Budapest, Part Two

As promised, I return to regale you more with tales of how positively amazing I found Budapest to be. I've talked to people that have loved it and people that have hated it; obviously, I am one among the former. We spent a good amount of time in both halves of the city - it's actually two cities joined together: Buda (the quiet one) and Pest (the wild one) - and there wasn't one place we went to that didn't completely fascinate and delight me. Okay, one place - the underground around Nyugati train station was your typical seedy city scene, so I felt fairly ambivalent about that.

When we first arrived in the city, I was prepared to feel on guard in the same way that I have in, say, Warsaw (which apparently boasts neo-Nazis so plentiful that their football team is often not welcome to play with the other European teams) and Moscow (enough said). However, Budapest was an incredibly friendly and optimistic city. They had the same war-torn buildings and frost-broken sidewalks as many other cities, but the people themselves behaved as if they were living in a metropolitan Eden. They had such pride in their city and their history, and they exhibited it in a way that I've not seen anywhere else. For instance:

There was a lovely sculpture (an art form that is in abundance in the streets of Budapest, by the way) of Imre Nagy, leader of several uprisings in the 1950s who was eventually killed by the Soviet regime. The sculpture itself is sort of haunting and serene, standing in the street the way it does:

but what was most compelling about this figure was the fact that every night, a small crowd would convene around it with lit candles and flags and song. Being the skeptic that I am, when we first stumbled across this vigil, I thought it best to steer clear, in case there was a riot on the way. However, as we discovered that it was a nightly ritual, it became clear that they are simply still honoring the spirit of independence that Hungarians so pride themselves on. Not far from the Imre Nagy statue was this, a sight that would alarm and enrage most Americans:

Yes, it's the Hungarian flag with an enormous hole cut in it. This flagpole is directly in front of the amazingly beautiful Parliament building (see the last post for that one), and it has an explanation in bronze in front of it. In 1956, the Hungarians put up a stubborn and vicious fight, trying to drive the Soviets out, but the uprising was brutally put down. Of course, that didn't happen until the Hungarians had sawed Stalin off at the ankles (or a bronze likeness of him, at least) and cut the Soviet emblem out of the middle of their flag. The flag (and the dismembered feet of Stalin) are both on display in Budapest, as a little reminder that they still relish their independence.
There is a park not far outside of Budapest where they've collected some larger-than-life old Soviet monuments, erected generally by the Russians. While I don't want to glorify the Soviet past, some of the monuments were amazing.

That one I like because of the added surreal thing in the background. What is that? A water tower? It's a nice juxtaposition of history and...well, I don't know. As far as I know, that "water tower" has been there for decades.

And that one I like because, simply, it's awesome art. I'm actually not sure who the artist is, but I suspect it was done by the sculptor and painter Imre Varga, who was sometimes Soviet and sometimes not. If it was truly him, this must have been during his Soviet times. We visited the Varga museum, actually, and it was mesmerizing. Despite the fact that we were followed around by the attendants (we were the only ones there, strangely), I was rapt the whole time.

But aside from the marks of 20th century history throughout Budapest, remnants of several centuries were all throughout the city. There was, of course, the epic St. Stephens Basilica, several beautiful small chapels, some imposing and ethereal synagogues, the Danube, a castle, a citadel, some Roman ruins casually scattered throughout metro stations on the Buda side of the river (and not too covered in graffiti) and delicate, intricate turn-of-the-century moldings hidden on the roofs of buildings all through the city. In short, I loved it. Highly recommended.

The near future looks a little slim on extra-Berlin adventures, but I'm sure I'll be able to find adventure within Berlin, as the weather is getting a little nicer. I suppose spring is coming, but I sense that mostly from the blooming flowers and not so much from my sniffles and rain-soaked socks. These continental weather patterns leave me sweating in the rain and shivering in the sun. Or, in the words of Imre Varga:

Hello! Welcome back to my blog. The very strange computer-to-computer internet connection that we use failed us for the last month, so I wasn't able to regale you, dear readers, with stories of March. March was an eventful month full of 1) my birthday, 2) Budapest, and 3) a visit from my mother and her husband! Much to their chagrin, I'll most likely post a photo of them, but first things first. In the middle of March, Brad and I went to Budapest.

We spent 5 days in Budapest, so I'm not sure that I'll be able to successfully recount how amazing and beautiful the city was. I have to be honest - I thought that Budapest would bear the bleak marks of the other post-Soviet countries I've visited, but that was not the case in the slightest. Okay, the buildings were often brown or grey (or a combination of the two), but the people were the farthest thing from drab. They weren't offended or irritated when we slaughtered our way through the Hungarian language, they didn't seem to have the same population of shaved-heads as I've seen in some other Eastern countries, and the city itself was so lovely. Their parliament building didn't conform to the otherwise earth-tone color-scheme of the city, and from across the Danube, the ever-present construction that seems to be going on in this part of the world wasn't so noticeable.

If you try to ignore the scaffolding and miniature crane on the right-hand side (and notice the bird in the foreground, which I particularly enjoy), you can almost see how beautiful this building is in real-life. Cranes are so ever-present.

I'm going to make this post a short one, mostly because I'm exhausted, but before I go, I'll leave you with another image that is outfitted partly in scaffolding, this time looking across the river from the other side.

The very tall church in the foreground is beautiful but not what I'd like to direct your attention to. Mostly, I'm taken by the church on the hill and the stone fortress that surrounds it (called, for some reason, the Fisherman's Bastion, even though it's quite a hike from the water). This city was very well-lit; they must know how beautiful it is.

I'll be back in the blogosphere tomorrow. Goodnight all.

Oy, Berlin...

Things have been slow here, with some small exceptions. Notably, I got into the graduate program that I've been dreaming about! Enough about me, though. I'd like to talk about Berlin.
It's gotten cold again, sadly. We had some days of nearly warm weather, which was lovely. Now it's back down to about 0 or 2 degrees Celsius, which is not truly that bad; it's only that I'd been so happy with the warmish weather and random sunshine, and now I'm shocked back into scarves, hats and underthings. To any Canadian readers, please excuse my weatherly disposition. Canada would scoff at my shiverings.
The cold here, though, is amplified by the fact that we're in the throes of a transportation strike that threatens to spread and worsen; the trains generally offer a temporary respite from the brutal winds, but they're currently unavailable. It hasn't been too awfully disruptive so far, but come Monday, the whole city may be at a complete standstill. I'm sure the Berliners won't riot like the French seem to when they have mass transit strikes, but I'm also sure it'll be a real pain. Berlin is fairly expansive, and the metro system is very effective. Its absence is alarming.
There are two separate companies that run the public transport in Berlin. One is called Ver.di, and that's the one that's currently on strike. That means all the underground trains and the buses and trams are out of commission. The other group controls the above-ground trains; they're called S-Bahn Berlin GmbH, and they're not striking yet, though they went on strike a few times last year and seem to be leaning towards a strike beginning on Monday. If they decide to go on strike, well, I'll be alternately taking very long walks and sitting at home. I like the idea of city- or state-owned public transit; it seems like this sort of mini-crisis would occur with less frequency.
Finding a bright side, though: I'm seeing more of the city that normal, as I'm forced to walk routes that I would normally be zipping by on the U-Bahn. It's allowing me to take pictures of some building-sized murals that I usually see flying by out the window. For example, the paintings along the U1 line, such as my personal favorite, the astronaut.

There is also a 5-story technicolor character that I really appreciate, mainly for the extreme detail in his pants and scarf. I'd like to know how people get up the sides of these exceedingly flat buildings to paint their pieces.

And finally, there's this strange skull-made-of-babies (or skull-made-of-nude-bald-men, I can't tell) that I stare at every time the train passes it, and I still can't decide if I love it or if I hate it. I suppose I'm ambivalent. However, according to a couple websites, it's one of the best murals in Europe. I don't get it.

I'm trying to make the best of the bahn strike by taking the time to appreciate the city, and I have to say, despite the frustration about transport and the chill in the air, Berlin is a pretty easy city to appreciate. My next task for myself is to have West-Berlin-Appreciation-Hour. I don't get over there much, and my interest was piqued after venturing to that side of the city for a friend's dance performance. It's like another world on the other side of the invisible wall. Although, you wouldn't always know it by the architecture or the monuments. I find myself roaming the old American sector, shocked at how Soviet everything looks. Like this, the memorial to the Berlin Airlift of, oh, 1947 or so.

That is not an attractive monument. I sort of like how stark it is, but I still feel that it should be a little more triumphant.
Before I wrap up here, I'd like to acknowledge the blogging hiatus I've taken and promise that it won't happen again. I'm planning on having much more of interest to bring to the table, rather than the grey days of work and February that I'm still waking up from. Spring will be welcome.

Relaxation

Being that I've finally put together all my applications for graduate school, I thought I'd get out of the house and take some pictures of the street art that covers our neighborhood. For the most part, the graffiti is just bad tagging and little craftsmanship, but there are some things that I think actually qualify as good decoration.





They don't seem to have the same stigma about graffiti here as they do in the States; it's not a sign of a bad neighborhood, nor does its presence lower rents in the area. It's just the norm. I like it - it dresses up the streets even when the weather is grey and gloomy.
Everyone looking forward to Super Tuesday? I know I am. I can't wait to see what happens. I'll definitely be up all night waiting for that...hopefully I'll be able to stay awake for the class I have to teach the next morning! In the meantime, I'll just do a bunch of crosswords kindly sent to us by Brad's grandma and revel in the fact that I finished my applications. I figure I've got a couple weeks before I start stressing out about the results, so I'll enjoy the peace while I can. Everybody wish me luck...

My Second "I'm Sort of Homesick" Post

Hey folks! It's not so bad, really. Here are the things I miss the most:

1. Family (obviously). This applies both in California and Washington. The Chinese extended family is a really comfortable thing, and stabilizing (even if the family itself isn't the most stable!). Our Sunday night dinners are something that I feel the lack of really strongly, which brings me to something else I miss so so much:

2. King Wah. This is the best Chinese food place in the Bay Area, in my opinion, and for all who are in the neighborhood and don't go there often, please visit King Wah on 9th Street between Webster and Franklin and give them my love. Especially give them my love by eating the chow mein and the won ton soup. In general, I miss Chinese food, Thai food, Mexican food, Indian food, and many other cuisines that are based heavily on vegetables and spice. There is not so much of that here. Salt and pork, anyone?

3. My friends. Oh, how sad to be so far away from my friends. Admittedly, many of them no longer reside in the Bay Area, but somehow being on the same continent, even 3,000 miles away, seems so much closer, doesn't it?

4. Movies and television in English for when I'm feeling brain dead. The only thing I can really relax to here is CNN International and the German show Quiz Taxi, which is sort of like that show Cash Cab they play on I-don't-know-what channel in the States. On a side note to this, I just watched the movie The Pianist for the first time, and I know I'm behind the curve on that one. I don't know if I'm glad I waited until after our trip to Warsaw to watch it or not. On the one hand, it was terribly sad, and maybe it would've cast a dark shadow over our time in Warsaw, but on the other hand...actually, I think the two hands are the same in this scenario. I think the dark shadow would be fitting, no matter how sad.

Those are the main things that are really driving me crazy right now. Of course, there are other, smaller nagging desires, like bookstores stocked with books I can read, the ocean, the ability to get out in the wide empty space between the Bay Area and Sacramento, things priced in US Dollars, etc. Those things are not so hard to deal with, though. There are many things I don't miss though, such as the mud-slinging political commercials that run at all hours in these months of primaries and the hours spent sitting in traffic. I can do without those things quite well, thank you very much.

Berlin is still pleasing, though, despite all the griping. We've been having pretty constant rain and some intense wind that makes me look like a mime when I walk down the street sometimes, and I'm surprised that I actually miss sunshine, but the weather has gotten warmer since the beginning of the month, thankfully. All my various jobs are actually sort of pleasing and interesting, especially when I get to tutor people that were living in East Germany and have all sorts of stories to tell. We've been cooking a lot to stay out of the cold, and my phobia of kitchens has somewhat abated. And, perhaps most importantly, I've been writing a lot. Enough said about that.
I have no pictures to share because we've been boring boring boring homebodies for the last couple of weeks. As soon as I get the gumption to go out wandering again, I'm going to snap some of the street art in this city. There are some amazing pieces spread all over Berlin, and I feel the need to share them with you.
That's all for tonight. I'll probably stay up very very late tomorrow night waiting for the results of the South Carolina primaries, so maybe I'll blog deliriously at 3 in the morning, but I hope not, because the chances that I'll ramble uncontrollably are directly proportionate to how exhausted I am. With that said, I'll be back again soon.

Hey everyone. Just a quick post to let you know that this blog may be experiencing technical difficulties in the next few days because I'll be, insanely, posting and reposting an essay for my grad school applications and then taking it down again. It's sort of a long story; all I can say is that it's a real pain to email a document that contains cyrillic letters. Especially when one doesn't have Word, as I don't. I know, I know, "how could you not have Word? Doesn't that make it impossible to send and receive documents from, I don't know, ANYONE in the world?" And yes, it does. Hold tight. And anytime now there'll be some beautiful springtime photos up, but I'm waiting for the rain to pass. I'll be back soon, and thanks for your understanding...

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2008! Here we are.
We spent our New Year's in freezing Poland, and despite the harsh weather, the strange accomodations, the packed and dirty trains, and my increasingly drying skin, it was a lovely time. We left a few days before the New Year, very early in the morning, and headed to the fairly large city Poznan, in the region of Wielkopolska in western Poland. I don't have much to say about Poznan - we left about 3 hours earlier than expected and were pretty excited to get out of there. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't the worst city of all time. It just wasn't really charming. There were some decently attractive shopping promenades, and the main market square was quaint and lovely, but other than that, it was a very Soviet cross-hatch of grimy trams, icy and muddy streets, fake fur and more camouflage clothes than I'm usually happy about, and a generally unpleasant train station. The aforementioned main square, however, was, by all definitions, very pretty.

Right? There's nothing unpleasant about that, not in the slightest. It was just that when one left the very small confines of the Old Town, there was nothing to see except American fast food joints and discount clothiers. Though both of us hedged around saying so, we just didn't really care for it at all.
On the other hand, though I'd heard many negative things about Warsaw, from the moment we stepped out of the train station it was pretty much perfect. Adjacent to the station is the Palace of Culture and Science, a museum that towers above the city with the weird glory one would find in one of Moscow's Seven Sisters buildings.

Here, the streets were wide, the shop windows were adorned with pictures of Pierce Brosnan (whom they seem to love all over Eastern Europe - I'm watching a dubbed episode of Remington Steele right now!) and our hostel was in a neighborhood that straddled both the Old Town and the former Warsaw Ghetto, which allowed us to see pretty much everything we wanted to see without having to figure out the tram system. As a sidebar - knowing Russian doesn't help in Poland, despite their common linguistic family. Okay, carrying on.
The Old Town in Warsaw was so much more picturesque than I'd expected. It suffered an incredible amount of damage during WWII, much of it completely irreparable, but there is a lot of reconstruction going on, and they've obviously done an unbelievable amount of work since working their way out of the Soviet Bloc and into the European Union. Aside from the tourist trap of the Old Town, the financial and shopping districts, along with the theater quarter, have really pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

See? That's the theater of a world-class city. We took a large handful of very pretty pictures of Warsaw, and I won't post them all here; just click one of the pictures to look at the rest of them.
The Old Town, though, isn't the only noteworthy part of Warsaw. It may be the place most frequented by tourists, but we walked a few kilometers outside it to visit the former Warsaw Ghetto. There is basically nothing left of it, as it was bombed to pieces by Germany in the closing days of the War, but what's left is pretty stark and chilling. We visited the Pawiak Prison Museum, where some of the original cells and lots of documents and artifacts are open to the public. Without going into any of the extremely awful details of the prison, it was either the final stop or a waystation to the final stop for thousands and thousands of Warsaw's Jews. Outside of the museum, along with a small section of the original front gate, stands a tree; it's not a real tree; rather, it's a bronze copy of the original tree that stood there in the front yard. The original tree became too diseased to continue standing, but it was, famously, the only survivor of the prison, and it was cut down just a few years ago.

A couple kilometers from the prison, there is but one synagogue that survived the war; it survived it with many wounds, and now a greatly renovated version stands in its place, but at least it's still there. And just across a small park from the synagogue, there's an apartment-lined street, the last street of the Ghetto left standing. It's a small block on Ul Prozna, and I didn't take a picture of the remnants of the red-brick homes. Instead, I took a picture of this completely insane little corner of a building. I'm afraid I'm having one of those moments that people have when they see Jesus on piece of toast or the Virgin Mary on the side of Camaro, but I swear there's a little pudgy image of Hitler on this bit of surviving building.

Maybe that was a bad comparison. Jesus and the Virgin Mary are generally positive characters, while Hitler is, well, Hitler, but I still see his likeness on these smudges. Anyone who sees it too, please leave me a little comment, so that I can feel a little less delusional.
We were genuinely sad to be leaving Warsaw. People that I know who've travelled there haven't said many good things to me about it, perhaps because it's too Eastern or too torn up (as I said, the reconstruction is everywhere), but I really loved it. I recommend it to anyone that's not afraid of the Polish language.
From Warsaw, we took a train to Krakow, where we spent about 10 minutes wandering down a dark and deserted street, trying to locate the hostel we'd made a reservation at, before a woman drove up and escorted us into the not-yet-open hostel, which was so not-yet-open that the power had gone out. We waited with her in the dark until someone came to fix it, and then she wandered off, leaving us alone. The only other guests at the hostel were a couple of Japanese men, and when the power went out again the next night, I learned that there are Never Power Outages in Japan.
Krakow, aside from the infant hostel, was a generally appealing town, but not as much to my liking as Warsaw. Krakow has the requisite castles and cathedrals to really scoop up all the tourists, us among them, but it seemed much more like a small wonderland ushering in visitors than a real town with regular people living in it. Of course, we didn't venture out into the suburbs, we didn't see the blue-collar workers in the pollution-factories on the edge of town; we ate at the cute little restaurants and cut through the crowds to see Krakow's extremely famous and apparently extremely holy Wawel Cathedral.

This castle complex sits on a hill, and medieval Krakow culture centered around it. The Old Town of Krakow was down the hill to the north, while the newer (and relatively untouched) Jewish quarter was down the hill to the south. Several synagogues were left standing in Krakow, though they're now surrounded by Turkish fast-food restaurants and, again, cheap clothiers with fake fur hanging in their front windows.
Krakow's Old Town was, to me, pretty basic, replete with cobblestoned streets and a central square full of pedestrians and those people that are covered in metallic paint and stand really still in order to be given money by tourists. When we were there, they were preparing for the New Year's Eve celebration, so the stage and the hundreds of waiting partiers were taking up quite a lot of space, but we still got this picture of the Town Hall tower with a strange, enormous metal head in front of it.

The city was full, of course, of fireworks and M80s, like any sizable city probably was on New Year's. We stayed away from the central square for midnight, as I'm not too keen on being in a crush of tall, drunk Poles, and the next morning we got on the train to Wroclaw.
Wroclaw is a university town, but I saw more churches than university buildings or students. It was the smallest of the towns we visited, but it had the most beautiful market square of all of them.

Just outside the frame of this picture was a commemorative whipping post. What?!
Wroclaw was beautiful and cut by a river, and one of the small islands was so full of churches that I don't know how they filled them all! Of course, it's Poland. They're devoutly Catholic, and though there were plenty of statues of Pope John Paul II around, I was expecting more. Even in Krakow there weren't a large number of them; surprising, since he was a local boy.
Wroclaw was charming, but the most interesting sight in the city was located just a few blocks from the train station, and on our way out, Brad snapped a shot of it.

Especially take note of the baby carriage in the background, falling into the crumbling sidewalk. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out if this was a monument of hope or commemorating something awful. I still don't know.
And now, we're back in Berlin, where I feel like my German must be getting better because I was so relieved to see German on the signs and hear it in the trains. Polish is so difficult. It has a completely phonetic alphabet and yet I still can't pronounce anything correctly. If the attendant at the Wroclaw train station hadn't spoken Russian, we may still have been sitting in Wroclaw right now.
So, welcome back to my blog in Berlin and to the New Year! Hope the holidays treated everyone well, and that anyone living in sub-zero temperatures has a nice warm house to go back to. Happy New Year.

The Holidays: Not Over Yet

In my comparisons between the way Christmas is celebrated in the States and in Germany, I've been watching the crowds in the stores and the streets. As you all know, Christmas in the States is a consumer frenzy, with fights breaking out over toys and electronics, elbowing crowds of cranky last-minute shoppers, and traffic traffic traffic. Here, there are no fights, there are laughing, benevolent crowds, and still traffic traffic traffic. I suppose the screeching tires and angry shouts out driver's side windows could count as fights, as I imagine they could come to blows eventually, but for the most part, it is still a joyous occasion here, even if one has to wait in line at the department store for thirty minutes. They really keep the people entertained in the malls and stores here, with fairy tales being told for the little ones, live music (even if it's a sad rendition of You Are the Sunshine of My Life, at least they're trying), and bizarre circus characters, wandering around to ensure a continued contentment even if the bill comes out to six hundred Euros.

Yes, those people are on stilts. And, yes, they are in front of a pillar emblazoned with the image of, of all things, St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. This picture was taken in the infamous KaDeWe, which stands for Kaufhaus des Westens, or Department Store of the West. It's sort of like Nordstrom's or Bloomingdale's, but bigger and more expensive.
The crowds, though, are not only in the stores. They are also still in the streets, despite the below freezing weather, putting their kids on rides and then standing there watching them and drinking warm liquor. In the area around KaDeWe, along the street called Kurfurstendamm and the towering Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, the Weihnachts Markt is in full swing.

Tonight is most likely the last night of these markets, as the Germans celebrate their gift-giving and church-going Christmas on the 24th of December, with the 25th being a day of feasting and the 26th being a day of family and recuperation. Therefore, the next three days will be pretty quiet here in Berlin, so I'm just sitting here in our toasty apartment, writing my blog and wearing these little pink gloves that are supposed to keep my hands hydrated. It's really very dry here. If it rained, it would be snow, but it's extremely arid. My poor sinuses. The consistently wrong weather report tells me that tonight and tomorrow it'll snow, but I'm not so sure.
And soon, we'll be off to Poland. I'll most likely add another small message to my blog before we go, wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, but in prelude to that, here's a Chrismas greeting from Brad and Santa Claus (or Weihnachts Mann, if you'd prefer his German name).

Finally!

Finally! I'm back in the land of blog.

Finally! I'm officially and legally able to work for regular paychecks in Deutschland. I spent a few hours waiting at the ausländerbehörde and procured my work permit. It was our umpteenth trip to that place (Brad, though he didn't need anything from the immigration office, went with me, and Thank Goodness! They don't speak any English there). I imagine that the immigration office in any city is a nightmare, but it was my first experience with the dreary waiting rooms and severe German officials, and to say I'm glad it's over is something of an understatement.

Finally! We figured out what we're going to do for our holiday. I believe I told you previously that we were planning a trip to Sweden and Denmark, but after a lot of deliberating, we decided it would be too dark, and too expensive. We then decided to go to Munich, but somehow, we simply couldn't get excited about that. I think both of us are eager to go to a different country. So, after much hemming and hawing, we decided to go to Poland; it's inexpensive, it's close, and I've always wanted to go there. I'm quite excited! We'll visit Poznan, Warsaw, Krakow and Wroclaw, pronounced, apparently, Vrots-waff. I'll be really leaning on my phrasebook there, but hopefully our combined knowledge of German and Russian will help us navigate. Anyone want anything from Poland?

Finally! I have pictures to share, and they are quite lovely, if I do say so myself. We went this weekend to Dresden, and though I'd heard it was a beautiful city, it was even more beautiful than I'd imagined. The Deutsche Bahn offers a special fare to Dresden around the holidays, as Dresden has what is supposedly the most wonderful Weihnachts Markt in Germany (Christmas Market, that is). I thought to myself before we left that I would take advantage of the fare to get a cheap trip to Dresden and not spend too much time at the market, but once we got there, the outdoor stands offering wooden toys, delicious snacks, candles and sweets were nearly hypnotizing. Behold:

There were many of those wooden carousels spread throughout the city, as the market filled every square and wide-open space (and even some cramped spaces!). This one was the most magnificent, probably twenty-five feet tall, if you can't tell by the picture. The city was full of holiday cheer, and though it was about 25 degrees outside, the Glühwein kept everyone warm. Glühwein, for those who don't know, is a warm, spicy wine, sometimes with a shot of rum in it. It's delicious, but I generally forego alcohol, so I made do with hot cocoa. The streets were overflowing, sometimes nearly impossible to walk through, but it was so lovely that I didn't mind toddling along, surrounded by people much taller than me. The background of amazing architecture didn't hurt, either.

Looking down that slim lane of Christmas, you can see the Frauenkirche at the end. It was bombed during the war and collapsed, so it's been arduous to rebuild, but they've done a wonderful job. Nearly the whole city was destroyed during WWII, but these days it's hard to tell, what with the forests of Soviet buildings and the gothic, looming stone buildings that survived. When we got away from the old town's Weihnachts Markt and across the bridge to the newer section of town, the landscape of the city was almost unbelievable.

As we crossed the bridge back to these buildings, there were hundreds of birds circling the belltower. It was dusk, and people were stopped all along the bridge, standing in the freezing wind and staring at the lights. I felt so lucky. Brad took a picture of me earlier in the day, looking very much like I felt lucky. I tried to smile at the camera, and for a couple of moments, I think I did, but my eyes kept veering off in other directions, unable to separate themselves from the amazing landscape. I was awestruck the whole day.

I highly recommend Dresden to visitors. There is some talk of Dresden being a city of a high concentration of, ahem, white supremacists, but that aspect of it was shrouded when I was there, covered up by warm crepes, warm drinks, various smells of roasted pork and the constant presence of Christmas music, both in English and in German. The night before, we had spent a few hours battling the crowds in Berlin's Christmas markets, but nothing could've prepared me for the pure, unadulterated celebration we found in Dresden. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend.
I'll leave you with a final image, one which I think shows both the baroque beauty of Dresden and the very contemporary machinations of a modern-day festival. Happy holidays indeed.

Dear Reader

I have no fun excursions to report on, nor do I have any beautiful photos of the last few days of work and relaxation, I am simply saying hello, and that things are coming along quite nicely, thank you very much. I find myself strangely very content today. Recovered from a few days of a mild common cold and ready to go to work this evening (as a kindermädchen, of course), watching the rain outside, I feel pretty happy. I've got some language-exchanges set for the next few days, in Russian and in German, and my brain thanks me for this workout. Brad and I are planning our winter vacation; we have pretty much settled on Denmark and Sweden as our destinations, and though it will be frightfully sad to be apart from my family for the holidays, it will be, surely, a winter wonderland in Northern Europe, the likes of which are not available on the west coast of the United States. It may be a winter wonderland of unforgiving sleet and ice, but will be lovely nonetheless. New Year's on the Baltic Sea!
It's autumn here in Berlin, to the extreme. The leaves rain through the air in a way that most Californians are pretty much unfamiliar with, and I must look like a crazy person as I stare at the cascades as I stumble down the sidewalk; the Germans, after all, are used to the seasons.
All in all, all is well. Welcome to November.

Lazy Sunday

Unbeknownst to either Brad or me, daylight savings hit Berlin today. Were it not for the inexplicable talents of my computer, I would probably still think it was an hour later than it "actually" is (what is actual, anyway?). That, however, is not very important, as it is a sleepy Sunday of laundry and cranked-up radiators. It's as good a day as any for an extra hour.
The last week was busy with work and friends in town (both of which are still current events). A strange fog moved into the city and riled up my sinuses, so I'm glad for a couple days of home-bound tasks and reading. (I've been reading the Pulitzer-Prize winning book Middlesex, which, despite my misgivings, is very well-written). And, of course, now I have time for you.
I've got a couple weeks to tell you about, don't I? Alright then.
Two weekends ago, Brad and I went to a town called Leipzig. Anyone been there? I see some hands.
It was a small town, at least compared to Berlin. A university town, I couldn't tell if their "Stamp out White Power" march (or whatever it was called) was for or against the aforementioned Power. I almost thought it was a party of soccer houligans. That aside, though, it was a very picturesque little community with an obsession with Bach and shopping.

Leipzig's Stasi Museum occupied the building that was formerly the Stasi headquarters. Though I have no photos of it, it smelled funny in there. It was cold, white and cubic. Aside from that, though, Leipzig was grand and friendly. The narrow cobblestone streets almost always gave way to unexpected and lovely structures, and the people were jolly. The "new" parliament building was storybook-worthy (except for the modern rust of electricity and gas in the foreground).

We only spent two days there, but that was pretty much enough. It was very charming, but I was glad to return to Berlin. The longer I'm here, the more at home I feel, and there's nothing to emphasize that like going away and coming back. To amplify that sensation even more, the bizarre but awesome October Lights festival went on here for two weeks, and it was worth fighting the cold for. Crowds of people roamed the city with tripods and friends and snapped pictures of already-eerie building with even more eerie lights cast on them. Here is the Berliner Dom with the TV Tower in the background:

And the Brandenburger Tor:

While I'm not always impressed by the Brandenburger Gate's appearance, I am impressed by the fact that Napoleon dragged the chariot on top all the way to France, and that it was then dragged all the way back. There is a distracting amount of construction going on around the Gate, and that sort of dampens its magnificence, as well. All of Berlin is a construction zone.
We took the opportunity, given the nighttime sight-seeing, to actually go into the Reichstag. It only took a half an hour waiting in the cold, rather than two or more hours like it can sometimes take, and I suppose it was worth it. The inside of it has been well-documented by any and all travel books about Berlin and/or current German parliament, but it's irresistible, once you're inside. It's like every person thinks "I can take THE defining picture of this, I just know it". Here was my attempt:

OK, it's a little blurry, and the eagle is visible but not detailed, and the flag is present but a little stick-like, but hey. I gave it a shot. The walk to the top had made me a little woozy, anyway. Not usually afraid of heights, there was something about the spiral march to the top of the dome that gave me a touch of vertigo. It was awesome.
And now, it'll be a pretty standard week. Maybe a couple hours of struggling to get a tax-id number, a sum of a few hours on the train to various works and back, and, with any luck, sufficient sleep. Should be pretty uneventful. The constantly-running CNN International being broadcast into my living room will bring me excitement enough - you know, fires in California, flooding in the Congo, Putin, the frenzy of hopeful Democratic presidential candidates. (It turns out that CNN International is much better than its domestic counterpart, thank heavens). Hope all is well elsewhere.

Just a Little Hello

It's the middle of what is proving to be a fairly long week. With a friend in town and work continuing (thankfully), I haven't had much time to sit and call forth any interesting vignettes, nor have I had the time to find my way to the internet cafe to post any pictures. However, I thought it best to check in.
What's in store for next time:
a. Some lovely pictures and lovely tales from a wonderful weekend in the university town of Leipzig, about two hours from Berlin by car. I know the distance by car because that's how we got there. We don't have a car; rather, we caught a ride there and back with strangers, and it was a very odd and somewhat un-American experience (Americans, as some may know, are wary of long car rides with strangers). Leipzig was beautiful and quite lively, except for a few hours on Sunday afternoon when all the stores were closed.
b. Some images from the still-continuing October Lights festival that's going on here in Berlin. All the major monuments are eerily lit with different colors and flashing lights. I believe they do this because it's beginning to get a little chilly out and it keeps the people still feeling happy. I've never seen so many people with tripods. The Brandenburger Tor and the TV Tower, among other things, are decorated with strange images. It was quite beautiful, and also quite cold.
c. I went into the Reichstag, finally. The wait was thirty or so minutes, though we went at night. During the day, the wait can take hours. It was fairly beautiful on the inside.
I'm sure that by the time I get around to sharing words and images about these things, I will have even more fun times to report on. However, it being past one in the morning, I'll leave it for later. And happy birthday to my Uncle Billy!

This'll Be a Long One

As I sit listening to the strains of Family Guy in German (not as funny as the original, I'll tell ya), I'm feeling a little longing for home. All is well, though; a little homesickness is to be expected. (The voice on the tv shrieks "Luke Perry ist schwul?")
I've been passing the time working, going to museums, and sometimes venturing outside the city limits to see the ruins of former DDR towns. These ventures have been very interesting, educational, and sometimes frustrating, as I find out that the famed Deutsche Bahn, supposedly the most efficient and punctual rail system in Europe, is not so ideal. We went, last weekend, to a small town about an hour outside Berlin called Brandenburg an der Havel. We sort of structure our lives around the advice of the writers of Lonely Planet guidebooks (a shameless plug but well-deserved) and the lack of information about Brandenburg should've been a sign. However, lovers of desolate Soviet wastelands that we are, we thought we'd take a day trip there. As a town, it's sort of beautiful in a dusty way, a grimy way; there were truly, really cobwebs flying from everything; from signposts, from the corners of buildings, from cars. It was a sign, I think, of abandonment. The streets were nearly empty, and though there were pretty churches, it wasn't very picturesque, all in all. It was obvious that everyone had moved to the West or the city as soon as they could when the wall came down. But, for the most part, it was very quaint and pretty, despite the remnants of a former Russian presence. Well, this can't be called a "remnant", really. It's a little too big.

This tower was on top of a hill and offered a view of the whole town. We didn't go up in it. It seemed, somehow, out of place amidst the town's red brick architecture and generally pastoral attitude. And then, returning to Berlin from humble Brandenburg, we weren't able to simply the board the train, due to a collision on the tracks, so we had to stand around with about a hundred and fifty surly Germans who didn't know any more than we did about how to get where we are all going. After about an hour and a half of waiting, a single bus pulled up to save us, which seemed a little meager. We got on it, amidst a lot less pushing than I was expecting, considering the circumstances. The only benefit of this ersatzverkehr was that we were able to see much more of the countryside than we would have otherwise. All in all, it was tiring and frustrating but maybe...and only just maybe...redeemed itself with pretty scenery.
Speaking of pretty scenery... I feel obligated to include this, for the viewers at home.

It's the Reichstag! Berlin debates and legislates here! I stayed far away from the throngs of tourists! And I went to the museum...
The longer I'm here, the more I am discovering that Berlin is hiding in her vast expanse a multitude of museums and galleries, some so hidden that the only trace of them is a bell at ground level. They are really quite wonderful. Touring these galleries, I'm beginning to see the Berlin that I thought I would find when I arrived here; the modern art, the minimalism and brilliantly ironic design, the freakish photography and video art that leaves me staring for literally minutes at a time (I know, that doesn't seem like a long time, but...it just is). Even the metro stations hang striking, sometimes disturbing art on their greasy, blackened walls. Particularly compelling is this series by Turkish artist Nezaket Ekici, housed in the U2 station at Alexanderplatz.


The pictures don't do justice to the surreal moment one finds oneself in when one is simply waiting for the train and begins to wonder, what are these pictures doing here? Are they ads? No. They are art.
But I'll close this rather long and rambling episode with a bit of art made by Bradley.

What's that, you ask? That's a dinner that he made for us while I was teaching English to a small but loud group of kindergarteners on Monday. It's couscous with a little cinnamon, wraps full of fresh veggies and bierwurst and cheese, and some amazingly fluffy meatballs full of walnuts, onions, cinnamon and coriander. It was a very lovely dinner.
And so, until next time. I'm happy that I get to share, thanks to the wonder of the internet, of which I am still suspicious. It makes me feel a little closer to home.

Oakland, Flashback

I had a dream.
Yesterday I talked to my friend Josh (who, shamefully, doesn't read my blog much) and he told me Oakland was the same ol', same ol'. People getting shot, mattresses in the street, etc. And then, last night, I had this dream.
In the dream, I was living in an apartment on College Avenue, not far from the bookstore where I used to work. Except this version of College was a bit darker and seedier than the affluent wonderland that is Rockridge. In my version, there were dog fights, people getting stabbed, people fighting, trash everywhere. And try as we, the tenants, might, we simply couldn't get the area cleaned up. Call the BPD, they'd say it was the OPD's responsibility. Call the OPD, they'd say Berkeley. Keep in mind this is somewhere around 60th and Telegraph, where the geography is a bit split up like that. That's pretty much all I have to say about that; I just thought it was interesting. Like home reaching out to me with a little bit of irony.
Another version of home reaching out to me (and one much more friendly) is that I went to see Jonathan Lethem read tonight. It was at a gallery called Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt (The House of World Cultures) and it wasn't the sort of intimate, folding-chair reading that I'm used to. It was an auditorium, and complete with very serious commentary by two women in black, who debated and reacted and got into the problems of copyright and influence. I was pleased. Jon Lethem was, actually, wonderful. I think so many stacks of so many copies of his books over the last few years caused me to turn away from him (though some very dear friends of mine endorsed him fervently). He was humble and well-spoken and truly interested in things other than himself (which is not always the case with Very Popular Writers) and so I come away with both thumbs firmly up. Unfortunately, a paperback copy of his new book cost almost 18 Euros, which is about 24 or 25 dollars, and I simply couldn't justify the expense. A shame, that, because the excerpts he read from his newest book, You Don't Love Me Yet, were wonderful.
And so, I had a 24 hour period of little bits of the Bay, and now I'll go back into Berlin, into tandem language partners and tax numbers. Stories from that to follow shortly.

Histories, Personal and Public

As I was saying in my last post, I spent the last week with an old dear friend, and so in tandem with the picture I posted of the two of us as children, here is one from more recent days.

In addition to being a very complimentary photo of our small kitchen table, it's tangible evidence of something going right. Thank goodness. Now she's gone home but it was very special. Years and years ago, we were friends in a pretty foreign land, and that's the situation once again. I take it to mean that Taiwan 1984 was meant to be, as is Berlin 2007.
She came to Berlin with her longtime boyfriend, and while they were here we traipsed all over the city, in sun and in showers. We went to a Very Huge art opening, Art Forum Berlin, which we were able to get into because one of Efrat's professors had some work in the exhibition. It was a place to see and be seen, for sure, a place where skinny goth women slipped past wealthy fat men smoking cigars, trying to impress their Dynasty-era dates with names and numbers. There were hundreds of people there. It was distracting. I wasn't able to look at the art at all, actually...too much in my periphery. It was, though, fascinating to see such a ground-zero affair.
We went, too, to the Jewish Museum, and I have to say, I was a little disappointed with the permanent collection. The special exhibitions were works by Charlotte Salomon and Chantal Akerman, and both of them were beautiful. A picture of the Akerman installation:

I was proud that I could even make this picture come out properly. It was an awesome installation, and I didn't do it justice, but I tried.
Other than these visiting shows, though, the permanent museum was a bit - how should I say - pandering? Thousands of years of Jewish history in Fun! Interactive! Multicolored! displays. It was as if they were trying to make it digestible. It looked like a children's museum. The design of the building is supposed to be groundbreaking, and I suppose the fact that the only entrance or exit to the building is underground is fairly interesting, but the whole thing was a bit pat. The only piece of interest was the clanging, ghostly Memory Void.

There, you had to walk over all these iron faces, mouths agape, and each of them made a horrible, sharp noise, ringing against all the other screaming faces. It was quite haunting, but it was the only part of the museum that evoked any emotion in me whatsoever. Try as I might, I couldn't walk quietly.
And now, in two days, we'll celebrate German Unity. I'll have two whole days blissfully free, and I'll go to museums, be a tourist/artist as I stop in the middle of sidewalk to get lost/take a picture, and I'll try and relax a little after a couple weeks of endless running around. I'll be in touch.

An Excused Absence

I have had this reason for not putting up a post in the last few days: a friend of mine whom I haven't seen for, oh, about 23 years has been in town! And we've seen each other! And now it's been only a few hours since we've seen each other. It's quite miraculous, actually, and owes a lot to the wonders of the internet, which I choose to boil down to human tenacity and ingenuity. It was quite amazing and now she's gone and I have to say that I'm a little sad about it. But check out her photos - I've added a link to her Flickr page to the right-hand side of this page, so that everyone can enjoy her pictures and appreciate the fact that we are once again in touch. For anyone interested, here's what we looked like the last time we saw one another:

As you can see, things have changed quite a bit.
In other news, though, thanks to all who sent me good wishes regarding finding work - things went swimmingly and I find myself with three definite weekly engagements and more surely on the way! What luck! Or perhaps it was hard work, I don't know. What I do know is that it is very exciting that I feel that my life here in Berlin is becoming more established, that I'm actually a part of the city now and not just a visitor. In honor of that, I've finally followed through with my promise to show a little more of the sights one would see when just living in Berlin, rather than snapping sightseeing shots. Here's one now.

That one is Brad on a really big swing at Mauerpark, which is a park that still has part of the Berlin wall up. To the right is a large field and a very large flea market, which the following picture does only so much justice.

To the left is the standing part of the wall, which is being liberally painted on by quite a lot of people. The American perception of graffiti as a sign of a bad neighborhood doesn't really exist here. Here, it's still a viable form of expression. See?

But that's enough of that. That's really only one panoramic scene of one place in Berlin (in a district called Prenzlauer Berg). There is plenty of art to be seen all over the city, not just in this one place. However, I still haven't captured enough of that art to show a good cross-section of styles and forms. This one building caught my eye - wonder why?...

That building is found in our district, called Friedrichshain. There are so many more things I will show you...
I'm getting more settled here, partially due to finding various forms of work, and also because in the pursuit of these various jobs, I've really been all over the city, so I feel that I'm getting my bearings in a sort of accelerated way. There are days that I spend at least two hours on public transport, and that's a lower limit. It's giving me a chance to see the outskirts, the less urban parts of the city, the rich places, the poor places, the extremely quiet and residential places, and the clogged places. I've gone in plenty of bookstores, several clothing stores, a few museums and a few churches and synagogues in various levels of glory or disrepair. Things are coming along...