Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The Zeil



 Well, friends, today was an extremely long day and it’s only just now three in the afternoon. It’s eight in the morning at home, so most of you haven’t really even started your day yet (though by the time I post this it may be lunchtime or after there).

Deutschkurs (German class) was good – we learned mostly words about the weather today, which is a popular topic of conversation here, as it is anywhere. Speaking of which, it was a very nice, cool day – perfect for all the walking I did.

And did I do a lot of walking! From home to the school (1.7 miles), from the school to this discount market I had seen a guy carrying a bag for (1.2 miles, and it turned out to be not worth the trip – I think the stuff there was some of the highest prices I’ve seen so far. >.<) Then I walked from that store to a second-hand shop where I again found nothing really interesting and from there to a place called the Zeil (1.3 miles – because I went the wrong way and had to take a long-cut).

The Zeil is a mile-ish long stretch of shops, malls, and restaurants, very similar in setup to something like the Branson Landing. There are cars and bikes, so it’s not just foot traffic, but it’s mainly shoppers and tourists, not much traffic. You can find just about anything around the Zeil if you know where to look – even an American-style shopping mall called MyZeil. I’ve even passed a McDonalds, a Pizza Hut, and a Burger King, all of which seem to do pretty cracking business, at least with tourists.

I hadn’t explored some parts of the Zeil as well as I’d wanted to, so I wandered around there for a bit, popping in and out of shops – a paper shop, a couple of stalls selling scarves and hats and things… But to be perfectly honest, I was mainly watching people. :D

From there, I knew my way home pretty well, but I stopped in a bunch of shops looking at things. I needed to buy a new card for my Internet thingie, but though I checked three different DMs (a store very like Walgreens) and a Rossman’s (another similar store, with somewhat better prices, I think) I didn’t find one.

I did, however, manage to ask the cashiers at both shops – in German – if they had what I was looking for. And I understood their answers. I’m getting much more confident with this whole interacting-with-strangers-in-a-foreign-language thing. So long as the conversation is short and I know the topic, I’m usually able to keep up fairly well. Responding is another thing altogether, and I’m sure my halting German is hysterical to native speakers, but people are generally pretty nice about it.

Let’s see…what were some of the interesting things I saw today?

– A tall man in an expensive suit and rumpled, graying hair, stalking down the sidewalk with his nose three inches away from the pages of a cheap paperback philosophy book. Its garish, red-and-yellow cover contrasted amusingly with his generally well-to-do image, but he was reading that book as if his life depended on it.

– A Nepalese shop full of scarves and incense and little golden figurines I suppose were probably gods/goddesses. I went in to look at a shelf full of intricate boxes, but they turned out to be incense storage containers and nothing special. However, I may go back to look at the scarves another time – they had some very nice ones for decent prices, and I have a certain weakness for scarves.

– A shop selling Chinese lucky cat figures – any Sherlock fan could describe to you how their right paws wave up and down (probably in some kind of blessing). All I could think of was the scene from The Blind Banker when the lady in the shop asks John, “You buy lucky cat? I think your wife, she will like!” I took a picture for you. :D
  

– A gigantic mural on the side of a building showing several scenes of what might be happening inside – I can’t really make sense of the pictures, but it was interesting.
 

– A second-hand bookshop with heart-breakingly beautiful old books. I held a French book that was older than the United States, and in near-perfect condition. Absolutely marvelous. The proprieter asked me if I was looking for anything, and I didn’t know how to say, “Just browsing, thanks” in German. I need to learn that phrase – it’d be a useful one.

– I came home past the Alt Oper (the Old Opera, which is actually a newer building than the New Opera, because the old Old Opera was destroyed and rebuilt as an exact replica. So… yeah. It looks old, but it’s actually the newer of the two. Go figure.)

– And while I was in the Zeil, I watched a young couple playing music for a few minutes, the guy playing the euphonium and the girl on flute. Their sign said they were raising money to get married, so I took a quick video (I’ll see if I can post it sometime soon) and dropped in some change. Best of luck to them!

It’s almost four o’clock, but I babysat Sunday night so I have the rest of the evening mostly free. I think I’ll either crochet or read – or maybe work on The Bell Tower. Chapter two is nearly finished.

Later!
~Mags

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for more pics. Looking forward to chapter 2.
    Da

    ReplyDelete
  2. The mural is beautiful & the architecture is wundebar! (I'm sure I misspelled that, but thought it would give you a good laugh!)

    ReplyDelete

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