People Watching

The first weekend is coming to a close and I've enjoyed it, though it's been leisurely. I spent Saturday running errands with Mandy and napping until I headed over to Lissi's for the night. I find it so awesome that I can just hop on a train and be there :) I don't have to plan for months ahead of time and buy a plane ticket, I can just decide to go and then take the bus, a short train ride, and walk to her door. Going there will probably be one of my favorite parts of this trip. When I got there, she had mini personal lasagnas made too, super awesome. Mine had little cheese on it and only one kind of cheese. Probably the first time in my life I've enjoyed lasagna, it was delicious. Watched "Where the Wild Things Are" in German, interesting... really cute movie though. Then hung out with Jonas and his friends as they played a poker tournament. I didn't want to pay the 3E entrance and they were half way through by the time I joined so I watched this time around.

Today we went to the Trudel Markt, a giant flee market with all sorts of useful and mostly useless things that one can barter for. I made off with a scarf and belt (since my pants are becoming loose) for 7,50E ($10). Not a bad deal. It was fun to walk around and look at things, see my facebook album for pictures. Lissi and Alfred let me take an entire kitchen's worth of stuff (awesome) back to the dorm so I can now cook :) Eating out isn't that expensive though when I do it with Mandy because we tend to split entrees. She doesn't eat much and I get bored eating only one thing so it totally works out and saves us both money ha ha. Like tonight: ordered a pizza that was 26 cm, 8 small slices. I ordered a salad also so I only ate two slices and saved two, Mandy got the other four. The pizza was 5E total so 2,50 each and for two meals, that's about as cheap as it gets. Awesome. We rock. Now I'm headed out to meet Gwen and others, should be the first time I'm wearing heels anywhere here :)

One of my favorite things about Germany is the public transportation and in general one of my favorite past times is people watching. Public transportation provides an endless stream of strangers to observe and make up stories about so I love taking the train. On the way to Lissi's yesterday I encountered a man on the 16 who was carrying a bouquet of flowers and was traveling alone. This man appeared older, possibly in his early 70's, about the age of retirement. I started to daydream about where he was going and who the flowers were for... Maybe he's a widower and he's off to visit his wife's grave. Maybe he's visiting his daughter for a Saturday evening dinner. Maybe he's recently retired and has been getting in his wife's way just sitting around the house, so he decided to go out for a stroll and is returning home for dinner with some flowers to say he's sorry but he loves her. Maybe he's brought her flowers every Saturday and it's become something lovely that she expects, a bright spot in her weekend, some springtime in her winter each week. I imagine he kisses her on the cheek as she takes them to put in the pot and then hugs her from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist as he's done for probably fifty years.
I hope he's gotten them to celebrate something.
One can only imagine...

One can also only hope that this man is happy. That everyone's story is a happy one. Though some are not.

The first week

I'm sure you're all wondering why I haven't posted and are anxiously awaiting hearing about my week. Well, I had a wonderful 3 day headache trying to get access to the internet and finally fixed it about 30 hours ago. Thank god, my room felt small and empty without internet connection... Oh what technology has done to me. After problems with the room number and then the network server, along with finally my computer needing to download and extra program since it's running an older version of XP, it was a huge nightmare. I'm still annoyed at the extremely closed network which isn't allowing me to purchase skype credit to call friends back home. I had to go to the cafe next door and use their 1 euro cent/minute computer to do it... fun stuff.

So this week was a long one but now it's the weekend. Things have finally settled a bit, into a routine of sorts. The public transportation is fantastic here; multiple buses pick up a half block from my dorm and bring me directly to the university main building. They come every ten minutes, without fail, and drive quickly and efficiently.
Tuesday, arrival day, I moved in after Lydia and Jonas brought me to the city. At first, I had no idea what to do with my time since there was nothing planned for the entire day besides moving in. I went exploring to find a grocery store, bought some things to make sandwiches and snack foods, and got settled in my dorm. Unfortunately, it was extremely dusty and dirty and I was told to clean it up myself... with an ancient vacuum that spit out more than it picked up.
Yea, looks fun, huh? So I cleaned a bit. Went out to dinner with more students from Madison and the entire international program here. My Bonn Buddy, Sanja, also came. She's very sweet, about my size, and we have similar taste in a lot of things like music, literature, bad television... I think we'll be great friends throughout this semester. Dinner was alright, Mexican food, and the service was... well, up to German standards. Going out to dinner here is an event because it takes a long time anywhere for the server to notice you, since they aren't making tips and have no incentive, and when you ask for something... like a refill (which you have to pay for) or condiments, don't except them any sooner than 5 minutes from then. I wasn't in the world's best mood at dinner because I was already feeling extremely homesick. After Lydia and Jonas left me, and I was left with nothing to do really, it felt like being away at college for the first time again. I didn't know what to do with my time. I felt very alone... I kept trying to tell myself that things would get better within the next few days but all I could feel was a gaping hole somewhere inside me, like everything I loved was missing and was going to stay out of reach for a long, long time. It's a painful and lonely feeling.
Wednesday was the Orientation day, which was spent watching a slideshow presentation that was presented in English and German and thus took two times as long as it should have, and then we were taken on a walking tour of the campus, though my group only saw the library really, and ate lunch at the Mensa (student cafeteria).
(The slide to the right is from the Orientation. It says: "German beer: *is probably the best in the world *contains a lot of alcohol". yep)
That afternoon, while still trying frantically to connect to the internet, I encountered a red haired american looking girl wearing both Uggs, a northface hoodie, and then an American Eagle sweatshirt underneath. She seemed lost and confused, so I offered her help. Her name is Mandy, she's from Louisiana, was also born here in Germany and moved away as a child, but she didn't have the benefit of a great college German program so her German speaking abilities are underdeveloped. Or so she thinks, I think she's doing just fine. She reminds me of Julia Roberts, both in appearance and in her voice, possibly the slight southern accent. It's cute. We started to hang out after she let me use her internet, seeing as I still didn't have any, and realized how lonely and homesick we both were. We've basically been inseparable since Wednesday afternoon and everyone else we hang out with seems to assume we've known each other for much longer. I think we're going to be great friends through out the whole semester and probably after... she's very low drama and the same sort of girl I fancy myself to be.
Thursday morning was the German placement test. Cue the dramatic music! We had an hour long test, consisting of six parts, which tested our ability to hear German, to pose questions, vocabulary, prepositions, article endings and cases, and a comprehension section where we filled in missing things in a paragraph. It was definitely interesting and I felt like I did pretty well on it leaving the test. Mandy and I then went to run errands, like registering for the City. They took my German passport and crossed out "brookfield, Wi USA" and stamped "Bonn" over it. Pretty hardcore... We also opened a bank account for her and took care of Lease contracts at the Studentenwerk Building. I continued to try to fix my internet there...
Thursday night we went to Sanja's house to watch the premiere of Germany's Next Top Model, which Heidi Klum hosts, and enjoyed a feast of German junk food. It was strange to hear Heidi speak in German and not in English with her cute accent... she was somehow less charming this way. Sanja claims if you listen closely, you can tell by Heidi's syntax that she is losing her German speaking abilities in lieu of her America lifestyle. Interesting...
Friday we received the results of the placement test. We sat in a room, all ~110 students, and were told to listen for our names. 11 teachers, forming 11 groups, called off their students. Slowly the Asians were called off... then american students... no one from Madison until group 6 or so... then I looked around and realized there were maybe 20 people left and I started to think I had done really well on this test. Then Mandy's name was called for group 10... and only 11 of us remained. We were the cream of the crop. 3 of us from Madison, 4 of us having German roots in the group, and 3 girls from China who have only studied German for 2 years apparently. I placed in the top group... wow. I couldn't stop smiling. It feels nice to have something acknowledge my German skill level I suppose, besides people telling me "aber du sprechst doch gut deutsch!"
We had a couple hours of introducing one another and getting to know the teacher, and picking a German workshop in the afternoon. I chose two: grammar for the upper level and modern short prose works. We'll see how interesting they are... There's another test on April 1st which should be difficult but hopefully I'm well prepared. I'm excited to have some sort of structure now, to be starting classes after 2 or 3 months of not being in class. Actual classes will start in April and that will also prove interesting I'm sure.
Last night we had a welcome kick off party with a free chinese buffet and some free beer and soda. It was an enjoyable time and I've been getting to know a lot of students from all over the States, China, and Germany. I'm excited to build these friendships and branch out from the people from Madison, though they are also pretty cool :)

Now we're off to buy Mandy a cell phone since we can't unlock the main doors to each others floors and we feel pretty ridiculous skyping together in the same building... or awesome. I mean whatever you want to call it. I definitely still miss home, miss my friends, my boyfriend? whatever you want to call him... not sure if he's reading this ha ha but things are getting better. I feel like I'm going to like the city, like five months will go by quickly, and like I will enjoy this experience. I'm starting to think in German too so my next post might not be intelligible...

Der Jersey Hills

One thing I credit american television with founding is the phenomenon known as reality television. Starting with MTVs the real world, nearly 25 seasons of television ago, the art of reality television grew to the heights of The Hills and Jersey Shore in a few short years. These shows, some artfully flimmed and others crudely captured, offer a 'real' look at the lives of controversial groups of young, usually rich, and beautiful people in America. Thankfully, this art form has thrived to the point of export all over the world... including Germany. While the drunken one night stand sort of antics reign supreme on MTV, VH1, and the likes, Germans prefer to show something more meaningful such as cultural clashes between immigrants and natives, and what it actually means to be a native or an immigrant.
This new found guilty pleasure is titled 'Its My Life' (not a translation, is just given as such on German TV) and is a reality show, filmed in a style that seems amateurish when compared to the Hills. The camera angles don't pan back and forth between characters, there are no close ups, it's more like it was filmed with only one camera man and no set up of the scene was given beforehand. Real reality in a way. Annoyingly real, as almost nothing goes on.
The characters of this show are 5 girls, all related as cousins, and all teenagers. They come from Turkish families, a large immigrant community within Germany. The Turkish people have been here so long though, 2 or more generations (after WWII), that the children are born here and raised as Germans. They retain a strong connection to their cultural roots, however, they feel like Auslaender (people from other lands) both in Germany where they live and in Turkey where they visit remaining family. They speak about the trials of belonging to two worlds, having a boyfriend with whom they can't go on dates with until they are engaged (um... what happens if the first date then goes badly?), about needing their male cousins' permission to go out with friends for the night, and how even though German law says 16 year olds may drink alcohol, they aren't allowed to by their cultural and family rules. While Heidi and Spencer may never understand the trials these girls go through, these girls don't understand how to be as entertaining as american reality stars. When two girls started to argue, one walked away to cool off after about 10 seconds of arguing... in case the police came, she didn't want to get in trouble seeing as she has ambitions to be a police officer herself. In the next scene, it was mentioned that she wasn't there because the argument hadn't been forgotten, then in the following scene the girls were sitting next to each other and laughing again. MTV would have dragged that arguement out into a 4 episode arc with lingering repercussions and maybe some boyfriend stealing thrown in for good measure. Jersey Shore would have fist pumped their way into jail over it. German TV however acted too adult about it to provide any entertainingly redeeming facet... The show provided some interesting insights but the teasers for what was going to happen didn't leave me wanting more. The portrayal of the male cousins leaves one feeling incredibly sorry for the girls who on one hand respect their culture and on the other, want to take part in the modern world. One girl was hit by her cousin when he saw her at a cafe with two girlfriends, having an alcoholic beverage, without permission. Lydia told me how their culture, along with other middle eastern cultures, still believe in honor killings and such sources of punishment. In an honorific society in the middle east, if a woman is raped, it is her fault. She has lost her virginity and dishonored her family. To regain honor, her brother or father must kill her. Amazing how in the year 2010 we live in a world still plagued by such horrors...

Another horror, for the record, is a German video store ha ha one must be 18 to enter, and for good reason. The ratio of new releases, classic films, and the like to porn is about 1:3... Along with giant cardboard cut outs of the 'film's' stars. Awesome. Note to self: keep your eyes on the ground and learn to read Braille to check out a movie.

Was able to run today, despite the weather being less beautiful than two days ago. Tried to buy a skype camera and mikrofon but the digital store is only open 4 days a week, today was not one of them. Headed to Bonn tomorrow! Dinner with Sanja, my Bonn Buddy, and others around 6, then who knows. Hopefully settling into a routine will make days pass more quickly. I'm excited to start my classes, it's been too long since I had a good discussion about English literature :) the nerd in me needs to come out...