April Showers

Hey everyone! I've not been posting lately out of laziness....the problem with the Fulbright is that you have so much free time that you don't feel motivated to do anything because you'll always have time for it later. This had been made worse during the present cold snap - it's been in the 40s for about a week now, which is unfortunate because it was so nice back when I could come home from school, eat a snack, go for a walk for about an hour, then come home and make dinner. When it's cold I don't want to walk around for an hour, so I end up eating all the junk food in my apartment and watching Sailor Moon dubbed into German. 

This is the last full week of school for the 12th graders. I don't help with any 12th grade classes, but it's hard to ignore the fact that it's their last week because German 12th graders dress up in costumes every day of their last week of school. Today was cross-dressing day. It was odd.

Another thing - I don't think I'll ever get over finding it hilarious when a fifth grade girl come up to me very solemnly and shakes my hand at the end of a lesson.

Anyhow, here are some pictures I've taken recently.

My apartment door & the ladder to the sky.

When it was warm, I loved to go on walks. Now it is cold and I love to stay indoors.

If I understood this correctly, these signs were a bit of an embarrassment for the SPD because they forgot to mention the candidate's name. It reminds me of the episode of Parks and Rec where Leslie makes the pro-Pawnee ad and forgets to mention that she's running for city council. Yay Pawnee! Fuer Erfurt!

We've been having some nice storms lately - it reminds me of home!

I'm not sure why I took a picture of this, but this is the tram stop Rieth (pronounced Reet), which is the next stop after my school. To the left is a creepy abandoned Plattenbau.

I went to Saalfeld last Wednesday to see the Ostereierbaum.

Germany is covered in yellow flowered plants right now.

I had to walk from the train station to the neighborhood where this tree was - it took me about half an hour. It was pleasant because there weren't other people walking. When I go for walks in Erfurt, I always see other people.

Here are two trees that show what a typical Easter egg tree looks like. (They're all over the place.)

And here is the famous Easter egg tree.

I had to climb up a bit of a hill to get to the tree.

View out the window on the ride home.

Last weekend I went to Arnsdorf to hang out with friends! It was nice - we played Bananagrams. On the way home, I had to switch in Zwickau. The train station there still looks really eastern.

I got a package with Easter candy from my old host family! I think my host family definitively won the "my host family is the best" debate from 2012.

There was a storm with amazing clouds two days ago!!

Side note: the pink building burned last week. Out of the 28 people at home, 11 had to go to the hospital because that building, much like the one I live in, just has one exit per 10 apartments and the fire started in the stairwell.

There are decorated Easter bunnies in Anger 1 - this one is from my school!

Here are some others. They are obviously less cool because they don't say "ASG Erfurt" on them.

I think it's very interesting that I'm getting 2 weeks of vacation for Easter. When I asked my 7th grade class if they're going to go to church this Sunday, about 4 out of 28 said yes. I think that Germany is proof that having religion in a society doesn't make people more faithful - they get off for every Christian holiday and have the option of taking religious classes in school, but hardly anyone goes to church.

Back to Erfurt

Well, after having a magnificent time at orientation, I arrived back home in Erfurt. Erfurt is a pretty interesting city. It's like a nesting doll - the center is solidly old German with each ring around it becoming more and more Soviet until you get out to where I live. My apartment building was built in the 80s, so it's in the Soviet style, but I think it was redone in the 90s/early 2000s so it looks like a typical German apartment on the inside. I'm on the 5th floor, which is nice because that's the top floor.

Here is a view from my window as the sun was setting the other night.

Here is my bedroom. I brought my own sheets, but they don't quite fit. I also finally bought a pillow yesterday - until then I'd been sleeping on the pillows from my couch in my pillowcase.

Bathroom! The thing on the right is the washing machine.

Entryway. I hung up all my scarves and keep my shoes here like a German. I always forget to take my shoes off though, and have to move them from my room back out here.

The kitchen! The fridge (on the right) is a bit odd. The door isn't metal so I can't stick magnets to it. Also no dishwasher...

Living room. There's a tv and a door out to my small balcony.

View from my balcony.

Another view from my balcony.

I realized that I don't have any pictures that prove that I'm actually in Germany, so I took one.

Yesterday I had a pretty busy day! I went to play soccer with some LDS kids who are doing their mission in Erfurt right now, which is fun considering I'd never played before. I became friends with these kids when I saw three of the guys walking down the street the day before. I saw their outfits, then heard them speaking English. After that I ran up to them and said "Are you American?!?" We're all friends now. They also had two sisters that were playing soccer with them, along with 8 German people. I was so dreadful at soccer that one of the guy playing made me be goalie so that the good players could try to score. I immediately let 2 goals in and someone else volunteered to be goalie.

After playing soccer, I headed to the Domplatz to watch a SPD rally. I thought I was running late, but the rally was a bit behind schedule as well so I got to hear Peer Steinbrueck's entire Q&A session! Peer Steinbrueck is running for Bundeskanzler (Prime Minister), so it was very cool to hear him speak. He mentioned that women and men should be paid equally as well as commenting on Syria, the US, and PKW-Mounts (whatever that is). I was really close to him - I could've thrown the coke I was drinking and hit him quite easily.

Last night I was watching tv and saw the Tagesschau for the first time since I've been back in Germany! Then I watched Frag doch mal die Maus, which was a weird sort of game show.

Today I went to church at the Dom. It was pretty cool - the music was amazing, but they didn't have enough books for everyone there, and there weren't enough seats in the main area so I sat where I really couldn't see what was going on. I'm not Catholic, so I wasn't sure when to stand up and sit down, and most of the other people sitting where I was seemed equally confused. On Sundays the city is (relatively) dead because most shops are closed, so I took pictures while there were fewer people around.

The Rathaus (city hall).

A pretty building across from the Rathaus. It's a restaurant on the bottom floor.

Erfurt has a lot of construction right now, so it feels very similar to the U of A! One of the good things about this is that the trams aren't working in this part of the city so you can just walk in the road without fear of getting hit.

Martin Luther says hello. He went to college here and was ordained in the Dom. (Which, admittedly, didn't end up working out for him.)

Anger 1. A German shopping mall! It has a Rewe, Rossman, stationary store, Karstadt (it was like the home section of JC Penney's), some clothing and accessory stores, a food court, and a perfume store called Douglas that for some reason had a live DJ at 3 in the afternoon on a Saturday.

I can't remember if I've already explained this, but Anger isn't pronounced the English way. It means meadow in German.

It's election time in Germany, so almost every pole is covered with posters. The top one is for the NPD, which is a neo-Nazi party. The second is for the Piraten. The third is for the FPD, and the bottom one is for the SPD and Carsten Schenider, who I saw yesterday.

More posters: the NPD says "Money for Grandma, not Sinti and Roma." The next one is for the MLPD, which is a Marxist-Leninist party, then the Piraten again, followed by the Green party.

TK MAXX! This makes me giggle every time. The inside is just like TJ Maxx.

Finally, the Hauptbahnhof.