Die Schönste Jahreszeit (The Best Season)

I am not going to write too much, because I don't remember too much. Not because of the alcohol, but because so many things have happened since and my memory is a little fuzzy.
Karneval is the magical fifth season of the year here in the Rhineland. It begins at 11:11 am on the 11th of November, when some people (I don't know the details. Google it if you care.) meet to start planning Karneval events. The Karneval hubbub quickly dies out as the Weihnachtmärkte open and people are too occupied with the delights of drinking Glühwein and eating gebrannte Mandeln and Reibekuchen (can it be Christmas again??) and doing otherwise Christmasy things.

The week before Ash Wednesday is when things really pick up with Altweiberfastnacht on Thursday. On this day, women get to cut off men's ties, but there is no gender requirement for having fun. I dressed up as a robot, which was very impractical both in terms of moving through tightly packed crowds and going to the bathroom, and went out in the afternoon with some labmates. Karneval consists of people drinking a lot and singing songs. There is a whole genre of songs with stupid words and at least one verse of lalala's, which I liked because I was singing lalala anyways. (My labmates taught me words to some of the songs and then told me "mit lalala bist du nie falsch"--with lalala you'll never go wrong.) They also play classic songs from the 80s (Neue Deutsche Welle!!!! Jaaaaa!) like 99 Luftballoons and Major Tom. Over the course of the 5 days of Karneval I learned at least the important words to most of the songs, and also fell a little in love with them. There should be pictures of my costume somewhere on the lab group server...I'll try to hook you guys up.

The next day I went to Düsseldorf to meet up with Marco, Matt and Marty (aka the Fulbright Saufen Mannschaft + Indiana Jones). We partook in some traditional German food and Altbier (the traditional beer of Düsseldorf) while awaiting Shane, the last member of the Mannschaft. The next day, after checking out the Düsseldorfer mustard store (a must if you are a mustard fan), we went to Köln to meet up with some of Marco's friends.

Köln and Düsseldorf are rival Rhine cities, and this rivalry is represented mostly in the beers of the two cities. The Düsseldorfer beer is Altbier and the Kölsch is the beer of Cologne. I am a Kölsch fan myself, despite the difficulties my American mouth has in making that Ö sound. The picture above shows my hero of Karneval Saturday on the left. This guy's job was to keep all of us supplied with beer during the night and he was amazing at it. Seriously. The way he wove through the densely-packed crowd, responding to the cries for beer coming from all around was just impressive.

The next day, Halley came from Berlin to join the festivities. We weren't planning on really drinking that day, but when we saw everyone else with beer in hand, we thought, "why aren't we doing that?" A common sight during Karneval was groups of people in matching costumes, like the octupi above. They also had their own personal cart on which to carry alcohol. Not a bad idea. This was also the sad day that my wallet got stolen. It had really my whole life inside, but I took it like a man, as my dad would say, and soldiered on in proper Karneval spirit as much as I could. I made a report to the police who wanted to know all the details of my lost IDs and cards--all the account numbers and everything. Crazy. A week later, I got a letter saying they needed more details to catch the thief and asked for all the numbers I hadn't been able to give them before. A few weeks after I received a letter notifying me that the perp had not been caught, but that the case would be reopened if more evidence was found. Thanks, ridiculous German bureaucracy, for being so thorough.

The next day was the height of Karneval, Rosenmontag. There was a parade with political floats that I may have understood better if I knew German politics. The one above is Angela Merkel with the problem zones of the country/her administration drawn on plastic surgery style. A feature of a the Rosenmontag parade is that you scream "Alaaf! Alaaf!" in an attempt to get people to throw you candy and flowers. By candy, I mean giant bars of chocolate. At the beginning of the parade, I was hit on the lip by some flying chocolate. And then I bled and had Germans yelling "du blutest! du blutest! (you're bleeding!), which I already knew. I compressed my bleeding with a tissue, but sported a great lip bruise for the next week. The people in lab thought it was from kissing and did the German-pull-the-lower-eyelid-down-in-skepticism thing to me when I said it was from chocolate.


Halley and Shane dancing in the streets of Cologne post-parade until...

the ever-efficient Germans swept in to clean up the Karneval mess. I think they should wait for the drunk people to get off the street first. I definitely almost got hit.

Weeks after Karneval, my Karnevals-Lieder-Ohrwurm (Karneval songs stuck in my head-ness) is finally gone, along with my bruise, my pickpocket-induced bureaucratic and financial worries are resolved, and I'm looking forward to bringing a little bit of the Rhineland to the heartland of America next year in Chambana.

Der Besuch der jungen Dame (The Visit of the Young Lady)

The title of this post is a reference to Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Der Besuch der alten Dame, which Claudia and Roger took me to see back in October (Much to Claudia's amusement, I was delighted to finally use the stock answer to "Was hast du am Wochenende gemacht?" (what did you do this weekend?)--"Ich bin ins Theater gegangen!" (I went to the theater), which I learned in high school from Frau Schanz.) References are not as fun when they are explained...

Last week I had the pleasure of being hostess to the lovely Jesse, who is now engaged (there goes another one). Since Jesse was a little scared because she can't speak German and I had nothing to do on a Monday night and a Semester Ticket in my pocket, I made the trip to the Cologne-Bonn airport to pick her up. Meeting up was easier than expected, given that she didn't have a cell phone that worked in Europe. However, the next train didn't leave for 30 minutes, so we got to hang out in the airport, where Jesse got to experience her first taste of Kölsch, which may be becoming my favorite German beer. When it was time for our train to come, instead of checking which platform it was on, I just took the escalator on the right, the one I'd taken the last time I was there. Little did I know that I was approaching the platform from a different terminal. We watched our train pull away as we were trying to run up the escalator, condemning us to another 30 minute wait. Herzlich Willkommen in Deutschland, Jesse! Deine Freundin ist doof! The next time we were on the right platform, and good thing, because we ended up catching the last train from Köln to Aachen. We arrived in Aachen at 1:30, well after the buses had stopped running and walked the 30 minutes to my house. (There has to be a shorter way, but I don't know it) We had linguistic adventures as I tried to explain that the duvet cover was clean, but forgot the english words for Bettdecke and Bezug and said "the whatever we call in it english" while pointing instead, and collapsed into bed determined to get an early start for a day of exploring Cologne.

Miraculously, we woke up in time to catch the 9:10 train. I made Jesse schwarzfahr on the bus, because I am a bad friend. Our first stop was the Kölner Dom, which has been described in previous posts, and also happens to be Germany's number one tourist attraction. As I turned on my camera, the heart-breaking message "change battery pack" appeared, so I have no photos from this day. : (
After checking out the Schatzkammer, we climbed the 509 steps up the tower of the Kölner Dom to an amazing view of Cologne and the Rhein (have you heard of it?). Afterwards, with legs shaking, we made our way towards the Rhein for lunch and the Schokolade Museum. The Chocolate Museum was pretty cool. However, the chocolate fountain, which was much-touted by my guide book, consisted of one small sample. Bummer. We had envisioned a chocolate free for all.

After Cologne, we made our way to Bonn to see the good old Hauptdorf. Bonn is a nice little city, and remarkably well-marked, I thought. Our main destination there was the Museum Koenig, a zoological museum featuring taxidermied animals posed in realistic dioramas. Very cool. We also visited Das Haus der Geschichte, a museum which showcases the history of Germany during the time Bonn was the capital (from after WWII until the fall of communism). It was very cool, but English captions were unfortunately lacking, and although I did my best to translate, it's hard to see a museum like that. And at the end of our long day of walking, we were ready for some dinner. I was reminded of why I had been a history major, and in a world where Smith history prof's sabbatical schedules had complied to let me take German history, I could easily see my life having gone in a different direction. But I digress.

On the second day, we saw the sights of Aachen (takes about 3o minutes), including one of my favorite sights--the guy in the main shopping area who sells bratwurst out of this bizarre contraption in which he is enclosed. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture. Then we bought some Berliners for the trip to Maastricht, a town in the Netherlands about an hour away from Aachen.

Some pictoral Maastricht highlights:

A magazine vending machine.

View of Maastricht along the bank of the Maas river

Weird public art.

After getting some shopping done in Maastricht, we headed back home for a dinner party hosted by my roommate. One thing Jesse's visit made me realize is that everyone speaks English. Okay, that is not true, but everywhere we went, when people realized she didn't speak German or heard us speaking English together, they switched over immediately. My roommates also speak excellent English. Why do I speak German with all these people? It is almost silly.

All in all, it was a pleasure hosting Jesse, who, after my entire family has bailed on me, will likely be the only person who visits lonely little Erin, all alone in Germany far away from her friends and family. Yes, that is a shameless attempt at guilting all you Amerikaner into finding a cheap flight and getting your butts over to Europe...do it!

Next in the series of what I've been up to the last month: Budapest!

Das Schimpfwort des Tages (Curse word of the day)

In order to improve my German skills and really experience German culture, I have decided to learn curse words and insults. Therefore, my labmates (really just Marcus) have been teaching me a new word every day. We call it das Schimpfwort des Tages. Here is what I've learned so far:

Arschgesicht- arse face

Plitschkuh- a bitchy woman (this one was apparently invented by Marcus. I'm not sure why he's not teaching me words that are more widespread...)

Schlitzpisser- something like a wuss. I don't totally get this one.

Trümmerlotte- this is perhaps my favorite. It is not to be confused with the Trümmerfrauen, the women who helped to clean up the rubble and rebuild German cities at the end of World War II. A Trümmerlotte is one of those women who is now old and ugly, but somehow has never realized it. She is "total schlecht angezogen and schlecht geschminkelt"--horribly dressed and made-up. Probably she is wearing clothes that are too tight and has horribly fake dyed blonde hair. I think this is a great word because I'm pretty sure we don't have a single word for this type of woman auf englisch. German is such a rich language. This is apparently a new word, because no one has really heard of it except Marcus. But when it is explained, everyone thinks it's awesome.

In order to master these words, I need to use them. Therefore, I have immunity when calling labmates (again, really just Marcus, but I've also received permission from other lab members) these names.

My mother does not think the Schimpfwort des Tages is a good idea and asked me why I was learning these words instead of normal German words. I could of course stand to learn more normal words, so I googled German word of the day, and one of the first words I came across was abhauen (piss off), which fits perfectly with the words I've been learning. Hau ab, du Arschgesicht! (This is not directed towards my mom--it is only an example sentence.)

Hungary? Why wait?

I apologize for my long absence from blogging. I owe my loyal readers (by which I mean my mom and adopted Chinese sister) a few entries, which I will try to finish up in the next few days. I've just been lazy lately. In late January, I took a trip to Budapest with fellow Fulbrighters Halley, Matt and Rachel. Matt and I flew in together from Cologne Friday night and with a flight booked for Sunday morning, we were determined to make the most of our pretty much just one day in Budapest.



In order to describe the hecticness of our day, I wanted to give you all a minute by minute account, but now, a month later, the details are very fuzzy, so I will do my best, but everything after 10:45 is suspect.
0800 hours: leave hostel to buy tickets for tour of Hungarian Parliament.
0855 hours: arrive at Basilika, which is not yet open. Eat bagels and coffee at California Coffee Company and debate the merits of Teach for America.
0915 Basilika. Chapel containing mummified hand of St. Stephan, first king of Hungary not available for viewing. Disappointment.
1000: arrive for Parliament tour. Have a sassy tour guide who tells people not to take pictures while she's talking. Happy.
1045: Walk across Chain bridge to Buda side to check out castle. Walk around a lot. See the prime minister. At some point, we descend into some labyrinths, the lowlight of the day.

Okay, and months later, I have forgotten, so I will leave you with some pictures and a list of non-chronological highlights.

Hungarian National Museum--pretty cool, but not enough English translations
baths--very relaxing. Many couples making out and older Hungarians blessed with amazing amounts of body confidence that led them to wear speedos and bikinis. Uhh, more power to you, old Hungarians, I guess?

What the menu described as a chicken donut. Very tasty

The chandelier in the Hungarian Parlament. Apparently there is a complicated procedure to change bulbs that involves someone crawling up there, so they don't do it a lot.

The chain bridge

St. Matthew's, I think. A church that was turned into a mosque then back into a church.

View of Parlament from the Buda side of the river.

In Erinnerung an (In Memory of)...

eine gute Brille (a good pair of glasses).

August 2004 (Parma, OH, USA) - January 29, 2009 (in a train near Aachen, Deutschland)

Today, on an early morning train to drop off Jesse at the train station in Cologne, I tried to take off my glasses to clean them. I had barely touched them when I heard a snap that echoed through my life. The arm had snapped. I can't say that I didn't see this coming. Various incidents over time had bent the poor plastic as much as it could take. I really liked these glasses. The shape, the color, the way the nose bridge part was narrow. In fact, in 2004 my glasses fell into a river in the infamous I-Poked-A-Hole-In-A-Whitewater-Raft-with-a-Kayak-Incident. I tried to buy another pair, but none of them filled the need left by my glasses that have now been eaten by a poor turtle (or something), and I had them special order a pair that was exactly alike.

Now I am forced to wear my contacts, something for which I am way too lazy. I guess I do have the option of looking like an idiot with my one-armed glasses, but German girls are already so much more well-put-together than I am, so I don't want to make that worse.

Amtseinfuhrungsparty (Inauguration Party)

Yesterday I made the epic journey to Wuppertal to attend an inauguration party hosted by Democrats Abroad NRW Chapter with the NRW-Krew. Okay, my journey wasn't epic at all. It was pretty boring. I met Matty and Marco under the B (B for Barack!) on track 2 in the Wuppertal Hauptbahnhof and we made our way to the party.

As we stepped into The Londoner, we stepped into a bizarre parallel universe where everyone was speaking English (my Englischverbot took a blow), there was English written all over the walls and hamburgers with American flag toothpicks were being served.

Matty and Marco with one of the many sayings. Perhaps a new motto.

Obama being inaugurated

One of my favorite parts of CNN's broadcast was the factoid bar at the bottom of the screen. It said things like "Fact: Joe Biden is the first VP from Delaware." Later it started displaying things which I thought were inappropriate to display in a factoid manner. As in, "Fact: Ted Kennedy has just collapsed at the inauguration luncheon." and "Fact: It has been confirmed that Ted Kennedy has been taken away in an ambulance."

After the main inauguration ceremonies were over and we had witnessed W. and Laura Bush getting into a helicopter and flying away, we decided to order some food.

America on a plate.

Marco examining the strange sauce that was on the hamburger.

I have to say the hamburger did not live up to my expectations. One of the main problems was the disintegrating bun. I have noticed that American-style hamburger buns and bread are not really so great here. Germans know how to bake bread and the German Brötchen is a delicious thing that I will miss dearly when I go back to the States (that and German beer probably top my list), but things just go awry when they make hamburger buns. I think they should just give up and put it on a Brötchen. The hamburger itself was also oddly disintegrating, but the fries were possibly the best I have had in Germany.

Puppy! Dogs are allowed everywhere in Germany!