My mother reminds me that I have been remiss in posting here. What can I say? I've been busy making fun friends and enjoying all of the free time I didn't have last year (well, for the last four years, but last year in particular). So, a (breif) recounting of the highlights of the previous weeks is in order!
We spend our days from 9-3 in our Sprachkurs, which generally consists of learning more advanced and specific grammar (so we can actually not sound like foreigners when we speak), useful new vocab, discussing cultural differences between our various home countries and Germany, and generally poking fun at the idea of the intolerance of various cultures by making outrageous and clearly humorous generalizations about one another and then laughing hysterically. Zum Beispiel: Sinead is mean because she is from Ireland. She hates Americans. Funnier in context I promise. Anyway, two weeks ago a French/German/Italian Provincial market came to town, and it transformed the central squares of the Altstadt into something even more wonderful than usual. They had everything form handmade crafts to vegetables, and Anya and I purchased some artichokes for a delicious dinner.
The central square in the Altstadt
One of a number of large flower and plant sellers
Last week, we all went to the Bebenhausen monastery to poke around and have a little history lesson about the area. We took the bus to the student village at the top of the very large hill and then walked for about 30 minutes along the road and on a path through the woods to the monastery. The night before, two of our fellow students met some journeyman handworkers in our usual bar, and in exchange for a comfy place to sleep, one agreed to come along on our excursion and talk to us about what he's doing. Essentially, if you're studying handwork/handcrafts in Germany, you have the option of going on a long wanderung to complete your training. They spend at least 3 years and 1 day traveling all over and must stay at least 50 (60?) km away from their hometown at all times. They wear traditiona handwerker clothing, so they really stick out, but we've been told that in Germany and surrounding countries they're often clearly recognized. They find work in different places, cannot pay for lodging (often it is offered or they can sleep in a barn or outside if the weather is nice), and can only travel by more traditional means (boat, foot, perhaps tram, etc). We really enjoyed meeting our handwerker friend, and most of us had no idea that such a tradition was still alive in parts of Europe. The more you know...
The central courtyard at Bebenhausen
This past Friday we had another excursion to the Bodensee, Germany's largest lake. We stopped first at a small Rococo church to take in the grand and excessive decoration. My friend Vojta asked me what I thought of it, and I said that while I could appreciate how beautiful some of it is, I could never spend a lot of time in such a place. I asked what he thought, and he explained matter of factly that in the Czech Republic, they have lots of rococo churches, and they're much more lavishly decorated than this one, so he was a bit underwhelmed. If you're a fan of the style, there's a travel destination for you!
Bodensee
We then moved on to the Pfahlbaumuseum, an open air archaeological museum with reconstructions of small villages built in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages on the shores of Bodensee. They sit up on stilted platforms over the ocean, and the recreations that have been built there are incredible. They also all come from local areas...
One half of the recreated structures
We enjoyed lunch and walking (read: ice cream) time in a small town nearby called Meerburg, and then took the ferry across the lake to Konstanz to wander, shop (where it's much cheaper than in Tübingen), and have a delicious Turkish dinner before returning late (and exhausted) to our homes. We also made a brief sojourn to Switzerland, where Sinead and I had never been...
Excitement over being at the Swiss-German border
Switzerland and Bodensee from Meerburg
And for your highly intellectual enjoyment, the top of my take-away pizza box that may or may not intentionally depict George Clooney as a pajama-cap-clad pizza chef in front of a beautiful Italian landscape...
No comments:
Post a Comment