HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Like my pumpkin carving skills? Yea, I thought so...

We Americans threw a big party to celebrate one of our favorite holidays. Halloween isn't really a German holiday, but thanks to globalization, it's slowly making its way over here. Trick or treating hasn't caught on yet (as far as I can tell). And although scary costumes and parties are becoming more accepted, pumpkin carving is still pretty foreign, judging by the looks I got as I took my pumpkin to the party on the subway.

Persian Connection

Yesterday, my dorm hosted a dinner for all of the newcomers. The spaghetti was, well, spaghetti, but the Germans were all really friendly and looking to meet other newcomers.

I met a woman from Tehran, Iran there. She told me that she plans to move to America eventually. I asked her "why?" 

"Our cultures are so similar. I would feel very comfortable in America."

"Too bad our governments are so far apart."

The Real Work Begins

For my first month here, everytime I skyped with my parents, my mom jokingly said, "When are you going to start learning something? We're not paying for you to just explore Europe and go hiking!" Well mom, it's started.

I've now sucessfully completed two weeks of class. The JYM classes aren't too bad. "My Advanced German Language" class is a helpful review. "Studying at German Universities" is redundant (big surprise here!), but it only meets 4 times. "Germany: 1945-present" fascinates me. We're discussing post-war Germany right now. The Germans had some tough stuff to deal with!

Then I have three classes at LMU, the university of Munich. "Introduction to Marine Biology" seems pretty good, even if the professor's German is quite fast. The "Biodiversity" class's format differs from any science class in the States. We read a scientific article, someone does a presentation on it and the topic, and then a second person leads a critical discussion of the article and topic.

Finally, I have "Evolutionary Genetics." The subject is more interesting than I thought it would be. And, the class is in English. The professors conduct all classes for LMU's new masters program 100% in English. It can be a bit frustrating to be hearing so much English throughout the day at the Biocenter, but I'm honestly not so upset about this. 

Learning scientific vocabulary in German for two classes will be tough enough this semester!

Click Your Heels Three Times...

With classes starting and fall ending, I guess it's not surprising that I got my first wave of homesickness yesterday.

It started with my bike ride home. I'd spent most of the day at the Biocenter in the southern Munich suburb of Martiensried. After my class was over, I eagerly packed up to go home. Trouble was, the sun was down and the wind was blowing. For my hour long, cold bike ride, I couldn't help but have pleasent thoughts of Penn's nice compact campus.

Then I went out with some friends to a club. We convinced some Germans to come along. Although this should have excited me, I got really upset. The Germans kept insisting on talking to us in English. I got so frustrated that I walked away from the group for a few minutes. Deep breaths, deep breaths...

I'm upset because I've been in Germany for six weeks now, and I'm not thinking in German, not dreaming in German, and not talking to Germans. If I wanted to speak English, I would have stayed in the States. 

The Germans have good intentions; I understand that. But when you repeatedly request, "auf Deutsch, bitte!" you'd think that they'd understand. Plus, I feel that my German is good enough to hold a normal, student to student conversation. But when I'm around other Americans who can't keep up, the Germans immediately assume that my German is just as bad.

When I got home, my lack of German friends started bugging me, too. Most Germans have only been here for the past two weeks, so I can't beat myself up too much. Although the Germans I've met are nice, they are just not open. While it took me only about 2 hours of conversation (in a group!) to make a friend from Hungary, I'm going to have to work a lot harder for the Germans.

The Americans here are great, and I'm enjoying my time with them. But seriously, I have American friends that I chose to leave for a year. I need to cut the cord and make a serious effort with the Germans.

When Being Abroad Sucks

Yesterday, up until about 18:00, was one of the best days I've had here. The sun was shining; I was enjoying being in Europe. I even thought to myself, "I could see myself living here one day." 

But when my dad told me about a death in the family, the hard reality of being an ocean away from home hit me hard. Due to the unusual circumstances, I'm not flying back, but I still wish I could be there. I wish I could be there to support my family members who were hit the hardest. I wish I could be there to talk about what happened. I hope this doesn't happen again.

I haven't really talked with anyone here yet.

I spent 20 years building up a community in the USA. Leaving it behind for this adventure isn't without consequences.

Why German Men Wear Capris

Although I generally like European fashion, one trend that I never understood was man-capris. When it was warmer, I saw them all over the place. When German exchange students came to the USA, the guys often rolled up their jeans to look like capris. I didn't understand. We weren't in a flood zone.

But, alas, the revelation has come to me, as I, too, want to wear man-capris (will I regret posting this online?). The logic is simple. Cold weather = long pants. Long pants + bicycle = pants getting caught on the chain and pedal. Torn/stained pants = roll up your pants next time.

Aside from the fondness for terrible fashion that bicycling in Germany brings, I love everything about it. Instead of traveling underground in a dark, expensive subway, I get to pedal around outside among the fall colors and fresh air. Instead of getting to know the few, expensive shops in U-Bahn stations, I can locate well-priced, organic grocery stores, Deutsche Bank ATMs, and fruit sellers who will haggle over the price of bananas.

When I bought my bike a few weeks ago, people told me not to. "It will get cold," they said. Biking makes me hot. "It's slow," they said. It's usually faster than using public transit, I've found. "Biking in bad weather isn't fun."

I had my first bad weather bike trip yesterday. For my hour-long ride to the biology center, I dealt with the light rain fairly easily. But on my way home, it started to pour. I zipped up my rain jacket and kept going. And I actually had a lot of fun-- dodging puddles and pedestrians. At times, the trip turned dangerous. My brakes didn't work so well in such weather and I saw a girl on a bike get knicked by a car.

I feel very safe riding my bike though. Munich provides bike paths on about 90% of it's street (just my rough estimate here!), and about 90% of those bike paths share space with pedestrians on the sidewalk, not with cars on the street. When I'm a pedestrian, I hate having to constantly watch for bikes, but as a biker, I love just watching out for people instead of 2-ton cars.

Müncheners are also very law-abiding citizens. Pedestrians don't cross the street during a red "Ampel." And bike riders never cross the special light made just for them, even if the tiny street is empty!

Salt and the Sound of Music

Salt built Munich, plain and simple. Without the rich salt trade of the middle-ages, Henry the Lion would never have been able to reroute the salt through the city, bringing it enourmous wealth and influence.

Although salt (Salz in German) came from the center of the salt universe, Salzburg (see the word "Salz" in there?), Munich overshadows Salzburg economically and culturally today. Still, the small town, just two hours away is an inviting trip for any "Münchener." I travelled over the Austrian border this past weekend to check it out.

The city is, of course, very musical. Mozart and Haydn both come from the city, and the von Trapp family escaped the Nazis from their home in Salzburg as documented in the film, "The Sound of Music." Seeing the piano where Mozart composed his Sonata in C, a song I often played when I took lessons, made me miss my music.

Salzburg is also very beautiful. Nestled among Alpine foothills, the "Festung Hohensalzburg" (Fortress of Salzburg) gives great views of the city and the region. Church steeples and fall colors added to the grandeur of the experience.

Luckily, a friend of mine has been to Salzburg many times and could show us around. We also met up with the family his mother stayed with when she was an exchange student in Salzburg. Despite not knowing three of the four American students who entered their home, they treated us to an evening I won't forget.

The family immediately served us fresh, homemade, Austrian apple streudel (the apples came from the garden, I might add). When we admitted to not knowing what Kaiserschmarrn was, they insisted on making the Austrian dish immediately for us to try. We discussed politics, family, culture, and, once they found out I am from Detroit, cars. Their hospitality left quite the impression on all of us!

German Lessons in Common Sense #2 and #3

If one chooses to buy a bike, one should also buy a pump and a patch kit. Bike tires go flat and don't magically reinflate.

If said bike tire goes flat and one needs to take the subway, one should think about where one needs to go before one purchases tickets. 3 one way tickets at €2,30 cost more than a day pass at €5,00.

Living History, Part Three

Last year in my German class, I struggled to understand a text we were reading. It spoke of RAF and terror in the 1970s. I knew that the Royal Air Force was terrifying to Germans during WWII, but in the 1970s?

RAF actually stands for "Rote Armee Faktion," or "Red Army Faction." This terrorist organization in West Germany was born out of German frustration following the second world war. After 1945, Germany vowed to never again bring war upon the planet. The people wanted to rebuild themselves as a just, equitable soceity. Instead, some began to see West Germany as a sort of police state, keeping the masses quiet while allowing the rich to profit off the world's evils.

When political moves and lengthy columns failed to achieve the desired result, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof (journalist and mother of two) lead a coalitions of young, radically-left Germans into battle. By bombing capatalist buildings and army outposts, the Baader-Meinhof complex spawned a movement that killed 34 people and may have helped hijack a Lufthansa plane.

Germany, always examining its past, touched upon the "German Autumn" of terror in a recent film entitled the Baader-Meinhof Komplex. I went to see the much-debated release a few weeks back. With many young Germans upset about globalization, some feared that "Baader-Meinhof Komplex" would inspire the most troubled to action. 

The movie, however, does not portray RAF as a young group of idealistic heros. Instead, it allows the viewer to watch their descent into violence-- with each attack becoming a reason for more. They weren't protesting capitalist excess; they were justifying their own violence.

Living History, Part Two

Although most Americans can list the horrors that occured during the Nazi era in Germany, few can name the small group that stood for political and religious freedom during that same era. "Die Geschiwster Scholl," or "The Scholl Siblings," stood up to Nazis and lost their lives because of it.

Sophie and Hans Scholl started a group called the White Rose. Composed of a small group of core members, they printed anti-facist flyers and mailed them to thousands of people in various German cities, all at their own expense. When it came time to distribute the sixth flyer, Sophie and Hans decided to lay them around their university building in Munich during classes. 

While attempting to directly contact their politically active peers, Sophie pushed a stack of papers over the railing, sending flyers fluttering into the main hall of the university.

The action, which caught the attention of the university manager and lead to the end of the White Rose, is now a symbol of student resistance in Germany. And it took place in the main hall of the university I now attend.

Last week we watched Sophie Scholl: the last days, a moving film about her protest and sentencing at the hands of the Nazis. Wether it was the main hall of the university or the places the prisoners were shuttled to and from, these places permeate my own life in Munich.

Wether I'm passing through "Geschwister Scholl Platz" or passing by the cemetary where Sophie was buried, Munich and the University pay fitting tribute to these inspiring heros.

Living History, Part One

One reason I've always enjoyed taking German classes has to do with Germany's relationship to its past. Germany has some pretty hefty subjects to grapple with. Martin Luther's rebellion, two world wars, and the holocaust don't easily pass from a people's collective memory. 

Germany doesn't try to forget either. While I haven't even been here a month yet, I encounter German history often. Golden cobblestones mark houses where Jews forced from their homes during World War II lived. Bullet holes can still be seen from where Hitler fought Bavarian police during his 1923 putsch. The Dachau Concentration Camp lies right outside the city.

On Thursday, I used my day off from school to go to Dachau, something I was not looking forward to, but knew I had to do. Dachau was a work camp, not an extermination camp, so the exhibits focused mostly on the terrible labor and conditions that prisoners (political enemies of the Nazis, Jews, homosexuals, etc.) went through. While Dachau didn't have gas chambers or ovens, the SS murdered thousands of "attempted escapees," allowed thousands more to die of starvation and exhaustion, and performed brutal, "medical" experiments on prisoners.

Walking up to the camp from the bus stop, I was looking at the beautiful fall colors when I suddenly caught a glimpse of the iconic "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" ("work will set you free") gate leading into the camp. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. Seeing this image in person suddenly made the horrors of the holocaust tangible. It lept from the pages of a history book into cold, hard reality. I felt like puking.

The camp memorial, financed by the German government, doesn't seem to skip over anything. Graphic photos of prisoners line the museum. Details of Nazi brutality sit on every display case. Clips from WWII-era German newspapers show the propoganda and lies surrounding the camp.

The camp continues to negatively affect people, as well. The City of Dachau lies about a half hour outide of Munich. Although Munich and the surrounding area are the most expensive places to live in all of Germany, Dachau remains very cheap. People don't want to live near the camp.

German liscense plates also show where the car is registered. People from Munich have a M as the first letter. People from Dachau have DAH. Cars with DAH inside Munich are often keyed.

While current Dachau residents are just as guilty of the atrocities commited at the camp as I am, the anger towards their city isn't hard to understand. Everyone knows the name Dachau for a reason. And it's a reason today's Germans wish had never happened.

[correction appended 19. January, 2009: Dachau did, in fact, have a gas chamber and ovens. Whether the gas chamber was ever used for mass exterminations is apparently debatable, but the ovens were often used to cremate the remains of murdered "attempted escapees" and starved prisoners.]

Happy "Day of German Unity"

Prayer of Thanks

Europe is making a good impression on me. The people are friendly, good-hearted, and seem to be honestly concerned about important issues like global warming, poverty, and peace-- which is more than I can say for many people in the USA. 

But something I can't grasp is Europe's relationship with religion. The continent is becoming more and more secular, despite recent the EU addition of Catholic powerhouse Poland. But European governments continue to meddle in religious affairs. Although Germany promotes religious freedom, it doesn't have a separation of church and state. 

Upon moving to Germany, I had one week to register with the police as every new arrival must. My application forms always asked what religion I was. I decided to leave that question blank every time, and the Munich clerk didn't give me any problems. But others in the group who also decided not to register their religion were questioned about why.

German schools teach religion, too. Each student receives instruction in their (or their parents') religion, and Germany offers the option to take an "ethics" class for non-religious people. But at every university, the Catholic or Evangelical Church (or, lately, the Islamic governing body) has complete power to remove faculty in their respective theology departments who don't toe the Church's line. This doesn't sound like academic freedom to me.

Religion (or fear thereof) is radically reshaping the continent's political landscape, too. On the far right, a small group of politicians loudly complain about Muslim immigrants. A few political posters I've seen here even advocate for a complete ban on the building of Mosques. These people are certainly in the minority though, as evidenced by the huge, disruptive counterdemonstrastions against them in Cologne last week.

But even the question of allowing headscarfs in schools gets honest play from politicians across the political spectrum. At Oktoberfest today, I met an Austrian couple who were not happy about their country's recent turn towards more conservative government. However, they did advocate a complete ban on headscarfs in Austrian schools.

I proudly told them that this isn't even an issue in the USA. Our system isn't perfect, but we have found a healthy relationship between Church and State. We don't tell people how to practice their religion or what they can and cannot express in public. We don't register people's private religious beliefs in government databases. History plays a big role, but Europe would do well to look west for its governments' religious future.

On My Own Again...

For the first time ever, I'm living on my own. Yes, my parents are paying tuition, housing, and health insurance, but aside from that, I'm independent. No roommates to clean up after me. No meal plan to feed me. No mother to do my laundry. It's all me this time.

So far, I'm pretty happy. My apartment is fairly clean, and my diet is healthy. I'm enjoying Munich, and I think I'll be able to budget enough to make it through the year.

However, this has enhanced my appreciation for my mother. As I go home from class, I'm running through mental lists of what I can make for dinner, what I have in my tiny fridge, and what I need to pick up. I expend a lot of mental energy doing this, and I'm only cooking for myself, much less a family of four vegetarians. Plus, my mom goes to "the farm" at least once a week, and she does a great job of preparing local, organic food. While worth the effort, going to the local Wal-Mart would be much easier (and cheaper).

Now that I'm accostumed to the German grocery shopping system, I've yet to find an easy way to do it-- much less to the same quality my mom does. When she comes over for Christmas, maybe she can teach me a few lessons. Oh, and give me new recipes, because I'm getting sick of pasta!