Bierdusche

9. Bierdusche die [beer shower]: the German word for getting beer sprayed all over your face when opening a bottle; commonly done to coaches after Football (the real football) games; even the German Chancellor Angela Merkel got one (refer to youtube, if you so desire); and finally, I accidentally got one, commemorating my official inaguration to being officially German- as a traveler, as a speaker, and finally, as a student. 

At Lutherstadt Wittenberg

Well, here I am again, behind with my blog. The best solution I find is to simply touch on what has happened this past month in two categories: my travels and my studies (yes, the school part of my study abroad has actually started).

To start with my travels is obvious. I have been somewhere in Germany nearly every weekend, deepening my grasp of the language and culture that I am studying. After being in Freiburg for a week, I get restless, just itching to see what else Germany has to offer. Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely in love with Freiburg, but variety is good for me now. For 70 Euros, students can buy a Semester ticket that covers all buses, streetcars, and trains in the region in and around Freiburg for the entire summer. A friend and I decided to take advantage of that and on a rainy Saturday afternoon, we took the Regio-Train to Kirchzarten, a small village just outside of Freiburg. We walked around the town, exploring the history, and then enjoyed some “Kuchen und Tee” at the local café. I love the freedom to just take the train and go to explore a new town. It’s a very addicting opportunity here.

On another weekend I took the train to Hannover, about a six-hour train ride. For some reason, taking first class was cheaper than second, so I gladly took advantage of living a luxurious life that weekend. First class on an ICE train is a privilege (I now realize after also traveling using second class), because you have so much more space and comfortable seats, and the train cars are a lot quieter. Free coffee and tea were served and I was always offered Kinder-Schokolade (the best German chocolate), which I gladly took. Second class feels like you’re in a cattle car, because there are so many people crammed into one car and actually finding a place to store your luggage is like landing on Boardwalk when playing Monopoly. So anyway, the ride was very enjoyable, but the company I had in Hannover was even more enjoyable. A very dear friend of the family, Carola, lives there and I stayed overnight at her darling apartment. Hannover was almost completely bombed during the war, so many of the buildings are new, but it still didn’t really give off a real “big-city” vibe, despite being the capital of Niedersachsen. Sunday afternoon was Carola’s birthday party and I got to meet other German Professionals, which was very interesting and inspiring. It was so great to get another perspective on German life, as we talked about the education system, German and world politics, health care, etc.

One of the first Bibles in German

And then came Easter break. I took the train (unfortunately, second class this time) to enter what used to be the former East Germany and definitely got a history lesson that week. Over Easter weekend, I stayed with friends of my family, the Enders, who live in Oranianbaum, a cute, little town by Dessau and Lutherstadt Wittenberg. The family was so warm welcoming and it was so great to see an ordinary German family at work, especially since the four children of the family are my age. On Saturday, they took me to Wittenberg, where Martin Luther lived, studied, taught, and hung the famous 95-Theses on the door of the Schlosskirche. I spent hours in the museum, devouring the history of the founder of my religion. A combination of rain, sunshine, snow, and hail kept us on our toes the entire day. That evening we went to church, for an Easter Eve service. The service was very untraditional, but very powerful. We entered the cold, dark church and were surprised the lights did not go on even after the service began. Candles slowly lit the sanctuary, creating the feeling as if we were in the tomb with Jesus. Bible versus were read and the choir sang hauntingly beautiful chants and by the end we were invited to communion, making a big circle at the altar. Actual grapes and pieces of bread symbolized the blood and body and then we were given candles. A wooden cross with grooves laid flat in the middle of the circle we made and each person had to say a little prayer before lighting his or her own candle and placing it in a groove on the cross. By the end, the cross glowed beautifully with candles, the flame of each candle making it’s way up to heaven. Very moving. After the service there was an “Osterfeuer” (Easter fire), basically a traditional big bonfire and there was a cheap beer, brat, and glühwein stand. The congregation stood by the fire after midnight, talking and drinking and eating brats. So stereotypical German, it was hard not to smile the entire time.

Leipzig

Store in Leipzig that sells left over "stuff" made during
the DDR time period.

On Monday, I went with Charlotte to Leipzig, where she is studying and stayed with her for a week. It was so great to see another University town and I fell in love with the city. So much history and culture, and I was especially fascinated to learn more about DDR history. East Germany is so much cheaper than Freiburg, so that was also nice.

My studies have also started back in Freiburg. The week after my long Prague and Dresden trip was the start of the IES (my program) courses. All of the courses are taught in German, but my classmates are those participating in the program, meaning they are American. The classes remind me of normal German classes at my home school, because when we’re not in discussion, many students talk in English, which is very frustrating for me. If you always speak English, why the heck are you here!? This is always a problem for me with the other IES students. I feel like a translator, rather than a study abroad student, because I am always surrounded by English when I am with fellow IES students. My determination grows every day to find non-American settings in Freiburg. But anyway, I am taking three courses at IES. The first one is a German grammar course. There are three levels of this course and I am in the middle, which is absolutely perfect for me. In this class, we are just tweaking our grammar and learning more vocabulary words and also learning about the German culture. My other class is “Medieval Mindset,” which is a very fascinating class, because I get to learn about the European Middle Ages in Europe. But the class itself is a little hard, because I have never studied this time period before and do not know a lot of the historical vocabulary words from the period. Every class gets a little easier, though. And my last IES class is “German Foreign Policy and International Relations,” my favorite class. The professor is so stereotypical German: super sweet and tiny, wears the same all black outfit, and pixie-cut, dyed red hair. The really great part about taking IES courses is that we go on excursions. Very soon I will go to a Monastery from the Middle Ages in France and for my other class, we will go to Strasbourg, France and go to see the European Union Parliament in action. Super excited!!

I also have the option to take classes at the school where students learn to become teachers. It is separate from the University with smaller class sizes and supposedly easier. Well, I sat in on the “Third Reich” class, really excited to learn about WWII from a German perspective, and was surprised to get a visiting Professor from the US, with embarrassingly poor German, so that took care of that class. But he was very passionate about his subject, so I would love to just have coffee with him and talk history, because the other German students didn’t seem to really care.

International students also have the option do to a Praktikum (Internship) somewhere in the Freiburg region. We had to take the initiative to find a firm that would be interested in taking in a foreign intern. I found a number of interesting possibilities and wrote a resume and cover letter in German for a number of firms. Last week I heard from the Freiburger Rathaus (City Hall) and they are willing to take me in! The local government system runs a little differently than the United States. As far as I understand, there is an “Oberbürgermeister,” or rather, the Lord Mayor, who is the head of the city. Then there are “Bürgermeister,” or mayors, who are the heads of various departments (Dezernate). My internship will be with the mayor who runs the “Dezernat II,” Department II, which deals with “the environment for forest and waste management, youth, school, and education.” I will meet with the mayor later this week to talk details, but the internship will probably start in the middle of June and then end at the end of July. It will be full time, so I will definitely be like a working professional for a month. I am super excited to start the internship, but also, naturally, a little nervous, because I will be completely surrounded by Germans and the German language. But that is exactly why I am here- to improve my knowledge of the German language and culture- so an internship at the city hall will be perfect!

Wednesday is the start of my one and only University class. The course is “Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871-1918,” so we will see how that goes.

At the Auerbachs-Keller.. 2nd oldest restaurant in Leipzig. Goethe ate here often as a
student and was described in his popular play Faust (which I unfortunately read).

Okay, I actually have some reading and writing to do for my class tomorrow, but I promise to be better updating my blog! Much more exciting events are on their way! 

Ibid.

8. Ibid.

Now that I am ridiculously late in updating my blog, I will speedily and efficiently finish my trip to Dresden, so I can also write about even more exciting adventures I have had since then!

Cutting the very large, delicious fruit

That Friday we had a pretty open day, so I took my girls to the Neustadt (new portion of Dresden) to do some exploring and shopping. We were all very successful.  There were super cute boutiques and since indie, vintage, retro, etc styles are in, I naturally wanted to buy everything, but with great self control, I got two dresses, together costing 28 Euros. There was an “Obst und Gemüse Markt” that sold only fresh fruits and veggies. Those being my two favorite foods, my mouth was watering for juicy fruit, especially after poisoning my body with bread, wurst, and chocolate all the time. Megan, another adventurous friend, decided to try a fruit that looked like an orange, that was the size of our heads. We all pitched in and after the nice lady who helped us cut it, we sat down at the nearby park, and ate the fruit while soaking up the sun. With the fruit’s energy boost, we explored some more shops and then headed toward the old part of Dresden, to explore that region. We got a tour of the Semper Oper and then toured an art museum, the “Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister” (old masters gallery) ourselves. It is always great to see paintings personally that you have seen in textbooks! Raphael’s Sistine Madonna with the two cute little angels, and other works by famous painters- Titian, Giorgione, Vermeer, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Dürer, and so on.

Another busy day awaited us. Today we woke up early and took the bus to Meissen, a small and quaint town near Dresden. Meissen is known for producing porcelain and, in fact, had the first factory that produced porcelain in Europe. We toured a huge middle-aged castle, the main attraction of the city. The tour was extremely well done, because the museum has two separate histories and functions, a middle aged castle and also as a porcelain factory. A friend and I then walked through the postcard-perfect town and enjoyed some gelato (ice cream) before we made our way back to the bus and headed to Radebeul, a super small town, to go wine tasting. It was such a perfect, romantic evening in the wine countryside at a small winery. The entire business is located on the young winemaker’s land, which made the whole setting quaint and unique. We first toured the vineyards resting in the valley, glistening with the setting sun's rays. The winemaker led us to an outdoor terrace with tables and chairs. We got a little wine-tasting lesson and then tried three wines with a cheese and olive platter. Delicious. I really wanted to buy a bottle, but although it’s a small winery, the winemaker’s in high demand, so a bottle was about thirty Euros. Oh well. Once we got back to Dresden, a friend and I got dressed up and walked to the Frauenkirche, where there was a Bach organ concert. Although the concert was long, it was so great to hear Bach on a huge organ, in not just a huge European church, but my favorite church. What another great day.

Sunday, our last day. I did not want to go back to Freiburg where classes awaited me. I kept on thinking that Europe is a classroom itself, so why sit inside and listen to someone talk? Although the nerd I am, I also was looking forward to reading and writing again and focusing on specific subjects. But on the long way back, we made a rest stop in Eisenach and toured the medieval castle where Luther hid and translated the Bible into High German, contributing to the development of the standard High German language. We then went down to the actual city and had the option of touring the Bach or Luther museum. A friend and I went to the museum where Luther lived as a child while attending school. The building itself was cool, but I didn’t like the set up of the museum. Oh well. The city itself was super cute and I ate at a sweet Italian café for lunch. But then it was time to again hit the road and by 6 we made it back to Freiburg. Home sweet home.

My week in the eastern part of Europe was extremely enriching. So many lessons were learned in just a short week. Without a computer, no contact with the “outside world,” I learned more about myself and became an even stronger individual. My personality is turning more adventurous and more confident. I absolutely love walking through streets of towns that are both big and small, trying to get the flair of each individual one. There is so much history in each city and I learned so much about European history just exploring museums, galleries, and roaming the streets. Understanding the people, the language, the community, the history of each city is so important to learn, and I feel as if I am beginning to develop that skill. Now I am so eager to continue to explore places in Germany and Europe. It is almost addicting and I do not plan on taking care of that addiction, but instead feed it with more travels :)  

Ibid.

7. Ibid. latin [the same place]: term used to signify a footnote or endnote source was also previously cited; in other words, part two of my Prague/Dresden journey.

Sorry I haven’t been able to write earlier. My week has been rather busy as usual, but I also got sick with exhaustion (with everything I’m seeing and doing, go figure). But finally I have some time to update :)

The last part I covered was my full day in Prag. Surprisingly, the next day was even tiring, although it theoretically was not as busy as Tuesday.  Wednesday we got up early and first drove to Terezin, a small town near Prag and got a tour of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. This was the first concentration camp I have gone to and I was very disappointed that we were only there for an hour. I am usually not the critical about tour guides, but this one was not that good, or else the script was poorly written. The concentration camp was formerly a fortress built in the late eighteenth century and then accommodated political and military prisoners in the nineteenth century and early twentieth. Interestingly enough, the man who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (you know, the assassination, that everyone learns in high school, was the catalyst of the first world war) was held prisoner here and then died of TB in a cell. The tour guide spent a lot of time on the former and the latter uses of the site and I sadly left the concentration camp more fascinated about the fortress and Cell 1 (where the man who is not in every history book died), than the actual camp itself, since the Gestapo took over the fortress and created a concentration camp there. Or maybe it was because what had happened there had not really registered since it was a quick tour and then we had to head back to the bus. The tour guide also always compared the camp to Auschwitz, which I thought was a poor decision, because it seemed like he was just trying to make the camp less horrific and tragic as the infamous Auschwitz. In some ways, I want to go back and take my time to really see the camp and in another way, I would rather not, because it really is hard to describe the emotions felt going through a concentration camp. But I really want to see another and compare.

On a much happier note, the bus then brought us to Dresden, Germany, which I originally was a little disappointed that we were going to be there for such a long time, but then quickly realized that I could spend a whole year there. We stayed in a 4-star hotel with huge bedrooms and Haribo gummy bears waiting of us on our beds. The view was breathtaking, since we could see the outline of the old part of the city.  After a quick rest in our luxurious rooms, we took a tour with an energetic tour guide. This city is definitely proud of their history, or rather proud of their determination of rebuilding the city. Pictures of Dresden after the fire bombings breaks one’s heart, but the way the city has resurrected after the war is absolutely amazing. I originally thought that I would be disappointed with Dresden, because it would be “fake,” meaning that all of the buildings would be replicas of the ones destroyed during the war. Instead, they literally took pieces of the destroyed buildings and used them to create beautiful buildings once again. You can still see parts of buildings that were burned and destroyed and also parts that were completely rebuilt. The building that stood out to me, right from the beginning, was Dresden’s infamous Frauenkirche. The tour guide explained that the church was completely destroyed during the fire bombings and after the war, pieces of the church was used to rebuild, just like other buildings in Dresden, only this one is specifically unique. The church has bright cream-colored stonework and the black blocks that scatter the façade, all remnants of the old church, remind visitors of the horror Dresden experienced.  After the tour, we were able to do what we wanted, so a lovely group of ladies and I wandered to the “Neu Stadt” (“new city” across the Elbe River) and found a cute little Chinese Restaurant and each had meals under 5 Euros. Delicious and cheap. It was a win-win.

The next morning, I greeted the world with groans, because of the early hour we had to get up, but the purpose of getting up early was completely worth the whining. Thursday morning a tour of the Frauenkirche was arranged for us. A cute old man, obviously from Saxon because of his accent, led us around the Frauenkirche, determined not to leave out a single detail of the church’s history. Completely fascinating, although most were fighting off heavy eye-lids and or just trying to comprehend what he was saying. The Frauenkirche was the first Evangelical (Protestant, Lutheran, etc.) church I entered in Germany that had a stoic exterior, just like the typical Catholic churches. But the Frauenkirche’s interior was completely different from the gaudy, decadent, over-done Catholic interiors. The Frauenkirche is shaped in a circle, symbolizing family and community, a true church for “the people.” Instead of stained glass windows, simple glass windows framed the church and bright light poured on our faces. You do not enter the church feeling overwhelmed by paintings, sculptures, and saints in every corner. Instead, when lifting your head to heaven, simple, yet purposeful murals of Evangelical saints frame the center dome. Stone, marble, and wood, all in warm colors, make up the rest of the church and I feel right at home there. Actually, this is the first church where I actually felt at home there and a true connection to God within “God’s house.” That connection sank deep into my soul, and recharged it, and I felt inspired to come back and pray, which I did, for over an hour.

But back to the tour…

One of the last things that the tour guide noted was the large cross perched near the right side pews, aside the glowing candles. This cross, is just not any cross. It is instead the cross from the original Frauenkirche that was destroyed during the fire bombings and salvaged. The cross now is charcoal black and bent and eerily reminds visitors of “man’s inhumanity to man.” But the story goes even further. As an old man dying, the English fire bomber, solely responsible for the destruction of the Frauenkirche, requested that his son, a sculptor, replace the cross resting on top of the reconstructed church. His son obeyed his father’s wishes and that story hit a nerve in me, forcing tears to flow out of me.

After the inspirational tour, a group of friends and I visited a museum inside the Dresden palace and then journeyed across the Elbe River and bought food at the Market. Sitting by the river, we had a picnic of fresh bread and cheese and chocolate, with the outline of Dresden as our beautiful scenery. Perfect, peaceful afternoon. We then quickly went back to the hotel and changed into fancier clothes. On our way to the Opera house was a young man playing a grand piano at the square. A grand piano, right out in the open. My goodness, Dresden is just full of music and culture! But unfortunately we couldn’t stay and listen, for we were on a mission: tickets to Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Magic Flute) at the Semper Opera. Flying through Dresden, determined to get those tickets before the rest of the IES students also interested, we looked like mad women. But we were first in line and got our tickets for 15 Euros to see one of the world’s greatest Operas in such a world renowned Opera house. We had an hour and a half before the curtain opened, so we stopped by the café near the Opera house. The weather was nice enough to sit outside with the blankets the café provided and as we savored our cake and coffee, classical music filled the air. We then gracefully walked back to the opera house and took our “seats.” Our tickets were standing room only, way up high, but we didn’t care. We could still see and hear Mozart’s creation. After intermission some seats were open, so a friend and I quickly claimed them, making us then feel like royalty. The opera was not set in Mozart’s time, but instead, interpreted in a world that looked like Dr. Seuss’ Oh The Places You’ll Go. The characters and voices were significant and, of course, The Queen of the Night aria was absolutely breathtaking. After the opera, my friends and I walked to a classy wine bar and discussed the Opera over a bottle of red wine. Oh, how cultured we felt that entire day!

I am going to end now and hope to complete that week of travels as soon as possible. Happy Easter to everyone!!!! :)