Crazy Story Time with Tante LB

Back in my day we used to walk to school with no shoes on in the middle of winter. It was so cold we would take turns carrying each other on our backs so we wouldn´t get frostbite on our feet and have to have them amputated. We didn´t have modern medicine back then. The only doctor we knew was our grandmother who´d treat everything with a shot of whiskey and a good story...

Story #1: I went to listen in on James´ lecture the Thursday after the election results. Afterward, I stuck around for a few minutes to talk with James´ girlfriend who happened to also come and listen that day, and when I left the room I noticed that two of the students were standing at the end of the hall looking like they were waiting for something. As I walked down the hallway, I noticed that as I approached them they made eye contact. As I got closer they approached me and began to introduce themselves. I thought, "Oh geez, I´m going to have face a barrage of questions about American culture, beliefs, and politics." After the girls introduced themselves, one of them began her question-"Here it comes," I thought. "Where do you buy cheddar cheese?" she asks. Now, this caught me so off-guard that I could only respond with, "huh, uh, what?" It turns out she had spent some time in the states studying and fell in love with cheddar cheese, but here in Jena it´s relatively hard to find. I just laughed out loud at this situation. I told her I´d look around, and tell her if I had any luck. I haven´t had any luck, by the way, not even at the Walmart. I know you can find it at one place in Weimar, but I think that´s the nearest location. Sheesh.

Story #2: This is a story I heard from my friend Stefanie today. A while back in one of her classes, all of the students had to memorize a poem to say in front of the class. She had worked really hard on hers, so when it was her turn she delivered a smashing performance. After class, a guy in her class, who was from Africa, walked up to her and said, "Stefanie, you did such a great job! I almost wanted to shout out, ´Heil Hitler!´" (For those of you who don´t know, this would be something COMPLETELY inappropriate to say to a German...unless they were wearing a Nazi flag in plain sight, then it might be okay.) Anyway, She was completely in shock and said she even started crying at this comment. He explained that where he was from they didn´t learn too much about German history, etc., and that he only knew Hitler as a very powerful German man and symbol, so he reasoned it would be a great compliment to a German to say something like, "Heil Hitler." Yikes, talk about cultural awareness.