Hanne

10 July 2009: Entitled 'On Thursdays and Cuckoo Clocks, Fork Oil and the Signs of Growing Old'

It’s Thursday. I hate Thursdays. Of all the days of the weeks Thursday is by far the worst, like a big black vortex full of nothing-left-to-do-ness squished between the wow-the-week’s-beginning of Monday and the pheeuwph-it’s-time-to-relax of Friday. This is not the sort of thing that one should really admit (especially not before one’s 21st birthday) but I rather miss Germany’s Next Top Model. It gave purpose to the greyest day of the week. Luckily I have only one more Thursday here in Freiburg! All the rest will take place while I am traveling around and when one travels Thursdays pretend to be other days in order to be liked more. They go undercover, masquerading as ‘yesterdays’ and ‘tomorrows’. Well, works for me!

This week has been most productive in terms of new vocabulary learnt. On Monday I was chatting to a guy at running who has an old Honda in his shed that he has just rebuilt and is getting ready to sell. Sounds a bit like the story of Stephen’s Dad’s CX, it has been sitting there for yonks but now he wants to trade it for a touring bike. A 20 year old BMW, to be precise. (He looked at a VFR a while back but the guy wanted the entire price up front before anyone could test ride the machine, so that was the end of that). Anyway, I was telling him about the bike club and uni and how I sold my bike but was babysititing quite a menagerie over summer. Then I was trying to explain to him why the buyer tried to return my bike after a week and realizing that some technical vocabulary would be really useful. How does one describe forks? ‘Those things on either side of the front wheel with oil in them that cushion you when you go over bumps’. You mean an oil filter? No, I really don’t… After a couple of minutes and him naming all the possible parts of the front end he said ‘Gabeln?’. TING! In German a Gabel is a fork, the sort you eat your dinner with. Apparently it is also the sort that you find on a motorcycle. Then I came home all excited and explained this epiphany to my flatmates, who all gave me blank looks. Never mind, I am sure it will come in handy again some time in the future…

Running is really quite fun. We meet every Monday and run between 10 and 12kms in the hills of the black forest. Last week I even heard a cuckoo! A real live one, not one made out of wood. At first I thought it was a clock because we were quite close to some houses at the time. Actually, in the year 2 production at my primary school I was the ‘clock’ half of the cuckoo clock. Yep, I can still remember my lines quite well. ‘Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock’. Then the girl who was the cuckoo got to say ‘Cuckoo’ three times and we all did a little dance. So I heard ‘cuckoo’ and made this connection, but actually it would have had to be a very loud clock. Even my Grandad, who is rather deaf, has long since silenced the four cuckoo clocks in his house in order to retain his sanity. Those poor people who work in the souvineer stores selling cuckoo clocks to socks-and-sandaled foreigeners! Wonder what the turnover rate is in a job like that?

Personally I quite like the element of kitsch in such stores. But I deinately prefer the highlighter pink clocks from the ‘What The Fuck is Heimat?’ series (http://lpmdesign.de/wordpress/wp-con...ciousfront.jpg ). Pictures like these are all over Freiburg, the artist has decorated at least two bars and there are even posters in the Mensa at uni. Squirrels with grenades, Guerillas dressed in the hat traditional to this area, clocks decorated with bones and giant squid… it’s awesome! Here are a few links to some of the pictures:

http://marcellomedia.blogs.com/.a/6a...460e970c-250wi
http://ais.badische-zeitung.de/piece...6/13601350.jpg
http://www.creativeroots.org/wp-cont...ckisheimat.png
http://artschoolvets.com/news/wp-con...0145168200.jpg

Freiburg really is quite a happening place, there are so many theatre productions and art events going on every week, it can be hard to keep up with everything! Actually I am the youngest of my group of friends here, so should really be bounding all over the place and bouncing off the walls with youthful energy. Partying until dawn, playing peek-a-boo from behind the bus seats, all that sort of carry on. But alas, I too am showing signs of growing old! The clocks keep ticking and maturity is beginning to emerge and reveal its slippery tentacles. How? In the form of Earl Grey tea… I only have 5 teabags left in the box! Originally it contained 80! Luckily there is no coronation street over here but once I return to NZ it is quite possible that I will have to be forcibly restrained from changing channels at 8.30pm. Either that or I might be turning into a teacher… Oh so help me if that is the case, that must be enough blog for tonight! I think I had better retire to the kitchen to do some finger painting and eat fairy bread sandwiches.

Bis nächstes Mal,

Hanne