Stuff Happnin'

It's been a while since I've updated, so here's the lowdown on whats been goin on in the downtown.

A few days after I got back from Berlin I was scheduled to meet with the “mayor” figure of Neustadt. His title, in actuality, is the Oebergermeister, or ruler of the citizens. This meeting was for all the exchange students in the town to meet eachother and be in contact with some government figures.
The meeting went quite well, the mayor was a really jolly guy, and very loud. He also spoke with the local dialect so it was pretty hilarious to see this giant dude just spouting random stuff with a funny voice.
The other exchange students were there as well. Dany (of course), a girl from La Republica Dominicana, and a guy from Canada (who was only going to be staying for 3 more weeks). Dany is with YFU, Valerie is with AFS, and Canada-boy was staying with his grandma. Valerie's family was extremely interesting. The father came up to me and just started speaking English to me (when people speak English directly to me without trying German first; it's insulting and it throws me off) but I realized he was a native speaker. He had lived with his wife and 2 kids in South Africa for most of his life, then came up to Neustadt to work at BASF. His son is in Italy right now learning Italian. The son was in Costa Rica for a year. His daughter, Ashira, was in Argentina for a year and now is just back.

My 2nd German course started this week. We have a bunch of new people. Valerie for instance, but there are some other way more interesting beings. We have three new Russian women, who come to class every day in long black leather coats, and heels, no matter what the weather is. When asked why they are in Deutschland, their only response is “Deutsch lernen”. Haha, can you say Russian Mafia? We have a girl from Mongolia named Agimaa, a new guy from Poland, and a teenage girl from Kazakhstan. For kicks, I asked her if she knew who “Borat” was. All I got was a blank face. Through being in this Deutschkurs with Valerie we (Dany and I) got invited to an AFS meeting over in Landau. We both accepted immediately, because really, what is better than meeting other exchange students?

After German class one day, Valerie's host parents picked us all up in their little car and we hauled it over to Landau. The AFS official meeting place is a Mexican restaurant called “Spezial!”, haha I don't know either. There were a bunch of kids there current exchanges and past exchanges. There was also another group of kids who were sitting kindof off by themselves, obviously not speaking any English or Spanish, decidedly German. I asked my new Colombian friend (who insisted on speaking her perfect, accent-free English that she claimed she learned from watching American TV) who those kids were. She told me they were the “Hopies”. Immediately images of like Cancer camps at work or American Indians popped into my head. But then I thought a little more about it, and they were just “Hopefulls” to go to their respective countries. Another funny thing that happened was that Tamira, a girl I know through my Rotary district was there too. When asked “Which meetings are better; AFS or Rotary?” it was a hard choice. AFS meetings were like big family gatherings, very warm and smiling (not to mention they are every other week). But, Rotary meetings have tons more people from way more countries all mingling, going and doing adventurous and amazing things, I would have to go with Rotary.

So, before I switched families, Petra insisted that I cook a meal for the Meissners and the Hutzlers as a little get to know each other function. Sounds good. After my German class one day, Petra picked me up and we went to the Globus and the Asiamarkt (which is run by a Vietnamese family). We picked out all our stuff and waited till the next day. That Friday she got me from Deutschkurs and we took the drive back to her GORGEOUS house. Good lord that is one fine piece of real estate. It is the highest house around for about 100km, it has a beautiful view of the lighted castle, it's three levels, classy design, clean white lines, and a ton of space. Oh, not to mention she did a kitchen remodel like 2 months before. So everything is brand new. Petra and her husband Klaus, are the epitome of Mr. and Ms. Disposable Income. They grew a loch engineering company up from the ground and cashed out. Alright, back to the food. The theme of the night was Thai food. Petra made a spicy soup with cool little stuffed cucumber pieces with tiny meatballs inside each cuke medalion. Right before we put it on the table, we brought it to a boil and popped in some glass noodles. Very good. Now came my show. I had made a Thai Curry (props to Josh for helping me out with the ideas) with onions, carrots, chives, garlic, ginger, basil, and cilantro. Also I put some coconut milk, normal milk, and Fond (which is like broth base in jelly form), white wine as a deglazer, and some hot hot Thai chilies that I cut up really small and sauteed with the first round of onions and garlic. I cooked everything down for a while, then took half out, buzzed the rest and re-combined. Now I had a semi-chunky smooth sauce. Now came the best part. At the Asiamarkt we got this curry paste and I just put a packet of the red curry in and let it bubble toil and trouble. Sauce in the warming oven, heating oil to smoking point. Once that frying pan was about red hot with the oil in it, I threw a handfull of minced ginger in and let that crispie-ize. I got out my pre-defrosted prawns and laid those suckers into the hot oil. Just a quick sear and they were done. The sauce I put into a long-ish casserole like serving dish with high sides. Very IKEA. I laid the prawns on top. Then I garnished with chives, basil, and cilantro. Put some chilled bean sprouts on, then a few shoots of whole chive. Fertig. For the Nachtisch (dessert), Petra made a ginger sorbet that she did in this really cool tool. She made the sorbet mix or whatever, but the mold that it was in (looked like a pound cake form) was completely non-stick, rubbery, and flexy. Like you could bend it inside out. She also had one for a bundt cake form, which would completely eliminate headaches on that stuff. Everybody loved the food.

The next thing that happened was that Petra a few days later took me to this meeting of her's that she had been going to for the past 10 years or so. The point of this was to show the difference between this club and the Rotary Club. On the way to the restaurant, called the “Donkey Castle” (translated of course), she explained what this club was. Apparently there is a world wide organization called Round Table, that acts a lot like Rotary, being a service oriented club as well. What we were going to tonight was called “Old Table” because you age-out of Round Table when you turn 40. These were all the people who had done this.
We had our dinner, talking to all these cool new people. It was 100x more laid back than a Rotary meeting. Everybody sat at the same table, big jokes, announcements coming at random times, short presentations. I talked a lot of German with people (I was quite surprised that I was understanding a lot of what was going on). Overall, a very cool experience.

The next thing that I did that was notable was that I went to my first professional soccer game. Freddy, her friends, and myself took the completely packed train to Kaiserslautern. Every single car was filled with soccer fans sporting their red and white. We were singing the fan songs all the way there. To the informed you don't call it Kaiserslautern, it's K-Town or just Lautern. The stadium that the game was at was a World Cup stadium. I even think the US played there. It was a huge venue. It was like ¾ full because it wasn't that big of a game. Fan songs and flags waving the entire duration. We were yellin' and screaming and it was way fun. It ended out being 0-0, but still, it was exciting.

That night all the Christmas stuff was put up. The city was glowing.

So yesterday I changed families, packed up all my stuff, and went to a new part of Neustadt. I've unpacked and am still settling into my surroundings. I will talk more about my new family once I find out some more about them.