Birthdays, Karaoke, and the Zoo

So two weeks ago now (woah time flies!) one of my friends here (K) turned 21!!! Now, turning 21 here is almost painful. By choosing to study abroad during our time to come of age, we have robbed ourselves of that fantastic milestone in American culture. Turning 21 in Europe is the equivalent of turning 19 (boy that was so anticlimactic) in America. It just doesn't feel right. So to try and distract from this sad realization we all decided to bake K a cake and buy her lots of alcoholic beverages (that she could already legally buy herself...shhh.) In America, when it is time to bake a cake, I usually look to my pantry for a classic Betty Crocker package, and supplement it with eggs, oil, and maybe (if I like the birthday person) some chocolate chips and frosting. In Germany, it was not quite that simple. First, we had to use my apartment to bake the cake since I was the only one who had an oven (who knew they were so rare!). Second, we had to make this cake from scratch. BIRTHDAY CAKE FROM SCRATCH. It is almost unheard of. Third, we had to find all these ingredients in a German grocery store. After an hour of searching, I left the grocery store with my friend M with the usual cake baking supples, along with back-pullver (baking powder), vanillan zucker (vanilla sugar- still not quite sure what this is), and gummy bears! Everyone then gathered at my house to bake the cake in a small, ceramic pan since that was the closest thing to a glass 9x13 we could find. After a lot of metric conversions, and a lot of guessing, the cake turned out beautifully!

And it didn't taste too bad either! We then went out to the Brass Monkey for student Tuesday night and ended up staying a little too late. We missed the last bus, and had to walk all the way home. Live and learn!

That Friday, it was the beginning of St. Pattys day weekend. To celebrate, we went to O'Reilly's Pub on the far side of the river. O'Reilly's is a karaoke bar! A few beers later, and me J and J we're up singing Don't Stop Believin' by Journey. It was AWESOME. So awesome in fact that I lost my voice for a week because of these shenanigans. Totally worth it.

The amazing DJ

 

The next morning we all woke up and decided to venture to the Heidelberg Zoo! It was a very typical Zoo, but did have some animals that I had never seen or heard of before! It was an excellent way to spend a sunny weekend afternoon. After seeing the Zoo, I was able to skype with my friend E, parents, and sister all in the same evening and all without a voice. It was a nice taste of home!

M + J casually loungin