Paris

One of the great things about living in Europe is how accessible travel is and how so many different countries are so close. In the US, you can drive 1000 miles and still end up in the US, and while yes, cultures vary from state to state, you end up seeing the same things, meeting the same kinds of people, and hearing the same language and expressions. Travel in the US is like changing your bedroom wall color from white to pale yellow, whereas travel in Europe is like getting rid of the walls all together. At least, it seemed to be so with my single trip outside Germany.

Last week I took my first trip to a European city outside of Germany and went to Paris, France. Of course I loved it and was wishing pretty hard that I had a cute little apartment overlooking some small Parisian street, but then I kept thinking, what if you lived here and could see the Mona Lisa whenever you wanted and the Eiffel Tower was just a building you saw every day? And let’s face it, my fashion sense is not up to par and my shoes aren’t stylish/high-heeled enough. So, I was happily a tourist and could shamelessly abuse my photo-taking privileges as such. If anyone wants to look at a few dozen pictures just of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night, I have you covered.

Unfortunately I was only there for three days and didn’t manage to fit in everything I wanted to do (namely see Monet’s Water Lillies in the Orangerie, it was closed when I tried to go), but it gives me a good excuse to go back.

Enjoy the pictures!

Sacre Coeur - We went to Paris by bus, drove 17 hours through the night, got off the bus around 7:30 am and began our bus tour of the city. The Sacre Coeur was our first stop. At least the early morning light looks pretty.

 

 

 

A view of Paris from the Sacre Coeur

The famous dome of the Lafayette

The Notre Dame - no Quasimodo sighting. Or talking gargoyles.

Looking a little uncertain here outside of Versailles, but don't be fooled! Versailles absolutely floored me, it was so gorgeous. I also have way too many pictures of the interior that I'm refraining from posting.

The Louvre - I found the exterior alone extremely beautiful and overwhelmingly big.

I thought the Mona Lisa looked very different in person. The face, the background, the posture - everything was strangely unfamiliar. It just goes to show that copies are no replacement for an original.

The Eiffel Tower is honestly a big ugly in the daytime, but when it's lit up at night, it looks like a completely different building.

Wichtige Wörter

• reisen - to travel
• französich - French. I managed to get by with bonjour and merci, which is about the extent of my French.
• Fotos machen - to take pictures. In English we say to take a picture, in German it’s to make a picture.

The Halfway Point

As of today, I have lived in Germany for exactly five months, with five months left to go. It’s hard to believe my year is already half way over; I can’t imagine getting on a plane and flying back to the US. These were some of the fastest five months of my life, and I’m sure the next five are going to fly by as well. Living in a different culture has gotten increasingly easier, but I still have tons to learn, especially language-wise. Still, I no longer have to actively translate everything in my head to understand and speaking comes much more naturally. Since I’m bad at tracking my own progress and I know Germans to be a little more blunt and honest than their sugar-coating American counterparts, I decided to ask people at my school how they felt my Deutsch was improving. Here are some of my German friends delivering the honest truth on my language advancement:

“Well, at the beginning I couldn’t understand anything you said, but now we can talk to each other really well.”

“It’s better, it’s like you don’t have to think about it as hard.”

“Now you can say whatever you want to. You still have an accent, but that could take years to go away.”

“You’re a lot more fluent, at the beginning you spoke half English and paused a lot more, but now it’s easier.”

“At the beginning you had to ask what people were saying and to have them repeat things, but now you understand everything that we say.”

“Nope, not better. Just kidding. I don’t know, it’s hard to compare because we were all impressed by how much German you could already speak. But it’s easier for you know, isn’t it.”

So there you have it. On another note, yesterday I signed up to give a presentation on the Amish in my Religion class. Just spreading the Lancaster wealth.

Wichtige Wörter:

• am Anfang: at the beginning
• fließend: fluent
• die Sprache: the language
• verstehen: understand

What Germany Really Thinks About America

Germany is completely fascinated with America. Teenagers run around with American flags on everything, from shirts to shoes to pants to phone cases. If you ask someone where they’d most like to visit, New York is always on everyone’s list. No one really understands when I say that Germany is way more interesting than America, because America for me is just everyday life. In fact, coming here and listening to everyone talk about how cool America is makes me realize how great, albeit sometimes a bit strange, it really is to live here. To live in America is embarrassing at times, but to hear others’ impressions is completely entertaining. Since we just listed words we associated with America in German class the other day, I thought I’d share with you a few favorites.

Here's what comes to mind when Germans think about America:

• Barack Obama
• Hollywood
• Coffee shops
• Statue of Liberty
• Golden Gate Bridge
• 9/11
• Terrorism
• Church
• Friendly people
• Fat people
• Gun laws
• Death penalty
• Fast food
• Diversity
• Big country
• American flag
• Patriotism/pride
• The American Dream
• Freedom
• Opportunity

Most Mentioned Cities (in order of how frequently I hear about them):
1. New York
2. Los Angeles
3. Miami

Most common questions people ask me about America:

• Are you a democrat or a republican?
• Do you like Obama?
• Have you ever been to New York?
• Why are your gun laws like that?
• Do you have your driver’s license? (To get a driver’s license in Germany you have to be 18 and pay thousands of euros)
• Is high school like High School Musical?

And that’s a look into what Germans think about America.

Christmas in Germany

When it comes to Christmas, Germany really knows what it’s doing. In the US, Christmas is overhyped, over commercialized, and there’s too much stress leading up to this one day, suddenly to have it be over. Germany has managed to keep the charm and excitement intact. The Christmas season began with the setting up of the Weihnachtsmärkte, or Christmas markets, on the first of December. It was hard to go 100 feet in the city without running into a Christmas market, and they were always full of people drinking Glühwein, eating roasted almonds, and playing music. They were open every day from morning till night, and so charmingly German that it was hard not to stop every few moments and take it in, because I knew nothing even comes close to this back home.

St. Nikolaustag was the next event in the build up to Christmas. On the night before December 6, children in Germany put out one clean shoe. If the shoe is clean enough, St. Nikolaus fills it with candy and little presents.

Christmas here is celebrated on the 24th, not the 25th, although because of the markets and the amount of lights and decorations (in stores, not as much on houses, like in America), it’s like the whole month of December is Christmas. On the 24th, most families attend church during the day, eat nice meals together, and then open presents after dinner. There aren’t stockings, but the amount of treats that go into advent calendars here make up for that. Here, advent calendars consist of small bags, one for every day of December till Christmas, filled with candy and small presents.

Even though I like waking up on Christmas morning to presents, opening stockings, and most of all, spending it with my family, Christmas in Germany was pretty spectacular.

Wichtige Wörter

• der Weihnachtsmarkt - Christmas market (die Weihnachtsmärkte - Christmas markets)
• Glühwein - warm, spiced red wine
• das Geschenk - present
• das Krippenspiel - nativity play
• der Weihnachtsbaum - Christmas tree