Der Anfang/The Beginning

How do I begin talking about the last two days? I know: grab a bag of dark chocolate M&Ms. 'Check' Sit in a comfy position. 'Check' Drink some water because I've consumed too many M&Ms. 'Check'

I flew out of Detroit, Michigan on the evening of Saturday 14 March. I was very lucky and grateful to be sitting between two very interesting people. Instead of trying to sleep during my six hour overnight flight, I chatted with my seat mates. The man on my right was 55 years old and a German-American German professor at Hillsdale College in Michigan. Mr. Professor has a girlfriend, but he winced when he said the word “girlfriend” because he didn't think people his age should use that term for their unmarried significant others, so he replaced that word with “friend”. He was returning to Germany for Spring Break. The man on my left was 41 years old and a Chief in the American Air Force. If I recall, his name was Chief Courtney Davis. (Now if he googles his name, he might find my webpage.) Chief Davis is an American native to Jamaica married to a German woman and they have two male children ages 9 and 14 who live in Germany. Apparently the 14 year old is a fantastic swimmer. Chief Davis is an airport inspector and travels to various locations around the globe fulfilling this role. Who wants to pretend to sleep or watch sappy movies like “The Secret Life of Bees” or “Vicky Christina Barcelona” when you have two much more interesting subjects right next to you?

'Pause' I may be eating too many M&Ms. But it's my fuel! My motivation! Pushing the bag out of reach. 'Check' After one last bite.

When I arrived at the Munich airport, Ms. Holst was waiting for me. Her son, an AFS student presently in Michigan, had sent her a photo of me the day before so that she could identify me. Ms. Holst graciously transported me and my stuff the hour and a half north to Erlangen. We ate lunch at a Gasthous (Guest house) where the food was quite tasty. I moved in to my home a little while later. The caretaker of the house was very friendly and helpful. This man is not the landlord, but a lawyer who rents a few rooms on the second floor for his office and lives in the house next door with his family. He showed me how to open all the windows and doors in my room which was surprisingly extremely helpful.

Besides the caretaker/lawyer, three other rooms are rented out. Next to me is a guy named Sacsha who just began working for Siemens two weeks ago after finishing college. By the way, Erlangen is the home of Siemens. The two big draws for people to come to Erlangen are the University of Erlangen-Nurnberg and Siemens. Upstairs, for only two more weeks, live Frank and Tve. Frank is in his last few weeks of a design internship and then he will return to his undergraduate program. Tve is from a French region of Switzerland but here in Germany for a three month long intensive German language program in addition to working at a swimming pool shop in the afternoons. Sacsha and I share a bathroom on the first floor while Frank and Tve share a bathroom upstairs. There's a kitchen we all share on the first floor and a clothes-washer in the basement. The backyard is full of wonderful bushes and trees. So far, I am pleased with my abode.

I rode the bus to the university this morning. I was a little confused at the point in my ride when I had to switch bus' because at first I forgot which direction I needed to head, but I found what I thought was the correct bus and then got confirmation from the bus driver before I got on the bus.

'Pause' Brush teeth before I get the urge to eat any more M&Ms. 'Check'

I found Professor Baumler's office in the Geography Department who then showed me to the soil lab where Bernhard Lucke was talking on a phone. While I waited for Bernhard to finish his call, the laboratory manager gave me a tour of the equipment. Naturally, I was in a state of aw at all the machines and their vast capabilities. We continued touring the lab when Bernhard joined us. The laboratory consists of four rooms. One of the rooms is a storage room where Bernhard showed me several containers full of his samples. Thankfully, only one of the smaller containers and a plastic grocery bag are my responsibility, which consists of about 50 samples. Today I emptied all of the soil samples into aluminum tins and placed them in the drying machine for three days at 40 degree centrigrade. The soils must dry before I may do anything else with them. The only laboratory work I must do in the meantime is smash up a couple of small rocks into fine grains so that we can compare the bedrock compositions to the overlying soils.

'Pause' My computer is not accepting electricity from the house. This is frustrating me greatly. Ooh, the battery just went up a little. My fiddling may have done some good. 'Check'

After touring the laboratory...Wait, I must interject. I was so excited to find out today that that German word for a lab is “labor”. Additionally, but not so interestingly, the word for laboratory is “laboratorium”. Even though it makes complete sense for the word lab to be “labor”, it excites me because the word “labor” is an English word that brings up thoughts of hard work and bodily taxation.

'Pause' And it was only for a moment that this house liked my computer. Grrr.

Bernhard and I found bicycles for ourselves to borrow from the university guest house where he is living for the month he is here in Erlangen. I found out on my ride home this evening that my bicycle seat is horribly painful, but that's what you get from bicycle seats. We repaired the rear light on my bike so that I won't get a ticket from the police or get run over by a vehicle.

'Pause' Ah HAH! Apparently the power adapter only functions at a certain awkward angle, so I have enlisted the television's remote control to prop itself against the adapter in order to give this machine juice from the house. 'Check'

I have not acquired an official map of the city yet, so my bicycle ride home this evening included many feelings of being lost because all I had with me were a few Google maps of the area around my home and around the university. The maps almost overlap, but not quite. I also found a grocery store where I purchased the cheapest choices of everything I needed. After bicycling a couple more kilometers I found another branch of the same grocery chain very near to my home. Next time.

Many people in the United States and here have asked me whether I will be speaking German in the laboratory. Well, as it turns out, the lab manager claims to speak English horribly, so we will most definitely be speaking German with one another. I attempted to speak mostly German with Bernhard, who I had previously only spoken English with in Jordan, but there were several times throughout today when I had him repeat something in English or we discussed something completely in English because it was too important and complicated to leave a whole bunch of unknowns in my comprehension. One of the students who was working in the lab began a conversation with me in English, so when I need her assistance a few minutes later I spoke in English, but I think that normally we will speak German with one another. And with everyone else around here, I will speak German. I am quite surprised with myself at how much I actually understand. Of course, I have to concentrate really hard and sometimes people simply talk way too fast for me to catch every word. So, if they are speaking to me directly, I politely ask for a repeat and then most of the time I comprehend. People often think that I didn't understand the vocabulary when I request a repeat, but most of the time it is more so the speed or sloppiness of speech that is the problem. Please don't think I am being too picky for commenting on sloppy speech because it is a natural occurrence in every culture that takes everyone a lot of time for acclimation. Perhaps you noticed that I said “culture” and not language or country because the nuances of speech are local phenomena, no matter what language or country.

In addition to surprising myself at language comprehension from the mouths of others, I am also getting by with my own speech. I find that I am much more comfortable plowing through a sentence here in Germany than in the United States in a German class or otherwise. Here I know that I must communicate, and it is necessary and respectful for me to communicate in the language of the land, even if my words and grammar are imperfect. Every experience I have had with the German language thus far through living over here or taking classes has only served to improve my skills and I am looking forward to getting that confused look off my face sooner than later.