“Goodbye, kid. Hurry back.” -Humphrey Bogart, American Actor
Today I spent the majority of the day exploring Bremen, it was raining a bit and was a bit cold. I hunted for winter jackets, lights and just tried to enjoy the sights. However, finally after exploring from about 9:00 to 14:00 until I finally accidentally wandered into the Bremen City Library (Stadtbibliothek Bremen) and that’s where my adventure truly began.
I don’t know why I never thought about it before but I have been trying to figure out how I can read German books, watch German shows and just immerse myself in German media but I could never figure out how to do it in a way that was cost-effective or easily accessible. I have been downloading apps on my phone, trying to watch random videos on YouTube, watching Netflix set to German but there is something off about watching How I Met Your Mother in German with English subtitles. With HIMYM and NetFlix, if you know what should be said or the lines that are going on, when the English subtitles don’t match up with what should be said, it confuses you and distracts you from the show, and conversely, if the subtitles are the exact same as they would be for the original English audio, but they change the spoken German phrases a little bit to have it make more sense in the language, the subtitles don’t really share exactly what the words being said meant if you understood it. Maybe I am explaining that poorly but I hope it makes at least a little sense.
Anyway, I walked into the library and I immediately realized that this was what I needed, it was 4 different floors of Books, TV shows, video games, CDs, Newspapers and more all available in German. I wandered for about 2 or 3 more hours just trying to see where everything was and what it all is. After sitting around and thumbing through newspapers or looking at magazines, I decided the smartest thing to do would be to check out the kid’s section, which happened to be an entire floor of the library. They, of course, had the kids play areas, but also had tons of books and shows for kids. Some were focused on Learning English from German, Learning German from English, and a whole bunch of other languages but that was of course not the main priority. It was like most libraries and just filled to the top with books. I sat down and read a book for what I can only imagine was aimed at first graders learning how to read but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. I kept switching books going Grade 1 to Grade 2 to Grade 3 and so on until I finally go to a book where the majority of the words were new to me or at least unable to be recalled. After this, I went immediately downstairs to the front desk to get a Library Card (see below)
In Bremen, since I am not a University student or under the age of 18, I had to pay. When I was told that I had to pay I was a little worried because I didn’t know what to expect. Luckily for me, if you are under 28 but not a student, a library card only costs 15$ a year. Which is way less than I was expecting when I was told I had to pay. So I, of course, paid it, naturally, I had a handful of problems trying to pay. First, I went to the wrong place, then I went to a different wrong place, then my card didn’t work, I think because it was a debit card and not a credit card(or maybe the other way around) then finally I went, found an ATM and got the 15$ and paid. After I had my card, I went back to exploring.
After reading a few pages of random books and newspapers, I finally decided to start looking for things to check out that are on my level of German comprehension so that I could enjoy them as stories but also complex enough I can learn/re-enforce things that I have previously learned or should be advancing to now. After another hour or so, I decided to choose 2 books and a movie. The movie I decided was Drake and Josh “Ploetzlich Geschwister” as well as two “kids books” that should be quick reads so that I can hopefully shuffle through multiple books per week. This is exciting for me because I will be able to learn and embrace a bit more of German culture.
I have officially unlocked the keys to German books and media, and all it took was walking into a building I thought was a museum and turned out to be the central city Library of Bremen.