Snow in Deutschland is schön!

Not really doing an actual post today, just want to share a picture of the recent snowfall we've had in Heidelberg!

The view from my window. So pretty!

I'll post some stories from Max's family reunion weekend in Cologne sometime this week! I have to get to bed as I have a big day of Christmas shopping planned for tomorrow and then going to the Heidelberg Christmas Market with a group of Canadian exchange students! Fun. Hope everyones having a happy Tuesday. Tschüs!

Knecht Ruprecht: For all the naughties in Germany

For those of you who don't know, I have decided to extend my stay in Germany until the end of this coming February. I am really excited to stay in Germany longer and spend the holidays with Max and his family - Max and I have also booked a ten day trip through Spain before Christmas, holla!

However there is one thing I really wish I had known about before I signed up to spend Christmas in Germany: Knecht Ruprecht, the evil version of Santa Claus. I swear I am not making this up - there is an evil Santa in Germany specifically for bad children! As legend has it Knecht Ruprecht (which translates into Servent or Farmhand Rupert in English) comes around on the eve of December 6th and 'asks children whether they can pray. If they can, they receive apples, nuts, and gingerbread. If they cannot, he beats the children with his bag of ashes.' Can you believe that shiz! Max claims he recalls hearing that Knecht Ruprecht also kidnaps the bad children and puts them in his sack, he also said he remembers being scared of Knecht Ruprecht as a little child! How awful!

Apparently, the Germans are pretty big on scaring the kids straight over here as a lot of the common children's fables end terribly for misbehaving children. For example one very common children's story tells a tale of two boys Max and Moritz who are pulling some mischevious pranks. They steal a chicken from an old lady's kitchen and put beetles in their uncles bed, etc., etc. The story ends with Max and Moritz getting caught slicing a sack of grain open by a farmer. The farmer puts the boy in the sack and takes it to the mill, then Max and Moritz are both ground to bits and fed to the ducks.

Yikes! I really hope I will be spared a visit from Knecht Ruprecht this year and get to spent some quality time with Santa instead! What do you think? Do you think you would be paid a visit from good ol' Farmhand Rupert if you were spending Christmas in Deutschland? I think I have been pretty well behaved, the worst I can expect is a little coal from my good man SC!

Dienstag, oh ja!

Hi favourite blog readers!

Today is Dienstag! Which, if you remember from previous blog posts, is Schnitzeltag! Yummy yum.

Yes I had yet another wonderful schnitzel experience tonight and I also had glühwein, which is a popular Christmas drink. Glühwein, which translates to 'glow wine' is a very sweet red wine seasoned with cinnamon, vanilla, and citrus and then heated up. It was very tasty and it has a very Christmas-y feel to it, so it was lovely to have a glass of warm glühwein after dinner on a cold night like tonight!

Glüwein! Photo snagged from Google images.

Another exciting thing happened today! I had a real German conversation with a stranger. This seems like something I would do often and I have ordered the odd coffee before and always remember my dankes and bittes but this was different. You see, usually I have Max around to translate things for me, order food for me, etc. But today while Max was at school, Jeff and I took to the streets of Heidelberg for some sight seeing and while we were out we decided to look for some English books. We spotted a used book store, and here's what went down:

Bookstore man: Hallo!

Me: Hallo! Sprechen sie Englisch? 

Bookstore man: Nein! 

Me (thought bubble: oh well this is odd usually everyone speaks English... Er... well here goes!): Haben sie bucher auf Englisch? 

Bookstore man: Nein, blahblahblahblahgermangermanblahblahblahblahgerman. 

Me: OK... Danke, tschüs! (quickly leave bookstore so I don't say anything else and ruin my German street cred)

I realize this is a small feat because I had absolutely no idea what the F this man was saying as he replied to my question... but he replied in very fast, very fluent German! Which means he must have thought I understood most German by the way I phrased the question... Right? Right? 

Ok my internet bbs I am off to bed. Stay tuned this week as I am planning a post of hilarious German word translations. Here is a sneak peek inspired by the Glühwein.

Glühbirne
Glühbirne is the German word for lightbulb, but a literal English translation heeds Glowing pear (Glüh = Glow  and Birne = Pear).

I guess it makes sense but it seems a bit silly. Keep an eye for my next post and I will fill you in on the German words for vacuum, watch, and my all time favourite: the birth control pill. I'll also tell you how many Germans it takes to change a glowing pear. Tschüs!

New Roomate

So Max got a new buddy for the apartment but he's not a very good roomate... He sleeps all day, plays all night, and he pees in a box. He's also a cat! His name is Fredo. We actually don't know if Fredo is a boy kitty or girl kitty but we are raising him as a boy. If Fredo turns out to be a girl then she will be one confused little kitten! I am so happy to have a kitty around again as I miss my precious Ruby terribly (Olive, not so much). But before you launch into the cat lady comments let me make this clear, it's Max's kitty. So Fredo will not be joining my kitty posse anytime soon. But he is fun to have around!

Here are some pictures of little Fredo!

Isn't he just precious!

I am off to the train staition to pick up Jeff, a fellow traveler from Thunder Bay! Yay! I get to play tour guide for a few days - should be fun! Then its off to Cologne this weekend for Max's family reunion... Yikes! That should be... Fun too?

I'll have more updates later this week on little Fredo and my tour guide skillz. Tschüs!

Where are all the Oompah Loompahs?

Hi cyber friends! I am feeling rather tired and cranky today so my blog post is going to be sort of half-assed. Oh well, ain't nothing you can do about it.

Anywho, Max and I had an awesome weekend in Cologne and Dusseldorf. We went to go see Beach House and also did some sight seeing and visiting with Max's family. Rather than my usual full disclosure travel details I am just going to post a few picas and share some new insights.

Things I learned this weekend:

1. If lamb is cooked well, the delicious taste will drown out the little 'bah baaaaah' sound you hear in your head.

2. The pros of wearing 4 inch heels to a concert: extra height and therefore a better view, definitely outweigh the cons: extremely sore feet for two days after.

3.  Wearing all black is always a good idea.

4. If you ever visit a real chocolate factory, you should not expect a fat kid to fall in a chocolate river or a girl to turn into a blueberry. There probably won't even be a chocolate river.

5. Not only does Beach House put on a great show, but Victoria Legrand will also remind you how important it is you start growing your hair out immediately.

Keep an eye out for my next post later this week. It will probably be a review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as I am going to see it tomorrow! In English! In the mean time, have a gander at a few photos from this weekend. Tschus!

A cool exhibit at the K20 museum in Dusseldorf

The Cathedral in Cologne

The Lindt chocolate museum in Cologne

Yummy yum!

My aformentioned all black ensemble and towering heels.

 Beach House, check out those luscious locks! 

 

A stuffy nose and a schnitzel

Hello faithful blog readers,

It has been a while since my last post and sadly, I do not have too much to report as I have been feeling quite under the weather as of late!

I have been doing my German work from home and spending most of my time curled up in bed watching unhealthy amounts of Project Runway and eating Zims (my new favourite cereal). However, I did manage to tidy the house a bit while Max was at school and make him a nice dinner on Monday - go me.

I had an exciting dinner yesterday too - Schnitzel! Aparently Dienstag (Tuesday) is Schnitzeltag (Schnitzelday), so I ventured out of the house to try my first real Schnitzel. Now that I think about it, I shouldn't say that because one time Heather made schnitzel for dinner and it was equally delicious - but this was my first schnitzel in Deutschland. Any ways the schnitzel was great. For those of you unfamilar with schnitzel it is pork meat, that is sort of mashed up so its very thin and then breaded and fried and served with a huuuuuge plate of potatoes with a yummy sauce - noms! Anyways eating the shnitzel made me think of this silly scene from the movie Hoodwinked. It is truly an accurate portrayal of what life in Germany is like. And yes, that is what all German children look like - frightening isn't it!

Anyways, other than the scnitzel I got nothing. Hope you are all having a better week than I and are keeping the cold germs at bay.

Auf wiedersehen!

2 Days in Paris

I probably should have titled this post How to Cram a Week's Worth of Sight Seeing into Two Days.

I don't believe I actually did a week's worth of sight seeing but that is sure what it felt like, the two and a half days we spent in Paris were incredibly busy but even more so wonderful!

Paris is a magnificent city. So magnificent in fact, the time I spent there felt a bit surreal... Every now and then I would think 'You are actually in Paris right now - isn't that wonderful!'

Before I start listing the details of my sight seeing extravaganza I must deliver some bad news - we did not go to the Catacombes. I know, I know, in my last post I went on and on about how badly I wanted to see some skeletons on Halloween. Well apparently so did a lot of  other people because when we got there around noon on Sunday, the line up was massive and  it was about a 2 hour wait. At first, I felt very sad because there is nothing I enjoy more than being surrounded by skeletons in a dark tunnel. But as it turns out there is actually loads of neat things to do in Paris so - the sightseeing continued.

FRIDAY

So. Much. Driving.

Due to exceptional amounts of traffic and contstruction, Max and I didn't arrive in Paris until about 10 PM Friday (our original ETA was for 7 but oh well, what can you do). Anyways, at first we were all 'Yeah lets go out and do some cool stuff! It's only ten at night! We're young and hip, we stay up late!' However, upon arriving at our friends' place we became quite lethargic and decided to hit the hay and save the sightseeing for the AM.

Here's Max looking frustrated with all dat traffic.

SATURDAY

Up bright and early to head down town! Naturally, a trip to the Eiffel tower was in order - and we decided to do that first and foremost, since it's kind of a big deal. Did you know that on the Lonely Planet site, visiting the Eiffel tower is rated the #1 thing to do in all of Europe? C'est superfantastique!

A close up view... It's pretty big.

 

After the Eiffel tower we did loads of walking (and metro riding) around the city. We had a great time exploring the Latin Quarter of Paris, which houses the Sorbonne, and the Pantheon. 

 

After walking around the Latin Quarter for a few hours we ended up at Notre Dame!

As you can see the Notre Dame was quite crowded with tourists so we just took a quick walk around the outside. After that we stopped to get some coffee at a little cafe where I made friends with a stray dog. 

He was allowed in the cafe even though he wasn't a paying customer. 

Once we had re-fueled on caffeine, we headed to the Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise. One of the most visited cemeteries in the world and the biggest in Paris - it's over 100 acres. We took loads of pictures at the cemetry so here are a few of my favourites. 

Oscar Wilde's tomb.

A tree covered in fan messages outside of Jim Morrison's grave.

Going to the cemetry was a great idea - it was really nice to get away from all of the crowded touristy spots and it wasn't very creepy at all, it was actually really beautiful. It's free to get into the cemetry but for 2 Euro you can buy a map that marks where all of the famous graves are, pretty cool! 

After the cemetry we headed back to our friends' place to have supper and make some plans for the evening. It turned out that our friend James knew a girl who was having a Halloween party so we ended up celebrating Halloween after all!  The party was fun but Max and I were exhausted from walking around all day so we ended up leaving shortly after midnight. 

SUNDAY

We got off to a bit of a late start on Sunday as we were pretty sleepy from Saturday's marathon of sight seeing. We headed to the Catacombes first, but decided to skip it because the wait was too long. We hopped back on the metro and headed to l'Arc du Triomphe. 

Here's Max looking dorky.

After visiting the Arc we took a nice walk down the Champs Elysees, which is the big shopping street - Yahoo! However I couldn't get into the shopping mode because if Max spends more than five minutes in a store he gets very frustrated and starts repeating the phrase 'Oh come on' a lot. So, we decided to ditch the shopping and go to the Musee d'Orsay. The Musee d'Orsay is a really great art museum in an old train station. The building is absolutely gorgeous and has huge windows so there is a ton of natural light throughout the museum. The collection at the Musee d'Orsay is spectacular! It consists of mostly classic paintings and sculptures but there is also a huge section of antique furniture, which I loved!

Here are a few photos from outside the Musee d'Orsay (no pictures allowed inside). 

On Sunday evening, Max and I had a lovely dinner with Laura and James and then we went to a movie and then out for drinks at a cute little bar! It was a really nice night but nothing too exciting to write about... However, I did enjoy the movie - The Social Network, and the movie theatre was awesome and the seats were about 200x comfier than the typical theatre in Canada.

MONDAY 

Before heading back to Germany, Max and I made a stop at the Chateau du Versailles.

My favourite of all the touristy photos.

Overall the weekend in Paris was spectacular, but it was also very tiring and I was pretty happy to get back to Heidelberg on Monday night. Instead of doing my German homework as planned, Max and I put on our PJs and hopped into bed to watch episodes of Breaking Bad while eating some tasty broccoli soup. It was good to be home. 

If you want to see about 100 more pictures from our weekend in Paris you can check out the album on my Facebook page.