A hand full of things that I love about Germany

Having now been in Germany for one month, I figured it was about time to tell you some of the best things about my life so far here in Deutschland.  Sometimes when I am writing I have a tendency to report only about the bizarre, the unpleasant, and the confusing elements of my life here.  But, there are a lot of really great things that Germany has to offer, things that have struck my fancy.  So, I thought I would take this moment to list some of them for you, in no particular order.

1.  My toothpaste contains myrrh... as in frankincense and myrrh, as in every morning I wake up and anoint my teeth with myrrh, bible style.  Ok, myrrh is the last ingredient, and it isn´t like every toothpaste in Germany has myrrh.  I am not even sure if toothpaste should contain myrrh or what exactly myrrh does if you are not, say, Jesus or Moses.  But, the point is, every single day in Germany is more delightful because it starts with a little dose of myrrh.

2. German TV.  I seriously cannot say enough good things about German TV.  In my life in America, TV does not play a huge role.  As a kid we never had cable, and my parents fooled us for years into thinking that public television was simply the only station that our TV was able to pick up.  But in a foreign country, it is actually pretty useful to watch some TV to help learn the language.  I have, therefore, identified several German TV programs that I consider very much worth my time.

First off, there is the morning weather report.  Practical.  When I actually want to know the weather, the morning news shows are of course exactly like those in the US.  However, if I am less interested in, say, what the temperature here in Bonn is, and want to know just in general what the weather might be like in various different parts of Germany and Austria, then I tune in to a different show.  I don´t know what it is called, but basically the program plays German folk music and show misty morning views of the Alps and small villages and reports the temperature in tiny places where basically no one lives.  It is wonderful.  I like to watch it while brushing my teeth with myrrh.

The second genre of German TV that I enjoy is the dokudrama, basically reality tv, but with average people.  These shows are generally on in the afternoon while I do homework.  A personal favorite, Der Schulermittler (the school investigator), features social worker superheroes who intervene in the lives of troubled youth by barging into their high schools and homes and meddling with their personal affairs.  In a recent episode, the Schulermittler rescued a young girl whose estranged father wanted to take her to African with him and sell her for a bride price.  As always, the Shulermittler saved the day.

3.  The Mensa.  Unlike their American colleagues, who eat lunch quickly at their desks or go out to a restaurant in the middle of the work day, German workers gather together each day in a cafeteria, called a Mensa, where they leisurely enjoy a hot lunch.  We BUKAs trudge across the street each day at 1:30 to our local Mensa for our 45 minute lunch break.  In general the food offered by the Mensa is not too appealing to my American tastes, but I really enjoy seeing what is billed as "typical German fare".  Most days the Mensa offers about 4 kinds of potato dishes, an unidentifiable soup-like substance, some type of Wurst, and a salad bar that often manages to include almost everything you can imagine... except salad (renaming it the mayonnaise bar might be a good idea).  By far, the best thing about the Mensa, besides the opportunity to watch Germans in business suits behaving like awkward, nervous high schoolers, is the presence of fresh herbs which one may pick and add to his/her dish.  It took me about 2 weeks to realize that they weren´t decorative potted plants, but now I take great joy in adding a sprig or two of parsley to my day.

4. Public outdoor space.  Bonn is, in my opinion, a very people-friendly city.  The city itself contains lots of pedestrian-only areas, cobble stone streets, monuments, grassy areas, bike paths, outdoor market areas, and gardens.  As a result people always seem to be out and about in the city, and I really like that.  I try to walk from school to the city center every afternoon along the Rhine, and it seems like most of the city is walking or biking all day long as well.  Most evenings we take a walk through our local Tannenbusch Park.  The park has plenty of paths, picnic space, playgrounds for children, and finds a nice balance between manicured park ground and natural space.

5.  And to close this entry, one more thing I really like about Germany is its proximity to other countries, and the open border policy of the EU.  On Saturday I took a day trip with my friend Olga, from Siberia (no kidding, I have friends from Siberia.  There are actually a lot of people up there!) to visit Maastricht in the Netherlands, and Liege in Belgium.  That´s right, three countries, three languages, one day.  Traveling by train, it took us about 2 hours each way to make the trip.  Neither city is particularly noteworthy for tourists, but we had a nice time.

 

Ok

Ok, hopefully you get the idea.  We climbed towers.  We crossed bridges.  We climbed staircases.  We rode trains.  We ate Belgian Waffles.  We learned that neither of us speaks French.  We learned that Belgians often do not speak English, German or Russian.  We learned that Dutch is pretty easy to understand if you already know German and English.  In summary, my life in Germany is not always fascinating, but it is almost always good.