And So The Rest Of The Story Begins

My trusty bicycle and I. One last ride.

I need to write a very important post...a post that needs to be written right now while the feelings I am feeling are still fresh within me. You have been officially warned. What I am about to write is worthy of the Lifetime channel and I am about to get a little "Oprah" on you. I am gonna be sappy and emotional and if you don't like it then YOU should probably live in Germany for a year and see how you feel when you are about to leave. A post like this can never really be written after the fact; the feelings one experiences are almost indescribable at the time and almost fully impossible to describe afterwards. I am, of course, talking about the fact that it is my last day here in Magdeburg and my second last day in Germany. Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday I was in Radolfzell thinking to myself, "Wow, only one month into this journey. I still have almost 11 more months to enjoy in Germany. That is so much time!" Well one month turned into two, two into four, four into ten, and ten into almost twelve. Now I am writing one of my last blog posts in my almost empty room in Magdeburg. All of my things are packed up, save my trusty computer.

When I first arrived in Magdeburg, it seemed I would never reach this place of feeling sadness when leaving it. At the time, that thought was unthinkable. As soon as I arrived in Magdeburg, the weather started to turn cold and all the friends I had made in Radolfzell had somehow been removed from my daily life. I thought that Magdeburg had nothing to offer me...when really it had more to offer me than I could ever imagine. Let me explain...

When I lived in Radolfzell, I lived in an absolute paradise. I lived in a picturesque little town nestled right on the largest lake in Germany. On a clear day, you could see the Alps and in 30 minutes I could set foot in Switzerland. This was the Germany I had dreamt about and wanted to experience. In those two months, I had gotten everything I had expected. When I moved to Magdeburg, I experienced a huge reality check. Magdeburg is a part of former East Germany. It was almost completely destroyed in WWII and was rebuilt under Soviet influence. Because of being rebuilt under Soviet influence, the buildings are all very plain, flat, and industrial looking. The streets are wider than you ever thought a street should be and the land itself is very flat which makes the plain buildings the only thing you can see when you are standing in the city. I found myself almost immediately opposed to living in Magdeburg but told myself, "Clayton, are you really that shallow? Just because Magdeburg isn't 'pretty' it doesn't mean it is a bad place to live." I tried to suck it up and prosper but I always found this sadness creeping into me...at times I even felt envy. I felt envy towards the other people in my program who were placed in, what I considered, attractive, lively places to live like Berlin, Munich, Cologne, or anywhere else really. The one thing Magdeburg had going for it was my awesome host family and my good friend Joe. Magdeburg doesn't have much to do and I found myself getting pretty darn bored. It turns out, however, that I am not the only person in Magdeburg who feels this way. Many of the students who study at the University in Magdeburg leave when they are finished with their studies because they do not want to live in Magdbeurg or Sachsen-Anhalt (the state that Magdeburg is in) for that matter. This is creating a serious problem for Magdeburg. The city has a decreasing population and all those smart, educated kids that get their education in Magdeburg leave and take all of their bright, new ideas with them and benefit other cities in the West. Magdeburg, and most of former East Germany are still recovering from DDR times. Time stood still during DDR time and former East Germany was not able to grow with the rest of Germany when it was separated for all of those years. They need those kids to stay with their education and new ideas. I hope, in time, this difference between East and West Germany will diminish and ALL of Germany can move towards the same future.

So there I was, feeling sorry for myself because I didn't get the Germany that I wanted. I traveled on the weekends to visit other program participants and that made things a little bit better. Traveling reminded me, however, that, even though I was not in my ideal city, I was still in Germany and had so many wonderful things to see. This was probably the beginning of the turning point for me. I started to realize that Magdeburg was not my favorite place in the world but that it was still a part of Germany. Before I left the states I thought to myself, "Get to know Germany Clayton. Experience as much of Germany as you can and embrace it." Well guess what? To embrace something wholeheartedly, you have to embrace the good and the bad. I love Germany and to truly love and embrace this country, I had to embrace all parts of it. The cities I do like and the cities I don't like; it's wonderful present and future but also its dark past. These things all make up Germany and I was beginning to realize that.

As many of you know, my program consists of studying at a Germany University for 5 months and then interning at a German company after the semester portion. During the semester portion, I kind of just went to class and didn't really take much in because I was sad about where I was living. I would travel on the weekends and slowly started to realize that I was still in Germany and that I could still see and experience lots of things while I was in Germany. By the end of my semester at the university I was not quite fully there to totally embracing Magdeburg and still did not like it. My internship search in Magdeburg was turning out little results. In my defense, former East Germany has less dynamic, interesting jobs than the West (for now at least) because of all the kids running away from it. So I was unable to find an ideal internship match for me in Magdeburg. I had met someone whose father was a professor in a city called Aachen some time before my internship search. When I couldn't find anything in Magdeburg, I contacted her and asked if her father had any internship spots available. Long story short, I ended up getting an internship offer in Aachen working with a Biology workgroup at the University in Aachen. After some emails and conversations with some supervisors in my program, I was approved to move to Aachen. I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited to experience a new part of Germany. Aachen is as far West as you can get in Germany. It is literally on both the borders of Belgium and Holland. I was of course sad to be leaving Magdeburg, my host family, and Joe but happy to have gotten a good internship in an exciting new city.

Aachen was great. It was hilly with little streets to explore and the city is a University city. 50,000 people out of 250,000 were students. It was a cool vibe and I really liked it. I lived in an apartment with two other guys. They were really cool and it was neat to be able to speak German with them on a daily basis. They were my age so we had some of the same interests. We even made Bloody Marys one night. My internship in Aachen was okay...a bit boring at times. They set me up making Excel spreadsheets of information a lot of times but it was okay. Once, I got to go into the woods for 10 hours and helped look for woodpeckers with a radio that played woodpecker noises. Aachen was great but I did miss my host family and Joe back in Magdeburg and I had this overwhelming feeling that I didn't "belong" in Aachen. I kept thinking to myself, "Clayton, you were placed in Magdeburg not Aachen."

One day in Aachen, I checked my email to see an email from a professor at the University in Magdeburg. Something had panned out with an internship there that didn't pan out before I left for Aachen. I was offered an internship in Magdeburg at the University. It was an internship that was comparable to the one I already had in Aachen. What was I to do? I now lived in a German city that was exactly like the German cities I had envisioned but now had a good internship offer in Magdeburg when the only reason I left Magdeburg in the first place was because I couldn't find a good internship. I could just not tell my program about it and stay in ignorant bliss in Aachen. However, ever since I left Magdeburg, I kept feeling like I had given up on something...that I had ended something too soon. The going got tough so I got going...I quit Magdeburg when I never really gave it a chance. Not to mention that I had a host family back in Magdeburg that signed up for this program just like I did and wanted to experience another culture through me just how I wanted to experience another culture through them. I did not want to cut that experience short for them. I have never considered myself a quitter before and finally realized that Magdeburg was the right place for me to be even if it wasn't the easiest place for me to be. So, after living in Aachen for almost exactly one month, I packed up all of my belongings once more and headed back to Magdeburg to finish what I started.

In the following months, I realized that was the best thing for me to do. My internship was really good for me. I got lots of lab experience. I worked in a lab that studies cow samples (cow poo) and worked towards making methane production more efficient. Methane is a renewable source of energy and can be used to power things instead of using coal or gasoline. Not the most glamorous job I have ever had but working towards a goal like that, that could help the planet, made me feel really good. I gained lots of practical lab skills. I am now a master at using micropipettes and can label even the smallest plastic tube with my hand tied behind my back.

Outside of work, I was beginning to see Magdeburg transform. The weather was getting nicer and Magdeburg was really turning into a beautiful city. The parks in Magdeburg are really great and Magdeburg is a cyclist's paradise. The flat terrain allows you to bike easily through the city and the wide streets allowed for plenty of room for bicycle lanes. I started to ride my bike to and from work everyday and the fresh air and green landscape helped me appreciate Magdeburg. By the near end of my time in Magdbeurg, I actually played hookie at work so that I could ride my bike around the city and take pictures all day. I was also beginning to realize that Magdeburg really had given me everything I wanted to get out of this experience. I wanted to learn more about German culture and I wanted to improve my German. I accomplished both of those things by living in Magdeburg. In fact, I would almost say that my German was better than it would have been had I lived in another city. Since Magdeburg was not what you would call a "tourist hotspot" not that many people know amazing English and there are very very few native English speakers in the city.

During my time in Magdeburg, I got to hear some very interesting stories about how things were in former East Germany and got to have a truly unique experience. There are very few Americans in Magdeburg. It is just not the place that people consider when they decide to study abroad. Because of that, I got to have a German experience that very few people will ever have. I am truly grateful for that. I always considered myself a pretty strong, resilient person before this program but Magdeburg really put that to the test. I experienced untold personal growth during this year. I am still not 100% sure of all the things Magdeburg has taught me that I will be able to use in the future but I am pretty sure even 20 years down the road I will be using what Magdeburg has taught me without even really realizing it. What's really special about Magdeburg is that it is ugly...on the outside. Now hear me out on this one. If you look really closely though and I mean really closely, you realize just how beautiful Magdeburg is. In fact, in order to appreciate Magdeburg's beauty you have to look so closely at and so deeply into it that you end up looking deep inside yourself and discovering things about yourself. I mean honestly. Really what makes you happy? It's not having mountains, old churches, or a beautiful city to look at is it? If it is, then you are a pretty darn shallow person...I must say, however, that I was that person at the beginning of my time in Magdeburg. I was so torn up about what Magdeburg did not have that I did not appreciate what it did have to offer me; a great friend, a wonderful host family, and a truly unique German experience. My first week in Magdeburg, I went on a very small, very short city tour. We came across the statue in the center of the city that basically represents the city. I was not able to fully appreciate it at the time but now can fully appreciate it and even relate to it. The statue is of two horses pulling one ball in opposite directions. The ball is actually a vacuum and the statue represents the experiment that Otto-Von-Guerricke (the university is named after him) conducted during which he discovered and proved the existence of the vacuum. Yes, the vacuum was allegedly discovered in Magdeburg. What is special about this statue is that one side looks like a traditional statue and the other side is open so that you can see the framework inside that supports the statue. This statue represents that  everything has a purpose and that even beneath a seemingly beautiful outer shell, there lies a less beautiful support system but, without this support system, the statue would most likely fall or be quickly damaged. Functionality is not always beautiful but it is needed. You need function AND beauty. In Magdeburg, the functional part is way more apparent than the beauty (wide streets, plain industrial buildings, and a flat landscape that lends itself well to agriculture and wind energy production) BUT the beauty is still there. You just have to look!

The pretty side of the statue.

Other side that shows the functionality.

So, is Magdeburg my favorite city in the world? I would probably say no...BUUUUT because of all the things that Magdeburg represents to me and has given me, it is very special to me. I learned so much about myself and about Germany in Magdeburg and I got to live with the best host family anyone could ever ask for and I got to experience the crazy city of Magdeburg with my very good friend Joe. I think it is safe to say that our 9 months together in Magdeburg has made an unbreakable bond that only people who have lived in Magdeburg can really ever understand. The city makes you go a little crazy...in a good way.

With all that said, I think you can understand why I am sad to be leaving Magdeburg. It has been the definition of a passionate experience. The lows were really low and the highs were pretty darn high. I can safely say that Magdeburg has become a home for me so leaving it will not be easy. Leaving Magdeburg and Germany is almost harder than when I left the states. When I left the states, I knew that in one year's time I would be returning. Sure some things will have changed by the time I return but, for the most part, the life I left in Wisconsin is waiting for me. Leaving Magdeburg is harder because I do not know when I will be able to return and, if I do, it will probably not be for very long. Magdeburg is a dear friend of mine that will probably never again be a part of my everyday life even though it is so meaningful to me. Sure, Magdeburg and I will share the occasional letter or phone call and even the not so occasional visit but it will never again be a part of my daily life as it was for the past 9 months. It is really something that only someone who has sudied abroad for an extended period of time can understand. I have tried to explain it the best I could but I know a website that can do it much better. Recently I saw a Thought Catalog entry going around on the internet that pretty much perfectly explains what it is like. It would be silly for me to try and replicate these thoughts in my own words when they are already explained so well. The entry was written by a woman named Chelsea Fagan who is a writer living in Paris. Here is the link to her entry:
Thought Catalog What Happens When You Live Abroad

Once you have lived away from your home for as long as I have, you can search and search the house you are leaving abroad looking for things you may have forgotten to pack. This attempt is futile...you will never ever be able to pack up all of the things you have in your home away from home. I am not talking about tangible objects or even things you can ascribe a name to...you will always leave something behind that you can't quite put your finger on...a feeling...a piece of your heart...a memory. This is not to say I will walk through the rest of my life feeling like half a person. I will will have many moments of 100% fulfillment, but, as Chelsea's article mentions, with every accomplishment, celebration, or memory I will have in the United States, I will forever wonder what I am missing back in my second home in Germany because a piece of me will always reside there...the piece of me that I looked desperately for while packing but also the piece that was never meant to return home with me. It would have been really easy to title this last post "The End" but that is so out of fashion and entirely too final for me. At the risk of sounding wayyyyy too predictable, I really do need to say that the end of this year is not an end but only the beginning of the rest of my story. When I started this program I thought to myself, "This is 'it' Clayton. This is the most important year of your life. Live it up since you probably won't have a another year like this. Make it count." I realize now that I was partially right. This year will probably remain one of the most important years of my life but this is not "it" whatever that even means. This will not be my last time in Germany and this year has really only opened countless doors for me. The only issue for me now is deciding which one of the wonderful paths before me I want to take.

Zu Familie Dulz, (Sonja, Konrad, Christian, Andreas, Katrin, und Oma Ruth) herzlichen Dank für eure Gastfreundshaft und für die Offnung eures Hauses zu mir. Meine Zeit in Magdeburg war etwas ganz besonderes für mich. Es ist meine deutsche Heimat. Ich bin echt ein Magdeburger Kind.

Euere Spatz,
-Clayton-

To my family back home (Michael, Brooke, Dad, Danni, Lilly, Jolene, Nana, and all the others that are too long to name), thank you for being so supportive of this journey of mine...or should I say ours. You guys have been with me the entire time and thank you for patiently awaiting for my return. It is almost here. Love you guys.

-Clayton-

First Soccer Game

I went to my first soccer game at the end of February. I had watched soccer on television a couple of times but had never been to a game before. Magdeburg has a team called FC Magdeburg. I am trying to have pride for my team but they really are pretty bad. They lose all the time. I hope they get better. I am holding out for those kids not just because I live in Magdeburg but also because their colors are blue and white and I would really love to proudly wear an FC Magdeburg scarf. It would look so cute around my pretty little neck. Anyway, I was never really a sports person but I think I could really enjoy more games in the future. Soccer is great. More action than football and baseball combined (in my opinion) and the games are short enough for me to stay focused the entire game. The particular game I went to was in Magdeburg. We had almost one. The score was 2:1 Magdeburg at the end of the game but then in 5 minutes or so of Nachzeit (overtime) the other team scored. For a second I was a little scared. Magdeburg is not used to their team winning so to have the taste of victory so close only to have it torn away was almost too much for the people in the stands to bare. They were really angry. The day, was great though. It was a clear sunny day and it was just fun to sit in the stands, chat, and watch the game.

Bier Käse Suppe

Bier Käse Suppe means beer cheese soup! I have been wanting to make this soup since I arrived in Germany because, as a Wisconsinite, it embodies all that I can be proud of. Beer and cheese! I wanted to make it so that my host family could taste a little bit of my home. I am also no cook so it is a miracle that it worked out. Recipes from America are hit or miss in Germany. It can be difficult to find the ingredients you need sometimes and sometimes, when you find the ingredients, they can be a little off. For instance, we would have ideally used sharp cheddar but the best we could find was mild cheddar. It was delicious though. My good friend Nicole sent me a recipe and it turned out great! The ingredients are:

1 onion (diced)
3 carrots (finely chopped) 
1 clove of minced garlic
4 TBSP butter
4 TBSP flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tsp onion powder
4 cups of milk
3 cups of shredded cheese
1 cup of beer


I was really glad that I took the plunge to make this soup because now I know what a roue is and I now know just how important it is for a soup. I decided to make the soup when I had another participant from my program visiting. And, of course, Joe had to be included as well. I have never really seen a measuring cup or measuring spoons in Germany. I am sure they exist somewhere in the country but I have never seen anyone use them. To measure we had to use coffee cups and we had to "eye" the butter up. My host mom uses this technique all the time and her cooking always turns out amazing so we went with the flow and estimated. The soup turned out very tasty and es hat so viel Spaß gemacht!

Teamwork.

You just add the beer to the cheese right?

We be adding milk to that roue! 

Kate can open a beer bottle with ANYTHING.

Final step...ENJOY!

Mandala Kinderbetreuung

Some of you may already know that my program requires all the participants to complete 40 hours of volunteer service by the end of January. If you didn't know that before, you do now. Finding a place to volunteer in Germany is hard. Volunteer service is something that is slowly creeping into the culture but it is not quite there yet unlike in the United States where it is almost expected for things like scholarship applications and college applications. So after searching for months, I found a daycare that wanted me to volunteer by them. Now I am no child person. I am like a fish out of water when it comes to kids. I don't get them. They cry for no reason, they are unreasonable, and they play with their food. Time was ticking though and I needed to find a place to volunteer quick or I was not going to complete my hours on time. So I decided to bite the bullet and volunteer at the daycare. It was called Mandala Kinderbetreuung. I first had a small interview with the boss lady and then, the following week, I was working there. I wasn't ever given a formal introduction to the other employees or the facility so it was really not easy the first couple of times I worked. I didn't know anyone's names, I didn't know any of the rules, I didn't know where anything was, and everything was in another language! This is a German thing though. They don't really give you an introduction. You need to ask questions and get the information. I understand that asking questions leads to answers but if the employees know that I know absolutely nothing about how things are done then why not volunteer information? This is not a rude thing it is just a German thing so I really did not take offense to it. It just made me want to cry a couple of times. Haha.

I don't even know where to begin with the kids. How is it that my first experience working with kids ended up being in a different country and different language? The silver lining was that they were young enough that they spoke such simple German that I could actually understand them...sometimes. And that's the thing about kids too; half the time they make no sense anyway...even when they speak the same language as you. The kids were just like I thought they would be. Silly, loud, dirty, irrational, and REALLY CUTE! By working at Mandala I kind of understand why someone might want to work with children or even have children of their own. For all their downfalls, they are just so stinking cute especially when you are sitting down and they just plop in your lap and ask you to read to them or grab your hand with no warning whatsoever. Have I become a kid person?

There was one girl though...you know the one. Every daycare has one. That little boy or girl that will grow up to be a bully. This girl shall remain nameless. The first day I was at Mandala she was really nice and even competed for my attention. She would say things like "I cooked you some noodles" or "I can count to 10 in English". She even hugged me the second day I was there. That should have been my first warning. It's always the ones that want all the attention. During that second day, however, the kids built a little bridge and were just walking over it for fun. This girl decides to just plop down on it and not move preventing 10 other kids from having fun on it. I asked her to please move several times because it was everyone's bridge and she didn't so I picked her up and set her to the side. Well, that really must have ticked her off because, every other day I worked there, she was super mean to me. She said that I was stinky sometimes and her favorite thing to say was "Du bist böse" which means "You are angry/mean". She said it several times in a row one time while I was playing with a different kid. The little boy finally leaned in towards me and said "Du bist nicht böse. Sie ist immer böse". Hahah so he basically said that I wasn't mean and that SHE was always mean. I love that little kid for coming to my defense. He will always hold a special place in my heart as my little savior.

And now we come to the part that we all think but never say out loud. The favorites. We all have them even with our own children. I of course had my favorites within the daycare. I had two favorites. Even though I would have been blinded by my love for them, they really never did anything wrong. It was a boy and a girl and they were just so well behaved. They never cried, they never fought with anyone,  they went to bed when it was nap time, and they were just so gosh darn cute. They both had big blue eyes, chubby cheeks, and blond hair. The blond haired, blue eyed thing wasn't that important but because of that they looked like they could be my children. Haha If every kid was like them I would totally work at a daycare but unfortunately the little bully girl ruined any chances of that happening. The first time I met my favorite little boy, he also had a runny nose. I am sorry but there is nothing cuter than a little kid with a runny nose. It sucks that they are sick but the way they wipe their little noses with their sleeves and hands is so cute. Yeah sure, they are spreading diseases but who cares. They're cute!

I would basically just show up and play with kids all day. They never made me clean anything or change a diaper. I just got to play with kids all day and give them individual attention. A lot of the kids knew German, English, and one other language. A lot of the kids knew Russian (I'm in the east block remember?) so I would always ask them what things were called in Russian. It was cool that these little munchkins knew so many languages but it sure made me feel dumb for being 23 and learning my first foreign language. My favorite part of the day was Morgenkreis. It means morning circle. We would all make a circle and sing a song or tell each other what we were gonna do that day. One time we had a tea light in a bowl and we passed it around to the person next to us and as we gave it to them we had to say "Schön dass du hier bist" which means "It's nice that you are here". It was so cute. I learned patience and how to keep my cool when a kid is acting ridiculous. It's easy to like kids when they are being cute and behaved but you have to learn how to act when they are not being that cute. I have a baby niece back home so I have to perfect these skills for when I return home.

Randoms #3

All faithful followers of my blog will know what my Random posts are about. Although people who do not regularly check my blog deserve to be punished I will not punish them. I will fill them in. Random posts are posts that contain pictures of things that really did not fit into any other post. So they are basically posts of just pictures with a short explanation about the pictures. They are sometimes groups of pictures taken over a period of months. This one contains pictures from my first week in Magdeburg and pictures that have been recently taken. I figured I should post them quick before I ended up with a post that contained 50 pictures. Here they are. I hope you enjoy the randomness.

This is my Schultüte. It is a tradition in Germany to give this to a child on their first day of school so that they can bring it to school with them. I woke up to this on my first day of German college. They are always a paper or cardboard cone with treats inside. They have so many themes for Schultüten but mine was Max und Moritz themed which is a very well known German child's story. I did not bring the Schultüte to school but it was still awesome that I got one even if they are really only for little kids. 

Kinder Überraschung Eier!!!! Some of you may already know how obsessed with these I am. They are a chocolate egg with a toy inside them...now don't even start comparing them to the short-lived Nestle Wonderball. The Nestle Wonderball had stupid toys inside but Kinder Überraschung Eier always have super awesome toys. For instance, I got a little alien dude one time with a head like a paintbrush. He also came with a sheet of water color. So I could paint with my little alien! They are illegal in the US because of irresponsible parents who didn't watch their children. The children ate the toys and choked on them so those bad parents ruined it for everyone. Everyone knows that if you can fit an object through a toilet paper roll that it poses a risk of choking so those parents should have known better. These were Christmas themed Kinder Überraschung Eier. 

While visiting the local electronic store, we stumbled across this life size Doby...he lives!

The words on the window do not continue to the right so yes, it really says that and no, speaking German is not an excuse because they know what that word means.

One morning I woke up to a world covered in frost. I walked by this spider web perfectly frosted and just had to take a picture.  

All sliced white bread in Germany is referred to as "American Style". It is so funny. 

Many people have heard of Ampelmänner which are the little men in the walk signals in Germany. I noticed one day that we had female versions with pig tails in Magdeburg. Ampelmädchen! 

We have a lot of really great graffiti artists in Magdeburg. The Dom is a constant construction site and this yellow barrel was laying out one day by the Dom so a graffiti artist decided to make it a bit more interesting. 

Döner shops are a dime a dozen in Germany but Magdeburg has a Döner shop that makes you feel like you are in a cave. They had stalactites all over the place.

This was a picture I took through my blinds. German blinds have these little openings in them so the light was coming through just perfectly...and I was bored so I wanted to take a picture. 

One of the restaurants in Magdeburg. As you may have guessed, their dishes are mostly chicken. 

Me and my first spaghetti Eis. It will proabably also be my last spaghetti Eis. There was so much of it and the center was filled with whipped cream...and not just any whipped cream. It was that super thick whipped cream that sticks to the top of your mouth even after it is long gone. I had to have it at least once while I was in Germany though. If you don't know what it is, it is ice cream pushed through a spaghetti press and topped with strawberry sauce so it is ice cream that looks just like spaghetti.

Mercedes!

We have a pretty decent sized mall in Magdeburg called Allee Center and they almost always have some sort of exhibit in the isles. One time it was all these interactive physics puzzles. About a month ago, it was a Mercedes exhibit. I guess Mercedes was celebrating its 125th anniversary. There really were only about 4 cars but it was cool to see the progression of the models from 1954 to present. I really know nothing about cars so I guess you can just looks at the pictures now. Haha. I must say though. Isn't it funny that only really really old cars (say from 1954 or so) or brand new cars look cool. All the ones in between look really horrendous if you ask me. Take a look at the car from 1980 and you will see what I mean.

This one is from 1954. 

This one is from 1961. 

1970

1980 and see what I mean? This car is ugly but maybe we will look back on it in 20 more years and say, "Wow, look at that vintage car." 

2011

The evolution of the Mercedes emblem.

Day of Democracy

"Tag der Demokratie" This means "Day of Democracy". It is a day in January that Magdeburg has every year where local organizations and business who support democracy can set up a stand on the street and you can visit them. The day takes on a different role, though. Me and the other Magdeburgers started to call it Nazi day because it is the day that neo-nazis choose to demonstrate. If I learned one thing from this day it is that Germans haaaaaaaaaate nazis. They HATE them. I would to if I was part of a country that was trying to amend its dark past and certain people were ruining that for everyone. Most of the neo-nazis that take part in the demonstration aren't even from Germany. They are foreigners from neighboring countries that are demonstrating in Germany. The town was full of police officers that were there just to make sure nothing happened. I was told that there were over 2,000 police officers and that they were policemen from all over Germany. The neo-nazi demonstrators don't have a very big following so the same neo-nazis have to travel from city to city in Germany if they want to demonstrate there. The policemen follow suit and simply follow them from city to city making sure there is peaceful demonstrating and no violence. I actually had quite a bit of fun this day. It was really cool to see all the interesting ways people advertised against nazis. Some were cool and some were really weird. What I liked most about the day was that the streets of Magdeburg were filled with people. Normally there is not much going on in the city and it was nice to see the city wake up. I personally did not see any neo-nazis that day. I was told that they were all gathered at the university which is the one place I didn't go that day. I was a little disappointed to tell the truth. As someone from a small town in Wisconsin, I have never really seen a neo-nazi and I was curious to see what one looked like. Would they all be skin heads with piercings and tattoos? Maybe not. For all I knew they were all college graduates wearing argyle sweater vests. I have noooooo idea what one looks like. Some people might cringe at the thought of someone wanting to see a neo-nazi but curiosity is a natural human attribute and closing your eyes to a problem like this does not help the situation. My host family is also very open to talking about stuff like that and they had no problem that I was so curious about the events of this day. Some people who live in former east Germany think that all Americans think they are all nazis. I personally did not think this before I arrived in former east Germany and I really hope no one else from the US thinks this. It is not true. There are neo-nazis in the US and there are some in the former east but that does not make everyone there a nazi. I also like how fitting it was that the neo-nazis demonstrated on the day of democracy. Even though I completely disagree with what they stand for, I think it is good that people can openly express their beliefs in Germany no matter how crazy and wrong they are. If the police had prevented the neo-nazis from demonstrating it would have been a step back for progress. Freedom is being allowed to freely express your beliefs no matter what they are and allowing people to make up their own minds as to whether or not they agree...the pictures below show that the German people overwhelmingly disagree with neo-nazis...and how wonderful is it that they were given the opportunity to make that choice.

Someone throwing the swastika away...very nice, very nice.

It reads something like "The risks of the nazi marches; read a history book or ask your grandparents."

It says "Colorful against Brown." Brown is the color that the nazi party identifies with so these people are saying we need a future full of color (many different ideas and beliefs) and not just brown (one set of beliefs like in WWII). This was actually a game where you could win prizes by popping the balloons with a dart. This person was clever and filled the balloons with paint to also make the game an advertisement against nazis.

It is hard to see because of the glare, but the swastika on Hitler's arm has been replaced with a heart and it can clearly be seen that he is wearing pink. His fingernails are also painted on the hand beneath the gloved hand and he is wearing lipstick. This particular sign meant to say that Hitler may have been homosexual. I personally do not know if Hitler was or not and some people might take offense to that. I don't think anyone should take offense to the sign because the greater meaning of the sign meant to say that Hitler was a hypocrite. Hitler also wanted to do away with homosexuals along with many other types of people (handicapped, Jewish, etc.) so this sign was calling him out as a hypocrite. Whether or not he was gay is irrelevant. Hitler was a hypocrite but, more importantly, he was a horrible, evil person.

The streets of Magdeburg full of people!

"Bunt Statt Braun"
"Colorful Instead of Brown"

Even more interesting than the message itself is how they painted it throughout the streets in Magdeburg. They made a special bicycle wheel with the message on it and rigged the bicycle with a bucket of paint to paint this message on the sidewalk as it was wheeled throughout the city. Ingenuity at its best!

Not really sure what this was or what it was trying to say but I simply HAD to take a picture of it. It looks like a hybrid between a turtle, octopus, and praying mantis. So weird.

Agro Bördegrün

So my host dad is retired but he used to work at this place called Agro Bördegrün (he is still part owner). It is an agricultural company in a nearby dorf. Over Christmas break, he offered to give me and my friend a little tour. The tour started with a little swag of course. We got a tote bag, a DVD about the place, a lighter, and a pen. When you visit a company in Germany, I feel like swag is kind of typical. For instance, when I went with my host sister's school to the Deutsche Bahn headquarters in Berlin we got the coolest pens with a flashlight built right into the pen. I think I have already mentioned this pen in a past post though and I should not get so excited about a pen...but it has a flashlight built right into it! Anyway, I digress. after we got our free swag we got to hear the boss talk about the company a little bit. I tried to follow along but it was none too easy. From what I could understand, the company makes a lot of different products from plants/crops that it grows in its own fields. They even provide Colgate in Germany with one of it's ingredients for toothpaste...see what I mean when I say they make a lot of different products? They also do business with a bio oil company. The boss of this place is something to behold. He is literally like 7 feet tall with the biggest hands and feet I have EVER seen on a human being. I have no idea how he finds clothes that are long enough for him.  He is really living up to the towering German stereotype. After we stopped gawking at his stature, me and my friend were given a little tour by my host dad. You can tell my host dad visits often. He knew everyone's name and my host brother currently works there. It has become a family affair. I learned that the company is pretty environmentally friendly. One of the first things we saw was a screen that displays the energy produced by the solar panels on the roof of a nearby building. It reads "Daily Energy 3.12 kWh".

Me and my friend were also treated to something very special. There just happened to be a Trabant on the company's grounds that day. A Trabant is a car but it is not just any car. It was a car that was produced for the people during the times of east Germany. It has extremely small tires and is itself very small. The best part is that these cars do not rust because the bodies are not made out of metal. The car body is made out of a fiberglass, plastic like mixture. The traditional materials used to make a car were probably too expensive for a DDR car company to acquire and use. Not sure how safe these cars were but it sure was interesting to see. It was complete with a DDR (east Germany) sticker and a German flag in the back window. Okay, I gotta explain some things here. DDR stands for Deutsche Demokratische Republik. To us lay people, that means the soviet influenced east Germany that is no more. Also, the displaying of a German flag can be taken as a sign of DDR support. Many Germans do not display the flag on their houses or cars. The use of the flag is slowly becoming more frequent. A number of reasons contribute to this. One of them was how far Germany got in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Germany's team did so well and people couldn't help but be proud of their team and show it with their flag.

Agro Bördegrün is nestled in the small dorf of Niederndodeleben. It is a 10-15 minute car drive from where I live. The company has a strong presence in the town. The company owns a grocery store and a gas station that is complete with a car wash. The car wash is equipped with an extra large dock for the company's heavy machinery. Can't be leaving that agricultural equipment dirty!

Magdeburg Zoo

Every year my host family goes to the zoo on the 26th of December. This year I got to tag along. Not much happened so this blog really will be mostly pictures but the animals were pretty active and really didn't hide that much. They really put on a show for us . I guess the animals in Germany are more active than the ones in the United States. Also, at least at the Magdeburg zoo, the zoo puts much less space between you and the animals. For instance, the penguin cage literally just had a short fence between us and the penguins. No plexi-glass or wide dugout. Just a little fence that I could have easily jumped over. Needless to say, I did not jump this fence but it was cool to be so close to the animals.

It was a pretty cloudy day when we went and the zoo itself wasn't too colorful so this guy really "popped" when we saw him.

This right here is a tapir. It is a pretty sizable animal about the size of a very large pig. What's funny is it made this little high pitched chirp the entire time we were there. Such a large animal with such a small voice.

Giant guinea pig! 

Porcupine

In da jungle, the mighty jungle...