Reunification

All my private English students at the moment - the adult ones at least, since the kid students obviously weren't born yet when Germany was still divided - happen to be in their mid to late 40's and come from (the former) East Germany.

I had a lesson with one of them the day after the Day of German Unity, and we happen to be practicing conditional sentences, so I asked her to say some sentences like, "If the Wall hadn't come down, then..."

It was fascinating, as this stuff always is. First of all, she told me November 9 (when the Wall opened for the first time) was a more significant date to her than October 3 (when the two countries politically united, almost a year later). October 3 has a more negative connotation, she said, because it marks an event that wasn't actually a "Vereinigung" (merger, unification) so much as an "Anschluss" (annexation).

That sounds a bit controversial to say (especially since "Anschluss" is also the word used specifically for Hitler's 1938 annexation of Austria...) but it's also rather true. When two countries unite, they generally create a lot of newness - new flag, new anthem, maybe a new currency. East Germany, though, was simply absorbed into West Germany, which kept its official name (Federal Republic of Germany), currency, head of state, constitution... everything.

So people wanted reunification and they wanted the freedoms East Germany hadn't given them, but they didn't want it in that way - they wanted to actually have a say in the formation of their new country. My student told me there was a slogan, "Kein Anschluss unter dieser Nummer" (No "Anschluss" under this number) - "number" here in the sense of a numbered paragraph of a law, but also a rather clever pun because "Anschluss" has a number of meanings, including a telephone connection, so the sentence as a whole is familiar telephone operator talk - like we might say "The number you have dialed does not exist."

I know, it never works very well to try to translate puns, but I found that interesting and wanted to share.

Also, when I asked her to say some conditional sentences in the present tense - things like, "If the Wall were still standing, then..." she looked at me and said, You know what, I've actually never asked myself that question - I've never tried to imagine what things would be like if the East German government still existed today.

Her first reaction was, We'd probably be like North Korea.

Fall Notes from Berlin

Now, at least, it's getting to be the good kind of fall: Bags of apples students of mine picked at a friend's holiday house; the first pumpkin soup of the season. The trees changing color at least a bit (doesn't hold a candle to the northeastern US, but I believe we've covered that point already) and some days there's that nip in the air, an invigorating sign of the changing seasons. Plus there's still the occasional reprieve of a beautiful sunny day like this one, when the city's inhabitants turn out in full force to populate the sidewalk cafés and parks.

Today, between meeting up with friends for, yes, a stint at a café and a jaunt through a park (plus a climb up a church tower, just to mix things up a bit) and then a very British tea party, I managed to:

-stumble across another friend when I stopped by the same café to collect my bike
-pass acquaintances by the Mauerpark flea market and
-run into a couple I know and get to hold their little baby, who I hadn't seen in almost half a year.

It felt awfully nice to be out and about in this big city and run into so many people I know - though clearly I upped my chances quite a bit by frequenting popular Sunday destinations in Prenzlauer Berg on a sunny weekend day.

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Also, can we talk for a moment about swan upping? It's possibly my new favorite Weird Thing About The British (though really, how can you choose?)

I only learned about swan upping yesterday (though it might be my new favorite phrase to say) but had the great fortune to hang out with a number of Brits today and have them confirm that this is a true, real thing - basically, as a holdover tradition from many, many centuries ago, the Queen's Swan Uppers (accompanied by - don't forget them - the Vintners' and the Dyers' Swan Uppers) row about the River Thames in fancy uniforms on fancy boats, collecting and counting all the swans, before releasing them again. Taking themselves, of course, very seriously.

Sometimes I want to move to the UK just for stuff like this. It must be awfully bizarre and fun.

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Back in the land of the Germans, today is Tag der Deutschen Einheit, the day of German Unity - 20 years precisely since the reunification of East and West. It's a bit hard to get worked up about it, since we've already been celebrating 20 year anniversaries for nearly a year - last November 9 was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall (it took almost a year from that date in 1989 until the two countries officially and politically reunited in October 3, 1990) and the public reflection and comparative magazine articles have basically continued more or less unabated since then.

But still, it's something significant - despite all the difficulties and bouts of frustration and the economy in the east still significantly lagging and surveys that show people would rather have the wall back (seriously??), now a whole generation of Germans has grown up this way, and the divisions are definitely decreasing.

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Unrelatedly, except for being about Germans, I was out for a bike ride with an American friend yesterday and saw a woman mowing her lawn with an electric mower, the long cable stretching back toward the house, and I exclaimed reflexively, "I love electric lawnmowers! I love Germans!" then paused and added, "Sometimes." And the American friend chuckled and agreed, "Sometimes."

I suppose what I mean is that I love that Germans are willing to do things like tangle with the long cord of an electric lawn mower - that easy relationship with environmentalism was one of the top things that drew my to this country, not kidding - but I'm also well aware that the same person with the electric lawnmower probably also owns at least one car and takes airplanes on most vacations, yet considers themselves smugly environmental just because of the lawnmower and a couple of energy-efficient appliances in the kitchen.

Ah well.

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Another thing to love about Germany, though, and this time I'm serious: health insurance. I'm finally in the German insurance system and it's blowing my mind.

Yes, it took months of frustrating bureaucracy that I never want to have to think about again, but now I pay a reasonable fee per month and whenever I'm sick or even just want to finally do something real about my chronic back problems, I go to a doctor. And for a 10 euro copay each three months, everything else is covered. The system isn't perfect - very far from it - but it covers dental, regular check-ups, everything a health insurance should reasonably include.

I really hope the US finally manages to have this, one of these centuries. I really, really hope that.

Only in Germany Do the Dogs Hang out in Hospitals

I went by a hospital the other day and saw a man just walking out – with his dog, on a leash. Thought, man oh man, only in Germany! People here really do take their dogs EVERYWHERE: restaurants, stores, apparently hospitals. In fact, stores that don't want you to bring your dog in with you put a sign on the door to that effect.

Oh How I Love Romansh

I like languages, have you noticed?

I like all languages - I like the weird ones where you understand nothing and the familiar ones where you can find all the parallels. I have a weak spot for the strange, small, out of the way ones.

So I really like Romansh.

Romansch (a Romance language, as the name suggests, just like French or Spanish) is the tiniest minority language spoken in Switzerland, a country of minorities and anomolies. There are only about 60,000 speakers, but they divide themselves up between five different dialects!

Switzerland is so wonderfully silly.

A friend just forwarded me this nice little New York Times article about Romansh speakers.

Oh, I do love Romansh.

Le Week-end

I love the Saturday farmers' market down the block so much. It's really got to be the smallest market in a city that loves outdoor markets - it basically takes up half a block - but manages to cover the essentials: a couple of farm stands, a guy selling mostly fruit. A bakery truck. Various other specialties like fish, meet, noodles, cheeses. A florist and a very small honey stand. Various things that come and go, like the guy who was there for a while selling wines and offering taste samples (wine tasting on Saturday mornings... interesting) or a new one this week selling pottery.

It's now definitively fall and that means pumpkin season - one of the farm stands had a bunch of different kinds set out on a bed of straw in a wire box. A little boy ran up, beside himself with excitement, telling his older brother, "Look, it's a leopard pumpkin! That one, it's a leopard pumpkin!"

Sunday was the Berlin Marathon. I'd expected the steadily falling rain to dampen spectator spirit, but if anything, it just added more color, thanks to all the umbrellas lining the way.

I'd only seen the marathon once before - somehow I always seem to travel this time of year - and had forgotten that it has such an AMAZING spirit. There were bands playing and people cheering all along the route. And I did manage to catch a glimpse and a quick high five with the two people I knew who were running - an English student of mine and his daughter - before they disappeared again into the masses.

Further along the route, I stopped under a train bridge by the river, where a percussion group was playing and the spectators under the bridge were leading the runners in a wave as they passed by. Looking back I realized I was on a slight rise, probably one of the few places in very flat Berlin where you could actually get a good view over a long stretch of the course and... oh my goodness but there were SO MANY runners. An indescribable, endless mass of people.

Most of them taking it seriously, but some were dressed in, you know, giant unwieldy animal costumes and whatever else. Some ran with their countries' flags painted on their faces. Lots wore thin plastic ponchos against the rain. So many feet hitting wet pavement made a soothing white noise that seemed somehow like a sound out of nature, like waves on a shore. It was a wonderful thing to see, that many people coming together for something that was purely peaceful and fun.

On my way back home I stopped to listen to a band that was belting out "Keep on Running" and stayed just enough to confirm my suspicion that the repertoire was entirely running themed - the next song was "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'."

Getting back home after an hour or so in the cold rain, my fingers were so stiff, I had to run them under warm water before I could get back to work at the computer. No idea how the marathon runners managed!

This afternoon, I passed a playground where a preschool class was clearly out on break, and saw four little girls, all - yes all - in bright pink winter jackets, shrieking with delight on a bouncy swing contraption (picture two perpendicular seesaws, but up high in the air, with a swing hanging from each of the four ends).

Germany Really Does Want Me to Stay

Autumn came with a swift vengeance this year. One moment it was August and the next moment it was, well, actually still August, but very cold. I refuse to start heating my apartment in September. I will wear many layers and a scarf indoors if I have to, but I'm going to stick it out till October or bust!

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Here are some things that have happened, in no particular order:

A power outage at a major intersection near my house (this happens so often in Berlin and I have no idea why), and again I was amazed by how well and calmly drivers coped, simply slowing down and taking turns, until police arrived to direct traffic.

A little girl bouncing up and down by the grocery store ice cream case and begging her mother, "Can I have a grown up ice cream this time pleeeease? I promise I'll be able to finish it all!"

A boy who looked about 10 or 11 biking alone in downtown Berlin, which made me nervous for him, until I thought about the fact that he was wearing a helmet and obeying traffic laws and generally exhibiting far more care than probably almost any adult in the city.

One last reprieve of a perfect, sunny weekend, where I biked up to Weissensee (how lucky am I to have a beautiful lake just up the street?) and drank a beer on the shore just because I could, watching an enormous number of rowboats jostle around the fountain in the middle of the lake and hearing strains of music from the beach bar across the way.

A sign outside a bakery reading "Sonntag ist Kuchentag!" ("Sunday is cake day!") and as I biked past, I contemplated how very true that is - Germany is nothing if not obsessed with the tradition of cake and coffee on Sunday afternoons.

A day when I biked 60 kilometers (almost all of it in the rain) within the city, just going back and forth to appointments and things.

Passing by a movie shoot near Unter den Linden, a whole bunch of people carefully polishing a car.

The Jewish Culture Days, when some of the city's synagogues open their doors for concerts and events and even services. It's a good opportunity to see a synagogue, since entrance is generally only for members of the congregation or (in at least some cases) if you register ahead as a visitor.

Every synagogue (Jewish cultural center, museum, etc.) in Germany is guarded by 24-hour police presence. And metal detectors. And you can't park out front - not even a bicycle. I've never figured out whether this is because the actual threat of neo-Nazi violence is so high, because German paranoia about it is so high, or some combination of both.

Anyway, I went to a Shabbat service at the synagogue on Rykestrasse, Germany's largest and renovated just a couple years ago. I'm glad I went, because I've meant to see the synagogue for ages, but the quite conservative service was enough quite conservative Judaism to last me, oh, several decades. Whenever I next go to a service, I suspect it will be at the lovely little egalitarian congregation in the famous New Synagogue, which reminded me comfortably of home and progressive Judaism.

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My German residency permit is now valid for another two years! This is no surprise, really, but I still felt rather celebratory as I left the drab foreigners' authority building, passport in hand.

The big difference is that now, rather than being strictly limited to work that requires an English native speaker (teaching, translating), I finally have a normal work visa that lets me do anything. In point of fact, my immediate plans involve translating and teaching, but it's nice to have options.

Leipzig

I also went to Leipzig! It's only a bit more than an hour from Berlin by high-speed train, but somehow it took over three years of sort of vaguely meaning to before I finally got there.

Historically speaking, Leipzig is known for being a center for classical music and the arts - think Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Schiller, Goethe. Etc. More recently historically speaking, the city is known for its "Monday demonstrations," peaceful protests instrumental in the fall of the Wall and the eventual collapse of the East German government.

I was there to see an acquaintance who's a professional opera singer in the Leipzig Opera's awesome production of The Barber of Seville... with all the characters as insects. Did I mention it was awesome? And that as friends of the performer, we got second-row seats? It was awesome. As was hanging out with the performers afterward at the Irish pub and realizing that out of the ridiculous costumes and great voices they're just, you know, people. Who happen to sing opera for a living.

I didn't take pictures during the opera, obviously, since that would be rude, but look here for BEAUTIFUL INSECTS. My friend is the snail sitting under the leaf in the fourth picture.

And here are some Leipzig pictures of my own, featuring a big train station and an even bigger gloweringly Teutonic war monument, a pretty downtown and some very well executed history museums:

Leipzig (September 2010)

Genève

I went to Geneva, Switzerland! In August, which feels like a long time ago now. (I went to visit a German friend while she was staying with her boyfriend, who lives there and works for the UN.)

Here's a Geneva album:

Genève (August 2010)

About Parties and Words

Not quite sure why this is what's at the top of my head at the moment, but here are two linguistic notes related to partying and drinking...


1. If you went to college in the US anytime recently, you're probably familiar with the saying, "Beer before liquor, never been sicker; liquor before beer, you're in the clear." (At least, that's the version I learned.) In other words, it's a little rhyming trick to help overzealous (college freshman?) drinkers remember that drinking first beer and then hard alcohol is - supposedly - a bad idea.

In Germany, the equivalent saying is, "Bier auf Wein, das lass sein; Wein auf Bier, das rat ich dir." - "Beer after wine, leave it be; wine after beer, that's a good idea." (Very roughly translated.) In other words, Germans couldn't care less how you mix your softer and harder alcohols, but they're definitely concerned about the order of your beer and wine. Which makes some sense, since Germany has a strong beer culture (obviously) but also a pretty firm affinity to wine. What they do now that cocktails have entered the cultural mix, I'm not sure...

2. The German word "Party" is not, as you might be forgiven for expecting, a direct translation of the English word "party." A German child doesn't have a birthday "Party" - the festive event is referred to as a "Kindergeburtstag" ("child's birthday") and it's understood that you mean the celebration itself, not just the fact that a child has a birthday on that day.

Similarly, older adults who celebrate their birthdays by inviting friends over for coffee and cake, or an evening of food and wine, are not holding a "Party," but perhaps a "Feier" (another word for party, which seems to be more all-encompassing). "Party" in German is reserved for, you know, a party - drinking, dancing, loud music, lots of people.

Anything else is not actually a party, and you're going to get weird looks if you ask an eight-year-old (or an eighty-year-old) whether they're having a party this year.

100,000 Poems

Oddly, though it was such an incredibly photogenic event, I can't find any good videos online of the "Poetry Rain."

This photo gallery is the best I've found so far - some of the pictures are of the stiltwalkers who performed beforehand and some are of the poems falling; don't get confused by the fact that the supposedly 10-photo gallery seems to dead end into a advertisement halfway through - if you click onward, you get pictures again:

A photo gallery at the Berliner Morgenpost.