Day five in Luneberg and things still continue to surprise me. As a completely irrelevant tidbit, which may only be impressive to me, the toilets in Germany are quite efficient! To flush, there’s a large button above the seat with a “stop” function – so you can stop the release of water if it’s sufficiently flushed the toilet. Brilliant. I am glad I am related, if only tangentially, to these people.

I have found myself rather unsatiated in this country, eating-wise. Our hostel actually serves three meals a day, though breakfast is the only desirable meal. Then, you can find literally every toast spread you could want – blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry jams, honey, butter, Nutella, and “beet syrup” (which I have yet to try…but need to). And there’s a great assortment of oatmeal, muesli, and cereal. Sadly, lunch and dinner consist of mystery meats, limp salads, and either potatoes or pasta. Hunger has naturally ensued and eating out once a day has become almost a necessity. read more

These first few days in Luneberg have been fun, but exhausting. The jet lag is still very much real, and I still haven’t gotten over the preposterous idea that all of my friends in Colorado are 8 hours behind me. Today, I got up, ate breakfast, ran, showered, went to morning class, ate lunch, then went to afternoon class before most of them had even woken up at CC. Baffling.

Luneberg is quite a cute town, with it’s cobblestone streets essentially free of cars, lined with leather shoe shops, bakeries, and cafes, and topped with beautiful Christmas markets. Today, our professor treated us to “Gluhwein” which is a traditional warm, spiced wine served in the Christmas markets – delicious. read more

Arriving in Germany actually went incredibly smoothly, although I am exhausted and jet lagged. I tried my best to take in little cultural quirks as much as possible on both my flights and my time in the Munich and Hamburg airports. My observations may not be earth shattering, but they’re at least interesting enough for me to have picked up on them.

To start, I noticed that the Germans on my flight to Munich were all requesting beer to drink with their dinner. This may not seem strange, but none of them were paying extra for alcohol, as one typically does on airplanes. I therefore opened up the seatback menu to discover that a whole list of beers are complimentary on international flights! The funny thing was, despite the list of several options, “bier” to the flight attendants automatically meant Heineken – no other brands were drank nor requested. read more