To Düsseldorf and Back Again

I am fully aware that the current season is, in fact, winter.

So painfully aware of it that I don't believe I'm going to completely thaw out unless I spend a summer in Death Valley over in California.

We've received at least a good foot of snow, and whereas I'm in a constant state of freezing-my-ass-off and wanting to be home with a cup of black tea and five blankets, my fellow Germans are sturdily plowing through and going on with day-to-day life. 

Whining, I told them about how our school back in Washington was let out for an entire week, after not even receiving half as much snow as there is here now.

They lauuughed.

[Oh Seattle, I want my rain back ):]

Nonetheless, I manned up and braved the weather, jumping on a train Saturday to see where it would take me.

Destination? Düsseldorf!

Then and now.

The last time I went there was a sunny afternoon way back in August, and only long enough to grab Nutella crêpes near the main train station with a couple other exchange students.
This time around, I actually got to check out the city-- and it did not disappoint.

So schön ist diese Stadt.

Allées überall.

Farmers' market- a Pike Place mini-me!

Ridiculously European

Quaint nooks and crannies

Basically, the city is gorgeous. Little nooks and alleyways diverging from streets lined with the most ridiculously gorgeous European storefronts make up Düsseldorf's extensive shopping district. Branching out from the city's center are tree-lined walkways and pedestrian zones leading to the Rhein river, all covered in powdered-sugar snow. 

But what really made my day was, just as I started to get hungry, turning a corner and finding a Lebanese restaurant sign right above my head.

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

And so ended my almost six-month dry spell from my favorite food on the planet [other than Taco Bell. Of course.] Pita! Baklava! Rose-water tinged pastry dough! Ah! Simply a pleasant surprise that made my day:)
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However, it was on the way back that things got interesting.
Being the responsible exchange student that I am, I opted for a different route back to the train station when I found myself alone on a street with a man so drunk he could barely walk in a curved line, let alone a straight one. Ducking into an adjacent road, what should have been a simple detour turned into an I-have-no-clue-where-in-Germany-I-am situation.
And since I was already lost, I decided, why not try to find that crêpe shop from way back when?
The one I visited only once, five months ago?

Reza's crêpe shop!

To make a long story short: I found it.
To make a short story interesting: The owner recognized me.
To make an interesting story interesting-er: As I was there, none other than a guy from our troupe back in August showed up. With his family being near the city, it turns out he's been frequenting the crepe shop ever since, having befriended Reza, the owner. Crêpes and tea and good conversations; I had definitely not foreseen this chance encounter.

And then when I'd just called it a day and was getting on the train, I was asked for help in broken English [and nonexistent German] from the sweetest Japanese lady ever. Foreigners have to stick together, so I steered the Gelsenkirchen-bound lady towards the right train [coincidentally, mine], and Naoko and I spent the ride exchanging stories in elementary English, and the fragments of Japanese from remnants of memories of studying that language back in sophomore year(:  
 ---------
After such a day, I didn't expect to find myself back in the city so soon, but there I was- with half the students in my grade- on an art field trip to an exhibit featuring the renowned photographer Andreas Gursky today.

Gursky

The exhibit was extremely tastefully put together, with his most famous works being highlighted, as well as new pieces, and although photography exhibits don't generally appeal to me, I found this one to be interesting and quite out of the ordinary.

The Düsseldorf T.V. tower

A double dose of Düsseldorf in one week, and this city has also managed to stake a claim to my heart. The list grows as Germany grows on me, and I can't wait to see what city holds adventures for me next:)

Halfway Point: Silvester Auf Borkum

Halfway into January, it's high time for a celebratory new year's post, so:

Frohes Neues Jahr, to all you Germans, Americans, and everyone in between!

The halfway-point of my exchange year fell somewhere in this last week, and in reflecting on the last five months- as well as looking ahead to the next five- all I can say is:

Eeeeeeeh?

[There's no way this thing is already half over.]

It's as if upon first arriving back in August I blinked, and then BAM- here I am smack dab in the middle of January. Wie ein Augenblick. Everything has been happening so quickly, and I know next half is going to go by faster yet.

The end of 2012 [which we did, in fact, survive] and the corresponding New Year's celebrations served as a transition into the second half of this exchange, and found my host family and I on the gorgeous island of Borkum.

First glimpse of my first island(:

The last of the islands belonging to Germany in the Frisian chain in the North Sea, our route included driving through the Netherlands to get to the ferry's port. A two-hour drive and hour-long ferry ride later, we arrived! First impressions? I was quite swept away-- literally. So, so windy...
[Over the course of the week I experimented with every hair style possible. Braids, ponytails, buns, each reinforced with at least half a pack of bobby pins, and none of which were able to withstand that wind. No matter what I tried, I ended up coming home looking like a sad poodle..]

Moin moin~

 We headed to our Ferienwohnung- vacation apartment- an adorable little place where we were greeted with a warm "Moin!", a traditional Frisian and Low German greeting.

[Sounds like a seal...]

Unpacking and settling in confused the heck out of the dog though, poor thing):

All things strange and confusing.

The next day, we went to the beach. The beach! A beach with soft, velvety sand (!!), and waves that crawled up the shore and left mounds of foam and seaweed strands. A beach dotted with seashells- colorful shells and rugged oysters.

A beach with wind.

Lots of wind. 

[But nonetheless a real beach, not like the gravelly attempts at them in the Puget sound. You hear that, Seattle?]

I'd never seen anything like it before(:

It was such a treat, going for walks on the beach every day. Drawing in the sand, gathering seashells, underestimating how high the tide was and having wet socks for the rest of the day [okay, that happened once]. With kids and their kites above, and dogs playing below. With the wind swallowing our words and playing with our hair. With the ocean between us and the rest of the world.

A treat for the dogs, too~

And then it was Silvester-New Year's. The name is actually derived from the Pope Sylvester I; according to Wikipedia, 

"The liturgical feast of Saint Sylvester is on 31 December, the day of [the Pope's] burial [...] Accordingly, in German-speaking countries and in some others close to them, New Year's Eve is known as Silvester. In other countries too, the day is usually referred to as Saint Sylvester's Day or the Feast of Saint Sylvester."

Horizontal fireworks: exploring the Waagerecht frontier

We were on Borkum with four other German families, friends who were all spending Silvester on the island. Together, we sat down to dinner and board games; eight adults, eight little kids, and one American exchange student saying goodbye to 2012. 

[3... 2... 1... Prost, auf's Neue Jahr!]

The following fireworks, however, weren't altogether successful. In addition to creating problems with simply lighting them, the wind was so strong that our fountains went more horizontally than anything else, and our rockets dipped down, veering a little too close to the trees [read: into them(:].

The troupe.

We took on a Geocache the next day that we didn't necessarily have much success with... [false coordinates, missing checkpoints, wrong directions (even with googling the way!) and general chaos.]

It nonetheless had us traipsing all across the island, taking us through cobblestone streets lined with low brick buildings, past a fence made of weathered whale bones, and the courtyards of the island's school and spired church.

Can't get more hipster than a whale-bone fence.

 We took a detour halfway through to witness quite the Borkumer tradition; a dip in the North Sea on the first day of the New Year.

Nordsee schwimmen

To put that it perspective, it was as windy as ever and barely at freezing point...

old [left] & new [right]

The coordinates afterwards took us to the old and new lighthouses, and then we picked up the following day with  new directions that lead us through the dunes; gorgeous wind-kissed grassy stretches from which you can see almost the entire island.

Die Dunen

Unsuccessful, but good fun(:

After seeing so much of the island, and getting bits and pieces of the culture and history behind it, my host-dad took me to the Heimatmuseum der Nordseeinsel Borkum, the island's museum. It wasn't the Smithsonian by any means, but I found it to be really interesting. Despite being small, the exhibits were tastefully put together, with thorough collections and a lovely vibe of exploring an attic.

Whale hunting and seafaring in the North Sea.

The museum concentrated on the sea-orientated culture and way of life on the island [and therefore the Frisian islands in general], first leading us through a display of what various rooms in a traditional Borkum house would have looked like, and the development of whale-hunting and seafaring in supporting daily life there. It then went on to document the development of the island through trade and tourism- relevant, since the island is made up of almost five times as many vacationers as permanent residents.

The last section widened its focus from the island itself to a broader look at the sea, with displays of marine life-- collections of underwater creatures, birds(!!!) [To those who know me and my bird fixation- the room was simply awesome.], seashells of all sorts, and shelves of sand collected from beaches around the world.

And guess what I found there?

Of all things...

Washington state sand! 

[Sandwiched right in between sand from Lake Michigan (MI), Miami Beach (FL), and the Gulf of Mexico (TX).]

I was not expecting that. A little piece of home, tucked away on a museum shelf on an island in Germany-- and from a state not particularly known for it's beaches, too.

Ah, Washington:)

The gang

And so we left footprints in the sand of last year behind us,  and, with the wind pushing us along, we stepped into 2013. At the risk of using a cliché, my life has been changed in every way possible since coming here, and I'm so excited to see what is yet to come in the coming months. 

 What surprises has 2013 hidden in the days ahead?

Holiday Recap

With internet access yet again after a week on the lovely [but wifi-lacking] German island of Borkum, I'm back in the arms of civilization- as defined by the facebook-users of the world. 

Seeing as the force of the holidays hit me square on and left me quite breathless for a few weeks, I'm only just getting around to this promised [but incredibly belated] post.

However, before any of that, I'd like to immediately throw out there that the absolute best two-and-a-half hours of my holidays were accessed through this gem right here.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH <3

 The Hobbit. In German.

Although words can't describe how disappointed I am at the content of the film, it was eye candy beyond my wildest imagination. 

This movie deserves its own  post.

[Aaand the list of promised posts continues to grow): ]

However! The holidays!

enfants obèses :)

They had quite a sweet start, as my lovely French class [and consequently, last class of 2012] royally pigged out. With a group effort, we managed to pool together two plum pies, a stack of muffins, a chocolate cake, and more than enough whipped cream--- just for the sake of jumpstarting the holiday chub production.

[Did I mention the class has a total of fourteen students?]

 

Then I blinked and it was Christmas. A lovely family dinner of Raclette and a nontraditional present-opening method [by rolling dice, only opening presents when receiving certain numbers] played out on the 24th, and a bigger present exchange as well as a sizable traditional German lunch took place on the 25th with the extended family--- two days, both of which were full of plenty of surprises. Despite not celebrating this holiday, I'm so, so grateful to have spent it with this amazing host family. These people, who five months ago were complete strangers, have come to mean so much to me [heck, even the dog has squeezed herself into occupying a significant portion of my heart].

Even the train stations get all done up(:

The time between the end of school and Christmas, however, passed way too quickly-- too much good holiday food, too little time!

As previously mentioned, around this time, Christmas markets- Weinachtsmärkte- are to be found all over Germany. There was a small one that opened up in my own town, Recklinghausen, that I was able to frequent, and I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to also frequent one of the biggest in the area, in the nearby town of Essen.

France theme for a German market?

A canopy of lights:)

 With decorations strung up everywhere and light displays hung up above, the trees all made up and the store fronts festively set up, the streets of the city centers entirely transform. Long rows of little stands that pop up, with everything from food, to toys and little trinkets, to high quality jewelery and craftsman items, to more food, to beer stands, to workshops for kids and little rides for them, to more food, and then food once again. 

Falala, lalala, la la laaaaa

 The stands repeat themselves from market to market-- you'll always find one for lovely little candles and candle holders, one for ornaments of sorts, one for little replicas of traditional german houses, one for toys, and so forth.

Stands galore.

 And then there's the food. The markets play host to traditional German goodies- although, not all of which I got to sample, being vegetarian. Of sweets and meat-less items, however, here is what I was able to devour experience:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

•  Reibekuchen: Okay, not specifically a holiday food, but very typical german. An almost-hashbrown, it's a potato fritter typical to the Rheinland area, commonly eaten with apple sauce.

• Lebkuchen: German gingerbread, this stuff is amazing. Soft and chewy and normally dipped in chocolate, this is nothing like our gingerbread men.
  
• Dampfnudeln: This is actually more like Asian steamed buns than anything else, so I had trouble believing it was really German at first. A sweet steamed dough, usually with a filling, topped with vanilla sauce and poppy seeds. Mmmmm.
  
  
• Crepes: Again, not really a holiday food, but c'mon. Crepes. These things are heaven in your mouth.
  
  
• Quarkbälle: Moist, doughy quark-based dough balls, this is more or less the German version of Doughnut holes. Without the doughnut.
  
  
• Gebrannte Mandeln: Literally "burnt almonds". This is so delicious, Rittersport even has a holiday candy bar centered around this treat- it's pretty much almonds [or any nut, really] baked and coated with a sugary topping/mix.
  
  
• Stutenkerle: The last paragraph of this post >:(
•  Spritzgebäck: A buttery, shortbread-esque cookie, and a staple of German households at this time of year.
  
  
• Baumkuchen: A sort of layered cake traditionally made by brushing layers of batter onto a spit, creating the tree-trunk-like shape. This has also become a popular treat in Japan...?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that's not even the half of it! 

I declare all of this, however, as consumed in the name of research and an attempt to further my knowledge and familiarity with German culture....

.....Pfhah, who am I kidding.

Three cheers for holiday fat in the form of deliciously irresistible German calorie bombs!

[Yayyyyyyy!]

Boot Candy and Broken Teeth

To make everything just feel absolutely festive, Old Man Winter recently hobbled in with the first waves of snow.

Schneeflocken Freude

As December goes along its merry way, I've found myself already into my fifth month here-- and with the coming of this month, I think I've fell in love with Germany just a little bit [a lot a bit] more.
What I've found is that like everything else wonderful and German, December itself gives off a feeling of being structured, with a lovely Advents timeline.

Schokoschokoschokolade

The first of December marks the beginning of Advent, and Advents' calenders here are such a fun, important tradition. A visit from my host-grandma supplied both me and my host siblings, Jan and Anna, with chocolate advents calenders... [Jan's of which was all opened up and half emptied not even two days in, prompting this from his sister: "You know that's one piece of chocolate for 24 days-- not one for each hour of the first." Who said that Germans don't have a sense of sarcasm?] 
These things are really wonderful. Jan's is a Kinderschokolade calender [oh my goodness, Kinder goodies fer dayyyz], Anna's has these lovely little creations like figured of sweet curled up chocolate cats and dogs. My host dad gets his daily chocolate fix from a Milka calender, and my host mom is trying to avoid the extra Christmas calories with a calender with quotes from The Little Prince for each day. 

Ach! Noch ein?

 In addition, my host mom set up a little series of advents stockings which Jan, Anna and I take turns opening gifts from [it makes me so happy:)]. 
Feeling festive, and wanting to do something for this wonderful family who has already done so much for me, I played Shoemaker's Elf and put together an advents calender all for them:)
Waiting until they were all asleep, I had several very, very late nights as I stayed up to sort out, wrap up, and tie together the little presents for them.  Needless to say, they were very surprised when they woke up on December first with a completely unexpected calender strung up under the one for the kids:) [Yay!]

Boot candy!

The next notable day was St. Nikolaus Day on December  sixth.
The night before, we put our boots out on the porch [brilliant-- you could never fit this much stuff in a mere stocking] , and woke up the next morning to both snow, and boot treats! Each was filled with chocolate figures and socks and chips and little treats.
[First mistaking his sister's boot for his own, Jan was quite offended after thinking he was receiving frilly star-adorned socks.]

What's interesting though, is that while houses in America already have Christmas trees up and decorated, here, trees aren't even set up until the 24th of December [yet another date on this timeline!].
That doesn't mean that decorations already up though-- albeit from the inside rather than out. Although a few houses here do decorate the outside, they're few and far in between, and not to the extent as in America; I have yet to see a fully decked-out, lit-up house. On the other hand, houses on the inside are all lovely and made up, and the snow is taking care of giving the world outside its share of holiday spirit.

Really, everything is just so festive here-- and not in the commercialized, exaggerated way it feels like in America. With this timeline [of sorts] comes a feeling of tradition and culture, leaving this warm fuzzy tingly glow deep deep down inside.
D'awww:)

However, perhaps the most brilliant Advent's thing that I've experienced here up to this point has to be the Christmas markets-Weinachtsmärkte- scattered everywhere. They're literally these little [or sometimes huuuge] German markets that suddenly pop up out of nowhere with stands of all sorts of festive trinkets and ornaments and food.
Oh my goodness, the food.
These Weinachtsmärkte warrant a post of their own if I want to do them justice.

Böse Kerle..

However, I do want to feature this post's Christmas-Pastry of Honor.
Stutenkerle, which are holiday goodies that have recently popped up both in the markets and in bakeries everywhere, are little guys made of Hefeteig- sweet leavened dough- with raisin eyes and a little pipe.
Somebody, however, misinformed me of what the pipes are constituted of.
Rather than sugar- which I believed as I bit down hard on one such pipe- they're made of clay.
Clay.

I'll go work on my next post about Weinachtsmärkte and nurse the pieces of my broken jaw then.

Baking in a Strange Land

In tenth grade, my best friends and I had an unofficial but sacredly observed tradition of baking every Friday. There were three of us, one of which is a baking demigoddess who left us with no shortage of sweets. We tried out just about everything that year; berry cobblers, apple pies, raspberry bars, all sorts of cakes, frying our own doughnuts and a memorable Bûche de Noël with meringue mushrooms.
[Our principal ran into us as we were very seriously discussing the 'shrooms'.
"What was that about shrooms??"
We sheepishly showed him the chocolate hunk of a log with the sugary fungi.
"Oh- those mushrooms."]

Keep in mind, we were a group of three.

[Three girls one dessert..]
Although we certainly tried, I'm not sure we ever made it through an entire cake, which means we made a lot of friends that year auctioning off leftovers.
[Same concept for making friends still applies. As long as it involves food, it's foolproof.]
Ever since that year, I've been hooked. I can't say I've baked as often as I'd have liked to, or tried out as many recipes, but I do enjoy it and bake whenever I have an occasion to.

What better occasion to bake then, than being in another country?
Looking forward to baking all sorts of American goodies for my host family, I planned ahead, even bringing my own measuring cup/tablespoon/teaspoon set, having read online that German baking uses weight- as opposed to the U.S., which uses volume.
[In other words, in the U.S., a cup of sugar is a cup of flour is a cup of milk etc etc. 
In Germany, each of those is different, since you'll be using a kitchen scale to weigh your ingredients.]

However, as prepared as I [thought] I was, I ended up with one baking disaster after another after another :(

Fruit soup for the soul.

This first mess had actually nothing to do with measurement/ingredient differences. This supposed berry cobbler came from a German recipe, and was made by my lovely German friends at a joint dinner gathering. Something went wrong though as the oven tried to work its magic, with our frozen berries somehow turning the whole thing into a berry soup with a crust. Attempts to disguise the goop with sprinkles and a need to eat this with a spoon helped this noteworthy experience make the list.

Things didn't turn out much better with American recipes.

Batch two was significantly more edible.

The first problem I ran into was while making sugar cookies. Thinking they were a fairly safe bet, alarm bells started to go off when my batter turned green.
What?
 It turns out the vegetable oil my host mom pointed me towards was, quite literally, vegetable oil.
As in it turned my sugar cookies green and made them smell like vegetables.
With flawless reasoning, I stuck them in the oven anyway.
Maybe it will bake out, like alcohol!
Right?
No.
The second batch, however, with sunflower seed oil, turned out fabulously [as seen by how few were left:) ].

My next venture into overseas baking was with a classic Devil's Food Cake. Although I didn't have any significant problems in the process of making this, it fell a little flat... literally. As opposed to being fluffy and decadent, it was rather dense and sad-looking...

I later learned that baking powder and flour are a bit different in Germany... the flour is a bit 'heavier', and the baking powder isn't as potent. 

Chemistry):

The baking powder issue persisted when I made pancakes. Although they tasted fine, they simply weren't as fluffy as in the U.S.

A taste of home <3

My most recent enterprise was making chocolate chip cookies, which became a lengthier process than it ever was back home.
To begin with, there are no chocolate chips here. There are little chocolate drops that are similar, but not the creamy milky chocolate that Hersheys has spoiled us with. So, I ended up buying huge slabs of milk chocolate, melting them, and making my own chocolate chips:)

There would've been more if I hadn't
eaten half the chocolate.

The second problem was a bit trickier; there's no brown sugar in Germany.
Brown sugar, as you find it in a grocery store here, it the same as granulated sugar but with bigger grains, and colored brown.
No problem, I thought- you can make brown sugar with molasses and white sugar!
Germany doesn't have molasses either.

Close enough...

After some research, I ended up substituting sugar cane syrup for molasses [1 tbsp syrup for every cup white sugar], which doesn't have the same deep smoky taste at all, but gave the sugar the moisture necessary to make soft, chewy, melt-in-your-mouth, good ol' Amercan chocolate chip cookies.
Substituting a substitute for a substitute alongside another substitute in the same recipe. Bah.

They actually turned out quite nicely; I made both sugar cookies[not green this time] and chocolate chip for a dinner party my host mom hosted, and they were referred to as 'American pastries' the whole night.
And then they were gone. :')

Fancy fare.

Green cookies and fruit soup and substituting messes; baking is something in and of itself on this exchange.
But.
It's so, so worth it.