For my Columbus To Do List project, I decided to explore German Village. I chose this because my Dad’s side of my family came from Germany and I love the food, traditions, and everything else about it. I had been wanting to see German Village ever since I heard about it, and this was my chance to do something about it. In the documentary, it was very interesting to learn about the two brothers that originally bought a home for both of their families to live in. The two brothers argued a bunch about the construction and ended up building a wall and splitting the house into two separate homes. During the civil war, both brothers went to go fight and during that time, the wives broke down the wall to make it one big home again. However, when the brothers came home from war, they still could not get over their dispute and ended up rebuilding the wall and it was never broken down again. It was also interesting that the largest ethnic group to join the Union in the civil war was German-born Americans. One fact about German village was completely stunning to me. This was the fact that Kindergarten was not in Columbus until the Germans brought that idea. The documentary on German Village was the most fascinating documentary I have ever seen, and watching it just made me more anxious to visit German Village itself and spend an entire day exploring. Below are some of my experiences that I had in German Village.

In my adventure to German Village, the first stop I took was at Schmidt’s Sausage Haus around lunch time. I was very excited to have German food in the first time since my family had visited Germany two summers ago. I had heard great things about Schmidt’s, and was extremely excited to try the wiener schnitzel, which is fried veal, and a classic German cuisine. The food was incredible. I started with an appetizer of pretzel nuggets which came with a hot mustard cheese dip which was good, but I ended up dipping them mostly in the German mustard that was on the table. The main dish came with one large piece of fried veal, some sauerkraut, and a mushroom sauce to put on top of the veal. The atmosphere of Schmidt’s was also just breath-taking. Schmidt’s Sausage Haus was founded in 1886 and the basic structure and the restaurant itself is supposed to look as it did when it first opened. There is a small stained glass window in the back of the restaurant that was there since it opened. The crème puffs there looked delicious, but I was too full from lunch to have one.

These pieces of art come from the shop called Helen Winnemore’s. It is a store filled with different hand-crafted objects ranging from pizza shovels, bowls, jewelry, and these paintings. These paintings were my favorite things in the store. Each painting had a quote by famous people that had to do with what the picture was on the painting. This shop was amazing inside. It was very welcoming and great to just look around at all of the different kinds of art. The owner of the store was also very nice and offered everyone coffee or tea as soon as they walked through the door.

After Helen Winnemore’s, the next stop was the famous book store in German Village, called the Book Loft. The Book Loft used to be an apartment building, and once people started moving out, the owner of the Book Loft would buy that room. Eventually, he bought all thirty-two rooms. One of the most interesting things about this book store, besides the fact of it being so large, is that each room has its own theme. My favorite room was the artwork room, with my favorite book being the one that had a dog posing in almost one hundred different outfits. It was hilarious to see this dog posing in all sorts of fancy clothes. Another book that stood out to me was one that was titled “Things to do in Columbus, Ohio Before You Die,” and I was paging through it and actually found something to do in German Village.

The book said to go to Pistacia Vera, and try their macaroons. Naturally, that was my next stop because it talked about how delicious they were. And let me tell you, they were the best macaroons I have ever had in my entire life. I wanted to try all of them, but ended up settling with four. The flavors I tried include pistachio, raspberry, café mocha, and lemon. The pistachio one was my favorite, but all were so delicious. Each macaroon was so fresh and soft it just melted in your mouth. The shop looked as great as the food they sold, too. Outside there were metal chairs and tables painted light green like a pistachio, and my favorite decoration was the large metal pistachio inside of the shop. What really took me aback was how modern this bakery looked. Most bakeries that I have been to, even if they are new, were made to look old and homey, except this one, which I thought was very interesting. All in all, I am so happy to have discovered that book at the Book Loft otherwise I most likely would have never discovered this place and their amazing macaroons.

After getting macaroons at Pistacia Vera, I walked into this shop called Caterina, which is a store that sells items directly shipped from Europe. The first floor had a great collection of plates, bowls, and other house items used with food. My favorite part of the sore, however, was a particular room on the second floor. It was a European Christmas room, and had the most interesting Christmas decoration I had ever seen. Shown on the right, it is a wooden Christmas decoration that has two levels of people standing on a wooden circle. Above the entire object is a wooden fan, and there are metal candle holders on the bottom. By placing candles in the candle holders and lighting them, the heat rising from the flames would turn the fan which would then turn the two levels of people. I thought that this was simply just fascinating and had to take a picture of it to display the beauty of its construct.

My third challenge was to take the stairs instead of the elevator in order to save electricity. This was extremely hard due to the fact that I am on the tenth floor of Morrill, so I had to go up and down seven flights of stairs every time I wanted to leave my room or go to my room. Other than saving electricity, it was a great workout! The first few days were pretty challenging due to the fact that I was not used to going up so many stairs. What I can do differently is tell others, especially those who live on lower floors to start taking the stairs instead of the elevators. This would save more energy over time than one could ever imagine. It would create less traffic for the elevators and reduce elevator movement, thus, saving energy. Something that I have learned about myself is that if I really put my mind to something I can accomplish it. Personally, I did not believe that I really go the entire week without taking the elevator, but eventually it really was not that hard, and I was walking up those seven flights with ease. Next week will not be as hard as this past week, but it will still be decently challenging. My challenge for next week is to give up meat for the entire week in order to conserve animals and help stop the mass killing of animals. I do enjoy eating meat, but every once in awhile I do not mind having a vegetarian meal. In fact, for lent one year, I gave up meat. It was very challenging, but only towards the end. I think giving up meat for one week might be a bit challenging, but not as much as taking the stairs everyday has been.

My second challenge was to only take as much food at the dining halls as I was actually going to eat. It was actually very easy to make the conscious decision to conserve food. If I was still hungry for something after I ate what I took, I could just go back and get a little more. Instead of grabbing too much food when I get to the dining halls (since my eyes tend to always be larger than my stomach), I would grab just a few items and see how I was feeling after that. In order to conserve more food, I decided to eat the food that has been sitting in my dorm room for awhile and not even go to the dining halls at all. Even though I am just one person, if more people ate food that they had every once in awhile instead of going to the dining halls, this would help the dining halls save food by not having to make as much. In the spirit of conserving, I also used a reusable water bottle everywhere I went in order to not waste materials by using disposable cups or water bottles for drinks. In addition, whenever I wanted to get coffee while studying in the library I brought around a reusable coffee mug for them to put the coffee in instead of disposable coffee cups.  I have learned that it is extremely easy to conserve food and materials, I just have to keep it in my mind so I don’t forget my reusable bottles or remind myself not to take too much food when I think I’m super hungry. Something different I can do is talk to my friends how easy it is to do these things, and the more people that do it, the more food and materials will be conserved. I am a bit nervous for my next challenge, which is to take the stairs instead of taking the elevator. I think it will be tough going up and down seven flights of stairs, but at the same time I will be conserving a lot of electricity by not taking the elevator every time I need to leave or go to my room.