My opinion of Estonia has changed. I like Estonia. The sun came out today, my class enjoyed a very informative lecture about the struggles of the Estonian people against the occupation of the Nazis and then the Soviets, and then we visited the Estonia occupation museum.
Estonia is sincere and unapologetic supporters of United States foreign policy. They joined the States into Afghanistan and Iraq and will probably join any foreign policy efforts, whether it is war, peace keeping or humanitarian, that American ventures on. Of course, under it all, they’re hoping for American assistance if anything was to happen between them and their unfriendly neighbor to the east. They’ve joined any and every political union that helps them. They’re members the EU, the UN and NATO. Skepticism of Russia cannot be expressed in greater terms. They’re upset at any Russian aggressions and furious that the Russian government won’t recognize the Soviet occupation. While their fear is legitimate and based on hard history, it may also be dangerous as they move forward into a more integrated world.
A great effort has been revived to teach the language of Estonian to its citizens. During the Soviet occupation all the schools were made to teach Russian. Estonian was used at home still, but the written word of Estonia has suffered greatly as the people look to regain a national identity. So far, all that is left of an Estonian national identity are a peoples struggle for independence.
I woke up today and went to breakfast with my roommate Ray. Ray is my field trip roommate. When ever we travel he and I are going to be rooming together. He’s a good guy from some private school out in Wisconsin. Ray was born and raised near Tampa Florida and for some reason he decided to go to school in Wisconsin. Well we went to breakfast, which was not that good, and then went to a lecture that was presented by Prof. Andres Kasekamp.
Kasekamp’s lecture was good and informative. We learned a lot about how and why the Estonians align themselves with the United States and Western Europe. It can sometimes be a tight-wire act. When the U.S. and Western Europe were at odds about the War in Iraq, Estonia had to appease both while participating in the war with the U.S. and making the final steps toward integration into the European Union. Kasekamp knew what he was talking about and it was quite an honor to listen to someone with such influence in a nation’s foreign policy decisions. Kasekamp is the director of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute and a professor at Tartu University. He has published a number of books and essays about the Estonian foreign policy positions.
After the lecture I went to get lunch with some of the other people in my program. We went to some place in the old town that served Mediteranian food. I had a personal pizza and a beer. Our conversation was interesting. We spent most of the time talking about Estonian foreign policy especially with regard to the Middle East.
The Estonian president made a statement that was used by the United States on the eve of the Iraq invasion that went something like, “We understand what the consequences are when democracies don’t take action.” It was used by President Bush and other advocates for the war.
It is ironic that Estonia is a part of an occupational force when the Estonian people themselves fear occupation, and have such a history of occupation. But they also understand the terror, more than most nations, of oppressive tyrant government. So they do what is most pragmatic and join their allies, and this is perhaps because of such a fear of the east.
After lunch we went to the Occupation Museum. It was interesting for its depiction of the Soviets. There were some displays on the Nazi occupation but since the last half decade was dominated by Soviet rule, most of the museum was anti-Russian. The walk around the museum included video documentaries of the various stages of Nazi and then Soviet occupation. The displays were mostly the clothes, pictures and propaganda used by the Soviets.
As we walked around old town Tallinn the weather became increasingly cold. In Tallinn the more sun there is the more cold it gets. Apparently, the clouds that are the norm keep the heat close to the ground. When there are no clouds, and plenty of sun, the weather drops at least ten degrees. It was weird, but I had not yet felt so cold in Europe.
There will be pictures and a video to come later.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Gray Day in Estonia
So I’m in Estonia, which is a former Soviet state. This is my last night of the Baltic trip, and I have to say, I’m not too disappointed that my class only stayed here for two days. It has not been bad, but it has not been good either. I have not seen the sun in two days and the temperature has maintained a steady below negative five degrees Celsius.
We arrived yesterday with time to get dinner and drinks. A group of my fellow students went to an Irish pub and ate and drank. Then we went around the town and found nothing but liquor stores. So we bought a handle of vodka. We figured, “when in a former Soviet state….”
So we went back to the hostel and drank the vodka. It was nasty, but it was something to do. It was only one bottle split between six of us, so no one got too drunk.
After the vodka (just to give you an idea of how little I drank) I finished the novel I was reading as I returned 11:30. The novel I was reading was “The Thirty-Nine Steps” by John Buchan. My suitemate, Marion, gave it to me to read. She had to read it for an English class she took. It was a thriller novel written in 1915, as a piece of British propaganda during the First World War.
It was a good novel. I enjoyed reading it and I look forward to talking to Marion about the novel upon my return to Freiburg. It is interesting to me that her University, which is a German University, made her read a piece of British propaganda that was written largely to instill fear of Germans into the British conscience.
I woke up the next morning and had the free hostel breakfast. Then I went to class, and you probably don’t want to hear about that. Let’s just say, I know a whole lot more about Estonian politics than I ever cared to know. The man that gave the lecture was a good teacher, and he made it interesting. So overall, I’d say that I now care about Estonian politics which is what the trip was all about – alright! He was a professor at the University of Tallin and was also a representative for Estonia in the EU parliament. He was a rather young man, only in his early 40’s or mid-30’s and he seemed to know what he was talking about.
After the lecture we were supposed to get into groups and tour the city of Tallin. My group was supposed to do a sociology project. We were supposed to check out a poor part of town, a rich part of town, a few shopping centers and a couple different pubs. And we did, but we got a little lost along the way, which made it even better in my opinion.
Overall it was a good experience and we found that, when we asked, people felt pretty comfortable in their EU nation of Estonia. It sure as Hell beats Soviet domination.
And about the Soviet domination: I think I figured out why the Soviets fell in the late 80’s. They tried to hold Estonia! I mean, the nation of Estonia barely has a million people and very few natural resources. It has made gains in its post Soviet era through its marine time commerce and tourism. If I was playing RISK, Estonia would be one of the last places I’d try to conquer. It’s pointless, nothing but coldness exist in Estonia. Your armies would become too extended with too little reward.
We returned to the University and gave a brief presentation about the project we were to fulfill. Ours went well, but I don’t really have much to say other then, “the people of Estonia are very content and feel better off now than they were 20 years ago.”
We returned to the hostel at 4:30. I took a nap and woke in time to go to dinner. I went with the same group of kids that I went out with the night before, but this time we went to a medieval themed restaurant. The food was not that good. The atmosphere was okay, but it was a bit pricy and I think I would have appreciated a good burger and French fries.
Well we didn’t get out of Medieval times until nearly 11 o’clock. So we purchased some more of that Estonia vodka and called it a night.
Tomorrow it is off to Berlin. I’m happy I can say that I’ve been in a former Soviet state, and no doubt, it may be pretty here in the spring and summer time, but on this trip in the middle of a Soviet winter, I never saw the sun in Estonia. Not once. It has not come out and I don’t think I care to stay in such a place much longer. From all the Bond movies that I’ve seen, it is exactly how I pictured Eastern Europe to be.
We arrived yesterday with time to get dinner and drinks. A group of my fellow students went to an Irish pub and ate and drank. Then we went around the town and found nothing but liquor stores. So we bought a handle of vodka. We figured, “when in a former Soviet state….”
So we went back to the hostel and drank the vodka. It was nasty, but it was something to do. It was only one bottle split between six of us, so no one got too drunk.
After the vodka (just to give you an idea of how little I drank) I finished the novel I was reading as I returned 11:30. The novel I was reading was “The Thirty-Nine Steps” by John Buchan. My suitemate, Marion, gave it to me to read. She had to read it for an English class she took. It was a thriller novel written in 1915, as a piece of British propaganda during the First World War.
It was a good novel. I enjoyed reading it and I look forward to talking to Marion about the novel upon my return to Freiburg. It is interesting to me that her University, which is a German University, made her read a piece of British propaganda that was written largely to instill fear of Germans into the British conscience.
I woke up the next morning and had the free hostel breakfast. Then I went to class, and you probably don’t want to hear about that. Let’s just say, I know a whole lot more about Estonian politics than I ever cared to know. The man that gave the lecture was a good teacher, and he made it interesting. So overall, I’d say that I now care about Estonian politics which is what the trip was all about – alright! He was a professor at the University of Tallin and was also a representative for Estonia in the EU parliament. He was a rather young man, only in his early 40’s or mid-30’s and he seemed to know what he was talking about.
After the lecture we were supposed to get into groups and tour the city of Tallin. My group was supposed to do a sociology project. We were supposed to check out a poor part of town, a rich part of town, a few shopping centers and a couple different pubs. And we did, but we got a little lost along the way, which made it even better in my opinion.
Overall it was a good experience and we found that, when we asked, people felt pretty comfortable in their EU nation of Estonia. It sure as Hell beats Soviet domination.
And about the Soviet domination: I think I figured out why the Soviets fell in the late 80’s. They tried to hold Estonia! I mean, the nation of Estonia barely has a million people and very few natural resources. It has made gains in its post Soviet era through its marine time commerce and tourism. If I was playing RISK, Estonia would be one of the last places I’d try to conquer. It’s pointless, nothing but coldness exist in Estonia. Your armies would become too extended with too little reward.
We returned to the University and gave a brief presentation about the project we were to fulfill. Ours went well, but I don’t really have much to say other then, “the people of Estonia are very content and feel better off now than they were 20 years ago.”
We returned to the hostel at 4:30. I took a nap and woke in time to go to dinner. I went with the same group of kids that I went out with the night before, but this time we went to a medieval themed restaurant. The food was not that good. The atmosphere was okay, but it was a bit pricy and I think I would have appreciated a good burger and French fries.
Well we didn’t get out of Medieval times until nearly 11 o’clock. So we purchased some more of that Estonia vodka and called it a night.
Tomorrow it is off to Berlin. I’m happy I can say that I’ve been in a former Soviet state, and no doubt, it may be pretty here in the spring and summer time, but on this trip in the middle of a Soviet winter, I never saw the sun in Estonia. Not once. It has not come out and I don’t think I care to stay in such a place much longer. From all the Bond movies that I’ve seen, it is exactly how I pictured Eastern Europe to be.
To Berlin!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
New Friends From Ulmet
I awoke early in the morning to meet with Brett Aho at the Freiburg Main Station on Sunday January 18th. It was nine o’clock when I rose up from bed. I was to meet with Brett at ten. I did not feel in the best of spirits when I awoke. I did not go to bed until nearly 2 am the night before and my stomach was turning and my head was in a daze from drinking and my ears hurt a little from the loud punk rock music of the night before (read my post, “German Punk Rock”). But I managed to take a shower and grab a slice of bread and an apple as I walked out the door and headed for the station.
Brett and I were headed on a journey to find the gravestone of a man from the mid-1700’s. Brett had spent his previous summer – summer of 2008 – wondering and bumming around the Midwest. He met a lot of interesting people but most interesting was an old man from Indiana that described himself as nothing more than “an Old Pirate.” The Old Pirate and Brett made good conversation. When the Pirate learned that Brett was traveling to Germany in the fall, he asked Brett if he could travel to an obscure city near Kaiserslauten to find his great-great-great – maybe one or two more greats – grandfather’s tombstone. The last name we were to find was Bauer (like Jack Bauer). The city was called Ulmet. The Pirate knew that the chances of finding the tombstone were unlikely, but he asked that if Brett couldn’t find the tombstone to at least take pictures of the town and the Church where the pirate’s ancestors may have attended. He paid Brett a considerable amount to complete this deed.
So we started on a train ride that would take four hours with four different transfers. We purchased two all day Germany passes that cost about 20e each. It was a good deal, but since it was the cheap package, we were only able to take the slow trains. Otherwise we may have arrived in Ulmet much earlier.
The train ride was nice. The country side reminded me of eastern Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains. From the colors to the mountains, the streams and the houses that dotted the landscape, and the trees, everything was so green. Some of the stations we stopped at were in populated areas with grand-stations full of life and commerce and others were in smaller country towns. Our longest layover was only about 20 minutes. The travel was comfortable and easy.
Brett and I had good conversation on the trip. Among our conversations was the fact that this form of travel was so easy and convenient. Why couldn’t it be done in the States? I think there are a lot of reasons why Americans are so resistant to such forms of travel and I think among the most pressing are the convenience and the privacy of the automobile. But it would seem most convenient and efficient to connect our main cities in this way. Still, I don’t regret my vote against Proposition 1A at this time in California. A state that doesn’t even have a budget to pay its own employees can’t be thinking of investing billions of dollars into railroad tracks. Perhaps at a later time this would be wise, perhaps 10 years ago it would have been wise, and I understand that the construction of a railroad may create jobs, but will our teachers, police and firefighters lose their jobs for such projects? I may not know enough about it, but it was on my mind as I rode the rail from Freiburg to Ulmet.
The train trip was broken down nicely. Brett and I talked for the first stretch. We went over the plan for the day and talked a little about his trip to the Midwest last summer. On the second leg of the journey we both slept. Then it was time for lunch. So Brett made us sandwiches. We drank coffee from Brett’s thermos and watched the pristine landscape pass on the last two legs.
Finally we got off in a city near Ulmet and took a bus the rest of the way. The bus dropped us off in the middle of a city center. The first building that we saw was a bar called “Zum Steineenen Mann,” which auf Englisch means something like, “The Man of Stone.” It looked very manly and tough. A knight on a horse was painted on the side of the building.
It started to rain and I wished I had worn a better coat than my black coat. I should have brought my down-jacket, but I was warm, I only worried that I would get too wet.
The rain came and went and we didn’t get too wet. We started to explore the city. Brett asked a man on the street where we might find an old church. The church was an old Lutheran Church, called the Reformed Church of Christ – or something like that. The man gave us directions but we had some trouble finding the churches. First we mixed up the directions we received and turned right after the bridge instead of left. We realized our mistake then doubled back and took the left. Atop a small hill was an old stone church. We were hopeful, but as we approached the door we saw a sign that said it was built in the 1800s. While it was an old building, we knew it couldn’t be the church that we were supposed to find since the Pirate’s ancestor died in the 1700s.
So we moved on. We took a few stabs in different directions before we finally decided to stop for a quick smoke of roll your own tobacco and another sandwich. It was near impossible to roll the cigarette in the freezing weather, but it felt very European and the sandwiches felt very Bohemian, so it was all good.
We walked from one side of town, where the bus had dropped us off, to the complete other side. And alas, at the very edge of town a few meters off the road across a bridge in which trains traveled beneath was an old church. Oh but how perilous those dates were. This church was built roughly around the year 1060, which made it too old, not to mention catholic and our Pirate’s ancestor was Lutheran. “Ein problem.”
So we moved on and went back into town to see if there was yet another old church to be found.
We discovered signs on the bridges that showed a little tank on our walk back. It was interesting; we had no idea why an official sign had a picture of a tank. But we eventually found out.
I don’t know the exact directions we took. But let’s say we started on the west side of town. The first church was in the center and the second, really old church, was on the east side, so we decided to take a road that took us to the south side of Ulmet.
We were all but ready to turn around as the houses became sparse and the fields grew in size. But then we ran into a married couple that looked to be roughly 35 years old. Brett asked them if there was any other church in the town. The husband said that he didn’t know of any other churches than the two that we had already found and his Frau agreed. We were out of luck, and it started to rain, and it was cold.
They must have seen the despair on our faces because they invited us into their home only moments after informing us that we were out of churches to discover. They asked us if we’d like a cup of warm coffee. They spoke English, so I told them that coffee runs in my veins, and that we’d be very happy to enjoy their hospitality. So we walked a few meters and into their home.
We exchanged pleasantries. The husbands name was Thomas and the wife’s name was Gabi. They lived in an old house on a hill. The home looked modern despite being over a century old. Thomas took us on a house tour. They had two sons, a 12 year old and a 7 year old. They were both playing video games when we were on the house tour. Thomas told us that he built a lot of the new rooms himself in 1993. He was proud of his house. It was obvious that he had worked hard to keep it up.
We went into the kitchen for coffee. Thomas drank Scotch with his coffee, so Brett and I did the same. And then we got into a conversation about Whiskey. Thomas favored Scotch whiskey and said that he couldn’t stand American Bourbon and Tennessee Whiskey. He said it was too sweet and he enjoyed the smoky taste of Scotch. I defended American Whiskey, but conceded that it was a subjective argument on my part. The conversation was sprinkled with laughs as rich as the coffee.
More interesting, and much more important, was our conversation about the, soon to be, new American administration. Thomas was probably more against President Bush than he was for President Obama. He compared Bush to Hitler. I had to object to that; had Bush been Hitler, his party would not have been defeated. The mere fact that his party was defeated in the last election, further, the fact that we have term limits, dismisses that argument without having to go into any of the policy decisions.
But we could all agree that President Obama will be good for America, and that he has already improved the States’ standing in the world, or, at the very least, in the Thomas and Gabi household.
We talked a lot about the city of Olmet and discovered why there were pictures of a tank on the signs by the bridge. Olmet was close to a U.S. military base. Gabi’s family had lived in the city for centuries. We asked her if she knew any Bauers. She said that she didn’t, but that she’d ask her father who was napping in the basement.
Time went by and we had finished our coffee and moved on to a beer and then another beer and then it had become dark outside and we feared that our exploration was over. No luck, except perhaps a greater luck of finding two friendly people in a small German village.
Although Thomas and Gabi invited us to spend the night, we knew that we had to leave. It was hard to leave, they insisted and offered to buy pizza for dinner, but we had to go. I had my first classes the next morning and there were a few individuals back in Freiburg which Brett wanted to associate with for the night. Thomas was concerned that we were going to miss the last bus. So we downed our last beers and walked with Thomas to the bus station a couple minutes before the last bus was to leave at roughly 5:30. We said goodbye to Thomas and vowed to make an effort to see him again sometime.
Well we reached the train station to find that the next train out of town wasn’t to leave for another half hour. We walked up the street and found some old statues, but we mostly froze our asses off.
The train arrived. Brett and I studied from our books on most of the ride back. I think we both slept some as well. I ate my first kaubob (spelling?), which is Turkish fast food (think cheap Mexican food), at one of the station where we had a 20 minute lay over. The food was good, but my stomach didn’t much like it. I didn’t get sick, but I couldn’t eat the whole thing. I’m sure I’ll be fine after a few months here.
We pulled into the Freiburg main station a little after 11pm. I was dead tired, but very glad I made the trip with Brett.
Brett and I were headed on a journey to find the gravestone of a man from the mid-1700’s. Brett had spent his previous summer – summer of 2008 – wondering and bumming around the Midwest. He met a lot of interesting people but most interesting was an old man from Indiana that described himself as nothing more than “an Old Pirate.” The Old Pirate and Brett made good conversation. When the Pirate learned that Brett was traveling to Germany in the fall, he asked Brett if he could travel to an obscure city near Kaiserslauten to find his great-great-great – maybe one or two more greats – grandfather’s tombstone. The last name we were to find was Bauer (like Jack Bauer). The city was called Ulmet. The Pirate knew that the chances of finding the tombstone were unlikely, but he asked that if Brett couldn’t find the tombstone to at least take pictures of the town and the Church where the pirate’s ancestors may have attended. He paid Brett a considerable amount to complete this deed.
So we started on a train ride that would take four hours with four different transfers. We purchased two all day Germany passes that cost about 20e each. It was a good deal, but since it was the cheap package, we were only able to take the slow trains. Otherwise we may have arrived in Ulmet much earlier.
The train ride was nice. The country side reminded me of eastern Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains. From the colors to the mountains, the streams and the houses that dotted the landscape, and the trees, everything was so green. Some of the stations we stopped at were in populated areas with grand-stations full of life and commerce and others were in smaller country towns. Our longest layover was only about 20 minutes. The travel was comfortable and easy.
Brett and I had good conversation on the trip. Among our conversations was the fact that this form of travel was so easy and convenient. Why couldn’t it be done in the States? I think there are a lot of reasons why Americans are so resistant to such forms of travel and I think among the most pressing are the convenience and the privacy of the automobile. But it would seem most convenient and efficient to connect our main cities in this way. Still, I don’t regret my vote against Proposition 1A at this time in California. A state that doesn’t even have a budget to pay its own employees can’t be thinking of investing billions of dollars into railroad tracks. Perhaps at a later time this would be wise, perhaps 10 years ago it would have been wise, and I understand that the construction of a railroad may create jobs, but will our teachers, police and firefighters lose their jobs for such projects? I may not know enough about it, but it was on my mind as I rode the rail from Freiburg to Ulmet.
The train trip was broken down nicely. Brett and I talked for the first stretch. We went over the plan for the day and talked a little about his trip to the Midwest last summer. On the second leg of the journey we both slept. Then it was time for lunch. So Brett made us sandwiches. We drank coffee from Brett’s thermos and watched the pristine landscape pass on the last two legs.
Finally we got off in a city near Ulmet and took a bus the rest of the way. The bus dropped us off in the middle of a city center. The first building that we saw was a bar called “Zum Steineenen Mann,” which auf Englisch means something like, “The Man of Stone.” It looked very manly and tough. A knight on a horse was painted on the side of the building.
It started to rain and I wished I had worn a better coat than my black coat. I should have brought my down-jacket, but I was warm, I only worried that I would get too wet.
The rain came and went and we didn’t get too wet. We started to explore the city. Brett asked a man on the street where we might find an old church. The church was an old Lutheran Church, called the Reformed Church of Christ – or something like that. The man gave us directions but we had some trouble finding the churches. First we mixed up the directions we received and turned right after the bridge instead of left. We realized our mistake then doubled back and took the left. Atop a small hill was an old stone church. We were hopeful, but as we approached the door we saw a sign that said it was built in the 1800s. While it was an old building, we knew it couldn’t be the church that we were supposed to find since the Pirate’s ancestor died in the 1700s.
So we moved on. We took a few stabs in different directions before we finally decided to stop for a quick smoke of roll your own tobacco and another sandwich. It was near impossible to roll the cigarette in the freezing weather, but it felt very European and the sandwiches felt very Bohemian, so it was all good.
We walked from one side of town, where the bus had dropped us off, to the complete other side. And alas, at the very edge of town a few meters off the road across a bridge in which trains traveled beneath was an old church. Oh but how perilous those dates were. This church was built roughly around the year 1060, which made it too old, not to mention catholic and our Pirate’s ancestor was Lutheran. “Ein problem.”
So we moved on and went back into town to see if there was yet another old church to be found.
We discovered signs on the bridges that showed a little tank on our walk back. It was interesting; we had no idea why an official sign had a picture of a tank. But we eventually found out.
I don’t know the exact directions we took. But let’s say we started on the west side of town. The first church was in the center and the second, really old church, was on the east side, so we decided to take a road that took us to the south side of Ulmet.
We were all but ready to turn around as the houses became sparse and the fields grew in size. But then we ran into a married couple that looked to be roughly 35 years old. Brett asked them if there was any other church in the town. The husband said that he didn’t know of any other churches than the two that we had already found and his Frau agreed. We were out of luck, and it started to rain, and it was cold.
They must have seen the despair on our faces because they invited us into their home only moments after informing us that we were out of churches to discover. They asked us if we’d like a cup of warm coffee. They spoke English, so I told them that coffee runs in my veins, and that we’d be very happy to enjoy their hospitality. So we walked a few meters and into their home.
We exchanged pleasantries. The husbands name was Thomas and the wife’s name was Gabi. They lived in an old house on a hill. The home looked modern despite being over a century old. Thomas took us on a house tour. They had two sons, a 12 year old and a 7 year old. They were both playing video games when we were on the house tour. Thomas told us that he built a lot of the new rooms himself in 1993. He was proud of his house. It was obvious that he had worked hard to keep it up.
We went into the kitchen for coffee. Thomas drank Scotch with his coffee, so Brett and I did the same. And then we got into a conversation about Whiskey. Thomas favored Scotch whiskey and said that he couldn’t stand American Bourbon and Tennessee Whiskey. He said it was too sweet and he enjoyed the smoky taste of Scotch. I defended American Whiskey, but conceded that it was a subjective argument on my part. The conversation was sprinkled with laughs as rich as the coffee.
More interesting, and much more important, was our conversation about the, soon to be, new American administration. Thomas was probably more against President Bush than he was for President Obama. He compared Bush to Hitler. I had to object to that; had Bush been Hitler, his party would not have been defeated. The mere fact that his party was defeated in the last election, further, the fact that we have term limits, dismisses that argument without having to go into any of the policy decisions.
But we could all agree that President Obama will be good for America, and that he has already improved the States’ standing in the world, or, at the very least, in the Thomas and Gabi household.
We talked a lot about the city of Olmet and discovered why there were pictures of a tank on the signs by the bridge. Olmet was close to a U.S. military base. Gabi’s family had lived in the city for centuries. We asked her if she knew any Bauers. She said that she didn’t, but that she’d ask her father who was napping in the basement.
Time went by and we had finished our coffee and moved on to a beer and then another beer and then it had become dark outside and we feared that our exploration was over. No luck, except perhaps a greater luck of finding two friendly people in a small German village.
Although Thomas and Gabi invited us to spend the night, we knew that we had to leave. It was hard to leave, they insisted and offered to buy pizza for dinner, but we had to go. I had my first classes the next morning and there were a few individuals back in Freiburg which Brett wanted to associate with for the night. Thomas was concerned that we were going to miss the last bus. So we downed our last beers and walked with Thomas to the bus station a couple minutes before the last bus was to leave at roughly 5:30. We said goodbye to Thomas and vowed to make an effort to see him again sometime.
Well we reached the train station to find that the next train out of town wasn’t to leave for another half hour. We walked up the street and found some old statues, but we mostly froze our asses off.
The train arrived. Brett and I studied from our books on most of the ride back. I think we both slept some as well. I ate my first kaubob (spelling?), which is Turkish fast food (think cheap Mexican food), at one of the station where we had a 20 minute lay over. The food was good, but my stomach didn’t much like it. I didn’t get sick, but I couldn’t eat the whole thing. I’m sure I’ll be fine after a few months here.
We pulled into the Freiburg main station a little after 11pm. I was dead tired, but very glad I made the trip with Brett.
Below is Brett Aho's video doc. of our trip
Saturday, January 24, 2009
German Punk Rock
Well, a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. I hardly have time to write this account, but I figure that I must, it has been roughly five days since I last wrote – which only seems like yesterday.
And so I’ll begin with where I left off.
As I said in the last note, my suitemate, Bernhard, invited me to a party. I finished writing at about nine o’clock, and we decided that we weren’t going to go to the party until at least 10 or 10:30. I went back to my room to study up on some German. Bernhard, whose room is next to mine, was playing guitar. I could hear him playing through the walls. I didn’t know he played guitar, much less the impressive repertoire he knew. One song that I immediately recognized was “Halleluiah” by Jeff Buckley. As we walked to the party I told him that I heard him playing and that I especially enjoyed listening to him play “Halleluiah.” I found that we have some similar musical taste and we both agreed that Buckley’s life was cut much too short. I told him that I have a bunch of Buckley’s music and that I’ll give it to him if he’d like and he accepted. Now I just have to find some blank CDs.
So we arrived at the party, which was in a medium size room on the bottom floor of my building, but I forgot the five Euro that it cost to get in, so I ran back up to my room, got it, and then went back. Party guest received unlimited drinks with the five Euro, so I wanted to make sure to get my money’s worth.
There were about 30 people at the party. I was the only American when I arrived. Some people were surprised to see an American. I was very welcome to their party, but I guess the IES EU students that they had hosted in the past rarely socialized with anyone other than Americans. This, I thought, was a shame. I have heard some bad stories about past Americans. I hope that I can reverse this trend. Everyone at the party was quite friendly; many approached me and started conversations.
I’m about as poor at remembering names as Chief Justice John Roberts is at swearing in Presidents, but I can recall some of the people that I met at the party. They were all interesting and had a lot to share with me, but I can’t for the life of me remember their names.
A girl explained to me that she was often the target of criticism – friendly criticism, to be sure – because she was from Bavaria. She explained that Bavaria, which is in the Southeastern corner of Germany, is like the Texas of Germany – sometimes they think they’re another country and peoples and often express superiority among their fellow Germans. I later told Brett Aho about her Bavaria/Texas comparison and he said that he had never heard that comparison before, but that it makes perfect sense.
So she hangs out with the group of kids that my roommate, Bernhard, hangs out with. They were mostly all law students. They want me to come to class with them sometime. Their semester ends in mid-February and then picks up again in April, so I told them that perhaps I can join them in class next semester when, hopefully, I’ll know some Deutsch.
I was also invited to play Fußall (soccer) on Sunday. I was never any good at soccer; in fact I am quite bad. I was winged off international sports at an early age and stuck to the American sports, but I figure it’ll be a good experience, even if I get my ass handed to me.
Well the party was not much different than American parties except maybe a little better organized. Music played loud over some speakers. It was louder than I would have liked, but I was still able to talk with people there. Two ladies worked the bar, they were quick with drinks and easy on the eyes, but made poor mixed drinks. They simply mixed vodka with flavored soda. “Das ist nicht so gut,” I shared with a few of the people I was with. They all agreed. The party beer, Freiburger, was a cheap local brew, and while it was the least favored beer I had since I arrived here, it was better than any beer at a college party in the States. So I can’t much complain.
Another American, Pedro, arrived about an hour into the party. He is in the same IES program as me. He is a student at UC Berkeley, but grew up in Boston. Pedro seems like a sharp kid who decided, like me, to try and break the comfortable mold of only socializing with Americans. He’s a country music enthusiast – like me – and we plan to jam sometime in the near future. He is suitemates Bernhard’s friend Ferdinand.
Well the party went on, and I drank more, and as I drank more the more I continued to drag my German language further through the mud but also, the more I drank, the more I tried to speak German. I think everyone I talked to appreciated the effort.
A German punk rock band played at about 11 p.m. I forget the name of the band, but one of their longs went like this, “Yippieh yippieh yeah, krawall und remmidemmi.” Whenever they played this chorus, they silenced their instruments and had the crowd sing along. Of course, the first part is gibberish, but one of the kids I had talked to there explained that krawall meant rioting, but I don’t know what remmidemmi means, if anything.
The band sounded like most American punk rock bands I have heard: Loud and incomprehensible. They played a set that consisted of about 10 or 12 songs that lasted about an hour. It was a three piece band consisting of a guitarist, bassist and drummer. The guitarist sang lead while the bassist sang backup. There were no guitar leads taken and most of the songs sounded the same. But it was a lot of fun, everyone was having a good time and that was all that really mattered.
Most of the party moved outside after the band’s set finished. I talked politics with most of the law students. They’re encouraged about the new American administration. It’s amazing how much the election of Obama has already improved the States’ standing in the world.
And so I’ll begin with where I left off.
As I said in the last note, my suitemate, Bernhard, invited me to a party. I finished writing at about nine o’clock, and we decided that we weren’t going to go to the party until at least 10 or 10:30. I went back to my room to study up on some German. Bernhard, whose room is next to mine, was playing guitar. I could hear him playing through the walls. I didn’t know he played guitar, much less the impressive repertoire he knew. One song that I immediately recognized was “Halleluiah” by Jeff Buckley. As we walked to the party I told him that I heard him playing and that I especially enjoyed listening to him play “Halleluiah.” I found that we have some similar musical taste and we both agreed that Buckley’s life was cut much too short. I told him that I have a bunch of Buckley’s music and that I’ll give it to him if he’d like and he accepted. Now I just have to find some blank CDs.
So we arrived at the party, which was in a medium size room on the bottom floor of my building, but I forgot the five Euro that it cost to get in, so I ran back up to my room, got it, and then went back. Party guest received unlimited drinks with the five Euro, so I wanted to make sure to get my money’s worth.
There were about 30 people at the party. I was the only American when I arrived. Some people were surprised to see an American. I was very welcome to their party, but I guess the IES EU students that they had hosted in the past rarely socialized with anyone other than Americans. This, I thought, was a shame. I have heard some bad stories about past Americans. I hope that I can reverse this trend. Everyone at the party was quite friendly; many approached me and started conversations.
I’m about as poor at remembering names as Chief Justice John Roberts is at swearing in Presidents, but I can recall some of the people that I met at the party. They were all interesting and had a lot to share with me, but I can’t for the life of me remember their names.
A girl explained to me that she was often the target of criticism – friendly criticism, to be sure – because she was from Bavaria. She explained that Bavaria, which is in the Southeastern corner of Germany, is like the Texas of Germany – sometimes they think they’re another country and peoples and often express superiority among their fellow Germans. I later told Brett Aho about her Bavaria/Texas comparison and he said that he had never heard that comparison before, but that it makes perfect sense.
So she hangs out with the group of kids that my roommate, Bernhard, hangs out with. They were mostly all law students. They want me to come to class with them sometime. Their semester ends in mid-February and then picks up again in April, so I told them that perhaps I can join them in class next semester when, hopefully, I’ll know some Deutsch.
I was also invited to play Fußall (soccer) on Sunday. I was never any good at soccer; in fact I am quite bad. I was winged off international sports at an early age and stuck to the American sports, but I figure it’ll be a good experience, even if I get my ass handed to me.
Well the party was not much different than American parties except maybe a little better organized. Music played loud over some speakers. It was louder than I would have liked, but I was still able to talk with people there. Two ladies worked the bar, they were quick with drinks and easy on the eyes, but made poor mixed drinks. They simply mixed vodka with flavored soda. “Das ist nicht so gut,” I shared with a few of the people I was with. They all agreed. The party beer, Freiburger, was a cheap local brew, and while it was the least favored beer I had since I arrived here, it was better than any beer at a college party in the States. So I can’t much complain.
Another American, Pedro, arrived about an hour into the party. He is in the same IES program as me. He is a student at UC Berkeley, but grew up in Boston. Pedro seems like a sharp kid who decided, like me, to try and break the comfortable mold of only socializing with Americans. He’s a country music enthusiast – like me – and we plan to jam sometime in the near future. He is suitemates Bernhard’s friend Ferdinand.
Well the party went on, and I drank more, and as I drank more the more I continued to drag my German language further through the mud but also, the more I drank, the more I tried to speak German. I think everyone I talked to appreciated the effort.
A German punk rock band played at about 11 p.m. I forget the name of the band, but one of their longs went like this, “Yippieh yippieh yeah, krawall und remmidemmi.” Whenever they played this chorus, they silenced their instruments and had the crowd sing along. Of course, the first part is gibberish, but one of the kids I had talked to there explained that krawall meant rioting, but I don’t know what remmidemmi means, if anything.
The band sounded like most American punk rock bands I have heard: Loud and incomprehensible. They played a set that consisted of about 10 or 12 songs that lasted about an hour. It was a three piece band consisting of a guitarist, bassist and drummer. The guitarist sang lead while the bassist sang backup. There were no guitar leads taken and most of the songs sounded the same. But it was a lot of fun, everyone was having a good time and that was all that really mattered.
Most of the party moved outside after the band’s set finished. I talked politics with most of the law students. They’re encouraged about the new American administration. It’s amazing how much the election of Obama has already improved the States’ standing in the world.
Friday, January 23, 2009
John Denver
As I look out the window from my room on the seventh floor of my appartment building, toward the Black Forest hills, some snow capped from the winter storms of yestermonth, I have come to develop an overwhelming desire to listen to John Denver.
Sometimes the Black Forest reminds me of West Virginia.
I guess I'll be purchasing a song from iTunes right about now.
Sometimes the Black Forest reminds me of West Virginia.
I guess I'll be purchasing a song from iTunes right about now.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The European City
I guess two days has gone by since I last wrote. The time here flies faster than I thought it would. Never before did I think I’d like living in a City, which Freiburg, even though it’s the same size as Riverside, definitely is.
Freiburg is about as friendly a city as I’ve been to. European culture in cities involves a lot more daily concourse among its general citizenry than American life. Still though, the Germans are private people, which I definitely appreciate and respect. It is uncommon for a German to smile at a stranger or to greet a stranger or to even make eye contact with a stranger. By doing so, I’ve revealed myself as an American more than once, and I was greeted with awkward smiles and perplexed faces, even though I was trying to be polite. I enjoy this though idiosyncrasy among the Germans, how many times do we in America make superficial smiles, greetings or small talk? Perhaps 10% of the time we’re sincere about our greetings.
In these first few days I’ve tried to think of how best to approach my limited time abroad. With much advice from Brett Aho, I decided that I must try, and I almost want to say, “at all cost,” avoid spending too much time with Americans. I want to learn the German language to the best of my ability while still exploring the culture and country and maintaining perfect grades. I plan to read at least one article from a German newspaper a day and carry out conversations with my suitemates while taking an ambitious approach toward my Deutsch class. I also figure that the more sincere I am toward my attempt at learning German the better Ambassador for America I’ll be. I don’t want to be seen as an ignorant and self centered American.
So far I feel like I’ve made some progress in learning German, but what progress I’ve made is only inches, and I have miles to go before I start to feel comfortable. Ideally, I want to be able to carry out simple conversations with my suitemates before the semester is over.
My suitemates are good people so far as I can tell. One of them, and lordy he has a complicated name that I already forget, is a law student at the University of Freiburg. He is currently taking a class in American Civil law. When he graduates from law school he plans to practice civil law, so American civil law is one of his elective classes. He is astounded that American civil law is often decided in front of a jury. Class action lawsuits also are strange to Europeans. We had a discussion about this, in English. I hope to talk to him in German about German law sometime. Petra, another one of my suitemates, is also a law student. She is actually from Sweden and using this year to study abroad in the Freiburg law school, which is supposed to be one of the best in Europe for law. Again, it would be really nice if I could have taken a class in the regular university, but my German is probably a few years away from something like that being possible. The girl that lives in the room next to mine, Merriam, the girl that Justin was drinking tea with, is studying English. She’s currently reading Charles Dickens and working on a paper about the Bavarian influence in language, I think – it sounds really complicated. The only way I remember one of my roommates name is that it sounds like “omen” but I’m sure that’s not how you spell his name. He’s a geology student. He has the worst English of the group, but he seems like a shy and rather modest individual.
I woke up and caught the tram into town yesterday. I didn’t eat breakfast because I thought it was going to be provided for us like it was the day before. But it wasn’t, so I had to sit through about two and a half more hours of orientation. I sat next to a pretty annoying kid from Texas who attends the University of Missouri. He was loud and I was hungry and when I’m hungry I get impatient, so I was quick to leave after the orientation was over.
I went to a little café that looked pretty hip. I parked my ass on a stool at the bar and looked over the menu and realized there was nothing that I understood. Finally I found the word yogurt, so I ordered that and Kaffee (coffee). Unfortunately it was just a pretty small, by American standards, yogurt milkshake and, again, by American standards, small cup of coffee. The whole thing ended up costing me about 5 Euros and I was still pretty hungry. I decided to give Brett a call to see if he can give me some tips about what to do for breakfast, well, it was more like lunch, but you get the idea.
It was around noon when I called Brett and, of course, he was just getting up from bed. So he told me that he’d meet me a little ways down from the city center on Kaiser-Joseph Strabe. In the mean time I went to a bakery and ate a pretzel and a cup of coffee. The price here was more fair, only about three euro. I called Brett again and told him to meet me at the Bakerei (bakery). I read from Clarence Thomas’ memoir until Brett arrived. The large pretzel filled me up, but I still wanted to see more of Freiburg and get some tips on where to shop and what to buy, because if anyone knows how to live thriftily, it’s Brett Aho. We walked around the city for a while. He showed me some of the ropes. After about an hour and a half we walked up to little hill that overlooked the city. There was a little restaurant there and I offered to buy Brett a beer. I figured it was the least I could do for the tour and advise he was giving me. We drank a beer and ate rum cake and over looked the city for a while. But he had to leave for a doctor’s appointment at 4:30; he needs to get malaria pills for his upcoming trip to Africa, which begins in a week. So we left and went back into town.
I decided then to shop at some of the stores that Brett had pointed out. My first mission was to purchase a French press coffee maker. There was no way that I was going to survive this semester on such small servings of coffee. Even if I was to try to drink just coffee from the coffee shops I’d eventually go broke way too soon. Then I went to the grocery store and bought some food for dinner and breakfast. Europeans generally purchase just enough food to eat for the day and then go shopping everyday or every other day. It is one of the reasons there is so much life within the cities. I then went back to my room, made myself some eggs and bread with jam. I also ate an apple. It was simple, but I was satisfied.
After dinner I made myself some coffee and wrote my weekly round up for the Bulldog Weekly. It was fun to write and I’m glad that I’ll still be able to do it from abroad. It’ll keep my journalist chops sharp. Plus, I just love writing about sporting events. If you were to read this weekly round up, you’ll detect a few hints of sarcasm that usually aren’t there. But overall it’s good work and perhaps even better with the humor.
I took my time and wrote a lengthy sports round up. I realized too, that it is good to have at least a little income this semester. I had spent a lot of money between purchasing the phone, a monthly tram pass, the train ticket from Frankfurt to Freiburg (although I got more than my money’s worth on that train ride) and, of course, the ever so necessary French press (which will honestly save me money in the long run).
But all my purchases have been good ones, besides perhaps the yogurt drink at the café. And I don’t feel, except maybe at some of the orientation meetings, that much of my time has been wasted. I’m here to be a scholar, see as much of Europe as possible and learn and know the German peoples I meet. I feel the European Union program will serve me well in all three of these goals and I will take it upon myself to see even more of Europe and to know the German peoples even better than what’s required.
I met with Brett again later that night. He wanted to come over and try a drink from my French press. Justin wasn’t around because he was visiting some family friends in France. Oh, and to answer what he’s doing in Europe: nothing, he’s doing nothing but hanging out until his next semester begins in a couple weeks. He’ll be going back to Egypt for the rest of the semester. One of my roommates had a bunch of friends over that night to watch a Dutch show that he called, “So bad, it’s funny.” It was in German, so I didn’t understand a word of it. So Brett and I drank some coffee and then met some of the friends he had made in his German language class.
He told me that, while he loved the city of Freiburg and the University, he regrets not spending more time with native Germans and warned me not to make the same mistake. The friends Brett has in Freiburg are mostly American. So we went to one of his friend’s place for a few beers. We left at 12:30 to catch the last tram back to our dorms.
I woke up late the next morning, it was about 10 o’clock. Some of the other kids from the European Union program were going to meet for a hike through the Black Forrest. I was going to go, but they met at 9:50, I tried to get down to the train station to see if they were still there, but they weren’t, so I decided instead to go into town and get a bakery item and returned to my room to have breakfast and coffee. I ate breakfast with Merriam and talked a little bit about Edgar Allen Poe and my ambitions to learn German (we talked about Poe because the German newspaper I had picked up had an article comparing him to some German authors. I attempted to read this article by translating it through Google’s language tools). I then spent some time reading the newspaper, the Poe article and I read some about “New York staunt über Wunder auf dem Hudson.” It was an article about the US Airways jet that made the miraculous landing in the Hudson River. That’s quite something. Later in the after, at about 2 o’clock, I met Brett for lunch. I told him that I missed my hike in the Black Forest, so we decided to buy some Bratwursts and break rolls and hike into the forest, make a fire and roast our Bratwursts. It was a fine idea. It was beautiful day in Freiburg and the black forest.
After that it was around 4:30, Brett had some school work to do, and I didn’t want to bother him, so I went into the city and bought some food to last me through the weekend (very few stores are open on Sundays). I came back here, my suite, made some food and then started to write this, now that I look at it, lengthy account of my past two days. And as I write this and reflect on just the act of writing this, it has felt like the time has flown by.
Brett wants to show me what a small German village looks like, because, he said that while I’ll see plenty of Europe’s fine cities during my field trips with the European Union program, I will not get to see how the Country Germans live. Tomorrow is the perfect time to go on such a trip, it is the last day before classes start and there is nothing on the schedule for me to attend with IES. Anyway, he has to find a headstone in this graveyard that belongs to a man that he met in Indiana over the summer. Long story, but Brett spent a lot of time in the Midwest this summer, pretty much bumming around, and made good friends with an older Indiana man. This man asked Brett to find a family headstone that is centuries old and to take a picture of it. It sounds like an interesting adventure, so I agreed to go. It’ll cost me about 20 Euros, but Brett said he’d buy me lunch, so, to me, its well worth it.
My suitemate, the one that has the complicated name that I must learn, who is studying the law, just invited me to a party tonight. Sounds like I have night plans. I’ll be sure to write more soon, that is, if this account of the last couple days doesn’t bore you too much. I’m writing and saving these accounts on my computer. It makes for a pretty good journal that I can print out at the end of my time here. I’ll try to write these every other day, if not more often. I’m also keeping some notes in a notebook, but I’ve only taken a few pictures.
Freiburg is about as friendly a city as I’ve been to. European culture in cities involves a lot more daily concourse among its general citizenry than American life. Still though, the Germans are private people, which I definitely appreciate and respect. It is uncommon for a German to smile at a stranger or to greet a stranger or to even make eye contact with a stranger. By doing so, I’ve revealed myself as an American more than once, and I was greeted with awkward smiles and perplexed faces, even though I was trying to be polite. I enjoy this though idiosyncrasy among the Germans, how many times do we in America make superficial smiles, greetings or small talk? Perhaps 10% of the time we’re sincere about our greetings.
In these first few days I’ve tried to think of how best to approach my limited time abroad. With much advice from Brett Aho, I decided that I must try, and I almost want to say, “at all cost,” avoid spending too much time with Americans. I want to learn the German language to the best of my ability while still exploring the culture and country and maintaining perfect grades. I plan to read at least one article from a German newspaper a day and carry out conversations with my suitemates while taking an ambitious approach toward my Deutsch class. I also figure that the more sincere I am toward my attempt at learning German the better Ambassador for America I’ll be. I don’t want to be seen as an ignorant and self centered American.
So far I feel like I’ve made some progress in learning German, but what progress I’ve made is only inches, and I have miles to go before I start to feel comfortable. Ideally, I want to be able to carry out simple conversations with my suitemates before the semester is over.
My suitemates are good people so far as I can tell. One of them, and lordy he has a complicated name that I already forget, is a law student at the University of Freiburg. He is currently taking a class in American Civil law. When he graduates from law school he plans to practice civil law, so American civil law is one of his elective classes. He is astounded that American civil law is often decided in front of a jury. Class action lawsuits also are strange to Europeans. We had a discussion about this, in English. I hope to talk to him in German about German law sometime. Petra, another one of my suitemates, is also a law student. She is actually from Sweden and using this year to study abroad in the Freiburg law school, which is supposed to be one of the best in Europe for law. Again, it would be really nice if I could have taken a class in the regular university, but my German is probably a few years away from something like that being possible. The girl that lives in the room next to mine, Merriam, the girl that Justin was drinking tea with, is studying English. She’s currently reading Charles Dickens and working on a paper about the Bavarian influence in language, I think – it sounds really complicated. The only way I remember one of my roommates name is that it sounds like “omen” but I’m sure that’s not how you spell his name. He’s a geology student. He has the worst English of the group, but he seems like a shy and rather modest individual.
I woke up and caught the tram into town yesterday. I didn’t eat breakfast because I thought it was going to be provided for us like it was the day before. But it wasn’t, so I had to sit through about two and a half more hours of orientation. I sat next to a pretty annoying kid from Texas who attends the University of Missouri. He was loud and I was hungry and when I’m hungry I get impatient, so I was quick to leave after the orientation was over.
I went to a little café that looked pretty hip. I parked my ass on a stool at the bar and looked over the menu and realized there was nothing that I understood. Finally I found the word yogurt, so I ordered that and Kaffee (coffee). Unfortunately it was just a pretty small, by American standards, yogurt milkshake and, again, by American standards, small cup of coffee. The whole thing ended up costing me about 5 Euros and I was still pretty hungry. I decided to give Brett a call to see if he can give me some tips about what to do for breakfast, well, it was more like lunch, but you get the idea.
It was around noon when I called Brett and, of course, he was just getting up from bed. So he told me that he’d meet me a little ways down from the city center on Kaiser-Joseph Strabe. In the mean time I went to a bakery and ate a pretzel and a cup of coffee. The price here was more fair, only about three euro. I called Brett again and told him to meet me at the Bakerei (bakery). I read from Clarence Thomas’ memoir until Brett arrived. The large pretzel filled me up, but I still wanted to see more of Freiburg and get some tips on where to shop and what to buy, because if anyone knows how to live thriftily, it’s Brett Aho. We walked around the city for a while. He showed me some of the ropes. After about an hour and a half we walked up to little hill that overlooked the city. There was a little restaurant there and I offered to buy Brett a beer. I figured it was the least I could do for the tour and advise he was giving me. We drank a beer and ate rum cake and over looked the city for a while. But he had to leave for a doctor’s appointment at 4:30; he needs to get malaria pills for his upcoming trip to Africa, which begins in a week. So we left and went back into town.
I decided then to shop at some of the stores that Brett had pointed out. My first mission was to purchase a French press coffee maker. There was no way that I was going to survive this semester on such small servings of coffee. Even if I was to try to drink just coffee from the coffee shops I’d eventually go broke way too soon. Then I went to the grocery store and bought some food for dinner and breakfast. Europeans generally purchase just enough food to eat for the day and then go shopping everyday or every other day. It is one of the reasons there is so much life within the cities. I then went back to my room, made myself some eggs and bread with jam. I also ate an apple. It was simple, but I was satisfied.
After dinner I made myself some coffee and wrote my weekly round up for the Bulldog Weekly. It was fun to write and I’m glad that I’ll still be able to do it from abroad. It’ll keep my journalist chops sharp. Plus, I just love writing about sporting events. If you were to read this weekly round up, you’ll detect a few hints of sarcasm that usually aren’t there. But overall it’s good work and perhaps even better with the humor.
I took my time and wrote a lengthy sports round up. I realized too, that it is good to have at least a little income this semester. I had spent a lot of money between purchasing the phone, a monthly tram pass, the train ticket from Frankfurt to Freiburg (although I got more than my money’s worth on that train ride) and, of course, the ever so necessary French press (which will honestly save me money in the long run).
But all my purchases have been good ones, besides perhaps the yogurt drink at the café. And I don’t feel, except maybe at some of the orientation meetings, that much of my time has been wasted. I’m here to be a scholar, see as much of Europe as possible and learn and know the German peoples I meet. I feel the European Union program will serve me well in all three of these goals and I will take it upon myself to see even more of Europe and to know the German peoples even better than what’s required.
I met with Brett again later that night. He wanted to come over and try a drink from my French press. Justin wasn’t around because he was visiting some family friends in France. Oh, and to answer what he’s doing in Europe: nothing, he’s doing nothing but hanging out until his next semester begins in a couple weeks. He’ll be going back to Egypt for the rest of the semester. One of my roommates had a bunch of friends over that night to watch a Dutch show that he called, “So bad, it’s funny.” It was in German, so I didn’t understand a word of it. So Brett and I drank some coffee and then met some of the friends he had made in his German language class.
He told me that, while he loved the city of Freiburg and the University, he regrets not spending more time with native Germans and warned me not to make the same mistake. The friends Brett has in Freiburg are mostly American. So we went to one of his friend’s place for a few beers. We left at 12:30 to catch the last tram back to our dorms.
I woke up late the next morning, it was about 10 o’clock. Some of the other kids from the European Union program were going to meet for a hike through the Black Forrest. I was going to go, but they met at 9:50, I tried to get down to the train station to see if they were still there, but they weren’t, so I decided instead to go into town and get a bakery item and returned to my room to have breakfast and coffee. I ate breakfast with Merriam and talked a little bit about Edgar Allen Poe and my ambitions to learn German (we talked about Poe because the German newspaper I had picked up had an article comparing him to some German authors. I attempted to read this article by translating it through Google’s language tools). I then spent some time reading the newspaper, the Poe article and I read some about “New York staunt über Wunder auf dem Hudson.” It was an article about the US Airways jet that made the miraculous landing in the Hudson River. That’s quite something. Later in the after, at about 2 o’clock, I met Brett for lunch. I told him that I missed my hike in the Black Forest, so we decided to buy some Bratwursts and break rolls and hike into the forest, make a fire and roast our Bratwursts. It was a fine idea. It was beautiful day in Freiburg and the black forest.
After that it was around 4:30, Brett had some school work to do, and I didn’t want to bother him, so I went into the city and bought some food to last me through the weekend (very few stores are open on Sundays). I came back here, my suite, made some food and then started to write this, now that I look at it, lengthy account of my past two days. And as I write this and reflect on just the act of writing this, it has felt like the time has flown by.
Brett wants to show me what a small German village looks like, because, he said that while I’ll see plenty of Europe’s fine cities during my field trips with the European Union program, I will not get to see how the Country Germans live. Tomorrow is the perfect time to go on such a trip, it is the last day before classes start and there is nothing on the schedule for me to attend with IES. Anyway, he has to find a headstone in this graveyard that belongs to a man that he met in Indiana over the summer. Long story, but Brett spent a lot of time in the Midwest this summer, pretty much bumming around, and made good friends with an older Indiana man. This man asked Brett to find a family headstone that is centuries old and to take a picture of it. It sounds like an interesting adventure, so I agreed to go. It’ll cost me about 20 Euros, but Brett said he’d buy me lunch, so, to me, its well worth it.
My suitemate, the one that has the complicated name that I must learn, who is studying the law, just invited me to a party tonight. Sounds like I have night plans. I’ll be sure to write more soon, that is, if this account of the last couple days doesn’t bore you too much. I’m writing and saving these accounts on my computer. It makes for a pretty good journal that I can print out at the end of my time here. I’ll try to write these every other day, if not more often. I’m also keeping some notes in a notebook, but I’ve only taken a few pictures.
The Long Hello
It is one in the morning, Friday, January 16th. Finally I have time and energy to write and reflect on the previous few days. I just caught the last tram back from Brett Aho’s flat on the other side of town. I had a couple of beers with Brett and Justin. It was the first time I had a chance to catch up with them since I arrived here on Wednesday.
After my flight was cancelled in Los Angeles they rebooked me for a flight direct to Frankfurt, but it was scheduled to fly out of L.A. about six hours after my original flight was supposed to have left.
Originally I was supposed to have flown to Dallas from L.A. and then from Dallas to Frankfurt. Since my flight was now an international flight, I had to go through security again. I believe I would have had to do this again anyway, had I gone through Dallas, I would have had to go through the check point in the Dallas airport, but it was still frustrating going through the annoying check point in the same airport twice.
The international terminal is much different than the domestic terminal. There is less food and other shops. I found a place that sold food. It was called Martina’s Bar. Nothing was special about it besides the “B” rating it earned from the L.A. County Health department. I ate a hotdog and a bowl of soup and then tried to sleep. I slept some and then my flight started to board at 2:30 p.m.
I was heartbroken to find that my seat assignment was the middle seat. The flight wasn’t with American Airlines, it was with Lufshana, a German airline. It was nice but a little crammed. The two people that sat next to me were German men, but they didn’t speak to me and I didn’t speak to them. I slept for a few hours, but not nearly enough. We ate two meals on the flight. They were better than I had expected, but still airplane food.
Finally I landed in Frankfurt only to find that my bags were lost. Somehow they didn’t get the bags to the plane I was flying on. Either American of Lufshana messed up. Based on American’s track record, I’m betting it was their fault.
Well I had to wait for at least a half an hour at the baggage claim, only to not find my bag and then another half hour at the lost luggage desk. It was a wonderful welcome to Germany.
Well then I went to the train station and bought a ticket from Frankfurt to Mannheim and then from Mannheim to Freiburg. On my ticket I thought it said platform 5, long distance. So I went to platform 5 and got on the train, only this train was headed north toward Hammburg, which is in the complete opposite direction of Freiburg. I realized this mistake soon, after I had been on the train for an hour when the stop in Mannheim should only had been 20 minutes, and got off in a small city called Kassell. There I got on another train that was headed straight to Freiburg on its way to Basil. That was a life saver. I arrived in Freiburg at six, about an hour after I was assigned to arrive and maybe seven hours after I had expected had all things gone right. Apparently, I was supposed to get on the short destinations plat form 5, not long distance. At least that’s what I think I did wrong. I was tired and I thought I was in the right place. I even showed a competent looking German man my ticket and he assured me that I was in the right place. Well, I have my ticket still and it makes for a good story.
They got me registered when I arrived at the IES center in Freiburg. They assured me that it was fine that I was late and to meet with my dorm group upstairs. After they got me signed in we went out to pizza. The people in my group were okey. Most of them were from the Midwest or the East coast, only one girl was from the West. There were about 15 kids in my dorm group which was the smallest of the three dorm groups.
Justin and Brett hunted me down and found us at the pizza parlor. I was surprised to see them. I guess they asked around and found out we were there. So they joined us and had a few drinks with us. Brett and Justin then left us because I had to go check into the dorm and they wanted to go to the student bar, and I told them I’d meet them there.
But before we could go to the dorm, our German student hosts insisted that we go to the local brewery and drink a beer. Of course, my group consented. It was a good beer, but not the best German beer I’ve had. The kids in my dorm group are alright, some I can see getting along better with than others. There are a few that are dumb asses and others that seem to have there shit together, I’ll try to stay with the have-there-shit-together folks.
After the brewery, we went to my dorm. I got checked in, but didn’t meet any of my roommates. They were all either out or asleep. We then went to the student bar, it was about half past 11. I was tired, but I wanted to see Brett and Justin again, since I hadn’t seen them in some time. But we got there and Brett and Justin were no where to be found. I found out today that they had left minutes before we arrived. So that was too bad. I only stayed for about an hour. Most of us left because there was nothing really to do. All the music was American pop music, so it wasn’t very good. I mostly talked football with some of the other guys from the group until we left.
I woke up this morning at 7:50, for some reason I was able to get up early. I’m not sure why, I had not set my alarm to go off until 8:30. So I woke up and met some of my suitemates, but didn’t have any real time to talk with them. I took a shower and used the pair of extra clothes, thank God I brought them. I had breakfast and then sat through a few hours of orientation bullshit. It was boring really, not much to write. I met a few new Americans from the program in the whole process, but I don’t think it was really necessary.
I got a tour of the city from a University of Freiburg student. It made the city of Freiburg seem a lot more manageable. I got lunch with a few of the guys from my tour group in the Mensa (cafeteria). Then we had some more orientation stuff. After that I went with a large group of students and bought a cell phone. It was pretty much the cheapest one they had.
I then took a train back to my dorm and found Justin had stocked me again. He had found out which dorm I was living in (I had not told either him or Brett the night before because I didn’t even know.). I opened the door to my suite and saw him sitting there drinking a cup of coffee with my suitemate Merriam. He said he asked around and had nothing better to do than find out where I was living. We talked with Merriam for a while and then went to get my checked luggage witch had arrived at the IES center. I picked it up and returned to my suite. Justin and I then ate home made German Pizza with my suitemates.
At dinner I had a chance to talk with all of them. I really wish my German was better. They all understood English, but only to a certain extent and I knew no German. We all got along very well. I think they like me and I appreciate them feeding me for the night. Justin and I then met up with Brett and hung out at his place, which is on the other side of town, until I came back here to write this a half an hour ago.
After my flight was cancelled in Los Angeles they rebooked me for a flight direct to Frankfurt, but it was scheduled to fly out of L.A. about six hours after my original flight was supposed to have left.
Originally I was supposed to have flown to Dallas from L.A. and then from Dallas to Frankfurt. Since my flight was now an international flight, I had to go through security again. I believe I would have had to do this again anyway, had I gone through Dallas, I would have had to go through the check point in the Dallas airport, but it was still frustrating going through the annoying check point in the same airport twice.
The international terminal is much different than the domestic terminal. There is less food and other shops. I found a place that sold food. It was called Martina’s Bar. Nothing was special about it besides the “B” rating it earned from the L.A. County Health department. I ate a hotdog and a bowl of soup and then tried to sleep. I slept some and then my flight started to board at 2:30 p.m.
I was heartbroken to find that my seat assignment was the middle seat. The flight wasn’t with American Airlines, it was with Lufshana, a German airline. It was nice but a little crammed. The two people that sat next to me were German men, but they didn’t speak to me and I didn’t speak to them. I slept for a few hours, but not nearly enough. We ate two meals on the flight. They were better than I had expected, but still airplane food.
Finally I landed in Frankfurt only to find that my bags were lost. Somehow they didn’t get the bags to the plane I was flying on. Either American of Lufshana messed up. Based on American’s track record, I’m betting it was their fault.
Well I had to wait for at least a half an hour at the baggage claim, only to not find my bag and then another half hour at the lost luggage desk. It was a wonderful welcome to Germany.
Well then I went to the train station and bought a ticket from Frankfurt to Mannheim and then from Mannheim to Freiburg. On my ticket I thought it said platform 5, long distance. So I went to platform 5 and got on the train, only this train was headed north toward Hammburg, which is in the complete opposite direction of Freiburg. I realized this mistake soon, after I had been on the train for an hour when the stop in Mannheim should only had been 20 minutes, and got off in a small city called Kassell. There I got on another train that was headed straight to Freiburg on its way to Basil. That was a life saver. I arrived in Freiburg at six, about an hour after I was assigned to arrive and maybe seven hours after I had expected had all things gone right. Apparently, I was supposed to get on the short destinations plat form 5, not long distance. At least that’s what I think I did wrong. I was tired and I thought I was in the right place. I even showed a competent looking German man my ticket and he assured me that I was in the right place. Well, I have my ticket still and it makes for a good story.
They got me registered when I arrived at the IES center in Freiburg. They assured me that it was fine that I was late and to meet with my dorm group upstairs. After they got me signed in we went out to pizza. The people in my group were okey. Most of them were from the Midwest or the East coast, only one girl was from the West. There were about 15 kids in my dorm group which was the smallest of the three dorm groups.
Justin and Brett hunted me down and found us at the pizza parlor. I was surprised to see them. I guess they asked around and found out we were there. So they joined us and had a few drinks with us. Brett and Justin then left us because I had to go check into the dorm and they wanted to go to the student bar, and I told them I’d meet them there.
But before we could go to the dorm, our German student hosts insisted that we go to the local brewery and drink a beer. Of course, my group consented. It was a good beer, but not the best German beer I’ve had. The kids in my dorm group are alright, some I can see getting along better with than others. There are a few that are dumb asses and others that seem to have there shit together, I’ll try to stay with the have-there-shit-together folks.
After the brewery, we went to my dorm. I got checked in, but didn’t meet any of my roommates. They were all either out or asleep. We then went to the student bar, it was about half past 11. I was tired, but I wanted to see Brett and Justin again, since I hadn’t seen them in some time. But we got there and Brett and Justin were no where to be found. I found out today that they had left minutes before we arrived. So that was too bad. I only stayed for about an hour. Most of us left because there was nothing really to do. All the music was American pop music, so it wasn’t very good. I mostly talked football with some of the other guys from the group until we left.
I woke up this morning at 7:50, for some reason I was able to get up early. I’m not sure why, I had not set my alarm to go off until 8:30. So I woke up and met some of my suitemates, but didn’t have any real time to talk with them. I took a shower and used the pair of extra clothes, thank God I brought them. I had breakfast and then sat through a few hours of orientation bullshit. It was boring really, not much to write. I met a few new Americans from the program in the whole process, but I don’t think it was really necessary.
I got a tour of the city from a University of Freiburg student. It made the city of Freiburg seem a lot more manageable. I got lunch with a few of the guys from my tour group in the Mensa (cafeteria). Then we had some more orientation stuff. After that I went with a large group of students and bought a cell phone. It was pretty much the cheapest one they had.
I then took a train back to my dorm and found Justin had stocked me again. He had found out which dorm I was living in (I had not told either him or Brett the night before because I didn’t even know.). I opened the door to my suite and saw him sitting there drinking a cup of coffee with my suitemate Merriam. He said he asked around and had nothing better to do than find out where I was living. We talked with Merriam for a while and then went to get my checked luggage witch had arrived at the IES center. I picked it up and returned to my suite. Justin and I then ate home made German Pizza with my suitemates.
At dinner I had a chance to talk with all of them. I really wish my German was better. They all understood English, but only to a certain extent and I knew no German. We all got along very well. I think they like me and I appreciate them feeding me for the night. Justin and I then met up with Brett and hung out at his place, which is on the other side of town, until I came back here to write this a half an hour ago.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)