Germany Wants Me to Stay

Too much time has passed, with too many different impressions bouncing around in my head to hope for any kind of cohesive post. Best to just plunge in and do it, however chaotic the result may be...


I. Various kinds of officialdom

Germany wants me to stay! At least, that's the conclusion I reached when, for the first time in my relationship with the country, they simply sent me a letter detailing when my visa-renewal appointment is and what I should bring. (Rather than me having to go there and wait ages just to make an appointment.) Also, they scheduled the appointment for the very day my last visa expires, so I kind of assume they're not planning to kick me out and stick me on a plane out of the country the very same day.

Between that and the fact that I'm finally (finally!) in the German health insurance system, I'm feeling pretty set. On the other hand, I just realized that I'm about to embark on my FIFTH year living in Germany - i.e. I'll shortly have been living in Europe longer than I was in college. Which is weird.


II. Berlin summer impressions

Spending all evening by the Weißensee (a lake near where I live, within the city), swimming and drinking Hefeweizen and listening to a quite good jazz band that suddenly turned up and moving in under the pavilion when it started to rain.

The Saturday morning market just down the street from my apartment, the guy at the vegetable stand handing me my salad mix in a biodegradable bag and explaining that I should pull the edible flowers apart and scatter the petals over the greens as decoration. (It took me three tries to understand what he was saying, even though I supposedly speak this language.) Walking home with fresh vegetables, feeling overwhelmed by these small, lovely blessings, like Saturday farmers' markets or my little balcony garden yielding up actual cucumbers.

Meeting up with a friend from Spain, who's about to move back to Barcelona after a couple years in Berlin, both of us extolling Berlin's virtues, so green, so livable.

Pianos, old ones, suddenly appearing in the Mauerpark for all to play.

Some guy riding past our group of acquaintances with a complex loudspeaker system blaring music from his bicycle, a girl in the group who's contemplating a work-related move to a smaller and less vibrant German city watching him go by and sighing, "Only in Berlin."

Biking (with a stop to swim in a lake and then - because this is Germany - also eat French fries from the stand at the lake) to a friend's house in the countryside, seeing combines at work in the many (wheat?) fields we passed. Rounds of ping pong in front of the house and endless food - afternoon coffee and cake, then barbecuing, then marshmallows roasted over the barbecue (spearheaded by the other American present), then more cake. The place had a wonderful, lovingly tended vegetable garden, and our hosts sent me home with a pumpkin!

An all-night birthday party that started in the evening at a bar that used to be a hairdresser's and ended well after sunrise in the club that sometimes hosts the Russian disco.

A small concert in the cozy basement performance space of a nearby bar; as I walked in with a friend, the performer cheerily exclaimed, "Welcome! The first people here I don't know personally!" Relaxed atmosphere, tiny and friendly audience, good beer and soup. The singer's current project involves songs from famous movies, and as she launched into a folky/singer-songwritery rendition of "My Heart Will Go On," and we and the rest of the audience started to giggle, she declared, "These lyrics are very deep, so don't start laughing!"

A black and gray crow on my street, delicately eating out of an abandoned paper ice cream cup.

More to come.