The First Week is the Wurst Week

Saturday June, 6th
This trip has not exactly started out as I had hoped. It’s been one hell of a Saturday. Air India canceled a flight Friday which caused complete and total chaos for my flight day. I stood in line for 4 hours before being told I had to be through security and at the gate in 15 minutes…LIES. I’m still sitting at the gate and it is 8:04. I’m running on about 3 hours of sleep. I’m sweaty, greasy and I’m sure a bit smelly. All I want to do is shower and maybe eat something. Something that’s not Indian food. Fat chance that’s on the menu.

Sunday June, 7th
Alright, I’ve gotta hand it to Air India. They pulled it out in the end. Wound up with 3 seats to myself so I flipped up the armrests and made myself a bed out of the 3 pilfered pillows and blankets. They kept throwing food at me… well not literally, though that would have been more enjoyable than the stewardess’ blatant hatred of me. She was all smiles and nice comments until she came my way. Don’t know what was stuck up her bum. Na ja.

I landed in Frankfurt at 10:40 AM with a burning sore throat from the recycled airplane oxygen and breezed through immigration (take that stewardess! I’m SO not suspicious). My bags were waiting when I got to the carousel, ukulele blissfully intact and then…oh and then I had to find a freakin’ train. Mind you, it wasn’t nearly as confusing as I imagine the LIRR must be for tourists, but it wasn’t exactly a cake walk either. We’ll make this long and not so interesting story short and say I wound up spending more money than I wanted to, but it was alright because it was a direct high-speed train and other than running over my toes with my suitcase it went smoothly as soon as I was on. I need to mention the toddler I was sitting next to though because she was the most idyllic little cherub I’ve ever seen and I’m pretty sure that at 2 years old she spoke better German than I do. Nixing Asian baby adoption, German tots are where it’s at.

Host Mom (or Corinna I haven’t decided what I’ll blog her as yet) met me at the train station in her brand new ORANGE compact car. At that very moment I knew everything was going to be just fine, lol. It was cemented when I saw a picture of her in my room in which she is wearing a leopard print gown. We got home to an amazing meal made by Host Dad (Wolfgang) who is home for the weekend I guess? I’m not too sure on his deal, it sounds like he lives and works in Frankfurt. Regardless, it was delicious, Host Brothers (Julian and Jascha) made an appearance before scurrying back to their videogames and Host Dad went bonkers over my Blackberry. Now, between his lack of English, my lack of German and Host Mom’s uncertainty in translating, the discussion about US calling plans and SIM cards was just ridiculous. He seems intent on buying it off of me when I leave though, lol.

Camila, my Brazilian Dialog-Institute compatriot has been living here for 7 weeks now and she’s absolutely brilliant. She’s a German language teacher and is using this to finish her degree. Wanna talk about intimidating though, her German is …mind blowing. We’re the same age and she is pretty much Quinna’s doppelganger, in looks and mannerisms. How this happens I don’t know, but it’s the truth. Scouts honor.

Wednesday June 10th

I have been so busy I can barely stand up straight. I was late to school Monday morning thanks to Camila being way too nice and not telling me to get a move on. What a way to make an impression, eh? Oy vey. Anyway, I get there, I take my placement test, meet the other Hunter students and get right to class, thankfully with Professor Kuhn-Osius. There’s another group of students from the Massachusetts here, but they’re boarding school kids and barely 16. Andrew tends to gravitate toward our group seeing as none of his friends are here and the girls from his school are annoying as sin. Poor kid. So, after class and lunch, Prof. Kuhn-Osius took us on a bit of a walking tour of the immediate area. I can’t wait to start exploring more. We stopped off in one of the millions of museums around this city, this one housing original manuscripts. I’ve officially seen my first Guttenberg Bible. Monumental.

I’m rather shocked by the extent I’m able to understand German. The only time I hear English these days is between my peers, but it really hasn’t hindered me too much. I am however shocked by how hard it is to speak. I’m so intimidated that it’s ridiculous. I’m slowly getting over it, but now I’m just frustrated and that’s equally as dangerous. I also need to remember that I’ve only been here for 4 days.

Tuesday I not only managed to get to school on my own, but I also managed to be on time. Of course first thing in the morning we start covering a topic that I couldn’t comprehend back in the states when it was explained in English let alone now that it’s in German so that wasn’t fun. At lunch Andrew found sanctuary with us in the Mensa (cafeteria) and regaled us with stories of boarding school hazing. Stories of Korean kids and ball grabbing, how can you go wrong? We then gathered to go to Wilhelmshöhe with the Concord Academy kids and once there Prof. Kuhn-Osius toured us around the art museum that is housed in the former palace. He’s probably one of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met. I don’t think that there’s anything he doesn’t have at least some working knowledge of. The views at Wilhelmshöhe are absolutely phenomenal and I’ll definitely be back before I leave. Clarissa and I then made our way back to the school in order to get on the interwebz since no one other than my parents had heard from me and before long it was time for us to go to the good Professor’s for a party of sorts.

Prof. and his wife live in exactly what I pictured a German apartment to be, right down to the smell. Three floors, one apartment on each, name plates on the door denoting who lives there, skeleton keys to get into every room… I was about ready to just pretend I was Sally Bowles and call it a day. Life really is a Cabaret here in Germany ol’ chum. We were all hella awkward with each other all of a sudden and sat in his living room staring for a good while before beer starting doing its job and Prof. busted out his guitar. Who knew he would turn out to be a freakin’ amazing classical guitarist? Sam busted out some Johnny Cash while Caroline told stories about Brook Shields’ mom and I didn’t wind up getting back to Bromeisstrabe until about midnight.

Today started off rainy. Oh yes, have I mentioned I might as well be in the North Pole? It’s freakin’ FREEZING here. Cold and rainy though if I understand German well enough, it’s supposed to get nice again next week. So, I got to the corner as the tram was coming down the street allowing me just enough to cross. Schön, ja? NEIN! Just as I’m going to cross, the little old German Frau next to me slips off the curb and falls. Wunderbar. Now what? There was no one around, I don’t know the German 911 equivelant, she’s spouting German at me a million miles an hour and I’m about ready to just faint and join her on the concrete. Oh yeah…and now my tram is gliding past me and down the street. So…I was late again to school. The Frau is fine, I got her up and going and my day was able to get progressively better until pronunciation training. I’ve never felt so stupid in my entire life. German’s hard dude.

Sunday June, 14th

I promise that after this entry I will try and blog more regularly so you’re not reading novels all the time. The rest of the week continued to be super busy and I’m proving to be rather allergic to Germany… or just Kassel… or just the trees in Kassel. I’ve been so freakin’ sick and paranoid that I have Swine flu, especially since it reached Germany 2 days after I did and from NY no less. I start coughing, then I start sneezing, then I can’t breathe… oh it is miserable, but I braved a pharmacy and came out with the German equivalent to NyQuil…or so I’m assuming because I woke up close to 20 hours later and feeling quite a bit better.

On Thursday we went to Paderborn since it was Corpus Christi and we had no school. The problem was that it was Corpus Christi! The entire city was pretty much shut down and because it was raining and there were practically sub-zero temperatures there wasn’t even the church procession. So after a miserable tour in which I only understood about half of what dear Thorston was saying, the group of us somehow managed to find an open coffee shop… which oddly enough stamped all of its plates with “New York Café.” I’m sure it is beautiful on a nice, non-holiday day, but that is something that I shall never know.

Nothing too spectacular has happened between then and now. Corinna is in Spain with Wolfgang until Wednesday and Camila has been in France, she gets back tonight though. The boys have been back and forth to their father’s so I see them here and there. I did a little shopping yesterday and got some souvenirs for my YA-YA sisters back in NY and “Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen”. They have the British Harry Potter’s all over the place too and it’s taking everything in my power not to buy another suitcase so I can come home with both versions.

Mr. H. Potter
Im Schrank unter der Treppe
Ligusterweg 4
Little Whinging
Surrey

That shouldn’t make me LOL nearly as much as it does, nor should the fact that Hermione’s name in German is Hermine. Man, I’m such a dweeb. Über dweeb even. Hmm…Wie sagst du Dweeb auf Deutsch?

AHEM, okay, moving on, SO, today is Sunday and they sure do like to ring Church bells here in Germany. I’m so used to St. Malachy’s version of recorded church bells that play “Give My Regards to Broadway” that hearing the real thing just makes me think of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. They’ve been going for a good 10 minutes now too.

Thanks to this German NyQuil helping me to finally get over jetlag and making me feel a bit better, I thought I was well enough to go jogging this morning. Not so. Wheezing like an old Asthmatic man I was. I’m apparently living at the top of a hill though because I turned a corner toward a clearing and the view just took my breath away. I was overlooking Kassel and directly across was a clear view of Herkules and Wilhelmshöhe, I’ll have to walk back later with my camera. Anyway, I managed to jog to the bottom of the hill, which is pretty much a mountain in my Long Island opinion and decided I most definitely had to walk back. I can’t run uphill on a good day, let alone when I have the pseudo-Swineflu.

Julian, the older of my host brothers delivers newspapers on Sunday’s so I’ve been watching him go back and forth all morning with his wagon full of newspapers. Looks like a lot of work to me. If I understood Corinna correctly he has over 600 papers to deliver every Sunday and he’s been going at it for hours already. He makes bank though. You don’t get taxed if you make less than 400€ a month and he’s just under that mark. He looked like he was about to fall over on this last cartful though.

RANDOM BABBLES:

German Reality T.V.

German reality television is simply the best. It’s so much more provocative than anything we have in the States and over all it is just more amusing. Mission Hollywood is my newest addiction. Til Schweiger (Mark from SLC Punk!) hosts it and apparently he really is the German Tom Cruise (pre-Katie Holmes/Scientology craziness). I really want him to just break out with one good, “SINK YOU FOOL!!”, but I’m content with his mere presence as he creepily licks his lips and tells skanky German wannabe actresses that they suck.

German Birds

Birds here in German are super friendly and kind of stupid. They approach you out of sheer curiosity and as if to simply say, “Hello human.” They’re much more vocal and the crows walk like little humans. Shortly before I left NYC I questioned why you never see pigeon road kill on the streets. You most definitely see pigeon road kill here in Kassel. They walk in front of trams, they walk under peoples feet… Caroline almost stepped directly on top of one the other day. It’s all rather bizarre. Summation: pigeons are a nuisance no matter the country, but at least they eat them here in Europe and small German children also really like to chase ducks.

German Bums

German bums are just as crazy as you’d imagine them to be. One happened to find me and kept asking for 10 cents. I’d tell her no, she’d cross to the other side of the tram tracks and 5 minutes later she’d be back asking for another 10 cents… in English mind you. She then found Clarissa and I a few days later and repeated this routine. There was another rambling on about Nazis stealing his cake and there’s a lot of homeless young people chilling on the streets, very Berkeley, CA style except that they’re more dirty Punk than dirty Hippie. By “a lot” I mean like…3 and they all seem to have dogs.