The Easter Bunny is Real and He Lives in Germany

Easter in Germany meant a few things:
1) Tricking Rebecca into attending church at four in the morning. The fact that we left at quarter to five for mass and didn't get back until eight was not lost on me. Let me reiterate. MORNING. AM. Ante Meridian.

Getting to the church there was a big bonfire outside of it, right in the middle of the street and that, my dear readers is an Easter Fire. (Easter Fire. The Germans are so creative.) The church was pitch black and from that fire all of the patrons light a candle and take it in with them, so the whole church is lit only by candle-light. At five in the morning. How did they expect me to stay awake? But I did, have no fear Mom, I was a good church-goer. However, I did find it hard to concentrate when all I could think about was, "Man is this a fire hazard!" I was not far off because a quarter of the way through the service someone bumped a candle and it went toppling to the floor amiss cries of Scheisse! Fire hazard indeed.

2) The Easter Bunny
He's alive and well in Germany. I hope he made it over to the states because I got my own little "nest" hidden here in the garden I had to find. This was, of course, after the nap I took.

3) Eggs, eggs, and more eggs. And just put a couple more in there because...Eggs.

Literally NINETY eggs were hard-boiled for a family of four. Myself being one of the four and I ate a total of five of them over the course of the weekend. I have never been good at math, so someone else work that out for me.

We turned this...

Into this..

And then finally into this...

The last one being Germans playing with their food. It's this game where you smash your egg onto someone elses egg until one cracks. The winners tastes better, I guess. My champion egg was the one that Philip made for me. In wax it said repeatedly, "Rebecca Becca Egg" That way, he said, I wouldn't forget it was mine. Or an egg.


4) Save the dancing for your jail cell

Germany is pretty uptight about Easter. They love it, it's one of their biggest holidays and it is pretty religious for them. So religious that they ban dancing and festive music on the Friday of Easter weekend. You'll find yourself with a thousand Euro fine if you do, and it's not just a silly bi-law that someone forgot to change. It was protested this year by having over a thousand people flash-mobbing the center square of Frankfurt and dancing with headphones in. It was discussed pretty heavily, even one of my classes brought it up for a good half hour. What do you guys think?

The Elite

The few. The proud. The Frisbee-ists.
 (Frisbeers? Frisbeeians? What does one call a frisbee player?) I think I joined a club or something because I keep getting invited back to play Frisbee. And not to toot my own horn, but I'm not too shabby. Not too shabby enough to have people complain about the other team gettting me and being guarded during games. Who gets guarded during an Ultimate Frisbee match? This kid. (Please don't take me too seriously, I just want to be good at a sport. Even if that sport consists of flying plastic disks.)

After the last game I went to, I was invited along afterward for a barbeque. Probably because of my extreme Frisbee throwing skills. In Germany, barbeques are just parties, but for some reason they like to say barbeque. Egal, there was much man-portioned meat and drinks to go around. I decided I would also contribute to the gluttony and baked cookies. I would say they went over pretty well.

You know that saying that money can't buy happiness? Perhaps true; however, cookies can buy friends. It was like Germans have never eaten a bunch of sugar and chocolate together. I couldn't understand it, until I saw this:

Let's play Spot the American!

You poor, poor German souls. How could you consider this a party with so many vegetables?? I'll give credit where credit is due, we ate and drank without stop until around ten at night and at the end of the night cooked bananas in the fire with chocolate shoved inside, and although delicious, a sorry excuse for sweets really. Because honestly, check out the plate. That's how they looked.

Next barbeque I'm going to introduce the s'more.

Be Cool, Stay in School

Unless that school is frightening enough to make you run out while quickly throwing glances over your shoulder to make sure the teacher isn't following screaming at you to get back in the room.

I may or may not have just bailed on my first day of real university class. Bailed. Cut class. Played hookie. Macht blau. Ran out crying like a small child. You know, whatever you want to call it.

Just for an explanation: I spent the entire morning looking for the location of this class, only to be really excited to find out it was in the castle. Yeah, a class with a moat! What could be better? I booked it to my Uni class after my language course and sat down. I was a little early and so began my observations.

-The classroom was small for so many people. Despite nearly fifteen chairs empty around me no one sat next to me, but rather chose to crowd into a corner. Scooting all their desks together. 
-The students all knew each other. As each one walked in someone would wave them over, tell a joke or otherwise speak with them.
-I was the only one wearing flip-flops.

The teacher came in shouted the German equivalent of  "Everyone, SHUT UP!" and sat down, promptly began handing out the syllabus (The proper plural form is syllabi, but spell check tells me that's wrong.) and then started counting the students. Since I was on the other side of the 'cool kids group' no papers were passed to me and I started to wonder if I forgot to put deodorant on. The teacher also noticed this and asked me why I didn't have the sheets already. I said no one passed them to me yet and she snapped back something along the lines of "Well get on it, already." I quickly walked the thousand foot gap between myself and the natives and grabbed an extra copy.

Whew. Major catastrophe adverted. Until she demanded everyone get ready for the oral presentation next week on the five books we were to have read before the lecture we should have attended. Apparently Becca missed some memos. Moby Dick sized memos.

So what did I do? Pretended to look at my watch and be surprised and rushed out the door. Then I may or may not have drowned my pain in a double cone of ice cream. Real classy, I know.

Jackalope

"The uglier the fashions, the worse places we'd have to pose to make them look good. ...It's the ugly bridesmaid tactic where you only look good by comparison."                      -Chuck Palahniuk Invisible Monsters


Ahem. Here's looking at you Germany.

Shown here: The lucrative  Durabbirrel

This was set in a display box of a watch store. Please. Someone tell me why. Normally I would just assume this was an isolated incident if I hadn't already seen it in Konstanz, Stuttgart, and now in Tübingen. By "it" I mean taxidermy-atrocities pranced next to shop items. From raccoon-owl hybrids to European mounts, jewelry to raincoats.

As some of you may already know, I dabbled in taxidermy for a good portion of my working life (...four years?) so I don't know what I'm supposed to feel toward this... Outrage? Disrespect? Admiration? Mostly I'm just confused. Is anyone else confused?

Stick it to the Man

Before coming to Germany, I needed to open up a new bank account in order to withdraw from ATMs without a fee being added. It was stupid and difficult and I learned that Bank of America has the worse customer service in the land of banking. After two hours on the phone with them, my sister and mom finally told me I was being too nice. (Really, too nice? That can be a problem in the world? What about that whole spiel of catching flies with honey? I have been lied to all my life.) Irregardless, enough said that I don't like confrontation.

Two weeks or so ago, I bought I train ticket that I was told I could refund after buying another one in Tübingen. It makes sense here, I promise. They would put the money toward my new ticket as soon as I could prove I was a student. Since I'm now officially a student, I went to the train station to get my money back. 

I was basically told I got screwed. Out of one hundred and nintey-eight dollars. Excuse me? Come again? WHAT?! I've already learned that my crocodile tears will not sway these people, so instead Nick helped me by talking and we got the same answer. No luck, Chuck.

At this point I was just ready to pay for the damned thing so I wouldn't need to buy another ticket back to the house. Nick wasn't having any of it though. He was my German-speaking avenger, since I could only blubber beyond the things I knew what to say (''No, no. The lady told me I could get a refund!'') and insults are not high on my German vocab lists...

Today we spent the entire morning calling offices, officials and clammering about the injustice done on my part. Apparentely the Germans do not care. 

I, myself, would just give up. OOOH no! That is not the German way to do things. Here, you make your complaints be heard. We are getting a lawyer, as a student the goverment will even pay for it. Yeah, go ahead and read that again... Becca's going to court. *gulp* 

So how's that for being nice, Mom? 

These are the things that students need to learn in school. How do I open a bank account? How do I book a hotel room? What do I wear to meet a lawyer? I will never forget       but will I be using the quadratic formula anytime soon?  Maybe when I become that computer engineer I've always wanted to be. (That and a princess toothfairy from outer space.) When am I going to need to learn how to act in front of a lawyer. Apparently in the next week. 

Wish me luck!