New blog

Well, I'm back in the US. Haven't posted forever because, after all, this blog is my travels in Austria and I'm no longer in Austria...! Thus, I have a new blog. But no worries, my German is not left behind. Ich bin "Amerikanisches Girl"-- check it out! :)

December 20, 2009

Yesterday was crap. Friday night I said goodbye to Joe, Sam, and Tommy. That sucked. Then Saturday morning I got on a train to Frankfurt and said goodbye to Audrey and Amy—indefinitely. I know I will see these amazing girls again but I have no idea when that will be. All of us are a bit strapped for money after this semester, Amy’s off to France next semester, where she’ll be working and improving her French but paying an outrageous 500 euro/month in rent! (More than she’ll be earning, I might add.) And Audrey’s headed back to the University of Northern Iowa, where she’ll keep studying History education. Audrey’s not too far away and I know Amy will always be phone call away but I’ve gotten so “accustomed to [their] face[s],” how am I supposed to go back to life without them? Whenever I’ve been bored in the last 4 months, I’ve gone down to Room 111 and plopped myself down on Amy’s bed-- I couldn’t even begin to count the hours I spent with those two.

The bleakness of that situation is PARALLED by the sheer JOY that keeps surging through me. As I write this, I will see my family in 30 minutes. THIRTY MINUTES. I want to get up and JUMP! I’m not going to be a hot mess. I haven’t seen my family since September 3. Wow. That’s 107 days of not seeing my family.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been torn about my feelings. My joy for seeing my family was a bit overwhelmed by my reluctance to be done with this semester and my time with my wonderful *new* friends. It’s a family vacation (and not only that, a *Broadbent* family vacation)... that basically demands some form of an argument. I haven’t seen my family for 107 days and I just want to enjoy it—not deal with who is mad at whom. I’ll just say: that’s long gone.

I get to see my family! Yeah, it feels pretty darn good.

Mehr Berlin! :)

On the train for my eleven hour trip back to Klagenfurt from Berlin. Incredibly exciting. Incredibly busy is a better description though. I think there’s been some sort of computer problem with seat reservations—every SINGLE seat on the train says reserved. They made an announcement but aside from “computer problems,” “reservations,” and “sorry,” I can’t be sure what was said.

Berlin turned out to be wonderful. If I hadn’t continually gotten lost Friday, I certainly would have seen a bit more but the trip turned out to be just right. I made it to my free tour on Saturday. I even got to grab a Dunkin’ Donut on the way (soo Berlin!).

The tour lasted from about 11:15 to 2:45. We went from the Brandenburg Gate, looked at the American Embassy, the hotel where MJ dangled his baby, and the French Embassy (overwhich Victoria conveniently stares), then we made our way towards the Memorial for the Jews murdered in World War II, an uneven pavement covered in identically-dimensioned cubes—our tour guide said some people interpret them as graves, others bodies… I kept picturing the bunkers in concentration camps like the one in the picture of Elie Wiesel. After that we made our way to a muddy parking lot—the official memorial to Hitler’s bunker. Okay, maybe not official but it’s quite appropriate. The parking lot is directly above where Hitler and Eva Braun killed themselves. The bunker has been destroyed and there was only one simple sign indicating the “significance” of the location. Our guide said Berliners bring their dogs to the parking lot on Hitler’s birthday to potty. Perfect J We made our way towards CheckPoint Charlie—a bit of a dissapointment—a bunch of signs about the wall, a fake checkpoint, a picture of an American soldier, a fake sign about leaving the American sector, and a museum. But I saw it, so that’s all right After lunch, we went to Gendarmenplatz, the location of the French cathedral… as well as the German cathedral (because could Germany really allow an entire market dedicated to the French? Of course not!). Our next stop was the Humbodlt University/State opera area. Humboldt University can pride itself on having alumni/former staff such as the Brothers Grimm and Einstein; however, Humboldt cannot deny its darker past—the burning of some 20,000 books under Nazi regime. Many of the burnt books were single editions, originals that could never be republished, from authors such as Einstein…? A memorial in the center of the market looks like an optical illusion at first: a room underground with white booksheleves—enough to hold exactly the number of books that were burnt that night. The most incredible thing here though was the plaque commemorizing the memorial with a quotation from Heinrich Heine in 1820: “When man burns books it is only an Vorspiel, man will also burn people.” Heine may have died before the Nazis…. but the connection to his quotation and the Nazi’s action is eery.

Our tour guide, Stephanie, was great—I was the first person at the meet point in West Berlin so I got to talk to her a bit on my own before others showed up and stayed in her group for the overall tour. I had lunch with her and her boss, who was from the States. They invited me to go dancing later and were soo friendly. At the end of the tour, I was sticking around to thank her, tip her, and ask her what she thought I just had to do in Berlin. A couple from my group was waiting around to ask a few questions as well. Their accents sounded British so I asked what part of the UK they were from and started talking. The four of us ended up going to get a hot chocolate together. The British couple, Gary and Jo, were lifesavers. When they found out I was alone, they invited me to spend the rest of the afternoon/evening with them.

We walked miles through Berlin and visited several Christmas markets, had several glasses of Glühwein… and most importantly (well.. my end goal, at least), we made it to KaDeWe (the Kaufhaus des Westens, also known as the largest department store in all of Europe). We basically walked the entire way across town to visit KaDeWe, so the expectations were rather high. It had better be worth the trek we had just made through Berlin or I was in for it! One word: massive. 7 stories of department store craziness. I walked in to a hallway that reminded me a bit of the Wynn’s shopping area—Louis Vutton, Prada, and so many brands I can’t even waste time looking at in a magazine. Beyond that was basically a Christmas market inside the store. Yep, it’s that big. We made our way through perfume heaven and up to the “gourmet restaurant.” After all, we’d basically been walking Berlin since 11, it was going on 6:30, we were a bit hungry! Everything was just incredible. It looked like a fancy restaurant but was a buffet-style food area. After some delicious cake, we made our way through the remaining 6 levels. Simply insane. I would love to go back and just spend hours in that one store. Had I been on my own, I’m sure I would have spent even more time than I did in KaDeWe… but it’s probbaly best for my wallet (and my ever-expanding luggage contents) that I didn’t have that time to spend!

I don’t know what I would have done without Jo and Gary. It was at no point awkward with them and we saw so much of the city that I would not have without them!

This morning I woke up and made my way further east towards the East Side Gallery—the longest remaining segment of the wall, covered in original artwork. It was such a whirlwind of emotions. A lot of the things I had seen on the tour Saturday were a rush of emotions as well, maybe it was being alone at the wall today, the weather, leaving Berlin, or just the significance of the wall itself, but the East Side Gallery was incredible.

17 days until I’m home to see everyone!! Only 7 until my family is here!!!

Day 2:

East Side Gallery:

Hauptstadt Deutschlands!!

Sorry it's been a while! I am currently sitting my hotel room in.. BERLIN! It's been an adventure so far. This will definitely be a trip to remember.

Amy had thought she might be able to join me on my trip but-- it being the end of our time in Austria, we're all a bit short on cash-- it didn't work out. That was okay though. I had told myself there were just certain things I had to see. And Berlin just happened to be on the absolute *top* of that list. So I ended up waiting longer than I had hoped to buy tickets, so, of course, the price went up. Not a problem though. I was determined.

I booked a great hotel. Artemisia Frauenhotel Berlin. An only women's hotel in Charlottenburg district. Great location directly across from a subway stop and very secure. I managed to find a reduced price on one of the hotel booking Web sites and managed to get a single room for 39 euro instead of 69/79! No complaints!

Being the procrastinator that I am (and no, to any of you that hoped that might change while I was abroad, it hasn't), I printed my tickets out on Wednesday night before my train was to leave at 6:46 the next morning. I double-checked everything and realized that somehow in the process of booking online, the date had changed from 10.12 to 06.12... My tickets were no longer valid for the 10th. After a major panic attack and some choice words at the internet and myself... and calling home and... I wont lie... some tears, I realized that I had no choice but to book new tickets. ::sound of money draining::

I decided that if that was the worst thing to happen on my trip, I could totally handle it. Some money on a credit card, a bit of stress while still comfortably in Klagenfurt-- totally do-able. I packed my things and had Amy sit with me to make sure I was being practical and including EVERYTHING. I thought I was doing great. I even went to bed by 11 o'clock! (Feel free to GASP!!) I had everything set out so as not to wake Claudia at 5 am when my alarm went off. I quickly got ready and called the cab-- phone didn't seem to be working. I had to change my eeTy SIM card out for the international card I had bought at home to use in Germany. Small panic that I'll have no phone in Germany all weekend. Claudia without fail wakes up anytime I move in the room, which for once paid off. I used her cell phone and called a cab. Pain free to the train station.

I was a bit anxious about the train ride. All of the connections on the fabulous journey through almost all of Austria and Germany are lame. I picked the best one (which meant leaving at 6:46 and getting to Berlin at 18:11) but was still left with a measly TEN minutes to run from one platform to another in Salzburg. If I could get to that connection, I was home-free. And run I did! But I made it. WHEW. After that was to Munich, where I had an hour connection. Easy as pie. When I got off the train in Munich though, my stomach was suddenly in knots. I had somehow managed to leave without my passport. Having a hotel in Europe means showing your passport. I had tried calling Amy earlier on my cell phone and it was not working so I rushed to pay phones, which are basically Greek to me. The few times I ever used pay phones were in grade school when I went to the community center to swim and used COLLECT to call Mom for a ride home. Not exactly going to work to call Amy... When I finally got ahold of her, she tried calming me down. She reminded me that when we went to Venice, Sam didn't have his passport and was OK... I would be fine. It worked for a bit but I was still very anxious.

I arrived in Berlin on time. What a massive train station. At least 4 stories! It's not only a train station but a mall. Shops everywhere, Pizza Hut, Subway, clothing stores, travel agencies, anything you can imagine almost. I found an information center and purchased the Berlin Welcome Card, which allows me to travel on almost any public transit line throughout most of the city. Onward to the subway to get to my hotel. Berlin's a huge city-- the public transportation system is huge-- getting to my hotel should be simple. WRONG. After walking back and forth between almost all of the levels of the train station, I realized I had two choices. Ask someone or stay in the train station, wandering between levels, the entire night. I can't have pride in a foreign city! I felt much less stupid after asking for directions-- I wasn't blind, the subway I needed does not go to the Hauptbahnhof. I took the S-Bahn to the U-Bahn (street car to underground car) and got off, out of anxiety of missing my stop, a stop too early. But I was in the right area-- right street name-- I'll survive walking a few blocks!

After a *few* blocks I found my hotel, lugged my bag up 5 flights of stairs, and checked in. The receptionist was very nice and helpful. My room's great. Right by the reception area. I have a room to myself, TV, big window, and a shower en suite. The shower is shared between my room and another which was, and as far as I know is still, empty. The toilet is simply across the hall. And being that it's an all women hotel, I don't mind too much at all!

I was so organized about this trip (okay, maybe it's not looking that way... but I *felt* so organized for this trip). I wrote up a daily agenda, looked at what I wanted to see and grouped things based on their proximity to one another, etc. I had intended to take a free tour of Berlin today, visit the Alexanderplatz, and the DDR Museum. I missed the free tour due to lack of knowledge of how the heck to find the right transit. By the time I was on the right bus, it was 10:30-- time to meet. I headed to Unter den Linden. Somehow, I found the tour and thought I'd try to sneakily join the group about 20 minutes late. But the group I joined was full and I was "politely asked" to join a group led by so-and-so. Well, so-and-so blended in pretty well and I couldn't find him, so I just bailed. Off to DDR (GDR) Museum! A few minor set backs as far as transit, but I made it! Pretty cool little exhibit. Then off to the Judische Museum. At first I thought the museum was great.... but then it kept going. I had purchased an audio guide and couldn't find over half of the points to listen to the information. The information was too long and there was way to much information overall. The architecture is amazing - the intention is great - I was simply... bored of it by the end.

Well, that wraps up day one in Berlin! More to come-- and probably some back blogging about Krampustag!!

Liebe Grüße

An Austrian-style Thanksgiving and Venice

It's officially the holidays! Thanksgiving has come and gone. One of the professors at the university acts as a coordinator for the University of Northern Iowa (where Audrey and Sam study) and a few other US schools (not WU) and organized a Thanksgiving dinner for the three of us. Somehow, we are the only three American students studying at the university this semester!!

Gunhild had emailed us a week or so ago and told us she wanted to do a Thanksgiving meal with us. So we were aware of it.. but I wasn't sure how it would go. We were having a dinner since it's not a holiday and everyone still had work (so wrong!). I felt a bit lethargic last week... there was Mozartclub, as usual, on Tuesday. Audrey wasn't feeling up to going and I had no problem staying in with her watching movies. Wednesday there was a free Jameson event and I had to force myself into going. So Thursday was a struggle. I didn't want to do anything. I finally had to accept mid-day Wednesday that I was homesick. Apparently all of me but my conscience knew that. Luckily people were around to Skype with (mostly Mom!) and that helped a bunch. I geared myself up for Thanksgiving-- Austrian-style.

It's always hard knowing what to expect when going to someone else's for dinner. And I hate being underdressed. So the three of us decided that, even though at home Thanksgiving is super casual, we would dress up a bit for this. Gunhild sent her son to give us a ride to her house-- he showed up in jeans. Figures. We were greeted at her place by her husband, her older son, and herself-- also in jeans. Oh well. Better over- thank underdressed!

Instead of pumpkin pie, we started the meal off with pumpkin soup. Apparently it's not a traditional type of soup here but I've sure never heard of it at home! But it's soo good. Soup was followed by all the goodies-- turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, etc. etc. etc. SO good. There were a few Austrian-ish specialties mixed it. Some figs with bacon (actually really good) and little things like that. Instead of an entire spread of pies for dessert we had an authentic, home-made apple strudel. Mmmmmm! If that didn't get your mouth watering... you haven't had good apple strudel before. Don't get me wrong, I'm still craving a piece of pumpkin or chocolate pie, but apple strudel should probably be added to our repertoire of desserts more often at home! :)

Overall the dinner was very nice. Initially they spoke English with us but soon discovered we all studied German, so we quickly switched to German... which often switched between English and German! The vice-rector of the university joined us. He asked a lot of questions-- what we liked, what we didn't. Any specific complaints? How's Entree been? Well... a bit reluctantly (and a bit joyfully) we got to share our disappointing experiences with Entree and the Survey of Austrian culture course we are taking. Hopefully it helps but it very well could go unnoted. That's life, right?

When we returned from the dinner (by this point almost 10 pm), there was a dorm party in our dorm. Of course, the one night! Did I mention we had planned our trip to Venice for Friday? :) Amy, Sam, and I joined the party for a bit and tried to go to bed around 2 but the music was so loud, I'm not sure how much sleep any of us actually got. We woke up early and caught the train around 10. It's only a 4 hour train ride to Venice (crazy!) so we got in around 2.

We'd found this apartment-style accommodation that was cheap and centrally located. It offered a double/queen bed and 2 twin beds. Perfect! We followed the instructions and took a boat to Rialto's bridge and tried to call the owner. Instead of a person, there was an automated message, which seemed a lot like "the number you dialed..." GREAT! After a few attempts, we decided we'd have to find internet, double check the number, and go from there. Off to McDonald's we go (it's getting a bit sad, isn't it?). There's only one McD's in Venice but luckily, we found it and got online. But the number we'd dialed was correct. Why does the Broadbent travel curse follow me everywhere?! I apologized profusely to everyone... I had found this accommodation, I should have known, I felt awful! We decided to dial the number via Skype... and it worked! But halfway through Sam's conversation, the guy hung up on him. Oh, beautiful. I was having Florida flashbacks at this point.. we decided to look up the name of another hostel.

We waited a bit and headed back towards Rialto's bridge, found a pay phone, and, THANK GOD, got ahold of our *friendly* host. Although he and Sam had spoken some level of English on the phone, he refused to speak any English in person. It took about 3 times repeating the phrase for us to figure out he was going to lead us to the apartment. Once in the apartment, we realized this wasn't quite the apartment shown on their Web site. There were beds for 4 people but it was one queen and one *fold out* double in the middle of what should have been a living room/kitchen. We went sight-seeing and when we returned from dinner, the heater wasn't working in the main room. Audrey and I slept on the incredibly comfortable (ha!) fold out bed, which was about as cozy as sleeping on hardwood floor. We tried to make it an early night but in the end, I was awake until after 4.

If any of you have seen Just Married, insert any memory you have of their first night in Venice here. That's how I felt! Well, no giant cockroach (that we saw...) but still! It was beautiful. But we survived the accommodations (which were cheap), and the city was great. We really only saw Piazzo San Marco and the Basillica. Very pretty. I was surprised how much you can just walk around. It seemed like everywhere should be canals, not sidewalks! You could definitely tell you were surrounded by water though. Sometimes the smell was overwhelming, other times you barely noticed it.

This weekend Audrey, Amy, and I are staying in Klagenfurt. Hopefully we'll be venturing over to Villach (about 20 minutes by train) for the Krampus parade. Krampus is the opposite of St. Nicholas. He brings "gifts" for the bad kids. He looks like a demon. Klagenfurt had a parade this Saturday but we weren't back in time for it. Hopefully it's entertaining!

Few pics from our girls night and Thanksgiving:

Austrian-style fun

Well, I've been talking about it long enough so I thought it was about time.... I went into town and tried on dirndl Friday! In case you aren't sure, dirndl is the traditional style woman's dress from southern Germany/Austria. Think St. Pauli's Girl or Oktoberfest-- yup, that's it!

Amy, Audrey, Joe, and I went to find a good store and found one with a gorgeous purple dirndl in front... but I saw the price on the dress-- 880 euro!! So much for buying one! I thought. We went in anyway and I was surprised how relaxed the staff was-- a group of English speaking 20-somethings around expensive clothes never goes without all sorts of fuss at home. They simply pointed us towards the room and left us be. There were all sorts of cute, pretty, and awful dirndl and all sorts of prices-- from 150 euro for a short length dirndl to the painful 880 euro for the pretty thing in the window. I grabbed an armful and went to try on... but I felt a bit lost-- how do you tie the apron? do I unbutton each button to put it on or can it flip over my head? How's the undershirt work? Just in case any of you find yourselves trying on dirndl-- unbutton each button, there are funny snaps on the skirt-- you did not rip it, the undershirt just feels funky, and tie silk aprons in back. :)

The first dirndl I tried on was very traditional-- plaid with a higher neckline. It was very much what I think of when I think of old Germany-- like when everybody wore these!! The next dress I tried on was very Christmas. Black bodice with red flowers and a red striped apron. Very pretty! But soo Christmas-y. Then I tried on a grey and light green dress. Omy. SO pretty! A bit more modern aka the neckline dips a bit. It looked so nice, the price wasn't bad.... I'm preparing to become the wacky German teacher. I own a dirndl! :)

We did another thing we've been needing to do for quite a while... we went out to eat! I know, trivial but it was long overdue. We had no idea where to go, which explains why we haven't gone out! We even got online and looked into it. We finally decided to go to Weiβes Roβ, a traditional German/Austrian guest house/restaurant. Best. Choice. Ever. The food was absolutely awesome and the prices were great too. I am glad I found it-- I'm taking the family in a month! I had the tastiest Cordon Bleu! Mmmmm!

Another bit of shopping I did this week to add to my classroom someday-- I bought 3 children books from an author that Katharina recommended and we watched a bit of a documentary on. His name is Janosch and his most-beloved character is a wooden duck striped like a tiger, resulting in the creative name Tigerente (Tiger-duck).

That's been my week of fun! On the menu for this week: Monday- test in Sprachkurs. Tuesday- test in Grammatik. Wednesday- jump around. Friday- Krampus parade. Saturday- Venice!

Alles liebe!

Photo Catch up

Hi hi! So I just realized there are a few parties that I haven't posted pictures from... so I put together a quick slideshow. Nothing incredibly exciting but just a bit of the goofiness we've been up to lately!! The first party is from October 22 (oops!!!) and the second was last Tuesday.

Off to Grammar... wish me luck because I need it with this awful class!!!!!!!