When all is said and done

Yesterday I had a wonderful afternoon with a German friend bumming around Olympiapark. The last two days have been beautiful weather. I wanted to go up Olympiaturm, the Olympic tower, and take one last good look at the Alps--the weather was perfect for it, not a cloud in the sky, clear horizon.

It's been a weekend of Abschiedpartys (farewell parties) and packing--insane amounts of packing. I'm quite proud of myself. I need to do several loads of laundry and dutifully was there when the Getränksverkauf was open so that I could buy my Waschenmarken--otherwise I would have to wait until tomorrow evening, and that wouldn't be good. I fly out Thursday in the Insane Hours of the Morning and Wednesday is my Wrapping Things Up Day.

I'm quite shocked how much Germany has grown on me. Living in an essentially socialist society has been very enlightening for me. I wouldn't ever prefer it to the rough-and-tumble unchecked individualism of the United States, I don't think, but I can see how it appeals. (Here is a very interesting article that appeared in The New York Times Magazine which does a good job of explaining a European socialist country, and has remarkable similiarites to what I have observed here in München. Going Dutch: How I Learned to Love the European Welfare State) People here would never go so far as American niceness, but they do care about each other to some degree, as long as it does not interfere with the lives of others. Though Germany, in my opinion, lacks what I would call universal standard handicapped access, there is never a lack of hands to pull a person in a wheelchair over the steps into a store, to open a door for a woman on crutches, to call the ambulance when someone needs it. It is hardwired into small children (I have seen this collective cultural training in action) to always mind that your own things never interfere with someone else's business. When I think of something really American that would rise the collective German ire, I think of things like huge automobiles and double parking--Americans are not very respectful of another's literal and metaphorical space--probably because we have had the luxury of not having to be. But Germans are very aware where that line between You and Me is and everyone does what they can to preserve the sanctity of that line.

But socialism, for all its wonders, continuously hinges on a lot of factors that don't always coordinate nicely together: payers-in and payers-out of the system. Germany, for all its Kindergeld (the monies new parents receive per child from the government) efforts, is still growing older, and every year 100,000 immigrants come into the country. Socialism also makes what I think can be a disasterous mistake of assuming homogeneity, and can make it very difficult for outsiders to integrate into the culture and the system. These thoughts aren't clear at all, but I feel like in America it's way easier for foreigners to integrate, partly because we aren't assuming that we're all playing by the same rules that socialism demands.

I'm packing up (moving countries is no easy feat), and the room is slowly gaining some sense of Ordnung. Tomorrow will be my last full day in Germany, and I will get up at an Ungodly Hour on Thursday to catch my 7AM flight to Paris, Paris--Houston, Houston--my hometown. In Paris I will be subjected to the mandatory taking alllll my liquids out, practically undressing, and taking my laptop out and taking my shoes off while clutching to my passport and boarding pass for dear life, or, the ritual we call "Security." Oh, so it goes.

Today the JYM group flight left, taking a good chunk of the students with them. I'm trying to keep my spirits up. I'm ready to go back, I've had this adventure and feel even more emboldened to go on to new ones (after navigating daily life in a second language, everything else pales in comparsion! No more having to look up vocabularly words and explain in cumbersome, 7-year-old German what you're after). I've had quite a few San Antonio deja-vu moments, and it shocks me to think I will return to Trinity. But I'm also sad and sentimental about the time here. I think back to my arrival and I realize I didn't even know what I was in for at all, and I'm amazed how well I did, and that I did this at all.

Thanks for all your generous love and thanks for all the fun
Neither you nor I are to blame, when all is said and done. --ABBA

Photo: Lion of Bavaria holding shield which you rub for luck (glück), Odeonsplatz.

New York is a State of Mind

(Author's Note: still continuing on the updates. For my visit to Switzerland and my week with my parents, please see the post below this one. Update on Vienna and Sarah and Rebecca's visit yet to come. Please check back on Monday, 15 June.)

At this point in my journey I have roughly seven weeks left until I return to the United States. It's been an interesting time. I've had, to borrow someone else's expression about his study abroad experience, the best moments of my life so far here. Seriously---the top 5 best moments of my life, 4 of them have happened here. I've also had some of the worst moments. I would say that maybe 2 of my Top 5 Worst Moments happened here, too. It's been a FANTASTIC experience so far, it really has. I've grown so much through this---in an artificial setting like school, I'm not sure that I would have faced as many realities as I have here in Deutschland.

While I was in Switzerland with my parents, my mother made an off-hand remark about one of my favorite TV shows, described as a "fish out of water" by The Wall Street Journal, Northern Exposure, and about Dr. Joel Fleischman's longing for New York City as he's stranded in Cicely, paying off his debt to the state of Alaska. It made me think about how one is so accustomed to a culture with which one clicks, for some reason. At the end, Maggie tells Joel that she'd asked herself, "If Fleischman asks me to go back to New York with him, will I go?" But, as she tells Joel, New York is his home, and not hers. (So ends the love story, the relationship that never was.) The last scene is amazing--Joel's on the Staten Island ferry, and there's a sense of homecoming, but also the sense that he's changed, and Forever Nightshade Mary plays as Joel looks out over the skyline and Maggie flips over his postcard which reads simply but profoundly, "New York is a state of mind." I had thought once I related to Joel, in a "aw, how cute, he wants to go back to New York" way, but now I get it to a degree that I didn't before. To him, New York is the center of his soul, where everything runs as he expects it run--New York understands him, he understands New York.

I relate to that now. Today I had a moment of wonder in Karstadt when I saw shelves of jewelry items branded with "NOT BEING SOLD BECAUSE OF INVENTORY." In the U.S., that's sacreligious--that's why you close business or do inventory after hours, because in opening hours the goal is actually to, ahem, make sales. The logic goes against mine. It frustrated me so much at first, but now I'm reaching a nice halfway point. Earlier it seemed so much of a grim, concrete reality: that I was locked into this place with strange people and a strange language (hahah, you think you're studying abroad and you realize you've sent yourself to Mars), a foreign culture, juggling bagging your own things and paying at the same time as the second person's items comes crashing upon your things, having to pay for everything in a roundabout way, having trouble being understood and understanding, nothing being open on holidays or Sundays, better buy everything you need before 4PM Saturday---this was the grim reality through with I trudged.

But now, at the halfway point, I smile at the German people and their quirks, I'm used to not understanding and/or not being understood, I can skillfully bag my things (and remember to bring my own plastic bags, as here they cost euros) and pay at the same time without irritating all of the grocery store shoppers, and I have just gotten used to some of the more complex things that I've come to see as part of the Germans' reality until they decide to change it, but not part of my reality. The brick walls I run up against are familiar now, so familiar they're harmless. The awareness that my time is finite (which did NOT feel finite before) has made me more understanding, more tolerant, and more aware of what the European experience has done for me, and has actually made me paradoxically wish I could stay longer, like a quote from Lolita that I love: "let her stay, let her stay. . ." I see how much I've changed in the past months and wonder what change would lay ahead if I stayed.

I've met so many fascinating people, I've done so many fascinating things, and I've realized that this is a singular experience in my life. I've realized what it's done for me, but I know America and 24-hour Starbucks and Taco Taco and Borders' open late into the night seven days a week, is back there somewhere, waiting for when I'm done, and that's a comforting thought. And New York is, after all, a state of mind.

I leave you with a quote that is very meaningful to me at this moment, from the same fabulous episode:

"Maggie: I used to think of all the billions of people in the world, and of all those people, how was I going to meet the right ones? The right ones to be my friends, the right one to be my husband. Now I just believe you meet the people you're supposed to meet."

"Good Times In . . . Munich"

(Note: first of several blog updates. I am working in reverse, so that the blog retains a sense of chronology.)

My friend Kim from Trinity came to visit me at the end of her study abroad experience in Seville, Spain. She came just at the culmination of StuStaCulum, which is basically a four-day festival held out in the quad, with different bands playing each night, LOTS, and I mean, LOTS of beer being sold, tents and shops and food set up throughout the entire StuSta area. It was quite interesting. Many bushes were violated due to lack of public toilets---I'm not really sure why they didn't set up any port-a-potties. Another cultural oddity, it seems.

I showed Kim the sights and quite wore her out--we went to Marienplatz, Odeonsplatz, Hofgarten, etc. It was very interesting to hear Kim's experiences in Spain, and especially to hear how Spain compared to Germany. She was quite shocked when I took her to Münchner Freiheit right after she got in on a Thursday night around 11:30 and the place was as dark as time primordial--in Spain, they're just getting out. Or, as Kim said, "Even old people are out at this time in Spain!" (We ended up eating at McDonald's, open until a Spanish- American-friendly 2 a..m.) Kim took to Germany, though, and was surprised how well everyone spoke English, "practically with American accents," she said. Also she liked the cleanliness of Munich and the notable absence of street beggars and homeless people. I took her to get ice cream at Cafe Münchner Freiheit, which has the best ice cream ever.

However, for some reason, we just ran into a lot of negative Germans that day. The lady at the ice cream shop thought I didn't pay for my ice cream, when I did, and gave me a suspicious sidelong glance when I told her I had already paid. We rented a paddle boat in the Englischer Garten (tons of fun! And 5 euros for 30 minutes), and when we pulled back up to the pier, with Kim screaming, "I'm so bad at parallel parking!" we had one of the men working there take our photo of us in the boat, who did it without so much as twitching a facial muscle. Then, we were walking back into the entrance for StuSta (and also StuStaCulum, which required a 4 euro Eintritt), and I walked by (since I was going to my dorm, where I lived, and not headed toward the StuStaCulum festival at all) and this girl got up and accosted me, saying, "Hey, you, are you buying a ticket?" And I said, "I'm going to Blaues Haus." Point to blue house. "I live there. Do you need to see my student I.D. or my key?" She ignored this and looked at Kim. "And you?" I said, "She's visiting me." The girl just walked back to her post without a single apology. The entire encounter was very gruff and abrasive. I miss American openess (I won't say "friendliness," because that varies from region to region, but I mean a tendency to be a lot less suspicious of people.) a lot and get the feeling the Germans just aren't my people. Actually, I know they aren't.

We went to Hofbräuhaus the last night we were together, where we ran into a huge group of American students studying abroad in Florence who were sitting next to us. They were very drunk, but, due to this, were quite friendly, more than usual. I will give props to our dirndl-clad waitress: I gave her the payment for our meal while Kim was in the restroom, and this guy was eyeing my table and the waitress just looked up at him and barked, "Sie bleibt doch!" (She's staying there!) I caught her eye and I felt a wave of womanly simpatico between us.

Kim and I had a great time, though. I took her down to Starnberg Lake for the mountains-and-lake experience, and we got to hang out and swap stories of being abroad in Europe. All the friends I've encountered abroad, I can see how it's changed them for the good--made them stronger people, because I know we've all run into the same sorts of issues and been forced to resolve them ourselves. I'm glad study abroad has become de rigeur in America, especially at schools like Trinity, where a good portion of the students do study abroad.

Photo: Fire dancers at the last night of StuStaCulum.

Ger-English and Other Foibles

The above photos were taken at Munich Airport when I was waiting for my flight to London. They're from a pretty . . . tabloid-esque newspaper called TZ (I judge people reading TZ). Apparently the Fahrkartenkontrolle are learning English, and the article had the pronounciation guide. . . . So funny, especially if you know German, and are trying to pronounce your native language like a German would. It's quite hysterical.

Also, another trend: when one goes into an establishment (like San Franscisco Coffee Company, or Starbucks) with English names on the menu, it's really tricky not to get spotted out for one's American accent-pronounciation of these words. I have resorted to eavesdropping on Germans and listening to them order so that I can mimic their pronounciation of these English words.

For example (so diligent am I, I made a list!)

Coca-(Cola) Zero Kolah Zay-roh
Caramel Kah-rah-mel
Medium May-dee-um
Large Lah-ge
Chocolate Schok-let

In 98 days my mother ship comes to beam me up back to my home planet. . .

. . . where stores are open on Sunday.

. . . where debit and credit cards are commonly accepted, because people actually would like to have your money in any way, shape, or form, thanks! (Why would the zoo NOT TAKE CREDIT CARDS? Not that this was at all a problem for me, but still! The logic behind that decision baffles me!)
. . . where I understand everybody and everything.
. . . and they understand me! It's beautiful!
. . . where we all have a common cultural background, and I don't feel like an alien with 5 eyes and blue hands after ordering a muffin.

I'm going to go get a Coca-Cola now. School starts tomorrow. I cringe.

Photo: view toward New York, Mexico City, and London from the Olympiaturm. Can you see America from here?

Sorry, ich komme aus America.

Who in their right mind brings their pet rat on the U-Bahn? I thought watching that thing writhe on its owner's neck was going to give me a heart attack.

I was the only one in the vicinity notably fazed by this occurance.

Schoene Tagen

On Wednesday, I completed our homework assignment for JYM--a scavenger hunt of sorts. It was a crazy wonderful day. I started off in Sendlinger Tor, went inside the Asamkirche, walked up Sendlinger Strasse, over to Rosental, over to Rindermarkt, walked by the Deutsches Stadtmuseum and Juedisches Museum in St. Jakobsplatz, went over to Sebastiansplatz, walked up another street, had a delicious Schmalznudel (like a bengeit) at Cafe Frischhut, walked through Victualenmarkt, rounded the corner exactly at 12:00 by happenchance in the Marienplatz and got to watch the Glockenspiel play. I paid 1,00 Euro for the climb up the St. Peterskirche Turm---and the sky was so clear, I saw the high, high, snow-capped Alps on the horizon. I nearly wept: it was that beautiful. After that, I walked up a side street parallel to Theaterinstrasse, saw the Bayerishes Stadtmuseum in the striking Maximilian-Joseph-Platz, walked over to Odeonsplatz, went inside beautiful Theaterinkirche, walked through the whole Hofgarten grounds as a virtuoso played a deep melody on the cello in the halls and old men played games of pins, honored students gone at the memorial to the members of the White Rose, and then, around 4PM, fetched lunch in Muenchner Freiheit.

It was an amazing day. Can days be this amazing? Not really sure.

I'm doing very well so far, and enjoying this experience and what it means for my growth as an individual. For certain, the hardest part is getting accustomed to the 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, nonstop German-speaking environment. I was in a friend's room and she had her radio on--German again, even when we were (hush! tell no one!) speaking English amongst ourselves. I never dreamed it would be tempting to speak in English here, but it is. A lot of clarity in speech is lost when one converses in a language not one's own, and many conversations cannot be had, or at least not as easily.

Thursday our orientation began, and it was wonderful. The JYM staff are as helpful and nice as they come. I'm so glad I chose this small, cozy program over a large one. I was able to keep up with Sommer's nonstop, schnell gunug Deutsch as she went over our health insurance in Germany, our Anmeldung (reporting) of our address at the Kreisverwaltungsreferat, the German test we had today, etc. So I was quite proud of myself.

I've also bought a "Handy," or very small, very cheap cell phone here for use among the JYM'ers and for calling other local numbers here. I didn't have any minutes on it, so I had to figure that out, too. Sommer said there was a kiosk right on the corner from JYM where one could buy minutes for Vodafone. It's the strangest kiosk. It's one integrated kiosk, but half is for cigarettes ( you have to swipe your driver's license to buy) and the other half is for cell phones "cards." You put the dollar bill in, select how many euros worth of minutes you want, and it prints a receipt (that's your "card") which has a phone number on it that you call, punch in this super long number, and then you get to load your minutes.

After all those weeks in German 1 talking about "in der Mensa," I actually got to eat one. On Thursday we ate at the mensa, or cafeteria across the street from the TU, Technische Universtaet Muenchen. It was cafeteria. This thing made Mabee look like the Ritz. No cute little signs or choices, really. You just walk in, get a tray, slide it across in an U-formation, pick the foods you want (different foods are ranked at different levels of price: Gericht 1 is cheapest, 4 is most expensive), put them on the tray, and pay at the end with your Mensakarte. (Mensakarte must be bought beforehand, and then you can reload money on your card with kiosks in the Mensa. They only take Mensakarten.) The Mensakarte costs 10 euro: 6 is a deposit (when you return your Mensakarte you get it back), and it's called "Kaution." The other 4 is for "Guthaben" or actually your balance.
However, despite the incredibly instutional feel of the cafeteria, it was SPOTLESS. There was not a smudge on the fork or tray. Utterly spotless. Everthing was sparkling. I had currywurst (which at first I thought I was going to spit out, but made myself keep on and it wasn't that awful), DELICIOUS mashed potatoes (jeeez, those things were amazing), for which I had to pass up some scrumptious-looking broccoli, and chocolate milk. Which was really good chocolate milk. Not lame carton chocolate milk like back in the U.S. We sat down in a nice, spacious, big wide dining area.

Also on Thursday, we had a tour of the Studentenstadt with "Tutoren" here. "Tutoren" I think are actually tutors, but they have some other duties here as well. While back home there's kinda the RA and that's it for the hall, here the RA functions seem to be broken down into a lot of different roles. In every dorm there's one person in charge of the washing machines, 2 Haussprecheren (I think), who represent the dorm to the Heimat, or the sort of "student / residential life governering council" (comprised of students), 2 Tutoren, and I think that's it. Every floor has a "Stockwerksprecher," or the most-RA like position: s/he's in charge of maintaining the "Gemeinschaftappartment" (GAP), a members-only common room which costs about 50,- euro to join, but you get to use the common room, watch the TV, play games, and have access to the cheap drinks and snacks. The GAP is where student life on the hall flourishes.(They also have really funny signs on the doors. On the ground floor of Oranges Haus there's a sign that says: "MIND THE GAP," straight out of England, and there's another sign that says, "KINDER SPIELEN": kids are playing.)

I was in Alex's group. Alex is a pre-med student from Austria, and he looked textbook European: thin, rimless glasses, even-tempered. He showed us around the Studentenstadt and gave us a lot of really good information. He was harder to follow than Sommer earlier that day, but I still understood most of what he said, and I asked him plenty of questions, if only to practice with a native. Parts of the tour were super-awkward, though, for all of us, as we were trying to explain why we were studying German, etc.., to this native German-speaker in our, like, fourth-grade language to this guy our age. Language barriers are hard to overcome--which is why, I must remind myself, I am studying German, to become fluent!

My favorite part of the tour was when he showed us the washing machine in Blaues Haus, my dorm. This thing is out of the CAVEMAN days. It's a tiny door just my height that opens up to this one itty bitty washing machine sitting in a boiler room space, with exposed pipes, etc., and also the intimidating Celcius scale. Why not just "hot," "cold," "warm,"? Why bring Celcius into the equation? Why does the U.S. not use this system? It's just not that handy knowledge in the rest of the world. Did anyone guess one washing machine could proffer so many "why's"?

After the tour we ate with the rest of the JYM group and their tour guide / Tutoren, Katarina, in a student restaurant just at the foot of Blaues Haus, called Tribuehne. It was really cheap food, and I had a Seelachsfillet, and it was way better than the one I had at the Hofbraeuhaus, which is really, really sad. We talked to Alex some more and picked his brain.

There was this moment, though, when one guy in my group got some sort of German dish, brought it back to the table, and just looked at his food, then at the American side of the table and said in English: "I think I'm going to get tired of this German food pretty soon." It was a moment where we realized we had pretty much only two things in common: (a) we were American and (b) we missed a great deal about home. It's weird; one wouldn't imagine it, but one gets a totally different perspective on one's home culture when one is so far away from it. Even now, I only have 2 movies to my name on my laptop: Body of Lies, and Enchanted, so I felt more like the former than the latter (such polar opposites do they represent!), and I'm watching Body of Lies and thinking how freaking American this movie is. I've seen it a couple of times before, but never had such a reaction to it. But now I'm just like, "oh, my people! there they are!" I have never felt such an affinity for Leonardo DiCaprio (? di Caprio? ) before, but now I'm like ooooo, he's american, just like meeeeeeeee!

The most difficult thing to understand about Europeans is how staid they all seem. Most of them are quite nice underneath all that staidness, but the utter lack of facial expression is just surprising sometimes. I have seen Germans taking photos of each other in front of statues/memorials/etc and the person whose photo is being taken doesn't even twitch and maintain this resolute expression. Maybe there's a smile variation which I'm unable to detect, but it's like, if you took a picture like that in the U.S., people would think you needed help. Here: totally normal. You have to admire that, though.

Just going to clean up the room this weekend and get ready for more orientation next week! Pictures to be added very soon to this blog post, so watch this space.

Back in Bavaria

As the taxi driver speeds by the rolling landscape, I feel truly “back in Bavaria.” It’s slightly colder than the Bavaria I knew in the summer (but not extreme at all, like in the 50 degrees. I just needed a coat and a long-sleeve shirt), but still the same Bavaria, ausfahrts and all. He deposited me at the JYM office on Richard-Wagner Strasse and the corner of Gabelbergerstrasse, and I ring the doorbell at the office to be greeted by a youthful, kind face speaking English to me (however briefly that lasted, “Deutsch ist die offiziale Sprache der JYM” is the motto), Sommer Sherritt. I meet a couple of students from the program who are hanging around, and then Sommer and I delve into the all-Deutsch explanation of How My Life Will Work Here as I attempt to stuff as many chocolate cookies in my mouth as possible.
Photo: Bikes in the tunnel across from Blaues Haus, my dorm. Across the street is the U-Bahn Studentenstadt.

I receive several packets of information, my dorm keys, directions and maps, my Studentenausweis (student I.D.) with Ausbildung II karten that let me ride the U-Bahn system until the end of the month, and a bunch of other stuff, including my first homework assignment, a scavenger hunt in the Altstadt. Sommer calls a taxi for me and also calls E.J., who has been here since September with the program, to greet me at Christoph-Probst-Strasse and help me get to Blaues Haus, my dorm.
Photo: Studentenstadt.

I arrive in the Studentenstadt (“student village”) and E.J. very kindly helps me with getting to Blaues Haus (so named for the window frames, painted in blue). Without his help, I would have been Bambi’s mom when the hunters came. We take the lift up to the second floor (but really the third, given that, in Europe, the first floor doesn’t start until after the ground level) and go down to my room at the end of the hall. E.J. invites me to meet him and the group who are here at 17.30 (“halb sechs”) to go einkaufen and then go out to dinner for a gemeinsames Essen. He then leaves me to ponder how klein this space is. The bed at first reminded me of The Next Generation episode “Unification,” where a Klingon captain invites Picard to sleep “Klingon-style” on a hard shelf. The bathroom is something out of the Jetsons. If airplanes had bathrooms with showers, they would look like my bathroom. You step up into the bathroom itself, and then step up into the shower. Immediately adjacent is the little kitchenette, with 2 stove plates, a small refrigerator, and cupboards, and a sink. The closet is right behind my bed and about the same size as the bathroom, to be honest. I have a small balcony and window view. I’ve never had the luxury of being able to position my laptop in front of a window, but, with the desk, I do now. As I type I am looking at smoke emerging from a smokestack and dead trees in the parking lot. The bed is really low but there is shelving space above it. The curtains are blue (duh) and the walls white. I received a bag with fresh bedding and put it on. The cushion on the bed is thin, but comfortable, and I put the fitted sheet over it, and then there was this gigantic pillow-case thing in a nice rainbow pattern which I thought was the flat sheet, but then it turned out to be pillow-case style, with sewed-up seams. I also received a top sheet that is Big Bird yellow, a pillow, and another pillowcase entirely too large for the pillow. I turned the bed around and slept in the giant pillow case thing like a sleeping bag last night, then realized this morning that it had buttons, so it’s meant to go over the Big Bird yellow cover. I still want the second sheet, though. Photo: door to my dorm, Blaues Haus, Christoph-Probst-Strasse.

After settling in, I used the toilet, only to realize too late that this wasn’t Trinity, and there was no toilet paper in the little dispenser. No maids will be coming by to restock my toilet paper and leave peppermints as gifts. I took a shower, which was so much like the scene in Lost in Translation when Bill Murray takes a shower that it wasn’t funny. I changed clothes and let my hair air-dry as I unpacked (read: “threw everything out of her suitcase and onto a shelf so she could ascertain what else she needed”). I sat on my canary yellow bed and wondered if it was too late to go back to Trinity. I was alone, in a strange country, had no Internet connection, no power cord, no food, no drinks, a barely functional alarm, and, as I tried to make shopping notes to myself, I realized I had almost no paper to write on to my name. More importantly, I had no toilet paper. I didn’t even own a trash can, and contented myself with a broken SpaceBag for rubbish. Photo: Karstadt Department Store, Muenchner Freiheit.

My first priority was food, and then the adaptor. I couldn’t mess around with the Ethernet until I had a stable power source. I didn’t even really know where the Studentstadt U-Bahn was, I realized with a sinking feeling. I located the stores I needed to visit, and made tiny notes on how to get to them, and set off with a great deal of trepidation. I saw some girls walking in the little tunnel/archway right outside my dorm that seemed to lead to a major street, so I followed them and happily saw the blue “U” right on the other side of the street. I got to the U-bahn and wanted to buy a Monatskarte (which would have been a foolish purchase, because they run on a calendar month, not when you buy the card itself), and tried to fiddle with the machine as someone waited behind me. Ah, I felt stupid! So I just stepped aside and was content to use my Ausbildung karte to get on the U-bahn. I knew I had to go south, and get off at Alte Heide for my first stop (food). I wanted to take the U-6 down, but there weren’t any coming, so I sorta hopped on at the last minute on the U-3 that was going in Richtung Münchner Freiheit. Unless I was grossly misunderstanding, I knew I would be able to get off at Alte Heide. On the U-Bahn, I contemplated briefly what would happen if I wasn’t going where I wanted to go? Freedom is a terrible thing sometimes. But my instincts were right, and I was able to get out at Alte Heide, where I was supposed to be able to find the Supermarkt Rewa (‘Ray-vah’) by taking a right out of the U-bahn across the side street. I did, and didn’t’ see it, but found instead another little grocery store owned by a well-heeled Middle Eastern man in his 30s.

I found PEANUT BUTTER in the grocery store and I was estatic! I didn’t have any knives at the room but I didn’t care at this point. As I walked around, I heard English. . . English??!? Where? In the background. . . what were the voices saying? “Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no river low enough.” Ah, “I Will Survive” by The Supremes. I was so happy to hear the song. I’ll associate it with that moment for the rest of my life.

I also bought some other things, including toilet paper, and went to check out, trying to imitate the older Turkish woman in front of me. I paid (it was a really cheap, but still nice, grocery store), and then desperately tried to find the plastic bags and had to ask, “Wo sind die Plastiktaschen?” All the little routine things of life become so much bigger issues in a foreign country—not because they are, but because the entire apparatus upon which you are accustomed to operating (you operate so well that the apparatus is second-nature) has shifted, sometimes dramatically: the currency is strange, the language is different, the way people go about doing things…. It’s not so much culture (although that does come into play), but the way a society has elected to operate.

After being stocked up on food and drink, I turned to solve my electronic issues next. I needed the cord that runs from the black box of the laptop’s power cord to the wall, the adaptor. Sommer had told me that I could get this at Karstadt, a department store. The map she gave me said that Karstadt started in the basement of Münchner Freiheit, so I went back down to the Alte Heide U-Bahn and got off at Münchner Freiheit. The last time I was in Munich, two years ago, my family spent a lot of time here, so I felt better being somewhere familiar. I walked around the U-bahn level briefly but didn’t see anything resembling a major department store, so walked up to the ground level. They’re doing construction on the Freiheit U-Bahn so there was a lot of mess up there. I walked around hopelessly, thinking I must have gotten something wrong, and right there, on the corner, was a large, glossy building, that, sure, enough, had KARSTADT emblazoned across the doors. I looked down the street at the McDonald’s at the end and realized I’d been on this street before. There should be a Starbucks across the street, right? I couldn’t see it. . . .then I saw it! I had been here before—I even saw the bus sign where I had taken a picture of a dog. I had taken no notice of Karstadt then. . . . I hadn’t needed to. I rode the escalator up to the fifth floor, which held the Promised Land of Electronics. After walking around a really, really, really long time, I finally found what I was looking for at 12,50 Euro. I went to check out and saw two guys carrying a large trash can, and I thought, oh, wait. So I got a small wastebin, too. Fully loaded now, I opted to go to the Starbucks down the street.

I went down the Starbucks, where I ordered a hot chocolate after several blunders, and I sat down on the table with its English writing and just longed to be back in America. Not because I didn’t like Germany or Munich, but because it was just a lot harder here—for me, being a stranger. I looked over my StudentenStadt Ethernet instructions in German while staring out the window and thinking, if I close my eyes and click my heels, this Starbucks will morph into the Starbucks on 5th Street across from Whole Foods in Austin. . . The Global Standard Deity didn’t morph time and space, so I walked out into Munich and hopped the U-6 to Fröhling back (knowing only that I needed to go north), got out at the StuSta, but I still haven’t worked out which staircase gets you up to the right place to cross over street

to my dorm.

I unpacked my things, stocked up my toilet paper, and got ready to meet E.J. and the group-so-far (arrivals are staggered across several days) for Einkaufen and Abendessen. E.J. guided us over to the bus, where we took Bus #50 to Albert-Adrent-Str. and walked to the corner, took a left, and we were at a nice little mall called Parkstadt, where the real Rewa was, as well as a Pennymarkt and a sort of Wallgreens-without-medicine place. We browsed around, talked in German, asked E.J. all sorts of questions, and got some items, then we hopped the bus back, dropped off our things, and set off to take the U-Bahn down to Marienplatz to go to Hofbrauhaus. We got off at Marienplatz, walked through some lovely pedestrian centers, and entered the gigantic, almost full, Hofbräuhaus. Most of the group sat at one table with a German couple at the end, and two others sat with a German guy and 2 brothers on “if it’s Friday it must be France” 2-week tour of Europe. I switched out with one of the others and ended up with the German guy, and Steve and I talked to him about all things German for a long time. He’s a member of the Free Democrats Party and sounded pretty active, and he told us a lot about German politics. It was great to be able to talk to him. I remember, last Spring at Gartenfest when Jordan, Mary-Beth (both alums of JYM), and I spent a long time talking to an advertising guy from Austin. Jordan and MB both told me to prepare for long talks with utter strangers in the beer halls, due to the huge tables and free flow of beer. Everyone had a Maß, but I abstained. I was probably the only non-Muslim drinking wasser mit gas in the place, but I barely had my wits about me as it was, and wanted the rest for solving my Ethernet issues.

At Hofbrauhaus, I had a Gebackenes Seelachsfillet, essentially the “fish” of the “fish & chips” entrée, but it really wasn’t that good, and was accompanied by a pathetic excuse for tartar sauce. I know I should try entrees more native to the Germans, they’ll be tons better. I did have several moments of longing for Australia and hot, crispy fish and chips. Ah, well, until England in less than a month! The Hofbrauhaus atmosphere was great, though, and it wasn’t terribly pricey, either.

We hopped back to StuSta. The U-Bahn is one of my FAVORITE things about Munich. It is so, so easy to get around. It’s almost a joke. I mean, I was a complete and utter stranger and I was able to figure out north, south, where I needed to go, and the lines that could take me there.

Well, I am off for more group exploration. That should be a thorough update for all my loyal followers :) I have since established stable internet connection so I can stay in touch with all of you!!