I hoass Oberleitner Waschdl

Once I received the go-ahead from the German government to begin working, I had lots to do. meetings with the bank to open a checking account, setting up my health insurance, and check-up appointments with the doctor were on the agenda through July.  I also had to find a place to live.


There were many ads in the local newspaper, mostly for pensions renting by the day for workers on temporary jobs in the area.  I, however, would need something for awhile longer, and preferably in a place to meet new people.  I made a call one day, responding to an ad looking for someone 18-30 to live in a Wohngemeinschaft (shared living space) with four other people.  At first I wasn't sure about this.  I had long wanted to live on my own, just having my own things, my own agenda, curfew, etc.  However, I thought that the opportunity to live with people my age outweighed the cost of "living on my lonesome".  After all, I really didn't know many people in Pfaffenhofen with my interests, let alone my age group.  I was living in a quiet neighboring village, more ideal for raising a family than experiencing life in Europe to its fullest.  I really realized how important social interaction actually is.  Anyway, I made a visit to the flat, not really knowing what to expect.  Turns out, it was perfect.  The people, the location, and the flat itself all were an instant sell.

My flat mates are: Martina, a self-employed carpenter; Matthias, a DJ and builder of sound systems; Peter, an English major who has started a business making skateboards from scratch.  One of our flatmates, Mario, was gone for about six months on vacation.  In the meantime, they had rented out his room to Veli, a girl from Bulgaria about to go to intensive German studies in Munich.  We have a garden and a fire pit in the back yard as well as a woodshop in the basement, complete with a computer to make all of the skateboard graphics on as well as a turntable to listen to your favorite records while working.  The kitchen cabinets are all painted with a mix of bright primary colors, we have a balcony that looks out over the farm we neighbor, and a central living room with a fish tank and a shared computer.

Die Katzen

We also have a cat.  She has no real name--everyone in the flat calls her something different: Mitzi, Claudia, Elisabeth, or Berbl.  They all work.  Anyway, she was pregnant when I first moved in, so there was great excitement as to when the kittens would come.  "It's DEFINITELY going to be tonight" was spoken about every other day.  Turns out she had them while the men of the apartment were visiting Prague.  She had four kittens, who are at the moment crawling into every crevice, climbing as high as possible, and fighting with our socks.  It's great!  We have owners for all of them, but in the meantime I gave them names: Cosmo, Maximilian, Selma, and Friedrich.  Yeah, so that's all about the cats.

Prague Castle

My flatmates and I have made a few great trips together.  In July we traveled to Prague, Czech Republic.  This city is by far one of the most interesting and beautiful places I have visited to date.  There is just something about it.  Strange artwork abounds.  In one part of the city stands a pond with two statues on either side pivoting left and right, peeing into the water.  There are tons of marionette shops as well as a menagerie of strip shows.  In the center of the city stands a giant, towering astronomical clock which shows the time, date, year, and exact position of the universe.  There are skeletons and other cryptic statues and paintings surrounding it.  Besides all the oddities, it also happens to be something straight out of a classic fairy tale.  The castle stands at the top of a mountain, and you get there by crossing the Charles Bridge over the beautiful Vltava river.  Giant detailed statues line the bridge and some are absolutely teeming with spiders catching the many insects that breed on the water there.  The remainders of the Communist era (Czechoslovakia was a part of the Soviet Eastern Bloc for 41 years) are also evident through the architecture, small odes to the working people, and the Communist museum naturally housed above a McDonald's.  What is with that?  McDonald's also lies right on the West side of Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin...awkward.

Beautiful Prague

I also had an interesting experience on a trip to Vienna last month.  I was going to meet some people there since I had to work during the day and they wanted to leave early.  There is a website here that allows you to look up registered trips to destinations all over Germany and Europe.  Then, you simply sign up to hitch a ride with a person going in your direction.  For 20 Euros, I got a ride from Munich to Vienna.  220 miles for 20 Euros doesn't seem too bad to me.  It was pretty official.  Eight other people were also traveling in the van.  The way there was absolutely breathtaking.  The Austrian countryside against the towering Alps is such a site.  I want to really check out Salzburg, Austria (which lies in one of these valleys) before it gets cold.  Anyway, I got to Vienna around 10 pm, paid the guy, then gave my flatmate Peter a call.  Well, apparently his number didn't exist, or at least I thought that's what the automated German woman's voice said.  I tried many more times, but it just didn't go through.  Here I was, in the outskirts of Vienna at night, no contacts, the trolley system was stopped up by construction, and I had no map.  Then I realized that the number must not have worked because of using the Austrian networks.  I needed to use the country code!  I was pretty sure that the German country code was -49.  Well, didn't work.  Maybe a 1 before that?  No.  A 0?  Silence...then it rang.  I sighed the most thankful sigh ever.  Well, it didn't really help, though, because he didn't answer the phone.  At this point I had to start sparing my calls, because making calls from the phone in a foreign country costs a lot more.  Somehow, I made it to the city center, where things were open and people were around.  I mostly just wandered around.  I saw the chambers underneath the city that people discovered when the subway was built in the 70's.  I walked past Mozart's residence, and numerous other beautiful, lavish baroque buildings (but I wasn't sure what they were...it was dark and I was very tired from work and travel)  Finally, I got a text from Peter that said they were not yet in.  I had left well over 2 hours earlier, and they still were late.  At least I had contact and wouldn't be having to find a hostel for the night.  Then he called asking me to go to the trailer park where the festival was located.  He had a name, but no street or anything.  No idea where this was in relation to the center of the city.  The girl driving wouldn't come pick me up and there was no clear public map around.  I checked and checked, but I just couldn't find it, so I resorted to a taxi.  The driver was really nice, and we talked a bit about the Bayerisch and Austrian languages.  He got me there, but for 10 euros.  I had only that much in my pocket.  Go figure, there is a subway stop directly in front of the place.  Oh well, the taxi drivers don't tell you things like that.  The people I was due to meet came around within five minutes, and thus began the weekend.

Yardsale in Vienna

The festival was pretty cool.  People were giving away food the entire time on a pay-what-you-want basis (I'm sure they make more that way) there were lots of music acts in the bar, T-shirt printing, cotton candy making, some sort of ball game played in mud, and a yard sale.  I was pretty caught up in the party, you know--sleeping in hippie vans and stuff.  I did a lot of people watching, because honestly I couldn't understand a word of the Austrian dialect.  In any case, we met a guy from Vienna who took us to go swimming in the Donau.  Yet another river to cross off on my "List of Rivers Swam In Abroad".  It was just really cool because the water was clear enough to see the bottom, it is allowed to swim without a lifeguard, nudism is acceptable, and in the distance are giant bridges, a castle, and the mountains in the distance.  It truly was the highlight of the trip.

Hundertwasserturm

After that, we went to see the famous Hundertwasser House, which consists of office spaces, apartments, and a few restaurants and shops.  The artist Hundertwasser believed that the "straight line is godless and immoral" and his architecture embraces this conviction.  The place is beautifully organic, complete with plants growing all over.  You literally walk into another world.  Unfortunately, though, I found out that it is impossible to actually enter, and the surrounding area is super touristy with people taking pictures all of the time.  I have also visited a nearby brewery which has another Hundertwasser building, this being a tower dedicated to the ingredients of beer and the land of hops.  It was much better, becuase you were free to take your time climbing the tower and exploring all the little rooms.  The buildings of Hundertwasser were all built after his death, but there is a certain spirit about his work that the designers have stayed true to.  You experience these buildings.  Maybe one day the style will catch on, the straight line will evaporate from human consciousness, and humans and nature will live in harmony.  We'll see.  My point is that this tower is less famous than the Hundertwasser House, but way better.  There is also a Hundertwasser train station in Uelzen, but it's not too interesting...so moving on!

As for my daily routine, I wake up at about 6ish every day, ride my bike for approximately 20 minutes to work at the Ilmtalklinik, the hospital in Pfaffenhofen.  I essentially do the job that was once mandatory for all young men leaving the secondary school system who did not want to be enlisted in the military.  The law has since been abolished, therefore I have this job.  I pick up patients from their rooms and take them to all of their different appointments, whether that be at the X-Ray, Ultrasound, ECG, or what have you.  I also work in the archive, doing all the necessary filing that comes with running a hospital with many patients.  It may sound simple, and in essence it is, but every day is an adventure.  Let me put it this way, I DON'T SPEAK BAYERISCH!  This is my biggest setback, considering I am at the heart of the land of hops, lederhosen, and pretzels--Bayern (Baviaria) where most people, go figure, speak Bayerisch.  The positive side of this is that if an old patient is really crabby and wants to go on and on, I don't know what the heck he's saying.  Fifteen more "mhm's" and "ja's" later and, well whaddya know, we're there!  Auf Wiedersehen!  But seriously, I really enjoy the patients.  I do understand many of them, and we have nice chats as I taxi them to their next colonoscopy.  One very old woman was familiar with Elkhart, Indiana.  She told me how romantic she thought it was there on the river.  I suppose it seems very American, and even nostalgic to someone looking at it from another country.  She was so interested to hear about where I am from and it totally made her day.  The patients even learn my name pretty quickly, "Ah Herr Justin, mein Freund, wie geht es Ihnen?" is spoken on many occasion.

Being American can provide an easy talking point and something I am well-versed in.  Rather than it being a problem that I have trouble sometimes understanding, it becomes a way for me to learn as we try to communicate.  Usually, it just takes some slower speaking.  Eventually, I figure it out or learn a new word.  Once you learn something really useful, it often sticks in the mind really well.  I feel good about my job because I am helping people.  While I am not a direct healer, I am still part of that process.  People don't like being in the hospital.  They don't go get operations and lots of medication for the fun of it.  They are hurting, and every moment to brighten up a day is received very warmly.  Just making sure to say simple phrases, "All the best" or "Have a nice day" can make people feel like human beings, even in their capacity as temporary vegetables pent up in beds for weeks.  It's all about showing compassion for human beings, giving them something that an ultrasound can't.

Then I do some grocery shopping and either work on little projects like an animation I'm doing for my flatmate's DJ business or writing this blog.  I'm on my feet the whole day (approx. 10 miles per day) so I get pretty tired out after the whole work day.  But it's worth it, and I've been meeting all types of people along the way.  Most importantly, my German improves all the time, and I am finally starting to notice all that I've learned.  Speaking only German all day at work without any help in English is no problem at all, in fact I'm probably more well-versed in the German vocabulary of a hospital than English.  I'm really enjoying myself, and hope the next months will be just as rewarding.

PS The title of the blog post is "I hoass Oberleitner Waschdl", Bayerisch for "Ich heisse Sebastian Oberleitner", German for "My name is Sebastian Oberleitner".  Waschdl is a Bavarian version of Sebastian, and it's sometimes the name I am referred to.  Sometimes you'll find me hanging out in Lederhosen, eating a pretzel, sipping a Weißbier as I look out our balcony at the rows of hops growing all along the rolling hills.  I'm just more Bavarian than the Bavarians sometimes...