Introduction

August 2000
September 2000
October 2000
November 2000
December 2000
January 2001
February 2001
March 2001
April 2001
May 2001
June 2001
July 2001
August 2001

September 2000

12 September 2000

25 September 2000

12 September 2000
Tuesday

I'm writing this in an internet cafe in Hamburg, Germany; I meant to write it nearly two weeks ago, but there is not yet internet access in the Smith Center [1], and I have just found this internet cafe, so this is the first time I've touched a computer in two weeks. It is a lifetime!

If there are typos, etc., it's not my fault; German keyboards are weird.

I hand-wrote this entry yesterday, like I meant to do more than a week ago, but I have been busy/tired/lazy/braindead. Now I'm here, though, so I'll start at the beginning of my trip.

I flew over on Sabena, a Belgian airline, and the transatlantic flight to Brussels was major-spiffy, though also majorly long. I had time to watch three silly movies on the personal TV screen on the back of the seat in front of me. I didn't see any of Brussels, just the airport, but that unfortunately included a customs officer who accused me of not having a German visa, which was true, but he let me through (I was afraid he wouldn't!). Two of my American compadres, Kelly and Caitlin, were on the same flight as me from Brussels to Hamburg, so we sat together, which was fun. Unfortunately my big suitcase was lost -- what a nightmare! -- and I didn't get it back for two days.

The first days were confusing and hectic; there is a ton of stuff to be done upon settling in, like going to the Einwohnermeldeamt (office) and getting an Meldebestätigung [2] and opening a bank account and setting up a telephone (I got a cell phone). And in the middle of all this, of course, I have to remember to feed myself.

On every floor in my dorm there is a kitchen. In the kitchen there are a cupboard and a refrigerator with my room number on them, and I can keep food and stuff in there. Unfortunately the cupboard is so small that I have to keep a lot of stuff in my room. There are some public kitchen utensils, but I really prefer to use my own, because my kitchen is kind of skanky, and I'd rather know that my own utensils are clean, and that I'll have them when I need them.

Personally, my feelings have been all over the place. When I feel bad, it's mostly because I'm separated from all my old friends, and it's hard to make new ones. I could really use a burst of extrovertedness like I had two years ago, when I was new at MHC! But on the plus side, everything physical and mental (as opposed to emotional) is going well; my German is progressing, I'm getting things done, etc. I really enjoy this city, and I like being here. I just wish I had some good friends. It's hard to find one's place in a new society.

Even though classes at the University don't start until Oct. 23, the Smith program has classes for us to get better at reading, writing, grammar, etc., and to get to know Hamburg itself as well as the University. The teachers are really nice, and I'm already finding the classes to be very helpful. They're helping my German, which is good. I can feel the difference in my head.

The biggest challenge (one that never goes away!) is keeping myself fed. It was the first thing I had to do here, and it's a problem that never stays solved. I have eaten out a couple of times, but that's expensive and impractical. Instead I tend to eat at home, in the kitchen. That's the best place to meet people on my floor, but eating in the same place as other people is not the same as eating with them. So I got a frozen spinach pizza yesterday and invited Caitlin, who lives two floors down from me, to share it with me this evening. It'll be nice to eat with someone for once. And now I even have enough plates and silverware for two people! Woohoo!

So there you have it. In short, the trials and tribulations and sundry joys of my life. And now I am going to get out of this stinky internet cafe! Auf Wiederlesen!

25 September 2000
Monday

Once again, I am strenuously composing on a grimy low-quality keyboard in an internet cafe in Hamburg. I had at least hoped to be doing it for free, but that didn't work out, so here I am, because even if this isn't the best solution, at least it's simple.

A couple of weeks in "Praktische Orientierung" (henceforth PO) we visited the university library, the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, otherwise affectionately known as the Stabi. This library is very different from "normal" US libraries in that you have to look in the catalog and order a book, which will then be available for pickup about a day later. (And then of course you find that it's not actually what you want at all!) The actual stacks are inaccessible. For this reason, the Seminarbibliotheken, department libraries, are very important; even though the books are usually not for check-out, you can actually see and touch books on the shelves.

We also visited the Hamburger öffentliche Bücherhalle (the Hamburg Public Library), which is much more like public libraries in the US than the Stabi is like US university libraries.

The other resource the libraries have is internet access! I've tried to get online in the Stabi, but I don't think I found the right place. I'll try again later maybe, but apparently the Seminarbibliotheken (especially my department, Political Science) have computers which are very little used, so I'm going to go in the next few days and get myself inscribed in the department, after which I can use the computers there!

By the way, I do not know why I am enrolled in Politische Wissenschaft as a department/institute, but I guess it's just because Europastudien doesn't exist here (people give me very funny looks when I tell them that's my major).

Before I completely leave the subject of the library, I must say that it does have an excellent online catalog, much better than the MHC catalog I have used for most of the past two years. (It has both an English and a German version, by the way.) Unfortunately, only books entered after 1973 are listed in the online catalog; before that, they're in the card catalog, and before World War II they're in hand-written books, which are still on shelves on the third floor.

The past couple of weekends have been very eventful. Sunday a week ago (the 17th I think) I went to the Architekturzentrum (which has a model of Hamburg) and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (arts and crafts museum) with Ute and the whole group. It was all interesting, but Ute, who leads our PO activities, always talks too much. At the museum I saw an exhibit of Herb Ritt's black and white photographs (there were some absolutely gorgeous black athletic bodies, especially breathtaking on a white background) and another of antique art (lots of Greek urns, but unfortunately no good phallic/erotic scenes; the curators must reserve them for their own private orgies).

Unfortunately, on the way home from the museum there was a check of bus tickets, and I had left my monthly pass, along with my passport, at home. Argh! The bus guys were actually really nice, though, and it was okay because the next day, Monday, I went to the office and showed my monthly pass and paid a mere DM5 instead of the usual fee of DM60 for Schwarzfahren. I really should have been a little smarter on Sunday, though; instead of simply buying a one-way ticket, I walked the whole way home.

The end of the day was better, because I picked up my bus pass, etc. and went back downtown for a Mahler concert (performed by the Hamburg Symphonic Orchestra with four others of the group. It was great; Hillary, the Mahler junkie, was completely delirious with happiness, even though it was the 5th symphony, not her favorite, the 9th.

This weekend was also incredible. The twelve of us, with Gabi (the program director), Ute, Mannfred, and Andreas (the instructors), went to the island Amrum, which is to the northwest of Hamburg, in the North Sea close to Denmark. We left early Saturday morning and came back late Sunday night, and in between we ate a lot of good food, bicycled off the calories, and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. I was nervous about the bicycling, because usually my legs die when I haven't bicycled for ages, which I hadn't, but they were surprisingly happy with the exercise. My tongue and stomach were even more satisfied with the food; Saturday afternoon I bought bread with sheep cheese in it and ate it for lunch on a small hill next to the Wattsee. Dinner was crab soup, then miscellaneous seafood (crab, mussels, fish, maybe something else) with potatoes. Sunday lunch was mussel soup and Seezunge -- sorry, I have absolutely no idea what that is in English, but it was delicious. It was a let-down to go back to my own pasta-every-night cuisine.

I hate eating alone. I do it when I have to, but my other solution is to invite other people over, which I did on Wednesday. it wasn't a complete dinner party, but just a dessert thing; I bought a couple of Viennetta ice cream things, and we scarfed them and talked. It was very fun. I feel like I'm getting to know the other people in the group, which is great. It's always nice to have friends.

I wish I could cook a little better, but I really enjoy my life. I especially enjoy the fact that I now have two plates and two sets of silverware, so I can actually invite a friend over without saying "bring your own dishes," which is not exactly rude but certainly less than snazzy.

My German is coming along, but unfortunately my three languages have started to mix in my head, creating confusion. I tend to say things in the first language that comes to mind, which is not always the language of the listener. I wish my brain worked like it's supposed to!

I must go now; I have already spent multiple hours writing this, and I still have errands to do today. Until next time!

October 2000

[1] A couple of rooms with a kitchenette in the basement of a building where the students on my program have classes and stuff.
[2] German bureaucracy at work -- basically I have to tell them where I'm living, and I get a piece of paper that proves I've done that.

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