Cape Gazette

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Cape Gazette

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This is Halloween! This is Halloween!

I love love love Halloween!  I love decorating and carving pumpkins and making all the delicious Halloween treats!  At work we're making vampire cookies and Halloween decorated cupcakes!  I love it!

Here's my pumpkin I just carved tonight.

Yup, that's right, your eyes aren't deceiving you... it's a cupcake.

This year, I won't be doing too much celebrating on Halloween, because I have to work on Sunday.  At 12.  In case there's any confusion, that's 12am... midnight.  Oh well, I get extra money for that and from what I understand I'll be doing fun things like making vampire cookies.

Unfortunately in Germany though, there isn't trick-or-treat.  I told some girl about it at work today and she was loving it up! She couldn't get over the saying "trick-or-treat"

Just when it was getting good...

So I had this amazingly wonderful trip to London, as most of you know who have read my last post, and I guess it was just getting too good.  Why?  Well a series of events have occurred that have had a negative impact on me.

Here they are:

1. I have found out that my gas bill is 140 Euros per month.  PER MONTH!  This is crap.  Although it's a deposit and I might get money back if we don't use all the gas in the deposit, but that's not till the end of the year.  Meanwhile, I cannot afford that.  I'm being robbed.

2. After my long travel back from London I got off the train only to find my bike stolen.  Yup, stolen.  Who does that anymore???  It is so extremely inconvenient for me to have my bike stolen.  I had to walk home from work today.  So after I realized my bike was stolen, I then set off to walk home from the train station.  I think I was too shocked at first to think about anything, but then during my walk, I realized, I can't go to work, I can't go to my meeting tonight, I can't freaking do anything!  So then I cried the whole way home.

3. Yesterday at the end of the day at work I was putting streusel in this machine that is like a big food processor.  There were a bunch of huge bins filled with the streusel and another person had filled them up before me, I was just helping out.  About 5 bins were stacked on top of each other and I went to roll them in the fridge.  Well, lets just guess what happened.  They toppled over and spilled all over the floor.  I managed to salvage some, but still.  It wasn't my fault because it turns out that the person who stacked them didn't put a pan in the bottom (which was the reason they toppled) but it was still me who looked like an idiot.

4.  Today and the end of the day at work I was putting away these slates that slide in the rectangular cake pans.  I had just cleaned them and put them in a bucket to dry and was going to put them on the shelf.  I guess  I didn't have a good grip because when I reached them above my head they all fell on me first and then all over the floor.  The whole bakery heard.  Did I forget to mention that they were WET and there was water in the bucket.  Yup, that landed on top of me.  It was like a scene in a movie.  I was drenched!  Unlike number 3, this was was completely and totally my fault.  Not to mention extremely embarrassing.

Back from London

This past weekend I met two friends in London.  One was staying and working in London, the other is studying abroad and came from Rome.

I just have to say that I loved every little bit of London.  This is one place I will for sure be traveling back to.  The reason why?  I think it's because it is exactly what I expected it to be.  The picture in my mind was exactly what it turned out to be in real life.  Take Marry Poppins and Peter Pan and put them together.  That's London.  Some may not agree, but that's what my head conjured up London to be, and that's what it was!

The city is clean and gorgeous and has this homely feel to it.  The pubs and restaurants all have this comforting decor that just makes you want to stay in that one spot all night long!

We all had a blast!  I will be back London!

So here's my London trip:

This was the Camden Market, which was so crazy and eclectic.

This was really weird.  You payed to put your feet in this tank and the fish would then chew on your feet to massage them.  Why would anyone want to do that?

Hello Kittys Birthday!

I was going to buy this cupcake dress until I found out it was over 100 pounds.  What?!

These cupcakes were so cute!  You may want to know I spilled my mulled wine all over them while trying to take this picture!

 Here we are first night out.  I have no idea the clubs we were at, but it was a late night...

 Umm Rachel, not sure why you would be giving us the finger?  Could it be because we left you to fend for yourself?  Whoops!

So Julie told this man he was the best dancer in the place.  Unfortunately he was not, he was just doing the running man at the time.

 This is another market we went to on Saturday morning.  The food there was outrageous!  They had some crazy stuff and some really delicious samples!

 Look at this cheese.  There were so many stands with copious amounts of cheese!

This is a real cheese wheel!  Can you imagine how much this amount of cheese would cost.  It's like a lifetime supply of amazing cheese.  If only a girl could dream...

This was a little weird, considering they had the whole leg of the animal!  I mean really, can't you eliminate the hoof?

St. Paul's Church.  

 Me: So what's the sigificance of this church?
Response:  I don't know Katie, it's just really big.

Standing on the Millenium bridge (woo! Harry Potter fans!) taking a picture of the London Brigde and Tower Bridge.  Anyone know the difference between the two?  Apparently it's confused a lot.  The first one is London Bride (the less decorated) and the one with the two towers is Tower Bridge.

Still on Millennium Bridge taking a picture of St. Paul's

On the Big Bus Tour.  This was the hop on hop off bus, which was a great idea!

Driving under Tower Bridge 

The Tower of London

Our Beefeater tour guide.  By the way, did you know that they live there?! I had no idea! I want to live there!

Traitors Gate

Bloody Tower

Unfortunately there was no picture taking inside where the crown jewels are.  That was a bummer, but they were so beautiful!  I have already designed what I want my crown to look like.  Oh by the way, they actually have a "grand punch bowl" in there.  I swear.  I want one.

Big Ben and Parliament

Thee perfect picture, we HAD to take.

Parliament, which was absolutely gorgeous.

 Buckingham Palace

By the way, the Queen is such an interesting character.  I had waaaay too many questions I wanted answered!  And most likely they could be only answered by her.  Like, what movies does she watch?  Does she just stroll around the palace?  Does she listen to music?  Does she go into the kitchen and talk to people? Can she do whatever she wants?  Doesn't she ever just want to walk out the front door?  There's just too many... I guess we'll never know...

Abbey Road

The studio

 Yup, we actually did this.  It was such a hard picture to take!  It's a cross walk so the cars have to stop, but in reality they know exactly what we're trying to do and are extremely annoyed by it.  So they stop, and then we wave them on because we don't want them in our pictures and then you can see them yelling inside their cars.  It was pretty ridiculous.

I like this one the best even though it's far away.

 The best Fish and Chips ever!

We were sent to this place by 3 different people while asking for a fish and chips place.  It was well worth it!!

 And now, I close this with more cupcake pictures.  Cookies and Cream cupacke?  I think so!

Sorry!

I apologize for my lack of posting/ lack of uninteresting postings.  This week was busy and now, I'm off to London for the weekend!

I promise more when I come back...

Thanks for sticking around...

Phone

When I got to Germany I didn't have a cell phone for about 2 months.  It was fabulous.  Completely and totally freeing.  You seriously should try it.  I'm a little bit annoyed at myself for how attached to that thing I was in the US.  If I forgot it on my way to work or school, I went back to get it.  Or, if I lost it, I stopped everything to find it.  That's a little depressing.  Now that I have one, there's only about 3 people who actually have the number.... I love it.  It's like when your Dad hands you your first phone in your early teens and says, "This is only for an emergency, and if you really need it."  Except that now, its actually true.

Time flies by...

This week is a long one, and a tough one at that.  I got way to used to waking up later during school.  Plus today I was in Snack once again which means I started work at 2am.  This also means I woke up at 12:50am.  It's crazy to think about it even thought its been almost 3 months. 

3 MONTHS!  Wow I can't believe how fast the time just flies by.  I still feel so new to this all.  I especially still feel new to this language.  Although today, I did find myself having full conversations with other people, and not only at work.  Which is pretty exciting because early on (in August) I was so terrified to even try to talk to people on my own.  I still have a really long way to go, but progress is being made!  I would also like to point out those liars out there who say they've traveled to a country for a few months and became fluent in the language.  I am sorry, but if you have ever heard that story, don't believe them.  They are lying!  Unless, these people have learned this said language for years (and I'm serious about years) then there is no way it's possible.  I am even immersed completely in the language.  I'm in the language everyday at work for 8 or more hours, and I'm taught IN the language at school.  I don't think it gets too much more immersed than that.

I think some people at work are getting a little frustrated with me.  There are certain phrases and names of things that I still don't know.  So when I am asked to get something or to do something that I haven't don't before, I don't know what to do.  There is a particular example where the word of the object I was supposed to get was yelled at me about 10 or more times in German and I had no clue what it was.  Unfortunately yelling the word at me over and over doesn't help.  It will not help me remember what it is you want me to get the more times it is said.  I'm sorry but I don't even know what the blue scraper thing is called in English... the technical term??? No clue.

Count down to London!!!! T-minus one week!  I cannot wait.  Getting out for a long weekend will be amazing and what will be even more amazing is seeing friends that I haven't seen in months!

Back to the grind...

So now that I'm out of school and back in the bakery my exhaustion has taken its toll once again.  Although, I must say it's better than it was before, but I need to get back into waking up in the middle of the night.  But, once I get used to it, it'll be time to head back to school.... and the circle just keeps going round and around and around.  I was kindly reminded that the early mornings are starting now and will be that way for the rest of my life.  I paused, thought about it for a second, and then said, yup.  There's really no denying it.

It sure was a switch again back in the bakery, but I was greeted with some amazing news. NO MORE PLUMS.  NO MORE PLUM CAKE.  NO MORE PFLAUME KUCHEN.  I REPEAT, NO MORE PFLAUME KUCHEN! My excitement is a little bit uncontrollable about this.  You wouldn't know, you couldn't possibly know how excited I am that I don't have to cut plums anymore... until next year.  But, that's next year! It's not right now!

Things being made currently:

• Bienenstick (This is bee sting cake, ha! I've heard some amazing things about it.  It has layers filled with vanilla cream and almond cake)
• Zwiebel Kuchen (I've told you about this one.  Onion cake.  It's pretty delicious, but again, think less of cake and more of pizza or flat bread)
• Zitronen Rolle (Lemon roll.  Yup, exactly what you think.  A roll of cake fill with lemon cream.
• Rumkugeln (Another repeat you all have heard about.  This is the leftovers mixed with rum flavoring and other sorts)
• Apfel Kuchen (Apple cake.  Another yum!  I haven't tried this yet, but am dying!  It's almost like an apple crisp sort of flavoring with cinnamon)
• Amerikaner (American.  Not kidding!  These are black and white cookies!  Except some people refuse to believe these to be cookies, but trust me, they are.  They're just really big and are glazed and then coated with chocolate.  Don't ask, I have no idea why they're called American)

There are others, but these are the ones I've took part in.

Now enjoy some Bremerhaven pictures!

Thursday, my favorite day of school

I love Thursdays in school.  Thursdays we are in the kitchen baking.  It could not have come at a better time after the past two rough days that I had.  I finally felt like I was worth something.  Not that I really think I'm not worth anything, but just that I'm not used to not be good at things... and it can take its tole a little bit.  But, today reinforced the reasons as to why I'm here and why I want to be here.

First we made ladyfingers.  Which made me really excited because I love tiramisu and now I can freshly make the ladyfingers that go inside to get a better tiramisu!  Ladyfingers includes mixing of egg whites and yolks along with sugar and such, then its placed in a piping bag, and the oval shapes are piped out onto a baking sheet.  So we all got a chance to do this and mine were wonderful! They were evenly-spaced and piped, all the same size. When I was doing it I could see the others staring at me curious about how I would do.  I was the best, or close to the best.  Though my opinion may be completely skewed because we're talking about me, I have proof that I was amazing because someone told me I was and asked if I had done it before.

Next, we ate the ladyfingers, ha!

After that deliciousness, we practiced our piping!  Wooo my favorite!  I love doing this.  We made glaze and then were taught how to make a piping bag our of parchment paper, which, by the way, is a little bit harder than you think.  Then, we piped out designs on fake-me-out petit fours (A.K.A. blocks of wood).  I must say I loved every minute of it.  And I totally got some "Ooohs and Ahhhs."  "Did you see Katie's?"  "Katie, hast du schon gemacht?" (Have you already done this?).  Finally, the teacher told me, "Sehr schön" (Very beautiful).  Ultimate compliment!


I apologize for the gloating, but I'm pretty happy about my good day.  This is exactly what I'm here for...

Test Day

Today was a day full of tests.

Test 1: Math
No problem! Numbers are easy for me and there's no translation.  Thankfully, there weren't any word problems, or if there were, they were super easy.  By the way, have you tried long division since 3rd grade?  Just try... it's waaaay harder than you think.  Then try out putting decimals in both numbers... remember how to do that?  Chances are you're going to need a refresher.
On an interesting note: Here in Germany, they don't do multiplication and long division like we do.  Is there another way to do it?  Yea, there is.  Don't ask me how but they don't use the division bar like we do and the division sign is ":"

Test 2: English
Another no problem test.  All I had to do was write food items in English when we were given the German word.  Then, we had to write what our favorite kind of food was and why.  Then, what we don't like to eat and why.  Then, we had to write if we make dinner for our families and if so, what kind of food.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Test 3:  Business Management / Production Technique
And I was having such a good day acing the other two tests... Let's just say every answer was a complete and utter guess.  It was not multiple choice or anything close to multiple choice.  We had to write our answers in actual sentences... in German.  Oh no.  There's no way I could have done well, my answers probably didn't even make any sense.  I can just see my teacher grading my tests now... laughing is ass off because what I wrote doesn't correlate to the questions whatsoever.  However, we will see...

Start of week 2 of school

Well, today was a rough one at school...

There seemed to be a lot of group work which ended in presenting our work to the class.  Which also meant, I needed to speak aloud in front of the class on topics I wasn't really sure about and with words I didn't really know.  My team members were helpful and I had something to read from, but then what happens when I get asked questions about what I just said?  Yup.  Then it goes downhill.  I knew the answer to the questions in English!  Oh well, I tried and probably looked pretty helpless.

Then there was German class.  Yes, I know what you're thinking... German class for German people is certainly not for Americans learning how to speak German.  We had to write an "Entschuldigung Brief" (Excuse me letter) for when we are sick.  There was a list of points that we had to put in the letter, and since I didn't know what the list of points were because I couldn't read them, I had no idea what to put in the letter.  I tried one sentence and sat staring at the paper for a half hour.  Finally, some very nice girls sitting next to be asked, "Brauchst du hilfe?"  I wanted to scream "Hell yea I need help!"  But instead I just shook my head yes.  So as they tried to explain to me the process of this letter they soon realized that I had no idea what they were talking about.  It ended in them telling me word for word what to write in the letter... beginning to end.  I seriously felt like a child.  I know I just started school, but it's times like those that just make you think, "Oh my god this is so frustrating."  There were almost some tears in school today, but I'll be damned if that ever happens.  I felt them coming on and thought about one of the last things my Aunt Cindy told me before I left. "If you feel like you're about to cry, open your eyes real wide, and the tears will go away."  Then, my cousin Maggie proceeded to say that's not true.  But regardless, it made me laugh inside so the tears went away anyways.  It did not, however, keep me from bursting into tears when I got home.

In the light of things, the math that I was having crazy trouble with in school turned out to be no big deal when I went over it when I got home!  It turns out I just read or misunderstood the words in the problem and was doing it completely wrong, ha!  Well go figure...

Also, I just found out I have a Math test on addition and subtraction (no not kidding) and an English test (no, seriously not kidding) on Wednesday!  This seems likes some easy A's.  Or 1's, I think, as they call them.

Make-Shift Oktoberfest

Here is our make-shift Oktoberfest.  Although I would have loved to have been at the real deal, it was just too expensive to get down there.  But, this was great too!

There's always next year! Maybe I'll plan a little more ahead of time...