Football fever!

It's here... the World Cup, el Mundial, die Weltmeisterschaft and I am excited.

Excited as in, planning my social life around the world cup games, checking the scores every morning, visiting the FIFA website to read up on the players, and reverting to talking about the World Cup in almost any conversational setting.

When did this happen? Last World Cup I only watched the games because it was either that or sit home alone.  This World Cup I'm messaging my friends to plan seeing the game together. I suppose it started happening when I was still in Colombia, and bought my jersey in faith that Colombia would make it into the World Cup since they were doing so well in the qualifying matches.

With Colombian friends after the Colombian victory over Greece  

And I'm even more excited now, since my team (Colombia.... in case you weren't sure) made it to the round of 16!  (And that other team I'm supposed to cheer for, you know, the US, they're not doing so bad either.  I'm hoping I can beg off of rehearsal for this play I'm an extra in so I can see the public viewing of the Germany-US game here on campus.  After all, it isn't every day you get a chance to cheer for your country while living in the country of the opposing team.  That could be an adventure.)

Just to even things out, I did cheer for Germany last Saturday.  I was in Berlin and we joined thousands of others at a triple screen outside public viewing area set up behind the Brandenburg gate.  I even had the German flag painted on my face, compliments of the random German guy behind me and his flag face paint crayon thing.  Despite the fact that Germany surprised us all, and didn't easily beat Ghana, it was still fun to be surrounded by thousands of fans in the heart of Germany, cheering on the German team.

Beyond expectations

I set off today with low expectations.  The ruins didn't look like much on google satellite view, and most of our "hike" would be on roads instead of hiking paths.  But still, how many chances will I have in life to hike to Roman ruins, and have it not cost me a penny?  And so, we set off for the town of Neustadt.

The day was beautiful- A sunny day in the 70s, blue sky, white puffy clouds, a slight breeze.  We took a few wrong turns (maps?  Who needs them?  I wrote down what streets to turn on, and besides, I'd looked at the map online before I left), but finally made our way down to the river.

The beautiful blue Danube

We followed the river, and then headed across fields, to where hops and corn were growing.  The rolling hills covered in corn reminded me of home, but we had to walk right up to the hops to figure out what we were seeing (and then google it at home to confirm our guess)

Hops growing to be used to make beer.

The ruins, when we finally arrived, were way more impressive than I had imagined.  Seen from above on the satellite image, they just look like lines in the grass.  But standing there, you look out across a giant field of wall after wall, waist high and higher, trying to imagine what it was like almost 2000 years ago, when the Roman fort was first built there.

The Roman baths originally in the settlement outside the fort

We sat on the outer edge of the fort walls, eating our lunch and enjoying the view.  The breeze picked up and the sun hid behind the clouds, that had gotten thicker.  We decided it might be better to take a bus back, instead of risking getting caught in the rain.  We still had almost an hour until the next bus came, so we explored the ruins some more.

The view from the fort walls

I was intrigued by what looked like aqueducts running under the floor in some of the ruins.  A sign explained the whole Roman under-floor heating system that was used to heat both rooms, and water for the Roman baths.  I pulled myself reluctantly away from my explorations when I realized the bus was supposed to arrive soon.

Flowers growing on the walls of the ruins

 Unfortunately for us, the bus came about 3 minutes late, and pulled up to the train station at the same time as our train was pulling up.  We jumped out of the bus, and hurried towards the tracks, then realized we needed to take the underground passage to get to the right track. Just as I was headed up the stairs, back out to the track, we heard our train pulling out.  The next one came in about an hour, which we decided was the perfect amount of time to head into town in search of an ice cream cone.  Generally speaking, it's a safe bet that there will be an ice cream shop within a stone's throw of the largest church in the center of town around here, but just to be on the safe side, I tried out my German with a family on the street.  "Excuse me", I asked them, "do you know where we can" . . . (and then, already committed to asking my question, I realized that I had temporarily forgotten the word for to buy) "pay for ice cream" I concluded.  My work around, while certainly a bit awkward sounding, did the trick, and they assured us that if we just kept going straight, we'd get to a shop on the right.  And, just as I'd predicted, the ice cream shop was across the street and half a block down from the church.  A snickers ice cream cone and a nap on the train rounded out a perfect trip.

Looking for ice cream in Neustadt?  Look no farther, it's right by the church

Water wars

His eyes glittered with mischief as he got closer.  He glanced between Nina and I as he decided who his next target would be.  Decision made, he ran up to me and poured water on my shorts, then took off shrieking as I ran after him.  I looked around for another watering can, and spurted a stream of water at him.  He giggled and squirted me back, then dashed off to escape my revenge.

The other boy was  a few years older and looked at me hesitantly, seriously calculating if he could throw water at this grown-up and get away with it.  I smile, encouraging his audacity, but didn't have the words in German to tell him to go ahead, so I just made the first move.  His face broke into smiles as the water splashed him and he splashed me back.

Watering can empty, he went to refill, and I waited to fill my can too.  Apparently any concern he had about getting grown-ups wet was gone, since he poured the entire contents of his watering can on me while I was filling mine up, shouting "warte!  wait!" at him.  (As my friends laughed at my ineffective attempt to use words to stop a child engaged in a water battle.) His watering can now empty, and me in control of the water source, he turned on his charm, and looked at me with those big pleading eyes that little kids have mastered, holding out his watering can for me to refill.  "Bitte, bitte" he pleaded, fluttering his eyelashes.  I laughed at his presumption, but again, was at a loss for words.  How do you say "why on earth would I help you after you just poured a bucket of water on me?  You better run, cause you've got it coming" in German?  So, I just took his bucket and started filling it.  With innocent intentions, I promise.  But then, Nina started shouting "Lauf!  Run!" and his eyes got big as he considered the possibility that he'd just handed his weapon to his opponent.  He took off running, and I was left laughing, holding 2 watering cans full of water.

I hadn't really expected to get in a water fight.  After all, I was a guest at my friend's mother's house for her annual Pentecost brunch.  I was expecting food, and staid, placid conversation.  Which is how the day had started.  But when your German conversational level is about equivalent to that of a 2 year olds (and that's being generous) conversation doesn't get you very far in a setting where 90% of the people present are speaking German (actually, a lot of them were probably speaking Bavarian).

And so, what started accidentally when the 3 year old somehow got control of the hose and squirted water our way, escalated quickly. Soon all the guests under 14 at the brunch were running around screaming and tossing water at each other, and Nina and I weren't far behind in joining the melee.  Half an hour later, wet and still laughing, looking for a safe spot in the sun to start drying off, we started wondering how to tame the monsters we'd created.  "I'm not playing now" I told the 3 year old, in German.  He looked at me dubiously, and tossed water on me anyway, then dashed off, just in case.  It took awhile, but eventually confiscated watering cans plus a limited supply of water left in the bucket they were refilling from slowed things down. We discovered Mikko, who had disappeared when all the water throwing craziness had started, in  the drum circle tent.  It seemed a good place to escape the winding down water battle, plus, it's another activity that requires minimal linguistic competence, so there we stayed, pounding out rhythms on the drums until peace and order were restored.

Letting go of perfection

I had an epiphany the other day.  I was walking down the sidewalk, headed to campus, thinking about my attitude towards language learning.  "I'm not striving for perfection" I thought.  For a recovering perfectionist like myself, that's a pretty big deal.  When I studied Spanish half a lifetime ago, language learning was about studying rules and applying them correctly.  Now, it's all about communication and comprehension.

And the wonderful thing about Germany is, I get lots of practice.  In the seven months I was in Finland, guess how many strangers asked me for directions, or the time, or for any other sort of information?  Ready for it. . .  Zero.

Now Germany, on the other hand, random strangers stop me on the street.  "Does bus 11 go to the train station?"  "Do you know where the children's clinic is?" "Is the train station this direction?" Fortunately, a simple yes or no, with a "left" "right" or "straight" accompanied by (possibly more intelligible) hand signals usually suffices to answer those questions.

Here most of the international students also already speak some German, leaving me at the bottom of the language learning totem pole.  So the other night on a bus with a Colombian, a Romanian, and a girl from Uzbekistan, our common language was German.  My brain can keep up with what they're saying, since they still have a limited vocabulary and use basic grammatical structures, but as I'm slowly dredging up the vocabulary to make some sort of contribution to the conversation, they've already moved on.  Still, at least I'm understanding.  

The other thing Germany has going for it is that people speak slowly here.  You know when you are learning a language, and they give you those fake listening comprehension dialogs to listen to?  The ones where the people speak slowly and enunciate clearly as they say things like "the bread costs 2 euros" or "my sister lives in a house in the center".  I feel like I'm overhearing people being recorded for those dialogs all the time.  Snippets of conversation slip into my consciousness and I'm like, "I understood that!  Are they speaking that slowly and clearly just for the convenience of eavesdropping, beginner level language learners?"  Since that's highly unlikely, I've come to the conclusion that German is just spoken more slowly and clearly than many other languages (and definitely Spanish).

So, here I am, muddling along, making mistakes as I go, but not really caring.  After all, when I was shoe shopping, the shop attendant went to find shoes in my size in the color I wanted when I asked if they had any.  The lady behind the counter handed me a napkin when I asked for it. I garnered some information about Kepler's life while reading signs at the museum.  I can make sure I buy juice with no sugar added.  My German is coming along swimmingly.  Except when it isn't.  Like the time I went shopping for a strapless bra and the saleslady asked if she could help me.  Somehow my vocabulary didn't seem to cover that. . .

The unexpected

We were on a train heading to Deining.  The girls wanted to do a photo shoot somewhere scenic and Fluvio and I wanted to hike.  But only halfway there, we spotted some castle ruins on the hill.  We all started wondering aloud if we could get there as the train pulled in to the next station.  As it was stopping, I spotted a hiking trail map out the window.  "Come, on, let's go!" And suddenly the 4 of us were piling out onto a platform in, well, we didn't really know where. The hiking trail map didn't have enough details for us to make up our minds which way to go, so we just set off in the general direction of the castle.

First, we had to make a mad dash across the train tracks, since we didn't see a crossing anywhere.  A sea of yellow rapeseed flower in bloom stretched in front of us, and we walked around it and down to an intersection.  "Maybe we should have looked at the platform sign before we left the station so we would know where we are" we mused.  A trail post stood at the intersection, "Laaber Burgruine" it read.  "Are we in Laaber, maybe?" I asked.  Fluvio looked at the sign. "Burgruine means castle ruins". Apparently we were on the right track.  A staircase lead downhill, and we caught our first glimpse of the castle ruins sticking up above the village.

The view from the castle was spectacular.  Past the town and the train tracks, forested hills touched the horizon.  A little church nestled in the trees half way up the hills.  Below us, the town spread out neatly, steep red roofs and pastel colors clustered around a church.

We decided that there probably wasn't a much better picnic spot on earth than right there in the castle ruins, and a fresh baked loaf of bread with brie cheese was the perfect picnic food.

After our lunch, the girls headed off to find the perfect spot for their photo shoot, and Fluvio and I headed into town to explore and find a hiking trail.  Behind the school headed into the woods, we found a trail marked by the stations of the cross.  We followed it up the hill to a clearing with three crosses, then beyond the clearing into an open field with views of the forests and mountains behind it.  The mountains weren't nearly high enough, but I still felt a bit like I was in the opening scene from The Sound of Music, and I just might have spun through the meadow singing "the hills are alive with the sound of music" for a second or two. . .

We crossed some more fields, and then entered a dark pine forest.  Pinecones covered the ground and the stillness of the place spoke stillness to my soul.  On our way out, I spotted some pussy willow that had been cut down, and cut some of the branches off to take home and decorate.

As we headed back to the train station, an ice cream store in town caught our eye.  There's not a much more perfect way to end a beautiful spring day than with an ice cream cone. The friendly lady behind the counter loved talking to foreigners.  She spoke in German clearly and slowly, so we could understand, and then chatted with us about where we were from and what we were doing in Germany. Just as we were finishing our cones in the outside patio, a few raindrops started falling.  We dashed for the train platform, but the shower finished before we even got there.

There's nothing much more delightful than a perfect day in a place you didn't even know existed when you left the house. 

Plan B

Our spur of the moment plan made sitting in the beer garden the day before didn't sound so good anymore, staring at the weather forecast.  Showers all day long, highs in the mid teens.  Who wants to spend 3 hours on a train, just to go see some mountains in the rain?

But, it was already 6:15 and we were meeting at 7:20.  If I didn't come up with another plan quickly, I'd be hiking in the rain (or more likely, huddling in a cafe) like it or not.

15 tabs in my finder later, I had a basic plan. It sounded good: take a shorter train ride to a place with a good weather forecast, pick up the Frankenweg trail there, follow it to the next town, and ride the train back.  There were just a few minor details missing, you know, things like, where to pick up the trail when we left the train station, how close the trail passed to the next town, and the actual distance we would be hiking.  Oh, and the fact that I couldn't actually print the map.

However, little details like that weren't enough to stop our adventurous crew (that and the fact that I may not have *ahem* disclosed that I didn't know the actual distance.  Google maps claimed 8.5 km.  Of course, that was following the road).  Our train stopped at Deining, and we stepped out onto the platform.  We looked around us, a bit bewildered.  We'd assumed if there was a train station, there would at least be a large enough town to find a cafe and drink a coffee while we waited for a friend who had over slept to catch up with us.  But all we could see was the platform, a road, and a sign.  Deining was apparently not a thriving metropolis.

We sleepily looked at the sign and tried to figure out which direction the hiking trail was, until Mikko made the brilliant deduction that we'd better continue the direction the train was going since our final destination was that way.  Our decision was pretty quickly confirmed as we spotted the first of the red and white stickers that were our lifeline for the rest of the day.

Turns out people do live in Deining, because we passed some backyards before the trail veered off into the forest.  Birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and trees were budding.  Our enthusiasm lasted for a couple of hours, as we moved in and out of forests and pastures, and through farmsteads.  A little village nestled in the distance, it's church steeple sticking up above the roofs. Giant wind turbines dotted the landscape, their modernity and sleek lines strikingly out of place.

After a couple of hours hiking, we came to a cross road.  The path continued one way.  A major road with a sign pointing to Neumarkt (our final destination) pointed the other.

Morale immediately sank to zero.  When you don't have a trail map and road signs are telling you the opposite of the trail blazes, it's hard to trust a sticker over a road sign, especially when only one person in the group has even seen the trail map and can confirm that it heads to the destination.  After a lengthy discussion, we decided to risk the hiking trail, but then realized we'd temporarily lost it.  At our most lost, our missing group member called us.  We told him to get off at the next town and walk back and meet us.  "Take the Frankenweg trail" I told him.  "It has red and white stickers.  Don't take any other trail, or you won't find us.  We're a bit lost now, but we'll let you know if we stop following the trail."

We crossed the road, looking to see if we could pick up the trail again, but there weren't any stickers to be seen.  We flagged down a young guy and practiced our German, but he could only tell us that yes, the road lead into town, and no, he didn't know any hiking paths.  We regrouped, confused again.  Should we follow the main road?  Or look for the hiking path?  Just then an older gentlemen came by on his bike.  "Entschuldigung!" (excuse me!) one of our group members called out.  The man stopped and the guy who stopped him suddenly realized he didn't have all the German skills necessary to ask what he wanted. "Kerlys!" he called, and our best German speaker went over to help him out.  She only got a few words out before she was calling me over, "what's the name of the hiking path we're looking for?"  Despite the poor man being overwhelmed by a succession of people all trying to ask the same question with varying degrees of German fluency, he finally understood us and answered.  "Straight ahead, just follow this path.  Yes it will take you to Neumarkt"  Feeling slightly more confident, we did as he said.

It wasn't the last of our confusion though. The path twisted and turned, stubbornly avoiding the direction that we were sure the city was.  Signs we passed neglected to mention Neumarkt as a destination.  We started to second guess ourselves again.  Our missing friend Hugo wasn't having any luck either.  I got a text message from him, "I'm on trail 5, with a yellow and white blaze".  Wait, what?  How were we ever going to find each other if we weren't on the same trail?  I called him back and explained once again what trail we were on.  "Make sure you find the same trail, or we'll never find each other"

The next trail sign we passed was stamped by the city of Neumarkt, so we started to feel more confident.  Even so, we'd passed 8.5 km long ago, and the city was nowhere to be seen.  Would we ever get there?  And would we ever find Hugo?  The last we'd heard from him, he'd found an orange church and was waiting there, sure we'd find him eventually.

Despite some dire predictions of death in the woods, starvation, meeting roaming bands of cannibals, or alien kidnapping, we eventually made it to civilization.  A sign post kindly informed us that we were 13.2 km from where we had started and that Neumarkt was only 3.7 km away.  (Whatever happened to 8.5 total?!  Thanks Google maps!) There was also a church only .8 km away, and a quick phone call to Hugo confirmed that it was the same one he was at.

We broke out into cheers when we reached the church and saw Hugo sitting in front of it, the city spread out in the valley below.  We'd been intrepid explorers, and finally were within sight of our destination.  The view made us all decide it was worth the extra kilometers of walking.

From the church, we headed down the mountainside into the city where we decided lunch was a must. After all, you work up quite an appetite walking 17 kilometers.  Sausages, potato salad and beer took the edge off our hunger, and then we wandered the town for a bit before catching our train back.

Five minutes before our train left, as we were speed walking to the station, a fire truck pulled up and the firefighters jumped out and rushed towards the platforms.  An ambulance with it's lights flashing was already parked there.  "That doesn't look good" one of us commented, as we rushed towards our platform.  Out of breath from dashing up the stairs, we checked the schedule as we wondered why the train wasn't there yet.  An announcement soon had everyone changing tracks, and we followed, a bit confused.  "Our train was canceled, we have to take the other" someone explained.  That train didn't seem to be going anywhere either, even though it should have left 2 minutes prior.  The conductor explained to someone through the window that all the trains were delayed, followed by something I couldn't understand.  Nina asked in English if the train went to Regensburg, and he assured us that it did, but then followed it up with, "But somebody has died.  We're not going anywhere until the track's cleared"  The ambulance and firetruck took on a whole new meaning.


We boarded the train, alternating between morbid curiosity and the feeling that our curiosity probably wasn't very respectful of whomever had died.  Uniformed officers went back and forth outside the windows, caution tape was put up, and then removed only minutes later, someone thought they saw the body being removed, and then realized they were mistaken.  Minutes ticked by and curiosity dulled to boredom and tiredness.  "Maybe we should walk back to Deining and take the train from there.  It might be faster" someone joked.  Just thinking about it made me exhausted.  As we were beginning to wonder if we'd be stuck spending the night in a town none of us had even ever heard of before, they made an announcement and everyone got off the train.  Good thing everyone in our group speaks more German than me- I would have been lost. They sent us to board a bus, which, we thought, would take us directly to Regensburg.  Ten minutes into our trip, as we were drifting off to sleep, the driver came on and made an announcement.  "Wait, what was that?"  No one really understood that time.  We arrived at another train station, and the driver said something else.  All that I understood was the time- 5:20.  The bus clock said 4:07.  It finally dawned on us.  We had to get off the bus and board another train. It would be there at 5:20.  The thought of spending over an hour on a platform made me want to cry.  But as we walked to the platform and checked out watches, we realized the bus clock was an hour slow- the train would be there in only 12 minutes.

Finally on the train to Regensburg, we closed our eyes.  If nothing unexpected happened, we should be home soon.  Fortunately for us, this time around, all went as planned.

Language Soup

To my right, everyone is speaking Chinese.  I eavesdrop unashamedly- when you can only pick out a few words, that's not really even eavesdropping, right?  It's language study.  At least, that's what our group of beginning language learners decided on the train the other week.

The six of us are deep in conversation when the man with the suitcase approaches.  He leans in and asks a question of the man by the window.  The word "Flughafen" (airport) drifts into our consciousness.   A sudden silence descends.  Heads pivot toward the man asking a question, as those across the aisle shift slightly.  We all listen intently.   The spell broken as he walks off, there's some embarrassed laughter.  Random stranger on the bus to Munich- I promise we weren't prying into your personal life.  We were just excited that we understood the word airport and hoping to catch some more juicy details.  You know, like numbers.  We understand those too.


But anyways, back to Chinese.  The Chinese speakers happen to be in my German class.  I sit surrounded by them.  That Chinese that I studied 7 years ago (wait, it can't possibly be that long ago already, can it?) is being stirred up, moved a little closer to the top from where it was buried under Finnish.  Two weeks into class now, I'm emboldened.  I try out random phrases now and then on my classmates- "Is this yours?"  "I don't know." Their delighted response to my rusty Chinese is all the encouragement I need to try another phrase the next day.

A little farther to my left in class, there's a group of 3 from Spain.  I'm writing down the meanings of my German vocabulary words as the teacher is checking homework.  Her response to a question from the Spanish speakers floats over to me.  She's speaking Spanish too.  My mind subconsciously slips into Spanish mode.  When I look at my vocabulary list, I realize I've just translated a word from German into Spanish instead of English.

Finnish however. . .  My brain feels like soup.  All the different languages are mixed up and the words are floating around, lost in there somewhere.  Some of them are easier to find.  The ones I hear and use everyday, they stay floating at the top.  But Finnish- all that vocabulary is stuck on the bottom.  I try to form a simple sentence.  I know the words are there somewhere.  But somehow, I can't seem to find them.  I mentally practice the days of the week, just to keep them fresh in my mind.  Maanantai, tiistai, keskiviikko, wait, what's Thursday? perjantai, lauantai, sunnuntai.  It bugs me for a whole day.  I can't remember Thursday.  Someone finally looks it up for me on their smart phone. Torstai.  Really?  I remember lauantai and keskiviikko, but the one that sounds MOST like it's English equivalent escapes me?

It's a strange experience for me, this language soup I'm in.  But I think, despite my confusion and occasional mental fatigue from a brain that's trying to process any language it can get its hands on, I like it.  

This Beautiful Adventure

I'm so happy to see Anna's smiling face at the airport, that I almost re-enact the scene from Spanglish when Flor runs into the sliding glass door.  Her words as she greets us, "I did manage to get a car after all" make 2 travelers, overladen with bags, more than happy.  She hands us "Welcome to Germany" snack bags she made for us, anticipating we'd be hungry after our long day of travel.  When I see a soft pretzel inside, I'm sure of it, I've come to the right place.

After a 2 hour drive from Munich,  the thought on our minds as we open the door to our rooms is "I wonder if we won the lottery, or we lost it?" 1 person apartment, 2 person apartment, or dorm room with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities for 10?  Those are the possibilities in this building.  As the door swings open I glance quickly around: bed, bookshelf, desk, wardrobe, and YES! another door next to the wardrobe.  I think I've won the lottery.  The 2nd door leads to a tiny little kitchen with a bathroom off of it, and a 2nd bedroom on the other side, and I'm lucky enough that Liza, one of my classmates, got the key to it.

The next day, as we hurry from one errand to the next, we can't help but stop and admire.  From one bank of the Danube river, the cathedral and houses reflect into the water below.  The perfect blue sky is such a relief after nearly a month of grey skies in Turku.  I stop in delight- there are snowdrops and crocuses growing in a garden.  Not only have we arrived in a fairy tale, we've arrived here in spring.

Today, orientation over, I head off to try and open a bank account.  I'm not successful in the attempt (the bank closes at 12:30 on Wednesdays. . .), but I do manage to find the German equivalent of a dollar store (a euro store).  Nothing is cheap in Finland, so finding rolls of tape in a 5 pack for a euro, and notebooks for .55 here made me excited.  Now I know where to go if I need toothpicks or batteries or random party supplies.  On my way back, a double church steeple catches my eye.  I make a detour, hoping for a closer view, delighted at such a pretty church, right here in my neighborhood.

I'm here, starting a new adventure, studying a new map, meeting new people, stumbling through words in a new language.  It's lovely and challenging, and exhausting and thrilling.