Year's End, Berlin's End, Begin Again

Yes, all right, I'm feeling more than a little nostalgic lately.

The thing about timing things such that the year is ending just at the same time that you're uprooting your entire life is that it makes everything feel really rather cataclysmic!

I was in the supermarket today (some of the employees were wearing party hats – aw!) and even the sight of the rows of jam-filled doughnuts in the bakery (it's a new year's tradition in this part of Germany, with one unlucky person biting into the one in each batch that's filled with mustard, a practice that reminds me of the lucky toy or coin hidden in a king cake on Twelfth Night or Mardi Gras...except, you know, less pleasant, 'cause it's mustard) made me sigh with fondness for dear, strange, often exasperating, yet entirely familiar Germany.

In an odd way, I hope that leaving will make me love Berlin even more, and that coming back to visit will allow me to just 100% enjoy this place, rather than trying to enjoy the cool stuff about it while also being bogged down in the frustrations of daily life. Who can say (since I never can seem to plan my life more than a couple months ahead), but my idea is definitely that Berlin will continue to be part of my life, a place that I can always visit back to and that will always feel at least in some way like home.

And Iceland. I want Iceland to continue being part of my life, too. (In my head, I've been working on a goofy metaphor wherein the US is my family and always will be, Germany is my friend and housemate of so many years that we know all each other's quirks, but Iceland is my (not-so) secret crush, the one that gives me butterflies in my stomach even just to say its name.)

Oh, by the way, here's how empty the apartment looked in the end – yesterday, when I handed over the keys. Looking very pretty and tidy and clean, if I do say so myself! (Germany, possibly the only country where you have to invest more time and money and energy in an apartment when you move out than when you move in.)

Feeling nostalgic, I also took a bunch of pictures of the rest of the building, and some silly self-portraits in the cool mirrors in the entryway – it's one of these gorgeous turn-of-the-last-century, art-deco-y classic Berlin apartment buildings.

Happy new year, everyone! What a year it's been. May the next one be just as exciting, but with way fewer of the terrible things going on in the wider world. Once again, I'm going to close out the year by quoting Josh Ritter, because I really think he's got the right life attitude in so very much of what he does:

I'm inside with my friends
We build fires and pretend
That the night could just bend on forever
While outside in the frost
Are the wolves and the lost
And we sing to the dogs or whoever
Singing don't let me into this year with an empty heart
With an empty heart
Don't let me into this year with an empty heart

Music: A Year in Review

Last year, I got inspired to write a "top 5" list of the books I'd read; this year, even though I wrote and read a lot (I read 38 books this year! I'm pleased about that!), I think I'm going to reflect on music instead.

Here, in no particular order, is a completely inconclusive and off-the-cuff list of just a few of the musicians I loved discovering this year:

• Svavar Knútur! His music certainly wasn't new to me, but this was the year I also got to know him as a friend, while hanging out in Iceland. He's an awesome dude, with a sometimes truly wicked sense of humor and an incongruously sweet voice. I can never pick just one song of his, but here are two that have been in my head lately: Wanderlust (gets in my head whenever I think about leaving; also, before his Berlin concert this fall, I asked him if he was going to play it, and when he did, he dedicated it to me!) and Clementine (sweet and sad and yet somehow the tiniest bit hopeful, too).

• Halla Norðfjörð: Another Iceland discovery; she's a friend of Elín Ey (a musician I deeply admire and was deeply thrilled to get to know a bit while I was in Iceland). I met Halla in Elín's kitchen, and only later discovered how wonderful her music is and how captivating her voice. Check out her title track, The Bridge.

• Lucie Thorne: She played at one of my friend Sam's Sofa Salon concerts, and I fell in love. Try Till the Season.

• Laura Marling: I certainly can't claim to have first discovered this year, but her cover of Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark, oh my god.

• Markéta Irglová most certainly was not new to me this year, either, but she was a big theme to my year (we almost got to meet...so many times!) and this song is one I sang to myself as I walked around Reykjavík in the sunlight, thinking about the future: Only Love Is Real.

• Honorable mentions: I periodically rediscover Rufus Wainwright, and love him even more each time. Also, is this video of his not the sexiest thing ever? Ásgeir Trausti is yet another fantastic Icelandic find! I enjoy him so much, I bought his album in both English and Icelandic. A friend pointed me to this song by Vienna Teng – isn't it lovely? And of course I never get tired of Glen Hansard, and I love how he leads me to other musicians I might otherwise never have gotten around to – like when he covered Drive All Night. And then there's my friend/acquaintance/admiree Elín's new band with her two sisters, they of the family heritage in beautiful voices and gorgeous harmonies. Individually, all three of them do quiet, acoustic stuff, but together they're a super-hip techno outfit called Sísý Ey (named after their grandmother!), who wear wild outfits and dance around to the beat and just totally own the stage. Their big single is Ain't Got Nobody.

• And it's not music, but John Finnemore's stunningly talented writing continued to make his radio comedy Cabin Pressure one of the best things on the airwaves anywhere. The long, long awaited final episode just aired last week.

Moving Progress

YES. YES YES YES YES.

Empty apartment achieved! Here it is on the last night before the painter started work, with nothing left but two boxes I then shipped to the US the next morning, plus a mattress that's now being stored with my neighbor.

YES.

Moving Woes

Oh, man. Still a lot to do.

This is after I've already sold most of the furniture (why my clothes now live on the sofa and armchair, instead of in the wardrobe, and why my bed is a spare mattress on the floor), but shows the stuff I still have to sort into the boxes labeled TAKE – SHIP – STORE.

I guess it doesn't actually look like that much. Feels like much, though, since pretty much everything piled there is Important Documents that need to be pored over individually!

(In a weird way, though, I kind of recommend moving continents and having to jettison almost everything you own. Very freeing! Makes me want to pare it down even further, get that good feeling of putting on a backpack that contains everything you need, and just keep moving...)

Europe, How I Haven't Known Thee

Speaking of East and West...

Now that I'm moving away from Europe after 8+ years (um...I have mentioned that, right?) I thought it would be fun to make myself a map, a visual representation of where in Europe I have and haven't been. I've certainly traveled a lot in my time here, but I know there are also a lot of places I haven't been (and still want to go!)

But it wasn't until I sat down and colored in this map that I realized, wow. Look at that stark divide. I knew there was a lot of Eastern Europe I hadn't been to, but sheesh, the difference is more pronounced than I realized. In Eastern Europe, I've been to Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia, which sounds like a lot, until you see this map:

Look at that dividing line, cutting straight through Eastern Europe! Okay, big trip to not-yet-visited countries coming up in my future sometime, hopefully.

For anyone who cares (which is presumably...just me?), here's where I have and haven't been in Europe:

HAVE BEEN: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark (including/plus the Faroe Islands), Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom (including all parts: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales). That's 29. (Counting only sovereign states, not counting as separate the autonomous countries within other countries, like the Faroe Islands.)

HAVEN'T BEEN: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, (Kazakhstan), Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Ukraine, Vatican City. That's 21, though that includes numerous micro-states that most people never visit, as well as some countries that are mostly Asia, not Europe. Taking out those, I guess it would be only 15 or 16. (Depending on whether you count Russia!)

25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Wall

Yesterday, November 9, marked 25 years since an East German party official fumbled a press conference where he was meant to announce that a (somewhat) eased travel regulation for East German citizens would soon be implemented, allowing people to cross the border if they first obtained the proper permission; instead he accidentally declared that, as far as he knew, the border was open, to everyone, effective immediately.

This led to masses of East Germans gathering at Berlin Wall checkpoints, after they heard the news on (technically forbidden, but everybody watched it) West German TV. Which led to the East German border guards, not yet even informed of the new travel regulation, having no idea how to react as more and more thousands of people arrived, demanding to be let through. Which led to one East German officer making the decision to defy orders and lift the checkpoint barrier.

Which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and history as we know it.

That first fateful border crossing occurred at the bridge on Bornholmer Strasse, just a couple miles from where I live in Berlin, and I spent both this 25th anniversary and the 20th anniversary five years ago there. Five years ago, the celebration involved a massive line of larger-than-a-person dominoes that were then ceremoniously toppled; this year, the city erected a wall of illuminated helium balloons, which were then released into the air on the night of November 9.

They didn't illuminate the entire 155-kilometer (96-mile) length of the former Berlin Wall, but they did do a decent stretch of the part of it that ran through the city, from Bornholmer Strasse in the north, through the Brandenburg Gate and over to the Oberbaumbrücke in the east. Here's a map:

Unfortunately, I didn't think to bring my camera along two evenings ago, when I was just strolling along up close with the lights near Bornholmer Strasse, so I don't have pictures of that. But seriously, anyone who's interested only needs to search online for "Lichtgrenze" ("light border," the name of the installation) and there are about a gazillion beautiful pictures out there. What I've got are a couple shots from last night, when the balloons were released.

A small section of the lights through the middle of the Mauerpark, a park created along a section of the former wall:

Balloons being released into the sky above the Mauerpark:

People watching from atop a wall...though not the Wall:

All in all, I found it moving to be here for the anniversary and its celebrations. I'm glad I stayed in Berlin this long, to have the privilege to be here for this!

Budapest!

Well, I only had a little under three days in Budapest (and in usual fashion, I spent at least some of that time berating myself for not getting out more and doing more) but looking back, I see that in that time I managed to:

meet up with friends for dinner (the Hungarian travel friends I met in the mountains in the north of Georgia!), attend a really big, fun board games night at a cool bar, see the big synagogue, see the castle (and the view of the city from up on the hill), walk along the Danube, ride Tram #2 along the Danube, cross the bridge to Margitsziget (Margaret Island) and wander there in the autumnal falling leaves and sit by the fountain that's bizarrely synchronized to rock music, see Andrássy Boulevard and Heroes Square (weird, too pompous, also what is that guy doing with that snake he's holding aloft?) and Városliget Park, see Parliament (huge!!), wander through the Central Market (so much paprika and garlic!), relax in the hot pool and cold pool and sauna and steam room at the Rudas Baths, hang out at the wonderful Cat Café (twice!), take a peek at couple of the famous "ruin pubs," eat pogacsa, eat langos, drink different kinds of palinka (fruit schnapps), learn that the Hungarian word for peach is "barack" and chuckle together with Hungarians about US president Peach Obama, eat palacsinta (which, in turns out, are basically synonymous with crepes, blintzes AND bliny – mind blown!), eat "something with poppy seeds" (another must-have recommended by a Hungarian friend), and discover a new favorite chocolate bar in Túro Rudi – chocolate around a filling of cheese curd (oh, Hungary, you and your "cheese curd" – sounds so gross, but is so delicious!).

Here are pictures:

Budapest

Pictures: More of Tbilisi

Some last sights and thoughts from Tbilisi – meals and friends, day trips and markets full of delicious fruit, and a visit to the school where Lisa teaches:

GEORGIA: More of Tbilisi

Pictures: Kazbegi (a.k.a. Stepantsminda)

Stunning days in Kazbegi (also known as Stepantsminda), high in the Greater Caucasus Mountains, just a few kilometers from the Russian border. Stunning. Did I mention stunning?

GEORGIA: Kazbegi

Location Migration

Left Tbilisi with a strange and almost tearful feeling in my stomach – I got very used to hanging around with Lisa, living in her life! It occurs to me only now that I don't think the two of us had ever spent so long in the same place before; even in all these years I've been in Germany, we've always lived in different cities, and for most of that time on opposite sides of the country. As always, her presence was good for me – we're such opposites, in some ways, but all the right ways. Note to future self: Make the effort to acquire a housemate, wherever I next live; it helps to keep me more balanced.

From Tbilisi, a five-hour bus ride through a dark, rainy night to Kutaisi, where the budget airline flies. Well, when I say five-hour ride, I mean four hours driving plus one hour to stop so the driver could hang out with folks he knows at a small restaurant somewhere along the road. Georgia!

On the ride to Kutaisi, linked back up with Tibor and Gabriella, two Hungarian travelers I'd met in the mountains in Kazbegi, in the far north of Georgia; we met and hiked together in Kazbegi, and quickly realized we were going to be on the same flight to Budapest a few days later! (I also ran into André and Lee, the other travelers I befriended in Kazbegi, again on the street in Tbilisi on my next-to-last day. I swear, Georgia's not actually that small!)

It was nice having friends to arrive at the airport with, stand in line to check in with, board the plane with. I'm so used to traveling alone, it actually feels strange and surprising to sit on an airplane next to someone I know.

Now I'm in Budapest, because it made for a convenient way station on the way back to Berlin, and in all these years in Europe, I'd never been. Yesterday: wandering parks and streets, enjoying the wonderful Cat Café (cats! everywhere!), then dinner and conversation with Tibor and Gabriella. About to go out again and keep checking out as much of the city as I can in my limited time.

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Cultural differences: I'm writing this while eating breakfast in the hostel kitchen. The kitchen's been mostly empty so far, but just now a guy wandered in, leaned in close to peer at my laptop screen and asked with friendly curiosity, "What are you doing?" And then seemed surprised that I was a bit taken aback by him peering at a stranger's computer without asking.

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Pictures from Kazbegi/Stepantsminda and my last days in Tbilisi coming soon!