Douglas-fir Blog

Yesterday marked the beginning of my last month living in Germany, the month of July. The feeling is strange. After living here for a year and going through many ups and downs, highlights and doldrums, experiencing the extraordinary and the mundane of German life, my mood about returning to Portland is just as mixed. I’ve missed my family all year, despite the ability to call home anytime I want. There are also aspects of Portland and its surroundings, and America in general that I will be glad to have again (e.g., our Oregon wilderness that’s actually wild right at hand, stores open around the clock). On the other hand, I now feel very at home in Germany. I will naturally keep in contact with people I’ve gotten to know here, but I know I will miss certain small aspects of life: the picturesque old villages, the bakeries with their wonderful fresh rolls on practically every corner, everything I need being located within walking distance, and the generally relaxed pace of life as compared to home. And yes, I’ll miss the German language, even though I will try to find opportunities to speak it in Portland. I feel like I have a foot in two countries and two continents now.

Life has, in general, been fairly uneventful for the last little while. There are a couple items of note.

Last week, starting Thursday, the internet went down for most people in the student housing buildings, including myself. I unwittingly caused a panic at home when I suddenly dropped off the radar and didn’t respond to e-mails or voice messages. The internet connection stayed down through the whole weekend. On Sunday, a poster put up by “Anonymous Internet Junkies” on the entrances to the buildings called the student population to action, making public the provider’s hard-to-come-by technical support hotline and encouraging the afflicted to call and complain. The poster displayed an almost Texan sense of libertarianism and citizens’ justice that I found amusing to see in outraged Germans demanding their internet back. Whether the “wanted poster” did the trick or not, I do not know, but the problem was fixed when I got up on Monday morning. I was shaken when I opened Skype and heard the series of increasingly alarmed voice messages, and when I had my first conversation with home since the blackout, and realized how worried everyone had been. It made us all think about how much we depend on the internet to communicate.


< Translation: “No internet since Thursday!!!!! / Screw tuition fees and global warming; the important thing is that our internet works! / Fight for your right: / Kabel BW hotline / Everyone call and demand that the tech support people do something today! / An initiative of Anonymous Internet Junkies” >

Just yesterday, I had an experience that reminded me starkly of my mortality, while at the same time renewed my thankfulness for the blessings I have. I had taken an evening stroll by the river, and as it was dusk, I walked back by way of the eastern path bordering Favoritepark, the same path along which the poppies were in bloom a few weeks ago. Lining the park side of this path are ancient trees towering over 100 feet above the ground. I had walked about to the eastern gate of the park when I heard what sounded like several gunshots behind me. I whirled around just in time to see a branch the size of a small tree come crashing down from one of the giant trees onto the path I had just been walking on. The path appeared to be completely barricaded, the blockage higher than a man. For the first few seconds, I was merely astonished by the sight. I didn’t retrace my steps for a closer look, but walked on, pondering. In all of my walking, pausing, stopping, and the way I’d paced myself that evening, if I had, by some short stop or slight slowing of pace, been about 30 seconds slower, so that I was under that spot when the limb came down, I have little doubt that I would have been killed.



I decided to get up early the next morning and photograph the fallen limb. I started out at about 5:15 and reached it about fifteen minutes later. Although only seven hours had passed, all during the night, the debris had already been cleared. Up close, I was able to see how massive the limb was: the diameter of the main limb was as wide as the trunk of most any given tree around the school.


< The section of path onto which the limb fell. Notice the trail of sawdust on the path where the limb lay. >


< The place from which the limb broke off was approximately 30-40 feet above the ground. >


< Standing next to the debris, which, even after being somewhat broken down, are still taller than me. >