Going to Goethe's Haus

Yesterday was a nice change of pace: FIELD TRIP! So nice to get out of the classroom...and onto the train, subways, and pedestrian mall with 10 other students in my class and our favorite teacher, Ligia. Half the class couldn't make it b/c of work or kids, but it was fun to get to know some of the other students better. We were gone all day and Stefan picked me up from the train station at 4:30pm (class usually ends at 12:30pm).

We first had a brief tour of the pedestrian area from our teacher before heading to Goethe's birth-house. If you want to know more about Goethe, click here, and if you want to see a virtual tour of the really lovely house, click here. We had a fantastic tour guide take us through the house and share lots of info. Here's a picture of some of my classmates outside of the house on the way to lunch.
After lunch we split up - one group to go off shopping and the other group to get a tour by our teacher. I opted for the tour, along with 5 others. We walked to the city square, the Romer, and saw all the little huts getting built and decked out in preparation for the big Frankfurt Christmas Fair that begins the first of December. We also checked out a tiny church, walked to the river, fed the ducks and swans for a minute while our teacher pointed out different museums across the river,
and went back to the Romer where she bought a cup of Gluhwein for us to try. It was pretty nasty - this hot spiced wine stuff that is traditionally drunk around Christmas markets and so on. If you're feeling adventurous, you can try a recipe for it found here. Here's a picture of one of my classmates taking a sip - you can see my teacher, Ligia, here in the middle. She's super - really goes above-and-beyond for her students.Then we passed by this lovely looking Konditorei and kept walking to her favorite place to get coffee. So I picked up a double espresso machiatto and got a jolt to keep me moving in the chill and then we went off to a fabulous bookstore - massive place! I was sneaky and found the large English-language room and indulged in this book that I've been wanting to read for quite some time. I got busted by the teacher when we all met up later - but got off the hook since it was a book about Germany and one she'd been wanting to read herself. I have a suspicion I'm going to have to do some kind of presentation on it later....

The day ended with our teacher buying everybody this fun little tool to learn our German irregular verbs. She had told us about it before, but mentioned that it was difficult to find in Marburg. I'm not kidding, I told you she's a good teacher! I returned home tired, but pleased with the day!