Wittenberg

First of all, thanks for the comments. It often feels as if I'm throwing these words into the ether-- is anyone there. Glad to know everyone is still alive and doing fine at home-- You're in the home stretch , Dave (and George!) I'm starting with a few photos of Wittenberg. On the left is the old University Building from the inside-- a passage through to the courtyard. On the right is the Collegienstrasse leading from the University to the Markplatz.

Today I'm going to tell you a little about what I know about Wittenberg so far. It's an old, medieval town that has become a city. I think it must be about the size of, say, Batavia in its entirety. I see mostly the "Altstadt", or older part of the town, becuase I am lucky enough to live right on the edge of it. The view from my window is actually the old post office. Coincidentally, when I found I was coming here, I googled images of Wittenberg and the Alte Post was the first thing I saw. Now I see it every morning.
Frau Meissner's apartment is about a hundred years old. It's considered an historic building and i guess the owner got some financial support from the government in its restoration, but also had to adhere to strict historical guidelines (the ceilings, for example, are really high and couldn't be lowered) During the DDR, the building was used as a factory to make lemonade mix, but I can't detect any residual smell!
I am right around the corner from the University. Now, I know you are all picturing Cornell or UB-- a series of buildings. This is only one, medieval building where classes were taught and students lived. There is really no eral university any more. Students still live and study there but they're really going to the University of Halle, a nearby city. Through the building is a courtyard and behind the courtyard is Martin Luther's house-- actually a really large building where her lived and entertained (future post on Martin Luther and the Martin Luther craze)
If you walk past the University instead of through it, you find yourself on Collegienstrasse. This is the main drag of Wittenberg, with all of the stores and also with the place I go every day for classes, the Leucorea. It's a very old building with a new inside. Student groups like ours come there to learn German. At the moment, for example, there is some conference for health professionals who, I think, are learning German and about the German health system. I guess they get groups from all over the world.
There are some surprising things about Wittenberg. I haven't travelled a lot to "the new states"-- as former East Germany is called, and certainly not at all since right after "die Wende"-- Reunification. (I was in Berlin and Potsdam briefly in the early 90's. I had assumed that all would be pretty much like West Germany. But here you can see evidence of the lower employment levels of the East. Many buildings have grafitti on them. Here and there stores are empty with "for rent" signs on them. Occasional vacant lots may have weeds-- that's pretty unheard of stuff for West Germany. In some ways I like the slightly shabby look of the town. It has a little of the underdog feel that Buffalo has.
The newer part of the city also has remnants of that beautiful and graceful East German architecture called here "Plattenbau"--huge slabs of concrete were pored and then stacked like cards to make big, monolythic blocks of buildings. Both schools I visited yesterday were Plattenbau buildings,only the Hundertwasser Schule, as you saw from the pictures, was dramatically changed-- quite a feat, considering what they started with.
The old part of the city has amazing, great architectural details. Rich merchants built these towers on their houses or built the facades up on their town houses and so here and there are all of these decorative extras on the houses-- colorful fronts, sometimes and interesting windows and doors. I'll take some pictures of these later.
Last night after classes we went to an English Stammtisch. That's the name the Germans give to a table at a restaurant where at a particular time people come together to speak English. The group was outside on the terrase of this beautiful old building drinking beer and wine. I immediately found out, though, that almost everyone there was a native American speaker. They were all there with a Lutheran group-- really nice, earnest older Midwestern ladies. There was an extremely annoying man there with them who comes every summer to Wittenberg to set up services for visiting Lutherans who speak English. He insisted on saying Wittenberg with a W and not a V and spoke terrible German. What had he been doing all these summers in Wittenberg? Despite this obvious deficit, he insisted in instructing me like a little kid and conducted himself as if he were a native (actually, he hilariously kept refering to the Wittenbergers as "natives"-- as if he had been sent from civilized America to tame the savages) Then a few Germans came, but their English was really limited and so they kept reverting to German with me. I didn't mind, but the annoying pastor kept correcting me and telling me that these people needed to learn English (!) The mosquitos were incredible—clouds of them and no defense until one of the Germans asked the waiter for bug spray and he brought some out. Then the evening got better. Some other Germans arrived and the party got going. Unlike "Wesis" (what Germans called Germans from western Germany), "Osis" (easterners) don't speak great English (even the younger ones educated after Russian was the principle school language) and conversation flipped back and forth between the two languages. I've found the Wittenbergers that I've met to be incredibly friendly and often very funny-- I wonder if that is also part of being from a less developed part of the country. So far, Eastern Germany suites me fine.
Here are a few photos. On the left is my apartment house and on the right is the Leuchorea where I go
to school every day.