amerikanerin in berlin

Berlin has started to feel familiar. I definitely feel at home here. Even to the point of blogging effortlessly on a German keyboard. So it's a little strange that I'm leaving again already--but I certainly can't let two whole weeks of school vacation go to waste. The plans are a little vague and very last-minute, but here they are as it stands now:

This morning Lindsay and I are headed down to Munich, to stay with a family I know and see what we can see of the last weekend of Oktoberfest. (You can't be in Germany while it's going on and not at least check it out, right?) Then I'll probably head over to Switzerland and meet up with M. Horning and her folks for a lovely relaxing time on the lake at Interlaken.

It's hard not to go with my instincts, which tell me to see four or five countries in as many days...but the above will probably be more relaxing. Plus, I have months left here. Plenty of time to explore. And, oh, I'm going to. I am absolutely NOT leaving Europe this time before going to Prague.

Since I'm going to be gone (and most likely not blogging) for at least a week and a half, I'll leave you with a nice picture spread. The other day I was going to do one of those "Here's my day in pictures!" kind of things, but 1) I'm a pretty awful photographer, and 2) I hate looking like a tourist, so if I do take out my camera somewhere like the Kudamm, I take the picture as quickly as possible in order to be able to put it away again before too many people see me. Thus, an incomplete series of blurry pictures. Anyway, here's my Random Tuesday Picture Spread, such as it is...

Labels: Berlin life

by LP at 8:35 AM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

Last night I went with a bunch of students from my school to the American ambassador's house here in Berlin. Some people from some kind of cultural awareness committee at the American embassy had gathered together a few politicians, a couple women (Iranian and Afghani) who work in communications, some guys from Wedding (probably the ghetto-est district of Berlin) who work with problem kids, a restaurant owner from India, and all these students (probably 10 out of 12 of whom are of non-German nationality) to talk about the immigration/integration issue. It was fascinating, because some very personal opinions and experiences were aired, and also riveting, not least because it was all in German, which still takes an excess of concentration for me to follow--especially when people get all fired up about something. And the guys from Wedding used a lot of unfamiliar slang.

The discussion particularly made me anxious to really get to know some of the students at my school, because all of them have great stories, and a lot of insight into the issue for their age. This is partly because they've been asked so often to talk about it, being students at a school where over 80% of them are non-native German. (That is, not of German nationality, although most of them were born here. There are so many politically correct and incorrect terms for it, and, being that the operating language is German, most of them are monstrously long, and also not fully translatable.) There's a phrase in German, "to have one's nose full of..." which means to be fed up with something. Hopefully the students will still be interested in talking to me about it though.

I'm finding it more difficult than I expected to figure out where exactly I, as an American and as a recent (22-year-old) college grad, fit in at the school. I'm not a real teacher, but I'm not one of the students--and I'm not even similar to any of the student teachers they have in their classes from time to time, because in America one is "finished" with university (i.e. undergrad) at 22. Here it's more like 27 or 28. (As far as I can tell, at that point one has something comparable to a master's degree. But there's not the break between undergrad and grad work that many Americans take.) The students are usually surprised at how young I am when they ask me my age, and I've tried to explain the difference several times. So. I'm only a few years older than they are (high school goes to 13th grade in a Gymnasium, which my school is), but I'm finished with university.

And as an American...well, I'll try to put it nicely: more and more I want to dissociate myself from Americans I meet abroad, especially those with power. I was, suffice it to say, less than impressed with the ambassador last night. (Though his house was enough to make me want to learn to schmooze with the US government.) He was perfectly nice and all, but his cookie-cutter speech sounded hopelessly empty after all the insightful and impassioned discussion among students less than a third his age, and he spoke no German at all. The last thing I want to be to the students and teachers at my school is some kind of American Big Brother, or a sort of analyst using them as specimens for study. Even while writing my project proposal, and stronger yet now that I'm here, I have the feeling that I'm still an outsider, that I may not have yet earned the right to pry into people's lives.

I'm still pondering what exactly the outcome of my project will be. I guess in what I've just written, it's clear that part of the point is to make the whole situation a little clearer to Americans. It is, after all, hard to understand the situation here when you're an ocean away. So. There may be more of these ponderously long blogs as I work it out.


On an entirely different note, I found a cafe in the area that does "Piano Mondays" and another a little further away that has open mic every few weeks. Possible substitutions for Mondays at Billy's? I believe I'll have to find out.

by LP at 6:28 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

This is the bread I bought today at the outdoor market about 20 minutes' walk from my apartment. Or, well, this is some of the bread. The loaf was about three or four times bigger than that before Lindsay and I attacked it, having gotten back from the market. It's farmer bread, which means it's substantial stuff. I imagine some hardy, jolly German farmer in the Middle Ages (if anyone was jolly in the Middle Ages) taking a loaf like this out of his overalls pocket and tearing off a bite while standing in the field he's been plowing, taking a little break, maybe talking to his cows over the fence... It's chewy on the inside and crunchy on the outside (i.e. perfect). Mmm...

And this is the cheese I bought to go with it. Five different kinds in a sort of package deal. I don't know what they are (except for the one in the package, which calls itself Brie), but they also are very delicious.

Going to markets is a perfect Saturday thing to do, especially when the weather's as gorgeous as it has been. Someday I'll just give up on not looking touristy and take my camera to the market, so I can share the joy at least visually with all of you. The experience isn't easy to convey, though, because I can't adequately describe the progression of smells as you walk past the bread booth, the olive booth, the bakery, the leather booth, the lady selling herbs, the one selling teas... Like I said, Mmm...

Labels: Berlin life

by LP at 1:43 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

...feet are the foremost thing on my mind right now. Since the first installment of my stipend recently landed in my brand spanking new German bank account, I think I may have to put some of it to use buying a comfortable pair of shoes. Comfortable, that is, in the context of the hours I put in every day walking. Flip flops don't exactly do the job. I may have to rethink my No Closed Toes Till It Snows philosophy.

The photos of Altenberg that I said were up before are up for real now. And here are the promised pics of my oh-so-urban Wohnung...














The kitchen. We have the convenience of a washing machine in the apartment. It sounds like an airplane taking off.













My bedroom. (The books belong to its former tenant. No way did I haul them on and off trains and airplanes.)

Labels: Berlin life

by LP at 6:08 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

I'm using a computer at my school, and it's tricked out with all the latest Windows technology circa 1995. Haven't quite figured out the internet situation at home, thus the inactivity on the blog.

If, by the way, this blog seems less entertaining than my last...it's probably because I'm thinking half in German. English words fail me much more often when I'm on the continent, I guess. So pardon the lowered intelligence level. And the lack of pictures. Pretty soon I'll post some of my apartment, I promise.

So far I've just been sitting in on English classes for a day at my school. I introduced myself to a 10th grade class and answered questions. (Are there lots of fat people in America? Do you like Fifty Cent?) This afternoon I'll meet all the English teachers though, and we'll figure out my schedule and what exactly I'm to do here.

Mostly I just wander the city in the gorgeous fall weather we're having and occupy myself being thrilled that I live here. I bought bread on the way home from school yesterday, some really delicious wheat rolls, and one with lots of seeds in it (see? stellar descriptions, I know; my English profs at Calvin would be thrilled), and I think I'll have an awfully hard time going back to American bread, the kind that only comes in a plastic bag. There's also a wide variety of ethnic restaurants within close range of my apartment, including several döner stands, which rivals currywurst for the favorite Berliner snack. It's Turkish in origin, I believe. Lots of stores in the area around both home and school are Turkish, especially markets specializing in fruits and vegetables. Those plus all the bakeries and cafes...I could spend the whole of my time here just eating.

Labels: Berlin life

by LP at 11:07 AM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

The hardest thing about living in Germany, as opposed to just traveling here, is learning to grocery shop. It was hard enough in England where everything was unfamiliar but still in English. Here...there are just way too many different kinds of cheese and meat to get to know. And I'm so impatient to know it all already--the city, the people, the language.

I've been speaking mostly English with Henrike, my roommate, but we're easing into the German. We had a conversation last night, and I was appalled at how rusty my own pronunciation has gotten since four months or so ago, when I last had to speak German frequently. I understand most things fine, so it's disappointing when it doesn't come out of my mouth the way I hear it in my brain.

I went out last night with Henrike to an indie pop club and saw this band live. It was a small venue, really low-key and lots of fun. Just walking around, I've seen posters advertising concerts for so many bands I know. I'll have to get used to living not just in a foreign city, but a big foreign city. There's so much here, and I want to see all of it.

Yesterday I wandered around the city center, Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenberg Gate, which is mostly what I've known of Berlin until now. I actually found the first place I ever tried currywurst, a Berlin specialty, and ate lunch there.

Tomorrow I'll go to my school and meet my teacher, and then the real Fulbright stuff begins. I'm a tiny bit nervous, but looking forward to getting my brain working again.

Oh, by the way, it stopped raining in Altenberg, so there are pics on flickr of the whole compound we were staying in there. Click on the badge to the right...

Labels: Berlin life

by LP at 4:44 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

I don't have pictures of Haus Altenberg because it's raining today.

Orientation is officially over. It wasn't so bad, as orientations go. Tomorrow morning we get back on the buses at 7:30 am to go back to Cologne, and from there I'll get on a train to Berlin. I'll be meeting my new German flatmate by 4:00 or so. I don't go to my school until Monday, when I'll meet my mentor teacher, and hopefully some students and other teachers. But I won't have to start teaching right away. They give you a while to acclimate yourself, see what's going on at the school.

My school is mostly non-native Germans, so lots of Turks and Palestinians and Arabs and maybe some Italians and Spaniards. This year Fulbright introduced 20 new TA grants (one of which is mine), the purpose of which is to send native English speakers to schools with largely immigrant student populations--or, as the Germans like to say to be polite, students with immigrant backgrounds. Non-native German students are hugely under-represented in overseas exchange programs, they said, so they're bringing overseas to the students instead.

Last night they took me and the other 19 "diversity" grantees to a dinner at a hotel a couple minutes' walk from Haus Altenberg. It was super good food! but also really interesting to hear about their vision for the program. Got me interested in my research project again, which is good, since it's been months since I wrote the project proposal and was all fired up about my subject.

And actually, although the mock class sessions we've been doing here were incredibly unrealistic (because we Americans are pretty bad at pretending to be German kids in 8th grade), they got me excited to meet my real students. I'd been looking forward to the actual teaching part the least, because teaching isn't one of my passions. But from everything they've said here, it sounds like we TAs can tailor our teaching jobs to our particular capabilities. I'm planning on mostly being around to assist with teacher-planned material, and then every so often do a little presentation or activity on something I might know more about. The people running the orientation are actually kind of pampering us--they keep telling us not to let the schools make us work too hard, and to make sure and get out traveling, and see lots and lots of Germany. We're only required to work at the school 12 hours a week.

Now that I know I'm leaving this American isolation chamber within the next 24 hours, it feels like I'm really getting going on this whole adventure. I can't wait to move in to my Berlin apartment and see the city again, and then get into my project and getting to know the students at my school...and then, of course, traveling. We have a two-week school break already in October.

All right. Lots of text and no pictures makes for bored readers. More later...from Berlin!

by LP at 4:59 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

German dogs are so much more well-mannered than their American fellows. Big German shepherds pass tiny lap dogs on the street with hardly a glance, and the other day I saw a sort of retriever type being led through a Karstadt department store full of people, calmly minding his own business.

(Dogs are allowed in stores and sometimes restaurants in Germany.)

Here are two nice little guys waiting patiently outside a bakery:


And here, at a big weekend antique market in Cologne, is a very large, very furry guy:


I didn’t get a better picture because I didn’t want the dog’s owner to think I was stalking her pet. But let me tell you, I walked past him, and he just got bigger the closer I got.


So now I’m in a secluded monastery-turned-conference center, two miles from the very small town of Altenberg, with 139 other future teaching assistants–-mostly Americans, plus a few Brits and Canadians and an Australian or two. We’re getting oriented. For all the times I’ve been oriented, I should have no problem finding direction for the rest of my life.

One of the worst things about orientations is the herd mentality that governs the orientees. There is just nothing good about 140 Americans trucking through the streets of Cologne with ten months’ worth of luggage each, trying to get everything and everyone on buses for the 30-minute drive to Altenberg. This is only about a third of the group:


So far it actually hasn’t been that bad here. It’s probably good for me to learn about teaching, since I haven’t done much of it. But, as usual, I think they could probably convey everything they intend for us to learn in about half the time they’ve scheduled. There’s an awful lot of down time, and not much to do except wander the grounds.

Which are, by the way, most picturesque. I’ll get out with my camera tomorrow and prove it to you. (Though my photography skills probably aren’t up to the task.) It really is an old monastery, but no one has determined yet whether there are still monks on the premises. Their bells are definitely here, though, and they announced their presence, loudly and extensively, this morning promptly at 6 am. And then again at 7. Rather unfortunate.


I’ve met lots of people, a few of whom are going to Berlin with me, and they will actually be teaching in schools not far from mine. Except for them, though, I won’t see many of these Americans again, so I’m anxious to get on with it and meet my German roommate, and the teachers and students at my school. And it will be nice to quit living out of a suitcase and start feeling at home here. In Germany.

Gripes over orientation and all that aside, it’s still pretty great just to be here.

by LP at 7:22 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

So I'm here in Cologne, trying to remember how a German keyboard is different because I haven't gotten my computer online so I'm in an internet cafe. I got here around noon German time and couldn't check into my hostel yet, so I dropped off luggage and wandered the city for a few hours.

The Dom is really big, as promised.

And my feet hurt.

But the weather is great for walking around, and I successfully bought a hair dryer. Now I very much need to find some food, and then brush my teeth, since the last time I did that was three countries and four airports ago. (Ew. Sorry.)

Kinda hard to believe I'm actually here...but it's more familiar this time than ever. So far, so good!

by LP at 5:51 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments