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
Monday, November 15, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
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
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
Monday, October 11, 2010
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!
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!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Book: Persuasion
Author: Jane Austen
First Published: 1817
Original Language: English
Themes: the opinions of others, etiquette, selfishness vs sacrifice, patience
In A Nutshell: Poor Anne Elliot is mostly ignored by her family, being the gentlest and plainest of the three daughters of Sir Walter Elliot, a careless and vain baronet. Due to Sir Walter's extravagances, it becomes necessary for the family to remove to Bath and let their house, Kellynch Hall, to Admiral Croft and his wife. Unbeknownst to almost anyone else, Mrs. Croft is the relative of one Captain Wentworth; although now a successful and rich sailor, his prospects were less certain when he was engaged to Anne eight years before. Lady Russel, Anne's friend and adviser, persuaded her to break the engagement off for the sake of duty, and the two were sundered in anger and regret.
Now Anne is forced to renew her acquaintance with Captain Wentworth, who is still dashing and charming but seems to have no interest in her. Anne spends much time with the Musgroves, her brother-in-law's family, where the captain is very popular, and seems to be developing an attraction to one of the Miss Musgroves. During an excursion at Lyme, this Miss Musgrove injures her head accidentally and Captain Wentworth withdraws, allowing another captain to win her heart. Although encouraged by this news, Anne finally goes to Bath to be with her family but finds the rank-obsessed parties of Bath stagnant and uninteresting. A cousin of hers, Mr. Elliot, shows great interest in her and means to marry her, but an old friend, Mrs Smith, warns Anne that he's false and self-serving. Finally, Captain Wentworth can contain himself no more and professes his enduring love for Anne, and after those eight long years of regret and pain, they can finally be joyously married.
Thinking Makes It So: I should say from the outset that I am disinclined to like Anne Elliot. She's one of those sweet, gentle, obliging creatures who take no notice of themselves, who let other people command and override them with no apparent inclination to stand up for their own thoughts, feelings, or desires. She's so perfectly, submissively, wonderfully, angelically gentle that you just want to scream...if you're me, I guess. I can't help thinking that the whole silly painful awkward situation could've been avoided if Anne had stood up for herself and asserted her own wishes in the first place.
That said, Anne is surrounded by a lot of obnoxious, self-obsessed, overbearing people. Her father is so absorbed in himself and his gentility that he's gotten their family into debt, and he treats less fortunate people with disdain and scorn, as does his arrogant daughter, Elizabeth. The youngest daughter, Mary, is even more insufferable; she constantly wheedles, guilt-trips, and manipulates people's emotions by professing herself ill or very ill-used whenever something doesn't suit her fancy or she feels too neglected. Somehow, out of all of this, Anne emerged as a gentle soul, primarily concerned with maintaining the peace and comfort of others.
The selfishness of others is less obvious. Mr Elliot had formerly scorned an acquaintance with his relatives, but when he suspects that Sir Walter may remarry and thereby jeopardize Mr Elliot's position as heir of the Elliot title, he insinuates himself into their family with flattery and good manners to make sure it doesn't happen. In fact, there are very few major players in the whole story that are at all worthy of a positive opinion, since everyone seems to be operating out of purely selfish motives--even Captain Wentworth, who admits that everything he does through the whole book is motivated by his love for Anne. The only one apparently totally free of this vice is, again, Anne herself, whose first concern is always to make sure that everyone around her is happy at the sacrifice of her own happiness, contentment, solitude, or companionship.
I knew how this book would end when I started it--I knew that Anne would eventually reconcile with Captain Wentworth--so all I really needed to know was how they got there. Although I didn't dislike it, I didn't like it much, either; there was far too much of Anne being confused and upset but sacrificially hiding it so that no one might have any idea that, I don't know, something important might be going on in her life. Although granted, since almost all the people around her are self-absorbed snobs, they probably either wouldn't care or treat her as a nuisance, so maybe she has a point.
Although I assume Persuasion is, indeed, about persuasion, it seems to me that it's also a good close look at the different types of selfishness and pride in this particular rank and style of life at the time, and how the character of Anne defies what was, I imagine, rather typical of the time. Anne is humble, charitable, and giving; she visits a poor friend in need; she does chores and volunteers for work that other people don't want to do so that they can enjoy themselves, and she gets little thanks for any of it. I guess the problem for me is that she's so perfect as to be a bit irritating, compounded by her apparent inability to assert herself. Really, I prefer Emma.
That You Must Teach Me: I think, given that I'm now sure that I won't be teaching any of these books in the foreseeable future, I'm going to discontinue this section, since I can do research later if I have to. I would say, though, that if I were to pick one of Austen's books to teach, it wouldn't be Persuasion; there simply isn't enough happening, clever social commentary or no.
First Published: 1817
Original Language: English
Themes: the opinions of others, etiquette, selfishness vs sacrifice, patience
In A Nutshell: Poor Anne Elliot is mostly ignored by her family, being the gentlest and plainest of the three daughters of Sir Walter Elliot, a careless and vain baronet. Due to Sir Walter's extravagances, it becomes necessary for the family to remove to Bath and let their house, Kellynch Hall, to Admiral Croft and his wife. Unbeknownst to almost anyone else, Mrs. Croft is the relative of one Captain Wentworth; although now a successful and rich sailor, his prospects were less certain when he was engaged to Anne eight years before. Lady Russel, Anne's friend and adviser, persuaded her to break the engagement off for the sake of duty, and the two were sundered in anger and regret.
Now Anne is forced to renew her acquaintance with Captain Wentworth, who is still dashing and charming but seems to have no interest in her. Anne spends much time with the Musgroves, her brother-in-law's family, where the captain is very popular, and seems to be developing an attraction to one of the Miss Musgroves. During an excursion at Lyme, this Miss Musgrove injures her head accidentally and Captain Wentworth withdraws, allowing another captain to win her heart. Although encouraged by this news, Anne finally goes to Bath to be with her family but finds the rank-obsessed parties of Bath stagnant and uninteresting. A cousin of hers, Mr. Elliot, shows great interest in her and means to marry her, but an old friend, Mrs Smith, warns Anne that he's false and self-serving. Finally, Captain Wentworth can contain himself no more and professes his enduring love for Anne, and after those eight long years of regret and pain, they can finally be joyously married.
Thinking Makes It So: I should say from the outset that I am disinclined to like Anne Elliot. She's one of those sweet, gentle, obliging creatures who take no notice of themselves, who let other people command and override them with no apparent inclination to stand up for their own thoughts, feelings, or desires. She's so perfectly, submissively, wonderfully, angelically gentle that you just want to scream...if you're me, I guess. I can't help thinking that the whole silly painful awkward situation could've been avoided if Anne had stood up for herself and asserted her own wishes in the first place.
That said, Anne is surrounded by a lot of obnoxious, self-obsessed, overbearing people. Her father is so absorbed in himself and his gentility that he's gotten their family into debt, and he treats less fortunate people with disdain and scorn, as does his arrogant daughter, Elizabeth. The youngest daughter, Mary, is even more insufferable; she constantly wheedles, guilt-trips, and manipulates people's emotions by professing herself ill or very ill-used whenever something doesn't suit her fancy or she feels too neglected. Somehow, out of all of this, Anne emerged as a gentle soul, primarily concerned with maintaining the peace and comfort of others.
The selfishness of others is less obvious. Mr Elliot had formerly scorned an acquaintance with his relatives, but when he suspects that Sir Walter may remarry and thereby jeopardize Mr Elliot's position as heir of the Elliot title, he insinuates himself into their family with flattery and good manners to make sure it doesn't happen. In fact, there are very few major players in the whole story that are at all worthy of a positive opinion, since everyone seems to be operating out of purely selfish motives--even Captain Wentworth, who admits that everything he does through the whole book is motivated by his love for Anne. The only one apparently totally free of this vice is, again, Anne herself, whose first concern is always to make sure that everyone around her is happy at the sacrifice of her own happiness, contentment, solitude, or companionship.
I knew how this book would end when I started it--I knew that Anne would eventually reconcile with Captain Wentworth--so all I really needed to know was how they got there. Although I didn't dislike it, I didn't like it much, either; there was far too much of Anne being confused and upset but sacrificially hiding it so that no one might have any idea that, I don't know, something important might be going on in her life. Although granted, since almost all the people around her are self-absorbed snobs, they probably either wouldn't care or treat her as a nuisance, so maybe she has a point.
Although I assume Persuasion is, indeed, about persuasion, it seems to me that it's also a good close look at the different types of selfishness and pride in this particular rank and style of life at the time, and how the character of Anne defies what was, I imagine, rather typical of the time. Anne is humble, charitable, and giving; she visits a poor friend in need; she does chores and volunteers for work that other people don't want to do so that they can enjoy themselves, and she gets little thanks for any of it. I guess the problem for me is that she's so perfect as to be a bit irritating, compounded by her apparent inability to assert herself. Really, I prefer Emma.
That You Must Teach Me: I think, given that I'm now sure that I won't be teaching any of these books in the foreseeable future, I'm going to discontinue this section, since I can do research later if I have to. I would say, though, that if I were to pick one of Austen's books to teach, it wouldn't be Persuasion; there simply isn't enough happening, clever social commentary or no.
Kürzlich
September 23rd
While working at my computer by my open window, I heard over my music a voice shouting, but it took a good few seconds for it to register consciously. Someone out of the view of my window was announcing something important about the Realschule in a megaphone, something that I couldn't quite catch. Bethany and I both poked our heads out in curiosity, but as nothing seemed to be on fire and there were no screams of panic, we shrugged and went back to work. This only lasted until strains of music began drifting in some minutes later. Leaning out the window, we found that a marching band was coming down the street, playing brightly, accompanied by brigades of fireman in their black-and-reflective-yellow gear and followed by a long parade of people of all ages. Most of them, from adults down to young kids, were carrying lanterns or, more often, lit firebrands. I'd seen enough; I grabbed a coat and my keys and dashed from the room to check it out.
Bethany and I stepped out of our dorm and joined the firelight flow of people, which must have comprised the entire population of Stadtroda by the size of it, in a circuit through the apartment complexes around the Wohnheim. We tried to ask what the parade was about, but all I could gather was that it was for the "Feuerwerk" (firework), which made some degree of sense, given the torches, but still wasn't entirely clear. We strode along anyway; I was burning with curiosity, and was just starting to contemplate the most subtle way that I could steal a torch from an unsuspecting child when a bright light flashed somewhere nearby. I looked around for the camera, but that mystery was solved a few seconds later by an ominous rumble from the darkening sky. And sure enough, soon fat raindrops were plonking us on the head, and within minutes it was an outright downpour, complete with atmospheric lightening and thunder. I couldn't help feeling a rush of deja vu and wondering: for Heaven's sake, what does God have against lantern parades?
We trotted on after the rest of the parade through the rain, and shortly we turned into a small field near the Wohnheim, where sausage and beer stands had been set up (anyone surprised?) and the arriving paraders tossed their torches into an enormous pile of brush and firewood piled at least 12 feet high. Party, anyone?
Bethany and I dashed back to the Wohnheim to get proper rainjackets and cameras, although the heavy rain had quit before we stepped through the door and settled instead on a drizzle. It seems God knew what He was about, though: by the time we returned to the field, the pile of brush and torches was an enormous raging bonfire, like a miniature volcano with a baby dragon at its heart, blowing clouds of sparks defiantly up at the unfriendly skies--so all told, it was probably a good idea to douse everything thoroughly first.
Having not yet eaten dinner, I got in line for a bratwurst while Bethany (a vegetarian) went to find some popcorn. I finally worked up the courage to ask some nice ladies in the line behind me and found out that the party was for the Feuerwehr (fire department), which seems both beautifully appropriate and wonderfully ironic, and explains either way the surplus of tough-looking guys stumping around in neon-lined boots and jackets and casting baleful, watchful glares over the bonfire. I got my bratwurst, Bethany got her popcorn, then we shared a perfectly ginormous cotton candy that was melting in the rain as we ate it. Finally, we both bought some Gluehwein and stood back to watch the fire burn spectacularly.
The entire thing was completely surreal in its suddenness and sheer randomness. It was like everyone in Stadtroda, having not a whole lot better to do on a cloudy afternoon in late September, looked at each other and said, "You know what would make this so much better? An humongous raging bonfire. We can have little kids carry the lit torches! To, y'know, celebrate the Feuerwehr and drink some beer or whatever." And the concensus was: "That sounds brilliant. I'll go get the grill and some kerosene!"
I love Germany.
September 25th
I slept in late today (11 at least) and finally managed to drag myself through the cold drizzle to the train station just in time to miss the train to Jena entirely. Luckily, I always come prepared, so I just pulled out my copy of Emma and waited for the train going the other way instead. This was how I ended up in Gera, a big-ish town about 20 minutes from Stadtroda, wandering in circles trying to figure out which street the signs to "Zentrum/Tourist Infos" were pointing up. I never did find either the city center or the TI, as far as I know. I just set off in the right general direction and wandered into any open shop doorway that looked interesting.
There were a lot less of these than you would think to find on a Saturday afternoon, and not for lack of interestingness but rather for lack of openness. While Saturday is I'm-not-working-today-so-let's-go-shopping-or-do-something-interesting-for-Pete's-sake day where I come from, apparently it's I'm-going-home-at-2-today-because-I-feel-like-it-so-if-you-wanted-to-buy-something-you-should've-come-during-the-week day in Germany. Many of the shops were dark and locked, although in their defense, the wide streets were almost deserted, and the whole center had a ghost-town vibe about it, especially on the rare occasions when I did pass another pedestrian, almost inevitably with their eyes fixed on the pavement and in total silence. It was somewhat creepy.
Nevertheless, I've been on a mission for the last few weeks: to find and buy a Sheepworld pencilcase. You see (those are the opening words of a story you most likely won't care two socks about, so feel free to skip the next couple sentences), I bought one last time I was in Germany and loved it dearly right up until it unceremoniously disappeared sometime between winter and spring quarters this year. Although I found one in Cologne, I foolishly assumed that I'd be able to find them everywhere, and have been searching for them in vain ever since. To my joy, I found just the one I'd been looking for, and bought it with a minimal amount of the prerequisite dithering that accompanies every purchase over 4 euro.
To suppliment the somewhat unreal feeling of the deserted streets of the rain-drenched city, I emerged from a shopping center to find that Milka (the chocolate company) had a little...booth/exhibit thing set up, where they were letting passersby play Milka-related computer games, sample their chocolate, and pet a stuffed purple cow. The best bit was the giant inflatable cow atop the main trailer, which looked a bit odd to me, mostly because it wasn't upside down.
September 27th
Mm, my fingers smell like beeswax. Yum.
Today was Bienenkunde day, but ever since the Feuerwehr Day downpour, the weather's gone from sunny, warm, and gorgeous to cold, wet, and miserable. In fact, it feels almost entirely exactly like Washington--fancy that. Anyway, apparently the bees really don't like it if, after all the trouble they go to keep their hive warm and dry, you go about pulling it apart and letting the water in, so we weren't allowed to peek in the hives today.
It seems I've simply been adopted as the new apprentice beekeeper. That's fine with me, although I regret that I can't understand nearly as much as I would like, since it's all explained to me in German. At this rate, I'll have elevated nodding and smiling strategically to an art form. This also means I don't actually know the English names of half the things I learned about today, but I'll do my best.
My main task today was sorting the Waben, which are easily removable and replaceable wooden frames in which the bees build the wax cells for storing food or raising young. Because the honey is extracted from the Waben without destroying them, they can be reused when the bees become more active again next spring. I learned to identify the difference between Futterwaben (Waben with, uh, Futter in them, which is, I think, like nectar) and Pollenwaben (Waben with pollen and honey in them...the distinction is harder than you'd think). I started to learn to tell apart cells built by workers (Arbeiterinnen) and drones (Drohnen)--the drones' cells are bigger, and ofter have specially-shaped cells for a new queen--and I had to keep a lookout for the larvae of the Wachsmutte (wax moth?), which lays its eggs in the Waben, and when the eggs hatch, the larvae eat through the wax and destroy them. The Wachsmutte has to be killed wherever it's found, although apparently, the earwigs that I found in several combs are good, because they eat the Wachsmutte larvae. Eurgh--spiders and bees and such I can handle, but I really don't like earwigs. They're worse in German: Ohrkriecher (ear-crawler).
Jürgen, the head bee man, seemed to be apologetic that today's tasks weren't nearly as exciting as last week's, but the way I figure it, whenever you get a new pet, you get to name it and play with it and coo and take pictures, but you also have to learn how to take care of it properly. I guess he just doesn't want me to give up on the oh-so-glamorous world of beekeeping because of the boredom of sorting through boxes of wax looking for larvae and brushing away earwigs. I thought it was interesting, I got to practice my German, and the smell of those Waben is absolutely lovely.
If I ever do build that dream house that I'm designing in my head, which already has a red Dublin-style Gregorian front door, a Japanese tatami room with sliding rice-paper doors, and German windows, I may have to have a little styrofoam tower of bees in the backyard, too.
September 28th
Oh, have I mentioned that I joined the church choir?
This is the best opportunity so far to actually speak some German and meet other people in the community, although the first session, two weeks ago, was unportentious: I'm totally out of practice with minor skills like, say, reading music and singing in tune/harmony, and the first practice was a whirlwind of German music terms and songs I don't know. Bethany and I kept exchanging overwhelmed glances as we tried to catch the rhythm, sing in tune, read the notes, and pronounce the German lyrics simultaneously. I didn't go last week partly because I was feeling sick, and partly because I didn't want to go through the frustration.
Bethany convinced me to go again tonight, though. I felt like I could hear my harmony part more clearly (I am really miserable at singing in harmony) and the other girls in the choir were very kind and helped me keep track of where we were. After an hour, we took a break for a small potluck dinner, and as we were eating, more people arrived, almost all significantly older. Apparently there's a second choir (?), and we were all going to practice together. This was just as confusing, but after a good hour and a half of fighting with music I'd never seen before, we adjourned and were warmly greeted by all the sweet ladies, who had also brought cake for someone's birthday that they eagerly encouraged us to try. One lady in particular struck up a conversation with me, and she invited Bethany and me over to house for coffee repeatedly, saying that she was all alone now that all three of her kids are grown.
Being treated with friendliness, interest, and warmth is certainly a welcome change. I've decided that I officially dislike German dorms on principle, but really, it isn't the building's fault (entirely; it is in part). The students are either too shy, too lazy, or too disinterested to actually come seek Bethany or me out, or even really talk to us when we meet by accident. I'd almost started to think that we were doing something wrong, but from the choir's friendly welcome, I must conclude that the students are just self-conscious and busy young adults. That's rather sensible, isn't it?
Also in music news, I was accepted to the music school for guitar lessons (YAAAAAAY!). The only downside at this point is that the lessons are one-on-one, so I won't be able to meet other Germans interested in learning the guitar. My own beloved instrument is still in WA, but Katrin's son has kindly agreed to let me use his, so soon I'll be recklessly annoying anyone who dares to come within hearing distance with my painstaking twanging noises. I start on Friday!
Tomorrow I'll take the train to Jena to meet my university Tutorin, who's been corresponding with me about starting uni and how to matriculate. She's been kind enough to agree to come and meet me and go to the office with me. I'me excited to meet her, although I was a bit embarrassed to find out today that although she addresses me as "du", I should be addressing her as "Sie", and I haven't been. Oops. Curse you, L2 politeness distinctions, for being so confusing!
While I'm here, I wanted to mention the students again. As anyone who's ever been in more than one class session in their life knows, every class group has a different personality, made up of not only the students' individual personalities but also their attitudes, past experiences, willingness to talk, willingness to act, and their interactions with each other and the teacher. Some classes simply click, others simply don't, and the teacher can only improve a curdled classroom to a certain degree.
I have one class that I particularly love that is especially effervescent. There are two students in the class who don't care much, but four of the students are reasonably competent in English and willing to talk, one is shy but willing to participate, and two are low-level beginners. The disparity in ability makes this class tough, but they're all such fun that it doesn't matter as much. I definitely look forward to working with them, and I hope to get to know some of them outside class as well.
Unfortunately, they're pretty much the exception. The attitudinal temperature of the other classes ranges from lukewarm to downright subzero. I haven't encountered any outright hostility yet, but there seems to be an American/German culture gap over the acceptability of talking while the teacher's talking that had me really pissed off today. I'm determined, though, to try to think of more engaging activities so the students won't be as likely to look for amusement elsewhere.
September 29th
The reason this is taking me so long to post is that my Internet is still down, and the tech guy for the Fachschule seems to have no interest in fixing it. There's a monthly 1 GB limit which I unknowingly overstepped, but a few days after he fixed it, it stopped working again, and although I've sent him an e-mail, it's still kaput. Luckily, the end of the month is only two days away now, so I should be able to survive until then. The upside is that I get to bed much earlier, since I don't have the temptation of wandering down the Internet's many twisting alleyways until the wee hours of the night. Also, I can't check my Facebook every half hour.
On the topic of frustrating delays, ARGH German universities are so silly! I understand the need for health insurance certificates and other such guarantees, but whereas American universities (well, mine, at least) seem to be able to condense all the registration and information exchange processes, the German ones seems to delight in making them as complicated as possbile.
I met my tutor, Kati, at the train station, and had a delightful time talking with her the whole day (in German, too! Go me!). She took me to the immatriculation office, where the lady explained to me in clear, simple German that I still had to send in more paperwork and pay the semester fee before they'd give me the student card I could already see lying tauntingly in my folder. Having not accomplished much except having recieved a whole lot of new info-papers, we set off again. To pick up my free planner, we had to take a voucher to a small office tucked away in a different building; to sign up for my e-mail address and log on to the university system, we had to visit a completely anonymous office in yet a different office building; the library was on the other side of the town center, where we discovered that not only would I have to sign up for yet another account, I couldn't do so until the official start of the semester on the first of October. Does this seem needlessly complicated and vaguely sadistic to you, too?
Take, for example, the library. Like I said, I can't register for an account at the library until Friday, so I can't even go in yet. (What?) Also, the library doesn't let you bring any food or drink or anything, and I guess they're afraid you'll try to (somehow) smuggle books out or something, so they provide lockers where you have to leave all the stuff that you aren't going to actually use in the library--your backpack, coat, wallet, etc. This seems to me like a completely pointless precaution; I know that I've ordered pizza for a group project in the library at least once, and somehow nothing caught on fire or was wantonly destroyed. You may think that this was to protect the clearly new library, but the university library in Marburg was as new and as aesthetically pleasing as a warthog carcass, and they had a similar system. They have those scanner things that you have to walk through, too, so stealing books'd be tough. So, seriously, WTF?
I can only conclude that American universities feel like they have to treat their students well (ish) and make things convenient for them (ish) because we have to pay so blasted much. The uni fee in Jena is like 500-600 Euro, Kati told me--whether that's per year or per semester, it's still facepalmingly small compared to American tuition. I didn't even mention that I have to sign up for this thing called Onleila, which is the interface that allows me to register for classes, but my tutor can't tell me how to use it because it's different from the one she uses. The motivation behind these inane complications must be spite, fueled by having to give away an education practically for free. It's the only logical explanation.
Alright, enough with the griping. I may or may not have mentioned before (and I can't check, because my Internet doesn't work) that Bethany and I attend an English Stammtisch (discussion group) on Wednesday nights. The group gets along well; they're all adults wanting to practice and improve their English. Tonight we talked about the word "Fackel" (say it out loud and you might see why it's so funny), whether or not to pronounce the "h" in "herb", and the American words "nuke" and "floored" and their British counterparts. Tonight the group even considerately offered to make one night a month a German night so that Bethany and I can be sure to get some practice in.
Also, tomorrow I'll go to my mentor teacher's house to start teaching her daughter Japanese and pick up my guitar. Hooray!
While working at my computer by my open window, I heard over my music a voice shouting, but it took a good few seconds for it to register consciously. Someone out of the view of my window was announcing something important about the Realschule in a megaphone, something that I couldn't quite catch. Bethany and I both poked our heads out in curiosity, but as nothing seemed to be on fire and there were no screams of panic, we shrugged and went back to work. This only lasted until strains of music began drifting in some minutes later. Leaning out the window, we found that a marching band was coming down the street, playing brightly, accompanied by brigades of fireman in their black-and-reflective-yellow gear and followed by a long parade of people of all ages. Most of them, from adults down to young kids, were carrying lanterns or, more often, lit firebrands. I'd seen enough; I grabbed a coat and my keys and dashed from the room to check it out.
Bethany and I stepped out of our dorm and joined the firelight flow of people, which must have comprised the entire population of Stadtroda by the size of it, in a circuit through the apartment complexes around the Wohnheim. We tried to ask what the parade was about, but all I could gather was that it was for the "Feuerwerk" (firework), which made some degree of sense, given the torches, but still wasn't entirely clear. We strode along anyway; I was burning with curiosity, and was just starting to contemplate the most subtle way that I could steal a torch from an unsuspecting child when a bright light flashed somewhere nearby. I looked around for the camera, but that mystery was solved a few seconds later by an ominous rumble from the darkening sky. And sure enough, soon fat raindrops were plonking us on the head, and within minutes it was an outright downpour, complete with atmospheric lightening and thunder. I couldn't help feeling a rush of deja vu and wondering: for Heaven's sake, what does God have against lantern parades?
We trotted on after the rest of the parade through the rain, and shortly we turned into a small field near the Wohnheim, where sausage and beer stands had been set up (anyone surprised?) and the arriving paraders tossed their torches into an enormous pile of brush and firewood piled at least 12 feet high. Party, anyone?
Bethany and I dashed back to the Wohnheim to get proper rainjackets and cameras, although the heavy rain had quit before we stepped through the door and settled instead on a drizzle. It seems God knew what He was about, though: by the time we returned to the field, the pile of brush and torches was an enormous raging bonfire, like a miniature volcano with a baby dragon at its heart, blowing clouds of sparks defiantly up at the unfriendly skies--so all told, it was probably a good idea to douse everything thoroughly first.
Having not yet eaten dinner, I got in line for a bratwurst while Bethany (a vegetarian) went to find some popcorn. I finally worked up the courage to ask some nice ladies in the line behind me and found out that the party was for the Feuerwehr (fire department), which seems both beautifully appropriate and wonderfully ironic, and explains either way the surplus of tough-looking guys stumping around in neon-lined boots and jackets and casting baleful, watchful glares over the bonfire. I got my bratwurst, Bethany got her popcorn, then we shared a perfectly ginormous cotton candy that was melting in the rain as we ate it. Finally, we both bought some Gluehwein and stood back to watch the fire burn spectacularly.
The entire thing was completely surreal in its suddenness and sheer randomness. It was like everyone in Stadtroda, having not a whole lot better to do on a cloudy afternoon in late September, looked at each other and said, "You know what would make this so much better? An humongous raging bonfire. We can have little kids carry the lit torches! To, y'know, celebrate the Feuerwehr and drink some beer or whatever." And the concensus was: "That sounds brilliant. I'll go get the grill and some kerosene!"
I love Germany.
September 25th
I slept in late today (11 at least) and finally managed to drag myself through the cold drizzle to the train station just in time to miss the train to Jena entirely. Luckily, I always come prepared, so I just pulled out my copy of Emma and waited for the train going the other way instead. This was how I ended up in Gera, a big-ish town about 20 minutes from Stadtroda, wandering in circles trying to figure out which street the signs to "Zentrum/Tourist Infos" were pointing up. I never did find either the city center or the TI, as far as I know. I just set off in the right general direction and wandered into any open shop doorway that looked interesting.
There were a lot less of these than you would think to find on a Saturday afternoon, and not for lack of interestingness but rather for lack of openness. While Saturday is I'm-not-working-today-so-let's-go-shopping-or-do-something-interesting-for-Pete's-sake day where I come from, apparently it's I'm-going-home-at-2-today-because-I-feel-like-it-so-if-you-wanted-to-buy-something-you-should've-come-during-the-week day in Germany. Many of the shops were dark and locked, although in their defense, the wide streets were almost deserted, and the whole center had a ghost-town vibe about it, especially on the rare occasions when I did pass another pedestrian, almost inevitably with their eyes fixed on the pavement and in total silence. It was somewhat creepy.
Nevertheless, I've been on a mission for the last few weeks: to find and buy a Sheepworld pencilcase. You see (those are the opening words of a story you most likely won't care two socks about, so feel free to skip the next couple sentences), I bought one last time I was in Germany and loved it dearly right up until it unceremoniously disappeared sometime between winter and spring quarters this year. Although I found one in Cologne, I foolishly assumed that I'd be able to find them everywhere, and have been searching for them in vain ever since. To my joy, I found just the one I'd been looking for, and bought it with a minimal amount of the prerequisite dithering that accompanies every purchase over 4 euro.
To suppliment the somewhat unreal feeling of the deserted streets of the rain-drenched city, I emerged from a shopping center to find that Milka (the chocolate company) had a little...booth/exhibit thing set up, where they were letting passersby play Milka-related computer games, sample their chocolate, and pet a stuffed purple cow. The best bit was the giant inflatable cow atop the main trailer, which looked a bit odd to me, mostly because it wasn't upside down.
September 27th
Mm, my fingers smell like beeswax. Yum.
Today was Bienenkunde day, but ever since the Feuerwehr Day downpour, the weather's gone from sunny, warm, and gorgeous to cold, wet, and miserable. In fact, it feels almost entirely exactly like Washington--fancy that. Anyway, apparently the bees really don't like it if, after all the trouble they go to keep their hive warm and dry, you go about pulling it apart and letting the water in, so we weren't allowed to peek in the hives today.
It seems I've simply been adopted as the new apprentice beekeeper. That's fine with me, although I regret that I can't understand nearly as much as I would like, since it's all explained to me in German. At this rate, I'll have elevated nodding and smiling strategically to an art form. This also means I don't actually know the English names of half the things I learned about today, but I'll do my best.
My main task today was sorting the Waben, which are easily removable and replaceable wooden frames in which the bees build the wax cells for storing food or raising young. Because the honey is extracted from the Waben without destroying them, they can be reused when the bees become more active again next spring. I learned to identify the difference between Futterwaben (Waben with, uh, Futter in them, which is, I think, like nectar) and Pollenwaben (Waben with pollen and honey in them...the distinction is harder than you'd think). I started to learn to tell apart cells built by workers (Arbeiterinnen) and drones (Drohnen)--the drones' cells are bigger, and ofter have specially-shaped cells for a new queen--and I had to keep a lookout for the larvae of the Wachsmutte (wax moth?), which lays its eggs in the Waben, and when the eggs hatch, the larvae eat through the wax and destroy them. The Wachsmutte has to be killed wherever it's found, although apparently, the earwigs that I found in several combs are good, because they eat the Wachsmutte larvae. Eurgh--spiders and bees and such I can handle, but I really don't like earwigs. They're worse in German: Ohrkriecher (ear-crawler).
Jürgen, the head bee man, seemed to be apologetic that today's tasks weren't nearly as exciting as last week's, but the way I figure it, whenever you get a new pet, you get to name it and play with it and coo and take pictures, but you also have to learn how to take care of it properly. I guess he just doesn't want me to give up on the oh-so-glamorous world of beekeeping because of the boredom of sorting through boxes of wax looking for larvae and brushing away earwigs. I thought it was interesting, I got to practice my German, and the smell of those Waben is absolutely lovely.
If I ever do build that dream house that I'm designing in my head, which already has a red Dublin-style Gregorian front door, a Japanese tatami room with sliding rice-paper doors, and German windows, I may have to have a little styrofoam tower of bees in the backyard, too.
September 28th
Oh, have I mentioned that I joined the church choir?
This is the best opportunity so far to actually speak some German and meet other people in the community, although the first session, two weeks ago, was unportentious: I'm totally out of practice with minor skills like, say, reading music and singing in tune/harmony, and the first practice was a whirlwind of German music terms and songs I don't know. Bethany and I kept exchanging overwhelmed glances as we tried to catch the rhythm, sing in tune, read the notes, and pronounce the German lyrics simultaneously. I didn't go last week partly because I was feeling sick, and partly because I didn't want to go through the frustration.
Bethany convinced me to go again tonight, though. I felt like I could hear my harmony part more clearly (I am really miserable at singing in harmony) and the other girls in the choir were very kind and helped me keep track of where we were. After an hour, we took a break for a small potluck dinner, and as we were eating, more people arrived, almost all significantly older. Apparently there's a second choir (?), and we were all going to practice together. This was just as confusing, but after a good hour and a half of fighting with music I'd never seen before, we adjourned and were warmly greeted by all the sweet ladies, who had also brought cake for someone's birthday that they eagerly encouraged us to try. One lady in particular struck up a conversation with me, and she invited Bethany and me over to house for coffee repeatedly, saying that she was all alone now that all three of her kids are grown.
Being treated with friendliness, interest, and warmth is certainly a welcome change. I've decided that I officially dislike German dorms on principle, but really, it isn't the building's fault (entirely; it is in part). The students are either too shy, too lazy, or too disinterested to actually come seek Bethany or me out, or even really talk to us when we meet by accident. I'd almost started to think that we were doing something wrong, but from the choir's friendly welcome, I must conclude that the students are just self-conscious and busy young adults. That's rather sensible, isn't it?
Also in music news, I was accepted to the music school for guitar lessons (YAAAAAAY!). The only downside at this point is that the lessons are one-on-one, so I won't be able to meet other Germans interested in learning the guitar. My own beloved instrument is still in WA, but Katrin's son has kindly agreed to let me use his, so soon I'll be recklessly annoying anyone who dares to come within hearing distance with my painstaking twanging noises. I start on Friday!
Tomorrow I'll take the train to Jena to meet my university Tutorin, who's been corresponding with me about starting uni and how to matriculate. She's been kind enough to agree to come and meet me and go to the office with me. I'me excited to meet her, although I was a bit embarrassed to find out today that although she addresses me as "du", I should be addressing her as "Sie", and I haven't been. Oops. Curse you, L2 politeness distinctions, for being so confusing!
While I'm here, I wanted to mention the students again. As anyone who's ever been in more than one class session in their life knows, every class group has a different personality, made up of not only the students' individual personalities but also their attitudes, past experiences, willingness to talk, willingness to act, and their interactions with each other and the teacher. Some classes simply click, others simply don't, and the teacher can only improve a curdled classroom to a certain degree.
I have one class that I particularly love that is especially effervescent. There are two students in the class who don't care much, but four of the students are reasonably competent in English and willing to talk, one is shy but willing to participate, and two are low-level beginners. The disparity in ability makes this class tough, but they're all such fun that it doesn't matter as much. I definitely look forward to working with them, and I hope to get to know some of them outside class as well.
Unfortunately, they're pretty much the exception. The attitudinal temperature of the other classes ranges from lukewarm to downright subzero. I haven't encountered any outright hostility yet, but there seems to be an American/German culture gap over the acceptability of talking while the teacher's talking that had me really pissed off today. I'm determined, though, to try to think of more engaging activities so the students won't be as likely to look for amusement elsewhere.
September 29th
The reason this is taking me so long to post is that my Internet is still down, and the tech guy for the Fachschule seems to have no interest in fixing it. There's a monthly 1 GB limit which I unknowingly overstepped, but a few days after he fixed it, it stopped working again, and although I've sent him an e-mail, it's still kaput. Luckily, the end of the month is only two days away now, so I should be able to survive until then. The upside is that I get to bed much earlier, since I don't have the temptation of wandering down the Internet's many twisting alleyways until the wee hours of the night. Also, I can't check my Facebook every half hour.
On the topic of frustrating delays, ARGH German universities are so silly! I understand the need for health insurance certificates and other such guarantees, but whereas American universities (well, mine, at least) seem to be able to condense all the registration and information exchange processes, the German ones seems to delight in making them as complicated as possbile.
I met my tutor, Kati, at the train station, and had a delightful time talking with her the whole day (in German, too! Go me!). She took me to the immatriculation office, where the lady explained to me in clear, simple German that I still had to send in more paperwork and pay the semester fee before they'd give me the student card I could already see lying tauntingly in my folder. Having not accomplished much except having recieved a whole lot of new info-papers, we set off again. To pick up my free planner, we had to take a voucher to a small office tucked away in a different building; to sign up for my e-mail address and log on to the university system, we had to visit a completely anonymous office in yet a different office building; the library was on the other side of the town center, where we discovered that not only would I have to sign up for yet another account, I couldn't do so until the official start of the semester on the first of October. Does this seem needlessly complicated and vaguely sadistic to you, too?
Take, for example, the library. Like I said, I can't register for an account at the library until Friday, so I can't even go in yet. (What?) Also, the library doesn't let you bring any food or drink or anything, and I guess they're afraid you'll try to (somehow) smuggle books out or something, so they provide lockers where you have to leave all the stuff that you aren't going to actually use in the library--your backpack, coat, wallet, etc. This seems to me like a completely pointless precaution; I know that I've ordered pizza for a group project in the library at least once, and somehow nothing caught on fire or was wantonly destroyed. You may think that this was to protect the clearly new library, but the university library in Marburg was as new and as aesthetically pleasing as a warthog carcass, and they had a similar system. They have those scanner things that you have to walk through, too, so stealing books'd be tough. So, seriously, WTF?
I can only conclude that American universities feel like they have to treat their students well (ish) and make things convenient for them (ish) because we have to pay so blasted much. The uni fee in Jena is like 500-600 Euro, Kati told me--whether that's per year or per semester, it's still facepalmingly small compared to American tuition. I didn't even mention that I have to sign up for this thing called Onleila, which is the interface that allows me to register for classes, but my tutor can't tell me how to use it because it's different from the one she uses. The motivation behind these inane complications must be spite, fueled by having to give away an education practically for free. It's the only logical explanation.
Alright, enough with the griping. I may or may not have mentioned before (and I can't check, because my Internet doesn't work) that Bethany and I attend an English Stammtisch (discussion group) on Wednesday nights. The group gets along well; they're all adults wanting to practice and improve their English. Tonight we talked about the word "Fackel" (say it out loud and you might see why it's so funny), whether or not to pronounce the "h" in "herb", and the American words "nuke" and "floored" and their British counterparts. Tonight the group even considerately offered to make one night a month a German night so that Bethany and I can be sure to get some practice in.
Also, tomorrow I'll go to my mentor teacher's house to start teaching her daughter Japanese and pick up my guitar. Hooray!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)