Friday, February 12

At the start of each course, the Goethe Institut holds a "Begrüssungs" Party, where students and locals can intermingle and get to know each other. Ours was held Friday night in the Treffpunkt Goethe.

These pictures were all taken by Matt, who was originally planning to post them at his web site. However, Matt ended up being distracted by other things such as studying German, and he didn't have time to post the pictures. So I took up the task, cropped and processed the photos, and annotated them on this web page.

We were all surprised Monday morning, February 15th, to find three photos of the Begrüssungs Party and an article describing the event in the the Frankischer Unzeiger, a local German paper. No one seemed to know who was responsible for the article, which was attributed to "-msp". Although this obscure set of initials didn't perfectly match anyone I could think of, I remembered Matthias running around the Begrüssungs Party with a digital camera. So the next time I visited the office, I asked Matthias what his full name was. His reply, "Matthias Springer," seemed to disprove my theory, because his initials would start with "m" and end with "s". But Matthias quickly confessed that he had "had something to do with the article," and explained to me that in Germany, people don't just use the first letter of each name for their initials. They compose initials that "look good" and have some relationship to the actual name. Matthias, for example, had taken the first letter of his first name, "m", and appended the first two letters of his last name, "sp", yielding "msp".

Oddly enough, Matthias's article centered heavily on a conversation Matthias had with Betsy, who also ended up being a pivotal figure in my own coverage of the event. Nevertheless, Matthias and I had rather different perspectives of the Party. To read Matthias's version, go to the next page.

-bv

As Matthias mentioned in his article, the Begrüssungs Party -- the the Goethe Institut experience in general -- gives students not only a chance to practice German, but also to get to know people, and to learn about other countries and cultures. This first photo shows (left to right) Goethe students Bjorn (Sweden), Marcus (Sweden), and Myriam (Spain) mingling with Aline, a Rothenburg local.

Aside from providing an opportunity to meet new people and practice German, a Begrüssungs Party, like any party, is an opportunity for guys to try and impress girls. Here, Sashsa (back left) and Jason (back right) attempt to affect the appropriate "disinterested" look. Sasha flashes his handsomest grin while holding a banana in one hand. Jason, taking his cue from Sasha, also holds a banana, but with his other hand in a pocket, goes for the cool look. Unfortunately, Betsy (front center) is not impressed. She's currently too enchanted by Matthias's monologue and killer gaze. To the right, Gael (lower right) notices Sasha's technique, and silently forms his own strategies.

Meanwhile, I'm busy chatting with Ayako, a Japanese tourist who was in town for just one day. Reinhard saw her walking by herself in the streets of Rothenburg and invited her to the party. (Reinhard is a Rothenburg local who is shown in this picture standing behind the counter, just to the right of Aline, the girl in the white shirt.) When Reinhard wandered off to mingle with others, I sat down next to Ayako. Thanks to her English ability, which was quite good, we were able to converse. I'm shown giving her the URL of my website, attempting to impress her by promising to put her picture on the global network.

Having given up on the banana pose, Sasha attempts to wow the girls with his buffed physique. Jason continues with the cool look and mentally decides to visit the gym more often. Betsy, alas, is still unimpressed and in fact seems oblivious to the bold expressions of maleness behind her. She is currently too busy being charmed by the humor of Bjorn (left) and Beppi (right).

In the middle of the room, Sarah (left) and Myriam (right) take a break from their mingling to pose for the camera. These two seemed sceptical of all male flourishes at the party and, as a result, were particularly hard to impress.

As a last ditch effort, Sasha decides to try and impress Betsy with the laser beam he can shoot from his eye. Jason is impressed and secretly wants to ask Sasha to teach him how to do that. Kostas (far right), who has never needed to resort to the laser beam trick, maintains his cool, leaning-against-the-wall pose. Unfortunately, Betsy has seen the laser beam trick before, and has always found it to be a big turn-off. Besides, she is currently caught up in a web of charm spun by Gael (lower right).