29 April 2012

Kiwi Baking Fails! (and other stories)

Here are all the reasons I'm having the best weekend ever:

Yesterday, I had a really cool class, then ran errands and ate ice cream with Al.  Then I met up with friends for a grill party, where I failed at making daisy chains, but ate a hamburger, so it was okay.  After that it was time for the couchsurfer meetup, where I got to geek out with a Danish guy over Scandinavian languages.  And then Saturday night ended at a giant student party at a dorm on the north campus, where I had an intense discussion about identifying gay Germans and watched a guy play a weird electric guitar/violin thing, at least for thirty seconds until the music was horrible so the Kiwi and I bounced.

Today I slept until noon, and woke up to discover it was 80 degrees out and absolutely gorgeous.  I did crap tons of laundry, hung it outside to dry, and read Game of Thrones down by the river.  Then the Kiwi came over, and we attempted to bake.

British Friend had invited the two of us to German couchsurfer friend's house for dinner, so we decided we'd bake up a pavlova to bring with us.  It sounds like a Russian tennis player, but it's actually a Kiwi/Australian dessert, and it's (supposed to look) like so:


Basically, it's a meringue, with whip cream and fruit on top.  The meringue part took forever--we had to whip everything by hand and we were tired from the party last night. But it came out pretty good (we thought), so we packed the fruit and the cream in her book bag, and tried to figure out how we were going to get a cake from point A to B, on a bike, without breaking it.  The only thing in my house big enough for the cake to fit on was a frying pan of all things, so we threw it on and wrapped the entire monstrosity in nine thousand layers of tin foil and plastic wrap, which didn't look weird at all.  Oh, and we brought our own whisk.

We got only slightly lost on the way, but arrived at the friend's house with the cake more or less intact.  Immediately we started whipping the whipped cream.  The problem, as we discovered, was that whipped cream is a fickle bitch of a mistress.  If you don't whip the cream hard enough, it turns into butter, and if you don't whip it fast enough, it also turns into butter.  Whipping it by hand, we had no chance.  Next thing we knew, we had a bowl of horrible, lumpy, half-butter-half-cream ridiculousness. We decided to be adventurous and poured it on the cake anyway.

Feeling brave, we all tried a piece, only to discover that contrary to popular belief, our cake wasn't even all the way cooked.  Many, many adjectives were used to describe out creation, very few of them positive.  In the end, the final product was just too horrible to eat, so we resorted to poking it with knives and making fun of it.  

The real hilarity ensued when we tried to get rid of it.  Once even poking the cake had started to lose its luster, I picked up the frying pan and took it inside to go dispose of the clusterfuck.  "Wait!" yelled the German couchsurfer friend.  "Don't throw it in the trashcan!  It's soluble in water, you might as well just throw it in the toilet." British Friend, the Kiwi and I just stared at him for a few seconds, and then I said, "Really?  Really?  You want me to throw this into the toilet?"  "Yes."  "...Yeah, alright."

It's probably one of those stories you had to be there to find funny, but I haven't laughed that hard in a really, really long time.  Here I was pouring a liquefied, buttery meringue out of a frying pan and trying to flush it, but there was so much meringue, not enough water.  Plus parts of the meringue were still solid chunks of under-cooked horribleness, so they didn't flush, they just sort of bounced up and down in the water, and we were all dying.  Finally the German guy came back and said, "Let me help," at which point he promptly whipped out a butcher knife and started hacking at cake pieces.  I think that was when I stopped being able to stand up.

After that debacle, with (most of) the cake safely flushed down the pipes, we all went to go see Arsenic and Lace, an English-language play at uni.  The theater, as it turned out is a converted operating theater--back in the day, instead of hosting student plays, students came and watched doctors cut people open.  The play was really good, really funny, and even more so because we were seeing it on closing night, which is when the actors traditionally prank each other.  When I asked how "prank," was defined, the German guy said, "Well, for starters you can be sure that all the prop alcohol is real tonight."  We also discovered they added the words "fuck" and "dickhead" at highly opportune moments to the script, and they made David Hasselhoff jokes.  Epic win.

It's supposed to be eighty degrees again tomorrow, so Al and I are off to go explore castle ruins.  Yay!

Oh, and in case you were wondering what happened to the frying pan and the whisk, the Kiwi had to carry them around in her bookbag all night.

To summarize:
--Life is really, really busy.
--Life is really, really entertaining.
--Baking like a Kiwi is harder than it looks.
--I have shorts on.
--I'm so happy, I don't know what to do with myself.

25 April 2012

Change of Plans

In the past two days, my uni plans have changed!  But for the better, I think:

1)  I had originally intended to do the degree in five semesters, not four.  However, I was taking a look at my schedule a few days ago, and I realized I'd inadvertently sent myself up to do it in four.  So my new plan is, if I do it in four semesters, awesome, if I do it in five, at least it wasn't unexpected.  But I'm aiming for four.

2)  For this particular program, you have to specialize in either Africa, Southeast Asia, or the Indo-Pacific.  I came in planning for Africa, except I took an Africa class yesterday and I just wasn't feeling it.  It was highly highly theoretical, and not even theoretical about things I was interested in.  So on a whim, I went through the course catalogue last night and discovered there was an Micronesia and Polynesia class today.  I figured what the hell, I'd probably hate it seeing as I have zero interest in that area of the world, but since Africa was such a bust, I might as well check it out.  And sweet Jesus, it was SO COOL!  Ridiculously interesting, and every single thing on the syllabus made me really happy.  So, my soul has switched, Indo-Pacific for the win. And it's at noon, not 8 AM like Africa, which makes it even better in my book.

Other things that are exciting!  Today is ANZAC day for Australia and New Zealand, or, as I've taken to telling everyone, Happy "New Zealand Was Actually In A War?" Day. To celebrate, the Kiwi arranged a couchsurfer meetup, which I went to.  Over drinks we got to talking about scholarships and student funding, and I explained my awkward predicament about how my parents earn too much money for me to get financial aid, but they're not helping me with school because they're not German, they've got my sister's college bills, and, let's be honest, I'm a big girl and I shouldn't be getting an allowance.  One of the guys who comes to the couchsurfer meetups is 76, and later on in the evening he sat down next to me and asked me if I was a European citizen.  I said yep.  He said, "Did you know that if you don't earn enough money to pay your rent, the state will pay it for you?"  I said, "I'm sorry, could you repeat that, please?  It sounded like you were telling me the state would pay my rent."

As it turns out, the state will actually pay my rent.  This guy is apparently a retired lawyer who hooks people up because he enjoys it, and he offered to sit down with me on Friday, fill out forms, and write the official letter.  Which is ridiculously amazing of him and I plan on baking him cookies.  I really really really hope this works out, that would be amazeballs to the 10th power.

In other news, Al and I sadly didn't make it to the castle Sunday because the weather was absolute shit, so we just did Swedish homework instead.  However, it's supposed to be 80 degrees and more or less sunny this Sunday, so we'll give it a go then.  The poetry slam also didn't happen, we got there forty-five minutes earlier but we still didn't get in. No worries.

So...I'm taking a class in rolling your r's.  Yes.  This is a class (not a joke), it can be taken, and I am taking it, because I am that much of a geek.  Truth be told, I need a rolled r for multiple reasons, some of which are called Swedish, Portuguese, and Classical Voice.  Basically, I had too many reasons to take the class, not enough not to.  And within the next two months, according to the professor, you will see me triumphantly rolling my r's.  If it happens, which I doubt it will, I will even post a victory video.

Oh!  And today we also found out that there's some weird witch party Monday night in the mountains, and the Kiwi and I are going to try and convince one of our car-owning friends that they should take us.  There's also some party Friday we're going to.  AND I've got a singing lesson tomorrow, AND I was a beast today and figured out how to print shit off in the uni.  I celebrated by printing 32 pages of Swedish vocab.

What I'm trying to say is, life is really, really, really good. :D

24 April 2012

Four Things I Will Never Never Never Understand About Germany

I've officially been living in Germany for just over ten months now, and I personally think I'm pretty okay at it.  I study, I'm happy, culture shock rarely rears its ugly dragon head.  But as I was biking to uni this morning, I got to thinking about all the times Germany has blinded me with this weird cultural aspect or that bizarre way of doing things.  98% of the time, I thought, I eventually come around to the German way--sometimes I go into the light skipping and plucking daisies from the Field of Everlasting Happiness, and sometimes I get chained behind a team of oxen who use my head to make furrows for said daisies.  But then there's the 2% of the time, where I take a look at some part German culture and realize: I've never understood, I still don't understand, and I have about as much a chance of one day understanding as Rick Santorum does of being elected editor-in-chief of Bitch Magazine.  That is to say, none.

So, here are four things I will never never never never understand about this country:

1)  Going Outside When It's Cold
Why, Germany, why do you do this?  And I don't mean "run from your front door to the car," which is what I would call "going outside when it's cold."  Not only do Germans go outside when it's 30 degrees out, they do it of their own free will, to actually do shit. And I don't understand.  Why on earth would you choose to eat outside at a restaurant when there's snow on the ground?  Why would you go for a walk down by the canal when water is only a few sad degrees from freezing its own ass off?  Why would you go to a beach if you have to put on winter jackets and long pants to do it?  I don't understand.  I just don't understand.  Germans love their fresh air, this I know, but I don't see how you could love anything enough to go outside when the weather is threatening to freeze the fresh air out of your shivering lungs.  We make sacrifices when it's cold out.  Some of those sacrifices include only breathing air that's been pumped out of central heating.

2)  Getting Together...To Get Together
Another thing I do not get.  The rational part of my brain tells me that this must be a cultural thing (unlike going outside when it's cold, which is just stupid.)  Then again, the rational part of my brain is small, misshapen, and has a tendency to flicker if you close the door too hard.  But I do know that whereas Americans get together with friends to do something (watch a movie, dye cupcakes pink, make their sisters pick them out clothes), Germans get together to just be together, and it makes my brain melt.  Generally, when we invite friends over, we even put the goal of the visit in the text message, i.e "Let's hang out and cook something."  "Let's hang out and play on Amy's Slip n Slide, which I got for her and not for me, I swear."  "Let's hang out and get into trouble."  And even if we somehow don't suggest an activity in the initial invitation, the invitee picks up the slack with "Sure, we can hang out!  What are we doing?"

This is not so in Germany.  "Let's hang out" actually means "Come over and we'll drink tea and eat cookies and stare at each other, preferably in semi-darkness."  I don't understand, and it makes my eyes (and brain) ache.

3)  Frozen Cheeseburgers


Do we have these in America?  Because if we do, my faith in the land of my birth is officially null and void.

and finally...

4)  Referring to Really Nice Portions of a City as "The Ghetto."

The very first time I noticed this happening was way back in 2008, and, in a blog post, I wrote this on the subject:  

"I overheard two girls talking about the so-called "ghetto" in Konstanz, and I got really interested because I've been looking for it since I got here. According to them, Wollmatingen is the ghetto, and they got "Ooh, don't go there," about it. However, I drove through Wollmatingen on the way back from the horseshow, and it is picture perfect houses with flowers on the windowsills and a few office buildings trading good clean money that has never seen the inside of a stripper's G-string. In my humble opinion, that is a CRAP ghetto."

At the time, I thought this an isolated incident--until I moved to the so-called "ghetto" of Göttingen.  And then suddenly I was getting hit left and right with pity looks when I told friends and acquaintances where I lived.  Some people just warned me to be careful, others told me to seriously considering moving.  And I was like, "Yes, hello, sorry, you call this the ghetto?  Because I've yet to find a dime bag of coke in the back of a kindergarten classroom, or watch someone get stabbed in the cereal aisle at Wal-Mart. In fact, we don't even have a Wal-Mart."

My theory as to why Germany sucks at properly identifying ghettos is simple:  the high standard of living.  Most Germans have never even seen a ghetto, let alone been followed through one by a group of guys with face tattoos.  So I'm taking it upon myself to educate this country with photo evidence, comparing the "ghetto" where I live, to the real deal.  Also known as Camden, formerly the most dangerous city in America, now number 3 and proud of it, located fifteen minutes from the house I grew up in.

Ready, Germany?  Here we go.  Watch and learn.

The ghetto where I live:

Camden:

The ghetto where I live:

Camden:

The ghetto where I live:

Camden:


So in the future, Germany, when attempting to identify a ghetto, ask yourself the following questions:
--Is there a hooker on the street corner?
--Have you seen at least two drug deals go down in the last half an hour?
--Have you heard gunshots?
--Are the houses boarded up?
--Did you order chicken wings through bulletproof glass?
--Are your friends missing at least half their teeth?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you may be in the ghetto.  You are also unfortunately nowhere near my house, so I can't offer you a place to hide when you pick a fight with a coked-out pimp rocking a black-market AK-47 and a bad attitude.

You're welcome.

22 April 2012

Back to Blog

Hey all!

Sorry for the epic blogging fail on my part over the last few days.  Life has been exceptionally hectic, but at least I've gotten a couple good stories out of it.

The last time I posted was Wednesday, right?  And afterwards, Al and I met up with the Sports kids, who were super friendly but made us do multiple shots of apple schnapps.  Or tried to make us, anyway.  I sipped them to be polite, but wound up passing them all on to Al.

My first class of Thursday was canceled due to furniture (or lack thereof), so I only had two classes, Mesoamerican Codices in the morning, Swedish at night.  Mesoamerican Codices is taught by the same guy who does Indigenous Cultures of North America, and, likewise, consists of me and four other people.  The class itself was fine, but trying to find it was interesting.  Why Germany, a country that prides itself on efficiency, would place room 181 next to room 230 (and on the opposite side of the building from rooms 179 and 180) is beyond me.  It took me half an hour and the help of a janitor to find it.

Swedish was just fine, super intense, but now I can ask people if they're single.  Also, I learned to say "polar bear," not in Swedish class, just on the internet.  Because I need to know it's name before I can pet it.

Friday was the first day of my intense battle with the crappy seminar.  Background information: a few weeks ago, I got an email from my department saying that this seminar was a requirement, and that I could take it on one of these two dates.  I showed up on one of these two dates, only to discover that the email had the wrong room number in it.  I found this out after I stood outside it for twenty minutes pounding on the door until someone opened it up just long enough to tell me that I was in the wrong place.  So I went downstairs and asked the guy at the front desk, who had no clue and sent me to another lady.  Who also had no clue, and sent me to another lady.  Who was young and motivated and decided to call someone after it because apparent that the seminar I was looking for wasn't even in the building records for that day.  We finally located the room, but I wound up being forty-five minutes late for the seminar.

Having gotten off on the right foot, I quickly made friends with two other kids in my program--who promptly informed me that this seminar is meant to be taken in conjunction with a research project in your third semester.  I asked why nobody had bothered to tell me this, or at least put it in the email.  She said "welcome to Germany."

Have I mentioned how I occasionally hate this country with every fiber of my being?

I immediately went to the professor and was like, "Oh, hey, don't actually need this for another year, can I have my weekend back, please?"  And she said, "Since you're here, you may as well just do the seminar, it'll still be valid in a year or so when you get around to doing your presentation that we film."

Oh, yes, there's the part about having to be filmed.  And about how Friday was the first day in almost a month and a half where it was a) warm, b) sunny, and c) didn't rain at all.

Fuck me.

So I did the seminar, and it was long but generally not horrible.  We did a pretty interesting game where we divided up into groups, one person turned their back, and the other people basically gossiped about that person and drew conclusions about everything from their favorite toys as children to where their interests come from.  And it was actually freaky how spot-on first impressions are.

The shitty part came when we got put in groups, given half an hour prep time, and had to give a presentation for the class.  The other groups then made a list of the positive and negative things our group had done...and I was the negative list.  Not "Tina didn't talk enough," or "Tina's hair looks stupid," just "Tina."  And if that's not a self-esteem booster, I don't know what is.

After leaving the seminar, I was in a horrendously black mood, so I took Game of Thrones down to the river and decided to enjoy whatever dregs of Vitamin D I could suck out of the last twenty minutes of daylight.  But by that point the temperate was dropping, so, in an even fouler mood than I was before, I locked myself in my room, curled up on my bed, and hated everything for a solid two hours.  Then it was time for the Couchsurfer meet-up.

My mood picked up quite a bit then, because the Kiwi had also had a super shitty day, and we spent most of the meeting commiserating, cursing, and wishing plagues upon those who had done us wrong.  In the end, we both felt a lot better, and even convinced a fellow couchsurfer to go to the big Uni party with us.  So we headed over to the university, picked up Al along the way, and enjoyed a couple hours of dancing (read: bouncing) to every song the 90's are ashamed of, remixed to techno beats.  We entertained ourselves watching one little man in a bright yellow shirt dance around like a crazy person, although I looked away when he started rubbing his nipples.  And, sure enough, some German guy came up to me thinking he could improve his Spanish.  Yeah, no.

One of the Bulgarian girls posted this picture to her Facebook of the party, check it out!  The amount of students you can pack in that building is insane:


This morning I was up early again to deal with the godforsaken seminar.  It started off with us having to march around the room imagining we were in a cave, and blasting apart the rocks with our elbows and weird sex noises.  Then we had to give a spontaneous presentation on how our nervousness manifests itself, while drawing our symptoms on a stick figure man the professor had put up on the board.  I went last, and, needless to say, was completely and totally beyond caring even a shred, which is never a good place for me to be in.  Because when my "give a shit" is running on E and the traction on my social inhibitions is worn down to slippery slope, that's when I start playing one of my favorite games, Make Fun of People to Their Faces and See How Long it Takes Them to Figure Out You're Making Fun of Them.  In this case, I stood in front of the class with a completely straight face and said, "When I'm nervous, I have negative thoughts."  And then I drew a giant thought bubble from Stick Man, in English, which said, "Dear God, kill me now."

The professor, because she was a nice lady with a sense of humor, laughed, and then came up to me afterwards and complimented me for being funny.  Once it became apparent that there wouldn't be any more negative lists, my mood improved, and I participated in the next few activities more animatedly, although I still refused to make the noises.  I'm still angry no one told me I didn't need this semester for another year.  And I'm furious I missed probably the only sunny day we'll see this summer.

Today, the Kiwi, Galway, and his girlfriend all came over.  We ate an ENTIRE batch of chocolate chip cookies (some of which were cooked), drank vodka and coke, and watched Kick-Ass, which turned out to  actually be pretty kick-ass.  Lots and lots of fun, so Saturday ended on a good note.

Tomorrow, checking out some castle ruins with Al and then going to a poetry slam with Roommate.  Yay!

Adios!

17 April 2012

Officially semester-time

Classes!  Are fabulous.

First class of the day yesterday was Indigenous Cultures of North America, which I continue to find a slightly ironic topic to study, having just left North America.  But the class itself is really interesting--and small!  There's only four other people in it.  The professor went around the room asking us what topics we were particularly interested in, and when I said dying languages and language politics, he asked me if I'd be willing to present the topic to the class at some point.  I'm excited, it looks like it's going to be a really fun time.

Then came Portuguese with Roommate.  While the course is no doubt going to be really intense, it doesn't feel so much like I'm learning a new language--mostly it just feels like filling in the blanks.  Also, the professor looks like one of my uncles.

Swedish, on the other hand, feels exactly like learning a new language, except I also want to pinch it's cheeks and tell it how much it's grown since I've last seen it.  I've decided there's never been a language in existence that's as stupidly cute as Swedish. Until you have to start making the sounds come out of your mouth, then you just kind of go, "What ze fuck, nothing this adorable has the right to be this damn hard."  I'm taking it with Al, and since he's already had half a semester of Swedish, I plan on picking his brains until I catch up.

Sometime in the middle of Swedish class, I asked myself: remember all the blood, sweat, tears, money, not to mention years of your life you've spent on more or less becoming a fluent German speaker?  Do you really want to go through this entire process two more times?  I started to despair, but only until it occurred to me how cool it would be to sit in a bar and say, "I speak German, Swedish, and Portuguese." Boom, instant motivation.  Doubling the amount of languages I speak for no other reason than "it would be cool?"  Check.

My first class of this morning was canceled due to lack of furniture, but I still got up at 8 AM to start trying to get into Swedish class.  I missed the deadlines to get a spot, and when I spoke to the professor yesterday, she said I'd have to duke it out today with forty other people all vying for the same three spots.  Grand.  No luck this morning, so I gave up and got lunch with Al.  Then I came back, Roommate and I did Portuguese homework, I gave Swedish another go, and MIRACLE OF MIRACLES I GOT IN.  Best day ever!

High off that victory, I biked into town to trade Game of Thrones book with the Kiwi and eat ice cream.  Then it was off to my next class, where I sat by myself in an empty room until I remembered that class was also canceled until next week.  My bad.

To summarize, thus far I'm really happy.  Portuguese tomorrow with Roommate, and then meeting up with Al and a bunch of the sport kids to go do some activities that probably involve alcohol.  Yay!

Adios!

16 April 2012

Cookies, Birthday Hats, and Classes

It's been a pretty quiet weekend.  Yesterday I legit did nothing, except buy notebooks, Skype with my mother, and play games with Roommate.  Today I met up with Al for ice cream, ran around the city, and then convinced him to come back to my place and bake Portuguese cookies with me.  We also made plans to go check out castle ruins next weekend, which I am super excited about.

Then I was off to Galway's place to celebrate the Kiwi's birthday.  We drank wine and watched UK comedy shows (The Inbetweeners, Gavin and Stacy, Father Ted), which were hilarious.  At one point, Galway departed briefly to Skype with his family, so the Kiwi and I made strategic use of the camera he'd left behind and filled up his memory card with completely moronic pictures of us doing hand stands, leprechaun leaps, and putting tin foil grills on our teeth.  We are nothing if not classy.  I have no idea when Galway will find those pictures, but I hope I'm in the room when he does.

But in the meantime, have a picture of the Kiwi's amazing birthday hat I bought for her yesterday:

Those are supposed to be candles, but a Cuban girl passing through the kitchen asked why we had pigs feet on a birthday hat.

In other news, classes start tomorrow.  I'm am super, super excited, and by "super, super excited" I mean "scared shitless and internally composing my farewell letter to the world."  I'll be back tomorrow to tell you how it goes!

New favorite song of the day!  In what is most likely a valiant effort to stop me from listening to the Ed Sheeran CD on loop, my roommate sent me Ben Howard the other day, and I'm a fan:


That's about it!  Adios my friends!  And in case the German university system brutally murders me with an axe, turns my remains into currywurst, and serves them up in the cafeteria, it was lovely knowing you.

14 April 2012

Orientation, Day 2, and general life updates

Good news!  I didn't die yesterday, either.

The morning started off with a visit to the Nazi house to speak with a professor about the degree, etc etc etc.  Except the guy totally forgot I as coming, which meant I sat there for forty-five minutes until I had gathered up enough courage to ask the group of people in the next room over if they knew where he was.  Turns out, he was in that group of people.  No worries.  He sat me down, walked me through the degree, and gave me lots and lots of useful information that's left me slightly less confused than I was before.  But at least now I know who to talk to should my confusion levels hit the red zone.  I also asked him how horrible it would be if I didn't complete the degree in four semesters.  He said the only repercussions would be financial, as in, having to pay for an extra semester, and personally, he can't think of any reasons I'd have trouble doing it in only two years.  But I do, and their names are:

Reason 1:  German, obviously, not my native tongue, and I have to write a crap ton of German papers.  The guy I met with told me if I really really wanted to, I could write them in English and it'll be fine, but I don't really really want to.  I figure if I'm going to do this, I might as well go all out, which means not cheating and writing English papers.  However, this means papers will take three times as long for me.

Reason 2:  I'm already planning my semester abroad.
Q:  Tina, aren't you doing your entire degree abroad?
A:  Yes.  What are you getting at?
Q:  Couldn't you just do your research project/master's thesis in Germany?
A:  Yes...what are you getting at?

Oh!  And as far as my master's thesis goes, there's already a professor in the department who does pretty much what I want to do.  He teaches Lakota.  How ridiculously awesome is that?  AND they offer classes in Tok Pisin, a creole language from Papua New Guinea.  Epic life win.

Somehow while I was getting a tour of the scary house (quite nice on the inside), it came up that the first week of classes is canceled--something about not having furniture yet.  This basically means I'm starting my degree in baby steps, first week language classes, second week, everything.  I am perfectly okay with this plan.

Afterwards I met up with Al and the Fake Ginger, previously known as German Ginger (until I saw him in daylight and discovered he's only red-headed when he sits under red light bulbs).  We ate lunch, then joined the rest of the rapidly-shrinking group for a horribly boring tour of the library.  I zoned out after about twenty minutes and started drawing pictures, but Al apparently paid attention, which is good.  I already told him I'm calling him when I get lost and/or confused, which will most likely happen five minutes I enter the library.  Also got coffee with Al, the Brazilian, and another German guy who as of yet hasn't done anything to earn himself a nickname.

We all met up again last night and went bar hopping.  In the process me ran into the orientation for the dentistry students, and proceeded to make fun of their stupid "my teeth are cleaner than yours" group song.  I learned lots of fun drinking games, made a pretty epic castle out of coasters, and even got talked into going to a club for an hour. Every single time I go out dancing, I think, "Maybe this time I'll have acquired amazing new dance skills," and then every time I remember just how truly bad I am at dancing.

In other news, I was productive today and finally got around to buying bike locks.  I have one normal heavy duty one, and then I have a Steel O Chain, which is the official product name, and not some ironic idiocy out of my own brain.  Do not call it a Chain O Steel, it is a Steel O Chain, get it right or it'll mess your face up.  For all those wondering if I bought the Steel O Chain only because it was called a Steel O Chain, the answer is, of course not.  I bought it because I thought it would be fun to scream "STEEL O CHAIN SAYS NO!" while smacking a bike thief on the head with it.

Couchsurfer meetup tonight, was super packed and really, really good fun.  Met lots of cool new people and hung out some more with Mountain Man and the Kiwi.  It's her birthday on Sunday, so I'm thinking we should do something awesome, like watch Sean Connery run around in red leather and a porn 'stache, as he discovers fabulous new worlds via a giant floating head.


To conclude this blog post, I've figured out my schedule!  Unfortunately, my orientation was held so late that we missed all the deadlines to actually register, but apparently the professors are pretty understanding.  So here's what I got, in reality, they all have German names:

Portuguese I, with Roommate
Swedish I, with Al
Indigenous Cultures of North America
Identity in Africa
Ambivalent Relationships between Anthropology and Development
Meso-american Codices
Another class about indigenous-ness that I couldn't translate because, while I speak English and I speak German, I can't translate between them for shit.
German as a foreign language, topic, Academic Writing.

Hooray!

Adios and have a wonder weekend all!

I'm guessing at least one of my anthro classes is going to be dropped, because eight classes is a lot and what's the rush if I'm doing it in five semesters anyway.

12 April 2012

Orientation, Day 1

Good news!  I didn't die.

This morning I woke up super early for the two hour introduction/get to know you breakfast.  Because there are so few students starting in the summer semester, they threw all the Master degrees from the entire department together--so not just the anthropology people, but also the sociology people, the political science kids, and, for some reason, the sport science people.  And as it turns out, I'm not the only foreigner, although I am the only native English speaker, which is just fine with me.  Temptation removed.

Breakfast was more or less a total bust.  Not that the orange juice wasn't delicious or anything, but mostly just because I was super shy and super anxious and I didn't open my mouth until one of the guys running the orientation sat down at our table.  Then this happened:

Me:  Okay, so, I have a stupid question for you.
Him:  There are no stupid questions.
Me:  Except for this one.  It is really stupid.
Him:  I'm sure it isn't.
Me:  Okay, fine then, try this on for size: is it true we're supposed to run naked around the city?  Because a) it's cold out, and b) I protest on principle.
Him:  No.  We will not be running naked through the city.

After that I felt much better.  My mood only improved when he said, "So, are you actually from  the US, or did you just study there?"  I said, "Nope, born and bred." "Why don't you have an accent?"  On the outside I was like, "Ah dunno!" but inside my brain I was all, "HELLS YEAH BITCHES."

Then there was some guy talking about boring things, and then the campus tour, in retrospect my favorite part because I made friends.  We were standing outside the building waiting for all the stragglers to come out, when I turned to one of the guys leading it, and said, "Oh, hey, random thought, am I the only anthropology person here?"  Another guy who'd overheard me turned around and said, "Yes, yes you are." "Damn.  What do you study then, that you're so lucky and not all alone?"  "Politics. Are you the American?"  "Yis."  "Guess what I have hanging on my wall?"  "What do you have hanging on your wall?"  "An American flag."  "Sweet Jesus, why would you do that."  And that's how America Lover and I became instant friends.

Somehow in the course of our campus tour we also wound up befriending a Brazilian guy, who decided since we were practically related, he could peak Portuguese at me. Unfortunately, his insane accent shot my 25% comprehension rate down to an even more dismal 10% or so, but I'm pretty certain he invited me to a Brazilian cook-out, which I'd be more than down for.  Frankly, this is going far better than the last time I tried to befriend a Brazilian.  Which went like so:

Brazilian:  God, please, please, please don't try and speak Portuguese.
Me:  Sorry, I know my Portuguese is horrible.
Brazilian:  Oh no, your Portuguese is fine, but you have the accent of the colonizers.  And I HATE it.
Me:  ....Yeah.  About that.

After the campus tour we got the low-down on registering for classes, which should be interesting.  Then we split for a few hours, only to meet back up later in the center of town to go drinking.  I was sitting on the fountain talking to America Lover (...Al?), when a random German ginger plopped himself down next to me, and, in a feat of extroversion I was extremely impressed by, just started talking.  The three of us hung out all evening, I made friends with another girl, she taught me a couple of insane words of her Bavarian dialect, it was awesome.  Then we got the whole group involved in a discussion of of favorite German words (mine is Anstandswauwau, but I also learned Torschlusspanik, which is a good one).  At some point a riotous debate erupted when it came up in conversation that, according to Wikipedia, only 25% of Germans have brown eyes.  Nobody believed me, so we started counting within our own group, and sure enough, Wikipedia for the win.

More orientation things tomorrow, and then Al and the German Ginger and I got plans. Hooray!

Speaking of gingers, here's my new favorite song of the day.  I know I had resolved to get off my Ed Sheeran kick, but then Roommate burned a really really good CD with all of his songs and I love it and listen to it all the time and I can't get goddamn Ed Sheeran out of my goddamn head.  Please, take this cover of the Parting Glass out of my head, and put it in yours.

10 April 2012

Happy (slightly belated) German Easter

I was so hung up on the German Whine, I forgot to tell you about the German Easter!

Sunday Roomate's mom came to visit, so we celebrated Easter by going out to lunch and then running around the city for a bit.  We checked out the botanical gardens, ate black vanilla ice cream (which exists? and is delicious), and even found the university's anthropology building.  Which is terrifying to behold, and from all outward appearances, represents the crowning architectural achievements of the Nazis. Stark? Check.  Foreboding?  Check?  Inspires an inappropriate amount of Nazi jokes?  Is this me we're talking about?  Double check.

Roommate took a picture of me in front of it, which I'm posting here just so you guys know in which direction to point the SWAT team.  I'm legit worried I'll go in and never come back out--look at those doors, you know I wouldn't be the first.  So if you haven't seen me in a while, and the last place I said I was going was anthro class, accept the terrible truth that I have probably been eaten by Nazi zombies, or whatever heiling creatures of the night it is that would hide in this building's fascist closets.  And then move on with your lives.  Name your firstborn after me, and be happy.

After we all got back to the apartment, I headed off again to meet up with Galway and the Kiwi at a cafe.  We hung out for a bit, then met up with the two Bulgarian girls in their dorm to eat girl scout cookies (not Bulgarian) and potatoes and salad (very Bulgarian).  From there, it was off to the Easter bonfire, which was ridiculously massive and completely lacking in basic safety cautions, like a barrier to keep people from throwing themselves in the flames.  We found German Mountain Man, then all went back to the Kiwi's place and decided to watch another New Zealand movie.  This time around we saw Boy, about a Maori kid in the eighties who meets his dad for the first time.  Trailer!


It's hilarious, awkward, and ends with the entire cast doing a "Thriller" inspired haka, which is AMAZEballs.


If you get a chance, watch it, you will not be disappointed.

My two days of orientation start tomorrow, and I am even less excited about this than I was about going to a Bolivian hospital in the middle of the night, and that time involved vomiting up copious amounts of bile.  I've been hearing reports and testimony from a bunch of people, all of whom swear it's an amazing time, but there's an uncomfortable amount of overlap between the German definition of "an amazing time" and my definition of "hazing."  All I know is, the first person to suggest I take my clothes off will have the contents of their cranium rearranged with whatever non-lethal instrument I grab first.  If they're lucky, maybe that non-lethal instrument will even have a point to it.  

The Point of Whine

lIn a recent conversation with a Kiwi, an Irishman, and two Bulgarians, it was somehow came out that, despite our varying language skills and lengths of time spent in Germany, we had, independently of one another, all arrived at a particular feature of German culture.  I've been thinking a lot about the feature in question, which means that this blog post will be neither nice nor particularly fair, but it will be accurate.  The feature is this:  Germany is a nation of whiners.

Germany moans.  Germany complains.  German grouses, grumbles, wails, laments and snivels.  Germany gripes like an old man, sobs like a baby, and squawks like a truckload of baby macaws being illegally imported across federal borders while their rain forest homes are turned into a slightly charred cow pasture.  In short, Germany bitches like it's a goddamn job.

To be fair, bitching is a universal staff, and everyone is free to wield it.  In Bolivia, for example, they bitched about not having enough food to eat, lack of jobs due to marginalization, and the two buckets of water each family was allotted per week--all of which are actually issues.  In America, we bitch about selling grandma for gas money, Lana Del Rey, and whether my tax dollars should be used to pay for Chastity's abortion, and was she even in church last Sunday?--some of which are actually issues, some of which aren't.  In Germany, however, they bitch entirely about non-issues--things that are so trivial and stupid, they don't even register as ripples on my personal Bitch Radar.  This is a country that flips shit about jackets being left on chairs and "acclimates" small children to kindergarten in one-hour increments.  It's a nation that would prefer to see a bookshelf or cupboard look organized than actually be organized.  Accompanying this woe-is-me outlook on life is a wonderful array of audible irritation: loud groans when the train is five minutes late, angry clicks when you ride your bike on the wrong side of the street, and a terse "HAL-lo?" from the person behind you when, God forbid, your mind wanders and you're ten seconds behind in ordering at Burger King.  This is a country that uses the word "uncomfortable" to yammer about things as irrelevant as a neighbor across the street, or the lighting in someone else's dining room.

Why?  Why does Germany complain so, so much about things that are so, so stupid? Is it because it's such an awesome place to live, they're completely lacking in real problems to bitch about, so they just make them up?  Possibly.  But my personal theory is this: if Germans whine incessantly, it's because their own culture sets them up for it.  If it were a boat, it would require a certain water temperature, the moon to be in the seventh house, and a butterfly to flap its wings in Peking--and BOOM! we'd have a perfect storm of riotous complaining, and that's the end of the speediest ship in the Royal Navy.  Unfortunately for everyone driving ships these days, this perfect cultural storm happens all the goddamn time.  But instead of butterflies and sad astrologists, we're talking about a couple key features of German culture, these being:

--Precision
There is a reason really good cars, scientists, and beer come out of Germany--this country doesn't do anything half-assed.  It's a culture that places a lot of value on being decisive, punctual, saying exactly what you mean and doing exactly what you say.  Which lends quite a bit of (not undeserved) weight to the stereotype that Germans are rigid, unbending, and humorless.  Stereotyping is bad, yes yes, and while I don't believe in the whole "Well, stereotypes have to come from somewhere," in this case...well, the stereotype has to come from somewhere.  Germans rely on the precision of the book, the word, and the bus schedule, and when any of these are inaccurate or unclear, the German psyche can't deal.

--Speaking your mind
I've struggled with this for the past ten months, and I will probably continue to struggle with it for as long as I live here, but Germans speak their mind, no matter the situation or social context, and you're expected to do the same.  This is what German calls "communicating," but everyone else calls "fighting."  A German opinion is freely given, over and over and over and over, until you're either swinging with both fists, or grinding your teeth to stubs and saying "hmmm" a lot, while "I hate confrontation, I hate confrontation, I hate confrontation," is on loop in your brain.

--A need for everything to be "just so."
Germany is a culture that very strictly separates an individual's public and private lives, but whereas a literal precision runs the public sphere, I've found a slightly more metaphorical precision to reign supreme in the home.  This is an overwhelming need for everything to be just so, and only just so, all the time.  It also includes Gemütlichkeit, that untranslatable word that encompasses every positive adjective from happiness to comfort to social belonging and having more than two buckets of water per family, per week.  Americans may experience Gemütlichkeit as "Epic Boredom."

At the point where the loudness of the German opinion meets the low German tolerance for inaccuracy and imperfection, you get a German whine.  I have dubbed this point, "The Point of Whine."  And I have plotted it on a line graph.  Arbitrarily, of course, but data plotting is data plotting, even if the data is being made up by me.

To begin, let's critically look at the American whine.  I'm plotting "Exactness of the World" against the "Volume of Opinion," and marking the point where people start to whine, loudly, publicly, often to complete strangers.  This is also the point when I start glaring at you for being a whiny bitch.

As you can see, Americans don't really start whining audibly until we're three-quarters of the way to Armageddon.  That means that even though Rick Santorum is an epic tool, we don't open our mouths until popcorn chicken goes out forever.  In the meantime, we stick to the internal whine, which manifests itself in dirty looks and raised eyebrows.  It takes an awful lot of shit before someone actually says something.  

And now for the German chart!

Conclusions: Germans are faster to whine, and do it at a much greater volume, than their American counterparts.  

But why stop there?  Why not take a look at the Point of Whine charts for other cultures as well?

What, like England, where you step on their foot, and they apologize for being in your way?  Sure, why not!

...Yes.

I wonder how it looks in Portugal?

To summarize:

America whines audibly when things have gone to shit.
Germany whines audibly when things have not gone to shit, and are, in fact, quite nice.
Britain whines never, because they're sorry they were standing where you put your foot down.
It's not so much "whining" in Portugal as it is "Yelling All The Time."

08 April 2012

I have a bike AND friends!

Exciting news of the day, I have friends!

Yesterday I got a message from an Irish guy on the couchsurfing group, telling me that if I planned on going to the weekly meetup, he would be there.  So I went, and we had a lovely chat just the two of us.  Then we were joined by an absolutely hilarious Chinese girl and a German mountain man, both really, really cool people.  We had a lot of fun at the bar, and then when the place got full, we went to a basement bar with no windows and drank hot chocolate.

Today I got a text message from Irish Guy (hereafter known as Galway), inviting me to meet up with him and two Bulgarian exchange students for an evening of yet unplanned fun.  So I did!  We were joined by a really cool Kiwi, and the German Mountain man from yesterday.  We hung out at the bar for a bit and made friends with a bachelor party before deciding to go back to the Kiwi's place and watch a movie. She plugged her hard drive in and we were scrolling through all her movies when I spotted Black Sheep, and was all "No way, you have BLACK SHEEP."  We were the only two who had seen it, but once we explained the premise--genetically engineered mutant sheep on a New Zealand farm that kill people---everyone else was more than down.  And it was amazing, as it always is.  The Bulgarian girls invited us to get together with them tomorrow, so that's what we're doing.

I'm so happy, I think I'll bake tomorrow.

05 April 2012

I have a bike! And other stories.

The amazing news of the day is that I have a bike.  As I mentioned before, the lady who lives under me offered me hers if it fit me, because she can't ride it anymore and she doesn't want it just sitting in the basement.  And that's how I got a 300 dollars bike for 65 dollars.

Here, have a picture!


Sexy, right?

My original plan was to spend max 200 dollars on a bike, basket, and accessories, but since I've gone and gotten the bike and basket(s!?) for so little, I've decided to splurge on the locks.  There's no way I'm letting this thing get stolen, and as I learned the last time I lived in a city, bolting the bike to the ground doesn't guarantee someone won't make off with it.  So...I'm bolting it down twice.  In fact, I plan on spending more on locks than I did on the bike.  My hope of hopes is that one day, in a dark alley, some guy with a hacksaw, a blowtorch, and a screwdriver will come across a row of bikes, and say to himself, "Well, not only am I in a dark alley with a hacksaw, a blowtorch, and a screwdriver, I'm in the mood to steal a bike.  I think I'll take the silver one...wait...what's thi--it can't be!...TWO locks!?  There are TWO locks!?  Alas, my nefarious plans have been thwarted!  CURSES upon the owner of this bike!  A POX on her head!  A PLAGUE on both her locks!  WINTER IS COMING KILL THE KING."

Apparently, the thieves in my brain only steal bikes after a Game of Thrones marathon.

In case you were wondering, the reason I haven't bought the locks yet is because I mashed up my American and German pin numbers too many times, and locked my German card out of the system.  It's not worth fixing, because my bank account is in limbo anyway.  The Göttingen branch is sending me a new card, the (new) pin number of which I already have.  So basically, I have seven euros to last me until the new card shows up and I can take money out again...and a four-day bank holiday standing in between me and the new card.

The day before yesterday, Roommate had a friend over.  He biked eighty miles to come visit, which blows my mind, and I give him major points for devotion to the cause.  Highly, highly impressed.  We played Dominion until four-thirty in the morning, and when I say "played," I mean they played, I held up my cards and said "what ze fuck help me."  Yesterday we went to a cafe and discussed abortion, Downs syndrome, and what happens when overeducation does too much organic coke off hand-sanded barnwood (also known as, The Invention Of The Hippie Kindergarten). When the conversation turned to theories of the afterlife, my ability to participate was effectively over, but it was super interesting and I learned lots of new words!

Speaking of new words, Roommate and I are taking Portuguese together, and I'm also signing up for Swedish.  My new life plan is to, over the next two years, effectively double the amount of languages I speak.  How's that for overcompensation?  Don't ever let your children forget their native tongues, they might turn into me.

In other news, classes start soon, and from minute to minute I oscillate between being really excited (classes should start right now!) and being absolutely terrified (I would rather skin myself with alive a bottle-opener, and whose idea was this again?).  I also just got the schedule for my orientation--it includes a lot of communal meals, meeting people, and ends with a party.  And even though the thought of being social for fourteen hours in German sends me into paralyzing fits of bone-crushing anxiety, I know objectively that if someone does not physically put "make friends with the other people in your program" on my schedule, I won't do it.  That doesn't stop me from being horribly, horribly anxious about it.  Oh god, what if they hate foreigners?

They're anthropology students, they can't hate foreigners.

This might actually be fun!

I'm going to die.

I'm going to die.

I am actually going to die.

03 April 2012

Adventure Overload!

Today I woke up determined to be productive after a weekend of actually doing nothing. I sat in my room and played instruments for three days, which is well and good, but somewhere around day two you start to feel like a failure.  I crossed this line Saturday night, after the entire world was already closed, knowing I had to get through all of Sunday as well.  So this morning I got up so ready to go, I started making lists.

First things first, I borrowed my roommate's bike (which, since my last blog post, we have taken to fondly calling "The Dragon") and went to the bank.  A note on German banks: they are highly, highly irritating.  Unlike in the US, your German bank account does not belong to the bank as a corporation, it belongs to the bank as a spot on Google Maps.  Which makes for great annoyance when you go to change money or cash a check at the Göttingen branch, only to find out you can't because your account itself is in Celle.  Therefore I decided I needed to hit up the bank to get my Celle account closed down and transferred to Göttingen...mostly just so I could change said money and cash said check.

This brings us to Adventure 1: BANK FIGHT!
While standing in line waiting to be helped, I heard an angry accented voice yell, "WHAT DID YOU SAY?"  I turned around to see a giant angry black lady storming across the bank after a little German woman, who kept snapping "I didn't say anything," in that cold shoulder way that lets everyone within earshot know that she a) did, in fact, say something, and b) it was probably derogatory and racist.  They screamed at each other for a few minutes, and then the angry black lady started wailing on the German woman.  I looked around waiting for a bank employee, a security guard, anybody to do something, but everyone did exactly what I was doing, namely, staring.  They just kept hitting each other and screaming for a few minutes, until finally some random lady walked up with her hands up and said, "That's not very nice."  Perfectly logical, I know.  But the dogs stopped and separated, although they kept spitting insults at each other from across the bank.  When the black lady finally left, it was with a loud, "I'm waiting for you outside."

Not that I saw what, if anything, happened next, because my turn was up.  The guy helping me was super ridiculously attractive, which made the bank bureaucracy if not easier, at least way more pleasing to look at.  In what is becoming a reoccurring theme, my ID cards from three countries confused the crap out of him, and I had to go back and explain my life story, which was fine with me because like I said, he was cute.  So it was in a good mood that I left the bank and went hair crap shopping.

Adventure 2: NO ONE LIKES BRUNETTES!
Not really an adventure, more like an observation.  As happy as I am that braids are back in style, I've decided I need to branch out slightly and start doing buns. Unfortunately, Germany apparently discriminates against people with dark hair, because I had to go into like nine different stores before I found a bun-maker-donut-thing that wasn't blond.  Likewise, I have yet to locate a store in this country which sells eye shadow palettes for brown eyes.  I call racism.

Also the lady checking me out asked if my hair was real.

Adventure 3:  YAY BIKES!
I went to yet another bike store, talked to more cute boys, and this time actually tested a bike. While it's in my price range, it's also a slightly bigger, slightly more silver version of The Dragon, and I've decided hand brakes are a requirement to my personal happiness.  But I was still in a really good mood.

Adventure 4:  CAFETERIA FOOD!
Then I met up with Roommate and some of her friends to go eat lunch on campus.  It was my first time in the cafeteria, and I almost got lost and tripped going up the stairs, because I'm just that smooth.  Sitting with nice people eating food...I actually stopped being terrified of my impending studies, and started being excited.  At least for half an hour or so.

Adventure 5: PUNCH TEST PUNCH!
In order to take German-as-a-second-language classes, I had to take yet another proficiency test.  Which annoyed me, because I already had the DSH, but remember this is Germany where they require documentation that your heart is beating before they look you in the eye.  So I took the goddamn test, and I didn't care, and I still scored in the highest level.  Suck it, test.

What's particularly annoying about these sorts of proficiency test is that they don't ask you to read or comprehend or answer questions.  Instead, you have to fill in the blanks in the various words of the sentence. Like so:

There we__ two dog_, one nam__ Jack, one ca__ Jill.  Jack a__ Jill wer__ best fri__, at least unt__ Jack g__ hit by a ca__.  Then Jill fou__ a new man.

Q:  Is this irritating as all get-out?
A:  Yes.  Yes it is.  But I'll still kick its ass.

After punching the test in the face in a quarter of the allotted time, I wandered over to the tandem partner board to see if anybody wanted to trade languages with me.  There were three people who wanted to exchange German for English, all of which I have emailed, and two of which I already have plans with.  Hopefully I'll make a few friends out of this!

Adventure 6: FAMOUS FRIENDS?
On my way out the door, I had this conversation with the lady who lives below me:

Her:  Where are you off to!
Me:  To meet up with Roommate and go see a concert.
Her:  How are you getting there?
Me:  I'm borrowing The Dragon, I still haven't bought my own bike yet.
Her:  I have a brand new bike sitting in the basement that I can't ride.  If it fits you, pay me whatever you feel like, and you can have it.
Me:  Good mood points plus a hundred.

Then I found Roommate and we headed over to the bar where the concert was being held.  While we were waiting for her friends, we hung out outside on the makeshift astroturf stage which included, among other things, a row of airplane seats.  Everyone arrived, we went inside, and took our seats on the stairs leading down to the basement.

The very first opening act was, and I have no other way to describe it, hilarious.  I give him props for trying, but if your mother tongue is German, and your command of English is infantile at best, then do not write songs in English.  Stick to your mother tongue, everyone will be happier, and your lyrics will come out slightly more profound than "You're in a car/You're in a hall/I'm right here/But that's too far," or, my favorite, "I met a stranger on the street/I bought some fish for us to eat."  Plus, he played his guitar with his body arched up over it all strange, and when he turned to look at the audience, he turned his whole body and glared out of one eye like his neck was broken.  I was dying.  Thank god I was too far away for him to hear me practically gagging myself to get myself to shut up.  When I looked around, everyone else was being very grave about it, which leads me to believe either a) I was the only one in the room who found it hilarious, or b) everyone else was much better about holding themselves together.

The second opening act was much better all around, but while she was playing it occurred to me that there's been a recent songwriting trend that really needs to die.  I call this trend "Listing Mundane Things," and it occurs when songwriters, instead of writing songs, sing their shopping list.  Done well, it turns Shopping List into a metaphor for life, death, and the secrets of Stephen Hawking's brain.  Done poorly, it makes me want to choke myself with the free-range contents of your handspun organic shopping bag.

Back to the story.  Around the middle of her set, some guy asked if he could steal the seat next to me.  Having only seen a thirty second video clip of the person we were at the concert to see, I didn't recognize That Guy as him--all I saw was a dude with intense facial hair folding something out of the label of his beer bottle, and I wanted to know what.  We had a lovely long conversation about origami (he didn't believe me when I said I can fold pigs), travelling (he's toured in China), and Philadelphia (gay pride).  He corrected my German, told me fun stories, and proved to be a pretty awesome and interesting guy.

His set was really, really good, and afterwards Roommate went down and bought a CD, and I folded him a pig, and said, "See?  Told you so."

In case you were wondering, meeting famous people changes me not at all.  He shook my hand.

So, here's my new favorite song of the day, also known as, That Guy's.  The guy is German, but the song is in English, and it's really really good:



And that concludes my day full of adventures.

Adios!