when the dog bites, when the bee stings…

Last week was rough. Thinking about the approaching holidays, I got suddenly very home sick. I even checked to see if I could find a deal on a flight home for Christmas.  But alas and alack, it’s just too expensive.  I keep reminding myself that I’ll be home in March; I can wait until then.  Thinking about Christmas was really the worst part. I panicked a bit because we didn’t have any concrete plans. Rumors of invites here and there, but nothing I could count on. Chris and I checked out some bed and breakfast places in the Black Forest just to have something to fall back on.  Surprisingly, many of them had Christmas specials. But then, Asisa came to the rescue, as she so often has in the past months.  Chris and I will be going to spend Christmas with her and her family in Braunschweig. I’m excited to meet them and see Asisa’s hometown.  While the Black Forest would have been cool in some aspects, I’m much happier to be able to spend Christmas with friends.

Chris and I also are planning to do a late Thanksgiving this Sunday. We’ve invited a few friends, none of them American, so it should be really fun. I am not sure how we will get all of this cooking done and time it all correctly, but I’m keepin the faith. We are planning on having a couple turkey breasts, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, a pumpkin pie and an apple pie. We will have one vegetarian and one who’s lactose intolerant, so we will have to make some adjustments here and there.  Can you make good vegetarian gravy? I dunno, that’s something I need to look up. Besides all of that, I’m just looking forward to exposing people to one of my favorite American holidays. : )

So, after making plans for the holidays I started feeling a bit better about things. Alison also gave me a good pep talk last week. Sometimes you have to step back and think about the facts. Even though I’m not enjoying my classes all that much, I am enjoying other aspects of my life here.  I really look forward to my sports every week.  I play mixed volleyball at the university on Mondays with a group of really nice people.  I’ve never played mixed consistently before, but it’s a lot of fun.  Our group is mostly men, and after always playing with women, I appreciate the guys’ simple pleasure in the game and the no-strings-attached competition. Men just have a different attitude about sports, it seems. With women there are always feelings involved, but these guys just want to play. I am glad, however, that my friend Marie is there.  I, after all, can’t fully identify with the guys, and Marie is my kinda gal. She’s younger than me, but has traveled a lot and lived abroad and one of her majors is German.  We have some good stuff to talk about. After practice, a group of us often goes out to Oblomov (that restaurant and bar nearby that I’ve mentioned before).  It’s nice to just hang out, have a beer or two and speak some Deutsch.  I have also started playing volleyball on Wednesdays with a women’s club team. Volker, who runs the mixed practices, hooked me up with the club that he plays for. Despite being in a league lower than I played in Austria, the team is just as good as my Graz team, or better. I am enjoying being back in the intense practice atmosphere once a week. I just think, “oh yeah, this is how we used to practice back in the day.” It’s been a while since I’ve been to well-organized, challenging practices. I’m being pushed to be precise, which hasn’t happened in a while. That serves to create some frustration with myself because I’m out of practice, but I think it’s slowly coming back. Ah, and then there is ultimate frisbee on Saturday afternoons. It’s pretty fun and really good exercise. Asisa and I go together, continuing the tradition we started last summer.  Man, I am really glad that I play sports.  It has been a great way to meet people and run all that stress out that comes when living in a foreign country.

The other weekly event is Hansa48 Tuesday movie nights. Asisa introduced us to this. The movie “theater” is a normal-sized room that has seats for like 30 people. There are couches in the front and the rest of the rows are those travel bus seats that you can lean back. They also sell bottled beer and candy by weight (you can pick what you like out of the glass jars). It’s a neat little set-up.  It’s kind of like we are renting a cool living room once a week. Plus, it’s much cheaper than a normal theater and they show a nice mix of foreign and German films.

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for… Husum, Süderlügum and Tønder. Chris and I went on a little weekend trip with a group called StepIn Kiel. It’s a group of German students who have all studied abroad before and want to help welcome international students. We all met Saturday morning at the train station and headed northwest to the town of Husum. I was pretty excited about this part because Husum is Theodor Storm’s hometown. Unfortunately, none of the other internationals really knew much about him (most of them aren’t literature students), so we didn’t do any of the Storm stuff while there. I kind of expected that, so I couldn’t be too disappointed. I know I will be back there a few times to do research and such. This trip just served as a good little introduction to the town. It was really well-maintained and had lots of good-looking buildings. The weather made it look exactly like Storm describes it in his poems and novellas: “the gray town by the sea.”

Husum wharf at low tide

Husum library

Husum castle

After walking around Husum, eating some fish sandwiches and learning how to peel these baby shrimp things from a fisherman selling his catch, we headed to another small town in the area, Friedrichstadt. It was designed like a Dutch city with canals. There were some cool old buildings there, too.

built in 1624!

they like fish, even as door handles

Nothing much was going on around town. It was a pretty small city. Chris went in to a shop that sold bulk coffee and tea to see if he could get a cup to go. The owner said that they didn’t serve drinks to go, but offered that Chris could go sit in his kitchen with him and drink a cup! Darling! Since we had to move on, Chris couldn’t take him up on that. Too bad.

Finally we decided to move on to Süderlügum. It wasn’t really a pretty town like the two others we just visited, but there were some really cool houses around with reed roofs.

sorry, it was dusky. this one was also from the 1600s and had a tiny door.

We had to go outside of the town to get to our cabin in the middle of the woods.

Our home for the night

It was pretty old school. The only heat was from the fires downstairs. The large sleeping rooms were upstairs, and I was glad I had my very warm blanket along. We also had to go outside and down the stone steps around the side of the house to get to the bathrooms. Interesting.  We had chili with noodles/rice for dinner. It was funny to see different people’s reactions to spicy. Many Europeans are not used to it. The rest of the night we played games, danced, talked, drank, etc.

ha

We all stayed up really late and were slow to rise the next morning. This made us late for the train, which caused a big problem. So our leaders had to shuttle us there with two cars. Because of that we only got to spend about an hour in Denmark, but oh well. The town was really pretty, almost too pretty.

tasty waffles with soft serve!!

doesn't do the city justice, but the camera batteries were running out

It was a really fun weekend. We got out to see more of Schleswig-Holstein and we finally got to know some of the other internationals a bit better.  I’m sad that most of them are going home after this semester : ( I guess we will just have to make do with the time we have!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!

Learning without being taught

I have finally been to the first meeting of all 3 of my courses. I have added another course since the last time I wrote, The Bible for Students of German Literature. Like my Antiquity course, it is listed under “Fachergänzung,” which means it is supposed to help me with my main area of study by clarifying topics and stories that are frequently mentioned and referred to in modern German literature. The teacher of the bible course is a pastor, but he is very liberal/scholarly in his approach to scripture. I will feel right at home with that; my teachers at Nerinx were the same way.  We will be using Luther’s version of the bible, which I will need to buy soon, I suppose. Everyone laughed today in class when I said how many years of Catholic school I have behind me. Not too common here…

My Antiquity course seems to be alright. The professor is from Spain and has a fairly thick accent on her German. She is from the Classics department. She seems like a very sweet person, but doesn’t seem to be sure what she wants to teach us exactly. She says she has a plan that we could use, but wants our input. That makes me a bit uneasy somehow. She has never taught this class before and it seems that maybe no one told her what to expect from us, or what our backgrounds would be in. I guess this is what happens when the little German tribes (departments) try to be friends. Important things get lost in translation.

My course on German Realism should be fine, as well. It is a lecture, so there are like 100 people there. Some are BA students, some MA and I saw an older couple there just to listen, as well. I like that anyone from the community can come to these lectures. It’s a pretty neat thing.  I took some large lectures in Austria, too, and the one thing I really hate about them is that people feel free to chat and giggle while the professor is talking. Coming from the US, I find it extremely rude and annoying. This professor even stopped a few times to ask people to be quiet, but not everyone listened.

Why is this? For the most part, professors are pretty revered in this culture.  They  seem to function, however, more as scholars than teachers.  They aren’t really looking to interact with their students, that is, until they are at a high level. Many of the seminars where there is interaction are led by docents and not full professors.  The professors in the German department only lead the big lectures. I get the feeling that students are generally seen as unworthy of having a conversation with a professor. Like our ideas just wouldn’t mean anything to them and our questions would be dumb.  I got this impression in Austria already, and I see now that it is similar here in Germany. My Realism professor took the first hour of class to try and explain the new degree programs so we would be clear on how we get the course recognized by the university. German universities are in the middle of a big change. When you wanted a college degree in the old system, you basically had to get what is the equivalent of a Masters in the U.S.  I think it took like 5-6 years or so. Now they are trying to make it match the system in Great Britain, which is a 3- year Bachelors, and then two for a Masters. People think it’s funny when I tell them we have to do 4 years just for a BA. Anyway, she was trying to explain what the expectation is at the end of the semester. She said it used to be that all classes were finished by writing a paper. Now they lean towards big tests at the end, which you don’t get a grade on really, but just pass/fail. She said that when you are doing a Bachelors, you are like a hamster in a wheel and you must simply satisfy the requirements. She also said that at this level, students don’t really have the knowledge to write good papers. I feel incensed by this statement. How the heck are people supposed to learn to write if they don’t practice?! You can’t just produce a convincing, coherent paper out of thin air.  Sure their BA students’ young ideas might be rehashing what has already been done, but learning to think and develop ideas on your own is highly important! I think learning to write and analyze was one of the most important things I learned as an undergraduate. We also never just wrote one paper for a class, but several. This brings me back to why people talk during lectures: they know they aren’t being taught, they are just being talked at.  All you have to know to pass the class are the basic storylines of the works and some basic literary history.  You could put this together on your own, and a lot of the time you have to, because the professor often has his/her own agenda for the lecture. You really have to be self-motivated to learn anything. Chris says that he has noticed that his docents/profs just basically write what’s in the book onto the board. There is no extra explaining or working problems yourself in class. Again, you are just being talked at. The real learning takes place outside of the classroom.

I have been playing volleyball and ultimate frisbee here at the university and, unfortunately, I keep seeing more and more evidence in this society that people are expected to learn things without being taught.  Practices both in the U.S. and here consist of drills and playing. However, the “coaches” here don’t give pointers or correct technique.  How do people improve here? I have no idea! A friend of mine was not allowed to play in the hour-long scrimmage at frisbee because she is considered a beginner. She just had to sit and watch, like that is going to ultimately improve her skills. She is not a total beginner, so it was unlikely she was going to hurt someone or something. Not to mention, the frisbee class was listed as for beginners and advanced players! It strikes me as similar to the writing papers thing. If you can’t do it perfectly now, then you just don’t do it. Someone please explain to me how this can ever work!

Ok, ok, I’m finished venting. Here are some pictures from pumpkin carving : ) It was really the only Halloween thing we did, but it sure was fun!

 

 

 

 

Sexism: Alive and Well in Germany?

Chris and I just got back from the grocery store. I made sure to grab a bunch of tea while we were there. Nothing beats something warm after coming in from the wind. With one tea box already in hand, I saw that the brand below was on sale. At the time I only saw the price and the flavor: black tea with vanilla and cinnamon. Sounds good, right? So I grabbed it, too.

While sitting on the bus, I took the teas out for closer inspection, trying to decide what to have when I got home. I noticed that this one was given kind of a funny name: Unser Stundenlang- quatschen-tee (roughly: our hour long gab-fest tea). Hmm. Ok, whatever. Then I read the rest of the box. Oho ho! It got better.

sexist tea

My translation:

“Finally some rest- The last days were really taxing. But shopping with Ines sure was fun. Now we sit down at the kitchen table with this spicy, aromatic tea and everything goes back to the way it always is – we talk a lot and laugh even more. Friends, men, fashion, the last child’s birthday, rumors and the meaning of life – there’s nothing that we can’t talk about. And the hours fly by. But that doesn’t matter, it’s not the time that counts, but the togetherness. “

Ouch. Yes, that’s all women talk about. We don’t work, study, play sports or read. I’m pretty sure that last part about the meaning of life was thrown in at the last minute. For good measure, you know.

Now I know why everyone at the fitness center stares at me like I’m a crazy lady for RUNNING on the treadmills and…  (gasp!) SWEATING!

People I Know

Here is a picture of my lovely roommates at the restaurant/bar close to our dorm. It’s always crowded there, but it’s a nice warm atmosphere.  Silvia, has introduced us to the group of Italian girls here. See below.

left to right: Laura, Chris, me, Silvia, Giulia

me, Simona, Romina and Undine (she’s Romina’s German roommate)

Silvia has already invited Chris and I to Italy for Christmas. We are thinking that we just might have to take her up on that. The other option is to stay with Chris’ friend Armin’s family. They live in the US now, but still have a house outside of Hamburg.  Maybe we can make both work : ) Things I’ve been doing lately:

playing SingStar with the roomies (Joanna’s got like 10 different discs for it), baking this lactose-free cake for my lactose-intolerant roommates, going to Oblomov (rest./bar), worrying about getting into classes, trying to make my room feel more like home, scrubbing the lime deposits off the floor of the closet-shower, going to the FiZ (rec center), getting and battling a cold and reading the books I got at the library about Theodor Storm.

I got myself into two classes finally. One is a lecture about the literary period of poetic realism, of which Th. Storm is a part, and one is a seminar about literary works from antiquity that have been constantly referred to throughout history (ie Don Quixote, Aeneas, etc). Should be ok. I tried to get into some other seminars, but by the time I got this pin number thing they were all full. I begged, but to no avail. Anyway, I’m only taking two classes because I will also  be doing my own research for my thesis.

My mom asked me for pictures of the wintry side of the weather we’ve been having. I just took these from the walkway of the dorm about 15 minutes ago.

Wotan’s Revenge

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve gotten around to writing. Things are going fine here, just frustrated with the bureaucratic German government and university.  It takes forever to take care of anything here. On Monday, Chris and I went to our enrollment meeting at the international center.  We jumped through a number of hoops, getting signatures, paying fees and getting health insurance.  Our last task was to let the folks at city hall know that we are now living in Kiel. Should be easy, right? Wrong. We thought we were home free, but then we were handed # 206 and 207. They were serving # 103 at that point. Four hours. Four hours waiting just to give them our address and sign the form. Chris and I got super slap happy, even after walking around outside for a bit. Luckily, we were still able to pull ourselves together when they called us. The actual process took less than five minutes. So frustrating!!! Plus the international office was already closed by then, so we had to wait until the next day to finish enrolling. We were super anxious to enroll because with enrollment we got to finally get our fitness center passes, our semester bus tickets, and our cafeteria cards. All important things for life here!

So we are glad that that is all take care of, but we still had/have to figure out how to actually sign up for classes. The different faculties here are like little Germanic tribes. They all make up their own rules and use different methods of signing up for classes.  How annoying. Fifteen minutes before the meeting started, I saw online that there was a meeting of first semester German students scheduled. I busted my booty to get over there and just made it in. It was actually somewhat helpful. I am not really a first semester student, so I don’t have to follow the prescribed course scheduling, but I did find out how to enroll. HOWEVER, I also found out that I don’t have this pin number that the university has to give you. I am waiting for it to come in the mail. If this makes it so I have to beg the professors to let me into their classes then I am going to punch someone.  Hard. The best part of this meeting was that it made me realize how far my German has come. It is so nice to finally effortlessly understand everything they say. I even talked to a few of the other students at the meeting, which I would have struggled with and been too shy for in Austria.

In other news, our dorm is pretty nice. There is lots of space and stuff is pretty new. Chris and I even get to share a balcony . And the dorm is right on campus. I will have an even shorter walk to class than I did at KU, probably like 3 minutes. The library is just a couple buildings down, as well. Score!  I do, however, have to get yet another card to be able to take out books. That will make the card count 4 already. I find it quite silly that they don’t consolidate any of it. Back to dorm stuff… Chris and I have two other roommates, Joanna from Bremen, Germany, and Silvia from a small town around Perugia, Italy. (Alex, you should talk to her!) They are both very nice and we have all been keeping things pretty clean around here. Both of the girls live up the spiral staircase with their own shower and bathroom and balcony. Chris and I are connected by the tiny kitchen downstairs. We unfortunately don’t have a living room. It’s like they don’t want us to be friends.  Ha ha! The funniest things in the apartment are the tiny, cabinet-sized refrigerator for four people and the closet-shower that Chris and I have to use. It is literally a closet with no windows. When you open the door from the shower you are in the kitchen.  I know it is hard to believe, but it’s just a tiled closet with running water and a drain. A claustrophobe’s nightmare!  As with many things here, I’m in the process of getting used to it.

half of my bedroom

other half

kitchen with closet-shower (fridge in center bottom cabinet)

kitchen view from other side

balcony

In other randomness, I really miss sweet pumpkin foods: scones, cookies, pies, bread. They don’t do sweet pumpkin here. They treat it like a potato. I may have to harvest my own pumpkin puree and bake to feed the craving. I am thinking about organizing a pumpkin carving night, as well. My former student Matt came up with that good idea. Thanks, Matt : )

Lust auf Matjes?

beach in Schwedeneck

Blue skies today! However, the temps have now sunk below the 60 F mark. We had probably one of our last beach excursions for the season on Sunday.  Just sat around on the beach and read books in the sun. When the clouds started creeping in we went to a super cute café right on the beach. Chris ordered Matjes herring and it was so strong tasting that he couldn’t force himself to finish it. If he can’t handle it, I know I will never order it. Ever. I was perfectly happy with my little warm cappuccino after being out in the wind all afternoon.  By the way, I have had some fish already, but they were breaded fish sticks. Not bad. I’m trying to ease myself into the idea.

Chris and I are both feeling a bit antsy. We can’t wait until we move into our dorm on Thursday. There is not much left for us to do around Dänischenhagen. Unfortunately, the bus into Kiel from here takes about 45 min. At least one of the ways we usually end up having to sit in the back of the bus with the disgruntled German teenagers who listen to their bad music way too loud. Are American teenagers so disgruntled? Maybe, but I guess it’s just not on public display like it is here.  I digress. So, in the mean time Chris and I have found a good running route, part of it on a sand/dirt path complete with cute benches, lots of trees and a pond with duckies. And yes, family, we also pass a nice golf course on the way there: http://www.gut-uhlenhorst.de/en/home.html   Cooking has also been a favorite activity. We had great success at lunch today, but have also made some not so great meals. The same ingredients we would use in the US come up with a different taste here. I have, though, been quite happy with the selection at German grocery stores. In Austria, there were things that I could just never find.  Oh but I really want some Sturm (young, fizzy wine) and roasted chestnuts, typical snack for Austrians in the fall. I guess every place has its advantages and disadvantages.

I miss my friends and family! This is my favorite part of the school year at home. I miss drinking tea while sitting on the counters with my roommates. And I’ve heard the weather has been wonderful in Lawrence. Don’t get me wrong, I like it here, but I wish I could have both at once.  I know, I know, things will start to pick up for me on Thursday and I won’t have so much time to reminisce.  I am interested to see who the roommates will be… and to use the new bed stuff I got at IKEA. That place is like a theme park.

By the way, aren’t you glad I could organize my thoughts enough to make paragraphs this time?  : ) I am.

In the land of compound words

A Gray Day. Guess I will get used to it soon.  At least the first few days were delightfully blue.  First impressions are important, you know.  The days are moving in a slow rotation at this point.  Chris and I are just waiting here, sometimes patiently, other times not, in a state which seems to be between German life and American life. The majority of time we spend just talking to one another (English, of course).  Our afternoons are “go time.” That’s when we have most of our interactions with Germany and Germans. We walk to the grocery store almost every day. The cashiers and workers seem to find some amusement and every once and a while annoyance in our interactions with them.  I guess we wake them from their routine a bit by not knowing the routine. I like to think that they smile to themselves about it on the way home from work later. We’ve also made a few excursions to downtown Kiel and to a couple of beaches out by where we are staying currently. I was prepared to find the city of Kiel quite ugly, but it’s really not. There is a lack of old buildings, but there are still nice views. Lots of trees and greenery brighten the neighborhoods we walk through. Perhaps the WWII bombing gave them a chance to incorporate more of that when they rebuilt. Graz, for example, has many cool old buildings, but they are packed together in the city without much green, that is, until you run into a park. I always wondered why they felt the need to separate the two. There is one particular green neighborhood here in Kiel that makes me smile. We walk through it to get to the university. The trees are unabashedly showing their bright fall foliage and the little yards in front of the apartments and row houses are still holding onto their flowers. The wind off the harbor touches the entire city and its chill seems especially refreshing when coupled with such pretty autumn scenery.  European neighborhoods always seem much busier than those in America, but what surprises me here is the amount of parents out for a stroll with their babies. As you may or may not know, the graying of Germany is a real problem. From what I have seen here, however, Kiel seems to be doing its part in combating that. The best thing is that all parents in Kiel outfit their babies with whimsical little hats. It’s like something out of Dr. Seuss. Protecting little baby heads with flair! I think this whole flair thing is a good example of the mentality of the Germans in these parts. Everyone told me northern Germans were cold, but I can see that there is an underlying sense of humor in these people.  I can read it in their faces and see examples of their humor all over the place.  So far I’ve experienced it as a humorous self-awareness. They can laugh at themselves and life. They act kind of gruff and tough while trudging around but then you see them crack a smile when something unexpected happens or when they do something dumb. It seems like they just know not to take themselves too seriously. It’s a strange unexpected type of humor and I’m not describing it well. Maybe I’ll try again later. Besides their humor, everyone at the university has been wonderful so far. They seem to like Chris and me because we speak German, and Germans never expect Americans to be able to handle their language. Plus, I have gathered that they just don’t get many of us Americans in Kiel, or even international students for that matter. We will be a small community, and that’s nice. I am excited to move into our dorm and meet them all. After our excursions, Chris and I are pretty worn out. Naps are usually in order. Everything takes effort in a foreign country. I’m kind of glad we are getting into it gradually. Our host for these first two weeks, Werner, has been really good about helping us out and showing us the ropes. In the evenings Chris and I have developed a habit of watching American TV shows. We don’t have access to a German TV at the moment. Chris about drove himself crazy trying to find a way for us to watch TV on the internet. Hulu won’t load here overseas.  Being the persistent one that he is, he finally found a way or two. First it was with Chinese subtitles, now he seems to have found a much better source while I’ve been writing.  Poor guy can’t lift weights anywhere at the moment, so I’m glad he has had something to funnel his energy into.  Speaking of energy, it’s time for a run. Guess we will see if the German teenagers will give us a whistle again today. Ha, German teenagers. Liebe Grüße aus Kiel!