This blog is where I will share my experiences while I am abroad in Germany from August 2011 to July 2012 with the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals Program. Email questions or comments to claytonwollner@gmail.com or comment on a post.
So today, me and my host family had a very special Mittagessen (lunch). My host mom even told me that it was special a couple days before we had it. We had Raclette. I have never heard of it before in the states but maybe it has made its way into the states but maybe not that many people know about it. Raclette is less a special dish and more a way of cooking. You place this portable burner on the table. This burner also has little scoops that go underneath the main burner where the scoops are also heated to a cooking temperature. The table was full of all different kinds of raw meat, vegetables, and cheeses. You pick out what you wanedt, put it into your little scoop, and cooked your own meal! While you are waiting for your personal dish to cook you can help yourself to some of the cooked meat that was placed on the main burner on top. I can only compare it to the experiences you may have at a Hibachi grill, The Melting Pot, or at a make your own stir fry place (BD's Mongolian Grill). It was so much fun and very delicious. There is also this special cheese called Raclette cheese that you should specifically use with your meal. This way of cooking originated in the Swiss and French Alps by farmers who would place slices of cheese close to campfires and eat the cooked slices. I am so glad they did because I thoroughly enjoyed my meal and was very full by the end of it.
No "Die Fledermaus" does not mean that something dies. "Die" is pronounced "dee" auf Deutsch. So anyway, "Die Fledermaus" means "The Bat" and it is a German operetta from Johann Strauß. I had first thought, when my host parents told me we were going to go to "Die Fledermaus", that is was a opera and that it was gonna be all sad and someone was gonna die. Not so. It is an operetta so it was more of a musical comedy. So we made our way to the Magdeburg Opera House this past Saturday on a cold, windy night. The opening scene of "Die Fledermaus" said it all. The curtain came up only to the dancers knees and then, for what seemed like 10 minutes, the dancers continued to move behind the curtain in a way that suggested very naughty things were happening behind the curtain but nothing was said or sung the entire time this happened. For instance, three typical, pink ballerina legs line up in front of one set of male legs. The man then proceeds to drop his pants down to his ankles and walks off stage where the three ballerina legs follow. Now, we all know that no one really exposed anything behind that curtain but just the thought of it was making me blush.
Haha so what is "Die Fledermaus" about? It is kind of complicated and if you really want to know the exact story you can Google it. Basically it is a story of infidelity and revenge with plenty of humor added. Now, the entire operetta was in German so I am not going to pretend for one second that I understood it all...but there were plenty of jokes that were conveyed through body language and sometimes they even talked slow enough for me to understand one or even two sentences in a row!
I will also take this opportunity to let you in on a little secret...YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR EVERYTHING IN GERMANY! There was a man walking around with programs for the show. I asked him for one and he told me it cost €2! I said no thank you...but my host dad insisted on getting at least one for the whole group to read. This is very typical for Germany. You have to pay for water, bathrooms, parking spaces, ketchup (even at restaurants), and apparently show programs. It's ridiculous but I guess you have the cash to spare when your government ensures that everyone has health insurance. You learn to adapt though. I have grown very accustomed to filling my water bottle up in the bathroom and not getting anything to drink with a meal. Sometimes the drink costs just as much as your meal and in Germany beer is sometimes cheaper than water. Yes, sometimes beer is CHEAPER than water. How's that for drastically different? Before we left the opera house we got a group photo.
Back Row (left to right): Christian (host sister's BF), Konrad (host dad), and Joe (fellow CBYXer)
Front Row (left to right): Katrin (host sister), Me, Sonja (host mom)
My host brother Andreas was missing this night but he was there in spirit.
Here is a video clip of a bunch of different songs in "Die Fledermaus" just to give you a taste of it.
Many of you may have heard of No-Shave-November (aka Movember). It is when guys (or even girls) stop shaving during the month of November. It is to raise awareness and funds for cancers that affect men, specifically prostate cancer. Some of you may have noticed that I was looking a bit scruffy in some of the pictures on this blog. That's because I participated in Movember this year. I usually shave every day so it was no easy task to go without shaving for a whole month. My beard was itchy and I had to eat carefully as not to get it dirty. Haha an extremely hard experience I know. There are much worse things in life than growing a beard. The reason people go without shaving for this charity is so that people can strike up conversations about the charity. You see me getting scruffy, you ask why, and I tell you about this charity. We also sprout facial hair to "change the face of men's health". Anyway, I did register with Movember.com so that I could raise money for prostate cancer research. If you are reading this post and you got some change in your pocket, won't you please donate to my page. Even $5 helps and that is the cost of your morning coffee. November is over yes, but Movember.com is still accepting donations so it is not too late. Be a part of the fight against cancer. Use this link (http://mobro.co/wollc9122) to get directly to my personal Movember.com page to donate. Also, enjoy the before and after photos below.
Apparently Kassel is my go-to location for all things holiday. This time I went for Thanksgiving. That's not entirely true. Thanksgiving was obviously on a Thursday and I had to go to Berlin on Friday so I couldn't go anywhere for the real Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is what you make it though. So for the real Thanksgiving I went to the Christmas market in Magdeburg and got some delicious rotisserie chicken. I pretended it was turkey and called it a day. I did feel the urge to celebrate with some Americans though. A bunch of us met up in Kassel on Saturday at my friend's apartment with his 6 roommates. We bought some food at the store real quick and whipped up a Thanksgiving dinner. It consisted of chicken (not turkey I know), mashed potatoes, broccoli, peas, and pumpkin pie of course. Afterwards we also made some cherry coke ice cream floats. They were delicious and I could not have asked for more for Thanksgiving (I was very thankful). We also did the usual wandering through town. When you are in a new country, even just walking through town can be a fun experience. I only stayed one night this time though so the weekend went by very fast. We wandered through the park by the Orangerie (if you don't know what that is you need to go back and read some past blogs), we visited the Christmas market, and we visited Hercules again.
A real picture of the Orangerie.
The Thanksgiving gang in front of the Orangerie.
We found sheep in the middle of a city park. Very random. They even had a sheep dog to round them up.
Everyone drinking Glühwein at the Christmas market. Glühwein is a sweet wine served warm. It is everywhere in Germany during Christmas. When it's cold outside, it warms you up.
This green laser shoots through the sky in Kassel and points at the Hercules statue on the top of this hill on the outskirts of the city.
It seems like only yesterday that I was blogging about Berlin trip #1 and here we are on Berlin trip #3. This time, however, it was on a school trip. The weird thing was it was not with my school. My host sister goes to the Hochschule in Magdeburg and her school organized this trip to the German Historical Museum. Somehow she got me on the list so I got to go to Berlin for free and got free admittance to the Berlin Historical Museum. Score! We actually started the day in Berlin at the Deutsche Bahn (DB) headquarters and got to learn about what DB is currently focusing on. Deutsche Bahn is what you are riding on if you ride a train in Germany. It was all very interesting. I tried to follow along but could not understand everything. They speak so fast and use big words! If I didn't know any better, I would say these people have been speaking German their entire life. While we were given this presentation on DB, we were way up in the DB tower in Berlin which gave us really good view of the city. We also got these neat pens with flashlights on them. Everyone loves a free pen. After we were done at DB we went to the German Historical Museum where we were given a short tour through the museum. I, of course, tried to follow along and understood some of what he was saying. I did, at one point, really embarrass myself when the tour guide asked what a patriot was and I accidentally gave the definition of an expatriate. Ahhhh I felt so stupid. I could feel my face turning red. I could just tell what the other people were saying "Who's that weird exchange student answering questions completely wrong?" Haha oh well, in my defense I answered in German and learned a very valuable lesson that day. I highly recommend the German Historical Museum. All the displays are in German and English.
View of Berlin from the Deutsche Bahn headquarters tower.
Another view of the city.
Holocaust Memorial
Brandenburg Gate
German Historical Museum
Christmas market by the Fernsehturm
After the German Historical Museum we visited a couple of the Christmas markets (Berlin has many). We ended the day in the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main train station). It is something to behold, especially around Christmas when it is all lit up. The train station is like a huge mall that just happens to have trains coming in and out of it all day.
You may have noticed a pattern by now. It seems everywhere I visit has a CBYX participant that lives there. Guilty! It just makes sense that you visit somewhere where someone you know lives. You get to hang out with someone you know and you have a place to stay. This weekend, Hannover was the winner. It was one of those trips where you didn't really have a plan or itinerary. We just bummed around and looked at the sights. It was very fun. It was me and 3 other participants. We stayed with this girl in the program. She lives in this basement apartment thing. It is cool that she has her own space (I'm a bit jealous). In addition to seeing some of Hannover we decided to make it a horror movie classics weekend. We watched both Misery and Fargo. It was great. Those movies are both pretty crazy but total classics. We also got stuck puppy sitting for this doberman puppy. Oh darn it! It was very cute but had to be watched like a hawk as it would just stop moving at times and start peeing on the floor. Ahhhhh! All in all a great weekend. Also, at night, Hannover turns kind of wild with drunk people everywhere.
They had an Al Bundy shoe store. How cool is that?
So much Fachwerk!
Me and Big Boy!
There were a bunch of these statues on the river called "Nanas". I believe they were created by Niki de Saint Phalle. They were basically very large statues of voluptuous women.
A very large glass building. You could walk through these tunnels like a canister at a bank.
Light up benches!
Bear, doing a head stand, in a tuxedo.
Me with my "Dein Bier". That means "Your Beer".
Me with my first ever Christmas-themed Kinder Überraschung Ei!
Yes. We are already on Berlin Trip #2. No eye infections or Michael Jackson hotspots to speak of in this one though. This one was more laid back. Since I live so close to Berlin, I have the luxury of deciding last minute to go to Berlin. So that is what I did. I really only had one thing that I really wanted to do while in Berlin and that was to go to the Berlin Zoo. When I arrived on Saturday morning, me and the other participants I met there went straight from the train station to this restaurant that served authentic Peruvian food. It was very delicious. I also got to try this drink called Inca Cola. It was like fizzy juice. It smelled like bubble gum and I was told it had pineapple juice in it. Whatever it was, it was delicious.
Me and my Inca Cola.
Sometimes, you find yourself doing the same things abroad as you would do if you were in the states. After some delicious Peruvian food, we went back to the apartment of one of the other participants and made brownies (I didn't really help) and watched 4 Christmases. We laughed very hard and ate some delicious brownies.
The next day, we went to the Berlin Zoo. It was very nice. They had advertisements for pandas but none were to be found. There were plenty of other animals though. I also got to see some infamous polar bears. You may have heard of this already but back in 2009 a crazy woman decided it was a good idea to jump into the polar bear exhibit at the Berlin Zoo DURING FEEDING TIME. Not a good idea. She was lucky to get out alive and was cited for trespassing (that part is kind of funny). The video below shows what happens...don't worry it doesn't get gruesome. I just still can't imagine why she would think this was a good idea.
So yeah, we got to see these polar bears. We also got to see many other animals. It was so neat to see these animals while seeing and hearing the big city just outside of the zoo gates.
Momma and baby.
Boy from the badger state next to a badger fountain...seems fitting.
They were very large and reminded me of the mean bird from Jumanji...you know the one. The mean one who stole the game board. Yeah that one!
Germany as a whole is obsessed with bears but Berlin takes it to another level.
Feeding time!
This could be one of the bears that almost ate that crazy lady. Can I have your autograph?
An asian black bear.
By the time we were done at the zoo it was time to find some food. So where do you go for food when you are hungry and in Germany? To a sixties America themed restaurant of course. So on the street named Clayalle, there is this sixties themed restaurant where you can get typical American food. There is also a huge mural on the wall of American celebrities. I got a BLT which tasted just like it should but instead of mayo they use this weird sauce that I can only compare to hollandaise sauce. It doesn't ruin the BLT but just makes it taste a little "off". We also found bubble tea on the way back to the apartment. I had heard of it before. I guess it is gaining popularity all over but I have never seen it in Wisconsin so I was very excited to find it. It is tea with little gelatin bubbles filled with fruit puree. When you bite down on them, they pop. There are also tapioca bubbles to choose from which do not pop but simply provide something to chew on. Very fun, novelty drink.
