First Day of School - Tuesday, September 1

My first day at the Goethe Institute, and the teacher for my class reminds me of one of my favorite professors, a sharp-witted, good-humored, loud-voiced prof. I had for French phonetics one summer at the U.W. Big walrus of a guy.

Since the point of it is to teach us as much German as fast as possible, the class is conducted all auf Deutsch, and since I've been here less than a week, am still getting over jet-lag, and don't know much German to begin with it is quite an exercise for my tired brain. Just like Hannah's 4th floor walk-up works out my flabby thighs (since the rooms have 20-foot ceilings, each floor requires TWO flights of stairs...) I am by far the oldest in the class although I've seen a few other middle-aged people wandering around the Institute in a daze similar to mine. One woman creates the most amazing lip-line for herself with bright red lipstick...and tops off the look with a thirties-style hat that looks like a mangled Hershey's kiss hugging her head. How do they make buckram DO that?

Eventually I am hoping to explore the Mitte area extensively after class, but this first day I was so tired I went home and napped. I stayed up too late reading and now have to get up at 6:30 in order to walk Maggie before getting ready for school. It was very hot again today, which is also fatiguing.

I spent a few hours combing apartment listings, then walked Maggie down some new streets over towards the river, past a grim 19th-c. brick church with a weedy yard and a paving project going on in the back - yellow tape and blue tarps did not add to its already minimal appeal.

We trudged back up the stairs to the apartment only to realize we were going to be out of dog food by morning so I ended the day with my first solo trip to the Kaufland supermarket, where I had my first encounter with the bottle (glass and plastic) recycling machine. Since I am a functional illiterate here, I watched what other people did and began feeding our bottles into the cylindrical opening. Nothing happened. I put in another bottle or two. Nothing happened. A young man in a red jumpsuit appeared and patiently pointed to the LED display on the machine, which of course I was unable to decipher. Apparently this one was full; he switched to English and said "stop putting bottles in the machine." I have such empathy for immigrants! It is so frustrating to be at this level with a language, to feel stupid. I didn't even know the word for "dog food" and so had to wander the aisles, just looking. It worked - one can get by day to day without the language - but it was certainly inefficient, and not much fun. I learned a lot about the German grocery store, however, and discovered (although I did not purchase) a kind of bread called "Bio-Dinkel-Sesam-Knabberli."

I am halfway through a novel called "The Orphan Game," the only book I brought with me so I'd have something to read on the plane. When I finish it I'm planning to stretch my brain with some historical texts Hannah has lent me, beginning with a weighty tome entitled "The Rise of Western Christendom." I am hoping for a year of transformation on many levels of my life, certainly the physical and intellectual. This should help!