Ist Hier Noch Frei?
Where does one begin?
In a new country, there is so much to do: open a bank account, find housing, get a cell phone, register for classes, learn the transportation system – and I’m forgetting the simple things (both in this post and in my life) like eating and sleeping. What do you do when the cell phone company wants a bank account, the bank wants an address, and the renter wants both of those things? Go to a bookstore, of course, and spend three hours reading a kid’s German dictionary to try and get enough vocabulary to overcome administration.
Das ist super cool, ne?
The view from the Augustus Bridge here in Dresden is wonderful.
You can see the Elbe, of course, and also the complementary skylines of the Altstadt (Note 1) and the Neustadt. What can anyone say about the beauty of walking around a new city? There are bookshops and theaters and restaurants and concert halls and cathedrals and people, people, people everywhere. I was doing a reasonable job of acting like I belong in this city until just now, at Starbucks (Note 2) I ordered an “Iced Shaken Hibiscus Tea” – my accent and delivery really falter when I have to include corporate trademarked American phrases in the middle of a perfectly reasonable German sentence.
It is possible, however, since the barista just called my drink out, which, in German, ought to sound something like “eyesd shaykuhn heeebeeskooos tay.”
I’m working in a Grundschule, specifically with third- and fourth-graders, who are in their first and second year of studying English, respectively.
The fourth graders are already fairly proficient, able to have basic conversations about interests, classroom duties, and freely chosen activities that they participated in over the past weekend. The third graders are truly just beginning, able to count and sing the alphabet and not much more, save one student whose parents are American (the lucky kid can, of course, also speak German fluently).
My role will be wecken die Freude meiner Muttersprache in den Kindern, by doing what I practiced a lot this past summer as a reading teacher: be funny, professional, mean, kind, sympathetic, harsh, forceful, patient, and tireless all at the same time. My best trait, so far, is that I’m from Los Angeles, das Land der Stars.
Have I seen Justin Bieber? No, but that’s okay because they assume I have. In fact, they think it’s pretty likely that I have lunch with him… frequently – which, of course, I do. A student, whose name I have not yet learned, ran around the classroom after I came in and introduced myself and said to anyone who would listen: “Er kommt aus Los Angeles! Er bleibt das ganze Jahr! Das ist super cool, ne?”
Noch etwas dazu?
It’s really wonderful to be here in Germany again.
I love how easy it is to get around, how often one can consume Wurst mit Senf (Note 3), and – naturally – how much German is spoken. I feel my language skills have improved already, and it’s only been a week. (Did I have any idea a week could last this long? No, I did not.) A reminder to myself: it’s not latte-with-a-long-A-on-the-end it’s latte-with-a-softened-schwa-sound-on-the-end.
I’ve spent the last few days trying to plan the next week (the administrative business mentioned above) but also trying to think about the next year. I have the amazing gift (Note 4) of having nearly every hour of the next ten months at my discretion, and though I have some projects on my mind (apply to graduate school, work on my German, read Infinite Jest), I’m still going to have hours and hours that want to be spent productively, though it’s precisely how I define productive that’s going to inform what form those hours take.
So, what else do I do? I don’t know yet.
Die Ausgangsgesamtheit
As soon as I finish writing this post, I’m going to head over the movie theater, where nothing good is playing, but where I can rest from my wandering for a few hours. I’ve been reading The Moviegoer recently, and it’s hard to resist going to a movie theater after reading a few chapters, even seeing the narrator’s Kierkegaardian-aesthetic despair (or whatever). At the theater, I’m going to see Friends With Benefits, which should certainly be atrocious, but there’s something charming about the unnecessarily practical translation the Germans have given it: Freunde mit gewissen Vorzügen (friends with certain amenities).
So here I am. Pragerstraße, Altstadt, Dresden, Deutschland, Europa, die Welt, usw.
And I’ll see you all again soon.
- Here is a German glossary for this post: Altstadt (old city); Neustadt (new city); Grundschule (elementary school); wecken die Freude meiner Muttersprache in den Kindern (to awaken the joy of the English language in my students, translated poorly in both English and German); das Land der Stars (land of celebrities); Er kommt aus Los Angeles! Er bleibt das ganze Jahr! Das ist super cool, ne? (He comes from Los Angles. He’s staying the whole year. That’s really awesome, right?); Wurst mit Senf (Wurst with mustard); ↩
- The home of free Wi-Fi. ↩
- Oh, and this to my mom: It’s now 2011 in Germany and things have changed… there is indeed bubble tea everywhere. ↩
- But the kind of dangerous gift that makes one always hear “It’s a trap!” ↩