It's all Greek to me...

Hey All!

The wonderful weekend has just passed me by, and what a weekend it was!

I went for a long walk around the Altstadt (or the Innenstadt, where the castle and citywalls are) and got to see how romantic the old german city of Nürnberg is. And when I say romantic, I don't only mean romantic as in the castle is romantic, but as in the very distinct danger of knocking into a couple who just stop suddenly to kiss in the middle of the pavement. They say that Paris is a truly romantic city, I think Nürnberg should be included in the list too.

I did not walk alone, was with my new friend Ioanna (the greek girl, remember?) She was very nice, showing me which sights to take note of and was absent-minded in the endearing way. It was quite funny as both of us couldn't really read maps, so we just went around and around the city, listening to the occasional tour guides and stopping at different sights just to look at the buildings, smell the flowers, have a freshly-baked pretzel or a Nürnberger sausage. It feels wonderful to have a companion at your side again=)

The both of us were on a quest to look for a chinese book so that Ioanna could learn how to speak chinese in 2 weeks, but the Chinese books here are soo expensive! Instead, we found a book teaching tourists how to speak and use Greek, plus the CD, and the entire package was going for 5 euros! I grabbed it. So now I am learning how to speak greek, but frankly, even with Ioanna's explanations, it is all still Greek to me (haha, sorry but I could't help with that pun!) Let's see how much I can learn/ achieve in 2 weeks..haha. Right now I only know the word for 'hallo', or Kalim-ärra. (accent on the ä)

Now I suddenly have lots to do at night:
- watch TV to improve my German
- Learn Greek
- Learn French (i bought the same package too=)
- Write letters back home in Chinese
- write my blog (so sorry if I can't update it as regularly as I want to)
- Improve my cooking
- Go wandering in the woods and pretend to be Gretel (haha!)
- Learn the choral music that I am supposed to be singing with my Landlady in a 4 weeks' time

Feel like I am living the prime of my life =)

After the walk in the city, Ioanna and I met up with a few Chinese students who are studying in Nürnberg for dinner at an Italian restaurant. I ordered pizza, and I really love italian pizzas. Those at pizza hut or other fast-food outlets really cannot compare to a real italian pizza: they look like giant curry puffs, with lotsa cheese in them (to keep all the warmth in, the clever baker folds the pizza into half, they really SHOULD make all pizzas like that, tastes A LOT better this way) and it doesn't feel fat at all, cuz there is no extra oil added. Yummy. But that was not the highlight of the dinner=)

Our companions were really a funny lot of people! They are really very knowledgeable about a lot of things, so I got to learn much from them, and they always mix up some English words, thus I would correct them while they correct my German and Chinese. I even learned something about my hakka roots from them. Hakkas are called ke4 jia1 in chinese, meaning the Guests, because we were basically migrants from North China to South China, and because our dialects sounded different from the Southerners, we were 'guests'. Then, a few hundred years later, our dialect diverged from the original North Chinese dialect, thus our language became something so unique.

Our companions were very very lively. In the middle of our waiting for the dinner, one of them hit a pillar to test if it were made of wood, and as it was made of plaster, it sounded like he was trying to bring the house down (his girlfriend hid in embarrassment, but it was really funny then=) There is a feeling of camaraderie and belonging even when we came from various different lands.

Right, gotta go get my groceries now, all shops close at seven, and it is six now=P still have 25 min brisk walkajog home and to the supermarkets=P

love, ting