As I wait for my plane...

So I'm waiting for 4 am so I can get on my subway to get to my train to get to the airport to fly back to St. Louis for Christmas. (well, hopefully this is all happening... the snow storms in Chicago are a little worrying since I'm flying through Chicago...)

Anyway... the last two weeks.
Salzburg was a lot of fun. We were a group of four. We got there around noon and wandered around the city and the Christkindlmarkt. Definitely smaller than Nuremberg and Munich, but it was nice. Also a lot less food at this one. But did they make up for it with their glühwein choices! Munich and Nuremberg basically just had glühwein or (Kinder)punsch (non-alcoholic). Nuremberg had blueberry glühwein as well. Salzburg had peach, wildberry, apple, orange, chocolate, etc. We kept stopping for a different flavor every time we got cold. Also went up to the castle. Then took the 5:00 train back to Munich and decided to go see "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (in English). This time we bought the tickets together so we could officially sit together.

Monday's Christmas party was also a lot of fun. Typical Christmas party. Every brings food. Everyone eats and talks. I enjoyed it a lot though. They all were extremely schocked when I started explaining that no, we didn't have Christkindlmarkt. And no, we didn't have glühwein. And no, we didn't have Lebkuchen (I explained gingerbread...). Someone suggested that it wasn't really Christmas without glühwein.

Tuesday, Rob (Georgia Tech) and I met up with a guy trying to get into Georgia Tech next year. I'm not sure why I was there. I'm a chemE at U of IL. Rob is a chem major at Georgia Tech. This guy was a chem major at Georgia Tech. Rob had it covered. Then I met up with Erika to go watch the Christmas film. Feuerzangenbowle is actually a drink they make by soaking a cone of sugar in rum and setting in on fire over a pot of glühwein so that it carmalizes into the wine. Interesting concept. Tasty. (sweet!) The movie has nothing to do with that (except they are drinking it in the first and last scenes). It also has nothing to do with Christmas. A bunch of men are talking about childhood memories and find out one of them never went to school. He was homeschooled. So they fix him up to look like a student and send him to school to get the experience. It was good... but hard to understand since the sound quality is not so great. The movie is from the 1943 or so.

Thursday I went to Hall. That was a lot of fun. The Christkindlmarkt there is gorgeous. The city is an Advent calendar with numbers lit up on the buildings (colored for those that have passed, and white for those yet to come). I got to meet up with a friend in Innsbruck and see that market too, as well as Andrea's in Hall. And I got to taste her homemade glühwein and orange punsch. Yummy! Met up with two friends from school one night and we went to a cafe that night where 5 other people from the class came! So I got to see 7 of the 11! That was really neat. Several of them didn't recognizes me. (didn't you used to have glasses?) Obviously that was my key identification factor two years ago. The irony is that one of my classmates, Michael, didn't have a clue who I was, even though I was sitting next to Vera and Manu, my two best friends from the class. They had to tell him. He spent 5 hours a day with me the entire semester. When I was on the bus coming back from Innsbruck, I got approached by a girl who asked if my name was Kelsey. Turns out she was from the parallel class I was in. (same grade, different class... if you remember, each "class" is a group of 15-20 students who are together in their lessons for all 8 years.) I was in 6B, she had been in 6A. She recognized me even though she saw me completely out of place (why would she expect me to be sitting on a bus coming from Innsbruck. She had no idea I would be anywhere but the US right now) and we'd probably seen each other once a week for an hour in gym class, since that was mixed. I was really impressed with her though.

Back in Munich now. Monday was my last day of class. Today was my last day of Christmas shopping. My bag is packed. My plane leaves in 7 hours. I leave in 4. Hoping the journey is no longer than it's already scheduled to be and that I'm safe at home in St. Louis 24 hours from now.

I'll be back in Munich the morning of January 6th. Write more then!

Pictures:
Hall- the city as an Advent calendar
Innsbruck- The Golden Roof and the Christkindlmarkt
Andrea and Lisa in their Christkindlmarkt booth
Munich- the main Christkindlmarkt
Christkindlmarkt and the Rathaus at night
The subway ticket machines... this one's there for mom and grandmother. After all the trouble they had trying to figure out tickets, they replaced all the machines several days after they left... as you can see, the machines now give a very detailed explanation in both German and English of exactly which ticket does what and which ticket you should buy in which situation and which ticket will get you where.

It snowed in Munich!!! and it's gorgeous!!!

It started snowing last night. Well, afternoon, really... I went to Marienplatz to go Christmas shopping at the Christkindlmarkt and it was 4:50 when I got there but of course it was already completely dark. But it was snowing! And it was soooo pretty! And then I woke up this morning and it was still snowing and everything was pretty white! I'd say we got 3 inches or so and it's still flurrying so maybe more will accumulate.

Anyway, if there are any specific requests for gifts from Germany, you should make them now. It's only the 12th of December, and I realize this, but I've pretty much got a plan laid out for the rest of the year and it's gonna start speeding up starting... tomorrow.

Here's a little idea for you.
Saturday (13th): Salzburg Christkindlmarkt with Nick and Nicole!
Sunday (14th): Day to learn! And possibly visit a museum if I get enough learning done.
Monday (15th): Normal classes followed by Christmas Party for the Cafe workers
Tuesday (16th): Presentation in my Religion Sociology class, followed by German class followed by either meeting with a student from the TU who wants to go to the US next year or going to a "typical Christmas movie" (apparently the equivalent of "It's a Wonderful Life"... as in everyone's already seen it 100 times and watches it every year anyway)
Wednesday (17th): Normal long Wednesday followed by two hours (8:30-10:30) of free dancing "practice" instead of a lesson
Thursday (18th): Catching the 9:30 train to Innsbruck to be there at 11:30
Friday (19th): Hall! Hopefully meeting up with friends from school
Saturday (20th): Hall!
Sunday (21st): Hall! And back
Monday (22nd): Normal full day of classes
Tuesday (23rd): Both classes have sense been canceled on me, so an entire day to do last minute shopping and to paaaaack
Wednesday (24th): Waking up at 3:30 (thanks for booking this one, mom... we really didn't think this out too well), to catch the first subway of the morning (they stop running at 2) at 4:17 to make it to the airport at 5:17 for a 7 am flight through Frankfort and Chicago and eventually getting to St. Louis (hopefully) some time that evening.
And then obviously, two weeks at home! :)

120 Euros later... 120 plates of Thanksgiving DInner

So, we did it!
Friday, Nicole and I met at 12 and spent the next 3 and a half hours shopping. We visited a total of around 10 stores and ended up spending 119 Euros of our 120 Euro budget. My mother taught me well. Of course, we ended up carrying everything we bought all around Munich too. Thus I had 3 turkeys in my backpack for most of the afternoon. Here's the full list:
4 turkeys
4 pumpkins
4 cans of evaporated milk
1 bag of sugar
2 bags of flour
10 "cubes" of butter (the equivalent of 20 sticks we found out later... don't ever mistakenly think Thanksgiving is healthy...)
6 boxes of potatoes
4 liters of milk
5 baguettes
4 jars of cranberries
2 cans of whipped cream
1 can of raisins
2 bags of walnuts
1 bag of green apples
1 bag of onions
2 clusters of celery
1 packet of chicken bouillon
6 packets of gravy powder
120 paper plates
120 plastic forks

Then we dropped it all off at Nicole's place and I went up to school to meet with Erika, Dr. Conrad and Jack. Jack was a student here last year from U of IL, and has been working on my behalf at Dr. Conrad's request to try to smooth things out for me. Well, he was in Munich for a conference, we we had a "group meeting" where I got some good news about classes and credits. They're willing to "bend the rules" for me on this side if it will give me credit on the other side. The question will be how naive UIUC is about it...

The other fun part is, I get to decide which grades I want to send back... that means, after the final, I have to go pick up my "Schein" (certificate?) that has the class and my grade on it, basically, the proof that I took the class. Well, there's no official transcript until Dr. Conrad puts it together. That means, I can give Dr. Conrad only the "Schein"s that I want to get credit for. So if I end up with a pretty bad grade in, way, Linear Algebra, I just don't pass that one along. :)

Saturday was St. Nicholas' Day. There was a little festival in the "village" I live in. They had music and free gifts for kids and were giving away cups of Glühwein (at 10 am...) and forms of lebkuchen. I spent most of Saturday studying.

Sunday I met Nicole at 10 am and the day began.
Pumpkin pie completely from scratch means washing, slicing, baking, scooping and mashing pumpkin into puree before making the filling. We started with that and the pie crust. Pie crust was especially fun because we were a little short on kitchen materials... as in, no whisk or masher for mashing the butter into the flour for the crust. Fingers, luckily, work just as well. The recipe had called for one pumpkin per pie. We'd been planning on 4 pies, and thus had 4 pumpkins. By the time the 4th pie was finished, however, we were only halfway through the pie mixture... but luckily had plenty of butter and flour so we ended up making 8 pies and enjoyed one for ourselves at the end.

Turkey... so we had four semi-frozen turkeys sitting in the sink and I was in charge of removing the "bags" from inside. Right... how the heck do you get inside a turkey? After a good 20 minutes of fumbling around with the poor bird, Amelia finally came over to help me. She was equally confused. Eventually we figured out... we were reaching around in the wrong end. Ah... we found and removed the bags and wondered why the heck people would bother to put that stuff back in after they took it out in the first place. How about attaching it on the outside? We prepared the oven to bake. Luckily we were able to borrow an oven in the building next door, so we could have all four turkeys going at once. Nicole and I stuffed them with "fake stuffing" (just onions, celery and carrots), the idea being that they still soaked up the flavor of stuffing, but didn't take as long. Problem number 2 with limited materials. We had no string. The whole "where the heck are the bags?" had resulted in a little bit of abuse to the poor turkeys so if we wanted the turkeys legs to stay together such that the stuffing did not spill out everywhere, it was indeed necessary to tie the legs together. Well, turns out cutting a string of fat from the turkey works very well as string. It holds and it ties.

We had stuffing going on the stove. We started cranberries as well. The turkeys finished. Nicole, who'd watched a 15 minute YouTube video on carving turkeys became the expert and carved with Ashley's help. The stuffing finished. The last pies were in the oven. The cranberries finished. The kitchen was a mess. It was 8 pm... so then we cleaned. And by 9 pm, 11 long hours after we'd started, we were finished. Nicole and I split up the food. I took half of it home in my backpack, side bag and a big plastic bag. On the subway I was informed by a middle-aged man that he thought I was running away from home. I explained that I was not.

Monday, both of us dragged all the food to the church kitchen... and both were very glad when we finally got there. Hans was there to help. We started mashed potatoes and gravy on the stove (just add milk/water), cut the pies, warmed the meat and stuffing, thinned the cranberries to use as a glaze for the turkey. The British guys showed up as did Amelia and Ben (New Zealand), and then we loaded up 120 plates of food. We had the perfect amount. And we got a plate too! And it was good!!! It tasted like it was supposed to! All of it! We were extremely impressed (and a little shocked...) Cleanup of that kitchen afterwards was just as fun, but worth it based on the comments we got. One person mentioned that they had been expecting hotdogs from the Americans. Another said they'd always heard about "Thanksgiving dinner" and now knew what it was. Another informed us that the "pumpkin cake" had been very good. Another asked if we could please explain what the heck was in this (pointing to stuffing). And finally, the comment that it'd been the best meal yet. Which, for Nicole and I, made the combined 3.5 hours Friday, 11 hours Sunday and 2 hours Monday worth it. :)

No, I'm not doing that again, btw...

Pictures:
Me starting on the pumpkins
Nicole and Amelia at the stove
Nicole and I stuffing the turkeys
Nicole and I looking really surprised that the turkey actually looks like a cooked turkey!
The plates, ready to go out...

The weeks go by...

Sorry about the lag. As most of you probably know, it was a busy week. I had visitors!

So I'm not really sure where I left off. The week before last involved a lot of errands and trying to stay motivated to sit down and learn stuff. that's the biggest issue right now. then the trying to figure out classes part, but I'll get to that.

On Saturday... my mom and grandmother came to visit! And it snowed! They weren't too pleased about the second part. Saturday we toured Olympia Park and they suffered from jet lag. Sunday we hit museums (some of the art museums are 1 Euro on Sunday), so we went to the Alte and Neue Pinakotheken (Old and New art museums... so like 1300-1600 and then 1600-1900? something like that).

Monday was my birthday! After my class, we toured the Alt Stadt (old city... main cites), I went to class again, and then got a birthday dinner complete with cake, a candle and presents! Tuesday we did the other half of the city tour. Wednesday was my long day they they kept themselves busy. Thursday my morning class was canceled (teacher was sick... subs don't exist in Germany) so we went to Schloss Nymphenburg (the Nymphenburg palace)and then I went to my other class. Friday we went to Oberammergau. It's famous for hosting the Passion Play once every ten years (next showing: 2010...) and for it's painted houses. See pictures. They are pretty neat. Friday was also the day Kristkindlmarkt opened in Munich! Kristkindlmarkt is the open Christmas market. It's really, really pretty. The square has a lit Christmas tree. Little wooden booths are everywhere selling ornaments, candy, chocolates, glühwein (heated, spiced wine... mulled wine in English, if that means anything to you), toys, carvings, lots of food... etc.

Saturday we went to Nuremberg. Nuremberg is home to the biggest Kristkindlmarkt (and most famous) in Germany. The train was packed. We toured the city, stopping back to the market everytime we needed something warm to eat. Fresh lebkuchen (like gingerbread), glühwein, chocolate covered fruit on a stick, roasted nuts, are the big sellers. Then one more walk around Munich's Kristkindlmarkt when we got back.

And Sunday I sent them off to the airport... and started working on my German presentation!

The presentation on a topic of my choice (which the teacher chose for me because it interested her) was on the relationship between Germany and America... she wanted me to focus on Obama. For my "three main points" I chose Bush, Angela Merkel (Germany's leader if you don't know) and Obama. And put together a powerpoint on it. The interesting this is that this is my grade for the class. This one presentation in the middle of the semester. After this I just have to keep doing homework and showing up to class. Well, after a week of speaking straight English I was a little worried about my ability to conduct a 20 minute presentation while being graded on my speaking ability in German... but apparently I did great, because she was really impressed and gave me a 1,6! (the German grading scale ranges in decimals from 1-6 with 6 being failing... 1,6 is really good. It's a solid A). This is great news! One less thing to worry about!

After the presentation, I went to the student run movie again... they were showing Arsenic and Old Lace! In German! It was great! I managed to catch about 75% of this one. They talk pretty fast at times! Especially Mortimer. The jokes all got translated really well though. I was impressed. The Germans were rolling on the floor laughing which was also really funny.

For the rest of the week: Tomorrow is apparently a university holiday. Or so I found out today. Doensn't matter all that much for me. I have two classes on Thursdays. One meets every other week and this is the off week. The other is at LMU, the other University... which does not have a holiday. Way to waste a day off...

Tomorrow night I'm working at the cafe again. They have stand-up comedians coming in so it should be a really busy night! And entertaining too, which is cool.
Friday I'm meeting with the study abroad adviser here to work on classes again... I think I'm getting somewhere... every so slowly. Hopefully I'll finally have it all figured out by the end of the semester. Just in time to start over again!
Either Saturday or Sunday I'm hoping to go to Salzburg to see the Kristkindlmarkt there. We'll see though... that might get pushed to next weekend because Monday is going to be a big day. We're cooking dinner for 120 people... Thanksgiving dinner nonetheless.

Every other week on Monday there's a "stammtisch", a get together for the international students. Each week a different nationality gets a budge of 120 Euro (it's one euro per person basically) to cook for the 120 people. We got assigned around Thanksgiving so figured we'd go for that since that's about as typical American as you can get... since you can't find the ingredients anywhere in Germany. Luckily in the meantime we've made some progress. And recruited some help. Nicole and I were originally recruited. We've pulled in another one (possibly two) Americans, a Canadian, a New Zealander and a couple of English guys. Canadians have Thanksgiving too, and well, we were English once. The New Zealand girl just happens to know how to cook...

So my Friday and Saturday are possibly going to be spent buying frozen turkey, pumpkin, cranberries, and stuffing (the mashed potatoes will be the only easy one...) and my Sunday will probably be spent cooking. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Now for the pictures: as I have no idea what order they get posted in, use your imagination please!
me and the life-sized nutcracker
mom, grandmother and the life-sized teddy bear
a blue painted building in Oberammergau (it's a very religious city... see the bit about the Passion Play)
the Cinderella house! (look for evil stepsisters and a shoe)
the Four Musicians house! (look for the four animals... that one's easy)
the Little Red Riding Hood house! (look for a wolf?)
the Hansel and Gretel house! (um... the scene where they push the witch into the oven is on there)
the Pontius Pilate house! (they're at the top of a staircase and Jesus is being sent down it)

Hope you figure them out! More next week... after the cooking experience!