Last time, I mentioned that I had a presentation to give, known here as a referat, which went fairly well. I risked a few jokes and my professor was, surprisingly, very pleased with that. I've seen a few attempts at literal translation of humor and none of those ended well, so I'm pretty happy that I can make a German professor laugh during what's normally a formal presentation using innate humor rather than a pattern I picked up while in Europe. I'm also very glad that I don't have to do any more research on Carl Eugen von Württemberg. For all the German intelligentsia cares, this man isn't worth writing about and his insignificance is an obstacle for someone who's looking for hard-copy primary sources about that very man.
I also received three midterm grades, which were...good? Good in the sense of knowing that I need to study obscure rules of grammar far more than is healthy, I guess. My two written midterms were great, but the grammar test, taken in the highest-level grammar course provided by the Institute, was the aforementioned kind of good. I'm not too surprised, because this fits my MO. My exams never turn out as well as my written assignments, and I'd be worried if it were any different while I'm over here. I think it has to do with a need to apply creativity to something I know someone else will see. It's like my music or this blog - I want every opportunity to share something I think is awesome. You can't share awesome when you're presented a test and told "go."
So it goes.
But academic stuff is not why you're here - if you care enough about me or travel or IU or studying overseas to read this, you want something else. We want something else; something with travel and castles and mountains and real food made of nothing but salt, cholesterol and animal casings.
Well I have absolutely nothing to say about any of those things. I won't be able to do "awesome" on a regular basis until our three-month-long Spring break. Until then, I have school, which I will describe in more detail in the coming months.
And now for something completely different.
The cold in Freiburg is as absolute as the heat of the Egyptian sun. It cuts through any coat that isn't high-grade winter gear and goes straight to your bones. But if you can endure it long enough to get to the Christmas market, you'll find that red wine, rich food, and shopping both mitigate and justify your suffering.
I've already mentioned the market's glüwein: warm wine mulled with cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, citrus, and sugar. Finding a good cup of glühwein is difficult, because getting something right in the middle of the spice spectrum is completely random, and God help you if you choose the wrong one. But if you don't want to risk a glühwein you can order plenty of less unusual things, like hot soup or crepes or non-euclidean bananas.
They're straight? WHAT IS THIS IS I DON'T EVEN
There's an emphasis on high quality - just about everything is handmade by dozens of carpenters, brewers, and bakers from in and around the city. So far the only street musicians I've seen at the Weinachtsmarkt are little kids and one professional brass quintet. When the weather is relatively warm, many more street performers sell their music and art around the market's entrances. The result of such a chaotic combination of sounds and hundreds of people buying and selling and eating good food is a competition between prevailing senses of joy and anarchy.
That seems like a good place to stop. I'll post my next one on the 25th or 26th so you can get a fairly immediate look at how I spent Christmas.
Grüß,
-Jared Boze
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