England Part One: The South

England. Essentially a network of place names you've never been to but feel like you know from literature. Practically every Tube station name in London is a little jolt of familiarity.

I flew into Luton Airport, which meant passing through London on my way to points further south. And since I was changing trains at St Pancras anyway...I hopped out to have a brief look around. Knew I was in London at the latest when a red doubledecker bus came around the corner!

St Pancras (where Eurostar trains arrive after crossing the Channel tunnel) is right next to King's Cross (Harry Potter? Hogwarts Express? Ringing any bells?) so I made a little pilgrimmage.

Luckily, I was forewarned that there isn't actually a barrier between platforms 9 and 10 - J. K. Rowling was thinking of a different station when she invented the magical barrier that leads to Platform 9 3/4. I knew there was a little monument - of a luggage trolley appearing half-way sunk into a station wall - elsewhere in the station, but hadn't bothered to look up where. On a whim, though, I walked a little ways down platform 8... and when I spotted a suspiciously large crowd of teenagers, I suspected I'd found my goal.

"There's just a wall... with a trolley in it... So he had to take a picture," an older woman was explaining to an older man near me. They were rejoined by a middle-aged man looking embarrassed yet pleased with himself - precisely how I figured I'd look very shortly, after photographing the thing myself.

Here's one of the Australian teens, pushing her luggage trolley into Harry Potter Land...


First stop was to visit Peter, a friend I made by chance in a cafe in southern India! I remembered he'd said he lived somewhere south of London (turned out to be Southampton), so I wrote to him when I started planning this trip and he wrote back, ever British, "Yes, you must come and stay if you're in the area."

Residents of Southampton freely admit that one of the best things about their city is how easily you can leave it to get to other places (people even commute to London from there, since the cost of living is so much more manageable) so I was surprised by how nice it was. Tidy street of semi-detached houses with gorgeous gardens out back, friendly neighbors who actually stop for a chat whenever they see each other.

Peter invited some of said neighbors over for a barbecue (the neighbors were more my age, while Peter is my parents' generation) and we hung out until late in the night, enjoying the lovely garden terrace and the summery weather. (And yes, since they're English, there were many of the requisite conversations about the weather!)

Here's the back yard crew:


Peter's only caveat about my visit was that he was categorically NOT willing to get involved in the endless discussions about royal wedding details (Prince William marries Kate Middleton tomorrow at Westminster Abbey in London, for anyone who's somehow missed this), but the rest of the country is in the grip of royal wedding fever.

Me, on opening the refrigerator: "...Why is your tonic water 'celebrating the royal wedding'?"


Peter also took me to Dorset, as a kind of compromise between Southampton and Devon (Dartmoor! Hound of the Baskervilles!), where I'd wanted to go, but which proved just a bit too far away to be practical for this trip.

In Dorset, we walked along chalk cliffs above the sea, amid rolling green fields and a profusion of wildflowers, then had a meal (and plenty of tea!) at a fish and chips shop, then checked out a castle and had a pint at a countryside pub, so I'd say I got my fill of Englishness for the day. This is a bit of countryside in Dorset:


Next I went to Brighton, a laidback town by the sea with a distinctive hippie vibe and a seemingly endless stretch of pebble beach. Here's my breakfast my last morning in Brighton: vegetable pasty, fruit and an unimpeded view of the English Channel.


In Brighton, I stayed with Dave, a friend of a friend who's a musician/producer/artist. Among the things I experienced: looking out the window of a pub to see a young man swallow entire inflated balloon (the long kind, the ones people twist into balloon animals), which never reappeared in any fashion; getting on a train and finding a book about fairy tales abandoned on a street, just as an odd, jovial man who cleaned the train came by and started asking me riddles, seeming rather like a fairy tale figure himself; playing guitar by the sea at midnight; finally trying a quintessentially English "cream tea" (which has less to do with tea and more with scones and a very large amount of cream) together with an Australian and an Irish guy in a cafe that seemed to be run by Eastern Europeans and frequented by Asians.

Dave also joined me for a day wandering the South Downs (rolling chalk hills dotted with sheep and fences), where there was picnicking and much photographing of sheep. I was practically asleep, dozing on the grass, when the farmer whose land we were on (we'd hopped a couple of fences, after the supposed path petered out) pulled up on his ride-on mower.

"You know, there's no footpath here," he said. (Translation from overly polite British to normal people speak: "You're trespassing on my land.") Oh, sorry, I said, we were trying to follow the path and couldn't tell where it went.

And the farmer said, Oh, okay, and wished us a nice day and rode off! Can you imagine?

The English are an understated people for whom the word "nice" is a high compliment (all foods they like are "nice") but who also say "Thank you so much" in response to pretty much anything.

Anyway, here are some sheep:


And one last picture: my "office" this week, consisting of my new netbook and wifi access at the inestimable Riki Tik in Brighton.


All part of a plan to try to use my freelance flexibility to do a bit more of this, working while traveling. It worked out well this time and I'm feeling pretty grateful right about now.

Next up: Part Two, London and the royal wedding!

Translating German in England

Delightful language fact of the day: "Hoernchen" in German could theoretically mean either "croissant" or "squirrel." It just came up in a translation I'm doing, but since the item in question is being eaten in a hotel suite by a pop star, I'm going to assume in this case it's a croissant.


I'm in England, having tons of fun and even managing to work part-time. Having too much fun, in fact, to stop and write about it, but more soon...

Next Week: England!

Going to England! I leave early in the morning, with stops in Southampton, Brighton and London. Plan is to work a bit from the road, travel, meet up with friends and acquaintances. I'm immoderately excited, because even though England is so close (both geographically and linguistically/culturally) I've only ever been once, and that only for a weekend and only to London.

Because I'm proud of all the (obsessively detailed) work I put into it, here's a shot of some of my trip preparation, including a custom map, schedule, notes on recommendations from various friends...

More Sights

Weird inflatable-ball-pool entertainment thing for kids at Alexanderplatz. They'd have the kid step inside the deflated sphere, velcro them in and pump the ball up with a big air hose, then roll it into the pool.

Giant chocolate Easter bunnies!
I can't believe this sign is necessary. ("Urinating forbidden – area under video surveillance")
Yes!

Sights Lately

It's an art vending machine! Adorned with two very regionally appopriate images: a Trabi - East Germany's state-produced car - and a stork nest - storks spend part of the year in the countryside around Berlin and their nests are highly protected and eagerly watched for. (On Rykestrasse in Prenzlauer Berg.)


Here's a new take on a common anti-nuclear logo - it usually reads "Atomkraft? Nein danke" (Nuclear energy? No thanks). This one reads "Atomkraft? WTF?!?" (On the corner near my apartment.)
I've been trying to figure out why I'm not more excited that the anti-nuclear movement here has received such an enormous boost after the disaster in Japan. (I mean, aside from the fact that "excited" is the wrong way to describe anything about a catastrophe.) Here in Germany, the issue has created even-huger-than-usual demonstrations, swayed an important state election, and even brought an about-face (albeit a less than totally credible one) from the chancellor herself.

I don't like the idea of nuclear energy any more than your average German (and believe me, your average German doesn't like it). Maybe this right now has a little too much of a bandwagon-y feel to it, something not quite fully thought out? I'm not sure. Plus, a healthy dose of skepticism is required when politicians suddenly start saying what people want to hear just before an election.

Still, it makes me smile when my socially and fiscally conservative friend (a German) calls up asking if I'll go to the anti-nuclear demonstration with him. His reasons are all utterly pragmatic and business-oriented, but he's anti-nuclear too.


Street art, Berlin.

And a typical scene in Mitte (central Berlin) on Sunday: People packed into every possible space on the sidewalk in front of a café, having brunch and coffee with their dogs and their laptops and their hipster clothes. And I mean that with love. Photo courtesy of Chad!

Garfield Minus Garfield

Also...this is awesome:

"Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle."

Wohnzimmer Konzert

This was the "living room concert" I went to a couple weekends ago with a few friends. It's a monthly series run by an Australian woman who brings together a couple of musicians and someone with a living room willing to host the event. In this case, the concert actually took place in the bedroom of a flatmate who happened to be away that weekend... Not clear if she was informed about the whole hosting-a-concert-in-your-bedroom thing! But the band was superb and the audience lovely.

Photo courtesy of Patrick! You can just see my knee on the left.

Grand Tour Addendum

The below article mentions Chinese tourists only ever going to Chinese restaurants while in Europe, which reminded me of this anecdote from my exchange year in Thailand:


My host father, an always-on-the-go businessman, went on a business trip to Italy shortly after I arrived to stay with him.

For the trip (a week long or so), he took along packets of Thai-style instant noodles, because, as he explained to me, "It's difficult for Thai people to eat bread all the time."

And I looked on in amazement as he packed noodles into the luggage he was taking to Italy.

The Grand Tour

A fascinating article, passed on by my friend Naomi.

Europe, as seen by Chinese citizens on a packaged tour, as seen by an American journalist who lives in China and books himself on the same tour:

"The Grand Tour" by Evan Osnos at the New Yorker.

The Most Interesting Place

I was recently working on comparatives and superlatives (like "big/bigger/the biggest" and "beautiful/more beautiful/the most beautiful") with one of my English students and the book we were using posed various questions for the sake of practicing these forms. For example: "What's the most interesting place you've ever been?"

What a question, actually. The single most interesting place? The student pondered whether perhaps New Zealand would count – beautiful, certainly, and they had a great time there, but is it the most interesting?

Then he said, "I think the most interesting place was the other side of the wall." (He's in his late 40's and spent the first half of his life in East Germany.)

He told me about friends of theirs who lived in a building directly abutting the Berlin Wall; going to the bathroom or the kitchen in their apartment was a particular highlight, because from those windows, you could look straight down on the no man's land along the wall and watch the soldiers marching back and forth on their patrols. ("I thought only Stasi members were allowed to live that close to the border?" I asked. "I thought so too," he said, but somehow he can't imagine that was true in the case of this couple.)

They used to sit on their friends' balcony, look out across the wall - looking at West Berlin, which was no further away than the other side of the street, yet completely off-limits - and say, Someday we'll walk down that street. Someday we'll go to that bar on the corner.

And then, years later, the wall came down, and they did.

The Hidden Library

There's a library in my neighborhood I'd never been to until a couple weeks ago, because it's run by volunteers and keeps limited hours. It's a real, official public library though, part of the Berlin system. It's on a side street in a residential neighborhood, and from the outside, it looks like this:


Inside, the building looks like any other Berlin apartment building (same kind of entrance hallway, same kind of stairwell, and note the requisite baby carriage, because this is Prenzlauer Berg!), though perhaps a bit more graffiti-sprayed (I assume because keeping the front door open for library patrons also means giving the graffiti-sprayers easy access).


When you walk up the stairs, though, the first floor after the ground floor offers this, the library door:
Inside, the place looks like any other German public library. (Didn't get a picture, though, sorry!)

To the West and Back

I went to visit friends in Mönchengladbach this weekend. It's the same train trip I do multiple times a year, from where I live in Berlin in the far east of Germany, to where I used to live and still have friends in the far west, so it's a familiar and unexciting stretch of track. But this time, a few anecdotes that stood out:


I. The Fruit Seller

The man at the fruit stand by the Alexanderplatz train station asks if I'm from Berlin.

"No, from the U.S."

"Oh," he says. "Good!"

"Good?" I ask.

"Barack Obama..." he smiles.

"Yes," I agree, but don't have time to pursue this interesting line of inquiry (Does the average European on the street still feel as positively about Obama 2+ years on?) because have to run and catch my train.


II. Middle Germany

Absolutely everything in bloom, the trees all green and pink and white. Lots of green fields and wind turbines. There isn't a lot going on in the middle part of Germany.


III. Thank You Football Hooligans

Changing in Duisburg with just a few minutes to get from one platform to the other, I see a horde of police officers corralling a mob of chanting, shouting soccer fans toward... my platform. Oh NO! If they're on my train, I think I'll wait for the next one.


Turns out, though, they're on track 5 and I'm on track 6, so that's okay. Above, you can kind of tell that there's a whole press of people in the background, being hemmed in by a wall of police, but you can't really see them directly. They were wearing yellow and black soccer scarves. And chanting loudly.

Meanwhile, my train is canceled "due to vandalism." Huh, wonder who might have done that.

Below are some auxiliary police, standing guard on the platform opposite where away-team fans, are boarding their train back home. They funnel the two teams' fans out separate exits from the stadium and herd them toward the relevant public transportation, keeping the two groups apart at all times.



IV. It Never Ends

On the trip back, too, I arrive at the station in Mönchengladbach to find it overrun with soccer fans. Different town, different team, but same principle.

The police have set up a sort of checkpoint in the hallway that leads to the platforms, and are arguing with soccer fans who want to bring beer bottles through. I gesture to an officer, asking if I can go to the platform, and he just waves me through.


V. Yelling at Pigeons

At the Duisburg station again, a man shooing a pigeon out of a bakery, yelling at it at surprising length and in great detail, in what sounds like Turkish.

Sorry about Your Wall

An interesting choice of text to graffiti on a wall. (Seen in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin.)

Knut and the Actual News of the World

I have to admit, I was actually really sad when I heard that Knut, the Berlin Zoo's beloved celebrity polar bear, died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of just four. (This was two weeks ago now.) Then, just before I went to bed the same night, I checked the news and found out we were bombing Libya. Oh. Kind of puts things in perspective, I suppose.

It's definitely a strange time - that night (the Knut-is-dead-and-war-in-Libya night) one person said, with so much of the Middle East collapsing into civil war, and tsunamis and the nuclear disaster in Japan, and polar bears dropping dead...it almost makes you start to believe all that 2012 world-is-going-to-end stuff.

Another person said, Well, but in every era like this, people living through it must have felt like the world was surely ending - and yet it didn't.

It's a strange, small comfort, at least.


Meanwhile, while we're on depressing topics - I recently translated an article about how the West has been selling weapons for years to Libya, Yemen, etc. (A brilliant idea, clearly.)

As I was doing that translation, I had to remind myself not to fall into the trap of the too-literal translation: in this case, "Rüstungsindustrie," which literally comes out to "armaments/weapons industry," but in fact in English the standard term is "defense industry."

And it was only then that it occurred to me: How weird is that, that we use the words "defense industry" for the business of making weapons? That's a euphemism if I ever heard one.


Oh, and one more thing on the topic: I stumbled across this page, where the New York Times aggregates its latest news from various Middle Eastern countries that are experiencing unrest. A good all-in-one-place resource for those of us who aren't as well-informed as we wish we were.

Deranged Penguins and Women on Bikes

Yesterday, something happened that would previously have been inconceivable: I went outside without a coat. Without a light jacket, even.

Today it's back to off-and-on blustery rain, but just the realization that spring might still exist is a heady thing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Usually, Germans don't talk to strangers unless they absolutely have to. (It's something I dislike here, the mutual coldness in public life.)

Today, though, I was walking around the neighborhood, doing some errands, when an older woman on a bicycle passed me. (Which, incidentally, is something I like here: You see absolutely everyone on bikes - old ladies! business men in suits!) The lady on the bike looked straight at me and told me, with absolutely no preamble, "See, that's what I forgot this morning! My gloves!"

And I smiled at her and blinked in surprise and then laughed delightedly to myself as she rode off. Because, well, that was unexpected.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And because I just saw this (via friends on Facebook) and found it so marvelously strange and strangely marvelous. And the German accent just makes it that much better:



I know next to nothing about Werner Herzog's work, but this makes it clear that I ought to...

Dear Fools

It's a time-honored media tradition to present the public with a good fake news story on April Fools' Day, and a friend just sent out a roundup of today's silly articles in the British press. By far the best is the Guardian, which declared that in "something of an about turn" it would now be pledging its "full throated support" for the institution of the British monarchy.

The Guardian further declares an intention to run a live blog from now until the royal wedding on April 29, "for live coverage of all the latest royal wedding news, build up and reaction." It makes fun reading, even if you don't know the ins and outs of British politics (I don't). My favorite entry:

"9.43am: There's been lots of media speculation around the wedding gifts that the happy couple will receive, especially from the Royal family. Now, insiders at Clarence House have told the Guardian that Prince Charles is planning something a bit more spectacular than some matching royal bedlinen.

"'He's going to give them Scotland,' reveals a senior courtier. 'As the High Steward of Scotland, the Lord of the Isles and the Duke of Rothesay, it's perfectly within his gift to pass it on.'"