First Sunday/ Culture Shock 08-03-08

Ok here’s a story to tell. This is juicy. This is embarrassing. This is a lack of thought on my part. This is the type of story that normally you don’t tell. But since you are 5,000 km away and I’m not going to hear neither hide nor hair from any of you and I don’t have to put up with your ridicule for another 3 weeks- I am going to tell it. Oh, I can already here your “oh no what did she do now?” I can hear them as though I were sitting right next to you, and “yes” I deserve that reaction. Most regrettably, I do.

So, it was the very first Sunday we were here. It was a bright sun shiny August 3. I, surprisingly, woke up early, well early for me. I walked straight to a spot that I have staked out as mine. It’s a cute little raised garden in front of the main building that over looks the mountains. (If you’ll look at my pictures of that metal structure you’ll see what I was seeing at the time.) To begin with I was sitting by myself enjoying the way the mountains looked in the late morning air when two Russian girls walked up. They didn’t speak English and their German was poor. Clearly, I have no Russian and bad German so we used good old reliable hand gestures to communicate our hellos. It was then that the Russian, Anna walked up with perfect Russian, English, and German. After about a half an hour we decided to go for a walk around town, well they did, I didn’t know how to tell them ‘no’. I mean I didn’t know how to say it in a language they would understand. I couldn’t shake ‘em either. I was hoping they’d give up after I ducked into the main building and did something ‘important’ or other. But, no, they waited, and I went with them. I am glad I did, it was a good experience, and if not for the culture clash it would have been very good. So, it gets closer and closer to noon and I tell them I haven’t eaten yet that day. They were surprised and asked what I wanted for breakfast. In typical American college student style I say- chances are that you have most likely guessed it- pizza. I said I wanted pizza for breakfast. They gave me a couple of odd looks, but they were good sports about it and we walked into the campus pizza store across from the campus alcohol store. I ordered a small (medium by our standards) cheese pizza for (Euros) 4,50. As we wait and the woman makes it fresh in front of us with only the pizza dough premade, we get to know everyone that was already in there eating. We had to, there were only two tiny little tables and they were pretty much already taken up by people. As we were waiting on my food we find out that everyone in there was from somewhere other than Germany. The female cook was most likely Turkish, the male server was Iraqi, one male guest was Jordanian, one girl was a Korean-Russian, a male Canadian, another guy I think was also Russian, the 3 girls I was with were Russian, and I was American, then when a true blue German walked in we burst out laughing. We couldn’t help it; it was just one of those moments where it was to odd to not be funny. We could tell he was German because he was the only one that looked comfortable with everything. Finally, my pizza was done and I paid with the pizza under my arm and walked out the door. Yeah, that was a lack of thought on my part. I walked and I ate. I ate and I walked. Every few seconds the Russian girls were asking if I wanted to sit down. It took me about ten minutes in between bites to explain to them that walking and eating is a normal American past time. However, the towns’ people of Ilmenau were not in on the loop and just stared so openly and intently. In other words they looked at me like I was a thing from Mars!

{Poor towns’ people, and poor me, it wouldn’t be the last time I shocked them that day. Yes, it gets worse because I didn’t think… I’m not sure I want to tell this. I can already here the ridicule. Out of all of the blogs I’ve written and no one has replied to I do think someone will leave a reply to this one just to ridicule me. Well, here it comes.}

The girls and I reached the end of town and walk back to the main building because a tour is to be given of Ilmenau and the surrounding forest around 1:00 PM. Ok, you know what, I changed my mind. I’m not going to tell it. All I am going to say is that I broke off from the tour and went swimming, and I got a tan with some blisters on my feet. That’s all ya get for that story. Sorry, but no more. Bye!