Nürnberg, München, und Pfingsten

Nuremberg

"Go to Munich," they said. "You will love it," they said. Nuremberg is a better city. It is about the size of Milwaukee and a lot smaller than Munich, but the Old Town(Historic District) is by far the better one.

To get to Nuremberg, My host brother and I used the "Mitfahrzentrale"because tickets with Deutsche Bahn were 70 euros a piece, and the Mitfahrzentrale was only 30 per person. Mitfahrzentrale is like craigslist for hitchhikers. You call up someone going to the same city of you and meet up somewhere and ride together. Before the experience, I was a little skeptic, but now I would recommend this to everyone.

In Nuremberg, we stayed with my Host Uncle. When we arrived, his girlfriend asked us if we had brought wandering shoes because the next day we were going to walk a beer wandering trail. The beer wander was the favorite thing we did. We woke up at nine, and then took the train a good half-hour to 45 minutes north from the city. The trail took you too five different breweries, and you receive a stamp when you bought a beer. When you collected all four stamps, you could buy a mug from the tour for 2 or 4 euros (I don't remember exactly, but it was cheap.) The trail was 18 km. (~9mi.)

On the second the second day, we went to the Adidas headquarters because the girlfriend from my Host Uncle worked there. I learned that reebok is actually owned by Adidas. After the HQ, we went to see Nuremberg during the daytime. My host uncle lives on the north side, where "the berg" is. The Berg is an old castle or fort on the north side of the city wall. We ended up walking the wall. The top of the wall was actually a park with trees and gardens, not what I expected.

The top of the wall is the the left and "the berg" with the old town are below.

Munich


We went to Munich on the same day as the FC Bayern München vs. Chelsea Champions League game. The city was packed with Bayern fans. The vibe of the city was great. My friend from the US surprised me on the platform when the train pulled up, one of the best memories from Munich.

Our first stop was the Olympic Park. On the way to the Olympic Park is across the street from the BMW HQ, so that was our real first stop. After we went to the top of the Olympic Tower. Later that day, the stadium in the back, was filled with people for public viewing of the soccer game. The Olympic Park was nice, but I was more excited for our next stop, Marienplatz. The bear was loose on the Marienplatz. All the Bayern fans had taken over the square, so that you could barely walk through.

After seeing the two city halls, the old city hall is my favorite.










We saw the Frauenkirche, but the church and frauenplatz were under construction, so that is was ugly. The Theatinerkirche was a lot nicer inside and out. It was weird seeing things I learned out in my German class.

After the Theatinerkirche, we walked north to the Englischer Garten. We watched the surfers at the south end for a good 20 minutes. Then we walked a little bit north through the naked people between surfing and the botanic garden. I didn't take too many pictures of the Englischer Garten because I wasn't sure if there would be a naked person in them. I saw the Chinesischer tower, but I was not able to get to the second floor, like a German teacher I know. Afterwards, we found a bar and just relaxed in the beautiful sun.

when we got back to the train station, People had already taken over there too. There was a wall of police to make sure no one started rioting around the moving trains. Our train pulled in with standing room only for the people getting out. We boarded and all you could smell was piss, B.O., and beer. the place was trashed and about 100 degrees fahrenheit.

The garden below is not actually the Englischer Garten but the Hofgarten.

Pfingsten

Pfingsten is a church holiday that no one knows why it is celebrated anymore, but no one complains. All I know, is that when I think of Pfingsten, I think of the street in Northbrook. For Pfingsten weekend, we get Monday and Tuesday off from school. My friends and I went on a bike trip for Pfingsten my friend's grandma. My friends grandma lives on a farm somewhere northeast of where I live in "Arsch der Welt." We spent the weekend camping in the back of the farm. That was great weekend. I am the brownest out of my friends, but Petra is still tanner. I believe I need to go New Jersey mom to beat her this summer.

Out Germaned a German

This is for Jack Hadfield: I am going to Munich May 18ish. Now you don't have to worry that I will miss it.

For everyone else: I finally found out when I will make it to Munich. I started talking about all the touristy things I wanted to see. Turns out I know more about Munich than my host parents. It's not a surprise because they don't spend a lot of time in Southern Germany, nor will they because only Simon and I are going. Hope I didn't just ruin a surprise. Frau you should consider your job complete. I am kind of excited to go because I learned about Munich for at least two months in school, and I can't wait to actually be able to see it. I doubt that Glockenspiel really exists.

I am starting to feel the Holiday Spirit, or maybe it's that I am feeling the Holiday Cookie Spirit. I have found my new favorite holiday food, and that is "Nussecke." That translates to "Nut Edge (or Corner)." It is a shortbread cookie crust bar with a hazelnut, caramel filling. These bars are then sliced into triangles, and you put melted dark chocolate on one corner.

I don't know if my host family is religious or not because Sunday is my day to sleep in, and I sleep to 11 or 12. They say some kind of prayer before eating, but it is said so fast that I haven't tried to learn it. They have four sets of advents candles, and weird writing over the door (anyone know what 20+C÷M means?), but so does everyone else here. For a continent that is more secular than the US, Germany has some strong christian roots.

I made a huge mistake this week. In Art class we had to take a block of plaster/clay and make it in a figure. In one hour, I was able to chisel away a statue that wasn't bad; the rest of the class was only 1/4 of the way done or not even started. Now I have the art teacher always watching me because I can make art, and I can also form free standing figures without a problem either. I was hoping it would be an easy class, where I can talk with my friends instead of listening to a powerpoint about naked men statues, but nope, I have to answer ever one of his questions and translate information into english to make sure I was paying attention.

This week I noticed my sunglasses were covered in a healthy layer of dust. It kind of made me sad because no one here wears sunglasses, and I am never in a car long enough to leave them there. Which is a crazy thought because I turned the fridge in my mom's car into my sunglass holder, for the one pair I actually wore and the others that I let collect dust (That scares me in retrospect because I am turning into a hoarder.) It's also crazy because I am pretty sure the sun is brighter in Europe. Yeli thinks so too, and I think it has something to do with us being closer to the north pole. If anyone could find a study about this, that would be great.

It could also be that there is less smog here. Chicago is not a smoggy city and neither are the suburbs, but you can't really see the stars. Sure you see stars in Chicagoland, but it is nothing compared to the amount of stars you can see here. It is the coolest thing to look up at 4 a.m. as you are biking home and see all the stars in the sky.

I made my first "Worst Enemy for Three/Four Months" this week. Yeli moved Saturday to Ottenstein to go live with an other Rotary family. I live in Wessum and there are three cities we "don't" like, Ottenstein, Graes (Grass), and Alstätte (Alstätte isn't that big of a hatred but I still count it.) For her going away present, I gave Yeli a half eaten Kit Kat bar; she loved it. European Kit Kats taste different by the way.

 I want to also say a thank you to Alex Portugal, Andrew Knox, and The Antioch Rotary club, that's a lot of "A's". If it wasn't for your awesome time management skills, I would be living in Ottenstein. This week Yeli asked our rotarian how they decide which kids goes to which families. He pretty much said, "Hunter was the first student we received, and the Marpert's had an open room so we figured he could stay there for a year. When we got Yeli's papers, we said,"oh shit what are we going to do?!" Then we just asked around the club to see who has any open rooms.  I want to say thank you because If Yeli was the first kid, my life would be a whole different story. Thank you, you guys are awesome.

  

Hollanders are OK!

It is week eleven or so, and I already know what I am doing when I get home. Monday night I had a dream about Grande Jakes. I don't know why because I like the tacos at Tacos El Norte so much better. But anyway, in this dream I ate a chorizo egg burrito, 15 steak tacos, and 3 chicken gortidas. It was the best dream ever.

Tuesday night, I went with the Rotary club to a Deutschland vs. Holland soccer game. One thing that cracked me up was that we went with our sister rotary club in Enschede, Holland. I was surprised there weren't any fights after Germany killed Holland, 3-0. Germans don't speak Dutch, and Hollanders speak german like there tongue is swollen. It was a night of english speaking. I don't know if I can say this, so I will just type it instead, The Hollanders were more fun than the Germans, oops. That is not completely true, but the Dutch club is just a younger crowd.

Petra is awesome, nuff said. For the four hour bus ride to Hamburg, Petra bought me candy to eat on the way. It was an awesome, unexpected surprise. Then the next morning whatever was leftover was eaten by Albert. The Hollanders also gave us boxes of food. These boxes had schnitzel, two sandwiches, meat balls, and a couple sausage links. There were also an Apple and Orange, but who cares about that. They also passed around boxes of the great doughnut ever, and some kind of almond coffee cake thing.

Speaking of soccer, I might have finally of chosen a German soccer club. Petra's friend gave Petra a Bayern Muenchen jersey that was too small for her kid, so that was passed to me. They are in the first place spot so it wouldn't be a bad bandwagon to jump on; Daniel would be proud, but I am not going to say anything. My Rotarian is Shalke so that might not go over well.

This week in English we finally got to talk about the downfalls in America. Guess who was the best? I don't think it was my first hand knowledge or anything. I felt so good to say those things too. My english book only talked about everything good in America and like it was written by a Uncle Sam himself. It is as if the crazy train crashed itself into the bullshit factory causing an explosion that spewed douchbagery everywhere. It makes me want to puke, but then it nice that we can celebrate our country. In the words of a german,"We can't be patriotic because if we do, then we are called nazis." That is sad, every country should be able to celebrate there heritage, but some need to know how to tone it down. I know I will sport a german flag and not think twice about it.

I had Liederkäse this week. Can I still get Extra Credit for that? It's not like lieberkaese was that exotic. I like liverwurst so it wasn't a surprise that I would like lieberkaese. If I had to describe the taste I would say Oscar Mayor Wiener Hotdog. Which made me wonder, is there liver in Oscar Mayor Hotdogs? It wouldn't shock me if there is, it's cheap meat.

Now that I have come pretty close to mastering German, I have taken on a new task, learning Spanish. I don't know why I am trying so hard to master Spanish. I think it is because I am in a spanish class too advanced for me, and I feel bad I don't completely understand everything. Yeli makes sure to tell five times a day that I am a gringo, but yo soy el gringo de favorito de Yeli.