Another Night by the Real McCoy

The Koelner Dom (Cologne Cathedral) is a sight to behold.  You truly cannot comprehend its splendor and height until you are standing right outside, craning your neck up...up...up.  It stands right outside the train station and as you approach, you catch a glimpse, but you literally cannot see the top until you ascend onto the plaza.  There are plenty of buildings that dwarf the Koelner Dom today, but imagine being the designer, in 1322, of this beauty that took well over 200 years to complete, with a 400 year pause until it was finally completed in 1880.  You never lived to see even a fraction of your masterpiece built.  Imagine that this masterpiece was built completely by hand with none of the safety, machinery, and technology available today.  It is a true testament of Catholicism and intimidation.  When you stand next to it, you feel the power of the church, which was entirely the point.  When I saw the Dom for the first time in the summer of 1993, I fell in love.  When I learned that our junior year class trip was to Koeln, I was thrilled!

There we were, 2 classes of German 16-17 year old students, and me, packed into a train, garnished with streamers.  Think school bus, but the actual Deutsche Bahn (German Railroad), aka public transporation.  We were all surprisingly well behaved and arrived in Koeln together and in one piece.  The field trip was a combination of chaperoned and unchaperoned events such as the theater, the art museum, and a trip to a brewery.  That alone speaks to how different this was from an American field trip, but also the freedom we were given throughout.  A few things stand out in my memory. The first was gathering in the famous Frueh Brauhaus (Brewery).  It was a group of boys from our class.... and me.  There was a toast made and it was sweet and I was happy.  There was also an unspoken contest called "Who will end up with the most Koelschglaeser (Koelsch glasses)".  To clarify, these are glasses we stole.  There are 26 varieties of Koelsch, which is a beer brewed in.... you guessed it, Koeln.  It is served in a 0.2ml glass and each variety has their own logo on the glass. The servings size is so cute and perfect, really a tasting.  They continue to serve you until you put your Bierdeckel (coaster, also branded) on top of your glass, indicating you are done.  I ended up with at least 3 glasses, all now sadly broken.

The other memory and purpose of today's story, is of scaling the Dom with my classmates.  There are 533 steps to the top and they wind up a circular staircase with no windows.  It's intense.  We came up with a song to entertain ourselves to the tune of a big hit of 1993:

Another stair, another step, but always down

It's like a vision of circle that seems to go round

Another stair, another step, but always down

In the Dom I think we'll reach the ground.

....And eventually we did!

Cryin' by Aerosmith

Like most in my generation, I am sure the first thing that comes to mind when you hear this song is the video with Alicia Silverstone bungy jumping off a bridge while flipping the bird.  That does come to mind when I hear it and there is actually a funny story there.  This song hit it big in 1993 when I was in Germany and I watched the video frequently on MTV.  Upon returning to US, I saw a Wayne's World sketch on SNL and it was something about looking behind the censor and instead of her finger, it was a leprechaun that freaked Garth out.  I remember wondering why they censored it for SNL and what the big mystery was.  I realized that the video was always censored for my US friends, however it was NOT censored on MTV Europe so I saw that oh so scandolous finger every single time.  

That is only one of my memories associated with that song.  

Flash to early January 1994, we are going to another outstanding party at Niels H's house.  It was my first party there and it did not disappoint.  I had finally figured out french kissing and boy did I put in a lot of practice with my new (first!) boyfriend during that party.  Maybe I was naive or possibly weird, but the first couple times I'd been french kissed I honestly thought it was kind of slimy and gross.  Don't worry, I quickly changed my mind about the experience!  It was a rocking house party with good friends and plenty of alcohol.  There may have even been an embarrassing knocking over and breaking of a sekt glass.  Maybe.  At some point I noticed that I was the only girl left at the party.  This became a common thing after I started dated Bastian and subsequently, my German began to resemble that of a 16 year old boy with a lot of inappropriate jokes and way too much slang.  I wonder if I still sound that way speaking German?  The party continued into the wee hours, in fact, I spent the night.  Aside from the aforementioned kissing, it was an innocent overnight.  

How does Cryin' fit into the evening?  I remember being just delighted that after talking to Uli G about music, he offered to loan me his Aerosmith Get a Grip CD.  It must be noted that Uli was later crowned the Cutest Boy in the Class in the class superlatives and furthermore, someone the prior Turlock iteration of myself would have been way too shy and embarrassed to even approach, let alone talk to and borrow a CD.  Let's just say it was a big deal for my self esteem and nothing to cry about!

Killing in the Name of by Rage Against the Machine

14 teenagers, no chaperones, a week in France on a ski vacation.  What could go wrong? 

Val Thorens, nestled in the breathtaking French Alps

Such a thing would have been unthinkable in the US, but in Germany (some) teenagers seem to be given a bit more freedom.  I was super excited about this opportunity, even though my boyfriend didn't have the kind of parents who allowed such a thing.  It was a long, overnight bus ride through Switzerland and France, into the Alps, to the ski village of Val Thorens.  We passed through Albertville where the Winter Olympics had recently been held.  It was so beautiful and looked much different than Lake Tahoe as it is located above the tree line, in fact it is the highest ski resort in Europe.  We stayed in a large hotel, rather than a cozy cabin.  I was in a room with Manuela B and Sabine D and I was so excited about the bonding experience I was sure to have with them.  The skiing was tough for me because most of my classmates had been skiing for their entire lives, whereas I had really only started skiing during my freshman year in high school (2 years experience).  Furthermore, my experience thusfar was at Badger Pass and Pinecrest so I was literally going from the bunny slope to an expert slope - yikes!  Luckily, Thilo B. skiied at about my level so we spent a lot of time together, skiing and improving greatly that week.

After a long day of skiing, the evenings got a little nutty.  Lots of drinking, lots of obnoxious behavior.  The song of the moment was Killing in the Name of and it is a very angry song, but even if you are not angry, there was something really fun about being 16, standing on the balcony of the room with a bunch of German guys, and screaming, literally screaming along with the music... Fuck you I won't do what you tell me!  This is an actual song lyric that gets repeated like 15 times in a row.  Fun stuff!  Not at all obnoxious!  I remember feeling the slightest bit embarrassed, but also that we were teenagers being teenagers - isn't that what it's all about?

What's Up? by 4 Non Blondes

Dorthe S. and I were in her room, primping to go to the Old Daddy Disco in Duisburg.  I had been in Germany for about a week, living with the S. family.  My orientation class was comprised of American high school students from all across the U.S., literally from Alaska to Maine. Alongside our daily classes in language and culture were several cultural excursions, but none more exciting to me than the disco.  So there we were, getting dressed up in our silk vests with jeans. Yes, vests!  They were the oh so cool look for 1993, just ask Season 2 of Beverly Hills, 90210!  The Old Daddy was kind of dingy and dark and Dorthe said it was the alternative disco.  Most discos at that time played a lot of techno and europop, but the Old Daddy was more about stuff like Morrissey and grunge music.

This pose totally qualifies for that
Awkward High School moments website!! 
What was I going for exactly??

We Americans immediately showed everyone how foreign and out of place we were by going out on the dance floor WHEN IT WAS EMPTY!  I also remember being shocked.  SHOCKED! To see some of the other Americans buying beer.  Yes, it was legal, but I was so terribly naive back then, not to mention pretty young.  I wouldn't turn 16 for another 2 weeks.  It was a fun evening getting to know my new friends in a social setting, outside of class, and I distinctly remember coming home disgusted by the smell of cigarette smoke in my hair and clothes.

Naturally, after experiencing my first taste of what no one my age back home in the U.S. would be allowed to experience for another 5 years, I decided to take this opportunity to change my image.  No one here knew anything about me!  Back home I was a band geek, but here I was a person who went places where there was drinking and smoking and dancing!  I could be anyone!  I remember writing in my diary that I might even buy a CD that was crazy out of character for me, like 4 Non Blondes!  So crazy!  The song What's Up? was a chart topper at the time and liking it hardly constituted someone doing something different or crazy or cool.  But for me, it symbolized breaking out of my shell, trying something new, being someone different.  In the end, that year in Germany was, in fact, transformational, even though I never did buy that CD. 

U Got 2 Let the Music by Cappella

Once I settled into my fourth and final host family in Germany, I found myself in a pretty nice situation.  I had my own room with a queen sized bed in the basement.  The laundry room was also downstairs with me.  My host mom and host brother were on the 3rd floor.  On top of me was the main floor with the kitchen and living room, then the second floor was a guest room and my host mom's workshop (she was a seamstress) and then my host mom's room was on the 3rd floor and my host brother had this little nook off of her room.  My bedroom's location afforded me a ton of privacy. My host mom also afforded me boundless amounts of freedom, but that is a story for another song.  I had TV in my room and one of my host sisters was in the US working as an au pair for the years.  She had left behind a bunch of really great CDs with a lot of the latest German hits so I was in heaven. 

I remember a lot of my free time being consumed with correspondence.  This was back before email and the internet and I had a lot of penpals.  There were all of my regular penpals like Monica and Sergio W in Canada, Gretchen R in Washington, Lauren Y and Ryan C in California, all of my Turlock classmates and family members, some friends I had just met at a Dude Ranch that summer, and even some new friends also doing the exchange year that I had met in Duisburg.  I was receiving mail almost daily and it was great.  There was a real art to letter writing and I lament this basically extinct form of communication.  People would include quotes, pictures, songs, artwork. Sometimes letters would be written over the course of a few days.  They were personal, funny, intimate.  I loved it.  I felt pressure to respond as soon as possible and I found myself responding to one or more letters almost daily.  When I wasn't writing letters, I was writing in my diary.  I wrote all the time.  I almost always listened to music either on MTV or CDs while I wrote and U Got 2 Let the Music, a very typical example of Euro dance music, is one of those songs I listened to over and over in my room that year. 

You might wonder when I had time to study when I was writing so much?  I didn't.  I have no idea why I got away with this, but my German teachers expected absolutely nothing out of me.  I didn't have to do homework, take tests, or even participate or attend classes if I didn't want to.  This was inexcusable on my part, not to mention monumentally boring, but I took advantage of the situation.  The most important thing, in my opinion, was that I learned to speak German so well that I was often confused as a native or at the very least, a foreigner, but NOT an American.  Major feat.  The other issue with school was that in some cases, the kids were so far ahead of the typical, even honors American student in classes like Math, Biology, and Chemistry, that I couldn't have caught up if I wanted to.  So I had an easy year, academically, all the courses transferred over as "P", and I had a rough Senior year catching up on the requirements I missed my junior year.  I survived. 

Somebody Dance with Me by DJ Bobo

It was early in my exchange year in Germany in the fall of 1993.  I was living with my third host family, the G-Z family.  My first host family was only for the summer orientation program and my original, permanent family did not work out, which is a story for another song.  The exchange program would have easily placed me with another family, but there were no guarantees I would stay in the same town where I had already started school and begun to made new friends.  They said I had the option to find another family on my own and then they would provide support to that new family.  A student at my school, Ariane Z, who I didn't even know at the time, had heard about my plight and she called her mother to plead my case.  Her mother was in Berlin at the time and I can only imagine what she was thinking when she heard that Ariane wanted to take in an American student who had been kicked out of her host family's home!  Luckily for me, her mother was a kind, generous, trusting person who agreed to take me and then championed a huge outreach to find me a new, permanent family.   Those two weeks with the G-Z family were so wonderful and I felt like I had been saved from an unknown fate.  They were spirited, very busy, fast talkers, opinionated, close knit, and loving.  Just like my very own family back in  California.  We stayed in touch throughout my year there, I visited them every time I returned to Germany, they visited me in California, and I am still in touch with them to this day.

During my two weeks, they took me on a few outings.  One of the outings was a birthday party in another village.  We took the train to the birthday party, but when we arrived, to my surprise, I learned that we would now be taking a 1-hour stroll through the woods to get to the party.  Did I forget to mention it was raining fairly steadily?  I thought this was a little strange, not that I was lazy, but we were wearing party clothes and shoes.  After the party we walked a very short distance to another train station and I realized that hike was for fun!  It was actually fun, aside from being really concerned about my hair, as we met up with some of their friends and we all walked together.  Between the families, there were many younger kids and I was plenty entertained.  At the same time, it was really only my 3rd month in Germany and I still had a ways to go before I could really communicate with ease in German.  So I had a lot of time in my own head, with my own thoughts.  I also had my own soundtrack for the day, which was Somebody Dance with Me.  I thought that song was the best thing I had ever heard.  I listened to it over and over, it had an amazing dance beat.  The rapping was kind of cheesy, but I loved the chorus, which was sung with such great emotion.  I loved it so much and I kept playing it in my hear over and over as we walked.  It was also the song of the moment in Germany so I luckily had plenty of options to hear it at parties, on the radio, and on MTV.  A couple years later I heard the recording of a live version in Switzerland and it was amazing.  It made me want to stroll through the woods.  In the rain!

The Sign by Ace of Base

We're going to hang out in Germany for one more night, at least.  Tonight we're going back to New Year's Eve, or as it is called in Germany, Sylvester 1994.  I was going to a party that promised to be epic on so many levels.  I didn't call it epic back then, but I probably said that I thought it was going to be so so geil.  Sabse had invited our group of friends to her house.  What made this evening particularly exciting was that I had a brand new boyfriend - my first ever boyfriend!  It was such a new relationship and new experience, we weren't even French Kissing yet!  I had done so only once before in a game of Spin the Bottle earlier that year and I mostly thought it was gross.  Obviously it takes the right person, but at that Silvester party, we were still very innocent and cute and new.

Let's see, who was there?  Mostly girls: Nina, Christiane, Sabse, Manu, and I.  A couple boys:  Alex, Sabse's boyfriend, and Bastian, mine.  Possibly some other folks?  Let me know who I am forgetting!  We girls were really into The Sign and we played it over and over during the party, singing at the top of our lungs.  The party hat of the evening was the baseball cap for some reason and all of us girls were wearing baseball caps from Sabse's collection. There was drinking, dancing, singing, kissing, and oddly, I think I remember a Magic Eye Poster.

I had the best time - I had always wanted to attend a New Year's party with girls AND boys who were not family and it was everything I hoped it would be.  Shortly before midnight, we hiked up to the top of the Turmberg (a local "hill" with an old lookout tower and castle ruins).  There was an excellent view from the top and it was packed full of people, young and old.  Fireworks helped ring in the New Year and everyone was laughing and joyful and Happy New Year-ing.  We celebrated with gusto and headed back down the hill to Sabse's house.  Bastian walked me back to the S-Bahn station so I could return to my host family's home in Berghausen.  Welcome 1994!

Fields of Joy by Lenny Kravitz

It was the morning after another epic party at Niels H's house.  In an earlier post, I talked about the cool German kids.  Niels was THE coolest.  I was super intimidated by him for the longest time, but then I fell in love with his best friend and by extension, Niels became my friend, too.  He had long hair and he wore biker boots, but they were legit.  He rode a motorcycle!  He even picked me up once from the train station which was the only time I have ever ridden on a motorcycle.  I wasn't scared back then, but I am now. 

Niels threw the best parties.  They reminded me of something I'd seen on Beverly Hills, 90210.  His bedroom was like his own private guesthouse.  He had two rooms of his own and his own bathroom and the rooms were somewhat removed from the rest of the house.  He also had access to the yard.  The party was certainly a lot of fun, but today we are going back to the morning after.  I had spent the night and in the morning it was just me, Bastian, and Niels.  Yes, Mom and Dad, I spent the night (innocently, believe it or not!) at some boys house with my boyfriend.  I remember Niels brought in breakfast: cappuccinos, fresh rolls with jam, butter, and different wursts.  He was playing the Lenny Kravitz Mama Said album which began with Fields of Joy.  The album had come out before Are You Gonna Go My Way, a popular song at the time, and I loved that we were listening to something that wasn't super trendy that I hadn't heard 100x before, or possibly ever.  I felt impossibly sophisticated.  A grown-up breakfast, listening to very cool music, no parents, with just my boyfriend and my favorite boy friend.  I showered and got ready for the day there and I just remember feeling like I was so safe in that place, with two people who would do anything for me.  I was the picture of contentment.  I didn't even have to worry that I was going to get in trouble because I was breaking a rule.  I don't *think* I lied to my host mom.  In fact, I think she was out of town and my host sister was in charge.  So that explains that!

Mr. Vain by Culture Beat

It was my very first party with actual German kids.  The COOL kids.  I hadn't been to a party with the cool kids ever and I was beyond excited.  What should I wear?  Would there be lots of drinking?  Dancing?  Would the cute boy in my class be there?  Daniel knew how to throw a party and it lived up to all my expectations.  There was drinking.  There was dancing.  There were cute boys.  The song of the moment was Mr. Vain.  We listened to it more than once throughout the course of the evening.  I was so excited to see how the cool kids lived - I got to hear all kinds of gossip about who dated who, what happened during a party last year, who likes whom.  I was learning all kinds of cool German words and expressions.  I started getting to know the girls in my class (Manu, Sabse, Acki, Chrischdle, Nina, Diana) in a social setting.  It was an exclusive bunch - there were only 6 girls, well 8, counting me and Stacey, in the class, compared to 14 or 16 boys!  I also spent a lot of time talking to Stacey, the other exchange student, and we commiserated about being away from home and not quite understanding everything that was being said.  It was the first of many very fun parties with what grew to be some very good friends.

Call him Mr. Right or call him Mr. Wrong.  Call him Mr. Vain.  I just googled the lyrics and they unanimously say Mr. Raider.   I remember thinking at the time how odd it was that I had so much trouble discerning the lyrics to a song sung in English.  Mr. Raider still makes no sense to me to this day.  I'm still going with Mr. Right.