Forever Baffled

Last Sunday, Maxie and I decided to attend a Catholic Mass in the Trinitatis Kathedral in downtown Dresden. Maxie had never before attended a Catholic service and I only had a vague notion of where the church was, so we asked a nice, elderly lady on the tram how to get there. Seemingly excited at the prospect of two youngins going to church (religion is all but obsolete among the younger generations), she encouraged us to let her show us the way (to church, that is). Maxie asked her whether she was going to a Catholic service and she responded with, “Na klar, na klar” (of course, of course). Perfect, now we had a little buddy with whom to go to church. We walked through the doors and she encouraged us to glance around for a bit, since the service wasn’t going to begin for another half an hour or so. I looked briefly for the holy water, but found none and didn’t give it much of a second thought. It turned out there was also an art gallery on the first floor. No, none of the Catholic churches I had ever been to had a modern art gallery, but hey, I’m in Germany and a lot of things these Germans do seem slightly off to me. Once we were done looking, we sat down in a pew and I reached down to lower the kneeler. There was none. Funny again, but what the heck. So I sat quietly and gawked at all the statues and figures that filled the altar – Mary, Joseph, some angels, little baby Jesus, and one more fellow, whom I didn’t recognize. ‘He doesn’t look like any biblical character I’ve ever seen in traditional depictions,’ I thought to myself. I studied his face a bit more and then moved on to the inscription beneath the statue…’german german german MARTIN LUTHER german german german.’ The old lady had tricked us into going to a Protestant church! We thought about asking her about it, but decided not to, knowing that she would respond with either one of two things: 1) genuine confusion or 2) feigned confusion. So 45 minutes worth of singing, a baptism, and an homily later (all-in-all around two hours), Maxie and I saw again the light of day and decided we should find the Catholic church so we know where it is for next Sunday. But honestly, it was an interesting and worthwhile experience, and ten Hail Marys later I’m sure all is now forgiven. Pictures of downtown Dresden, including the churches mentioned above, can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/racheldubya

A few days ago Frau Fischer, her son Thomas, his wife Froh-Fro (not her real name. Actually, I don’t know her real name. This is just a nickname taken from the German word for ‘frog’. For more about Froh-Fro’s love of frogs, see entry dated June 28th, 2007) and I headed off to the borders of Poland to do some shopping. We left promptly at 8:30 in the morning and by 9:15 we had pulled over at a rest stop in order to eat. Everyone still buckled in, I stared wide-eyed as Frau Fischer proceeded to pull out from a picnic basket wurst sandwiches, cheese, salami, orange juice, tomatoes and eggs to tide us over for the next 45 minutes or so until we got to Poland.

The market itself was an interesting experience – I like to think of it as a less-aggressive Middle Eastern marketplace, only everyone spoke Polish and whatever German they needed in order to sell their goods, which consisted predominantly of cigarettes, knock-off clothing and shoes, animal skins, cheese, pickles and a variety of translucent meats. Frau Fischer bought a couple things for Maxie’s apartment and Thomas and Froh-Fro got some clothes. On the way back to Dresden we stopped in Rothenburg to get something to eat. I had a gigantic serving of schnitzel paired with potatoes, soup, and a fist-full of vegetables. Not yet knowing the German etiquette for taking leftovers from a restaurant and taught by my parents at an early age to eat everything on my plate, I proceeded, head down and with great determination, to eat it all. Although I felt a little sick to my stomach, I inwardly congratulated myself on a job well done. It wasn’t until afterwards that I noticed that everyone else had more than half of their food leftover and all eyes were looking tentatively in my direction in an ‘I can’t believe you ate all that’ sort of way. Lesson learned: Germans, like Americans, also take leftovers to-go. Now I know.

Maxie has now moved out of the house into an apartment of her very own (right across the street), so I’ve been helping her move. German apartments and houses are completely empty upon move-in (no light fixtures, kitchen appliances, counters, etc.), so one has to buy, build, and move a lot more than what Americans are used to. We spent the last couple days painting and also “building the kitchen”, so if all goes smoothly, I’ll post before and after pictures in the next couple days.

No one here has much of an interest in talking about the weather with me (which I think makes up for a good half of my conversations in Austin), so I will now post my thoughts here. It’s been hot lately. How hot? Well, Frau Fischer came in the other day, drenched in sweat, throwing off her clothes, exclaiming it was 47˚C outside. I stared at her blankly while standing in the doorway, doing my best to do the conversion in my head, but I blame the dog dander or tap water or abundance of dairy products I’ve been eating for clouding my mental faculties, so I ran quickly to my computer to convert the temperature into Fahrenheit. 116˚F. No, no, definitely not. Maybe lower 90’s at the highest. I went back into the entryway to tell her that this was just not possible, but she wasn’t having any of it. 47˚C it was. But it has cooled down a good bit – this morning I needed a jacket when I went out.

So now I’m off to go help Maxie catch her little songbird, Melita, which is flying loose at the moment. I threatened to turn her into a chicken nugget if she continued her disobedience, but Maxie has just enlightened me that chicken nuggets are actually made out of old textbooks, namely trigonometry.