lost

i have the impression that i never felt quite so lost as yesterday, staying here at jena.
(-- and the place is just so similar to göttingen – just smaller, in every respect. the town is similar, but smaller. the library is architecturally so similar to the one in göttingen that i wonder whether the same person built it – but it’s smaller. -- etc. pp.)
but i need to comment on the ‘lost’-impression:
maybe part of that feeling is due to the fact that i went to get a left-over-place at a dorm at 7am – and waited with the other 50-something people to get that same spot until long after noon. so the day was long and i was sleepy. but that’s not all of it. i feel kind of foreign – in a way i haven’t felt before in germany. i didn’t feel that way in all the other university towns i visited before: freiburg, heidelberg, tübingen (the classic ones) and frankfurt, hildesheim, augsburg, passau, berlin, munich (well, munich is a little strange), mainz, trier, cologne, bonn,… (and probably some more). and it’s hard to describe. i guess, it’s something about the atmosphere. but how’s the atmosphere? man, who talks about ‘the atmosphere’ – that’s crazy! so, is it, because i'm in ex-eastern germany? i have been to other ex-eastern places – did i feel that way in leipzig, erfurt, weimar? maybe. -- but that seems so ridiculous – i cannot even properly name it.
-- i feel foreign here in the way i’d feel foreign in austria or switzerland. people speak the same language, we hold the same currency – and nevertheless. something’s different. i kind of don’t belong here. yet. – i mean: will i try to?
anyways, it’s interesting.
it’s interesting as well that i feel strongly reminded of my first months at göttingen. i spent so much time at the library as i didn’t like the place i stayed at too much and as i didn’t know too many interesting people to talk to. as it seems to me now, it took about a year, until i found what i was hoping for at göttingen: amazing friends and an amazing room/ apartment… that’s too long, man! and maybe i'll be that lucky only once? well, we’ll see. the jena-adventure just started…
it’s also pretty, though. i wanna take some pictures for you. autumn pictures.
(i'll comment on the housing situation later. be prepared: it’s just ridiculous. apparently, newspapers and mayors are claiming that jena is the munich of the east. warm and expensive.) the munich of the east…