Goodbye Göttingen

Well... so I've been back for a couple of weeks now. I had been looking forward to writing one more post from Göttingen my last week before leaving with pictures from my going away party, which was quite a success if I do say so myself.

The problem was, the day before, Buck bit my hand, and to prevent infection, they bandaged up my whole arm, like this:



And I thought it would be hard to just ignore the fact my arm was in a half cast in the pictures from my party!



Still, a good time was had and LOTS of food was eaten. Sten was already in town to help, so everything went off without a hitch.

The rest of the last week was fairly uneventful - I met friends for lunch almost every day, finished up my essay paper, and packed. I got to Hamburg no problem (only a few tears saying goodbye to my roommate at the trainstation) and all of my flights went by seamlessly. Sten picked me up, all my luggage was there (with all my books!) and everything was well. I did have a few more bags than in this picture though:



(thanks Kerstin!)

It's good and strange to be back, sad and strange to think about how far away my friends in Göttingen are, but busy enough to keep me from mulling over it. I've found a new apartment in Nashville and everything is coming together for the new semester. Thanks for keeping in touch this way over the past few months, and I'll look forward to hearing from you soon.

Want to hear something kinda sad?

Buck fell asleep in the bathroom last night (he's not supposed to be in there). When I came in later and told him to go get in his basket, he tried to get up, only his front leg had fallen asleep. There's not a lot more pitiful than then watching a dog that big slip on the tiles because he's too sleepy to figure out how to hop on three legs. He ended up turning in a circle and lying right back down where he had been before. I decided that maybe it was ok... this time. (He's fine now, and is happy to be reunited with his squeaky purple dinosaur - he lost his last one on the train. A while ago he was sleeping with the dino and the mouse beside him, one on each side right next to his head.)

What else is kinda sad - I'm leaving Göttingen two weeks from today! It's only kind of sad because I'll be glad to get back to things that are more familiar - my own kitchen, my own bed, Family and Friends... But it's also sad because I've gotten so familiar with things here! All of my classes are over - I have one Exam on Thursday morning. I'm planning a farewell get together for next Friday, which should be pretty nice.

The weather was really very summery the last week, which was great! All the way up into the 80's. People were asking if this is what it was like for me at home in the summer - I said "well, sort of..."

Aside from that, not a lot to report. I'm spending most of my time reading or writing for a term paper - right now for my seminar on the history of the essay. I'm writing about a woman essayist (because there were none on our syllabus!)from the early nineteenth century. She had 10 kids, a complicated love triangle with her first and second husbands (set against the backdrop of the french revolution - freedom, equality, and brotherhood indeed...) and was the first woman editor of a daily news paper in Germany. Her first husband sailed around the world with Captain Cook. Good stuff.

I'm off to Storkow for the weekend, making one last trip out to see the family. Gotta finish packing! Bye for now.

Buck

Today's post is dedicated to my third roomate, Britta's bearded Collie Buck:

(pictured here with his favorite rope bones.)

Buck is sweet, even if he has his stressful moments. He likes to play tug with those rope bones and to look for sticks when we go on walks. He likes to make all the ducks in a pond fly up into the air by running at them full speed. He doesn't like church bells or ambulance sirens, and has to howl along with them. Did I mention we live beside a church and a hospital? Anyway, it's really nice to have a pet here. One of his favorite activities now that it's warm (well was warm, theoretically will be warm again soon) is to spend all morning on the balcony and squeak his squeaky-mouse at any flying thing that goes by (leaf, bird, insect, doesn't matter). He doesn't like things that fly, and to get him to look at the camera I made a "zzzz" noise like a bug - which is why his glance is so worried. Anyway. In the form of a short narrative, here is Buck.


"Buck?"


"Where is your squeaky mouse?" (Quietschemäuschen - pronounced KVEEtscheh Moischyen)




"There it is!" (He can stare at the mouse on the floor like that for hours. I've seen it happen.)



"Good Dog, Buck."



That's all for now, more later!

Accelerating into the last month

Tomorrow is July 1st, and while that means different things for most people, for me it means that my last month in Göttingen starts tomorrow. It also means it's been a while since I've written about what all I have been up to. So here are a pair of pictures from Goslar. I visited my friend Bea in her hometown Salzgitter-Bad, which was having it's Altstadtfest that weekend. We had some ridiculously good food: steak cooked on a swinging grill over an open fire, and Poffertjes , little baby pancakes served with butter, orange liquor, and powdered sugar. There's sort of no excuse for them, but they're wonderful. Then we drove to Goslar, in the Harz mountains, a city recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage site. It has fabulous old buildings, which I did not take enough pictures of, but one of them you see above. Then we went to the Kaiserpfalz, one of the secondary palaces for the Holy Roman Emperor in the Middle Ages. It was then gussied up by the Prussians in the nineteenth century, and to some degree made to look like what they think it ought to have looked like - including a huge mural showing the history of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. It was really good to see Bea and neat to see a corner of Germany I wouldn't have gotten to otherwise this go-round.

Barbarossa and me:


I rode my bike to the train station, and had to find it after getting back:

(a little bit harder than finding your car in a parking lot...)


The weekend after that I chorus all week - every night except for Wednesday there was either a rehearsal or a performance. Everything came together pretty well (although the performance in Nashville with the Vanderbilt Community Chorus was way better) and there was always someone in the audience because I invited them, Friday Britta came, and Saturday Solveig was there, along with Sten, who came for the weekend. It was totally nice to have him here, and also nice to say on Monday "See you Friday!"

Friday I took the train to Leipzig and had a great time visiting with Sten and his family. I took my camera with me, and took no pictures. Sorry. But Sten took at least a few, as did his Dad. Friday we visited and played board games. Saturday after breakfast Sten, his sister Aileen, and I all went window shopping in town. After dinner we all went to see an Operetta together. Sunday after breakfast Sten and I went to the zoo, and had time for dinner before leaving to catch the train back to Göttingen. I had a great time (as expected), and wish I had more time to visit again.

Now I have to get back to work, since this weekend I will be going to Regensburg to visit some friends who spent time at Vanderbilt my first year there. Busy as always!

Himmel über Göttingen

The view from my window - sunset being sometime after 9:30pm lately:




The upside of sudden changes between sun and rain - rainbows!

Biking in Göttingen

(my helmet's in the basket - I never ride without it)

I've been getting to ride my bike a lot here (well, the bike that belongs to the student whose room I'm living in). I thought I would follow my friend Trisha's example and blog a little bit about bikes here in Göttingen.

Bikes are pretty common in Germany, especially for students. A few pictures from the campus should illustrate. The "Before" pictures were taken on a Sunday morning, the others on a Monday or Tuesday about midday - but are pretty standard for the whole week.

These are at the ZHG - Zentral Hörsaalgebäude - the building with the biggest lecture halls and connected to the central cafeteria.

Before:


After:


Before:


After:


In this second pair you can see how when all the bike racks are full, any free space becomes a bike parking lot. It was windy that day, so if you see some of the bikes have fallen over, that's why.

One last one - in front of I think the theology building:


I wanted to take more pictures of the many things that make biking in Göttingen/Germany easier, but the weather hasn't been cooperating, so I don't have a full catalog of the signs limiting streets to bikes - bikes that are allowed to ride the wrong way on a one way street, and where bikes can ride in the pedestrian zone. But here is a shot of one of the busier, or at least broader intersections in Göttingen:



Bike lane (one in each direction) with its own traffic light. At this intersection there's even a bike lane in the left turn lane... again with traffic light, but I'm not sure how to get over in that lane! So I wait at the corner with everyone else.

I have really gotten to liking riding my bike around, and if Nashville were flatter, with better informed drivers, and more helpful bike racks and bike lanes, I would definitely keep it up at home. Well and the fact it hasn't really gotten over 75 degrees here yet and it's June probably helps too - biking in the summer feels a lot different here than in Nashville. Who knows, maybe I'll feel differently about it when I get there.

Storkow 800 Jahr Feier

Over the Pentecost Holidays I went to visit my host family in Storkow and got to participate in the celebrations for the 800th anniversary of the first written mention of Storkow. I arrived Friday evening, had time for coffee and cake before heading off to the opening ceremony and worship service in the church. I wanted to be sure and be there since the chorus was performing. They were surprised but happy to see me, and did a great job, as always. Then the mayor held a speech while wearing a medieval dress. The whole party then went to the restored Burg to hear more speeches. I met up with Rayk and friends on the Burg, and we listened to the live music and visited with each other, later moving on to the large tent set up on a meadow - the only part of the festivities safe from the rain.

Saturday morning after a nice breakfast there was time to explore the grounds some more, and take a short bike ride with Klaus and Marlies around the city. Klaus won an umbrella from the Pharmacy for submitting a riddle in their competition. I had wanted to make it out to visit some more people that afternoon, but it started raining in buckets, and everyone's plans were shifted. That night there was another live music performance. The son (Achim) of a popular singer (Wolfgang Petry) gave a show of his father's music - I knew a few of the songs, including one called "Jessica" - but mostly I enjoyed seeing other people so excited about the music.

The next day started with the parade from 11am to 2pm through the city. Aside from when they had to raise the drawbridge, the parade went without a hitch. It was probably also the only solid three hours we had without rain - in fact the sun was shining really brightly, and most people were way too warmly dressed! Storki led the way (as you can see above). Marlies was in the last section with her sports group - they performed a routine with ribbons - like in rhythmic gymnastics. The parade had 50 something scences each depicting a part of the history of Storkow.

After that we met up with people in the tent in time to hear the chorus sing. They sang various folk songs and medlies, but they opened and closed with "Das Storkowlied" (The Storkow song) composed for this occasion. It's about as great as you can imagine, sung to a swinging melody:

Wir lieben eine kleine Stadt
die ihre Charme und Träume hat.
Sie liegt in Brandenburger Land
und ist als Storchenstadt bekannt.
Sie hat 'ne Gegend erster Wahl
und eine Schleuse mit Kanal
'ne schönen Markt, 'ne Burg wir neu
und vierzehn kleine Schwestern, die ihr treu.

We love a small city
That has its charms and dreams
It is in the land of Brandenburg
And is known as the stork-city.
It is in a first class area
with a lock and a canal
a nice market, a brand new castle
and fourteen little sisters, true to it. (the 14 villages that are part of Storkow)

Refrain:

Storkow, Storkow, kleine Stadt am See,
Storkow, Storkow, unser Wohl und Weh,
Storkow, Storkow, kleine Stadt am Wald
Du bist heute 800 Jahre alt.

Storkow, Storkow, kleine Stadt am See,
Storkow, Storkow, nicht weit von Oder und Spree
Storkow, Storkow, kleine Stadt am Wald,
Du bist heute ein-, zwei-, drei-, vier-, fünf-, sechs-, sieben-, achthundert Jahre alt!

Storkow, Storkow, small city on a lake
Storkow, Storkow, our weal and woe,
Storkow, Storkow, small city in the forest,
You are 800 years old today.

...
Storkow, Storkow, not far from Oder and Spree (rivers)
...
(do I need to translate that?)

And it goes on from there. Don't worry, I came home with the whole CD, you can all hear the song, sung by the chorus, when I'm home. Sten got to Storkow in time to hear the chorus sing. We spent the rest of the day seeing the sights and visiting with people. We left Monday afternoon to get back to Göttingen. It was a great time and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it.

Storkow 800 Jahr Feier

Playing catch-up: Hannover

At the bottom of this post is a slideshow of pictures that I took in Hannover. It was a pretty city and I had a nice time taking a look around - but what I thought was memorable is not necessarily what's on the photos:

I decided to hop on a train and ride an hour to go to Hannover for the day, just to take advantage of the fact that my student ID is my ticket to anywhere in Lower Saxony. One stop on the hour-long trip sounded all the world to me like "Friede" or "Peace". When I looked out the window I saw a green meadow running up to a hill, with a small farm at its foot, and a horse rolling in the grass in front of the river that the train was following. Sounded like peace to me! (the town is actually called Frede - but I like my version better).

I went to Hamburg convinced by the weather report predicting showers all day, armed with a rain jacket and umbrella, planning on spending the afternoon in a museum just to get out of the rain. It turns out we had sunshine the whole day, with temperatures above 70 for most of it - a real treat. The city was full of people enjoying the weather and the open air jazz festival. The combination of good weather and music in the air led to more public displays of affection that I've ever seen in Germany, including New Year's Eve. It was impressive.

I got to Hannover with about 20 minutes to get to the tourist information and get a seat on the 2 and a half hour bus tour of the city (bus tour, because that is not in the rain, either). I'm glad I took the bus because we went all the way to the summer palace of the Hannover royal family (a few generations before the elector of Hannover became the king George of England). The bus ride was made less pleasant by the man who seemed to not realize that in a bus tour you drive past everything, and when he rudely said to the bus driver "This time you're going to drive slower, right?" he was shocked that the driver wasn't friendly, and complained about that, too. The tour was in German and English - and it only came out that I wasn't German when I knew what the word for Pentecost was in Germany, America, and England.

I had a free day to travel because it was Ascension Day - Christihimmelfahrt - or Vatertag/Männertag/Herrentag (men's day). Typically men take the day to ride bikes decorated with lilac branches and a case of beer through the country side. In the city though, men were just pulling little red wagons with the necessary beverages with them - Some groups had matching T-shirts. Naturally the complaining man in the bus loudly explained that they're all on Harz-vier, welfare for unemployment. Greeat.

After the tour was over I wanted to get back into the old city. There's a red stripe painted on the sidewalk that leads you on a walking tour of the city, and I figured that that would be a sure way to see anything the bus hadn't seen, or to take another look at a few places up close. Of course - the red line went right through the most crowded parts of the jazz festival... but I managed to find my way, even though I lost my city map somewhere along the walk. I had a really nice lunch at an Italian restaurant, sitting outside. I got to hear all about the daughter-in-law of the woman at the next table. The mother-in-law alternated between saying disparaging things about the d-i-l not speaking German and coming from Thailand, and asserting that she liked and accepted her anyway. They were greeted by a friend who was walking by, sporting a really serious waxed handlebar mustache.

Once the table was clear, another couple sat down. Well first, just the female half of the pair sat down, leafed through the menu, and ordered for two people, explaining that something needed to be on the table quickly, because the man that was coming was "unterzuckert" (had low blood sugar) and could easily get aggressive. She had dressed for the warm weather in a very small top and very short shorts, and had caught the attention of all the men celebrating their day by drinking beer on the street. While ordering, she looked over the waiter's shoulder, jumped to her feet, and yelled "DIRK! Dirk! He didn't see me!" and went running down the street to find potentially aggressive Dirk. We were all pretty relieved when Dirk had had some bread and didn't get aggressive that his companion ordered wine, and not a wine spritzer.

When I passed the opera, I saw that Carmen was playing, and decided to stay long enough in Hannover to see the performance. I spent the extra time I had drinking something like "bitter lime" and listening to a group of street musicians play "In the Mood" on accordion. The opera was well performed, and I'm not totally sure what I think about the modern staging of it, but I had plenty of time to get to my train that left 20 minutes after the opera ended. The rest of the trip home I heard another group of passengers talk about the opera, about whether it was really in French, and that there were naked people on the stage.

Overall it was a really nice day, but after spending so much time outside after a full week, I managed to catch a cold that lasted for the rest of the next week. Still, when I left for Storkow on Friday morning, it had cleared up. More about the 800th Anniversary of Storkow in the next blog!

Catching up - Trip to Weimar and Buchenwald

There've been so many interesting things going on lately that I've had a hard time sitting down and writing about it - between being exhausted and needing to catch up on work or not having enough time.

I'm enjoying a Saturday at home, first in a few weeks - and first for a while to come. This time last week I was getting towards the end of a day long tour of the concentration camp Buchenwald outside of Weimar. I'm in a fascinating and challenging seminar on Literature and Holocaust, and as a part of it we took a trip to visit Weimar and Buchenwald. The choice of location was a good combination of far enough to justify an overnight stay, but close enough that it wasn't too much, and the combination of classic German culture/literature in Weimar and then the more specific visit to the memorial for our seminar appealed to sponsors (each person in the class had to pay 20€ for the whole weekend, which covered transportation, lodging, and all meals - and we might get some of that back).

We arrived on Friday afternoon and met as a seminar to discuss an essay by Jean Amery and to hear a presentation on the problem of memorials more generally. The course is designed around the idea of looking at how the holocaust is preserved in literature - and not just from survivor's autobiographical writing, but also how it is handled in works of fiction, including what kinds of fiction are acceptable, and which aren't. Similar questions about what to put on display, what to include, how to set emphasis, whether there are taboo topics are raised in literature and in memorials.

Buchenwald is at the end of a bus line that runs from the train station in Weimar. The SS barracks are still there and used now as a youth hostel specifically for groups visiting the memorial and also other youth intervention programs. There are two barracks that were converted into apartments for families immediately after the war (there wasn't enough housing in most cities) and the apartments are all rented out today. The borders of the camp grounds are only partially visible - much of the area where prisoners were kept has been reforested. After the camp was freed by the Americans, it was used for five years as a prison for former Nazis in the Russian zone, not just the higher up officials, but also for other lower ranked but still active Nazis. Once that camp was ended, people started taking down the fences and buildings to rebuild the cities that had been destroyed during the war. When Weimar found out that people were stealing material they sent people to officially take everything down and sell it, rather than have it be taken for free.

The emancipation of Buchenwald was one of the grounding myths for East Germany, because according to legend the prisoners managed to free themselves right before the Americans arrived - a myth that is not corroborated by historical documents. Because of this, however, parts of the camp were very well preserved, and it has been a model for the memorialization of concentration camps for quite some time.

We had an incredible tour guide, very knowledgeable and friendly, but also with a demeanor that's sort of hard to adjust to - that he never got overly emotional. Which isn't to say he wasn't emotional - in fact, it was like he always had to keep a check on his emotions, but his voice kept its quiet, even tone, almost like when you're talking in a room where a child is sleeping next door, you know they probably won't wake up and hear you, but better to keep your voice down, just the same - he consistently keep that tone from when he welcomed us, told us about the number of visitors that come each year, to when he described the torture cells below the crematorium. It was unsettling, in a way, but since the whole visit is unsettling, I can't imagine now any other way of speaking more fitting.

In spite of having learned so much, I feel like we barely got started on what there was to look at. At the memorial alone there are 4 museums, and we had an hour to take a look at all of them. There were also large parts of the camp grounds we didn't look at, or only briefly. There was an older exhibt that had been on tour and is now in the attic of the classroom building that was certainly worth lingering over. There is a lot of work being done to digitalize as much of the archives as possible, including a photo archive, which we got to see for about 15 minutes. There are folders full of classroom materials that we were shown again, very briefly. It was a strange sort of dissatisfaction to come back with - it was not the case at all that there was anything we weren't allowed to look at, but just how many possibilities were opened made me feel like we had barely begun, even though we were there from 10 in the morning to 7 at night.

It was a relief that the seminar got along so well with each other. 20 students who have seen each other once a week for a few weeks - hard to know how everything will work out socially. But it went really well, and now there are 20 other people that when I see them in town or on campus, we always stop and at least wave, if not chat for a while.

More Updates

When everything is running so smoothly and so busily, it's hard to find one particular experience to use as a starting point for a blog. Before I head out for the weekend with my Seminar on Holocaust and Literature, I thought I would take some time to fill you in.

Last weekend was The Longest Chorus Rehearsal Ever. If I had made it Monday night I would have had chorus 4 days in a row. 4 hours Friday, 7 on Saturday, 3 on Sunday (including our performance) and then another 2 on Monday. When monday evening came around, I just couldn't take it (not to mention had plenty of work to do) and stayed at home. The performance went really well (about 20 each soprano and alto, 4 tenors, 6 basses). The orchestra was wonderful, and our tenor soloist did a good job, especially considering that his foot had been operated on the day before. I was also pleasantly surprised by a really good sermon as part of the service. We performed the cantata as part of the Sunday worship service at the Nikolaikirche, which serves as the university church.

I've been riding my bike much more comfortably lately. I've ridden in the rain (the helmet keeps too much rain from getting on my glasses), I've managed to stop at a stop light and put my foot on the curb rather than get off the bike completely (and then start again without wobbling any more than usual), and getting to all the various chorus things all weekend I rode my bike all over town. I am beginning to feel like taking my bike somewhere is default, and walking is the exception - the opposite of how I felt a few weeks ago. I can also make turn signals now, this is a big step up.

I needed to get some new shampoo, and saw some that was certified to be very ecologically friendly and was relatively cheap, so I took it home. I think I now know the German word for "citronella". At least bugs will have second thoughts about flying into my hair.

All of my classes are going pretty well. I am certainly learning tons. It is a nice feeling to know more of the answers than a lot of people in the class. Yesterday I was one year off on when Goethe's Werther was published (I said 1773, but it's 1774). But the rest of the class was sort of full of blank stares, so. And if you ask, I can tell you what I understood about Gadamer. But it's better if you have a web cam or ask me when I get home - I don't think I can explain without hand motions.

Yesterday I got paid 30€ for telling this young man what I thought about a website. If I could find a job where I would really get paid 30€ an hour for giving my opinion I would be set.

I am leaving at about noon for the weekend. The class will arrive in Weimar in the late afternoon, have the equivalent of two class sessions, and have dinner. Tomorrow we'll be at Buchenwald from about 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon. We'll get the standard tour first, and spend the rest of the day with the director of the memorial, learning about what information they include or emphasize depending on the group who is visiting. It should be pretty interesting. Then Sunday morning we'll see Goethe and Schiller's Houses before heading back to Göttingen.

Britta is leaving tomorrow for Iceland and won't be back until the Thursday before I leave to go to Storkow for the weekend (in about two weeks). So for the next bit of time I'll have the place all to myself.

I am having a slight disagreement with my renter's and personal liability insurance I got when I came here - but what I like about it is the envelope I got today. The letter was problematic, but when the letter was out of the envelope, the inside of the envelope could be read through the clear cellophane window, and it says (roughly) "We cannot prevent you from getting multiple letters from us in one day, because putting the letters in envelopes is mechanized. Sorting out the letters costs more than the extra postage. Please be understanding." I love this because it means that so many people called and wrote in complaining about all the extra envelopes that it was worth it to them to print it on the envelope itself. Excellent.

I need to get on to packing my backpack and reading about torture for this afternoon, but thought I would write a quick note first. If you're reading this, I'd love to hear from you!

Trying to be brief

Here ar a few things from the last week or so that I want to say in the 15... 12 minutes I have before I leave for chorus.

I've been doing a lot of listening. Aside from classes, last week I went to two extra lectures - one on the work that's being done to identify books that are now in German libraries that actually belonged to Jewish citizens before they were forced to sell them. Basically it means taking every book that a library acquired from the 1930s to the 1960s in hand and looking to see if some identifying mark is there, or had clearly been removed. The libraries were very thorough both in removing nameplates with Ex Libris (Jewish Name) and all records of all books that they acquired during that period.

I also went to a lecture on "Mythos Kindler" - from the new editor of the Kindler Literatur Lexikon, in the context of a series of lectures on canon and literature. It was in the Paulinerkirche, which is no longer a church, and has been the university library since the eighteenth century. Now it only holds the oldest parts of the collection. Today I had class in the library and got to look at very old prints of Erasmus of Rotterdam's writing - the oldest I got to hold was from 1545, if I remember correctly. I was also in the 10% of class that had done the reading (that's 2 of twenty students). Good times.

Today has been alternating perfectly sunny and raining. It makes me wonder if there's someone who's have a bad day, and that's who the rain is actually following around all over the city.

I went to the botanical gardens on Friday (which were packed, since it was a holiday, everything else was closed, the weather was great, and the garden doesn't charge a fee to visit). Of all the wild and wonderful plants there, my favorite were the two dogwood trees, in full bloom. I didn't expect to get to see something so homey there. :)

The kitchen here does not have a bread slicer, the joy of my kitchen in Storkow. It does have this awesome tupperware hand powered dicer though that I use for onions, and I love it. (The german name for tupperware is tupperware said toopervahreh.)

I went to an English Stammtisch on Thursday and I think it will be part of my weekly routine - very friendly laid back atmosphere.

The amount of pollen on my windowsill right now is grossing me out and I'm trying to stay focused and finish this blog entry instead of getting up and wiping it off right now. In spite of pollen, open windows are a must (to avoid must! ha! ...ooh boy)

I'm going to chorus now where we'll work some more on the Bach cantata "Ihr werdet weinen und heulen, aber die welt wird sich freuen" (You will weep and cry, but the world will rejoice), the last normal rehearsal before our huge chorus rehearsal weekend and performance on Sunday. Hopefully the congregation will react like the world at our performance. Hm.

4 pm on a rainy afternoon

After having lunch in the cafeteria with a fellow student I went to the library at about 1 pm yesterday, planning to read all afternoon until I left for a lecture at 6 pm. I planned on taking a break at about 4, to get a snack so that I wouldn't be too hungry before the lecture. The library I use is part of the German department, which is in a huge old yellow-brick building that used to be a hospital. The back of the building is home to "Theater in the OP", based in the old operating theater, and probably not too surprisingly, performs very experimental theater. The library takes up three floors of the western-most wing, and I was spending the afternoon reading in the basement in the room for literature from the second half of the twentieth century. The rooms in the library are really marked off like classrooms, with doors that stay closed unless you're entering or leaving them - a big change from the vanderbilt library where the stacks on any given floor are open all the way through, front to back and side to side.

There are many other departments housed on the grounds of the old hospital, including the physical therapy training center where my roommate went to class. Because there are so many people there so close together, there are also multiple opportunities to get something to eat. There's a cafeteria (or Mensa) - not the one that I had lunch in, though. Cafeterias here are different, since there isn't a residential campus. They typically only serve lunch, and there are smaller ones anywhere there is a university presence, which in this case, is almost all over the city. The Mensa Italia is right behind one building I have two classes in, another close to the German department, another across the square from where the chorus rehearses, another (although supposedly the worst) at the new university hospital, not to mention the biggest one on the main campus. What's nice about the mensa that is close to the german department is that it has a little cafe beside it, where you can get a cup of coffee or tea, a piece of cake, or a small sandwich. That's where I headed a little after 4 yesterday afternoon. It was a balmy 8 degrees (46 farenheit) and was raining, just like it had been all day. I got to the door of the cafe just in time to see that it had closed for the afternoon. But, I thought, no big deal, there is a kiosk on the other side of the hospital grounds, surely I can go there - they wouldn't close at the same time as the cafe, precisely for the business people like me would give them right now. So I walked back from where I came through the gate on the other side only to find that the kiosk was closed, too. Of course, since most people get their food either at the mensa, the cafe, or the kiosk, there isn't a lot of incentive for another business to set up shop anywhere close by. I remembered that down the street and around the corner there was a bakery, and walked under the dripping lilacs and pine trees up to the corner bakery - which was doing huge business, since it was the only place that was open!

I walked in and immediately lost anything like a place in line because I wanted to see what was for sale in the display case before ordering, and walked all along the front - unknowingly standing in the "I've ordered and I'm waiting for my food" spot, so that no one behind the counter asked what I'd like to have. Getting back in line, I ordered a tea and a "Bobbes" - new to me, a pastry that's basically sugar cookie dough rolled around raisins and served in big slices. It was crowded, and although there were places to sit, there weren't enough for everyone to have their own table. I took a seat beside an older woman at a table where I could still watch the people walking by (I could also see the lighted sign of the pharmacy, which is how I knew it was 8 degrees celcius, on april the 29th, and in regular intervals, how many more minutes past four it was). It's been my experience that sharing a table in public with someone you don't know is no big deal here, you just ask if the seat is taken, and if it's not, you can sit there. You might wish the person you're sitting with "guten Appetit", and when you or they leave, say "Tschüss", but aside from that, people seem to be pretty ok with there being no conversation.

I could tell that this wouldn't be the case with my companion in the bakery, but there really was no other place to sit. My thoughts were still buried in the books I had left with a note in the library to please not reshelve, and wasn't really interested in talking, but after a polite "guten Appetit", I was asked whether my pastry tasted good. I admitted it was very good, and even seemed to have a bit of marzipan in it. Hers did, too, I was told, and that it is so nice to drink tea on a day like this. Moments like this are some of the harder ones for me being new in a city. On the one hand, I was mentally somewhere else, specifically, why Ruth Klüger is convinced that women read differently than men, on the other hand, a part of me resonated with this woman's desire just to have someone to talk to. Maybe she has a house full of family waiting for her at home, but I had the sense that this trip to the bakery was an escape into a world with people in it. She was delighted by the very tall man that was also eating in the bakery, and wondered aloud at what would be difficult about being a Giant. As another person without a lot of people here to talk to, I struggle with these conversations. Sometimes, I just want someone to talk to, too. What would happen if this woman and I met for tea every Wednesday afternoon?

I ended up finishing my snack quickly and heading back for the library - I wanted to read another chapter before 6. But I've kept thinking about it - one of the things I like about Germany is how much more time is spent in a public space. I feel safer walking the streets at night in Germany just because so many other people are also out and about. At the same time, just seeing other people isn't the same as connecting with them, and encounters like this, where I tend to brush off the possibility of really acknowledging someone else, make me wonder just how public these spaces are.

Classes are international

Now that all of my classes are meeting for the second or third time, I'm starting to get a feel for who's in them, and finding out that really, somethings about classes are true everywhere.

Somethings are uniquely German (in my experience). For example, each class meets once a week, for two hours, for example, from 10-12. However, German universities have what they call the "akademische Viertel" (academic quarter), which means that a class that meets from 10-12 actually meets from 10:15-11:45. So the actual instructional time is only an hour and a half, half of what a standard class in the states is.

Still, how you behave in class is still the same, regardless of how long class is. I mentioned a while ago that no one wants to go first here, either. Students still come unprepared to class - and because Profs here also put out materials to be read and copied too late in the week. In seminars, there is also always "that guy" - at least one, sometimes more. The one who starts every answer with a condescending "Clearly..." or "It's very easy:..." only then to keep talking so long you realize he's just repeating the same sentence on the page in front of him three times with the words in a different order each time. And you know this because he talks ALL THE TIME. And in any lecture there are always "those girls" - they usually come in pairs, sometimes as triplets - who dress alike, all out of the same magazine, and can't tell that when they talk in a lecture, everyone can, in fact, hear them. And it's distracting. And when you try and give them "the look", they assume you are passing judgment on their hair-ribbon, or something, and since your judgment clearly carries no weight, not being dressed from the same magazine they are, there's no need to interrupt their conversation. Also, Trekkies are the same everywhere. I don't just mean people who enjoy watching Star Trek - I mean the people you look at and think "I bet they watch a lot of Star Trek." Yep, they're the same here.

Aside from classes, not too much has been going on. This weekend is another holiday weekend, with Friday being May first, so there will be possibly more events to attend, but with a lot of people taking trips, too. Don't have plans yet, but it's still a few days away, something will surely come up.

The finished Burg

 

One fun part of being in Storkow was taking a tour of the Burg now that it's all finished! Here is a collage of some pictures Ines took.

One week into the semester

I have officially visited all of my classes now, and can officially start getting into a routine. Yay! So far this routine involves lots of bike riding (now with working hand brake), jogging, reading in the library, and volunteering for the first assignments. I can't stand it when assignments and presentations are divided up the first day of class, and everyone knows they have to do one.. and no one raises their hand. Somehow, everyone manages to want to do the very last one. This sounds like a terrible idea to me. I want to get it over and done with, asap! Now, one could make the argument that it's because so many of my classes involve the history of literature, and that means the last ones are the most modern, and therefore easier to understand. Word to the wise: this has clearly never been the case, the last reading is never easier - and you're always totally busy and stressed out at the end of the semester, why make it worse?

So, of course, the first day of class last week I volunteered for the assignment that was due today - in spite of not being in town all weekend. Fortunately, two other classmates were strong-armed by the prof into helping me, and it went really quickly. I have to complete 4 assignments this semester - two smaller presentations, and two papers. So by handing out a worksheet today, one of my 4 assignments is already done. In the first week. Did I mention how much I love being in school here?

I was also accepted as a member of the Unichor - the university chorus - last week, and will be singing two Bach cantatas and the Mozart Mass in C minor that I sang last spring with the Vanderbilt Community Chorus. I took it as proof that this was the right decision when I made friends at the audition with a student in sociology department, only to discover that she knows Sten from when they were in school together in Leipzig. Die Welt ist eine Dorf - a sentence that has usually brought me luck in the past. Or at the very least, keeps me from feeling disconnected, even when I'm far away. The chorus looks like it will be a good opportunity to meet people, since after most rehearsals at least some of the group go get a beer at the bar next door. So at least one night a week, I can sit around and just talk, if I want to.

Speaking of getting to know Germans, I spent the weekend in Storkow, with some of my best German friends. I had a wonderful time, and after a month of traveling and adjusting to Göttingen it was a delight to see truly familiar streets, buildings, and faces (and weather! the first grey day I've had since being here was Friday). I stayed with my teacher friend Ines and her family, and although I never made it to her house while I lived in Storkow, we had a great visit over the weekend. Saturday night Rayk invited us over for a cookout, and the weather cooperated enough for the food to cook on a grill, even if we mostly stayed inside. Rayk and Heike were already there, with Moni and her twins (now about 2 years old, and still completely identical). A little after we got there, Klaus and Marlies arrived from the Baltic Sea, where they had spent the week with Marvin, who proudly showed us all of the rocks he collected on the beach. While there, Marlies made some phone calls and arranged for me to get to have coffee with some friends from Chorus before leaving Sunday afternoon. I couldn't have counted on seeing so many people, and was so pleased to find that we could all pick up where we left off, talking as comfortably as ever.

One person was conspicuously absent, although she popped up in most of our conversations. This was my first visit to Storkow since my good friend Gitti died of cancer last summer. We visited her grave first after getting there, but kept talking about her off and on through the weekend. It was good to get to be there and remember her, but would still be better to have her still with us.

Easter weekend

Here are a few more photos, of the apartment and of what I kept myself busy with on Easter sunday: baking a great asparagus quiche. Since I decided to stay in Göttingen over the holiday weekend, I thought I might as well go to many of the church services that were offered. I attended St. Jakobi, because it was sort of closest while still in the old city, and I found it's list of services first. I didn't take a lot of pictures of the inside, because I feel like I can't ever do places like that justice, but here is a handy link to a panorama quicktime video of the inside of the church, if you want to look. I went to a small Maundy Thursday service, a Good Friday service that was concentrated on the church choir, who was, of course, impeccable. Saturday nicht late I went to a midnight service, which of all of them was perhaps the most impressive. We entered the church in total darkness - the priest carried in one large candle and chanted three times walking up the center aisle that "Christ is the light". The choir followed him and got to light their candles, but we were still in the dark while the creation story, and Elijah reviving the bones in the desert were read. After the gospel was read we got to light our candles, and then the lights at the front of the church were turned on full blast on the altar, which was opened from it's darker "weekday" doors to the innermost side, showing Christ surrounded by saints, all figures sculpted from wood and covered in gold. It was impressive, to say the least. The altar is form 1402 and is still standing in the same spot and used for the same purpose it was originally planned for over 600 years ago. If you click the link on the church's webpage that says "Kirche" you'll get pictures of the altar. Then on Monday I went to an Easter Monday service (an official holiday in Germany) which was great. The choir sang "Christi lag in Totesbanden" by Bach, which uses the text from a hymn by Martin Luther. Martin Luther in turned based the hymn on medieval Osterspiele, or plays based on the resurrection that were part cabaret, part political satire, part adventure, and extremely popular. A modern German translation of part of these plays were read between the movements of the Bach piece, and fit the text extremely well (the Luther hymn is still in the hymnal in the church, so everyone had their prayer book opened to the hymn to understand what was being sung.) I'd like to see someone put up an entire medival Easter play some time, I have to admit. All the various professions in the town have to appear on stage and admit that they've been swindling all the townspeople, which is why they're being collected by Satan and brought to Hell. When Satan tells Lucifer that Jesus is coming, though, Lucifer gets scared, because "God can't die!" Then Jesus and Lucifer have a battle, at one point in which Lucifer turns into a dragon that eats Jesus. Then he has to spit Jesus out (just like the whale spit out Jonah, we're told) and then Jesus swallows the dragon and defeats the powers of evil. Basically, I just want to see Jesus swallow a dragon, but the rest would be neat, too (they did not act out the dragon scene in the church, unfortunately).

Anyway, that left Sunday free to do other things. I decided to spend the afternoon cooking, making a quiche and an arugala salad. Then I was invited by my across the hall neighbor to go to the Osterfeuer. This is a "Dorffest" - which I usually hear referred as "only" a Dorffest as an excuse, somehow, but the Dorffests I have seen have always been well attended, so I'm not sure who's being apologized to. Anyway, Osterfeuer (Easter fire) is a big bonfire, sponsored by the fire department, and is pretty common in small towns in northern Germany. I was there with some people who had moved north after living in the south, where the tradition is more to have a Funkenfeuer closer to the Spring equinox - usually the Sunday or Saturday after Ash Wednesday - to chase away the winter and to burn witches (now only burnt in effigy). Anyway, the pictures I have posted are of the apartment on Sunday, of my Sunday dinner, the fire, and of Buck, for those of you who haven't seen a picture of him yet.

That's all for now - I got my bank card in the mail today (yahoo!) and now have all of the cards I've needed to get things done. So I'm going to stop writing and go do some of them.

Easter Goettingen

Here are pictures of the trip!

Hamburg-Israel-Hamburg

Collage of Ostermarkt

Yep, having lots of fun making collages.... But here they are, the crazy bunny set ups - the decorated trees, the Gänseliesel, and in the corner, a Zwetschgenknödel (eating only one was the way to go - they're about the size of my fist.) Enjoy!

Nazareth

This is a collage of pictures I took mostly within the courtyard of our hotel in Nazareth. It was really beautiful, with great old stone architechture, as you can see. The rooms and office were all in the second story - many rooms hadn't been worked on and were open to the sky (we did have a roof though, of course). I'm experimenting with how picasa works with pictures, so sorry if this picture is very small and hard to see. I'll be adding a link soon to a more full photo album, but I thought this was sort of a cool effect, I think it has something in common with the sort of impression a place leaves in your memory, put together of lots of little things, rather than one single image. Please leave comments if you have any thoughts on how it looks!

PS - at least for me, if you click on it, the picture will open much bigger in a new tab!

Quick post about calling!

Hi again,

I made two big scores I think as regards calling home this week:

1. figured out how to get unlimited calls to the US via Skype for 2€ a month (excellent)

2. set up Skype so that when I call, it ought to look like my cell phone is calling (will avoid the privacy director thing, and make it easier to tell when I'm calling). Skype can't promise that it will work, but when I tried it yesterday, it did!

So if you see my cell phone calling, it doesn't mean that someone has stolen it and is calling for money, nor does it mean something has happened and I'm calling from home after a short notice return flight, it just means Skype is doing what I told it to.

That's all for now!

Ostermarkt

So, much like there are Weihnachtsmärkte at Christmastime, there is an Easter Market or Ostermarkt happening in the square in front of the Old Town Hall in Göttingen right now. There are the usual wooden booths with all kinds of goods: flowers, local honey and honey products, dried fruits and nuts, middle eastern looking ceramics, felted wool in all shapes from blankets to felt dreadlock hair scrunchies, blown glass (where I got a very neat glass easter egg), scarves and jewelry, and brushes. The brush stand really has them all - from push brooms to pipecleaners, long handled back scrubbers to nail brushes - and having a brush man as a part of open market like this dates back to medieval markets that were only held once a year (some christmasmarkets are still referred to as a Jahrmarkt), and were the time to get whatever you needed that wasn't made in the town where you lived, including, apparently, bushes. At least that's what Frau Florschütz told me about the one we saw at christmastime. Then there are the great food stands that you can smell upon entering the pedestrian zone: 1/2 meter long brat- and currywurst with or without fries, potato pancakes, plum dumpings (Zwetschgenknödel - say that three times fast), and Vietnamese stir-fry. All of this centers around the Gänseliesel, the fountain in the shape of a girl carrying geese that is the symbol of the city. Between all the stands are potted pussywillow trees in full bloom, hung with brightly colored plastic easter eggs and topped with fake forsythia branches - I guess real ones couldn't be counted on to bloom. The problem with the fake flowers (besides that there is no real tree in nature that looks remotely like this) is also that we've had unbeliveable weather the past week, and all the real flowers are in bloom - which make the fake ones seem that much more out of place. I have a sense that a week of full sunshine and temperatures in the 70's is out of place for Göttingen only because of the recommendation of a friend when I was thinking of coming here, to her alma mater: "Yes, the summers in Göttingen are very nice, the rain is warm!"

Anyway, the charms of this open air market that I've brought up until now aren't actually what made me want to write about it. What really caught my blogging attention was what must be the child-oriented part of the market. Most prominent is the carousel, which has been pretty full when I've seen it with Formula-one cars chasing swan carriages to the typically tuneless music and occasional encouragement of the attendant to enjoy the ride coming through the loud speakers. Surrounding this are displays - sort of like large dioramas or small stages, with various easter scenes on them. What they all have in common is a sign somewhere saying "Happy Easter!" and plush or mechanical rabbits covering every square inch of surface. One has a ferris wheel with disapproving stuffed rabbits sitting in the seats, while mechanical rabbits stand and wave at the passers-by. One might be the egg-decorating factory (as I'm writing it occurs to me that this might be a very similar set up at Christmas, if you replace Santa and Elves with easter bunnies and turn it into Santa's workshop). At the egg decorating factory there is a row of chickens in the back that moves up and down, one bunny lifts a decorated egg above his head and lowers it again, one reaches a paintbrush to a his egg and then takes it away, meanwhile two rows of bunny heads in the back alternate up and down in something that's between that pound the gopher game and a rotisserie.

There are no rules it seems, as regards biological accuracy with these rabbits, either for or against. Some very realistic pet-bunny looking brown and white (usually stationary) stuffed rabbits are mixed in with purple bugs-bunny twins riding a see-saw. Some Easter bunnies are wearing clothes, and some aren't. Just to be sure that there is no negative space in the display, the tent covering it is hung around the edge with scarecrows carrying baskets. What I find the most jarring though in all this is the inclusion of one stand with real rabbits. I didn't notice it the first handful times I went past because it is so plain compared to the others - just yellow metal uprights and one large group of boxes in the middle for the rabbits to hide in (from people or their mechanical kin, I won't begin to guess). I felt that after seeing them, there was no going back to their flashy neighbors - the real nose tiwtching and occasional movement of real rabbits was far more interesting.

It made me start to ask - who is this display actually for? Who actually likes watching garish repetetive mismatched toys shaped like rabbits act out this fantasy of painting and hiding eggs? The answer from my very unscientific observation today was - just about everybody. Everyone that was at least curious enough to walk up to it smiled - whether out of genuine aesthetic pleasure or out of disbelief, it broke the more typical "serious German walking down the street" face. Maybe it was just watching the few kids who were there and at the right age to understand "easter bunny" and be charmed by the colors and movement, and their irresistable laughter. Either way, it shed some light on why "Ein bisschen Kitsch muss sein" (There has to be a little kitsch).

Hope you all are enjoying or will get to enjoy some spring weather as nice as this soon!

Full week in Göttingen

Well, last night was actually the one week anniversary of my arrival in my new place. Everything's gone very well, inspite of the typical anxiety that comes with wanting everything to go well, but not being sure it will. Britta picked me up at the trainstation, and Buck (her bearded collie) was waiting outside. He was not too sure why I was there, what all the suitcases were for, or whether he wanted me to be there, but since Britta was fine with it, he's warmed up pretty quickly. Our apartment has a smallish kitchen, with a washing machine, but no place to really sit - a living room with a table and chairs, as well as couches and a tv, and a door to the balcony. Then there's the shared bathroom and each of us have our own bedroom - mine faces south onto the courtyard, so there's always plenty of sun. My room was put together thoughtfully by the girl who lived here before, so there is plenty of room for books, clothes, and pictures.

This week I've just been working on getting set up. On Monday I went and met my contacts at the universtiy in person, and got a new list of things to take care of. I also set up a bank account here, and Britta let the apartment organization know I'm living here (which meant my name got put on the doorbell and mailbox by Thursday). I've gotten health insurance for american students living abroad, and got the waiver from the German health insuance I need for the university. I've been in touch with professors regarding the seminars I want to take, since I can't register until I'm officially a student. I also registered with the Einwohnermeldeamt and have submitted everything for my Aufenthaltstitel, so that I can stay longer than my tourist visa.

I've also checked out the closest grocery stores (which stay open until an amazing 10 or 11pm - would have been unheard of in Storkow, and is a benefit of living in a city that caters to students), and passed by at least a dozen bookstores, and have only bought 5 books - which I think is pretty good for me. It helps that Liv (the student whose room I'm staying in) has lots of books that I can also read for fun. It took a few days before I got the password for the wireless network, but now I have internet access via my laptop as well - which is some of the reason I've only gotten to writing now, before I had been using Britta's laptop, which was really nice of her, and something I didn't want to take too much advantage of.

Göttingen is a pretty easy city to like, I think. I've been exploring everything on foot - mostly because I didn't want to have a chance to have a bike accident right off the bat - and it's been no problem to get to the various places I needed to be. We've had wonderful weather, which has helped a lot.

Inspite of multiple Germans' informed opinion that it would take one to two weeks for the money from my American account to transfer to my account here, the transfer was sent Wednesday and arrived Friday morning, just like my banker in Nashville had said. That means that the last big "to-do" to get set up, pay my tuition and get my ID card, should be done by the middle of next week, in plenty of time for classes that start the following Tuesday.

I'm caught now in the strange place of not really having much I can do. I have a couple of books to read for my first seminar on Tuesday - and I just finished the longer one this morning (I bought them both last Saturday). It will have to take a little bit longer to start meeting more people here. Everyone I've met so far has been really really nice - but aside from Britta, they've all been just doing their job to talk to me. But, as with the other things I've gotten done this week - I have the time now to think about whether or not it will work, whether I will find nice people to spend time with - but faster than I can anticipate, all the "still to do"s will be done. Before that though, I will try and remember to write about the Easter market while it's still here - worth remembering.

Live from Jerusalem

I arrived in Tel Aviv no problem, and was eating falafel in Jerusalem in about an hour. Ashley and Dirk are incredibly gracious hosts, and I am having a very enjoyable stay with them here. Friday and Saturday we went to Nazareth, stopping on the way back in Tiberius and the Sea of Galilee. Friday night we stayed in this incredible hotel. It wasn't fancy in the least, but everything you needed was there, and the building was amazing - an old arabian house with easily 18 foot high ceilings and great old doors and windows. I took a bunch of pictures of the courtyard, I hope some of them do it justice. In Tiberius I had St. Peter's fish for lunch, and we stopped at a monastery on the site of Capernaum, where Jesus called his disciples, from where we could see the Mount of the Beatitudes. Sunday I saw the parts of the Israel National Museum that weren't under renovation: the zen influenced sculpture garden, the to scale recreation of Jerusalem in 62 AD before the Romans destroyed it, and an excellent exhibit of other works in minature called "Bizarre Perfection". Today I went with Ashley through the Old City - although because of the threat of rain we stayed in the Christian Quarter where Ashley works and knows plenty of places to duck under a roof. We went to the church of St. James, immediately beside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which contains the tomb of Jesus. We started at St. James because Ashley and Dirk attend liturgy there sometimes, and they know the Muktar (sp?), the lay leader of the church, who gave us a tour of all the icons in his church and the history of the various rooms. The church is supposed to be built on the site where Mary first met Jesus after he'd risen. The tour was great, detailed and informative, and we left to go join the throngs of people at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. As we were looking at the tomb from the outside, discussing coming back early one morning before the lines get to be about 2 hours long, there was the Muktar by our sides again, asking if we wanted to go in. When we said we'd come back later, he told us to wait, went and talked to the guards, and walked us right into the tomb with the next group. We couldn't believe it (nor could the guards, or anyone else in line - I think surprise is what kept us from getting in any more trouble!) Then the Muktar proceeded to show us the entire church, pointing to the stone that marks "the center of the world", the tombs of Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus, a brief architechture lesson in Byzantine columns, and entrance into the back room where all the relics are kept. Most of it Ashley had never been shown before, either, and we could not have dreamed of getting such a thorough tour. We continued on to the Ethiopian and Coptic churches all connected to the main courtyard. It was an incredible experience, and I feel so lucky that it all worked out so well.

I have to admit, however, that I feel strangely unprepared for interacting with these sites. In spite of identifying myself as a Christian, I find myself impressed with what I see as historical events and places, without any particular spiritual weight - not something I'm particularly proud to admit. At this point in time I don't feel a great desire to come back to this part of the world, and a part of me wonders if I will regret later that I didn't take this chance to really make this a spiritual pilgrimage. I felt awkward, rather than honored, when shown their relic of the cross and told "Here, you can venerate" - an act in the Orthodox church that involves a combination of touching with fingertips, crossing, touching with the forehead, and kissing in a combination that eludes me. I find this veneration moving, inspiring, even, and at the same time mysterious and foreign. I'm simultaneously put off by it from years of Presbyterian white walls (hung with felt banners) and envious - feeling at a loss from not having something to do when I come here.

While thinking about this has thrown up questions for me that will certainly take much longer reflection than a few paragraphs here or contemplation over the rest of the week to get very far with, it is refreshing to get the time to think deeply about other things that interest me besides German Literature. Not that I don't get energized trying to fit ideas that I have about the power of the written word back into written words, but there will be plenty more opportunities for that (I've already gotten confirmation from one Professor in Göttingen about attending his seminar on the history of the essay.) A change of pace is doing a lot of good, particularly at the start of a period where I'm hoping to transition from mostly being a student in classes to a much heavier balance of independent work. We'll see. At any rate, it is a true mental break from what I've been doing and will go back to in just a few days, which is great.

Potentially the worst part of the trip

I think that the Goodbyes that are a part of making a big move are possibly the hardest part of all. I haven't been away from home for 24 hrs yet, I haven't been in Germany for more than 3 and a half hours, and I'm already way happier than I could have believed Tuesday morning.

Some is just a sense of relief. Nothing bad happened with flying here! In fact, everything went almost suspiciously well. All of my flights were way underbooked - I always had an entire row for myself. Perfect weather, no hassles at any check points - everything went perfectly.

I got into Hamburg fine, got my bags, got the SBahn, talked to the people at the train station, dropped off my biggest suitcase. I know what to look for in the morning to go back to the airport. Found the hotel no problem at all. They said to follow the street to the church, and they meant it - the hotel is right next to this old brick church, that has been chiming faithfully every 15 minutes, and I imagine will continue all night. Supposedly this is a non smoking room, it's still sort of smoky, but compared to the breakfast room it is a lot fresher. Still for all that this hotel far from the nicest place I've been, it is convenient and cheap - and the locks on the doors seem pretty reasonable.

Which brings me to perhaps my first cultural observation - Doors. Germans and doors. There have to be half a dozen doors between you and wherever you're going. And at least here, at least this time of year, they all stick, so when you push against them to see if they're not locked, you're (I'm) likely to walk away thinking someone's in there, when really, you just have to lean your entire body weight against it, is all. And all the locks turn funny - so if there's anyone else staying on this hall, they can tell any time I go to the door, walk down the hall to the bathroom, because I will turn all the locks twice the wrong way, before turning them back the right way, and then shoving them open. Maybe the doors just seem heavy because I'm tired from travelling and carrying my back pack all day - but I doubt it.

I have to admit - it's nice to walk in a city again. It's nice to walk down streets where there are lots of other people walking, where distances between buildings are measure in walking rather than driving distance. I imagine this is a lot nicer as a pedestrian - having to drive some place like this - having to paralell park ALL the time, I think would make me a bit nuts.

But yes, I checked into the hotel, made a few quick updates (including wonderful pictures from Britta of my room/apartment, which I think I'll just have to go into later) then went out heading for dinner. I decided that it was a good sign I was hungry at something like "dinnertime" and walked up "Lange Reihe", which I had read was a very happening street in Hamburg, particularly for the gay scene, for whatever that's worth. I found this great small italian restaurant, and got some kind of wonderful penne with duck, mushrooms, and a tomato cream sauce. I wished later I had brought a camera to take a picture of it, but decided as long as I don't know my way around, I shouldn't advertise it (ie, take pictures of everything). Anyway, I'm already happy walking around, seeing that EVERY bookstore has TONS of books in German (amazing..) and since this was the most unkown part of the whole trip, generally feeling better - everything from here on out has more of a feel of a safety net - someone to call, just in case, someone to meet me somewhere.

Last two points: 1. both wonderful and awful to not have a phone that anyone can reach me on - I'm completely independent, and completely on my own, if you know what I mean. 2. I just realized what I did not bring. The cord that lets me upload pictures from my camera to my computer. Thoughts, anyone?

Writing from Germany, Part 2

Hi again to any previous readers,

Thanks to your encouragement, I've decided to try blogging as an accompaniment to my time in Göttingen. It will be interesting to see as I write what strikes me about living abroad. There may be more reflections on the university than on small town life, but it's hard to say in advance.

At this point I can say: I will be leaving my comfortable, lived-in life on Tuesday (day after tomorrow, there, I've said (typed) it) and flying to Hamburg via London and Chicago. After one night in Hamburg, I'll be flying to Tel Aviv, to spend a week with my friends in Jerusalem, with a short excursion to Nazareth and environs. On the 26th I'll fly back to Hamburg, and will take a train and arrive in Göttingen on the 27th of March. I'll be sharing an apartment with Britta, a physical therapist, and her dog Buck, and will be taking seminars at the University of Göttingen. Classes will start April 15, and will end sometime in the middle of July. I'll have a couple of weeks to finish up my papers and will return to the States on Aug 1. Long enough to be "a long time", but for a long time - not really very long.

Hope you have fun reading along, and that we'll see each other soon!