Exchange Aftermath: 101 I Miss About Germany

 

I am looking at you, Germany.

Well, as the Germans might say, die Zeit ist vorbei. 7 months in Germany filled with happiness, sadness, anger, doubt, laughter, discovery, fun and above all, freedom. It seems so surreal that my time in Germany is already over - I remember feeling so lonely and overwhelmed here in March and April and thinking the 2nd of August was such a long time away. But now, as life always seems to unfold, I'm lying on my bed, cramming for an exam and procrasti-taking a trip down memory lane on the eve of the end of another chapter of my life (update: I am writing this now as I sit in my flat in Canberra - classic Ruohan procrastinating on procrastination...)

The litany of things you get told when you tell people you are going on exchange include "you're going to have the best time of your life!", "get drunk!", "eat a sausage!" (when Germany is your destination, at least) or "you're going to make so many amazing friends!". I have been fortunate to experience all of that ... and so much more in not only Freiburg, Germany but also Europe.

I have had moments when I was so homesick when I was in Berlin that I would cry when I woke up in the morning or so happy to be here in Germany that taking each step here was like walking in some surreal life that you still can't believe you're really living. Exchange is like everything everyone tells you and so much more. Even during the times when I felt like I hit rock bottom, I was learning, gaining new experiences and discovering who I am.

Now, this is all starting to sound all Love, Eat, Pray and preachy, but I ask of you to let me have my 15 minutes of sentimentality and nostalgia. I've kept all this mush inside for my whole exchange and it's about time I tell the world how much I am going to miss Germany and all the trappings that go along with it. So in order to restrain myself from writing something along the lines of an exchange eulogy, I present to you a much snappier list of 101Things I Miss About Germany...

 

ERMERGERD I AM SO EXCITED TO BE IN GERMANY!!!1!11!!

1. Freshly baked pretzels from the bakery for like 60c.
2. A can of beer for 30c (or just alcohol, full stop).
3. How Germans love putting corn as a pizza topping.
4. The way the Germans write the number '1'.
5. The lack of German jaywalking (I break this rule all the time, but I think it is really adorable how much obedience they pay to traffic rules...)
6. Schwäbisch Cuisine - Potato salad, Cheese Spaetzle, Schupfnudeln, Maultaschen
7. Separating the rubbish - I am going to miss the yellow sack and the Green, Brown and White glass containers...
8. OH MY DÖNER KEBAPS. I CANNOT BEAR TO LEAVE YOU.
9. Going out at like 2 am in the morning and lasting until breakfast (which is also conveniently a Doener).
10. The football culture and watching the World Cup as a legitimate reason for being absent.
11. Grilling...German style.
12. My love-hate relationship with Deutsche Bahn. Particularly worthy of mention are - having to sleep overnight in Munich Hauptbahnhof because we missed our connecting train to Budapest due to a suicide on the tracks and every hostel in the area being booked out due to the Championship League game between FC Bayern and Manchester United, being delayed 6 hours due to a cabel fire on the tracks and having to sneak onto the next train and then taking a ferry (yes, a FERRY) to Denmark, riding in the ONLY carriage without air conditioning on a 35 degree day and not being able to open the windows (they literally would not open).
13. Listening to German hits, or just German music period.
14. The controversies surrounding German inability to build an airport, a concert house and a new train station network (hint: Berlin, Hamburg and Stuttgart).
15. How "mega" is still a commonly used adjective.
16. Caipirinhas  - how come I have never drunken this cocktail Down Under?!
17. Staring back at Germans who love to stare at me. :)
18. Smiling at Germans who love to start at me. ;)
19. The chocolate and OMG HARIBO aisle in the supermarket.
20. THE CHEESE AISLE IN THE SUPERMARKET - FRISCHKÄSE!
21. That Germans write decimals places after a comma (e.g. 1,33 instead of 1.33).
22. Germans carrying bouquets and flowers on the way home from work.
23. Adorable German primary school groups riding on the tram.
24. That feeling of walking into a massive supermarket for the first time and being overwhelmed by everything. Like seriously, I did not know it was possible to have like 100 types of bratwurst.
25. The self-service bread slicers in the supermarket.
26. German drug store makeup - I definitely have self control problems.
27. Receiving letters and emails addressed to Ms/Mr Zhao because no one knew what gender a name like Ruohan could be...
28. The look of surprise on people's faces when they ask me where I am from.
29. Germans telling me how much they love New Zealand and how they know someone who did a working holiday in New Zealand.
30. Really scarily well trained dogs who don't run up to play with you.
31. Germans knocking on the table at the end of every lecture and seminar.
32. Birkenstocks, Deuter Backpacks and Jack Wolfskin jackets.
33. The self-serve bread slicing machine in the supermarkets.
34. BULGUR - WHERE CAN I BUY THIS IN AUSTRALIA?
35. The trams and efficient public transport system.
36. Having like 5 supermarkets on one block.
37. Apfelschorle and Spezi.
38. The Reclam section in the bookstores.
39. The Autobahn.
40. The 1st of May celebrations.
41. Pfand (aka deposit) on my bottles.
42. Being able to take a train like literally everywhere (except Iceland).
43. Ritter Sport - vanilla, raspberry waffle flavour I love youuuuuuu.
44. Hearing "krass".
45. Ridiculously good looking German men.
46. Hearing the adorable German accent when they speak English.
47. Having to register and de-register yourself from every city you live in.
48. Having to pay the compulsory radio and television tax.
49. Pickled fish of all sorts, in a jar, looking a bit gross.
50. Pickled sausages in a jar, looking also a bit gross.
51. The lack of regard for separate cuisines in Asia (e.g. "ASIAN RESTAURANT! CHINESE RESTAURANT...that serves pho and bibimbap).
52. How ridiculously expensive sushi is.
53. How meat is cheaper than fruit and vegetables...
54. Dirt cheap public transport.

In the inner chamber of the Reichstag in Berlin - much fancy mirror

BERLIN:
55. "Zurück bleiben, bitte!"
56. Hearing more foreign languages than German on the streets.
57. Riding home on the U-Bahn Subway and Tram at 3am in the morning.
58. Walking around aimlessly.
59. Seeing the shit that goes on Warschauer Street at 6am on the weekends.
60. Waiting in minus temperatures for the night bus at 3 am in the morning.
61. Living in an old East-German apartment and calling it the East German Museum.
62. Museum Island!
63. Currywurst and the Berliner donut.
64. Opshopping in Berlin.
65. The M8 Line and riding every day at 8.15am from Bernhard Bästlein to Nordbahnhof.
66. The Berlinale and seeing Ralph Fiennes...even if it was for like 2 seconds.
67. When your subway line is being repaired and you spend about an hour using replacement transports methods...
68. Tiergarten and the Street of June the 17th.
69. East Side Gallery.
70. "Ick"
71. Ampelmännchen.
72. Brandenburg Gate (y)
73. Alexanderplatz and dat TV Tower.
74. Getting checked by the ticket inspector.
75. Buying a ticket for your dog or bicycle on the tram (1 Euro bargain!)

View of beautiful Freiburg from Schlossberg Hill

FREIBURG:

76. Being able to buy weird varieties of tofu such as "Philosophers Tofu" and "Dragon Tofu".
77. Seeing the beautiful sunset every night from my window.
78. Seeing the Black Forest every day from my kitchen window.
79. All my flatmates and the fun times we had, from pizza nights to an amazing flat party to just being generally the nicest and most helpful flatmates I could have asked for.
80. The flea markets. EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND.
81. The hippies and alternative kids with their dreadlocks and yoga pants.
82. Being an aggressive cyclist.
83. Bertoldsbrunnen and the most annoying construction works in the middle of the busiest traffic point in the whole city.
84. McDonalds Tor.
85. Awkwardly meeting people you want to avoid on your tram on the way home at night.
86.The Baechle and seeing little kids sail little boats in them.
87. Buying a sausage off Münsterplatz.
88. Hearing the Badisch/Allemanisch dialect.
89. Hearing the train go past my window every hour.
90. Being able to get to France and Switzerland under an hour.
91. Händelwohnheim.
92. Watching drunk soccer fans puking into the open fountains and waterways.
93. 1 Euro gelato. 1 EURO GELATO.
94. Wheit Rabbit Wednesday night jam seshes.
95. Ganter and Feierling beer.
96. Locally produced wine from Baden.
97. KAUFLAND and buying frozen pretzels and bread rolls.
98. Picnic by Seepark.
99. Climbing 3 flights of stairs to get to German class.
100. Schlossberg and the beer garden.


And the 101 thing is...

Being on exchange and having the freedom to do whatever you want. :)


Life is wonderful everyone, make the most of it!

Ruohan xx

How I Fell in Love with Berlin (Part I - The First Day)

So for those who have been keeping up with my haphazard travels through Europe, you'll remember that I was in Berlin over January/February for 6 weeks to participate in a language course organised through the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Office).

That course ended more than a month ago, yet I am still suffering from terrible withdrawal symptoms and in my attempt to relive my amazing time in the German capital, I have decided to take a little trip down memory lane.. 

The Brandenburg Gate - quite possibly the most amazing thing to see at sunset.

*****

At the beginning of January, I arrived to Berlin and for the first week I cried every single night worrying about everything from 'will I make any friends?' to 'what is the deal with my visa?!' to 'Berliners are so rude!' and of course, 'how will I possibly survive in Germany for 8 months?!'. However, now as I sit here writing, the question I ask myself is 'how did the last 3 months go buy so quickly?'

My arrival in Europe was so surgical; one day I was saying goodbye to friends and family in Auckland, the next day I had landed smack bang in the middle of Frankfurt Airport without knowing a single person. After 32 hours of travelling, I lacked the physical and psychological strength to come to terms with what I had gotten myself into. Hungry and thirsty, I went to the local Le Crobag at Frankfurt Train Station to order a pretzel, only to be confronted with the question of 'normal' or a 'laugen' pretzel. Dumbfounded, I just pointed at what I wanted instead. I have been learning German since I was 14 and I consider myself fluent enough to get by day-to-day...but this first pretzel setback really shocked me into just how alien I felt in this country.

I eventually boarded the train to Berlin with my ridiculous stack of luggage and a few Germans were nice enough to help me get my stuff onto the shelf. I sat opposite an extremely tall German man, who spent the whole train ride reading a very intellectual looking philosophy book and I think I spent the whole time perving at him (also thinking - are all German men so perfect?!). Less exciting was trying to ask the 7 year old German boy sitting next to me in German if he could let me through and having him yell "WHAT?" at me and look as if I had spoken some alien language. German level - zilch.

I fell asleep on the train and woke up to a darkness pierced by the lights of Berlin. Before I got off, I started getting a nosebleed and had to awkwardly get off the train, tilt my head up and lift about 25 kgs of luggage behind me. I eventually found the taxi stand, embarassed myself by standing around and letting others push in front of me and heaved the biggest sigh of relief when I finally got into the taxi. I tried speaking some German with the driver, but I was so nervous that my German was atrocious!

Eventually we arrived at my accommodation on Paul-Zobel-Strasse (Bezirk Lichtenberg), which was situated in former East Berlin and so retro, that it was like "living in the DDR Museum". I waited sheepishly outside the building, when I met LENNART for the first time. LENNART was an employee of the language school who was shepherding us around that night. If you want to know why I have to type his name LENNART in caps, you must understand that he was BANGING. Like, I mean 'lifting every day to get smexy arm muscles and a 6-pack' BANGING. Anyway, he showed me into the building and I finally got to relax because all the hard work of arriving here had been done.

I remember the people who were in the same room as me when we were welcomed. Amy, Douglas, Daniel and I sat together and listened to Jörg's spiel and we introduced ourselves. It seems so funny looking back and thinking how these strangers on the first night became such good friends by the end of the 6 weeks! It is a really strangely nostalgic feeling, as I think about the amazing journey we ended up sharing together.

I was showed to my room by a lady called Aizhen, who was a Chinese student doing her Masters in Berlin. We spoke Mandarin to each other - such a surreal feeling to be speaking German in this dimly lit apartment in East Berlin. I eventually unpacked my stuff, simply lay down on the bed and was so happy to finally have a place to call home (albeit only for 6 weeks). 

The view from my bedroom window. It was mostly industrial but there was something so quietly beautiful about it...

My flatmate did not arrive until an hour later. Her name was Laura and, although I didn't know it then, she ended up being the most amazing, kind, caring and supportive flatmate and friend I could have ever hoped for - without her, I would have absolutely floundered in Berlin. She was always there if I needed to talk to someone about something, to console me, to laugh with me, to dance and sing with me, to cook and eat with me and above all, to make me feel less lonely in Berlin. I did not know it when I showed her around the apartment, or when I first bought some food with her from the petrol station or even when I went with her to school the next day, but Laura ended up being a rock for me in Berlin. If you are reading this Laura, thank you for patiently putting up with my issues and shit!!! Our memories in Paul-Zobel are some of the best of my life and I hope they are some of yours too!

I eventually took a shower and ended up going to bed at 10pm. Exhausted, I lay in bed and cried because I was scared about what the first day of the course brought and whether I was going to be able to make friends. From the 8th storey, Berlin looked so vast, cold and alien to me. I felt so out of place, so isolated and longing for the familiarity of home. I definitely had regrets that night about what I was doing. I didn't sleep well that night and woke up at 5am. As soon as I woke up, I cried as I gazed up at the foreign ceiling in this strange room. I tried falling asleep, unsuccessfully, until 7am. I revised some German grammar for the placement test while I was lying in bed and waiting for the sun to rise.

My first breakfast in Berlin that morning was a cheese and ham croissant and some of my Chinese herbal tea. I dressed in my trusty orange docs and plaid dress and went downstairs to meet Charly, who would be shepherding us to BerlinerID. Laura and I were late (typical :P) but we ended up waiting about 10 minutes for late stragglers (also typical). There was a huge throng of new faces which greeted us and I felt the knot form in my stomach as I looked around. It seemed as if everyone had friends already and the fear of feeling unwanted and friendless was especially strong in the first few days.

Once we arrived at the school on Ackerstrasse we finally received all the information we had been so sorely lacking - where can I buy my sim card, where can I get a USB internet stick, how do I separate German rubbish, why are no shops open on Sunday etc. It finally felt as if this whole adventure was underway. We sat the placement test and afterwards ate our first meal at the Mensa (cafeteria) - half a bowl of lentil soup. Afterwards a group of us headed to Alexanderplatz to buy a USB stick. It took us more than 3 hours because no one knew what a strange USB internet stick contraption was and we found it incredibly strange that such things existed. When we finally headed home, we got lost in the nightmarish labyrinth that is Berlin public transport. 'S-Bahn? U-Bahn? M8 Line? Nordbahnhof? What is even the name of the stop opposite our apartments?!' Such questions were not uncommon in the first week and although it was incredibly frustrating to deal with, I look back fondly at all our misadventures and cluelessness with a warm and affectionate nostalgia.

We stopped at Roederplatz and visited Netto to buy groceries and I was bowled over by how cheap everything was! As always, it was food and shopping which lifted my spirits. I finally had routine and as Laura and I planned some meals for the week, I felt as if my life had structure. It was so satisfying being able to buy cheese and ham for 1 Euro per pack and I seriously could not believe how cheap meat was! In general I was blown by the cheapness of German living costs: most items were under 2 Euro and the ALCOHOL, OH MY GOD THE ALCOHOL. It was like 2 Euro for a bottle of reasonably tasty wine. I think the moment when I died was when I saw Jaegermeister being sold next to the bubblegum at the counter for 2.50 Euro a pop.

We had our first Stammtisch that night at 8pm. A Stammtisch is a German term for an event where people gather, talk, eat, but mostly drink beer. As usual everyone was running late and it wasn't until 9pm until we got going. I remember talking to the students as we made our way to the bar and feeling really good that I was actually able to strike up conversations with a few people. Again looking back, it is crazy to think I had so much fear of talking with these people, as by the end of the 6 weeks there was nothing which I could not tell them.

After being foiled by the public transport system yet again, we finally made it to the bar. First order of business was ordering dinner. I really wanted to hit the ground running with my conversion to being German so I ordered a Thuringer Bratwurst with sauerkraut. Unfortunately I was really hungry and ate the food so fast that I felt sick afterwards (might also have been because I ate a massive sausage and pickled cabbage...). I was being a bit of a goody-good and didn't order any alcohol to drink. Instead I just enjoyed talking to people although I was dead tired.

The class lists had also been released and I was really happy to discover that I had been placed into the C1.1 class. It was affirmation for me that my German was good and that I could be confident in my abilities. Although the company was excellent I had to go home quickly because I falling asleep and my stomach was still topsy-turvy from the bratwurst. I felt like I was missing out by leaving the event early, but my tiredness reasoned me into doing the sensible thing. 

At home I fell asleep immediately because I had to go to class the next day at 9am. I was nervous about the first day of class, but at least now everything was starting to fall into place. Slowly and tentatively, Berlin and Germany became more and more familiar to me.

View of the TV Tower in Alexanderplatz from the Berliner Dom

*****

So...that was far longer than I expected and way too boring and detailed. I am mostly writing this for myself in an effort to consolidate and reflect upon the crazy few months that have gone by. It has been the most amazing, tiring, frustrating, emotional, fun, crazy and worthwhile journey and I think I would hit myself for just lazily letting these memories recede into a hazy abyss. The next few blog posts about Berlin will be actually interesting and about Berlin...I promise! :)
Ruohan xx

Foodie's Paradise: Instagram Edition #1

So, I got an iPhone over Christmas, and of course, no iPhone app collection would ever be complete without Instagram. Having browsed through most people's photos, I've deduced that there are a few categories of pictures which never get old: selfies, cute animals and...FOOD.  

I was an Instagram skeptic...but I think I've been converted. Join me and indulge my descent into sinfully delicious consumerism. Enjoy! 

 

When I went back to China, we visited the ancient City of Xi'an. This city is home to the Terracotta Soldiers, but also some of the tastiest food in China! They make amazing noodles with the most indescribable elasticity and texture that make them so different to all other noodles. Here we ate cold chilli noodles and a special jelly noodle thing that sounds really gross, but trust me, tastes farking AMAZING! (I will be uploading my China and Singapore food posts, so keep alert!)

***CLICK FOR MORE PICTURES!***

Holiday Food Porn: The New Zealand Edition

Better late than never, that's what I always say...because I am about 2 months late on this bandwagon.  I've amassed so many food porn photos that I've just dreaded having to put them here because y'all know how lazy I am when there's a backlog... Anyways I've given myself a kick up the butt and decided to trawl through all my holiday photos to give you the pleasure of foodgasming.

My stomach was particularly pleased this holiday season because of the travelling I did around Asia. My general rule of thumb for travelling is that, where the food is, I follow. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that China and Singapore definitely more than satisfied my appetite. 

I experienced so many foodgasms over my holidays that I've had to split it into 3 editions: one for every country I ate in. The first edition is dedicated to the tucker in Kiwiland.

So, in true, lazy me fashion, I'm just going to lump a whole load of pictures here and hope that your stomach explodes with the amount of amazing food on display...(remember to click on the food for larger pictures!)

My friend and I had a cute lil' lunch date in a quaint and tucked away Japanese restaurant in the heart of Auckland CBD. There was a student special for $9.50! I ordered the tofu-don because I got my wisdom teeth out a few days before and I still couldn't chew anything. The best thing about this place was that there was UNLIMITED PICKLED GINGER REFILLS!!! SAY WHAAAAT!? I always hate it when the ratio of pickled ginger to everything else is off. The acidity and sharpness of the ginger is an important component of any Japanese dish, and I need it in EVERY MOUTHFUL to counterbalance the saltiness and richness of the meal.

**CLICK FOR SO MANY MORE PICTURES!**

Please Accept More Food Porn from this Lazy Blogger

So....I guess I was being a bit ambitious when I committed to writing regular blog updates. It's been almost 5 months since my first blog update, and my life's just been too crazy busy for me to dedicate much time to this project. This is rather unfortunate, as some pretty awesome things have happened in the meantime and the whole point of this blog was to pinpoint events in my life.

Anyways, it's now the summer holidays and I have oodles of time to update this thing. So I'm going to start by bombarding you with heaps of food photos from the past few months. There's a mix of everything and all of it was delicious. So yes, it tasted amazing as it looked.

TO THE FOOD!

This beauty was originally slated to be in a blog post titled "Brodburgers and Batman'. The post was about going to watch the Dark Knight Rises and eating at the locally famous Brodburger restaurant in Canberra. I almost completed the blog entry, but I gave up in the end. It wasn't very exciting; it was just a rant about how ridiculously good looking everyone in the movie was, and how delicious Brodburgers were. Instead, I've salvaged the most important thing from the entry: A VEGGIE BURGER! Grilled haloumi, courgettes, eggplant, roasted peppers, lettuce and aioli in a toasted bun...absolute heaven. 

❤ Come and Roro My Boat! ❤

So you've either stumbled upon here, or you've been roped in to reading this by me. Either way, welcome! :)

This blog has been a long time in the making. And by that I mean I'm too lazy to get started on anything and even lazier to keep it up. I created this blog around March of last year, right after I moved to Canberra to study at the Australian National University. Back then, I really wanted to document my new university life so that it wouldn't fade into the abyss of time, but, unsurprisingly, it was still blank more than a year later.

But recently, I came back from a trip to Sydney and I had all these wonderful photos I wanted to share. My friends have been harping at me for ages to start a blog, but I never did get around to it. However, my trip to Sydney inspired me to try my luck at this and I hope that you all enjoy reading it. This blog is pretty much where I chuck photographs of food and other cool things. I'm pretty lazy and sloppy when it comes to writing (even writing this much is seriously a chore...) and I'm sure everyone likes pretty pictures more than a poorly written blog post by a tired university student.

Just a little about the me: Made in China, raised in Auckland, New Zealand. 2nd year student at the Australian National University in Canberra. Roro My Boat was the name on my leaver's jersey at high school. It was penned by my amazing group of chums and I thought it would be a fun title for a fun blog.

***

But enough of me - onto the good stuff! Below are the food photos from Sydney I'd like to share. Sydney is fantastic - the food is ridic cheap. Seriously, not one day was spent without being in the delightful company of Chinatown eateries and Emperor Cream puffs. One night we passed a takeaway shop selling dinner boxes for $5. Upon seeing this, my friend and I immediately stared at each other in wild disbelief. FIVE EFFIN' DOLLARS. Lordy, it was a fantastic food paradise for students on a budget. Moreover, the portions were gigantic. You would think that the logical way of making a profit would be to serve smaller portions, but surprisingly no; we always got served massive dishes hich could probably feed the 3 of us. In any case, food is always the highlight of any holiday.

Drool away!

My first ever meal in Sydney! Lunchtime on a Sunday, I enjoyed this delicious cold udon noodle dish with cucumbers, spring onion, fish cakes, fried crumbs and seaweed. THE PORTIONS WERE GIGANTIC. IT WAS SO HUGE. LOOK AT IT, IT'S A MONSTER.