ice, ice baby

The lake froze smooth for the first time in a few years. I need only go out the door, through the fence and down the hill and voila!!... my own personal ice skating rink! Mom and I shovelled the snow away yesterday and last night the wind swept clean what we'd missed. I skated today until my toes went numb and my coat was covered in a layer of ice from the mist that fell all day. I was SUPPOSED to go out to the camp for the annual staff reunion, but since that layer of icy mist on my coat is also covering all the roads, I opted for safety and stayed home.

fleas

My mother decided to refresh her grasp of Amharic, the national language of Ethiopian. (She spent four years there with the Peace Corps, 30 years ago......an option I am also pondering.) Brow furrowed, she now sits at the table, Amharic phrasebook in hand, muttering to herself, "feres....ampol...shamah...." She spits out exploded clicks and "t's", sounds I can't reproduce."This book is for tourists. They don't have the word for flea!!"
I think back to the hostel in Helsinki and hear again dry whispery scratching in the night. In the morning the girl in the bed across the room showed me red dots sprinkled up her arm and onto her back. "Do you think they could be mosquito bites?" she asked.
"At the end of October? In Finland?" I replied. She'd lodged in a grungy hostel in Amsterdam two days earlier. Those were definitely flea bites.
"Did you get fleas?" I ask mom.
"Only at one hotel I stayed at. I told the manager and they scrubbed the floor with kerosene. The kerosene smell was worse than the fleas!"
Fleas and kerosene fumes, diseases from bad water, missed trains, late planes, lost passports and broken down buses. The hazards of travel are many and most of you know this better than I do. Yet the rewards are even greater. I've hung up my backpack and stowed my passport in a drawer for the next few months. I'm sitting here staring out the window at the snow thinking about how big the world is and the itchy pangs of wanderlust still stir my soul. I'm thinking of all the places you all will be this year--Belize, England, Canada, California, Minot, St. Cloud. I'm looking forward to learning of your adventures and hoping I have a few of my own. Wherever you are and wherever you travel this year, may your water be clean, may the natives be friendly, and may all your beds be free of fleas!

7:00 a.m. (reworked)

Dead still
morning
boots print noiseless tracks
in roadside powder
pink glow rims the horizon
star-spattered sky
Frost crystals twinkle in the moonlight

The frozen lake is speaking again
creaks
Blurbps
reverberations from depths beneath the ice
sonorous and eerie likewhales talking
powerlines reply
icy-crisp
extraterrestrial
chatter and buzz
An owl comments from nearby trees
adding quavery staccato to the conversation.
I pause and listen
They're speaking my language

7:00 a.m.

The prairie is dead still this morning. My boots print noiseless tracks in roadside powder. A pink glow rims the horizon, but the sky is still spattered with stars. Frost crystals twinkle in the moonlight. The frozen lake is speaking again. Creaks and "blurbps" reverberate from depths beneath the ice, sonorous and eerie, like whales talking. I feel the echoes more than hear them. The power lines reply with icy extraterrestrial buzzes and clicks. An owl comments from trees nearby, adding a quavery staccato to the conversation. I pause and listen. They're speaking my language.

posting

I've had several people tell me "I'd have posted a comment on your blog, but I didn't want to register with blogspot." Well, I changed the settings, so now you can!! Go ahead, post away!!

Ich will nur sagen....

Frohes Fest, Herzliche Gluckwunsch and alles Gutes zum Neuen Jahr.
Merry Christmas!

hibernating

Tuesday morning I was sitting in my room pondering and fretting. Did I REALLY want to move to Montana? In the middle of winter? How would I find work there? Why did I apply for an undergrad program when I'd rather go to grad school? But Grad school means taking the GRE which I have not studied for because I've been travelling. Plotzlich klingelt das Telefon!!! (Suddenly the phone rang) Was it God calling? Or perhaps the voice of reason? It was Chris from Camp of the Cross. Would I like to work at Camp of the Cross for the winter? This is a job I've had my eye on for awhile. Free room and board at camp, plenty of free time, monthly stipend, and best of all the opportunity to work with some really really great people. So.......I took it. I'll help lead retreats on weekends, help with camp maintenance during the week and the rest of the time? Hibernating, reading, writing, studying for the GRE and maybe, just maybe Kotah and I can write enough songs to make a CD.
I'm not giving up on German though. I'm going to practice that every chance I get.

Theo van Gogh

Just out of curiousity, did anyone see anything on American news this fall about the murder of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh? He made a controversial film , titled "Submission" about Islam and the treatment of women. He was murdered in Amsterdam the day before I arrived in Amsterdam and it was in the news in Europe.

culture shock

I'm writing this blog from the warmth and comfort of Lisa's apartment. In the background American tv is blaring. There is carpet on the floor and I can understand everything everyone is saying. Outside snow is falling and the air ist noch kalt....I mean the air is cold, with that dry midwestern cold that so familiar ist...is. My brain is still spinning circles of German words but I am home again. Everything here is familiar...street signs, food, people. Yeah, I'll miss Europe. I'll miss the food and the people I met. I'll miss Jennifer and Xavier and Alex and Jacek and Philip and all the Marias. I'll miss the way people greet and say farewell with a kiss in the air next to each cheek. I'll miss the disco and sitting in the bar all night drinking beer with the Polish guys. I'll miss the majestic churches. And I'll miss the sound of English as spoken by a European. But....doch..........Dang it's good to be home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Disco

I did go to the disco last night. It was really great. Totally laid back....all sorts of people there. I expected it to be fancy with a dress code....not at all. But that's the way Berlin is. Everyone is welcome here. I wish I could stay......I really do. maybe I can use the return portion of my ticket on Jan 7????

Denial

I realize that I've been denying reality for the last ohhh....3months or so. Often I'll be somewhere and I think 'this isn't really happening. I'm not in Europe....I'm just dreaming. When January comes, reality will hit me hard I think.

what next?

By the way, I applied to Montana State University in Missoula...I declared my majors as German and linguistics. Unfortunately I have to wait to apply for financial aid until I get home and I know it's super late......I'm gonna be super broke very very soon.

Almost home and Russian Discos

This will probably be the last entry for a little while....it's been fun here in Berlin...I haven't accomplished all that I wanted...but that's life...my German is a bit better and I've met some totally cool people....BUT I have not yet gone dancing. Tonight is my last chance to go dancing and I'm going to go to a Russian disco in Prenzlauerberg with some friends. Wednesday night was the last day of classes and so after the Christmas party our class ate together at a local German restaurant. (I had roast goose, typical German cuisine). Then after that we went to Stammtisch and I ended up staying the entire night at Cafe Zosch, hanging out with Jennifer and two guys from Poland and listening to this Russian guy playing guitar. Then we went out to breakfast....at 6:00 a.m. It's going to be so strange to come back to the U.S. What if I don't fit in there anymore? Maybe I'll feel strange.....wait...I've always felt strange. I tend not to fit anywhere...but I'm happy that way. Bis spater!!

Wittenberg

Verena and her boyfriend Gregory came to Berlin on Tuesday. Due to a missed telephone message I wasn't able to meet them until Wednesday morning, but we did see the Berliner Dom together and the Karl Friedrich Gedachtnis Kirsch, a beautiful church that was bombed during WWII. I went to Wittenberg with them on Thursday and toured the Martin Luther Haus and met a friend for Verena's, Jess, who is living and working in Wittenburg for the ELCA.

my weekend

Saturday I went to Sachsenhausen. Unfortunately the tourguide was really really hard to understand. Nevertheless it was a very interesting exhibition. Sachenhausen was a concentration camp for Jews, Poles, Gypsies and many Soviet prisoners of war. Saturday evening I ate supper with a woman in my class who is an archaeologist from the Crimea and Sunday I went to the Bauhaus archiv and Checkpoint Charlie.

Berlin Mitte

I have not yet really described the area of Berlin where the Goethe Institute lies. It is in Berlin Mitte, the incredibly hip center of Berlin. Here there are many expensive but really hip clothing shops, including an American Apparel shop (for those of you unfamiliar with American Apparel, they are based in California and they make a point to pay their workers a fair wage. They're anti-sweatshop.) There is also a natural foods store on the corner, many varieties of restaurants, galleries, boutiques, etc. It is really a paradise for shopaholics. Fortunately I'm not. My money is limited and my luggage is already full.
It is interesting to me, all the different ways people make money on the U-bahn.Some play music and panhandle. Others find tickets from people who have bought a day ticket and not used the entire thing and resell them. The thing is, that they don't check your ticket on the U-Bahn. There are signs saying that if you get caught travelling the U-bahn without a validated ticket, you will be fined $40 Euro. However, I have travelled the U- and S- Bahn, and bus lines at least twice a day, sometimes three or four times for almost two weeks now and my ticket has only been checked twice.

Berlin

I like the musicians that play on the U-Bahn in the mornings. I went to the 'Berlin Philharmonic last night, but it was only a quartet from the Philharmonic. It was good anyway. I meet my Tandem Partner in a few minutes. She's from Berlin and is learning English. We'll speak in German for awhile and then in English for awhile. Man, am I ever still struggling with shyness. I want to go out dancing at least once while I'm here....I mean why not, I'm here, right? Now, to find someone to go with. That's tricky.