November in Mainz

Fastnacht

11/11 at 11:11am marked the beginning of Fastnacht (or Karneval as it’s known to a lot of others) in Germany and surrounding areas. A bunch of us made our way to Schillerplatz, the main area of town, where a huge stage was set up, along with the usual German festival food stands and our first Gluehwein stand of the season (more about that in another post). It also included hundreds of people dressed up in ridiculous hats and costumes.... think Halloween, German style. It began with the mayor of the city giving a funny speech (mostly bashing our Wiesbaden neighbors), then included a very fiery, energetic old lady singing some hilarious German songs. I didn’t know what they were singing half the time, but the whole crowd joined arms and danced together. There were also gigantic cartoonish head figures walking around dancing in the crowd. Only a picture will do these things justice. These couple of hours were apparently just a taste of what we are supposed to expect at the beginning of March, during the week before Lent. That’s when the “real” celebration begins… where everybody in town has work off and people from all over come to celebrate their last indulgences before Lent. Mainz has the 2^nd biggest celebration in Europe, 2^nd only to Cologne (only an hour and a half away). I’ll post more about the history and events in March, because it really is something completely unique to Mainz and something I’m really excited to be a part of.

Fremde werden Freunde

My school has organized this program called “Fremde werden Freunde” (Strangers become Friends) where an international student is placed with a member of the Mainz community in order to learn about German daily life, visit local festivals, and basically have a German support system all while learning and improving your German language skills. Well, I had heard some really great experiences from some friends of mine, so I decided to sign up. Instead of getting a family, I was placed with a single 48 year old lady. The first time we met, we ate dinner at a small pizza place, and then walked around the city a bit. Our first conversation opened up with her explaining how she got fired at her job that day as a custodian at a local church. She said she was on welfare and that the government paid her only 1,20 Euro an hour for the job, but that they paid for her entire apartment on Schillerplatz, which is basically the main part/one of the busiest spots of town. Um…. I had no idea how to respond to that. She also consistently talked in English, which I would ask her to please speak in German, but then she would talk so fast and mumble that I couldn’t understand her. Anyway, she wanted to meet again another day to go to a museum, which I did to give it a second shot, but I told her I had to leave after that, but she insisted that I go to her house since it was right around the corner, so I grudgingly agreed. Well.. hmm.. how to explain this. She had Barbie dolls…. nailed… all over her apartment on the walls and on shelves… in erotic and fantasy clothing. She said she was an artist and designed all the clothing herself, which was indeed impressive, but just something about Barbie dolls scantily dressed all over this foreign 48 year old’s wall freaked me out a little bit. We then went to the monthly Fremde werden Freunde Stammtisch (where people meet to practice speaking German, etc.) and I introduced her to my friends and their “families”… later my friends admitted to me that my person was quite rude and that their “families” had even commented on it. Well, let’s just say I don’t think I’ll be seeing her again.

Howard, seeing my disparity, invited me to a family friend’s house of his “family” to meet a 13-year old girl who wanted to improve her English. Howard and I got there and were greeted by homemade cakes and coffee brewing. They also had English oldies playing, which Howard and I went crazy over. They were the nicest family I’ve met in Germany so far… a young couple with 10-year old and 13-year old girls. The 10-year old was a spitfire, always correcting her dad’s English and running around doing cartwheels. She reminded me of myself when I was younger… always full of energy and way too confident. The 13-year old was incredibly nice and very, very interested in the US, and thought Texas was “super cool”. I told her she could come visit me sometime and I’d take her to a rodeo, which I then had to try to explain what a rodeo was… in German. That was pretty interesting. The mother showed me scrapbooks of their summer family trips around Europe, and their recent celebration of Fastnacht. She also let me borrow a lot of books in German about Mainz and things to do here. I really hope I get to know them more…. They were really great.

Opera

My school recently organized a trip to see the opera “La Traviata” in Wiesbaden. It was my first ever opera, so I was pretty excited. The first act opened up with everybody singing (put basically) “Let’s all party and have fun”…. Awesome. Each act got a little less interesting, but that might be because my brain was working overtime listening to them singing in Italian, while reading German subtitles, and talking to friends in English. Yikes. I am trying to plan a trip to the opera (or ballet) when me and Margaret, my old college roommate, go to Paris for Christmas. I’m hoping it works out because their main opera house is absolutely beautiful, and I would love to see a show in it. We’ll see.

Military Base

Wiesbaden at night

A month or so ago, I tried to get on to the Wiesbaden military base, but was hastily turned away. After much research and a lot of help from my dad, I figured out how to get my military ID card registered, and decided to make my way there with Howard on Monday. Well, it was yet another horrible experience. To put it as shortly as possible, the one bus that goes there doesn’t run very frequently (or doesn’t even show up), then it didn’t even stop in the area we needed it to go in (even though the schedule said it would). Then we didn’t have time to even walk because they closed early. Military base attempt #2: FAIL

So we decided to go again Tuesday, making sure we found which time the bus would actually stop where we needed to (the army airfield). Success. Then I get there, they take Howard’s passport and make him wait outside in the freezing cold while I go in the building 20 feet away to get my card registered. He was out there for well over an hour… just standing there. He definitely has more patience than I could even imagine. Got my card registered, then they said I had to walk all the way to customs to get “shopping privileges” approved, which they reassured would be absolutely no problem. Well, I talked to some cop there who said there was absolutely no way I was going to get shopping privileges because my dad doesn’t live here and that the card registration people have no idea what they’re talking about. GRRRRRR… but he said I could fill out an “exception to the rule” form if I ask some lady who lives all the way in Heidelberg. Are you serious???? This is some kind of obstacle nobody had ever told me about, and at this point I was so extremely fed up with everybody I talked to telling me something different for over a month now. I went back to the registration office, where a very nice lady called Heidelberg lady, which I’m still waiting on a response from.

In the meantime, it was brought to my attention from the registration lady (and from some army guys I talked to on the airfield) that it doesn’t matter at all if I have some letter that says I have “shopping privileges”. That as long as my card is registered, I can go on and do whatever I want, and even bring any American with me as long as they have their passport. So, with this new found knowledge and some courage, Howard and I made our way to the main base, where we were greeted by signs of Taco Bell, Popeye’s Chicken, and Baskin Robbins. After eating some delicious soft tacos with free refills with lots of ice in big cups, and catching up with some American news on CNN, we made our way to the PX (department store) and also the Commissary (grocery store) and got a bunch of stuff for our upcoming Thanksgiving feasts (including Velveeta mac & cheese… of course). Military base attempt #3: SUCCESS.

German Movie Theaters

Oh, and just a quick note about German movies/movie theaters. A couple days ago I went to see the new Harry Potter, and right in the middle of the movie, smack dab in the middle, they just STOP the movie! Just stop it…. And a screen comes up that says “Pause”. Apparently this is quite normal in Germany for long movies. First of all, the movie didn’t start at 10:30pm like it was supposed to… they started playing commercials at 10:45pm (around the same 3 played over & over again) and then the movie started around 11:15pm… and then they give us a 15 minute PAUSE?! COoooooome oooooonnnnnn. Another weird thing was seeing the ushers come in with trays like you see at baseball games offering people candy and snacks. In-seat service? Cool. 

So that's pretty much been my November in Mainz. The days are getting shorter and colder (no sunrise until after 8am, sunset at around 4:30pm), and we even had our first day of snow last week. The infamous German Christmas markets are starting to open all over the country, and I'm excited to see my parents soon. Let me know if anybody has any requests for presents/German memorabilia! My parents can bring it back to the states for yall :) Hope all is well!!