hamster wheels, churning butter, and fabulous beards

Hey, gang. If you watched the Eurovision song contest, you know what the title of this post is about. If you didn't, first off, you missed out, and second, I'll give you a small recap. But first: what I have been doing with my life.

There was Frühlingsfest again last Saturday, which was, as usual, fun and filled with dirndls, and I guess there isn't much more to say than that. 

This past week was full of classes and work, but nothing particularly eventful. But there was one semi-big milestone. This week was the first week that I felt like a high-functioning human auf Deutsch. You may be thinking that: Sarah, it's been 8 some-odd months. How are you just feeling this now? Well, let me explain: I have known enough German to get by for a long time now. Telling people directions, ordering at restaurants, all of that hasn't been stressful since the first month. But with other things I was not as great at. Germans have a habit of switching to English the second that they find out that you are American, but now, it seems that many would rather speak German to me than English. 

But I guess the biggest reason for this hitting now was one particular milestone: calling a German flight company and handling the entire thing in German. Talking to someone in German face-to-face is difficult enough, but on the phone, where you can't see their face, is a whole different ball game. Caroline and I made last minute plans to travel to Thessaloniki a few weekends from now, and so we booked (or in my case, tried to book) tickets via a discount website. Caroline's went through, but mine didn't so I had to call them. My call was picked up by a woman with a Spanish accent who was speaking to me in German. Oh God, I thought, and she didn't speak English. But I managed to get through the entire call in German and get my flight all sorted out. This was when I realized that I think I have turned another corner on this whole language thing. 


There were tacos this weekend as well, because Marlena is a wonderful person and a great cook. I also made guacamole for the occasion, because you can't make germanized-Mexican food without some guac. Then that night, I went to the Kreuzkirche to play Zombies (like tag, but Zombie apocalypse-style) with the Unterwegs folks for Tony, Val, and Emily's birthdays. 

One Ms. Hannah Heagy gets photo credit for this one

On Saturday, I went Stockerkahning with Lasse, Håvard (one of Lasse's friends who is studying here for the semester), Yasmine, and Lasse's friend from Norway. Weather here has been rather variable. So it started out as a lovely sunny boat ride, but by the time we picked up Hannah, Lisa, Lucia, and Mike an hour and a half later, it was about to rain. But luckily, the rain wasn't too terrible. 

Afterwards, we headed up to Lasse's to make pizzas and watch the Eurovision Song Contest, which Buzzfeed has compared to "American Idol on LSD." That is probably the best description that I have heard of it, although it doesn't quite do justice to the fact that the whole thing doesn't seem at all serious. In case you didn't open the article in the link, here is a gist of what this whole thing is. The Eurovision Song Contest is a yearly contested started in 1956, wherein the Europeans decided to put the centuries of fighting each other with deadly weapons in favor fighting each other in song. Every European country (and some countries you might not consider Europe, such as Israel, for example) send a contestant or a group of contestants to sing a song in front of the entirety of Europe. However, many times these songs involve ridiculous costumes or props or maybe the song is ridiculous, whatever. There is inevitably something either absurd or kitschy in the routine. Then all of Europe votes, but they are not allowed to vote for their own country. They tally up the points and whoever wins gets to be King or Queen of Europe and then that country hosts the contest the next year. Cool? Cool.

This year, there were such wonderful acts as Ukraine with a sensual hamster wheel, Poland who sent a female singer and an entourage of big-breasted women to (almost pornographically) wash clothes and churn butter, and France whose group sang about wanting mustaches and who came in last with a resounding 2 points. But the winner was none of these. Instead the winner was a drag queen from Austria named Conchita Wurst. She is absolutely wonderful with a beautiful voice and a signature luxurious beard. Naturally, as you can imagine if you have been paying attention to the news, Russia was not thrilled with her presence in the competition. But the rest of Europe did not agree with Russia (and Belarus's) ridiculous and homophobic stances, and made her the Queen of Europe. Which was super wonderful to see. Oh, and Russia got booed...a lot.

So that's about what I got for you guys. Exciting news for the upcoming week: Ray and Jay are coming to visit on Thursday. Shenanigans will ensue. So for now, bis später, dudes.