MIDVALE, UT- Christiane Adams is the German teacher for Hillcrest High School. She has taught at Hillcrest since 2010. She is originally from Berlin, Germany she was alive for many of the critical times in German history such as the reunification of Germany and the building and the destruction of the Berlin wall.
When asked about this time in her life, Adams said “during that time I remember the amount of guards and security was scary because I was just a little kid, and we weren’t really free to go anywhere and when we did leave they checked our passports.”
Discussing what she misses about her former home, she said “My favorite part of Germany is the land. It is beautiful, wherever you go.” She brought up that in the U.S. you will drive for miles and not see anything but when you are driving through Germany you can’t fall asleep because you’ll always see something.
She also stated her favorite state for the scenery in Germany is Hessen because of the mountain views. “As you have English class in the U.S. we have Deutsch class in Germany.”she said when talking about how she’d always wanted to teach German because of her love for the country.
She said she loves not only the land and the language, she loves the history, even stating “in Germany in every little town there’s museums talking about the history of Germany.” She spoke about a German word “Gemütlighkeit” which does not have an exact translation into english but means a sort of feeling of warmth, coziness, and friendliness. This is why she loves German culture because it reminds her of that feeling safety and coziness of home.
Some of the best ways to get some German culture in Utah is from restaurants like Siegfried’s Delicatessen which is a restaurant that is in downtown Salt Lake City that serves traditional German food, or the Christkindel Markt which is a market with German food/items you can buy, that are all traditionally German. But it is mostly a German Christmas market that sells things important to Christmas in Germany.
