Today is day 5 in Germany. The last few days are a blur... Monday Mike went to work. He's here doing a workshop at a subsidiary of Bell. This is my interpretation, anyway.
My days start with the gym... hey, it's down across from our courtyard view... just begging me, so I go. I'm always glad when I finish. Then after a German Breakfast... the standard, eggs, bacon, toast, fruit, yogurt, cereal, juice, milk, pastries, etc... plus the additional, sauteed mushrooms, lox, pate', cheese, 6 different juices and other things I can't describe.
Shopping in the market square is so fun! No malls, just people walking around the city center or Zentrum I think it is. No cars, no noise, just people, couples, voices speaking Deutsch, walking their babies in strollers, and dogs. I've found that I duck into interesting stores to look around, AND warm up!!! It's so cold! But, it is what it is and I'll make the best of it. Hey, getting here was nearly free, so I cannot complain!
I've also found there are TWO Starbucks in the market square, and as any Starbucks, you can always find interesting people and conversations. I was lucky my first day, and found a young high school girl, Katarina who was happy to practice her English. We had a good time discussing school, customs, music and such. American music is playing here 90% of the time, its very bizaar. The younger ones are singing along and its very surreal to me. Katarina and I talked about Pink, who she is going to go see in concert soon. Her parents gave her tickets for Christmas. She was super excited. As I was about to leave, a young guy stopped me, his name was Jay, and he was here from Michigan on exchange. He had been here since September, so he told me all about what he'd learned so far. It was great to talk to both Jay and Katarina. I just love to learn how other people live!
The people have all been very nice, with team dinners the past few evenings. Monday was Pizza... at the most wonderful Italian place. It was so authentic, we felt like we were back in Italy! We're pretty adventurous, and we'll eat almost anything... but tuna on pizza... just doesn't sound good. If someone offered it, I would try it, but not order it without knowing. I'm not really sure what we ate, but it was extremely good! The word pepperoni translated to a green pepper, I suspect pepperoncini, but we asked for spicy salami... seemed to work just fine. The antipasti plate they ordered for the table was awesome! (oh, shoulda warned you... we LOVE food!)
Tuesday was another day of the same... shopping at the market square, all day, exploring all that I could see, and finding another Starbucks! I walked quite a bit farther and found another awesome old church Munsterbasilika i believe. At this new Starbucks, I met a local named Bjorn. We talked about his iPad. (Apple is always a good common interest.) He was great to talk to, and was very nice. He is an I.T. consultant and travels as well. He said that Germans actually like Americans alot. He said the British are just too hard to understand. I agree, somewhat. He gave me recommendations on restaurants, places to hit and some to miss.
I nearly got lost, but my compass app on the iPhone came in handy for the first time! I headed back at 5pm, and the main streets really got busy with cars then. Then we were off to dinner again. This time... Korean BBQ. Huh... no German yet? Seems that one of the guys in the workshop is Korean, some head of something at Hyundai/Kia and offered to order for us all. THANK GOODness! Korean dishes, in GERMAN... oh boy. It was wonderful! He told us basically it was Pork Korean BBQ, prepared right at the table. The sides are always different, and presented complementary, varying from place to place. We had Kimchi, (yes, Tome D... we tried it) and it was good.
Today... I rest...well, kind of. Before going to bed I saw that it had snowed. That light, pretty dusting of snow. This morning... as I sit here in the Waschen (laundromat) watching the locals and how they live... the sun is out, the people are out, bikes riding everywhere, people walking their dogs, and lots of people are bundled up, but carrying on like usual. It's been MANY years since I've spent time in a laundromat, but I've had my time there. So far i've spent 3.00 euro and that is cheaper than washing just one item!!! I had TWO bags to wash, so it's worth it... I think... I don't understand German, but lets hope I don't fry our clothes!
Still having problems finding my pictures and attaching them. I will continue loading all of them on my me.com site, so those of you my FB friends, can get the link there!
Oh, the clothes turned out just fine. I think I saved about $60 going and doing them myself, AND I got exercise just getting there and back!
More tomorrow! ...or Friday. Tomorrow night is bowling... #huh? I think we will move on to Koln (Cologne) Friday as Mike's workshop will be finished. After that... we shall see!
No comments:
Post a Comment