The “ß” in Gießen is “ss”, fyi

The last post ended with a hasty farewell, as I was in a rush to get to a salsa dancing event in Gießen.  I’ll back up slightly and give you an idea of the adventures of last weekend…

I stayed with Kyra in Gießen from Friday to Sunday, mostly to get acquainted with the city and start to figure out if I’d rather live there than in Laubach.  Friday night Kyra and I were planning on finding a place to dance, so I borrowed her roommate’s bicycle and we went on an extremely long quest.  Our first stop was a ballroom dance studio that normally hosts dance parties on Friday nights.  Unfortunately for us — and for a German couple who pulled up in their car just as we arrived — the studio was closed for the night.  We chatted with the couple for a bit and learned that the ballroom scene is primarily made up of “older” people, i.e. people who are already married and bring their own partners.  The man said if he’d known we two young ladies would be coming, he would have had two sons and brought them along with his wife (oh, German humor, you sound suspiciously like my father’s humor).  We told them we’d come next week and headed off to the next destination on our quest.

On the way to what is supposed to be a dance venue on the west side of Gießen, Kyra and I stopped at a gas station to ask for directions and coincidentally ran into the older couple again, who were headed to yet another ballroom event down the road.  (Here I started thinking, ok, well I really should move to Gießen then).  We started biking again and, long story short, ended up going waaaaay outside of the city in the middle of the night, biking on an unlit path next to the equivalent of a county highway.  After twenty minutes of this, we decided we probably weren’t going to find any dance clubs out there and hopped a conveniently timed bus back into town.

Hell-bent on finding some sort of location with heart-thumping music, we settled for a smallish club clearly meant for 18-20 year olds.  I can only imagine what the Germans, being hesitant to dance without a few drinks in them, were thinking when we stormed the dance floor with our crazy-bold-sober American moves.  We were literally the only ones dancing for a good 40 minutes.  It was actually pretty fun — we were definitely “am abspacken”.  There’s really no English translation that does the German verb justice, but the closest definitions I can think of are “to go wild” or “to cut loose”.  Good times.

Saturday was full of sleep and relaxation, followed by shopping at the outdoor market and various stores to pick up a few essentials (bright yellow bath towel, fruit, gelato) with the only other Fulbright teaching assistant in Gießen, Rick.  That evening we made falafel and had a nice picnic in a park by Kyra’s apartment.  Her friend Allen, a bloke from Manchester who’s been living in Germany for 20 years, joined us with his guitar and singing skillz.  Some extremely aggressive swans crashed our picnic party, but we managed to hold our ground and avoid getting bitten.

That night was full of salsa dancing (finally!) at Bootshaus, on the riverbank downtown.  It was interesting coming into a brand new salsa scene, wondering how things function, if everyone asks anyone to dance, how old or experienced people would be, etc.  Turns out, the music was excellent and most people were between 30 – 45 years old yet willing to dance with “a stranger”, after I asked them to dance a couple of times.  There were two middle-aged German men who could salsa decently well, but I especially enjoyed dancing some salsa with a guy from Paris (named Jacques, of course), an older Italian man (named Giorgio, of course), and a younger Turkish guy who was definitely the most experienced of anyone there.  The salsa was a mix of Cuban and LA-style, with merengue and bachata thrown in throughout the night.  Happiness achieved.  I’ll be back soon for more…

(No)where, Now(here)

Today I had my first encounter with Laubach, the town where I’ll be teaching for the next ten months.  It takes a short while to get to the middle of nowhere from somewhere, and when that somewhere is Bonn, it takes a little over 2,5 hours.  (Side note: I finally saw a community of tipis on the train ride down; I’ve always heard how much Germans love to imitate Native American culture (or, at least, what they perceive it to be), but it wasn’t until today that I was able to witness this particular stereotype in person.  “Gah,” is all I have to say).

Bärbel, one of the English teachers at the school in Laubach, is my contact person for the time I’m in Hessen, and was kind enough to pick me up from the train station in Gießen and drive the 20 minutes to Laubach.  Throughout the day we were able to

-rent a room for me in the student housing complex about a 15-minute walk from the middle school where I’ll be teaching
-have a quick tour of “downtown” Laubach (by this I mean we stopped by the town hall, had a cafe au lait, and Bärbel pointed out a few buildings)
-stop by the bank, attempt to open an account, realize that I’d left my passport in Bonn, slink away sheepishly…
-go to the school, make general introductions to the teachers (specifically to the 10 English teachers whom I’ll be helping)
-have me, just for fun, sit in on/help with my first class…which happened to be in French.  Thank goodness I’m a polyglot.
-have a 40 minute question & answer session with a class of 7th graders in English; the best question was definitely “do you like jelly beans?”
-drive up to a convent/look-out point between Laubach and Lich, on the way back to Gießen
-go shopping for a bit in Gießen at Karstadt

Apologies for the lack of pictures, but my general first impressions of Laubach were basically what I expected; it is extremely small compared to what I’m used to.  The surrounding country and the town itself, however, are both very beautiful.  Laubach itself lies on the outskirts of a huge natural area called the Naturpark Hoher Vogelsberg (poorly translated website with pictures here), excellent for hiking and biking.  On the downside, my worst fear was confirmed: there is absolutely no place to dance in town.   In Gießen there are definitely places for salsa, along with random dance studios, but before I freak out and start begging for rides from my flatmates I think I’ll focus a bit more on getting integrated at the school and being outdoorsy while the weather is still decent.  More updates to come as I figure out things to do…

On an extremely positive note, all of the people are perfectly lovely.  Bärbel was especially helpful of course, but the other teachers are truly excited to have me for the next school year and the students I met today were as well.  I have a tentative schedule worked out where I’ll rotate as an assistant to different English classes each week and have two additional workshop sections that I’ll lead myself.  The workshops, or AGs, or Arbeitsgemeinschaften, are divided into beginner and advanced conversation groups.  Oh, and did I mention I only work Monday-Thursday?  In case I get bored, I suggested to Bärbel that I direct some sort of one-act play for the students who weren’t able to fit the conversation AG into their schedules, so perhaps it’ll be a return to theatre that will substitute my dance cravings.

So, where to now?  Erm…Austria, it seems!  Innsbruck, specifically.  I was chatting with Maike a few days ago and she mentioned she had a multiple-person train ticket to anywhere in Germany and that she was planning on using it to get as close to Innsbruck as possible to visit a friend there, and if I’d like to come with her I could.  According to Patrik, I have friends in strategic places so that I never have to pay for a place to stay (which is mostly true), and as it turns out I now have the chance to visit Michaela and Jo, two friends whom I haven’t seen since 2003!  I leave tomorrow morning and plan to come back on Monday, so it’ll be a few days until I can post again.

Until then, safe travels!