Exploration

The following story is not for the faint of heart. It is also based on actual events—reader’s discretion is advised.

Rated: PG28—for anyone that is a child of the ‘80’s, ‘90’s, or, heaven forbid, the millennium, the following story contains content unsuitable for those who have never lived without the internet and do not know how to entertain themselves without Youtube, Facebook, e-mail, or online checkers.

It all began last Friday. Conveniently enough, last Friday was a national German holiday—everything, from services offered by the university to all of the shops in town, was entirely closed. Before meeting Hannah for lunch, I decided to sign onto the internet with the username and password given to me by the university, and just casually check my e-mail, read the news, and waste even more time perusing photographs on Facebook. Then, suddenly, I was confronted with some terrible news.

Das Log-In war nicht erfolgreich.

I was in total denial. I tried, over and over again, to type in my username and password until I got the happy news that, in fact, my log-in had indeed been erfolgreich. It was only hours later that I found out that no one from Middlebury could access the internet. It wasn’t due to a lack of connection—everything in that department was fine. Rather, as we all later discovered, our usernames were temporary ones given to us before we got our student identification cards and accounts. No one knows why our temporary accounts ended on that fated day of October 3, 2008—about 18 days before we receive our identification cards—except for one single lady, who would then only maybe know the answer. Conveniently, however, this particular lady decided on Monday that she was sick and was going to remain sick for the rest of the week. Presumably to avoid angry college students from Vermont that depend all too much on the internet. But anyway.

So, without cell phones or internet, the Middlebury students proceeded to use ancient devices like door bells to contact each other in the old-fashioned way. You know…face to face. But gee, I gotta tell ya--when Middlebury warned me about culture shock, I guess I really didn't have any idea how intense it got. But hark--I have lived to tell the tale.

Before I came to Mainz, I was told by a student that the city was about the size of Burlington, maybe a little bigger. Correction: Mainz is at least six times the size of Burlington. I was shocked to see so many shops—I literally have never seen so many shoe stores in my entire life. There are also a lot of fancy restaurants to go to that have terraces right on the Rhein river, a huge cathedral, and tons of awesome churches that Hannah and I took the time to explore all throughout this past week. I’ve also never seen so many fountains in my entire life—although I can’t upload any pictures now (I am currently using the internet of a friend who has taken pity upon a student such as myself who was forced to go cold-turkey on any contact with the outside world…oh the horror), I’ll soon get to show you all the little squares of Mainz that have all of these cool fountains scattered throughout the city. There are also a lot of statues that I took pictures of. I’ve noticed that us human beings tend to gravitate towards statues when holding a camera, even if we really don’t know what the statues themselves symbolize. Or maybe that generalization only applies to me. I always feel compelled to take a picture of a statue if it’s there. Even if it’s not that interesting (which, to me, it's usually not).

In any case, photos are forthcoming.

I was also told by many people that it is very hard to make friends while studying abroad in Germany, because most Germans don’t want to bother getting to know you if you’re only going to be staying for a semester or two. This is something that I’ve also found to be quasi-false. Because all of us Middlebury students live in dorms, we have found ourselves thrown into a very cosmopolitan living situation with many other international students. I’ve met people from Georgia (the state), Georgia (the country), Austria (where there are no kangaroos), Australia (where there are), Poland, and Bulgaria, to name a few. I’ve also met a few Germans, but, for the most part, only international students are on campus at this time, since classes don’t officially start until the 21st. So, I have not had a hard time getting to know students here. Understanding them, however, has been somewhat more difficult. Everybody has completely different accents, and, when they aren’t American, I get very confused. The only non-American that I have been able to understand 100% of the time I met last night, and he was from northern Germany, where, coincidentally, most of my German professors come from. Who’da thunk it.

I must also say, however, that Germans love American music. For some reason the song “Son of a Preacher-Man” is very popular here. I’ve heard it half a dozen times at least. It’s definitely a mystery as to why, but I’m not going to complain. I think it’s amusing. Also, Germans like to give each other high-fives or pounds and say “gangsta,” which brought Hannah and I into stitches the first time we heard it. The two Germans in question got really excited and asked us if we say "gangsta" in the United States. We told them that we did, indeed, know what it meant, but did not advise continuing the word's use if they were to travel to the US. They thought that made it even cooler.

I’ve also gotten to do my share of running while in Mainz this past week. There’s one girl here, named Sho, who is 31, in the military, a former coxswain for the West Point crew team, and wants to run a marathon at the end of the month in Frankfurt. Needless to say, Sho is a very intense individual. She is completing the Masters’ program through Middlebury, and has been here for five weeks, and, for this reason, has had the opportunity to explore all of the places to run nearby. This was very helpful to me, considering that I was so afraid of getting lost the first couple of days that I ran seven miles on the track to avoid traffic and desperate confusion. Sho showed me some beautiful paths along the Rhein that are all flat but very enjoyable. Yesterday, however, I tried to do the run we had previously done on my own and (three guesses what happened) almost got very lost on the opposite side of the Rhein from where Mainz is. Actually, scratch that—I did get very lost and had to ask two people where the nearest bridge was. I don’t think anyone reading this is very surprised. Maybe I’ll just stick to the good ol’ out n’ back run when I’m not running with Sho. Or the track. Things really can’t go wrong when you’re on the track.

Peace, love, and absentee ballots,

Amanda