Small people, small places, small things

For some reason, the bus ride home from school today was different.  It definitely wasn’t because I was more aware and perceptive, because for a while I completely zoned out and thought I had missed my stop.  On the first day I was in Berlin I took the bus to Rathaus Steglitz, a stop that has a mall right by it and a bunch of other stores (it’s also the stop closest to my school).  I was going there to get a phone and attempt to achieve functioning Internet.  On the bus ride there, I was admittedly a little disappointed with the scenery.  There was nothing devastating or hideous, everything just seemed kind of ordinary, and I guess I was looking for something to pop out dramatically and amaze me.  I don’t really know what I was thinking then, maybe my perception was somewhat influenced by the jetlag/shock/homesickness I was experiencing.  Today on my way home, I realized that almost every single thing I was looking at was beautiful.  The old buildings with detailed architecture, the occasional distinctly bright colored home, and even the rusty fences with designs I know someone put a lot of thought into.   It was completely wonderful, which is why I thought I had already missed my stop.  I had never really noticed (in the week I’ve been here) how much character even the residential parts of Berlin contain. 

In addition to my magnificent bus ride, today after Deutsch class I went with a friend to the East Side Gallery for the first time.  I am not one for cliché inspirational quotes, but the fact that some of these quotes were painted so beautifully on such a significant, serious part of history made them much more powerful.  It was not a greeting card or a Facebook post that was delivering these quotes to the world, but a piece of history that once represented oppression and obligatory isolation.  I get chills even writing about it.  Even though I’m not familiar with any of them, I felt like every artist who contributed to painting the wall really felt strongly about their art and what they wanted to represent.  The juxtaposition of all the different expressive styles made it all the more powerful.  I’m not implying that art that hangs in museums is less expressive or significant, because I definitely get thrills from paintings on canvas as well, but there’s something about the synthesis of ugly historical structures and fine art that really moves me.

Although I don’t love being an obvious tourist, I also couldn’t help but poke my head around excitedly on the U-bahn ride to the East Side Gallery and back.  Every neighborhood that we passed had beautifully radiant buildings, graffiti, and life.  I was tempted to hop off at every stop and explore.  But alas, I have four months.  There is time. 

"Many small people, who in many small places, do many small things, can alter the face of the world"

"Bruderkiss" by Dmitrji Vrubel

Leonid Breshnev kissing Eric Honecker

"He who wants the world to remain as it is doesn't want it to remain at all" -Afrikanische Weischeit

New perspectives

When you search for the Brandenburg gate on the internet, the pictures that appear present the gate either beautifully illuminated while contrasted with a black night sky or with a magnificent backdrop of ocean blue.  The photographers that captured these photos neglect to share the gate in a more subdued atmosphere, without the distracting radiance of backlights or sunshine.  

However, after walking around historic Berlin under a gray overcast sky splattering icy water for four hours, I am able to share this unique angle with you.  

Brandenburg Gate

Berlin Cathedral

Holocaust Memorial 

Part of the Berlin Wall which stands in the middle of Potsdamer Platz

Berlin pigeons through the ages

A brief update of my yesterday:

Yesterday we went on a tour of a World War II air-raid shelter, complete with a really enthusiastic tour guide and interesting memorabilia.  Since most of the shelters were destroyed after the war, this is one of the only ones that remain.  Since is right next to a train station, Gesundbrunnen, there was no way for Germans to clean up their past without demolishing the present.  Our tour guide also mentioned the well known Nazi fear of an impure population, a fear which has definitely become a pleasant reality.  Since I've gotten here I've met a bunch of Japanese, English, Spanish, Turkish, Italian... very diverse population to say the least.

Did you know that during World War II even German pigeons were protected from harmful gases?

A picture of a “gas loft” for pigeons I found on the Internet

We also saw pictures of models sporting gas masks while carrying their babies in a gas protecting carrying bag, as an exampled of what people should have been doing at the time. 

Tonight we went to the most wonderful hole-in-the wall Italian restaurant.  There was one counter with four chairs as far as seating, but the menu was large and had a variety of delicious things to offer.  While we were looking at the menu, the man who ran and probably owned the restaurant tried to help us by making animal noises (he really got into character with the pig [schwein] and cow [kuh]) as well as translating a bunch of vegetable names.  Other than that, he didn’t speak much English.  Situations like these bring me back to my early years of education when storybooks used to ask me “which animal says moooooo?” but this time around was way more interactive and fun, probably something to do with the animated, middle-aged, German/Italian man component.  My adventurous side came out when I ordered a mozzarella pizza, which he made right in front of us in what looked like a home kitchen right behind the counter.  The ambiance was complete with brick look-a-like wallpaper, some Italianesque paintings, and one seemingly out of place picture of a unicorn by a waterfall.  While we were eating, the attempts at communication continued. We (kind of) talked about the well being of the euro and how America “has many problems,” which with his hand motions looked like he was implying that America had fireworks coming out of its ear, but I’m sure he was trying to relay something much more profound.  It was really nice that he made such a great effort to talk to us, never got frustrated, and made delicious food with fresh ingredients.  I wish I had taken my camera with me so I could have photographed him in his magnificent rooster sweater.  I will definitely be back.  Saying that reminds me of Yelp reviews, which had mysteriously (and somewhat embarrassingly) grown to be kind of a large influence on my life before I left the US. 

Other than dinner, today has been a pretty slow and rainy day.  I mostly stayed inside my apartment and read, something I’ve been developing a renewed fondness for since I’ve gotten to Germany.  I also tried out some new yogurt I got from the supermarket, which was pretty good.  I still haven’t gotten used to sitting down at a table by myself for meals, so when I eat something in my apartment I usually walk around mindlessly and end up feeding my shirt a little as well.  Win-win for everyone.

A modern-day Berlin pigeon

Part of the Freie Universitat campus

Making my house a home

Home room:

Berlin apartment: 

I still have ways to go before I can achieve my optimum messy comfort level, but I can assure you that it is all in good time. 

(room cleaning contracts don't apply internationally, right?)

The hausmeister who knew too much

Although my parents were the ones who said being in a country in which you don’t know the language is very difficult, and although I didn’t really believe them, they were absolutely right.  From checking out in a grocery store while the little old man that rings me up mumbles happily to himself, to nearly breaking my new phone out of frustration (turns out I was supposed to press “*” for a long time, not press every key while slamming it against my bed), not knowing German in Berlin successfully pushes me out of many loops.  In addition to these two incidences, quite a special one occurred yesterday.  While in my room, feeling bad for myself and deciding if I could be brave enough to take a bus downtown by myself, the landlord (or hausmeister) bursts into my room along with who I later understood to be an electrician.  He immediately started talking to me in fast paced German (not that it would matter if he was talking in slow paced German), and I had absolutely no idea what he was trying to tell me.  I eventually figured out from his exclamation of “kaput!!” and pointing to a socket, that something was terribly wrong with the electricity.  However, during this visit, he also discovered that I had proven myself to be a dreadful bed maker.  It was not a difficult discovery to make.  I was using the blanket cover as a sheet, which was too short for my bed, and not using anything for a blanket cover or pillow cover.  In my defense, none of the bedding had any kind of shape, leading me to believe that they were of use to no one.  The hausmeister sorted out this misconception, and I felt like I was finally making strides in my growing experience. 

Today at the supermarket I bought some mandel spaß, which is a cookie with some kind of nut/jam combination on top.  They happen to be delicious. Today was also the first day we ate at the mensa, or the dining hall for the Freie Universitat, which definitely trumps Brower cuisine in basically every category.  Everything was fresh, there was tons of variety, and my meal came out to be about 5 euros.  After the mensa, I walked around a small but nice park with a friend where we discovered a cute little playground that left some 20 year olds from our program incredibly enthused.  After getting lost in some other part of Berlin (I still don’t know exactly where we were) I was able to get us on the right train and bus to go home, while my friend was a quite lost in the whole directions department.  It made me feel like I wasn’t a completely hopeless traveler, and even though I didn’t know which ausgang to take to get out of the train station and ended up in some kind of bus depot for a while, we eventually made it back home to Celsiusstraße and bought a variety of foods from the supermarket in hopes of producing some semblance of a meal.

All in all, parents sister boyfriend weren’t completely lying when they repeatedly told me things would get better, for now I have some mandel spaß and a persimmon, in addition to now knowing that you should not continually try to use a strange public restroom if it doesn’t seem to be working, because two angry men might walk out together and curse you out in German… good think it sounded like gobbledygook to me.

He's excited, really.