✷ sorting through my time in germany
I realize I've hardly posted at all since being here, and it's because life has been very full. I've been keeping a diary and writing many draft posts, I just haven't had time to reread them and edit them before publishing. I plan to gradually go through them and publish them, and the ones I publish retroactively will have the date they were originally written at the top.
June 30
Today is Sonntag, Ruhetag. Sunday – quiet day. Everything is closed on Sundays except for bakeries, which are the heart of German life. Germans could not function without fresh bread every day, and I have grown dependent on it too.
Today when I visited the bakery, the woman there said "Bei jeden Tag, die zwei Semmel?" (Every day, the two bread rolls?) I like that she recognized me, that I finally count as a regular after visiting nearly every morning for three months. It's true that I do get the same thing every time – nice fluffy rolls (Semmel) which I then put two fried eggs on with a little bit of Senf (mustard). To me it's the perfect breakfast. (The second roll is for butter and a bit of jam.) Sometimes I branch out – my default is going for the cheapest roll (which costs 40 cents, unbelievable that you can buy a food item that is good for 40 cents) but sometimes I go for the more premium rolls, like a Krusti, which has a chewier crust and is more like a bagel. (85 cents), or a Potato (I find it very silly that they call it that rather than a Kartoffelsemmel, but I have only ever seen it for sale as a Potato), made with potatoes which makes it a little denser but also richer. It's like the king of bread rolls, and it goes for (I believe) 1.25 euros.
I do appreciate how much cheaper food is here than in the United States. Being able to do my grocery shopping for the week and have it all come out to less than $35 is really great.
It's been a calm weekend. Yesterday the temperatures reached 33 Grad (91 degrees Fahrenheit). I had planned a hiking trip with a friend of mine from Finland, and we made sure to keep it very easy and light because of the heat. We took the S-Bahn (suburban aboveground subway) to a small town near Munich with a cloister, and trekked through a forest and meadow to get there. The mosquitoes were incessant, because the recent flooding in Bavaria doubled their habitat :P but we survived. (German mosquitoes don't itch as much as American ones, anyway – another good thing about being in Bavaria.) I had made it my goal to spend the entirety of yesterday speaking only in German, and trying to think only in German as much as I could, and I was largely successful. I only had to break out of German twice, to text my mom and write a business email, so I consider that a success.
It's so easy, when I hang out at home, to slip into an English-speaking life again. Listening to the same music I like in the United States – Green Day, Billy Joel, Hamilton, etc. I realized that other than two bands, I don't know any German song artists that I like, so I decided to google "deutschland spotify meist gehört" and found a new artist I enjoy – Udo Lindenberg.
I realize, the more I listen to German music, how limited American pop music is in its content. It is always about either being in love or breaking up with someone. German songs branch out so much more – themes of brotherhood, of nostalgia. One of the classics, which every "oldie" artist does a cover of, is called "Griechischer Wein" – Greek wine, about a fond memory spent in a tavern in an unfamiliar land, among welcoming strangers. It reminds me about how Germans tend to think much farther into the future than Americans do – in regards to their architecture, their climate policies, their livable urban design. Even their songs are about things that last much longer than a fleeting crush.
There's a slower pace of life here, that lends itself more to contemplation. This morning I woke up late, It was still achingly hot out, and sat on my balcony with a cup of cold water, looking out at the park. The birds were singing and a girl in the house across from me was speaking on the phone with a parent in Korean. On some mornings, a person plays their flute in the park, and I can hear it from my apartment.
I really like it here.