Microwave gourmet and other things

Greetings, all!

Let's see, what have we been up to...
We ended up at a very nice Italian restaurant last Friday night. My husband found some vegetarian pizza and I had some really great tortelloni. We had thought we might see what was going on in the bar scene, but I was still pretty tired so we headed home.

For Saturday we had toyed with the idea of going to Frankfurt but didn't really do enough homework before. We ended up hiking up to the castle, walking around and taking pictures, and having a picnic. On the way back down we explored a Lutheran church that I have not been able to find online. I can find no other evidence of its existence besides our map of Marburg and having been in the building. Very strange. We walked along the shops with a good number of people since it was Saturday, popped into a pastry shop, and saw the University church. We also found the restaurant where my husband had enjoyed a burger in Marburg on his last visit and decided to come back for dinner. The meal was great--we split a burger and a spinach and salmon souffle. I would definitely go back for more.

On Sunday morning we decided to attend church at Elisabeth's church which you normally have to pay to see. We sang along in German and stood and sat with everyone, but it's pretty hard to pay attention to a sermon 100% of the time in English and it's a huge challenge in German. In the afternoon we went for a walk up the river and out of the main part of town. Unfortunately there isn't a pretty path next to the river and the idea of it was more romantic than the reality, but the exercise was was very real. We wandered into a Greek restaurant that night and I tried apfelwine. (apple wine) It's not that great in my opinion, but I've read that after a pitcher or two, you don't much care.

My husband had his first day of work on Monday and he was busy with all the tours and getting-to-know-you things. We decided to try to eat in the room now so that's been a bit of a challenge for me since Germans don't appear to have a lot of food that is microwaveable and our microwave is in the hall on another floor. It's been interesting and I'm getting a bit better at it, but I don't think it's a skill worth honing.

This week I have been to the office for international students at the university and the language department to ask about German courses. I signed up for a conversation partner and had one minutes later. She is married with three children and we'll try to get together with them as a couple. They are moving to Boston this summer so we should be helpful to one another, though their English is far better than our German. We can also sign up for a traditional beginners class in April to take two nights per week. I also explored the Elisabeth's church store, inquired about cell phones, stopped by the tourist info to look for information for my school project, and opened a movie rental account. Most of the movies can be watched in German or English and have German, English, and at least French subtitles. Last night we watch The Emperor's New Groove in German with English subtitles. As I suspected, I didn't learn much since I'd never seen the movie. I was trying to read all the words to get the plot. My hope is to get Findnet Nemo next so I will know it well enough to not need the subtitles to get the plot. During the day I have found Scrubs and How I Met Your Mother in German and I can get them with the subtitles as well at the rental store.

Tonight we are going to look at a possible flat. We like the pictures, but it is a bit farther from town again. We will see.

A couple thoughts on culture for the week...
I am better at Spanish than I thought. Prior to this experience my go-to second language was Spanish. Brice and I have had the same experience that we default to Spanish when anyone is speaking another language. It's not that we think Spanish is the only other language; it's like a preset or something. I always thought my Spanish was pretty bad, but in comparison to my German it's pretty good. I keep finding that were the language Spanish, I would have the words and phrases in certain situations.

This week we will be doing laundry. On a Friday night. Now I know that sounds boring, but the laundromat is very far away and it will be oh so much easier to do it with help from my hubby whilst navigating the bus system and carrying all of our clothes. But it's not as boring as it sounds. Because according to my Google search, this is a combination laundromat and pub. Yes, that's right. Just like in New Orleans. So while laundry on a Friday night may sound boring, it's simply a side-note to our evening :-)

By the way...check out the new page up at the top, Rank the Ritter Sport. It is my husband's first foray into the blogging world and I think he's done a great job so far.

Willkommen!

Guten tag and greetings from Deutschland!

We arrived in Germany on Wednesday morning after our overnight flight from JFK to Frankfurt on Singapore airlines. Apparently Singapore airlines is a five-star airline and we felt very comfortable on the flight. It seemed our attendants spent the first couple of hours going up and down the aisles doing nothing but handing items out to all of us. Our experience in coach was probably something like first class on a domestic flight. We ordered a large dinner from a menu with all sorts of flowery language to describe our meal and wine. And we finally got to see The Descendants. My husband got some sleep on the flight, but I don't think I got more than a minute or two. When it was time to order breakfast I was sure to have two cups of coffee.

We had an easy time getting to baggage claim, acquiring carts for our bags, and finding our ride. The driver, Klaus, was very friendly and helpful and loaded our five large suitcases/duffels and four carry-on bags into (what is considered here to be) a large van. The drive to Marburg was about an hour and my coffee began to wear off. Klaus helped us to get all of the bags inside while we checked into our hotel.

After showering and changing, we headed out to do some exploring. One thing we noticed were all of the school children we ran into. We thought that perhaps it was some sort of holiday they were all out early for, but apparently they are dismissed at one in the afternoon daily. (More on German schools later.) We stopped into a Kik, a store that I learned about from YouTube. It is something like a dollar store but with a good bit more clothes, but still lots of cheap plastic toys and household items. We walked along the river and saw lots of mallard ducks and a few swans. There are also some funny little birds here. I'm not sure what is going on with them, but they appear to all think they are ducks as well. They do not have webbed feet, but do nonetheless put a great effort into swimming, especially when a child is throwing out bread.

We also explored a grocery store to check the stock and prices, but we didn't buy anything. My husband was most interested in the candy aisles and beer aisle :-) I took a look at the shampoo/hygiene section and laughed at how small the bottles were thinking, typical European item. Then I got to the end of the aisle and saw bottles and boxes of laundry detergent as big as one could buy at Costco or BJ's! I guess it just depends on the item...

After a nap at the hotel, we went back out for dinner at the oldest restaurant in Marburg. The food was quite good and I'm sure we'll be back. Afterwards we decided to take an elevator in the town that will take you up part of the mountainside to the "old town". We walked a bit, but it was rainy, so we went back to the room. The best feature of our room are the wonderful black-out blinds that leave you with no way to know the time of day. We slept over twelve hours! And therefore we missed breakfast on Thursday. My husband went out in search of food while I stayed behind to work on my schoolwork. There is a grocery store right behind the hotel so he returned with some fresh rolls, sliced cheese, "spicy roasted ham", plums, yogurt, and of course, cookies. We did a bit more walking around and exploring while we figured out where to get our photos for our visas.

After some more time working on my school at the hotel, we set out for the "old town" for dinner. My husband had hoped to find me a "real German" meal, but we settled for a restaurant in a "real German" building. I ordered my very first beer that I've ever had (only sips and tastes from his) and actually drank about 70-80% of it myself. Our appetizer was fantastic--fried goat cheese! We will definitely be back for that. And knowing us, we stopped at a shop for gelato on the way home.

Today we meet the relocation aide in the morning and she helped us take care of registering in Marburg and beginning the process of obtaining visas and then opening a bank account. She showed us one flat, but all of the others she had hoped to show us had already been rented. It was very large and had great amenities (though the decor was pretty random), but its main downside was that it was very far outside of Marburg and we had pictured ourselves in the city. We will see what comes available in the next couple of weeks. At the end of our day she offered to drive us up the mountain to the castle where all of the photos were taken. (Taken with my Canon Powershot and iPod only since this was an impromptu visit.)

She dropped us off this afternoon and we stopped by the grocery store to pick up some lunch items (sans meat!) and I found some great chocolate-covered marshmallows, my new favorite. We've also found some other interesting food items I'll save for another post. We plan to rest a bit before heading out for a (hopefully) fish dinner.

Three items we have noticed that are or may be atypical of Germany as a whole...
1. There are a large number of blind or visually impaired people. We both commented on how we could not recall the last time we saw a blind person using a cane and yet we saw about three on our first night. After a Google, I found the above link as to why this probably is here in Marburg.
2. The idea that Germany is especially "clean". This was mentioned to us by a few people. While I don't find Marburg to be "dirty", I don't believe it is any more "clean" than your average area in the United States. It certainly isn't a topic that I would "write home about" other than that it was mentioned to me prior to our arrival.
3. The idea that everyone speaks English and learning German isn't really necessary. Yes, many people here do speak some English. But it certainly isn't everyone and most of them say "a little" and mean it. (Unlike suggestions that Germans will say "a little" and be quite good.) Again, not a complaint because I certainly believe this is their country and I don't expect them to all speak English to me, but I'm glad I did not decide to go with the information I was given previously. Also, the signs and information is all in German--it's not as though there is an English translation to go with everything. You need to know or learn something for sure. Since my foreign country experience is limited, I will say that I found English in Italy to be far more prevalent and an easier country to not know the language. Costa Rica was probably a bit more similar to Germany, but I remember it being easier probably because I know more Spanish than German.

Sorry for the length, but hopefully you enjoyed the first of my many posts about life abroad.

Coffee Friday

Happy Friday! I'd like to take just a minute to once again link to my minister brother's blog. I know this is my second week in a row taking a shortcut and using his blog for mine, but I really didn't think I'd be blogging at all until after we were in Germany. I really wanted to share this with you all. The link will take you to a post and a video about a book called White Flour by David Lamotte. David Lamotte is a singer/songwriter that my brother and I know pretty well and semi-personally. He is a Presbyterian icon of sorts. Our church, like many other Presbyterian churches, made an annual pilgrimage to a college and conference center in Montreat, NC, which is where David calls home. He writes some really great songs that are very deep and even some fun songs (one became another book he wrote that is mentioned in the video, The SS Bathtub).

I really encourage to check out the video. He's a really wonderful and genuine person.

Ash Wednesday & Lent in Two Minutes

Happy Friday everyone! We are packing up and leaving this morning (wrote this post a couple of nights ago), but I didn't want to leave you with nothing today. I've written about Ash Wednesday and Lent before and gotten a lot of comments saying that people weren't really all that knowledgeable about it. My brother is a Presbyterian minister and blogs at A Godless Galilean. Here is a link to his post recent post about Ash Wednesday and Lent and below is the same video he links to. You might want to be sure to read his bit about The Lone Ranger at the bottom (we know the video is wrong). My next post will probably be coming to you from Germany!!!

Coffee Friday

Things are getting very busy around here, so the quick and easy update is that I've had my first assignments for school due this week, worked yesterday as my absolute and final day just to help out, our POD arrives today, we have friends over for dinner tonight, my husband's parents will be here this weekend to help with the move and I'm sure at some point I'll pause for a breath. Until then, I'll leave you with a link to the latest recipe for cornbread at Pound Cake and Prayers.

Don't worry--in a few weeks I'll be back with posts that will be vastly more interesting because they will be coming to you from an entirely new continent!

Kyria Blog: Can Protestants and Catholics Find Truly Common Ground?

Kyria Blog: Can Protestants and Catholics Find Truly Common Ground?

Coffee Friday

Happy Friday, everyone! I had my last day of work on Monday and first day of classes new things are in full swing.

My best friend (and roommate and maid of honor!), Jessica, recently launched a new blog I'd love for you to check out: Pound Cake and Prayers. Jessica holds a degree in Public Health from UNC Chapel Hill and is a registered dietician. She also has a degree in culinary arts from Johnson & Wales University. Currently, she is working to bring us all awesome recipes with the good folks at Southern Living. Jessica will be bringing us lots of great southern recipes with a side of faith and family.

I'd also recommend this week that you check out this story at Momastery. My uncle passed away last year from pancreatic cancer and my husband's grandfather also passed away from pancreatic cancer several years ago. We have friends who will be doing a walk next month to raise money for research. Unfortunately, we'll already be in Germany and unable to participate. Her grandfather was a victim and he lost his father shortly after they were married. Pancreatic cancer does seem to be so prevalent (Steve Jobs, Patrick Swayze) and it's likely someone you know and love will be diagnosed. Pancreatic cancer is so deadly because it is usually not detected until it is very advanced. Check out this story and offer your prayers or more to this family.

Have a great weekend!