Sunday, December 21, 2014

Utter Miscellany

I realize that I haven’t posted on here for a long time. There are a few main reasons for this:

1) The photos I’ve been taking are too scattered to form a single narrative. No further examples of Augustus Gloop drinking dairy products from unexpected packaging, for instance.
2) The more I actually get to know other human beings and develop a social life here in Berlin, the less energy I have for writing entries, which in all fairness takes a stupidly long time. Especially humorous analogies. Like an undersea treasure-hunter, it takes a while to come up with anything good. (I’ll take one order of BADUM-TSCH and hold the groan.)
3) I’ve found other, more pressing ways to procrastinate my dissertation. That may seem comical, yet it is actually alarming. I desperately need some butt glue... you know, to glue my butt to a chair so my dissertation will occur. (Why, what were you thinking I meant? EW)

Since my last entry, I wandered around Cologne for a DAAD orientation, gave a presentation in German that was not nearly as exciting as it may sound, gave a presentation in English that was surprisingly more exciting than the one in German, started writing my dissertation and plateaued after 12 pages, took a 4-week woodcut class, explored a cavernous basement filled with sand, discovered the best fast-food chain after Chipotle, visited 6 Christmas markets, drank 7 Glühweins, booked a trip to Turkey in April that is essentially a platonic honeymoon, and figured out how to make decent veggie chili with ingredients from the discount grocery.

And it was delicious. 

More importantly: this time tomorrow, I will be meandering around London with a camera plastered to my eye. I’ll be cramming in as much sightseeing as possible in 1.5 days, then spending Christmas with a friend and her family in a town near Liverpool. An infinite improvement on my Christmas last year, which consisted of holing up in my apartment writing my proposal, not unlike this:



As you can see from my recent DrawSomething sketches, I'm getting into the Christmas spirit this year!



In Berlin, I’ve been enjoying the phenomenon known as the Christmas Market. These range from adorable artisan markets with actual adorable artisans, to kitschy large-scale carnivals that have cheap rides and all sell the exact same things: sugared almonds, creepy StaSi hats, and wool slippers for Hagrid-sized feet. Whether artsy or kitschy, all the markets serve Glühwein, a traditional hot mulled wine that is seriously tasty. This is supposedly a distinctly German cultural experience, but it turns out that virtual replicas of these markets also exist in American cities... like Denver. I was Skyping with my Dad as he strolled through downtown, happened upon a Christkindlmarkt, and drank a steaming mug of Glühwein, all in a setting that looked pretty much like the market at Potsdamer Platz.

Glühwein at a chic bar... with teeny cookie.

The Scandinavian Christmas Market. Featuring: people's heads.

Drinking Glögg (the Swedish equivalent of Glühwein).
As much as I'm enjoying Christmas in Berlin -- and soon, Christmas in Wirral -- I'll confess that it's weird to be in a place where Chanukah is not a thing. Of course Chanukah is not traditionally a major holiday, and only became a gift-giving holiday due to its concurrence with Christmas... yet I still feel sad to miss out on latkes and candles and family. There's a large Jewish community in Berlin, but most of the events I found were more religious than edible. And meanwhile I keep seeing these strange candly-things in people's windows, getting excited thinking it's a chanukiah, then realizing suddenly that it's just this:

A Christmas thingamabob. Oh well.

In any case, back to the future past: I had a fun time in Cologne, getting to know friendly DAAD folks and taking an unnecessary number of photographs of the Cathedral.

Why? you may ask. Because it is extremely large, ornate, and gorgeous.

The museum  next door has an interesting silhouette. 
I wish someone would give me a cathedral for Christmas.

Why even bother trying to capture grand spaces in tiny iPhone photos? 
Imagine for a moment sitting down in front of a block of wood and... carving this. 

Or this.

The cathedral at night... on Halloweeeeeeeeeen!
Part of the DAAD excursion included walking around the top of a very high building at night.

Almost looks like Chicago!

OH WAIT is that a giant cathedral? Guess it's not Chicago.

One of the highlights of my recent adventures in Berlin was my woodcut class. I managed to make three projects without losing a single finger. I have a new appreciation for the art form – I mean, seriously, try cutting into a slab of wood with a dull knife and you’ll suddenly worship Lynd Ward as a kind of god. (Not that I know anything about worshipping artists.)

Woodcut class final critique. Folks produced some really amazing work in a mere 4 sessions!


Wintry lights in downtown Berlin: making 16 hours of darkness per day bearable.
I've also been enjoying some concerts at the Salon Christophori, the strange underground-ish classical venue I mentioned earlier on the blog. Recently I heard violinist Adolph Menzel -- not to be confused with the artist Adolph von Menzel, whose diaries I am planning to read in the Kunstbibliothek for strange and probably fruitless research reasons -- and pianist Julien Quentin.

Adolph Menzel: a man outside his Zeitgeist. Both because he shares a name with a famous turn-of-the-20th-century artist, and also because he sports a haircut straight out of an '80s rock band. 
 They played a massive 2.5 hour program, which truthfully seemed a little excessive, but I had a blast. It was my first time hearing a Stradivarius live, and while the acoustics of the space were too strange to ascertain whether it actually sounds better than other violins, I did feel a hint of that special awe. I think it might have sounded juicier than average... or maybe it's just a placebo effect?

One of the weirdest aspects of the recital was my location: I was all the way over to the side, right next to a long wall of piano bodies. And at the end of every movement, the sympathetic vibrations between the final notes and the old soundboards caused the piano wall to hum. It was kind of magical.




Now: off to London!

So shiny.


Sunday, November 2, 2014

Rotweinwanderweg: Photo Dump

The Rotweinwanderweg (red wine hiking trail): 20 miles of a beautiful hike winding through the hilly wine country along the Ahr, a small river near Bonn that feeds into the Rhine. Not only is the hike beautiful, but you can also stop every mile or so and taste the local Federweißer, or "young wine," which is opaque with yeast and intended to be drunk within 24 hours. It tastes surprisingly sweet and refreshing, but smells like sulphur farts, which brought back traumatic memories of my flight from Chicago to Berlin (I sat behind someone with some unfortunate digestive issues).

One highlight: a view with several long golden hills, forests, a river, a cute town, and what looked like a slowly-flowing donut-shaped trough of wine down below. Though I suppose it could have been something else. See the panoramic shot below...

The Rhine from the train.

The town of Dernau, my starting point. I walked for 45 minutes in a different direction, then turned back and walked from Dernau to Altenahr (apparently the prettiest stretch). 

Steep hillside.






An old cloister with a winery inside.



Some kind of a fortress on a hill... or a winery that looks like a fortress, more like. 
The hike included stretches of rocky slopes and forests.










What would a hike in the Rheinland be without a ruined castly thing?


Milkstuffs, Schimpfen, Wedding

A lot has happened since my last photo-dump: I went to Bonn for two weeks; stayed with a German family; dug up a ton of weird/cool/random stuff in the Beethoven archive; peered over the shoulder of conductor and editor Jonathan La Mar while he worked with original Beethoven manuscripts; played board games with four German college guys, two of whom were identical twins with the same voices, mannerisms, and facial hair, which was weird (and incidentally I was the Siegerin); hiked for 4.5 hours along a trail high in the hills of Rhineland wine country; attended a DAAD orientation event in Cologne, where I talked so much over the course of 2 days that I now have no voice at all...

...and a lot will happen this week: an important presentation tomorrow that I should be working on at this moment, sitting in on a musicology class in German, my first woodcut class, another DAAD orientation event that I mistakenly wasn't invited to (but I'll show up anyway, they can't stop me!), dinner at the home of my Tandem Sprachpartner, and eventually somewhere in there I'll have to read some of the 1,000 books on my StaBi To-Do-List.

So suffice it to say, I haven't had as much time to devote to this blog as I would like. There may be some mere photo-dumps in the near future.

But today: musings on German culture + life in Berlin.

In general, Germany and the US are quite similar -- first world countries with first world problems, cars on the right side of the road,  multicultural neighborhoods, coffee and pizza. If anything, the strongly neighborhood-y feel of Berlin reminds me of Chicago; so whatever cultural differences I've encountered are quite subtle. (Granted, many of the cars are tiny hybrids, the neighborhoods are often Turkish, the coffee costs twice as much, and some pizzas have tuna on them.) 

But clearly there are differences: there are things that I consider distinctly German, and things Germans consider distinctly American. Peanut butter, for example.

I love how "Mike Mitchell's" is the brand name for all "American"-style products. I picture Mike Mitchell looking like this guy:

And clearly when you look through the coupon book and encounter things like this, it's obvious that some things are distinctly German. 

This guy is standing in a field drinking whole milk out of a bag. And he can't get enough.
(Is that enough yogurt for that kid?)
Just so you can fully appreciate this baffling haircut.
Americans definitely eat quite a bit of dairy, but nothing like this. The dairy consumption here is exorbitant. But no wonder: not only are the products higher-quality, but Germans and other Northern Europeans can digest dairy more easily than most ethnic groups. Note that 60-80% of Ashkenazi Jews (i.e. moi) have lactose intolerance, compared with 15% of Germans. (Then again, it all has to go somewhere...)

The vending machine at the StaBi: potato salad (with ham!) on the top, sausages with mustard in the middle. Somebody forgot their mustard!

Another major difference I've observed is the widespread embrace of homeopathic or plant-based medicine, accompanied by a pervasive skepticism towards pharmaceuticals. In some ways I can understand this, given that pharmaceutical companies are notoriously corrupted, and especially that the drug selection in Germany is totally lousy and overpriced -- you can't buy "over the counter" medication in a normal drug store, but rather you must visit the Apotheke (yes, the apothecary) to explain your symptoms to a stranger in a lab coat who then chooses a remedy for you. Often there are only a couple options to choose from, neither of which perfectly matches the symptoms. So I can see how people might acquiesce when the Apothekerin pushes some little bottle of plant drops on them, saying "it's really just as effective." And if people want to drink lots of bitter teas instead of taking a Tylenol, who am I to judge...

But I've also heard some grumblings about vaccinations similar to the anti-intellectual nonsense in California. So while I shouldn't be judgmental, I find myself tsk-tsking all the weird teas and essences and homeopathic tablets I encounter everywhere, and to combat an excess of dairy I order Pepto Bismol from Amazon.de (it arrives in 1960s-style packaging from a small town in England). Whether the teas work or not, I feel like the Apotheke is a relic of the Middle Ages.

The biggest cultural difference, though, is what I described before with regard to the grouches at the StaBi. If you break rules here, or don't know the rules, or mess up, or step out of line, or do something even slightly different from what people expect, you'll be faced with instant "schimpfen" (= grumbling, grouching, ranting, bitching, etc.). Many people here -- though fortunately not the family I stayed with in Bonn, which was exceptionally easy-going -- are just plain uptight.

For example: I'm riding a bike on a busy street in Berlin, there's construction to my right and a fat SUV to my left and no more room to ride. So I have no choice but to get off the bike and walk it onto the curb. The woman driving the SUV rants out her window at me for several minutes because I failed to, uh, knock on her window to alert her to my presence. Just imagine for a moment knocking on someone's car window in the US. You might wind up with a couple bullets in your system.

Sometimes it's hard to do everything -- or anything -- right in a foreign country.
And the German response to American friendliness, easiness, warmth in public-service situations? To someone behind a counter smiling at you? "Americans are superficial."

One thing I should mention, though, especially now that I've made this blog public (it was for a time limited to a private readership): I actually genuinely don't mean to essentialize people on here. Even if I do notice some cultural trends, particularly contrasts with the US, I don't want to seem prejudiced -- because I've truthfully had too many terrific experiences with German people to even count, particularly the family I stayed with and my conversation partner in Berlin. But I do notice that crowd behavior tends to be different from individual behavior. So I acknowledge that every grouchy librarian who schimpfs at me in the library might be quite friendly in a different context -- but somehow the German social expectation for privacy, elbow-room, and peace&quiet (Ruhe is a big thing here) creates a chillier atmosphere in public interactions.

But it seems that once you learn the rules and do things correctly, suddenly it becomes a magical place -- or at the very least, a perfectly pleasant place to live. 


A couple sunsets in my neighborhood: a rare occasion when Wedding looks lovely.
From my balcony. 

My neighborhood (Wedding) is a strange place. Parts of it look like a bit of a dump: long stretches of 24-hour casinos, discount groceries, erotic video stores, shops that are closed up and broken glass. Trash on the sidewalks, bubbly globs of spit everywhere that you have to walk around. And also perfectly friendly, normal families, workers splattered with paint (it's still the Arbeiterbezirk), cultural diversity, artists hauling portfolios or cellos on and off the bus. 

I encountered a carnival in my neighborhood recently. It was a mix of kids' rides, junk food, flea market, and local stores selling cheap clothes and sun-bleached leather wallets. 
Festive... but:

...this long line of stuffed-animal-claw machines weirded me out. It felt like a kid's version of the casinos so prevalent in Wedding.
It appears that some people here are living in poverty, while many are doing perfectly fine and are happy to live in this diverse neighborhood. This enigmatic graffiti that recently appeared on my apartment building suggests one of two things: either not everyone here is happy, or someone with spraypaint was trying to be mysterious.

"black hole"
But many parts of Wedding are unexpectedly beautiful:
Nature is just around the corner.
The park near my apartment where I go jogging, i.e. flailing about for a pathetically short time.

And everyone says Wedding is the next hip spot, full of students and artists. This trip to the Salon Christophori finally convinced me: a warehouse full of pianos features chamber music concerts on historical instruments with world-class performers. You can drink wine available at the back of the room, and at the end you pay a donation into a poster-tube.

This is what the "stage" looks like. It's visually a jumbled mess of piano parts, and heads blocking the performers, and music emanates from somewhere...
Pianos stacked on end. 
The "backstage" area is located behind a wall of piano stuff.
There's a certain chic sleekness to other neighborhoods in Berlin -- Kreuzberg or Prenzlauer Berg, for example -- that Wedding lacks. But I'm slowly learning the charms of the neighborhood.

And at this point I have to get work done -- so without concluding this entry, or coming up with anything sufficiently humorous or entertaining, I say: adieux. And photo dump to follow.