Babel

Some six odd years ago when I started learning German, most people everyone warned me about the articles in German, believing that this would be the most difficult part of learning German as a foreigner. For a point of reference, there are three base definite articles that then each have several changes they can make depending on case, and an equally complicated list of indefinite articles. Not to mention the definitive and interrogative, possessive "article-like" pronouns.

Definite article (strong)

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	der	das	die	die
Accusative	den	das	die	die
Dative	dem	dem	der	den
Genitive	des	des	der	der

Indefinite article endings (mixed)

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	ein	ein	eine	-eine
Accusative	einen	ein	eine	-eine
Dative	einem	einem	einer	-einen
Genitive	eines	eines	einer	-einer

                                               (Wikipedia)

I don't really expect many of you to understand what this is, just that you marvel at what my brain does in split seconds while speaking a foreign language.

They were correct in that articles can be a challenge at times, but it is by no means the hardest part of the German language. You see, German wasn't always a unified language. Most people ascribe the beginnings of a formal, unified German to the publishing of Luther's Guttenberg Bible. Before this, everyone spoke their regional language, which throughout Germany meant they all spoke more or less related dialects. Fast forward to today where all of those dialects still exist in addition to German being widely spoken in no less than six countries in Europe, each having it's own set of unique dialects and governmental reforms to standard German. 

Now what I learned in school is known as High German, or the form of German recognized by the German government as the most standard form of the language. It would be like learning British English as opposed to American. Or so I thought. I thought learning High German would be the skeleton key to German speakers everywhere. I may not speak their dialect, but everyone will know standard German... Yeah, not the case. 

People in my village describe what they speak as "Deutsch" and what I speak as "Preisisch" (Prussian). That's right, they consider what I speak to be the dialect. Which of course it is. There is no perfect form of a language. There are only forms recognized by arbitrary bodies to be more correct. However, if there were perfect forms of language there would still only be the one. People speaking imperfect Latin became the predecessors of perfect Italian, French and Spanish. An early Germanic tribe known as the Angles couldn't quite wrap their heads around conjugation and passive speech and their bastardized version of Proto-Germanic lead to language of the British Empire, which in turn spawned American English. 

That is what is so exciting about language. It's a living entity that grows and changes and evolves with each generation. And it never stops. Think of the word Google. It's a search engine. But how many of you have used the phrase "I'll google it real quick"? I'm only twenty-four, and in my lifetime I've seen the introduction of new words into my native language. How many words do you use today that your parents would never have thought were a part of our language? Post 'em in the comments if you like. 

And here's a cool link if you, like me, wonder sometimes where a word comes from. Enjoy. 

PS - Time for some endorsements. My good friend Claire is a small town Kansas girl who moved out to San Francisco after graduation. She's a phenomenal photographer (she took the picture I'm using for my blog) and a terribly witty and open-hearted young woman. Oh! And she has a blog! Check it out. She's a pretty interesting person.

The American Diaspora

I've been neglecting my blogging responsibilities. There is just so much to do here! By the time I make it home I'm exhausted.

One thing taking up a bunch of my time is renovating the apartment I'm in. One of the couples here in Kolsass is interested in renting it when I'm out of the picture. The catch is that this apartment has been used by Erich and Paula as storage for the last 10 or so years. Which means my living area has become a battle zone. Erich haphazardly carting things off to the workshop to be cut up for firewood on one side, and Paula desperately trying to find hiding place for them on the other. And me and my nice quiet apartment caught in the middle.

It's not that bad actually. It gives me something to do during the day and keeps a modest amount of coin in my pocket.

But back to my title...

Erich, Paula and I went to Innsbruck yesterday to meet with the Austro-American Society. It's a group of Americans, Austrian students studying English and their assorted hangers-on who, among other things, get together twice a month to have dinner. It was quite interesting to meet so many Americans that has chosen the life of an ex-pat. Some of them had gotten teaching positions here and then gotten married, some studied here and some came for vacation and just never bothered leaving again.

It was great to talk to these people about how extended time abroad influences their views of their homeland and what prompted them to jump ship to begin with. I'm going to try, as much as possible, to stay out of politics in this blog, but many seemed to have become quite critical of American policies concerning security and surveillance as well as the common conception of personal freedom.

Now we didn't just sit around and critique American culture for two hours.  There were many funny and absurd stories shared that we as long-term foreigners could all appreciate (anyone who has 'vermisst' their bus can relate).

Which leads me to why I must now take my leave. A very nice foreign exchange student from New Orleans has invited me to celebrate her birthday with her and Innsbruck crowd, which means I have a bus to catch.

Ski Weather

I had breakfast on a mountain today. Yup. On a mountain.

Paula Erich and I went skiing today and the first order of business was to trek up the mountain and just the right sequence of lifts and runs to get to this place called the Kristallhütte. Man that was a good breakfast! Two eggs over easy atop a mound of bacon and two slices of hearty wheat bread and butter. Just the thing you need to fuel a day of alpine skiing. Speaking of which...

Skiing in the alps is a blast. I didn't get too adventurous on the slopes today, but man you could have some fun there. People here really take their skiing seriously. None of the icy patches, or speed-crazed hooligans I've experienced elsewhere. Just perfect powder on every run and toddlers putting my form to shame.

The view from the peak was absolutely breathtaking. Valley upon valley with little clusters of red-roofed houses nestled between cloud-engulfed peaks. Kinda makes me wish I was the picture taking type. Too bad for you guys I guess.

We got there pretty early, which was great. We beat the crowds and clouds that showed up just as we were bailed home for lunch.

Tirol

Happy New Year everyone! I had a great time last night meeting new friends around the village and learning how the English celebrate New Year's Eve (they sing a song in a circle and hold hands, also they drink). Later in the night I met a couple of kids my age from the village and had a great time with them. 

But here's the really cool thing about this place. I live in the freaking alps! I can see the mountains from every window in my apartment. For all my nerd friends out there; it's like I live in Skyrim! For real. It's like High Hrothgar is in my backyard! For everyone else; t's like I live in the ALPS!

Well that's it for the moment. Actually, there's a ton more like the crazy dialect, the radically different bar culture, and the Swarovsky headquarters being 5 minutes away, but we're hitting the slopes early tomorrow so I better hit the hay. I'll see you all when I see you.

In Media Res

Today I drank a steaming cup of cat shit. But we'll get to that in a minute. 

On Sunday I took off from Saarbrücken. I bought a train ticket that's good all over Germany for one day, but only for local and regional transport. That meant that 328.643 mile trip took just over ten hours to complete. I was pretty sick of train stench by that time.

But I did get to meet a couple of interesting people. The ticket I bought is good for up to five people, so I put out the word that, for five euros, someone could ride with me to Hannover. I found three people that wanted to come along: a computer programmer from Morocco, a student from Syria, and woman from Turkey. Me being an American, you can imagine how interesting our conversations were.

But I did finally make it to Hannover where Till was waiting for me at the station. I met Rosi, his mother and his two brothers, Lutz and Götz. Rosi is an awesome cook by the way; I've likely put on significant weight while here. That first evening we had sausages and sauerkraut, the next day we had raclett (it's an awful lot like a Mongolian grill restaurant, but at home. I've only ever seen it in Europe so if anyone knows where I can get one in America, leave a comment), and lunch the next day produced goose with potato dumplings (Klose) and boiled red cabbage (Rotkraut). Pretty good stuff.

On Christmas Eve we all went to the protestant church in Ronnenberg (the town they live in). The sermon was more or less what one expects from a Christmas service, but the church itself was gorgeous. No one seemed to know for sure, but the consensus was that the church was originally built in the 14th century, and (relatively) recently rebuilt and restored. The floor was made of unfinished oak boards and every inch of the ceiling was painted with images of saints. The radical difference between the plainness of the floor and the extravagance of the ceiling may or may not have been an intentional symbol of some theological premise, but it was though-provoking none-the-less.

After church we came back and exchanged gifts. The three boys bought a bag of very, very expensive coffee for Rosi. Perhaps some of you coffee snobs will recognize the name Kopi Luwak. Yup, that's the name for coffee brewed from beans eaten, digested and then shit our by a cute monkey-cat. Take a minute and enjoy that picture. Now think about it pooping. Now you're making coffee from the poop. 

It was pretty tasty. Merry Christmas!

A Royale With Cheese

"It's the little differences. I mean they got the same shit  over there that they got here, but it's just...just there it's a little different." - Vincent 'Our Man in Amsterdam' Vega

So the first couple of times I came to Europe, Dr. Pepper was nowhere to be found. Which was kind of a bummer because that is my happy juice. Seriously, that stuff is the nectar of the gods. I remember my Dad taking my sister and me to a movie in Kansas City when I was younger and he gave us each a wad of cash and said we could get whatever we wanted. I had three boxes of junior mints and four Dr. Peppers. It was bad.

Any way, since then Dr. Pepper has made it's way across the pond, but every time I try it it's just terrible. But I'm a gullible sucker so when I saw it yesterday in the grocery store, I thought, "hey, it's been a couple of years since I tried it in Germany. Maybe they got the formula right." It still tastes like cough syrup. Serves me right I suppose.

Everything is a little different here, but that's not always a bad thing. The bread here is amazing! It's unfortunate because it's something that would never take off in America. Here the bread is hard and full of stuff. My personal favorite is a wheat bread that has sunflower seeds baked into it. I mean, you could build a pretty solid wall out of it, but it is so good.

And speaking of wheat and yeast; the beer is also a highlight here. Even their standard, run-of-the-mill beers (often a pilsner) have a ton of taste. I had a bock beer about a week ago that blew my mind. It's from the Bruch brewery close to here. Not a lot of carbonation and fairly malty (which is not really my style at all), but rich and dark and a nice roasted taste to mellow out the sweet. Damn good I say.

I lit a candle for you today

Whoa! Made it to Trier today. Finally! Met a Macedonian on the train. That was pretty cool.

My first stop in that epic little city was...the bathroom at a Burger King. My coffee caught up to me on the train and it was a brutal last half-hour. But after that I walked to the Porta Nigra. The Porta Nigra is this old Roman gate that used to stand at the edge of the city (ya know, like, 1,900 years ago), but now is a mere 0.6 kilometers away from the train station (the sign said so). The original name of the gate is lost to history (because people name gates, I guess?) but it has been known as the Porta Nigra (Black Gate) since the middle ages. Yeah, it got my Mordor up too. It got it's name, apparently, because of little lichen that took up residence on the stones, turning them a blackish grey color. I don't know if anyone else just got excited, but I love ancient symbiotes!

As I walked through the gate for the first time today, I got kind of a steam punk feel from it. There was a ton of scaffolding and wires and tubes running through it. Admittedly, they did make an effort to stick them in the darkest corners they could find which totally just added to the whole shadow-government ambiance.

After that I went rogue. I knew there were lots of other old Roman things scattered throughout the city, but I figured I'd just wander around 'til I found something interesting. I ended up following some narrow and very Harry Potter-esque streets to the Trier Cathedral. Admittedly, I had no idea it was a cathedral when I went in. I think I came in the back way. Absolutely gorgeous nonetheless and imagine how delighted I was when I found a magnificent cathedral at the end of Diagon Alley!

For real though. I do love old churches. When I lived in Wuppertal, I would often take the train to Cologne after classes just to do my reading in the shadow of the cathedral there. Something about all the stone-work is breathtaking. And they all smell the same: must and rock and...sacredness. There's a soothing coolness, an atmospheric balm for the soul that just permeates old churches.

When I left the cathedral (through the entrance I'll remind my readers), I found myself in the middle of the old town center! Old town centers are pretty cool in Europe by the way. Lots of old half-timber houses, but the fancy kind. Traumhaft! And they had the Weihnachtsmarkt set up there! And it's just not Christmas without Glühwein! I had four of those this afternoon, somehow made my way back to the train station and am now enjoying a cup of Irish tea (I watched Doctor Who this weekend and it made me miss tea time with Bronagh and Sharon) waiting for Till to get done with work so we can go see a movie. A surprise movie!