Category Archives: Uncategorized

Be Bewitched in the Harz

May 20, 2016Göttingen, UncategorizedAlec

This was a few weeks ago, but

On the night of April 30th the official transition between winter and summer takes place in Germany and neighboring European countries. Walpurgisnacht is the name of the festival. One of my Profs recommended that we go to the Harz mountains (an hour and a half on the free train from Gö) so I high-tailed it to the mountains the next day to be ready for the traditional ceremony.
After getting off the bus in Wernigerode and missing the bus due to the lateness of DB. (YES Xingyi) (and I actually like SNCF and Trenitalia more) Sorry, a discussion between me and Xingyi. Anyway,

After hanging out in Wernigerode me and my friend waited for the bus to Schierke. Schierke is where it all started. It is the highest village in the Harz and the closest to the Brocken Mountain. If you recall from Faust….Yes, read it, the night of the witches on the Brocken with Faust and all that hublah takes place on the top of the Brocken Mountain on April 30th Walpurgisnacht.

The bus was completely full and at stops on the way to Schierke people were told they could not board and that they must wait for the next bus. Only the die hards go to Schierke btws!

It is really crazy! One lady yelled at the bus driver for a few minutes, exclaiming she had traveled Stundenlang to be in Schierke and now this happened!

I read online that some people coming to Schierke actually believe in Witchcraft and things, but I laughed it all off. Well, that was dumb.

People were dressed up as witches and devils everywhere and the village was hopping. A medieval fair was taking place, and the evening was ready for plenty of punk music, strong Harz alcohol for the cold (Feuerstein), Glühwein, and the acclaimed Hönigbier in the Harz mountains.

We decided to get Kuchen for later then climb the Brocken. Can’t party before a good hike, right!?? Basically no one was at the top of the Brocken. There was still plenty of snow and it was extremely misty. You could not see more than 5 feet in front of you. The scene felt like it was coming out of Goethe’s Faust itself, with the witches all around. Even the fog swiveled in a mystifying manner.

The party on the bottom was intense. The band at the end was amazing! They are called Cultus Ferox! It was a casserole of music! Some North German punk, rock, Scottish bagpipes on the scene, and a medieval fire dance in all in one song! Also some pretty cool creepy chants! Yeah, old Germans letting loose in quite the sight. The full on all out dance moves aren’t quite there, but I feel they are getting closer than during everyday life (you know the stop lights.) But they do not hold back in yelling slurs. Betrunkenes Deutsch is a third language though, that I have sadly, not mastered. Instead I started Italian!

Go to Schierke! Try for Walpurgisnacht! The village is so close to Göttingen, but it is like you are in a little, old, beautiful, forgotten world. Go there!

Here are some Fotos and Kuchen. The white one is called Brockentorte.

NOTE: the bakery in Schierke makes the Brockentorte better than their Schwarzwaldtorte. Higher quality ingredients maybe. I mean, the Schwarzwaldtorte had chocolate sprinkles, not fine Dark Chocolate shavings!! Disgraceful. (…Schwarzwald is still better than the Harz btw, (Yes Xingyi everything is a competition))

We are Back with Homer Simpson

April 26, 2016Göttingen, Regensburg, UncategorizedAlec

This blog is long overdue, and (but) will be somewhat of a quick one.

I am posting the blog, but it is from all three (and Julia!!!) of us (you guys are lucky, we are pretty cool and look/sound attractive!)

Europe is now introducing vending machines to combat the problem of 10pm closing hours. I must say, Italia is a step up on D, with every little village having a machine.

Luckily Frankie and Sidney showed Julia and I this wonderful vending machine in the heart of Regensburg. We contemplate donut selection. (…this is not all we do here whoever reads this btw….)

Highlights include:

1. Frankie’s snobbish rejection of the cookie, yet his willingness to trudge forward in the end! Fantastico!

2. And of course. Question: What type of donut is this (pink)?
Answer: (Sidney and me) “Oh, you know, it is just one of those….”

Enjoy! And Thanks Julia, Sidney, and Frankie!

Germany is the land of Gewohnheit

February 29, 2016Göttingen, Regensburg, UncategorizedXingyi (Sidney)

Moin moin! It has been a while, I know. But in my defense, I have been making human contacts with my friends a lot…. whether those Treffungen are well-planned ahead or in the “hey ALEC get out of your shower I just arrived in Göttingen from Czech and you are hosting me SURPRISE!” Bara style.

So since last post, I have spent my Weihnachten with my family and Sidney, Michael and Coco. Gotta admit, seeing Uncle Tom and Sidney getting into a huge debate about immigrants by the fireplace (Sidney made the fire!) in Oberammergau was both entertaining and unentertaining… I mean, if you ever know one of them you would know what I mean.

Then me, Sidney, Bara and Jade met in Prague. It was fun. I withdrew too much cash in Czech Koruna and had fun stressing out about it. Bara’s mom’s lecture on healthy diet was also very educational. Then the four of us met up in Göttingen (that was when the crazy Bara random show-up thing happened). I got really drunk that night and have probably told Bara and Sid a little bit too much… Ich bringe die beide irgendwann um. Keine Sorge.

After the random meet-ups with friends, it was Abschluss time. Oh how I missed CC and the block plan. Instead of waiting in line and getting to me each by every month, all the seminars are just kicking my butt with the final papers at the same time. Luckily that was over too and I was soon able to make random plans again with Frankie and Sidney (she coldly refused, stated:”I told you months ago… I am leaving for China by that time don’t you remember?” I take that as “I don’t like you Alec.”, apparently) going to Paris and skiing in northern Italy. As I am writing this blog, I have successfully posted 17 sexy cringing faces of myself on Facebook. Go check them out.

So the thought of these days is (I know I normally do not do this kind of writings but I am growing and learning from Sidney. Thank you Sidney, my loyal friend and my great tutor in life!) that Germany is the land of Gewohnheit (habits). When I take the train from Göttingen to München, it is always 2 mins after the round clock almost every hour, and it is always on Gleis 10. If I umsteigen in Würzburg, it is always stepping off on Gleis 4, and go across the platform and stepping on again on Gleis 5. When I go to Hamburg, it is always going to be on Gleis 9, and it is every 17, 43 and 56 min of the hour. See, I can recall all of those after some frequent times of traveling. DB is never late, so you almost always know when and where you would be during the trip. It is a certain feeling of certainty and Sicherheit. It is german.

(On the opposite, french trains are so different. You should expect SNCF to be 20 mins late on average and you will not know the gate until the last minute. pffff. They are too french.)

Please find attached a friendly twerking photo of me.

Until next time!

[If you are very confused after the last two blogs- assuming that you are reading the blogs at all: this is one of the exchange blogs I do with Alec, where I write about his life and he writes about mine…. So btw his last post was supposed to be “Sidney’s”. I think I did a good job being Alec though lol. ]

Ah, Back from Weihnachten, in China und Mehr

February 8, 2016Göttingen, UncategorizedAlec

Hallo Leute!
It has been awhile, but I am back for the post. I am home in China for New Years having just finished the Semester last week!

Over Weihnachtsferien I was in Strasbourg, two days was enough, mind you. The dirty bathrooms and un-oderly manner of people crossing the streets on red lights was really too much for me. I was SOO happy to step back on that DB Train (with Pünktlichkeit, not like the French one) and be back in the Vaterland.

I spent a few days in the Alps, getting into some political disputes, mind you, not getting into that…..

Back in Regensburg, I prepared for Abschlusswoche, something I had to readjust to after CC. My Prüfungen all went well though, I rock.

–Back to the language issue, Chinese, English, and German ya know..the structure is all getting a bit better. It is still interesting though as a Poli Sci Major, ah…

Also, what it up with German men offering me cookies at Subway?? Don’t quite understand this culture..vielleicht it has something with Bayern zu tun.

Forgot to mention, I visited Alec in Göttingen for a weekend…It was fun, ya know, really good Kuchen, a strange party (Göttingen people are quite different, taking care of Alec that night you know (not a good sight). I also saw Barbora from CC (some of you probably know her as Myslim) It was typical Bara showing up out of the blue, but very nice to see her…Bye Bara, have fun in South Africa. 🙂

Well, now that I am in Changsha for Chinese New Year I have some pics. The food is great btw, but after being home for a few days, I miss Regensburg.

I guess you were right in Ane, Regensburg has become home in my heart.

Peace out CC !

The Advent Season

Germany has come alive! Wow! Students and elders, children and parents, fill the streets! Every street in the Göttingen Innenstadt is ornately decorated. Glühwein, a hot egg nog like drink, hot chocolate (with alcohol and whipped cream of course) make the residents buzz!

I feel the christmas season in the air, the snow (that melts, let’s get real, this ain’t Alaska or even Colorado) the wood fired Steinoffen preparing Flammkuchen and the hot fresh Brats spark life in everyone. Everything is great, and the Glühwein takes your stress away after a day of class.

Social standpoint: It is still an adjustment to meet Germans, but all is coming along, the students and prof in my political science Blockseminar are very lively. I highly recommend any Poli Sci major coming to Göttingen to take a class with Georg Strüver.

Also, I met my friends from CC (Michael and Coco) in Berlin and Göttingen, and finally got to see Xingyi! She made the trip up and we spent the weekend in Hamburg! Here are some photos of the coolness.

For Learning One New Language, First You Gotta Lose Two

October 13, 2015Regensburg, UncategorizedRegensburgXingyi (Sidney)

I have always wondered: do people have different personalities when they are speaking different languages? More intriguingly, do I? I remember seeing my English self as shyer, quieter and more introvert when I first came to CC. I often caught myself hesitant about reaching to people or exposing my thoughts and feelings. I stopped making silly puns, telling slightly offensive jokes (and then spending 10 minutes to politically correct myself), or bragging about the insane dreams I had last night. At moments, I paused and looked at myself, thinking that I stopped being me.

As a Poli Sci major, it especially sucked (pardon my idiotic English for now, guck noch mal diesen Titel) during an intense, discussion-centered politics class. I remember sitting in class, looking at the seniors, wishing that I could be them while I actually had to spend three times of the amount of time they needed to finish the readings. I remember sighing to myself: errrrr, only if this discussion was in Chinese.

Then I finally realized that, the problem is definitely not a different personality in another language, but the language ability not being enough to convey my personality completely. Two years later, the table has turned. I became that annoying Poli Sci major upperclassman taking an intro to IR class, babbling nonstop in discussion all time every time. I got to the point that I was describing my entire world view system to a new friend for hours in English as comfortable as in Chinese. After about two years, I found myself on the other side of the language barrier, being as weird and hyper as I should be. It feels like a PC user finally adapted to the Mac OS X system, and feeling fine scrolling up for the page going down— huh, quite smooth.

Ugh man, do I not miss that. I finally got to see Frankie this morning (it was in class actually). I was talking to him in English, and stuttered for three times on finding the proper word for “gleich” in English. Can you even imagine that… Then we both agreed to switch the conversation into German. Although I was still correcting myself all the time, using overly simple vocabularies and messing up the word orders, it actually (somehow) felt much smoother than speaking English. Don’t get me wrong, my German is not good enough, yet. (I tried, though, to take high level Quantum Mechanics theory in German yesterday… nope, total bloodshed. Dropped it after about 10 mins in class, right before I started to hate human race for inventing both physics and German.) My “German self” is quite as shy and quiet as my old “English self”, only speaking up when absolutely necessary. I can literally feel my personality trapped inside of my German, 蠢蠢欲动(Sorry this phrase has to be in Chinese lol)，anxiously seeking a way out.

I guess now you can see that, as hard as I tried not to, my problem of multi-linguality is showing. I guess the language learning process is always making new connections between the cognitive concepts and the linguistic sounds/signs/marks/Wortstellungen. And in order to do that, you have to ignore the connections you already made in other languages. Fire is not 火, Feuer ist auch nicht Fire. Feuer is but the glamorous, hot, red thingy. It looks like a visible red wind blowing from below, or a mysterious Geist, or ghost. You gotta look at it as if you are your illiterate ancestor, or a 牙牙学语的 baby. Wow, red, hot, always altering its shape, how amazing. And then link this impression, this concept to the word in certain language. You know nothing about fire, or 火. At this brief moment, you have but one and only one name that you feel perfekt for this thing: das Feuer.

So ja, I guess this is basically what we go through when we try to pick up a new language. You intentionally forget the former language systems you had, you break up the connections between sounds, signs and meanings, and you build a new Ordnung out of this chaotic mess of concepts. At the beginning you stutter, you switch code, you try to sort the new connections out while fighting the instinct of calling them other names, but after a while, trust me, you’ll be fine.

But at this moment, you can only be patient, take your time, pat yourself on the back and be sicher that: for learning a new language, first you gotta lose two.

========

also, here’s some photos from my trip to Wien this weekend. Gotta say, being a Poli Sci student visiting Austria in the middle of the refugee crisis and the election was quite interesting….

No idea why these are tilted, but meet Egon Schiele, my fav artist. And go visit Leopold museum for his works some time if you happen to be in Wien.

Time for a Post It is COLD

October 11, 2015Göttingen, UncategorizedAlec

The Herbstkurs has been going on for 3 weeks here and it has been such an exciting and tiring time. It has been great meeting students from all over the world. Göttingen is pretty easy to get a feel for, but I am sure there are a lot of hidden spots throughout the city. Today I went on a tour of Göttingen during the time of Nationalsozialismus which put a different spin into the city. University cities like Göttingen and Heidelberg were big targets of the party.

There are activities organized all the time during the Herbstkurs and it is very hard to feel that one has gotten anything accomplished. There are morning classes, afternoon special classes (literature, science, econ, etc), sports, Film nights, Cultural evenings, and of course exploring Göttingens nightlife…what kind of name is Savoy anyways..okay bad experience. Göttingen is becoming homey for me. The fall leaves are beautiful, but beware it is very cold. It has been below freezing the last two nights, and the humidity level here leaves you with a different feeling than the Colorado dry weather. Fun abends, long days and short nights are defining my time in Göttingen. Meeting such a diverse group of people, most being opinionated thank goodness is great! My German and English language skills both seem to be decreasing, but recuperation is coming.

To the Göttingen student next year: You will be exhausted dealing with the bureaucracy here. You are not alone, the two Amherst exchange students are going the same stuff. First, it takes forever Deutsche Bank to start your account, while Studentwerk is writing you letters saying that you need the account, and you cannot obtain a Studentenausweis because there is actually a 217 euro tuition (enrollment fee) you have to pay. It takes a few days then to get a real ausweis, where you can look up classes and try to figure out the ECTS credit system. For German Lit it is 5 for a Hausarbeit plus 2 for Protokoll I think, so it should be 7… There is so much more for me to figure out. There is a printing card, and some courses you cannot register for, others you can….

Just look at the positives of all this: Your friends are in the same boat, you can stroll downtown, enjoy the architecture here (very bourgeoise). The houses are huge and beautiful and the trees are very colorful. Also, the landscape around Göttingen is very beautiful. It is extremely hilly, with Weserbergland to the west and the Harz Mountains right near us to the east. It is great!!!

Will be back with more. There is one more week of the Herbstkurs and then I will whee the wind flows.

The German Blog

German at Colorado College