Reppin’ Where You’re From
New York is dubbed “The City That Never Sleeps”, but this statement is truer of Berlin because there is no “last calls” at bars and clubs here as their only sense of a closing time is whenever the last customer leaves, which can be at 6am. Some places, the party is JUST getting started at 9am at some places here. You can go hard in this city without even trying, and be legitimately confused when you exit a party/bar/club/friend’s house and hear birds chirping when you would’ve bet money that it was only midnight or 1am at most. I write all this to say that it’s 1:40am and I really did not think I’d be coming home tonight from a GALLERY OPENING at this time. While the party is literally just getting started by Berlin standards, after this full week, all I want to do is sleep. Especially since I start my language classes bright and early Monday at 9am for 3 hours, every day.
I want to write more about the past week’s events, but all I can muster at this unexpectedly late hour is a brief story about this past Thursday’s 30th birthday celebrations of one of my friend’s husband. It started at 6pm as a picnic in Tempelhof Park, a place that require its own blog post, but for now, I’ll just start off with the fact that it’s the converted airport that Hitler built, and which just opened up a few weeks ago to the public. The party ended as an apartment party with the last guests leaving at 3am (another example of going hard without even trying!), and overall, was a good ace time.
At one point, while we were still in the park, everyone sang the American version of happy birthday to him in English, presenting him with a delicious chocolate cake. Mind you, he’s Serbian, and the birthday picnic comprised of people from Serbia, Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, and America, but we all sang in English, which goes to show you, again, how much English is the lingua franca throughout the world.
After the initial happy birthday song, another friend and I burst out with the Stevie Wonder version of “Happy Birthday” and everyone clapped. 30 seconds later, some people to the right of us burst out with the Turkish version of Happy Birthday, and everyone clapped. Then the Serbians did their thing, and then the Germans followed suit, and after each instance, we all clapped for the song and for the birthday boy.
In these little moments, through these little dittys that you sing a bit self-consciously, everyone shared a piece of their culture with the group and represented their hood so to speak. It reminded me of the first time I visited Berlin and found myself in a group conversation with 10 people, about one subject, being discussed in 5 languages, and somehow, everyone was on the same page and communicated easily with each other. That moment was one of the first things that drew me into this city, and made me think I was actually experiencing what it meant to be somewhere that was literally a cultural melting pot.
I experienced that feeling all over again at the birthday picnic and think it is one of the reasons why Berlin is such an interesting place to live. People from diverse backgrounds seem to come together here in a way that I’ve never experienced before, and have the space and time to share and learn from each other the stories and histories of where they are from in a way that one can absorb, and which could never happen simply by reading about it or watching it on the news. One example, listening to people around my age from Serbia discuss what it was like to experience for the first time, a bombing of their cities as teenagers, and me remembering watching the discussions of this on TV in an abstract way, and us discussing these disconnected spaces of experiences in between.
So, a fun picnic and 9 hours of birthday celebrations unexpectedly served as yet another confirmation that my initial hunches years ago of what make this city special, unique and a learning space were correct. I’m excited to explore more and delve deeper because it is also a place full of contradictions, but in the end, I am happy that I made the decision to come here again.
Things I’m not Used to Seeing
DeA big part of the fun of traveling for me is seeing the cultural differences in norms, in the differences in the mundane aspects of life. Here are a few brief examples:
Signs informing you when the next train, bus or tram will arrive. I really do believe that if this was installed in ALL the stations of New York, and not just Hipster “L” line, the stress levels of New Yorkers would decrease by at least 40%. People here complain and get annoyed when they see that the train is coming in 7 minutes, and not 1, 2 or 3 minutes, which is usually the case. But at least they KNOW when the train is coming and can chill. Especially when it’s 90 plus degrees plus humidity.
Taxi cars that are either Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagons or BMWs. They are EVERYWHERE and it’s a trip each time I see it! I guess it makes sense that the cars will be cheaper to buy if bought in the country of origin, but still for me, coming from a place where those cars are given a certain social status, it’s a trip to see that this type of social marker just does not apply in the same way here. Because really, not just taxi drivers drive these cars, but whenever you see a car pass, it seems like damn near everyone drives these models as well too.
TaxiBenz
Small portions. Yup, that is a loaf of bread in my hand that you see. And that is what you will find in most grocery stores here. I think part of the reason why this is the case is because people here still for the most part buy fresh bread from bakeries. There is not a huge demand for more mass-produced bread here, and judging from the taste of the fresh breads I’ve had here so far, I don’t think that is changing any time soon. Fresh bread just tastes better!
Miniloaf
Another view of commercialized encouragement of national pride for the 2010 World Cup:
M&Ms: German Flag Color Style
Abandoned boats along the river that turn into public art. I have to double-check if this is the right boat (because yes, it’s not the only boat that looks like this along the Spree River), but one of these boats used to be the site of where a Berlin-based theater company staged their productions:
Public Art
Decompressing after work by the river. I saw so many people like this man who were in wok clothes, bicycling to the river, and sitting by themselves or with friends waiting there. A cool thing to do in the summer time. I wish there were more locations like this by the Hudson River that were easily accessible. Like the Hudson River, the Spree River is NOT a place to swim in.
Chillin by the River
Line drying my freshly washed clothes. The last time I did this was in Ghana. I’ve been to a few Berlin apartments now of people ages 24-50, and everyone has a washing machine in their house, and then dry their clothes like this. Saves energy and I think just practically saves space and money. I’m sure that for really wealthy people here, they have dryers, but from what I’ve seen so far, most Berliners here just work this into their lives easily.
There is more to post, but wanted to show a few images so far in this 1st week here.
Laundry Lists
Dracula
Line to get in, watch films, drink bier, eat crepes and sausage, and be merry.
Someone from History. Painting was on the other side of the tracks, so I could not see his name.
One Side of the moat
Walking to the castle, we saw a rabbit happily trotting by us with a baby rabbit in it’s mouth. Nature here seems more live and in full effect than I have experienced in any other city. The pictures below are blurry, but hopefully you’ll get a sense of the space.
Rabbit in a fox's mouth.
Most importantly and beautifully of all, I got to hang with my friend Justin’s friends and see who his Berlin homies are as he celebrates his 2nd year of moving to this city. In the spirit of the film, we dressed up to the theme of Goth….and apparently were the only ones who thought to do so! Lots of black and dramatic make-up, and lots of fun.
Wilkommen in Berlin!
It’s been almost a year since I last wrote on this thing, and that is primarily due to my first year in grad school. While there is a lot to write about that experience, which I will do later, for the purposes of this blog, it’s only important to know that I ended the year having a clearer sense about the research that I want to do and the support from my department to do so. These two things are the reasons why I’m currently in Berlin for the next month or so, and I am super excited about being here and starting my work!
So, I’m going to use this blog as a way to partly document my experiences, conversations and observations in this city, and to keep a running dialog with friends about it all, so that when I see you, I don’t get out of breath trying to describe everything about this city and what I saw this past month. Because I really will try to do so. This also means that I am stepping my game up with travel picture taking. I often do not take many pictures when I’m in new places because I’m often caught up in the moment, and when I do, they are not the best quality. But I’m gonna try so you can see what I’m writing about on this blog! I am committing to doing one post a week, and hope that I can actually post more.
So, here are some highlights from the past 3 days:
– The last time I came to Berlin, my flight out of JFK was delayed by 3 hours, which caused me to miss a connecting flight in Belgium to Berlin, which caused me to get re-directed to Frankfurt and catch a connecting flight there, which caused some worry on my friends part who came to pick me up in the airport because no one had any way of really contacting me to see where I was, and the airlines were not being helpful in explaining what happened. This time around, travel wise, everything was successful and there was no potential international event due to my flight being re-directed and no one knowing where in the hell I was!
The only frown in this story was when I had to connect in Dusseldorf and had to go through customs. I made the honest mistake of getting in the wrong line, the one for EU citizens only, because it was SO crowded in that room and the sign was not hung high, but low, and therefore blocked by the throngs of people rushing to try and get through customs, security (again) and make their connecting flights in 30 minutes. So, when I get to the front of the line, I had an asshole of a police officer who spoke English fine, but refused to speak it with me, even though I answered his question in GERMAN that I spoke a little German and the purpose of my trip was to take a German language course this summer. He then asked me if I had money, and then said a whole series of things I clearly did not understand, refused to stamp my passport, rudely waived me off and would not let me go through with no explanation. If it was not for the kindness of German strangers behind me to tell me that I needed to get in the US line, I would have been seriously pissed off. And what upset me for a full minute was that I saw other AMericans make the same mistake in other EU lines, but the police guards there just explained the mistake, stamped their passports and let them through anyway!
– But I arrived in Berlin fine and did not have to wait long for my baggage! I It was strange because I didn’t feel the excitement of last time, and I think it’s because the bus and train ride to Julie’s, my friend’s apartment that I am staying at, was very familiar. A bit of the novelty had worn off! At least with that train ride. Everything else about being here makes me feel like I’m a doe-eyed 18 year old again. And I just want to talk to everyone and their mama! And it feels different knowing I have some time here, so I’m not instantly rushing around.
Picked up my SIM card the following day from my friend Max’s office, and now I have a local number! Very excited for that, and also very excited for how much more cost effective it is than if I had bought the $64.99 unlimited data package from Verizon, that would give me unlimited use of accessing my email and the web from my phone, but would still charge me roaming charges of 99 cents/minute for every call and text I made for the month that I was here. Whoop-de-do. Instead, for 10 euros, with my Blau.de SIM card, I can make calls anywhere in Europe, the UK and the US for 9 cents a minute!
It is so hot here! 90 degrees plus humidity. I feel like I am experiencing a little bit of what New York has been going through. So, on Wednesday, I spent the rest of the day in Tiergaarten with Sasa, and then Justin. Tiergaarten means “Animal Garden” and there really are some animals up in this park. Like, foxes and eagles and such. It’s one of the big parks in Berlin, and where Obama spoke when he campaigned here, and where huge video screens were set up to watch the World Cup games when Germany played. It was so hot, all we really could do was just lay in the park for 4 hours, and we even at one point, all passed out asleep in the grass! And it was lots of fun. We were also in the part of the park where all the men just get naked. I have never before been surrounded by so many strange butts, balls and penises in all my life. Supposedly, after the war, people felt so repressed by fascism, that they rebelled against anything that controlled the body and it’s movements and just literally let it all hang out. Even though that has calmed down a bit, people here are still very free and easy going about nudity in public places here. My American prudishness comes out in those moments because I am not.
Ate some delicious gelato afterward in Mitte, which was a historically Jewish neighborhood before the war and is now a very upscale neighborhood to live in, complete with boutiques, art galleries, museums, etc. I’d compare it in feel to SoHo in New York. Came home, showered, then left again for dinner with a woman in my department and her boyfriend and his friend, Julia, and had a really interesting convo with Julia, from her German perspective, about how you would describe what it means to be German and what is the German national identity. Namely, found out that there is a serious group of people here known as Anti-Deutchers who basically hate the idea of being German so much, and despise German history and culture so much, that they basically want the nation to dissolve! And, they are very pro-America and pro-Israel. Then, you have the Green parties, or Autonomous parties, who are also anti-German, but also anti-business. And, this world cup was the first time in this woman’s 26 year old life that she saw lots of people 1) wave the German flag and 2) do it with pride. Other times, most people do NOT wave their flags and get mad when they see other people do it. And, they do not sing their national anthem. So, there is a lot of self-loathing going on around here that I did not really believe or understand until I heard a German woman speak about it and say, “i don’t understand the point of nationalism.” Deep!
I definitely want to talk to more Germans about this because I think this is just one perspective. I already know one of my German friends who has the perspective that the war and the wall affected his parents’ generation more and has nothing to do with this generation, and they should not be made to feel so guilty still for the actions of their grandparents generation. I then asked Julia given this context, how does one here begin to add another layer of discussion here about what it means to be German AND from an ethnic or racial minority? And honestly, she admitted that it’s difficult to do. She did offer me a story though about the world cup, and that during the world cup, a lot of Turkish people put up German flags to show their support of Germany, and at least three times, a lot of white Germans, who were part of the green party, or autonomous party, tore some huge flags in the Turkish neighborhoods down. And the Turkish people, in Neukolln and Kreuzberg, were like, “you Germans always complain about how we don’t make an effort to be a part of German culture, and when we show some German pride, you tear it down.”
There is more to write, but this post is getting long. So, I’m going to conclude with this picture, which is one of my fun things to see here:
Ampelmännchen (Little Traffic Light Man)
From Wikipdeida: The Ampelmannchen is the symbolic person shown on traffic lights at pedestrian crossings in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR – East Germany). Prior to the German reunification in 1990, the two German states had different forms for the Ampelmännchen, with a generic human figure in West Germany, and a generally male figure wearing a hat in the east. The Ampelmännchen is a beloved symbol in Eastern Germany,[1] “enjoy[ing] the privileged status of being one of the few features of communist East Germany to have survived the end of the Iron Curtain with his popularity unscathed.”[2] After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Ampelmännchen acquired cult status and became a popular souvenir item in the tourism business.[1]
So, when you see this traffic light, you know you are a neighborhood that was part of the GDR. You can now also get this symbol on shirts, magnets, buttons, etc. It’s reached the status almost to the level of the “I Love New York” shirts, buttons, etc. I like it because it’s more fun to look at while waiting for a light than a regular green or red light. In another post, I will show you the West Germany sign.
The Roaring Twenties 
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