Yesterday I got up and, as usual, had a difficult time getting myself to be awake for the lesson. But the coffee usually takes a while to kick in anyway.
After class, I was talking with everyone and they were asking my if I had signed up for the brewery tour or not. I hadn’t and, when I checked, there weren’t any spots left. Bummed, I left, and did some shopping.
When I got back to the dorm I talked to Charlotte. She said that I should meet for the brewery tour because someone was bound to not show up. So, at 6:00, that’s what I did. I checked with Teresa and she said that there was a free spot!
We walked across town, which wasn’t a short walk, and, about twenty minutes later, arrived at the brewery. We were split into two groups because of how many people were on the tour. My group started in the bottling plant where our tour guide told us about the millions of bottles of beer they produce in a year. There was a lot of other neat stuff that he told us, but I honestly only ever got half of it or have since forgotten it.
After the bottling plant, we were taken to where the huge beer fermentation vats where in the next building over. The guide explained (thankfully with the help of a diagram) the process of making beer. He had us all get baby beer glasses and follow him downstairs. We entered this huge, cold room where all we could see around us where the space-ship looking bottoms of the vats. One in particular had a tap on it. Everyone was invited to pour their own beer and have a taste directly from the vat! We were there for about twenty minutes so most everyone got to have more than just a taste.
From there we were led to the main building where we went upstairs into a banquet-ish type room complete with a bar. The other group was already there. Once everyone sat down the guides ushered our table to go get food which was (of course) German-style potato salad, Leberkäse (German meat pie), and bread.
As we ate, we were allowed to go up to the bar and order anything that we wanted. I started with a Radler, but then switched to a Böckle beer, which was a darker, more rich beer. Very good! We stayed there for probably 45 minutes, maybe an hour, and ate and drank. I think that we were all pretty convinced that the Germans know how to party!
When we left the brewery a surprisingly large group of people decided to come back to the dorms with us. Andy said that he would be making crepes. He mixed up the batter and then asked if I would make them. I said sure. Just then Cecile, a French girl from my class, asked me what I was making. I told her crepes. She said that they didn’t look anything like real French crepes. So she took over, dumped the old batter, and made some new batter. Real French crepes are incredible!
After Cecile had finished making crepes, there was still quite a bot of batter left so I decided to keep on frying them up. And it was appreciated. After all of the batter was gone, I cleaned up my dishes, grabbed my things, and went upstairs to go to bed. I called Kelsey just to ask how things had been going since I hadn’t called in a while. Afterwards, I went to sleep.
Yesterday I woke up with an amazing amount of energy. I got to the Institute early, had a long time for breakfast, and got to class early. Since it was the morning after the brewery tour about half of my class arrived late.
We reviewed the lesson from the day before: Extreme Sports! That led to talking about extreme things such as kite surfing, hoarders (called Messy’s), and a Michael Jackson flash mob in Munich. At one point in the lessons, we we’re all masters of our specific subjects and had to have conversations with others around the room. I especially had fun telling everyone about how the people of Munich were totally surprised for the dead “King of Pop”’s birthday flashmob.
After class I decided to finally go to the CVS-type store called Müller and buy a notebook. I had been borrowing spare sheets of paper until this point. Then it was off to the dorms again. I spent some time working on homework, which didn’t take too long, then went to go talk to Charlotte about watching a movie. She was Skyping with her boyfriend Max. We were introduced and then, after saying that his accent made him sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger, he laughed and then said that he had to go because he had homework to do.
Charlotte and I decided to watch We’re the Millers. We had both had a week so far where we just needed to chill so watching a movie was the perfect opportunity to do so. Afterwards, I went back to my room and headed to bed.
Today I wasn’t feeling well, which was odd, because there was no logical reason for me to be feeling that way. I hadn’t been drinking, but I had slept enough. It was just an icky morning. So I decided to take it slow and let today be my one mulligan.
After my slow morning I was feeling good enough to go to lunch at the Institute and then perked up soon after. After lunch I went to Müllers for Q-tips and then went back to my dorm room. After a small unintentional nap I got up and went to dorm number 12 where Andy, Stephen, and Jesse were getting things ready for dinner. The Goethe Institute was hosting an international dinner where everyone participating would bring a food that was common from their own country. The USA had fried chicken and watermelon. As Jesse fried up the wings, I cleaned up, and Andy worked on the seasoning. (I know that Stephen was helping before I had gotten there… I just think that he had somewhat fizzled out by that time… No he was juggling!) Once we finished, we took our plates over to the Institute.
At the Institute there was one long table filled with traditional dishes from the USA, Spain, Egypt, Italy, Australia, Japan, and others. Once everyone had introduced their dishes, the mass descended on the table like locusts. No food was left over after 10 minutes. And all the fried chicken was gone within one minute!
Stephen, being the über polite guy that he is didn’t push his way into the crowd for food and so didn’t really get any. Meanwhile, one of our international friends had stocked up two plates and had saved a hamburger for later as well. Poor Stephen was irked. We talked about how common courtesy must not be an international idea and that it sometimes really stinks to be a gentleman.
We went back to the dorm to clean up our dishes and then Stephen, Andy, Nina, and I went out in search for food. We ended up at a Döner restaurant where Stephen and Andy had been before. We ordered our food and then probably talked for somewhere close to an hour. At one point an old guy from the restaurant staff gave us all a half-liter juice box thingy and told us that it was on the house. We chatted about our tastes in beer, wine, and music. Very broad topic, but nonetheless very interesting.
We left the shop and walked back to the dorms chatting all the way back (mostly about poop; Nina was disgusted.) Now I’m typing up my blog and calling Ally. All in all a very nice end to a very nice night.
Bis bald! (Until soon :-P)
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