Hello dear readers,
More and more it has come to my attention that Princeton in Munich is not Princeton in Petersburg, a perhaps self-evident conclusion, but with important implications. I actually have work to do here, I actually want to become fluent in the language, and particularly there is much in the city of Munich that I would love to experience instead of always sitting in my dorm in front of my computer. Therefore I give you ample warning that while I will most likely not cease altogether from maintaining this blog, the posts will be much fewer and farther between. This necessarily means that I will not be nearly so caught up in my activity as I would like, but as the other option is to drastically cut down on the level of detail I maintain in my posts, I would rather you find out later what I'm up to, and know exactly about all of the adventures that I have been having. Foremost in my mind is the fact that after PiM I have an eight-week internship in a small town where I can't imagine there is as much to do as there is in Munich. Also, I will be working in a lab every day and when I come home at night, I'm really home and don't have pesky homework assignments to worry about. Therefore I will have much more time for blogging and otherwise communicating with friends and family from back home.
So, please don't be alarmed when my blogging rate (and amount of staying in touch in general) drastically slows down - I'll pick it up again in July. Until then, know that I think of you often and hope you are all enjoying your summer as much as I am - and get ready, because once I have all this free time I'm sure I'll be bugging you all for news from home ;)
Sincerely,
The Wide-Eyed Wanderer
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Celebrating the Holidays
Bavaria is a mostly catholic region of Germany, which means they have many holidays throughout the year and they take them very seriously. All stores and businesses are closed, which means that we don't have class. Thursday was one and we celebrated by spending the day at the Deutsche Museum. I woke up early, as I have been, in order to Skype a bit (with my college friends it works best if I wake up early, since 5am here is only 11pm on the East Coast). Afterwards I still had quite a bit of time before our 10:00 departure for the museum, so I continued investigating the various activities available in Munich. Some of the most interesting possibilities I found included the UFO-looking BMW museum (including potential tours of the factory!!), the firefighting museum, a puppet museum, a paleontology museum with lots of dinosaur bones, the "Crystal-rich" museum containing precious stones, and the "Center for Unusual Museums" which sounds just plain fun :D Most of the museums cost around 3€ and there is often a 1€ discount for students. I don't know how many I'll have the time or energy to visit, but I'll certainly tell about them when I do. In any case, the Deutsche Museum was fascinating enough in itself. It's more of a "touch and do" museum than a "look and read" museum - and it covers six floors!! WAY more than can possibly be seen in a day, as I found out. We got there around 10:30 and I was one of the last to leave when the museum closed at 5 (in fact, I had to be practically ushered out by the museum staff), and I probably didn't REALLY experience half of the exhibits. The museum is so large that it takes up an entire island all to itself. There is a main building, which we stayed in, but also several side museums and special exhibits in other buildings (for instance, a transport museum). There is just an overwhelming amount of knowledge in that museum. Fortunately many of the exhibits have explanations in both German and English, for although my German is good for everyday communication, it soon became apparent to me that I lacked any significant technical vocabulary of the kind that is used in a museum. There were entire exhibits where the plaques were all in German, with a few titles translated if I was lucky, and I felt helpless as I stood and looked at the various displays without the faintest idea of their significance. Just a sampling of the exhibits I saw in the museum (and remember, this isn't nearly everything) follows: electricity, motors/engines, power machinery, airplanes, space travel, shipping/sea travel, metalworking, lasers, welding, locks throughout history, mining, musical instruments, optics, magnetism, physics (yeah MAE!!), the "best of" 50's technology, the winners of the "German future" prize for the last ten years, nanotechnology, "new" technologies, tunneling, model trains, robotics, and wind/water power. Just a few of the exhibits I didn't get to include paper, glass-blowing, ceramics, textiles, photo/film technology, computers, microelectronics, agriculture, food technology, chronometry, astronomy, and the environment. I could spend a week in that museum and STILL not see everything, forget reading everything and understanding it (as I said, some exhibits have no English translations for the displays). My favorite exhibits would have to be mining, musical instruments, air travel, optics, and physics (of course). Mining was especially interesting because it was located two floors under the museum in a long, winding tunnel that made you feel like you were in an actual mine. The exhibits consisted of wax- or wood-figure reconstructions of miners working in reconstructed mine tunnels, and the exhibit covered everything from the ways the tunnels have been dug over the centuries to the various methods of extracting different valuable materials (coal, oil, precious metals) from the earth. I really prefer these "experiential" exhibits to a white room with displays lined up neatly in a row, so even though this was one of the places where there were no English display translations, so I can't tell you much more about mining now than before, it was definitely one of the highlights of the day. The musical instruments were interesting just to see the vast variety of ways in which people have made music over the centuries, from stringed to wind to percussive instruments. There was even one display that explained the making of a violin, which is quite complicated (I could have realized that but I had never really thought about it before). Aviation was cool just because of the massive size of the exhibit - but of course it would have to be that large in order to house so many airplanes from the past and the present! There were helicopters, gliders, and even a section of a 747 passenger jet!! I took lots of pictures in this exhibit for my dad, who is an avid WWII fan and especially of the battles fought in the air. That was one interesting thing about the Deutsche Museum - pictures were allowed everywhere as long as they were for personal use, in contrast to the museums in Russia where pictures were either forbidden or one had to purchase a ticket in order to be allowed to take them (which I never paid attention to, as it wasn't very strictly enforced ;]). Optics was cool because I've always liked optical illusions, but that was one of the exhibits that I encountered near the end of the day when I was just trying to cover as much ground as possible, so I only skimmed it. They did have a couple of chambers with mirrors at many different angles so that when you stepped into them a dozen yous appeared at once, and that made for some really interesting photos :) Physics of course was particularly intriguing because so many of the experiments were replicas of the famous, landmark research that we had talked about in so many of my classes. They had exhibits on drag and lift, tension and compression and torsion. It is so unfortunate that I arrived here at 4:30! There was enough in that one exhibit alone to keep me occupied the entire day, and I was loathe to leave. I don't know whether I'll even have another chance to go to the museum, and this time it will have to be on my own bill (Princeton bought our tickets for this day), but I just might... as I told you, there was much that I didn't have a chance to see.
The only other event of note this day occurred on the way to the Deutsche Museum. As I've said, the security on the trains is fairly lax, especially for the Germans' reputation. Members of the group speculate that it might be worth it never to buy a ticket, since the police (or inspectors) are seen so infrequently on the trains checking for valid tickets, and none of the entrances to the train station REQUIRE that you have a valid ticket to come through. However, as luck would have it, we were about halfway to our stop when a couple of uniformed men boarded the train and started asking to see tickets. A couple of the girls in our group had forgotten theirs (after all, we had only gotten them the day before) and they were quickly escorted off the train with one of the graduate students following behind to make sure all was communicated clearly. I imagine it would be quite terrifying to be pulled off the train in such a manner, never mind the sting to the pocket of having to pay 40€ for your neglectfulness, so I don't think the risk is worth it for me this summer - that's just the kind of adventure I hope to avoid. Not to mention Princeton bought our monthly passes that will take us just about anywhere we could ever care to go, so why be foolish?
Friday it was back to classes, and it's really starting to hit me how much vocabulary we really need to learn in order to become truly well-versed in German. I should be taking time to memorize at least several dozen words each day, but when you don't use them they quickly slip again out of your memory, and the necessary motivation isn't always there. Lunch all week for me was an apple and a cheese-and-butter sandwich, but I'm often hungry by the 10:30 break and eat it then, so I need another little something after classes to tide me over until suppertime. This day I bought a yogurt-filled pastry that was especially delicious, if a bit sweet to be called lunch. I think that's the thing I've liked the most about German food so far is the pastries, though I don't think I would have thought of that as a typical German food before I came here. They're also not too expensive - you can easily get a cinnamon roll or Danish as big as both hands for only 1,50€.
Friday's activity was a visit to the store "Globetrotter" - a kind of giant German L.L. Bean that sells everything from climbing gear to canoes, sleeping bags to sightseeing guides. Like the Deutsche Museum, this is a "try it and see" store - there is a cold room for testing out jackets, a rain room for wet-weather gear, a tightrope and climbing wall on the third floor, and even a pool where you can test out a kayak or canoe! The structure of the store is a giant donut with the pool at the bottom of the hole and railings around the hole on each floor. The climbing wall is the glass surrounding the hole of the third floor, which makes it a little unnerving when you look through the wall that you're climbing and see the water four floors below. Naturally I looked at everything and climbed and tightroped (I was the only one out of the group to make it all the way across - twice!!), and though I didn't enter the cold room, rain room, or pool, some of the group members did. I was most interested in the hiking boots, and felt quite satisfied with myself when I saw that the prices hovered around 150€ as I remembered my new Vasque boots, bought on Amazon for $85 just the month prior. In the boots section there was a device with several different types of terrain (rocky, shale, smooth) at different inclinations so that potential boot-owners could test out the feel of their new footwear on different types of ground. There was also a display where several of the different kinds of boots sold at the store had been sliced in half so that the different layers of the boot structure were visible, from the thick outer sole to the stiff shank to the padded insole. Even though there was so much to see and do in Globetrotter, it didn't take me too terribly long to satisfy my curiosity, so Dan H and I walked back to the train station and returned to the Wohnheim together. Along the way we discussed the pros and cons of cooking with the group (he tends to cook with several other Princeton students, while I always prepare my food alone). The way he described the propensity of people to show up when the food was prepared and disappear after eating a bit of it made me glad that I was so independent, though I do sometimes wish for company while I prepare my meals, if only to have another source of ideas for food (even wandering the grocery store hasn't tended to yield very many inspirations). By the time we reached the Wohnheim again I was sweaty and ready to take a shower in preparation for my excursion to the ballet. One of the incredibly nice things about our living accommodations is the fact that they are cleaned by the staff once a week, and Thursday is the day for the third floor, where I live. However, since Thursday was a holiday this week, they had the day off and instead were cleaning the third-floor rooms when I returned. They were a few doors down from me and by a quick inspection of my still-full trash cans I determined that they had not yet reached my room. After deliberating I decided that I could most likely take a shower and be safely finished by the time they came to my door. I was unfortunately mistaken, as I had no sooner climbed out of the shower and reentered my bedroom, wrapped in a towel, when I heard the buzzer sound and a key in the door. My desperate cry of "Moment, bitte!" thankfully stopped them from entering and I quickly threw on a dress, grabbed my dinner supplies, and retreated to the communal kitchen so that I wouldn't feel awkward watching them clean my room (no one but myself has ever cleaned any room that I've lived in; my mother stopped vacuuming my carpet at home once I was old enough to push the machine myself and I have always tended to be one of the cleanest people in any group of girls that I've lived with).
While I was reheating the last of the leftover pasta-chicken-corn-spaghetti sauce casserole of a few days prior for my supper, I began to wonder about the healthiness of my diet. In particular, for any of you who have been watching the news, perhaps you have heard about the E.coli epidemic that's going around. The CDC isn't yet sure what the cause of it is, but several dozen people either living or traveling in northern Germany have contracted the bacteria, and a few have even died from complications that arose. Tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce are most suspect, so much so that they can hardly be found in most restaurants in Germany at present. Being responsible for my own food (not to mention well-being), naturally I was a bit concerned about my risk of encountering the bacteria, although we are in one of the most southern regions of Germany. I have since spoken with my mother (who is a Physician's Assistant and my general go-to for all questions medical) and she has assured me that as long as I am meticulous with washing my vegetables with hot water before eating them raw, or cooking them, and I keep my cooking area/utensils clean, I should be fine. This becomes a rather interesting question in a student-inhabited dorm with communal kitchens which are never as clean as I would like them, but I'll pray hard (and ask you to, as well) that I am spared that particular bit of excitement during my stay in this country. As some of you may have also figured out, my internship is in a small town in North-Central Germany; however, there I will have my own kitchen as part of my living arrangements so the cleanliness will be to a much higher standard and more under my control. All in all, I think I have relatively little to worry about, but a bit of spiritual protection never hurt anyone, so if you happen to think of it, pray for my health and safety, please.
Another reason why I hurried back to the dorm so quickly on Friday was that a group of four of us had tickets to the ballet that night. We went to see Dornröschen, which means "Little Rose Thorn," better known in America as Sleeping Beauty. The ballet took place at the Bavarian State Opera House, which, while not nearly as grand as the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, was nonetheless impressive. I was very pleased and a little surprised that our tickets only cost us 7€, until I saw where our seats were. We had standing places in the fourth balcony; however, we still weren't the furthest away from the stage; there was one balcony above us and we were fairly near the center of the audience so we had a good view of the entire stage. Standing up for three hours is one thing; doing it at the end of a long day while jet-lagged and having spent six hours standing and walking through a museum the day prior is quite another and is many times more demanding, trust me. The ballet was beautiful, I recognized the music from a holiday CD of Tchaikovsky that I have, the costumes were fantastic, and though it was a bit warm in the theater with so many people there, it wasn't unbearably so, so all in all the evening was anything but a waste. This was my second ballet, the first being last summer seeing "Swan Lake" at the Mariinsky, and I tried to appreciate the art for what it is, but I did find it a bit difficult, which I attribute to my lack of exposure to fine art (growing up in Brewer, Maine our cultural options were always limited, and my parents would much rather take a family hike than a night out to the theater). The young boys and girls who took part in the performance (the boys couldn't have been older than 5 or 6) particularly delighted me with their grace and precision, and a seat so far away helped me really appreciate the coordination of the entire picture, all ten to thirty dancers who would be on stage at any one time. I was, in any case, quite happy to return to the Wohnheim at 10:30 after the performance, and I slept very well that night.
Saturday we had class again, because of the holiday, and it was certainly the toughest day I've had here yet. After class I was tired and bored and cranky and didn't really want to do much of anything. No one had any specific plans for the afternoon, so I returned to the Wohnheim and tried to muster up the motivation to study without much success (especially since we didn't have class on Sunday, at least). The weather was much improved from the clouds and rain of earlier in the week, and I felt that I should really take advantage of the sunshine while we had it, so I decided to go exploring in a nearby park. The park contains one of the many palaces belonging to the Bavarian royal family of the latter half of the 1800s, Schloss Nymphenburg, the birthplace of King Ludwig II, whose other palace-masterpiece I would visit the next day. I grabbed my iPod, put my camera and German reading-book in my backpack, and set off. My mood was immediately lightened by listening to my favorite songs and getting some exercise, and as a particular bonus I also discovered where the closest grocery store to the Wohnheim was located. The park was beautiful and though I really had no desire to go inside the palace (I saw enough palace interiors while in Russia) the grounds were becoming enough. I took several pictures, especially of the fountain in front of the palace (beside which a large male swan was obligingly standing and posing for the tourists, though not without hope of a morsel or two of bread) and the sundry cool green paths through the woods that cover most of the park. I eventually found a bench in a sunny spot and sat down to do my reading assignment (we're reading Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, and unfortunately I'm really not getting into it yet, but more on that later), which took only about an hour since I determined to do it without any vocabulary aids to see how much I could understand from context (I underlined all of the unfamiliar words and looked them up later). By then an ominous-looking cloud bank had rolled in to cover the sun, so I quickly wended my way further through the woods to an exit and returned to the Wohnheim, stopping on the way at the grocery store to pick up a few items, including some carrots from Israel (in the interest of a more balanced diet I'm willing to take my chances with E.coli). The beautiful and tranquil woods paths made me long more than ever to have a bike with which to explore them, though I have determined with some certainty that it will be both less expensive and more convenient to wait to purchase one until I arrive in Clausthal for my internship, so I will just have to deny myself that pleasure. One extremely interesting thing about this park is that it is completely surrounded by a wall, with occasional gates to allow entrance and exit. However, these gates remain closed even during the day when the park is open - one must approach and open them oneself. It sounds simple enough, but I found in myself a strange reluctance to approach a closed gate, as though the presence of a door automatically in my mind signified a closed way. I think this is an American thing, though I could certainly be mistaken. The locals certainly didn't have a problem with walking up to and trying the gate, but when I saw that all of the entrances LOOKED closed my first instinct was to keep walking past them, even though upon closer inspection none of the bolts were drawn. I never realized what a law-abiding citizen-sheep I am!
Much encouraged, I finally returned to the Wohnheim in the evening, prepared my supper, and worked on my long-overdue blog entries. I also Skyped my mother again, though the connection was still poor (I haven't had nearly as many problems Skyping my boyfriend, I don't know whether it's the slow internet on my mom's end or the choice of timing that makes the difference) and we had to finally resort to text. Afterwards my outlook was much brighter and I hope that the bad mood was just a combination of jetlag and too much activity and a passing phenomenon. Overall my transition to Germany has been much smoother than that of last year in Russia, which is probably due to several factors (most of which you can probably guess if you read that part of my blog) and I really am enjoying myself here and feel that I'm taking much better advantage of the culture. Let's hope I can keep it up!!
The only other event of note this day occurred on the way to the Deutsche Museum. As I've said, the security on the trains is fairly lax, especially for the Germans' reputation. Members of the group speculate that it might be worth it never to buy a ticket, since the police (or inspectors) are seen so infrequently on the trains checking for valid tickets, and none of the entrances to the train station REQUIRE that you have a valid ticket to come through. However, as luck would have it, we were about halfway to our stop when a couple of uniformed men boarded the train and started asking to see tickets. A couple of the girls in our group had forgotten theirs (after all, we had only gotten them the day before) and they were quickly escorted off the train with one of the graduate students following behind to make sure all was communicated clearly. I imagine it would be quite terrifying to be pulled off the train in such a manner, never mind the sting to the pocket of having to pay 40€ for your neglectfulness, so I don't think the risk is worth it for me this summer - that's just the kind of adventure I hope to avoid. Not to mention Princeton bought our monthly passes that will take us just about anywhere we could ever care to go, so why be foolish?
Friday it was back to classes, and it's really starting to hit me how much vocabulary we really need to learn in order to become truly well-versed in German. I should be taking time to memorize at least several dozen words each day, but when you don't use them they quickly slip again out of your memory, and the necessary motivation isn't always there. Lunch all week for me was an apple and a cheese-and-butter sandwich, but I'm often hungry by the 10:30 break and eat it then, so I need another little something after classes to tide me over until suppertime. This day I bought a yogurt-filled pastry that was especially delicious, if a bit sweet to be called lunch. I think that's the thing I've liked the most about German food so far is the pastries, though I don't think I would have thought of that as a typical German food before I came here. They're also not too expensive - you can easily get a cinnamon roll or Danish as big as both hands for only 1,50€.
Friday's activity was a visit to the store "Globetrotter" - a kind of giant German L.L. Bean that sells everything from climbing gear to canoes, sleeping bags to sightseeing guides. Like the Deutsche Museum, this is a "try it and see" store - there is a cold room for testing out jackets, a rain room for wet-weather gear, a tightrope and climbing wall on the third floor, and even a pool where you can test out a kayak or canoe! The structure of the store is a giant donut with the pool at the bottom of the hole and railings around the hole on each floor. The climbing wall is the glass surrounding the hole of the third floor, which makes it a little unnerving when you look through the wall that you're climbing and see the water four floors below. Naturally I looked at everything and climbed and tightroped (I was the only one out of the group to make it all the way across - twice!!), and though I didn't enter the cold room, rain room, or pool, some of the group members did. I was most interested in the hiking boots, and felt quite satisfied with myself when I saw that the prices hovered around 150€ as I remembered my new Vasque boots, bought on Amazon for $85 just the month prior. In the boots section there was a device with several different types of terrain (rocky, shale, smooth) at different inclinations so that potential boot-owners could test out the feel of their new footwear on different types of ground. There was also a display where several of the different kinds of boots sold at the store had been sliced in half so that the different layers of the boot structure were visible, from the thick outer sole to the stiff shank to the padded insole. Even though there was so much to see and do in Globetrotter, it didn't take me too terribly long to satisfy my curiosity, so Dan H and I walked back to the train station and returned to the Wohnheim together. Along the way we discussed the pros and cons of cooking with the group (he tends to cook with several other Princeton students, while I always prepare my food alone). The way he described the propensity of people to show up when the food was prepared and disappear after eating a bit of it made me glad that I was so independent, though I do sometimes wish for company while I prepare my meals, if only to have another source of ideas for food (even wandering the grocery store hasn't tended to yield very many inspirations). By the time we reached the Wohnheim again I was sweaty and ready to take a shower in preparation for my excursion to the ballet. One of the incredibly nice things about our living accommodations is the fact that they are cleaned by the staff once a week, and Thursday is the day for the third floor, where I live. However, since Thursday was a holiday this week, they had the day off and instead were cleaning the third-floor rooms when I returned. They were a few doors down from me and by a quick inspection of my still-full trash cans I determined that they had not yet reached my room. After deliberating I decided that I could most likely take a shower and be safely finished by the time they came to my door. I was unfortunately mistaken, as I had no sooner climbed out of the shower and reentered my bedroom, wrapped in a towel, when I heard the buzzer sound and a key in the door. My desperate cry of "Moment, bitte!" thankfully stopped them from entering and I quickly threw on a dress, grabbed my dinner supplies, and retreated to the communal kitchen so that I wouldn't feel awkward watching them clean my room (no one but myself has ever cleaned any room that I've lived in; my mother stopped vacuuming my carpet at home once I was old enough to push the machine myself and I have always tended to be one of the cleanest people in any group of girls that I've lived with).
While I was reheating the last of the leftover pasta-chicken-corn-spaghetti sauce casserole of a few days prior for my supper, I began to wonder about the healthiness of my diet. In particular, for any of you who have been watching the news, perhaps you have heard about the E.coli epidemic that's going around. The CDC isn't yet sure what the cause of it is, but several dozen people either living or traveling in northern Germany have contracted the bacteria, and a few have even died from complications that arose. Tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce are most suspect, so much so that they can hardly be found in most restaurants in Germany at present. Being responsible for my own food (not to mention well-being), naturally I was a bit concerned about my risk of encountering the bacteria, although we are in one of the most southern regions of Germany. I have since spoken with my mother (who is a Physician's Assistant and my general go-to for all questions medical) and she has assured me that as long as I am meticulous with washing my vegetables with hot water before eating them raw, or cooking them, and I keep my cooking area/utensils clean, I should be fine. This becomes a rather interesting question in a student-inhabited dorm with communal kitchens which are never as clean as I would like them, but I'll pray hard (and ask you to, as well) that I am spared that particular bit of excitement during my stay in this country. As some of you may have also figured out, my internship is in a small town in North-Central Germany; however, there I will have my own kitchen as part of my living arrangements so the cleanliness will be to a much higher standard and more under my control. All in all, I think I have relatively little to worry about, but a bit of spiritual protection never hurt anyone, so if you happen to think of it, pray for my health and safety, please.
Another reason why I hurried back to the dorm so quickly on Friday was that a group of four of us had tickets to the ballet that night. We went to see Dornröschen, which means "Little Rose Thorn," better known in America as Sleeping Beauty. The ballet took place at the Bavarian State Opera House, which, while not nearly as grand as the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, was nonetheless impressive. I was very pleased and a little surprised that our tickets only cost us 7€, until I saw where our seats were. We had standing places in the fourth balcony; however, we still weren't the furthest away from the stage; there was one balcony above us and we were fairly near the center of the audience so we had a good view of the entire stage. Standing up for three hours is one thing; doing it at the end of a long day while jet-lagged and having spent six hours standing and walking through a museum the day prior is quite another and is many times more demanding, trust me. The ballet was beautiful, I recognized the music from a holiday CD of Tchaikovsky that I have, the costumes were fantastic, and though it was a bit warm in the theater with so many people there, it wasn't unbearably so, so all in all the evening was anything but a waste. This was my second ballet, the first being last summer seeing "Swan Lake" at the Mariinsky, and I tried to appreciate the art for what it is, but I did find it a bit difficult, which I attribute to my lack of exposure to fine art (growing up in Brewer, Maine our cultural options were always limited, and my parents would much rather take a family hike than a night out to the theater). The young boys and girls who took part in the performance (the boys couldn't have been older than 5 or 6) particularly delighted me with their grace and precision, and a seat so far away helped me really appreciate the coordination of the entire picture, all ten to thirty dancers who would be on stage at any one time. I was, in any case, quite happy to return to the Wohnheim at 10:30 after the performance, and I slept very well that night.
Saturday we had class again, because of the holiday, and it was certainly the toughest day I've had here yet. After class I was tired and bored and cranky and didn't really want to do much of anything. No one had any specific plans for the afternoon, so I returned to the Wohnheim and tried to muster up the motivation to study without much success (especially since we didn't have class on Sunday, at least). The weather was much improved from the clouds and rain of earlier in the week, and I felt that I should really take advantage of the sunshine while we had it, so I decided to go exploring in a nearby park. The park contains one of the many palaces belonging to the Bavarian royal family of the latter half of the 1800s, Schloss Nymphenburg, the birthplace of King Ludwig II, whose other palace-masterpiece I would visit the next day. I grabbed my iPod, put my camera and German reading-book in my backpack, and set off. My mood was immediately lightened by listening to my favorite songs and getting some exercise, and as a particular bonus I also discovered where the closest grocery store to the Wohnheim was located. The park was beautiful and though I really had no desire to go inside the palace (I saw enough palace interiors while in Russia) the grounds were becoming enough. I took several pictures, especially of the fountain in front of the palace (beside which a large male swan was obligingly standing and posing for the tourists, though not without hope of a morsel or two of bread) and the sundry cool green paths through the woods that cover most of the park. I eventually found a bench in a sunny spot and sat down to do my reading assignment (we're reading Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, and unfortunately I'm really not getting into it yet, but more on that later), which took only about an hour since I determined to do it without any vocabulary aids to see how much I could understand from context (I underlined all of the unfamiliar words and looked them up later). By then an ominous-looking cloud bank had rolled in to cover the sun, so I quickly wended my way further through the woods to an exit and returned to the Wohnheim, stopping on the way at the grocery store to pick up a few items, including some carrots from Israel (in the interest of a more balanced diet I'm willing to take my chances with E.coli). The beautiful and tranquil woods paths made me long more than ever to have a bike with which to explore them, though I have determined with some certainty that it will be both less expensive and more convenient to wait to purchase one until I arrive in Clausthal for my internship, so I will just have to deny myself that pleasure. One extremely interesting thing about this park is that it is completely surrounded by a wall, with occasional gates to allow entrance and exit. However, these gates remain closed even during the day when the park is open - one must approach and open them oneself. It sounds simple enough, but I found in myself a strange reluctance to approach a closed gate, as though the presence of a door automatically in my mind signified a closed way. I think this is an American thing, though I could certainly be mistaken. The locals certainly didn't have a problem with walking up to and trying the gate, but when I saw that all of the entrances LOOKED closed my first instinct was to keep walking past them, even though upon closer inspection none of the bolts were drawn. I never realized what a law-abiding citizen-sheep I am!
Much encouraged, I finally returned to the Wohnheim in the evening, prepared my supper, and worked on my long-overdue blog entries. I also Skyped my mother again, though the connection was still poor (I haven't had nearly as many problems Skyping my boyfriend, I don't know whether it's the slow internet on my mom's end or the choice of timing that makes the difference) and we had to finally resort to text. Afterwards my outlook was much brighter and I hope that the bad mood was just a combination of jetlag and too much activity and a passing phenomenon. Overall my transition to Germany has been much smoother than that of last year in Russia, which is probably due to several factors (most of which you can probably guess if you read that part of my blog) and I really am enjoying myself here and feel that I'm taking much better advantage of the culture. Let's hope I can keep it up!!
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