Greetings from Greifswald

Grüße aus Greifswald!

Moin!*

Let me introduce you to my new home: Greifswald!

*(I’ve been told that proper northerners don’t bother to say this more than once, i.e. “moin, moin.” It’s too much effort. ;P )

Now that I’ve been in Greifswald for a few weeks, I’m starting to feel a bit more settled in and have finally had time to explore the city–especially now that I have an adorable pink bike (that the last TA named “Daisy”). Having a bike definitely makes it easier to get around! Last week I had a flat tire (“ein Platten”), and let me tell you, it sucked to walk 2 miles in the rain to school and 2 miles back. 😦 With a bike, I can get to my school in about 13 minutes.

Luckily for me, the weather was especially nice in the month of September, so I even got to lay out on the beach once or twice. It’s been a little more rainy in October, but overall, not bad–and the trees have turned gorgeous colors.

I love being able to walk to the harbor or bike to the beach in just a matter of minutes. The houses are adorable, and there’s always beautiful ships to watch. I think it’s really peaceful, and I enjoy the smell of the sea and the sound of the water. I really feel like I lucked out with my placement! 🙂

The city center is equally charming, and there’s always markets going on in the mornings where you can buy fresh fish, meat, bread, vegetables, flowers, or other knick-knacks. Cafes are on every corner, and there’s an endless amount of elderly folks out sightseeing or chatting. Now that the university semester has started, there’s a lot more young people as well.

One thing I was surprised to learn about Greifswald is that the Romantic artist, Caspar David Friedrich, was born here. You know, the guy who did this painting:

There’s an old monastery ruin “Eldena Abbey” in Greifswald, and Friedrich would go there to paint. It’s hard to believe that there’s these ruins of an abbey that was founded in 1199–and you can just walk around in the ruins or sit and have a picnic. It’s a beautiful and peaceful place to hang out and also amazing how old it is.

Part of the monastery ruins. So that’s pretty neat.

Next up: the beach!  It’s small, but hey, it’s a beach. 😻

So lest you think my life here is just perfectly idyllic and charming, let me tell you, there have been plenty of cultural faux pas. From me getting yelled at on the bus in front of everyone (seems to be a common theme in my life; buses and I don’t get along), to not understanding the word Petersilie and holding up a line, to making embarrassing language mistakes, to having miscommunication problems at my school…yeah, it hasn’t all been idyllic.

Cultural differences are just something you have to keep laughing at, rather than let them get you down. I was having a particularly bad day last week, and just wanted to splurge and have a nice cup of coffee. I ordered the “espresso latte,” which was described as espresso with foamed milk. To my naive mind, this description sounded like a normal latte. I just wanted a steaming big cup of that delicious liquid so I could sit in the cafe and journal for a bit, and a latte sounded delicious. So imagine my surprise when the barista handed me this big mug and I looked inside to see this:

Haha, what? Where’s the rest of it? It’s not a latte with espresso, it’s an espresso shot with a tinsy bit of foamed milk. OH EUROPE. 😛 So that was a disappointing cup of coffee, but at least now I know what an “espresso latte” really means. Thank god the shop at least had bagels–its one redeeming factor. 😉

It’s also still hard getting used to the fact that people don’t really chit-chat to each other–there’s a hipster cafe I really like going to, and one day it was really busy and the only available seats were at tables with other people. So I asked if a seat was free, and the guy said it was–I even mumbled something about how I was new here and wasn’t even German–but he didn’t say anything else to me, and we awkwardly ate our soup across from each other without saying anything. 🙄😐🤔

Also, I miss guacamole and tortilla chips. 😭😭

Other cultural experiences have involved going to get my haircut. I tried to put this off for as long as possible, but the time had come. 🙀🙈 Fortunately a friend had told me that you have to dry your own hair with the blow dryer–otherwise they charge you extra. And conditioner costs extra too. Basically everything costs extra. Getting your haircut is expensive–especially considering I’m living in old East Germany! My haircut today cost me around 30 euros–all I got was a trim and I even dried my hair myself (how weird is that?). To be fair, I’m just happy I was able to communicate what I wanted (sort of) and still come out with all the hair on my head. 😅But men are only charged 18 euros for a wash, cut, and dry…so what’s up with that injustice? I have short hair too!

Speaking of other expensive things–I’ve found a nearby swimming pool–and it’s been great to be swimming again–but it’s also really expensive, so I don’t know what’s up with that.🤔

Overall, Greifswald is small, but it has its perks, and I love biking around and being near the sea. It also has a number of student clubs, and it’s not too hard to travel to a nearby city, like Rostock, Berlin, or Hamburg. Greifswald also has an H&M so that’s something. And it has a Subway, a McDonalds, and a Burger King (That DELIVERS). So you could say that, you know, it’s fairly metropolitan 😛

Although I haven’t felt too homesick, there are times when I’ve just felt so frustrated by the day-to-day stress of speaking German and making mistakes, cultural differences (don’t even get me started on German directness haha!),  oh and climbing up 5 flights of stairs every time I come home, that I just go do the most American thing I can think of–mainly, eating peanut butter out of the jar or splurging on Ben and Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup ice cream. Worth every penny. It’s like I can taste America. 🇺🇸😉

Next week is fall break, so I’m looking forward to travelling around (and hopefully blogging some more!) Despite some of the challenges, I’m really enjoying living here. I’ll leave you with some beautiful pictures from Greifswald! 😻

xo,

sarah