I am getting the Blues...literally and figuratively

7th May 2005

Die Blaue Nacht! ( the Blue night)

This is a night, in which all parts of the Altstadt (the old city) in Nürnberg was made blue, literally. There were blue people walking around, with blue faces, bright blue costumes, and really strangely, blue hair, which made them look either like fashionistas or Martians from the blue planet. (Wait, Mars is the RED planet, and Earth is the BLUE one, so they are dressed to be like Earthlings after all…never mind.)

In spite of all good advice not to go there (my sources of advice being the weather report, saying that temperatures would drop to even ZERO degrees, and from friends here who have braved the rainy weather in Nürnberg before), I went there alone, my solitude being due to the lack of willingness of my colleagues to freeze together with me=) And boy were they right. I had the luck of meeting the rain head on, at 7 deg Celsius, but with the wind…it really felt like winter was on me all of a sudden. My fingers were really frozen, and the cold made me wolf down 2 pretzels, a chocolate pastry AND a Bratwurst (or was that an excuse?) But that was the first time I really felt SOOO satisfied with a bratwurst, it was heavenly, hot sausage with mustard and ketchup, a warm refuge from the cold. I can finally understand why most Germans are Wurst carnivores.

The night was beautiful, despite the cold. The street lamps were blue, buildings and the old ancient castle (Burg) was cast in a fantastic blue hue. There were wonderful artistic performances all around, some people just setting up their music instruments and playing them spontaneously, with the applause or singing of people on the streets as accompaniment. There were skits around the city, and I really sympathized with the performers, who had to be garbed in thin circus suits in the cold…you could almost hear the chattering of their teeth. All the museums were open through the night, until the wee hours of the morning, and there were special performances and exhibitions all around. I did not buy a ticket (€12), which would grant me access to all the museums, although I was very tempted to do so just to escape into the comparative warmth in a museum =). Thank goodness that many Germans are tall, so I could hide behind them, and peek over their shoulders to watch the performances.

Somehow, despite the cold and all, I thoroughly enjoyed myself=) The atmosphere in the Altstadt was just perfect for artists to just station themselves in the middle of the road, to play, sing or act, because this city is one full of art and tradition. I could have stood behind this German guy all night, just to listen to this Spanish group sing, and just take in the entire atmosphere. Then this guy had to take up a cigarette and smoke. Ugh. That completely spoiled everything there and then.

Being away from your family can be a very odd feeling. You are fine, good, and living very well by yourself, keeping yourself busy and entertained, making lots of new friends, basically feeling great about being independent and able to somehow ‘stand on your own two feet’, yet at the same time this is this itch at a little corner of your heart, right just where you can’t reach, no matter how hard you may try. You can ignore it and pretend it is not there, but it IS. Then when you chance to hear a familiar tune that your father loves to sing at home, or chance to see a pair of slippers that you know your sis would love, or see some things decorated in a really traditional Chinese manner that you know your mom would have liked to have, but would not have admitted to it in order to appear ‘cool’ and ‘hip’ to her children…that itch spreads right from your heart to the back of your eyes, making you sniffle a little even though the weather was just as cold as it was a few seconds ago. That’s when you know that homesickness is actually a kind of slight cold that appears from time to time, at various odd and random stimuli. It is indeed a kind of illness, now that we have recognized it, and just like any illness, there are ways to combat it, e.g. through regular doses of home food like rice, and in contrast with the other forms of illnesses, through plenty of work (not rest) and lots and lots of interaction. There is, unfortunately, no available vaccination for it, nor would your body build up a kind of immunity against it. More exposure does not mean greater resistance. This illness can be infectious, but most of the time, it is not. Because seeing other people who are infected with the same strain of homesickness (i.e. they come from the same place) can be very very therapeutic, thus the association of patients with similar ailments is actually encouraged.

tings