I am so sorry to have been ignoring you. I have been pouring every single iota of human effort into staying alive, making deadlines at my new job (yes, it's going great, thanks), not allowing the ol' account to dip into the red zone as I wait for that first full paycheck, moving in (pictures soon, I promise!) and passing World Politics and (boredom central) Microeconomics. It seems like every day there's some new crisis to be averted, something I forgot at work, a new bill to pay, a debt I didn't know I had, a call I forgot to return.
I can't wait to be finished with school. It is such a drag, and all it does is get in the way. Oh, and a certain someone is coming from Germany for a month but I don't have any time, so I guess he'll have to entertain himself until Thanksgiving break.
Even with all of this, I am SO, SO grateful for my beautiful apartment, so happy to have my Arts Editor job, and even though I am really poor now I am so extremely glad I went to Germany for a year, if only to have danced until morning properly, met Mirjam and Erich and Micha, read Kafka in the original language, to have lived in a house with a Klingel, reveled in the joys of public transport, divided my waste into like 15 different receptacles, experienced the madness, the agony, and the ecstasy that is World Cup fever, and shocked the socks off a lot of middle-aged women in the German Hygiene Museum by saying I got up at 9 most mornings.
But yeah, sorry I'm so out of touch these days. Here, keep yourself busy with a New Times.
Coney Island with ChrisnRochelle, Erich, Fouad, and Jimmy today. What is this place?? Hahaha.
They are counting the seconds until they can gluttonize on hot dogs again.
Rochelle makes a difficult decision
Cooling her toes in the Atlantic
Said goodbye to Erich today!! No way. Now we have to wait until September to be ridiculous, dance to electro in the kitchen and have heart to hearts at six in the morning.
Really tall buildings. AC. Ice water. Free bathroom usage. Amis* on the streets, Amis in the U-Bahn,* Amis on the television. What a weird place!!
Drinking on the street isn't a thing, but you can see the calorie count of your muffin before entering the bakery. That's handy, to finally use this word correctly.*
I feel like a foreigner!! And not just because (as I've quickly realized) I associate all officialdom (hotels/the bank/police/service industry) with the German language and keep having to stop myself from talking to shop clerks, tellers, waiters and strangers in German.
ChrisnRochelle, first night in town!
Look at this nonsense. Funny that the number on the label is not the price.
Furry...?
What? Was macht der Kölner Dom auf Manhattan?
Eiffelturm, gleiche Frage.
Erich and Fouad, the ying and yang of coolness.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, great place to spend a humid afternoon.
This marks the second time a picture of me being stabbed by Erich has been a "Before" picture in a "Before and After" sequence (remember?). I fear its the beginning of a trend. Not that I am not happy to be a part of Erich's non-development!
On my third trip to Germany's capital, I was free of the pressure to take pictures of the Reichstag and the Brandenburger Tor and the Dom, so I decided to capture things that were just plain interesting.
An anti-Capitalist march ("Die Krise heißt Kapitalismus").
Discovered amazing cafe called Kauf Dich Glücklich, complete with creepy stuffed fox guarding the door.
Erich in front of a sparkly store which sold, among other things, urban hipster outfits for infants.
My goodness. Trip to Berlin for my Final Seminar with the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Procrastinators was saved by a certain half-Austrian kook. Thank God for Erich...
I strongly dislike being kept in large groups of Americans, which is what we always have to do at these seminars. I think after a year in Germany these people have sort of incubated and become more American than before (cultural incubation: has someone coined this term already?). I can't believe some people lived in Germany for a year without learning the language! And I can't believe the program leaders had to address the topic of alcoholism at the beginning of last week's seminar!! How humiliating.
I winced so much to hear people complaining to the organizers of their prestigious scholarship program. Perhaps it bothered me because I heard a bit of myself in their complaints: I was unhappy living in Erfurt for a solid 3 months myself (frigid temperatures, uninviting former living space, long commute, no internship possibilities in my field, loneliness) and I know I must have whined about it at some point to my friends, but I would never blame the people who flew me here, handled my paperwork and covered the bulk of my expenses. At least not loudly, to their faces.
We had another cultural trainer, like we have had at other seminars. And like we have done at other seminars, we drew on flip-charts, talked about German-American stereotypes, did role play exercises, slurped free coffee and didn't take things seriously enough.
(Let's talk about more positive things now)
I spoke a lot of Amerikanisch, which rang cheerful and sloppy in my ears. ("Like junk food that you speak," commented my freind Boombox once.)
We were guests at the Bundestag and at the new American Embassy. The American ambassodor to Germany greeted us and offered precious American commodities like Dr. Pepper and free water with ice cubes.
After the week-long seminar closed, I stayed with Erich in Potsdam, in order to hang out longer in the city.
(Like insignificant coincidences)
While getting lost in Berlin, we ran into Jens, from Aachen, who I stayed with during that last trip to Nord-Rhein Westfalen with Claudius and Daniel. He walked past me and I thought I recognized him, then dismissed it as impossible. Then he doubled around to ask me if there were any cool parties to go to in the neighborhood, and I ventured to say, "Haven't we met before?" and he said, "Don't think so." Then I reminded him that I stayed at his house in Aachen and that his name was Jens. That seemed to ring a bell.
The weird thing was, out of such an absurd coincidence came nothing of significance. We talked for a while and then went our separate directions. That was it.
(This sort of thing would never, ever happen in a film. In a film, it would have been Fate which brought us together. Something amazing would need to result from our encounter. We would have found each other for a Reason. But apparently, the cosmos just had coincidences to spare that evening. That was all. Like bakeries who toss out perfectly good bread at the end of the day.)
Erich came back to Erfurt to visit last weekend. On Friday as soon as I was finished with work I rushed off to the Hauptbahnhof to pick him up. We went out to Stadtgarten, where there was some slightly wannabe yet still danceable music being played. The dance floor seemed to take ages to fill up, everyone waiting for everyone else to dance.
I rather showed myself up by galloping over to my cynical roommate Robert to ask him why he wasn't dancing, and at that moment getting the worst hiccups I have ever had.
On Saturday there was warm weather in Erfurt for the first time anyone could recall, and the Germans were having a field day. The center of town was packed; dogs and ice creams were everyone's new must-have accessory. On Sunday Erich and I went back for more ice cream. Then we took the train to Weimar to check out the Bauhaus Museum and take a picture in front of the gold man.
Erich told me a story about how he was looking for a job the summer before coming to Germany and stumbled across an obvious pyramid scheme, which he sort of experimentally allowed himself to get tangled up in, just to see what would happen. He did a splendid imitation of the terrifying passive-aggressive type who interviewed him, asking,"Are you excited?? Are you really excited?" like an evangelist at a charismatic church.
He also told about a woman he had worked with who sat so long her rear was the shape of the chair, and I said I kind of felt like that too sometimes. Then in the gift shop of the museum I picked up a small art piece, a carved man whose seated square body fit perfectly into a square chair, and I asked, is this what you meant?
Roommate keeps talking to me in English in weird sort of power trip.
Getting made fun of all the time re: the letter r.
Rejection, pointlessness, discouragement. On the other hand....
...it's not the end of the world.
Don't know why I have been so down today. I just spent a great weekend with Erich (sunshine, dancing, ice cream). I must have used up all of my serotonin. But working again is suddenly pure pain! I want to be with a human.
[2:13:47 PM] Anna: sorry, was on the phone with one of my spirit of footballers
[2:13:51 PM] Anna: still there??
[2:19:58 PM] Erich: lol yeah just finished emptying the paper shredder
[2:21:19 PM] Anna: the life of a Praktikant
[2:21:18 PM] Erich: i have to go throw away the shreddings now
[2:21:25 PM] Anna: ok take your time
[2:27:59 PM] Erich: the paper shredder was overflowing
[2:28:14 PM] Erich: so much so that it would not accept any more pages
[2:28:19 PM] Anna: sucks
[2:28:23 PM] Erich: it took two garbage bags to fill up
[2:28:36 PM] Erich: and i covered myself with all of the shreddings at one point
[2:28:51 PM] Erich: this was maybe 7 feet from my boss
[2:29:08 PM] Anna: my goodness, what an impression you must be making
[2:30:39 PM] Erich: eh they prob think i'm somewhat incompetent
[2:30:40 PM] Anna: my boss is in africa
[2:30:44 PM] Erich: luckyyyy
[2:30:54 PM] Anna Weltner: but my coworker called me a dau
[2:31:04 PM] Erich: a dau??
[2:31:03 PM] Anna: duemmster anzunehmender user
[2:31:10 PM] Erich: hahaha
[2:31:28 PM] Anna: it's an IT term for describing the computer challenged
[2:33:31 PM] Erich: i'm sure you're not that bad
[2:34:51 PM] Anna: well, my computer reacted violently to an attempt to download an important program, and in requesting help for the problem I earned myself the title of "DAU"
[2:35:29 PM] Erich: was this important program called 'shemale porn download assistant'?
Erich came to visit me in Erfurt, the day before Max had to leave. Since there are only two tourist attractions in Erfurt (the Dom and the Krämerbrücke) Erich and I didn't have to stress out trying to stuff the weekend full of sightseeing. We toured the Dom, went to a Modern art exhibit, walked around Erfurt's medieval city center, violated snuggled the Sandmann, and then gave ourselves the night off...
Friday night was Max's last in Erfurt so we went out and grooved to electro with him and his younger brothers. Then we went back to my house at around 3 or 4 and I fed everyone...salad (but a good salad!). Erich thought the rug in the kitchen looked nice, so he curled up and went to sleep on it, right next to my feet. Max's brothers just stared at him, alarmed. I assured them multiple times that he was fine.
In the morning, Erich started an Africa puzzle and wouldn't go back to Potsdam until it was complete.
Just got back from my program's Mid-Year Seminar in Cologne. It was so strange to be in that city again, where I spent my first two months in Germany. Since everything is new to me this year, it seems like it was years ago that I first arrived in Cologne.
I took the U-Bahn to my former host mom's place, transferring nostalgically at Friesenplatz. The announcer voice on Linie 4 had changed to a more chipper, less jaded woman's voice, I noted sadly ("Umsteigenmöglichkeit zu: S-Bahn! Und. Regionalverkehr!"). I got off at Piustraße to familiar graffiti and waited the 5 minutes for the light to change. I began to feel nervous and clammy about coming back, but once my feet recognized the well-trodden ground, they started taking me there even faster. The soap smell inside the apartment building made me feel as if I had never left. It comes from the laundry facilities in the cellar. I climbed the stairs, suddenly unsure if I had lived on the 3rd or 4th floor, but my feet remembered.
I knocked on the door.
My host mom Ellen answered with a flood of greetings and informations (yes, informations), sweeping my coat off while informing me of all that had happened in the past 4 months (had it really only been that long?). In contrast to my first arrival in August, this time I had no problems understanding what she said, having all but conquered that accent.
We cooked dinner and split a bottle of red.
Ellen paid the obligatorisch complements to my German, adding that she'd heard no trace of an accent on the telephone earlier (Why do Germans always do this? I want to believe them, but they were already telling me how good my German was back when it was really terrible. Sometimes they jump the gun and tell me how good my German is without me even telling them that I am foreign, which makes one suspicious. I think the measure of one's language success in Germany is that the Germans stop complementing you).
I told her about Erfurt, about the seminar so far, about the tour we made of Deutsche Welle. I told her about how the program participants who had been in Model United Nations were asked to speak at the seminar, and since the seminar was in German and I was the first one who was given the mic, I thought it had to be in German. It was hard to describe the workings of the International Labour Conference in German, so all the words I didn't know I just said in English and kept going. Germans do the same thing to sound cool anyway ("Er war so eine easygoing person!" or, "Wir haben das party feeling wirklich erlebt!") Anyway, I talked for 5 minutes before they told me I could also speak in English and everyone laughed.
Babbling in German about Model UN. Film still thanks to Erich.
My friend Erich had the rare and unfortunate presence of mind to film this, but I couldn't watch the entire thing. I could see my brain working overtime and noticed myself making these little thinking breaks where there were clearly words missing.
After I said goodbye to my host mom I burst into tears, and then I went dancing at Underground in Ehrenfeld, where the music was okay.
A writer living in San Luis Obispo, Calif., Anna likes cuddly animals, electronica, human absurdity, espresso, infobabble, sweet dreams, bicycles, German, good stories and traveling around.
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