Döners and Sunday Markets

If you ever come visit me in Germany, here are some things I miss and would very much like to have:
Anything spicy, because that sort of food does not exist here (at least, not very frequently)
Popcorn
Macaroni & cheese
Beef jerky

On a related note, if you are ever in Germany, here is a list of food you need to eat:
Spätzle
Schnitzel (any sort)
Bratkartoffeln
Weißwurst (with a Hefeweizen and a Brezel, of course)
Maultaschen (specific to the southwest)
Ice cream (especially in the spring/summer)
Pommes with mayo
Döner and/or Yufka

As you may have noticed, Döner is very much not a German word. It is also not a German food - it's Turkish! There are imbiss (fast food) cafes EVERYWHERE in Germany, and what they mostly sell are Döners and variations of them. What is a Döner, you ask? Basically, it is pita-like bread filled with awesomeness. In this case 'awesomeness' means meat, lettuce, cabbage (we are in Germany, after all), something like tzatziki sauce, and tomatoes. It's a little bit like gyros, only with more options for what you can put on it. And every Monday, they are €1.50 at the restaurant by the train station. Last Monday, about 20 of us from my language program went to this restaurant and overwhelmed them a little, since it is a pretty small place with only 2 tables. It was a nice evening, though, so we ate outside and all was well. Hopefully people will want to go again tomorrow, because it is super tasty and cheap! There's also a bar that has karaoke every Monday, which we went to last week as well (highlight: 4 of my male friends singing Poker Face). Monday nights around here are pretty awesome.

On Thursday after class I went for a walk/run in the area where my dorm is, and did a neat bit of exploring. As it turns out, my dorm is about 20 feet from a farm - like legit plowed fields and everything. This farm is a cool farm, because there is a paved path going through it between the fields, and people can walk or ride bikes or horses (definitely saw that) along it. It must be about a mile and a half in perimeter, because it took me about 25 minutes to go through the whole thing. There were other path options that looked like they headed further towards the forest behind the farm, so maybe one nice summer day I will explore those paths as well.

Today was also pretty awesome, because 1) Sundays = no class, thus 2) I have time to 2a) sleep in and 2b) cook a good lunch. Yay! And this Sunday was especially cool, because in the Altstadt was the annual Frühjahrsmarkt! What that means is that there a jillion little market stalls not only in the Marktplatz (like every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), but also through several other streets and alleys. When I got off the bus near the area where the market was I could even smell that something was different today, because so many people were selling and cooking sweet things on the spot that the air smelled like sugar and candy. The other market stalls sold things like soap, candles, honey, cheese, olives, wurst, wooden toys, traditional Schwäbisch food, bread, and tons of plants and flowers. What was really out of the ordinary about today was that the regular stores in the Altstadt were allowed to be open too - on Sundays, normally everything is closed. There are only 3 Sundays out of the year where normal stores can be open, and this was one of them! So that was pretty cool, too. It definitely made my Sunday a lot less boring! I bought some flowers for my room, a Zuckerhase (rabbit made of melted/caramelized sugar that is then poured into a mold - did they mention how much they love Easter here?), some goat cheese, and candied almonds. Germany is delicious.