Rainy Day, then Sunny Day

Hello again!  Sorry for skipping the update yesterday.  I had a migraine, it was late, rainy, and a relatively uneventful day.  So I'm lumping yesterday and today together right now, so hopefully the post will be appropriately long.  Again, sorry~

So, yesterday.... what did I do.... I woke up, ate breakfast, put on my raincoat, walked in the rain to the tram, which I took to school... in the rain... and walked the rest of the way to class... in the rain...

You know how they say England has the worst weather in Europe?  It probably does.  But I frequently hear that the area around the Danish peninsula is worse.  It is usually cold, cloudy and/or rainy.  Altogether miserable.  Oh, and since the latitude is farther north, it's darker for more hours out of the year.  Huzzah!

So it poured all through class time.  Like one of those "gully washer" rains (I just gave myself away as a southerner, didn't I?  Haha).  We mostly focused on basic grammar again, weeee.  I think I'm gonna stick with this class, since I like the people in this class a bit better, and I really like the teacher.  I might regret my decision later, but I'd rather not come out of this whole trip with my head spinning from a grammar dump.  What that means for my future in german classes back at UNCW... I don't know.  I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I ate lunch at the cafeteria- hähnchenschnitzel and pasta, which was tasty enough for the price.  It rained.  We then went our separate ways, I returned to my room because it was raining too hard to do anything worthwhile in the city.

This time I spent alternatively brushing up on my grammar, washing ink from an exploded pen off my hands, or looking into train fares and what cities are close enough to day-trip to.  I'm sad because although I'd like to go to Berlin, it's a little bit too far, and I don't feel comfortable staying overnight in the capitol by myself.  Some other people expressed mild interest in a weekend trip to Berlin, so we'll see if I go there or not.  if I do, it'll be the weekend of the 21st.  I was hoping to go to Copenhagen, but it is FAR too expensive and far away to feasibly go to.  That's a 7 hour train ride each way.  Sigh.  Many dreams crushed today.

As for other cities in Germany nearby.  There's Hamburg, which I'm planning on visiting this weekend, Lübeck which I could go to, but don't really care to, Hannover, which seems like an artsy town from what I've seen, and Münster, which no convenient trains are going to that weekend.  I could go to Amsterdam.  Everyone wants to go to Amsterdam- but I'm not really too sold on that.  I'm already kinda thinking of going to Groningen in the Netherlands, which seems less touristy.  I'm sad, because I'd like the idea of Amsterdam more if the drug scene wasn't what drew everyone.  Stupid pot.

Moving on, after the afternoon catching up on paperworky stuff, we went to the official school welcome dinner.  There was a super famous duo of Russian currywurst caterers there- apparently they went around Germany snatching up the best currywurst recipes and meats from wherever they could- and the short of it is I don't like currywurst.  I had the vegetarian currywurst because I have trouble making myself excited about meat wursts in general, and it was ok but if that was the best currywurst in the city, I am probably not going to get it again.

The music was loud and bad.  German pop music is bad.  Really bad.  It's unbelievably bad.  *shudders*

But I did get to see the most epic Foosball tournament in history.  And I got to see England lose.  Then I got a migraine from the loud music, heat, and stress of a big crowd.  And so I left, smashed my face into my new pillow in a desperate attempt to get rid of the migraine.  It was bad, bro.

NEW DAY!

 Do I not have any pictures?  Hmm.

Today was a project day, which meant no formal class time.  However, we did all march to the Marktplatz with a list of questions to harass the vendors with!  Mostly about fruits and vegetables.

So I've been to European open air markets before.  They're so much fun!  I'm used to Spanish ones, though, which boast tropical fruits and such, but here there aren't so many.  If you think of things they grow in Germany locally, what do you think?  If you guessed potatoes and grapes, you're correct, but also berries!  So many berries!  All the berries!

We saw strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, elderberries, mulberries, blueberries, currents, cherries (are they technically berries?) and more berries that I've never even seen before.  Anyway, we did our questioning of the poor vendors, and we talked about what we found, then we split up.  I went with a couple dudes that wanted to take advantage of the discounted footba- soccer jerseys and fan memorabilia, before I went for lunch at the cafeteria again.

Today was some soup goop on pasta, and it did not really agree with my poor tummy.  My poor tummy is getting abused this trip with all the weird meats.  German food isn't exactly my favorite cuisine, sadly.  I like the potatoes, but the meat stuffs........... I'd rather not, and while it's not hard to find vegetarian options, I feel like I should be trying traditional stuff.

I went and bought a bag of locally roasted coffee beans :)  I was gonna get a bar of local chocolate, but decided not to.  Trying to resemble some kind of healthy eating habit, hard as it is.

And here I am.  It's hot today.  Really hot.  Like, 80 degrees.  Gee what am I saying that's not hot...