Der Dritte Tag/The Third Day

Beginnings are always so difficult, no matter what the activity. I have to figure out the right questions to ask whom, try to act as confident as possible when I don't know which way is up, and be patient that things will come together in a sensible manner.

Whereas on the first two days I felt amazing about my German comprehension and response skills, on the third day I feel beaten and unable to step up to the challenge of communication. So goes the roller-coaster of foreign language communication.

Bernhard provided me yesterday with an Analysis Plan which he had previously drawn up for how it is best to go about conducting the analyses he wants done on his samples from his various Jordanian sites. I was reading through the first three steps this morning in German but the dictionary got a lot of use. One important word that has stuck in my brain for its fascination value is “Stickstoff”. I already knew that “stoff” meant that this word stood for some sort of material, but I thought how funny it was to have a technical term that in English sounds like 'sticky material'. Apparently, Stickstoff is nitrogen! With another look in the dictionary I just found out that “stick” means 'stuffy'. So, does this mean nitrogen is a 'stuffy material'? Uhhhhh...

Another amusing vocabulary choice of the technical variety is “Lachgas”. Lachgas translates to 'laugh gas'. I was giggling over this yesterday when Ute, the lab manager was showing Bernhard and me around the lab. They explained that it is seriously called “Lachgas”. They think that it started out as a slang word, just like in English, but that with time it became the standard. Oh, how languages do crack me up.

I can't work with the soil samples until Friday because they have to dry for 72 hours. I did go into the lab today though and do something productive. We had taken a few basalt rocks from the bedrock to compare their contents with that of their overlying soil. My task today was to smash a small amount off of these rocks and then put the bits in a machine to be crushed into a fine powder very similar to ash. Basalt is a very tough rock, so with my sludge hammer in hand, I had to find a place outside where I could provide enough force to smash my rocks into tiny bits without smashing up any bricks or pavement. I found a useless cement slab in a rock garden that worked pretty well as a base for the first rock, but it was split into three pieces by the time I needed it for the second rock. In addition to no longer having a good base, I think the second rock was stronger. After spending several frustrating minutes trying to persuade the useless slab and other inferior granite rocks to be my base, I decided to relocate to a place where I could smash at will. Not too much farther down the side of the building I found some extra bricks and one of them had already lost a quarter of itself. My second basalt rock finally broke and I was so filled with glee that even the passing gardener smiled with me.

The first rock had easily given me near powder to put into the decimation machine but the second rock only gave me angular pebbles. Bernhard showed me how to fill the little containers and work the machine, but I was left wondering if I created enough powder or if there should be more. He said there should an amount about equal to fill half a film canister, but I don't think I have that much. With the soil sampling and the rock smashing I had more than enough, and now with the rock powder I fear I don't have enough! This reminds me of the problem of trying to arrive at an appointment exactly on time, but always arriving either a little too early or too late. Who's perfect at these things? Not me. Get over it and go forth with confidence. Or, at least pretend to.

I find it amusing that I wear a bicycle helmet when I ride my very comfortable and safe bikes in the United States, and yet when I am in Germany traveling slowly on rickety bikes, I forgo helmet wearing. I can understand why some people are scared of riding bikes if they tried to learn on old rickety bikes or even uncomfortable new ones. When the tires wiggle, the seat's uncomfortable, and the angles of the legs are not conducive to maximum power exertion, then it is not fun to bike ride.

I am amazed at how many people pack into German cities and villages. The buildings and homes are nearly all attached and there are tall, dense apartment complexes. When driving on the expressway and looking around at the villages, it is a wonder to see the tightly nestled villages with farmland and forests all around. People here tend to not have individual yards. Rather, they go walking in the park or hiking in the forest. Even farmers tend to live within the confines of the village and not out in the middle of their fields.

All the streets of Erlangen are filled with people traveling by bicycle and foot. Grocery stores are scattered within walking distance of most living abodes and there are many other small scale bakeries, butchers, fruit/vegetable, drug, and necessity item stores just around the corners. The bus system in this city hits up most of the areas and comes by with decent frequency. Of course, all of this convenient transportation and purchasing business is only possible because this is a very densely populated city. This situation is certainly not the case in villages, which I know from the experience of having lived in an Austrian village where there was only one necessity item store and a bus which came through on a circuitous route several times each day. And from what the German Sacsha said yesterday evening when Yve said that he needed a car to get around the Swiss villages, German villages are just as inconvenient as Austrian and Swiss villages.