I wash my laundry in the shower - my socks are never white

2. Oktober, 2009

I wash my laundry in the shower. The shower does not contain a bathtub, but rather a shallow water-guard, as many showers seem to have. The first time I realized that there were no laundromats in Großenhain, I was unprepared. The bag of used-clothes grew in size until I realized that I did not have much left to wear. Looking around town was followed by asking around town for a place to wash clothes—there was nothing. My choices were either to pay a dry-cleaner an exorbitant amount to wash, dry and fold my clothes, or to go to the DM drugstore and buy a bottle of laundry detergent for 2 Euros, and spend my time instead of my money.

I opted for the second possibility. Washing so many clothes at once is, as you may imagine, quite the undertaking. Washing machines are really quite wonderful inventions. Unlike dish washing machines, which can save some minutes, but are frequently more hassle than they are worth (in my humble opinion), washing machines can save hours. One hour is not enough time to clean a load of laundry, even when working diligently and quickly. I do not have a shout-out pen, or oxy-clean. This means that my laundry smells nice after I finish, but still looks more or less the same. My should-be white socks stay black, or maybe grayish. Since the first experience, I have learned to do many more, smaller loads of laundry, because they are much easier to manage. A few socks here and there, a tee-shirt or so.

The experience with laundry seems to reflect my general experiences in the small city of Großenhain. Generally an aesthetically-pleasing place, with a bustling small-city atmosphere, Großenhain has much to offer its 15,000 residents (and its Fremdsprachenassistentin)—between the hours of 7:00 and 18:00, Monday through Friday. For someone coming from a small city in Massachusetts, the hours of many business are quite confusing. Instead of being open longer on weekends, for example, everything is closed. On Saturday, there are only three businesses open, as I discovered walking down all streets in the center. These businesses are all bakeries, and they are all open for only 2 or 3 hours (7:00 to 9:00 or 10:00). Other than the small children or old men fetching their Saturday (and probably also Sunday) Brötchen, the streets are deserted. No one is driving, no one is walking, no one is there.

It is beginning to get cold. When I first arrived here, I walked at least an hour a day around the city. Now, since I have yet to buy a jacket, it is too uncomfortable to walk that much. The days shorten, and the weather turns more gray. There is more cold rain. I hear that winters in the area are fairly dark, rainy, and snowless. They should at least be slightly less cold than the winters in Massachusetts—often in this area it does not go below freezing. At least that means that activities outside throughout the year will not be impossible... if it is not raining.
Dresden is the best bet. I thought I would be able to hold out for longer—I wanted to somehow “prove” to myself (or perhaps to others?) that I would “make it” living in an at least somewhat uncomfortable, or unfamiliar situation. People who I have talked with, especially Erin who I visited in Leipzig the other day (and surely not my Betreuungslehrerin/ contact teacher, who insists that I stay in Großenhain) have convinced me that this is a silly, fruitless quest.

This topic came up in the advanced 12th grade English class the other day. My favorite English teacher (with whom I currently have four classes a week) had her class read a piece by a post-colonialist author from England writing about the way that traveling has changed over the century—the quote was something like “I dislike feeling at home when I am traveling.” His idea was that, whereas traveling used to indicate escaping your own way of life, and entering a zone of discomfort and foreignness (ehem, experiencing the “Other”?), it is now impossible to do so—wherever we (the post colonizers) go, we experience sameness (globalization). However, Ilona (the teacher) continued that the search for difference or at least slight discomfort wanes with the length of time that one is in a place. She then pointed to me in the back of the class and had me comment—when you are for a year in a foreign place, even if it is not so foreign, you start looking for sameness, you start looking for comfort, and habits, and was weiß ich nicht alles.

I could live here for the whole year. I could develop patterns here that would satisfy me. I am an independent person, and I do not mind being alone that much. I have certainly managed so far—taking out many German-language movies and audiobooks out of the library, spending my nights at the fitness club for social contact (haha, but seriously...) However, having visited Dresden a couple times, I know that I could get so much more out of the year and out of myself if I moved there. Instead of spending my nights dilly-dallying and waiting to go to bed, I could join a club, better my German, have fruitful conversations about the world, join a band and make music. There are so many possibilities.

Currently I am looking at WGGesucht.de to try and find roommates. Next week I have four or five meetings lined-up with different apartments. It is a mad rush to get housing at the moment, of course, because the school semester is about to start in Dresden. This means that the people interviewing me will have already seen bus loads of other interested, and probably interesting young people. I will just have to set myself apart. Do you think I can do it!?
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for further updates, my lovelies.