Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Here I am, 'wieder'.


I am in a train, going back home after my German class of today (I took a photo of the railways by the way). It was very interesting. I was in a bad moment when a partner of Colombia spoke me in such a bad way just 'cause I had said that I found boring the Hitler's book Mein Kampf, and he answered that was just because my people were unable to understand it. I felt insulted and I have been a bit dissapointed until I met an old woman in the bus later and I discovered myself talking German with her because she could not speak english. That madame brightened my day.
There are some girls next to me laughing at something that I can't understand yet. I am watching the landscape trough the window. It is wonderful.

Architecture
Germany have a particular architecture, generally seen in the places it snow. Every roof is gabled, almost all are black and the walls of the houses are coated by a thin grey rock like the ones we use for covering the ground. That is really characteristic, at least in this area. All the buildings follow the same style, with a lot of thing in common. Everything seems to be dark, black or gray-toned (the frontages you can see in the photos are not so common), but overall it looks like really nice, the darkness of the architecture contrasts with the sky and the hills and gives to the region a charming appearence. I feel like I were within a fairy tale, or a movie like Harry Potter or Mary Poppins (there is some similarity between German and British way of building).
All houses have at least two floors, excluding the basement and the attic. I have seen houses of more than four floors, and the most of them have no elevators. I don't know how the elder people manage to go up and downstairs everyday.

Something about doors
Since the day I arrived I noticed something really strange about all the doors of the house: they remain closed all day long. I tought it was particular of my family, but I realized that here the Germans only warm the rooms they use. So, they have to close all doors just after passing through them.
Ok, there is another problem for foreign people like me we are not used to close the doors, even the entrance ones. I waited about 5 minutes near the toilet door because I thought there was someone inside. Then I remembered the fact we were only four people in the house, and everyone was downstairs. Actually there was no one in the bathroom and I could have been waiting there all my whole life. I asked to my German teacher how she knows if someone is inside, because I had been watching the Germans getting inside without knocking the door. She just said to me: 'Well, this is a key and it is used to'... and you know the rest of the sentence.

Keep in touch.

Santiago.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This "door" subject is really interesting and funny... an example that every little detail characterize a culture, right?