Ten Things in August, much overdue

1. My whole world for the last month revolved around two things: new apartment and exam! Apartment hunting involved many hours of scrounging around the internet, about half an hour of scouting a local newspaper and two days of apartment viewing. After all that, and largely due to the efforts of yours truly (says she) (*pat self on back*) a new apartment has been found! Near to the city centre (no more out in the woods!!), but not to close. Apparently it’s within cycling distance to the centre and to the University. Hmm... I suppose I will believe that when I survive the first cycling trip there and back. More about that.

2. Truth be told, I am in two minds about this whole ‘within cycling distance’ nonsense. It will be nice to be able to cycle. To just get on a bike and pedal, and not have to wait for busses and trams and whatevers. But cycling is scary! I can cycle for real. And I actually do enjoy cycling. So much so that I bought a book about cycling tours in Germany. Okay, so it was on sale and cost me less than coffee at Starbucks, but still!

People here take cycling to a whole new level though. What amazes me most, as the girls cycling around in little short skirts, with a handbag and/or shopping bag dangling over one arm, and holding an umbrella over her head with the other hand (just to clarify: because it’s raining, NOT because it’s too hot). How on earth do they do that?? And then they weave around cars (stationary and in motion), other bicycles (stationary and in motion), bollards, people (stationary and in motion), lampposts and what-nots with annoying ease. Or they move at the speed of about 25cm per second, because they are talking to someone or they are being blocked by something, or whatever, basically a crawling baby could overtake them, and still they stay perfectly balanced on the bicycle without having to put a foot on the ground.
I, on the other hand, am not quite the picture of elegance and grace on a bicycle as I would like to be. I would prefer not to get into the finer details of my antics on a bicycle. Suffice to say, that I get nervous is people cycle to close to me, or if I have to pass through a small gap, and even worse, if I have to make a turn through a small gap. I generally prefer to get off the bike and walk in through the turn and the gap. Sigh… It will get better with time and practice. It will get better with time and practice. It will get better with time and practice…

3. One thing I will mention about the new apartment, is that it is located on Martin Luther Straβe, that is to say, Martin Luther Street. For some reason, it pleases me. I suppose the Catholics out there would think I am even stranger than everyone else would, and I have no doubt that most would, in fact, find it strange, that the name of the street does add a small ball-bearing of weight in the apartment selection process. Of course, it would not have tipped the scale if the apartment was crap. And most of the others we saw, some of which though actually very nice) where unsuitable for various reason. So, this tiny point never actually came into play. All the same, it pleases me. And that is all I will say about it.

4. I am going to be hard pressed to find ten things this time around, because the only other thing that immediately comes to mind (aside from thoughts relating to my personal affairs and the personal affairs of others, which I will not discuss here) is my exam. Or perhaps somewhat more accurately, the language test. 16th September is the big day. And as I have said, my life has pretty much revolved around preparation for the test. I have to say, I am quite amazed with how much my German has improved. Of course, the better I get, the more conscious I am of how much more I need to improve and how many mistakes I still makes, and how many things I still don’t know how to say. But, considering this time last year, I could barely manage a conversation that went further than “Hello. Where are you from? And how as your weekend?” No, wait, I lie. I couldn’t even say “How was your weekend?” this time last year, because I didn’t know the word for “was”. Anyhow. My point being, I am come a long way and I have to say, I am quite pleased with my progress. I have now read two proper books in German, and am reading a third one. I have read others before, but they were stuff like Brothers Grimm, the Little Prince (which was not actually easy!) and Winne the Pooh, so they don’t really count. By proper, I mean an actual, grown person’s book. Right now, I am reading The Eldest (called something else in German, of course) which is the second book of the Eragon series. The German version is so frickin’ thick, the thought of reading it scared a German! I do not understand every word I read. There are times when I have trouble understanding a whole sentence. Those occasions notwithstanding, by and large, I am managing to follow the story quite well.

5. I promised myself at the start that this month (or rather last month)’s list will not be all about learning German or preparing for the test. So, hard pressed, or not, I will now move on to something else. And that something is Ally McBeal! Yeah, I know, it’s a bit of a silly show. Silly or not, I like it and was once very caught up in it. So caught up that I, years after the series ended, named my car (or rather my ex-car) Billy. Partly inspired by Billy in Ally McBeal (IMPORTANT NOTE: inspired by, NOT named after. And certainly not because I liked him or anything, because I didn’t. Inspired by. Not named after. Totally different.) Billy-the-car was so christened also because I knew a few Williams (both real and fictional) whom I liked, and also partly inspired by Billie Jean (yes, the MJ song). It’s a long story, and this is not really about the car. So, coming back to the point, which is how into Ally McBeal I was. I recently presented myself with the dvd box set of season 1 and as I said on one of my FB statuses, I have been reliving Ally McBeal. I am really enjoying it. Also, because it reminds me of a time gone by. I am tempted to say that it reminds me of a happier and simpler time, but that leads to a whole other philosophical discussion, so let’s not go there.

6. Am I wrong, or wasn’t there a time when the whole English speaking world was into Ally McBeal? And certainly, Friends? I have always found it amazing that people from completely different parts of the world, with completely different backgrounds and upbringings immediately had something in common because we watched the same television programmes and the same movies, and we listened to the same songs. Interestingly enough though, I found out that Friends was never big in Germany. That was a bit of a surprise to me. I thought the whole world watched it. It was shown here as daytime television, at 3 or 4 in the afternoon or something like that. Maybe that was a rerun, I don’t know. But it wasn’t big. Not the way it was in any of the other countries I’ve lived in. The reason may be, that the Germans dub over everything! So, Friends was only shown in German. And I am told, that it is not at funny in German. Apparently some things do get lost in translation. Ally McBeal also wasn’t big here, it appears. I have not unearthed the reason. Not that I have done any digging.

But it is not true to say that television programs in English are not big here. Yes, they are dubbed into German, but some of them are still very popular. Apparently Buffy was a big hit here, and Charmed. And Bones, I think.

7. I have bought into the German culture of having to know the weather forecast. When I first got here, it amazed and amused me how almost every German knows what the weather forecast is. For the rest of the day, tomorrow, the rest of the week. But I have now because one of those people, who have to check the weather report almost on a daily basis. It is actually essential. It has become more essential since summer is drawing to an end. These days, the weather could change from 30 degrees and cloudless on one day, to 17 degrees and rainy and windy the next. Which means it is t-shirt (or strappy top) and shorts (or short skirts) weather today, but jeans, sweater and jacket tomorrow. So, the weather report is essential to deciding what to wear, and whether to bring an umbrella along.

8. I was talking about the good ol’ days earlier. Well, I was talking about a simpler and happier time. But was it really a simpler and happier time? Were the good ol’ days really that good? I doubt it. Actually, surely not. We remember so fondly can only be a selection of good memories. I think back on the days when I was watching Ally McBeal and I say, I had such a nice time. But I didn’t. Looking back, outside of the Ally McBeal memories, my life wasn’t great. It’s was bad, mind you. That is not what I am saying. I had some really, really good times. And some unforgettable experiences. Those were actually the years leading up to me going to England, and the years I was in England. But some of those experiences are unforgettable not because they were good. These are the things that I won’t share with everyone, and certainly not on the internet. But they are real. And they were neither more numerous nor fewer then than they are now. The sum of our lives are good experiences mixed with the bad. Perhaps some of us are lucky enough to have more good experiences than bad ones. Perhaps not. Perhaps they just hide it better than others. Or perhaps they process it in their minds differently that it doesn’t seem as bad an experience as it would to others. This leads me to something else, but I will get to that next. And I suppose we all have phases in our lives that are better than others. Times in which the good experiences occurred much more frequently, and the bad hardly at all. But, by and large, I would suppose that our lives are as I said, a mixture of both. I suppose it is human nature that we recall the good far more clearly than the bad. So, we look back and say, those were good times.

9. On the subject of human nature and memories, it reminds me of something. I once saw a documentary (I think. It was so long ago, I can hardly be sure.) The documentary featured a study on memory and suggestion. So, the engaged someone to run into an ongoing lecture (so we are talking about university students here) and grab the lecturer’s bag, which just happened to be lying on the table. Later on the students are interviewed to get a description of the ‘thief’. In the course of the interview, certain features of the thief are suggested to the students. For example, instead of just asking the student: “what did he look like?” or “what was he wearing?”, they asked: “was he wearing a jacket?” or “did he have glasses on?”. I cannot remember the actual percentage now, but I do recall that a surprising number of students suddenly recalled with utmost certainty a pair of non-existent glasses, or jacket. Some even went on to describe the jacket as being denim or leather or whatever, when the ‘thief’ in fact did not have a jacket on. But once it was suggested to the students, it because entwined as part of their memory of the incident and the thief. And so, while they actually did not see what was suggested to them, they themselves are convinced that they did.

Another example of a suggested memory is a child (child here is used to describe the relationship to the parent, and not the age. I have no idea how old they were) who is told a fictional memory by the parent. So, this event never happened, by the parent talks about it as though it was real. “Don’t you remember? It was your cousin Susan’s birthday party, and you did this, and somebody said that, and it was so funny, and you laughed so much that you fell over the birthday cake…” or something like that. Never happened! But after this conversation, the child is convinced that such an event did occur. And in later years, not only could be independently recall the incident (no longer requiring the suggestion from his parent), he could also recall that he was wearing the colour of his shirt and that the birthday cake was in a shape of a bunny or whatever. Details which the parent had not mentioned, but which the child’s memory had created to complete the memory his parent had supplied him.

And this happens to the best of us. No matter how good you think your memory is, it is susceptible to suggestion. I thought that was quite interesting.

10. I had earlier said that I will get to something about bad experiences. I actually had something else in mind when I said that. But it leads to another philosophical discussion and I think I have had enough one sided philosophical discussions for one night. So I will say this instead: I have had one bad experience recently. I hesitate to share this because I do not want to create a false impression about how things are here. But I will anyway. I was walking from the U-Bahn station (underground) to the main railway station. It’s about a two minute walk, if that. On the way, just outside the U-Bahn station, there was a guy sitting on the pavement. He was begging, if you could call it that. Basically, he was just sitting there waiting for people to give him money. He seemed to be in the twenties, I think. Rather unkept, but that’s it. He was well-dressed enough, in that he had enough layers on and his clothes were not torn or exceptionally dirty. He basically just looked like someone who didn’t give a shit. I did not see anyone stop to spare him some change. But as I walked past, and did not stop, I heard his say something about ‘auslander’ (meaning foreigner). I assumed that he had made some comment connecting the fact that I did not give him money because I was a foreigner. I can’t say for sure though because I was only half listening to him until I heard the ‘auslander’. I was furious. I whirled around the confront him. He had, thankfully, in that moment as I whirled around in anger all geared up for a fight, turned away and was facing the opposite direction. That gave me pause. I had about 5 minutes to make my train, so I decided to let it go and left.

It has to be said that some locals here do not have a good impression of foreigners. This stems from the fact that there are a fair number of foreigner here, and many of them originate from somewhere in the middle east or thereabouts, or Turkey. They, apparently, do pose a bit of a problem for several reasons. There is a problem with assimilation. Many just do not. Assimilate, I mean. They live within their own communities, shop from their community stores and speak not a word of the language. And yet, they sometimes receive a great deal of assistance from the government. I am advocating discrimination. Merely explaining the cause, as I understand it, for the problem. I suppose there is a lot more to it than that, but firstly, I do not pretend to understand it, and secondly, I don’t want to get into it.

Having said that, I have never had a problem being a foreigner here. People are generally friendly and mostly very interested when they hear where I am from. I think I am lucky to come from a land that is known, but not well known enough that most people do not have fixed ideas about it. I have spoken to several locals about this and they agree. If I had said Thailand or the Philippines, the impression would probably be slightly different. As it is, I am exotic! That amuses me. So far, and it has been now almost 9 months, this was the first unpleasant incident I have experienced. And I do think that as far as unpleasant incidences go, this one wasn’t really that bad.