Prague Arrival: 24

Yosef and I ended up dividing our responsibilities as follows: he was in charge of getting us transit from city to city, and I was in charge of getting us lodging. He got us bus tickets from Dresden to Prague, which was originally a tentative point on our trip. We never had a formal discussion adding it to our itinerary, it just happened on its own. 

Before leaving Dresden, I met up with Marija, whom I had met at the wedding, and who teaches political science in London. We talked about forks in the path of the heart, and experiences with roommates. I finally figured out what was wrong with my frothy milk order. She reminded me of my friend Hannah, the general academic nature with an apparent care for her friends, or maybe just the similarity in coloration. 

And then a chunk of the day was spent on the bus. I wrote a few postcards to friends and napped. Finally we arrived in Prague and lugged our bags up. 

At that point my impression of Prague is that it is all uphill, all windy cobblestone which gets in the way of carrying a suitcase. We were too early to check in to the airbnb, and hungry as well, so we found a Greek called Olympos and celebrated our arrival. I finally got a very little cup of dark bitter liquid and tiny carafe of milk. We were both so tired at this point though, so when we made it back to the airbnb (which required some thinking because the keys were locked in a lock-box on the bars of a convenience store a block away and around the corner) we took a nap. 

Actually let's circle back to the convenience store: it was one of many bodega-like markets sprinkled throughout the city. After dinner we stopped in and picked up some more kefir and fruit, as well as some laundry detergent. They are open late, and as far as I could tell, primarily run by Vietnamese people. There's a kind of charm to these smaller shops: the neighborhood corner store that's open late and were you can buy a pack any number of things: cigarettes, liquor, peaches, or shampoo. These peaches were squatter than the ones I'm used to. There's a family-run feel to them: the one next to me in the Ukrainian village I know the owner, and I think his teen son or nephew works there too. There, sometimes fresh tamales are on sale, but there is also whole-bean coffee and a porter I like. Compared to the ones in Washington Heights in NY, the ones in Prague had more fresh produce and fewer dried and canned goods, and there were no cats. I think with these kinds of places it is easy to start fantasizing about what it would look like to live in a place: strolling the streets, nipping into the corner shop for some milk and dish soap. I saw the guy who manned the cashier a day later in the street, and we recognized each other. If I lived there, maybe we would know each others names, I would learn which fruit are in season when, and develop a sense for the local currency. 

After the nap we got dinner. My friend Mark recommended a Czech place called U Sadu, which he had described as "simply a pubby bar, with simple but carefully (would one say lovingly?) prepared food." The waitress was patient with us, and there were fewer tourists there. Afterwards we went for a walk - we saw some great views of the sun setting over a castle, and the Jewish cemetery, which was closed.  

And that was a full day of Dresden, transit, and Prague. 

Lisbeth & Dresden: 22 & 23

The wedding took place in a rural town outside of Dresden called Lisbeth. The weather smiled on us, and I grabbed some sad bitter water at the train station, on the way to the old-timey bus. A green and white bus that had a massive stick-shift system specially chartered for the occasion. Cows passed us as we rode into the countryside 

The wedding was sweet. I am finding it a bit hard to write about it though: I think weddings are so thoroughly planned, both meticulously orchestrated and intimate affairs, that it's hard to know what to write. There were multiple parts. First we mingled. Instead of alcohol to smooth over the fact that most of us are strangers, were given bingo cards with facts like "has hiked a glacier" (my brother) or "has run a marathon" as a kind of get-to-know each other icebreaker. Then the ceremony itself, 49 people in attendance including the bride and groom, all of us sitting near a grove of birches. Bianca's sister officiated the wedding, and the groom's vows were blown away by the wind so we couldn't hear them. Afterward, he said it's because he spoke from the heart rather than doing a performance. More mingling, this time with sushi, and photos with the hired photographer. Then cakes! About 9 cakes. Yosef and I took half slices and then split those to maximize the experience. 

I slipped away at some point and Bianca's aunt made me a cup of tea while we chatted. She is a live wire that left an impression on a lot of the younger crowd, thinking about what it means to keep up that kind of vitality into later years. This was the first moment I went off script: unplanned tea with the aunt, with allusions to history and politics. Then we funneled back to the dinner buffet (honestly maybe the best meal we had while traveling?) - food, wine, more chatter, a photobooth and dancing. When we rode back on the train back to Dresden, very tired, and me and two other women discussed predicaments of the heart. The second off-script conversation, after all the planned events, and a more intimate moment there too. 

The next day Yosef and I, again, struggled to wake up. We had our breakfast at home, got Vietnamese food at Codo - Yosef got beer, I got dark liquid poured over ice and sweetened condensed milk. Then we met the rest of the wedding attendees for a historic scavenger hunt arrange by Bianca's sister. I managed to eek in a few exchanges with Bianca - the bride and groom are always so busy on their wedding day, all of us vying for their attention.

We reconvened at Eiscafe Venezia for dessert, then some of us broke off. Beer, Little India (food was good here, the owner seemed very committed to making us happy, too) in an artsier part of Dresden. And thus concluded our final full day in Dresden. 

Sundowner 07/21

Jetlag into Europe from the US is always so much harder than on the way back. Yosef and I struggled to get up before noon, and then went to the Aldi across the street to grab yogurt, as well as the bag of muesli and box of tea mentioned in a previous post. I also accidentally bought fresh yeast thinking it was butter with honey in it. In my defense, it was yeast that was made with honey, so, I had read part of it correctly. And it was in the butter section. Misdirection via context clues.

We then made our way to the Old Masters Picture Gallery which frankly is a great museum. I noted many artists with whom I was not familiar to look up later and got postcards, which is my standard museum procedure while traveling. We then doubled back to a touristy stretch of restaurants and ate a decent meal at Wilma Wunder, though again with disappointing frothy milky drink. 

So I haven’t mentioned yet my impetus for traveling to Europe. It is this: my friend from college Bianca, with whom I have maintained a connection across the Atlantic for nine years, was getting married. Or having a ceremony: logistically they had to get married for her husband to enter Ireland where she had found a job. I actually have a post which gives me the last time I saw her before she went to get her Masters in London. Nine years! Crazy. This was later followed by a PhD in Cape Town, South Africa, where she met her now-husband. She has family in Germany ergo the German destination. I offered Yosef to make a sibling trip of it, since he was musing about travel already, and so he became my plus-one.

To start off the celebratory festivities they arranged for a Sundowner gathering by the river. Sundowner is the South African tradition of having drinks at sunset. It was also an opportunity to meet her husband for the first time before the actual wedding ceremony. I was the only person from our college to attend the wedding, and so everyone else there was a stranger to me. Yosef struck it up with an urban designer from Amsterdam, I chatted with an art teacher at a high-needs school in NYC. Then, just around the planned end time, it started to pour rain: one of the grooms’ friends from Cape Town lent me his sweater and Yosef and I trotted away to the Sbahn.

My mother told me the last post was too long but perhaps reflected the first day of long travel. Lucky for her I had already written this one out before she told me this and it turned out shorter! Hurrah! 

Plane, Ubahn, and Rail 07/20

One of my supervisors had mentioned a phenomenology exercise she was assigned while completing her degree: to describe coffee for a week without using the word coffee. The dark liquid on the flight from Chicago to Paris felt well captured by this quote for 1984: “It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese rice-spirit. Winston poured out nearly a teacupful, nerved himself for a shock, and gulped it down like a dose of medicine.” 

On the flight, the woman next to me had some sort of therapy-level psychology degree, but was on her way to see her long-distance husband in...Algeria, maybe? I can't remember, a North African country? They had met through his brother who worked as a lawyer in the U.S., she had initially tried law school but dropped it. Her husband had a large farm and so she only did a bit of consulting now as he could support her fully, but I still struggled to understand what it would mean to study to be a therapist and then not want to be a therapist. For the better though, if that's not what she wants to do, that she doesn't do it. If I remembered her name I would look her up, but a month on and her name escapes me. 

I was pleased that though Yosef arrived earlier than me, he needed to go through customs, resulting in him only waiting for me for only half an hour before we met. I had already gone through customs at my layover in Paris, then gone to brush my teeth and reapply deodorant - a travel tip from my mother (our? does mentioning my brother necessitate using our mother here?) After that, in desperation, I had eaten sushi at the counter while I waited for the second flight. Sushi that came with sweet soy sauce packets, much to my dismay and bewilderment. When I did land in Berlin, I was glad to see my brother’s face, even though he snipped at me before we had even made it to the Ubahn, likely in response to me telling him what to do. Older-sister habit I am trying to kick. Yosef pointed out the cloth-towels at the airport restrooms, a seemingly endless single roll of reusable towel.

We made our way to Zimt and Zucker, a café recommended by my friend Bianca’s sister. I asked if we could sit outside since otherwise our suitcases would be in the way, but the hostess responded there are no more spaces outdoors, and that our suitcases will be in the way regardless. She seated us at the same table as a couple who arrived shortly before us and had ordered what seemed like chocolate with milk poured over it. They stirred it and it broke up the chocolate a bit but never really transformed into chocolate milk and they left without quite finishing it. Yosef got a Berliner Weisse, a drink I had almost forgotten existed: beer with sweet, flavored syrup mixed in. I drank a cappuccino and we both got crepes. The cappuccino was the first in a series of disappointing drinking experiences. It turns out the American way of defaulting to a double shot for a larger quantity of milk is not the standard elsewhere. A few frothy milky mistakes finally caused me to reconsider my drink order.

We sat around awhile after figuring out how to get to Dresden, using the 1euro bathrooms that take place of the free public restrooms we have in the US. We had meant to use Deutsche Bahn, which includes regional rail, but we were far too tired to navigate another transfer and ended up opting for a more expensive direct train. A Muslim woman asked me how to use one of the other ticketing machines and I gestured at our suitcases to explain that I don’t know my head to tail here. A large Russian-speaking family sat on the bench next to us. Finally, we got on the train and found seats, and Yosef and I took turns sleeping on the train as the countryside pulled past us. Our Airbnb was a short walk from the train stop and thus concluded a full day of travel.

Kefir and Muesli

I will later perhaps try and make sense of my abrupt return here.

Later, too, I will outline in greater detail the actual details of my trip, which spanned Dresden, Prague, and Berlin. 

But right now I am trying to grasp the things that I gained from my vacation: long walks, kefir in the morning, good meals out, art museums, my traveling companion (my brother, a month shy of 25, who requested we spend most of the time speaking Russian, which we did until we got to Berlin), writing, photography, seeing friends I hadn't seen in a decade or so, meeting strangers, coffee, beer, taking in the streets...hoping to hold onto these things and bring them home. 

Kefir was easy to arrange, the muesli slightly less easy but I was able to create an approximation of my own. The American cereal aisle is dessert for breakfast: from unabashedly candy-flavored, to sugar-coated raisins feigning a balanced start to the day. I was able to find something with flakes and granola to mix in with oats, flax, and hemp. Blackberries were more affordable this grocery trip than they usually are, and the nectarines were on sale. I don't think about the cost of fruit when traveling. Red and Black currant was in season and readily available in Europe. It is such a rarity in the US, especially since black current was illegal for almost a century and continues to be highly regulated as a crop. And so, I can recreate the breakfast Yosef and I had every day in Europe. We had carried a bag of muesli we got in Dresden to Prague and then back up to Berlin, eating exactly one bag between the two of us during the whole trip, and drinking through a box of English Breakfast tea. It is hotter in Chicago than it was in Europe, so here I have been brewing a large amount of chai and sticking it in the fridge for iced chai in the morning.

I realize, dear reader, this is a very literal way to try and capture a vacation to extend it into “regular” life. I do believe though, that some of our life is informed by the ways in which we follow day-to-day actions. And there may be something to be learned from observing what one does when plucked from those rhythms which we neglect to otherwise examine. Some of the ways in which we are in life will not be shaken when we travel, no matter what we hope, sure, but I found more affirmations than disappointments.

Many of the things I did differently were less ... self-indulgent? hedonistic? in nature, than one might expect. These terms have baggage – Protestant ethic morality versus Pagan debauchery comes to mind. But here in 2023: when tired at the end of a long week, I am more likely to fall into watching a show or YouTube endlessly, and sometimes believe that if given the opportunity to exist without responsibilities, this is the sad place I would find myself. And perhaps, sometimes, that is true. But not always. What I am thinking of is Pleasure Paradox/Hedonistic Treadmill. (My father texted me on the trip asking if these terms were mainstream – I said I don’t know, and that I am not a good measure of what is mainstream knowledge in psychology.) I was surprised how much I wanted to do things, even the things that are not the most direct path the pleasure. 

Yes of course some combination of vacation-magic and necessity meant eating out for most of our meals, and this is not something I want to or can do otherwise, though about half of these meals were very enjoyable. At the same time, it seems I found more energy to do the work of finding slower burning contentment, which has been evading me lately. I remember last time I was in Berlin I felt inspired to stop eating meat again - I had started eating it again at the end of my first year of college, feeling unable to push back on the chaotic selection at the college dining hall. But I felt inspired again in Berlin - found the energy to pursue this small bit of idealism after a year break. I continue this way still, eating meat about once a year, the rest of the time automatically defaulting to the way I have eaten since I was 14. Two of the most recent carnivorous instances in the past two years were on this vacation, in Prague, when I found myself sprung out of rhythms. I see a lot online about motivation versus discipline, but personally, life would be easier if I had a better practiced thoughtlessness. Good habits have always felt like the slipperiest of eels thrashing out of my grip.

My tomato plants which had started to carry green berries when I flew out are now holding ripe tomatoes. I made my first harvest on Friday, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and mixed in with burrata cheese which I shared with a studio friend before we went to a small gallery near me. Two small rooms, a stream of people going in and out, it was free. Art museums are harder to arrange at home. They are certainly one of the planned indulgences of travel. We bought three-day art tickets in Berlin, and saw art in every city. But at home, as large as the Art Institute in Chicago is - and it is, it is massive - I have many of the rooms memorized by now. Perhaps next time I will return with a sketchbook. Do a better job of tracking down smaller galleries – and so on.  

I read half of Erwin Mortiers Shutterspeed on my flight back, and finished it my first day home, with a slow realization that I must have already read it, possibly all the way through, when I purchased it - I think in 2015 on a trip to NYC. The graphics on the cover are perhaps, then, more memorable than the text itself. Regardless of my enjoyment of the novel, the act of reading was less laborious than it has been of late. 

I have walked at least four miles every day since returning to Chicago but want to learn to run - time saving relative to walking for a couple hours, some flexibility to do it in the morning before it gets too hot after the effects of my jetlag run out. Yesterday it was raining but I still went, after an apartment viewing fell through, to watch the waves of Lake Michigan crash into the rocks and cement steps that make up the lakeshore. I thought: if I take in Chicago as if it is a new city to me, or a city I love, perhaps living here will be easier. I am good at appreciating the alleyways, the graffiti, the light, but sometimes Chicago feels gray and desolate, its industrial roots mean occasional vacant stretches within the city itself, breaking up life. My experience here, too, is broken up by the plague, the often fleeting or superficial social connections of grad school, and my own personal upheavals. I am trying - started to before I left - to have a true Chicago summer. Everybody here says summer is the best time but I dread the sticky heat. It melts my brain and makes me sick. But I still endeavor to steal some of its spirit for myself; swimming in the lake, attending some of the dozens of farmers markets and festivals that spring up, and eating ice cream. Perhaps these are avenues to fall into conversations with strangers and see the city with new eyes. Bring a camera with me, write about it here. 

 Wish me luck.

four days

in cycles:

In the morning I met with Frank to talk about senior project for the last time this semester. I frantically finished up some prints. The watercolors came out too pale, the citra solv barely transferred the ink. [cycle] Rehearsal, Concert. J. S. Bach's Magnificat in D and Schubert's Mass in E-flat Major. [cycle] I bumped into Lisa from Humboldt and we talked until we had to part and say good bye. She asked me how old I am and told me “oh! You’re still young”. She’s 24 and an undergraduate student: everything is slower in Germany. We talked about how sometimes it is necessary to leave the people you know to find out who you are, and how ages 16-19 or so, everything that sparkles; sparkles more furiously than it does later. She told me to tell her if I ever go to Berlin again. [cycle] I went to play mafia with some of the exchange students. All spoke Russian and some of the names were more foreign to me that others. Familiar ones where Valya and Yura and Yuliya (AUCA) Tim (Smolny). Less familiar but still comprehensible is Albina (Tajikistan, AUCA).  I had never heard before Agerim and Akylai (Kyrgistan, AUCA). We played until 3 or so and then I went to Kelsey’s room and fell asleep by 4. [cycle] 

We woke up at 9, got breakfast and then I went to my last printmaking class. There were two bottles of wine and this is the least happy I’ve been with my art work in a while. I went home and slept. [cycle] I worked and packed and went to bed at 2am. [cycle]  

I woke up at 6 and finished packing and got picked up at 7:15, went to the train station with Agerim, and we got off at Grand Central.  I made sure to find the bus for her to get to JFK, before going my own way to Kostya’s lab at NYU. I finished my coursework there. We went wandering to get food and then we went to Bedford Stuyvesant (BedSty) where he lives. [cycle] We walked to Bushwick where Shinno’s multimedia installation was. The room looked like it used to be some industrial space, but had been redone for events. The bottom of the walls rounded off into the floor and everything was white. The show consisted of a dancer in the dark, except for a projector light. It refracted through fog, produced by a fog machine. The dancer was wearing a mask made of squares of mirror. He danced with the light, the music built up and became more frantic. It felt more like I was having some sort of subconscious experience, rather than watching something happening in front of me with a hundred other people. Esther was there too, and after the show the dj came on and we danced. The projector was still on, and it was a fun body-exploration to watch ones silhouette on the wall, a different way of entertaining ones vanity. I went to the indoor-balcony upstairs and fell asleep on the couch, which was vibrating from the bass of the music. At two Kostya and I left. [cycle] 

We went to Manhattan and I took a 5:30 bus back home. [cycle]

Sandy

I don't really believe in fate, but I ended up choosing this article to write an essay, and I'm going to pretend I'm being told to go to Germany and study schizophrenia. Probably not Dusseldorf though. And it doesn't have to be schizophrenia (though it is incredibly interesting). That sounds like a pretty good future- no?
Maybe it doesn't even have to be Germany. The countries I've been to are: USA, Canada, Mexico (Cozumel though, it was super touristy so it doesn't really count) Israel (but not since I was eight and half) Germany, and Russia.
There are other countries out there.

Bard barely got hit by Sandy. That is, Sandy didn't hit us at all, all the while two hours away havoc was brought down on Manhattan, as well as areas not two hours away, but much closer (and further) away.

Our electricity didn't even go out. It was the first time classes were uniformally canceled, because everyone was worried, but hurricane Irene last year made a much bigger impact on campus (we had to re-build half of the chapel) than this, and even earlier this year the rain fell harder and we lost power.

One of my friends went down to Boston until NYU gets running water and electricity back.
I hope that everything will soon be well in places that were hit harder than Bard.

Berlin to Boston

Just dropped Yosef off at the orthodontist, need to start thinking of actual things to do other than sleep. I wrote part of the following in the airport, part of it yesterday in my bed.

Epilogue 

It is 5:09 am. I woke up at 2am, and by woke up I mean finally stopped tossing and turning in the heat of a bed that is two and half meters off the ground. It wasn't miserable, I actually rested, but it wasn't sleep. I finish off what was left of my kefir and left. I went to Oranienburger Tor but it was locked, and a few minutes later it a city worked came and unlocked it but I had realized that the next metro didn't come until 4:17. I went down anyway and stayed until I woke up a bit more, staring at the mice calmly lapping up from little pools of spilt water, and then decided to take the bus (which, when I looked at the instructions I had written out, I realized that that was what I had intended to do anyway, but it took me half an hour to get around to it.) Bus N6, where I got off with a girl that quickly realized we should cross the street to get to the next bus, Bus 128, on which a really drunk guy fell off the seat and was left with a bleeding head, and I arrived at Tegel at 4:40, and clearly it didn't take too long to check my bags and get through security. I lied to them about having cosmetics: I have a small tube of toothpaste somewhere in there, but they didn't find it, and I didn't have a plastic baggie. Life of crime over here. The reason I had it was because of a fantasy of staying in Berlin; it involved an overbooked plane and the possibility of me not getting my checked bag back (it weighs 19.7kg) but that dream was shredded by the reality that my first flight isn't actually delta; it's KLM, which is small and not overbooked at all.

It's getting light out. I have my boarding pass which covers both my flights but I will need to get a bus ticket in NYC to get to Boston. The flight is boarding. 5:31.

~~~~

 The first plane I talked to a guy from Norway; Berlin, EU, Norway, Catch 22. He was a med student and we got off the plane together but our terminals were in different places. We never introduced ourselves. In the Amsterdam airport I kept nodding off. I walked around briefly and sat down again, and some woman from Iran started talking to me; she started telling me about how her daughter is a professor in Toronto and how she has a baby so she goes with her to all these cities for conferences to watch the kid. On the second plane I sat next to this guy from Long Island, who was coming from teaching English through Peace Corps in Rwanda. He was really drained; he was going to a wedding but his Peace Corps ends in November so he has to go back. At some point I realized I couldn’t talk anymore and plummeted quickly into sleep for a couple hours. We talked some more after I woke up, switching to lighter topics than his Rwanda experience. We never introduced ourselves either, but his name was Patrick, as I gathered from some narration. I got off the plane and got myself a bus ticket to Port Authority. While waiting for the bus, I met a man named Peter from Dodoma, Tanzania, a veterinarian who was going to a conference, his specialization being poultry disease control. I got to Port Authority and started looking for another bus, but first I bought my first piece of food on USA soil; and incredibly sweet cinnamon bun that I could only eat half of at first, my hands covered in sugary goop. The first bus I found was 36$ so I kept looking until I found one for $20 that left in an hour, and the bus driver told me it was fine that I didn’t have a ticket yet, even though Megabus to Boston typically involves buying the ticket ahead of time. So I found some shade and tried not to be overwhelmed: it was culture shock coming to NYC, the skyscrapers stacked on top of each other, the noise, the dirty streets lined with liter. I came back and waited on standby with a guy who is part of World Teach, doing Management of the Asian sector. Waiting was dramatic: they didn’t let some girl on because she had a bike, and it apparently says on the site “no bikes” but it had never been a problem for her before. She let out a whelp of desperation “what am I supposed to do!?” her face matching in tone to her pink helmet. Some other guy had a ton of bags and you have to pay $20 extra for every bag over one. On the bus I asked the guys in front of me if they knew when the bus reached Boston: around 8:50. I fell asleep for an hour and when I woke up one of the guys started talking to me: Ryan who goes to Boston College, studying Comp Sci and Finance. He switched to sit next to me. At some point he said something about me being intelligent and I made a face 'fuck no' and said "no"; it was so blatant. We did end up at South Station at 8:50, and when I exited the station I was relieved; Boston is a lot less overwhelming than NYC. Some lady asked me if all the taxi's in Boston are more-or-less the same, but I've never had a reason to take one. Then Папа picked me up and I was home.

Incomplete Farewells

Yesterday I woke up and had to pick out ants out of the honey again. I played tennis with my dad and then visited Yulka at her still-under-construction house. This morning the first time I woke up it was 5 am and I heard hooting. In Berlin, this would have been pigeons (I think, or at least that was everyone’s best guess,) but here it was the distinctive pattern of the barn owl. 

Part 3

On the 24^th I woke up intending to the last two museums I hadn’t been to on the Museum Island; Neues Museum and Altes Nationalgalerie (as opposed to the Neues Nationalgalerie and Altes Museum, which I had already been to.) The latter was closed for construction but I enjoyed the broad spectrum of Egyptian work at the Neues Museum; it was a lot more diverse than what I had seen before. Later I met up with people at the mensa, and Marcel got me a good-bye coffee, and it was the first coffee I had had in two months. Hannah, Bengi, Ruben, Ruben’s brother, and Laura, went for a walk, and I got gelato at Hackesher Markt, and we sat on the grass of the park nearby. 

 

The next day I woke up at 6:30 and didn’t fall back asleep. It was my last day in Berlin and I was worried about the flight and saying goodbye. I went to the Altes Nationalgalerie and then can back and said goodbye to Katrin (she gave me a piece of quiche she made.) I bumped into Anna who also lives at The Convent but we didn’t say bye because she assumed she would see me later in the day, but we never did.

After that I met up with people (Hannah, Lynn, Ruben, Ruben’s brother) and we went to the aquarium by Zoologischer Garten in hopes of escaping the heat (it didn’t work.) Then I went back to Tierpark to pick up my sleeping bag and rushed off to dinner at The Convent with people from the first flat (minus Tilman, he was off on holiday) but Christian and Sasha and Andreas and Charlotte (who doesn’t live there but still) and it was nice though it still felt incomplete in the end, even after the food and hugs. I guess goodbyes never feel complete. 

Höfe und Straße und Eis

I realized yesterday that my dress also tore when I jumped over the gate, but not significantly.  The name of the pub we went to at the end of the Deutschkurs Module I is Kindl Stuben. The name of the second hand store I went to is Kleidermarkt Garage, in Schöneberg. 

Part 2

A week ago I went for a walk and ended up going through a bunch of courtyards, including a network of eight courtyards called Hackesche Höfe, which are really cool but I also got slightly lost because I didn’t realize there were eight or even more than two until I was well into the depths of chic café’s and edgy shops. 

I came back and Katrin offered to show me Prenzlauer Berg, so of course we went. I had already walked around there before, but a) I didn’t really know how Berlin was broken up then and b) I didn’t see that much of it. She showed me the Maur Park Memorial and we walked along the street. We walked for a long time, past the ("a church the name of which I will write in later") which had resisted the Nazi’s really early on, and down the pretty streets but the sun was beating down hard. She headed back to The Convent and I went in the direction of the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum, which is free on Mondays. Trying to not wolf down my overpriced soup-to-go I knew that I wanted to go to the museum but didn’t know if I had the energy for it. When I walked in I looked at the found objects, the simple collages of photos of found objects (100 or so sea washed bottles from NYC and Mexico, transitioning from one color to another, slowly.) It was so soothing. All the people milling around and the heat didn’t bother me then. It was probably the only museum that was perfect for me at that moment.

 

After that I decided to get ice-cream. I was thirsty but I had wanted ice-cream for probably about a month, and I was about to leave. I had bought myself some when I went to Spreewald, but it was a really bad pre-made cone. So I got myself a fruit froyo cup (apples and plums and strawberries and...) cafe that consists of a standard American school-bus, with sand an umbrellas and chairs in front. I felt obligated to get it there because I had been walking past it every single day. Half way through I didn’t think I could finish it. But then I did. 

Music of Tacheles

I am home now. The first time I woke up today I had been dreaming about the German past tense. I am home now, I woke up at 6am and, among other things, have spent some time picking the ants out of a jar of honey someone left open. A multi-part recap of the last days in Berlin:

Part 1

I woke up at 9:30, and could smell the smoke that had sunk into my hair. I lay awhile and then left, Lisa was awake and I told her I would contact her about going to the photography museum, but of course later it turned out that I can't reach her phone, possibly because she has a Maltees number. I came back to The Convent and ate and showered and then went to the Museum fur Fotografie by Zoologiche Garten. There were three exhibits, one of ethnographic photos that had been lost and found, which was okay but the photos, being falsely scientific, were stiff (you should have seen some of the original texts.) And then the other exhibit was of "White Women / Sleepless Nights / Big Nudes” which although I recognized one of the photos and Helmut Newton isn't a no-name photographer, it seemed like an exhibit of the male gaze. The exhibit also flowed into a section called "private property" which made it worse. I went back and napped and then went to by the Bode Museum and briefly met with Bengi, before realizing that the concert I thought was on Saturday was probably on Sunday. (I didn’t stay to hang out because I needed to get my hand disinfected; Sasha, vodka, lack of surprise, appreciated.)

Sunday I decided to stay away from the really large museums, so I went to the Sammlung Sharf-Gesrtenberg in Charlotenberg, especially since the selection of Max Ernst and Buffett appealed to me, even though I couldn’t remember any work by them. I got lost though, and ate and then ended up at the Museum Berggruen, which is free and not very good, but there are blueprints there, and there was one small painting that I liked. I wrote down the name of the artist but threw out the paper. Sammlung Sharf-Gesrtenberg was fantastic, there were really good prints in the lower part of it and it made me want to go back to the zinc plates and acid baths of the print studio. 

Then I napped and after that I actually went to the concert I had attempted to attend the day before, except that I was an hour early. Thursday Katrin had shown me around the area a bit: little hidden courtyards, Tacheles, empty buildings and pretty streets, so  I went back to take pictures of Tacheles, which was an abandoned building that has now been taken over by artists to use as studio space. Some investor wants to kick them out, I don't know why, there are so many buildings in much better shape in just as good areas.

The concert was:

Anna Faber- Violine

Daniella Strasfogel- Viola

Boram Lie- Violoncello

Clemens Hund-Göschel - Klavier

Marc Sabat (*1965) - Claudius Ptolemy für Violine und Cello*

Gabriel Fauré - Klavierquartett Nr. 2 in g-moll, op. 45

Marc Sabat - Jean-Philippe Rameau*

I really recommend it. Free. Open air. Good music. The weather was perfect, and people where drinking the beer and wine being sold on the bridge. 

I was surprised when Bengi called after the concert was over to hang out. I was also relieved, she could have well been annoyed by me for the day before and before that as well. Relived and flattered and happy, becuase it meant I walked around at night with my camera, which I hadn't done much of, with good company.

The Gate

After going to the Altes Museum I met up with people at Tierpark, first with Hannah, her new roommate Merium (Paris), Pierre (Merium's friend from Paris) and Lisa (Malta, German and English.) We climbed on the roof of the apartment and the view was beautiful, you could see the lights far off, you could see the tiny people moving straight below. I unfortunately drank the beer that Hannah's old roommate had left, it was warm, it was not good. We went out looking for something, with the addition of Laura and Bengi (Ankara, Law) and Rita (Athens.)

    Hannah and Pierre had looked up a bunch of clubs and settled on Club Soda, because it was possibly free. When we got there the line was long and the entrance was free for women until one am, and it was eight euro for men; that revolted me. The line was long because it was almost one. Eloosha had recommended to me Suicide Circus, an industrial-site-turned-club, in the Friedrichshain area where a lot of the nightlife is. I figured if it doesn't work out we can easily find somewhere else. We found the club right away but not the entrance. We circled around hearing the music, walking past the gratified walls and broken bottles, the pissing men and chain smoking youths until we finally realized that it was right where it should be; right by the stairs where we came in. By that point we had forgotten that we should split up before trying to enter, hush down our foreignness. The bouncer asked us if we were over twenty-one, only because we had been speaking English. I said yes I am over and gave him my drivers license, which clearly states that I'm not over 21 until 2013. He was okay with this, but no one else showed their i.d.'s so we didn't go.

    Honestly, I just forgot that I was under 21 and was too busy trying to  call Merium and Pierre to figure out where they had disappeared to.

    Not far from there someone groped my butt, and it wasn't someone I knew.
    It was two and we were still just walking around, unsure of where to go. Hannah said that she would go home at three am, she was also unhappy to see and hear men peeing at every corner and tree, and it was cold. Me being me, I felt bad that it hadn't worked out. We passed by a club with a huge line and where approached by some guys trying to convince us to help them get in, since they let in women with ease and groups of men not so much. Honestly I didn't really register this club culture until...well Ben had told me a couple weeks ago that this is how it works but it didn't sink. These guys were not German, maybe Italian.

    It was beautiful walking around at night, and Bengi agreed.

    We kept walking because Pierre knew some place and then it was three am and Hannah and Laura left and we went to a pub called Cake. It was crammed and smokey and we sat next to a large strange women who asked where we where from and why we where here, all the time writing endlessly in even cursive, drinking another glass. I say another because there where already a few glasses standing around here, some strong liquor like whiskey. Lisa convinced me to do shots with her and I was envious of the writing woman, "I wanted to sit here and draw," I thought as a plume of smoke circled out of of a young woman's' mouth and sat suspended, not dissipating because the air was already so dense, and then finally it diffused into the rest of the smog.

    Then Pierre suggested we hop over a fence to get into this club called Chalet (it would be cheaper that way.) He had done it the last time he had gone to Berlin, and he said he had been scared and made a fake stamp on his hand and then realized there was no way of getting caught. We were all game. He jumped over and I held back, because I knew I would be fine getting over a fence, and the other girls seemed a bit less certain. Lisa went over second, but her dress and bag caught and she was left hanging on the spikes, dress bunched up around her waist. The bag was quickly removed but she was suspended on her dress for longer than I expected her to be. Two huge lovely holes in her favorite dress to commemorate the event. Rita went next, Pierre and me telling how to do it and and me saying that yes she can and yes she can. Same with Bengi. And then I came over and jumped from the top but a bit too confidently and fell, twice, because I tried to get up but the momentum of the fall was working against me. A scab on my hand and on my shoulder to commemorate this event. Then I got and up with Lisa went to dance and track down the bathroom (the mens room was cleaner, and emptier, the doors to both bathrooms where wide open.)  An hour later the techno got redundant and we left. We meandered back and watched girls walk barefooted down the stairs, through the glass, the bottoms of their tights black from the dirt. Lisa and I recognized them from when we had gotten off at Washaur Strassa. Going up the escalator at Tierpark, the skirt of the girl in front of me had gone way up, so I could see that she was wearing a thong under her tights. For some reason I didn't think to point this out to her; it didn't look sexual, it just looked silly.  At six I was relived to find that Hannah had left the door to her room (and so access to my sleeping bag) open.

Altes Museum

I had a dream I was back home. But I knew that it didn't make sense that I was back home, because I had made a plan to go to the Altes Museum in the morning, and I couldn't have made that plan in the USA. I said "but I'm in Deutschland!" but I couldn't wake up and someone was singing белая гвардия, so I knew even more that it was a dream, because I had been singing to myself the day before. I was getting upset, I wanted to go back. And then I woke up. I went to the bathroom downstairs because it's more private and examined the freckles on my arms, thinking about how this is the kind of detail that is missed in dreams. I told Hannah my dream and Sasha walked by but didn't see us. Then Hannah and I went to get groceries. But it was really hard to count out the money, and I was upset because the cashier lady was speaking to me in English because she had heard me and Hannah speaking in English. And I thought "I don't remember drinking, why is it so hard to count?" and tried harder. And then I woke up.

After which I did actual go to the Altes Museum, which is Greek and Roman work, and walked around a little in the area.

Not a Ghost

Epilogue (Part 5, the end of this silliness, and yes more stories of not meeting up with people)
I'm a little confused about the order about the last few days, but something like this:

Friday I went to Tierpark with Hannah and Maria stopped by to say goodbye. I spent most of Saturday writing, resulting in this multiple-part text.

I went back to the first flat some point and had tea there again with Christian and Mitya (Sasha's friend who works for the UN in...Slovenia, Slovakia? he said both but they don't even touch, so I must have misremembered, or maybe I'm ill-informed of something important, probably both), and finally relinquished my keys, so I can no longer go sneaking around the flat. Christian and I were both a tiny bit sad at this moment - me mischievously so; I liked being a ghost.

I went over to Hannah's and Caroline stopped by and we watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (yes, a children's movie).

Saturday night I slept over (meaning that we went to bed at 10:30 and then talked for three hours), and Sunday morning on of Hannah's new roommates moved in, she's French. Caroline came over again to say bye, and Nina asked us to come down as well and we all said our farewells. We finished watching Pulp Fiction (one movie I've actually seen before) and then we came over to my place after which we wandered over to the flea market by the Bode Museum, which is mostly antiques. I looked a pocket watch that you had to wind up, but it was forty-five euro and I didn't think I could haggle it down to affordability from there, most things where significantly cheaper, I just happened to pick out something expensive, as usual.

 
Monday wasn't very productive either since all the museums are closed. I got groceries and went to Tierpark because of a day mix-up. Ben was there to do laundry. I talked a lot to Katrin (just finished her masters at Potsdam Universität to be a teacher, subjects Spanish and Poli Sci) during the day and we made couscous salad and pankäse together for lunch. 

Tuesday I went to the Gemäldegalerie in the morning. Ben was supposed to possibly meet me at the East Side Gallery with his family at three, but I ended up wandering it alone, which was nice except for there was a giant cloud that decided to rain right over just that bit of the wall. When I started walking it started to rain, when I finished walking it stopped. I had my camera on me this time though.

For food I decided to explore slightly. I got off at Jannowitzbrücke, because I never had before, and followed the direction where other people seemed to be headed. There was a street with a few Asian-food places, some grocery-stores and barbershops. I got myself a crape und grün Tee, and savored it. I headed to Tierpark since Michael's goodbye dinner was soon, and we went to a Thai place on Friedrichshain. It was good to have a solid goodbye, so many people just up and left.
 

Yesterday I went to the Bode Museum. After that, I was supposed to meet up with Laura and try to crash a class. Module two of the Deutschkurse has started, and there are classes offered in the afternoon. I didn't meet up with Laura but tried to go to the art course anyway, partially because Hannah's new roommate from Malta was there so I knew one person. One of the three professors was the tour guide from the last module, but it was still too awkward and I left.

Karl-Marx-Allee

Part 4
    Thursday night we were going to have a last-hurrah at a pub called (I'll fill it in when I remember) near Karl-Marx-Allee. At half past six we met at Friedrichstraße and went to the pub. The program had started by going there (but I hadn’t attended) during the first week, so it was supposed to bring everything full circle. It was cozy, the walls old and we filled up almost all the space, if not just with our bodies then with our noise.
I ended up having extended debates with a bunch of the Alabama kids. It started with me discussing racism and beauty with one Carolina, a Mexican girl in my class who studies…political science or international relations? She was telling me how to be diplomatic "I respect your opinion, but I disagree" and me "but I don't respect their opinion."

    "They just want their welfare checks. No offense Hannah, you're one of the good ones" and of course Hannah wasn't happy (that was from the first night at the Fritz, when I didn't go.)

And then Chris, who is from Alabama started in two, and another one was hovering and said “I can make you think what I think” and Chris said “oh, she’s a tough one.” I was just curious; these people live in the same country as I am but have a totally different perception of so many things. They would switch off after they got tired of talking to me, get themselves another beer. I rolled with it, seeing where it would take me.

They tried proving to me they were not racist. They also told me Black people in the North are totally different from Black people in the South, and were talking about “good” and “bad” Black people. I can’t even. And this is probably the more open minded, willing-to-travel group of Alabama University kids. It just baffles me. One of them even said that he’s taken a multitude of classes on the subject (the one that was cocky enough to think he make me think what he thinks. I honestly wonder if part of that was because I’m of the more pliable, fairer sex.) They aren’t uneducated, and I didn’t get the impression that they didn’t have any capacity for thought. They are the most foreign people I have met on this trip.


After I had tired them (and my vocal cords) out I finally spoke to the Russian kids in the group. I didn't realize they hadn't known I spoke Russian, I know Nikolaj did, but when he told them they had filtered it out, or thought he meant broken Russian. A girl who goes by Olivia had thought I was French the entire time. I talked a bit to Sasha (the oldest of the group,) who asked me, among other things, if anyone regretted moving to the USA*. And then again later I waited on the platform with them, Ivan had taken a beer glass with him from the pub, Nikolaj and Sasha and an Italian kid who knows Russian and Mario who is also Italian but doesn't know Russian. And others. There was a lot of last-moment-socializing going on.

*Dasha had asked me as well, and then Katrin- one of the people in the part of The Convent I live in now, also asked.

They went back Tierpark, Mario and I headed in the other direction towards where we live. He's one of the older people in the program, about forty, a likable translator and I had talked to him a few times before. I rehashed a lot of what I had been thinking about: language, culture, foreignness, belonging. The silt on that river never settles.