Escaping to NRW

Over the extremely long weekend, I tagged along with  natives Claudius and Daniel on a trip to the  lovely state of Nord-Rhein Westfalen.  Daniel and Claudius are landscape architecture students who I met outside of the Engelsburg last month as I was standing outside of the club's entrance and attempting to finish some wine in a tetra-pak that I had somehow acquired on the Straßenbahn and assumed responsibility for. We got to talking, and they said they were planning an American road trip in two years, and I mentioned that I was from America (unnecessary compliments were duly payed to my command of the German language) and I invited them to my house in California which I will hopefully have in two years...

Claudius on the bank of the Rhein

We started hanging out after that, and they said I could come with on a road trip in Daniel's VW Bus if I was interested in going back to Cologne, and, professional tag-along that I am, I accepted.

On the trip we stayed in Cologne (well, nearby) and with friends of Daniel in Aachen. I sort of went with the flow. Everything was fine with me. I was happy to see NRW once more, in what may well be the last time ever. I was extremely happy to leave Erfurt, where I have been feeling cloistered and redundant.

Art piece at Cologne's Museum Ludwig

We went to a modern art museum in Cologne, and went to the Theater and toured the Dom in Aachen. Feeling mildly experimental, I smoked catnip with Claudius, who proved a great expert on American music of the 60s and 70s. During the long car ride, I introduced them to Gang Gang Dance.

That's a band.

With Daniel's friends, I remembered what it's like in large group of fast-talking Germans. Even after 9 months in Germany, I find it hard to keep up. I felt like I was drowning in German.

Train station coffee

I saw my former host mom, Ellen, perhaps for the last time before I leave Europe. We didn't have a whole lot of time together, although there was apparently enough time for her to whip together a soup and a vegetarian Auflauf (!).

Ellen, I and Nina

Tagging along on the trip made me feel homesick for Germany already, knowing I was making memories which I will look back on wistfully whilst pining away in some climate-controlled office in America.

Zwischenseminar

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.