Heidelberg and Stuttgart

The day after Stadtallendorf, I worked in the morning and then headed to catch a train to Heidelberg to celebrate the birthday of dear friend and fellow Fulbrighter Elisa. I should explain a bit about the Marburg semester ticket.

The semester ticket is given to all students who register. The student union in Marburg negotiates with the regional transportation to secure a special transit pass for students that covers travel on regional trains in the area surrounding the university. The union in Marburg is particularly good at this task and even negotiated with Deutsche Bahn to grant us access fast Intercity trains that travel across country. Thus, we the 100 Euro semester ticket, I can travel on any train that travels through Marburg to the stop right outside Hessen. This means that the normally 30 Euro train right from Marburg to Heidelberg is now free, as long as I stink to Intercity trains. Its a beautiful thing. On this particular trip, I felt inspired to write the previous blog entry about the joys of train travel.

I arrived in Heidelberg around 3pm in the afternoon, bearing only my backpack for the overnight travel. The birthday girl was MIA, so I found a park bench along the Neckar River and settled down for a nap. (another thing I love about Europe, I feel safe enough to fall asleep on a park bench). Eventually the birthday girl was found and we set out to make food for the Mexican themed feast. While cooking several other Fulbrighters from around Germany arrived (all a pleasant surpise for the birthday girl) and secured a cooler to transport the now freshly prepared food to the river bank. After singing happy birthday by candlelight, we watched a procession of men and women carrying torches down the river. We never figured out why they did it.




After dinner, we all cleaned up and I retired to Elisa's place to camp out for the night. I woke up early the next morning and hopped on an early train towards Stuttgart. I just happened to board the same train as another Fulbright so we ended up chatting during the hour long trip. (Can you imagine this happening if we all drove cars to the party?) I hopped off at Stuttgart while he traveled on to Munich. Once in Stuttgart, I took use of the train locker system (great system that needs to be replicated at US train stations) and set off exploring Stuttgart. I first found a lovely park just outside the train station.



After getting lost a few times and learning to navigate the tram system, I eventually found my way to the Mercedes Benz Museum, a modern glass sculpture on the outskirts of town.
This museum was a must-see considering that even the busses in Germany are Mercedes Benz. The museum is extremely interactive and shows the history of the company from the birth of the first car to the most modern version of the Mercedes Benz Class 5.
On your self-guided tour, you see all types of vehicles that the company has ever made (including their ambulances and speciality cars).









At one point, the museum even let you try out the massaging seat chair available in class Mercedes Benz class 3 or higher cars. (I tried this out of course.)

After exploring the museum, I met up with Elisa and Kim at the Stuttgart FruhlingsFest (or Spring festival). I at first thought it would be this dinky little festival filled with beer and schnitzel, but it turns out that the festival was a HUGE fair type event, filled with high flying swings (we rode them), roller coasters named after the alps, games (played them), and of course multiple beer gardens with live music and people dressed in dirndls and Lederhosen.


Even the little kiddie rides were authentically German with kids riding miniature ICE trains.

The feeling of the festival was one of great fun and joy. I honestly can not remember having so much fun at an American style fair since I was 10, but I guess the fact that every thing seemed new and different made me feel like a kid again.

After spending a few hours at the festival and realizing that none of us had brought more than 15 Euros each to spend at the festival we decided to take off towards the city. Since Stuttgart was a major manufacturing hub during World War II, the town was heavily bombed and thus had to be completely rebuilt. The "old town" consists of a few churches that were rebuilt after the war and some pedestrian only streets of rebuilt fachwerk houses.

However, it was still a nice town to explore. Its one of the few big cities that I would actually enjoy living in. I would love to visit it again, especially when I found out later that my dad's family lived in Esslingen in the 1200s. Esslingen is less than a 10 minute train ride from Stuttgart.



Thus this place definitely merits another visit, just probably not this summer.

May first was a holiday (May day or Labor day) in Germany so the first weekend of May was a long weekend. In some cities like Berlin, May day was celebrated with riots and protests. I decided NOT to celebrate in this manner and decided to spend the weekend traveling.

On Friday, my housemate Johannes and I used our semester tickets to travel to Stadtallendorf, a small town just north of Marburg. Before World War 2, this collection of towns was a major manufacturing hub for middle germany. During the war, the Germans needed a munitions factory. Instead of building large factory buildings which would be prime targets for bombing, the Germans built tiny buildings in a forest. Then instead of relying on darkness to to disguise the buildings, they planted a forest on top of the buildings. When allied bombers flew over the town, all they saw was a large forest. The allies knew that a large munitions factory existed in Hesse, but they could never find it! The factories were hidden so well that they were never discovered during the war. Rumour had it that the buildings still existed, so we took off to explore.

Stadtallendorf itself is a tired little town just 15 minutes train ride north of Marburg. The town today is little more than a train station and a small pedestrian zone. (they only have one ice cream shop!) However, soon after leaving the train station, we found a map showing a small military base and then a box with TNT on it. We had no better idea so we just headed on to the forest. After a few wrong turns, we ended up at some military barracks and a sign saying basically, "don't trepass" with very bold lettering. Being the non-obedient people that we are, we of course we trespassed.



Soon after walking into the forest, we found exactly what we came looking for, a building covered in trees. Johannes attempted the scale the fence but we decided it was better to set off in search of other buildings.


We made our way deeper into a forest and started noticing large hills with trees growing on them. Only later did we realize that these lumps were in fact the buildings we so desired to find!

Can you see the building in the photo above? This photo was taken in broad daylight, from the path just 20 meters away from the building. Now imagine trying to locate these buildings at night or under cloud cover, No wonder these buildings were never found!

Nearly all the munitions equipment had been removed during extensive clean up operations 20 years ago, but we still found evidence of what life would have been like at the factory. Apparently some workers actually lived at factory as you can see the wallpaper in this particular building.


In one building we even found a cot, although its likely that the cot arrived after the factory had closed.


We also came across the recreation area, complete with beer garden and tennis courts. The beer sign still hung on the outside of the building, although you can't see it very well in this photo.


We came across lots of these old buildings, many of which had been turned into trash heaps over the last 60 years. One person's trash heap becomes another person's treasure.


We spent over 3 hours exploring these buildings and experiencing a part of German history well known to the world, but of which little evidence remains. In general, most Germans don't want to talk about the war. Frankly, I don't blame them. Its a huge blemish on a rather fascinating country. The country is filled with wonderful towns and a truly remarkable history, but most people tend to focus on the relics from the war. The relics are fascinating and very much intriguing, but Germany is just much more than that. Stay tuned for the next part of this weekend, a birthday in Heidelberg and a visit to Stuttgart.

In the meantime, here is a link to the photos from this trip. I highly suggest you take a look as the buildings are incredible.

Stadtallendorf Munitions Factory

Wetzlar, Goethe once hated this town

Back in late April (easter weekend to be exact), my friend Johannes and I decided to make the best of our semester tickets and travel to obscure places in Hessen (that's the region of Germany I live in). The list of cities to visit started out rather small. Hessen is not exactly known for its tourist sites. The city of Frankfurt merits only 10 pages in my lonely planet guidebook while Berlin merits close to 60 pages. Marburg gets 1 page. Thus we didn't really know where to go. One of the other Fulbrights in Marburg(link) mentioned a town with free night vision goggles. The idea sounded interesting so the Saturday before Easter, Johannes and I piled onto a train and headed to Wetzlar.

The town of Wetzlar is little over 1 hour from Marburg by train. After transferring in Giessen (a town much larger than Marburg that does not merit a single mention in my guidebook) we arrived in a rather sad looking town. This trip did not seem promising at first as we stepped off the train into a American style indoor mall, complete with German interpretations of the easter story (hope to find the pictures soon). However, we soon found signs directly us to the old town, so we took off across an old bridge and ended up in the Altstadt of typical German fachwerk houses.

We traveled up into the hill to find the Wetzlar Dom/Kirche. A catholic and a protestant church in one. The mismatch of services corresponded quite well to the mismatched architectural styles of the building. In the photo below you see styles reminiscent of the middle ages, gothic, and romanesque.

Interestingly, unlike many churches in Germany, this one was not bombed in World War II, it just grew to look like this. The effect was not quite ugly but not quite beautiful either. I would call it interesting.

After exploring the innards of the church (pretty boring so no photos), J and I headed back into the fachwerk houses of the Altstadt. One house in particular carried a plaque that merited further investigation.

Goethe once lived here. We decided to commemorate this occasion by enjoying a beer, which led me to try this interesting Magic drink

The drink may not have been magic, but carried enough sustenance in it to keep me going for another few hours. Its the difference between American and German attitudes towards beer. Americans view beer as a way to get drunk, but Germans view it as a way to refresh the body with vital nutrients and minerals. The german beers are generally much darker than their American counterparts and thus provide you with the stamina to continue a hike.

After refreshments, we headed out to explore more of the city and came across this tower on the edge of town.


A sign on the tower said that it used to be a guard tower. Now its attached to a rather modern apartment complex. The other side of the tower is a lovely park, which was just starting to bloom.


As we walked through town, we saw lots of pieces of old town fortifications and even a few more fachwerk houses, but our goal was some castle ruins on top of a hill overlooking the city. After a few wrong turns and detour through an old factory, we finally stormed the castle.



I have found that castle ruins are much cooler to explore than fully restored castles so J and I spent about an hour just walking through the former courtyards and guard rooms. The largest remaining part of the castle was the guard tower, which even had a staircase for us to climb.


Once reaching the top, we saw this lovely view of south Hessen.

You can see the Wetzlar kirche/Dom in the middle of the photo. We then decided to head back into town to find some food. We hit the jackpot when we discovered a newly opened beer garden in the middle of town selling fresh wurst and ebelwoi. Now before people start calling me a drunkard, you have to understand that German beer gardens are places for family, not for getting drunk. People gather around large tables and reminisce while the kids play around the table. The gardens are typically surrounded by plants (hence the garden) and are great places to just relax and chat. This particular garden was located on the banks of the river Lahn (the same one that flows through Marburg) and featured a great view of the 500 year old Wetzlar bridge.


We enjoyed a bit of wurst and brotchen while probsting to the recently minted PhD friend of mine in the US. (Here's to you Bryce!)


We still had about 45 minutes to kill before the next fast train to Marburg, so we enjoyed a bit of the musical water fountain before heading back into town. (listen very carefully and see if you can figure out the song...here's a hint...Jingle bells, jingle bells....)



We eventually found the famous "night vision goggles" which proved to be quite useless in the daylight. We also found many other interesting novelties such as a spinning tunnel that was supposed to distort your mind and a series of giant bubbles that you were supposed to shine lights on. My friend J realized that the town was home to a major German optics manufacturer. The company apparently donated all the weird optical equipment.

We caught the train and headed back into town. I can now say that I have been to a random German city and explored the games of the local employer. In reference to the title of this entry. Goethe, the German writer, once lived here but hated it, not exactly the best selling point for a city.

Hopefully I will find more time to write about the other random cities that J and I visited, including a WW2 munitions factory town (big highlight for me).

Until then, here's the link for the complete photo album of Wetzlar.

Wetzlar

Dritte Platz

Tuesday was a highlight of my time in Marburg. Each year, the department of chemistry hosts a day long soccer tournament. I was lucky enough to participate in the tournament two years ago (link) and I looked forward to attending another one. The group started planning for the tournament about 5 months ago. Since the group hosts a lot of short term visitors, repeat visitors actually arrange their trips to coincide with the tournament.

One of the first things we needed was a team name. It was very important that our name exude both love of our field (quantum chemistry) and intimidation. Competition was fierce, at one point we had 15 different names to choose from. Eventually the field was narrowed down to two names
1) Frenking's Smooth Operators - Named after our boss and the mathematical functions that act on other functions to produce a number (implying that we would act on the field to produce points)
2) St. Pauli Principle - Combining a soccer team from southern Germany with a well known chemistry principle, the Pauli principle. In basic chemistry, the Pauli principle states that if two electrons are placed in the same orbital, they must be of opposite spins. In its pure mathematical form, the Pauli Principle states that if two electrons are placed in the same space, they must be antisymmetric (ie. Psi ri rj = -Psi rj ri)

After two rounds of voting and dubious claims of voter fraud (just kidding), we finally chose the name St. Pauli Principle.

Once we had the name, we had to create a t-shirt. This was rather straight forward since the St. Pauli team already had a logo of a Pirate and crossbones.

All we had to do was replace the pirate head with our bosses head, add the Pauli Principle to the shirt, and print it, which we did.

Now that the t-shirt and name were set, we started practices. The group is rather large so finding a time that worked for all was very difficult. We started with a few 8am practices, which were nice since we finished practice, then headed to shower, then joined everyone at the Lahnberge for breakfast together. We also tried 5pm after lab and finally 5pm on Sunday. All in all we got in about 6 different practices, its better than none, but still not too great. However, work kept us from practicing more (even though our boss wanted the team to do well, we still had to do work).

The day before the tournament, one of the labmates proposed that we increase team spirit even more by painting our nails with the team symbols. (the Pauli principle). Many of us said, why not. The end product looked like this.

Finally, the day of the tournament arrived. We all arrived bright and early to the field, wearing our brown St. Pauli Principle shirts. Our team played very well and everyone who wanted to play earned a chance to play. I even played about 5 minutes of our third game. Three games and a couple of bratwursts later (its germany, we snack on wurst all the time), we had won or tied enough games to put us into contention for the top team in our group. We only had to win one more game in order to advance to the quarterfinals.

The cheer squad decided to renew our cheers. Cheers of "lets go Pauli, lets go" and "Pauli, Pauli" and our slogan "Psi is not symmetric, neither is this game, St. Pauli Principle, Win! Win! Win!" filled the field. We may not have been the best team, but we were the most enthusiastic.

Our cheers must have worked because we advanced to the next round.

From this point on, the rest of the day became a blur. I spent 25 minutes cheering loudly for the team, then taking a 20 minute break between games. The team advanced all the way to the semifinal and lost by just 1 point to 2nd place team. We eventually played a half-final to earn third place over all, the highest placement the group has ever earned!

Our boss was so proud of us that he volunteered to pay for dinner the following night, an offer that many of us took him up on

Overall, the day was a major highlight of my time in Germany. The research group here is very diverse and international. In the year that that I have worked here, we have had students or post-docs from North America, South America, East Asia, India, Africa, Iraq, and of course countries from all over Europe. In the past the team has had members from Spain, Russia, and Brazil show up to play. This year was no different as 4 continents and 8 different countries were represented. We all joined together to work as a team and advance the team goals. Even those who could not play joined in cheering on the team. I am very grateful that I was able to stay for this historic win and I know that I will treasure the memories for a lifetime.

Here is a link to the photo album containing photos from the day.

Fussball Tournament

the lunch lady smiled at me

Only 15 days left in Germany. Its unbelievable that I am really leaving in just over 2 weeks. I know that my family wants me home. Part of me wants to go home, but as I return to thoughts that I had in January, what really defines my home. In college, I defined home as "where my pillow is". This year, that definition failed to explain my circumstances as my bed is in Illinois with a friend, the special gel pillow I bought last year is at my parents house, my fiance bought a pillow that I liked when he bought his bed hoping that someday I would actually be there to use it, and my favorite pillowcase that I used since college is on my bed in Marburg. The usual definitions don't work anymore.

One thing this year has taught me is to redefine what it means to be home. Now, home is simply defined as a place that I can relax and be myself. Now that means that I am home when I do a crazy dance in the group coffee room as my labmates and I discuss a confusing chemical phenomenon.(really, this happens often). It also means that home is the place where I sit on the balcony and read papers while listening to people on the balcony below sing songs in both German and English. Home is also the train rides from Frankfurt to Marburg where I feel relaxed enough to fall asleep (especially when the train ends at Marburg). Home is also my parent's renovated farmhouse, in a room that I never actually lived in for more than 4 weeks. Home is also with my fiance as we drive from town to town visiting people.

Home is what brings me peace. This year reminded me once again how much it takes to create a home. It took many months before I could finally relax with my housemates, not worrying how I acted or how poorly I spoke their language. It took several conferences and many late nights in the office to allow me to relax with my labmates. Home is what led me to actually carry on a conversation with the lunch lady at the mensa today, which gave me the first lunch lady smile I have seen all year.

The title of this post, "the lunch lady smiled at me" refers to all the little happy moments that have made Marburg seem like home. The guy in the stockroom that greets me with a smile every morning, the knowledge that I can run into my labmates when I go to grab a quick cup of coffee in the room next door (and I am happy about it), the smiles and jokes from Reuti as I walk by his office, the teasing housemates who put up with my silly simple German stories. All of these things combine to make Marburg just a bit more homey.

Train Travel

I wrote this post over a month ago but I just now finally posting it, sorry for the delay. :-(



I write this post from the bord bistro car on an intercity train from Marburg to Heidelberg. The tables are bigger here so I have room to spread out while I am working. While riding this train, I have been entertained by an incredibly drunk German man who likes to talk, especially to pretty women. I am so far avoided his conversation by keeping headphones in my ears, thus rendering me inaccessible to his conversation starters.

He keeps talking and talking to this poor older lady two tables from me. I keep looking up and giving the lady my sorriest grin that says "I am sorry you have to deal with this man." However, while listening in on the conversation, I have so far been entertained by a song about Bankfurt on Buy which is about the banking town Frankfurt on Main (pronounced like mine). He also likes to talk about Ryan Air, and how London is a prettier city than Frankfurt (no disagreement here). The really cool thing about the whole situation is that people just seem to humor him.

The environment on this train is very relaxing. I often fall asleep.....



or get a lot of work done. I really wish the US had more trains.
Riding the trains is one of the few times that I absolutely fall in love with this country. When I travel with friends, we just pile into a four person seater, then chat and chat until the train announces our destination. We then pile out and wander the town, hopping back onto the next train that will take us home. If I don't travel with friends, its not uncommon to make friends along the way. Just like the atmosphere on the bord bistro that allows us all to humor this drunken guy, the train puts every one on an equal place, so we learn to enjoy every moment.

Ich liebe den Zug!

Dein Englisch ist perfekt!

One of the coolest things about living in another country is making friends in a new language. Instead of associating a person with a name or a place, you now associate a language. Its incredibly weird. However, the problem with being a native American English speaker is that every one wants to speak to you in English instead of German. Thankfully, most of the people in my dormitory realize that I want to learn German, so they speak to me auf Deutsch instead of English. The last few weeks, I have been so obsessed with thesis writing that I have completely avoided all conversations with my housemates (and writing my blog, sorry). One of my housemates thought that I was avoiding the common area because I was afraid to speak auf Deutsch (part of the reason) Today, when he saw me in the kitchen he said, "I want to speak English with you. I want to practice my American English." I smiled and said, "Ja, wir können Englisch sprechen." He then said, "My English is bad so you do not want to speak English with me." I replied auf Deutsch "Nein, dein Englisch ist perfekt!" He this switched back to German and we continued to chat for another hour or so auf Deutsch.

The point of this conversation is this, no matter what the housemate said, I could only reply to him in German. To speak English to a housemate would be incredibly weird and disconcerting, even when I know that a housemate speaks perfect English (two of my housemates studied in America as high school students). It shocks me to the core to hear housemates use English sentences or phrases. I feel strangely out of place when the conversation switches away from German, even when I don't have a clue what is being said auf Deutsch.

I suppose this is a normal feeling for people immersed in a foreign culture, but its a pretty cool experience for me. When I recognize people on the street, I have to think about which language to use to greet them. I really really love this experience and will be sad to lose it in 5 weeks.

Visiting the dentist.....auf Deutsch

Wow...I can't believe I haven't posted in nearly a month. I apologize for my laziness, I've just been too busy traveling Europe, writing my thesis, and wasting time online (but not writing my blog). I started several posts last weekend but I never got around to finishing them....I promise to amend soon. Today my post will focus on my visit to the dentist.

In an effort to experience as much 'real' German life as possible, I visited the dentist back in March. To find a dentist in Marburg, I simply googled (in English) for dentist in Marburg and ended up on the English website of a dentist located in Marbrug (how convenient). The Dentist had an American wife and spoke perfect English (even with an American accent!) thus I was saved from learning German tooth vocabulary for a while. However, during my last visit (mostly a check-up) the dentist stated that I needed to repair a filling and I could not wait until I returned to US (and had dental insurance again) since the damaged portion of the tooth was dangerously close to a nerve (that is really really bad). Since I don't have dental insurance through the Fulbright, I have to pay for all teeth repairs myself. After spending the last two months saving money to pay for the needed repairs, I finally made another appointment with the dentist for today.

Last time I visited the dentist, the dentist tried to speak to me in German, then realized that I wasn't following, so he switched to English and I understood everything that he said. I felt like I was cheating my travel experience since I was able to converse in my native tongue but I felt that speaking English was an acceptable compromise considering that I was already pretty nervous about visiting the dentist.

In an earlier blog post, I mentioned that I felt that my German comprehension had increased dramatically in the last month. On May 5th, I conversed with my lab mates almost entirely in German. On May 6th, I left for 7 days in Great Britain. On May 12th, I returned to Germany and realized that I no longer understood anything that my lab mates said! Oh second languages...how quickly you disapear when not used......
In addition, my appointment was for 8am in the Southern quarter of the city, which meant that I had to catch a bus that left at 7:15am in order to arrive on time. I woke up at 6:30am, much much earlier than my normal wake up time. Since I woke up so early, I didn't have time to grab a coffee before catching the bus (I like to say, Ich kann kein Deutsch verstehen weil ich keinen Kaffee trinken habe).

I arrived at the dentist's office very tired and completely incoherent. But this was no problem because my dentist could speak English, which I thankfully can understand even when tired. The staff however speaks only German so I first had to navigate through the complexities of German dental bearocracy (note to others, take your passport with you, Germans aren't happy to accept Student IDs, even when issued from Germany!). Thankfully, the staff was very understanding and made every effort to communicate with pictures and hand gestures. I tired my best to communicate but I could not make a sentence more complicated than 'Es schmerzt' and point to the tooth that needed repairs. The funny thing is that my teeth didn't hurt at all, it was the only thing I could think of to describe my situation. I tried my best to reciprocate on the language front by reading a German children's book on visiting the dentist. Despite my best efforts, I still could not comprehend more than a few words spoken by the people around me.

Eventually I was taken back to visit the dentist, expecting to communicate in American dental lingo. This time, however, the English speaking dentist was unavailable so I ended up with the German brother of the dentist, which meant that all conversations took place in German! We chatted (mostly smiling and nodding on my part) and then the dentist took a look at my teeth. I could tell from his expression that he was not happy. He said something about a filling and mentioned that he would repair it. Then he brought in a peice of paper for me to sign. The paper was entirely in German with numbers and a bill. Not a big deal since I had seen a pre-pay bill before. I sign the paper and pass it back to the dentist. However, just as he pulls the paper away, I noticed that there is a '3' next to the German word for dental fillings. I think...'maybe that's just the line number for the bill (after anaethesia and cleaning). The dentist comes at me with a silver needle (frightening even when you understand what's being spoken) and proceeds to jab me not once, but twice for 20 seconds per jab. He then tilts my chair up and says, something like wait 5 minutes. I wait...falling asleep in my chair and shaking awake when I hear the door open. The dentist flips my chair back so all the blood rushed to my head. Then he pulls out the dreaded drill. The pain killer had kicked in at this point so I didn't feel much. I did notice, however, that the drill seemed to move from tooth to tooth. I kept thinking that my unfeeling nerves were playing tricks on me. However, after drilling for 20 minutes (no joke, I timed it), the dentist pulls out a mirror and has me look at my mouth. My eyes widen when I realize that the dentist had drilled holes in 3 teeth! The dentist then proceeds to look at another tooth and says...blah blah blah zwischen blah blah. I think zwischen= between. Apparently the dentist was trying to tell me that I had a cavity in between two teeth so he asked if he could drill in yet another tooth! That means that I now had four teeth with holes! The dentist (and me!) had not anticipated that the appointment would last as long as it did, so he kept having to leave to visit other patients and then return. While he was gone, I was left to ponder my poor dental hygeine and the weirdly shaped teeth in my mouth. Finally, nearly two hours after I arrived, the dentist finished.

I wandered into the hallway, a little woozy from the early morning, the blood rush to my head, and the copius amounts of local anaethesia. We try to navigate the bill process, only to discover that the dentist did not accept EC cards. As stated earlier, I did not have dental insurance which meant that I had pay for everything in cash. I ran to the ATM, then rushed back to the dental office to pay the bill. The total bill for 4 fillings, local anaethesia, and 2 hours of the dentist's time came to a little more than 300 Euros, which comes out to 75 Euros per filling. That's actually about what I would pay for a filling in US, after insurance picked up their part.

The experience was a bit terrifying, but the dentist did an amazing job with my fillings (I can barely tell where the tooth ends and filling begins) and tried really hard to keep me comfortable, even dabbing my chin when anaethesia caused drooling. I was told my a German friend that dental care in Germany is rumoured to be quite awesome. I can say that my experience provides support for this rumour, even when I couldn't understand that anything the dentist said.

Check another cultural medical experience off the list...lets hope that I don't have to check out the German hospital system.....

fun with housemates...getting acquainted

I promise that I will get around to posting details of my excursions over the last few months, but I wanted to write down this evening before I forgot the details.

I have been rather depressed the last week since I had this idea that I was a bad scholar because I didn't travel much. Since I have not traveled I have spent a lot of time in the dormitory that I live in. Even though close to 100 people live in this building, I only come into contact with 17 of them on a consistent basis. Over time, I have come to know them by name and by dish they prefer to cook in the kitchen. I hardly ever talked to my housemates because I was too afraid to talk to them auf Deutsch. However, in the last month, along with having German thoughts, I've felt much more comfortable speaking German. The end result is that conversations with my housemates have evolved from "what do you study" and "where do you come from" to more detailed conversations about politics and dreams. (However, I still have to speak in simple sentences as my German grammar stinks).

Tonight, I spent over an hour hanging out on the balconey, drinking beer and eating wurst, talking about life, studies, and German idiosyncrancies. It was just a normal Friday night, but a good time. As my housemate put it, "Du bist heute nicht allein" or "Today, you are not alone." Probably for the first time since I have lived in Germany, I felt like I fit in. To further push that point, one of my housemates invited me to go camping in late May. I think I may do it, even though it means I won't sleep that well over the weekend and I may have to miss the Peter Fox concert in late May. :-(

Train hopping to Berlin

On Sunday, I introduced Lala to the joys of German train travel and the Happy Weekend ticket. With the happy weekend ticket up to 5 people can travel to any destination in Germany for only 37 Euros ($45). The catch is that you can only use regional trains. On weekends the regional trains only tend to run about once and hour so you have to plan your travels pretty carefully. Since Lala was on a tight budget, we decided to travel to Berlin using just regional trains, which meant that the normally 4 hour journey would take 7-8 hours. In addition, we planned to make a stop at an important Protestant city along the way (stay tuned for more details).

No fear, we just loaded up our groceries from the the night before into my travel bag and hopped on the first regional train out of Marburg (7:30am...not bad for a lazy bum computational chemist and a jet-lagged American). Because we knew we were train hopping, Lala and I kept everything in our backpacks and didn't carry any big suitcases. Thus we could also run to catch trains if we were running late, which happened several times.

At our first stop, Kassel, we encountered our first hiccup. I had forgotten to print out the schedule, so out of habit, I just assumed that we had to transfer trains at the major Kassel trainstation, Kassel Wilhelmshofe. However, it turns out we were actually supposed to switch trains at Kassel Main train station (which because of the newer station called Wilhelmshofe, is no longer the major train station, weird). But no fear, we had 30 minutes before the next connection so we just hopped another train to the correct station. We even had enough time to grab coffee at a local vendor. We then settled down 5 more hours of train travel, which took us deep into the heart of the former East Germany. The German government has spent a lot of money restoring East German town so it was rather difficult to tell the difference between East and West Germany. Some of the train stops looked a little sketchier than normal Hessen train stops, but that was the only difference we could see. In one train station, we saw 8 heavily armed policemen patrol the station but we never figured out why. Nonetheless, after 5 hours of regional trains, we arrived safely at our Protestant history stop for the trip, Lutherstadt Wittenburg.



For those of you not familiar with Protestant history, Wittenburg is where Martin Luther first posted his 93 theses against the Catholic bishops in town. Being daughters of a Protestant pastor, my sister and I were both pretty stoked to see the town that started our father's (and soon to be my sister's) profession. Lutherstadt is a former eastern German city but the middle (and the oldest) part of town has been completely restored. Its fairly unknown by the tourist crowds so its a great place to visit. I have forgotten all the stuff that we saw, but we spent about 5 hours wandering the streets where Martin Luther once walked. We saw the church door that tradition holds as the place Luther posted his theses.




We also saw the church where Luther married.




We also saw the painting of purgatory marked with the names of students who failed their exams (so claims my lonely planet guidebook).



We also took the time to visit the Haus der Geschichte (or house of history) where a German tour guide took us through apartments set up to look like every decade of DDR life. Even though my English speaking sister and I were the only ones waiting for a tour that day, none of the tour guides spoke English. Instead, a 60 year old DDR resident very skillfully showed us the entire tour, pausing every 2 minutes so I could translate the German into English, which was pretty funny considering my limited German skills. It was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip as we had time to interact with a native German and we learned how much can be expressed through hand signals and smiles. I highly recommend that you visit the museum if you go to Wittenberg! Sorry no pictures cuz they weren't allowed, but you can see the museum here.
Apparently the museum has been used as a set for many German films set in that era.

We saw the seminary founded by Luther's students. Sadly the museum had already closed but we did see a really great name for a beer garden.....My sister, who I consider an expert on this subject, says that Luther was well known for having deep theological conversations while drinking beer.


After a lovely visit to Lutherstadt, we caught our last train of the day.




Forty five minutes later we were already at the stop for our hostel, cutely called Ostel (combination of the German word for east = Ost and hostel). The entire hostel was themed on the former eastern Germany. The rooms were former apartments in real DDR buildings. All the buildings have been renovated so the houses are actually quite nice. The first night in town we were the only ones in a 3 bedroom apartment so we used the time to explore the place. One room had a balconey so I rushed back downstairs to reception and bought two local Berliner beers. Loletuth and I closed the night by talking sisterly things overlooking the playground of the area below....awesome....more to follow later.

meine Schwester and my sister

I don't feel like yelling at the computer right now and I can't work on my thesis introduction until I hear reviews back from my thesis committee, so I will waste time by writing about my March travels.

After I returned from Switzerland, I worked frantically for two weeks on thesis research. Then, on the 4th of March, I basically stopped working for about 3 weeks to travel. On March 4th, I picked up one of my German sisters from the Marburg train station. Maria came to Marburg to attend a conference on Parkinson's, which worked really well with my schedule. During the day, Maria attended conferences so I could work while at night I got to come home to a not empty room! It was really nice to have someone else around to cook dinner and share deep sisterly stories with. But the sisterly times don't end with Maria. On Friday I headed to Frankfurt airport to pick up my American sister (the one I am actually related to) Loletuth (aka Lala)!

For 36 glorius hours I was thrilled to have my transcontinental 'family' together. While Maria attended the conference on Friday, I introduced Lala to my German research group and took her to the 400+ year old tower overlooking the city of Marburg. Despite Lala's fear of heights, we climbed to the top and saw some pretty cool views of the city. Then we caught the 'short bus' into town to meet Maria and could pick up groceries for dinner. It was really cool to pick out my favorite German foods. We then came back to the dorm and made a lovely smorgeboard of vegetables and vegetarian bratwursts. Somehow, all three of us fit into my little studentendorf room.

On Saturday, Maria left the conference early so I could take her and Lala on a grand tour of Marburg. We visited the castle, saw a German wedding, and enjoyed coffee and cake at my favorite bakery in Marburg. Afterwords, we quickly ran home so Maria could catch the last fast train to her hometown. Loletuth and I then enjoyed a nice dinner of Auflauf and Abelwoi (Hessen speciality) at Cafe Early (best auflauf in town!).

After dinner, Lala and I returned to pack for our train hopping excursion to Berlin....more details to follow...

Ich denke dass ich veruckt bin! (I think that I am crazy)

Eventually I will document the rest of my travels in March (which include planes, trains, and automobiles) but today I just want to document a very interesting thing that has started happening to me.

For some very strange reason, over the last two months, a larger percentage of my thoughts have been German instead of English. This is very strange considering that I still don't know a lot of German vocabulary and my German comprehension means I still don't comprehend a lot of things around me. Part of this transition was intentional, as I forced myself to think of a German phrase every time I thought of an English phrase. For example, I would think 'my head hurts' but I would quickly follow that thought with 'Mein Kopf schmerzt'. Its only natural that as I have surrounded myself with German speakers, that the German phrase comes to my mind more quickly than the English phrase.

I really want to learn how to think in a different langauge. I called a minor victory in church on Easter Sunday when I realized that I understood about 50% of the words that the pastor spoke. Over Christmas, I only understood about 20-30%. However, now that the Deutsche Gedanken process has begun, I find myself trying to stop it from occurring! An example: I asked the group secretary (in German) why the German professors advertised their classes. Typically, my research group would then reply in English, but on that particular day, the secretary decided to reply in German. I listened to the words she spoke and understood everthing she said. Then, I realized she was speaking German, and my comprehension immeadiately disappeared. I couldn't understand anything she said after that, it was like my mind shut off the German portion.

What scares me more is how much I don't think about thinking in German. I guess that's a good thing since I should be thinking in the language of my host country, but it really freaks me out at times. I am still shocked when I clearly understand the questions that my labmates ask me. I am even more shocked (maybe they are too) when I respond auf Deutsch.

However, there is a down side to my Deutsche Gedanken, I struggle even more to find the correct English words. Today I wrote an email (to Americans) where instead of writing 'I am interested in dinner', I wrote 'I am interesting for dinner', which made my potential dinner companions think I was the main course. ;-) Considering that I am writing my PhD thesis in English instead of German, grammar and word mix-ups are a true cause for concern.

Has any one else experienced this problem before?

99 bottles of beer on the wall....

No, there are not 99 bottles of beer on my wall, I don't have enough shelf space for that many. I use the reference because I only have 99 days left before I board a plane to return to the US. Only 99 days until my Fulbright fellowship officially ends and I return to normal US civilian life. My time in Germany has been reduced from 340 days to double digits that are slowly approaching zero.

I approach this date much as I expected I would, with trepidation and excitement. My family anxiously awaits my return and I anxiously await to see my family, but at the same time I don't want the adventure to end. As difficult as this time abroad has been, I have learned something new everyday. Part of me feels at home here but I long to be reunited with my those with whom I will make me home. Germany is not my true home and probably never will be, but I still long to stay. An awkward conundrum I now face: to look forward towards my last days in Germany while also looking forward to my home country. I am nervous about how my home country will accept me and how I will accept it.

I feel very comfortable in my American culture but then I think about my life here and think "this fits too". How to deal with this conundrum? I just keep living each day to the fullest. Nuture the friendships I have made thus far and encourage new ones.

Remember that even after I leave, a friend is just an instant message away.

US -centric does not equal globe centric

Springtime has sprung in Germany and the students have emerged from hibernation and begun to chat with their neighbors. Last night, a housemate and I engaged in a lovely conversation about American culture. (I am the only American on this floor so I am frequently asked questions about the US). I forget what the exact topic was, but I was trying to say that a policy would have to be implemented throughout the US. However, instead of saying throughout the US, I said, throughout the world.

My housemate heard my Freudian slip and jokingly said "ha, you self-centered Americans, always thinking that the United States is the only nation in the world."

I laughed and said, "Yes, you caught me, but at least I acknowledge that fact."

My friend laughed and said "Yes, there is hope for you yet."

Then we moved on to other topics like quantum theory and health care. (don't ask how we transitioned, just know that we moved off the topic.)

A brief exchange, but in some ways a very important one. Since I've been on this exchange, I've been exposed to a lot of my own prejudices, most importantly my prejudice towards thinking that America is the only country that matters. To be honest, I was suprised that something like the above phrase came out of my mouth. Because I travel so much and have friends all over the world, I consider myself a global citizen before an American citizen. However, my freudian slip revealed that deep down, I really think America should make the decisions for the world.

Its understandable to think this way since this American culture exudes the idea of superiority in everything we watch and read. Take science fiction for example. The most blatant example comes from the original Star Trek series. At the time Star Trek was realized, it was ground breaking for how it included foreign looking (read non-white) people in the show. However, the captain of the ship was an American. Interpretation: Its okay to include the voices of foreigners, but Americans make the final decision.

A counter-argument to this example would be that the show was written by Americans, so of course Americans are in charge. I ask the question, why doesn't anyone question why the Americans are the only leaders. In sci-fi or action movies like Deep Impact or Independence Day, Americans are the ones that make decisions for the entire world yet few people in the US stop to think about why that is so. Granted, if we watched more foreign movies we might see a world not lead by Americans but the fact is that most Americans (and many foreigners even) only watch the American produced movies, so they never see how arrogant our viewpoint really is. We hold deep cultural biases that only Americans should be in power.

One could make the claim that since the US is composed of immigrants from all over the world, it makes sense that America should speak for countries all over the world. A Chinese, Brazilian, German, Ghanian, or Native American makes decisions that aren't just good for their adopted country but good for the world. I have no data to refute that statement, I don't believe that is true. An American is an American who will make decisions that reflect their self-interest. It is possible that an immigrant-American makes decisions that will cause much damage to their former country because that decision will make their lives a lot better in the US.

That is why the above conversation was so interesting. I finally realized that I hold deep biases against non-American leadership. I don't want to live in a universe without American leadership. I feel safe when an American makes the decision to jump to warp 7 or when an American wants to stabilize a worn torn country. At gut level, I still feel indignant when a foreign leader objects to American plans. I am not sure how I would respond to a Chinese-led United Nations or a German led NATO. However, with globalization and the current crisis, it is likely that I may live to see those days. However, if American superiority remains, it will be good to remember that a good idea for America is not necessarily the best idea for the world.

At least I know this fact so there just may be hope for me yet.

Austria Day 4...take 2 and day 5

I forgot to mention that after returning from the cross country skiing with Moritz, I skipped the first afternoon session to visit the only museum in Mariapfarr. The Stille Nacht museum.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Mariapfarr's little claim to fame is that a young man named Josef Mohr lived in this town in 1816. During the two years he lived here, he wrote one of the most beloved Christmas songs ever known, Stille Nacht, or Silent Night. The museum is only open for 4 hours a week, so I jumped at the chance to visit the museum during one of the hours its open. I walked in and was quickly placed into a tour group where the tour guide spoke enthusiastically about the Catholic artifacts (mostly shreds of Cardinal robes that visited the town). The entire tour took place in Austrian German and I really struggled to keep up. Finally, after 30 minutes of seeing pictures of stained glass windows and long decomposed flower wreaths, the guide took us to the highlight of the tour, a reconstruction of Josef Mohr's bedroom, complete with the original furniture and a plasma screen tv (sorry no pictures allowed). It was a very odd experience. Right before Josef Mohr's room, the people of the village had hand crafted a miniature version of the Creche (Nativity scene) next to a miniature version of what the city looked like in Josef Mohr's time (it hadn't changed much). To save costs (and perhaps the environment), the townspeople used barbie dolls for the women and hand-made period outfits from old clothing. Despite the cheap materials, the entire scene looked completely real! I really wish I could show you photos, the scene was surreal. I now know how Austrian villagers keep themselves entertained on cold winter nights. I also saw the original copy (its a cheap museum) of Stille Nacht. The church where the song was first sung is actually several kilometers away from the village, but the museum was quite nice. Since I couldn't take photos, I bought a few postcards and some souvenirs for the family and headed back to the workshop. On the way back, I saw this lovely little sunset over the alps.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Now back to the last day of the workshop.....
After the long day before me, I was not looking forward to the 3 hours of student presentations that stood between me and my bed in Marburg. However, I drank some coffee and sat through them anyways. I ended up learning a lot more interesting work. My labmates and I said goodbye to the Uni-Würzbergers and our table companions from the night before, then piled back into the car for the 7 hour drive back to Marburg. Well, it was supposed to be 7 hours. As a fitting closing for the week, the drive back took place in snow and traffic. We didn't arrive back in Marburg until 12 hours after we left Mariapfarr. I checked email for the first time in 5 days, realized that nothing was important enough to keep me from sleeping, and crawled into my own studentendorf bed. Thus ended my Austrian travels. Before I move on to the other posts, I leave you with a link to the photos for this trip. Feel free to leave comments!