First Day Back and The Rest of January (7th-31st)

January 7th-11th

    It was a fun winter break, but now I have to go back to school. I am used to starting a new semester in January, but here, it is just a continuation of the previous semester. It's kind of odd, but I guess I won't have worry about new classes for a while.

The silver lining is that I got a ton of candy over Christmas break that will tide me over until at least March. It truly was Halloween in December:

On Friday, the 11th, I went to the Folkwang Museum in Essen with Carl's mom, Desi, and Anni. We had talked about the museum over Christmas break and she had already been to the Expressionist exhibit and said it was really worth a trip to see. I am glad we went, as it was one of the last weekends that the exhibit was open. We had to wait in line for a while before we got in, as everyone else seemed to have gotten the memo about the exhibit leaving soon. Once we got in, we got the audio guide and made our way through the museum  It was a really great collection, with a lot of Picassos, Van Goghs, Monets, and the like. Unfortunately, you couldn't take pictures in there, so I had to commit all my favorite ones to memory. My favorite was a sunrise portrait by Edvard Munch, but I couldn't find a print of it anywhere in the giftshop. It would have been a really pretty desktop background.

14th-19th

   This week, I think everyone has caught the same cold. Mike, Chris, Brittney, and a lot of other people are all sniffling. I am trying to drink a lot of orange juice to ward it off, but I don't know if I will inevitably catch it. It also doesn't help that it has snowed once again. It's not really a novelty anymore for me. It's more like a hazard for me to slip on the way to school. But I did make a mini-snowman from the stuff outside my window, and got a really pretty picture of it underneath the moonlight.

On Friday, Chris and I cooked an "American" breakfast for his double, Laura. It involved French toast... so I guess that's a misnomer but it was good all the same. We had syrup and powdered sugar to go on it and also had eggs, bacon, and fruit salad. Laura is from Nürnberg and told us about the city and what she did for Christmas. I'd really like to try and visit it someday, the way she talked about it seemed like it's a fun town.

Saturday, Laura and I (not Nürnberg Laura, Prague Laura) went to see the ballet Swan Lake. Beforehand, we went to eat at Vapianos, the same Italian restaurant that Anni and I tried in Iserlohn. I got the carbonara this time and it was delicious. We made our way to the Opera house and were hoping to get last minute tickets, as they were all sold out online. We happened to get one front row ticket and one in the 12th row. Obviously, we didn't get to sit together, but Laura told me it was okay if I sat up front since I'd never seen it. It really was a great performance and since I was so close,  I could actually see all the muscles in the ballerinas' legs. I never realized how ripped they are. It was intense. Afterward, we went out for a few drinks and then went home. I had to walk through the field to get home, but I forgot that it was covered in snow. I was wearing silver dangly earrings for the theater and I thought that they were going to freeze into my ears since it was so cold. It was really windy as well, so by the time I got home, I had tears pouring down my face and frozen earlobes. Not a fun time, but all worth it for some top notch ballet.

20th-27th

  This week, we had a goodbye party for Gery. He has to go back to Hungary to finish his Master's thesis and leaves in a few days. Chris, Brittney, Mike and I all pitched in for some beers and we watched one of his favorite movies, The Expendables 2. It was a really fun night, but also kind of sad since he's leaving. He told us to come visit Budapest before we go back to the states. We will have to try and plan a trip.

On Friday, I had my internship as usual and also got to meet Hans Breder. It was really exciting, as I've been working in the Hans Breder Archiv for the past 4 months. He was very gracious and answered all of my questions about his work and the archive. I can't wait for the exhibit opening next week, it's really been a fun and exciting experience to see what goes on behind the scenes. Later, I had a girls night with Britney. We painted our nails and watched a few cheesy Gerard Butler romantic comedies. She also has an appreciation for his accent.

28th-31st

On Tuesday, Mike and I went to go see Django Unchained in Bochum. They were showing it in English and it was super-Kino Tuesday as well, so tickets were half price. I though the movie was great, especially Leonardo Dicaprio's Calvin Candie.

Also this week, we had the exhibit opening that everyone has been working on for the past few months. It is called "Kollisions Felder" (collision fields) and features the artwork of the aforementioned Hans Breder. I was really excited to go to the opening, I even had a special invitation to get in! There were a lot of speeches beforehand (all in German of course). I caught the gist of what was going on, but was happy when they released us into the exhibit. Afterward, my boss invited me to get drinks with our colleagues, Hans, and some members of the press. It felt nice to be included, and I had a really nice time with everyone. I got to sit next to Katja, one of the girls I work with and she made me laugh so hard I nearly spilled my beer everywhere. The reason was that she refused to believe I am Southern. We somehow got on the topic of Gone With the Wind and she talked about how much she loved it and went to the museum in Atlanta. I told her I always wanted to go since it's so close and her eyes got all big and she said "But you're not from the South." She just kept shaking her head and saying she didn't believe me because I didn't have an accent. I then put on the countriest back-woods Swamp People accent I could manage. We laughed for a long time after that, and the rest of dinner, she would keep asking me to say words in the accent. I was happy to oblige because I remembered Carl and Anni enjoying it as well. Whatever I can do to make my fans happy haha. That's it for this month, Schüss!!

German Word of the Post:Die Ballettänzerin- "Ballerina" When I was little, I wanted to be a Ballettänzerin, but my calves weren't strong enough. 

Seventh Day In Dortmund

Seventh Day in Dortmund (Friday, Sept. 7th)

Second day of class today!!! It was in a different room from the first day (just to keep things complicated) but I found the new room easily enough. Today we covered new verbs and how to say countries and nationalities. I think my favorite was Chinesisch  (Chinese) you say it key-nay-zissh. Very odd, I had to say it a couple of times to get it down. We didn’t have class for the usual three hours either! Our teacher stopped at 11 and said “we have an announcement for all the classes, meet downstairs in 10 minutes.” Very mysterious. While waiting for them to begin, I got to know a girl in my class, Aida. She was from Barcelona and we raved about Vampire Diaries together. She is also signing up for some of the same classes as me, so I’ll know at least one person!

Once everyone had crammed into one room, they announced we would be having an international breakfast next Friday. Anything involving food immediately got my vote. Students from each country were supposed to group up and agree upon foods to bring that best represented a normal breakfast for them. It turns out there are actually 8 Americans in the program, so we split into groups of 4. The group that I’m in has Christopher, Sarah, and Brittney. We are all from the South and decided on biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, and maybe scrambled eggs. We wanted to do grits, but decided that anyone who didn’t grow up eating them would probably not like them. And, we had no idea where/if they are sold in Germany.  I am already excited about next week, I love trying new foods and cuisines and there are a lot of countries participating, from Belgium to Turkey. We also have to give a five minute presentation about our country, and since there are two groups of Americans, we decided to each focus on a section of the U.S. We went with the South and the other group is doing the West. It should be a fun time!

After that, we were free for lunch. We trekked over to the Menza and ate in the cafeteria. It was my first time in there and it was somewhat overwhelming. It was a lot bigger than Columbia College’s cafeteria, and there were a lot more choices as well. I had no idea what descriptions of the food said, so I looked for familiar stuff. I ended up with Watermelon and some sort of potato dish. It was actually very good. Maybe sometime I’ll get the courage to go through the pizza line and order in German.

When we got done, we assembled back in the classroom for an academic advising meeting. Dr. Gruenzweig was there and talked about their expectations, course hour conversions, and gave us a course catalog to peruse. I met my adviser, Jessica, who was very helpful, and we set up a meeting for Monday to pick classes. I have a lot to choose from, but with my job and internship I will have to try and restrain myself if I want to have any life at all.

When the meeting was over, I went to the library to check emails and read up on the news. With no Internet, TV, or English newspaper, I was really out of touch with everything going on.

I walked back to my dorm and prepared for a nerdy Friday night.  I had to be up for a class trip at 8 the next morning, so I didn’t really have any plans. I was studying my notes from class and reading a book. You know, your typical wild Friday night. Then, I heard a banging on the door. My roommate was still out of town, so I wasn’t sure what to think. I looked out the peephole and 3 people were standing there, two boys and a girl. I cracked the door, and one of the boys said something excitedly in German that had Damla’s name in it. I just said “Englisch?” It turns out they were having a Mario Kart Party and needed a fourth person. They were friends with Damla and wanted to invite her over. When I explained that she wasn’t there, they invited me to come play.  They were really persistent too. I figured, what the heck, I’m not doing anything, and I love Mario Kart. It was a really fun time. I never really got their names since they were intent on the game, but I actually won a few rounds and had a great time. 

German Word of the Day: Frühstück- it means "breakfast." I enjoy eating all sorts of food for Frühstück.