What happened to Jack's face

I’ll bet your reaction just now was similar to mine when Jack met me at the Freiburg train station, looking like he’d just been attacked by a cheese grater. What happened to his face?

“Well, this is what’s bound to happen, at some time or another, when you ride a bike in Freiburg,” he said, trying his best to crack a smile despite the pain. “It’s all my fault, actually,” he explained. “I was tailing a car too closely and didn’t notice when he stopped.” His bike was totaled, and he hit the pavement face-first. Actually, he’s lucky it wasn’t worse. He was not wearing a helmet. Still, you can imagine my concern, not only for Jack’s face, but also because this was my introduction to the city’s famous cycling culture – and just a day before we were schedule to tour the region by bike.

Freiburg is one of the most cycle-friendly cities in all of Europe. According to the tourist literature, there are actually more bicycles in the city than there are citizens. Wherever you go, you encounter cyclists of every stripe: dreadlocked co-eds and businessmen in suits, white-haired pensioners and parents with young children. I even saw one man riding despite a sprained ankle. He carried his crutches in one hand while he steered with the other!

I’ve always been a fan of city cycling and wished that it were more prevalent in America. I mean, what’s not to like about it? It’s cheap, it’s environmentally friendly, it’s an enjoyable form of exercise, and it reduces the volume of city traffic. Unfortunately in America’s car-centric culture, it’s not always practical. One summer, when I was living in Boston, I tried cycling to work everyday, but I felt so under threat from the “crazy Boston drivers,” who don’t signal, don’t share the road, and often fail to see cyclists, that I was forced to give it up after only a month.

Since then, I often fantasized that if I were Supreme Dictator of the Whole Wide World, I would shut down all inner-city motor vehicle traffic, except for public transportation, and give the roads over to the cyclists, who, in my experience, are a remarkably polite and law-abiding bunch. But, alas, I’m not. In America the car is king, and all other vehicles have to jockey for their right to be on the road. So I was really curious to see what life was like in Freiburg, where cyclists rule and automobiles are relegated to the outskirts of town.

But it turns out that it is not as safe or peaceful as I had imagined. In fact, as a pedestrian in Freiburg, I felt under threat from the cyclists! For one thing, German cyclists are allowed to ride on the sidewalks, which seems pretty unreasonable since they’ve already been given the roads. You can’t imagine how incredibly nerve-racking it is when they weave in an out of the crowd at full speed, passing you within inches – without any warning. I’m sure they think that they don’t pose a danger, but they can’t know when you might take it into your head to turn off in a new direction.

Futhermore, German cyclists are not the conscientious citizens that American cyclists are. They don’t wear helmets, they don’t obey traffic signs, and they don’t feel the need to ride in the direction of traffic.

So I’ve begun to wonder if it’s not American cyclists’ minority standing that makes them such a virtuous bunch. In order to survive the hazards of city cycling, American cyclists have to be hyper-aware of the behavior of everyone around them. If they’re not, they’ll be run off the road by some woman in a tinted SUV, who’s talking on her cell phone while trying to sip her Starbucks. Maybe it’s just the tyranny of being in the majority that makes European cyclists such careless custodians of the road.

On the other hand, it could be that most people are just bad drivers – no matter what their mode of transportation. Perhaps the American cyclists are a self-selected group of naturally prudent people, who would make excellent drivers, too. But in Freiburg, almost everyone rides a bike, and so, at any given moment, the majority of people on the road are likely to be idiots behind the wheel.

Whatever the reason, you can be sure that the next day, when Jack, Kevin and I rented bikes to tour the Durbach vineyards, I observed the rules of the road with vigilance. I wasn’t able to find a helmet, but I never went too fast or followed anyone too closely, else I wind up with a mug like poor Jack. That is, at least not in while we were riding in Freiburg. Once we got to the country, you had better believe I sped down the steep roads like I owned them, as if I were the Supreme Dictator of the Whole Wide World.

Arkansans Abroad: Freiburg Edition

During my Easter break from classes, Kevin and I decided to get some traveling under our belts, and so we set out for Freiburg, the warmest, sunniest, southwestern-most city in Germany. Its climate is perfect for producing light, sweet wines, and it’s a popular launching point for trips into the nearby Schwarzwald (Black Forest). But Freiburg had no real attraction for us, save one: It’s the home of my brother’s high school best friend, Jack.

This may seem a tenuous connection at first, but we’re Southerners – Arkansans at that – and all Arkansans away from home can claim one another as friends, even if they don’t actually know each other that well. And as it turns out, we’re even related: My great uncle married his aunt, etc. Although that may seem even more tenuous connection than the first, there’s something to be said for being able to talk to someone who know where you’re from and knows where you’re coming from, and there are scant few of those in Germany. Although maybe more than could be expected.

It had been a few years since I’d seen Jack, but I remembered his being one of the more ambitious of my brother’s buddies, and in his life after college it’s clear that he has lost none of that “get up and go.” After graduating two years ago from Centenary College in Louisiana, he decided to move to Europe and see if he couldn’t play soccer for a European league. Now, Jack is a great soccer player – I believe he might even have been ranked first in the state when we were in high school – but he was under no illusions that he was a big fish in a small pond. Arkansas is hardly prime soccer territory – and Europe is clearly the Mecca of the soccer world. “I knew I wasn’t a Pélé or a Mirabella,” Jack told me, “but I wanted to see if I was any good.”

Well, it turns out the Jack was pretty good and got picked up by a small semi-pro soccer club in the village of Durbach (pop. 4,000), about 40 minutes north of Freiburg. This, in and of itself, is an amazing accomplishment. Germans are crazy about their Fußball and have no shortage of their own highly skilled boys to chose from. Even their small, semi-pro leagues are highly competitive. Furthermore, Jack didn’t speak a word of German, and in this corner of Germany there are few Germans who speak English. “In order to understand the terms of my contract, I had to have a member of the team translate it into Spanish,” he said. “It was the only language I had in common with anyone.”

But what impresses me even more than his signing with a German team, is how he’s made a whole life for himself in a foreign country in less than two years. His first year here, he boarded with a family in Durbach and worked in a local winery (more on both of these later). Between the two, he became completely fluent in German, with only the slightest hint of a Southern accent. Now, he’s got his own apartment (and a German girlfriend) in Freiburg, where he’s studying for a master’s degree in exercise science at the prestigious Albert-Ludwig University. He also works at a wine research institute and occasionally schleps tables and plays guitar at a local Irish pub. And of course, he’s still playing soccer for Durbach.

I’ve lived in Germany for four months now and have come to feel myself quite at home. But I can never imagine creating a life for myself the way Jack has, even if I were to live here a dozen years. So more than anything else in Freiburg, Jack was the main attraction, and in touring around with him for several days, I saw more of “the real Germany” than I’ve seen all year. Funny that it was with an Arkansan as my guide.
[Jack with the lovely and talented Anja, who is studying to be a journalist for public television. Needless to say, we hit it right off.]

Krazy for Knut

In case this story has not made it to the States yet, please allow me to introduce you to “Knut, der kleine Eisbär,” who is currently taking Germany by storm. Hardly a day goes by without a story about the baby polar bear on the evening news, and polls say that 58% of Germans follow his story on a daily basis. But, perhaps that’s to be expected. It’s a great story:

BERLIN, Germany – He was the “miracle baby,” the first polar bear born at the Berlin Zoo in more than 30 years. Immediately after birth, Knut (rhymes with “cute”) and his twin brother were abandoned by their mother, 30-year-old Tosca, a former circus performer. His brother died, but Knut has thrived under the 24-hour care of zookeeper Tom Dörflein, who sleeps on a cot by the bear’s pen and bottle feeds him every three hours just like a real baby.

At a mere three months of age, Knut made his world debut to a crowd of thousands. His portrait, by celebrity photographer Annie Leibowitz, has graced the cover of the newly launched German edition of Vanity Fair, and he’s became a symbol of the growing concern over climate change. “No ice, no polar bear,” said Sigmar Gabriel, the German Environment Minister, who is also Knut's godfather.

But soon after his successful debut, Knut fans the world over were stunned when animal rights activists called for him to be put down, saying that it was cruel for an Eisbär to be raised by humans. “Raising him by hand is not appropriate to the species but rather a blatant violation of animal welfare laws,” Frank Albrecht, an animal rights activist and window installer, told the German tabloid Das Bild. “In actual fact, the zoo needs to kill the bear cub – preferably with club, like the kind they use to club baby seals.”

Zoo officials claim they never entertained notions of euthanizing their “little cash cow.” In the months since his birth, the stock price of the publicly-traded zoo has more-than doubled from €2,000 per share to €4,900. In addition, the Berlin Zoo has earned millions in ticket sales and Knut merchandise. Up to 45,000 visitors flood through it’s gates every weekend, and the gift shop has had trouble keeping up with the demand for Knut T-shirts and plush Knut toys. There’s even a Knut song, a video ringtone, and a soon-to-be-released computer game.

In fact, the call for Knut’s death was merely satirical – a Swiftian suggestion, if you will – in response to a decision at the Leipzig Zoo back in December to euthanize a two-day-old sloth named Hugo after he was rejected by his mother. However, the subtleties of this statement were lost on the Eisbärchen’s youngest fans, who protested outside the zoo, holding up placards reading “Knut Must Live” and "We Love Knut.”

“Adults are so mean.” Celina, 6, told the Das Bild, “I would be really sad if little Knut had to die.”

“I thought animal rights activists were supposed to protect animals and didn't want to kill them,” added fellow protestor, Alexander, 4. “They are really silly!”

“I mean, come on,” said Job Bluth, 40, a businessman and freelance magician , “A Babyeisbär is 10 times – no 100 times cuter than a baby sloth. He deserves to live!”

Yet some calls for the bear’s death were not so light-hearted. Yesterday the Berlin Zoo received an anonymous note saying only, “Knut dies, Thursday noon.” Zoo officials say the threat was not taken seriously, and no additional security precautions were put in place, beyond Knut’s 15 full-time bodyguards. Thursday came and went with no attempts on the Bärchen’s life.

However, Dörflein, Knut’s full-time handler and surrogate father, says that despite the bear’s cuteness, even he wants to kill him sometimes, “I could throw him against the wall when everything comes together and he's shat all over his cage at three o'clock in the morning,” he told the Frankfurt’s Rundschau newspaper.

Dorflein, 43, has attracted his own following, mostly women. Knut is rarely seen outside the presence of his handler, who has been described by Der Spiegel as “bearded and tall … and a bit like a bear himself.” When Dörflein took a few days vacation at Easter, Knut became “visibly distressed,” said zoo officials, and he had to cut short his 3-day vacation and return to the zoo. “I coulda killed the little furball right then and there,” he said. “But he was just so darn cute!”

But the day will soon come when the bear is not so cute, nor friendly with humans, even his “father.” Polar bears hit puberty at about a year and soon after become too violent to be alone with humans. At two years, they are ready to mate. Most recently, the zoo in the western German city of Gelsenkirchen hinted that it would be interested in having Knut court two-year-old polar bear Lara. “In theory, he could already come here when he turns one,” a spokeswoman for the Gelsenkirchen Zoo told the news agency DDP. “That way we could produce a little Knut, Jr., every year or two and keep revenues up.”

*Article compiled from English-language storieson Der Spiegel … and a little of my own research.

Watch the music video “Cute Knut”:

Connected!

After two long, lonely months, I finally have Internet access at home. So those of you who are sick of hearing my excuses about “why I don’t write more often,” don’t worry; I’m out of excuses – except maybe for that backlog of e-mail and news and blogs I have to catch up on.

I know I moved to a foreign country and all, so I shouldn’t expect things to be the same as they are back home, but I really never thought that it could take so long to get connected. After moving into my Boston apartment, it took me three days to get Internet service. The day after moving into my Würzburg apartment, I marched myself down to the T-Punkt and signed up for the fastest router and the fanciest service plan that money could buy … and the sales lady told me it would take three weeks, “at the very least.”

I could not quiet find the right German words to express my shock and horror, but I think my face must have said it all. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” she told me (without looking the least bit sorry), “But unfortunately it cannot go any faster.”

In fact, it took five weeks. Five weeks of walking across town to the Internet café once a day, or even twice a day, rain or shine, barefoot, and uphill both ways. Upon hearing about my plight, a German friend recently said, “Isn’t it a shame how dependent we are on the Internet?” As if it were self-evident that we’d all otherwise be sitting in a café, reading a book, or enjoying the beauty of Nature.

“No, it most certainly is not a shame,” I wanted to say. “It is self-evident to me that the Internet is an amazing invention that makes our lives easier and more interesting; keeps us connected to friends, family, and world events; and allows us a creative forum for documenting our debacles in foreign lands. The only thing wrong with the Internet is not having enough of it.”

Not surprisingly, few Germans share that sentiment. What is surprising is how long they are willing to wait for pretty basic services. Kevin and I recently spent an hour trying to make eye contact with a waiter in order to pay our bill, and he’s like, “Where’s the rush?” Three months ago, I applied for a train pass. I’m still waiting for my train pass. Meanwhile, my nonrenewable, temporary pass has expired.

I say this is surprising because the Germans are not exactly famous for their patience. Queuing is a foreign concept in these parts, and the way they push on and off public transportation would make a New Yorker blush. Twice, on trips to France and Italy, I was nearly pushed into the Mediterranean by German tourists eager to get the best snapshot or the best seat on the water-taxi. And yet, they’ll wait three-to-five weeks to receive Internet service, when it need only take three days.

I have finally come to the conclusion that it all boils down to differences in value the two cultures place on the object for which they are waiting. For instance, there is no reason why a train pass cannot be issued at the local train station where it was purchased. It’s really nothing more than a simple magnetic ID badge, which any Student Services or Human Resources representative can make in about thirty seconds. However in Germany, your “application” must be sent to a central office where they lose your photo, unleashing a chain of snail mail correspondence that will never end.

But I think Germans are willing to wait three months for their train passes because they place a high value on the job security of the government bureaucrats who process their applications. (This is perhaps not surprising in a country with 14 percent unemployment). I also think it has something to do with the German love of “official-ness.” They really like those important looking stamps that they put on all “official” paperwork.

Similarly, I can imagine why Germans do not prize fast restaurant service. Here, the goal is not to eat, pay up, and leave; it is to sit for hours on a sunny terrace overlooking rivers and vineyards and castles, to eat, converse, and digest, to read a book, sip a cup of coffee, and soak up the beauty of a sunny afternoon. It’s kind of hard, but I am starting to get the hang of it. However, you can’t tell me that sitting in my pajamas at my own kitchen table eating a bowl of cold cereal and catching up on the latest celebrity gossip, doesn’t come in a close second.

Are we having fun yet?

A German Easter

My Boston friends and I always made a big day of Easter Sunday: getting all dressed up in bright Easter dresses, waiting in line (yes, a line) for seats at Boston’s famous Trinity Cathedral, and then a big brunch afterwards. So it was a little sad to spend my first Easter halfway across the world without them; however, Easter Sunday with our adopted German family, the Fakhers, more than made up for it.

Since Bavarians celebrate Easter on Saturday night, we skipped the church service (besides, I don’t think there are any Protestant churches in these parts) and showed up at the Fakher’s house in a leafy suburb of Würzburg for the Family Easter Egg Hunt on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. I think this is a marvelous time to begin an Easter Egg Hunt. Growing up in rural Arkansas, my family always hunted Easter Eggs at the crack of dawn – six AM. I’m not sure if the ungodly hour of this occasion was due to our having to be fed and dressed in time for Sunday School at nine or because we children were too excited to waiting any longer to hunt eggs, but it must have been torture on our parents.

However, waiting until 11:30 to hunt Easter eggs, seemed to be torture on the Fakher children, because the second after we arrived they were off, racing through the garden, trampling over flowerbeds and freaking out the guinea pigs, all in order to capture the most eggs. The whole thing was over in less than five minutes. If only the children knew how much fun it was for the adults to watch their excitement, they might have gone a little slower.

Afterwards, we sat down on the terrace for a traditional German brunch: a little fresh salad, straight from the garden, and a huge slab of meat. It was truly delicious, but I’ll never grow accustomed to the amount of meat the Germans eat. Even Louise, the Fakher’s eight-year-old daughter, managed to clean her plate before I did. I’ve always maintained that my slow eating habits were a result of my having less teeth than most people (I lack the four back molars), but Louise lacks four front teeth, so there goes that theory.

After a customary visit from the Easter Bunny (an enormous brown rabbit on a leash being led door-to-door by some neighborhood children), we were off to Bamburg, “the most beautifully preserved small town in Europe,” according to my guidebook. Indeed, it was very beautiful and historic: With narrow, winding, cobblestone streets and tall half-timbered buildings lining the Main, it had more the feel of a Dutch or Belgian town than one situated in the heart of Bavaria. I particularly enjoyed our visit to Bamburg’s enormous Kaiserdom. Begun in 1012, the cathedral straddles both the Romanesque and early Gothic periods, and so it has the Gothic’s awe-inspiring vaulted ceiling and beautiful stained glass windows, yet the Romanesque’s stone simplicity. This came like a breath of fresh air after the gilded mustiness of Würzburg’s Baroque churches.

Yet, the most impressive aspect of the Dom was its reliquary, which contains not one but two nails from the One True Cross. I felt supremely lucky to spend Easter Sunday in the presence of such rare and valuable artifacts and was impressed that they are owned by such a low-profile, out-of-the-way church, for if my Sunday school education serves me correctly, there were only three nails hanging Jesus to the cross. No doubt much wealthier, tourist-hungry diocese are always trying to buy-off the Bamburgers: “I’ll trade you two saints’ skulls and splinters from the Manger for one of your nails.” But I implore them not to sell – one of those nails must be worth a Holy Grail at the very least!

It being Easter Sunday and all, you’d expect the city would lazy and quiet, but in fact, the downtown was buzzing like Market Day, except of course that all of the shops were closed. Kevin expressed disbelief that the shopkeepers would give up such lucrative business by staying closed on what appeared to be the most heavily-trafficked day of the year. But the Bavarians are a very religious people, and like in southeast Arkansas everything stays shuttered on Sunday -- by law.

... Except of course the cafés, which were so packed that we could hardly find a patio table for our merry party of six. Fortunately, while we waited, Leon, the Fakher’s 11-year old son, who’s hip-ness has been well-documented on this blog, practiced his skateboarding nearby. The racket of a skateboard on the winding cobblestone streets and rickety wooden bridges crossing the Main must have seemed irreverent to these observant people, for several of the best tables soon opened up, and we were able to spend the rest of the day as God himself intended it: eating ice cream on a sunny terrace over-looking all of Creation.

Two Kids in a Candy Store

Of the many reasons Kevin and I were excited about moving to Germany, high up on the list was the easy availability of Kinder Egg Surprises (Kinder Überraschung, in German), those ingenious chocolate eggs that open to reveal plastic yellow “yolks” that open to reveal tiny plastic pieces that can be assembled to into little mechanized toys. Truly the height of German engineering!

Kevin grew up on Kinder Eggs, and later introduced them to me when we backpacked Europe together, back in 2002. But they are nearly impossible to get in the States. The only place I was ever able to find them was the Sugar Shack on Newbury Street, where they sell for $3.50 a piece. In Europe they are sold everywhere and for only 0,50 euro.

But after three months of having all the Kinder Eggs we could ever want, some of the “surprise” had worn off. Then for Easter, the stores introduced Giant Kinder Eggs – easily 10 times larger than the original chocolates with even bigger, better toys! Check it out: (For comparison, I’ve placed it next to my Ostrich egg -- also available in German stores.)

As American as Apple Pie

So, last week was the “International Food Party” at my German school. Everyone was asked to bring a traditional dish from their homelands, and as the token American, I chose apple pie. What could be easier or more American than that?

Of course, the Germans would never deign to sell pre-made pastry dough (which is all I have ever used), and so I had to attempt my first-ever homemade piecrust. Only, I couldn’t find any vegetable shortening in the supermarket. According to my German-English dictionary the equivalent German word is “Schmalz,” but the only kind of Schmalz they stock is Schweinschmalz – essentially, pork drippings. Maybe that’s what the German use for their piecrusts, I thought. In the end it was all I had to work with, so it would have to do.

Unfortunately, when my pie came out of the oven, it smelled distinctly of bacon. I couldn’t stomach a single bite, but the students in my class seemed to like it well enough. Some even came back for seconds. The only person I didn’t fool was my German teacher. She asked after the crust, and I confessed that I had used Schweinschmalz. “Well, I don’t know what you use to make Äpfelstrudel in America,” she said, “But in Germany we use Margarine.”

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye ...

Last weekend Kevin and I paid a visit to a fun fair that had recently set up on the Würzburg riverfront. It was pretty much just like any American fun fair, with carousels, cotton candy, and games of skill meant to rob you of all your hard-earned money. The only differences I observed were: one, a category of ride that would never pass U.S. safety standards (something called “The Revolution,” a double-pendulum contraption in which riders are tossed into the air on a giant rolling pin); and two, a local delicacy called “fish on a stick,” and by that I don’t mean fishsticks, but an honest to goodness fish – head and all – on a stick.

Anyway, Kevin and I had a blast reliving our youths. We went inside the ghost house, rode the Ferris wheel, and ate ice cream and hot-out-of-the-oven pretzels until we thought we would burst. But then we got a little carried away by our youthful exuberance and made the unfortunate decision of riding something called “The Break Dance,” like the "Teacups" but on crack. At first we congratulated ourselves for being young at heart – we were the oldest people on the ride by about 10 years – but as soon as the ride started up, with its intense, erratic spinning, we realized why we were the only adults onboard: Adult bodies just cannot stand to be thrown around like that. Kevin and I screamed for mercy, but the kids in the car next to us, all smiles, begged the conductor to go faster and faster, which he happily obliged. It was the longest five minutes of my life, and when it was finally over, we staggered off the platform like a pair of drunken sailors, while several of the kids who had ridden it with us hopped back in line to ride it again.

The whole experience was yet another reminder that here in Würzburg, Kevin and I inhabit a strange netherworld between old and young. We're too old to be young and too young to be old. Most of Kevin’s colleagues are in their late 30s or early 40s, with a house, a spouse, and a couple of kids to boot. And though I love playing with the children and participating in the fascinating conversations of their worldly parents, the evening always ends quietly at about 10 p.m.

On the other hand, I don’t quite have the stamina to keep with the undergrads in my German class. I’ve recently made friends with a group of international students at the university, and a couple times a week I’ll go out with them to a club or a party. But their outings don’t begin until 11 p.m. (on account of a large Spanish contingent) and often stretch out until five or six in the mornig, even though we all have to be in class by nine. I just can’t keep hours like that any more. I don’t even want to.

In addition, their ideas about the world strike me as a little naïve sometimes. I hate to sound like a world-weary 25 year old, but I want to laugh when they say things like, “I know I don’t do my homework like I should, but I just don’t feel challenged in this class. If I were really challenged, I would work harder.” I’m sure I said stuff like that when I was twenty, but I hope no one ever reminds me of it.

I'm sure there must be other 25 year olds somewhere in Würzburg, but I don’t know how to meet them. So, unless I stumble upon a sympathetic group of English-speaking young professionals at a bar somewhere, Kevin and I will keep rotating between groups of friends who are either too old or too young. And fortunately, the ride isn't as nauseating as “The Break Dance.”

Ginglish II: More Ginglish

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the linguistic development known as “Ginglish,” that curious combination of English as spoken by native German speakers. But since then, I’ve encountered a few incidences that can’t really be classified as Ginglish, but which aren’t proper German or English either. So I’ve come to the conclusion that there must be a fourth category: English that isn’t trying to be English at all, but English that has been so appropriated into the German language, that it cease to retain any of its original English meaning.

English has become such the lingua franca of the modern world that it can no longer be considered as belonging exclusively to native speakers of English. For instance, all across Europe there are Internet cafés called “Internet Non-Stop.” Both words are English words, but we would never put them together like that. Still, you ask someone from Madrid to Moscow for an “internet Non-Stop” and they’ll point you in the right direction. Ask them for an “internet café” and you might draw a blank. Likewise, my hair salon offers a “hair flat-rate,” which I have learned means that you can pay a flat fee of 35 euros a month and get your hair cut as often as you want. Again, I understand what both words mean in English, but I never would have put two and two together an come to this conclusion. Besides, I can’t imagine that anyone but my father cuts his hair more than once a month.

So, without further ado, a few more instances of non-English English. Maybe you can figure out what they mean:

Exhibit A. I came across this Kneipe (bar) on my recent trip to Dresden. I’ve since searched all of my German dictionaries, and I have yet to find a meaning for “ass” that makes any sense in the context of a bar. I’m afraid that my knowledge of German slang isn’t very good, so I can’t say if “ass” means “ass” in German as well as in English, but I doubt it. And besides, the German word for a donkey is “Esel,” not “ass.” As it is, the actual German word “ass” (actually spelled “aß”), is the literary past tense of “to eat,” which makes no sense in this context either. So, I am left to conclude that “Bierbar ‘Ass’” has a specific German meaning devoid of its English one.

Exhibit B (click to enlarge). This is a Goth apparel shop a few blocks from my house. It’s where Marilyn Manson would go to shop, were he to ever visit Würzburg. Now, I’ve never found Goth fashion very glamorous, but I can appreciate that some people do. And some people who do have been known to commit suicide. Still, I can’t imagine a store by this name, flashing the symbol of a handgun, would be allowed to stay in business for very long – not even in the gun-happy U. S. of A. But maybe that’s a difference in taste and not in language.

Exhibit C. However, there can be no justifiable cause to name a hair salon “Hair Killer.” No way. No how. Just doesn’t make any sense. So, I can only assume that “killer” in the context of “hair” has a completely different German connotation than its English one. I probably means “cool.” Like [Question]: “You’ve got really killer hair. Where’d you get it cut?” [Answer]:“Hairkiller.”

Exhibit D. Despite its subtitle, Tanesha does not sell costume fairy wings or costumes for fairies of any sort. It merely sells your average “first and second hand” women’s clothing. Furthermore, I don’t think we’d say “firsthand” clothing either. Sounds cheap. But nobody asked this English speaker.

"Spring is bursting out all over!"

After a winter of cold, miserable rain, Spring has officially come to this corner of the world. Two solid weeks of warm weather have coaxed the tulips and cherry blossoms into bloom and convinced the citizens of Würzburg to shed their puffy winter jackets for good – and with them, their brusque, business-like manner. Germans are supposedly the hardest-working people in all of Europe, but you wouldn’t know it to look around here. By 2 p.m., the Altstadt is packed with visitors to the recently opened farmers’ market. And there’s not a single patio seat to be had in any bar or restaurant, where the locals linger for hours over a cup of coffee or a gelato.

On the streets, the energy is palpable, and after such a quiet, dreary winter, it makes me want to dance about and burst into song, like the characters in some Broadway musical. My current fav is “Spring is Bursting Out All Over” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel,” although I sound like a strangled cat when trying to hit the high note on the “ooh-o-ver.” And watching the townspeople cross the old stone bridge over the River Main on their way to work every morning, just as they’ve done for hundreds of years, always makes me want to break into the opening number from Disney’s "Beauty and the Beast" (“There goes the baker with his tray like always, the same old bread and rolls to sell…”).

I’m trying to soak up as much of the beautiful weather as possible, since the next couple of years will probably be the coldest years of my life. Kevin has accepted a faculty position at the University of Alberta, and in January, we’ll take up residence in Edmonton, where Winter stretches into May and temperatures routinely drop below zero degrees – Fahrenheit! I’m sanguine about it. I figure if I’ve survived Boston’s wind and Würzburg’s rain, then cold is just one more element that can be conquered. And after all, weather is only ever temporary, and sometimes a long wait makes the Spring seem all the more beautiful.