Martin in Germany

Playing Catchup

Last time I posted, I had not started university yet.  Now I’m rounding the fourth week of classes.  My schedule is finally set.  I opted to take a competition law class on patents and trademark law.  It is interesting, and the only textbooks I have are the Law.  Everything else is from the lecture.  The class is taught in the form of business school though.  So it does not go into deep detail and does not dissect real cases, rather looks at practical usage in business situations.  It is not exactly that challenging though.  My most challenging class is by far Tonsatz (Compositional Technique).  Not knowing anything about music theory going into the class definitely impeded my initial understanding.  The course objective is to be able to hear notes or beats (so a song) and be able to reconstruct it note for note.  It is alone difficult for most of the music majors to do, and even more so for me.  I think it is good though, because the class demands me to keep learning and thinking.

Last Saturday was also my first choral performance in 8 years.  That was a blast.  We learned the songs in 3 hours over 2 weeks (practiced a bit at home by ourselves) and brought it onto the stage for the Uni-Ball (University Ball).  All of the songs were in English, so that definitely helped me out.  However, we have already started learning new songs for our next performance, in January.  Our repertoire will be over 10 songs!  Double digits!  Back to the ball.  It was really great.  I bought a suit for 80euro (H&M), which totally rocks.  The ball was in the historical concert hall.  Absolutely beautiful.  In the main room there were tables setup for people who had money for such things (professors and faculty).  Along with that, there was a dance floor for standard dances, your foxtrot, tango, slow waltz, Viennese waltz and other ballroom have-nots.  Live band with a great singer.  Upstairs there were two rooms.  One was a huge hall with a DJ.  What was cool though, was that a woman sang over all the songs live.  She did not change the songs; just performed them live to the music.  Much cooler than just a DJ spinning just his iPod on stage. In the other room there was a big band: Stand-up Bass, Piano, Drums, Singer (lady of course).  The all wore zoot suits.  Wow.  Great band.  They played newer and older songs, all upbeat, and all with a big-band vibe.  Unfortunately they had the smallest room and the largest crowd.  Caught the last bus home.

Tuesday was great too.  Went to Cologne for the night to watch the election.  I stayed up with a bunch of Americans way late (I actually did not get home until Norbert [host dad] was leaving for work).  Surely everybody has their own personal stories about election night.  I spent mine surrounded by American ex-pats.  It was weird, to be all so different and from such different backgrounds, huddled around one display watching results trickle in.

Ralph was one of those ex-pats.  He has lived in Germany for 27 years.  His accent is indistinguishable, a fact he holds slight bitter attitudes towards.  He has a wife and two daughters.  His wife is German with German citizenship, he American with American citizenship, and his daughters have dual citizenship.  I cannot rearrange his thoughts well on the page, but he said he was struggling with the idea of identity.  When he went home nobody would believe he was from Connecticut.  And when he was in Germany there was still a cultural barrier he knew would be impassable.  I do not think fathoming his dilemma is possible, but it was somewhat palpable.

Well, that is it for now.  I will try to push a little more recruitment into updating.  New pictures via Google web albums are available, however there are still more to put up.  Hopefully that will come by next week.

Bergische Universität Wuppertal

Some sentences from an email, because I’m too lazy to update lately.

This week is welcome week at the University.  I feel like a freshman.  It sucks to have two bachelors, heck even one, and to feel like a complete newbie again.  Sometimes we are humbled in the slightest ways.  So far the politic classes are a bust — all filled up and uninteresting/have already taken them.  There are some law classes, but the building where they are suppose to be is not on the maps.  Everytime I ask questions, people either give me blank looks, tell me they don’t know (as if I have the audacity to ask them!), or come up with the excuse that it is their first semester.  I went to the highest building today and found the music department.  They were more than welcoming, the people were friendly, and other students even smiled — if you do not know German culture, this is a wonder.  However, perhaps they were exchange students like myself.  Needless to say, if the credits do not count, I’m going to go to the friendliest of all departments.  Tomorrow I’ll be visiting the economics/business/law.  My hopes are not high either.

Do I have a ton of friends?  Not really.  Slowly old friendships are being unearthed, new ones discovered, and sadly some buried.  But everything takes time, especially in such a skeptical and sometimes overly critical society.  Nothing is getting me down though.  Especially not the weather, it has been good for the most part.  Everyday I go out expecting the worst, and am astounded by the sun relaying beautiful colors from trees, leaves, blue skies and deep rich grasses.  This transition from Köln to Remscheid has been a euphoric one.  I was expecting to be underwhelmed with a new situation, however am wholly astonished and awstruck that old memories are continuitously blended with new experiences.

Moving Day

Perhaps the title gave it away.  But after two months, it is time to move again.  I already did a farewell to Köln post, so no need to rehash old things.  Tomorrow, the house will be cleaned, the dishes put away, and flowers will be laid out for my gracious host-grandma when she returns on Tuesday. My hair is two months longer (probably to the chagrin of my dad who paid for the last haircut), however my beard is trimmed - I even used a real razor to get a clean cut.

I suppose anxious could well describe my mood.  I am going to move into a family’s house tomorrow, somebody I have never even known before.  They are taking me in simply by the 1/2 page self-description I sent in half a year ago.  If this seems like a leap of faith for Americans, a history lesson in German culture would lead into the fact this stretch is much farther for a German.  I am grateful, and I have not even been witness to their hospitality.

Supposivly I’ll write and tell you how it all is, but I cannot promise that.  Monday I have to register for University (Uni here), Thursday I have my interview / contract at my future job, and in just over a week classes start.  So far I picked out one class: guitar songs.  I have no idea what that means, and the course handbook is less than helpful: it does not even say when the class is.  So this week will be like every semester at Berkeley, a frantic panic and overloading of courses to see which one I get into.

One step at a time though, tomorrow Martin meets the Fischbachs.

Last daze in Köln

My last days in Cologne are winding down.  Everybody left today for their ‘final’ placement.  Basically language school is over, and we are all moving on.  Not me, exactly.  I have to wait until my next family gets home from a previously planned trip until I can go.  Until then, I’m going to enjoy the rain in Cologne, and time alone.  It has been a pretty quick two months, but when I look back, it has also been pretty long.  I made a bunch of new friends, and have not been spending too much money (I do hope to reduce the amount of coffee I drink/buy).  

Things I’ve enjoyed about Cologne: my language school teacher, Herr Mainka; making new friends and hanging out by the Rhein; learning to write better in German.

I’ll definitely be back for Karneval in Köln, and will inform you all how that goes.

As far as pictures go, check some out on my flickr page.  Hopefully I’ll have internet the next place I go.

Z.O. C2 Prüfung

I just finished the final day of the Zentrale Oberstufe Prüfung.  It is the hardest German language test you can take.  I did not do to well on it, but I passed, and that is enough.

Aufgestanden! Hingesetzt! Blockiert!

On the 19th and 20th of September, over 40,000 people partook in an anti-pro-Köln sit in.  Pro-Köln is a political group, which tried to hold a so called ‘anti-Islam Congress’.  Well, that did not work.  Köln is a city, which prides itself on being diverse, progressive, and relatively open minded.  The congress was seen as a protest against a Mosque being built on the outskirts of the city.  3,000 Polizei descended on the city to protect the 1000 member congress.  On Friday the group rented out a boat, under the auspice that they are a group of lawyers, and the captain unknowingly let the ‘lawyers’ on board.  The boat was barraged with rocks, and eventually the ‘lawyers’ were escorted off of the boat.  Saturday morning early, 40,000 people filled the streets and blocked the congress from assembling together.

So begins my personal account of the activities.  Friday was uneventful, I was in class.  However, Saturday I rode my bike into the city to see the hubbub.  It was, from what I could see in the beginning, very peaceful.  There were, it seemed, far too many Polizei for the event.  I rode around the city a bit, picked up a new pair of socks, and decided to take a different path home.  I couldn’t even take the street train home because the police had blocked off the bridge the train normally would go over.  On my detour, I happened across hundreds of young Germans who were dressed in all black, black sunglasses, black balaclavas, and black backpacks.  They were reminiscent of the images of Palestinians I have seen in pictures.  I stood around a while, and decided nothing interesting was happening.  Just as I turned the corner, I heard an M-80 firecracker go off.  My senses heightened immediately, as if on 4th of July.  I turned around and pulled out my camera.  Before I could get more than a couple of shots off, a young girl demanded I turn off my camera.  I was confused, but she was so determined, I was not going to cross her and her large friends.  What happened next was almost funny.  The protesters hurled more firecrackers (and I would later experience Molotov Cocktails) at the Polizei.  They would be rushed by law enforcement, and return once the crowd-control retreated.  The process repeated itself for around 15 minutes, until the news: the Anti-Islam Congress was canceled.

My experience begged questions: why would the protesters use violence?  Why would they not lodge complaints of such a congress through traditional rule of law means?  And why were they calling them Nazis (that was a point I forgot to mention earlier)?  First of all, although this congress was definitely racist, I find it a stretch to call the people Nazis.  I have a problem with that term being lightly thrown around as is.  When Germans use the word, it has more cultural weight.  To the point of protesters using violence, I wonder if they have ever read Gandhi.  Later in the day, I witnessed roaming gangs of these Palestinian-like Germans running about the city, and chasing down people who looked like skinheads.  I have read enough German history, to know this seems to be some sort of beloved sport of this culture.  In the Weimar history, roving gangs of Communists, Socialists, National-Socialists (Nazis) would run around the cities fighting and killing people of other political and social associations.  And the RAF did relatively the same thing in Germany, in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s (a new film comes out Thursday in Germany regarding that topic).    There is a distinct continuity from what was expressed last weekend, and what has happened in German history.  I find it disturbing.

I will have some photos up on my flickr account of the experience this week sometime.  None of them came out that well, but if you strain you may see some protesters in balaclavas.

Photos, Links, and the Such

So I posted some photos from August. I am using flickr, but might move to picasa, just because flickr is so cumbersome.  Any other suggestions though for free internet albums?

I also linked some friends Blogs.  Still working on the HTML there (very perplexed why Brendan’s is not bold).

It is somebody’s (Kristina) birthday today.  So it is time to go have some fun in the night sun, while it still lasts.

Der Monat

Almost 1.5 months have gone by.  Where the heck did they go?  I’m still working on the personal statment for law school.  Still hanging out with Americans.  And still not dreaming in German.  Come 30. September, hopefully that all changes.

Yesterday some friends from Wuppertal came to Cologne, friends I had not seen in 4 years.  It was nice, but still somewhat awkward.  Catching up can be fun.  We were only together for around 4 hours, one hour each year.  Not nearly enough.  But the more I meet up with old friends, the more I’m wondering if it is possible to slip into old friendships.

The idea of visiting Susi K. a the beginning of Oktober was thrown around (by me, not her).  We’ll see if that pans out.  A trip like that would require some expert train planning.

Still working on the photos.  I just figured out that one can work on the captions to photos before putting them online.  Good stuff.  I will probably also just put a link on the side, rather than having each picture come up as a post.

Oh, changed the layout and stuff too.  The old one was boring.

Slowly working

Ever so slowly the language is comming back to me.  First arriving it was still hard to string sentences together without awkward pauses.  People are starting to stare at me less, which makes me think I’m blending in well.  And less people are trying to speak English to me, I suppose that means my American accent is slowly fading away again.  I lost it once and am determined to lose it again.  This month I’ve made a personal pact to hang out with Americans less.  I really do like them all, however it has not been inductive to me learning more German.  I’ve noticed that in this first week.  I go home, practice German, and am slowly improving — so I’ve led myself into believing at least.  Every morning on the way to school objects, people, and places are constantly named and little stories are made up about them in my head.  I hope it helps me to start thinking German.

Loniness?  Homesickness?  Culture shock?  Has not hit me yet.  It will.  This blog will keep you updated once it has.