Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood is heavily debated in the US, some seeing it as a great place that gives free contraception to those who can’t afford it and some wanting to shut it down because Planned Parenthood does abortions.

I went there, partly out of curiosity and am happy I did because it was a super interesting experience. My landlady had prepared me when I told her I had an appointment. Because some people hate the place so much, they have to take security measures and walking in there is a bit different than going to a regular doctor: there are lots of doors that you can only pass if you have an appointment.

The service was amazing – they first check your medical and financial situation with paper questionnaires.  If you don’t earn enough they give you contraception (and probably all other services) for free. Whenever they write down your address or phone number, they ask whether they may contact you there (trying to protect your privacy; imagine your family doesn’t want you to go there and even a letter with the logo could cause a huge fight). 

Afterwards a nurse checked with me, asking lots of rather bureaucratic questions about my body and how I feel – I actually liked it that way, it made answering some uncomfortable questions somewhat easier.

Finally, a doctor came in to give me my medication in person and to explain everything to me. She was super nice and friendly.

When I left (again, through the rather complicated door system), I was happy I came by car: a bunch of people had gathered across the street from the building, protesting against Planned Parenthood and holding “Pray to end abortion” signs. A cold shiver ran down my back as I drove past them, they stared at me angrily and I think I don’t wanna know how this makes you feel when you actually had an abortion. Pretty creepy, and this in Ithaca, a rather progressive and hippie place.

Nightlife in Ithaca

Wall decoration at Lot 10, an Ithaca night club

Generally, I feel that night clubs aren’t as popular in the US as they are in Europe. Being a student in Europe, going to some night club every now and then is simply part of student life. In the US, I felt it is slightly more special and maybe most people would prefer a private party.

There aren’t that many clubs in Ithaca, but I went to Lot 10 at the Commons with some friends twice. The club is rather small and reminds me of European student clubs, although I feel there isn’t only students here. One of the nights I was there, it was pretty crowded and I made some interesting observations on how clubbing works in Ithaca (the US?): I noticed positively that there wasn’t very many creeps and the one guy who insisted on standing close to me and my friends for half of the night didn’t do or say anything annoying. Everyone danced a lot and I enjoyed that people didn’t seem to worry so much about how their moves looked or whether they danced ‘too sexy’ – in most places I went to in Europe, I felt you need to be somewhat careful not to get into the focus of some creepy guy, trying to grab you.

Around midnight, the atmosphere changed – people started making out on the dancefloor and I actually saw a lot of girls twerking like crazy while dancing with some guy they just had met. This was a little unexpected for me and I think I haven’t seen it that extreme before. I was pretty surprised to see that while America can be very prude about some things, it is at the same time also very sexualized (e.g. women wearing super revealing gym clothes or people letting completely loose on the dancefloor, some of them not far from actually having sex right there – not kidding!). 

At 1:00 am the party is over – all clubs seem to close at this time here, I think this is even earlier than clubs in Sweden (often open until 2 am) and very different from Germany, where many clubs are open until 5 or 6 am and the party only really starts after 1 am.

I definitely had lots of fun and would go again, but it’s the kind of place where much of the fun you’ll have depends on the people you go there with and what type of music the DJ plays that night (yes, one evening they played quite some Drake songs that weren’t particularly danceable). Oh and don’t forget your passport if you don’t have an American ID – the first time, I couldn’t get in because I didn’t have it on me, and they don’t make exceptions here!

Back Home

It’s been a busy last month and I came home to Germany a couple of days ago (after being stuck in the bomb cyclone chaos on the east coast for a couple of days :P). 

Ithaca Falls on an icy day in early January (about 0°F/-17°C, felt even colder because of the winds).

It’s been an amazing half year and I learned a lot about myself, the US and Europe. A lot of things are easier to understand after seeing them in the US! I feel I understand better why the US has such a big military and gets involved in other countries; why people don’t necessarily see compulsory health insurance as a benefit and why someone would come up with a business like Uber, Airbnb and so on. My boyfriend came to visit for Christmas and New Year’s and we did a small roadtrip, discovering a lot of different places in the Northeast.

I will still continue posting, since I have some posts that I started and still want to finish. I might continue writing about living in different countries, since my journey hasn’t ended yet: I am moving back to the Netherlands and will probably move to Sweden afterwards..

Christmas Time

There is one big difference between the US and Germany concerning Christmas: it is celebrated on different days! While I was used to celebrate with a big family dinner and lots of presents on the 24th of December, I was curious to what would await me here in the US. I celebrated with my landlady and her family, they were super kind to invite me and my boyfriend!

The Christmas tree a few days before the big day.

On the 24th, we went to see Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” in the Hangar Theatre – an amazing show! Me and my boyfriend were invited for dinner at my boss’s place – a great evening with delcious food and interesting international conversations! When we left late at night, everything was covered in a thick layer of snow and a deer crossed our way when we walked to the car. What a winter wonderland!

On the 25th, we gathered for breakfast in the living room: freshly baked cinnamon buns and a warm fire in the fireplace awaited us. We had presents for each other and I was super glad to see that like in my family, my landlady’s family has the tradition to take time unpacking the presents, everyone taking their turn and the others watching. 

Some friends of the family came over for late lunch/dinner and we had a super relaxed day. I made some German Apfelstrudel as it was so popular on Thanksgiving. Even if it didn’t feel like home, it was an amazing experience with the best present, of course, my boyfriend visiting :).

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was super lucky and got invited to two Thanksgiving parties. My landlady hosted a party at our place and I got involved in the preparations as well and contributed a German/Austrian “Apfelstrudel” for desert. We had turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy and cranberry sauce together with different sides featuring squash, mushrooms, pearl onions and broccoli – it was super delicious! For desert, several typical pies (pumpkin, apple and plum) were joined by my strudel, all of them really really good! Of course we couldn’t finish all the food, leaving lots of leftovers for the upcoming days (I learned that eating Thanksgiving leftovers is a real thing and some people almost cherish this more than the actual Thanksgiving dinner). 

Thanksgiving dinner is ready! 🙂 

After dinner we gathered in the living room and chatted over some glasses of wine. I had to hurry to be at my friends’ party at least somewhat in time: the InfoSci PhDs had prepared an international Thanksgiving dinner with Taiwanese, Bangladeshi, Chinese, .. dishes accompanying the turkey. I couldn’t really eat much more but it all looked and smelled amazing. Before everyone went home, we played some rounds of Werewolf/Mafia, a game most of us knew – I didn’t know it was that popular all around the world!! 

Four months, almost!

… since I moved to Ithaca. I can hardly believe it, time really flies by! I feel home in some way but also struggle with some cultural aspects, which make it hard to fit in completely.

My internship is going well. I am taking a break from data collection in Rochester, so I have more time in the weekends. This is great since I finally have time to do my laundry and clean my room and do all these small things that became super stressful when I had to work on Sundays. At the same time, this leaves more options for my free time and I am confronted with how small Ithaca is: There is not much to do if there is no special events on the weekend.

Cornell campus with McGraw tower.

I made some friends among the PhDs that I sometimes hang out with. But here comes the difficult part: they often don’t have time because everyone is crazy busy here. I am not sure whether it is a general cultural thing or Cornell/Ivy League specific: people here work until very late in the evening and most of my colleagues also come to the office in the weekend. Another thing is the American culture concerning making plans – often things are left open until the last minute and I find it hard to adjust to this. Probably my German orderliness comes into play here – I want to know at what time I am meeting people so that I can plan my day around it and look forward to it. Especially since it is so hard to do groceries without a car, I feel stressed if I don’t know ahead whether I am to bring food or drinks and what to prepare.

Good news is, I have started to do lots of sports (gym, Ballet – Ithaca has a great school! – and Barre), which I really enjoy! I am not super conscious about my weight but it is a welcome change to spending my days sitting in front of the computer. And of course I try to take as many walks as I can to enjoy the beautiful nature here.

Ithaca Falls on a cold and sunny day in early November.

The food is delicious – I will definitely miss the amazing burgers and deep dish pizza and things like this. At the same time, I am really looking forward to some German bread and full-grain products in general. Healthy food is available and I do eat lots of salad, quinoa and couscous, but it is just not the typical food that you would get when going to a restaurant. Also, most food contains lots of sugar, just think of donuts, cookies and all these snacks! Fun fact: I had been wondering why the coffee here tastes so strange for quite a while. A couple of days ago, I read somewhere that the coffee beans are roasted and ground in a different way, which is why they taste different (more bitter!) here. I finally got used to it and start to enjoy it.

At least I am getting lots of cuddles – my landlady’s cat loves to hang out with me and often takes her naps on my lap.

My favorite fluffy friend.

 

 

Apple Tasting in the Cornell Orchards

The state of New York is known for its apples! In connection with a graduate student event, I got the chance to participate in an apple tasting in the Cornell orchards. We first got a tour and learned how the apples are grown. Did you know that apple varieties cannot be grown from the apple’s seeds but you actually need to split off a branch of that specific tree and plant it wherever you want that variety to grow? That means all apples of variety descend from the same tree!

The tour was followed by a tasting. Our clear favorite was the RubyFrost apple, which was actually developed at Cornell! We were also allowed to try two varieties that are not yet out on the market and are still to be named. The one I liked best had some spicy cinnamon taste, which is why I suggested the name CinnamonCrisp. Not kidding: you actually taste the differences between all the different apples and some have quite interesting aromas!

Finally, we got to taste something unknown to most of us: Pawpaws! Tasting a little bit like a mixture of mango and banana, they only grow in Northeastern parts of America. Since they cannot be stored for a long time, they are not exported and only sold at farmer’s markets and in small stores such as the local organic chain Greenstar.

Final fun fact for the Europeans: I had been wondering for weeks why they sell cider in the vegetable section – I mean, shouldn’t it be in the wine aisle!? No, not in the US: cider is actually just unfiltered apple juice! If you want the alcoholic version, you should ask for “hard cider” 😉

Happy Halloween!

Halloween in the Fall Creek neighborhood was amazing! Since houses are close together here and lots of locals live here, there is a lot of trick or treaters and the neighborhood is beautifully decorated. A lot of parents drive their kids here from surrounding villages, some driving more than one hour to get here.

Halloween decorations on a house in my neighborhood.

The flood of children didn’t stop for several hours and people were cueing in front of houses to get their candy. I was surprised that it was only one or two pieces of candy per person! Especially since food portions here are gigantic compared to Europe, I was surprised to see that only small pieces of candy are handed out during this tradition (while I remember getting entire chocolate bars and bags of candy when trick or treating in Germany as a kid). I assume it’s because there is so many more people doing it here.

Parents and kids waiting to get their piece of candy.

I went to some neighbors’ place with my landlady and we were about 10 people who each had brought several bags of candy. It was enough to satisfy the crowds but there weren’t too many leftovers. In total we might have easily handed out more than 100$ of candy!

The costumes were amazing. Most kids were dressed as movie characters, animals, zombies or princesses and some were really creative in making their own costumes. My favorite two are below:

Kid dressed up as a stove, the candy was supposed to go inside!

Headless kid- it looked so real!

Of course Halloween includes pumpkin carving! My landlady and me carved ours the Sunday before. I had carved pumpkins in Germany but it is on a whole different level here! People carve the tiniest details, letting cats and other things appear in their pumpkins! I tried something I had seen online: carving letters into my pumpkin, which took some time but was actually not that difficult.

My “halloween” pumpkin on the left and my landlady’s pumpkin on the right.

 

Witches, wizards and weeping willows

Do you recognize the lady in the picture? 

Yes, it is the lady in the painting from Harry Potter who is asking for the password to enter the corridors!

It was Wizarding Weekend in Ithaca on Saturday and Sunday and the Commons were filled with people dressed up as Harry Potter characters. I saw Lord Voldemort, Severus Snape, several Dobbies, Hagrid, the Weeping Willow and of course lots of little Harry Potters and even a baby dressed up as Mandrake carried around in a flower pot! 

There was lots of stuff to see and do. You could let the speaking hat tell you which house you belong to and buy a lot of Harry Potter merchandise and delicious food.

I loved that a lot of different organizations where present and would adjust their stands to the wizarding theme. The Cayuga nature center for instance brought a ferret and a baby porcupine. This morning, on my way to have breakfast with a friend, I also saw some great white owls that looked exactly like Harry’s Hedwig. It was magical!

Definitely more than an apple a day…

On the last September weekend, Ithaca was celebrating its rich variety of apples with the Apple Harvest Fest. They do have amazing apples here! Honeycrisp and Zestar are probably my favorite kinds. 

The Commons, the pedestrian area downtown, was packed with food stalls and people. I only took a quick stroll but couldn’t resist the delicious hot apple cobbler and of course I went home with a huge bag of apples!

Even if it’s just a small event, it is fun and definitely worth tasting 😉