Date: 25 September 1999 Subject: Back in Bonn
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Now (September 26) we are back in Bonn, staying with our friend Sonja.
She lives in this really wonderful house -- really more than a house,
or an apartment, more than a place to live, it is a community. It's
called the Oscar Ramero Haus... to get in you have to propose a way to
improve the house! (So there are lots of cool improvements!) It's a
large house right at the edge of the AltStadt (Old Town, which isn't
really the old town, it's only a couple of hundred years old, the Zentrum
which is next to the Altstadt is about 1200 years old -- and the City was
here when the Romans got here, they could never get east of here!). There
are a dozen or so people in two apartments who all share in the maintenance
of and improvements to the building. There is also a food co-op, offices
and a church in the building. And of course lots of political activism. As
in most of Germany they recycle about 80% of all garbage but here they also
have solar heated water, rain water for non-drinking purposes and lots of
built in lofts and pulleys and bells and whistles. It is very cool. And when
you ring the doorbell, the key is lowered down to you from a third floor
window!! The people have been very welcoming.
It's a neat place, and it is a nice place to feel like home for a week. We
have both had short bouts of homesickness... mostly missing Seattle,
familiarity, friends and stability. But it passes quickly. Tonight we made
The language issue is a big one. I am tremendously fascinated by people who can speak more than one language fluently, and switch back and forth rapidly. And of course most people over here can -- that leaves us feeling a little inferior. We are slowly working on our German... it is not fair to say that we speak ANY at this point. Spending a couple of weeks with German speakers has helped. Sometimes I think there is no hope for me, that I am eternally mono-lingual. It is nice that almost everyone speaks almost fluent English, but it doesn't help us learn! The hump that I have to get past is that I am used to having a fairly good grasp of my language and expression and I simply will not when I jump in start trying to communicate in another language. It makes me think of friends like Barbara Naess and Dan Kai who can pick up a new language between dinner and bedtime with immense awe. Many English words have been adopted by other languages, the two that I find most amusing are expressions that you hear Germans use quite often: ZUPER! (super) and KEW-EL (cool). The different money is fun and I'm a little disappointed that it is going away. Some people are excited about the Euro, since it is going to simplify so much, but many people have told me they think it is just like NAFTA. Some money seems fake, The money in Germany and England is very serious. It LOOKS like money. The money in the Netherlands is BEAUTIFUL... it always has been very nicely designed and colorful, but the new bills are very intricate and detailed. Well designed and very colorful (some are almost psychedelic!) they are ART, without question. I have also had fun with the coins. There are so many interesting and weird coins. There is a 2.5 guilder coin in the Netherlands... WEIRD!. Vieland actually has some coins that are only good on this one tiny island, and nowhere else in the country! The Deutchmark is still a very nice coin, and the English one pound coin is still one of my favorite coins in the world. There are many different backs to the one pound coin, and they all represent one of the four countries in the Kingdom. I had fun trying to find each of the 20 or so backs while I was there (and I will eventually put a list of them up on my website!) There is also a new 2 pound coin, which is made of 2 different colors of metal (like the Toonie in Canada) and is quite pretty -- it has a scientific theme, astronomy and Isaac Newton; and it must be one of the most valuable coins in the world at about $3.25! |
steamed milk hot chocolate, with organic whole milk and organic chocolate.
It was wonderful and it reminded me of home... that is certainly one of the
things I look forward to returning to. We have met and talked with, even
travelled with, many people, but we have only encountered two Americans, one
in Portree and one in Amsterdam. That's kind of nice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PRESENT PHYSICAL LOCATION: Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms Univ, Bonn _________________________________________________________________
