Made it to London

More than half way there.  I checked my email when I got to London, only to find out that I have a surprise lunch meeting at 2pm that I will be late to. Whatever. The schedule said that it was a dinner meeting not a lunch meeting, so I'm a bit annoyed, but I'm more annoyed that this is apparently how everything works. Ugh. 

Marbach - Week 1

The image on everything in Marbach.

So I arrived in Marbach on Monday - after a relatively long and treacherous trip here, which I won't bore you with because honestly I can't go through it again.  Just take my word for it, don't fly into Toronto if you don't have to, and whatever you do be wary of flying on AirCanada if you aren't at one of their primary airports.

Of course because of the relatively long and treacherous trip, I ended up without my larger bag and having to take the train from Zurich yet again, though this time I'm pretty much an expert so...whatever.

Photo of my room

Marbach is a relatively small town about a 15 miles north of Stuttgart.  It is home to the German Literature Archive, the National Schiller Museum, the Museum of Modern Literature, and it's claim to fame is being the birthplace of Schiller - one of Germany's most prized authors from the 18th/19th centuries. On Monday I picked up the key to my room, found my room, and finally got a chance to check my email on the shared computers down in the first floor area.  Because of the flight delays I got in too late to re-register at the archive, and therefore couldn't get my access code for the internet.  No problem.  I had been to Marbach last year, so I was familiar with the area a bit, so after dropping of my bags in my room, I went to the bakery and grocery store quickly before they closed.

Tuesday I headed down to Tuebingen to visit with friends and to sit in on a course that one of my committee members is teaching.  I'll be headed down there every Tuesday to sit in on that class, which will give me a nice break from writing, at least once a week.  The class was good and I set up an appointment with the professor for next Tuesday.  I should be giving her a draft of my first chapter then, and I wanted to get a chance to talk to her about a conference paper that I'm working on, as well as the exchange student that she will be sending to our department next semester.

Wednesday spent almost the whole day at the archive.  I had ordered some books on Tuesday morning, when I went to register and picked up my internet access code, so they were waiting for me when I arrived.  In addition to the many collections they have (two of which I am interested in for my project) they have a great deal of secondary literature which is useful.  Some of it I have access to in NC, but other stuff I don't.  It's great to be at a place that is so well stocked with good research materials, and those materials that I can't get here, I can usually access online.

Right now I'm just writing.  My goal is to write at least 10 pages a week.  So far for this week I've written 6 pages, but then I wasn't really able to write on Monday or Tuesday and I haven't calculated my total for today.  If I can write a minimum of 10 pages a week, I will have written about 110 pages this summer.  It's not enough in the grand scheme of things, but it's a good dent.  If I can write more than that, it's great, but if not, I still feel like 110 pages is a fantastic foundation for finishing up next year.

In a couple of weeks I'm going to try to see about getting access to the two collections I'm interested in.  They are both full of what is known as Trivialliteratur or Unterhaltungsliteratur - basically popular fiction, but it's popular fiction from the 19th century, which is pretty hard to come by - particularly if it wasn't deemed important enough to keep around.  The one collection was a private library and the other is the contents of a lending library.  Both should be interesting and I'm hoping to find some works to round out my dissertation.  The goal - right now at least - is to write about one canonical work and one work of Trivialliteratur per chapter to show that the themes I'm looking at were present in both high and popular literature at the time.  We'll see if that happens, but it's a goal - plus, honestly most Trivialliteratur has just never been looked at, so I'm fairly certain it will be "original" research.  :)

As for Marbach, I have ventured around a bit thus far, in order to find the grocery store, bank, drug store, bakery, etc.  There's honestly not much here, but I actually feel like that's not a bad thing considering I have a dissertation to write.  But I'm going to make an effort to get hont a bit.  I've met a couple of other researchers  in the archive and I have a friend who works at the hospital in Landstuhl who I'm going to meet up with the next two weekends, so that will give me an opportunity to get a out and about.

The photos are pictures of my room and the view from my window.  I forgot to take my camera on my walk today, but since I'll be walking the stretch from the archive to the train station on a regular basis, I'm sure there will be opportunities in the future.  I'll update the album as I take photos.  More next week!

Summer 2011

As long as I've got the blog here, I figure I'll use it to update on my research trip this summer.  More posts coming soon.  But for now it suffices to say that I'm glad my luggage finally made it to Germany, and specifically that it made it to me today.

Hurray for having all of my clothes, shoes, etc.

Christmas Vacation: Part 4

When we decided to drive down to see my family for Christmas, we needed to figure out what we were going to bring everyone as gifts.  The most important thing was the girls.  Who ended up getting candy from my trip to Strassbourg.  Then we decided to go by this wine shop around the corner and get bottles of local wine.  Now, I'm not 100% sure what the local wine tastes like, but it's a gift, right? 

So the morning of our drive down to the family, I ran some errands, checked out the store and came back with fresh bread for Andy and me.  We had breakfast and then headed over to the wine store together.  We decided on three bottles for each family and picked the same three for each. Then we got the car and headed down with our bags and gifts and crappy directions from the internet.

The problem with directions on the internet in Germany is that they label everything by the street number.  Which is fine for the major roads that are marked well, but for those little tiny roads that are not marked at all, it is a totally different matter.  Plus, I don't have a printer, so I have to write everything out by hand, which means that Andy has to try to decipher my shorthand, which makes perfect sense to me, but not so much to him.  We headed off found the streets that we needed and at some point just started following the signs that pointed in the direction of towns nearby, because honestly that's how they do most directions here.  There's no northbound or southbound freeway.  It's the Autobahn in the direction of Stuttgart or in the direction of Ulm and you'd better hope you learned where each of those cities was on a map because if you go the wrong direction you're going to have to turn around.

We finally found the back road to Kolbingen - where my one set of relatives live and stopped in for a visit.  I had called them ahead of time to let them know we were going to stop by, and about 10 minutes after we arrived, my cousin Marc showed up with his wife and 1 year old son.  We had coffee, tea, cake, cookies, etc...all home made by Hedi.  We told them that we would come over for lunch the next day and said our goodbyes and Headed down to Mühlheim to make it in time for the children's mass at the Catholic church.  

Sieglinde picked us up, with Lena and Annika and we headed into the old part of town.  Mass was fun.  Well I guess it wasn't really mass because there was no communion, but the kids from the kindergarten did a great job of putting on the story of the birth of jesus.  They were very cute, but at some point Andy realized that when children speak German it sounds to him like what they're saying is totally fake.  Like Udo on the Simpsons.  At the end of the mass, the priest basically told all of the adults that they weren't off the hook and that they were required to go to mass for Christmas.  Whatever....

So we headed home, the girls opened their gifts, we opened our gifts and we had dinner.  I mentioned that we were going to see Hans and Hedi for lunch the next day and it became clear that it was going to be a problem, since Lydia had planned something special for lunch the next day, so I had to call Hans and Hedi and tell them that we weren't going to be able to make it - but that also meant that we weren't going to be able to see Marc, Connie, and Karl, because they were leaving to go visit her family on the 26th.  This was a little upsetting, but there was nothing that could be done about it.  

We proceeded to dinner, which was something relatively traditional.  Rotwurst with sides - at this point I can't remember which sides, but sides.  It was also really tasty and dessert was good too.  Living in a university town and cooking for myself I often find that I try to replicate a lot of the things I eat at home, or that I'll run out and grab something quick and cheap, but it's nice to have a home-cooked meal, and even better when it comes with the cultural context of tradition.  Eventually we headed to bed for the next day's fun.

In the morning Annika came over with Stefan and showed us a newspaper clipping of the Nachtwächter of Mühlheim who was going to be doing a tour of the city that night.  She really wanted to go, so we decided that we would go along with her and her dad.  It was later in the evening, and we still had to eat our special lunch of Venison roast and other tastiness.  I really enjoy venison.  I have never had a bad meal with venison. I know it can be gamy, but I suppose when you live in a small town surrounded by forest and your family has been eating game for generations at some point you learn how to cook it so that it's tasty.  And it was super tasty.  Along with it we had red cabbage, potato salad, and a berry compote.  Super tasty.

This is also the point where we realized that they didn't trust that I was feeding Andy enough.  Every time they asked if he wanted more I wouldn't really ask him, because he would tell me if he wanted more.  I just said, "no" that he doesn't want any more.  This meant that they thought I wasn't translating things for him and just answering for him.  This also meant that at some point they started making fun of me and saying that I wasn't allowing him to eat and that they started trying to communicate with him directly by just offering him food.  It worked out ok....but it was clear that they thought I was somehow controlling him, rather than us having our own way of communicating that doesn't require many words and can me done without most people noticing.

Speaking of translating - or not - the Nightwächter thing was really fun - cold but fun.  We walked into town, which was fine, but steep and icy.  Remember "Steep and Icy"  that's going to become a theme at some point. I translated the important parts of the tour for Andy and I think he enjoyed it.  Stefan said that he learned some things about the town that he hadn't known about and we headed back to the house - down the steep and icy path this time.  The next day - 2nd Christmas or the 26th of December - we undertook another steep and icy adventure.

Notes on the weekend and upcoming posts

I spent this last weekend visiting my father's family about an hour south of here (60-80km depending on who you ask).  For the first time I didn't spend the night with my dad's cousin Hans and his family, but instead with his cousin Lydia.  Since my great-aunt died, they have left the upstairs set up like a small apartment for guests and for when her granddaughters come to visit.  It was comfortable, but a little sad, especially since the last time I was there 7 years ago, my great-aunt was still alive.

Anyway, the first day I got to the train station at 2:10 and was picked up by my cousin Sieglinde and her daughter Annika.  I spent the rest of the day with her family.  The second day I went to Wurmlingen - very nearby - and spent the day with Sieglinde's sister Ingeborg and her daughter Lena.  The last day my dad's cousin Hans picked me up and I spent the day with Hans, Hedi and their son Frank.  All in all it was a nice trip and I came home with two pork steaks and freshly made wurst since they had just slaughtered a pig at the butcher.  (That's what you get when you if "auf dem Land.")

There's more to tell, but I have some other work to do before my class tomorrow.  I'm busy reading and writing both for classes and for my exams which I will be taking on the 8th and 10th of December, so until then here are a couple of teasers for upcoming posts.

• The student protests going on in Europe.
• Additional details about my visit to the "Mühle" and the "Heuberg"
• An update on my awesome presentations for classes

So much progress it's unbelievable!!!

I don't even know where to start.  But I'll begin with the first bit of news, and that is that I have my own login for the computer network.  I received my lovely username and password in the mail yesterday.  This opened up a lot of possibilities for me.  It meant that I now had a uni-tuebingen email address, that I could log into the system and get the readings for one of my classes, and that I could print out my proof of matriculation so that I could buy my semester bus pass.

This may not seem exciting for you, but there it means major progress on my end.  Now that I have a bus pass, I no longer have to pay 4 Euros every time I want to go visit my friends up in WHO (where most of the dorms are).  It also means that I can visit my family in Germany for the low, low price of 1.80.  My family lives just outside of the area that my Semesterticket covers, which means I have to pay for the bus on the last stretch.  It's not that bad really and to be honest, if I got all the way to Beuron, they would probably come pick me up instead of making me take the bus, but it's good to know I've got options. So all in all, things are looking up on the bureaucracy front.

My cold has progressed into an at times disgusting sounding cough.  Good thing I bought throat and cough tea - whatever the heck that is supposed to do.  At least it's no longer in my sinuses, which is a good thing.  AND, I'm able to sleep through the night without waking myself up coughing or unable to breath.

My foot - well it's definitely bruised and swollen. I would post pictures, but for some reason bruises don't show up well in pictures - who knew.  It feels better today, and since I'm going to spend the day inside reading, I would be aggravating the injury. I just feel like a bit of a moron.  Whatever.

Finally - it's cold here.  And I mean really cold.  Like winter jacket cold.  Like I'm wearing two sweaters and a jacket and tights under my jeans cold.  I do not want to see what winter is going to be like. I haven't lived in a cold place in a long time, but all I can say is that it's not normal for it to be below freezing in October.  NOT NORMAL.

Ok...back to reading.

Oktoberfest – Part 2

When last we discussed the joys of Oktoberfest, Vera and I had decided to stay and drink a beer, and left the others to wander around München.  Once we got in the Biergarten we realized that finding a seat was going to be difficult, but not impossible.  As one of the waiters passed by us, I asked him if one had to be seated in order to get a beer.  He confirmed this, but then asked how many seats we needed.  While there were four of us, we really only needed 2 seats, the other two could stand and as long as we could order 4 beers, it would be fine.  The waiter asked a table with a little bit of wiggle room if they would be willing to scoot down so that a couple more people could sit and we got a seat at the end of the benches.  Yea!!

We ordered our beers and waited for them to come.  I have to say that the atmosphere was actually pretty good.  To be fair it was still early in the day, but everyone was very friendly.  There were no angry or belligerent drunks, and everyone was just there to have a good time.  Now the beers were 8.50 which is a little expensive, but if you’re just going to have one beer and experience the fun that is Oktoberfest, it’s 8.50 well spent.  We got our beers, tipped our kindly waiter generously since he had found us the seats, and met the people next to us.

München und Oktoberfest - The Beginning

So after that jam packed day at the Bodensee, we decided that we would get up at the crack of dawn and head to Munich.  The German rail system has a pretty sweet ticket called the “Schönes Wochenende” ticket where 5 people can travel one day on the same ticket anywhere in Germany for the 37 Euros as long as the trip doesn’t go beyond 3am the following day, so if you leave at 6:30 am on Saturday and the trip is good until 3am Sunday morning.  It’s not a bad deal, and if you are just doing a day trip it means you can travel all the way to Munich and back for 7.40 if you’ve got 5 people.  The only downside is that you can only travel on regional trains which often stop at every little town along the way and often take a bit longer, but it’s super cheap so who cares.

Konstanz – The Narrative

So Friday my language course planned an expedition to the Bodensee – known as Lake Constance for English speakers.  The plan was for everyone to gather behind the language institute building and depart promptly at 9am, and we almost made it, but one of the language tutors, who was responsible for the scavenger hunt around the city, overslept.  So we left a little late and then drove over to pick her up outside her apartment.

Konstanz und Oktoberfest

I will have a longer post about my grand birthday weekend, but for now, here are some photos to give you an idea.

Photos from Konstanz und Oktoberfest

Travel Update – Part 2

I finally found where I need to go to buy my ticket for the train to the main station.  I realize that the train that I want is coming in about 5 minutes and I need to hustle, so once one becomes available I hop on, buy my ticket, and head down with all of my luggage down the escalator.  Did I mention that this luggage is really frickin’ heavy?  I mean the escalator wasn’t bad, but do you think they have any train cars that are flush with the platform?  Not that I could see.  So then I had to pull the bags up into the train with me.  Um Yea…that didn’t work out so great, but with the help of a kind stranger I was able to get my bag into the train car.  I didn’t try to get into any of the seating areas and just stood with it in the entrance/exit area for the 12-14 minute ride to the station.

Then I had to get off, but that was easy I just pulled it and it dropped and made loud noises, but nothing broke, so I carried on to the escalator.  A note for any travelers out there, if you have heavy bags, put them in front of you when you go down an escalator, and behind you when you go up, that way the weight isn’t resting entirely on you during the entire escalator ride.

Travel Update – Part 1

This will probably be a couple of posts because I have been without internet access for a little while now and have been composing this all in a document as events have been unfolding.  Eventually I will get my own internet access – for now I’m using my neighbors username and password (shhhh don’t tell anyone).

Where should I begin – probably with “Day 1” which would be my first travel day 9/9/09.

One Month to Go

I’m hoping to use this blog as a means of tracking my year abroad. When I went abroad as an undergrad about 12 years ago (jebus that’s a long time ago) there was not the level of technology available to keep an electronic and publicly available log of my trip. Now, as a graduate student, I have a digital camera, a wireless internet connection, and a laptop – AND a lot more people that I want to keep updated on my trip.

I leave for my research year abroad in exactly 1 month, and in that month I have so much to do. And this is not just purchasing some additional clothing, packing, and making sure I can carry my bags. Here's what remains that is not specifically travel related:

• Dental Appts
• Meeting with Advisor
• Reading for my PhD exams (which will continue abroad)
• Taking notes for my PhD exams (which will continue abroad)
• Making sure my husband doesn't starve while I'm gone

I'm sure there's more, but this is a preliminary list. blah....