Christmas is quickly approaching here in Tuebingen, seasonal lights appearing everywhere, as well as trees. Can’t quite fathom how it can already be December, but it’s exciting none the less. We got the first bit of snow the other day. I was definitely more excited than my flatmates, who declared it not to be snow. I am sure I will be less keen on it when freezing next to a bus stop- but Tuebingen in snow is bound to be pretty. I shall endeavour to do at least one more post before I head back for the Christmas holidays (on December 20th) full of pictures of Christmassy Tuebingen. For now I need to rush through a fair few weeks of stuff that I have got up to and as yet failed to write about. For a change I thought I would separate the blog into ‘Successes’ and ‘Failures’of the past few weeks...
Success 1: Cooking
I cooked!!! Haha although able to cook basic meals like stir-fry and pasta, my dream of being a domestic goddess has yet to be realised... Thus cooking ‘something British’ for my group of international friends did somewhat fill me with dread. However, my Shepherd’s pie turned out quite well, if a bit bland. Then again the British are known for their bland food so I supposed I just fulfilled people’s expectations. I have generally been enjoying the food situation here- particularly the bakeries... The local Swabian cuisine is great, unhealthy, filling, warming stuff.
Success 2: Travelling
I have been lucky enough to travel a bit around Germany and see some friends along the way. 2 weekends ago I was in Berlin visiting a uni friend who is doing an Erasmus semester there. It was such a lovely time. We mostly just wandered around and chatted. One vaguely historical thing we did was to visit the Mauerpark, which we later found out was once a part of the 'Death Strip' of the Berlin Wall. The day we went was 'Volkstrauertag', which is the German equivalent of Remembrance day, meaning there were lots of families with young children wandering round the park, as well as the cool graffiti artists. According to Wikipedia the park attracts: "basketball players, jugglers, musicians, and many other types of people. So naturally I felt right at home there. Here is a pictures of me and my friend posing by a recently graffitied wall in the Mauerpark.
Last weekend I went to Bonn (the former capital of Germany) and Cologne as part of my Post-War German History course here at Tuebingen Uni. After an early start we arrive at around lunchtime in Bonn, where we went to the 'Haus der Geschichte' (House of History) which was a MASSIVE museum detailing the history of German since 1945. Although we did a prepaid tour, it is apparently free for visitors, and there is so much information you could probably spend a week there. On Friday evening we travelled on to Cologne, about an hour or so away. There we wandered around the city, where preparations for the Christmas market was well underway, and had dinner. The next morning we did a whistle-stop tour of the city by foot, and then had a few hours free to wander into the massive Cologne Cathedral, the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe (according to my good friend Wiki) and probably the largest cathedral I can remember visiting. It remarkably survived World War Two, whilst the rest of the city was largely flattened. Cologne is also the birthplace of 'Eau de Cologne' (Koelnisch Wasser, now the term used for any sort of perfume. To my shame I only made the connection when I went into the tourist shop and saw it on the shelves. It is rather confusing that the German name for Cologne, Koeln, sounds so different...
Failure 1. Miscommunication
A common feature of speaking a foreign language is making silly mistakes and misunderstanding people. The strangest experience of this that I have had happened a few days ago, when I responded to the lady at the cashier at my local supermarket with the word 'no' in Russian- she then proceeded to chat to me a bit in Russian, which was lucky. I still looked like a madwoman who randomly speaks other languages she doesn't know... I think my brain is a bit confused at the moment.
Failure 2: Not making it in time to visit Berlin zoo
Failure 3: The ending of this blog post
It seems I have run out of witty comments and interesting stories to amaze and inspire, so I shall stop here. Hope you are all well!
Ciao! (What everyone says here...)
x
Success 1: Cooking
I cooked!!! Haha although able to cook basic meals like stir-fry and pasta, my dream of being a domestic goddess has yet to be realised... Thus cooking ‘something British’ for my group of international friends did somewhat fill me with dread. However, my Shepherd’s pie turned out quite well, if a bit bland. Then again the British are known for their bland food so I supposed I just fulfilled people’s expectations. I have generally been enjoying the food situation here- particularly the bakeries... The local Swabian cuisine is great, unhealthy, filling, warming stuff.
Success 2: Travelling
I have been lucky enough to travel a bit around Germany and see some friends along the way. 2 weekends ago I was in Berlin visiting a uni friend who is doing an Erasmus semester there. It was such a lovely time. We mostly just wandered around and chatted. One vaguely historical thing we did was to visit the Mauerpark, which we later found out was once a part of the 'Death Strip' of the Berlin Wall. The day we went was 'Volkstrauertag', which is the German equivalent of Remembrance day, meaning there were lots of families with young children wandering round the park, as well as the cool graffiti artists. According to Wikipedia the park attracts: "basketball players, jugglers, musicians, and many other types of people. So naturally I felt right at home there. Here is a pictures of me and my friend posing by a recently graffitied wall in the Mauerpark.
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| This picture is to prove I am not a complete loner- thus far all my pictures have only been of me... |
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| View of Cologne Cathedral from bridge I forget the name of |
A common feature of speaking a foreign language is making silly mistakes and misunderstanding people. The strangest experience of this that I have had happened a few days ago, when I responded to the lady at the cashier at my local supermarket with the word 'no' in Russian- she then proceeded to chat to me a bit in Russian, which was lucky. I still looked like a madwoman who randomly speaks other languages she doesn't know... I think my brain is a bit confused at the moment.
Failure 2: Not making it in time to visit Berlin zoo
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| The picture speaks for itself |
It seems I have run out of witty comments and interesting stories to amaze and inspire, so I shall stop here. Hope you are all well!
Ciao! (What everyone says here...)
x
