Goethe Week Two

This is about the week of 2/8 through 2/11

The second week of classes started out well, too. Monday’s class went fine as usual, but during the day some of the American students talked about how much we missed having American breakfast food. We decided to cook an American breakfast for dinner that night. We headed to the supermarket at 5 and bought all of the necessary supplies. Then we came back and cooked breakfast for everyone who wanted it, including the Brazilians and a few others. We had eggs, bacon, toast with jelly, and hash browns. It was pretty awesome and definitely satisfied our hunger for American breakfast. After that we all headed to Stammtisch for a few drinks and went to bed happy.

Tuesday was definitely interesting because we had an International buffet that night. The concept was that everyone would bring a traditional dish from their respective home countries. We Americans brought grilled cheese to the buffet. Not everyone participated, but there were about 10 or so countries represented and more than enough food to go around. There was so much good food. It was also the first time, and probably only time, when I can say I was sitting with at a table with about 25 people and at least 10 different countries were represented. It was definitely a cool experience.

Wednesday was the first day of our new Lehrer. Our old Lehrerin, Frau Schneider, was just filling in for our teacher until he got back from vacation. Now we have Herr Hasenfluss. He is definitely an interesting man. He kind of looks like Einstein, but instead of his hair poofing out, it lays down flat. He’s definitely a crazy looking man. He also has an interesting voice and a Schwabian accent. I’m not really a huge fan so far. He is extremely difficult to understand when compared to Frau Schneider and he speaks much more quickly than she did. Also, we have a ton of homework every night now, so that’s not as much fun. So Wednesday’s class was not my favorite, as I had to adjust to Herr Hasenfluss.

Wednesday night was fun, though. We have Goethe-Kino every Wednesday. Goethe-Kino is when they show a free movie in the Goethe-Pub for us all to watch. A few of us decided to make grilled cheese again, but this time we made fries, too, and added salami to the grilled cheese. Of course we had to have beer, too. We made all of this food in the kitchen in the Wohnheim and then took it to the Goethe-Kino so we could eat while we watched the movie. It worked splendidly. We enjoyed our delicious food and watched a movie called Adams Apfel, which means “Adam’s Apple” in English (sure was hard to figure that translation out, huh?). It was a movie about a neo-Nazi skinhead who is punished for petty crimes by being assigned to stay at a church with a pastor and a few other criminals. The criminals get room and board at the church but have to work for their stay. It basically followed the storyline of Job from the Bible. It was an interesting movie, for sure, but a little ridiculous. None of us could help laughing when a guy got shot in the chest and back and walked away like it was nothing. We couldn’t believe it. If you are familiar with the story of Job, this next scene will make more sense to you, but the pastor of the church is dying from a huge brain tumor. In a scuffle with a band of neo-Nazis that come to start trouble at the church, the pastor gets shot in the head. Of course, he lives because the bullet blew out the tumor from his brain and he is cured. All of us could only watch in shock and awe when we gets shot in the head and then lives. We found the German style of film-making very entertaining if not slightly ridiculous. The movie was all in very-hard-to-understand German, but we had subtitles on (in German), so we could follow along by reading.

Thursday February 11th was probably one of my best days in Germany. Class again was not so great, but the afternoon and night more than made up for it. First we had a wonderful thing called “Kaffee und Kuchen” (Coffee and Cakes) at 4 pm. It was put on by an organization called Die Freunde des Goethe (or the Friends of the Goethe Institut). Basically there is a group of people who live in Hall that strongly support the concept and work of the Goethe Institut and want to support and help all students trying to learn German. They put on a few different programs throughout each month of classes, but this is by far their best program. Then again, I am always biased towards food.

Kaffee und Kuchen is a program where all of the women in Die Freunde des Goethe bake amazing cakes and confections and bring them to the Mensa (cafeteria). There they also serve coffee and tea, and it is all FREE for the students. How awesome is that? There were about 20 different kinds of cakes and pies laid out on the table. I was in heaven, sweet heaven. I had no less than five pieces of cake. They girls sitting next to me (from Saudi Arabia, Korea, and Afghanistan, I think) were thoroughly impressed until they saw me stand up. Then they realized that all that cake goes to fill my 6’6” frame. I also had three cups of coffee. Needless to say, I was wired after that.

Another awesome thing about the event was the opportunity to meet some of the people involved with Die Freunde des Goethe. The women are obviously there serving the wonderful food, and their husbands also come to have conversation. The guy I sat with was named Hans. Ben and I sat together and talked with Hans the whole time about different things. Hans is originally from Hall and is a retired constructional engineer. He was really nice and said he loved coming to the events to meet with all of the students and partake in the conversations. We asked him several things about the region. Interesting facts about the sizes of the cities around included:
• About 8,000 people live in the city of Hall, but all the suburbs of Hall make it a city of about 30,000
• Stuttgart has about 600,000 people living in it and the surrounding area.
• Nürnberg has about 300,000 or so people in the city, but about 1 million people in the metro area

After we finished our cakes and all, Hans found out that one of the guys from Colombia that we were sitting with was also a construction engineer, so he offered to take a group of us to the big construction site in the city and explain everything to us. A group of about 6 of us gladly accepted the invitation and followed him to the construction site. If you have seen giant yellow cranes in any of my pictures, then you will be familiar with the construction going on in the west part of the city. They are building a new shopping center there, hoping to bring more businesses and money to the city. It’s going to be a pretty big complex, and Hans explained to us the challenges of building parking space (there is barely any in this city) and the different considerations the engineers had to account for. For example, the Kocher River runs right through the heart of Hall, so there is groundwater about 2 meters below the ground where they are building the shopping center. Normally a foundation is set 7 meters below the ground (that’s really deep, by the way…over 21 feet) in order to account for parking garages and all, but they have to go through many different techniques and maneuvers to circumvent this lack of ability to dig that deep. It was definitely informative and interesting, and it was also a confidence boost that I could understand the vast majority of the things Hans was saying. After we parted ways, Laura, Ben, and I walked around the city for about 40 minutes because we had a meeting at 6 pm.

What was the meeting at 6 pm? Only the greatest thing ever. We went on a Goethe-sponsored tour of the Haller Löwenbräu Brauerei (Brewery). It was about a 15 minute walk from the school, and all 30 of us trudged along in the snow, excited about what we were going to see. The brewery is across the river in a complex of buildings that don’t look all too magnificent on the outside. However, once we were inside, the magic of Haller Löwenbräu unfolded. (By the way, for those who are curious, it is pronounced Haller Loh-ven-broi). We went to the production room which had several giant vats and machines in it. The entire tour was in German, so I only caught maybe 40-50% of it. I just haven’t studied my beer and beer-making vocabulary enough, apparently, in English or auf Deutsch. I understood enough to gather the general process, but the details were lost on me. The brewery is older than the U.S., though. It’s been around since 1724.

After spending about 30 minutes in that first room, the tour guide handed out 0,1 liter (maybe 5 or 6 oz?) Haller Löwenbräu glasses. For free!! Needless to say, we were all excited about that. Then we headed to other rooms, including the room under the vats, the cooling room, and the bottling room. The last part of the tour took us through the giant warehouse where they keep and then distribute all of the beer. We were all dumbstruck with the amount of beer around us. They make soft drinks, too, but they are definitely known for their beer. After learning about different methods of shipping and bottling/storing the beer (which kind of kegs lasted longer, etc.), we headed back inside to a dining room sorts. There we were served free dinner and as much free beer as we wanted! We had a blast just hanging out and laughing with each other while drinking free and delicious beer from the tap. Around 10:30 or so, they started closing down, so we all headed to Bali’s for whatelse? A döner!!

At Bali’s we sat down and talked with the owner for a while about where we were all from and such. He also played a game with us. It’s hard to describe but basically it’s a strategy game involving coasters (like the kind you put under a drink). It was fun, and he challenged us to a wager. If we won, we get free döners for a year. If he won, I had to free the kebap Kentucky Fried Chicken style, since he knew I was from Kentucky. Luckily, we won! He’s not used to that, so we didn’t hold him to the free döners. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have held me to the KFC end of the deal if we would have lost. Then we headed home after an awesome day/night.

A few things I have noticed during my stay in Germany:
• I truly have underestimated the effect and power of fabric softener sheets that you put in the drier. I have always used them and figured they were pretty much useless. No sir. With my laundry here, there is no drier, so my clothes hang-dry. No fabric softener = clothes that aren’t as soft as expected. Not a complaint, just an observation.
• Each kind of beer has it’s specific type of glass. Pilsner beer is always served in a certain glass, as is Hefe-Weize, etc.
• My English is now sprinkled with German phrases. All of the English students throw in German words all the time. This might be problematic once back in the states.
• The Germans must be the most dehydrated nation ever. When they play sports or exercise, I have seen people drink coke and carbonate apple juice like it’s water. Also, they drink beer and only beer when they are thirsty. There is a beer called the Radler (which means bicycle rider). It is half beer and half Sprite (or some equivalent of sprite). It’s really not too great by my standards, but it was invented for bike races, hence the name. Yeah, so when people were thirsty during a bike race, they would drink a Radler instead of a regular beer because it was “less beer” and had “less alcohol”….yeah, crazy Germans. Haha gotta love the culture, right?