A Mild Case of Wanderlust

Ok, so a few people wrote me about my dreary blog entry below. I’ll address their questions here:

Yes, I felt like this the last time I was in Germany, too. I always go through the different stages of cultural adjustment, as illustrated by the red curve below. But this year, i never got as excited to be here, and I have stayed in the unhappy zone a little too long.

I think there are several reasons for this:

1) I’m not in a structured program this time. Last time I lived in Germany, I was with 60 other young Americans. We took language classes together for two months. We hung out, plus I got to meet their friends and host families. This year, I had a three-day orientation with four other journalists, who are all stationed in the east. There are other Fulbrighters in Germany, but I never really got to know them.

2) I’m not single anymore. In all honesty, I’ve always made friends with guys more easily when traveling, probably due to the mutual flirtation factor. Through them, I would meet their friends and other women my age. Now that I’m in a relationship, I’m less likely to ask guys to do things, and they’re less likely to invite me as well. And I think having someone at home makes me miss it all that much more.

3) International burnout. I’ve never heard of this term before, but a professor of mine who spent a lot of time working abroad suggested that I might be suffering from it. I think he may be right.

I have gone abroad for a month or more every year since I turned 18. The longest were a year in Germany, a semester in Senegal, two summers in France and a summer in Germany. In between those trips, I usually moved once a year to a new apartment with new roommates, new job, and sometimes a new city and a new state. Basically, I’ve been living out of backpacks and boxes for the last ten years. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a great time seeing the world, but I think I’m ready for some non-disposable furniture and a place I can put some roots down.

So, maybe the problem is not Germany. Maybe the problem is that I’m entering a different stage of my life where I want different things. I do think that there are real cultural differences in how the two cultures approach friendship. But maybe I’m tired of adjusting.

They say Germans are like coconuts, hard on the outside, but sweet once you break the shell. I’ve heard this analogy many times during my various stints in Germany, usually during some kind of cultural training. The idea is that Germans are hard to get to know, but once you do, they’re really nice. Americans, in contrast, are very friendly, but it’s harder to get them to commit to a long-term friendship. Americans are said to be peaches, soft and sweet on the surface, but on the inside is a pit that is impossible to penetrate. After a combined two and a half years living in Germany, I would say this generalization tends to be true.

I didn’t expect Germany to be so different from the U.S.. After all, we’re both industrialized, Western countries. There are strong economic and cultural ties between the two countries. Americans claim German ancestry more than any other ethnic heritage. I am one of those Americans, with a mother that was born in Germany, and a father that handed me his German last name.

Perhaps that’s why it’s been so difficult. I expected to encounter cultural differences when I went to Senegal, or to the Middle East or Peru. But I have had the hardest time adjusting to Germany more than any other culture. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been here the longest. Or perhaps it’s because I wasn’t expecting it to be difficult. I don’t physically stand out. I speak the language. I have a German name. The differences are more subtle, and harder to grasp. They creep up on you, until you just can’t ignore them anymore.

I have never been so lonely in my life. After six months of living in Germany, I still have no one to do things with, no one to go have coffee with, no one to share things with. It’s not due to a language barrier, I do speak relatively fluent German, or for lack of trying. I purposely moved into an apartment with three German students about my age. I work in a German office stocked with young people. I joined the frisbee team. I invite people out all the time. “Hey, it’s your birthday, let me buy you a beer.” “There’s a light festival going on downtown, wanna go check it out?” “How about a movie? Bike Ride? Pool? Museum? ” No takers. People always have some kind of excuse, from not feeling well, to being tired, to having to much work, to the weather. Since I’ve been here in January, I’ve managed to go to the movies once with one of my roommates (which required two weeks of planning), and gone out for drinks one night with a few coworkers, two freakishly isolated incidents that have yet to be repeated. I am lonely, even though surrounded by other people. I am a peach living in a world of coconuts, and I am starting to bruise.

I noticed how withdrawn I’d become during a recent trip to Brussels for a media conference. I quickly befriended an American woman around my age. Within hours of meeting each other, we were talking about our goals in life, past relationships, religion and most importantly we joked around. It was the first time I’d really laughed in months. It made me realize how starved for friendship I’ve been since moving to Frankfurt from Osnabrück in January. I think most Germans would have dismissed such a brief encounter as superficial, but for me, it was a much-needed exchange of ideas and experiences.

I mentioned my frustration at a recent Fulbright conference for American grantees currently scattered across Europe. I heard echoes of agreement, especially from the other grantees living in Germany. I know I’m not the only one dealing with this.

Loneliness and depression seem to be taboo topics when talking about study abroad. They rarely come up when people talk about their experiences. It’s usually “oh, I had a such great time,” followed by stories of adventures, interesting characters, and maybe a slideshow of photographs with smiling faces in front of postcard perfect scenery. No one recounts breaking out in tears on the subway for no apparent reason. Or sitting alone at home, watching Scrubs reruns online or wasting hours on facebook or calling home, hungry for every scrap of communication with friends and family back home.

My experience as a foreigner has made me think a little harder about how hard it must be for international students and immigrants in the US. I think I will have a slightly different perspective when I go back home. Perhaps that Serbian neighbor isn’t as happy as I thought. And perhaps that South African co-worker wouldn’t mind being invited to a weekend hike or barbecue. And I think I will try to stay in touch with people I know are living abroad. Maybe send them a letter or two, maybe even pick up the phone and call.

Although this year has been difficult in many ways, I think I have learned a lot, about Europe, about Germany and Germans, but mostly about myself. I know what I need to be happy. I need friends, which makes me more appreciative of the ones I have.

In the meantime, I have four more months here. I want to make the best of them. I have to come to terms with the fact that I may not make any new German friends during my time here. But I won’t give up trying. I still invite people to do things, but when they say no, I don’t take it personally. Now I just go out by myself. I am still a peach, after all, but perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to have slightly thicker skin.

Since my best friend here has become my camera, I’ve been taking a lot of photos lately. Here are some of my recent favorites:

The following photos are from Luminale, Frankfurt’s light festival, which happens every two years. My roommates called it a “Stromverschwendung,” or a waste of electricity. I thought it was cool.

I had the pleasure of attending the Digital News Affairs conference in Brussels on March 3-4 I’ll write more about that soon. In my few moments of free time, I had a great time getting lost in the narrow streets of Brussels and getting acquaited with the capital of Europe.

The main square in Brussels

In front of the EU Parliament

The European Commission

The Mannekin Pis, a tiny little statue has somehow has become a symbol of Brussels.

Built for the world fair in 1958, the Atominium structure has rooms in giant spheres connected by escalators and stairways. The conference reception was held in the middle sphere.

The Atominium from below

The smells of belgian food–mussels, french fries, chocolate, etc.– filter through the narrow streets in the old city. you can’t walk through there without working up an appetite!

The Royal Palace

I haven’t posted anything in a while. My reasoning is, if I haven’t got anything to say, why waste even cyberspace on an empty post. But even if the words aren’t there, I DO have some pictures. These are from a battle rap competition in Frankfurt. I can’t use these pics of Croatian-German rapper Smokey Montana for my project for the Rundschau, so I can post them here:

It all started with Appalachian State. After a blocked field goal, the unranked, unknown football team from Boone, North Carolina beat the crap out Michigan –at home, in the Big House, the largest stadium in the country. Commentators unanimously called the debacle “The Greatest Upset in College Football History.” Seemed shocking at the time. Then it happened again. I just happened to be sitting in the stands when the Oregon Ducks– yes, Ducks– creamed the Wolverines by an embarrassing margin–39 to 7.

Fans streamed out of the stadium well before the game ended. Some were angry. Most were dumbfounded. What is going on here? The world seemed turned on its head.

I have to admit, as a Proud Penn State alum, I found it somewhat amusing. Until Michigan beat us the following week. Another win for the underdog.

But this is exactly my point. Nothing is sure these days. From football to politics, 2007-08 has been a season of upsets. They just keep coming, one after the next.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and compare Hillary Clinton to the grand aura of Michigan football. Both are institutional heavyweights, deeply entrenched and loaded with money. No one expected Hillary to have to battle for the democratic presidential nomination in the same way no one could have predicted that Michigan’s lobed defense could crumble to a double-A school. But along came an outsider named Barak Obama, just like Appalachian State, out of nowhere, and started racking up points.

Not only has Obama stormed the scene, so has another politician with a funny name. Mike Huckabee. Political analysts and pollsters, who only seemed to pay attention to how much money candidates raised rather than the merits of their campaigns, predicted an early dropout for Huckabee– and for that matter, also for John McCain, who is now kicking everyone else’s butt. Ahem, did I just read that Mitt Romney dropped out of the race? HA! Serves you right, pollsters. The game isn’t over ’til it’s over.

Even Germans are getting a taste of Appalachian State upset action. I know most Germans don’t know a lick about American football, but their politicians certainly do know about upsets. While the primaries are sweeping the US, elections have been taking place in Germany as well, and they have been just as exciting.

In Hessen, the state where I am now living, a politician named Roland Koch met his downfall. After eight years of being the minister president (kind of like a governor), Koch’s re-election campaign backfired in his face. He fell back upon what even the conservative newspapers called “brutal populism” and used a fear-based campaign about youth violence that has been widely acknowledged as outright xenophobic. Watch out, those foreigners might get you! His party, the Christian Democratic Union, even produced posters with a still frame taken from a security camera video where a young Turkish kid is beating up a German man. They cut out the German man and put in the words, “You could be next! Vote CDU!”

To my relief, Germans not only rebuffed the campaign, they outright opposed it. Even high-ranking members of his own party, 17 of them to be exact, wrote an open letter denouncing Koch’s anti-immigrant campaign strategy. As a result, the Christian Democratic Union plummeted in popularity and lost their majority in the state parliament. And like all the other examples I’ve named thus far, there’s an outsider spoiler. In this case, it’s the communists. Again, out of nowhere, Die Linke (literally “the leftists”), previously stronger in the former East German states, ended up with 7 percent of the votes, putting them on par with the Green Party and guaranteeing them seats in parliament. And this in one of the more conservative states in Western Germany. Talk about an upset!

One thing is clear in both the German and U.S. elections. People are not happy with the way things are. They are sick of the divisiveness. I think a majority of Germans realize that most immigrants contribute a lot to society and immigration is critical to this country’s future. And in the U.S., I think most sane people are sick of the “you’re with us or you’re against us” mentality, not to mention the fact that Bush is running the country into the ground by running up budget and trade deficits that most thought was impossible and flushing money away at a rate of $177 million per day for a poorly thought-out war.

That’s what is so great about democracy, when it works, it swings back and forth and self corrects.

No one, whether it’s a football team or a political party, can win all the time. There are going to be upsets. The undefeated New England Patriots lost the Super Bowl. And Hillary might lose the Democratic race for president.

If Obama takes the nomination, it would be a political upset equal to that of that fated Appalachian State game. And like with that game, I am loving every minute of it. I love upsets. But let’s face it, upsets are rare.

The loss to Appalachian State was just a small dent in Michigan’s pre-season schedule. They went on to beat Florida in the Capital One Bowl. But the memory of Appalachian State did have an impact. Michigan’s new coach knows how to deal with a spread offense.

Roland Koch might continue to be Minister President of Hessen if the other parties can’t get their acts together. But his devastating loss has deeply affected German politics. I doubt the CDU will be running another xenophobic, anti-immigrant campaign anytime soon.

And Hillary might well go on to beat Obama. But the fact that he is doing so well is influencing the conversation. (Maybe invading Iraq was a bad idea from the start.)

I like to root for the underdog, but I recognize they can’t win all the time. That’s why they are underdogs. But it is the possibility of an upset that keeps sports and politics interesting. Even if the underdog loses, if they put up a good fight, they can change the game.

For the next few months, I’ll be working on a multimedia project about local musicians for the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper. Means exploring, late nights, and lots of terrible lighting situations. Here are a few examples. This band, Das Original Sparbier Terzett, was from Koeln, so I couldn’t use them for my project. But they were a lot of fun. I wasn’t allowed to use flash, so they aren’t so sharp. Boo.

Match the tie with the correct political party:  

1) Christian Democratic Party- the CDU is generally more conservative and old fashioned. It currently enjoys a majority in the German parliament. 

2) Social Demoratic Party- center left, the SPD calls itself a workers’ party and is currently the second most popular party in Germany.  

3) Free Democratic Party- business and bank friendly, the FDP is German’s libertarian party.  

4) Green Party - as its name implies, the Greens are for environmentally responsible as well as socially progressive policies.  

5) The Left- Die Linke are made up of a coalition of smaller parties, including the remnants of East Germany’s communist party. They are a relatively new party on the political scene.  

Answer:  

1-A bowtie and a vest, it doesn’t get more conservative and old fashioned. Many leaders in the CDU party are “still deciding” if Germany should become a land of immigration or not, although many people would argue that it already is.  

 2-C Look at me! The brightest tie on stage. The SPD is desperately trying to catch up to the forerunner conservative party. The SPD’s official color is also red, which is conveniently also associated with workers parties.  

3-E This politician is sporting the official colors of the FDP, blue and yellow. The tie’s gold color and the block-grid shirt also suggest a businessman.  

4-D A progressive politician, this green party candidate chose not to wear a tie at all and, therefore separate himself from the powers that be.  

5-B The leftist candidate also did not wear a tie, but did not bother to take off his coat or scarf as if he didn’t quite feel at home. In the same way, as a party, the newbie leftists aren’t terribly comfortable on the political stage.

Ich bin ein Frankfurter! (I’ve always wanted to say that.) After three months in Osnabrueck and a short trip home for Christmas, I have decided to move to Frankfurt for several months. I will be working on a multimedia project for the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper. Here are some city scenes:

This last picture is one of my favorites because it is not a typical view of Frankfurt. No, I did not delete the skyskrapers with photoshop. They’re just hidden because of the fog! It reminded me of that pink panther movie where the commissioner erases the UN building in New York. Here, the skyline looks like what Frankfurt might have looked like years ago, before all the big buildings were erected.
This is what the skyline looks like without the fog.

In some ways, Germany and the U.S. really aren’t that different. They are both Western, industrial countries that have been strongly influenced by each other, both economically and socially. But after going back and forth, as I did over Christmas, some small differences become apparent. Like what’s on TV. Flipping through the channels here in Deutschland, I sometimes feel like I’m on another planet.

First of all, I have never seen so much coverage of biathalons. Who knew that cross-country skiers who occasionally stop and shoot at little round targets could be such a crowd-pleasing sport? It must be because 3 or 4 channels seem to broadcast live coverage every day. There is often an entire page dedicated to the winter sport in the newspaper each day. I don’t really get it because it doesn’t really snow that much in Germany, really just in the south, and as far as I know, guns aren’t nearly as popular here as they are in the states. But every year in January, when the American tv viewers are gorging themselves on college football bowl games and NFL playoffs, the Europeans are watching ski jumping. And if they’re not watching that, then they’re probably watching some documentary on polar bears, which brings me to my next point.

There is a polar bear media frenzy in this country. I get it, bears- especially the baby ones—are cute. Should they be the main story on the news every night? I’m not so sure about that one. But the Germans just can’t seem to get enough of watching those little cubs wiggle their paws and blink. And, to the media’s delight, the world of captured polar bears is full of drama that would be fitting for a soap opera.
It all started with Knut in 2006. The little bear cub was born in the Berlin Zoo, abandoned by his mother, then bottle-fed by his keeper, Thomas Dorflein. That was all fine and good while Knut was no bigger than a cocker spaniel, but Knut kept on growing…and growing. Some people speculated (and still do) that Knut would one day attack his keeper in a moment of natural instinct and oedipal rage. That hasn’t happened yet, but Knut only just turned one year old.
Knut now has some competition for the limelight. Three more bears were born in Nuremburg several weeks ago. As with Knut, the mothers seemed to reject their newborn kids. This time, rather than intervene right away, the zookeepers let nature take its course. Result: one mother ate both of her babies. The third cub was rescued before it suffered a similar fate. Now that the cublet so far named “Flocke” is known to be a girl, there are already rumours about her hooking up with Knut in the future. Aah the drama!!!!! The local paper has started a daily Flocke column that updates readers with her weight (to the gram) and activities (such as moving around). Oh my.

When I actually think about it, though, the polar bear obsession actually fits quite well with the average German psyche. After all, polar bears are threatened by the melting ice caused by global warming. And I can think of no other topic (other than pointing out the foolishness of the Iraq war or perhaps the black hole of human rights that is Guantanamo Bay) that gets Germans so riled up as with Global Warming.

The third and final thing that the media just can’t report enough on is the topic of youth violence. Apparently two kids with an immigrant background attacked an old man in the Munich subway. The beating was caught on tape and the politicians and media have just been having a field day with it. I don’t think I’ve watched the news one day in the last week without seeing that footage of the attack. Over. And over. And over. It is on the news, on the talk shows, everywhere. The conservative party has been using the event (and several similar ones) to fuel their campaign, saying that “It’s the foreign kids that are causing all this trouble.” I’ve really been shocked at some of the things that high-ranking politicians have been saying. Their language is really divisive, as if they are saying that all foreigners are dangerous and are bringing German society down. They keep pointing out all kinds of cases where foreign kids (note:this usually implies brown-haired, muslim ones) have repeatedly been caught for violence and other crimes. But they are NOT talking about the cases where German neo Nazis have beat up immigrants and implying that all Germans are therefore Nazis. For some reason, they have no problem making a similar outlandish conclusion in the other direction, with the finger pointing at “the others.”

Typical xenophobic rhetoric, and just in time for the election season. Sigh. What a shame.

The woman at the train ticket counter looked at me suspiciously as I asked for a ticket to Entschede, a small town just over the Dutch border on a Tuesday morning. “When will you be coming back?” she asked. “Oh, I only need about two hours.” As soon as I said it and saw her reaction—raised eyebrows and a look of scorn—I knew my story sounded shady. After all, it is well known that students from Osnabrueck often travel the 45 km to the Dutch border to buy marijuana and other assorted drugs. I tried to think of what I would say, had she asked me further questions.

“Why for only two hours?”
“I need to buy something?”
“What do you want to buy?
“Gerwürze.” Herbs.

She probably wouldn’t have believed me even if I’d told her the truth: that I was making a run for the border to track down a certain kind of fish spices known in Dutch as “Viskruiden.”

The task was given to me by my boyfriend’s parents. As soon as I explained that I would be spending my Fulbright year in Osnabrueck, near the border with the Netherlands, I saw their eyes light up. “Maybe you can help us find something.” My boyfriends’ father disappeared for a moment and came back with an old, used packet of spices, about two square inches big and decorated with a lobster and the word “Viskruiden.”

Then they told me the story. An aunt had discovered the special spice mix while teaching at a military school in Belgium, near Holland. Enthused, she started sending the spices back to Detroit. The family got hooked. They built up a big stash. But eventually the aunt retired. The supply ran out and only one packet remained.

Suddenly it seemed that the whole family was there, reminiscing.

“We’ve been looking for them everywhere, but never found them,” said his mom.
“The fish just doesn’t taste the same,” said my boyfriend.

“This is the last one we have,” said his father as he handed me the envelope. The expiration date read 2003. They all looked at me with hope as I examined the little packet and tucked it safely away. After two years of dating their oldest son, I was slowly being accepted and feeling more comfortable. They were starting to open up to me, and most importantly, to trust me. I knew could not come back empty-handed.

Fast forward several months. After living in Osnabrueck for two months, I had forgotten all about the spices. With moving to a new place, adjusting to a new city, meeting new friends, I just didn’t have time to think about fish. Even on my trip to The Hague and Amsterdam, I forgot to bring the packet with me. It wasn’t until I started thinking about coming home for Christmas that I remembered my special task.

“No problem, “ I thought. “I’ve still got time.” Plus, I knew I was going to visit family friends in Hamburg who own their own fish business and work in Germanys biggest fish market. “I’ll surely find it there.” I was wrong.

No one in the Hamburg fish market had ever heard of “Viskruiden.” I got blank stares as I showed the little packet to all of the distributors at the fish market. Günther and his wife Ilse, my grandmother’s cousin, became intrigued and determined to help me. We looked on the internet and went around to all his business partners in the market. We visited the gourmet international fish store as well as a specialty spice seller. Frustrated, Günther picked up the phone and called his dealer in Holland. We faxed over a copy of the label. No luck.

“You’re driving the whole fish market crazy!” exclaimed Ilse after someone came up to us and asked us if we had ever heard of “Viskruiden.”

Everyone was on the hunt. But to no avail. All I found were some German spice mixes that looked similar, but weren’t the same. I bought them just in case, but kept looking.

As Christmas and my return home approached, I felt more and more pressure to find the “viskruiden.” I was visualizing going home and handing over the poor German substitutes and saying, “Sorry. I couldn’t find them.” I remembered how they all looked at me when they handed me that envelope. I knew how disappointed they would be if I came home without them. There was only one thing left to do. Go to Holland.

The woman at the Deutsche Bahn ticket counter eventually did sell me a ticket, despite her suspicions. I laughed to myself as the train glided through the flat countryside and wondered if the kids drinking beer next to me were going to Entschede for a different kind of herbs.

I could tell that I was approaching the Dutch border. The names of the towns sounded funny to me, with long, drawn out vowels. I understood less and less of the conversations going on around me. I noticed a prevalence of Orange, the national color of Holland, both on signs, cars, as well as on people’s clothes. I watched a man enter the train wearing a bright orange scarf that made his face look orange too. Just from his clothes, the square-ish shape of his face, his conservative haircut and somewhat stern demeanor, he just looked Dutch. He was also about 6 foot 5 inches tall.

It is a known fact that the Dutch are the tallest people in the world. Ironic because the Netherlands is the lowest country in the world, and most of the land is below sea level. Maybe the Dutch have evolved into giants for survival, so that when the levees break and the country floods, people will still have their heads above water. I was visualizing this hilarious scenario when the train pulled into Entschede.

I got off the train and was immediately greeted with the smell of marijuana smoke from the legally controlled coffee shops. I walked towards the town center, which was made almost entirely of low, brown brick buildings and went straight to the Tourism Office. I asked not about museums or sightseeing, but where the supermarkets are. Getting used to speaking English again, I pulled out the spice packet and asked where I could find them. To my relief, the woman knew what “viskruiden” were, and pointed me to the fish spice store around the corner. “I’m sure they have it,” she said. Excited, I walked into the store.

“Sorry, don’t have that.” Said a friendly older man with an English accent, standing in front of a wall of spices. .” I couldn’t hide my disappointment. I let out a sigh and told him the whole story of the spices and my unsuccessful search. “These are my boyfriends’ parents,” I said. “I really don’t want to disappoint them.”

He looked harder at the packet and read out the ingredients, salt, onion powder, mustard, etc. “Well, I could mix it for you. But, why don’t you try the supermarket first?”

Discouraged, I lowered my head and shuffled along the brown brick sidewalk and was nearly run over by the stream of bicycles zooming past. “I am never going to find it,” I thought. “All this way for nothing.”

One last try, I went into the supermarket and was completely overwhelmed by jibberish. I couldn’t read the isle signs and had to ask for help. Carrying the spice packet, I approached a young man in the meat department, who, as I suspected, spoke perfect English. He led me over to the spice section.

It was like reaching mecca. A ten-foot-wide display of brightly colored bottles and bags, including several with the prized word, “Viskruiden.” There were viskruiden for backed fish, viskruiden for grilled fish, viskruiden for different kinds of fish. I saw the label that matched the old one in my hand.

“Oh1 Thank you! Thank you! Thank you so much!” I said, practically jumping up and down. “You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

He looked at me like I was absolutely nuts, said, “Um…you’re welcome,” and walked away as I started hoarding the different packets. The cashier gave me a similar look as I checked out. Completely pleased with myself, I walked out of the store with a bag full of viskruiden.

“This should last them a while,” I thought. But then I had doubts. I felt paranoid. “This has to last them years. I don’t know when I’ll come back here.” And I turned around and headed back for more. This time, I made sure to go through a different checkout line. The cashier looked at me just as the first one did. But I didn’t care. My herb run to Holland had been a success.

The spices made their way back to Germany and onto the plane heading towards the U.S. Of course, I had packed the special cargo in my carry on luggage. I tried my best to look calm and relaxed as I went through customs. I knew a box full of herb bags with Dutch writing all over them would look suspicious. I tried to act normal, even through the fact that I was worried about smuggling in fish spices seemed to suggest otherwise. I know, why would a customs agent care about fish spices? But I knew better. I’ve been stopped for carrying a spork before. Luckily, though, I made it through.

The spices arrived safely under the Christmas tree in Detroit. Both my boyfriend’s parents and the aunt who started it all were pleased with their gifts. Hopefully, this stash will last a few years. If not, I’ll have to make another run to the border.