I've been reading and writing for most of my life. I've received nourishment from the alphabet in both cereal AND soup form. One of my favourite television programs growing up, Sesame Street, was almost always brought to me by particular letters of the alphabet. And on September 25th, 2003, thanks to the endless cosmic-wonder of the alphabet I met a beautiful, young Fräulein named Sandy. It was Disney contract signing day and we were asked to sit alphabetically by surname. Jozef KURACINA (that's me!) took a seat next to Sandy KÜHN.
I introduced myself and told her I was from Canada. She did the same and informed me that she was from Germany. We got along really well and it turned out that Sandy was housemates with a Canadian girl named Maureen Poon who quickly became one of my best friends in Florida. Sandy and I had a pretty good friendship too and after our days in the Disney bubble were over we kept in close touch and always talked lightly about seeing each other again one day. When I decided I was moving to Europe, Sandy was one of the first people I told and we both agreed that I would have to visit Germany right away. On November 12th that day finally came! I flew into Altenburg Airport and boarded a coach to Leipzig; the City of Sandy! We reached our destination and as soon as the bus door opened I dove off the coach, skipping the time consuming use of stairs, flung my bag off to the side and flew into Sandy's arms.
We bought three tickets for the streetcar-- one for me, one for Sandy and one for Sandy's bike-- then headed to Sandy's home. After climbing somewhere between two and three hundred stairs (spiral stairs!) we made it to the one-bedroom apartment, panting, sweating and feeling a little lightheaded from the altitude. The apartment is AMAZING! Wood flooring, white walls with a little bit of colour trim, enough plant-life to make the place feel homey but not jungle-y, and lots of space. The bathroom has a standup shower with doors that slide together at the corner, which was something I'd never seen before, but that wasn't the most unique thing in Sandy's water closet:
Now, I've seen a few different flushers in my time. There's the classic handle on the tank that I think we're all familiar with. I've also seen metal levers, circular buttons on the top of the tank, circular buttons in the wall and automatic flushers. Sandy has none of these. Sandy has a box on the wall a couple of feet above the back of the toilet and to flush the toilet you tilt the box. I must have stood there for a good two or three minutes the first time, trying to figure out how to make the yellow-tinged water go away. Picture me, feeling both hands along the wall, trying to find a secret tile that would send my pee down the pipes before realizing that what I thought was the best-placed ventilation fan I've ever seen was actually the flush mechanism. I think this has been more than an appropriate amount of time to spend writing about flushing a toilet, so let's move on...
After getting a little settled and replenishing the fluids I lost coming up, we set back out for the city. (To a degree, it is much easier to descend hundreds of spiraling stairs but the dizzying effect still exists.) I immediately took a strong liking to the look and feel of Leipzig. For one thing, there was SPACE-- something I have missed dearly during my time in the confining United Kingdom-- and just about everything looks like it has some history to it which makes even the ugly buildings seem kind of cool. We wandered around town and in between taking photographs I bombarded Sandy with any question that popped into my head (something she was going to have to get use to). When we approached our first major street crossing I met a man that would come to be a major part of my German experience... AMPELMÄNNCHEN!!! He is the little green man that helped me cross the streets of Leipzig safely. Now, before you start imagining that Germany uses leprechauns for crossing guards, here is a picture of Ampelmännchen:
I took an immediate liking to the little traffic light man and Sandy explained to me that he could only be found in East Germany. After the Berlin Wall came down they talked about getting rid of Ampelmännchen and replacing him with the standard, boring, "it's-okay-to-walk" man. But people had grown fond of their little, hatted hero and thanks to public support he still watches over the street-safety of Eastern Germany.
On our way back home we stopped at a little corner-market with doors that open and close the same way Sandy's shower does. Sandy selected a bottle of "Weißwein" (white wine... you might have figured that out) and I drooled over the selection of "Bier" (beer... how have you made it to this point of the blog if you didn't figure that out?). It was glorious! So many delicious looking beers that I had never seen before, like Radeberger, Weltenburger, Ur-Krostitzer, Reudnitzer and many, many more with names that end in "-ger" or "-zer". In Germany, you don't have to buy an entire case of just one brand; there are thick plastic crates that you can fill with whatever you want! I'm sure a lot of people just take a crate of their preferred brew, but I saw this as an opportunity to try many-a-German-beer, so I mix-and-matched my own variety pack. Not only that, but each bottle is a half-litre!!! Just as I thought I had rounded out my selection, one more bottle caught my eye. The very last Altenburger on the shelf...
Yep... they've got naked chicks on their beer. She would be mine, oh yes, she would be mine.
I paid for my wobbly-pops IN EUROS (that's legal European tender!) and we made our way home. When we were back inside the entrance-hall of Sandy's building I stopped dead in my tracks, looked down at the crate of twelve half-litre bottles of beer in my hand, then up at the ominous corkscrewing set of steps before me. Approximately twenty-six minutes and one pee-break later I was back in front of Sandy's apartment door wheezing more than an asthmatic chain-smoker with a chest cold.
We ordered pizza for dinner and decided to watch Beerfest while we ate. Those of you who know me well will know that Beerfest is pretty much my favourite comedy of all-time. Those of you who have seen Beerfest will know that it takes the PISS out of Germans. Sandy had never heard of Beerfest but I have always wanted to watch this movie with someone from Germany so I was very, very excited when she agreed. I wondered what a native German would think of the ridiculously exagerrated accents, the grossly inaccurate portrayal of modern German fashion and lifestyle, and the perpetuation of German stereotypes. Canadians enjoy self-deprecating humor and are great at laughing at themselves but not everyone is (Americans, for example). So, would Sandy find it funny or insulting? Well, she LOVED it!!! We were laughing until mozzerella came out our noses! I tell ya, it doesn't get any better than having a beer and a slice while watching Beerfest with Sandy.
After dinner, some of Sandy's friends came over and the beer caps started to pop off more rapidly. I introduced myself to each of them as they arrived by saying, "Ich bin Jozef. Ich bin kein Americana. Aus Kanada!" (I'm Jozef. I'm not American. I'm from Canada!) They usually laughed in return and said something in German to Sandy. When people are speaking another language it's a little harder to tell if they are laughing with you or at you, so I would smile along and take another swig of Steinenürlochmargerlitzer, or something like that, and sit back down. Some of Sandy's friends were a little shy about their English-speaking skills so until the liquid confidence kicked in I had to sit quietly while they conversed in their native tongue at lightning speeds. You might think that would be a little boring but I thought it was incredible! I adore languages so it was a very stimulating environment for me. I sat there and listened intently to conversations I couldn't interpret trying to catch the odd word that flew by.
A little later on I met one of Sandy's friends who is studying to be a French teacher. I turned on my Français compétences and this time I got to be part of a conversation that no one else could understand. We had a nice little chat in French and then I met Geli. Geli was after my heart right from the beginning. She is beautiful, exotic-looking and Germany's biggest Ben Harper fan. Her and I talked excitedly about the man and the music for ages. We swapped stories, talked about our favourite songs, and I told Geli about Ben's new band Relentless 7 and their debut album due in the spring. Eventually, it was starting to get late and a few of us were a little more hammered than we intended to be so we called it a night.
It was an absolutely PERFECT first day in Germany and it ended with me passing out on the couch. I wouldn't have had it any other way.
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