Adventures in Europe, Part II

When I started blogging, I told myself I wouldn’t blog about American politics unless I encountered a really interesting perspective from the Germans. However, I’ve naturally still kept up with politics. By now, my preferred candidate would, to quote a beloved CMC professor, “need to commit a major sin with a minor farm animal” to get me to change my mind, but I still want to watch all the debates and generally remain informed.

I just watched Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin. I’ll start by saying that I’ve seen several things this election from both sides that disturb me. Neither side should try to portray their base as fundamentally better or more moral than the other. This is why the culture wars exist. It was not appropriate for Obama to talk about people clinging to guns, religion, and antipathy to those unlike themselves in response to not liking the changing face of the country and the world (although having grown up in Bakersfield, I can’t pretend that people like that don’t exist). It bothers me when Republicans try to portray well-educated city-folk as elitist or pretend that eating arugula and drinking Honest Tea is a crime (especially since I happen to like both, thank you very much!)

What Sarah Palin said to Katie Couric about travelers in response to a question about her passport, however, struck a cord and really disgusted me. I can’t add videos to the blog, so I’ll post a link and a transcript here:

Couric: In preparing for this conversation, a lot of our viewers and internet users wanted to know why you did not get a passport until last year, and they wondered if that indicated a lack of interest and curiosity in the world.

Palin: I’m not one of those who maybe came from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduate college, and their parents give ‘em a passport and give ‘em a backpack and say, “Go off and travel the world.” Nooo, I’ve worked all my life; in fact, I usually had two jobs all my life until I had kids. I was not a part of, I guess, that culture. The way I have understood the world is through education, through books, through mediums that have provided me with a lot of perspective of the world.

The link is here. It starts around the 40-second mark. I think it’s important to watch her say this and to hear for yourself the tone in her voice as she talks about those people, that culture.

To put it bluntly, I am incensed on so many levels. Traveling is for spoiled kids? Those who work don’t travel? (Am I to take it that those who travel therefore don’t work?) The world can be understood solely through books? She thinks she is better than people who have made the time and effort to see other parts of the world? Who the hell does she think she is? I shouldn’t be surprised: this is, after all, a woman who will say to Dan Rather with a straight face that she has insight into foreign relations with Russia because you can see part of Siberia from an island in Alaska on a clear day.

Anyways, my disdain for the woman aside, there are some serious issues with this world view. I am an international relations major. Clearly, I place a lot of value on the rest of the world and the experiences you can derive from other nations. My knee-jerk response was to reject her idea that she has a clear perspective of the way the world works solely through books and education. No offense to education nor  to books, but I can tell you as a student completing her third study-abroad experience that no book and no professor (no matter how gifted) can tell you how the world works. You need to see it for yourself.

Before each time abroad, I would go through any book I could find about the country. I wanted to know about their politics, their culture, their table manners, their customs and norms, everything. And each time, I was completely humbled when I found out how little I actually knew. You don’t know what “It is considered normal for French men to stop a woman on the street to ask for a date, and you should not be alarmed if this happens to you” really means until you live for four months in France and have men stop you to ask you to go up to their apartments every day. You don’t know what “The Germans/French are slow to warm to strangers, but once you make a friend, you have one for life” means until you’re trapped in their country and no one will return a smile. You don’t know what it’s like to see a country come to a stand-still and just how ferociously an entitlement will be defended until you’ve passed out after walking to a doctor’s appointment, unable to take the tram because French strikers were blocking all transit routes.

If you have the opportunity to travel, or especially to live abroad, I think you should take it. You’re not a bad person if you can’t, but if you are applying for a job that entails foreign policy, I think you need to have seen the world, or at least recognize the value of doing so. If you can’t muster even that, you can still at least have a minimal amount of respect for those who have. Everything really does come alive before your eyes when you actually see the things you’ve read about. The same is true for everything else. Do you want a surgeon who’s just read a book? A lawyer who’s only sat in on a few classes? We value experience for a reason.

It is because I believe in the value of everything I just mentioned, and because I find while abroad one learns as much, if not more, outside the classroom as inside that I’m so insulted that she would characterize travel as something spoiled children do with daddy’s money. Many people, my parents included, work their behinds off for the ability to travel or to provide their children with that opportunity. Someone please explain to me what is wrong with that?

I believe in the American dream- that people can and should better themselves whenever they have the opportunity. I don’t think that people who do so are snobs, people from some other culture to be disdained. And I especially don’t think that people who have made it to the top are to be automatically smeared or their children dismissed as spoiled brats (emphasis on the word automatically. I know exceptions exist. I’ve been to private school.) This reminded me of her VP acceptance speech when she said that people in small towns are “the ones who do some of the hardest work in America, who grow our food, and run our factories, and fight our wars.” Not that there is anything wrong with that. At all. Get that through your head before you keep reading.

But… why are you better for staying in your small town and never leaving? I grew up in a small agro-industrial town. I have dreams that encompass the entire world, that are too big for Bakersfield, so I got out. I am getting the best education I can, and I heading abroad at every opportunity, and I want to be the best at whatever I end up doing. I want the American dream. Many people I went to high school with took a low-end job, got married, and many have kids at the age of 20. Most are not still there because they are morally better people, but because they didn’t put in the work it takes to leave. And you know what? I’ve seen a lot of hopelessness in a lot of people from back home. What is elitist about trying to leave that? About saying “I want so much more than this” and vowing to never put yourself in the situation where you need to work long hours at menial jobs to just barely scrape by?

Many people, Sarah Palin included, talk about self-creation and being the best you can be. It’s time to stop pretending that those who have reached that goal and can pass on good opportunities to their children are snobs rather than people to be looked up to.

Really, if you can, please see as much of the world- including the US- as you can. I can think of nothing more valuable than understanding as much as you can of the world around you.

I confess I had been getting nervous in the days leading up to Oktoberfest. I had wondered what I was doing. I don’t like beer nor the smell of smoke, huge drunken crowds make me nervous, and was I maybe falling into a tourist trap?

The first few hours were a lot of fun, and most of its awkward moments just make for great stories the next day. A CMC friend and I ended up in a tent with a group of three nice middle-aged Brits to one side, and a Texan Iraq vet coming back to Germany to visit two friends he made while recovering here. The Brits and the Texan were lovely–I find the more I travel, the more I appreciate the general friendliness of anglophones– but one of the German friends kept trying to touch my hair, at one point tried to take a picture down my shirt, asked me to marry him, and kept blowing on me to try to get my attention once I had switched places with someone and was ignoring him.

Then I caused more trouble: when I was scanning the crowd, I caught someone staring at me, looked away, looked back, and saw he was still staring at me. Then I accidentally made eye contact. He waves. Crap. I tell my friend to look after me because I think I’m about to cause trouble again, would he just please look to his right, and watch the guy in the Brazil jersey. He doesn’t hear me. Some idiot lets the Brazilian guy in. He professes his love for me and tells me that I have the most beautiful eyes in the crowd. I tell him my boyfriend loves me and thinks my eyes are beautiful too. Once he figures out the friend I’m traveling with isn’t my boyfriend, he invokes the area codes rule and tells me I am in Europe, at Oktoberfest, and that I needed to seize my youth. Umm, no. I finally convince him that I won’t make out with him and that he needs to leave the table. A few minutes later, I look over and there’s a woman sitting where the Brazilian once was. “You need to forget your boyfriend,” she says. “My friend, he fell in love with you, he wants to marry you, he’s sitting there crying in the toilet because you rejected him.” I look over, and he yells “Marry me.” I tell her he’d have less problems if he didn’t fall in love so quickly, kick her out, and tell the British people not to let any more people over.

Despite the weirdness that’s going on (an obscene amount of people are trying to touch my red hair amidst all of this), I’m still mostly enjoying myself. A band is leading the crowd in a lot of German songs, people are dancing, and singing, and there’s a lot of amusing sights to occupy any perennial people watcher. However, I didn’t realize just how drunk my friend was getting.

We leave the tent because I get hungry and the only vegetarian option in the tent is a pretzel. Because we couldn’t find lodging in Munich, my friend and I had decided to catch the first morning train back to Freiburg, and pulling an all-nighter would require much more sustenance. (And, I might add, NOT getting trashed… AHEM!)

My friend finds a restroom and decides he needs to go in. I tell him I’ll go use the ladies room and to wait for me once he’s done. I come out, and I don’t see him. Since when has a men’s line moved more slowly than a women’s? A few more minutes go by, and I start to wonder if he’s not ok in there. Then I run into someone from my own program. I stop him, he rubs my hair, (what is it with drunk people and red hair?), and then a number of other IESers pop out of the crowd. We talk for a few minutes, I send them into the restroom to check up on my friend, and they don’t find him. Then they leave and tell me to call them once I find my friend. I send my friend an angry text message telling him to go back to where he last saw me because I haven’t moved.

A few minutes later, another IESer, Grant, pops out. He had been separated from his friends, and he couldn’t reach them. We wait together another half an hour. I’m not drunk, so I don’t have the same shelter from the cold that everybody else seems to, so we move to the heated beer garden right across from the restrooms. Despite me popping out every couple minutes to see if my friend’s there, I can’t meet up with him. We’ve been separated for over an hour. And he’s a drunk, obnoxious American who is pretending to be Italian to anybody who’ll listen. Oy. We start looking for him, and I give Grant the very clear rule that he is to hold my hand the entire time and NOT LET GO. One woman did ask whether I was going to keep him all night or if she could have him when I was done, so I did have a moment of comedic relief.

Oktoberfest closes at 11pm. Grant and I head over to the train station, reasoning that would be a pretty standard meeting spot. He was partially right. All the other IESers were there too. Still no sign of my friend. The last time I saw him was around 8:30. I’ve run out of credit trying to call him, and no one else could get through to him either. My friends were on a train leaving at 3:30, but mine wasn’t until 5:30. I decide to go to the police station in the train station to ask if I could sit in there in the time between their train and mine. Being female, red-headed, and by yourself in a train station after Oktoberfest isn’t an intelligent move, and I figure they’d appreciate my trying to be proactive for my safety. No. They refused to talk to me, instead occupying themselves with people who had committed all sorts of drunken debauchery. I cry for a couple minutes, and all the IES boys awkwardly pet my hair and tell me not to. So I stop.

We sit around in the freezing cold station for hours.  Around 2:30 in the morning, my friend shows up. He didn’t remember how we had separated. It hadn’t occurred to him that wandering off from the one person he knew (and the person holding the train tickets) in a country where he doesn’t speak the language wasn’t the smartest move. He had forgotten he wasn’t in Milan anymore and got into some verbal altercations in Italian. I’m not amused, needless to say. He wants to go clubbing. Absolutely not, we’re getting our tickets changed to the 3:30 train (apparently there was an earlier train home!), and that is the most intelligent 25 euros I’ve spent in my life.

Advice on Oktoberfest:

• I know it’s tempting, but really, you can’t get drunk. Drink slowly, get to your happy tipsy state, and stay there.
• On that note, make sure no one in your group gets drunk either.
• If you’re female, make sure you travel with guys. You will need someone to pose as your boyfriend. Trust me.
• Have a meeting spot.
• Charge your $@$%@$% phone. And even if you don’t hear your phone go off, if you’re separated, check it every few minutes.

I thought I’d beaten whatever was getting me down right before Berlin into submission. Apparently not. It’d back as a full-blown flu.

Today was a couple firsts for me: my first experience with the German health care system, my first time crying since arriving in Germany, my first (and hopefully last) awkward hug from a sympathetic IES administrator.

I arrive at the “Praxis,” or doctor’s office, and sit in the waiting room I see immediately to the right of the entrance. I see no sign-in sheet, but I figure it’s like in France, where the doctor will just call you out in the order of your appointments anyways. If you’re not there, she’d just skip to the next person. So I sit there. Everyone in the room when I arrived gets seen. More people arrive, and they get seen. I’ve been there for an hour and a half, and they still don’t call my name. So a woman walks in, and I watch her walk past the waiting room. I follow her. It turns out you have to go to your doctor’s receptionist down the hall to check in. Oops. So I go in and apologize for being late. The receptionist gets terse with me and rolls her eyes once she figures out that this exchange goes beyond my German and I need to switch to English. “Why would I sit there for an hour and a half and not check in,” she snarls. Then she gives me a form to fill out. I don’t remember the post code of my dorm because I receive mail at the IES Center. She won’t take my IES Center address, and she yells at me again for not knowing the post code. “Don’t you understand how mail works? We NEED the post code!” Really irritated, I tell her that yelling at me won’t make me remember the post code and suggest she google it. (Which really would take less time than yelling at me to begin with.) Then I went to the bathroom and cried. It’s so frustrating how not having a solid grasp of the language can make you feel like a child. The simplest interactions require so much effort, and some people will always begrudge you for taking up extra time.

The doctor, by the way, was really nice. She more than made up for her witchy receptionist.

I was clearly frazzled when I got back to the IES Center to give them my “sick leave papers” and the receipt from my medicines. So Karin, a woman who is very nice one-on-one but also known to crack the whip when in a large group, smiles at me and gives me this big hug and doesn’t let go. I have the flu; I’d think being that close to me is the last thing anybody would want. Also, she never struck me as the cuddly type. Oh well.

I have tickets to Munich tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Now I find myself doing what I promised myself (and all of you?) I’d never do. I put off writing a post, and now so much has happened that I’m about to inundate you all with a mini-dissertation, and I’m also going to provide you with links to about 330 pictures. My apologies.

-Update- Photos are now on the “Pictures” page. The link is on the right. The page is password protected.

Berlin:

Day 1: My first impression of the city was less than positive. Our hotel was in East Berlin. I later discovered that the East is the place to be in Berlin; however, all I saw was old Soviet architecture and graffiti EVERYWHERE! Perhaps it’s the Californian in me that I see graffiti, and I think gangs; and I see older, uniform, industrial looking residences, and my mind conjures up the projects. The years haven’t necessarily been kind to East Berlin, but that led to the other thing I initially didn’t like about the area I was staying in: it seemed as though every other building either needed to be demolished, was being prepared for demolition, or was under construction (presumably because the old building had recently been demolished.) Construction is not very aesthetically pleasing, but don’t you go to an old European capital to be awed by its beauty?

Then I met up with my friend Vera, a German grad student who was in my French classes in Grenoble last semester, and her boyfriend. I learned to find the evidence of renewal in East Berlin and to appreciate it. They also taught me that the grafiti problem in Berlin is more an issue of angsty teenagers having more money than they knew what to do with and deciding spray paint was a worthy investment. They also took me to this delicious Indian restaurant where I got a huge plate of aloo gobi, rice, and a salad for 3.60 euros! As a comparison, the same meal at cheap take-out Indian place right by the IES Center in Freiburg is 5.70. Talking to the locals (especially an old friend) will definitely take you a long way towards understanding something you don’t necessarily appreciate in the beginning.

Day 2: Wednesday was a long, albeit fascinating day. It began with a trip to the Reichstag (Capitol) to meet with a member of the Bundestag (Parliament- he will be referred to from here on as the “MP,” or Member of Parliament). The day prior, I had seen a picture of the Reichstag after it had been bombed in World War II. The building was still somewhat standing, but it’s large dome had been destroyed. After the war, it was restored- using the original stones (by now covered by American and Soviet graffiti) when possible. The dome, however, was rebuilt in glass. As we were checking in and taking pictures of all the graffiti, Angela Merkel (!!) walks in. She uses the same entrance as the tourists! She looked at our group, said “Morgen,” and walked past us. I missed it! Apparently only 3 or 4 people actually saw this take place, and I was sad to not be one of them. After a tour of the building (where we got to see Merkel delivering a speech to the Parliament), we were ushered into the meeting room of the Social Democrat Party. Our MP then told us we could ask him any question we wanted. He was delightfully frank with us. He told me to “Definitely keep the two-party system because building coalitions is a pain in the ass” when I asked about the benefits and consequences of multi-party systems. He told another person that “Missile defense is bullshit.” And another that “I don’t know what Merkel is saying right now, and I don’t particularly care either.” The last bit really surprised me considering that the Social Democrats are in a coalition with Merkel’s Christian Democrats. I figured that coalition parties should, you know, like each other? Apparently that’s not a requirement.

Afterward, we were given a couple hours to eat, and the group leaders encouraged us to go through the Holocaust Memorial since it was so close. Before reading, take a look at the picture so you can visualize what I’m saying. I promise, this won’t make sense without looking at the picture. So, the picture doesn’t make you think of the Holocaust? Me neither. But I walked in anyways. It seems fairly innocuous at first. The stones come up to your knees, then to your waist. Then the blocks get taller and taller, while the ground starts to stoop lower and lower. Eventually you’re in way over your head, and you don’t know which way is out. I suppose this somewhat mirrors what it might have felt like to wear a star, then move to a ghetto, then to a concentration camp, with everything always getting progressively worse. What really struck me, however, was the flippant attitude most people approached the monument with. You’d turn a corner and find a teenage couple making out. Around the next corner, young kids with soccer balls whiz past you. Tourists would picnic ON TOP OF the blocks. How could you do that, knowing what this is supposed to represent? Do you not understand? Not remember? Or is it so far removed from your own personal life that you just do not care? The attitude with which people approached the memorial seemed more indicative of the Holocaust than anything about the structure itself.

We then went to the foreign ministry to discuss the Lisbon Treaty and European integration. I was not in a good mood. My feet were killing me. High heals + hours of walking + cobblestones suck. I didn’t think I had a choice though; my suit had been altered to fit me in heels, not in flats. Girls were miserable and grumbling before a young (and rather attractive) bureaucrat came in for our lecture. The difference between the speech patterns of an elected official and a bureaucrat are huge. A girl asked whether he thought Turkey could ever join the EU. He went on forever about the many laws and reforms Turkey needs before this is possible, then a task force would evaluate whether it had met the requirements. “So a very small amount of people would decide whether or not it can join?” More blah blah about the task force. Finally I decide to make him cut to the chase. “I understand that Turkey would need to pass a number of reforms to join. But every EU state would need to sign an accession treaty, and at least two states would require a referendum on this treaty. Is it likely that every country would sign that treaty?” THEN he gave us an actual answer: “In 5 years, no. In 10 years, doubtful. But who knows what the circumstances will be in 20 years?” I was very grateful for my debate experience- I was able to ask the question in a way that even he couldn’t dodge it! He also made me angry by saying that Ireland didn’t really need a referendum legally, it’s more of a tradition than anything else. Hmmph. If you don’t think a Supreme Court decision is legally binding, you probably shouldn’t be in government. Hmmph.

Back to the hotel to change out of those $#@% shoes. Out to find the Jewish Museum, but we got lost and instead ate a traditional German place with a really kranky waitress, then got cocktails at a Mexican restaurant and sent obnoxious text messages about having “sex in Berlin.” (A really fruity, yummy cocktail.)

Day 3: We went to the German Bundeswahr and listened to really interesting lectures about Germany’s view of a common European security policy and on Germany’s role in Afghanistan. One thing I found especially interesting is that when German soldiers are deployed, the army officials need to seek a new mandate from the Bundestag every year. The official told us that he thinks it’s a good policy, except he’s writing the report to distribute to the MPs now in support of the mandate, so he currently thinks it’s a “pain in the ass.”

Then a visit to Checkpoint Charlie. Nothing terribly groundbreaking, so just see my pictures (which I will eventually caption…)

Then we caught our flight to Estonia. I didn’t much care for not having assigned seats, but Easy Jet isn’t a bad way to go on a short flight.

When I arrived, they didn’t stamp my passport. That was the stamp I wanted most! Hmmph.

Day 4: I love Estonia. I got to walk around early because our tram to the local university was not working. This city is so interesting. You’ll walk through a super modern section that could just as easily be in LA, then a section that looks like the Soviets are still in control, then the Old Town that’s been around since the Middle Ages.

Our first lecture came from a university professor who told us a bit about domestic politics. Their government is heavily dominated by the center-right and libertarians, which makes for an interesting and much-studied tax structure. However, something is off. Since joining the EU, their prices have risen to EU levels (so much for cheap shopping), but wages are still 1/3 of the EU average. Trickle-down is not serving them so well.

Then we received our task for “Tallinn as Text,” an oddly-named discovery activity IES has us do in new places. My group’s job was to go explore the park that Peter the Great of Russia built, see his old summer palace, and find out what the new palace is used for. The park was gorgeous (see the pictures), the old summer palace was pink, and then we came to the new palace. We had no idea what it was, but our job was to find out its current use. So two girls go up to the armed guards, who bang their rifles on the ground and yell something in Estonian. Then my friend looks up and sees a sign that says “Presidential Palace.” We were at the Estonian version of the White House. Ooops! Did I mention this presidential palace is PINK?

Then we went to the Baltic! I touched it! Then the Old Town, where you have one beautiful church after another. It’s very quaint and beautiful.

Day 5: More in the Old Town. I think you need to see the pictures because I’m tired of writing, I’m generally tired, and I worry of boring you.

Will be MIA starting tomorrow. We’re spending a few days in Berlin and Estonia, and I’m not brining my laptop with me.

I hope I make it. I had a sore throat yesterday, and now I’m feverish and exhausted. This doesn’t bode well. I hate my immune system, but I will make it through this trip and have a good time and make astute observations and shop even if it kills me.

Update: I leave in an hour. Still sick, but better than yesterday. I think I’ll be fine if I continue this cough drop/ vitamin C/ zinc boot camp. The weather is supposed to be nice in Berlin. (You know I’m adjusting when I’m excited for 60-degree weather!) I’m EXCITED!

a- I’m taking notes to prepare for a test tomorrow. Though my notes are in English, I just noticed that I capitalized the first letter of all the nouns.

b- I’m suffering through the beginnings of a cold, but can’t do a $$#@ thing about it because it’s Sunday and EVERYTHING is closed. Not that I could get medicine, anyways, but I had hope for cough drops.

c- I’m spending my anniversary alone studying. =(

Yesterday, my German class went to visit Lake Konstanz. The pictures, once posted, will speak for themselves, so I don’t feel a need to go into too many details. In short, however: Konstanz is very, very beautiful, but you really should try to visit when it’s not raining.

On our first field trip, IES took us on a day trip to Strasbourg. This charming little city is RIGHT on the border between France and Germany, its nationality determined by the winner of the most recent war. (Evidently, the city is now French.) Strasbourg has come to symbolize what France and Germany can achieve when they work together, so it is now the seat of the European Parliament.

Our trip was supposed to commence with a tour of said Parliament, but this did not work out since the ceiling had recently collapsed in one section of the building. My EU professor likes to point out that you can’t go and look up how much this building costs. Even just looking at the Parliament from the outside was striking, however. I’m used to government buildings being beautiful, evoking all the grandeur and nobility that a politician should want. Not this building. This building was modern (which, to me, is code for “somewhat ugly and unimpressive). However, there was a bit of symbolism for the building, and I don’t think the national governments wanted this building to be too flashy. (PS- the link to my Strasbourg photos, including photos of the Parliament, is at the end of the post.)

We then walked around the city. The tour guide pointed out ways in which it was French, ways in which it was German, and areas where the soldiers had to stay because they’d been infected with syphilis.

Then we went inside Notre Dame de Strasbourg, the city’s cathedral. It took about 300 years to build, and it’s awe-inspiring. When in a cathedral, it’s interesting to try to take yourself back to 1400. You’re poor, you can’t read, you probably perform back-breaking labor, but then you go into this massive church. There, you find light, color, beauty, hope. It was the one time a week that gave them something to live for. I think that in those circumstances, it could have kept me going too. Even in all my modernity, I am overwhelmed each time I walk into one of Europe’s cathedrals. On a side note, I’m writing this post on a Sunday morning, and I love listening to the church bells.

Lastly, we had a dinner of Flamenkuchen, an Alsatian delicacy. It’s like a thin-crust pizza with creme fraiche for sauce. A room full of 60ish starving Americans is really, really loud. I forget how loud we are until I go to Europe, at which point I’m always fascinated that people can live their lives making so little noise.

I was surprised that going back to France for the first time since my semester there came as such a relief. No, surprised doesn’t capture it. Completely taken aback. I was miserable about 40% of the time, tolerating it about 40%, and genuinely happy the remaining 20%. So why was I so happy to be back?

I suppose one of the simple answers was that I could read. Being able to communicate in the language is so important to your ability to understand a culture, and it’s also really nice to feel like you’re actually 20 years old, not some child who needs the menu read to him.

I don’t think I’m already creating a revisionist history of my time in France. The trials I went through while there are still very real to me. I still feel just as angry when I’m reminded of the times when I would be told I was being “simplistic” and not thinking very intelligently, when it was really more of an issue of my not knowing how to even begin explaining my thoughts in French rather than of my not having thoughts to begin with. I’m still a little sad thinking about how lonely French culture made me feel. I still feel like my existence was acknowledged only by the men who would stop me on a near-daily basis in the street. That was especially disheartening. I would get so offended that people would see me as just some thing to be picked up and had based on nothing more than my appearance, but then I’d realize that I couldn’t hold a particularly intelligent conversation in French, I couldn’t joke, I couldn’t be charming. In French, I am a shell of myself. In the end, isn’t that all that appearance is?

I’m not revising France, but maybe I have been attaching new significance to all these experiences now that they’re older. I’m not having the troubles in Germany that I was in France; is it that I’m more mature or that Germany is just too different?

Strasbourg Photos

Today (in about 20 minutes), I am going back to France for a field trip to Strasbourg. Naturally, I thought about my host family and decided to send them an e-mail. My host brothers (well, my host parents’ son who lives in Gabon whom I’ve met once, and their nephew who lived with my host parents the second half of my stay there) are planning a tour of the world by bicycle to study the effects of climate change, and I am particularly interested to see how that is going. They leave soon, I think. I want to say in October. I wish I knew a little more about their trip, but I tried not to bug Thomas (the nephew) too much since (a) he was very busy and (b) I didn’t want to be like one of those annoying little sisters who won’t shut up, and you just tolerate her when you really want to pat her on the head, give her a cookie, and send her on her way.

In any case, I was telling them about my summer in DC and how I took up rock climbing while there. What I wanted to say was “I loved it because I felt so strong when I finished a climb.” I woke up in the morning, and while brushing my teeth it hit me: “sentir” refers more to the senses. As a transitive verb, it means you’re touching (aka “feeling”… I’m not totally crazy for using that word) something. As an intransitive, it means to smell. Now I’m pretty sure I told them that I smelled strongly after a climb. Which I didn’t. At least I hope not. So I’m sitting here wondering if I’d look like I’m putting too much thought into this if I send another e-mail 12 hours later clarifying, or if it’s best to try to pass it off like I’m a stupid foreigner who doesn’t know what she’s saying.

It could be worse though. At least saying you stink via e-mail to people you probably won’t see again isn’t as bad as announcing to your French class that you would never f*** a smoker. (I was trying to saying that I wouldn’t kiss a smoker- I’m a bit of a breath snob- but I suppose what I actually said is true as well.)

Unfortunately, I don’t have any odd, amusing interactions with the Germans to share. However, two of my friends have amazing stories which must be shared:

My friend Emily is a Germanic-looking girl from Texas. She has dirty blond hair, blue eyes, and a tan. One day, she’s riding on the tram, and she notices this old lady staring at her legs. She ignores it, but every time she looks up, this woman is still staring at her legs. There’s no mud, she doesn’t think her shoes are too far out of the norm, and she gets really confused. Finally, she gives her “that polite smile that still asks ‘What the hell are you doing?’” The woman then explained in breathless German that she was trying to figure out whether or not she was wearing stockings because her legs looked unnaturally tan, but they still looked too natural to be fake, and she was confused.

Another friend, Bradley, is, (how to put this?), not a color you typically find in Germany. At the wine festival, a really drunk German man comes up behind him and pokes him in sides. He looks up just in time for this man to put him in a headlock and start yelling “Ohhh-bama! Obama!” really loudly, while petting his hair the entire time. Finally, another American girl had to go start flirting with the German so that Bradley could get away.

I had dinner with my German roommates tonight and learned a couple things. For one, Germans tell “deine Mutter” (your mom…) jokes. That was one aspect of American culture I totally did not expect to translate. It was especially amusing since I was kinda tuning out at dinner today (my flatmates only occasionally remembered there was a non-German speaker at the table), and I tuned in just in time to hear “Ja? Deine Mutter!”

Also, listening to German radio is like listening to an American radio from 5 years ago. I heard the Backstreet Boys for the first time in ages today. I feel all nostalgic now… and I want it that way!