Hanne

5 July 2009

Time is spinning past so fast, sometimes I feel like honey in a centrifuge, just hanging on for the ride. This blog is like the wax I am spinning away from and I realized there are so many gaps because so many exciting things have been going on! So this is an in-between news to fill in the empty bits before they get lost in forgetfulness.

Let’s start with the witch-burning part, because that is always fun. 23rd June is the Danish ‘Sankt Hans’, a midsummer festival where lots of patriotic songs are sung, bonfires are lit and witches are burnt and sent back to Blocksberg. (That’s right, everyone knows that witches come from Germany!). My Danish class buddy and I decided it would be fun to celebrate here too and make Maria feel at home. The 23rd happened to be a Tuesday night, but as everyone knows, that is no deterrant to Erasmus students (or any other international students for that matter), as every night is a party night! Kira and I met up around four to go for a walk in the park and find suitable sticks for making Danish dampers and roasting marshamallows on. Mission accomplished in record time, it was time to make a witch. Actually we ended up with two cardboard witches and they turned to smoke to the tune of ‘Vi elsker vort land’ (‘We love our country’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojqvlQQBPE8). One was held together with cellotape and the damper that we cooked in that corner of the fire tasted slightly toxic, but the others were delicious!

I was reminded of this evening for about a week afterwards, thanks to the blisters on my heels. Blisters, you may ask? From dancing around a fire? Well, yes and no… I bought new shoes right before heading for Kira’s place. And it is a really BAD idea to try and break new shoes in by going for a long walk in the park without socks. I was very glad to find a pair of shoes though. Thanks to Holly and her shoe experience it took under two hours, which for me is record time. Then last Friday my finnish friend and I hit the shops in Freiburg. It is rather warm and I was in rather desperate need of summer outfits. Heidi took the place of my youngest sister, leading the way through the clothing stores and making several chance findings of items that she just HAD to have along the way… And now I have three new summer outfits too, yay for tackling the stores and winning!

Talking of tackling tasks and winning, today Holly and I achieved a slice of Kiwiana to be proud of. We baked Pavlova. And not just one pavlova, but two. We had a gathering where everyone brought a dish typical of their home country, for example milk-rice danishes from Finland, frikkadeller from Denmark, Norwegian sweet cheese. It was quite a feast, and at the ned we brought out the dessert, covered with kiwifruit, and completely confused everyone by saying we eat it in summer at Christmas. They may have given us odd looks at the way we mixed the two terms in one sentence, but the pav was gobbled up pretty quick. And neither of the Australians present dared to contradict our well-founded assertion that it is indeed a kiwi dish.

Quite a lot has been going on in Freibug at the moment, it is such a bustling little city. This weekend is the wine fest, which takes place in the city centre all around the Münster cathedral. On Friday evening a group of us met up there and it was very cosy, or as the Germans say, ‘gemütlich’. This is a wine-growing area and there many small vineyards which sell their wares only at such festivals or from vineyard shops, so we tasted various wines from the region and supported the renovations of the Münster by buying a wine glass as a souvenir (and to drink from). This cultural experience also widened my vocabulary as I learnt several new terms for describing the aromas and tastes. ‘Trocken’ means ‘dry’ and is probably the most important word to learn first up! Another specialty from the region is Flammkuchen, which are essentially big flat pizzas minus the yeast. I am not sure if I tried them or pizza because they looked the same. Whatever it was, it tasted good!

On Friday a friend came over and we made cannelonni together. Spinach and feta and cheese sauce, with icecream for dessert. Mmm mmm, definitely gets the heart tick! It is far more fun to cook with someone else though. You make more effort, and experiment more too. Then it started to pour down just before she was going to leave, a proper drums-on-the-roof-smite-you-down-with-lightning thunderstorm. Even the walls were shaking, which was ok when you were inside, but I would not like to be exposed to the line of the storm! For some reason the mornings have been beautiful but we have been having massive thunder storms pretty much every afternoon.

Perhaps the weather has also been wreaking havoc with the local wildlife. The other day I was sitting at my computer and suddenly I thought a bee stung my hair. There was an ugly hairy bug lying on its back on the desk and it had a square bum, as if it had lost a stinger. And it itched where it had banged into my head. So I took a claratyne and threw the bug out the window. Like a sensible person. Actually it wasn’t a bee. Then I brushed my hair to get out the sting in case there was one, and after that my hairbrush disappeared! I suspect alien abduction. Perhaps the bug was in fact a spy sent from an alien spaceship to case out the join round here…. (ooWEEEOooo…..). Tin foil hats, anyone? Nothing like crop circles and a little pop culture to spice up a Saturday night!

Saturday evening I was actually very cultured and went to see a play. Just as we perform a German play each year at Auckland University, there is an English theatre company associated with the English department here in Freiburg. My flatmate was in charge of the costumes for this show, which was Larry Shue’s ‘The Nerd’. My goodness, it was hilarious! A comedy set in the 80s, full of word play and some stunning character acting. I have been to several theatre shows here in Freiburg but this was really the first one that I would go back to see again. And it was awesome to see the monster! I helped Miriam to papier maché the head a couple of weeks back. Now it is covered with fur and horns and fly-like eyes and long fangs. Quite terrifying!

The last thing on my list of ‘things that I forgot to say’ was ‘what I have learnt so far’. ‘Quite a bit’, I would say, but that is not the answer I am supposed to write. I have learnt how to sort washing so the colours do not pollute each other. That is quite a life skill. I have learnt to make cannelonni. Probably the most important thing I have learnt is how to function completely independently, but that is not really one thing, rather lots of small things. Of course it was very different to swap living at home with sisters and family always around for a room on the sixth floor of a student apartment block, but I am totally enjoying the experience. It is a chance to prove to myself exactly what I am capable of and I think anyone who is offered an opportunity to do such a thing ought to take it and grab on with all of their fingernails extended. No matter what your expectations, you really will surprise yourself. You have to enjoy the centrifuge while it lasts and make the most of the honey!