Admittedly, I am not a morning person, but I'd dutifully set my cell phone for a 5 a.m. wake-up alarm and somehow managed to get myself out of bed, shivering to the bus stop in the dark predawn a few minutes before 6 a.m. Twenty minutes later at the train station, I ordered a nuss-nugat croissant (one of the benefits of leaving the house without sufficient time for breakfast) and a coffee to go, intending to finish the scalding hot drink on my train scheduled to leave at 6:45 a.m.
Since it was too cold to wait on the platform, I meandered over to the doors leading outside, double checking the bright yellow departure listing. Happening to catch bits of a conversation between a young man leaning against his parked bicycle and a woman with curly blond hair, animatedly gesturing despite the early hour, I started to feel uneasy. He was supposed to have been at work in a town an hour away five minutes prior; she was considering alternative travel options. The Bahn strikes I'd heard about the night before but was hoping would pass over Wernigerode had already started causing chaos.
At 6:35, the loudspeakers on the track platform rumbled to life: "Attention ladies and gentlemen on platform one. The train to Halle Hauptbahnhof scheduled to leave at 6:45 a.m. has been cancelled."
Great.
I looked at the departure schedule again, hoping to find something different than what I already knew was there. The next train to Halle left at 7:39--if it even came at all--with the connecting train arriving in Leipzig at 10:19, nineteen minutes after I was supposed to be at my meeting.
I gently shook my paper coffee cup, weighing its contents and debating whether I could go back into the bakery and sit at a table since I now had at least an hour's wait in front of me. I took my empty cup back into the bakery and sat at the counter, pulling out my book to pass the time. Shortly before 7:30, I heard a noise, and saw a train pull up to the platform. The crowd of people--including bike guy--rushed out of the train station. Jumping off the stool, I threw my book into my bag and hurried to follow. Pausing only to double check the electronic orange letters on the side of the train (Halle), I entered the train and found a seat. Texting my friend, I told her I was on my way and asked if she'd notify the organizers that I would be late.
Two and a half hours later, my train pulled up to Leipzig Hauptbahnhof. The switchover had gone without a hitch in Halle. Now I just had to find my way to Wilhelm-Seyfferth-Str. 4. Thankfully, I'd traced the route on my map the night before. More or less without any detours, I arrived at the correct address and saw an American flag fluttering its red, white and blue against an ornate stone backdrop: the U.S. Consulate.
Figuring out how to enter the property, however, proved slightly complicated. I walked halfway around the barricaded grounds before realizing I had to go through the red and white roped off fence. And handing my passport to a uniformed German police officer seemed counter-intuitive to the fact that I was visiting a place designated for American citizens.
Once inside the security check point, I removed all the "forbidden items" (phone, camera, water bottle) from my bag and then played a guessing game with the guards about what other metal item (my wallet) was lingering in my bag and masquerading as a hazy blue rectangle on the scanner screen. I'm not sure if they quite believed me, but they let me through anyway, and I was escorted into a roomful of people--the other Fulbrighters just beginning their introductions. In English.
I have to admit, when I saw that the day's itinerary, after the formal program at the consulate, included an English tour through the Zeitgeschichtliches Forum in Leipzig, I was a little hesitant. The last time I lived in Germany, I spurned my mother language almost completely, hoping that if I refused to speak anything but German, my proficiency would expand exponentially. Whether or not it was a successful endeavor remains somewhat questionable. I do know, however, that my linguistic inflexibility (both refusing to speak English and being unable to always completely express myself in German) negatively affected relationships with fellow students. Although I'd resolved to be less militant about which language I spoke this time (I'm here to teach English, after all), missing opportunities to practice German, such as the museum tour in English, still rubbed me the wrong way.
However, by the time I'd listed to the other Americans introduce themselves, caught up with my friend, enjoyed a bagel lunch and a few too many cookies from the snack table, I wasn't worried anymore about the fact that I was not speaking German. In fact, once we arrived at the museum, I enjoyed our guide's insight into the story of East Germany portrayed in the 3,000+ item exhibit. I'd been to the museum once before, wandering through the gallery for two-and-a-half hours, but this time, our guide made it come to life.
Especially memorable was her recollection of shopping in the DDR. She told us that shopping every day after work was necessary--just to see what the stores had in new that day. The display of sample electronics--a phone, a cassette recorder, a radio--carried special meaning for her.
"My family applied for a phone over twenty years before we received one," she said, "after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The DDR had nothing to do with it."
And the recorder sitting behind glass panels had been her dream as a teenage Michael Jackson fanatic.
"The store in town would only get ten of these things," she recalled. "A line of 300 people would form, everybody wanting one. Only the first ten people got one. Every time I went to town, I was too late. I never got one."
Probably I would have still been able to understand her story had she spoken in German, but the soft lilt of her English added sensitivity to her words. It also made me realize, that as an affluent American, I could not comprehend what it would have been like to be a teenager in East Germany before the re-unification. But perhaps that's what words are for--to bridge the gap between cultures and show that even if we cannot assimilate fully into the traditions and language of each other, we can listen and learn to value experiences vastly different from our own.
After the tour ended and our tiny group disbanded. I headed toward the train station with my friend, stopping by Starbucks where she met another friend and I ordered a drink, not placing much importance on the action itself.
Something about clutching a 16 oz. Starbucks cup and stepping out into the brisk air, striding along a grassy corridor bordering the city sky scrapers, felt so quintessentially American, though. I've practiced the same motion countless times--in Portland, in Seattle, in Atlanta, in New York--and the familiar grip around the ridged coffee sleeve, the tick of my heels against the cement, and especially the frothed milkiness of my vanilla chai caused the minute to transcend the muted German from passerbyes. More than a comfort food (drink), more than a luxury indulgence, more than a political statement about the organizations I support or don't--my single grande chai latte was, in fact, the continuum between old and new, something refreshingly familiar in the face of unknown surroundings.
Over the next nine months, I expect to learn more about the country I've immersed myself in. I anticipate meeting people, hearing stories, and building relationships. In the end, though, it won't be about becoming German, it will be about remembering the experiences and appreciating the resulting growth. The constant stretching and evaluating and reexamining myself and my world views can be a little overwhelming at times, but I have to remember that's normal, and the more I stretch out of my comfort zone, the more I grow. Shared humanity is, of course, a natural connection to my current environment, but sometimes it's also as simple as a cup of Starbucks coffee.
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| Sipping Starbucks in a sunny park outside of Leipzig Hauptbahnhof. |
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