Thanksgiving 2008

Hey Everybody!

Thanksgiving 2008 was a good time with really excellent food, but also caused me some stress believe it or not.

Kate, Alissa, and I (all Americans) planned a pretty large potluck Thanksgiving at the Blue House. Warren, our brave Hall Director (or Resident Supervisor if you’re in Germany), was a professional chef at one time and made two really good turkeys. We also had three kinds of dressing (I made vegetarian), corn, green beans, sweet potatoes, corn bread, rolls, salad, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple pie, and pumpkin pie (which Kate made from a pumpkin that she bought that morning at a farmers she and I went to together. It was fun preparing everything together and teaching people from India, Trinidad, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Poland, Germany, Pakistan, and several other countries about the good parts of American Thanksgiving. We even went around the table and said what we were thankful for.

I really missed Thanksgiving with my family in Kentucky because it is usually my holiday, but this was nice. My family and I talked via Skype web cam and I got to see all of them, but it wasn’t quite the same.

It was really good food though and good company so that’s what matters.

Love,
Elizabeth

Link to lots of Thanksgiving pictures >>
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31808493&l=80ebe&id=164002077

Steffi and Alissa cooking something yummy!

Our prettily decorated table. I was sad I couldn't do placecards and menus here, but it would have been too much

There was so much good food it wouldn't fit on one plate!

Maria and Lyazzat enjoyed their first American Thanksgiving!

Mobashir and I happily enjoyed the great food!

It's Skyline Time!

Hey Everyone!

Friday night my friends and I continued our cultural explorations of food. This time I made Cincinnati Style Chili for them – with some help from my Grandma who shipped me the Cincinnati Chili seasonings.

I cooked spaghetti, chopped onions, grated Irish cheddar cheese (it is almost impossible to get cheddar cheese here for some reason – it’s strange), and cooked the chili. My gosh the chili smelled so wonderful! It smelled like home! It also made the whole floor of the building smell like chili, but that was okay. No one was upset by it. When it was all ready I showed everyone how to make 3-ways or 4-ways depending on their preferences. We finished off the meal with mints since you can’t eat Skyline without a York Peppermint Patty afterwards (or a close substitute since there are no Yorks here).

After dinner some of us stayed around and watched the classic movie “Muppet Treasure Island” that someone happened to have. We also baked cookies and sang along with a guitar (or hummed along in my case). It was a really great night – very relaxed.

While I enjoyed my Cincinnati chili very much I’m looking forward to the real stuff in 22 days!

Love,
Elizabeth






Alissa, Steffi, Maria, and Kate learned how to compile 3 and 4 ways!














A 3 Way in Bremen, Germany













Lyazzat, Maria, and Alissa with full and happy tummies

Steffi, Me, and Kate with her mint!

Hard at work on Thrilling Schillings

First Snow!

I don't have a lot to write about just yet. It snowed here though which is a big deal. Apparently we don't get snow that sticks because we are on the North Sea, but yesterday it snowed and stuck so I thought I'd share some pictures of it! It really looks like a fairy tale.

Love,
Elizabeth

Deutsches Auswanderer Haus & Salome

Hi Everyone!

Things continue to move along here in Bremen. Last week my classes were particularly interesting (which makes a nice change).

My History class (History – Writing Beyond the Nation State) went on a field trip to the Deutsches Auswanderer Haus (German Emigration Museum) in Bremerhaven. I was extremely excited about the trip because my great-grandmother left from Bremerhaven to go to America. The day of the trip I actually wore a scarf that belonged to her.

The museum was very interesting. I learned that over 7 million people left from Bremerhaven – 90% going to America, 10% going to other destinations, particularly South America. The museum is designed to show what emigrants experienced as they left Germany and to help personalize it for visitors the museum gives each an ID card of an actual emigrant and so they could track their story through the museum. Ironically I got the ID card of a 17 year old young women, Martha, who left the year after my great-grandmother and for similar reasons. Listening to Martha’s story choked me up at different parts of the tour, particularly the area designed to look like the ship’s docks and the Ellis Island area. I also saw different examples of life on the ship, heard about the examinations at Ellis Island, and saw example of what emigrants packed in luggage. The last thing at the museum was an area for people to look up ancestors or other family members. I did a search for several family names and found my grandma’s record of birth, my sisters’ birth certificates, and several other documents with family names on them. It was a really awesome experience.

The very next day I gave a presentation on Oscar Wilde’s play Salome in my Literary History class and the next evening the class went to see Richard Strauss’s opera Salome. Salome is the story of the girl who asks for John the Baptist’s head on a silver platter. The opera was done very post modernly and rather peculiar in my opinion (I really know nothing about opera though). Still, getting dressed up and going to the opera was a fun experience.

Plans are underway for an American style Thanksgiving here – I’m looking forward to that, but sad to miss my family’s Thanksgiving at home. It’ll be okay though – we’ll skype so I won’t be left out completely.

I hope things are well with each and every one of you. I’d love to hear from you if you have any time!

Love,
Elizabeth






Found my Grandma's Record of Birth!














Me, Blake, and Maria freezing in Bremerhaven












Outside of the German Emigration Museum there are these stones with people's names, the year they left Germany, and where they went to.











The Deutsches Auswanderer Haus or German Emigration Museum

Halloween - Election Night - Deepawali

Hey everyone!

It’s been a couple of weeks since I updated and lots of exciting things have happened so I thought I should probably update y’all.

Halloween, to everyone who isn’t from the States, is not a big deal. It was definitely an insistence of culture shock for me. Halloween is not my favorite holiday, but I’m used to pumpkins and costumes everywhere, candy, and lots of black and orange. No one dressed up on campus or anything. There were scary stories being told in one of the residence halls (or colleges as they’re called at Jacobs) and a costume party the day after Halloween, but nothing on Halloween night. Fortunately the Blue House came through with pumpkin carving (apparently the Resident Supervisor had to travel way out into the country and buy the pumpkins from a farmer because they aren’t sold in stores here) and a scary movie so old that it was funny. I was feeling pretty awful Halloween night so I carved a pumpkin then went to bed around 11. It was rather odd. For those of you in the States, I’m still waiting for pictures of a good, old fashioned Halloween. ;)

The next big thing here was Election Night. The US elections were a huge deal on the Jacobs campus and in Germany in general. There were several parties I heard about and considered going to, but in the end I decided to go to a party at the Yellow House (another university owned house). My friends Kate, Alissa, and I were the only two Americans there and at one point someone said how exciting it was that there were “real Americans” there. I got there about 8:30 pm (2:30 pm Kentucky time). We watched internet videos of things related to the election like “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and JibJab’s “Time for Some Campaignin’”.

At midnight here the first polls started to close in the US so we switched to CNN. Incredibly, Kentucky was the first state reported on, so that was pretty darn cool. However it was a red state which didn’t make any of us at the party happy. We spent the next 5 hours glued to CNN, impressed with the holograms (that was just cool), the graphics, and that map that allows you to see what each state was called. We were all thrilled when Obama was declared the President Elect. Around 5 am the buses started running again so my friend Kate and I ended up getting home around 5:15 in the morning. I went to bed around 6 am after watching part of McCain’s concession speech. It was just an incredible night. I’m still sad I wasn’t able to get my absentee ballot to vote properly and to be in the States for this historic election, but it was pretty darn cool to be in Germany for this. Everyone here loves Obama. People I don’t know are still coming up to me and congratulating me on Obama’s victory. It’s a bit surreal.

Election night was Tuesday and Sunday the Jacobs campus celebrated Deepawali, or the Hindu Festival of Lights. Deepawali is a Hindu festival that celebrates the triumph of Good over Evil and the goddess Loxmi. To celebrate the Indian and Nepali students had a day where they taught anyone who wanted to learn some yoga-mediatation, pottery, painted henna on people, made rangoli designs (colorful, symmetric designs made out of colored sand or rice), gave a presentation on why they celebrate Deepawali, performed Indian and Nepali folk dances and songs, and finished it by cooking huge amounts of traditional food for everyone. It was the first time that I tried curry and liked it. I also really like the dahl surprisingly (a kind of spicy soup). I did not like the coconut chutney. Oh well. I think that’s an acquired taste. I did get henna painted on my hand and arm and am loving it. It’s way better than the henna you can get on vacations.

I’ll put some more of my adventures in another post. I hope that everything is going well with yall and that your Halloweens and Election nights were happy.

Love,
Bits







My friends Alina from Romania, Maria from Trinidad, and I at a restaurant













My friend Maria and I dressed up for a concert for Gambia

My freshly henna-ed arm - don't worry it'll fade in 2 - 3 weeks

Saturday and Sunday in Berlin

Saturday I woke up early and had breakfast with people from Ecuador and Peru who were studying in Barcelona and had come to Berlin for the weekend – this is when I realized how international my life had become.

The Three Little Pigs hostel is part of the New Berlin Tours. New Berlin (or New whatever city you happen to be staying in) is a really great program where guide pick people up from the hostels and take them to a central meeting spot. From the meeting spot there are free tours around the city in either Spanish or English. It’s a three and half hour walking tour and pretty darn amazing. The program believes everyone deserves a tour of the city regardless of their financial status so the tour guides only work on tips.

My tour guide, Colin, was from Scotland and excellent at his job. He was able to be funny at times and somber at others which is completely appropriate for the city of Berlin.

We started at the Brandenburg Gate where I learned about the history of the statue on top of the gate. It was first a symbol of peace with the goddess on top holding an olive branch. When Napoleon conquered Berlin he took the statue back to France with him as a spoil of war. Once the Germans got her back they changed the olive branch to a spear, tilted her head so she’s looking at the French Embassy, and changed her name to Victoria, making her the goddess of victory. To add insult to injury the Germans renamed the square “Pariser Platz” – and who says those Germans don’t have a sense of humor?

From the Brandenburg Gate we headed to the Reichstag, the German Parliament Building, where I learned how the building was set on fire under suspicious circumstances during Hitler’s early reign. We also saw the memorial to the politicians who had been killed by the Nazis.

We walked through the Tiergarten (a large park) to the Jewish Memorial. This time instead of just wandering around I was able to hear analysis of the blocks and learned how the memorial was purposely left open to interpretation. They varying sizes of the blocks from flat to 2.6 meters high (8.5 feet) can represent a graveyard, the rise and fall of anti-Semitism, the train cars that took the Jews away, or anything else. My initial impression was of a mountain. We took some time at the memorial for reflection.

After the memorial we moved to the spot where Hitler’s secret bunker (obviously not so secret anymore). This is the place where Hitler and his wife, Eva, committed suicide. The actual bunker is not open and probably will never be open for visitors. The German government is afraid that the neo-Nazis or a similar group will turn it into a shrine or rallying point. Today there is just a sign over the spot marking it.

From the bunker we moved on to the last Nazi building standing. This building is massive, dark, and designed to make people feel insignificant. It was originally used as Luftwaffe Headquarters by the Nazis. When the communists took over it became their Ministry of Ministries (they approved of the looking, dark architecture). During the communist era a huge mural was painted on the side of building showing the joys of communism. Today the mural is still there and mirroring it is a memorial to those who protested communism in the East Germany the exact same size of the mural. It is very thought provoking. Today the building the is German tax building – clearly this building will always be used for evil purposes.

Next we looked at a section of the Berlin Wall that was next to the evil building and learned that there were actually two walls – an inner and an outer wall with the “death strip” in between them. The walls had sewage pipe along the top which was apparently more effective than barbed wife for deterring people from escaping. The death strip had sand or gravel to slow people down, land mines, and armed guard towers every 150 meters that held guards with shoot-to-kill orders. Friendly place to say the least.

We moved on to Checkpoint Charlie again and heard about a couple of successful escape stories, but also the story of a young man who bled to death in the death strip. He was shot by the communists and the people on the West Berliners were unable to reach him.

After a brief lunch we headed to Gendarmenmarkt to see the French Cathedral, the German Cathedal, the Konzerthaus (Concert Hall), and a statue of Schiller, the guy who wrote lyrics to Ode to Joy. It was lovely.

From there we walked to Bebelplatz where the Nazis burned over 20,000 books from the Humboldt University library. They burned books by Jewish, Gypsy, homosexuals as well as any books that had ideas that the Nazis considered inflammatory. This is where I cried. I cannot imagine people suppressing ideas and knowledge just because it is contradictory to what they believe. There is a memorial to the books, some of them centuries old and completely irreplaceable. There is also a plaque with an 1820 quote from Heinrich Heine, “Where they burn books, they also burn people”. It was very moving for me.

We passed by Humboldt University and headed to Neue Wache, the memorial to all those killed in the name of fascism and tyranny which is also moving. Inside the building there is a pieta, a mother holding her dying son by artist Käthe Kollwitz.

The last stop on our tour was the Museum Island – obviously lots of museums there and the Berlin Cathedral. Colin, the tour guide, told us the dramatic story of how the Berlin Wall came down and pointed out his favorite museum. The group split up and I ended up going up and down a street fair, doing some shopping. It was really nice just to wander a little bit.

After picking out some Christmas gifts I went to the German History Museum which was really cool. There were lots of early Catholic artifacts that featured women on them which was sort of unusual, but I loved looking and learning.

I decided to make my way to the East Side Gallery which is part of the Berlin Wall that has political art painted on the sides. It took me a little while to get there and by the time I did it was getting dark, threatening to rain, and not in the best area of town, so I looked briefly then decided I would move on to the Hard Rock Café of the far, far side of town.

Getting to the Hard Rock Café turned out to be quite the adventure. First it involved me figuring out Berlin’s public transportation system which is never a strong point for me. I managed to get off at the right stop, but took a wrong turn and ended up in Berlin’s Red Light District. Managed to find my from there to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and another street fair, which was very interesting, but not the Hard Rock Café. After asking about 4 times for directions I managed to get there and was so happy to be there. I got an American Cheeseburger, onion rings, and a virgin daiquiri. It was delightful. After that I got my Berlin Hard Rock Café souvenir shirt and very happily headed back to my hostel. It was about 10:30 by the time I got back there and I collapsed from tiredness.


Sunday was a quieter day. I woke up late and went back to see the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church during the day. The KWMC is a church that was bombed during World War II and never rebuilt. Instead it was preserved as a memorial to loss. I picked the one day of the week to go when it was closed, but it was very pretty look at from the outside and I am glad I got to see it.

My next big adventure was getting home – it involved four trains and took about 6 hours. By the time I got home to Vegesack, my little area of Bremen, I was completely exhausted.

Over all I have some great memories of Berlin and am so impressed by the town. I learned so much and was overwhelmed by the amount of history crammed into one town. I’d like to go back some day.

Much love you all.
Ebits


PS - I took over a hundred pictures and the best ones you can see by clicking these links:


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059239&l=64870&id=164002077

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059286&l=3da9c&id=164002077