Midwestern girl meets Berlin @annaindeutschland - Tumblr Blog

hail Knox all glorious

After being back at the lovely Knox College in Galesburg, IL for a week, I think I’m finally experiencing “reverse culture shock”: the experience of feeling out of place in your native culture.

It’s been a slow process. Upon my initial return to the U.S., the transition seemed effortless. My family was still the same (although my brother was taller and my father’s hair was grayer); the house was mostly the same. I spent two weeks discussing Berlin with family member after family member, going through nearly 1500 photos, piles of mementos and anecdotes—snippets of what my life had been for four months.

Then I came back to college, and things had suddenly changed. There’s a building on campus called Alumni Hall that has stood dormant for decades, as the college had planned on renovating it but then ran out of money. Every year, it has seemed emptier; every year, its desolation has loomed larger as prospective students notice it (and it’s hard not to, as it’s at the entrance to campus and is one of the biggest buildings around) and ask, “Why doesn’t it have any stairs?” Now, though, the money has appeared. Bulldozers have appeared. But most noticeably, there are stairs.

There are new cereals in the cafeteria. There are new tables in the snack bar. There are some very ugly benches outside of the union. Each of these things is relatively insignificant on its own, but for me, they represent the unfamiliar in what is supposed to be a familiar environment, and they shake me out of what I thought was my comfort zone.

But I’ve seen so many friends this past week, and so many people whom I didn’t realize I’d missed so much. I made friends in Berlin, of course, but there’s a difference between the sort of relationship you build in four months, knowing you might never see each other again afterwards, and relationships created over years and years. I loved Berlin, I did. But this is my home, and no matter how much the benches or the buildings have changed, the people keep it that way.

Also here, where I blog for an outreach program of the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi: http://alumnigeorgia.tumblr.com/.

khrn17

iyb-archive-deactivated20210909

Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety.

Italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read only an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series 5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger 20 Middlemarch – George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 34 Emma – Jane Austen 35 Persuasion – Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne 41 Animal Farm – George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving 45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding 50 Atonement – Ian McEwan 51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel 52 Dune – Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens 58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 72 Dracula – Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses – James Joyce 76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal – Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession – AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel 83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 94 Watership Down – Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

aplusnormalhuman

This is always fun. There are a lot of books I haven’t read.

annaindeutschland

The bottom half of this list is rather embarrassing.

Back in the U.S. Got free refills at a restaurant yesterday. Body thinks it should be about 5:30 p.m. right now. Massive confusion.

rewriting history

Angeline: It's been a really warm winter. We still don't have any snow.

Nadine: We never have snow. We haven't had a white Christmas since 2000.

Angeline: ...um, no. We always have a white Christmas.

Nadine: ...what city do you live in?

Angeline: Berlin, where we get snow for Christmas.

Nadine: Yes...in 2000. Not since.

Angeline: ...no.

Nadine: ...

Angeline: Well, the East [eastern side of the city] gets snow.

In the U.S., my Finals Pump-Up Song is Jet's "Be My Girl." Here, it's this. It's fantastic.

(Also: done with finals except for the listening component for German language. Actually think they went better than midterms with the possible exception of Security Policies. Whoo!)

Yesterday morning, I stepped onto the tram and was greeted by a delightful little pug. The pug's owner had decided to stand on the awkward "bendy" section where the tram cars are connected; the floor actually swivels to allow the tram to turn. Round and round the poor pug went, generating smiles from all of the passengers. It was then that I decided that's what I'll miss most about Berlin: dogs on public transportation.

Psychologists say that there are five stages to the cultural adjustment process: initial ecstasy at arriving in a new place, confusion and frustration, adaptation, "confronting deeper issues"/being angry at everything, and true immersion. For a while I thought I'd reached the last one; I walked through the streets of Prenzlauer Berg with my head held high, ducking into shops here and there and (finally) successfully staying out of the bike lane. I figured out how each piece of the city--Alex, the Nikolaiviertel, Gendarmenmarkt, Bebelplatz--were connected to each other and how the city's history explained why. I spent an afternoon at the Humboldt University library, poring over texts on German minorities in Romania. I saw Hinterm Horizont, a musical about life in divided Germany, and finally understood, finally felt the emotion that Berliners associate with the fall of the Wall. I even enjoyed an afternoon of the dreaded frische Luft.

Then we watched "Neukölln Unlimited," a documentary about asylum-seekers in Germany, in my German language class and talked about notions of "home" and what it meant. Some people identified "home" as the city where they'd grown up; others talked about having multiple "homes," including their college towns and Berlin. When it was my turn, I didn't know how to answer, because I don't think of Galesburg as home, and Berlin is not home, not really. Omaha is the closest thing to home, but my parents are moving soon, so I will not even have that house anymore to call home. So where do I fit?

There are times when I feel like I should have explored Germany more. I did a pretty good job with Berlin, but Berlin is not Germany and Germany is not Berlin. Berlin feels like an entity in and of itself; go to Dresden or Hamburg and the entire feel of the country changes. It's something intangible that I can't really explain--all of the factors that contribute to the atmosphere of a city, from the taste of the air to the way the sunlight strikes the buildings to how much can be packed into a square-block radius. So, although I may feel whole in Berlin, I don't understand Germany...but there's also a part of me that's okay with that. I love Berlin. I chose the right city. Everything feels right here.

But I can't uproot myself entirely. I can't ignore the culture or the country I come from. I spent a good 20 minutes in front of the Pop-Tarts in KaDeWe. Ever since, I've been trying to figure out why they affected me so much. Perhaps it's because Pop-Tarts come so close to embodying Germany but leap away at the last minute. They're a pastry, and Germans love their pastries, but they're fast, and Germans prefer leisurely breakfasts over cutting boards decked out with rolls and marmalade. Even a croissant grabbed on the go has spent hours being prepared. They're also too sweet for Germany. German food is plain, hearty and durable--much like the country itself.

Perhaps Pop-Tarts, then, are what America has become for me: an indulgence that isn't always good for me but is incredibly comforting nonetheless. It's about the short-term. In the U.S., we are too young to understand that the true trial of statehood is making it through history. Germans know better.

And perhaps that's what makes each moment so special here. In this city, anything can happen. It might hurt you, but give it a few days and you'll be up on your feet and stronger than before.

The dogs on the tram know this, even as they spin around and around and around, and they are happy.

I'm frustrated with my Semesterarbeit (term papers), frustrated with the German language and daunted by the prospect of going home in five days, but I am happy with where I am and the possibilities as to where I could go next, and that is the greatest gift that Berlin has given me.

Anna's Ranking of Ritter Sport Flavors

For those heretics who are unaware, the gods created Ritter Sport because light, oceans, fish, birds, animals and people just weren't good enough. There also clearly was not a large enough siphon attached to my wallet already.

Anyway, I made it my goal to try as many flavors of Ritter Sport as possible while I am in Berlin (as Ritter Sport has a flagship store here...and a Ritter Sport museum...which I may have visited...no judgment). To date: 22 down, at least two (the last two that are attainable without having to trek to said flagship store) to go.

An approximate ranking (because they're all SO GOOD, except for Trauben-Nuss, because raisins should never be put in chocolate bars):

1. Mousse au Chocolat (dark chocolate fill with chocolate mousse)

2. Vanillekipferl (milk chocolate filled with, um, vanilla stuff)

3. Knusperkeks (a butter wafer covered in chocolate. Other brands besides Ritter Sport do make these, but Ritter Sport's are bigger.)

4. Neapolitaner Waffeln (Neapolitan wafers covered in chocolate)

5. Schoko-Duo (Milk and white chocolate)

6. Halbbitter (Dark chocolate)

7. Weiss + Crisp (White chocolate with crisps of some sort)

8. Pfferminz (Strong peppermint. Yum.)

9. Knusperflakes (Milk chocolate with cornflakes. Sound weird? It tastes like a Nestle Crunch bar.)

10. Joghurt (Milk chocolate filled with what I believe is Greek yogurt. Also sound weird? It's an interesting sweet/sour mix.)

11. Voll-Nuss (Milk chocolate with whole hazelnuts)

12. Espresso (Chocolate flavored with coffee)

13. Alpenmilch (Chocolate made with milk from the Alps, because apparently that's special)

14. Weiss (White chocolate)

15. Vollmilch (Normal milk chocolate)

16. Milchcreme (May I be honest? I tried this one in September and don't remember it that well. Excuse to try it again? I think so.)

17. Erdbeer-Joghurt (See "Joghurt" above, and add strawberry flavoring)

18. Olympia (Milk chocolate with yogurt, honey and hazelnut pieces. Interesting.)

19. Marzipan (Marzipan is good, just not that exciting.)

20. Nougat (See #19.)

21. Coco (See #20.)

22. Rum Trauben Nuss (The only flavor of Ritter Sport I do not like. You should not take the delicious Vollnuss bar and ruin it by adding raisins. Nope.)

UPDATE: I have tried new flavors.

-Noisette: Basically, this is Nutella in chocolate bar form. Predictably, it's really good.

-Edel-Vollmilch: Not entirely sure what makes this different from, say, Alpenmilch, but it's still good.

-Karamel-Nuss: Caramel and hazelnuts. I'm normally not a caramel person--it's too gooey and too sweet for me--but mixed with the hazelnut bits, it was actually quite tasty.

-Fondente-Extra: 71% cacao. Super dark. Yum.

-Macademia: This comes as a "health" bar. No one should ever try to make chocolate "healthy," but I'm not going to complain this time around, because it was still--you guessed it--good.

Bestätigung

"There will be no midterm 'test' in this class, per se," my international relations professor announces. The entire class scoots forward a little bit in their seats. I am more apprehensive; there's a glint in his eye that I really, really don't like.

"Instead," he says, "you each need to obtain, read and write a review of an academic book on a topic related to international relations and Germany. Have fun."

At first glance, the project seems simple. By now in my academic career, I should know better. The vocabulary of the book I choose, Einsatz ohne Ziel (Mission Without a Goal), is highly jargon-y, and because it's about German defense policy, the concepts it addresses are complicated without the language barrier contributing to the confusion. It takes at least twice as long as usual to read a chapter. For someone like me who likes to plan out every minute of her life, this is incredibly frustrating. I am disoriented, but more importantly, I start to question my choice of a field of study. I often complain about books I have to read for similar classes in the U.S.; the difference this time around is that when I complain, I mean it.

Nevertheless, I did it: I read an entire academic book in German, and I'm still alive (mostly). I might be a bit too proud of this achievement, but it's extremely validating. I know that if the book had been about anything else, I would not have finished it. It's true that my stubbornness contributed to keeping me on track, but my success was also an indication, I believe, that I was doing the right thing, studying the right subject, going in the right direction.

The subtitle of this blog reads: "I'm spending the next four months in Berlin, Germany, studying German politics and security and trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do with my life." As I had hoped, this experience has confirmed what I think part of me already knew: that my direction is clear. I don't know exactly where it will take me, but I'm not too worried about it anymore. It's highly plausible that I could have reached a similar conclusion in a different place at another time, but I will always thank this city for presenting this often murky and confusing field, which is often extremely unfriendly to women and always unfriendly to young unworldly ones, as my own.

reading, writing, 'raska

The other night, I met Angeline's boyfriend, Sebastian. The conversation went something like this.

Sebastian: Where are you from?

Anna: Well, I'm from a city called Omaha, which is almost directly in the middle of the U.S. It's in the state of Nebraska.

Sebastian: Oh, Nebraska! Yes, I can find Nebraska on a map.

Anna: ...what?

Sebastian: We had to learn where all of the American states were in school.

Anna: ....what?

That's right. German schoolchildren have to learn where Nebraska is. I will bet you this banana I'm eating (what a desirable prize!) that most American schoolchildren don't know where Nebraska is.

This must be what hegemony feels like.

youattackedateachaa

annaindeutschland

This is not remotely related to Germany, but it's so good that it doesn't matter.

Going to a soccer game at Olympic Stadium today. Crazy European Fußball culture, away!

In my other travels around Europe, it's sometimes been difficult to tell that I've changed countries. Each city has been different, of course, but there are common themes: common architectural styles, common styles of dress and a relatively small basket of languages. But Istanbul truly is a different continent (even the side of the city that's technically in Europe). Speeding into the city at 10:00 on a Friday night, you can feel its chest rising and falling beneath you as it breathes. It is raw, rich, alive.

While in Istanbul, I visited the Hagia Sophia (third photo), which was first the royal church during the Byzantine Empire, then a mosque during the Ottoman era, and is now a museum. By plastering over Christian symbols rather than destroying them, the Ottomans inadvertently preserved enormous frescoes which now stand alongside traditional Islamic symbols. The juxtaposition is beautiful; it says, "Look. Look how we can coexist."

The debate over Turkey's ascension to the EU has been going on for years and has borne little fruit in either the pro or the con direction. From a pragmatic, political (not sure those words should be used in the same sentence without a "not" in between) viewpoint, I do not support Turkey's membership. It would not benefit Turkey (who is already well-connected to Europe through NATO and trade agreements), and it would not benefit the EU (who would essentially be giving a majority in the European Parliament to its newest and most foreign member). But the EU is also not right for Turkey in a purely artistic and aesthetic sense. I will be the first to acknowledge that Turkey has major problems with ethnic minorities and religious fundamentalism, but it also has a deep and innate beauty so unlike the glass towers and idealistic bureaucracy of the EU. It has created its own world, and even though globalization has already begun to gnaw at the edges, let it stay there for as long as possible.

Ustalgie

(Why yes, I do bastardize words.)

Today, I visited KaDeWe, the second largest department store in Europe. There were two primary reasons for this excursion:

To see what sort of Christmas decorations the ritziest Kaufhaus in Berlin could come up with

To find one of the few places in the city that sells American groceries

As I rode the escalator up to the gourmet floor (yes, there is a gourmet floor), I caught sight of a gumball machine topped with a sign reading "Taste of America". It was almost as if KaDeWe knew that American college students would venture into the store looking to buy something but not wanting to spend $700 on a dress, no matter how beautiful it is (and it was on sale too! Kind of. For $500), and that they wouldn't have eaten lunch yet and thus would gravitate naturally towards the food.

I bought Kraft Mac & Cheese and Oreos. I was sorely tempted to get a jar of Jif, but it was about at that time that my Cheap-O-Meter kicked back in and scolded me harshly for even considering buying a 9 euro container of peanut butter. I'll admit to wandering back and forth in front of the "American" shelves for some 20 minutes, marveling at the fact that there were Pop-Tarts (Pop-Tarts!) and Mountain Dew, which is my favorite soda, but the Cheap-O-Meter couldn't justify an 8 euro can of pop. But god, I wanted that Mountain Dew.

I've been really bad about updating this lately, and I promise I'll take some time soon to go through and write about Halloween, midterms, Istanbul, Prague, the Christmas markets, the Irish prime minister (and other similarly German things)...but first, a story.

In my quest to visit Berlin's highest places, I headed to Brandenburger Tor this afternoon to catch the 100 bus to Großer Stern, which is as close as one can get to the Siegessäule with public transportation. But distance is deceptive, and from the Tor, the Siegessäule appears to be just past the intersection, even though a nearby sign points out that it's 1.4 km away. I decided to walk. It was a decision I would not have consciously made three months ago, and that's how I know I've changed.

I saw the Siegessäule up close for the first time on my fourth day in Berlin during the typical tourist "Straße des 17. Juni" walk (Brandenburger Tor, Reichstag, Tiergarten, Siegessäule). Now, as the trees shed their leaves, I repeat the walk exactly. The air is cold, crisp and clear.

The street from Brandenburger Tor to the Siegessäule runs parallel to the Tiergarten. Berliners actually walk through the Tiegarten; only tourists walk on the path. Somehow I am able to tread in both worlds. Three times I am mistaken for a native and asked for directions. Unfortunately, I am horrible with street names and thus am not a good person to ask for directions. "Ich kenne das nicht" or "Leider bin ich nicht sicher" and I'm on my way again.

The Siegessäule itself sits in the middle of a roundabout; thus you are immediately a tourist upon arrival, as there is no reason to stand on the Siegessäule's plaza except to admire it. I pay my 2.50 euro and walk unabashed and uninterested through the small exhibition inside. I'm not here for the history, which I've already read about online. I'm here for the height, the exhilaration, the present.

I could walk to the Zoologischer Garten S-Bahn stop upon descending from the top of the column, but I decide to walk back to Brandenburger Tor instead. This time, I am stopped by two women in a car. "Are you from Berlin?" they ask (in German). I hesitate, but in the end I decide to answer honestly. "No," I say (in German), "but I live here." Here is what I mean: I have roots here. This is not my city, not really, but I am its and I have just seen it laid out before me and through the lens of a camera and through the tips of my fingers on tree bark in the Tiergarten, and it is in my being and I will never, ever be ready to leave it.

I only have six weeks left.

What. What. What is this nonsense. Denial begins: now.

In the next six weeks, I want to do all of this:

Finally go to KaDeWe. It is a sin that I have not been there yet. Also, rumor has it that they have Kraft Mac & Cheese. The opportunity cost of going all the way to Charlottenburg to buy something that is overpriced and can easily be made in 20 minutes with ingredients I can pick up at the grocery store down the street is entirely irrelevant.

Get into Berghain. Aaaaaaaah.

Ice skate in Potsdamer Platz. Angeline and I are doing this next week. Probably. So there.

Make it to the top of the Siegessäule. I really should've done this when we went during the first week of the program, but my legs had not yet adjusted to walking everywhere, and 100+ steps did not sound appealing at the moment.

Brittany has recommended a Mexican place down the street from where I live. Must try (and add this to the list of Mexican restaurants where I have eaten in Berlin. I believe I have eaten at more Mexican restaurants than German restaurants. Oh, Berlin.)

Visit as many Weihnachtsmärkte as possible and eat all of the gingerbread cookies.

I would really like to make it to the top of the Fernsehturm, but this is not mandatory.

I would also really like to go to the AquaDom. Depending on cost, this may or may not be mandatory.

Apparently, there is a restaurant near the Gendarmenmarkt where Barack Obama eats whenever he is in the city. I would like to eat at this restaurant because I am a nerd. That is all.

In the next six weeks, I have already scheduled all of the following:

Go to a soccer game. German soccer fans are so intense that riot police are stationed along major S-Bahn/U-Bahn lines in case things get out of hand. Oh dear.

Go to Treptower Park, where 700 Soviet soldiers are buried. While this will be a nice addition to the excursion, its primary purpose is to indulge my need to be five years old and jump in leaf piles.

Go to various political events throughout the city, courtesy of my IR honors seminar. (I have a list of what's been planned so far...somewhere.)

Go to Istanbul and Prague, and add London to that list ASAP.

Survive finals. In German. Aaaaaaaaah.

sometimes I wonder about people

Ben: I really want to go to the gym this afternoon.

Mike: So we're going to the Gymnasium, then?

Ben: ...Gymnasium doesn't mean gym in German.

Mike: ...it doesn't?

Ben: No. It means high school.

Mike: Oh.

The most delicious thing to ever come out of my kitchen. (Also, as cheese sauces go, decently healthy.)

Recipe:

-3 cups (ish; I don't measure my ingredients) shell macaroni pasta

-2 tablespoons margarine

-1.5 tablespoons regular white flour

-2.5 cups skim milk

-2 slices of cheddar cheese, torn into small pieces

-3/4 cup fresh middle-aged Bergkäse, grated

-a pinch of oregano

Melt butter slowly over low heat; boil water for pasta and cook while waiting. Add flour to butter; whisk until the mixture thickens. Add milk to thin as desired. Add most of the cheddar cheese and a bit of the Bergkäse; whisk. Add a drop or two of milk and the rest of the cheese; whisk. Add oregano; whisk. Keep over low heat so that it stays warm while the pasta finishes cooking. (I like mine al dente, but you can certainly cook it to be softer if you prefer.) Strain pasta and add to cheese sauce. Toss and serve.

Makes approximately one and a half helpings, which of course in Anna's world means one helping.

If you want a stronger flavor, add more Bergkäse. I would've, but grating cheese is tedious, man.

David and Ivie are about to go at it, but the important thing here is that Ben/David Bowie is eating chips.

(It was so nice to have a little taste of Halloween in Berlin. It's not widely celebrated here, although my host sister did make an adorable witch. I was a British orphan boy because I already had all of the pieces of the costume. Not sure what that says about me as a person.)

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