Thanksgiving in Germany

Want to hear a fun fact? Thanksgiving week last year, I read The Martian by Andy Weir. It’s an excellent book, I highly recommend it. Well, this year, the day after Thanksgiving, I finally watched the movie. I noticed it on Netflix, and the timing just felt right. Now I’m wondering if I should make this some kind of personal Thanksgiving tradition. Every year watch or read The Martian. I don’t know, but it’s an idea.

Money add then multiply, I call it mathemathematics

This ruler on this tree trunk marked important landmarks along its rings. Highlights: the light bulb (1854) and Playmobil (1974).

I will be the first to say that a math museum doesn’t exactly sound like fun. Just about everyone who knows me knows that math has never been “my thing.” (I mean, one of the nice things about the Comm and German majors is that I hardly ever have to do math).

I signed up for the International Office trip to the Mathematikum without really paying attention. In my defense, spots for all of the events were filling up fast, and it was better to go ahead and sign up rather than stop to go do a lot of research on what each event involved.

That being said, Mathematikum Gießen was incredibly fun. It didn’t have many exhibits in the way of “history of math.” Instead, the museum focused on showing mathematical concepts interactively.

It really reminded me of the Strong Museum and the Rochester Museum and Science Center. Those two museums have always held a special place in my heart, a result of going to them for years as a kid. And while normal museums can definitely be fun, what made those museums so fantastic was that we could learn in a hands-on way. You don’t just read about what a glacier is — you climb through tunnels to feel like you’re inside of one. You don’t just read about how a canal works — you operate a mini-canal system yourself.

That’s how Mathematikum was, too. All of the exhibits were things you could interact with, from square wheels to ropes you wrap around a shape, to plucking a string to see how it sounds. Beside each exhibit, a small plaque explained what to do and the mathematical concept behind it. This one was one of my favorites: the machine that only has one function (video).

A Red Carpet Event

The dining room, all ready for the party!

I’ve been sworn to secrecy about the first half of the Winterfest party, but I will say that it was a lot of fun and gave me a new sort of appreciation about living here.

As for the part of the Winterfest party that the newbies planned, it went really well! Our theme for the party was basically Hollywood. A few weeks ago, we assigned everyone in the castle a different movie character that they had to dress up as for the party. Everyone kinda arrived expecting a theme related to the character type they were assigned. For some, that was Lord of the Rings. For others, it was Pirates of the Carribean, or Alice in Wonderland. (There were, of course, more films and movies than what I just listed. Those were just the biggest groups.) I dressed up as Anna from Frozen.

We made a ton of food for the party. I helped make chocolate chip cookies, using the Nestle Toll House recipe. Some of the ingredients here, most notably brown sugar, are different than they are in America. The brown sugar had a larger grain than American brown sugar, and couldn’t be packed. There were a couple of other adjustments we made to the recipe, and the cookies didn’t spread out while they baked at all. While the cookies still tasted okay, they also didn’t taste exactly right. All I can say is I look forward to baking a lot of cookies when I get back to the States.

After the party, several of the movie posters made their way to the wall outside of my kitchen.

We decorated the dining room with balloons, cardboard stars spray-painted gold with people’s names on them. One person even photo-shopped film posters to have with peoples’ faces over their assigned character’s. I put Culinary 101 to use and folded about 60 napkins into fancy shapes to decorate the plates. And of course, we laid out a red carpet for the entrance.

And they sure did dress up! A lot of people went all out with their costumes, it was impressive. While my costume was more of a casual, Disney-bounding style costume, the girl who dressed as Elsa had a full cosplay. Though to be fair, I’m pretty sure we gave her that character because she already had a full Elsa cosplay.

We played a couple of games, ate dinner, and then there was music and dancing. It was a really fun night, and the month of planning paid off.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Photo credit here goes to Dottie! I completely forgot to take photos at Thanksgiving, though I remembered to take a short video for a surprise project.

It’s apparently a tradition for the BCA program at Marburg to have a Thanksgiving dinner together. This year, we decided to have it at the castle. I was, admittedly,  little anxious leading up to the holiday, and wasn’t really looking forward. I felt stressed about the food, and the number of people coming, and the clean up process.

However, the celebration actually ended up being a lot of fun. We had a full spread of food — turkey, ham, potatoes, stuffing, the works. I made a sort of stuffed celery dish, and Dottie made sweet potatoes with marsh mellows, honey, and cinnamon. I mention Dottie’s dish not only because it was delicious, but also because it was something many of our guests had never tried before. Apparently, topping sweet potatoes with more sweet food is uncommon here. I loved seeing everyone try it and go from a “this seems like it’ll be really weird” to an “oh wow, this tastes fantastic.”

A selfie Dottie took while we were cooking.

Even while cleaning up, I had gotten into a bit of a goofy mood, and luckily enough, my friends encouraged it. It certainly made cleaning up a lot more fun, as we joked around with each other. At one point, we wrapped silverware in towels to dry them off to put them away. We pretended they were babies, calling them “Bartholomew” and “Bartholomay.” That may not be a particularly funny joke, but we were having a good time.

I’m always thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given in life, and for my friends and family. But already this year I’ve gained a new appreciation for those things. This entire experience has been, well, an experience. It’s been stressful and frustrating at times, but it’s also been one of the most wonderful and incredible things to ever happen to me. I’ve been unbelievably lucky, to be able to come here.

And as far as friends and family go, distance is something that makes you realize just how much you depend and rely on them. I’m sure I’ve commented on this before, but even though I felt some of this when I started attending Etown, the six-hour time difference does have an impact on how far away people feel. So I’m particularly thankful not just for everyone back home who have supported me throughout everything, but also for all the new friends I’ve made here.

A small break

This is the kind of setting I live for.

With winter fully rolling in now (we got our first snow this past Tuesday!), the skies are often overcast. I enjoy the cold weather, but it does feel a little gloomy when its always gray outside. With that in mind, I’ve recently decided to get outside and active whenever the weather is nice.

And the weather on Friday was beautiful. The sun was shining, the air was crisp and cold. So I put on my winter boots, zipped up my coat, and headed out for a walk that turned into a hike. You see, right beside the castle is a large park. I’ve been there several times, but this time I decided to go a little further. I ended up hiking a small trail (or part of a larger trail) that a couple of the people living here mentioned to me.

A couple of other people were also hiking, some with dogs. I also found this clearing with a nice gazebo. There wasn’t really a striking view anywhere — or rather, I didn’t go quite high enough to see above the trees. The forest itself was gorgeous enough.

Those couple of hours hiking outside were peaceful. My entire day was transformed by it, my mood buoyed. Days like that one remind me that I do, in fact, enjoy being outside.

We failed to kill Jack the Ripper

Sorry, world.

On Saturday, I went to an escape room in Gießen, the same nearby city that the Mathematikum was in, with the International Office. There were three rooms to choose from, and if it isn’t obvious already, we chose the Jack the Ripper themed room. The goal of the room wasn’t so much to escape as it was to find and kill Jack the Ripper.

Dottie signs a photo release form as I pose in front of our room of choice.

This was my first escape room I’ve been in. It was also the first room for most of the other students in our group, except for Dottie. I don’t want to give away all of the escape room’s secrets, but I will say that I helped figure out some of the puzzles. Despite our best efforts, we did not succeed. We ran out of time right as we reached the last puzzle.

Now that I’ve done one escape room, I definitely want to try doing another one with a group of close friends. Something to add to the bucket list of “things to do when I get back to Etown,” I suppose.

What I’m listening to this week: Brinner i bröstet by Danny Saucedo. I’m back on my Swedish music kick the past two weeks.