Nashledanou Praha

20. Oktober 2010

My train didn’t leave until 12:30 today so I decided to stow my bags at the train station and visit the library at the Strahov Cloister. I found my way easily and even used the streetcar for the first time, but my happy mood was punctuated by the cashier who failed to give me the 50 crowns change back after I bought my ticket. I didn’t realize it right away and about 30 seconds later (literally) when I asked her about it, she insisted she had given me my change and tried to tell me that the 50 crown bill already in my wallet was it…even though a second before she said she gave me a coin. Hmmmm… I’m one hundred percent sure that I didn’t get my change because last night I counted my money and calculated everything for today down to the last penny. I don’t know what made me the angriest: the loss of the 50 crowns (about 2 Euros), which I was going to use and was the last of my Czech money, the fact that she couldn’t admit she was wrong, or the way she looked at me like I was some kind of criminal. It was humiliating. I was on the verge of tears for the next half hour because I was so frustrated. Oh well. Worse things happen in life.

The Cloister’s library was magnificent, though. Unfortunately the Philosophical Hall was being renovated, so the books were all covered by sheets of plastic, but you could still see the majestic frescoes on the vaulted ceilings. The books made a ring about the room, often stacked two deep on the shelves, and the second story aisleway left both floors open to the heavenly ceiling. What a place to philosophize! I wonder if rooms like that affected the people who used them every day as dramatically as they do me now. I like to think so. The other room was the Theological Hall, where there were over 18,000 leather-bound tomes in Latin and German. There is also a copy of the oldest book in the collection – a highly decorated Evangelical Bible from the 9th century, which is too delicate to be kept on display. The room also features a reading wheel used by translators so they could have several versions of the Bible, for example, open for consultation at the same time. Then all the translator would have to do was turn the wheel to bring another book to the front. Super cool! I can think of some times when that would’ve been mighty convenient for writing papers. There were also lots globes, one of which does not show Australia because it wasn’t discovered yet. Imagine that!

Before heading back to the train station, I took a final stroll over the Charles Bridge to bid the city farewell. I couldn’t have asked for better weather; it was nippy (40s), but I had mostly blue skies and only a smattering of rain on the trip. Nashledanou Praha, hope to see you again!

Deine,
N*

In Good Company

20. Oktober 2010

Yesterday morning I met up with my good friend from high school, the Violin Man, in Old Town Square. We may not have too many opportunities to see each other again in the next few years, so it was really perfect how my Fall Vacation lined up with when he’d be in Prague. We decided to visit Vyšehrad Castle as some of the Violin Man’s classmates had said it was nice, and a couple of them were also planning to visit that day. Sure enough, when we got there, Logan and Chris were sitting up on a bench on the hill with all of their stuff, just chilling. They looked like they were waiting for a bus or something. The Violin Man introduced me to them and we all proceeded to make a rather haphazard tour of the grounds. We sought out Dvorak’s grave, peeped into the doors of the still-closed cathedral and enjoyed the vistas from various points throughout the grounds, including a few we found by accident when we were trying to find our way out.

After that The Violin Man and I went to the National Gallery in the Messepalast to view the 19th and 20th century art collection. We were there for about five hours straight and managed most of the museum in our marathon stretch. I could’ve lingered much longer in many places had there been time, but I got to see the French and International exhibits as well as lots of Czech Art, which I rather liked, so I really can’t complain. I’ll definitely be reading up on Kupka, Mucha and others in the near future. If you’re a Modern Art enthusiast, don’t overlook the Czechs! They’re worth more than a second look.

We were pretty hungry (read: ravenous) when the museum closed at six. It’s probably a good thing it closed then because otherwise I don’t think the Violin Man or I would’ve had the will to leave the art, no matter how famished we were. Earlier we had agreed to go my veggie restaurant and had mentioned to Chris where it was. After our chance meeting that morning, I wasn’t surprised when the Violin Man and I saw him standing outside the restaurant as we rounded the corner. Once again both the food and the company were excellent; Chris even wanted to go back the next day. It was nice to be able to show people an awesome place in a town where I don’t live and get commended for it – especially since the restaurant was vegetarian.

After dinner I was telling the Violin Man and Chris about my Pied Piper experience. They told me that apparently Prague has a gypsy problem, and they were convinced that I’d nearly been taken by gypsies. They thought it was a great story, and now that I’m not totally freaked out, I think so too. Finding the gypsies was kind of a running joke as we strolled through the streets. Chris took the Violin Man and I to the Lennon Wall, where people continuously paint/write quotes from and homages to John Lennon, and then to the lock gate, where people lock locks to the wrought iron bars – there are literally thousands of them. Then the Violin Man wanted to show me the “peeing statues” “if I was into it.” I’m not really sure “into it’ is really the right phrase, but I’m not going to turn down a piece of culture, no matter how strange, without a pretty good reason. Up the street from there a little ways, we found a book shop and perused the selection for about an hour. I could’ve bought several books (most of them about the Czech Republic), so I wrote down their titles for later. The book I started reading was a wrenching biography called Under a Cruel Star by Heda M. Kovály and was a Jewish woman’s story of her experiences in the Holocaust and later in Soviet-occupied Prague. It is definitely worth seeking out and finishing. The guys walked me to the metro station afterwards since it was getting late. It was nice to spend a day with travel buddies, and I just want to thank them for letting me be a part of yet another pleasant day in Prague!

Deine,
N*

Monumental

19. Oktober 2010

Since most museums are closed on Mondays, I thought that it would be a good day to visit the Jewish Quarter of Prague. The Jewish Museum there is organized into a tour of several synagogues, which house displays about Jewish culture and Czech Jewish history, and a path winding through the old Jewish cemetery. The Jewish cemetery alone is quite impressive with 12,000 headstones and many more graves which are unaccounted for. It was used from the 15th to the 18th century and since the cemetery couldn’t get any bigger, they just kept adding new layers of dirt and graves on top of the old ones, causing the headstones to keep being pushed upwards, creating the picturesque wall-to-wall headstones leaning every which way onto each other that you see today.

In the Pinkas synagogue you can see more than 77,000 names written on the walls. These are the known names of all the Jews just from Prague and the surrounding areas who were murdered in the Holocaust. The impact that had on me was monumental; when you hear “77,000,” you realize it’s a large number, but you have no real way of quantifying it. Seeing those names of real men, women and children, of families, there gave me a lurching feeling in my stomach. I just can’t fathom housing so much hatred for other people within me.

The historical and cultural information in the other synagogues was interesting, and it was interspersed with intricately designed artifacts. Jewish people have such rich culture and traditions, and I enjoyed learning about them. I had no idea how many the implements are associated with displaying the Torah properly, not to mention the various special dress customs and traditional food. I also never realized the full extent of continual Jewish persecutions throughout history. It leaves me with an indescribable ache to know that there has been so much intolerance.

The synagogues were all beautifully decorated, but the Spanish Synagogue with its intricate wall-to-wall decorations and motifs is certainly a standout. The decoration was dark green and red with gold interspersed, so the contrast between light and dark was quite striking. I would highly recommend the museum trip because besides being a place of beauty, history and emotion, I think that a trip to Prague without visiting the Jewish Museum would be a trip that would be missing a piece essential to understanding the city itself.

After I finished at the museum, I meandered through the streets and needed up at Old Town Square. I saw yet another National Museum building (they are all over, and I wish desperately to visit all of them!), the church near the square and the city hall with the Astronomical clock. At the top of every hour, the clock comes to life. The figures on the outside move and the windows open and other figures rotate behind them. I’ve always been a fan of clocks with moving parts, so I thought it was neat. I wandered around the streets some more and had a Döner with cheese of course and some ice cream before catching the metro home for the evening.

Deine,
N*

Castles and Cameras and Hippies, Oh My!

18. Oktober 2010

 



St. Vitus Cathedral - front view





Sunday was a supremely enjoyable day spent at Prague Castle and Lesser Town. I regret to inform you that the only thing marring an otherwise perfect day was the death of my camera. It met a sudden, stony death on the stairs of the St. Vitus Cathedral. Maybe it can be fixed, but I’m doubtful. Buying a new camera in Germany was obviously not in the agenda, but I can’t live in Europe without a camera, now can I? I’ll see what I can do when I get back, but for now I’m doing without since disposable cameras here cost 12 euros…highway robbery. Not happening. Especially not when I’m surrounded by handmade Czech heaven wherever I look; I’d prefer to support the arts if I’m going to indulge in consumerism. Now on to more important things…





Prague Castle and Charles Bridge

 

As mentioned, I decided to visit Prague Castle. I opted for the long tour ticket so the art galleries were included. There was so much to see and read that it was quite overwhelming after a while, but well worth it. In Prague Castle itself, I enjoyed learning about the history of the place, especially about the way records were kept and how central heating was achieved for royalty. The castle experienced many changes along its history, which made the artifacts many and varied. St. George’s Basilica’s austere architecture coupled with well-placed artworks made it a good representative of its time period. Next came two galleries, each housing 19th and 17th c. artworks respectively. I saw my first live Titian in the second – a copy of which actually resided over my desk at school for several years – as well as works by Cranach, Manés and many Czech artists of whom I’d never heard, but whose works I found sweetly moving. If there’s one thing I’d like to



St. Vitus Cathedral - back view

have more time for on this trip, it is art galleries. Then I climbed the tower of the St. Vitus Cathedral (almost 300 steps), saw the complete panorama of the city before me and took many photos prior to my camera’s untimely death shortly thereafter. When I walked into the cathedral itself, what I saw left me breathless. The most exquisitely rendered stained-glass windows line the walls. The colors are so vibrant you can hear them. Looking at the church’s majesty from without, you would never imagine the veritable rainbow of pictures and patters that dazzle your eyes and imagination as you saunter along the perimeter. My penultimate stop was the Rosenberger palace. The set-up of how the rooms used to look was interesting, and it was amusing to imagine a friend of mine’s ancestors living there because he has the same last name. One of the portraits did bear a resemblance, haha, maybe he really is related to these Rosenbergers.

 

 

View down the hill from the castle



The palace tour took me all day and I neglected to eat lunch, so I walked through the Lesser Town Circle in search of victuals. I am a vegetarian, which is a bit of a shame while in the Czech Republic because eating a traditional meal is almost entirely out of the question for me. I’ll admit I was stressing a little about what to eat when the answer appeared around the corner as if by magic: All You Can Eat Vegetarian Restaurant, 150 crowns (About 6 Euros). Score. I walked down the stairs into the cellar restaurant and poked my head nervously around the doorframe. The restaurant owner, a man with long dreads and a young hippy-looking couple were the only ones occupying the small space below me.

“You hungry? Good. I make you the menu,” grinned the restaurant owner as he went over to the country to fill me a plate. In the meantime, the man with the dreads started an intent conversation with me. It turned out he was also from the U.S., but had been living in the Czech Republic for the last ten years. He’s a German lit. loving poet, who honestly stated that the skill to work at a language with enough ardor to speak it fluently is not a gift that everyone has. He said he “barely spoke Czech,” but that he loves the culture, and the people love him for trying. He also gave me the website of a woman who does a technique called touch drawing when he heard that I’m interested in using creative channels to get students interested in learning about Art History. He was quite the philosophical thinker, so I was sorry when he had to leave. It was only when he offered me his left hand to shake and introduced himself to me as Etienne that I noticed his right hand was missing. Etienne gave me his number in case I needed to find another veggie restaurant or wanted to get tea with him and told me where I could read his work. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more brazenly direct person in my life, and after two days alone, such an intellectual and earnest conversation was more than welcome.


 

View of Prague from St. Vitus Cathedral

 After that, it was just me and the owner in the restaurant. I ate delicious food – spinach and potato soup, cooked veggies in a tomato cream-based sauce with rice, a salad with corn kidney beans and olives, spicy apple chutney and yogurt sauce with cinnamony dough balls all accompanied by a cool apple tea. All the while the owner would smile at me and say “Yummy, yummy” or “It’s very tasty.” He also asked me if I’d met any Hare Krishna in Colorado. I had seconds of everything and when I told him it was one of the best meals I’d ever had, he just said, “I know.” So modest. After I finished, I went to pay and he cracked some jokes and then said, “Give me something.” I paid and gave him a tip. Then he gave me a “crunchy snack.” He said this while making chewing motions. I was really sorry to leave.

For the rest of the evening, I strolled through the Lesser Town area and explored the shops there before walking across the Charles Bridge and catching the metro home. The Prague lights make the cityscape into fairyland.

Deine,
N*

The Pied Piper of Prague

17. Oktober 2010

I started my first trip to a foreign country other than Germany with a half an hour of sleep and an hour-earlier-than-anticipated start. Being the brilliant individual that I am, I booked my train ticket from Dessau instead of Roßlau. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but until yesterday (of course, the last day), the bridge between the two parts of the city has been under construction, so you have to take a bus. Naturally, that bus runs less often on Saturdays, resulting in said unforeseen early departure. It’s 4:15 A.M.; do you know where your passport is?


  

Landscape from the train



The train ride was uneventful. I slept most of the way, even though I tried desperately to keep opening my eyes because the countryside between Dresden and Prague is heartrendingly picturesque. The only other thing of note during the trip there was that I couldn’t sit in MY reserved seat because a Czech man, who looked like Severus Snape from Harry Potter, kept waving his arms at me, said who knows what in Czech and absolutely refused to move even when I showed him the ticket. In the end I gave up because there were other seats, and frankly I was just too tired to put up a fight. I seem to have really bad luck with reserved seats. I’m strongly considering not getting them anymore, no matter how much the Germans swear by it.

When I arrived in Prague, I got cash, bought train tickets and found the metro with relative ease. Finding the hotel was a different story. My instructions were to exit the metro station, turn right and go up the hill. Well, it sounds simply enough, but it turns out that depending upon which way you exit the metro station, there are about three ways that could be correct. Guess who chose the wrong two first? After the second attempt, I tried asking for directions from a cute, little old lady. Unfortunately she only spoke Czech and also had no idea where the hotel was. She kept trying to tell me things in Czech and looked at me questioningly to see if somehow I understood. I didn’t. Finally she hailed a little old Czech man over. He also didn’t speak English, but once he had donned his glasses, it turned out he did know where the hotel was. He started trying to explain it to me slowly in Czech, but thankfully right at that moment, two middle-aged ladies, who spoke English AND knew where the hotel was walked by and took over. Once I found out where to go, I also found out that there isn’t really a great way to get there by foot. There are many paths, but none of them are direct, and several are dirt trails through a wooded area – pretty, but inconvenient when you’re carrying your luggage.


View of Charles Bridge and castle

After checking into the hotel, I went into the city to explore. As easy as I find the metro to navigate is how difficult I find the street directions here. I have a poor internal compass without mountains as a reference point, and in a city with winding ways like Prague, well, I spent a lot of time finding out exactly where I'd gotten myself. Oy with the poodles already! I managed to find myself from the Wenceslas Square (too many people and touristy/mall shops!) to the Charles Bridge. Wow. Prague is known for its bridges for a reason. The view over to Lesser Town and Prague Castle accentuated by the river and bridge is unforgettably classic. I strolled over the Charles Bridge and “window shopped” by the open air vendors selling handmade jewelry and artwork. I will certainly be doing some shopping there before I leave. As I finished crossing the bridge, it started to drizzle, so I opted to head to the museum I particularly wanted to visit.



National Gallery



By the time I reached the National Gallery in the Messe Palace – the location where 19th and 20th century

art is housed – there wasn’t a ton of time before closing (I got lost), but there was enough time for the “Monet to Warhol” exhibit visiting from the Albertina Museum in Austria. Fine by me. I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit and then stopped by an Italin restaurant for pizza on my way back. I had the waiter teach me to order in Czech, but I forgot by the time I got home...I wanted to write it down too - oops.



Charles Bridge and castle by night

 Cue, the night gets a little more interesting. The Germans have continually reassured me that it’s safe to walk around at night ever since I’ve gotten to Europe, so I decided to take the metro to the Charles Bridge to view the magnificence of the night lights. All was well until I was about three fourths of the way across the bridge, when a girl about my age with a guitar on her back started talking to me in Czech. When I was unresponsive, she asked me if I spoke English. My first mistake was acknowledging that I did and my second was probably letting her keep talking at all. She wanted me to come to the end of the bridge with her for something that she wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me and gave me this green branch that had been in the flowers she’d sold. She was with a boy who’d also been playing guitar a few minutes before, and she said they were living on the streets, but doing this was better than doing something else. Whether by design or because she just couldn’t say what she wanted to in English, the whole conversation was very convoluted. Needless to say, I didn’t feel good about it. Why was she so insistent and why me in particular? Her ambiguity and the boy’s music all had a Pied Piper type feel, so I pretended to follow them and then I turned around and left the green branch on the bridge in case it was some sort of a gang sign (…yes, that’s where my mind went). Maybe her intentions were honest, and if they were I’m truly sorry for doubting her, but I can’t exactly afford blind trust alone in a country where I don’t speak the language. Honestly the whole thing creeped me out…there was just something “off” about it. In self-defense I learned that if your gut senses that, it’s usually right, so I went back to the hotel as quickly and unobtrusively as I could. I was worried about being followed then, so unfortunately my otherwise great day ended with a bit of a negative spin.

Deine,
N*

A Piece of Paradise

I’ve been meaning to write about my apartment for a while now, but I was holding off until I got the appropriate photographic documentation. Now that I have it, here goes:

I LOVE my apartment. I got so lucky; it’s both super-nice and super-affordable. I live on the second floor (American third floor) in the rental apartment above one of the teachers at my school’s houses. Her daughter lived here at one point, and as H says, “Stine ist zu gut für diese Welt” (“Stine is too good for this world.”), so it’s absolutely gorgeous. The main room is large and has a kitchen area with a long table that can seat eight, a living room area complete with couch, coffee table, two chairs and a TV, and a little working niche under the eaves where my desk is. Since I’m on the top floor, all of my ceilings slope inwards, and some of the dark wood structure is visible, which I love. I spend most of my time in this room because the light and the view are so lovely. The front window looks out on a small park in front of a church (bells!), red roofs, the grocery store where I often shop, and another church steeple, visible in the distance. The view out the back is my favorite, though…the houses on my block surround its outer edge, and the middle is reserved for people’s gardens. The hodgepodge of trees, bushes and flowers surrounded by quaint, red roofs is my permanent mental picture of “real” town Germany. In the evening as I sit and watch the sun set over it all through nearly my whole western wall, I feel like I’ve found a piece of paradise. As if that all wasn’t enough, I also have a HUGE bathroom with a shower and a bathtub, as well as a nice-sized bedroom with a full bed and a nice view. Like I said…I’m really very lucky, and I couldn’t have asked for anything better. The one humorous thing is the indoor stairway…not the stairway itself, but the five, yes five, nude torsos sculpted from bronze. They’re very well-made, but I’m just used to seeing something like that only in a museum. As an Art History major, it really didn’t faze me after the initial surprise, and the Germans don’t even blink twice. Nudity is much more accepted in this society, I guess. Anyways, enjoy the pics!

Deine,

N*

What's Your Problem?

In the two months my 5th graders have been in English class, they have learned the phrase, “What’s your problem?” It’s adorable the way they read this in dialogues in our English lessons. They always sound slightly serious when they speak because they are thinking so hard about speaking correctly. I am of the opinion that a serious question needs a serious answer, and as the student teacher is teaching the class at the moment, I find myself dreaming up answers. Right now I am feeling content, so “problem” is really a relative term…but if I had to answer the question…

My problem is yarn. Wonderful, soft, nice German yarn that seems to flaunt itself prominently wherever I go. Grocery store, department store, clothing store, dollar store, drug store, you name it, it’s there! I’ve not been in an actual yarn shop since I’ve been here, but it might be dangerous considering how much yarn I’ve accrued over the last four weeks. Granted, it’s all be ridiculously well-priced (I <3 sparangebote! (Special sale deals)), and a lot of it’s for gifts, but still. Many days you might as well call my bike the yarn taxi, since yarn is one of the few consumer items that can lure me to make a special bike trip to Dessau (one hour round trip) to buy it.

At the risk of painting myself as a bad knitter, I’ll admit that I never really got why people have yarn stashes before. Somehow I retained a strange yarn-rationale that I should only buy yarn when I needed it until now. That rule’s been officially busted, and I am now on a self-imposed yarn diet. Thankfully I can binge-knit at will since I have enough projects planned. Here’s what’s on the agenda:

1. Kitten mittens (Mietze Katze Handschuhe).

2. Many normal Handschuhe (Don’t you love German imagery...hand shoes. Why isn’t it hand socks?!).

3. Knitted cardigan (Strickjacke) with the sparangebot yarn from the Aldi (grocery store chain).

4. Super cute pullover sweater made with the 20 minute alpaca yarn. (Seriously, I made a second trip in three days to go back and get this yarn. I just know it’s going to knit up awesomely!)

Super! And now I think I’ll end this post before I wax poetic about alpaca yarn, or something equally embarrassing.

Deine,

N*

P.S. Please enable me with awesome knit ideas!

The Bicycle Love-Hate Binary

Ever since I learned to ride a bike, I’ve had a bizarre relationship with the activity. I learned how to ride a two-wheeler when I was five or six, and I loved riding fast...all speed, little good judgment otherwise. Most of the time things would start out fine, but by the end of almost every ride, I’d fallen off at least once. Considering how well-honed my sense of balance is in just about every other athletic activity I do, this bike-tipping propensity doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Sensible or not, I have diligently avoided bike riding whenever possible ever since a certain *ahem* incident in 4th grade. Yes, I do own a bike, but it’s probably been about four years since the last time I even took it around the block. I knew that coming to Germany probably meant embracing the bicycle, but believe me, it wasn’t a prospect I relished.

Sure enough two weeks after I got here, I “wanted” to ride my bike. I’ll do a lot for independent transportation, and I have to say that it’s nice to be able to go into Dessau when I want to without depending on someone else or having to pay for the bus. H, J and I practiced bike-riding, and honestly, it’s not the actual riding that is the problem, rather starting and stopping because my bike is a little too tall for me. I’ve finally managed bike riding with some grace, even if I spent the first couple of weeks looking fairly (read: completely) ridiculous because I’d hop off my bike at almost every stop light and walk with it across the road before awkwardly wavering back and forth when I’d try to start back up.

Thankfully I usually get a ride to school and only have to bike to the city when I want to because my one bike ride to school this year (early on in the bike-riding saga) was a complete disaster. How bad can it really have been?...monumentally bad. It commenced with me getting the heel of my shoe stuck in the pedal, so that the ride ended abruptly with me awkwardly hopping off on one foot before I even really got a chance to get started! “Ok, nobody saw that,” I thought to myself and tried again. After that the ride was fine again...up until when I got to the city. My bag somehow lodged itself in my wheel, and once I dislodged it, my bike began screeching. Not just a little squeak. I mean loud, obnoxious, fingernails-on-chalkboard screeching. Of course it was right then that I ran into one of my students. Embarrassing. I half-rode, half-walked the rest of the way to school and arrived there soaked in sweat (I had to leave my sweater on in class, that’s how bad it was) and about fifteen minutes later than I intended. Lucky for me, H always plans for us to be there early. I explained to her that my bike was making an odd noise, but I couldn’t bring myself to own up to the real reason why. Hadn’t I already lost enough of my dignity between 6:30 and 7:30 A.M.? Luckily J fixed my bike with little hassle, and I’m happy to report that the return trip was mercifully uneventful. Since then, my skills have improved immensely. If I can just learn to keep myself up by holding onto the walk-signal boxes at the intersections, I just might pass for a German.

Although I can honestly say that I’ve felt the most culture frustration in the last four weeks while I was on a bicycle (anything else that’s ruffled my feathers seems to be intensified by my bike “hate”), I can also say that during my last few bike trips, I’ve experienced some of my greatest elation. There’s nothing quite like pedaling up the hill to the bridge and seeing the church towers of Roßlau across the Elbe river, and feeling astounded and warmed by the idea that this is the place I’m calling home. At these times, my capacity for love overcomes my bike “hate”, and I pedal furiously forward with a kind of reckless abandon. The situation becomes a metaphor for the way in which I can start to see the good in many foreign experiences that I found disarming at first, as well as a clue to why I’ve always been prone to falling off my bike.

Deine,
N*

Question Machine

I’m usually not the kind of person who asks a lot of questions. Sometimes I can’t think of any, or I figure I can just work through whatever it is myself, but living in a foreign country has completely changed the game; I’ve never had so many questions in my life.

Take grocery shopping, for example. Sounds quite mundane, right? But there are so many things we take for granted when we grow up somewhere. At first just walking into a grocery store was intimidating. Here is a snippet of my internal running dialogue: Is there special grocery store etiquette that I’m not privy to? Where are the carts? Oh no! Do I have a euro so I can get a cart? (Thankfully at the stores I frequent most often, you can just take a cart; once I even saw a man take his cart across the street to his house, unload his groceries and bring it back!) Does this store want you to pre-weigh and price your produce before checking out? (This is actually really neat...at the bigger stores, you put your produce on a scale and select the item type, and the scale prints out a price sticker for the item right then. I like knowing right away what something will cost me, especially since everything is in kilograms!) Oh great I'm here...now how will I recognize what I want? You never realize how much you count on packaging and labels to find the food you want until they're all different. Oy. One day I had to ask where the butter was and then where the sour cream was. But hey...just a few weeks here and I’m already starting to feel more at home.

Deine,
N*

P.S.  You don't even want to hear about me learning to use a washing machine here...

O.W.L.: Exceeds Expectations

11. September 2010

Köln was, in short, awesome. I was not expecting to have as much fun as I did, or that hearing about all the other teaching assistants’ similar experiences would be so reassuring. As I’ve already had quite a bit of teaching experience, the lesson part of the week was interesting and good practice, but didn’t really put me in a new situation. What was really helpful, though, was hearing my work group’s teacher speak about what she does in the classroom that she thinks is the most important and the implications of the differences she’s noticed between German and American schools. We also learned more about the bureaucracy we’ll be dealing with, so that was good too.

What surprised me the most was how much I enjoyed the social element of the week, which is not typical for me. We were separated by the areas we’ll be working in for our working groups to help us meet people we could potentially see frequently/plan lessons with/travel with, and I think that was really a good idea. There are only three FSAs (Fremdsprachenassistenten) in Saxony-Anhalt, but there are also many people in Leipzig, which is in Saxony, but isn’t so far away. Overall, the people seem nice and are also dedicated to our work here, and I’m so excited to continue building the relationships I started this week. For the first time, maybe ever, I felt like I was in a group of people who are like me, and being that I’m alone in Germany it was comforting.

Two people there were particularly easy for me to relate to: one of my roommates, a girl from Texas who will be working in Leipzig, and one of the others from the Saxony-Anhalt contingent, a guy from the D.C. area, who is actually the closest FSA to me location wise. I’m really looking forward to seeing them again soon, as well as the other girl who’s working in Saxony-Anhalt (I didn’t get to talk to her as much, but I think we could be good friends.).

In case you’re wondering, the train trip was uneventful...I went alone, but returned with good company. It was a good thing that everything went smoothly since I was locked out of my phone for the return trip since my attempt to change my pin number malfunctioned, and I didn’t have the original with me to turn it back on...oops!

The orientation took place at the beautiful Haus Altenberg...here’s a picture.

Deine,

N*

Flight of the...Bauhaus?

7. September, 2010

Last week, the color fest was happening in the Dessau, and this year, the color was green. The first day I got here was the opening day of the fest, and this large installation “landed” in the main square. The combination of the mechanical with plant life is strangely beautiful to me, and it reminds me of Around the World in 80 Days for some reason. It was fun to visit on Saturday evening when H and I went back again with J, her husband, to see it again and to see the other parts of the festival.

There was in opera concert in front of the Anhaltisches Theater and then we followed the semi, on which the Jugend Big Band was playing, over the bridge, past the train station to the Bauhaus. There wasn’t a lot to see along the way as H told me there normally is, and at the Bauhaus, there were also only a few green lights. The main attraction was the installation that the Bauhaus was a part of. There was a countdown clock projected on the ceiling of two rooms that was visible from the outside to tell when the Bauhaus was going to “take off”. When it did, there were several neat visual effects projected on the side of the building and interesting sounds and music to go with it (see video!), but after awhile, it just kept doing the same thing, so we weren’t sure if there was something else we were supposed to be “getting”, and we ended up leaving because it was late and also a little cold. Maybe the newspaper* will explain something more, or maybe it wasn’t meant to be understood in a concrete way, which would be typical Bauhaus. Hmmm...I guess we’ll see.

Deine,

N*

*Nope, there was no explanation given, so it will remain a mystery.

First Day

3. September, 2010

Usually the first day of school is the day you find out how your classmates are doing, meet your new teachers and determine what you’ll need to do to be successful in the coming year. Today was the first time that the day was a little different. I still did all those things, but backwards. I met my new colleagues as well as many of my students. I even did exercises with many of the classes I was in. But right away I recognized that knowing exactly what I’d need to do to be successful was much less quantifiable than in previous years. I worked with different students on reading, pronunciation and grammar, but who knows if what I did made a difference. It was strange being at the front of the classroom even though I’ve taught a lot of times before. I think the first day is always a little disarming for me. Sitting on the other side of the equation was something I was incredibly good at, and I got the results to show it. Now I wasn't get that instant feedback, I had been puzzling over this conundrum throughout the afternoon, so you can imagine my relief when I checked my mail this evening and had a message from a teacher-turned-friend asking me how I was feeling about this exact issue. I still may not know the “right” way to proceed with each of my students, but knowing that I’m not alone in this perpetual (already) questioning of methods and ideas makes me feel a whole lot better. The best thing I can do is to try to be aware: aware of needs and sensitivities; aware of the things that make my students “tic”; aware of how I can make them open to me thus making myself accessible to them. All in all, ponderous undertones or not, it was a good day. Here are a couple of memorable moments before I close:

Seeing the eager faces and welcoming smiles of the fifth graders melted my insecurities. They’re new at the school too and fairly new to English on top of that. Most of them seemed thrilled to have someone to whom they could ask the few questions they’ve learned so far and were happy to be understood. They’re still at the age where they are a little more carefree with their emotions and because I could see that spark in them today, I already know they will bring light to my days here. In a way, they’re also a mirror to my situation. In our mutual first year, we’ll experience the largest noticeable amounts of growth in our respective roles. I’m sure each of my classes will be rewarding in its own way, but there is just something about being a part of students’ first experiences with a new challenge that is very special.

Memorable moment two is slightly snarkier. (Not on my part, haha.) In the 8th class we were working on the construction “used to” today. Each of the students was to write five sentences. The standout sentence was by a boy in the front row, we’ll call him Max, who wants to be cool. He contrived to achieve this reputation with the following remark: “When he was young, Phillip (that’s what we’ll call his friend) used to be a girl.” Of course, they both thought it was hilarious. What do you even say to that? Figuring the best way not to encourage it was to continue without being perturbed, H and I focused on the grammar mistake that occurred in the original sentence instead. Oh teenage boys. I’m sure I can look forward to many unexpected statements from students this year; it just comes with the territory.

Well, I’ve not had a lot of sleep since I’ve been here and the opportunity is presenting itself, so I’ll end this here where there’s (somewhat of) a stopping point.

Deine,
N*

Grüße aus Deutschland!

2. September, 2010

So, I’ve finally arrived in Germany! The flight was long, but it was fairly uneventful with the exception of the three hour delay on my international flight. I actually spent most of the flight sleeping since the movies weren’t working. (Sad day because they had old movies that would’ve been so much fun to watch in any of the various language options!) It’s probably for the best that I got some sleep, though, since I had a white night the night before and H wants me to come into school with her tomorrow. Before I start in on that, I have one final airplane note. So I flew from Denver to Newark for the first leg of my trip, and they gave us breakfast. I was so shocked! I was thinking, “They want to give us WHAT on a domestic flight?” Who would’ve thunk it.

Anyways, I’ve really just been hanging out with H since I got in. I’m staying at her house for a couple of days before orientation and then I’ll move into my apartment. We looked into cell phones and internet, which turned out to be more difficult than we originally thought it would be. The problem is that most plans require that you sign a two year contract and show evidence of permission to stay in Germany for that whole time. Since I’m only here for a year, that obviously won’t do. We think we found a couple of reasonable solutions, though, so crisis averted. Later, Heike and I cooked some dinner (a nice salad with zucchini and tomatoes in a tomato-based sauce with cheese on top and then baked in the oven). And now I’m going to go to bed because I’ve elected to go in to school tomorrow despite the jetlag, so I have to be up at 5:30 AM. Gar, jetlag.

Deine,
N*

And Without Further Ado...

After an epic wait for internet in my apartment, it has arrived.  I wrote several posts during my first weeks here, so I'll post those now, and then I'll try to start posting regularly hereafter!  Thank you for your patience.

Deine,
N*