa is about to drop that present on his opponent!

Don't deny it, you see the peninsula. That is Wisconsin baby! It tasted very yummy!

A special thanks to Andrea for letting all 3 of us sleep on the floor of her dorm room...I had back problems for about a week after but, hey, a floor is free and a hostel is not. My body can heal itself my wallet cannot. I also found the perfect Christmas gifts in Dresden for my family back home so, for that, I was really thankful.

Oh! By the way! There was this really cool bar in Dresden that had all kinds of board games. Beer and board games made for a very awesome night with some of the coolest people I have ever met. I think back on that night very fondly with many a laugh.