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.
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.
posted by Meredesu at 2:35 AM
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