Well I have now spent my second 4th of July in Berlin and I hope there will not a third. This feeling has nothing to do with Germany and everything to do with America... it is just not normal to not be in the good ol'US of A on the 4th of July! I was actually in Berlin on the 4th when I was in Germany during high school. On that trip, I remember all the girls singing America songs as we got ready for the day in the bathroom of the youth hostel--funny how you remember little things. But I don't remember being that upset about not being in the States. This time around, I had a great day-- shopping, got my nails done and met up with friends, but it just didn't feel right not being with a city full of people celebrating the day.
Americans get serious about German soccer!!
Erin gets serious about German soccer. I might just wear my groovy hat when I get back to Washington!
Actually, Germany was all abuzz, but it had nothing to do with Independence Day. Germany played Italy in the semi-final of the World Cup on Tuesday. Unfortunately they lost:-( I am still excited to see Berlin after the final game on Sunday, but it would have been 10 times cooler had Germany been one of the final two teams. Now I am cheering for France because...
I am currently in France and it was exciting that they won their game last night! I am here to watch the Tour de France race through Caen today and then tour Omaha Beach, Point du Hoc and the American and German cemetaries tomorrow. Bayeux has already exceeded my expectations! But let me put this nicely... In the two hour it took me to get from the airport to the train station, I definitively concluded that I will NEVER be a francophile and am very happy being a Germanophile. More on France later (when I cqn find q keyboqrd aith the correct key plqce,ent 111)
DVD players are set to a certain region, based on where you live. You can change the setting 5 times, but on the 5th time, the player locks on whatever region it is currently set. THIS IS TOTALLY UNFAIR! The purpose of a laptop is to travel. If you are traveling, you might be abroad. If you are abroad, you might legally buy DVDs and want to watch them. But noooooo!
PC users can easily get programs to get around this little (big) technical (legal) problem. Unfortunately, a similar program for Apple users doesn't work on new-ish laptops. I didn't realize this until after I bought 2 German DVDs. So now I am stuck with 2 chickflicks with the wrong region code and I just realized that I only know one girl German. (That's strange too!)
In other news, I have decided that I need G.O.D. Of course in a "higher" sense, I have always known this. But the GOD I need is a German On Duty. This would be a helpful German who at any point could answer my questions about all things Germany; who would help me avoid the international incidents that I know are just waiting to happen. Preferably, my friends could coordinate their schedules so GOD would always be around;-)
Tonight, as an example, I was thinking about writing a cover letter in German. But do Germans even write cover letters? If they do, I doubt they are as "yea me" as American cover letters. Does "I feel I am uniquely qualified for this position..." translate? I also can't find the direct translation for "skill set." Germans have "qualifikationen" (qualifications/skills) but is this really the same as a skill set? I like the word "skill set!" The Germans who I thought might have been home are not, so blogging about this matter seemed to be the next best solution:-)
Wooo, I feel much better now that I have gotten these highly important issues out into the blog-o-shere.
Just two more games to go and Germany will be the 2006 World Cup soccer champ!! Last night they beat Argentina in a quarterfinal match that ended in a shoot-out! Most exciting!! On a personal note, the shoot-out was extra exciting because I learned a new phrase-- "11 meter schiessen" (penalty and shoot-out shots--11 meters away.) During the coffee break at work, people kept using that term but I couldn't imagine what that meant. I made a mental note to ask the first German friend I talked with later in the day. As it turned out, there was so much "11 meter schiessen" going on last night, I figured out what the word meant by myself;-)
Beyond the obvious implications of a German victory, I was hoping for a win last night because of the parade that I was told would spontaneously form on the Kudamm if Germany was victorious. I still don't understand how it happens, but indeed, in the 15 minutes it took me to walk from my apartment to the Kudamm after the game, thousands of people were parading up and down the boulevard with flags, in costumes, drinking, singing, talking on cell phones, just soaking it all in.
As bizarre as it sounds, watching the parade unfold last night somehow had a similar feeling to watching Bush land at the White House on 9/11. Of course the type of emotion could not have been more different. But the level of emotion was similar, as well as the spontaneity of the gathering. For me, both were out-of-body experiences-- a feeling that I was a witness to something much, much bigger than myself. Does that make any sense? I don't know. Let's just go to the tape...
Here are some pictures that I took:
Car parade on the street just south of the Kudamm
Corner of Bundesallee and the Kudamm
Walking in the street on the way to the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church. I decided to get into the street after a guy puked at my feet and a girl fell on me while I was standing on the sidewalk.
The purpose of my blog is to keep friends and family updated on my whereabouts and adventures during my year in Germany. I received an Alexander von Humboldt German Chancellor Scholarship and am here to research the way Germany is communicating with Muslim countries. My hope is that my blog provides a glimpse everyday live in Germany (Erin-style:-))
