December 2011 Articles

Archives by Months

Notes from Germany

Notes from Germany:
Boy, does time go by fast. I find it hard to believe that it is already December, and that I have been living here in Germany for three whole months. I still have a great deal of time left on my Fulbright scholarship—seven months, to be exact—and yet, with each passing day, I feel my stay here growing shorter and shorter. Fortunately, though, I have been able to travel a good bit throughout Europe, as well as teach the children at my German school, and have experienced even more of German culture since I last wrote an article here for the October issue. For that reason, I feel my stay in Europe has been well-spent, and that the months ahead will be equally rewarding both for me and for the many children that I am teaching.
Much has changed for me since I last wrote in at the end of September. In October, I finally found a permanent place to live here in Germany. It is in Neustadt, a small town in the middle of the Black Forest, about 45 minutes east of where I was formally living in Freiburg. Neustadt is also where my school is located, and that is where I spend most of my time, teaching English to the German children and working with them on their pronunciation. As for my house, it sits right on the side of a mountain—Neustadt is nestled in the middle of the Black Forest mountain range—and so now, instead of taking the train every morning, I simply walk down 20 minutes until I reach my school. The climb back up is much harder, though, as the path back to my house lies along a steep incline. And yet, the trek is worth it for the view. From my window, I can see both the valley below, as well as the surrounding mountains and the many fir trees that line their upper ridges. One wonders what the mountains and the town will look like in winter, when the snow blankets them entirely, but I guess I will find that out in the coming weeks.
Besides finding a place to live, I have also been able to travel a great deal throughout Europe in the last two months. In total, I have been to four other countries besides Germany—the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and France. First, I traveled to Amsterdam, riding north through Germany with the train along the Rhine river, then heading west across the Dutch flat-lands to the capital city of the Netherlands. Amsterdam is extraordinarily beautiful and bustles with life, and I have never before seen so many people riding bikes from place to place. Next, after stops in Munich and Berlin, I visited Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. This city astounded me with its beauty. Standing on the Charles bridge—which dates back to the 1300’s—and looking out at the Vltava river and at Prague castle up on the hill high above the city, one almost forgets about the communist architecture in the suburbs and about the 40 years that the Czech Republic was under Soviet rule. Finally, in November, I visited Lyon, the fine-dining capital of France. Lyon is a small city in comparison to Amsterdam or Prague, but at 2,000 years, it is much older, having been formally a Roman settlement. The Roman amphitheater is still there, as well as some of the streets from that period, and it is amazing to think of old Lyon and of those millions of individuals down through the centuries whose lives and stories have been forgotten and can never hope to be recalled by anyone living today. Time does indeed move quickly, no matter where you are in life.
In conclusion, I want to say I feel very blessed to be able to live 10 months abroad and to see so much of different nations and cultures. I feel it has taught me a great deal about people, about how so much is the same across even the most distant borders. And yet, above all, I am extremely excited to be coming home to Louisiana for two weeks at Christmas. Family is probably the greatest blessing in this world, and one should cherish that, even if two weeks is all you have to spend with them. After all, two weeks is not much, but it is something, something to be appreciated. Because time goes by so fast.
Cody Bennett, Neustadt, Germany