Things are a flurry of motion around me: My friend Travis is furiously cleaning his apartment and the whirring of his vacuum is my sloth symphony. These next few days will be the last I have for a while to be a laze on the couch, so that's what I'm doing. My fingers are getting a bit of exercise, though. Tonight I've booked travel plans, updated my ipod with a plethora of awesome new "gifts", and made a task list for what I need to accomplish in the next couple days, my last in Berlin.
It feels good to put fingers to keyboard again. My body has been in constant motion for the past month and I have failed to properly record my experiences, as the good blogger should. Here I put forth my July 10 resolution to chronicle what's to come with more resolve - both for you and for me.
My friend Julia left today after an incredible two weeks in Greece. Despite lost bags, cancelled ferries, and a very striking Athens we had a great time in the place where my name came to be. Rando fact: "Helen" means "light" in Greek. Not one Helen of Troy sighting, though! The cats toured the lovely capital (which totally doesn't deserve its rep as a "one day only" city) and then moved to the beautifully dramatic islands - Mykonos, Santorini, and finally Crete. Highlights included getting tear gassed, eating our weight in souvlaki and tomato balls, riding donkeys up a cliff, being told that when we dance we "make people go crazy," an epic and too-dangerous river hike, and taking pictures of all the "real" cats we saw. I hope to blog more about this (and post some pictures) as time allows. I already miss the Julzkitteh but am so excited to join her and Jencat in Los Angeles in five days!
In a little over a week I'll find myself having crossed one and a half oceans, my home continent, and over 8,000 miles to get to the place where I'll stay for a long time. I don't even want to think about the jet lag! This year has been peripatetic, next year will be settled. I'll build a home in Kosrae, Micronesia - a 42 square mile island of about 7,000 people in the South Pacific. I'll be there with seven other "young" Americans as part of the WorldTeach program. I'll be Miss Helen for the year - I'm teaching world history and geography to high schoolers there. Couldn't be more excited about my assignment :)
I'm still putting thoughts together on how to properly say goodbye to this country, this program, and to the wonderful friends I've made here. I need to buy a big journal. For now my mind is distracted with where my body will be in the next week: Berlin, Mainz, Frankfurt, New York City, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Kosrae. Stop.
Auf Wiedersehen from Germany, more to come from the stop :) And hopefully a blog facelift too!
Monday, July 11, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
"Wir haben auf diese Zug geschlafen."
"Bitte Entschuldigung Sie die Verspätung," or, please excuse the delay - in my updating! Deutsche Bahn and I have something in common (hopefully just this one thing). I think I have better than a 66% batting average, though :)
Since I last blobbed I have continued to move into a comfortable pace of life in Ber-lin. A lovely city, and even lovelier now that afternoons and weekends can be spent outside. Check out them freckles! And in a change from my wanderlusting ways I have actually spent most weekends here...the 9-5 doesn't allow for so much travel, and I think it's probably better that way. Europe will always be here, and I'll be back, so for now it's about gritty and wonderful Berlin. I have even become competent enough with my surroundings to give directions to tourists - barring the one woman who I very wrongly directed to Alexanderplatz this week. Sorry! (Years in this city still probably wouldn't help my shotty sense of direction.)
In recent weeks I have explored the neighboring town of Potsdam, scoured the Mauer Park flea market for some German take-home items (my Opa will look so cute in his Bavarian hat!), toured the Spree River on a boat, visited a Soviet prison, and spent countless hours laying/picnicing/otherwise capitalizing on the presence of the sun in numerous green spaces. If I lacked Vitamin D before, now I have enough to ship.
Random German lesson: When you want to say you don't really care one way or the other about something it's "egal" or "scheiss egal" when you REALLY don't care. Doesn't egal sound like a great word to connote "whatever"? I think so. Definitely think I'm bringing that one back to the States.
Berlin is my lieblings stadt, but it is still a stadt, and I had been craving some time with nature...fortunately plans had been in the works to spend last weekend (a long weekend for Easter) down in the Süd with my good friends from the program. The 7 of us stayed in Reutlingen, a town just outside Stuttgart, in my friend Brent's student apartment and had a helluva fun weekend of what the older generation might call tomfoolery. In shorts and tank tops (finally!) we hiked the Alcham hill in Reutlingen, trained to Stuttgart for Frühlingsfest (aka the spring version of Oktoberfest, huge maßes and tents included) and spent a day exploring the sublime Black Forest - but no cake :(. I probably could have fun with that crazy group anywhere...just the nature and friend fix I needed.
Oh yea, and we slept on an empty train one night that was waiting at the station until morning? That deserves a lolz if anything does. Not the most comfortable night, but Deutsche Bahn's solution to us being totally stranded, and a great story. Made even better when we had to explain to the ticket controller the next morning why we were still using yesterday's tickets and someone in our group piped in with "Wir haben auf diese Zug geschlafen," or "We slept on top of the train."
A running theme of the weekend was how lächerlich (ridiculous) DB is, but no words can really express my rage so I won't even try.
A running theme of the weekend was how lächerlich (ridiculous) DB is, but no words can really express my rage so I won't even try.
These days when I'm not being a tomfool (?) with my friends from the program, I'm working. Work has gotten alot busier lately - I was promoted to be the assistant on a big event coming up in a couple weeks. I love them productive days and feeling as though I'm working toward something. Could still do without that commute, though, but I'm many books down on my Kindle.
Oh yea, guiz guiz I'll be spending next year in Micronesia! (It's OK if you have to wiki it - so many people have no idea what/where it is.) I'll be doing this program and serving as a full-time teacher on the island of Kosrae, which has about 6,000 people. I'm trying not to go in with expectations, but I do think I'm in for a very interesting, challenging, and hopefully rewarding year that will be very different from this one. My Southern roots have prepared me for lots of heat and humidity, but maybe not as much as I will experience. And there will be lots of pictures of me in a muumuu up on this thing next year, that's for sure. But that's not even scratching the surface. More to come on that as the time gets closer.
In the next few weeks: my life devoted to work, a road trip to Krakow (!), and the final seminar of this program right here in Berlin. 75 Americans roaming the streets? uh oh.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Bitte Entschuldigung Sie die Verspätung
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
Long-overdue updates to come :)
Long-overdue updates to come :)
Thursday, March 24, 2011
A Berlin bahn metaphor
I'm one of those people who loves to celebrate "sorta" holidays, and last week had three! Did you miss them? They would be pi day (3/14), the Ides of March (3/15) and of course St. Patrick's Day (3/17). Unfortunately I neither had pie nor did any math on pi day...but to balance things out I did not meet the same fate as Caesar the next day. And then there was St. Patty's. It's not much at all celebrated by actual Germans: I was the only one wearing green in my office but decided it would be a tad bit unprofessional to go around pinchin'. But like every big city, Berlin has its share of Irish pubs and we went to a great one. I paid homage to my "O'Shee" middle name and hopped along to a live Irish band while drinking cider and Guinness in a large top hat.
Last weekend was again delightfully busy. I hosted my German friend Chiara for the weekend, and highlights included going to a large Roman-style indoor swimming pool, eating at a Canadian pizza place with delicious sweet potato pizza and spicy maple syrup, traipsing through the main sights of Berlin at night, and again visiting the inevitably crowded Mauer Park flea market. I have big plans to show up at 7:30am one weekend to buy all my souvenirs...and so I can actually walk through the place. Another happening thing in Mauer Park: on Sundays hundreds (or thousands?) of people show up to watch karaoke at the park's amphitheater. I'm thinking it might be time to warm up the vocal cords and sing "You're So Vain."
One thing that has become very evident to me about Berlin is how much of a place in progress it is. I imagine if I would come back in 10 years (and I will!), this city may be drastically different. Still only 20 years from the fall of the wall, Berlin is wavering between two identities: the largest and capital city of the most powerful country in the European Union and an alternative haven where street art reigns, unemployment is 17%, and cost of living is still pretty darn cheap. It will be interesting to see which identity, if either, more defines Berlin in the future. For now, though, I'm living in the in between and loving it.
It's a bit of a funny metaphor to make, but this divide can be witnessed on the two main forms of transportation here: the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn. (S-Bahn stands for schnellerbahn or the "faster train" that runs mainly above ground and U-Bahn stands for untergrundbahn or "underground train"). I take the S-bahn to and from work every morning, and it's a bit more of a distinguished experience. My fellow riders usually look very put together if not outright professional, the train is clean and quiet, and the most interesting thing that happens is maybe a saxophone performance. Then there's the U-Bahn. The trains and stations are dirtier, people talk loudly and animatedly, and there are a whole lotta interesting people and curiosities to watch. One of my favorite parts about going out here is taking the U-Bahn back to my station later in the night. Last weekend I witnessed a girl carrying around a huge stuffed platypus and waving it around in people's faces.
The people who make up this city are quite interesting...many of the people I have met are just here, for only the reason of wanting to be, without a job or school. So many have told me they came to Berlin to find themselves, or just to party, or to find themselves while partying. I'm happy to have my not-so-gainful employment, but I also like the idea of finding myself more in a place like this. Unfortunately, though, I don't think better German speaking ability will be one of the things I will find: The incredible amount of English spoken in Berlin means I have gone entire weekends without hearing much German at all on both the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn :/
Last weekend was again delightfully busy. I hosted my German friend Chiara for the weekend, and highlights included going to a large Roman-style indoor swimming pool, eating at a Canadian pizza place with delicious sweet potato pizza and spicy maple syrup, traipsing through the main sights of Berlin at night, and again visiting the inevitably crowded Mauer Park flea market. I have big plans to show up at 7:30am one weekend to buy all my souvenirs...and so I can actually walk through the place. Another happening thing in Mauer Park: on Sundays hundreds (or thousands?) of people show up to watch karaoke at the park's amphitheater. I'm thinking it might be time to warm up the vocal cords and sing "You're So Vain."
One thing that has become very evident to me about Berlin is how much of a place in progress it is. I imagine if I would come back in 10 years (and I will!), this city may be drastically different. Still only 20 years from the fall of the wall, Berlin is wavering between two identities: the largest and capital city of the most powerful country in the European Union and an alternative haven where street art reigns, unemployment is 17%, and cost of living is still pretty darn cheap. It will be interesting to see which identity, if either, more defines Berlin in the future. For now, though, I'm living in the in between and loving it.
It's a bit of a funny metaphor to make, but this divide can be witnessed on the two main forms of transportation here: the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn. (S-Bahn stands for schnellerbahn or the "faster train" that runs mainly above ground and U-Bahn stands for untergrundbahn or "underground train"). I take the S-bahn to and from work every morning, and it's a bit more of a distinguished experience. My fellow riders usually look very put together if not outright professional, the train is clean and quiet, and the most interesting thing that happens is maybe a saxophone performance. Then there's the U-Bahn. The trains and stations are dirtier, people talk loudly and animatedly, and there are a whole lotta interesting people and curiosities to watch. One of my favorite parts about going out here is taking the U-Bahn back to my station later in the night. Last weekend I witnessed a girl carrying around a huge stuffed platypus and waving it around in people's faces.
The people who make up this city are quite interesting...many of the people I have met are just here, for only the reason of wanting to be, without a job or school. So many have told me they came to Berlin to find themselves, or just to party, or to find themselves while partying. I'm happy to have my not-so-gainful employment, but I also like the idea of finding myself more in a place like this. Unfortunately, though, I don't think better German speaking ability will be one of the things I will find: The incredible amount of English spoken in Berlin means I have gone entire weekends without hearing much German at all on both the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn :/
Monday, March 14, 2011
Compartmentalizing Berlin
Like the bears that are their city's symbol, Berliners crawled out of hibernation this weekend and into the streets. Excluding the ridiculousness of Oktoberfest and Karneval, I've never seen so many Germans in one confined place as I saw in Mauer Park on Sunday. This city is alive!
The weekend for me was all about embracing the tease of spring. On Saturday I spent the afternoon lolling around Kreuzberg, weaving in and out of interesting stores. Kreuzberg is a neighborhood in the south of Berlin that has a delightfully grungy feel that screams "Berlin!" (Another expression I've started thinking about using, if not actually doing so, is "that's so DDR!"...but I'm not sure if that's PC just yet?) Anyways, Kreuzberg is the go-to hipster locale in this city, although non-hipster identifiers like myself still feel welcome. There are lots of ethnic eateries shoulder to shoulder along the streets, small boutiques showcasing Berlin designers, and tons of book stores. That afternoon I also catered to my obsession with Taiwanese beverages and had an amazing coconut milk tea. It's been too long since I had at least one a day in Taipei.
Saturday evening a friend from the program had some of us over for a good ole' barbecue at his apartment's rooftop deck. It was just not cold enough to sit outside with our eats...bratwurst and burgers for everyone else and grilled sweet potatoes for me. Like a typical southerner I love me some sweet potatoes, so I didn't feel as though I was missing out (too much). I'm really looking forward to spending lots of time outside in the coming months...and hopefully losing some of this perpetual paleness. I tried out some German self tanner lotion this weekend, and now exactly half of my body has a fake sunkissed glow :/
Sunday my friend Tara and I strolled around Prenzlauerberg. I've decided the best way to get to know Berlin is through a compartmentalization strategy, one neighborhood at a time. Prenzlauerberg is the next stop over from Wedding, where I live, with lots of cute cafes and shops and now...gasp...outdoor seating! We strolled until we stumbled into Mauer Park, which apparently is the place to be Sundays. We pushed our way through crowds at the flea market to check out the wares and then had a shotgun picnic on a rock. I find it comical that 60 degrees and gray skies would be regarded as crummy weather in Los Angeles, but here it is bliss. Perspective.
My cultural Berlin Sunday wasn't over...another friend here won a couple spots on the guest list to a literary reading and discussion at SoHo house, a swanky members-only club. The author was Claire Messud, who I had never heard of until yesterday, but the reading convinced me that she's worth reading - and so did my friends at the New York Times :) Fabulously our winnings included a copy of her book The Emperor's Children (y'all know how I love the free stuff!) so I will be starting that soon.
Later we met up with another friend for a beer happy hour at a hostel followed by a screening of a documentary called Jakarta-Berlin. The premise is a guy's land-only journey from Jakarta, Indonesia to Berlin. I love anything Southeast Asia, so I enjoyed the film (and especially its culinary aspects), although we only made it to Kazakhstan.
It's pi day today, and I recommend celebrating with some math and some pie...I have some good memories from my high school math club experience of this day :) And that also means that I have exactly four months left on this program. Really?
The weekend for me was all about embracing the tease of spring. On Saturday I spent the afternoon lolling around Kreuzberg, weaving in and out of interesting stores. Kreuzberg is a neighborhood in the south of Berlin that has a delightfully grungy feel that screams "Berlin!" (Another expression I've started thinking about using, if not actually doing so, is "that's so DDR!"...but I'm not sure if that's PC just yet?) Anyways, Kreuzberg is the go-to hipster locale in this city, although non-hipster identifiers like myself still feel welcome. There are lots of ethnic eateries shoulder to shoulder along the streets, small boutiques showcasing Berlin designers, and tons of book stores. That afternoon I also catered to my obsession with Taiwanese beverages and had an amazing coconut milk tea. It's been too long since I had at least one a day in Taipei.
Saturday evening a friend from the program had some of us over for a good ole' barbecue at his apartment's rooftop deck. It was just not cold enough to sit outside with our eats...bratwurst and burgers for everyone else and grilled sweet potatoes for me. Like a typical southerner I love me some sweet potatoes, so I didn't feel as though I was missing out (too much). I'm really looking forward to spending lots of time outside in the coming months...and hopefully losing some of this perpetual paleness. I tried out some German self tanner lotion this weekend, and now exactly half of my body has a fake sunkissed glow :/
Sunday my friend Tara and I strolled around Prenzlauerberg. I've decided the best way to get to know Berlin is through a compartmentalization strategy, one neighborhood at a time. Prenzlauerberg is the next stop over from Wedding, where I live, with lots of cute cafes and shops and now...gasp...outdoor seating! We strolled until we stumbled into Mauer Park, which apparently is the place to be Sundays. We pushed our way through crowds at the flea market to check out the wares and then had a shotgun picnic on a rock. I find it comical that 60 degrees and gray skies would be regarded as crummy weather in Los Angeles, but here it is bliss. Perspective.
My cultural Berlin Sunday wasn't over...another friend here won a couple spots on the guest list to a literary reading and discussion at SoHo house, a swanky members-only club. The author was Claire Messud, who I had never heard of until yesterday, but the reading convinced me that she's worth reading - and so did my friends at the New York Times :) Fabulously our winnings included a copy of her book The Emperor's Children (y'all know how I love the free stuff!) so I will be starting that soon.
Later we met up with another friend for a beer happy hour at a hostel followed by a screening of a documentary called Jakarta-Berlin. The premise is a guy's land-only journey from Jakarta, Indonesia to Berlin. I love anything Southeast Asia, so I enjoyed the film (and especially its culinary aspects), although we only made it to Kazakhstan.
It's pi day today, and I recommend celebrating with some math and some pie...I have some good memories from my high school math club experience of this day :) And that also means that I have exactly four months left on this program. Really?
Friday, March 11, 2011
A bunny with a facebook and other stories from FASTNACHT
I have spent these past few days mostly resting from the debauchery that was my time at Fastnacht...the Louisianans and the Germans should meet up some time, I think they would throw a pretty great party together. I don't know if the world could handle that, though.
I left Berlin last Friday after work to catch a quick flight to Frankfurt and a brief train to Mainz to meet up with Chrissy and start the celebratin' (or festin' as would be more appropriate to say here, but Germans don't get the southern twang anyways). I knew it would be a good weekend when I plopped down right across from a weenie dog on the Sbahn to the airport :)
Friday night we met with some of Chrissy's work friends and headed to a party. I quickly donned my first Fastnacht look, that of a flapper girl with fishnet tights and a feather on my head. Probably my favorite thing about Fastnacht is that everyone is dressed up in outlandish costumes, every day, all the time. After 18 years of clamoring for shiny Mardi Gras beads to add festival pizazz to my plain clothes, wearing costumes made it feel more like a week-long Halloween than anything else. That night we encountered Scottish folk in kilts, the cast of Sesame Street, and what sticks out most in my mind: a huge scary bunny, who has a facebook page. At Fastnacht there is always something curious to look at.
The next day was focused on one thing, and one thing only: Americaaaaa. Chrissy can get herself and friends onto the American Military Base in Wiesbaden, complete with a food court of everything gross and wonderful about the US: Taco Bell and Popeye's. We nommed endlessly for hours. Free drink refills! Incredibly slow counter service! Delicious yet suspicious "Mexican" food! Red beans and rice and a biscuit! They import everything on that base from the US, huge SUVs in the parking lot included. For that brief sojourn I may as well have been back in America, and technically was, I think?
Sunday we went to the home of a very nice German couple and enjoyed a delicious homemade traditional lunch before heading to a parade in a small community in Mainz. (Side note: the husband greeted us wearing a shirt that said "Eat. Sleep. Karaoke." My kind of people.) In Germany parades are called zugs, which means "trains." How's that for German literalness? Lots of marching bands, dancers, and small floats whizzed past, throwing out candy and, in large quantities, bags of sweet popcorn. I was a "scary" bunny with the aid of hot pink tights and a furry mask - the scary part came because the gross bunny teeth fit right over my own when I smiled. Creepy.
After the parade we returned to the city to take in the festivities in the main square, which quickly turned into a huge outdoor dance party. We danced to German favorites like this. (I highly recommend clicking on the link and learning the motions to the song. So fun).
Rosenmontag is the Fat Tuesday of Germany, the day when it all goes down. We awoke early to catch the big parade going through town and spent the day just doing whatever Mainzers do...which seems to be mostly just wandering through the streets. I was a Native American and met many more...and got to take pictures with Cookie Monster (om nom nom!) and some nuns. The next morning I joined Chrissy at the home of a German family with two excessively cute daughters and watched her march in another small parade before heading back to Berlin. Whew. That's three parades in three days, lots of Taco Bell, and endless celebrating. I'm still tired.
What's better: German Karneval or Mardi Gras in Louisiana? The program would instruct me to say that one is not better, not worse, just different. To be honest, though, I had a great time at Karneval but found myself longing for the Louisiana traditions I've come to love: floats on 18-wheeler truck beds, catching armfuls and neckfuls of colorful cheap beads, King Cake. I guess we like what we know.
In recent news, I've had my last curry wurst for at least 40 days. Wanting a bit of a challenge, I decided to give up meat for Lent this year. Where better to do so than a country whose diet is centered around it? Wish me luck.
Amidst some lovely weather this week, Berlin's transit workers went on strike. I wasn't much affected, apart from being utterly confused and 45 minutes late to work one day. There was craziness on the tracks, though. Germans yelling in German is not so soothing to the ears. Now on to the weekend...
Amidst some lovely weather this week, Berlin's transit workers went on strike. I wasn't much affected, apart from being utterly confused and 45 minutes late to work one day. There was craziness on the tracks, though. Germans yelling in German is not so soothing to the ears. Now on to the weekend...
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Humming along on the S1 nach Wannsee
I always hope in the mornings that my favorite Berlin transit music duo will step on the S1 nach Wannsee and strike up the saxophone and guitar. So far they have graced us with excerpts from Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," The Beatles' "Let it Be" and Billy Joel's "Honesty." Some favorites. I'm no music critic, but it makes me happeh, and I can never help humming along. It's the little things.
Yesterday I got out of work a bit early and decided to check out a traditional Turkish bath, or "Hamam." (Germany has a large Turkish immigrant population, so such things are common, as well as lots of places serving döner and other Turkish foods). The Hamam came recommended from a website I like here, and really I just wanted a couple hours of total warm. Definitely a neat experience. It was located on the second floor of an unassuming building in Kreuzberg, down the hall from a karaoke place and a gym. But upon entering I found myself in an ornately decorated lobby space that led to two bathing chambers. Now of course I heard "bath" and thought of small pools like the ones in Hungary, but a Hamam is really heated steam rooms with raised stone ledges around faucets. You are given a small bowl to fill with water and wash yourself as you please and then lay on the heated stone. Men are verboten most of the week, so it was just the ladies. It's a nice concept...traditionally women go with family members or friends and bathe each other. I relaxed and warmed to my heart's content while hearing lots of Turkish chit chat around me. Apparently I need to get a lot more comfortable being naked around strangers, though...I blame the nuns for that one!
When friends from the US or here ask me about where I work in Berlin, I often jumble my words (in German or English!). Luckily, I spotted this NYT article in the lobby that does an excellent job of it. Even though the article is from 2003, things seem to be pretty much the same at the AAB, at least from my vantage point in the basement.
Oh what would I do without the NYT? Bring on that pay wall, cause I will definitely shell out the dough for an unlimited subscription.
Yesterday I got out of work a bit early and decided to check out a traditional Turkish bath, or "Hamam." (Germany has a large Turkish immigrant population, so such things are common, as well as lots of places serving döner and other Turkish foods). The Hamam came recommended from a website I like here, and really I just wanted a couple hours of total warm. Definitely a neat experience. It was located on the second floor of an unassuming building in Kreuzberg, down the hall from a karaoke place and a gym. But upon entering I found myself in an ornately decorated lobby space that led to two bathing chambers. Now of course I heard "bath" and thought of small pools like the ones in Hungary, but a Hamam is really heated steam rooms with raised stone ledges around faucets. You are given a small bowl to fill with water and wash yourself as you please and then lay on the heated stone. Men are verboten most of the week, so it was just the ladies. It's a nice concept...traditionally women go with family members or friends and bathe each other. I relaxed and warmed to my heart's content while hearing lots of Turkish chit chat around me. Apparently I need to get a lot more comfortable being naked around strangers, though...I blame the nuns for that one!
When friends from the US or here ask me about where I work in Berlin, I often jumble my words (in German or English!). Luckily, I spotted this NYT article in the lobby that does an excellent job of it. Even though the article is from 2003, things seem to be pretty much the same at the AAB, at least from my vantage point in the basement.
Oh what would I do without the NYT? Bring on that pay wall, cause I will definitely shell out the dough for an unlimited subscription.
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