The second week of April brought me relief in two important ways. First, the weather suddenly sprang from icy winter to cheery summer within the same week, and second my good friend Don arrived in Magdeburg for a visit. Hanging out with Don is generally a fun time anyway, but having someone around who has known me for nearly a decade (as opposed to all of my friends here, who have known me for six months at most) was really a treat.
As our Easter celebration, Don and I, speaking no more than three words of Czech, and carrying one backpack between the two of us, hopped on a night bus to Prague. Don made for an excellent traveling companion. He didn't get us (very) lost when it was his turn to navigate, wasn't demanding about which sites we saw or at what times, shared the burden of the backpack equally with me, and wasn't picky about food.
The six hour ride featured free sweet tea and an extremely strange Czech movie about a prankster family. We arrived at the Prague bus station at about 4am, which is not the most opportune time to turn up in a foreign city. At first the city seemed unfriendly or even seedy in the pre-dawn gloom. The escalators descending from the station to the subway were dizzying, and I felt that Virgil might meet me at the bottom to lead me on my journey. Eventually though, the sun rose over what proved to be a gorgeous city and we made our way to the old castle to watch this display (Photos are posted on my Myspace page: myspace.com/suzakerman). To enter the castle district (even at 7am) we walked past guards in the vein of Buckingham Palace's, and strolled through the cobble-stone streets, which were nearly deserted in the early morning.
We visited the famous palace itself, the basilica of St.George, and the former home of Franz Kafka while we waited for the coffee shops to open and provide us with caffeine and sustenance. When we did finally sit down to a fruit and yogurt concoction and lattes, the streets of Prague were filling with hundreds of people; apparently Prague is the "it" place to vacation this Spring. We had no idea.
Along with the swelling crowds the glowing sun seemed to expand and blaze brighter than I'd seen in half a year. We were well-equipped with sneakers, a city map, and a lot of Czech currency (well, it seemed like a lot once we converted our Euros to Crowns). Next on our adgend was, well, nothing, so we spent some of the afternoon wandering the city, taking pictures of the Vltava river and the fascades of century-old buildings. Much of Prague was untouched by the World Wars in Europe (Prague was hit with an Ally air-raid only once, apparently accidentally), leaving the historic sites and elegant architechture in tact, and we wandered all the way across the city before we stopped for a late snack of spinach and garlic bread and checked into our hotel.
In many ways Prague is also a very modern city, and McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, The Body Shop, and other big business conglomerates occupied space in the historic buildings. In opposition to these franchises, the Czech Easter markets were in full-swing for the weekend. These markets are along the lines of the German Christmas markets, looking somehow like little settlements of tiny houses that had popped up in the middle of the squares all over the city. Traditional Czech snacks baked at these markets included fresh crepes, grilled meats of many varieties, and rings of crispy dough covered in cinnamon and sugar.
Our centrally located hotel provided a respite for an afternoon nap (the drawback of taking a night bus is that one must then attempt to sleep on a bus), and the hotel personel even spoke some English. So many tourists choose Prague as a vacation destination that English is practically ubiquitous in the city. Don speaks very little German, and even less Czech, so we were hoping to get by relying on a combination of my German and our English, but we didn't have to resort to German once during the weekend. The hotel clerks, the waiters and waitresses, the vendors at the Easter market, and nearly every other tourist in city spoke English. We overheard English conversations where participants spoke with German accents, Italian accents, Polish accents, Swedish accents, Russian accents, Turkish accents and probably more that we couldn't place.
Before sunset we managed to squeeze in a visit to the theater district and the "Dancing House," a marvelous piece of architechture constructed in an hour-glass sort of shape, giving the distinct impresseion that this building is dancing with the neighboring one. After another stroll along the river, it was definitely time for dinner, and we found a rustic looking place with a small non-smoking room. Food in Prague is cheap and beer is cheaper, we discovered. One famous traditional Czech meal is roasted pork knuckle or knee, which Don was brave enough to try. I was going to try the rabbit, but decided on chicken in honor of the poor Easter bunny who was out working so hard that evening. I had been warned that sometimes in European restaurants, waiters will seat complete strangers together, just so everyone has space. This had never happened to me in six months in Germany, but our first day in Prague, the waiter at the restaurant seated a Dutch couple at our table just as we were finishing off our beers. Of course, they spoke English. After a few minutes of chatting, we bid them good evening (we had already sat in the restaurant for nearly two hours) and headed back to the hotel.
The next day was Easter Sunday, but Prague didn't seem to notice. Everything was as bustling as the day before and the sun shone just as brightly. We started our day with a bus ride to the Prague zoo. Because of the zoo's combination of very old exhibitry and very new remodeled exhibitry, the trip was interesting (at least it was from a zookeeper's point of view). My favorite exhibit was one built for Ibex (a type of mountain goat) into the side of a huge hill. Rather than level the monstrous hillside, the zoo constructed an exhibit using the escarpment, which was probably five stories high at it's peak. It was amazing, but probably hell for keepers who must have needed climbing ropes and grappling hooks to clean it.
Our agenda for the day also included a trip to the Museum of Communism, a grass-roots sort of place on the second floor of an old building above a McDonald's. The posters advertising the museum featured a Russian nesting-doll with fangs. The musuem was full of old relics from the days of communist Czechoslovakia and painted a bleak picture of soviet Russian rule there. We went to the Jewish sector of the city after our experience with Marxism, and looked at a couple of synagogues and the Jewish cemetary. We seemingly followed in the tracks of the Obama family, who had visited Prague only one week earlier, as we discovered painted onto the window of one of the Jewish wine-shops a quote along the lines of, "What a delightful place! I will be sure to return here on my next trip to Prague--Michelle Obama."
For our dinner we chose a restaurant we had passed the day before, but had been too full of pork knuckle and chicken-kebab to try. We ate late (garlic soup and mixed veggie salad) and stayed a long time because our bus out of the city didn't leave until midnight. As our last stop we sat in a tiny bar along the main drag, watching the late-night crowd of Prague, listening to the radio play American music, and drinking a strange Czech alcohol called "Becherovka" that tasted spicy, like gingerbread and Christmas.
When we stepped off the bus in Magdeburg at 6am on Easter Monday, it felt like it had been ages since we'd left. The sun was just rising; our feet were heavy, but our hearts were light as we walked back to my apartment to get some well-earned rest.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
April excursion trilogy, part 1: Dresden
Part of thriving in a foreign country depends on speaking the langauge well. Sure, I can ask for directions, understand most of what the kindergarteners say, and even joke a little with the zookeepers, all in German. But really my knowledge of the language is superficial and I knew if I was going to speak often to zoo visitors or continue communicating complicated training plans to keepers, I needed some help. Since the langauge school here wasn't offering any appropriate night courses and I didn't have much money to burn, I had to get creative. So I posted an ad on Magdeburg university's version of Craigslist. I offered my services tutoring English in return for a native-speaker's services tutoring me in German. Within a few days I had at least seven potential tutors to choose from, and I based my decision on the depth of information they sent in their emails, rather than on their abilities in English. So that was how I met Damaris.
Damaris is finishing her degree in economics and hoping to find an internship in an English-speaking country later this year. We met for coffee and discovered we both enjoyed chai tea, ballroom dancing and shopping at H&M--a good match. One difference between Damaris and I (besides the height difference, which is around 8 inches, I'm guessing) is that she is very spontaneous. This means that sometimes I receive invitations to barbeques less than an hour before the coals are hot, which is probably a healthy change for a meticulous planner like myself.
Early in April Damaris and I decided to visit Dresden, an east German city with a rich history. Her boyfriend, whose name cannot be spelled without an umlaut and my friend Shannon came along. Joern (Or Jorn with an imaginary umlaut) was especially important because he was our mode of transport for the day, as he actually is a young person who owns a car. The four of us fit snuggly in his Renault and headed on down the autobahn. It is completely true that some stretches of the German highway have no speed limit at all. What one discovers though, is that cars have speed limits. Even if you are allowed to drive 150 miles per hour, whenyou are driving your grandmother's 1976 Carolla, you will still top out at 55. I watched the spedometer and calculated to the best of my ability the conversion from kph to mph and I'm sure we drove over 100 mph at some point. We also whizzed right by a police car that was driving about 60 mph, which shocked Shannon and I, but was completely natural for the two Germans in the vehicle with us.
On the way to Dresden, Damaris, completely in character, spontaneously suggested that we stop and look at the monument erected in celebration of Napolean's defeat outside of Leipzig. The Germans must have been really proud of this victory because the monument they build is gigantic. It has dozens of stone steps leading up to the top where soldiers carved from the rock are engaged in battle, and a long rectangular pool reflects the structure's image. After this brief historic pit-stop, we forged ahead to Dresden.
In 1945 the city had been seen so many Ally air raids, it seemed certain Dresden would never again be an international hub of activity, and would take decades to even be inhabitable. In 2009 though, the city is beautiful. The bridges spanning the Elbe river have been rebuilt and the city center has been restored with great care taken to preserve the original architecture and extravagant ambiance of German royalty. Our first stop was the "Green Vault," a collection of jewels, antiques, historical artwork, and rare oddities first displayed in the 1700's. The treasury is apparenlty one of the most valuable displayed anywhere in the world. To emphasize that we were not quite worthy of viewing it, a strange machine first brushed off the bottoms of our shoes and we were then admitted two at a time into a small chamber. The door closed behind us and after a three-second wait, another opened into the first room of the vault on the other side. I imagined the reason for this was some sort of Star Trek-esque method of cleansing the public from all germs and bacteria before allowing them into the vault, but I don't know the real purpose of regulating our entry this way. Among the hundreds of items on exhibit we saw jewel encrusted goblets, strange animals made from opals, ivory, and amber, and intricate statues depicting biblical and mythological scenes.
Next we visited a Baroque church that boasts one of the world's oldest hats, worn by a prominent bishop 900 years ago. I laughed about it, even though I probably wasn't supposed to. Afterwards it was clearly time for a treat. The four of us wandered the city, enjoying the sunshine and building fascades, in search of cheap ice cream cones. Because we started this hunt in the most tourist-y part of the city, it took a while to find anything cheap, but eventually we found a cart selling scoops for a reasonable price and we sat down in front of yet another Baroque church in the sun to enjoy it. Shannon was nearing the conical stub of her ice cream cone when she said, "Ugh. What is THIS?" I peered at the cone. "A raisin?" I suggested. "Raisins don't have wings" was her reply. And that is how I learned the German word for "giant disgusting fly stuck in your otherwise tasty ice cream cone." Yuck.
After a few more stops and a lot more walking, Damaris suggested that since we were less than an hour's drive from the Czech Republic, we should continue driving east and have dinner in another country. We drove through the German countryside, passing stereotypical German houses with triangular roofs and slatted siding. When we crossed into the Czech Republic though, the landscape changed. The buildings appeared run down and we spotted at least four prostitutes on the way to the town called Teplice, which was our destination. In Teplice (Tep-LEECH-ay) we found a diner with bizarre interior decorating of neon green and orange, and an inexplicable disco ball hanging from the celing's center. The menus were in Czech, but we paid in Euros and the waitress spoke enough German for us to get by. The food was cheap and the dessert of fruit and ice cream rolled into a crepe and topped with whipped cream, was the size of a Duraflame fire log.
During this trip, I attempted to speak German as much as possible with Damaris, and the combination of being a tourist and concentrating on a foreign language made for a tiring day. But my search for a German tutor was successful, as was my trip to Dresden, and I had a trip to Prague ahead of me for the next weekend.
Damaris is finishing her degree in economics and hoping to find an internship in an English-speaking country later this year. We met for coffee and discovered we both enjoyed chai tea, ballroom dancing and shopping at H&M--a good match. One difference between Damaris and I (besides the height difference, which is around 8 inches, I'm guessing) is that she is very spontaneous. This means that sometimes I receive invitations to barbeques less than an hour before the coals are hot, which is probably a healthy change for a meticulous planner like myself.
Early in April Damaris and I decided to visit Dresden, an east German city with a rich history. Her boyfriend, whose name cannot be spelled without an umlaut and my friend Shannon came along. Joern (Or Jorn with an imaginary umlaut) was especially important because he was our mode of transport for the day, as he actually is a young person who owns a car. The four of us fit snuggly in his Renault and headed on down the autobahn. It is completely true that some stretches of the German highway have no speed limit at all. What one discovers though, is that cars have speed limits. Even if you are allowed to drive 150 miles per hour, whenyou are driving your grandmother's 1976 Carolla, you will still top out at 55. I watched the spedometer and calculated to the best of my ability the conversion from kph to mph and I'm sure we drove over 100 mph at some point. We also whizzed right by a police car that was driving about 60 mph, which shocked Shannon and I, but was completely natural for the two Germans in the vehicle with us.
On the way to Dresden, Damaris, completely in character, spontaneously suggested that we stop and look at the monument erected in celebration of Napolean's defeat outside of Leipzig. The Germans must have been really proud of this victory because the monument they build is gigantic. It has dozens of stone steps leading up to the top where soldiers carved from the rock are engaged in battle, and a long rectangular pool reflects the structure's image. After this brief historic pit-stop, we forged ahead to Dresden.
In 1945 the city had been seen so many Ally air raids, it seemed certain Dresden would never again be an international hub of activity, and would take decades to even be inhabitable. In 2009 though, the city is beautiful. The bridges spanning the Elbe river have been rebuilt and the city center has been restored with great care taken to preserve the original architecture and extravagant ambiance of German royalty. Our first stop was the "Green Vault," a collection of jewels, antiques, historical artwork, and rare oddities first displayed in the 1700's. The treasury is apparenlty one of the most valuable displayed anywhere in the world. To emphasize that we were not quite worthy of viewing it, a strange machine first brushed off the bottoms of our shoes and we were then admitted two at a time into a small chamber. The door closed behind us and after a three-second wait, another opened into the first room of the vault on the other side. I imagined the reason for this was some sort of Star Trek-esque method of cleansing the public from all germs and bacteria before allowing them into the vault, but I don't know the real purpose of regulating our entry this way. Among the hundreds of items on exhibit we saw jewel encrusted goblets, strange animals made from opals, ivory, and amber, and intricate statues depicting biblical and mythological scenes.
Next we visited a Baroque church that boasts one of the world's oldest hats, worn by a prominent bishop 900 years ago. I laughed about it, even though I probably wasn't supposed to. Afterwards it was clearly time for a treat. The four of us wandered the city, enjoying the sunshine and building fascades, in search of cheap ice cream cones. Because we started this hunt in the most tourist-y part of the city, it took a while to find anything cheap, but eventually we found a cart selling scoops for a reasonable price and we sat down in front of yet another Baroque church in the sun to enjoy it. Shannon was nearing the conical stub of her ice cream cone when she said, "Ugh. What is THIS?" I peered at the cone. "A raisin?" I suggested. "Raisins don't have wings" was her reply. And that is how I learned the German word for "giant disgusting fly stuck in your otherwise tasty ice cream cone." Yuck.
After a few more stops and a lot more walking, Damaris suggested that since we were less than an hour's drive from the Czech Republic, we should continue driving east and have dinner in another country. We drove through the German countryside, passing stereotypical German houses with triangular roofs and slatted siding. When we crossed into the Czech Republic though, the landscape changed. The buildings appeared run down and we spotted at least four prostitutes on the way to the town called Teplice, which was our destination. In Teplice (Tep-LEECH-ay) we found a diner with bizarre interior decorating of neon green and orange, and an inexplicable disco ball hanging from the celing's center. The menus were in Czech, but we paid in Euros and the waitress spoke enough German for us to get by. The food was cheap and the dessert of fruit and ice cream rolled into a crepe and topped with whipped cream, was the size of a Duraflame fire log.
During this trip, I attempted to speak German as much as possible with Damaris, and the combination of being a tourist and concentrating on a foreign language made for a tiring day. But my search for a German tutor was successful, as was my trip to Dresden, and I had a trip to Prague ahead of me for the next weekend.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Bathroom Humor
To satisfy your curiousity about the title of this blog, I will begin with a few snippets from the past week:
1) One of the German teachers at the kindergarten, while living in Minnesota apparently acquired the ability to swear in English. In German, the word "scheisse" is pretty much a literal translation of the word "shit." But in German the word doesn't have such strong connotations; it's more like "crap." So the German teacher has been occasionally exclaiming "shit!" since September. If any of the children (who are specifically placed in the kindergarten to aquire English language skills) start cursing in English, who will be most likely to take the blame?
2) Last week I was standing outside the kindergarten bathroom, waiting for a student to finish brushing his teeth and going to the bathroom before naptime when I heard a voice from inside. "Suzanne?" said the boy (often this sounds more like "Zoo-zanne?")
"Yes, Jens?" I replied, peeking into the room.
From behind the stall door Jens rather contemplatively asked, "When is the Easter bunny coming?" The things that go through the idle minds of children...
3) While three-year-old Martin and I were looking at a book together one morning, he suddenly leaped up and announced in German, "I have to poop!"
"Well, go go go then!" I ushered him toward the door. But a thought struck him and he spun around and blurted (again in German), "Wait! How do you say 'I have to poop' in English?!"
Not all of my recent experiences have involved bathroom humor, fortunately. One recent experience that is plenty humorous, but involves no bodily fluids or swearing occurred when I was taking the llama, Eddie for a walk at the zoo. The department has high hopes for Eddie. They plan to train him to be well-mannered and comfortable enough for him to be a sort of ambassador for the zoo, attending media events and visiting sick children in the hospital. For a llama to travel, tolerate crowds, and regard new situations and locations calmly, it takes some work. Part of Eddie's training for this involves just wandering the zoo with me for a change of scenery (for him, not me). During a walk last week we meandered past the elephant exhibit while Mwanna, the African elephant matron, was lazily tossing sand onto her own back. As Eddie and I passed, somehow an idea registered in Mwanna's elephantine brain. She splayed out her massive ears, threw her trunk into the air and all 11,000 lbs of her thundered toward us. The sight was enough to make my heart jump into my throat, even though I knew the moat separated me and Eddie from the freight train heading toward us. Eddie, with his somewhat challenged llama brain, did not know about the moat. Eddie only weighs about 200 lbs--a butterfly compared to Mwanna-- but 200 lbs of terrified llama bolting down the visitor's path at the zoo is still enough to drag me. It was pure luck that this occurred on a cloudy Wednesday afternoon, so no by-standers witnessed this. I managed to stay on my feet, and managed to hold onto the lead rope Eddie was attached to (both accomplishments in themselves) but I could not stop his panicked charge until well passed the giraffe house. Quality America's Funniest Home Video material.
Lastly, I would like to apologize for any past lapses in grammatic and punctuational accuracy. I should also apologize for future lapses while I'm at it. I'm convinced that learning a second language has a tendency to shake up the details of the first language. I can't place apostrophes correctly anymore, and inevitably I begin to type or write the word "house" as "hause" (a bastardization of the English and German words). Commas appear where they shouldn't and precise word choice is laborious at times. On the other hand, I have also found that some grammatical structures have begun to emerge in my German speech completely independently of my own efforts, and that is somewhat encouraging. That being said, I will now leave you to continue my study of demonstrative pronouns and the accusative case. Just kidding. I'm going to eat some frozen yogurt and watch German cartoons.
1) One of the German teachers at the kindergarten, while living in Minnesota apparently acquired the ability to swear in English. In German, the word "scheisse" is pretty much a literal translation of the word "shit." But in German the word doesn't have such strong connotations; it's more like "crap." So the German teacher has been occasionally exclaiming "shit!" since September. If any of the children (who are specifically placed in the kindergarten to aquire English language skills) start cursing in English, who will be most likely to take the blame?
2) Last week I was standing outside the kindergarten bathroom, waiting for a student to finish brushing his teeth and going to the bathroom before naptime when I heard a voice from inside. "Suzanne?" said the boy (often this sounds more like "Zoo-zanne?")
"Yes, Jens?" I replied, peeking into the room.
From behind the stall door Jens rather contemplatively asked, "When is the Easter bunny coming?" The things that go through the idle minds of children...
3) While three-year-old Martin and I were looking at a book together one morning, he suddenly leaped up and announced in German, "I have to poop!"
"Well, go go go then!" I ushered him toward the door. But a thought struck him and he spun around and blurted (again in German), "Wait! How do you say 'I have to poop' in English?!"
Not all of my recent experiences have involved bathroom humor, fortunately. One recent experience that is plenty humorous, but involves no bodily fluids or swearing occurred when I was taking the llama, Eddie for a walk at the zoo. The department has high hopes for Eddie. They plan to train him to be well-mannered and comfortable enough for him to be a sort of ambassador for the zoo, attending media events and visiting sick children in the hospital. For a llama to travel, tolerate crowds, and regard new situations and locations calmly, it takes some work. Part of Eddie's training for this involves just wandering the zoo with me for a change of scenery (for him, not me). During a walk last week we meandered past the elephant exhibit while Mwanna, the African elephant matron, was lazily tossing sand onto her own back. As Eddie and I passed, somehow an idea registered in Mwanna's elephantine brain. She splayed out her massive ears, threw her trunk into the air and all 11,000 lbs of her thundered toward us. The sight was enough to make my heart jump into my throat, even though I knew the moat separated me and Eddie from the freight train heading toward us. Eddie, with his somewhat challenged llama brain, did not know about the moat. Eddie only weighs about 200 lbs--a butterfly compared to Mwanna-- but 200 lbs of terrified llama bolting down the visitor's path at the zoo is still enough to drag me. It was pure luck that this occurred on a cloudy Wednesday afternoon, so no by-standers witnessed this. I managed to stay on my feet, and managed to hold onto the lead rope Eddie was attached to (both accomplishments in themselves) but I could not stop his panicked charge until well passed the giraffe house. Quality America's Funniest Home Video material.
Lastly, I would like to apologize for any past lapses in grammatic and punctuational accuracy. I should also apologize for future lapses while I'm at it. I'm convinced that learning a second language has a tendency to shake up the details of the first language. I can't place apostrophes correctly anymore, and inevitably I begin to type or write the word "house" as "hause" (a bastardization of the English and German words). Commas appear where they shouldn't and precise word choice is laborious at times. On the other hand, I have also found that some grammatical structures have begun to emerge in my German speech completely independently of my own efforts, and that is somewhat encouraging. That being said, I will now leave you to continue my study of demonstrative pronouns and the accusative case. Just kidding. I'm going to eat some frozen yogurt and watch German cartoons.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Of Elephants and Obama
On the first day of Spring in Magdeburg, the sun appropriately rose brightly and the temperature spiked to a balmy 50 degrees. So I took a long walk and spotted crocuses poking through the soil in the park and many different species of bird that I am as yet unable to identify. And once I was convinced that Spring had really arrived, I came back to my apartment to blog.
Spring means that we are doing daily presentations at the Tierisch Nah Arena at the zoo, so we've been busy with that endeavor. It's a daunting task to try to improve their program because anything I propose has to be explained in German and I then have to write my training plan in German or convince the head keeper that what I want to do would be a good addition to the presentation. He and the curator decided the program this year is too short, but since this season's show is already upon us, we needed to find some animals that were easy to acquire and quick to learn. This discussion all culminated in the decision to get two rats for me to train (the previous rat, who is three years old has been retired) and also an egg. Luckily I am not expected to train the egg, but once it hatches into a Brahma chicken, I will be expected to teach it something. The behaviors I train are totally my decision (no need to convince anyone in German this time), so if anyone reading this blog has an idea for something they would be interested in seeing a rat or a chicken do...I'm open to ideas.
The department that cares for the program animals also cares for the elephants and rhinos, so even though I am not an elephant or rhino trainer, sometimes I get roped into helping out with a few things and spend time in what literally translates to the "thick-skinned house." This building, constructed in the old zoo style, is mostly of concrete, and with the high ceilings, echoes like a giant cavern. When the keepers are working with the elephants, their deep voices (all the elephant trainers are men) carry through the building and remind me a little of going to the Greek church when I was a child. I think the similarity must be the sound of someone speaking in a foreign language, confidently and with a bit of a drawl, and the drawn out phrases resounding in the concrete rafters.
All of the doors in the "thick-skinned house" are heavy metal slabs that take some heave-ho-ing, even from the larger men, and there are resounding clangs all through the building when we shift animals from stall to stall or from inside to outside. My favorite door is the one between the back hallway and the elephants' indoor enclosure. This door is only human-sized, not meant for elephants, and sometimes it is left open so that when I am walking down the hall, a trunk might be mischieviously snaking out to feel around the door frame or sniff out treats. There is a small slot in this door so that when it is shut, the keepers in the back hallway can peer through and view the enclosure. Often though, when I have attempted to look through by standing on tip-toe and putting my eye directly up to the slot, a giant, dark-lashed elephant eye has been staring right back at me, blocking all view of anything else. Because of the elephants' frequent use of the peep-hole, I am now uncertain as to its original purpose--was it inetended to let the people keep an eye on the elephants, or the elephants keep an eye on the people? Most recently I have been allowed to help clean the animals by giving the rhinos baths, which mostly is just spraying them with an expertly aimed hose, and helping keep the elephants clean by brushing the dirt off of them. This is accomplished through what must be a comical routine to anyone watching, where a 9-foot elephant rolls over onto her side and a 5-foot 2 inch keeper vigorously dislodges dirt from the wrinkled skin using a push-broom.
In the kindergarten, the biggest news these days is that we have two new children in our class. They are four-year-old twins, whose mother is Canadian and has been speaking English with the girls at home. For me, this is a big change. I have grown so accustomed to gesturing wildly and speaking slowly and repeating myself often and to just giving up on explaining difficult concepts because none of the children understood. Suddenly, there are two lanky red-headed children who understand everything I say. It was almost unnerving at first. The comforting part of their presence is that they automatically gravitated toward me, which is the opposite of what all of the German children did; I never had to work extra hard to get the English-speaking children to warm up to me, and in fact, I have to sometimes suggest that they please don't cling quite so much or maybe just let me have a bit of space for a moment. I am also interested to see what happens when they interact with the German-speaking children. They have only been at our school a week and already I have overheard some interesting mixtures of German and English in conversations where children use both languages to make themselves understood.
On their first day, the English-speaking twins arrived at the kindergarten peeking out from behind their mother's knees. She introduced me to them by saying, "This is Suzanne; she comes from The States. Who else do we know from The States?" (The correct answer here is something like Uncle Josh) One of the twins exclaimed, "Barack Obama!"
Spring means that we are doing daily presentations at the Tierisch Nah Arena at the zoo, so we've been busy with that endeavor. It's a daunting task to try to improve their program because anything I propose has to be explained in German and I then have to write my training plan in German or convince the head keeper that what I want to do would be a good addition to the presentation. He and the curator decided the program this year is too short, but since this season's show is already upon us, we needed to find some animals that were easy to acquire and quick to learn. This discussion all culminated in the decision to get two rats for me to train (the previous rat, who is three years old has been retired) and also an egg. Luckily I am not expected to train the egg, but once it hatches into a Brahma chicken, I will be expected to teach it something. The behaviors I train are totally my decision (no need to convince anyone in German this time), so if anyone reading this blog has an idea for something they would be interested in seeing a rat or a chicken do...I'm open to ideas.
The department that cares for the program animals also cares for the elephants and rhinos, so even though I am not an elephant or rhino trainer, sometimes I get roped into helping out with a few things and spend time in what literally translates to the "thick-skinned house." This building, constructed in the old zoo style, is mostly of concrete, and with the high ceilings, echoes like a giant cavern. When the keepers are working with the elephants, their deep voices (all the elephant trainers are men) carry through the building and remind me a little of going to the Greek church when I was a child. I think the similarity must be the sound of someone speaking in a foreign language, confidently and with a bit of a drawl, and the drawn out phrases resounding in the concrete rafters.
All of the doors in the "thick-skinned house" are heavy metal slabs that take some heave-ho-ing, even from the larger men, and there are resounding clangs all through the building when we shift animals from stall to stall or from inside to outside. My favorite door is the one between the back hallway and the elephants' indoor enclosure. This door is only human-sized, not meant for elephants, and sometimes it is left open so that when I am walking down the hall, a trunk might be mischieviously snaking out to feel around the door frame or sniff out treats. There is a small slot in this door so that when it is shut, the keepers in the back hallway can peer through and view the enclosure. Often though, when I have attempted to look through by standing on tip-toe and putting my eye directly up to the slot, a giant, dark-lashed elephant eye has been staring right back at me, blocking all view of anything else. Because of the elephants' frequent use of the peep-hole, I am now uncertain as to its original purpose--was it inetended to let the people keep an eye on the elephants, or the elephants keep an eye on the people? Most recently I have been allowed to help clean the animals by giving the rhinos baths, which mostly is just spraying them with an expertly aimed hose, and helping keep the elephants clean by brushing the dirt off of them. This is accomplished through what must be a comical routine to anyone watching, where a 9-foot elephant rolls over onto her side and a 5-foot 2 inch keeper vigorously dislodges dirt from the wrinkled skin using a push-broom.
In the kindergarten, the biggest news these days is that we have two new children in our class. They are four-year-old twins, whose mother is Canadian and has been speaking English with the girls at home. For me, this is a big change. I have grown so accustomed to gesturing wildly and speaking slowly and repeating myself often and to just giving up on explaining difficult concepts because none of the children understood. Suddenly, there are two lanky red-headed children who understand everything I say. It was almost unnerving at first. The comforting part of their presence is that they automatically gravitated toward me, which is the opposite of what all of the German children did; I never had to work extra hard to get the English-speaking children to warm up to me, and in fact, I have to sometimes suggest that they please don't cling quite so much or maybe just let me have a bit of space for a moment. I am also interested to see what happens when they interact with the German-speaking children. They have only been at our school a week and already I have overheard some interesting mixtures of German and English in conversations where children use both languages to make themselves understood.
On their first day, the English-speaking twins arrived at the kindergarten peeking out from behind their mother's knees. She introduced me to them by saying, "This is Suzanne; she comes from The States. Who else do we know from The States?" (The correct answer here is something like Uncle Josh) One of the twins exclaimed, "Barack Obama!"
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Press Your Stupids
Last week I had the pleasure of traveling beyond the boundaries of Magdeburg to visit the west side of the country. The project manager for our bilingual/environmental education kindergarten wanted to spread the word about our unique endeavor and also rub elbows with some other prominent zoo educators, and the prime location for these activities was the European Zoo Educators conference in Cologne. Representatives from 22 countries attended, which meant that something like 16 languages were represented as well. Fortunately for my ignorant American self, the conference is now always conducted in English, since it is the language of science and the most common second language in Europe.
When Shannon, and I arrived in Cologne, the first thing we noticed was that west German people look more...American than the east German people we've been seeing in Magdeburg. Cologne attracts a lot of tourists and while riding the tram in heavily touristed areas, we had a hard time guessing which passengers were Germans and which were Americans or Canadians (until we heard them speak, of course). We still apparently stood out like neon signs though, because twice people asked us if we needed help navigating the city when we weren't even lost.
We spent much of our time sitting in the conference room in Cologne listening to presentations and discussing the future of environmental education in Europe, but since the conference was held at the Cologne zoo, when we had breaks, we could take a few minutes to watch the cheetahs lounging or the red pandas gnawing bamboo. During coffee breaks and check-out-what-the-lemurs-are-doing breaks, I met people from The Netherlands, Scotland, Croatia, Finland, Estonia, the Ukraine and the Czech Republic. Everyone wore nametags stating their home zoo and home city, but Shannon's had been misprinted to read "Magdeburgoo." By the end of the conference, we had received standing invitations to visit zoos in Munich, Duesseldorf, Halle, and Copenhagen.
If my linguistic skills seemed limited in Magdeburg, they were down-right moronic in the company of the European zoo educators. The man I met from Estonia spoke Estonian as his first language, and then subsequently learned Russian, German, Finnish, and English. Not all of the participants at the conference spoke perfect English, but considering they were on their third or fouth or fifth foreign language, I forgave them and just tried harder to understand despite thick accents. One man from Switzerland gave a very entertaining presentation on exhibit design, pointing out that modern zoos should hire smaller companies with more innovative ideas to avoid the current problem of all zoos having exhibits that look exactly the same. His reasoning was sound and his ideas were clever (it's true, why would you want to see another gorilla exhibit in Portland when you know it looks exactly like the one in Seattle? And why would you put up expensive fake rockery in your orangutan exhibit when you know orangutans don't live near giant rockeries?) but he had one slide in his Power Point presentation that read "MONOTOMY!" and I had to keep myself from laughing. Of course he meant "monotony." I can't be too smug about that though, since I made my own very embarrassing mistake while trying to wish my project manager good luck in a meeting. Germans say "I'll press my thumbs" instead of "I'll cross my fingers," but apparently the word for "thumb" is similar to the word for "stupid," so I meant to wish her good luck, but what I actually said was, "I'll press my stupids for you!"
While I enjoyed talking to people from other countries and learning about their zoo programs, I have to admit, the food was also a noteworthy highlight. The Cologne zoo knows how to throw a party. On the first night for the conference's "ice-breaker" event we received a light dinner of cheeses, salads, soup, and traditional German deli-style meats in the zoo restaurant, which has a romanticly lit, warm atmosphere, and of course we were served all the beer and wine we could ever want. The next night the catering team concocted an amazing array of Chinese food (yes, apparently they have that in Germany) including stuffed wontons and several stir-frys. Oh, and of course, all the beer and wine we could ever want. Dessert was one of those fountains which drizzles warm chocolate onto various goodies, and I now vouch for chocolate-covered honeydew melon as the new rival for chocolate-covered strawberries. Also, chocolate-coverd mini-muffins were a new treat that I probably should never enjoy again if I'd like to continue fitting into my jeans. On the last night of the conference our departing dinner was served in the aquarium, another venue with a romantic atmosphere, only this time it included seahorses and damsel fish drifting by while we ate. The menu this evening was another traditional German meal consisting of fried potatoes, salted pork, and fresh tomato basil salad, oh, and don't forget--all the beer and wine we could ever want.
When we weren't being stuffed with gourmet foods, Shannon and I explored a little of Cologne's city center. We had practically been ordered to see the Dom (German word for cathedral) which has rightfully earned its fame by being the largest cathedral in Germany and arguably the most beautiful (Germany's second largest dom is in Magdeburg). Admittedly, if I were to try to describe the dom, it would sound just like every other old church you can think of: stained glass, candles on the alters, high ceilings, paintings of the apostles etc. But I was impressed. This cathedral was absolutely cavernous. If you looked up to see the tops of the stained-glass windows, they were so high you just about fell over backwards, and the organ was so enormous it looked like it might blast a hole right through the stone walls if someone tried to play a hymn. The outer edges of the gigantic rooms were lined with tombs of important men, and if you carefully picked your way down a staircase, part of the crypt that was used hundreds of years ago was open for viewing. My only regret was that our visit was too late in the day for pictures to turn out well, as the cathedral is lit entirely by candles and whatever sunlight can sneak in through the stained glass.
After we experienced the ancient church, we moved on to experience the hip and trendy pedestrian-only shopping strip. There we discovered a Kentucky Fried Chicken (not KFC!) and numerous high-end botiques from various countries. And for our cultural edification we also visited the Cologne city museum to look at the statues of city officials and artifacts from medieval battles. The museum's exhibits also included many artifacts from the world wars, the most memorable of which was a small calandar where a German woman had kept track of every air raid the Allies made on Cologne between 1942 and 1945. June of 1943 was the worst month, with 123 little tally marks.
Now we've returned to Magdeburg and after thirteen days in a row without a break, I finally have a weekend! After I've caught up on all my chores, the plan is to be very German by sitting in a cafe for hours, drinking hot chocolate, reading, and doing crossword puzzles. That's the life.
When Shannon, and I arrived in Cologne, the first thing we noticed was that west German people look more...American than the east German people we've been seeing in Magdeburg. Cologne attracts a lot of tourists and while riding the tram in heavily touristed areas, we had a hard time guessing which passengers were Germans and which were Americans or Canadians (until we heard them speak, of course). We still apparently stood out like neon signs though, because twice people asked us if we needed help navigating the city when we weren't even lost.
We spent much of our time sitting in the conference room in Cologne listening to presentations and discussing the future of environmental education in Europe, but since the conference was held at the Cologne zoo, when we had breaks, we could take a few minutes to watch the cheetahs lounging or the red pandas gnawing bamboo. During coffee breaks and check-out-what-the-lemurs-are-doing breaks, I met people from The Netherlands, Scotland, Croatia, Finland, Estonia, the Ukraine and the Czech Republic. Everyone wore nametags stating their home zoo and home city, but Shannon's had been misprinted to read "Magdeburgoo." By the end of the conference, we had received standing invitations to visit zoos in Munich, Duesseldorf, Halle, and Copenhagen.
If my linguistic skills seemed limited in Magdeburg, they were down-right moronic in the company of the European zoo educators. The man I met from Estonia spoke Estonian as his first language, and then subsequently learned Russian, German, Finnish, and English. Not all of the participants at the conference spoke perfect English, but considering they were on their third or fouth or fifth foreign language, I forgave them and just tried harder to understand despite thick accents. One man from Switzerland gave a very entertaining presentation on exhibit design, pointing out that modern zoos should hire smaller companies with more innovative ideas to avoid the current problem of all zoos having exhibits that look exactly the same. His reasoning was sound and his ideas were clever (it's true, why would you want to see another gorilla exhibit in Portland when you know it looks exactly like the one in Seattle? And why would you put up expensive fake rockery in your orangutan exhibit when you know orangutans don't live near giant rockeries?) but he had one slide in his Power Point presentation that read "MONOTOMY!" and I had to keep myself from laughing. Of course he meant "monotony." I can't be too smug about that though, since I made my own very embarrassing mistake while trying to wish my project manager good luck in a meeting. Germans say "I'll press my thumbs" instead of "I'll cross my fingers," but apparently the word for "thumb" is similar to the word for "stupid," so I meant to wish her good luck, but what I actually said was, "I'll press my stupids for you!"
While I enjoyed talking to people from other countries and learning about their zoo programs, I have to admit, the food was also a noteworthy highlight. The Cologne zoo knows how to throw a party. On the first night for the conference's "ice-breaker" event we received a light dinner of cheeses, salads, soup, and traditional German deli-style meats in the zoo restaurant, which has a romanticly lit, warm atmosphere, and of course we were served all the beer and wine we could ever want. The next night the catering team concocted an amazing array of Chinese food (yes, apparently they have that in Germany) including stuffed wontons and several stir-frys. Oh, and of course, all the beer and wine we could ever want. Dessert was one of those fountains which drizzles warm chocolate onto various goodies, and I now vouch for chocolate-covered honeydew melon as the new rival for chocolate-covered strawberries. Also, chocolate-coverd mini-muffins were a new treat that I probably should never enjoy again if I'd like to continue fitting into my jeans. On the last night of the conference our departing dinner was served in the aquarium, another venue with a romantic atmosphere, only this time it included seahorses and damsel fish drifting by while we ate. The menu this evening was another traditional German meal consisting of fried potatoes, salted pork, and fresh tomato basil salad, oh, and don't forget--all the beer and wine we could ever want.
When we weren't being stuffed with gourmet foods, Shannon and I explored a little of Cologne's city center. We had practically been ordered to see the Dom (German word for cathedral) which has rightfully earned its fame by being the largest cathedral in Germany and arguably the most beautiful (Germany's second largest dom is in Magdeburg). Admittedly, if I were to try to describe the dom, it would sound just like every other old church you can think of: stained glass, candles on the alters, high ceilings, paintings of the apostles etc. But I was impressed. This cathedral was absolutely cavernous. If you looked up to see the tops of the stained-glass windows, they were so high you just about fell over backwards, and the organ was so enormous it looked like it might blast a hole right through the stone walls if someone tried to play a hymn. The outer edges of the gigantic rooms were lined with tombs of important men, and if you carefully picked your way down a staircase, part of the crypt that was used hundreds of years ago was open for viewing. My only regret was that our visit was too late in the day for pictures to turn out well, as the cathedral is lit entirely by candles and whatever sunlight can sneak in through the stained glass.
After we experienced the ancient church, we moved on to experience the hip and trendy pedestrian-only shopping strip. There we discovered a Kentucky Fried Chicken (not KFC!) and numerous high-end botiques from various countries. And for our cultural edification we also visited the Cologne city museum to look at the statues of city officials and artifacts from medieval battles. The museum's exhibits also included many artifacts from the world wars, the most memorable of which was a small calandar where a German woman had kept track of every air raid the Allies made on Cologne between 1942 and 1945. June of 1943 was the worst month, with 123 little tally marks.
Now we've returned to Magdeburg and after thirteen days in a row without a break, I finally have a weekend! After I've caught up on all my chores, the plan is to be very German by sitting in a cafe for hours, drinking hot chocolate, reading, and doing crossword puzzles. That's the life.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
German Diseases Very Efficiently Afflict Suzanne
Despite my warmest wishing and hoping, winter has yet to release its hold on Magdeburg and this weekend I woke up yet again to a few centimeters of snow. The natives insist that this winter has been especially long and cold, but they also tell me I won't be wearing my lighter jacket until April, so I'm not sure I beleive their assertions that winter is unusually harsh. This was the first Valentine's Day I remember waking up to snow. It is also the first Valentine's Day I remember that I could quite easily have fogotten was Valentine's Day. Around the first of February a small stand or two displaying red knick-knacks and chocolate hearts appeared in the main department store. The Valentine's Day preparations never advanced further. That was it. So, in rather the same way Thanksgiving could have passed uncelebrated and nearly forgotten, so Valentine's Day came and went. The benefit of being alone in a country where Valentine's Day is not celebrated much is that you are not bashed over the head with your aloneness, as happens to people in America on our commercialized Valentine's Days. You don't know what you're missing if no one is shoving it in your face starting January 2nd.
The kindergarten has been struck by some sort of horrible German flu/plague in the past two weeks, and unfortunately, I was unable to avoid contracting the illness myself. I attempted to call in sick and discovered that the Germans reputation for rules and order was well deserved. I could not simply call in sick by telling my boss I was not going to be at work that day. I was required to go see a doctor on the day I did not come to work, then obtain a form in duplicate that stated my exact date of return to work from the doctor and then mail one form to my insurance company and the other to my employers. To a person who just wants to stay in bed and sleep, this seems preposterous. For all the trouble I was going to have to go through to stay home, I might as well have tried to crawl in to work.
But I didn't. I actually had a high fever, the achy-all-over soreness indicative of the flu along with congestion and a horrible rasping cough. So, I started calling doctors. In German. When I found a physician who was taking walk-ins, I then had to bundle up and stagger off to the tram to find the place on foot. Once I did, the doctor gave me all the appropriate documents and told me I couldn't go to work for a week. I am fairly certain that this form obtained from the physician is not just a suggestion, it's an order. If I get a paper stating I shouldn't go back to work until Monday, then I actually am NOT ALLOWED to go to work. After this visit to the doctor, I could hardly stand up, so my fever and I stumbled back to the apartment and collapsed. The next day though, I had to venture out yet again to go to the pharmacy to fill the prescription the doctor had given me the day before. Again this involved wandering the streets of Magdeburg in a state of nausea with a brain foggy from the flu. One would have thought that by the third day, I could have finally stayed in bed, but the insurance company requires the form to be post-marked within three days of the visit to the doctor, which meant I once again exposed the rest of the city to my disease while I sought out a place to buy envelopes and stamps and then finally successfully mailed the form. This seemed to me to be a decidedly unAmerican flu experience.
The last two points I'd like to mention before posting this rather depressing blog will be quick. First, I can't find a way to make a German understand what a closet is. The parents of the kindergarteners tried to supply me with all the furniture I needed, but failed to provide any method of storing clothing. When they asked if I still needed anything I attempted to explain, but the only solutions I was offered were small chests of drawers or shelving units with doors on them. I have also found that even the Germans who speak English impeccably cannot remember the word "closet" in English. Should I search for the translation for the word "wardrobe"? I gave up.
Secondly, I overheard a three-year old girl and a four-year old boy playing house at the kindergarten. The boy brought over doll's cradle with a parrot puppet in it and announced,"I bought us a baby!"
The kindergarten has been struck by some sort of horrible German flu/plague in the past two weeks, and unfortunately, I was unable to avoid contracting the illness myself. I attempted to call in sick and discovered that the Germans reputation for rules and order was well deserved. I could not simply call in sick by telling my boss I was not going to be at work that day. I was required to go see a doctor on the day I did not come to work, then obtain a form in duplicate that stated my exact date of return to work from the doctor and then mail one form to my insurance company and the other to my employers. To a person who just wants to stay in bed and sleep, this seems preposterous. For all the trouble I was going to have to go through to stay home, I might as well have tried to crawl in to work.
But I didn't. I actually had a high fever, the achy-all-over soreness indicative of the flu along with congestion and a horrible rasping cough. So, I started calling doctors. In German. When I found a physician who was taking walk-ins, I then had to bundle up and stagger off to the tram to find the place on foot. Once I did, the doctor gave me all the appropriate documents and told me I couldn't go to work for a week. I am fairly certain that this form obtained from the physician is not just a suggestion, it's an order. If I get a paper stating I shouldn't go back to work until Monday, then I actually am NOT ALLOWED to go to work. After this visit to the doctor, I could hardly stand up, so my fever and I stumbled back to the apartment and collapsed. The next day though, I had to venture out yet again to go to the pharmacy to fill the prescription the doctor had given me the day before. Again this involved wandering the streets of Magdeburg in a state of nausea with a brain foggy from the flu. One would have thought that by the third day, I could have finally stayed in bed, but the insurance company requires the form to be post-marked within three days of the visit to the doctor, which meant I once again exposed the rest of the city to my disease while I sought out a place to buy envelopes and stamps and then finally successfully mailed the form. This seemed to me to be a decidedly unAmerican flu experience.
The last two points I'd like to mention before posting this rather depressing blog will be quick. First, I can't find a way to make a German understand what a closet is. The parents of the kindergarteners tried to supply me with all the furniture I needed, but failed to provide any method of storing clothing. When they asked if I still needed anything I attempted to explain, but the only solutions I was offered were small chests of drawers or shelving units with doors on them. I have also found that even the Germans who speak English impeccably cannot remember the word "closet" in English. Should I search for the translation for the word "wardrobe"? I gave up.
Secondly, I overheard a three-year old girl and a four-year old boy playing house at the kindergarten. The boy brought over doll's cradle with a parrot puppet in it and announced,"I bought us a baby!"
Monday, February 9, 2009
Oh goody, snow AGAIN...
Well blog-fans, I know it's been a rather sparse winter for posting, but I must be honest and tell you it was for your own good. I avoided recording the ongoings here to spare you the ennui of reading my complaints about the frigid weather and about not handling animals enough the past month. Now that we're solidly into February and the animals are starting their training for this season's presentations, I feel I can safely relay the events more cheerily.
I have been busily toiling for all three of my "bosses," the Magdeburg Zoo, the zoo kindergarten, and the Magdeburg University conducting the research on our children's progress. This means that I haven't had the time to travel much, but in an attempt to experience everything we can while in Germany, Shannon and I have been creating our own mini-adventures every Saturday. These outings range from finding a new restaurant and trying things on the menu that we can't really read, to taking a tram all the way to the end of it's route, just to see where it goes. Through this we found a Spanish restaurant that serves an amazing spinach rice pilaf, and discovered that tram number 10 goes all the way to the south of the city where there is an abundance of 1 Euro shops, which are like the German version of dollar stores.
Though I haven't been taking any formal language lessons, I am finding it easier to communicate in German. Anyone who has tried speaking a foreign language knows the discomfort of seeing the "listening face." This is the expression worn by anyone who is intently focused on understanding someone speaking a foreign language poorly. The indicators are the furrowed brow, the concentration in the eyes--which must focus on the speaker's mouth--and pursed lips. It is sometimes accompanied by an attempt to finish the speaker's sentences, as the speaker herself seems unable to spit them out properly. So, needless to say, I am delighted not to see the "listening face" on the countenances of those around me as often.
An instructor from a language school administered tests to the natvie-English speakers at our kindergarten, to determine which course we should take starting in March. She told me, "I can't help you," which sounded really bad at first, but what she actually meant was that my German skills were above the level of courses offered at her school. On one hand, this was good news. On the other, I really should continue to improve my German somehow. I am supposed to give presentations in German this spring and summer and while I understand a great deal and can speak reasonably well in the present or past tense, I still have trouble speaking in hypotheticals or about the future. Even if I am capable of slogging through daily life in German, I still need a lot of practice. If a question catches me off guard, or I don't understand a key word in someone else's sentence, the results can still be embarrassing.
For instance, a couple of weeks ago Shannon and I were standing in front of the corn snakes' house waiting for the veterinarian because he was going to feed them and Shannon wanted to watch. While we were milling about, the head accountant passed us. The conversation, had it been in English, would have gone just like this:
Accountant: "What are the two of you doing?"
Suzanne: "We are waiting."
Accounant (trying to get me to practice my German): "I see that, but what are you waiting for?"
Suzanne: "We are waiting for Dr.Grotthman. He will be back soon"
Accountant: "Why are you waiting for Dr.Grotthman? Is he really that interesting?"
Suzanne: "Yes. He is going to eat the snakes."
Obviously I meant to say that the veterinarian was going to FEED the snakes, but the word for feeding an animal and the word for when an animal eats are very similar, and when forced to come up with the right one on short notice, my brain failed. Also, a somewhat longer time ago, I made the mistake of thanking the veterinarian, who speaks excellent English, for his "untersetzung" (not a real word) instead of his "ubersetzung." Instead of thanking him for translating for me, I thanked him essentially for sitting under me.
The highlights in my animal realm this winter have probably been the births around the Magdburg zoo. Hard as one might try to be a stoic detached biologist, baby animals are just dang cute. This year I had the opportunity to observe the progress of several tortoise hatchings, and once the babies made it out into the world, they were no bigger than a silver dollar. This winter also saw the birth of a rare Japanese serow (scientific name capricornis crispus, which sounds to me like a delicious breakfast cereal). These animals look a mostly like stalky deer, but with bushy beards reminiscent of Santa Claus. Several pelicans eggs have also successfully hatched in the past two weeks, yielding chicks that already have the giant flopping pouches under their beaks. Who would have guessed that a stretchy flap of skin and a scratchy little squak would be endearing?
I have been busily toiling for all three of my "bosses," the Magdeburg Zoo, the zoo kindergarten, and the Magdeburg University conducting the research on our children's progress. This means that I haven't had the time to travel much, but in an attempt to experience everything we can while in Germany, Shannon and I have been creating our own mini-adventures every Saturday. These outings range from finding a new restaurant and trying things on the menu that we can't really read, to taking a tram all the way to the end of it's route, just to see where it goes. Through this we found a Spanish restaurant that serves an amazing spinach rice pilaf, and discovered that tram number 10 goes all the way to the south of the city where there is an abundance of 1 Euro shops, which are like the German version of dollar stores.
Though I haven't been taking any formal language lessons, I am finding it easier to communicate in German. Anyone who has tried speaking a foreign language knows the discomfort of seeing the "listening face." This is the expression worn by anyone who is intently focused on understanding someone speaking a foreign language poorly. The indicators are the furrowed brow, the concentration in the eyes--which must focus on the speaker's mouth--and pursed lips. It is sometimes accompanied by an attempt to finish the speaker's sentences, as the speaker herself seems unable to spit them out properly. So, needless to say, I am delighted not to see the "listening face" on the countenances of those around me as often.
An instructor from a language school administered tests to the natvie-English speakers at our kindergarten, to determine which course we should take starting in March. She told me, "I can't help you," which sounded really bad at first, but what she actually meant was that my German skills were above the level of courses offered at her school. On one hand, this was good news. On the other, I really should continue to improve my German somehow. I am supposed to give presentations in German this spring and summer and while I understand a great deal and can speak reasonably well in the present or past tense, I still have trouble speaking in hypotheticals or about the future. Even if I am capable of slogging through daily life in German, I still need a lot of practice. If a question catches me off guard, or I don't understand a key word in someone else's sentence, the results can still be embarrassing.
For instance, a couple of weeks ago Shannon and I were standing in front of the corn snakes' house waiting for the veterinarian because he was going to feed them and Shannon wanted to watch. While we were milling about, the head accountant passed us. The conversation, had it been in English, would have gone just like this:
Accountant: "What are the two of you doing?"
Suzanne: "We are waiting."
Accounant (trying to get me to practice my German): "I see that, but what are you waiting for?"
Suzanne: "We are waiting for Dr.Grotthman. He will be back soon"
Accountant: "Why are you waiting for Dr.Grotthman? Is he really that interesting?"
Suzanne: "Yes. He is going to eat the snakes."
Obviously I meant to say that the veterinarian was going to FEED the snakes, but the word for feeding an animal and the word for when an animal eats are very similar, and when forced to come up with the right one on short notice, my brain failed. Also, a somewhat longer time ago, I made the mistake of thanking the veterinarian, who speaks excellent English, for his "untersetzung" (not a real word) instead of his "ubersetzung." Instead of thanking him for translating for me, I thanked him essentially for sitting under me.
The highlights in my animal realm this winter have probably been the births around the Magdburg zoo. Hard as one might try to be a stoic detached biologist, baby animals are just dang cute. This year I had the opportunity to observe the progress of several tortoise hatchings, and once the babies made it out into the world, they were no bigger than a silver dollar. This winter also saw the birth of a rare Japanese serow (scientific name capricornis crispus, which sounds to me like a delicious breakfast cereal). These animals look a mostly like stalky deer, but with bushy beards reminiscent of Santa Claus. Several pelicans eggs have also successfully hatched in the past two weeks, yielding chicks that already have the giant flopping pouches under their beaks. Who would have guessed that a stretchy flap of skin and a scratchy little squak would be endearing?
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