April Recap

 And just like that, my time here in Bonn is done. After Vienna It felt as though I didn’t even have a second to stop and breath. The school load picked up pretty dramatically, meanwhile the Enmodes meeting began to consume all of our time. This combined for a pretty hectic last couple of weeks. Balancing school and finals with appreciating my last few weeks with my host family was a challenge. Me and my host family built a very good relationship and I was very sad to say good-bye. And I know I will be back to see them, when you have a free excuse to travel to Europe you have to take it! Finals flew by in a blink of the eye. And that, combined with the Enmodes meeting the week earlier, made for a very stressful last couple of weeks. That being said, I was very proud of myself and the group for getting through them and still being able to enjoy our day trips and the time we had together. 

Leaving Bonn was a very strange feeling. As sad as I was, I was also so ready to finish up. The past four months were the best times of my life, but the travel-school combination definitely took a toll. And I was very much looking forward to relaxing and being able to reflect on all that I have experienced. But I still haven’t really gotten the chance to reflect. My parents arrived in Bonn on my last day and we have set off for our two week trip through Spain, so the busyness has continued. Although it’s a different type of busy, traveling without any though of school brings about such a peace of mind and allows me to be so leisurely. I’m really excited for what I have planned for the next few weeks. We’ll be in Spain for two weeks, then Portugal for a few days, then I’m meeting my friend in London for a week. I want to soak in as much as I can before I head back to America, because I will definitely be living a different life once I’m back. 

I’m really excited to have the time to sit and reflect on all that I have learned and experienced this semester. I know there will be something new that I think about or realize every day that I’m back, and I will only grow a greater appreciation for the time here I had in Germany. 

Week 5-15

 Week 5:

This week we I travelled with Camryn, Daniel, and Katie. I feel like I really started to get closer with with each of them during this trip! I learned that Flix buses are horrible, but the price is always really tempting. I also found some awesome German cookies! Our hike was beautiful, and I am so glad we got to travel this week. 

Week 6: 

This week I became friends with Nate. Katie, Nate and I hiked up to Drachenfels! We found this amazing field, and just enjoyed the blue skies. Bonn is so beautiful. We were excited to come and see the field over and over. Sometimes it's just fun to frolic. I'm glad I have friends who will frolic with me. 

Week 7:

This week was Karneval! I stayed home this weekend to celebrate in Bonn. My host mom let me borrow her pirate costume and some tooth paint to make it look like I had a missing tooth. I met two German girls on the street and asked to join in with them. They took me out to some bars and we had the best time. I loved learning about their experiences growing up in Germany. The next Monday, I went out with the kids from our program, and me and Katie went dancing together for the first time! We're really good dancers! We met a man named Lars who drove a Ford Fiesta across country in America. Absolutely wild. 

Week 8:

This week Nate, Katie and I traveled to Dresden!! It was sooo pretty!! It was the first time we traveled with Nate, and we found out he is really great at planning! I liked the city of Dresden. We saw so many beautiful churches and buildings. I liked the hike we went on most of all, though. We went to a national park nearby and did an 8 hour hike. The sights were breathtaking. There was rock formations I could never even dream of, and a huge bridge spanning across them. We sat watching the river from the top of a medevil fortress. The best part was that the bridge and rocks were just the beginning! There were so many more beautiful things to see, we walked through a forest full of orange leaves, caves, and took stairs between two huge rocks that were so close I could reach out and touch both sides at once! The hike lasted until dark, and we almost didnt make the last bus home, but we overcame the time crunch, the run on the highway, and Katie losing her phone (TWICE). It was perfect!

Week 9:

Spring Break!!! Spring break was awesome! Katie, Avery and I traveled together. We saw so many castles. My favorite was this modern castle that the husband built for his wife. So romantic! We went on a few hikes, and Katie almost fell off a cliff. We dont go fast on hikes for a reason! It's also better to go slow, because you get the chance to touch all the moss you see. 

Week 10:

This week, Nate invited Katie and me to go to a Fusbol game with some of his German friends. It was awesome being a part of a German group. We got to experience the whole Fusbol culture too! Later, we went to a cute market in Aachen and bought some little gnome figurines. Adorable!

Week 11: 

This week was the study tour of Vienna! It was so sad to see how fast the time in the program was flying by, but it was nice spending this last trip with everyone in the program. The group dinner on the first night will be one of my favorite memories for a long time. There was a live violinist, and Dr. Wasser sang along with the music for us. Everyone was so happy. Later in the trip, Dr. Wasser dressed up as a plague doctor for us and toured us around Vienna. He gave us candy and drinks, and it was all really so sweet. I also really enjoyed the orchestra concert we went to. Great trip.

Week 12:

This week we didn't do much. A lot more time was spent working on the project. We stayed in Bonn for the weekend and I went to a club with Camryn, Katie and Daniel. It was so much fun to dance with them, but we didn't realize it was caliente night at the club LOL. The worst thing was having to take the tram to go home. It wasnt the tram itself exactly, but when the tram doors wouldnt open at my stop. I had to get off at the next stop and it was a 25 minute walk back to my house. The walk lead over the highway, through a greenbelt next to the highway, through a dark field, through a TUNNEL, and another field into my neighborhood. Luckily, I had been running to the bus every morning, so I managed to run almost all the way home. I shaved about 10 minutes off of that walk. Then, I saw my neighbor's allusive cat, and she finally let me pet her! yay!

Week 13:

With all the work on the project, Katie and I were glad to take a break and go celebrate Easter weekend in Munich. Munich was wayyyy more German than any town I had seen so far. It was kind of strange to me, because I had been spending the last three months in Bonn, where it seemed a lot less traditional. We hiked, met men in liederhosen, and enjoyed an Easter buffet at the English Gardens. It was a very eventful and fun weekend filled with lots of train rides. 

Week 14:

This week was only working on the project. We stayed a lot of late nights. The presentation of the project was so nerve-wracking, but I was so glad to be over with it at the end. The burger I had for lunch that day pretty much made up for it. For the weekend, Katie, Nate, Camryn, Daniel and I made one last trip together to Freiburg to see the Black Forest. It was so beautiful, because the trees were just blooming and everything was vibrant green. Freiburg itself was actually a really pretty town too. We stayed at an AirBnb on a farm with cows, and one of them licked Katie and Camryn. It was an awesome way to spend our last trip together. 

Week 15: 

This week didnt really feel like the end. I was kind of hit with the realization that I had to move out of my host family's house like three days before move out day. Our last day trip felt so odd, because no one was really saying goodbye. I was kind of taken by surprise when we got off the train back in Bonn and Dr. Wasser was like "Oh I'm not going to see yall again now". It was abrupt :( Luckily, the students and the other faculty went out one last time all together.We stayed up for half the night in Katie and Isabels' apartment waiting for the bus to take Camryn, Daniel and Isabel to the airport at 3 am, but it was pretty sad that the rest of the students weren't there. I could not believe they were already going back to Texas. I dont want to go back. I love Germany. 

Being the Other

 Being the Other

 

“The whole sense of the ubiquitous myth of the hero’s passage is that it shall serve as a general pattern for men and women…Therefore it is formulated in the broadest terms. The individual has only to discover his own position with reference to this general human formula, and let it then assist him past his restricting walls. Who and where are his ogres?” (Campbell 101).

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. 3rd ed. Novato, California: New World Library, 1949. Print.

 

    From the day I was born my life was defined by a predetermined script. A series of international moves, 3 a.m. facetime calls from Afghanistan, and never being able to pay for gas because I never could remember what my current zip code was. It was a life where an alarm clock wasn’t needed because the roar of F-16s flying overhead at 6 am was loud enough to wake anyone up, and a life where I never knew what to answer to the question ‘where are you from?’ – truth is I still don’t know how to answer that one. Regardless of experience or situation or question though, central to everything growing up was change. Change was, and always has been, my most abundant of resources. It is what I most frequently have considered to be the greatest source of stability in my life - I know, rather oxymoronic. But because of this, moving to Germany in January was something I was not very much daunted by. However, after being here for some time now, I fear I was far off in that assumption.

    You’ll have to forgive me for while I had every intent of writing more consistently, daily even, life has a tendency to move pretty quickly here. The best I could do most days was quickly jot a bullet pointed list of my day while on a train back home to Bonn or on the bus back from school. I wish you could see the notes app in my phone – it is riddled with short stories, random thoughts, and commentary on my experiences over the past 5 months. So much has happened, there is so much to write about, but for now, let’s start from the beginning.

    I came to Germany confident my time here would be no different than all the other times I was the new kid, at a new school, in a new country. I was wrong. This time around I am entirely alone, distant from the typical community I am surrounded by when living internationally. This time around I had real relationships and friendships stateside I needed to maintain. This time around I do not look the part; I do not speak the language. I do not know the culture; I do not fit the role. I am uncomfortable and, as much as I hate to say it, terribly confused a lot of times struggling to find answers. Talk about a humbling experience. From going to five different grocery stores trying to find chicken broth, to having to pay to use public bathrooms, to having to strategically plan when you are going to do laundry because it will be a week until your clothes are dry on account of us not having a dryer – even in the little things everything is different (except kids, I’ve found that no matter where you are on the globe, kids are always exactly the same). Here, I am entirely ‘the other’.

    For me, being the other looks like not knowing how to communicate to the bus driver that I’ve gotten on the wrong bus and don’t know where I am at 3am on a Thursday night after being in Germany all of 5 days. Being the other looks like the embarrassment that comes from not knowing what to do when my neighbors hand me two beers expecting me to know how to open them without a bottle opener (I have since learned this one – my new go-to party trick). Being the other looks like getting yelled at in a language you don’t understand, by a man twice your size, when you don’t even know what you did wrong (trust me – I don’t think anything is scarier of an experience than that). Being the other looks like sitting with friends as they joke and laugh and carry on in a language you don’t quite yet understand – isolated by your own lack of knowing. Being the other looks like ‘Endenicher’ sounding more like ‘in die richter’ to a taxi driver at 2am and them refusing to take you to the right destination when you realize the miscommunication that has occurred – leaving you to walk home alone in the rain after paying the taxi driver anyways.

    I am extremely grateful to have led the life of privilege that I have.  Throughout my life I have had extremely minimal experience of ever being ‘the other’ - How lucky am I that being the American girl traveling and living in Germany is the closest experience I’ve ever had to being ‘othered’. However, I know this isn’t the case for many other people. My experience as ‘the other’ is hardly comparable to the experiences of many other people. I often find myself here going about my daily routine here within Germany thinking of the marginalization we have placed on people who previously have been identified as the ‘other’. Afterall, we tragically on a larger scale have used ‘otherization’ to dehumanize entire groups of people in the past and continue to do so in the present: Immigrants to America, refugees of Ukraine, various groups during the Nazi regime (all of which I will talk about in future posts).

Don’t get me wrong, the experiences I’ve been leading here have been nothing short of phenomenal and I’ll be sure to write about all of the good times too. But I think I would be doing myself, and whoever reads these, a disservice if I did not write about the experience of being the ‘other’ as well. It is simply that integral to shed light on. By learning about being ‘the other’ we can be better equipped to identify groups being ‘otherized’. If we do that, we will be able to take action to mitigate the disparities and suffering caused by ‘otherization’.

    I often have taken for granted the position of influence I have held in this world. After being here, I will never take that for granted again. There is a great responsibility that comes from being in the position of the group that is not ‘othered’ – the white girl, in higher education, with no disabilities, with no debt, from a country that is safe and provides for me. Those lucky enough to sit on this side of the fence have a moral obligation to tear the fence down, bridge the gap and bring ‘the other’ to join them. My experiences here in Germany have surely changed my perspective on what that position means. After interacting with people in that position and seeing how much they have come to my aid to help me during my time in Germany I want to do the same. They empower me to want to safeguard this role moving forward. Even my smallest experience of ‘otherization’ here has proven to be a force multiplier of empathy for those who are othered. I find now that the capacity for change is magnified by and catalyzed into action by those who have experienced and/or witnessed the very thing that hurts us so.

    I hope you learn of ‘otherization’ when reading my posts, so you serve as witness to those experiences and also become empowered to act against it. But I also hope you get to hear about really cool travels, funny stories, once in a lifetime experience, times I really challenged myself, and times that I deliberately put myself in uncomfortable situations by reading these posts as well.

 

Here’s to figuring it out as I go, learning as I go … but going, nonetheless.

 

The hero has seven important choices to make, and they cannot be a bystander, they simply cannot be carried from plot point to plot point.

They must play an active role in their own story.

For it is in the cave they fear that lies the treasure they seek.

 

Cochem...

     Early Sunday morning, Avery and I left our sketchy Air BnB and headed out to Cochem where we landed an even sketchier Air BnB somehow. I am not exaggerating when I say this room resembled more of a closet with a double bed in it than it did a room. No kitchen, no closet, no furniture, just a bed in a closet of a room with no space to walk around and a shared bathroom on the first floor. This should’ve been my first clue of the day we were in for. Actually. The resemblance of Cochem to O-Chem should have been my first clue.

    Avery and I hiked across vineyards toward a castle at the top of a hill built around the year 1000. It was quite the hike but we made it fun by pretending to take siege of the castle! When we finally got to the top of the castle we came to realize tours were only given in German… but we had already hiked all the way up there so you best believe we paid that 10 euro entrance fee for a German tour. Afterwards we hiked back into town. That morning hike, the tour and the hike back brought us to about 3pm…. And we had not yet eaten. Keep in mind the original intent was to save our money and just eat a big meal for dinner and have that suffice us – boy was that a mistake. We decided to try and find some more resiling like we had at dinner the previous night. Keeping in mind that it is Sunday, and just about everything is closed on a Sunday, this proved to be increasingly difficult.

    After hiking up and down steep cobble stone hills that make up this town we finally found a small wine cellar that was open around 4:30 pm. We walked in… and were ignored. Everyone around was welcomed in and offered a table, and Avery and I were left standing there, as if we were invisible. It was a very odd experience. After some awkward amount of time had passed, Avery and I decided to seat ourselves so at least that way we weren’t just standing there. After an even more awkward amount of time had passed of being ignored and not served we finally got the server’s attention. It was then that we found they served no food, only wine, so, reluctantly we ordered two glasses of wine and got to talking. While we each only had one glass of wine each for very cheap, by the time we left we were really feeling it on account of not having eaten all day and already having walked 30,000+ steps. The hills were much easier to climb at this point ;). We needed food. So we found another place and ordered what the server with the nice Elmo shirt recommended for food and two glasses of a hot mulled wine (our favorite). The wine was incredible… the food on the other hand…. Avery and I were presented with what practically looked like two slices of bread that you would feed to a duck, one babybel cheese wheel and a slim jim… to share. By the time we left it was nearly 8pm and we were done bad. We really really needed food. We walked around endlessly trying to find a place that was 1) open and 2) had an available table (everywhere was booked out for the night). Jokingly, but also in a very real way, we strongly considered using the vending machines we kept passing as dinner for the night.

    It wasn’t until close to 9pm that we stumbled into a pizza place that was open – thank goodness! I got risotto, another glass of wine and some water and Avery had the same but with a pizza. When the bill came, I was charged 7 euros for my water!!!! That was when I vowed it would be the last time I paid for water while in Europe. I would rather be dehydrated than charged that much for water. So much for saving money.

    On the way back to our closet of an Air BnB Avery and I were walking along when we heard a commotion in front of us. Rather than being smart girls with common sense and approaching cautiously we squinted our eyes and leaned forward as we continued to approach. There was a loud bang and bright lights and a series of explosions. And yet, we both kept walking towards this commotion before both of us simultaneously came to our senses and took cover behind the closest wall. Avery looked at me and went “oh my god are we getting shot at!?”. While we knew we weren’t, or at least hoped we weren’t, it certainly made coming out from behind our wall a little daunting as we continued our walk back to the closet Air BnB.

Heidelberg

    Not being an engineer has its perks – we got Friday off this week. So, Avery and I stuffed our bags and headed out to the train station after classes ended on Thursday to head to Heidelberg and Cochem for the weekend. The sole objective was to see as many castles as possible. Spoiler alert: we were successful. The train ride in alone we saw the ruins of at least a dozen castles and several other fully erect ones. After arriving in Heidelberg very late, taking a bus all the way across town, hiking up a hill in the middle of the night, all just to stay in the sketchy cheap air bnb we found… we finally could sleep. Oh, the joys of being a broke college student.

    In the morning we went back into town for breakfast! It was PHENOMNAL! Pretty to look at and even better to eat. However, Avery ordered a hot chocolate, which she insisted was just an espresso shot with chocolate in it which demanded a need for sugar. When she asked our server for sugar, he looked appalled and in the most shocked tone ever responded “is it not already sweet enough!? It is 75% pure chocolate!”. Both Avery and I died laughing as he reluctantly went to go and get the sugar – how much more American could we be.

    After breakfast we hiked up to the castle ruins. The views from the terrace were incredible and the pharmacy museum inside the castle grounds was well put together and incredibly interesting. It’s always a plus when there are good English captions to things as well! Avery and I got hot mulled wine (quickly becoming my favorite thing here) and walked around the castle grounds imagining what it must have been like to live when this castle was in its prime. After the castle we took a cog tram up the side of the mountain to the highest peak to look down on the city below us. There was snow up there! I enjoyed spending time at the station itself learning about how the cog works and the history of this technology and application of its use – maybe I should have been an engineer.

    We went back down in to the city and continued to walk around. Avery and I found just wandering around and popping your head in to various shops and churches is an enjoyable and rewarding past time. As we continued to wander we made our way to University Platz where we noticed red candles, mourning flowers, ribbons and teddy bears lining the stairs leading up to the university. Avery and I stood there staring at it entirely confused not sure as to what this was in remembrance of. We talked for several minutes discussing of any religious holidays going on, the possibility of it being a holocaust memorial, any cultural significance it may play. We were pretty stumped for awhile. Until it finally hit us. Heidelberg was where four students were shot and one tragically passed away just a few days prior to our arrival. We instantly felt awkward about enjoying our day, walking through the town joyfully, carelessly asking for student discounts on tickets all day long… we quickly moved out of the Platz.

    We had a traditional German dinner complete with Reisling from the Mosel valley itself. Best wine of my life. So so so so so good. I would come back to this region again just for the wine – too dang good. Avery and I also had some really fruitful conversation over dinner. Her and I both graduate when we get back and May and are both applying to grad school right now – living out very similar narratives. It felt good to talk to someone who gets it and laugh a little about the mess of it all.

Cologne/Köln

The day before classes began we got to go and visit cologne on a day trip! While still absolutely freezing - Texas heat i miss you so so much - it was an incredible day trip. The day began taking a train up to cologne form Bonn (about half an hour) as soon as you walk out the train station you are immediately dwarfed by the magnitude of this cathedral right in front of you! I don't know if this reaction was more a result of the shock of the cathedral being right there or shock of just how big it really was. We had a wonderful tour guide who met us in front of the cathedral. He was incredibly knowledgable, funny and particularly good at drawing multiple ideas and events together to showcase a larger theme. We explored the cathedral; learned of the origin of stinking rich, learned of the most frequently stolen house number, learned of various restoration techniques and methodologies. We explored Cologne as a city; learned and saw the old roman walls, mosaics and homes, learned of the original cologne perfume, learned of tax laws on windows for water-front properties, learned of life in olden Cologne. After our walking tour it was time to warm up with some traditional german food and Kolsch! Be warned: don't have the blood sausage. After words we walked to the El-De House, an old gestapo prison during the time of Nazi Germany. It was rather harrowing to be standing in the place of so much evil and destruction. We stood in the cells of prisoners being interrogated and even were ushered in to a courtyard where 100s of people were shot and killed. Sad to think that a region of the world so rich in history also is pained with such dark history everywhere as well. After this we moved to a lighter event and got a rooftop tour of the cathedral! This was one of the coolest experiences for me. Seeing the cathedral from up how and getting an inside look on its construction and renovation efforts. While not an engineer, and it is hard not to be intrigued by how they figured out how to build something as grand as this and how they continue to figure out how to keep it looking its best. The only downside of this tour was we took it as the sun was setting... you thought I was cold during the day... just imagine me on top of a giant cathedral in the wind at night. Brrr!

Realization with Tati

          Something pretty profound happened when I was with my friend, Tati, at a café one morning. Tati is originally from Columbia and is just the sweetest human being! She's trying to get her U.S. citizenship in the next two years or so and only began learning English a few years ago – and she’s already really really really good at it! Although she does have a thick accent. This one particular morning though when I was trying to order my coffee in German, I had a lot of difficulty. Although I swore I used the right words, with the right grammar, and pronounced everything fine the barista still had a hard time understanding me – but I swear I thought I was doing it all perfectly! It was a little disappointing and frustrating on my part for not being able to communicate effectively despite my best efforts - and when a say a little, I really mean a lot. As I walked away from the counter rather defeated, Tati came up to me grinning. Which isn't unusual for Tati being as bubbly, happy and optimistic as she is but in the context it felt off. As she came up to me she exclaimed “Hah! Now you know exactly how I feel all the time!”. This really opened my eyes and caught me off-guard. The frustration of not being able to communicate as effectively as I like here in Germany is the everyday norm for Tati back in the states. While she knows English just fines sometimes just the accent can throw people from understanding her fully. Just like how my very very very American accent sounds when I try and speak German I'm sure. I can’t even imagine what that must be like. Just another reason to make me exceedingly grateful for having limited, or at least protected experiences, of being the other.