That said, where to begin?
Since my last post, much has happened, both significant, insignificant, and no longer significant. Courses continue to progress smoothly, some getting harder, some getting more challenging, but also becoming more doable as I find my rhythm. My Concepts of foreign-language-learning course zum Beispiel is in a rough way, and I'm still trying to figure out how to go about doing it. The confusion comes in that the class is all in German, as well as the discussion and the homework. The catch comes in that all of the texts that we are reading, getting theories and whatnot from, are in English. Surprising, no? I must confess I was blown away at the beginning of the course, when the professor announced (in German, of course,) "if anyone here thinks they may have trouble reading and understanding English, please raise your hand." Can you imagine what would happen in the USA if a prof announced in say, a Political History class or something, that the students would have to be tolerantly fluent in Spanish to take the class?
Yeah, neither can I. Living in Europe is definitely a different linguistic reality then the US.
Anyway, It is surprisingly dificult to write homework in German on English texts, especially English texts that are full of field-specific vocabulary. I have no idea what these words would be in German, and I have no resource to look them up in, because no normal dictionary has them, and all of the linguistic sources we are studying are in English. Anyway, that is a problem to which I'm still seeking a solution.
My other classes are going well though, which is encouraging. Taking classes in German is not as impossible as I originally thought it would be, and it is so helpful to have had some english background in some of the subjects, like in Linguistics.
In other, more interesting, every-day life, I have also been doing a bit here and there. Two Saturdays ago, I went with some other BCA students down to Frankfurt, where we visited the Flohmarkt there (flee market). In addition to being as sketchy as all get-out, it was a very fun time, though we didn't dare buy anything. It was amazing the variety of complete junk to be had there. I was half-tempted to buy an ancient pirate-style pistol (it was real!) but thought better of it, realizing that something of that size and weight would be hard to squeeze in to bring back to the states. I did however pick up and play a guitar there, just to be able to say I've played a guitar in the Flee Market in Frankfurt.
Then, this most recently bygone Saturday, I got up at 3am in the morning with Kelsey and Alex to go to the Netherlands. We were taking a bus there for just the day (I love Europe!) to see the world's largest flower garden in Keukenhof, Holland.
(Info point: Holland is actually a region in the Netherlands, like a state in the USA.)
Before I start stumbling around through silly words trying to describe the indescribable beauty of Keukenhof, I would like to give a small commentary on the bus ride.
First of all, sadly, most young, student-aged kids aren't that interested in flowers. Students who go to the Netherlands don't go to see flowers, they go to Amsterdam to party and to visit the "Coffee Shops," which are actually over-the-counter narcotics distributers, if my sources are trustworthy. This means that me, Alex, Kelsey, and two other students, Telsche (who is in my Biedebach classes) and Katharina, were the only people under like 50 on the whole bus. You'd think that this would make for a peaceful, relatively uneventful trip. Maybe in America, but here in Europe, if you want to get 50 some geriatrics to sit through a 6 hour bus ride without complaining or griping, the solution is simple. Give them lots of coffee, wine, and beer.
I admit I have nothing against drinking a nice glass of something a bit stronger than orange juice every once in a while, but when I saw grandpa two rows behind me downing a glass of hard liquor at 6 in the morning, I started to get worried. By the time we arrived in Scheveningen (a little south-west of Keukenhof) there had been more alcohol consumed by our rowdy aged crew than I would have thought possible. Needless, to say, it was a trip full of adventure, cramped legs, and loud, jolly voices.
After strolling up and down the North Sea coast for two hours, we hopped back on the bus to head to the flower garden in Keukenhof. This was the most amazing part of the whole trip, and one of the most incredible places I've ever seen. As we drove into the area, I noticed fields all around me. They were large, like a field you would grow corn or some other crop in. Only it wasn't corn that was growing in those fields, but rather flowers. One field was entirely daffodils, another tulips. Absolutely heavenly. Then we actually got to The Garden.
I can't begin to describe it, and I will just have to post the pictures I took. But they don't even begin to do it justice either, because you can't smell the beauty with a picture. The whole afternoon as we strolled through the most beautiful avenues, I would sometimes just stop and breath, and breath, and breath. Not a good place to go if you have allergies, by the way! thankfully, I was fine. The whole thing was so beautiful, you walked away feeling like your spirit had been healed to a certain extent, and it made me wonder not for the first time, if creating such places and then sending war or famine victims there wouldn't do a lot of good. You know, making a sanctuary, where anyone who had been through horrifying ordeals could go and just heal. An interesting idea, at any rate.
The trip was definitely worth the mere € 48 that it cost to take a 6 hour bus both ways and get tickets into the World's Largest Flower Garden.
Ahh, Keukenhof...Een stukje van de hemel op aarde
Oh, and I really want to learn Dutch now :-) It's like halfway between English and German, and sounds like lazy German spoken with a Scottish brogue.
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