"Ich liebe es..."

Oh--it's already the fourth day. I can't believe we've been here this long already! Today and yesterday have been occupied with getting used to classes and the school schedule--obviously I'm still not doing so well with that since I'm up at 2 a.m. right now and class starts at 9.

Tonight we had our opening Stammtisch party at "Resch und Lieblich," a quaint wine cellar in the Altstadt that serves homemade Austrian specialties like Knodeln, Schnitzel, and German potato salad that is to die for. It was very delicious. One of the guys in our group ordered Knodeln and pig lung, which I guess is also a specialty here. (Yuck, but I actually tried a bite and it tasted OK...if it wasn't lung.)

The people here love McDonald's. They think it is the coolest thing in town, and we stopped there for lunch in between classes. It is pretty sweet. They have a bakery inside and of course, like everywhere else, one can order Stiegl beer. The hamburgers do taste a bit different. Instead of ketchup, they have on them a mayonnaise-ish sauce that tastes great, and you can tell the meat's fresher too. Austrians are also very fond of carbonation in their drinks. Everything comes with "Kohlensäure," especially the water.

I'm getting very accustomed to public transportation; Salzburg has a fantastic bus system. Even better than the relief from walking 20 minutes is the variety of characters you see while riding the bus. Everyone from packs of junior high boys to businessmen to nuns ride around town on the bus lines and it's a perfect opportunity to people watch, as well as try to eavesdrop and improve your German listening skills.

Tomorrow we have class all day, then will be touring some famous Salzburg sights. Keep an eye on my Facebook for new pictures in the next day or two.

Mass at the Salzburger Dom

It's the end of the second day, and I can't sleep! I think all of our body clocks are still catching up to the new time zone. It's only 7:30 p.m. at home, but it's 1:30 a.m. here.

This morning, Zach B and I walked to mass at the Salzburger Dom. Although excited to see the famous church, we had hoped for a slightly closer one. However, the 45 minute walk there was full of new sights. We took Alpenstrasse into the Altstadt and enjoyed many colorful houses on the way. We've come to discover that we live in a very residential area of town called "Sud-Salzburg", which is really neither in the Altstadt or the Neustadt. (Old-Town and New-Town). Our part of town is a bit far from most of the sights, but is full of locals, rather than tourists, which makes for a unique experience.

We arrived at the Dom-Platz around 9:30, just as the Archbishop was starting the procession out of the church, since it was Palm Sunday. One of the biggest differences that I noticed was that the locals bring their own palms--decorated flower arrangements with colorful ribbons perched atop a tall stick, somewhat like a maypole--rather than the flat palms we are given in America. Zach and I grabbed a few leafy branches out of the bin--meant for the losers that didn't make it to the floral shop that morning, I guess. After the Archbishop said a few prayers, he led everyone on a walk in a circle around the Dom-Platz, before leading us all inside.

The church was packed full, and of course extremely beautiful. The Salzburger Dom was built in 1628 over the site of an older church that dated to the 900s. You can still see remnants of this older church--in objects like the baptismal font. Mozart was the organist at the cathedral for two years during his early career and the church boasts tall organs on the second level. The pews were very old and the kneelers were unfortunately very hard and uncomfortable.

For the most part, mass felt very familiar. I understood some of what they were saying, simply because I knew exactly what it was in English. The Petitions and much of the consecration was easy to comprehend. However, the gospel was completely sung by their fantastic choir that, as much as I hate to say it, puts ours to shame. I wonder what the audition process is like for the Salzburger Dom choir, and whether the singers are paid. The Palm Sunday gospel took about a half hour and when it was over, we felt as if we'd heard a free concert. The other big difference about mass in Salzburg was the whole communion process. They didn't have ushers dismiss us; we didn't even dismiss row by row. The priests just came down with communion and it was kind of a free for all. Everybody walked up and crowded around, waiting their turn. It came as kind of a surprise, as the rest of the mass was so orderly and formal.

After mass, we broke up the long walk back with kababs at one of the only restaurants that was open on Sundays. The kabab was kind of like a sandwich-gyro on a large roll, with all of the usual toppings. I was surprised to find that the store owner thought we were British students. We have definitely decided to go back there, and bring others next time, because the food was cheap and really good.

After church, I lay down for what was supposed to be a short nap and ended up lasting the whole afternoon--I was really tired. We spent this evening hanging out in the dorm lobby again. Tomorrow morning we start class--hope it's not too difficult!

We're here..finally!

After a loooong trip, we're all finally here. Actually, it's midnight our time and we've been here since about noon, so I've had about 12 hours to get acclimated to this unfamiliar and beautiful place.

The plane ride was intense. I've never been out of the country before, so I've definitely never had to sit still on a plane that long. It's tougher than you'd think to sleep. And I think we were flying against a lot of turbulence, because on the electronic tracker map they gave us on our TV, I watched us slowly lose time, and at one point, we didn't make any forward progress for about 45 minutes! But it was all worth it at sunrise, when we descended over Munich and saw the gorgeous German countryside.

It's been an interesting day. The city is so ornate; it looks like something right out of a fairytale...and we haven't even seen the Altstadt yet! When Shireen and I landed, we took a bus from Munich to Salzburg: about an hour and a half trip through the cutest little Bavarian German towns ever. We met a lady on the bus who didn't speak any English and I was actually able to communicate with her, which was encouraging. When I told her I was an American student, she asked me whether I was from California or New York. She'd never heard of Ohio before!

Once we got settled in, it was time to go grocery shopping. My roommate Laura and I went down the street to Hofer (the German version of Aldi) and it was definitely an experience. The food is really cool and there's really no brands that you would expect. Plus, there's tons of cheap wine that costs like a euro, 20 cents. The cashier kind of screamed at me when my Mastercard didn't go through and we realized once we checked out that we didn't have enough bags with which to carry back our groceries. We stuffed most of them into Laura's purse, but unfortunately, sidewalk/dorm lobby casualties included Laura's jug of Mineralwasser and bottle of red wine! (We cleaned it up.) Lesson learned: always carry enough bags to the market! They are not free. Neither are the shopping carts. You have to pay a euro to use them.

We went to a little pizza place for dinner, where the help was very nice, but then we headed back early, since everyone is tired from jet lag. Tomorrow we must go buy a plug adapter, since the ones we brought aren't compatible, and a hair dryer, since we just blew the fuse in our bathroom trying to turn it on!

This is without a doubt, the biggest thing I've ever undertaken, I think. Nothing's completely foreign, but every little thing is just a little different, from the beer in the dorm vending machines to the welcome mats that almost every room has outside the door. I like it though; it's very quaint. Tomorrow at least Zach and I are headed to the Salzburger Dom for church. Will write more then.

Beloved and Loss

African-American Lit: Didn't love the class, but am still glad I took it because it introduced me to some excellent poetry and novels. Charles Chesnutt, Toni Morrison, and Nikki Giovanni are some of the best writers of our country's history and I feel pleased to have gotten to know them a little better this quarter. Here's an essay I wrote on Beloved. Not as good as The Bluest Eye, but still a worthwhile read.

Since the dawn of the first slave trade, African-Americans have experienced loss. Coming to the New World from a faraway land and brought against their will, they were forced to set aside their own language and culture and dedicate their lives to serving white men. Because of this, a large part of their culture and civilization, not to mention their individual dignity and self-respect, has been greatly compromised. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, the main characters confront their ancestors’ legacy of loss through their own experiences with losing what is dear to them. Throughout the novel, loss of name, loss of family bonds and loss of identity define the main characters; however, they learn to overcome loss and accept it as a part of their lives.

It is apparent from the beginning of the novel that the main characters in Beloved have unusual names. As the story unfolds, the reader is told more about the origin of each character’s name and why it is important to his or her history. For instance, Baby Suggs, who is called Jenny by Mr. and Mrs. Garner, does not realize that Jenny is her real name, but rather, identifies herself by what her former husband always called her: Baby. Also, over half of the slave men at Sweet Home are named Paul, reinforcing the general lack of individuality that comes with a slave life. When Sethe’s oldest daughter is born, she goes until her death, which is at least at nine months of age, without a proper name. The small child is not given a name until Sethe must have one engraved on the headstone, and chooses, “Beloved.” A name is something personal and special, something that often defines a person in society. By keeping the real names of their slaves ambiguous, slave owners are able to downplay the slaves’ humanity and individuality. The one character who is very deliberately named is Denver, but she, too, gets her name from a white person: the young white girl who helped Sethe deliver her baby in a canoe. The loss of name individuality in this novel serves as an underlying reminder that the lives of the main characters have not been their own, but have been controlled since birth by white members of society who see them as inferior and unable to make important life decisions for themselves.

Apparent from the beginning in this book is the fact that slavery and its immediate aftermath have split up the families of the main characters. Baby Suggs lost track of seven of her eight children when they were sold off of her plantation. Sethe’s two young boys have run off, although the reader later finds out that they left out of a sense of fear. Sethe herself never truly had a relationship with her own mother, who was hung when she was a small child. In her article “Beloved and the Problem of Mourning,” Heffernan talks about the collective “lost” and the difficulty that it creates for the family structure. “How do we read the story of the ‘unaccounted for?’ Morrison’s novel is a testament to this untranslatable loss, a loss that is embodied in Beloved, and that explains, in part, why Sethe cannot tell her story.” (Heffernan, 561) The most glaring example of a disregard to family bonds comes when a fourteen-year-old Sethe wishes to be properly married to Halle. She hopes to have a minister conduct a ceremony, and perhaps have a small dinner to celebrate, but Mrs. Garner does not allow her any legal or religious recognition of the marriage; Sethe simply moves into Halle’s cabin. At the time in America, marriage was a privilege central to good morality. Men and women were not supposed to sleep together before they were married in a proper ceremony, and it was considered shocking if they did. Mrs. Garner’s astonishment at Sethe’s request to make things honorable is further proof that these slaves were not seen as true human beings, but rather, seen as objects incapable of feeling emotion or celebrating normal rites of passage. With little or no family bonds, the main characters in this book are weaker and less able to confront the world. Relationships in their lives are transient from the beginning; because of slave trades they are unable to form strong support systems with blood relatives and friends. However, in some ways, this story is a testament to humanity, and shows that people will form meaningful bonds, even when their life circumstances make it very difficult. For instance, although she lost Halle, Sethe continues a good relationship with Baby Suggs and Denver at 124.

In Beloved, the characters not only experience a loss of name and a loss of familial bonds, they experience an overwhelming loss of humanness. One of the most defining moments in Sethe’s life is when she hears the schoolteacher describing her “animal characteristics” to one of his pupils. She never forgets that and is constantly reminded that through the eyes of her white owners, she is not seen as a true person. However, because the Garners are relatively benevolent, Sethe is sent mixed messages throughout the novel, such as the time when Mrs. Garner gives her the crystal earrings. The crystal earrings are very important to the novel, because they continue to stand for the one shred of humanity that Sethe feels she can keep for herself. Nevertheless, Sethe is assaulted and mistreated by the schoolteacher’s men while she is pregnant and realizes that she will never truly be free. This revelation is part of what drives her to commit infanticide when she comes to 124. Because she feels that her child will never have a sense of humanity or identity in the world, she is able to more easily kill her. This revelation is perhaps very similar to how her mother felt, when she killed every baby she had by a member of the crew that took her from Africa. In this novel, African-Americans are taught early that their lives do not mean as much as the lives of white people. This brings them to take drastic actions in order to prevent their children from having the same fate. In his article “The house the ghost built: Nommo, allegory, and the ethics of reading in Toni Morrison’s Beloved,” Handley suggests that the loss of Beloved (and her humanity) represents the deeper, more collective loss of the African-American people, as they were taken from their homelands, stripped of their traditions, and brought to the New World as slaves. “The figure of Beloved is Morrison’s attempt to figure a lost child, to fill the incalculable, metaphysical space inaugurated by the historical facts of loss during the Middle Passage and slavery. But as the section that serves as Beloved’s narrative autobiography shows us, her story is constituted as much by loss as by presence, much as silent rests are constitutive of music.” (Handley, 686-687)

In spite of these deeply scarring and life-changing losses of identity, the main characters in this book, particularly Denver, Sethe, and Baby Suggs, find ways to deal and cope with loss, particularly as it relates to death. In Dobbs’ article “Toni Morrison’s Beloved: Bodies Returned, Modernism Revisited,” she explores this theme, citing a conversation that Sethe and Denver have early in the novel. “Denver says, ‘If it’s still there, then it must mean that nothing ever dies,’ to which Sethe replies, ‘Nothing ever does.’ Given the haunting of 124 and the return of Beloved in the flesh, Sethe’s denial of death seems to commensurate with the world that Morrison invents.” (Dobbs, 568) In this passage, Denver is speaking of the ghost of Beloved. Dobbs believes that mourning, loss, and memory are central to the novel’s themes, and through the living ghosts, the pain of loss is slightly alleviated. The return of Beloved, although for a relatively short time, is what ultimately brings closure to Sethe’s crime and loss. She experiences what Baby Suggs knew toward the end of her life, that there is a world after death, that spirits live, and that in the end, there is a way to redeem oneself.

Loss holds the main characters in this book captive because it is all they have ever known. Therefore, it is an emotion that is multifaceted and manifests itself in many different ways throughout the course of the novel. Loss of name and loss of familial bonds lead to the much more serious loss of humanness and identity. Without a true sense of value for human life, the main characters find it difficult at times to love and care for one another emotionally. They were never encouraged to be human. Through Beloved’s return, Sethe and Denver are reassured that there is life on the other side. When Beloved leaves at the end of the novel, Sethe is once again left with a feeling of emptiness, and wonders if Beloved was really ever there at all. However, it is clear that Beloved’s short time with Sethe and Denver brought closure to and broke the chains of an old loss. For the first time, through dealing with her death, return, and eventual departure, Sethe and Denver will be able to finally live and love as human beings.