Discovery of the Day

Today, after living here for 20 days, I discovered that the Dreisam River is less than 75 meters (wahoo for the metric system) from my apartment. To illustrate this, I have included my building and the river in the same picutre (mine is the only visible building on the left side). It is too bad that I made this discovery so late; I move out in four days. My next home, "The Stusie," has a lake.

Quaint French houses and shops in Colmar, equipped with satellite TV dishes and antennas, just like in the olden days.

Solar Powered Calendar

This is a calendar, located on the side of a church in Colmar, France. See the black shadow? That is the marker for determining the month. If you zoom in, you can see that it is lying between March and April, but leaning slightly towards April. Today was March 19. It works! We need to get one of these for the planetarium in Chapel Hill and place it near the sundial. We also need a tip jar, or at least a cut from the gravity well, but that is a different matter.

All the pretty little mopeds and motorcycles

The only place in America where you can find so many multicolored motorcycles is nowhere. I didn't even have to stage this picture. Europeans, or at least the French and Germans, seem to like color a lot more than Americans.

Little streams in gullies like this one flow through Freiburg and are called Bächle. Originally, these streams were used as a water supply or for sewage or to fight fires, depending on whom you ask. Legend has it that if you step in one, then you have to marry a Freiburger. Even worse, your foot is wet. I have yet to see anyone step into a Bächle, but I'll keep you posted.

On a street light.

Bathroom humor doesn't change; it is just translated. In case you are wondering, taking this picture felt really awkward, and the whole time I was hoping that no one would walk in.

Converse shoes in the Strassenbahn, reflecting off of the glass panel.

Her House is Now a Burger King

This is a "Stolpersteine," or in English, a stumbling stone. They are little memorials on the sidewalks in front of houses of those who were deported and killed during the Holocaust. This one says "Here lived Flora Baer, born Stern. 1892. Deported 1940. Murdered in Grafeneck." Now her house is a Burger King.

I Get Visual

Here in the Blogosphere, there is an age-old saying: One photo is worth about 20 blog posts. By my calculations, I just posted about 300 entries today.

The weather finally resembled Spring, and I was feeling shutter-happy today, so I walked around my little town of Littenweiler, just outside Freiburg, and took some pictures. I then figured out how to photoblog using Hello, which is quite easy.

But wait, how do you have photos in posts dating back to February?! Well, I sneakily backdated the old ones to preserve the timeline of my experience.

In the future, I plan to sprinkle photos among the text entries or vice versa, depending on what medium I use more frequently.

Edeka: Expensively providing nourishment since two weeks ago. 

Nifty stairwell in the admin building of my current appartment. 

Graffiti on the train station in my neighborhood, Littenweiler. If you are a parent and seeing this, don't worry. Everyone here is actually quite friendly to me. 

Here in Germany, I get my mustard not from a bottle or jar, but rather from a metallic tube. This is the kind of tube you see in American hobby shops holding toxic glue or in American pharmacies holding some sort of anti-fungal ointment. The mustard tastes great. 

The building that I call home. Well, actually, this is not really where I live, but my building is not photogenic due to construction. I live in the exact same type of building about 100 feet to the left of this one, but it has a vibrant gray color.

Church in Littenweiler with modern bell tower. 

Paradigm Shift

Before you enter a country where things are significantly different than in the US (the language), you know you are going to commit some cultural faux pas, inadvertently yet repeatedly butcher someone else’s mother language, obliviously ignore important points, get lost, and generally make a fool of yourself being the foreigner that you are. There is nothing that you can do about this in advance to protect yourself; it will happen, you know it, and you are helpless, so you might as well accept it. You can only attempt damage control. Now on to my story:
So far, I’ve been doing well at displaying my fair share of ignorance. For example, in my language class, we were discussing fruits and vegetables, including nuts. Most nuts translate into German without significant differences from the English version, such as the Walnuss (walnut) and Cashew (cashew). Additionally, we had the Kokosnuss. I looked hard at the little, photocopied black oval, which looked just like all of the other photocopied nuts, claiming to be a Kokosnuss, and couldn’t figure out what the English translation was. I was assuming that it was some sort of coffee or chocolate bean, and then our teacher said the nut is named just as it is in English. I kept thinking, “coco nut…must be the nut for coffee or cocaine or chocolate, but none of those really makes sense in this context since coffee and chocolate nuts are not an easily identifiable snack nut like cashews or walnuts and they wouldn’t put anything having to do with cocaine in a-learn-to-speak-German packet. Hmm.”
By now, I’d imagine that most of you already know what the nut is, as did everyone else in my class. The pressure of ignorance eventually convinced to break down, risking embarrassment and reputation damage, and ask someone.
“Pssp, what is the ‘Kokosnuss’ in English?”
Coconut. Since coconuts are big, hairy, and have milk inside, I had never regarded the tropical treat as a nut. It sounds more like a mammal than a nut with that description. I'd never even noticed that the word “nut” appeared in its name. In retrospect, I suppose it does appear alongside of almonds and other nuts in popular candy bars. C'est la vie.

Not Your Average Joe(y)

I was talking with a couple other Americans who are in my language course during lunch, and I discovered that Joey, who was in one of my German classes at UNC last year, is hilarious:

“I don’t know why anyone would want a tongue ring because the other day, I bit my tongue, and that really hurt.”

“People these days are taking way too much medicine, and it is all about the money. People take medicine to help them concentrate, and then there are side effects, like diarrhea. How are you supposed to concentrate when you have diarrhea?! So then you go back to the doctor, and they say, 'Oh, well we’ve got a medicine for that too!'”

Names Gone Wrong

At this point, I've been in Freiburg, located in southwest Germany, for a week. My German is coming back to me and my roommates have explained to me that I can't just eat spaghetti for every meal everyday, even if it is better financially.

As far as cooking goes, I have two awesome Bulgarian roommates, Radi and Anni, who supply me with a bit of their Bulgarian food since they always conveniently cook too much, and also give me pointers on cooking. Today's useful discovery was that I need to add Würze to my soups. "Würze", which looks a lot like my last name, are spices. "Wurzel", which is the first 60% of my last name, means "root." Therefore, my name could be literaly translated "Dan Rootman," which rhymes with itself and generally sounds Hollywood (yeah, so maybe I'm stretching it). Some of you may remember erratic NY Yankee second baseman Chuck Knoblauch. While learning spices, I learned that Knoblauch is German for garlic, thus leading to Chuck Garlic. Unfortunately, directly translating names doesn't work for everybody. Mister Knoblauch, thanks for forever imprinting the German word Knoblauch into my head. One less word I have to study.

Die Kultur geht kaput!

Today marked my return to Switzerland, home of the Alps, “neutrality,” army knives, watches, banking, punctuality, cheese, and chocolate, after a 1.5 year absence. I’m sure that some Swiss bank accounts are paying somebody off to create such a stainless reputation. Regardless, my language course offered an excursion to Basel, the second largest city in Switzerland, located at the intersection of Germany, France and Switzerland. The whole day was a snowstorm, and was also Sunday, meaning that the city was silent.

After arriving in the Basel train station, we walked over to the Rhein, but rather than taking the bridge across, we had planned to do the cultural thing that no Swiss people do anymore unless they are Amish*, but even Amish* people use bridges and none live in Switzerland: take the cute little boat across, which is powered by the river’s current. We arrived at the ferry station and rang the bell to summon the captain, who was on the opposite shore line. The captain wasn’t really in a hurry to respond, so Dennis, the leader of the excursion, exclaimed, “Ach, die Kultur geht kaput!” and then had to use his cell phone to call the captain, who ferried us across. Although I may sound mildly cynical, it was actually fun. I love that the Germans apply the word "kaput" so liberally.

The rest of the day was spent touring the impressive Basel Muenster, Basel Art Museum , and the disappointingly boring PuppenHausMuseum. I also ate delightful Turkish food and bought cut-rate Coop brand Swiss chocolate from the Coop grocery store.

*I suppose one nice thing about writing this blog on the internet is that I can be guaranteed that no Amish people will read it and be offended.

Heidelberg

Since arriving in Germany, I've spent two days with my friend Dan, also from UNC and also named Dan, who has been studying in Heidelberg this year. He showed me around his town and explained a bit of the living- in-Germany learning curve to me. First, he tried explaining all of this to me in his now refined, rapid-fire German, but I was having some trouble following him, so we eventually devolved to mostly English. He explained that he felt exactly as I do, overwhelmed, during his first few days, which hopefully means that I'm on the right track to becoming a German-speaking juggernaut.

Dan was incredibly helpful at explaining several aspects of the German university system, how recognize and use a light switch in Germany, urban transit, cafeteria food, and how to interact with the locals. For example, he needed to find the chemistry course booklet, so he showed me how to go about finding one. After we wandered through a couple buildings unsuccessfully, he approached a random female student to ask where to get the book. To summarize her response, she just provided the directions so that he could get the book. We walk away and as soon as she is out of earshot, Dan said, "Oh yeah, she definitely likes me."

The past few days, I've felt like a tourist, which I have been; however, it is hard to grasp that I'm actually here in Germany to stay. And now, I head to Freiburg for the full experience.

The most stylish church bell tower, which I walk by everyday on the way to the Strassenbahn.

Mild update (March): Sam says that it looks like DNA. I'm sure that is exactly what the church was going for.

Dan's second day in Freiburg. The spire behind me belongs to the Freiburg Muenster.

My spotless room upon my arrival in Littenweiler.

The Mensa, or student cafeteria, for the University of Heidelberg. Yes, this is a student cafeteria, not a night club. Apparently, Germans are big fans of neon lights.

Dan from Heidelberg, standing next to an igloo near the Heidelberg Castle.

Heidelberg, Germany: In the foreground is a statue, which is probably important. In the background looms the impressive Heidelberg castle, overlooking the city.

The swank Frankfurt train station. Note the palm trees indoors. It was snowing outside.