Baggers und Apfelmus
Posted: September 20, 2015 Filed under: A Dork's Guide to Fulbright, The Diary of a Dork | Tags: food 1 Comment »Hi, I’m the Dork and I like food. Like, alot. And food is a big part of a culture, too. Every country, state, city, even individual families have their own ‘traditions’ about food, what you eat, how you make it, and who you eat it with.
Basically I’m excusing the fact that I talk about food so much. Bear with me here.
I’m a Yankee!
Posted: September 20, 2015 Filed under: A Dork's Guide to Fulbright, The Diary of a Dork 1 Comment »I got called a Yankee at school last week in one of the classes I was observing- but it wasn’t because I’m from America.
Cooking American in Germany: Meatloaf Edition
Posted: September 11, 2015 Filed under: The Diary of a Dork | Tags: kitchen misadventures Leave a comment »So if you’ve talked to me face-to-face/screen within the last week you probably heard me say that I need a hobby that I can do that doesn’t involve stuffing my face. Because let’s be honest, I could eat 24/7. I did buy a second-hand bike earlier this week, and it’s been really nice to have so far, even though the brakes are basically shot. (I can slow down… and that’s about it. Enter the Flintstones braking method.)
Otherwise, until I can get to into a library, start teaching, and perhaps join a choir, I’ve noticed that I have a lot of empty free time on my hands, especially when my roommate works nights. Maybe even after all three of those things start happening, I may still find extra time that I don’t know what to do with. I can’t travel EVERY week, because I’m keeping an eye on my budget, particularly as I likely won’t be paid for another month. The choir class, if I get it squared away, doesn’t begin until mid-October. I don’t start teaching for another two weeks.
SO, introducing a new section of my blog, where instead of eating food…. I write about it. That’s right, recipe time. Read the rest of this entry »
Was essen wir in den USA?
Posted: September 8, 2015 Filed under: A Dork's Guide to Fulbright, The Diary of a Dork Leave a comment »On the weekend I went to a big shopping center with my roommate (essentially a mall) that had a big grocery store (kind of like a Super Target). It’s a bit farther away than the other smaller grocery stores I’ve been to, but it was worth it because I bought the makings of guacamole, french toast, one-eyed sandwiches (egg-in-a-basket), and meatloaf, ‘typical’ American dishes I wanted to introduce my roommate to. Read the rest of this entry »
My Tips For Traveling In Europe(Germany)
Posted: February 28, 2014 Filed under: The Diary of a Dork Leave a comment »This is a bit (ok, alot) belated, as I’ve been home from study abroad since July, but better late than never! After spending five weeks in Germany, Austria, and a short time in the Netherlands, these are a few things as inexperienced college student might be able to offer in the way of traveling tips.
1. Bring an umbrella. Seriously. Everywhere. Read the rest of this entry »
Day 7, Of Scarves
Posted: June 1, 2013 Filed under: The Diary of a Dork 10 Comments »So I’m skipping a day of blog to go back and write up later when I’ve had a chance to upload more pictures. It’s a pain in the butt to do because the internet times out every few minutes on my little tablet and I have to keep signing back in, so I can’t just leave it alone for an hour to upload all the photos at once. So anyway, Munich adventures will be posted tomorrow probably.
Today my roommate and I stuck around Regensburg. I wanted to go see Kuchlbauer Tower, a weird little building that’s part of a brewery not far from here (it’s super odd-looking, look it up (apparently, the man who commisioned it wanted “a tower for his gnomes”. Wut.)) but the only way to get to it is by car, and a taxi ride that far would have been too expensive. Instead, we walked around Regensburg for a while. We went to Pustet, the big bookstore here, and got our books for class. Then we went shopping for fun and let me say, Europeans pay way too much for their clothes.
I’ve noticed that Europeans, or at least Germans, care more about fashion than the average American. Or maybe just more than me. They seem to focus more on the material and the brand than Americans do, and they have a huge thing for scarves. They wear scarves in all seasons, both men and woman, and I’ve seen silk scarves for sale in the department store here for 120 Euros. Maybe I’m just in the wrong station of life to really know how I feel about how much money to spend on clothes, but still, 120 for one scarf?
I could eat for a few days here with that.
Speaking of eating, I have been taking pictures of some of the traditional Bavarian fare I’ve had (and some of the non-Bavarian Indian and Turkish food) but it’s mostly been with my iPod which has a crappy camera. I will try to get pictures on the actual camera to maybe show some of traditional dishes here on my blog on an upcoming post about food (yay food!).
PS- It has rained so much that the Donau (Danube) is apparently flooding and the some of the shops by the river have been blocked off.
Day 5, Of Fronleichnam
Posted: May 31, 2013 Filed under: The Diary of a Dork 4 Comments »This Thursday was Maundy (sp?) Thursday, or Corpus Christi, and apparently it is a much bigger deal in Europe than in America, maybe because a larger percentage of people where I am right now are Catholic than at home. Everything was closed again for the holy day (very few shops were open, the streets were much less busy) and we attended some of the goings on as part of our cultural class.
While I’m not exactly sure what Corpus Christi is about (EDIT: I did a little research and it is about celebrating the tradition surrounding the Eucharist and I think it’s called “grün Donnerstag” or Fronleichnam in German), this is the gist of what I understood about the day’s happenings. First, there is mass in the Regensburg Dom, which we attended. Except for being entirely in German and held in a centuries old cathedral, it seemed very similar to other masses I have attended in America. I could understand a fair bit of it and even recognized which story from the scripture they were using.
Afterward there was a procession through Regensburg with six altars set up at different areas around the city. The people were supposed to attend them in a certain order I think, depending on what group they belonged to (parents with small children, student groups like fraternities, etc) and then the procession would end at another church with a different service. I left after the first mass because I had class and I don’t know what you were actually supposed to do at the altars, but it was pretty interesting to see how many people showed up for the whole thing. It was taken very seriously.I also got to see the Regensburg boy’s choir for free, since they sang at mass.
It would have been really bad manners to take pictures during mass, so here's a bad photo of the outside of the Dom.
This is one of the altars set up around Regensburg.
News!
Posted: April 3, 2013 Filed under: The Diary of a Dork Leave a comment »So I’ve gotten out of the habit of posting anything at all here. Seriously, it’s into the fourth month of 2013 and I’ve put nothing up. So here goes.
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Hey look, a blog post!
Posted: December 19, 2012 Filed under: The Diary of a Dork, The Diary of a Dork: University Edition 1 Comment »Finals are over and I’m done with the first half of sophomore year! (My last final was this morning at seven-thirty, so forgive the lackluster title- I’m a bit brain-dead.)
Taking this many German classes at once was a bit strenuous. So, of course, I’m doing it again next semester. I think I learned a lot though, so we’ll see how next semester goes.
One course that I just finished was probably the hardest college class I’ve taken yet, and I went into it thinking it would be the easiest (cue panic in the first week of September when I realized I was wrong, horribly wrong…) because I had the same teacher my first semester. I had more years of German than almost everyone in that first class, so it wasn’t very difficult. I assumed the same of the class I took this semester and ended up being wrong. The focus was writing in German, not something I’ve ever been particularly good at, and we have five in-class essays instead of tests and one take home essay for extra credit. I already wrote yet another essay for an honors project. Anyway, it was a lot of writing, and it gave me a lot of much-needed practice. Hopefully some of it sticks, since I’m taking two German Lit classes in the spring semester.
Since this blog is about being a dork, I should probably mention that The Hobbit came out last weekend and I want to see it. (And also Les Miserables, which comes out soon.) I decided to reread the book (The Hobbit, not Les Miserables (which is really, really long)) since the movie came out and ended up finishing it in a day, so I moved on to the rest of the LoTR books. Since I had so much free time while studying for finals. Haha.
I don’t understand how Peter Jackson plans on making this into three movies. There was a lot going on in The Hobbit, yes, and two movies, I could see. But three? As my brother would say, Jackson probably just wants to add an extra layer of carpet to his money castle. I mean, the three books in the LoTR trilogy were made into only three movies, so why make The Hobbit into three when it’s just one book (and the shortest!)? Apparently some fans are even afraid that he’s going to stray too much from the “spirit of Tolkien” to make it long enough. I guess I’ll have to make my own opinion when I see it.
It doesn’t really feel like Christmas yet for some reason, but I think that’s because I’ve been busy with school. We have family coming in this weekend (yay!) and I need to clean off my desk (not so yay!) and this post got ramble-y so I’m going to be done now and get rid of all these old notes to make room for next semester’s work!
Merry Christmas!
So It’s Been a While…
Posted: August 14, 2012 Filed under: The Diary of a Dork, The Diary of a Dork: University Edition 2 Comments »So it’s been a while since I last posted. Here’s a quick re-cap, which I’m sure you’ll find fascinating.
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