A retrospective from Köln

What can I say about my time in Stuttgart?

My family was amazing. The things I saw were mind blowing. The people I met were unforgettable. The time was too short, but also just right.

I've definitely learnt so much about myself and Germany and Germans.

Germany is a place so different to Australia and yet so similar it's almost impossible to make a judgment about whether I really mentally left Australia, I feel like I adapted to quickly to the little differences that I didn't have any culture shock. And it's hardtop have culture shock when the place and culture gefällt mir so sehr.

And as I leave it feel like I've achieved my goals so far, I've learnt so much about the people who I've lived among for 6 weeks but I don't know if this is to say I've learnt about the culture.

I've definitely learnt heaps aboutvthe language, how to structure and respond to the things said to me. But I really feel that only time will be a good enough filter of what I have learnt, so much still swirls in my head.

I will write again in the next couple days as I am still travelling in Germany and learning ever more!

Grüße von Köln!

Week 5!

So the topic of week seems to be social problems in Germany,

I don't know if I can really comment on these as so far my perceptions of Germany have been limited to only one city, while furthermore, I'm not a German and my experience is only 5 weeks long, but I will say what I have observed.

As the others have, I have also observed homelessness in Stuttgart, whether this is more or less homeless than in Perth, I don't know. But it is highly concerning given how cold it is and I cannot blame them for taking refuge in the train stations as one of the few things that stay open all night and provide some protection from the wind.

Smoking is still prevalent here, as far as I can surmise, more so than Australia. It is a little dubious for me to say if this is a social problem. Smoking would be incomparable as a social problem to things like racism or sexism, in their scope and institutionalised nature. However, I agree that it has a great impact ont he public health and seeing smoking ads in public places for the first time (as far as I remember) was quite confronting that something that in Australia is so tightly controlled, is advertised the same way coke is (or alcohol, which is a much bigger problem in Oz than here.)

Also, graffitti, I'm not sure if there is more or less here than in Perth, but I think it is an issue. However, one must raise the real question, specifically with homelessness and graffiti, are these social problems in themselves, or symptoms thereof? Surely only a youth who feels they have no stake in their society would damage public property in such a way. But, as I must say, I'm not a sociologist and not equipped nor trained to comment on these things in a deep fashion.

In other news, this week has been a quiet one for me until Friday when I visited the Rockfabrik nightclub, very impressive, it was more like a building with a few smaller venues inside it. Something very cool.

And tonight i will visit a variety show called "Youkali" here's hoping it's interesting!

Dropkicks in Deutschland

First thing's first, tonight I saw the Dropkick Murphys play live in Ludwigsburg. The show was complete with stage invasion and encore that ended the show with TNT by ACDC, ein ganz tolles Nacht.

Shipping up to Boston, theme for The Departed and break out hit for the Dropkick Murphys

This week I want to talk about cultural stereotypes. At the concert Whitney and I speculated about how wild the crowd would be for the band. Suffice to say we were quite surprised! We had mostly speculated that fairly hardcore punks would have abounded and made the crowd quite wild with moshing and the like. We were actually instead very surprised to find the majority of the crowd to just be enthusiastic but physically casual listeners. This is a huge difference for us from Australia. And just the sheer kind of jokey comradeship that existed there.

In Australia going to a concert is like a competition. Who can get in the door first, Who can get to the front of the crowd, who can get to the front of the merchandise line quickest, who can show off their fandom the most. It's really pretty disappointing that it's like that in Australia.  But in Germany it seemed like everyone knew they were all there to have a good time and see the band and hear the music and they seemed correspondingly relaxed.

This is definitely indicative of a lot of the German society I've experienced, it correlates well to the public transport in that people my bump and jostle but no one fights or yells because we're all just trying to get to school/work/home/sonnenstudio whatever.

This is definitely something I really like about Germany, it's just so rational here.

And a nice folky one of their tunes to enjoy.

Peace and rationality to all reading (and a headbanging good time haha)

Cultural Difference Springs Eternal

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING DEUTSCHLAND

Or evening rather. So we're now at week 3 of the Winterkurs and I'm definitely feeling a strong difference between how German is taught in Australia by (most of the time) Australians and learning it here in Germany. One strong example is that in Australia it is very typical for people to overtly friendly with use of tone and words when meeting strangers or in interactions in shops and the street. Perhaps so as not to appear overly official or cold. And so when we were taught the difference between Du and Sie in general use. I was told that Du was "normal" and Sie was formal or official in nature. 

However! It is really the other way around, I have discovered. Sie is the default for everyone until they say you can call them by Du or you become close friends or perhaps regular acquaintances. This was a degree of culture shock for me. One of the things I find deeply endearing about Australian behavior is our (hopefully/usually) ubiquitous friendly manner. So i was quite surprised that in Germany this would be a somewhat creepy use of over-familiar terms.

Perhaps this is the first point that I am suffering culture shock on, but to what extent I'm actually shocked is debatable, I'm unnerved as to the idea of the "endearing" Australian friendliness may actually be doing us a disservice on the world stage. Deeply bothersome and deserving of furthering pondering indeed.

In other news, Stuttgart's Planetarium is dated and unimpressive, don't go. (2/5)

Also I would have not thought it coming from Australia and enjoying the cold as I do, that I would actually MISS the sun. I think I'm having a dip in Vitamin D levels and maybe having some kind of withdrawal effect. I definitely feel a bit more chirpy on sunny days, and this effect is well documented with things like Seasonal Affective Disorder. Curious indeed!

I will also include a Kraftwerk song! Because Ben hasnt ever heard of them!

I guess lastly, i will mention a very curious film currently set to premiere at the Berlin International film festival called Iron Skies about nazis coming from the dark side of the moon.

Thoughts? Is this an acceptable parody of Nazism? or is it insensitive? (warning if you look it up, coarse language and possibly offensive imagery.) I think it will make very good material for something like a thesis examining the place of such works in the overall concept of Die Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung 

MfG Alle

Week 2 - The Threat of Routine rises.

So here we are at Week 2 of Winter Universität, day 12 of my time in Germany and what can I say I have achieved so far?

I've learnt new words! Schicky Micky [sic] is one of my favorites, meaning somewhat pompous or poncy i think. It was described to me as a person who is very dressed up yet still boorish and vulgar. And many many other words too I'm sure I have learnt, but to regurgitate them would be rather long-winded and no fun to read!

I've eaten German foods! Though my opinion is mixed on which I enjoy or don't, for the most part German food is very hospitable to the palate and easily consumed in large quantities (much to the chagrin of my belt I'm sure). So far one of my favorites has to be way Döner is made here. Undoubtedly it must more accurate to the Turkish tradition of its making due to the large numbers of those with a Turkish migrant background living and working in Germany. In terms of sweets, I can't get enough of the southern favorites, a chocolate called Ritter Sport. Typically milk chocolate with hazelnuts it however comes in a multitude of other flavors and forms (my favorite is espresso) and I hope to visit the Ritter Sport museum soon.

Probably only 1/10 of all the flavors are shown here.

What else have i learnt thus far? Perhaps I have learnt that there is too much to learn! One jarring thing was that the friendly way Australians deal with each other, lest one be seen as snobbish or cold, is not very acceptable here, it is much more accepted to be dealing with others in the formal when they are not friends or regular acquaintances. This has definitely surprised me as i had long thought the friendly style of Australians  was our passport to the world. But perhaps not in Germany, maybe the weather seeped into their manners haha

On that note, it gets colder and colder here. Seeing ice on the ground blows me away and i think it will for a long time to come.

For now I best sign off and sleep for a long day tomorrow complete with excursion to the State Gallery to look at art older than Anglicized Australia. 

Bis Später!

Picture of the day!  

Saint George Slaying a dragon (from the Chapel of the Hohenzollern Castle in Tübingen. taken by me.

Expectations of the Schwabenland and My Course

So, Germany. I've been here for about 5 days now and I must say, most of the differences between here and Australia are somewhat subtle. More just the way people go about everything. So I guess I could say that's something that I've already learnt, but more importantly I should say what I expect to learn. 

Ideally I want to learn much of the language, all the little things that make it a real spoken language, not something so official and dusty to be learnt out of books. But i want to consolidate my Hoch Deutsch as well. So I guess I could say that I want and expect to learn much linguistically.

Really though, I have to say I expect to learn the most about the people. Like I said earlier, I have a feeling like Germans simply go about their lives in a different way to Australians. For instance, I’ve already learnt that Germans have no fear of the dark in relation to public transport and being out. Though I can only attribute it to the short days (sun-up at 0815 and sun-down at 1700), if they sought to be home, or something of the like, before dark, life would be impractical.

On the topic of public transport, it blows my mind how much better D-Bahn is than Transperth. For starters, transport around the clock. The trains are also better quality and always, always, on time. The only issue I’ve had with the public transport so far is that is a bit confusing is how complex the maps and ticket buying system is, but understandably so given the magnitudes of complexity it is bigger and so on from ours in Perth. In fact I will add this to the list of things I wish to learn about, I want to understand the German train system perfectly before I leave.

Well, that’s what I have on my mind about that today, apologies if it’s a little dry everyone. Thanks for reading.

Kai

And this is my favourite song today too (I like to give a Song-Of-The-Day)'