That time we ate Berlin

Back in the Land of the Currywurst

Hey dudes. So after 5 wonderful days, I am back in Tübingen. A fact which seems rather surreal. Taking the bus home from the Hauptbahnhof, it seemed like I had been away for far longer. Things are strange like that. But in any case, Berlin was beautiful. My kind of city in just about every way that I could imagine, and now I'll tell y'all all about it.

Tuesday
We left for Berlin at the godforsaken hour of 7AM on Tuesday. I had packed hastily, because I had been hanging out with friends in the Neckarmüller biergarten and was slightly disoriented from having stayed up late worrying about potentially oversleeping and missing the train. But that didn't happen, and after 8 some-odd hours, we were in Berlin and after another, at our hostel in Kreuzberg. For reference, Kreuzberg is a neighborhood in the southerwestern part of Berlin, where all sorts of young folks and hipsters hang out. This neighborhood also is home to some pretty awesome currywurst and the best döner probably in existence–but more on that later. Our hotel, the Hotel Transit, was pretty nice with spacious rooms and a (really) kickass breakfast, but other than that nothing much to write home about.


Then commenced the eating. A large theme of this trip was food. (And I am going to talk all about it despite my family making fun of me.) The food diversity in Tübingen–as I have previously explained–is rather limited. And by rather limited I mean schwäbisches Essen and Italian food and the occasional nudelbox, which may or may not give you food poisoning and that's about it. Because of this, we were all on a mission to eat all of the wonderful exotic things that Berlin had to offer. And this started with Thai/Singaporean food in a lovely restaurant called Amrit in Kreuzberg/Friedrichshain. It was wonderful. I mean, just look at it. And we ate all of the things, because Tufts was paying–thanks, Tufts. However, this meant that we also went home and promptly passed out somewhere around 23, like the old folks that we are.

Wednesday
But turning in early was a good decision for all of us, because we had to be up and out of the hostel by 9:30 to go the Deutsch Auswärtige Amt (the German foreign service) to chat with the head of the Transatlantic Desk about various issues in German-US relations. We got to ride in the Paternoster (which he translated to the Elevator of Death), which was awesome and terrifying. We then discussed issues such as TTIP, Ukraine, and climate change, and we'll just suffice it to say that he was very...diplomatic. 

After a sad salad and a bit of rain, we went to the Bundestag and were given a small talk by a sassy German man–who continually kept translating things for Yasmine after finding out that she was American. Afterwards, we got to go up in the dome, which was super neat. Our day continued with currywurst, cheesecake, and other rain time activities that for the sake of surprise I shall not elaborate upon. It ended with kick-ass burgers, Fotoautomat-ing, and some beers. 

Thursday
Thursday was a museum-y type day. It started with the Pergamon museum, which holds treasures from the old Grecian city of Pergamon, which lies in modern-day Greece. This includes a construction of a temple and a pretty incredible gate. We got a tour from a nice little German archaeologist dude who didn't seem like he knew what to do with our lack of questions, and I was kind of falling asleep standing up, and the museum is nonetheless super incredible.

After that little stint, we went to the Hackescher Markt to grab a quick lunch, which ended up being turkish food–nomz and then we met up with Ute back by the Pergamon to go on a short boat tour, which was pretty lovely, and afterwards, I went to the DDR Museum by myself because everyone else was rather pooped from the previous museums. Luckily for me (as I was also rather pooped) the museum was small, but also super interesting, with all sorts of stuff about DDR day-to-day life and the party. 

But then Kevin, Theron, Yasmine, and I went to the Deutsches Geschichtemuseum, which I don't think there are words for how incredible one of their current exhibitions is. It's called Targets by Herlinde Koelbl. This woman (I have no idea how) photographed men and women from more than twenty different armies and the targets that they practice on, and it all comes together as one incredible critical view of wars and armies. And my God, is it chilling. Seriously, if you are in Berlin, go to this exhibit. You won't regret it. 

This wonderful museum experience was followed by some wonderful thai food (where I also happened to run into my Tübingen friends who I didn't know was going to be in Berlin–the world is weird) and then a play called Biedermann und die Brandstifter, which I guess translated into English is called the Fire Raisers, which doesn't really do the German title justice, but oh well. It was quite funny, even if I didn't understand every word. 

Then afterwards, we went to a divey kind of bar by our hostel to watch the first games of the World Cup. Can I say how happy I am in Europe for this? It's so much fun.

Friday
Friday was the day of the Wall. Ute took all of us to the big Mauer Monument by the Nordbahnhof, where original parts of the wall still remain without much on them–unlike in say the Eastside Gallery or something. It's rather cool but also quite eerie. It's also strange for a bunch of kids my age, because we were never alive during a divided Germany and sometimes it seems like straight-up history, but then you go to Berlin and it's not at all. Parts of the Mauer are still up just like they were 30 years ago, and parts of the city still look like they belong in the DDR (Karl-Marx-Allee for example.) It's a wild feeling. 

After the wall tour, all 11 of us kids got lunch at a Vietnamese place on Karl-Marx-Allee called Curcuma, which was both moderately priced and incredible, and then went to the Eastside Gallery. The Eastside Gallery is on the Spree river and also a large part of the remaining wall. However, this wall is quite different from the way it was during the DDR days. This part of the wall has been converted into a monument/art gallery and was on the Eastern side of Berlin, as in facing the DDR. Therefore, the "wrong" side is painted, since the wall was neither painted nor graffitied on the east side. Since the fall of the wall, this part has been kept and painted by various artists, and it looks incredible.

Then afterwards, we had a lovely little Tufts meet-up with some alumni at a bar called Aufsturz, wherein the Tufts Alumni Association provided food and we chatted and stuff it was great. Then, we decided to go out to a club near the Eastside Gallery, and then that was pretty much our day. 

Saturday

We went to a super fancy café on Saturday with a friend of Yasmine from Opera Camp and had pancakes which was a pretty lovely and chill time, and afterwards, Yasmine, Caroline, and I went to the explore the Tiergarten in the middle of the city (but you really can't tell that you are in the center of a city–super neat). Which was a lovely way to spend our last afternoon in Berlin. For me, it finally brought everything together/full circle from the last time I went to Berlin in 2011. I walked by things that I recognized from then, and even found the playground, which I had noticed from the big tour bus, which we had drove around in, but never had gotten to check out or play in. In case you were wondering, it was as cool as it looked in 2011. 

Then afterwards, we went to the Berliner Philharmonic to listen to a Chopin and Beethoven concert, which was pretty cool (but I kind of fell asleep–awkward), and then went to the same dive bar to watch Italy beat England whilst eating our last Mustafa's döner (seriously, it's magical, with all sorts of vegetables and cheese and everything). This time it was even more fun than the first go-around with the Brazil v. Croatia game, because in the bar, there was a series of rowdy Englishmen, Italian, and Germans who were all yelling at the screen when anything happened. It was extremely entertaining.

Sunday
Sunday was leaving day, which pretty much meant packing but also one last slice of cheesecake. Then we got on a train for another 8 hours, and here I am, back in Tübingen and a little angsty that I only have 4 more weeks left of class. But I guess we won't get into that now.

With that, it's late and I am a bit of a grandma, so bis später, dudes.

Berlin: I eated it.

there's nothing nicer than a Galway hooker

Finally, after more than a year and a half, I have finally returned to Ireland. Now to back up, for those of you that don't know, I lived in Ireland (Dublin, more specifically) for two months during the summer of 2012, and I loved every second of it. I couldn't wait to go back, and Paddy's Day seemed like an appropriate time to do it. I even got the Tufts-in-Tübingen crew to come with me. Well, all of them minus Marlena. 

On Sunday, the day before Paddy's Day, we flew from Frankfurt into Dublin. The flight was short and painless and had free wine, and we got into Dublin around 17. Instead of taking that stupidly expensive Airlink bus, I brought us to the Dublin Bus stop. However, that's when our problems started. I had hoped there was money on my Leapcard (a card that, when loaded up, is good for transportation all around Dublin), but unfortunately there wasn't. The Dublin Bus, while a decent bus system, is possibly the largest pain in the ass if you aren't from there. They accept only coins, and the ticket machines are very rare. (And when they do exist, they rarely work.) After Julius, Theron, and I got on the bus; Elizabeth and Yasmine were sent to the ticket machine that didn't work and then left at the airport. So that wasn't ideal. But we all ended up meeting up in city centre, because the Spire is wonderful and a great meeting point. 

After that little debacle, we continued onto our second debacle: the hotel. We booked this little adventure in January, and by then, there was not a single hostel in Dublin with availability. So we found the cheapest hotel that we could, booked a two-person room for two nights and hoped that we could sneak all five of us into it. When I google-mapped the place before, it seemed easy enough. Right on the Liffey, just have to keep walking East. But, as it turns out, the hotel changed its name without letting anyone know. So we went a little bit further than was originally planned and only ended up finding it because we went into the Spencer to ask where the Clarion was. "This is the Clarion," they responded, as if that should be completely obvious. After sneaking five people's-worth of luggage up to our hotel room, we went to something I had been looking forward to for months: The Counter. The Counter is a wonderful burger joint on Suffolk Street, right near Trinity College and Grafton Street. From the outside the place is pretty unremarkable, and you can easily walk by without even noticing it, but they make a mean burger, and having lived in Germany for the past 7 months, I have been craving a good American-style burger. (Because German burgers, while good if you don't have anything to compare them to, just don't stand up to American burgers.) So I brought the Tufts-in-Tübingen crowd and Yasmine's friend, Tori, who is studying at UCD for the semester, to The Counter. We had burgers and cosmos (my old Counter tradition), and it was wonderful. I also met up with Megan and Bri (two of my housemates from when I lived in Dublin) there, and that was a surreal and really great reunion. 

I didn't get to talk with them much that night, though, because after the Counter, we all decided to head up to my friend Shane's place. Shane sublet from my friend's in Boston this past summer but is Irish and lives in Dublin. We had agreed to meet up while I was there, and he invited all of us over to his house to hang out on Sunday night. And strangely enough, his house was about a five minute walk from where I had lived, so getting there was pretty simple. We ended up hanging out with him and his friends until about 3AM, when we caught a cab back into town in order to wake up early for the Paddy's Day parade. 

The parade started at noon, but we woke up early. We got there around noon, just as it was supposed to be starting but the entire place was absolutely mobbed. There was no way to see the parade, unless you were four years old and sitting on someone's shoulders. But we made our way towards Trinity and found a decent place to stand by the statue of Henry Grattan. The parade got to us about 45 minutes after the start time, and we didn't stay long on account of not being able to see much and the desire to get back to The Counter. Yes, my friends enjoyed The Counter so much that they wanted to go back roughly 18 hours later. I felt accomplished. 

After our delicious, second-round of burgers, we waited at the head of Grafton Street for our Irish friend Eimear, who studies with us in Tübingen. We caught up with her and walked around Stephen's Green and Merrion Square (where I had worked whilst living in Dublin). We went our separate ways, though, after Julius managed to attract an entire group of 14 year-olds, who swarmed us like pigeons. Shortly thereafter, Yasmine, Theron, and I did the same and went back to the hotel to take a nap. Elizabeth and Julius got back a little while later, and after a little while, we met up with Shane at the Spire. He took us to a bar south of the Liffey but in the eastern part of town called O'Reilly's. It a cool little bar built under the railroad tracks that has pints for very cheap. It was pretty cool, but Shane had to leave us for a little bit, because his drunk housemate lost his keys. We were supposed to meet up at a club in Temple Bar called the Button Factory, but that didn't end up working out. Temple Bar was absolutely disgusting that night with drunk people and garbage everywhere. We tried to get into the Button Factory, but it was a mad house. So instead of staying amongst the garbage and absolutely packed bars and clubs, we decided to go back to the hotel. 

The next morning we woke up around 10 and commenced the packing process. We were hoping that getting everything out of the hostel would be as chill as getting it in, as we hadn't messed up anything with the whole cram-five-people-into-a-two-person-room thing yet. Fortunately, that all went off without a hitch. We then went, got bagels, and then made for Heuston Station to catch our train to Galway. 

We got to Galway and our hostel, Barnacles Hostel, without any problems. Barnacles is right on Quay Street, one of the main streets in Galway, and very close to the ocean. So after dropping off our stuff, we decided to go exploring and wander along the beach. It was a little cold and windy, but still absolutely marvelous, especially because we have been land-locked in Tübingen for so long. After our walk, we went to a seafood place about 20 feet from our hostel (and recommended to us by the hostel) called McDonough's, where we got really, really good seafood chowder, fish n' chips, and Guinness. Gah, the fish. How I have missed the Irish fish! After that, we went back to the hostel, took a nap, and headed out in search of Irish music, which we found at Taaffe's. I also had me a really good whiskey ginger. It was just a lovely night, but we went to bed early because we had an early morning for our Cliffs of Moher tour. 

Dunguaire Castle

I figured it would be better to do the Cliffs of Moher the first day. The trip required little planning because there were tours going there all the time and there were a hell of a lot of tours. We got to the bus station at 9:45 for our 10AM tour and got seats in the back of the bus. Unlike the last time I went to the Cliffs of Moher, this whole thing would take us to a bunch of different places, like The Burren and Dunguaire Castle. Our tour guide was a little Irish man named Gary, who used the phrase "in itself" way too frequently and nonsensically. (For example, "there you see the chimney, where the family would do all of their cooking in itself.") But we had a wonderful day of touring, seeing The Burren (a really interesting part of Ireland with limestone covering most of the ground), Dunguaire Castle (which is really just a lookout tower), Corcomroe Abbey (an old church), and finally the Cliffs of Moher. Other highlights include a really tasty beef and guinness stew at a pub in Doolin and finding a Milwaukee Irishfest bumper sticker at said pub in Doolin. 


Then there were the Cliffs. The Cliffs of Moher are pretty brilliant. Gary gave us the whole schtick about don't go where the signs tell you not to, but that's the best part. So Yasmine, Elizabeth, and I made straight for the Cliffs. (The boys went to the recommended, and in my opinion, over-rated O'Brien Lookout Tower.) We did some cliff-walking, which was windy and cold and wonderful. We were lucky the weather had held-up otherwise it would have been a lot worse. 

After the Cliffs, we drove along the Atlantic coast for a while, stopping briefly at another cliff, and then made our way back to Galway with Gary blabbering on about leprechauns and "in itself" most of the way. We got back around 19 and after brief contemplation, decided to get an Irish breakfast for dinner (an Irish brinner), as it may have been our only chance to have one. And that was a good decision, because it was absolutely delicious. 

Afterwards, we decided to hit up a bar called Monroe's because they were having "world music" (ie salsa and other fancy types of dancing) night, and Elizabeth really wanted to go. The pub ended up being really cool (with just enough similarities to the Loj to make me a little home sick for it), and Elizabeth taught us to dance (or at least, tried to, I am not the most graceful human). 

View from Dún Arainn

The next morning, it was rainy and miserable. We figured that our good weather (at least for Ireland) streak had run out. But we boarded a bus bound for the ferry bound for the Aran Islands, because it was our last day in Galway, and the Aran Islands are incredible. After a rough crossing, we made it there, and much to our surprise, the sun was out. We met Mister Oliver Faherty at the docks, and he took us around the island in his van. And strangely enough, it was only us. I guess we get rewarded for our perseverance. Anyways, I guess I should give a little bit of background info. Three islands make up the Aran Islands, which lie off the coast of Galway: Inis Mór (pronounced een-ish-more, the largest, 11miles by 3miles, population 800), Inis Meadhóin (pronounced: een-ish-man, population 300), and Inis Oirthir (pronounced een-ish-eer, population 200). They are a Gaeltacht (an Irish-speaking area). Seriously, the language used in the home and stores and stuff is Irish. It's really cool. The economy is based upon tourism, fishing, and a little bit of farming, and they are known for their (really cozy and wonderful) sweaters. They didn't get electricity until 1975 and have one small supermarket on the islands (located on Inis Mór; it's a Spar.)

So I guess that gives you an idea of what kind of place I am talking about. Mr. Faherty started the tour by bringing us up to a fort called Dún Arainn, which was supposed to be closed for renovations, but he didn't say anything so neither did we. It was absolutely incredible. This fort is on the tallest point of Inis Mór. We spent probably 45 minutes, climbing on stone fences and admiring the view, which, as you can see above, is pretty breath-taking. 

Dún Aonghasa

Afterwards, we continued on towards Dún Aonghasa (pronounced dun angus), which is the most famous fort on the island and sits right on the edge of a cliff. Oliver dropped us off for about two hours. Before heading up to the Cliff, I went into some of the shops and bought Dip a Claddagh ring and myself a wonderful cozy green sweater. The five of us also had a wonderful chat with Sarah Flaherty, the woman selling the sweaters, who told us that the whole family sweater pattern thing is a load of crap. (I had heard from multiple people that each family on the islands had their own sweater pattern, that way if someone got lost at sea while fishing and turned up later, you could identify the body...morbid, I know.) The more you know. But in any case, the sweater I bought is really cool and intricate. 

After the sweater-buying excursion, we made our way up to the fort. May I reiterate how incredible this place is. These cliffs abut the Atlantic. You can tangle your feet over. It's probably my favourite place in all of Ireland. Up on the cliffs, we had a picnic with cheese, sausage, and baguettes that we had bought from the grocery store. Eventually, we headed back to meet up with Oliver.

We continued the journey to the northern-most point on the island, which has a beautiful, albeit very rocky beach, where we hung out and enjoyed being so close to water. 

We finished our tour by the Seven Churches, which is actually two churches and some other church-related living quarters, which had their roofs burned off them by Oliver Cromwell. (Oliver Cromwell was a proper prick, in case you had some sort of misplaced positive notions about him or something. Before he came, the Inis Mór had 2,000 people on it...then he killed them and anything else that moved or seemed Irish.) Anyways, the seven churches are pretty incredible especially when you have the place pretty much to yourself. Oh and we met a really friendly donkey. 

After the churches, we had a pint and then got on the ferry home. That night we had one last fish n' chips at McDonough's and then went back to Monroe's for live music and fun. And that was about it. The next day we got up early for 12+ hours of travel back to Tübingen. 

That's all I got for ya, dudes. I am not really sure as of right now where my adventures for the remainder of the break will take me, but I will keep you posted. With that, bis später, dudes.

Oh and P.S. a Galway hooker is a boat, you dirty-minded people. 

...But, Baby, It's Cold Outside

Hey guys. So as I said before, I went over to the East for this past week, which in this case means: Jena, Leipzig, Weimar, and various other places. Which I am about to tell you all about in this monster of a post. Viel Spaß. :)

Sunday: Traveling und Schtuff
So on Saturday night, we stayed at Elizabeth's boyfriend, Joab's, house out in Deckenpfronn (read: the middle of nowhere). It was a joint birthday party for the both of them, so we hung out, drank, and then slept over, as that was easier in making it to Stuttgart the next day to begin our journey out East. Surprising, the entire thing went off without a hitch. We met up with Ute, took a train to Nürnberg, which was miraculously on time. (The belief that German trains run on-time is largely incredibly false.) And then from Nürnberg to Jena. 

Yup, that's Jena.

To start, Jena is a university city in the deutsche Bundesland Thüringen, which seems to me to be one of the lesser-known Bundesländer. It's cutesy, old (but not that old for Germany, only founded in the 1300 or 1400s), and whatever. And everyone tells you it's horribly boring, which I guess is at least half-true. While it is a student city, it seems to be significantly less hopping that Tübingen. But I digress. Upon our arrival in Jena, we met up with our host families. Our entire group was spread out across four families across Jena. Yasmine and I at one place, Theron and Julius at another, Elizabeth and Marlena at another, and then Ute stayed with our tour guide, a sassy little German man named Wolfgang. Now for mine and Yasmine's host family. They are perfect. Literally, they have no flaws. There are four of them. Father, mother, and two daughters, who are 18 and 20. The parents sing in a semi-professional gospel choir and go dancing on Tuesday nights. The 18 year-old daughter is in a different choir, and their 20 year-old daughter goes to school in Jena and plays the piano. They all sit in the living room, and either work on homework or sing Christmas carols together. It was just so much perfect-ness. 

That night, we went to dinner at a restaurant called Zur Noll, which served us some pretty delicious food, and the chef was a sassy tall man. Instead of even contemplating the idea of going on in Jena, we decided to go home with our host family promptly after dinner. (They live in Jena Ost, which is very far from being in the center of the city, so a car ride home was pretty appealing.) We turned in somewhere around 10PM. I guess there's some merit to Julius calling me Oma. 

Monday: Ostschule und Jena

One for the Tufts-in-Tübingen brochure

Montag was a mildly early wake up call. We were supposed to meet at one of the local Gymnasiums (read: high school, or at least close enough to a high school, I'll explain the German education system later) at 9:30AM or some nonsense. But our host family made us a lovely German breakfast of breads, jams, meats, and cheeses (and for which we naturally had to be punktlich). We spent the morning and part of the afternoon being shuffled from room to room to speak English with the kids. It was hectic, but fun. We went to three classrooms, two with 12 year-olds and one with 18 year-olds. I had a group of 18 year-olds interrogate me as to why I didn't tell the teacher that German bier was my favourite part of Germany. ("Wait, so you're twenty, right? So why didn't you say that bier was your favourite part of Germany?!") Afterwards, when they heard we were going to the cafeteria for lunch, one of them told me that the lunch ladies "cook with evilness." They were pretty hilarious. 

Then naturally, after the high school, we stadtführunged, which didn't take terribly long as Jena isn't very big. But it was also horribly cold. Somewhat of a theme for the rest of this week. We eventually ended up at the Weihnachtsmarkt, drank some Glühwein, and then went with Ute to a student restaurant for dinner. Afterwards, we met up with Julius and Theron's host mom at the Weihnachtsmarkt again. (We had wanted Eierpunsch.) This lovely lady showed Yasmine and I where the Straßebahn stop was and then took us to an Irish pub. It was all rather lovely.

Tuesday: Buchenwald und Erfurt
I thought that Buchenwald deserved it's own post. So it has one. Which you can find below. Cool? Cool. 

Which leads us up to the middle of Tuesday. We got to Erfurt around 1:30 or so, and made immediately for the Weihnachtsmarkt there to eat a quick lunch. And that was the fateful day. The day that I first tried a Thüringer bratwurst. To sum things up rather quickly: it was beautiful. This would also begin another theme of the week: eating bratwurst for every meal ever. After lunch, Wolfgang showed us Erfurt, which meant one of the two big churches in the city, the old synagogue, the Krämerbrücke (and the wonderful homemade chocolate shop on said bridge) and then the Rathaus. Then we had time to bum around, which meant "Russian Hot Chocolate" in a café to get warm (we were freezing during the entire tour), buying homemade chocolate, and going to the Weihnachtsmarkt. 

When we got back to Jena, while the boys hung out with their host mom, Ute took the girls to an Italian restaurant with the sassiest little Italian waiter/comedian I have ever met. He would talk to us in a mixture of German, English, Italian, Spanish, and French and would just give us a hard time. It was pretty hysterical. 

Wednesday: Weimar

Goethe's office

Weimar was also bloody cold. We walked around the city for two hours or so. Which admittedly was very cool. It's a very pretty old city. But it was freezing nonetheless. Also, Goethe (who was a wicked famous German writer and politician) lived there. Which is you go to Weimar for any amount of time, you will know because the entire city is Goethe everything. (Come to Goethe's house! Goethestraße, Goethe's grave, statues of Goethe, statues of Schiller and Goethe--it got a little out of hand.) We ended our tour at the Weihnachtsmarkt again, but we decided to try a café for lunch instead. I had a salmon salad, which was probably closer to soup--Germans love them some salad dressing. Afterwards, we chilled in Goethe's house (which is currently a museum) for a while, which was cool. If not a wee bit excessive. Then we went back to the same café and ate cake, because why the hell not. (And my God, was that cake delicious.)

However, all of this food meant that we didn't really have room for our early dinner at a Greek and Italian restaurant. Which was unfortunate, because the little food I did eat there was super delicious. We ended our night at the Jena Planetarium, where we watched Queen Heaven, a light show set to the music of Queen. SO FUCKING GOOD. Ute was shocked that all of us were Queen fans. ("You guys are so young!") But I guess that's what you get for having parents that play that kind of music in the car all the time.

After the planetarium, the six of us hung out in the city for a while, drinking wine, but I decided it'd probably be better to catch a tram back (which meant that Yasmine and I had a midnight curfew) instead of trying to figure out the whole bus/taxi nonsense.

Thursday: Small-Town Sachsen-Anhalt und Thanksgiving 

Thursday was a less early day, which was lovely. It was also a lot of time in the car, which meant sleep. Yay! We went around some small towns in Sachsen-Anhalt, namely Bad Kösen and Freyburg. And after a super large and delicious lunch at an adorable hotel in the middle of nowhere, we eventually ended up in a Sektkellerei called Rottkäppchen, which is the biggest producer of Sekt (champagne) in Germany. Our tour guide was an adorable little German woman, who didn't speak much English, I'm pretty sure was a little drunk, and enjoyed having fun with the Americans. She taught us a drinking song that went like this:

Alle meine Freunde trinken so wie ich

Alle meine Freunde trinken so wie ich

Legen sich besoffen nieder

Stehen auf und trinken wieder

Alle meine Freunde trinken so wie ich

So that was pretty hysterical. She also had us all get stuck inside a Fass (one of those big Sekt barrels), although I guess we really weren't stuck... 

So yeah, after the Sektkellerei, we returned to Jena early, which meant that we had time to nap! Yay, sleeping! I am fairly certain my host family thought that all Yasmine and I did was sleep, eat their breakfast, and travel places. But at 7PM that night, we had Thanksgiving. Now Yasmine and I thought that it probably wouldn't be like a "normal" American Thanksgiving, because, you know, people eat healthy portions over here. WRONG. We had the biggest damned turkey I have ever seen (it could have been an ostrich) and so, so much food. It was absolutely delicious. The chef at Zur Noll is a god amongst men. Afterwards, I promptly went into a food coma for roughly ten hours.

All the nomz

Friday: Max, Leipzig, und Borna
But that was good, because then I had plenty of energy for Leipzig. After an hour and a half-long car ride, we finally got there. So a few things: it was really apparent while we were driving that we were in East Germany, it was so industrial looking and the tiny towns that we passed through all 1. seemed dead and 2. had really Soviet-looking architecture. Second, Leipzig is a wicked cool and interesting city. During the days of the DDR, Leipzig, in addition to East Berlin, seemed to be the hot beds of anti-Communist activity. And when the DDR was finally disintegrating in October and November of 1989, one of the biggest demonstrations (if not the biggest) was in Leipzig. So yeah, Wolfgang showed us around and then left us to our own devices. 

This kid.

Then shortly after one, I got to meet up with Max again! Which was just so crazy cool. I hadn't seen this kid since I was a freshman in college, when he came to visit USM. It was awesome being able to see him in person again. We hung out for a while during his lunch break, got some lunch at the Weihnachtsmarkt, and then he showed me around the parts of Leipzig that I hadn't already been to, which was awesome. He did have to leave for work again, so I met up with my friends and we hung out until 5:30 when they left to go to dinner in a castle and I stayed and waited for Max to pick me up. We had made plans the night before for me to stay over at his place and then go back to Jena in the morning to catch the train back to Tübingen. He picked me up at the Hauptbahnhof. We then went to where his girlfriend works and had a bier. Well I had a bier; he had an alkoholfrei bier because he had to drive. He then took me to Connewitz, which seems to be a very hipster, left-wing, and young part of Leipzig. We ate both döner and burgers, because he wanted to show me both of his favourite fastfood places around there. And then we went to one of his friend's houses where they kicked my butt in a bunch of different Wii games. But it was still super fun and they are really cool.

However, we went back to Borna, where Max lives with his family, relatively early because we both had to wake up at the ass crack of dawn. Me to get to my train and him for orientation in Ravensburg, where he is going to be going to school in January. So about Borna. Borna used to be a relatively hopping place during the DDR times, because it had a ton of coal-mining around it. So all the coal-miners and their families lived there. After the fall of the wall, however, all the coal mines closed and the families left. Now you just have a declining town with very, very little to do. As we drove past the Hauptbahnhof, Max said, "and here is the best part of Borna...because you can leave." Which is fairly true. It was probably the first time that I truly realized that I was in the former DDR. Despite the fact that it was Saturday night, it was empty, eerily so. It was really weird. I had challenged him if it was more depressing that my home town. His won by a mile. But we drank biers in his family's kitchen and talked until 2AM or so, and that was great. 

Saturday: zu Hause!
Then this morning, I got to meet Max's family, who are some of the nicest people in the world. Not only did they invite me into their home, despite the fact that they had never met me, his grandfather offered to drive me an hour to Jena for my train because Max couldn't. They are just so sweet and wonderful. So I had a lovely conversation with his grandfather in the car, who is a quiet, sweet German man who hardly speaks a lick of English. And then took a train back to Tübingen (or well Nürnberg, then Stuttgart, then Tübingen). Once we got home, we promptly went to Kaufland--I had literally no food, and then crashed, because, you know, long week. 

And with that, that seems to be about it. I am leaving for Sweden on Thursday. Which is so crazy. I can't believe it's already here. I also maybe getting sick, which is less than ideal. But hopefully that won't be the case. And with that, I say thank you to the folks that actually read to the end of this long and rambling nonsense. Bis später, dudes.