Schokomarkt

So with the holiday season quickly approaching, Tuebingen has been decorating their streets with these weird spiky ball things:

I later connected these spiky ball things all over Tuebingen with the Schokomarkt (Chocolate Market) that was coming to Tuebingen this week! This Schokomarkt is the biggest chocolate market/fest in Germany, and that's right folks, it is here in Tuebingen. We made plans to meet up with Helena, Niels, Helina, and a few other people to walk through the market together. We met in front of the Deutsche Bank before setting out through the streets of the Altstadt. It was pretty crowded, filled with saunterers, and we had to keep stopping to wait for people as they stopped to look at something. It was a little irritating at first, but the fact that I was surrounded by chocolate and the smell of chocolate quickly appeased my irritation. We walked up and down the market a few times stopping at random places along the way.

Here was the main street in front of the church filled with tents, people, and (of course) lots and lots of chocolate!

It was really cool, because they had these projections on the buildings. It gave it a sort of Disney feel!

They were also building a cookie roof! Pretty cool!

This was in the main market place by the Rathaus.

They put up a tree right in front of the Rathaus for Christmas time! It was pretty hard to get a good picture in the dark.

Rachel bought herself a Schoko-Banane!

All the buildings lit up!

They had these snowflakes in the windows of one building. I challenge you Mom! See if you can make these!

They also had a booth for Schoko-Kunst (chocolate art)! Who wouldn't want a dress decorated in chocolate.. I tell you who would: Lady Gaga.

Cafe Lieb had chocolate fountains: a must for any chocolate festival!

Hannah bought herself a Hot Chocolate, which was really just Chocolate that was hot, because it was really just like pudding. But it looked good despite that fact. (It also looked like a lactose intolerant's worse nightmare!)

After we walked up and down a few times, I stopped at a booth to buy some cheap chocolate and maybe a souvenir or two! It was a lot of fun, a lot of chocolate, and good times all around!

After a while, we all split up and I headed back to my building to make real food for dinner. 

Today we went to go drop off some paper work at the university offices in between my classes, but soon found that they were closed, so we left all of our paperwork in their mailboxes with an apology letter for the fact that our paperwork might be late. Sorry Germany, your bureaucratic system is just too much for the poor, dumb foreign students.

Well, right now besides being a bit bored and procrastinating my homework, I am currently package-less at the thirty day mark, and am getting more annoyed with customs at every passing day. I now look at DHL trucks with nothing but pure hatred, and have Hannah telling me that they have my package in the truck but are just driving around with it all around Tuebingen just to spite me.

Ritter Sport Museum & Thanksgiving

So on Friday, to celebrate Black Friday, we thought that it would be appropriate to go to the Ritter Sport Museum where they have a shop which has discounted chocolate! We found our bus, headed off and soon found ourselves in Waldbuch.

When we got off the bus in Waldbuch, we realized that it smelled like rotten eggs. It was gross. We started walking in the direction of the museum, and as we got closer, we started to smell wonderful smells of chocolate. It was like being in Hershey, PA. It was wonderful! We followed our noses, and the signs, to the museum entrance. 

We stopped like crazy people outside to take a picture with the sign!

The cocoa tree!

Who knew that this trip was going to turn into a vocabulary lesson.

This was the coolest machine ever! Free Chocolate was involved. Here is Hannah to tell you all about it:

 Thank you Hannah for that very informative explanation of how the free chocolate giving machine works!

And also, during the mini museum trip, we learned (from Hannah) how Ritter Sport makes their chocolate into the shape that they are!

We saw this and had to take a picture, because it has Zack's name on it!

The chocolate bar of 1932.

Hmm.. after the museum should we go?... SCHOKO SHOP of course!

This glorious chocolate shop had everything! Even a Ritter Sport version of Settlers of Catan.

Here we all are with our purchases! (They all bought bags, but I went for the box option).

So, we spent the rest of the day doing things around Tuebingen.

Saturday came around, and that meant Thanksgiving for Tuebingen. We decided that since we were away from home, it didn't mean we had to miss our favorite holidays, foods, or traditions. We had been planning a Thanksgiving dinner for a while, and Saturday was the day it all went down. We all woke up early, met at the train station a little after nine, and made our way to Kaufland to buy everything we needed for our makeshift Thanksgiving. We had already gotten turkeys (x2) and had been thawing them for a couple of days, but we needed to get everything else to make our dinner Thanksgiving worthy. We spent at least an hour at Kaufland before we got everything we needed. By the time we made it to the bus stop outside, we were ready to kill each other. We had to wait a while for the bus to come, and in that time, we came to understand why so many families hate each other during Thanksgiving time. It was semi-humorous and a little sad and frustrating. We headed back to Hannah's, where we were having our Thanksgiving, but she did not have enough oven room, so we had to eventually spread out throughout Tuebingen and utilize my oven and two of Rachel's. But before we split up to cook, we had a bigger problem. Hannah's roommates were *untidy*, to put it nicely. Her counters were covered with dirty dishes, the table had food and condiments from the night before, there was food on the floor, the oven had a nice layer of something brown covering the top of it, and we had to clean it all up. It would have been fine if it were just us, but we had invited people from our German course that we met the first few weeks. We had a guest list of about twenty people, so cleaning was sort of necessary.

Hannah's kitchen state when we got there.

Jake started off the cooking with his Jello salad.. but it didn't go quite right, as the gelatin was so strange here and did not settle on top like it was supposed to. Instead it just seeped through to the bottom. Nice try.

After running around, cleaning, and cooking, our deadline of 1:00 came around and we had to put the turkeys in the ovens. The big one went in Hannah's, and the little one was brought to Froschgasse. After dropping the turkey off at my house, we all met up at Hannah's one last time before everyone went their ways for a little bit to finish making food. Jake, Rachel, and Zach went to Rachel's so that Zach could use Rachel's ovens to make his green bean casserole and the stuffing, and I went back to my place to watch the turkey. Hannah finished up preparing her place and setting up. 5:30 came, and Jake came over to help me get the turkey ready for transport before he headed to Rachel's to help Zach carry all of his food to Hannah's. It was a tough walk to Hannah's. I was carrying this turkey in a pan that was too big for the little turkey, so the turkey was sliding around inside the pan and under the aluminum foil. It was difficult to carry it, but it smelled really good! By the time I made it to Hannah's my arms were shaking, and my wrists were killing me. Everyone showed up not long after that, and we soon set the buffet table for everyone to eat!

Here is all the food we made! Jake was the turkey carving master.

Rachel, Jake, Hannah, and me showing off our accomplishment!

The Tuebinger Fuenf!

Hannah ran to let someone in, but here we are!

After a while, people began to get food! Hannah was the only one looking!

We even had dessert! Go us!

Hannah and one of her roommates, Til.

From left to right: One of Hannah's roommates, Natsumi (from our Deutsche Kompakt Kurs), and Helena.

Neils, Zach, and Zach's friend Nathan.

We went through both turkeys in no time! But luckily it was just enough!

The rest of the food slowly disappeared too!

A shot of everyone gathered eating their Thanksgiving dinner.

The after photo.

After we all ate, we went around and said what we were thankful for (in German might I add), and then we made little turkeys from a Target craft that Hannah's mom sent us! Thanks Mrs. Scupham!

The group and our turkeys!

Hannah was exhausted, so here I am checking for a pulse. It didn't look good.

I don't know where this picture came from. I'm guessing that Zach took it.

Here we all are, stuffed!

It was a good night, and we were able to share our Thanksgiving experiences with everyone! It was Natsumi and a few other peoples' first time eating a turkey, so it made me feel even better that we did this. I was really worried about how this night would turn out, but I have to say that it turned out well! After everyone had had enough, and after Hannah's roommates and their friends had taken over the music and the kitchen, we cleaned up (we even left the kitchen in a better state than we had found it!). Her roommates seemed to be set on having a long night, but we had had a long day, so after we cleaned up and left the leftovers for her roommates to eat (because Hannah tried to get rid of something, and got reprimanded by every German in the room), we said goodnight and I set off for home.

Today I spent the day at home, not doing much. I've been working on this blog post for a while now, and have also been working on a Flat Stanley Journal entry, as I have decided that he is going to journal while in Germany.

I don't really have much planned for this week, but I will find something good to blog about I am sure! Until next time, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, and are still enjoying your leftovers! (Christina, don't leave any turkey out!) =]

Visitors, Fire and Ice Fest, and a Belgian Celebration

So I haven't blogged in a while. Sorry folks. I finally now just sat down to my computer, and with nothing else to do besides read, I figured I'd post!

So Tuesday after my class, I hopped a bus to the train station, then caught a connecting train through Stuttgart to Mainz to meet up with Doug and Jennie. By the time I got to Mainz it was dark out, so there was not much sightseeing to be done, just the night life. I was supposed to meet them at the train station, but thought I'd walk out into town to see if I could find with my map where we were going to eat, the Heiliggeist (Holy Ghost). I made my way through the city, walked most of it despite the cold, and then got a call to head back to the train station. After waiting all weekend to see them, there they were, in the little Ford sitting by the bus station. From there we all said our hellos and then set out in search of the restaurant. After we found a place to park, we went to look for it. It turns out that I actually had walked right by it earlier, and then had to walk all the way back when they called. Oh well I guess. I got to walk around Mainz at least!

We ate dinner, and I was glad to utilize my German speaking skills for Doug and Jennie, who had previously resorted mostly to pointing and saying things like "Da" (there) or "Entschuldigung" (excuse me). After dinner, we walked a little bit more and took some pictures around the square.

Doug and the model of the church!

The main square by the restaurant, that I had walked to earlier, was decorated for Christmas time!

After walking in the cold, we headed back to Tuebingen. I've never had to navigate a car around Tuebingen before, so it was really difficult to find a place to park. We ended up parking somewhere that we shouldn't have and got a 25 Euro ticket, but that comes later.

I had class the next morning, and so said goodbye until 12 and met up with Hannah to walk to class. After class, I got everyone up and moving, and we set out for the day. There was some sort of market going on throughout the city, so we just walked around enjoying the sights. I felt kind of bad, because I felt like I wasn't entertaining enough. Before we walked around a lot though, we decided to check on the car to make sure it hadn't been towed. We saw from afar that the car was still there, but then we saw the ticket on the windshield. I had no idea how to pay the ticket, or where else to go to park, so we stopped in the bookstore across the street to ask where to park and how to pay the ticket. Well, I should say that I had to ask all this. I don't mind talking with other people, I just usually like to plan out what I'm going to say first, otherwise I look like a complete idiot when talking to other people. This older woman came out to attend to us, and I had to spit out the closest thing resembling and "Excuse me, do you know of a good place to park". She did not, however, seem to understand the first time, so I tried again. I think she got the gist of what I was saying though, because she began to say how difficult it is to park anywhere in the city. She gave me directions on where to look for parking. She spoke rather quickly and with a bit of an accent, but I found that it was easier to understand her after being here a while and talking to so many people. I then asked her if she knew where to pay for the ticket, which she responded to "Poor thing" (in English for some reason, but the rest she continued in German). She told me that you had to do a bank transfer, and that she got tickets often, the city here is so strict with tickets and parking, and that she had to pay a total of three hundred Euros for tickets since a certain period in time. I thanked her and we left. We walked around some more, and found some souvenirs for Dougie. From there we bought some things to make food at the super market for dinner. Doug and I made dinner, and then Jennie took a nap (as they were driving back to Berlin that night) while Doug and I ran to get some chocolate and then watched some Pushing Daisies.

I walked them to their car, which we had parked at a parking garage not far from my house, and we said goodbye.

The weekend came, and after an uneventful Friday and beginning of Saturday, Hannah, Rachel, Jake, and I went to the Fire and Ice Festival at Reutlingen. They had ice sculptures and Gluehwein (which is pretty much really warm, really strong wine). It was fun, and all the shopping was open late that night. 

They were in the process of building the church or something. But they were on break here.

The decorations and fest-goers.

 My thought was, that because everything closes so early and because everything is closed on Sunday, that whenever there is any sort of event that keeps stores open late, people jump on it here. These poor people are deprived from such luxuries.

A little more detail on the sculpture.

They had a giant igloo that you could walk through and get Gluehwein, surrounded, of course, by giant inflatable flames.

Hannah, Rachel, and Jake with their Gluehwein. (Even though Jake ended up drinking all three, as the others did not like theirs).

For some reason I took two pictures!

At work at last, those lazy bums.

The street was lit up in a way that reminded me of Disney at Christmas time!

Inside of Mueller! It was super decked out for Christmas!

Rachel might have been a singing princess in another life. She found a singing Chipmunk. =]

Rachel, Jake, and Hannah by the decorations.

Me, Jake, and Hannah!

We got really cold after a while, and tried to catch a train back, but missed one by minutes. While we were waiting, we got a call from Steffi, a German girl who had studied in Valpo and lived in the German House last year, and went to say hi to her and her friend just for a minute before having to catch the next train home.

Sunday passed without incident, and when Monday came around, I realized that I needed to get stuff done. I had burned my hand last week on my stove, and it was getting so bad, that I had to go to the Apotheke for something to put on it. I figured this would be a good way to practice my German yet again, and it would get me out of my room. I went to the Apotheke, told the lady my problem, and had to run to the bank to get some cash before buying the stuff for my hand, because the purchase was too small to put on my EC card here. After the Apotheke, I did some grocery shopping and headed back to my room. I was disappointed yet again to see that my package had not arrived (three weeks now), and made myself dinner. After dinner, we all met up to go to a party with our Belgian friends Helena and Niels. They were throwing a party to celebrate Christmas traditions in Belgium. They had Belgian chocolate (which was delicious), bread, beer, and other treats! It was a lot of fun!

They had little plates set out and we feasted!

Afterwards, we tried to catch a bus back, but ended up walking all the way back to Downtown Tuebingen (Altstadt). It was really cold, but it was probably better that we walked, that way I could walk off some of the chocolate that we all ate. 

I had class today, (still no package) and just caught up on homework and now blogging. I am thinking that I should plan a trip soon, as I am getting kind of antsy just being in Tuebingen on the weekends with not a lot of homework. Any ideas? I would have Thursday night/Friday morning to Sunday night. Not long enough for a big trip, but maybe a little trip somewhere!