The Beer is still quite good...

Bonn Münster

A fortnight brings almost too many stories to plausibly fit into one coherent blog post. Suffice it to say that each day in our fair city has been just as marvelous as the last: a campy, rheinisch rendition of Sesame Street, complete with grouchy hobos, psychedelic marvels of color and sound and the occasional, brief, educational interlude. Classes with der König Kölscher Komödie have been quite enlivened since our blackmail-worthy discovery of his stand-up on an online broadcast, following the realization that we are only his day job. It makes enough sense, considering his uproarious in-class rapport, but I'm afraid his gimmick -an über-drunk, über-Kölsch Karneval-goer- doesn't hold as much water with those whose first brush with said culture -the notorious "Elfte Elfte"- is still a month away. Nevertheless, I appreciate him, as do my classmates, I'm sure (see for yourself). The big sweetheart even took us on a tour of Bonn's political history down Adenauerallee and along the Rhine (quick historical tidbit, however well known: Bonn was the capital of a reunited Germany until 1991). An excellent end to our not-so-strenuous workweek, capped by a 3-day weekend, also courtesy of our fine friend Herr Weininger.

Spanish friend, satisfied and glowing

Curiosities abound here, as do fattening Turkish lunches and personal, tun-sized portions of that mystical, golden, local brew. Striking out on regular journeys to museums, famous cities and mountains of legend at any number of distances from my sweet, comely, student hovel, the thought of gorgeously unhealthy street-food indulgence has been a constant companion. I'll never be able to express the wholeness of my satisfaction with junk food here, but one would be correct in assuming it is great. If there is one area in which Germany definitely trumps the USA, it is in its unmatched appreciation for an inebriated late-night meal of Döner, Kölsch and Nutella Crêpe: a muliticultural holy trinity of artery-clogging cookery. They tell me such a travesty to the waistline isn't nearly as satisfying when sober... I am inclined to believe this.

Organ at the Cathedral in Trier

A problem with leaving such a long interval between posts is that each experience/ outing/ night born witness to tantalizing, unholy debauchery cannot be treated with the respect and lush detail it deserves. Since I last wrote, the adventures have been many. Of those many, the vast majority have been in some way affiliated with going out for drinks which provide me with the least fodder for family-friendly bloggage. Luckily, I have seen my fair share (or more) of notable exceptions which will suit, indubitably. Group excursions have been by far the most monumental of our journeys: we spent last Saturday in Trier, the oldest city in Germany and a former Roman provincial capitol, where the most stimulating point of interest by far was the Cathedral. The building itself is a clever amalgamation of a spacious, plain and symmetrical nave (older, likely Romanesque... or just Roman) with scores of detailed, busy, romantic embellishments added over time to celebrate the building's very special responsibility. The temple is host to the seamless robe of Christ (the very same, whose name almost literally translates from German into "the holy skirt"), which resides in a crystal reliquary behind the altar. It is subject to being periodically revealed to titillate the masses with its holy seamlessness and is set to be shown again this coming Easter. Outside, a robotic arm writes the Bible in broken Gothic calligraphy at a constant speed, a work whose completion is set to coincide with the robe's next viewing. All in all, a wonderful thing to see... and the bus ride wasn't bad either.

View from the top of the Drachenfels.

Another group excursion took us on a hike up the "Drachenfels", one of the "seven hills" (Sieben Gebirge) surrounding Bonn which ought to be reclassified as minor mountains. Exhausting, but beautiful, we moaned, gasped and sweated gaily on the journey up, woefully cracking forced smiles and snapping a few pictures as we were promised that the view from the top would make all our troubles disappear. No one had high hopes for this experience, BUT... I have to hand it to them: as annoying and campy as the staff of the International Office can be, this was particularly worth it... see for yourself.

Cathedral courtyard in Trier: that's more like it.

Surely, among the holiest experiences I have yet seen in my time here. Another, far more foreign, brush with divinity happened just this Sunday as I accepted an invitation from a group of new friends to attend the evening service at a Church which had invited them, in turn. As it turns out, I'd engaged in a hands-on experience of life on the other side of Christianity. A four-piece band, led by a distressingly striking, bespectacled angel on acoustic guitar (essentially, Noah's dream woman), dressed appropriately in hipster-garb, provided a somewhat alarming, but rather jazzy atmosphere to the service, which was given and attended by the most laid-back, groovy, youthful, flannel-clad congregation I have ever observed. I was relieved, if at all embarrassed, that in spite of the fact that I knew none of the songs, none of the prayers and only three of the people, I had no trouble stirring up a conversation with two genuinely lovely Germans afterwards as the Church youth went out for their traditional post-purge drink at Café Blau (not only that, but I arrived with my cleaned & pressed dress shirt tucked in, making me well overdressed). Let the records show that I was also invited to said after-party and found it in no way inappropriate to order a beer, which... I will certainly seek out in the near future. Mühlen Kölsch may have my vote in our quest to find the perfect drink, Rhineland edition. As for the Church, I am doomed to failure if I continue to feign singing Christian pop songs and stare blankly at a powerpoint every week (however convenient it may be), so it is with a heavy heart that I must strike out and find another. A little communion wouldn't hurt, either... yet the congregation is talkative, and the invitation to a dinner with these new Germans is hard to pass up.

Until my next rainy day, sleepless night, or legitimately standalone experience, I'm afraid that's it. An adventure to Aachen and long-awaited enrollment in actual classes are what await us in the coming week, so a shortage of things to say shouldn't be a problem. Cheers, all.

Zwischen Himmel und Äd...

A wiser man with as much to say would surely write more frequently. Unfortunately, my current lifestyle of wild, un-tethered Euro-roaming doesn't suit, making posts as epic as they are erratic. However, an adventure so grand and storied was never summarized as quickly as it came... this sleepy, rainy afternoon has brought me time to spin an ample tale.
I'll start with where I've been, working my way to where I am: 
I arrived in Düsseldorf on Monday, in the early morn, having spent the weekend with family in Aylesbury and Alcester. Pub lunches were eaten, neighbors were hugged, tea was had, but for as long as I'd let my beloved Warwickshire hold and keep me, it was time to move on. I have a feeling, though, that I'll be coming back regularly while I'm close. There's an unavoidable draw to sharing a Sunday Roast in Wixford, especially when the company is so dear.  After a tragic and tumultuous summer, my Uncle Stephen, while having developed quite the broad Home Counties drawl working in Berkhamsted, is closer to me now than ever before. We nuncheoned splendidly at the Three Horseshoes with cousins Stuart and Michael on Sunday; an experience as close to time travel as one is likely to find. 
They are of the most gorgeously Cotswold stock whose love and sensitivity is second to none, and whose charmingly bizarre, touchingly nostalgic rhotic Lower Brailes pirate-speech is a linguistics thesis waiting to happen... this idea has legitimately blossomed into a developing scheme which might define my degree: a typology of South Warwickshire English is almost definitely a novel concept, and my list of interview candidates is a regular who's who of local celebrities.
My short salute to Alcester on Sunday was an altogether eerie lot, but not without its moments, and every minute spent there is genuinely worth living. Having survived the culture shock of leaving the beach and the loving arms of the Rileys and landing in my younger cousin's cream-colored, stale, gated-community Aylesbury flat, a properly rural, properly Midlands welcome was much appreciated...

And then the real adventure... a blurry 4am drive on winding country roads to Birmingham, a choked and charnal experience at the BHX security checkpoint (complete with a pat-down that was plenty intrusive), takeoff from England/touchdown in Germany, and a strikingly picturesque journey on the train through Düsseldorf, Köln and into Bonn all ran together as my tired mind struggled to keep up with my train-station pace and heavy luggage. We were welcomed en masse at the International office, where my first conversations of the day were a somewhat lengthy back-and-forth in German with a particularly perky student assistant on the subject of Middle High German (actually the second time I've used this knowledge since coming: a skill apparently worth having), followed by some sleepy, exasperated, ultimately uncomfortable smalltalk with an Irish girl, who would later prove to be quite fun... none of us exactly had our wits about us. I arrived at Römerlager A, my humble, high-rise abode, to be welcomed by perhaps the healthiest serving of woman I've ever met. She was Turkish, bescarved,  and intensely administrative, and yet possibly the savviest conversationalist I've yet had the pleasure of engaging. She showed me around and swept me off my feet in a whirlwind tour of the entire building, leaving me be eventually, after having completely talked my ear off, to focus on the more important things: unpacking my bags and changing shirts for the ensuing festivities.

Beginning with the very first evening, it became apparent that the Germans mean business when inducting their newcomers into their way of life: after an afternoon of joyously filling out the endless paperwork for this, that and the other; insurance, internet, enrollment, tenancy, and lengthy deliberation over which bag of complimentary Haribo bears we should recieve... those mad, Teutonic sadists decided to take us drinking. Not just drinking, but drinking. This is not to say that I consider myself a lightweight or am in any way bottle shy, but truthfully I have never felt so unprepared in my life. International students abounded in our group, as would continue throughout the week as we started from scratch each night, crawling the many Biergärten and Bonn's just as many "Irishpubs" (masc., pl.) from the crack o' 9pm well into the night. I can honestly say, my palate for beer has never been so satiated, even if the variety is decidedly slim. Some notable local brews include Früh Kölsch, Sion and Bönnsch, which, though pale and seemingly meek, are an impressively aromatic sort that go down strong and smooth, but coming back up smelly on the belch when taken at your typical American College-Town pace. Clearly, a new strategy is needed if I am to rival my German counterparts.
That said, meeting new people has never been so obligatory, nor nearly as much fun: Portuguese, English, Irish, Spanish, Peruvian, Bulgarian, Australian, American and German alike have set differences aside night after night and joined together in cozy Gemütlichkeit. The group is fabulous, if mostly Spanish and non-German-speaking, and new friends are in no short supply. I have even found myself acting at optimum linguistic efficiency when conversing with large groups of internationals, having used about as much Spanish as German, with English not far behind.  Needless to say, I'm feeling very cosmopolitan, and it feels very cool to once again be using German. I could get used to this.
Class is a positive experience as well, having been top-streamed for ability in our month-long intensive language course. Our class scheme is reminiscent of the Stu Strecker-system -a long-missed part of my daily routine and a MAJOR reinvigoration of my speaking skills- but twice as wordy, consisting of only able, conversant speakers with cheeky senses of humor, plus one notably swarthy Professor, Herr Volker Weininger.  

On the whole, the news from the front is that Bonn is treating me very well indeed. Lectures, living and life in the Rhineland/at the Biergarten have all been positive experiences so far in our hectic first week of wide-eyed partying and serial friendship, which, while I'm sure it will calm down, shows no signs of growing stale. This weekend, a picnic on the Rhine and subsequent night at Pützchens Markt (a fair, essentially) have unofficially sealed it: this place is the bee's knees. 
It's strange, surreal and ultimately super. The title of this post, "Zwischen Himmel und Äd" came to me, rather perfectly from a bus stop beer poster, written in Kölsch, meaning "between heaven and earth". Fitting.

Exodus...

A week has passed and headway towards the Vaterland is measly, longitudinally. In that time, however, I have managed to clock more hours hand-to-mouth than e'er before in my decades long love-affair with the story of my land and its unique cuisine. Famously, those dishes which define my childhood are cursed with the worst reputation of any Old-World cooking culture... and as much as this insults those several valiant chefs of Food Network and the Travel Channel, whose mission it has come to be to lay such blasphemy to rest and ring in an era of appreciation for the grittier things in life, for me it is as a stake to my heart, worth twice the world over in sorrow and grief. Though, in fact, no one's younger years were actually spent nostalgically scoffing down offal or at all enjoying the hardy, scathing crunch of crackling from the pigs that were most certainly not spit-roasted every evening over the family fire, most will find, eventually, that the intense weirdness of British heritage cooking is a point of pride and even patriotism, and he who it knocketh, hath not such heavenly manna tried. In the interest of brevity, I digress: soapboxes are built on such issues. That said, I have been blessed this week to find my journeys quite enhanced by the various deliverances of my Anglo-Saxon snout: surely the very stuff of life whose single, whispered mention transports my gustatory memory into a ringing psychedelia of glorious oxymoron, suitably described as at once "aloof", "grungy", "divine" and "pedestrian". In far fewer words, and a  far more apt demonstration, pictures should suffice. My lunch in London consisted of roasted bone marrow, mushrooms au jardin d'Eden, and a particularly mystifying glass of "Le Clos" 2010.

There are surely words enough in the English language to describe such monstrous tours de force culinaires, but in reverence, I should refrain from using them. They are also rather like unto the vocabulary we reserve to embellish stories of sexual excess... and as such, it is wise not to dwell.

 As a fact, surprising though it may be, healthier pass-times are also in no short supply in this, the nation for old men, and my favorite of these is naturally "rambling". A fitting measure of Englishness in either sense of its double entendre, an afternoon of rambling across hills and dales, tweed-clad in woolly glory, is tantamount to the expenditure of an entire afternoon coolly wagging chins with neighbors over tea you never asked for. In short, quite English. When in Sussex, the place to go to get in touch with one's tweedy side is Devil's Dyke; the emerald crown jewel of the South Downs. An afternoon was spent here, tagging along with the magical Riley clan, gawking at the awesome scenery and jealously watching hang-gliders launch gracefully into the wind from atop the hills, making the security of our picnic blanket a rather dull prospect, but for the miniature, individually-wrapped Soreen malt loaves (woof, so good) we had so cleverly packed for lunch. Turns out, the South of England can be rather enchanting, when it counts... the hills were simply humbling.

As hinted above, I made a rather appropriately dubbed "pilgrimage" this week to London, to see the new exhibit at my favorite establishment in the entire world; the British Museum. The "Treasures of Heaven" were well worth my while, and twice the entrance fee (though the museum is free, entrance for special exhibits seriously pays the bills). My hungry history bug had its ample surfeit on this educational smorgasbord: a masterfully arranged, snaking corridor of learning was beset with the gilded arms and feet of Christian saints and messiahs, ranging from the plausible to the positively queer, with shards of the "true" cross in full abundance. Other sculptured golden reliquaries had housed such curio as a thorn from the Lord's funeral crown and a section of His most holy umbilical chord (needless to say, a crowd-pleaser). But... the real treasured experience I gathered from this outing was the opportunity to actually employ the skills we developed so long ago in GERM 608: "Introduction to Middle High German". Naturally, the best 12th century relics were housed in German cathedrals (the Münster in Bonn among them), accompanied by official inventory documents and accounts of their legendary healing powers, which were all written in the local parlance. A woman standing next to me wondered aloud what could be written in this mysterious carolingean miniscule, to which I responded, not so humbly reading aloud from "das Lied von dem Rock unsres Herren Jesu Christi". And there was much rejoicing.

Other noteworthy activities have been conducted as "Patrick and James time", such as Eastbourne's Pier and Towner Gallery (a fabulous exhibition on John Piper in Kent and Sussex), the Brighton Museum and tea with some of the most pleasantly non-flaming homosexual men I've ever met. I said goodbye to the charming little devil this afternoon as we delivered him for a weekend at his Granny's, and I can honestly say he's been delightful. As his sister is starting her first year of secondary school at Brighton College (a veeery posh private school), attention hasn't been easy to come by for young James. He seems truly relieved to have someone here who has time to spend with him, and I am particularly honored to indulge him: needless to say, there has never been such a marathon game of air-hockey as we played this afternoon in Eastbourne. My remaining time in Brighton & Hove will be far quieter, but appropriately so as my focus shifts to the task at hand.

Saturday, I'm off on the train first to Aylesbury, and then to Alcester and the green bosom of Warwickshire: haven of my blessed childhood and my personal vision of England at its finest. I'm off to see my uncle and my cousins (some first, and some once removed), the dearest neighbors I've ever known and, most importantly, to pay respects and visit my home away from home one last time before the real adventure begins. Three more days in England, and then... the most anticipated pint of Pilsner in history shall be mine to savor.