A successful (and educational) day!

This morning I met Kenneth, my university buddy, at the Saarlandstraße, the train station closest to my housing.  We took the train first to the Mundsburg stop, which is about a mile south.  Kenneth showed me the little bakery in the station and told me about Franzbröchten, which are a swirly pastry with cinnamon and sometimes other things, like chocolate or pumpkin seeds.  From there we walked to the Finkenau campus, which is where a lot of the art classes for HAW are held.  It is in a beautiful old brick building that was once a pregnancy and birth clinic.  We went in the computer lab and printed out all my necessary forms to register my info with the city, including the proof of enrollment form, which is called an Immatrikulationbescheinigung (yeah, I know . . . it has eleven syllables and I had to hear it about 40 times before I was able to say it myself).

Franzbröchten!

From there we took the train downtown to the Hamburg Welcome Center at the Rathaus and registered my address.  They gave us another form with a similarly long and hard-to-pronounce name (all I know is that it started with M and ended with "gung") that we took to the HASPA bank to open a bank account.  HASPA, or Hamburger Sparkasse, has branches all over the city and is good for students because it has cheap rates.  The first branch we went to wasn't very friendly to us though, and didn't want to let me open an account because I am not staying long.  Kenneth was annoyed.  We went to another branch and made an appointment with the branch nearest my housing, so that I could open an account the following day.  After that we went to the office near the main HAW campus and got my official student card, which is also my official pass for the train & bus lines.  Then we took the train back up past Mundsburg and got off at the Hamburger Meile, which is a big mall that runs the length of an entire block.  We had lunch there--Kenneth bought a curry dish, and I ate the PB&J sandwich I had brought.  After that we walked around for a while inside the mall.  Hamburger Meile is right across the street from the bowling alley where I was supposed to meet all the other international students at 2:15, but we still had an hour until I had to meet everyone.  So since we had time, we ended up going into the HASPA branch at the mall (seriously, they're even more common here than Starbucks is in America) and opening an account.  I was really surprised that they offer you water to drink (either plain or bubbly) when you sit down at the desk . . . it seemed so much more hospitable somehow.

After that, Kenneth went on his way, and I walked across the street and met everyone outside the bowling alley.  We filled up almost the entire place!  It was fun.  I played with Elisha, Carissa, and Tiina, who had been on my team the day before, plus Tiina's friends Siru and Ninni (who are also Finnish).  It was fun, even though most of us were pretty lousy at it.  We had some lucky strikes here and there.

Markklösschensuppe . . . yum!

After about two hours, I left to go back home.  Indra, my roommate, had invited me to make from-scratch soup with her later in the day, and I was glad I wasn't too late to do it.  We made Markklösschensuppe, which is beef marrow dumpling soup.  Sounds weird, maybe, but it was actually really good.  The dumplings were made of cooked marrow, ground breadcrumbs, and some nutmeg and salt.  They taste slightly sweet and are rich and savory.  The soup also has carrots, small noodles, and parsley in it.  We made a berry smoothie to go with it, and I got out the leftover bread from my weird restaurant dinner last night.  Indra turned on Sarah Brightman and we were singing in our opera voices while we cooked.  It was really a lot of fun, and the work was easier with two of us.  Next time we cook, I'm teaching her how to make veggie burgers--that's another good recipe for two to do!