Mom comes to visit!

I've spent the last week and a half in the company of my wonderful mother, who flew all the way to cold and snowy Germany to visit me. It seemed we'd been planning it for ages, then suddenly it was time to leave to go meet her. Now, just as suddenly, she's back on the other side of the world.

Saying hi to the nice Bienenkunde guys.

Two Thursdays ago, I caught an ICE from Jena to meet Mom in Berlin. We'd planned to meet on the train after Leipzig, where she would switch to my train, so I sat tight until the train started moving again in order to avoid the umsteigening chaos. It was then that I learned that the train I was on had merely attached to the train she was on, and there was no communication between the two; I'd have to wait until we were on the outskirts of Berlin to get to her compartment. I settled back to wait, but got a call on my cell from, to my surprise, my mother, who'd borrowed her neighbor's cell to call me. At the next stop, I dashed onto the platform and then back onto the train and we were finally reunited.

At the platform in Berlin, we were met by Ben, the son of one of my mom's good friends. He and his wife Jessye are missionaries to athletes in Berlin, and they'd offered to let us stay with them for the weekend. We trooped back to their flat, dragging the heavy suitcase filling with gifts that Mom had brought along. Jessye welcomed us enthusiastically and fed us delicious food before we went to bed.

The next day, Jessye volunteered to show us around the city, so we hit all the major sights: the Brandenburger Tor, the Reichstag, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the site of Hitler's suicide (fun stuff, eh), and Checkpoint Charlie. Unfortunately, our access to the first two was blocked by a lot of stern-looking police with machine guns because the Russian president was coming to call that day. We finished off our day by walking down the East End Gallery, a long stretch of the Wall that has been painted by artists invited from around the world. That evening, I got a text from my mentor teacher saying she would be sick until the following Thursday, which meant that all the days I thought I would be teaching through to the afternoon were now totally free for sightseeing.

Our second day, Mom and I set out by ourselves. Beginning in the Hauptbahnhof, we were walking toward the Reichstag when we were distracted by a crowd watching something. Peering through, we were suddenly assaulted by the thunderous screeching of an F1 car, which shrieked into view, roared around in some donuts, and then took off back in the direction of the Brandenburger Tor. From another spectator, we learned that this display was to celebrate Sebastian Vettel's recent World Championship victory...although the German spectators were, well, less than enthusiastic. They watched keenly, but didn't clap or cheer. Maybe it was just too cold. We walked along the cordoned-off track toward the gate, where I saw something much more interesting than some German kid and his Red Bull car: a blood-red Audi R8, crowned by police lights, that was being touted as the "security car." Hello, precious!

We walked through the Tor (now open) and down Unter den Linden, popping into the Christmas markets, memorials, and various buildings along the way, including the lovely cathedral, and by dark had made it to the huge Alexanderplatz market. We got some dinner, did some Christmas shopping, and took the train back to Potsdamer Platz for a little more Christmas market goodness before heading back to Ben and Jessye's flat.

We packed up the next morning, said farewell to our generous hosts, and eventually departed on Sunday morning. Instead of heading straight back to Stadtroda, we headed to Potsdam for the lovely buildings, another Christmas market, and the palaces and pleasure grounds that we got to stroll through for a while. When we finally got back to Stadtroda, we headed straight to the Wohnheim and I installed Mom in her cold but quite nice accomodations on the top floor.

We had a slow morning on Monday, reluctant to leave the dorm because of the thick blanket of snow that had fallen during the night and continued to fall the whole day. Finally, we got bundled up and I took Mom on a tour of Stadtroda--which was, as may be imagined, quite short--and took her into the Fachschule to check train schedules. We dropped by the bee house to say hello to the Bienenmeister and the other Imkern, then we trotted and slid down to the train station to check out Jena. I showed Mom where I have classes and where we had visited before, and we wandered around the market in the main square before returning home to hang out with Bethany for a while.

Tuesday was traveling day. We took the train to Weimar for the market there, which was, although altogether not bad, not too impressive either; to my amusement, it was considerably smaller than the Zwiebelmarkt (onion market) that I had visited in October. We finished in Weimar early and, not ready to go home yet, continued on to Erfurt. I have really liked Erfurt every time I've been there, and this time it was even more beautiful blanketed in snow. The best bit was the medieval market, that had the best food and most interesting merchandise I've seen yet. We finally headed back from Erfurt and trudged back through the snow to the dorm.

Wednesday was supposed to be freaking cold, and was, so we stayed home. We cleaned my room (at Mom's insistance!) and made delicious stew to stay cozy in the cold. We also planned our trip to Nuremburg for the following day...

My mentor teacher texted me the next morning to let me know that classes were canceled for that day too due to an administrative snafu. Mom was disappointed, having wanted to see me teach, and I wanted her to meet Katrin, so we headed off to school to say hi. Turned out that they rescheduled a bit and I did get to teach one class, which placated both of us, after which we packed up and headed to Jena to catch the ICE.

Or so we thought: due to bad weather and trees on the line, all the ICEs heading that way were canceled. Since there was no place for Mom to stay in Stadtroda, we stayed in Jena for the night and wandered around the city some more. In the morning, we returned to the train station to find out that the problem still hadn't been fixed, and although the trains were running, they were being detoured around Jena. We took a train to Weimar to try to catch our detoured train, but although it started at being only 10 minutes delayed, it ended up being over an hour late. Frustrated, we decided to change our ticket altogether and go to Leipzig instead, which had the advantages of being closer and accessible. I was very disappointed that we wouldn't be able to go to to Nuremburg, which has the biggest and most famous market in Germany, but Leipzig wasn't bad either.

We found a reasonable hotel in the city center and set about exploring. In the main square, we found a hut housing a very friendly and enthusiastic young man selling cookies. The longer we stood there, laughing and talking with him, the more cookies he fed us, until we barely needed to eat dinner at all. That evening, battling the cold, we went to a concert/evening service at the Thomaskirche (where Bach was Kantor for a long time) before turning in for the night.

I have to stop here for a moment to comment (stop groaning and rollling your eyes--it's my blog!) about Germany's somewhat fanatical obsession with its national heroes. It seems that there is something--a street, a shopping center, a building, whatever--in every German town named after either Goethe or Schiller or both. For heaven's sake, there's a Goetheweg in Stadtroda. Sure, these guys were brilliant and stuff, but this is a little extreme. There aren't Shakespeare Streets all over England (I don't think?) or Mark Twain Drives slathered over America. (Although, granted, we have an inordinate number of things named after Washington.) Is this because Goethe and Schiller are the only German writers that people really know? Does anyone really like their works? (See this parody of "Thriller" about how terrifyingly difficult Schiller is to understand.) It seems to me that they're a lot like German Shakespeares: brilliant but outdated, difficult to understand, and dense. Yet the Germans name everything after them; every house in which they (or Martin Luther, or Bach) ever set foot has a huge plaque proclaiming the fact. I'm rambling on about this because the Thomaskirche in Leipzig is where Bach served as cantor for many years. Therefore there's a huge statue of him outside, a museum to him nearby, and a plaque on the wall of the church; his grave lies just below the high altar, in the choir. Even the church's symbol is his name with the A as the steeple of the church with a cross on top. It's a similar story in Eisenach, where he was born. Good lord, this is literally hero worship.

Anyway. The next day we took a bilingual bus tour around Leipzig, which was interesting but a bit headache-inducing, trying to listen and remember in German and then supplement the English translation with extra information for my mother. After that, we walked around the city some more, visiting the markets that we hadn't seen yet, and visited the Cookie Man again for more samples and to buy a couple more bags of cookies. We found a nice restaurant to have our last dinner together, and I discovered that it is possible to make Brussels sprouts taste good (shock!!). We tromped around in the snow a bit more before heading back.

Last day together. We walked around the city a bit more, looked inside the Nikolaikirche that we hadn't been able to see yet, and bought a few last gifts. We also took lunch to the Cookie Man and said goodbye for the last time. In the afternoon, we headed to the train station to shop a bit, and we had coffee together at a cafe. I finally put Mom on the train to Frankfurt (thankfully on time) and then took the RE home myself.

I'm so glad my mother got to come and visit. Germany at Christmas is the best, even with the snow and cold. It just seemed to go so fast--and now she's already back on the other side of the world. It impressed on me how far I am away from...well, the people I love. I was going to say "home", but...

Playing with bees in the snow

Going to Bienenkunde today, I thought we were going to do something winter-ish, like watch a video about bees, or build more honeycomb frames, or something like we've been doing for the last few months. Uh...nope.

I came into the teaching room right at the beginning of a lecture on Oxalsäure. What exactly Oxalsäure is is not entirely clear to me (Leo says "oxalic acid" but that doesn't help at all), but that wasn't too important since I'm not sure what half the things we use in Bienenkunde are called in English anyway. It's kind of better that way. In any case, der Bienenmeister explained to us that we would be mixing distilled water, sugar, and Oxalsäure to make a thicker-than-water, highly poisonous concoction that we would then give to the bees. Apparently, the water dissolves both the sugar and acid crystals (this doesn't sound good), so that when the water evaporates, the bees eat and store the resulting crystals. The Oxalsäure is apparently not poisonous to the bees, but it is to the Varroa (a red-copper mite no bigger than an asterisk), which can kill off a hive during the winter if they're not treated. The varroa get into the cells with the larva and kill them before they can hatch. We had to treat for them now because the bees are not currently laying new young, so the mites won't be able to survive.

However, what this means is opening up the hive. It was warmer today than it has been recently, but the snow is still thick on the ground, and it was cold for even us. Imagine for a second...

It's comfortable in the warm, humming darkness inside the hive. The workers take turns beating their wings to generate heat, swarming in a clump around the all-important queen. The dark, furry mass migrates slowly around the hive, working their way gradually through the precious stores of food they've industriously stored during the summer. Inside the styrofoam boxes, they are safe and warm, content to stubbornly wait out the chilly winter outside.

Sorry, meine liebe Bienchen.

Then, like the ending of the world, there is a loud crack, and their warm, snug home splits open. The cold whiteness of the outside world spills into the hive and the workers buzz frantically as their hard-earned heat disappears into the freezing air. The bees cling to each other, stumbling confusedly as the shock of cold numbs them; a few take to the air, rocketing around their attackers' heads, but their aggressiveness is suicide. Once they leave the hive, it will be shut behind them and they will absolutely die. It doesn't take long; some last longer than others, but all eventually plummet into the snow and struggle weakly against the remorseless cold until their meager warmth simply vanishes into the winter air.

If you feel just a bit sad and horrified, that's how I felt today. We cracked open every hive to douse the confused bees with our concoction, which had to be dripped right on them to be effective. They didn't like it much, and I don't blame them at all.

As you may imagine, the first hive was the worst. The hives are built of several levels, in most cases three or four: a bottom level full of combs (Waben) that also has the hive's only entrance and exit to the outside; a second level (Zarge), completely open to the first, also full of combs; and sometimes also an extra level that earlier contained the sugary feed (Futter) that the beekeepers give them to replace their stolen honey; and last, the styrofoam roof (Decke). At the first hive, Manfried (one of the other beekeepers) didn't realize that the bees would be clinging to the bottom of the second level, and instead of just tipping it, he lifted the whole thing off and swung it over the snow. The bees were scattered, dropping dazed and twitching in the snow, and the shouting began. The Zarge was replaced, and we rescued as many bees as we could from the snow with a dustpan and a bird's wing, but the whiteness was still pocked by little black specks. Then the Bienenmeister doused them with the chemical and we moved on. I felt a little shaken. For heaven's sake, they're bees--but it's still heartbreaking to see them fighting to crawl out of the deathly cold, waving their legs and fluttering their wings, freezing to death, and know there's no way to help. I took to killing the ones that lay helpless in the snow. I don't know if they felt pain as the winter stole their tiny whiff of life away, but I tried to make it fast.

We went on to the next hive, then the next. Some were alive and abuzz with anger when we let the cold in; some sent out kamikaze pilots that flew at our faces, and one even stung Rolf; some were tiny groups, huddled determinedly around their queen and meekly accepting their chemical baptism; and two of the hives were ghost towns, all of the bees dead, frozen or flown or killed by varroa. Only once more did one of the beekeepers make mistake and spill the bees into the snow, but it wasn't so many as the first time. My job was mostly to follow and watch, or help clean the snow off the top of the hives to open them, but a few times I got to take the bird wing and gently sweep the staggering bees back into the hive before it closed again, crushing them or stranding them to die.

Like I said, this was more than a bit heartbreaking. It seemed cruel, too, to disrupt their warm seclusion, even though I know that the varroa, untreated, can destroy the hive. I picked one fallen bee out of the snow and it crawled on my finger, its tiny feet gripping my skin, its feelers wavering feebly. I tried to flick it back into its hive; I don't know if it made it or not. I hope so. Today's lesson made me look forward all the more to springtime--and swarming season...

Christmas list and Sunday dinner

Random things today. Lisbon will be up later, I promise.
I don't have anyone to tell this to, so I shall post it on the Internet in general, which cares even less than anyone else, being an impersonal global network of electronically encoded information, but, y'know, whatever, eh?


Christmas List! <3
-DVDs: Sherlock, Top Gear, How to Train Your Dragon, Inception
-Gift cards to Amazon (for Kindle books and music!)
-Poster of the IPA
-A BahnCard
-A visit from my mom :)
-A new pair of boots

Um...that's all.

I'm very worried about my grandmother, who is not recovering well from a recent shoulder surgery. It's frustrating to be so very far away and unable to do anything to help and comfort my family. Luckily, should the need arise, I can get a round-trip flight for about $1000, the downside being that it's about 18 hours each way, plus jetlag. It would be worth it, though, if I were needed. I just feel like of selfish and useless.

Anyway. Yesterday was an absolutely delightful day; I spent a few hours in the morning tutoring my mentor teacher's daughter in Japanese, which is an adventure for both of us. I have trouble remembering which language I'm supposed to be speaking in, and my Japanese is pathetically rusty. Still, my pupil is eager to learn, and we have a great time talking together about anime and such. After that, Bethany and I were picked up by Claudia, one of the Fachschule students, to visit her home for Sunday dinner. We went to see her horses, visited the town's surprisingly spacious zoo, and had an absolutely fabulous home-cooked German meal.

Claudia's stepfather is from Yorkshire, so he and Bethany got to commiserate extensively on how wrong everything (food, TV, holidays, etc) is in Germany. I had to focus carefully on what he was saying to understand him sometimes! Claudia's mother is a sweet, generous woman, and she was kind enough to speak simply and clearly to me so I could understand her. And the food was so delicious! I wish I could cook like that! Perhaps the best part for me, though, was that I felt genuinely welcome in a German home--only the second time since I've arrived.

Also, Claudia and her family invited me to stay with them over Christmas, which brings my total number of invites up to four. Ah, me...what shall I do? I'd like to clone myself, send off the clones to each house, and then unite back into one person so I could have the experience of each. (There is precedent for this.) Given that that is, unfortunately, impossible at present, I'll have to make a decision. Yuck, decisions. I think I'll procrastinate on this one.

I only had to teach one class today, but I have Bienenkunde at 2pm. My lesson consisted of reading a text about my experience in Germany/learning German, and then asking them what they think about English. There were a lot of "boring" and "hard" sentiments expressed, and many mentioned that they want to learn more vocabulary. I find this somewhat amusing, since the statement "Today we're going to be learning some new vocabulary!" is usually met with groans of agony. Ah well.

I'm off to lunch, then to deliver our Operation Christmas Child box, then to Bienenkunde in the wind and rain. Wish me luck!

ADDED: Forgot to mention that I finally got the e-mail notifying me that tickets to the filming for Top Gear are now available. I sent my request in right away; we'll see what happens! If I don't get the tickets--which is much more likely--I'll still get to spend the week with "my English friend" Stephen. (The quotes aren't there for sarcasm. The phrase implies that Stephen is my only English friend, which he isn't anymore, but he was when I started calling him that. The quotation marks show that the phrase is now an honorific title instead of a expression of reality.) We were thinking of traveling somewhere in Germany together, depending on how it all works out. If I do get tickets, I requested two, so Stephen and I can both go. Either way, I'm very much looking forward to February! :D

The Iberian Adventure: Spain, Part II

[UPDATE: Pictures now available in my Picasa album!]

But first: Wow, has this been a long weekend.

On Saturday, we had Imkertag (beekeeping day), which was basically a conference of top beekeepers from Thueringen, Sachsen, and Sachsen-Anhalt, with a couple people from Berlin and Brandenburg, too. And I discovered on that day the German love of long, monotonous speeches. Pretty much the entire day was a series of presentation after presentation; about a third of the way in, my brain started shutting down--you know, maximum overload, where your brain simply can't process more new information and strikes in protest. I learned a few new things, but I spent a good bit of it reading my Kindle.

Sunday I went with Bethany to visit Victoria in Ilmenau. We ate Vietnamese food, shared pictures from our vacations, and munched on cookies. It's so nice to have a friend to go visit, even if it takes two hours on the train to get there...again, Kindle.

Today was a free day off class because it was the official opening ceremony of the Fachschule. And yet again, more long and painfully unintelligible speeches, from 10am to 4pm with just one hour break in the middle for lunch. I didn't last as long this time; I only made it through the first presentation (something about agriculture as relates to politics or something) before my brain saw what the second one was on (genetics and breeding) and went "Aw, hell no," and bailed. It was a long seven hours. I was there for the whole thing because I was supposed to be officially introduced, except the head of the school forgot to introduce me at the beginning and didn't get around to it until the closing remarks. The only redeeming feature was hanging out with the fun Hauswirtschaft ladies and drinking copious amounts of coffee.

Anyway. Back to the adventure!

DAY FOUR
Our plane to Madrid was delayed (of course), so we got in later than expected, but the kind tourist info lady at the airport got us back on track quickly. We took the Metro into the city center and strolled through the sundrenched streets to our hostel. The reception was pretty janky, but the rooms were brightly colored, with a tiny balcony looking out onto the pedestrian street.

Bethany and I were starving, so we immediately set off in the direction of our next stop, the Prado Museum, in search of some food. We found...nothing. Well, nothing affordable, at least; there were no cafes or sandwich shops that we could see. We ended up...I'm ashamed to say this, but we got take-out from Burger King and sat out in the sunshine in a park. I was surprised how delicious that hamburger was.

The Prado is like Spain's Louvre, except much smaller and containing mostly paintings by Spanish artists. We got an audioguide, but seriously, all of the paintings sort of blurred into each other. I did like some of the works by Goya, and it was fun to see the real Las Meninas instead of Picasso's wacko caricatures. After a few hours, we were both willing to be done, so we headed in the direction of El Parque del Retiro.

The park is one of those enormous, perfectly groomed, so-pretty-it's-fake parks that Europeans seem to love so much. We wandered down the tree-lined lanes as the sun wandered toward the horizon; finding a nice little lake, we bought some drinks, sat on the steps of an enormous monument and watched the sun go down over the water while I learned from Bethany about British royalty. Bethany has a great head for history and is a good storyteller, and I'm always up for a good story.

With darkness falling, we headed out of the park and up the Gran Via on our way back to our hostel, where we asked for directions to a good restaurant. They pointed us to a place that did little tapas things on toast (so yummy!) and gave us free glasses of sangria. We returned to the hostel for sleep, although Bethany was kept up by some obnoxious Americans who were prepping for a night out clubbing and, completely ignoring the fact that there were people in the room trying to sleep, kept the lights on and their voices up until they finally left around 1am. Gah, some Amis give us all a bad name.

DAY FIVE
As usual, Bethany popped out of bed way before me and had to convince me that being awake is actually a good thing. Our first task of the day was following RFS' self-guided walking tour through the city. We started in the Puerta del Sol, a large and beautiful public square that, at 10am, was almost completely empty. We headed into the streets and found ourselves in another wonderful pedestrian square, Plaza Mayor, where the cafes were just beginning to set their chairs out in the sun. Dropping by a market, we made our way onward until we stopped outside a church to witness a random parade.

There were men in uniform on horses, and women in traditional dresses, and people carrying gold and silver staffs and ornately decorated banners. We stood around gawping for a while, and a camera guy took some footage of us standing there looking mildly bemused, but no one we asked could tell us what was going on beyond, "it's some kind of religious procession." Yes, I can see that, thanks.

After a bit, they started singing and parading and such, so we followed along and split off from them at our original end destination: the royal palace. The audioguide took us through ornately furnished room after room, explaining to us in meticulous detail where each piece of furniture came from, who had designed and built it, and what artistic movement who had inspired it. Some of the rooms were very lovely, but as opulently beautiful as these palaces are, they have small windows and not much sunlight (can't be getting all weather-worn like those peasants!), and they feel like a circular maze, so that the rich and royalty just go around and around and eventually forget that the rest of the world isn't covered in silk and gold. Anyway, after glancing through the armory (look, another suit of armor! Wowee!) we bailed and headed to the cathedral right across the plaza.

The cathedral was singularly unimpressive from the outside--well, compared to many other cathedrals I've seen. Inside, the most impressive thing was the psychedelically beautiful rainbow ceiling, painted with fantastic colors in complex geometrical patterns. The underside of the dome had its four walls painted like the four elements, and the sunlight shining through the stained glass bathed the crucified Christ in rainbows. The only slight weirdness was one of the transepts, which was devoted to an enormous golden altar to Mary.

Since we were now quite hungry and it was well into the afternoon, we stopped by an overpriced, touristy cafe for lunch and then continued to our next stop, an Egyptian temple. When we arrived, it was closed, but the posted schedule said it would reopen in 45 minutes, so we enjoyed the view into the city and took a nap in the deliciously warm sunlight. An hour later, we managed to peel ourselves from our comfy spot and totter back to the temple, only to find we'd read the time wrong and the thing was actually closed for the rest of the day. Oh well.

We set off instead in search of our next goal: a chocolate shop recommended by a friend of mine. On the way, we stopped by the Corte Ingles department store, where Bethany gave me a heart attack by wandering off and losing me completely (this is like a 10-storey store, too). With no way to page her (the help desk refused), my cell battery dying, and no idea where she'd gone, I was just starting to formulate how to say, "Please help me, I think my friend's been kidnapped" in Spanish when we found each other again. Whew! By now, the streets that had been quiet and empty were starting to swell with people, so we took ourselves off again and eventually found the chocolate shop. There we enjoyed churros con chocolate, a yummy treat involving churros (strips of deep-fried dough) dipped in thick, pudding-like hot chocolate.

From there, we headed back to Puerta del Sol. That morning, it had been quiet, bright, and almost deserted; now, with the sun setting and the lights beginning to glow, it was filled with people, tourists and locals, listening to bands, taking pictures, chatting, enjoying the atmosphere. Bethany and I sat by a fountain to enjoy it, but after we were each approached by older gentlemen determined to converse with us, we decided to move on. We wandered looking for a restaurant for a bit, but my foot was aching, so we eventually took RFS's advice and found a tiny little tapas place that served gazpacho, which my grandpa had recommended, and we had a delicious dinner followed by gelato. It was getting late by then, and we had yet another early-morning flight the next day, so we took ourselves off to bed.

I have to say that I really loved Madrid. My impressions of Barcelona had been mixed, but somehow Madrid felt to me much smaller than it really is, and very open and welcoming. Maybe it was the warm weather, the cheerfully conversing crowds, the wonderful pedestrian streets and sidewalk cafes, and maybe it's because my great-grandmother's family was from Madrid. Whatever, I felt very comfortable there. I was impressed and surprised, and continued to be throughout the trip, by how much I loved and enjoyed almost all the cities we visited, and how sad I was to leave them.

The Iberian Adventure: Spain, Part I

[UPDATE: Pictures now posted in my Picasa album!]

But first...an apology.

It was recently brought to my attention that it's now been a month since I've written anything on this blog. I'm very sorry to the three or four of you who actually read it. I'd like to say I've been busy, but that would be so much of an exaggeration to be untrue. Since my return from Spain, I've certainly been more busy with many new classes, but I still have quite a bit of free time. I'm beginning to think that it's inevitable.

I've mainly been delayed by the fact that I wrote drafts of both Barcelona and Madrid, which have subsequently mysteriously disappeared. (Update: found the part on Barcelona!) So, I'm going to try to catch up by giving you, quite belatedly, the exciting story of our adventure in the Iberian peninsula. It may take me a few installments, but I'm going to try, okay?

DAY ONE
Our adventure began on Tuesday, October 12th, when we left the Wohnheim with our backpacks to catch the train to Altenburg. The weather was cold, drizzly, and grey, and we were desperately hoping for better on the other end of our flight. First, we had to wait for a few hours for the bus to the airport, so we did some shopping in a half-awake little shopping mall to pass the time.

The airport was typically tiny--like someone had set up a check-in desk and a couple of X-ray machines in an oversized shed--and we settled down to, once again, wait, talking sporadically with a nice German girl heading back to Barcelona for her half-year study abroad. From her report, she wasn't too impressed with Spain; she complained about the Spanish midday siesta and their supposed inability to take anything seriously or do anything urgently. Personally, that sounds good to me.

Our plane was supposed to leave just before 6pm, but by then, the plane hadn't even arrived. When it finally did arrive, and they had disembarked, cleaned it, and let us on, we were already quite late. We settled into our seats and waited. Finally, the captain came on the intercom to tell us that would be able to start the engines in about 40 minutes. After about half an hour more waiting, we were informed that due to "problems" (i.e. strikes) in France, we would not be allowed to enter French airspace and were looking at a delay of about three and a half hours. It was now dark outside, and we were getting hungry and thirsty, but apparently they aren't allowed to serve any food or drinks until in the air, so we sat there and waited. And waited. And waited.

Like a miracle, at about 9pm, our captain informed us that we could take off. We taxied to the runway, and I saw the rows of lights stretching away into the darkness, pointing our path into the sky. And we sat there, not moving, just waiting, as I rocked back and forth, clutching my half-dead copy of A Tale of Two Cities and doing my best impatient-Jeremy-Clarkson impression: "Let's go! Come on, come on!"

The whine of the engines built to a roar--the most wonderful sound I've ever heard--and we accelerated into the sky. Two hours later, we arrived in Barcelona in wind and rain, only to stagger onto a bus for the next two hours into the city. At the station in town, I was suddenly confronted by a problem that my sleep-deprived brain could hardly surmount: a cabbie asking me, in Spanish, where I wanted to go. I told him the name of the hostel, and when that didn't work, tried to tell him where it was, failing entirely to remember the words for "intersection" and "nineteen." I showed him the address, and we finally arrived, tottered in, got our keys, and wandered off to bed.

DAY TWO
We began our exploration of the city with a walk down Las Ramblas--a wide, tree-line boulevard connecting the newer Eixample neighborhood with the harbor. Apparently, in the summer Las Ramblas is swarming with tourists, pickpockets, and those annoying living statues people, but for us it was quiet and mostly empty. Partway down, we turned off down some narrower, twisting streets to arrive at the scaffold-bedecked cathedral.

I've said before that churches, no matter where they are, are oasises of cool peacefulness amid noise, heat, and stress. The Spanish churches are a bit different, though; walking in, the clamor of the street is replaced by the familiar comforting murmur of prayerful awe, but instead of coolness, these churches are full of warmth. And the smell! The first church we dropped by, off the Ramblas, was scented by the rich aroma of warm wax from the prayer candles burning in each chapel. When I smell the sweet, musty perfume of old books, I think of knowledge and learning; wet stone and moss smell of age; but warm wax smells of holiness.

Unfortunately, the cathedral has done away with real candles and replaced them with frankly pathetic electric ones, and the peace was disrupted by construction noise, but that didn't make the tall pillars and magnificent arches any less beautiful. Also striking was the tomb of a young girl, who was tortured and martyred by the Romans for her faith. She's now the patron saint of the church, and her ornate tomb lies under the high altar. I can't help but wonder what she would think to see all that pomp and honor for her. Of course, the church also can't pass up the opportunity to make some money: to turn on the lights to see the tomb, you have to slide in a coin.

The best bit about the cathedral was, by far, the cloister, enclosing a small garden, a fountain dedicated to (and sporting a very small statue of) Saint George, and thirteen white geese. While the cathedral, while beautiful, felt a bit kitschy (I mean, paying to turn on the lights? And electric candles? Really?) the cloister was full of that cool serenity that characterizes churches.

We dropped by the Deacon's House, now the Archives, for the a look at their pretty courtyard and enormous palm tree (which had to be tied to the surrounding building to stay upright) before going to seek some lunch. We rejoined the Ramblas and followed it the rest of the way to the harbor, where we sat by the water to eat. On the way, we passed the Colombus monument, topped by the man himself pointing out to sea. It doesn't cross my consciousness too often that Colombus was Spanish. Huh.

After lunch (and a quick chat with a nice old Dutch couple), we headed back up into the city through the Barri Gotic and made our way to the Picasso museum. Factoid of the day I didn't know: Picasso actually could paint well. Like, real, recognizable faces and landscapes which, although unremarkable to me, look quite nice. The museum focused on his early years (i.e. before he went all four-year-old-on-LSD-y) and by golly, the man could actually paint. This just made it all the more ridiculous and horrifying to see the hideously deformed block-people he began to paint instead for no obvious reason. Did the "making sense and having good taste" gland in his brain just spontaneously crawl out of his ear in boredom after the thousandth sketch of countryside rooftops? I like to imagine, though, that the conversation went like this:
"Hey, Picasso my man, whatcha paintin'?"
"Oh, I'm doing a reinterpretation of Las Meninas, widely regarded to be one of the best paintings of all time."
"Uh...are you sure? I'm pretty sure most people's eyes aren't stacked on top of each other. Where would the nose go?"
"...Under the ear. Obviously."
"What ear?"
"Oh, well, in this case her ear's actually on her forehead. And purple."
"That's ridiculous and possibly insane."
"Well, luckily for me, apparently the art scene is so desperate for innovation that 'ridiculous' and 'genius' are indistinguishable..."
(Except all this would be in Spanish. Obviously. And, er, apologies to people who understand/appreciate Picasso...)

All that this proves, I'm sure, is that I'm just not sophisticated enough to appreciate Picasso's genius. To which I guess I have to say, um, yes, and if sophistication means liking Picasso's wonky doodles, then no thanks.

To recover from the museum, we took a break in another warm, wax-scented church, then headed to the concert hall, designed by a guy named Gaudi. From what I can tell, Gaudi designed half of absolutely everything in Barcelona (churches, concert halls, parks, lampposts, etc), but this is okay with me because his style, although definitely odd, is kind of fantastically intriguing. Anyway, we scored some cheapish tickets for a concert that night, so we dashed off for a quick dinner of tapas and wine before returning for the music. The two-part concert was very nice--the piano/violin combo was better than the woodwind/brass quintet, I thought--but the concert hall itself was the main attraction, designed with fanciful sculptures and unlikely colors, along with the odd random Pegasus. After the concert, we made our way back to our hostel via another coffee shop, where I had my 4th coffee of the day. Mmm, the coffee is just delightful...

DAY THREE
I was awoken by Bethany, my human alarm clock, and we eventually headed out. (I hate mornings.) We began at La Bouqueria market, a riot of colorful fruit, twitching crustaceans, and assorted animal parts. We strolled through the aisles, sipping fruit drinks, before heading for the Metro.

We stepped blinking into the sun to behold before us a fantastical display of Jesus and genius gone mad. La Sagrada Familia (the Sacred Family) is a church, covered in scaffolding and presided over by watchful cranes, but not for renovation: begun over 100 years ago, the church is still being built. Designed, like everything in Barcelona, by Gaudi, the building looks like someone built the most exuberant, mind-bogglingly intricate exposition of Christianity--including all symbolic animals and people from the Bible--out of wax, then left it outside too long in the Mediterranean sun. Far from solemn, but somehow possessed of a sort of wacky, melty dignity, it's nothing if not striking.

We entered through one of the side door, featuring a much more subdued portrayal of Jesus' life than the Nativity Door's lavish effervescence, paid our 10 euro (?!) to get in, and wandered around. The interior is mostly barren except for the construction equipment, but somehow the fact that the cherry-pickers look tiny next to the enormous stone forest of tree-pillars holding up the half-finished roof doesn't hurt the church's awe factor at all. I can't wait to see what this place will look like finished, if they finish it in my lifetime! For now, I have to be content with those beautiful pastel stone trees, bathed in the soft light that the rainbow-tinted windows allow to enter. What a brilliant church!

Regretably, we had to keep going, so we left La Sagrada Familia behind and strolled through the city, stopping briefly for lunch, on our way to a park that Gaudi had also designed (surprise!). The park afforded lovely views of the city stretching down to the sea, and we got to see the adorable mosaic lizard guarding the entrance to the park. We dropped by the bookshop and then, as we were both getting very hungry, we decided to head back into town.

We found a good restaurant and took a break with some good food and sangria. My feet had been aching for a while, so it was wonderful to sit back and rest...until I found that my wallet was missing. Damn. Anyway, we then walked back through the Eixample to our hostel, since we'd have an early day the next day on our way to Madrid...

TO BE CONTINUED

Happy Mensiversery to ME!

Last Thursday was my first mensiversary in Stadtroda. It's been four weeks since I arrived, a bit lost and lugging my bags, on the train platform and met my mentor teacher for the first time; four weeks since I met Bethany; four weeks of trying to get apathetic students to laugh and stumbling through lesson plans. Four weeks in the same town.

You know what this means: Time for a vacation! Hey, how about Spain?!

Ryanair flies three routes out of the small airport in Altenburg, which is within reach of my all-Thüringen ticket: one to London (Stansted), one to Alicante, and one to Barcelona. Hey, I've heard of Barcelona! Let's go there!

Tomorrow we (Bethany's coming too, poor girl) will take a flight to Barcelona and begin our Iberian adventure. (Has a nice ring, doesn't it?) We'll stay three nights in Barcelona, then move on to Madrid for two nights, then to Lisbon for two more. After that, it gets a bit fuzzy (maybe I should plan this, eh?)--I think we may stay a day and a half in Sevilla, then go to Tarifa for the night, and spend our last full day in Morocco. On the 22nd, we fly out of Malaga in south Spain to Wroclaw, Poland. Why Poland, you ask? Well, it's cheaper to fly into Poland and take the train back to Stadtroda than it is to fly into, say, Berlin or Frankfurt. Plus, I have wanted to go to Poland for at least two years, and although we'll only have a day to see a bit of one town, I'm looking forward to it. Plus, it's not that far away, so we can always go back for a weekend or something. :)

As we're preparing for this trip, I find myself getting a little apprehensive, as well as very excited. It's hard to believe that I'm actually going to go to Spain. Spanish was the first foreign language I studied, and although I've never really had the passion for it that it deserves--perhaps because I did begin so long ago, so it doesn't seem so special to me--it played a big role, along with Latin, in getting me into linguistics, so I owe the language, as an entity, at least some respect and gratitude. It's a little frustrating to realize that despite the seven-odd years I spent in Spanish classes, I can't speak more two words in sequence, although I'm hoping that I'll be able to read and understand at a baseline-functional level. Who knows--maybe this trip will inspire me to take up the language again! Finally going to Spain feels like the culmination of all of that--for so long, it's just been a mystical, gold-and-red place full of sunshine and bullfighters, and now I'm actually going there.

The apprehension is because Spain feels like, well, a foreign country. No, don't laugh--actually, go ahead if you like, it does sound daft, but let me explain. All of the countries I visited this summer I'd been to before, so I was returning instead of striking out into the unknown. We did visit a lot of places that I'd never been before, but the country, the culture, the languages in most cases, were familiar to me. I spent most of my time in Britain, which is hardly a foreign country at all! No, I kid, Britain is definitely European and, well, quite British, but the shared language gives at least an illusion of familiarity. So, although I was traveling in foreign countries, hearing foreign dialects, eating foreign food (haggis, remember?), it didn't feel quite so...foreign.

Spain, at least in my head, is a very foreign country. The language is "familiar", but I doubt, realistically, I'll be able to say or understand much. I've never even been close before; I don't know much of anything about their history, and my cultural knowledge is all mixed up with what I know about Latin America. Like I said, Spain in my head is a magical land where people get charged by bulls on a regular basis, people play flamenco music in the streets, and everything is washed in golden light. I really feel like I'm going somewhere new, and it's a bit terrifying.

Speaking of terrifying: did I mention that we'll probably day-trip to Morocco? Morocco, if you don't know, is just nine miles across the Straight of Gibraltar from Spain, but it's...Africa. And Muslim. These are two words that put me a bit on edge. Yes, yes, cultural understanding, people are different everywhere, open-mindedness, I know, but I can't help being a bit nervous. I've never been to Africa or a Muslim country before. This is most definitely something new.

On the other hand, I'm the one pushing to go to Morocco at all, for the simple reason that we can, and when will we ever have an opportunity like this again? Maybe never. Unlike some very open-hearted and courageous people I know, I've never had any particular interest in going to Africa, but being that close and not seeing at least a tiny piece of the Mediterranean bit seems a shame.

So, the lesson in all this is: don't stick Jennifer in a small town in the middle of nowhere for too long, or she'll fly off to Africa first chance she gets. Or maybe it's Don't let Jennifer choose her own mensiversary presents. Or maybe You can never travel too much.

I'll keep you updated. Wish me luck!

Happy Birthday, Deutschland!

The Fourth of July is kind of a big deal in America. In keeping with the millennia-old tradition of celebrating by imbibing copious amounts of alcohol and blowing stuff up, the Fourth is (at least where I come from) a jovial occasion of outdoor barbecues, beer, guests, bunting, fluttering flags, and fireworks. For weeks running up to it, all the stores are packed with gaudy, flag-oriented paraphernalia, and families make their annual trek to the Indian reservations to buy, usually, enough explosives to reduce their garages to shrapnel. It's a chance to enjoy the hot weather (at least you hope for hot weather in Washington), have a good time with your friends, make some craters in your driveway, and reflect with satisfaction on how some upstarts and rebels took on an empire and stuck it to 'em. Watching the fireworks blaze the darkness makes you feel just a bit shivery thinking of all our country's been through, and just a bit warm and fuzzy, feeling like you're a part of it.

Today was Germany's birthday--the Germany in the shape and form that we now know is two years younger than me. Der Tag der Deutschen Einheit ("The Day of German Unity") is an official government holiday celebrating the day that Germany was official reunited from East and West into one nation. As usual for a Sunday in Stadtroda, the streets were mostly deserted, and despite the surprising gift of a warm, sunny day, all was quiet and empty.

I took the train to nearby Jena, looking for some sign of patriotism, and found only two things that could even begin to qualify. First, the only sign of the German black, red, and gold was on the poster for some sort of anti-nationalism rally in a small square outside Jena's movie theater. The protesters--or rallyers, or attendees, or whatever they were--sat rather peaceably listening to a calm, measured voice reading some kind of political speech over a loudspeaker. The proceedings were conducted under the half-wary, half-exasperated gaze of a rather sizable contingent of black-uniformed, no-nonsense Polizei. I moved on from this quickly.

I proceeded past all of the blank, dark, unadorned shop fronts with the amplified voice echoing after me until I came to the market square, where at last I found the second and more welcoming-looking celebration of the Tag der Deutschen Einheit: a small stage, a beer stall, and a sausage cart. The cafes facing the square were open with tables in the sun, and I looked around for a bit before running into an English acquaintance--another ETA--and settling at a table to sip a strawberry juice and listen to the music. Some speeches were made that we neither understood nor listened to; there were no cheers, no clapping, no enthusiasm at all. I eventually just headed home again.

On the one hand, this seems odd to me--perhaps not that this particular German holiday is not enthusiastically celebrated, just that it is barely (or, in Stadtroda, not) celebrated at all. I speculated at first that this lack of interest and enthusiasm might be an East German thing, but was then reminded of my first full weekend in Marburg two years ago, which had similarly shuttered shops, deserted streets, and no signs of life or participation on the same holiday.

Nevertheless, I am inclined to suspect that at least part of this is because of the East/West divide. I asked my mentor teacher about the local attitude to this particular holiday, and her answer was that it depended a lot on how each person fared after reunification. Some, especially those for whom intellectual and artistic freedom was of paramount importance, embraced and desired it; others, who were content to follow the rules and be taken care of by the government, suffered from and resented the governmental switch. I'm reminded of buttons that we saw in an "Ost-Shop" ("East-Shop") in Weimar depicting silhouettes of either West or East Germany before the reunification, emblazoned with "Schön war die Zeit..." (literally "Nice was the time..." but more like "Those were the times" or "The good old days.")

Also, I'm reminded of something I've heard before, but in Japan, upon noticing that there are almost no Japanese flags: that the Japanese associate the Japanese flags with the government in World War II and are ashamed to fly it. I wonder if the same thing is true in Germany. And does a similar premise explain, perhaps in part, why British and English flags are so rare (going back to British Imperialism)?

In any case, the whole holiday felt somewhat surreal--I knew it was supposed to be happening, but Stadtroda seemed to have collectively shrugged, rolled over, and gone back to sleep, while Jena saw it as an excuse to do the proper German thing, i.e. eat sausages, drink beer, and have some nice music. It seems to me that considering the horrors of the recent past, the trauma of separation, and the awkward and mismatched reunification, Germany has a lot to be proud of in terms of progress made. During my years as a German student, I've been struck by (and occasionally fed up with) the near-obsession with rehashing and re-examining, in detail again and again, all of the horror and agony that the 20th century brought to Germany. Rarely, it seems, is much attention paid to Germany's long and illustrious history before the world wars; living down the Nazis seems to consume the German national psyche.

Despite the huge load of guilt the entire country seems to carry, the nation has pressed on: just today, Germany's finally paid off the last of the loans they took out to pay the reparations mandated by the Treaty of Versailles. And here I am, sitting in my room in an old GDR-era building, freely sharing my thoughts, with posters from Britain on the walls and American music on the stereo. When talking to a new German friend, I sometimes am swept away by a sheer sense of gratefulness and awe: only two decades ago, we would've never been able to meet, and there are times in recent memory that we would have been hated enemies. Yet here we are, talking, laughing, correcting each others' pronunciation, learning and sharing freely. It is an absolutely wonderful thing.

So, although the people here don't celebrate with the openness and enthusiasm I might've expected, I'm happy with the progress Germany's made. I'm grateful to be here, and still sometimes a little stunned by it. This country has a way to go yet...but so does any 20-year-old. For goodness' sake, she's barely out of her teens!

Happy birthday, Germany, and many happy returns.