Bir Döner, lutfen!

It’s often been said that, as the homo sapien species evolves, one particular feature of the human body will, eventually, in its lack of necessity to our daily routine, fizzle out. That particular feature is that of the fingernail. Aside from the occasional ability they give us to open stubborn plastic packages and maybe defend ourselves against pinching siblings, fingernails are often, in my opinion, taken much too seriously than need be. The seven-year old tomboy participating in Girl Scouts, for instance, might not receive her “health and beauty” badge because she refuses to succumb to the supposedly aesthetically pleasing ritual of painting nails with the other Brownies. Money spent on manicures and fake nails can be considered superfluous when one later experiences pain “[breaking] a nail opening the mail,” as so poetically expressed by the lovely Shania Twain.

Somehow, however, fingernails have been a common motif in my past few weeks here in Germany. While lying on the Rhein one sunny day with Danielle and Sarah, for example, a crowd of men, led by one man carrying a large basket filled with various beauty products, approached us asking for our help. It was the man with the basket’s bachelor party, and he had, so to say, a list of duties to fulfill given to him by his male friends—a sort of pre-wedding scavenger hunt. He asked if one of us would be willing to offer up a hand to him—one duty was to paint a woman’s fingernails. Thinking this must be one of the more harmless tasks he had to accomplish, I readily accepted, and spent the rest of the day with one hand clumsily painted a light golden brown. I was, needless to say, thankful for the invention of nail polish remover and wasted little time in taking advantage of its powers.

A few weeks later I accompanied Danielle to watch a soccer game in a sports bar with her host father, who is a retired German high school teacher. Although I already knew a bit about Mainz 05, the local soccer team here, I listened to him as he told me about the team colors, red and white, and then enthusiastically held up his left index finger to show me a fake painted nail—half white, half red, with respectively colored rhinestones to complement and embellish the kitschy yet enchanting power of that nail. He only had one, mind you, but he was very proud, and made every effort he could to make sure everyone in that bar saw that nail. Now that’s a man.

While in the bar, I heard some typical “Meenzer” dialect, especially in the heat of the moment where everyone was cheering for Aristide Bancé to “Mach ‘n’ eu!” (Mach ihn hinein, or get it [the ball] in). It took me a while when I came to Mainz to get used to the accent here, especially when hearing people say the negative, “nicht,” as “net,” which sounds incredibly close (in fact identical) to the German word for “nice”. “Kirsche”, the German word for cherry, is often confused with the German word for church, “Kirche,” especially when pronounced by a Pfälzer. The different dialects of Germany only go to show, however, that this country is a country based on regions—people are very proud to share where they come from in Germany, where there is an entirely different dynamic than that found in France, for example, where a global city of lights tends to steal all of the focus from the other regions. This is another important part of studying in Mainz, a regional center, as opposed to Berlin during my ten months in Germany.

Last week, Middlebury celebrated its 50 year anniversary of its relationship with the “School in Germany,” and even flew out President Ronald Liebowitz (the man, the myth, the legend), Professors Roman Graf and Murray Dry, and other important study abroad figures for a large, rather chic dinner at a fancy hotel in Mainz, located directly on the Rhine. Everything was organized beautifully, and many toasts were shared—both in English and in German. The irony of celebrating the effective implementation of the language pledge while hearing English speeches and speaking with other Americans who came to celebrate cannot be understated. It was, however, quite splendid—there’s no other word for it. Catered food, local wine—and even a speech by Murray Dry, the most feared Middlebury political science professor, in an American-accented German, made the evening quite special.

Danielle, Christian, K. (another American girl) and I actually did some party planning of our own this past week, and threw a four-way May birthday party in the student bar right on campus last night. People danced, brought us chocolate, and even baked tiramisu. Singing happy birthday (in multiple languages, mind you) sounded similar to the Proctor family birthday celebrations where one tries to squish as many names as possible (never knowing, of course, which order to use [Christian, K., Danielle, Amanda….or is it Amanda, K., Christian, Danielle?]) into four beats while remaining in unison with other singers. Needless to say, it warmed my heart.

Peace, love, and yes, men do wear purses,
Amanda