CH2. Life in Germany 12: Random Activities and Living Life

Hello, Tim!
Life is a bliss when it comes to convenience here in Taiwan, especially when almost all is still open and people can roam almost wherever you want as long as you have a mask on your face.
Alas, it isn't really the kind of holiday where you can simply go all out and set off on an adventure of free spirit and boundless roaming, for there are still projects for the school to be done, and adequate resting along with family quality time are important, as well.

CH2. Life in Germany 11: Released and Active

Hello, Tim!
This week we are going to carry on with the quarantine - and how I eventually got released, wreaking havoc across the land already upon the recuperation of liberty (I did nothing illegal, though). The weather hasn't been steady - sunny on one day and pouring on the following one.

CH2. Life in Germany 10: Quarantine Life and Call Me by Your Name

Hello, Tim!
Life in quarantine, even when it is done in my place with the company of a human being, has been hard. My time indoors is almost up at this point this entry was written, and I really can't wait.

CH2. Life in Germany 9: Later! Germany and the Plunge into Quarantine

Hello, Tim!
We finished off the previous letter by concluding that I would have to come back to Taiwan and endure firstly, a fourteen-day quarantine. And this week was when it began.

CH2 Life in Germany 8: Corona and Going Off-Course

Hello, Tim!
It is true that I have been stalling the updates of the blog, given that I am actually a guy with so much indoor time to spend. Believe it or not, it feels nice to have someone egging you on that pushes you back on course after an unofficial hiatus. This letter was written to recount the events happening between the 9th of March to the 15th, just for the record and the sake of confusion avoidance.

CH2 Life in Germany 7: Kaiserslautern and One Book Read

Hello, Tim!
This week, all the weight of the studies have been lifted from my shoulders, and I can finally put more focus on my blog... or not. You'll see why at the end of the letter, or maybe you have figured out what it's about already.

Tuesday Day for Blowing off Steam

It was out of impulse, when I decide that I was to do something for myself on the day. I had no class to attend to, no group meetings for the project, and I was desperate to have some fresh air pumped into my lungs that was filled with indoor inactivity.

I was scrolling across the timetable of the trains I could opt to take on a half-day trip, and I saw a place called Kaiserslautern, west to Mannheim. No research, no extra fuss or indecision, and I was already packing to leave.

The trip took roundabout and hour and a half, and half of it was passed while talking to Melody on the phone.

Kaiserslautern gave me a more Mannheim-like feeling, Mannheim but less visited and more slow-paced.

The research as to where to go to was only done on the train. There on the map pinpointed with a green tree icon read "Japanischer Garten" which was, intuitively, the Japanese Garden. It showed pictures with architecture that scream "Japan" and I felt like this would be my ultimate goal for the day.

Due to a lacking of breakfast and insufficient planning, the first sense of basic human need that I felt after disembarking was hunger. Through the alleys of the rather tranquil residence area, I sauntered slowly through the chilly, free air whilst hunting for food. In an Italian restaurant, I found something worthy of trying: a bowl of pasta topped with a piece of pizza dough. I would want you to imagine how you make a pasta gratin. You prepare the pasta, and afterwards, you fill it in a heat-compatible ceramic bowl, top it with mozzarella cheese, bake and serve. The dish I mentioned was of the same kind of idea, but instead of having cheese as the upper layer, it was a piece of soft, oily dough that was capped above the pasta. It was soft and was able to entangle with the pasta when you twist it with your fork. The whole piece of dough felt like an extra portion of pasta, and I waled out of the diner with a satisfied belly.

Something I might potentially try in the future

How it looks on the inside

Homemade tiramisu

I wasn't expecting it to be that cold, to be frank, and neither did I expect to see some hail falling, but none of those were ever going to stop me from reaching the destination I wanted to see. 

And it turned out to be a classic Hugo day... the Garden was closed. Somehow, the fact that this garden stays closed throughout winter and all the way until the end of March was left omitted on the Google Map, and I was standing at the gate, staring point blank at the torii, the red dome-shaped structure characteristic of Japanese architecture. The plate at the gate told us that the Japanese garden will be back With the public soon after the winter break. Rather dismayed, I walked on, becoming aimless for the moment. 

The Japanese Garden opens on the first of April!!

What I could only capture when poking my phone through the gate.

I walked to a small grassy community designed with a grid-like layout. Each grid comes with a miniature one-man row house and a rather big garden. A mother seemed to be managing her yard while her child was walking around, playing; an old lady was playing with her dog, unleashed. I talked with the lady for a bit as she acknowledged my presence, and I told her how I ended up here after finding out that the Japanese garden was closed.

It's either gardens or children's playground.

I wanted to head out to another city scape, but even a the sun started beaming again at some point, the time has already gone by, and I would have to make my return. I'll be back to the garden in Kaiserslautern when the time is right.

One Immortal Written in the Page

One Saturday, I felt suddenly tired of everything that had been going on in my head were things related to the schoolwork and decided that it was not healthy a mindset to have, so, I chucked my work aside, and pick up my halfway read book, For the Immortal by Emily Hauser, and gulped it down like fish drinking water. Fluently written with multiple changes of POV, this is the writing style from Emily Hauser that I know of. Knocking down the chauvinism with focusing on the women coming from different tidbits of the Greek mythology vastness, all the same time hammering down the fundamental pillars of what constructed the cosmo of the Greek pantheon.

Here are some more details. For the Immortal took the thread from the fabric of Hercules' story, spinning it off into a new tale while Admete's and Hippolyta's eyes became ours. Admete was the princess of Mycenae, who was said to have accompanied Hercules on the quest for the golden apple, as Hippolyta was the queen of the Amazons, one of the fiercest battle tribes that was depicted in Greek mythology. The females in the books have their own voices, and I think that was easy enough to spot, as the male perspectives are very much magnified in the traditional narratives, and it simply proved that Greek mythology can still be told over and over in a million other ways. This book, as the finale of the Golde Apple Trilogy, destructured the concept of "Unavoidable fate" and reshaped the whole scope of the mythology. Although the new ideology of the implication that all Gods have been so manipulative and calculating didn't appeal to me as much as the previous two installment claiming that we make our own choices, I still highly appreciate the novelty of such radical way of storytelling from the author, and it was a pleasant surprise. 

The book also talked about the idea of becoming immortal through writing down about people, about their deeds and their actions, which will be passed down in the form of stories.

And that is how we become immortal.

End

I mean, the Coronavirus has been on the rampage. Things have become very different, from plans to go to Czech Republic and France have been cancelled, and now I will be going back to Taiwan, in two days. More on that in the next letter.

CH2. Life in Germany 6: Better & Back

Hello, Tim,
I'm back! Technically, anyway.
It is Thursday of the next week already, in fact. I would still need a week of simplicity before I can caught up with what is more like a weekly update. Told you that I would be back eventually. I am here with a story and a dish to talk about.

First Snowy Field

Last Thursday, I finally saw what real snow fall looked like.

I was in the middle of my marketing class when someone mentioned a possibility of snow in the chatroom of my dorm. That was when I dragged my feeble attention to a very old-fashioned guillotine and beheaded it. I tried to pry my eyes from the window that showed an expanse of the rainy campus.

I tapped frantically on my neighbor Emily's arm and thrusted my hand at the window as the droplets slowed down gradually, floating downward as if every single drop was equipped with a small, downy parachute.

My first snowfall. From indoors. The people from my floor in the dorm also went crazy with what was going on outside, but there was something they had but I didn't: the freedom to go out into the open and receive the melty kiss from the falling snow. I was sitting there, mind hanging on what feathery objects were descending outside, biting my mental nails to want to chuck everything and simply rush out. I didn't. And the snow stopped in around twenty minutes.

The next day, when I was just planning to plunge my whole day in my project work (which still isn't done yet at this point. It's the next week already and I am feeling very guilty about the delay) I got an invitation from Saad and Abhidha and an encouragement from Johannes that we together go to the top of the Königstuhl and have a look at the snow that must have had accumulated on the previous day. It was quite scary, thinking about how I was almost too determined to push some process on my project. 

I don't know if it is morally correct to say that I was happy that I neglected my school work (temporarily)

Halfway taking the mountain railway onto the mountain, we could already see the snow-covered railway and overgrown bushes. The excitement heated up as it became a bit colder up ahead.

We got off the mountain train, and what followed was, unsurprising for the standard of three people who were only interacting with such amount of snow -it was indeed all white!- for the first time, a snow ball fight.

The roads were actually a bit muddy because of the melting of snow that was already starting; we came at the right time.

Upwards on the snowy trail

I promise that we weren't bullying Abhidha.

Last time I was with Johannes on Königstuhl, the highest mountain (600 or so meters) in Heidelberg, and I recalled there was a grassy steep slope facing more west, where people would sit on and have picnics. It was then covered with a thick layer of snow. 

Also comes with great overview of the city.

On that day, I practically did whatever was imaginable on the snowy field. Here are what I could remember:

- I sat down and slid down the slopey snowy slide.

- I tried to freeze my fingers off because I certainly didn't think as far as to bring along a pair of gloves.

- I knelt down on the snow, took off my glasses. I pressed my hands into the snow, and smashed my face into the snow.

Was me.

- I threw myself into the snow.

- I did what animations stereotypically do and rolled a small snowball and pushed it down the hill to try making it bigger. It really worked.

- I made a snowman and named it Jonny. Succeeded after the third try.

Jonny in the making.

I didn't want Jonny to catch a cold.

- I lay down on the slope horizontally and rolled down. A kid aimed a snowball at me but it landed midway. I stood up feeling really disoriented and fell face-down while trying to climb back up.

Visual support:

- I made a snowball and smashed it against the ground. 

- I took of picture of me and Jonny the snowman.

So yeah, this was me on the snowy field. I think it was actually the overwhelming emotions of seeing snow that drove me into all the crazy shenanigans I pulled in the snow. I have been talking about wanting to see snow for over a decade now. Coming to Germany, I had learned that my story with snow won't just end the instant I see it. It's a progressive story that develops with time. I want to collect all different facets of snow. That day I tasted the playful aspect of the snow, and before I really  get to experience the romantic side of it, I guess I will try to have more playful encounters with the snow.

Now for the dish I was eagerly trying to talk about.

Full disclosure first: Two weeks have passed, and I can't really recall which of the two dishes I have in mind right now was the one I was thinking about introducing. So instead of doing one longer description of a dish, I would do two short ones.

The first dish was the pumpkin soup, and even though this was already the third time I made this soup, (it was a rare case as I normally would try not to repeat the dishes I had made in the past unless I messed it up last time), I was the proudest with this particular pumpkin soup because I used the whole pumpkin as a bowl. Here's the end product:

Look at it!

The whole process was excruciatingly long as it involved the removing of the flesh from the inside of the pumpkin with a spoon, making the broth that should be simmering on the stove for at least two hours, and putting the seeds into the oven for some roast-y salty pumpkin seeds that would go as the sides. But since the outcome was indeed satisfactory, I would raise a spiritual thumbs up to myself when I think about it.

Disclaimer: No pumpkin bowls were wasted during the process.

First time pumpkin carving

The next didn't turn out so well, but it was a good attempt and I had to acknowledge it. I tried to bake some earl grey macarons on my own. I have always state it as a fact that macarons are my favorite dessert, and even though last time I tried to make some macarons with the girls at Sherry's place, this was the first time I was trying this solo. Not exactly. It was late in the evening right then, which would be way past midnight of the following day in Taiwan, but while I was mixing everything together, I had Angela on the other side of the telephone, and we chatted and she gave me some instructions for making macarons. 

Photographer: Aliang

But they do rise.

Having almond biscuits with a cup of tea

The shells were having a nice shape, but as the bottom was still a bit undercooked after fifteen minutes of baking, I popped them back into the oven for way too long, and the shells became way too crunchy to call them macarons. The filling was also somewhat a catastrophe. I ended up using apricot jam and sugared butter because my whipping cream kept falling apart. I definitely have more to work on that, and I can see myself taking the challenge again in the near future. The taste was, however, still pretty good because all my friends were trying to get more even though I would call them almond biscuits instead of macarons.

Finally!

There is finally one thing less on my mind (count it as two things less since I did one of my two presentations on this Monday as well.), and I will have to pick up on my recount of week 7 pretty soon as well.

See you soon!

Sincerely,

Hugo

CH2. Life in Germany 4 & 5: Misplaced and a Short One

Hello, Tim!
This week was ... a blur.
A blur not because it was busy. The workload was just about the same, but things happened and ended before anyone can register whatever really was happening at the moment. At least, for me it was so.
There was a big windstorm at the beginning of the week, and  even though it was not a week of cold weather, the wind was indeed quite strong for thinner people to walk around without feeling the invisible currents pulling and tugging at them.
I planned to finish reading Emily Hauser's For the Immortal by the end of the weekend, but so far -much to my dismay- I am only halfway through.

Tuesday Recount - Jogging, Ikea, Hot Pot

Still, there are some memorable days here and there.

On Tuesday, my alarm clock set off at 6:40, I squeezed the power button of my phone, snoozing it. Rubbing my eyes, I rolled down my bed, feet landing first (speaking of, I never thought about this, but I don't think I normally sit up on the spot from where I was sleeping). There isn't much time left, I told myself. It was a free day, but there are multiple plans ahead.

At seven straight, I came into the kitchen to find Johannes there already.

He was in his jogging outfit, and after a tea, we headed for the elevator. This was the activity we briskly arrange for the very morning: jogging. It was not me who thought about doing so initially, though. It sounded... different, which was why I wanted to follow suit. However, knowing that my energy level would not likely enable me to catch up with Johannes, we went our separate ways. 

The morning was colder indeed, and I as well as my nose ran, but it was refreshing indeed.

After the jog, I splayed right there on my bed for a bit longer and decided that it was time to go for some grocery shopping. I grabbed my shopping bag and headed out into the wind that was accompanied by the sun. I got a bit bored, so I scrolled through my contact list, and called, out of the blue, Allison. She seemed a bit surprised that I called (this was basically the first time I called her since I arrived in Germany) but we talked about school, about life, and so on. Now that I am writing this down, I found out that I was mostly talking about myself, and it made me feel a bit guilty about being too self-centered. I should have noted that it was not only me that is living life. It was not an easy feat, to focus on both the other person on the phone and the shopping list you have in mind. Barely reaching the campus (with what felt like two boulders on my shoulders) I got a text from my classmate Emily, asking whether I was still interested in going to Ikea after the plan of heading over on the previous day was literally blown by the strong winds. I dropped my stuff and hopped back into the elevator door that was still open, and off I went. Again.

I had the revelation as I hauled myself into Emily's car, that it was the first time I had ever taken the cockpit in Germany.

Ikea is really a place you should go to if you need a place to lose your head in. It's a container of different roads to a collective dream house, and you might just hope that, by taking them little by little back home, you will be a step -however small it might be- closer to your desired lifestyle. I got a cylinder pillow for cuddling, several small items like a towel, a coffee jar and so on.

Coming back, I thanked Emily for taking me along, ready to make the hot pot that I had promised Jackey. But a proverbial fist hit me and brought me outside again for the sparkling water I almost had forgotten to buy. Anyway, this was my very eventful day.

End

I don't know about my readers, but this letter sounds lifeless to me. I didn't know why exactly this turned out to be so, but I certainly hope that there can be a change in the following letters.

p.s. Somehow, this letter was not upload successfully. It will be joined with a short letter of the week.

Sincerely,

Hugo

Hello, Tim, again!
This week that passed was both mind-consuming and quite ... directionless.
Although this isn't the first time this void of navigation that happened

CH2. Life in Germany 3: (Vegetarian) Food and (Alcoholic) Drinks

Hello, Tim!
This week marked the end of my third block, and since I think I did a slightly-higher-than-average job on both the presentation and the written exam, I was actually in a rather relaxed state. Of course, there were some bothering issues throughout the week (including some lost items, but that's a story for another day), but, just like the howling storm that was just there thirty minutes ago on a Monday morning, the whirlwind of event die down eventually, and we're back on the ground. Here a picture I took when I went hiking alone:

The Play Pillowman 

This was a read from two weeks ago, actually. I know that I am running on a tight schedule, but it really is worthy of mentioning. 

I'm skipping the reasoning behind reading the script of a play anymore because this is not my first read that is formatted or written as a stage show. The Pillowman, written by an Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, is an unsettling tale surrounding several gruesome child murders that were inexplicably close to the details of a writer's works. 

Featuring some reenacting of the mentioned stories, it gave me the same level of bewilderment as some of Edgar Allen Poe's works, and the unsettling storytelling was something I appreciate. I first came across this play when I was in high school as we classmates were trying to figure out a script we should be picking for our semester performance. We settled in on the Fly Doctor written by Molière, but before that, I remember Patrick, Aubrey, and I spending quite some time discussing with our drama teacher as to which play to choose from, and the Pillowman was in fact one of the choices. We were seriously considering about using the Pillowman, to an extent that we were already talking about which short stories in play we should and shouldn't be using, and how we should reenact such scenes, but then we found the Flying Doctor.
Inside the play, the writer Katurian took the old well-known German folklore of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the piper who came to deal with the rat problem, subsequently taking away all the kids of the village after the villagers refused to pay for the rat problem, all expect one kid who was crippled. Katurian did an attempted prequel to the tale, and added a borderline sadistic twist to the story. One day, the name of the town Hamelin was mentioned, and it brought me the memories of this play, and on the very same day, I made an order for the book on Amazon. It was so entrancing that I got off at the wrong station when riding the S-bahn.
It feels like ordering something exotic in a dark, creepy restaurant; the experience is a refreshing page on my reading list.

"Is this your dish-wiping towel?"
*Insert shushing emoji*

The title The Pillowman itself is also a short story written by Katurian, in which a good-will-looking man consisted of pillows (whose teeth as well were made with pillow) was given with a job to end children's lives before their lives could become miserable and depressingly long. The job was not something the Pillowman relishes in doing, so we went back in time to his own childhood and ended the younger, smaller Pillowman's life before his life could become miserable; The Pillowman disappeared. Same with what the police said with regards to this story, it had a warm, soft feeling to this story. This cluster of stories that gives my blood a cold boil coming from Martin McDonagh made me curious about his other works.

Alcohol

I am not sure whether it is ever explicitly written on my blog, but I remember telling basically everyone that I don't drink. No beers, no wine... simply because I don't want to.
Coming over here to Germany, through, was when it surreptitiously changed. It started quite dynamically, at the orientation party when I consciously/unconsciously drank some strong fruity liquor, and then the half cup of Hugo at an Irish pub, and many small cups after that. The repulse for anything alcoholic was swapped to curiosity at some point, and even though I still don't drink a lot (not that I am able to drink a lot), I wouldn't shy away as often as before when offered a glass. Sometimes I feel like a hypocrite in such respect, claiming to the world that I would not drink anything alcoholic , sometimes I would feel more than a little guilty when considering the reason behind drinking came from a well-wrapped package of peer pressure, but these doubt go away eventually, and as nothing goes to extreme, I think my morality can bear the weight of one more item of the world.
In the passing weekend, when Johannes, Abhinav, and I were watching a movie together, Paul came to the other two guys and asked whether they want to join some round of beer pong. Beer pong is basically a drinking game with plastic cups filled with beer. Set on opposite sides of the table, people aim for the cups on the other side, and if a hit is make, the opposing team in the corresponding position would have to drink up the beer in the container. It wasn't the first beer pong that happened in our kitchen, but this time I was ready to give it a shot.
I would have to admit that it was more difficult than I thought, with two adjoining square tables of distance set in between the two teams. For my case, I would have to drink for any hit Johannes made, and vice versa. From what I was observing and what Johannes told me once (and it kind of make sense, come to think of it), even though the game was designed so that drinking is a form of punishment, but it is not an objective to "not" be "punished". One of the goals is to score every cup on the other side, but you're also expecting to be able to drink some alcohol as well, or what is the point of this so-called "pre-drinkning" game? So anyway, I was a bit anxious about not being able to at least graze the cups for what must had been the first ten throws or so, not out of embarrassment, but for fear that my opponent wouldn't have anything to drink, and that was when Johannes gave me a guideline as to which area to aim for, and...
Plop.
A ping pong ball from my hand finally fell snugly into the red plastic cup. There you go. And then another and one more even. I scored three cups in total. Or four, I am not really sure since I was basically drunk right then. The dizziness hit me, so it was hard to register things like numbers. I am now really glad that I managed to pull out my phone to write down what I was experiencing at the moment. Here is it: "Dizzy; Dried eyes; (Possibly) loud; You feel the muscles pulling when trying to smile" The last part was pretty accurate, but I remembered struggling really hard to remember that this was to be put down in the cell phone, mostly thanks to the confusion the dizziness brought me.
Too much, I told myself, as I was trying to steer myself through the hallway back to my room after dealing with the dishes.
At least the other day I wasn't hangover.

Vegetarian Week

There was this day last week, after a certain Taiwanese braised pork dish, I casually mentioned to Abhidha, the strictest vegetarian of the floor, about how I had been consuming a bit too much meat for the past two weeks. I talked about the possibility of becoming vegetarian for a while, which she responded with an unimpressed "okay". I magnified her response just because, and feigned an accusation that called her out for not trusting me. Granted, I actually consume quite a lot of meat, either back in Taiwan or here in Germany. But I don't think that it would a grand task for me to switch to an eggless-vegetarian diet (like Abhidha's), so that was exactly what happened. 

Wanting to save some time on describing the food I cooked for my vegetarian week, I would simply post them over here:

Baguette tanks with mashed potatoes and cheese.

Tomato pasta gratin

Wraps with vegetarian filling

Green tea soba noodles

Mushroom potato soup

Sometimes it almost slipped; like when Johannes was making steak at around nine in the evening, but with meat being such an ingredient with defined shapes and textures, it is way more easier to remember not to eat meat than trying to avoid eggs. Imagine staring at the breads at the bakery, those shiny, luscious-looking pieces of pantry, and all the thoughts about having an omelette at 7:30 in the early morning to start the day. But I pulled it through when you don't look at all the cheese intake that I had throughout the week; This debate had been there every single time I was spotted having cheese in my diet. Here's why.

So when you are producing cheese, there is a certain mixture of enzyme you would add to the milk curd (please save all the ranting against my use of cheese terminology; It isn't as if I would become a cheese expert in a week) which is, most commonly, called rennet. If you try to separate all the components in this rennet, you would likely see it is made up mostly of an enzyme called Chymosin, something that is supposedly a part of cow stomach. However, in order to mass produce this Chymosin, the food-manufacturing scientists took the cell of the cow and implanted it into some bacteria that are called hosts. With bacterial division, the Chymosin was also duplicated, hence creating the conundrum whether cheese produced with such Chymosin is counted as vegetarian or not. I was not willing to relent, though; take away my meat and eggs, but not the cheese as well, especially when there was a cheese fondue party funded by Johannes on Sunday (According to the other people, the cheesy smell of the fondue lingered for another two days.)

First cheese fondue; Am I going to miss it? NO.

It wasn't a big accomplishment, I know, but it doesn't really feel bad to steer away from meat-based diets every once in a while. There is a chance that in the future I will be doing this once a month or so.

End

There are still some other topics yet to be covered (just Hugo pulling a classic procrastinating Hugo) but I think this is it for the week. Our new block will be marketing, and I wonder how it is going to be like.

By the way, went out for a bike ride with Johannes before the day of the written test.

Saw the sunset with some cargo ships by the canal; we watched the whole process of how such large ships were sent through the parts of the river with a difference in height.

Went on a single hike during the weekend to this ruins.

Procedural propriety is to be upheld when the Committee of Rocks are in discussion

Sincerely,

Hugo

CH2. Life in Germany 2: Short Letter and Still Late

Hello, Tim!
I have a feeling that this letter is not going to be a really long-hauling one, and because of the inadequacy of time, I am going to do a quick recap about how the people around me are doing these days; I have been spending quite a lot of time studying (or at least attempting to) and stilling cooking; the consumption of beer is no longer a distance or borderline repulsive for me (I might write something about it someday); Svitlana (we still talk once or twice a week with the grace of cell phones and social applications) is in the middle of her internship and is apparently going to have a hectic two weeks; People like Jackie, Aliang, Harish, Abhidha, and so on can really use a second brain to push through all the work they need for their respective projects, tests, etc.; Yu was not on campus for a couple of days beaus he went to Amsterdam for a couple of days and is currently torturing his bottom side by taking the Flixbus for over eight hours; Abhinav is currently visited by his former colleague and they are having fun now. Johannes, as a person wading surely toward the end of his thesis, never forgets to spend time with the people of the floor. He went to Switzerland for a family visit and brought for me some Swiss cheese with a deep taste (which I enjoyed); Zaineb has her birthday this Sunday, and I prepared a teeny-weeny gift for her - hope she likes it.


I hated the fact that I actually had something planned for writing but couldn't fulfill it. Next week our block will be over. I'll see what I will be able to include.

Sincerely,
Hugo

CH2. Life in Germany 1: A 75% Surprise and the New Year

Hello, Tim!
I had this random thought, about how contradictory it actually is, to have both chapters, and entries that start off with the format of a letter, but who says you cannot have both? This is a blog, a book, and a collection of letters. This is my life.

Staring the new chapter with a picture of me, looking bewildered, maybe?

A Surprise

I'll just get straight to the point: It was my birthday surprise. 

I guess no one would be expecting anything else, knowing that a change of chapter means another 365 days have passed in the Hugo calendar.

But I do have to concede that I should have been more aware after last week.

If you do recall, I was partly preparing for Johannes' birthday, not a couple days before mine. He was dragged out of the dorm and came back to a decorated kitchen. On the day before my birthday, I got a text from Johannes asking whether I was interested in a walk at around 20:30. He said it would take only about an hour or so. My brain cells must have been chilling on an imagined beach and couldn't/wouldn't be bothered by such, so the idea about it being a part of the surprise was only a fleeting thought, a speeding boat that thought less than once to stop by. Also my reasoning was that we would be back by ten in the evening, and nothing would be happening right then. We knocked on Abhidha's door, asking if she would be coming along as well, only to be met with "I'm actually a bit busy" for return.

It was minus one degree outside, and Yu, Johannes, and I were walking along the river, opposite to the direction of the city center, and nothing so grand was happening. Us three do this (strolling) more often than one would imagine.

Taking a round trip back to the dorm, into the elevator, Johannes told me told follow him as he wanted to show me a physical map for hiking he just got. Passing the door of the kitchen, though, he threw the kitchen door and shoved me right inside to the dimly-lit kitchen and dozens of people.

"Surprise!" I guess my whelp of surprise was drowned out by the chorus of shouting and smiling people. Abhinav was standing next to the oven, Yu on the other side of the room. Abhidha standing by the door, smiling mischievously (she did most of the decoration, I guess), and Emma was holding her phone at me, apparently filming. And oh Choong was also there.

My brain cells pushed up their sunglasses and sat up, registering after five seconds or so to finally come to the revelation that my classmates (both living off- and on-campus) were there as well. In the center stood Emily, Costanza, Martìn, and Zaineb (who apparently arranged the coming of my classmates) who were also grinning widely.

I know that I was standing a bit awkward for the next five to ten minutes or so, after having thanked everyone for their kindness and thoughtfulness. But then the cake came into the kitchen, and Zaineb told me that she obviously made both of the ice cream cakes herself, one a chocolate, the other a caramel, toffee, and cream.

When trying to cut the cake, Johannes wished in once again with his new one-time toy, and blasted the confetti - all over the cakes. Harish was quick to capture this moment.

Yazdan presented me a bottle of melon liquor (which was gifted by someone, I still have to ask about it) and asked me to take a big gulp. It was 20% in alcohol volume, and I did have a gulp, but it was burning afterwards. The melon sirup was not bad, though. After the birthday song (and I always sing along on my birthdays) and the distribution of the cake, I decided that it was only fit that I present my gratitude to the collective altogether.

It was actually quite chaotic when taking the picture.

Classmates and Martìn (whom we have known since the first day)

Again, I still am not good at giving public talks, no matter how long, to whom, about what the speech is presented. I always have this unpleasant fluttering in my stomach, but I had to try to get over it. I talked about how chances brought me over to Heidelberg to meet so many nice people. I promised that I want to, in the following year that is yet to come, become a person I would like more, and I hope the same for everyone present. I know that I had stuttered but did an okay job. The other day, Abhinav thought that I was drunk when giving the speech, not knowing that there was nothing to do with the alcohol.

The music went on, and I "moved" a bit with the people (I refuse to say that I danced; that would be an insult to the verb) as Martìn taught us some Spanish dance moves. Johannes was somehow visibly drunk already. With a slurring accent he was trying to get Abhidha to join Martìn's little dancing seminar, but we had a lot of fun nonetheless. ("On a scale of one to ten, how drunk was I yesterday?" Abhidha: "A hundred.")

It was an intriguing view to see people from my class interacting with the people from my dorm, like two waves from different directions clashing against each other in a friendly fashion. 

Drunk Johannes popped a balloon. Loud. Emily squeaked. Abhidha covered her ears. Choong popped another one.

Why did I say it was a 75% surprise? It was some afterthought after the party that gave me the revelation that there were indeed some tell-tale signs that previewed this planned event. After the class of Tuesdays, Zaineb and I normally walk back to our dorm together. This time, however, she told that she needed to go in another direction without any explanations; Walking through the corridor of the apartment, I passed Abhinav's door, only to see Harish walking out, hand held fast on the doorknob with the door behind his back. Abhidha walked out of the kitchen and saw the incident unroll, and the edges of her mouth pulled up involuntarily.

The clock showed 11:59, and my friends counted down once again. Johannes gave me a compass, reminiscent to my instagram account. Abhidha gave me a fondue kit, and I promised her we are going to make it together. There will also be a cooking book coming from Emily.

Sometimes I get this feeling that I am just too lucky to get to meet such great and caring people again and again. All the preparation, all the thoughtfulness behind it, and all the good wishes. I thank them.

Great.

Happy Birthday, me. Here you see people who really are nice to you. Don't change (change for the better if necessary), and be grateful, and have fun living.

The Lunar New Year 

The lunar new year is a big deal in Taiwanese tradition. On the day, families gather around and sit around the table to have dinner, enjoying each other's company.

This year, the year 2020, the year of the rat, was the first lunar new year that I'm not spending with my family. Strangely, it was not homesickness that I was feeling, though. Instead, I just had this desire to do something matching what my mother and her family would be having.

I had decided to make some hot pots, and I am inviting all the Taiwanese people over. So that was what I did. Apparently, the people had the same thought so the plan was running rather smoothly. We assigned who was supposed to get what, and after my classes finished at one in the evening, I started cooking. The base of the hot pot was heated up, and I submerged the tofu inside for the flavor to soak in. I left for the supermarket tp get some chicken breast and eggs. In the kitchen all alone (with some occasional visit from Abhinav), I hacked the chicken up, added some seasoning to the meat mix, and made them into the size of human eye balls (I was trying to find a fitting simile, but apparently I failed) Making them into meatballs, I planned to put them into the soup. I went on chopping away the vegetables along with the time. I let it boil and simmer, careful not to let it overflow. 

Next time I will mix in some shredded carrots and celeries because even though the taste was good, the  bland white color of cooked chicken wasn't looking appetizing.

I used some time in between to text Choong, from whom I just learnt that the Koreans also celebrate the lunar new year, was also invited to our get-together. He sounded a bit home-sick, and this is the kind of emotion we wish to wipe away with the dinner. Jackie, by the way, was joined by his visiting family and left for Paris already.

It was a bless sometimes to have the whole kitchen to myself.

Yu's girlfriend came over to Germany to visit, bringing with another soup and saved the potential problem of having not enough for a group of twelve.

Look at the spicy hot pot cooking.

People started coming, and Aliang arrived with her pot of braised pork that she said would make, and my three pots of soup were mostly ready at the time.

People sat around the table, and Johannes started first, given that he is the eldest at the table and that is how table etiquettes work in Taiwanese traditions. It was a bit awkward at first, people from different buildings, different floors of the campus suddenly sitting together at the table, eating together. But then the warmth from the soup melted the ice (or not) and it was a great relief for me. It gave me the impression that the food presented at the table was mostly appreciated by the guys. 

Selfie :D

By the end of the hot pot, most of us were already blending in well already. I was glad that it turned out well anyway.

From the kitchen perspective; I guess this is what my mother sees from the kitchen every year at this time.

On the second day, Johannes and I had the remaining hot pot with rice while watching some live winter sports (I willingly let him hijack my computer that was initially brought over to the kitchen for studies)

End

As always, I am running a bit late for the deadline, but hey, that's the life of a university student.

There is also a part where I am supposed to talk about the visit to Uncle Nic's friend in Mannheim for dinner with another German family. It was a self-furnished house with a swing in the middle. I had a small sip of Kavalan whiskey and it was really overwhelming. 

Yours sincerely,

Hugo

CH1. Life Goes On 33: Eberbach and the Bridge (to the Second Chapter)

Hello, Tim!
I am no longer sure whether I have included it or not (not that I am going to check at the point) but for this block in the university, we only have classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. That sounds like a splendid treat from the school, but in reality, it can also have catastrophic consequences if you simply see it as a merit. This Tuesday, for example, I did practically nothing in the educational sense. What followed on Wednesday was that there was no difference than having class on another Monday, for the Tuesday was itself a virtual weekend.

In between the weekdays there were also some side projects made; Onion cakes made by Johannes and I.

I made the dough!

Guys who decided to throw a LAN party (whatever that should mean) in the kitchen. We had fun.

Weekly Hike: Eberbach - Zwingenberg, 22km

Up until now, the hiking with Johannes has been a weekly event; an energy-drawing, time-consuming, but incredibly fulfilling event.

The highest point of the week required a 650 meter hike in altitude. There was this site that gives hikers recommendation as to where to go to, the length, and what to see along the way. In thirty minutes of train-riding distance, east to Heidelberg, There is a city called Eberbach. That was where our trail commenced at roughly 10:30 in the morning. Upon entering the train, our tickets were checked. The semester ticket I bought was certainly a good investment. During the ride, Johannes gave me a previewing lecture on the place we would be going to, same time talking about how we are crossing the lines of different states of Germany. The sun hadn't really shown itself as the train railed its way toward our starting point. Along the way, I heard a small scoff coming from Johannes, a smirk crawling on his face. I didn't inquire on what it was about.

Our website provided that the whole trail will be 19 kilometers long. It unsettled me a bit at first, to be honest. After the 40 km walk in Strasbourg, of course, I shouldn't have to worry, but I really don't want to be the person opposite to able-bodied and unable to catch up. The interesting thing was, when you really got into a pace and started soaking in your surroundings, you would forget that you even are moving your feet. The track started with a series of zigzagging among trees, fallen or standing strong in the chilly winter. 

Not ten minutes into the lonesome crowds of trees, we came across a tower, brick walls half-crumbling, overtaken by moss. It was a combination of walls, greens, and muddy pathways, beckoning people to see what they don't normally see. I was walking around the structure, taking in the silent beauty that wrapped up this once-inhabited building. Until I heard Johannes' voice, presumably coming from the opposite side of one of the walls. I thought he was ready to get a move on, so I called out to him, only to draw another sound from him. It was... above. Apparently, there was a case of stairs, steep, but leading you to the top of the fortress. He was there staring down at me.

We continued on as I looked curiously at the moss that crawled its way up and over the landscape, how it differed in two variations(or was it three or more?). There were white sprinkles on the withering leaves that descended from the oak trees. At first, I thought it was more likely to be mold rather than anything else, and I was still a skeptic when Johannes told me they were little ice shards. Miniature hail, to be precise.

The meander among trees led us ultimately to a tower, much higher than the one we saw when we headed for the Thingstätte. Several people, bodies wrapped in warm jackets, were already coming out from the tower; We were not the only early ones, as it turned out. Right next to the tower we came to the highest point of the area: the Katzenburkel. I thought about having our first food break on one of the flatter rocks, but the wind was directly blowing in our face when standing on the rocks of the peak, with which inactivity would bring the felt coldness to a next level. We then resolved to climb the tower and had our break high up there. On the bricky parapet were several metal plates bolted to the surface, showing the direction and distance of the neighboring cities. The fog had yet to disperse due to our early arrival. Johannes thought it a pity, but I actually like the obscurity that the fog cast upon the land when you see it from above.

Looking afar

We were walking among the woods as Johannes identified the trees for me, "We have time for some lessons," He said. Firs, beeches, oaks, red peaches, cherry trees. I tried to knead the characteristics of each kind of trees into my head, but I think it would take more time than that. I wasn't the one in the hunter's school, was I? But sure did it feel closer to the nature, now that I know what I was seeing. Along the track, there were also upended dirt that haphazardly littered the sideways. Sometimes a deeper hole, sometimes a downward slope that looked like a heavy object was dragged down from the slanted side paths. Johannes identified the disturbed dirt pits as the trails from the wild boars, simultaneously admiring the indication of how many wild boars there were. True, when you look up the coat of arms of the place Eberbach, you would see a wild boar walking on a blue ribbon which I guess would be a small brook. More interestingly so, the word "Eber" in German practically means "Male pig", while the word "bach" isn't referring to the musician, but a German word for "brook, creek". It is a quite straightforward way of naming, I thought to myself. The fir trees were all-surrounding, we're heading up or descending, you see the trees ever present with their majestic heights. 

A road that led us
Along

It reminded me of the song from my goddess of French songs (insert dramaticism here), a song called Les Séquoias, a song about how sad it was to have the sequoia trees cut down, and I half-whistled as we continued down the lane. It needed no further inquiry to see that the trees, the dirt, and the nature is way elder than I am. The trees stood there impassively, unseen eyes transfixed on a tall German guy and a relatively-shorter Taiwanese, with not intimidation, but curiosity.

Drinkable fountain of the highest altitude in the area

Moving on, we walked across multiple grassy fields that weren't quite of characteristic for winter, hills where oxen, horses, and bulls munched on grass in their respective enclosures, villages that were quite empty presumably because it was church Sunday. The horses kept by the locals were not kept in stables, for when they have this expanse of grass for them to mound on, dried hay won't always be required, and it was way more liberating to have them out in the open, in my opinion.

Beware of the electric wires

Look it's a llama

We happened to wander off-course for a while with the faulty GPS that didn't always.

Weaving back into the forests, there came from the sky a sound that resembled the rain; neither of us was prepared for rain, but as the sound continued on, I noticed the drops on us, though falling at the speed of water droplets, they were actually tiny ice shards, meaning that it was a hail that came upon us. It was still not quite snow, but as a progressive storyline that is pushing forward. One day, I told Johannes, one day, I will see snow for sure. If it doesn't come, I am heading for it.

Let it be my retirement house.
Too soon?

Abhinav called to check in on us, and as he and Johannes did their everyday trash talk, he knelt down so suddenly in a single swift motion, signaling that I do the same. I crouched down to an eye level same as his and squinting my eyes, willing myself to see whatever I was to see. We were silent and still, not hearing anything else aside from the falling hail and the rustling of the leaves blown by the leaves. We were facing a slope bathed in sunlight, trees poking out in rows, paving a virtual path of dried grass heading upwards. And then I saw it. In the middle of the path stood a roe deer, stationary, perfectly still, occasionally bending its neck for a mouthful of grass. With the light brown of its hide, it was practically camouflaged in the wild. 80 meters apart (according to Johannes' estimation) it wouldn't be able to see us or sense us if we don't make big and sudden movements.  There was another trail above the deer, and a man walked past it without noticing it. Johannes also remarked how easy it would be for him to shoot it had he had his rifle with him. We knelt for five minutes, and we stood up. The deer noticed us finally, and retreated into a more concealed bush.

We came to the last part of the hike. There was a sign put in front of us: Wolfsschlucht in Zwingenberg ... Access at your own risk... .

It is the valley of the wolf (as implied by the name) and there is a downward-heading stone path. We went down.

A hunter's wooden stand.

We hadn't seen the valley itself as we heard the singsong of a creek already, but continuing down the series of steps so steep that you can almost call it a slide, we saw it on our left-hand side, a constant flow of water coming from between the rocks that form the walls that were surrounding us. The walls that formed the valley. Antiquated, edgy, transfixing... rocky.

It looks way better than it smelled, this small stream of water trickling out from between the rocks

A primitive beauty it was.

I understood why the sign had to be put, for the small stream and the humidity can make the trail slippery, and since there were part of the track with quite a steep fall, and with the spiky logs that were leaning against the walls of the valley and the rocks embedded in the soil over the river, you are getting more than just a scratch if you do fall. There were anchor cables in some parts, providing an extra holding for safety. But I had to laugh out loud when we were blocked by two logs that fell over right above the only track, for it was morbidly entertaining to think about what this track was demanding us to do.

It was us with the nature, as close as can be. 

At around the end of the Wolfvalley, we came to a castle sitting on what we call the Neckar valley, and we thought that we missed the main entrance by a corner and missed the chance to check it out. Reaching back down to the ground, it felt like I still had some stamina remaining for several more kilometers of walk but was nonetheless exhausted. The train took us home in another forty minutes or so, along with the muddy shoes and pants, and a pair of eyes, wide open.

Again, this was the trail recorded by Johannes' GPS-installed watch.

Outing with Classmates

Throughout the week, Zaineb suddenly had the idea of visiting the castle with a view of the sunset. As the party planner kind of person, she managed to send messages to a dozen of people, calling for assembly on a day without any classes. Emily, Zaineb, and I met up on campus and took the tram over to the city center. It was another fifteen-minute walk until we met up with a group of American exchange students living together in an apartment off-campus. We kicked off our little hike and started up the paved stoney road to the castle. I learned that Emily, Zaineb, and Choong, the guys who've been in Heidelberg for as long as I am, have never been up to see the castle. At first, it was quite shock for me, for that was unimaginable at first, being in proximity with the castle and never really seeing it for what the castles has to offer.

I must have been up here for more than eight time until now. Still I take pictures.

But it always is a different story when you come with different people.

It was a moderate walk up to the castle, going in the opposite direction to that of the sun. It was the same sight, same buildings from afar, and possibly the same trees, under that same sky, dawny but constant. The sun continued its downward course, crooning the streetlights from their sleep. It was a serene scene, and even though the ball of sun was hidden behind a small hill, we still watched as the radiating light dimmed and dispersed. 

Emily looking in the distance.

Also the first time visiting the pharmacy museum of the castle

Taking the mountain train downwards

Johannes' Birthday 

After three unproductive hours spent in the library, I packed my stuff into my bag and sulked feebly to the exit of the small library of the school. Clusters of chattering were ringing in the background, but it was of no concern to me. Some movements with familiar shapes did catch my attention when leaving the library, and it was Harish and Yu, with Yu hanging some bags by the wrists, and Harish carrying a big, highly eye-catching box that had ... cake in it. I called out to them, startling them for a temporal second. They explained to me how this all was not supposed to be known by Johannes, for it would be a surprise party thrown for him. I personally prepared a gift for him (which was a box of Ronnefeldt tea assortment), but I wasn't really thinking about anything big-scale. Nonetheless, when a plan was already in the making, there was absolutely no sense in bringing a finger to the tally and sticking it into the pie.

On the day before his birthday, Harish came to me and told me the finalized plan of theirs (Abhinav and I spent some good thirty minutes inflating and filling up the balloons for dun): The balloons were prepared, the cake in place; all they needed would be a diversion of attention, and since asking me to drag him out for a walk was no longer plausible (it was also the same day we went out for a walk) so they ultimately resorted to bring him to a bar near the center. Here came then the catch: A person would be needed to stay behind and really put some thoughts on the decoration. I was the person. At the very first moment, I was frowning upon the plan when Harish presented it (Such emotions were like ink blots on a blank sheet - clear and visible on my face which I never conceal such well) and I first thought about how far the bar actually is from the dorm and how things could go wrong should they fail to take the last tram before midnight; I thought that was the flaw I was seeing in the plan that made me disconcerted, but afterwards when I looked back on this, I think it was a certain part of malcontent with my role in the plan that started the inner cloudy drizzle. I am not good at decoration, and maybe a part of me was more willing to head together to the bar to chat and have fun instead of presenting something underwhelming or... unpresentable. I hated to have these selfish thoughts in my head that just was too adamant to disperse, especially when I am on a post that was supposed to be of importance; I wasn't even the main character of the day! 

With the help of the people I was working with on the decoration, luckily, I pulled myself out of the seemingly endless rumination of negativity.With Abhidha throwing out interesting ideas by turning ribbons into letters that spelled out JOHANNES, I then told myself that we HAD to make the decorations work. Aaron, Yazdan, and Chelsey joined in, and this was the end result; it was not much, but we made do with what we had. In total, there were thirty balloons that indicated the age of the celebrated. At around eleven forty-five, Yu and Harish rushed back to get the cake prepared. From the door of the elevator came the normal raucous commotion that always follow Abhinav and Johannes around when they are together. And then he came into the room. His reaction was expected, a big dramatic "Wow what a surprise" followed by a big smile; It was as if he knew everything was happening but he still appreciated the whole effort put inside it. Later we learned that he knew about the surprise because he saw the pack of balloons in Abhinav's room and, come on, getting dragged out until fifteen minutes before your birthday? You smell the fishiness kilometers away from here.

The cake was presented and cut, candles blown, speeches given. I like the idea of having so many people so close together on the same floor.

The letters on the wall was Abhidha's idea.

Most of the Taiwanese people I know over here were there as well

I will miss the guys here...

Happy birthday, Johannes.

End

Chapter One came along after the graduation. It was a random thought to turn my life into chapters. It doesn't make the most sense but still does to an extent when I move on to the next chapter on the week of my birthday, meaning that we have to put a halt to this chapter. 

Life being divided into chapters; it is going on nonetheless.

Best regards,

Hugo