Living in Germany (or How a Tadpole and Superman Are Same Thing)

I like living in Germany.

I really do.  And I think 80% of the time I do a good job of "pretending to be German".  Because that's the point of study abroad, right?  You try to become like, or at least understand, the people you're living with for a semester or year.  I am becoming a model German citizen - I separate my trash in strange ways, I stop at red lights on crosswalks, I carry cloth bags with me to the store, I walk everywhere (a feat, I know), I go to the bakery to get fresh bread every day (but seriously, within 3 days a little bread roll becomes a deadly weapon, so you have to.  Also, why wouldn't you?! The bread here is fantastic).  I'm even starting to dress more German - leather boots, a huge wallet for all my changes, more scarves than you can shake a stick at...Heck, I've managed to figure out this whole woah-I-have-coins-that-are-Euros-too-I'm-not-as-broke-as-I-thought-I-was.

Yes, I am becoming more and more German.

And then there is the other 20% of the time.  There are just some days when it becomes painfully obvious that I am not German.  Usually when I open my mouth and say something wrong (or occasionally when I push on a door when I should have pulled.  Embarrassing).  When you fail, and I mean utterly fail, at expressing something to someone because you lack the grammatical ability to string hundreds of verbs together or because you're missing that ONE WORD that would fully express all your feelings....There is truly nothing more devastating than that.  Because you end the conversation feeling terrible and the person you were talking to thinks you're insane.  Or stupid. Or both.  Or that you have the "emotional range of a teaspoon" (to quote Hermione Granger from Harry Potter).  Or all three.

Living in a foreign country is like being a spy.  You don't want to be "found out".  You don't want other people to know you're foreign until it casually comes in conversation ("Oh, by the way, I'm from America.  Oh really? You are? I thought you were German!) and you can giggle about it.

What do a tadpole and Superman have in common?

For those of you not comic book
or pop culture inclined,
this is a tadpole.

Nice pose.

Answer - they both are trying to hide their identities  from everyone else.

Living in a foreign country is like being a tadpole among a bunch of baby fish.  You look the same (mostly) until you freakishly sprout legs and decide you want to live on land.

Living in a foreign country is like being Superman.  You're an alien that can fly, lift trucks, shoot lasers out your eyes, leaping building in a single bound (and a whole bunch of other cool stuff).  But you live as a nerdy reporter.  You're not fooling anyone with those glasses, Clark.


The upshot is this: You will eventually be found out as an impostor.  


A semi-aquatic amphibian.  A super-powered alien.  An American student.


But you know what?  All of the above are pretty awesome.

And it's fun to keep them guessing.


(Also, my Lion King review will be up soonish!)

Was ist blau in Blaubeuren? (Part 1 of 2)

Last week, all the 50ish students of my intensive language course packed up and drove into the Swabian Alps (in German, die Schwäbische Alb).  It was pretty frightening driving up winding mountain roads in a giant mega-bus.  There were definitely moments when I looked out the window and saw a huge cliff beyond the railing.  After about an hour and a half, we arrived in Blaubeuren, a tiny little town nestled in the mountains.  We unpacked and then we had to do a scavenger hunt.  


I don't mind scavenger hunts in English, but I don't like having to ask strangers for information.  Let me tell you, it's even worse in German.  We were given a sheet full of ten questions and we were told to explore the city and get the answers from real Germans.  It was terrifying!  The first man we asked was a pleasant elderly man who spoke in fluent Swabian. So we couldn't understand a thing!  The next several people were also friendly, albeit difficult to understand.  Finally, we found a family who were more than willing to answer all our questions and look up (thank you iPhone!) the ones they didn't know.  Then they pointed us in the direction of the Blautopf, the pride and joy of Blaubeuren.

Blautopf this way!

Just don't go swimming, okay?

Die Schoene Lau - A statue commemorating the myth
 of a mermaid who learned how to laugh. 

Yep.  The water is really that blue.  It looks like anti-freeze.  And you can't tell from the pictures, but the Blautopf is about 60 feet deep and connects into a huge web of underground lake and tunnels.  The Blautopf was amazingly pretty and it did have a bit of magic about it with the forest mountains surrounding it.  It's no wonder that the monks decided to put a monastery right by it!

The cloister in Blaubeuren.
It's only about 1000 years old.
No biggie.

The monastery is now a boarding school! Like Hogwarts, but without the magic.
And more music.
And religion.
But you know, just like Hogwarts. 

Jake gives Rachel a piggyback in the courtyard.

3/5 of the Tuebinger 5 and our new International Friends!
Neils, Helena (both from Belgium), Rachel, Jake, and Emily

Leaving You in a Plume of Diesel Fumes (Or Holy Rescue Mission Batman!) Part II

 PART II

So, after an exciting day around Germany, we decided to all kick back, eat dinner together (pizza!), and watch a movie.  Naturally, I had already managed to secure a German copy of my favorite guy movie ever - The Dark Knight.  In my opinion, this is one of the best action movies ever made and I love it. ( Mostly because Christian Bale unbelievably attractive as Bruce Wayne. But Aaron Eckhart is amazing too!)  And I am happy to report that a good movie in English is still a good movie in German.  Although I missed the voice acting from the English version, I was able to follow the movie really well in German. Holy German Vocabulary Lesson Batman!

Zach left early because he was super tired and Jake was planning on taking the bus back to his dorm.  The only problem with the Dark Knight is that's it's a really, really, really long movie.  It keeps you engaged the whole time, but it's about 3 hours long.  Emily, Rachel, Jake, and I said goodbye around 1am and everyone went their separate ways.

At about 1:30 am, my phone starts ringing.  It was Jake.

Oh God, I think, he's missed his bus.  Instead I hear Jake's voice, small and shivery on the end, telling me that he took the wrong bus, he has no idea where he is, he can't see any houses or cars or lights, and it's raining.

It turns out there are two bus stops with the same name in Tuebingen.

Jake has called me because I am the only one of the five who has both internet and access to taxis. I quickly googled his location.

The news wasn't good.  He was on the direct opposite side of town from his dorm. (Point A is Jake's dorm, Point B is where he was)

 I found a taxi number online and called. I explained (in terrible German) to the driver that he needs to pick up someone from the other side of town and drive them back home on the opposite side of town.  I can come in an hour, the driver says.

Meanwhile, Jake was having a panic attack.  His cell phone was out of minutes, a single car would drive by going 80 mph about every 10 minutes, and the only light and shelter from the cold was the overhang from a gardening shed that he found.  There wasn't a pathway for him walk even if he wanted to try and walk back home.  All he had was his wallet, a soon-to-be-useless cellphone, a jacket, and a bag of snacks.

So I did what Batman would do when faced with a daring rescue mission without the Batmobile - I grabbed my umbrella, my wallet, my keys, and my phone and found myself a taxi.

Luckily there was a taxi service company right outside my dorm. There was one taxi waiting outside, its little yellow light the only beacon of hope in the rain.  I tapped on the window and told the driver where I need to go.  He told me he knew the place, but gave me a weird look.  I quickly told him that my friend had gotten on the wrong bus.  The taxi driver made a little noise somewhere between a cough and laugh.  He patted the passenger seat on his side and invited me to sit there.

I scowled and sat in the back.  I'm not stupid. It was about 2am now and I was young woman taking a solitary taxi out to the middle of nowhere. There was no way in hell that I was going to get groped or raped while on a rescue mission.  Instead, I busied myself on the drive by keeping a close eye on where we were going, counting the number of turns, and trying to memorize where things were on the way in case I needed to escape or walk home.  I knew we were going the right way - the map and its twists and turns were burned into my mind thanks to adrenaline and panic - but I still worried.  I got really worried when I saw a Tuebingen sign with a huge red slash through it, proclaiming to all that, indeed, I had left the city limits.

What if Jake was actually somewhere else and I had incorrectly Googled his location?!

What if this taxi driver was taking me out of city limits for some nefarious purpose?  

What if he killed me and dumped my body in the forest or the fields?  No one would ever find me!  No one would know where I had gone! And Jake would still be stuck cold, wet, and lost in a field!

And worst  of all, I realized, was that I didn't know the number to call the German police.

The taxi slowed by a dark part of the road. Then I saw Jake standing by the bus stop.  (Bus stop here is an operative word.  Some bus stops are nice with little shelters and benches - this was just a pole with the bus schedule on it.)  Jake wrenched open the taxi door and said: "I knew it was you! This was the only car that has gone past in like 15 minutes!"

We then told the taxi driver to drive back to my house.  I called Zach to tell him that I had found Jake, because as it turns out Jake's phone was now useless and out of minutes.  We got back to my place, paid the taxi driver an exorbitant 20 Euros for the ride, and Jake crashed at my place for the night.

Then I switched off the Batsignal and curled up in bed, feeling like quite the superhero.