Death by Kurrentschrift

Let's see, what am I missing... I stuffed the last box of clothes into the closet that the subletter will hopefully never enter, I chased dust bunnies around the underside of the bed with a broom, I bought my rail pass, I skimmed the article I received by e-mail from a super hip German prof, I borrowed ein deutsches Handy from a friend and archival research guru, I printed out maps of Bonn, Berlin, Salzburg, Leipzig, and Frankfurt and noted down vegetarian restaurants from Happy Cow, I made a giant list of items I want to see in the archives which is probably the first thing I should have done six months ago, I found hosts on Airbnb, I set up daunting meetings with nine German professors three archivists and two frighteningly prestigious heads of archives, I meticulously planned out two of those fourteen meetings, I gave the cat to a friend for the summer, I cleaned out the fridge, I packed and unpacked and re-packed and finally über-unpacked a pair of heels, I played the piano for 2.5 minutes because I couldn't sit still long enough, I bought a scheduler, I wrote an abstract of my dissertation and then translated it into German, I printed out five copies of a fancy letter my advisor wrote that makes me seem like I know what I'm doing, I bought eight pairs of white cotton gloves, I picked up my prescriptions, I ordered a locking security box to keep my cash and then realized that it's too heavy and returned it at a UPS drop-off, I friended a German person on Facebook, and I topped up my transit card so that I can make it to O'Hare the day after tomorrow.

...OK. Apart from needing to plan out the other twelve meetings, I think I'm almost ready to go. Now I can start getting excited about the actual substance of my trip -- visiting archives in Germany and Austria for five weeks in preparation for writing my dissertation, meeting professors and making contacts, and exploring five cities (four of which are new to me). Now I can start gearing up to find amazing documents about popular reception and veneration of Beethoven in the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, or probing through the 19th-century history of the Salzburg Mozart-Geburtshaus as an intersection between tourism and pilgrimage. Now the real fun begins.

So what kinds of things will I look at? Fortunately, a lot of the Beethoven-Haus's collections are digitized on their website, so I can take a sneak peek [also known as what I should have been doing six months ago].

Let's see... ooh! A poem called "Beethovens Tod" (Beethoven's Death, for my non-German-reading-readers). Let's check that one out.

... that says "Beethoven"? 

Wait...

"... Beethovens Tod. 

Als Gottes Vitamin, Natur, Virß Leben 

besrfluf, gut turin zu susmlyan ihn zufulln..."

OH SHIT, this 19th century German handwriting is kind of hard to read. Let's try another one -- ooh, how about this one, a poem about the Beethoven Haus!

"Cauliflower Hals -- no no wait, Beethovens Haus.

Nioidie soyglizen vdoodlen zur Noidles

zweifzen parllößen und zwisgen Züllen

vwrowlrn mit blinden zolgwlnllien Grizwnealfw;jk

alwelfkjl; und ;wlaekf durch alle wpoeaiejfazdoj klmfa.edc."

RUH ROH

But on the bright side, I'm getting slightly better at it -- at this rate, I'll be able to read at least four poems by the time I leave Bonn. 

In conclusion: travelling alone for the first time -- as a researcher and proto-scholar, not only as a tourist -- is daunting. The process of preparing for my trip has been hectic, and I haven't felt this much anxiety since comps... but ultimately, it's an adventure. That's what this blog is all about: taking something that scares the wits out of me and transforming it into a positive experience, day by day, vegan cafe by vegan cafe, stammering German conversation by stammering German conversation, dirtied white cotton glove by dirtied white cotton glove, and cluttered sentence by cluttered sentence.

LET THE ARCHIVIZATION BEGIN!