I'm sorry for the tardiness of this entry, I have been very busy recently and have been on the road without access to my computer! A lot has happened to say the least! We finished up our final week of the German intensive course last week, with the last day being Thursday, September 27th. On Wednesday we took our Prefüng (test) to see if we passed the course and can go on to study the next level of German during the upcoming semestre. There are 6 levels here in Europe: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2, with C2 being the highest level. The course that we just finished was for A2 German, so hopefully this semestre I will be able to take B1 German. I think that I did fairly well, without a doubt I passed, by how much is the next question. Tomorrow (Friday the 5th) we are able to go and collect our score sheets to see how we did. Then, on Thursday we had a small international party with everyone that was in our class. All were encouraged to bring a traditional food or drink from their country, it was very fun! I brought sweets that our family usually makes during the Christmas season. They consist of a small pretzel with a Rolo melted on top of it, and then a pecan smashed into the Rolo to top it off. However, being in Germany, I had to substitute Riesens for Rolos and walnuts for the pecans. They were very good though and I returned home with an empty box, always a good sign for a cook!
This is where everything starts to pick up and evolve into a frenzy of travel and activity. Friday I rode down to München with Susanne and Xenia's boyfriend, Stefan. Susanne's father and sister live in a house about 30 or 40 minutes outside of München so we were to pay them a visit. Xenia and Stefan both attend the university in München so Stefan came down with us, as Xenia had already been there for a week starting a new job. We dropped Stefan off at his home and then Susanne and I continued to the house. It was impressive, an extremely large house, especially to own in Germany. Here are some pictures of the town where Susanne's father lives and the surrounding area.
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| The room where I stayed. There were countless pieces of artwork on the walls of the house. |
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| "Lucky" is Susanne's sister's dog...here I caught him eyeing a child walking a small dog |
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There is a huge lake in the south of Germany, very close to where Susanne's father lives
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On the Saturday of that weekend in München I met up with Xenia and Stefan and went with them to Oktoberfest. However, every 4 years there is a huge agricultural exhibition that goes on along with Oktoberfest. Stefan being a farmer, we spent the whole day at the agricultural exhibition. It was extremely interesting and nice because it was much less crowded than Oktoberfest.
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| This is a well known company that designs equipment but also produces remote control versions of all models |
And of course no German fest is a success without a beer and some good, fattening food, so we stopped in one of the Zelts that was in the agricultural exhibition. According to Stefan and Xenia this tent was a much more traditional tent than all of the other ones, with most of the people inside being locals and not tourists.
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| Every Zelt has live music |
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| Me with my first Weißwurst |
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| Weißwurst is a traditional Bavarian meal and is eaten by locals only up until noon. A traditional Bavarian breakfast is weißwurst and a beer, no joke. I asked quite a few people because I didn't believe it. |
After a long day at the agricultural exhibition, and it began to rain towards the end of our time there, I decided it was time to call it a day and I made my way back to the house. The end of the weekend only ushered in the beginning of another adventure though. On Sunday we ate breakfast and then around 11:00 I boarded the train to Salzburg, Austria to visit one of my good friends, Johanna Egger, who was a foreign exchange student in Farmington a few years ago...
