grrrrr

for those of you wondering what happened to the cynic in me now that i've posted poetry on my blog, don't worry, she's still here. here's an answer to the sappy story i previously posted.

so this guy comes up to me in the school yesterday and mumbles a question: "wieviele sflajsdlkfjaldk?"

i'm standing there, blank-faced, shaking my head. i'm sorry?

he repeats the question: wieviele asdkljflasdjflk?

i still have no clue what he wants to know. how many what?!?! i'm sorry, i don't understand the question, i tell him.

he narrows his eyes. "are you a foreigner?"

well, yes. but what is your question?

he just walks away shaking his head, then turns to someone else and asks again. this time i understand the last part: wieviele haben wir heute?

he wanted to know the date.

ok, fine. but seriously, what does the fact that i'm a "foreigner" have to do with whether or not i would know the date?!?!!? only real germans know what day it is!??!

grrrrr.

someone else's words

"The leaves are falling, falling as if from far off,
as if withered in the distant gardens of heaven;
they fall with nay-saying gestures.
And in the night the heavy earth falls
out of the stars into loneliness.

We are all falling. This hand falls.
And look at the other: it is in everything.
And yet there is One, who holds this falling
with infinite softness in his hands."


or for the German speakers:

Die Blätter fallen, fallen wie von weit,
als welkten in den Himmeln ferne Gärten;
sie fallen mit verneinender Gebärde.
Und in den Nächten fällt die schwere Erde
aus allen Sternen in die Einsamkeit.

Wir alle fallen. Diese Hand da fällt.
Und sieh dir and're an: es ist in allen.
Und doch ist Einer, welcher dieses Fallen
unendlich sanft in seinen Händen hält.


first one to correctly guess the author gets a postcard from Künzelsau! =)
i know, i know, it's not the most stimulating prize, but come on, it's always fun to get mail, right?? =)

Kaffee und Kuchen!

i got so absorbed in the tomato drama, that i completely forgot to write about the other food-related incident of the week!

so there's this café, where i'm something of an afternoon regular, right? when i'm done with school and have nothing better to do but don't feel like going home yet, i go there and sit in what's left of the sun and try to enjoy the last few nice autumn afternoons, before it gets too cold to sit outside. but the real reason i started going there regularly is that the owner-lady recognized me, like the second time i was there, and as a former barista myself, you know, that means something =)

so i'm sitting there this afternoon, and i've been there for a while, when the owner-lady tells me she's running next door to another shop for a second, just to let me know, in case i need something. sure. so i'm just hanging out, and a couple minutes later, these four older gentlemen show up and see me, and are like, you don't work here, do you? (because i'm the only person there!!) i explain that the owner-lady ran next door, and as i'm debating whether or not to get her, she comes hurrying out of the other shop and goes to greet her new customers.

i'm only half paying attention to them--it was kind of hard to ignore them completely but would have taken way too much effort to try to actually understand all of them talking at once--and it turns out they have a cake with them and want to know if the owner-lady can provide them with plates and something to cut it with, as well as coffee, of course, and she would be most welcome to pull up a chair and have a piece of cake as well. everyone's laughing and having a good time. owner-lady goes to get the plates and coffee. the gentlemen are chatting and laughing--about 18 inches from me, just for sake of the mental picture. i'm sitting there, thoroughly amused, and every now and then, one of them makes a comment in my general direction or, better yet, about me to the man next to him, but with the obvious intention that i hear it... hilarious!! one of them finally asked me if what i was working on was for school, although, he clearly found that idea improbable. so i explained what i was doing--thus more or less outting myself as an american. intrigued and amused, they continue to joke with me and with the owner-lady, asking her if they should order in italian and such. she told them to feel free, but she wouldn't understand them!

after the cake and coffee have been distributed, the gentlemen insist that the owner-lady sit down with them. no, no, she says, she prefers to stand. but does this dampen the mood? not a chance! they just kept going. these guys were hilarious!! they offered me a piece of cake, which i graciously declined. (i was given a piece anyways, of course.) i asked if it was someone's birthday. no, they had just been given the cake--there was some kind of story behind it, but rather of the sort that's better left unsaid, or so they told me... and i quite believed them =)

i continued doing my thing and they finished their coffee and cake, and i had kind of tuned them out and didn't really register that they were leaving, until one of them came up to me and wished me luck and a good time in germany--half in english, it was cute =) i thanked them, of course, for the cake, and we said our goodbyes.

i mean, how adorable is that?!?!

you like tomato, and i like tomahhto!

i have a feeling tomatoes were a point of cultural contention long before the brothers gershwin brought the linguistic dilemma to the world's attention. sure, everyone knows what a tomato is--take for example, a children's picture book, where you get the little picture of the fruit, vegetable, animal, whatever, and the corresponding name. along with the word "tomato," you'll see a red, roundish thing with a little green stem, right? sure. simple. so besides the pronunciation question, what's so controversial about tomatoes??!?!

well, here's where the fun begins. i mean, what are you supposed to _do_ with a tomato?? do you eat it whole, like an apple, and just bite into it? do you slice it? if so, thick slices or thin? or should you quarter it, again like an apple? or maybe dice it up into a thousand little pieces? and what about the rough spot at the top, where the stem was? do you leave it or carve it out? and then there's the whole issue of why it's a fruit and not a vegetable, but we're not even going to get into all of that...

(yeah, now try asking any or all of those questions in a foreign language!!)

confused yet? i mean, there's no _right_ way to eat or slice a tomato, so why does all of this matter?? because there are, however, culturally "correct"--or at least culturally intuitive--ways to cut tomatoes. or so it seems. you're at someone's house getting dinner ready, and, of course, you want to be helpful, but then they say, do you mind cutting the tomatoes? ... and all of a sudden, it's like a test. or maybe more like a pop quiz. i mean, you didn't see it coming, right? the panic sets in. you break out in a cold sweat. breathe, you say, it's just tomatoes. tomatoes. no problem. everyone knows how to cut tomatoes. breathe. oh, shit. how should you cut the tomatoes?!?

exactly. sing it with me...you like tomato, and i like tomahhto...potato, potahhto, tomato, tomahhto...let's call the whole thing off!

moment of silence

so there's been all this drama about getting me keys for the school because of insurance issues and blah blah blah, and i finally got a key today!! but when i went to put it on my keychain, i realized i needed another key ring, because all of my keys (all 3 of them!!) don't quite fit. so i added buying a key ring to my list of things to do today and went on about my business. then, about 10 minutes later, as i was grabbing my keys so i could get into the computer room, i remembered that i have another key ring in my room at home with my car key on it. (don't ask why i brought my car key with me to germany, when my car was staying in michigan...) cool, so i'll just use that key ring, and i'll have to find somewhere else to put my car key, where i'll remember it in 9 months... then it hit me. wait. my car is dead. i don't have a car anymore. the car key sitting on my table at home is completely useless. my car is gone. SAD!!!

yeah. i got all weird and nostalgic about my car today!! for those of you who don't know, about 3 weeks after i got to germany, my car decided it just couldn't go on without me. after 6 and half years of loyal companionship and faithful service, she was through. she just couldn't go any further. not that i can blame her!! my poor little red car that took me everywhere!! to california and back 800 times and between ann arbor and chicago every couple of months or to new york or tennessee or or or... and now she's gone. sad.

i know this comes as a shock to some of you, and if you need to talk, or if you want to share a memory or a thought, you know what to do.

try this at home!

so i've been playing this fun game--well, it's not really a game, it's more like common courtesy here, but it's something of a challenge for me, being a bit shy and all--where i say hi to everyone i pass on the streets in the evening and see how many people say hi back... so far i'm doing well--i haven't been snubbed yet!! i think some of you in ann arbor (or seattle or georgia or new or...or...) should try this and let me know what happens. just say good evening or hello to everyone you walk past on the street. see how people respond...*grin*...

i went running last night, and the road where i normally run is completely deserted, but lately, i've been running through the residential area a bit after my usual route, and then i come across people. and, sticking to the rules, i have to say hi to everyone i pass, right? so i pass this older woman, then an older man, say hi to both of them. keep running. make this weird figure 8 loop thing and end up crossing paths with the man again. no need to greet him again, of course, but i did smile and laugh, because it was funny. i mean, i had just seen him, like 2 minutes beforehand. so he laughs, too, shaking his head and says something along the lines of, well that was quick, and i laughed to myself the rest of the way home...

any questions?

so the students here have been asking me questions since i got here:

where are you from? (michigan)
do you like germany? (umm, yeah.)
did you vote for bush? (no.)
are you married? (umm, no.)
do you speak any other languages? (ixnay on...wait, does pig latin count??)
what's your favorite color? (green.)
do you have any pets? (yes!! hi, Boy, i miss you!!)
is it true that the hamburgers at mcdonald's are bigger in the US? (umm, sorry, really couldn't tell you...)
are the people bigger? (well, yes.)
do you like soccer? (uhh, sure.)
how old are you? (24)
do you speak german? (sometimes.)
what are your hobbies? (ummm...?!?! i think that's my favorite question. first of all, when's the last time you used the word "hobby"?? and really, unless drinking coffee and bumming around ann arbor count as hobbies...do i have any?!?!?)

yeah. that's a reenactment of my first 4 weeks here. it's like the first week of college all over again. "hi!! what's your name? where are you from? what's your major? what dorm do you live in?" though, if you'd told me then, that i would end up majoring in german...(shaking head)...

i remember some guest speaker in high school giving this speech, where he just kept animatedly repeating the question "how do you get THERE from HERE?" at the time, it was just kind of funny, because he was so serious and trying to be motivational, and we were all just sitting there, bored to death, poking each other, and mouthing the question along with him and rolling our eyes.

my question is rather, how did i get HERE from THERE?!?!?

of bikes and bugs and burst bubbles

sorry about the alliteration. it's cheesy, i know, but kind of fitting. see, you know how in european films, there's always some character riding around town on a bicycle with flowers in the basket, waving and cheerily greeting everyone she knows? well, i was all excited about getting a bike when i got here, not that i wanted to go around greeting everyone--god forbid!! although the basket and the flowers would be nice...

but yeah. so i've got my bike. and a basket. and occasionally flowers. but before you get jealous, it's not as romantic as it sounds. in fact, it's anything BUT romantic. by the time i get to school in the mornings, i have about 30 little flies stuck to the front half of my body. all over my sweater. on my pants. in my hair. the ones in my eyes i usually fish out before i get there, so that i can still see along the way. it's disgusting!! and kind of funny...

and i wear a helmet. i'd never worn a bike helmet in my life before i got here! it's part of the whole being-a-good-example thing that comes with being associated with a school in a small town. i even wait for the walk signal at intersections. well, most of the time...=) seriously, me, ann arborite and professional jaywalker!?!?!! you guys would die laughing. it's not really fair, though, because they guilt trip you in germany--they put up these signs at all the major intersections with pictures of little kids with backpacks or pigtails standing at the light, waiting to cross, and little blurbs about how you have to set a good example... cruel, really.

the funny thing, though, is that in some places, it's perfectly normal to just walk down the middle of the street, even with a big group of people--or even to rollerblade down the middle of the street! this is somehow acceptable--as long as you don't cross against the light!

welcome to germany =)

here's a picture of my school. hideous, is it not? one of the teachers told me, when she first saw the school, she was like, oh my gosh, it looks like a factory! and i quite agree. fortunately, the inside is much nicer than the outside =)

das Wochenende

some of you have asked what there is to do here on the weekends, and in all honesty, i have to tell you, i don't know, because i haven't really been here on a weekend yet!! the lovely folk from the school have so far spared me the agony of having to figure that out by inviting me on various excursions =)

this past weekend, i went hiking in the black forest with a bunch of people my parents age or older. crazy, huh? it was actually really fun--and, of course, fascinating. for one thing, on the first day, we actually "hiked" through towns. on sidewalks. past bus stops. and this was seriously a marked hiking trail. parts of it were in foresty areas, and then all of a sudden, you were in a town, just walking down the street like a normal person for about 10 minutes, and then, back into the woods...and then, back out again. we had to cross roads and stuff. it was weird. the second day was more like traditional hiking--where we were actually in the black forest and it _felt_ like a forest. way cooler =)

one of the women in the group was 69 years old and ran the new york marathon a few years ago!!! (cat, this is you in 50 years...) crazy!! she's shorter than i am and has crazy long white hair braided halfway down her back and wore this tiny little bright pink backpack. she practically hiked circles around me, not to mention everyone else. it was hilarious! i was walking with her and sonja, the teacher who had invited me, for a while on the first day, and i hadn't really said much, probably 3 words total!! partially just because she talked so much herself and partially because i was a little freaked out (i mean, really, i was with a dozen 50-something year olds i'd never met in my life, you know?), and she turns to me, practically mid-sentence, and asks, do you actually _speak_ german? ummmmm, yeaaaaaah. (i'm telling you, germans don't let you get away with anything!) but really, she was great =)

i think the most startling discovery during the whole trip, however, was on the drive home--sonja's husband was playing rufus wainright and liz phair in the car! since when do i listen to the same music as a german man in his mid-fifties!?!?!?!? freaky.