It is the last day before leaving home for FIVE WEEKS. I am so excited, yet anxious. I have never been in another country without my family and that scares me a little. However, I am looking forward to all of the great adventures I will experience in Germany.
I have been preparing to leave mentally and emotionally, but I feel like it is one of those things where you just have to rip the bandaid off and just go. I have struggled with coming to terms with leaving, and my family has as well. My mother has had the toughest time accepting I will be in another country, but I continue to reassure her that everything will be fine.
At the moment, I still have some things to do like finish packing. I like to have everything I need with me at all times, which is very inconvenient for packing light. I was advised to not buy any new clothes and to make sure to bring items that I can layer in case the weather changes. It is quite overwhelming having to prepare to live in place you have never been while trying to be as minimalistic as possible.
Throughout, all of the madness, I remain optimistic and I am really open to learning about another culture.
Archives for May 2019
Around Essen by Bike
my public transportation ticket doesn’t start until June 1

Just today I purchased a Ruhr Bahn Ticket 2000 to be able to travel the entire VRR area 24/7 (or well, so long as the trains are running, but I’m not limited to weekends or after 5 pm is what I mean) for 30 days. I can take a bike with me and on weekends or at night I can take one friend, it was only 203 Euros (haha). But really though, its a pretty good deal since I can now go wherever I want in the area pretty spontaneously and it basically covers the whole Ruhr Region. The woman at the counter in the Essen mainstation was pretty surprised I was trying to buy one though, and I had to double check I was purchasing the thing I wanted because my German is not very good (practically non-existent) and she thought maybe a smaller ticket centered around Essen would be fine. But I’d learned on a previous trip to Germany always to ask for English clarification (if possible) before purchasing said item. One time I had gone to an Aldi to get a SIM card and accidentally picked up some sort of paper Vodaphone recharge slip instead, thinking I would present it to the cashier in exchange for the the SIM at the register. Once I received my receipt I finally realized that maybe what I had purchased was not what I thought it was. Then when I asked the cashier in English ‘but what about the SIM’ (most people in the area do speak English), he informed me that the SIMs where kept in a desk under the cash registers and that what I had purchased was non-refundable and unrelated to what I had wanted to buy.
But anyways, in the meantime before I got the ticket, I visited spots primarily around Essen.

As shown in this map, Essen is more or less split by Route 40. To the north is the formerly industrial River Emscher, once used as an open sewage canal, while to the south is the Ruhr River, which is used for drinking water. To the farthest north were the mines, including the Zeche Zollverein, while most of the factories (including Krupp steel factories) were in the central. Much of the commercial activity took place in the center too, and homes around the central market were considered very valuable. Today a large shopping mall exists in the area, and Essen sometimes presents the slogan ‘Die Einkaufsstadt’ or the Shopping City. South of Route 40, the city is much more green and property values are higher. Near the lake Baldeneysee lies the Villa Hugel, which was the Krupp mansion, as well as the relatively untouched historic town of Kettwig (wasnt home to any important industries and still retains the Medieval look) and the garden suburb Margaretenhohe which is quite beautiful.
Starting in the South






Pano

Alfred Krupp planted a small forest surrounding the Villa Hugel, practically importing a dense forest to Essen. Krupp wanted to experience his desired forest before his death, choosing to pay for mature trees which had already reached full effect by 1883. Since 1961 though, the park has been maintained in an English Landscape Garden style, which had been popular during the industrial era.
https://www.villahuegel.de/en/virtual-tour/park
The English Landscape Garden style is based off of the rejection of formalist and baroque landscapes that showcased powerful symmetry and the symbolism of man’s control over nature. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, English gardeners began to develop a ‘freer’ style that appeared simple and rustic but was carefully maintained.
Romantic landscape paintings such as those by Claude Lorrain and Nicholas Poussin often served as inspiration for landscape designs, and sought to embody an Arcadia or image of harmony with nature before modern civilization – very fitting for a time of intense industrialization. The garden-park is the perfect way to take oneself out of such an urban environment.
Additionally, the Villa Hugel showcases a smaller garden featuring primarily ornamental plants, including a selection of rare orchids, as was typical of the taste in the late 1800s. However, I did not get a picture of these.
Next, I saw the Brandenbusch settlement and the Margaretenhohe settlement, but I’ll come back to those later (as well as the rest of Altenhof I).
Then into the City Central



The Colosseum Theater was a factory used to produce machinery up until 1988. It was placed under historical preservation the next year, and is now used for performances/shows. I haven’t been in, but it looks pretty nice.




Some old pictures of the city central prior to and then during industrialization. The village was transformed by industry in the area (the second picture is the shopping mall), and the statue erected of Alfred Krupp (now in front of the church) demonstrates how influential he was on Essen, turning the town in which into a city and employing a great deal of the residents.


Before industrialization, religious organizations held much of the power in small towns such as Essen. These two pictures are of the Essen Abbey, now a cathedral. The cloister garden is also a cemetary, with a precious water feature that softly pools in the center of the garden.
In the North

Opened in 1932, Shaft XII is one of the most iconic symbols of the Industrial Heritage Route, as well as one of the anchor points on the larger European Industrial Heritage Route. The coal mine itself opened in 1847, and closed in 1986.

Coke is a hard and highly productive fuel, made from heating up coal or oil without any air to extremely high temperatures. The product could then be used for iron or steel making. The coke ovens are shown here.



…was filming two ladies the entire time but the video gives an idea of how long and high up the stairs are, like going up the mine shaft. On festival nights there are also cart rides up one of the other shafts.


The areas around the train tracks have been planted; these sections are kept as a birch garden, but around the whole complex spontaneous vegetation crops up within the mining facility and around the bike trails that lead to other parts of the Industrial Route. In a display of fourth nature or new wilderness reclaiming industrial lands, the vegetation represents natures power of resilience.

Along one of the bike trails that wrap around the complex is an art sculpture, where a concrete shaft is digging into the ground next to an open oven. The fuel lies in the foreground.

Throughout the park, corten steel signs are used as wayfinding mechanisms.

Additionally along the bike trail, directions are embedded into the paving.
Next, I made my way to the Shurenbachhalde spoil tip in Essen (Altenessen), farther north of the Zeche Zollverein and home to much of the coal mine’s waste.
Preparing for Germany
Today is my last day in the USA before leaving for my study abroad trip to Germany. This also makes it my last day of free water and expensive beer! I am still not fully packed to go, but I am not surprised. This past week leading up to Germany I had a few German-speaking classes to get a basic understanding of the language and what to expect. Although my German is “nicht so gut” I am excited to try to speak it none the less.
I am excited to go to Germany for so many reasons. One reason being my grandfather’s brother was stationed there after World War 2 and married a German woman. Although we have lost contact, I still have second cousins there. Another reason is my Dad’s father was part German. The biggest reason is that I recently have a thrill for wanting to go to different countries and see as much of the world as possible. I am so thankful for this opportunity to study abroad. A lot of my friends did not take the opportunity to or couldn’t and they all say how lucky I am to be able to this. Our first stop for this trip is the Berlin Wall. I have learned about it in history class and I am very excited to see it in person.
Getting Ready for Israel!
I am extremely excited to be finally preparing to leave for Israel! I will be spending a majority of the summer there and am full of emotions about leaving. I am nervous to experience a different culture first hand for an extended period of time but overall I am simply excited for this amazing opportunity and experience. I am looking forward to meeting many new people and for the lab work on cellular signaling and differentiation that I will be doing with Professor Sprinzak at Tel Aviv University. I have already finished packing (finally!) and am eager to get to the airport!
One of the things I am looking forward to greatly is improving my language skills in Hebrew. I grew up speaking some Hebrew as my mom is an immigrant from Israel and speaks occasionally in the house, however It is difficult to become fluent with out using the language often. I think that I will be able to learn quickly and pick up on the dictation slang and ways in which the language is used quite quickly and am hoping that by the end of this amazing opportunity Hebrew will be like second nature
Preparing for Germany
I’m very excited for Germany for a number of reasons. The first being that my family and I are descendant from our German family and I am myself the fourth generation. I grew up eating food from our old family recipes, among them being sauerkraut and chocolates, every family get-together. Every assignment from elementary school to high school I completed on an old desk my family made in Germany and brought to America. We placed our fine china and appliances in a mahogany cupboard and some of our clothes in a similar dresser, furniture that has been in our family since the early 20th century. My uncle even taught English in Berlin during the 1980’s and we still have a family friend living there since that time.
To be able to connect with German culture that I’ve learned about through family history and old family stories is something I’ve been looking forward to since I was a kid. I would love to learn more about German customs and food, drink their beer and eat German sausage, and hopefully meet my family’s old friend in Berlin. I am very excited to dive head first into a new culture and learn more about the culture of my family. My next post will be from Berlin, Germany!
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