My time in Germany was full of learning in different atmospheres. It was natural to hold our Brothers Grimm class in the Hütt Brewery where Dorothea Viehmann grew up, meeting and hearing tales from travelers who stayed at her father’s inn. Wilhelm and Ja cob, the brothers Grimm, collected over 40 tales such as Snow White and Cinderella, from Dorothea herself. We ate lunch in the Brauhaus with choices such as Wiener Schnitzel and specialty Spaetzles. I ordered a cheese Spaetzle which was delicious, reminding me of a mix of macaroni and cheese and pepe cacio pasta. Spaetzle is a noodle or tiny dumpling that is made of flour and eggs—delicious! It was one of my favorite things to eat while in Germany.
The professors led us into the old Brauhaus, with a very old German feel to it, from the courtyard where a statue of Dorothea now sits in the middle of a small fountain. The restaurant was beautiful—something out of a fairy tale in many ways. The brewery and Brauhaus is in Baunatal on the outskirts of Kassel, Germany. It sits on top of a hill. Today, you can ride a bus and walk across a street down a walkway to the Brauhaus. Our professors, one a leading researcher on the Brothers Grimm, excited as they told us about their newest discoveries, set up the screen so they could use their PowerPoint for the lecture. They told us the first round of drinks was on them! Never in my life have I had a professor buy me a beer! We all sat and chatted and passed the menu around making our decisions. At this point we had all become good friends, having explored together. This was an exciting day for us. Class in a brewhouse. I am not the biggest beer drinking so I ordered a Rosé.
Our professors were funny, quirky characters, loving what they do and their subject. One had been a consultant on the newly opened Grimmwelt Museum in Kassel. He did mumble at one point he did not like the politics of it all, but he liked it nonetheless. The professors held their mugs of beer as they lectured, drinking it as if it were water, getting second and thirds. It was such a weird, yet interesting thing to see. Beer is such a commonplace thing in Germany. It is not seen as a bad thing as it is here in the United States. In Germany, it is legal to drink beer and wine at the age of sixteen and anything harder at the age of eighteen. It is not a taboo thing there and it did not seem to affect anyone’s functioning except maybe at night when we went to the pubs.
They focused on Dorothea and her contribution to the collection of the Grimm Fairy Tales. One thing I had always thought wrongly was that they had written the fairy tales themselves. The truth of it was, they had traveled and collected the fairy tales from orators and wrote them down. Dorothea told the brothers over forty tales, as she had heard them from travelers and merchants who had come to the brewery when she lived there for the first 32 years of her life. In many ways, if it had not been for her, we may not have some of the tales we have today such as Rapunzel and Cinderella.
The trip to the Hütt Brewery and Brauhaus was memorable in so many ways. We spent a lot of time learning about the history of the Brothers Grimm and their relationship with the fifty-year-old widow who had the memory of a computer. We walked away with full stomachs and minds that day. As I look back, I am so grateful for my decision to hop the obstacles and study in Germany. I would never have had the opportunity to sit in the same building with the very men who collected the fairytales we grew up with in that Brauhaus. There is nothing like seeing the place I am learning about. Studying abroad is an experience I will always cherish, and I hope that when anyone has the chance to, they will do so. There is so much to learn about in other countries, and so many people with different views and ways of teaching than what we know here in the United States. Cheers!
