visions of johanna

When considering the time that has passed from my last blog entry until the present, I find it difficult to remember what has fallen inbetween.

On the top of a 29 story building in Leipzig, Germany

I could start with where I have been the past few Sundays. Last Sunday I was in Berlin, the Sunday before in Leipzig, before that Halle, before that Hamburg, before that Hannover. The Leipzig day-trip was undertaken with Andi and his Faust tutorium participants. I am not one of them, but I am friends with them, so I showed up too. We met early at the train station, bought our Schoenes Wochenende tickets (cheap tickets that are good for slower trains in certain areas if you go and come back on the same day), and spent about four hours doozing, reading, and listening to music. The point of the trip was to go to Auerbach's Keller, which is a cellar-bar made famous by Goethe's Faust. The group of us basically ran around town, had drinks at the Keller, and watched the antics of the South Korean and French fans there for the World Cup game.

In the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, heading towards the train to take us home

Then this past Sunday it was Addie and I on the train from the newly-built Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main train station) back to Goettingen. The Berlin Hauptbahnhof was just opened about a month ago, and now holds the title of the largest train station in Europe.

Addie arrived on Tuesday, and just left yesterday (Wednesday) to continue her european travels. It was an amazingly fun week, and although now I am paying the price for completely disregarding all scholastic responsibility, I've got some good pictures.

She arrived Tuesday afternoon, just in time to head to the ZHG (central lecture building on campus) to meet Eileen and catch the Germany-Ecuador World Cup game. The great thing about Goettingen is that no matter where you go, you are almost bound to run into someon. I had been hanging out with Eileen earlier in the day, so we had planned to meet, and as we entered we ran into Alex buying beer, so we went and stood with him and Steven and some other folks. We demolished Ecuador (2-0, though with the number of shoulda-been-goals there shoulda-been an even greater margin) and therefore there was much revelry. I was glad Addie got to see how crazy everyone here gets over the games. After the game was over we headed with Rita into town in search of food, and ended up picking up Kate along the way. We ate at Villa Cuba and then got ice cream and walked home, but only after we'd taken numerous pictures of the insanity in the streets.

The masses post-german victory; celebrators atop of the Gaenseliesel, a statue in the middle of town

Wednesday night was the Sportler Party, so we headed over and eventually met up with some folks. It was an outdoor party, which they seem to be fond of here when the weather is right, and it was IMMENSE. It was ridiculous how many people were there. I was shocked that we ended up finding anyone we knew--- we didn't stay incredibly late because we were leaving the next day, but Addie got to witness the stupidness that centers around german lines (in this case, waiting in line for beer).

The next day Addie came with me to class, and then we took the 3 o' clock to Berlin. I've been to Berlin once before, back in January with Colina and some of her friends, and I liked it a lot then, even for being soaked through with snow for four days straight. Since the weather was pretty good the whole weekend (for some reason not nearly as humid as Goettingen), Berlin this time around creapt even farther into my heart.

Addie and I on our first day in Berlin, sunset by the Hauptbahnhof

The train ride from Goettingen to Berlin is about two and a half hours, so we arrived with still a few hours of daylight left. We dropped our stuff off at the hostel, and then wandered around. At one point we were stopped at a corner on the sidewalk, and I was looking at my map, and a woman stopped and asked me if we needed help. We didn't really, so I asked her if she had any suggestions for good restaurants in the area, and she recommended a place that ended up being really yummy and friendly. After a good dinner we hit many of the major sights, and then came back and rested up for our next big day. Friday we woke up, had breakfast at the hostel, and then set out to find ourselves some Germany-shirts to wear the next day to show our support for the Germany-Sweden game. I had one of the better shopping experiences of the year, and practically wet myself with excitement over the adidas track jacket I found and promptly purchased. It was something I have been looking for all year, and I am still sort of excited, just thinking about how it is currently hanging in my closet.

That night we met up with five of Addie's friends, who had been traveling through Germany for the World Cup. We grabbed food and watched the first half of the game, and then at half-time proceeded into the "Fan Meile" (Fan Mile), which is a mile-long World-Cup extravaganza that extends from the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) a mile long. In all of the cities where World Cup games are being played there are screens set up around the city, but only in Berlin is there an actual mile of screens, beer and sausage vendors, and face-painted, flag-jacketed soccer fans. It was absolutely ridiculous.

Talking to some of Addie's friends after the game, note my AMAZING JACKET

Because they were all tired from traveling, we all split off relatively early, but fueled by the german tradition of beer consumption Addie and I headed home only to be detoured by numerous photo ops, and a giant record store.

The next day we met the boys at the East Side Gallery, a portion of the former wall that is covered with graffitti and art. From there we split off, and I went with Evan, one of Addie's comrades, to meet up with some of the other boys to head to the National History Museum. From there we rushed to the Fan Meile to try to get in and get decent standing places for the Germany-Sweden game at 5 o' clock. We got there around 3, and yet with the crowds I was worried we still wouldn't be let in. Luckily we did, and after a lot of standing next to masses of people in weird, humid weather we got in, got beer, and sat and waited. The experience of watching the game itself was somewhat unpleasant due to the crowds, the fact that at even 5'7.5 a lot of people are still taller than me, and that the sun was glaring into our eyes the whole time. Yet it was still amazing, and I was so glad I was able to be there. Unfortunately Addie and the two friends she had gone off with were not able to get in, so they met up with afterwards in time to watch the Mexico-Argentina game. After the Germany win, people went crazy, and we made numerous friends while dancing around with our co-revelers.

After Germany's win, Matthias and Lars (to the left of me and behind me, respectively) made friends with us and there was much jumping up and down and shouting [Addie's friend's Evan and Chris also pictured].

The last game ended around 11 and we, along with a German named Nico who just graduated from Goettingen, all headed to Tacheles. Tacheles, a place recommended to me by Lee, is basically a squat-house turned bar, and captured my fancy immediately. It was really close to our hostel, so Addie and I had actually been there a couple of times already, but our late Saturday night there was quite memorable. The building is covered in graffitti and probably about six stories high and each floor houses a different bar. On one floor there is an art gallery of sorts where I bought three postcards for myself, and one for Evan, it being his birthday. One of my favorite memories of the weekend is standing at a broken-out window with Evan, overlooking the back and down onto our friends, thinking of the day and of city, where I am and where I'll be.

Addie and I watching the Mexico-Argentina game. You can't tell, but we're wearing matching Adidas Deutscher Fussballbund (German Soccer Club) shirts.

Unfortunately it was somewhere around this point that my wallet got stolen. It was one of those things where you kind of feel your purse move a little, but I was sort of lost in the moment and figured it was just my imagination. When I actually did check my purse a minute later (which I had left unzipped) and realized my wallet my stolen, I yelped and ran down the staircase. Luckily the perpetrator just took my money and dropped the wallet a few flights below, leaving all my cards. It sucked to lose the money (somewhere between twenty and forty euro), but I was mostly grateful that I didn't have to call my mom to tell her to cancel the credit card, and then reapply for all my other cards just so I could have them for one more month before I leave. As far as getting your wallet stolen, it was kind of the best it could have been.

Somewhere along the line we lost Nico, so wherever he may be, I hope he is okay. It was around 2 that we said our goodbyes so the boys could get some sleep before their flight home that next morning. The next day Addie and I woke up and checked out of the hostel, got some Indian food from a place down the street and took the train home. That night we met Scott, Lee and Andi at Cartoon's for dinner. Monday I skipped class and we hung out, and that night we went first to Salsilito's for happy hour with some of the new kids, and then I took her to Trou, my favorite bar in Goettingen. I was able to get a good group together, and I was pleased she was able to get somewhat of a taste of what going out here is like. On Tuesday we took the train to Bremen, ran around, bought some bags, took pictures with the Bremerstadtmusikanten statue (Bremen City Musicians), and attempted to go to the Beck's Beer Factory. Unfortunately it turned out that they only give tours Thursday-Saturday, so we headed back into town for dinner, and then caught the 5:18 back to Goettingen. We got back to my room around 9, and I made dinner and Addie packed.

As we were standing around outside of Tacheles, this random guy runs up with a german flag screaming, "Deutschland! Deutschland!" We scream back at him, but when he hears one of us speaking English, he says, "America! America is going home! Whata pity, WHAT A PITY!" I was obviously delighted out of my wits, as the picture demonstrates. As this picture was being taken, his two friends were standing off to the side saying, okay, come on, lets go. We were probably the tenth group of people he had run into shouting like that. Basically the World Cup is amazing.

And thats about where I am now. I am feeling pretty stressed out about school, and about moving home, and just generally feeling somewhat moody. However, looking back through pictures of this weekend reminds me of what amazing memories I am making here these last months, even if it makes figuring out normal life that much harder. More to come.

street car visions (which you) place on the grass

On my way to Claudio's, my favorite ice cream place (only 60 euro cents for a scoop!) Goettingen downtown, sunny and bedecked with flags for the World Cup.

Written on Thursday:

I imagine you have been to a zoo. Maybe its been awhile, but its likely, and if its likely that you have ever been to a zoo, its also likely that you have at least once visited this certain exhibit of which I am thinking. The name probably varies from location to location, but basically its got a lot of red and yellow birds, maybe some sleepy bats hanging up top, and a lot of leafy greenery. In my well-zooed experience, the exhibit is like a high-roofed greenhouse, and once you step inside the impression strikes that you are no longer in temperate California but in a costa rican rainforest. Its cool to hear the bored screeches of exotic animal-life, and to breathe in that heavy mechanized mist, at least for a few minutes. By the time you reach the end of the exhibit pathway, however, (with its signs thanking you for strolling through, maybe next to a warning about the disappearance of fauna and foliage in the southern portion of our hemisphere), you're glad to be out, and to feel real, clean, fresh air, and to let your pores revert back to their normal workings. Now, imagine you had walked into the exhibit, not knowing that once you're in, you're trapped. Its at this point that you'd look around with the due amount of surprise, and read the white-posted sign to your right, "Summer in Germany."

Its really not the temperature, its the humidity. It doesn't help matters that my room begets the full glare of the german side of the sun, day in and day out, or that you can only have your window open at certain parts of the day in order to discriminate as to the insect intruders to your small space of residence. Furthering my annoyance with the recent weeks is my bike picking this time, the apparant beginning of summer (we are all asking one another, "What happened to spring?") , to decide... yeah, I really don't care about working anymore, no matter how many times you fix me. I have taken The Grand Purple Beauty to Dietmar ("The Bike Man") now three times since Friday (today being Thursday), just to have her wimp out on me a day or two after the repair. I think I conned my friend Scott into coming over tonight to take a look at her, so hopefully that produces something fruitful. It wouldn't be so crappy if my pores didn't well up with emotion every time I left my building. It also would be nice if I didn't live two kilometers away from anything worth going to.

Apart from complaining about the weather, today I went to class, and then to the Mensa (cafeteria) with Rita, and then to the library. I try to go to the library at least once a week (generally Monday or Thursday afternoons), and after every successful session I always promise myself another one soon, but the fruitlessness of that hope can generally be attributed to the late nights that the attempt at a enjoyable social life require.

Even though I will be glad to once more peruse a library whose organizational system actually makes sense, I will miss the beautiful SUB (university library). It is a monumental building, modern and nationally-acclaimed, its outsides constructed mainly of clear glass. It is especially talented at affording one lots of neat nooks and crannies in which to hide with a book, a dictionary and a pen. Today I started the research for my term paper that I "sort of" started about two months ago--- that I really should have started two months ago. As I was walking the aisles in the Freihandmagazin (a basement area, which to my knowledge is the place they put the books you are actually allowed to check out--- the three floors above are full of books that you just sit there and admire), I had to laugh to myself. The system, if it can even be called such, is so unfathomable to the average educated mind that after ten months I continue to fail to see how "The Greatest Irish Drinking Stories" can sit next to "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," which is on the shelf just below the thick volume of Guenter Grass' collected poetry, shoved tightly to the end of the row by a Hungarian textbook, taught (fittingly) in French.

Due to the weather and a just general lack of motivation, I really haven't been getting much work done. But academic pursuits aside, I have been finding enough things to keep myself suitably busy. I will probably cut this entry short by heading to the gym in a bit. And speaking of athleticism, this past weekend I spent in the heat and sun in a city called Halle, in Sachsen-Anhalt, part of the former East Germany. Saturday morning I left to head to my first ultimate frisbee tournament with a fellow American named Ben. He is here for the summer hanging out with a friend of his here and learning German, and traveling to tournaments to play pick up for teams who need players.

Continued now, early Sunday morning:

After our last game on Sunday, the 'Air Pussies' (a team name which makes as little sense to you as it likely does to me. Ben and I kept wondering why they had ever picked a name like that): (L-R top row) Dishke, Ben, Renee, Tom; (second row) Frankie, Me, Frauke, Anne.

So yeah, the tournament. I slept very little Friday night, and woke up at 5 on Saturday morning to meet Ben at the train station. We got to Halle in the mid morning, and through the help of three middle-aged 'East' German men at the station, and Christian and Kristin we found our way to the playing fields. The latter were a couple, probably kids about our age, with whom I conversed as they led us the confusing way to where the tournament was held. I was really impressed by the people in Halle and how helpful everyone tried to be to us. I am not used to Germans going out of their way for, really, anything, so it was almost a shock as much as a pleasure.

I hadn't had a clue what to expect the tournament to be like, and as Ben and I had basically just met one another, it was... an interesting weekend. We ended up "picking up" (being put as two members on a team that was short) for a team from Berlin the whole weekend, and we played seven games. Each game was 45 minutes, and since we generally had to match up girls on teams (ie, girls defend girls, boys defend boys), I actually played a lot, because there was generally only one of us to switch out.

If I hadn't been so tired on Saturday, from the lack of sleep, and the intense heat, and running for literally about three hours, I probably would have been really nervous. As it was I just tried my best to keep my mind open about learning, and not take anything too personally. I felt kind of bad about being put on the team as a beginner, especially since Ben is really good, but I eventually found my place, and after a mostly frustrating Saturday, the last two games on Sunday were really good. It was mostly difficult because I was trying to learn the stradegy, while at the same time remembering rules, and taking direction from my team mates. Since the team is from Berlin, there were a couple of other foreigners: Dishke from Kyoto, Frankie from Belfast, and Tom from somewhere in Australia. Tom was also a pick up player, and since he didn't know any German, our team mates spoke often in English. It was a strange feeling, though, because though Ben has taken some German, its not really at the conversational level yet, so because he needed English, people assumed I did too. When applicable I tried to say something about me knowing German, or speaking in German to my teammates, but I felt like it was just sort of awkward. Like, if you say, "Yeah, I can speak German," its almost like saying, "Yeah, my German is really good," which is not really something I want to be saying to a German. Especially in this situation, where I felt like I was really needing to work hard to prove my worth anyhow, and the combination of physical stress and then intellectual pressure was just too much. So I stayed quiet and listened and tried to pick up things, which I think I did. I missed practice today because I spent the day recovering from last night (ahem), but at practice on Tuesday I felt like I was able to put some of the weekend's learning to use.

So we played most of Saturday, and then went out to eat at a mexican food place with some of our teammates that night. Unfortunately this is Germany, and eating out can often last an epic amount of time, and so I was basically useless until I got back to our tent at around 11:30 pm, and within 15 minutes passed out on the hard german soil. I woke up periodically throughout the night, FREEZING in my thinnish purple sleeping bag, and then woke up at 8:15 to feel the blazing sun already overhead. As previously stated, Sunday went a lot better, probably at least in part due to the sleep, and after our last game at around 3, Ben and I packed up and made our slow journey back to Goettingen.

Ultimate frisbee is an american game, so I actually heard a lot of foreign voices (ie not all german) at the tournament. There was also a lot of naked children, and an inexplicable amount of pregnant women. I think most everyone camped out at the spaces along the fields, and there was a main tent, in which a free breakfast and cheap lunch was provided. There was a building with bathrooms, and showers, and there were also port-a-potties along the main tent. The girl's bathroom, in which one toliet sat, broke down the first day, and so I had an exciting weekend of peeing next to boys. Eileen, my friend from Berkeley who has played ultimate (as it is often known, instead of "Ultimate Frisbee") for a couple of years, warned me previously that sometimes the showers at tournament are coed. I had said, oh, thats cool, my bathroom my freshman year of college was coed, I don't have a problem with it. But as I went to take my shower on Saturday evening it all became clear: one smallish room, eight shower heads, no gender differentiation. I was actually lucky that I went in right after a mass exodus, so I was actually the only one in there for my ten minutes of lukewarm recessitation. I wouldn't really have had a huge problem with it either way, but I thought it was important to note it down as one of those things that I can now say I've done.

So all in all it was a good weekend, though the feeling that coated everything was a tepid exhaustion. Unfortunately I was stupid and got really badly sunburned, which my skin is just now recovering from. At the very least I got a lot of good exercise, and Ben and I made friends with one another, and I made some friends that I will be able to say hi to if I ever go to another tournament here. I hope I get to, though when I think of the time I have left and the weekend plans I already have made, there just aren't many opportunities left. At the very least I hope to join the team when I go back to Santa Cruz, and I know we will play Berkeley, so it'd be fun to see Eileen then, and reminisce about the old days.

Another event that has started to take up time is the WM (Weltmeisterschaft), or better known to the English-speaking world, the World Cup! The international best-of-the-best of football (soccer) is this time around held throughout Germany, and so it feels like a pretty big deal to be here right now. I have only watched a few games, but a lot of people have been watching most of them... which now only in its second week would still be a lot (I think there are about 2-3 games a day, depending). The most memorable was Wednesday night's Germany-Poland game. I met some people in town to watch it, and the bar we had planned to go to was already packed, so we ended up heading to an empty cafe. The cafe was soon full, and it was so much fun to watch the game with Germans, not only because it was their team and this game pretty much assured that they'd move into the next round, but because Germans are crazy about soccer. There were special songs for goal-kicks, and throw-ins, and when Germany finally scored a goal (final score: 1-0) in the last five minutes, the place erupted, and we all chanted "Wir fahren nach Berlin! Wir fahren nach Berlin!" (We're going to Berlin, We're going to Berlin! Berlin being another city that the games are played in, and where I assume the final games are held) for what seemed like ages. After the game we went to a hookah bar, and after that Scott and I walked home, and I couldn't have wished more that I had remembered to bring my camera with me. The city was INSANE--- it was sometime early Thursday morning, and Weende Strasse, the main road through downtown, was packed with revelry, people singing, drunken groups of guys running with german flags through the side streets. A german girl (that one of my american friends was trying to hit on) was talking to us at the hookah bar, and she made what I find to be a really insightful point: Germans are taught not to be proud of their nationality, and sports are the only outlet that the world would find acceptable for any degree of german nationalism. Thus, german football fanaticism. A fun fact is that the mexican team is staying here in Goettingen, and every time I've been downtown the past two weeks I've seen some of them walking around. Its actually pretty cool, its like celebrities in your midst, eventhough they aren't like the highest ranked team or anything. I think it's nice that all of Goettingen has gotten into it, so I see almost as many mexican flags in shop windows, on police cars and hanging from apartments as I see the old black, red and gold.

Scott, Lee and I by the water at the Hamburg harbor at about 5am, two weekends ago.

I guess that's about it for now. Last night Scott came over to take a look at my bike, just to finish the inspection within two minutes and tell me he'd have to fix it all after I went and bought the parts. Then we called Lee, and I made dinner, and the three of us ate before we headed over to the party here at the Siedlung. What started off as a party I planned on leaving after about an hour turned into one of those leave-the-party-at-7am-ers. I paid for all the fun heavily today, but it was still worth it. Any time I get to dance for long periods of time with lots of boys, friends or strangers, is a good time to me. Tomorrow I hope to sleep in and then get some work done, and on Sunday I am planning on going to Leipzig with some people, just to walk around and see the city. On Monday Addie comes to visit, and I have to figure out how to accomodate someone for a length of time in my little box-room. And now, bed!

the wind in my earlobes

If you read the last entry and felt a little uppity, this should calm your spirits. I do lead a mostly normal life, still. This semester I've been attending:

Monday 9:15-10:45 Grammatik (Grammar)

Tuesday 9:15-10:00 Nationalismus und Vertreibung in Osteuropa in der 1. Haelfte des 20. Jahrhunderts
(Nationalism and Expulsion in Eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th Century)
Tuesday 9:15-10:45 Tutorium fuer Liternatur nach 1945
Tuesday 11:15-12:45 Literatur nach 1945 ([German] Literature after 1945)

Wednesday 9:15-10:45 Grammatik
Wednesday 11:15-12:45 Introduction to Modernism (ironic because although its my 'cop out class,' because its in English, I actually have the most work to do for this one)

Thursday 12:15-1:00 Nationalismus und Vertreibung in Osteuropa in der 1. Haelfte des 20. Jahrhunderts

And a couple of weeks ago I enrolled in classes for Fall Quarter at Santa Cruz. It felt a little early for me to be doing that, too:

MW 10:30-12:00 Ballet II
MWF 2:00-3:10 Spanish 1
MWF 3:30-4:40 Medieval Spain
F 11:45-1:45 Jazz III
TuTh 2:00-3:45 Ancient Japan

I was really excited about the classes when I signed up, so hopefully I will still be that way in a few months.

Apart from the youthful antics and school, I have been doing my best to attend a couple of gym classes a week. The gym classes are what I imagine aerobics classes to be like, but it took me a good couple of weeks to be able to handle myself so I wasn't bursting out laughing at all the ludicrous stuff we do. I don't know if that sort of thing is inherently funny, or if the fact that its all in German compounds the ridiculousness. Either way, it all is a step in the right direction. I tried once more this semester to take some dance classes, but the jazz classes are below my level and the ballet ones were all full, so I decided to wait until it was all back in English again.

So instead of going to dance classes, I sort of happenstancedly started attending the ultimate frisbee team practices. With a sport like ultimate frisbee, one would rightly imagine that the practices aren't really super official or anything, and pretty much anyone who feels like spending a few hours Tuesday and Friday evenings running around in soggy grass is welcome. So far it's been a lot of fun, and I hope to be able to go to one of the every-so-often weekend tournaments one of these times. I started going, with Jacky, mainly because our friend Eileen plays back with the team at Berkeley, and so has thus been involved with the team the whole year we've been here so far. It feels a little late to get started, but its just now that the weather is becoming decent, and even saying that is highly arguable, especially on days like today.

Most of this semester we have also been playing sports on Sundays, a big pack of us Americans with a good amount of Germans tossed in as well. It started off as Football Sunday, and after some prodding (from myself, among others), we got frisbee and soccer included as well, and now we basically just play frisbee. It's generally a lot of fun.

Last night I went out for food with Lee and Scott at a place called Cartoon. They are notorious for sort of poor service, but on Sundays things are a good deal cheaper, so we went in the spirit of not having to cook ourselves. After some pasta we rented some movies on Lee's account, which was a foreign feeling. I've rented a movie I think once before here with Andi and Matthias, but its still strange to walk around that place and look at all the titles that change in translation. Then we went back to Lee's place, where we watched L'Auberge Espagnol (The Spanish Apartment), a french movie about a kid from Paris participating in an exchange program in Barcelona. The movie, which we watched in French with German subtitles, has been out for a couple of years and I have been wanting to see it for awhile, if only because it deals with the Erasmus program, which is the european equivalent of what I am doing right now. All in all it was a little topical of a movie, though I still enjoyed it. Once the credits began to roll, Lee got up in the dark to turn it off and he said, "God, that was depressing." It's depressing because it is the highly dramaticized version of us, if we were all europeans, and living in one tight apartment together. We're not, we're all from California and we live in single rooms in student dorms, but last night we three, as would all of us, recognized every feeling portrayed--- that of indescribable excitement, of sink-your-insides disappointment, frustration and confusion, despair and finally homesickness, not really for what we left behind but what we thought we would be going back to. And its just now that I realize that today is the two month marker, that by this time on August the 5th my plane will have already left the ground, my last moments on german soil already departed. For those of us who feel the fire at the back of our heels, its not something we're looking forward to.

i'd like to think i'm a mess you'd wear with pride

I started composing this entry while I was lying in my sleeping bag on my bed at 1 o' clock this afternoon, falling asleep after one long night's adventure in Hamburg. My body being comfortable for the first time in what felt like ages, I wondered why I'd never thought of the sleeping bag thing before. Sure, it could be seen as a little ramshackle, but it really saves the amount of laundry one has to wash.

I have already decided to stay up tonight to write, and after that I hope for a good, long sleep. I have a Referat (oral report) on Tuesday morning, and since I haven't started researching yet, I plan on spending tomorrow working. Tomorrow (Monday) is Pfingsten, the translation of which I am slightly too lazy to look up right now, and we have the day off school.

It has been about a month since I wrote last. Looking through my 'April/May in Goettingen' photo folder reveals just how little work I've been doing, and how little sleep I've been getting. If I didn't feel like some of the things I have been experiencing were so important I think it would have been a lot easier to write about them, and would be feeling now like I had less of a weight to remove. That said, I know myself well enough to realize I wouldn't really ever be able to write about it all like I'd want, so its better to put some time aside and get what I can down. Its like any photo I've ever taken in any foreign land, or any video I've taken at any moving concert: you just can't do some things the justice they deserve. I guess its the trying that counts. We'll start with an excerpt from an e-mail I wrote on the 26th of May:

"I woke up this morning after about 3.5 hours of sleep, and arrived somewhat late to the 10am meet up. A cup of coffee with lots of milk later, the five Americans and two Germans set off into the woods with backpacks of rain jackets and alcohol.

We went up into a tower in the middle of caterpillar green leaves, and looked over a yellow, green and white patch-worked Goettingen. We made friends with other packs of boozing Germans and I managed to narrowly steal the show from Eileen by being the one most likely to throw up a hefty amount of Persico. Instead all I gots now is a headache.

Slippery trails and some wild pigs later, we played frisbee with some german children and walked home in the rain. We got back somewhere around 5pm, and I promptly fell asleep on the couch in Franse's dorm living room, and when I awoke it was a-bustle with the preparations of the afternoon's Grillparty. Wet and cold and already hungover, a blanket and some Kopfschmerzen. Once we had grilled to the belly's satisfaction, we headed over to a normally locked room to watch some stuff on a big screen. The personal highlight was falling in love with Johnny's love for June, and remembering that musicians [just might be] the coolest people in the world.

There was only one in the group that had to take more than 20 paces to their doorstep, so I rode home alone, a Thursday night silent but for the dripping of leaves, a reminder of the evening's final rain---"

I think it was one of my favorite days. Ascension Day, Christihimmelfahrt in German, is the day here that holds the tradition of a family hike to the woods. The men not heads of families would go in alcoholic packs together, and eventually through the course of history women were invited too, and thus my Thursday hike onto the green paths through trees I had yet not smelled. Andi was our leader, and his friend (also german) Franse had a backpack with her too, and then the five Amis: Steven, Jacky, Scott, Eileen and I. We met in the morning and left around 11am. As the excerpt hints I am notorious now for not having the clearest memory of that day, but it was a moment of my year soaked in a dewy greenness, sweet and fresh and easy to breathe through. I finally saw and entered the famous Bismarckturm, from the top of which one can see the whole of our fair city. The hike continued long after that, and we made friends along the way--- Germans, wild pigs, small dogs and children open yet enough to strangers for a game of frisbee. It was already evening when we arrived back at the Dorf, and some grilled food later and then a couple of movies in a projection room. A long long day and then I was once again alone, on my way home.



The Thursday before had been Andi's Grillparty, the day after I saw Belle & Sebastian play in Hamburg and spent four of the coldest morning hours with Kate outside of the Uelzen train station waiting for our connection home. I got home sometime Saturday and slept through what was the second NPD (Neo Nazi Party) march through Goettingen since I've been here. That night I left Goettingen once more, this time with Lee, Scott, Jacky, Henry and Sarah (one of the new girls) to Hannover. I got back to my room in Goettingen the next day somewhere around 11am, only then finally being able to say that I'd gone to a rave. It'd been an epic night that led us through an 18th century maze of hedges, complete with background classical music, down cobblestoned residental streets, and finally onto dark woodland paths to the site of the rave. I spent seven hours dancing, about which I got complimented in German by a girl as I was waiting to wash my hands in the bathroom. It was 8:30 am when we left to head back to the train station.

Other highlights of recent weeks include Jen and Kim visiting last weekend, and then of course, the events of last night. Andi, Scott, Lee, Jacky, Henry, Sarah and Jamie (two of the new girls who I don't really know very well) and I got on a train to Hamburg yesterday afternoon. We arrived around six, and made our way to the Reeperbahn (Red Light District) to find the venue for the concert we were attending. Apparently last night Hamburg was the site of a Schlagerparade, which on our way into the Reeperbahn made the city pockmarked with yellow and pink blouses, loudly patterned bell-bottoms and wigs. ["Schlager" is a term for a genre of german music from the 60's and 70's that is characteristically cheesy.] By the time we left the concert, what before had been brightly-lit and gay in the light of day had taken a turn for the debaucherous, and the streets through which we gingerly tred were strewn with broken glass, vomit, blood and lingering prostitutes.

The concert had been a lot of fun--- two opening acts before the guy I had come to see, the first a german woman with a cold named Emily Parker, and the second was the Clientel, more famous though not necessarily any better in my book. Jens Lekman, the man of the evening, was amazing and Jacky and I were standing right in front of him in the tiny club. I made friends with a New Yorker who is on leave from Yale to live for awhile in Berlin. She was going to come out with us after the concert, but ended up having to take a rain check- but if we can both remember one another, it'd be fun to meet up when I'm in Berlin next, which I think will be in a couple of weeks, if I go when Addie comes to visit.

But if the concert was fun, what came next should have been filmed with a lens capable of the hazy dream-sequence effect. We had lost Jamie and Sarah long before, and not long after the concert Jacky and Henry split off from us, and so I spent the morning hours wandering the dirtiest streets in the filthiest part of the city with Lee, Andi and Scott. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized most of the strip clubs don't allow women inside (apart from the 'employees', I guess), and because the boys kept ordering rounds I hit more than a few walls of almost complete exhaustion. After much searching we settled down in a bar whose name translates fittingly to 'To The Crack' (Zur Ritze). We got friendly with our waitress, who chastised us for the thick smoke that hung in our corner, I took a lot of pictures and Lee spilled a beer on me. Around four 'o clock in the morning we emerged to find the day had begun while we were still stuck in the night, and enveloped in the blue mist of morning we four walked to the harbor. We watched the stalls of the famous Hamburg Fish Market open, and when the smell made me reel I would dance a few paces back and snap a picture for memory. We jumped the hand-rail and ran down the rocks to the water, and maybe I didn't realize it at the time, but I was so glad I was there. It was on the second train home, when I couldn't breathe through my nose and the cold of the morning threatened, that I felt like death and if it hadn't been for the complete exhaustion that has been building up these weeks I would have had to lie there awake. As it was the bike ride home from the train station was plodding, and finally as I zipped my purple sleeping cocoon closed I layed my head and I was glad for everything.