Marnie in Germany

Breaking up with grad school

2009-05-10T19:16:00.003+02:00

Most of you probably know that I've spent much of the past couple of years thinking about leaving my grad program. It may come as a surprise to a few of you though to hear that I've actually done it. As of a couple of weeks ago, I am officially on a leave of absence from the U of M. The decision was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I assumed I would feel primarily relief with perhaps a side of joy. Instead, I felt mostly sad. I guess when you become completely invested in something and spend a lot of time convincing yourself that it can work out, it becomes hard to walk away. For the first couple of weeks, I kept thinking about running back, but the more time passes, the more I am convinced that this was the right decision.

I haven't completely dropped out. After emailing back and forth with my advisor, we agreed that it was a good idea to keep the door open, so I can still return next year if I so choose. At the time, I thought that was highly unlikely, but now I'm not so sure. Leaving grad school has given me the distance to see things a bit more objectively and think more clearly about why I might still want a degree my field and what steps I would need to take in order to get it while still preserving my sanity. Ironically, leaving grad school may turn out to be the most important step for me to finish my program. We'll see what the next year brings.

In the meantime, I am keeping all of my options open. The funny thing about walking away from something that had sort of taken over my whole life, is that I'm not really sure how to define myself any more. If I'm not a grad student, who am I? If I'm not pursuing a PhD, what am I doing? These simple questions have become surprisingly difficult. But I'm excited to try new things and hopefully find some answers. Wish me luck!

The past few months...

2009-04-17T20:58:00.007+02:00

So when it comes to timely blogging, I appear to be a complete and utter failure. I could argue that I've been traveling a lot lately, but as writing about my travels is the reason for this blog's existence, that excuse doesn't hold a lot of water. So I'll skip the apologies and promises to do better and will give you a quick run down of the past few months.

December:

Mid-December involved a trip to visit grad school friends, Anne and Carsten, in Copenhagen. It was my first trip to Denmark and I had a lovely time. Copenhagen is beautiful (if extremely dark at that time of year) and Anne and Carsten were wonderful hosts. Among other things, I enjoyed the Rosenborg Castle, a boat tour of the harbor, Christmas lights at Tivoli (an amusement park in the middle of the city), and an Aebleskiver and Gløg party at Anne and Carsten's. I became a big fan of the Danish love for candles, and began lighting a number of my own each night after I got back to Berlin to help get me through the rest of the winter.

At the end of the month I headed to Jochen's for Christmas. He had to work the entire holiday season, so most of the celebrating was done with the house he works in. We did manage to find a bit of time to have our own celebration, complete with a mini Christmas tree. Making the decorations in the days leading up to Christmas helped keep me busy while Jochen was working.

January:

New Year's was also spent at Tennental and, as Jochen was working, involved the requisite tradition of being silent into the New Year (schweigen ins Neue Jahr). Though certainly much quieter than New Year's Eve in Berlin, there is something to be said for taking time to reflect and after midnight there was a lovely bonfire and fireworks in front of the main hall.

January also involved a lovely visit from my friend Martha. Martha is another grad school friend, who is currently studying in Graz. She came up for the weekend and we had a great time seeing the sights, catching up on life, and making the best American breakfast this side of the Atlantic.

February:

The February highlight was a visit from my Macalester friend, Adrienne. She arrived just in time to help me celebrate what was perhaps the best Valentine's day ever - a romantic candle-lit dinner, red wine, chocolate cake, and a really sappy movie, all enjoyed ironically, of course. After Valentine's Day, we took off on a short trip to beautiful and snowy Prague before returning to Berlin for a Neko Case concert and some more shopping and sightseeing. It was really great to see her again after such a long time.

After Adrienne returned to the States, I headed down to Stuttgart to visit Jochen. He had a week of vacation, so we spent a couple of days visiting his mom and from there took a quick ski trip to the Allgäu. The weather was gray and dreary, but there was lots of snow and the area is so beautiful. I managed not to seriously injure myself, which is really all it takes to make skiing a success in my book.

March:

I headed back to Berlin in March, just in time to pick my brother up at the airport. It was great to see him, catch up on his life, and reminisce a bit about childhood. We enjoyed a relaxed week of hanging out in Berlin and also took a quick trip to Dresden and Leipzig. We happened to be in Leipzig the same weeked as the Book Fair, which was exciting for me, if perhaps less so for Per. Dresden remains one of my favorite German cities.

After Per left, I once again headed to Stuttgart to be with Jochen while he took the first of three important exams. He passed with flying colors. Yay!

April:

April finds me finally back in Berlin and starting another semester at the University. Instead of teaching, this semester I am assisting with a BA colloquium, which so far has meant that I sit in on classes and then sit alone in my office for two hours reading a book. I hope that students will eventually start taking advantage of my office hours because right now I feel kind of useless. I'm also taking a seminar on Berlin Film and sitting in on a couple of lectures. I may also try to take a Spanish course at the University.

There is more of an update on a recent big decision coming soon, but it's not something I can explain in a short post. So I'll save it for another time.

One of the few American traditions I am proud to export

2009-01-11T22:11:00.028+01:00

I think I left off with Thanksgiving, which was......... a month and a half ago. Sigh. Sorry folks who read my blog. Anyway, Thanksgiving was amazing. Linda and I have been talking about it since we decided to move in together sometime last spring. We wanted to have a traditional American Thanksgiving with all the fixings and, since most of our guests were not American, we agreed that we would make it all ourselves. And then we invited 20 people. As you can imagine, it was quite the undertaking. Our Thanksgiving took place on a Saturday afternoon, but cooking started on Friday.

We peeled and chopped about 5 kilos of potatoes and 3 kilos of carrots.

And I made six pies.

It seemed rather questionable to put a vegetarian in charge of the Thanksgiving turkey, so reinforcements arrived on Friday evening in the form of Eric. On Saturday morning we picked up a 8+ kilo turkey at KaDeWe and rushed home to try to get it in the oven on time. Cooking on Saturday was a bit hectic - with our oven filled with a gigantic turkey, Linda took drove our stuffing and cornbread to a friend's apartment to bake. The turkey made great progress.

(Before and After)

Soon our guests arrived and the feasting began.

(<--This is only about half of the feast.)

Unfortunately due to the number of guests and the lack of a large enough common space, we ended up splitting into two groups. Linda's guests dined in her room and my guests dined in mine. In my room, we ate ourselves silly, drank Karol's father's homemade wine, and then played ridiculous games. I believe a good time was had by all.

Some catching up to do

2008-12-17T22:50:00.002+01:00

Once again, I'm far behind. And I was doing so well. I don't think I can entirely be blamed. Things have been rather insane lately and I've only been in Berlin for about 4 days this month. So what have you missed? First of all there was Thanksgiving for 20 people held at my apartment the last weekend in November. I made six pies and many other things and had wonderful guests from Berlin and beyond. After Thanksgiving, I headed down to Stuttgart to be with Jochen for a week. We checked out a medieval Christmas market in Esslingen and enjoyed the Glühwein and Gemütlichkeit that is Christmas in Germany. I came back to Berlin for two days to teach and then I was off to Denmark last weekend to visit friends who are living in Copenhagen. It was my first trip to Denmark and the first time I've left Germany since arriving here in June. Exciting. Copenhagen is beautiful and very dark this time of year. (The sun set at about 3:30.) I enjoyed seeing Carsten and Anne, checking out the city, and sharing in some very yummy Gløgg and Aebleskiver (think round balls of pancake). I will try to post pictures and more detailed travel stories soon, but I only have one more day to get my Christmas shopping done before I have two marathon days of seminar and then head to Jochen's for Christmas. So if I don't manage to post before then. Happy Holidays! (Lilly wishes you happy holidays, too!)

German Word of the Day

2008-11-27T10:23:00.005+01:00

So my word of the day is nüchtern. My understanding of this word, prior to my doctor's appointment this morning, was that it means sober. This is true and in most cases, this is how the word is used. However, if you are at the doctor's office and talking about blood sugar, nüchtern means fasting. I learned this important distinction when my doctor asked, "but you weren't nüchtern the last time you were here, were you?" and I thought she was implying that perhaps I had been drunk at my last appointment.

Preparing for Chaos

2008-11-23T13:35:00.003+01:00

I've woken up to snow the past two mornings. The first snow of the season is always exciting and gets me in the mood for the holidays. But before I start thinking about Christmas, I need to think about Thanksgiving, which is taking place at my apartment next weekend. When Linda and I decided to live together sometime last spring, we agreed that we would host Thanksgiving. Over the summer, I extended an invitation to the European participants of my summer program. We also invited friends from the States currently living in Europe as well as Berlin friends. Apparently Thanksgiving is a big draw, because we're now expecting about 20 people from Germany, Austria, and Poland to converge on our apartment next Saturday. I come from a small family that's pretty spread out across the US and it's rare that we manage to get more than 8 people together, so though I love big Thanksgivings, I have little experience cooking them. And, as one can't exactly ask non-Americans to prepare traditional Thanksgiving dishes, we'll be doing all the cooking ourselves. Fortunately, I have reinforcements arriving on Friday. Eric is coming in from Münster and has promised to cook the turkey. Cooking a turkey is stressful regardless, but even more so if you are a vegetarian and haven't cooked meat in any form in the last seven years. So I'm extremely grateful to Eric for making the trip. Martha (a friend from the U of M who's currently studying in Austria) will also be arriving from Graz on Friday. I'm really excited to see her again and so glad that she's also willing to lend a hand in the kitchen. And Linda's friend Lotte, who lives nearby, has kindly offered us use of her oven. My parents even mailed me pumpkin pie tins from the States. With a little luck, we might pull this off. I'll keep you posted.

Quarterlife Crisis

2008-11-19T20:35:00.003+01:00

So those of you I've been in touch with more recently know that I have a lot of big decisions to make this year. First and foremost among those decisions is whether or not I want to continue with grad school. No matter how I answer that question, more questions follow.

If the answer is yes: Can I survive 3+ more years of grad school? What do I want to write a dissertation on? If I finish, will I be able to get a job? Do I even want to work in academia?

If the answer is no: Will I regret not getting a PhD? What will I do instead? How am I going to get a job with an MA in German and little practical experience?

It's kind of like one of those choose your own adventure books, except that I can't look ahead to find out if the path I'm choosing is going to wind up with me abducted by aliens. And though I'm not sure of much these days, I'm pretty sure I don't want to be abducted by aliens.

At any rate, I'm reflecting a lot these days. I'm also reading a lot, which is a great way to gain perspective. Most recently, I came across this fantastic quote from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet which I find both beautiful and extremely appropriate for where I am right now.

Ich möchte Sie, so gut ich es kann, bitten [...] Geduld zu haben gegen alles Ungelöste in Ihrem Herzen und zu versuchen, die Fragen selbst liebzuhaben wie verschlossene Stuben und wie Bücher, die in einer sehr fremden Sprache geschrieben sind. Forschen Sie jetzt nicht nach den Antworten, die Ihnen nicht gegeben werden können, weil Sie sie nicht leben könnten. Und es handelt sich darum, alles zu leben. Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen. Vielleicht leben Sie dann allmählich, ohne es zu merken, eines fernen Tages in die Antwort hinein.

And the English translation (not mine):

I would like to beg you, [...] as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

And so, as I continue my year in Berlin, I am trying to be patient and live the questions. But I'm still open to answers if you've got any. :)

Geography Lesson

2008-11-17T11:41:00.005+01:00

The sun is shining today for the second day in a row. That's pretty amazing as gray, rainy days are the norm for this time of year. It makes me very, very happy. I smiled all the way to the post office to drop off a letter to Minneapolis. After I paid the postage, I asked the clerk how long it would take for the letter to get to the States. He said it depended on the region. Then he looked at the address and said, "Minneapolis, that's on the West Coast, so actually it will get there pretty quickly." I resisted the urge to tell him that Minneapolis is, in fact, about as far from either coast as you can get and left the post office wondering why a letter to the West Coast (for those fuzzy on geography, the coast farthest away from Germany) would get there faster.

In other news, I took a spur of the moment trip to Hamburg two weekends ago. (I think this is the last of the trips that I need to catch up on.) Linda, my roommate, was out of town and the apartment gets lonely without her, so I got in touch with former roommate Eric to see what he was up to on the weekend. When we're both in the States, we live pretty far apart (he actually does live on the West Coast) and we hadn't managed to see each other in two years. Now he's studying in Münster, which is only about 4 hrs away from Berlin. We decided to take advantage of this and meet up in the middle. Geography lesson #2: The US is much bigger than Germany. Thus, we thought a day trip to Hamburg was totally reasonable and most of our German friends thought we were nuts. Geography lesson #3: Hamburg isn't actually the midpoint between Berlin and Münster, but it's the most exciting city that's about equally far for both of us.

The train is expensive, especially if you book last minute, so I decided to brave the bus system - something I hadn't done before. I was pleasantly surprised. The bus was clean, roomy, and on-time. No complaints here. I arrived in Hamburg around noon and met Eric at the train station. As usual, he was far more on top of things than I and actually brought maps of Hamburg - what a novel idea. Yay Eric! So we headed out to check out the city. We wandered through the main part of town checking out the Rathaus, Binnenalster, and various lovely churches. Then we got hungry and ducked into a tapas restaurant for lunch. Afterwards we headed to the Landungsbrücken where I got to check out even bigger ships than Jochen and I had seen in Rostock. From the Landungsbrücken, we headed to the Reperbahn, Hamburg's red-light district. After a walk down the Reperbahn, we found a carnival and wandered around enjoying the atmosphere there. In the evening we headed to the Sternschanze - a nice neighborhood with lots of bars and cafes - for a coffee and then met up with my friend Lina (from LBSU) for a quick dinner and drinks. Then it was sadly time head back to the bus station and catch my bus back to Berlin. It was a great day though and nice to see Eric and Lina again. Hurray for spontaneous vacations!

2008-11-10T11:51:00.000+01:00

In English it is not called the East Sea

As always, I'm a bit behind on posting about travels. Just over a week ago, Jochen was in Berlin and while he was here, we took a quick trip up to the Baltic Sea for a little rest and relaxation. Due to our not so similar vacation schedules and Jochen's upcoming exams, it's probably the only trip we'll get to take together this year, so we decided to splurge a bit and treat ourselves to a nice couple of days. We found a really good deal on the internet and ended up staying in a 4 star hotel. I almost never stay in hotels, to say nothing of 4 star hotels and it was amazing. A beautiful room with a nice view, a fitness and wellness area with a sauna, a sanarium, and a steam bath, and a decadent breakfast buffet with all the fresh squeezed orange juice you can drink. A ridiculous amount of unnecessary luxury, but it was lovely.

We arrived on a Thursday afternoon and the weather was quite miserable. We wandered around Rostock a bit (isn't it cute?), grabbed some dinner, and then headed back to spoil ourselves with an evening of saunas and steam baths. Fortunately on Friday the weather was much better, we even saw the sun, which doesn't seem to happen very often in northern Germany these days. After a short walking tour of Rostock by sun, we headed down to the harbor where we caught a boat to take us to Warnemünde, a small town/district of Rostock that's directly on the sea. The trip to Warnemünde was nice and a great way to see the harbor. I was amazed by all the huge ships. (Like this one!) Jochen, apparently jaded by trips to Hamburg, was not so impressed (and having recently traveled to Hamburg, I have to say I agree). We were both really glad for the sunshine, because otherwise sitting on the upper deck of the boat would have been really, really cold.

Warnemünde is basically a train station, a street full of touristy shops and restaurants along a canal, and the beach. The town is cute, but there's not much to do there. The main reason to go to Warnemünde is the Baltic Sea. So after a stop for coffee to warm us up, we headed for a walk along the shore. I was in Warnemünde with LBSU in August and despite some not so warm weather, we jumped right in. This time it was definitely too cold for any thoughts of swimming, but it was still a beautiful day to wander around. I was a fan of the Strandkörber (beach baskets? I have never seen these in the States, so I honestly have no idea what we call them)

that you can see in large numbers in the above view of Warnemünde from the beach. They are fun and colorful and a pretty iconic image of the Baltic Sea. To the left is a close-up of a "beach basket" with seagull. Not surprisingly there are also an awful lot of seagulls on the beach.

One of the main things to do on the beach in October is fly kites. Jochen liked to fly kites as a kid, so before we left Berlin, we bought one to bring along. Since Jochen is a rather experienced kite flyer, a traditional one-line kite was too boring and we decided to get a two-liner. It's a really pretty kite and we were excited about flying it. Unfortunately, there was next to no wind. Jochen managed to get our kite to fly for a few minutes by running backwards a lot. I had never flown a two-liner before and was pretty much hopeless. After the kite flying misadventure it was late afternoon. We decided to skip the boat back to Rostock in favor of watching the sunset on the beach. In my opinion, it was well worth sticking around an extra couple of hours. The sunset was beautiful - pictures don't do it justice - and the sea was so peaceful. Once the sun had set, we took the train back to Rostock for dinner and another evening of relaxation at our awesome hotel.

We were really lucky with the beautiful weather on Friday, because Saturday was another gray, rainy, miserable day. We hid out in the hotel for most of the morning, making a couple of quick stops in Rostock before heading to the train station in the early afternoon. An uneventful three-hour train ride later, we were back in Berlin.

2008-11-09T11:15:00.000+01:00

I voted for president..... And the person I voted for won!!!

Since Tuesday, I've been trying to process what this election means to me and I don't even know where to begin. Of course, it means that Bush and the Republicans will be out of the White House and that in itself is reason to celebrate. But Obama's win means so much more than that. For the first time in a presidential election, there was a candidate who truly inspired me. Obama gained my vote because I believe in him and his ability to bring out the best in the American people, not simply because he is better than the alternative. His election gives me hope about the direction our country is headed, and allows me, for the first time in a long time, to feel proud to be an American. (Yes we can elect someone of intelligence to the highest office in the land!) I am not so naive as to believe that change will happen overnight. In fact, I am hesitant to believe that Obama himself will be able to bring much change at all. Instead, what gives me hope are the millions of people who came out to support Obama and make his election possible. Obama's campaign was remarkable in its ablity to mobilize a large section of the electorate. His win was notable not only in the new demographics he brought to the polls, but also in his ability to win in states, where four years ago Democrats didn't have a chance. The question is what these people will do now that the election is over. My dad wrote me on Wednesday and sent me something I wrote shortly after the last election. It's strange to read it now and remember how I felt then, compared to how I feel now. Though I'm clearly much happier with the results of this election, I still believe much of what I wrote holds true.

I spent 12 hours knocking on doors all over Minneapolis yesterday. It was the last in a series of long days this past week where my time was split between work and volunteering for the DFL. I have never been active in a campaign before and at first was a bit reluctant to give up so much of my time. But as I considered the implications of this election, I felt that I could not, in good conscience, watch from the sidelines.

Spending much of the past year in Austria has certainly colored my perceptions on politics and on American life in general. Since my return to the U.S., I’ve thought a lot about my place in this country and whether I even still belong here. I can’t tell you the number of times in the past months when I’ve thought I should give it all up and make Austria my permanent home. But as the election drew closer and I finally started taking part in the campaign, I realized that I was involved because this country is worth fighting for. The U.S. has made enormous mistakes, but it also has enormous promise and is home to many of the most amazing people I know-namely all of you. How could I give up on something as wonderful as that without a fight?

Those of you who were out on Election Day and in the days prior know it was an incredible experience. The number of people who turned out to volunteer in Minneapolis was overwhelming and the energy and optimism I felt as I talked with other volunteers and people in the neighborhoods was more than I have felt in a very long time. People cared and they worked to do something about it. When I finally headed home, hungry and exhausted, I was certain there was no way we could lose this election.

And then the results came in. I went from nervousness, to disbelief, to anger, to despair. How on earth could this be happening again? As I drove home in tears at 2 am, I was inclined to quit my job, pack my bags, and be on a plane to Austria before George Bush had a chance to give his smug acceptance speech. I couldn’t imagine dealing with four more years of arrogance and incompetence and even worse, I couldn’t see how I could live in a country where more than half of the population so resolutely sticks its head in the sand as we race towards impending disaster.

When I woke up this morning after four hours of fitful sleep, I didn’t get on a plane, I went to work. I drank a lot of coffee and I talked with people. As we shared our frustrations and fears, I realized this country is still worth fighting for and despite today’s outcome, we have the means to fight for it. Think of the time, money, and resources devoted to this election. Now imagine if that effort were applied to changing the direction of this country on a grassroots level. We could fight George Bush every step of the way and in fact we have no other choice. We are looking at four more years of delusional foreign and domestic policies; of screwing the poor to pad the pockets of the rich; of declaring war just because we can. We are facing constitutional amendments to restrict human rights and challenges to a woman’s right to choose; the collapse of social security and the institution of a draft. We must act now because if we wait for the 2008 election, there maybe nothing left to fight for.

This entire election season I have felt that the country was teetering on the edge. Yesterday we took a giant step in the wrong direction and the impact still feels crushing. But I need to cling to the optimism I felt yesterday. I need to believe that with a determined effort, we can begin taking small steps back in the right direction. I urge you all to use your skills and your passions to help those who will be most hurt by this election. Get involved with organizations you believe in. Pay attention to politics and speak out again and again. We may not be able to change this country from the top down, but we can do it from the ground up.

I may still move to Austria, but if I do, I want to move because I choose to, not because I have to.

The more time I spend abroad, the more I am inspired to reflect on my country. One of the things I find most inspiring about Americans is our optimism. I saw then, despite the dismal results of 2004, and I see it now. I see it in individuals - a friend in Chicago who ran as a Green Party candidate against the Chicago machine and managed to get 20% of the vote, my brother, who is thinking about leaving his job to join the PeaceCorps because he wants to make the world a better place - and now I see it on a national level. If we place all our hope in Obama and assume he can change the country from the top down, we will be disappointed. But if we harness our optimism and each work in our own ways to make this country a better place, well, yes we can!

2008-11-02T19:13:00.004+01:00

Festival of Lights

It's been awhile since I've posted. Sorry. The start of the semester had me running in all directions at once and left me pretty exhausted. I'm settling in now and everything is going much more smoothly. I'll write about it soon, but not tonight. Tonight I thought I would post some pictures from the past week. Jochen had a week of vacation and arrived in Berlin last Sunday. Last Sunday happened to be the last day of Berlin's Festival of Lights, which basically means that all the famous buildings in the city are lit up in bright colors. Not actually all that exciting, but a good excuse to explore the city at night, which is exactly what we did.

This is the Schauspielhaus on the Gendarmenmarkt. Though the name means theater, I learned in my Russian class last week that the building now serves as a concert hall. My inability to state in Russian "That is a concert hall. There it is possible to hear music" prompted my Russian teacher to ask me where I was from.

This is the Deutscher Dom (German Cathedral), also on the Gendarmenmarkt. I was here with Linda and two of her friends earlier in the week and we decided that the old light fixtures were more exciting then the colored lights that we were there to see.

The first time I was in Berlin, I never got to see the Brandenburg Gate because it was being restored and was covered by a cell phone ad. Here it is rather blurry and bathed in colorful light.

This is the Holocaust Memorial. It is a large field of concrete blocks of varying height. There is enough space between the blocks for people to walk single file through them. I've been there a number of times during the day. It was clearly not lit up and it was very strange to walk through at night.

Potsdamer Platz is often critiqued as a soulless development that loses the history of the space (the Berlin Wall ran directly through the site). Though I agree with much of the critique, I have to say that the space looks pretty cool. Especially when it's lit up in neon lights.

2008-10-10T13:34:00.000+02:00

Barack the Vote

I voted today!!!! I was so worried that my ballot wouldn't come and I would have to book an extremely expensive flight back to Minneapolis just to vote in this election. Because I don't think I could live with myself if I didn't vote this year. But my ballot showed up and I have plenty of time to mail it in and I just have to hope that it is actually counted. Sigh. I wish that weren't a legitimate worry. It's so strange to be out of the country during an election year. In 2004 I made phone calls, knocked on doors, and stood on a pedestrian bridge over 35-W in the cold for hours waving a Kerry-Edwards sign. I wasn't actually a huge fan of John Kerry, but he was just so much better than the alternative. As important as I felt that election was, I think this one is even more critical and it's really hard not to do more than cheer from afar. I'm sure most people in the States are ridiculously sick of election news, but now that I finally have internet, I can't seem to get enough of it. I wish I could be there to share in the excitement of the country perhaps, possibly, maybe, (I'm afraid to be too optimistic) heading in a new direction. So for anyone reading this from back home knock on some doors, donate $, stand on a bridge waving signs like a maniac and please, please, please VOTE!!!!

Above picture was taken at a time when I didn't have to cheer from afar.

2008-10-08T11:10:00.001+02:00

Home Away from Home

On Monday I posted pictures from my home in Berlin. When I'm not in Berlin, I'm usually in Stuttgart at Jochen's, which over the past two years has become my home away from home. I say Stuttgart, because it's the nearest big city and most Germans won't know town where Jochen lives. He is doing an apprenticeship at Tennental, which is a community for developmentally disabled adults near Deckenpfronn. The next S-Bahn station is about a 30 min. bike ride away and then it's a 30 min. S-Bahn ride into Stuttgart. It's not the most exciting place to live, but it is peaceful and the area is beautiful and I've never seen so many stars at night.

As I mentioned in my last post, Jochen has a crazy work schedule, so we don't get to spend so much time together, but occasionally he has an evening off and we can cook together. Since I have so much time, I get all domestic and try to make something exciting. (Once I made ravioli from scratch.) This evening we had blue cheese fondue with salad (Jochen made the salad) and we were quite pleased with ourselves.

Jochen has a great balcony, especially when the weather is nice. He kindly let me fill it with some flowers and lots of tomato plants. This picture was taken in June, now the balcony is full of green and the tomatoes are slowly turning red.

The area is beautiful - a combination of woods and fields with bike paths and rarely traveled roads aplenty. It's a great place to be outdoors and biking is a great way to explore the area. As Jochen will tell you, I'm not a big fan of biking, but I'm trying to get over my aversion. During my last visit I willingly went on a day long bike trip and actually kind of enjoyed it. This picture was taken on the return trip - that's Tennental in the distance.

Sunset is perhaps my favorite time of the day there. This is a picture of Decken-pfronn (the nearest town) taken from in front of Jochen's door.

2008-10-06T19:07:00.001+02:00

Home Sweet Home

Leah sent me a note today requesting that I start updating my blog more often. She's right, of course, I've been a terrible blogger and I'm amazed that anyone is still reading this. But I've never been able to turn down a Leah-request, so here goes. The past months have been a bit crazy. I finished my summer program at the end of August and spent about a week moving into and getting settled in my new apartment and getting a visa (a story for another time) before heading to Stuttgart to be with Jochen. I was there for about a month, which gave me lots of time to read, relax, and reflect - something that is good if occasionally difficult for me. When Jochen wasn't working, which sadly wasn't very often, we enjoyed spending time together - cooking, shopping, watching movies, etc. Nothing terribly exciting, but nice.

I came back to Berlin a week ago. Since trains are expensive and I am cheap, I found a car pool and rode back with a woman who works in Berlin during the week and commutes to Switzerland on the weekends to do slow motion for soccer games (true story). It was an interesting trip, but the highlight was that both she and her sister (whom I met when we made a stop in her home town) thought that I was a native German speaker. Yippee!!! Perhaps I don't stick out quite as much as I sometimes think.

The past week has been spent trying to track people down at the University and figure out what I will be doing this coming semester. I am now successfully enrolled as a student, have a pass that allows me to ride on public transportation for the entire semester (very important) and I've opened a bank account. Unfortunately, I've thus far failed to find anyone who can tell me where, when, and what I'm supposed to be teaching this semester. Classes start a week from today - it should be interesting.

Enough catching up for now, the original idea of this post was to post some pictures of my new apartment. I live in Wilmersdorf (in the south west) with my friend Linda. Linda is a student at the Free University in Berlin and spent last year as an exchange student at the U of MN. We both taught at 8 am second semester (5 days a week) and it was a good bonding experience. When she found out I would be in Berlin this year, she offered that we could live together and found us a fabulous apartment.

This is my room. Note that after a number of trips to Ikea, I actually have furniture! I also have curtains - hand-sewn while I was in Stuttgart (yeah, that's how much time I had), but according to our lease, we're not allowed to drill holes in our walls after 8 pm or on Sundays and Linda and I have not managed to both be at the apartment during the permitted drilling hours recently. So no curtain rod and thus no curtains.

Our kitchen is still a work in progress. In Germany, apartments don't always come with built-in kitchens, so when we started, this was an empty room with a stove and a sink. There's still a ways to go, but it's looking much better. And it's nice to have so much space. The room is a little bit dark, but check out the ivy on the windows. It makes me happy.

The balcony is what made me fall in love with this apartment. Granted the weather has been terrible, so I haven't spent any time there yet, but the view is so lovely. Our building is located between two parks and from our windows (and especially from the balcony) almost all you can see are trees. It's like living in a forest in the middle of a city.

I think that's it for now. I promise to try to post more pictures and more often. Now that I have internet in my apartment, it should be easier. Bis bald!

2008-07-26T01:47:00.000+02:00

Berlin Birthday

It's nearly two in the morning and I need to get up in about 5 hours to look at an apartment, but I want to post quickly while I still feel inspired and before I forget the amazingness of today (ok, technically yesterday). I haven't posted in a really long time, so the few people who still read this blog may not know that I arrived in Berlin two weeks ago for the Leo Baeck Summer University in Jewish Studies. Two weeks is not a terribly long time to get to know people, so I didn't expect much in the way of birthday celebration. Boy was I wrong. I woke up this morning to a lunch box full of really good cheese and a happy birthday note from my roommates. (A lunch box full of cheese may seem like a strange gift, but if you lived in our apartment, you would understand.) Our class started an hour late, so I met a friend for a quick run, which is really the best way to start any day. During the break in our morning class, the program organizer brought me a muffin and movie tickets and everyone in the classroom (about 30 people) stood up and sang happy birthday. On Fridays we don't have afternoon sessions, so once the morning session finished, I headed home to find a wonderful card from my family. Then I had a lovely phone chat with Jochen before finishing up a short paper. Once the paper was in, one of my roommates and I went to the Turkish market to buy groceries for the Shabbat dinner/birthday party that we hosted in our apartment tonight. The food was incredible. It was a potluck and everyone brought something delicious. I was also overwhelmed by the number of people who came bearing gifts. I received an Ikea gift card (oh so helpful when you plan to move into an apartment without furniture) from Linda, who rode the train for an hour to come to a party full of people she didn't know. People on my program brought me chocolate, bottles of wine, and an absolutely gorgeous bouquet of flowers. I was sung to in Hebrew, German, Polish, and Romanian. The Poles sang so loudly and with such enthusiasm that the neighbors from across the street yelled out their window to complain (oops). One of the girls on my program, who, again, I've only known for two weeks, told me she was very glad I had been born - such a wonderful compliment. After things wrapped up, Jochen called again. (Two years ago he helped me celebrate another one of these birthdays abroad and we have been together ever since - yet another thing I am very grateful for today.) As if this was not enough, I then checked my email and facebook and received many wonderful greetings from friends and family around the world. I feel lucky, loved, and thankful for all of the wonderful people I am so privileged to have in my life.

2008-06-23T16:39:00.000+02:00

Clearly, as it's been more than a month since my last post, I am off to an auspicious start. Sigh. What's that they say about good intentions? Anyway, though I don't currently have any pictures to share, I thought I'd at least share that I've arrived. I've actually been in Germany for almost two weeks now. I arrived on the 10th in Berlin, where Linda kindly picked me up at the airport. Despite my jet-lag I made it through two apartment visits on Tuesday afternoon before collapsing into bed. Wednesday involved another apartment visit before Linda flew off to visit friends in Bonn. I spent the next two days with her parents, who are fantastically nice and were willing to house and feed me despite the fact that they'd only just met me. That Thursday I met Alison (another student from the U and my predecessor on the exchange) who showed me around the University and told me what exactly I will be doing come fall. It was the first real information I'd gotten about my program and it's nice to have some idea about what's coming up. (Thanks Alison!) Thursday night I watched Germany lose to Croatia in the European Championships (everytime I'm here it seems that the Germans are soccer crazy). It was sad, but not too sad, because Germany won their next two games and have now made it to the quarter-finals. Friday morning I got up extremely early and flew to Stuttgart. Jochen was in a seminar, so I found my way to his apartment and arrived about an hour before he came home. He managed to get both that afternoon and evening and the following morning off from work (quite an accomplishment if you're aware of his current work situation) and we had some time to spend together. Since then, he's been back to his normal work schedule (7 am to 9pm 6 days a week) and I've been hanging around Tennental. I haven't done anything terribly exciting, but after the stress of the past semester and the exhaustion of so much traveling, I've just been glad to have some time to relax. I've been reading a lot, both in preparation for my summer course and also just for fun. Reading for fun! Yippee! Yesterday I got out of the boondocks for awhile and met Nicole in Stuttgart to go to Marbach and the Literature Museum there. I had been there last summer, but it was fun to revisit and also fun to spend time with Nicole in Germany. We spent the day wandering around Marbach and returned to Stuttgart in the evening to meet friends of hers for a drink. Unfortunately I had to cut things short so that I could make the half hour train ride and the half hour bike ride home before dark. Still it was a lovely day. I will try to post again soon and will hopefully remember to bring pictures then. Bis dann!

2008-05-19T18:40:00.000+02:00

Traveling again

Another summer, more travels, and so, time to revive the blog. I would promise that I will do better with posting this summer, but experience has shown that that is unlikely to be true. As my doctor here told me the other day though, I shouldn't get mono twice, so that excuse, at least, should be out the window. On to travelling.... I am doing so much of it this summer that it kind of makes my head spin. I'll start with the rough itinerary. Check back in a couple of weeks and I should have some posts about the actual travels.

Trips planned:

San Francisco
I am leaving this evening. Linda (a friend from Berlin and my future roommate) and Adrienne (a friend from the U) and I decided that we should celebrate the end of the school year. We'll be in the city for two days and then we are renting a car and driving to Yosemite for a night of camping. I have never been to California before, so I'm really excited.

Berlin
Once I return from San Francisco, I'll have about two weeks to pack up all my worldly possessions and move them to Wisconsin before catching a flight to Berlin on June 9th. (For those of you who don't already know, I'll be studying at the Humboldt University in Berlin next year.) I will be in Berlin for all of three days. I'll have two days to apartment hunt with Linda before she leaves for Cologne. Then I'll have a day to head over to the university to try to get the paperwork for my visa set up. Early morning on Friday the 13th, I fly from Berlin to Stuttgart. Wish me luck.

Stuttgart
I'll be in Stuttgart for about a month visiting Jochen. I can't wait to see him again. Unfortunately, he has vacation right now, so he won't have any time off while I'm there. I'm looking forward to lazy days with a book on the balcony and a chance to finally catch up on sleep.

Back to Berlin
I'll be back to Berlin in mid-July for the Leo Baeck Summer University in Jewish Studies. It's a six week intensive summer program and I am so excited about it. Check it out at www.lbsu.de.

Potential travels:

Russia
This is the big one. After two years of Russian at the U of M, I've decided it's time to see just how little I know. When I finish up the Leo Baeck program in August, I will have about 6 weeks before the semester starts at the Humboldt University. I'm contemplating a trip to Russia. Eric, who is getting ready for a year abroad in Muenster, will be in Germany at that time as well, and amazingly, all the travel mishaps we had while in Austria have not deterred him from travelling with me. If I managed to lose him for about 24 hrs during a trip from Chicago to Italy, just imagine the sorts of travel adventures to be had in Russia. Actual travel plans are vague at best. We'd like to check out Moscow and Petersburg. There's is also talk of taking the train from Berlin to Moscow via Warsaw, Kaunas, Lithuania, and Riga, Latvia and making quick stops in each of those cities along the way. I am up for most anything and will defer to Eric's better judgement and superior Russian skills. Of course all of this is dependent on many things including the German government granting me a visa and thus there's a decent possibility that none of this will happen.

So I've got a lot going on. It's all pretty exciting and a bit overwhelming. Check back in a few weeks and maybe I'll actually have some pictures and stories posted.

2007-06-11T17:08:00.001+02:00

Berlin (finally)!
So I've been here for about a week and a half and everything is great. My host family is super nice, school is going well, and I'm slowly starting to get to know my way around the city. I only work 20 hours a week, so generally I am in school in the mornings and have the afternoons free. It's a pretty good deal. Most afternoons I take the subway downtown and wander around until I'm too tired to walk anymore. I like to walk, so it usually takes awhile and I get to see a lot of things I wouldn't otherwise see. I really think that walking is the best way to get to know a city. Apparently this is not typical. When I tell my host family how I spent my afternoon they generally respond with "What? You walked from Prenzlauerberg to Alexander Platz?! How long did that take you?" And then they offer me ice cream. Last week, Carmen (my host mother) kindly took me on a mini tour of downtown Berlin. Among other things, we saw the Brandenburger Tor which was happily not covered with a T-mobile ad. (The only other time I was in Berlin, it was under construction and completely covered in advertising.) We also walked past the Reichstag, the Gedächtniskirche, and checked out KaDeWe (a really big department store). On Friday, I met a couple of the other Americans on the program at the Deutsches Theater Kammerspiele to see Dürrenmatt's play "Die Physiker." Our experience buying tickets was quite bizarre. Andrew bought his ticket and Beth was about to buy hers when the guy at the ticket window said that was the last ticket. Beth hesitated a moment while we tried to decide what we should do and a guy from the theater came up and more or less demanded that she buy the ticket. After she did, he took the ticket from her and, without any explanation, sold it to the guy behind us in line. Then he told us each to give him five euros and he disappeared into a little room. He came back with 3 tickets for admittance and we got to sit in a small room next to the spotlights. The seats were great and only cost half of the student price. And the show was fabulous. Dürrenmatt makes me happy. On the weekend (or at the weekend if you are learning British English) my host family and another host family took a day trip to Potsdam (more or less a suburb of Berlin). We spent the afternoon wandering through the beautiful gardens around the Sans Souci castle. It was rather absurdly hot but otherwise a gorgeous day and it was nice to get outside and enjoy the sunshine. This Tuesday I sat in on a seminar for future German teachers. One of the teachers at our school runs the seminar and asked if I would like to come. They were learning about using poetry in the classroom and more or less had a workshop in which they wrote 15 different kinds of poems, all about Berlin. Afterwards they discussed how they could use the activities in the classroom. I was expected to participate, so I got to try my hand at writing poetry in a foreign language about a city that I've lived in for less than two weeks. It was hard, but still kind of fun. The seminar was in Prenzlauerberg (apparently the new hip district in Berlin) so afterwards I wandered around for a few hours and checked out all the trendy boutiques and such. The lesson of the day: I am too poor/stingy to shop at trendy boutiques. Wednesday after school I met one of the other Americans on the program and (surprise!) we wandered around downtown. Among other sights, we went to the Berliner Dom. It is huge and beautiful and if you pay 3 euros you can go inside. I thought that this was a little ridiculous, but we did it anyway. As it turned out, the 3 euros also included entrance into a museum about the building of the cathedral, a crypt, and allowed us to climb lots of stairs to the dome, where we had a great view of the city.

2007-06-06T13:56:00.000+02:00

More pictures!

This time from Switzerland. (I will eventually get to Berlin, I promise.) Jochen had vacation my second week here and we found a super-cheap ICE train ticket to Zürich. (ICE trains are the best.) So we headed off for a week of camping on the Zürichsee. The lake is beautiful and we had an amazing view of the mountains. The first night we were there it was even warm enough to swim. Unfortunately, it turned cold and rainy for much of the rest of the week and we spent considerable time hiding out in the tent. The sun did come out a few times and we managed to venture into the city. In an effort to save money (as it turned out, the train ticket was the only part of our trip that was cheap), we generally walked the half an hour from our campsite to the city. Most of the route was along the lake with lots of parks and trees. We both agreed that Zürich definitely has the best trees and proceeded to take numerous ridiculous photos of each other trying to climb them. Digital cameras are a wonderful form of cheap entertainment (assuming, of course, that you already own the camera). The city is quite pretty with lots of cool clock towers and such. Mostly we just wandered around taking in the sights which, fortunately, were also free. Then it was back to Germany where we celebrated Jochen's birthday and then I caught a night train to Berlin.

2007-06-05T16:13:00.000+02:00

As promised - pictures!

The first round is from a day trip I took to Marbach during my first week at Tennental. Schiller was born in Marbach and in addition to a imposing looking Schiller Museum (closed until 2009 in preparation for the Schiller Year), Marbach is home to the German National Literature Archive. It is also, happily, easily accessible from Stuttgart via S-Bahn. The town itself is riduculously cute - more or less straight out of a fairy tale. I wandered around for awhile looking for Snow White and instead eventually found my way to the hill above the town where the museums/archives are. As I wasn't looking for anything specific at the archive, I just wandered in and looked around. Most of the exciting things (i.e. things that aren't generally available at bookstores or on Amazon) are locked away somewhere, but it was cool just to be there. In connection with the archive is the Museum of Modern Literature. I spent quite some time looking at various and sundry items such as a fork that Kafka used, a handwritten draft of Rilke's "Das Karussell," letters from Ingeborg Bachmann and pictures of Arthur Schnitzler and family. I think the fact that I found all of this rather interesting makes me an official literature geek.

2007-06-02T19:29:00.000+02:00

Heading to Berlin....
After a lovely two weeks of vacation, I am almost on my way to Karlsruhe, where I get to sit for a couple of hours before catching my 11pm train to Berlin. If all goes well, I'll arrive tomorrow morning and my host-mother will be waiting for me at the train station. I'm excited to get to know the family, the students, and Berlin. Jochen and I spent the past week camping in Zürich. We actually managed to bring a tent this time, which was good, because it was about 55 degrees and raining for most of the week. Aside from the cold (we started out with only one sleeping bag and a couple of blankets, but ended up buying another sleeping bag) and the hard ground (we did not manage to come up with any sleeping mats) things were quite nice. We found a place to camp right on Lake Zürich. The lake was beautiful and on the one day it was warm enough to swim, the swimming was great. There was also an amazing view of the mountains. Zürich is a nice city, though rather absurdly expensive. When the weather was good, we were quite happy just hanging out on the lake. We generally opted for gas station/supermarket fare, but splurged on a nice meal our last night there. I had Rösti (a Swiss hashbrown) with tomatoes and what must have been an entire block of melted cheese on top. My New Glarus pseudo-Swiss upbringing now feels somewhat validated. I have lots of great pictures, which hopefully I will be able to post from Berlin. Bis dann....

2007-05-21T13:17:00.000+02:00

I'm in Germany! I arrived on Friday after two uneventful flights and have spent the past couple of days hanging out with Jochen and trying to adjust to the time change. It's great to be back and nice to have some idea where I am this time around. Once again, I managed to arrive here just in time for some soccer craziness. On Saturday, Stuttgart won the German national soccer championship. Jochen and I weren't at the game, but we took the train into Stuttgart afterwards to catch some of the celebration. There were so many people on the streets we could barely move. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. We grabbed something to eat, hung out in a park for awhile, and then fought our way through the crowd on the Schloßplatz to hear Die Fantastischen Vier who gave a free concert in celebration of the team. It was lots of fun until we had to take the train home. I don't think I've ever been packed quite so tightly into a train. And, of course, the two guys next to us were extremely drunk and talking about how they had to throw up. But they didn't, so all was well. Yesterday, Jochen had the day off. We spent some time trying to plan our vacation for next week and found tickets to Zürich for 19€. We'll head there this weekend and plan to spend the week camping on the Züricher See. After travel planning, we went for a bike ride and then sat out in the sun all afternoon. The weather was beautiful. Today Jochen had to work. I slept in and then took the train into Stuttgart. I've just been bumming around the city and may head to Marbach later this afternoon to check out the German National Literature Archive. We'll see. I guess that's it for now. Tschüß!

2007-05-16T05:01:00.000+02:00

Traveling again

I've survived my first year of graduate school and to celebrate, in less than 48 hours I'll be on my way to Germany. I'm flying into Stuttgart and will spend the first week with Jochen at Tennental. Then he has a week of vacation and we're going to do a little traveling (Switzerland? Dresden? Camping on the Bodensee?) before I head to Berlin at the beginning of June. I'll be in Berlin for a month living with a family and teaching at an elementary school. Then I'll take the train back to Stuttgart to spend a few more days with Jochen before flying back to the States on July 5th. I am super-excited and will try to do a better job of posting updates than I did last summer. In the meantime, I should probably get back to packing.

2007-04-23T17:58:00.001+02:00

Inspired by a friend's blog which includes an ode vegetables and numerous adorable pictures of her cats, I've decided to post some Lilly haikus that my roommates and I wrote last winter. Key to understanding these poems is the fact that we are always giving Lilly jobs to do, such as writing papers and fixing things in our apartment that have broken. She rarely does them. We also occasionally refer to her as a pinto bean, because she is small and pinto looking. Oh, and during the last Olympics we decided she should compete in the luge.

Fix the dishwasher!
Little pinto bean says "Squeak!"
Dirty dishes wait.

New toy, must kill it.
Kill it, kill it, kill it now!
Clumsy, but vicious.

Thirteen pages left.
Why won't Lilly write papers?
Good-for-nothing cat.

Lilly in the luge.
"Don't send me to Austria!"
Push cat down hill: "Squeeeaak!"

I should probably mention the final inspiration for this post, namely a desire to avoid writing the paper I am working on. Sigh. The good news, which actually does relate to the general theme of this blog is that when I finish the semester, I am leaving for Germany again. Only 22 more days....

2007-03-04T04:45:00.000+01:00

SNOW!!!
So far, I've pretty much reserved my blog for pictures and tales of my travels, because, quite honestly, my life is not very interesting. But every once in awhile something exciting happens. Like today: It did not snow.

In the age of global warming, this does not seem like it should be an unusual or particularly exciting event. However in the past week, Minnesota has received more snow than it received in the rest of the winter combined. In fact, we probably got more snow than in the last few winters combined. All told, it has snowed 22 inches in Minneapolis since last Saturday. This makes us relatively lucky. (Duluth, for example, got 20 inches just in the last storm to pass through and also had 65 mph winds.) The U of M even closed on Thursday for the first time in 16 years.

Here's my car after snowstorm #1. We only got about 9" of snow in that round, but after the snowplows came through and piled the snow around my car, it still took about 45 minutes to dig out.

Nicole and I had fun making snow angels and a snowman, having snowball fights, and in general pretending that we were seven.

Lilly checked out the snow on our balcony and decided that the life of an indoor cat is not half bad.

Snowstorm #1 was all good fun, but 2 days later it started snowing again. After 12+ inches of additional snow, even our snowman was overwhelmed.

Lilly was unsure of venturing out into the great outdoors, but she was curious if the snow was taller than she is.

Having determined that it was, she happily went back indoors.

2007-01-18T03:55:00.000+01:00

New Year's Travels

So there has been a request that I revive my blog and post some photos from my recent trip. Here goes:

This is a picture of Tennental taken from Jochen's window on the morning that we left for Austria. The houses are huge - even bigger than the ones at Lehenhof. About 20 people live in his house and I got to meet almost all of them as soon as I arrived - i.e. when I was still very jet-lagged. I was at Tennental for about 10 days, hanging out with people in the house and playing many, many games of Monopoly and Settlers of Cataan.

On Jan. 7th, we drove to Styria to go skiing. Jochen even let me drive. The Autobahn is fun and driving 100 mph in a Clio (think Geo Metro and then shrink it down a bit more) is definitely an experience. On the way we stopped in Salzburg. This was taken on our walk up to the castle.

This is taken from the balcony of our bed and breakfast in Tauplitz, where we skied for three days. The bed and breakfast was run by a sweet middle-aged Austrian woman who could not believe that I was American. "Are you really an American? Like from America?" The location was perfect - about 100 meters from the lift. The weather in the valley was nearly always gray and very foggy. But....

About halfway up the mountain we came out of the fog....

And at the top of the mountain it was absolutely gorgeous

Here I am on skis. I was a bit nervous about skiing on actual mountains, but it was so much fun. Jochen claimed I was far better at it than he had expected. On our last day there, I even managed to ski a black diamond without falling. Nevertheless, Jochen skied circles around me. Literally. While I slowly wound my way down the mountain, he was spinning around, doing jumps, and skiing backwards. Apparently this is not a big deal when you learn to ski when you are five instead of 25.

Here we are in the sunshine at the top of the mountain. On our last day, it was so warm that Jochen skied in a sweater. I wasn't quite that bold, but I did leave my hat and the outer-lining of my jacket at the B&B

After three days of skiing, we headed to Vienna for a couple of days. (Since most of you have been subjected to my pictures of Vienna on at least one occassion, I will spare you this time.) We had a blast. Jochen had never been there before, so for once, I got to play the tour guide and show him around. We revisited many of my old haunts, stood through an opera (The Marriage of Figaro) and went to just about every bookstore in the 6th-9th districts looking for books for one of my classes this semester. The weather was gorgeous - about 60 degrees and we even saw roses in bloom. Crazy. On Saturday, we headed back to Stuttgart, making a quick stop in Loosdorf to visit my friend Martina. On Sunday I flew back to Minneapolis. And on Tuesday I started classes again, a bit jet-lagged, but with very fond memories of a really awesome trip.

2006-09-05T02:59:00.000+02:00

Evenings on the Illmensee

The first three weeks I was at Lehenhof, the weather was sunny, warm, and beautiful. Many nights we packed a picnic and went to the Illmensee for an evening of swimming and relaxation. The villagers that lived in my house are all quite reliable and could be left more or less to their own devices while the other co-workers and I went for a swim. One night, H. and I decided to see if we could swim all the way across the lake. Somewhere around the middle, we realized that if we kept swimming, we might make it, but we would also need to swim back. We turned around, but agreed that we could have done it had there been a boat waiting for us on the other side. When we were thinking, we also brought a ball to play soccer or volleyball. A. and I made a pretty good team. One night we forgot to bring anything along, so A. suggested we try to play frisbee with his hat. After a bit of practice, it went far better than you'd think. Our crowning moment was when I managed to catch our "frisbee" on my head. Unfortunately I don't have a picture.

2006-09-05T02:41:00.000+02:00

(Top)Walking down the hill toward Lehenhof
(Bottom) View of the Bodensee from Lehenhof

Camphill Lehenhof is located outside of Deggenhausertal, which is outside of Markdorf, which is a ways away from Friedrichshafen, which is the only relatively nearby town that people who are familiar with Germany might have heard of. I didn't even actually live on the Lehenhof, but rather on the Lindenhof, which is even smaller and farther up the hill. There were 5 houses there and a barn and some cows and that was pretty much it. To leave Camphill, I had to walk 30 minutes to the nearest bus stop. The buses only ran about 5 times a day, so it took some planning. And the last bus returned at 7 pm. To call it isolated is a bit of an understatement.

The upside to all of this was that the area around Lehenhof is unbelievably beautiful. Large hills, lots of trees, amazing views of the Bodensee (Lake Constance), and at night, more stars than I have ever seen. The landscape took my breath away and it was so peaceful. There was one road between Lehenhof and Lindenhof and it was basically only used by people from Camphill. Aside from when the villagers were being transported to and from their workshops, there was rarely a car to be seen or heard near my house. A welcome change from life in Minneapolis.

2006-09-04T22:13:00.000+02:00

Das Ulmenhaus

This is the house where I lived with the R. Family (2 parents and 4 sons) and 7 villagers. For someone from a family of four, 14 people is a lot have around the dinner table and it definitely took some adjusting. My day started at 7:15, when I met with all the villagers for morning circle. We all ate breakfast together and then it was off to the various workshops. As I was only there for a short time, it wasn't worth it to train me in at one of the workshops, so I worked in the house in the mornings, helping with cooking and cleaning. Unfortunately the house mother and I didn't get along overly well, but W., the woman who came to help each day was sweet and taught me how to curse in Swabian dialect. We often prepared meals for as many as 20 people and my lack of knowledge of how to make a basic sauce and my inability to prepare much of anything in that quantity apparently gave her plenty of reasons to curse. After lunch we all had a short and much needed break in which I rediscovered the beauty of a nap. Then I went off to work in the fields, weeding carrots and such for hours in 90+ degree heat. It doesn't sound all that appealing, but actually it was often my favorite part of the day. There is something very meditative about being outdoors and pulling weeds. It gave me some quiet time to process all of my new experiences. And if I ever got bored, there was S., telling endless stories about living on the farm and helping cows give birth in the middle of the night. After work, I helped W. prepare dinner. W. is a villager who is originally from Scotland and has only been learning German since she arrived at Lehenhof a few years ago. I have always thought that I speak really good Dinglish, but hers is amazing. We often spoke English to give her a break from trying so hard to make herself understood. It was the only English I spoke all summer. After dinner, we had evening circle. I read a story and a bible verse (yes, that's right. I read the bible.) and we talked about our days. The villagers went to bed around 9ish and then I was free for the evening.

2006-09-04T20:17:00.000+02:00

Wieder im Lande

I don't know if anyone is even still reading this. I was so terrible about writing during my time at Lehenhof, you've probably all given up on me. I really did try to keep posting, but the internet gods seemed to be conspiring against me. Once I even took the bus to the nearest larger town and when they didn't have an internet cafe, I spend half an hour signing up for a library card and then the internet was down the entire afternoon. Pech gehabt.

So how do I sum up six weeks of life at Lehenhof? You would think after a week of having everyone ask me how my summer was, I would have a ready answer. But all I ever seem to be able to say is, "It was good." A very lame statement that doesn't say much about anything and makes me feel boring besides. So how was my summer really? It was wonderful and difficult and completely different than I had imagined. I promised pictures, so perhaps the best way to go about this is to start posting them and sharing little stories as I go along.

2006-07-26T13:07:00.000+02:00

Am Lehenhof

My apologies for dropping off the face of the earth. I arrived at Camphill Lehenhof two weeks ago, but internet access here is sketchy at best and I haven´t had time to post. I have this afternoon free and had hoped to catch you all up a bit, but I am using the one computer in the office and someone else is waiting, so I need to keep this very short. Camphill is beautiful and difficult. I came looking for a challenge and certainly got one. From living in a house with 13 other people, to working with people with developmental disabilities, to driving a 9 passenger van up and down narrow, winding mountain roads, to speaking German all the time, and being on duty pretty much 24-7 (today is my first day off in two weeks). On the other hand, the landscape is amazing and peaceful and the work is fulfilling. If anyone cares to send me some mail, I would be thrilled. My address is:

Listenegg 6/4
88636 Illmensee
Germany

Thanks!

2006-07-11T20:17:00.000+02:00

Als waere ich nie weg...

I´ve been in Graz for nearly a week. At first it was a bit strange to be back, but now it feels like I never left. The Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium has been renamed UPC Arena (see link), but otherwise little has changed. For the most part, I´ve spent my time here visiting my favorite people and places from two years ago. I´ve made stops at many of my old haunts, but have unfortunately had little luck connecting with most of the teachers I worked with at the PÄDAK. I was invited to a party in Seckau at the home of the head of the English department, but then one of the other teachers got sick and the party was rescheduled for the fall. Schade. I´ve had plenty of time with Edith, who has been kind enough to let me stay in her apartment and I was invited to lunch and a World Cup party at Agnes´s. Visits with other teachers will have to wait until another time.

I have run into many of the personalities I often encountered in the streets and shops of Graz. The woman who lived in the house down the street from our apartment and used to chase us off the sidewalk with a broom, yelling things like,"Soup bowl!" and "Spies!" is still out and about, ringing her bike bell and whistling like a bird. The Egyptian deli owner, who used to sell me couscous and tofu, again told me that I had eyes like an angel and invited me up to his apartment for homemade Egyptian cake. (I politely declined.) When I went to the market to buy pumpkin seed oil, the same man had his booth in the same place and, as usual, he threw in some mediocre produce for free. It is somehow comforting to know that amidst all the change in the world, some things are always the same.

Today I took the train to Frohnleiten to meet with the members of an English class I used to teach there in the evenings. I had only managed to get in touch with one member of the group, but she got ahold of everyone else and we met for drinks at the restaurant where we used to have class. We had a great afternoon catching up. After two years, Anneliese´s new kitchen, which was supposed to be finished while I was in Graz, is finally done. She learned the term lemon and I learned what a Montagsauto bzw. Küche is. Maria has stopped teaching at the HTL-Gratwein and is greatly enjoying her freetime. Gert gave up the English course this past year to focus on Greek as he traveled to Greece this spring, but he found that he spoke more English there than Greek and has agreed to join the class again next fall. Michael continues to be very involved in politics and tried to convince everyone to vote for his party in the next election (this is also how he used to spend much of our class time). Hubert, at 83, still goes for walks twice a day and even runs occassionally. He is perhaps the world´s sweetest old man and I wish I could adopt him as my grandfather. Ulli unfortunately couldn´t make it, but apparently is doing well. (Mom, Dad and Per: They all send their greetings.)

On the way back to Frohnleiten, I stopped in Judendorf-Straßengel to visit a church that I had often seen from the train, but had never actually been inside. Since the next train didn´t come for nearly an hour and a half, I figured I would have plenty of time. As it turns out, the church is quite a bit farther away than it looks. Also, the reason you can see it so well from the train station is that it is on the top of a very big hill. Did I mention that it was about 90° in Graz today? Nevertheless, it was worth the hike. The church is a typical Austrian 18th century-ish church with a big gothic spire tacked on the back. It´s an unusual combination, but it has always kind of intrigued me. Apparently, the old church was going to be torn down in the 1780s and the stones were to be used to build a school, but the townspeople protested and convinced Josef II to save it (though presumably after part of the church had already been torn down). The inside is beautiful, especially the stained glass windows, many of which look like they came from the original church. (In many Austrian and German churches, especially in the big cities, the stained glass windows were lost during the war.) Also nice about this church was the lack of tourists. At 6 in the evening, I had the place more or less to myself. And amazingly, I even made it back to the train station in time to catch my train to Graz. All in all, a worthwhile stop.

Tonight I need to figure out how to fit all the things I´ve accumulated over the past week into my backpack and tomorrow I am off to Innsbruck.

2006-07-10T08:43:00.000+02:00

Wieder in Wien!

On July 4th, Martina and I took the train to Vienna, where her brother was kind enough to let us stay in his WG (basically a shared apartment). After much time spent exploring new places, it was nice to be somewhere where I know my way around. I kept hoping to run in to kathRyn or Eric or someone from my study abroad group, but of course everyone is schon längst zu Hause. (Come on guys, I´m in Vienna, why aren´t you?)

Mozart is 250 this year and Austria is nearly as obsessed with Mozart as the Germans are with soccer. That´s not actually true. The Germans are really, really obsessed with soccer. At any rate, you can´t go very far in Austria without seeing something about Mozart and Vienna has redone the Figarohaus (behind the Stephansdom for those of you who know Vienna) and turned it into a Mozart museum. Martina and I found a combination ticket, which let us see both the new Mozarthaus and the Haus der Musik. The Haus der Musik is really cool and interactive. We got to compose a waltz by rolling dice and also heard what a cow would sound like in a church. And I found out that I hear about as well as a grasshopper. There are also interesting exhibits on the major composers who lived in Vienna (Hadyn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, Mahler, Schönberg, Berg) . At the end, I got to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic. First I tried to conduct the Blue Danube waltz. In very short order, the computerized musicians told me my version was "entsetzlich"(awful) and asked if I had ever heard the song before. My second attempt with the Radetsky March was a bit better and though it was hardly beautiful, I managed to make it to the end. According to the computer, I can now say that I´ve successfully conducted the Vienna Philharmonic, though I think the musicians would strongly disagree with that statement. Good that I am going to grad school for German, not music. After the museums, we went back to the WG and arrived in time to watch the end of the semi-final game between Germany and Italy. Once again, the game was really close and really exciting, but this time Germany lost in overtime. Schade.

The following day, Martina had some errands to run and I was turned loose in the city. I had a nostalgic morning wandering around Vienna, revisting many of my favorite places. I walked around much of the ring, sat in the Volksgarten writing postcards, walked through the Naschmarkt, and even stopped by the Buchfeldgasse and the Alserheim (they are as dingy and dorm-looking as ever). Martina and I met for lunch at Centimeter, where we considered ordering the Schaufel Mischmasch (lit. a shovel of mishmash, which, as I recall does include pretty much everything under the sun and is actually served in a shovel, right Eric?), but instead opted for potato soup and Eierknockerl. Afterward, Martina dropped me off at the train station and I took off for Graz.

2006-07-07T20:58:00.000+02:00

Klein Schollach und Umgebung

My train arrived in St. Pölten the morning of July 1st. Martina (the Austrian native speaker from Macalester) was waiting for me at the train station and we drove back to her house in Klein Schollach, near Melk. Melk is famous for its beautiful abbey. When my dad was in the army in Germany, he rafted down the Danube to Vienna and made a special stop in Melk just to see it. After a number of days in a raft on the river, he apparently looked rather sketchy and they refused to let him in. I heard this story a number of times as a child (I think he´s still a bit bitter), so of course I had to go there. The abbey really is beautiful. The center point is an extravagant baroque church. Around the church is a museum that explains the history of the abbey and the Benedictine order and a Gymnasium (more or less an Austrian high school, though they aren´t entirely comparable) where Martina went to school. I can´t imagine going to school amidst so much grandeur, but according to Martina you get used to it.

The following day we drove through the Wachau - the area along the Danube between Melk and Krems. Picture tree-covered mountains, a winding river, and picturesque churches and castle ruins at every turn and you will have some idea of what the Wachau looks like. We stopped at Dürnstein to climb up to the castle ruins there and looking out over the landscape, I felt like I had stepped into a fairy tale. In Krems, we went to the Weinstadt Museum. It had everything under the sun, from modern art, to old wine bottles, to skeletons unearthed somewhere in or around the village. It was quite bizarre. Martina nearly had a heart attack when she walked inside a giant wine cask and it started singing. Krems recently celebrated its 1000 year anniversary and Martina and I agreed that the various exhibitions should be billed as "Everything we´ve managed to collect in the past 1000 years." Still, it was an amusing way to spend part of an afternoon.

The next morning, we went to a cool modern wine museum in Langenlois. There were no singing wine casks, but there were lots of interactive exhibits. In addition to learning lots about wine, we got to smell little bottles to see if we could identify all the scents in a Grüner Veltliner (we couldn´t), write our names in the loess (the soil where the grapes grow in that region), and press various buttons to make a music and light show to celebrate wine (hard to explain, but lots of fun). At the end we got to taste a Grüner Veltliner and it was perhaps the best wine I´ve ever had. A bottle cost 9€, which Martina thought was ridiculously expensive, but which seemed like a pretty good deal to me. Alas, there is no room in my backpack to drag bottles of wine across Europe.

In the afternoon, we drove to Grein, which is also on the Danube, but in the other direction. The landscape there is gorgeous as well. In Grein, we walked through the town center, checked out a church and walked up to the castle, which was closed. On the way back we drove up to another beautiful church for another amazing view of the Danube. As we neared Melk, there was a great view of the Melk Abbey and rather than slowing down and making me take a picture out the window as we drove by (which I offered to do), Martina was nice enough to turn around and stop a couple of times until we found the perfect spot for a picture. (And if I ever figure out how to upload photos, I will post it here.) Near Klein Schollach, we stopped at another castle, the Schallaburg (seriously, they are everywhere) and then we headed home for the evening. The next morning it was on to Vienna.

2006-07-06T18:15:00.000+02:00

Und es geht weiter nach Frankfurt.....

After a short and pleasant flight, I arrived in Frankfurt early in the afternoon on June 30th and had about 10 hrs before I needed to catch a night train to Austria. I have spent considerable time in the Frankfurt airport, but had never before ventured into the city itself. I arrived at the main train station to find much of Frankfurt decked out in black, red, and gold and already drunk. Only an American could have been unaware that Germany was to play Argentina in the quarter finals of the World Cup that evening. I stored my luggage in a locker and headed out to explore the city, accompanied all the way by German flags and chants of "Deutschland! Deutschland!"

I soon stumbled upon the Goethehaus and a clever cartoon of Goethe with a soccer ball lured me inside. In addition to seeing various furnishings that once belonged to Goethe, I saw an exhibit of poems and drawings by Hans Traxler, who recently wrote and illustrated an amusing book about how Goethe was a closet soccer fan. (Everything in Germany is about soccer right now.) I wandered around the city a bit longer and then the game started and the streets went completely dead. Everyone was sitting in cafes/bars and watching the game. I felt a bit left out walking around Frankfurt by myself, so I found a spot at a cafe and sat down to watch the second half of the game. All of the Americans who think that soccer is boring have clearly never seen a game like this. After 90 minutes, it was still tied 1-1. The game went into overtime and when no one had scored after 30 more minutes, it came down to a shoot-out. Germany won 5-3 and Frankfurt went nuts. There were cars honking horns and people singing and waving German flags everywhere. A policewoman drew German flags on my cheeks in face paint. I wandered around soaking up the atmosphere until it was time to catch my train. Then it was on to Austria.

2006-07-06T10:10:00.000+02:00

First travel stop: Iceland.

Aside from the fact that my flight to Reykjavik left 2 hrs late and I spent about as much time in the Minneapolis airport as I did in the air, the trip to Iceland went smoothly. The highlight of my flight was waking up as we were flying over Greenland. At first I thought I was seeing mountain tops sticking up through the clouds, but they were actually sticking up through a glacier. I have never seen so much snow in my life.

I arrived in Reykjavik around 8 am on the 27th, left my luggage at my hostel and spent the day wandering around the city. I saw, among other things, a cool modern-looking church, the city hall, the main shopping street, and the Tjoernin, a big pond with lots of birds in it. I also stopped in a cafe and bought the smallest and most expensive cup of coffee ever. I think Iceland wins for being the most expensive place I´ve ever been. After wandering around the city for 5 hrs on minimal sleep, I was ready to head back to hostel for a shower and a little break. My little break turned into a long break as I curled up with a book and the next thing I knew it was 3 am and still light out. Weird.

The following day I went on a tour of some of the famous sights around Reykjavik. The sights were spread out, so I got to see a lot of the countryside. It is really interesting and beautiful. Iceland has lots of volcanos, so the ground is covered with lava rocks and moss or scrubby grass. And there are fields of beautiful blue lupine. In the fields you can see piles of rocks - cairns - which marked the roads before there were roads. The first stop on our tour was the Greenhouse Village, so named because there are lots of greenhouses there. We saw (surprise!) a greenhouse and it was not particularly exciting. Then we went to a volcanic crater. It was beautiful and the water was amazingly blue. After the crater, we went to Skaholt church, the seat of the first Icelandic bishop. Apparently there have been 10 different churches at the site. The current church is relatively new and though it is nice, it´s nothing fantastic.

But lest you think the entire tour was ho-hum, the afternoon was amazing. First we went to Gullfoss - a huge and beautiful waterfall. What was especially cool was that you could walk out onto the rocks right next to it - none of this American concern for people falling in. From the waterfall, we also had a great view of one of Iceland´s major glaciers. Next we went to Geysir, which is where the English word for geyser comes from. There were lots of little hot springs (again unnaturally blue) and the geyser exploded every 5 minutes or so. There was a German band playing polka music in front of the geyser for awhile, which was fun and made me think of home. After Geysir, we went to Thingvellir, a beautiful national park. At Thingvellir, two tectonic plates meet. They are currenty pulling away from each other, leaving visible fissures in the ground. The landscape is incredible. Thingvellir is also the spot where the first Icelandic parliament met in 930.

On the 29th, my Swedish roommate Ida and I started the morning with a whale watching tour. First we went to Puffin Island and saw hundreds of Puffins. Then we went out into the bay to look for whales. You find whales by follwing the sea birds, who are after the fish, which the whales like to eat. We saw minke whales, dolphins, and a harbor porpoise. The dolphins came right up to the boat and were jumping in and out of the water. It was very cool. We also got to see a large bird called a sea gannet dive for fish. We were on the boat for about 3 hrs. It was beautiful, but freezing and I was happy to get back on land.

I spent the afternoon walking around Reykjavik again and doing a little shopping. In the evening, Ida wanted to go on a Haunted Iceland walking tour and convinced me to come along. So for an hour and a half we walked around Reykjavik listening to ghost stories. The tour might have been a bit scary except, of course, it wasn´t even starting to get dark at that point. We did learn a bit about the city´s history and also got to see the cemetery, which was pretty cool.

The next morning I woke up at 4 am to catch the bus to the airport for my 7:30 flight to Frankfurt. The bus was supposed to arrive at 5, but showed up about 30 min. late. Since the airport is an hour away, I was starting to get concerned about missing my flight. Once we got to the airport, I was even more concerned. All Iceland Air flights leave Reykjavik between 7 and 9 am and everyone arrives at the airport by bus at around the same time. When we got to the airport (only about an hour before my flight was supposed to leave) the line for check in was really more of a mob and stretched practically out the door. I was sure I wouldn´t make it. But fortunately, the Reykjavik airport is small and for once I had good luck and made it with time to spare.

2006-07-05T22:12:00.000+02:00

First of all, please excuse my English. For the last week, I´ve spoken nothing but German and already I find myself wanting to throw in words that most of you don´t know. Also, for those of you who have spent time in German-speaking lands, you may remember that the keyboards are a bit anders (i.e. different). Namely, the y and the z switch places. It´s reallz, reallz annozing. But I will do my best to catch all my typos.

So travel update: I left the U.S. on June 26th. Since then, I´ve been all over the place and have failed miserably in my attempt to record my travels here. In my defense, I tried to post once in Iceland, but I ran out of time on the computer and my post was erased. I´m in Graz now and should have access to internet, so I will try to catch you up over the next couple of days.

2006-06-11T20:04:00.000+02:00

Ok, so I'm not in Germany. I'm in Minneapolis. But soon I will be in ........ Iceland and then Austria and eventually I'll be in Germany too. For those of you who haven't heard all of the details of my trip 500 times already (and for the rare person who doesn't know me at all and has actually stumbled onto this blog), I am about to finish my current life tutoring reading and supervising recess at a charter school and embark on a European adventure before starting my new life as a grad student in German at the U of MN this fall. I leave in 15 days and about 5 hours. (But who's counting?) I'm flying Iceland Air and making a 3 day stopover in Reykjavik where I'm planning to enjoy some thermal spas, whale watching, and the experience of jetlag with almost constant daylight. Hurray for the summer solstice and being as far north as I have ever been! From Iceland, I will fly to Frankfurt and hop on a train to Austria to visit friends for about two weeks. Destinations in Austria include Vienna, Melk, Graz, and potentially Salzburg to check out some of the festivities for Mozart's 250th birthday. Then it's back to Germany where I will be working at a Camphill community on the Bodensee (Lake Constance) for about six weeks. Camphill is a world-wide organization that fosters community living for adults with developmental disabilities. Check out their website at www.camphill.org. The community where I will be working has, among other things, an organic farm, a cheese factory and a weavery. If you speak German (or if you want to look at some pictures), you should check out the website for Camphill Lehenhof at www.lehenhof.de. I'm not sure what area I will be working in at Lehenhof, but the Wisconsinite in me is hoping for the chance to work in a cheese factory. Whatvever I end up doing, I'm excited about the opportunity to meet new people and speak a lot of German. In an ideal world, I will have access to internet and the technical savvy to upload pictures from my travels courtesy of my spiffy new digital camera. (Thanks mom and dad!) Minimally, I hope to post occassionally and share some stories of my travels. Bis bald!