<--- View from my classroom in the Germanistik Seminar I know, I know... It's been a while since I have dieses Blog auf den neuesten Stand gebracht, in other words updated you on the last three weeks since my last blog entry. There is no excuse, and yet I shall try to excuse myself, first because then I shall feel better and second because there are fairly legitimate reasons for my 'blog negligence', if you will.
Firstly, with the beginning of the Heidelberg Ferienkurs here in the Uni Heidelberg, my summer went from a slow vacation-pace to a full, nearly Uchicago-pace schedule. Seriously, not only do I have language class from 8 until 1 each day, but there is something happening almost every afternoon and night, whether it is a music concert or an excursion somewhere. It’s as if they think we are lonely or something! I had a sort of life and a daily schedule figured out before the Ferienkurs, which makes me a bit different from the other Teilnehmers, the course participants. Most have come from their far-away lands (Macedonia, China, Siberia, etc) not knowing anybody or anything in
Of course the weekend excursions are voluntary, so the exhaustion is nothing to complain about. I have been on two excursions so far, one to St-Martins across the Rhein for a vineyard visit and wine-tasting extravaganza (after six glasses of wine, you too would call it an extravaganza), and a second one to the ancient Roman town of
Not only do we have excursions, but we spend so much time meeting and chatting with people in the Kurs, whether over beer in the Mensa or in between classes, that "free time" is not spent at home by a computer. Just in this past week, I’ve met for the first time a person from
After a week of meeting-and-greeting, I am relieved to see that people have stopped representing their countries a little bit. Does that make sense? What I mean is that the Yalies stop being just Yalies from the
The third reason: SCHEISSE DEUTSCH! More eloquently stated, I am remembering the words of Mark Twain when he compared the German language to a conversation between two crows. Though I do honestly find it incredibly fun to listen to, it is often completely incomprehensible to me. It's as if with every new verb I learn someone in an office somewhere invents five new ones. Throw in some local dialect and I am lost and frustrated. But regardless I am learning a lot in this new language course. My teacher is direct, writes good notes on the board, smiles, and gives us lots of homework. In the past week we have already covered Passiversatz, Subjektloses Passiv, Passiv mit Modalverben, Nominalisierung, among other new topics. I have also written about one essay per night, all of which are filled with small errors but are slowly getting better. My teachers have gone from der Klaus to die Angela and now to der Thomas, a younger and really fun but strict guy who certainly knows his grammar. It’s getting more and more difficult to write in English now, since I’m thinking in German prepositions… Tonight I still have about sixty verbs and their prepositions to memorize – we’ll see if that happens.
There is still so much to tell. I shall go with the picture-caption approach. In the meantime, Jess and Janna thank you so much for your mail, Ronny it was great to “see” you via Skype, EB I can’t wait to hear how your Russian is turning out, and I hope the lovely summer-league ladies back home are digging deep and laying out like Skyla.
Three Weeks in Snapshots:
1) Settling in to German Bureaucracy
There's a scene at the beginning of L'Auberge Espagnol where the main character has to fill out about twenty forms before he can go on his Erasmus program. Well, funnily enough, it works the same way here - twenty forms is about the average for everything. The system works - so say the Germans - but nobody really shows you how it works. Robert said that it's the same for him too. I guess that means it only works when you actually are a part of the system, which half of the Germans are (about 50% of Germans are employed by the state). Last week, I went from office to office to office before I could make an appointment to apply for my visa. It worked out in the end, I think, but not without leaving me with an interminable headache. Now that I have it (my visa, not the headache) I feel much more settled in.
2) A Latin-speaking visitor!
The wonderful Alex Roberts survived what turned out to be a three-day train adventure from Rome to Florence to Vienna and then to Heidelberg. It was incredibly fun to show him around, particularly to hear his stories of his crazy latin friends (and professor) in Italy. Not only that, but after just one year of German in my Freshman year (with the wonderful Dagmar) his deutsch-skills were not bad! Exploring the libraries of Heidelberg is really only something a Uchicago student would get excited about, and I'm glad Alex shared in my excitement. It was great to see you, Alex, and have fun in Mexico!
3) ASW-DurlachASW-Durlach is better than Bielefeld: that's it, that's all. What an awesome soccer game to start on here in Fussball country. Robert and I went with Helmut and Thomas, Robert's brother, to a game about five minutes walking from his mother's house on Sunday. Unfortunately, Durlach lost 1-2, but they fought so hard that Bielefeld did not deserve the win. New vocab word: ABSTEIGER! (move down a league, Bielefeld!)
4) Robert als Betreuer
Here he's giving a Stadtfuhrung, a tour of Heidelberg, making a special stop by the monkey on the old bridge. There's some story about how an artist in Heidelberg wanted to depict how closely related humans and apes were, so he created this monkey for tourists to put their heads into. Tourists in a monkey's head really does make a lot of sense... Robert gave a great tour and I was proud of him!
5) SPANISH OMELETS!
Olalla is back for a second year in the Ferienkurs and we are lucky to have her as a third roommate, for many reasons. One such reason (certainly not the most important, but a good reason nonetheless) is her fabulous Spanish cooking skills. Last week she cooked a spanish omelet for dinner while Alex was still in town, which we ate with Churrizo. She is posing here wearing the infamous octopus apron.
6) Weinfahrt nach Sankt Martins
Incredibly beautiful. In a nearby fortress called Hambach the German flag as we know it today was first presented in a formal ceremony in 1832 (a reminder of how new Germany is). The most famous wine here is the Reisling, of course. 1/4 of Germany's wine comes from this region.
But enough with the history lesson - the excursion was on a Wednesday afternoon and by the time we returned home we were too pleasantly-filled with wine to do any work. We did an international karaoke on the way home in which the three Yalies and I sang "take me out to the ball game". We were out-performed by Robert, who sang some German folk songs, and a Russian who sang some Italian opera. The Chinese pop, I must confess, was my favorite.7) Trier: Karl Marx.... i mean ROMAN.....Stadt!
This is the Porto Nigra, the gates to the city that were turned black by the pollution in the Middle Ages. The highlights from this excursion was the Karl Marx Museum, where I purchased communist chocolate, whatever that means, and the view from the top of this gate. There were also ruins of an amazingly extravagant Roman bathhouse/sport complex that would put (the) Ratner to shame. I had my first political discussion in German in Trier, with a guy from Belarus/Ecuador/France who speaks ten languages (i'm exaggerating, but he answers the question "where are you from" with a simple, "it's complicated"). I do not know why this section is underlined.
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