Germany

My trip to Germany just barely happened; I squeaked by the airport 7 hours before the air controller’s nationwide strike in Spain.  It was pretty serious-- All flights in to Spain were cancelled for 2.5 days and Spain went into a State of Alert.  Eventually, under the threat of arrest “Spain's air traffic controllers were forced to return to work – escorted by armed police – after a walkout caused chaos throughout Europe” (telegraph.co.uk). It was news in Germany and we couldn’t believe how lucky I was.  Besides the strike, elsewhere in northwest Europe flights were cancelled due to huge snow storms. Yeah, snow. That doesn’t mean much to you, Minnesotan’s.  But for me, who just had run in shorts and a t-shirt-- sleeves rolled up-- a few days before, it was a body shock.  So I borrowed jackets, leggings, scarves, and gloves.  Also, Aleen’s dad lent me boots which I looked a little ridiculous in.  Despite it all, I was cold in the streets.  It was the first time that Aleen was more accustomed to the cold that I was.  

I hadn’t seen that girl in 2.5 years.  We were amazed at how fast time goes -- 5 years since she studied in Bemidji.   It won’t  be long until I’m saying, “5 years ago I was studying in Sevilla.”  We had too much to recount and so despite having arrived at 12 PM (plane delay), we stayed up talking until we fell asleep without intending to.  And that’s how we went every night, laying in bed, talking long after first burrowing under the covers. 

Hensted-Ulzberg, where Aleen actually lives, is a cute little town.  We spent most of the time there, sledding, eating chocolate, and watching a few movies.  It was weird to me that Aleen heard two parts of a movie that I didn’t catch.  It impressed me a lot and again made me enthusiastic to continue my Spanish and learn other languages.  One of the nights, we went to trampoline practice and if you have ever seen it on T.V., you can imagine how much better is it to see people doings crazy flips 45 feet in the air right in front of you. Another night, I met her best friend Aleena and her boy friend Lennart.  We played the German version of Sorry in her room and later went out dancing.  Good fun!! 

I liked spending time in the house, watching Aleen and her family interacting although I didn’t understand what they said.  I knew more random words that I thought, useful phrases like “spitting is forbidden” which Dad said to my brother a few years back.  I expanded my German vocab from 20 words to 30 and can now count to 10. Impressive, right? ;)  Despite that I couldn’t understand the actual words, I sometimes understood what was going on by watching gestures and an occasional English sounding word.  For example, I picked up on the “Well, I s’pose” phrase that Germans say which means “Ok, I guess we are on the verge of being bored, so let’s politely hint that it’s time to go...”   Also, I experienced the German keyboard which was hard to get used to; I know that I sent out a few emails that had mistakes.   After having explained to Brenna via Facebook that the z’s were switched around with the y’s, she replied to me:

“As I was reading the first part of your email, I was a bit concerned about your use of "z"...it appeared that you had morphed into a gangster. Which would have been totally acceptable, I feel that you would be a great thug :)”

Aleen and I ate a lot of amazing German food because her mom is 

a genuine cook. She prepared us a typical German breakfast with fresh buns with lots of spreads:  cheese, potato spread, raw salmon, 4 or 5 different sausages including raw sausage!!  Probs have trichinosis now, but everyone was doing it. In retrospect, I think that the Americans worry too much about germs.  I have seen in Mexico, Spain, and Germany food left out all night and sometimes morning and still eaten later.  I’m not completely over being anxious in eating it, but apparently it’s fine because I haven’t died yet.  For dinner one night, we had onions and spices rolled up inside of a slice of meat, balls of flourly potatoes, and cabbage. I had never eaten cabbage and liked it before this trip.  Birgett also cooked salmon for one dinner and a delicious cheese dish for another, both because I had talked about how I liked the German cheese and jealous I was of their fresh salmon.  That is so cute of her.  

Other than that, we went into Hamburg. Unfortunately, Hamburg was bombed to smithereens during WW2 and so there were few old buildings, a disappointment to me.  However, we did check out an old church that was bombed and left with the charred remains standing as a war memorial.  It was pretty impressive.  We walked by the harbor, saw a few churches, and walked through a happy Christmas street market.  It had lots of typical German foods and we shared a bratwurst.  No exaggeration when they say there is no comparison to the original German bratwurst.

¡Oye, Dios!  We also went to Starbucks... and I had thought that Starbucks was expensive in the U.S.  But, Starbucks + Europe = 2 basic coffees for 7 bucks.  Kill me. 

 

We also went to Lübeck which did have old buildings. One thing that I noted is that the churches in Germany are noticeably different than those in Sevilla.  For that matter, German churches are different that those in Costa Rica and Mexico which were similar to those in Spain.   That’s not really surprising considering the influence  Spain has had on Latin America.  After all, the Spaniards were a major contributer to the introduction of Catholicism in Latin America.

The week past too quickly.  I’m not much of a cryer.  So, what do you do if you want to express "i’mnotreadytosaygoodbyeican’tlookinyoursadeyes” if you can’t cry?  Where's the dislike button? At least she has promised to visit this summer :)