Paris - Pretty, Smelly, and.... French

As the result of a variety of mistakes, miscommunications and the like, it took us most of the day on the Saturday we went to Paris to actually get to Paris. So we arrived at Paris in the early evening, and headed to our hostel (which was in the Arab quarter- a somewhat unpopular region of the city). Then we saw the Champs d'Elysees (forgive me if the spelling is off) and the Eiffel Tower by night. I'll spare you a site-by-site description of where we went, since you can get that kind of stuff anywhere. Suffice to say that we went to Paris for essentially a day and a half, and we spent too much time running from tourist destination to see the stuff we should have seen. On the Sunday, we did manage to take a little bit of time to enjoy Paris for what makes Paris great. We got a little lost on our way to Notre Dame de Paris, and we ended up on a narrow street that happened to have a market running the length of it. We found a wine shop, and, needless to say, I couldn't say no to 9 Euro for a bottle of wine that would cost considerably more in Calgary. At that point, we decided it was about to time to find somewhere to eat lunch, and we ended up at a Lebanese restaurant. This was fortunate, since despite the 8 languages that the 5 of us could use fluently, none of those 8 happened to be French, but one of them was Arabic. So Islam (my Egyptian travelling companion's name- not the religion) ordered everything for all of us in Arabic.
When it was time to leave, we were standing outside the Louvre when we realised we had 15 minutes to be in the Gare de L'Est train station on our train. So we ran from train to train on the Metro, and, by a great of luck, we got to the train before it left. Not having enough time to buy tickets, we hurried onto the train and asked the ticket attendant what we should do. She spoke good English, and told us to find seats and wait until later.
Approximately 90 minutes later, the ticket attendants finally made it to the car we were on. When another ticket attendant asked for our ticket, we told him that we needed to buy tickets. He grunted, and then went off. The ticket attendants passed us another three times without stopping before we finally reached our stop and had to get off. As I have said a few times since: If I hadn't benefitted so much, I'd complain.
So at the very least, travel costs returning from Paris were not very high.

As for observation about Paris and its inhabitants, I really think that the title of this post says it all. Paris is a beautiful city. Even the largely forsaken Arab quarter is not without its charm. There is history there. The city is alive, and filled with music and culture. On the downside, it's polluted and filthy. The French here are as French as anywhere. While not hostile, they are not particularly welcoming either. Some places are better than others. In the market street, where most of the customers were residents of Paris, the shopkeepers seemed more happy to deal with the occasional tourist lacking French skills. In areas where tourists are commonplace, however, tourists are treated as a common filth that infests the city, while also providing their livelihood. Curiously enough, the shopkeepers in areas that serve few tourists have better English than the shopkeepers in areas that are positively seething with them. It strikes me that serving tourists is not something that the French will engage in lightly.

Kaiserslautern and Luxembourg

On Saturday the 17th a group of six of us got up in the morning to go to Luxembourg, but we missed the bus, so we took the next available train to anywhere, anywhere ultimately turning out to be Kaiserslautern, a city not too far from Saarbrücken, in the Rheinland-Pfalz province (Bundesländer). It was a pleasant enough city, although it was kind of lacking in stuff to see. We ultimately went to visit their 'Japanese Garden', which was kind of unimpressive, and apparently nothing like anything in Japan, but ultimately we had a really good time. Our group was composed of (from left to right): Dan (Israel), Jani (Slovenia), Youssef (Egypt), Myself, Geri (Bulgaria), and Naoko (Japan).
The next day we went to Luxembourg, which was a substantially more impressive city. The City changes so much vertically, with some of the city on the edge of the river valley, and most of the old stuff in the bottom of the valley. Everything in the city is old, and almost everything has at least 2 languages (one of which is usually Luxembourgish, a mix of French and German) and you never know what language a local will talk to you in. Luxembourg has a series of tunnels under the city that have been used numerous times by the denizens to protect themselves from invaders, most recently during the second world war. There are so many old buildings in the city, and the whole area has an even more historical air than Metz. The picture of the church is the cathedral Notré Dame, which is beautiful, although it really isn't anything special in contrast with some of the other churches I've seen. For Luxembourg, I think, no one building can sum up what makes it such a beatiful place. There are new buildings and old ones, but even the new buildings have been built with a concern for detail that doesn't exist in Canada (not really in Germany either).

Well, tomorrow I'm going to Paris, so I should have more exciting things in another post fairly soon.

And so begins my academic life in Germany...

On Friday, I went to go get introduced to the German course. It was introduced by the man I will later refer to as 'Dr. Clever' and a guy who looks exactly like Tchéky Karyo (see photo). Anyhoo, my course has a very interesting composition. I have yet to meet a single native speaker of English since I arrived in Germany (no Americans, no English, no Canadians, no Australians, no New Zealanders- you get the point). My class has about 6 Russians (Russians cannot pronounce things in German, I should note). A Ukrainian (Russian speaking, not Ukrainian-speaking), a Brazilian, a Swede*, a Japanese girl*, 2 guys from Yemen, a Jordanian*, and 1 more that speaks Arabic (not sure which country), a Turk, a Georgian*, 2 Francophones from Cameroon, an Italian, a Thai fellow*, a Vietnamese guy who's lived in Bulgaria since he was 9, and there should be 4 more, but I can't for the life of me remember who they are. (*= able to speak at least a little English).
Dr. Clever is called that because pretty much everyone is convinced he speaks at least 5 languages fluently. If the Italian is having trouble, he helps in Italian. I haven't needed help, but he uses English phrases all the time (no German accent- that's a first) he clearly speaks French, and maybe Turkish and Arabic. At the very least, he know what he's doing. He teaches hearing understanding.
Our reading understanding teacher also seems quite competent, although the name game she had us play was kind of Elementary-age summer-camp-esque.
Then we come to the Grammar teacher. I don't blame for not anticipating our skill level exactly, but I do blame for refusing to deviate from his lesson plan when he was clearly a few hundred levels below our skill level. He walked into the class and says, painfully slowly 'ich heiße (removed). I-ch. h-ei-ß-e. (removed)." (for the uninitiated, 'ß' is actually 'ss'). First he had us go around and ask each other such posers as 'Wie heißt du?' (how are you called?) 'Woher kommst du?' (from where do you come?) 'Wie alt alt bist du?' (how old are you?) 'Was machst du gern?' (what do you like doing?) - he warned us that we shouldn't worry too much about the last question, because it's very difficult. He then proceeded to teach us the Roman alphabet- he made sure to show us upper and lower case letters- then he went through the German names for the letters and the sounds that each word makes. Then we did numbers. He handed out a sheet with questions like "vier - zwei =" (four - two =), and appeared rather horrified when he realised that the entire class had finished his sheet (which he had begun guiding us slowly through) in less than a minute. Instead of taking the hint, he went through the questions one by one, then we spent the rest of the class writing sentences to go with pictures of such things as a boy walking. If we used 'complex' things like indefinite articles ('an apple' instead of 'the apple') he changed them on the board. So we (who are mostly communicating with each other in German) were introduced to two-word sentences today. Such enthralling sentences as 'Die Ente schwimmt' (the duck swims.) 'Er lauft' (he runs) 'Die Kinder singen' (the children sing)- the list goes on. Then he gave us a homework sheet of more of the same. So all in all, 2/3 of the course are very good, but I have a feeling grammar will be a monumental waste of time.

The pictures above are the parking lot below my window on 1.) a rainy day and 2.) today. It was raining really hard, and I was like 'gosh, it's raining really hard' to myself and then I read my book some more, and then suddenly I realised I couldn't even hear the music my computer was playing, and I looked up, and visibility was about 4 metres- from rain! It wasn't even foggy- it was only raining. I was like 'it can't get worse than this'. So, of course, it did. I turned up my music and read some more. Then I couldn't hear my music again! It was raining even bloody harder. And unlike Calgary, where rain like this rains itself out after about 5 minutes, it kept raining that hard for 10 hours. The two days before rained, and the two days after rained. Where does all that water come from?

Catching up to the now.

So... At this point I've moved into my room (well, that was actually a few days ago, but that's not all that important). My room has a variety of exciting benefits and downfalls. I have a giant window. This is nice because I get to see everything that is happening outside- not that much happens eight stories up in the middle of a hilly forest. This is not nice because a giant pane of glass lets the hot in (or the cold in, when the weather changes). This is also not nice because my curtain doesn't actually cover the window, and my bed faces the window. So guess who gets to get up at 8:00 every morning regardless of whether or not he has to get up at 8:00?
I have my own shower and toilet. This is nice because I have my own shower and toilet. This is not nice because my shower is 1cm depression in the floor with a showerhead and curtain over it. I assure you, 1cm is not enough to keep the water in. I also have my own water heater. It doesn't work properly. I get about 4-8 seconds of warm water, then cold. I don't even know where they get water that cold from- the Saar is most definetely not glacial. I also have my own writing desk- which is composed of three pieces, none of which are actually physically attached to one another. To destroy everthing on my desk, all I have to do is pull on the top part in any direction or kick one of the legs really hard. I'm starting my immersion course in an hour. That is exciting- I guess. I don't really know what to expect.
'1's and '7's are different here. This is something Stefan pointed out to me, and boy am I glad he did. '1's look like sevens here. They exaggerate that hook at the top like crazy, and '7's always have the little cross through the middle. (see above picture). The University here is much more attractive than UofC, which automatically puts it leagues ahead of the concrete box- I mean U of L. Four of the buildings at the centre of the campus were a French barracks dating to back to some time when this was French territory (that happened more than a few times). While they aren't decorated like the buildings in Metz, they are most certainly not German. There is a giant 'Botanischer Garten' (if you can't figure out what that means that's too bad for you) and there are open green areas all over the place, with cafes and such. The people around the Waldhaus are nice, and I met some people that are in the other immersion course (they wrote their test on Monday, and started their course on Tuesday- why do I have to wait a week just for my test results, again?) and so I went and did stuff with them- like play beach volleyball in the dark, go for Karaoke and guinness to O'Dwyers Irish Pub (I decided not to party until dawn, as the some of the others did), and go for dancing lessons (2 guys there including myself) we learned the Chachacha and the Mamba.
O yes, the weather. It has been unbearably hot since I got here. Ranging between 25-30 degrees, with never less that 65% relative humidity (don't listen to what the weather networks tell you- they say 'Saarbrücken' but they actually mean 'Frankfurt' (which isn't really that close)). However, I woke this morning to rain. Apparently winter here is terribly exciting: cold rain, colder rain, and then more unbearably cold rain. I don't think I like the weather here too terribly much, but we'll see how I feel in a year.

Metz, in La Belle France

Then, on Wednesday I took a train to Metz, in Lorraine (which is in France). The most amazing about traveling from Germany to France, is that when you cross the border, even though there are no signs on the train tracks, you know that you're not in Germany anymore. This is before you see the French on the sides of the all the buildings- everything about France is different from Germany. In fact, before you've even seen any French people, it's really not that hard to see why the Germans and the French can't get along. This feeling only grows once you talk to French people. Don't get me wrong- there's absolutely nothing wrong about the national character of either the French or the Germans- they're just so different.
My first impressions of France:

• The French people don't wash enough. In Canada, you're a gross person if you take more than 1 or 2 days between showers. In Germany, it's the same. In France, I think, it's more like a week before you even start to compare to some of these people. Most French people are clean- but there's a very sizeable minority that seem to believe that they've got something in common with the wicked witch of the West.
• French people don't clean up after their dogs. There's dog poo everywhere.
• French people like statues. No French park is complete without a 4-metre statue of someone. Or someone's horse. Or someone's dog. Or something completely inane. They don't seem to care what the statue is of, but ze park is not ze park wit' no statue.
• French people can't concieve of leaving any section of anything undecorated. The French aesthetic is the polar opposite of the Japanese. The Japanese aesthetic values simplicity- the French values endless decoration and embellishment of even the most insignificant part of a wall.
• The French put too much effort into their churches. The cathedral in Metz was most impressive. I spent about 2-3 hours in there- it beat Salibury all to heck. This friendly Frenchman told me all about the 'three suns' (trois soliel) in a stained glass window. He spoke slowly for me, but I still didn't understand most of it, but he inspired me to look more deeply into the iconography in that particular stained glass window. Metz literally has a church on every street, and every single one is unique and invariably grand.

Seriously, though, even the fields are different in France. And, while dirty, the French are much more friendly than people often make you think (maybe it's because I didn't 'mock' their language). When they say that France is the land of love, I think they weren't kidding. I was walking along the river causeway, and there were benches interspersed with trees about every 6 metres, and every single bench had a couple necking on it. Not just teenagers, too. The very air in France is different from Germany. Germans always look busy (and they usually are), and everything in Germany is streamlined. France is practically the opposite. French workers don't even try to look busy. They'll be leaning back against a wall, very calmy enjoying their smoke, or strolling at ridiculously slow pace through the park, completely indifferent to the passage of time. All in all, French != German.

This is the second post, immediately following the first.

Then we went to Trier. Trier was settled by the Romans, and has this giant building called 'Porta Negra'- the black gate. Now THAT is a good name. Anyway, it's really rather big, and we arrived just in time to see them showing off the European rally cars. Trier was really crowded for this really huge event, and we saw all of the different rally cars, and apparently the mayor of Trier drives one of these cars. When they drove through the podium, all the drivers made speeches (most in English, except the Germans and the French). Anyway, the guy driving this Rheinland-Pfalz car (that was an prominent local politician) was most unabashedly drunk (and still drinking) when he drove his car through the Porta Negra and down the crowded street.

Alcohol here is really cheap. 5 € is the general price for a bottle of premium liquor (that's premium, boys and girls- not Russian Prince-esque stuff). You can buy beer anywhere. If it has coke, it probably has beer. That includes most pop machines (but those usually only have Urpils). As a result of the fact that you're allowed to drink in public, two major things occur here that don't happen in Canada- 1. you can just sit down at a table on the street and have your cold beers served to you. 2. there are a lot of drunken hobos wandering around being drunk during all hours of the day.


I'll give you more later. For now, that all that I'm giving you.

This is the first post

Well, here I am. Unless I am gravely mistaken, this is Germany, and this is my 11th day here. Since I'm too lazy to go through day by day, I'll just give you some basic highlights. First, I arrived in Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt (Oder) is on the Polish border- not there- this one is Rheinland-Pfalz- not that you've even heard of Frankfurt (Oder)). The airport there is very big. VERY big. And German 'customs' (they don't really deserve that name) are a joke. There are two lines- 'Nothing to declare' and 'Declarations.' When you go through 'nothing to declare' you hand them your passport, then they open it directly to the 'visas' section- they don't look at the rest (not even the picture page) and stamp your passport. That's German customs.
Then I picked up my bags and met Stefan (for those who don't know, Stefan was the instructor of my second term German course back in Lethbridge, and was responsible for convincing me to go to Germany), and then we went to Mainz, because he and his friend were going to try to fix the brakes on a motorcycle. After they failed, we drove through Saarbrücken and on to Bubach (Stefan's home village). Stefan is renovating a new house he is planning on moving into before the semester begins (October).

Since Stefan was working on that, the next day (Saturday) I took a train to Saarbrücken to check out the city. The picture above is the Saar. Saarbrücken means 'Saar bridges', by the way. I also checked out a couple of churches, one protestant, and one catholic. The left stain glass window is from the catholic church, with the classic representation of the trinity with the dove in the middle. The top of the right protestant stained glass window indicates clearly that all protestants are evil masonic nogoodniks.

OK- so anyway, Saarbrücken has a plague of signs advertising Karlsberg Urpils. 'Pils' is short for pilsener, which is simply what people drink in the Saarland. Every pub has a Karlsberg sign, and most office buildings have at least one banner. Karlsberg, you see, is brewed in the Saarland, and as such, it is blasphemy to state audibly that you prefer Bitburger (the leading Pilsener in Germany, brewed in Pfalz)- I know this from personal experience.