Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

How are you, mom?
I'm fine.

Sorry for my late email.

I am now being
allowed to have
a good experience
to stay in Germany
for one month.

I'm now at the town called Potsdam,
Germany, which is very familiar to
Japanese people because it was the place of
the Potsdam conference. As you know, it
asked Japan to surrender unconditionally around
60 years ago.

I was surprised that many Japanese people
live here and the food is really nice.

In our impression, the German food is
"potato and sausage" but has a lot of vegetable
and is not quite different from that of Japan
except bread.

However, the language is mainly German and
I have a little difficult life in town, but I may be
able to sympathize with the foreign people
staying in Japan. In Japan they cannot use
English and I am not sure that my English is
improving, either.

I am going to call you later.
Bye. Thank you, mom.

Sincerely yours,

Taro Okamoto

This post is the English version of the previous post translated by Taro.

拝啓、母上様

母上様、

太郎です。お元気ですか？
お変わりないでしょうか？

私は元気です。
久方ぶりのメールで恐縮です。

たった１ヶ月の短いドイツの滞在ですが、
貴重な経験をさせていただいていると思います。

ポツダムという街に滞在していますが、
日本人にとってポツダムという街
（日本の無条件降伏 を求めるポツダム宣言が行われたという意味で）
は非常に縁の深い街であることはいうまでもありません。

意外にも日本人滞在者が多いことにも驚きましたが、
何よりも食べ物が想像以上に良いことが印象的です。

ポテト、ソーセージというイメージが強いですが、
野菜の多い食卓はパン食ということを除けば、
日本と大差はありません。

ただ言葉がドイツ語で、街中では不自由しますが、
日本での外国人滞在者に同情することができた
かもしれません。

日本ではまったく英語が通用しませんので。
まだ小生の英語力も信用できませんが。


また電話します。
それでは、また。

太郎

Walk at Potsdam (1)

Shall we go for a walk at Potsdam?

My fellow Japanese:
Recent Japanese are really poor and cannot afford to visit another country, but please don't worry! You don't have to pay the flight and spend much time to visit Germany.

See these pictures. Here you can feel as if you visited Potsdam.

Bus.
Streetcar.

Classroom at Potsdam University

It was silent. Nothing sounded other than a soft bleeze.

Air conditioning outside of the classroom: the plate glasses move at regular intervals.

Cafeteria.

Classroom.

Hall of the campus.

Front door.

Lunch. The price was around 2 euro(around 3 US dollars). Pork and pasta coverd with tomato sauce. It was tasty.

Start my German Life

From the window in S Bahn. I've liked riding a train since I was a child.(maybe I'm still a child.)
I arrived at the station near the Potsdam University.

Griebnitzsee!! Sorry for my bad pronunciation.

German train.

My temporary apartment. (University dorm) It was clean.

Desk.

Window.

Heater. It might be cold in winter, but I don't know how cold it is because it was late June when I visited there. It was a little chilly to me then, though.

Bed.

Outside of the apartment. According to my roommate (Phillip), the apartments still remain of the past socialist Germany.

Stairs.

German forest.

The Road to Germany

Which way to go?
German restroom!

I landed in Germany for the first time (near the Tegel airport).

From my flight.

From Chicago to Germany!

(Chicago is a sister city of Osaka, my hometown in Japan.)

An International life

(From the right-hand side) A Korean, a columbian and a Japanese guy(me). It's an international life. I like this life.

Sakura

One nice painter who I met in Milwaukee gave this to me.

He said,

"In the last 100 years Japanese art has probably been the most influential art on western art and led to impressionism."

I like this painting and it's interesting because it was painted by one American painter and it looks like a old memory of the 50-year-ago Japanese life.

Thank you for a nice painting.

Staying at Potsdam

I am staying at Potsdam now. I am still busy, though.

If I have time, I will try to write what's going on at Potsdam.