It's only been a week since my last blog for my birthday, but still a lot has happened. There is always something to do, or something going on, and if there's not that, there is always my room to clean or miles to run. A friend of mine and I decided that we want to run a marathon next year before we leave Germany and have been running together. There is a really interesting on in Hamburg on April 29th and then a half-marathon in Munich some time in May. I'm not sure if we've decided yet. I'd love to go to Hamburg because we'd get to see a beautiful city and participate in a very well-known marathon, but it's also expensive after you look for a hotel, buy your plane ticket, and register for the race. Aber trotzdem, this is the link for the marathon in Hamburg if you'd like to take a look at it.
http://www.haspa-marathon-hamburg.de/
Thursday my program threw a Christmas Party for us. We had lots of food, dressed up, had Christmas decorations everywhere, our own paper stockings with our names (Germany doesn't do stockings), a White elephant gift exchange, Glühwein, and a "cookie exchange", which basically consisted of people bringing cookies and creating a huge cookie table. I invited Marie, who is a teen in the Munich church, to join me so that we could spend more time together and also practice her English. She's my Sprachpartnerin, and I love it because I feel like her English is around the same level as my German. So sometimes we are really forced to try to explain to the other person what on earth we are actually trying to say. Oddly enough, a lot of Germans that I know are already super close to fluency in English (if not already), so they generally just tell me the English word when I don't know how to say something. However, I find that when the word isn't immediately given me to me I remember it so much better, plus having to explain something to someone in a different language is really hard. I generally shy away from it because it makes me nervous and feel super awkward, but Marie is very patient and makes me feel very comfortable.
There is another reason that I love hanging out with Marie that I'm so excited to write about. I thought it would be so awkward/hard/insert negative emotion here trying to build a friendship with someone who doesn't speak my language fluently and vice versa. And then when you add cultural differences on top of that, it seems near impossible. However, after having spent time with her I have learned that that does not have to be the case at all. If anything, there is a part of me that loves when we have no idea what the other person is talking about... because when that happens, we either have to play charades to figure it out, or give up and just start laughing because there's really no other choice. For example, at church on Sunday, Marie was showing me some of the pages in this crazy book a lot of the teens got for Christmas, and there was a word I didn't know (verschlucken) on one of the pages. I asked her what it meant, and when she didn't know the English word she swallowed and pointed to her neck. I just laughed because I completely understood even through our childish ways of communicating.
I've realized since spending time with her that I worry wayyy too much about what I say, in English and in German. And sometimes I think I just talk too much. Yes it's definitely important to know how to eloquently speak your native language, however, it's honestly not needed the majority of the time. I feel like part of me has lost sight in the value of a smile, or a hug, or just having a friend sit there with you, even if you are struggling to communicate (because of a Sprachemauer or you just can't seem to understand where the other person is coming from). You know that the person doesn't have to be there with you and go through the mess of fighting a language, but that they do it regardless, not only to verbessern the language they are learning, but because they enjoy spending time with you. And instead of getting really frustrated and insecure around her, I smile, and I laugh, because at the end of the year the majority of our friendship will be built on the way I spent with her and the little ways that I show her love, as opposed to just what I say and have said to her. Wisdom and opinions and topics are nice, but showing love is greater. I really hope that makes sense.
It reminds me a lot of this scripture. I'll write it in English and German :)
"Deshalb, meine Kinder, lasst uns einander lieben: nicht mit leeren Worten, sondern mit tatkräftiger Liebe und in aller Aufrichtigkeit." 1 Johannes 3,18
"Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:18
Here are some pictures from the Christmas Party:
This past Friday, a few friends in my program and I went to Nürnberg to see the Weihnachtsmärkte. We used a Bayern Ticket to get there. The Bayern Ticket is amazing because you can go anywhere in Bavaria from 9.00 bis 3.00 (the next morning) for only 30 €. And what makes it better is that you can split the ticket between 5 people. So if you have a full ticket, you only have to pay 6 € per person to travel somewhere in Bavaria for the whole day. Bavaria is an incredibly beautiful country, so the Bayern Ticket has been a wonderful help in seeing everything so far. When we got to Nürnburg it was really windy and rainy. It was so windy that it actually broke one of my friend's umbrellas, which wasn't funny to her at the time, but I think it was kind of funny. We decided to sit in a Bäckerei until the rain slowed down or stop. Some of us ordered food, others ordered just drinks, and then we sat, talked, and played some trivia game on Caroline's iPod. Eventually the rain passed and we got to go to the markets.
I really do like the markets, but I feel like once you've seen one market, you've kind of seen every market. I bought gebrannte Mandeln (because they are the best thing that Germany has introduced me to), Glühwein, and even got to keep the mug that I bought the Glühwein in. Germany works on a Pfand system, where almost everything that you buy can be brought back and then you can be given money for it. Of course that means that you paid extra beforehand because of the Pfand. However, I find the system really smart. If you pay 5 € for something and have a 2 € Pfand, of course you're going to want to take the mug or whatever back so that you only end up paying 3 €. Plus it's an excellent idea to encourage recycling. Instead of giving my Pfand back I kept the mug because it was super cute.
http://www.christkindlesmarkt.de/index.php?navi=1&rid=1
Here are some pictures from the market:
After going through the markets, we met up with Jess and Steff, who came later, and went to the castle in Nürnberg. It was super cute and teensy (compared to castles like Neuschwanstein) and we got to take really fun pictures with everything.
Pictures from the castle:
Later that night Heather, Sami, and I went to go get waxed. It was my first time and I was terrified. However, even though my lady spoke no English, it really wasn't that bad. She was really sweet and really patient every time I freaked out. And it was cheap. Anyone who has never tried waxing before should. After waxing we went to go get dinner at a cute, laidback restaurant in der nähe von dem Münchner Freiheit Haltestelle. We ordered pizzas, beers, and sat back, discussing how grateful we were that the waxing was over. Ha, good times.
Saturday morning a friend and I ran in the snow! We ran a little over 7 miles and it felt wonderful. Germany has seriously made me so hardcore. I would have never ran in the snow at home. I probably would have even gone as far as throwing a fit. And yes, I'm 21 years old. After the run, a group of us met at Hofbräuhaus because Heather's boyfriend, Dave, had just flown in from Pittsburgh a few hours before. It was actually a lot of fun because I hadn't eaten at Hofbräuhaus until then. Heather reserved a table and we all sat on the top floor of the restaurant and just chilled for a few hours. I really like Hofbräuhaus. There's a reason it's so popular, and it's because it tastes sooo good. Well, the beer (Münchner Weiße) I drank did. I'm assuming the rest of the food was incredible as well.
More pictures:
I think this blog is long enough for now. I'm sure I forgot to write about something, but that's okay. Until next time, I wish you all a Fröhliche Weihnachten and Happy New Years!
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