A Mono-Class Society (in appearance)

Disclaimer up front is that my view of Germany has been very limited and there are probably large segments of society that I haven't seen yet.

Basically, my view here has been that everyone here seems to be in the same class. Talking to to people that's not entirely true. Generally people associate lower class folks with British names like (example given was Kevin). I have a few ideas why the class difference isn't so apparent.

1. Many of the minorities here are often still white Europeans and so to me they look German. It's possible that all the russian immigrants are poor for example but I just can't see it. The varying skin color in America makes it easier to quickly categorize groups of people and make assumptions at to what class they are in, regardless of how accurate it is.

2. It seems that everyone here has basically the same sense of style. Sure some people are more stylish than others but you don't have goth, emo, prep, hippie, lumberjack, as well as the style sets that tend to come with african americans. That means everyone looks the same still further. Once again it is harder to categorize groups of people by appearance.

3. Where do poor people live? Maybe they are all out in the country, or maybe just in the big cities? Anyways, I have seen no particularly rough, or rundown areas. Yes it's a small town (160,000) but it's definitely not like America.

So we should never stereotype people by appearance but I know in America we do it all the time. It's just peculiar here how much of a non issue it is. I'm taking a class called "Race and Equality in America." The prof and I are the only Americans. I think it will be difficult to convey to the class what America and racism is like because of what they are used to living in.

k later

Church Adventure part II

Today was church in Andreas Gemeinde. I believe it is a baptist church, although I admittedly have hardly any idea what that means both here in Germany and back in the states. I didn't understand much of the teaching but it was a good time to think and journal. We started with hymns with a piano, and then moved to a band and more contemporary although somewhat muted music. We did "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" in German, which I assume was the language it was written in though I'm not certain. Interestingly enough the latter half of each of the verses have less syllables and so they switch to a 3/4 time signature (like a waltz). There are a number of college students that attend there and every week they go back to an apartment for lunch, very reminiscent of the brunch at Ozzy's last year. It was a great time to connect with German students and they helped teach me German. I have one more church I'd like to visit next week before I pick a place.

Also today I finally went for a run along the river that passes through town (it's a pretty week river), but came across some beautiful spots where I'm looking forward to relaxing, reading, and picturing.

k later

Osnabrück in Fall

a seat along a path,

out of the way

view of what's here

life rolls by on wheels and on foot

gently, pleasantly

"I urge you brothers... to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands." -Thessalonians 4:11

Kein Fahrrad (no bike)

Bikes are all over the place. Huge lots full, packed to the limits with bikes. Bike lanes, bike traffic lights, everything for bikes. A bike here in Osnabrück is the perfect way to get anywhere fast. My roommate found one cheap. I almost followed suit, and then wondered,

"why do I need to get anywhere fast?"

Do you learn better fast? or observe better, see better, think better, pray better?

All that fast does it get things done, but I'm not actually here to get things done. I want to learn, observe, see, think, and pray. I will do that slowly. There are other things I could do better slowly but it's 2am and I can't think of them right now.

Photo Project I

Constants Here

Not New

Just a bigger part of my life Now

Ambassador

I never realized just how much representing one person can do until just the other night. People always say things like, "remember when in another country you represent the whole US, or RIT, or whatever." That seems ridiculous because you can't judge a culture based on one person from it. In our heads everyone knows that, but in practice we easily judge groups based on one individual. Example:

The other night my German roommates talked about the American who lived in my room last year. She was quite the party animal. Regularly out till 7am, at parties, and hosting parties here. Her wild 21st birthday party ended up with cake and footprints all over the wall, requiring a new paint job. She made life miserable for the rest of the people living here.

When my roommates heard that this semester they were getting another American, they all dreaded that they were in for round 2. They just knew one American and she was crazy, so they all must be crazy... It's the same representing Christ, or longboarders, or white people, or engineers. If you're the only person in a category that people know, then you have a huge influence over their perception of that group.

Be careful.

Represent well.

Münster Trip 1

Yesterday we took a free train to Münster, 45 minutes away.Pictures here.

It was weird to see abstract stain glass windows in the cathedral. The organ was enormous. I would love to press the keys and feel that room fill up with sound. There was also a “castle” with a Botanical garden behind it. The Garden had an art gallery in it for a man whose name I don’t recall

Unfortunately it was rather Cold and Wet...

I spent the train ride talking to a friend from England about her view on Germany, and what things are the same across Europe and what is unique to Germany. The ridiculous amount of Alcohol in public is unique to Germany. Small cars are European. Working 35-40 hours a week is European (except France where they strike after 32 hours). All British folk learn French and then maybe german or spanish. Germans learn English, then often times french

Also, thinking about what it means to be “Real” or “Genuine” and if that is alway good, bad, or otherwise.

Classes start this week, except for language classes, which means I have Monday off...

Typischer Deutsche Essen

Breakfast: Deli meat sandwhiches with coffee/orange juice. I usually have Müsli with milk (Granola basically)

Lunch: Main meal, Meat with gravy or cheese sauce, vegetables or salad, pudding, and a roll. I find it generally resembles dinner at home. It’s super cheap at the cafeteria so I by it and it ensures I get some veggies every day.

My Evening goes as follows

Evening meal 1 at 4:30: Deli Sandwhich

Evening meal 2 at 8:00: Spaghetti or a roll with sausage

I think Germans usually just have some bread and cheese and maybe coffee at some point.

Since I’m with lots of exchange students I’ve also experienced Turkish Soup, British Cake, French Kish Lorraine, Italian Bolognese, Russian Crepes, and Swiss Chocolate...

Eating is great!

Church Adventure

So today I visited Lebensquelle Gemeinde for church (Spring of Life Congregation roughly translated). When I arrived the worship team was very green. Fortunately they were just doing a light check and fixed it before the service. The gentleman who opened the service was translated into German. But with the chaos of people finding seats and such I couldn’t tell much more than that.

For worship, I knew some of the songs and some of them not. Most were in German but some were in Russian. As a note, Russian doesn’t use our alphabet so I couldn’t read it but the German translation was below. They did, “Here I am to Worship” in German, as well as “Dancing Generation”, and “Hosanna” by Hillsong in Russian (all very well done I might add).

So it turns out that 80% of the church is Russian, so the translation was for the small number of us outsiders... The craziness of Russian and German together when I hardly speak German was a little more than I could follow, so I’ll probably look for another place next week. I had asked someone to recommend a very charismatic church to me and that’s what I got. It was definitely a really cool one time experience, it just won’t be home.

Desk as a state of Mind

Not related to Germany at all,

I thought this was excellent

Also, I still have not made a home for myself at my desk here in Germany sadly

Desk - Music and Sound Design from Aaron Trinder Film:Motion:Music on Vimeo.

Intensiv Deutsch Kurs

So the intensive german class, 5 hours a day this week is not as intense as I expected. Here was the project I worked on today. It helps me conjugate the verb "to be" in German.

Ich bin

du bist

Sie sind

er, sie, es ist

wir sind

ihr seid

Sie sind

sie sind

Köln atmosphere

Plaza in front of Cathedral in Cologne. For more pictures from the days adventures, click here.

a delightful day I must say.

Be sure to have speakers on to hear the steel drums.

drunken fans or a revolution

Don't ask me what it was,

I just know it was loud by my window for a minute

Conversating

guten tag,

So tomorrow is a day trip to Cologne (Köln), a city of 1 millions people, a big upgrade from Osnabrück’s 160,000. Should be cool. Maybe I’ll have pictures.

So there are about 100 exchange students here at the University (including a 50 year old man from Pittsburgh? what are the chances?) We spend the days going through boring but useful orientation information and then hang out at restaurants and the like afterwards and explore the city.

Yesterday was a group of about 20 of us in a room together. We had ridiculous conversations that switched from German to English to italian to spanish to french all really loud and at the same time. Kind of hard to follow but definitely a good learning experience. I found out that in Osnabrück (and in most of Germany for that matter) people aren’t scared of dark alleys. They said because of the high taxes and redistribution of wealth there are less muggings etc. They blame the extreme wealth next to extreme poverty in the US for that being an issue in our country. I don’t really have an opinion on that but it was interesting to hear.

There are a group of 4 french students I’ve been spending most of my time with. Last night we hung out till late just talking (German, English, French) around the dinner table eating off-brand Pringles from Aldi. We talked everything from drop test machines at Vocollect, to French cartoons, to girls being obsessed with chocolate in whatever country you are in. (side story, when the girls found out I had never had “Kinder” chocolate which is a particular brand they immediately bought me some “for my birthday in February” and took a picture of my first bite. It was actually really amazing. So side story is over and back to the dinner table now) The girl who lives on my hall, Charlène, asked if I made the bracelet I was wearing. It was the wordless book bracelet from YWAM. I got to explain all the colors in short (each color represents a different part of the gospel). I didn’t want to get on a pulpit without being asked to, but after I finished explaining I was asked. Alicia asked if I knew the difference between the Protestant and Catholic churches so I got to lay out more clearly what salvation is and how it is received. They were all surprised to find I’d read the entire Bible. I had already talked with Pierre about differences between church in the states versus Europe and contemporary versus traditional, but here I got to go through it again. We talked about worship. I think sometime soon we may listen to worship music together. We wondered together about how we could bring American church to Europe, but without really getting anywhere (I also smote the myth that all American’s are Christians). They wanted to know what I would do about church while I’m here so I got to mention the christian group on campus I wanted to check out which lead to a conversation on InterVarsity which they were also intrigued by. That turned out to be a very satisfying evening but also sad. I realized how hard it would be to be a Christian in a society where the church has turned into a ritual for old people and nothing more. I can’t imagine what it would take to convince someone to join that at the age of 20 with absolutely 0 connections to it. I feel like if I brought those four friends (Quentin is the fourth but he’s very quiet) to the states they would come to church and be ok with it, but how do you get people to join a church perceived dead, and grow in it. I think I have some research to do on what’s available here. Also it’s one thing to intrigue people with stories of America, and it’s another to have them turn their lives around. I guess it’s good to know that I need God for all this. I’m quite glad God is giving me chances to speak though. Having now spoken, that also adds more accountability. Now I have to practice what I preach.

Below are some pictures of one of the churches in Osnabrück. It’s the one I mentioned in last entry that has one tower bigger than the other.

I need to start asking some questions about family life and working life in Germany (or any place in Europe for that matter.

So there’s lots more happening but I have to pick and choose what I put up here. If you have any questions be sure to ask. Miss you guys,

Tschüss,

First real Dinner? - Italienisch

Great food! I just need to find a cheaper way of doing this...

Aldi is just down the street. I'll see if I can get that working for me.

Yeah that's my Room

Shoes on wheels. In addition I have my orange shoes, my flipflops and my slippers. Yes they are all necessary.

So it's hard to see in the pics but none of the 5 walls are parallel. Plenty of space. I think it will do nicely.

later

Day 1, settling and explorations

Starting then at the beginning. My first flight was 2 hours to Newark and it was a fun one. I sat next to a young mother with a two year old named Rowen. We watched veggie tales together on her portable DVD player. Apparently whoever invented it didn’t have a two year old or they wouldn’t have made the buttons so easily accessible for flailing hands to press.

Rowen was amusing. He would sit on his mom’s lap facing the window, then all of a sudden he would start tilting his head back and lean so far until he was staring me in the face upside down, and he would just stare awkwardly no matter what his mom did. It wasn’t till the last minute of the flight that he gave in and gave me a high five (actually like 7 high fives in quick succession).

Following a brief layover was my flight to Amsterdam. I sat next to two dutch gentlemen who were friendly. I finally watched Slumdog Millionaire. I also decided that dutch folk are tall thin and blond.

We had a tailwind so we arrived and hour early at 6am (midnight eastern time). Airport was empty so I found myself at the train 2 hours early (the station is in the airport conveniently). I reckon that’s an answer to prayer. I spent an hour of it sitting on a bench with my luggage playing the ukulele for all the poor souls who had to be awake that early. Also all the flight attendants were very impressed to see my ukulele ;)

From the airport on I started taking pictures. You can view them here.

I was on a train 3 hours through the countryside. Also the modern architecture in Amsterdam was fascinating but I didn’t get any pictures, sorry...

I was picked up at the airport along with a handful of other students and driven to my residence. I don’t know what to call it really. It’s basically an apartment with 6 bedrooms that each have keys. They are on a curved hallway. There is also a kitchen and two bathrooms (all three rooms we are responsible for cleaning). So there are some similarities to a dorm and some to a UC apartment (RIT). There is a French girl named Charlène, a Swiss girl named Fanziska, a German named Sebastion, and then two german girls I have yet to meet. Charlène and I are the only new students. Her english is better than my German so between German and English we communicate ok.

I settled in, skated around the city getting pictures, bought some croissants and applesauce to eat and then went to bed by around 9pm and got close to 12 hours of sleep. That makes up for the night before where I got 2 on the plane, 1 on the train, and 1 upon arrival.

This morning we went to get info packages and then I got to try the cafeteria. Allegedly it’s one of the best in Europe. I enjoyed some beef roast, green beans, and tiramisu. It was excellent and only ran me a little more than 3 USD. I met up with 5 french students and a German girl who was showing them around. They all speak English, especially the german. Most of the talking was german and occasionally went to french so my brain was spinning pretty good. It turns out some of the french students had had about 6 or 7 years of German to my 1 year... They are better than me =P Later as we toured the city we switched to English. I bought a German-English dictionary.

The story that stood out was of a cathedral with 2 towers. That is normal. The weird part was that one tower was much bigger than the other. Turns out they were buying a new bell and they wanted a big one. Then they realized that it didn’t fit in the tower, so they tore the tower down and build a bigger one... whatever...

I reckon that’s all for now. I need to study my German and whatnot. More to come later I’m sure.

Actually I take that back, I’ll just comment about a conversation with one of the french students, Pierre. We talked about the differences between churches in the states versus in Europe. I talked about how great a variety there are. There are very traditional churches similar to what they have in Europe, and then there are churches like mine where they have guitars (language barrier made it difficult to dive into the differences and what my church really means to me) and are more modern and interesting to young folks. He agreed that he thinks there would be more church goers in Europe if they had that option but it doesn’t sound like it’s really an option. The conversation got sidetracked but he brought it right back in a few minutes. Hopefully we have more conversation later. In Osnabrück there are 2 catholic churches and 2 protestant churches which is a lot. Usually a given city only has one or the other. I didn’t mention America’s bad habit of having a church or more on every block.

And that’s another thing, they don’t have city blocks. I reckon I’ll find my way around soon but it’s definitely more confusing with all these winding roads and bike paths all over the place.

Tschüss

We're off!

Here's the first update, and hopefully the updates don't end here. I'm all checked in at the Pittsburgh airport waiting for my flight. I'll be traveling till 1am which is 7am in Amsterdam. I guess that means I'll have to skip sleeping. I arrive at 7 and then at 9 I take a 3 hour train ride through the countryside to Osnabrück, Deutschland (Germany). I get picked up there and go move into my apartment where I'm sure I'll get to be quite at home.

I have about 110 lbs of luggage to carry with me between a 40 lb suitcase and a 40 lb hiking backpack that I checked and then a 30 lb carry on, plus a ukulele (since my guitar was too big).

Also, the guy sitting across the way from me has on shiny silky gray jeans? I'm still in Pittsburgh though so I won't take that necessarily as good fashion advice.

You can be praying that I catch my train in Amsterdam. For now that's the only thing I'm that worried about... oh and I left my pocket sized German-English dictionary at church...

Maybe I'll see if they sell them here at the airport?

kk, I'll miss all you guys and can't wait to hang out again. Maybe I'll write down stories as they happen because I'm not very good at remembering them.

Auf Wiedersehen