I'm in Berlin. Where are the Berliners?

I haven't eaten many donuts in the last few years. When my sister and I were little, my family would pick up donuts after mass every Sunday morning (mainly, I think, to get us all through the mass). I remember really liking the donuts with the rainbow sprinkles. Anyway, what with a certain lapse in our church-going practices and growing consciousness of the donut effect on the waistline, this weekly ritual had pretty much fallen off by the time I was in junior high.

Lately, though, I've been getting back on the donut train. Not because my broken laptop forces me to use the internet cafe above the Dunkin' Donuts; I'd have to be much more homesick than I am to resort to one of the confections here. Since I've been in Berlin, I've stopped every so often at a bakery and gotten a jelly donut that's covered in sugar. It goes very well with a cup of milky coffee on a cold day.

Now, most people know that when JFK gave his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he got it wrong. In German, there's no article in front of a nationality; whereas in English I would say, "I am an American," the German is just, "Ich bin Amerikanerin." And most people learn that "ein Berliner" is a name for a jelly donut, and that JFK actually said, "I am a jelly donut."

Except that they don't call them Berliners in Berlin! Only in other parts of Germany. When I bought such a donut in Cologne, before orientation, it was called a Berliner. When I buy them here, though, they're called Pfannkuchen (which can also mean "pancake"). I don't know what people would do if I asked for a Berliner here. I'm sure they'd understand, but they'd probably roll their eyes a little.

There's also a cookie called an Amerikaner, but I haven't worked up the courage to ask for one of those yet.

A note for pocket knife owners . . .

Don't bring your pocket knives to the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

I went to see the museum, which is supposed to be one of Berlin's must-sees, on Wednesday afternoon after school. At the entrance, there's a security system reminiscent of an airport, where you put your bag and jacket on a conveyer belt and then go through a metal detector. When my bag cam through the belt, one of the security guards told me that I would need to take the pocket knife out of my bag (I'd actually forgotten I had it with me - I don't usually carry it around, but I'd stuck it in my messenger bag for the fall break trip and simply never taken it out) and leave it at the front. They put my knife in a little plastic bag and gave me a claim ticket. When I left, I had to go back to security, where they gave me my knife and then had me go out through the entrace, so I wouldn't have the opportunity to go back into the museum.

The museum is, in fact, really impressive; it shows all sorts of different facets of Jewish life in Germany since the Roman period. The new building was designed by Daniel Liebeskind, whom Americans know because of his involvement with the WTC memorial site. His design includes a Garden of Exile, which has a set of columns erected on uneven ground, so you feel a bit disoriented going through it, and a Holocaust Tower, which is almost completely dark, except for a small slit high up in the wall that lets in light and sound. The exhibits were very interesting, too, and very multimedia, and I learned a lot.

As I went through the museum, though, I couldn't help thinking that the security system at the front, even though it's not part of the exhibits on German-Jewish history, has its own comment to make on the uneasy state of modern Germany's take on its past. I guess you always have the risk that some maniac is going to destroy or deface a work of art - look at the guy who hacked off one of Mary's hands in Michaelangelo's Pieta - but if a German uses a pocket knife to slash at an exhibit about Jews, it's a political statement, and maybe not such an unthinkable one when the NPD, the extreme right political party in Germany, won an unsettling number of votes in the last local election.

I was also thinking of all this yesterday, when I made a trip to Nollendorfplatz, the center of the gay area of the city. Right outside the U-Bahn station, there's a pink granite triangle dedicated to the homosexual victims of the Holocaust. The inscription includes the word "totgeschwiegen," which means something like "silenced to death." The gay victims of the Holocaust have really only gotten press in the last few decades; I think the dedication itself only dates from the 80s.

Anyway, right underneath the inscription, someone had scrawed in black marker the word "Lügner": Liars.

And then it was fall.

I feel like summer turned into autumn very suddenly here. I was sitting in the teachers' lounge (I have a three-period break between classes on Mondays, so there's a lot of time for me to prepare things for Tuesday, read the paper and try to untangle German syntax, or just twiddle my thumbs) and I looked out the window and was suprised to see that the leaves on the trees outside had changed colors and were starting to fall off.

The weather is, however, not that cold - after temperatures in the 50s (I think they were in the 50s - of course the temperatures are in Celsius here, so I can't really tell) last week, it's supposed to be warmer this week.

I've noticed a distinct drop in the number of people asking me directions lately. Part of this must be, I think, because my knowledge of Berlin and my German are both improving, so divine justice would dictate that I shouldn't get opportunities to exercise them. Another (real) reason is probably, though, that I'm wearing sandals. I noticed this in Athens as well - we had a December with weather in the 50s and 60s, so of course I kept on wearing my Birkenstocks until almost Christmas. Either Europeans are just naturally colder than us and feel the need to wear more layers and proper shoes, or they just tend to dress according to the calendar, not the weather. Anyway, I'm the only one I've seen wearing sandals, and I think it pretty much screams that I'm an American. Which is okay; I'd rather get the last out of the open-toe season and put up with a few strange looks.

Bulletin

Well (since I apparently start every single entry with this word). A few random thoughts on a drizzly Friday:

1. Laptop: still not working, although I didn't try to turn it on today.

2. I did something I've never done before last night: go to a party where I knew absolutely no one. All the grantees in Berlin are on a list-serv, and occasionally people send out invitations to go out for drinks or what have you. I generally have had something else to do during these events, but I replied to the invitation for last night. The other people there weren't teaching assistants, they were research grantees - the really big guns, who'd had a different invitation from the TAs, so I hadn't met them - and they were all really nice and had a lot of interesting projects they were working on. We sat around and ate flatbread and drank raki (sort of a weaker Turkish equivalent of ouzo) for a few hours. It was a lot of fun.

3. The payment situation here is sort of confused - we get paid once a month, but no one's really sure if it's prorated for September or for June, and some people have been paid and some haven't, so it's a bit of a mess. During the course of various conversations with other TAs, it emerged that I was paid about a hundred euros more than everyone else (from those who have been paid). So I've just sent an e-mail to our sponsoring organization pointing out the mistake. It's not every day you get to write an e-mail informing people that they seem to have given you too much money. Still, I'd rather tell them than have them tell me.

4. A friend took me on Tuesday to this really good Vietnamese restaurant, where we had curry and tea. It's not exactly local color, but I'll bring people there who come to visit. It's a cool place.

Smoke gets in your eyes

Well, I meant to write an entry about Dachau yesterday, and then my laptop started screaming. Literally. I turned it on, and it emitted a high-pitched squeal - if my roommates had been home, they certainly would have thought I was torturing someone in there. The noise turned out to be coming from a compact disc in the disk drive, which I promptly removed. Since then, my laptop has been making a low sort of grumbly whirring noise when I turn it on, so I keep turning it on, getting nervous that the battery or something will explode on me, and turning it off again. At any rate, I'll give it a few more tries, then work on finding something who knows more about computers than I do. Sometimes it just needs some time to sulk and then it works again, although I'm hoping this interval is pretty short.

At any rate, I'm checking my e-mail at the internet cafe over the Dunkin' Donuts (easy internet cafe has some sort of deal with DD in Germany - I see them together all the time), which isn't very conducive to writing about serious topics. Also, I'm cheap and don't really feel like spending the money to sit here and pound out a long entry, especially since I'll be spending a lot to fill out grad school apps here if I can't get the computer back in order. Also, I had a bit of a frustrating first day back at school after the break - on Mondays I have to teach two full classes of teenagers back to back, and I never realized before how wearing it is to make teenagers interested in anything, since teenagers find everything, and especially everything school-related, boring. If I ever meet any of my high school teachers again, I think I'm going to apologize for every time I knew an answer and didn't raise my hand, or every time I did the "if I don't look at the teacher, s/he can't see me" trick.

Oh, well. Schritt für Schritt, as they say here: step by step. When I was on the train this morning heading to school, I heard something funny. At every station where the train stops, a station conductor says, "Step in, please," and a few seconds later, "Stay back, please." This morning, as tired people were shuffling onto a crowded train, the conductor repeated "Stay back" a few times, and then, impatiently: "The train has more than one door!"

Mondays, you know?

Coffee. Beer. Vladimir.

Well, I got back from fall break today. At the moment, my two roommates are elsewhere, so I’m having a cup of tea, doing my laundry, and trying to sort through the various things that have accumulated in my bags over the past week.

B and I took the night train on Thursday, which left Berlin at about 8:30 and arrived in Vienna a little after 9 a.m. Due to a fussy baby in our compartment, and a genetic inability to sleep in a vertical position (we’d taken the cheap route by buying seats instead of beds, which I don’t think I’ll do again) I ended up getting only about three hours of decent rest, and B didn’t get much more. After finding our hostel, we spent the first day doing a self-guided walking tour, stopping at a few cafes, which are everywhere in Vienna, and sampling different kinds of cake and strudel. In general, we noticed at once how much calmer everything is in Vienna than in Berlin. Berlin is such a young people’s city, while Vienna seems more, “Yeah, we had an empire. We don’t anymore, but we still have really good cake and coffee. It’s cool.”

Our next two days in Vienna, after we’d gotten a decent night’s sleep, were more eventful. On Saturday, we visited the Freud Museum, which is located in the flat where he lived for, I think, about 35 years. That night, we went to the opera, which sells standing places for 2 euros an hour before the curtain goes up. Because we were a little far back in line, we ended up on the very top balcony, but we could still see a good part of the stage. The production was The Magic Flute, which I had seen before (but, obviously, not in Vienna). The next morning, we continued our cultural endeavors (and the standing) by attending Mass in the Hofburgkapelle, the royal chapel, where the Vienna Boys Choir sings every Sunday morning. We had to be in line before 8 a.m. for the 9:15 service and had to stand in the aisle of the church during Mass, but it was a terrific thing to do. I found it especially interesting that the Liturgy of the Eucharist was in Latin, and done according to the pre-Vatican II rite, with the priest facing the altar and the servers loading on the incense.

On Monday, we moved on to Salzburg, where Mozart was born and where The Sound of Music was filmed (the hostel where we stayed shows the movie every night at 8, and we watched it on the night we arrived). It was probably my least favorite of the cities we saw. There’s an Altstadt, an older part of the city, that’s pretty much been abandoned by the natives and turned over to tourism. I think it’s silly for tourists to complain about other tourists, but I just found it a little artificial. We did have a good time at the city fortress, though, where one of the archbishops had an organ he used to wake the people in the city up and to let them know when to go to bed. The fortress also had amazing views of the city (so that we could review our S of M geography, of course).

Finally, on Wednesday we took a third train to Munich. Munich is in Bavaria, the southeastern part of Germany, which one of my German teachers described as “the German Texas.” The common American stereotypes of Germans – tall, lederhosen-wearing, beer-swigging – come from Bavaria. We were planning to take a walking tour of the city that didn’t pan out (there were a bunch of people, like us, who had free passes for the tour from our hostel, but there weren’t enough paying customers), so we did some walking around on our own. The strangest thing happened when we were coming up to the state theater. We saw, as we were a block away, a bunch of police standing around, and police vehicles blocking off the road. Then, just as we came up to the square in front of the theater, a parade of people in traditional Bavarian uniforms started marching down the street. After taking various guesses as to what was happening – a state holiday? a pro-lederhosen demonstration? – we asked another spectator and found out that Vladimir Putin was in Munich on a state visit. We got a kick out of the idea that we and Putin were fellow travelers, if you will. We didn’t get a chance to buy him a beer, which was disappointing, but hopefully we can make it up to him some day.

Anyway, speaking of beer – on Thursday night (well, on Thursday I’d done some more culture type things that were actually a lot of fun, but I need to compress a little more, I think) we went on a pub crawl with some other Americans, some Canadian students, and an older French Canadian couple. The tour guide took us to the Hofbräuhaus, the oldest beer garden in Munich, where a bunch of us ordered the Maß, a liter of light-colored beer. It was a lot of beer. Tasted good, though. After that, we went to a few more bars, and finally ended up at an Irish-type pub (so much for local color). Unfortunately, after most of the people on the tour, in various states of inebriation, went home, B and I stayed a while longer, and at closing time, B found out that her camera had been stolen. B’s a big scrap booker and had taken more than 500 pictures of the trip, so she was really upset. Add to that a few Croatian men who wanted to “help,” and it wasn’t such a successful close to the night. We eventually made it back to the hostel in a taxi, though, and went to sleep about 5.

And the next day, the last of our trip, we took a tour of the concentration camp memorial at Dachau, which I think requires a separate entry (also, this one is getting too long). Anyway, apart from B getting her camera stolen, which sucked, I had a really great time seeing castles, listening to live music, living on coffee and cake in Austria and pretzels and beer in Munich, and just generally doing a little of the Europe on a budget thing. Also, B is a lot more outgoing than I am (granted, it doesn’t take much), so she would initiate conversations with people who were staying in our hostels or waiting in line with us, and we met some interesting people. Plus, especially after traveling by myself when I went abroad before, it was nice to have someone to notice things with, to go to a bar with, and to keep an eye on my stuff when I was in the bathroom.

So, tomorrow will be a day of planning lessons for Monday, resting up, and doing a bit of cleaning. Also, I’ll post tomorrow about Dachau, as well as anything else from the trip that seemed important but that I’ve forgotten momentarily.

One last thing – our hostels were pretty good overall, but you can’t really wash your hair decently in a hostel shower. So, that’s at least one good reason to be glad I’m home!

Waiting on the midnight train

Well, I'm a week into fall break, and I didn't get as much accomplished, as far as seeing more of Berlin is concerned, as I wanted to. Part of that is because I was working on grad school applications, and you forget how long it takes, and how tedious it is, to sit at a computer and type in your data, and write out your reading list for the fifth time, and procrastinate by writing e-mails to people you haven't talked to in a while and suddenly feel the need to contact (if you were one of those people, though, it's not just the applications talking. I do miss you and would love to hear from you). I also need to print out bunches of forms and writing samples. Since I don't have a printer, this will be interesting.

Another reason for my relative laziness is a cold that's snuck up on me in the last few days. One of my roommates had a nasty cold about two weeks ago, and I thought that I'd escaped it, but then the other day I woke up feeling all stuffy and tired. So, I've been mostly staying inside and taking it easy, and drinking enough tea to keep most of China in business.

I wanted to save my energy for the trip I'm embarking on tonight. Another of the assistants and I (let's call her B, for the sake of anonymity) are taking a night train to Vienna. We'll spend a few days there, eating cake and drinking coffee, before moving on to Salzburg, Mozart's old stamping grounds, and finally Munich, home of appeasement and beer by the liter (Oktoberfest is already over, but we're hoping that the city isn't completely dried out). And we just got our first payments from the teaching exchange program, so our travels are actually funded, and we won't have to wash any dishes to earn our suppers.

I probably won't be blogging or e-mailing much before the 14th, when we get back, but I'll have a lot to report then. Hope everyone is doing fantastically, and a lovely Columbus Day break to people back in the U.S.

Day of German Unity

Yesterday, October 3, was the Tag der Deutschen Einheit. It marked the 16th anniversary of the day when East and West Germany constitutionally became one country again.

Those of you up on your recent history (which would not have been me, but I know some of you are into "political science" and "current events") will be scratching their heads and saying, "Hang on, the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. Wouldn't that have been a much more fitting day to celebrate?"

It probably would; as my roommates here say, it's the day that carries the most emotional resonance with the people who lived through it. Unfortunately, November 9th has a few other meanings in German history. It was the date of the Kristallnacht, the Nazi attack on Jewish offices and synagogues, in 1938. It was also the date of Hitler's Munich coup in 1923. The new united government was afraid that making November 9 the official national holiday would be an invitation to Neo-Nazis to demonstrate on that day, as well as an uncomfortable reminder of the less than happy elements of German history. So, they went for the less evocative but more official date of October 3, 1990.

I find this confluence of dates strangely fascinating. It's like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams dying on the same day, a day that just happened to be July 4th and the 50th year after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It makes you wonder about coincidences.

Anyway, there was sort of a city party in the area around the Brandenburger Tor, which is a symbol of the united city, since it was previously stuck inbetween the wall. There was music, food stands, the usual things you see at a street fair sort of occasion.

The only serious reflection on what the day meant was a conversation I heard near one of the government buildings, away from the main event. There's this neat little garden area where the articles of the constitution are posted on slabs of glass, and people tend to stop and read them. I overheard a younger and an older man talking; the younger one (he was maybe 30) was saying that 16 years isn't that long, and that people need more time to figure out what it means to be German. He added that his nephew, who was born after the wall fell, has joined a neo-Nazi gang: "he sees pictures of his Great-Uncle Paul in the photo albums, when Paul was in the SS, and he thinks it's all nice uniforms and making Germany great again."

The other man, who was probably old enough to remember the war, or at least its aftermath, shook his head. "They're just kids," he said. "They're just playing. They don't know anything."

And that was about as long as I felt I could eavesdrop without being rude.

A night owt

I’d heard (well, more precisely, read) that Berlin is the nightlife capital of Germany and, to a large extent, Europe. Because its population is pretty young, with a lot of university students and people who come here to be edgy and interesting, there is a large variety of clubs, bars, dance spots, etc.

I have pretty much no experience in clubbing or bars (with the exception of the Irish Times and a few other Worcester bars, where I would go with people from school, have a drink or two, and stay until 12:30 or 1, since we often had class the next day). And I figure that seeing the Berlin night scene counted as a foray into cultural exchange. So, when one of my friends from orientation invited me to go to a disco with her roommate and some of the roommate’s friends, I said yes and put on my dancing shoes (which also happen to be the black boots I wear to school, but never mind).

Obviously I can’t extrapolate from one group to the entire German population, but I suspect this is true for a lot of people here: when the Germans decide to do a night out, they take it seriously. I arrived at my friend’s apartment at 8:30, when she and her roommate were still prettifying. After her roommate brewed up some fortifying cups of coffee, we headed over to the local Kneipe at about 10. A Kneipe is a bar with sort of a special connotation; it’s a place that usually has a dedicated set of locals who all know one another and meet regularly for drinks, card games and chat.

After being introduced to the roommate’s friends, I ordered a beer (when I asked what beers one of my new acquaintances would recommend, an older man at the bar overheard and said, “An American? Better give her a Kölsch.” A Kölsch is a very light beer without a whole lot of alcohol). We stayed there until a little after 11, then took the U-Bahn to the disco, which was in the basement of an older brick building; it was (obviously) dark by that point, so I couldn’t see what the building had originally been used for.

The disco was divided into several rooms, each with its own DJ and style of music. After getting another round of drinks (including an embarrassing episode on my part, since I couldn’t hear the price the bartender was telling me for my beer and kept trying to give him the right amount; my friend finally realized what he was saying and handed him the remaining change) we headed downstairs into the sub-basement, where there was a smoke machine and a DJ playing music mostly without words. After dancing there for a while, we explored some of the other rooms, including one with a vaguely 80’s theme.

A little after 3, we decided to head back to my friend’s place (I was staying the night with her and her roommate). When we got back off the U-Bahn, though, we went back to the original bar for what somebody called “a parting drink.” We stayed there for another half an hour or so before my friend and I (who had only gotten water) decided to head back to her apartment. We got there a little before 5, had some bread and Nutella, and went to bed about 5:30.

When we woke up about 5 hours later (well, I woke up first and then woke my friend up; I was sort of hungry, but didn’t want to go rummaging through their kitchen) the roommate, who’s a German student a few years older than us and a complete sweetheart, fetched rolls from a store nearby, and we had breakfast. Then I came back to my apartment, took a walk out in the sunshine in an attempt to fend off tiredness, and fell asleep about 9.

I had a fantastic time – some “serious fun” would be a good way to put it – but next time, I think a endurance-building nap in the preceding afternoon will be in order.