Why does the stuff in this building never work?

My electrical outlets don't work right now, but it seems like everyone else in the building has the variety that function. Hopefully it'll magically be fixed by morning... If not, then I guess I'll have to deal with the scary Hausmeister lady... Darn you electricity!!! And darn you East Germany...

Stupid building, but hey! At least nobody has flooded the second floor by playing with balls in the hallway... Well, that's actually probably because we don't have sprinklers, but we do have outside doors that open inwards! And since we're on the topic of fire hazards, somebody stole all the fire extinguishers in building. Surprisingly though, Studentwerk actually noticed this and in response, they sent us letters saying to put them back. They also said if we don't put them back, then our lives will be in danger. Well gee, like I didn't know that. Maybe they should get us new ones since it wasn't our fault that some people here suck. Also if I remember correctly, I think those extinguishers were expired anyway...

Oh, and we still have only one washer for the whole effing building. I still can't believe how there is one washer for the 300+ people that live in this building.

Well, since people will probably have to come fix my room tomorrow, I guess I should get around to cleaning it since it's terribly messy. But, it doesn't look too bad when it's clean! >Signing off. <

Weihnachtsmarkt

Today I got to visit Magdeburg's Weihnachtsmarkt, woo! Down at Alter Markt, it featured Christmas spirit good times... It had a lot of the typical German festival type stands, lots of candied nuts, alcohol, and of course, wurst! One place in particular featured a 1/2 meter of Bratwurst for 2,80 EUR. See that awesomeness!



Actually, I was surprised as to how it was actually pretty tasty! Next up we found many types of Glühwein (mulled wine) and also Eierpunsch (egg nog). Both were pretty tasty! The egg nog here, I'm pretty sure, had wine in it, which was kind of a weird taste. Between the four of us that went, we tried some Glühwein with apples, Glühwein with raspberries, and the egg nog. My favorite was the Glühwein with apples--reminded me a lot of cider. I could totally go for some cider right about now...



While we were drinking that stuff, we kept hearing this weird voice which we thought was a carnival game person that wouldn't stfu. Turns out it was a talking moose head affixed to the top of the place where we got our drinkage. It was kinda creepy... Also, since I'm on the topic of sounds, they played the most random X-mas music. It ranged anywhere from traditional German folk songs to terrible pop songs, but that just seems to be the theme of the music anywhere you go in Germany, haha.

So yeah, then after hitting up the foods, we went for the crafty stuff. Actually, there wasn't much their in terms of crafts, but there were a good amount of shops with cute Christmassy stuff in the area. The mall there was featuring a bunch of Christmas stuff as well.

So overall, I had a fun experience today! I very much enjoy Christmas, and this was a good way to get even more pumped for my return trip home! I can't wait!

Finally!

I have finally found a beer that I actually enjoy drinking. Thank you Paulaner Hefe-Weißbier!!! It's made in München, and quite tasty. One of the indications that tells me it's yummy, is that I don')t have to mix it with banana juice to enjoy... (Even though that just means it makes an even tastier Bananenhefe.) It's flavorful and refreshing, so probably why I enjoy it. It's also costs (gasp) a whole 0,66 EUR per bottle, (as apposed to 0,49 EUR, which is more standard I guess...) And yes, I think this beats Franzeskaner. Call me a n00b, but I can't help what I feel, haha.

Pair this with a tomato and mozzarella baguette and I'm good to go...

Srsly, Terre Haute...

Well I know this doesn't have anything to do with Germany, but I am going to write about it anyway, and thus marking my third (and probably last) post of the day!

So today I had a quick meeting with Dr. Jaubowski and Dr. Moore over some tasty cake and coffee. So yeah we talked about the exchange program and bla bla bla, alles egal. Oh, and the whole time they called me Christine, haha. But everyone makes that mistake so I didn't say anything. I think it's kinda funny how now I can automatically respond to that name. (Probably because half of the people at Goodyear also called me Christine...) But anyway, the one thing that I wish to recount is what I learned from Dr. J about Terre Haute. So apparently the Hautians didn't re-elect the mayor they had before because they thought he was spending too much money on unimportant things. One the unimportant things he was spending money on was the sewer system.

Most inhabitable cities have two sewer channels, one for rain drainage and one for all the poo. Turns out, Terre Haute just puts everything into one channel and sends it off to the sewage treatment place. It's not a problem though, unless it actually rains. When it rains, the sewage place can't handle the increased volume of crap, so where does it send all the overflow? Into the Wabash River, naturally. So the federal government mandated that Terre Haute had better effing fix this, cuz that's nasty and like kinda really bad for the environment. So the mayor they had before was like, yeah, ok, I guess we shouldn't be dumping a bunch of raw sewage into the river. We will fix that. However the people didn't think that was money well spent, and told him to go away.

Also, I learned a lot of the people that have a septic tank don't actually have a leech bed. They say, why need a leech bed if you've got the river for your disposal??? Gross.

So, C'MON TERRE HAUTE!!! Seriously, I mean I know I make fun of the Hautians all the time for being unintelligent, but this is the first time I think that I've come to know solid proof of it... Terre Haute, the land of Wal-Mart and

Fußball!

So then a couple weeks ago I ended getting to go to a soccer (Fußball) game! It was pretty cold that day, and when we got back, my everything was pretty numb. But yeah, so about the game.

The Europeans are known for being very devout to their favorite team, and this game was no exception. The teams were I.F.C. Magdeburg in blue and white and Union Berlin in red and yellow. Not very many Berliners were there, but the ones that were there crammed themselves together in a section and made sure everyone knew they were there. They had big, sparkly stars and instruments and sang a lot. We sat on the Magdeburg side, and the Magdeburgers had drums, but nothing quite as elaborate as the the Berliners. On the upside, there was a crap-ton more of us, but you can't see them in my picture. We ended up sitting by some really enthused people, and by really enthused, I means lots of angry German yelling, haha. But it was fine, at least we weren't by any scary Neo-Nazis or anything...

But yeah, so they tied. Magdeburg scored a goal kinda by accident in the first 10 minutes of the game. Then both teams kinda pansied around for about another 75 min, then Berlin finally got its goal in the last 5 minutes or so of the game. Yeah, so basically nobody was all that happy after the game, but I had a good time. ^_^

But the one thing that did irk me was that they ran out of the sausage I wanted. I mean, how did the Germans manage to run out of sausage??? It's almost as unimaginable as Americans running out of something we have too much of... like ignorant conservatives! But anyway, I got a hot dog instead, and it was kinda suck. I think they should just stick to making good sausage and forget the hot dogs... And next up is a cute picture of me and Emily! Yay!

First visit to Berlin

Nov. 2 marked my first visit to Berlin! (Yes, I realize that was a while ago...) Woohoo! (I don't have very many pictures because my camera died, and I haven't been able to procure more from the other people that went with me.) Overall, I think I like Berlin, but we were only there for 2 days, so I think I need to go back just to make sure, haha.



Let's see, so I guess I'll talk about what we did and saw. So we took the regional train (RE) to Berlin, which took about 2 hours. I almost missed the train because I am special like that. Luckily by chance, I got on the train the same time as the rest of my party did. (Thanks to the +1 Luck modifier I had picked up the week before, haha...) Oh, and the train smelled kind of bad... :( And I have also come to another realization, that like no high speed trains come through Magdeburg. (I wonder why that is? haha...) So yeah we got to Berlin and their station looks pretty cool as you can see there. Next stop, shopping!!!


Now Berlin is a big city, so naturally the shopping there is a good time. First stop was the KaDeWe, which is Karstadt's upscale department store. Holy crap! Everything was quite the expensive there, even the ugly, ghetto-looking stuff. There was about 8 floors? 9? 7? I forget, something around there, but it was massive. The picture I have didn't turn out that great since it was a night shot. But that's like the corner of the store, maybe that helps give a better picture as to the size of this place. Each floor was a different section of a normal department store, except this time they got a whole floor (or half) instead of a corner. Crazy capitalism!


But yeah it was sweet. Later on that night, the other monstrosity that we happened by was the Saturn, (=Best Buy). This place made me a happy Catherine... You can count from the picture as to how many floors of good times this place had. And to think, that this particular embodiment of capitalism did not accept credit cards... Crazy Germans...

After that we had some nice yum-yums at this Italian place, with this totally kick-ass pizza with fresh tomato and huge chunks of fresh mozzarella. And yeah, we saw a bunch of the monuments that were somewhat cool, but really boring to talk about. But oh! At the Brandenburg Gate, they had this Berlin Wall symbolizing thing of artwork on display. I thought it was pretty nifty-looking. So if you take a look at the my spiffy title-creation, then you see that in the background! Yay! Oh, and I also did find this awesomeness on the back of a random crosswalk light thing. And I leave you with that:

I miss Tampax

So I was doing OK with the lack of Tampax until just like, right now. As I opened up the new package of O.B. I just recently bought, a great feeling of emptiness came over me. There were no easy-open yellow wrappers, just plain, white paper wrappers. I was still hopeful though at this point, don't judge a book by its cover, right? Wrong! This does not apply to feminine hygiene! Inside, there was no absorbent braid to let you know what time it was, no easy grip applicator, and more boring white! Oh well, I should be glad these even came with applicators...

Today I also have become pro at using the post, go me!

*UPDATE!* It turns out that I'm not pro at using the post. I was a total n00b and forgot that things cost more to ship internationally. Sorry to the people who were supposed to get some 10th week love from me; what can I say, I'm good at doing stuff like that though...

And woo, last weekend I went to Berlin, but I think I'll write about it later since I only felt like complaining about (lack of) Tampax just now...