Christmas in Germany

Germany, as a whole, gets really into Christmas.  "Weinachtsmarkts" or "Christkindl" markets are in nearly every city, in varying sizes.  Even little Kornwestheim, which is a branch of Ludwigsburg, which is 15 minutes away from Stuttgart and it's massive Christmas market, puts together their own tiny version for a weekend.  Even the Grinch himself would have a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit in this country.  You would have to work very hard to stay grumpy at this time of year.

Especially considering the fact that the "Gluhwein", which is essentially a warm spiced wine (I guess we would call it mead?) is served about every ten paces, regardless of the size of the Christmas market.  It's good (the apple version is my favorite), but it also packs a punch (which, if you're like me, you may not realize until it's too late...).  They also serve something that could maybe go in the same family as eggnog, but it's pretty gross.  Egg liquor is not a thing that should exist.  However, it's almost pure alcohol, so if a fast drunk is what you're looking for, or if you have an exceptional tolerance, that may be just the thing to order.

Anyway, the best part of all the booths at these Christmas markets is to look up at the roofs.  They're decorated so extravagantly, and most of them are extremely creative.  It's quite clear that a lot of the vendors spend a great deal of time thinking through their decorations during the year (or maybe they just reuse the same ideas over and over again...I have no context for comparison).  They are mostly selling knick-knack type items, winter gear, food, and alcohol.  I haven't bought anything other than Gluhwein, but everything smells amazing so I would assume the food is also decent.  I'm sure I'll find out eventually about that element, but probably won't buy anything that can't immediately be ingested.  I'm not one for scarves or ornaments, and I would question my ability to pack or ship anything home from here in such a manner that it would arrive in one piece.

Speaking of home, I am actually ecstatic about the fact that I will be going home for the holidays.  My grandfather was meant to visit, and then we were going to travel through Italy, and while I am disappointed that that has had to be postponed for health reasons, it is actually a huge relief to be headed home for a bit.  I really thought I could handle being away for Christmas...I've never had issues with homesickness in the past, but there's just something about being gone for this time of year that was really, really bumming me out.  My family is pretty close, and we've always made Christmas special, and I think missing out on that for the first time in 23 years is just something I am not ready for yet.  It also would have been pretty lonely once all my friends left for their homes.  And I'm sure Nicole and the kids would have been really nice and mostly willing to include me, but I wouldn't have wanted to intrude on their Christmas.  It will be so good to see my family and friends and dogs and cats and just be back in the states for a bit.  I do like a lot of elements to life in Germany, but it still hasn't succeeded in passing by New Zealand or home.

Although, as far as Christmas at home goes, I could be playing off nostalgia a bit.  My parents, siblings and I may want to kill each other after thirty-six hours together.  Though in this case, I severely doubt it.  We weren't expecting to all be together again for another seven to nine months, so this two weeks is an unexpected gift, and I think we will take full advantage of it.  Plus, it means I'll get to visit the lovely Chicago Christkindl market and compare it to a real German one.  I'll try to be unbiased, but that's unlikely.  So I'll take photos and then you can compare them yourselves.

So, here follows a few photos from the various Christmas markets.  I'll probably keep adding onto them...I've been forgetting to take pictures a lot lately, and as a result, my photography skills are not quite as good as they once were.

One of the Christmas trees for the Stuttgart market

The Nutcracker in Stuttgart.  I'll let the photo speak for itself.

The Ludwigsburg market.  It's the favorite of my family.  But as an American, I must admit to being impressed by the sheer size and gaudiness of the Stuttgart one.

Ludwigsburg does have its own charm though...

This is What Happens When You're Living Rather than Traveling

Let me apologize for taking AGES to update this.  The problem with traveling all the time is that I usually have more to say than I can fit into one post.  And also that there's not usually any free time (or I'm just too lazy to make time...) for me to go into as great of detail as I could.  But, hey, there has to be some elements left for me to bore you all with once I return to the states.

Anyway, the GOOD thing about traveling all the time (besides, the obvious of, well, traveling all the time), is that it creates very natural, narrative-type entries for this.

Which means that while spending the past month and a half staying put in Stuttgart has been at least as enjoyable as traveling (and sometimes more so), it doesn't necessarily lend itself to neat, tidy, ordered, or even particularly fascinating posts.  I guess it's time for me to recruit those writing skills that I spent four years and thousands of dollars honing.  

But, enough rambling! (see, I'm already losing out on order).  As a result of me spending all my money for the months (and then some...I can only justify so many trips to the ATM pulling money from my American accounts...) in Paris and Strasbourg, I've spent the past month or so exploring Stuttgart.  And by exploring, I mostly mean going out to eat, for coffee, and drinking(this is Germany, after all).  And, to be honest, that stability has been nice.  It's also been great to have finally established a couple of different groups of friends to spend time with.  I adore the family I am living and working for, but, as I've said before, having a group of peers is essential to maintaining sanity.  Especially in the beginning, being here made me long for college, when there was always someone who you could find to give you attention at any time of day (except from between 6-8 am...and sometimes even then).  

But, getting back to business, it's just been lovely to have friends.  There are two groups which I tend to circulate between.  One I've met through Laura, as she's been kind enough to include me in outings with her friends.  They're mostly all other Americans who are also in Germans as au pairs (they all also mostly have, or have had, German boyfriends.  Must have missed the memo on that one...).  And then the other group I also met through a girl named Laura (not confusing at all...).  She's a grad student from the UK, and somehow managed to build up a group of "misfits" (as I so kindly like to describe it...).  There's her, me, a British guy named George, a Croatian girl named Sara, a French guy named Adrien, and a German girl named Martina.  They're all students, aside from George, who teaches English.

I like spending time with both groups, but at the risk of sounding snooty, it can sometimes be a bit more refreshing to not spend all my free time with au pairs.  Because when you get a group of au pairs together, the conversation tends to gravitate toward talk (i.e. complaints) about the family and the hazards of being an au pair.  It devolves into a complaint fest, where everyone tries to one-up the other on who has it worse.  It's really great conversation, and I always come off as snotty since I don't have a reason to complain.  As far as being an au pair goes, I have nothing to complain about.  I am in as ideal of a situation as I possibly could be, and have nothing negative to say about my family.  But that being said, it can be nice to just be silly and hang out with a bunch of girls my own age who are from my country.  No one makes fun of my accent (as George and Laura like to do...because obviously Brits say things "correctly" and Americans are just wrong...), and when I say particularly American things ("This Christmas market isn't as good, it's too small."  "I can't believe they made me give exact change, I'm paying THEM for something."), it doesn't come off as weird.  Though I'm definitely also not on the same page as most of them when it comes to German men.  I will admit that they do tend to be quite nice-looking, but, at the risk of fulfilling stereotypes(but there is some truth in all of them...I frequently am the loud American, particularly once alcohol is involved...), I find their humor to be lacking.  Sarcasm is not a German trait.  Not that ALL of them are not funny; just I personally haven't met a German guy who had me in fits of laughter.

With the other group, the conversation tends to be a bit more varied.  I think between the six of us, we've been to nearly every major city on the globe.  As usual, I tend to bring up the rear when it comes to travel experience, but that's not an issue in my mind.  It gives me an even bigger pool of people from whom I can get insider advice on where to travel, and what to see and do once I'm there.  Plus, Chicago, LA, and New Zealand are usually flashy enough to keep me above water as far as street cred is concerned.

Anyway, I've been having a lot of fun getting to know my way around the city (I probably only get lost every other time now) and checking out the cafes and nightlife.  I still think French coffee is better, but it's also more expensive, so it may balance out.  I've yet to find a club that I enjoy in Stuttgart (but it's hard to find a club I enjoy period...), but the bars are a lot of fun.  My personal favorite is called "Tequila Bar."  You get a free shot of tequila with every beer you order.  It's such a good deal (there's the recent college graduate showing again). 

I hope I didn't bore you all too much!  Here's a few photos of day-to-day life just so you all have some visuals to what has been going on.  I'll be writing another post shortly about the "Weinachtmarkts" that are EVERYWHERE in Germany.  Basically, it looks like Santa Claus vomited all over most of Germany at this time of year.  

This is Lina.  She is a Cocker Spaniel mix.  We go on lots of walks.

One of the randomly pretty spots we go through in Kornwestheim.

And another.

Schlossplatz.  It's the most beautiful spot in Stuttgart.  It's all decked out in Christmas now.

The group out on a Friday night.  

Hedgehogs are all over the place in Germany.  They call them "Eagles".  Which is particularly bizarre considering what an eagle is in English.

German 'spaghetti' ice cream.  It is delicious.  Though strawberry sauce in Germany is more like jam than the syrupy version that we have in the states.

Riding the Culture Shock Waves

As I'm looking back at the past two posts, it seems like I am all doom and gloom with a pessimistic attitude.  While I'd be lying if I said I was a bundle of sunshine all the time and didn't admit to some moments of homesickness, or days when I idealize everything about home, I am liking Germany so far.  All of that other emotional instability is just a part of the transition.

Culture shock is always a big part of pre-departure discussions when you study abroad, and for good reason.  It is a real thing, and very few are immune to its effects.  You have to be prepared for it to hit, and ready to work through it or you will very quickly become disillusioned with your current situation.

Since I have uprooted my life a time or two before, I know myself and how I react in these types of situations.  They always say that culture shock (AKA, mild depression characterized by rose-colored lenses toward anything and everything related to home) hits you about a month in.  I am unusual in that it hits me almost immediately, and usually resolves itself within the first 2-3 weeks.  Usually the best cure, at least in my experience is to stay as busy as possible, develop some sort of routine, and find friends.

The routine aspect is set.  During the week, my days are spoken for from 7 AM to 5 PM, with some free time in the late morning/afternoon.  Evenings and weekends are my own.

The harder part has been making friends.  I'm a fairly outgoing and friendly person when I need to be, but when 80% of your time is spent with a family and your knowledge of a county's language is absolutely minimal it's a bit difficult.  You have to get creative.

Not that I am letting this get me down.  It's character building for me to be content with just me, gives me time to write, and is allowing me to get to know this family more quickly.  I also will be starting a language class in November, which should open up my social circle quite a bit.

And in the meantime, I am lucky that another girl who I went to Valpo with is in a similar situation as an au pair in France.  So, this coming weekend, we are headed over to Munich for Oktoberfest, and then the weekend following we are meeting up in Paris for an event called Nuit Blanche.  And thus my European tour will officially begin!

I truly am enjoying Germany, despite the waves of homesickness.  Each day is a learning experience, and I'm learning patience (people tell me that's a virtue...still think it's overrated) as I deal with the frustration of being immersed in a new language daily.  Grocery shopping takes about three times as long as it should, and I get lost all the time.  But each day I do a little better than before, and that's all anyone can really ask for, right?  And I truly am learning the language more quickly than I would have thought was possible.  If you really want to learn a new language, immersion is the answer.

Kornwestheim is so stereotypically quaintly European that I love just wandering around.  There are enough cafés to occupy my coffee obsession and give me somewhere to go and hang out on weekend.  Still need to check out the gelato place, though..

Anyway, here are some photos that I took around town on Sunday.  Enjoy! Auf wiedersehen!

The streets of downtown Kornwestheim.  It is not fun to navigate a van through there.

My home for the next year! Quite nice, eh?

My current favorite cafe.  I'm going to write the next great American novel here.  

Heading to Deutschland

So here I am, stepping back into the world of blogging to chronicle my latest adventures and latest questionable life decisions.

First of all, I should set some context for those of you who stumble upon here.  I am a 23-year-old recent graduate from Valparaiso University.  I earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and Humanities.  If you try to tell me that it's a useless degree, I will disagree because I have to.  And also because it does leave your options open; there are a lot of different directions career-wise that you could go; they just all require some creativity.  This is an issue for another day, as I could argue the merits and drawbacks of graduating with an arts degree for ages.

Anyway, I exited university armed with my degree, an internship for Conan O'Brien in Los Angeles, and a semester abroad at the University of Otago in Dunedin New Zealand (for all the exciting details about the best six months of my life, see the sidebar to your right, and click on "IFSA-Butler New Zealand Blog").  And thus I began (along with thousands of my peers in the class of 2013) the tedious process of applying for nearly every job that I was even remotely qualified for (and some that I wasn't).
I received a few offers; one as an English teacher in Beijing, a teacher in Florida, and various dull, marketing and sales positions that I could have been hired for without a college degree.  And many, many rejections.  However, since all but one rejection was based solely off of my resume, I didn't take most of it too personally.

And then there was one rejection that I DID take personally.  A certain company (which shall remain nameless, for the moment...) put me through a string of personality tests and writing samples and phone interviews before finally inviting me to an on-site interview, complete with more personality tests, writing samples, and discussions with various members within the company.  The position was as a technical writer for a software company; far from ideal, but at least it was writing and there were some nice benefits and a good paycheck accompanying it.  I thought I had it; all the interviews went well, and I know that I am a talented writer.  I even went so far as to start looking at apartments in the area and looking into buying a car.  I succeeded in really convincing myself that this was what I wanted; the beginnings of a solid career in something and a settled life.  I had already done New Zealand and Los Angeles; two amazing opportunities that most people will never experience in their lives.  I thought it was time for me to behave and act like a responsible human being.

For better or worse, there was another plan in the cards for me.  At the very end of the interview process, I was discarded along with countless other applicants.  It came as a huge shock; I was back to square one.  The settled life that I had been painting vanished before my eyes, and in a fit of rage, I began applying for jobs all over the world.

But everything happens for a reason.  The night before I received the pitying phone call where I was told that the company was "moving forward with other applicants," I had been watching Midnight in Paris and felt a pang of regret that there was no way that I would be doing a tour of Europe (or any other foreign country) anytime in the foreseeable future.  Two weeks of freedom from work goes fast in the adult world.  I applied for all sorts of jobs, but the ones that ended up biting were from families looking for an educated au pair (basically, a live-in nanny) for their children.

And so it ended up that I accepted a position with a family in Stuttgart, Germany.  To the surprise of everyone (including myself), I am forsaking a job in the real world and the beginnings of a career for a sort of sabbatical in Europe.

To be fair, it's not an entirely selfish and irrational move though.  One of my potential career aspirations (aside from becoming the next Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, of course...) is to work in International Education and/or a study abroad program so I can help more students to have that same life-changing experience that I was lucky enough to have in New Zealand.

Here's to hoping that Germany offers some of the same benefits!  I'm less nervous about this than I was before New Zealand, but I actually think that this may be more challenging in some respects.  The language barrier and the lack of a built-in peer group to begin with may make my social life rather absent to begin with at first, but I am looking forward to rising tot he challenge.  After all, I'm going to Europe.  The entire world is at my feet and I cannot wait to see what's in store next.

Below is my one and only tattoo...apparently it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bonus points for whomever knows where the quite comes from...