Christmas in Chemnitz

This year, I spent Christmas with my host family in Chemnitz. The summer between junior and senior year of highschool I spent a couple weeks with them and we've stayed in touch ever since so I hung out with them for a week and a half. It was really nice.
I got in on the 23th (Wednesday) and my host sister and her fiance did as well (Nicole and Dominik). My host father (Gerald) picked up from the train station and we went back to the house and had dinner and unpacked and hung out, caught up. Germany has a lot of dialects and my host family speaks Saxon, which means for the first couple of days I didn't really understand a whole lot of what they said.
On the 24th (Thursday) we celebrated Christmas and the whole family came over. Jana and Sylvio (aunt and uncle; Jana is Anja's sister), Billy (Jana's son), Opa and Oma, and myself and Anja and Gerald (host mom and dad). Nicole and Dom were with his family. We exchanged gifts, sang Christmas songs in German and English, and had a good time.
The next day we went over the Sylvio's and played Wii and ate a lot of food and drank lots of coffee and the men smoked a lot. We skyped with my parents. It was really good to see them. They were just opening Christmas gifts due to the time difference so they were all really sleepy. My german family sang them a song and we talked for a bit then went back to playing Wii. I fell asleep on the couch, following Grandpa Bob's example, and we finally ended up going home.
The next day (Saturday) we watched Cinderella in German, but it was the Czech version of the story which I hadn't known before. It was fun. Then after breakfast and ridiculous amounts of coffee (a common theme over my Christmas break) we watched almost the entire season 1 of Ally Mcbeal. It was a very nice relaxing day.
On Sunday, Sylvio took me skiing. It was Sylvio, Billy, Jana, Andrea (Sylvio's daughter) and myself. We went to Oberwiesenthal and it wasn't the best skiing but it was fun and a good wind down thing to do. We only skiied a half day and Billy kept taunting me and telling me that he was better, but he so wasn't. He eventually caved in and admitted that I was right. Later than day, we went back to Sylvios and played more Wii and the rest of the family came over and we had more coffee and more sweets and Billy, Andrea, and I ended up falling asleep cuz we were so tired. Another successful day. :)
The next three days we successfully did nothing. We went shopping, drank lots and lots of coffee, ate really good breakfasts and watched movies and Ally Mcbeal and Gilmore Girls and ate more really good food and drank more coffee.
On the 30th, Billy (cousin) drove up from Sayda (where he lives) and picked Nicole, Dominik and I up and we drove to the Czech Republic to pick up Boeller, large explosive bomb-like fireworks. They're cheaper in the Czech Republic and apparently you can stuff that's illegal in Germany. The parents left for Stuttgart to celebrate New Years with family friends so it was just Billy, Dominik, Nicole and I. We stayed in Jana's house and played Wii, ate pizza, etc. They made me watch me "Paranormal Activity", which consisted of me huddled up under blankets the entire time. It wasn't watching so much as listening.
The next day was Sylvester but that will take another blog post. :)
Love everyone! Hope everyone had happy holidays and a Merry Christmas.
Emily

Christmastime in Germany

Germany around Christmastime is one of the most beautiful places on earth. When everything is covered in snow and the Christmas markets are open, it's just amazing. I love it. There hasn't been huge amounts of snow in Munich but there's been enough. Snow just makes everything better. And all the old Gothics buildings and churches and castles look twice as majestic in the snow. Also, Germany LOVES Christmas. In fact, that's kind of an understatement. They did so much for Christmas. There's markets everywhere, all sorts of decorations up, all sorts of yummy candy goodness, and just lots of cool things. All the major cities like Munich, Nurnberg, Regensburg, Stuttgart, etc. have cool markets and their own specialities during Christmas. Gluehwein is my favorite. It's hot, spiced wine but it tastes so good! Just being here during Christmas has been magical. You hear a lot of things about Germany but no ever tells you how beautiful it is over here during this time of year. There's tons of Christmas parties and Christmas themed things.
My program had a little get together before we all went off for break. It was a lot of fun. We had Gluehwein, Chili, candy, and a great Christmas tree. Two of the people that run my program, Ralf and Crystal, got up and did a little poem/toast for us. It was great! Ralf was "der Weihnachtsmann" (Santa) and Crystal was an angel. We then sang Christmas songs (German and English) and just caught up with each other. After that we went to the Kill Bier party (play on "Kill Bill") in Stusta. It was fun. I still had class the next day, Ceramics as usual but it was still fun.
I'm really happy I'm here this time of year. It's amazing. So pretty and festive. It feels great.

Ska and heavy metal?

This is going to be a short post but I'm just too excited to not write something! The Monday before Christmas we out to this club, RockStudio, and it was not at all what I expected. It reminded me a lot of Area 51 in Salt Lake. The music was goth/heavy metal/punk and there was a ridiculous amount of black and chains and various deadly looking facial piercings. It was fun though. Anyway Jana, Crystal, Penelope, and myself and a bunch of other people went. Josh and Alan bailed early cuz Josh was too tired or something. Really, I think he just needs his beauty sleep. It was a lot of fun. We're dancing, hair swinging, whatver you want to call it, and then all of the sudden a Mighty Mighty Bosstones song is playing. "The Impression that I get." I went nuts! I haven't heard Ska music in public in forever, never ever in a club and on top of that, I haven't been to a concert in a long time. Point is, I miss Ska music. I started skanking around and just had a blast. They played a few more songs, some Reel Big Fish, some Cure, etc. It was awesome. My friends were kind of like, what on earth are you doing? :)
Anyway, I'm almost caught up on the blog. Love you guys!
Miss everyone.
Emily

Nicole's Visit

So this week I had a friend from LC visit me, Nicole. She was in Greece for the semester and her semester was up and she had a week-long layover in Germany so she stayed with me for a week and we wandered around the city and had a great time. I unfortunately had class during the week so I couldn’t hang out with her all the time but it was fun anyway. On Tuesday we went to Tutzing, to the lake there. It was beautiful but cold and since it wasn’t tourist season not a whole lot was open but we found a little café right by the train station and had a typical Bavarian lunch there: Bratwurst and beer. The café had two little rat dogs that hung out by our table the entire time and just watching us eat. You could see their little eyes begging for us to drop some food or feed them but we didn’t. They looked quite sad as we left. That night we went to a Christmas party at Bar 089 and had a great time. Nicole got to experience how the Germans party and (don’t) dance. We were out until really late and I had to get up early for class the next day and really didn’t want to get out of bed the next day. But sadly I had to.
On Wednesday, I had class all day so Nicole went off to Salzburg all by herself! It was quite the adventure. And despite our worries, she came home safe.
On Thursday, I went to class and Nicole met me for lunch at Mama’s Döner Kebap. Best Döner in Munich in my opinion. We then met up with Jana and took the Christkindltram around Munich and did some Christmas shopping. Nicole went with me to Kunstgeschichte (art history) and wandered around while we had class. She enjoyed it a lot. We were in the Alte Pinothek, which is one of the biggest art galleries in Munich and had all sorts of cool originals. It has a painting where you can see the beginnings of perspective. The bottom half of the painting has perspective going one direction and the top half has perspective going another direction. Both are correct; they just don’t match up with each other.
On Friday, I had to get up early and go to class (Ceramics at 9:00 am – bleh!) but I met up with Nicole later and we said that we would meet up for Kunstgeschichte but it was cancelled so I did some Christmas shopping, went back to Stusta and met up with Nicole and from there we made dinner and watching movies with Jana.
On Saturday, Jana, Nicole and I went to Neuschwanstein. There was almost no snow the entire week but then it began to snow and we got to see Neuschwanstein in the snow. It was so unbelievably beautiful. It looked really majestic in the snow. Sadly the bridge, where you can get the best view and pictures, was closed cuz of the snow but it was a great trip anyway. Nicole finally got to see the “Disney Castle.” That night, we got a group of people together (Jana, Crystal, Penelope, Josh, Marina, Nicole and I) and went to Hofbräuhaus with our Dirndls and Lederhosen. Nicole borrowed one from Jana. It was a lot of fun. We had traditional Bavarian food and drank lots of beer and played Kings and just enjoyed ourselves. We then put Nicole on the train to the airport cuz her plane was leaving mad early in the AM and Josh whimped out and went home to go to sleep and the rest of us (Jana, Crystal, Marina, and I) went to Killian’s. It was great fun. We discovered Killian’s by accident the other night and it’s this funky little Irish bar run by real Irishmen and it’s just a fun place to chill. The bartenders are a lot of fun.
It was a crazy busy fun week and I’m really glad Nicole visited.
Now back to the daily grind. Two weeks until Chemnitz!

Love,
Emily

Thanksgiving/Schweinegrippe

So this week was Thanksgiving. Since it’s strictly an American holiday, we American students were in charge of making the dinner. I made the gravy and it was actually really successful. I didn’t make enough of it, but it turned out well anyway. They also have no word for “gravy” so trying to explain it to them was a lot of fun. Anyway, it was a good time. All the food was amazing, despite some of our doubts. We thought that since most of the time our mothers cook Thanksgiving Dinner for us, it wouldn’t be the best success ever. But it was really good. There were toasts; Kirbee (one of the girls on my program) recited a poem for us. All of our teachers were there; it was a good gathering. As usual, I ate WAY too much and couldn’t move for at least an hour. I kept saying that I was just going to get in bed and pass out. However, Jana convinced me that I did indeed want to go to the Schweinegrippe party and that I wasn’t entirely immobile.

Side note: *So in my spare time and I have a lot of it, I either watch movies or go to Stusta parties. Stusta parties are ridiculous. Packed with men, cheap drinks, no entrance fee, and just fun. It is a little awkward however when we start dancing though because the Germans don’t dance. They stand there with drinks in their hands and move their shoulders a little, maybe a foot tap. The girls rarely move and they always look perfectly put together and beautiful and we dance and get all sweaty and then ask ourselves why the German girls look so much better than us by the end of the night. Oh yeah, because we actually dance.*

Anyway, sidetracked. So “Schweinegrippe” means “Swine flu” in German. For some reason, the people that plan parties in Stusta decided to have a party in honor of the swine flu. So there was a “Schweinegrippe” party and there were little pigs on the walls and DJs and cheap drinks (as usual) and an abundance of men. Unfortunately I don’t find a lot of the German men attractive so the overabundance doesn’t help me. However, it was fun. It was also Jana’s birthday. Big 20! We took birthday shots in honor of her. I ended up going to bed around 3:30-4:00 and had to wake up early again for Ceramics. That class is really cramping my style.

Love,

Emily

Salzburg

The last Sunday of November we went to Salzburg with the Erasmus program. It’s an exchange program within Europe and there are a lot of Erasmus students in Stusta. Anyway, we go to Salzburg and for some reason, I was in a really antisocial, “people suck” mood that day so it wasn’t as much fun as it could have been. But it was fun anyway. We had a little historic tour of the city, Jana fell in love with the tour guide, I took lots of pictures. We ate at a neat restaurant at the top of this windy stone road. I think it used to be a manor house or something. The building itself was really cool and the food was really good. We then wandered around the Christmas Market there and drank Glühwein and found this cool little graveyard with Catacombs. The Catacombs sadly were closed, but someday I’ll go back and see them. I’ve never seen them before. We then took a train back to Munich and I again did the homework I had been avoiding. I know this post was a little short but it was a short, good, relaxing day. I want to eventually travel all over Germany and see all the little towns, lakes, and historic cities that I can. I’m off to a good start.
Love,
Emily

Skilaufen! (skiiing!!!)

One of the things I heard before I left Europe was that I had to go skiing in the Alps. And I have! It’s so different from skiing in the Utah. Since the Alps were carved from glaciers and not formed from tectonic plates like the Rockies, they’re a lot pointier and sharper and steeper and at times it will just turn into a massive drop-off in front of you. It’s really scary sometimes. There’s not tree cover either which is weird. I love tree skiing and I can’t do that in the Alps cuz there’s not enough snow in the trees. It’s sad. But I like it anyway. It’s a good time. We go with a program called Studenten im Schnee (Translation: Students in Snow) and it’s great. We pay a base fee and get breakfast, bus ride there and back, a lift pass, and a beer afterwards. I love Germany. So far, I’ve been skiing at Hintertuxer, Stubai, Oberwiesenthal, and Zugspitze. My favorite was probably Hintertuxer. Zugspitze is Germany’s highest peak and it’s absolutely stunning but most of it is too steep to ski so the actual ski resort is a little too small for my taste. I can only imagine it in summer though. I’m excited to hike it.

It’s early in the season so the snow hasn’t been fantastic but its snow. Also, they color code the lifts differently. Black = black, red = intermediate, and blue = beginner. I was so confused the first time I saw that. I’m used to it now, but at the time it was a little too much for me to handle.

So, because I’m been lazy and haven’t updated, I have a fun little ski adventure.

Kearnsie, Jana, Jake, Kevin, Justin and I went skiing with Studenten im Schnee to Stubai Gletscher. We go skiing all day; the boys split after lunch and Jana and I stay in the lodge for several hours and make fun of people, take goofy pictures, etc. Anyway, we were supposed to be back at the bus at 4:45. However, several things went wrong. The boys call us and are like, “Can you grab our stuff and meet us down at the bus?” So we grab the bags but not their shoes because they had rented gear and had to return it. So we head down but you have to take trams to get high enough for the good snow and the mosh pit (line is so not an appropriate word for it) for the tram down was RIDICULOUSLY long. Jana and Colleen jump ahead of me and say they’ll hold the bus cuz we were obviously going to miss it. So I get down to the bottom and find out that the boys were below us, where you could also catch a tram down to the bottom and return your rented gear, and had beat us down. It also meant that their shoes were still at the top and it was now 5:30. The bus had waited for us and we finally got all the gear swapped and most everyone, Jake not included, got their shoes back. We finally left at 5:45 and drank beer and schnapps and sang really bad Bavarian songs all the way back to Munich. It was quite the adventure.

Love,

Emily