Frühlingsputz

Back in Berlin. Great weather, sunny but cold. I unpacked slowly and spent a good couple of hours catching up with Anna who had been really busy working. She and Diego had decided that they would just be doing better as a couple if he were to move out. They are not breaking up; rather they’re just giving themselves some private space after two years of living together. It makes a lot of sense to me now that Diego told me his side of the story as well. They are really young, and at that point it just was more restricting than beneficial to be living together. Diego loves having new people around him and tons of opportunities to go out and have a good time. Contrastingly, Anna needs to finish her papers and make enough money to support herself through school. Diego is already done with his studies, so his biggest task is finding either another master’s program in Berlin or a job.

Unlike my incredibly painful and drawn-out experience of finding an apartment (which ended very very well in the end), Diego was asked back to the first apartment that he interviewed at. He’ll be moving in to a “5er WG”, an apartment with five people, just north of Mitte within a couple of weeks. I’m not sure when, but I hope that when he does he will still be visiting every couple of days. My rent has gone up a bit accordingly, but Anna and I are good roommates together, and I think we’ll be fine with this new arrangement and that it’s worth the 90-euro increase.

I had a few very specific tasks for the couple days that I had in Berlin, the most important being CLEANING. The gorgeous weather allowed me to open the windows. When Eliza was here she woke up in the morning with puffy eyes because of her dust allergies. Now I completely understand why. Once I started looking for the dust I found no end. My apartment was filthy! Dust had been collecting since last September; only hours of scrubbing and sweeping could make any difference. I washed sheets, towels, clothes, did a lot of throwing away of papers from last semester, and even filtered some books that I was not going to need and brought them to the Oxfam bookshop to be resold. Man, I didn’t expect that cleaning would feel so incredible.

I also got to see some people in between cleaning sessions. Rafi was in town after grand adventures in Prague and Budapest, and we had a lot to catch up on. We went out for Simit and lentil soup at my favorite Turkish café at Kottbusser Tor. Then we walked around the Victoria park, looked at the view from above, tried to find a beer garden, but came back to my place for beers since the garden wasn’t open for spring yet. Rafi is almost a U of C graduate, and is taking advantage of a quarter off before graduation to travel and go back to his home in Israel before grinding out a living as a consultant for a couple of years in Chicago. It was good to see him and really great to hear some of his stories. I hope he had a fabulous time in Poland.

Getting our Mac and Cheese fix, kraft style

I also finally made it out to Kate’s apartment in Friedrichshein. She lives just east of Alexanderplatz, so a few tram stops away. It was really remarkable how dramatically different everything looked as soon as you leave Alexanderplatz by tram. The buildings become more ugly and taller by the block: “bathroom-tile style” as our friend Howie, also on our program, described it. But Kate’s place is just the opposite, in a low, recently renovated building where her apartment gets plenty of light and even has a few trees and a large park nearby. We made wonderful macaroni and cheese (the Scooby-doo, Kraft kind, nice and orange and artificial) and coffee and stopped for a bit back at the Easter Festival in Alexanderplatz. Kate just celebrated her 21st AND on top of that just finished a half marathon last Sunday! Pretty damn great. Hopefully I’ll be a bit more available to her as a friend this
Semester and we might even get to take another class together.

Street artists in Alex-platz

After lots of skype calls home, it was really great to go to Nancy’s for dinner on Tuesday night. We both had trips ahead of us: me to Istanbul and beyond, and she to Strasburg and Baden-Baden to help with all the Obama and G20 craze. Jan and Patrizia therefore were in charge of making dinner, pasta with veggies and shrimp and mollusks. We had no specific dessert plans and were still a bit hungry, so we made a late-night batch of pancakes. Nancy, being the dedicated Canadian that she is, of course had a solid supply of maple syrup on hand, so that made it my second pancake meal within three days. After not having had pancakes for around four months, I’d say that’s pancake overload. But nonetheless, I love spending time at Nancy’s and getting a chance to catch up with Jan and Patrizia, who seems to be in Berlin just about as often as she is in Stuttgart these days (totally understandable… I mean, do the cities really compare?!?).

Clothes clean, room relatively dust-free (or at least a bit more organized), and a few groceries. After that the new project was to pack and prepare for Istanbul. The two things I had learned from Prague (other than the whole Czech culture-part) are the following:

1) be wary of hostels that you find on the internet and always email or establish contact with them ahead of time
2) always print a map out of where you want to get to; an address is just not enough, even if you have maps around

Jess and I conferenced back and forth about where the best place would be to get a hostel. Unfortunately, I really wasn’t having too much luck finding nearby places on the web, so I decided on a backpackers hostel in a tourist area and hoped that we’d be able to make due once I got there. I also went especially to an internet café nearby to print out a map. I bought a few travel-sized toiletries (man, I love travel-sized things), backed one small suitcase and my small backpack, and leisurely made my way to Tegel Airport for my afternoon flight. It was my first time flying out of Berlin later than 9 am I think, and it was so much nicer getting their by bus instead of shelling out lots of euros for a taxi ride before sunrise. I was totally rested, a little nervous, and incredibly excited to see JESS and go to TURKEY!

Czech it out!!!

The child in me still adores even the most lame plays on words. There seemed to be an entire clothing brand in Prague dedicated to amusing variations on “checking out” the Czech Republic. My favorite was “I am Czech so Czech me out.”

Sadly I managed to miss Obama’s speech at the Prague castle by a week. Later I missed Obama’s visit in Turkey by two days, which is even worse; he clearly forgot to check in with me to correlate dates. But Robert and I still made Prague worth our time.

<-- view of the Harz Gebirge in Lower Saxony from the train
My expectations when Robert and I left Breslau did not measure to the beauty of the city itself. My impression is encapsulated by my friend Janna’s description: Prague is a Disneyland for adults. Just on our way from the train station to the “hostel” (I’ll get to that later) I was astounded, literally jaw-dropped, at the beautiful buildings that we passed by. They were incredibly ornate, and unlike the buildings in Berlin they preferred a brighter palate of colors such as purple or green. Thankfully the tram systems in Prague were pretty similar to the old rickety trams of Breslau – that means that you go to a little machine and pay them exact change or, if you don’t have exact change, your second option is to find a nearby shop that sells the tickets. Then you pay according to how far away your stop is. We crossed the beautiful Moldau and arrived at our stop, Svandovo Divadlo.

A-Okay, all good up until then. But here was the problem: I had the name of the hostel written down, but no exact street number. Okay fine, I confess, I had forgotten to write the address. Luckily there was a Patrinska Street nearby, so we assumed that the Patrinska Hostel and Apartments would be located somewhere on this street. Haha, easier said than found… we must have walked along the short street a good six times, asked three or four people for advice, and finally checked the website again (there was random internet in a park nearby). We were right, it’s on Patrinska street, but where?!? Oh goodness, the final time we searched the street meticulously for a sign of this place, which advertised itself as an affordable but well-located hostel in a popular tourist center. Finally we spotted a narrow gold sign about a foot tall and a few inches wide with the hostel’s name. It was almost indecipherable from the street numbers on the street, which was quiet and mostly residential. Okay, we thought, all is well, we can drop our stuff off and at least take advantage of the sunny day for an hour or so before it would get dark. One catch: the door of the place was locked. We rang the doorbell. No response. We rang about seven more times. Robert knocked pretty damn vigorously on the door. Nothing. We waited a bit longer, then decided that we had two options, look for another hostel or go back on the internet and try to find a phone number. It was only 5pm at that point, so according to the opening hours listed on the website someone should have been there to at least let us in. We called the number, and a somewhat frantic lady answered in broken english, you are here early! She said she’d be there in ten minutes. So we waited.

We waited so long that Robert went off to look for some other hostels in the area (although nothing would have been as cheap for a private room) and I sat on the side of the road and checked the website again to figure out if we were obligated to follow through with our reservation. I heard someone coming, quickly shut my laptop, and looked up to see a woman rushing towards us with her two kids. I had it in my head that I wanted to complain, or negotiate for some sort of discount, or just have a right to be a little pissed off. But I did not want to complain in front of her kids. So before we entered I pulled her aside and explained that my boyfriend was looking for another hostel and that I wanted to get my deposit back. I told her that we had come earlier than we expected from Breslau and we had been trying to find and trying to get in to the hostel for about three hours by that point. But of course the negotiations did not get me anywhere for three reasons. First, the woman spoke hardly any English. She was Russian and I’m pretty sure did not know much Czech either. She did not understand a word that I said when she came to the door. So she looked at me confusedly and had her ten year old son bring in my suitcase, which was a bit embarrassing for me. She unlocked the door and the “hostel” literally consisted of a hallway with an old desktop computer, a few brochures on a bulletin board, and three doors that led to “apartments”. She showed me our room, which really was fine and had a small makeshift kitchen in the corner, but I did not know what had come from Robert’s searches, and I did not know if I should just nod, say thanks, and suck up the price-tag even if the place had absolutely no tourist information or anything that a bigger hostel might be able to offer. There was one sheet of paper up on the wall with information about the room, when the check out time is, that we had to pay upfront, when they clean, etc. One of the parts said that the hours that the employees are present (I guess that meant just this woman) were only until 4pm during the Winter, and until 6 during the summer. A blatant discrepancy from what the website said, and the third reason why we really could not complain.

our humble but generally useful room:

Robert thankfully came back and was able to speak a few words in Russian with the woman (and her kids). She wanted the money upfront, but she was understanding when we said that we did not have the cash. We could leave the money in the room the next day. Needless to say I was a bit frustrated, especially because the vacation house that Robert had booked for us on the Baltic sea had worked out so magically and I was hoping for the same. Robert did not find any vastly better prices while he was out. Although there must be a plethora of great hostels all over Prague (I’ve heard the “Czech Inn” is a great one, recommended by Rafi), we decided that we should just brush it off and enjoy the fact that the place had a kitchen and a good location. I still had that Kilo of perogis from Breslau that we fried up for dinner, with yogurt and a tomato salad. And then, we were a bit rested up and ready to actually get a better glimpse at the city lit up at night. Pictures can explain a bit more than words for this part:

We walked across the river and along it not knowing what we should focus on more, the majestic and seemingly never-ending castle on the left bank or the quiet and small lantern-lit streets on the right. We walked towards the older part of town by the Charles Bridge and were able to enjoy some of the gorgeous small lanes - too small to be called roads – without the flock of tourists that invade during the day and on weekends. We went to a bar with huge wooden doors that looked sort of like a hobbit hole. But once inside we discovered that this was a well-frequented place that was cavernous. There we had our first and last shots of Bescherovka…….. along with some dessert.

The next day we did some serious walking, trying to trace back the roads that the tram took us through when we came in from the train station. Upon Robert’s suggestion (we both love skipping the crowds and looking for the quieter spots in a city) we turned off the main road and found a small café with panini’s, good beer, wi-fi, and even STUDENTS! We felt right at home, except for a wild wolf dog in the corner who occasionally barked at its dreadlock-baring owner. Robert’s general rule for vacation is not to check emails or NBA stats on the internet or anything of the like, but I on the other hand feel a particular need to stay connected at this point in time. I find that being well-rested and being excited to see new places and being in Europe in general gives me enough of the vacation-sensation.

Robert and Pawel, roommates reunited -->

We stayed there for a couple of hours when we met up with Pawel. Pawel was Robert’s suite-mate in Breslau (as in they shared a kitchen and bathroom) last semester while Robert was still living in the dorms. He has lived in Prague his entire life, except for his 6-month stay in Vermont and other various abroad experiences. He is in a house with his parents about twenty-minutes by tram from the castle, meaning he has to pass it every day to get to his university classes, which are located in buildings scattered all over the city. Like most people from the Czech Republic (okay, I know a total of four at this point), Pawel can speak many languages very well. We speak in German automatically, but the fact that he of course speaks perfect Czech was a great opportunity for Robert and I to feel less like tourists and a bit more, well, like “informed tourists”, or traveling students. We went to a café called the Café Louvre (it only has that name and has nothing to do with French culture or the museum) for some legitimately hearty Czech cuisine. Pawel was of course a great resource for learning a bit about Czech culture, what was “typically Czech” as opposed to “typically Polish” for example. For instance, he picked up a little newspaper on our way into the café and later commented that he was so disappointed with the political situation in the Czech Republic. Robert and I had no idea what he meant by that. He explained further that the parliament had been recalled a couple of days before and everything was in the process of being reorganized so that the government could start anew. That’s exactly the opposite of what he wanted; he liked the regime that had been in place and they were a solid barrier hindering the growing power of the president, who according to him is intelligent but incredibly poor at navigating the financial crisis. Such a beautiful place in such political turmoil! From the crowds on the Charles bridge lining up to take their picture in front of the castle, who would have known?

Like Janna said, the beauty of Prague keeps your jaw-dropped like little kids in a theme park. But just like Disneyland, the certain marketability of the beautiful Charles Bridge and Castle guaranteed one slightly unwanted piece of the city: flocks of tourists. I wonder why we always tag tourists as flocking… rather than herding or infiltrating or swarming or any other terms potentially used to describe groups of buzzing animals. Like I said I always try to distinguish myself from the general mass of tourists, and even though that is really pointless in the end, the effort to get to know a little something about the history and politics of a place does make me feel a little more knowledgeable.

FLOCKS of tourists in the old town square -->

In the afternoon we parted ways with Pawel: he had already made plans for the night and Robert and I had plans of our own. The only other things that I had pre-booked (other than the hostel) were tickets to a little tour and a jazz concert followed by dinner in the old part of town. Although the dinner didn’t quite happen as planned, the tour and concert were actually really nice, a great way to hear about some of the “intellectual contributions” that Prague made to science and music. The tour was of the Klementium, a large complex of buildings right next to the Charles Bridge that served as the beginnings of the Charles University of Prague. The Jesuits built a library there that remained undamaged since the 1700’s. The building itself is much older, but I just don’t have the dates on me. We started in the Mirror Chapel, where mirrors on each side stood for the endlessness of spirituality. A very funny large Czech tour guide tried to translate everything in English, Czech and French, which was actually indiscernible from his English because his accent was so poor. He took us up the astronomical tower where Johannes Kepler worked. From there we got a view of the city’s east bank – a sea of red roofs with cathedrals scattered in between, and the river and castle on the other side. We saw the quiet old library, which was still lit by candlelight and featured a good dozen geographical and astronomical globes from different centuries. Of course Robert and I were the youngest people in the Mirror Chapel for the jazz concert, but we’ve stopped denying the fact that we are an old couple ourselves at this point. The saxophone quartet played some short pieces from Czech composers for the first half, and then some standard “American” composers for the second, with Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue serving as the main event.

view from the astronomical tower, Klementium

My grand plans to have a restaurant reservation and a place to go after the concert fell through. They fell through because we could not find the restaurant. I had an address written down, and thought that since we had a map the address would be sufficient. Unfortunately I was wrong; the streets featured red numbers and blue numbers, and the street “Old Town Square” didn’t really exist since it was just incorporated into a huge and crowded cobblestone marketplace. We walked around said marketplace about seven times, now used to the idea that things were harder to locate in Prague than we expected, and yet there was no 12 Old Town Square to be seen, nor could we find the name of our restaurant. Robert was convinced that the red numbers were the right ones; we followed them from street to street but found every number possible other than 12. We later learned from Pawel that these numbers have nothing to do with the address but only serve some sort of taxing purpose for the state. Resigned and a bit hungry, Robert and I walked from the Old Town Square to Wenceslas (good king Wenceslas…) Square. We ended up at a nice Italian restaurant and had enough leftovers for a solid and appetizing brunch the next morning in our kitchen.

The following day I think was my favorite, because we managed to avoid the crowds just as they were multiplying by the hundreds. It did not help that it was the day of the Prague Marathon – it seemed as if more English-speakers participated than Czechs. We managed to catch a glimpse of the race just at the end, but in the morning we just heard the cheers from afar. We walked from our place to the apple orchard on a hill overlooking the city. The first day of WARMTH and SHORTS and springtime. We finally made a tour at the castle, where we discovered a new and beautiful part of town with crisscrossing lanes and fun passageways. The castle was in many ways not as impressive from above as it is from below. The building is still essentially in use; a flag on the outside indicates when the president is home and working. One could not enter the building without an expensive tour guide, so we just spent our time walking through and enjoying the view from outside of it. We walked through the city again to a small café on the water for late lunch and sekt. We could leave our luggage in our room all day since the woman wasn’t expecting any new guests that night (skeptical…) so we picked up our stuff and hopped on the tram to see a totally different part of town, the part where people actually live.

Pawel met us at his stop and had plenty of place for us to stay that night. We bought a bunch of groceries, ate a sort of german “Abendbrot” (cold dinner with bread and cheese/meat/stuff), and then went out again to a bar in his neighborhood. It was so nice to have someone speaking in Czech to order for us and give us recommendations. We went out walking after that, through the now totally empty lanes and streets (tourists seem to disperse late at night) across the Charles bridge. Pawel was incredibly defensive about Prague, as if he needed to excuse every construction sight; he clearly loved showing people around. There were a good ten things that he recommended for us to do that we just would not have time for… of course a reason to go back later on. We ended up at a really cool and big bar that hadn’t closed their kitchens yet (even though it was midnight). More food, more drink, and afterwards a far more comfortable place to sleep than the hostel.

In the morning I finally made use of the jug of maple syrup that I had been dragging around from Berlin (well, originally from my grocery store in Weston). I even had baking powder with me. We breakfasted for a good two hours before Robert and I packed our things and headed back to the train station. Staying at Pawel’s was not only fun, but it was a huge help on our wallets, too. Hopefully I can return the favor if he needs to visit Berlin any time soon. Robert and I spent all of our money on food and lodging and train rides. Now that I think about it, for all of those many tourist stands on the Charles bridge we bought zero souvineers! I think my biggest souvenir from Prague is that my facebook is now only in Czech. I’ll have to figure that one out later, and maybe I’ll need Pawel’s help. Now Robert can’t say that he’s never been to Prague, and I can’t say that I’ve never been to the Czech Republic. The only other boarder country I need to visit is Holland to say that I really saw Germany and it’s surroundings.

Robert and I went by train to Dresden together, and then he split off to catch his train to Breslau while I stayed put till I made it to Berlin two hours later. I just can’t believe it that a place so different like Prague, still as old and beautiful as it was before the war, is just four hours away. That’s the same distance from Boston to New York.

(in the end, ready to head home)

Wroclaw, the four seasons

Wroclaw has the four seasons, all inclusive. No, unfortunately I am not referring to the fancy American hotel. Kasia, a polish friend of Robert’s, described to me a saying that they have in polish: March is the month when all four seasons compete for attention. Okay, that’s a bit more poetic way of saying it… but she is absolutely right. In one day we had sunshine on the brightly-colored crocuses, then rain, then freezing rain, then legitimate M&M sized hail, followed by a couple hours of snowfall. The day was topped off by more freezing rain, and then somehow, a small sliver of a moon and clear skies.

spring crocuses...

... and afternoon hail...

Despite the weather, being in Wroclaw (can I just say Breslau from now on? I know that Kasia might be offended…) with Robert was wonderfully relaxing. I recovered from my jetlag, he did some reading for University and attended some classes, and we ducked out of the horrendously undependable weather by going from café to café in the old-city. One of the nicest, the one that Robert said had my name written all over it, is called the Literature Café. Incredibly quiet and very quaint, surrounded with bookshelves on all sides, I managed even to order some herbal tea in polish. Okay, “managed” is clearly an exaggeration… it’s more that the nice waitress and I had a fun time pointing to things on the menu and then she sounded them out for me. Man, polish is one crazy language. As soon as you recognize a few letters, you realize that they switch them all up on you – the j surely doesn’t sound like our English j’s, and the c’s…. well, don’t get me started. I don’t know how Robert has gotten past the letters, even, let alone the grammar structure. 

<-- A dwarf in the marketplace... riding a pigeon? 

On one evening, Kasia suggested to me that she and I meet at the Galleria Dominanska, a big shopping mall, while Robert played soccer (note: in the freezing rain). That was my second time taking the tram in Poland all by myself; I was very proud. It helps of course that Robert bought me a 7-day pass… but nonetheless the city was becoming more and more manageable, and the streets are so symmetrical that I don’t know how I could get lost there. First Kasia showed me the basement of a relatively fancy clothing store. In the basement they store all of their “old fashions”, and they sell them for tops 5-euros. She was incredibly proud of being able to show me such a find, and I ended up buying two shirts and a dress for no more than twenty euros. Not too shabby. We walked from there to the big shopping mall. Kasia explained to me that that’s where kids meet up to hang out, they go to the shopping mall and spend an entire day there with their friends. They’re all new, she said, along with all of the stores that came with the privatization of Poland. 

I love that she can speak such good German, because she is a great source of information as to what life and politics in Poland are like. And I felt like an absolute idiot when we concluded that I knew next to nothing about polish history. But hopefully that will change with a few more books and a few more evenings out at the mall. Once there we chatted over smoothies and went to the grocery store on the first floor. I thought she had a lot to buy, but it turns out that she just needed some sliced deli meat. She helped me ask for some fresh perogis – sort of like Chinese dumplings, and usually served with cream and ketchup. I ended up getting 500 grams of the sweet cheese kind and 500 grams of the meat kind. Robert and I brought them with us to Prague and they served us well; we got two meals worth of food from that purchase.

<-- a hearty lunch of cheese and meat perogis

Robert and I joined his roommates for meals twice (they always seem to have either schnapps or vodka around to accompany meals…), cooked a bit for ourselves, and took advantage of dry days to walk along the Oder River. My favorite meal though was our lunch in the market hall. We went to this tiny little conglomeration of tables in the corner of a massive indoor marketplace, resplendent in its dark grey communist concrete. But clearly the life of the market lies in the flower stalls, the produce, the meat and fish stands. We literally bypassed all to get ourselves some soup, and right away one could tell that English simply would not fly; thankfully Borscht was not hard to say. Our dark purple broth came with little tortellinis called “Ushka”, which is polish for little ears. No ears though (thank goodness) but mushroom filled noodles that only looked a bit like the shape of an ear. 

An old man joined us and spoke with us in Polish. He said a few times that we were beautiful to be young and studying. His only English phrase was “how are yooooooou”, which he pronounced proudly as a declaration rather than as a question. Robert said that all sorts of walks of life go to that place for food – businessmen and students and exhausted construction workers alike.

Luckily we survived the four seasons and even enjoyed them – there’s really no point in hating freezing rain if it happens on a daily basis. On Thursday we took the tram to the train station at 6:30 along with all the city’s morning commuters. We made it in time for our 7:00 train (let it be known that this is due to Robert’s sense of punctuality, not mine) leaving a calm and cool city behind us. I have no recollection of the rest of that train ride since I was fast asleep before we even left Breslau. Next stop, back to Germany, specifically to the grand Saxon city of Dresden to grab some coffee and switch trains for the Czech Republic.

Polish borscht, Czech beer, Turkish coffee, and Swiss hot chocolate

As I sit on my great Aunt Lisie’s balcony in Zürich the chirping birds and delicately warm sunshine reassures me that spring is here to stay. After two weeks of traveling and unpacking and cleaning and packing again and traveling some more, I can pretty confidently say that my body is exhausted. My mind, however, is refreshed and inspired. I look forward to the moment when I can slowly process all of the pictures – from the sand-castle train station in Breslau to the vastness of the Prague castle to the majestic mosques in Istanbul. I want to filter through the random receipts now overflowing from my wallet, for better or for worse (it just may reveal the actual sum of the money I have spent already this month). Of course the ultimate goal is to do some writing: recording the places I’ve seen, the food that I have eaten, and the new things I noticed along the way. I love that traveling can also reinforce old connections, rather than focusing on making new ones in new places: it’s been three months since I saw Jess Weaver at New Years and much has happened to both of us since then, so catching up was a must. And now I am here in Zürich with similar goals. Lisie is never at a loss for words, whether in Swiss German, Schwäbish German, or “Hochdeutsch”, the only dialect I can fully understand. But she just likes to have someone around to listen.

On another note, I have no internet here in Zürich. Perhaps I could try to find an internet café, but the 10 franc price tag for 15 minutes of wi-fi sort of turns me off. So for the moment I am enjoying the sunshine and Lisie’s lovely company. We are leaving in a couple of minutes for a lunch in a small town not far away with her dear “Geliebter” Otti, hence mentioning the Swiss hot chocolate… I have many more warm and cold beverages alike to comment on soon ☺

Ein SONNIGES Berlin!

What?!? Can it be? Has the sun really come to tempt Berlin with hints of springtime? I’m not expecting that the clouds and misty rain cover will never return, but I am pretty damn excited that Berlin held onto legitimate sunshine for four days straight. Even my uncle Ronny from California would have liked the weather...

The incredible and well-traveled Eliza Wilson was already in my apartment when I arrived, bronzed and making tea. Luckily Kate was there to pick her up from the airport the day before. Anna and Diego were around too, although Anna has been working at least one shift at her restaurant/cafes per day. Eliza and I went out walking as soon as I got in to take advantage of the sunshine (how could we have known it would’ve stayed for three more days?) – we walked through the Viktoriapark and into Kreuzberg to the Turkish market, where we stopped for gozleme and coffee. We bought eggplants, some zukes, a kilo of strawberries and a few other ridiculously cheap pieces of produce. We essentially cooked dinner and passed out no later than 9 pm. Eliza, who was recovering from two weeks on Safari in Krüger National Park in South Africa, had as much sleeping to catch up on as a jet-lagged Melissa.

Anna waitressing at the Kant Cafe in Charlottenburg -->

The next few days happened incredibly quickly. We saw a few touristy sights but mostly went café-hopping and walking through the sunny streets. Robert joined us on Thursday afternoon so that he could see Eliza before she left (and I hadn’t seen him for a month!). I spent most of Friday editing my last paper (on Immigration politics, just ask if you want to hear more) and after I mailed it to my professor we celebrated with beer and hot chocolates. We topped the night off with another good meal and a round of “Europareise”, a really fun board game that I found at a thrift shop for 2 euro earlier in the week. On Saturday we spent the day in Prenzlauer Berg, where we saw Berlin UNION play against Jena. Perfect weather, fabulously routy fans, and even though Robert’s favorite team pretty much played like shit (they won on a penalty kick, I mean PLEASE!) I really had fun taking pictures and drinking glühwein from the stands. Cupcakes followed, as is customary on my trips to Prenzlauer Berg. Then we went to Judith’s house for dinner and met up with Diego at the restaurant where Anna was working for drinks until late.

<-- me at the Turkish market in Kreuzberg

Exhausted but somehow still energized, Eliza, Robert and I managed to pack everything in under an hour and get a couple of hours of sleep before Eliza’s taxi came to pick her up the next morning. And now she’s gone! Gone to spend a week in DC with her own family, and then to go back to Chicago for the spring quarter. Meanwhile Robert and I have also left Berlin behind us. We took a train to Brelsau mid-morning and six hours later were buying tram tickets to go to his apartment. Of course, no more sunshine. Frigid and foggy, but that’s just how it is around here. Robert is glad to be “home”.

F.C. Union, Eisen Union, Union Berlin!

A walk around east berlin (wish you were there, Erika):

More to come, but for now I’m planning on FULLY taking advantage of the following fact: I have no homework! I am on vacation! Robert has a few classes this week, during which I plan to do a liiiiiiittle bit of german-studying. But other than that there will be plenty of sleep and pierogi-eating (super tasty) and picture taking. And hopefully I’ll keep up with this blog a bit better in the weeks to come.

the most important trip: home

It would be fairly impossible to describe even a small percentage of my thoughts and experiences since the beginning of February. Now in late March I find myself back in Europe and finally on vacation. Let me repeat:

I.
Officially.
Survived.
My.
First.
Semester.
In.
Berlin.

Wie geil / how sweet!!

With a breath of fresh air, a little dose of freedom, and a calm feeling of accomplishment, I can barely contain my excitement at the destinations that lay ahead of me. 

In the next three weeks before my summer semester gets rolling (for better or for worse), I shall do the following: accompany Robert to Breslau, take him on a belated-birthday-celebration trip to Prague, return to Berlin for three days, fly from Berlin to Istanbul to stop in on the adventurous Jessica Weaver, leave from there to Zürich to check in on our great aunt Lisie Weihmayer, train through the Black Forest to my father’s birthtown of Saarbrücken to see family friends, and finally travel south a little bit to Karlsruhe, where Robert will join me to celebrate Easter with his mother, cousins and brothers. Some time after that I shall take a five-hour train ride back to the illustrious city of Berlin, and assuming I will not have fainted of exhaustion before I get there, I fully intend on attending the first sessions of my second-semester courses, whichever courses those end up being. At some point in between all of that I hope to brush up on some of the German that I’ve lost from all that English I’ve been speaking. Perhaps I shall get the chance to do a little spring cleaning in my apartment in Berlin; upon returning from Boston I realized with dismay that a thick coating of dust covered just about every surface in my room… And of course I gladly transition into vacation mode: camera always close at hand, journal in my mini-tourist backpack, a couple of guide books, a couple of READING-FOR-FUN books (who would have thought!), and many people to correspond with; it feels so wonderful to keep in touch.

(Beacon Hill, Boston)

Going home for a month was all about slowing life down long enough to appreciate the things that matter: courageously strong family, and ever-supporting friends. On a day-to-day basis that broke down to running errands with my mother, heating up macaroni and cheese and chilling in the living room with my father, calling my sister and talking for a long while after all the phone tag, and skyping with Robert from Poland. Sitting in the kitchen, enjoying some of the fancy new appliances, and going outside only to feed the birds once in a while… Somehow I managed to complete not one but two long research papers over the course of the month. I cannot say that I went about writing them with any sort of efficiency; my parents can attest to the fact that I am a supremely talented procrastinator. But when my Mom used her Harvard connections (via a medical library ID) to find me four good sources on Immigration in Germany I really could not hold it off any longer.

Erika came home for her spring break, and suddenly a quiet house had life in it again. Despite the fact that Erika came down with a furious cold, we went on a mini-roadtrip first to Brown to stay with Erika’s closest high school friend (incidentally she is named EriCa, as in Erika but with a C), and then I went on to Wesleyan to visit our dear cousin Frazer, who is already a sophomore (I cannot believe it) and who could not have found a better fit in a college. Erika unfortunately left early so that she could sleep, and I made it home safely in a snowstorm driving around 50 mph on the mass pike.

In comparison to Berlin, we had incredible amounts of sunshine. I had forgotten how beautiful the winters in New England are: a few days of whiteness but so much blue sky. Snow and variable weather sporadically messed with our travel plans though, and as my mother often says, our street has THE most snow in all of Boston. The following weekend my mother decided that the safest way to get Erika home would be to drive her to Montreal on Saturday afternoon rather than risk having her drive in a snowstorm that Monday. So we went, the three of us blasting Les Miserable from the tape deck (haven’t pulled out any tapes in a while). We arrived at around 9 pm, and after dropping Soleil and Erika off at Erika’s apartment, my mother and I were thrown into what turned out to be a Winter carnival, called the “White Nights Festival”. There were people all over old Montreal. The temperature could not have been over 10 degrees, and yet people came out for galleries, for restaurants, for street performances, for ice skating. We ate dinner at a French-Quebecois restaurant at around 10:30 , and then visited a few interesting galleries before going to bed. In the morning we went straight to La Gascogne for fabulously buttery croissants. We went from there to my grandmother’s nursing home, where we spent a few hours reading and walking around. Two family friends of ours, Donna and Peter who live just outside of Toronto, surprised us by coming to visit Bubby (my grandmother) just at the same time we did. We met their beautiful dog and heard some amazing stories about Peter’s swimming days. And then my mother and I simply drove back home. For a less-than-24-hour trip, we definitely packed a lot in.

(Peter, my mother, and Donna in Montreal)

Once my father finished his treatments at Mass General Hospital, he grew stronger and looked healthier each day. I was particularly glad that he was at home; not only did he gave me invaluable company while writing my papers, but I cannot quite describe just how comfortable it was to simply be at home and around him. My mother was also able to take time off, and we really enjoyed the time that we spent together. With all this hectic moving around in my life right now, from Berlin to Chicago to Boston and back again, those moments at home are just more special than any far away adventures. And I cannot stress that enough.

The following weekend Maya visited me from Hampshire College for an evening and we went to the lovely Joe’s Family Diner for Two the next morning for cranberry pancakes and omelets. Jan toured Boston for a few days after his ambitious field trip to Mount Washington. When Jan and his friend Tobi arrived with no cell phone at the Logan Airport and no where to store there luggage, they realized that getting around Boston is not as easy as getting around Berlin. Jan repeatedly swore about the lack of lockers at the airport and the incompatible cell phone companies. 

But we made a great day of touring out of those first frustrations with “American Culture”. I picked them up at the airport (additional complaint from Jan: you can’t see ANYTHING in Boston without a car) and we essentially ate our way through Boston one delicious treat at a time: burritos in Central Square, rich hot chocolate at Burdick’s in Harvard Square, Cannoli’s and gelato at Mike’s Pastry in the North End, ridiculous amounts of stir-fry at Fire & Ice. 

(Jan watching his food being fried before his eyes, Fire & Ice, Cambridge)

But the beautiful sunny (and warm!) spring day made walking around possible and allowed us to (mostly) digest it all. It was fabulous for me to have a day to speak German again, and to get my fill (literally) of Boston before heading off again to other cities. 

Janna and I topped off this Boston eating experience with a greasy and horrendously cheap breakfast at Waltham’s second finest diner, Wilson’s, a few days later.

Already it was time to leave. Part of me regrets having to work so much on my papers while at home, but working from the kitchen table with my dad around and playing nice music really did feel like a nice balance. All I can really say is that I started missing my family as soon as they dropped me off at the airport. I hope that they are doing well without me.

(Sammi, Robert, Josee, Sandra)

A Break from Berlin

Whereas January began slowly, February has kept me on the run from day one. I am somewhat astonished at all of the things that happened in these passed two weeks: 

a crash course in Berlin history with the illustrious EB, a "long night of the museums", a couple of cozy movie nights with the fabulous Kate, a wonderful goodbye dinner for Meryl, a jam-packed but incredible weekend with Dori and Milan, a perhaps a bit shaky on the vocab but nonetheless successful presentation on US Migration politics, a solid start on a paper about German philosophy, a week of relaxing and packing with Robert, a Schnitzel extravaganza with Nancy, Jan and Patrizia, a "Russendisco" party, a visit from Robert's father with lots of walking and DDR-stories, incredible amounts of food and long walks around Köpernick with Robert's grandparents, and finally, a lasagna feast (my second in two weeks) with Judith and her myriad of British guests. Wow. 

And now I am heading home to Boston for one month to be with my parents and Erika, who will be joining us from Montreal next weekend. It promises to be both busy and restful, sprinkled with road trips and hopefully a bit of working (I still have, sadly, two big papers to finish). I cannot wait to have my Mom waiting for me at the airport for a much overdue hug. 

I will post some pictures from February soon. In the meantime, I have a plane to catch at 7:30 tomorrow morning, a boyfriend to say goodbye to, and still some packing left to finish. Please direct all correspondences to my American cell phone, or my email, or, of course, this blog.

<-- Boston, view from above!