Das Puzzle der Welt

This is a memoir I wrote for my HON ENG 150 class. I struggled coming up with something to write, but here it is!

At a young age, I used to put puzzles together. There didn’t seem to be any real logic behind the idea except for if the pieces fit together or not. The more I thought about the idea of puzzles, the more I realized there is logic behind them. It isn’t in depth logic by any means; in fact, it’s pretty straightforward. In order to decide which piece belongs to another, I studied the shape, the colors, and a small portion of the overall picture. The earth is a 195-piece puzzle. Each country, out of the 195, has their own representations: food, lifestyle, and architecture. Traveling is crucial in being able to look at the pieces and begin putting them together.

            In my lifetime, I have visited one country aside from the one in which I grew up.  It was easily one of the best experiences I have lived through to this day. Visiting this country brought upon a sense of enlightenment and open mindedness that I would otherwise not have. Living in Germany as an exchange student, I got a first-hand view of the German life. I ate German food, attended a German school, and visited a select few architectural sites. Germany is the first of many pieces to be laid down in my puzzle.

            My plane ride to Germany was 14 hours long. Halfway through the plane ride, my legs became restless and I wanted nothing more than to land in Germany. The plane food was worse than the T.V. dinners that you get from the grocers: the ones with the penguin on the front of the blue box that you’d get so excited to eat until it came out of the microwave with soggy chicken nuggets, cold mac ‘n cheese, and steaming hot pudding. In this case, I’d have chosen soggy chicken nuggets over plane food any day. Instead of the T.V. dinner, I attempted and failed to eat hard noodles, a stale dinner roll, and ice cream that tasted much like metal. I had imagined that when I got off the plane, I’d go straight to a restaurant where I could be the typical tourist and order a strudel. Instead, I had a three-hour drive back to my host family’s home and a wait until lunch was done. I will never forget my first meal: a deliciously fresh sausage wurst. It may have been followed by some German chocolate and fresh rolls. To be fair, most of my diet in Germany consisted of German chocolate and bread. However, I did have to be a typical tourist by trying a genuine schnitzel or two. At this point in time, I have determined the shape of this puzzle piece.

            Adjusting to the lifestyle in Germany, aside from the six-hour time difference, was difficult. I attended “Gymnasium” for school, which is essentially just the over-achieving high school aged students in one building. On my first day of school, my host mother dropped me off at the bus stop. Might I say, this was a different situation for me. The bus stop, itself, wasn’t unusual, but rather the “school bus” was the communal bus. Regardless of what type of bus it was, I hopped on the bus and sat down in the front. The ride took about an hour or so. I wasn’t really sure when to get off so I just watched as we passed hills of trees, grass, and the ever so often villages that popped up. As soon as I saw other people around my age outside of the bus, I decided that I should take a chance and get off. This is where I really began to live the life of a German. Some days, I would attend school for 10 hours. Other days, I’d only be there for an hour and a half. My favorite time of day was walking around the city looking at the buildings deciding which restaurant seemed more appealing for lunch. When I didn’t have school, my host mother would cook 10 meals a day. Being hungry in Germany is not a concept that one would ever think about. I visited city after city and not once was there a hungry, homeless person begging for the smallest amounts of money. It almost seemed as if there were no worries in the world regarding race or religious standpoints. They had put their historical differences behind them and accepted and helped one another. This concept of life that they had followed was completely different from the normal life that I had lived in America. With the lifestyle I lived in Germany, I chose to look more in depth at the colors of the puzzle piece.

            During my third week, I visited two sites that are absolutely unforgettable. My first stop was the Neuschwanstein castle that sits atop a hill in Northern Germany. It was a rainy day when I visited, but I still managed to hike up the hill and take a tour of the castle. It was your typical idea of a castle. It had the fancy glassware from all around the world and the big ballrooms. It still was a gorgeous site, regardless if it was cliché. A few days later, I traveled to Ulm, Germany where the famous church “Ulmer Münster” lies. It stands at 530 feet tall and contains almost 800 stairs going up. When I walked into this cathedral, I was greeted by a display of prayer candles and a post-it bulletin of greetings from all over the world. Once I purchased my ticket to enter the stairwell, I saw right around 5 stairs going straight up and the rest belonging to a concrete spiral of stairs that only went up. Once you started going up, you could not come back down until you made it to the top. The climb was excruciating, but the views made it all worth the climb. The top of the cathedral looked over a romantic river where boats rowed along. Typically, being so far up, I’d be scared of falling. At the top, it felt as if all my worries slipped away. The view engulfed my thoughts completely. With my thoughts cleared, I realized exactly where my piece belonged in the puzzle.

            Das Puzzle der Welt is German for, “the puzzle of the world.” Due to my experiences, I can finally start putting my puzzle together. As one adds pieces, the puzzle grows and expands. As I travel, I embark on a journey in which I grow to complete myself. The earth is a beautiful planet, just not in pieces.

Reviews

[Rebecca]

I loved it! It made me really think about how each country is made up in its own individual puzzle. Also I felt as if I was in Germany with you eating all the wonderful food seeing the beautiful architectural like the Cathedral, and then the scenery. You brought Germany alive in this world wonderful paper.

[Tony Jordan]

I became a firm fan of the chocolate spread from jars, spread on light airy bread when I visited the continent. This is a lovely journal or your time there.