Weekend Two: Heidelberg

Saturday, September 9, 2006

Hi guys!! Oh man, I just had the loveliest of breakfasts -- a full, tableclothed buffet, set with all sorts of fresh fruit & berries, cereal, six kinds of rolls, cheese, yogurt, lox, coffee, a dozen different kinds of tea, eggs (soft-boiled or scrambled), four different types of toast, four different juices, and on and on... all gorgeously served up with silver and porcelain in a bright, cheery room. Jetzt fühle ich mich wieder fit! :)

Well, actually, not so fit. This danged body just doesn't seem to be a very good sport about my constantly pushing it with stress, travel, lack of sleep, time-zone changes, haphazard nutrition... it went from having a bladder infection to giving me a cold! A bad one! But luckily both Shauna and I thought to bring DayQuil and NyQuil, so I've been drugged up for the last day and a half. Wheeee!

Okay! So! What's been up with us? Glad you asked! :) It sounds like Shauna had a great time in Leipzig with Steve. She slept in, joined him for lunch, and then went back to work with him in the afternoons as a "computational linguistic consultant" for his project at the Max Planck Insitut! Cool! Then, in the evenings, sounds like they explored the city and ate some Leberwurst in a Biergarten and visited some of the sites that I got to see last summer, like the creeeepy Völkerschlachtdenkmal (ooooooh). I should probably let her tell you guys about it. :) As for me, backing up a little bit: on Monday, Shauna zoomed off to Leipzig in her comfy little ICE, and I joined the conspicuous throng of young people standing around with a year's worth of baggage blocking up the main entrance of the Kölner Hauptbahnhof. The whole group were just cool Leute -- funny and dorky and just as nervous as everyone else. So they loaded us up on busses and took us to the orientation at Haus Altenberg.

The place was LOVELY. Check it out! http://www.haus-altenberg.de It's an expensive hotel, restaurant, convention area, cafes, and of course Pension-like rooms, all centered around a middle-sized14th-century Gothic cathedral. Whoa!! The rooms we stayed in were the Pension, though, not the hotel. ;) I think someone said something like, this was where the monks or something stayed, and now the building has been fixed up into something like a hostel. It was a room, and the sheets were provided, but it was overall pretty, er, unfancy. But heck! Looking out your window at a 14th-century cathedral across the courtyard precludes the need for a soft mattress!

The orientation itself was... eh. I think the whole thing could have been accomplished in a day, maybe two. They emphasized the general teaching simulations a little too heavily (an opinion shared even by those with no teaching experience), but didn't dwell enough on our specific situation -- "is there a dress code in German schools?" "You'll have to find out from your school." "What grade levels will we be teaching?" "You'll have to find out from your school." "What can we expect from our host-teachers?" "You'll have to find out from your school." "Are there certain cardinal rules in the German school system that we really should know -- like how, in America, teachers must avoid all physical contact with the students?" "You'll have to find out from your school." Then they gave us an unorganized, vague list of public offices to visit in order to obtain a visa, to register our local addresses (you have to do that in Germany), to open a bank account, etc. I know! How about we forget the useless "teaching simulations" and instead let us go to our towns while these offices are still open, and get to our schools, where we can "find out" things from them? Instead, we were dropped back off at the Kölner Hauptbahnhof on Friday morning; which means that, for anyone teaching in a city that is a few hours away by train, they'll get there just in time for all public offices to close for the weekend. Overall, I am not particularly impressed with this program's organization. I love that I'm here, and I did glean a thing or two of useful information, but every valuable tidbit is packaged in a whole bunch of cloudy, repetitive, vague, beaurocratic bulk. And I'm not just being picky, here -- I realize that conferences, in their attempt to reach a widely various audience, are often unsatisfying or imperfect. But I'm talking about an organization that sends a letter urging us to "book our plane tickets by May 30th!", and the letter is postmarked June 6th. Or, which sends an official letter (including contract) to one Teaching Assistant, telling her that her assignment is to a school in Mainz, and for months all her documents list her assignment as in Mainz; and then, at the orientation, oops!, sorry, wrong school, we meant another school of the same name in a different town. When the girl's jaw dropped, they told her she should have discovered their mistake herself! And then, when they give her the new assignment, they ask, "Oh, and could you please give us the address of your new school when you get in contact with them?" Huh?? Wow, I'm glad I don't have to do a whole lot of direct dealings with the Pädagogischer Austauschdienst. I'm looking forward to getting to my school and getting all my real questions answered! ;)

Okay, so, anyway, that was the orientation... Friday morning, I hung out at the Bahnhof after getting dropped off, and met up with Shauna as she cruised in from her Leipzig expedition. We then wrassled our GINORMOUS, fifty-pound-apiece bags onto this tiny little Regionalzug bound for Heidelberg... which would take three hours, because it stopped in every tiny little Dorf along the way. But the ride turned out to be beautiful!! The train essentially just followed the Rhein river, and Shauna and I were glued to the window, watching sparkling water, adorable little towns, castles, cliffs, and ships cruise by in the bright sunshine. Wow! We arrived in Heidelberg around four, and took a taxi to our hotel in the very center of the Altstadt, maybe a mile from the castle. Yeah!! There turned out to be a little mishap with the booking, though, which left one double bed for three people -- since Steve was coming to join us that night. Hm... not that I mind yin-yanging on a small bed in a pinch, but... Shauna: "Hi babe! Happy birthday! Here's our romantic getaway nest -- and don't worry, my sister doesn't kick, but her cold might make her snore."

But the great thing about German Innenstädte is that all the tall, narrow buildings are crammed together on the cobblestone street. So we just walked out the hotel door; down three steps; took two steps to the right; and walked up the three stairs to the beautiful "Goldene Rose" hotel and booked me a single. I love it! I wanna live here! This is a nice hotel; more like a bed and breakfast. And my little room is gorgeous and bright and cozy, and I can snoot and honk and get up to take more NyQuil without disturbing anyone. In fact, this might be the first alone-time I've gotten in ages.

So anyway, thus I found myself at this gorgeous breakfast spread, my be-colded nose buried in a cup of peppermint tea, with soft classical music and bright sunshine. Gosh! Even when things go wrong with us, they still go right. I love Germany!! And today is Steve's birthday, so we're gonna go see the castle and get some lunch and celebrate!

Later that day:

Oh man, I am beat. Today was perfect, though. Perfect weather, perfect company, perfectly breathtaking German city and Schloss and Brücken, everything. Steve and Shauna and I went tramping around just looking for fun stuff to do and see. And eat! We started out down the picturesque Hauptstraße in the beautiful sunshine, bought cappuccinos and then ice cream, moseyed on down to where the street meets the path that goes up to the castle, and explored the dickens out of that thing for the rest of the afternoon. Ran around the battlements, took pictures, sat on walls and fountains, took a nap in the grass, bought a Wurst and Apfelstrudel, poked around the gardens, headed back down... at which point, we promptly found an Eiscafe and enjoyed Spaghetti Eis in the shadow of this huge church that had an organ/choir concert going on inside! Then we crossed the bridge, took a walk down the river, and came back for Jaegerschnitzel, Rösti, Paulaner, chicken soup for me ;) , and this amazing dessert called, uh, Kaisersarmen or something. Then we walked back up to the castle at night, and gazed at the city lights below until we were just too tired to stay out anymore. It was a marvelous day. And now to bed!