Aus Deustchland

The studying part has yet to begin, but I certainly am abroad at this point, thus my post. Been staying in Cadolzburg, possibly the most Bavarian of German cities and also my grandfather’s hometown. My grandfather, he’s a great storyteller and has been telling me about his childhood adventures and the war since, literally, I can first remember. Now I get to see the watchtower from which he saw the American army approach and the forest he collected acorns in the fall or tobogganed through in the winter. It’s cool and the city is very nearly a living museum itself. Driving in, the welcome reads Historiches Cadolzburg, and there are informational signs all over, sharing some vignette of life in the Middle Ages when royalty still lived in the castle that dominates the town. To give you a sense of proportion, very necessary here, my hometown celebrated its 100th anniversary last year. This summer, Cadolzburg celebrates its 850th.

Visiting the multitudes of relatives has been less great. They’re decent people, but when they get going with my grandparents in German, I’m gone. My grasp of the language is far from fluent, and they speak in their freaking Frankonian dialect on top of that, not the High German I was taught. Liking teaching a Mexican kid American Midwest English and throwing her to the Cockneys.

I imagine this going to come up eventually, so I’ll answer here. Yes, I have had beer since my arrival. The wife of one of my grandfather’s cousins was celebrating her fiftieth in a grand party that went from seven in the evening to four the next morning (I bailed a little after midnight) and actually started up in small measure the following afternoon as leftovers still needed eating. Some one hundred people were at this party. Of course the food and drink was in good supply. Anyway, I get to talking with some distant cousins, multiple times removed, and they say I need to try this beer. It’s brewed from wheat, so it’s sweeter than most stuff. I take a glass. Seriously, I can’t remember ever having something that bitter. However, I was informed that Ludwig-Maximillian Universität is legally required to provide its students with a bottle a day. If it’s free and that common, I'll have a long time to learn to like it.

Happy days to those who currently are abroad themselves, will soon be making the trip and those back at Gonzaga.

Später.