die Geige

I was a bit too into school and activities in things in the States. My life revolved around it and I had a great time, even if it was a rather taxed commodity. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade my high school years at MLWGS for anything. But the amount of free time I have here is a little new and disconcerting. My gymnasium doesn't help much because it has a culture that no longer sustains AGs (German semi-equivalent of after school activities).  So I'm on the lookout for things to do.

I would say I've always wanted to be musical, but that's not exactly true. I was too stubborn to properly learn the piano as a kid just because it wasn't my choice. (Yes, Mom, you were right.) A arrogant band teacher later and the clarinet, along with everything else musical, was history. Or so I thought. I like listening to music. I like being surrounded by music. I just can't make music. Which is sad, somehow.

So, with all the newfound free time, I figured I should do something about it. I found a music school and rented a violin and am now screeching and scratching my way to "proficiency." My real goal is to just be able to eek out a melody that resembles O Tannenbaum (O Christmas Tree) by Christmas.

The guy who rented me my violin used to live in the house next to ours and we had a nice conversation about the village. Small world all around.

The lessons are particularly funny because my teacher and I work on communicating at the same time. He's not German and neither am I, yet we're holding the lessons in Germany in German. His accent is thick Bulgarian and he has (actually pretty decent) self taught English. I have an American accent and I know no Bulgarian. We make it work though and I'm glad I started.

Halloween und Messe

Halloween is not really a German thing. It's the old English pre-All Saint's Day celebration merged with a Celtic holiday, but in the last century or so it's become stereotypically American. My host Oma asked me what it was all about anyways, all she knew was that it came from America because the GIs brought it with them after the end of the war.

That said, my host family has more or less always celebrated it in some way. My host siblings picked it up when they lived in Spain and for years were the only ones in the Dorf to trick-or-treat (Süßes-oder-saures). This year it was just a bonfire in the backyard; cozy and fun.

I'm going to skip through time a little bit here and shoot to last weekend and the Mindener Messe. I went with a group of 10 friends to carnival to just hang out and see the rides. Apparently it comes twice a year, and I'll get a second chance in slightly warmer weather. Although, to be honest, it wasn't that bad. A thick jacket, gloves, and a scarf did the trick.

It was a brilliant evening and when I was on one of the rides, I had an interesting thought. My life is basically a movie right now. It looked like a scene ripped straight from a movie, with the passing music blasting out of the stereos. I was on a carnival ride, whirling around, with awesome friends and the fair lights twinkled in the background while a cold wind brought the smell of popcorn, roasted nuts, and pizza. It's moments like that that make this experience worth it.

Largest transportable Ferris Wheel in Europe

Rügen und Stralsund

One of the churches of Stralsund

One of the days of our vacation, we drove about an hour and a half north to Stralsund, which is one of the harbor cities in northern Germany. It was the first bigger city that I've been in while in Germany. (Driving from the airport in Frankfurt doesn't count). It was really cool, but a little windy and cold.

We went to the Oceaneum, which is a rather large aquarium and ocean environmental museum. It had a bunch of cool fish and sharks and I was able to understand most of the German signage, though there was also an English language cheat sheet right printed beneath it.

I have never eaten so much fish in one day. Its on the coast so obviously there is a lot of fishing, but I was surprised. It was very tasty though. But a pescatarian I am not.

This tank was about three stories tall

From the penguin exhibit on the roof you could see this other church too

But our day didn't just end in Stralsund, we also drove even further north to Rügen, a large island across from Stralsund. Our goal was Jasmund Nationalpark on the very northeastern tip of the island on the Baltic Sea. There are some very impressive white chalk cliffs, like the ones at Dover in England. The one cliff was called Königsstuhl, which means King's Chair, and the legend goes that the ancient Slavs who lived on the island chose their king through a competition. Whoever could climb to the top of the cliff first (without dying obviously) would sit on the top and become king.

View from the Königsstuhl

The Baltic Sea, Sweden is somewhere out there.

We also walked down a 435 step staircase to the beach and looked around. The rocks on the beach were mostly some kind of stone whose name I've forgotten, but it is easily broken into arrow heads and knives and the like. Pretty neat!

The national park also had beautiful forests and it's getting to be fall!

Neubrandenburg + Ost Deutschland + Waaren

As promised I'm going to go a little bit slower and more in depth with my vacation posting rather than posting one giant broad post on it.

Like I said, we were in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, which is one of the former East German Bundesländer (Federal States). At first glance, it doesn't really look that different at all. There are still the same trees and road signs and everyone still speaks German. But there are differences. The DDR (Demokratische Deutsche Republik) was communist, and the stereotypical apartment blocks are still there. My host mom mentioned that, growing up, everyone lived in more or less the exact same apartment. Some people just had two bedrooms, or three, or four.




There are also a lot less people in East Germany. It's actually something of a policy problem for Germany. Up until the fall of the wall, Neubrandenburg had over 100,000 residents. It now has just under 45,000. There just aren't jobs or industry in the Eastern states. It has a lot of complicated reasons behind it and the fault isn't just the communist system, the West German takeover of the economy was rather unfriendly as well.

But anyhow, Neubrandenburg's city walls managed to survive WWII, even though the Cathedral and most of the old city didn't. They were really quite neat, even if somewhat restricting of traffic. Minden tore theirs down a hundred years ago to make way for growth, but Neubrandenburg managed to work around it. There are four gates, one at each of the compass points, and they looked great.

One benefit to not having people in eastern Germany is that the environment is amazingly clean. Neubrandenburg is on the Tollensesee, and you can see straight through it. My host father said that its true even in the middle of the lake, you can see several feet down. And the area around Neubrandenburg is still very agricultural. Nord Rhein - Westfalen, the state where I live, is one of the most densely populated areas in Europe; it was a big contrast.

A car advertisement floating in the harbor

Lots of lakes in the Mecklenburg area and we drove to a town on another lake, Waaren an der Müritz. Just to go around and look and it was really pretty, but a bit stormy and cold.

Waaren and der Müritz

I apologize for the lack of pictures. I kept forgetting my camera and am not used to me phone yet, half of the pictures were upside down!

Urlaub!

So I really did intend on being a little more consistent with my posting here, but then we went on vacation and I forgot.

First off, there is a ton more vacation time here than in America. Well technically not, but it is spread out a lot more. We in America overdose during the summer (for at least 12 weeks) and then work through the horrendous weather of February and March without a single day off (it's how it feels). But in Germany the breaks are more evenly divided. Summer Break is only 6 weeks long, Fall Break is two weeks, Christmas break is four, I think, and then Easter Break is another 2 weeks, and then there are other random holidays too. I hear its a lot more time off in Bavaria. When you're Catholic everything's a holiday! But really.

Anyhow, my host family and I headed east to Neubrandenburg. My host mom was born in the DDR and grew up there and everything, so we were going to visit some family and friends of hers, but also see Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Germany is a large country. I think Americans forget that because European countries look so small squished next to each other on a map. But believe me, it's big. Minden is pretty close to the middle of Germany and it took us four hours to drive within an hour of the Polish border.

Speaking of borders, the old border between East and West Germany is pretty much nonexistent nowadays. There was a guard tower next to the Autobahn, but if my family hadn't pointed it out, I would have missed it. There is a museum and rest stop there, but it looked like the rest stop was more important!

The day we got there was also the last day of Oktoberfest and we went to it, even though we were no where near Bavaria (remember what I said about them?). Oktoberfest has been spreading across Germany and becoming more and more common, Minden even had one for a day, but all the tickets were gone. Originally, however, Oktoberfest was solely the domain of Munich.

The one in Neubrandenburg didn't come anywhere close to Munich, the Virginia State Fair would have dwarfed it, but it was still a lot of fun. It was a whole lot like a carnival here in the US, just with a bunch more beer and colder.

I'll get into the more touristy details in a later post!

Gandalf hanging out in the back!

die (der? das?) deutsche Sprache

My textbooks

Obviously, living in Germany, I speak German. A lot. Actually, for me, English has become almost an entirely non-verbal language. I "speak" English in my English class, but only when I am called on or my teacher talks to me. All my friends just speak to each other in German, so that's what I do too. And when I do speak, I have to speak rather slowly so that other people can understand me. (I didn't pick up on that one until relatively late) On top of it all, the two are starting to slur together and one time my English teacher was having a conversation with me (in English) and I randomly slipped into German and didn't realize it at all or even remember which language we had started in.

But for the most part, I do think to myself in English, which disappoints me a bit. It may be because I write a lot in English and that I just think to much to myself. Either way, it hasn't been getting in the way of learning German, which does become a problem for some people. I'm a bit of an exception in terms of this program because I had some foreknowledge of the language, quite a bit actually. The teachers at Schloss Wittgenstein said that our class was the most advanced advanced class in memory. The details I'm working out are coming slowly.

My geography teacher noted after one of the breaks, that I am becoming more and more confident in my German every week. It is true, I find myself using words and phrases that I don't remember consciously learning. But I still have a long way to go. There will be moments when I am half way through a thought and lose complete grasp of the language and not know what to say next.

I also mix up my articles a lot. In a very typical English speaking way, too. I refer to everything as "die" (pronounced "dee") which is feminine and sounds a lot like "the," but when I am using pronouns for inanimate objects, I use "es" which is the neuter pronoun (i.e. "it"). I am getting better, I'm getting used to saying "I put him down over there" in reference to a coat, although usually it's a she and not a he. Trés compliqué, oder?

So for now, I'm just working on it and reading Harry Potter. So far I'm on the second one, when I finish them all I might move on to something more substantial.

Kaiser Wilhelm und Sommertage

The actual monument

How're y'all? Good I hope? It's been a while, I know, but things got busy and I got out of sync. I've got a few topics up my sleeve, a few pretty pictures and lots of memories. I can't believe it has already been two months! So let's get started.

Way back in the middle of September I went to Wittekindsburg and the Kaiser Wilhelm Denkmal, both on the mountain range that is right by Minden, with my host mom and sister. The mountain is actually the reason Minden exists at all, because the mountain pass was once the only way in and out of Westphalia. Also the site of the post-Roman Germanic seat of power, Charlemagne beat the tribal leader and christianized Germany. All here in Minden. The name actually comes from that time because Minden is Min + Den, which is old German for Mein +Dein, which is German for Mine + Yours.







Here are a few of the pictures from the monument. Much to my mom's dismay, I was the one behind the (really nice) camera and went a bit artsy with it, so there aren't any of me or anyone else for that matter.

Across the gorge is a TV tower. Right is Niedersachsen, left is Nord Rhein-Westfalen.

Minden! The blockish thing on the far right is the Catholic Cathedral, the big brown/white one is the Marienkirche, and that's about all you can see from this view. We live far wester than this picture goes. It takes 2 minutes to walk from the towers to each other.

But anyhow, while we were up on the mountain we walked along the ridge to a Gaststätte (just a small hotel with a few rooms and coffee and ice cream). It was really pretty with a great view of the countryside and a launching pad for hanggliders, who were coincidentally setting up to fly. So we stayed around and waited for them to get ready, even if it did take them about an hour.

It was a really warm and beautiful day and it was only my first or second truly summer days in Germany. A precious commodity, I'll say.

Gandalf, our dog (the big white boxed over there), found a small friend and they ran around and played with each other. Kinda fun to watch.

Wonderful view. The lakes aren't natural, they're from a gravel mine (Kieswerk)

And take off!

I would never do that, I'm deathly afraid of heights, but it was really cool to watch! After that, we went home and grilled some delicious food! It was a wonderful day. Check back soon for some more updates!