Around Deutschland in 14 Days

Kevin and I just returned from a two-week trip around Germany, organized and paid for by the Humboldt Foundation, and while I never want to look a gift horse in the mouth, I am glad that it’s over. Ten cities in 14 days means that we never got to spend more than a day or two in each city, and sometimes significantly less time. On the final jam-packed day of the trip, we managed to leave Bamburg, visit Rothenberg and arrive in Würzburg all during normal business hours. It was just a little much. When you visit new cities at such a fast pace, the most you can take away from each is a snapshot of its most famous building and the flavor of its most famous dish. My memories of the trip read like a laundry list of such things:

Bamburg: the Bamburger Reiter, Rauchbier (that’s smoked beer)

Münster: the Münster Rathaus, Haxenfleisch (that’s a whole pork leg)

Hamburg: the Hamburger Hafen, Matjesfilet (that’s raw pickled herring, and I like it!)

Fortunately, since Kevin and I had visited many of these cities before on longer more leisurely trips, we didn’t have to feel that we were missing much. This time on our layovers in Berlin, Dresden, and München, we got to see some of our favorite museums one last time and a few new places that we never would have seen on our own. The workshop of the luxury watch manufacturer A. Lange & Söhne, located high up in the Ore Mountains, was actually pretty cool; the tour of the Airbusfactory in Hamburg, I could I have done without, although I bet there were engineers on our trip who would have disagreed.

Still, there were days when, in the middle of a three-hour walking tour of a city following a four-hour bus ride, Kevin and I would want nothing more than to slip off from the rest of the group and settle ourselves into a shaded café, where we could read novels and sip our double espressos. Sometimes we did. Those were my favorite memories of the trip.

But without sounding to hokey (I hope), what the trip lacked in leisure time it made up for by throwing us in the constant company of interesting people. There were 33 people on our bus, and they were of all ages, nationalities and disciplines. There were Jordanians and Egyptians; Chinese, Japanese, Thais, and Malaysians; Russians, Poles, Kyrgistanis; Indians and Madagasks. (The one Madagask being my friend Dina from my German class in Frankfurt). There was even one other American – a chemist from Washington State.

Oddly enough, although this was a German-sponsored trip of Germany, the working language was English. Everyone on the trip spoke English, more or less, and so Kevin and I got to purge ourselves of all the cocktail conversation that we’d been saving up for eight months. As some of the only native English speakers on the trip, we had a captive audience.

But don’t think that I didn’t practice German at all on my summer vacation. Our tour driver was a charming old Sicilian who looked just like Rosano Brazzi, and as he was one of the only people on the tour who spoke German but no English, and I was one of the only people who spoke any German at all, we often sat together at dinner. After many beers he’d open up to me about the secret to making good Spaghetti Alio Olio and everything he knew about the Mafia. (There was a terrible quintuple homicide at a pizza place in Dusseldorf during our trip; it was obviously a mafia hit.)

Also, as part of its effort to maintain and spread the German language, the Humboldt Foundation provided a German tour guide in every city,and so as the rare German-speaker, I was obliged to always travel with the German-speaking tour guide. Often, I was even asked to translate German into English, when members of our group hadn’t understood. At one point, I even overheard our German tour guide, telling another tour guide, “You know her German's actually pretty good.” It almost made it all worthwhile.


For posterity’s sake, the pictures in the slideshow belong to the following cities: Münster, Bonn, Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Bamburg, München, the Danube River, and Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

And the Oscar goes to ...

Lest you think that I just sit around all day blogging and eating bon-bons, let me remind everyone that I really spend 4 hours everyday in German class. And here's the evidence to prove it:



Actually, that might not be the best case for my defense. I'm not really as drunk as I look here (that's acting!), and my German accent is usually a lot better than that. I was just nervous about having to film that scene in the busiest café on the most touristy street in Würzburg.

Anyway, I case you're wondering, these were clips are from a project I did with friends from my German class. The semester's almost over, and as a farewell gift to our beloved teacher, who's retiring this year, we've made her a video outlining all the things she's taught us. Each student gets to say something. They whole thing runs about 20 minutes. Some of the skits are earnest, but most like the ones above are meant to be funny. And as writer, director, and *star*, my goal is to make sure there's not a dry eye left in the house -- one way or another.

(Credits for the video clips here go to my friends Eunkyung, Erika, Sergey, and of course, yours truly.)

A Day at the Palace

Kevin and I recently spent a week in Berlin as guests of the Humboldt Stiftung, the German academic foundation that’s sponsoring our year in Germany, and I can only assume that the Germans must value academics very highly, as they treated the 300 Humboldtians, their spouses, and their many, many children (1,000 people total) to a week fit for royalty. There was a round of dinners and cocktail parties, lectures and performances to attend, but the highlight was a visit to the Schloss Bellevue and a chance to meet the German president.

Although the Schloss Bellevue is roughly equivalent to the American White House – all white columns and rose gardens, the German president is nothing like our Commander in Chief. His roll is largely ceremonial – entertaining 3,000 foreign academics on his back lawn, say – and it’s really the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who wields all the political power. I doubt that many Germans even know the president’s name. (It’s Horst Köhler, by the way).


Nonetheless the Humboldtians, many from third world countries, were wild with excitement about the visit, and several had accepted the request to don their traditional national garb for the occasion. I declined, having left my American flag bellbottoms and my “I (heart) NY” T-shirt back in the States, and Kevin declared it much to warm for flannel and a toque.

Normally, I think the Germans’ repeated appeals for national apparel reek of “Exotisismus” – I have been asked no less than three times in the past six months – but even I had to admit that the effect was impressive. Bejeweled Indian and Pakistani women in saris, African families in bright calicos, and the most beautiful Japanese woman I have ever seen, decked out in full Kimono, sandals, and parasol – it was like being in some live-action version of Disney’s “It’s a Small World After All.” That, and the children of every color working together to hold a giant inflatable Earth balloon above their heads.


Anyway, despite being warned many times that the president would not sign autographs or pose for individual photos (apparently this has been a problem at past Humboldt events), the crowd crushed around him, and so I never got a clear view. Instead I sat back, enjoying the mimosas, and tried to decipher his speech, which was in German. I flattered myself that I understood about 85% of what he said. (Although isn’t always the case that the other 15% is really essential?) But all political speeches being roughly the same, regardless of language or the nationality of the politician, even Kevin understood most it.

Still, I was excited about the chance to practice my German. Despite the organizers’ best efforts, English was clearly the language of preference and thus, the working language of the conference. I felt bad for the Germans, actually. They are so clearly fighting a losing battle against the English monopoly. And after all, it was their conference. They should have been able to have in their own language if they wanted. But across the world, most people’s second language is English, and even if they later learn German, they’re often more comfortable with English. My friend Dina, an engineer from Madagascar whom I meet at my German class in Frankfurt, spoke almost entirely in English, although his German is good and his French is exceptional.

The waning of the German language was clearly on the minds of our hosts. One night, after a string of lectures, mostly in English, the President of the Humboldt Stiftung, Professor Doktor Wolfgang Frühwald, stepped up to the podium, began his introduction in English, and then said, “Now I will deliver my speech in German, the language of Alexander von Humboldt. English translations are available in the foyer.” He then delivered a brilliant speech about the need to learn foreign languages in general and German in particular, and then harangued those fellows who hadn’t learned some German during their stay as having “wasted a great opportunity.” I patted myself on the back for having used Humboldt money to learn some German this year, but of course he was really preaching to the choir. None of the Humboldtians who hadn’t taken the free German classes could have understood his criticism.

Nonetheless, after a week of speaking English with non-native English speakers I was exhausted. Even with foreigners who speak very good English, you often have to modify your speech and strain to understand what’s being said. And so after the picnic, when the group boarded a cruise ship for a tour of the Havel, Kevin and I desperately sought out a table of North Americans. We found just the group: a Canadian historian, an engineer from Chicago, and the engineer’s wife and two teenaged kids. On the face of it, we didn’t have much in common, but either we’re all brilliant conversationalists, or we were just starved for company from our homelands, but we talked non-stop about everything under that sun: art and religion, science and politics, and above all German-American cultural differences. I must have spent six months worth of saved-up conversation in those three hours.

All in all, it was a wonderful day, and I remarked later, that I figured it must be pretty good to be the German President, if you could dispense with the political duties and spend all your days throwing big parties full of interesting guests. Kevin replied that Canada, too, has a ceremonial leader, who lives in a palace and does nothing but give parties, and that Canadians usually nominate a prominent academic or journalist for the role. I joked that if we stayed in Canada, we'd make a pretty competitive duo. Although he suggested a better choice would be to remain in Germany, where they elevate their academics to Head of State.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was a physicist before she became a politician.

Munich: Where it's Oktober every month of the year

After our excursion into the wilds of the Englischer Garten – and a much-needed nap – Kevin and I went back out in search of a traditional beer hall to round out our trip. Since we only had one night in München, and since it’s unlikely we’ll have the chance to return, I wanted to go somewhere that would simulate the feel of Oktoberfest, even though it’s the middle of June. So we settled on the Hofbräuhaus, the spot our travel book described as “on the itinerary of just about every visitor to the city, but which is, nonetheless, perfectly genuine.” Hrm.

The Hofbräuhaus, in the heart of the city, can seat up to 4,500 guests at a time and starts serving beer and live music at nine in the morning. It was built in 1897, but it’s been the spot of a beer hall since 1589. It also has the dubious distinction of being the location of the famous “Beer Hall Putsch,” Hitler’s unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Weimar government in 1923. In the middle of a crowded political convention, Hitler jumped onto the stage, fired a few shots into the ceiling, and boldly declared “The National Revolution has broken out. The hall is surrounded.” The hall was not surround, and no one joined Hitler’s call for revolution, that time. Shortly after, he was arrested and spent a year in prison writing Mein Kampf and planning a new, improved revolution. The rest, as they say, ist Geschichte.



When we showed up at the Bräuhaus, at 10 o’clock on a warm June night, things were only slightly less exciting. Dirndl-draped waitresses were floating by with large trays of Maßkrugs balanced precariously over their heads. A 10-piece brass band was leading a crowd of drunken revelers in an energetic polka. The hall pulsed with the energy of thousands of happy, inebriated people. “Ah!” I thought, “Now here’s some traditional Bavarian culture.” But the room was so packed that Kevin and I could hardly find a seat. Finally, I asked a young, sandy-haired guy, in German, if it were possible to share his table. He answered, in very polite German, that he and his father, with whom he was having dinner, would be glad if we’d join them. His father smiled his assent in the middle of a bite of bratwurst. “Awesome,” I thought, “This is just the sort of beer hall neighborliness I heard about. Perhaps we’ll strike up a good conversation.”

Only, I still don’t feel confident enough in my German to converse with native speakers, and of course Kevin doesn’t speak any German at all. And beyond their initial friendliness, the tow-headed youth and his father didn’t seem to be big conversationalists either. They didn’t even speak to each other. So the four of us sat there, in silence, sipping our 10-euro beers and listening to the Oompah band.

And then the anonymous polka medley slipped into a tune more familiar. Kevin started to hum along with it, and I found myself supplying the words, “… take me home… to the place where I be-long …” “It’s John Denver!” said Kevin, in that booming voice he reserves for commenting on the absurd, “The German polka band is playing John Denver!” And we weren’t the only ones who noticed. The father and son also started singing along, huge grins spread across their faces. Once the band reached the chorus the second time, the entire hall erupted: “West Virginia, mountain momma, take me home. Country Roads.” Tanned, tipsy young men hoped up from the surrounding tables and began twirling random women across the dance floor. There are few things so strange, or so wonderful, as hearing a familiar song in foreign place – and having thousands of people share the moment with you.

This little lyric outburst also provided us with the perfect entrée to our quiet neighbors, who turned out to be from Oklahoma. The son, Jordan, is a classics major on exchange in Berlin, and is father, Greg, is a Lexus salesman and was in the middle of his first trip to Europe. Apparently Jordan had remained silent for the same reason I had: his German was competent, but not great; however, in the din of a crowded beer hall, we’d been fooled by one another’s accent. Anyway, once we discovered a common language, we discovered many topics of common interest: Bavarian beer, German castles and museums, American and European cultural differences, and of course, a thorough knowledge of American rock lyrics.

And so the night wore on in conversation and camaraderie. The band filled their set with other classics of a certain era (“Sweet Caroline” was also a big hit), and the tanned young men – now clearly identified as American undergrads by the collegiate names block-printed across their T-Shirts and baseball caps – danced until close. It wasn’t exactly “genuine” Bavarian culture, but I suspect it came close to capturing the genuine feel of Oktoberfest – or as close as an American can come to experiencing it on an average Saturday night in June, in the company of other Americans.

A Tramp Abroad in Heidelberg

In 1878, Samuel Clemens (AKA Mark Twain), fleeing financial woes, embarked on a lengthy European sojourn, mainly in the Germanic countries, where the dollar was at a great advantage. (If only we could all be so lucky!) Playing off the success of his earlier travelogue The Innocents Abroad (1869), he began turning his fish-out-of-water experiences in Germany, Austria and Switzerland into a collection of humorous sketches. The resulting book, A Tramp Abroad (1880), became an overnight success and solved all his money problems – at least for the time being.

Recently, a good friend gave me his own well-thumbed copy of the book, after having suffered through one too many of my own stories about being a fish-out-of-water in Germany – particularly my bungling of the German language. The Appendix of A Tramp Abroad contains Twain’s classic essay, "The Awful German Language," which contains brilliant one-liners like, “I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective,” as well as lengthy riffs on German’s absurd grammar rules [See below]. Its humor is so pitch perfect and its understanding of the perversities of the language so inspired, that I’ve resisted the urge to write anything on the topic myself. [I mean, if Mark Twain has already done it, what’s the point?]

But it turns out that A Tramp Abroad is not only an excellent satire but an excellent travel guide as well, particularly for Heidelberg, where Twain spent the first several months of his tour. It describes the city in such vivid detail – and so little has changed in the last hundred years or so – that I substituted it for my massive Lonely Planet guide, and let Twain be my guide instead. Kevin and I toured the ruins of Heidelberg Castle, walked the famous garden-lined streets of the Philosopher’s Way, and took a boat cruise to nearby Neckarsteinach, just as Twain did 120 years before us. We found everything exactly as he described it – well, almost. Heidelberg Castle is currently undergoing such a massive renovation that if they repair it much more it will no longer qualify as “ruins” at all. I can only imagine what fun Twain would have had with that.

Twain on “gender”:

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print -- I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:
Gretchen:
Wilhelm, where is the turnip?
Wilhelm:
She has gone to the kitchen.
Gretchen:
Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?
Wilhelm:
It has gone to the opera.

From the mouthes of babes

Today was a great day. The weather was warm, and the sun was shining. It was also my next to last day of having to wake up at 5:30 am and race through the darkened streets of Würzburg to catch the 6:50 am train to my German class in Frankfurt. However, I'll actually miss some aspects of this horrendous commute, because more than any class, it's the repetition of this routine that brings me into contact with regular Germans and forces me to practice my newfound German skills.

For instance, yesterday, while waiting for the train, which was already 35 minutes late (don't believe what you here about German punctuality), I overheard a mother and her son arguing about the location of their train, which was missing from its regular track. I quickly explained (in German) that their train had been transferred to another track. Apparently, they hadn't heard the conductor's recent announcement to that effect. But I had. I had even understood it.

Later that day, a woman stopped me on the subway and asked me for directions to the Hauptbahnhof. Well, if there's one thing I know, it's how to get to the main train station. So I gave her directions (again, in German), and even reminded her when it was time to get off at our stop.

That very same afternoon, my train back to Würzburg was overcrowded, and the only empty seat I could find was underneath a sign that said, "Schwerbehinderte." I had no idea what this meant, so I asked the young man sitting in the next seat over. He looked at me like I had worms crawling out of my eyes. Had I said it wrong? So I repeated myself, "I'm sorry but my German isn't very good. Could you please tell me what this word means and if I can sit here?" He relaxed and sweetly explained that the word meant "disabled persons," but I was welcomed to sit next to him -- the "hard-hindered" be damned.

It turns out, I hadn't said anything wrong at all, but my German accent had been so good that he didn't realize at first that I wasn't German. Of course, any illusions about my fluency were quickly shattered once we got into a longer conversation and I began botching verb tense and adjective endings, but no matter. We had a real conversation. In German. For, like, 40 minutes! It also happens that he is moving to New York next week to start an internship, so I gave him all kinds of helpful information about the best neighborhoods and the best blogs to read for Manhattan news, gossip, and nightlife. Like I really know, but it was nice to feel useful for a change.

But don't let these successes fool you. My German is still, on the whole, really terrible. It's just that by having to do the same things everyday -- commute to Frankfurt, buy a subway pass, order breakfast -- I've become kind good at them. By the sheer force of hundreds of repetitions, I've learned how to say a few words perfectly, not unlike a small child who's learning to speak for the first time. And it turns out that this is the best practice of all, more than any German class.

For instance, every day I spend the hour between my train's arrival in Frankfurt and the start of my class sitting in the Bäckerei Eifler in Sachsenhausen. And every day I order my second breakfast from the funny couple who runs it. (At least I think they're a couple -- they work so closely together, and their movements are perfectly synchronized -- although it's hard to imagine them being married. She is as plump and rosy as he is thin and gray. Every time I see them, I can't help thinking of that old nursery rhyme: "Jack Sprat could eat no fat ... .")

This is one of the hardest German exercises I do all day because they speak very quickly and mostly in slang -- and she speaks with a thick Bavarian accent! It took me weeks to perfect our little exchange: ein Buttercroissant oder Schneebälle, einen Milchkaffee oder ein doppelter Espresso, für heir oder mitnehmen. And then I have to do the quick backwards mental calculation to arrive at the exact change: "Drei Euro funfundvierzig" becomes 3,45.

I also try to change my order every day so that I can learn the gender of each item on the menu, even though I can tell the couple would prefer that I stick to the same old thing. The Germans are very regelmäßig (regular), and I can tell it gives them great pleasure when they've prepared your order before you've even asked for it. Still, as a native English speaker, memorizing the gender of otherwise sexless objects is the bane of my existence, and I've found that this is the best way for me to learn. (David Sedaris had the perfect antidote to this dilemma when he was learning French: just order more than one. In French, as in German, when you ask for multiples of something you can drop the indefinite article and ignore its gender. But I thinking Mrs. Sprat would think it odd if I ordered two Milchkaffes for myself, since I can't seem to finish one.)

Rather than cheating at the gender rule or even memorize the elaborate declination charts, I'm just going to try to learn by osmosis, to learn by heart the rhythm of indefinite articles for everything, just like a child. There are a lot of combinations, which may take me hundreds of thousands of repetitions before I can learn them. But I've got time. And when I've learned something straight from the mouth of my buxom Bavarian baker, I know that I'll always say it perfectly.

Ginglish

The other day BBC World ran an interesting segment on China’s efforts to improve the quality of the English translations on their public signs in advance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The report cited examples of Chinglish – that peculiar mish-mash of Chinese and English – ranging from the offensive (“Deformed Man Toilette” instead of “Handicap Restroom”) to the sublime (“Show mercy to the slender grass” instead of “Keep off the grass!”).

Well, Ginglish (German + English, I don't knwo why it's spelled with an "i") may not be quiet as colorful, but it can still be a lot of fun. Take, for example, the synopsis for the German film Fushicato, which I found in the English language program of Würzburg’s international film festival (link):

In the very outskirts of the city, where the petty bourgeois live, where human life is barely possible therefore, for more than 20 years now, a househare has defied the hardships of its inhospitable surroundings. For some, for example Ranier, it’s not only a housing-, but a life project. You don’t let it get you down. Not by the state, not by the capital. Not by anybody. Here you live a self-determined and nonhierarchical life. But also a utopian dream must be organised. That’s why they have a set of rules: the 10 commandments. Ranier and his girl-friend have a baby now. Also the other revolutionists have grown older. Where is the brightness of the early years? All got dragged-in and Ranier has become the tyrant of the house. He is shooting over the top when he brings another woman along.

It’s grammatically correct – for the most part – but it sounds ridiculous. Passages like this make me despair over learning a foreign language. I mean, what’s the point if, after hundreds of hours of study, I’m still doomed to sound like this?

On the upside, though, I’ve realized that the skills of a native English speaker are still in high demand, even in a world where it increasingly seems that everyone speaks a little English. So, I’m contemplating starting my own translation business. I might not be able to translate German into English, but I can definitely translated Ginglish into regular old English. Bring me your tired press releases, your weary advertisements, your oppressed public service announcements … and I’ll turn them into something that makes sense to the average American.

Sure, it sounds easy enough, but then there are passages like this one from the Web site of Deutsche Post, the German postal service:

Franking of items with POSTAGE STAMPS is and remains the franking method that is most simpatico. It is more personal than any franking impression.

I open up the “comments” section to anyone who thinks they can make sense of that beautiful piece of Ginglish.

The billboard for this hair salon reads: “Hair Flate-Rate: Styling-Offensive Würzburg.” Don’t laugh. This is my new salon. And so far, I don’t find my new haircut particularly flat, or offensive.

A Winter Day in Somerhausen

The other day, our friends "the Fakhers" took us on a day trip to Somerhausen, a cute little village of half-timbered houses and surrounded by a fortified town wall that sits only about 30 km from Würzburg. Since we arrived in Germany, they've been beyond attentive -- having us to dinner, taking us ice skating and to the theater, even going with us to look at apartments and translate for our prospective landlords. But as much as I enjoy the excursions, I enjoy their company more. And so rather than explore Somerhausen as I might have done, I was more than content to spend the afternoon with them in one of the town's sagging half-timbered cafés, drinking hot chocolate and chatting in our mish-mash of languages.

As I mentioned earlier, Fakher and Christine speak fluent English (he doesn't even have an accent!), but the children speak only French and German. And since Kevin speaks only English and French and I speak only English and a little German, there's no way for all six of us to speak the same language at the same time. So often it happens that Kevin speaks to Louise in French, and I speak to Léon in broken German with a lot of English thrown in. With only three years of elementary school English, he already speaks English about as well as I speak German.

I'm usually very embarrassed by my pathetic foriegn language skills but not with Léon. It helps that children are less judgmental than adults and that, unlike my German teacher, he isn't constantly stopping me to correct my grammar and pronunciation. With Léon I can speak without inhibition about all manner of things interesting to 10 year olds: movies, video games, street fashion (I taught him the American slang for his Mütze: "doo-rag"), and of course, Harry Potter. We talked all afternoon about the relative merits of volumes I through VI and our theories about Snape's true allegiences and who will die in volume VII. He's also taught me all kinds of useful German words, such as Zauberer (wizard), verwandeln (transform), and fluch (curse).

It was really nice to have a "literary" conversation again, even if it was with a 10 year old, and we've decided to talk more about our shared literary interests in the future. I've recommended he read Jonathan Stroud's "Bartimeaus Trilogy," and he's going to loan me his Cornelia Funke books. But since Funke's books were originally published in German, they're not available in English here. So, I'm going to have to really bone-up on my German before I can attempt them. To this end, I've bought a copy of Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen. I figure that since I've already read it a half-dozen times in English, the German version can't be so hard.

Deutsche Schule II

Today, for the first time in more than three full weeks of German class, I understood what the Hell was going on. Everyday I sit through five hours of class in a dense fog, understanding only about 1 in every 10 words my teacher is saying -- and only about 1 in 20 of what my classmates are saying. (It's difficult to parse the German through their thick French, Spanish, and Chinese accents.) I only make it through the day by the grace of German-English cognates, my teacher's elaborate pantomimes, and the generosity of my fellow students.

Most of the time, when called upon to speak, I repeat verbatim the examples listed in the book, only improvising with the addition of a few impressive nouns that I've committed to memory: Monatsfahrkarte (monthly pass), Staatsangehörigkeit (nationality), Gemeinsamkeiten (commonalities), u.s.w. (und so weiter, i.e. etc.). Still, I'm often surprised at the end of an exercise to learn that I've completely misunderstood the topic we've been discussing for the past half hour. That graph we were looking at wasn't about Arbeitslosigkeit (unemployment) but about the planned professions of a bunch of high school students (however these planned professions are a little optimistic, as unemployment here is over 14%).

So, you can imagine my thrill today when I understood everything -- everything! -- that was said in class. Granted, today's topic was pretty elementary: Leiblingsfarbe and Leiblingsfeiern (favorite colors and favorite holidays), but damn if I didn't describe my deep and abiding love of Thanksgiving (Erntedanktfest) and the color purple (violett, not to be confused with the German purpur, which is actually magenta) -- with ziel!

Still, I've not deluded myself into thinking that I've had some major language breakthrough. I still can't get the waiter at the neighborhood restaurant to understand what I'm saying when I say, "Die Rechnung, bitte" ("The bill, please"). Instead I've settled on the less polite, but easier to pronounce, "Ich möchte bezahlen, bitte" ("I'd like to pay."). More likely, I've just reached a narrow language plateau. But reach a few plateaus, and I guess you've scaled a mountain.

The class celebrates a Geburtstag (birthday).

"Now is the time on Sprockets ven wee dance"

I fancy myself a fairly sophisticated consumer of the arts (I mean, I go to museums and stuff, and I’ve even been to hear Handel’s Messiah, like, four times) – but man, the German art world is whole other kettle of fish. Perhaps it would be trite to compare it to Sprockets, Mike Meyers' brilliant spoof of pre-unification German scene that used to run on SNL -- so I’ll be trite. Sprockets doesn’t even come close …

Last night, our new friends Fakher and Christine took us to a modern dance performance at the Kulturspeicher, a multi-purpose center for contemporary art and dance here in Würzburg. I was pretty excited. I love going to the ballet, and I can even appreciate some modern dance (although, I must admit that sometimes I have to stifle a laugh when the dancers are being particularly “expressive” ), but right away, I could tell that we were in for something very different, something “high concept.”

The printed program explained the different “frames” through which we were meant to view the performance, including “deprivation, self-abuse, aging, the decay of the body, fitness, and the desire to be forever young.” It asked viewers to ponder the question “What do we do with our bodies, and what do our bodies do to us?” Still, I was a little unsure how to approach this intellectual exercise. Fortunately, the artistic director and the choreographer tried to set the tone with a half hour introduction about the dancers’ “motivation.” But of course, the whole lecture was in a very high fa-lutin’ German, so the only words I could make out were “Autismus” (Autism) and “Wolfkind” (the “wolf child”). The rest was just static.

Then, faster that I could say “Casper Hauser,” the theater went dark and three very athletic women in street clothes materialized beneath a single spot light. Some generic techno music began playing over the sound system, and then, as the beat picked up and the bass deepened, the women began to abuse themselves – and I don’t mean the fun way. One girl started slapping herself across the face. Another shook her head and yanked at her hair. And a third collapsed into a pile on the floor, got up, and repeated this every 15 seconds or so.

After several very uncomfortable minutes, the performers finally ceased their flagellation and began wrapping Scotch Tape around their heads – hair and all! I can’t say for certain, but I think this was supposed to symbolize plastic surgery and the other superficial alterations we do to ward off aging, because next, our healthy young dancers grew increasingly decrepit, shaking with palsy and bending with scoliosis. And just when you started to worry that they might imitate Death itself, the aging-process reversed. The techno morphed into the 80’s classic “Forever Young,” and as if revitalized by some Elixir of Youth, the dancers started jogging in place – the picture of health. The lights grew brighter and brighter until they nearly blinded you, obliterating everything. And when the lights returned to normal, the dancers were gone.

The audience sat around very silently for what seemed like an eternity. I began to fidget nervously. What was I supposed to do? Was this intermission or something? After all, the performance had lasted only 15 minutes – half the time of the introduction. But soon the dancers returned and began taking their bows. They got a standing ovation.

“But what about the dancing?” I wanted to protest. “Where were the people in tights, doing synchronized pirouettes?” But of course, I said nothing of the sort. Christine seemed to like it a lot, and I didn’t want to insult our hosts or seem completely uncultured. But still, call me uncultured: I was looking forward to the time “ven wee dance.”

"Meet the Fakhers"

So, last night we had dinner with Kevin’s supervisor, Fakher (pronounced just like the name of the family in “Meet the Fochers”) and his family. It was a truly international experience.

Fakher is Swiss-French of Egyptian decent; his wife is German; and his children Léon, 10, and Louisa, 6, have combined Swiss, American and EU citizenship. (They picked up the American citizenship because they were born while Fakher was doing a post-doc in Santa Barbara). Fortunately for us, in addition to French and German, Fakher and his wife speak perfect English, so we had a common language between us. (I speak a little German, Kevin speaks good French, but neither of us really speaks the other’s second language).

It was a fascinating window into the home life of what I assumed to be a standard European family. At school the children are taught in German, although both also study English, and Léon is about to tackle Latin. Therefore, at home, their parents insist that they speak only French, so that they might be able to converse with their many Swiss-French relatives. The children speak perfect, unaccented French, as far as I can tell (and I only studied French for a year in college), and they seem to be very comfortable using it in any day-to-day situation. However, the system isn’t fool-proof. Several times during dinner, the children would slip into German, and occasionally they’d even venture a little English. Sadly, at after only a couple years of study, Léon’s English is already much better than my German, so whenever I tried speaking German to him, he’d always answer back to me in English.

Other than their brilliance with languages, European children seem to be much like American children: They still test their parents’ limits with table manners and bed times, and all they want to do is to play video games. But where an American 10 year old has probably already logged hundreds of hours of game time, Léon and Louisa only received their first game this Christmas and are allowed to play for no more than an hour a day. Watching these children with their effortlessly multi-lingual life makes me wish I’d spent a little more time as a child studying languages instead of playing video games.

Deutsche Schule

On only my 3rd day in Germany, at 9:00 in the morning, I showed up at DID, Deutsch Institut … well, no one seems to know what the second “D” stands for.

Anyway, DID is a small language school in Frankfurt, where I will go every day for the next two months for five hours of German language instruction. But by the end of my first day at DID, I was wondering if maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew.

The very first thing you do in German school is take a placement test that measures your German skills as meeting one of six standard levels, from beginner to fluent speaker: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. I was hoping I could skip the exam since I really, really don’t like tests and since I already knew that I should begin at the A2 level. Last fall I completed the A1-level class at the Goethe-Institut Boston, and before I left, I took the international A1-level German exam (and received a 99 percent!) just so I would not have to take a placement test when I arrived in Germany. Like I said, I really don’t like tests. I was an English and Art major, in part, because those two departments never, ever ask you to take an exam.

But this being Germany, everyone has to be tested and certified and dragged through the “proper channels.” So I took the test. Only, apart from a verbal exam, it was all multiple-choice, and if you know how most multiple-choice tests are written, it is pretty easy to “game the system” and guess the right answer even if you don’t know how to decline your adjectives or use the subjunctive past tense. On these exams, there are always two answers that are very similar except for one minor difference. So right away, you know that one of these has to be the right answer. That gives you a 50/50 chance of being right on every question. It’s not exactly cheating, but it falls far short of accurately measuring your grasp of the material.

When my results came back, the director of the school was pleased to tell me that I had scored in the high-B1 range. Would I like to be in the B1 or attempt the B2 class, he asked. I was devastated. Needless to say, if it hadn’t been a multiple-choice test with such a transparent format, I would never would have scored so I high. My German grammar is schrecklich (terrible). My wortschatz (vocabulary) is minuscule. I don’t even know how to form the future tense. I tried to explain this to the director, to explain about my A1 certificate (which is in a box I mailed from Boston a month ago that has yet to show up), but my German wasn’t even good enough to erklaren (make clear) my predicament. So to the B1 class I went.

My first day in the B1 class was easily the worst “first day of school” in my life. I sat there for the next four hours not understanding a single thing that was said. The teacher would divide us up into little discussion groups and have us talk on some topic of cultural interest, and all I could do was mimic back the phrases of the other students. The worst part was when the teacher would ask me a question in front of the whole class. I couldn’t even understand what she was asking, let alone answer! For what seemed like an eternity, every pair of eyes would be on me as I stuttered and mumbled, hoping that after a minute or two of this, the teacher would kindly move on to the next person. But she never did. She always made me speak up and continue talking until I had reached the end of my mangled and incomprehensible sentence.

Along about the fourth hour, I was getting a headache, and we were about to begin a grammar exercise that was so difficult I was afraid my brain might explode if I had to attempt it. That, or I would just start crying. In front of everyone. So I excused myself to go the bathroom, and I stayed there until I was absolutely sure that the exercise was nearly over.

On my way back to class, I was busy composing my explanation to the director for why I absolutely needed to be moved to the A2 class, when I ran into Florencia, a bassoon player from Argentina, who I took to be the best student my class. She was sitting on a couch outside the classroom just watching the clock. When she saw that I had noticed her, she turned red with embarrassment and began a half-hearted explanation for the curious position in which I found her. But I didn’t need to understand German to know that she was playing hooky to escape the same grammar exercise that had forced me to beat a retreat. She finally stopped making excuses and laughed in acknowledgment that I had found her out.

So, I figured that if even Florencia was having trouble with the grammar, then I couldn’t be completely alone in my struggle with the German language. Perhaps I would stay in the B1 class in the end. After all, misery loves company.