Thursday, March 31, 2011

Waiting on the Snake

In German, the word "Schlange" (snake) is also the word used for "line" in the sense of "waiting on line."

I hadn't even thought about this potential linguistic pitfall until I was recently, well, waiting on line for the bathroom at a concert and the German woman ahead of me started cautiously explaining how she'd been in an English-speaking country and made the mistake of asking someone if they were on the "snake." She seemed rather scarred by the experience, but at least she knew she'd never make the same mistake again!

(I tried suggesting that at least it made a funny story to tell, but she was having none of it.)

Message in a Bottle

Aw! This is sweet. And in a time when reading the daily news can make it feel like the whole world is collapsing, it's nice to get things like this once in a while... a message in a bottle that turned up 24 years later.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Cleaning Street Signs

Today, I saw a city employee washing a street sign – you know, as in the sign at the corner that shows the name of the street – in a residential neighborhood in the southern part of Berlin, using a squeegee thing on a very long pole.

Does that even happen in any other countries?

Monday, March 21, 2011

On the Train Bridge

This evening, on a bridge that crosses the S-Bahn (local train) line in Prenzlauer Berg: A mother and two little kids, maybe 4 and 2, peering through/over the bridge railing.

"There, one's coming!" the mother said. The two little kids waved like mad, and just as the train passed under the bridge, it honked its horn.

"That's two!" the mom said delightedly. "We waved at two trains, and two trains honked! We've never had such good luck!"

And all three of them strolled off into the sunset.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Nosh Some Hamentaschen

Oh YAY, I found Hamentaschen!

For those not in the know, these are the traditional cookies for the Jewish holiday of Purim; they're three-cornered pockets of sweet dough filled with poppy seeds or fruit, and they're supposed to look like the hat worn by the nemesis of this particular holiday, Hamen.

I'd almost forgotten about Purim this year - it's a fun holiday (dress up, act silly, celebrate the fact that somehow we actually survived all those nemeses) and at points I've vaguely toyed with the idea of having a party and making my friends dress up and take on roles in the Purim story. But the thing is, hosting a holiday party is just too much effort when you're the only person there who has any idea what the holiday is about.

Still, I was curious whether Hamentaschen could be found in Berlin. And it turns out they are, at the Jewish-ish bakery down the street from me, no less. (I say Jewish-ish because they sell challah on Fridays and, apparently, certain things for holidays, but they're otherwise like any other German whole-grain-bread-and-decadent-pastries bakery. I once went in there during Passover - when, technically, Jews aren't even allowed to eat bread - and they were not only open, but wished me a happy Easter.)

I went in there yesterday, just wanting to ask for future reference if they might have Hamentaschen sometime around the holiday - and the first sight that met my eyes was a whole display case of them. Labeled "Homentasche." Joy! I went back today and bought a whole bunch for the party I'm having tomorrow - which happens to be the eve of Purim, though that's a coincidence.

Here are my bakery bags of Hamentaschen:


I grow more and more curious about this bakery, and what exactly its story is. Is everybody there Jewish? Or maybe just the person who runs it, but not the employees behind the counter? The woman who served me wasn't really willing to be drawn in by any of my comments about how excited I was to find Hamentaschen here, and it doesn't seem like something you can straight-up ask, in Germany. (Though Germans certainly ask me, in the rare cases when they figure out my last name.)

It's a funny thing - I have no problems with living in Germany, being Jewish in Germany, or even talking to any and all curious individuals about Judaism. But when it comes to any kind of officialdom, some form that asks you to check a box for your religion, I notice myself clam up - my feeling is that that's precisely none of the German government's business. Interesting.

Anyway, Hamentaschen!

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Borders and Things

Belgium:

I met two guys from the Flemish part of Belgium (Flemish being, essentially, Dutch with a different name) and was surprised to hear them refer to their language as Dutch. Then I was further surprised by how vehemently they insisted that Dutch is the correct name - would you refer to Austrian German as "Austrian"? they asked. Or American English as a language known as "American"?

In English, so far as I know, we generally say "Flemish" when we talk about the non-French-speaking part of Belgium. But I've since looked it up and it seems the Dutch-speaking Flemish guys are right (not that I doubted their ability to know best, but it seems they're right in English too) - the language is known as Dutch both in the Netherlands and in Belgium.

(Just to further confuse matters, there's also a small bit of Belgium that's German-speaking. But let's put that aside for the moment, shall we?)


Austria and Switzerland:

An English student of mine just came back from a skiing holiday in Austria and told me he also skied...in Switzerland. He skied into Switzerland, actually. The resort was situated right at the border, and you could ski over to check out the duty free shops. He said he also saw customs officials out patrolling the border area...on skis.

Switzerland, I love your quirkiness! Sometimes you almost rival England!


(The former) East Germany:

The same English students – they're in their late 40's and come from what was East Germany – had friends coming over just as we finished our lesson for the evening.

It happened to be International Women's Day (which is more of a big deal in Europe than I ever was aware of in the U.S., and was definitely a big deal in the East), so one of the friends had brought the hostess red carnations. "With good Communist greetings!" he told her, and everybody laughed.

As he saw me out the door, the host explained, red carnations were what we always gave on International Women's Day. Well, and on May 1, International Workers' Day. Actually, there weren't very many different kinds of flowers in East Germany in general... basically just three. And if you wanted to buy them, you had to order ahead.

Concerts

One wonderful recent performance was the "living room concert" I mentioned in the last post - the woman who organizes these concerts collects talented local musicians, picks two of them whose creative styles match, adds a poet into the mix, and hosts the whole thing in a living room. You have to reply ahead of time that you're coming, then she gives you the address where the event is taking place. So you get great music and the feeling of being in a wonderful secret!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Then, I finally made it back to the open mic at a bar called Zimmer 16. I remembered this open mic as having impressive performers and a great atmosphere, but once I dragged friends along there, I started worrying I'd remembered wrong... Luckily, I'd remembered right.

There was the event organizer, who sang a delightful song about being neurotic; the woman who performed with a giant stuffed penguin next to her; a man whose singing voice reminded me of someone famous I couldn't quite place.

Then, there was Günther.

Günther was a lanky, beaky-nosed man in a tailcoat. He sat down at the piano and began singing in full-blown operatic style, but with lyrics that were about... high school reunions. And the hole in the ozone layer. And how walking in the woods can be dangerous if you don't select the proper type of walking stick.

At one point, he sang – operatically – that he would like two women from the audience to join him onstage. There's no way he could possibly have seen into the audience past the bright stage lights, but I swear, he was staring right at my friend and me, in the very last row. As Günther kept singing "I'd like two women to join me onstage" and "I'm going to stand here and wait until two women join me onstage," my friend and I tried valiantly to disappear – the two guys also with us laughed when they turned around and saw the two of us sinking lower and lower in our seats.

In the end, no women joined Günther onstage, and he completed the performance on his own.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Then, a friend of mine who's been a Berliner for many decades invited me to see the musical "Linie 1," named for Berlin's subway line 1, which runs east-west across what was once West Berlin.

The musical is a classic, written in the 1980's, when the Berlin Wall was still standing, and has played in the same theater ever since. Lots of colorful characters and insightful songs about city life and about Berlin in particular, during the period when West Berlin was an island in the middle of East Germany:

"Berlin,
The only city in the world
Where every direction is east,
So the sun never goes down,
But only ever comes up."

Friday, March 11, 2011

In Berlin

So, these are the kinds of things that happen to me:

I go to a concert. Incidentally, it's a particularly awesome event - one of the "living room concerts," private events held in people's living rooms and organized by an Australian woman with an impressive number of contacts to local musicians. There are two fabulous singers, one interesting poet, and a great blues jam/electric organ session afterward.

At said concert, I run into someone from Ithaca (my hometown). No, not actually someone I know from home. I met this guy (let's call him B––) because his distant cousin was once my high school English teacher (have I lost you already?) and she put us in touch after seeing an article I wrote for the local paper about being an Ithacan in Berlin. We met up once a couple years ago for coffee, but never crossed paths again.

He was at the concert because he knew the poet; I'm friends with one of the singers. Hey, B-- said, you should talk to K-- here. She lived in Ithaca for a while too.

So I talk to K-- and it turns out, not only did she briefly live in Ithaca, but her best friend here in Berlin is a musician who went to Oberlin. My college.

K-- is interested in starting a bulk food buying cooperative (I'm already having nostalgic flashbacks to the many cooperatives I've loved in Ithaca, Oberlin, Berkeley...) so a couple weeks later, I find myself at a vegetarian brunch/coop brainstorming session at K--'s apartment, surrounded by a crowd of inspired, health-food-loving, socially concerned people who totally remind me of home.

There, I also meet K--'s friend A--, the musician from Oberlin. Hey, A-- says, I'm meeting up tonight with the Oberlin people. You should come along!

And so I find myself that evening at the pay-what-you-want wine bar, hanging out with a bunch of classically trained musicians, several of whom I'd sort of vaguely known existed and were in Berlin, but never crossed paths with in all these years.

The Berlin-Oberlin crowd includes R-- (did meet her once, when a mutual friend from Oberlin was in town and visited both of us, but never saw her before or since), as well as S--, who I remember distantly as a friend of a friend from freshman year. Oh, and whose dad just happens to be a world-renowned conductor, so the conversation is dotted with references to world-famous musicians S-- knows.

These are the kinds of things that happen to me.

It's Okay

Stenciled graffiti, seen in a couple places on the sidewalk around Warschauer Strasse S-Bahn station:

"It's okay to be gay
So have a nice day"

It made me smile!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Open 'til Midnight

Folks, this is major: My neighborhood grocery store is now open until midnight, Monday through Saturday, starting immediately.

I'm not even kidding, unfortunately, about the major-news-ness of this. When I first saw the sign outside the entrance, my jaw dropped open and I said "Whoa" to myself, out loud, an embarrassing number of times.

German stores are not big on being open at convenient times. (Or on Sundays, ever, but don't even get me started on that.) That this grocery store was open until 10 p.m. already seemed like a pretty big and exciting deal. And now...midnight? The perks of living in a city of 3.5 million! (But still no Sundays.)

Those British

I think I might be becoming an anglophile despite myself, because the British just keep offering up such wonderful ridiculousness to the world. It's not only absurd delights like swan upping (which sounds like a silly hoax, but I've checked with Brits and it exists!) or the Ravens of the Tower of London ("six required, with a seventh in reserve").

Today, I translated a short article about the upcoming wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which meant I got to spend some time poking around online and learning delightfully ridiculous things.

Did you know the couple had approved official memorabilia china and tea towels, among other items, as the merchandise to their wedding? Or various other fun details, like that 1900 people are invited to the morning ceremony (but only 300 to the "private" dinner that night) or that the bride and groom are actually 15th cousins, because of some long-ago Sir and the fact that the British actually keep track of such things?

One of the favorite things I read, though, was a Guardian article about William's tour of Australia and New Zealand last year (they made him pose with a not-so-thrilled kiwi bird). It was his first official overseas tour and apparently the first time he gave a speech representing the queen. I loved this paragraph:

"Beadily watching him make his first, assured and competent speech, from the second row in the public seats, was none other than Christopher Geidt, the Queen's private secretary. 'I am just here on holiday and it was suggested I might like to look in,' Geidt said, somewhat unconvincingly."

Keep 'em coming, Britain!

Monday, March 7, 2011

We're Focused, We're Calm

Overheard, young man herding a crowd of teenagers toward the Hackescher Markt S-Bahn station, trying to gather them all around him: "We're focused, we're calm and we're paying attention to where we're going..."

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Goodbye von und zu Guttenberg

Dear oh dear, the media and the blogosphere - not to mention the Facebook-o-sphere - are having a field day with the plagiarism scandal and subsequent resignation of Germany's was-defense-minister-until-yesterday Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.

For those who don't live in Germany (and thus really don't have any reason to care about this), Guttenberg was discovered to have plagiarized significant portions of his doctoral thesis. (Either that, or he used ghostwriters who plagiarized without his knowledge, and no one can quite decide which is worse.) The debate was on as to whether this breach of academic protocol, while serious, amounted for grounds to end a political career. (As one columnist pointed out, this is a country where an employee can be fired for stealing a pastry or a few bottle return slips, but a high-level politician can cheat on his PhD thesis. Double standard, hello?)

The scandal has been all over the media. Spiegel ran one headline when it was announced Guttenberg was going to resign, and another when he actually did. Inevitably, there have been puns of every sort, from calling him "Googleberg" to declaring it "time to say gutt-bye." One Berlin newspaper announced his resignation with the screaming headline "Mutti ohne Gutti" (Mommy without Guttenberg), the mommy being Angela Merkel, who's now short one very popular and charismatic member of her otherwise fairly staid cabinet.

Admittedly, there's probably a healthy dose of schadenfreude in all the gleeful punning - especially among those of us who are not German and don't understand why we should adore the guy just because he comes from an aristocratic family. (Full name, according to Wikipedia: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg.)


And speaking of current events: It's a serious situation, but I have to say, this made me laugh: Is Gaddafi gone yet? (isgaddafigoneyet.com)

Superb Swiss Ski Silliness

Folks, news flash: It turns out downhill skiing is pretty fun. I swear, I had no idea.

I also probably won't do it again any time soon, because a skiing vacation is just as expensive as I always figured it would be, and then some. But it was fun, just once, to check out what all the hype is about. And the Swiss Alps are always, always lovely. Plus, I went with a fabulous crowd of fun, silly, ridiculous people and we had a blast!

Here are some pictures:

Superb Swiss Ski Silliness

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Trau dich

"Dare to give hugs, not just shake hands."

In reality, it's an advertisement for Milka chocolate, but I kind of also think this could be an admonition to all of German culture!

Hot Pink

Seen today on the S-Bahn train platform: a young, blonde, normal-looking guy, maybe mid-twenties, dressed in an entirely normal jacket and jeans - and hot pink canvas shoes. Rock on!