"Grillen" at Sarah's

It was another typical weekend here in Germany... which therefore means we ate a whole heck of a lot of food! It was epic. My friend Sarah finally got furniture for her room and 'the Canadians' (me and the other 3 students from Waterloo) showed up in Erlangen to help her put it all together.

This actually came as quite the surprise to me - I thought we were just going to have a barbeque. Turns out we were working for our food! :) But 5 sets of hands just itching to interpret Ikea directions were a few sets too many, so Sarah and I were in charge of getting all the food ready and starting the fire. Now, I feel like I should preface this with a couple stories. First, I have the miraculous ability to kill/douse/smother any fire I come near. Just ask anyone I've gone camping with. And second, I have managed to light a camping stove on fire. Twice. Now you might think that was a good thing, generally your stove needs to be lit in order to cook food. But this was a little different. I lit not only the stove, but also the bottle of fuel attached to it... Hmm, a buring canister of gas... fun? (don't worry, I didn't blow up... the nozzle melts first as you can see below)

So yes, I am a fire genius! And needless to say, lighting the charcoal fire was a brilliant accomplishment. I was so proud...

Sarah and I worked ever so hard to build the perfect fire... on which we roasted: Bratwurst, pork medallions, chicken wings, hamburgers (homemade I might add), steaks, a pepper, and buns. Plus we had some veggies on the side.

(that's not all the food by the way... that was round 2 of 4)

I could barely move when we were done... and neither could anyone else...

And then I had the best coffee I've had since I got to Germany - in the Erlangen train station. Brilliant!

All in all, it was a fabulous day. Soon to come... pictures from my weekend in Berlin

Bis gleich :)

The beautiful city of Bamberg

Hi all! So I have Friday's off - no classes... woohoo! And since it was such a GORGEOUS day this past Friday, I decided to wander around and show off the pretty city I get to spend the summer in. Very picturesque and historic. Bamberg didn't get bombed in the war, so there are a lot of very beautiful buildings around. And some of them are super old - we're talking built in the 1500's old. Crazy huh?
So this is a shot of one of the open-air markets that take place 7 days a week in Bamberg. We thought we'd one-up the rest of Germany - markets only 2-3 days a week? So you can buy fresh fruits and vegetables (including the famous German Spargel - otherwise known as white asparagus. Not gonna lie... it freaks me out a little bit. But I haven't tried it yet, so I'm not judging)


Right before one of the many bridges in town you can look up over the river and see Michaelsburg. It's one of the beautiful old churches in town - although I do believe that it's also the location of the brewery museum. In any case it's very pretty :)

Next stop was over the bridge past the "Alte Rathaus" (Old city hall). You can see the incredible artwork on the side. And if your eyes are really good you might just be able to pick out the 3-D section. There's a random foot that's sticking out of the wall at the bottom in the middle... not 100% sure why.

This is my 'attempt to be artsy' shot of the "Dom" - the catholic church, special because it has 4 towers instead of the normal 2. Go us! The churches in Bamberg ring their bells all day long. Most of the time to signal the hour, but they're also used as a call to worship - and then they start ringing like mad. We have a church around the back of my residence, and I wasn't quite sure what was going on when 7 o'clock pm rolled around and I heard bells for a solid minute.

This shot looks out over the rooftops of Bamberg from the courtyard infront of the Dome. Very European. Very beautiful. Hmm, that certainly seems to be the "word of the blog". But it does describe the city very nicely. Maybe I should start using a thesaurus, just so you don't get bored...

In a building right around the corner from the Dome is the famous Bamberg rose garten. Unfortunately, as you can see, it's too early for the roses to be in bloom. But I promise you another picture when the flowers are out. It should be an epic picture. Each section of the maze has a different type of rose growing in it. I can't wait!

I thought I should try to include a picture of me - just so you don't forget what I look like.

A shot of "Kleine Venedig" (little Venice) - a series of houses along the river running through Bamberg. Please excuse the finger... I am but a lowly amateur picture-taker :)

That's one of the buildings I have class in. Quite a difference from the Waterloo campus I must say...

This is the "GabelMann" (literally the Forkman) - a statue of Neptune I believe. It's a pretty popular meeting place, located in the middle of one of the plazas in Bamberg.

And there you go - a nice little picture tour through Bamberg :)

'Till next time

The first one!

Welcome all you curious eyes! It's officially been 3 weeks since I got to beautiful old Bamberg, and it's been amazing! Let me share with you what's been going on in my life, cause it's been rather spiffy :)

Leaving Canada was rather uneventful although LONG! It was a 7 hour plane ride to Frankfurt (and my breakfast muffin scared me so I just had yoghurt) and then a 4 hour wait at the train station (where I did get to eat a very yummy pretzel) and then a 3 hour train ride to Bamberg. By that point in time I'd been awake for about 24 hours (I don't know how Jack Bauer does it haha) and was ready to crash! My tandem partner picked me up from the train station and brought me home for a nap, boy did that feel good! The next day was one beaurocratic stop after another: registering at the Foreign Exchange Student office, opening a bank account, registering at the University, registering with the city, registering with the Residence office... boy was I glad when that day was over! But Anita was a real blessing - she walked me through it all and translated all the legalistic german terms that went about a mile over my head!

My room is quite nice... although the concrete floor is not exactly conducive to yoga... as I found out the other day. I've got a single room which basically means a little kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. And when I say little kitchen, I mean little kitchen - I fight with the "counter" every time I cook dinner. Which I didn't do for the first week cause I was too busy eating my Lieblingsessen - Brotchen mit Butter (that's my favourite food - buns with butter!)

There's a church just behind our residence and I can hear the bells ringing. Although I haven't quite figured out their system yet. It appears to be 1 bell at quarter past and quarter to, 2 bells at half past, whatever they feel like on the hour, and then about 2 minutes of bells at noon and 7 pm... It's great... haha. But the view out of my window is nice enough to make up for it. Plus I get lots of sunlight. And you can see that I'm trying to be active and work off all that bread :)

Classes have been good so far - very different from Canada. I'm taking 7 classes at the moment and I've only got 10 hours of class. Most of them are pretty interesting (I'm taking a Bamberg Culture class and we get to go on field trips!), all of them are useful (especially the one on pronunciation), and I'm understanding a lot more German than before I came here.

And since I only have 10 hours of class I have so much free time to wander around and have fun! The cafe's in Bamberg are fabulous - lots of fresh baked goods and yummy coffee. They also have open-air markets every day. They're somewhat similar to St. Jacob's market in Waterloo. And the southern dialect is very very present there... Often I have no clue what's going on.

On the 25th some friends and I headed to Nuernberg for the Volksfest - I have no idea what it means... but it was a very fun, very German carnival. I had a blast, shared a lot of food (a giant pretzel, cotton candy, potato salad, langos (some Hungarian pastry and cheese thingy), ox, and roasted almonds), and lauged all day long.

As you can see... I wasn't kidding about the size of the pretzel!

May first is an official bank holiday here - it's the equivalent of Labour day in Canada. So some friends and I headed out (because it was a BEAUTIFUL day) to one of the many Bier Kellers (outdoor beer patio restaurant dealies) in Bamberg. You had to climb one heck of a hill to get to the Speziale Keller, but it was beautiful up there. Although service at a restaurant in Germany is very different from Canada.

The next day, we decided we were going to have a picnic. Sarah wanted to take her new car out for a spin and we all just wanted to be outside. So off we headed to Stienberg (to the second largest lake in Bavaria) to sit by the See (the german word for lake) and have a picnic. And boy did we eat a lot! No one could stay awake after our epic lunch, so we all fell asleep in the sun (don't worry - I wore buckets of sunscreen!)

And that about covers all the big events of the first couple weeks of my adventure. Which (by the way!) is going to last a whole year! I got accepted as an ESL conversation partner in a German highschool for this coming school year!! So I'll be keeping you all updated

Toodles :)

Sandy