Our first adventure after arriving was a group trip to Ikea where we quickly learned several things. First we learned Americans are generally much louder then Germans. We also learned Ikea doesn't sell comforters but instead they sell blankets requiring a covers apparently known to everyone aside from me as Dubai (spelling?) covers. And just for the record I'm honestly still not completely sold on the idea and generally miss my normal single piece blanket from home. Aside from a few other purchases the rest of the first day was uneventful. But as in every country, once the sun sets, the fun starts. We went out with two of the Germans who were helping us get settled. Elena is a blonde German girl who has helped us do a majority of our paper work and is keeping in this country. Mahmoud is our dark haired extremely nice German friend, who'd take us to later football (soccer) adventures.
Not knowing much about the town we trusted the nights events to our two German friends and were not led astray. We arrived at a bar which had a theme which still escapes me, but it involved a stuffed elk as well as a vicious looking stuffed badger and several interesting German quotes. Having not been in Braunschweig long we asked Elena and Mahmoud about local beer. The local beer here is apparently Wollter's, it's cheap, it's good, and I had several that very night. Another suggested beer was beck's which tasted surprisingly decent and was just as cheap.
As time rolled by we began to notice how empty the bar was staying, and we were rather surprised. This was our first lesson in German night life, they don't even go out until nearly 11 or 12 and nothing gets really busy until nearly 1am in most cases! To be fair I need to follow this with the fact that they legitimately party until 6 maybe 7 in the morning. We have yet to be the last group to leave a bar or club, and we've been out often and long.
Despite the fact that the bar had become extremely busy we began to get tired and made plans to head back to Weststadt (our dorm). Brendan and I were figuring on walking back and said as much when Elena insisted on us taking a cab. After failing to convince her otherwise we agreed, thinking that we'd be able to sneak away when she left without hailing a cab. Little did we know that as we left she would hail the cab for us as well as explain to the cab driver to bring us to weststadt 3 or 4 times. Though at the time Brendan and I though it funny, I now realize the walk is upwards of 20 minutes without getting lost and we were probably better off with the cab fare then with no sleep.
Though this post's late I hope to start catching up on some of the others in the near future!
Culture Shock: So many Germans smoke!
Picture of the Post: Weststadt, my dorm.
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