On becoming a more assertive bicyclist

As a dedicated bike commuter, I was overjoyed when the weather became tolerable enough to get back in the saddle. However, I quickly realized I was mentally ill-prepared to take on Munich’s streets. Even having learned to maneuver the Calcutta-like masses of students on UW-Madison’s campus, I have never before experienced a magnitude of bike traffic like Munich’s.

On one hand, it is a beautiful thing that so many people get around by Radl (the Bavarian version of the German word for “bike”). Munich’s diversity of bike commuters is much richer than the mostly young and (0ften) liberal crowd typical of most American urban biking scenes. To add to the expected herds of university students and young professionals, the biking population also consists of business men and women in suits (and sometimes pumps, if the latter), elderly women with shopping bags, elderly men just putzing along, chic middle-aged ladies with designer bags, and kid-toting parents.

Of course, the magnitude of bike commuters is likely due to the fact that Germany, in general, is a much bike friendlier country than the US. Biking is so much more engrained in its culture and its infrastructure. For example, Munich has a remarkable network of bike paths and lanes (and many of the latter are placed on the sidewalks, rather than in the streets), which makes navigating the city much easier on bike than by car. I have also found drivers to be much more mindful of cyclists than in the States; in other words, they actually look for cyclists before making a turn.

On the other hand, the popularity of biking creates a hazard of its own: more cyclists.

Having never before shared the road with so many bikers, I was a nervous wreck during my first couple of weeks in the saddle, as I acclimated to the ways of the road. I was that annoying slow biker that swerved or stopped at any sign of confusion. I felt like a skiddish horse every time a biker would narrowly whiz past me in the bike lane, sometimes so close I was surprised I wasn’t knocked over.

A lesson I recently learned is to avoid Munich’s bike paths on Sundays, especially warm and sunny Sundays. The paths are swarming with cyclists: from your super-sporty, why-the-heck-is-he-going-that-fast road biker to the wobbly child who leaves you guessing which way he is going to weave as you attempt to pass him.

Biking is especially tricky in the pedestrian and tourist-heavy parts of town. In these places, you have to add clueless tourists unfamiliar with Munich street etiquette to your already busy radar.

I have found Marienplatz (Munich’s pedestrian mecca) to be the worst. Beware the tourist who steps into the middle of the street looking only through his camera’s viewfinder, or the one standing in the middle of the bike lane totally unaware of the oncoming cyclists frantically ringing their bells at her! Even though biking through Marienplatz is my most direct work-to-home route, I have resorted to riding home the long way, just to avoid its mayhem.

Thus, in order to survive as a bike commuter in Munich, I am learning to become a more assertive cyclist. I can’t falter when I see that car about to turn at the intersection I am about to cross–more often than not, the driver knows I am there. I can’t panic when approaching an area congested with pedestrians and other cyclists–I have to weave my way around with confidence. I can’t startle when someone passes me too closely for comfort–I have to stay cool and move over. And I can’t get nervous when I want to pass the slow biker I’ve started tailgating–I have take a deep breath, ring my bell and hope for the best.

Slow travel: a state of mind

Last time I was in Europe (ten years ago), my traveling philosophy was quite different than my current one. I was like most college juniors on a study abroad adventure: I wanted to see as much as possible. Just about every city I visited whizzed by me, as my travel mates and I rushed about to make sure we saw every medieval cathedral, art museum, castle, and/or sculpture garden our guide books told us to see.

Probably the most extreme case was my race to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa on a one-hour train layover. I just had to cross the famous architectural blunder off my list. Now, I don’t actually remember the tower all that much. Instead, my hurried trot through the busy streets while schlepping my heavy pack and my anxious worry over missing my train connection stand out more prominently in my memory. (Fortunately, I did successfully see the tower and make it back to the train station in time.)

Interestingly, most of the sightseeing I did while studying abroad are my hazier memories of that experience. Sure, I could flip through the hundreds of pictures I took to refresh my memory; but, in reality, the photo album I had carefully pasted together has taken up a long-term residence in the bottom of a box that I never unpack. Instead, my most vivid and fondest memories were the experiences I had actually living in Freiburg.

These days, the idea of running around a new city (or from city to city) trying to see every sight listed in Lonely Planet seems very unappealing. I much prefer to linger in one place and get to know it in a more genuine way.

Recently, I learned there is actually a term for this kind of travel philosophy: slow travel. Not surprisingly, this concept is part of the whole “slow” movement (e.g., slow food).

In a sense, slow travel is about mindful travel. In “A manifesto for slow travel,” the editor of the the travel magazine hidden europe explains, “Slow travel is about making conscious choices. It is about deceleration rather than speed…And slow travel also reshapes our relationship with places, encouraging and allowing us to engage more intimately with the communities through which we travel.”

The Huffington Post‘s Omer Rosen wrote a consciously generalizing plea to globe-gallivanting college students to settle down and sit still, which I wish I could have read ten years ago (although, I wonder if the appeal of slow comes with age). He essentially places hither-and-thither traveling under the umbrella of consumerism–it’s more like crossing a place off your shopping list than actually experiencing it.

Through the narrative of my recent day trip to Dachau, I’ll offer my take on some of the basics of the slow travel philosophy.

1. Do not travel with a definitive agenda.

I toured Dachau with no real agenda other than to follow my impulse. For example, my impulse told me to buy a delicious-looking piece of raspberry chocolate cake and eat it sitting in the sunshine, even though it was before lunchtime. It also told me to wander along the footpath that ran parallel to the town’s river just to see where it went.

2. Move slowly.

In other words, walk (or bike) as much as you can. My day in Dachau was a “spazieren gehen” sort of day. It helped that the town has a fabulous network of walking paths conveniently labeled with signs to help you steer yourself around. I ended the day with a solid set of blisters–it was the seasonal debut of my flip-flops, which tend to always punish me for banishing them to the closet for months.

3. Experience everyday, local life.

A tiny taste of Dachau's charm. Image by Unknown

This can mean many things. Suggestions I’ve seen include taking a cooking class from a local chef, learning some phrases in the local language, and volunteering with a local organization. Since I was only in Dachau for the day, I count my walk around the main city cemetery as my everyday life experience.

While walking around a cemetery might sound like a morbid activity, German cemeteries can actually be beautiful and peaceful places. Some of the ones I’ve seen are more like forests with grave sites as underbrush. This cemetery was one such cemetery. Its graves were incredibly well cared for; nearly all of them were neatly landscaped and adorned with fresh flowers. Burning candles even stood watch at some of them. And I witnessed a couple dozen people carefully tending their loved ones’ resting places. Perhaps it was the sunshine, or the flowers, or my general mood, but I felt very moved by the experience.

4. Do what you really want to do, not what you think you should do (or what the guide book tells you to do).

You might have heard of Dachau because of the darkest part of its history: it hosted a former Nazi concentration camp. While this association taints its name, the town is otherwise very charming.

I actually chose not to go to the concentration camp. Among my reasons, the day was ridiculously gorgeous and I decided I’d rather enjoy the beauty of the world. (Also, for context, I have previously visited another concentration camp, Buchenwald; and as German major in undergrad, I quite-intensely studied the Holocaust and Germany’s coming-to-terms-with-it. So I wasn’t feeling a lack of exposure to that history.)

However, this is not to say you should totally ignore your guide book. If you really want to see a certain sight, do it. But only if you really want to.

I ended up visiting a sight mentioned in Dachau’s tourist brochure that was not what I really wanted to do, but what felt I should do: the city history museum. When I wandered into the small museum to check out how much it cost, the reception area was empty. Upon realizing my presence, a women walked in from outside, where she was gardening, and gave me a very friendly greeting. After asking her the entrance cost, I felt guilty saying “no thanks” and bought a ticket. I think I might have been one of the few, if only, museum visitors that day.

The museum was not a waste of time. I saw some interesting Bavarian artifacts, and the exhibits offered good language practice, since they were in German. It was just not what I really wanted to do, which brings me to…

5. Revisit a place that makes you happy.

What I had really wanted to do was revisit the garden of Dachau’s palace. I had already meandered through it that morning (I had eaten my cake at the palace’s cafe, which overlooks the garden), and I found it so beautiful that, once I had done everything else I felt like doing, I wanted to return to it. So, after I finished with the museum, I did.

The garden was bursting with tulips and other flowers and bordered by pink-blooming trees. Since it sits atop a hill, it offers an amazing view of the Bavarian landscape, which the day’s clear sky made even more spectacular. Munich’s cityscape poked out in the distance, and the Alps loomed in the horizon (I think they might have been under the influence of the Foehn, a warm wind that makes the Alps look larger than usual).

For about an hour, I sat on a bench under one of the blooming trees with my notebook and my thoughts, alternately writing and gazing over the landscape. I was fully content.

A glimpse of Dachau Palace, but not from the same month, so the flowers I saw were a little different. Image by Adele Claire

6. Be a resident of your destination, not just a visitor.

At its core, slow travel is about becoming a temporary resident of your destination, not just a tourist. The slow traveler learns how the locals live, does what the locals do, and savors the time it takes to get acquainted with the place and the culture.

So, as I plod along in building a connection with Munich and the rest of Bavaria, with no departure date in sight, I guess you could call me an extreme slow traveler.

A few resources to read slowly…

“The Art of Slow Travel,” from the Independent Traveler

Slow Travel Europe delves into a deeper explanation of slow travel and provides other relevant links

Another take on slow travel by a grassroots organization dedicated to all things slow

Berlin has its own slow travel website…I wonder if I should start a Munich satellite site?

The World Institute of Slowness offers info on other things to do slowly

Home is where the taste buds are

Home is not just where the heart is; it’s also where the taste buds are. This seems to be especially so when in a foreign land.

This past week, I went to dinner with four other expats and one German (but who is part British and part Indian), and we got into a long conversation about where in Munich one can find the best Indian food. One of my dinner-mates was Indian, and he was praising a hole-in-the-wall Indian joint, claiming it sells the best [insert name of said Indian food that I’ve now forgotten] he’s ever had outside of India. Specifically, he described this food as tasting “just like home.”

Another dinner-mate, who is British by birth but Pakistani by heritage, was lamenting the lack of good Pakistani food, saying she just can’t find food like her family makes.

As I walked home from this dinner, I pondered the connection between food, taste, and homeland. People do seem to end up missing certain foods when they have left their home country, which sometimes induces an endless hunt for home-like fare. For example, one of my American friends here, with her German husband in tow, has been on an ongoing search for the best, most American-like hamburger in Munich.

Sure, ethnic restaurants can help satiate one’s desire for that home-like cooked meal (although, if McDonalds and Starbucks are considered “ethnic American,” I can’t say they do anything for me). Some may call these restaurants the globalization of food, but I wonder if they are just expats’ own remedy for their craving for “home-food.”

A brief Google search for attachments to food revealed one article stating that people associate certain grub with specific childhood memories, and another claiming people find comfort foods, well, comforting when feeling stressed or lonely (both emotions that accompany moving to a new place). So there seems to be some science behind the food-home connection.

But whether scientific fact or experiential assumption, seeking out familiar foods does seem to be a fact of life abroad. For example, I asked my flatmate, who lived in Vancouver, BC for a while, if there were any German foods she missed while she was there, and she immediately exclaimed, “Brezen” (pretzels, of the soft variety–a very Bavarian snack).

Brezen! Image by Jonathan M

In my own experience, when I was living in St. Lucia (in the Eastern Caribbean), I recall having strange cravings for vittles like for flour tortillas and cheese that was not yellow, because these were hard, if not impossible, to come by on the island. What was strange about these cravings was that, aside from the cheese, many of them weren’t things I eat on a regular basis in America. My flatmate agreed that you end up longing for food you don’t normally crave at home.

Here in Germany, I tend to cook meals that are close to home (i.e., what I cook in the States). Granted, the food available here is not drastically different than what is available in the homeland. In fact, in some cases, I think the food here is much better. Even so, I haven’t yet ventured into trying any German recipes, even though my flatmate has a healthy collection of German recipe books.

Perhaps if I were living in a small Bavarian village, rather than a big city, with less access to home-like foods and a higher consumption of traditional Bavarian fare–e.g., Bratwurst, Brezen, and Kaesespaetzle (what I consider the German version of mac and cheese)–then I would start pining for quinoa, kale, and the rest of my usual hippie-vegetarian provisions.

Though, I will admit that I do miss my favorite comfort food: Annie’s mac & cheese (note to friends and family: if you send me a care package, please throw in a few boxes of that…especially the organic shells and white cheddar). Kaesespaetzle just isn’t the same.

How about you, dear readers: if you’ve lived in a different country before, what home-food(s) did you miss?

Kaesespaetzle. Image by Wiki der Wikinger

Spazieren gehen

One of my favorite activities to do in Munich so far is going on a walk, or “spazieren gehen” auf Deutsch. Like most German cities, Munich is an easy place to be a pedestrian. Of course, it had the advantage of being a city centuries before cars were around, so automobile infrastructure was kind of an after-thought. But even with its now-busy roads, its sidewalks, bike paths and various means of public transit (subway, bus, streetcar, commuter train) are still bustling. The Germans don’t seem to have forgotten what life was like before the car, which this recent article in The New York Times reminded me.

Granted, some of the places I have lived in the States, especially the last three, were relatively pedestrian-friendly. But Munich takes it up a couple notches. Within a few blocks radius of me, I can walk to just about anything I need on a daily basis: several grocery stores, my bank, a post office, bakeries (there are literally about 2 bakeries per block in my neighborhood), my subway stop, and stores of all sorts–from furniture to second-hand clothing to books.

An after-work occasion I delight in is taking a walk to my new favorite market, Lowenzahn, a tiny shop that sells only fresh produce, wine, cheese, bread, meat, and an enticing selection of oils and vinegars. The other evening, on my walk to Lowenzahn, I took new route along the edge of a large park called Theresienwiese, which is home to Oktoberfest (only a block and a half from my house!). The centerpiece of the park is a huge statue of the lady of Bavaria that guards the entrance of the “Hall of Fame,” which displays busts of important dead people (mostly men, of course…she says sarcastically). I was walking at sunset, and the sky above the monument was illuminated pink. I held my breath and slowed my pace as I became transfixed by the gorgeous sight and embraced the moment. Even on a bike, it would have been hard to truly appreciate that moment, while also staying vigilant of road hazards and oblivious drivers.

The lady of Bavaria and the Hall of Fame. Image by R. Pirkner

But “spazieren gehen” is not just a utilitarian way of going from place to place. It is also recreational and one way I am getting to know Munich. At least once per week, I take myself on a walk around a new part of town, in an attempt to etch a map of the city into my brain.

And it doesn’t seem to be just me, the newcomer in awe of her new surroundings, that fancies a recreational stroll, even if it is on a chilly winter day. On my first Sunday here, my flatmate took me to Schloss Nymphenburg, the former summer castle of Bavarian royalty, now a public park and museum. Munich was still in the holds of the cold snap that hit Europe, but the frigid temperatures did not stop people from playing outside. Children and adults alike were ice skating on the narrow canal that runs through the park. Families, pairs of lovers, and gaggles of friends strolled along the paths, some sipping Gluehwein (myself included) to keep warm. It seemed that half of Munich was there.

Schloss Nymphenburg's backyard. Imagine this covered in snow and about 20 times as many people in the picture, and that's what the day looked like. Image by Florian Adler

I am not saying I don’t think Americans take themselves on strolls in parks. There are certainly many places where that happens. But I think what struck me most was just the huge number of people that had the same desire to walk on the same miserably-cold day.

As my new reality slowly spoils me, it also reinforces how important it is, for me, to keep “walk-ability” at the top of my priority list for places to live. Without intending to be self-righteous, the pedestrian life has become a valued part of my everyday, and I simply can’t imagine giving that up. Walking slows down the pace of life and allows me to really pay attention to my surroundings and notice details I probably otherwise would not. It also frees up more brain space to think–or not think (i.e., meditate)–than both biking and driving allow.

And so, if you’ll excuse me, I have some walking to do.

So we meet again, Germany

Ten years ago, I left my comfortable college town (Charlottesville, VA) to try out one of life’s uncomfortable, but worthwhile opportunities: living in a different country. I studied for a semester in Freiburg, Germany–a quaint college town in its own right. But, as a twenty-year-old American woman with only a beginning German language ability, life in Freiburg, at first, was by no means comfortable. I struggled with the frustration of feeling unable to express myself, the confusion around understanding a new culture, and then the growing pains of learning about myself in how I respond to such uncomfortable situations. In fact, I distinctly remember bursting into tears one day after my German literature class, as I attempted to ask my professor a question, but just couldn’t get it out nor could understand what she was telling me in response.

But, thankfully, with time, my German got better (much better!) and life became increasingly more comfortable–as they always say it does. And I learned the value of throwing oneself into uncomfortable experiences: you grow…a lot.

And so, here I am, ten years “older and wiser,” doing the same exact thing to myself. This time, I left a different, but equally comfortable college town (Madison, WI) and headed in the direction of another German city: Munich (or Muenchen, as the Germans call it). A much different town than Freiburg, Munich is one of Germany’s “big” cities, and while it’s also home to a university and also has quaint aspects to it (it is, after all, the capital of Bavaria, from where most stereotypically German kitsch comes–Lederhosen, Oktoberfest, etc.), this is by no means a quaint university town.

A fortunate job opportunity was my ticket to Munich, but I also came here to satiate my desire to reconnect with Germany and, once again, expand my perspective. However, unfortunately, the years of letting my German language ability lie dormant have paid their toll. While I have not regressed all the way back to how it was when I first arrived in Freiburg, I’m not that much better. But, as they always say, it will get better with time.

And so, with this blog, I will chronicle my reconnection with “der Vaterland” (it is literally, for me, the land of my forefathers), as well as muse over my expanding perspective. Since my job–and my professional (and personal) interests, in general–lie in the environmental studies realm, many of those musings will likely be related accordingly. In fact, another reason I decided to come to Germany was to flavor my otherwise primarily domestic environmental perspective with some international spice (granted, Germany is not the most exotic of spices, but it is an important one in environmentalism’s recipe nonetheless).

Without further ado, welcome to my blog. Please come again.