Weekend ;)

On Friday we took the kids to an indoor playground, as it was raining. It rained so much here last summer, but the weather has actually been amazing this summer. So basically we were willing to suffer through a rainy day :) After the playground Frauke dropped me off in downtown Goslar, where I met up with Saskia, a friend of a friend that I'm interested in getting to know better. She and I went out to dinner. We sat at an outdoor cafe, and I ate kaesespaetzle (noodles with cheese) and drank an Alster, beer mixed with lemonade. We had a nice chat, then went and ate ice cream and went shopping. I'd love to buy everything in S. Oliver, but I only bought a couple of sale items. I have a whole year here and I can't spend too much at the very beginning!

On Saturday (yesterday) I went with Frauke and her family, and her friend to a open house at the local fire station. It was perfect for the kids. They were allowed to talk with real firefighters, there were demonstrations on fire safety, and great activities for kids. Thies, their 6-year-old, was able to climb up on top of one of their trucks, and also to drive an excavator with one of the workers. It was adorable to watch. He looked so proud. Yesterday afternoon more of Frauke's friends arrived, and that meant drinking coffee and eating cake-I was happy to oblige. I ate a chocolate and cherry cake with a bit of rum in it, which was as delicious as it sounds.

Yesterday evening I chatted with a girl that is going to be studying abroad through Bowling Green in Austria as well. She and I had already planned on traveling together, we just hadn't made any definite plans yet. I spontaneously asked her if she was free for a few days at the end of September, as I want to go to Sweden. We looked up tickets, found some for 42 Euro a piece round trip (only 58 dollars total for a round-trip ticket!), and voila, we bought the tickets right away. So I'm off to Stockholm, Sweden in September!!! I cannot wait. That has always been a country that has been on the top of my list. I looked up youth hostels yesterday, and if we stay in a room with about 10 other people, we can keep our accommodation costs to a minimum.

Ahh cheap travel. Did I mention I love Europe??!

<3 Molly

Funny ;)

Michigan News Headline

"Flasher Reported Along Huron River
Reports of a man emerging from brush along the river in the buff have been coming in"

--I read it and laughed. If that were a federally offense in Germany nearly the entire country would be arrested. When I swim at the pond in Hahnenklee I normally see someone naked there every day.

Cultural differences are amusing...

A little of this, a little of that...

On Sunday Ralf's(the father of the children that I babysit for) parents came for a visit. Ralf's sister and her family came to visit as well. It was nice, I spent some time speaking with her 15-year-old daughter. We spoke German with each other but she can speak English, as she studies it in school. We all went to the pond together to go swimming, which was nice. We swam for a really long time so I was definitely exhausted by the end.

Yesterday we went to the pond with Ralf's mother, and last evening we ate outside at the hotel restaurant across the street from us. I had one Alster (a German drink that is half beer, half lemonade), and was drunk/happy for 2 hours after. I cannot believe how low my alcohol tolerance has become. I've always been a cheap date, but that was pathetic...

Today we took the bus to downtown Goslar with the kids. I bought a German magazine, ate delicious Italian gelatto, and tried not to buy anything more. Money is definitely tight and I have to keep costs to a minimum until I find some sort of a job out here (probably just babysitting or tutoring). When I think of all of the things I still have to pay for: bedding, residency permit, health insurance...I about have a heart attack. Let's hope some sort of a job opportunity presents itself!

Bye, Molly

Hannover

Today I took the train to meet Chris (a former exchange student at my university in Michigan) in Hannover. He and I visited his friend Dennis, and then eventually met up with Imke (another one of the former exchange students)! I didn't know she was coming until today, so that was pretty exciting. It was nice to be reunited with 2 of my favorite German exchange students that studied at Oakland University :-)

We walked around the city, shopped, and went to the top of the Rathaus (city hall). There we saw a beautiful view of the city. Towards the end of our day I did manage to finally eat mint chocolate chip ice cream. Yum.

Just being a role model...

This is a picture of Lea and I after we swam in the pond yesterday. ;)
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Lea, our 7-year-old neighbor, is absolutely adorable. I have previously spent time with her and her mother, Anette, at the public pool, as well as on the day that I went with them to the technical university that Anette works at. Today I was invited for dinner for steak and pepper and wiener schnitzel. Lea was adorable, showing off a bit for me. She's a sweetheart, and tomorrow I've invited her over for a girls night. We're going to watch a movie and eat junk food. ;)

It's new, yet old...

Today we went to downtown Goslar and went on the Bimmelbahn, a small train that shows you around the city. We saw many different sites, including the NEWEST church in Goslar. Incidentally, this piece of architecture was built in 1186. Normally when I think of old, I think of my former high school, which was built in the 1950s...Funny how my perspective on antiquity has changed.

Wine and Pond Swimming....

Beautiful scenery, delicious wine, a wonderful pond with just the right water temperature, and good company :-)
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Today was hotter than hell, per usual...so we went to the pond with a Dutch family that has a summer house down the street. It was very fun. The pond water temperature was just right, and incredibly refreshing. I swam around for a long time, taking in the beautiful scenery. When I was done, I had coffee, and then 2 glasses of wine, while speaking with the Dutch family. We switched from German to English quite often, which got very confusing, but also amusing :-)

It's a cultural thing...

This past week has been the same. Helping with the kids, eating good German bread, the usual. I don't need to go into detail about every single moment of every single day. It is often tedious, and boring.

Instead I would like to share with you what has been weighing on my mind. Cultural differences. It has been sweltering hot this past week (due in part to global warming, no doubt), and although we did go to the public pool a few times, on Saturday I needed to get some shopping done. So I headed out on my own and took the bus into town. It was hotter than it is in the little village I'm staying in, to be sure. I had thought, however, that some of the stores would have air conditioning on-and I was correct, they did. But it was on so low it didn't do a hell of a lot of good-especially since the stores were more crowded than I had anticipated.

So, instead of enjoying a relaxing day of site-seeing and shopping, I chose to buy everything as quickly as possible. Upon doing so, I then decided to try and sit down outside at an outdoor cafe. I had thought sitting under one of those giant umbrellas, reading and drinking an Eis-Schokolade would be well worth putting up with the heat. It was nice, for about five minutes. I quickly paid and took the next bus back home.

As I sat in my basement room, nice and cool, I started to think more and more about cultural differences. Why don't Germans use air conditioning? Why do they leave their doors and windows open (without screens, mind you) and let bugs in? Why do they drink that horrible bubbly water? Why is the service at restaurants so bad? And then I realized, due to the heat, that I was thinking of everything wrong with the country I am currently in instead of everything that is right about it. I walk everywhere here, and when the distance is too far, I use the excellent public transportation. They have the best Italian ice cream, amazing bread, and the yogurt with chocolate balls that I love so much. They have adorable postcards and stationary, trendy clothes from H&M, S. Oliver, and Esprit. They have beautiful greenery everywhere, open-air markets, and pedestrian only shopping zones. *It's all in the way you look at things.*

:) Bye, Molly

An Awesome Weekend in Oldenburg

On Friday I took the train to Oldenburg to visit all of the wonderful exchanged students that studied at my University :-) On the first train there was no air-conditioning. That definitely sucked!! Luckily on the next one they had it. When I arrived at the train station, Chris and Claudia were there to greet me. I hadn't seen Claudia in a whole year, so it was great to see her again. We drove to Katharina's place together, where we grilled out and enjoyed sharing some interesting stories.

The next day Claudi and Chris showed me around their University. It's really cool, and I am wishing that I had taken advantage of the exchange program that Oakland had with Oldenburg :/ Who knows, maybe I will live there someday. Anyway, it was very hot out, so we went to the public pool afterwards to cool off. Later we met up with Tobi and Katharina in downtown Oldenburg, where we shopped and then went to a cafe. At the cafe we watched a public viewing of the soccer game where Germany won 4:0 against Argentina! Was so exciting! :) Lots of screaming, parties in the streets, German flags everywhere (you never see that normally, just during the World Cup), people opening beers, police driving around trying to make sure people weren't taking it too far. It was exciting-something that I had never seen before. There was definitely excitement in the air.

That evening we all went to a restaurant for dinner. Afterwards we started running, in the rain, to our car. After saying farewell to Tobi, who had ridden his bike to meet us, we realized we had forgotten Katharina! She had said she was going to the bathroom--I guess we had all forgotten. None of us wanted to go back and get her because it was raining, so Chris was about to call her--luckily she found us right away, so he didn't have to. Haha.

On Sunday I took the train back "home," which involved 3 hours of sitting and waiting. When I got back I helped with the kids a little bit, and on Monday it was more of the same. We did walk into town and get some ice cream. My favorite place to get ice cream in town went out of business, so now we go to another place. But they don't have mint chocolate chip :/

Today I went with our neighbor, Anette, to the university that she works at nearby. Her 7-year-old daughter, whose summer vacation just started, also went with us. Anette showed me around the University, which was small but nice. I also attended a business course, which was interesting at the beginning but VERY boring at the end when they started doing math problems. He could have been speaking in English and I still wouldn't have understood a word he said! Anyway, after that Anette took her daughter and me to the cafeteria there where the students eat. We ate there, which was cool since it was my first time eating in a "Mensa" in Germany. The cafeteria was bigger than the one at Oakland University in Michigan. When we were finished we went to the town there and ate ice cream and went shopping. It was a fun 1/2 day :-)

The rest of the day has been helping with the kids, which is always an experience. I love them to death though :-)

Now that we're all up to date I think I'll relax.

Bye! Love, Molly

Thinking from a child's perspective...

Today I woke up a bit earlier than I have this entire week--about 10:30. I need to start getting up earlier, I just can't bring myself to do it. Anyway, this afternoon Frauke took a much-needed break (to work, haha) and I watched the kids for a few hours by myself. I played Guess Who? with Thies, who is 6 years old. A few times at the end of the game I asked him, are you (insert name of person here) and he was like no. And I said the first time, "Thies, I asked you if your person was blonde." And then he responded "Well I didn't know what blonde was." So I showed him different color hair and told him "yellow" hair is blonde, while "white" hair is gray. During our second game there was a similar amount of confusion. He said I had picked the wrong guy, and this time I said, "Thies, that guy's black. I asked you if your guy was black and you said no." Thies responded with, "He is brown. You didn't ask if he was brown." And then I had to explain that we sometimes refer to African Americans as black people, although they are "brown." --Just interesting, I never really thought about it from his perspective. It is quite confusing--

This afternoon Frauke and I took the kids to the park in town. On our way we were going to get ice cream-but our favorite ice-dealer had closed--due to lack of business, I suppose. I was so disappointed. I didn't get to eat ice cream today, although I did have a cookie at the bakery. On the way back to the house, we saw lots of kids playing in the street, some of whom I am familiar with. And there, on the sidewalk, sat 8-year-old Ashley with her 8-month-old sister. I asked Frauke if that was normal here. And she said, no. I do feel bad for the poor girl.

***Tomorrow I am taking the train to Oldenburg to see some of my closest friends. I'm soooo excited!***

More of an update later.

Love, Molly