Folge deinen Träumen!

Found on a bookmark from Osiander:

Folge deinen Träumen!

Bücher sind Schokolade für die Seele. Sie machen nicht dick. Man muss nach dem Lesen nicht die Zähne putzen. Sie sind leise. Man kann sie überallhin mitnehmen, and das ohne Reisepass. Bücher haben aber auch einen Nachteil: Selbst das dickste Buch hat eine letzte Seite, und man braucht wieder ein neues.

-Antonie Schneider

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Follow your dreams!

Books are chocolate for the soul. They don't make one fat. One need not brush one's teeth after reading. They are quiet. One can bring them anywhere--no passport required. Books have only one downfall: even the fattest book has a last page, and then one needs a new one again.

-Antonie Schneider

Because it was beautiful

More glimpses of Salzburg.

Planes and Angles (Salzburg, Austria)

They speak French in France (and other revelations)

My cousin informs me that the small sign in blue reads, "The Street of the Old Market of Fish"

Two weeks ago a few of my classmates and I made a day visit to Strasbourg, a French city just across the border and about four hours away from Tuebingen by train. Perhaps it was because we felt that we'd barely left Germany, or perhaps it was because we've become used to carrying out the minutiae of our lives "auf Deutsch," but we forgot at first that German is not the lingua franca in Strasbourg.


















We arrived in Kehl shortly after noon and walked across the Rhine into France. After thoroughly losing ourselves in an urban maze of concrete, we somehow ended up in Strasbourg's Altstadt and went about the task of procuring lunch. It was harder than it sounds.

We lined up in the sandwich shop and first tried to decipher the menu. We discovered that none of us understand ingredients when they're listed in French (with the sole exception of J., who tried more or less successfully to translate for us). Then we started to order, but we forgot where we were (go figure) and began our orders in German: "Ich moechte einmal..."

Don't try ordering in German in a French restaurant. Das geht wirklich nicht. It doesn't work at all. English was also met with a blank stare. And when J. attempted to add his French to mixture we knew we were lost.













After finishing the eventful lunch

Later, after the gauntlet had been run, the sandwiches bought, and place to sit had been decided upon, J. gave us a stern admonishment: "They speak French here, not German," he said. "It's okay to give the German a break for the weekend." We agreed to put a lid on the German.

Not two minutes later someone walked by handing out fliers for a music festival, speaking rapid French. We all looked at J., he was, after all, the one who claimed to have a decent grasp of the language. But not even he could frame the appropriate answers in French, so he resorted to replying--in German: "Nein, nein. Wir sind Studenten in Baden-Wurtemburg."



















Dinner was equally as eventful. R. tried to order something; the waitress responded in a string of husky, indefinite syllables; J. tried to sort us all out by asking (in French) about the ingredients of the dish in question, but the waitress understood him about as well as we understood her, which was not at all. Somehow we muddled through it in good humor (even the waitress managed a relieved smile as she left our table), and then we gathered our things and took the bus back to the train station in Kehl.

"We're in Germany again," said E. as we once more crossed the Rhine.

"I can understand the signs!" exclaimed H.

And later, back in Tuebingen: "Do you realize that we know what the people around us are saying?"

****

I guess there's a moral to this story: Strasbourg was only four hours away and just across the border, but it doesn't take much to end up in a different world here.

Oh. And I don't speak French.

Sending a giant hug from the top of Untersberg in Austria

Five weeks

In Conversation class last week, our tutor asked us if we were homesick. We looked at each other. "Not really," came the answer.

Not really. But sometimes.

It's easy to immerse oneself in a new way of life without ever looking back. We've been too busy studying, traveling, and learning to live to give much thought to the fact that we're on the other side of the world from our homes. But every once in a while something happens to make us remember. For me, it's sound: the comfortable rattle of breakfast dishes heard as I walk past an open kitchen window; strains of jazz piano wafting toward me from somewhere on a second story; laughter.

My grand European adventure, as Mama calls it, began only five weeks ago, but I could easily convince myself that I've been here a year instead of just over a month. It's strange to realize that in just ten weeks I'll be flying back to Oregon, but it's going to be a wonderful, full ten weeks. I have trips planned to Austria and Scotland, midterms coming up, finals looming on the eventual horizon, and so much still to learn and do. But just so you know: I miss you all.

I love you to the moon...

...and back.

Remember what I said about spring?

I can't take credit for these photos. I handed off my camera to a friend during our Erste Mai Wanderung nach Schloss Hohenentringen, and she proceeded to take these beautiful shots. Thank you, Rebecca!