Blaubeuren. A sleepy little down in the schwäbischer Alb, Swabian hills. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:
“Blaubeuren lies in the Swabian Jura, in a valley surrounded by wooded limestone hills, giving it a very picturesque setting of half‑timbered houses and narrow streets.
It has around 12,000 inhabitants and functions today as a quiet regional town with a well‑preserved old center that attracts day‑trippers from Ulm, Stuttgart and further afield.
The Blautopf is a deep karst spring on the edge of the old town whose water appears an almost unreal blue‑green due to dissolved limestone particles scattering the light.
It is about 21 meters deep, is one of the largest and water‑rich karst springs in Germany, and serves as the source of the short river Blau, which flows on to Ulm and into the Danube.
The area around Blaubeuren has been settled since prehistoric times, with nearby caves yielding important Ice Age finds now shown in the local Museum of Prehistory.
In the High Middle Ages, a Benedictine monastery (Kloster Blaubeuren) founded in 1085 became the dominant institution, and its Gothic church, cloister and richly carved high altar still shape the townscape today.
Popular activities are strolling the circular walking route (Rundweg) around the town and up to viewpoints and castle ruins, as well as visiting rock formations and caves in the surrounding Swabian Jura landscape.”
When you apply to a Goethe Institute language course you are given several location options. Because I was a bit late, I did not get either of my top choices: Freiburg in the Black Forest or Chiemsee south of Munich. Blaubeuren, however, turned out very well.
I had a roommate in the Studentenwohnheim. I can’t remember his name. He was from Jordan. A Palestinian. Barely spoke any English. Or German. Nice guy. Quiet. Reserved. I don’t recall us exchanging more than a few words each day. He did his thing. I did mine.
I do remember, however, that he kept forgetting to flush the toilet after doing a Number One. Why do I keep telling anecdotes having to do with this one bodily function? Strange. Or maybe not. It is a bodily function. And a chief one at that.
The Germans call Number One klein machen, literally small do, as opposed to groß machen, big do. Either way my roommate wouldn’t flush. It wasn’t until years later that I realized: “John, the guy was from Jordan. Middle East. Dry. Water conservation. Number One. No need to flush every single time.”
I also thought: “John, that was your first experience with another culture.” Maybe. When I was fourteen years old our football team traveled to Boston to play a game. Each of us players from our suburban Philadelphia town stayed overnight with the family of another player. Not a major culture shock, but certainly different. The accent alone up there in Boston is different. Strange, frankly. Quattaback for quarterback. Cah for car. I was our team’s quattaback.
Then there were the other Palestinians in the Studentenwohnheim. Three of them once invited me over for a meal. I came over to their room only to see on the floor what looked like a pile of food on spread-out newspaper pages. Food it was. Rice. Peas. Chicken. Spices. Other stuff. It smelled great. And it looked great. They greeted me with a smile, spoke good English, invited me to sit on the floor, around that small mountain of food, gave me a big spoon, and we were off to the races.
I remember two things. First, the meal tasted great. Second, that they were gleeful that Anwar Sadat had been assassinated in Cairo. On October 6, 1981. I just looked it up. Many of us remember. Military parade. Soldiers marching by. Then, a few of them with automatic weapons break formation. Gunfire. Staccato. That was it for the Egyptian president. He had made peace with Israel. My Gastgeber, literally guest-givers, said that he had it coming.
Ten weeks of language school. Starting end of September and going up until Thanksgiving (for us Americans), end of November. In that little Swabian town. The Blautopf really is interesting and beautiful. The Kloster, the cloister/monastery, was even more impressive, especially for a student of history like myself, and a Roman Catholic.
And then the leaves, the foliage, began to change their colors. Blaubeuren is surrounded on three sides by hills. Nestled is a term often used. Protected. Secluded. To itself. The autumn colors were rich, if not as vibrant as they are in my neck of the woods, in southeastern Pennsylvania. In many ways Germany has a kind of beauty which is deep, solid, constant, full, dependable. Not flashy or loud or exuberant or surprising or exhilirating. Steady.
I still recall walking to the language school in the mornings. Around the time when the elementary school children were walking to their schools. Those cute little human beings, clustered in twos and threes and fours. With their school backpacks so typical of school-aged children in Germany. Their voices alive and happy and giggling and naive and human.
I also recall the fields and the grass. Crisp green. Fresh. Moist from the early morning dew. Often glistening. The air tasted almost sweet. It had a kind of richness to it. As if it were angereichert, enriched in some way. Perhaps these were all my subjective Wahrnehmungen, perceptions, senses, sensations.
I always like the German term Wahrnehmung, with wahr meaning truth and nehmung from the verb nehmen, to take. Wahrnehmung to take as true, to take as the truth. Perceptions. Senses. Sensations. Truth. What we think, believe, sense as being true.
Those lovely, innocent, happy children marching off together to school, to learn, to grow, together. And John, the American, aged 22 also off to school, to learn, to grow. How fortunate I was to be able to do that. Way back when.