Long walk west along the Elbe and Tour of the Rathaus(town hall)

A few weekends ago, it was very nice out (17.5C/63.5F and sunny), so I was outside a lot. On Friday, I ended up on a long walk westwards, following the parks along the Elbe and on Sunday, I went on a tour of the Rathaus(town hall) with the other students in my German course. Which is very affordable, by the way (2 or 4 euros for a tour, depending on whether you go with a large group or not).

I. Rathaus
A bit about the Rathaus. Hamburg had a huge fire in 1842 that burnt down a large swath of the city, including the old Rathaus. The rebuilt sometime within the next 20 years, and worked pretty hard at making the thing reflect their status as a wealthy/powerful city/state.

The Rathaus from outside. Pretty, not overly ostentatious:

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I got there a bit early and wandered around a little, also coming across this WWI monument nearby:

Trans: 40,000 sons of the city gave their lives for you

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The WWI remembrances I've seen are bigger than the WWII ones. The WWII things are smaller. Lots of small plaques on buildings or in front of doorways. Not sure why.

So, something complicated about Hamburg (which it shares with Berlin): it is both a city and a 'state'(Bundesland). As a result, it has both kinds of government, a parliament and senate.  Our tour started on the parliament (or 'less fancy')side.

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The ceiling of the stairwell was bordered by murals of an ideal Burgher's life:

Which apparently has something to do with a mermaid (LL corner)

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Parliament assembly room:

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Room where I think guests of the Parliament sit/wait/are met with:

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And then we entered the Senate side. The doors involved are plain-ish on the Parliament side and super fancy on the Senate side (like so:)

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We were told to take notice of the walls, which were quite richly...covered? I'd say ''papered'', but it's not paper. It's leather (in this case):

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On an adjacent wall, a man wearing traditional Senate dress. It weighed ~30kilos and was never washed, only powdered. Ew.

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I liked the very nautical touches to the sort of classical-style adornments. For instance, a ceiling mural with...walruses?

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This was part of a huge room that included this plaque commemorating a canal dug between the North and East Seas (represented by the ladies holding hands):

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And the ceiling was surrounded by representations of the continents as reliefs that framed paintings of harbor cities that were then part of Germany/Prussia. I liked the continents best, and will just leave them here and you can figure them out :)

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And a nice representation of the seal of the city of Hamburg:

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In the next room was perhaps one of the more pretentious things there:

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 Clearly the Hamburgish version of "SPQR"(Senators Populusque Romanus - The senate and people of Rome). Apparently the "H" is "Hamburgensis".  I chuckled at this and pointed it out to my classmate, and how I found it a bit pretentious. The way the tour guide translated it to German was interesting; 'Populus' as 'Bürgerschaft', which can mean both citizens and the city-level parliament.

Then a fancy circular room with murals of important cities. I think this one was somehow Amsterdam (If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears, as to why this should be Amsterdam):

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Ah. These doors were worked out of some weird Aluminum-Bronze alloy that somehow required electricity to be worked. Which in the mid 1850s was a bit expensive I suppose, and maybe dangerous. So, each door cost something like 10,000 euros a piece, and of course there were at least 8 pairs of them around:

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More leather walls, now with some metal worked in:

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And in that room, above a fireplace, the Muse of History, writing Hamburg's.

trans(roughly): Who had done the best in his time had lived enough for all time

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The next room contained sort of memorials to the burnt down Rathaus and parts of town. That included this, which was a safe full of silver blocks that someone forgot in the basement of the previous Rathaus:

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Also, I couldn't get any closer to this, sadly, but it's a map of Hamburg and the areas marked in red are what burned down in 1842:

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Here's something from Wikipedia as well.

The entrance to the Senate side:

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The final huge room was quite tall, and surrounded by murals of the history of Hamburg. The start was just marsh and water, then early settlement

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..working over to this delightful one:

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The story: Originally, this contained a bishop blessing a kneeling person who is presumably a Hamburg resident. The people of Hamburg protested that no person of Hamburg would kneel before the church! So, they told the artist to remove the guy kneeling. As a result, you have a church procession with the lead guy blessing...the ground? Nice. The four statues below are supposed to signify traits of the ideal Hamburg(er):  wise, learned, strong and quick. (owl, books, lion skin, bees)

Then on to trading with ships

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and a nice picture of old ships on the left and new ones on the right:

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On our way out we passed this lion on the edge of the staircase, holding the seal of Hamburg:

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II. Walk along the Elbe parks
 On Friday, I walked along the parks lining the Elbe. Crocuses are already blooming:

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Looking the other way, sloping grass-covered hill watched over by cranes

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A better view of the cranes, which are quite brightly colored:

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I guess if you have to have machinery, at least it's colorful.
Here's a view of the harbor, from closer to the water:

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Once by the water and walking along it, came across a patch of very old buildings. Probably the oldest I've seen in Hamburg.

Old house and the path I walked along

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Kooky old house

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More old houses of varying styles

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These houses, along the Elbe, had this path in front of them and then in front of that path was a small yard associated to each house. Some of the yards were...peculiar. For instance, the remains of a ship model used in a newer filming of Moby Dick:

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This one had a cool chair thing in a tree:

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Oh, yes. And an easter egg tree:

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On German Easter(Ostern) traditions -- Trees adorned with eggs, usually with the insides ''blown out'' and then the shells painted. When Easter comes, painted eggs are hidden for the kids to find, or chocolate eggs (which are wrapped in foil). I explained how in the States we usually use plastic eggs stuffed with candy, which didn't excite anyone here. They also have a big bonfire on Easter Sunday or Easter Monday. Announcements of the bonfire say ''Ostern Feuer'', where ''Feuer" means "fire" and "fire" is roughly how you say ''Feier'' (which is ''Party'').

After a while, finally managed to walk past the very old houses and all of the cranes, to a beach:

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And hung around long enough to watch the sun set over the Elbe:

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Show's over, folks

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Start of Term

The last two weeks has been busy, stressful, surreal, with some fun thrown in.

O. Housing 
I spent a few days freaking out about where I would be living this month. It worked out, but now I have a lease for only three months. On the upside, the woman I am renting from (and sharing a flat with) might decide to let me extend it. This all hinges on whether she'll continue living there or not. She just (the day I met her and saw the apartment) ended her career as a Psychologist, and is figuring out what happens next. For those of you who've been to Santa Fe, NM or Sedona, AZ, she would fit right in there.  I'll take a picture to illustrate at some point, but, it suffices to say that the peonies on my room's (rather spacious) balcony are kept company by a seated buddha (maybe 1.5 ft tall), and the corner of my room that the balcony is not attached to is decorated in yellow things and coins in some usage of Feng Shui, while Ganesha reclines on a shelf by the front door, accompanied by some wooden dolphins. It's very pleasant.  Oh, yes. It's also adjacent to where I work. And yet, I have a balcony overlooking gardens and trees. Very clever design, whoever put the block together. My neighbors all have children, which is a bit loud around dinner/after dinner and on weekends, but is nicely quiet after 9pm or so.

I. Teaching/beginning of term. 
In case you are wondering, even with my (sometimes seemingly) Herculean efforts at getting to a passable fluency in German, teaching in it is a whole other story. Yesterday was day 1 of our term (and the last day is in July), and I am running problem/discussion sessions for two courses, Complex Function Theory (math majors only) and Math for CS II (linear algebra and calculus).  Yesterday was the Complex Function Theory, which was a free form kind of day because the homework exercises had not been handed out yet. If it were in English, that would be fine, but I agreed to this assuming I could teach somewhat in German (otherwise, I'd be teaching something a bit harder, mathematically).

On the upside, the kids seem reasonably bright, attentive, and a smattering of them speak good English. Not all of them, based on the blank looks given to me when I would lapse into a complete sentence in English.

Important things learned during class:

• Even if I could say everything I needed to in German, their muttering to each other is still in German, which I don't have quite the ear for yet, and find it hard to tell (so far) if they're lost, or snarking, or what. :/
• So, there's 'time' in German, which is "Zeit" and 'time', as in 'occurance' (one time, two times) in German, which is "Mal".  Like English, to say "2 x 3", you say "2 times 3", i.e. ''zwei mal drei''. 
• Fractions.  3/4 is ''3 durch 4'', literally ''3 through 4'', short for ''3 geteilt durch 4'' (3 divided by 4). 
• Greek letters.  Theta = Tee-ta,  pi is ''pee''. Thankfully alpha and beta are about the same. I haven't asked about the rest. 
• Verknüpfung = operation. As in, a field is a set with two operations, addition and mulitiplication = Ein Körper ist eine Menge mit zwei Verknüpfungen, Addition und Multiplikation. 
• ''Given A..." is "Angenehm A..." which is not quite literal, but sensible. 

During class, I (heroically?) managed to get myself to say "e^{i \theta}" without ''swapping'' letter names. That is, the German name for "e" is "ay" (as in, the English name for the letter "a") and the German name for the letter "i" is "eee".

The other class I'm teaching is run by someone who is a bit of a control freak, so I have problems given to me, as well as solutions (including some complete German sentences, which are very helpful for me) and ''scripts'' (the lecture notes) which are printed and bound nicely. I feel a bit spoiled, I admit.

A note on computer science. Our CS department at U New Mexico was quite good, I think, as was the one at U Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  However, here...there is this weird conception (which has been brought up by at least 3 people around me) that the CS majors here are ''failed mathematicians'',  that is, quite bad at math of any kind, and also kind of dumb. I am pretty perplexed by this. If you're any good at programming, you have to understand modularization, that is, taking a big problem and breaking it into smaller pieces to solve it. This is effectively what you do when tackling a proof. Same kind of analytical thought.

II. Language classes
Man, talk about an instance of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing.
So, unlike what I might expect, things here really don't run by internet. Sure, there may be a website and it may claim to have information, but the information is usually incomplete, and any requests for more information (say, by email) are answered very slowly (up to a week) and then they ask you to call them or even come see them in person.

The reason I took the intensive two-week German course was in part to prep for teaching but also because it was the only thing I could find.

Turns out, there's a network of 'Volkshochschule' (roughly, community colleges/places that run adult or continuing ed classes). One of them works in conjunction with Uni Hamburg (and the other universities around, to some extent) to coordinate the Deutsch als Fremdsprache (German as a Foreign Language) courses. This was the thing whose website I went to to register, and who I asked then if they would have, say, a B2 level german class during the term, since there weren't any listed on their website. Answer: No, but I could travel around the lake (which is a 2.85 euro train/bus ride, or 30 minutes by bike, based on the traffic we have here) to another Uni and take it there (Monday nights only, for 2.5 hrs).

However, I had heard (from my officemate) of another Volkshochschule, down the street. So, I also asked them, and got a completely different answer. All of their courses had already started, two weeks or a month ago, but if I came in (of course) I could take a placement test and then see if one of the courses would match my schedule. Even with starting a month in, it would still be cheaper to do this than go to some other school, so it makes sense. I go in, take the test, and sign up for one in Harburg. I went yesterday, and didn't quite make it. It took some work to get to Harburg, and I still had another 15 minutes left of walking in the rain to try to find the place when I gave up and decided I didn't want to make this round trip twice a week (at about 12 euros a week and ~45min each way, for 3 months, it adds up).  The trip (~20 km):

Größere Kartenansicht

Result? Heck if I know. Rock and a hard place. Do I take the course that meets once a week?  Seems like it wouldn't be that helpful. My current plan for tomorrow is to go to the Volkshochschule around the corner from here during their ''office hours'' tomorrow and talk with them, then go from there.  I applied through the university for a ''tandem'' partner (someone who's native German-speaker who wants to learn English, and we can swap) and have heard nothing. The libraries all have German conversation hours, but I don't know if they're supervised by a native German speaker or if it's just a bunch of nonnative speakers trying to be mutually intelligible.

III. Miscellaneous Culture commentary 


Math/mathy people/people with Ph.D's: It came up in conversation with my classmates in German class that I have a Ph.D. in math, as most of the rest of them are Erasmus students (study-abroad, within Europe) either getting Bachellor's or Master's degrees.  Surreally enough, I was applauded (German-university-style, by rapping the table with one's knuckles) for this, that is, for having a Ph.D. in mathematics.

Beer: Germany is proud of its beer, I suppose. As a result, you can buy any kind of German beer you want. Hefe-Weizen, Weizen, Pils, Schwarz Bier (neither a stout nor a porter...don't ask me) and lager. From various regions of Germany. The only imported beer I have seen with any regularity has been Guinness and Carlsberg/Tuborg (which is probably because we're pretty close to Denmark).   No Belgian beer, or British beer, or anybody else's beer. I find this peculiar. Also, disappointing. Wine selection is not as limited; French, Spanish, German, Italian, New Zealandish (yes, I can buy yellow tail here as well if I wanted) and some South American stuff.

Bicycles: So, as was said to me in discussion about this, in Denmark (and the Netherlands), bicycles are treated as traffic, similar to cars, whereas here, bicycles are treated as traffic, similar to pedestrians. That is, there are bike lanes, but they exist as red-bricked sections of the sidewalk, not separate paths/sections of street. The pedestrians are overall pretty good about staying off the paths, and the cars do a good job of watching out for bikes when they're pulling out or in to parking spots/lots.

Some benefits of knowing (some) German: While loading up my bike one day, a kid flew by on his bike and nearly clipped me and the old man walking along maybe 2 or 3 meters from me. The guy muttered something in German and I nodded agreement. He then asked me if I'm a Hamburger(in) (in German) and, as I'm not, where I'm from (with a construction I hadn't heard before: "Wo kommst du her?" -- I'm used to "Woher" being one word). He then said "Ich mag nicht den USA" and muttered something that sounded like him being in the Hitler youth (!) and something about Rommel (the Desert Fox) something something and how he didn't like the CIA. It was...surreal. I wanted to get to the store before it closed, so I said I was sorry, I needed to go (in German) and he paused, then asked something like ''Weißt du, der kleinste Dom?"  (Do you know the smallest Dôm (Cathedral)?) I shook my head 'no' and he said "ConDOM''.

Things I miss: Now, a place to really settle in to. I have lived now 5 different places over the last year (2 in Urbana, 1 in Copenhagen and 2 here), 6 if you count my stay in Boston pre-Europe-flight and post-Urbana-semester. :) It'd be nice to be somewhere long enough to feel like I could buy my own things. But I don't know for sure for sure if I'll be in Hamburg more than 1 year. And I don't have a long term place to live yet. :/

In closing, here's the Alster on a sunny day (17.5 C) two weekends ago. It goes along with a trip to the city hall, but I'm running out of steam, so I'll write about that later:

From Germany 2012-2013

Language Exam/Learning, Work, and a Bicycle

I. Language stuff:

(a) This week, I took the official (online) language-placement exam to determine which German course I can take at the university.  It was 8 pages, each with a paragraph, each sentence rather long but with 5-10 words mostly removed, that you had to fill in something sensible for. That is, something like (if it were in English): 

``When more than half of the w_____ po_______ wakes _____ Thu_____ – the 101st Int______ Wo_____ Day – _____ be hard to k____ whether to c______ or _______ to d_____. A Bri____ woman will f____ the pr_____ of ____ 14 more gen____ ele____ before women _____ men in the C_____. ''
 

[The ''answer'' is the first paragraph here] 

5 minutes per page. It gave me a bit of a headache by the end, and I couldn't believe how hard it was. If you do speak some German, you can try an example version of the test here. 

Result: Level B1: ''Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.'' If interested, you can read the level descriptions here.

(b) Today, I started an intensive German course, 4 ''hours'' a day (where each ''hour'' is an academic hour, meaning 45 minutes) for two weeks. There was a bit of a mixup which caused us (the students) to show up at 9am and the instructor to show up at 9:15, intending to teach at 9:30am. The class ran until 13:00, with a pause of 20 minutes in the middle for a snack or fast lunch from the cafe downstairs.   The makeup of the class is largely female, largely Italian, and largely ''Erasmus'' students, which is an EU study-abroad program (however, not all of the class was female, Italian, and Erasmus; just any one of those categories contains a number of people which is ~half the class). Two other women are also in math, and one also a postdoc. That was neat. Also, I mistake Italian for Spanish when overhearing other people speaking; I mentioned this and was told that it's common. 

We covered various things, some of which I did much better than at than my classmates and others that I am rustier on. At the break, the instructor told me that my level is more like B2, and asked me how long I've been studying German. 


Level B2: ''Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options."






II. Work 
I ''officially'' started work on Thursday, which means that that's when I start being considered as someone they'll pay. Huzzah :). However, I found out on Tuesday that my proof of employment for Illinois was not enough (which I'd had sent months ago, and she could've mentioned then, or when I saw her last), so I had to write a draft and have the correct person send it. Information they needed were exact dates (e.g. starting August 15th, 2004 instead of just August 2004) and salary/year. Also, name of position(s) and associated duties. Now that that is done, either this paycheck or the next will be higher than I originally anticipated -- my 7.5 years in grad school count as work experience for the job and raise my pay grade. 

Here's the building I work in (the Geomatikum):

From Germany 2012-2013

It has 18+2 stories. That's floors EG, TG, 1-18. EG = Erdgeschoss = ground floor, and TG=? Technikgeschoss, maybe? Not sure what's on that floor. I suppose I could go look. There are two banks of elevators, one for only odd floors and one for only evens. Good system.

Here's a view from my office, on a nice day:

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The other day, I saw the following parked by the Geomatikum, and have seen it around town. Maybe only Americans will find the name funny:

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On the walk in to the Geomatikum from my (current) corner of Altona, I pass the following weird/creepy and out-of-place photo booth, nestled amidst chain link fence, in front of a rough-hewn fence:

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III. Bicycle!
Saturday, I went to Flohmarkt Flohschanze, a Flea market (Floh = flea, like in English) a pleasant 1.4km away on the edge of St. Pauli.  I think 'schanze' refers to the street 'Sternschanze', which is trendy and punk, and lies around the corner from where the flea market is held.  I went looking to find a decent bicycle. The very first one I found would've been great, but it had the seat lowered as much as  possible and was still too high for me. After that, I tried about 5 or so different bikes from another guy, all in the 70-90 euro range, and all with some things wrong that I don't feel like dealing with (especially not knowing what it would cost here). Legally here, bikes have to have self-powered lights, which is nice.  I walked around a bit more and through to the sort of back side of the flea market, and there was a set of bikes, clean and looking in good order, including two Peugots (one a women's bike, and one a men's road bike). 2 women were there before me, asking about the bikes and when I was asking after them, yet another person came up to ask about it. I test road it, and they had to play with it a bit (the wires had come a bit loose, so the front light wasn't working), and then I  bought it. Relatively painless, all in all. 


 I then bought a helmet, pump, basket and bike grease from the nice people at RadundTat (play on words: Rad = bicycle, Rat = advice,  ''Rat und Tat'' ~ help and advice). Today, I attached the basket before heading out for German class. I'm considering also buying a basket for the front, for greater carrying capacity. The baskets are very affordable. This giant one I got for the back (with its own kit of mounting hardware and allan wrench) was only 20 euros, and the smaller baskets were 10. 

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IV. Mexican food!


No, really. Cafe Mexico.  The owners come from Mexico City, I think (so says the review). It's nested by a weird everything-shop where I bought a european-style wallet (it has a coin pouch, which is crucial). I had Chicken Enchiladas with Molé. They make their own corn tortillas, use black (somewhat refried) beans, creme fraiche instead of sour cream, and just-right sized portions. Yum.