Month: November 2015

New York No. 4

20151121_17341520151122_104312Last weekend I went to NYC with the international students from HACC. I brought my friends Olha (Ukraine), Han (Vietnam), Giuliano (Brazil), Pauline (Belgium) and Matthew (boring U.S.). It was amazing! We went to the NBC studios, 5th avenue (Louis V.-Prada-D&C-Michael Cors-street), Central Park (which is a city, it is so huge, you need a map to find any way) and did our own photoshooting. We also visited the Belverde Castle in Central park which was beautiful as you have a gorgeous view on NYC for FREE! In the evening we chilled at Time Square and took more pictures, snapchats and videos. Overall 600 pics! Giuliano satisfied his snapchat addiction by snapping everything, everyone, everywhere. We also got educated in Brazilian culture:20151123_162439

  • Brigadeiro= Brazilian dessert (not pudding!) made up of chocolate, fat, sugar and other healthy ingredients (but it’s goood!)
  • Sonbraselhas = eyebrows
  • in Brazil people don’t pay attention to stop signs, traffic lights or any other rules
  • However, getting a driver’s licence is hard as hell since policeman sit in the back screaming at you

Love my P Partners!!

Philly

Vorletztes weekend I went to Philly to visit my friend Lukas, who I met back in Germany, to explore the city. He 20151115_191548always referred to Philly as a Ghetto but I wanted to discover the nice parts of it.

20151115_191328We went downtown where he showed me some nice
bar and restaurant streets. However, he was kind of right as there were a lot of poor, homeless, drug-dealing people who begged for money or food. You should not go out alone there when it gets dark.. The next day we did a great tourism tour and saw the famous Love sign, river, the HUGE Reading Terminal Market, Art places, the Eastern State Penitentiary and much more!20151114_14563920151113_230714[1]
That night we went to a Filipino Pot Lock Party and it was crazy-amazing! We had so much Asian, American (Turkey) and all sorts of food there, played games (my first beer pong without drinking!), talked, laughed and danced! In the end it got very crazy, it was as loud as in a club – not because of music but because of us singing, shouting and    cheering!

One American approached me when he heard I was from Germany and started telling me that he does not believe in socialism, the U.S. is falling apart as it looses its capitalism due to the ideas of free education and welfare. I listened politely, smiled and nodded as I wanted to understand his point of view. I failed. I think it is sad that some people don’t want to look over the edge or reflect their opinion. Then we got interrupted by his jealous ex-girlfriend who smacked the door and then politely asked if she could talk to him: Oh sure, go ahead, sweetie! I’ve had my turn!

It was a fun night!

Gallery

Trick or Treat?!!

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HALLOWEEN

PUMPKIN

WWWITCHES

VAMPIRES

CANDY

CANDY

CANDY

PARTY

HOUSEPARTY

CRAZY

I had a great Halloween! I went to 2 HACC parties on campus, one in York and one in Harrisburg.

Our own party was amazing! We as SPB (Student Programming Board) planned, organized and set everything up:12179796_902067366514717_198601008_n

  • Party lights and DJ with party music   
  • Cookie decoration stand
  • Photo wall
  • Halloween decoration everywhere
  • Black light body paint
  • Popcorn, Candy and snacks
  • Fruit Punch
  • A lot of fun, dancing and pictures/snapchats

It was “ein voller Erfolg” (a full success), even though not so many students showed up (about 25 – 30), but all of my college friends were there and we had a great time !

12204605_902616739793113_927197927_n11230901_1098595603484911_4390965561372308032_nThe Harrisburg party was organized by the IAC (Int. Awareness Club) at the Harrisburg campus and was mostly for international students and friends. As this campus is much bigger, we expected a big party -> they invited about 200 students on Facebook! But: “Pustekuchen” (blowing cake)!

When me and 3 of my friends, we got there when it begun, we walked into a small room with lights on, music off, no D.J., no decoration or costumed people – just pizza. We were quite disappointed about that but helped decorating the room, ate pizza and waited until a party atmosphere would come up. Some more students came in within the next hours and at a certain point, Olha (very good friend) and I started dancing which finally started the party. People joined us after 20 minutes warming up the dance floor and it ended in dance circles and flashmops. It fun fun, even though our York party was much better organized, fun and party-like.

Then, there was the House Party on Halloween itself. Everything was quite unplanned, I didn’t really know where I would go with whom and when. In the afternoon, I went to a “Oktoberfest” in York with Andrea and Sean. They played some Bavarian and old German songs like “Heidi”, sold Bavarian food like Weisswurst, Sauerkraut, warmen Kartoffelsalat, Mushroom soup and of course German beer (last for free btw). They also had a hard pretzel variation stand where I tried all the samples (pizza pretzel, cinnamon, honey-mustard,…) as well as cheese samples in the Deli itself (which organized the Fest). A lot of things in there were Italian or French but they had German Curry Ketchup, pickles, “Pumpernickel bread” and Schweineoehrchen.olha

Coming back to Halloween: In the evening I went to my friend Han’s house whose cousins had cooked a Vietnamese noodle soup with meat, tofu, lettuce, eggs, veggies in it, man it was good! Before that, we went trick or treating in her neighborhood and got some candy! 😀

At night, Olha and me went to this CRAZY house party after we were looking for the house for about 1h, dancing, laughing and singing on the streets (why? Because we can!) and finding out that the guy who directed us was not very clear anymore and sent us to the wrong address..

However, when we got there, people were as wrecked as the house. We saw everything that you would expect at an ending crazy-wild party: red cups, beer pong, people falling down, people making out, throwing up and walking away, drinking and smoking. Olha and me were making the best out of it and danced in the basement to bad music of an amateur DJ who left at 11.30pm and made fun of people around us. It was an interesting experience! However, people told me that this is not how a typical house party is like. Normally, you can have fun there.

Excited to experience more!

 

Volunteering

I found some very nice places to volunteer!!

Healthy World CafeFridays I help preparing, (tasting) food, doing the dished and serving at the Healthy World Café!

It is a great cafe because it offers a small but good selection of healthy, local, organic food such as salads, wraps, soups and hummus. Plus, it lives by the motto: Pay as much as you want/can. There are recommended prizes but you can also pay less or more, whatever you think it is worth. The people I work with are very nice and we get free lunch after our shift. Further, they have a piano I can play ! 😀

Sundays I work at the Cafe connections in LCBC church. It is a lot of fun, I’ve never served customers or worked as a cashier before but it is easier than I thought. I just had to get along with the coins (their size is not proportional to their value -> the dime (10 cents) are smaller than 1 cent) and the bills as they all have the same color. Yesterday I suchte vergeblich nach einer 1 Dollar Muenze in der Kasse haha! Aber nur aus Aufregung 😉 (whereas btw it exists but is very very rare!) All the people at the church are very nice, friendly and don’t get mad if you screw sth up haha.

I might also help York Downtown with events on First Fridays soon. A lot of places have special offers, events or attractions on First Fridays and I’d really like to help setting up, organizing and supervising stands for this!

1st SundaysSpeaking of LCBC, I went to a 18 – 25 y.o. meeting yesterday which is on first Sundays and it was great! The people there were very cool, welcoming and kind! We played Giant Jenga, Telestrations (amazing game!) and Ping Pong, had Pizza, Salad and (Halloween) Snacks and a lot of fun! I’ll definitely go there every month from now!