amerikanerin in berlin

Mary and I got back to Berlin today, after a lovely week spent relaxing at her parents' in Gießen, where we made and ate three (3) pumpkin pies, watched at least ten (10) movies, and put together one (1) 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle (and half a 500-piece one). Here's Mary eating said pie, sitting on the couch in her upstairs neighbor's apartment, where we watched most of said movies:

The first couple days we barely left the house, cause I'd forgotten my passport, which made it harder to get onto the base where Mary and her parents live, because apparently South Dakota drivers' licenses are no good here as identification, unless you want them to think you're, like, a terrorist or something. We didn't want to leave and risk not being able to come back. Once the visitor's office was open on Tuesday, though, we got me a pass--so I'm in the system now--and thereafter we occasionally mustered up the energy to leave the couch and see stuff like this castle:

Pretty cool.

Not so cool was how today, in an attempt to get back to Berlin for the rollicking New Year's celebration we have planned, we ended up in Hamburg. Guh. There's not really a story, unfortunately; there's just a really really unfortunate moment of stupidity, and getting on the wrong train, and not realizing it until the only stop left was the last one on the line. BUT at least we didn't have to pay for another ticket once we got on the right train in Hamburg--due, I'm sure, to our collective stunning good looks--and we were only about an hour and a half late getting home. No biggie.

Labels: Christmas

by LP at 10:52 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

Here's a picture of Jeremy (American) and his roommate Mario (German). I hang out with them now and then:

Jeremy's lip piercing is new, and he's wearing eyeliner (mine; he asked me to bring it and not ask questions) because, in his words, he "wanted to be the center of attention for a while." He's a character. Mario is pretty cool, and doesn't normally make that face.

In a couple hours I'm off to spend Christmas with M. Horning and her family, which I'm pretty excited about. Frohe Weihnachten, everybody!

by LP at 1:14 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

Today I saw Santa riding a bicycle down the street. A gorilla twice Santa's size was riding on the back.

by LP at 6:32 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

Labels: Christmas

by LP at 9:18 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

Okay, so here's the story of when I punched James in the face a couple weekends ago in Hamburg:

As you can see, Andy had me by the wrists. Out of the blue, he made me sloppily punch/slap James in the face, and before either James or I had recovered, he did it again. This picture is the aftermath: me laughingly apologizing and saying, "I couldn't help it!" and Andy grinning mischievously.

And now some pics to accompany my former posts about Christmas markets and whatnot:

Labels: Christmas

by LP at 1:32 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

So I read in the paper today that it's THE Israeli minister who's here for a visit--Prime Minister Olmert. (My German's not so good when it comes to governmental titles...and my knowledge at any given time of which important world figures are where would probably bring Mr. J. William Fulbright to tears.) He is staying in one of the hotels on Budapeststrasse, in the most secure presidential suite in town, the one with bulletproof glass. One thousand Berlin police are out in force to protect him. And they not only have tanks, but snipers on the rooftops too.

by LP at 3:09 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

Pretty frequently I like to just kind of take off walking through Berlin and see where I end up. I also like to try walking from one area of the city that I know to another, to get an idea of how everything connects, see what's in between. So today I decided to take a very roundabout route from Nollendorfplatz, which is fairly close to my neighborhood, to Unter den Linden to check out the Christmas market on the Opernpalais. (I was going to make you a nice MS Paint map, but I can't really fit it all easily. Here's this instead. It's pretty much all there.)

I walked through Wittenbergplatz but didn't go into Kaufhaus des Westens ("Department Store of the West"). Last week when I went in, I had my camera with me, and I temporarily waived my anti-tourism policy to take this picture (everybody else was doing it anyway):

I love this guy. He just sat there composedly like that while millions of people took his picture, and took pictures of their friends sitting beside him. And besides, I'm willing to believe that facial hair is real.

Incidentally, one of the other Americans I was with in Hamburg was saying that Berlin is experiencing a serious shortage of Santas this holiday season, and that you can collect some pretty good wages if you get yourself a red suit and register with a Santa-placing agency. At least, I think that's how it works. Maybe I should find out, try my luck breaking down some gender barriers in the business...

Anyway, I headed from Wittenbergplatz over to the Kudamm. There's a gigantic Christmas market at the Gedächtniskirche (Memorial Church), but I just walked through cause I'd seen it the other day too. Here's a picture I took there right before my batteries ran out:

Not a great pic, but I didn't get another chance to try capturing the actual market because of said battery failure. The only thing of interest to you here might be the little wooden hut, which is pretty much what Christmas markets are (this is one of many huts, that is)--and maybe the elderly lady apparently eating toothpaste.

From the Kudamm I walked through Budapeststrasse and Stülerstrasse, which aren't terribly interesting in and of themselves, and I wouldn't mention them now except that today the area was crawling with Polizei. Seriously, I think half of Berlin's police force was out lining those streets, standing in groups drinking coffee, sitting and reading in cars and vans. They had tanks. Small ones, but tanks. Two of them. I asked an officer what was going on, and he said an Israeli minister is here for a visit. He's probably staying in one of several luxury hotels in that area. I didn't have my camera along today, so I can't show you what it looked like...but they probably wouldn't have let me take a picture anyway.

So then I went up Hofjägerallee to the Siegessäule and down the Straße des 17. Juni (which is way longer than it looks on the map) to Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate). There's a giant Christmas tree on Pariser Platz, right in front of the Gate, but I was more impressed by the one we saw in Hamburg. It was so big I couldn't take a picture of it. Huge.

As I walked down Unter den Linden, the lights in the trees came on. One of my teachers at school thinks it's ridiculous the way they outlined every branch with a string of white lights. It does kind of look like a bunch of lit-up dead trees. I guess the guy who paid for the lights decorating a few of the major streets in Berlin this Christmas made his fortune in port-a-pottys. Not that that has anything to do with whether my teacher likes the decorations at all...

The market on the Opernpalais was a good one. I discovered Feuerzangenbowle, which I find even tastier than Glühwein, plus it's more fun to say. It's hot wine and rum and orange and spices and sugar. So perfect for strolling through the market when it's dark and the city's lit up, and it's just cold enough that I appreciate the warm mug in my hands. Christmas markets smell soooo good. Gebrannte Mandeln (roasted almonds, but I think it sounds more delicious in German) and crêpes and wurst, and at the Opernpalais market there are dozens of Christmas trees (of normal size) lit up and smelling nice... Have I mentioned that I love how Germany does Christmas? I do miss snow, but I'm certainly not complaining about the weather we've been having. Nice for walking around the city.

Oh, and the Christmas carols? Pretty much the standard ones you'd hear in the US, plus a couple German ones (which I happily recognized from Christmas parties with the German department at Calvin)--and "Last Christmas." I hear it EVERYwhere. Apparently the Germans really love it. I don't know why I find that so funny.

And finally I walked up Unter den Linden to Alexanderplatz to catch the bus home. The End.

Labels: Christmas

by LP at 6:33 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

A while back when Pete (another American TAing near Hamburg) came to Berlin to visit, we met this Spanish guy named Luis. We were out in Friedrichshain (one of the "boroughs" of Berlin, in the northeasterly region) at this place that I love. It doesn't really have a name, but people who know about it call it das Loch--the hole. People who don't know about it don't call it anything, cause if you don't know where to look you won't find it. The hole is an opening at sidewalk level, about a foot and a half high or so, and you scoot down into it and land on a couple cement steps which lead down into three or four basement rooms. The ceilings are low enough that Pete couldn't stand upright. The walls are decorated with grafitti and the furniture consists of one couch, some barrels and boxes, and a swing made of a long board suspended on ropes. There's a bar and a foosball ("kicker") table. This is how we made friends with Luis--and his father, also Luis, who was visiting from Spain. Luis Sr. is probably, oh, 60ish. And we met him playing foosball with his son at 4 am in a place they call the hole. Classy guy. He only speaks Spanish, so his son was translating for him from English and German.

We talked to the Luises for a while, and then Luis Jr. said I should come over sometime and he'd make paella, so I gave him my email address. The emails I received from Luis, whose English is rather broken, are a story on their own. My favorite phrase to date has been, "I have a more illusion for see you."

So I finally went over to Luis's apartment last week for paella, which was very tasty indeed. His roommates are from Sweden and Denmark (and I think there's a girl from Japan who wasn't there), all very nice people. It was a good time.

Labels: friends, Hamburg, travels

by LP at 11:59 AM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments

No snow here yet--actually it's been really warm--but the city's beginning to look rather Christmasy too, with all the lights up in the streets and whatnot. I like the way Germans do Christmas. It has a lot to do with the Christmas markets that go up everywhere--wherever there's a plaza big enough, it's populated by little wooden huts in which people are selling roasted almonds and Glühwein (hot, spiced wine) and Christmas ornaments and handcrafted stuff. There are nine Christmas markets in Berlin; pretty much every town in Germany has one, some more famous than others. On Potsdamer Platz they've also built an artificial sledding hill, complete with artificial snow.

Wednesday mornings start off for me with an 8th grade English class. Today I talked for a bit about Christmas in America--tried (and failed, I'm pretty sure) to explain egg nog, did a better job with leaving cookies for Santa Claus (which Dad eats), the whole business with Naughty and Nice, and getting up at 5 am the day after Thanksgiving to go Christmas shopping... And then we sang carols, along with a cassette the teacher's been using for who knows how many years. First we sang "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and then we sang "Last Christmas." Yeah, the George Michael song. I had a hard time singing, cause it was all I could do not to laugh at a room full of German 8th graders belting out, "Last Christmas I gave you my heart/ But the very next day you gave it away..." and then mumbling through the verses and then bursting out with "Last Christmas..." again. Trust me, it was priceless. (Go here to enhance my description of the scene with a clip of the song!)

Germany's also pretty big on Advent, the calendars and all. That same 8th grade class made Advent cards for all the teachers, so each day of the season somebody gets to open the one with his or her name on it. My name was on December 1st already, so I got to open the card that says "Frau Peterson" on the outside and "Marry Christmas" on the inside.

Apparently Germans do their fair share of commercializing the season, too, though--the other day I saw an advertisement for electronics. Roughly translated, it claimed that the prices were so low, the Baby Jesus would be flabbergasted.

Labels: Christmas

by LP at 4:42 PM (Berlin time) | Permalink | Comments