Since then

I know, I know, I haven’t written in forever. I’ve been busy. I’ve got my traveling boots on and I am rolling.

But I will try and recap.

Bonn

I’ve always liked class trips; not the wimpy day-at-the-art-museum field trip sort of thing, but the kind where you all travel somewhere together. Living with someone, ipso facto means you get to know them, really know them, for better or for worse.

But this time it was for better. We took a 1 PM train from Freiburg to Bonn, no connections, filling almost half a wagon with our assorted baggage and ourselves. Most of us would be traveling on to our Christmas destination instead of going back south, and were thus equipped for visits with grandparents, gifts for smaller siblings and relatives, and large quantities of alcohol for consumption during the week as we had been told the bar in the hotel was not priced “student friendly”. We spent the train ride reading horoscopes out of a trashy Swiss magazine we had found, pretending to read our assigned material and getting to know one another.

After a minor disagreement with the ticket machine we managed to find the correct S-Bahn to the hotel, following our professor like a row of ducklings with backpacks. The room assignments followed with little ado, and I ended up sharing a room with Sandra, a girl I had gotten to know from class who grew up in Indonesia and studies in Germany.

Our contact at the hotel, a Frau L_ffe, managed to spend about an hour telling us what we already knew or weren’t interested in and eventually turned us loose for the night.

The schedule for the rest of the week was invariable; breakfast until 9 AM, at which time we would hear a presentation for an hour, followed by two hours of Q&A. The subsequent hour was reserved for our working groups, then came our two hour lunch break, then working groups for an hour, another presentation, another two hours Q & A, somewhere in there a coffee break, and dinner. Evening program consisted of working groups, either planning or presenting.

Planning or presenting what, you may ask. Well, our themes, I would reply.

We had been split into groups based on different themes, which we were to condense and present. We had about three hours total to plan a half hour presentation, with substance, but mostly something that was supposed to be funny. The groups were: Good Governance; Fair trade vs. free trade; Women and Development; Financing Development; Theories of Development; and Climate Change. I was in the Trade group, as the only female with eight guys.

I should mention that our group was not the only one attending the seminar. A group from Freiburg (us; bottom left corner of Germany) plus a group from Rostock (upper right corner of Germany) were meeting in Bonn (center left). Our class was an upper division class; in order to take part you have to be in at least your 5th semester. I am between 3 and 5 years younger than most people in my class. The class from Rostock, however, was a lower division class, with some ,,Ersti”s, some first semester kids. Which means, they are lacking some of the base knowledge.

The group on Free Trade vs. Fair Trade consisted of nine people, myself, four from Rostock and four others from Freiburg. Our group consisted almost exclusively of economists and one individual with a desperate need to control everything, whose deepest desire was to give a factual presentation on Ricardian Trade Theory. This theory is the theory explaining comparative advantage, and how a land with a comparative advantage in a specific good can gain from trade even if other nations have an absolute advantage in that same good. It’s been referred to as the most basic economic principle that is completely counter-intuitive. We wasted an hour of our lives trying to explain this to some of the Rostockers. For those of us who understood it, the explanation was superfluous, and for those of them who didn’t, they still didn’t completely understand. And in the end, this trade theory is the basis of many free trade arguments but has nothing to do with fair trade. In the end, amid protests from our self-proclaimed ‘leader’ we decided to do a mock WTO round to air some of the free trade/fair trade arguments, and ended up hammering out what was to be said only a half hour before our presentation. I was the moderator, so I had to get someone to help me with parliamentary procedure in Germany. (‘enthalten’ means ‘abstain’, by the way). It went well. A bit long, but whatever.

Other presentations included several skits, one for Good Governance with a dictator who had to decide whether to trade with the EU, with China, or follow WTO guidelines, one for Women and Development with a poor starving mother with a million kids who manages to get a micro credit loan at 20% interest, one on climate change (a theater piece in three acts—the best presentation of the conference), one talk show presentation, and one CNN news report.

Everyone brought drinks to the presentations and had a good time; they were an opportunity for us to take things less seriously. Afterwards we adjourned to the cellar, where there was a pingpong/foosball room and a bowling alley. Except it wasn’t bowling, it was Kegeln, and the ball has no holes. Some kindhearted individuals took it upon themselves to supply the group with alcohol and managed to smuggle in several cases. We sat around and talked and bowled, sometimes until 3 or 4 AM. And our professor, a gentleman in his late 50s, I’d guess, sat right there with us, beer in hand, till 3 AM. He was looking decidedly more chipper at breakfast the next morning than most of his drinking partners.

The presentations that we had every day consisted of various people out of the Development Politics world. In Germany there is such a thing as a Ministry for Overseas Development, with main offices in Bonn, and the head of the Asia department gave us a presentation during our visit there. The head of the HR department also came and gave a presentation on careers with the ministry. Other presenters included a representative from Miseror, which coordinates religious and missionary development aid, from Global Policy Forum, an NGO, and related. All fascinating subjects, mostly decent presenters and occasionally fantastic presentations.

That was Bonn. I was sad to leave, sad that it would be over. We spent a week together, three meals a day and everything in between. I got along smashing well with almost everyone I talked to, and I made an effort—which, every time I do something like this, gets easier—to get to know as many people as possible. I made some good friends. Our seminar has one session remaining and then it is finished for the semester, so if we want to see one another it will only be by private initiative. But I think we will, I hope we will.

So, sad to be leaving, not excited about the coming 7-hr, 5-connection train ride before me, I left Bonn for the Baltic.

I arrived at 10:30 at night, and A. picked me up. She filled me in on the latest family drama, which that day had consisted of a dog that didn’t want to be washed and some problem or another with the new practice. We didn’t chat too long as I was pretty tired.

The rest of the week seemed to go by in a blur. I went running every day. The house was full of people, the five family members, the current aupair, the grandmother, myself, and eventually also the aunt and uncle. Before Christmas was a flurry of packing and shopping, organizing, cooking, cleaning, more packing, more shopping. We went to Luebeck for a day, saw the Christmas markets, and I found my favorite candy, which apparently does not exist in Freiburg, enjoyed the city and had a lovely day.

Christmas in Germany takes place Christmas eve. We spent the morning preparing the ‘dinner’ (mid-day meal) of cold potato- and chicken salads, shrimps, fish, vegetable salads, rolls, antipasti, and all sorts of crazy other stuff. After dinner we got dressed, the girls wearing their ball gowns and I a borrowed skirt, and opened presents.

Christmas and Thanksgiving are the dangerous times for homesickness for me, and of course I cried when I read the note my mother had sent me. But I was thankful to be with a family, with my other adopted family, not to be celebrating Christmas alone somewhere. It was nice to see the happy faces and squeals of delight as everyone opened their packages, candles burning on the tree (yes, real candles). A happy Christmas.

Some of them went to Church in the evening, to 11 PM service, but I of course did not go and turned in early. The entire time I was there I slept poorly, either because someone would come in the room at some point or because the stupid aquarium was glowing like an atomic reactor in the corner. I usually went downstairs and slept for the last few hours on the couch.

The rest of the week sort of slipped through my fingers. I spent a lot of time and effort writing a term paper, which A. corrected for me, finishing up some assignments from other classes. The eldest daughter went to Austria with her new boyfriend to go snowboarding, the middle daughter, her boyfriend and the littlest spent hours competing in the Baltic All-Age Foosball Championships with Ch.’s Christmas gift. I was sort of turned loose. It was nice to be back; it felt like home it was for the year I lived there. I had to resist the temptation to go up the stairs and straight into the room on the left, which was then my room and now belongs to An. (At least she took the posters down—the last Aupair left my posters up and my books in the shelves, and it was just creepy to be in there). On one hand, I didn’t expect everyone to drop what they were doing and figuratively glue themselves to me—it honestly probably would have annoyed me if they had—but on the other hand most of the time people went on living their lives and I was left to live mine, which I am quite capable of doing, but defeated the purpose of my being there.

But somewhere in there I received an email from K., who had spent the last 6 months bouncing around Australia. She had traveled back from Sydney, flew into Frankfurt, took a train to Berlin and rang the doorbell at midnight with $7 in her pocket as a surprised. She was back! We arranged that I would come for New Years, as the family on the Baltic had no specific plans and I was already in Northern Germany. So I snuck down to Berlin to see my little sister, who has grown up.

The London Post

Friday: 5 AM

I fall out of bed. I do breakfast kamikazee style, with much enthusiasm, too much speed, not enough coffee and no regard for my health and well-being. I take the tram with my roommate who has also willingly volunteered to be out at this godforsaken hour. I find my coach at the train station; I ask if I can board, but since the thing doesn't leave till 6:15 he's got a half an hour break. But I may put my bag in the bus, if I like. Jolly good. I go get coffee. I wonder why I was positive it had been a 6:05 bus. I came back, and discovered it was indeed a 6:05 bus, and I had just helpfully stowed my baggage in a bus that leaves 10 minutes later bound for Switzerland.

Curses.

But I got my bag back and eventually my bus, having picked up a somwhat lost American grad student doing the same thing as I. We rode the bus together to the airport, took the same flight, and took the coach to Victoria station where C. met me.

It took a bit of effort for us to connect; we headed off, happily munching krispy kremes, for the tube and spent much of the afternoon trolling Oxford street and looking at all the shiny pretty things. I bought a purse. Which is good, as I had otherwise been carrying my stuff around in a fanny pack, and people made fun of me.

After dropping my stuff at C.'s flat we headed off to a pub for dinner, where I had a very sad and lonely looking sandwich with some excellent chips--with vinegar, of course. And of course we lost track of time and almost missed.....

....our Jack the Ripper tour! That was so much fun! OF course it is cheesy and touristy but that is the best part! The conclusions we came to by the end of the evening were: a) London in 1888 was a hellhole for anyone not rich, and slightly less of one for those who were; and b) it's a Freemason conspiracy involving prince Edward (?). The tour guide was hilarious and managed to surprise us a couple of times while revealing to us the sordid past of the city as if unwrapping a christmas present. After the tour we ended up wandering down to SoHo, eventually ending up at a pub called Shakespeare's Head, whose ceiling beams were painted in too-oft quoted quips, "to thine own self be true" and such like. It'd been interesting if they'd have put shakespearean insults up there: "’Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish! O! for breath to utter what is like thee; you tailor’s yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing-tuck! (1 Henry IV) or " Thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows." (Troilus and Cressida). But no, twas not to be.

Saturday I slept in, surprisingly, to 9 AM London time, 10 AM German time. C. lives in a flat with 8 other people, guys and girls, Brits and Americans. Freshmen, who don't do the dishes. The flat is accessed by climbing in through the front window, as that is easier than unlocking the door. Egress, however, takes place by means of the pedantic portal. We wandered on down to the Tate after breakfast, appreciated the Warhols, Klimt, Duchamp, Kadinskys, and other famous and trippy pieces of art. Apparently the thing to do now a days is to go sliding at the Tate at the huge slides they have there. Go figure. The afternoon we spent at the Portabello Markets in Notting Hill, where the posh people live and the tourists shop. But if you go far enough you stumble on a food market with excellent prices and equal quality. Everything we bought was perfectly ripe.

Dinner consisted of guacamole, eggplant and noodles, fresh market bread, and pineapple for dessert. It was fantastic, if I do say so myself. I've never made Guacamole with Marmite before, but trust me, it works.

After dinner we went for a night walk along the Thames, starting down at Westminster bridge and Big Ben, heading up towards Strand and on to Leicester (pronounced Lester) square, Coven Gardens--where we found mulled wine and a very drunk and scruffy American being scared of fake snow blown from a life-sized gingerbread house--until we found a cozy pub of our liking, and settled into the upholstered leather corner seat (much better than the crowded Shakespeare pub from the night before, which insisted on playing irritating music with an insistant drum beat).

Sunday we tried to go to the Tower of London, but as it's not a museum it is free to charge what it wants, and what it wanted was 12 pounds so we didn't do it. We tried in vain to find a show or a play with a sunday matinee, also with no luck, so we walked from the West End up to Buckingham Palace, where hordes of tourists were watching dudes in furry hats march around. Deciding to spend the afternoon in a worthwhile manner we dinked around at the British Museum, saw the Rosetta Stone and a whole bunch of really cool other medieval, egyptian, greek, roman, and etruscan stuff before heading back for dinner. I must say, an electric grill makes fabulous sandwiches.

After pretending to be C.'s roomie so I could use the university library we went to trya nd find a theatre playing "stranger than fiction," but alas--poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio!--we ended up seeing Children of Men. That movie is i.n.t.e.n.s.e. It's about the world in 2027 will be like if everyone is infirtile, and somehow a miracle woman pops up, pregnant, and Clive Owen's character has to escort her to safety, of course plagued by both the rebels and the police. Besides the sheer graphicness of the violence, I was particularly disturbed by the thought of England as a war zone, and that what was so horrifying me on the screen is what is currently happening in parts of the world as I type this.

Instead of going back to crash at C's for the night I instead take the tube to Victoria station and take a bus to the airport. My flight doesn't leave until 7 AM, but 7 AM - 1 hour (check-in and security time) = 6 AM - 1.5 hour (coach ride from Victoria to stansted) = 4:30 AM - 45 minutes (travel from C's to Victoria) = 3:45 = night bus, as the tube doesn't run. So I slept at the airport. And by slept, I mean I lay on the marble floor for two hours until I got cold and stiff. And I wasn't the only one: When I arrived, the place was full, and there were no places to sleep either remotely comfortable or even private. But I suffered through it, soldiered on into the morning, checked in reeeeely early and got my Marmite confiscated at security because it's apparently a li quid, though I could debate that.

My bus ride to Freiburg wasn't bad, except for the fact that I was trapped in a bus for two hours with a really loopy english lady, who has never voted in her life yet complains voiceriferously and copiously about politics, who believes war could be ended if all mothers threatened to disown any kid who joins the army, who believes that the only thing man has ever accomplished is war, and who has a compellingly (compelling, like the sore in your mouth you can't stop tonguing or the scab you insist on picking at, furtively, because you know you shouldn't) paradoxical combination of pessimism and running-naked-through-the-woods-hippyism. I was happy to get off.