Closing the Book (German Chapter)

So I'm way behind in my blog, it's obvious. I'm gonna start by saying I'm in Venice now, city of paintbrushed canals, quietly decaying churches and palaces. And the humidity that melts more than a gelato.

I'll catch up with the last bits of Germany. I ended up falling into some interesting situations.

One afternoon, German historian and professor Walter Pehle picked me up in his Volkswagen and took me to the S. Fischer Publishing House. As random as this seems, this is the place Lothar used to work.

At Fisher, the editors are blocked story by story around a deep, wellish atrium. "This is art," said Walter, pointing down into the courtyard at a modernesque arrangement of blue and turquoise metal. "There are some people who do not agree." I wonder if speaking English makes Walter's sense of humor more dry. It's possible; he never missed an opportunity to demonstrate his knowledge of a couple swear words.

From the rooftop terrace, I gazed upon an impressive skyline of Frankfurt that wavered in the heat. Then, several stairs and keyholes later, we were in the publisher's archives. Among the oldest were books by Thomas Mann, Aldous Huxley and Franz Kafka. Woolf's translations were published by Fischer. Since all this, the company has summarized itself in a red logo: three fishes. "Two looking to the left, and one looking to the right," Walter said (I may be wrong, though, it may be the other way).

Walter wore a pink polo. His quirky circular glasses and the bucket hat he wore reminded me of my grandfather, but instead of classical music, jazz is his thing. "I know every note to this," he said as he played a favorite while we were stuck in a traffic jam.

The next day, my last in Germany, I biked up to Neu Isenburg. The trail led me past stark rows of timber after timber, all the while the crush of rubber on sand and pebbles. The people I passed had calm, serious faces.

In the early afternoon, the streets are quiet except for maybe the tap of a crooked man's cane, or the ding of a bicycle bell. Silence is as common as the walnut trees; in a cafe stands a young woman, blonde, her hands clasped behind her back. A clean white apron matches her smile.

On the bus to the airport in Hahn, we rolled through the ivied and steepled countryside. The man in leather shoes tapped his feet. I didn't see any earbuds or headphones, he must have been listening to the scenery of windmills and hills that stay green even in the 35 degree heat. For him, it's a bouncy oom-pah.

Next time, photos. Promesso.
-a

A Different Flavor

The monastery in Eberbach is where they filmed the adaptation of Umberto Eco´s The Name of the Rose. The 38 degree heat was delicate, quiet. The wine cellar had all the silence of a royal tomb.

In the Rhine valley, carps rippled the surface of a bubbling pond while we socialized to a sip of Riesling. The winery´s square was terraced with beerhall benches and orange umbrellas. Below, a vista of vines leading down to the water´s edge. A view worth raising a glass to it.

"Lovage" is the name of a sweet herb in the Seligenstadt cloister garden. To me, it had a scent of celery, cinnamon and licorice. The interesting tastes and flavors went all the way to the ice cream shop near the basilica; here we found exotica such as "dragonberry" and best of all "dolphin." I tried neither. The latter I actually try to avoid when I buy my tuna. Just kidding. It was blue and had some kind of chips in it.

Early in the morning, Lothar, Linus and I drove to pick up some pastries. We passed a yellow awning and Lothar pointed out the window. "That," he said, "is a very bad bakery." The cookies in the good bakery known as "Americans" have German flags pasted on them with the text, "World Champions 2014." Well.

Backyard badminton is getting more and more intense. The point (at least, the way I play) is to grunt with each shot and celebrate Wimbledon-style at every point. Makes it more fun, I think. And Linus really goes for the competition - Quentin just likes the fun.

One thing occurred to me. I know what German sounds like, simply because I don´t understand it. It´s a weak advantage, but I think meaning precludes the sound, it replaces it. Along those lines - the fourth Harry Potter movie isn´t my favorite. But hearing Hagrid speak German was a little highlight of the day.

Local wildlife includes: frogs, mice, hedgehogs, and the parrots next door. For a touch of whimsy we´ll also mention the neighbor´s automatic lawnmower.

Shakalaka.
-a

Eating. Drinking. Octopi.

I was wearing black, sitting on a bench under Frankfurt´s white-hot noontime sun. An enormous square fanned out, steel and glass on every side, spattered at the corners by curiously-domed churches. These survived, or were reconstructed. Lothar showed me the pictures - the place was absolutely razed in the war.

I rode into the city on Frauke´s bike, under tree tops and graffitied railway bridges, past beer gardens and rose nurseries. It all took about an hour.

Maybe you heard. There´s this octopus, Paul is his name, and he "chooses" which team wins the World Cup games. I mean predicts, with near infallibility. How? He swims into the one out of two tanks with the flags of the nations. He´s not been wrong, I think.

I saw quite a few Starbucks in Frankfurt. Not going to lie, I was intrigued. And a little tempted. But I stood my ground behind the self-righteous attitude of European (let´s get specific and say Italian) coffee. And I much prefer the coffee maker - Merle taught me how to use it.

The day of Germany´s last game, Lothar came home and changed into a t-shirt with a lobster on it. The kids and I interrupted our 24th (or was it 25th?) round of backyard badminton for a mock penalty shootout, all to warm up for the night´s marquee matchup. Spain vs. Germany.

Per Lothar´s advice, I´ve had a pretty essential slice of Frankfurt cuisine. First, green sauce, a regional specialty that goes great with potatoes. At the game-watch, he ordered "hand-cheese," typical of this area, and so called because of its shape. On top of all that we drank applewine, it´s like a less-sweet kind of cider. It tricks you because it tastes so much like juice.

Germany, needless to say, didn´t win. The way back from the pub was dark, lit only by Lothar´s and Linus´blinking bike lights, and the hints of their murmurs.

Forza.
-a

Germany, my New Expatriotism

Descending through a snowy field of white clouds, I saw Germany for the first time in four years. It looked like golf courses speckled with A-framish towns, and everything watched over by windmills. I thought of Quixote´s giants.

I mentioned Frauke and Lothar before, they are my gracious hosts (so are their three children, the best German teachers I´ve ever had). They live in a town called Buchschlag. I hear it and I think of book-slag. Something I wouldn´t want to read. German is like that though; I had a friend who said it felt like "garbled English." You can try to make sense of it, but it´s better to admit complete ignorance and then act surprised in the face of a true cognate.

Linus, 10, is the middle child. He led the way by bicycle to get an ice cream in Dreieich. We went through an old castle, past grain fields, hay bales and little A-framed houses. We stopped for a detailed look at this wooden bird he desperately wanted to explain to me. At the time, it went over my head.

Lothar, the father, is in educational publishing, and would rather tell you about his work than have you ask. He´s really busy, but comes home with enough energy to race the kids up and down the backyard. When we speak English and he can´t come up with the right word, he drops everything and turns to the dictionary. Just that precise.

For lunch, we had sushi - my second go at it. We chased it down with strawberry cake and a spur-of-the-moment German lesson, facilitated by a colorful handful of SillyBandz. This meant that I learned the words for heart, seal, house, castle, magic wand, that kind of thing. Very useful, practical stuff. If I ever need a train ticket, I´m all set.

I sat in the living room while Linus did a Tae Kwon Do demonstration. Quentin´s (the youngest, 6) wobbly mimicry turned everything into a father-children gymnastics routine, not without tickling and a little rough-housing.

In this house, I sleep in the playroom, on top of the fitted sheet and under the comforter. It really puts the "comfort" in comforter, not gonna lie. In the morning, I wake up to my three "cousins" saying "Good morning" to me. Life is good. Even if I can´t stumble over that simple phrase in German to save my life. My teachers have their work cut out for them.

Guten nacht,
-a

4th of Luglio

The sound of a train controller´s ticket puncher is the sound of anxiety. That is, when you realize you´d bought the wrong ticket while sweating two layers through a single shirt after hauling a 30 pound bag a good mile. Ok, pity party´s over. Everything worked out fine.

I now sit in the kitchen of my friends Frauke and Lothar in Germany. To give you a better picture, they´re about ten years younger than my parents and have three kids of their own. I´m writing this post to the soft music of their dishwasher. To ease me gently from Italian to German culture, we ate pasta for dinner on Tuesday.

My story must include the couple of days I just spent in Viareggio with Serena, her siblings Luca and Silvia, and her boyfriend Stefano. At dinner, Silvia put a pot of beans on Luca´s plate to mark his absence while we munched on a variety of meats and what is essentially fried bread. Mm, delish.

Luca never did arrive for dinner, I think. But the next day he drove me out to Pisa to show off the physics department at the university. The air conditioning felt nice inside his office, four or five desks scattered with coke cans and mathematical formulas illegible in any language. He explained to me, in simple, simple terms, his research on solar flares.

That was on the 4th of July, my first one abroad, which still involved the beach, a barbeque, and eating watermelon. The two of us arrived late to lunch at the Marradi´s campagna, a farmish slice of land complete with a small creek, a few ducks and a gay rooster.

The night before that ended with me and Stefano pushing bicycles back to Serena´s house while singing the American national anthem. Stefano fiddled around as mechanic those couple of days; he was good, but we still ended up with a stalled motorscooter and a bike with a derailed chain. Only two bikes meant me wobbling along, led down dusky streets by Stefano. Serena side-saddled the bike rack behind, dangling her legs and a cigarette off the side. When that bike gave out, we chained them together against a roundabout roadsign and continued on foot.

We wandered down the abandoned nighttime beach, still decorated with color-coded chairs and umbrellas. A disgruntled night-watchman ushered us to "not my problem" territory, where we sat down under a half moon and indiscernable constellations to stumble over the remote past tense of "to cook" in Italian. It´s a mouthful.

Sunday night, July 4th, we found a nervous little piece of red, white and blue bunting in the arena of Lucca. Don´t be fooled like me; Lucca´s arena is an ovalesque piazza surrounded by connected houses. Off the yellow walls and green shutters bounced the drawly accents of a few proud co-nationals of mine.

Ah, Lucca by night. Not two columns on the Duomo are the same; magnificently whimsical was the tower with a tree at the top. We wandered until we got lost; that was after an interesting conversation on American pride and Obamanian politics.

Con liberta` e giustizia per tutti.
-a

The New Tenants

This all happened a while back. It´s time to catch up. Excuse any typing errors, it´s a German keyboard. The proof? ßßßßßßßÖÖÖÖÖÖäÄÄÄÄ-. Bang.

The two new tenants of Petra Capitani´s Poggetto apartment in Florence (once my lovely home) arrived on Saturday. First Lorraine, from Ontario. I was still sleeping off a long last night of conversation and fun with my classmates when she knocked on our door at 9. Later on she shared her life´s story with me while I cleaned the kitchen, and when we sat down for a simple lunch, I told her mine. Still jetlagged, she took a nap while I finished packing.

I went outside to toss some bottles in the recycling bin. On the steps, there was a massive black suitcase and a woman in a sunhat that somehow made me think of Diane Keaton. "You must be Karen," I said, remembering what Lorraine had told me, all after hesitating and wondering what her first impression of me must have been.

Lorraine woke up, and I showed the two of them around. Like, where the grocery store was, how to get to the school, where the Baroncini gelateria was, etc. They wanted to pay me for helping them out, I wouldn´t have any of it. I just took the mere sum left from Petra´s deposit and hit the swollen, sweaty road for the train station. I was going to Viareggio again to decompress under the sun, knowing the sea wasn´t too far.

The night before, I sat on the sunwarmed steps leading up to Piazzale Michelangelo for a taste of red wine and a sunset view of the famous city I´d been calling home for a month. The voices around us were getting louder, and every now and then you´d hear the sparkle of a bottle rolling down to the bottom.

The evening finally brought us back across the Arno to a favorite bar. Then, we slipped into Santa Croce´s notorious tourist club, Twice. I can say with gusto that I´m glad I´ve only been there once. Ashley and I, the only two guys, didn´t have a ton of fun playing body bumper-cars with Ettore or Niccolo`.

I realize now, with dismay, that I never got a good picture of that yellow sign that marked out my neighborhood so well. And by good, I mean any.

Guten nacht. I´m in Frankfurt, Germany now. Yes, yes, I know that screws up the whole concept of this blog. But I´ll be returning to Italy in ten days.

-a

You Are Now Leaving Florence

As my language-teaching course slows down, I have some time to burn. I try to spend it in the center of Florence.

Outside the Uffizi Gallery, the crowd is noisy and colorful. The faces are red and shiny in the three o'clock sun, and they stutter along, open-mouthed, behind cameras of varying shape and size. Or the hunch in the shadows on marble steps, chugging a soda that cost two euro too much. Their clothing wilts off their backs, and they clap for the Czech guitarist. But they don't put any coins in his case.

Walking down a narrow street, I passed a leather store selling belts, shoes, diaries, handbags and change purses. I didn't look in the window, instead I just breathed in its rich perfume. Down the street, a girl stood in an open doorway. She was wearing leather-bound wedge heels, and tossed her hair as she shot me a glance. Right before I passed, she dropped her cigarette to the ground, and I stepped on it without breaking stride. I walked on, and I heard the door click shut behind me. Ah, stranger politics, they're great.

I just realized today that the bathroom in my flat doesn't have a lamp. It has a chandelier. Not that I'm saying I'm livin' that good, good life or anything. I mean, remember, I'm out of here in two days.

I've been surrounded in the run-down beauty of this country for a month now. I celebrated such a benchmark with a walk through the streets of my neighborhood, Poggetto. I've gotten attached to this little 'burb, it's wide streets, boutiques that make a concerted effort to not rip off the locals, the Baroncini gelateria (since 1946), the crazy discoteca where the area's teens waste time on Friday nights, and of course, the neon yellow sign that proudly designates the neighborhood: "POGGETTO," it says, vertically.

I'm gonna miss this neighborhood. But anyway, I walked up the streets, past the Franciscan church - it all ultimately let down a one-way street bordered by olive trees and ten-foot tall walls on both sides. I more or less clung to the walls as I walked, praying to every little wall-chapel I passed to not get hit by an Alfa Romeo.

At a certain point, I noticed a road sign in the distance. White, with black letters spelling "Firenze." A diagonal red line across it wasn't vandalism; it meant I was leaving Florence. And I am, in two days. I ceremoniously walked past it to admire a vista of rolling hills and villas through a blown-out chunk of the brick wall. Then, I turned around.

There's a city-wide strike tomorrow, it starts at 9AM. That means I may have to brave the grocery store, and it may feel like the night before a "snowstorm" in Charlotte.

You'll hear from me in a few days. Viareggio, it seems, is my next destination. Monday, my blog is going to take a weird turn because I'm flying from Pisa to Frankfurt, Germany. I'll meet up with some old family friends and watch the World Cup. Read, and write, always those, too.

Benedicite.
-a