As we were approaching Bertoldsbrunnen (which is a main plaza in the center of town, with a statue so old I'm only halfway sure its' a guy on a horse), in a cold, misty, night, when we heard chanting. Loud chanting. Our thought process, or at least my thought process, went along the lines of:

Well, there's no soccer game tonight...

Protest?

We hustled up to Bertoldsbrunnen and sure enough, about a hundred people our age were marching in a circle around the statue, holding signs that had the logo for Die Linke in the corner (Die Linke is the political party that formed out of the government of the DDR upon reunification - it literally translates to The Left). But I couldn't understand the chanting and we didn't have a good enough view of any of the signs to read them, so we stood there a few minutes trying to figure it out.

Finally a guy broke away from the crowd with some fliers and handed Meg. one, then asked, in German, if we knew what was going on. He explained that there was a tuition raise which, in Germany where there's a huge emphasis on public education being affordable and accessible for all, is kind of a big deal.

Then he asked if we students on the university. I explained, still in German, that we were Americans studying with a program that was tied to the university, but not directly on the university itself.

He got this shocked look, then in English said, "Americans? Well, you pay much more than us anyway... it wouldn't be a big deal for you."

Turns out they're protesting a raise from 50 Euro to 500 Euro. Which I think is still a big raise, all things considered. But we had to convince him that, despite the fact that without scholarship money we'd all be starving to be educated, we supported his cause. It might have been Meg. who literally said "we don't want you in Germany to go down the same path we in America have."

I was giddy all night.

written by  lost_red_balloon on October 30, 2008 from Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
from the travel blog: The European Union
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Now Lena, who spends every waking moment studying in her room, I think, and hardly ever comes out, is having a party. Even Lena had plans. She invited me to join, but I don't know anyone out there... and I look like a wreck...

Rainy Halloweens in Germany suck.

... But they are playing The Who....

written by  lost_red_balloon on October 31, 2008 from Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
from the travel blog: The European Union
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1) Europeans love Obama. It's practically a love affair.
2) A lot of Germans have this habit of going on, and on, and on, and on. They'll tell a ten minute story to preface a really simple question for you. Or when they answer a question, when trying to get from point A to point B, they'll visit J, L, P and X on the way, and not necessarily in alphabetical order.

So, today is election day. Things are insane. As in, INSANE. I somewhat reluctantly agreed to participate in a Podiumdiskussion at the Mensa.

The Mensa is the student cafeteria-ish place, and also where a lot of events go down. The university actually had a Wahlnacht Party - a party for the election night. In Freiburg! And it wasn't the only one. Universities all over Germany did the same thing.

The one at Freiburg had a bunch of events - there was a meal (put on by McDonald's, of course) and a blues band. Speeches and Podiumdiskussions. The whole thing.

I was told it was going to be kind of a small affair. I was going to show up about 6:30 to be interviewed by a television network, but the questions were going to be really easy. Then at 8:30 I would be on a podium, and a couple moderators would just ask me questions that weren't going to be too hard either. And I'd be done. Not too big a crowd. This is all in German, of course.

So the television network cancelled, which was probably good. They decided to go to the university in Heidelberg instead. It was then that someone decided to tell me it was the National TV Network for Germany. All of Germany.

I get up on stage for the Podiumdiskussion, and realize what I've gotten myself into. All of these German faces are peering at me. A couple questions got pitched to other members of the board, most of whom went into these long abstract-sounding answers I didn't quite understand. Then my first question comes along:

Did you vote?

Um, no, actually. I applied for my absentee ballot but it didn't arrive in time. But really we have such a complicated election system that I didn't have to. No matter which way I vote, McCain is going to win in Texas.

At this point, I heard a lot of clapping and cheering. My American friends who had all showed up to cheer me on! You know, a support network! Most of them had offered to buy me a drink afterwards.

The guy next to me was the old President of the University, and he went off on some rant for a while. All I understood out of it was that Iraq is not, in fact, the "new Vietnam War" for America. Afghanistan is. I didn't follow his logic, but I disagreed. Something about the war in Afghanistan kind of maybe being legitimate...? The Germans are all for getting out of Afghanistan, though, and I don't quite understand why. You know, besides the whole "we don't want to be involved in a war" thing, which I understand.

So, it seemed like things were going okay. Then one of the moderators says, "Okay, this one is for Emily," and goes into a MEGA long rant about something. I didn't understand it the first time, so I asked him to repeat the question. He summarizes whatever his rant was, which involved something about how polarized the American public had become regarding the two candidates. Then asked the question.

I had to start my answer off with "Okay, so wenn ich richtig verstehe..." which literally translates to "if I understand correctly..."

His question was basically whether or not Obama would last as president due to the polarization of the public. What?!?!

I explained that in pretty much every other election I'd ever been alive for or studied, the public has been polarized. It's what happens in a two party system. But a president is president. Unlike Germany's own parliamentary system, the government doesn't have to make coalitions, so it's not going to collapse. Obama will be president because he was elected president, simple as that. He could be impeached, but he'd have to do something worthy of impeachment and frankly, that's going to be hard because of the race card. What a weird question!!! These people study the American political system!! They should know the government doesn't just collapse the way they do here (look at Belgium!)

So, in the aftermath of the Podiumdiskussion, I discovered that it was not, in fact, the Americans who had cheered for me, but the Germans. They liked my answer. No one really knew why. It wasn't until I was wandering around afterwards that I figured it out. People I didn't know kept coming up to me and saying in German and English "you did very good! you were down to Earth! We didn't understand the other people either!"

I ended up just leaving the party at the Mensa, and we all went to O'Kelly's. It's an Irish pub near the University that plays American-style football every Sunday night. They were putting up continuous CNN coverage for the election. Pretty much 40 Americans sat in front of the big screen TV until 4 in the morning, when the guy actually had to close, drinking beer. We went back to the dorm, and I got ready for bed with CNN on mute on my TV, and literally crawled into bed with the TV on so that I could wake up to it during the night to check on progress.

Right as I crawled into bed, Obama went up as the projected winner. A. skyped me, saying we had to drink to Obama, and H. was there, too. So I dragged myself out of bed and went down to her room, and we all drank wine and watched his speech. I dozed through part of it, though. I was tired!!

written by  lost_red_balloon on November 4, 2008 from Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
from the travel blog: The European Union
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Anyway, they sound kind of like Flogging Molly, but with ridiculously political lyrics. It was a lot of fun.

written by  lost_red_balloon on November 20, 2008 from Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
from the travel blog: The European Union
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It sucked. But we had our first snow here.

written by  lost_red_balloon on November 22, 2008 from Frankfurt am Main, Germany
from the travel blog: The European Union
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Our program was nice enough to reserve an entire restaurant so that all 60 of us students, plus all of the professors and staff workers, could have a Thanksgiving meal. It was absolutely delicious, but the proportioning was a little bit off (aka, too little stuffing and too much Turkey on my plate).

I need to keep in mind to figure out a recipe for pumpkin soup. It sounds weird, but whatever they served us definitely had curry in it, and it was the best part of the whole meal. Yum!!

Despite that, though, it was really weird not to be at home. And to have school. I can't wait until next year, when I have a real Thanksgiving.

written by  lost_red_balloon on November 27, 2008 from Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
from the travel blog: The European Union
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