Everything I've posted on this blog so far has gone through one of two channels - one of two methods of composition. Either it's been an entry that involved on-site notes, preparation, drafts and self-editing, or it's a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants entry, that I write strictly off the cuff. Usually at ridiculous o'clock, which tends to be after midnight.
This is one of the latter. It's just past midnight, so it fits the time prerequisite, and it has absolutely no preparation: I didn't even know I was going to write it until about five minutes ago. Added bonus: this one has a dedication.
To Connor - for reminding me that I have a blog, and for informing me that there may just be some people aside from my totally awesome mum at home in Melbourne who actually enjoy taking a few minutes out of their day to peruse my latest musings.
So what's been going on recently? Well, suffice to say, a fair bit. A trip to New York and to D.C., a few days in the former with my sister and her boyfriend, summer in Berlin, ridiculously high temperatures leading to sleepless nights and rides through Berlin's government quarter at 1am (no better time to explore and take photos - hardly any tourists!), exploring abandoned Olympic villages and military complexes in western Berlin, watching movies on rooftops, riding my bike along the abandoned runways of old airports, some of our fantastic students bringing us icecream on really hot days to show their appreciation for all our hard work behind the reception desk, friends coming and going (unfortunately mostly going, or planning to go), and making plans for the next few years in Berlin.
All this has got the cogs turning in my head, leading to some serious thinking. I don't tend to do my best thinking inside - academic work excepted. Instead, I usually have a few places I go if I need to think, to clear my head, or to escape from the four walls of my flat for a while.
There's Paul-Linke-Ufer on the Landwehrkanal if I don't have the time (or the energy) to venture anywhere further. The Landwehrkanal is a tributary of the Spree river that runs through Berlin's inner southern suburbs - right through Kreuzberg, about 10 minutes' walk north of my place, and it's a great place to go on a summer night to hang out, enjoy a cold beer, dip your feet in the river, and watch the Kreuzberg locals practise their juggling routines or strum a tune on their guitar on the Maibachufer. It's also the same river I walked on in February when Berlin rediscovered the ice ages, so I definitely like that area - anywhere from Pannierstraße to Prinzenbrücke.
A little further, and south this time, is my latest discovery: the old Tempelhof airport. I've got a post in the works about that place - it's definitely earned it's own post - so I won't say too much about it here, but there's something very cool and extremely humbling about sitting under a century-old oak tree beside the runway of an airport that essentially saved the city you're living in from starvation only a few decades earlier, and all this within walking distance of your flat.
Even further afield are Berlin's lakes. I'm a water-baby: I grew up either in, beside or on the water, and I naturally gravitate toward the water when I need to relax or to take time out. The lakes are a fantastic escape from the city, but they require a packed lunch and a cooler - Müggelsee in the south is at least an hour and a half away by public transport, even with a bike to ride to and from the station, and Flughafensee in the north or Schlachtensee in the south-west aren't much closer, but if I've got the time and the energy, I'll venture to one of those.
The ultimate though? The ultimate is somewhere that I used to go a lot when I was little. Melbourne's beaches. Yes, Sydney-siders, Melbourne only has bay beaches, but half-metre waves make exactly the same sound as six-foot ocean swells when you listen to them crash on the shore. I spent almost every summer until I was about fifteen at my grandparents' beach house on the Mornington Peninsula - walking along the beach with my grandmother, collecting shells and materials for collages, and just talking. During the year, I'd go fishing or sailing with my late grandfather on his yacht on Port Philip Bay, and I loved it, for exactly the same reason - spending time on the water, listening to the waves lap at the side of the boat, escaping from the city, and talking to him and to my grandmother.
The last few years that I was living in Melbourne, my place of choice became the Esplanade in Brighton. It only took me about fifteen minutes to drive there from my place, and I could quite happily stay sitting on that beach for hours at a time - just thinking, mulling over what was going on in my world, and figuring out the next step - from sunset until well after the stars were twinkling across the skies. It was on the sand at Brighton beach at about 8pm on a summer night in late 2003 that I made the decision to apply for the assistant year in Kusel. It was on the same beach around the same time a few years later that I decided I would reapply for the same program in Berlin, and listening to the waves and watching the stars arc across the sky has provided me the space and clarity of mind to sort through other things in my world - work, friends, family, what I'm doing with my life... You know, the usual.
Like I said, there's a few things going on in my world at the moment - I think everyone is in the same boat - and there is almost nothing I wouldn't give to be able to get into my little white 1987 Corolla hatchback, cruise down North Road, hang a right onto the Esplanade and pull into the car park behind the Brighton bathing boxes, stroll down the ramp onto the sand, find a spot away from the floodlights and just think... listen to the waves, watch the stars, and just think. But I don't live there anymore: ironically the decision I made back there in early 2007 to move to Berlin has meant I can't just drive on down there.
But I've got my places here - Paul-Linke-Ufer, the oak tree at Tempelhof Airport, and the shores of Schlachtensee. These are my Brighton beaches in Berlin.
Notes From The Road: The Tail End of a Very Albanian Bus Ride
29th March, 2010. Just outside Saranda, southern Albania.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel... or rather at the end of a nine hour bus journey. The departure from Tirana, the Albanian capital, was almost eight hours ago now, and according to our intrepid guide, whose name I can't for the life of me remember, but who is the epitome of Albanian hospitality, we have about another hour to go before we roll into Saranda, a small fishing village on Albania's south coast, about 20km north of the Greek border, and our final destination.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel... or rather at the end of a nine hour bus journey. The departure from Tirana, the Albanian capital, was almost eight hours ago now, and according to our intrepid guide, whose name I can't for the life of me remember, but who is the epitome of Albanian hospitality, we have about another hour to go before we roll into Saranda, a small fishing village on Albania's south coast, about 20km north of the Greek border, and our final destination.
The road, as has become standard for Albania, was ridiculous. The distance from Tirana to Saranda is a little over 300km. The journey took nine hours. That includes a half hour lunch break, but no other major breaks. Yes, the roads are that bad. Potholes at regular intervals, some a foot wide and at least six or seven inches deep. Roadworks crews taking up the whole road and then some. Mountain shepherds laconically herding their flock across the road, blissfully oblivious of anything beyond their rural farming acreage. Sometimes all three within 100m of each other.
The terrible roads also mean that I can't use writing to pass the time in the bus - well, not for most of the road anyway. In the last hour though, as we get closer to the Greek border, the road has become somewhat better, so I'm taking the time now to make some quick notes of the "highlights" of the bus ride.
Coming in at number three is the scenery. About two hours after leaving Tirana, we passed through Dürres, Albania's major harbour, then headed directly south towards Greece. As we left Dürres and the houses and buildings became fewer and further between, the countryside transformed from industrial complexes and apartment blocks to rolling hills and flat green meadows, and off in the distance ahead of us, an imposing mountain range rose from the plains. Within an hour, we were trundling alongside the Drin river as it carved its way north towards Montenegro, soaring snow-capped mountains flanking the valley. As I'm sure some of you can imagine, I was so overwhelmed with excitement, I could hardly sit still, to the amusement of the other passengers on the bus: I kept switching from the left side of the bus to the right and back again, taking photos, basking in the sunshine and absorbing the magnificent view.
A close second in my highlights list is the aforementioned guide - the bus driver's right hand man, and ticket vendor. As I said, I have no idea what his name was, but he was the best possible representative for tourism in Albania that the government tourist board could ever hope for. As soon as I found the bus to Saranda and the guide realised I wasn't a local, he switched into surprisingly fluent English and would have quite happily bent over backwards to make sure that I was happy. He offered me food and drinks for the road, helped me find fruit and water at the bus stop, offered to buy me lunch when we pulled into the truck stop (though after four hours in a bus where two young children had been throwing up most of the time, I didn't have much of an appetite left), and during the longer stretches between stops, he would venture back to where I was sitting in the middle of the bus to have a chat about anything and everything: where I was from, where I was going in Albania, what I thought of the country, what I liked about it, and especially why on earth I'd chosen Albania as my Easter holiday destination. (I got that question a lot.) In short: he was very cool.
Number one has to go to my assigned travel companion for eight and a half of the nine hours. The guide told me at one stage what his name was, but it was long and complicated and Albanian. In my head, he will forever be "Toothless Old Guy." He got on the bus five minutes after me in Tirana, took the seat on the opposite side of the aisle, and travelled all the way from Tirana to a bus stop on the side of the road in the mountains in the middle of nowhere about twenty minutes before the end of the line. I pretty much ignored him for the first few hours - I was too enthralled in my book to pay much attention to anything else ("A Thousand Splendid Suns" - highly recommendable), but after the lunch break around 1pm, I noticed that this older gentleman was regarding me with a curious expression. He had figured out that I wasn't Albanian, nor was I Greek/Macedonian/Balkan in any way (the book in English and the camera were big give-aways), and this proved to be a great source of entertainment to him. He tried talking to me, but there were two slight problems. First: I don't speak Albanian. Second: he had been slurping from a two-litre bottle filled with an orange coloured liquid, which made him smell suspiciously like raki (an Albanian/Balkan version of Ouzo) and the whole bus seemed to erupt with laughter whenever he spoke; this made me relatively certain that even if I'd had some skills in Albanian, I wouldn't have been able to understand him.
About fifteen minutes before he got off the bus, he offered me two oranges, with a renewed effort to get a conversation going. This time he was yelling so loud that the guide ventured from the front of the bus to take the seat in front of me to translate between the two of us. With him as an intermediary I discovered that Toothless Old Guy was a mere 65 years old (I had guessed at least 80, possibly 85), a devout Muslim (as are most Albanians), and that he had a small farm in the mountains of southern Albania which he shared with his two wives. The best part? The reason he had been badgering me to talk to him for the last few hours was because he had his slightly blurry sights set on me as #3 in his collection. I almost died trying to suppress my laughter - after all, it was beyond ridiculous to me that I would be Wife #3 to a 65-year-old Albanian farmer, but in his world, I would clearly be crazy not to take advantage of an opportunity like this. Yes, Toothless Old Guy was the highlight of the bus ride.
He got off the bus about ten minutes ago. We're now well into countryside very similar to what I would expect of northern Greece: orchards of olive trees as far as the eye can see, low stone walls lining the roads instead of the usual curved metal barriers, and every so often, a small white stone altar by the side of the road. Out of the front window of the bus, I just caught a glimpse of a wide expanse of blue water, which can only be the Adriatic; this means that we're very close to Saranda, so I'll leave you here for now, and promise to continue my rambling notes from the beach tomorrow at the latest.
New Series: Notes From The Road
As some of you know, I like to travel. No. That's not the entire truth. I love to travel. I love the experience of getting on a train, plane or automobile and going somewhere I have never been before. I love the challenge of leaving my safety zone and going to a place where I don't speak the language, where I have no idea what I'm going to see, hear, taste or smell next, and where I'm forced to hastily learn some very basic phrases in the local language just to get by. In the last ten years since I really started travelling, I've managed to get quite a few countries' stamps in my passport: 33 at last count, and I'm not done by a long shot.
Being the Miss Independent that I am, I much prefer to travel alone than with friends, if the safety situation in the destination country permits. I love the absolute freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I feel like doing it - to not compromise on where I'm going to go, what to do there and how long to stay. Apart from meeting a lot of new people I probably wouldn't meet were I travelling with someone, I can indulge my three favourite travel activities to my heart's content.
I can take a quick look at the map then shove it safely in my jeans pocket and head off in the general direction of where I want to go, wandering through the streets, taking a left here and a right there as the spirit moves me.
I can take as many photos as I want. I just upgraded to a Pentax X-70, and it is my absolute favourite toy. I had a Sony DSC-800 until March of 2010, and while it served me well for a long time, it was on life support by then, and there was no way I was taking a dying camera to Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania (my Easter trip this year). I'm learning about shutter speed and aperture and ISO numbers and settings, and loving it.
The most important? I can stop whenever I want, wherever I want, to write as much as I want. I can scout out somewhere comfy where I can watch the locals go about their daily activities and mull over my thoughts on whatever country or city I happen to be in at the time. I didn't write a whole lot in most of the western European countries, mostly because we were on the go all the time. Yes, I was on one of those big organised tours: a three-week booze cruise on wheels, trundling along the highways of Europe. Hello, my name is Australis and I have been on a Contiki tour. Back in 2004, I wasn't the confident adventurous traveller I am today. Back then, I had been to a total of five foreign countries - well, four and New Zealand for three weeks with my family when I was eleven. So I booked a group tour to explore all these new countries with a safety net of a tour manager and thirty of my "closest friends". Since then it's pretty much me and my backpack - no more guided tours for this little black duck, unless safety says otherwise.
Anyways, the point is that I have a lot of "Notes From The Road". One of them is already on here: "Musings from a rusty Estonian bus", from my Latvia/Estonia trip over the Easter weekend in 2009.
There are a whole lot more where that came from. So in the next few weeks, I'll be posting my new series "Notes From The Road" from a whole range of places - from Edinburgh to Pristina, from Tallinn to Marrakech, from Lisbon to Istanbul. Enjoy!
Being the Miss Independent that I am, I much prefer to travel alone than with friends, if the safety situation in the destination country permits. I love the absolute freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I feel like doing it - to not compromise on where I'm going to go, what to do there and how long to stay. Apart from meeting a lot of new people I probably wouldn't meet were I travelling with someone, I can indulge my three favourite travel activities to my heart's content.
I can take a quick look at the map then shove it safely in my jeans pocket and head off in the general direction of where I want to go, wandering through the streets, taking a left here and a right there as the spirit moves me.
I can take as many photos as I want. I just upgraded to a Pentax X-70, and it is my absolute favourite toy. I had a Sony DSC-800 until March of 2010, and while it served me well for a long time, it was on life support by then, and there was no way I was taking a dying camera to Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania (my Easter trip this year). I'm learning about shutter speed and aperture and ISO numbers and settings, and loving it.
The most important? I can stop whenever I want, wherever I want, to write as much as I want. I can scout out somewhere comfy where I can watch the locals go about their daily activities and mull over my thoughts on whatever country or city I happen to be in at the time. I didn't write a whole lot in most of the western European countries, mostly because we were on the go all the time. Yes, I was on one of those big organised tours: a three-week booze cruise on wheels, trundling along the highways of Europe. Hello, my name is Australis and I have been on a Contiki tour. Back in 2004, I wasn't the confident adventurous traveller I am today. Back then, I had been to a total of five foreign countries - well, four and New Zealand for three weeks with my family when I was eleven. So I booked a group tour to explore all these new countries with a safety net of a tour manager and thirty of my "closest friends". Since then it's pretty much me and my backpack - no more guided tours for this little black duck, unless safety says otherwise.
Anyways, the point is that I have a lot of "Notes From The Road". One of them is already on here: "Musings from a rusty Estonian bus", from my Latvia/Estonia trip over the Easter weekend in 2009.
There are a whole lot more where that came from. So in the next few weeks, I'll be posting my new series "Notes From The Road" from a whole range of places - from Edinburgh to Pristina, from Tallinn to Marrakech, from Lisbon to Istanbul. Enjoy!
Back with a vengeance
Wow. I knew I'd neglected this once-beloved blog of mine, but I had no idea it had got this bad. It didn't completely disappear from my memory - every few weeks or so, I'd see, hear or experience something relatively random and think "man, that would make a great blog post", but that's where it finished: ideas were swallowed up by the all-consuming depressing darkness of the most ridiculously hermit-creating winter I've ever experienced. Some of the best of it fortunately got documented in my journal, which is going to be the source of the next few posts.
Sitting here perfectly comfortable now in just a singlet and jeans, the April afternoon sunshine streaming in through my window, is in itself the best possible way to illustrate the contrast between the circumstances of then and the circumstances of now. Four months. Four whole months since December 24th. Back then, it was snowing on and off outside, sunset was at about 3.40pm and the average daily top temperature was rarely above -10°C.
So here comes the update.
The day after the last entry was a very chilled German expat Christmas, then quite possibly the best Boxing Day ever (Glühwein, chocolate and good mates - what more could you want?). New Years - this one definitely made it into my top five: again, good mates, good food, great fireworks in Berlin, and added bonus, a whole lot of snow!
That set the trend for January - well, the snow at least. Snow and more snow, and then just a little bit more snow. Oh, and beyond freezing temperatures. And a blizzard or two. The coldest winter in Europe for decades. Explorative photography adventures in the snow, walking and playing soccer on frozen canals in Berlin, the official christening of my new gumboots (with three layers of socks), coming home at 2am to see a thick layer of ice on the _inside_ of my windows... And then there's Australia Day - which has earned its very own blog post (a work in progress).
February - well, to be perfectly frank, February is best forgotten. Cold, depressing, stressful beyond belief, and not short enough. March - the first teasing signs of spring. One day it's 15deg and the sun is shining, the next day there are snowflakes falling gently from the heavens and everyone's digging through their wardrobes for the winter woollies again.
Honestly the best part of March was the 25th. The flight south to a part of Europe that had actually somehow defrosted enough to be considered to be enjoying spring weather, for ten blissful days in a living breathing history classroom. Blog posts to come from my journal notes in Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo - give me a few weeks to get it together.
The point? Australis is back. With a vengeance, a whole lot of new post ideas, and a certainty that summer 2010 will be the best ever. There are music festivals, cultural festivals, food and beer festivals all over Berlin in the next few months. If that's not enough, it's a World Cup year - summer and football. Winning combination.
The best part? Hours and hours of sunshine-filled afternoons in the next five months to savour with great mates. Oh yeah. Bring it on.
Sitting here perfectly comfortable now in just a singlet and jeans, the April afternoon sunshine streaming in through my window, is in itself the best possible way to illustrate the contrast between the circumstances of then and the circumstances of now. Four months. Four whole months since December 24th. Back then, it was snowing on and off outside, sunset was at about 3.40pm and the average daily top temperature was rarely above -10°C.
So here comes the update.
The day after the last entry was a very chilled German expat Christmas, then quite possibly the best Boxing Day ever (Glühwein, chocolate and good mates - what more could you want?). New Years - this one definitely made it into my top five: again, good mates, good food, great fireworks in Berlin, and added bonus, a whole lot of snow!
That set the trend for January - well, the snow at least. Snow and more snow, and then just a little bit more snow. Oh, and beyond freezing temperatures. And a blizzard or two. The coldest winter in Europe for decades. Explorative photography adventures in the snow, walking and playing soccer on frozen canals in Berlin, the official christening of my new gumboots (with three layers of socks), coming home at 2am to see a thick layer of ice on the _inside_ of my windows... And then there's Australia Day - which has earned its very own blog post (a work in progress).
February - well, to be perfectly frank, February is best forgotten. Cold, depressing, stressful beyond belief, and not short enough. March - the first teasing signs of spring. One day it's 15deg and the sun is shining, the next day there are snowflakes falling gently from the heavens and everyone's digging through their wardrobes for the winter woollies again.
Honestly the best part of March was the 25th. The flight south to a part of Europe that had actually somehow defrosted enough to be considered to be enjoying spring weather, for ten blissful days in a living breathing history classroom. Blog posts to come from my journal notes in Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo - give me a few weeks to get it together.
The point? Australis is back. With a vengeance, a whole lot of new post ideas, and a certainty that summer 2010 will be the best ever. There are music festivals, cultural festivals, food and beer festivals all over Berlin in the next few months. If that's not enough, it's a World Cup year - summer and football. Winning combination.
The best part? Hours and hours of sunshine-filled afternoons in the next five months to savour with great mates. Oh yeah. Bring it on.
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night
Well, somehow we've made it to December 2009. In Berlin right now, and for the last few days, it's snowing, it's freezing cold, and I'm sure the Christmas markets are doing a roaring trade in Glühwein and roasted almonds. Usually I would have been to at least six or seven by now, but this year's a little different. I haven't been to any yet (just haven't had time!), with the exception of the one in Edinburgh, which for a German-style Christmas market in the capital of Scotland, it wasn't half bad, if a little pricey. 3pound for a pretzel? Honestly.
Christmas this year is a little different than most though. Christmas to me means family, but Christmas 2009 will be the first Christmas that I won't be spending with a family - as in, a group of blood relatives, either mine, or someone else's. If I can, I spend Christmas with my family in Melbourne - with my mum's and my dad's families. It's chaos and insanity and madness and hilarity all in one wonderful, magical day, and I love every single moment of it with both halves of my family. Christmas 2008 was a special Christmas, and one that I will never forget. I knew at the time that it was probably the last time my mum's family as I knew it would be together, and that's what made it just that bit more special, and just a little bit more difficult to leave afterwards.
If I'm not in Australia for Christmas, I'm in Germany, my second home. Usually, I spend Christmas in Germany with a family who welcomes me into their fold for the holidays. This year though, my family of choice is a group of truly great people; some of my fellow "broken toys" - other expats who for whatever reason aren't going to their home country for Christmas, so I'm spending Christmas 2009 with my Berlin mates.
Aside from Christmas, the other theme for this email is 2009 in general, and what a crazed year it has been. It's no secret that I'm glad it's over - it's been a bit of a tough one, for a few reasons. The bushfires at home in Australia, visa dramas over here, and various other issues. The most difficult for me was the sudden trip home to Australia for the funeral of my beloved Pa - my mum's father, who passed away in August. It was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do, but both he and my family mean too much to me not to have gone home.
I've also managed to add a few more flags to my backpack this year. The first trip after Christmas in Australia was venturing up north to the Baltic states for Easter, for a lesson in all things former Soviet - former KGB listening stations in the spires of churches, and towns closed off to the world for decades while the Soviet military occupied them as military bases. Next was a weekend in Portugal, albeit with a buggered knee as a result of a bike accident, which has since recovered to the point where I can't actually remember which knee it was. The latest was a week in the UK for Squishy's graduation, including a Magical Mystery Tour of Liverpool and a stroll along Penny Lane and a cider in the Cavern Club, a long overdue reunion with Squishy and the Jedi Masters in Newcastle, and a freezing cold few days in Edinburgh with more Australians in the hostel than I've been around in a while, and an encounter with the McKenzie poltergeist in the Covenanters' Prison. Google it to find out what I'm talking about.
The best part of 2009 though? My Freundeskreis - my mates. Some of you I haven't seen days or weeks. With others, it's been months. 2009 has been a mix of seeing old friends again, spending more time with existing friends, and meeting some great new people. Spending hours upon hours cosy in Murrays Irish bar on freezing cold Saturday afternoons in February learning about rugby while watching the Six Nations, drinking Erdbeerbowle and escaping summer thunderstorms at the Karneval der Kulturen, walking on the tarmac of former Tempelhof Airport for the 60th anniversary of the Berliner Luftbrücke in May, taking part in history in the making at the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate on a rainy October night, celebrating Thanksgiving (twice, with a third to come in January) with a United Nations of expat friends in November, and now in December, cinnamon toast in Newcastle, and possibly the best Mariannenplatz movie night yet - the movie, the food, the apple cider, but the best part: the people.
And so I'm going to leave you with a slightly plagiarised Christmas lyrical feast.
These are from some of my favourite carols, and put into words what I've been trying to say since I started this post.
"And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young"
"Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight
Through the years we all be together, if the fates allow.
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us gather near to us once more."
"And so I'm offering this simple phrase, to kids from one to ninety-two.
Although it's been said many times, many ways, a very merry Christmas to you."
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Christmas this year is a little different than most though. Christmas to me means family, but Christmas 2009 will be the first Christmas that I won't be spending with a family - as in, a group of blood relatives, either mine, or someone else's. If I can, I spend Christmas with my family in Melbourne - with my mum's and my dad's families. It's chaos and insanity and madness and hilarity all in one wonderful, magical day, and I love every single moment of it with both halves of my family. Christmas 2008 was a special Christmas, and one that I will never forget. I knew at the time that it was probably the last time my mum's family as I knew it would be together, and that's what made it just that bit more special, and just a little bit more difficult to leave afterwards.
If I'm not in Australia for Christmas, I'm in Germany, my second home. Usually, I spend Christmas in Germany with a family who welcomes me into their fold for the holidays. This year though, my family of choice is a group of truly great people; some of my fellow "broken toys" - other expats who for whatever reason aren't going to their home country for Christmas, so I'm spending Christmas 2009 with my Berlin mates.
Aside from Christmas, the other theme for this email is 2009 in general, and what a crazed year it has been. It's no secret that I'm glad it's over - it's been a bit of a tough one, for a few reasons. The bushfires at home in Australia, visa dramas over here, and various other issues. The most difficult for me was the sudden trip home to Australia for the funeral of my beloved Pa - my mum's father, who passed away in August. It was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do, but both he and my family mean too much to me not to have gone home.
I've also managed to add a few more flags to my backpack this year. The first trip after Christmas in Australia was venturing up north to the Baltic states for Easter, for a lesson in all things former Soviet - former KGB listening stations in the spires of churches, and towns closed off to the world for decades while the Soviet military occupied them as military bases. Next was a weekend in Portugal, albeit with a buggered knee as a result of a bike accident, which has since recovered to the point where I can't actually remember which knee it was. The latest was a week in the UK for Squishy's graduation, including a Magical Mystery Tour of Liverpool and a stroll along Penny Lane and a cider in the Cavern Club, a long overdue reunion with Squishy and the Jedi Masters in Newcastle, and a freezing cold few days in Edinburgh with more Australians in the hostel than I've been around in a while, and an encounter with the McKenzie poltergeist in the Covenanters' Prison. Google it to find out what I'm talking about.
The best part of 2009 though? My Freundeskreis - my mates. Some of you I haven't seen days or weeks. With others, it's been months. 2009 has been a mix of seeing old friends again, spending more time with existing friends, and meeting some great new people. Spending hours upon hours cosy in Murrays Irish bar on freezing cold Saturday afternoons in February learning about rugby while watching the Six Nations, drinking Erdbeerbowle and escaping summer thunderstorms at the Karneval der Kulturen, walking on the tarmac of former Tempelhof Airport for the 60th anniversary of the Berliner Luftbrücke in May, taking part in history in the making at the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate on a rainy October night, celebrating Thanksgiving (twice, with a third to come in January) with a United Nations of expat friends in November, and now in December, cinnamon toast in Newcastle, and possibly the best Mariannenplatz movie night yet - the movie, the food, the apple cider, but the best part: the people.
And so I'm going to leave you with a slightly plagiarised Christmas lyrical feast.
These are from some of my favourite carols, and put into words what I've been trying to say since I started this post.
"And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young"
"Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight
Through the years we all be together, if the fates allow.
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us gather near to us once more."
"And so I'm offering this simple phrase, to kids from one to ninety-two.
Although it's been said many times, many ways, a very merry Christmas to you."
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
The BVG - not just a transport network.
This post is one of those that resulted from a one-line note in my mobile quite a few months ago, on one of those rare days I didn't have a notebook with me in the underground. And yes, those days are indeed rare.
The BVG, as many of you know, is the city transport network for Berlin. It has its good days, its bad days, and its truly horrific days when major parts of the network strike, but in general, it leaves most of the other public transport networks I've had the pleasure (or, more often than not, the misfortune) of experiencing for dead. A spiderweb of trains, trams and buses connecting most areas of the city to most others, in a network so well thought out that the majority of Berliners choose to ride public transport over owning their own car.
Yes, the Berliners, and indeed ze Germans, are an environmentally conscious lot, which clearly gives public transport an advantage, but the BVG actually really is that good.
Living in a city which relies so heavily on public transport, you quickly learn to take a few select items with you every time you leave the house, so that you are not forced to endure the boredom of a: waiting for said transport, which to be fair is rarely more than about five or six minutes' wait (S-Bahn excluded, since they've been striking on and off for the better part of the last six months), or b: the ride in the public transport itself. One or two stops is tolerable, but then there's the walk to and from the station or bus stop, and add on a few minutes' wait, and heaven forbid you have to change once or twice in your journey, and that leaves you with at least half an hour of boredom which could potentially be alleviated by just one or two of a few small items.
My items of choice? For pure portability, an MP3 player, and usually at least either a book or my journal. Ultimately, I prefer to have at least two of these three items, to cater for battery failure or a particularly jittery driver impeding my writing or reading ability, but one will usually suffice. The problem is, choosing just one item leaves you open to the mercy of the choices of your fellow commuters. Choosing reading or writing material is practically begging for at least one of the kids in the train to play every single Turkish eurotrance or antagonistic German rap track that they have previously downloaded onto their mobile phone at the maximum volume that their Nokia can possibly pump out. Not pleasant.
The MP3 player is a better single choice, but then where do you look? If you're fortunate (that's a relative term, by the way) enough to be travelling by bus, or by tram, then you can quite happily while away the minutes staring out the window and watch the world go by.
Trains however, despite their inherent increased speed beneath the city from one rabbit hole to another, balance out this obvious benefit by removing all external visual stimulation. And so, should you have made the unfortunate choice to travel by train without bringing your own reading material, your only other option is to people-watch.
People-watching is where I get a large part of my inspiration for blog posts - so much so that I've actually got a series of posts in the works at the moment, the results of my observations while travelling around Berlin's underground network over the last two years. The characters of the Berlin transport network are truly unique, and there's never a dull moment in the train, if you know what you're looking for. More on these in upcoming posts though.
Occasionally however, you spy someone in the Ubahn who catches your attention, and even more occasionally, it's positive. You find your gaze drawn to them, not because of the Turkish eurotrash they're playing at volumes loud enough to wake the dead in southern Argentina, and not because you have the distinct impression that he or she hasn't indulged in personal hygiene for a period of years. No, sometimes, just sometimes, you catch a glimpse of someone you happen to find rather attractive. And suddenly, you're quite willing to delay the arrival at your destination a little just so that you can stay in their line of sight for a few extra moments.
Then before you know it, and most definitely before you're prepared to part with the welcome visual treat that he or she has brought into the usual monotony of a BVG ride, the yellow doors open and he or she has disappeared into the masses swarming on the platform. Just a few more moments later, as if nothing had happened, the doors close and you're on your way, back into your bubble of your MP3 player until you too finally reach your destination.
This happens on a regular basis - at least to me - and for the first few months of living in Berlin, I simply learned to welcome the opportunity for some eye candy to brighten up the hour ride from my old flat to Alexanderplatz. One day however, I noticed a poster on the inside of the train, advertising yet another service of the BVG, but unlike the others, this service actually had very little to do with transport and tickets. They weren't promoting the latest subscription deal for a yearly ticket, or kindly asking you to refrain from subjecting your fellow passengers to your choice of "music".
The BVG's latest promotional innovation was a dating service. Genius! Why didn't I think of that? Why just let the man or woman of your dreams get off at the next stop and disappear into the throng of communters on the platform? Find them again on the BVG website! Who knows - it could be the beginning of something beautiful!
The glaring problem here? How on earth to get in contact with him or her.
Simple. Register your details on the BVG website, and he or she can find you there. You can register your name, mobile number, your clothing and the clothing of the person you're searching for during the journey in which your encounter occured, the stations you travelled between, and of course the date and time of the encounter. Then, all you have to do is wait for them to register their details, remember what they were wearing at the time and the stations they travelled between, find you on the website, and bam - love!
It's foolproof! Nothing can go wrong!
Ok, BVG. I've got a tip for you. Stick to transport. Dating services are clearly not your strength.
The BVG, as many of you know, is the city transport network for Berlin. It has its good days, its bad days, and its truly horrific days when major parts of the network strike, but in general, it leaves most of the other public transport networks I've had the pleasure (or, more often than not, the misfortune) of experiencing for dead. A spiderweb of trains, trams and buses connecting most areas of the city to most others, in a network so well thought out that the majority of Berliners choose to ride public transport over owning their own car.
Yes, the Berliners, and indeed ze Germans, are an environmentally conscious lot, which clearly gives public transport an advantage, but the BVG actually really is that good.
Living in a city which relies so heavily on public transport, you quickly learn to take a few select items with you every time you leave the house, so that you are not forced to endure the boredom of a: waiting for said transport, which to be fair is rarely more than about five or six minutes' wait (S-Bahn excluded, since they've been striking on and off for the better part of the last six months), or b: the ride in the public transport itself. One or two stops is tolerable, but then there's the walk to and from the station or bus stop, and add on a few minutes' wait, and heaven forbid you have to change once or twice in your journey, and that leaves you with at least half an hour of boredom which could potentially be alleviated by just one or two of a few small items.
My items of choice? For pure portability, an MP3 player, and usually at least either a book or my journal. Ultimately, I prefer to have at least two of these three items, to cater for battery failure or a particularly jittery driver impeding my writing or reading ability, but one will usually suffice. The problem is, choosing just one item leaves you open to the mercy of the choices of your fellow commuters. Choosing reading or writing material is practically begging for at least one of the kids in the train to play every single Turkish eurotrance or antagonistic German rap track that they have previously downloaded onto their mobile phone at the maximum volume that their Nokia can possibly pump out. Not pleasant.
The MP3 player is a better single choice, but then where do you look? If you're fortunate (that's a relative term, by the way) enough to be travelling by bus, or by tram, then you can quite happily while away the minutes staring out the window and watch the world go by.
Trains however, despite their inherent increased speed beneath the city from one rabbit hole to another, balance out this obvious benefit by removing all external visual stimulation. And so, should you have made the unfortunate choice to travel by train without bringing your own reading material, your only other option is to people-watch.
People-watching is where I get a large part of my inspiration for blog posts - so much so that I've actually got a series of posts in the works at the moment, the results of my observations while travelling around Berlin's underground network over the last two years. The characters of the Berlin transport network are truly unique, and there's never a dull moment in the train, if you know what you're looking for. More on these in upcoming posts though.
Occasionally however, you spy someone in the Ubahn who catches your attention, and even more occasionally, it's positive. You find your gaze drawn to them, not because of the Turkish eurotrash they're playing at volumes loud enough to wake the dead in southern Argentina, and not because you have the distinct impression that he or she hasn't indulged in personal hygiene for a period of years. No, sometimes, just sometimes, you catch a glimpse of someone you happen to find rather attractive. And suddenly, you're quite willing to delay the arrival at your destination a little just so that you can stay in their line of sight for a few extra moments.
Then before you know it, and most definitely before you're prepared to part with the welcome visual treat that he or she has brought into the usual monotony of a BVG ride, the yellow doors open and he or she has disappeared into the masses swarming on the platform. Just a few more moments later, as if nothing had happened, the doors close and you're on your way, back into your bubble of your MP3 player until you too finally reach your destination.
This happens on a regular basis - at least to me - and for the first few months of living in Berlin, I simply learned to welcome the opportunity for some eye candy to brighten up the hour ride from my old flat to Alexanderplatz. One day however, I noticed a poster on the inside of the train, advertising yet another service of the BVG, but unlike the others, this service actually had very little to do with transport and tickets. They weren't promoting the latest subscription deal for a yearly ticket, or kindly asking you to refrain from subjecting your fellow passengers to your choice of "music".
The BVG's latest promotional innovation was a dating service. Genius! Why didn't I think of that? Why just let the man or woman of your dreams get off at the next stop and disappear into the throng of communters on the platform? Find them again on the BVG website! Who knows - it could be the beginning of something beautiful!
The glaring problem here? How on earth to get in contact with him or her.
Simple. Register your details on the BVG website, and he or she can find you there. You can register your name, mobile number, your clothing and the clothing of the person you're searching for during the journey in which your encounter occured, the stations you travelled between, and of course the date and time of the encounter. Then, all you have to do is wait for them to register their details, remember what they were wearing at the time and the stations they travelled between, find you on the website, and bam - love!
It's foolproof! Nothing can go wrong!
Ok, BVG. I've got a tip for you. Stick to transport. Dating services are clearly not your strength.
Back to basics.
You know, back in Australia, there was something that I absolutely loved doing. Something that made me forget about almost everything else.
Well, two things.
One is writing. Hence the blog.
The other is being around kids.
I was a Brownie Guide when i was a kid: I had the stylish 1980s brown and gold uniform, complete with school shoes on a weekend, and a whole collection of cool badges. The works. I was a Girl Guide too, but when I finished Guides, instead of moving on to Rangers, the next age group in the Guide movement in Australia, I switched from being one of the kids to being one of the leaders. Suddenly I was the one running activities, making pancakes on a Tuesday night in a local guide hall while a bunch of twelve-year-olds played Jacob's Ladder, coordinating holiday excursions to science museums, and weekend camps for thirty pre-teen girls, and I loved it!
I guess it was a natural transition for me. I had started babysitting when I was about twelve: the kids next door were about two or three years old at the time, and had a full-time nanny. I was over there a lot, helping out with the kids, and I also loved helping my aunty with my three young cousins, so as soon as I was old enough, it was logical that I take this on for myself: at one stage, I had four regular families I would babysit for.
I've never really had a favourite age group: school age, toddler, early high school. You can have a lot of fun with them all. But working with kids in general is what I missed in Germany. I didn't notice it for a while. For the first year I was here, I was teaching anyway, so I didn't really want to spend my hours away from school with kids. I went on a few church youth group camps, but I didn't have the regular contact that I got used to in Australia, and when I finished up at the school, that was pretty much the end of my regular contact with kids.
I guess it was a natural transition for me. I had started babysitting when I was about twelve: the kids next door were about two or three years old at the time, and had a full-time nanny. I was over there a lot, helping out with the kids, and I also loved helping my aunty with my three young cousins, so as soon as I was old enough, it was logical that I take this on for myself: at one stage, I had four regular families I would babysit for.
I've never really had a favourite age group: school age, toddler, early high school. You can have a lot of fun with them all. But working with kids in general is what I missed in Germany. I didn't notice it for a while. For the first year I was here, I was teaching anyway, so I didn't really want to spend my hours away from school with kids. I went on a few church youth group camps, but I didn't have the regular contact that I got used to in Australia, and when I finished up at the school, that was pretty much the end of my regular contact with kids.
After a few months, I realised something was missing, but I couldn't put my finger on what exactly it was. It wasn't until the opportunity practically fell into my lap that I realised what I'd been missing.
A friend of mine had been working at a community centre in southern Berlin for a couple of months, tutoring a group of about eleven children two nights a week in English, German and multiple other subjects. She asked me if I might be interested in taking over her hours there, since her own workload had significantly increased to the point where she couldn't keep up the twice-weekly commitment. "Sure, why not?"
After the first hour there two weeks ago, I knew this was something I wanted to do. Something I needed to do. This was the something I had been missing.
The kids are a mixed bunch. They all have African backgrounds, but almost all of them were born in Berlin, which makes their German better than mine in terms of slang, but I still have the upper hand when it comes to spelling, and surprisingly enough, articles and gender.
There's Laura*, a pint sized powerhouse who has all the personality of Queen Latifah and demands to be the centre of attention of all of the other kids, despite the fact that she's the youngest and the smallest. Or more likely, because of both of these factors.
There's Rene*, one of the youngest boys, who cannot decide if he wants to be the cool slacker, or if he actually wants to use his intelligence for good, not evil, and give some of the other kids in his class a run for their money.
And there's Tanja*, my secret personal favourite, described recently by the friend I took over from as "the kid you would most want your own child to be like" - charismatic, confident, intelligent - someone you just know has a very bright future in front of them.
But all of them have this strange yet wonderful ability to make me check my baggage at the door. Once I step inside this makeshift classroom, it's all about these kids for the next two hours: making up homework for kids who forgot theirs (either deliberately or not), explaining the solar system in German to a fifth grader, quizzing a twelve-year-old on the countries of the world, and simultaneously helping T revise for an English vocabulary test the following day while helping her friend M complete a written assignment in German at the same table.
Never underestimate the power of a group of kids to make you forget whatever's getting you down for a whole two hours. Even if it's only two hours, twice a week. That's four hours more than before.
A friend of mine had been working at a community centre in southern Berlin for a couple of months, tutoring a group of about eleven children two nights a week in English, German and multiple other subjects. She asked me if I might be interested in taking over her hours there, since her own workload had significantly increased to the point where she couldn't keep up the twice-weekly commitment. "Sure, why not?"
After the first hour there two weeks ago, I knew this was something I wanted to do. Something I needed to do. This was the something I had been missing.
The kids are a mixed bunch. They all have African backgrounds, but almost all of them were born in Berlin, which makes their German better than mine in terms of slang, but I still have the upper hand when it comes to spelling, and surprisingly enough, articles and gender.
There's Laura*, a pint sized powerhouse who has all the personality of Queen Latifah and demands to be the centre of attention of all of the other kids, despite the fact that she's the youngest and the smallest. Or more likely, because of both of these factors.
There's Rene*, one of the youngest boys, who cannot decide if he wants to be the cool slacker, or if he actually wants to use his intelligence for good, not evil, and give some of the other kids in his class a run for their money.
And there's Tanja*, my secret personal favourite, described recently by the friend I took over from as "the kid you would most want your own child to be like" - charismatic, confident, intelligent - someone you just know has a very bright future in front of them.
But all of them have this strange yet wonderful ability to make me check my baggage at the door. Once I step inside this makeshift classroom, it's all about these kids for the next two hours: making up homework for kids who forgot theirs (either deliberately or not), explaining the solar system in German to a fifth grader, quizzing a twelve-year-old on the countries of the world, and simultaneously helping T revise for an English vocabulary test the following day while helping her friend M complete a written assignment in German at the same table.
Never underestimate the power of a group of kids to make you forget whatever's getting you down for a whole two hours. Even if it's only two hours, twice a week. That's four hours more than before.
Untitled
Despite my best intention of a few weeks ago to get back into blogging with a vengeance, with the goal of one post per week, the best laid plans were yet again derailed.
As some of you know, the last few weeks have been rather rough for yours truly. Why exactly is still a little too raw for my blog - or even for anyone outside my five or six close friends. I might post about it eventually, but at the moment it's too recent. I lost someone close to me back home in Australia - my grandfather - and while I have the clarity of mind to comfort myself with the knowledge that he is in a better place, I'm not quite back to being the usual genuinely bubbly Australis that my friends know me as.
Speaking of my friends, this blog post is for you guys.
After hearing the news, and after having booked the flight back home to Australia to be with my family for his funeral, I set about the task of telling my close friends.
The people who know better than to ask how you are, because the real answer, the answer you don't give to supermarket checkout chicks when they casually ask "Hi, how are you today?" as they're packing up your groceries into green enviro bags at Coles, is obvious to them.
They don't ask because they don't need to ask. They know that you're hurting and that the best possible thing they can do is exactly one thing.
They can just be there for you, in their own unique way.
There's picking you up at 9pm with a six pack of Smirnoffs in the front seat and taking you out to a salsa club so you can both dance your hearts out until the small hours, like you did many times just a few years earlier as uni students.
Or taking you to a soccer game where the three of you celebrate just being together again over a Carlton Draught and a "Four n Twenty".
There's watching deliberately light-hearted DVDs with you on your sofa at the end of a two-week period which saw you cross ten time zones to be with your family in Australia for eleven beyond intense days, culminating in an epic 45hour journey halfway across the world involving two long-haul flights and a nine-hour train journey back home to Europe. And on top of all that, grabbing some of your favourite beers on the way over to your flat.
There's also making work as easy as possible for you by keeping your news from the rest of your colleagues until after you have left, and accepting without question that despite your best efforts, concentration on your job at this point is just as possible as turning back time.
But the best? The best was gently encouraging you to get out into the sunshine of a Sunday in late August and while away the afternoon lying on the warm bricks of Schlossplatz in central Berlin, listening to the Berlin Symphony Orchestra perform a piece which your grandmother later tells you was one of your grandfather's favourites.
I guess the short version of all this is exactly the conclusion I came to in the eulogy I struggled to read at the funeral.
Thank you.
I thanked my grandfather for the twenty-seven years' worth of memories, stories and experiences he left me with.
And I thank you guys for being you guys.
Charlie. La bella amica mia. The fellow members of the Cat Spew Jumper Appreciation Society. Puss in Boots. Capt'n. Thanks. In all four languages. ;)
As some of you know, the last few weeks have been rather rough for yours truly. Why exactly is still a little too raw for my blog - or even for anyone outside my five or six close friends. I might post about it eventually, but at the moment it's too recent. I lost someone close to me back home in Australia - my grandfather - and while I have the clarity of mind to comfort myself with the knowledge that he is in a better place, I'm not quite back to being the usual genuinely bubbly Australis that my friends know me as.
Speaking of my friends, this blog post is for you guys.
After hearing the news, and after having booked the flight back home to Australia to be with my family for his funeral, I set about the task of telling my close friends.
The people who know better than to ask how you are, because the real answer, the answer you don't give to supermarket checkout chicks when they casually ask "Hi, how are you today?" as they're packing up your groceries into green enviro bags at Coles, is obvious to them.
They don't ask because they don't need to ask. They know that you're hurting and that the best possible thing they can do is exactly one thing.
They can just be there for you, in their own unique way.
There's picking you up at 9pm with a six pack of Smirnoffs in the front seat and taking you out to a salsa club so you can both dance your hearts out until the small hours, like you did many times just a few years earlier as uni students.
Or taking you to a soccer game where the three of you celebrate just being together again over a Carlton Draught and a "Four n Twenty".
There's watching deliberately light-hearted DVDs with you on your sofa at the end of a two-week period which saw you cross ten time zones to be with your family in Australia for eleven beyond intense days, culminating in an epic 45hour journey halfway across the world involving two long-haul flights and a nine-hour train journey back home to Europe. And on top of all that, grabbing some of your favourite beers on the way over to your flat.
There's also making work as easy as possible for you by keeping your news from the rest of your colleagues until after you have left, and accepting without question that despite your best efforts, concentration on your job at this point is just as possible as turning back time.
But the best? The best was gently encouraging you to get out into the sunshine of a Sunday in late August and while away the afternoon lying on the warm bricks of Schlossplatz in central Berlin, listening to the Berlin Symphony Orchestra perform a piece which your grandmother later tells you was one of your grandfather's favourites.
I guess the short version of all this is exactly the conclusion I came to in the eulogy I struggled to read at the funeral.
Thank you.
I thanked my grandfather for the twenty-seven years' worth of memories, stories and experiences he left me with.
And I thank you guys for being you guys.
Charlie. La bella amica mia. The fellow members of the Cat Spew Jumper Appreciation Society. Puss in Boots. Capt'n. Thanks. In all four languages. ;)
20 years later: tracing the scars of the Wall - former checkpoint at Heinrich-Heine-Straße.
Recurring visa issues have forced my work hours down to 20 hours per week, and while this is frustrating and somewhat inconvenient in terms of paying bills and enjoying this amazing city, it does have its benefits, one of which being that it leaves me with a bunch of free time during the week. So earlier this week, having finished work at 12.30, I decided that it was far too nice a Monday afternoon to spend it inside learning French and Italian vocabulary, and traded the language books for sunglasses, an MP3 player and my bike.
There are still a whole lot of places in and around Berlin that I want to explore more, so this particular afternoon I chose to venture north into Kreuzberg, specifically the area around Heinrich-Heine-Straße underground station.
Since this year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and since I'm a bit of a Berlin history nut, I've made it my mission to visit each of the East Berlin/West Berlin checkpoints before the summer is over. Heinrich-Heine-Straße is one of the two within about 15mins ride from my flat. More about Heinrich Heine in another blog post.
So I ventured over to this particular border crossing, and like many of the others, there's very little of it left. So little, in fact, that had I not found it on the offical website of Berlin city, I never would have known it existed. The watchtowers are gone. There are no wall fragments here. The only marker is the double row of paving stones crossing the street at the place where this now busy north-south thoroughfare was once truncated by the "anti-facist protective barrier" as it was referred to by the government of the GDR (former East Germany). You could quite happily cruise on past, completely oblivious to the fact that for twenty-eight years, Berlin's streets, underground network, its rivers and lakes, and most heartbreakingly, the lives of the Berliners, were severed in two by this wall.
Today, twenty years after reunification, the scars marking where the wall cut through the city are in various stages of healing. Some, like Checkpoint Charlie and Bernauer Straße, have been preserved exactly as they were, and the adjoining museums offer visitors a glimpse of what life was like in divided Berlin.
But other scars have begun to fade. Some, like the former train checkpoint at Friedrichstraße station, have retained the original structures. Most however are like Heinrich-Heine-Straße though; the Berlin Wall has been reduced to a thin line of cobblestones crossing the street, and life in Berlin takes place on both sides of the pavers as if nothing had ever happened.
There are still a whole lot of places in and around Berlin that I want to explore more, so this particular afternoon I chose to venture north into Kreuzberg, specifically the area around Heinrich-Heine-Straße underground station.
Since this year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and since I'm a bit of a Berlin history nut, I've made it my mission to visit each of the East Berlin/West Berlin checkpoints before the summer is over. Heinrich-Heine-Straße is one of the two within about 15mins ride from my flat. More about Heinrich Heine in another blog post.
So I ventured over to this particular border crossing, and like many of the others, there's very little of it left. So little, in fact, that had I not found it on the offical website of Berlin city, I never would have known it existed. The watchtowers are gone. There are no wall fragments here. The only marker is the double row of paving stones crossing the street at the place where this now busy north-south thoroughfare was once truncated by the "anti-facist protective barrier" as it was referred to by the government of the GDR (former East Germany). You could quite happily cruise on past, completely oblivious to the fact that for twenty-eight years, Berlin's streets, underground network, its rivers and lakes, and most heartbreakingly, the lives of the Berliners, were severed in two by this wall.
Today, twenty years after reunification, the scars marking where the wall cut through the city are in various stages of healing. Some, like Checkpoint Charlie and Bernauer Straße, have been preserved exactly as they were, and the adjoining museums offer visitors a glimpse of what life was like in divided Berlin.
But other scars have begun to fade. Some, like the former train checkpoint at Friedrichstraße station, have retained the original structures. Most however are like Heinrich-Heine-Straße though; the Berlin Wall has been reduced to a thin line of cobblestones crossing the street, and life in Berlin takes place on both sides of the pavers as if nothing had ever happened.
Beggars can't be choosers. Except in Berlin apparently.
I just have to share this anecdote.
Last Saturday, having been rostered on to work the weekend shift, I got to work about 5mins early, and as is usual for me on a Saturday, I had sacrificed breakfast time for snooze time, so by the time I actually got to work, I was indeed rather hungry, having not eaten since the night before. I knew I would be on my own at reception from 9.30am until 3pm, so if I was going to get food, it would have to happen on the way to work.
There's a bakery next door to my building, so I ducked in before going into the school and got myself two bread rolls and something called a "Nußschnecke" (loosely translates as a "nut snail", a scroll with ground nuts sprinkled over it), with the intention of making some lunch at work using the meagre ingredients of the two aforementioned bread rolls, the margarine that a colleague is generous enough to share with me, and my sacred jar of Vegemite.
But as luck would have it, this particular Saturday turned out to be one of those that wasn't ever really what you'd classify as busy - rather just constant. Every fifteen minutes or so, a rumbling kind of noise from my hungry stomach would remind me that I hadn't eaten, and I would think of my breakfast provisions in the kitchen, but every time I went to get up from the desk, either the phone would ring, a student would come to ask for help, or a prospective student would walk through the door, none of which I could really ignore.
Eventually it got to be 3pm, and having long since given up on the idea of having breakfast at work before going home, I put my Vegemite, the two bread rolls and the scroll into my backpack and headed on home.
Sitting on the train a few moments later, headphones in, my focus completely on writing legibly in my journal despite the arythmic rocking and jolting of the train, I did notice a very grotty pair of sneakers walk past me in the carriage. They belonged to a homeless man, a Strassenfeger vendor - one of the two Berlin street magazines: similar to The Big Issue. He did his usual spiel of having not been employed for over six months and being now authorised to sell this particular publication, and continued on to ask for donations of a few Euros or maybe something to eat or to drink. Usually I don't bother, but I've seen this guy on the train almost every day for the last few weeks, and he never seems to sell any of his newspapers.
So I took pity on him. I reached into my bag, pulled out the delicious Nußschnecke and beckoned him over. "Das können Sie ruhig haben, wenn Sie möchten," I told him politely, and handed him the bakery bag.
He half smiled. "Danke," he replied. "Wirklich, danke schön", he repeated and continued down the carriage to the door a few metres away.
When he got to the door, he took a peek in the bag. Then he turned and looked at me. "Was ist das?" he asked me, a quizzical look on his face.
"Nußschnecke," I told him.
"Na, das ist ja schön," he told me sarcastically, with an equally disdainful look. "That's great."
I was confused. I'd just given him food, and he was giving me attitude in return.
"Ich mag keine Nüsse. Hast du was anderes?"
I couldn't believe it. I'd just handed this guy my delicious Nußschnecke, my completely delectable nut scroll, out of pity for him and his situation, and he had the nerve to turn around to me and tell me, using the informal form of "you" no less, that you only use for children and people you know pretty well, that I should give him something else.
He doesn't like nuts.
Boo freaking hoo. That's the last time I give a homeless guy a nut scroll. Or food in general, for that matter. Soup kitchen, sure. Homeless shelter - absolutely. But no more of my food to the train beggars, if that's the thanks I get. Charming.
Last Saturday, having been rostered on to work the weekend shift, I got to work about 5mins early, and as is usual for me on a Saturday, I had sacrificed breakfast time for snooze time, so by the time I actually got to work, I was indeed rather hungry, having not eaten since the night before. I knew I would be on my own at reception from 9.30am until 3pm, so if I was going to get food, it would have to happen on the way to work.
There's a bakery next door to my building, so I ducked in before going into the school and got myself two bread rolls and something called a "Nußschnecke" (loosely translates as a "nut snail", a scroll with ground nuts sprinkled over it), with the intention of making some lunch at work using the meagre ingredients of the two aforementioned bread rolls, the margarine that a colleague is generous enough to share with me, and my sacred jar of Vegemite.
But as luck would have it, this particular Saturday turned out to be one of those that wasn't ever really what you'd classify as busy - rather just constant. Every fifteen minutes or so, a rumbling kind of noise from my hungry stomach would remind me that I hadn't eaten, and I would think of my breakfast provisions in the kitchen, but every time I went to get up from the desk, either the phone would ring, a student would come to ask for help, or a prospective student would walk through the door, none of which I could really ignore.
Eventually it got to be 3pm, and having long since given up on the idea of having breakfast at work before going home, I put my Vegemite, the two bread rolls and the scroll into my backpack and headed on home.
Sitting on the train a few moments later, headphones in, my focus completely on writing legibly in my journal despite the arythmic rocking and jolting of the train, I did notice a very grotty pair of sneakers walk past me in the carriage. They belonged to a homeless man, a Strassenfeger vendor - one of the two Berlin street magazines: similar to The Big Issue. He did his usual spiel of having not been employed for over six months and being now authorised to sell this particular publication, and continued on to ask for donations of a few Euros or maybe something to eat or to drink. Usually I don't bother, but I've seen this guy on the train almost every day for the last few weeks, and he never seems to sell any of his newspapers.
So I took pity on him. I reached into my bag, pulled out the delicious Nußschnecke and beckoned him over. "Das können Sie ruhig haben, wenn Sie möchten," I told him politely, and handed him the bakery bag.
He half smiled. "Danke," he replied. "Wirklich, danke schön", he repeated and continued down the carriage to the door a few metres away.
When he got to the door, he took a peek in the bag. Then he turned and looked at me. "Was ist das?" he asked me, a quizzical look on his face.
"Nußschnecke," I told him.
"Na, das ist ja schön," he told me sarcastically, with an equally disdainful look. "That's great."
I was confused. I'd just given him food, and he was giving me attitude in return.
"Ich mag keine Nüsse. Hast du was anderes?"
I couldn't believe it. I'd just handed this guy my delicious Nußschnecke, my completely delectable nut scroll, out of pity for him and his situation, and he had the nerve to turn around to me and tell me, using the informal form of "you" no less, that you only use for children and people you know pretty well, that I should give him something else.
He doesn't like nuts.
Boo freaking hoo. That's the last time I give a homeless guy a nut scroll. Or food in general, for that matter. Soup kitchen, sure. Homeless shelter - absolutely. But no more of my food to the train beggars, if that's the thanks I get. Charming.
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