History, Artistry… and a Moat!

The city of Gouda (g-ow-duh, not g-oo-dah! And the g is guttural like Hebrew or an ach-laut in German) is so old they don’t have newfangled things like stained glass windows in the church. Instead, they’re burned glass. The St. Janskerk church–where the windows are–was built early in the middle ages. The house I am sitting in currently was built 800 years ago. So was the moat. The eels and the herons that feed on the eels have been in the moat and canals for generations. This neighborhood only got a sewer system within the past 8 years. Gouda charms me.  

Best 1,60 euros I ever spent

Oh, Kaesebreze, you are indeed the food of gods.

A rose by any other name just as sweet? Leider, in Koeln riecht sie suesser.

Since arriving in Deutschland I have struggled to come up with Bayrische Ohren (ears). The southern accent and dialect–swallowed vowels, dental consonants, relaxed lips and tongue, and short, throaty (I know, right!??!) ich-lauts–prove overwhelming to my education in strict Hochdeutsch. More often than not the words fly by indistinguishably, and I can’t even decipher the separation between words I already know, let alone identify new ones. It gets to the point where I don’t even know what to look up in my dictionary because I just can’t weed through the thick pronunciation. By the same token, it often takes me saying something two or three times for them to understand me. This can often be an embarrassing situation and has really hindered my desire to speak out.

On my way to Brussels, however, I switched trains in Koeln and found myself (ploetzlich!) in a wonderland of perfekt Hochdeutsch. Bright vowels, loose jaws, crisp consonants, excessive tongue movement, hissy ich-lauts… and not a trace of dialect. Individual words! Whole sentences that made sense! It was so yummy to hang on the sound of every glorious little word. Even the idiomatic expressions were much easier to decode and assimilate, because I could actually hear their components loud and clear. Who cared if I didn’t know a word here and there! I could repeat that whole sentence back and had something concrete to look up in my dictionary. Bitte, sagen Sie diesen Satz noch einmal? Mir war soooo schoen. Ach, sweet relief.

So, in turn, I raise my glass to the stalwart exchange students who prevail against the linguistic terrors of the American south. You have my deepest respect and admiration.

Restlessness pinned down

Travelling is great, and my nature doesn’t let me stay still for too long. But I really value living somewhere for a while. Not a long while but with some impersonation of permanency. That entails working a job, building friendships, evoking a little bit of home in the spaces, contributing to community, creating under new influences, and learning to perceive and appreciate the tenants of a particular culture.

Perhaps I’m built to value remaining in one place for a while. Perhaps it’s where I’m at in life right now. Perhaps that’s the enigma of my internal clock. Perhaps that’s what I’ve been conditioned to value. Whatever the reason, I know that being itinerant for another six weeks will be a stretching experience.

Photo Update

I have yet to post any photos from travels because I can’t find an economical shop that will take my photos off the photo card and put them on a CD. Also, phone cameras are the handiest invention.

So far I took about 225 photos in a week and a half. If this rate continues, by the end of the summer I should have around 1,000 photos. Ack!!!

In the meantime, I posted some photos of my (not so) little brother’s graduation from boot camp in Oklahoma and subsequent send-off to specialized training in the Carolinas. I’m so proud of him!!!! The family went out to visit him, and my bro, his fiancee, cutest lil’ dude ever Hunter, my Dad and my step-mom all make appearances. To access, click on the Flickr album link on the right hand sidebar.

Behold, people, the stock from whence I come.

Have I mentioned, I’m really proud of my brother??? ::beam::

Muenchen riecht nach…

Muenchen smells like …

 

…beer, meat and bread. Punkt. Even bread can smell reminiscent of beer because of the yeast content.

 

Then there’s the smoking. Everyone smokes here. In the US we have vending machines for water, soda, candy, etc. Here, they sell cigarettes.

 

Outdoors, it smells of fresh air all the way from the airport to Marianplatz. You can smell the plants, the cool air from the mountains. The smell of sweet, ripe fruit permeates the areas around the vendors. The air is rife with pollen. I left the windows in my apartment open for four days now, and there’s very little dust to be seen. If I did that (and I do) in downtown Boston, all of the surfaces in my room will be covered with filmy, black dust within 48 hours. And that makes me start to wonder how Germany, Austria, and Switzerland all rank ahead of the USA for the lowest lung cancer mortality rates. Hmm.

 

Now I’m hungry…. the question is whether or not I want to chew my carbs.

Would you like a responsibility boost in that social smoothie?

I spoke with an acquaintance here in Munich, who when asked about a soccer game, replied glumly, “They played badly. They deserved to lose.” I discussed it with a few others and it struck us that team loyalty and fan-dom in America has comparably little to do with collective strategy and skill throughout a series of games. Instead we value heroic plays, injustice, and moment by moment action. There’s very little sense of personal responsibility between a player and hir job, between a player and hir team, and even between a player and hir country. Since when does injustice become a catch all term for a slighted sense of entitlement? When did losing honorably and owning up to the quality of play become obsolete?  When did it become ok for individual players to seize upon the glory and pride of their team/country/city? To me, that’s unjust.

Principles of personal responsibility to one’s Manschaft (German for “team”) don’t stop at sports though. There are a myriad of other manifestations throughout die Gesellschaft (“society”) where people demonstrate their commitment to each other. Zum Beispiel, people refrain from crossing the street until the street lights indicate it’s ok—Rot ist der Farber!—and they are especially particular around schools. If someone sets one foot off a curb, they get overt glares… even in the middle of the night. I found out quickly that they refrain in order to “set a good example for the children”. Unlike an American take on “family values” which tends to conflate protection with sheltering and repression, Germans see things differently. Children are encouraged to learn from everyone in their society, not just conscientious parentals, and the society as a whole participates in raising children.

Public and historic spaces themselves also benefit from this. The gutters have little more than a gum wrapper in them. I noticed this particularly after the 850 year anniversary of the city this past weekend. There were thousands of people, so many that you could barely move all the way from Odeonsplatz to Marianplatz and all throughout the pedestrian zone. Even on non-festival days, there are street vendors everywhere and places to buy shiny knickknacks mummified in too much packaging. Nary has a cleaning crew been spotted though, and the only people I’ve seen litter are tourists CoughobviouslyamericansCoughCough.

 

The only other place I’ve seen gutters this clean was in Winona Lake, Indiana, which feels unnaturally clean to me, like, say, Stepford. It’s not the dirt per se that I notice in Muenchen. All the buildings are dirty, especially the Ratshaus (Town Hall), so it’s not that extraordinary. What matters is the location of the dirt and what put it there. Dirt on the old buildings has to do with nature’s effects, the building’s age, the direction the buildings face, and the complexity of recessed reliefs, etc. Dirt on the street, however, ties directly to the behavior of the people. Even the gutters have at most a gum wrapper in them, even right after the 850 year anniversary of the city this past weekend. There were so many people that you could barely move all the way from Odeonsplatz to Marianplatz. One would think that the public areas would be trashed, but I’ve spotted nary a cleaning crew in all my walks. There’s no need. People take responsibility for their public spaces.

 

Quick, somebody, figure out what they put in that beer. It makes the children clean, skillful and responsible! Think how many mothers would buy it! Get it now in this QVC exclusive offering in three delicious flavors… dunkles, helles, und weiss!

The first three days…

Eaten Wienerschnitzel? Check.

Gotten lost amidst roccoco splendor? Check.

Drank a liter of beer, correction… TWO liters of beer at the Hofbrauhaus? Check.

Spoken German till I bleed black, yellow and red out the corners of my mouth? Check.

Experienced my first “real” case of jet-lag? Check.

Cared deeply for the state of European soccer, even if only for a second? Check.

Thought about buying a drindle? Check.

Become profoundly overwhelmed by train schedules? Check.

Been told I speak “sehr gutes Deutsch”? Check.

Been told I speak “sehr gutes Deutsch” with an English accent”? Umm…. check.