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!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, May 15, 2009
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!
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!
Monday, May 4, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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