Being a world away from the Twin Cities right now is relaxing... and weird. I keep reading about all the protests at the RNC, the craziness that is St. Paul right now... and part of me wants to be there, experiencing it, seeing it up close, or at least watching the news on it in the same town.
PLEASE: Give me your perspectives on the RNC, the protests, observations of the state of the Cities, what people are saying! I'm trying to keep up, but media is never as good as what normal people see and think!
Let me know what's going on!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
PHOTOS OMGLOLBBQ!!
Here are photos from my second week in Trier, during the IFK and our excursion to Saarbrücken, Germany and Metz, France. Yes, they're a little late, but I'm working on it!
Soon to come: the last week of my course plus excursions to Schengen; Arlon, Belgium; Luxemburg City; and Düsseldorf.
Meine Zweite Woche in Trier!
Soon to come: the last week of my course plus excursions to Schengen; Arlon, Belgium; Luxemburg City; and Düsseldorf.
Meine Zweite Woche in Trier!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Also go away...
Dear Germany,
Stop showing me annoying couples making out EVERYWHERE. Yes, maybe that's acceptable here, but I find your people's constant groping and tongue-slinging rather irritating and disgusting. I am tired of pretending to be interested in other things because your citizens are standing in front of me making out when all I really want to do is ask them a question or simply get past them. In the future, a warning: I am going to stare at your people angrily until they stop and then give them a disapproving look, regardless of the cultural consequences.
Thanks for hearing me out, Deutschland.
Kind (but annoyed) regards,
Amanda
Stop showing me annoying couples making out EVERYWHERE. Yes, maybe that's acceptable here, but I find your people's constant groping and tongue-slinging rather irritating and disgusting. I am tired of pretending to be interested in other things because your citizens are standing in front of me making out when all I really want to do is ask them a question or simply get past them. In the future, a warning: I am going to stare at your people angrily until they stop and then give them a disapproving look, regardless of the cultural consequences.
Thanks for hearing me out, Deutschland.
Kind (but annoyed) regards,
Amanda
Oh, just go away...
Holy jeepers mccreepers.
With the start of the school year in America (but still another two weeks of vacation for me), I've already started receiving annoying e-mails from Hamline. "You have a financial hold. You can't register for classes." But... I'm in Germany. I'm registering at a different school. Do you really have to bother me with this? "Dearest Amanda, I want you to collaborate on pulling together your Fulbright application... like, NOW." Umm... dear advisor... do you know I'm in Germany?
Yes, I know being here is NOT a vacation, but UGH! I'm not ready to start dealing with this stuff again! And in DOUBLE! Hamline and Uni Trier?! Cripes.
However, I'm going to be very German about this. Today is Sunday, and nobody does ANYTHING on Sunday.
So there. Maybe tomorrow.
P.S. Dear Mommy, I will e-mail or call you later to discuss this crap in more detail with you. Love, Amanda
With the start of the school year in America (but still another two weeks of vacation for me), I've already started receiving annoying e-mails from Hamline. "You have a financial hold. You can't register for classes." But... I'm in Germany. I'm registering at a different school. Do you really have to bother me with this? "Dearest Amanda, I want you to collaborate on pulling together your Fulbright application... like, NOW." Umm... dear advisor... do you know I'm in Germany?
Yes, I know being here is NOT a vacation, but UGH! I'm not ready to start dealing with this stuff again! And in DOUBLE! Hamline and Uni Trier?! Cripes.
However, I'm going to be very German about this. Today is Sunday, and nobody does ANYTHING on Sunday.
So there. Maybe tomorrow.
P.S. Dear Mommy, I will e-mail or call you later to discuss this crap in more detail with you. Love, Amanda
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Life's Little Lessons
1) I now understand what Amanda meant about her host family a few years ago in Berlin unintentionally starving her to death. Yes, Germans eat a lot of bread and cheese. But, did they ever tell you that that is ALL they ever eat? Bread and cheese or jelly or honey or molasses (yeah, honestly, molasses) for breakfast. With coffee. Ok, fine. Then lunch is generally the biggest meal of the day. Big? SWEET. I like food. Dinner? Well. How about some more bread and cheese? And ONLY bread and cheese? AWESOME. You want a snack during the day? Too bad. We've got a little bread and cheese, but it's probably rude to eat so much of our food.
And drinks? Are you sick of apple juice yet? Let's put some carbonation in it. Oh, tired of that? How about some beer? Oh god, please no more beer.
Actually, drinks are too damn expensive here. A teeny tiny glass that costs over a Euro? No thanks, I'll just have water.
Wait, shit? You mean you have absolutely ZERO water that does not have carbonation in it and taste bitter and funny? Can't I just have a glass of regular old tap water? That's safe here, right? Hey, stop looking at me funny just because I asked for NORMAL freaking water!!!
2) Upon moving into our apartments and receiving tons of sacks from Sean and Tara, the students who were in Trier the semester before we arrived, I ended up with a bottle of Tabasco. Let it be said that I am almost 100% positive that I have never before used Tabasco sauce in my life. However, since Amanda didn't want it, I took it, thinking it may come in handy.
THANK YOU, DEAR TABASCO, FOR EXISTING. I now understand your entire purpose in life! You make bland German food taste like something!!!! Stir fry?! Suddenly with a zing! Currywurst? Oh man, now I almost believe there's curry in it!
Dear Tabasco, you are now accompanying me everywhere. You have gained a spot of honor in my purse, on the order of importance right above my passport.
Disclaimer: This is all exaggeration. I really DO love the bread and cheese and juice and beer here... I just would love MORE of it. And spicier.
And drinks? Are you sick of apple juice yet? Let's put some carbonation in it. Oh, tired of that? How about some beer? Oh god, please no more beer.
Actually, drinks are too damn expensive here. A teeny tiny glass that costs over a Euro? No thanks, I'll just have water.
Wait, shit? You mean you have absolutely ZERO water that does not have carbonation in it and taste bitter and funny? Can't I just have a glass of regular old tap water? That's safe here, right? Hey, stop looking at me funny just because I asked for NORMAL freaking water!!!
2) Upon moving into our apartments and receiving tons of sacks from Sean and Tara, the students who were in Trier the semester before we arrived, I ended up with a bottle of Tabasco. Let it be said that I am almost 100% positive that I have never before used Tabasco sauce in my life. However, since Amanda didn't want it, I took it, thinking it may come in handy.
THANK YOU, DEAR TABASCO, FOR EXISTING. I now understand your entire purpose in life! You make bland German food taste like something!!!! Stir fry?! Suddenly with a zing! Currywurst? Oh man, now I almost believe there's curry in it!
Dear Tabasco, you are now accompanying me everywhere. You have gained a spot of honor in my purse, on the order of importance right above my passport.
Disclaimer: This is all exaggeration. I really DO love the bread and cheese and juice and beer here... I just would love MORE of it. And spicier.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Die Bedeutung des Heimwehs
Oh man. Am I ever starting to understand the true meaning of homesickness. It is so strange really, truly being stuck in a foreign country with people who only sort of understand English. Yes, most people can speak English, but what you are not told is that most people understand and can speak only functional English... what you want to buy or sell, how much something costs, "How are you?" and "I am _____" (but, please, keep it to simple adjectives).
I've come to realize that I am indeed VERY lucky to have Amanda with me on this trip and to have a friend like the Ginger, who, though he has his con list, like everyone on this green (and red and cramped and crazy) Earth, speaks slowly and really attempts to (or does a great and believable impression of) understanding and relating to what I say, and then who offers the appropriate response.
Here, in Düsseldorf, which is nice and all, but is a large city that doesn't particularly suit me. (Thank you so much, Hamline University, for partnering with Uni Trier and sending me to a beautiful little town that understands internationalism and makes me feel comfortable and at home.) I'm really starting to feel the twangs of homesickness, as previously stated, but not yet to go home and jump back into Hamline classes and American living and all my old haunts. What I am missing is the sense of comfort, of being able to know where I am, how to get around, how to function fully in the location I am. I really miss being able to hear and speak English all around me, to be ale to rant out my feelings fully and obtain an American response of full understanding, whether it be empathy or complete uncaring but still full understanding. I have noticed that I've started tuning out when people speak German too much around me, or too quickly, or are discussing things that I may perhaps even have an interest in but which I cannot follow completely and really can't respond as truly as I feel. I just block it out, zone out, lose myself in whatever English song is playing on the radio.
Additionally, damn you, Germany, for playing American music all the time. Do you realize, Germany, how damned hard it is to concentrate on what someone is saying auf Deutsch when I can just enjoy the English language in the background instead? You realize that you are actually driving me to be annoyed when you, German radio, play a German song that I don't know and can't sing along with?
I am already looking forward to and will feel great relief (hopefully) to go back to Trier, where I have a basic understanding of the system and of my surroundings, where I can wander among traditional, kitschy beauty, and where I can have my Toffifee nights with Amanda and discuss our days and feelings... auf ENGLISH.
For now, I will console myself with CNN International (oh, the horrible accents).
Bis bald!
I've come to realize that I am indeed VERY lucky to have Amanda with me on this trip and to have a friend like the Ginger, who, though he has his con list, like everyone on this green (and red and cramped and crazy) Earth, speaks slowly and really attempts to (or does a great and believable impression of) understanding and relating to what I say, and then who offers the appropriate response.
Here, in Düsseldorf, which is nice and all, but is a large city that doesn't particularly suit me. (Thank you so much, Hamline University, for partnering with Uni Trier and sending me to a beautiful little town that understands internationalism and makes me feel comfortable and at home.) I'm really starting to feel the twangs of homesickness, as previously stated, but not yet to go home and jump back into Hamline classes and American living and all my old haunts. What I am missing is the sense of comfort, of being able to know where I am, how to get around, how to function fully in the location I am. I really miss being able to hear and speak English all around me, to be ale to rant out my feelings fully and obtain an American response of full understanding, whether it be empathy or complete uncaring but still full understanding. I have noticed that I've started tuning out when people speak German too much around me, or too quickly, or are discussing things that I may perhaps even have an interest in but which I cannot follow completely and really can't respond as truly as I feel. I just block it out, zone out, lose myself in whatever English song is playing on the radio.
Additionally, damn you, Germany, for playing American music all the time. Do you realize, Germany, how damned hard it is to concentrate on what someone is saying auf Deutsch when I can just enjoy the English language in the background instead? You realize that you are actually driving me to be annoyed when you, German radio, play a German song that I don't know and can't sing along with?
I am already looking forward to and will feel great relief (hopefully) to go back to Trier, where I have a basic understanding of the system and of my surroundings, where I can wander among traditional, kitschy beauty, and where I can have my Toffifee nights with Amanda and discuss our days and feelings... auf ENGLISH.
For now, I will console myself with CNN International (oh, the horrible accents).
Bis bald!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
German really wears a girl out
This week, I'm in Düsseldorf with a good friend, Esther, who spent a year as a foreign exchange student in Pelican Rapids during my senior year. I took the train all by myself, set up my own ticket and got off at the right stop and even understood that we were a little delayed due to an accident, of which they didn't know exact details.
(Yes, I know, congratulations on being 13 years old... but it is really harder than you can imagine in a foreign language, and even the smallest accomplishments feel huge!!)
The train ride was a mere 3 hours, during which I studied some German, read a little out of Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" (a fantastic book, but a little disturbing... I recommend it), and ate bacon and cheese sammiches that I had made in the morning before I left. P.S. I am going to very much miss the bacon, amazing white cheeses and the BROTCHEN here when I leave... holy goodness, the food here is amazing! My one gripe is that everything is a little bland... but that can easily be fixed with the purchase of a couple of spices. (It's amusing... the favored spice of Deutschland seems to be paprika... everything contains paprika! Weird.) And Esther asked me today if I miss American food yet... I have to admit, not really. Amanda and I often make dinner together, good American meals like mac and cheese (no, not out of a damn box) or hamburgers that are more fantastic than American (can you say caramelized onions, gouda, and brotchen, anyone?), and for an international potluck, I made my favorite Minnesotan rice-burger-carrot-potato hotdish, so I am thus far surviving. I do, however, have to say, that I really miss pizza. I understand my friend Sean now, a fellow student of mine at Hamline who spent the last semester at Uni Trier. He constantly complained that Germany has no pizza, which I originally, upon coming here, found to be ridiculous and untrue. I now understand, though, as I miss just good old, greasy, cheesy, going to give you a stomachache pizza for delivery. I miss Mesa Pizza!!! All the pizza here IS amazing... but in a gourmet, fancy, European way.
Aaaaaanyway...
Upon arriving in Düsseldorf, Esther picked me up from the train station, and we came back to her house, caught up a little, ate cake and coffee with her mom, Barbara, and then wandered around the city a little. We did some window shopping; saw the Königsallee, which is much like Chicago's Magnificent Mile, full of haute couture; and sat on the Rhein River and ate ice cream (my god, the ice cream in Europe is SO GOOD!). We also saw the only tower left standing in Düsseldorf after WWII... sort of. It was covered in reconstruction and advertisement stuff, so we actually didn't see any of it. Ha.
For dinner, we headed to a great little Kneipe (bar) in Esther's neighborhood and met Esther's boyfriend, a friend, and her brother and some friends. Good time. Today, Esther is a bit sick (cough), so we're just lying low to save up for tomorrow's shopping whirlwind and tour of the secret servant passages of a castle. So excited!
Being here in Düsseldorf has really made it sink in just how completely and utterly exhausting it is to constantly not only listen and talk in another language, but to be forced to THINK it. All night, Esther's friends talked politics (the American election, their recently dead mayor, etc.), and it was fun and challenging, but SO difficult to keep up. I am constantly listening closely to fast German speech, trying to just instantaneously understand what I already know while simultaneously attempting to pick up context clues and translate what I don't while ALSO formulating my responses in an understandable German form. It is still much easier for me to understand German than to correctly and efficiently speak it. So tiring. It has really sunk in here, I think, because I simply do NOT have crutches like those who know me in Trier, in which I can speak a trashy Denglisch (Deutsch-English) when I don't fully know how to express myself. Here, I surprised Esther with the amount of German I can now understand, so she told her friends I can understand everything, and I am simply expected to keep up.
However, this is good for me. Even when we came back to Esther's, and I was ready to just crash, Tim, Esther's boyfriend, began casually conversing with me... again, auf Deutsch (in German). Oof.
Anyway, I am learning, and having these reminders that I still can't function in German at even half the capacity I can in English only makes me want to learn more and study harder. All morning while Esther was sleeping in, I spent reading the Düsseldorf newspaper, one article over and over, learning harder and harder words, and also drilling verbs and learning words that I've come to realize I use a lot but don't know auf Deutsch.
Thus, alles gut.
Bis später, dann! Viele Grüße zu euch alle!
(Yes, I know, congratulations on being 13 years old... but it is really harder than you can imagine in a foreign language, and even the smallest accomplishments feel huge!!)
The train ride was a mere 3 hours, during which I studied some German, read a little out of Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" (a fantastic book, but a little disturbing... I recommend it), and ate bacon and cheese sammiches that I had made in the morning before I left. P.S. I am going to very much miss the bacon, amazing white cheeses and the BROTCHEN here when I leave... holy goodness, the food here is amazing! My one gripe is that everything is a little bland... but that can easily be fixed with the purchase of a couple of spices. (It's amusing... the favored spice of Deutschland seems to be paprika... everything contains paprika! Weird.) And Esther asked me today if I miss American food yet... I have to admit, not really. Amanda and I often make dinner together, good American meals like mac and cheese (no, not out of a damn box) or hamburgers that are more fantastic than American (can you say caramelized onions, gouda, and brotchen, anyone?), and for an international potluck, I made my favorite Minnesotan rice-burger-carrot-potato hotdish, so I am thus far surviving. I do, however, have to say, that I really miss pizza. I understand my friend Sean now, a fellow student of mine at Hamline who spent the last semester at Uni Trier. He constantly complained that Germany has no pizza, which I originally, upon coming here, found to be ridiculous and untrue. I now understand, though, as I miss just good old, greasy, cheesy, going to give you a stomachache pizza for delivery. I miss Mesa Pizza!!! All the pizza here IS amazing... but in a gourmet, fancy, European way.
Aaaaaanyway...
Upon arriving in Düsseldorf, Esther picked me up from the train station, and we came back to her house, caught up a little, ate cake and coffee with her mom, Barbara, and then wandered around the city a little. We did some window shopping; saw the Königsallee, which is much like Chicago's Magnificent Mile, full of haute couture; and sat on the Rhein River and ate ice cream (my god, the ice cream in Europe is SO GOOD!). We also saw the only tower left standing in Düsseldorf after WWII... sort of. It was covered in reconstruction and advertisement stuff, so we actually didn't see any of it. Ha.
For dinner, we headed to a great little Kneipe (bar) in Esther's neighborhood and met Esther's boyfriend, a friend, and her brother and some friends. Good time. Today, Esther is a bit sick (cough), so we're just lying low to save up for tomorrow's shopping whirlwind and tour of the secret servant passages of a castle. So excited!
Being here in Düsseldorf has really made it sink in just how completely and utterly exhausting it is to constantly not only listen and talk in another language, but to be forced to THINK it. All night, Esther's friends talked politics (the American election, their recently dead mayor, etc.), and it was fun and challenging, but SO difficult to keep up. I am constantly listening closely to fast German speech, trying to just instantaneously understand what I already know while simultaneously attempting to pick up context clues and translate what I don't while ALSO formulating my responses in an understandable German form. It is still much easier for me to understand German than to correctly and efficiently speak it. So tiring. It has really sunk in here, I think, because I simply do NOT have crutches like those who know me in Trier, in which I can speak a trashy Denglisch (Deutsch-English) when I don't fully know how to express myself. Here, I surprised Esther with the amount of German I can now understand, so she told her friends I can understand everything, and I am simply expected to keep up.
However, this is good for me. Even when we came back to Esther's, and I was ready to just crash, Tim, Esther's boyfriend, began casually conversing with me... again, auf Deutsch (in German). Oof.
Anyway, I am learning, and having these reminders that I still can't function in German at even half the capacity I can in English only makes me want to learn more and study harder. All morning while Esther was sleeping in, I spent reading the Düsseldorf newspaper, one article over and over, learning harder and harder words, and also drilling verbs and learning words that I've come to realize I use a lot but don't know auf Deutsch.
Thus, alles gut.
Bis später, dann! Viele Grüße zu euch alle!
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