New Year's Eve in Cottbus

The Cottbuser folk put on a wonderful fireworks show on New Year's Eve at midnight. I took this video from my living room.

Branitzer Park

Branitzer Park is just about the only sightseeing location in Cottbus and I told myself yesterday that I was going to visit it.

Fuerst Pueckler (Prince Pueckler) landscaped Branitz Park back in the 1800s. It's a decent sized park with open fields, patches of trees, forest, and some streams.

I realized that the park probably wouldn't be very pretty in the winter when the grass is dead and there's no leaves on the trees. But, I thought that perhaps I could visit once in winter and then again in summer to compare its appearance between seasons.

Winter sunlight hours are short, especially when you get up late. By the time I set out for the park the sunlight was already dimming, but once I commit myself to something I don't give up easily, so I continued to my destination.

My decision to view the park in the dark turned out to be for the best. Whereas I was expecting to see a drab landscape, the moon was big and full providing a wonderful glow and beautiful shadows. The mansion of Fuerst Pueckler took on an impressive presence in the landscape in its lit-up state.

And now to address my mother's concerns of me being out alone in a dark park. I assure you that there are occupied homes on the property, I passed by other joggers and dog walkers, and most of all, it's your fault that I have the courage to wander around in a park at night in the freezing cold winter weather. You always assured me when I was afraid that there is a super low chance that someone is going to be waiting out there in the dark, freezing cold just to prey upon me.

Fireworks (ie little bombs)

I am used to hearing random small explosions in the month of July around Independence Day, but Germany instead fills the end of December with fireworks in celebration of New Year's. And while the people in Detroit typically either infrequently or all at once set off fireworks, the Germans have been enjoying setting the dang things off with frequent frequency. And these fireworks are loud too. Sometimes I even see the glow of the explosion shoot up from behind a building or outside my window. I don't like it.

Firework shows can be really cool with all the different shapes and loud booming coming all at once. But I am not prepared for all of these little private explosions and do not get to enjoy a colorful view after getting my heart boomed. I simply can't imagine what it must be like for the old people here who lived through WWII because if it were me these random explosions would remind me of my world getting slowly blown apart by Nazis and Allies.

Weihnachtsmarkt Berlin

My apartmentmate Steffi invited me up to Berlin on Monday to visit a couple of Weihnachtsmarkts with her and her friends. Steffi is a native of Berlin, so it is her home playground. I decided that if I was going up to Berlin (a 2-hour trip), then I would make a full day of it and visit a couple of museums.

I first paid a visit to the Kaethe Koellwitz Museum because I did a presentation in German a few years ago on this turn of the century artist (19 to 20th century). I like her work and in the museum I additionally learned a little bit more about her technique and motivations for various projects.

Second stop was a museum called The Story of Berlin which covers the 800 year history of Berlin. I concentrated my education on the early history of the city since I knew my general German history but was curious how Berlin in particular fit into the picture.

With Steffi and her friends we visited a couple of Christmas markets which surround Der Fernseh Turm at Alexander Platz (the TV Tower at Alexander Place). Everything was on a bigger scale than in Cottbus, but still the same concept of fair rides, tasty treats, and lots of people. My highlights were trying a delicious donut-like food and riding the ferris wheel high above the city (this time in a closed-in box, thankfully).

View of the second market from the top of the ferris wheel at the other market



There were sheep and a donkey!



That's a water-fountain statue of Neptune lit up with blue lights while people ice skate around on his frozen fountain water.

German Vocabulary for Americans

I've been collecting German words lately. The words fall into three categories: 1)German = English 2) German ~ English 3) Same spelling, but different meaning. The point of these lists is to show the close relation between German and English. Sadly, most of the words which fall into category one are words which have been adopted into German from English, although a friend argued a while back that the German language was simply "taking back" its words. I'm most amused by category three because they can cause confusion in the mind ("am I thinking/speaking English or German?").

Enjoy.

Category 1: German = English

arm
auto
ball
bar
bus
chaos
computer
fan (team supporter)
finger
fit
gel
gram
hand
hi
information
manager
meeting
mole (meaning varies in both languages, but sometimes the same)
museum
name
okay
party
presentation
sex
sofa
sorry
spam
T-shirt
taxi
winter

Category 2: German ~ English
Hint: Just replace a letter or two, or try saying it outloud.

Bier
Brokkoli
Foto
Glas
Haare
Jacke
Kaffee
Kamera
Lampe
Lippe
Metall
Milch
Nase
Papier
Plastik
Ringe
Schuh
Socke
Sommer
Strikt
Tee
Wasser
Wein

Category 3: Same word but different meaning
German definitions are provided after the colons.

stark: powerful, strong
ton: clay
Wade: calf (anatomy)

Ultimate Frisbee Tournament in Cottbus

Saturday was a long day of playing frisbee. Our team here at BTU, Team DISCover (nerdiness is definitely a big product of technical schools), invited people from other areas to come play Ultimate Frisbee with us. There were a few people from Dresden and then a whole lot of people from various cities across Poland. The language of the day was English, but many of us German speakers often found ourselves speaking English with one another until we realized with whom we were speaking.

Each of the 6 teams was a mixture of players from various places. In my team I had two other DISCover players, one girl from Dresden, and three people from Poland. Games lasted 27 minutes. Each team played 6 games in total throughout the day, with typically an hour break in between each game. Five players are on the field at a time, so most teams had at least two substitutes to switch with the tired and weary (one or two teams had 8 team members).

I tried to drink a lot of water and eat in between each game (I brought chocolate chunk cookies for the buffet and people liked them). It paid off. I had the energy to keep sprinting hard until the end.

It was a good experience to play with people from outside of my BTU group because I acquired some new ideas on how to play well.

Here's a couple of videos from yesterday to show you the game of Ultimate Frisbee, but you'll find more photos on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/larriettasimon/

Stephan Assisting the Frisbee in its Travel down the Field



Mirko Assisting in making a Point

An Asian Evening

I attended a birthday party for a friend of Lili on Friday. There were a lot of students there from the World Heritage study program, which consequently meant that it was an international population (France, Chile, Peru, Korea, China, Japan, USA, Mexico, Germany). We all took turns helping to make the sushi and dumplings. We enjoyed French wine, German beer, German Gluehwein, and American Coca-Cola. I brought some chocolate chunk cookies and there was a cinnamon-chocolate cake. I got acquainted with a few new people and had some good conversations with classmates.

Lili spreading sticky rice on the seaweed for the sushi.



Dumpling Making and Consumption

It's Cold Outside!

People seem to think that my body should be "adapted" to cold weather since I have lived in the north my entire life. Let me educate you on this concept of "adaptation".

Adaptation is a process of natural selection which occurs over several generations. A single individual does not change itself to "adapt" to its conditions. Rather, if an individual is naturally made fit to survive in a certain situation, then that individual survives and reproduces future generations with the same natural abilities.

This means, I am not fit to live in the cold and no matter how many years I live in the cold, I will never "adapt". If I were to reproduce, my children would have a good chance of being wimps like me, unless the fitness of their father overruled my lack of fitness.

The Celsius temperature system makes cold temperatures sound so much more exteme than in the Fahrenheit temperature system. It's currently -11 degrees C, which sounds so extreme because it is below the number 0. But, in Fahrenheit it is 12 degrees, which sounds better because it is above 0.

I just remembered that winter temperatures often hover around 10 degrees F. This is a sad realization.

Sometimes in summer I find tank top and shorts to be too much clothes, whereas now I am wearing something like 4 layers on top and 3 on the bottom just to be comfortable. And don't tell me in the comments that it is my lack of extra meat on my bones which makes me cold! I eat! I do, I swear! I eat both healthy and unhealthy foods. I eat my good fats and bad fats. And still, I am cold.

Weihnachtsmarkt Cottbus

A Weihnachtsmarkt is a Christmas Market located in the downtown of German cities. The market is open every day for about a month before Christmas. I have only visited the market in Cottbus so far, but I plan on seeing the one in Berlin on Monday. From what I know so far, I can say that it is not like an American craft sale, rather an outside social gathering to eat grilled meats on bread, eat crepes, eat sweets (roasted candied almonds, Stollen--fruit bread, etc.), drink Gluehwein (mulled wine) and other hot alcoholic beverages, buy some things related to Christmas, buy some things related to winter, buy other general items which I suppose could be Christmas presents, play some carnival games, and ride on carnival rides.

I have visited the market a few times. The family of a friend of mine has a hut where they sell said hot alcoholic drinks, so I paid them a visit a few times. I have gone with Lili a couple of times and it was on our most recent visit yesterday when we rode on the ferris wheel. It was a little scary because the top half of the sitting compartment wasn't caged in, but the view of the city at night was beautiful. The photos below were taken by Lili and belong to her.

As to the hot alcoholic drinks, I have tried the Gluehwein and another drink called Lumumba. The Gluehwein is a red wine spiced with such spices as cinnamon, orange peel, and almonds. I was a little skeptical on my first sip of Gluehwein, but I took to it quit quickly when my tastebuds realized that it did not have the nasty taste of red wine but was actually sweet and smooth (just like I thought red wine should taste before I actually tried it). The Lumumba is a very delicious mixture which I was very skeptical of when I heard the ingredients: hot chocolate milk and rum. The chocolate milk my friend's family uses is very rich chocolately and the rum adds some sort of flavor, but not a nasty alcoholic one. There is also the option to buy Grog, which my family is supposedly acquainted with from our neighbor, but I think that the combination of hot water and rum doesn't sound very tasty, so I doubt I will be trying it any time soon (recipes may very depending on the regional origin of the recipe, so I can't say this Cottbus Grog is the same as Johann's Swedish Grog).

View of a small portion of the market in Cottbus (the market continues a ways down a sidestreet--the main shopping strip)



Me all giddy on the big ferris wheel!

Smirk...

...to the smug joy of a silent victory.

It just makes you feel good inside.

What a (Bad) Week

I thought I broke the refridgerator when I was trying to find the right dial or button to make it colder. After spending several hours in fear that I had killed the fridge, my apartmentmates came home and informed me that I had only pressed the "defrost" button. The upside to this is that we had too much ice in our freezer compartment, so a defrost was just what the doctor ordered.

I had to spend an entire day with someone I wasn't too keen on in the first place but who I ordinarily see nearly every day. Well, within the course of the day we had the ability to get on each others' nerves, ending in the person yelling at me and hurting my feelings. I decided that the upside to this was to remember not to say to other people what this person said to me.

I woke up to find the toilet water running non-stop. I decided to investigate under the tank cover. I found water pouring out from between a plastic ring and a metal pipe. I got the water down to a drip before I screwed the plastic ring too tight and caused it to crack. Water began spraying out from the pipe and flames began spraying out of the orifices of my head. In my state of panic and rage I managed to locate the turn-off valve for the water pipe. After coming to my senses, I took some pictures of the broken region (with a ruler for scale--last time I needed something from the hardware store I had to return home to do some measurements) and headed over to the hardware store. The helpful salesman showed me everything I needed. When trying to undo the pipes, I had some difficulty and went down to my old neighbor to ask for some more hands, but he said he would come by in an hour. I didn't want to wait an hour, so with renewed vigor I attacked the pipe. I succeeded in unscrewing the old part and putting on the new part. I nervously turned the water back on and flushed the toilet...and it worked! For those of you out there who ever thought that my lack of interest in construction would leave me inept at fixing household problems (and I know you people exist), I am here to show you that my abilities prove themselves worthy when necessity strikes.

Broken--You can see the crack in the plastic ring.


Fixed--I had to replace the whole water in-flow contraption (comes as one piece).



I'm hoping for this coming week to go a little better.

Learning Lessons from Mean People

Someone was mean to me and hurt my feelings a couple of days ago. I've spent the past couple days being frustrated and trying to figure out a way to get over the whole thing. I think I found the solution and it lies in the previous post.

Positive lesson learned: I should remember to not say to other people what this person said to me because it hurts feelings.

*Note: Please don't ask for details. I wrote this post in a vague way because I wanted to be vague. Just learn the lesson.

Best Advice I Ever Got

At the end of each day, make a list of positives from my day.

Hans Bathing

This is a video of Hans in the bathtub. I tried to make the horrible experience of bathtime a little more interesting for both the boys and myself by letting them stroll around in the bathtub. I was hoping at least one of them would be joyed by the experience, but neither was too keen on it. After bathtime they took a vacation from my bedroom into the living room and snuggled up near a warm heat register. That's not to say that my bedroom is cold, but the living room is cozier. And they smelled so yummy after the bath (from my shampoo) that I didn't have to worry about them leaving any stinky trace behind in the living room.

Black

Preface: I love wearing black. It's easy to pair with other clothing items and it is soothing to the eye.

Context: I am sitting in the library among 5 other people and every single one of us is wearing black. Some of us have it on top and bottom, some just top or bottom.

Question: Is it a current western style thing to wear so much black (ie Germany and USA), or is it just a current local thing to wear so much black (ie Germany)?

Additionally: Everyone wears black or olive green winter coats! I confess that I too own an olive green autumn coat and a dark gray winter coat. But, my typical winter coat (and the only one I have here in Germany) and my raincoat are both very brightly colored (winter -- yellow, rain -- red). I walk across campus and see a sea of dark coats. In a way I feel special, but I also feel a little awkward.

Calvin College Diploma in German

I had to translate my Calvin College diploma for the payroll office here at BTU. I tried to make it look nice and pretty, like the original. I think it looks cool in German, so I thought I'd share : )