De l'Allemagne... why?
Yes, why? Why this interest in this country? I realise that, apart from my two home countries, this is the country I have most visited... why? Why did I go to big and small places such as:
Schweinfurt, Bonn, Berlin, Lübeck, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Rheine, Hamburg, Köln (Cologne), Tübingen, Sierksdorf, Nuremberg, Waldenbuch and many others!
Well, there was the question of education in France... if you were studying German as first language in highschool, you were going to a class with a higher level compared with English as first language. But then why not Spanish or Italian? Well it seems a lot of work was done to reconciliate France with Germany starting in the 1950s. Who would have thought that after years, centuries! of wars between the two countries, they would become close allies and even partners in Europe.
So I learned German as a first foreign language at school. The way we learned was atrocious, well at least for me, it was with cassettes and you had to 'fill the blank' with the correct answer, on your own, in front of the class if you were the one chosen. What a nightmare! I hope (pray!) students are not learning like this, but in a more CELTA approach where the teacher encourages group discussions etc... Anyway, there were still some nice souvenirs as well, like the time we had to do an art project about Berlin. I remember spending a lot of time spraying glitter on the Berlin bear. I also was intrigued by the story of this woman who's stuck on a rock in the river Rhine and moans that she's sad, you're not sure why. And the horror stories of the Grimm brothers as my parents decided to lend me an unabridged copy. There was the torture also of trying to play Bach and Beethoven, sounding so clear in recordings and concerts and really ugly with me. Oh well...
And often, as I really wasn't good in class, I was spending some language school holidays in Germany. This was a bit odd at times as clearly some hosting families worked on guilt... and it's embarrassing. So I was overfed, overshown stuff around by the parents while the family's teenagers were, well, grumpy. Havign said that, maybe they were always grumpy. It's just once in Bavaria that I met a girl I really got on with and we kept a correspondance for a while.
Then, of course, after my baccalaureat I did not go to Germany for a while. I got on well with two Germans in Paris and we kept in touch, and in fact we're still in touch today. And then I changed country, and met other Germans, and we are still in touch. So yes, I have gone back, again and again to the country.
And the music! The famous ones of course: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler yes... some are Moravians, some are Austrians, leave me alone! And the less famous ones: Froberger, Buxtehude, Schönberg, Berg.... there's a lot to enjoy there and I still enjoy listen to German music. Weirdly enough, the one that comforts me most is Beethoven, there's suffering there but also so much hope and strength. Nothing like listening to a Beethoven symphony before or after going to work in my sometimes wobbly countryside bus.
...And yes, let's be frank as well... ah the wine in South Germany! Ah the schlagsahne! Ah the cafe creme and the cakes! And the Ritter chocolates! And the Lübeck marzipan!
I wish I could speak about the literature that much, but no, I haven't read enough, bits of the romantics via lieder by Schubert and Schuman, bits of Brecht, Thomas Mann and to finish Juli Zeh...so not enough really!
Or maybe there's a bit more than that in my interest in Germany? Maybe I have some German ancestry? And yes I do I discovered, asking my Mum about this and also trying to decipher the DNA test of my American aunt. It seems there is a huge taboo about the German ancestry of many Americans. Perhaps they had to suppress their origins for so long that they have now completely forgotten they are also from Germany? Or perhaps, being German is speaking German and there were bits of Germany everywhere from Alsace to Russia before WW2 and even America, but that got lost? Or perhaps, in Bismark, Missouri, they have less issues with Bismark than they have in Germany?
But I think, frankly, the main answer is that I have German friends :-)
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