Sexism and Other Atrocities

Like the Wisconsinites
     April in Germany has brought cold weather and truncated days to our tourism (yes we're still going) in Dresden. Which has left plenty of time for us to burn in our hotel room. It's just me Joern and Lars and we can pretty much do whatever we want because we're on a different floor. Our first day here at Holiday Inn, we were being a bit loud and Joern's dad called to tell us that someone called the front desk and complained about us being too loud. We found out later that it was just a joke, but I was extremely annoyed at the time. I wasn't annoyed because we got in trouble either, but because I thought that someone had called the desk instead of confronting us at our door. I know it's dumb to expect everyone to be like me and confront thier problems head on, but I found it unnerving that some (presumably) German people complained about us when they could have cut out a middle man and just asked us nicely to quiet down. It was just a joke, but Joern told me that similar behavior can be very typical of German people. I found this tidbit funny because being passive-aggressive and not telling people your problems is very Midwest and (in my opinion) is very unhealthy.

Sexism in Germany
     Also being cooped up in our hotel room has given us plenty of time to watch some authentic (as well as dubbed American) TV shows. I find some of the German ones particularly interesting because of their attitudes towards the roles of men and women in society.

     As many people know, I like to joke around and poke fun at miniscule details and things that probably aren't even sexist for fun when watching TV and what else. But when it comes down to it, I am a total die-hard Gender Equality Advocate (I find the term 'Feminist' sexist) and I really do believe that women and men should be treated as complete equals. Different, sure, but 100% equal.

     Anyways, watching German TV has surprised me in the fact that it is not nearly as careful around the topic of gender as American TV is. One would think that, being a European country, Germany would be far ahead of the US in terms of gender equality, but it turns out to be quite the contrary (in my opinion). For example, we were watching this one show (don't ask why) called Frauentausch (or Wife-swap). In the US, one would (at least I would) assume that a show with a name like Wife-swap, yes, sounds sexist, but probably depicts the wives as being independant and send an empowering message to women in the end. But in Germany, apparently one can't expect television to be so progressive. In Germany, a show called Wife-swap is exactly what it sounds like: stay-at-home moms (housewives, so the Germans say [Hausfrauen], how I hate that term) being ridiculed for thier bad cooking and spending thier days cleaning, only to have a family that could care less about how hard they work. Yes, this show really got me ranting so we ended up turning it off, but I found it abhorrent that something so sexist is even allowed on TV.

     I have yet to figure out if the German media is to blame for this problem, but I've been doing some reading and I've started to find out that the problem runs much deeper. From what I've found out, the problem lies with the attitude that women and men take towards themselves. For example (I've noticed this at home), Inga loves to watch midieval-themed kids soap opera shows that usually end up with some girl becoming the princess, falling in love some rich guy and having all her problems solved (I prefer Moana because who needs a man?). Rather than these shows being empowering, they have quite the opposite effect and teach kids that men do the dirty work while women sit pretty and have the babies.

     I could go on and on, but my point is that watching German TV has opened my eyes to how far the US has come in terms of empowering children to be themselves and to grow up to be their own individual rather than someone's lesser or greater half.

Other Atrocites
     Whew. The deep topics aside, I have also been noticing (as well as participating in) some quite peculiar oddities that the typical American would be naturally repelled by.

#1: French Fries with Forks

     I find this absolutely horrible as well, I mean it makes no sense at all, like weren't french fries made to be eaten with your fingers? Nonetheless I have been (at least trying to) do it as much as I can because I am a firm believer that I am here to abosrb the culture rather than bring mine here.

#2: Pizza with Forks

     This one makes a bit more sense because Italian pizza is super-thin and doesn't slice well, but it is; however, acceptable for children (I will forever be a child) to slice pizza and eat it by hand.

#3: Paying to use the bathroom

     Let me just say that peeing is a right, not a privelage.

#4: Paying for water

     Something everyone should know as well as not getting refills.

#5: Tatort

     To an American, Tatort is the biggest atrocity of all. Let's just say that Tatort is basically Germany's attempt at a cop show. A cop show without good detectives, cool cop cars, believable bad guys and worst of all, without guns.

Still Going    
     It's been a long two-week vacation and I'm pretty sure everyone is ready to go back to Esslingen for some good quality non-family time. Today we went to the opera here in Dresden, which was more educational than interesting because it had real-time subtitles in German and English. They were conveniently side by side, so I could read both while trying to figure out what the heck was going on in the actual show. After 3.5 hours of solid concentration, my head exploded and we went to dinner where I got a not-only-bigger-than-your-head-but-bigger-than-everyones-at-the-table-combined sardine and caper pizza. It was very salty.

     After dinner we came back to the hotel and watched Germany's Next Top Model (Lar's pick, don't ask why). I started getting frustrated because of it's shallowness (hence, the topic for this post) so I decided to put in some headphones and write.

     Tomorrow we leave the former communist East Germany for Bavaria. Namely for a day trip to Nueremberg and then back home to Esslingen in Baden-Wuertenburg. Like I said it's been a long two weeks, but I'm totally ready to hard core tourist whatever Nueremberg has to offer.

Today is 20.4.2017

Nat

Rain and "Brothels"

Trip to Muenster

     After gorging ourselves for the last time on the breakfast buffet at Holiday Inn Express Essen, we hit the road north for Hamburg. But, of course, since no one wants to drive for a solid four hours, we decided to make a quick jaunt to the town of Joern's dad's alma mater, the Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet in Muenster. 

     My first impression of this college town was all of the bikes. Even for Europe, the amount of bikes and dedicated bike lanes was quite overwhelming. To go along with the pedestrian-oriented theme, there is also a promenade around the Innenstadt (old/inner city) reserved for pedestrians and bicycles. I really liked it because it felt like a big wrap-around park. 

the pedestrian way and bicycle way side by side (naturally the bikes get the bigger path)

After visiting Joern's dad's old apartment and going to the "beste Baeckerei Muensters", we made our way into the Innenstadt. The Innenstadt is famous for it's Arkaden over the walkways to shelter the entrances to the elegant boutiques

 For lack of a better word, I guess you could call the Arkaden awnings, but I wasn't quite sure. 

     After gawking at expensive clothes and things that hopefully I will one day be able to buy and going into yet another slew of churches, we piled into the Multivan and finished our trek to Hamburg. 

     For dinner I had Hamburger Labskaus mit Rollmops

A red beet, ground beef and potato patty with an egg on top (Labskaus) and herring rolled pickles (Rollmops)

with a house-brewed pilsner, of course. 

Rain, Rain, Go Away

     We woke the next day to a windy, rainy, cold day in Hamburg. Typical, so I'm told. After riding the bus past the countless brick buildings so common in northern Germany, we arrived at our first stop.

Like most of our tourism, this was yet another snap-and-go destination. It is a brick building (naturally) built in the shape of a ship to commemorate Hamburg's history, and present status as a major port city. 

     From there we walked to the old harbor district that is now home of a bunch of museums and other popular tourist destinations that aren't important. Then we crossed the Elbe on one of the 2,500 of the city's bridges to make our way to the Elbphilharmonie, a new famous theater that cost a whopping 789 million euros to build

A picture from the boat ride we took

     From there we took refuge from the Scheiss Wetter on a boat ride that took us up the Elbe and then back down (about an hour). It was very interesting to see the contrast between the city-side of the Elbe with all of the fancy buildings to the other side, with all of the cranes and modern port-related things. After the boat ride and a bit more walking, we took refuge yet again in yet another church, but this time the church was a different style, which I found refreshing. Instead of it being the typical medieval style of church (like the Koelner Dom), this church was more renaissance themed and felt a bit like the architecture of Washington D.C. 

     After seeing the Hauptkirche St. Michaelis, we took the U-bahn (subway) the the city's main shopping district. There, we checked out the cool apple store with it's badass glass staircase and mediocre product (my and Joern's opinion). But, nonetheless, I got to touch a red iPhone 7 which made me feel pretty cool. 

     When we were finished gawking (once again) at things that we will one day buy, we gave up our fight against the weather and headed back to the hotel. Just when everything was almost dry, we headed out to find something to eat for dinner. I wasn't in the mood to try anything too outrageous so I ended up getting Haenchenbrust Schnitzel over some kind of pasta that smelled like snot, but tasted good

with a beer, of course. I got an Alsterwasser which is a 50/50 mix of lemonade and pilsner (I think)  that is called Radler everywhere else in Germany except Hamburg, so I guess it's kind of special, but only because it has a different name. 

Day Two

     On our second day, I woke to discover that the sky had not permanently become grey, but is still the blue that I once remembered it. It was very refreshing, but there still was the occasional shower that would blow through during the day, so there really was no escape from the rain. 

     The weather aside, we decided to make a tour of the city's main sights that we had missed the day before. We started out taking the train out of the city a ways, up the Elbe and to an old "poor" fisherman's village. I say poor because it once was poor, but no more. There, we got to see an original reed-roofed house 

 and a cluster of charming "poor peoples'" homes on a hill

from there we walked back towards Hamburg along the Elbe for a few kilometers. I found some cool broken red brick pieces to keep as a cool souvenir and I got to touch the Elbe

I was very disappointed that I didn't get to touch the Rhein when we were in Duesseldorf and Koeln, but I'm pretty sure it could matter less XD.  Anyways, after our walk along the Elbe and seeing the Airbus factory on the other side, we took a bus back into the city where we walked through the old tunnel that leads to the other side of the Elbe. But not only is this tunnel for pedestrians and tourism, cars can also pass through for a mere two euros which was a little bit annoying at times.

I  also found it really cool (everyone else thought I was crazy) that the place where you have to take the elevator down, felt exactly like the pit-prison from The Dark Knight Rises

it was kind of hard to get into one picture, but it felt pretty cool to climb out of the pit (or at least a similar one) that Batman did. From there we got Fischbroetchen because we were dying of hunger

It's pretty much what it looks like, fish on a bun. I think mine was herring. From there we walked to the shopping district again where we saw the town hall and other cool-looking government buildings and also saw a few different shops that we didn't the day before. While walking we saw more things that I will one day have such as watches that cost 315.900 euros

From there we took the subway to Hafencity which is this really cool district completely built on artificial land into the Elbe. They're still building many of the buildings, but much of it is also complete. For example, there are many apartments that are built and available around the Elbphilharmonie, but as you go farther east, the buildings become newer and newer and you see more and more construction. We came out of one of the new subway stations to find ourselves in the middle of all of this construction. It was very interesting to find such a big and fancy subway station and so few people, but I guess they built it to be prepared for the future. 

"Brothels" 

    From the very fancy and soon-to-be upscale district of Hafencity, we walked (just a short ways) to the district of St. Pauli which contains Hamburg's renowned red light district. And inside of the red light district, one can find the Herberstrasse which is famous for it's many whorehouses (or Brothel, so I'm told the politically correct word is) And no, we didn't go in because there was a gate and a  sign that very clearly stated that to enter you must be 1) at least 18 and 2) a male (which I found very sexist), but just from walking around the rest of the red light district, we got the idea of what the renowned Herberstrasse contained. 

     Hamburg is a city of contrast when it comes to it's many districts. Just next to the graffitied streets of the red light district, right across the street in fact, one could see the very nice and well kept streets of the Bavarian Quarter with all of it's nice buildings and expensive hotels. I found it fascinating to find such contrast so close. 

     From our little jaunt in the not so family friendly red light district, we headed back to our hotel (which was also in St. Pauli, mind you) to take a short break (Pause, so the German word is) before dinner. For dinner I got some kind of flat fish with bacon on top. But nevermind what I got because Joern got trout. And being a vegetarian (pescatarian, rather), he had to decapitate his own fish and sort out the bones himself

Which was hilarious. I; however, being the team player I am gladly took the head and removed the eyeballs for myself as a yummy treat. Joern's mom was totally grossed out I could tell, but didn't say anything. 

     The next day was black Friday (Good Friday, oops) and I tried the whole not eating meat thing for the day. We had breakfast in the hotel, packed our bags, and hit the road for Nieheim. 

Nieheim

     Yesterday we arrived in the tiny and lonely village of Nieheim to visit Joern's grandparents. I soon found out that Nieheim is the home of all of the cousins, aunts, uncles, and exes of those aunts and uncles as well as Oma and Opa Nieheim. It turns out that Joern's parents are the only ones on this side of the family to not be divorced. Anyhow, the whole family came over last night to go for a walk and ended up staying for dinner. Now I know who got who's nose. 

     Today Fastenzeit (Lent) is over and I can finally drink tea again. I hope I don't overdose. I started the day out with going to my first Aldi Nord (North) with Joern's dad to stock up on groceries to get us through the next few days

Aldi Nord is different than the Aldi Sued. Aldi Sued is what we have in America and Baden-Wuertenburg and, in most peoples' opinions, it is much better. After finally going into an Aldi Nord, I can finally say for myself that Aldi Sued is better. After unloading the groceries from the car, I took another trip into the city (one could call it) with Joern's grandpa to get beer in a Tante Emma Laden (Auntie Emma Shop). Not as common in Germany anymore, Tante Emma Laden are supposed to be tiny stores where you can buy everything. And, as with Aldi Nord, after seeing one for myself, I now know that you can buy everything in a Tante Emma Laden.

     After an in-car tour of the village with Joern's grandpa, we came home to have Mittagsbrot (light lunch) as we will have a big dinner tonight. Then, this afternoon I piled into the car with Joern's mom, aunt, Cousinen (girl-cousins), and Inga to go to a slightly larger village that has a Kino (Cinema) of it's own. While the cousins and Inga all watched Bibi & Tina, me and the ladies hit the streets to do some shopping.

     Now that we're all back home and Fastenzeit is over, the family cracked open a bottle of Sekt (German Champagne) to break the alcohol fast. Dinner is almost ready and I think we're going to be having venison. I'm told it's so good that even Joern and Lars eat it, so we'll have to see.

Today is 15 April 2017

Nat

Churches, Hustlers and Drunks

Drunks

     And no, we weren't the drunks. But back to the start. Our trip started out on Saturday morning with the Fischer Family plus exchange student packing the car and hitting the road. After a grueling four-hour-no-stop car ride, we finally arrived at our hotel in Essen where I got pee (yes, I peed before we left). In the hotel, I was sad to find soap dispensers rather than the one-time-use shampoos that I like to collect. Another reminder that I'm in Europe, but no matter. From the hotel we took the train to the Velkins-Stadion or rather, the place where the Schalke football team plays. With every train we transferred onto, it became clearer and clearer that we were nearing a football game. Whether it was the ocean of blue jerseys, or the pre-drinkers singing away, we could tell we were getting close. But before we could even see the stadium, our train stopped and we were informed that someone had to be escorted off the train by the police and that it could be awhile. So we walked. Along the way we got to witness the consequences of pre-game drinking in the form of the entire side of the street becoming a free-for-all urinal:

posting this probably isn't legal

After getting patted down for explosives, we found our seats and sang the pre-game songs, no national anthem. The ocean of blue (Schalke) cheered on the blue players and the speck of green in the corner (Wolfsburg) cheered on the green players. Every time we scored a goal we got to high-five the people around us, which was pretty cool. It was also really funny to hear and watch the crazy end of the stadium chant and sing and clap the whole game. Where their energy comes from, I have no idea. After inhaling what seemed like a lifetime supply of smoke from the people in front of us, we ended up winning 4:1 and escaping before having an asthma attack.

     As we trekked farther from the stadium, the crowds thinned and we got closer to dinner. We went to an oversized Italian restaurant that had oversized everything. And I mean everything, from oversized lamps, to pizzas bigger than the already giant plate, to what I ordered. It was relentless. I got an oversized calzone that I finished surprisingly (and regrettably) quickly:

     But now to the drunks. The train back to the hotel from dinner can be described only as a tourist's dream experience. It was crowded, it was exciting, and it was loud. Apparently the drunk people from the game were still finding their way back home an hour after the fact. The scariest part wasn't the jumping, the singing or even the yelling, but it was that one of them was hanging onto the emergency brake like it was a handle. But luckily, (and to me and Joern's disappointment) nothing of the sort happened. 

Churches 

     Our first full day in the Ruhrgebiet area started out with a ginormous breakfast buffet here at the Holiday Inn Express. It blew every hotel breakfast buffet that I've tried in America out of the water. From the fresh assortment of baked breads to the fancy coffee machine to everything else in between, we were stuffed and ready to go until dinner (besides the bananas we took shush don't tell). 

     After an hour train ride, we arrived in the southern-most Rhein-Ruhrgebiet city of Koeln (Cologne). As soon as we walked out of the Hauptbahnhof (Main station) we were greeted by the monster Koelner Dom (Cologne Cathedral). It is the fourth-tallest cathedral in the world, but much bigger than the Ulm Munster on the inside. In the Industrial revolution, the Rhein-Ruhr area had basically black air from all of the coal, hence the scary dark appearance of the cathedral:

The inside was GINORMOUS, let me just say and had tons of cool windows and what not else to see that one picture can not begin to capture so I'm not even going to bother. 

    From the Koelner Dom, we walked around the Alt Stadt (old city) which there isn't much left of  anymore (thank you Hitler), but nonetheless it was still interesting. We saw the big famous bridge in Cologne that everyone likes to do the lock wish thing on like in Paris and I tried a new flavor of ice cream. We also stumbled apon another church (big surprise) that reeked of smoke on the inside. I think it was pine smoke, but it was palm Sunday so I'm not quite sure what it was. The church was cool I guess and I have no idea what denomination it was, nor do I care. I did appreciate; however, that it was far less crowded than the Koener Dom and was much simpler. 

    After seeing Cologne, we hopped a train north to the next southern-most Rhein-Ruhrgebiet city of Duesseldorf. There we found a nice bench in a nice park and made a nice little snack break. It was nice. We walked down the famous shopping street until we came to the Alt Stadt where, of course, we went inside of a church that had cool paintings on the ceiling. We walked around the Alt Stadt some more and then hopped a train back to Essen to find some Essen (food). 

    For dinner we found a cool mexican restaurant that had a bunch of really cool cocktails (alcohol free ones as well), but I opted for a beer as I forgot to try the famous Alt Bier in Duesseldorf (oops). After dinner we walked into yet another church (Essener Dom) where a choir was practicing and it was very nice. This was probably my favorite church of the day because it was not too bland or gaudy, it was empty, and it was quiet. 

Hustlers 

     Nope. We weren't hustled; rather, we did the hustling. As I said before, the hotel has a wonderful buffet for breakfast, right? You know how it goes. In the end, the total haul was a couple ham sandwiches, a few bananas and some nasty gluten free cakes. 

     After riding what seemed like the worlds longest escalator (at the time) out of the subway, we arrived at the Zollverein coal museum place to find and even bigger escalator:

lame subway escalator

extreme coal plant museum escalator

     The Zollverein and Ruhr Museum are about the Ruhr's history as an industrial capital. But with the coal almost gone (with the last mine closing in 2018) we are left with a wonderful museum about the coal that once was. Don't get me wrong, it was interesting to learn that the Ruhr area has sunk a whole 20 meters because of all the coal that was dug out and that all of the hills that we saw from the top of the plant were made from dirt dug out of the coal mines, but it was still mind-numbingly boring. Like it's good to know that coal was important to this area and that's why a lot of the old buildings are black, but I don't care how it was cleaned, sorted and burned. Nonetheless, that was our morning.

     This afternoon we attempted to visit the villa of some rich guy that owned a big steel plant at some point in history. After riding the train a half hour to get there, we were bummed to find out that it was closed on Mondays. But we could have paid five euros per person to go in and walk around the park, which we didn't. We hopped back on the train and came out on the other side of Essen to see the houses that this rich-steel-guy built for his workers. they were pretty cool and, of course, grey from the pollution that once was. We got back to our station to find that the electric wires above the tram we took in had broke while we were there wandering about. We could have waited 25 minutes for a bus to come and pick us up, or we could have walked 20 minutes to the nearest subway connection. You can guess we chose the hard path. After 45 minutes of aimlessly following Scheiss google directions through forests, cemeteries and whatnot else, we finally arrived at the next train station. 

     We took the train back through Essen (yes, again) and came out the other side to a village called Kettwig. There, we found a place to eat for dinner and no sooner than we had arrived, found ourselves leaving. 

     It's been quite the day and tomorrow we leave the spaghetti-like Rhein-Ruhr area for the the hopefully much less frustrating Muenster and then Hamburg. 

Here's some fun pictures from the past two days XD

Today is 10.4.2017

Nat

Small Beds and Barbed Wire Fences: Trip to Dachau

Opinion
I definitely can say that I learned a lot from going to Dachau, but I can't say that I really feel changed in any way towards what happened in WWII. It's kind of like the way I feel about a lot of things that don't really apply to me such as:

Donald Trump

I don't really care what Donald Trump does and doesn't do because 1) I'm not 18 and can't vote yet, so I had no choice in the matter anyway and 2) I don't pay taxes (at least federal) so why should I care what happens with other people's money. It's kind of funny (but starting to get annoying) when people (usually other students) ask me the dumb, stereotypical question "So, do you like Donald Trump?" but I always have a lack of an answer because, quite honestly, the only thing I think about when I see him on the news is, "How the heck does he get his hair to do that?"

Capital Punishment

I will never commit a crime worthy of the the death sentence, so why should I have to have an opinion about it?

Climate Change
Bring it on I hate the cold.

as with WWII, I understand what happened, I understand that it was horrible, and I understand that millions and millions of human beings were murdered by the Nazis and millions more by the Soviets.
I've read plenty of books and I've watched plenty of movies, so I think that I have a pretty thorough understanding of what happened, but I've never found any of it significantly applicable. I guess this is because WWII ended over 70 years ago and there are so many other terrible, horrible things that  are happening in the world today that we can do something about. For example, did you know that over 50 million human babies have been murdered in the US alone since 1973? That's far more than 6 million Jews, and it's still happening! Or, (for those that define life as beginning after birth) 3 million children under the age of five die every year from mal-nutrition. In our world. Today. In 2017. And it goes on and on.

So yes, the disgusting mistreatment of specific minorities in WWII was horrible and the fact that six people were forced to stand in this tiny room

for days on end without sitting because it was too small, is completely unacceptable. But the way I see it is that, yes it happened, but there is so much more we can be doing to put an end to things like this that are still happening in our world today.

But of course, this is all my opinion and I do not expect others to think this way.

The Tour
     Regardless of how I feel, the war still happened and it is good to see history first-hand. We started out walking past the famous ARBEIT MACHT FREI sign which means "working makes freedom". I found it interesting that the real sign was stolen in 2014 and the one that is there now is a replica. From there we went into the museum where our tour guide did a lot of talking (in German) and I didn't understand much. Luckily the exhibits were written in German and English side by side so I could read about what she was talking about. From the museum we went to the punishment cells where political and other prisoners were detained. These weren't the standard living quarters for the majority of prisoners; however, they were only for the really "bad" ones.

     From the prison cells we went to the Krematorium. It was very powerful to be in the place, in fact the very same room, where many people were murdered out of pure hatred. It was also interesting to see the ovens (are they called ovens?) where the bodies were burned. I can only hope that the bodies that were burned were dead. I can't begin to imagine what it would feel like to burned alive.

    After the Krematorium we walked across the KZ (Konzentrationslager, Concentration camp)

to the rebuilt barracks (as the originals were torn down in the sixties) where we could see how small the beds were and how crappy (no pun intended) the bathrooms were.

can't imagine 

After that we watched a film about the KZ's and had the opportunity to walk around the museum. While I'm pretty sure that I was the only person to use the whole time to actually see and read the exhibits, I learned more than everyone else.

     After that we all boarded the double decker (forgot to snap a photo, someone take away my professional tourist card) and drove the two hours back to Esslingen. Overall, I learned a lot about the camp and got to actually be in one of the places where one of the biggest events in history took place.

Baking Update 
    Since the last time I made puff pastry (grease bricks, rather), I've felt the need to redeem myself as it didn't turn out so well:

greasy poop bricks at best

This time; however, I did a much better job and used real butter (my biggest mistake from my last attempt). They turned out herrlich (gorgeous) but they still had this deep-fried-like layer of crisp at the bottom from all the melted butter (if anyone has any tips about how to avoid this, they would be gladly received).

gonna open a bakery

Tomorrow
     Tomorrow we leave for our trip to Germany (an inside joke) at 7:30 which would be just after midnight back in the homeland. Joern's dad got us tickets to a Schalke (famous football club) match at 16:00 tomorrow in Essen, which is why we have to leave so dang early. I can't say that I'm crazy about football, but nevertheless I'm still really excited because this will be my first time ever going to a professional sports match (that I can remember) and I love big crowds.

Today is 7.4.2017

Good night,

Nat

In The Nuthouse

With The Crazies

     One of the advantages of not speaking German is that I get to have German class with fifth graders. Yup, three times a week you can find me in room 311 with the lovely 5b. In the 10 minutes or so before Herr Öchsler arrives (er ist nie puenktlich) you can find me 1) dodging paper wads and bottles being thrown across the room, 2) translating the chaos with my not-so-trusty phone, or 3) covering my ears to avoid going deaf before I turn 17. I wouldn't be surprised if someone gets seriously injured or killed during this time. However, the moment the "spotter", I guess you could say, spots Herr Öchsler coming from the doorway, the room goes silent and suddenly the only thing you hear is feet running to get to their seats. And all of a sudden the room is no more than a few civilized conversations and folded hands on desks.

    I can't say that I remember fifth grade being this way, but hey I also don't remember when anyone in my family's birthday is, so maybe fifth grade was this crazy for me. Anyhow, the moment Herr Öchsler walks in, all eyes are on him and everyone is ready to sing the little "Guten Morgen, Herr Öchsler" jingle that I have grown to absolutely despise because it requires standing all the way up and then sitting all the way down two seconds later, just to say good morning to the teacher. Despite all of the rituals that take place before class even starts, the content has actually been very beneficial to me. Like today; for example, I learned that even animals in Germany speak a different language. 

Beef cattle go "Bruelen"

Cows go "Muh"

Pigs go "Grunzen" (but also oink)

Dogs go "Bellen" 

Kitty cats (Katzen, not to be confused with Kater, a male cat) go "Miau"

Tomcats go "Schnurren"

Geese go "Schnattern"

and much more. In my opinion, the animals all say the same thing, it just gets interpreted differently. So really, dogs don't bellen or bark, they can make many different noises. 

     As you can see, I'm pretty much learning nothing in 5c anymore because I can understand most of what the teacher is saying. 5c isn't like being in Geschichte (history) or Biologie where every other word the teacher says is a word I don't know and one that I have to take the time to type out on my cracked screen and then proceed to search for a good translation because there are always at least 10 different ones. Those are the classes that I feel like I'm sprinting just to stay 10 steps behind in. But 5c German, cake. 

Other Miscellaneous School Stuff 

    Since Joern is gone during the days this week, I am on my own to stay afloat using my Scheiss Deutsch in order to avoid using English as much as possible. It's been going pretty good so far; in fact, today I even had a conversation with someone without stuttering over my Scheiss Deutsch and without needing to whip out my Scheiss-Handy Übersetzer (translator) to help me out. That's right, I'm basically a native speaker now. Haha. Actually far from it, but I am beginning to understand more and more each day as I type away on my Scheiss-Handy Übersetzer, it's just the speaking and actually forming sentences that's the hard part. 

Meat Update 

     Yesterday I tried Schinken-Suelze

even a tourist at the table

which is basically jelly-meat, vegetables and some special seasoning. It looks really gross but once you slap it on a piece of buttered bread, you almost forget that you're eating mutilated pig parts and ground up cow hooves. Now you're probably thinking that something like this could never be healthy, but it actually is with only 20 kcal per slice and 3 whole grams of protein. That's almost the same kcal to protein ratio as greek yoghurt! Who knew road-kill-wurst would be so healthy! Gotta love this place. Next up is Blutwurst, which I'm told tastes like a pile of pennies, super pumped.

Tomorrow
     It's getting late and tomorrow I have to get up early to go to Dachau with the lovely 9a/b conglomerate with whom I have spent the past two days with. I'm very excited to see what happened in WWII first hand. A lot of times things are never truly real to me until I see for myself so I'm hoping that this trip will bring forth something of the sort.

Today is 4.4.2017 (who cares which is the month or the day, it's 4.4!)

Nat

Haircut and Angel Poop

Der Haarschnitt 

     Quite honestly, getting a haircut was probably the scariest thing that I've done so far. Not only did Joern not care where I got it, how much it cost or what I looked like when I came out, but he also had no desire to help me out whatsoever. Not to say that I wouldn't have asked him not to help me with the speaking part, I would have done (and did do) it myself, but it wasn't particularly helpful that I had to walk into 20 different hair salons, ask what they charged, and then pretend that I only had 15 euros to spend when they charged too much, all because Joern was unwilling to do a simple google search. But, I guess that it was good German practice.

     I ended up finding a good place that didn't cost too much and sat down to wait. It was pretty scary when the lady that was going to cut my hair asked me what I wanted; but I was prepared, because I  knew what I wanted and how to say it. I actually ended up really liking the person that cut my hair because she could tell that I was a foreigner, of course, and that I was making an effort to speak German. As a result, she wasn't afraid to correct my Scheiss Deutsch (as I like to call it) and she did a pretty good job, yay. 

Trip to Ulm

     Today we went to Ulm which is a city of about 120,000 and lays about halfway between Stuttgart and Muenchen (Munich). The wonderful Beth Hejl (her blog is much better than mine XD) taught us exchange students in our crash course that every German city is the something-est and is the better than all the others at something. It turns out that Ulm is famous for having the tallest church steeple in the world

dang tree had to photobomb

and yes, we went to the top. The stairs to the top were extremely terrifying (second only to my haircut) because they spiraled for what seemed like forever without landings which, not only made us dizzy, but added with the height, made it feel like we were going to fall off. Not a good feeling. 

     After I bought my postcards, we left the Ulmer Muenster and wandered around the Fischerviertel (fisherperson's quarter) where I touched the Danau (Danube)

and waved to Bavaria (which is on the other side). From Ulm we drove back to Blaubeuren to pick Joern's bike up and to further inquire about purchasing an electrobike (I still want one, mom & dad). I tried Schnitzel (not Wiener Schnitzel, which is beef) and...

Angel Poop

    Yes, it sounds weird but it's really nothing too special. It's really called Schaeumle (Schwaebisch, Swabian) or Baiser (Franzoesisch, French) which is really just a fancy looking meringue (also French). But it did look cool,

and like angel poop.

Update

     Joern's birthday was on Wednesday and I forgot because I thought it was Thursday for some reason (typisch [typical] Nat). This week Joern will have his internship at Mercedes-Benz and I will be stuck in class with ninth graders, BUT I get to go to Dachau on Wednesday, so I win. 

     My phone is nearing death because on Friday the screen went green-line-flashy bezerk; however, I just banged it a few times on the table and it was fine. If my phone were an animal, I'm pretty sure I would be arrested for abuse, but somehow it's survived over two years of my torture and is still pumping. Hopefully it dies soon so I can get one that works in Europe. 

Today is 1.4.2017 

Nat