welcome back

Well, I am back in Germany, back to the rain and back to the daily routine, but also back to my old keyboard which I like much more than that in the Belmont library...
After the exhausting journey and my first day back in school (which was quite chaotic as expected) I am now left with a lot of memories to mull over and a sunburn which seems totally out of place in this cold and rainy country...
The bed is definitely better and more cosy - not very difficult considering the plastic matresses that caused contact paranoia in some of us and the thin blankets that were in the hippest see through look. Unfortunately, I can not really enjoy my cosy bed because my body tells me all the time that it's not time to sleep yet - I hope the jetlag will pass soon.

The flight was horribly long, but there was plenty of sleep - so I could sleep well. The last day was rather quite after the others had left to go on thier fabulous road trip. At least I could conclude my reading of Bill Bryson's Notes from a Big Country which turned out to be a really good read that definitely fitted the journey. It was particularly interesting to read about American idionsyncracies while sitting beside a typical American on the plane who, although he had lived in Ireland for 4 months, did not have a clue where Dublin is... There you go, thanks for pointing all of that out to us, Bill. But the ignorant American was as nice and frinedly as almost all the people I have met during my stay and that is something that really got me and which I will definitely keep in mind very positively.
A lot of my prejudices abotu America were actually confirmed and I certainly gained more as well, but what striked me was the warmth and openness of the people we met. Although it was superficial in most cases I still appreciate the positive American attitude and the way people approach you. It makes so many things much easier and your day just that little bit brighter...


I envy the others who are still on the road and have possibly had a glorious day in Memphis, who are now probably sitting down to lunch while I make myself ready for the first Volleyball training in weeks - something I have really missed. Frisbee could not quite compensate for that ;)

I also want to tell you about our last night out which was a bummer in most respects becuase it did not turn out to be the biggest party ever as most of us were tired or just not in the mood. Still, it was worthwhile and, as every experience in a foreign country, immensly interesting. Three American girls took us out to one of Nashville's tourist magnets: The Wild Horse Saloon. We were supposed to learn line dancing there. But because the prices were rather high and the dancing did not turn out to be very taxing or entertaining we soon changed sites. In Jackson's, a typical student bar, we got well fed and we then moved on to grab some more beer in another bar. Thanks to our American hosts we did not only get to know those places, but also a portion of America. First impression of the evening: all American students drive huge cars, in our case a huge pick-up, a SUV and a Mercedes. Can you believe that? And they did not borrow them from mummy for the night, they dirve that car every day, even the 400 yards to uni.
second impression: if an American asks you anything, do not taqke it serious. Most of the time they do not really want to know tha answer. But they will frequently react with outcries of "awesone" and "how cool". Do not get too intimidated by that. This is just a way of saying that someone is not really interested. Anyway, they usually ask the same question again a couple of minutes later.
Impression no. 3: Do not expect young Americans to know what they want. Usually, their parents work it out for them. They take up some subject in uni (who cares what) and then study for 4 years, basically enjoying there time... Others, especially girls, (and I swear, this is not a joke) come to uni for the sole purpose of finding themselves an appropriate husband - the so-called MRS degree. I was really shocked by that because even after asking several times and trying to find out more about our American friends' motives there still was a huge void. I do not want to sound too rude, but most of them really expect that everything will work out or be worked out for them. To put it in a nutshell, I think they are terribly spoilt. But well, I guess that is a side-effect of their parents being rich enough to be able to afford to send them to uni at all. I don't know, but the gold digger phenomenon is somethign completely strange to me. And seeing a living example of this amde me really wonder.

Not that I think Germans are better in a way. To be honest, we are far too sure of ourselves when comparing us and our very high culture to America, but German students to me just seem more mature and independent than the American ones.


Well, I have to be gone because I yearn for some nice German food, fruits and fresh vegetables and stuff. Wow, how I missed that. The best food I had in America was actually all the nice sushi - thanks to PM. I will always remember that lovely place - not just for the sushi!
So now I will have some lovely bread and cheese and an apple. How does that sound? Boring? No, definitely not - the best fed for a while...


Then I will take out my bike and cycle to the gym (although it is raining!!!). It will take approximtely 5 minutes, I could be faster by car, but I do not own one and I do not need one as my bike and public transport get me everywhere I need to go to. So good bye America, thanks for the good time and all the nice experiences, thanks for Johnny Cash and Elvis, but thanks also for making me appreciate some bits about German culture just a tiny bit more!!!!

retrospective

In retrospect, I enjoyed this trip really much! ... I dare say that I have itchy feet ... yet, every time I find myself again on German ground, I am on edge to getting away as soon as possible ... Even if you feel completely differently, I would always suggest that you take the opportunity and go get to know Belmont, Kathy Skinner, native students and your Professor, D. Hintz! J

maintenance and repair

This trip back home took us, Franziska, Alex and me, approximately 30 hours, which we did not expect at all! It was very nice of Kathy Skinner to bring us to the airport. Our flight from Charlotte to Frankfurt changed directions after we had already travelled in that aircraft for 2 hours. The captain recognised that one of the navigation appliances needed for a transatlantic flight was not working properly. Consequently, we made a U-turn to Philadelphia. There, we had the device exchanged. After 12,5 hours in the same aircraft, we arrived in Frankfurt. However, U.S. Airlines was excellently organised so that we got the next available flight back to Dresden. Congrats!
Now, I am back home again. Still exhausted, although the trip was not as stressful as I had expected. And I am looking forward to what our group will work out so that the students of the English Department will learn from our trip and from our project. So, watch out for our display! (from mid-april on)

Anyone Who Goes TRAVELling Has Stories To TELL

@stories 'bout extraordinay stores
Yesterday, Franziska and I went to a store labelled 'ChristianLife Store'. Its surface was about the size of the Konsum market in Alaunstrasse in Dresden Neustadt, approximately 500 qm ... You could find anything in there. Books, music, bibles, crosses, even slipcovers for your own personal iPod, baby's clothing, shirts, preacher's robes, stickers, pins, altar bread, postcards, lady's handbags, badges, letter paper, jewellery, cups, pens, ... What is it that makes those items fit into a Christian store? It's as easy as that, add a cross or a fish (symbol for Christianity) or a crown (daughters and sons of THE KING) to it, that's all you've got to do. I'm aware of the fact that we also have those stores in Germany; but as it is the case with everything here, there is nothing smaller than XXL, not even stores.

@stories 'bout cars, again
Everybody has his or her own car. Even if you only lately turned 16. However, those cars are not 'beginner's cars' we would have in Germany. It's all about the size of Chevrolet and Hummer ... Are Americans actually familiar with cars such as Renault Clio?

@stories 'bout dorms
I can't do anything but advise you (who live in dormitories) to get the doors of your apartments decorated!!! Accepted colours: pink, silver and violet. Accepted items: hearts, flowers and a female power ranger dressed in soft pink. PS: Don't miss to have your memo board attached to your door so that you will not miss important information your friends want to tell you.

@stories 'bout edibles
I guess that I could lose half my weight if I were to stay here in the states. Food is nice, but greasy and in the South, in particular, anything is fried. After some time, I would have a hard time trying to ignore that I would be longing increasingly for some 'real' food. something nourishing and fresh, some ordinary cheese and affordable vegetables and fruit. ... Of course, we have stayed in a dorm and did not have a kitchen and have only sojourned here for a couple of days ... But I assume that it would turn out to be rather difficult finding a shop that sells organic food ... Over and above all that, no wonder that people with low-income are not able to afford fruit or vegetables as the basis of their daily nourishment. Just imagine that: I paid $4 something for 5 apples ... Consequently, it stands to reason that only few people will keep to this 'fancy food'.

CU later...

Jeez, this is our last day here! It's been a very exhausting but also really interesting stay with tons of cultural input. Subsequently, one observation on the side:

Going nowhere fast
As maybe everyone notices on their journeys to the States, people here like to DRIVE everywhere no matter how far it really is. When asked for the reasons, they tell you that there isn't any good public transportation and that the distances are too long to walk. Also, bike lanes only exist around the campus area. I always found these statements to be correct for many areas in the United States. However, in Nashville it's different. Yesterday, we walked from downtown Nashville to Belmont University which did not take us more than 40 minutes. We did not walk because there are no busses (there are - strangely enough only African American people seem to ride them) but because the weather was so nice and there actually existed good sidewalks.
Doing that, I realized that distances here aren't longer than e.g. in Dresden and that you also do not really need bike lanes because you could just as well use the sidewalks no one ever walks on (except for homeless people and occasionally runners). Combined with the public transportation which is not so bad after all, I figured that the 'car attitude' here must be either laziness or a completely different set of mind. Only urban necessity, that's what it's not.

Coming up: Frist museum and German lessons

F.

safe home

Well, this is going to be my last post while still in the States and I am getting all sad about it. Today Bob had arranged for us to shake hands with the mayor of Nashville and get a picture taken with the governor of Tennessee. We took our chance to sneek around in the capitol and peeped into all the open doors, got introduced to other representatives whose names we will not rememeber and who are going to forget us before we will even have made our way down the corridor, but who cares? Although we have not made it into TV I think that is a pretty good achievement and we all enjoyed it. It also gave us a chance to see a little bit more of downtown Nashville which is not the prettiest place I have ever visited, but certainly worth seeing.

Our last cultural shock is coming up because tonight we are going to go to a line dance and I am pretty sure it will be as embarassing as the karaoke, but nevermind.

We are getting pretty good at frisbee though - the nocturnal practising lessons in front of the dorm have certainly contributed to our abilities. Last night we had a particularly nice session by adding an extra rule to the game which consisted in making up the next bit of a story whenever you dropped the frisbee. To me that was the best summing up of the trip that could ever have happened - we incorporated all the idiosyncrasies and experiences of the trip into that story and for sure it was a pretty long story. You should have been there, it certainly was a laugh.

Well, almost all the good-byes are said, all the presents are exchanged and rather large portion of interesting sites has been visited. Plus all the fun we had with our fraternity project and all the interesting people we have met through it. We will all most certainly remeber that trip and definitely not just for the very different food and the southern ways...

It was mighty craic for me and just "flip" would not suffice to give words to such extraordinary and whimsical experiences as we had them in the music city Nashville.

I don't know, I am getting all melancholic and nostalgic here, but it

really has been a great experience and all my doubts about going to

the States for such a short trip with so diverse a group of students have vanished about 8 days ago. Furthermore I would not want to have missed all those lovely little quarrels and hard discussions about essential topics like the names of certain Dresden clubs or where we will have our next coffee or ice cream. Entertainment for the masses!!! We all have to go back soon, but although we might not end up as friends for life I did really enjoy my time here in Nashville with you guys and I am looking forward to seeing you all in Dresden very soon where we will all have to go back to the daily grind, but might always cheer up things with remembering southern friendliness in a hearty: How are you doing, hon'?

By the way, I will always be up for any frisbee extravaganza :)

individuality rulez!

@church service in African American community:

As you've already been told by the others, we've been to an African American service in a baptist church. I was stunned by what was happening right at the beginning of that hour we spent there. After the announcements for the week to come had been made, all those who were not members of that church were asked to stand up and to present themselves to the rest of the community; which was about 25 people, including our group. One of the church representatives did not miss to tell that he had spent 2 years in Germany serving the US army. You wouldn't believe that everything he said was accompanied by "Amen, Amen", and they were really happy to have had us there! I've never felt so much welcomed in a German church. Afterwards, we've been shaking hands with so many people and it took everybody in church approximately 10 minutes to go round and say "Hi" and "Hello" and "God bless you all" to all those surrounding you ... what a great idea to create intimity! You immediately get the feeling of knowing a whole bunch of people!

@dinner at the German House - Max-Kade-House

Who knows that there also is a Max-Kade-House in Dresden??? I didn't until today! ... According to Regine Schwarzmeier, the German teacher of German, it is located in Gutzkow-Strasse 29-33 and is one of the Studentenwohnheime. The Max-Kade-House here at Belmont is dedicated primarily to students of German or German students. There are 5 girls living there at the moment. The reason why it has been named after Max Kade is that this man, who was born in Schwaebisch-Hall in 1882, emigrated to the United States of America where he was in the pharma business. Actually, he was the founder of a big pharmaceutical company which helped him to accumulate wealth. With the help of this money, Max Kade and his wife Annette incorporated the Max-Kade-Foundation in 1944. The tenet of this organisation was to help rebuild a democratic German society and focussed especially on young post-war German academics. Among other things, many student dormitories have been built and financially supported by this foundation all over the world.
Back to dinner - as we've already told you, we were going to cook spaghetti ... and we really did a good job, indeed! I was pretty much proud of our cooking ensemble! We had : GARLIC and GARLIC and everything had GARLIC in it - sauce, salad, bread (which, after being toasted in the oven, tasted like real German Zwieback ... and made me feel that my teeth were doing a good job because it got so crispy!) ... finally, the moment you were entering the house you were embosomed by a sweet cloud of GARLICky air. Yummy!

@monday hiking

Today, our group had their field day - just like everyone's is very well familiar with from elementary school! We went to that lake of which I forgot the name, unfortunately! This lake is home to turtles (which were so sweet! I was stunned because I am not used to seeing turtles in the wild, laying in the sun on a tree trunk next to a lake), beavers, otters and muskrats. ... It was very very nice to have had the opportunity of walking and enjoying the woods! Except for that, everything else is forbidden round the lake. You are even supposed not to run around the lake (although this is just a different form of walking ... hmmm ... can anybody explain that to me?).

by the way ... if I'm ever going to continue blogging, I will have to be better equipped. I'm thinking of a digital camera in order to support the reports by strong, colourful and interesting pics.

Some observations

All rightie, now that I have a few spare minutes, I want to share a couple of thoughts with the rest of the privileged world on this side of the digital divide.
On the superficial side, there are all these little differences that we encounter here: first of all the language, y'all. I guess we have now pretty much gotten used to being called baby, sweety or honey (hon') when we enter the cafeteria or sit in a restaurant. And the rising and falling, wide mouthed Tennessee accent cannot surprise me either. I think it's great. But what still struck as odd was the barbecue at professor Wylie's house, who teaches opera voice and has an impressive house full of European stuff, which is about an hour's drive away from Belmont in the wealthy suburbs of Nashville. On the way there we passed gated communities, in which the houses look like little castles (they are still made of wood though). I had imagined the professor standing on his porch at a huge barbecue grill. However, I was completely wrong. We had barbecue pork from a take away restaurant and everybody got a tray, plastic plates and cutlery. That was my personal culture shock here in America (that was before I got to see his collection of guns though).

Being German, we are welcomed very warmly everywhere here. It is really surprising how many Americans actually know some German. Bob can recite Heine's Loreley (and not much more I guess but still) and nobody seems to hold anything against us anymore after WW2. Even the black folks in the church wanted to shake hands with us. The other thing is black/hispanic and white relations here. Although there is no open discrimination or racism, I have the feeling that most of the people I talked to have certain prejudices towards them and neighborhoods, churches and so on are kind of segregated still. It is probably too early and unjustified to draw any conclusions now, but it would be interesting to spend more time here and find out what's lurking behind the surface. So long, y'all.

And by the way, facebook revealed us the hidden life of alpha tau omega, so much for the protection of privacy in internet communities (of course you dont have post 900+ photos on your site).

Okay folks, here's my two cents.

Today was church day a.k.a. Sunday so we went to an African American service in order to experience a new way of worshipping. Unfortunately, our group had to leave after just one hour which really was a pity. I do not know about the rest of us but for me it was more than just a 'cultural' experience...people in church were all excited and joyful - cheering, laughing and singing throughout the whole time. This is what worship should always be like! I feel that many churches in Germany (and also some of the white churches in the USA as far as I've had people tell me about them) could definitely take a leaf out of this community's book.

After church, David drove us to a University baseball game. Belmont played the Jacksonville Dolphins and beat them 6:5. Even though there weren't many people at the stadium, the spirit was excellent due to a very exciting game and a range of junk food offers that most likely let everyone's level of blood sugar explode. However, the wheather was awesome with the sun shining so bright that if I now happened to be bumping into General Custer, he would undoubtedly shoot me on account of my red face straight away.

Just before the game, Adina and I went up to Fort Negley which was just nearby. Even though there's not much left of what the Union army built during the Civil War, it was an interesting historical site to visit.

Tonight, the Dresden group is going to meet up with some Belmont students at the German house in order to have some sort of cook out. I'll better be going...

baseball on a sun-day

the sun is shining, the weather is sweet ... today, we all got our faces burnt, I guess, since we've been sitting in this beautiful spring sun for three hours or even more watching a baseball game - belmont bruins vs. jacksonville dolphins. prof. david hintz did a real good job eplaining to me the rules of the game! thanx a lot, david! ... still, I am a bit confused; for all those who are also far from being experts in baseball, follow the white rabbit: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/foreword.jsp . there you should find everything you want to know about BASEBALL. still, I really much enjoyed the match. tonight, we (our group together with some students of German at Belmont) are going to have a go at cooking real Italian-German-student's-everyday-dinner, i.e. spaghettis. I guess that this will compensate more than enough for the food we had yesterday. you are interested i what I had? just imagine a white plate with white chicken breast and some sort of white sauce poured over the meat. the latter reminded me of the dough that German Kloesse are made of ... uncooked, though, and therefore really sticky. a bowl of coleslaw topped the meal off ... I'd say it's different, just that! ...

Halleluja, Praise the Lord

Sunday morning in Nashville, half of the population is on their way to church and so are we. Bob, who kind of polarizes our group because he sure needs a lot of attention, knows somebody who is in a black Baptist church and so we just went to the 11 o'clock service this morning. The sun was shining down upon us and the trees were in full bloom. When we arrived there, the church was about half full with people in their best clothes. If you remember the Coen brothers movie, The Ladykillers, the church scene there is actually not so unrealistic as I had always thought. You come in and immediately you notice the difference to a normal European church. There are fans hanging from the ceiling, in the center there are seats for the choir and they have a real band with drums and all. In the beginning a few members of the choir sang a little warming up accompanied by the soul organ and the band. I thought the choir only consisted of three singers but then the actual service began with the marching in of the choir. Everybody stands up and starts clapping to the really loud music of the band and choir. Judging from the sound, you would think you're in the middle of soul and gospel concert. It is so loud.

Then the guests were welcomed by the congregation, we stood up and Bob introduced us. They responded with lots of clapping and amen. What was particularly striking there was the lack of quietitude and formality. To another groovy, repetetive tune all the members of the church walked around and shook hands. People would stand up and start clapping or rocking if they wanted to. Some ladies used their order of service booklets as fans or actually had brought their own ones (like in the movie) and it is only the beginning of spring here. Unfortunately we had to leave the service after one hour (which is still warm up time), which hopefully did not offend the church-goers, who were obviously happy to see foreign guests in their service. The overall impression I got from the church was that it is centered around the music and emotions, which can certainly be moving. It was an interesting experience, which probably cannot be made in a German church but next time I would stay till the end.

Downtown Nashville from the Belmont parking house

Brad, the Inter Fraternity Council President and member of Alpha Tau Omega

More adventures

Sunday afternoon in Nashville.
There has been much going on the last days whcih explains the absence of any new posts here.
We have been to a huge shopping mall on Thursday whcih was really disturbing to most of us as about 4 million shops on 5 million square km are just too much for a German eye. It was unbelievalbe. The food court alone had the size of a middle sized German mall. Nevertheless, or maybe exactly because if that, I could not find a single thing I wished for. No birthday presents, nice T-Shirts or souvenirs. Altough me and Katrin ran through almost every shop in the mall. We had a hard time, that is for sure. Afterward we went to a Country Karaoke Bar whcih was the next cultural shock. Each and everyone of the singers coming on stage was good enough to win any German pop idol contest and give Dieter Bohlen a really hard time. They were just amazing and we were sitting there totally awestruck and intimidated. That did not keep us from singin though. Which was defintinely not the best decision I have
ever taken because that version of American Pie they gave us was about the longest song I have ever come across and we had to bear our way through it. But fortunately one of the local karaoke country stars came to our assistance or the audience would have probably kicked us off stage... Well, at least no one can say we have not tried..

On Friday we went to former President Jackson's home which is called the hermitage. It was really interesting, but most of the Germasn were a bit irritated with all the American patriotism and the rather flowery description of his achievements there. Still, it was really good. In the evening we were all invited to Prefessor Ted Wylie's house for a BBQ where we met the American students that are going to come over to Germany in May. It was a pretty good evening with everybody enjoying the food and the talk.

As we all went out afterwards and did pretty well the Saturday was a bit quiet although we were in the Jack Daniel's Distillery in Lynchburg. It took us quite a long time to get there and everyone took their chance to have a nap. The distillery itself was interesting and I will probably never forget the smell of it - quite impressive.

We went to another typical American restaurant afterwards where we littered our table with napkins drink refills and all kinds of food and got totally stuffed - so very American altogether!
Afterwards it got even more American when we went to a Wall Mart to do some shopping. I am not even goint to try to describe it, it si just crazy but that is still an undertstatement!!!

I shall only add that the German film we went to watch in the movies afterwards was a good contrast to it, we were all pretty moved by "Das Leben der Anderen".

After a relatively early finish last nite and a relatively late beginning this morning we were all pretty welll again this mornign to go to an Afro-American church service in north Nashville. Wow! That was impressive, all the singing and the passion and everyone being so moved and cheerful, I was pretty stunned by that and although I am not a very

religious person it did really get to me. It was a pity that we had to leave early though but better than nothing...

The baseball match we went to afterwards was antoher truly American experience adn due to the lovely weather and Belmont winnning we all liked it very much although I think I personally had a bit too much of the sun - feeling all dizzy and weird. But it should be okay as another highlight is coming up- a get together in the German house on campus with us cooking and preparing all the food ourselves. Yummy! And with the extensive shopping list we made nothing can go wrong there. Loooking forward: more food, more fun. What else can you wish for? It is a pity we are leaving so soon. I am just getting the hang of this... the adventure story is going to be continued, that is for sure!!!!

Karaoke in Nashville

Wow, wow, wow...I m sorry but i cant stop "wow-ing". If u ever intend to visit Nashville, dont forget to go to a Karaoke bar at least once. I m telling u... It's worth it. The Nashvillans probably define that kind of entertainment slightly different. From what i have experienced on that night, i m pretty sure that loads of really gifted singers use karaoke as a kind of open mic night hoping to be discovered by some manager or record label. Anyway, that evening was just fantastic. Lars, Franzi, Alex, Adina and I hooked up with the three ladies from the Stammtisch. And now imagine, entering a bar which is sort of run down, but still with some country music atmosphere combined and now getting totally shocked cause all these people can sing. At first, we were quite enthusiastic and willing to sing some proper country songs...well, well...it took us an hour to adjust to the different circumstances. For all those of u who like Sam Cooke....i m sorry, but he was our victim. Nonetheless, our audience was overwhelmed by us and didn't stop applauding...However, everybody knows that English speaking people tend to be polite and friendly :-) Moreover, they all knew that we were Germans which might have influenced their judgement as well. There is also one person who should not be forgotten to mention in this context. Wes! ...He, Alex and Adina singing American Pie. Actually we should think about uploading some videos on the internet... I m speechless....But thank you, Wes, for your support. To sum up, it was a great experience in the karaoke bar...