Turkey Day Disasters

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with no overcooked turkeys, burnt rolls, obnoxiously drunken relatives or any other incidents that could make the day less than pleasant. Overall, my Thanksgiving was great with plenty of food, cider and champagne. Only one small catastrophe marred the day...
 

it looked something like this

For Thanksgiving dinner, I was in charge of making sweet potato casserole and a dessert. I decided on apple pie bars, a recipe I'd never made before but which sounded delicious. As I mentioned before, Thanksgiving isn't a holiday in Germany so I had to schedule all my cooking around work. I made the sweet potato casserole on Wednesday night, got up early Thursday morning to make the crust for the apple pie bars, then finished them that afternoon. Altogether I devoted a fair amount of time to baking. On Thursday evening I set out with my roommate and a friend of her's to go to our other friend's apartment for dinner. We were all loaded down with pots and casserole dishes, so I was in the precarious position of trying to balance the baking sheet of apple pie bars on top of the sweet potatoes. Not two minutes away from our apartment we were crossing an intersection, I slipped just a little bit on some ice, but it was enough to send the baking sheet careening off of the casserole dish. It did a graceful flip in midair and landed, upside-down, in the middle of the street. The light was changing, so we had no time to figure out an ingenious solution of how to get the whole thing back into the pan. In desperation I simply used my hands to scoop up a clump and then we ran out of the way of oncoming traffic. I was rather annoyed that my hours of work had come to nothing, so I decided to eat some of the broken pieces anyways, asphalt and motor oil be damned. They were delicious.

Heppy Zanksgifing!

as the Germans would say. For the past week I've been teaching all my classes about Thanksgiving, because it's a holiday that's basically unknown in Germany. I've been talking about mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and pie and all the other delicious Thanksgiving food for so long that I can hardly wait to finally eat them tonight! I don't think the German students share my enthusiasm for Thanksgiving, though: most of them thought that making a dessert out of pumpkin was the most disgusting idea ever. At least my 6th graders enjoyed making hand turkeys today. Such are the finer points of American culture that I'm introducing them to.

Tonight I'm getting together with a group of Americans and a few Germans to have an almost-proper Thanksgiving. I say almost because 1) we don't have the day off, meaning dinner has to be in the evening rather than the afternoon, 2) the girl's apartment we're going to decided we're going to have goose rather than turkey (because turkeys are kind of hard to find in Germany), and 3) this will be the first Thanksgiving I'll spend not in the company of my family or relatives. I miss everybody a lot, but I've heard pumpkin pie with extra whipped cream does wonders for homesickness. I'll keep you posted on whether that's true or not. In the meantime, I hope every one of you has a wonderful, delicious, relaxing Thanksgiving!

NRW

NRW is the abbreviation for Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia to us english-speakin' folk), which is the state in which Dortmund is located. It's the most populated and most densely populated state in Germany, mainly due to the high concentration of people in the Ruhrgebiet as well as the metropolitan regions of Duesseldorf, Koeln (Cologne) and Aachen. I spend most of my time within the Ruhrgebiet, but this post will describe some of the experiences I've had in other parts of NRW. This would also be a good time to look at the pictures in my Nordrhein-Westfalen - Fall 2010 album!


We begin with the Fulbright orientation, which took place from September 6th-9th in a retreat house next to the Altenberg cathedral, which is in the middle of nowhere about 45 minutes outside of Cologne. There were about 200 Americans there, all in Germany to be English teaching assistants. Most, like me, had just graduated from college. They also came from all over the US and were assigned to the most diverse locations in Germany, from Munich to a tiny town on an island in the North Sea by the cost of Denmark that can only be reached by ferry (I'm not kidding, a girl I met was actually assigned there). Before we all headed off to our future homes and jobs we spent a few days together "networking" (aka meeting people whose couch you could crash on later while traveling) and getting a little bit of basic instruction about German bureaucracy, the school system, and foreign language pedagogy. It wasn't exactly an extensive preparation for teaching, but it did equip us with the essentials to get a start in our new towns and our schools. And I did meet some great people there with whom I'm in regular contact.

Next stop: Sauerland. This is a hilly/mountainous region to the southeast of the Ruhrgebiet that's not very developed and pretty popular for hiking and winter sports (at least for people from western Germany and the Netherlands who have never seen a proper mountain in their life). Pascal's grandparents live there, so I go out there occasionally with his family to visit them. It really is a beautiful and peaceful region, and his grandma, in true grandma-style, loves nothing more than forcing delicious food on us until we burst. In my photo album you can see pictures from a hike we went on up to a cross erected on a hill overlooking the village. If only it had been a few weeks later we would have been able to see some real fall foliage. Next year!

The next pictures in the album are from the Allerheiligenkirmes (All Saint's Day carnival) in Soest, a small town about 45 minutes east of Dortmund. Even though the rides, games and stands selling unhealthy but delicious food were more or less the same as at carnivals in America, the atmosphere was a million times better because the carnival was set up right on the streets and squares of the old town, creating a fascinating juxtaposition of centuries-old half-timbered houses and neon lights. I can't say I've ever seen a roller coaster in front of a cathedral before.

Last we come to a few pictures that I took in Duesseldorf when I was there for a conference held for all foreign language assistants (including languages other than English) from my area of NRW. I think there were around 100 of us, with the largest contingents coming from Great Britain and Spain, followed by the Americans. This event was organized not through the Fulbright Commission, but through the Educational Exchange Service (a German agency), through whom we get paid and who are our direct overseers here in Germany. It lasted for 2 days and was basically another networking event, which I appreciated because I got to know a lot of people who live in or very near to Dortmund, so I can actually hang out with them on a regular basis. We also went on some small excursions around the Ruhrgebiet (a "region in change" as they kept calling it) to take a look at the old industrial sites and the uses they were being put to now. It would have been pretty interesting, except that I had seen literally every single thing we went to before; Pascal's mom has done a pretty good job over the past several years of taking me to all the architectural highlights and museums in the area. Perhaps she's secretly in cahoots with the Ruhrgebiet tourism agency? Regardless of the redundancy, I enjoyed the Duesseldorf conference and getting to take a couple days off work to hang out with my friends :)

That about covers my exploits in greater NRW; next time I'll focus more on the Ruhrgebiet and life there (a propos the title of this blog). Til then!

Valencia and Amsterdam

These were two different trips, but I'm including them in the same post because they're the only places outside of Germany I've been to so far.

The old town

I went to Valencia at the very beginning of September, before I even moved to Dortmund or went to the Fulbright orientation. I spent the last week of August with Pascal's family, and then flew to the beautiful and warm Spanish Mediterranean city of Valencia for the weekend to meet up with my dad who was there for a trade fair (he has a hard life, let me tell you). It's great traveling with my dad because 1) we like to do the exact same things, namely lots of walking, biking and going to museums, and 2) the lodgings and meals are considerably better when I don't have to fund them myself.

Dad at the beach

The weather was sunny and warm/hot the whole weekend, and we took full advantage of it by visiting the aquarium and going to the beach. In addition, the architecture in Valencia is a gorgeous mix of Moorish, Gothic, Romanesque and uber-modern styles. And let's not forget the sangria and paella, which originated in the Valencian region! I highly recommend Valencia as a travel destination, especially as an alternative to the extreme tourist crowds in Barcelona. Plus it has the most beautiful beach and water I have ever seen in my life. Next time you're jetting off for a Mediterranean escape, you'll know where to go.

cathedral plaza at night

cathedral tower

the dolphin show at the aquarium

futuristic architecture in the museum complex

I went to Amsterdam in the middle of October with my friend from home, Sarah, who was visiting me/doing a tour of Europe at the time. The canals and cobble-stoned bridges of Amsterdam are absolutely enchanting, well earning it the title "Venice of the North," though in my opinion it's actually prettier (and certainly cleaner) than Venice. Also, I have NEVER seen so many bicycles! I'm pretty sure I saw more bikes than cars. I have also never seen so many prostitutes, probably because I as a general rule do not frequent red light districts. But when in Rome...

at least I got to stand outside the AF house

Unfortunately, we didn't go to any museums, such as the Anne Frank House of the Van Gogh museum because they were either too expensive or the line was far too long (we tried twice at the Anne Frank house). We did, however, take a canal cruise, which I highly recommend. And here's another insider tip for ya: if you buy fries (and you should), get the samurai sauce. Trust me.

evening canal cruise

also stereotypical

stereotypical Holland

mmm, beer and pancakes!

how to view pictures

Hey again,

I realized that I should probably give more specific instructions about how to view the pictures on photobucket. If you click on the link on the left side of my blog page it will take you to a home page that will show "My Most Recent Albums." You can then click on a link to view all of the albums. If you then click on the album that you want to look at it will take you to a page where all the images in the album are shown as small tiles. Since you can't see much when they're so small, the best thing to do is to click on the first picture, which will enlarge it and then give you the option to just keep clicking "next" and view all the pictures as a slideshow. Underneath most of the pictures are captions and explanations, so make sure to check those out too. Ok, I think those are all of the instructions - sorry it's so complicated! I hope you enjoy the pictures though!

Rainy Days

Very, very rainy. So rainy, in fact, that roads, railways and basements in parts of Nordrhein-Westfalen (the state I live in) and the Ruhrgebiet have flooded. Hopefully this will not prevent my train from getting me home on time tonight; I'm currently in Aachen (the westernmost town in Nordrhein-Westfalen and Germany, on the border with the Netherlands) visiting my friend Bedrus. I'm blogging as a kind of therapy to recover from getting my ass kicked all around the backgammon board. Seriously, never play backgammon with somebody from Turkey. It's the national pastime there, so don't even try it, because you will swiftly get served. Do, however, accept the tea and cookies that they offer you. They're delicious.

 I unfortunately will not have any pictures to show from this trip to Aachen, because I forgot to bring my camera. It's so gray and rainy, however, that I don't think I'd be able to get any decent pictures anyways. I'll just have to come back here again (which, thanks to the semester ticket from the University, is entirely free) when the weather is nice. Which probably won't happen until about May, so don't hold your breath for those pictures.

Speaking of photos, I won't be posting very many to the blog directly because that takes a long time and it clutters things up. Instead, I'll include a representative sample here, and the rest can be seen on the my photobucket account, the link to which is on the left side of the screen. Within the next couple weeks I'll write some retrospective posts talking about the various trips the pictures are from. Until then, browse at your leisure!

Better Late Than Never

Hello!

Long time, no write! You may notice that my last post was from August 2009, or nearly 15 months ago. If you were following my blog last time you may also notice that it has a different title and slightly different layout. And most importantly, please take note of the disclaimer in the "About Me" section, as I would really prefer not to lose my grant. Let me explain the reasons for all of this:

As you all know, I've been in Dortmund, Germany since the beginning of September, working as an English teacher in a "Gesamtschule," meaning a comprehensive middle and high school. It's probably the best job I'll ever have, but more about that in later posts. As some of you know, I originally started this blog in February 2009 when I studied abroad in Tuebingen, Germany. When I came back to the US I didn't really know what to do with it (and didn't really have any time), so I just left it. But for the past two months there has been a little nagging voice in the back of my head, which sounds suspiciously like my mother, asking, "when are you going to start your blog again?" My answer has always been, "once I get settled in I'll start blogging again." I think two months has been a sufficiently long settling-in period, so here I am, writing the first post of the newly retitled "Das Leben im Ruhrpott" blog (see explanation below).  As for the disclaimer, I'm required by the State Department to have that up on all social media sites on which I talk about my Fulbright experiences. The disclaimer text came to us in the same email which urged us to refrain from causing or attempting to cause "political unrest" in our host countries.Well, what the hell's the point of being here then if I can't incite a little political unrest if the mood strikes me?

The blog title means "Life in the Ruhrpott," the Ruhrpott being the slang term for the Ruhrgebiet (Ruhr-area), a densely populated region along the river Ruhr which was once the seat of heavy industry in Germany (Dortmund and Essen, where Pascal lives, are two major cities in the Ruhrpott). Due to its industrial past, the Ruhrgebiet doesn't have the greatest reputation in Germany. Most Germans from other regions still think of it as it was prior to de-industrialization in the 70's and 80's: smoky, smoggy, gray and chock-full of mines and factories spewing waste over hovel and shanties. Ok, that's a little exaggerated, but you get the picture. Of course, the Ruhrgebiet nowadays is not like that at all. It's actually incredibly green, even in the cities, and a lot of it looks positively rural. Of course, mine shafts and smokestacks and the like are still to be seen dotting the landscape, but almost none of them are still in use and most have been converted into museums, monuments, exhibition site and the like. The Ruhrgebiet is also stereotyped as being a slightly rough place to live, where a lot of blue-collar folk work hard for their wages, if they're not unemployed, and nobody wears Lederhosen and plays oom-pah music like those silly Bavarians (I guess it could be described as the Detroit of Germany). Residents of the Ruhrgebiet find themselves constantly defending their home and trying to convince people that yes, it's not the prettiest/most touristy part of Germany, but it really isn't so bad, promise. On the other hand, the Ruhr natives like to grouch about the area a lot too, which is where the subtitle of the blog comes in. It's a saying that one hears quite frequently around here, and roughly translates to, "Everywhere else is shit too!" Whether that expresses an optimistic view of the Ruhrpott or a pessimistic view of Germany as a whole could be debated, though I do find it to be quite a practical stance on the whole issue.

More posts will come soon with more detailed accounts of my first two months here. Topics you can look forward to are: the moving-in process, my job, my daily activities, the couple trips I've been on, and the joys of dealing with German bureaucracy (spoiler alert! Germany is NOT efficient). Right now, though, I'm just going to post some pictures of my apartment, since I know that's all my mom really cares about seeing. Til next time!

My street. My building is the pale one on the far left and my window is the very top-right one.

View of the landing outside the door with stairs to the attic.

looking back down the stairs

the very small hallway as seen from the front door

bathroom

looking from the kitchen into the hallway. my room is on the left

looking from the door at my cozy bed and many dressers

the kitchen (sadly not big enough for a table)

looking from the desk to the door

the "office" portion with desk and sofa (and jeans drying on the heater)

views from my window

it's nice until you see the smokestack