Leipzig & Weihnachten

Hallo zusammen! I've been busy having adventures, but now I'm going to take the time to get you all up to date on my oh-so-glamorous European existence.

 On December 20th, I went to Leipzig to see their Weihnachtsmarkt and the Nikolaikirche. The signs telling you not to throw stuff out of the window had fallen down on the train...

open for everyone

 I was really excited to visit the Nikolaikirche because it was really important in the peaceful protest movement in East German in the 1980s. Most churches in Germany have mostly older people visiting, but this church had a lot of younger visitors.

The interior of the church.

A cool mural near the train station.

Kitty's train was delayed, so I ended up wandering around the train station for a bit before going to meet her. The train station was huge! It had an entire mall underneath. There was a KFC, a Starbucks, a Subway, a Burger King, a Pizza Hut, and McDonald's. It was like visiting America...in a train station. When we were waiting on our trains home, Kitty and I ate in the KFC, starting an international KFC tasting experience.

I found yet another Ferris wheel!

The state motto of Oklahoma! On a building in Germany!

 

The Christmas market had this thing called a Maerchenwald - a storybook forest - where they had creepy dolls recreating German fairy tales. It was pretty creepy and the Germans seemed annoyed that some 20-somethings were going through it. Then we went to the main part of the market and heard some people singing songs with little kids.

 The bathroom in the train station had weird toilets that you had to step on a pedal to flush.

Then on December 21st, I headed down to Holzkirchen for Christmas! It was a good experience. I made my host family fried chicken one night - I don't know if they like it that much, and I got to see the Munich Christkindlmarkt because in Bavaria, the Christ child comes to bring presents and decorate the tree instead of Santa.

I also got mistaken for a 14 year old twice while in Bavaria, which was funny. I also got to visit the Egyptian Museum in Munich as well as Tollwood.

Tollwood is at the same place as Oktoberfest, but it's more like a hippie festival than anything else. I really liked it.

On Christmas Eve, we went to the Krippenspiel at the local church - it was very interesting. They had adults act out the Nativity story in the town square because the church is too small to hold everyone at once.

After that we went back home and ate dinner, then we went into the living room where the Christmas tree was! They used real candles on their tree, which horrified me a bit because I grew up on The Babbs Switch Story, which is about a tree with candles that burns down a school and kills a lot of people. It was okay, though. I even got a few presents, and I gave my host family peanut butter balls as their gift.

An Abundance of Katherines, anyone?

 On Christmas Day I went back to Erfurt to get ready for my trip east. The Munich train station was beautiful and not all that busy - I had expected it to be much crazier!

I saw this while waiting on my tram home at the Erfurt train station.

Christmas not at home was odd, but I got to skype my family for a bit, which made it all okay! And I realized that the song Out Tonight from Rent described me and my travels "we won't be back before it's Christmas Day" (the other version works too because I got back from eastern Europe on New Year's Day!)

Last Week of School!

Exhibit A: Homemade Christmas cookies

It's the last week of school before Christmas break begins! As such, there has been an outpouring in the amount of baked goods that have come in contact with my face. Some of the teachers gave me baked goods, which were and are delicious! I also got to eat some leftovers from the 6th grade Christmas celebration last week.

In addition to the free goodies, the amount of bake sales at ASG is at an all-time high. The kids sell nice, homemade treats for a pittance because they have obviously never had to buy groceries for themselves. The food is always delicious! Today someone let a group of 6th or 7th grade girls (I don't know - I'm not in their class) into the teachers' room. They were so excited because students are almost NEVER allowed inside. I think I've bought stuff from student bake sales at least 3 times in the past two weeks. (Every class does bake sales individually - e.g. 1 sale per 25 kids in a school of ~700 kids.)

The sunrise as I was leaving for work.
I didn't have to work until 8:50.

Today I was reading over essays that a 10th grade class had written. Their prompt dictated that they all write about how Anna was dumped via text then met a new guy at a cafe. However, two students took it above and beyond and had me laughing while I read.

The first wrote the story about Anna as prompted then added a paragraph saying that ten years later, Anna and the guy she met that day got married and were expecting their first kid. The kid had magical powers that meant that he could kill people when he made eye contact with them, so he killed Anna & her husband accidentally. He's now at a special school for magical kids to learn to control his powers.

I broke a glass in the sink earlier this week
by dropping a bowl on it while washing dishes.
#glamour

The second added that Anna was so delightful that it made the guy forget all about his old boyfriend. They made plans to meet up later, but unfortunately Anna had fallen in love with him so he had to friendzone her because he's gay.

(Both those are paraphrased, but the kid who wrote the second one actually used the verb "friendzone." I don't know where the kids pick this stuff up...)

In my second lesson of the day, I just helped a bit with pronunciation. One of the Pratikanten was there...so he probably thinks that I'm getting paid to sit there and do nothing. The class listened to that Fox news story where the white lady said Santa and Jesus are white...so that's fun.

I saw a protest last week! They filled up the Strassenbahnhaltestelle area under the main train station, so my tram into town stopped a stop and a half away from there and we all had to get out and walk. They were chanting "Bildung braucht Zukunft" which means "education needs a future!" It's a cause I could get behind (I think they were mostly university students), but I promised not to do anything crazy & political in my contract.

I saw these weird escalators in a mall in Jena, although I've seen them in Erfurt as well. They're like ramp escalators...the point is that you can take a stroller on them. Strollers are a very big deal here.

Yesterday most of the English teachers at my school went to the Weihnachtsmarkt together. It was really fun! The teachers all hugged me when I left and it was weird because Germans aren't really all that huggy...

I think I'm going to try to visit Leipzig on Friday, then I'm heading to Holzkirchen on Saturday!!! I'm so excited to be visiting my old host family for Christmas. When I was there as an exchange student, my host mom told me about Christmas in Holzkirchen - I never imagined that I'd get to see it for myself one day!

Weimar & Jena

I realized last weekend that I hadn't left Erfurt in almost a month, so I went to Weimar to see what their Weihnachtsmarkt was like. It turns out their Weihnachtsmarkt is just like Erfurt's except smaller. I also went and looked around a really hipster flea market in the old Strassenbahn depot which is now a movie theater.

I saw a house covered with cool graffiti.

Weimar Weihnachtsmarkt

Simone (my BL) gave me a Nikolaus gift!

I bought a Raeuchermann in Weimar. He's pretty cool.

Today I went to Jena because I hadn't visited that city yet & it's only 30 minutes away! The trains there and back were both really crowded. I found a store in the mall there called Chelsea. It was filled with clothes I would never dream of wearing.

Jena's Weihnachtsmarkt has a Riesenrad!

Weihnachtsmaerkte are filled with wood knickknacks.

I saw this sign in the old Rathaus.

The theater is showing a play called "The system is poisoned."

Weihnachtszeit!

It's been a busy few days. I went to the teachers' Christmas party - which was held at a bowling alley. I know what you're thinking - smelly shoes and a plate of nachos. I know I was. But the restaurant at this bowling alley was...super swanky. It was the best spread of food I've eaten since orientation.

Then on Wednesday I went and watched a movie with two of the teachers from my school.

For some reason presents are coming out of the Rathaus (town hall).

Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I've climbed up to Petersberg about three times this week to look at the Weihnachtsmarkt from above.

On Friday, two other Fulbrighters came to visit Erfurt! I showed them around a little bit and we discovered the Backstube, which is my new favorite bakery.

Anger Eins is especially festlich.

The tiny Anger part of the Weihnachtsmarkt

This is the church I go to!

Kraemerbruecke is also pretty festlich.

Engelsburg - an area popular with students

The giant Weihnachtspyramide.

There were a ton of tourists in the Dom. One shushed me when Monika was trying to figure out where we were on her map.

St. Severi. The star lanterns are very popular here.

It's like I've never seen a Ferris wheel before...

Candy, candy, candy.

Der Totentanz! (It was a huge theme in Germany a few hundred years ago, although this is from the '40s.)

And one last picture with the lights on!

I made risotto today!

I added too much cheese by mistake, so it mostly just tasted like cheese, but it was still good!