Twelfth Day in Dortmund

Sept. 12th, 2012

Today I had to get up extra early. Like 5:30 early. I know what dark thirty means now. I was stumbling around in the dark trying to put on my clothes and eat breakfast while still half awake. The reason for the early morning involves taxes. Selma wanted Mike, Chris, and I to be the first at the tax office (which opened at 7:30) to submit our forms for our job. Apparently some of our money will be taken out and put in a Retirement fund, but if we don’t come back to Germany for two years, we can get that money back. I will have to set a reminder for 2015 to text Germany and see where my money is.

I also had class today as usual. It was a shorter period, though, because we had a big meeting to go over our presentations for Friday. We showed our Powerpoint to one of the teachers, fixed some minor spelling errors, and went to lunch. I had packed a sandwich, so Britney and I went to the café instead. She introduced me to a Berliner (doughnut), which was heavenly. I wish I had not found out about this place, haha. They also had some delicious looking muffins and cheese croissants. We then met back at the U-Bahn station for another class trip. We went to a mining and rock museum. It was about as fun as it sounds. I did enjoy the replica mine they had created, complete with real machines that still work, and a creepy horror movie aura. I even had to duck under some of the crossbeams. But I felt really bad for Mike, who is about 6-2. He was just hunched over the whole time. The museum also had a replica of C-3P0 (not sure what this has to do with mining), and I nerded out over that. I had Bilge take my picture beside it.

When we were done with the tour, we went back to campus and Chris and I did a dry run of making hashbrowns for Friday’s breakfast. We learned that Simple Recipes.com is a liar, and though the ingredients may be simple, the tools are not. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a potato ricer or garlic press in my life, but that’s what the recipe called for.

Apparently, this is a potato ricer. Looks complicated to me. 

We made do the old fashioned way, by chopping up the potatoes ourselves and squeezing the liquid out of them with paper towels. We were both skeptical as to the results, but they were surprisingly good hashbrowns! Nice and crispy. We will make a bigger batch Friday morning for all to enjoy, and hopefully they will be as good as our first. I’ve been up since 5, I think this entry is long enough. Schüss!!

German word of the day: Glückauf- It was a way German miners said good luck to one another when starting a shift. "Glückauf, and don’t get crushed by that coal seam!"