The Girl Who Lived in Deutschland

Thursday 27th

I arrived on a small plane to Germany at about 11 am. I was surprised by how fast the time passed compared to my flight from the states. Since this was only my second flight, I was still in wonder when we took off. It was daytime so I could actually watch the clouds passing and the world down below. I had a window seat this time which I was quite pleased about. It is incredible to watch the clouds in layers passing you by as you fly above them. They look like a snow landscape once you're on top of them. I did not get any kind of motion sickness this time which was nice. I have to mention something humorous that happened to me while going through security. I was pulled aside because they found a sharp looking object in my bag that could be a weapon. Upon opening it up and examining it, they discovered it to be my Harry Potter wand. Won't make that mistake again.

When I landed, it took me some time to find my Germany family but once I did, we were headed to the Mueller household. I will warn you now, there isn't much sightseeing and photo documentation of this trip because it was more like just visiting a friend's house then being a tourist. Eileen's family was so nice and I particularly enjoyed talking to her mother as we did often. Eileen was on the tail-end of a cold and therefore was tired most of the day. I was just fine with lounging about in a foreign household after the intense weekend of Paris and my few days of preparations for Germany. We mostly ended up talking for hours, most conversation sparked from things in her room like her book collection. One entire wall of her room was just a book shelf filled with classic literature, popular novels, manga and comics. It was incredible. We also ended the evening by playing a game that I am now in love with: Lego Harry Potter. Why I have not yet played a single Lego video game is beyond me. We went to bed at a decent hour since I had gotten up at 5 to catch an 8 am flight. I was exhausted.



Friday 28th

We slept in since we both required extra sleep. Eileen planned to show me the city/town of Essen. We got ready and headed out to the mall they have and Eileen's mom dropped us off. We headed through the mall which had four separate sections which were all themed to major cities: Paris, London, Berlin and one other.

Their mall was beautifully decorated for Christmas. We walked to the back of the mall and exited through one of the main sections and entered one of the main streets of Essen. Main streets in European cities do not have cars on them. They are for pedestrian traffic only. It was lined with stores to gawk at and they even had a little section of medieval stalls that were selling things made of leather and fur. She brought me here not only to see her city but also so I could take a peek at her goth stores.

For lunch we ate at a Sushi buffet which had an interesting way of ordering. After you sat down, they brought out a tablet which you would then make your order selction on. Each person could order up to eight different items. When ready you press the order button and then they would bring it out to you. After a certain amount of time it would allow you to order again. They had up to 12 rounds that you could order different things to try and get more of what you liked. By the end, our table looked like this:

We only made it three rounds before we were stuffed. Eileen wasn't too hungry either, because of her illness she hadn't had much of an appetite the whole weekend. Afterwards, we went to look around some goth shops and then headed for a bookstore where I was to meet her friend Leslie. Leslie had been eagerly awaiting my arrival. For some reason she thinks I'm really cool and wanted to meet me.

We were standing out in the cold when a tall, blonde girl bounces up to us happily gibbering in German. Eileen hugs her and then introduces me. We quickly got acquainted and she was really nice. She is very into cosplay and has done a number of well known ones, such as Daenerys most recently. We spent most of our time in the bookstore talking and looking around and then headed back for the mall as it got darker. We sat as Leslie ate some noodles and chatted a bit more.

Then we parted ways and headed back home to Eileen's flat. Later we ended up having a crazy Skype call with one of Eileen's friends Dana (pronounced Donna) about the Harry Potter Live Action Role Play we were to be involved in the next night. I was to be a foreign exchange student from the magical school of Salem (US) studying as a Slytherin. My characters name is Piper Lockman and that's about all I had figured out. I planned to improvise the night of.

Saturday 29th

We woke up and had breakfast and once we got ready we headed off to the library. Their library allows them to take up to 100 books out at a time. Crazy! They were returning some books and checking out more. Most of what Eileen checked out this time was manga which makes sense since you can read like seven easily in a day. After exploring all the wonderful books and noting the different German covers of American books we left.

When we got home we decided to watch some episodes of the Tales of Symphonia anime since we had both always wanted to watch it and somehow became one our topics of conversation in the last two days making us nostalgic for it. It was amazing, I was in love. We only made it through the Sylvarant arc while I was there that weekend. Then we got dressed up for the HP LARP and headed over to Dana's house to meet up with the cosplay gang. Everyone was dressed in Hogwarts uniforms or as teachers. I was nervous since I don't speak any German. They were all really nice and tried to include me in the conversation but then lapsed back into German which I really didn't mind. I was actually getting good at being able to figure out what they were talking about just based on gestures and reactions. It's no different from people in America or England, merely a different language. "People are alike all over." (Twilight Zone)

My entrance letter

When everyone was ready, we piled into two cars and headed for a Tavern that was specifically one that supported LARPs and cosplayers. When we arrived there were people playing board games and Magic cards near the tap. On the left hand side of the entrance led to a dark room that was lit by candles and torches. I would have taken pictures but it was too dark (you wouldn't get the atmosphere). There were long tables that looked like the inside of a mead-hall. We walked through this room and came to a curtain that when pulled back, revealed two steps that led to an alcove that was designed to look like a cave. It was lit with lamps and had couches and chairs around a circular table. This was our spot for the LARP.

We sat down and the LARP began with a discussion of the Ministry demanding a review of its teachers. This amused me as they passed out forms that we were to fill out that allowed us to rate the professors. I've done this every semester of college for my professors so I actually felt like this was another work assignment. They never had to do something like this so they thought it was cool. They were also amazed that we did forms like this in America. The entire LARP was in German but I had Eileen translate for me. Dana, who played Snape, spoke English really well and made an effort to talk to me in English during the LARP so I actually had a chance at acting a bit. This is where I came up with a lot of the material here about Salem. They thought I was well prepared. Lol.

We ordered food which I ate this huge pizza thing which I wish I had taken it picture of. It was so big it extended off the plate on all sides! I ate the whole thing. Yummy. I also had a taste of alcoholic beverage. Eileen ordered something called 'Celtic Blood' which was cherry flavored mead. It was actually quite good. I would even go so far as to say that I enjoyed it. (Calm down everyone, I know, I know.) At the end of the evening we said our goodbyes and headed home. I actually made a few new facebook friends that night that may be reading this now. Thanks, Dana and Inga! It was a lot of fun and I hope to do it again with you guys some day!

Sunday 30th

We took the day slow since we didn't have to leave for my flight until 4:30. Eileen and I decided to start replaying Tales of Symphonia together since it has a 2-player function which I did not know about. It was a wonderful time and we fangirled everytime our favorite characters came on screen or we heard the music. Just as I was about to leave they handed me about seven bags of lion bars and a box of lion bar cereal. I had a time and half getting it all to fit in my backpack. She waited at the airport with me and then proceeded to go through the fastest security I've ever been through.