Stustaleben!

The university I am studying at, Ludwig-Maximilians Universitaet Muenchen, is attended by over forty thousand students. The nearby Technical University, where Nader and numerous other mechanically-minded gentlemen scrawl incomprehensible things on chalkboards, has twenty thousand. I don't know where the other 58, 000 people live, but 2,000 of them (roughly) live right here with me in the Studentenstadt, a term translating to "Student City".

I was shocked to discover that this is not the only Student City. Rather, there are other student cities in Munich, other large 60s- and 70s- era buildings clustered around a central hub. One is the village built to house athletes during the ill-fated 1972 Olympics. Nader and I are in a couples dance class at the gymnasium there, so we walk through this other, calmer Studentenstadt once a week. It's ironic that we pass the apartment building where 40 years ago Palestinian gunmen shot 11 Israelis, ironic because currently, the Olympic Village is a calm, gunless place, a tree-covered set of apartments, expensive and zenlike.

In contrast, life in our StuSta is a daylong party.

Germany has no open container laws. There are, theoretically, laws against public drunkenness, but those don't seem to apply in this anarchic cluster of young people. This is doubled by the fact that in Germany, it is always permissible to be drinking, since beer, here, is just another beverage, like soda or water. It is therefore always possible to walk out of one's front door and see at least one person clutching a brown bottle, sipping happily away at a picnic table. Even at 11 AM.

There are many places to obtain this beer, too. There is a bar at the top of Green House, a sort of hoity-toity affair seventeen stories above the ground, where you can order flaming shots and go on the roof, in that order. There is a bar below Orange House, where you can play Foozball and pet the bar's dog. (Yes, really.) There is a a bar directly outside Blue House, not more than twelve feet from my window, where you can cheer madly at various soccer games on a large screen.

In conclusion, you can buy a fermented beverage 7 days a week until at least 1 AM every day. But if you want to print out a paper, you have to take the U-Bahn into the city. Germany clearly has its priorities straight.

This week, life here is even more of a party than usual. It's StuStaCulum, the climax of summer revelry, even though everyone still has classes and it's been raining for a month. The music is played at a constant high decibel level; I'm writing this sitting in my second story apartment, and currently reggae is blaring louder than my laptop speakers go. I don't know who's in charge of DJ-ing, but they only play 30 seconds of a song at a time. This has been going on for at least four days now.

Frankly, I'm surprised we all haven't gone mad yet, since it's impossible to do anything but listen to the music that they're playing. I'm also surprised I haven't gone broke. Food stands consume the acres of the village, hawking Chinese food and Persian food (maybe) and crepes and corn on the cob (yes!). There are three beer tents, two cocktail tents, a wine hut, and (my favorite, if not for taste then at least for weirdness) an absinthe stand. There is a sort of nightclub (classy!) and a sort of mosh pit (moshing being the only dancing Germans do apart from standing and drinking).

Last night, I darted away from the mosh pit and ran through the blinding rain to Nader's ground floor window, excited to see that his light was still on. I hopped up on the ledge and bent over his balcony and shouted his name, but unfortunately it was to no avail. He, displaying the ancient Kuhenuri ability to sleep anywhere at any time, was sprawled out on his bed, struck unconscious by the equations he was supposed to be studying for the class he was supposed to be teaching in nine hours. This was despite the ear-shattering din of the tequila hut outside his window.

"Oh come on, man, turn off your light," I, dizzy with absinthe, said loudly.

For some reason, that woke him up. He shook his head, stared confusedly around the room. "HERE!" I yelled. He shaded his eyes, squinted, swung his legs out, and padded onto the balcony in his house slippers, then took my legs into his arms and tossed me into his room.

Groggily, he went, "Wievieluhrist 's?"

"Mitternacht!" I announced.

"Really? I thought it was five, or six... Well," he said, haunted by the deafening reggae,"I think I can go with you for fifteen minutes."

Then he put on a shirt and we headed out into the night, rain be damned. We walked into the concert hall and danced to German screamo rap, morning class be damned. Then we headed back over the boardwalk into his room and shut the curtains, music be damned. He fell asleep instantly.

Nader, at least, has his priorities straight.

Application

Dear Mike,

I've wandered into your shop twice.

Once was when I was sixteen. I'd come to Germany with a tour group from my high school. The thirty of us were led into Mike's Bike Tours by my overenthusiastic teacher, Cheryl. We were not excited by the idea of biking around Munich for four hours. It was hot, we were tired, and everyone was anxiously awaiting the end of the scheduled part of the day so we could sneak off and drink beer.

The instant we mounted our bikes, though, our attitudes changed. First of all, they're awesome rides -- they nearly spoiled me for future bikes. Second of all, we were mostly girls, and the guide, frankly, was hot. He was more than hot -- he was knowledgeable, which made him double hot. I don't remember much of what he said, but I do remember how hilarious it all was.

That bike tour was what made me want to study in Munich; at the conclusion of four hours, I didn't want it to end. I just remember how full of possibility the city felt from two pedals rather than four, from a sleek silver frame rather than a boxlike tour bus.

When I got to college, I applied, was accepted to the Junior Year in Munich program, and now I'm here. I've been here for two months now. I got a bike the instant I could, so I know the city better than anyone else in my program does now. (They all ride the U-Bahn, slackers.)

Last week, I worked up the courage to wander into the store again.

Not much has changed. You weren't in, but your guides are still as attractive and friendly as ever, except now they are my age rather than unattainable older people. They remind me of my friends back at the University of Minnesota Morris. They are sly, buff individuals who like good stories and don't care about getting dirty; I felt rather at home.

For I, too, have grown into a good storyteller. I stop my friends as we wander around Munich and relay various anecdotes I've gathered from tours I've been on -- "Did you know that if you steal a town's maypole in Southern Germany, they have to throw you a party?". I am not afraid of talking to large groups of people, nor of herding them around -- at Morris, I am both a campus tour guide and a freshman orientation group leader.

Additionally, I am on the campus' ten-person improv comedy troupe. This means that I do not fear hecklers and surprises -- rather, I enjoy them. I am cute and good at meeting strangers. Did I mention that I enjoy biking? I think I'd be a good match for your team.

I'm not asking you for a job, yet, though. I'm applying for your internship program because I've got to leave and finish college in two months. I could start next week, or even this week, but I'm out of Germany by the end of July, and I fear that two months is nowhere near enough time to convince you to let me lead a large group of people around the city.

Rather, I'd like you to get to know me, allow me to learn from you, let me shadow your guides. Let me learn the stories and the art of the Mike's Bike Tours funny. Then let me leave, and next year, when I graduate and move back to Munich for real, let me be first on your list for a job when you hire new guides in the spring.

In conclusion,

I love you.

Jessie Hennen

Status: Stasis

It's been hard lately and I don't quite really know why.

I think most of it is caused by the weather. Munich, for the past 2 weeks, has been trapped under a low-pressure blanket of gray clouds that (every two hours) emit a powerful rainstorm, drenching all bikers. There has been no day without a downpour, or at least the sort of low-level drizzle that happened yesterday, where it's so cold that the water droplets seem to float in the air, making one's clothes feel like a slightly-used washcloth.

Because of this, everyone has been using the U-Bahn. Because of the ridiculous amount of money I have spent on bikes lately (later post, but the running total: around 200 dollars for something that is constantly about to kill me), I have resisted buying a monthly ticket (around 50 dollars) in favor of buying occasional day passes when the rain is just too much (around 8 dollars) or "Schwarzfahren", which is something Germans only whisper about. Apparently every citizen here feels it is their civic duty to buy a rail pass, and the only people who hop on the train dishonestly are, like me, foreigners and cheats.

Foreigners and cheats who are, at this point, being caught regularly. Nader told me a while ago that the scary train inspectors only come on one day early in the month -- that he's had his ticket checked THREE TIMES in the EIGHT MONTHS he's studied here -- so I figured a little schwarzfahren would not do anyone any harm. I was wrong. I haven't been caught yet, but many people have. And this month, because of the rain, they've been checking sporadically every DAY, or so I hear from all my frightened friends. I am ergo too scared to take the U-bahn, and remain damp and muscular from biking.

The clouds sort of sink down over the city as I pedal along, and seem to sap everyone's bits of happiness and motivation, or at least mine. It's as if our winter coats are trapping us in stasis, keeping us from doing anything -- this is my excuse for why I don't as of yet have a job. According to Nader, in Germany, they're practically GIVING jobs away; they'd love to have me; all I have to do is walk up there and ask them; but walking up there requires not only that I bike out through the cold, but that I know the German for "Hi.... will you hire me?" which is an awkward opening sentence in English, let alone in broken, stammering Deutsch. I feel that my German personality is not yet developed enough that anyone would want to have me work with their customers.

Then there's the problem of my clothes, which would not lend themselves to the impression that I am a responsible, non-hobo human being. It's been five months. I have acquired sweatpants, a sweatshirt, a skirt, and two fancy dresses here in Europe. This would be fine -- I came here with a fairly elegant wardrobe, it would seem that these pieces might accentuate what I've got rather than frustrate me with their inability to match any of it.

But one must remember that I've journeyed across the continent. I've worked on a pig farm and walked miles to school in Irish rain. I bike everywhere. My sweaters have holes in them. My pants have worn, tattered crotches from the bike seat. My dresses are stretched and stained, my tank tops inadequate and unwearable in drizzle. I am usually fairly pulled-together in Morris, where things are cheap and easily findable, but here I look like a homeless person next to all the chic European girls in their slouchy boots and aviator jackets.

Saleswomen follow me around the stores as I wander in. ,,Kann ich Ihnen helfen?" they inquire over their noses, pointedly, as they try to figure out what exactly I'm here to steal.

,,Nnnein," I stammer, idly touching a few beautiful, well-constructed garments with the tips of my fingers, like the Little Match Girl would a windowpane. I flip over a price tag and calculate the conversion rate in my head. My eyes widen. $75 for a tank top....

,,Danke," I yell, and run to the next store, where inevitably the same thing happens.

I have a lot of free time, as a result of my avoiding stores and work and rain. Some of the time is spent giggling with JYMers in coffee shops -- great! But other people are in class a lot of the time -- I can't figure out how my schedule wound up so empty, since I'm taking as many credits as the rest of them are, even if one class literally expects me to do nothing but show up and take notes every week.

Therefore, I wind up spending many days like today, Friday, my class-less day.

I woke up, thought, wrote, returned emails, checked my notifications on facebook, watched an episode of 30 Rock, cursed the rain, put laundry in, washed dishes, made breakfast, looked at cheerful photos of people graduating in the sunlight on facebook, listened to This American Life, cleaned the closet, did something -- but what? -- on facebook, hung things on the clothesline, made lunch, tried to find cheap railway tickets to Paris, failed, piled the dishes on the counter, scrubbed my desk, and am now writing this blog entry.

Like the clouds, I have no plans to move anywhere else -- to find that job, to seek a friend, because like the clouds, I am pressed down in this city, spreading a low-level drizzle all over this room. I'm not moving until they do.

"I hope you're having the time of your life!!!" my friends say cheerfully on my wall, and at that moment it doesn't seem like I'm leaving in two months, rather never.

National Social-life

Four weeks ago, Brijhette and I were sitting in the student bar that is (noisily) thirty feet from my window, drinking a beer and talking animatedly about our futures.

"I mean, I just don't know if I want to go to grad school right away," I said, swigging the last of my two buttery-tasting Weissbiers out of its massive, rather phallic glass. "I LOVE the English language, really I do, but --"

"Mmhm, yeah, girl," Brijhette said. For her, the debate about grad-school no-grad-school was over; she'd been accepted to two equally awesome architecture programs, had selected one, was going there in the fall, and was now concentrating on other things. "Only a couple fries left, you want one?"

"I just, I love writing, and I love talking, and I love writing things and talking about them to people, but maybe I can do that not in grad school, like somewhere else, or something..." I was gesturing with the glass, my hair flying.

"Yeah, yeah," Brijhette said, nodding as she soaked the last fry in ketchup. "You're a good talker. Me, I'm just wondering how I'm gonna pay for all this, you know? I mean, wie kann man fuer alle diese noetige Sache zahlen?"

"What, the fries? They were like three euro."

"No... for school."

"Oh." I looked at her. She was equally finished with her fries and beers. "Should we go?"

I vaguely registered that there were two guys sitting at a table directly behind Brijhette, in my line of vision. My glasses weren't on, so I really didn't have a good idea of what they looked like -- I had a vague impression of dark hair, black clothes, stillness. I was unsure whether or not they were checking us out or just watching the football game behind us. I decided it was inconsequential, as we were leaving.

"Inconsequential!" I pronounced.

"Wha?" Brijhette said, holding her glass.

We turned around, sauntered up to the counter, returned our food and beverage containers, received two euro each in recompense for said containers, pocketed the money, and walked out past the crowds of football-watchers into the dark humid night.

We stood by the doors for a second, not wanting to just part rudely. I noticed that the two guys from the table behind us were standing ten feet away -- I assumed that they were doing the same thing. I jangled my two euro in my pockets.

"Thanks for coming out with me. It was good to finally get that beer," Brijhette said. "Mmm, lecker."

"Yeah, totally necessary," I said. "You know when we have to meet tomorrow?"

"Entschuldigung," said a voice by my left shoulder.

I turned. It was one of the guys.

He was tall, dark in the night. From far away he'd looked menacing. From up close, he just looked earnest. What on earth was happening?

"Hi, how's it going," he said sort of cockily in German.

We both affirmed our good-ness, and sort of hit on him a little bit.

"I'm wondering," he said. "My friend over there is here for the week from Sweden, and I've only been here five months. Tomorrow I want to go show him around Munich, but I'm not sure what to see... can you recommend us anything?"

"Oh, the English Gardens," I said at once. "They would be sehr nett."

"The Chinese Tower," said Brijhette, "the Frauenkirche, the Glockenspiel..."

"A beer garden," I said.

"Uh huh, uh huh," he said.

"Sorry," I said, "we only got here two weeks ago. You probably know better than we do."

"Oh!..." he said. "From America, right? Hey, Mazdak. Come over here!"

His friend, who'd been standing over there finishing up a phone call, came over. Introductions were made. Mazdak apparently spoke only English, which was a relief to me. We switched languages, and the tall guy turned out to also speak English. Then he nailed it.

"Should we meet up and go to a beer garden tomorrow, then?" he said casually. "What's your number?"

....

The next day, Brijhette and I, after much debate and wondering and mentioning of that damn movie that made everyone's parents worry about them going to Europe and being kidnapped and sold into sex slavery, wound up going to the beer garden. I guess I was favorably impressed-- long story short, Nader and I have been dating for roughly four weeks now, and he hasn't kidnapped me. Yet.

He was born in Germany, but his parents are from Iran, and he lived there for several years in high school and college -- he's currently in school studying "Electrotechnik", which I think translates fairly well into English. He is, in a word, smooth. He enjoys Santana, dancing, taking drunken photos in U-Bahn stations with friends, and Shrek. He regularly threatens to beat up the ducks that poop on me as I ride my bike and the geese that hit me in the face, which is a quality I appreciate in a man.

I'm writing about him mainly because tonight we are going to a "Cultural Stereotypes" party in one of the dorms here. Since he's Iranian and I'm American, the night will either end in a nuclear explosion or a blissful revolution and reconciliation. Stay tuned!

Eltern

I am used to the idea that in Europe, people go shopping not once a week to stock their cart with a range of frozen foods, but rather every couple of days, to buy fresh bread and delicious produce and deli-bought fish. I am okay with this. In general, I believe that food should be more realistic than it is in America, where square bits of ground-up chicken and potato rectangles made of reconstituted starch constitute a meal. Europe is on the right track. Everything is organic. Bread is great.

I am less okay with this when it becomes apparent that the every-other-day European shopping leads to a certain kind of hell hour for grocery stores.

Namely, 5 pm. When everyone takes the train home, holding tightly to an unhygenic metal pole as they avoid the stares of others. When everyone pulls a canvas bag out of their purse and heads to Aldi. When everyone BATTLES.

My friend Erica wrote a fairly hilarious post about the subtle differences between America and Deutschland last week. Here it is: http://www.ericamorgan.com/?p=691#more-691 . In it, she also concentrates on the way grocery shopping alters from country to country, namely the way it is okay, in Germany, to budge in line.

Today, I fought my way through Aldi, which was a hell of fluorescent lights and sketchy eggs and confused teenagers holding 2.99 bottles of wine. I stood in line for 20 minutes, shoved my 100 euro bill at the cashier (Erica also talks about how people, in Germany, expect that you will pay with the smallest denomination possible, which was proven by the fact that the cashier rolled her eyes at me as she machine-gunned my change onto the counter). I rammed my things into two plastic bags (.29 each, save the planet!). Then I made my way to Edeka, the Byerly's of Germany, to buy non-suspect milk and cheese.

The lines at that grocery store were hell too, but less for me than for the girl behind me. She was blond, freshly-scrubbed-looking, rather plucky and Germanic, and also plainly a student. And she was also the unlucky person to be standing at the end of the line when an old woman, who walked with a limp and was pushing a cart even though all she was carrying were two packages of parsley, cut in front of her and announced, "I was here before."

I expected the girl to be like, "Okay, whatever," since the old woman wasn't holding very much, and also she seemed mean. But to her credit, blond girl was like, "No, I'm at the end of the line."

"But I was here first," said the lady, and settled herself complacently behind me.

"No," said the girl, smiling, "I'm sorry, but I was here." She wedged her cart in.

The old woman's face registered shock, and there was a minute where neither of them knew what to do. I thought that was the end of it. I thought blond girl had won. I began putting my things on the tray, and the girl turned to me, beseeching.

"I really was there first," she said.

"I know, you totally were," I said. "Super weird."

Then the old woman poked her in the side.

I couldn't hear all that she said, but I did hear the words "RESPECT FOR YOUR ELDERS!" and "THE TRUTH!"

"Excuse me," I said, at this point just wanting the increasingly long-seeming line to not be awkward any more. "You can go ahead of me, if you like. You don't have many things." I failed to realize that in principle this was the same thing as the blond girl capitulating, since I was ahead of her, but the witchy old woman was starting to terrify me with her insistence.

"No," she said evilly. "This young lady has decided that I am not allowed to go ahead of her."

At that point, everyone settled for looking in separate directions. The blond girl gazed at her groceries. She seemed near tears. I wasn't sure what to say, or if I could say anything that would make it better, or if I could say anything that wouldn't be heard by the old woman. It wasn't what I would have done, in her situation -- very likely the old lady would have just said something to me in German and I would have instantly caved -- but that didn't mean I wasn't proud of her for standing her ground despite the hexes the old witch was probably casting on her.

I saw her outside the student center later, luckily. "Gut gemacht," I said, which means "well done".

"Seriously?" she said.

"Yes. She was mean!" I said, or think I said.

"She just kept insisting..." blond girl said. She was talking to one of her friends, probably about that, and so I waved goodbye, and pushed my grocery-laden bike (I still haven't figured out how to not shop American-style) towards the dorm. I hope that because I said something her story changed from "and the girl in front of me thought I was being ridiculous" to "hey, that old woman was a bitch, even if one should respect one's elders".

And I hope that whatever spell that old woman cast on her won't be too debilitating, or too long-lasting.

Inappropriate Responses to Adorable Questions, Pt. 3

(see http://adjesstures.blogspot.com/2010/03/terrible-things.html)

Attractive German boyfriend Nader, in German, while stroking my hair romantically: It seems that you are getting prettier every day. How do you do it?

Me: (being Minnesotan and unsure how to respond to compliments except with sarcasm) ... Each morning, I kill and eat a baby.

....

What is with my brain??

Erfolg

The program I'm at is pretty nice. It has a lovely building on a cobblestoned street with pastel-colored walls covered in old-timey bookshelves, editions of Goethe and Schilling and Heine um so weite. It has a cheerful blond secretary and a pipe-smoking wisecracking professor in chief. It's a place designed to ease the transition from America to Germany, basically; today they served us pizza and pop. Weird, calzone pizza, and healthy, all-natural pop, but still.

In addition to providing junk food, the program offers easier courses taught at a slower pace, in case you don't make it past the exam that the massive Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat requires all foreign students score a certain amount on in order to take classes in German there. It's really not a bad thing if you don't make it -- some of the courses at the Junior Year Munich program are pretty cool. I, for one, am taking Nazi Germany, as is nearly everyone else. (The sign-up sheet flew around the room, ripped from hand to hand.)

I was prepared to take pretty much all of my classes at JYM. My German speaking voice is creaky to inadequate, and I make all kinds of miniscule annoying grammar mistakes while writing. But somehow, last week, I passed the exam. I am apparently a B2, fully prepared for learning auf Deutsch. So now the pipe-smoking kindly professor has said that I should probably take, in addition to my two classes at little cute JYM, three classes at the big scary brother-and-sister-Scholl-killing LMU, you know, just because I can. Gulp.

So I'm picking them now (late). They all have ridiculously long names, like "Ubersetzungsorientierte Analyse literarischer Texte", which means only "Translation-oriented Literary Text Analysis", but sounds much more intimidating in German. I'm frankly a little scared.

But on the bright side, due to the way credits work out at UMM, I can take one class in English, a selection which I've already spent the whole evening deliberating over. Due to my native superiority ... okay, birth in America... I'm already ahead. Plus, the classes have cool names like "Apokalypsen!!" and "Gender in American Fiction".

I'm excited to have one class where I will rock the world's face off, opposed to the rest of the time, in which I will mumble and stumble over words and make the grammatical mistakes of a four-year-old.

I'm in fact so excited to maximize my awesomeness potential that I'm even considering re-taking "Virginia Woolf", in which, having just read the books last semester, I will look like a fucking literary genius....

Okay, not really, especially because my alternative choice is called "Superheroes!".

Seriously. What a country!