Being in Tuebingen, part 1
This was my experience of a town outside the cattle-run of tourism. I did not come to see a castle or walk on the grave of a dead war hero. I came because of a girl.
I stayed for longer than I intended and when I left I was profoundly happy that I had been.
The town was what I imagine many towns in southern Germany to be. It was quaint without being terribly inviting and charming without knocking me off my feet. The people, still with the familiar directness, seemed less robust to me than their northern compatriots. I found myself falling back into familiar modes of behaviour that had encumbered me in my home town of Brisbane. I found myself avoiding eye-contact and attracting cursory glances of discomfort in the public transport. These feelings are those that cannot be justified with examples but are undeniable in a personal experience of a place. They are the tiny glimmer of fear on the face of the mother passing me, and the almost imperceptible sheen of remoteness that covers the casual conversations in the streets. They are feelings that do not form from thought but in the rumblings of subconscious. And they are truer for me than any accurate portrayal of the events.
Many of the little shops were warm and delightful, the church as impressive and godly as any, and the views of the city as worthy of the tourist’s glass eye. The pubs poured beer, the bakeries sold bread and the people smiled. And through it all was a pervading feel of distance. It comes from the town’s population. It is composed almost completely of students, and it is fickle. It is an enormous sponge of education.
The town has become weary of the waves of students that pass through it year after year, gleaning knowledge and harbouring only the desire to be elsewhere. This is not a town where one ends up but a feeding station on the passage into educated European life. It is a production factory for know-it-alls. And so, like a bartender sick to the bone of small-talk, the town has grown a membrane of indifference.
If the town failed to capture my heart, the feeling was not unrequited. We were not enemies, Tübingen and I, merely passing strangers who desired to remain that way.
And so if the town itself left me cold then my happiness for having been there was due to the people I was with – the girl I had come to visit and her house mates, and the girl I had come to visit.
It was a Friday afternoon when I arrived. The last red leaves of autumn were defying inevitability, and the air was still warm enough that the river snaking through the old town was inviting. The moored boats bobbed beside the bridge and I imagined stowing my gear into the middle and rowing away from the buildings and away from people and into forests and past open fields.
By the time I left it was snowing. I stood on the platform, far along it away from the other people. I had my jacket on and my gloves. I walked through a patch of snow melting on the ground and I looked back toward the town. I stared at it for a while remembering and then I got on the train and left the country.
I stayed for longer than I intended and when I left I was profoundly happy that I had been.
The town was what I imagine many towns in southern Germany to be. It was quaint without being terribly inviting and charming without knocking me off my feet. The people, still with the familiar directness, seemed less robust to me than their northern compatriots. I found myself falling back into familiar modes of behaviour that had encumbered me in my home town of Brisbane. I found myself avoiding eye-contact and attracting cursory glances of discomfort in the public transport. These feelings are those that cannot be justified with examples but are undeniable in a personal experience of a place. They are the tiny glimmer of fear on the face of the mother passing me, and the almost imperceptible sheen of remoteness that covers the casual conversations in the streets. They are feelings that do not form from thought but in the rumblings of subconscious. And they are truer for me than any accurate portrayal of the events.
Many of the little shops were warm and delightful, the church as impressive and godly as any, and the views of the city as worthy of the tourist’s glass eye. The pubs poured beer, the bakeries sold bread and the people smiled. And through it all was a pervading feel of distance. It comes from the town’s population. It is composed almost completely of students, and it is fickle. It is an enormous sponge of education.
The town has become weary of the waves of students that pass through it year after year, gleaning knowledge and harbouring only the desire to be elsewhere. This is not a town where one ends up but a feeding station on the passage into educated European life. It is a production factory for know-it-alls. And so, like a bartender sick to the bone of small-talk, the town has grown a membrane of indifference.
If the town failed to capture my heart, the feeling was not unrequited. We were not enemies, Tübingen and I, merely passing strangers who desired to remain that way.
And so if the town itself left me cold then my happiness for having been there was due to the people I was with – the girl I had come to visit and her house mates, and the girl I had come to visit.
It was a Friday afternoon when I arrived. The last red leaves of autumn were defying inevitability, and the air was still warm enough that the river snaking through the old town was inviting. The moored boats bobbed beside the bridge and I imagined stowing my gear into the middle and rowing away from the buildings and away from people and into forests and past open fields.
By the time I left it was snowing. I stood on the platform, far along it away from the other people. I had my jacket on and my gloves. I walked through a patch of snow melting on the ground and I looked back toward the town. I stared at it for a while remembering and then I got on the train and left the country.
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