Unconventional Methods

A series of accidents has had the loveliest of consequences.

Take for example my Praktikum, or internship.

My tutor happened to attend a party at an apartment where there happened to be a room for rent from February to mid-July, which is exactly when I needed a room, so she told me about it. When I saw the apartment I kind of fell in love with it, and when I was signing the 5 1/2-month rental agreements with the Hauptmieter (How do we call this? Main renter?) we got to talking.

He asked me what I was going to be doing while I was living there anyway, and I said supposedly making a Praktikum in Journalism and/or International Studies. Not that there was any hope. Finding an internship is a big requirement of my scholarship program, so I'd been looking hard, but with no luck.

My searches on praktikums-boerse.de gave me this: 'Sorry. There are no "internships" in "Journalism" in the state of "Thüringen, Germany."'

I'd been in contact with my exchange organization the day before, and they too had admitted there was no attainable work in Journalism in the entire state. Undefeated and chipper as ever, they'd suggested I work in Tourist Information, as a sort of practical use of my International Studies degree-in-progress. They could really use someone who spoke English, I was told. The thought of giving directions to lost tourists all day when I'd come to Germany wanting to become a travel writer more than underwhelmed me.

But back to Andrew's question. "Why do you ask?" I eventually said. "What are you doing while I'm living here?" Andrew the Hauptmieter said he was driving to South Africa with two men from his company, Spirit of Football, for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. The goal was to play football (okay, soccer) pretty much the entire way, but they would also be working with the African Special Olympics and the British charitable organization Alive & Kicking, visiting schools and distributing soccer balls to poor children. They would travel with just one ball, otherwise known as The Ball, "football's Olympic torch," which everyone could sign and play with. Their distant goal was to have The Ball be used in the Opening Ceremonies in Johannesburg.

Andrew needed someone who could write to chronicle the journey for him in the form of blogs and articles, someone who could speak for the project while he was off on his great African adventure. And I anticipate, someone who could work for free. This more or less described me.

I cancelled the tourist information jobs, came promptly back to Andrew's with more documents to be signed, and suddenly I had a Praktikum.

In the end, things worked out. The monthly stipend I receive from my exchange program to compensate for not getting paid is more than I would have hoped to have been paid anyway.

In the end I found an internship without even looking, without applying or interviewing, without using my carefully written and much-corrected application letter, and without using a word of my painstakingly-learned German. (Andrew is from New Zealand.) Plus I get to work from home, in this gorgeous apartment with vaulted ceilings and roommates who often share what they are eating.

But first I needed to move in, right? A word on that:

I moved in on Friday as Andrew was moving out. For some reason I had the worst trouble trying to move my things from my old apartment to my new one. I didn't have the keys to either for a couple of days and had to schedule moving at a time when someone at both places could be home and Katharina, my tutor, could give me a lift in her car. After a couple of failed attempts to coordinate a moving time, Katharina and I had settled on Friday afternoon. However, at the time when she was supposed to come by, I got a phone call from her instead.

She said, "Hi, sorry, I can't find my car."

Somehow this didn't register with me properly.

I went, "Oh-your car keys? You can't find your car keys?"

And she said,"Nooo, my car."

"...Keys?"

"No! I can't find my car. I don't know where I put it."

I imagined her rummaging through her bag, going, "It's around here someplace."

Just after that I got a call from my future ex-roommate who said he couldn't let me into the house anyway because his bike wheel was broken. He apparently had tried to walk home from his internship at the puppet theater, but then he didn't get far because he stepped in dog poop. He had to go back to the theater and bum a pair of shoes.

I expressed my condolences.

I decided to just "move in" to the new place with only the backpack I had with me and sort of bum it out until I could get my luggage from my old place. Then, just as I had gotten to the new place with my backpack, Max called to say he had made it back from the puppet theater and had decided I didn't need a car when I had the Straßenbahn (...tram?) and him to carry heavy things. So I came right back to my old house, but when I arrived he had disappeared around the corner to Kaufland, the local grocery store.

I met Max at Kaufland as he was finishing his purchases. We left the store with a shopping cart full of groceries. To my great horror, Max passed right by all the appropriate shopping cart put-away sectors and walked all the way home with the shopping cart.

After we put the groceries away, we ate some dinner. At Max's insistence that it would be all right, we discreetly loaded my heavy bags and suitcase into the shopping cart, steered it perilously down the hill to the Straßenbahn stop, and boarded the train to my new house, trying to make it appear as if we were NOT pushing, nor having anything to do with, a shopping cart. Transferring trains was awkward. I began to be terribly afraid and wondered if one could be arrested for stealing a shopping cart in Germany. I kept an eye out for officers of the law. We finally disembarked at my new stop, Justizzentrum. Justice Center.

As we guided the shopping cart out onto solid ground, an older woman on the train smiled and winked at me. And I moved in on Friday after all.

Ceremonial taping of my name onto the mailbox:

Author's note:

1. Katharina remembered where her car was: she had driven it to a friend's, where they'd had some drinks, so she took the Straßenbahn back and then didn't use her car for a while and thus forgot she'd left it there.