What?! It's May?!

So I know I have said this a million times, and yet it never gets old for me (if it does for you, feel free to skip down to the next paragraph!), but seriously, where has the time gone? I will grant you that it feels like ages and ages since I left the United States, but the fact that it is already the beginning of May just baffles my mind. I cannot help but reflect on what I would be doing if I was not here in Germany: preparing for finals, packing to go home, enjoying one of the most beautiful campuses I can think of in full bloom...these are the things that I still enjoy and look on with overactive sensibility, despite the oceans of experience I have crossed since I last saw AU. This week hovers around the halfway point for me, and so I think the beginning of May is even more meaningful to me; it begins the downhill slope towards the conclusion of my adventures!

But don't worry, there are plenty more things to do between now and then. This past weekend, Kelsi, Mia and I made a trip to Jena on Friday, and to Goslar on Saturday. Both, unfortunately were rather disappointing, which is saying a lot because I did not expect much. But they were places to see and offered things to do, even if it was only to wander around a city in search of its quirks and back alleys. Jena can be described as a cute town with cute cafes, and that is all you need to know about it. With a constant view of forested hills at the edge of town, it has a really quaint backdrop. But after a few hours, we had explored without much adventure finding its way towards us, and so we decided to try again the next morning with a new town.

Goslar, on the other hand, came highly recommended as one of the best medieval towns in Germany, and well worth a day trip. And I suppose those recommendations were legitimate; it certainly was a neat town with many typically German medieval buildings, an awesome forested and hilly backdrop, and an interesting witch festival going on (called Walpurgisnacht), but like Jena, it ran short of things to do or adventures to offer.

The highlight of our day, therefore, was the train ride there. We were on an extremely crowded regional train, and spent a portion of the trip standing rather close together squished up against the doors. At Seesen, however, almost half of the people got off, so we ended up sitting in a row facing a middle-aged German couple. At one point, the woman suddenly pulled out a notebook and began to write, which was nothing extraordinary except for the fact that I kept catching her eye. At first I thought it was because she had noticed that I had been staring at her earlier as she ate a piece of bread, which was in such big bites I thought she was literally unhinging her jaw to eat it. But then I quickly realized that she kept looking not only at me, but also at Kelsi and Mia. Only after catching a glimpse of her notebook reflected in the window behind her did I realize that she was not actually writing but was in fact DRAWING US. It was not very long until all three of us noticed and spent several very awkward moments wondering what was the appropriate reaction, at which point the couple started to laugh uncontrollably at regular intervals. I imagine it was at that point that they realized that the woman had been caught in the act. At the time, however, I started to wonder if the picture she was drawing was more of a cartoon-ish caricature than a faithful representation.

But leave it to Kelsi to walk right up the woman and ask to see the drawing! The drawing turned out to be nothing professional, but instead just a rough sketch of an amateur who was struck by something interesting or particularly amusing, which in our case was the fact that all three of us were wearing sunglasses (it was the exaggerated feature in her drawing). Looking back on it, I can only speculate how funny of a picture we presented to this couple; three college girls lined up on a bench, all wearing dark sunglasses, chatting away in English on a German train. Perhaps that one I will never quite understand...

In any case, the five of us shared some moments of awkward giggling--the three of us embarrassed that we were the subject of such interest and crude art, and the two of them uncomfortable with being discovered and called on it. In English, she said to us before we got off the train, "I am sorry. I could not help myself! Please forgive me!" which was accompanied by a half-joking pleading gesture. The whole experience was an entertaining mixture of weirdness, hilarity, and awkwardness, and was by far the best part of our trip.

And lastly, today a student from Ghana asked me about the American dream. He lived in the United States for four years and had always heard this saying, but never knew what people meant by it. So I told him about my grandparents, who were first or second generation German immigrants, who worked as housewives, farmers, and blue-collar workers, and some of whom did not finish their high school education. Then I told him about my parents, who graduated from high school and had skilled jobs, but did not graduate from college. And lastly, I told him about me and my siblings, who are going to be the first in my family to graduate from college. I told him that this is the American dream--to have more opportunities than your parents, and for your children to have more opportunities than you did. It is a chance to be something great, and to be hindered by nothing but the extent of your own ambition. And he said to me, "So you are living the American dream?"

And I replied, "Yes I am."