Thursday, April 30, 2009

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.

Monday, April 27, 2009

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.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

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.
Posted by Picasa

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.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

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

Sunday, April 12, 2009

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!
Posted by Picasa

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!
Posted by Picasa

Thursday, April 9, 2009

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!

Monday, April 6, 2009

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!

Saturday, April 4, 2009

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.