Days and Days of Holidays / Feelin' Hot Hot Hot / "Scottisch"

Recently I’ve been feeling like I have fewer and fewer funny stories to share on the blog. While this slightly disappointing, as I personally live for the awkward moments in life, I think it might be a sign that I’m pretty darn well adjusted to life here. The cultural mishaps are few and far between (knock on wood), and awkward situations just don’t fluster me anymore (in fact, they’re to be expected). 

This past month was a busy one for traveling, as I visited two countries I’ve never been to before: Switzerland and Scotland. The trips to those two countries were the last two outside of Germany I had planned, and I plan to spend the rest of my remaining time here (less than two months!) in Germany.

My Dad came to visit at the beginning of May, and it was great to show him all the sights in Munich that were much less attractive at the end of December when the whole family came to visit. Some highlights were: having dinner and then ice cream together with Ana and Christy; finding the zipline near Alte Heide and each taking a few rides on it (it was the perfect time, according to Dad: “after the kids are in bed and before the gangs come out.” Not sure how many gangs come out in a small neighborhood near Alte Heide in Munich, but hey, better safe than sorry I guess); meeting Corinna for breakfast at Café Rischart overlooking Viktualienmarkt, me attempting to give my presentation on the Frauenkirche in English for my Dad (it’s such a struggle to talk about something in English when you only know the vocab words in German); checking out some of the more well-known churches in Munich; having a beer and pretzel at the Chinesischer Turm beer garden; lots and lots of walking; and of course our weekend trip to Switzerland.

Lake Zurich  Complete with  Rainbow

We were in Switzerland for no more than 36 hours, and I think we really made the most of it. We took the ferry out onto Lake Zurich in the evening on Saturday and enjoyed the beautiful sunset from the boat. The weather was very unpredictable that evening, but the mix of rain and sun made for some beautiful pictures – we were even treated to a rainbow at one point! Dad enjoyed checking off each and every stop the ferry made (there were a lot) and tracked out progress the whole way with his four-color pen. Perhaps one of my favorite things about traveling with Dad though was getting to be so silly and touristy together – I can’t really open up an arm span-width map in Munich anymore without feeling sheepish, but it was perfectly acceptable to be doing that in Zurich. On Sunday morning, we had breakfast in a Café near the hotel where I ordered a Kaffee Crème (a black coffee that comes with cream on the side). The small, brown container that the cream was different than what I am used to though – I’m used to getting a small, thin-walled plastic container, usually with a peel-off lid. This container though, seemed to have a thicker brown wall holding the cream in, and was served without a lid. Being the curious, touch-sense-oriented person that I am (I always have to run my hands over all the interestingly textured pieces of clothing in stores as I pass by), and guessing (incorrectly, as I would soon find out) that the cream container was made out of a bendy rubber material, I gave it a pinch to test my theory. Bad idea. All of a sudden, cream flew in every direction possible – it spewed onto my black sweatshirt (the cow look is in, right?), got on my legs, in my hair, on my face, and on the floor.  Pretty impressive it got to so many places on or around me, considering there really wasn’t that much cream in the cream container that was, well, made out of CHOCOLATE. Dad quickly passed me all the napkins available as I silently shouted, Bridemaids-style, “Look away!” and managed to get it all cleaned up fairly quickly  before anyone saw. I felt rather dumb, but I guess if splashed creamer is the worst thing that happens to you traveling internationally, you’re not doing too badly for yourself. The rest of the day went smoothly, and after checking out Rhein Falls (apparently the biggest falls in Europe, although Niagara Falls really puts them to shame), we did a hike through some vineyards in the nearby towns. We nearly got lost multiple times, but we made it back in plenty of time to catch the bus back to Munich. It was so peaceful hiking through the open fields and vineyards of Switzerland, probably especially so because it was a Sunday, and we could even see the Alps in the distance as we hiked – very picturesque, indeed.

Lake Zurich

May (and early June) have been filled with holidays. I had off pretty much every Catholic holiday because Bavaria is very Catholic: I had off two separate Thursdays (and thus ended up with two four-day weekends, since I never have classes on Fridays) and also had one five-day weekend due to Pentecost and the days off we were granted for that. A five-day weekend - funny concept, right? Even funnier though, is that it made for a two-day week immediately following it. :D

 Trotternish Peninsula on the Isle Of Skye

Anyways,  knowing that the long Pentecost weekend would be my last chance to do a long trip somewhere in Europe, I booked a trip to Scotland. Many people have asked me, “Why Scotland?” and I guess it’s a fair question - usually I have very concrete reasons for most things I do in my life. But this time, I really can’t say why exactly I went to Scotland - somehow, I was just drawn to it. Perhaps it was because of my childhood, spent watching the movie Brigadoon instead of the Disney classics. The movie is about a magical town in Scotland that only wakes up every one hundred years and is made up of lots of singing, dancing, kilts, etc. – can you see how that could enchant five year old me? Or maybe I felt drawn to it because I have a little Scottish blood in me. Who knows - I think it’s probably a mixture of both. Regardless, the country was all I expected it to be and more. It was magical, just like in the movie (gotta love it when reality mimics fiction). After staying in Edinburgh one night, I went on a three day guided bus tour into the Highlands to see Loch Ness and the Isle of Skye. The tour was designed for young people, ages 18-30, and was led our tour guide/bus driver Tim who wore a kilt and played Scottish music on the bus’s speakers as we rolled through Scotland's hilly landscape. We saw far more sights than I would have ever seen had I planned a trip like that on my own, and I learned so much. I especially loved learning about all the symbolism in the jewelry, textiles, etc, and by people watching, I determined that it's probably fair to say that the Scottish kilt/tartans can be compared to Bavarian Tracht (Lederhosen, Dirndl, etc.): some people wear their traditional outfits on the streets just for fun, some don't, and both are fairly normal occurrences.

World Peace Tartan (Photo:
 http://princeofscots.com/news/wp-content/uploads/
2013/10/World-Peace-Tartan-Ad.png)

After the trip ended, I stayed in Edinburgh one more night before I had to fly back to Munich, which gave me the chance to check out the textile mill near my hostel.
I got to learn a little more about the tartans and see the weaving machines at work, and learned that there is something called the world peace tartan, which "was created to promote a global message of peace." Here's the explanation as to what the colors represent: "the striking light blue in the design is representative of the presence, hope and potential of the United Nations. Scotland is represented at the heart of this enterprise through the purple and green of the Scottish thistle. The red and black in the design represent and remind us of the realities of war and violence and the great need for a new living culture of nonviolence with the white running through the pattern proving a counterbalance in being symbolic of peace and light"(http://www.heritageofscotland.com/world_peace_tartan).  I think it's a really beautiful idea, as well as a beautiful tartan.

Edinburgh at Sunset (which was around 10 pm,  due it being located so far north!)

The stage in front of my building, Orange House,
 for StuStaCulum. I live on the other side, luckily!

Last but not least, this past weekend was StuStaCulum (StudentenStadtSpektaculem),  which took place over a four-day weekend that ended up being filled with unending sun, lots of humidity, and a severe lack of AC (or airflow in my room in general, for that matter).The long weekend's beautiful weather was fun for a while, don't get me wrong: I spent time reading in the English Garden, listening to live bands perform right in my apartment complex, dancing to the music of an great a Capella group, and swimming in the Eisbach. (The Eisbach is what I would call Mother Nature's hop on/hop off lazy river located in the English Garden, aka my backyard: you float/paddle down the river with the help of its very strong current and then hop out at a good stopping point, walk back to where you started, and do it again. Sound like fun? It is!

Starting the ride down the Eisbach

The problem with the sunny weather is that my room bakes in the sun from approximately 4 pm to 10 pm, making it hard to function and, more specifically, breathe. Luckily, it rained this morning, clearing out the air a bit, but I am certainly doing the rain dance and not the sun one. I have to admit, I really miss the brutally cold air conditioning of the U.S. 

I suppose it won't be long now though 'til I open the garage door into a freezing cold American house, my house. I just calculated it - I only have six more weekends here, and then I'll be home. It's going to be bittersweet, that's for sure, and the adjustment perhaps a wee bit harder than I initially thought: I realized while writing this that I don't know how to spell "Scottish" in English anymore (I kept typing it as "Scottisch," because I am so used to the "sh" sound being spelled as "sch"). I also discovered that I don't know the English names of everyday kitchen utensils anymore - while making a list of things that I want to sell to incoming JYMers, I had no choice but to google image search "everyday kitchen utensils" (complete with labels of course), because I, try as I might, could not think of the word for "spatula"(a super advanced word, I know, I know).

So maybe there's hope for the awkward, cultural struggle stories that I miss so much. I think they'll be back in a month or two - in English in the U.S. Do have patience with me, if so.

Ciao Ciao for now!