Opening Ordeals.

At the moment, we're occupying the "Akademisches Auslandsamt" (Foreign student office) for the second time since arriving in Mannheim, and I'm splitting my attention between trying to figure out the fiendish German keyboards to adding sarcastic commentary to the conversation behind me. I'm hungry though, and I need to find an adaptor, as the blasted 220 volt plug claimed my power strip yesterday. (First on my list of grievances against the country. Yet apart from my other experiences, it is expected that this list will be fairly short)

Bis später.

-the wanderer.

Coincidence is coincidence is coincidence.

Nothing more, most of the time. A chance meeting, lucky circumstances, being in the right place at the right time. There are many different ways of describing it, but it remains the same: purely coincidence. But over time, one begins to see a pattern.

Such is the pattern with Germany. My first memory of Deutschland came when I was very young, outside MGM-Studios. We were waiting in line for our tickets at the nefarious guest services windows, so all of my cousins and I fascinated ourselves by changing the languages on the prepaid calling card vending machine. My childhood was filled with little moments like these, from watching the Nazis in far too many Indiana Jones movies to trying to read the park map in German at EPCOT.

However, my love of the German language and subsequent fascination is in want of an explanation. It seems like throughout my growing-up years I was constantly given this one continuous message: Germany is evil. Whether it be in Indiana Jones, a slew of other World War I/II movies, history textbooks, or other fiction, they all agreed: Germany is to blame. For everything. And I believed it.

As I progressed into the later years of high school, things began to fall apart. I bought a couple of books on German in an attempt to insult people and sound amazingly cool at the same time. After taking it for two semesters, I realized I would’ve sounded like an idiot to a real German. But as my interest in the language increased, so did my disbelief. I didn’t want to believe that it was their fault for everything anymore. I didn’t want to believe they were like everyone, even myself, thought them to be. No one in my school knew more about wars than I did: therefore none but I were knowledgeable better equipped to research the real reason behind the universal stereotype. What I found was enlightening.

I could follow this analysis forevermore, but it is inconsequential, seeing as we are speaking of my progression into the life, language, and culture of Germany, and not the absolution thereof. The main point is apparently that France and Germany have hated each other since almost the dawn of time. One has wine, the other beer. One is known for excellent candy, the other for perfume. Obviously they’re not going to mix. So WWII came as a result of WWI, where the Germans felt they were unfairly treated by the French, which came as a result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, where France was soundly thrashed by Germany after so many years of humiliation during the Napoleonic Wars. This goes back for decades, almost traceable to the time of Julius Caesar. But I achieved my point: Germany was not to blame, not entirely. It was the damned French as usual. But to the victors go the history books.

To take a break from politics, let us continue our previous journey. My interest in German continued to develop through the latter stages of my high school years, yet unfortunately my knowledge of the language was abysmal. This was soon rectified: I enrolled in German when I arrived at college. I cannot pinpoint exactly what caused my fervor for Deutschland to increase to where it is today. It could be mainly because of the Mannheim program, the fact that I have nothing else in life at the moment to distract my focus from that, yet it had begun before that.

After I began taking German in college, I’ve become a magnet for Germans. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I notice them more now: maybe they were always there. But perhaps not. In first semester a woman from Stuttgart, the capital of the region I’ll be soon visiting, sat next to me by chance in the Greyhound bus home from Gainesville. I’ve met several at my job in Publix, some in Orlando, some on the UF campus. Every time I’ve learned a little bit more of the culture, the way life is organized and conducted in Germany. My faith that coincidence is only coincidence has faltered. Is anything left to chance? This is the question I ask myself as I prepare for the long journey ahead of me. Does my destiny lie in that far-off land? I’d like to hope so. We shall soon see.