Book of the hours

Christmas Eve I spent in midnight mass in Freiburg Cathedral, cold, and squished in on every side by Elliot and maybe a thousand other people, and seeing almost nothing, and hearing glorious ritual and music. There was also a tongue-in-cheek sermon by a rather charismatic priest, a slight twist on the standard New Zealand "Christmas is a time for God and family, so beware of consumerism": "Christmas is a time for God and family, so beware of overeating."

The very early hours of Christmas Day I spent outside and very cold, cycling to Emily's along a road that seemed endless. Christmas morning I spent waking Emily up (she has a fondness for dozing), and then making pancakes that changed on the fly to French toast when we realised that neither of us had bought milk before Christmas Eve shop closing. Christmas afternoon I spent visiting a really, really nice German family whom the university had acquired on its drive for holiday-day adopters for its lonely foreign students. We went for a walk in the Black Forest, and then I was showered with home-made Lebkuchen.

On Boxing Day Simon arrived from Princeton, safe, and with hair ruffled only to the correct degree, and intact apart from his suitcase, which British Airways had sent to London. (It was last heard of yesterday in Basel. With luck it will make it to Germany by the time he leaves.) On the day after Boxing Day we went shopping for replacement clothing, and studied ("studied") representation theory. Two days after Boxing Day, or rather yesterday, we left for Cologne, where we are still now.

It's a city of a million people. It's one of Germany's smaller big cities, and I picked it more or less at random to go see: it had Roman ruins and Rhine frontage, and less of a journey to get there than Berlin or Munich, and sillier and friendlier people than Frankfurt. We caught a lift up with Jutta, whom I'd found on the miraculous car-sharing website Mitfahrgelegenheit, the penniless German student's primary mode of transport. She was from a small town south of Freiburg originally, where she'd been staying with her parents over Christmas, but lived now in Cologne, where she was heading back to for New Year. She agreed that people from Cologne were silly and friendly: the local dialect is exciting, though she couldn't describe it, and on New Year the people stand on the bridges over the Rhine and let off fireworks. We went to the hostel and dropped off our bags.

We spent the evening with friends of friends, a middle-aged gay couple who run a dog-walking service in an eastern suburb. They were silly and friendly: they had a collection of miniature East German cars arranged on their mantelpiece, they served us pre-fizzed water, and we ended up chatting til midnight and crashing the night. They were also really interesting: we learned the German words for "nepotism", "deform", "taciturn" and "surveillance".

And today? The normal Saturday-sightseeing mix of sleeping in, wandering around, rushing through fantastic museums a little too close to closing time, and sitting exhausted in cathedrals pretending to pray. Dinner was a sausage Simon claims to consist of blood and fat, though I maintain it's only food colouring. Then we hung out in a cheap internet café with a loud Italian guy talking on Skype.

And then they all went home and had some toast. The end.

What we heard on high

It's Christmas Eve, and my 3000-resident "student village" has almost emptied for the holidays. Shops shut at 1 pm today, and will stay shut for the next two days. Despite having only the slightest dusting of snow out, it's bitterly, bitterly cold. I'm grateful for really powerful radiators, and for supermarket "Just Add Heat!" mulled wine.
Yesterday it wasn't cold. I went hiking in the snowy upper Black Forest, with Emily, and Elliot (American), and a couple of Kiwi tourist friends of friends. We took the rickety regional train 8 km east to Kirchzarten, the bus 5 km more to the village of St. Peter, and then walked 8 km from St. Peter to the next small village, St. Märgen. The route was high, white and full of Germans out for Sunday afternoon strolls. For the middle of a Forest, the countryside was surprisingly open, and surprisingly populated.

We reached St. Märgen in time to have a look around before the community choir carol concert we'd come for began. It was a small place (fewer than two thousand residents), with a lot of big decorative bed-and-breakfasts. I passed by a community notice board, according to which there was a lot going on. Nearer the church, we came across a sobering (Second World) war memorial: for St. Märgen's war casualties, it was unusual to be the only son in your family that was killed.

The carol concert was put on by the St. Märgen choir. It was amateur, but competent, and apart from an unfortunate trio of zitherists totally enjoyable. Elliot chatted up the locals with practiced smoothness, Emily and I burst into laughing at a heavily-Alemannic-accented rendition of Feliz Navidad ("We wanna vish-you-a Merry Christmas"), and we went home with O du fröhliche ringing in our ears.

I'm heading off now to hear midnight mass in the Freiburg cathedral, and then sleeping over at Emily's. Happy Christmas, everyone!

Under the weather, and really over the chill

I've been fighting a cold for the last few days, and consequently haven't been maintaining this diary in the manner to which it's become accustomed. A pity, too, since it means that my exploits downing tequila in antlers, and my long wait for 5 am (when McDonalds opens) in the Karlsruhe train station on the way back from Vienna, and my miraculous discovery of sparkly Christmas decorations in a back cupboard of the kitchen just hours after wishing for them, will go forever unblogged. Really a pity.

However, when times are tough, blogs must share in their writers' sufferings -- and I know mine bears its tribulations willingly. Thanks, darling.

Anyway, what I've been doing too much of this week to ignore -- apart from sneezing, and beating someone (he knows who he is) at internet Scrabble -- is goofing off with my classmates in honour of Christmas. On Wednesday afternoon, most of the way up the four flights of stairs to representation theory, I encountered Janine, who's also in the class, coming down. "Too boring to stay?" I wondered. No: the tutorial had been cancelled, by unanimous vote, in favour of a class trip to the Christmas market. We headed over, crocodile formation, and drank mulled wine in what even the Germans considered to be a cold breeze for an hour and a half.

After forty minutes' pretence of work, the same thing happened in differential geometry on Thursday. On Friday was our model theory tutorial, and there the celebrations had even been planned beforehand: everyone brought a plate of Lebkuchen, and we made tea. I should mention, in view of previous remarks, that the Lebkuchen produced by our mostly-male class were quite fabulous -- enough to make Emily and my jam circles (the result of a four-hour Wednesday bakeathon) look rather frumpy. And that only some of them were store-bought.

Somehow, I find Christmas festivities at university just indescribably cute. But I suppose it's really only the novelty: I've spend half my schooling in a country too fiercely multicultural for public Christmasses, and the rest in one where (summer) holidays start too many weeks beforehand for them to make sense.

Conversations III

With Leander, a classmate: The German system of encouraging, and often drafting, people into a year of military or civil service immediately after high school isn't restrictive, it's character-building. Most people serve in the army or work in kindergartens or rest homes -- but the German government sent him to the Jewish community in Prague, where he spent his Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr as general factotum for some elderly Holocaust survivors. He ran errands for them, and helped with meals, and played lots of games of chess. They got on together quite well.

With Stefan, a local on exchange-student pastoral care duty: No, it's not true that German men are more domesticated than most. The lovely fluffy Black Forest cake that he brought to our potluck dinner? Doesn't count, he learned it at his mother's knee. My floormates that cook gorgeous meals for their girlfriends? Well, they're cooking for their girlfriends. My floormates that cook gorgeous meals for themselves? Well, they're students, and it's cheaper than eating out. (My floormates that spontaneously wash other people's piles of dishes, and that spend afternoons baking cookies, and that cook gorgeous meals for themselves, using private stocks of obscure vegetables and personal kitchen utensils kept apart from the common hoard, and wearing big efficient-looking aprons? I didn't mention this; I doubted he'd be able to respond.)

My own theory, by the way, is that men are indeed on average somewhat more domestic in Germany than elsewhere. The only New Zealand guy friend I've ever known to bake was gay. But I suspect that because the guys I know here are older than the ones I know in New Zealand, my data is biassed.

With Emily: How on earth will we be able to break the news to our schools back home when we fail our horrible representation theory paper? But of course, since our results notices will be in German, maybe we won't have to. Having the result for one class different from that for the others might look suspicious, though. Perhaps the best chance for deception would be to fail all three.

I'm going to Vienna again (briefly) this weekend. I'll be local for Christmas, but Simon's coming from Princeton to visit over New Year, and we're wandering north. People with great sightseeing suggestions or long-lost friends for us, as far as Koblenz or Cologne, should speak now (and please, do!), or forever hold their pieces.

Monday morning, maths department

I've been keeping quiet about it here lately -- but German's hard, and keyword-spotting has its limits. Survival doesn't necessarily entail competence. And of course this blog thrives on total honesty. So, to destroy any illusions that have formed . . . well, I suspect that when speaking German I still typically sound like a cross between a caveman and a person with ADD.

Like, with a classmate yesterday,

Clemens: Hey, have you seen David?

me: Heya. Who? What?

clem: David, you know, he's in the differential geometry course too. I was just looking for him there.

me: Diffgeo? Oh, yes, I know I saw you in there a second ago, but that was just to hand in my assignment. I'm actually skipping the lecture there today to go finish my model theory assignment for later this afternoon.

clem: Ah. No, I'm looking for David. He's IN the differential geometry course. He's in representation theory with us too. You know David, you speak to him sometimes, don't you?

me: Ohhh -- yes, I know I sometimes speak up in class in representation theory. I know it's a pain for everyone else, since my German's so bad. But it's a hard course, and I need to ask questions sometimes, even if it takes the tutor ages to work out what I'm trying to say . . . . I hope it doesn't get too much on your nerves . . . .

clem: No, don't worry about it. But it's David I'm after just now. You know each other, don't you? He told me your last name, it's very funny!

me : Aha! Yes, my last name . . . yes, I've been getting teased about it for years.

clem: Haha. I'm not surprised. But, er, anyway, I should go find David. You haven't seen him, I guess? See you later.

me: Oh -- David, you say? No, I haven't seen him. Ciao then.

But I promise, my comprehension has been getting better. For example, it's good enough now to occasionally overhear things in the supermarket. Like, last night,

woman whose purchase included several kilograms of birdseed: Aagh, these seeds are spilling everywhere!

check-out lady: Here, wrap up those packets in this bag. You don't want to walk through town looking like Hansel and Gretel, do you?

A sphere-packing problem

If Alsace is everywhere in view from Strasbourg Cathedral's spire


and if the corresponding proposition holds for every diocese

then there exists either some spot that belongs to two dioceses, or some spot that belongs to none.

The end of some loose ends

Caught up in errand-running and Christmas shopping and Christmas-wards socialising in the last week, I've been experiencing more of everyday life than usual. Some of it's fun. Among the mundane things I shall miss from Germany are:

• bicycles and thermoses
• self-seating in restaurants
• self-vegetable-weighing and self-grocery-bag-providing in supermarkets
• wearing hair long and loose and frizzy
  
• crumbly spongey sandy-feeling public toilet soap
• shop assistants who get rid of you by answering "you're welcome" before you've had a chance to say "thank you"

Among the mundane things I shan't miss from Germany are:

• unreliable student-dorm internet that's been broken for the last four days

Oh well. Some of the people who frequent internet cafés late on Saturday nights are quite interesting.

Another Friday, another visit to the bicycle collective. Yesterday I went in hopes of repairing the lumpiness of my bike's gait. It turned out, surprisingly enough, to derive from a flat tire. I fixed it, and stayed on to straighten my handlebars, re-wire my back light, and replace the generator that powers it. Now the bike just flies! And of course with the newly-working lights it's visible for miles. I've been celebrating by temporarily eschewing the trams.

Today I daytripped to Strasbourg with a couple of exchange-student friends, to see the Christmas market there. It was lovely -- though a bit more expensive and a lot more crowded than the little Colmar one. The Strasbourg cathedral is just as impressive the second time round.

And I can see why a classmate of mine (whose father comes from Alsace-when-it-was-German) told me rather sentimentally the other day that Alsace is "everywhere in view from Strasbourg Cathedral's spire".

Away with the fairytales

“Flemish people like having things nice,” said Gloria, and so it proved. I was in Belgium for the weekend, visiting her – an old friend of my father’s – in Oostende and being shown the area around, and wherever we went it was prosperous and pretty.

Like the Netherlands, it’s a land where the brick is king. Brick houses, brick bridges, bricky-like cobblestone alleys – even brick churches, which threw me for a bit, because as well as being cute they look suspiciously as if they’re made of Lego. (The traditional staircase shape for the roofs of buildings helps keep up the illusion.) It also rains a lot, which I won’t hold against it, since it’s raining a lot in Germany at the moment too.

Friday night was in Oostende, a medium-sized city located by the sea, and (I hear) not really at all to the east of Westende. Saturday was spent in Brugge, a fairytale-pretty medieval town – guildhouse, turrets, moat, cathedrals, canal-front hospital (naturally all in brick). Oddly enough, my ability to spend hours wandering through nice old streets hasn't at all worsened with practice. Appropriately, we checked in at the oldest pub in Brugge. Sausages with mustard are also traditional, it seems – anyway, they go well with cherry beer. And Saturday night I stayed in their country house, four hundred years old, multi-staircased, high-ceilinged.

Of course, having towns full of impeccably-kept-up gorgeous old buildings instead of of low-maintenance new ones costs money, and so does supporting vast numbers of breweries and confectioners and lace-makers, and so does teaching every schoolchild three foreign languages. I checked, later, and Belgium is indeed a very well-off little country. Why? Wikipedia answers that Belgium exports chemicals, auto parts, finished diamonds, and other things that sound similarly profitable. It doesn’t address the question of why such industries are so keen to install themselves in such a sweet wee place. But – “Flemish people work hard,” said Gloria – and maybe that explains it.

And, Flemish people are patriotic – towards Flanders, that is. There’s a slight constitutional crisis in Belgium at the moment that I wish I knew more about, something to do with elections, and tensions between Dutch-speaking Flanders and the French-speaking part Wallonia, and a latent separatist movement. On Sunday Gloria took me to Flanders Fields, and we went through a museum dedicated to the First World War. It was sombering. It was also fiercely pro-Flemish.

Sunday night railway inevitabilities:

• A train is overbooked.
• A train is late. (Yes, even in Germany. Even in Switzerland, I bet.)
• It’s raining.
• There’s a pair of khaki’d army guys on the way back from weekend leave.
• Your neighbour on the first train has been visiting her grandchildren over the weekend.
• Your stopover’s too short to accept your nice-looking second neighbour’s suggestion of “a drink, somewhere?”
• Your smiley third neighbour has taken the seat allocated to you.
• Your fourth neighbour is asleep.