I have been living with my Gastfamilie over a month now, and relations continue to be lukewarm at best. There is another boarder here now, a French student whose name I cannot spell and will only embarrass if I try, and his relationship is the same. Thus it has become quite clear to me that I am looked upon as a Mieter, a lodger, and that is all. I suppose that is all well and good, though I was expecting a little bit more from my experience of living with a family in another culture. Thinking some of the fault may fall on my end, I thought I might warm our relationship a little with a token of my gratitude. So, I asked the Langes if I might cook them dinner. They agreed, and the meal was set for this past Wednesday.
My mother has Italian heritage, and her particular recipe for tomato sauce continues to be the barometer by which I judge pasta.* I thought, therefore, that it would be nice to throw something together in this variety, since the Germans don't get a lot in the way of spices. My Gastmutter's kitchen, for instance, has four whopping containers of paprika (the Germans love the stuff), three shakers of cinnamon, a little nutmeg from the Weimar era, and little besides. I could not very well cook tomato sauce correctly with what I had on hand, so during my grocery shopping I went spice hunting as well. It was relatively easy to find garlic to brown, and basil only took a little longer. Oregano, on the other hand, appears to be wholly foreign to German culture. In three supermarkets, I saw not a hint of the stuff. I did find plenty more paprika, God help me. In fact, I asked for help everywhere I went, but this only made matters worse, since no, I didn't want any paprika; it's not even the same color as oregano, and yes I saw the Weisswurst was on sale, but no I don't want that either.**
Anyway, I managed to cobble together a decent spaghetti with baked German sausage and an almost acceptable tomato sauce. It was the first evening of serious cooking I had done since I got to Germany, and I was actually in rather high spirits by the time everyone sat down to dinner: myself; the Langes; Michael, their daughter Lena's boyfriend; and the new French tenant. I served everyone their salad and pasta, and we dug in.
I am disappointed by how the meal itself went, but I suppose I have my own high expectations to blame for that. Nothing particularly bad happened during the meal, but the conversation was not exactly animated, either. My Gastmutter thanked me precisely once for buying and cooking everyone dinner, and no one else made a comment regarding the food at any other point. I also managed to cook too much, thanks to both an unfamiliarity with the metric system as well as being used to servings sufficient for a hungry American family of seven. As such, the remainder of the meal was unceremoniously stuck in my corner of the fridge as leftovers,*** and no one save myself touched it again until I managed to eat it all.
On the plus side, Frau Zielinska-Lange was kind enough to take the occasion to bake a cake for dessert. She and Herr Lange left the table after dinner plates were cleared, but what remained of the evening became a little friendlier as the younger portion of the table chatted over our evening coffee. The french tenant and Michael even bonded over European heavy metal. In retrospect, I must admit everyone's moods may also have brightened because they no longer had to face my cooking. In any case, I was at least able to say that everyone ended the evening in some manner of positive bearing.
I haven't cooked for the family since, and I am not sure if I will again. I have comfortably accepted what is clearly a landlord/tenant relationship, albeit a somewhat odd one since we're all in the same small house. But what can I say? I am still very new to the culture here, and it is probably wise not to be overly sensitive to these early experiences. The experts all say culture shock can be at its worst around this time, so I should be especially vigilant right now about maintaining an open mind. I don't want to slip into a negative, snap-judgment mindset. That would just inhibit my experience here, and hinder my ability to use this once-in-a-lifetime experience to learn about a different place and a different way of life.
Besides, they're all a bunch of assholes over here, anyway.
--------
*As a good son, I should clarify that the barometer analogy does not leave room for superior sauces. I like to think of my mother's tomato sauce as a sort of Platonic ideal of pasta, to which other Italian dishes aspire through the pursuit of examined shelf life.
**And trust me, neither do you.
***Leftovers are a rare occurence in this house, and it has been my experience that this family looks on revisitng a meal about as warmly as most people would regard revisiting major dental surgery.
Showing posts with label Host Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Host Family. Show all posts
Monday, September 10, 2007
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Genießbare Getränke, Part 1: Kölsch
As I have said, this blog will be concerning itself with all things German. If past experience is any teacher, I will have much to say this year about alcohol. As a first foray into that subject, I give you the specialty beer of the city of Cologne: Kölsch.
Quite frankly, it's nothing special.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy German beer, almost universally more so than the fare available for consumption back in the States. Kölsch, however, does not really offer anything unique. One member of the CBYX group said she thinks it tastes surprisingly like Corona. I think she's right; the similarity is pretty remarkable.
I am not alone in this opinion. I finally confirmed my host father exists last night, and we chatted over Jewers* (a popular pilsner of this region) on a number of subjects, including beer. Without provocation, he explicitly stated his distaste for Kölsch. I suppose he could be in the minority of the local populace on this subject, but nonetheless his opinion shows one is not demonstrating Stereotypical American Arrogance if one doesn't like the stuff.
For those who do want a Stange (a Kölner beer glass) or two, there's only two options open to you: 1) Come to Cologne and order some, or 2) Import it from a Cologne brewery. Germans take their beer very seriously. Besides the famous purity laws, there have also been laws passed regarding what beers can use certain names, akin to similar French laws regarding wine. It is ganz verboten to brew a beer and call it Kölsch unless it is brewed in the city of Cologne.
And like many sources of community pride, Kölsch has its rivals. In this case, the dreaded nemesis is Altbier, the specialty of Düsseldorf. I have not been there yet, nor have I tasted their ancient and mysterious brew, so I cannot really comment on it yet. What I can tell you is what one of the teachers at CDC told me: order Altbier in Cologne at your own peril. Most places do not serve it; some will even throw you out for insulting their establishment so grievously. I suspect the teacher was exaggerating somewhat, but I am not planning on testing his claim anytime soon. If I do happen to see some hapless altbier-loving tourist make this fatal faux pas, I will be sure to report that news here.
Hopefully with pictures.
Bussi bussi.
--------
* It's pronounced YAY-verz. Calm down.
Quite frankly, it's nothing special.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy German beer, almost universally more so than the fare available for consumption back in the States. Kölsch, however, does not really offer anything unique. One member of the CBYX group said she thinks it tastes surprisingly like Corona. I think she's right; the similarity is pretty remarkable.
I am not alone in this opinion. I finally confirmed my host father exists last night, and we chatted over Jewers* (a popular pilsner of this region) on a number of subjects, including beer. Without provocation, he explicitly stated his distaste for Kölsch. I suppose he could be in the minority of the local populace on this subject, but nonetheless his opinion shows one is not demonstrating Stereotypical American Arrogance if one doesn't like the stuff.
For those who do want a Stange (a Kölner beer glass) or two, there's only two options open to you: 1) Come to Cologne and order some, or 2) Import it from a Cologne brewery. Germans take their beer very seriously. Besides the famous purity laws, there have also been laws passed regarding what beers can use certain names, akin to similar French laws regarding wine. It is ganz verboten to brew a beer and call it Kölsch unless it is brewed in the city of Cologne.
And like many sources of community pride, Kölsch has its rivals. In this case, the dreaded nemesis is Altbier, the specialty of Düsseldorf. I have not been there yet, nor have I tasted their ancient and mysterious brew, so I cannot really comment on it yet. What I can tell you is what one of the teachers at CDC told me: order Altbier in Cologne at your own peril. Most places do not serve it; some will even throw you out for insulting their establishment so grievously. I suspect the teacher was exaggerating somewhat, but I am not planning on testing his claim anytime soon. If I do happen to see some hapless altbier-loving tourist make this fatal faux pas, I will be sure to report that news here.
Hopefully with pictures.
Bussi bussi.
--------
* It's pronounced YAY-verz. Calm down.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Teutonic Travels, Part One: My Year Begins
After a short visit to DC, I have finally arrived in Germany. I am spending the next two months in Cologne, a major city in the Rhineland, Germany’s most populous region. Cologne is somewhat typical of modern German cities, with a bustling Innenstadt full of tourist attractions, fine dining, and culture, nightlife, usw.* It reminds me a little bit of the week I spent last year in Berlin, but only in the vague ways all German cities resemble one another. To me, the similarity is much like the vague commonality shared by northeastern American cities such as Philadelphia and Boston. As I have said, however, I have not spent much time here yet, and will have more to tell on the subject of Cologne in the future.
Since I have already been through orientation for my year on the CBYX, I have met most of the participants of this year’s program. They are by all accounts a friendly bunch, and the liveliness amongst the participants is surprisingly uniform. I wouldn’t be surprised if the administrators of CBYX look for such traits, be it actively or passively, since the program leaders continuously make a point of informing us that we are acting as American ambassadors to the Germans we meet and befriend during our year here.
Beyond the ubiquitous friendliness and approachable dispositions, most of the participants also seem to have a healthy amount of drive, similar to my classmates at alma mater. Like CMC students, many of them possess an interest in international relations/public policy/politics/business/economics,** and almost everyone likes to drink. Though Claremont had a diverse student body, I would argue the CBYX group is even more so. I’ve met a future pastry chef, orchestra conductor, mason, another chef, more than a handful of engineers, businessmen and a forest ranger. Even more exciting, they come from all sorts of universities and colleges as well: community colleges, state schools, small liberal arts colleges and large research universities. It’s exciting to talk to people from regions of the country that I have never visited nor its locals encountered.
Unfortunately, shortly after meeting one another, we were all placed on an overnight flight to Frankfurt, where we split into separate groups to reach each of our separate language schools. Language school for those to whom I have not explained this, is the first part of the CBYX program, lasting from my arrival yesterday to the end of September. Each participant spends two months at a language-training center run by an affiliate of CBYX, the Carl Duisberg Centren. I am studying at their office in Cologne with forty other members of the program, so fortunately I still have a number of friendly faces in the city with me. Little of interest has happened at CDC yet, so I’ll come back to that later.
After the long (8 hours) yet tolerable (arrived early) flight on Lufthansa, we proud participants found ourselves on the ground in Europe… at quarter to six in the morning… after little to no sleep… with a fully scheduled day ahead of us. It was the first true test of the Cologne group’s mettle. Many struggled to stay awake. Many more fell asleep from time to time. Some did so open-mouthed in presentations by the language school director.*** Others did the same while giving their cabbie directions.**** But in the end, everyone survived that first very long day in Germany and lived to tell the tale.
At the end of that long day, I finally met my host family, or Gastfamilie, for the first part of the program. They live in the eastern suburbs of Cologne, and have been very friendly to me thus far. The woman of the house, Frau Zielinska-Lange, is very warm and friendly, and she tolerates my German Fehler with patience mixed with schoolteacher firmness and seize-the-day type attitude for learning experiences. Her last name tripped me up the first few times I tried to say it,***** and her daughter Lena told me I can call her by her first name, Goska… which did not help much either. In any case, I’ve stuck to the Sie formal address when speaking to Frau Zielinska-Lange, since I still barely know her, and she has been kind enough to welcome me into her home. The aforementioned daughter, Lena, is a graduate student at the University of Bonn home for the summer. She has also been quite friendly, and she had the resourcefulness to introduce me to a system wherein I can call the U.S. from land lines for only 0.0114€ a minute!****** There is also a man of the house, Herr Lange, but I have not yet met him. I went to sleep only an hour or so after arrival yesterday out of sheer exhaustion, and he is not yet home as of this writing. Thus far I have been able to determine he is a repairman by trade, of what no one seems to know, and is very busy during the summer.
The Lange family also has two dogs, Maya and Saba, who are by far two of the friendliest, most obedient dogs I have ever seen. I am not really a dog person, but these two are getting me there. The language barrier here is a little thicker, so I will update with more on the dogs later as well.
If you are still reading at this point, particularly with the increasingly irrelevant footnotes,******* you must be pretty interested in what is going on over here. I will post again to keep you apprised of my adventures and mishaps. There have been a couple thus far, but I thought they would be more amusing and less pathetic and bedürftig sounding if amusingly compounded together into a reflection on the mishaps of traveling. Till then, let me leave you with this thought on European fauxhawks: in the time since I was in Austria last summer, one of the following has occurred:
1. Nothing, and they are just typically more extreme and architectural in this region
2. The fashion has moved towards a more angular, bird-like look
3. I have become stodgier
I intend to resolve this mystery by the time I write my next post.
Until then, bussi bussi.
--------
*und so weiter – the German equivalent expression of et cetera.
** Just one I’ve met so far, but she’s adamant, so that compensates.
***They know who they are, and if they are reading this, I hope they have a good sense of humor.
**** …I don’t want to talk about it. Ok? Don’t judge me.
***** Go ahead, read it aloud. I’ll give you a hint. It rhymes with NOTHING.
****** Subject to change without notice.
******* I read David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest before I left this summer. Wallace’s relationship with footnotes in that book is, shall we say, intimate and involved.
Since I have already been through orientation for my year on the CBYX, I have met most of the participants of this year’s program. They are by all accounts a friendly bunch, and the liveliness amongst the participants is surprisingly uniform. I wouldn’t be surprised if the administrators of CBYX look for such traits, be it actively or passively, since the program leaders continuously make a point of informing us that we are acting as American ambassadors to the Germans we meet and befriend during our year here.
Beyond the ubiquitous friendliness and approachable dispositions, most of the participants also seem to have a healthy amount of drive, similar to my classmates at alma mater. Like CMC students, many of them possess an interest in international relations/public policy/politics/business/economics,** and almost everyone likes to drink. Though Claremont had a diverse student body, I would argue the CBYX group is even more so. I’ve met a future pastry chef, orchestra conductor, mason, another chef, more than a handful of engineers, businessmen and a forest ranger. Even more exciting, they come from all sorts of universities and colleges as well: community colleges, state schools, small liberal arts colleges and large research universities. It’s exciting to talk to people from regions of the country that I have never visited nor its locals encountered.
Unfortunately, shortly after meeting one another, we were all placed on an overnight flight to Frankfurt, where we split into separate groups to reach each of our separate language schools. Language school for those to whom I have not explained this, is the first part of the CBYX program, lasting from my arrival yesterday to the end of September. Each participant spends two months at a language-training center run by an affiliate of CBYX, the Carl Duisberg Centren. I am studying at their office in Cologne with forty other members of the program, so fortunately I still have a number of friendly faces in the city with me. Little of interest has happened at CDC yet, so I’ll come back to that later.
After the long (8 hours) yet tolerable (arrived early) flight on Lufthansa, we proud participants found ourselves on the ground in Europe… at quarter to six in the morning… after little to no sleep… with a fully scheduled day ahead of us. It was the first true test of the Cologne group’s mettle. Many struggled to stay awake. Many more fell asleep from time to time. Some did so open-mouthed in presentations by the language school director.*** Others did the same while giving their cabbie directions.**** But in the end, everyone survived that first very long day in Germany and lived to tell the tale.
At the end of that long day, I finally met my host family, or Gastfamilie, for the first part of the program. They live in the eastern suburbs of Cologne, and have been very friendly to me thus far. The woman of the house, Frau Zielinska-Lange, is very warm and friendly, and she tolerates my German Fehler with patience mixed with schoolteacher firmness and seize-the-day type attitude for learning experiences. Her last name tripped me up the first few times I tried to say it,***** and her daughter Lena told me I can call her by her first name, Goska… which did not help much either. In any case, I’ve stuck to the Sie formal address when speaking to Frau Zielinska-Lange, since I still barely know her, and she has been kind enough to welcome me into her home. The aforementioned daughter, Lena, is a graduate student at the University of Bonn home for the summer. She has also been quite friendly, and she had the resourcefulness to introduce me to a system wherein I can call the U.S. from land lines for only 0.0114€ a minute!****** There is also a man of the house, Herr Lange, but I have not yet met him. I went to sleep only an hour or so after arrival yesterday out of sheer exhaustion, and he is not yet home as of this writing. Thus far I have been able to determine he is a repairman by trade, of what no one seems to know, and is very busy during the summer.
The Lange family also has two dogs, Maya and Saba, who are by far two of the friendliest, most obedient dogs I have ever seen. I am not really a dog person, but these two are getting me there. The language barrier here is a little thicker, so I will update with more on the dogs later as well.
If you are still reading at this point, particularly with the increasingly irrelevant footnotes,******* you must be pretty interested in what is going on over here. I will post again to keep you apprised of my adventures and mishaps. There have been a couple thus far, but I thought they would be more amusing and less pathetic and bedürftig sounding if amusingly compounded together into a reflection on the mishaps of traveling. Till then, let me leave you with this thought on European fauxhawks: in the time since I was in Austria last summer, one of the following has occurred:
1. Nothing, and they are just typically more extreme and architectural in this region
2. The fashion has moved towards a more angular, bird-like look
3. I have become stodgier
I intend to resolve this mystery by the time I write my next post.
Until then, bussi bussi.
--------
*und so weiter – the German equivalent expression of et cetera.
** Just one I’ve met so far, but she’s adamant, so that compensates.
***They know who they are, and if they are reading this, I hope they have a good sense of humor.
**** …I don’t want to talk about it. Ok? Don’t judge me.
***** Go ahead, read it aloud. I’ll give you a hint. It rhymes with NOTHING.
****** Subject to change without notice.
******* I read David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest before I left this summer. Wallace’s relationship with footnotes in that book is, shall we say, intimate and involved.
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