Here are some final photos from Berlin. How strange to leave the city. Arriving here, I felt like I'd have all the time in the world, but time snuck up on me as it always does, and it felt like the blink of an eye. Should I have applied for Berlin on my Fulbright application? I've wondered that often in the last days, and in the end, I am convinced that I was right to use the grant to explore other corners of Germany. As an acquaintance of mine wisely put it, it's off to my new favorite among all the world's fair cities.
Oranienstraße, the artery of my life
Among the things I'll miss about my old favorite city is the U-Bahn/S-Bahn system. After a total of a year and a half in Berlin (split between my two stays), I've got the transportation grid pretty ingrained in my head. I know how to get from almost any station to any other, and I expect to spend my first few weeks in Dresden looking at Straßenbahn maps with a puzzled expression on my face.
I'll miss my friends here certainly. Especially lovely was the Kneipenquiz at Fosca, though it was on summer break for much of my time here. I've been particularly bad though, at dragging myself out of Kreuzberg to Lisa's in Friedrichshain and the southeastern suburbs my old high school buddies live in. I haven't even made it over yet to see Lisa's new apartment. Who knows? I may even see everyone nearly as often as I did before. I plan to get very familiar with the 2-hour train ride north to Berlin.
Typical Kreuzberg transportation along the Landwehrkanal
My old host family too, will only be a short train ride away. With Maine on the other side of the planet, it's unbelievably comforting to know I have a second home so close by.
Of course, I'll miss inanimate things too. I'm anticipating regular Burgermeister cravings, pangs at memories of the farmers' market at Boxhagener Platz, and failed attempts to recreate the avacado milkshakes at Buchhandlung. Since I've always thought that Friedrichshain was just a Schritt too far away for Cupcake to be located, I'll continue to go there infrequently, and my cholesterol-level will continue to thank me for it.
For the last weeks, the sole priority of my life (except food... for the most part) has been finishing the final paper of my undergraduate career. Normally, an 8-page paper wouldn't be a problem for me, but this one is in German. Adding to the problem, it's not a real research paper, but rather a summary of many of the readings we've done for class. I wasn't at all sure how to go about a paper that didn't have a thesis.
Finally, the paper is complete, and I am done with homework. For a while at least. Having this paper done is such a relief to me! Perhaps I'll even stop thinking in 1.5 spacing soon! The assignment: Explain the difference between the decision-making process of the EU and that of its member states. My focus was that the main "deciders" in the EU are states, whereas the public plays the dominant role in individual states. Somehow I squeezed 8 pages out of that.
I easily put as much work into this essay, as I did into my senior thesis paper. Below, the text of my masterpiece. I'm proud to sport a B+ for my efforts (the essay was 100% of my grade for the class), especially given the lack of grade-inflation in the German university system.
The course itself was a real pleasure. Of all my classes "Europa: Vielfalt und Einigung" made the greatest impression on me. A direct enrollment in Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, the seminar was the most typically German of my courses. Learning about the EU in a classroom full of Europeans (including not only the German majority, but many Erasmus students) was an outstanding experience. Now, with the headache that was this paper behind me, I can look back with fondness on my brief time as a student at Humboldt.
I've been feeling sad lately, that I missed Beloit's graduation ceremony. Yes, I'm in Berlin, and yes, that is much more exciting than donning a Harry Potter gown and marching across a stage, but lots of photos of the ceremony have been appearing on Facebook lately. They've instilled in me a certain feeling of being left-out and robbed of a sense of undergraduate finality. Until yesterday, at least.
Last night, I got that sense of ceremony in the biggest way imaginable, and the timing couldn't have been better. DAAD's Berlin Office, where I've been working as an Intern for a few weeks, hosted a reception on the night of the "Classic Open Air" concert series opener. Germans like doing things outside, so the concert tickets are very expensive. DAAD, with a balcony overlooking Gendarmenmarkt, is situated ideally to hear and see the event on the Konzerthaus steps... for free! Probably the best seats in the house.
I missed most of the concert, as I was making sure that the buffet table was free of trash and the drink table full, but as the evening wound down, I had a chance to talk to some of the guests, and made connections with some very interesting people. I was talking to one of said interesting people, leaning out over one of the most beautiful squares in Europe, with a glass of white wine in my hand, and drinking in the sweet Berlin summer air when the orchestra launched into the grand finale: Pomp and Circumstance!
I felt so lucky, there in my perfect internship, in my favorite city, listening to that movement. It was the ideal end of my college career, and it was about to get better: as the energy of the music built up, the Concert House erupted in fireworks, which continued for some time, lighting up the square in time with the music. Wonderful internship. Wonderful city. Wonderful weather. And now my own personal graduation ceremony complete with fireworks. I couldn't escape the idea, that it was all for me. I must admit I cried a little. Beloit's ceremony could never compete.
I'm in Germany during the World Cup, so I should write a blog post about it. My "blogger muse" isn't having any of that, though, so I'll provide this album link to captioned photos instead.
The crisis in Greece is becoming a crisis for Germany. Facing the devaluing of her country's currency, Angela Merkel called Wednesday for the Bundestag to approve an extensive, mostly German-financed rescue package for Germany's fellow-EU-member.
Now for the exciting part: my friend's roommate works for the Bundestag, and he got us reservations to sit in on the debate that preceded Friday's vote over the package (thanks, Lorenz!)! It was this IR-major's study-abroad dream come true.
While the bailout package is extremelyunpopular among the German people, the Bundestag's coalition government (CDU and FDP) were expected to have the required votes to get it through. Enough CDU members had promised to vote against the proposal, however (a rather unusual case in Germany where a party-list electoral component leads to pretty strict adherence to the party line), that a several surprise "no" votes could have stopped it. I don't think anyone really awaited that, though.
The first few speeches held few rhetorical surprises, but were extremely heated. Then came Gesine Lötzsch (DIE LINKE), who drew sharp criticism from the Bundestagspräsident for tastelessly referring to the speculators who caused the crisis as "Taliban in Nadelstreifen" ("Taliban in pinstripes").
Then came the defining moment [above] of the part of the debate I saw in person (the seats are in such demand that you can only stay for an hour). Renate Künast (B90/GRÜNE) took the podium and announced that the Greens would be supporting the bailout proposal. This was certainly not to be assumed, given that the party is a strong opponent of the CDU/FDP government that proposed it, and the Green support cemented the proposal's success. "Jetzt und hier geht's um Europa" ("Here and now, it's about Europe"), she began, going on to explain that the EU is a critical tool for combating climate change, one of the Greens' major objectives. In order to offset the implications of her support of the CDU/FDP initiative, Künast mercilessly criticized Angela Merkel, whom she called out for directing her speech at a domestic rather than European audience and whom she berated for waiting as long as she did to reach out to Greece when the crisis might have been averted, or at least lessened, had Germany stepped in earlier. Some very exciting politics (including a somewhat under-handed dig at Lötzsch and her East-German past). Watch the clip above if you enjoy political passion and understand German.
The next speaker was the Finance Minsiter, during whose arguments we had to leave, as our viewing time was up. We watched more of the proceedings on closed-circut TV in Lorenz's office. Other speakers included Foreign Minister Gudio Westerwelle, whom people like to make fun of for his lack of English-language skills. In German, though, he seems to be a pretty talented public speaker.
In the end, the CDU, FDP, and B90/GRÜNE voted for the bailout and DIE LINKE against it. So many of the SPD abstained (in what most view as a cowardly move to win the favor of misinformed voters) that abstention was the party's official position on the issue. The proposal passed easily with B90/GRÜNE support. Totals were 390 votes for the bailout, 72 against, and 139 abstained.
The debate was particularly exciting for me, because of my strong interest in what happens when Germany's love of multilateral solidarity and its domestic national interests come into conflict. In this case, the issue was really that of the public's perception of a conflict, as experts agree that for Germany to do anything other than bail out Greece and save the Euro would act against its self-interest.
For those interested in such things, the entirety of the debate (and vote, I think) can be streamed or downloaded here.
The part of Kreuzberg I live in has an interesting history. Once home to much of West Berlin's alternative community and overflowing with squats, the the area was a center point for far-left (especially anarchist) political activity in the time before the fall of the wall and the gentrification that followed. Referred to by its West Berlin postcode, "SO 36" thinks back nostalgically on its edgy past. As the famous comparison between SO 36 and Kreuzbergs more bourgeois other half states, "36 brennt, 61 pennt" (36 is on fire, 61 is asleep).
In keeping with this mood, Berlin's more left-oriented residents flock to SO 36 on May 1 (Labor Day) to peacefully demonstrate by day or riot by night, depending on how radical they are.
View from my Window, Morning
The day has become such a tradition that its no longer solely about political ideology. In fact it's mostly about things that have nothing to do with politics, such as the largest, most crowded party I've ever seen . My street, Oranienstr., was particularly packed, as it was lined with food and alcohol stands and sound-stages that shook all the windows in my apartment.
Party on the Street
Things heated up a bit at night after the sound stages closed at 1 or 2 am. Some years it gets really serious and police get severely hurt, but this year was pretty tame. There wasn't really any sort of clear message from the rioters. They seemed rather to enjoy clashing with police--it was all more of a game than an expression of ideology. The worst of the chaos happened a few blocks away, and the scuffles outside my window didn't escalate really. The procedure I observed was this: some people would throw fire-crackers into the police ranks or shove some of the riot-control-guys; those people would get arrested; members of the crowd would attempt to stop the arrests; they would be arrested too; police reinforcements would arrive; everyone would take a little break; and things would get started again.
View from my Window, Night
More (and bigger) pictures of the day's festivities, not all of which were taken from my window, can be viewed here.
Fearing the notion of wandering a city in which everything was closed, I at first thought it was unfortunate that the time I had off to visit Prague would be over Easter. I was delightfully mistaken. Easter in Prague means Easter markets and Easter markets mean kraslice (above). These decorative eggs tempted me at every turn. They were the perfect souvenir: small, pretty, handmade, and cheap enough that I could afford them (but not so cheap that I felt like I was buying kitsch). I bought a few and then lurked around several stands photographing them, probably much to the annoyance of the craftspeople manning the stands. I have now started brainstorming ways to safely transport hollow eggshells across the Atlantic.
The other souvenir I bought was a pomlázka, or "woman-hitting stick." (note: That translation is one that I made up. "Braided switch" is the one Czech tourism sites are pushing). I first heard about the tradition associated with this item when a Slovak student on the IES program was encouraging others to go to Bratislava, but not over Easter, because that's when "we hit women with sticks." I thought he was joking for quite some time. He wasn't. And the Czechs do it too. I particularly enjoyed watching a Czech toddler turn the tables by chasing her father and gleefully hitting him with the stick he'd bought at the market.
Part three of the Czech-Easter-tradition triad was particularly magical because I stumbled across it accidentally. When, on Easter morning, I got up at 5:00 am to walk across Charles Bridge at sunrise, I was surprised to find that the 5:30 tram was rather full of Czech people and that many of them were carrying Easter baskets. They differed from American Easter baskets both in their appearance (brown and undecorated, but often covered by a piece of lace fabric) and their contents (no candy; decorated but also undecorated eggs, sausage, lamb-shaped bread/pastry). When the tram stopped, the people all walked off towards a nearby church while I headed for the bridge. As I crossed the bridge, I encountered more groups of Czechs with baskets and as I walked around the nearly-deserted city afterward, I saw others clustered outside the doors of churches, chatting with baskets hanging from their arms.
Since American Easter baskets rarely if ever leave the house, I became a little curious. I did a bit of online research when I got home and discovered that Catholics in the Czech Republic often have the contents of their Easter baskets blessed by a priest before taking them back home to be eaten later. Those early-morning hours, alone in Prague's Altstadt with the Czechs and their Easter baskets, are among the most memorable of my time in Prague. I fear this evidence supports much of what my mother has told me about the benefits of getting up earlier than, say, noon, but I share it anyway and suggest that it makes up for the fact that I spent most of Easter on a train.
One of the drawbacks of Prague's legendary beauty (and there are few) is that it is... well... legendary. Other people know about it and they want to see it too! Downtown Prague famously has more hotels than streets, a fact not hard for me to believe as I walked down some of those streets and heard more English, German, and Spanish than I did Czech. At times this had its advantages, considering how woefully terrible I am at Czech. Mostly, though, it kind of killed the mood. At times I started to forget I was in Prague at all and wonder how I'd arrived in Disneyland's "Fairy Tale Europe" park.* Fortunately, my fellow tourists were easy to avoid. Here are the measures I took to do so.
1. I stuck to side streets. They run parallel to their foreigner-flooded counterparts and are just as beautiful. I would even go so far as to claim that they're more beautiful because they're a) nearly empty, b) narrower and more winding, and c) more likely to contain cafés and restaurants than shops selling plastic beer steins that say "I <3 Prague" on them.
2. I got up early. This was not something that was easy for me to do, but it was completely worth it. The Charles Bridge is simply not visible in the daytime. Yes, you can walk across it in direct sunlight, but all you will likely see is the baseball cap of the guy in front of you. Okay, I'm exaggerating a tad, but while the hustle and bustle of tourists and street vendors on the bridge is a sight in its own right, it detracts significantly from the majesty bridge itself. The solution: dragging myself out of bed before dawn Easter morning, boarding a tram full of Easter-basket-toting Czechs, and walking across the bridge at sunrise. Corny? Yes. Unforgettable? Absolutely. As an extra bonus, the rest of the city was also nearly deserted after sunrise, so I had an entire breathtaking Eastern European capital to myself for an hour.
3. I read my guidebook. It seemed counter-intuitive to seek out advice on avoiding tourists from a source dedicated to telling tourists where to go, but there's a very large self-loathing (and by that I mean each-other-loathing) demographic among tourists, and Lonely Planet--in their Prague book at least--is wise enough to cater to it. The first big success in this category was the self-guided "Hidden Gardens" walking tour in the sight-seeing section. Gardens aren't really my thing, but the "hidden" part appealed to me. Since spring isn't totally in full-swing yet, the gardens themselves were less than impressive, but as they were out of the way, the tour took me through some lovely areas that, while central, I would not have otherwise known to visit. Another success was a café called Literání Kavárna Řetĕsovă (highly recommended!!!) where the smoke-filled air chased the tourists away and I got to enjoy a cup of coffee and feel very much like a savvy and adventurous expat.
My conclusion: There are, in fact, still parts of Prague where you won't see some unfortunate Czech college student with bills to pay dressed up like a medieval castle guard, and and these parts are (thankfully) really quite easy to locate.
*(which does not, to the best of my knowledge, exist)
Berlin doesn't seem to be conducive to me completing blog entries. This situation calls for me to play catch-up, but I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to start off again with Prague.
Prague is like buttercream icing. Stick with me here; I'll make sense in a moment. Having met a friend of a friend studying there the weekend before going to Prague, it was hard not to experience study-abroad-envy as I walked around the Altstadt after checking into my hostel. Considering its enormous reputation as one of Europe's most gorgeous cities, I find it rather impressive that Prague doesn't disappoint. Stretching in all directions as far as I happened to walk, are streets lined with one historical architectural treat after another. The city is the 3-D visual equivalent of buttercream icing: rich in history yet refreshingly "sweet." It literally envelops you as you wander down its narrow streets and soon you taste nothing but buttercream. And you think to yourself that buttercream icing may just be the best thing you have ever tasted.
Fortunately for my mental health, my study-abroad-envy didn't last. After you take in one metaphorical spatula after another of narrow streets, idyllically winding their way through the city, you begin imagine a point at which you might think to yourself, "Hmm. I feel a little sick. Perhaps I should lay off the buttercream icing for today. " I'm not saying I reached that point, but I definitely saw it off on the spire-dotted horizon.
Berlin isn't like that. Berlin is like a great German bread. You can eat it day after day, and with something different on top each time. Prague has earned itself a place in my heart and will likely see me again, but it's a city to visit. Berlin, on the other hand, is a city to live in. Good thing I do!
Buchhandlung Cafeteria, Tucholskystr. 32, Berlin-Mitte (S Bhf. Oranienburgerstr.)
It reached 15 degrees Celcius in Berlin today, and the astounding weather had a measurable effect on me and the other residents of this sometimes very gray city. Even the native Berliner, famous for their "Berliner Schnauze" (lit. "snout," probably translates better to "bite") seemed to have a bounce in their steps.
I celebrated the warmth with some other IES folk over a two-hour lunch at a sidewalk cafe table in Mitte. It was one of the the more memorable of my experiences in Berlin thus far, which is likely why we were so reluctant to leave. Warm sun, good food, beautiful surroundings--I was in heaven! I consumed a bowl of tortellini in tomato vegetable sauce and two avocado milkshakes (unconventional but addictive) over the course of the meal. I also tried some of the lentil-ginger-coconut soup my friends ordered and officially recommend the Buchhandlung Cafeteria on Tucholskystr. in Mitte pretty strongly. You can get a good meal (sans drink) for 3-5 Euros and a hearty snack for 2-3 Euros--assuming you don't give into temptation like I did and blow your entire week's "eating out" budget on avacado shakes. Fortunately that is what birthday money is for! The atmosphere inside the place is also delightfully quirky in a Berlin run-down-chic kind of way. The service is slow, but the one girl who works there is friendly and does the best she can considering she makes each dish to order in addition to waitressing and washing the dishes. I, certainly, will be spending a lot of time there over the next six months!
(note: as far as I can tell, there isn't actually a bookstore in, at, or near the cafe)
Since I've been shelling out a lot of money lately trying to get to know people by going out to coffee with them, I thought I'd try to compensate by looking for some German recipes fit for a student's budget. At 4 DELICIOUS and FILLING servings for less than €1 each, I dare say I succeeded with this slightly adapted soup recipe from the cooking blog Küchenlatein.
This is quite possibly the easiest thing I've ever cooked (pasta doesn't count). The hardest part was turning the stove on, but after my roommate made fun of me a bit for never having lit a gas burner with a match before, I was well on my way!
800 g potatoes, peeled 4-5 Wiener Würstchen 100 g tiny ham cubes or bacon bits 1 T. butter 1 vegetable bullion cube 1 liter water 1 pack frozen "soup greens" (or some pre-cooked onions and carrots with a bit of parsley)
1. Cut potatoes into small pieces and slice Wiener Würstchen.
2. Melt butter in a big pot and quickly brown Würstchen. Remove and set aside. Brown ham/bacon in remaining butter/fat. Add water, bullion, potatoes, and soup greens. Cook for 15 minutes.
3. Add Würstchen to soup and salt and pepper to taste.
Really a very satisfying meal to come home hungry to! And easy to heat up even without a microwave.
[note: above image shamelessly stolen from Küchenlatein]
Even if I get nothing else out of this experience, I'll have at least learned a lot of vocabulary pertaining to apartment rentals.
I'm happy to say that I've secured an spot in an apartment after only a few days of viewings! The place is in Kreuzberg (on the Oranienstraße for those of you as enthusiastic as I am about Google Maps).
I encountered two unexpected difficulties during my search. First, I had a fairly hard time finding places with roommates who are still undergraduate (or even graduate for that matter) students. Secondly, few of the people who responded to my calls or emails regarding listings were actually German. Once I decided not to care too much about either of those things, the apartment hunt got a lot easier.
The roommates I'll have are young professionals from Italy and Spain (I can't remember whether she actually told me she was from Spain or whether I just assumed. I'm still thinking of a subtle way to figure out which) [update: she is indeed from Spain]. Their German is about the same level as mine, and they speak only German in the apartment, which is what was most important to me. Enough of my friends here from high school are still around, that I'll get plenty of face-time with native speakers even if I don't live with them.
Here are some photos from the listing for your viewing pleasure. I'll take another one of the room (above) once I've moved into it.
I crossed the Atlantic without incident. Unfortunately the same can not be said for my suitcase.
Lisa met me at the airport--with flowers because Lisa is pretty classy--and she and I went to a little office and explained to a friendly (for a German airline bureaucrat) woman what the bag looked like and where it had been that day. She said someone would call when it arrived, but dispite language implying I might, I recieved no call this afternoon.
That leaves me here in bed wearing a sweater I borrowed from Lisa and typing along on Sabine's laptop--my own laptop is in my possession, but the European plug adaptor got checked--while today's recently handwashed airplane clothes dry overnight on the radiator. Apparently I can't pull off an international arrival without some sort of undesired bonus adventure.
On the agenda for tomorrow:
1. Mail Fulbright Paperwork
2. Make apartment viewing appointments (got a head start tonight)
3. Activate Handy
4. Stop by Nollendorfplatz thrift shop and buy a few extra shirts to tide me over until my usually faithful suitcase finds its way back to me.
I'm a student of International Relations and Modern Languages at Beloit College in Beloit, WI. This means that, until recently, I've been holed up on a cold, windy hill-top in Wisconsin reading German literature, learning Japanese, and listening to very competent professors lecture to me about the political and inter-state goings on in the rest of the world.
All that has come to an end. Last semester, my studies brought me to Hirakata, Japan for a little language study and personal enrichment and now I've headed off to Berlin in the spring for more of the same.
This blog exists both as a means of communitcating with family and friends back home and as a personal record of my experiences here. May all who stumble upon it--whether by chance or by my direction--read it, enjoy it, and if they are Wolf Biermann, refrain from suing me for copyright infringement.
