Deutscheliza

From cats to doughnut holes

2008-06-11T15:21:00.001+02:00

Since I only have 5 weeks left in Germany, I figured I had better give you all another update before I leave! A lot has happened in the space between my last email and this one, so I am afraid that I must pick and choose my stories to tell or else this email could get ridiculously long. In continuing with the themes of blind cats, soccer, and work, I will give everyone a brief update.

I haven’t had much time (or patience) to stop by Ute and Mattias’ house lately, but I did haphazardly stumble upon them (again) one morning while on a run. While Ute was filling me in on the latest happenings of her life, including a new orangish-brownish-blondish hair color, I heard Mattias meow in the distance. He was attached to a retractable leash and I had figured that he meowed because he had circled 3 or 4 trees and could no longer move. Well, Ute thought differently proclaiming: “He has found another Pfifferling!” I thought she was talking about some little bug or something, but no- to my total shock, Mattias had found a chanterelle- an orange-fungus that smells kind of like apricots. In other words, that blind cat does find mushrooms! It was at that point that I began to question my own sanity…Blind. Cat. Finds. Mushrooms. For. Lady. With. Hair. Of. Tiger. Chanterelles are delicious, by the way.

As far as the soccer team goes, it now goes without me. I was kicked off in April because I am considered a semi-professional, having played for a division 3 soccer team in college. In my opinion, it probably doesn’t take a semi professional 3 full days to recover after a game, but none the less, I had to leave. I am now afraid to even go close to Zähringen, where my team club is located, because I single handedly caused my team to go immediately into last place. That’s right, as a fine- they had to forgo all points earned for every game I played in, (3 for a win, 1 for each goal). On the bright side, they would have probably finished 3rd to last anyways.

With the job, everything is starting to finish up. I still bring beans to work, and have now adopted the lunchtime name “Eliza the Mesoamerican.” My last day is in 3 weeks (woo hoo!) and then I’m free to roam about wherever I please. Nothing is set in stone, but I do have rollerblading to France on my mind right now. Oh, and rollerblading here is considered cool, just to let all of you haters out there know.

To fill in some of the gaps between now and waaay back in the last email…
-I have briefly travelled back to the states- where I settled a dispute between a homeless man and another man in the Philadelphia train station with the use of doughnut holes.
-I attended my program’s final seminar in Berlin, where we were graced by Angela Merkel’s appearance (Chancellor of Germany). I also met the US Ambassador to Germany and his lovely translator (said in a sarcastic tone because I believe the US Ambassador to Germany should speak German) .
-I stayed in an ancient wood cabin in the heart of the black forest for a weekend. The house is owned by the forestry department and can only be rented by foresters, so my roommate (forester) rented it out for his birthday. In attendance: Pig on a spit, 10 crates of beer, 25 foresters, about 6 Black Forest cakes, and maybe 40 sausages. The only thing somewhat healthy at the party was fruit, which was soaked in schnapps.
-I witnessed the biggest cultural event of my time in Germany: A traditional carpenter (Zimmermann) embarking on his 3 year wanderjahr. As tradition holds, before they go they must be outfitted with a single gold hoop earring. The piercing is made with a hammer and a nail! In his case, it was done on a wooden stump.

Oh, to conclude this email, I have a job when I get back to the states (woo hoo)! Just to quickly sum it up (because this email is getting really long)- I am the new Cranberry Isles Sustainability Fellow for Greater Cranberry and Little Cranberry Islands, located off the coast of Maine (combined population: 120). It is my job to make the islands “green.” To be quite honest, I am really scared and picture this job to be something along the lines of “Survivor” on CBS. Anyways, I hope everyone is doing well and I will be back in the states on July 17th!

Take Care,
-Deutcheliza

Munchkinland

2008-04-09T19:07:00.000+02:00

Hi Everyone,

In my next to last update, I addressed the topics of work, soccer and the cat lady. Sticking with these themes, I'll give you all an update.

I have met with Ute and her blind cat, Mattias, 5 times so far. Ute is 84 years old and Mattias is probably that old in cat-years. I have since learned that the both of them are CRAZY, something I should have figured out earlier (mushroom season is in the fall). Anyways, every meeting with the pair gets progressively weirder, and last Tuesday a cheery Ute answered he door with a new hairdo. Apparently, her hair had just returned from a trip to the fiery pits of hell, where it had caught fire and had not yet been extinguished. It was bright orange, like the color of Tang®. I don't know if all elderly German women go through an experimental hair color stage or if it is a simple confusion over which dye number to use (# 666 perhaps?), but from what I have witnessed so far in my time here, it is an epidemic of extreme proportions. Anyways, Ute and I usually sit at her kitchen table and talk about the weather, American politics, and to my utter horror, men (she is having relations with Herrn Müller, whomever that is). There is some comic relief to these sessions though, and it is probably the reason why I keep coming back. See, Ute likes to put Mattias up on the table while we are talking and the cat, for one reason or another (maybe because he is blind), consistently walks the plank. Whether Germany has made me evil, insensitive, or both- I am not sure, but watching that cat walk right off the edge of the table never gets old. He always walks away a little ticked off, until Ute picks him up...and the vicious cycle continues.

My job is still great, however I have been on the receiving end of some food-harassment lately. It is company policy that everyone who brings a lunch to work eats together, so it's usually my boss and I that are the brown baggers while everyone else goes out to eat. Now I usually eat my leftovers for lunch, and one day I brought in a confetti of black beans, corn, tomato, cucumber and pepper. My boss looks at my lunch and says, "Eliza- your food is too colorful, maybe you should try eating more like a German." A few days later, over a salad containing black eyed peas, he asks- "Do all Americans eat as many beans as you do?" I tell him that I eat a lot of beans because they are cheap and nutrient packed, and we leave it at that. Then last week over a meal of chickpeas and rice, he tells me: "Eliza, I have been doing some calculating and I think we can afford to pay you more- so you don't have to eat beans everyday for lunch." Ha! This is great news, but little does he know- I am on a fiber crusade and beans are the answer. In the meantime, I am going to halt lunchtime bean eating until I get my paycheck.

On the soccer front, I am finally a card-carrying member of TSV Alemannia-Zäringen's women's soccer team. Playing with them is like walking into a high school time warp, where the image one projects on the soccer field is every bit as important as performance i.e. -they use ample amounts of hairspray. Despite my unwillingness to spray down my mass of hair, i'm generally accepted as team elder and have been invited to team events such as Alex's Fuhrerschein Party (Alex got her drivers license party. We had our first league game last weekend against the women of Haslach- a tiny team from a tiny town nestled in the Black Forest. Not a single player on that team was over 5 foot 2. Their heights, combined with knee high soccer socks and the occaisional grunt-and/or-giggle made me feel like I was Dorothy in Munchkinland. Despite all this, they proved to be a pretty good team and beat us 1-0.

Well, that is about all that is going on with me. My living situation is still great and I discovered that there is a wood oven bakery around the corner from my house- so I couldn't ask for anything more. I hope everyone is great!

-Deutscheliza

Sea of white

2008-03-15T10:56:00.003+01:00

I've been meaning to post this for a while now...

In February, a German family invited me to go skiing with them in the Austrian Alps. They told me that I'd just have to pay for the room, all else was covered-so I jumped at the invitation. My family could never be described as mountain people... all of them inhabit one swamp or another, so I am relatively new to the ski/snowboard scene (I think I've snowboarded 3 times before). Anyhow, we get to the Tirol district of Austria, which is nestled in the alps, and you should have seeen the ski lift. The ride lasted 20 minutes and took me approximately 6 thousand feet up the mountain, where it then let me off. I was terrified. Here I was, hardly coordinated enough to stand up with a snowboard, let alone ride one down the whole freaking mountain. But I tried. I fell all the time. There was one particular fall where I went over a ledge, dropped 10 feet, LANDED it, and was so shocked that I was still standing that I fell. Getting up, I noticed that my snowboard was red, the pants the family found for me were red, my rain jacket, the only water proof thing that I brought to Germany=Red. If I were to have viewed the shot of me from above, a red fleck lying in a sea of white, I would have thought someone was filming a Kotex commercial.Haha, I guess my slogan would be..."If I had a pad with wings, I wouldn't be in this situation."
I took me 45 minutes to get down the mountain, and I tried it 4 more times until my quad muscles felt like they were going to snap in half. The next day= couldn't move. I am alive though, so that is really the only thing that matters!

Finally settled in Freiburg

2008-03-05T11:54:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone, greetings from Freiburg!

I’ve been in Freiburg for nearly a month now, and I have to say that West German life is pretty great. It’s actually completely opposite from East German life, specifically: People don’t stare at me nearly as much, it’s sunny and warm most of the time, people are mostly kind and helpful, and the whole communist DDR theme isn’t really here. I live in a house with 4 other people (Italian, Swiss, and 2 German foresters) on the outskirts of town and the Black Forest is a 10-minute walk from my front door. I really like my job, and so I’ll start off with that.

The name of my firm is Unique Forestry, and I have decided that they are not named Unique because of their ways of handling business, they call themselves that because they are so Un-German. Not a single one of them is blonde, they eat spicy exotic foods from areas like Sri Lanka, and they have a FREE coffee/cappuccino/espresso machine. The last one is actually unbelievable since NOTHING is free in Germany. Since I’m not a coffee drinker, they granted me unlimited access to the “Tee Schrank,” which is a cabinet in the kitchen stocked with all sorts of exotic teas from far away lands. Now I love tea more than most people and drink it in large quantities, but what they have in that cabinet is not tea- it is crack in leaf form. I made the mistake of drinking a cup of it on my first day of work and not only did I feel like jumping out of my own skin, but the magical way in which caffeine gets things moving made my first few hours at the office a living hell. I didn’t know where the bathroom was and I certainly didn’t want to be known as the destroyer. So I’ll stop there, and just say that I am forever in debt to the little French bakery on the corner. Anyways, besides the fact that the company doesn’t operate without caffeine, everyone is really laid back. It’s not uncommon for my coworkers to show up to work wearing the exact same thing as the day before. This is probably due to the fact that all of their clean clothes are still line drying, but it’s great news for me since my current wardrobe consists of 3 pairs of pants and 3 sweaters. They have me doing random fun projects that so far have ranged from a carbon footprint to shea butter marketing, but I sit at a desk every day from 9 to 5, and that is extremely difficult for me.

Umm, let me see here. I was on a hike last week and I saw an old woman standing in the woods holding a leash with a cat on the other end. I couldn't resist asking her what she was doing, so I did- and she told me that her cat was blind and really good at finding mushrooms. I could not think of any comments for that, so we parted ways. Turns out, that woman is my across the street neighbor! I saw her walking her cat on Monday and I went to introduce myself. She asked me if I spoke english, I said yes, then she asked if we could be tandem language partners. I agreed, so we'll see how it goes with a possibly crazy lady and her blind, mushroom finding cat.

The only other major thing going on with me at the moment is that I have joined a women’s soccer team. I was worried that I had lost all of my soccer skills since it has been 3.5 years since I last played, but alas- it’s like riding a bike (the bike just has a flat tire at the moment). At my ripe old age of 24, I am the oldest person on the team by at least 5 years… there are girls on my team who were born in 1991! Despite the fact that I rarely know what is coming out of my teammates mouths (mostly slang, damn teenagers!), I seem to be fitting in all right and I can’t wait to start playing in games.

Ok, so that is my update for the past month or so. In no particular order, this is why all of you should come visit me: Wine, bikes, black forest, beer, France, Switzerland, fresh markets, 70 degree weather, and did I mention that my room is a loft room with a SWING!

Take care everyone,
-Eliza

Here is my new Address:

E. Greenman
Johannisbergstr. 15
79102 Freiburg-Waldsee
Deutschland

Vagabonding

2008-01-25T10:05:00.001+01:00

Hi Everyone, happy 2008!

It's been a while since I last updated, and I apologize for not responding to emails that have been sent to me in the time between. A lot has been going on, and frankly- it's hectic being a bum…

Ok, so to quickly sum up the holiday season- I spent Christmas playing charades with 2 Russian girls, a Japanese guy, an Indonesian girl, and a guy from Bangladesh…all of whom I had never met before. Due to the language barrier, it was probably the most difficult cultural situation I have encountered since my arrival in Germany. If anyone knows how to act out Goethe, a kiwi, or the color green, let me know. My official BUM status began shortly after Christmas, when I moved out of my apartment and decided to rove throughout Germany/countries bordering Germany. Fellow Sewanee pal, K-Kaiser, joined me on the first leg of my adventure, where we narrowly escaped being one of the 273 injured people in Prague due to the New Years Eve fireworks. It was a madhouse! We then sped through Vienna, hiked through Salzburg, toured in Munich, and parted ways- in better shape than when we started due to the fact that we probably walked 80 miles.

I get from place to place using a glorified hitchhiking site called Mitfahrgelegenheit (5 euros/100km), I either stay with complete strangers using www.couchsurfing.com or other Americans in the program, and I live off of müsli, apples, bread, beans, and gummi bears. Yeah, I probably just scared my Mother. Anyways, I've learned a lot on these travels…Like the only thing separating me from a bunch of prostitutes in Hamburg is a fanny pack. Oh, and moral values (of course). It was crazy how plainly dressed they were, like if I was waiting on the sidewalk for someone and just so happened to be wearing a fanny pack- I might get approached for business. By the way, Chuck Norris doesn't wear a fanny pack, he wears a hip mounted tactical assault bag.

I officially start work on Feb. 11th with Unique Forestry and move into my totally awesome loft apartment on the 15th. My job title is Carbon Finance Intern, which makes me pretty excited and scared at the same time, considering that I have absolutely no experience with carbon finance. I'll mainly be working on an emissions reductions project for a coffee plantation in Uganda. It sounds pretty great, we'll just have to see if it is!

That's about all I have to say for the past month or so. I'm staying with a friend in Dresden for the week and just had to rescue 10 pairs of my underwear that blew all over the street due to a strong gust of wind in my window sill. Let me tell you, I cannot wait to come back to the states and use a dryer. The thought of having all your clothes dry in 60 minutes is mind blowing!

I hope everyone out there is great, and I'll try and return some of those emails!

Powerpoint

2007-12-20T22:21:00.000+01:00

I want the few of you who read this blog to look at this powerpoint slide above, taken last week during a seminar class. When I was in college, I had to take a class called Junior Presentations- where all of the natural resources majors were taught how to give a successful powerpoint presentation. As a result, I have become a total powerpoint snob and the fact that I took this picture during class is total proof.

Swingin' Hammers and Leather Pants

2007-12-07T22:14:00.000+01:00

Greetings Everyone!

A lot has happened since I last updated, so I'll quickly summarize the lesser events. Glücklischer Luke Padgett (Old Sewanee Pal) and myself successfully hosted a very edible Thanksgiving for 2 Mexicans, 2 Germans and a Portuguese. We ended up cooking 2 chickens after learning that it is impossible to thaw a turkey in 2 hours. The following day, mostly due to my sketchiness and partially due to Luke's Czechiness (his having a full beard and long hair), the German-Czech border police detained Luke in their office above the train station until I could prove his American citizenship. That wasn't the only run in with the law that I encountered… I was arrested a week later by the Leipzig Tram Police (glorified Rent-a-Cops) for riding the tram with an invalid ticket (an honest mistake) and not having my passport. They let me go with a 40 Euro fine, which is just about the equivalent of 1000000 US dollars. The other events will be elaborated below:

I'll start with my personal tour of the Münden Forest District, guided by none other than Frau SCHWINGENHAMMER. Putting aside the fact that her last name is SCHWINGENHAMMER, which should always be written in all capital letters, the woman is proof that Paul Bunyan lived, and bred. You know, I'm not easily intimidated- but the fact that this woman was 6'2," carried an ax on her belt loop, was wearing a leather vest (no doubt from a wooly mammoth), and had the build of an Olympic shot-putter put me on my best behavior. For the better part of the morning, I followed (ran) through the ridiculously groomed woods as she marked timber for a future sale. We stopped midday for lunch, and sat on two downed logs to eat. I had brought a deliciously inappropriate bean sprout, red pepper and hummus wrap (which I made, Hummus does not exist here) while she whipped out a thick slab of Leberkäse situated between two large slices of hearty dark bread and a beer. Leberkäse, for those of you wondering, is basically a hotdog taking the shape of a loaf of bread and then cut into slices. We ate in silence for a little while until Frau SCHWINGENHAMMER threw me a curve ball. "Do zey call you Little Leeeza Jane in zee USA?" I began to laugh uncontrollably and laughed so hard that I started to cry and fell off the spruce log I was sitting on. Given the contagious properties of laughter, SCHWINGENHAMMER joined in the hysterics and we quickly became the most ridiculous sight any man or animal has ever seen in those woods. The day ended with a tour of the sawmill and then a few beers with SCHWINGENHAMMER and some of the mill workers. What an experience! I regretfully forgot to bring my camera to this forest tour, but I've been invited to visit whenever, so I'll definitely document any future encounters.

Last week I became the proud owner of a used pair of leather pants, otherwise known as Lederhosen. Even though these pants enable me to live la Vida loca, they are in no way Ricky Martin fans. In fact, these pants eat Ricky Martin's leather pants for breakfast and their bad-ass stature makes them the subject of desire for many a Hell's Angel. (For the older crowd reading this email- Ricky Martin is a former member of Menudo that made it big in the late 90's with hit songs such as "Livin la Vida loca" and "Shake Your Bon Bon.)" I have a chainsaw class this Monday, where I plan on wearing the "pants that can stand-up by themselves."

To conclude this email, I got a job! From Feb.1-June. 30 I'll be working for "Unique Forestry Consultants" in Freiburg, Germany. Freiburg is in Southern Germany, bordering France and Switzerland, and is known as the warmest city in Germany (Score!). It is a small company that also has offices in Africa and South America. I've been hired as the girl who helps anyone who needs help. This will be cool, I can't wait!

Ok, well I hope all is well with everyone!
Bis dann!

Photosynthesis

2007-11-19T16:56:00.001+01:00

After what seemed like a lifetime of overcast skies and general dreariness, THE SUN FINALLY CAME OUT IN DRESDEN!!! Because my cells are mainly composed of cellulose, I decided to photosynthesize a bit and go on a hike. Let me tell you, I was a new person! So I hiked up some valley and saw a field in the distance. Beyond the field was a windmill (one of those big industrial sorts). I decided that it would be a good idea to walk across the field so I could get a better view of the windmill and have a good photo opportunity. I got halfway across the field when I saw a large red tractor high tailing it in my direction. It hadn't dawned on me that this could be private property and I was, in fact, trespassing. I decided to bolt for it and started running back towards the forest, only to notice that the tractor was gaining on me. In the end, it was my choice in wardrobe that saved me. You see, I had made it into a little patch of trees and the old man driving the tractor must have been a little hard of seeing, because he could not distinguish me (wearing dark brown pants and a dark green fleece) from the other spruce trees I was standing with. He gave up the search because the next step in the hunt was for him to get off his tractor, and I don't think he was up for that. So, I made it out of there...safe and sound! I then hiked about for another hour and went home when the sun started to set at 3:25.

Here are some pictures from the event...farmer excluded.
This is the windmill in the distance

Another glimpse at what I was hightailing it across
My refuge that saved me
Another field I came across...but didn't cross.

More Pictures...

2007-11-17T01:10:00.001+01:00

This is a picture taken on Thursday from my forestry campus in Tharandt.Once again, Tharandt. The church on the hill is still functioning as a place of worship. There is an old castle ruin hidden in this picture as well.

This is the view from my new apartment. This is typically what it looks like...gray, wet and cold.

This is an example of how the Germans have succeeded in getting kids excited about going into the forest. There are tons of these spread all about. Things like this give me a refreshed view of what I can do when I return to the states.

Email responses to below letter...

2007-11-15T17:40:00.000+01:00

I enjoyed this response from a former professor of mine so much that I've decided to post it.

Hey Eliza,
It's early in the morning and I am sitting in a cafe in southern New Mexico that somehow has internet access. I was just biting into a rather good looking ham/cheese/croissant thing when I read your story about the farting tuba. Much grosser than the caterpillar. I had a vision of very large and hairy buttocks flapping in a fart hurricane and had to put my sandwich down for a bit. Thanks.

Sounds and Resurrection

2007-11-15T11:06:00.000+01:00

Greetings from Dresden, the city that never stops raining! Actually, I’ll retract that statement and say that it does stop raining every once in a while to give his pals, snow and sleet, a chance to prove themselves. I’m not going to talk about the weather though, because there are more important topics to discuss…

I have lived in this nice, new apartment of mine for nearly 2 weeks and I’ve come to realize that it’s less of an apartment and more of a ritzy dorm for international students. I really enjoy the fact that I can walk down the hallway and talk with people from all over the world, but there is one problem…the thin walls. My first complaint about this structural problem is the selection of music that my neighbors share with me. At the moment, one is blasting the “Chicken Dance Song,” a wordless song played by an accordion/trumpet duet that has a rightly named “Chicken Dance” to go along with it. Before that, they were playing something that sounded like the Russian National Anthem and ABBA is always a favorite. Anyhow, the other sounds managing to float through my walls are sounds of a different kind. They belong to my upstairs neighbor, a man (I assume it’s a man) who frequently has the uncontrollable urge to play the tuba…the flatulence tuba that is. It is absolutely amazing how he can have so much gusto in his lower intestinal tract to produce sub-woofer quality toots. I am not kidding when I say this, but one seriously woke me up the other night- perhaps it was magnified through the box spring coils, I don’t know. My guess is that he’s not used to the Germans and their sausage-cheese-bread diets. He needs help, perhaps I should bring him some vegetables.

Speaking of vegetables, I was cooking dinner tonight and I went to cut up a bell pepper, only to find that there was a large dead worm/caterpillar thing in it. I won’t lie, coming from the US where pesticides are frequently used, I rarely see this sort of thing and it kind of grossed me out. So I put the bell pepper down and left the kitchen for a little post worm cool-down. When I came back 20 minutes later, the worm/caterpillar was gone! He has risen from the dead, crawled to some hiding spot, and is now patiently waiting to sink his tiny razor teeth into the next delicious piece of produce that comes his way! I can’t find him anywhere and I keep having reoccurring visions from that children’s book, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” where the caterpillar eats his way through ice cream, salami, watermelon, and I think it was a lollipop until it pupates and becomes a butterfly. Rather than teaching children about the cycle of a butterfly, I now see it as a tool of propaganda for the pesticide industry. I certainly do not want that caterpillar to eat me out of house and home only to become some pesky butterfly that won’t move away from my lamp fixtures when I’m trying to read.

Alright, that concludes this email. I was going to write a little more about some of the sites that I have seen recently, but I got a little carried away with the caterpillar in my kitchen. I apologize for that, more stories will come in the next two weeks or so. With that said, Happy Thanksgiving!!! I’ll be eating a delicious turkey/stuffing/cranberry sauce meal with a friend from Sewanee… that is, if the caterpillar doesn’t eat if first!

Some pictures

2007-11-07T14:39:00.000+01:00

In the Neustadt part of Dresden lies Kunspassage. Every alleyway has a different artistic theme. Here is an example of one of the alleys.

The sport of hot air ballooning is huge in Germany. Here is a picture taken from my old apartment.

Here are some pictures taken from my last hike.
Beech forest

"Silent Love" that way

Nightmare Weather!

2007-11-06T20:00:00.000+01:00

The weather here is abominable. It is seriously in my top 5 list of worst weather ever endured. The high today was 38 degrees fahrenheit and the wind was gusting at near hurricane force strength. It was so strong that an old lady was pushed off the concrete platform at the tram stop and onto the tracks! I found myself having to walk in diagonal patterns back to my flat because the wind was blowing me all over the place. To add insult to injury, it was sleeting and ice pellets were embedding themselves into the flesh of my face. Before I got to my flat, I stopped in at the Netto Mart for a last ditch attempt to improve my demeanor and purchased a bottle of Glühwein (spiced wine that is served warm). When I got back to my apartment, I warmed up the wine, snuggled into my bed with the latest Diana Gabaldon book and completely ignored the turmoil that was going on outside my window. If the weather is like this tomorrow, which it likely will be...I AM NOT going to school. It's not worth it, sitting in a class soaked to the bone and only understanding 40% of what is going on.

Freezing Germany

2007-10-30T12:13:00.000+01:00

Spending the last month in a relatively large city has made me aware that I seriously lack urban-navigational skills and it is simply unacceptable to carry a compass and a map with you wherever you go. Whenever I want to go somewhere and people tell me that it will take 30 minutes, I plan for an hour and a half because I can NEVER find ANYTHING the first go around. It's not just the public transportation or the fact that many of the buildings look exactly alike that throws me off, but it is also the fact that many of the street names look and sound alike. For example, I was trying to find the Ultimate Frisbee field (located on Schulstrasse) a few weeks ago and during the course of my excursion, I came across: Schulgassestrasse, Schulgutstrasse, Schulgstrasse-Papritz, Schulweg and Schulze-Delitzsch-Strasse. By the time I reached Schulgutstrassse, I could only remember that the name of the street I was looking for started with "Schul." Needless to say, I didn't find the field and then took the wrong bus home. I believe that my lack of city navigation is due to a genetic condition inherited from my mother… A woman who needs to put her head in between her knees and breath into a paper bag if presented with a city's grid plan. Urbanites, we are not.

So I am a member of the TU-Dresden Ultimate Frisbee Team, a sport that I have never really played until now and I'm not very good. While sweating this sport out, I have come across yet another difference between German and American culture and it is: If you are terrible at a sport in America, Americans will go to great lengths in order to not hurt your feelings and will keep you on the team under circumstances like "she has great team spirit," or "she really hustles out there!" Germans, on the other hand, will treat you like Typhoid Mary and would much rather put you down the first chance they get than watch you plague the field with your ineptitude. I'm not making it easy for them to put me down though, because I refuse to sub out! Ha!

I have two tandem partners here in Germany. A tandem partner is someone who is interested in learning your language in exchange for teaching you his or hers. My tandem partners are Thomas and Lisa. Thomas is kind of boring, but Lisa is a riot because she wants to learn American slang (I made her watch The Big Lebowski last week). Anyways, I was talking to Lisa one day about how I'm not used to the cold here and I referred to October as "Octoburrrrr." She told me that I have started to adopt a German sense of humor, which really means: That was not funny.

I'll conclude this long post with a tidbit of German forestry information. I was on a field trip for my Forest Mensuration (Mensuration=measurements, not to be confused with menstruation) class and my professor pointed to an Oak tree and asked us to guess how much it was worth. I guessed 2000 euros, thinking that was way too much, and everyone started laughing at me. My professor then said that it was worth 7-8000 euros because a cubic meter of veneer oak lumber is fairly rare in Germany. That is over 11,000 dollars! Coming from the South-East, I'm not used to those figures.

Dresden thus far

2007-10-16T11:58:00.000+02:00

Hi Everyone.
So after being here for nearly 2 weeks, I'm finally NOT settled into Dresden- I'm moving out of my apartment and into a new one next week. Reason why? My landlord is a psychotic Saxonian-German. He is a very large, old man that speaks with such a thick accent that I can't understand a single word coming out of his mouth. I don't know if it is normal for German landlords to enter into apartments uninvited and to take dumps in their tenant's bathrooms WITHOUT ASKING, but he has done so twice. I came home yesterday afternoon to find him in my apartment sitting on the bed watching TV. I didn't even bother to ask him what he was doing and started screaming at him in the following juvenile german phrases (translated): 1.) GET OUT FAT MAN 2.) GO NOW 3.) GET OUT NOW "poop" Head. He went, thank goodness and now I get to move.

Last weekend I met up with Luke Padgett (Sewanee-Snowden friend) and we attended the last day of Oktoberfest, which we renamed: ShOKTOBERFEST, 2007. We carefully video-documented this endeavor and I have been editing away at the now 15 minute long movie so it is viewer-friendly for the older audiences that receive this email. Ha. Once I get it finished, I will post it on youtube and send all of you the link. Should be sometime this weekend. Anyhow, it was the craziest thing I have ever attended and I will never, EVER, drink a German beer served in a one liter mug again. We really went out with a bang though, seeing as how Luke and I ended up on the Monday evening news. Ok, enough of this story.

I am enrolled in 4 forestry classes here in Dresden. 2 are taught in German (Forest products, Forest stories) and 2 are taught in English (Forest mensuration, Forest policy). The two classes taught in English are part of a tropical forestry masters program here and they are really cool. The program is really diverse, so diverse that I am the only white student in both classes. The others are from Ethiopia, Kenya, Myanmar, Vietnam, Sudan, India, Ghana, Budapest etc. The stories that they tell me about their situations back in their countries are amazing. I am really excited about this upcoming semester.

German competition

2007-10-03T19:01:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone. This is my last night in Southern Germany, so Ithought I'd send a "shorter" email to sum up the rest of my hostfamily living experiences. I go to Dresden tomorrow where I will betemporarily living in a dorm until I can find an apartment. That meansno host family, which is bitter sweet. The next email I send willhopefully contain my new address. Ok…Just when I thought that I was getting used to the food here, myfamily served a whopper for lunch today (figure of speech, not aBurger King whopper).We ate salted herring in some sort of crème saucewith cut up apples, pickles and radishes and it was served overpotatoes. It looked like something you would see the lunch ladyslopping onto Oliver Twist's food tray at the orphanage. Herring, inmy opinion, is a fish that was created in order to use as bait tocatch other, tastier fish…never to feed the masses. I don't know howthe Germans eat it. After the first bite, I didn't even bother withchewing. If it was going to get down my throat, it needed to beswallowed quick and whole. I survived and can now live to tellanother tale…Germans are the most competitive people I have ever met. I hate tobask in my own accomplishments here, but I just so happen to be reallygood at Foosball. It's a talent I discovered when I got to Radolfzell,and it drives my host family nuts that they can't beat me. Theystopped asking me to play with them about 3 weeks ago so they couldpractice amongst themselves. Anyways, earlier today Peter and Ritaasked me if I wanted to play in a final goodbye foosball tournamenttonight. I agreed to it and when I sat down at the dinner tabletonight, there was a glass of wine, filled to the brim. Rita andPeter's glasses were only half full. It seemed as if whenever I wouldtake a sip from my wine glass, they would ask me if I wanted more. Ifelt like Gretel when the witch feeds her all sorts of delicious foodsfor future plumping. Their attempts were futile, I beat the pants offboth of them (10-4, 10-5).The other thing I have to say about Germans tonight is that they don'tlike to be surprised. I finished reading the last Harry Potter a fewweeks back and Peter, Rita and Robert (host bro) all asked me whodied. I told them that they aren't going to get any information out ofme. 2 nights ago, Rita came up to me (Harry Potter comes out in Germanon Oct. 1st) and for the 3rd time, asked me who dies. Once again, Isaid that I wasn't telling and that if she really wanted to know, shecould go look it up online. She then told me that I was being"gemein." I immediately looked up this new word, and it means"bitchy!" She called me "gemein" because I wouldn't ruin the lastHarry Potter. Ha! I can assure you that I didn't lose any sleep overit.

Supermodeling

2007-09-24T18:06:00.000+02:00

I think that living the life of a supermodel would be boring. I was just thinking about it and supermodels probably have it in their contract that they can’t have bruises. Seriously, I must walk into, bump, trip on, or fall on something every day. I get these bruises from doing fun things though, like riding my bike, rollerblading or hiking someplace. Then there are the bruises that are a complete anomaly. You take a shower one evening and there one is, the size of a credit card, and you have absolutely no idea how it got there. How do supermodels prevent those? Hmm, precarious work- supermodeling.

I think that it would be impossible to be an athlete and supermodel. For one, you would probably run 2 miles an hour due to the fact that your body has only allotted 100 calories for such endeavors out of your 500 calorie diet. But then I guess that if you are supplementing your diet with cocaine, it doesn’t matter. Then we visit the bruising issue again. You know, the inside of my right leg just above the ankle is permanently swollen due to someone (Rosemary from ADT) toeing me there in an IM soccer game in 2005. Nobody wants a supermodel with a permanent right cankle! It’s impossible to prevent those types of accidents though, even with shin and ankle guards. Even the wimpy sports, like fencing (sorry to any of you fencers out there) would probably speckle you with dime sized bruises when you were “slain.” I guess they could swim, but no…that would ruin their hair die.

What is there left to do then? All team sports, even synchronized swimming, are out. You can’t eat. Parties are dangerous because the mystery bruises loom everywhere in those types of situations. I guess that leaves watching TV. You probably can’t have a dog or a cat (or even a pig) to watch tv with, because they scratch or bruise without warning. I guess it’s better just to become an actress, or a pants suit model.

Stories from others...

2007-09-18T21:34:00.000+02:00

So I have decided to post some stories that people from my mass mailing list send me in response to my emails.

From my Uncle Marty:
Dear Eliza,
What funny stories! Here's one for you. I went with a healer friend to an appointment he had. His patient's mother was visiting and I was left with her in the living room. She spoke pretty good english and we struck up a conversation. She said she lived in the country outside Vienna on a farm. I asked her if she had any cows on the farm and she said she did. Then she said she was a painter and that she painted cows. I thought this was pretty funny, here is a real country girl I thought, a true Austrian. It seemed even funnier because she was elegantly dressed and obviously cultured and rich. The walls in her daughter's house was covered with paintings but not even one picture of a cow. In fact the paintings were all impressionist.

When her daughter returned we were all talking and I asked her daughter in joking why she didn't have any of her mother's cow paintings. They looked at me wierd and the mother frowned and said "do you think I will paint a cow?" I wondered if she had Alzheimers and told her I must have misunderstood what she said as I was sure that she had said that she painted cows. She and her daughter looked at each other and cracked up. My mother paints chaos, the daughter said like Picasso and Dali.

From a former forestry professor:

Hi Eliza,
Loved the letter...and yes, everything you mention reminds me of times in Germany...including the nude beaches.... where I could not quite understand the desire to play volleyball nude. Just doesn't seem very comfortable. As for the Hash Club I just recently learned about that while I was at the Fernow Experimental Forest in VW. One of the gals (Jane) who had just returned from a 2 week stint on a fire fighting team out west went on her first Hash run in Boise. (It was very popular with the firefighters.) At then end of the race all of the new women had to line up, and as part of their "induction" each was asked to expose a body part. (I am not certain if they were given the choice of which
part.) Jane is a few years younger than I am and was a bit apprehensive, especially when the younger, well endowed girl next to her pulled up her shirt to give the guys an eyeful. When it was Jane's turn she pointed to the girl next to her and said "I am certain that you would prefer to see her boobs again rather than mine, so I shall let her take my turn". And
the girl obligingly lifted her shirt again, the crown roared, and Jane was thus formally accepted into the group on her own terms.

From Jessi:
I wanted to share one from my homestay in Spain..... See i feel your pain on the nudity
thing because one afternoon i wandered out of my room during siesta and looking down the hallway realized my señora was standing nude in front of the bathroom mirror - so i got BOTH SIDES - while she was calmly chatting w/ her 13 year old daughter. very weird to my american mindset and at that point, nude-phobic self. of course I also thought she was lesbian till i realized the strange woman coming out of her room in the afternoon every few weeks was a masseuse not her lover.

Germany part 3

2007-09-18T20:55:00.000+02:00

Over the past two weeks, I have gotten to know Frank, my across the street neighbor who can speak a good deal of English. He is a really nice old guy who has shown me some cool trails to ride my Specialized Hard Tail mountan bike. Anyways, I was invited to his birthday party on Saturday night along with my host family. There were a good number of people at the party and I managed to make casual conversation with another neighbor, a German teacher, who annoyingly kept making me enunciate my Z’s as Ssssss. Just before she was about to give me a lesson in how to roll my R’s (I am convinced it is a skill of the tonsils), Frank stepped in and “saved” me...introducing me to some of his friends and other neighbors. I suddenly found myself surrounded by Germans…all armed with some sort of question to ask me (ranging from American Indians to Kyoto). One of the party guests then asked me to tell her about the program I am in, which I was happy to do because it was easy enough to translate. I began by telling the group that the name of the program in Germany is “Parliamentarisches Patenschafts Programm,” or PPP. Up until that moment, everything I had said carried absolutely no significance to Sophie (the 4 year old). She ran up to me and said (translated): PP? Eliza, do you have to go PP? Did you know that men have penises? EVERYONE laughed for what seems like a lifetime and I was mortified…but it did quickly end the game of Interrogate the American…thank goodness.

The following night I babysat Sophie and as a result, I have decided never to have children. The night began with playing a gigantic game of memory, which I lost at. Usually, I would tell myself that I am pathetic to lose to a 4 year old at a simple memorization game. Not this time, because the memory game was “Fairy Edition.” A fairy on a pink flower is not the match to fairy on a purple flower. I’m pretty sure that the creators of that game have been condemned to hell by more people than just me. Anyways, we ate German pancakes (as close as I can get to a tortilla) for dinner and Sophie refused to eat the rolled up pancake with a fork and knife- only with her hands. She was showing off her power over me and taking quick bites of the pancake when she suddenly turned bright red and said “oweeee.” She withdrew the freshly bitten finger from her mouth and started to cry, I started to laugh. She got pissed off at me and left the table, running to go outside…and WHACK, she ran smack into the newly washed glass door. She started hysterically crying then and I saw that her nose was bleeding profusely…on the carpet. I picked her up and stuck her in the bathroom where she wouldn’t stain anything else and thought back to my wilderness first aid training days and stuck a tampon up one nostril (with effort) and a tissue up the other. Thankfully, she stopped crying and found the new elongation to her nose comical. I decided that it would be best for her to go straight to bed, so I gave her a quick bath and read her the abridged version of Ashenputtel (Cinderella). The rest of the story goes that I waited until Peter and Rita got home and told them what had happened. They checked on Sophie and made sure that she was still breathing, then thanked me for babysitting. Sunday morning, Sophie had 2 black eyes (but no broken nose) and I am officially the worst babysitter EVER. Oh, also…As decreed by Sophie, I now have to put 50 cents in a jar for every time I laugh at Sophie at the dinner table.

Last week, all of the Americans visited the Furstenberg Brewery and upon arrival, we were told to wait by the gates for our tour guide to come. While doing so, I felt as if I were holding the golden ticket for entry into Wonka’s Chocolate Factory- for adults. The gates were tall and pink, with shiny smoke stacks in the distance etched with FURSTENBERG running down the sides in large blue letters. The gates then magically opened and our tour guide appeared. The Wonka illusion promptly ended when the tour guide opened his mouth, because I couldn’t understand a damn word that was coming out of it. An hour and a half of wheat, hops, and antique machines later, we were given a beer stein, a pretzel, and unlimited supply of freshly brewed beer. It was a light colored wheat beer and absolutely delicious. These Germans definitely know what they are doing when it comes to beer.

German Differences

2007-08-31T15:42:00.000+02:00

6am, Tuesday morning: I awoke with the crazy urge to pee. I walk out of my room only to see my host mother completely naked in the hallway. I was hoping that I could make it into the bathroom without her noticing me, what a foolish thought. She turns around and heartily bellows “Guten Morgen Eliza!” So I muttered “guten morgen” and rushed into the bathroom. Germans aren’t modest like us Americans…that’s why they have nude beaches and non-exclusive saunas. Speaking of saunas, I am hoping that it stays decently warm here in Radolfzell (until October), because I don’t know what I’ll do if I get invited to go to a sauna with my host family. I have a negative desire to see my host family naked, and even less desire for them to see me. It’s not that I’m a nakephobe, it’s just that I don’t want to have real mental pictures. It’s one thing to say: That guy drives a Hummer because he has a, well it’s really a matter of what he doesn’t have, isn’t it? Anyways, next topic…

The washing machines in Germany are TINY. Our washing machine at home holds at least 3 times the load that the washing machine here holds. Also, most Germans do not have a dryer. You can actually get a weather forecast here without watching the news or reading the paper. All you have to do is walk outside and see if everyone is spastically hanging clothes to dry. Given the few days that it doesn’t rain here, the sun is a precious commodity and completely necessary if you have run out of clean clothes.

You know, I am not the cleanest person, but I wouldn’t consider myself messy. In German standards, I am an outright slob. They squigee the shower AND the sink after every use! Not in a million years would I think to squigee the sink…maybe during a once a month clean up, but not every day. It’s a godsend that I have been placed in a family that has a 4 year old because it is impossible to keep the house spotless while she rules. I also have to take the toilet bowl scrubber to the toilet nearly every day thanks to the ULTRA low flow toilets that Germans have engineered. I’m all for water conservation…but is it really conservation when you have to flush twice just to get toilet paper down? Maybe it’s because the toilet paper here is the equivalent to Egyptian cotton 1000 thread count sheets. I could seriously make a blanket out of it. Because of this, I am limited to 3 sheets per use, but I really don’t see how the toilet paper police can tell how much I’m using per session.

Also! The water here is on the hard side and I don’t think that I have successfully washed all the soap out of my hair yet. I do believe that if some CSI person had to investigate some crime scene that I was at, they could take a hair sample from me get the exact time of the crime by counting the shampoo residue rings back to the day of the crime.
While I’m on the topic of showers, I would like to say that Germans take no more than 7 minutes in the shower. That means: get wet, lather soap and shampoo on your body, wash it off, get out. At no point during that shower time is shaving mentioned, Why? BECAUSE THERE ISN’T TIME TO SHAVE. I have yet to meet the woman who can successfully shave both legs in under 7 minutes without a.) severing an artery or b.) missing any hair. So, I’m going German…which means that I’m just not going to shave…which means no shorts and no tank tops for me. Winter is coming, no worries there.

I’ve decided that I’m going to join a Hash Club, which is a drinking/running club. They are all over the world (a bunch in the states…even one in Hampton Roads!) and I start on September 5th.. I am really excited. I have to come up with an innuendo laden name, which will be my code name. Then I show up at a bar/pub in my running gear, have a beer, go on a run with a bunch of people, end back at the bar, and have another beer. Seeing as I speak my best german under a small influence, I think this will be a learning experience as well as a great story maker.

Good things...

2007-08-21T19:17:00.000+02:00

2 great things happened today. The first is that my host family told me that they would like to keep me through the month of September. This is wonderful news because I thought I had to move into the student apartments come Friday. Woo! This means that I get breakfast, dinner, a bike and privacy. I really like my host family and they are being most helpful in my learning the language.

The second thing is that I am officially enrolled at the University of Dresden. They actually let me in, haha. I am really excited about this because their forestry school is the oldest in the world and many of the professors speak English! Dresden is known as the greenest city Europe and the rock climbing/sporting there is excellent. I'm also close to the Czech Republic...which means cheap shopping. None of this euro stuff.

ok, that is all for now.

2007-08-18T22:11:00.000+02:00

My hips ache. My legs are sore. My hands are blistered. But it was all worth it!

Yesterday I set off on some trails close to my house and totally got lost and ended up on a trail that went up, over, back up and over a mountain. I then ended up on an old logging road that spit me out on some part of the Auto Bahn. I am thankful for having worked in many a wilderness because it has taught me to always know what direction home is in...in my case, ESE. So I made it home after 2 hours of running. I then showered and went out to Blues night in Radolfzell...where I met up with many of my American friends. The blues ended at midnight or so, so we all went back to Silke's apartment (Silke is a teacher at the language school) and we had a serious dance party. I woke up this morning and my hips feel like they were dislocated and then stuck back into the sockets. I woke up at 9:15 and realized that I had to meet my friend Ryan at 10 because we were going to bike to Switzerland. So I meet up with him and 12 miles later, we are there. The bike trail followed lake constance all the way there and the day couldn't have been more beautiful. We biked to a waterfall, and then to the small town of Stein am Rein. The town is celebrating it's 1000 year anniversary this year. Ryan and I bought some Swiss chocolate, and it is AMAZING. Oh man.

I got back at around 5 and realized that I was supposed to row at 6, so I went and just got back. I am so tired that I don't know what to do with myself. It's the kind of tired where you are absolutly unconfortable in any possition except for laying flat on your back. Tomorrow I'm supposed to go hike up a mountain to see a Castle in Singen. I'm going to let my hips make that decision...because right now, they are feeling rather dislocated.

It is no wonder why all Germans are in shape. They don't really watch TV and they walk or bike EVERYWHERE. It doesn't matter that they only eat meat and bread. My appetite is RAPACIOUS here, and I'm pretty sure that my host family thinks that I am a bottomless pit.

Finally in Germany!

2007-08-18T22:07:00.000+02:00

OK, I'm finally in Germany and all settled in!

I'm staying in the small, very diverse town of Radolfzell, which borders the BodenSee (Lake Constance) and Switzerland. While all of you are baking in the August swelter, I have to put on a jacket every day. There are 19 other participants from America with me here and we span all corners of the United States. We are truly a melting pot and it makes all adventures as a group an experience! I've been placed in the intermediate class at language school and it's really fun. There are Russians, Spaniards, Chinese, Koreans, French and Americans in my class, so instruction is 100% taught in german. The only problem I have encountered is the explanations of German grammar in German. I don't get it.

In terms of culture shock, I'm in what the culture shock people call a "honeymoon" period. This period has been pretty great so far. I've only had a few German mishaps so far, like: My host family had Weiss Wurst (white sausage) for breakfast this morning and I had to be polite and eat it. It's a Bavarian thing and even when cooked, the insides of the sausage are white and you have to remove the thick casing on it before you eat it. Then! You have to put this sweet mustard on it. I'm pretty sure I turned green because they didn't ask me if I wanted another one. The eating pattern went like this: small bite of sausage, BIG BITE OF BREAD, BIG SWIG OF TEA, swallow. You know that show Fear Factor? Where they have to eat cow eyes, worms etc? I equate it to that. The only other cultural thing so far is how devastating trying on pants is. I was thinking that my euro size would be the size I wear in men's pants. Well, when I went to try some jeans on, they were in no way going to fit in this lifetime. Come to find out, euro sizes are in centimeters, not inches. I have a feeling that the metric system is going to get the best of me.

I joined a rowing club here and it's really intense. So intense that I had to move up from the 18-30 group and join the 50+ womens group. Last night I was in a 3 boat with two of the buffest women I have ever seen shy of a body building competition and we rowed for 2 hours. I was so tired by the time I got home that I passed out at 8:15. We are going to compete at the end of September, so we have tol get in sync- meaning I have to learn the rowing terms in German and we have row dates 3-4 times a week.

I'll finish up this email with my host family, Peter, Rita and their 4 year old daughter, Sophie. Sophie is a kindred spirit of mine and I spend the most time with her because, well, I speak German on a 4 year old level. We watch movies together because her movies are the only ones I can understand. We also play a game where she points to an object in the house and tells me the german name for it in return for the English name. Schildkroete is my newest word learned, which is a turtle. Lately though, she's been on a rhyming kick and she's not very good at it. The only thing she can come up with that rhymes with Liza is "langsam"…which has got to change because "langsam" means "slow" inGerman.

Alright, that's about it for me.

Tscuss!

-Eliza