Germany - Life Is No Pony Ranch

Tuesday, December 21st 2010

 Things I love about Heidelberg:

1. Steffi
2. Everyone is really, really nice
3. The castle
4. All-you-can-eat breakfast buffets
5. Steffi
6. Biking in the snow
7. Hot wine
Things I don't care for:

1. The weather

This is funny, because apparently Heidelberg is known for getting the most sun in Germany, yet my entire stay here has not seen a single ray of light. I arrived on a cloudy day and have seen nothing but since.

The first day I finally went out to actually see Germany, it was snowing so thickly that I saw nothing but flashes of snowflakes before they found permanent residence in my eyes. I was also biking with Steffi in this weather, meaning that I was blinking the bits of snow out of my eyes a fair amount more than they were open. It was remarkable how many people were out biking in this weather. They also have traffic lights for bikes just like they do for cars.

While Steffi was taking her last exam, I walked along the river to the old bridge, admiring the beautiful homes along the way.

Walking along the river

Some fancy homes along the river

The old bridge that leads to downtown.
The castle is in the middle hidden by fog.

That night, we had delicious lemon chicken with rice for dinner at her apartment with two of her flatmates, where they spoiled me with English and hot wine and an overall great time.

All I need to say about the next morning: All-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. It was also here that I learned that the color of my dirty blonde hair in German translates as “Street-dog blonde.” I love this place.

While it was rather dreary and rainy day, it was oddly fitting for going to see the Heidelberg castle, which is mostly in ruins but quite beautiful. I felt like I had walked back in time, walking through the mist and looking over at the city down below with the old church sticking up in the middle, the surrounding hills not entirely visible because of the clouds, a slightly gloomy feel to everything because of the semi-darkness.

The Heidelberg Castle and view of the Old Town

We walked around in the old town and the main street was probably my favorite – it and the people contrasted enormously with the gray, dull weather: the buildings were various shades of red and yellow, green and blue and purple, orange and white and pink...the people were a swirl of colors as well, with some actually carrying rainbow umbrellas, others with bright blues and yellows and reds. As much as I love France and its various shades of soft blues, greens and grays, the brightness of Heidelberg really does something to lift your spirit. 

Old Town

Love,

Katie

Wednesday, December 22nd 2010

Steffi and I arrive by train in Schwabisch Hall around 4 or 5pm where her mom and their 13-year-old brother, Christian, greet us at the station. Her mother gives me a hug and bisous's and I can instantly tell she's wonderful. Christian mumbles hello and then buries himself in his jacket so he doesn't have to speak more English. I've always wanted a little brother!

We wait for Carolin's train to arrive from Konstanz, and not too long after she arrives, and it's great to see her in “her” environment. What I mean is that I got to know her in English in America over 5 months, and I felt like I got to know her pretty well, but now there is a different air about her, seeing her completely at ease and comfortable because there are no possibilities of cultural missteps. I suppose I'm a bit more like how she was in the US now being abroad here, where you automatically act a bit more polite and a bit more cautiously, as you're not entirely sure how things work and are aware of how much easier it is to make one of these cultural missteps. They're typically small and relatively uninteresting, but to the foreigner, any form of embarrassment is magnified ten-fold, as you think it sticks out a great more deal than it actually does. This explains why a handful of my French friends thought me to be shy in the beginning when in fact I was just pretty nervous and it manifested in shyness as I wasn't willing to speak nearly as often, preferring to listen a more until I was more used to things.

Anyway, after hugs were exchanged, we drove to their home in Westheim, a small village of 3,000 just outside of Schwabisch Hall. It was dark during the drive so I couldn't see much of anything outside, but the inside of their home was cozy and warm and beautiful, and Mrs. Klose made me feel at home immediately, serving us home-cooked chili that tasted anything like the chili I've had back home (which is very little) because it was not heavy at all, rather, light and fresh with lots and lots of vegetables. We then had hot wine with a plate of Christmas treats and played a board game where the goal is to build railways connecting major cities in the US. I did the worst.

The Klose family! (save Mr. Klose)

The railways we built. Mine is the green-
lost in circles in the mid-west...

It's good to be here.

Love,

Katie

Thursday, December 23rd 2010

I got up around 8:30 the next morning and had a wonderful breakfast of coffee and fresh-baked bread from the bakery, with all sorts of jam and honey to try on it. It was a wonderful, relaxing day. I knitted Carolin's Christmas scarf (which could no longer stay a surprise if it wanted to get finished before the new year...) while she croched and Steffi and Christian alternately held and entertained Louis, their nephew who is about 7 months old. Steffi tried to read “A Short History of Everything” to Louis in English in her lap, but all he wanted to do was eat the book so it didn't really work out.

Steffi and Louis

Later that day we went into Schwabisch hall, and it was still just light enough to see it was quite picturesque, with old buildings lining the river that ran through it.

Schwabisch Hall

I was giddy, hopping around with excitement while the others just walked on towards the stores like it was just any other day in an ordinary place, which I guess makes sense since it is to them, but every little thing was special and new and interesting to me. I kept up a string of exclamations such as What's that?! Look at that!! Oh la la! Look at that building! for a while, which everyone found amusing.

Shopping downtown

We shopped for some last-minute presents and bought some wool and later that evening Carolin taught us all how to crochet (or re-taught, as I techinically learned a long time ago from my Mimi). We were all in a crochet-trance for the rest of the evening, sitting in the living room with the whole family and doing nothing but crocheting for hours while her dad watched an American movie in German on TV. At midnight, Carolin and I had finished a whole hat and the others were really close. It was time for bed though.

I don't really like my hat.

Love,

Katie

Friday, December 24th 2010


Note to self: Never, ever give a whistle to a 4-year-old for any reason. Ever.

Note to self #2: If ever peeved at anyone in the future, give their children whistles.

I have just met Carolin and Steffi's other nephew, Carlo, who is 4 and blowing non-stop on a whistle. It's kind of cute, for about 3 seconds, and then it's not cute. He and Nina, Carolin and Steffi's half-sister, live upstairs with the rest of their family and have stopped by to say hello. Actually I'm not sure what she stopped by to say as I don't speak German, so maybe they were talking about Jupiter or The Beatles, I don't know.

It's another really relaxing day where we all do practically nothing but crochet and read. We have pea soup and bread for lunch and then get back to the serious business of crocheting and reading.
Christmas Eve in Germany is basically the day to celebrate Christmas with your immediate family, so today is the big day, despite a rather normal start to the morning and afternoon. Turns out, presents are opened at night, and after church, which is at 4pm. They are Protestant, and the service is a play of The Christmas Story mixed with songs that I attempted to sing, and was grateful that nobody could hear me over the music.
Church has never been my thing. I don't like it, and I mean no disrespect to those who do. It turns out it's no different in Germany or a Protestant church, as a friendly elbow to the ribs from Carolin tells me, since I've let the 'o' in “Gloria” turn into a big yawn and have consequently stopped singing. I think to myself how this would be great language practice for someone learning German, though.

The play is cute, though it was slightly unsettling for a moment to see a 9-year-old girl playing Mary with a big pillow-pregnant belly. They're acting out the story and I can't help laughing along with the rest when they toss baby Jesus roughly into bed, blanket covering his face. A sheepish Mary reacts to the laughter by trying to make him a bit more comfortable by rearranging his blankets. Another forgets his lines, there's awkward and panicked glances among the children, someone remembers the lines, and the show goes on. The man in front of me in the pews is holding a young toddler, who won't stop staring at me, so I point the nativity scene to get him to turn around, whispering, “Look! It's Jesus!” and of course he doesn't look, so I stick out my tongue, and then have to hold in my laughter as I realized I just played out a scene exactly from a rather hilarious movie, as you can see here:

We then go home and sing Christmas carols while Mrs. Klose plays the guitar and Christian plays the French horn, while I butcher the lyrics again.

We have raclette again for dinner, and I'm convinced I need to own one of these in the future.

Christmas dinner with my German family :)

Racelette - meats with cheese and vegetables to create your own meal.

We then play games. I love games. I've never seen as many games in my life as I've seen in the Klose household. There is a stack on a chair upstairs and a cupboard stuffed full downstairs, with the odd game lying here or there. We play a couple that don't really require a language, so they're mainly card games, and that is okay with me. My favorite is Phase 10, mostly because I do the best at first, but it's also just a cool game overall.

There are so many little things like this that I want to remember, whether it's a new game or meal or even habit. This is one of the reasons why I love traveling so much; you see the way people do essentially the same thing but in different ways, and you can choose for yourself what you like best. Do you want to continue eating cereal with toast for breakast? Or did you like the toasted baguette with chopped tomatoes and oil, salt and pepper from Spain better? Or did you prefer the pretzel croissant with butter and honey and jam, or the roll with swiss cheese and salami from Germany? I could use a change from the baguette and butter in France, though I'm not complaining.
I feel like I am constantly creating a mental list in my head of things to try to remember forever, which often feels futile as there's too much, too many little things, to remember. Maybe I should start keeping it here and consolidate it from time to time?

Lifelong List of Things to Remember:

• Acquire more board games. Preferably from garage sales or Salvation Army. Check to make sure there are all the pieces. Play regularly (Germany)
• Go hiking at least once a week (France, Switzerland)
• Go on a walk, even a short one, at least once after lunch or dinner (Germany)
• Previously described Spanish breakfast (...Spain)
• Eat fruit for dessert (France and Germany)
• RACLETTE! Own one! (Germany)

We have over a foot of snow here.

Mr. Klose, “I live here 27 years, never see snow this much.”

In retrospect, I probably should've helped Mrs. Klose
shovel the driveway instead of taking a picture of it...

Lucky me!
Love,

Katie



Germany - "Beautifulness!"

For the Christmas holidays I will be visiting my friend Carolin and her family in Germany! Here is a map of where I'll be travelling (starting with Besancon). as I will first spend 4 days in Heidelberg with her twin sister Steffi, then a week in Schwabisch Hall with their family, then New Year's in Konstanz with Carolin.

You can zoom in/out to get a better look:


View Germany Trip in a larger map

I left Besancon with the two German language assistants who live near or in Heidelberg, and arrived around 3:30pm to couchsurf with Daniel, a German student studying law here.

Daniel was incredibly welcoming - he took my suitcase up a few flights of stairs for me and I was immediately comfortable with him, but perhaps it was the Australian accent (he just got back from a year of studying abroad there). But no really, he was incredibly friendly from the start. He and I drank some sort of bubbly apple juice for a couple hours while we talked and exchanged stories, and he and his two flatmates answered my plethora of questions about Germany during dinner whilst eating raclette; an impossible-to-describe sort of mini-oven where you make little plates of food and put it inside of the thing to cook, and while you wait you have a bit of a chat.

I asked them to tell me about Germans since I knew/know virtually nothing about Germany, and we had a great evening discussing and trading cultural tid-bits that ended in me watching them play some pretty competitive darts for 30 minutes and the movie "The Departed," which was surprisingly good.

After a wonderful morning of sleeping in, we had what I like to think is German toast with German jelly/syrup, and Daniel and his flatmate were incredibly kind and gave me a ride to Steffi's apartment (Carolin's twin sister whom I've never met). We got a bit turned around, but finally we saw her waiting outside and it was really bizarre seeing and talking to her for the first time as she looks and talks and even acts like Carolin, but isn't, but we hit it off wonderfully and had a great laugh at the fact that she knew Daniel's flatmate. Small world!

I am now enjoying the beautifulness of Steffi's hospitality and the new usage of the word "beautifulness" that I learned while she was translating a German poem for me while cleaning dishes together after a late lunch/early dinner. If she reads this though, she might throw another pillow at me for continuing to mention it...

Her apartment is so charming and her room is big and orange and red with all the signs of someone who has lived and actually nested somewhere, which brings me such a warm and cozy feeling at the same time that I feel a pang of tiny sadness that I can't exactly nest at this time, but I didn't harp over it and instead spent a wonderful afternoon drinking coffee with Steffi, exchanging stories and laughing at a hundred little nothings. She is as warm and kind and funny as her sister and I feel so grateful to know them both.

I alreadly feel like I've known her as long as Carolin, though our stories are only just beginning, and it's beautifulness :)

I'm currently enjoying a warm cup of Christmas tea in an overly large Starbucks mug in a cozy orange chair under soft and cozy yellow lights with the cozy smell of cinnamon coming from a cozy red candle, and I don't mind for a moment that I've been in Germany two days and have seen virtually nothing of Germany yet...I feel like I've snuck into the lives of those I've met here in this midst of their living normally, and I'm experiencing a kind of happiness and excitement that has nothing to do with big castles or old historic towns or hot wine. It's about people, always has been and always will be.

Still gonna see the castle, though.

Love and beautifulness,
Katie

The result of a month's frustration

Okay.

Imagine an alien journalist from the not-planet Pluto who was assigned to write about his experience to the planet Earth. He's so stoked! He starts a blog. The first entry is something like, “Wow! It's so blue and green and there are billions of people to meet!” It wasn't too hard to write, it was interesting and easy for his fellow Pluto-ians to read, and he was happy to write it.

Now imagine his assignment for the second blog is to describe everything in detail – the countries, the people, the topography, and all the knowledge that exists on Earth. He isn't looking as forward to that entry, so he keeps putting it off, but each moment he does so he learns enough to write a hundred more pages...and ladies and gentleman, this is a somewhat exaggerated and entirely unnecessary description of how I feel right now trying to figure out where to start and where to end up in this blog post, because my life has grown by such large amounts that leaving out any details would feel blasphemous, yet trying to include them all would result in dozens of newly-created and slightly incomprehensible adjectives from yours truly in an effort to justly describe my life here.

If I ever write a book one day, I think I could rightly entitle it, “Run-On Sentence.”

I have been here two months and two weeks. Or has it been a day? Or ten years? Depending on the day, it can feel like either.

To my credit, “BLOG!!!!!!” has been at the top of the last 17 or so to-do list's I've made.

Notice how I'm not-so-subtley talking about everything and anything not-blog-worthy.

Okay. Let's just keep it simple for once and go with the direct approach:

A Typical Tuesday in Real Time

5:30am - Wake up. Very grudgingly, mind you.

5:31am - Small victory as feet meet slippers.

5:45am – Drink greasy coffee from ancient coffee machine, chew cereal, stare out balcony window feeling slightly grumpy.

6:20am – Realize I have 5 minutes to do 15 minutes worth of stuff because I over-enjoyed coffee.

6:26am – Leave apartment at brisk pace to make 6:33 bus.

6:27am – Slip on ice because of brisk pace.

6:33am – Barely make bus. Stare out window for 11 minutes.

6:44am – Wait at corner in ugly part of town to carpool with Nathalie, one of the English professors at my school.

6:51am – Commence 45 minute drive to school, which turns into 1 hour 15 due to fresh snow on roads.

8:06am – Arrive at school. Spend 24 minutes making copies and putting last touches on lesson. I have 6 classes today (compared to the two I normally I have on Mondays and zero on Wednesdays, as I never work Wednesdays).

8:30am to noon – First three classes. All sorts of success this morning. Marie stayed after first hour to ask in an adorably thick French accent if “You uhhh...stay for uhh... always? Beecuhz uhh... I like yoo!” with the sweetest embarrassed smile and emphasis in all the wrong places, making for a warm and fuzzy teacher feeling. Continue riding on this happy wave as Hugo stays after second hour for the second time to talk about studying in the US, asking questions and impressing me with his English. Third hour was pretty standard; they're chatty but they enjoy my quirkiness, which is rare as most classes don't understand enough English to understand I'm being quirky.

12:00-1:00pm – LUNCH! Also known as the time I sit in the cantine among real teachers feeling slightly inadequate and embarrassed of my French, which sounds much less French when my mouth is full of baguette and cheese. Today there were fancy desserts brought out from kitchen staff because apparently an important person was supposed to come, and I don't know if they did or not, but I do know I (and most of the teachers) ate 4 tarts/little cakes/almond thing/cream puff followed by a cup of awful coffee, which almost tastes less awful when you discuss its awfulness with others, who gulp it down with a grimace.

1:01pm – Regretting the tarts and coffee. Too much energy, too little stomach space.

1:01 to 2:00pm – No class; odds and ends, chat with Aurelie (another English teacher and my personal savior, as she's been sort of in charge of me before and during my time here and has helped me out enormously).

2:00 to 5:30pm – Last three classes. Much less successful. After the second one, a student told me they had already had this lesson with another teacher. It was the same with the last class, though nobody told me. Turns out the next class would've been the same too, but I had a few minutes to hastily put something else together. They're at such different levels that by the end of the third class I had the impression it was dead boring for several students because it was too easy, while a girl in the back (who copied two full pages of notes) lets me know she didn't understand a single thing, making the more advanced students roll their eyes, while I sadly clutch my piece of purple chalk and wish the board would erase itself.

5:31pm – Reflect on the insanity that is the life of a teacher, and I'm just an assistant and only two months deep into the experience.

5:32pm – Tell me 5:31pm-self to shut up and remember the first part of the day was good and that I'm silly if I expect there to ever be any form of consistency in this job.

5:33 to 5:54pm – Respond frantically to as many emails as possible while waiting for Nathalie to drive back.

6:00 to 6:47pm – A comfortable drive back in the dark – the roads are much better – discussing the highlights of our day, switching from French to English as fluidly as a ping-pong ball bounces back and forth across a table. These days I literally have no idea what language will come out of my mouth when I open it.

6:47pm – Dropped off at bus stop, wait for bus.

6:53pm – Flag down bus. Get on, sit down.

6:54pm – Daydream about bagels.

7:05pm – Get off bus. Walk home at not-brisk pace.

7:10pm - Climb 5 flights of stairs. Think about how this is why French people aren't fat.

7:25pm – Eat dinner of pasta and ham, couscous, grated carrots. Cheese, check. Semi-stale baguette, check. Chocolate for dessert, duh. Check check check.

8:00pm to midnight – Go downstairs. Hang out with Alberto. Watch “Into the Wild.” Makes me want to go into the wild. Reflect on impulsiveness.

Midnight – Look at the knitting thrown all about my bed, begging to be finished before Saturday. Decide against it. Sleep.

I love and miss you all,

Katie

PS: I'm going to Germany for 2 weeks this Saturday!