Bogenhofen: Brot und Käse

   I have a couple trips to blog about, but I also wanted to talk a little bit about what life is like here, and some of the struggles I have run into. I titled this blog "Brot und Käse" because, for the last month, my diet has consisted of a very limited selection of dry bread, cheese, and dietary torture. I think the Europeans may be stuck in the Middle Ages. Not only does their diet consist of peasant food, but they have a plague mentality and many of them think having the window open and letting fresh air in at night makes them sick, which has increased my suffering tenfold. Similarly, they avoid Americans like the plague even though we hail from one of the few places that never contracted this disease. 

   All jokes aside, there have been some major cultural shocks. The foremost being the food. Germans eat bread with cheese and butter for breakfast, supper, and sometimes lunch. Since I arrived I have had very little protein, sodium, starch, or legumes. However, on the flip side, the school grows all its food, and we have fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, pears, and pumpkins daily. My favorite is the fresh apple juice. 👌

   The other major issue I have run into is the lack of AC. My roommate is constantly cold at night and I am too hot. It has been extremely hard to sleep, so I will be switching rooms soon. 

   Lastly, it is much harder to make friends here. The people are generally more reserved and do not open up quickly and I don't think they always appreciate how boisterous and friendly we Americans can be. I am not always the most outgoing person (with people I do not know), so it has been an adjustment to step out of my comfort zone and be the one making advances in the friendship. However, that is not to say people are mean. Those that I have become friends with are exquisite humans and I already feel as if I have met more people, done more things, and made more memories than I did my entire year at Southern. I think that is partly due to how small the school is. It is a community. 

   The nearest town is Braunau am Inn. It is a few miles away and we have to take a train to get there. Me and my friends enjoy going in the evenings and getting Kuchen (cake) from the local bakeries, going to the Interspar and getting Rosemary flavored chips, or taking advantage of the wifi at the local McDonalds (the wifi on campus is atrocious). Just across the River Inn is the town of Simbach, and the country of Germany. We simply walk over the bridge and we are in a new country, which is very hard to wrap one's head around. 

   We have classes all morning, including German writing, speaking, grammar, and phonetics, along with religion, cultural studies, and a cooking class. All of the language students are great, and we come from all over the world. Many of us are American but there are also a couple students from Brazil, Argentina, and one from Italy. 

   There have been many frustrations, like getting money for the laundry machines, trying to sleep at night, getting a new SIM card, and not having wifi, but life here is slower and simpler, and I enjoy having enough time to commit to both my studies and my experiences. Here are some photos. 


The Schloss (castle) that gives the school its name


Good Brot

It rained for five days straight. Most of Northern Europe was flooded. 
I was soaked through.

Sabbath picnic at the Hagenau Schloss. I made a friend.

Hagenau Schloss

Found a wild hedgehog. He had no fight or flight instincts.

First time trying Tiramisu 

Made my own Tiramisu

Tiramisu again???

Spent the Sabbath at a church member's house trying to solve riddles. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Salzburg: These Are A Few of My Favorite Things

Image
     Forenote: Sorry if this post is a little messy or has some grammar mistakes. Not sure what it is but I've lost my writing mojo. 😖    We finally made it off campus. Salzburg was the kind of city that felt old; as if it had never stepped foot into the modern era. The tall mint green, banana cream yellow, and baby blue houses were packed tightly in the valley, the snowcapped peaks rising around them, and steep cliffs pushing them so close to the river it seemed they might fall in. Church spires rose to the height of the cliffsides, and standing like a gaudy sentry above it all, was a white castle with the Austrian flag fluttering in the afternoon breeze.      I have dreamt about seeing Europe for many years, and this was what I meant. Salzburg is what I had always imagined. It was the perfect city to call my first. It was a hodgepodge of different histories, eras, and architectural/art styles, yet there was something synonymous and pleasing abo...
Read more

Vienna... a Roman city???

Image
    I will start by talking about my favorite thing; archaeology. You may want to skip this post if you don't want a history lesson. :D Thankfully for me, Vienna was full of grave goods and artifacts plucked from neighboring countries such as Greece and Italy, as well as a few from far-off countries like Turkey and Egypt. Besides the fact that the Viennese have impressive Greco-Roman and Egyptological collections, I was also shocked to learn that Vienna started out as a Roman city.     In 16-15 BC, the Romans occupied the foothills of the Alps under the direction of Emperor Tiberius, the emperor during Jesus' ministry. Later, the Celtic town of Vindobona, which would later become Vienna, was occupied by the Romans and became a strategic garrison. Gradually, the population expanded because of the town's important position on the Danube River which made it the base for the Roman fleet. Because of its increasing importance, it received the Roman city charter which ...
Read more