"I was alone,

I took a ride,

I didn't know what I would find there.

Another road where maybe I could see another kind of mind there."

Got To Get You Into My Life, The Beatles.

First off, to avoid the confusion, I actually posted this blog on Monday evening (August 3rd). However, I started writing some of it on Friday evening, before Karen and I lost our internet. Therefore, the date above says FRIDAY, but it's actually Monday that I have written this. (And it is Tuesday that I am editing.)

We started classes on Monday morning. It was strange to have to get up at 7 am to go to school for 9:15 after having spent the last week or so just bumming around Germany (yeah, I say that so nonchalantly). I'm been taking courses all summer, but none of the required me to go into school until at least 7 pm, if at all.

My class is Grundstufe III D, which, along with C, is the highest in Grundstufe III. I really like my class. It's so international. There are students from Serbia, Russia, Spain, Israel, the US, the Netherlands, France, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Italy, Brazil, and of course, Canada.

The first couple of days in my class were mostly awkward. No one really wants to embarrass themselves in front of people they don't know. I'm like that, especially with German. I hate having to speak without having to write things down first. Also, I have a huge problem with retention, and it's been four months since I've had to sit in a classroom and SPEAK German with anyone. I definitely felt shy.

Monday afternoon, Karen, Curtis and I went down die Hauptstraße and explored the many stores they have there. I was surprised to see popular North American stores, like American Apparel.

I think for the first part of the week, things definitely took a downturn in terms of my feelings toward the class. I really liked the people in my class, and my teacher, but perhaps it was moreso the actual work. The teachers speak solely in German for the entire class, which is unusual for MUN students. If you don't understand a word, they try to explain it differently, in German, instead of telling you the meaning auf Englisch. It's a harder way to learn, but it could be better.

Tuesday evening, there was a showing of Die Welle (The Wave) at the Universität. I remembered Dr. Buffinga mentoning Die Welle during class when I took German 3001: German post – war, pre-re-unification film 1945 – 1989. He saw it at the Berlin Film Festival sometime in the spring and he gave us a brief synopsis of the film. Since then, I’ve really wanted to see it because, frankly, it sounded fascinating. Basically, it tells the story of a high school teacher who must teach his class about autocracy, and he decides to demonstrate how easy it was for people to submit to Fascism during the Third Reich. He transforms his class from a laid back place of discussion to a highly organized, uniformed collective who develop a mob mentality after they named themselves “Die Welle”.

It’s a super powerful film, and something about it really kind of unnerves you. My minor is European Studies, and practically all the courses I have taken have related to Germany and German culture and history and politics. I can objectively look at the situation in Germany in the thirties and understand why so many followed National Socialism. But this film is set today (it’s based on a true events from California in the late 60s), and it involved teenagers, and demonstrates how easily you can manipulate the situation of almost any group and it can get out of control. It’s spooky.

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I think Wednesday was the low point for me, in terms of classes. I felt awkward, knowing that others were having a great time in class, and I was secretly hating it. Not meaning to sound too girly, but I kind of wanted to cry every time I was called on and forced to answer a question that I was unsure of. I knew a lot of what I was saying, but I think I was still trying to adjust to a setting where you spoke solely German, and if you didn’t know how to express yourself in German, you just didn’t. Or I started to sound like a child who was learning to tell her mother what she wanted, not really knowing how to say it, but throwing out keywords and hoping that they would figure it out somehow. There was a boat trip down the Neckar on Wednesday afternoon, and after a grueling day in class, I decided it was in my best interest to take advantage. The band, Blue Jeans, played a load of rock songs, in English. It lifted my spirits so much. I managed to get a brutal sunburn out of it, but it was a beautiful afternoon, exploring the area from afar for two hours. Perhaps I just needed a large and overwhelming dose of sun and Vitamin D, but the boat trip was a turning point for me. I think it was then that I realized that everyone here is unsure of themselves and their skills. The boat trip allowed me to see everyone outside the classroom setting; drinking, dancing, laughing, and enjoying being in a foreign country. I was reminded of Modest Mouse’s Float On.

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The next night, a lot of the classes got together and had their own class party. In class, my tutor, Anja, said we would be going out for drinks. When we met up at 6:15, “drinks” turned into a lengthy walk up the Philosophen Weg (I think I would describe it as a steeper, straighter version of Signal Hill, but much longer. At one point, we came to a flat part and I felt that I should run on ahead of our group a bit, lest I fall to the end again), before we descended and came upon a boat café, for food and drinks. After our teacher, Barbara, left us, we all decided to go to another bar on a street off of the Hauptstraße, with cheesy nineties music and arguable taste in dance music. Most of my class showed up for this, and then on Friday morning, we actually were able to talk to each other about how they enjoyed themselves the night before. Also, our teacher decided to wait until after we had a small test to take us out. Many of the other classes went out Thursday evening, while a test awaited them in the morning.

Friday night, the Ferienkurs hosted a “Disko-Night!” at the Deutsch-Amerikanisches- Institut (DAI). Which means a dance. I didn’t really know what to expect in terms of people showing up. There are people who hate dancing. But then again, there was also a bar, and even those who simply don’t dance will do so with a few drinks in them. We showed up as soon as it started, at nine. Karen, Adam, Megan and I went. It seemed pretty dead at first, but it seemed everyone showed up half an hour or an hour after we did. I almost think there were more people congregated outside at some points than there were actually inside with the music.

I met a number of people, most of whom are actually friends with Dylan, Although, I think it would be difficult to meet anyone at the Ferienkurs who has not met Dylan, honestly. One of the guys, Roman from Paris, is practically a doppleganger of Julian Lennon. I felt like I kept seeing the son of a Beatle. As lame or embarrassing as people sometimes think organized dances like that are, they are actually an amazing way to meet people that you would otherwise not have anything to do with. It’s especially wonderful if you have had a drink or two and everyone becomes a potential new friend. We were trying to make friends with one particular person from Spain, because of his super-cool sideburns. However, this failed terribly.

Saturday, Peter came to Heidelberg to bring us to Mannheim, where he, Sandra and Marc live. It was warm and hadn’t ate much on Friday, so Saturday morning, we went to the bottom of the Kaufhof to buy breakfast – Powerade, and blueberries seemed to be the breakfast of champions, at least for Adam and I, who consumed an entire container each. The tram takes three quarters of a hour to get to Mannheim. I find we do so much walking and wandering around that sitting is always a nice change.

Mannheim, evidently, is a wonderful place to do really cheap shopping. I don’t want to downplay Mannheim as a place where one only goes to shop, but they have pretty much everything. I immediately went to a giant, German Best Buy type store that sold music and DVDs. My original plan was to purchase some Xavier Naidoo Cds (he does a sort of German R&B style, and he’s from Mannheim) and a copy of “Die Welle” and also “Krabat”. Krabat is a really popular novel in Germany apparently, about a young boy and dark magic. Like Harry Potter, before Harry Potter, one might say, without the school and – nevermind. I could find neither, so I made my way to the bookstore across the street. Karen actually found a really interesting CD by a group called 2raum wohnung (2 Room Apartment in English). She says they are quite good, so I might have to borrow the CD from her.

We found Krabat, on DVD and in book form at the bookstore. I decided that it would be a good investment to purchase both, as they are both only in German (the DVD is German with German subtitles, but only play in Region 2 DVD players). I’m pretty excited at the idea that I might be able to read a real German novel.

There were a few museums in Mannheim to choose from. Of course one cannot live on shopping alone, and must also indulge in cultural aspects whilst one is there. Adam, Chris and I went to this art museum called Kunsthalle (literally Art Hall) with an exhibition featuring an artist called Anton Henning. His works are pretty rad, a bit wonky though. He does this thing where he incorporates swirls into every painting. In one, he recreates the most famous painting of Shakespeare and then takes a brush and makes a bunch of swirls on it so that you have to stand back a few feet to actually see what you are looking at.

http://www.kunsthalle-mannheim.eu/cms/front_content.php?idart=129

We watched the film today in Megan’s awesome room (however, I could probably go on forever about how much I belong in that room, with the large collection of classic novels and poetry, but I digress). Surprisingly, we managed to understand most of the plot without the help of English language, or even the German subtitles. Four people were unable to work one German DVD player so that we could have subtitles. What we didn't understand, we made up, and our translation amounted to something along this lines of "Krabat Potter and the Seven Maggots", with a lot of Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings references. There's an introduction by the evil sorcerer - we decided that his narration was actually, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." I was really pleased with the quality of work, though it probably had a lot to do with the two main stars, Daniel Brühl (Goodbye Lenin!) and David Kross (The Reader), who have managed to make somewhat of a transition to English cinema.

Last night, as I wrote this, we experienced our fourth or fifth thunderstorm since arriving in Heidelberg. We have been here about ten days. I definitely look forward to these storms. They take away some of the unbearable heat that I am unable to adjust to. Today was nice after this rain. I think it is a decent trade off – warm days and rainy evenings, for the most part. I’m definitely not complaining.