The Wrap Up

Despite the fact that every single German friend I visited sent me away with some sort of gift or offering to bring home - and I can prove to you, if you want, that each of said gifts weighs certainly more than any of the pairs of shoes that some people like to make fun of me for bringing with me - packing has gone relatively well, and it seems I will be able to transport both myself and all my stuff back to the states. The packing process has, for various reasons, been a little hectic, but as of now everything in my apartment is A) clean and B) inside something else.

And because I can't immediately think of something else to write, and because my fingers do not like the coldness that has followed them since i lost a mitten on the subway, I will now make a list of things that I will and will not miss.

I will miss:
Pretzels, obviously. They're practically why I came here.
Sausage, roasted chestnut, and beer vendors on every corner, especially now that the christmas markets are in swing.
Fast, reliable public transportation with an affordable monthly travel card.
Visits from "my" cat.
Watching british sitcoms in German.
Predicting the questions that curious-looking people in the Sony Center are about to ask me about my computer.
Pulling a handful of change out of my pocket and realizing I have 8 Euros there.
A city that has everything, but isn't cramped and isn't expensive.
The really really good indian restaurant that I've always liked but might have given Jeremy salmonella and Jane botulism. (Apparently, I am invincible! Just try to food-poison me. You just can't.)
The surprising ability of Germans to make a very good cappuccino.
That vanilla doesn't come in extract form, but in sugar form.
Really good bakeries, really good butchers.
The gummy bear store.
The Turkish Market.
Movies in English for 4.50, all day.


I won't miss:
The cold, cold outdoor-ness of the Sony Center.
Constant clouds of cigarette smoke in all public buildings, except sometimes when it's just a lingering smell of stale smoke.
Non-existence of fat free milk. The skimmest it gets here is 1.5%.
Graffitti on literally every flat surface.
Rude, bump-into-me Turkish grandmothers and rude, bump-into-me Germans (seriously, this country does not know how to say excuse me).
Prepaid cell phone. Sounds cool, isn't.
Paying for public restrooms.
The weird mirror/window on the wall of the shower.
People standing obediently on the curb, waiting for the green crossing light man, when no cars are within even two blocks of the intersection. (Seriously, and then they look at me all weird when I go ahead and cross.)
The depressing inability of Germans to make a decent mocha.
The fact that being in Germany makes all my jeans break. And not because I've gained weight, but because some mystical force rips the knees and bends the buttons of jeans here.
The Turkish Market.

Prague Would Never Allow This

Things have gotten a little out of order anyway, so here's an account of Krakow before one of my trip to the southwest, even though the latter happened first, in the strictest interpretation of the "continuity" of "time."

We didn't originally plan to visit Kraków. Although I would never admit it, it's possible that up to a few weeks ago I only had a very vague idea that Kraków was probably in either Poland or Hungary, which is of course a very embarrassing gap in the knowledge of an editor of European travel guides, let alone a cartographer. But now I can tell you very assuredly that Kraków is in Poland, not in Hungary or the Czech Republic or any other Eastern European country. I can also tell you that in Kraków it is very cold (or at least it is in late November, and doesn't promise to get much toastier for many months) and dark most of the time.

The reason we chose Kraków as our "wait, we came to Berlin to be able to make many cheap trips to cities in central and eastern Europe and as of mid-November haven't really gone anywhere of note yet" destination is that my friend Jane (see note 1, "Berlin's Trendiest Babies," below) overheard us making plans around Jesse's kitchen table to visit Prague, and literally dropped everything in her rush to the doorway. From the doorway she was able to tell us not to go to Prague, newly (or maybe now not-so-newly) the tourist capital of central Europe whose hostels are apparently comparable to fraternity houses in their numbers of drunk, self-centered college-aged men looking for parties and gullible foreign girls. Jane seemed to feel pretty strongly about us not going to Prague, and I felt pretty stronly about not getting vomited on very much on this proposed vacation, so we said maybe Warsaw? Jane pointed out that Warsaw is made up of soviet concrete cubes with occasional windows. Where then, we asked our former Eastern Europe editor?

So we booked a flight to Kraków. EasyJet flies there (who knew?), so it was in fact neither hard nor expensive to plan a 2-day trip to the purportedly most beautiful largeish Polish city. And Kraków is pretty beautiful, as far as I could tell with the coating of snow and my near-constant shivering despite many, many layers of clothes. My conclusion was that the cold is somehow colder in Poland, perhaps in inverse proportion to the prevalence of very greasy food. Jeremy was delighted with pierogie and various fried pancakes stuffed with various dubious fillings, and I was delighted at the time but later full of both regret and heavy-sitting food. One thing Kraków does do very well is hot chocolate, which appeared everywhere in its greatest form, which is cup of something that could only have been solid chocolate up to the (very recent) point at which it was melted. The city (probably the whole country, but I wouldn't know) also has street vendors selling a kind of twisted bagel type bread for 1 zloty (30 cents!), and these vendors have somehow spaced themselves out such that the next one appears just as you have finished your first twistey bagel type thing. I am told that these are called Obwarzanki.

The sights in and around Kraków consist of Wawel Castle, the Jewish neighborhood of Kazimierez, some fairly amazing salt mines, and Auschwitz. We visited the first three of these, and avoided Auschwitz due both to time restrictions (it takes a whole day to get there, see everything, and get back) and the fact that it would almost certainly have upset me enough to outweigh any gladness I would have at having gone to see it. As it was, just walking around the city and the area around the salt mines, I managed to upset myself plenty by thinking of just how much colder it would be for someone not wearing several layers of winter clothes and boots, and able to buy hot food and escape into the relative warmth of buses and churches when the wind really picked up. And it's only November, just the first snow of the season.

So it wasn't all lighthearted playing in the snow and pierogie-eating. This will all sound very petty in comparison, but staying at our hostel, which was thumbpicked by Let's Go and was really quite nice as hostels go, reminded me of how much I've decided I just don't like staying in hostels. In addition to snoring people and kids coming back to the room at 2, 4, 5, and 6 in the morning, there was a really really horrible dude from Sacramento (I think Jeremy is describing him in his blog - I won't even try to) and a group of 26 American college students on a trip with their semester program in Florence. Then the hostel messed up a booking and had to add a bed (really just a mattress) to the middle of our dormroom floor, one of the four bathrooms stopped working just as the American students (mostly girls) decided they all needed to take showers, and the hostel phone refused to accept my phone card, because it is somehow not a tone dialing phone. But I somehow charmed a guy in the internet cafe downstairs to let me use their phone, so I didn't end up having to stand in a -5 degree phone box to call my family for Thanksgiving.

But what staying in the hostel most reminded me of was how much I actually dislike hearing backpackers talk about backpacking. This is, I realize, a bad quality for a writer of travel guides for young people, but I blame the backpackers for thinking that anyone wants to hear their opinions on how "oh yeah, Czech girls are really pretty. Prettier than Hungarian girls," or "Prague is really, like, I think it's definitely going to be the new Paris." The best thing I overheard was on a street with many trendy clothing stores and with many brightly lit window displays, where a youngish guy was talking loudly to his companion about commercialization, and finished by pointing at a storefront and making the pronouncement that, "Prague would never allow this." I kind of wonder if he has actually been to Prague, or to any city anywhere, for that matter. Kraków is the closest I've seen to a city that's stayed much as it was when the castle was actually inhabited. But then I've not been to Prague, so as far as I know, the guy could be right.

Berlin's Trendiest Babies

When my friend Rachel* came to Berlin to visit, one of the sights she was most excited to see was a very trendy baby. I assume it was our friend Jane** who tipped her off to the possibility of seeing some of Berlin's tiniest hipsters. And I assume it was in the writeup of the Berlin neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg in Let's Go: Germany 2005***** that Jane learned about stylish babies. The introduction begins:

"Though largely overlooked during post-war reconstruction efforts, Prenzlberg (as locals call it) has been transformed in recent years from a heap of crumbling, graffiti-covered buildings into perhaps the hippest of Berlin's Bezirke******. Attracted by low rents, thousands of students and artists moved into the neighborhood after reunification; today, the streets are owned by well-dressed first graders and their hip young parents, and studded with cool but costly second-hand clothing stores. ..."

When I edited that paragraph, I took my researcher's word that the area was as hip as he had described it, and didn't put much effort into fact-checking the fashion sense of the resident first graders. But while a lot else has changed in Germany since my book was researched, making a lot of prices and opening hours out of date, it turns out that the claims in the Prenzlberg intro remain as valid as ever.

Like the students and artists of a decade ago, I was attracted to Prenzlberg by low rents; hip toddlers I could do with or without. But Jane and Rachel's excitement was contagious, and it has left me with the lingering symptom of giving all persons under the age of five a second glance. The babies themselves don't notice the scrutiny, of course, but many Prenzlberg parents may be a bit taken aback to see me study their children and then nod, satisfied, for no apparent reason.

So after a month or so of baby-watching, I can confidently present a list of the top five trendiest babies in Berlin:

5. Any baby with one of the following: tights with stripes of more than two colors; two articles of clothing with different patterns of stripes; hats with any sort of sparkly material; jewelry, not including baby ear piercings; head scarves, especially red ones with chinese characters on them.
4. Boy just old enough to walk, in "normal" clothes but sporting a serious mohawk (blond, not dyed any colors - that would have put him in first place for sure, though) and doing his best Saturday Night Fever pointing routine.
3. Any baby cool enough to rock the "Lounging on my stomach in my pram and facing forward so I can stare everybody down" look.
2. A 3-year-old girl in a ruffled denim skirt over peach and moss striped tights and calf-high moss green suede boots, with glitter on her face and her hair in a topnot.
1. An 8-month-old boy in a stroller, with fluffy, straight-up-sticking hair, wearing sneakers and a Texas orange track suit with white stripes down the sleeves and pants, despite the fact that clearly he cannot yet walk, let alone cross-train.



* (former editor of Let's Go: Ireland 2006 and therefore my former employee; also researcher for Let's Go: Costa Rica 2005)
** (former editor of Let's Go: Eastern Europe 2006, researcher for Let's Go: Eastern Europe 2005, and Jesse's*** roommate while he was still here)
*** (former editor of Let's Go: Vietnam 2005, Let's Go: Germany 2003; researcher for Let's Go: Germany 2002; Personnel Manager for Let's Go Series 2004; also Jeremy's**** college roommate - that's Jesse's blog that I link to on the right)
**** (former editor of Let's Go: USA 2004, Let's Go: Europe 2006, Let's Go: Western Europe 2006; researcher for Let's Go: New Zealand 2006; Personnel Manager for Let's Go Series 2005; I also link to his blog on the right; also, though you probably know this if you're reading this blog, my boyfriend)
***** (editor: me)
****** (Bezirk: German, "neighborhood")

Jetzt Kommt Werbung

Before we moved to Germany for the first time, I was never allowed to watch the Simpsons; I was 10 and Jackie was 7, and my Mom considered it a Bad Influence on us. And to be fair, she was probably right that the satirical elements would have gone over our heads. But when it became clear that it was the only familiar show on German television, my mother allowed us to watch the German-dubbed "Die Simpsons" - but only "to improve our German." Then we came back home and continued watching, perhaps to "improve our English." In any case, I only was introduced to the show because it was the best of many dubious options on German television.

Twelve years later, not much has changed. Of the 40 channels we have access to on our adorable 12'' TV, only about 20 of them come in as anything but snow, and of those 20, at least 8 are repeats (channels 1 and 2 show the exact same program, as do channels 4 and 23 and 38, etc.). Of the working, unique channels, one is BBC world, which fills each 24-hour period byalternating between discussing one or two major world headlines and updating scattered Brit-pats on cricket scores. Did you know that some cricket team's captain just suffered an injury that might cause him to sit out the season? Do you know when the cricket season starts and ends, incidentally? Can you actually explain the game of cricket without visual aids and a blackboard? That's what I thought.

The other English-language channel is CNN World, which interrupts its two major headlines (the same ones on BBC World) with updates of every single stock exchange percentage gain net profit shares boilerplate in the entire First World. Occasionally, there will be a two-minute commercial for Croatia - yes, the entire country - with technicolor pictures of coastlines and a plucky mandolin jingle behind a voicover describing Croatia as "the Mediterranean as it once was." It's unclear whether they mean that "the Mediterranean" all used to be much farther east, or that the recent mandolin-bans have robbed Greece and Italy of its former character, or that Croatia is the obvious next choice for all those people who just hate the weather and cuisine of the south of France. I know they don't mean that Croatia is "the Mediterranean, before lots of our chickens came down with bird flu," because CNN followed one of those commercials with a special report on the status of the diseased birds in, of course, Croatia.

Of the other channels, all of them German-language, three of them seem to be around-the-clock shopping channels for hideous jewelry and barely discounted techno-gear, and two or three are politics- and news-heavy. The rest are fairly "normal," if by "normal" you mean "mainly dubbed American TV shows and French movies and a frighteningly large frequency of historical documentaries about the world wars." My favorite channel, and really the only one besides CNN/BBC that I ever attempt to watch, is the one that seems to be vaguely associated with Nickelodeon - at least, it has an orange, splashy logo and calls itself "Nick-Comedy." Starting around 9pm on weeknights, it shows a rotation of British and American sitcoms ("My Family," "Coupling," "Mad About You," and "Girlfriends") and candid camera shows ("Just For Laughs" and "Trigger Happy TV"), all dubbed into German and all repeating starting at midnight. The only one I really watch, you could call it my "Simpsons" for this trip to Germany, is the British "Coupling," which is fairly well-known, I think, as the sort of British analog of "Friends." It is a bit similar, to the extent that there are three male and three female main characters and much of the action goes on in their favorite drink-selling establishment. In all other ways, as far as I can tell what with the dubious quality of the dubbing, the shows are completely different. First of all, none of the characters are related, and second, they hang out in the neighborhood pub, and are rarely if ever seen drinking coffee. The best thing about the show is that it plays twice in a night, so I can watch it once for the plot, and then a second time to try to lip-read the English dialogue and compare it to the German dubbing. This is only sometimes possible, but sometimes I learn some good phrases, like how to say, in German, "bloody hell!" and "yes, quite."

So I watch Coupling to "improve my German," though I would almost rather watch the non-dubbed version, to "improve my fake British accent." In any case, I do appreciate the German schedule of commercials, which for a half-hour show is before the show, once halfway through, and at the end. On Nick-Comedy, the commercials at the midpoint are almost always advertising the channel's other programs, so I rarely have to watch actual commercials. Also, all of the channels give you a nice warning that, "Jetzt kommt Werbung!" ("Now for advertisement"), so I can get up to turn down the volume. A remote? That's probably something that you get in an apartment with a monthly rent that's more than the price of an iPod.

Beer Here

Due to various impediments, including an angry wireless card and trips to a corner of Germany and a country that someone once tried to make into another corner of Germany, my blog has been neglected a bit. I wrote these in the last couple weeks, but haven't been able to get them off my computer until now.

I guess I haven't said much about beer, which I'll agree is an oversight. But while there are many things that are different about beer here and beer there, I'm not actually sure that they're interesting. But in the interest of not obstructing the Truth, here is some information about the Germans' favorite drink:

Beer here comes in 1/3 and 1/2 liter bottles, a sixpack of which costs 3 or 4 Euros. Or, you can buy a flat of 20 bottles in a plastic crate, and then bring the crate and all the empty bottles back to the store to get back your deposit. Beer in restaurants ranges from 2.50 to 2.50 per half liter, and is almost always served in the correct glass (tall and slightly fluted for Hefeweizen, tall and straight for Bock, gobletey for Belgian-type ales). Once I saw someone drinking a beer in a plastic bottle, but I have never seen anyone drink anything from a can.

There isn't a ban on drinking in public, or at least, it isn't enforced: people, teenagers especially, walk down the street with bottles in their hands, and drink on the subway, in train stations, on stoops. The Beer fact that was most exciting for Jeremy to learn, and that frankly he won't stop talking about, is that it is available everywhere, from takeout pizza places to the Cinemax movie theater. When we went to see Wallace and Gromit (in the original English - at the Sony Center, almost all films are shown in original language), I went to buy the tickets (only 4.50 on Tuesdays, all day, which almost makes it worth it to fly to Berlin just to see a movie) and sent Jeremy on a mission to find out if there was anything good at the snack bar. It wasn't hard to interpret the maniacally happy look on his face as I came downstairs with the tickets: the movie theater sells beer, and what is more, half liters of Paulaner Hefeweizen, and what is more, they give it to you in a glass. And you can take your beer glass into the theater. And the cupholders are especially tall, to ensure that your very tall, special hefeweizen glass doesn't fall over.

[Jeremy posits: is there such a thing as "un-maniacal happiness?" I mean, basically, the utilitarian school's bread and butter is the assumption that there is a difference between manaical happiness and more educated, enlightened happiness. But let's face it - I don't care why Everybody Loves Raymond is the best television show ever. I don't care if my love for it is enlightened, or if John Stuart Mill, the schmuck, "approves" of my love for the brought to life musings of comic Ray Romano. In conclusion, love is war.]

Jeremy is happy with himself for making me add that to my blog, but I can pretty much undermine everything he just said by pointing out that he, in fact, very much scorns and dislikes the show Everybody Loves Raymond. As, I am fairly sure, do most Americans of my generation. But now we've gotten pretty far off the subject of Beer, and since I don't really have anything else to say about it, it seems that Jeremy has once again gotten the last word.

Culinary Violence

In a clear attempt to make me write yet another cooking-related blog, Dad sent me his recipe for Violent Brownies. It's called this not because it was created for German-speaking and -ingredient-using bakers, but because of the delightfulness of German language. Since I am now awesome at mixing ingredients in German quantities and picking the number (I have a 1 in 8 chance!) to use on our oven, there is not really anything interesting to say about the baking of the brownies, other than that they are delicious.

The history of the brownie recipe, however, is more amusing, though anyone who has ever approached within a couple meters of anyone in my family probably has heard it:

One lovely day someways through our year living in Germany, my Dad finally perfected a recipe for baking brownies from scratch, from cooking chocolate and sugar and eggs and vannila sugar, etc., with all the amounts in grams and milliliters. He then proceeded to bake this recipe and distribute the fruits of this labor among our German friends, who had been hearing about the amazing chocolateyness that is American Brownies for quite a while. Predictably, the recipe was asked for, so my dad set out to translate it. One of the first instructions is to add sugar to the eggs, and beat the mixture together well. In German, "to beat together" might be directly translated as "zusammenschlagen." Or so my Dad thought. So when our German friends broke out laughing over their copies of the recipe, he didn't understand what was so funny. Was the amount of sugar just so ridiculous to a nation whose cakes are sometimes indistinguishable from their breads? Did they find it hilarious that you need to bake the batter for different amounts of time, depending on the size of the pan? No, it was just that my Dad had instructed them to put the eggs and sugar in a bowl and "punch them in the face." You are never taught idioms when you study a foriegn language; you learn them usually in embarassing situations and invariably too late.

As a German friend recently reminded me, the German word "pregnant" means roughly "very important," which has caused some touchy situations for German Au Pair girls in America. Similarly, the attempts of english-speakers to explain to the Spanish that something has caused them to become embarassed: the Spanish are confused, especially if the speaker is a man, since "embarazada" means "pregnant."

There are many more such examples, obviously, but the temperature dropped enough today for them to build a giant, usable ski slope in the middle of Potsdamer Platz (seriously! more on this later!), so I'm going somewhere indoors, preferably my apartment, and preferably with my "borrowed" cat curled up on my lap. Also, hopefully she does not attempt to attack my face, as has happened the last three times she has been in my lap. Please, someone tell me if I look like a mouse.