BIZ Internship

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by Nicole Couturiaux

Greetings from Bremen! – more specifically, from my desk at the Bremer Informationszentrum für Menschenrechte und Entwicklung (Bremen Information Center for Human Rights and Development, or simply “biz”).

I’m into the homestretch of my last week of a 6 week internship at biz. Technically it’s Semesterferien (“semester break”) for the German university system, but this month and a half has been anything but a vacation for me. From 10am-6pm Monday through Friday I work to further education in sustainable development (meaning the bettering of both human lives and the environment through the institution of respectful, healthy, and justly-profitable social and business practices). biz is an NGO that supports local interest groups, holds seminars and lectures, designs and distributes museum exhibitions, organizes speakers to give interactive presentations in local schools, and maintains a library specific to research and pedagogic work in human rights and development issues.

Interning in a foreign country comes with a unique set of challenges. My responsibilities range from those involving complex skills, like helping teachers and students find research materials in our library, translating the biz website from German into English, and sitting in on planning committee meetings for upcoming sustainable development events in Bremen to more traditional “intern”-labeled assignments like making photo copies, answering the telephone, and mailing programs and flyers to the community. Acting as a librarian for, say, university faculty researching blue jean manufacturing processes and implications in China is tough, but, as I’ve learned, even a mundane task like data entry carries new weight and offers unexpected learning opportunities in a second language. In both situations, I was held accountable for accurate comprehension and articulation. And in both I was pulled outside of my comfort zone, but eventually met with success – rewarded with new vocabulary words and a sense of confidence.

Working with German colleagues has also been incredibly valuable. From the start I was much more hesitant to interact with these new acquaintances then my vocal, outgoing self has ever been. My coworkers, however, were understanding and very welcoming, so eventually I figured out biz’s office norms – the tone used between colleagues, team meetings, packing organic lunches, standard dress (this level of casual actually took me some time to get in synch with), etc. – and adjusted to my environment. It does help that everyone in the office is sensitive to cultural differences, as they work for a human rights organization, after all! Though they are interested in hearing my American interpretations of things, their support of my German is also hugely appreciated. In addition to an increase in my vocabulary, I have noticed my sentences flowing more smoothly and me incorporating more creative structures and idioms. Even my thoughts are thought more frequently in German.

The biggest impact of my coworkers on me is their enthusiasm in explaining their individual projects to me and encouraging me to investigate these topics with further research in our library. In this way I have learned so much about human rights and environmental issues – issues that transcend cultures – and how educational organizations like biz can effect changes in attitudes that in turn lead to definite changes in government and business policies. So, all in all, it looks like I had a pretty worthwhile Semesterferien.

And Then We Were Five

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by Julie King ’12

Early Monday morning Bill flew home back to the United States. He left before the end of our winter semester here to make it back in time for the beginning of spring semester at Dickinson, where he has to be due to ROTC obligations.  Of course a proper farewell was in order, so Friday night the six of us Dickinsonians, Janine Ludwig, Jens, and some of our Dickinson “family” friends (i.e. Insa, Jan) enjoyed an evening together at Schüttinger, a microbrewery and restaurant in the Altstadt of Bremen.

Bill, Doug, Ethan and I went to Schüttinger around 7:30, just in time to get a beer during happy hour (only 2 Euro for 0,4 L!) and to have a traditional German dinner while we waited for the others to arrive.  Bill and Doug both ordered the Leberkäse Pfanne, which they deemed appropriate, as Bill’s quasi “last supper.”  I’ve never ordered it myself, but Leberkäse is kind of like a better, German version of spam. “Pfanne” means pan, so it came served over hash brown-like potatoes with a fried egg on top.  Ethan and I each ate Flammkuchen, which is a sort of flat bread with toppings.  His had baby shrimp and onions on top of a sour cream like spread, and mine was the same except with bacon instead of baby shrimp.

After dinner we moved to a bigger table and by about 9:30 everyone had arrived.  We presented Bill with a partially completed scrapbook with pictures from the past 4 months.  With the help of glue sticks, red and yellow paper, and lots of Stabilo pens we all wrote notes to Bill and finished the scrapbook.  Hopefully when he is missing Bremen he can look through it and get a sense of his home away from home here in Bremen.  Although we didn’t get our dance on underneath the disco ball to “Take Me Home Country Roads” at Schüttinger, we finished our night at Tower, a popular dance club near the train station.  Even though we’ll miss him there’s a chance he’ll come back to Bremen for a visit in May, but regardless a perfect way to say goodbye as a group a our small yet lively “Abschiedparty.”

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Christmas and New Years in Deutschland: the holidays from northern, to southern, to central Germany

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by Samantha Claussen ’12

(WARNING: this post spends a lot of time talking about food. Read on an empty stomach at your own risk.)

Christmas and New Years in Deutschland: the holidays from northern, to southern, to central GermanyTechnically, although Uni Bremen didn’t start break until the end of classes December 21st, I started my break December 18th, as my professors cancelled classes for the rest of my time there. I spent the weekend getting last-minute presents for my host families, cleaning, packing, and wandering around the Weihnachtsmarkt (or Christmas market) in Bremen. I have seen the Weihnachtsmärkte in Berlin, Bremen, Hannover, Freiburg, and a little bit just outside the Hamburg train station, but I think Bremen’s is my favorite. (No, I’m not biased at all. Really.) I took a few pictures of the market, which can be seen at the bottom of the entry, and must apologize for the picture quality. My camera gets cranky at night. There are also pictures of the view from my apartment window and the walk to the tram stop, though there is no longer snow everywhere.

On the 21st, I packed up and got a train to Freiburg, where my host family there picked me up and brought me back to Gundelfingen, a small village just north of Freiburg (side note: this family is one of a number of families I am acquainted with in Germany, as we have acted as host families for a number of German students). It was really, really nice to be in a family environment again. Normally at Dickinson I get a break from college life every couple of months or so, but this had been several months of living in a single apartment. I enjoy my solitude, but being somewhere with parents and children again was really nice.

Christmas and New Years in Deutschland: the holidays from northern, to southern, to central GermanyThe 23rd I went into the city to visit some of my friends from the language course I took in Freiburg in September. I went to the Weihnachtsmarkt in Freiburg with one of them, and I found it was quite adorable (although my bias for Bremen won) and had Glühwein, Currywurst, and something called a Dampfnudel, which was this massive dumpling that we shared. It was filled with cherries and drizzled with vanilla sauce and more cherries. I spent the rest of the day seeing old familiar faces. Overall, an excellent day.

Christmas and New Years in Deutschland: the holidays from northern, to southern, to central GermanyThe next day was the 24th, or Heilige Abend. The family I was with has a pretty structured set of traditions for Heilige Abend. First of all, they go up to a mountaintop in the Black Forest and meet with a bunch of old friends and have a bonfire, with homemade Glühwein. Then they eat at a little restaurant up there. The one hitch in the plan this year: it started snowing like crazy that morning. We actually had to go switch cars, since the first one we were driving didn’t have good enough handling in the snow. I remember thinking while in the car on the way up, “I’m driving up a mountain in the Black Forest on Christmas Eve in the middle of a snowstorm to go drink wine at 11 AM. I’m kind of in love with Germany.” <3

After a delicious lunch, we went back home to rest a bit before the church service that evening. This family is Catholic, and I am Lutheran, so it was my first time in Mass for a while. The service was quite beautiful, and I enjoyed singing the Christmas songs in German.

Once Mass was done, we went back home and the children (including me) were not allowed into the living room while the parents set up for Christmas. When we finally were allowed in, the presents were under the tree, and my family was on webcam, along with the son of my host family who is currently living in America with my family (long story). But they watched us open up presents and sing Christmas songs, and it was really nice. The host family really was too generous to me, and it was a beautiful Christmas Eve. It felt strange to know that I had opened all of my presents before it was even Christmas day in America, though. We had a dinner of lots of little delicacies, like salmon and special meats and so on, I went to bed that night feeling surprisingly at home.

Christmas day we drove three hours to Wetzlar to visit the paternal grandparents of the family. Right after we got there in the late afternoon, we had tea and cakes, and then that evening we had fondue, and talked with one another until after midnight. The next morning I got up and met with the son and the mother of one of my mom’s friends– another one of our random connections to Germany. We talked for perhaps an hour, and the son took me on a driving tour of Wetzlar before returning me to my host family. Wetzlar is an adorable little town with interesting history– Goethe lived there when he wrote Werther, for instance– and I’d love to go back.

The host family and I then drove to Usingen, where the maternal grandparents live. We had the traditional Christmas dinner with them: goose, potato dumplings, and red cabbage. After sitting and chatting a bit, the parents and I said goodbye to the kids, who stayed with their grandparents, and we drove all the way back to Gundelfingen, a drive made longer than necessary by the fact that it had been snowing on and off since Christmas Eve.

I left Gundelfingen on the 29th to visit my other host family, who lives in Dörnberg, a small village not far from Kassel. It was nice to be with them, too– the family dynamic is different. The family in Gundelfingen has children who are younger than me, The oldest is 16, the middle 15, and the youngest 10. With the family in Dörnberg, the daughter (who was an exchange student with my family in high school) is about my age and is also in college. We commiserated, because we both had a load of work to do over the break and it was No Fun. Most of the time I spent with this family was spent doing homework, so I don’t have as many exciting adventure stories about Kassel, unfortunately.

New Year’s Eve, however, was spent at the daughter’s boyfriend’s house. We mostly played video games and chatted until midnight, when all of a sudden EVERYONE went out into the streets to set off fireworks. Children were running around with sparklers, church bells everywhere were tolling, and you could see fireworks and smell smoke everyhere. It was one of the most awe-inspiring, beautiful things I’d ever seen, because I felt like everyone was celebrating the new year… But all I could think was, “I really wish my friends and family were here so they could see this.”

I’m looking forward to 2011. I turn 21, though that doesn’t mean much in Germany. It’s the year when three of my friends are coming to study in three different countries in Europe, giving me new visiting opportunities, and when a few more friends might drop by good ol’ Germany to visit me. My mom and my aunt are coming at the end of February, my sister might visit in May or June, and my brother and dad might come together in the summer. I will be going to Vienna, Rome, Paris, Utrecht, Amsterdam, and possibly London, Venice, and Salzburg if all goes well. I go home in 2011, and it is also the year I become a senior, which is mildly terrifying. I’m going to try to make 2011 the best year I’ve ever had so far, and I hope it treats you all well too.

Thanksgiving 2003

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Dickinson students were mentioned in a booklet honoring the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Carl Schurz German-American Club (CSDAC). The picture shows the exchange students of 2003/2004 participating in the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner CSDAC organizes every year. We are thankful and honored to be part of this annual dinner where Germans and Americans come together celebrating America’s long-lasting tradition and we are looking forward to this year’s event!

German Emigration Center Bremerhaven

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by Douglas Murray ’12

IMGThis past Thursday, the 18th of November, our “Dickinson” (German 340) class here in Bremen went to the Deutsches Auswandererhaus Bremerhaven or the German Emigration Center in Bremerhaven, Germany.  Along with Professor Ludwig and a few other German students, we traveled by train from Bremen to Bremen’s port, Bremerhaven.  In 1827 the city of Bremen purchased the land that is today Bremerhaven because the Weser River in Bremen was too shallow for large trade ships.  Therefore, Bremerhaven has since been an integral part of both Bremen’s trade-oriented economy and emigration.

IMGUpon arrival at the museum in Bremerhaven, we waited a few minutes before starting the tour.  The tour assigns each person an actual emigrant from the past who left Germany or Central Europe for the New World.  It was very interesting to follow this person’s progression through Bremerhaven’s port and eventually their arrival in the New World.  Once the tour started, I was impressed to find that it wasn’t a stereotypical museum.  This museum was based upon interaction and had numerous stations and displays set up throughout the IMGexhibitions.  Each different room featured a scene that actually emigrants experienced years ago.  Whether it was the harbor with a life-size transport ship anchored waiting for you to board or the internal compartments of the ship that showed where the emigrants lived during the journey across the Atlantic, this museum really set up a realistic experience.

My favorite part of the tour was the room we entered immediately before boarding the model transport ship.  This room was fashioned after an old library or a room used to hold various files and records.  Decorated with various maps and diagrams depicting the 18th and 19th centuries, you really felt like you were several centuries back in time.  Many of the drawers on the walls slid open and revealed interesting facts about the emigrants.  The most interesting immigrant to the US that I found was Levi Strauss who left Bremerhaven a few years before 1850 for better economic opportunities in the states.  The fact that you could actually relate well-known historical figures like Strauss to the some 7 million emigrants who left Bremerhaven, really fascinated me.

At the end of the tour our group was guided to a bright room filled with computers and other displays.  Here you could search through various databases to find ancestors who left Europe for the New World.  Since various nationalities traveled through Bremerhaven for the New World, one did not need German ancestry to find distant relatives.  However, I was not able to find any of my family’s ancestors in the databases because I did not bring the proper information.

Overall I would say visiting the museum was a really good experience.  Being an American, one always hears about all of the immigration and diversity that makes our country what it is today.   This museum really highlighted the sheer number of emigrants who left Europe for the New World, mainly the United States, and put into perspective how difficult their struggle was.

Impressions of Bremen

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by Samantha Claussen ’12

Whenever I talk to people back home about what it’s like in Bremen, I always find myself talking about the big, general impressions. They’re easy to talk about: the University, my classes, the old city and the landmarks there, the various markets and celebrations they have, how dark and cold it’s starting to become… These are all important things to get a general picture of Bremen, but they’re not the reason I find myself growing more and more attached to this city. No, it’s the little things that I’ve noticed that really make me adore the city and its uniqueness, the ones that I forget to tell my friends andbremen schnoor family about when I’m Skyping and chatting, because the little things don’t pop out at me unless they’re right in front of me. So I guess this entry is a list of tiny things in Bremen, things that you might not pick up on just by going to the big tourist attractions. And this isn’t even all of them, because like I said, these things don’t occur to me unless they’re right there.

AThere are strange quirks that the city has, like the odd sculpture of monkeys in front of the central train station, or the disquieting statues of three bikers and two joggers on the main walkway at the University. There’s the Bleikeller, the Lead Cellar, tucked away in the basement of the Cathedral, with an eerie display of bodies that were naturally mummified. And I’ve seen a few statues in a number of places that remind me of variations of the Cow Parade, the statues of cows that are painted with different themes. The Bremen take on this, however, is done with a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster, after the Bremen Musicians.

IMGAnd then there are the tiny details that you don’t pick up on unless you’re paying close attention. The sewer covers have tiny keys stamped into them, the symbol of Bremen, and bottles of Beck’s also share the key as a symbol. There is a mouse in the Cathedral, though I can’t tell you the story about that one—you have to be a true Bremer to be privy to that information. 😉 There’s the reason the Roland faces the Cathedral—he was built as a symbolic balance of the power of the city and personal rights versus the power of the Church. The whole city is steeped in history, and it seems like around every corner there’s a story hidden, waiting to be discovered. The details snowball together until all of a sudden you have a picture of the city that could never be imagined just by reading up on the landmarks and snapping pictures on a tour.

You can fit right into Bremen by doing something small, like wearing a Werder Bremen scarf. I went out into the city yesterday, a game day, wearing one, even though I didn’t go to watch the game myself—I had other things to take care of. But I heard the results of the game on the radio as I stopped at a kiosk for a snack (0-0, unfortunately), and watched streams of people wearing green and white returning from the stadium. Because I ended up walking back in the same direction as the people who were at the game and had identified myself as a Werder fan, I got stopped several times by people who wanted to know what the score was. I was even stopped by a couple women who asked for directions to the central station.

When it comes down to it, however, it’s people that really bring everything together. While chatting with a classmate as we waited for the bus, an old woman picked up on the fact that I was from the US, as we were comparing Uni Bremen and Dickinson. She told me in English, with a perfect British accent, that she had studied in the US in 1951 and later returned on a Fulbright scholarship, and that she understood that it was hard to go to a new country and learn in a completely different language. She told me, with a very warm smile, that she was confident that I would overcome challenges presented to me and succeed at the University of Bremen, and then serenely bid me farewell as her tram arrived. A brief, five-minute conversation like that would never have happened if I were just a tourist. I’m happy to be here, and I love all the little details that make up my Bremen experience.

Everything is more extreme in Hamburg

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by Julie King ’12

Saturday October 23rd we had our first Dickinson excursion outside of Bremen. With our semester tickets we can take regional trains to a good number of cities within Niedersachsen, the state surrounding Bremen, and we can go to Hamburg, which, like Bremen, is one of the three city-states in Germany, the third being Berlin.

We left our apartment at 7:10am to meet at the central station at 8:00am. As awesome as German public transportation is, the street trams don’t start at our stop until 8:00am on the weekends, so we had to walk part of the way at what we college students consider an ungodly hour – especially considering that here at 54 degrees North, the sun doesn’t rise until close to 8:00.

We pulled into the Hamburg central station around 9:30am for what was actually my second visit to Hamburg. Earlier in the month Insa, Bill, Doug and I went to Hamburg for an evening.  My first visit we walked around Speicherstadt, which is a canal-filled warehouse district built in the late 1800′s.  It’s a beautiful district, and later I was surprised to learn that Hamburg actually has more bridges than Venice.  Later in the evening we got a taste of the Redlight District along the famous Reeperbahn (street) before catching heading home at a reasonable 11:00pm. (In reference to the title, I must say that Hamburg’s Redlight area is a District, whereas in Bremen it is only a short street).

Our official Dickinson visit to Bremen was a more wholesomely educational trip.

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Hamburg Rathaus

It started out with a tour of the city hall, which in my opinion was a little excessive. (I prefer the older, smaller, more approachable Bremer Rathaus). The current Hamburg Rathaus is actually the “new” city hall, built between 1886 to 1897 ; the original burned down in the great fire of 1848. The new city hall has hundreds of rooms, each of which are lavishly decorated, to house the Hamburg senate and parliament, as well as two mayors. Some of the rooms have leather covered walls bedazzled with Hanseatic or Hamburg related designs.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and the Dickinsonians

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and the Dickinsonians

The most massive hall even had chandeliers so large that they weigh 1.5 tons each. My favorite fact from the tour, is that on New Year’s day city hall is open to the public so that you can personally wish the mayor “Happy New Year,” just be prepared to wait a long time in line.  After the Rathaus tour we took a slight detour to have a group photo in front of Lessing, one of Germany’s most famous writers. The only ones I can think of are the ones I have read, “Emilia Galotti”, Nathan der Weise, and a fable “Der Rabe und der Fuchs” (the raven and the fox).

Our next activity was a boat tour of the Hamburg harbor.

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Hamburg Habor

Germany’s biggest port and the second biggest/busiest port in Europe after Rotterdam in the Netherlands.  Despite the cold and the wind, we (or at least I) enjoyed more than an hour of sightseeing and information from our humorous tour guide who used to be sailor on one of the massive container ships. Also hidden in port amongst all of the commercial ships was the world’s largest and most expensive personal yacht, owned by Roman Abramovich (the 4th richest man in Russia who also owns FC Chelsea).  Overall, my favorite part of the boat tour was just seeing the Hamburg shoreline because of the variety of the ages and styles of all the different buildings.

By time we were done with our boat tour, we were all quite hungry and ready for lunch at Joh. Albrecht Brauhaus, right along one of the canals.  We each got a delicious house draught beer. I had a delicious bowl of pumpkin soup for an appetizer and a vegetable “Flammkuchen,” which is sort of like a flatbread pizza.

After our leisurely lunch we took the subway to the St. Michaelis church. Supposedly it is one of the more famous churches in Germany, which it must be considering Loki Schmidt’s funeral was held there earlier this week. (She’s the German equivalent of Nancy Reagan). To work off our generous lunch, we climbed 400 steps to the top of the tower for a beautiful view of Hamburg.

The weather worsened and just as we arrived in Sternschanze, the artsy, liberal, young area of Hamburg, which is…surprise… a bigger, dirtier version of Bremen’s Viertel. The rain was a good excuse to pop into to a coffee shop where we enjoyed a hot beverage and lively discourse. After that we decided it was time to head home, and had an uneventful, sleepy ride back to Bremen.

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Crests of Hamburg (left) and Bremen (right)

Overall, I really like Hamburg, and I’m pretty sure I’ll go back, especially considering it’s free with our semester ticket. It’s even been recommended a few times that we go to Hamburg to go to the clubs and then stay out so late that we go to fish market when it opens and take the first train back to Bremen. I’m not sure I’m up to European party stamina yet, but perhaps before the end of the year I will try it. But for those of you who don’t know, Hamburg is called the “das Tor zur Welt” the gate to the world because of its port and its crest, but the joke in Bremen is: Hamburg may be the gate to the world, but Bremen has the key (because the Bremen crest is a key).