PS: Pictures in the previous post, video of the protest two posts ago, and pictures of the protest and some taken in november so far of around here are up on flickr, with the Germany pictures just started. Please forgive typos and grammatical errors in this post, as I don't have the energy to check it over now.
So, I should probably write about the trip to Germany before it gets too far away in my mind. Or more like before I go to Siena on Saturday and have more to talk about. Prelude: 3 friends from college, one studying in Edinburgh, Scotland (Mary Katherine, or MK), one in Mainz, Germany (Will), and one in Ferrara, Italy (me, of course) all meet up in Mainz for a long weekend of wandering, site seeing, movie-watching, american-speaking, and just plain fun with familiar souls.
On the Road Again
As I mentioned before, there were some lovely problems going both to and from Germany with trains *gasp!* leaving early and the ticketers taking their normal forever (they chat with each other and wander off randomly in the middle of selling tickets without warning to those who are, you know, hoping to catch a train), schedules changing unexpectedly, almost losing my backpack (that one was my fault), and best of all, having all the trains and buses going on strike after being redirected to almost the edge of Slovenia and spending several hours trying to find a way to not spend tons of money or stay the night in the airport. I love Italian public transport. (At least it goes most everywhere, is relatively cheap and often on time, despite the reputation). I am so grateful that cousin Gina lived a reasonable distance from where I was and Ferrara, and that she was generous enough to let me stay the night, once I found a way to get closer to her. Thank you Gina! I’m glad that I got to see her again, too, as Gina truly is a caring, bubbly person, and fun to talk with. But really, it didn’t turn out to be anything very trying. Probably the only thing that seriously freaked me out was almost losing my backpack. I’ve mostly gotten used to not being able to trust public transport to work out the way I expect, and to just chilling when things go wrong. But as you might have noticed from how often I’ve mentioned it, it’s still kind of a regular preoccupation of sorts… Meh.
Sites of Mainz
Besides that the weekend went quite well! Mary Katherine had already gotten to Mainz earlier on Thursday and stayed until Sunday, while I stayed until Monday. Friday involved a long shopping expedition amidst the many colors, tempting tastes, and unknown vegetables of the Mainz farmer’s market in one of the squares in the downtown (old city?) part of town. Most of Mainz was literally flattened in WWII, and in the great rebuilding process following the war, the Germans tried to make the city look as it did previously, with the old architecture, down to some ruined turrets of the cathedral and the fancier house facades, imitated in an apparently faithful manner. It was odd, because in the overall architectural style for the relevant areas, the buildings had the characteristics of old German construction – but still felt relatively new. It might have just been in comparison to the even older-looking buildings I’ve primarily seen in Italy, the different style, or the fact that everything there is so darn clean, I don’t know. But I was still impressed with the intentionality with which they had rebuilt Mainz. It has pretty places, a lot more trees and diversity in the building styles than Ferrara, and definitely … looks German.
Over Friday evening and the next few days, there was a lot of (semi-planned) wandering around the city, and visiting churches: the cathedral (St. Martin’s?) (which has sections as diverse as romanesque, gothic and baroque and has this fantastic layer-cake-like exterior made of sandstone), St. Augustine’s (?) (which was super baroque and therefore kind of gaudy, and is now used as a training church for new priests), and coolest of all, St. Stephan’s, all of whose stained glass windows were designed by Marc Chagall (whose work is usually very dreamlike, with lots of bright colors, and an odd mix between wistfully sad and surreally happy). It was awesome. The windows were almost all this bright blue, with perhaps no artificial lights inside, leaving the interior this surreal, underwater color. It was very peaceful and calmly inspiring. I wish I could have spent more time there, maybe do some meditation or prayer if I’d been there by myself, but there was a large German group “for meditation on the windows” starting up and we felt we should move on. Cool place though.
We also visited the old citadel, now filled with administrative offices, but still with the ramparts intact and explorable, complete with guard towers on the corners and lots of moss. Nearby, we found a playground crowned by a large windmill – up which you can climb and get to a long squiggly slide with too much friction but good niches for sitting and taking reflecting photos of others in the slide. There were also swings, a seesaw and a climbing tower looking out over the city. No, we totally aren’t kids still at heart. We’re college juniors, we swear… although that almost never means maturity, so it doesn’t actually preclude acting like little kids and playing with big toys. :)
Food and Reflections on the Protest
Then we found this little very German restaurant that the director had recommended to Will for lunch near St. Augustine’s (?). And the food was good! Will had a sausage that tasted a lot like kielbasa I though, I had some goulash (it was surprisingly like chili), and MK had this yummy cheese/yogurt spread. The customers mainly shared tables with multiple groups, the lighting was dim, people actually talked to strangers (which Will says is a phenomenom basically only found in restaurants), there were many, many sausages around the room, the sparkling apple juice was great, (we had already tried another local specialty the day before, the young sparkling apple wine… which was interesting), and the décor had a distinctly German feel that I can’t remember in enough detail to pin down. For the other meals we cooked simple but good food together in Will’s dorm, but it was nice to actually get some typically German food while there.
Other highlights of the trip included getting to see the industrial-park-looking University of Mainz where Will spends much of his time, the Gutenberg Museum (lots of old printing presses, wooh! And actual Gutenberg Bibles in a vault with walls at least a foot thick.), the River Rhein, watching the movie Iron Man (ooo, technology envy…), and having a Firefly watching marathon, as I had never seen the whole series before (joy).
Oh yeah, and coming back to the great big student protest the other day, which I already discussed somewhat. The most striking things about the protest were 1) how many students were not only participating, but getting really into the demonstration, and 2) the amusement, curiosity and, most of all, pride on the looks of the adults watching as they hung out of windows and stopped work to emerge from their shops and cheer the students on. This place normally feels so sleepy and rudely apathetic that it was rather a shock to feel that much enthusiasm in the air again; I am reassured by all those proud faces, by the dancing in the streets, by the voices raised in chant and song. That state of action is not my normal phase of being or experience – I have never even seen a demonstration like that in my life. But the energy felt closer to home, felt like Ferrara has life in it yet. This place is confusing in that way: the atmosphere feels oppresive after a while, as though the early winter fog and the emptiness of the floodplains are reitterative reflections with the culture of the town and region; but every now and then, something breaks out that reminds me of the living energy that exists somewhere in the quiet mist of the Ferraresi, like how happy people were after the American election or this massive protest. It’s easy to forget, though, but there are many things in life that are easy to forget that don’t simply disappear because they are hidden or temporarily out of mind. I wonder if one could say the same about the Ferraresi’s need to care and ability to get riled up.
Friends and Random Observations
Back to Germany. Of course, the best part of the vacation was hanging out with Will and MK. I am so grateful that Leah is also in Ferrara and that we get to hang out together here, don’t get me wrong, but it was great to see those two again. I’ve been feeling, albeit inexplicably very tired/having sleeping problems, much more emotionally at ease this week. It might be having my final paper and oral for literature done with, it might be that the election is over and I was happy with most of the results, it might be that I really am half way to going home now. But I’m pretty darn sure that getting to see good friends (in English!) who are going through some similar study-abroad experiences, not having to think about homework, and just getting to be somewhere new with people I care about all added up to a more relaxed Emmons. Excellent weekend, all in all, I must say.
Oh yeah, and I changed my name on here back to Emmons, although I have stopped asking the Italians to call me Emmons, as it just doesn’t seem to work. It felt strangely relieving to be “Emmons” for the weekend instead of just Elisabeth, as I am here. “Elisabeth” is a part of me, and I wouldn’t ever get rid of my first name, but I don’t feel quite myself when I’m called Elisabeth all the time. There are times when it feels that just Emmons doesn’t fit me either, but it does so way better and more often than any other name I’ve had or even heard of. I am Elisabeth Emmons Hahn, and proud to have pieces of the names of both my mother and my father. I’ve never managed to quite explain or even figure out what it is about the way names fit or don’t and how my name is such a part of my identity. And I’ve certainly thought about it a number of times, having had several score nicknames in my life (quite literally: in 8th grade, I remember, I counted up all the nicknames I could think of that I’d had, and it was over 50 at the time. I wish I still had that list) perhaps beginning somewhere around “Busy Lizzy” and with the most recent addition being “Mushu” (like the dragon in Mulan, thanks to my suitemate Zoe in Arabic School). Even as a little kid, I obviously struggled with finding a name that fit me, bouncing from Lizzy, once it stopped matching me as well, to Libby, Elisa, and several others before settling on E. Emmons/ just Emmons… And I miss feeling quite like myself here, with a number of little things feeling askew in abstract ways, one of which being my name. One more thing that separates me from home here.
I don’t really know where this is going. I was strangely energetic and unable to fall asleep at a normal hour, hence why I am finishing this up now, but as I’m started to finally get sleepy, I think I’ve also gotten more rambly, like usual. Aaaand, I will have to get up early tomorrow, as we in Ferrara have to catch an unfortunately early train to go to Florence to meet up with the others before heading down to Siena for a daytrip sponsored by Middlebury. The trip should be pretty cool, the getting up early and coming back to Ferrara late, not so much. But I really should go to sleep now, so I bid you all good night, and for those of you on Xenia Final Pledge tonight, I hope it went wonderfully and look forward to hearing about it.
The cross on the wall of one of my classrooms - 4 Nov.
Branch of the Po that goes through Ferrara - 3 Nov.
Typewriter interview with Sally Mann
6 days ago
