I don't think that I have ever appreciated blossoming flowers, birds singing, and warm, sunny weather (SPRING) so much in my entire life. I think that one has to live through a dark, damp, dreary, gray, sunless German winter in the Rhineland to understand how I can write such a hyperbole.
For as absolutely dismal the winters in the country are, the springs are correspondingly (and antithetically), if not more, exuberant.
Unfortunately, this swift change in weather has brought about my second chest cold since the new year. Even more unfortunately, the most recent one evolved into bronchitis, with a touch of nasal allergies. However, after a few weeks of coughing and a round of antibiotics, I'm finally feeling like myself again.
Despite my lungs, I have been lucky enough to the European spring in a number of cities in the past few weeks.
In early March, I was in Berlin for a European-wide Fulbright conference. It was great to see all of my friends from the language course in Marburg again (likely the last time we will all be together in one place) as well as to meet some new people. It was a pretty overwhelming experience, mostly because of the large size of the conference (over 500 participants) as well as the fact that everyone studied something different. The less-than-ideal circumstances didn't take away from the experience - it's pretty difficult to make a trip to Germany's capital city unenjoyable! I even got to participate in a panel discussion about the European university system:
Afterward, I was lucky enough to spend a few days in Copenhagen, Denmark with Marty, Matt, Erin and Miya. Being a bit further north, Copenhagen was a colder than Germany, but no less beautiful.
Aside from almost missing our train at the last minute (please enjoy the above half-German/half-English frantic text message sent from a stressed out and speedwalking Erin several minutes before our train was supposed to leave...I will probably never delete this), the trip was relaxing and enjoyable, and my aforementioned chest cold problems conveniently didn't completely kick in until upon arriving back home in Mainz.
After a week in Mainz, I headed to Aachen (way in Western Germany, on the border between Deutschland and the Netherlands) where I stayed with Erin for a few days prior to meeting up with my mom! From Aachen, Erin and I took a daytrip to Maastricht, the Netherlands to enjoy the blooming scenery. Maastricht was a lovely city:
Talk about a fairy-tale day/setting for a wedding...
One comment about being in the Netherlands - from the perspective of being a native English speaker with a knowledge of German, Dutch is the weirdest language to experience. At a glance it looks like German with more vowels in odd places, and it just sounds like you should be able to understand it without actually being able to. Regardless, everyone seemed to speak German. We managed just fine language-wise for the few hours that we were there, aside from a really strange encounter I had with a funny waiter at a restaurant who not-so-subtly gave me a playful slap across the back of my head in response to my inquiry re: a German menu after showing me that it was apparently a Dutch and German Speisekarte.
After my weekend in Aachen with Erin, I met up with my mom at the Aachen train station after not seeing her for almost nine months (!) and we came back to Mainz. We unfortunately only had a few days together, but she got to come to the MPI and we had a lovely home-made dinner in my apartment with my roommates and Ting and David.
From left: David, Ting, me and my roomates Alina and Thorsten.We had planned to explore some of the surrounding cities a little bit, but we ended up staying in Mainz for the three days that I had taken off from work which couldn't have been a better decision. We walked along the Rhine, rode bikes everywhere and, of course, had excellent beer, wine and food. We even took a short ride on a Ferris wheel that was on the banks of the river, which gave me a new visual perspective on my home.
Mom in Eisgrub, the best (in my opinion) beer brewery in Mainz.
On the Ferris wheel, with the Mainzer Dom in the background.
The Rhine.
Spending some time as a tourist in Mainz also gave me a new mental perspective. Mom and I visited the remains of an ancient Roman temple that are underneath a mall downtown that's appropriately named the Römer Passage. I have walked through this mall roughly every weekend that I have lived in this city, and had absolutely no idea that the temple was, quite literally, right under my nose. A local historical society has preserved the ruins and turned it into a museum that you can visit - they have it set up such that you can walk right on top of the foundations of the temple on a glass floor.
After spending some time looking around, I thanked the women at the desk of the exhibit, and told them how shocked I was that I hadn't discovered this part of the city yet. She smiled and replied, "Man muss Mainz entdecken." Essentially - one has to explore Mainz to appreciate it.
I definitely have some more exploring to do here...
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