What I Learned in School Today

1. Minion babble is the same in German and English. Which I guess makes sense as it is another language.

2. The German title for Despicable Me literally translates as "I am simply incorrigible"

3. "It's so fluffy I'm going to die!" in German translates as "It's so fluffy I'm going insane!"

4. Mike Wasowski is Mike Glotzkowski (Gluts-kah-ski) in German

5. Baking soda is hard to find, but check the American section of the grocery.

6. Nutella is wonderful on a fresh soft bretzel.

7. It can be cheaper to buy a BMW (I think this was the car brand mentioned to me, otherwise just insert another fancy German car company of your choice here) online from America and having it shipped, than to actually buy it in Germany. Even accounting for switching some things over(like the speedometer to km/h instead of mph). However, it won't come with any sort of warranty this way.

8. Even I can get tired of Despicable Me and minions.

9. Human statues/silver men are just as scary here as they are in America.

10. There are Dunkin Donuts here. A lot of Dunkin Donuts.

11. "Cookies" refers specifically to chocolate chip cookies, while "keks" (pronounced cakes) refers to any type of cookie.

12. "Eis" means ice cream, which can cause disappointment if you ask a child if they want ice after they hit their head.

13. Children (and sometimes adults) swear in English because it isn't as bad as swearing in German. This makes for interesting dinners.

14. In German, there are separate words to differentiate a human eating from an animal eating.

15. The concept of a food baby crosses language barriers. Next we will see if the concept of naming your food baby does.

16. According to my youngest at least, babies are delicious. (I SWEAR I NEVER SAID ANYTHING LIKE THIS AROUND HIM! In German, at least)

17. "Muesli" refers to all granola, cereal, and muesli type products.

18. Mimicking German you learned from a 2.5 year old just leads to confused stares.

19. Figuring out German sentence structure became a lot easier when I started copying the sentence structure my host family uses (mistakenly) in English.

20. Jam comes in all flavors. All. Flavors. Mango, strawberry, pineapple, cherry, ginger, plum, grape, blueberry, raspberry, lime, kiwi, apricot, peach, rhubarb, lemon, apple, and any (I do mean any) combination thereof.

21. Some things are just hard to explain, period. Whether it's the issues within the American educational system or the point of marshmallow fluff.

Sara(h) and the Holy Grail

It was Friday, the 18th of July, 2014 at around 18:30 when I first saw it.

Immediately I knew I wanted it. No. I needed it. The little boy carrying it smirked at me. He knew.

Unfortunately, I had a prior engagement to attend to and little time to hunt down where it had come from. I had already lost the smug child in the crowd, and there would have been serious repercussions had I snatched it from him.

I sped walked through the carnival grounds, looking frantically for it. Past a Hawaiian hut. Past numerous booths advertising their wilted churros. Past biergarten after stage after pommes booth after biergarten.

I had to find it today. I couldn't waste time tomorrow when I returned looking for it.This was my holy grail. This was what I had wanted my whole life. I only now realized it.

I wanted it more than a fat baby emperor penguin. I wanted it more than a pre-pinappled baby. I wanted it more than I wanted naturally electric blue hair.

I searched.

I stopped everywhere.

I peered into booths selling everything from scarfs in July to hollowed out bread on a stick.

I gestured around frantically and spoke in broken German to anyone who paused to listen.

They didn't understand my panic.

They didn't understand how badly I needed this.

It was so hot. I was sweating. My eyes darted around furiously. I had checked every square inch of the promenade where the carnival was set up. I was ready to give up.

Finally. I approached one last booth. There was nothing remarkable about it. In fact, there were over a dozen other booths that looked exactly the same. I was even sure I had checked it already.

But then, I saw it. Glowing. Radiating. Screaming my name.

I had found it.

Saturday afternoon could not come fast enough. I biked as fast as I could, leaving a zig zag trail of dust and gravel behind me. I hastily locked up my bike and wiped the sweat off my forehead.

I made a beeline for the promenade.

I walked.

And walked.

And walked.

Surely, it had been closer yesterday.

Surely, I must have passed it already.

I stopped and backtracked. In my haste I must have overlooked it. It couldn't have disappeared, right? I had waited all my life for this. I couldn't come this close and not get it.

Finally I saw the cursive lettering. The pink candy stripes. I pushed people out of my path as I made my way towards it. Old people. Children. I didn't care. This was the holy grail, after all.

The woman asked if I wanted it now or later.

As though "later" was an option.

Ha.



I refrained from grabbing it from her as she reached over the counter to give it to me. I even walked to the beach, where I was able to sit down and fully enjoy the fruit of my hunt.

That is the edge of my phone case.
NOT a hipster vignette.

It also came with a smurf gummy.

Explorations of the Area: Ravensburg, Lindau, and Meersburg

[As a quick warning this post may be forever long.]

You know what keeps me up at night? Worrying that one day, I will wake up and take for granted how beautiful the Lake Constance area is.

Okay, maybe I don't stay up worrying about this. But I do wonder if I will get used to it. If at some point I will look around and say, "I mean, it's pretty dec". I hope this doesn't happen, but who knows. Maybe I will look at one too many lakeviews, or castles, or cottages and start shrugging my shoulders instead of staring.

This is to say I have visited some sickeningly beautiful towns recently. The first town I visited was Ravensburg, just a short train ride away. My journey there was an adventure in itself. When I got on the train there was no sign or announcement letting me know I was on the right one. I just had to assume this was the one. At the next stop they announced something about the train going to Stuttgart-a far way from where I was going, and certainly not what I had bought a ticket for! I started panicking and tried to get off.  I decided to just sit down and see what happens. Maybe I could try to explain myself to the ticket collectors. Maybe they would by sympathetic. Or maybe I would wind up in Stuttgart with a large fine to pay. The train went on for a bit, and then an announcement was made regarding all the stops on the way to Stuttgart, including Ravensburg. Whew! But really, they couldn't haven mentioned that sooner?

The day was a bit overcast. I wandered around a lot in the older part of town. I bought a backpack, as my current drawstring bag had a large pickpocket-friendly tear in the side. As much as I like this new backpack, I have since realized that a black leather backpack is not the best for bike rides in the sun, but more on that later.

This past weekend I biked to both the Island of Lindau (there is a bridge, I didn't bike through the bottom of the lake), and Meersburg. When I went to Lindau it was also overcast, but I was just glad it was dry! Again, I did a lot of walking around. I wandered down to the port and looked at the lake. I climbed up to the lion, but did not go to the top of the tower, I think I'll say that for a clearer day.

Look at my lack of crazy eyes! Kind of.

 Then, of course I ended my day with ice cream before biking back. I picked a blue ice cream called Engelblau (which I think translates as Angel Blue). It tasted like bubblegum but I ate it anyway. At this point was my only blip in the trip, in which a man decided that it was appropriate to follow me on his bike to say, among other things that I didn't understand, that my shirt matched my ice cream. I was a bit insulted really, I mean did he really think I hadn't known that and planned it accordingly? (who doesn't match their ice cream to their shirt, after all? #ellewoodsingitup).

Okay, but actually it wasn't cool. After enough dirty looks where I made eye contact then deliberately looked away (Atlas Shurgged-style), he got the picture and biked away. Whew. I like making friends, but I am not that desperate.

In real life the colors matched more
and the ice cream was not
fluorescent, I promise!

On Sunday, I apparently had not had enough of biking, so I biked in the other direction to Meersburg. I had the brilliant plan to leave at midday and be on a path with little shade. Also, let's go back to that black backpack. Yeah, I have not been so sweaty for so long ever. Although I dried off (really, I was gross after the 2 hours), I never really cooled off once I got to Meersburg, as it was still pretty hot out.

Meersburg has by far been my favorite place so far. It was so beautiful I wanted to pinch the cheeks of a fat baby penguin and scream. I left my bike at the ferry stop, along with a million other bikes, and spent the day walking around.

To get out of the sun, I visited the Neues Schloss (New Castle). It was nice, but I think I might be mostly castled out. I mean, I want to look at the outsides of castles, and maybe the insides of a select few, but the insides are mostly just "and here is were King somethingblablablerg and Queen blergblablasomething slept" and some paintings of dead royalty. I think it really might be the outsides that I am just interested in, but we'll see.

This castle was pink.The 5 year old girl in me who had plans to move to England and wait until she was old enough to marry a prince died a little. There was a wedding going on, which was cool. I mean, how many people get to say they got married in a castle? It was very sweet, until they started playing Bruno Mars' I Think I Wanna Marry You at the end. Nothing says romance like "Oh hey, I'm bored. Want to get married? And if it doesn't last that's fine by me." 

Maybe I was being a bit judgemental. I really don't like Bruno Mars. But still. Of all the songs about love, why that one?

I walked around more, and finally I found a spot on top of a hill, where I just sat in the shade and stared at the lake and the old castle and everything for approximately a forever and a half.

The ride back was long, and I was exhausted. I stopped to get ice cream at what turned out to be an alcoholic ice cream place of sorts- there were different wine flavored ice creams, and lots of sundaes with liquors. Although I was really curious, I had to bike back and did not fancy getting a BUI :P

The best part though, was when I got home I saw this:

A note with directions to make pizza, with dough and other ingredients all ready to go in the fridge from my Host Mom :) Twas the best! I was so beat.

More biking adventures to come soon! As long as the rain clears up by the weekend.

Hallo from Deutschland!

Hallo everyone!

I have been enjoying Germany for about 2 weeks now, so I guess it is about time I get to blogging. Clearly the procrastinating doesn't stop when school stops.

My host family leaves on the coast of Lake Constance, in a small German town. We're right across from Switzerland and just north of Austria. Least to say, it is incredibly beautiful here.

This is what I look at while running :P

The family is really fantastic, I have three little German boys to look after- ages 9, 6, and 2 1/2 (insert obligatory Von Trapp reference here). They are all very sweet and fun to play with. Especially on the giant trampoline (seriously, I think this has been my favorite thing so far). We live near all of their family (we all get together for lunch every day), so there are always extra kids running around to hang out with us.

The biggest challenge so far (or one of them at least) has been making myself at home in someone else's home. I realize acting like I feel weird makes other people feel weird about me feeling weird, so I've been doing my best to make myself at home, even when I do feel weird about it. I'm not saying I'm just acting ridiculous and putting my feet on the table and jumping on beds. I mean more that even if I initially feel weird about leaving my toothbrush in the bathroom I make myself do it because that is what normal people who feel at home do. Also I don't share the bathroom so no one would know if I left it there or not. (So calmate, Sara). It's a work in progress, and I still ask if I can have a glass of water or have yogurt for breakfast or whatnot, but I am definitely settling in quicker than I had expected or thought possible.

Whew. I will try not to use the word "weird" so much.

The next biggest challenge is unsurprisingly the language. Although my German is coming along and I have definitely picked up more since being here, it is also a work in progress. I'm also getting better at expressing myself in less exact terms, and making do with the limited vocabulary I have. My pantomime skills have also gotten better. I would make a joke about a back up career, but I hear that that is how it all starts....

Ice cream from Ravensburg, more on that soon!

So far, I have visited several little towns and eaten lots of ice cream. And pretzels. I have made the ice cream my obligatory snack in each town I go to. Partially because it's hot and I just wander around for hours outside, and partially it's delicious and there are so many places to try! I am not sure if it's ice cream or gelato-usually the places display it like a gelataria, but (depending on the place) it tends to have more of the consistency of ice cream. Either way it's delicious, and I know how to order it in German. Usually just one scoop, the picture on the left features an exceptionally delicious exception

Anyway. I will post more soon, but there was some pressure to get going. So here you go for now!.