Easter weekend: things heat up in Hannover

Bonfire in Garbsen

This post was almost entitled: "Mitfahrgelegentheit: the new way to hitchhike", since our chosen method to reach Hannover on Easter weekend was riding in the cars of strangers. This is not as dramatic as it sounds: in recent years, organised carpooling has sprung up in German as a clever, environmentally friendly way to beat exorbitant train fares. A week before Easter, Daniel stalked the carpooling site until he found two free seats in cars cruising between Hannover and Berlin on our dates, and secured our ride with a timely phone call. Somewhat similar to Humboldt Uni sport (see previous entry "Shaking it at Salsa"), these seats between major cities are snapped up within seconds. It's not difficult to understand why. For a return trip we each paid 28 Euros, saving around 50 euros over 600km. It is however recommended that you go to sleep and remain oblivious to the fact that you're hurtling along the Autobahn at 160km per hour squished into the backseat of a stranger's car.

We survived, and attended the whirlwind of Easter-related activities jammed into our sunny weekend in Garbsen, Hannover. Highlights included the traditional (pagan) Osterfeuer (Easter Fire), where I took great delight in being the only tourist among scores of Hannoveraners chomping on huge sausages and swigging local beer by the bonfire. Small children scampered between our legs collecting beer bottles, for which they made a very respectable 50 cents for every bottle returned - Pfandpiraten in training. Most of the village of Garbsen was there, including the fire brigade with two trucks on standby.

Mmm...Wurst at the Osterfeuer

Days were filled with bike riding through canola fields, eating hearty roast meat and dumplings for lunch with the extended family, playing cards and sipping on lemon tea accompanied by a huge a slice of homemade cake. Everything was so wonderfully wholesome and idyllic, I felt like I was in an Enid Blyton novel. Needless to say, I didn't crack open a law book all weekend and now have a strict plan to eat fruit and study all week.

For those of you sceptical of my ability to ride a bike, I've included the photographic evidence of my triumphant ride through Garbsen. I am dressed not in the traditional attire of the Garbsen population, but rather in an Indiana Jones hat belonging to Daniel's little brother, the only headgear that would fit my enormous head.  Since Germans don't seem to believe that the sun can burn you or that helmets are necessary (!), my options for hats that day were limited.

Shaking it at Salsa

Shoes bought specially for Salsa

The range of sports on offer for students at Humboldt Uni is nothing short of impressive. For the ridiculously low price of 15-20 euros for around 10 lessons, you can sign yourself up for anything from basketball to irish dance, martial arts or handball. But there is a catch - the sign-up process takes place online only, and typically lasts around 2-3 minutes before all courses are full. I was crushed to miss out on Hip Hop and Streetdance (granted, my hip hop moves are already quite well honed and I probably didn't need this course anyway), but consoled by two reserved places in Cuban Salsa for Daniel and I, thanks to some deft clicking action on Daniel's part. I bought a pair of grandma-like very low heels to dance in and eagerly awaited our first lesson on Thursday evening, keen to expand my dancing repertoire beyond crumping and shimmying in da club.

Oddly, I experienced more difficulties with the moves than anticipated and for once, I don't think inferior German language skills can be used as an excuse. Rather, something inside me fundamentally rejected the idea that I couldn't lead the way and move freely, but instead had to rely on subtle shoulder movements from Daniel as to where I should move my feet. The first half hour of the class consisted of me treading on Daniel's toes and attempting to ignore feminist sensibilities that were offended by being manouvered back and forth and whirled around without notice. Daniel didn't respond well to my creative improvisations and was visibly enjoying his new position of power, demanding that I correct my "Haltung!" whenever my arms drooped slightly.

Things improved in last hour of the class, with Daniel switching to an encouraging tone and obligingly exaggerating his shoulder movements until I had the hang of where I had to shuffle my poor, confused feet. I started to enjoy not having to make the decisions about what to do next. We kept up with the other 20 couples in the room and invited minimal criticism from our long haired, slightly goofy teacher who gently taught us left from right, and reminded the males in the room not to spin the girls too vigorously, or we'd all end up dizzy. At the end of the class, we even signed up for the optional salsa practice party to take place at an unnamed location sometime soon. So it looks like we'll be shaking it at salsa on a very regular basis.

The First Day at Uni

I am a veteran of the university orientation day. A sixth-year student, I’ve attended four universities in as many years. By now, I have been so thoroughly orientated that I doze off during the explanations of setting up email accounts and this time, even skipped the library tour (shockingly rebellious, I know). On the first day, I stuffed everything I knew was essential into my uni bag – Mac Book, two pens, a bottle of water and thorough directions on how to find every single lecture theatre I’d painstakingly researched online the night before.

I’d scheduled 13 hours of lectures for Monday, already knowing that most of them would probably be cancelled or re-scheduled and I wouldn’t know about it, because exchange students tend to get kept in the dark about these things. I firmly resolved not to utter a word of English to anyone who could speak any German. This stubbornness is absolutely essential if you don’t want to end up as the unofficial English tutor for all the exchange students desperate to improve their English.

My preparation complete, my first ever class at Humboldt Uni was Monday morning at 8am, a pretty harsh introduction to the German university system. I scooted into the lecture room at three minutes to 8, terrified of being late, and self-consciously fired up my laptop, noting that only one or two others were doing the same. This is in stark contrast to Sydney Uni law seminar rooms, any of which could function as an advertisement for Apple. I decided not to care.

Cheating slightly, I’d opted for a class in English – International Security Law. The first class was all about Libya (it turns out three solid weeks of watching television was actually quite valuable.) The class was a good choice. A two hour lecture followed, delivered by a Mexican professor talking about his role in the UN Security Council, unfortunately for me all in extremely fast and highly technical German (yep, impressively the Mexican professor spoke fluent German). Next came two obligatory hours of German Constitutional Law, during which my heart rate increased exponentially with every passing minute when I realized I hadn’t understood most of what was said. Although the day had started off well, I was exhausted by 2pm and relived to find other exchange students at the law café who shared similarly overwhelming experiences.

Sure enough, my last 5 hours of lectures were inexplicably cancelled (and predictably it was only the hopeful exchange students who were still hanging around the halls), so after loitering around in the law building for hours, I finally dragged myself home. After some cold leftover risotto (microwaves are uncommon here), I immediately jumped online and Wikipedia-ed the hell out of every word I’d managed to take down in Constitutional Law. After three hours, I had managed to string together a two page plausible summary of what the lecturer had probably said. Today that same professor, who at first seemed like a friendly old grandpa, ominously announced that there would be no privileges for exchange students; we will be treated identically to the locals in the name of a fair and impartial assessment procedure. Damn. Who actually wants fair and impartial when you’re an exchange student? The jackpot professor is the one who says, “at the end of semester, exchange students can do a written exam, or even a brief verbal exam, or submit some work on any topic you like, in English, German, French, or Spanish or a mixture of any of the above.” If anyone scores one of these lecturers, this information spreads through the exchange student community like wildfire, and predictably, within days, an unusually high proportion of us will appear in this class, eager to pass a subject that doesn’t interfere with attending Berlin parties, galleries, flea markets and pubs.

German TV fails to prepare for academic study

In a bid to immerse myself in German culture, I found myself turning to television (Fernsehen) quite regularly over the last three weeks. Having chewed my fingernails down to the quick looking for something to occupy my time (jobless and uni-less), I convinced myself that television was both a necessary relaxant and educational. What better way to fill the gaping hole left in my heart by The Biggest Loser Australia, learn the every day language and habits of the general German population, dabble in a little politics and keep up to date with current world disasters?

There are approximately 25 free-to-air channels on German television. The 16 German states each have their own station (I think), and many of these largely feature round-the-clock folk music, necessarily implying that there is a huge market for jolly groups of vocalists in medieval attire.  Unfortunately, my TV antenna only allows me to receive a total of three channels, or four if it's overcast and the antenna is precariously balanced on a pile of books near the window. All of these are news channels with programs that are pretty informative but downright depressing. Luckily, it didn't take long to find many of the other shows available on-line, including Germany's Next Top Model hosted by the delightful Heidi Kulm, to whom I can attribute a hefty portion of the vocab I've acquired over the last few weeks.

Each day equipped with dictionary and notebook to jot down cool expressions that make me sound like a local, I took to watching TV with a level of concentration usually reserved for preparing for uni exams. My routine consisted of around half an hour of news, 10-15 minutes of a science program called Galileo and an hour long reality show called 'We are Family' to round off my German education. The programs I quickly comprehended and therefore found myself viewing most regularly were shows that some refer to as "Unterschichtenfernsehen" literally, "lower class TV" - the shows that mostly involve people screaming at each other, teen pregnancy, disputed fatherhood and out of control kids. Within days my vocabulary book was stuffed with new expressions like "cheating on your partner" (fremd gehen), "indiscretion" (Seitensprung) and "delivery room" (Kreissaal). From Top Model, I became familiar with the words for "conceited" (eingebildet), "pleitschen" (to whip) and "glossy magazine" (hochglanzende Zeitschrift). A daily dose of German news and two special feature programs on Chernobyl also taught me all the vocab associated with nuclear reactors. With two vocab books filled in as many weeks, I felt I was making progress.

Unfortunately for me, but perhaps not unsurprisingly, so far almost none of these words have featured in ANY of the orientation lectures held at uni. I've found myself hesitating asking a fellow student what year of uni she's in, although I'd have absolutely no linguistic difficulty asking who the father of her baby is or whether she's considering artificial insemination. I became thoroughly confused yesterday when a Professor started talking about something called "Arbeitsgemeinschaften" which turned out to roughly mean "tutorial" and tripped over my tongue asking someone how I could put my timetable together. Meanwhile, no one seems inclined to discuss Libya or nuclear reactors over lunch and I just come across all tongue-tied and bashful trotting around the uni. Incidentally, television has since forcibly taken a backseat to everyday events such attending uni and cruising around Berlin on public transport with my brand-spanking new German concession card.

While German television may have let me down in my academic preparation, there is one particular technique that has so far proved fairly successful in honing my language skills. I subtly collect expressions overheard in supermarkets or from my lower class TV programs and then at various intervals, test them out on the German boyfriend (i.e. Daniel). He either looks at me admiringly and says that I "sounded really German" and I give myself a mental high-five or his mouth contorts and eyes widen in a scandalised stare at which point I make a mental note not to use that one in front of his parents.