Hello, Bowdoin:
Today I went back to high school. Granted, I've been teaching in one for nearly six months?English teaching assistant at a "gymnasium" (high school) in Hamburg, that's my job. But now I had put my feet in the shoes of a German 12th grader, going to class as a student in a new effort to improve my language skills and knowledge of 19th century literature. I stared down at the four inch-tall yellow novel in my hands, and the teacher said, "Ein Kausalsatz?Ted?"
I am one of roughly 120 just-out-of-college Americans teaching in Germany on Fulbright grants this year. Four of us are Bowdoin grads. Thanks to our wonderful professors, our school's German majors have been particularly adept at receiving these grants, to the tune of about three every year. The city of Hamburg has particularly strong Bowdoin connections as well?I'm one of five grads to be sent here in the last two years.
I arrived in Hamburg on September 12. A week prior to that, I walked downstairs in a Cologne hostel to find Dan Coogan '05 and Kevin Erspamer '05 passed out from jet lag on the lobby couch. This led to two nights of schnitzel and Kolsch consumption (the latter is Cologne's unique signature beer), after which we were locked away for several days in a medieval cloister with all the other Americans to be trained for the year. This was sort of like a college orientation, except for the part about being in a medieval cloister,and the fact that at the end we were spread to east, west, Bavaria, and small islands in the Baltic, instead of living together in close quarters for the next four years.
The city on the Elbe (Dresden and Prague are further upstream, but I'm talking about Hamburg) quickly and easily became my new home. Hamburg is a beautiful town that is very green (until the sun abandons it in November) and crisscrossed by canals and bridges. It has an elegant downtown, museums, one of the fanciest shopping streets in the world, colorful "alternative" districts, and one of the world's busiest harbors. Hamburg also features St. Pauli and the Reeperbahn, a red-light district second only to Amsterdam's. The Beatles cut their teeth playing clubs here, and on Saturday nights it is flush with revelers ages 15 to 60, many of whom stay out all night and go to the fish market at 5 a.m. for a freshly-caught breakfast.
I have chosen to live within easy walking distance of the gymnasium (like high school, but starting with the fifth grade) where I teach. This means I live nestled between Europe's largest cemetery and Hamburg's airport, which I can walk to in about 15 minutes. There's actually some lovely trails around the airport and a hill from which you can watch the planes take off.
I am obligated to help with only 12 classes a week, and classes are only 45 minutes each, so it's a pretty light work load. My work for a class session will vary, from lessons that I plan and teach myself to ones I mostly watch, being called on to answer hard grammar questions or to read passages in my capacity as a native speaker. My lesson topics have ranged from vocabulary building exercises for the younger students about animals, vegetables, and Halloween, to lectures for the older students on illegal immigration, the Mexican War, 19th-century Indian policy, the civil rights movement, and alternative energy. I taught everyone "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" in December.
If you're ever thinking about visiting Hamburg, come in December. While the Germans aren't particularly known for their warmth, most whom I've gotten to know are pretty nice once you get to know them. In the holiday season, against the darkness and the cold, the warmth overflows. Christmas markets consisting of stands selling arts and crafts, sweaters, candies, wursts, potato pancakes, herring on a roll, and, above all, Gluhwein?hot spiced red wine?are erected on the town squares for a full month. People gather, standing outside in their parkas and scarves, Gluhwein mugs in hand. There's a cheer to the holiday here that America's lavishly decorated malls can never match.
In the nearby city of Lübeck, birthplace of Thomas Mann and home of the world's best marzipan, which I have visited four times already, the winter also featured an international ice sculpture exhibition of astonishing scope. Here I discovered that hockey-playing polar bears can be found beyond Dayton Arena.
I do have an astonishing amount of free time here, which I relish. I have gotten to know the downtown area very well by strolling it incessantly between stops in museums, bookshops, and coffee shops. I explore new places as funds allow, but apart from one visit to the lovely practically-in-Switzerland university town of Freiburg, I have not yet left northern Germany?there is plenty here to see, from nearby smaller cities like Bremen and Lübeck to Hamburg's many unique neighborhoods.
As a cinephile, the selection of films is one of my favorite parts of living in a city, and since German film is my greatest interest, Hamburg is damn near perfect. One of the highlights of my year was meeting one of the directors, about whom I wrote my honors project, at the premiere of his new movie.
Meeting friends at the bars here is always fun as well. The atmosphere is good, and the beer is the best in the world (Germany also has the best bread and sausages). My social circle currently includes more Brits and fellow Americans than Germans, but five months in this country certainly has improved my German. There's only more to look forward to in the next five months, including a conference in Berlin next weekend for all the Fulbrighters and the World Cup. Also, the sun is coming back which is always a cause for celebration.
Auf Wiedersehen!
Ted Reinert held positions as arts and entertainment editor and managing editor at the Orient before his graduation last year.