Yesterday was a holiday in Germany, Christihimmelfahrt, which I think is equivalent to the Day of Jesus's Ascension to Heaven. One of my coworkers took me to a barbecue at her friend's house. It was really, really fun, there was great food, funny and intelligent people -- I just really felt at home and welcomed. A bit of Saarländischer fun, there is this word 'schwenken' or 'Schwenker' in noun form. And 'Schwenker' can have three meanings (hopefully I don't screw this up!) -- the person who is doing the grilling, the grill itself, or the meat that is being grilled. I also noticed a really interesting feature of the fast conversation yesterday, which was that people stopped talking in complete sentences and started saying things like, 'mir verstehen das nicht.' I can't even translate what that would be in English because the actual sentence in German would be more like 'Ich verstehe das nicht' which means 'I don't understand that.' (Again, someone let me know if I'm wrong on this point) But this didn't just happen once, it happened over and over again. They also told me at this barbecue that in Saarland, until a woman is 70 years old, she is 'es Dagmar' or 'es Kathrin' and after she turns 70 she becomes 'die Dagmar' or 'die Kathrin' -- 'es' is a netuer 3rd-person pronoun ('it') while 'die' is a feminine definite article ('the'). I don't know whether or not they were serious, but it was funny and interesting nonetheless...
And then yesterday evening, I went to schwenken with some students that I have met through an American friend at the Universität des Saarlandes (University of Saarland). It was really great - the conversation kept drifting freely between English, French, and German, depending on whom I was talking with. It's really weird because I'm finding that once I know someone in a particular language, I prefer to stick with that language. For example, there was a French gal, but we were talking mostly in German at first, and then when I found out she was French, we started speaking French a bit, but then it just felt forced... I can't describe WHY exactly. Anyway, there were like 30 people at this schwenken / schwenker / whatever, and I may go with some of them to the pool later today if the weather gets nicer.
Currently, I don't have much to do at work so I'm just posting this quick update from here. I'm going to Metz with one of the other UM interns this weekend, and a prof I met on the plane from Rome to Frankfurt is going to give us a little walking tour of the city. It should be pretty wonderful - I was only there for the Centre Pompidou before, but I saw Metz through one of the enormous windows at the end of the exhibition wings, and it's a gorgeous city. There are actually €2 roundtrip tickets from anywhere in Lorraine (right over the border from Saarland) to Metz using the TER regional train system, so we'll definitely be taking advantage of that! I also booked some cheap TGV tickets for next week that were on special, and I'm going to talk with some of the students I met last night at the Uni to see if they have any pointers on where to stay...or hopefully someone has a friend there!
So totally fascinating, different cultures but really not so different, they like to barbecue, tell jokes(kind of funny that a 70 yr. old woman is suddenly called die) hmmm. Sounds like an really awesome learning experience! This is what your 20's are about! One thing could you please ask someone why alot of the Europeans that come on our American planes want so many drinks at once? I am thinking they must get some awesome service on their airplanes..can we say needy> I cant wait till the dollar gets stronger! Talk to you soon, have a great time, take lots of pictures. Love, Jess
ReplyDeleteYou're funny, Jess... I would say that I think service on flights over here is better in general. Also if you're riding the train long-distance, they come through the cabin offering beer and sometimes cocktails. In my personal experience, whereas I usually stress out about traveling, many of the folks I've met from Europe want to have a relaxing experience -- imagine that! Oh, another thing, Air France, for example, was still majority-owned by the French government...I don't know whether that's still the case, but I know a lot of European countries have their own airline and that things aren't as deregulated as in the USA.
ReplyDeleteI'm in Paris right now - about to head to the Louvre. I am in the middle of updating a big post with lots of pictures from Metz, and then I will put 1 or 2 posts about Paris because we have another work holiday on Monday.
Bis dann...
Alex