Year In Review Blog: Edification

As the end of my first year in Germany approaches its inevitable conclusion, I reflect on my time here, the lessons I have learned and the person I have become. Many stories will get told for the first time, some existing stories will get a behind the scenes look. This series will last a week and by the end of the week, hopefully you will have a better view of what it is like to be a student abroad.

Episode 4: Edification

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust

The inevitability of one learning while in another country for a year is nearly equal to taxes and death. Learning doesn’t necessarily come easy. Like taxes, sometimes one learns with a painstaking arduousness that can comes with buckling down and just getting it done. Like death, learning comes inevitably to us all, but how we deal with it depends on the person.

Even though I have been in this country for about ten months, I still learn many cultural things on a regular basis. Between how you address someone older than you to how you find seating on a train, I am always finding new and surprising things.

One of the first things that I learned was what to do with backpacks at a restaurant. A lot of Germans carry around backpacks or some kind of extra carrying device because they like to be prepared for everything and need somewhere to carry it all. No really, I am pretty sure the average German could survive the Zombie Apocalypse just from what they carry with them in these bags. It is nice because as a tourist I carry a backpack with me everywhere and don’t look silly while in Germany.

I had learned within a short time of arriving in Germany that there is etiquette to having backpacks in a restaurant. I figured there would be but didn’t know it. I soon found out. Normally I sit my backpack on the floor beside me, mostly because I know right were it is and I can wrap my foot through one of the straps. I am not paranoid, this is just good life practice. The two older ladies at the table beside me told me that if there was a free chair at my table to put the backpack there. At first I was a little confused, but then I thought about it and it made sense, it is now out of the way of the servers that bring us our food, and it looks nicer to have it tucked away. Whenever there isn’t a free table having it likewise tucked under one’s chair like the extra carry-on bag on an airplane is the acceptable way. Maybe this is the same in America. I don’t normally go around with a backpack there. But it was a good lesson to learn.

Trains in Germany are famous. For people in Germany, the Deutsche Bahn means something completely different than say, in America. In the US, I hear people talking about how punctual the German trains are. I am on a campaign to educate America. German trains are not on time. Busses are, but trains are not. Even for this one major drawback, millions of people in Germany use the trains every day despite every German's intense basic life need to be exactly on time. Always. 

So with millions of people using trains there has to be order, because in Germany, there is always order for something. And if you thought that the trains would be an exception, you would be mistaken. The great finding-a-seat-on-the-train-when-it's-already-half-full-and-you-don't-have-time-to-wait-for-another trick has a complex "order" to it. Say for instance one is getting on a train in a not-so-main hub, like a smaller town or suburb (or German equivalent), he or she might have a hard time finding a spot, especially if that person is traveling with someone else.The train is probably mostly full already. No one likes standing in trains even for short amounts of time. What do you do? Well first you must search the entire train for an empty row. Not an empty seat, an empty row. If you find one somewhere that isn’t first class, good for you. You have ended your struggle and can now sit down for the duration of your trip. 

Suppose you do not find a full empty row however, because everyone else has done the same thing did and you now see rows (of two seats) with only one person in them. Because Germany is a populous country, odds are very high that you don’t know a single person on your train and you are now forced to sit next to someone you don’t know. Yes even the Germans, the well-known chatterboxes and overtly friendly people, are uncomfortable with this.

If, by the time you have searched the whole train for a spot and haven’t found an empty row, and you are not to your destination, you now go through the process of finding the best person to sit beside. Not the man sleeping against the window, when he wakes up that might be awkward, not the mother with two screaming children right behind you, you want to read your book, or listen to music in peace. Not the hottest girl on the train, you don’t actually want to talk to someone while on this voyage, so it could be weird. You find the most normal, average person you can find and then ask in as few words as possible if you can sit there. If they say yes, you are good to go and you spend the rest of the trip awkwardly sitting there next to a person you don’t know trying not to make eye contact. If they say no, you find a spot where someone lets you sit down. IF you are unfortunate to get on last, and everyone has gone through this process before you and there is only the last choices available, you can either sit next to the sleeping homeless man or you can stand just off the doorway waiting impatiently for your stop, probably blocking the door for that guy in the wheelchair now making yourself look like an inconsiderate jerk.

You may think that this description was greatly exaggerated or that because I am a foreigner and don’t really like talking to random people on a train that this isn’t how it is on a train. This is however, the struggle of most people in trains in Germany. The biggest difference I have found is that they won't walk through the whole train unless they are going to be on it for a really long time. Most people only search within their cars because they have already scouted which car is the emptiest from the platform outside. If you are sitting next to a person that you don’t know and the man that was sleeping in front of you wakes up for his stop and gets off, you now as the aisle person, have the easiest route to an empty row; and lots of people will change seats for that empty row. But there is a trick to this too. If you are in an area where lots of people could still get on, you run the risk of being one of the last free seats and might get stuck with someone who would be lower on the"Preferential Row Partner" list than the person you just left and now you might have to go past them to get off or go to the bathroom and maybe share that look of awkwardness that makes you uncomfortable that you ever changed.  You might also be potentially taking an old lady’s seat that you didn’t see getting on the train right after the sleepy man’s disembarking. On a side note, old people can be really good people to sit next to. They have had years of experience in this area and can profile a good row partner quickly. They also don't usually say much because they understand what being a good row partner means.

If you are an extrovert, love people, and don’t mind talking to people that aren’t really looking for a deep philosophical conversation on their way to or from work, you will have zero problems getting a spot on a train. However other people around you might just enjoy riding in peace and shoot you looks that mean to make you a quieter traveller. This however would  probably be the most confrontation you will get. A classmate told a story of how a man was abruptly screaming bloody murder on the train and the other passengers looked around to make sure he wasn’t dying, and once they had determined that, they tried to ignore the intrusion for the duration of the man’s journey. No one told him to stop, no one asked him to move, everyone just sat in their own awkward silence praying that the man would get off on the next stop.

It’s not that the Germans aren’t friendly. They are some of the friendliest people I know. It’s just that they may tend to prefer their commute in the solitude of a book, newspaper, or their iPod. One cannot blame them for this. Not talking to someone could be safer, I mean what happens if they are a chatterbox that tells you their entire life story. What if they recently ate garlic (and for Germans in this case recent could mean within the last 5 years). It’s a really great system, why change it? It at least gives you something to do on the train, and as an outsider, it can be really amusing to watch.

Many people have asked me if I do any schoolwork because I am always traveling. I always tell them the same; that I have school, and I learn a lot, it’s just not as good to write about. Not many people like to hear much about schoolwork, but to put everyone’s suspicions to rest I will briefly go through what I have learned in school:

Every day I learn the complexities in the German language.

Grammar and vocab are just a few obstacles in this prose.

As I learned to speak German, many problems arose.

A verb plus an ending can make a noun; umarmen is to embrace and Umarmung is an embrace.

Nouns have articles and articles change their face,

   depending on object, indirect object, clause, or case.

            Don’t think that is hard yet, the German language is never this easy.

            It has rules for everything…except when it doesn’t.

There is no word for complete randomness, because in German; random?…It just wasn’t.

            You always say what you mean so there is no word for “never mind”,

            Regardless of what truth you may glean or later find.

            School in Germany is different than back in America.

            Eating in class is considered rude,

            That is unless you offer everyone your food.

            Yawning and stretching is a sign of disrespect

            But watching TV all night makes one tired as you’d expect.

            College is loads of fun, especially in Germany

            Lots of breaks and travelling add to what we learn

            We may speak only English until we return

            But nothing beats our newfound sophistication

            Because studying abroad is all about edification.

There, that settles the discussion of schooling once and for all. I do have school, and that’s probably the most interesting way to hear about it. Some things that I found interesting were that during breaks, or holidays the weather is less than peachy but as soon as I go back to school the weather couldn’t be better and we are sitting inside pining away about how we wish we could be outside. Today is a fantastic example. It is some of the most beautiful weather of the year and I am about as attracted to class as two south pole magnets and tomorrow, when I have only a short time in class, it is supposed to rain. Murphy's Law is often the story of my life. 

Curriculum and external learning have all taught me about German, Germany, and the Germans. (Does that still count as alliteration?) And learning the finer points of a culture has been really fun for me. It has come with its uncomfortable moments, but that is all part of the learning. As I said yesterday, uncomfortableness leads to or is an adventure. And experiencing life vivaciously through another culture is the best way to learn. My views on many things have changed throughout my time here. I have thought about deep philosophical things, especially relating to foreign cultures, practices and traditions from all over the world, not just Germany, and I have looked at my own home country with an outside view that has really helped put things into perspective. The edification alone that one receives while living in a foreign land is worth all the struggles it takes to get.