A Funded Fairytale

Posted on April 16, 2016 by

by Rachel Schilling ’16

During my time abroad in Bremen German, I worked with Professor Janine Ludwig to apply for and complete a SIRF grant given to me by CGSE at Dickinson. This 750$ grant funded a short term research trip around the German states of Hessen and Niedersachsen to visit all of the major fairy tale museums and speak with some of the leading scholars in Grimm Brother’s research in Germany.

The Grimm Brothers – statue in Hanau

Old town of Marburg

I was able to visit the cities where the brothers were born, grew up, studied and worked and read about the major themes in fairy tale research and Grimm research. This passion project began my sophomore year at Dickinson, when I was able to take an introduction to fairy tales course in the English department. From this course I not only learned a strong background in fairy tale studies but also realized that I needed guidance in the field if I were ever to manage a thesis or project on the Grimm Brothers. I set out to Hessen to feel the pulse of research and emerging ideas.

Witzenhausen

Throughout my trip I visited Hanau, Steinau, Kassal, Marburg and Bad Oeyenhausen. I was able to discern a revival in the research about the relationship between fairy tales and the romantic idea of the “Volk.”

Back at Dickinson in my Fall semester, I began work with Professor McGaughey on a year long research project, which would eventually accumulate to my bachelor’s thesis in German. I applied the directions and focus gained through my SIRF grant to more intense analysis of the texts and contexts around the Grimm Brothers.

Witzenhausen

As my final semester of Dickinson draws to a close I am working on the final parts of my German thesis which attempts to connect the concept of “the Volk” to the portrayal of farmers and peasants in the fairy tales and the literary style of the Grimm Brothers.

Flowers in Kassel

Internship at Schulzentrum Walle

Posted on May 12, 2015 by

For my internship in Bremen, I worked with the Schulzentrum Walle, a high school in an area of the city. For this project, I teamed up with a student who had been a teaching assistant at Dickinson as well as many student teachers.

In the school in Walle, my job was to assist a student teacher who was currently enrolled in the University of Bremen. Together, we helped students who struggled with writing. In our group were around six boys, many of whom spoke German as a second language. Many nationalities were represented in our group, including German, Turkish, Russian, and Sri Lankan. As I (an American) also spoke German as a second language, I got to be a student and a teaching assistant at the same time! Together, the student teacher and I helped the students prepare for their end of year tests and their Abitur (the German equivalent of the SATs/final exams of high school to determine placement into universities.) The specific area of focus for our group involved Erörterung or forming cohesive arguments. Together, we discussed the difference between premise, thesis, fact, opinion, and conclusion. The students in the group read articles with topics such as “The Internet has an Overall Negative Effect on Humans” or “European Union Inaction Toward Refugees is Purposeful Murder.” From these articles, the teacher and I helped the students pick out pro- and counterarguments from these academic papers and to argue for one side or the other. This was practice that would then come in handy for their upcoming exams.

The students were very kind to me and asked me many questions about America. One student called me “American Boy!” whenever he saw me in the hallways. Another student even asked me questions in English after one session, because he had to interview a visitor to Germany for a class project.

Ezra Sassaman

Internship at the Heiner Müller Society

Posted on February 28, 2015 by

Rachel (left) and Madison

For the month of February I was an intern along with Madison Alley at the Internationale Heiner-Müller-Gesellschaft, or the International Heiner Müller Society, of which our Academic Director, Dr. Janine Ludwig, is the Chair of the Board of Directors. The IHMG is a non-profit literary society that constantly works to preserve and further the works of Heiner Müller and the discussions surrounding his life and plays. The society focuses on a wide range of work related to Müller including the spreading of his work internationally, initiating translations, following the conversations about his work, initiating projects and documentations, as well as hosting colloquiums and workshops about Müller. Recently, the IHMG organized and hosted a conference in Berlin about Müller’s continued relevance in contemporary society which the full year Dickinson in Bremen students attended, (http://blogs.dickinson.edu/bremen/2014/10/06/berlin-excursion-and-transatlantic-conference/) including myself. Heiner Müller is considered one of the most important German playwrights of the second half of the 20^th century.

image[1] For the first three weeks of the internship Madison and I worked together on the composition of IHMG’s first newsletter of the year and then completed a multitude of translations including the newsletter, biographies of the members of IHMG and the descriptions of the past Müller Monday events, an event that IHMG hosts each month in cooperation with the Literaturforum at the Brechthaus. As we completed these translations we got a better idea of both the work that IHMG does and the members of the society. Finally, at the end of the month, we put this information to use when we traveled to Berlin for a week to work alongside the Chief Executive of the IHMG, Anja Quickert. For this week we worked on more translations, assisted with the preparation and running of February’s Müller Monday panel discussion, and discovered the city of Berlin as we handed out hundreds of flyers about IHMG’s events and the society in general.

This internship was great for me simply because it helped improve both my knowledge of German and even English through the work with translation. Working with IHMG was, however, most rewarding, because of the opportunity it gave me to work closely with the head of a non-profit organization. After Dickinson I hope to go into the non-profit sector and work to advance literacy around the world. So the short introduction I got in the inner workings of IHMG as well as receiving practice both networking for the society and thanking the donors are invaluable moments for me. I look forward to taking my experience at IHMG and applying it to my work post Dickinson. >Rachel Schilling<

Sampling a World Heritage with the SIRF grant

Posted on August 18, 2013 by

by Geo Nikolov, Class of 2014

I am a major of Earth Sciences with a Major Concentration on Geoscience and have just completed a full year of study at the University of Bremen. This summer, I was able to participate in a research project funded by Dickinson’s SIRF grant. Here, I will give a brief description of this project:

Background

Marine Geochemical research is conducted by several prestigious institutes in Bremen and Bremerhaven, including The Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, MARUM (Center for Marine Environmental Sciences), and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar- and Ocean Research. The research group “The Ocean in the Earth System” at the MARUM institute at the University of Bremen has been officially recognized as a “Cluster of Excellence” by the German Research Foundation and German Council of Science and Humanities.

This semester, I sought out a collaborative research opportunity with a marine geochemist to gain experience in sampling methods, data collection and data analysis within the framework of an environmentally relevant project that would provide the basis for a senior thesis in my major of Geoscience.

Professor Michael Schlüter, geochemist at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar- and Ocean Research, Bremerhaven, and teacher of the course “Geochemical cycles and processes,” offered me the chance to assist in a research project quantifying flow rates of Submarine Groundwater Discharge (SGD) and sampling pore water in the Sahlenburg intertidal mudflats near Cuxhaven, Germany. The sampling, data collection and transport modelling conducted in association with this project provided the basis for further analytical work to be completed for my senior thesis in 2013/2014. In addition, Marine Geochemistry is a field in which I am strongly considering pursuing a graduate degree.

Specific Tasks and Responsibilities

My responsibilities at the research site covered pore water sampling, data analysis, and transport modelling. Pore water sampling was conducted with rhizones and suction cups at the field site Sahlenburger Watt in the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park, Germany. In the field, I also assisted with the determination of pressure surfaces and in-situ measurements of submarine groundwater discharge. Laboratory work centered on chemical analysis, specifically, the determination of nutrient pore water profiles. Chloride concentration data was used to model flow rates of submarine groundwater.

Connection to Dickinson Classes and Experiences

The Dickinson course “Chemistry of Earth Systems” introduced me to the foundations of marine sediment pore water chemistry, including an overview of transport processes and depth profiles of nutrients. At the University of Bremen, I have deepened my knowledge in the areas of pore water composition and early diagenesis through the geochemistry course “Element Cycles and Processes,” which included an overview of redox reactions, reaction kinetics and the use of tracers.

Environmental Relevance

The working area, the Sahlenburg intertidal mudflats, lies in the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2009. This nature reserve, covering an area of approximately 1.300 sq. mi, is home to over 4,000 plant and animal species. It is also a resting place for 10-12 million birds arriving every winter from Northern countries to prepare for breeding. Thus, the ecosystem’s productivity is essential to global biodiversity. The ecosystem is highly sensitive to fluxes of nutrients such as nitrate and phosphate, which are heavily supplied by fertilizer runoff. The OSPAR Commission for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic identified the German Bight and Wadden Sea as “Eutrophication Problem Areas” in 1994.

Submarine Groundwater Discharge can contribute a major fraction of nutrients to the water column; in some areas, as much as 70 percent of the total nitrate. This project, conducted over several weeks, with similar measurements to be repeated in the future, constitutes basic research that will better monitor nutrient fluxes stemming from an essential individual component of this fragile ecosystem’s water budget.

International Relevance

Submarine Groundwater Discharge is a topic in Marine Geochemistry that is of global geochemical relevance. SGD has only been quantified for small portions of the world’s coastlines, most investigations having taken place on the East coast of the United States, in the Mediterranean, in the Baltic Sea, in the North Sea, and on the coasts of Japan. Estimates of SGD as a component of the global water cycle are thus still somewhat unreliable.

This research experience represented the opportunity to learn directly from an expert, with whom I could communicate in German. International scientific cooperation will be necessary to more fully understand the global impact of this essential component of the hydrological cycle.

Different….

Posted on December 9, 2011 by

by Gwyneth van Son ’13

What?! We have to feed ourselves?!

Nope, no three meals a day at the cafeteria, no maintenance staff, and no campus life living. This, my friends, is as close to the real world as I ever care to get. Here at the Bremen program we have no host families, but rather live in apartments owned by the university and receive a stipend (due to the lack of an all you can eat buffet). However, because I so love to be different, I live in a private apartment with Verena, a German TA in 2010-2011. Verena and I live in the Neustadt, which is about a 30-minute tram ride away from the University of Bremen (a very long way away by Dickinson standards). There are, however, many advantages to where we live; we are not very far from the inner city and we walk one minute to both the grocery store and the tram stop. Our building is very much the typical old single family Bremen townhouse renovated into apartments. It has three stories, a basement, balconies, a garden in the back and very high ceilings. The one thing that makes our building standout is that it is bright pink with a mural of water lilies painted on the front.

Because I decided to live in a private apartment that meant I needed to purchase a few things, such as a bed. Two highly successful trips to Ikea were made, one with Verena and one with Jens. I now feel I can truthfully say I know my way quite well around the Ikea store, if a guided tour is requested I am more then happy to oblige. I managed to find a great bed on Bremen’s much less creepy version of Craig’s list, and due to Jens it was speedily dismantled, transported, and rebuilt.

My living situation in Bremen may be completely different from that at Dickinson, but the one thing they have in common is that there is always something to be done in terms of decoration. Even after I move out of a room I think of how I could have decorated it differently, and I know with my apartment here it will be just the same. After living in a dorm for the last two years I enjoy cooking for myself, cleaning the apartment and knowing no one except Verena or I will come in and leave dirty dishes in the sink, as well as the lack of constant loud music. Our landlords, who live above us, are thankfully not into blasting music so loud that I worry for their future ability to hear. I am sure, however, that after eleven months of real life living I will welcome back dorm life and the caf with wide open arms, but until then I am perfectly content to live the life of a big kid.

Tschüss…

Posted on July 18, 2011 by

by Gaven Trinidad, ’12

“Touch is very important in life. It’s all we have in trying to reach out to another person.” Tennessee Williams

What people from home had forgotten to tell me is that there is an end to a study abroad experience. Without a doubt, I knew that I would have to return to Dickinson College and reunite with my family after graduation while I search for work in my intended career, but never had I expected that saying goodbye to Germany would be so difficult. I even had to say goodbye to Harry Potter, and that was depressing enough (coincidentally, the last film in the franchise was released this past weekend, which also meant an end to my childhood).

Last week was the final week of formal classes at Universität Bremen, and the Dickinson family had already started to return back to the United States; the week before starting with Ethan’s departure. By next week more than half of the Dickinson students would have returned home (Becky, Anne, Sam, and Mel). The last person to return home would be me on August 9^th. Then I guess I’m the most fitting person to write this “goodbye” blog entry.

The experience of studying abroad in Germany was more than what I had anticipated. Not only did I study, work, and immerse myself blindly into this beautiful culture through its art and history, but also I made life-long friends along the way. The first was my study buddy, Cara, who helped me practice my conversational skills. We’ve partied and studied together. We would relish in our love for theater and joke about our futures as actors. Another good friend was Lisa, who was always around for good advice and a beautiful model pose for every picture we had taken together. Maria and Katalina, who always there for a good laugh, were two other good friends I had from the university. I called these four girls my “Ruhrgebiet Girls” because they all came from either Essen or Dortmund. And the person who I would miss probably the most would be my now ex-boyfriend, Sebastian, who will begin his studies in theater and psychology at a university.

What made our goodbyes tragic seemed to be the unspoken question: When will be the next time we will physically see each other? Hug each other? Laugh with/at each other? And in a weird way, I felt a bit like Harry Potter, standing on a platform wat-ching the Hogwarts Express leave Kings Cross Station. It was another lesson about being an adult. I had to learn to say goodbye and continue on with life armed with the joyous me-mories I had gained. Hugging them and saying goodbye was not as painful as I had feared.

Germany, you are a beautiful country with a rich history, art, and language. The people were beautiful, inside and out, and I’m happy to have lived in the beautiful city of Bremen. Now I just need some time to clean my apartment, pack my bags, finish my Hausarbeiten, and return to life as a student at Dickinson College.

UTAMTSI: “A Story of Encounters” / “Eine Geschichte des Begegnens”

Posted on June 24, 2011 by

by Julie King ’12

Wednesday afternoon Prof. Antje Pfannkuchen, Jens, and I hopped in the car that Dickinson occasionally borrows through a car sharing company in order to drive to Lilienthal, a suburb of Bremen in Niedersachsen, where we had an appointment with a representative of UTAMTSI. As Dickinson-in-Bremen’s “Sustainability Intern” I got to come along to visit the fair-trade coffee company. When we arrived, I realized my expectations were all wrong – in the good way. Perhaps because of the giant building near the central train station with the giant Jacobs (Coffee) sign, I had expected something bigger, more urban and definitely more stereotypically corporate. In actuality, the UTAMTSI office and roasting house in a wooded area of Lilienthal is a small part of a complex that appeared to have some other offices as well housing for handicapped individuals.

To my surprise, our appointment was not just with a representative of UTAMTSI, but the founder himself, Mr. Morin Fobissie Kamga. The three of us sat down at a table with Mr. Kamga and another visitor who appeared to be a student. Before I get started on the fascinating story of UTAMTSI I need to explain its pre-existing relationship to Dickinson. In February Brian Brubaker, the director of Dickinson’s Office of Global Education, visited UTAMTSI to find more about the sustainable company that is coincidentally based in Bremen, Germany, and Yaoundé, Cameroon, both of which are the locations of Dickinson Study Abroad Programs. After hearing the “UTAMTSI Story,” Brian Brubaker must have spread the word, because the students in Yaoundé visited the Cameroon location where Mr. Kamga, who annually returns for the coffee harvest, shared his story and showed the girls where coffee beans are grown and then sorted. Therefore, it shouldn’t have a surprise, but it was still surreal to sit down with a man I had just met in Bremen to look at pictures of girls I know from Dickinson visiting the same man in Cameroon.

While showing us pictures of coffee trade and his home in Cameroon, Mr, Kamga began the fascinating story about how UTAMTSI originated. The son of coffee farmers in a village outside of Yaoundé, Mr, Kamga, persevered and worked hard in school to pass standardized tests in a land variable teaching skills and curriculums. Having learned English, French, and German he applied to a private university in Koblenz, Germany. After a short time he transferred to the University of Bremen where he studied economics. In his student-housing complex, he met another student named Stephan Frost. Having told Stephan all about his home and the coffee industry, where farmers only received 3% of the final sale-price for their coffee beans, Mr. Kamga rejected a job offer from the World Bank and decided to start his own coffee company with Stephan. With fewer middlemen he could offer better profits for the farmers near his home and better quality for his customers.

Spreading the word to farmers that he would pay 1.30€ instead of 0.30€ Mr. Kamga initially faced threats from a few crooked competitors, but now successfully has contracts with over 1000 farmers, who use peer-to-peer quality control and natural farming techniques. UTAMSI is also unique in that women and slightly handicapped workers are welcomed workers. There is even an employee to watch after the children while their mothers sort out good beans. Once harvested the beans are shipped to Bremen, where they are roasted, packaged and sold. The smaller location in Bremen also employs handicapped individuals who weigh, grind and package the roasted beans.

Additional UTAMTSI projects include the funding for a local health center outside of Yaoundé and contributions to rural schools that are always in need of supplies and adequate teachers. Student interns from Germany have gone to Cameroon to teach German and to help with the coffee bean harvest. And lastly, loyal customers have had the opportunity to travel to Cameroon for weeklong home stays with coffee-bean farming families. Future plans include a trip to a business fair in September in Baltimore and hopefully a visit to Dickinson. Mr. Kamga also shared his ambition to open another location somewhere in Germany.

To fulfill the goal of our visit, we presented the idea that a professor and student from Dickinson’s International Business and Management department write a case study about UTAMTSI. The company fits perfectly with Dickinson’s mission to „engage the world sustainably,“ and as a former economics student himself, Mr. Kamga, happily accepted the offer, understanding the benefits of a case study about his company.

While we enjoyed a cup of fresh pressed UTAMTSI coffee and some cake, Mr. Kamga explained the meaning of the name UTAMTSI. In his native language Nafi “U” means “we” or “a collective group” (“Wir/Gemeinsam”); “TAM” translates to “meet” or “encounter” (“Begegnen”) and means the “the story of humanity is characterized by constant encounters” (“Die Geschichte der Menschheit ist von ständiger Begegnung geprägt”); and “TSI” translates to “water” (“Wasser”) and means “ancient cure that gives power” (“Uraltes Heilmittel, das Kraft schenkt”). Leaving UTAMTSI and smelling like coffee, I couldn’t help but think how accurate and fitting the name UTAMTSI is for the triangular relationship between the coffee company and Dickinson. Dickinsonians helped sort coffee beans in Yaoundé, we saw the roasting process in Bremen, and when Antje returns to Carlisle, the German professors will drink coffee that completes the circle.

Discussion about sustainability

Posted on April 7, 2011 by

by Julie King ’12

On the evening of March 30^th I hopped on my bicycle and ventured into town to the Haus der Wissenschaft, or simply, the House of Science, in order to go to an event that is part of a series of environmentally themed lectures throughout the spring and summer. The translated title of the event was “The University in the city: Are we running out of juice?” The two-hour event consisted of three lecturers, with slightly different themes relating to the shortage of resources and the development of renewable energy in Bremen, and a question-and-answer based discussion at the end.

The first lecturer and chairman of BUND Bremen (BUND= the German Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation), Klaus Prietzel, talked about “peak oil” and its implications on the environment, but mainly its implications on the energy industry. The term “peak oil” refers to the point at which global oil extraction reaches its maximum. Scientists disagree on the when peak oil will happen; the conventional consensus is for the year 2020, whereas more radically optimistic scientists predict 2035. Some scientists maintain that we have already passed the tipping point, which occurred in 2006. Because of the number of environmentally related events and sciences classes I have attended in high school and at Dickinson, Herr Prietzel’s presentation did not contain much that I hadn’t heard before. Some of his interesting points included the inefficiency and risks of oil dependence. For example, automobiles lose 80% of oil-produced energy through heat-loss and most houses lose around 95%. I found Herr Prietzel’s analogy of oil as a drug as particularly accurate: it’s dangerous, addictive and an expensive habit. Dangerous both environmentally and politically, especially consider 97% of the oil consumed in Germany is imported. In his conclusion, Herr Prietzel admitted that oil is important to the economy of Bremen, considering the economic roles of Mercedes-Benz and Daimler and the shipping harbors in Bremen and Bremerhaven. Peak oil is a kind of crisis, but also an opportunity for positive change. Herr Prietzel asserted the importance of finding a substitution for oil, but admitted that the answer does not lie in biomass renewable energies or natural gas, but in renewable energies from sun and wind. More importantly, though, is the transition to lifestyles of lower energy consumption.

The second lecturer, Dr. Torsten Köhne, provided an interesting perspective as a board member of SWB, the energy company in Bremen. His lecture, titled “Sind nicht knappe Ressourcen vielleicht auch eigentlich knapp?” which translates roughly to “Are not scarce Resources actually in short supply?” Dr. Köhne’s presentation was a little harder for me to follow because of the speed at which he talked and the density of information on his slides. He started by talking about the importance of coal in the energy industry, its high costs and its damage to the environment. He then moved on to the prospect of renewable energies and I loved his quote “Die Sonne schickt uns keine Rechnung” – “The sun doesn’t send us a bill.” In order to power the city of Bremen sustainability, we would need 900 wind turbines, 60 square kilometers of solar panels, or 325 square kilometers of corn or turnips for biomass fuels. The problem is that we lack the surface area, capital, and public power supply infrastructure to achieve any of those options, and even more crucial is the public will for and acceptance of such an idea. He ended with the reality of the energy industry: decisions and initiatives are based on politics and money more so than what is best for the environment.

The last lecturer, Michael Flitner, was a Professor from ARTEC the Sustainable Research Center of the University of Bremen. His presentation was “Wege zu 100% erneubarem Strom” or “The Way to 100% Renewable Energy.” His basic point was just that our greatest need at the moment is more research, but by combining the energy production of on- and off-shore wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric means, and gas-forming bio masses Germany could be powered by only renewable energy by 2050. It could be possible that I missed the means to Professor Flitner’s “end” because of language problems, but I’m pretty sure his presentation only really argued for the need for research and public support to realize his plan – which seems fantastic, but ambitious.

The question and answer session at the end was interesting. The old man next to me brought up a great question – What about all of the energy consumption that can’t be plugged in? The consumption that for now can’t use renewable energy, like planes for example. The answer to his question was just that we need more research and more changes in technology. Another highlight of the discussion was a man who was getting rather heated in his “Why can’t we be more like Denmark?”- speech. Apparently the smaller country to the north already has succeeded in the transition to substantial energy production from wind power. Needless to say, even if Germany is not quite up to par with Denmark, the event at the House of Science was worth attending and I feel quite accomplished for having understood such topics. My dream job would be to work for a German-based renewable energy company, so now at least I know there may be a job for me out there somewhere.

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

Posted on January 19, 2011 by

by Samantha Claussen ’12

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

Technically, 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.

The 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.

The 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.

German Emigration Center Bremerhaven

Posted on November 30, 2010 by

by Douglas Murray ’12

This past Thursday, the 18^th 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.

Upon 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 exhibitions. 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 18^th and 19^th 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.