Transitions (Tschuess Heidelberg!)

--I have arrived safe and sound in Berlin. My smiling host family picked me up with my excessive amount of luggage from the Jugendherberge about an hour ago. We walked to their apartment, a beautiful high-ceilinged Altbau with internet and many books on German philosophy. They offered me Elderberry-soda and showed me where I'll be living these next few weeks - what a nice room! I did not have internet in the guest house, so here is an entry from yesterday afternoon--

What a jam-packed and incredible month. A couple of weeks ago I again found myself in a comfortable pattern. Language courses in the morning followed by lunch with Robert (either at the best Falafel restaurant in Deutschland or in the cafeteria) and then seminars or homework in the afternoon. Pass auf! Much to explain, much to tell.

I attended two seminars throughout the month (truthfully, only when I had time and energy to do so but I tried to keep it up). One was on English-German literature translation that took place unfortunately early on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays before our language courses. I’d never before really thought about the limitations and possibilities of languages in that way, that what sounds so simple to say in English, such as “In recent summers” simply does not work in German. Instead of “In recent summers” you end up saying “In the past during the summers”, which imitates the meaning while not copying it exactly. We translated a few newspaper articles and had very good discussions about untranslatable terms and phrases - who would have thought that a language with such a vast vocabulary like German, has no word for vandalism. To translate “vandalism”, the act itself must be described, until it reads as something more like “destruction of public property like broken windows and stolen artifacts”.

My entire language course seemed to be focused on how to say the most using the fewest words. Concision equals stylistically good German. Things like passive replacements and the genitive tense gives writers the flexibility to write efficient short sentences or exhaustingly long ones with ten commas and an occasional semicolon. Either way, with fewer “get” or “make” there seems to be a new verb for every action (vandalism excepted). The Thomas was all in all a really good teacher, although he did make fun of us a couple of times when we confused words (it’s not our fault that the words for arm and poor sound so much alike!). After explaining a difficult sentence construction he’d occasionally say, ‘hey, you’re the ones who wanted to learn this language, not me. I’d learn Italian or something prettier if I were in your place”.

The highlights were the class presentations, the beach volleyball tournament, the Klassenabend (class dinner), and the final show. I was incredibly lucky with the people in my class. Unfortunately, the temptation to speak English was always there since we had six native English speakers, unlike in my class last month, but I’m so used to responding to everything in German at this point that it wasn’t too difficult. We each had to present some topic about German society or society from our Heimatland, homeland in a five-ten minute presentation in front of the class. I partnered with a Czech friend named Petr to do something on the German basketball team, since that was before they struggled miserably during the game against China. We did research on Novitzki and I looked up rule differences and the biographies on a couple of other players on the national team. Although we were very prepared, it’s not easy to give a presentation when your teacher corrects you on your grammar every few sentences. I was thrown off a bit but the time went by fast and sooner than expected my first “Refarat”, or presentation, was over. The others were great. We Americans clearly wanted to pick topics that strayed from the American mainstream - one American named Steve told us about rodeo in Montana. Another friend named Andrew talked about American Eating Contests. Did you know that the defending champion of the 4^th of July Nathans Hot dog eating contest was Japanese? The recent winner ate 67 hot dogs in 10 minutes. The road to success in an eating contest is actually to be very fit, and to drink so much water in the days preceding the contest that the stomach is totally bloated by eating time. They actually dip the hot dogs with the buns in water to make them go down faster (EWWW!). We learned about some old Hungarian history legends, we learned that women cannot become sushi chefs because they have warmer hands than men and thus ruin the fish (smokers, interestingly enough, have the coldest hands, and are therefore favored in Japanese restaurants), we learned about the five little mascots from the Olympics and what they mean, and we had a great discussion about what is taboo in Germany versus what is taboo in the US (naked women on the cover of newspapers, for example) – Germans consider Americans in general as incredibly prude and conservative when it comes to sexual topics.

We did surprisingly well in the beach volleyball tournament considering my and others’ lack of experience. 4^th in a pool of 12 teams, I believe. On a Wednesday afternoon most of the Ferienkurs met at the sports center about 30 minutes away from the University. We had an afternoon “Sport Fest” with basketball (in Robert’s charge), soccer, street hockey, and beach volleyball. We formed a team of six only with people from my class. Technically, we took bronze, since the Betreuer (staff) team that came in second didn’t actually count in the pool. My saddest moment was when a built six-foot-five Betreuer spiked the ball right into my face; I fell back on the impact and we all laughed at the irony of such intensity at a Ferienkurs sportfest.

I volunteered our apartment in Rohrbach for the Klassenabend last Thursday night. The left-hand corner of our parking lot has a nice little patch of green grass with a picnic bench and awkward small plastic pond. A garden gnome and a little deer figurine guard the pond (facetious, as Caitlin would say). My class of about 13 plus our teacher and Betreuerin Verena came around 7 while I was in the middle of making brownies. They all went out back except for those who needed to prepare their meals. The kitchen was full! Six people in a small space with about ten large cola bottles did not keep the stress down, but once the brownies were baked and cooling (from scratch, thanks to eliza’s recipe) and I joined everyone out back it was a really relaxed and fun evening. Petr, who saw no other solution, decided that the pond would be the perfect place to keep the beer cool – the image of the garden gnome guarding a six pack of Oettinger swimming in the water sticks in my mind. Przemek stayed by the grill most of the night and even when we were all full to the brim he continued to offer us Nuremburger bratwurst. Steve and Elizabeth brought us unbelievably good potatoes and salad and my brownies turned out really well. People did not know what brownies were, so we had to explain a couple of times the differences between chocolate cake and brownies. When it grew too dark to see we lit small candles and stayed until 10:30, when the uptight neighbors shut us down. They were rather unhappy with Robert the next day, although he was not even there (I felt quite badly that we caused it all!) but really, when we talk outside until 10:30 it’s not something to report to the Hausmeister about.

Against many odds we got our act together enough to sing at the final show. We sang a part of a song called “Jetzt ist Sommer” from a men’s a capella group called the Wise Guys. I’d heard the song on Robert’s computer recently and fell in love with this group – really fun, really light, and good lyrics. We practiced maybe three times outside of class for the show – our act began with a sketch. We all looked sad standing randomly around the stage and when Andrew asked us what was wrong we each had different complaints: the Japanese could not find sushi in the cafeteria; the Chinese was sad because her country only had 51 gold medals; and I said that I was sad because starting Saturday I’d have to leave my heart behind in Heidelberg (Ab Samstag muss ich mein Herz in Heidelberg lassen!). Then Andrew said there was nothing to be sad about, cause it’s still summer! (queue starting song). Luckily Elizabeth directs an a capella group at Yale, so she certainly helped us get the right tone. On the same night Robert and the wonderful Edoardo resurrected Heisser Hund, a song that Edoardo wrote about the act of eating meat from dogs. It sounds pretty crazy, but trust me, it’s well written, and Robert knows how to work the crowd – all joined in with the refrain Heisser Hund… schmeckt noch gut. The final show is aaaalways more fun when we actually participate, so between the Heisser Hund and our class’ song I was pleasantly able to unwind from the test (B-R-U-T-A-L, but hey, it’s just a summer course…).

I had also taken part in the “Video AG”, the video club, in which we made a twelve minute movie about a Heidelberg fairy tale. We shot the film in five or so three-hour sessions in the past three weeks and ended up with a pretty stellar production. I was the “Kamerafrau”, the person in charge of the filming part, along with the lovely Reka from Hungary (I shall visit her in Budapest in November hopefully!). The plot… oh, hard to describe. Three bad Ferienkurs students spend all their time partying and are at risk of expulsion from the final show and parties. They run up stairs until their blue in the face and seek advice from citizens of Heidelberg (the interview part). Finally, they are able to pass three tests that show they’ve changed their ways, and they are kissed by the lovely Siberian fairy. They race back to the university to the awesome tune of Lola Rennt (run lola run) and open the door into the auditorium in perfect sink with the final scene of the movie. Lots of fun, lots of laughs, and I have a dvd copy to bring home. We showed that at the Abschlussfest as well, so I was busy running to and fro being in three places at once.

Wow, that’s a lot of information. A short run-through of the weekends. At a barbeque in a town called Spoeck – a name which I really cannot pronounce - with Robert’s theater group we heard stories of what it’s like to be a parachutist in the Bundeswehr, the current German army, and stayed until one eating incredible cake and drinking radlers (summer shandy?). With A-ka, Fabian and Konnie from Karlesruhe, Robert and I spent a Sunday hiking in the Black Forest. We bought a Baden-Wurttemburg ticket, which means for 30-euros up to five people can go anywhere in this province by train for the entire day. We hiked up to the BIGGEST WATERFALL IN DEUTSCHLAND (who would have thought Germany has waterfalls! It was beautiful!) and saw the 400-year old Black Forest houses. The people were so small then that Robert had trouble walking around in them! (no problem for me though) The houses were built using so many trees, around 400 just for the roof. They are big enough, however, to house a family of twelve with all of their livestock. The animals lived in the “attic” while the family lived underneath to conserve heat, and therefore they always had the noise of pigs and cows accompanying all that they did. I can see why so many fairy tales come from the Black Forest; the life was so harsh that stories after dark served as the only calm source of entertainment. The women wore hats with great big pom-poms and the men hats that look like the panama hats (of Ecuador) today. Very cool day with unbelievable scenery from the train.

As I said before, this past week was test then parties then on Thursday final goodbyes. We assured each other that we would visit as we exchanged emails. I hope that we can keep those promises, because it’s absolutely priceless what we build throughout the Ferienkurs – friends and connections in Prague, in Rome, in Athens, in Warsaw, in Paris, in New Haven (funny), in Budapest… I hope to definitely go to Budapest (MILAN!) and to do a detour to Prague when I visit Robert in Breslau, since Prague is less than an hour away. I went to the movies on Thursday night with Matthias (a close friend of my room mate Nina) and Edoardo to see Finnisher Tango, an indie film from northern Germany. We ate Vietnamese food and walked along the Neckar river in the dark making plans to do a biking tour in Serbia next summer (possible..???). I met up with my classmates for the last time in a bar on the lively Untere Strasse before saying auf wiedersehen for the last time and (slowly) biking home.

But of course, the hardest goodbyes in Heidelberg were those with my room mates Olalla (pronounced O-lay-ja), the wonderful Nina, and Robert who has been my closest friend this entire summer. After a last tour in the Altstadt yesterday afternoon (a break from frenzied packing) Robert cooked really good fish and potatoes for dinner. Nina joined us and we finally finished the wine that we brought back from our wine tour in St. Martins. We watched a Til Schweiger movie after that called Keinohrhasen (a romantic comedy that you’d LOVE, Erika). This morning I made pancakes for breakfast and Robert, Matthias and I schlepped (schleppen is actually a verb in German) my three suitcases (I’m ashamed!!) to the bus station, where Robert rode with me until Mannheim, about thirty minutes away.

That brings me to now. After a loooooooooooot of information, here is the skinny: I am currently on my way to Berlin. Having completed my Flag grant requirements I feel that I have a solid backbone in German. It makes me far less nervous for this year than I would have been, had I stayed in Chicago for the summer. That said, I still consider Heidelberg to be my home here. I know it so well now, and I almost wish that I could just do my school year there, like another Uchicago student and CMAC extraordinaire Alex Meyer will do. But I’m wondering if that’s mostly because being where Robert is feels the most like home. He is packing to go to Moscow in four days, and then in two weeks to go to Breslau, Poland. We will not be far apart, and Berlin has a whole new range of possibilities to offer that Heidelberg does not. As Robert said, “Berlin ist der Stadt”, Berlin is THE city. Everybody I’ve met has a cousin or uncle there or grew up in Berlin themselves.

Movies that I have watched in preparation:

The Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass)

Sommer vorm Balkon (Andreas Dresen)

Keinohrhasen (Til Schweiger)

Wo ist Fred? (Til Schweiger)

For three days we will have an orientation with the BCGS program (meeting other Americans, how strange!). I will move into an apartment/home in Wilmersdorf in West-Berlin I believe tomorrow night with a mother and daughter, Judith, who is 17 and sounds eager to show me around. My mother’s very good friend from Montreal, Nancy, will be meeting me at the train station when I arrive. In short, I’m incredibly spoiled – I’m starting a year abroad and already I have people to meet up with and homes to visit! I begin with a new language class (thiiiiird this summer) on Monday and classes in the University six weeks after that. Wow, lots of German.

To those of you who are already in your abroad programs (CAITLIN! Anna Rae?) and to those of you starting classes already dann ich wuensche euch viel Erfolg und Glueck! For Nora and Liza and Sarah and Smicley and those reading this in Chicago, enjoy the last few weeks!! Nora, I hope the telefunding isn’t sapping the life out of you!

PS – Sorry about the slight lack of photos this time: I had a slight camera misplacement incident last week, which was horrible timing considering it’s the last time I’ll see a lot of the people from my program. But the good news is that I found it yesterday underneath all of the grilling supplies. There was also lots of grilling this week. Jesse Marshall, the Neckarwiese is as beautiful and grill-worthy as ever.

(Matthias, Nina, Melissa und Robert mit der Welt als Hintergrund)

Schon die sechste Woche vorbei?!?

<--- 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 Heidelberg, although all know English and most have impressive German already. Thus at first I didn’t quite know where I stood during all the introductions. I spent a bit more time with the other Betreuers (Robert, for instance) than with the students. But now that I am in a good class and everybody seems to know his/her way around, I feel like any other student at the Ferienkurs, eternally confused by German but excited to use German to get to know Russians and Lithuanians and Greeks um so weiter. As a lovely 59 year old man named John, a Fedex worker from Orange County, California who is also a Teilnehmer here like me, said, "I can tell people I have friends in Poland. And Italy! How cool!"

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 Trier in Saarland, by the Mosel River. St-Martins is indescribably picturesque and surprisingly tourist-free. Trier was jam-packed in comparison, with people crowded on every street so that it was hard to find a free place to eat lunch.

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 Kazakhstan, Tunisia, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. I have two Hungarians in my language class, in addition to one Spaniard, one Italian, two Poles, one French, one Chinese, one Swiss, one Japanese, and three that hale from one particular land that is not too far from home, New Haven, Connecticut (you can guess the details).

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 US (nobody else knows that much about the school) and the one Spaniard who studies in Barcelona can avoid the question, “But what is it like in Spain?” assuming she can speak for Galicians and Andalusians alike. After a bit I too can avoid those complicated American stereotypes. Perhaps at some point soon I will stop providing a confused answer to the question, “Where are you from?” The best I can do is say, “Well, I technically live in Boston with my parents even though they are from Montreal. I go to school in Chicago but no longer have an apartment there since I will be staying in Germany for the year. Oh, and my sister lives in Montreal, where she studies, but she used to live in Boston and the rest of my family live in Montreal and California.” What a mouthful. "Wait, so then you're Canadian?"-- is usually the follow-up question, which then requires more explanation.

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-Durlach

ASW-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.

Back in Heidelberg, on the Alte Bruecke

Visit to Zurich: Liselotte und Otti

[From Wednesday, July 30] --> I know, this was a while ago. But it was an incredibly meaningful weekend for me so I thought I could mention it anyway...

Sorry I did not get to email from Zurich! As you will see later, I had some emailing "troubles" to say the least. I am now back in Heidelberg and really loving the fact that I have the rest of the week to relax a bit before the Ferienkurs starts. The Bodensee on Saturday was beautiful. Although Robert's friends are really great, I was honestly becoming bit overwhelmed by all of the German - political discussions in a language that I cannot sound intelligent or convincing in tend to get a bit frustrating. Thus I experienced my first dose of homesickness, and yet seeing the University, paddle-boating on the Lake (picture Lake Michigan with clear blue water and vineyards instead of man-made beaches) with Robert, Fabien and A-Ka made me feel comfortably at home. My favorite part was swimming in the Rhein on Sunday - fresh and cold and unbelievably sunny. One night in Konstanz was just perfect and I was really glad to be going to see Lisi. Lisi, short for Liselotte Weihmayer, is my 79 year old great aunt, my father's aunt, who moved from Friedrichshafen, Germany to Zurich, Switzerland in 1954, I believe.

She, of course, was jumping for joy when I arrived - I was about fifteen minutes late since I had to wait for the tram for a bit and she said she was so worried that I had gotten lost that she was ready to call Otti, Lisi's life-companion, to look for me in town. Just the image of Lisi looking out from her kitchen window for me to come and then saying ten times “So gut dass du hier bist!”… She had a delicious "Topf", a braided loaf of bread, waiting for me as well as homemade marmalades. She talked and talked a mile a minute until I explained that I was a bit tired from the trip (around 11:30pm) and wanted to sleep. Of course she woke up around 7 the next morning and got me out of bed by 8, but luckily she had some coffee (and hot chocolate because she knows i love it) ready for me. Our main event for Monday was to go out for lunch with Otti, who picked us up around noon. Little did I know that Mondays in Switzerland are "Ruhe Tage". After three different deserted restaurants we finally found one that was open. The schnitzel and soup (so typical, I know) was worth the wait. Lisie and I both ordered obscenely large "Eiskaffes" for dessert, which neither of us could finish. We both gawked like little girls when the huge glasses with whipped cream and chocolate sauce were brought to us. Otti took us for a driving tour of Wintherthur, his hometown (about 160,000 people, he was very proud to announce) and he showed us which house he was born in around 80 years ago. Once back in Zurich we watched a couple of afternoon nature shows on Lisie's brand new snazzy flat-screen TV before Otti went home to practice the clarinet. With his recent operation, he is not sure that he'll be able to play the clarinet for this Friday's celebration (Switzerland's Feiertag, always on August 1st).

I asked Lisie if she minded if I walked around Zurich on my own for a while. The sun was going down after an un-Switzerland-like hot day, the streets were full of visitors, and the Lindenhof park featured five or six lively chess games in between large chestnut trees. I went to the Jelmoli (a large, well-known department store in downtown Zurich) to buy cheese and some chocolate souvineers. I failed at using the internet (so expensive for internet!!) since I cheaply bought only 15 minutes-worth and then lost everything in the last five seconds. Oh well. A moment to remember: Lisi and I made Kasespazle on Monday night…. she showed me how to make it from scratch! I am very impressed with her cooking skills - man, Erika, you have no idea how much you would love Kasespazle. It's as if Macaroni and Cheese was a failed American response to German Kasespazle. Kasespazle are the small pieces of dough (just water, egg and flower) that basically serve as an excuse for butter, fancy, slightly burnt cheese, and fried onions. As if that’s not wonderful enough, it’s generally served with applesauce, which we substituted with canned pears. She was of course ecstatic that I loved it so much. The next morning we talked on the balcony for a while before I left to buy some more groceries nearby. We ate a leisurely lunch with Apricot tarts for dessert (she made them! Again, very impressed. A new life goal is to be able to make apricot tarts by the time I am 79).

Of course Lisi was sad to see me go and I assured her that I would soon return for another visit. I have one grandfather gone and two grandmothers in nursing homes. Spending time with Lisi feels almost like getting to know a fifth grandparent. Since I could not speak German two years ago and she never had enough time off of work to finish high school, let alone learn to speak French, all of her stories are new to me. While we made the Kasespazle she told me of my Schwabien great-grandmother Josefina. She could apparently make five different sorts of Dampfnudeln, a Schwabien specialty that requires as much skill as it does patience. She showed me clips from a 1984 Schwaebischen Zeitung Friedrichshafen article that looked back on the American bombing in Friedrichshafen, the town that my great aunt and my grandfather Albert grew up in, 40 years earlier. She dug into her cabinets to find a diary of my great-grandmother’s during her trip to Canada. Beside my bed in Lisi’s small, comfortably furnished 3^rd floor apartment (exactly 80 steps from the front door: she counts each and every one to make sure she doesn’t miss-step when she goes up or down) were pictures of my great-grandparents, my grandparents on both sides, and my mother in her wedding dress during their Wedding reception in Montreal. Spending time with Lisi is in every way a discovery of family roots; who would have thought that I have real Schwaebisch heritage in my family.

I left mid-afternoon for the train station. This departure was much easier for Lisi than our parting 11 months ago, since I promised to return sometime in the Fall. My new agenda is to persuade my aunt and parents to come to Zurich in June to celebrate Lisi’s 80^th birthday. Roughly three hours later I arrived in the Karlesruhe main train station, where Robert was already there waiting for me. We went to Der Vogel, his favorite brewery in the small town of Durlach, to drink their fantastic home-brewed Radler (I believe he had no less than three liters while I had a measly one) and spend some time with the Karlesruhe crew: A-Ka, Anna, Patrick, Hannah, Ducki, Konni, Fabien, and Nina, all incredibly wonderful people whom I am glad to have met. Randomly Anna, Hannah and Ducki all recently had some form of dental surgery, so they sadly had to stick with Mineralwasser.

Schon die dritte Woche vorbei?!?

<---- (Heidelberg from the Schloss)
I am finding it difficult to believe how quickly the time is passing. At this point I have settled into a daily routine. I wake up around 7am, have toast for breakfast, rush out the door late as usual, run down four flights of stairs to the bike room, bike to Neuenheim, take notes in class until noon (coffee), sit in a cafe (more coffee) or a library (usually the Slavistik library, the quietest one on campus) to study and read some Deutsch, bike home, go food shopping at one of the THREE supermarkets within walking distance, make dinner, chiiiiiiiiill, and eventually go to sleep. Busy and yet relaxed, exactly how summer should be.

Since that is the general plan most weekdays, I will mention only the highlights from this incredibly fun past week and weekend... And I would LOVE some highlights from home if you have a chance to write! No pressure though :-)

Oooooooh KANADA

Around 4:30 in the afternoon Robert and I walked through the rainy Hauptstrasse after classes. When we passed a tourist shop (there are maaaaaany), he asked me, “Canada feels like a sort of home, right?” I replied a bit baffled by his question, “of course!” I had no idea why Robert insisted that we buy a Canadian flag, but 5 Euros later I had a maple leaf flag tied around my shoulders, long enough to touch the floor. A couple of hours later, we got on a train from Rohrbach. My only hint was that we would see someone I knew on the way. This person turned out to be his younger brother Tommy, who saved seats for us. We were not going in the direction of Karlsruhe, rather the opposite, towards Mannheim. Tommy and his friends, dressed in various basketball jerseys, gave away the surprise. But the real surprise came when I asked Robert, “But why did we go through all that trouble to get a Canadian flag?” He himself was wearing a German flag tied on as a cape. The answer was simple: Canada was playing Germany in the Olympic trials in the SAP Stadium in Mannheim, 30 minutes from Heidelberg. Star player for the Germans – Dirk Nowitzki, a pretty damn huge person and a really fun player to watch. Star player for the Canadians – apparently the only NBA player on the team was sitting out for this game, and beyond that there were no French names (why would anyone in Quebec play pro-basketball?). I still happily routed for them, sang the parts of the anthem that I knew, and had some great beer and Bratwurst at half-time. Unfortunately I tripped over a row of seats at one point - I came away with a big bruise on my leg but managed to save my ketchup-filled Bratwurst. Very German, Robert remarked.

the perfect lunch

This is the market in Neuenheim that happens every Wednesday. The Paedagogium is just about the only building, let alone educational institution, that I know of where they openly encourage smoking. I desperately needed fresh air during the mid-morning pause. I walked a few blocks towards the Neckar and had time to walk around in this incredible fruit market. There were some fruits and vegetables I have never seen before. I bought a few things, including a little something for Miss Morgan which I’ll send asap, and this perfect lunch: sun-kissed tomatoes, fresh ham, mild cheese and Brotchen.

sushi and Sekt

Isilay is one of my classmates from Ismir in Turkey. We celebrated her 22^nd birthday on Tuesday with an afternoon picnic on the Neckarwiese with my entire class. We all brought a little something to contribute – I brought fruit but Mika and Miki (both from Japan, apparently that’s a popular name) brought homemade rice-cakes with tuna and a homemade chocolate cake! It was a really fun afternoon, lots of pictures and playing in an incredibly intricate water-playground with Miki’s young Japanese-German daughter. The Sekt - sparkling wine - in the sun made it even better.

Was fur ein Fass! -- Der Heidelberger Schloss

On Wednesday afternoon I went with five classmates to the large castle that has some of the best views of the city. We were toured around by a slow-speaking (very important) German man who told us stories of the history since it was built in 1147. The pictures just about say it all. Two particular highlights for me: seeing one large group of Chinese tourists taking photographs near our group, and seeing the largest keg in the world (I think… it must be!), which holds 127,000 liters of wine. HUGE! Unfortunately, it was so big that they could not keep oxygen from leaking in, so it was only filled three times since the wine would spoil by the time the keg (Fass) reached full capacity.

Heidees: frisbee in deutschland

No pictures, but I’ve been to a few practices and am really excited to have so welcoming a team to play with for the summer. They had just returned from the German-nationals tournament a couple of weekends ago, so the first practice was more informal than the later ones. Lots of running...we generally start each practice with sprints. The field is perfect and well-cared for in a Sport center in Eppelheim, about 15 minutes away by car; we meet at the train station and they drive me to the field from there. We play until dark and usually have amazing sunsets during our scrimmages. I love the exhaustion that comes from a couple hours of hard running, so twice a week I really appreciate the quiet, slow bike-ride home. And, not to worry, I’ve recently purchased a bike-light to make my rides in the dark a bit less dangerous.

Babysitting!

For an entire afternoon, I joined Robert at his babysitting job. There is nothing that I find more adorable than small children speaking German, and these three girls were no exception. Felina is six, Jule is 4, and then the smallest, Amelie, is 3. I was astonished at how quickly they warmed to me. Amelie and I played dolls for a couple of hours and then joined the others for a puzzle. Robert then read aloud to us from a children’s chapter book. I must admit, I did not quite understand what was happening in the plot… it was really great to have small friends to help me with my German grammar throughout the day.

More

- Saturday’s “Schloss Beleutung” and fireworks on the Neckar

- A long walk around Rohrbach last Sunday, realizing that I don’t have to go downtown to find a nice café or a decent Doner

- Robert and friends finally finishing their exams, which we celebrated with Sekt and chocolate in the courtyard outside of the history classrooms

- A really great concert tonight at the University – some Dvorak, some more modern pieces from a composer called Herrmann, and finally some Gershwin

GUCK MAL -------->

Translation: Check it out! ---------------->

I would like to thank the many u-tube tutorials out there for helping me figure out how this slide show function works. I could not have done it without your help. I spent waaaaaaaay too long doing this, but hopefully it’ll give you all a nice sense of my surroundings here in Heidelberg. I remember Joe Swayze (happily retired Nobles photography teacher) saying never to shoot our photo assignments on our way to school. Alas, that is exactly what I did.

Some of the photos are a bit on the fuzzy side, and some are even aimed towards the ground. But I wanted to leave them in for “authenticity” – it must have been an interesting sight watching me bike one-handed and taking pictures with the other... The hardest part was breaking one-handed at stop lights (don't worry, Mom - all is well that ends well and I won't do it again). Also I pretended that I knew no German when I received bad looks from other bikers around me. They had every right to scold (cultural insensitivity on my part?) but I do feel quite proud of my accomplishment. AND, what’s more, I was only ten minutes late to class today! Perhaps Deutschland will turn me into a punctual person after all....

My day went as follows: After a good (beautiful and sunny as you can see in the photos) day of classes, an afternoon of reading Stefan Zweig (with dictionary) in the Marsteilhof, a cafeteria by the University known for being the ONLY cheap place to eat in Heidelberg, a great dinner here in the apartment, a long, sweaty frisbee practice with the Heidees in Eppelheim, and finally a quiet late-evening bike ride home, I am just about kaputt.

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The caption that I would recite to all of you while excitedly showing you the slideshow:

Die Pendelzeit

Start: Rohrbach

Finish: Heidelberger Paedagogium, Neuenheim

During my rides into town I encounter the following...

... occasionally, I see an American soldier commuting to "work" (at the barracks? training?) in full uniform, riding a tiny blue bicycle.

... two kindergartens with miniature kindergarten commuters!

... for some reason, there is a high instance of tombstone manufacturers along the way. If any unfortunate mishaps occur here in Heidelberg, I can refer you to two particularly nice headstone makers.

... while the road-rage here seems minimal, I do encounter quite a bit of bike-rage. Luckily, there are traffic lights specifically for bikers, so the cars do not bother us and we do not bother them. The other bikers on the other hand... at least I am equipped with a chirping bell to express my aggression when I need to.

… an interesting encounter: rising gas prices. It’s too small to see, but the diesel at the Freie Tankstelle is 1,44.9 Euros per liter and the super is 1,48.9 Euros per liter; at the shell the diesel is 1,45 and the super is 1,50. Hmmmmm, that makes our gas look rather cheap…I am definitely glad to be biking.

... some charming obstacles, including a large construction site. AND, the infamous charming little playground where "they" (any adult around regardless of whether they live there or not) yell at you if you do not get off and walk your bike. On a bike you are a menacing danger to the children playing in the sandbox at 8am in the morning (there aren't ever any, trust me).

... and of course, beautiful scenery, houses, and new details to notice everyday. Crossing the bridge into Neuenheim and seeing the Schloss (castle) and the river is a particular highlight.

der Klaus, Angela and the land of SCHOOLSUPPLIES

One of my big unknowns coming to Germany for the summer was my classes. I knew next to nothing about the Heidelberger Pädagogium beyond how to register. I knew from the website (there was an English translation, thank goodness) that it was quite simply a language school and nothing else, and it offered courses year round in a bunch of different languages. I signed up for the “Intensive Summer German” series. That basically means you can begin attending when you want and stop attending when you want, but while you’re there you’re committed to be in class from 8:50 till 12:15 noon each day. The school is surprisingly inexpensive to attend and also surprisingly well-established; the people who work there have been working for years.

Although not near the University, the location is perfect. Robert initially assumed that it was in Neuenheimer Feld, which is where all the fancy, rather cold, and overly air-conditioned (according to Anna) science buildings are from the University of Heidelberg. LUCKILY, he was wrong – the address on the website led us to the “Stadtteil” (or district, sort of) of Neuenheim, a few blocks away from where I lived last year. This is a rather wealthy and beautiful residential part of town, just on the other side of the Neckar (the big river that flows through Heidelberg). Since it is a fifteen minute walk from the altstadt, there are much fewer tourists, making me feel the slightest bit more attached to my surroundings.

The disadvantage is that there are bakeries and patisseries on just about every corner! The two Euro croissants before class each day (not that I’m ever there early enough to have time) are making it reaaaaaally hard to stay within my budget… AND, oh my goodness, SCHOOLSUPPLIES. People say many things about Germany, but what is all too infrequently mentioned is that Germany is, among other things, the land of UNBELIEVABLE SCHOOL SUPPLIES. Morgan, you would go insane here for all of the incredibly useless and yet so amazing array of every color pen of every width tip. I myself went today looking for index cards, thinking this would be an easy task. I went into one store on the corner of a beautiful marketplace and found, to my pleasant astonishment, index cards of all sizes and all colors, stacked neatly in its very own section of the little shop. I settled for tiny (4x6 cm) yellow index cards to write new vocabulary on. MORGAN, where were you to enjoy this moment with me?!? You would certainly love it here…

Neuenheim is almost as lovely as Der Klaus. I am very sad to say that he was only my teacher for one week. After a placement test I was placed in “Sachsen”, an advanced-intermediate class. To my dismay the classroom #48 is on the 5^th floor, meaning lots of steps in between coffee breaks and blistering heat in the noon-time sun. However, great people, and good conversation. The language classes here are so different from at school: we read Goethe, and they expect us to know all the vocab the first time we see it, a sort of “well, we assigned it to you, so you should know it” attitude. There’s just not enough time to internalize the language. Sure, we can read Zweig and we can try our best to write an essay about it, but when it comes to trying not to make a fool out of myself while trying to get a cell phone plan I am pretty much lost. That is what this class is about – discussing vocab, reviewing old grammar (as opposed to learning new grammar), and talking about so-called “German culture”.

My classmates are Merve (Turkey), Ishalai (Turkey), Mika (Japan), Lura (Ukraine), and Li-An (Taiwan). The best part is that they all have such different backgrounds; talking about cultural differences in each place dominates each conversation. One main question is population size – everybody seems to compare cities based on amount of people who live there. It makes a lot of sense, I guess, and I’ve found myself doing the same. Der Klaus asked me often to describe Boston and various preconceptions he has of Americans in general. I’ve found his preconceptions really fun – for instance, we talked about riding bicycles, and he jokingly said that if you’d plant a German in a city, like New York for instance, they’d try to bike all winter even at rush hour. I replied that I knew German graduate students that do exactly that in Chicago. He has a lot of ideas about the US but does not want to visit. He has no interest, since as he said everything in between Boston and San Francisco is overflowing with evangelicals. What did he call it? Bush-country. It’s often difficult to make sure that we don’t speak any English during class. It is THE default when people cannot understand German explanations of a vocab word, let’s say. So then Klaus says it in English and everybody, the Turkish girls and the Japanese and the Taiwanese know exactly what he’s talking about. It’s like a teaching helper for other languages. And yet our course isn’t based off of English, like my courses in Chicago were. No two translation dictionaries are alike in our class.

New teacher today: Angela Retzlaff. The great thing about der Klaus was that he spoke in a naturally slow and even tone, so that we could understand most of what he said. Angela, on the other hand, expressly tries to speak slower so that we can understand. The difference is that with Klaus I didn’t feel like the foreigner; with Angela I feel a bit condescended to. This was only day one. Now I have many index cards to fill out and much vocab to go over… too much detail in these last entries?? Alas, I apologize.

die zweite Wochenende: Durlach und Staffort

(Applaus! the end of Irma La Douce, Saturday July 5th)

I sat on my hands while waiting for the show to begin, concentrating on staying still. Nope, too nervous! Anna, can I switch seats with you? Maybe I can see from there better. No? Okay, well then Edoardo, can I switch seats with you?... Robert and I had left Heidelberg at around 5 to catch the early evening train. We were picked up at the train station by his mother who was a bit exhausted from a long week of work. She had laid out some ripe cherries in two bowls on the coffee table in her apartment – one with a paper saying Robert and one saying Melissa (so sweet!) in preparation for our arrival. We ate quickly and left for the converted barn-theater in Staffort. Robert was surely more nervous than I was. The stage was made to look like a brothel on one side and a Parisian café and bar on the other. No details were overlooked. Two strings of furry heart-shaped lights were hung on a purple velvet background, one in the shape of a heart and the other in lips. Tacky and brilliantly colored, the stage made for an incredibly fun and warm atmosphere. I could hear impressed comments from other audience members before the show began. The bathrooms were a favorite - you needed to go through the door of 'la grotte rouge' on the other side of the stage to get to them and the only light inside was a dim red. Two women were still inside when the show began, so they had to stop, wait for the two women (they received a loud applause) and then resume action.

Ten or so friends came that I knew from Heidelberg including Anna, Nina, and our good friend Edoardo. Next to Robert’s impeccable clowning and great facial expressions, “Moustache” was perhaps my favorite character. He was the all-knowing trusty bartender played by Eddie, a middle-aged man with a friendly face and a long mustache. His lines had the driest humor of the show. After the “Pause” (or intermission, as we say) he walked to the front of the audience with two champagne glasses of Sekt. The show could not resume until someone purchases the last two glasses, he said slowly, capturing attention. He walked around and of course Edoardo, sitting near the front, signaled loudly with his hand – ich, oh ich! Then Eddie looks at him and says (still to the entire audience) super, the show can go on. That’ll be 2 euros please. Edoardo, confused (his German is as good as mine), says, but I have no money. Ich habe kein Geld – I’m sorry, I’m Italian! Oh Edoardo… Eddie said ‘Schade’ and moved on to someone else.

The next evening Eddie brought a CD of French music to listen to as the cast prepped for the second show. I was waiting around and reading and jumped up as soon as the first song began – of course, French music meant Patricia Kaas, one of my favorites. Jacques Brel next – Eddie came over to me and together we sang Ne Me Quietes Pas to a room of empty seats. A little Satchmo followed along with one of Robert’s favorite singers, Frederick Mae.

I wish I could describe all of the highlights from both shows. I was incredibly nervous for the first one though I had no reason to be. The audience surprised me with their energy, and the actors, too. There were many congratulations; I myself was asked so many times for my opinion that I needed to ask Robert for synonyms for good and wonderful so that I did not keep repeating myself. Wunderbar! Echt klasse! Absolut super! Es war Scheisseklasse! (it was hot shit!) Robert and I stayed late to have pizza with the cast and join in with the warm feelings of gratification and exhaustion. The second night featured a tougher audience; the laughing was definitely got a late start although they ruptured in laughter at Robert’s I-heart-Mum boxers, particularly Katrin, his mother, who was sitting on my right. Another great reception afterwards. The director, Uli (which I learned is short for Ulrika, an interesting name) said that I should come back for their next play in the spring of 2010. I said that my German is surely not good enough for theater and she said that it absolutely was and it wouldn’t matter anyways and that she’d make a real actress out of me. With a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek that left a lipstick print, I could really appreciate spending time with this cast even just for a few rehearsals.

Since Robert and I spent most of the day walking around in Durlach, I made plans to return early to Heidelberg before the third show. That way I can prepare for the week ahead. The show – reading the script, watching it, speaking to people before and after – was a thousand times more helpful than any German class, and left me with many new vocab words to digest. Hopefully all went well tonight!