still raining!

long weekend. oddly exhausting. lots of rain and questions and german german german. finally. Really enjoying seeing familiar faces in Velbert, and also really enjoying being able to get on the train by myself and come "home" to my little room.

highlights: walking through dripping wet woods with Philipp and their new wild puppy, Ben. Getting fed incredible home cooked meals from a mom, every afternoon. Also all those totally normal moments, driving around, hanging out, walking out of a movie into a theater foyer that could have been anywhere -- being in all these moments and then pinching myself :: I'm in Germany and it's totally normal. By far the best moments were going to Oma and Opa's house on Friday for Father's Day Kaffee & Kuchen. Philipp's grandparents are originally from what is now southern Poland, near where my grandma Trudy's framily is from I believe. Bohemia. When they grew up it was part of Germany, before the second world war. They eventually made it all the way up to modern, industrial Nord Rhein Westfalen in Western Germany. They welcomed us into their living room with three cakes layed out and coffee in china cups and doilies and kisses and handshakes. We had already met and, just like last time I was there, they both looked at each other and said to me "you're so thin! Isn't she thin?! She used to be fatter". Philipp sort of cringed, but I could only laugh and help myself to another piece of cake! Once the cakes had been properly devoured by the whole family - Philipp's parents, two sisters, grandparents and very pregnant, very sweet aunt Brigitte - Oma cleared the table, only to return with two platters of chips, a bowl of gummi candy, a bowl of chocolates and a bottle of schnapps. After politely refusing a glass of pear schnapps, a search ensued to find some kind of liquor for the picky American visitor. I ended up drinking two rounds of Ouzo (delicious and hefty anis flavored Greek liquor) with Oma!

Three days later Brigitte gave birth to a little boy named Laurenz, and I was back on a train across the flat green wet land to Bremen.

So many babies! I'm sitting eating tomato soup at a cafe and at the table next to me an adult daughter is showing ultrasounds to her mother and complaining about the weather.

<< Weine nicht wenn der Regen fällt, ba bum! ba bum! >>

It was very nice to get out of my direct surroundings for a bit though, if only just to see the land. After landing in Bremen Airport and only being right in the city it has been hard to order myself in the world at large. To figure out where I am. Natural surroundings - fields, trees, barns - they help.

I was trying to describe this to Philipp, this fascinating european phenomenon. The coutry to city relationship that I think we all know about but which has been especially interesting to re-examine. In Philipp's region, as in much of Germany, in order to get between two cities, you drive out of one and then suddenly find yourself in old old countryside, with brick barnhouses and stone walls and sheep and rolling fields and modern windmills. Real rural country. Then the road drops into a valley or meanders along a river, and suddenly you're in a cultural center again, a city with designer jeans and DSL and a movie theater. Everything is integrated somehow, in this way that feels entirely different from our expansive federal republic, where cornfields stretch on and on with only a grain elevator and an Agway in between and in order to get a good, well-ground and pressed cup of espresso you have to get on a plane. Sure, it's not quite this extreme, but one thing I find especially interesting is the familiarity any European must have with "real land". Food growing for instance. Open fields. Whereas think of all those people in Northern New Jersey who see a hay bale and whip out the camera. (Come on, Matt, I've seen you do it). And is it jumping too far to say that this might make for better consumers? Or just people with more dynamic relationships to the land? Instead of (roughly speaking) one group of people who know agriculture (and understand economic/practical factors related to agriculture) and one group who know only the consumption end (what's cheapest? most convenient? tastes best? most healthy?) I feel like I could draw better conclusions in conversation I guess and I'm not about to write an essay. But because I'm actually living someplace totally new I can't help but look at people and instead of thinking "why are we different?" actually delve into the questions of environment, culture, history and language to consider why a fork is held as it is and trash separated a certain way. So many things are born out of so many things that eventually the ideas of labels and categorization, although fascinating and tempting, often end up falling away into a sea of romantic big-picture impressions. So be it.

Okay, rambling done now. Check out this website for a good time. Yes, that's my uncle.