'O' wie Otto

363 days a year I think it feels alright to be a foreigner in Germany. The two days a year I have to get my residency permit renewed, by contrast, usually bring on tears of frustration.

At the Ausländeramt (municipal immigration office) in Germany everything has its Ablauf (course of events). For example, a snippet of the phone call I just made requesting an appointment (wie means "as in"):

Call center employee: "'U' wie Ulrich?"

Me: "Nein, 'N' wie Nordpol, 'O' wie ... wie ... Oktopus."

Call center employee [impatiently]: "'O' wie Otto?"

Me: "Ja, 'O' wie Otto."

... and so on with every letter of my last name.

In Germany in general and for civil employees in particular, the Buchstabiertafel (phonetic alphabet) is the emblem of inflexibility. Every letter has only one correct paired word. Failing to use "'O' as in Otto'" is a breach, an insult.

It took me seven minutes and 40 seconds to give my name and telephone number to a call center. (Half the call was spent convincing her she didn't need my street address or my email!) Her only responsibility was to ask the municipal immigration office to call me back.

The craziest part is, I was at the immigration office this morning and sat in the office of the man who issues residency permits for those with surnames beginning with 'R' (as in Richard). He does not give out his own appointments.

So I asked the bouncer at the door where in the building I could make an appointment. Mid-sentence he handed me a card with the call center number. Right - a call center. Not the number for the immigration office, but for a service set up to deliver information to the immigration office on who needs an appointment.

Otto - Martha - Friedrich - Gustav.

(I'm practicing.)

It reminds me of the game Mouse Trap. The objective is to trick foreigners into making a mistake that will cost Bearbeitungsgebühr and leave the immigration office employees and their call center cohorts feeling competent and in control. Unfortunately, there is a small, definitely unwanted but barely addressed side effect: Germany's population is sinking.

Mixed Messages

I used to like flipping through the info-zine sent to me by my health insurance provider (the AOK). At least there were occasional tips on regional bike tours and colorful recipes. I was frankly impressed at any communication beyond, "Yes [or no] this is[n't] covered." Suitable bathroom reading. Then one day I stumbled across the ad for diet pills. The perfect cliché: a somber-looking woman in a white leotard, big boned but delicately featured, crouches in a dimly lit corner hugging her knees. OK, it was an advertisement. But any semi-serious publication has to use a bit more discretion. I mean, corralling women into eating disorder clinics? Isn't that expensive? I still like that they subsidize my yoga classes, but the magazine tends to land unopened in the recycling of late.

This morning another schizophrenic moment, brought to you by the Frankfurter Rundschau:

The headline on the left reads: "Climate Legislation Refused". It lightly chastises the Merkel administration for failing to enact binding measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Germany. "Great!" I thought. "Climate change hasn't completely disappeared from German consciousness, and the newspaper gives weight to Merkel critics."

To the right: Frankfurt to Dublin for 44.99 Euro round-trip.

Moment of outrage, flying breakfast cereal: "Is this an earnest attempt to inform the public, or just an opportunistic rag?"

Moment of calm, sip of juice: "Maybe the ad was subversively placed."

Word Puzzle

What do these three words have in common?

1. Kissen

2. Hafen

3. Verlängern

Hint: Many more fit the same bill.

So, you must be fluent by now?

During the opening lesson of my rookie Goethe-Institut summer school course in 2003, I was amazed I could instantly understand "Der Fisch schwimmt," "Der Ball rollt," and "Der Apfel sinkt" (if you drop it in a bowl of water).

This was the first little pearl on a string of triumphs marking my journey toward fluency. How many beads does it take to craft an artifact?

Here are a few of the milestones that followed my immersion euphoria that summer. You tell me where I became fluent. Or am I there yet?

1. Realizing why, while shopping, store employees didn't leave me alone after I shook my head. (In Germany they don't ask, "Can I help you?" but rather, "Are you doing alright?" / "Kommen Sie zu Recht?")

2. Identifying a love song on the radio.

3. Grasping snippets of a passerby's conversation on a busy sidewalk.

4. Failing to tune out background conversations at will.

5. Successfully concealing my foreign accent from a curious stranger seated next to me on a train.

6. Identifying potential nuclear waste repositories as the topic of a radio program.

7. Holding my own in a argument.

8. Word play - on purpose.

9. Passing my statistics exam.

Goals up ahead:

1. Laughing at stand-up comedy in Frisian dialect.

2. Being a statistics tutor.

3. Simultaneous translation of the tour through the archaeological excavation under the Cologne Cathedral.

Fluent sounds so final. Once you are fluent, you can't improve. But even in your native language you are never done learning, not least of all because the language itself is steadily changing.

It is like my high school calculus teacher Ms. Perkins explained: you can jump half way to a wall until the cows come home.

The ants go marching... on vacation

A recent trip to Hamburg reminded me of a favorite German poem to share. Below a translation by the late Ernest A. Seemann, followed by the original Ringelnatz.

The Ants

There once were two ants in Westphalia

Who wanted to go to Australia.

But cursing their feet

In a Belgian street

They gave up the trip as a failya.

Die Ameisen

In Hamburg lebten zwei Ameisen

die wollten nach Australien reisen.

Bei Altona auf der Chaussee

Da taten ihnen die Beine weh.

Und da verzichteten sie weise

Dann auf den letzten Teil der Reise.

More translations of Ringelnatz poems.

Frozen Delight

This week's thaw triggered a really unusual reaction in me: wait, winter could be over soon? I am not ready for hunting Easter eggs and donning rain gear. This winter felt like sliding down one long ice track, with a running start. (Like poor 1 1/2 year-old Lotte, above, on the frozen-over Alster River in Hamburg.) Isn't winter usually the time to be a sloth, to hibernate? I never got that rest; too many awe-inspiring distractions.

So, here, before it is gone, is a small photo tribute to the fairytale-like wintery whiteness that captivated me the last few months.

First, around the New Year, there was a sledding adventure - my first time sledding in ten years. And my first time ever on a real, classic wooden sled. (Our landlords wanted to throw them away, but luckily we were there as they were cleaning out their basement and could protest.) Since there are exactly three suitably inclined landscapes in all of Bonn, the crowds here were not small, but neither was the enthusiasm - regardless of age.

In late January I spent a weekend in the best possible place to enjoy snow: a small farm with a couple of puppies and a lot of antiquated equipment, made more mysterious by its heavy, white attire.

Then, back home, on a walk over the Rhine, even the ship traffic was somehow elegant covered in snow.

But, on shore, the thaw was beginning...

Auf Wiedersehen, Winter.

Carnival

I survived my first real bout of Carnival.

For five days in the middle of February (leading up to Ash Wednesday), the streets of the Rhineland are filled with drunk clowns, sailors, and bumble bees. In the past two years I resisted the madness, either by fleeing town, or just drowning out the music on the streets with my own living room beats. This year, I got swept into the heart of the chaos.


On Friday night I participated in a Cologne cultural ritual known as "Loss mer singe," (in proper German "Lass' uns singen," in English "Let us sing"). The setting: a cavernous brewery in the shadow of the massive Cologne Cathedral, in the heart of the old city. The protagonists: hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of sweaty bodies with preposterous headgear, crammed together belting out well-worn Carnival songs with insipid lyrics ("Give me your heart; I'll show you the world, na na na"). The purpose: local patriotism. Most of the songs are in the native dialect (Kölsch, or Colognish) and praise the "people with sun in their hearts" in that "friendly little city on the Rhine."

You have to be drunk to really enjoy it. (At least that is what I concluded from the corollary.)

Kölsch is about as similar to real German as Dutch or Yiddish, so, amusing to hear and try to parse out. But I couldn't actually understand much of anything amidst the whooping of the crowds and the thumping of the base. Even the waiters (carrying tiered trays of beer) had trouble getting anyone's attention despite the whistles they blew to part the crowds.

Carnival festivities here actually culminate on "Rose" Monday (Rosenmontag) in a parade featuring everyone and his brother. But after Friday night's adventure, I can't say I was too upset that Monday was a regular work day for me. (Hardly anyone here works on Carnival; however, it is officially up to employers, and mine used the caveat to keep us at the office.) But there is no way to duck the Carnival spirit. I had to dodge trucks unloading beer in the streets as I biked to work at 9 am. Then, at some point after lunch, I got a phone call.

"Good afternoon. I***M head office."

"Bonn Alaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaf!"

"Hello? Who's there?"

"Alaaaaf! Are you still at your desk? Alaaf!"

(A., my former colleague, rang to see if he couldn't pry me away from work with the traditional "alaaf" used as a greeting and a rallying cry in the Rhineland on Carnival.)

In the evening, nearing home, the crowds were still massive in the old town. As I dismounted from the bike to navigate my way through the sea of people, a bear and a clown nearly toppled me down: "Hey, there you are! We just rang your doorbell and no one answered. Can we stop off at your place to pee?"

I chatted with these two friends for a while and let them use the toilet while I helped myself to their bag of parade plunder. (Yes, even in times of economic crisis, it seems the city of Bonn did not skimp on sweets, or local business Haribo made a generous donation.) But even sweeter than the gummy bears: when they closed the apartment door behind them, I knew I wouldn't see another clown face until next year.