Last Day of Class Party

We had a party to celebrate everyone's last day (again).  Students brought snacks, food, and champagne. Our teacher brought her dog.  We all had a lot of fun playing with Mango, although she was a bit restless and had an insatiable appetite for chips.

Then we walked to the park.  People in Germany have the coolest bikes:

And then we found a biergarten.  These are some of the people I got to get to know of the last two months- it will be sad to leave Cologne in two more days.

Work Week

Last week was really busy. I had a paper due for a class I am taking in Auburn as well as my spoken presentation for the PPP.  

For the past month we have been working on presentations to show of our German and also teach people about interesting topics.  My group talked about the different food of each Bundesland and how regional cuisine differences it came about. Other groups talked about popular music, the local dialect, local dances, etc.

Here is one of the presentations:

 Here is the audience and our program representatives listening:

 Presentations in English don't make me too nervous because I can usually think fast enough to express and correct myself as I speak. German was a different story.  I did pretty well, but got nervous and skipped over a decent portion of what I thought I was going to say. All in all, it was good experience.

Other work:
By the fourth day of writing my paper, I got writer's block.  Computer saavy nerd that I am, I went straight to Google for help.  1st Google search: "Cliche things struggling writers can do." Perfect:

I finished my paper thanks to several lattes at the local coffee bar, intense debates with strangers, hand rolled cigarettes, yoga, and intention exercises.

Food Post

I wanted to eat soft boiled eggs but it didn't work out:

Manuel had a friend pass through and we went to get Russian food at a place called Hotelux Sovietlokal.  It was really well themed and decorated:

We split a lot of dishes. My main dish was Ukrainian Borscht:

Borscht is pork and beet soup. It tasted very familiar.

German Class

German has been getting progressively more difficult. I made a chart to help me visualize a trend I suspected:

I'll be working harder and hoping our substitute teacher this week makes easier tests.

Also, this is like "Who's Line is it Anyways" - the points are made up and the score doesn't count. It's just a feedback tool for the students.

Saturday Night

Do you remember the "bitte nicht einsteigen" story from a few weeks ago.  Well, Saturday night I was looking at my phone and boarded a decomissioned train. I realized once I stepped in, but wasn't able to open the doors.  I took a trip to the local train yard by myself:

I found a phone for the conductor. 

In German "Ya so I'm here in the train... ya... I'm foreigner and.... didn't understand. What should I do?"  

Response, in German "dajlfkjadslfjkadlfkjad;lfjadlkfjdslfkjadlfj"

Me, in Englisch "yaaaaaaaaa sooooo" 

Response, in English "Sit down please, it will only be a minute"

So I waited on the train for thirty minutes while it was at some train yard and then took it back to a station once it was put back in service.

Eventually we ended up at a Balkan Express party. It was fun:

Miscellaneous

It's been awhile since I've posted, mainly because nothing has happened. but here are a few pictures:

Our teacher gives us candy periodically to keep us subdued:

Best chocolate yet

I sometimes make food:

I sometimes drink beer from novelty cans:

The cans have airbrushed Nordic mythology, to include winged angels fighting vikings.

Our teacher is on holiday and we won't see her again. She arranged for us to have a field trip day together to celebrate getting to know each other over the past 6 weeks.  We went to a park and played the German version of dodge-ball and then after we went bowling.  Kegeln is just like bowling only everything is different.  The lane is extremely narrow and the balls are smaller without holes.  Also, there are several games you can play on the alley (kind of like variations of darts).  We played for a few hours:

Some of our friends are at Oktoberfest and we are jealous.  So we unintentionally thought of a cliche meal and cooked it.  Bratwurst, Sauerkraut, Curry-Ketchup, and 3 types of mustard:

Siegfreid and Drachenfells

Yesterday we visited Drachenfels, one of the Siebenburger (7-mountains) near Bonn.  This mountain received it's name because, in the German Nibelungenleid Epic,  it is where Siegfreid slays the dragon.  This is the story according to fan fiction and Manuel's short story telling (game: try to guess if Manuel thinks this is a very important story or if children should be named Siegfreid).

There's this dragon living on a mountain. Siegfreid is riding his horse around and somehow he hears about this dragon who has been eating virgins or something, so he decides to go kill it:

Siegfreid is a prince or something.

Siegfried decides to bathe in blood in order to become invincible.  A leaf falls on his back, making him have one vulnerable spot.

And then once Siegfried is invincible he goes on to defeat the Saxons and fight wars and make friends.  He then gets himself in some very unusual romantic/wedding drama.  Years later his wive accidentally tells a guy where his weakness is, and then, you know:

Afterwards, his wife figures it all out and then gets revenge.  And then Siegfried is reincarnated:

Manuel said that the Nibelungenleid isn't really popular anymore within his generation and his friends.  Many people aren't forced to learn it anymore, although his parents generation holds the tale more dear.

To the actual pictures though!

We walked directly up the mountain from the train station. We passed sheep and goats:

This mountain used to be a huge tourist attraction.  At one point a very rich person built a castle below the summit (before 1900) and it can be seen in this picture:

That's Bonn in the background and Cologne in the haze.  The castle/mansion is a small tourist attraction and used for weddings and events nowadays.

Our hiking group needed a stop before the top.  This is where Sam was telling a story about his raising of malicious sheep as a child:

This is the southern view towards Koblenz:

Eventually, after I take enough pictures, people lose interest and start to undermine my photojournalism efforts. This is the group at the top:

This is what "act natural" gets:

Total disinterest:

"Hey guys, I think Jourdan is trying to take pictures of buildings again":

thanks sam

and anton

 The top of the mountain used to be much bigger, but it was downsized and modernized because tourism has declined in the last 100 years.

A couple groups of people rode bikes to the top:

The original castle was built almost 900 years ago by a Cologne church official in the hopes of protecting Cologne from attacks.  This mountain also happened to be the closest to barges that took stone from the Siebenburger to Cologne.  As a result of war, quarry activity, and 100 of years, the castle began to collapse and only ruins remain:

An impromptu choir formed and sang a song:

My camera  accidentally did this:

 But the point is, they had cool handicapped accessibility maps on the top of the mountain.

We took a different way down:

I believe that the Hearst Castle in California was somehow based on the Drachenfels Schloss experience.  The two places are very similar: castle/mansion on a hill, farmland below in the valley, and beautiful views.

Back in Koelle (Kolsch dialect for Koeln):

Manuel and I went to the store in Cologne and then cooked awesome wraps/tacos.  As we were leaving the store, we were ambushed by one of the "Hen"/bachelorette parties.  We were guilted into buying alcohol shots that were in syringes- it went against every instinct I've developed in the past 22 years. Manuel explained that for bachelorette parties, the bride has to earn the money for the drinks of the night. That is why there are always (previously mentioned) wedding parties near the Dom selling random trinkets on weekends.

Dr. Manuel:

Catch Up Post

     During the first coffee break on Monday we were welcomed by this parade:

It was weird seeing military vehicles and the protesters' children participating in the event. They were trying to bring awareness to class warfare in Germany.

On Tuesday we went swimming:

It was warm when we decided to go- but freezing by the time we got there.  At least we had the entire 50m pool and slide to ourselves.

On Thursday I went to a training for my program in Bonn:

The training was officially for us to learn about German school and working environments, and unofficially to allow our group to commiserate.  The session was very interactive. We broke up into small groups and presented on what we believed "culture" is and then later we staged 3 debates between assigned "German" and American panels.

The intent of the debates was to make people feel more comfortable talking about controversial topics; our topics were:
- Patriotism (too much? does it affect foreign policy?),
- Environmental Stewardship (disproportionate use of resources, higher GDP per capital but less investment, 40% of waterways not swimmable or fishable in US, etc.),
- The Influence of Religion (in politics, particularly school systems).

These topics were also chosen to bring attention to the mixed-feelings Germans' have towards their own patriotism, their own focus on environmental matters, and the fact that religion is on decline within their country (whereas it appears to them mainstream in the USA).

Some of the participants are very quick witted and great at debates; we had a fun time playing with the concept.

Out seminar leader was a participant of PPP in 1987 who lived in Washington and got to work in Chicago.  I thought the most interesting part of the day was hearing his story.  He had to drive from NYC to Portland in a Greyhound bus in his first week, when he arrived to his "host" they had been called to a family emergency- so he was home alone for a week, and he didn't have a car so he had to walk to school along the highway.  Despite all of this, he was incredibly positive and talked about how his time in the USA made him feel more German. For example, during his group's program departure, there was talk about claiming to be Swiss or Austrian because they were afraid of how they would be received.  He found out, only after being in the USA, that it was okay to be German.

^I hope the condensed version of this day didn't oversimplify too much.

After the training I met up with my high school friend David:

It was great seeing him and hearing about how excited he is for his year of university. He has been studying German for 5 years, so he is pretty much a pro.