So the last few days have been busy busy BUSY!

 

Wednesday was the last day of class.  It was kind of sad.  The four weeks just flew by.  We all grew pretty close and got to know each other pretty well.  Some are now even on Facebook!  The joys of the interwebs at its best.  And thanks to Sena, we all had some Baklava.  (Some of us bit too much...)

Thursday I spent shopping, naturally.  I tried to pick out some German/ Hamburg souvenirs, and then I went clothes shopping.  I spent more than two hours in one shop trying on clothes.  Not because there was heaps that I liked, but because the sizing was out of whack.  That or I’ve put on more weight than I thought.  Will be hitting the exercise and healthy eating pretty hard out when I get back home, well after a good home cooked meal and a pavlova.  That is something I am going to miss this year at Christmas.

I wandered around the Christmas markets in Hamburg for about the hundredth time (okay, maybe a slight over exaggeration) but I finally bought a few thinks, including Potfrijes or something.  Mini pikletes!  They were pretty good. 

When I got home from shopping I still had to pack.  I now know why Mum was so stressed the night before I left home.  I realised that my bag is too small.  And so is my small bag!  I may have to find a satchel/ laptop bag for my laptop because I just can’t handle it.  The problem of having too much stuff to fit in my bag led me to go to the Post Office again.  This was my mission before my flight the next day.

The dreaded Deutsche Post post office.  Long line to begin with HALF AN HOUR AFTER THEY OPENED!  Then when I got back with my box all filled, I had to stand in line again.  Then the post office worker got annoyed because the lid flipped up when I put it on the counter.  Then while she was weighing it she almost DROPPED IT.  I was a tad mad by then.  Did she not realise there could have been breakables in it?  Then of all the places in Germany, Deutsche Post does not do credit.  Then I had to get more cash out which I didn’t really want to do as I would be going to London that very day.  Anyways, the parcel is on the way.  MOTHER:  please pick it up sometime as I did not put a return address on it.

Now I have successfully made it to London.  The flight was pretty relaxing.  So was the train ride.  Well relaxing = sleepy and tired.  Hopefully that’ll mean I’ll sleep well tonight.  I’ve barely eaten today and I can’t really be bothered to do so at this time, 9pm.

Anyways, tomorrow’s plan of attack is meeting with the Top Deck crew at 6AM!  I did not come away on holiday to continue getting up at an ungodly hour still.  Oh well.  It involves a free breakfast with the other people from the tour. 

Now that I am actually alone I may be feeling a little bit home sick, but that could just be the tiredness talking and the being totally alone in a new and HUGE place.  I’m also missing summer like crazy.  I want to enjoy the sun and lax at the beach.  I can’t wait to do that when I get back.

I’m going to upload this when I can, sorry that it’s a bit late.

 

What a busy second half of the week.  After not having done much before my last blog, I certainly made up for it for this one.

Thursday, five of us from our class at Goethe Institut went bowling.  It was quite fun.  The first round I lost with a miserable 40 odd points.  No surprises there.  The next round however, I did not lose!  I managed a respectable 60+ points.  What was quite funny was that somehow there would always be just one pin left standing after each turn for each of us.  It was frustrating.

Friday was a bitterly cold day.  It was also the day of the culture programme excursion to St Michaeli’s Church.  We went all the way up the bell tower to the viewing platform.  The wind just ripped right through us.  It was also a typical winter’s day in Hamburg.  Grey skies as far as the eye could see, but I did manage to get some decent (ish) photos.  The view would have been exceptional on a lovely summer day.  I left my camera at the homestay though.  The church is amazing!  The amount of decorative motif and architecture was just bewildering.  We were lucky enough that it was also choir practice while we were there.

 

 

 

This weekend has been quite long and busy too.  Yesterday was the day trip to Lüneburg.  Up early once again to get to the Central Station in time.  A short train trip to Lüneburg, with no country side in sight.  It was still all urban/ industrial land.  This was quite different for me, as when going between two different towns in New Zealand there is always a lot of country scape between. 

We had an hour walking tour around Lüneburg, specifically the old city centre.  It is one of the oldest surviving architectural towns in the world.  A full scale refurbishment of the destroyed buildings has taken place following the war, but there are still many buildings surviving from their original structures.  Then it was time for lunch.

 

 

 

Lunch was at a classic German/ North German pub.  We were seated in a basement room, and it was quite romantic with the dim lighting and candles.  I had a hot chocolate to warm up, along with most of the rest of the group.  We then ordered.  I, along with a few others, ordered the creamy potato soup.  I neglected to read what else was in the soup.  The soup arrived, and when I looked at it I had a little groan.  A smallish piece of salmon was lying on top.  The soup was good, until the salmon started to disintegrate into the soup, then it started to taste fishy.  I then had a peppered steak (Pfeffersteak), with broccoli and potato pom pom things.  It was good.  I’ve barely eaten meat since I’ve been here, and that steak was just what I needed.

 

 

 

Next was free time.  But somehow we all decided to go together to the St Michael’s Church.  We were quite lucky as the sun decided to appear for a couple of hours.  The sun light upon the church when we got there was amazing.  We went inside and were lucky once again, that the choir/ band were putting on a little show.  It was quaint.  The craftsmanship of the church was extraordinary.  The sun light filtered through the high narrow windows.  What is of note though, are the huge column’s supporting the roof.  The church was built on salt mines, which were overmined and subsequently the church and land dropped by almost a metre, affecting the integrity of the structure.  Steel bracing now supports it.  It is also where Johann Bach attended school and was a soprano in the choir. 

 

 

 

Next we wandered down to another church.  This one was St John’s/ St Johnniskirche.  This church had a very steep bell tower.  The big, heavy door was also automated.  It is a Lutheran church since the reformation, but before then it was a Catholic cathedral.  It’s home to some expensive and old artwork.

 

This week is my last week in Hamburg.  It’s quite saddening really.  My time here has been awesome.  I still have a lot of things I want to do before I head to London to start the Top Deck trip, “Festive Escape”.  Tomorrow in course we have been asked to bring our favourite sweets from home.  I’m going to introduce the class to pineapple lumps and some Whittaker’s chocolate.  Pity I did not bring any peanut butter chocolate with me. 

 

Cultural differences:

Some of the cultural differences I have realised and picked up on are: ordering a steak they did not ask to what degree did I want it done (subsequently it came out medium, which was pleasing). 

No steak knife was offered.

Germany does not use soup spoons.  I was horrified to learn this.  Using a normal spoon to eat/ drink soup was awkward.

I still cannot get over Europeans/ South Americans and the differences in respect to personal space.

 

Ps.  I hope my fish are still alive....  Mum?

Apparently people are getting anxious that I have not updated in a while.  Being what, two or three days?  But to be honest, I haven’t done much since then worth writing about.  But I will do my best.

 

Many of you will know how much of an avid reader I can be.  I bought two books while waiting for my flight at Christchurch airport.  I have thus finished them both.  The second one took me three days, and now I must wait until Saturday to buy a new one.  Saturday, because I will have lot more time to browse for a decent book, and one I will actually be able to read, hopefully. 

I had my first experience of Deutsche Post.  It was overwhelming and stressful.  The lines were long and I had no idea if I was in the right line.  What was more confusing is that Deutsche Post is like Kiwibank, where it is a bank as well.  Thank you, Westpac for picking a bank in Germany with incredibly slow customer service.  By the way, some of you may, or may not, have a little something coming to a letterbox near you.  Be on the look out!

And just for Siobhan: guess what I found? 

 

 

 

The only last thing of note is that it was -4 degrees, (yes, NEGATIVE FOUR) at 1pm today.  Our teacher said that this was not cold.  I just looked at her.  She said “go to Freiburg, then you’ll know what cold is.”  Great, Baden-Baden, where I’m spending Christmas, is very close by the Freiburg. 

 

That’s all for now!  Until next time.

 

Ps.  I’m sorry for the rant, mum.  Love you.

It’s getting much, much colder.  We people in Dunedin/ New Zealand should stop complaining about the cold, because we have nothing on Germany.  At least we get into the positive temperatures during the day.  Hamburg hasn’t been over 0 celcius in the last few days.  It has also snowed.  It was quite pretty until the next morning.  Salt on the steps to the underground, sand (I think it was sand any way) on some main paths, and the snow melted/ got trampled into a brown slush, or was frozen over by the next day.  It was so cold today.  It was -3 at midday, and only rose to -2 at 1, before dropping off again.  It’s that cold that the Alster Lake actually froze.  We are meant to get between 5-10cm of snow tonight....

 

I don't know if you can tell, but the seagulls are standing on the ice, not sitting in the water.

 

Last night (Friday night) I went out with a few people from the Goethe Institut courses to the Shanze.  It’s a strip of bars.  I tried a Bananenweizen which is an Edinger Bier with a bit of banana juice.  Then Viktor and Javier made me have a “real” beer.  You guys know I’m not much of a beer drinker and how exceptional this was for me.  We talked to two Brazilians, one happened to be in New Zealand, and had been staying in Christchurch when the earthquake struck.  He said he was lucky because he had gone to Queenstown that weekend.  He said he had one of the best beers, while in New Zealand.  It just so happened to be Speights.  Good one ya mate.  People started leaving, and it was just left to us three.  We went and got food.  Currywurst and chips.  It had nothing on Willowbank, which I had a severe craving for last night. 

I know I seem to always talk about Christmas in these blogs, but that’s because I keep finding more interesting things about it.  I went into the city to do some shopping, which was mostly a failure.  I came away with “die Kleine Raupe nimmersatt” which is “the very hungry Caterpillar.”  I was going to find some new clothes, specifically something warmer, but alas I was too cold to do much.  Plus the line into Abercrombie and Fitch stretched for half a block, even in this weather.  The main shopping area was PACKED.  There were so many people.  And the Weihnachtsmärkte had grown.  I still can’t find something I want to buy from them though, but the main problem for me, was that there were too many people pushing through, so I didn’t really bother to have a look.

 

This is the Rathaus and one of the markets.  This one was the most popular and hardest to move through.

 

Speaking of more Christmas, Wednesday was the Goethe Institut’s Christmas Party.  It was pretty good.  A few people sung/ or read a poem from their homeland.  Unfortunately I could not think of anything off the top of my head.  It was quite interesting.  Then a small choir came in and sung a couple of songs for us.  Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, although I think the glühwein helped.  It snowed for us too, just to make it extra festive and special.

The Christmas tree at the Goethe Institut.

The snow after the Christmas party.

 

I also have a very nice host family.  The 6^th of December is a special day in Germany.  It’s St. Nikolaustag.  The tradition asks you to leave a shoe at your door in the hopes that St. Nikolaus would come and leave it full of sweets.  The family gave me a Hamburg mug, which was full of chocolates.  I hope the mug survives the voyage home.

 

It’s the season to.....

 

Be sick, with a cold.  This is not a pleasant feeling in a foreign country.  Normally I would just pop down to the supermarket, like everyone else, and buy some strepsils and panadol or something similar.  Not in Germany.  You have to go to the Apotheke, the pharmacist.  The paracetamol is kept behind the country, along with the nose spray.  It was quite strange having to go in and ask for what I wanted and why.  The Apotheke is the shop where you can buy over the counter and prescribed medicines.  It’s quite similar to the pharmacies in New Zealand in that regard, except many of the over the counter things are display only in Germany.  Alas, I came away with paracetamol and a nose spray.  Now I can breathe!  If you wanted supplements and dietry requirement things, you need to go to what’s called a Drogerie, where they sell these, baby food, household cleaners and over the counter medications.

Because I’m sick, I took the day off from course (bad, but I thought it best not to infect others, and suffer through 5 hours of constant German).  This allowed me to actually get to the Apotheke, which is closed by the time course finishes otherwise I would have gone yesterday.  It’s also quite ironic, that in course we just started a new topic; on health.  I think being in a completely different country, constant exhaustion by the end of the day, lack of broccoli, a complete lack of exercising (I’m actually having withdrawals!) and the very cold weather has just run me down.  Speaking of weather, it snowed last night.  It’s a pity it didn’t set.  Now it’s just bitterly cold.

                I was gutted that I was not able to go on the culture programme excursion last night.  It sounded like it would have been a good, fun night out.  Jazz music on a ship!  It was a good think I didn’t go though, because it ended up being cancelled. 

                And finally, I have bought a pretzel!  This is a must do while in Germany.

All I seem to do now is go to class, and sleep.  There’s so little time for anything else.  I am no longer jetlagged, but I can still barely function at night.  By the time class is over and I get back to my homestay, it’s almost 7, and class is exhausting.  It is so intense.  Everything is in German, and it feels like it’s going to make my head explode sometimes.  But what’s keeping me sane is the culture programme.  So much for a having a holiday.....

The culture programme is pretty good.  There’s something for all of us students to do pretty much every day.  Today was a trip on a boat around the Alster Lake.  It was pretty relaxing.  I tagged along with some people from my class and we got to know each other better.  It was pretty interesting to hear the differences in our cultures.  Turkey, China, Sweden, Switzerland and New Zealand have so many similarities, but are so different in other ways.  I described how Dunedin is a main centre with 120,000 people.  The others were astounded because a place with a population that size would have little significance in their countries.

 

 

 

Looking back towards the Altstadt city centre.  No buildings are allowed to be built higher than the spires.

 

 

The Weihnachtsbaum in the middle of the lake.  The lights were just turned on as we docked.

For lunch we went to a buffet, which was pretty average. I ordered a pork schnitzel with fries and some sauce. I didn’t realise that the sauce, Jagersauce, was mushroom.... I wondered at the time why they would put such awful alcohol in a sauce, now I know that it wasn’t alcohol.

We had a wander around the Christmas markets dotting the old main city centre in front of the Town Hall. It was quite interesting seeing these little stalls with hand worked crafts and foods. I MUST find something worthwhile to bring back. The smell of würste and glühwein would make anyone’s mouth water. These are a must to have while in Germany, especially at this time of year. It’s so picturesque.

The Weihnachtsmarkt infront of the Rathaus.  So much food, crafts and gluehwein.

 

 

The gate to the Hamburg Weihnachtsmarkt.

 

It’s getting colder!  The forecast for the next few days is about 2 degrees C with snow.  I hope it does.  This hasn’t stopped me from going for a wander around the shops near where I’m staying. I’ve said it before, but the atmosphere here at this time of year is infectious.  The people aren’t stressed, the streets and shops are covered in all things Christmas.  Christmas is a serious concept in Germany.  Everything is so festive, and I have to say I prefer it to New Zealand.  Maybe it’s the weather, the stillness, the food or all of it. 

I do think it will be strange not to have a summer Christmas though, with pavlova and fruit salad.  While talking with other people from my class about Christmas, they could barely understand the time difference, and then they were astonished that the seasons were of the complete opposite.  They could not fathom having Christmas in summer.

It has been noticed that I move to the wrong side when passing people.  I should be moving to the right, not the left.  No wonder I keep getting glared at angrily.

Blog two: Culture Shock

 

So the last two days have been long, especially today.  Yesterday (Monday) we went into the Goethe Institut to pick up our course information and have our interview to be placed in relevant courses.  This did not take very long and was quite boring.

Afterwards we went to a cafe, where I stupidly ordered a fish panani....  I had to go back and order something else and gave Yaser the Panini to eat.  It might pay for me to brush up on food vocab (Lebensmittel).

We wandered around the altstadt.  I had my first experience with a beggar.  I was taken aback that they came up to you and started speaking with their hands out for money.  I just looked confused and walked away.  Beggars are everywhere.  It was quite different to see them sitting on the ground with their bowls out just expecting people to give them money.  In New Zealand people actually busk for people’s money, ie they work for it, even if it is pittance. 

The altstadt is full of the high end brand names and is very expensive!  I walked down Neuer Wall, and just looking in the windows was too much for my wallet.  It is the most expensive street in Hamburg with Louis Viutton and the likes inhabiting its cobble stoned path.

The Christmas Markets are already up, and they look amazing!  The Markets in the city square in front of the town hall were the best.  The atmosphere was relaxed and cheerful.  Just seeing people milling around and not rushing or being stressed was quite a change for me.

The biggest culture shock for me though was the supermarket.  The supermarket we went to was tiny, and the products were so different.  The meat is fresh from the butchery, it’s not packaged at all.  The aisles are small, it’s hard to buy packaged bread, little peanut butter, and most of the health and beauty items you have to buy from the apotheke (chemist, which is non prescription).  The most eye opening part though were the checkouts.  The cigarettes are on full display, the cashiers do not speak except to bark out how much the transaction costs, get frustrated when you put your credit card in wrong, you have to buy your bags and pack them yourself. 

 

Cyclists don’t wear helmets, the street crossings don’t make noise so you must pay attention to the lights, and people can just walk out in front of traffic and expect cars to stop for them.

One last culture shock so far is that Europeans have no sense of personal space.  People walk right by you and bump you and what not.  People clap you on your shoulder when you barely know them.  It’s awkward because I know back home in NZ people would never do that. 

 

Today was also the first day of course.  Afternoon classes suck, by about 3:30 I’m a zombie and find it difficult to concentrate.  But alas I made it through, except for the mountain of homework that was assigned.  I’m also the only New Zealander (no surprise there, really).  And everyone keeps asking me how I’m finding Germany, Hamburg, how my flight was and what the differences are.  The more I think about the differences, the more I realise there are far too many to describe.

Blog One: Flying Time, the start.

 

Well, what an intense and long few days.  I have now been awake since 7:30am Saturday, New Zealand time, and currently at the time of writing this it is 4:45am on Monday morning.....  You do the maths coz my brain is fried.

I have managed to watch the entire first two seasons of Downton Abbey, 6 episodes of Grimm, The Princess and the Frog, Snow White and the Huntsman, and countless safety videos courtesy of Emirates. 

As the flying continued, the weather just kept getting hotter and muggier, until Dubai where I found it unbearable.  This, along with lack of sleep and hunger, prompted me to become a little homesick (already, I know.  Who won the bet?)  What didn’t help was that the food got worse, and I ended up with stomach cramps and diarrhoea.  Not pleasant when you’re stuck on the window seat.  The heating was unbearable in the planes as well, with lack of water.  This culminated in the feeling of being at sea.

I should stop complaining and get onto the good things....  Which are.....  I’M IN GERMANY!    But I did get lost already in Hamburg.  It’s a beautiful city from the little I have already seen so far.  My host family are nice, and they have another student going to the Goethe Institut staying with them too, so should be fun.

The weather reminded me of Dunedin, except probably  a little colder.  What I have already found most interesting is that the days are VERY short.  It was already beginning to get dark at about 3.  And their orange Fantas are yellow.  I’ll add some photos at a later date.

 

I think I will try out the TV.