Annual liters of wine consumed each year: You don’t even
wanna know.
Welcome to fairy tale land, i.e. my residence for the next four months. With cobble stone streets and ivy draped over nearly every building, it's pretty much a scene out of a Grim Brother's fairy tale. There are multiple Rapunzel-worthy towers scattered though out the city, and up the hill a little ways there's a thickly-wooded forest, where if I only had a red hood, I could easily play the protagonist. Did I mention there’s a giant castle looming on the hill? I rest my case.
So here I am, nearly three weeks into my program and finally writing about where the heck I am. The American Junior Year Program at the University of Heidelberg consists of about 35 Americans from all over the States, including 5 other students from my home-base, the University of Denver. I'm living in a flat shared with three others, though they haven't all come back from the summer holidays yet.
A few highlights from my first few weeks here:
Das Heidelburger Schloss (The Castle of Heidelberg)
The first of all Heidelberg tourist obligations, we visited the Castle as a class during our first week in the city.
Die Schlossbeleuchtung (Castle Illumination)
On the first weekend here we got to experience one of the coolest celebrations in the city, a "burning" of the castle and fireworks to follow, for which the city was packed with tourists.
As our first week of advanced German grammar classes comes to an end, I'd like to share a few relevant pictures and memes that perfectly describe my experiences with the German language.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: noun: The fear of long words. Also a big problem if you happen to study German.
(Excuse the language. But seriously.)
When I think I remember things from the last time I was here.
Except with genders. (There are three)
German syntax, in a nutshell.
What I understand when older people try to talk to me in dialect.
German nouns are capitalized. All of them.
When someone accidentally forgets to use the formal tense when speaking to a teacher.
I asked my old host brother why everything is always written in English, gesturing to a bottle of body wash in a drug store. He answered: "Because 'diamond touch' sounds a lot nice than 'Diamanten Beruhrung;". Hard to argue.
Whenever I try to speak German on the phone.
When I try to explain complicated things.
And now a run through of the school day, as explained with 10 pictures of Spongebob.
The first day of school.
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Seriously questioning knowledge of German grammar.
When the teacher explains the difference between Konjuntiv II, Praeteritum and Plusquamperfekt.
When the teacher yells at the person next to you for not knowing the difference.
Copper, auburn, strawberry blonde, firetruck, rusty gold, or just plain ginger, Dublin has it all. With the most freckles per capita and the highest concentration of people who can claim relation to Chuck Norris, Ireland may just be the Mecca for red heads everywhere. While the rest of the world (including the US) averages 1-2% ginger, Ireland estimates that 10-12% of their population has some shade of natural red hair (which means I was asked for directions no less than 5 times, because apparently being ginger automatically gives me Dublin street cred). After a few days it became a game to mimic the accents of locals to see if they would notice I was a foreigner. If any of them noticed, they didn't ask me where I was from. #chameleonstatus
My travel pace was significantly slower than in New York, as I viewed the week not only as an adventure but as a week to sleep, de-stress and re-center before school starts up again. I honestly can't remember the last time I had a week to myself with no demands on my time (self imposed or otherwise) and it was a much needed week of relaxation and stabilization.
A few highlights from the week:
Glendalough and the Wicklow Mountains
Once the jet lag wore off I booked a day trip through a tour agency to Glendalough (pronounced glen-da-lock) and the Wicklow Mountains. I was lucky enough to snag a window seat, and the lovely Spanish woman sitting next to me completely understood my need to be slightly antisocial and listen to Celtic music while driving between stops. I'd heard the Irish country side was the main attraction of the country, and it didn't disappoint, though periods of heavy fog meant we only saw about 10 feet from the bus. Even that wasn't so bad, because when we got up into the mountains the fields were covered with beautiful purple Heather bushes, reaching right up to the road.
Our first stop was the bridge where the movie PS I love you was filmed, so you can take a look at the flowers for yourself!
The next stop was Glendalough, which means valley of two lakes. It was a 6th century monastic settlement where ruins of the buildings and a graveyard still stand, with two deep black lakes nearby. The valley was sheathed in a layer of fog that drifted in and out of the trees, and for the first time I didn't mind that the sun wasn't shining. It was eerily beautiful and definitely my favorite part of the trip.
Isaac's Hostel and Friends
I stayed at a hostel hidden in an alleyway near the center of Dublin, where I quickly made friends from all over the world. Every evening was spent cooking with 25 other people in a kitchen with two stove tops (joyful chaos), and I quickly joined up with a group of solo travelers who each pitched in something to make a more interesting meal. Everyone did their own thing during the day, but come 6 o'clock you would start to see familiar faces in the common room, and after dinner we would hang out in the sauna or play guitar in the wide, arched tunnels in the basement of the hostel, which was once a wine cellar. Soon I had a small group of friends- Sarah and Beto from San Francisco, Maxim and Oceane from France, Vince from Moldova, Victor and Leo from Brazil, Ronja from Germany, and Gozde from Turkey. Some of them were apartment hunting in preparation for study abroad in Dublin, and when Sarah and Beto landed an apartment in the temple bar district with a pool table we had an apartment warming party.
Pub Crawling
I've never really been a heavy drinker, which is why I instantly fell in love with Dublin pub culture. Going to pubs is first and foremost a social gathering, clear by the tables of locals (from various generations) out for a pint with their friends. After that it's about the live music, most of which was traditional Celtic, though some pubs were more rock oriented. The band below was one of my favorites. The video doesn't do it justice, but it made the Irish in me want to break out dancing. I'm really going to have to take some Irish or Scottish dancing lessons at some point in my life...
And all else aside, the Guinness was pretty good. Never did try an Irish car bomb though, Colin, I figured ordering one would offend pretty much any local, considering the trouble that's still ongoing in Northern Ireland.
Hostel friends at one of the edgier pubs.
The most famous (and touristy) of all Dublin pubs.
Temple bar district
Howth
On my last day I took a short day trip with a few hostel friends out to Howth, a small fishing village on the Eastern coast. We hiked about 7km around a peninsula, where we found break taking views and many more fields of heather. Very cool. We finished off the day with fish and chips on the dock, and an afternoon train back to the city.
Observations about Dublin
1. There are pots of hanging flowers everywhere. SO cute.
2. It was cloudy most of the time, and rained most days. That's pretty standard apparently.
3. There is Gaelic on all of the signs. Apparently kids still have to learn it in school and it's survival is heavily subsidized by the government, though few people speak it in every day life. Government workers and teachers are all required to be fluent. They also call it Irish, not Gaelic, as Gaelic refers to Gaelic football. (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEAbWrdB9XU)
4. The streets change names every block or two, which makes it REALLY. HARD. to use maps. Hence why I gave up and just started wandering.
5. It's fun for pub crawling and the Guiness factory, but if/when I go back to Ireland I'd rather spend more time in the country side. That seems to be where the country really earns it's stripes.
On traveling solo for the first time
As I reflect on my week in Dublin, I realize two profound things.
Firstly, I seem to have lost nearly all fear of getting lost.
As mentioned before, the street names changed every few blocks, rendering my map nearly useless. I was also hesitant to even pull out the map for fear of losing my local ginger camouflage. The streets were well populated and I only ventured out by myself during daylight hours, so I felt completely comfortable wandering through the streets and parks. When you're with someone I feel like there's an unspoken pressure to make sure the other person is having a good time, and if you accidentally walk the wrong direction or take a wrong bus you feel guilty for wasting the other person's time. But travel solo and that pressure evaporates. Unless you're on a schedule, traveling to a specific place, there is no way to take a wrong turn. As my favorite George Harrison song lyric goes, "If you don't know where you're going, any path will take you there."
Traveling solo I was always more cognizant of where I was, so I finding my way back became quite easy. Instead of walking with my nose in a map, I noticed landmarks and unique stores that left an easy bread crumb trail. I occasionally needed help finding a specific landmark, and locals were always happy to point me in the right direction. Being able to reframe "getting lost" as "seeing more of the city" is another great way to take the angst out of navigating a new area.
Secondly, I've learned something about the importance of going slow.
In contrast to New York, where we planned each day's events and always seemed in a hurry (despite attempts to walk at a "grandfather pace"), in Dublin I was on no schedule and had seven full days to see the city. Being alone I could go at my own pace, so I literally wandered without a map through the city. Consequently, I found places and events that I would never have intentionally visited, like a Korean cultural performance competition in a hidden amphitheater in the city. (I literally followed the sound of the drums; I'm lucky it wasn't some satanic ritual.)
Time became an abstraction. I woke up when I felt like it and stayed up into the wee hours of the night for basement jam sessions and music at the pubs. I chatted with locals and got recommendations of their personal favorite spots in the city; I sat on a bench at St. Stephen's Green sketching the ducks and reading The Alchemist. I may not have seen as much of the city as I possibly could have in a week, but I came to understand it better. I observed the locals on their daily commutes, wandered down streets away from the usual tourist bustle, stood on bridges and watched the seagulls dive for scraps of bread.
It's a way to travel, but also a way to live. We can race to pack as many things into our day as possible, and we might feel accomplished, or impressive, or whatever it is that drives us to "be productive." But that leaves little time to smell the roses, or notice a beautiful sunset, or chat with a stranger at the bus stop. The most profound and incredible moments in life cannot be planned, and if you do not allow for unplanned space in your life you may never experience them.
So if I can offer any advice to those who find yourselves in automatic go-mode, it would be this.
Go slow. The grave is not a finish line.
It's advice I need to follow as well. Until next time...
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