Druecken ihm die Daumen

In short:

Thank you for the postcards, featuring many exotic locations from Saint Petersburg to Savannah, Georgia! I shall be in Boston for a few days this weekend to spend time with my family since my father is recovering from an operation. I would love to hear from you all and will be available via cell-phone.

The longer version:

Every afternoon last week surprised me with a rainstorm. This week has been fairly sunny in comparison. When I was considering one morning whether or not to bring an umbrella with me to class, my enthusiastic and incredibly helpful host-mother Gisela responded that I’ll get used to having one with me pretty much all the time. By the end of the week the rainstorms no longer caught me unprepared. Amidst the varying weather, I am proud to say that I am acclimating to this overwhelmingly exciting and large city.

Patience is really the only way this will all work… patience with my student visa, patience with finding the right classes, patience with the U-bahn and the new neighborhoods I’ve never seen before, patience with the more “academic” German we’ve been learning, patience with the Berliner German which some Berliners can’t even understand, patience with the apartment-hunt, patience until I visit Robert in Poland, and finally, patience in taking in the sights and rather unsettling (in my opinion) history that this city has to offer. I am gathering up the readings and vocabulary lists from the past couple of days. I will soon go to the post office to send a few letters, and then I will do something that I didn’t expect to be doing for at least another six months: packing to go home.

As a few of you may already know, my father has recently fallen ill. All the steps are in place for a gradual recovery, so we are remaining very positive. Many people back in Boston have been there to support my parents, including of course the lovely Erika who rushed to the bus station from Montreal as soon as she heard the news. As for me, I am unbelievably relieved to be joining my family this weekend. I’ll be leaving early Friday morning and then returning to Berlin Monday night. Since my parents were supposed to visit me in Berlin this weekend, this will just be a slight modification in the original plans.

As you can probably guess it has been really difficult being so far away at a time when my family is facing some major uncertainties. Mostly I feel restless since I cannot support them as much as I would like to. I’ve also been a bit overwhelmed since I am not yet 100% settled here in Berlin.

Nancy Bridgewater, my mother’s closest friend from high school and college (who reminds me of my mother in small ways) lives just a few subway stops away from where I am staying now. She been an incredible source of support for me. She greeted me at the train station when I first arrived in Berlin, and helped me with my obsceeeene amounts of luggage (thanks again!). We had a lovely dinner together on a rainy night last week, and she invited me, her son Jan, and his girlfriend Patrizia over for curried-stew and a movie this passed Saturday night. On Tuesday I had the good fortunate of being her guest at a panel discussion on the “American Election”. She showed me the American Embassy on Pariser Platz, plain and understated from the outside but swanky like a hotel on the inside. I must admit I was a bit proud to show my American passport at the front entrance. We walked by the Holocaust Memorial to the “Rheinland-Pfalz” reception room for the discussion. Thankfully it was in English, or else I would not have understood the subtle differences between McCain and Obama that one of the fast-speaking panelists described. The mostly-German audience let out an overarching gasp when one of the panelists clarified that yes, the race is actually a close one and yes, another Republican victory, as unfortunate as that might be, would not be unheard of. For Americans and non-americans alike it was a fascinating evening.

Totally randomly, the program director of BCGS (that’s what I’m actually doing here, short for Berlin Consortium for German Studies) Carmen was also there at the same discussion! She has also taken every opportunity to help me out this past week. My host family has of course also been incredibly sympathetic. Amidst a computer-crash-crisis last week Gisela lent me her computer so that I could keep using skype and email whenever I needed to. There are always delicious dinners in this apartment, so that I hardly need to spend any money here and I am more than well fed when I go to bed each night. Gisela, Judith, David (Judith's boyfriend) and I went to two different art exhibits on Sunday, one in the National Gallery and another in the Postbahnhof, which is an old train station converted into an installation space. We sort of snuck in the back entrance at the Postbahnhof and managed to not pay an entrance fee at the Gallery; Gisela was quite proud of the money we saved. I was glad to spend an entire Sunday thinking about the inexhaustible amount of museums, galleries, and art exhibitions in Berlin. Judith, who is just beginning to study photo in her high school, reminded me of the contingent of Noble students taking Photo I struggling with the many functions of their cameras. She shot an assignment on “Structures” as her first roll of film. It is safe to say that I could not have been luckier with my host-family. Last night: a dinner of Kasespatzel, salad and Berliner Weise (the Green kind)…

Druecken jemandem die Daumen: making a fist around your thumb for someone, literally holding one's thumbs. That is what people do here instead of crossing their fingers. In fact, crossing fingers for good luck sounds pretty silly to most Germans. Carmen, Nancy, Robert (boyfriend-Robert!), Robert’s mother Katrin, my host family Judith, Gisela and Thomas, Nina from Karlsruhe, my language teacher Detlef, and I, we are all holding our thumbs that all goes well with my father.