Thanksgiving Dinner

I just made my first thanksgiving dinner and the pressure has been replaced with pride.

Here we see the kitchen setup

and the turkey breast in the oven (we were just three for dinner)

some Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes

Carrots and stuffing

And the light/fan over the oven where I put my sticky-note recipes!

And the table setup

And my plate

And dessert! (orange juice and ice cream, with some color just for fun)

Oh yeah the sweet potatoes called for marshmallows, and our marshmallows happened to be smurfs so there's some blue in there.

And these are the leftovers!

Winter is Coming

Today we had our third frost of the season. The ground didn't even bother to thaw itself out.

Ewigkeitssonntag

Today is Ewigkeitssonntag (Eternity Sunday), also known as Totensonntag (Dead Sunday), the day we take to think about those who have passed away in the last year. Every church has a service for it and reads all the names of locals who died in the last year, lighting a candle for each one, or provides an opportunity for loved ones to light a candle for those who are missed. These are the candles in our church in Schönberg.

Nesting

This little bird was outside my window a few days ago.

I think he was hopping around collecting nest materials.

He had a friend.

Pasta

Earlier this month we made pasta, like handmade from scratch. It was a lot of work, but tasted good. Unfortunately this pasta bow here is the only survivor. Everything we didn't cook and eat that night (with the cheese sauce also seen here) we set out to dry but not spaced out enough, and it got moldy...

I Can't Help but Notice

We've had a few tests so far and we're getting them back all graded and everything, and I've realized something:

When the students here ask each other what grade they got, it's not to see whose is better, it's not for bragging rights. The real question is, "Did you understand the test/what we've been doing in this class?" which is indirectly checking who could use some help and who you might want to study with next time. The thing about No Child Left Behind is that the "children," a loosely used term in my opinion, can look out for each other. It's a lot more efficient for a classroom to look out for its own kids and make sure they're there than for the principal to walk around and take role at the beginning of every class himself, and likewise more efficient for the teacher or even the students themselves to grade homework or classwork than sending it all to some plant in who-knows-where that does some *magical* process to come up with a way to grade a brain, what we're supposed to be learning every year, semester, day. I cannot tell you what I will learn each day, only the subjects of the classes I will be attending. I couldn't have know the day I learned to ride a bike with no handlebars that I would finally get it that day. I have gone to the same lessons as my peers for many years and we have definitely not picked up the same things. Whether it's a personal choice, what a person learns, or simply a result of how their brain works combined with how the lesson is taught, I couldn't tell you for sure. But not all brains work the same -- some write, some draw, some sing, some connect the dots -- so why do we try to teach them the same? Teach the teachers to explain in drawings and words, or any visual at all, teach them to be interested in how this year's students learn, differentiate the teaching method a little each year (it makes the worksheets harder to Google). Put some money into the teaching system, and not in tuition, take the tax money out of all these new wars and political drama (many of which are real problems regardless of whether we treat them as such), and invest more in the people who will grow up and be able to solve them and your money issues. Put music programs back in elementary schools, don't force them but present it as an opportunity for multilingualism (it is another language, I hope you know that), or make it cultural or whatever makes you feel like it has "learning value" *(or whatever it could possibly be so lacking in that got it cut entirely). Teach kids everything you find good in life, show them what it is to love what you do (they may know more about it than you do but it helps to reinforce these things). I hear it all the time, "Growing up sucks." It doesn't have to!

Bonfire 23.8.2013

Here are a few pictures from that bonfire a long time ago.

On the left is Isa, she did an exchange last year.

I put my hood up because it was windy and cold. (That's me on the right).

Aren't we beautiful!

From left to right: Lonne, Rike, Anna

Oh and the sausages. Those burned a little...

Anna likes her beer.

Have I told you guys how cool Lonne is yet? She's the "I second that" when it comes to not wanting alcohol and the like, and it's really nice I think that the friends I have here are cool about that, you're allowed to say no to stuff and not be inherently excluded. I mean we're friends, not a cult. It's about being real with each other, not doing whatever is "popular" nowadays, and honestly I've never felt so close to a group of people before and it makes me really happy to be here, because they are here too.

Strandkorb

So there are this thing here called a "Strandkorb," literally translating to "beach basket" and they're really nice. Here's how they work:

It starts out as a compact box, all tucked away and locked so nobody else can sit in it because we rent it for the year.

Then you unlock it and you can take out these cool footrests!

And then you mess with these little settings on either side and...

Reclining action! Yeah, they can lean back.

And then there's a little shade thing in case the sun is in your eyes once you position it to block the wind just right.

Small enough to move by yourself but always nice to share with someone else! :)

Also has a little shelf in case you want to set something down like cookies.

We brushed off the sand and read some more Tintenherz.

Then observed all the windsurfers on this windy day.

They're like little eyebrows...

the banner at the end of the "Sea Bridge"

Flags in front of the Sea Bridge

Sunset behind the flags and our bikes.

and of course the statue.

Oktoberfest Abend

 On October 4th, we had a little "Oktoberfest" evening with my two host families and a friend-family of ours. I didn't take a picture before we ate all the Bretzels and Weisswurst and Sauerkraut (with bacon and pineapple mixed in), and little gummies and pretzels to munch on afterwards as the conversation went on longer than our appetites. But it was a king's supper shared among us peasants at our fancy table with its traditional decor.

This was the drink selection, I managed to get a picture of it afterwards. To the left you can see the beloved Breakfast Nutella, but that's a year-round feature.

A Cliche

The grass is greener up here where it does the rain thing.

Heidkate Sunrise

On our Gospelchor weekend in Heidkate, I saw the sunrise and it was beautiful so here are pictures!

Down there you can see the little house we were staying in, and the surrounding cars.

These are Strandkorbs. A separate post about those is on the way.

and a close-up of the cars

one of them is still decorated for Wacken

I'm not a morning person, I'm a sunrise person.