"Up North"

Today I went "up North" for a conference in conjunction with my teaching of Family-to-Family for NAMI.  The conference was held in Wisconsin Rapids, about three hours by car northwest of here.

My co-teacher who rode with me to the conference lived in that area for awhile.  I commented that I always felt the pace of life was slower there than where we live.  She confirmed that impression.  But she said she was often frustrated because if you needed services you could never be certain when they might be provided.  Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next month.

It made me reflect back on trying to teach my students  phrases of direction and location.  I would try to have them tell me where they had gone over the weekend, during a school break, during summer vacation, etc.  Inevitably I would get:  "How do you say Up North?"

I would tell them you can't just translate the word UP and the word NORTH, put them together and make a phrase which would mean something to a native speaker of German--or to me, for that matter!

So I would try to get them to say phrases such as " in . . .", "near . . .", "north of . . .", "just south of . . .", etc.  Most of them got it, once they could figure out exactly where their "Up North" was located.

I found "Up North" to mean many places:  a place away from here, even if not always north of here, where they would be on vacation, away from the their quotidian life "here."

"Up North" is a favorite location for almost everyone--even though no one knows really where that is.