Man, I keep on thinking things are going to slow down, but they never do. I’m always just sort of busy. Not too busy that I don’t have a little extra time to myself, but busy enough. To the point where I don’t really get much sleep during the week, but that’s normal. Reminds me a little of high school, in fact. Getting up at 5:30, going to work, coming back at about 5 or so, and then having something else in the evening to do. So is life.
Band
In high school, however, I was usually busy because of band. So, now that my brain is currently dwelling on the subject I’m going to explain to you just how much my thoughts have turned to high school music in the past few months. Maybe it’s music withdrawal, but I find myself really missing practice. For me, band practice was a time where I could unwind. No matter how awful I felt after school, going to practice and focusing on relatively insignificant matters such as keeping a good tone, matching my color, and playing in tune. It gave my brain a break from all the stressful thinking that I would be doing otherwise. On Monday I found myself really getting stressed out. As silly as it sounds I spent the whole day watching the sheep eat. I needed to count their bites and their steps as they grazed, timing each activity. Not exactly the most intensive activity, so I started thinking about things, worrying mostly. On top of that I was getting frustrated because the sheep were so darn lazy in the morning, and the ones that I needed to be observing were always standing around chewing cud, or just stared at me until the end of time. To make matters worse, I discovered when I came back to the office that I shouldn’t be leaving before 4:30 because of insurance reasons. I had a half hour to kill, so I asked to be put to work collecting root samples. But the problem was that my bus leaves at 4:37, and 7 minutes is not enough time to walk to the bus station. So I missed my bus, and had to wait another hour before I could get home. By the time I got home, I was so upset, stressed, and frustrated that I didn’t know what to do with myself besides hole up in my room. I wanted so bad to just be able to head on over to orchestra practice and get lost in someone else’s emotions for a while, play someone else’s music. Music to me was like a drug free way to escape. It was a means to escape whatever I was feeling earlier that day or escape whatever homework that I had hanging over my head that evening (haha). It forced me to get into the head of whatever the composer was thinking and out of my own personal mind, and every time practice was over my mind was no longer stressing out about the problems that arose during the day and I could think about them more clearly.
So if your reading this now and you’re still in high school, then I’ll say this to you: really enjoy the performing arts program we have there, because it’s something special. You’re never going to have the same experiences again, because they don’t exist anywhere else. I can tell you right now that I want to play music for the rest of my life, but I don’t want a career with music. I don’t think it’s ever going to be so fun and relaxed, but so good at the same time, like in high school. I might get to play in fun bands or orchestras still, but they will not be as good as our band or orchestra programs. And if I would want to be in bands or orchestras that are better, and get paid for it, then I don’t think I would have as fun. When I played along side the Indianapolis Symphony in the Side-by-Side program, I decided that that was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and I’m going to stick with it. Every practice was really so stressful, and if I didn’t play something right I got pointed out and the director demanded perfection to the point where it really wasn’t fun anymore. Plus they practice a piece very few times and didn’t really get to know it like we did in high school band or orchestra, which was the best part. If I were to become a teacher I don’t know if I would enjoy myself either. I don’t think I’m very good with kids and don’t think I would teach unless I knew that I could teach well. Since I can’t, what’s the point? Would I really be making an impact in the world or even on these hypothetical kids for that matter? I don’t think so. But it does cross my mind a lot whether I’m making the right decision.
Career?
Right now, or at least before I came to Germany it seemed that everything was working out well for the path in Biotech/food science or something similar. I got this scholarship where I can test the waters a bit, plus I’ll be able to go to IU on a scholarship afterwards to do research (what I believe I want to do as a career). I honestly think it’s the right choice for me. The work kinda seems boring in the field of Graslandwissenshaft, and I like to make fun of it, but somehow I’m not really unhappy doing the work. Sometimes it’s just not engaging enough, but I have a lot of time to think, for better or for worse. Plus, for days like today (I’m typing this now on the Monday that I posted it), that are sunny and beautiful, I really enjoy my time outside. I really should be thankful that I work outside. There’s not a better place I could call my office than the beautiful Solling region, and I’m going to miss it, but I think I want to still do something more chemistry related or with food products. Honestly that interests me a lot more, although I found that identifying grasshoppers was actually really interesting. The rest, however, is not as good. I don’t think it could keep me going as a career. So basically I still have no idea what I want to do, but I'm a little closer. I start in a couple weeks doing more lab work, so we’ll see how that goes, but I had a long time to think about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything while counting grass, so I felt the need to get this little rant out of me. It’s over now.
Back to the stuff that may or may not interest you. . .
Yeah, so this past week was mostly about counting grass sprouts that are from a water stress experiment. Our department deals a lot with water stress (aka how plants react to a lack of water) and the resulting environment caused by a lack of water. This test asked the question: When grasses undergo stressed caused by dehydration is it possible for it to grow back to where it would be had it not been lacking water? In other words there was a control group and a variable group. The control group was watered normally and the variable group was not watered enough for a period of time, and then they were both watered properly for another set amount of days. It looked like the variable group was mostly able to grow back to where the control group had been, but in some types of grass the difference was greater than in others. I think they need to repeat the experiment though, because there was a great difference in temperature and light as the summer turned to fall.
As I said, I also observed the animals on two different days during the week, and today I counted and identified grasshoppers, or what was left of them. Some species had already died off for the year, which made for a smaller population of specifically a few species that would normally be there. Those assignments were a part of the bio diversity project with the cows and sheep that I talked about earlier.
Stuff that hopefully interests you if the previous sections did not. . .
Last Monday I also went to the movies with my host mom and her friends (it was ladies night, haha. No really, the kino provides cheaper movies and complimentary sekt when you go on ladies night, so why not?) We watched the American with George Clooney. Quite the odd movie, I expected it to be a little more actiony, but it was interesting enough without it. It was all in German, so I was just glad that I understood what was going on. Funny, it said that it was for people 13 years of age and up, so I thought “ok, that’s like a PG-13 movie right?” Yeah, I should have known better. (face palm) I mean it was no big deal, it’s just that I for some reason thought that the rating systems would be the same, and I was really wrong. That was definitely rated R in the states, and I felt really stupid when I realized the mistake in my thinking during the movie. Anyway, good movie if you’re into artsy ones. In my opinion it was artsy, meaning the ending was depressing and made you think a little bit as to why they ended it that way. But then again, I watched it in German.
Tuesday was Blasmusik Probe. We played a lot of jazz that day, and that’s when it hit me that I missed playing in high school. They really are not very good at playing jazz and need a few tips. I think if I mention just a few things they could sound a lot better, like playing the style correctly, or this one goes for any type of music, but just thinking about playing in tune maybe once or twice in the piece (actually not terrible, it’s just sometimes) or balancing voices. Anyway, I was less than impressed, but to be fair they were just sight reading. I didn’t want to say anything because I was afraid of offending someone, but I say something next time.
The next few days were fairly uneventful. . .
Weekend visit!
My brother, as you may or may not know, lives in Bonn with his wife, and my dad works for a German company, and therefore is often in Berlin for a couple weeks at a time. So, since it was the weekend between my and my brother’s birthday, we met in the middle here in Ebergötzen and I got to hang out with them for the weekend. We had a great time. My brother had his camera with, so he took some good pictures of the area that I just can’t take. We talked and I showed them my little town and we walked through the Fußgängerzone in Göttingen. It was quite lovely, I had a good time. Plus I got all sorts of goodies from the states, like Peanut Butter M&Ms and soft caramel chews for making cookies. Mmm . . . Oh and we went to see the Seeburger See nearby. It was a perfect day for doing that and I saw this cool looking diving bird that I didn’t see on the other visit. Its a bird that dives down in the water for quite some time and then resurfaces some random other place. It’s rather fun to watch.
I don’t think I mentioned this, but occasionally there is a guy or gal walking his or her goat around the town. I’ve seen it quite often and have gotten used to it by now, but when I was showing my family Ebergötzen, I realized “hey, that is kinda strange isn’t it. . . the goat doesn’t have a leash.” Well, if you ever visit the place don’t be startled, goats are harmless and can, when properly trained, behave properly in public without the need of a leash. Although I would walk my goat around with a leash despite that fact, just because it’s a little annoying when the goat wanders off to munch on somebody’s flower garden and I would have to keep it from doing so.
Ende
So, yeah. Not much new, just a lot of thinking, made me very stressed out during the week, but I had such a wonderful day at work today, that I feel ten thousand times better. I feel refreshed and ready to take the worst that life can give me at this point. Although if life is listening, I would rather it stay the way it is if you don’t mind.
Shout out do my fam. Thanks for the birthday cards and gifts and the visit by Dad, Matt and Talina, I love you guys and miss you, but not enough to come back home ;)
Monday, September 20, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Always a New Experience. . .
Wow, what a week. It’s about 9:30 and I finally have time to start my blog, so bear with me if it gets a little weird. Well, it’s going to be weird nevertheless, because I had a very interesting, but strange week. I’m just going to start and we’ll see how it goes.
Seeburger See
So, as I said, Monday was my first day of my internship. I thought that was the case, but unfortunately there was a little bit of miscommunication and it ended up that Monday was only a day to come in, say hi, take a little tour of the place, and talk about what I would be doing. Then he asked when I could start and I said “Umm. . . Morgen?” and then I explained that I thought I’d be starting right away. But anyway, my internship didn’t start until Tuesday, so instead I went home at about 1 (we picked up my monthly bus pass too), ate lunch and thought to myself “great, another day with nothing to do.” So I took initiative and decided to take a bike ride to Seeburg, a neighboring town, not terribly far away. There’s a big lake there with a bike path that goes around it, so I rode around the path than came back to the point where I started (because that’s how circles work), grabbed a snack and sat on the dock for a while (now that I think about it that sounds like a very lonely and emo thing to do. . .). Then I rode back. It was great weather and I had a lovely time. The path is really quite picturesque, but sadly my camera just can’t do it justice. I rode through the small roads in the pastures and fields (which were actually paved). There were also lots of fields, which made it fun. . . when I was going downhill.
Finally. My Internship.
So, after two weeks of waiting I finally started my internship. And what a first day it was. I work in the Graslandwissenschaft part of the Agrarwissenshaft Facultät, or the Pasture/Grazing animal department of the School of Agricultural Science. So that means we work with farm animals, grass, fields, and stuff like that. My first day they had to do some field work, so I got to go with.
There’s three or for different projects going on in our department. I have worked with two of them so far, so I’ll explain them a bit before I go into detail. The first one is located on a farm about thirty minutes away from Göttingen near a small town called Dassel in the Solling region. There we are working with three different groups of fields, each with six small fields. Each field has either cows, sheep, or both on them. So in the A fields, the ones that we working on this week, we have 1000 kg of cows on one field, 1500kg one the second, 1000kg of sheep on the third, etc. We weigh them so that they eat consistently the same amount of grass, since the project has been going on for years, and we haven't always had the same cows or sheep. What we do then is monitor the biodiversity of the fields and the behavior of the animals. For instance, how has the types of grasses changed, the height of the grasses, or the amount of bugs? How does the behavior of the cows or sheep change when they are placed with the other species? There’s three people that are working on this project, one older lady and two people that are working on their doctorate. One of them is Mexican, which is pretty sweet, although he also can’t speak German well (or English), so it’s a little difficult to communicate, but we manage.
So, I worked on that project on Tuesday and Thursday. Both days we had to get the animals and sort them. Tuesday was the cows. We herded them into a little holding area and then forced them into a small walkway so that we could weigh them one by one and separate them into different groups based on which fields they needed to go on. That way we could get the weights correct. Cows. . . are always less than cooperative, so it was work. The Germans naturally had a very organized way of doing it, with every person having a different job that was important. For instance while moving it we always planned ahead to put people in the gaps so that the cows didn’t run off in different directions, and while sorting my job was to move the gate back and forth to direct the cows coming out into the correct spots. So that took the entire morning and then the afternoon I spent cutting grass samples and measuring the height of them, which was very tedious, but somehow relaxing despite my aching legs for the next two days afterwards.
Thursday I did basically the same thing, except with sheep. The sheep were actually a little more frustrating to work with. They were really easy to herd, but to separate into groups was hard. What I thought was cool was when the farmer called all the sheep from the giant pasture by yelling “Gei Komm!” or something like that and they actually all came. Then we weighed and separated them into five different parts of the barn. I had to open and close the corresponding doors. Sheep are really stupid, by the way, and for some reason they freak out when they are isolated like that. So they come out of the scale and run around trying to find the door that I am holding wide open, and then they finally run in side after a couple moments of panic, which may involve falling over a few times or running into the barn door. Pretty funny, actually, when that happens. That took the whole day, though, because there are more sheep. Afterwards we herded them to their pastures, which was fun and I finally got a bit of exercise. I had to run past the herd a couple times to block the way that they were not supposed to go.
Wednesday was a lot different. There was a Betriebs Ausflug that day, which is a thing that the whole Faculty does every year. We went to Kassel and did some random stuff. First we visited our sister faculty from the Kassel Uni at a farm where they are doing research. That was pretty boring, because the talks were very technical and it made it hard to pay attention (naturally I don’t have much of a farming vocab in German). Then we ate lunch with everybody; I had some very typical German stew and potatoes with Rotkohl. Then we visited a corn maze and got lost in there for a while. That’s when I got to talk with a lot of different people, which was great, because otherwise I wouldn’t have really gotten to meet everybody as quickly. Most of them work in a different building, so I don’t see them that often. Of course they are all much older than me so it’s not like I really hit it off with a few people, but I at least got to make some contacts. After that we visited a planetarium and were given a show about the stars, which was cool because he spoke very clearly and I could actually understand everything he said and learned some new words. Then we went home, finally.
Friday, oh boy, was that fun. I spent the whole day (half day actually, work ends at 2 on fridays) counting grass. Yes, it’s exactly as it sounds. I took some frozen grass samples (from a different project) and rinsed them to defrost them and get most of the earth out. Then I counted every single piece of grass in this 10X10cm sample that was still green. The project deals with a group of about fifteen types of grass. Chickens are put on the grass in cages for a certain amount of time so that they pick and scratch at the ground, then samples are taken later and we can see how much damage the chickens did and how well the different grasses grew back. Were going to have to figure out something else with the finer grasses though, because it took so long to count all those (up to an hour per sample), and we have at least fifty samples per repetition and they repeated the experiment three times. Yeah, talk about tedious work. My fingers also looked like prunes at the end of the day, which I really don’t like.
Yeah, so that’s it with the Praktikum. The people are really cool and now I have someone to consult about where I can find mexican ingredients. I’m gonna get my burrito if I have to make it myself! By the way we went on thursday to move some stuff into my host dad’s new office in East Germany and on the way back I had the most delicious Döner I have ever had. It had a special sauce on it (and lots of it) plus I requested some chili sauce too, so it had some spice. Soooo good! Afterwards my host brother didn’t hitch the trailer onto the back of the car properly, so the trailer broke off and hit someone else’s car. It didn’t do much damage, but it was pretty funny, since my dad is a policeman and deals with accidents like that all the time.
Nordsee!
Friday afternoon I went up just south of Hamburg to a small town where a friend of my host dad’s lives. His name is Ralf. We stayed at his parents place in this town for the night. That night I had possibly the most food I have ever had (that I’ve been able to keep down, I mean. Big Ugly, you’re going down after I get back!). There’s a random Brazilian restaurant in this town not big enough to even have a proper grocery store. They do this thing that they call Rodizio or Rodizo or something similar. Basically they cook meat on a grill with a rotisserie thing, then they come out with it still on the rotisserie and ask you if you want some of the meat. Naturally you say yes and the waiter slices/scrapes off a small piece. They do this all night with people walking around giving you more food until you say stop. The food was just so good I kept on eating and eating (there was veggies too, but the meats were the best part). They served everything from Kassler to steak wrapped in bacon. Truly one of the best meals I have ever had. I ate so much that I couldn’t even eat breakfast the next morning. Later that night I got into a political discussion with a German that was slightly under the influence. That actually went pretty well, I was proud of myself. Given he really didn’t know much. . .
Saturday morning early we drove the rest of the way to the Nordsee to pick up my host grandmother there. She has a leg problem and was there to vacation. I got to walk a little bit on the low tide beach, which was fun because there were spots that were like quicksand there, something I’ve never seen on a beach. Pictures are online, and it was fun despite the weather. We then picked up some fish and drove home, stopping in Hamburg to eat lunch. We couldn’t really go walking anywhere because of my host grandma’s leg, which was unfortunate. I did show them one of the houses where we lived there though.
Bus problems. . .
So basically, Germany is really good at making me feel stupid. I got this Monatskarte for the bus finally, which I had to apply for to get this big ID card that shows that I bought his student ticket, and a smaller actual ticket. Well I didn’t really get that I needed to show the ID thing along with the card, so when I got on the bus for the first time he asked where the rest of the pass is and I had to rummage through my folders to find it. The next time I showed him both and he said something about me not needing to do that, quite contrary to what the first driver said. I took his suggestion of putting the Monatskarte in the little slip of plastic that my ID was in, then the driver can see both. Of course I put it on the wrong side of the ID, so I got yelled at again. Plus I had trouble finding my bus stop in the afternoon and getting of at the right stop in the morning. Finally at the end of the week when I got everything right, I got off of work an hour earlier than normal (on thursday) so I wanted to take the 3:50 Bus. Little did I know that at that time there are two busses that go because of the school children. So when the bussed just kind of passed the stop because it was very full, I was surprised and very angry. I thought I’d have to wait for another hour. The little kids then explained to me that there was a second bus coming. Yeah, I felt dumb.
Kirmes
It’s Schutzenfest season. Many small towns have a shooting festival this time of year. It involves a wooden bird with which they try to shoot the head, wings, legs, tail and heart off in that order. Whoever breaks the heart on their shot becomes schutzen king then. Last years Schutzenkönig is always woken up on the festival day, mostly saturday, with a cannon! I contributed to the fest by playing in the Blasmusik band again. Lots of fun, got to wear the cool blue blazer again, which is always funny. The choir and the Fanfarenzug were also there. The Fanfarenzug consists of 1 bass drum, 1 sweet looking marching bell kit, 7 snares, and 9, yes 9, piccolos. These guys actually tune pretty well though so it didn’t sound as bad as it would seem. They wake you up at 6 in the morning by marching though the town screeching their piccolos and continue to march around town for four hours.
Ende
Well, I actually have more to say, but I’ll save it for a later date. It’s already 1:30 here and I have to get up at 5 thirty or earlier. (I did some other stuff in between me starting and finishing this blog, it doesn’t actually take me four hours) I’m already falling asleep, so good night, until next week.
Skez
Seeburger See
So, as I said, Monday was my first day of my internship. I thought that was the case, but unfortunately there was a little bit of miscommunication and it ended up that Monday was only a day to come in, say hi, take a little tour of the place, and talk about what I would be doing. Then he asked when I could start and I said “Umm. . . Morgen?” and then I explained that I thought I’d be starting right away. But anyway, my internship didn’t start until Tuesday, so instead I went home at about 1 (we picked up my monthly bus pass too), ate lunch and thought to myself “great, another day with nothing to do.” So I took initiative and decided to take a bike ride to Seeburg, a neighboring town, not terribly far away. There’s a big lake there with a bike path that goes around it, so I rode around the path than came back to the point where I started (because that’s how circles work), grabbed a snack and sat on the dock for a while (now that I think about it that sounds like a very lonely and emo thing to do. . .). Then I rode back. It was great weather and I had a lovely time. The path is really quite picturesque, but sadly my camera just can’t do it justice. I rode through the small roads in the pastures and fields (which were actually paved). There were also lots of fields, which made it fun. . . when I was going downhill.
Finally. My Internship.
So, after two weeks of waiting I finally started my internship. And what a first day it was. I work in the Graslandwissenschaft part of the Agrarwissenshaft Facultät, or the Pasture/Grazing animal department of the School of Agricultural Science. So that means we work with farm animals, grass, fields, and stuff like that. My first day they had to do some field work, so I got to go with.
There’s three or for different projects going on in our department. I have worked with two of them so far, so I’ll explain them a bit before I go into detail. The first one is located on a farm about thirty minutes away from Göttingen near a small town called Dassel in the Solling region. There we are working with three different groups of fields, each with six small fields. Each field has either cows, sheep, or both on them. So in the A fields, the ones that we working on this week, we have 1000 kg of cows on one field, 1500kg one the second, 1000kg of sheep on the third, etc. We weigh them so that they eat consistently the same amount of grass, since the project has been going on for years, and we haven't always had the same cows or sheep. What we do then is monitor the biodiversity of the fields and the behavior of the animals. For instance, how has the types of grasses changed, the height of the grasses, or the amount of bugs? How does the behavior of the cows or sheep change when they are placed with the other species? There’s three people that are working on this project, one older lady and two people that are working on their doctorate. One of them is Mexican, which is pretty sweet, although he also can’t speak German well (or English), so it’s a little difficult to communicate, but we manage.
So, I worked on that project on Tuesday and Thursday. Both days we had to get the animals and sort them. Tuesday was the cows. We herded them into a little holding area and then forced them into a small walkway so that we could weigh them one by one and separate them into different groups based on which fields they needed to go on. That way we could get the weights correct. Cows. . . are always less than cooperative, so it was work. The Germans naturally had a very organized way of doing it, with every person having a different job that was important. For instance while moving it we always planned ahead to put people in the gaps so that the cows didn’t run off in different directions, and while sorting my job was to move the gate back and forth to direct the cows coming out into the correct spots. So that took the entire morning and then the afternoon I spent cutting grass samples and measuring the height of them, which was very tedious, but somehow relaxing despite my aching legs for the next two days afterwards.
Thursday I did basically the same thing, except with sheep. The sheep were actually a little more frustrating to work with. They were really easy to herd, but to separate into groups was hard. What I thought was cool was when the farmer called all the sheep from the giant pasture by yelling “Gei Komm!” or something like that and they actually all came. Then we weighed and separated them into five different parts of the barn. I had to open and close the corresponding doors. Sheep are really stupid, by the way, and for some reason they freak out when they are isolated like that. So they come out of the scale and run around trying to find the door that I am holding wide open, and then they finally run in side after a couple moments of panic, which may involve falling over a few times or running into the barn door. Pretty funny, actually, when that happens. That took the whole day, though, because there are more sheep. Afterwards we herded them to their pastures, which was fun and I finally got a bit of exercise. I had to run past the herd a couple times to block the way that they were not supposed to go.
Wednesday was a lot different. There was a Betriebs Ausflug that day, which is a thing that the whole Faculty does every year. We went to Kassel and did some random stuff. First we visited our sister faculty from the Kassel Uni at a farm where they are doing research. That was pretty boring, because the talks were very technical and it made it hard to pay attention (naturally I don’t have much of a farming vocab in German). Then we ate lunch with everybody; I had some very typical German stew and potatoes with Rotkohl. Then we visited a corn maze and got lost in there for a while. That’s when I got to talk with a lot of different people, which was great, because otherwise I wouldn’t have really gotten to meet everybody as quickly. Most of them work in a different building, so I don’t see them that often. Of course they are all much older than me so it’s not like I really hit it off with a few people, but I at least got to make some contacts. After that we visited a planetarium and were given a show about the stars, which was cool because he spoke very clearly and I could actually understand everything he said and learned some new words. Then we went home, finally.
Friday, oh boy, was that fun. I spent the whole day (half day actually, work ends at 2 on fridays) counting grass. Yes, it’s exactly as it sounds. I took some frozen grass samples (from a different project) and rinsed them to defrost them and get most of the earth out. Then I counted every single piece of grass in this 10X10cm sample that was still green. The project deals with a group of about fifteen types of grass. Chickens are put on the grass in cages for a certain amount of time so that they pick and scratch at the ground, then samples are taken later and we can see how much damage the chickens did and how well the different grasses grew back. Were going to have to figure out something else with the finer grasses though, because it took so long to count all those (up to an hour per sample), and we have at least fifty samples per repetition and they repeated the experiment three times. Yeah, talk about tedious work. My fingers also looked like prunes at the end of the day, which I really don’t like.
Yeah, so that’s it with the Praktikum. The people are really cool and now I have someone to consult about where I can find mexican ingredients. I’m gonna get my burrito if I have to make it myself! By the way we went on thursday to move some stuff into my host dad’s new office in East Germany and on the way back I had the most delicious Döner I have ever had. It had a special sauce on it (and lots of it) plus I requested some chili sauce too, so it had some spice. Soooo good! Afterwards my host brother didn’t hitch the trailer onto the back of the car properly, so the trailer broke off and hit someone else’s car. It didn’t do much damage, but it was pretty funny, since my dad is a policeman and deals with accidents like that all the time.
Nordsee!
Friday afternoon I went up just south of Hamburg to a small town where a friend of my host dad’s lives. His name is Ralf. We stayed at his parents place in this town for the night. That night I had possibly the most food I have ever had (that I’ve been able to keep down, I mean. Big Ugly, you’re going down after I get back!). There’s a random Brazilian restaurant in this town not big enough to even have a proper grocery store. They do this thing that they call Rodizio or Rodizo or something similar. Basically they cook meat on a grill with a rotisserie thing, then they come out with it still on the rotisserie and ask you if you want some of the meat. Naturally you say yes and the waiter slices/scrapes off a small piece. They do this all night with people walking around giving you more food until you say stop. The food was just so good I kept on eating and eating (there was veggies too, but the meats were the best part). They served everything from Kassler to steak wrapped in bacon. Truly one of the best meals I have ever had. I ate so much that I couldn’t even eat breakfast the next morning. Later that night I got into a political discussion with a German that was slightly under the influence. That actually went pretty well, I was proud of myself. Given he really didn’t know much. . .
Saturday morning early we drove the rest of the way to the Nordsee to pick up my host grandmother there. She has a leg problem and was there to vacation. I got to walk a little bit on the low tide beach, which was fun because there were spots that were like quicksand there, something I’ve never seen on a beach. Pictures are online, and it was fun despite the weather. We then picked up some fish and drove home, stopping in Hamburg to eat lunch. We couldn’t really go walking anywhere because of my host grandma’s leg, which was unfortunate. I did show them one of the houses where we lived there though.
Bus problems. . .
So basically, Germany is really good at making me feel stupid. I got this Monatskarte for the bus finally, which I had to apply for to get this big ID card that shows that I bought his student ticket, and a smaller actual ticket. Well I didn’t really get that I needed to show the ID thing along with the card, so when I got on the bus for the first time he asked where the rest of the pass is and I had to rummage through my folders to find it. The next time I showed him both and he said something about me not needing to do that, quite contrary to what the first driver said. I took his suggestion of putting the Monatskarte in the little slip of plastic that my ID was in, then the driver can see both. Of course I put it on the wrong side of the ID, so I got yelled at again. Plus I had trouble finding my bus stop in the afternoon and getting of at the right stop in the morning. Finally at the end of the week when I got everything right, I got off of work an hour earlier than normal (on thursday) so I wanted to take the 3:50 Bus. Little did I know that at that time there are two busses that go because of the school children. So when the bussed just kind of passed the stop because it was very full, I was surprised and very angry. I thought I’d have to wait for another hour. The little kids then explained to me that there was a second bus coming. Yeah, I felt dumb.
Kirmes
It’s Schutzenfest season. Many small towns have a shooting festival this time of year. It involves a wooden bird with which they try to shoot the head, wings, legs, tail and heart off in that order. Whoever breaks the heart on their shot becomes schutzen king then. Last years Schutzenkönig is always woken up on the festival day, mostly saturday, with a cannon! I contributed to the fest by playing in the Blasmusik band again. Lots of fun, got to wear the cool blue blazer again, which is always funny. The choir and the Fanfarenzug were also there. The Fanfarenzug consists of 1 bass drum, 1 sweet looking marching bell kit, 7 snares, and 9, yes 9, piccolos. These guys actually tune pretty well though so it didn’t sound as bad as it would seem. They wake you up at 6 in the morning by marching though the town screeching their piccolos and continue to march around town for four hours.
Ende
Well, I actually have more to say, but I’ll save it for a later date. It’s already 1:30 here and I have to get up at 5 thirty or earlier. (I did some other stuff in between me starting and finishing this blog, it doesn’t actually take me four hours) I’m already falling asleep, so good night, until next week.
Skez
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Thesis on the Meaning of Life
Ok . . . where to start. . . . well, I suppose I’ll start where I left off. Last Sunday my internet went out. It was tragic. I had written my blog already when I found out about this and found myself not being able to post it. The wifi showed up, but the router was not actually connected to the internet, so I couldn’t go anywhere. Anyway, so not only did I have nothing important to do this week, but I also couldn’t even waste time on the haven from boredom that we like to call the world wide web. It was terrible. I pretty much spent half the week reading book five of the Dark Tower in German, and still only got through sixty pages or so.
How to Impress Your Host Mom
On Tuesday or Wednesday or something like that I did something apparently super amazing. I was home alone; my host mom had an appointment that morning and said that she’d be back by one o’clock or so. By the time two rolled around I was hungry, and she wasn’t back yet, so I assumed it’d be just fine if I warmed up the leftovers from yesterday that was still sitting on the stove. There was only one portion left so I simply turned on the stove, warmed it up for a few minutes and then ate it (we have no microwave). While I was eating I watched some cartoons on the TV and afterwards I put the dishes away and started washing the three or four pans that were holding the food I had just ate. Well, right about then my host mom came in, thinking I was starving myself the whole time and was surprised to see me washing dishes. I explained that I simply ate the food that was sitting there on the stove and that I assumed that was okay. She was all impressed that I was able to feed myself without her. I am so “selbständig” according to her. Not only that but I was able to figure out how to turn on the TV all by myself, too! Sure, that involves turning on the power strip, the TV, and then the digital box, but come on, is that really that impressive? Apparently so.
Umpah, Umpah, Umpahpah!
So, as I’ve explained before, I joined this Blasmusik band that plays cheesy German polka music and such. You know, like the ones with the warbley male singers that you know of, but don’t really believe they exist. Well they do. And we have a warbley singer, as I just discovered today.
I have a heck of a time communicating with our director. Not only is he half deaf, so I have to yell in German, which is just uncomfortable, but I also don’t even know much music terminology in German, so it’s hard to explain to him what the problem is with me reading bari sax music. Apparently most in most Blasmusik the horn is played in the key of Es, (or Eb, whatever you like to call it). My horn is in F, and he knew that, but I had to explain to him that I can read Es if there’s not a choice, after all it’s not all that uncommon for a horn player to have to transpose, especially in orchestra. In fact I had to do that in high school quite a few times. The problem is that there are actually only a few parts that are written for horn at all, so the majority of my music is for bari sax. Why the bari sax and not the alto? I’m not sure, so I’d thought I’d ask. That’s where I went wrong. I tried to explain to him that if I read the bari sax music that I would have to transpose not only one note down from F to Es but also another entire octave for me to be playing the correct part. Let me remind you again that German is not my first language and the man was half deaf. I’m sure you can imagine the confusion that ensued thereafter. He thought that I was having trouble transposing into Es and I was trying to ask him whether or not I should be playing the part like it’s supposed to sound, an octave lower, except he couldn’t hear me and I had to yell words that I’m not even sure were German. Yeah. . . eventually the communication happened and he said that he doesn’t care what octave I play in, just play.
Anyway, that was an interesting rehearsal. Today I travelled with them to a small town about a half an hour away in Hessen. There was a small Fire Station fest going on with demonstrations and stands with currywurst, pommes, and such. We provided the backup polka. I even got to wear a fashionable blue blazer that says Ebergötzer Blasmusik on it. I’ve got some pictures that I’ll put up on facebook later, they’re pretty funny. Oh and a video, but the file is in a weird format, so I’m going to have to figure that out first. The video’s even better, because you can definitely see me being completely lost and faking it. It’s hard to sight read while transposing, ok? Especially with all the repeats, D.C. al codas, D.S. al codas, and alternate endings that are always present in such music.
Real American Food, Giant Hamburgers!
I decided to cook some hamburgers yesterday for my host family. Pretty American dish, if you ask me. So I used my family’s secret hamburger recipe and cooked them up some ginormous hamburgers. It was a beautiful day too, so I thought I’d be able to grill them, but of course some random clouds decided to roll in and rain on my parade - I mean the grill. So instead I decided to fry them. They were huge. I could barely cook three of them at a time in the biggest pan they had. Luckily I was able to pull it off and they were cooked all the way through with just the slightest bit of pink in the middle. Mmm. They were delish! Bonus: It was hilarious watching my host family (Marcel was also there) try to eat this monster on two buns while they (the buns were inevitably not very sturdy) fell apart slowly. It was great, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and they said that I could definitely do it again sometime. Today, then, they cooked me a very typical German meal: Schweinshaxe with sauerkraut and potatoes. That was delicious as well. I mean, that’s why I’m here right? The sauerkraut.
My parents showed me this giant grocery store in the outskirts of Göttingen called Real. You won’t believe it, but they sell maple syrup, Bisquick, and Pop-Tarts in the American section. And by american section I mean the one tiny shelf that houses American food. I’m so excited. Do you know what this means? I can now make Bisquick pancakes and strawberry shortcake! And they have Pop-Tarts. I always sent my brother Pop-Tarts when he was in Germany, but they have them here! Actually I’ll admit it’s not as good as it sounds. They are expensive and they only have strawberry unfrosted and hot fudge sundae. No cinnamon brown sugar, go figure. That is kind of a let down. Actually now that I think about it, I don’t even know if I have a toaster to use here. . .
Fußballverrückt
Oh my goodness, I have watched so much soccer lately. The young men played on Wednesday and Saturday, the old men (40s and up I think) played on Friday, and Germany’s national team played Belgium on Friday night as well. That’s quite a lot of soccer. It’s always interesting though, I think. Saturday’s game was especially intense. I believe it was a team we were suppose to beat, and we did, but not before the referee gave out about ten yellow cards or so. For some reason the other team was almost entirely Turkish, and I don’t know if it was because of racial tension or what, but the game was full of trash talk and a little too much pushing and shoving. The other team was really getting frustrated because we were winning or for some other reason and my host brother said something along the lines of “provoke him!” which caused him, who was only watching the game, to get kicked out by the ref. Overall, it was a pretty funny situation, but only because I was not playing, I think. The ref was a little crazy though. I probably would be able to play with them but I’m not really good at soccer, plus every time I play my right toe reminds me of how close it is to getting an ingrown toenail. So, the one sport I would not be able to play would be soccer, and that’s all there is to do ‘round these parts.
Ende
So, yeah. That’s about how my week went. Tomorrow I start my internship at the Uni. I’m really quite nervous. I don’t know exactly what I will be doing, but I just hope he makes me do some easy stuff to start out, because I don’t want to bother him all the time trying to clear up the terminology in German and such. I am excited about the notion of me having a month long bus ticket and there being a bus that comes in the middle of the night. Now, I might be able to do stuff like play ultimate frisbee in the afternoons in Göttingen. I hope all goes well, I’ll let you know next week.
Skez
How to Impress Your Host Mom
On Tuesday or Wednesday or something like that I did something apparently super amazing. I was home alone; my host mom had an appointment that morning and said that she’d be back by one o’clock or so. By the time two rolled around I was hungry, and she wasn’t back yet, so I assumed it’d be just fine if I warmed up the leftovers from yesterday that was still sitting on the stove. There was only one portion left so I simply turned on the stove, warmed it up for a few minutes and then ate it (we have no microwave). While I was eating I watched some cartoons on the TV and afterwards I put the dishes away and started washing the three or four pans that were holding the food I had just ate. Well, right about then my host mom came in, thinking I was starving myself the whole time and was surprised to see me washing dishes. I explained that I simply ate the food that was sitting there on the stove and that I assumed that was okay. She was all impressed that I was able to feed myself without her. I am so “selbständig” according to her. Not only that but I was able to figure out how to turn on the TV all by myself, too! Sure, that involves turning on the power strip, the TV, and then the digital box, but come on, is that really that impressive? Apparently so.
Umpah, Umpah, Umpahpah!
So, as I’ve explained before, I joined this Blasmusik band that plays cheesy German polka music and such. You know, like the ones with the warbley male singers that you know of, but don’t really believe they exist. Well they do. And we have a warbley singer, as I just discovered today.
I have a heck of a time communicating with our director. Not only is he half deaf, so I have to yell in German, which is just uncomfortable, but I also don’t even know much music terminology in German, so it’s hard to explain to him what the problem is with me reading bari sax music. Apparently most in most Blasmusik the horn is played in the key of Es, (or Eb, whatever you like to call it). My horn is in F, and he knew that, but I had to explain to him that I can read Es if there’s not a choice, after all it’s not all that uncommon for a horn player to have to transpose, especially in orchestra. In fact I had to do that in high school quite a few times. The problem is that there are actually only a few parts that are written for horn at all, so the majority of my music is for bari sax. Why the bari sax and not the alto? I’m not sure, so I’d thought I’d ask. That’s where I went wrong. I tried to explain to him that if I read the bari sax music that I would have to transpose not only one note down from F to Es but also another entire octave for me to be playing the correct part. Let me remind you again that German is not my first language and the man was half deaf. I’m sure you can imagine the confusion that ensued thereafter. He thought that I was having trouble transposing into Es and I was trying to ask him whether or not I should be playing the part like it’s supposed to sound, an octave lower, except he couldn’t hear me and I had to yell words that I’m not even sure were German. Yeah. . . eventually the communication happened and he said that he doesn’t care what octave I play in, just play.
Anyway, that was an interesting rehearsal. Today I travelled with them to a small town about a half an hour away in Hessen. There was a small Fire Station fest going on with demonstrations and stands with currywurst, pommes, and such. We provided the backup polka. I even got to wear a fashionable blue blazer that says Ebergötzer Blasmusik on it. I’ve got some pictures that I’ll put up on facebook later, they’re pretty funny. Oh and a video, but the file is in a weird format, so I’m going to have to figure that out first. The video’s even better, because you can definitely see me being completely lost and faking it. It’s hard to sight read while transposing, ok? Especially with all the repeats, D.C. al codas, D.S. al codas, and alternate endings that are always present in such music.
Real American Food, Giant Hamburgers!
I decided to cook some hamburgers yesterday for my host family. Pretty American dish, if you ask me. So I used my family’s secret hamburger recipe and cooked them up some ginormous hamburgers. It was a beautiful day too, so I thought I’d be able to grill them, but of course some random clouds decided to roll in and rain on my parade - I mean the grill. So instead I decided to fry them. They were huge. I could barely cook three of them at a time in the biggest pan they had. Luckily I was able to pull it off and they were cooked all the way through with just the slightest bit of pink in the middle. Mmm. They were delish! Bonus: It was hilarious watching my host family (Marcel was also there) try to eat this monster on two buns while they (the buns were inevitably not very sturdy) fell apart slowly. It was great, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and they said that I could definitely do it again sometime. Today, then, they cooked me a very typical German meal: Schweinshaxe with sauerkraut and potatoes. That was delicious as well. I mean, that’s why I’m here right? The sauerkraut.
My parents showed me this giant grocery store in the outskirts of Göttingen called Real. You won’t believe it, but they sell maple syrup, Bisquick, and Pop-Tarts in the American section. And by american section I mean the one tiny shelf that houses American food. I’m so excited. Do you know what this means? I can now make Bisquick pancakes and strawberry shortcake! And they have Pop-Tarts. I always sent my brother Pop-Tarts when he was in Germany, but they have them here! Actually I’ll admit it’s not as good as it sounds. They are expensive and they only have strawberry unfrosted and hot fudge sundae. No cinnamon brown sugar, go figure. That is kind of a let down. Actually now that I think about it, I don’t even know if I have a toaster to use here. . .
Fußballverrückt
Oh my goodness, I have watched so much soccer lately. The young men played on Wednesday and Saturday, the old men (40s and up I think) played on Friday, and Germany’s national team played Belgium on Friday night as well. That’s quite a lot of soccer. It’s always interesting though, I think. Saturday’s game was especially intense. I believe it was a team we were suppose to beat, and we did, but not before the referee gave out about ten yellow cards or so. For some reason the other team was almost entirely Turkish, and I don’t know if it was because of racial tension or what, but the game was full of trash talk and a little too much pushing and shoving. The other team was really getting frustrated because we were winning or for some other reason and my host brother said something along the lines of “provoke him!” which caused him, who was only watching the game, to get kicked out by the ref. Overall, it was a pretty funny situation, but only because I was not playing, I think. The ref was a little crazy though. I probably would be able to play with them but I’m not really good at soccer, plus every time I play my right toe reminds me of how close it is to getting an ingrown toenail. So, the one sport I would not be able to play would be soccer, and that’s all there is to do ‘round these parts.
Ende
So, yeah. That’s about how my week went. Tomorrow I start my internship at the Uni. I’m really quite nervous. I don’t know exactly what I will be doing, but I just hope he makes me do some easy stuff to start out, because I don’t want to bother him all the time trying to clear up the terminology in German and such. I am excited about the notion of me having a month long bus ticket and there being a bus that comes in the middle of the night. Now, I might be able to do stuff like play ultimate frisbee in the afternoons in Göttingen. I hope all goes well, I’ll let you know next week.
Skez
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Small Town Livin'
My internet went out as I wrote this, so it’s a bit late. I hope you don’t hate me. I still don’t have any, so I’m using my neighbors right now. Just pretend it’s Sunday, because that’s when I wrote it.
Well, I’ve had one week of my full on immersion here in Germany, and I’d have to say, I kinda like it. Speaking German all the time every day is a little bit stressful, but once you get past the fact that what’s coming out of your mouth is going to be a mess grammatically, it becomes easier and easier to just talk in order to get your point across. As far as understanding goes, I think I can feel myself actually getting better. Of course, it depends on who’s speaking to me. My host parents speak very clearly (or to me, it’s clear), as does my older host brother and his friends. The twins (my twin host brothers will from now on be referred to as “the twins”) not so much. Other people that go on my list of not being able to understand would be teenagers and people that are drunk. Both of those combined . . . yeah that’s just a mess.
Host Family
So, as I may or not mentioned before, I live primarily with a husband and wife who have kids, but they usually are living somewhere else. My host dad, Birger, is turning 50 in January and is a policeman. He works during the day most days because he has tenure and gets priority on what shifts he wants to work. His hours do vary greatly, however. Sometimes he works from early until the afternoon, other times from the afternoon until night, and occasionally he gets a day off. He loves to cook, so usually the food is good. Still never spicy enough for my tastes, but he always cooks something interesting, which I enjoy. He has a soccer team that consists of people from 16 to 18 years of age, I believe, so I’ll be ineligible once my birthday rolls around next month, but I could probably play despite that fact. They’re not exactly stringent. However, they are really good, and I. . . am awful, so I’m not sure if I want to play anyway. Germans are crazy about their soccer. He’s lived in Ebergötzen/Göttingen all his life, but loves America and wants to emigrate there some day. My host mom, Sabine, is also 48 or 49 . . . I don’t really know what she does. She does do things almost everyday, but I have yet to understand exactly what they are or if she gets paid for them. I’ll get back to you on that one. She likes to bake though. And read.
I have four host siblings in total if I’m not mistaken. I have a host brother, Marcel, who is twenty and lives in Dortmund. He’s really cool and I enjoy hanging out with him and his friends the most. He came here for the weekend to pick the twins up and drive them home (in Essen, I believe). On Friday night he came into town while I was hanging out with a small group of people (groups of people in Ebergötzen are always small), so I didn’t see him, but he apparently went immediately to a club nearby until one in the morning. Nevertheless, he slept in this loft/storage area above the kitchen and he was forced to wake up with us in the morning and ate breakfast with us, so I got to meet him then. My host dad, being German, decided to plan the whole day for us, but Marcel already had plans to grill with his friends in Ebergötzen that evening, so things didn’t really work out, which was okay with me. We went and visited his friends for a while, then headed to Göttingen, and he showed me a couple places to get good ice cream, and where one can get guys clothes the cheapest, and then we headed back to watch the soccer game that Birger was coaching. We lost, unfortunately, and it started pouring immediately after. So, although the plan was for me to go to Göttingen to visit a little festival that was going on that day, it was raining and I decided that I’d rather grill in the rain than go to a festival in the rain. Marcel and I headed over to his friend’s house (actually two of them live there in the same house) where I met three other Germans that live in Ebergötzen. One of them speaks almost perfect English, which was cool, but I still spoke German the whole time. We baked some frozen Pizza instead of grilling because of the weather and then watched some movie on TV. Afterwards it was about 11 o’clock and I was tired from watching the movie (it’s hard not to be tired after watching a movie for some reason), but Marcel still wanted to go to this club somewhere in East Germany (Dunkeldeutschland is not really that far away). I . . . was really tired so I just asked him to take me home and he went with these two other guys from town anyway. I’d have to say, I’m glad I didn’t go, because he got home at about 5 in the morning. . .
So anyway, I enjoyed meeting him and his friends this past weekend, but now he has driven home with the twins. My twin host brothers were here for the whole week, but I didn’t really do anything with them. One of them is usually on the computer and the other is watching TV. And then they switch. Not really that engaging. All of my brothers are the sons of my host dad and live (or lived) with their mother in Nordrhein-Westfalen. I have a host sister too, the daughter of my host mom, but I haven’t met her yet. I think she lives in Köln.
Cookies Apparently soft cookies are really something special here in Germany. I baked some regular chocolate chip cookies on Friday and they were all gone by Saturday night. That’s the second time I’ve baked them here, and both times I got the compliment “They taste just like the ones at Subway!” I think that’s a compliment at least. . .
Other people!
As a result, the only other Germans my age that I hung out with were the local teenagers. Some I met from coming to their soccer game and practice, and others from playing in this cheesy German band that I joined, so I suppose I’ll talk about that for a bit. On Tuesdays I play in this small ensemble that consists of a ragtag bunch of saxophones, valved trombones, a euphonium, a tuba, a trumpet, and a drum set. The director is old and can’t hear very well, and so I don’t think he can actually hear that the guy next to me is about fifty cents sharp or more all the time. But anyway, we basically just play through music from these binders, and all of it is pretty watered down. None of the parts are in F, so I’m usually playing the Bari sax part in E flat and transposing, so at least that makes it a bit more challenging. Let’s see. . . we played Pennsylvania 6-5000 (there’s nothing better than listening as all of them shout that in the middle of the piece), Puttin’ on the Ritz (something they also can’t seem to pronounce), a Johann Strauss medley, and random polka music/music that I hadn’t heard of. One piece was written by one of the valved trombone players and dedicated to the lovely town of Ebergötzen.
Anyway, it’s a small town. People my age just kind of drink on weekends, which is what I did on Friday night. I don’t really mind so much, because they never drink past their limit. One of them was visibly drunk, but he didn’t drink any more after that and he was still coherent (he just spoke so fast all the time that I couldn’t understand him). It was fun. I got to meet more people and speak more German, and it certainly beat just hanging around the house during the weekdays, because school has started and there’s nothing really for me to do yet.
Man-eating Plants and Plant-eating Cows
My internship starts next week on September the 6th. I’ll be working in a lab with a Prof. Isselstein. He works in the Graslandwissenschaft sector of the Nutzpflanzwissenschaft. So basically he works mostly with domestic animals and their diets and such. I guess I’ll be doing research under him for a while, until classes at the Uni start at the end of October. Maybe I’ll be able to work with cows. My other options were to work at the Experimental Botanical Garden or the Old Botanical Garden. In both of those internships I would simply be working as a gardner, and there wouldn’t really be much work since it’s the end of summer (coldest August I’ve ever experienced, honestly) and the plants are just kinda dying off early for the winter. So, I might still work in one of those places come spring, but I don’t really know. The Experimental Botanical Garden is really cool, they have a whole greenhouse full of carnivorous plants, which in German is fleischfressende Pflanzen and roughly translates into flesh eating plants. I think that sounds way cooler than carnivorous plants. “So, what did you do while you were in Germany?” “Oh, I worked in an experimental garden with flesh eating plants. You know, the ones that eat meat?” That would be reason enough to do the internship next spring.
Ende
Yeah, so it was a pretty slow week. Lot’s of rain, every day it rained I think, so not a lot of opportunities to go explore the Harz mountains or anything. I am going to Hungary with the soccer team in October though! I’m super excited! Later this month I’ll be able to go to the North Sea with my family for a weekend, too. Visit some friends of my host dad’s in a town near Hamburg and take a little visit of Hamburg as well. It’ll be fun, I’ll show them where my family used to live, if I can remember where it is. Which I can’t, so I’m going to look it up.
Oh, by the way, the chickens are actually our neighbors chickens. But I can still go visit them anytime I like, and talk to them or something. Y’know, to practice my German. Not that I would actually talk to chickens. . .
Well, I’ve had one week of my full on immersion here in Germany, and I’d have to say, I kinda like it. Speaking German all the time every day is a little bit stressful, but once you get past the fact that what’s coming out of your mouth is going to be a mess grammatically, it becomes easier and easier to just talk in order to get your point across. As far as understanding goes, I think I can feel myself actually getting better. Of course, it depends on who’s speaking to me. My host parents speak very clearly (or to me, it’s clear), as does my older host brother and his friends. The twins (my twin host brothers will from now on be referred to as “the twins”) not so much. Other people that go on my list of not being able to understand would be teenagers and people that are drunk. Both of those combined . . . yeah that’s just a mess.
Host Family
So, as I may or not mentioned before, I live primarily with a husband and wife who have kids, but they usually are living somewhere else. My host dad, Birger, is turning 50 in January and is a policeman. He works during the day most days because he has tenure and gets priority on what shifts he wants to work. His hours do vary greatly, however. Sometimes he works from early until the afternoon, other times from the afternoon until night, and occasionally he gets a day off. He loves to cook, so usually the food is good. Still never spicy enough for my tastes, but he always cooks something interesting, which I enjoy. He has a soccer team that consists of people from 16 to 18 years of age, I believe, so I’ll be ineligible once my birthday rolls around next month, but I could probably play despite that fact. They’re not exactly stringent. However, they are really good, and I. . . am awful, so I’m not sure if I want to play anyway. Germans are crazy about their soccer. He’s lived in Ebergötzen/Göttingen all his life, but loves America and wants to emigrate there some day. My host mom, Sabine, is also 48 or 49 . . . I don’t really know what she does. She does do things almost everyday, but I have yet to understand exactly what they are or if she gets paid for them. I’ll get back to you on that one. She likes to bake though. And read.
I have four host siblings in total if I’m not mistaken. I have a host brother, Marcel, who is twenty and lives in Dortmund. He’s really cool and I enjoy hanging out with him and his friends the most. He came here for the weekend to pick the twins up and drive them home (in Essen, I believe). On Friday night he came into town while I was hanging out with a small group of people (groups of people in Ebergötzen are always small), so I didn’t see him, but he apparently went immediately to a club nearby until one in the morning. Nevertheless, he slept in this loft/storage area above the kitchen and he was forced to wake up with us in the morning and ate breakfast with us, so I got to meet him then. My host dad, being German, decided to plan the whole day for us, but Marcel already had plans to grill with his friends in Ebergötzen that evening, so things didn’t really work out, which was okay with me. We went and visited his friends for a while, then headed to Göttingen, and he showed me a couple places to get good ice cream, and where one can get guys clothes the cheapest, and then we headed back to watch the soccer game that Birger was coaching. We lost, unfortunately, and it started pouring immediately after. So, although the plan was for me to go to Göttingen to visit a little festival that was going on that day, it was raining and I decided that I’d rather grill in the rain than go to a festival in the rain. Marcel and I headed over to his friend’s house (actually two of them live there in the same house) where I met three other Germans that live in Ebergötzen. One of them speaks almost perfect English, which was cool, but I still spoke German the whole time. We baked some frozen Pizza instead of grilling because of the weather and then watched some movie on TV. Afterwards it was about 11 o’clock and I was tired from watching the movie (it’s hard not to be tired after watching a movie for some reason), but Marcel still wanted to go to this club somewhere in East Germany (Dunkeldeutschland is not really that far away). I . . . was really tired so I just asked him to take me home and he went with these two other guys from town anyway. I’d have to say, I’m glad I didn’t go, because he got home at about 5 in the morning. . .
So anyway, I enjoyed meeting him and his friends this past weekend, but now he has driven home with the twins. My twin host brothers were here for the whole week, but I didn’t really do anything with them. One of them is usually on the computer and the other is watching TV. And then they switch. Not really that engaging. All of my brothers are the sons of my host dad and live (or lived) with their mother in Nordrhein-Westfalen. I have a host sister too, the daughter of my host mom, but I haven’t met her yet. I think she lives in Köln.
Cookies Apparently soft cookies are really something special here in Germany. I baked some regular chocolate chip cookies on Friday and they were all gone by Saturday night. That’s the second time I’ve baked them here, and both times I got the compliment “They taste just like the ones at Subway!” I think that’s a compliment at least. . .
Other people!
As a result, the only other Germans my age that I hung out with were the local teenagers. Some I met from coming to their soccer game and practice, and others from playing in this cheesy German band that I joined, so I suppose I’ll talk about that for a bit. On Tuesdays I play in this small ensemble that consists of a ragtag bunch of saxophones, valved trombones, a euphonium, a tuba, a trumpet, and a drum set. The director is old and can’t hear very well, and so I don’t think he can actually hear that the guy next to me is about fifty cents sharp or more all the time. But anyway, we basically just play through music from these binders, and all of it is pretty watered down. None of the parts are in F, so I’m usually playing the Bari sax part in E flat and transposing, so at least that makes it a bit more challenging. Let’s see. . . we played Pennsylvania 6-5000 (there’s nothing better than listening as all of them shout that in the middle of the piece), Puttin’ on the Ritz (something they also can’t seem to pronounce), a Johann Strauss medley, and random polka music/music that I hadn’t heard of. One piece was written by one of the valved trombone players and dedicated to the lovely town of Ebergötzen.
Anyway, it’s a small town. People my age just kind of drink on weekends, which is what I did on Friday night. I don’t really mind so much, because they never drink past their limit. One of them was visibly drunk, but he didn’t drink any more after that and he was still coherent (he just spoke so fast all the time that I couldn’t understand him). It was fun. I got to meet more people and speak more German, and it certainly beat just hanging around the house during the weekdays, because school has started and there’s nothing really for me to do yet.
Man-eating Plants and Plant-eating Cows
My internship starts next week on September the 6th. I’ll be working in a lab with a Prof. Isselstein. He works in the Graslandwissenschaft sector of the Nutzpflanzwissenschaft. So basically he works mostly with domestic animals and their diets and such. I guess I’ll be doing research under him for a while, until classes at the Uni start at the end of October. Maybe I’ll be able to work with cows. My other options were to work at the Experimental Botanical Garden or the Old Botanical Garden. In both of those internships I would simply be working as a gardner, and there wouldn’t really be much work since it’s the end of summer (coldest August I’ve ever experienced, honestly) and the plants are just kinda dying off early for the winter. So, I might still work in one of those places come spring, but I don’t really know. The Experimental Botanical Garden is really cool, they have a whole greenhouse full of carnivorous plants, which in German is fleischfressende Pflanzen and roughly translates into flesh eating plants. I think that sounds way cooler than carnivorous plants. “So, what did you do while you were in Germany?” “Oh, I worked in an experimental garden with flesh eating plants. You know, the ones that eat meat?” That would be reason enough to do the internship next spring.
Ende
Yeah, so it was a pretty slow week. Lot’s of rain, every day it rained I think, so not a lot of opportunities to go explore the Harz mountains or anything. I am going to Hungary with the soccer team in October though! I’m super excited! Later this month I’ll be able to go to the North Sea with my family for a weekend, too. Visit some friends of my host dad’s in a town near Hamburg and take a little visit of Hamburg as well. It’ll be fun, I’ll show them where my family used to live, if I can remember where it is. Which I can’t, so I’m going to look it up.
Oh, by the way, the chickens are actually our neighbors chickens. But I can still go visit them anytime I like, and talk to them or something. Y’know, to practice my German. Not that I would actually talk to chickens. . .
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