Well.
I was going to write a whole reflective, retrospective thing about the year – all the places I went and the wonderful happenstances that took me there – but I don't really have time, and maybe it's trite anyway.
Or maybe I'm just having too much fun trying to learn some songs on the keyboard right now to want to shift gears to writing!
Suffice it to say, the newly-termed Year of Travel (this experiment in traveling more, but also working from the road) was a success, I'm so grateful for all the opportunities, and next up is SENEGAL. I leave in three days!
This is still my all time favorite looking-toward-the-next-year song. Just look at the smile on Josh's face when he sings:
Don't let me into this year with an empty heart, indeed.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
Ha!
I know Germans have a reputation as blunt and direct, but this was above and beyond:
I was at the post office today, and as the middle-aged woman behind the counter got the various stamps I needed, she commented out of nowhere, "Dann brauche ich meine graue Haare gar nicht verstecken." ["Then I don't really need to hide my gray hair at all."]
"...Sorry?" I asked, not sure if she was comparing herself to me, or someone behind me, or what. I do have rather a lot of gray for a "young" person, but I don't think of it as being that extreme. That, you know, strangers would comment on it.
But she repeated herself and added, "Darf ich fragen, wie alt Sie sind?" ["May I ask how old you are?"]
"Twenty-eight," I said.
"Das ist ganz schön früh," she agreed, ["That really is pretty early"] then went on to tell me about the coloring rinse she'd done just that morning to hide her gray.
Always alert for an encourage-people's-self-image moment, I assured her I didn't find gray hair so bad at all.
I was at the post office today, and as the middle-aged woman behind the counter got the various stamps I needed, she commented out of nowhere, "Dann brauche ich meine graue Haare gar nicht verstecken." ["Then I don't really need to hide my gray hair at all."]
"...Sorry?" I asked, not sure if she was comparing herself to me, or someone behind me, or what. I do have rather a lot of gray for a "young" person, but I don't think of it as being that extreme. That, you know, strangers would comment on it.
But she repeated herself and added, "Darf ich fragen, wie alt Sie sind?" ["May I ask how old you are?"]
"Twenty-eight," I said.
"Das ist ganz schön früh," she agreed, ["That really is pretty early"] then went on to tell me about the coloring rinse she'd done just that morning to hide her gray.
Always alert for an encourage-people's-self-image moment, I assured her I didn't find gray hair so bad at all.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Venice
My weekend away, before the Christmas weekend away, was to Venice, Italy!
When I look back at this year – and this has unquestionably been the Year of Travel for me – every single trip came about through some sort of chance, because someone asked, Hey, want to do this thing? and I said, Yeah, sure.
The fact that this has been possible at all, of course, is in large part because of the flexible nature of my work. But there's an element of simply being open and saying yes, too.
In this case, my friend K. told me she would be meeting her mother for a trip in Slovenia, and was thinking about swinging by Venice afterward, since she'd never been, and then taking the night train back to Berlin.
I'd never been to Venice either – one of those places I vaguely figured I wanted to go at some point, but it probably wouldn't happen until an opportunity arose – and strangely, I don't take many night trains in Europe, or even any at all.
So K. asked, Want to come?
And I said, Yeah, sure!
There's so much more I could say about Venice, but if I don't just write something now, I'll never get the chance. So here's what pops to mind:
VENICE ITSELF:
I've heard people say, "Venice really is how you always thought it was," and in fact...it is.
Tiny, twisting alleys, crumbling old buildings, canals everywhere. Really, you cannot overstate how much water defines Venice. Anywhere you want to go, you have to take into account where the nearest bridge to it is – or if there's one at all.
It all looks like this, except narrower and more twisty:
The entire city is pedestrian (cars have to park at the entrance to the city, how awesome is that?), so everything happens at a different pace – namely, a very fast walking pace, apparently dubbed the "paso veneziano."
GETTING LOST:
This is what people tell you you'll be doing all the time in Venice, and it's true. The place is a maze, and sometimes, there just isn't a bridge to where you want to go. Or the alley just ends in a wall...or a canal. I get lost even in normal cities, so in Venice I simply gave myself up to circumstance.
Which, it turns out, is exactly the right thing to do.
I'm now firmly convinced that Venice is the city of coincidences. If you're looking for a particular café on a certain street, you will not find it...but you will happen across it later, while looking for something else entirely, on another street of the same name in a different part of the same district.
You will also run into the people you know in Venice, randomly, even if the sum total of people you know there is two. The first evening, I met up with a guy named Josh from Couchsurfing (more about that later). K. didn't come – but we ran into her later, in a different part of town.
The next night, K. and I were wandering in yet another completely different part of town, hoping to find some live music or something – and instead ran into Josh and his friends. K. said to Josh, "Okay, I don't know exactly what role Ella plays in all of this, but clearly you and I were destined to meet."
Here's an alley conveniently ending in water:
PEOPLE:
I was recently at a party in Berlin populated by an even-higher-than-my-usual-average number of journalists and writers, and ended up talking to a woman who runs a blog about travel, food, and the taxi rides she takes to get there. She pointed out that the key to travel writing is having your own particular angle, the aspect you're passionate about.
At first I thought, I haven't found mine yet, and then I thought, maybe I have.
My angle is meeting up with people and learning about their place through them, whether they're friends, friends of friends, or strangers I contact through Couchsurfing specifically because that human element is such a crucial part of travel to me.
In this case, we met Josh, an American abroad who loves languages and is teaching and translating in Venice, and his partner Albert, who's from Catalunya in Spain moved here to teach Catalan, and then their friend Laura, also from Catalunya, who speaks at least four languages fluently, and interestingly prefers to read and write in Spanish, even though her native language is Catalan, but feels even more comfortable in Italian:
Then we met Benedicta, a French-German woman who lived in the U.S. for 10 years but then didn't get a green card extension, so she decided to travel for a year, came to Venice, met a Venetian, fell in love and is now happily living here. Didn't I say it was the city of coincidences?
FOOD:
Of course, you can't go to Italy and not have it be partly about food. K. has a particularly good nose for finding good places, and we ate, among others: at a very much local kind of place, where we first had to pass through a gauntlet of local guys drinking their afternoon grappa; at a restaurant where K. went twice, because she was so impressed by their squid ink pasta (I did not partake); various places where you can do the whole standing-up-and-snacking thing (why, Italy, why?); and...
Then there was this really classy place that K. had read about but regretfully decided was beyond our budget. We stumbled across it anyway, though, in that way that happens in Venice, and decided to go in just for a glass of wine.
It turns out they have an extraordinary list of rare wines, and not even at bad prices, and, being such a high-class place, they brought us free cicchetti (Venetian-style tapas) along with our drinks. When K. pleaded my vegetarianism (cicchetti are mostly deep-fried and mostly seafood), the waiter brought us squares of the best focaccia I've ever had, as well as incredible olives, and thin stalks of celery in an extraordinary vinaigrette.
What we'd thought was a restaurant far out of our price range somehow turned into nearly a full meal, for the price of a 5 euro glass of wine.
Cicchetti with claw – here I did not partake either:
JEWISH VENICE:
Then, of course, there was the Jewish Ghetto.
This is the actual source of the word "ghetto," a neighborhood in Venice named after a foundry and later turned into the-place-where-the-Jews-live. I won't go into the whole history here, because I just don't have time to do it justice, but we went on a very informative tour of the ghetto's synagogues, and it was pleasing to see that the Jewish community is still going strong – for once, a Jewish neighborhood and Jewish museum that are not just a matter of history.
On the main square, in the Ghetto Nuovo:
Nearby, we found not one but two Kosher bakeries. (K. texted me, as I arrived in Venice, with the words, "Just found hamentashen! I'm in heaven!")
During our tour of the Jewish Ghetto, I was amused by the sight of ultra-Orthodox men, in their hats and long coats, walking by with takeout pizza boxes (because it's Italy, see, and even the ultra-Orthodox eat pizza...) but it was K. who put that sight together with the Kosher bakery we'd stopped in before, which seemed to be devoted half to pastries and half to pizza.
Oh, right, because they're in Italy, but they're also Orthodox, so they eat kosher pizzas.
That's all about Venice for now. Full photo album will be up shortly!
When I look back at this year – and this has unquestionably been the Year of Travel for me – every single trip came about through some sort of chance, because someone asked, Hey, want to do this thing? and I said, Yeah, sure.
The fact that this has been possible at all, of course, is in large part because of the flexible nature of my work. But there's an element of simply being open and saying yes, too.
In this case, my friend K. told me she would be meeting her mother for a trip in Slovenia, and was thinking about swinging by Venice afterward, since she'd never been, and then taking the night train back to Berlin.
I'd never been to Venice either – one of those places I vaguely figured I wanted to go at some point, but it probably wouldn't happen until an opportunity arose – and strangely, I don't take many night trains in Europe, or even any at all.
So K. asked, Want to come?
And I said, Yeah, sure!
There's so much more I could say about Venice, but if I don't just write something now, I'll never get the chance. So here's what pops to mind:
VENICE ITSELF:
I've heard people say, "Venice really is how you always thought it was," and in fact...it is.
Tiny, twisting alleys, crumbling old buildings, canals everywhere. Really, you cannot overstate how much water defines Venice. Anywhere you want to go, you have to take into account where the nearest bridge to it is – or if there's one at all.
It all looks like this, except narrower and more twisty:
The entire city is pedestrian (cars have to park at the entrance to the city, how awesome is that?), so everything happens at a different pace – namely, a very fast walking pace, apparently dubbed the "paso veneziano."
GETTING LOST:
This is what people tell you you'll be doing all the time in Venice, and it's true. The place is a maze, and sometimes, there just isn't a bridge to where you want to go. Or the alley just ends in a wall...or a canal. I get lost even in normal cities, so in Venice I simply gave myself up to circumstance.
Which, it turns out, is exactly the right thing to do.
I'm now firmly convinced that Venice is the city of coincidences. If you're looking for a particular café on a certain street, you will not find it...but you will happen across it later, while looking for something else entirely, on another street of the same name in a different part of the same district.
You will also run into the people you know in Venice, randomly, even if the sum total of people you know there is two. The first evening, I met up with a guy named Josh from Couchsurfing (more about that later). K. didn't come – but we ran into her later, in a different part of town.
The next night, K. and I were wandering in yet another completely different part of town, hoping to find some live music or something – and instead ran into Josh and his friends. K. said to Josh, "Okay, I don't know exactly what role Ella plays in all of this, but clearly you and I were destined to meet."
Here's an alley conveniently ending in water:
PEOPLE:
I was recently at a party in Berlin populated by an even-higher-than-my-usual-average number of journalists and writers, and ended up talking to a woman who runs a blog about travel, food, and the taxi rides she takes to get there. She pointed out that the key to travel writing is having your own particular angle, the aspect you're passionate about.
At first I thought, I haven't found mine yet, and then I thought, maybe I have.
My angle is meeting up with people and learning about their place through them, whether they're friends, friends of friends, or strangers I contact through Couchsurfing specifically because that human element is such a crucial part of travel to me.
In this case, we met Josh, an American abroad who loves languages and is teaching and translating in Venice, and his partner Albert, who's from Catalunya in Spain moved here to teach Catalan, and then their friend Laura, also from Catalunya, who speaks at least four languages fluently, and interestingly prefers to read and write in Spanish, even though her native language is Catalan, but feels even more comfortable in Italian:
Then we met Benedicta, a French-German woman who lived in the U.S. for 10 years but then didn't get a green card extension, so she decided to travel for a year, came to Venice, met a Venetian, fell in love and is now happily living here. Didn't I say it was the city of coincidences?
FOOD:
Of course, you can't go to Italy and not have it be partly about food. K. has a particularly good nose for finding good places, and we ate, among others: at a very much local kind of place, where we first had to pass through a gauntlet of local guys drinking their afternoon grappa; at a restaurant where K. went twice, because she was so impressed by their squid ink pasta (I did not partake); various places where you can do the whole standing-up-and-snacking thing (why, Italy, why?); and...
Then there was this really classy place that K. had read about but regretfully decided was beyond our budget. We stumbled across it anyway, though, in that way that happens in Venice, and decided to go in just for a glass of wine.
It turns out they have an extraordinary list of rare wines, and not even at bad prices, and, being such a high-class place, they brought us free cicchetti (Venetian-style tapas) along with our drinks. When K. pleaded my vegetarianism (cicchetti are mostly deep-fried and mostly seafood), the waiter brought us squares of the best focaccia I've ever had, as well as incredible olives, and thin stalks of celery in an extraordinary vinaigrette.
What we'd thought was a restaurant far out of our price range somehow turned into nearly a full meal, for the price of a 5 euro glass of wine.
Cicchetti with claw – here I did not partake either:
JEWISH VENICE:
Then, of course, there was the Jewish Ghetto.
This is the actual source of the word "ghetto," a neighborhood in Venice named after a foundry and later turned into the-place-where-the-Jews-live. I won't go into the whole history here, because I just don't have time to do it justice, but we went on a very informative tour of the ghetto's synagogues, and it was pleasing to see that the Jewish community is still going strong – for once, a Jewish neighborhood and Jewish museum that are not just a matter of history.
On the main square, in the Ghetto Nuovo:
Nearby, we found not one but two Kosher bakeries. (K. texted me, as I arrived in Venice, with the words, "Just found hamentashen! I'm in heaven!")
During our tour of the Jewish Ghetto, I was amused by the sight of ultra-Orthodox men, in their hats and long coats, walking by with takeout pizza boxes (because it's Italy, see, and even the ultra-Orthodox eat pizza...) but it was K. who put that sight together with the Kosher bakery we'd stopped in before, which seemed to be devoted half to pastries and half to pizza.
Oh, right, because they're in Italy, but they're also Orthodox, so they eat kosher pizzas.
That's all about Venice for now. Full photo album will be up shortly!
Monday, December 26, 2011
Berlin, Winter
December 26: Mild but gray, wet, windy weather. Berliners still sitting outside at cafés, wrapped in thick coats and clutching hot drinks.
I'm quite impressed right now.
I'm quite impressed right now.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Christmas Eve Taxi
Because Lisa had approximately 5,327 bags of Christmas presents and things, we took a taxi from her house to her parents' for Christmas Eve. Lisa chatted with the taxi driver, a jovial, white-haired German guy, and asked how late he had to work. (Christmas Eve being the main celebration in Germany, not Christmas Day.)
"Oh, till morning," he said.
"All evening?" Lisa asked.
"All night," he confirmed, but didn't seem too put out about it. "On Christmas Eve, da tut sich einiges [there's plenty going on]."
For many years now, he said, it seems to be standard that young people "swarm" into the city after the present-giving's over, not wanting to sit around their parents' houses, which means there's plenty of work for him all night.
"And I don't work New Year's," he said. "New Year's, we're going on vacation."
"Oh, till morning," he said.
"All evening?" Lisa asked.
"All night," he confirmed, but didn't seem too put out about it. "On Christmas Eve, da tut sich einiges [there's plenty going on]."
For many years now, he said, it seems to be standard that young people "swarm" into the city after the present-giving's over, not wanting to sit around their parents' houses, which means there's plenty of work for him all night.
"And I don't work New Year's," he said. "New Year's, we're going on vacation."
Friday, December 23, 2011
Why Yes, in Fact I Can Work from Pretty Much Anywhere
This would be me, working on a translation, sitting in the stairwell by the door of an overcrowded Deutsche Bahn train.
Chanukah at My House
Friends at my place celebrating Chanukah. It made me very happy.
The makings of latkes arrived in a bag, courtesy of my friend K.!
And there was a menorah in the window, just like it's supposed to be.
(That, incidentally, is the portable menorah – "portamenorah," I believe my friend Rebecca said – the rabbi's wife gave me at the Chabad House I stumbled across in a tiny mountain village in India last year. They give them out because their whole thing is wanting more Jews to be more Jewish.)
Tonight, my friend Lisa and I skyped with my parents from her kitchen in Mönchengladbach and lit Chanukah candles with them across six timezones.
And here's the wandering portamenorah again, accompanying me as I work here on Lisa's floor, while she wraps last minute Christmas presents for her family.
The makings of latkes arrived in a bag, courtesy of my friend K.!
And there was a menorah in the window, just like it's supposed to be.
(That, incidentally, is the portable menorah – "portamenorah," I believe my friend Rebecca said – the rabbi's wife gave me at the Chabad House I stumbled across in a tiny mountain village in India last year. They give them out because their whole thing is wanting more Jews to be more Jewish.)
Tonight, my friend Lisa and I skyped with my parents from her kitchen in Mönchengladbach and lit Chanukah candles with them across six timezones.
And here's the wandering portamenorah again, accompanying me as I work here on Lisa's floor, while she wraps last minute Christmas presents for her family.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Winter Begins
It's the solstice, the official start of winter but also the shortest day of the year – from here on out, the daylight (slowly) returns.
I'm having some friends over for a combined Chanukah and winter solstice celebration this evening, and just now I popped over to the Jewish bakery (just a block away! how lucky am I?) in the hope of picking up some of their Hefezopf (braided yeast bread) that's more or less like challah.
I left the errand until too late in the afternoon, and of course they were already sold out. But I got some raisin buns made out of basically the same dough, and the woman there gave me the bakery's business card, so that in the future I can call ahead and reserve what I want!
As I walked home from the bakery around 4:00, true to shortest-day-of-the-year form, it was already practically dark. (Official sunset: 3:54 p.m.) Also true to Berlin winter form, it was spitting down with nasty, cold rain.
But today is the SOLSTICE and yesterday evening we even got the first little flurries of real SNOW, and I will not be deterred from being happy about all this!
– – – – –
By the way, dear readership, I'm still meaning to tell you about an exciting weekend away (past) and a super exciting next big trip (future), and I promise I haven't forgotten!
Starting tomorrow, I'll be away visiting friends to celebrate German Christmas (the only kind of Christmas I know), so maybe there I'll find the time to write a bit. Or not, we'll see.
For now (because I seem to be having way too much fun spinning out teasers), I'll give you hints about the upcoming trip:
1. Starts with "S"...
2. I already mentioned that French course I took in preparation...
3. And recently, my doctor told me I was a little low on vitamin D and should take higher dosage supplements "unless you'll be spending a month in Africa this winter." And I said, "Actually..."
I'm having some friends over for a combined Chanukah and winter solstice celebration this evening, and just now I popped over to the Jewish bakery (just a block away! how lucky am I?) in the hope of picking up some of their Hefezopf (braided yeast bread) that's more or less like challah.
I left the errand until too late in the afternoon, and of course they were already sold out. But I got some raisin buns made out of basically the same dough, and the woman there gave me the bakery's business card, so that in the future I can call ahead and reserve what I want!
As I walked home from the bakery around 4:00, true to shortest-day-of-the-year form, it was already practically dark. (Official sunset: 3:54 p.m.) Also true to Berlin winter form, it was spitting down with nasty, cold rain.
But today is the SOLSTICE and yesterday evening we even got the first little flurries of real SNOW, and I will not be deterred from being happy about all this!
– – – – –
By the way, dear readership, I'm still meaning to tell you about an exciting weekend away (past) and a super exciting next big trip (future), and I promise I haven't forgotten!
Starting tomorrow, I'll be away visiting friends to celebrate German Christmas (the only kind of Christmas I know), so maybe there I'll find the time to write a bit. Or not, we'll see.
For now (because I seem to be having way too much fun spinning out teasers), I'll give you hints about the upcoming trip:
1. Starts with "S"...
2. I already mentioned that French course I took in preparation...
3. And recently, my doctor told me I was a little low on vitamin D and should take higher dosage supplements "unless you'll be spending a month in Africa this winter." And I said, "Actually..."
My Alma Mater Is Still Awesome
Because nothing says the holidays like organ players, acrobats and a whole chorus of bassoons. Oh, wait, I mean nothing says Oberlin like those things!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Neighborhood Chanukah (and a Toast to Vaclav Havel)
There's a new English bookstore in the neighborhood. Now, I'm a big fan of the "old" English bookstore in the neighborhood, but it's okay to have more of a good thing – and English bookstores are definitely a Good Thing when you live abroad long term. So I've been by the new English bookstore a couple times and even got on their mailing list, just in case any interesting events came up.
A couple days ago, I got an e-mail from them for the first time, which read in its entirety:
"Come by the store this Tuesday, December 20th at 7pm. Roman and Laurel are going to be frying latkes and making applesauce all evening for your Chanukah pleasure. We'll be drinking to Vaclav Havel."
Who are Roman and Laurel? How is Václav Havel (Czech writer, dissident and president, who died just a couple days ago) connected to a Jewish holiday?
Didn't really matter – my interest was piqued AND they mentioned latkes!
I just barely managed to disentangle myself from work in time, collected a couple of friends, and dropped by Shakespeare & Sons.
There, indeed, were a whole pile of latkes, homemade applesauce, and a bunch of friendly, welcoming folks. It turns out Roman is Czech, while Laurel is American and Jewish and in the same boat of wanting to celebrate Jewish holidays but not having many people around who know about them.
So I ate some latkes, ran into the one other American Jew I know in Berlin, chatted with Laurel while she oversaw the frying operation in the store's small kitchen, and even managed to connect an American friend who likes Polish food to a Polish woman who hasn't been able to find good restaurants in Berlin ... a win-win-win all around.
We lit the Chanukah candles together, then Laurel passed out shot glasses of slivovice (Czech plum brandy) and Roman said a toast to Václav Havel, starting with his memory of the first time he heard the name: in 1989, when a fellow student scribbled "Václav Havel for president" on a school desk (this was under Communist rule, when Havel was a dissident leader) and then had to come back in with his parents and aver to the school authorities that it was just something he'd heard somewhere and he didn't even know what it meant. This must have been just months before the Velvet Revolution – and Havel becoming president.
Happy Chanukah! Which, if you think about it, is also a holiday about dissidents.
A couple days ago, I got an e-mail from them for the first time, which read in its entirety:
"Come by the store this Tuesday, December 20th at 7pm. Roman and Laurel are going to be frying latkes and making applesauce all evening for your Chanukah pleasure. We'll be drinking to Vaclav Havel."
Who are Roman and Laurel? How is Václav Havel (Czech writer, dissident and president, who died just a couple days ago) connected to a Jewish holiday?
Didn't really matter – my interest was piqued AND they mentioned latkes!
I just barely managed to disentangle myself from work in time, collected a couple of friends, and dropped by Shakespeare & Sons.
There, indeed, were a whole pile of latkes, homemade applesauce, and a bunch of friendly, welcoming folks. It turns out Roman is Czech, while Laurel is American and Jewish and in the same boat of wanting to celebrate Jewish holidays but not having many people around who know about them.
So I ate some latkes, ran into the one other American Jew I know in Berlin, chatted with Laurel while she oversaw the frying operation in the store's small kitchen, and even managed to connect an American friend who likes Polish food to a Polish woman who hasn't been able to find good restaurants in Berlin ... a win-win-win all around.
We lit the Chanukah candles together, then Laurel passed out shot glasses of slivovice (Czech plum brandy) and Roman said a toast to Václav Havel, starting with his memory of the first time he heard the name: in 1989, when a fellow student scribbled "Václav Havel for president" on a school desk (this was under Communist rule, when Havel was a dissident leader) and then had to come back in with his parents and aver to the school authorities that it was just something he'd heard somewhere and he didn't even know what it meant. This must have been just months before the Velvet Revolution – and Havel becoming president.
Happy Chanukah! Which, if you think about it, is also a holiday about dissidents.
Monday, December 19, 2011
One Dictatorship Viewing Another
The death of Kim Jong-il in North Korea came up briefly in an English lesson today.
My student, a former East German in her late 40s, said news about North Korea always cuts a little close to home, a little too close to how her country could have ended up – she remembers well the same kind of marches and obligatory celebrations, with functionaries checking everyone against an attendance list.
But, she reflected, "Compared to North Korea, we had a Streichelzoo-Diktatur [petting zoo dictatorship]."
My student, a former East German in her late 40s, said news about North Korea always cuts a little close to home, a little too close to how her country could have ended up – she remembers well the same kind of marches and obligatory celebrations, with functionaries checking everyone against an attendance list.
But, she reflected, "Compared to North Korea, we had a Streichelzoo-Diktatur [petting zoo dictatorship]."
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Bread Addendum
Oh, and I should have said: I also think it's telling that to say "dinner" in German, you can use the word "Abendessen" (literally "evening meal"), but you can also say "Abendbrot" – "evening bread"!
Some Bread with that Bread?
Seen recently in a bakery: Promotional flyers for some expert or other's particular weight loss program designed to help you "lose weight while you sleep" by eating carb-heavy meals in the morning and protein-heavy meals in the evening.
So far so good (I guess), but then as its tie-in, the bakery was offering a special "high-protein" bread (lots of nuts and seeds and things in it), so that for your evening protein meal, you could have...bread.
(This makes marginally more sense when you know that many Germans still follow the old-fashioned, when-mom-was-at-home-to-cook-during-the-day-every-day pattern of eating a big warm meal during the day, and then just bread with various cold toppings in the evening. And that most Germans can happily eat bread as at least two of their three meals a day without complaint or finding anything odd about it.)
Still, though. Germany: a country so obsessed with bread and bread products, even its non-carb meals are carbs.
So far so good (I guess), but then as its tie-in, the bakery was offering a special "high-protein" bread (lots of nuts and seeds and things in it), so that for your evening protein meal, you could have...bread.
(This makes marginally more sense when you know that many Germans still follow the old-fashioned, when-mom-was-at-home-to-cook-during-the-day-every-day pattern of eating a big warm meal during the day, and then just bread with various cold toppings in the evening. And that most Germans can happily eat bread as at least two of their three meals a day without complaint or finding anything odd about it.)
Still, though. Germany: a country so obsessed with bread and bread products, even its non-carb meals are carbs.
Monday, December 12, 2011
The Christmas Season
When I went grocery shopping on Friday, the check-out clerk was already wishing everyone a "Happy 3rd Advent!"
The whole Advent period (technically the four "Advent Sundays" leading up to Christmas, hence the phrase "3rd Advent" to refer to the third of those weekends) is huge here, Christmas in Germany being essentially an entire season of the year unto itself.
Putting an even more precise start date to the Christmas season, a friend recently informed me that Christmas markets, though they start setting up in November, are not allowed to turn their lights on until after "Totensonntag" (Sunday of the Dead – a Lutheran holiday that's always the last Sunday before the four Advent Sundays...got that?)
Yes, Germany is gradually giving way to commercialism, and the first Christmas cookies do start sneaking their way into the grocery stores in September. (Though you should see the stores NOW – I swear, roughly half of my nearest supermarket is devoted to Christmas chocolates, while on the other hand the baking section has been nearly been picked clean by eager Christmas cookie bakers.)
And yes, as in any majority-Christian country, December is a time of buying gifts. (On a couple – not all – of the Advent weekends, major stores are actually open SUNDAYS, something almost inconceivable in Germany.)
But even more than that, December really is a time when Germans do all those traditional, cozy, Christmas-season kinds of things, and the four Advent weekends are earnestly dedicated to Christmas cookie baking (a major event itself, in which friends descend on one person's kitchen, all bearing their own recipes and ingredients, and proceed to make multiple varieties of cookies simultaneously, in a flurry of activity so overwhelming, I managed to bow out of it entirely this year) and afternoon cookie-and-warm-drink Christmas parties and so many Christmas market visits that you actually lose count, and of course lots and lots of mulled wine.
Then of course there's Nikolaustag (St. Nicholas Day, December 6), when children leave shoes out overnight and find them filled with sweets in the morning – something I always found a bit bizarre, until a Dutch friend pointed out, Yeah, we have shoes, and the Americans have stockings. Oh. Right.
When I went to the post office in early December to mail a package of Chanukah presents to my parents in the U.S. and asked how long it would take to get there, the woman said, Well, it'll be a little late if you're sending it for Nikolaus. I told her, no, I was sending it for Chanukah (though of course she'd have no idea what that means) and smiled privately at the idea that I would be sending a package to my family – my American, not to mention Jewish, family – for St. Nicholas Day.
Then, to round out the whole holiday season, there's Heilige Drei Könige (the day of the "Holy Three Kings," who we know as the Three Wise Men; i.e. Epiphany or Twelfth Night), when kids go around dressed as the three wise men, singing songs and writing blessings in holy chalk (not kidding) over people's doors. I think this is more common in western and southern Germany (which is Catholic), because I haven't seen much of it here in Berlin.
The whole Advent period (technically the four "Advent Sundays" leading up to Christmas, hence the phrase "3rd Advent" to refer to the third of those weekends) is huge here, Christmas in Germany being essentially an entire season of the year unto itself.
Putting an even more precise start date to the Christmas season, a friend recently informed me that Christmas markets, though they start setting up in November, are not allowed to turn their lights on until after "Totensonntag" (Sunday of the Dead – a Lutheran holiday that's always the last Sunday before the four Advent Sundays...got that?)
Yes, Germany is gradually giving way to commercialism, and the first Christmas cookies do start sneaking their way into the grocery stores in September. (Though you should see the stores NOW – I swear, roughly half of my nearest supermarket is devoted to Christmas chocolates, while on the other hand the baking section has been nearly been picked clean by eager Christmas cookie bakers.)
And yes, as in any majority-Christian country, December is a time of buying gifts. (On a couple – not all – of the Advent weekends, major stores are actually open SUNDAYS, something almost inconceivable in Germany.)
But even more than that, December really is a time when Germans do all those traditional, cozy, Christmas-season kinds of things, and the four Advent weekends are earnestly dedicated to Christmas cookie baking (a major event itself, in which friends descend on one person's kitchen, all bearing their own recipes and ingredients, and proceed to make multiple varieties of cookies simultaneously, in a flurry of activity so overwhelming, I managed to bow out of it entirely this year) and afternoon cookie-and-warm-drink Christmas parties and so many Christmas market visits that you actually lose count, and of course lots and lots of mulled wine.
Then of course there's Nikolaustag (St. Nicholas Day, December 6), when children leave shoes out overnight and find them filled with sweets in the morning – something I always found a bit bizarre, until a Dutch friend pointed out, Yeah, we have shoes, and the Americans have stockings. Oh. Right.
When I went to the post office in early December to mail a package of Chanukah presents to my parents in the U.S. and asked how long it would take to get there, the woman said, Well, it'll be a little late if you're sending it for Nikolaus. I told her, no, I was sending it for Chanukah (though of course she'd have no idea what that means) and smiled privately at the idea that I would be sending a package to my family – my American, not to mention Jewish, family – for St. Nicholas Day.
Then, to round out the whole holiday season, there's Heilige Drei Könige (the day of the "Holy Three Kings," who we know as the Three Wise Men; i.e. Epiphany or Twelfth Night), when kids go around dressed as the three wise men, singing songs and writing blessings in holy chalk (not kidding) over people's doors. I think this is more common in western and southern Germany (which is Catholic), because I haven't seen much of it here in Berlin.
The Simplest Questions Are the Hardest
Germans don't know how to answer the question "How are you?"
In English, I mean. If they've learned English for a while, they've likely had drilled into their heads that "How are you?" is just something we say to be polite, it is not an invitation to launch into a litany of your woes, and the correct answer is always "Fine, thanks."
"What if I'm really ill?" they ask me. "What if I'm actually not fine? Do I have to lie?" I generally tell them that, no, honesty is okay, but yes, the expectation is that you keep your answer more or less neutral.
Incidentally, someone recently made the valid point that it's a bit silly for Germans to complain about how we do or don't answer "How are you?" because in German often they don't even ask each other a proper question at all, but (especially young people, among friends) simply greet each other with the nonsense particle "Na?" To which the only real response is another "Na?"
Since it sounds goofy to answer "Na?" with "Na?" this can easily turn into a race to see who can say "Na?" first, leaving the other to lamely echo, "Na?"
And don't even get me started on the British, whose "How do you do" is not, as you might think, a question, but rather a phrase of greeting, and is properly – and only – answered with another "How do you do."
In English, I mean. If they've learned English for a while, they've likely had drilled into their heads that "How are you?" is just something we say to be polite, it is not an invitation to launch into a litany of your woes, and the correct answer is always "Fine, thanks."
"What if I'm really ill?" they ask me. "What if I'm actually not fine? Do I have to lie?" I generally tell them that, no, honesty is okay, but yes, the expectation is that you keep your answer more or less neutral.
Incidentally, someone recently made the valid point that it's a bit silly for Germans to complain about how we do or don't answer "How are you?" because in German often they don't even ask each other a proper question at all, but (especially young people, among friends) simply greet each other with the nonsense particle "Na?" To which the only real response is another "Na?"
Since it sounds goofy to answer "Na?" with "Na?" this can easily turn into a race to see who can say "Na?" first, leaving the other to lamely echo, "Na?"
And don't even get me started on the British, whose "How do you do" is not, as you might think, a question, but rather a phrase of greeting, and is properly – and only – answered with another "How do you do."
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Suns and Moons
It's 3:30 p.m. and the sun is setting!
(Technically sunset today is 3:52 p.m., not that different from Ithaca's 4:33 p.m., but it sure FEELS earlier.)
Also, if you're somewhere that's dark right now, go check out the last total lunar eclipse until 2014! It's happening in the morning U.S. time (so on the east coast you might still catch a bit of the penumbral eclipse before the moon sets and the sun rises) and here in Germany, the total eclipse ends at 3:57 p.m., the partial eclipse at 5:18 and the penumbral eclipse at 6:30, so we may catch some of it as the moon's rising.
(Technically sunset today is 3:52 p.m., not that different from Ithaca's 4:33 p.m., but it sure FEELS earlier.)
Also, if you're somewhere that's dark right now, go check out the last total lunar eclipse until 2014! It's happening in the morning U.S. time (so on the east coast you might still catch a bit of the penumbral eclipse before the moon sets and the sun rises) and here in Germany, the total eclipse ends at 3:57 p.m., the partial eclipse at 5:18 and the penumbral eclipse at 6:30, so we may catch some of it as the moon's rising.
Friday, December 9, 2011
This Is Why You're German
So amazing. SO amazing. Possibly less amazing if you're not very familiar with Germany...but still amazing:
This Is Why You're German
I would try to list a few of my favorites, but then we'd be here all day.
This Is Why You're German
I would try to list a few of my favorites, but then we'd be here all day.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Life in Three Thirds
This morning I finally sent out an invitation to my upcoming Chanukah celebration. Just out of curiosity, because I'm always interested in such things, after I sent the e-mail I took a closer look at my guest list, and was delighted to discover that the 18 friends I'd invited distributed perfectly into thirds: 6 Germans, 6 Americans and 6 "other" (British, Irish, French, Israeli, Canadian).
I enjoy that kind of coincidentally symmetry anyway (for example, when I realized there had been exactly 28 people at my 28th birthday party), but this is somehow especially pleasing in the way it makes a little microcosm of my Berlin life, which I think also could roughly be defined as "one-third German, one-third American and one-third other."
I enjoy that kind of coincidentally symmetry anyway (for example, when I realized there had been exactly 28 people at my 28th birthday party), but this is somehow especially pleasing in the way it makes a little microcosm of my Berlin life, which I think also could roughly be defined as "one-third German, one-third American and one-third other."
Saturday, December 3, 2011
The Dark Days of Winter/The Confetti Tram
Last Saturday and this Saturday I traveled way out to a far-flung part of eastern Berlin to take a sort of brush-up-your-French crash course for...well, let me leave that for another post, but let's just say, for my mystery next travel destination! (No, not France.)
Doing this course entailed getting up around 6:30 a.m. (on a Saturday! I don't even do that on weekdays!), well before the sun was even thinking of rising. By the time I was on the tram around 8 a.m., the sun was finally getting around to leaving the horizon, though of course you can't quite tell when exactly sunrise is with so many buildings around.
I had just been talking to one of the neighbors in my building about the many incarnations of the M10 tram, which runs right past our door. The M10 starts at Berlin's main north-south train line, curves all the way through the district of Prenzlauer Berg, (a generally yuppie kind of place, but pretty hip as well) and ends at Warschauer Strasse, a major party area and a stop on the east-west train line. (The M10 is that fairly central dark green arc on this map, if that helps at all.)
So in the mornings, there are these seriously stroller-filled rush times, where every parent in Prenzlauer Berg is trying to cram their massive baby carriage onto the tram to get their kids to preschool. But then at night, the M10 becomes THE party tram, shuttling drunk (and drinking) young folks to and from the clubs at Warschauer Strasse.
When I got on this morning shortly before 8, I was amused to see that the floor of the tram was still strewn with confetti, a testament to the tram's long Berlin night. There were also a few folks onboard who were definitely just coming home from partying, while others were clearly on their way to work.
Doing this course entailed getting up around 6:30 a.m. (on a Saturday! I don't even do that on weekdays!), well before the sun was even thinking of rising. By the time I was on the tram around 8 a.m., the sun was finally getting around to leaving the horizon, though of course you can't quite tell when exactly sunrise is with so many buildings around.
I had just been talking to one of the neighbors in my building about the many incarnations of the M10 tram, which runs right past our door. The M10 starts at Berlin's main north-south train line, curves all the way through the district of Prenzlauer Berg, (a generally yuppie kind of place, but pretty hip as well) and ends at Warschauer Strasse, a major party area and a stop on the east-west train line. (The M10 is that fairly central dark green arc on this map, if that helps at all.)
So in the mornings, there are these seriously stroller-filled rush times, where every parent in Prenzlauer Berg is trying to cram their massive baby carriage onto the tram to get their kids to preschool. But then at night, the M10 becomes THE party tram, shuttling drunk (and drinking) young folks to and from the clubs at Warschauer Strasse.
When I got on this morning shortly before 8, I was amused to see that the floor of the tram was still strewn with confetti, a testament to the tram's long Berlin night. There were also a few folks onboard who were definitely just coming home from partying, while others were clearly on their way to work.
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