Stalkhouse and Karl's Dad

(Let's pretend I posted this on June 14th, just for funsies)

Hej! Jag är i Sverige.  Yep.  That’s about the extent of my Swedish knowledge, or so it feels.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been traveling in a country where I don’t speak the language, so that’s actually a little weird. I feel really silly when people talk to me in Swedish and then they switch to English when I look at them with that confused stare.  Since I’d been speaking all in German with Katja for the day, when I got into Stockholm, I kept wanting to speak German and was saying “Danke” instead of “Tack” the whole afternoon.  There are some things I can read and understand, but others that I have no idea about.

So I spent a good seven hours total traveling from Munich to Stockholm.  I basically passed out asleep the whole way since I hadn’t slept much the past two nights.  I met up with Sara Gustafsson in Stockholm and we’re still not actually sure if we’re related, but we just decided we should be cousins anyway, why not! She spent a year and a half in America as an Au Pair and also studying in California.  I think she was excited to meet me because she really loved America and would rather live there if she could, so we had a lot to talk about.  It was about 2 pm when we met up and she took me into Gamla Stan, the “old city” of Stockholm, and we sat with some coffee and sandwiches and got to know each other.  She was really easy to talk to and her English was, of course, amazing.  We had planned to just meet up for a few hours and then I was going to go meet my couchsurfing host, Jannike. Jannike had sent me a few emails within the past few days and it just seemed like she kept being confusing and changing up her story/situation/what dates she could host me, and I was starting to not look forward to staying with her.  She also lived 30 minutes outside of the city, which was kind of a bummer.  Well basically what ended up happening was that Sara offered to let me stay at her apartment in the city and I had the best time with her.  I honestly could not have been luckier to have a “cousin” in Stockholm!

So we walked through the city together for a bit and she kind of explained to me what all of the beautiful buildings were.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful city than Stockholm.  It was absolutely amazing.  It is a city built on water, which means that the different quarters of town are basically different islands. One is maybe a good shopping part, the other is just a big nature park, one has the parliament buildings and old city, one has an amusement park (weird), and throughout it all is just gorgeous lakes.  It was just such a regal city.  I don’t know if it has anything to do with the fact that they still have a royal family, but that could be part of it.  Sara explained to me all about how Princess Madeliene just got married this past weekend, so they all lined up and watched the bride and groom go into the church together by horse and carriage.  The Swedish Princess married a banker from New York and has moved there for good, which was a bit of a scandal for the Swedes.  Her older sister, who will become queen when their dad dies, married her personal trainer, which was also looked down upon and they couldn’t get the king and queen’s approval for marriage for 8 years or so.  The Royal Family doesn’t actually have any power in Sweden anymore, they are more just like figure-heads or celebrities, or perhaps just representatives of Sweden.  Anyway, they have some ridiculous castles and Victoria (next queen) and Daniel (personal trainer) just had a baby about a year ago named Estelle, and she will be the next crown princess afterward, which is so weird, because she’s just a baby! And she sits next to her parents on one of those big, royal chairs, not knowing her finger from her toe, and they call her Princess Estelle.  What a weird, weird thing.  In a lot of ways, Sweden is just so different from the States.

I feel like I really learned a lot about the country just by talking to Sara.  She is 23 and works as a flight attendant, but by some stroke of luck, had two days off just as I arrived.  Her apartment is just a ten or fifteen minute walk from the train station and old city, which is amazing since the city is so huge.  It’s a studio with a balcony and I love it.  I would like to live there.  She has a pretty classic style, so I really liked it all.  We talked a bit about how Americans don’t really have any style at all, we’re pretty plain.  I wouldn’t have understood what she meant at first, but after walking around Stockholm for ten minutes, I knew exactly what she meant.  They honestly just throw a bunch of random clothes together and make it look good.  I have no idea how they do it.  Here I am wearing skinny jeans, and that’s even a big step for me.  They’ve got all sorts of things going on, I was fascinated by it.  Best looking people I’ve seen in a while.  Also the most pregnant city I’ve ever seen.  At least one of five women we passed on the street was pregnant.  I’m not exaggerating at all.  I’ve never seen so many pregnant women in one place in my whole entire life.  It must have really been a cold and dark winter here. 

We went out for some pizza that evening and I ordered my first Swedish beer, delicious. Mariestad, I think it was called.  Everything is really expensive here, which is silly, but it’s even worse when you see that a pizza is 82 kronor and a beer is 49.  It’s just hard to convert and conceptualize how much that really is in euro or dollars and I never really know how much I’m spending.  I believe it’s like 1 USD to 7 SEK.  Awkward amount to divide by, so I just don’t.  Afterward we went back to Sara’s apartment and even though it was 10.30 pm, it was still perfectly light outside.  We exchanged pictures of family for a while and talked and shared about our lives growing up.  She also plays/played soccer and golf.  She actually had the same golf coach as Annika Sorenstam for a few years growing up.  I had Rick Peterson, so I think I got the better end of the deal.  Good thing I wasn’t the one born in Sweden! Sara kept wondering why I was even in Sweden.  I guess some Europeans just have the American dream, and some Americans have the European one.  It was kind of interesting to hear about it from the other side, especially because you don’t run into that attitude much in Europe anymore. 

The next morning we slept in, which I think we both needed after so much traveling! She had just been to Munich and back with work the same day that I flew into Stockholm.  We made breakfast and showered and had some coffee and looked outside as the rain came pouring down.  Yep, this was real Stockholm.  We went out that afternoon and looked around at a few stores and had another coffee and then walked down by the waterfront and into Djurgården, which is the nature park island place.  It was beautiful, despite gray skies, and there were lots of tiny goslings lying around with their parents.  The geese wanted to attack us because we kept trying to take pictures of their babies.  Kind of the like Amish people.

Breakfast! 

Djurgården, which apparently goes on forever

GOOSE PILE

We got to talking a bit about Margit, Sara’s Grandmother, who I’m actually going to be meeting tomorrow (Saturday) in Karlstad and apparently she has some great stories about our families history.  I’m really excited to meet with her, especially after talking to Sara about it.  We talked a bit about weddings, marriage, and dating and how those topics differed in the US and Sweden.  She thought it was really cool that I’d been on a “real date” before, “like in the American movies!”.  She tried to explain dating in Sweden to me, but it was just confusing.  They apparently don’t really date.  She has also never been to a wedding before and a lot of her friends haven’t either.  A lot of Swedes don’t even get married, they just live together and have kids together and call it good.  Or they will just be engaged for ten years and then decide to have that gosh darn wedding.  How strange! As far as I know, gay marriage has also been legal here for a few years now.  OH! And when parents have a baby, they get a total of a year off from work between the two, paid and everything! What?! That is pretty cool.  Health care is free, but that has a downside because sometimes it will take months to get an X-ray or surgery, or it’s really hard to get in to see a doctor if you aren’t feeling well.  You pretty much have to be dying to get an appointment, from what I’ve heard.  Apparently the government may be trying to change that in the next few years.  Sounds like a good idea.

Once we got back to Sara’s apartment, she made me a traditional meatball dinner!  With potatoes, a delicious gravy sauce, and lingon berries to top it off.  It was so good.  She was honestly the best host I could have imagined.  I don’t know what I would have done without her in Stockholm, but I know I wouldn’t have learned as much and seen as much.  And to think, she found out about me the day before I came, and then just took me in for two nights and showed me around and hung out with me.  I feel so lucky to have met her.  She has also offered to let me stay with her on my last night in Sweden because I’m flying out of Stockholm.  I couldn’t imagine a better trip, simply because she was so nice and welcoming to me. 

Swedish dinner

View from Sara's balcony

This morning we woke up and had some breakfast and then she went with me to the train station where I was meeting Mathias Nilsson, another family member.  I had planned to take a train west to Karlstad with him and then on Saturday we would meet with Margit together and then he would drive me two hours north to a farm in a small town called Östmark, where his parents live now, and where my great-great-grandfather Johan August Persson grew up.  Anyway, I didn’t know what to expect, but Mathias was just as kind as Sara.  We met up and sat together on the three hour train ride and talked about different things.  He works for the Swedish-American archives/organization type thing and told me about how when he was 15 he started making the family tree and was really interested in genealogy, then called himself a nerd for it, which for some reason was just really funny.  But it was good because he said that’s why he thought it was so cool that I wanted to come over and meet all of them, because another young person was interested in our family history as well.  I made sure he knew I was NOT a nerd and that he was a weirdo.  Just kidding.  We figured out based on the little information we had on the train that we were the same generation and fourth cousins.  How cool! He’s probably in his late 20s or early 30s and has a 3 year old son, with a name that I can’t remember, but he’s cute as a button.  I also met his Norwegian wife, named Kristin and she was super nice.  She studied in Berlin as a student, so I’ll have to speak a little German with her. Anyway, I am at my hostel now and we are heading out for dinner soon, so I’m off! Hej då!

Salzburg Weekend and MIT-Z

After 11 hours of travel (should have been 7), we finally made it to Salzburg on Friday night.  Seven hours on a bus, not fun.  Four hours of getting on and off buses and trains because of flooding, not fun.  Watching the sun set over the Austrian mountains? Yeah. That was awesome.  So finally the train stops in Salzburg and Sam, Nora (Sam’s girlfriend, visiting for the month!), and I head out to find Christina.  I handed her the six pack of beer that I’d brought from Heidelberg and told her it took all of our self-control not to start drinking it half way through our constantly delayed journey.

First on the list of things to do was PIZZA because PIZZA is good.  Ferdinand from Il Sole served us up three to-go and we took them back to the house and ate it all.  There was a mosquito in mine. Ate it anyway.  Nora and Sam went to bed soon after because it was already midnight or so, but Christina and I walked down into the Altstadt for a beer.  We settled in at Murphy’s Law and each ordered a Guinness and hung out for a good hour or two just catching up.  By the time we got up those stairs and into bed it was probably about 2 am.  Bed felt great. I loved bed. 

The next day we all ate breakfast in the Wintergarten, opened up the kitchen window and hoped that MIT-Z would come visit with us, and admired the beauty that is the Mönchsberg and the Markentenderschloßl.  I think Sam summarized it quite nicely when she said something along the lines of, WOW, WHAT THE HELL AJY? Exactly.  We headed to the grocery store next to pick up some supplies for the weekend, most of which was comprised of Stiegl.  Very important. Then once we got home, we got all geared up for the famous Salzburg Tour.  Though I’m biased in thinking that Kevin gives the best tour, Christina did a great job leading us around, explaining a bit of history and showing us the sights. Plus, within the first thirty minutes, we met a group of  older people walking around the Mönchsberg with bottles of Schnapps attached to long hiking sticks.  One guy started saying something to us, but all I could make of it was, here, take a drink of this schnapps.  There’s only one way to respond to that, so we all took a drink.  Then the catch came afterward, when he said we had to give him something back for it, anything we had on us.  It was then that I saw a tank top also hanging from his stick.  He wanted bras and underwear, but was satisfied when we threw a condom his way and I’m sure went on heckling other people for the rest of the day.  Worth it.  I would like to go on that tour of Salzburg.  We continued with ours.  Of course we had to stop for a few snacks along the way, one of which included Kaisersmarrn at The Golden Ente.  It had been a while, but was delicious as ever.  We came back from the city and enjoyed some Stiegl outside of the house with the sun shining down. Austria was really putting on a show for us.  Of course the next stop was more beer at the Augustiener Bräu, where the Biergarten was open and tons of people were enjoying the warm Saturday weather.  We ended up staying there until it closed and on our way out somehow started talking with two Austrian brothers, who were both strange and interesting to talk to, which lasted for a good two hours or so.  One was a music producer, the other a science teacher.  Either way, it was good practice for the German!  They headed on to a bar across the river and we headed along the river on the other side. We were supposed to meet one of Christina’s friends, but first got Käsekrainer from the Sausage Queen (pizza for the vegetarians) and then ate it and it was amazing. It had been over two years.  Still as good as I remember.  Then we met with the friend, but it ended up being kind of a bust of the night and so Sam, Nora and I headed up to the house for bed time.  The next day we planned to go to the Lake District to see some mountains and waters and perfection.  At about 10 am I got a text from Christina that said she’d only gotten home at 8 am…so we let her sleep for a while longer and left at a little after one for St. Gilgen. In my expert opinion, it wasn’t as cool as St. Wolfgangsee, but that’s like comparing Stiegl and Klosterhof Beer…they are both way better than annnnnnything else in the world.  So we sat down on a big blanket and ate some food and enjoyed the sunshine, mountains, and Austria once again.  Rough life.  We tried to go for a little boat ride onto the lake, but about 30 seconds after we pulled away from dock, a small rain storm blew through and we turned her back around and headed for cover.  Got gelato instead.  Walked around for a bit and then decided it was time to go home and make some dinner, which were calzones, which were amazing.  But still no MIT-Z.  A real storm came through Salzburg that night, thunder, lightning, everything! We watched it from the Wintergarten and I’m very convinced that there could have been no better place to wait out a storm.  Nora and Sam decided to go run around in the rain and they will probably have the sniffles now.  We were all tired from the day and concluded the night with a few rounds of Scattergories before sleeping once more. 

The next morning, Monday, Sam and Nora had to leave and I had some meetings with people at the Universität Salzburg.  Nora leaves Germany the day before I get back from Sweden, so that was the last time we’d see each other! It was a good weekend to end on, especially considering that before she’d come to Germany she didn’t like beer, but after one drink of Stiegl, she concluded that she liked it.  Success! I’ve never heard of that not happening. 

So I went off into town for my meetings, got some information, walked around a bit, and then started my hike back up to the house.  I sat for a while and did some homework that afternoon and Christina came into my room at one point and brought me a snack tray!  Just like my mommy used to back when I was younger. It was actually the best part of my day I would say.  So great.  Once I had accomplished a bit of work, we went to the Stiegl Brewery and sat down for dinner and, yep, you got it, some beers.  I have consumed a lot of that this weekend, but the walking cancels it out, if I remember correctly.  Christina left her number on one of the coasters for the waiter and it was probably the funniest thing ever.  Can’t wait for him to call.  We came home and relaxed with a card game and then I realized it was 10 pm and I still had some preparing to do for the rest of my week!

On Sunday I got word from my grandparents that we had some relatives in Sweden that would be willing to meet with me and show me around a bit during my trip! So I spent the next few hours contacting them and trying to figure out a new plan.  Originally I was just going to stay in Stockholm for the week, but after all the help and contact information from my grandma, I was able to coordinate with relatives and am now going to be visiting three cities in Sweden! I’ll start with two nights in Stockholm and then travel to Karlstad by train with a somehow cousin, Mathias, who will show me around, introduce me to family, and possibly take me up to the farm that my great-great-grandfather grew up on! Mathias’ parents live there now.  Then on Sunday I think I will take a train down to Göteborg and meet with another cousin type relative named Erica, who I just heard from today and she sounds really nice and excited about meeting me.  Overall, I am super excited about my trip now, it’s going to be the most amazing experience ever!  Hopefully I can impress them with my amazing Swedish skills…as long as I just run away after saying hello, my name, and where I’m from.  Because after that it starts to get a little complicated.  No, luckily they all speak very good English, so that’s great.  Anyway, I’m still in the process of figuring it all out, but it’s looking good so far.

Finally I got to bed at about 2 am and had to wake up at 6 this morning to catch a ride to Munich, where I am staying for the night before flying to Sweden.  Whew, that was a rough morning, but I met a really nice girl who studies in Salzburg and again, good German practice.  The best part of the weekend came when Christina knocked on my door at about 6:15 am though and as I sat exhausted on my bed, trying to get my boots on, in she comes with a MIT-Z.  She literally waited for the last second to show up!  I was determined to see her all weekend and afraid I wouldn’t, but she really came through in the end! There she was, in my arms, just loving the scratches, it was like 2010 all over again and I didn’t want to have to leave.  I’d say seeing her was a good omen for the future.  What a cat.  Oh also MIT-Z is a boy and his real name is Gepetto, but she will always be MIT-Z to me.

So here I am sitting in Munich, outside a university building, bells ringing, fountain spewing water, sun shining.  I guess summer finally decided to show up in Germany.  In about an hour I will meet the girl I am staying with tonight.  Her name is Katja, and she’s hosting me as a Couchsurfer.  She’s going to show me around Munich a little bit today and I’m excited to see it all from a local’s perspective.  Hopefully she doesn’t mind super red eyes and all over the place hair….I’m sleepy.  Tommorrow morning at about 7 am I’ll hop on a bus to the airport, then a plane to Sweden, then a bus to Stockholm.  So excited! I’m already not looking forward to going back to real life in Heidelberg after this trip, but once I return, I’ll only have just over a month of this whole shebang left, and you know what they say: you only live.  YOL.  Yeah I think that’s what they say.  I’m signing off now to go and do that, and when I return, I’m sure I’ll have wayyyyyy too many things to write about from my lovely trip to the motherland.  Here I come Swedeeeeennnn!

PS. I’m currently sitting in Katja’s house.  We met up at one and walked around Munich a bit and then came to her house.  So far so good.  She’s very nice and pretty calm so I’m enjoying it.  I do have some pictures to upload, but I will have to add them sometime later because I think we’re about to eat dinner! 

The Rugby Game

Akwardly sitting in a bus writing this so that I can feel caught up on catching people up. I feel like a lot has happened since the last time I wrote, which is lately how it’s been going.  I guess when you’re doing more than caring for farm animals on a daily basis, time gets away from you a bit faster.  Miss those cows. I am currently on my way to Salzburg for the weekend, then Munich for a night, and then a week in Stockholm.  That’s right.  I booked my ticket, heading to the motherland.  I’ve even been practicing my Swedish (to myself in my head) and I have a key phrase I’m going to use. “Kan du mig saga, var det är?” And then I will point to something on a map or piece of paper.  We practiced giving/getting directions last class.  Actually I’m not sure if the way I wrote it is correct, but it’s a start.  It means, Can you tell me where this is? Very advanced. I know.  I am getting really excited to go.  I am excited to spend the weekend in Salzburg actually, it’s going to be like a flashback to Doing Appropriate Things.  Sausage Queen, The Aug, Stiegl, Mönchsberg, game on. 

Two weekends ago, Christina came to visit me in Heidelberg.  She is the current Program Assistant in Salzburg and is also from Portland, so we’ve met a few times.  We had a good weekend together, exploring the city, enjoying Klosterhof, going out into town and seeing what trouble we could find, all the while listening to Cro and just singing eaaaaasy ea easssy, oh..oh ohhhh. That’s the new jam in Germany.  I think.  Wrapping sounds pretty BA in German, I think I like it more than I do in English. Of course they’re always throwing English words in.  Also while Christina was here one night, we were stopped by two guys who started out with, “You wouldn’t happen to be American, would you?”. Always a good way to enter a conversation.  They were apparently trying to figure out why we say “He’s seven foot” instead of “feet”.  I said that’s just the way it is losers.  But they wanted to go on and make fun of Americans some more and so they started asking why we don’t use the metric system and I said, you know surprisingly, I’m not the one in charge of the USA measuring system, so you should probably take it up with someone else.  Then when we beat them at their own game they hung around and wanted to talk for a while and one of them happened to be Swedish (the mouthy one, of course) and I finally understood why I am the way I am. Sassy, snarky, no no, I am just Swedish.

So a few days after Christina left, I played in my first ever rugby game.  Yes, after four practices in total, I was ready to conquer the Karlsruhe Women’s Rugby Team.  We all met up on Sunday and drove to the game together.  I think we had 11 total girls with us, so we played 7 v 7.  It was of course just a practice game for them and a little extra experience for us, nothing serious.  The other girls had been playing for about five years, no big deal.  We all warmed up with them, which was really strange, because…they were the other team.  And just super awkward when we didn’t know what to do.  But it was all a trick.  We were hustling them.  That’s what it’s called when you lose a game and they still give you beer afterward, right? Yeah.  We played 5 seven minute long mini-games, which was good because rugby is tiiiiiiiring.  I feel like I threw out some good tackles, even though I could never get the mini-scrum down and basically I was just happy because I wasn’t the worst player on the field.  It was fun, but definitely a painful experience.  There was one time when I was tackled and as I was going down I threw the ball back at one of my teammates so they could keep going, but then I landed really weird and my neck hurt a lot afterward.  So that was definitely a highlight.  It’s starting to feel better now. 

Sam with the tackle!

Hayley in the scrum

Hayley with the ball, girl down on the right, whoops

The two best parts of the game were afterward, when the other team gave us all beer and we chatted and hung out with them, and also Hansjörg, who is our coach, because he is the funniest.  He is just like 6 and a half feet of pure muscle I’m pretty sure, short shorts, long bushy hair always pulled back, and just looks like a wild beast basically.  Plus his name.  And we just found out that he is apparently an English teacher, which finally explains why he’s always trying to speak English to us.  We thought it was just because he thought we couldn’t speak German well enough.  Anyway, he’s a baller, and he told me I did well at the end of the game, point Hayley.

The super best part of the game, though, was after the game.  The boys club played after us and we sat around and watched and drank and then eventually had to go to the bathroom.  So as we’re walking back to the field afterward, we saw that the game was over and everyone was crowded around the home team bench area, and then, on the other side of the field, there are four butt naked men running a lap.  I believe it was because they got their first “try” (like a touchdown, point, whatever).  So of course this was some sort of initiation and celebration. By the time we reached the group of other team members, the nakeds were rounding the last corner and sprinting toward us all, in all their glory.  No shame.  It was that awkward situation where you want to look, but you know you probably shouldn’t, but then you just can’t help it.  I saw it all.  They ran in and got sprayed with water and then handed a beer and were in no rush to put their clothes on again, just stood there and drank with their teammates.  That’s when I knew that I would continue playing rugby for the rest of my life. 

But then there was the fact that we had to wear jerseys that smelled as if they had not been washed for a decade.  So that was gross.  We really smelled bad, which may have been the only reason we got two tries in the first place.  Did I ever mention we lost? It was like 7 to 2.  Whoops!

Other than that, Heidelberg flooded this past weekend.  The water was covering the roadways on either side of the Neckar.  That was kind of weird.  We watched the Schloss Beleuchtern on Saturday evening, which just means fireworks at the castle in remembrance of when it was lit on fire. They do it three times each summer for the tourists.  It would have been cool, but we watched it from up in the mountains across from the Schloss and there was a tree in my line of vision the entire time.  Just kept looking like the tree was getting lit up, which I also liked. 

I hung out with Verena this week and helped her with an assignment for her English class, which made me feel really useful and smart.  At one point as we worked on it, she was speaking all in German to me and I in English and that was kind of cool, and then we switched over to just German which is also always cool.  She invited me to join her and her friends for a weekend to Prague, if they end up actually going, and I hope they do, because that would be aweeeeesome.  I like her.

Also I never wrote this, but a few weeks ago I decided to buy some paint and canvas and then, I PAINTED.  I’ve never painted before, but it just seemed fun.  So I got some oil paints because they seemed pretty professional and I sat down for a few hours and I’m proud to say that the first portrait I ever painted was of my dog, Emma.  I can’t wait to bring it home and give it to her.  Luckily I bought three canvases, so I can also do Leo and Cooper, they get so jealous sometimes. 

Another accomplishment, probably the biggest of all, is that Albrecht has invited Sam and I over to have lunch with him and his wife and his two year old son, Leontine! We almost died of happiness when he asked us.  More literally, we screamed, fell on the floor, teared up, and acted really weird for a good five minutes.  Of course, only after he walked away.  So that’s something to look forward to after I get back to Heidelberg.  I can’t believe it’s actually June right now, how did that happen! Oh well, gotta go and burn off another two weeks.  Till then!

Here's some random Heidelberg pictures!

The Neckarwiese

Lucky for you, Volleyball was canceled on Friday night, which left time to write.  I biked 15 minutes through the pouring rain (it wasn’t really pouring, but it felt that way because I’m so quick) (so quick) and entered the building dripping wet and the area was oddly quiet.  Well, that’s because all the sports were canceled on account of a holiday week or something.  Thank you, Hochschulsport, for the very abrupt heads up. Oh well.  That left time for me to go to the grocery store and buy three bottles of wine (because any less is just a waste, as my mom would probably say) and then come home.  We were supposed to party with the Germans that night, but on account of the rain and tiredness, we decided to stay home and meet up with them another time.  When I say the Germans, I mean my speaking partner, Verena, and her friends.

Which reminds me, two weekends ago, Verena and I went to a play together, put on by the university’s English Department.  We got some dinner first, then went and saw it (strangest play ever) and then had a “cocktail” afterward.  It’s funny that you don’t just go out for a drink; you go out for a cocktail.  The cocktail was more expensive than the ticket to the play, but worth it because we just chatted for a few hours and had a nice time.

Another thing that’s great is walking dogs.  Sam and I had gone to the animal shelter within the first few weeks of being here and signed up for a class to get certified to walk dogs and then promptly forgot about it. Two months later they called and said there was finally an open class that Thursday! So there was a group of about 20 people there and we all learned how to walk a dog.  Sam and I got stuck with Tommy, an old spaniel-type with one eye and a humping problem.  I guess it wasn’t so much of a problem for him, rather, a lifestyle.  Anyway, we received our “Doggy Drivers Licenses” afterward and can now go in and walk dogs during the week if we want.  I’ve gone twice since then.  First, I walked Paul.  He was some kind of black shepherd and he was afraid of a lot of things, like buildings, greenhouses, cars that weren’t moving, you know, the typical things.  He was a joy.  Then there was Koro the next week.  He was a German Shepherd and liked to pull on his leash in no certain direction, unless he heard the crinkling of the treat bag in my pocket.  In that case, he walked directly on my left side with his head tilted up, cheek pressed against my stomach, and nose pointed at my right hand coat pocket (where the treats were).  Smart dog.  We worked on his tricks, too.  He laid down a few times.  Sam was walking his cage mate, Asta.  She was a little bit skiddish and at one point randomly thought Sam and I were the type of people that were bad, so tried to bite at us.  Oh Asta, she was a fearful one.  But then we started giving her treats and she detected that we were the type of people that were good.  Must be some kind of 6^th sense for dogs.  Even if they’re not my dogs, it’s nice to have the option to go walk around with some canines when I need a break from all of the humans.

Speaking of walking, I no longer have to do that, because of Franzl.  He is the best thing decision I have made in Heidelberg.  I get everywhere faster, don’t have to take public transportation, sometimes get adrenaline rushes because city biking is like a video game of dodging things, and also, it’s good for me!  Yes, Franzl has improved my life a lot this month.  We are very happy together. I even got him a new wheel when one of his went flat the other day.

Another new thing I have discovered this month is that I can bake things in my toaster oven.  Since then I have been baking breads and pastries and that has also improved my life and is fun.  Sometimes I just have to do several different batches of things or figure out how to fit it in the little oven, kind of like Easy Bake, but it’s still great.  And I get fresh baked bread whenever I want it.  What’s better than that?

For the past two weeks Sam and I have had the wonderful task of teaching Shakespeare to 12^th graders at our internship.  The 12^th graders are great and fun, but the Shakespeare is boring.  Mostly just because you could literally talk about one monologue for a year and still not have covered all of the different interpretations/themes/symbols/what-have-yous and that is something I find to be very boring.  So no matter what we try to make it fun and interesting for them, it just ends up in discussions, discussions, and more discussions.  Discussing things is good, but sometimes you just end up pulling at threads for two hours and before you know it, your stupid blanket is a pile of garbage.

We have one more lesson with the 12^th graders, so that we can finish up Hamlet, but after that they are pretty much done with school.  Our favorites are the 7^th graders because they’re precious and not only do we get to do English lessons with them, we get to do PE with them too.  They are just nice and fun and cool.  The 8^th graders are all of those things, but less so.  Yesterday we had a free period with the 7^th graders, so we had a spelling bee.  Winner got a chocolate bar.  They were so cute and for the most part, pretttttty good at spelling.  Then we played soccer with them for PE.  At one point, one of the boys was upset because his team kept making him be goalie and basically was saying that he wasn’t good enough to play on the field.  So he was on the sidelines and may have even been crying, and the four boys from my team all went up to him separately to talk to him and make sure he was okay.  Two of the boys, I would expect it from, but the other two seemed “too cool” for the other one, and they still went up to him and tried to make him feel better! It was the best.  And then also Max, my newest Asian friend, gave me a fist bump after the game, because he was on my team, and I was great. And then there’s Felix, who I have a crush on.  If only he wasn’t 12.  He is adorable and always participates in class and has a hint of smart ass to him and also is amazing at soccer.  His little 12 year old feet move so quickly that when I was defending him the other day, he made me trip over my own feet.  12, 21….I barely see a difference.

Then there’s Albrecht Shorck, our mentor teacher.  I said before that he needed his own post, and he surely does, because he’s that great.  We have just seen in about a thousand different ways that he is the most caring, gracious, mindful, understanding, and genuine individual that has ever existed.  The other day he gave us both hugs.  Right after gym class.  All of us were sweaty.  I realize I’m not framing this very well.  He is somewhere around 60 years old, teaches PE and English, actually really cares about his students and about us, and we are waiting for the day when he invites us to dinner at his house to meet his family.  He’s retiring halfway through next year to spend more time with his two year old son.  He also starts off emails to us like, “Hello wonderful team!”.  He’s the best.  We are learning a lot from him.

We do have a two week long break from teaching though, which is very nice. The teaching isn’t usually the bad part, but making lesson plans takes foreeeevvvvverrr and is boring unless we get to do something fun with them.  So two weeks without will maybe give us time to catch up on all of our other homework and just life in general.

Saturday, though, was not a day for catching up.  It was a day for celebration.  Why? We made reasons.  Sebastian, also known as “Basti”, had a birthday 2 weeks ago.  Also it was a really nice day.  So we took a bunch of blankets, beer, balls, and snacks, and headed out onto the Neckarwiese for an afternoon of sunshine and fun.  The Neckar is the river that runs through Heidelberg, and the “wiese” is the grassy space on either side of the Neckar.  We passed around Rugby and Soccer balls, listened to Sam’s favorite band, Hanson, puke, ate snacks, basked in the sunlight, and then some obnoxious Americans that were grilling next to us gave us their leftover food.  Awesome.

Then, after about 5 hours of the Neckarwiese, we headed into the Altstadt and parted ways.  I met up with Verena and two visitors she had in town and we went into Marstallcafe (the student café) to watch Eurovision, the annual singing competition between all the European countries.  Fun fact, Cascada, the girl that sings “Every Time We Touch” from the early 2000’s, is German.  I had no idea. She was the performer that Germany had competing in this competition.  Denmark ended up winning, although Italy and Malta were far better. Then some were just really weird, like Romania and Azerbaijan.  Azerbaijan is a country, by the way.  Did anyone else know that? I just learned about it last night.  The competition lasted for a good four hours, so by the time I biked home, it was about 1 am and I was exhausted.  Now another week is about to start, of which there are only ten until I come home.  Mixed feelings on that topic.  On the one hand, I have the greatest family and friends and pets in the world, on the other hand, I don't want to leave. So that's that. Life is conflictual.

No idea

Neckarwiese

Welcome to May

The end of April in no certain order, here goes.

Rugby:  Last night I went to Rugby practice with Sam because she was too chicken to go alone even though she’s played for seven years which doesn’t seem to fit the stereotype because Rugby players are either scary or they have nice butts, but are never chickens.  Too bad she is.  But not too bad, because I really enjoyed it.  I felt that my background with golf might have hindered me from being a good rugby player, but having an older brother my whole life evened that out I think, so starting, I was just like any other normal person. There were boys and girls at this practice and at one point we played co-ed touch and that was at the same point in which I still did not know how to play rugby so I found this to be extremely difficult.  Luckily most of the people were very nice and there were some other first-timers there and they all helped me figure it out.  Above all else, STAY IN A LINE, they said to me.  Okay, but then what?  Whatever.  I think we made friends.  The best part was when Sam tackled me before we even started playing just so that I could know how it felt in case it happened in real life.  Then I was ready.  We ended by playing girls on girls, a game of 5 vs. 4 and who was on the team with 4? Me. Also there was an obnoxious girl on my team who had obviously been playing rugby for a while and was taking it waaaaaay too seriously, considering most of us were just beginning and it’s not a real club team or anything like that, just people who want to hang out and play rugby.  So she constantly yelled at everyone and then told us she couldn’t do it all on her own and kept saying it’s not that hard and you would have thought it was the Rugby World Championship game, if there is such thing, and that she was the world’s best rugby player.  So that was annoying enough, but then, at the end of practice, we all found out that she was 14.  I should have cussed her out in English because she probably doesn’t know how to speak it very well yet, unlike all of the other university students we were playing with…if only I’d known.

Verena:  She is my speaking partner.  We meet once a week or so and speak English and German together.  She is German, of course.  She’s also the nicest person and I actually haven’t spoken any English with her yet because she has obviously evaluated that her English is better off than my German and so she’s giving me more practice.  See? Isn’t she the nicest?  She was an Au Pair in Washington DC for a year and also just got back from a road trip through the west coast and Route 66.  She is studying to be a teacher right now and the other day we had an interesting discussion about propaganda from the Third Reich that she collects so she can later use it for teaching purposes, things such as newspapers or posters. And otherwise, having these items is illegal in Germany.  It was interesting and I thought she had some good thoughts about WWII, such as, “People always say the others should have stood up and done something, but of course, once it got to a certain point, if you stood up against Hitler, you and your family would have been killed, so I understand why some people did what they did.  What people could have done though, was 10 years before the war actually began, to keep playing with their Jewish friends down the street or keep shopping at the Jewish stores and not completely shut them out of society, because all of those small, daily decisions are what made the Holocaust possible.  It was a slow change of mindset.” Yes, that, I thought, was a good way of putting it. 

Isabel:  This is Sam’s speaking partner, who I just met today.  She is also the nicest and one of the most real people I think I’ve ever met.  She just doesn’t apologize for being herself.  Like the fact that she writes Eminem and Twilight fan fiction stories (coincidently, two of her characters in these stories are named Hayley and Samantha, booyah) and a multitude of other things.  She is also blind and currently writing her Bachelors thesis about eco-location for blind people, which is just about the coolest thing ever.  She can make a clicking noise with her tongue and then judge the space around her based on what she hears back, such as how far away a wall is, etc., just like a bat!  I can’t even imagine.  

My and Niklas and Freiburg:  Two weekends ago, Kevin and I went to visit our friends My and Niklas in Freiburg.  They are the same ones that had been in Heidelberg the weekend before.  We got to stay at their apartment with them and their four roommates, which was really cool, it was like a big family of students who all wanted to become teachers and who dined together.  I liked it a lot.  My took us for some tours of the city and we tried out the local beer and had a lot of fun exploring and speaking German.  We learned the Freiburger myth, that if you are a foreigner, and you step in the Bächlein, which are like foot-wide streams of water going through the streets, then you will have to marry a Freiburger.  I did not step in one, thank god.

Me, Kevin, and My at Feierling Brewery

The Farm: The next weekend, Kevin and I traveled down to Burghausen together and stayed with the Stadler family on the farm.  We arrived late Friday night and Oma picked us up from the train station and gave us big hugs and then took us on a night tour through Burghausen so that we could see the castle all lit up, something I hadn’t even seen before! I realize that I have been using a lot of run-on sentences, but I will not apologize for it because there is simply too much to write about all the time.  Anyway, we sat and had some food with Oma and Opa and I concluded that Kevin had acquired a new favorite woman in his life and it wasn’t me.  But that is okay, I understand.  We woke up the next morning and went to breakfast at Bettina and Georg’s apartment and Kevin finally got to meet everyone and the girls.  There were also two 15 year old girls there, who were interns for three weeks, and one wwoofer from Munich who was our age.  So the farm was full.  Anna and Marlene, the two oldest daughters, were having an open house at school that day and Kevin and I got to go to it.  We first went to Anna’s Latin class presentation, which was a bunch of old Roman food that they had all made and it was the most delicious thing in the world.  8^th graders know how to cook. 

Then we watched Marlene play the trumpet and Anna sing in her choir and just so everyone knows, this is how an auditorium looks at a German school.  They don’t have concerts in school gyms, oh no. 

Anna on the very right!

What was also really funny was that Anna kept introducing me to all of her little friends, and Kevin would be standing right next to me, but she never introduced him, and after a few times of it happening, Kevin finally goes, “She hates me! She hates me!”.  And then every time she did it after that was just ten times more funny than the last.  But we got free lunch from the school cafeteria in the end and that was delicious, so maybe it was still worth it for him.  Afterwards we walked around Burghausen a bit, set foot in Austria, and climbed up to the castle and explored that area for a while.  Bettina came and picked us up and brought us back to the house and we got ready to go milk the cows.  But before we could do that, we enjoyed some tea with the grandparents and then coffee with Bettina and her friend, oh the European lifestyle, time is just a figure of speech.  Milking the cows was wonderful and came back to me easier than riding a bike.  Kevin also got a few good squirts out once he got the hang of it! It was really fun to have him with me while we did all the farm work.  Feeding the pigs, the goats, putting down new hay, petting the calves, letting them suck your finger.  All in a days work.  That night we all had dinner together and then wine and beer and then there was singing and laughter and instrument playing and it was a very enjoyable thing.  The next day we woke up early for milking again and afterwards got to go on a family bike ride through the forest nearby with Georg, Bettina, Sofie, and the dog, Beni.  It was such a beautiful day and it made me think of going for bike rides with my family as a kid.  After we got back, we sat down outside for a short lunch, and then we rushed to the train station to get back to Heidelberg.  All in all, a very enjoyable weekend with amazing food. 

Cute...

My parents initials carved into the window!

Sofie and Kevin petting the newest calf

Kevin makes a friend

Sofie found this thing...

and she liked it so much she wanted to put it in Kevin's basket for the rest of the bike ride

Fish border! 

Classes:  This is currently my third week of classes and so far they are awesome.  One is about teaching a foreign language, which is so interesting and also taught very practically, as in, here are good strategies to correct written or spoken work from your students and here is how you should work through a text book.  The difference between my classes in America and Germany is probably just the fact that the classes here are much more practical, whereas all of my classes in the states seemed to be very meta(insert subject), as if we were learning how to think about subjects, instead of just learning the stupid subjects! So annoying.  My other class is with Herr Dörr and we turn in essays every week to be corrected and hopefully at the end we will be the best of writers, so I like that one, naturally.  Then on Fridays for three hours I take a Swedish class! It’s strange and fascinating to learn a new foreign language through another foreign language.  I like it.  And since my last name is Peterson, I am the best in the class.  And I’m working on making a German friend, the girl that sits next to me in class.  She’s used my eraser approximately 4 times now and also shared one of her papers with me.  It’s happening. Besides that, Sam and I are still doing our internship at the German school and teaching English to 7^th and 8^th graders.  Our 7^th graders are the best.  We are starting to get more comfortable in the classroom and it’s a lot of fun.  We are also teaching 7^th grade boys how to play rugby in PE class and that is the best.  Good thing I just learned how to play rugby myself.  Also someday I will write about the amazing person that is Albrecht Shorck, our mentor teacher for our internship, but he needs a post all of his own and I just don’t have time for it right now. 

The best German students! Reading German books on the train

Franzl Fahrrad: I got a bike! He is great and wonderful and his name is Franzl and I can now go for bike rides as well as bike to my classes and it’s so wonderful.  Sam also got a bike.  We biked alllllll over Heidelberg a few nights ago.  Summer 2013, you’re looking pretty good so far. 

Kevin’s Goodbye Dinner:  We went to Klosterhof on Wednesday night and celebrated Kevin’s birthday and his going awayness.  It was just about the most beautiful day ever. So here are a few pictures.

Klosterfhof....the most beautiful part of Heidelberg

Haircuts:  Kevin and I got them a few weeks ago.

Königstuhl: Sam and Kevin and I hiked up a mountain by way of stairs called "Heaven's Ladder".  Whew.  Worth the view, but someone counted/spray painted the number of steps along the way and it's about 2,000.

Here's the top

Kevin Goes Home:  A terrible thing.  We had a lovely last few weeks, but unfortunately, on Sunday he had to fly home.  We spent our last weekend in Frankfurt together, with his Austrian friend, Philipp.  On Friday evening, after we got into Frankfurt and made our way to Philipp’s apartment, which is harder than it sounds, we made some dinner and then headed out on the town.  Kevin and I were so tired at this point, but we rallied, and thank god we did.  We went to a jazz bar downtown because Philipp’s friend, Martina, works there and apparently on this specific night it was bound to be fun because usually an older crowd shows up, for a reason unknown to me.  So we walk in and everyone is in their 30s or 40s, except a few people.  The first great thing that happened, was that about 30 minutes after being there, I hear a song come on that I recognize, but I’m not sure why I recognize it, and then I realize, it’s a song from High School Musical.  Playing at a German bar.  I don’t know who should be more embarrassed, me for knowing it, or Germany for playing it. At a bar. Or maybe the people that were dancing to it unaware.  I don’t know, but it made my night.  Another one of Philipp’s friends came and hung out with us too.  She is a break dancer and currently lives in Spain and I appreciated her being there because she would speak German with me and also danced with my boyfriend while a 35+ French guy swept me onto the dance floor and tried to teach me things about rhythm and also love.  What an experience.  We ended up staying out till 3 am and once Martina got off work, we went back to Philipp’s apartment and stayed up talking and laughing till 5.  I took a really embarrassing video of Kevin once the clock hit 5:08, but I will not upload it because I think everyone should have the chance to keep their jobs.  No, it’s not that bad, but it’s hilarious and provided most of our entertainment for the next day.  We spent half of Saturday in bed and the other half walking around Frankfurt.  The next morning was a sad one.  We took Kevin to the airport nice and early, had time to sit and enjoy a coffee together, and then walked him to security and said our goodbyes.  The month went by way too fast, probably on account of all of the fun we were having, but now it’s back to regular life for us, for a few months more anyway.  Luckily, Philipp hung out with me until I had to catch my bus back to Heidelberg, so I had a distraction for the first few hours.  I did definitely come back to Heidelberg and lay in my bed for a few hours though.  And then Sam and I went for that bike ride.  But it was still a sad day.

Frankfurt Opera House

Philipp, Kevin, ME

Saying goodbye at the airport

3 Months Left:  It’s strange to think I’ve been here for almost 4 months already and 3 months seems like hardly anything at all looking forward.  What’s most stressful is wondering what I’m going to do with my life once the three months are up, but I’m sure things will just fall into place, or something.  I’m excited to see what Heidelberg has in store for me. 

Graduation:  Hey, I graduated two Saturdays ago! It's a little anti-climatic knowing that I still have 3 months of school left in reality, but still, I think it's pretty cool.  Here's to four years of not being able to make up my mind, eh!? I should add that Kevin also graduated from his Masters Program! Except he missed the graduation as well. And still has one term left.  So we're pretty much twins. But we celebrated together, don't worry. 

Celebration beer/radler!

Plants: Also, I have plants.  One is named Basil, another Rosemary, the other tomatoes, and also yellow flowers guy.  I water them and positive talk them every day and they are wonderful and tasty. This is how they look.

And on account of how many times I've used the words wonderful, amazing, or great in this blog post, it's safe to say Heidelberg is treating me right.