First Week (almost)

We've been here just long enough to adjust to the time change and get to know our neighborhood a little bit. 

The building where we stay is on the blue pinpoint on this map.  Our windows face south.  The big building with the white roof two blocks south of us is a big department store.  Our neighborhood is nice but not too nice.  Fortunately, it still has some good hole in the wall restaurants and you can always find an empty cab.  There's a great import store down the street called "Jenny Lou's" ("Lou's" rhymes with "goes") that I have appropriately nicknamed J-Lo's.  Everything we absolutely need is within walking distance.  The only drawback is we're not within walking distance of a subway station.

Later in the week we're planning on hitting the rounds of the basic Beijing destinations: Tiananmen, Summer Palace, etc.. 



 

New new photos.

Links on the right.

New photos.

I just added 3 new photo albums from our time in Prague, Pilsen, and Regensburg. More to come soon. Look for the links on the right side of the page.

Christmas Extravaganza

I was quite curious in the days leading up to Christmas what our day would have in store for us. We didn't have much planned and it was going to be very different not having a Christmas tree or really any Christmas decorations up except for a teeny tiny advent calendar. The only thing on the agenda was going to a friends house for a special Christmas dinner. This is a couple who are good friends of the family we work for and we hit it off with them immediately upon meeting them. Markus works from home and makes his own schedule so he stops by the brewery quite frequently and we got to know him pretty well, and Stephanie, his wife is soft spoken but incredibly friendly. We were looking forward to getting to see them in their own element in their home and getting to know them a little better.
Christmas day proved to be pretty uneventful. Lots of TV watching, including some Christmas music videos and Sleepless in Seattle. Although it was no Christmas Story marathon, the down time was much appreciated. However, I did convince Brandon to go on a short hike with me in the afternoon.
So, we made it to Markus' house around 6, and joined the others who had been slaving away for hours to make an incredible feast. There were 5 couples joining in on the festivities. Markus and Stephanie, us, another couple we know from the brewery, and 2 we did not know. We got to explore their house a little bit and have a pre dinner drink and they even let us help out in the kitchen a little bit too. Around 8 we settled in around the table and started our meal with carrot ginger soup topped with a coconut shrimp skewer, then moved on to a bacon wrapped scallop with salad in citrus vinaigrette, avocado and mango. Both amazing dishes, these were my favorites of the meal. Then we moved on to the more heavy dishes, with the traditional German Christmas dinner nod to goose breast, blaukraut, and sauteed celery (which is celery root not celery stalks which are actually quite hard to come by here). Then roasted rabbit with fried polenta stars, which I got to cut out and were of course the best part :) At this point we took a bit of a longer break and started opening up some beer that Brandon had brewed along with some harder liquor to make the evening a bit more exciting. At this point Markus decided to add an extra course before dessert because his friend had brought some great cheese from Switzerland so we got to try three different white swiss cheeses. I must say though that to me they all tasted quite similar. Very strong aroma, good flavor, but not something I would want very often. So then we got dessert which was a Spanish creme with orange cream and pomegranate sauce and assorted tropical fruits. Perfect way to end the meal. Not too heavy. We ended up finishing eating around 12:30 or so. Markus was sloshed and I think they went on to party for a while but we decided to call it a night and headed back home.
So, the verdict for Christmas in Germany: very different but superb!

Wurzburg

Today we took a trip to the city of Wurzburg. The Main River runs right through it and makes for some amazing cityscapes. On the west bank of the river sits a fortress on a hill that took us about 20 minutes to hike up. Definitely well worth the effort. Although it was mighty cold we got to wander around the fortress grounds and imagine what it might have been like to live there so many years ago. Mostly we figured there would be horse poo everywhere! :) We had an awesome view of the city from the top and could see all the major sights from a distance and also saw that the north side of town was filled with vineyards which explains the fascination with wine here. There are many wineries and places to do tastings. But with it being so cold we decided to stick with tea and coffee instead.
Of course there was a Weinachtsmarkt, every city seems to have one, so we wandered through and actually it was really great because in Nuremburg it is too crowded to get pictures but we had the opportunity here to do so. It was still just the typical stuff, Wurzburg didn't seem to have its own specialty. Across the street from the markt, was 2 huge churches literally 50 feet from one another. One was more ornate and had paintings and murals on the ceiling while the other was done in more of a gothic style. On the back side of the churches sits the Residenz which is a huge palace that was for the bishops. We got here too late to go in and get a tour but even just seeing the outside was amazing. It started snowing as soon as we walked up and it made our walk through the gardens magical.
As we made our way to the train station to head home Brandon noticed the "House of 150 Beers" so we had to stop and get a drink. We shared a Berliner Weiss, which is a low alcohol Weiss beer mixed with fruit flavor, typically raspberry or this local herb which I can't remember the name of. We had raspberry and it's a totally "girly" drink that is served in a goblet with a straw but it was really good. The perfect end to our day in Wurzburg.

random cross cultural observation

Our German as a Foreign Language course takes place in a public school. Our classroom is for middle school aged students during the day. I believe they are the age equivalent of sixth graders in the U.S. Currently on the back wall of the classroom some student work is displayed. They essentially made personal bios, including a picture, favorite food, hobbies, etc. What they want to do as a career when they are older was also included.

As a middle school teacher for 2 years I recall what many students said they wanted to do when they were older. In the U.S., I remember almost all of the students saying things like “football player, basketball player, baseball player, model.” Other more realistic students would say things like “doctor” or “lawyer.” Still many of the students would have no idea.

I found a huge contrast between the German answers and the American answers. Of course a certain level of homogeneity among the German students’ answers existed just like the Americans. After all, it is a middle school. So, I tallied up what the students said on the wall in this German classroom. The results are: 1 farmer, 2 hair dressers, 3 mechanics, 8 kindergartner teachers , 1 soccer player, 1 actress, and 3 carpenters. Talk about a society more productive than lawyers and ignorant athletes.

Personally, I believe our education system in America is a failure (in certain areas, anyway). We push University degrees and college prep courses so much. Students are (indirectly) taught that they will have no job skills unless they complete a four-year degree (minimum). Technical college students are seen as second-class citizens to University students, and high school students that participate in “career center” programs in H.S. are just seen as weird. My opinion.

Many non-University students in Germany participate in work-study programs. They study and apprentice in their field for 3 years. These programs finish about the time they are 19 years old. Upon completion they have marketable skills to present to potential employers. I’ve met people who just finished or who are participating in apprentice-study programs. One is now a baker, the other is studying stone cutting (for restoration of historic buildings).

It’s unfortunate that we have become a nation of consumers and lost a lot of our productive edge that made our economy so strong in the past. A lot of it has to do with cheap products from China, globalization, and big box stores. Those things aren’t all bad, and it’s certainly more complex than just those three things. I’m not trying to speculate on the roots or solve any of these problems, I’m just ranting about them.

Date Night in Nuremberg

On Saturday evening Brandon and I decided to go to Nuremberg and just have some fun. We needed to use the internet, which we use Starbucks for and there was a movie we wanted to see, Zweiohrkuken, a romantic comedy. It ended up just being a comedy of errors and not quite the experience I had in mind. We went to 3 different Starbucks before we found one with space to sit down. After about an hour we decided it was time to eat and went back to an Indian restaurant we had passed on the way that wasn't too far from the theater. We were seated very quickly and then sat and sat, then we had to ask for menus then we sat and sat. I went to bathroom in the mean time and realized there was no toilet paper in the entire restroom. Argh! Then back to table and more sitting. Finally it was just getting too late so we just left and decided to go to the theater. I had seen in the movie review paper that the theater was a multi use facility with restaurants and other things so we thought we would try our luck there. We only had an hour before the movie started so we bought tickets and headed out to find food. We came across a diner but it was full and there were people standing around everywhere waiting to pounce on an empty table so we didn't see that working out. We also saw another restaurant but didn't think we had enough time so we exchanged our tickets for a show an hour later. Here, they assign seats for the movies and the only seats open were in the first 3 rows and in "camping seats" the girl said. Well, it didn't sound good but they were cheaper seats so we went with it. Then we headed back down to the restaurant to give it a try. After sitting for at least 1o minutes the waitress came to take our order. Then it was forever before we got our food so we scarfed it down in like 4 minutes flat and rushed up to the movie. The theater actually was quite a lot smaller than I expected so sitting so close was perfect and the seats were just like reception area chairs so they were kind of comfortable. The movie ended up being pretty good too. Pretty funny and even though I didn't understand a lot of what they were saying, it was pretty easy to follow. So the night kind of redeemed itself after all.