A Summer in Ohio

I know at some point I start repeating myself...but water fountains are still one of my favorite things about coming back to the US. (Europe is not big on free water.)

So, I'm in a small town in Ohio, where people smile and acknowledge each other when they pass on the street, and my heart melts a little every time. And I walked down the sidewalk today barefoot. If you don't also live in a city, you can't quite imagine how exciting this is.

I also haven't even been in the country 24 hours and have already made a fool of myself in a café, because every single time I come back here, I forget about sales tax, and that the price you see is not actually the price you pay. Very confusing!

As I was walking from my friend Moon's house to downtown Oberlin, one of the people I passed was a guy out working on his lawn. He looked vaguely familiar, in that way people do when you went to college with them but didn't really know them, so as I walked on, I tried to puzzle out where I knew him from. Did we overlap at Oberlin? Did he do theater, or improv?

A few steps later, it hit me. I didn't recognize him because I know him. I recognized him because he's the new dean of students ("new" in the sense of starting after my time) and one of the stars of this slice of utter Oberlin awesomeness:

The Oberlin College Friday Parody, which some staff made as a gift to the graduating class two years ago.

Since that video went (deservedly!) viral, Oberlin's dean of students is a familiar face!

Now I'm sitting in a café downtown trying to finish a translation that needs to be done by Monday, but not getting far because of all the people I know who keep passing by! Just now it was my former geology professor, who dropped by my table and chatted about everything from the Erie Canal to Celtic-era salt mines in Austria, and told me that just the other day he saw a book he'd wanted to pick up for me (related to a private study on the geology of the moon that I did with him when I was here) but he figured, when would he ever see me to give it to me?

Storm clouds keep rolling in, but not quite amounting to a thunderstorm. There's time, though. It'll happen!

p.s. I keep thinking of the song "A Summer in Ohio" from the musical "The Last Five Years" (which, appropriately enough, I saw performed during my time in Oberlin) but though the refrain "...it wouldn't be as nice as a summer in Ohio..." is ironically meant in the song, I actually mean it. There really is nothing quite like a summer in Ohio, if you want lazy days and friendly faces and the best of dramatic weather and endless nights of fireflies.

p.p.s. Now it's pouring! Cue thunder, lightning!

Kennedy Was Not a Jelly Doughnut

Ha, there we go!

A linguist confirms that Kennedy's famous (and famously supposedly wrong) "Ich bin ein Berliner" statement was indeed grammatically correct, and did not in any way imply that the president was a jelly doughnut:

"Did JFK Tell Berlin He Was a Jam Doughnut?" (Article by a Berlin acquaintance who writes for Agence France Presse.)

Ragbag: Enddatum Spargel and Other Such Things

Ah, shoot, I wanted to get a picture on the day after Obama's speech in Berlin, when all the local and tabloid newspapers displayed outside the city's many convenience stores were splashed with Obama headlines – they looked funny all lined up like that and all so excited about the US president's visit – but I didn't manage to get my camera out in time.

My favorite of the headlines was the silly-sounding "Warum Obama sich wirklich auszog" ("Why Obama Really Took Off His Jacket"). I thought it was because it was, you know, 91.5 degrees out, but apparently all the papers are having fun speculating that it was because there was a problem with the teleprompter and he was trying to buy himself a bit of time. Well, whatever!

(Huh, technician for the president's teleprompter during speeches – now there would be an interesting and high-stress job...)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Okay! Before I leave Berlin for much of the summer, here comes another "ragbag" post, which means one where I collect all the little anecdotes that accumulate over time, but none of which are enough for a whole post of their own. Here we go...


• Favorite recent amusing sight: A guy leaning against a payphone talking on the phone...except it was his own cell phone he was talking into, and the payphone was just something he happened to be leaning against.


• Also, a very formal-looking businessman on a very funny, small scooter.


• The word "Ausflugslokal," which has come up a couple times recently in my translations, and which I can explain but find hard to slot into a sentence in a way that scans naturally. An "Ausflug" is an outing or excursion and "Lokal" is another word for restaurant or bar, so an "Ausflugslokal" is basically a restaurant, but one located in a nice enough spot that it becomes a destination in and of itself, somewhere you might go as an outing on a sunny weekend day. Think of a beer garden by a lake or down a nice path through the woods or on top of a hill with a great view. That's an Ausflugslokal. What a very German concept!

(A Canadian friend once told me about going hiking with German friends in Canada, and how she kept having to remind them, You have to bring your own food on this hike. There will not be a beer garden at the top of the mountain.)


• The other day, a German friend said she felt she hadn't had asparagus enough times this season. (I guess I haven't written about it here before, but asparagus season is a Big Deal in Germany. Much fuss is made over asparagus while it's in season, with restaurants even putting a special "asparagus season" page in their menus and stands popping up around town selling it. It's only ever the anemic-looking white asparagus, too, which is created, I kid you not, by burying the plants under the dirt so they can't get any light! But I digress.) Anyway, my friend said she should make sure to get some asparagus again, because it was almost the end of the season – she was pretty sure asparagus season ends on June 12.

Sorry, what?

It turns out what she meant is that this is the agreed-upon date when asparagus farmers stop harvesting stalks and let the plants go to seed (a necessary part of the process for asparagus, which is perennial). But that there's an official end date for asparagus season in Germany? Of course there is.


• Speaking of German quirks... I saw an ad in the U-Bahn (on the "Berliner Fenster," the little TV screens that show some news, but mostly ads and stupid stuff about celebrities) about how more and more job announcements address potential applicants with "du," the informal "you." The advice in this ad was that, if this is the case, you should probably go ahead and respond in kind, and be informal when you go in for your interview – but also, if you're unsure, you could call the company ahead of time to check.

Which is where I can't help responding: Germany, you do know, right, that if you just finally did away with the formal/informal "you" thing (English managed it a few centuries ago, and Swedish did it within living memory) you wouldn't have this problem anymore?


• Sleeping long, sleeping late... This is something I noticed a long time ago: Germans talk about "sleeping long" where English would say "sleeping late," and where in fact "late" is more accurate: i.e., if you're out super late one night, and as a result get up in the late morning while still only having a slept a few hours, a German will still say you "slept long." (The same is true of working – they'll said "I had to work long" if they finish late, regardless of when they started!)

I thought of this as no more than a quirk of language, until I read this interesting article about our internal clocks and how they really do differ from one person to another, not only in terms of how much sleep we need, but also when we feel the need to sleep. The article focuses on a book by a German scientist, Till Roenneberg, which also delves into the value judgements we place on when and how much we sleep.

What I found amusing is that an excerpt from the book (in English, translated) notes that we assume people who sleep during the day are lazy, regardless of the reason they might have for it (for example, having worked a night shift). Then the excerpt continues, "This attitude is reflected in the frequent use of the word-pair early birds and long sleepers."

...Except, no it isn't, because that isn't a word pair in English! That's German usage, "long sleepers."

The article also goes on to say, "Yet this pair is nothing but apples and oranges, because the opposite of early is late and the opposite of long is short."

What I'm saying! Listen up, Germany – I may be sleeping late, but it doesn't mean I'm sleeping long.


• The inevitable German "krankschreiben" – this means getting a sick note from your doctor to excuse you from work, and yes, I do think it's telling that in German there's a single word for this concept!

Because in Germany, even if you just have a cold, you go to your doctor and get a note, and then you go home and stay in bed for days. It's just the normal thing to do. (Can you imagine if American workers, in the American workaholic culture, tried to do this??)

Honestly, I'm inclined to say the Germans have the right idea here: When you're sick, you rest, so that you actually get better instead of the illness dragging on. It's like how Germany understands the importance of vacation time – that it's a normal, human thing to need time off in order to recharge.

The "krankschreiben" system definitely also gets abused, though, by people who just want time off and are "sick" for months on end.

Anyway, the point of this anecdote is the way it doesn't apply to freelancers, who only earn money when they're working and don't really have the luxury to say, Oh, I have a cold, I think I'll stay in bed for three days.

This came up because a fellow translator, who's French, was complaining about how you go to the pharmacy in Germany and they're like, "Here, take this herbal remedy [because Germany also LOVES its herbal remedies, which I suppose can sometimes be useful, but not in cases where you honestly just need antibiotics] and stay in bed for a week."

It's so intriguing to me to see a French person – since the French are also Europeans, and thus surely must have more in common with Germans than with Americans? – having a "Germans are so odd" reaction over exactly the same things I do!


• It came up again with phone messages; the other day, my French colleague checked her phone and then kind of rolled her eyes and said, "In France, when someone calls you, they leave a message." Yes! But in Germany, they call you, leave no message, tell you nothing about why they're calling, but expect you to call back just because you saw their number.

I think this is because until very recently it was common for people to have to have to pay to check their own voicemail (!) and it's carried over.

But it's still annoying.

(Am I imagining this? Am I wrong that Americans, even now with cell phones and caller ID and all, will still usually leave each other a message?)


• Also, let's talk about how Germans loooove ice cream... What is it about cold countries and ice cream? Apparently the Swedish are the champions ice cream eaters.

This was another thing my French colleague commented on: How often people go out for ice cream here in the summer. She finds it really odd when adults (not just families with little kids) say, Hey, let's meet up for ice cream. (I don't find it odd; ice cream is a big part of American summers too.)

I do love how many very, very good (and very cheap!) ice cream places my neighborhood has. But it's still funny how there's a mad dash to the ice cream shop son the first warm day of the year – and then it stays that way, every shop completely overflowing in the evenings, long lines out onto the sidewalk, for the rest of the summer. Good luck trying to get an ice cream cone on a warm summer evening in Berlin!


• Recently a British friend commented, a bit disparagingly, "Germans make such a big deal about birthdays," and I got to thinking about that. It's true – where an American or Brit would just invite friends to join them at a bar for drinks, and maybe the friends would buy the birthday person a drink and that would be that, Germans have these massive undertakings, where the birthday person pays for a round of drinks – or many rounds – and plies their guests with food and all the guests bring presents, and it's very nice, but also kind of overwhelming to participate in!

Then, just as I was ruminating on that, I was at a café when a crowd of young kids came in, dressed up in costumes and hunting down clues – as part of a party, the parents had set up this whole complex treasure hunt that took them all around the neighborhood.

And the guy behind the counter – who was Irish – said to me rather wonderingly, "Germans make so much more of an effort to organize nice things for their kids."

So there's that side of it, too!


• So, I complain occasionally about how Germany as a whole is so much more progressive than the US as a whole (socially, environmentally, (almost) everything), yet so much less progressive than the liberal pockets of the US I'm used to (like Ithaca and Oberlin). And I miss that, everyone being alternative and a bit weird and all on the same page about that. Germany is much more conformist.

As only a very small example of that, when I was in college in Oberlin it was more or less normal to wear strange things – like men's ties. I still own a few ties, in fact, but I've never quite dared to wear them here. It just feels out of place. (I'm not sure why, really, seeing as Berlin is a mecca for people who dress weirdly in all sorts of ways. But Germany as a whole just feels less...wacky that way.)

Then one day, I got completely fed up and decided, Today I am going to wear a tie.

And you know what happened? The only comment I received about it the whole day was from an usher in a movie theater (this was during the Berlinale), who said, "Das ist eine schöne Krawatte, wenn ich das sagen darf." (That's a nice tie, if you don't mind me saying so.")

Rock on, Germany!

July

I'm spending July in America and I'm looking forward to... (in no particular order)

thunderstorms
iced coffee
friends
family
bagels!
seriously, thunderstorms – please, Ohio, at least one really, really dramatic one?
fireflies
Cayuga Lake in Ithaca
the Arb in Oberlin
living in my hometown for a whole month, the longest time I'll have spent there in 10 years


I'm not looking forward to...

the Greyhound bus
people asking why I have an German accent now


I think that about covers it, yes?

Hot / Berlin / Obama – Reprise

We hit 33°C (91.5° F!) today.

I feel strangely proud of this fact, as if I'd somehow had a hand in Berlin's very un-Berlin-like weather accomplishment.

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Oh, yes, and Obama spoke.

I find it hard to believe he's going to be able to make good on very many of the nice sentiments he expressed, but I admit, that man knows how to give a good speech.

Here are some of the thoughts I scribbled down, while simultaneously listening to the speech/working on a translation/fielding calls from an editor about another translation. (Yikes! Turns out I'm still good at multitasking.)

(Also, I don't exactly expect anyone to read all of this, but I have all of these notes here already, so...)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Notes scribbled while watching:

Is that bulletproof glass between the podium and the crowd? Sheesh.

Ah, okay, it's not that it's completely limited to politicians, just that it's invitation only. Kind of cute (but not surprising) that the "invitation only" includes kids from the JFK School. (Not surprising because Germany loves JFK and loves Obama and loves comparing Obama to JFK. Given that Obama later mentioned how soon after his Berlin speech Kennedy was assassinated, let's hope not!)

As they walked in, my first thought was, Angela Merkel totally knows she's walking next to a rock star. Obama looked happy to be there too.

I was actually surprised Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit didn't look particularly moved, because as far as I can tell this – Germany's favorite rock star American president speaking in front of his city's major landmark – has been Wowereit's dream for years. (Ever since Obama spoke here during his election campaign five years ago, when there was some wrangling over where he would speak – if I remember right, Wowereit was pushing to have Obama at the historic and emotionally resonant Brandenburg Gate, but Merkel said no, because he was a candidate, not a president. And because Merkel had always been buddy-buddy with Bush, making Obama sort of her opposition.)

I was listening to an English version of the livestream, so I heard Wowereit's and Merkel's speeches in English simultaneous translation, and as usual I enjoyed catching the little quirks and glitches, like the interpreter's slight stumble before saying "bomber pilot" (I assume because the German term was "Rosinenbomber" and the interpreter wasn't aware of the English equivalent "candy bomber" – I mean, really, who would be? – and had to scramble for something else) or saying slight German-isms like "until today" (instead of "to this day") or "the United States of America are" (instead of "is").

Still, can I just say that simultaneous interpreters are awesome? I sure couldn't do what they do.

Liked watching the JFK School kiddies cheer for Obama.

Wowereit went all-out with the JFK/Obama comparisons, talking about how both of their previous speeches were inspiring, and also inadvertently highlighted just how insane the security is this time in comparison to last time, when he said about Obama's 2008 Berlin speech, "When you addressed an enthusiastic crowd of 200,000 people."

Here's that speech, a massive, jubilant public event that more closely resembled a rock concert or a World Cup outdoor viewing party:

Here's today, completely walled off to the public:

Found it both endearing and strange that Merkel addressed Obama as both "Dear Mr. President" "Dear Barack Obama" (and later even just "Dear Barack").

Name-checking of the usual things, like the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift.

I realized during this just how much the American perspective of Germany and Berlin is still 100% seen through the eyes of West Germany. I mean, it makes sense, because that's the only Germany that the US had relations with in those days. But it's sort interesting/odd that even so many years later, when American politicians talk about Berlin's past, it's always from the perspective of West Berlin, the embattled island. East Berlin is still the other, the strange world on the other side of the wall – the story is never from the East's perspective, even though that's just as valid a half of the city and its history.

Heh. Merkel's comment that "There can be no better partners for each other than America and Europe." Obama's great interest Asia has Europe nervous!

Yes, I loved Obama's line, "Angela and I don't exactly look like previous German and American leaders." True, that. And awesome.

And Merkel was smiling! Really smiling!

Yes, I caught that right: In attendance was not just a candy bomber, but the original candy bomber: Colonel Gail Halvorsen, 92, the first American pilot to have the idea of dropping down sweets for the kids on the ground during the Berlin Airlift.

Reference to Pariser Platz – where Obama spoke, the square in front of the Brandenburg Gate – as once having been a "no man's land" within the Berlin Wall. True, and easy to forget these days. Obama's other comment about the Brandenburg Gate – "I am proud to stand on its Eastern side" – was nice too.

Appreciated Obama's citation of "all men are created equal" (American Declaration of Independence) and "the dignity of man is inviolable" (German constitution) and his other comments about equality and dignity for all, though it also seems hypocritical when you think about how the US tends to treat non-American people. But I'll try not to delve too far into such subjects here...

"Freedom won here in Berlin" is a nice line. More interesting were his comments about complacency and that "people often come together in places like this to remember history – not to make it."

An aside, sorry, but Obama's pronunciation of German is awful. Five years he's been working with Merkel, and he still has no idea how to say her last name? 

Unsurprisingly (since this was the chatter beforehand) he then turned to the topic of nuclear disarmament. His goal of reducing nuclear weapons is nice, but seems kind of like a drop in the bucket, doesn't it? With so many more out there?

More interesting to me was his acknowledgement that you can fight terrorism and all, but you're not changing anything if you "ignore the instability and intolerance that fuels extremism." Also, the interesting statement that, "Threats to freedom don't merely come from the outside.  They can emerge from within – from our own fears."

After some blather along the lines of "The Afghan war is coming to an end" (is it?) and "Our efforts against al Qaeda are evolving" (what does that even mean?) Obama said perhaps his most important statement of all: "We must move beyond a mindset of perpetual war."

I hope he means it.

Another nice line: "Our values call upon us to care about the lives of people we will never meet."

And: "Peace with justice begins with the example we set here at home." After Obama's initial hesitance to really come out in support of gay rights/equality, it was good to hear him listing "sexual orientation" right alongside race, religion and gender as things that should not be reasons for inequality.

That's another key line, actually: "We are stronger when all our people – no matter who they are or what they look like – are granted opportunity."

And: "When we welcome the immigrant with his talents or her dreams, we are renewed." Good for you, Obama! Germany needed to hear that one... (America too.)

Unsurprisingly, references to jobs, then to climate change, other current political issues around the world; a suggestion that he'll at least try to close the Guantanamo prison and to "control use" of drones; then the barest of nods to the PRISM blow-up in the half-sentence "balancing the pursuit of security with the protection of privacy" – whatever that actually means in practice.

And of course he ended with a completely inappropriate "God bless you," because that's what you have to do as a political figure in the US, even though the country supposedly has separation of church and state. Sorry, I'll restrain myself...

Then Merkel and Obama walked off together practically arm in arm, looking truly happy to be friends despite their perhaps rocky start. Wave, wave. Chat, chat with Merkel, both of them smiling. Wowereit tagging along.

Not bad, all together.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And then I went back to translating until 10 pm.

Hot Times in Berlin / Obama Times in Berlin

So, I was feeling like a total wimp for finding it so hot outside today – on the logic that it's Berlin, it can't be hot – but it turns out it's 89°F (32°C) out there and climbing, so now I feel justified!

Could it be summer has finally arrived in Berlin? (It seems like it's been about two years since the last one...)

Skipped spring entirely, of course.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Turns out, although security is veryveryvery tight (and has been for days) around the Brandenburg Gate for Obama's speech this afternoon – starting shortly – there's the possibility of watching it as a livestream. I'm tuned in at www.spiegel.de/international, though I'm sure there are others.

As the background music, they're playing "Heroes" – David Bowie, of course, and a song he wrote while living in Berlin back in the day.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

p.s. Check out that map! Germany is hot, hot, hot:

Diner en blanc

Diner en blanc: Thousands of people come together for a massive outdoor dinner. Everyone brings their own tables, chairs, food, wine, dishes, decorations, sparklers... You sign up to attend beforehand, but the location isn't announced until just a couple hours before the event – and even then, it's not the location, but a meeting point, from which everyone walks to the actual location all together and sets up their tables all at the same time, and then has a massive, good-atmosphere dinner party as the sun goes down. It's fantastic. Thought of by the French, of course!

Also, everyone wears all white, and all of these figures in white emerging out of the general crowd on a busy street on a warm summer evening is a sight to behold.

I only heard of this a couple weeks ago, thanks to a French office-mate who invited me along. Definitely look for this if there's one near you! It looks like it happens in several US cities too.

I can't really describe how beautiful it is in both idea and execution, but here are the pictures:

Diner en blanc!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Also, overheard in the bathroom, when we ducked/snuck into a hotel to use the facilities in the middle of the evening: "Das ist voll awkward!"

That's typical German use of an English adjective ("voll strange!") but I'd never heard the word "awkward" used in German before – it's not exactly an easy word to say. But since German doesn't have a word for "awkward," sometimes you have to borrow!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Also, can I just say that I'd like to know why the predictive text on my cell phone would recognize the word "butlery" but not "cutlery"? Also, why, when given the choice, would it choose to write "slave" rather than "plate"?? You can see this made things difficult when I was writing friends about what they needed to bring to the dinner!

My Spießig Balcony

Okay, I hereby renounce any claim to not being "spießig" (roughly "square" or "bourgeois," but in a specific German way that I recently described here).

Why? Because this week I went out and bought hedge-type plants specifically for the purpose of creating a visual barrier between my balcony and the next one over. Seems fair enough, really, to want my balcony to be an extension of my apartment in the sense that it's a place where I can be alone and not have to make conversation with anyone unless I want to...but as a (German) friend of a friend helpfully commented, "I thought only spießig Germans did that." Well!

The balconies, before:

The hedges arrive home! By bike, of course.

The balconies, after. Yay! Now neighbors on both sides have privacy and nice plants to look at. Win-win.

The First Balcony Strawberry!

Who says you can't have a garden in a city?

Living Abroad

Lots of things in this piece about living abroad (which I first saw posted by a British friend currently working as a journalist in Kuwait!) are true – especially how, after a while, you really do have two separate, complete lives, and wherever you are, you're at least partly missing the other one. As the author writes, "There will always be a part of you that is far away from its home."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Speaking of being abroad... Apparently just the fact of living outside the US qualifies me for special surveillance of my communications by my own government. Thanks, US government. You've outdone yourself yet again.

(Have you all been following the unfolding story about this data surveillance program? Not surprising, really, but still. YIKES. I'm translating an article about this today, so it's on my mind. And now that I've written about it, I guess I'm on the list...)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On a happier note, have some more cool maps:

My friend Anton pointed me to these incredibly cool maps that show in fascinating detail some of the dialect divides within the US – for example, how we pronounce words such as "pecan" and "pajamas," or usage classics like "pop" vs. "soda" vs. "coke."

I love the places where the linguistic boundaries fall with clarity, but also the unexpected anomalies, like how Maine has a different word entirely for a traffic circle/roundabout, or how two random urban bits of the Midwest (but not Chicago) staunchly say "soda" instead of "pop."

Or that "you guys" vs. "y'all" map falls out just as clearly as you would expect between north and south – except for a bit of Kentucky where they apparently try to bridge the gap by saying "you all."

Achtung!

Saw this written in chalk on the asphalt path through a park near me:

"Achtung! Rauchen kann Ihre Zigarette verkürzen!"

It's a play on the warnings that are plastered all over cigarette packs here (always to the point and in large font, for example, "Rauchen kann tödlich sein," which means "Smoking can kill you"). But in this case it means,

"Warning! Smoking can cause your cigarette to shorten!"

I thought that was pretty cute.

Losing (and Finding) in Berlin

Okay, I complained recently about the rudeness of Berliners, so I feel I ought to put in a word on the other side of things, about the niceness of Berliners – specifically, how helpful they are when you lose things on the street.

This is apparently quite a thing in Berlin. A number of people have told me stories of losing belongings somewhere on the street, only to go back and find that some nice passerby had picked up their things and set them out of harm's way on a nearby window ledge or such.

Maybe (?) this is true in many cities, but it seems to happen particularly often in Berlin!

I hadn't had much first-hand experience with the phenomenon until yesterday, when I was walking from an appointment to the office. It was a lot warmer than I'd expected, so I had both my coat and scarf slung over one arm. Somewhere along the way, I dropped the scarf and didn't notice until I was almost to the office.

Darn it! It's not the end of the world, obviously, but I did like that scarf... I turned around started retracing my steps as fast as I could.

And the further back I went, the more I scanned not just the ground but also nearby window ledges, because I knew the more time had passed, the more chance there was that someone might have already come along and set it aside somewhere.

Sure enough, partway back, I found my scarf. Not only was it still there – no one had taken it – and not only had someone picked it up and set it out of the way on a low stone wall, but that person had also folded it up neatly before doing so.

Awesome! Thank you, Berlin.