Die Praktikantin

Found out her name is actually spelled Aimeé, sorry Em.

Notable Thoughts:  Horse poop looks like giant coffee beans. Horse pee looks like toxic slime. Haribo Gummy Bears are better when they’re frozen.

We have a Praktikantin (intern)!  Her name is Lisa and she is 14 years old and thank god she was here for the past week.  She made my job so much easier.  She wants to be a veterinarian, or a musician, or a therapist—she’s not sure yet.  I told her she better figure it out soon.  It’s not like she has a whole lot of time left to decide.  She is doing a two week long internship with Melanie for school.  For this period of two weeks, all of the students in her class are working full-time in classrooms, hospitals, stores, and wherever else they are interested in working when they do finally figure out what they should do with their lives. I think so far she is enjoying it here, but let’s be honest, it’s more shoveling poop than it is learning about animals.

Lisa looks like a white Asian person. She is tiny with dark brown hair and when she speaks English with me, she has more of a Japanese accent than German. We go back and forth between German and English throughout the day so we can both practice. 

Märchenfee

Guevarra

Lancaster

Lisa, Märchenfee, Sky

Märchenfee, Lancaster, Ramina

On Thursday, the three of us quickly finished all of the work because Melanie had a meeting in Köln that afternoon.  It’s about 50 km away from Kescheid.  The two of them planned to drop me off in the city so I could explore for a few hours while they went to the meeting just outside the city. When we got there, we all had lunch together at a Thai place in the train station. We’d been in the city for maybe a total of 5 minutes, walked maybe a total of 200 meters, and were standing in line to order when Lisa leaned over to me and said, “I hate big towns.”  I said, “Yeah, I like them every once in a while, but I’m from a small town too, so I get it.” She said, “Really? (As if all Americans come from LA or NYC) How many people are in your town?” I said, “Oh I think only 12,000 or so.” She said, “In my town there are 87.”  Touché, Lisa. Melanie also said she didn’t like when she had to come into the city, which is apparent, because she spends almost every day on her farm and hasn’t had a vacation in over 20 years. It is safe to say that I have been going a little stir crazy here, but I did have my adventure in Köln, and that has helped.  Plus I went grocery shopping again today, score!

So I parted ways with the party poopers and went off to explore. As you walk out of the train station, you are standing smack dab in front of the Köln Dom.  It was pretty magnificent, and I don’t think I’ve ever used the word magnificent before. I took a few pictures, but none of them can really do it justice, partly because I couldn’t fit the whole building in one frame.  I also forgot to go inside because I was too busy trying to figure out how to get to the Schokolade Museum. 

Köln Dom

The short part....

Whats up Tom Builder!

 The Chocolate Museum.  History of Chocolate.  Chocolate Production.  Cacao Beans. Everything in the world you could want to know about chocolate.  Some of my favorite facts (a.k.a the only ones I remember): 75% of the people that harvest the cacao beans (who all live in Central/South America and Africa) have never even tasted chocolate before. I thought, that really, really sucks. The average amount of chocolate consumed by each American for the year of 2012 is about 6 kg. Germans? 9.8 kg.  Swiss? Over 10 kg! I was inspired.

They had a whole floor that was like a miniature sized chocolate factory, so you could see all the different steps in the process of making chocolate.  There is a staff member who stands next to a huge chocolate fountain all day and hands out little wafers dipped in chocolate.  Even going into the gift shop (which is usually dumb) was cool.  They had crazy designer chocolate bars with all sorts of toppings and flavoring.  Oh, and half of the second floor was a place where you could design your own chocolate bar.  You could pick what you wanted in it and then watch them make it through the glass windows, it was pretty cool.  I’m sure it was also expensive, so I got the heck out.

So yes, half of my time spent in Köln was actually spent in this museum. I make good choices.  I also took these other pictures to make it seem like I have other interests:

The best place to be in a museum, outside

Rhein

Thought this was a cool building...

Ice Cream Buildings

 I walked back along the Rhein River because I had to meet Melanie and Lisa at 5 pm. I had about 40 minutes, so I went into a Media Markt and tried to get a German SIM-card for my phone.  3 euro later I was out the door (later figured out that it doesn’t work, but I think if I go into an actual O2 store, they will make it work).  I made it to the meeting spot, in front of the train station, with 5 minutes to spare.  I bought a Brötchen from the sausage stand nearby and stood in the cold, waiting for the little blue car to pull up.  When 5:30 hit and I was still standing there, I thought, this would be a great time to have a phone that works. Then I was accosted by a group of 14 year olds who wanted 100,000 euro, my Brötchen, and then a hug.  I said no to all of their requests, but respected them for their technique (starting big, so the last request seems small—smart kids) and then when they left, laughing at how funny they were, I thought, well done, Hayley, because I spoke all in German with them and understood everything. 

When 5:45 hit, I started thinking, hmmmm, what should I do if Melanie never shows up? I decided I would try to call first, so I went inside to a payphone.  Of course, when Lisa picks up, she says, we’re here! What a waste of a euro. Turns out their meeting went a little late and then they got lost on the way back into the city because Paul (the GPS) wouldn’t turn on. 

On the way home that evening, Melanie turned on the radio to play some German songs for me.  When they started playing, Lisa turned to me and said, “Not all German music is this bad!”  There was one song that I could actually understand, though at first, I wasn’t sure if I was hearing it correctly:

....Wasser, Wasser, Wasser, überall,

doch wir haben nichts zu trinken,

wir brauchen Rum, Rum, Rum....

Simple translation: …Water, water, water everywhere,

                              But we have nothing to drink,

                              We need rum, rum, rum…

I have posted the YouTube link to the song, because I think this is the kind of German my dad would understand. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHDVEETkYBw)

My German is coming along. I have had several people tell me that I speak it well within the past few days and the conversations are getting longer and I can participate more than I used to.  I am growing vastly appreciative of the fact that I can even speak one language. 

Tomorrow, Melanie is driving back to Köln to pick up her next WWOOFer, Roy.  He is from Hong Kong and speaks only a little bit of English.  I get to be the translator and teach him what to do.  I have no idea why he is coming to Germany or how long he’s staying, but I guess I will find out tomorrow.  Then, on Tuesday, I am going to spend a few hours in a German classroom with Melanie’s mom (she’s a teacher) and then take a train to Zürich to see Anja!  It will be really nice to be with someone that knows and understands me for a few days.  And then I can get this horse smell off of me.