die Heidelbeere

Heidelbeere can be translated as either "blueberry" or "huckleberry". Interesting story: Mark Twain wrote most of one of his books in Heidelberg... can you guess which one? Huckleberry Finn! I'm told he came to visit for a few weeks and ended up staying a number of months. He lived in a hotel that used to be up next to the castle, and would write all day and then go talk to people in the evenings and read them what he'd written, to see how they'd react, and that's how he'd determine if it was interesting or not.

He also apparently writes about Germany in A Tramp Abroad, and specifically in the essay in the Appendix - "That Awful German Language".

die Blutorangen

The past couple weeks, blood oranges have been on sale at Aldi! The only thing cheaper produce-wise has been bananas. For those of you who haven't eaten blood oranges before, aside from a kind of gross name, they're wonderful. The look like regular oranges on the outside, but they're PURPLE when you open them! And I think they taste better, too... When I've seen then in the U.S., they generally cost more than regular oranges. So I've been quite glad to find them cheap here :-)

die Übung!

My dear friends and family, that is the word for "exercise", which I do once a week at the university exercise class my language partner and I have begun attending. It's called "fitforfun" and consists of a couple hundred German students running around a large room and doing exercises in time with music. There's a teacher who stands on a podium and leads the class, and like the numbers "acht, sieben, sechs, fünf, vier, drei, zwei, eins!"

I went last Tuesday night and was sore until Friday, due to my distaste for consistent exercise... hopefully this week I will repair more quickly!

And the photo is from the website, in case you're wondering... I think it would be a little strange to bring my camera to an exercise class. ;-)

Schnee photos :-)

Der Schnee!!!

It snowed last night!! I woke up, and everything is covered in about 4 or 5 inches of snow. It´s absolutely gorgeous - I took some photos of the Altstadt area that I´ll try to post tomorrow, and if the snow sticks overnight I may try to get to the castle tomorrow to take pictures from up there.

Recognize this?

Yes, dear friends and family, that is a translation of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" into German. I was hoping they'd have combined the last seven words into one really awesome long one (since they seem to combine everything else), but sadly,they just used one little short word.

And I thought my day was going to turn out something like that, given how it began... but thankfully, everything's been much better since I left my apartment this morning. However, the first bit was not so good. I overslept thirty minutes, finally dragged myself to the shower, and realized after I finished (when I was still soaking wet) that I'd forgotten my towel. So I air-dried for about five minutes and finally just pulled on my pajamas again, since I didn't want to get my clean clothes wet. After that I tried to dry my hair, and my hairdryer and converter got into a fight and the converter won. And then I tried to make oatmeal, and didn't cook it long enough, so it was all soupy and gross. I put it back in, and it decided to explode all over the microwave. Whereupon I discovered that I hadn't thought to buy a dish towel (we each use our own, and people don't use paper towels here), so I had to use my bath towel to clean up the mess. I finally sat down to eat my oatmeal, but it was still too hot, and due to my oversleeping I had to leave so I wouldn't be late for class - so no breakfast :-(

Thankfully, however, everything's been quite good since then! Class went well, and I'm off to find a sketchbook :-)

der Lebensmittelladen

I discovered Heidelberg's Aldi location yesterday. Extremely cheap food just like the US, but there are more options here in terms of brands, including about a dozen yogurt varieties (even more, if you include the different flavors), which proved problematic for my indecisive self. Also, the shopping carts require a whole euro, instead of a just a quarter. And you get it back eventually, of course, but it's still unnerving...

Das Blog

To my dear family and friends: A poem. (Ineptly written, but with love )

In two thousand five, Texas I left
My friends all went elsewhere; I was feeling bereft
‘Til Facebook appeared
And just as I feared
My generation at stalking is deft.

Then I had to go to Oxford and such
And I missed you all very much
Conveniently Skype
Became all the hype
And video chat kept us in touch.

Of all this technological innovation
Blogging has provoked my hesitation
It seems rather strange
Since it lacks an exchange
And narcissism seems the primary motivation.*
[*often, but not always. I have no desire to be mean to any of you who blog on a regular basis, and of the blogs I’m aware of written by you, I find them enjoyable. But nevertheless, and especially the “travel blog” variety, they do seem to run this risk… yes? And so I’m suspicious…]

But now I’m here in Germany, far away
And I’ve decided to write so that you may
Read here and there
If by chance you care
To know how I spend my days :-)

Emailing would be better, naturally
But there is only one of me
And many of you
So this will have to do
I hope that you agree!

I’ll still email when I have the time
And please email me too, since I’m
Missing you a lot
And want to hear your thoughts
I can’t stay connected
If email you’ve neglected
So your stories please include!
But now, I conclude…
PS: Don’t expect every entry in rhyme!

(I know, long ending… I just couldn’t fit everything in! ;-) )

And so, in an attempt to keep you all informed and updated (as requested) as to my whereabouts, and perhaps to provide occasional amusement at my own expense, I now begin this thing called blogging.

Enjoy!