This family is made up of:
Dagmar- mom
Siggy - dad
Tassilo - brother
Connor- exchange student from Canada
They live in a small town of about a thousand people and run a farm and a bed and breakfast. The farm produces chickens for meat and eggs, 15 types of potatoes, turkeys, guineas, pigs, cows, soy beans, sugar beets, corn, and wheat. Most of it gets sold in their farm store by the house.
There is sooo much going on here. I'm sure it will be a good family for me to stay with and learn from.
Dinner the first night was bbq, roasting marshmallows, and cherry beer punch. Good food and good company, I'm off to a great start!
* * *
Sunday morning was slow and easy, the afternoon however was a different story.
We were told we were visiting a castle and a rock thing.
As with all castles, there were tons of stairs. We saw some amazing views and some great history. Pictures pending.
The "rock thing" is a geographical anomaly of many rocks and boulders that make a wide large trail up a steep hill. Naturally the goal was to climb it.
As some of you may know, my fat to muscle ratio has been seriously adjusted since I left home. That in mind, this hill liked to have killed me. I was red faced and dying for a while. When it was done, I was glad we came but there were certainly some parts in the middle that I wasn't thrilled about.
On Monday, we butchered chickens. 85 to be exact. Out the door by 7:00 am and cutting by 7:30. My job was butt fat remover and yoga instructor, I positioned legs and wings.
The rest of the day was spent putting straw in bunks and cleaning pens. By the time we quit, I was ready for bed!
- Today disaster struck. The apprentice didn't shut one of the chicken coops and a fox killed 85 laying hens last night. I haven't seen the scene yet but I've seen what it looks like when 10 chickens die, I can only imagine the mess 85 would make.
* * *
Apparently there is a list. One of those lists that everyone knows but isn't officially google-able, you know the type right? This list is for must see places in Germany and my hm decided it was high time we start working on the list, or at least what was in driving distance from the house.
First on the list? Frankfurt.
I was really excited to see Frankfurt because it's the town you hear about all the important people flying into, I mean come on, the Denver airport has two flights a day going to this magical place, it's got to be awesome right?! And it did live up to the hype for the most part. We toured a huge, I mean MASSIVE church and the city hall building that Kennedy gave one of his last speeches in. The best part though was the observation tower we went in. It was an addition to the highest building in the town and we went up like 80 floors or something crazy like that. At the top was the most varied view I have every seen. It had buildings, houses, churches, a huge airport (hello Denver flights!!), and then sprawling farmland beginning at the edges of it all.
We had as good a day as you could ask for until we tried to leave during rush hour and it took us almost twice as long to get back as it did to get there, you can't have it all though, right?
On a side note, Germans seem to have completely embraced the idea of GPS in their cars and phones, short of going to the grocery store they use it for everything even when it is clearly telling them to go in the wrong direction we still follow the GPS. Maybe it's because it's in German and I don't understand what it's saying, but the generic female voice on the GPS now sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me.
It has occurred to me that the things that I find interesting mean not necessarily be as interesting to you as they are to me. For example touring the city, I can't fully explain why that's exciting, it's exciting because I got to see it and it's hard to really convey that emotion so I want to make a post to talk about the daily life things that happen to me.
I slip on the stairs at least a little bit everyday. The stairs in Germany seem to all be in the semicircular pattern probably to save space but when I go booking it down the stairs in my socks I always almost eat it.
The family that I'm staying with has kittens, four of them, they roam around the house destroying houseplants and running into walls they're very cute, but they do keep me up at night.
Being a proud carnivore from America I'm really missing the protein-based diet. We ate a lot of meat at all of our meals in Finland. Now I'm majority of my diet is made up of bread, pasta, vegetables, carbs of pretty much any form. This is not doing kind things to my waistline.
After the first chicken slaughtering -- and they realize that I was not squeamish -- I was promoted. Adding the word eviscerate to my job description, simply put, I now pull guts out of the chickens too.
I am extremely uptight about refrigerating things that need to be refrigerated, the German culture does not share this view. Many foods are put into the "cool room" which is simply the pantry. Foods like pasta, potato salad, regular salad, eggs, sauces, soup, all just sit in the 60 degree pantry. I haven't gotten ill but that doesn't mean I want to take this new habit home either.
People in northern Germany tend to be tall, and people in southern Germany tend to be short. At 5'11" I fit in just fine in northern Germany, but now that I'm getting close to the center of the country, I tower over my host parents by at least 5 inches.
I will never take the prices of things in America for granted again. Life is way more expensive here.
Speaking of expenses, the chicken trailer that this family owns for the laying hens cost €32,000, they own two.
I am all for walking, I think exercise is great, but I don't think I will ever get used to the mentality of parking a car and leaving it for the day while you spend half your time walking from sight to sight and then the mile walk back to the car when you want to go home.
People here don't check the weather! At home I'm a weather addict, the app is on every device I own and I always check it during breakfast, it has been more of an adjustment than I'd like to admit.
The showers often don't have walls or curtains, you can sit down with the house nozzle and try to not make a lake in the bathroom, I'm not very good at that. They also have smaller shower stalls than at home, smaller than anywhere really.
I spent a considerable amount of time separating, peeling, bagging, sorting, and general processing, of potatoes. I'll be a potato pro when I leave.
This tidbit piece has been more fun to write than I thought it would be, I'll have to do more of them!
Rothenberg and Mannheim are also cities that are on the aforementioned "list."
Mannheim is nearby and while there, we saw a castle that is being renovated to be a university, and a museum, as well as doing some shopping. It was a nice day in a lovely city.
Rothenberg is where it's at.
This is one of my favorite days since coming to Germany. I absolutely adored Rothenberg. It is one of the oldest cities in Germany, one of the few that has survived all of the wars over time. Actually that isn't exactly true. At the end of World War II, Rothenberg was heavily bombed and much of the city and it's wall were destroyed. In the last 70 years people have been putting time, money and effort into repairing the city structures and the wall of the historic town of Rothenberg.
What is this wall you're talking about Kara? I can hear you asking me now. In ancient times cities often put walls around the city to protect themselves from enemies. We don't see very much of this anymore because much of it is been torn down. Anyway long story short, there is about a 4 km walk along the top of the wall that you can do, and the view and history is amazing to see.
We also toured a crime and punishment Museum which talked about the different crimes and punishments for people over the ages. They made really hard decisions like whether to kill someone by hanging or boiling to death, also choices like what kind of shape of mask should a person wear and for how long. We also got to see different torture devices that were displayed. Most of them looked like something out of the Princess Bride movie -- lots of stretching machines.
Among other things, we spent time looking at a house that was built in the 1200s and touring a Christmas market that is open all year round.
My host mom's uncle owns a bed-and-breakfast as well as restaurants in this town. We ate breakfast lunch and dinner with her family, and for dinner we went to the main restaurant where we ate a delicious meal. I excused myself for a moment and while I was gone, my host mom apparently asked the chef to go light on the horseradish on my meal. He assured her that all Americans love horseradish. Sure enough when I got back from the bathroom and took my first bite, I said, "mmm, I love horseradish!" This became the joke of the night.
First on the list? Frankfurt.
I was really excited to see Frankfurt because it's the town you hear about all the important people flying into, I mean come on, the Denver airport has two flights a day going to this magical place, it's got to be awesome right?! And it did live up to the hype for the most part. We toured a huge, I mean MASSIVE church and the city hall building that Kennedy gave one of his last speeches in. The best part though was the observation tower we went in. It was an addition to the highest building in the town and we went up like 80 floors or something crazy like that. At the top was the most varied view I have every seen. It had buildings, houses, churches, a huge airport (hello Denver flights!!), and then sprawling farmland beginning at the edges of it all.
We had as good a day as you could ask for until we tried to leave during rush hour and it took us almost twice as long to get back as it did to get there, you can't have it all though, right?
On a side note, Germans seem to have completely embraced the idea of GPS in their cars and phones, short of going to the grocery store they use it for everything even when it is clearly telling them to go in the wrong direction we still follow the GPS. Maybe it's because it's in German and I don't understand what it's saying, but the generic female voice on the GPS now sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me.
* * *
It has occurred to me that the things that I find interesting mean not necessarily be as interesting to you as they are to me. For example touring the city, I can't fully explain why that's exciting, it's exciting because I got to see it and it's hard to really convey that emotion so I want to make a post to talk about the daily life things that happen to me.
I slip on the stairs at least a little bit everyday. The stairs in Germany seem to all be in the semicircular pattern probably to save space but when I go booking it down the stairs in my socks I always almost eat it.
The family that I'm staying with has kittens, four of them, they roam around the house destroying houseplants and running into walls they're very cute, but they do keep me up at night.
Being a proud carnivore from America I'm really missing the protein-based diet. We ate a lot of meat at all of our meals in Finland. Now I'm majority of my diet is made up of bread, pasta, vegetables, carbs of pretty much any form. This is not doing kind things to my waistline.
After the first chicken slaughtering -- and they realize that I was not squeamish -- I was promoted. Adding the word eviscerate to my job description, simply put, I now pull guts out of the chickens too.
I am extremely uptight about refrigerating things that need to be refrigerated, the German culture does not share this view. Many foods are put into the "cool room" which is simply the pantry. Foods like pasta, potato salad, regular salad, eggs, sauces, soup, all just sit in the 60 degree pantry. I haven't gotten ill but that doesn't mean I want to take this new habit home either.
I will never take the prices of things in America for granted again. Life is way more expensive here.
Speaking of expenses, the chicken trailer that this family owns for the laying hens cost €32,000, they own two.
I am all for walking, I think exercise is great, but I don't think I will ever get used to the mentality of parking a car and leaving it for the day while you spend half your time walking from sight to sight and then the mile walk back to the car when you want to go home.
People here don't check the weather! At home I'm a weather addict, the app is on every device I own and I always check it during breakfast, it has been more of an adjustment than I'd like to admit.
The showers often don't have walls or curtains, you can sit down with the house nozzle and try to not make a lake in the bathroom, I'm not very good at that. They also have smaller shower stalls than at home, smaller than anywhere really.
I spent a considerable amount of time separating, peeling, bagging, sorting, and general processing, of potatoes. I'll be a potato pro when I leave.
This tidbit piece has been more fun to write than I thought it would be, I'll have to do more of them!
* * *
Rothenberg and Mannheim are also cities that are on the aforementioned "list."
Mannheim is nearby and while there, we saw a castle that is being renovated to be a university, and a museum, as well as doing some shopping. It was a nice day in a lovely city.
Rothenberg is where it's at.
This is one of my favorite days since coming to Germany. I absolutely adored Rothenberg. It is one of the oldest cities in Germany, one of the few that has survived all of the wars over time. Actually that isn't exactly true. At the end of World War II, Rothenberg was heavily bombed and much of the city and it's wall were destroyed. In the last 70 years people have been putting time, money and effort into repairing the city structures and the wall of the historic town of Rothenberg.
What is this wall you're talking about Kara? I can hear you asking me now. In ancient times cities often put walls around the city to protect themselves from enemies. We don't see very much of this anymore because much of it is been torn down. Anyway long story short, there is about a 4 km walk along the top of the wall that you can do, and the view and history is amazing to see.
We also toured a crime and punishment Museum which talked about the different crimes and punishments for people over the ages. They made really hard decisions like whether to kill someone by hanging or boiling to death, also choices like what kind of shape of mask should a person wear and for how long. We also got to see different torture devices that were displayed. Most of them looked like something out of the Princess Bride movie -- lots of stretching machines.
Among other things, we spent time looking at a house that was built in the 1200s and touring a Christmas market that is open all year round.
My host mom's uncle owns a bed-and-breakfast as well as restaurants in this town. We ate breakfast lunch and dinner with her family, and for dinner we went to the main restaurant where we ate a delicious meal. I excused myself for a moment and while I was gone, my host mom apparently asked the chef to go light on the horseradish on my meal. He assured her that all Americans love horseradish. Sure enough when I got back from the bathroom and took my first bite, I said, "mmm, I love horseradish!" This became the joke of the night.
