Aufwiedersehen Berlin

I have officially retired my Berlin map.

It will now be relegated to a photo album that I will likely put together in about 2.46 years. (Still haven't done one for the Japan trip).

It's good timing, considering the map is only held together at the folds intermittently by worn away pieces of paper. The map was part of my Berlin tool kit, including also a raincoat, umbrella, camera and my cell phone. I strapped it in a bag on the back of my bike and took it everywhere.

So I'm leaving tomorrow, and 30 hours, three airports and a drive later - bam - I'll be home. At least, if all goes well. So pray for good weather, sound planes and gentle baggage handlers for me.

Lesson learned: I'm ready.

Bye Ike

The selling of a bike is always the final signal that your time in a foreign country is coming to an end.

I sold mine today. Bye Ike.

Luckily, he went to a really sweet Canadian girl, who saved me from having to go to the cash machine again by buying him and my German hair straightener.

I have done a lot of walking ever since.

Lessons learned: The 15 responses I got to my online ads tell me bikes are in high demand in Berlin.

Raining on my parade

So, today is my last day at the Tagesspiegel.

The worst part was, I didn't get to ride my bike on my last day because it is pouring rain, sadly. You don't know what a pain it is to take the train, especially when it's raining.

However, the rest of the day has been really pleasant and in traditional departure style (In other words, with lots of food). I finished my last story, went to lunch with co-workers, and had cake and coffee with my two mentors, Mortiz and Sebastian, in the opinion section (because that's what we do). Those guys were a big help in my adjustment to this country, and they make me laugh. I'll miss afternoon coffee and games like "Can you guess the price of this house."

Now I'm thinking about ducking out, but it's raining again.

Lesson learned: The weather can't ruin it.

CSI Germany

Like we have CSI or Law and Order, Germany has its own crime series. It's called Tatsort (Crime scene). On Sunday night, a few friends from work and I went to a cafe to watch it, as is a tradition of theirs. We lounged on white leather couches with tea and juice watching it on a big screen TV. There is a 20 Euro per month tax on everyone who owns a TV here, so many choose not to have one. Instead, many cafes open their doors weekly for popular series.

This show had a lot of what our crime series have: dramatic music, suspense, romantic tension between two of the detectives, and of course, an unrealistic falling of the pieces of the puzzle into place just in time for the show to conclude.

The show is film length, and 45 minutes into it, we all had to guess who we thought the murderer was. Whoever guesses right has their name put in drawing for a free cocktail coupon at the cafe. Not to anyone's surprise, I guessed wrong. But the waiter screwed up and drew my name from the hat of people who guessed right. I tried to give the coupon to the rightful winner, a co-worker of mine who apparently guesses right every week, but he wouldn't have it. So now I have an excuse to go back.

Lesson learned: Maybe I made a better crime reporter than detective. At least with fake TV crime investigations.

Weekend marathon

As thousands coursed through Berlin this weekend for the Berlin marathon, I did my own marathon of sorts. On my bike of course.

Saturday I met up with Elizabeth, who is also in my program, at our favorite market in Kilowitz Platz for lunch. Then I headed to Mitte to meet another, Ira, where we did a ride along the river to another market. Where ever I went, I seemed to run into parts of the inline skating race or the foot race for youth that both preceded the marathon on Saturday. Ira and I sort of got trapped in the town's center by skaters whizzing by us in spandex. It was a fun scene though with people cheering and music playing, and the weather was nice, so we just hung out and watched the mayhem. It took about a half hour once before we could grab our bikes and run for our lives across the road, hoping not to become road kill.

On Sunday, I caught a glimpse of the real marathon on my own run. Then I spent the afternoon at Rathaus Schoenberg, where JFK gave his famous speech. There is also a market there on Saturdays and Sundays. After I wandered through tents and piles of second hand clothing, I entered the Rathaus, looking for the Liberty Bell. No one else was there, so I almost felt like I was intruding. I followed signs that said "Turm," which I thought I remembered means "tower." There were about three separate steep metal steps I climbed, in warehouse like corridors. I finally made it up the final spiral staircase, where the bell is. From the top, you can see the whole city in every direction. There is a strange sort of quiet up there in the tower with the bell, with the wind whipping through the cage it's kept in, and suddenly it felt good to be alone.

I spent the afternoon in a cafe with a glass of wine and my journal, as the sun set through the spires of a church nearby the cafe.

Lessons learned: I think I've done it all here and I can go home.

One last look

Nothing like wrapping up my last weekend in Berlin with a trip to the parliament building. It is definitely not as boring as it sounds. The Berlin Reichstag has a huge clear dome where people can climb to the top using a spiral path. I went with a couple others from my program on Friday night. The view is pretty amazing, especially at night. It was a fitting way for us to say goodbye to this city. The others I was with were actually departing within days, leaving me here for another week.

Lesson learned: If you squint at the top, you can almost see home.

Joining in the fun

The video below proves that German's can in fact be silly, despite what people have told me since I've been here. This is a clip from Stefan Raab, who, if I understand correctly is a comedian and talk show host here in Germany. He's making fun of a fitness show that apparently, and much to my delight, is a real show here for to help prevent osteoporosis. A coworker of mine showed me this video after I had dinner at her house last night. I was rolling on the floor by the end. Hopefully it will be as funny even to those who don't know the language. Make sure you watch it to the end, when he joins in. Check it out.

Dreaming auf Deutsch

Now that I've gotten that last post out of my system, I can talk about a little trivial, but still fun bit of news. In the past few days, I have had a couple dreams in German. The first one was pretty mixed with both languages, but I'm pretty sure that this morning, the dream I awoke to was all German. Sometimes it's hard to tell because you just remember the meaning of a conversation and not the words themselves. This time, I have distinct memories conversations in this morning's dream in which I was doing a story about a group Germans who looked a bit like Power Rangers flying around in cartoon-like jets. My editor here was telling me what he wanted from the story, and even in my dream, I had to pay close attention to understand him. Funny how that works.

Lesson learned: My brain knows better German than my mouth.

The bad and ugly part

Every once and awhile, I have moments where I want to run home and never come back here. It usually comes after a series of misunderstandings or negative experiences on otherwise hard days. So is life in a foreign country sometimes, and this post is to be taken with a grain of salt. I really don’t hate the Germans or think they are all like the few I am about to describe in not so flattering terms. Promise.

So anyway, on Wednesday evening I was riding my bike home as usual when I crossed the street with maybe a little less attention than I should have. I looked up to see a Hummer lumbering toward me. A Hummer. Such a vehicle looks like a dinosaur on the streets of Berlin, where Smart Cars and Minis are like ants at a picnic. Had I not paused with my chin literally on my chest, I probably would have made it across without disrupting its progress and therefore ruining the occupants’ day. Because I did, the driver unfortunately may have had to touch his brake. Fear of getting flattened roused me out of my shock, and I scooted out of the way. It wasn’t fast enough, I guess, because out of the window, one of the male passengers yelled something that had the root word “schlampe.” It didn’t matter that I didn’t catch the prefix. I understood what that meant. What I don’t understand is why impeding their progress for two seconds makes me a “whore.”

Then yesterday afternoon, I was on my way to meet a friend at a market, again on my bike. I paused at a red light in front of construction blocking the way I thought I was supposed to go. Maybe I didn’t jump on my seat fast enough when the light turned green. Maybe I exuded “I am a stupid American.” Maybe the guy was having a bad day. I don’t know. But for some reason, the man behind me on his bike began to yell at me, and continued to follow me yelling for three blocks. I’m not kidding. I finally turned around and flashed him a peace sign – the only nice thing I could think of that he would understand. “Ja, ja,” he said, and finally turned down another street.

I arrived to find my friend had her own set of similar experiences in the same time frame.

Seriously, I don’t understand why people here express such anger here for such minor infractions. If you cross the street right after the light turns red, they will blaze on their horn. If you take too long to bag your groceries, they will loudly complain. If you bring your water bottle back to the wrong place for recycling, they will bring it to you and explain in four different ways for about ten minutes in a high-pitched dramatic voice that you have done it wrong. Good grief. Ausruhen Sie sich bitte!

Okay, now I’m venting and unfairly generalizing. I’ll stop.

Like I wrote when I was in Japan, I get one tantrum. So this was it.

Lessons learned: Act quickly and correctly, otherwise be chastised.

Culture seekers

My American friends and I here in Germany have tried our best to hit the cultural highlights in Germany. We have carried liter bottles of beer in the subway. We have tested the lukewarm carbonated mineral water that waiters bring by default when we are trying to re-hydrate. We have woven between crazed drivers on our bikes. We have even learned to separate our recyclables with precision.

One thing was missing: We have not seen an Opera.

Of course, this didn’t dawn on us until last weekend. My friend, Crystal, is leaving on Friday, so we only had four days to enrich our cultural experience.

This sort of procrastination is actually par for the course for us in Germany. We seem to always wait till the last minute to do something (i.e. buy train tickets), which then sends us into a panic of attempting to read matrixes of schedules and price lists on German Web sites.

The bottom line was – after I resorted to calculus in my attempt to find an option – there was nothing within our time frame in any of Berlin’s eight or so opera houses.

Instead, we decided to go to a Baroque-style concert (with the performers dressed in the style) in the Charlottenburg Castle. Yes, I know, it’s always a bummer to settle for anything that takes place in a castle. Last night, Irene, Crystal and I met for dinner, then headed over to the castle in a food-induced stupor (which also seems par for the course).

The advantage of a classical and baroque music concert is that it needs no translation. I let myself get carried away between the counterpoint of the violins and cellos and caught up in candle light. Occasionally, a woman singer appeared in a turquoise marshmallow of a dress to peal out melodies in a voice that sounded like diamonds look. There was also a man singer, though he wasn’t quite as impressive. At least we got a taste of opera.

Afterwards, I wrapped up in my scarf and pulled my hood over my head to make the trip to the subway station through crisp air that stubbornly seems to want to stay for the winter. As I stepped out of the towering wooden castle doors, I couldn’t help but think how I am going to miss it here.

Lessons learned: Bach knew what he was doing.

Portrait: Ruthild

My landlord, Ruthild, always leaves vases of flowers the dining room table. The kitchen often wafts with a bouquet of scents from the variety of confections she bakes. In the mornings, opera or classical music floats from a small stereo on a bench in the dinning room.

Then, Ruthild sits with her coffee, cheese, bread and homemade jam spread out on the dinning room table and reads the newspaper. My breakfast often coincides with hers, so we sit and chat, often about trivialities like the weather, politics or our weekends.

This morning, the paper lays folded neatly to her side when I pull up my chair with my granola and tea. She sits with her chin in her hands, gazing out the window at the grey that masks Berlin from the sun.

We start with our usual conversation: It’s supposed to warm up later in the week, she says. I had a great time in Potsdam on Saturday, I offer. She rode bikes with her boyfriend along the river in the small town of Walldorf, where she often spends the weekends, she mentions.

Ruthild is a retired 50-year-old who grew up in eastern Germany. In place of work, she is part of a project to educate people about various religions.

When I first arrived, she was on vacation and had left a list of rules likely puzzled together with a dictionary. Those who grew up in the eastlearned Russian instead of English like those in the west. Maybe as a result, they appear very strict: Take off your shoes when in the flat; quiet after 10 p.m., close the window and lock to door when leaving the flat. The quiet, gentle manner about her when we finally met didn’t match. She pronounces her words clearly and slowly, as if paced by a metronome, and always almost sings my name before she begins a conversation with me.

This morning, I venture beyond previous boarders of our regular morning conversation. “Besitzt du in Hause in Walgart?” I ask. Yes, she has a house in this small town on the coast, she says, her eyes brightening, but more like a hut, with one room with only a bed, toilet and kitchen. It is enough.

“Ich zeige dir,” she says, pushing back her chair and padding up the stairs like a child on Christmas morning. She returns with a small photo album, filled with pictures of the home. They show a small rectangle house, trimmed with grass and a view of the sea.

Ruthild’s pride is a garden that grows wildly like unbrushed hair. Daisies and irises are its centerpiece, near a small brush labyrinth. Other photos show apple and plum trees heavy with fruit. A small table and two chairs sit in the backyard waiting for tea.

Ruthild and her boyfriend, Bernd, bought the house about five or six years ago, she tells me. She was looking for a getaway and saw an ad in a paper after a fruitless search through other means. The pruned gardens stacked next to each other like playing cards on the street leading to the house almost turned her away when she went to see it. Then she arrived at the one for sale, on the end, with a beautiful view and an untamed garden without the rigid rows of the others.

Yes, the “rules of the house” sitting on my desk don’t belong in this apartment.

Mini-trip

This weekend, determined to see all the noteworthy sights around Berlin before I go, I rallied a couple American friends to go to Potsdam with me. Potsdam is a formerly eastern suburb of Berlin, which is actually where “The Big Three” signed the documents dividing up Germany and Berlin. It is home to three impressive castles that lie on palace grounds. We had a great lunch in a really cool café before heading out. Walking through the downtown, which is titled with cobblestones and full of musicians, reminded me a bit of Salzburg. On Saturday, a market was in full swing. We only made it to one of the castles, but it was really impressive, with sprawling grounds, fountains and statues in compromising positions. The sun came out just in time to light up the background for good pictures.


Lesson learned: Potsdam is worth the trip.

Portrait: Cashier in the grocery store

I dragged my suitcase through the little grocery store, feeling a bit like a bear in a China shop. I had just returned from London and didn’t want to bother hauling my suitcase up the six flights of stairs to my apartment then turning around to go pick up some bananas and bread.

Perhaps it is no affront here, because no one said anything as I steered its wheels around the shelves of goods painted in German words. After filling my arms with my purchases, I headed to the cash register to pay – the one to the right that is normally open.

“Over here young lady,” I heard a women call through the racks of chocolate eggs and chewing gum. A heavy set cashier sat on her stool without a line.

“Oh I didn’t see you,” I said, careful to use the formal form of the word “you” in German.

“I don’t want to sit here while my co-worker does all the work,” she said with a smile that matched her honey blond hair. I was a little caught off guard by her chattiness. In Germany, cordial customer service is rationed out like water during a drought. I usually have to brace myself before I head to a register to pay.

I basked in her friendliness.

She chatted on, determined to explore all avenues of her previous topic. “The people don’t usually see me over here and usually always head to her,” she said, waving my purchases over her scanner. With a flourish, she pushed the total button. “Also, sieben comma sechzig,” she said the total.

I paid, almost sadly.

Next time I was in the store, I looked again for my friendly cashier, but in her place was a sour-looking woman. I again switched back to holding my wallet and plastic bag ready like a cowboy playing Russian Roulette as I waited for my total.

Tea and cake and a foreign language

I had just dragged my laundry up the stairs and into my room, when my landlord met me at the door last night to ask me if I wanted a piece of plum cake. It sounds strange, I know, but it was amazing. She had made a crust, layered it with some sort of cream cheese mixture, stood pieces of plums over the top and baked it. Her daughter, Miriam, and daughter's cousin were visiting and sat in the dimly lit kitchen with tea and cake.

I joined them, and we talked about global warming, music composition and Miriam’s cousin's job search. She is in Berlin after living in Sweden for the past 12 years, and wanted to come back to Germany to improve her German, particularly writing. If a German has to come back to their homeland to improve their own mother tongue, that shows you how hard this language is.

Anyway, I was in one of those phases where my German was coming easier, so it was fun to actually be part of the discussion. Sometimes in group settings, as soon as I've decided how best to say something, the converstation is on to something else.

Lessons learned: Like a glass of wine, cake does wonders for my German.

Turning seasons

I left Berlin for the weekend in the throes of an Indian summer and came back on Monday to winter. It was sunny yesterday, but it might as well have been snowing. Suddenly all the little outside activities I've been enjoying are not so pleasant. Biking for example. I wrap myself up in layers, only to have the cold air sneak into any opening possible as I'm whisking through the streets. My fingers turn to icicles. I think about my little red Chevy and how great the heat works.

This morning when I woke up at 7 a.m. for my run, there was still a touch of darkness to the sky. I had to drag myself out of my warm blankets and dress like I was going sledding. Even the swans weren't on the channel.

I am praying this is a fluke and the warm weather will return.

Lesson learned: I need to buy a pair of gloves.

Backstaged

Yesterday afternoon I bought one of the two last tickets for a Conor Oberst concert that my friend Crystal had a ticket for Monday night. Oberts is the lead singer of Bright Eyes, which is an indie band I like but not one that I have a lot of music from. He was singing with his new band, the Mystic Valley Band Monday. I bought the ticket with hesitation, wondering if I should spend money on a band I’d never heard before.

My friend Crystal and I went, and immediately I developed one of those fleeting, from-a-distance crushes. Oberst and his band were fantastic. Everything from his unusually low voice to his stage presence to the interesting and artistic lyrics in his music really impressed me.

After the show, Crystal and I attempted to go backstage but were stopped by a hulk of a German security guard. Even the Scottish guy with green hair shaped into spikes who worked as a stage crew couldn’t convince him. We gave up and tried a different tactic, exiting out the side door of the guarder robe. There the band was, sitting outside the door drinking a beer. We ended up talking with them for a bit, though Oberst wasn’t there. Later he walked past us several times, and I felt too much like a groupie to ask one of the band members to introduce us. I’m not easily star struck. I have a hard time elevating singers to a deity-like level. There was a part of me, however, that wanted to meet him just for the sake of saying I had, so I kind of wished later I would have just surrendered a little dignity and asked for the introduction. Crystal wasn’t so reserved and got to shake his hand as he was about to get in a cab.

Lessons learned: Germans are different concert-goers than Americans. There is no heckling or arm waving.

Portraits: Anja

She looks like a real-life Barbie or a porcelain doll. I say that not in the catty jealous woman sort of way, but more in admiration. Every day, she sweeps into the office, as if she stepped out of a catalogue. Yesterday she wore what no American would ever dare, especially after Labor Day: white pants and a white sweater. Somehow she made it look classy, with a brown belt looped around her thin frame and large wooden beads slung around her neck. Her hair is an unnaturally natural blond, and it’s always pulled back away from her dimpled smile, which make her blue eyes look that much larger. There would be no keeping my American guy friends away from her if she were ever to visit.

One recent afternoon, a group of us stood indecisively at the corner, caught between her desires for lunch and the rest of the group. “I’d like something healthy,” she had said with a pout, after someone suggested Chinese. Suddenly they turned to me. “What would you like?” Philip asked. He suggested that if I didn’t want Chinese, I could go with Anja to get a salad the small “bio” store to our right. She looked at me expectantly, batting mascara fringed eyelashes. The ticking of the cross walk vocalized the pressure of their stares.

It was a combination of the chill in the air and the fact that I had a salad the night before is what I would like to say won me over to Chinese. “I’d actually like something warm,” I said just as the light switched green. If I’m honest, however, a part of it was that I wimped out. It was the dread of having to make polite conversation with Anja alone in German. Why women are so intimidated by other women is something I will never understand.

Befriending other girls in a foreign country is difficult but something I’m ever trying to do. A female relationship is so simple. There are no undertones of unwelcome expectation. No blurry lines. And among women, there is always at least one unexhaustive fallback conversation topic that does wonders for bonding in any culture: men.

So I found myself sitting among them eating sweet and sour chicken, trying to follow the group's conversation like a spectator follows a tennis match, and constantly losing the ball in the sun.

I should have gone to lunch with Anja that day.

Biking in high heels

I love the small traffic lights set at eye level and dedicated solely to bicyclists. I wonder sometimes if they are really necessary, since bikers can just follow either the pedestrian or automobile lights. Still, it is a statement that bikes have a place on the road.

There are also bike paths painted into the sidewalks or alongside the roads in many places.

I've written about this before, but think it's great to see business women in skirts, old men who can barely walk and teenagers with ipods all riding together on the streets. At home I might be a little hesitant to ride in high heels, but here I do it all the time. In fact, it is more comfortable than walking in them.

Sometimes it is mayhem, because bikers, including me, seem to feel exempt from the rules that drivers or pedestrians here strictly follow. I often play chicken with others in the paths as I or they ride on the wrong side of the street.

Ike (my bicycle) seems to be complaining louder lately, and sometimes I worry he will fall apart. I inwardly plead for him to last just one more month. I'm not sure what I would do without him.

Lesson learned: Biking works well for narcisists.

Portraits: Joe

"You're not going to print my name, are you?"

I paused, my pen poised over my notebook, thinking, "That's exactly what I was planning to do." It wasn't a reaction I was expecting from an American, but then again, Joe may not really truly be an American.

He sat on a sideways crate, the only seat left by the time he arrived to the Thursday night gathering of ex-patriots at this week's bar of choice. A velvet curtain as a back drop, a red chandelier and red walls made the back room of the pub on Dresdener Strasse glow in a rouge hue.

We went through the normal negotiations when someone is hesitant to commit to an interview and eventually settled into questioning. Joe moved to Germany from New York City when he was 13 with his parents, he told me. He grew up in Cologne. He now works in the IT industry in Berlin.

His words didn't have the typical American accent, buttressed by blurry r's. But they didn't carry the strong consonants and the telling emphasis on the first syllable of words either. His pompous was more of the European kind. The way his hand motions guided his words, like a conductor of an orchestra, is a U.S. trademark.

Joe retains his American citizenship and uses the word "they" when he talks of Germans, as one speaks of foreigners. Yet he has lived in Germany for about 30 years. I paused, trying to figure him out. Who is he? One of his feet seems grounded on American soil, with the other stretching to reach the German border. Yet the span across the Atlantic is too great, leaving him caught in in the updrafts and waves crests of what is in between.

How much of his eccentricity is part of his character and how much is the result of a mixed cultural identity? I wondered.

"Do you feel more German or more American?" I asked him.

"Neither," he said, taking a sip of wine while everyone else drank beer.

He likes Berlin, where he moved to two years ago, he said. It feels safe. He likes the freedom. "It reminds me of New York City, but without all the problems."

Joe, if that really is his name, probably won't be part of the article I'm writing for the German newspaper about American ex-pats. He doesn't fit the rubric. He just doesn't fit.

Journalism auf Deutsch

This morning, I received an e-mail in my inbox from my friend Crystal with a subject that said, "Translation!" It was pretty clear what would follow, which made me mildly nervous. My German is far from perfect and far from the level of a true translator. At the same time, it's sort of fun to have a useful purpose for my second language.

Crystal is working on a story about the Kaiser Wilhelm church, which still stands in a shopping district of Berlin like a broken tooth after it was bombed during World War II. There is an effort underfoot to restore it since some say it is becoming dangerous. Crystal was assigned to ask a few Germans what they think should happen to the church -- whether it should stay or go and what their feelings are about it.

So I came along with her to interview a few people. It wasn't as hard as I thought it might be. We actually managed to get a few salvageable quotes from some Germans. Now if I could only get motivated today to write my own stories.

Lessons learned: Interviewing someone in German in person is a lot easier than over the phone.