In a U-Bahn station. A German man asked me in German language.
[German man] : Where is the train going?
[Me] : Alt Mariendorf
[German man] : Oow! Thank you!
[Me] : [thinking... what's wrong? He asked in German and I could reply it. But then suddenly he said 'thank you' rather than 'danke'? My accent must be so weird to him...]
Dresden City Festival
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| Dresden City Festival |
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| Gold horse raider statue |
I never been to the former
East Germany before, so when I had a chance to visit Dresden, I didn’t hesitate
to go. My Indonesian friend who study in
Dresden informed me about the city festival, so I go there not just visiting
the city but also experiencing the crowd.
In addition, Indonesian students would also perform traditional
dances! This is something that I always
admired from fellow Indonesians: none of the students are professional dancers
(c’mon, engineer, scientist, linguist…) yet they are wiling to learn to dance
for introducing Indonesia to the world.
 |
| Preparation before the dance |
Anyway, so I went to Dresden
by train with several language course students.
The trip took about three hours. We
planned to have one-day trip, we would go home in the evening.
Arriving Dresden, I didn’t
waste my time, I directly went to the stage where the Indonesian dances would
be performed (there are several stages spread all over the city center). There I met my friend and saw the preparation
before the dances started.
The dances attracted people
around. Some were videotaping, took
pictures, and kids also tried to follow the dances. Very cute!
There were four dances: three Balinese and one Sumatran.
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| People attracted to Indonesian dances |
After the dances, I said
goodbye to my friend and continued my sightseeing around the festival. There were several areas divided by themes,
for example: sport theme, medieval theme, youth theme, culture theme, etc. Very interesting!
After awhile, I met with my
Berlin friends again and joined them to a palace and explored the garden. And after that I got separated again until we
met again in the train station before going home. Overall I think Dresden is a nice city, it
has old and modern buildings. To be honest,
I never thought that Dresden would be a big city…
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| 'Biggest' fan |
 |
| Fountain in Dresden's castle |
Indonesian Community
Indonesians
like to gather. We even have a principle
that says mangan ora mangan kumpul
which means “eating or not at least we gather”.
So it’s not surprising if even in the foreign country, we still flock
together or try to find other Indonesians.
People who want to stay abroad for long time like me, will try to find
any existing Indonesian community. This
is like a normal SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for Indonesians.
The main
benefit of joining the community is of course we can get help. It’s not such a secret if students like me
like to come to a gathering event for having free Indonesian foods. Of course in return we also have to help
others, but this is just a karma circle: you got help and then you help others.
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| Facebook page of Indonesian community in Bremen |
The thing
is, I thought this behavior is just normal. People from other countries will do
the same. Apparently I was wrong. In my German class, there are students from
nine countries from Asia and Eastern Europe, but only me who do the search for
people from our home country. They are
not familiar with the system. Hmmm…
So for
example, most of our problem now is finding an apartment for our study later
(after the German course). They, of
course, search in internet, but in my case, I have asked the Indonesian
community in Bremen and now I have few offers.
And if worst-case scenario happened, I could just go to Bremen and crash
to an Indonesian home for awhile.
Indonesian community rocks!
Healthy Diet vs Eating Local
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| Whole-wheat pasta |
One of the
things I love about Germany is healthy foods can be found everywhere with many
options and competitive price with the ‘sinful’ ones. What I mean by healthy foods are like organic
foods or low calorie/ less sugar foods.
In Indonesia, these foods can only be found in big cities and the prices
are generally expensive.
In the
place where I worked before going to Germany, Berau, like other places in
Indonesia, there are so many tasty sinful foods. Most of the foods are fried or with coconut
milk or consists of internal organs.
Yummy! I really loved it. But then I had to face the awful truth, my
cholesterol level is higher than expected.
I am now in a yellow zone of cholesterol level!!!
 |
| Vegetarian sausage |
So, having
the wake-up call, I have to be more serious in taking care of myself, and I am
grateful that I am in Germany now. I can
really stop my poor eating habit and start something new. I start eating salad mainly and leave the fried
stuffs. I also don’t eat anything from
flour except if it’s a whole-wheat product.
I drink low fat milk and adding my green tea consumption.
 |
| Salad |
To add more
value on what I eat, I also look for organic foods. Organic foods not only good for my health but
also for the environment. But then
there’s also a twist for this option. As
an environmentalist, one of the trends now is eating local which means eating
food from local ground and not imported from other places. Because imported foods mean consuming much
fuel for the transportation. And this is
the ‘problem’ with foods in Germany. A
lot of (if it’s not most of) the foods are imported. For example this banana, it’s imported from
Costa Rica! The salmons are mostly from
Norway. So I don’t know if it’s still
considered as healthy foods cause most likely there’s preservative in it…
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| Salmon from Norway |
 |
| Banana from Costa Rica |
And if I
want to be a good environmentalist, eating local food, probably I have to eat
Kartoffelsalat every day! Ooowwhhh… why
healthy doesn’t mean tasty… L
German Language Course
As a DAAD
scholarship holder, I am required to do German language course before my study
begins. Although I have lived in Germany
before, but this requirement still applies.
But I got some tolerances. Other
PhD scholarship holders had to do it in Indonesia also, while I didn’t have
to. And then, others had to do 3-month
German course in Germany, while I only got 2-month.
But had
lived in Germany doesn’t mean I can speak fluently. In fact, that’s the most downside that I got:
can’t speak local language. Well how’s
that not possible, my Masters study was in English and that was where I spent
most of my times. And after I left
Germany, I never in a situation where I have to understand German. So surely, after 3 years my German was
completely gone…
 |
| My German language course books |
And it’s
not surprising that when I had to take placement test for the language course,
I got A1 level! First of all, the
language school now is different than the one I had. So, even though I passed A2 level from the
previous school, it’s not acknowledged.
Many of my friends surprised to know that I am in level A1 now, but
actually there’s A0 level!!! So I am not
that bad…
My new
language school is called Carl Duisberg Centren. The thing that I like the most is they teach
creatively. With a lot of games and
practices, so I don’t have to get stuck a lot with grammar. But of course, I think practicing outside the
school will improved my skill. Sooo… I
have to start talking German now…
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