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!

I'm a star!

Today was a really fun day at work! I had a group of 8th grade boys who needed to work on their reading during 2nd hour - one of them read "Thanksgiving" as "Tanksgiving" then asked me if that was some sort of "Panzerparade" (tank parade). All five of us in the room started laughing at that.

Then in the third hour (darn Germans. This is how they all talk about the classes and it's affecting my English.) two of my 11th grade classes were together in a video-capable room. They had all made really short videos about a vocab word, and we watched them all. They were really good - someone did stop motion with Lego pirates digging up treasure for "unearth" and another just played a clip from "Wrecking Ball" to illustrate "deface."

My two favorites were the ones for "hallucination" and "fictitious." "Fictitious" was ridiculous...I can't accurately describe it, but I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. (It involved the song "Blurred Lines.") "Hallucination" was obviously the best because yours truly had a cameo in it. At the end both classes votes to see which one was the best, and the one I was in won! (The students obviously love me.) So, you're now reading the blog of an international acting sensation!

Now I've got to prepare for class tomorrow - most of the 11th grade seems to be starting a new unit on human cloning. German high school is weird.

Tschüüüüüüüüüüüss!

Erfurter Weihnachtsmarkt

Today I didn't have to work, so I went to the Erfurter Weihnachtsmarkt! I picked up a few gifts for family. (Luckily for them, they're not gifts in the German sense of the word - gift in German means poison!)

I also got a smartphone so I was really phone-camera happy.

Here is my Christmas tree. I feel a little bit sorry for it. My school has two real Christmas trees because people don't pretend that they're deathly allergic to tree pollen in Germany. (I can say that because I'm pretty allergic to pollen and somehow I don't die every single Christmas.)

Adventskalendar! They're really for kids, but I want a small piece of Rittersport every day between now & Christmas.

"Everything for the boot!" Perhaps this could be a new slogan for the Arkansas-LSU game.

Even grocery store ads are excited about Advent here!

I found the sun!!! It's grey and dreary so often here that it's surprising when an entire day is sunny.

And there it is, ladies and gentlemen. The Erfurter Weihnachtsmarkt.

This was a booth selling drinks. The entire market smells like roasted almonds and Gluehwein (which is supposedly just mulled wine).

The Riesenrad!

The Advent wreath in St. Severi. The Advent candles in Germany are all white and I don't like it.

Look at that pretty church & blue sky!

I walked up to Petersburg and I heard people speaking English so I took a picture.

I caught a nice sunset as I was walking back home from Melchendorfer Markt.