The Events of a Birthday Abroad

Before I settle in to watch the new Apple Keynote and salivate over all the new stuff, I need to relate a few amusing anecdotes from the Continent. Today Rachel (another American student here through Central College) and I went to the library to do homework / journal writing. We had noticed a seemingly random German street musician playing guitar outside the library, and I resolved to stop by on our way out and ask if I could take his picture. When we left the library, I did just that, dropping a 1€ piece on his guitar case, asking "Kann ich dein Foto machen?" Before Rachel or I knew what was going on, the minstrel started rambling off in thick Scwäbisch (a dense local dialect), relating to us some story about someone else who had come up to him while he was playing guitar in the town park. I can't remember the first story he told, or the punch-line, but when he proceeded to tell a second story, I understood him: "Another woman came up to me in the park and was asking me all sorts of questions. Then she asked if I had any kids. I told her no, but we could make some." That makes him easily the most colorful Scwäbian I have met so far. I did succeed in getting a picture of him, though.

Yesterday in class, we began a new "theme," history. We somehow got to talking about the Berlin Wall and how big of an event it was, and Frau Lukasch told us how she personally remembers the event. The way she spoke about it reminded me of the way in which all Americans from my generation can remember the exact moment they heard about 9/11, or likewise for my parents'/grandparents' generations with the JFK assassination. She told us that she had been packing for a vacation to somewhere else in Europe and had been listening to the radio at the time. She had not felt the need for a TV back then, so she was constantly listening to the radio. She was concentrating so much more on her packing than on the radio that it didn't really sink in that they had just announced the fall of the Berlin Wall until a few moments later. After that, she said, she sat on the bed for a while, not believing it to be true. Two years earlier, she could remember having told someone that she believed that Wall would one day fall, but that she would never see it in her lifetime. And then, at that moment, she wished she had a TV.

It's hard to believe that I was alive during such an important historical event as well, but, of course, at two, I couldn't have been expected to understand such things. It may as well have happened before I was born.

In other news, I finally signed up for the Goethe Institut's "tandem program" and received my "tandem partner." The program is designed to set up Goethe students - particularly Americans, since there's so many of us this spring - with local residents who wish to work on their English. The idea is that we will have the opportunity to work on our German with someone who is likewise interested in improving their English. I sent off an email to my partner last night and am anxiously awaiting the reply. We're supposed to get together sometime this Friday, and I'm extremely excited to get this opportunity to get to speak at length with a German native... bridging cultural gaps is amazingly exciting. I hope my partner is nice.

Not an uneventful birthday so far, no sir. Tonight, we're going to get Döners for dinner and then head to the pub! Thanks to everyone who's been thinking of me today!