I am getting married, in Germany, and this means a small cascade of administrative tasks to tick off one by one. Today that brought me to the U.S. Consulate in Berlin, to procure a certification that I am not already married. This is how it went. Arrived at the consulate in the woods of Zehlendorf, where there is a line, and a security notice that says no one will be allowed in with electronic devices (including cell phones) or large bags. I have my backpack with lunch, bike helmet, and cell phone, so the solution is to go back across the street to the U-Bahn, where the nice older lady at the newspaper kiosk will watch your stuff for you for 1€ and remind you to take all of your paperwork with you. If Hannes hadn't told me about doing this when he applied for a U.S. visa, I think I would've been flipping out over the ridiculousness of this system, but being forewarned I found it rather quaint. Back at the consulate, I find another sign saying that U.S. citizens should go to the front of the line. Woowhee!
Inside I go to the room for U.S. citizen services, which feels just like a doctor's office waiting room. I see two people wearing American flag scarves - is this to suck up at the embassy or do they dress like this normally?? After a little bit of flipping through magazines promoting USA travel, I pay $50 and have what I need, which turns out only to be a signed and sworn oath that I am indeed not married. I had assumed the whole reason I needed to go to the consulate was that people there would actually look up and confirm that I am not married, but nope. Apparently it is important that I swear my single status in front of my countrymen. On the way out I talked to a guard, who told me that as a U.S. citizen I would've been allowed in with backpack and phone after all, and seemed genuinely sorry that I had given up my stuff like all of the poor non-American suckers. Moral of the story is, if you are American and headed to the U.S. Consulate in Berlin, bring whatever you want (okay, no weapons) and go to the front of the line. If you're there to apply for a U.S. visa, bring an old-fashioned book to entertain yourself while waiting!
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I have promised not to complain, so I will just document. Leaving the U-Bahn. Arriving at the Ausländerbehörde. It is 5:30 am (the office opens at 7:00 am). There are about 100 people in line ahead of me. They are young, mostly students. They are probably used to standing in line for the Berghain at 4 am. New business idea: start a food truck that sells coffee and breakfast burritos to the Ausänderbehörde crowd in the morning. 6:00 am. They let us in the gates to wait in front of another door. 6:20. They start giving out waiting numbers. 6:45. I am #61 in the students/scientists category. Starting at 7:00 am, I wait in a room. It looks like this. 11:20 am. I pay 80 euros and leave with permission to stay in Germany another two years.
When you read the title of this post, you are supposed to start singing along to this song by Devendra Banhart, to get you in the mood. :) Since moving to Germany, I often feel like a child. Why? Because I have to relearn so much! How to speak, how to read, how to write. How to drive (because in the U.S. I only drove automatic, and never learned to drive a stick shift). I want to tell you: sometimes I am tired of all this LEARNING! It is exhausting! Living in Europe is no carefree, cobblestoned fantasy world!! My mom would've said: come back to the U.S. then! Sometimes, I'm more than tempted. But I know if she were around to tell me that, hearing it from her it would only strengthen my determination to stay (I am still her stubborn daughter). So I guess when I'm feeling like a child, instead of feeling frustrated and powerless I should...remind myself that I was a cute kid? Take a nap? Try to tap into a sense of childlike wonder or some such? One of those things, but a nap seems like it's always a good bet.
I discovered a new vegetable this winter called Schwarzwurzel, which literally translates as "black root." Wikipedia tells me that in English Schwarzwurzel is called "black salsify," but I had never heard of such a thing. I first encountered Schwarzwurzel at my office Kantine, where I was a little bit confused. Why was it called "black root" when, as served, it was completely white? At the Kantine they always serve the Schwarzwurzeln in cream sauce (which I can't eat), so I had never tasted it. Then I found Schwarzwurzel at my local farmer's market I was excited to try it out for myself. Once I actually got to see Schwarzwurzel in its raw form, it was very clear why it's called "black root." The outside seems like it's just dirt, but it's really the peel. The inside is white, and looks and tastes a lot like you'd expect a neutral root vegetable to taste. Maybe like a parsnip or a turnip, but with less flavor and a slightly different texture? It also reminded me a bit of hearts of palm because of its shape and texture. I steamed it and ate it with vinaigrette, which was fine, but I also think it would be good in a Thai-style curry. It tasted good, but not so good that I feel the need to keep searching it out. As you might guess, pretty much all of the vegetables you can find at German supermarkets are the exact same ones that can be found in American supermarkets. So I was excited to discover an exception! Despite globalization, a world of vegetable-unknowns is still out there waiting for me - hooray for that.
Have you ever wondered when you're allowed to take out your recycling in Germany?? Yeah, I hadn't either. As indicated on the recycling bins (and taught to me in German class), at these times you are forbidden from throwing away your glass recycling:
When I found this out, my immediate reaction was very combative. My inner American was shouting, "Nobody will tell me when I can and can't recycle! I will recycle whenever I please, thank you very much!" Of course, I actually do follow these rules, because fundamentally I'm a rule-follower and I'm afraid of pissing off my neighbors. But I find it weird!! The Germans have a reputation for having rules for everything***, and this is one stereotype that that I find to be pretty accurate. One one level I get it. Throwing away glass into a bin full of glass makes noise. Our recycling bins are in the courtyard between all the apartments, and no one wants to be woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of breaking glass. But I am a considerate person and wouldn't be taking out my recycling in the middle of the night anyway! So I hardly think there needs to be a rule for this. The post-lunchtime quiet-time break is the most mystifying to me. Is it because children are napping? Germans don't take a siesta. And the Sunday thing - well, this is the prohibition that cramps my style the most, and is also very German. I will have more to say about Sundays in another post. ***A notable exception: the lack of a speed limit on the Autobahn. Is it ironic that I can drive 150 km/hr down the highway without breaking any rules, but if I throw away my glass on a Sunday I'm in trouble?? I think so.
I just got back from Christmas and New Year's in Seattle, where my days were filled with seeing family and friends and lots of eating - including lots more eating out than I normally pack into a 2-week period. I got to eat lots of Seattle favorites that aren't so good in Berlin: oysters, seafood, pho, Mexican. But the way I can tell I'm in America? The abundance of ice water when I sit down at a restaurant. I love it. I extra-love it because now I live in a world where it is normally denied to me. There are actually two aspects to this that are unusual in Germany: (1) there is abundant free tap water placed in front of you when you sit down at a restaurant, often without you having to ask, (2) the water is full of ice. It is actually the first aspect that I miss the most. Many restaurants in Berlin will give you free tap water if you ask, but it is not unusual for it to come in thimble-sized classes. It is also possible that when you ask for tap water, you will get the response, "we don't do that." This makes me immediately grumpy towards the restaurant, and most of the time I have stopped asking because when I am denied, it puts me in a bad mood. It goes without saying - if you are served tap water, it will not be cold. Drinking room temperature water is actually totally fine with me, unless it is really hot outside. The icy drinks I miss the most? Iced tea and iced coffee. If you order "Eis Kaffee," pronounced "Ice Cafe," you will get coffee with ice cream in it (which doesn't work for this dairy-avoider). Sometimes at specialty places in the summer there will be iced tea on the menu, but this is the exception. So to get my fix, I have to make iced tea and iced coffee myself at home, with my American-sized ice cubes.
Here in Germany, I don't have a dryer. I don't know anyone here who does have a dryer (though I do know at least one person who goes to the laundromat, where they do have dryers). In fact, the only person I know with a dryer is Hannes' mom, and though I'm sure she's not the only one, I think it's fair to say that she's in the minority. I guess it's a question of space and money and what's normal. As I mentioned this before on this blog, a German teacher of mine told me that if I wanted a clothes dryer, I might as well take everything to the dry cleaner for how much the electricity would cost. This MUST be an exaggeration, but if I continue to live in Germany, getting a dryer will surely be a sign that I've made it and that I have disposable income to spare. Hanging all my laundry? It's not so bad! I reduce my carbon footprint and my electricity bill. But let me tell you about the drawbacks. First, most clothes end up far more wrinkly (and stay that way, since I mostly refuse to iron). You know how if you have a button-up shirt and you take it right from the dryer and put in on a hangar, you probably don't have to iron it? Never works here. Also, clothes drying takes up a lot of space - our whole guest room on days when I do multiple loads. And of course, things take a whole day to dry. Which means if you want to wear something tomorrow morning, you better have thought of it yesterday, since most items won't dry completely overnight. Maybe it's a secret German plot to get people to plan ahead, something the Germans are way better at than the Americans, in my experience.
February was my one-year anniversary of living in Berlin (though I spent the month in Ecuador and Central America, which was awesome). A year-ish ago when I wrote about what I was doing here, I was full of teenage-style angst and feeling rather unsettled. I am happy to report that progress has been made! This is what my day-to-day life is made of in Berlin. Working.
I have a (new-ish) job! This was a very exciting development. I am now a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam (a city outside of Berlin). Look, I'm on their web page! Before I started I was fairly nervous about it, but I really like it so far. A downside: I work in Potsdam, which is an hour commute from my apartment. I take the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn, and when it's not snowing, I ride my bike for the last 15-minute stretch. (When it's snowy, I take a tram.) I started out being rather cranky about my commute but I'm used to it now, and I try to make it "me" time. On most days that means I read a book or do my German homework on the train. The upsides: I really like my coworkers, I find the society- and policy-oriented mission of the institute a perfect fit for my interests, and I get six weeks vacation. So on the whole, I think it's a great fit. Learning German (still).I have made strides in my German-speaking abilities, but I still have a ways to go. Right now I am taking German lessons (B2) at my office, which is a nice perk. Classes are twice a week in the afternoons for an hour and a half, the teacher is awesome, and my classmates are my coworkers. There are 6 of us in class. It is convenient AND free, I hope they keep offering it. A recent milestone - I read a book in German! We read Der Vorleser in class - the book was later turned into the movie The Reader with Kate Winslet. Since I'd already seen the movie the book was easier to follow...but still, I feel empowered. Trying to get some exercise (still).I still have yet to get myself into a real exercise routine here, but I'm not a total couch potato. I've found a new yoga studio closer to home, where I now go to yoga in German! German practice and exercise at the same time! I still miss my Seattle studio, but this will do for now. Now that it's finally spring, one of my new exercise goals is to bike to work once a week - it's a 25-km ride, all flat. So far I've done it twice and it's actually really nice...so I have to make myself keep doing it. Getting up in the morning has never been my strength. Eventually maybe I'll even start biking back - on the next day perhaps. So far I've been bringing my bike back on the train. Occasionally I play pick-up soccer with co-workers after work, but lately we've been struggling to get enough people to play. Hopefully that will ramp up again. So this counts as recreation rather than exercise, but on Wednesday nights I often participate in a mixed expat-German kickball game. The ball itself was imported from the U.S.A. - Europeans don't know the "sport" that is beloved (or hated) by American elementary-schoolers everywhere. We play at Tempelhofer Park - a former airport where they've essentially left everything as is - runways, green space, terminal. The result is a giant open space in the middle of the city that's used for kickball (by us), grilling, community gardens (with raised beds - probably not a good idea to eat the dirt), inline skating, kitesurfing on skateboards...basically anything you can think of doing on a giant flat former airport field. It's a pretty cool space and so far it seems that it will stay a park and not be turned into condos. Exploring Berlin.I count "exploring" as my favorite activity here in Berlin - there's always something new to discover. For instance, my friend Kyung and I are on a quest to try every Korean restaurant in Berlin. There aren't so many as to make it impossible, but it will probably take us a (delicious) year. Otherwise my exploring is not very structured - on the weekend I bike around, go to parks and cafes, try new restaurants, go to concerts, hit a few tourist sights, hang out with friends. I've had a few friends come to visit recently, which is another great motivation to explore. So all in all, things are good. I'm a city girl now! I can't play in the mountains on the weekend, but I've figure out how to play in the city. And when the weather is good, I can still spend practically the whole weekend outside, but it's parks and cafes instead of peaks and valleys. If the weather finally gets hot there are lots of lakes to jump into. Come visit! In honor of the new year: a slide show of my impressions of Germany. Because I want to look back one day and say that's so 2012, I've "instagrammed" everything up a bit - except instead of using instagram I used an online tool called pixlr-omatic (it's fun!). Enjoy a taste of the many flavors of Berlin and Deutschland. After living for three months on Hannes' cousin's couchbed, Hannes and I have moved into our own apartment! It's exciting, but also exhausting - it's been weeks already and there's still lots to do. Welcome to Courbierestrasse 5:Moving into a rental apartment in Germany is a lot different than moving into a rental in the States. For instance, it's really common to have to buy your own kitchen - often kitchens come with a stove and a sink, but nothing else. Sometimes they don't even come with that. We were lucky that our kitchen was mostly there when we moved in. The only major thing missing was a fridge, which we bought ourselves (actually Hannes bought it - he's a refrigerator owner now). Other things: instead of light fixtures, the apartment comes with wires hanging out of the ceiling. Good thing Hannes knows how to install such a thing, and also that he's tall enough to reach the ceiling (which I couldn't do even with the giant ladder). Other ways I can tell I'm in Europe: there's no proper shower, only a bathtub. We still have to install something so we can have a shower curtain. Right now when we take a shower we pretty much just get water everywhere. Also, see that clothes dryer in what will become our guest bedroom/office? That's because we don't have a clothes dryer. Almost no one around here has one. One of my German teachers thinks that for the energy cost of using a dryer, you might as well take all your clothes to the dry cleaner (but I don't believe that can really be true). I do miss having a dryer - clothes can take forever to dry, we end up hanging sheets over doors, towels come out super stiff, clothes come out wrinkly - but I have to support the energy-conscious attitude. Overall, the apartment is really enormous and beautiful and it's feels a little crazy to be living here. We'd never be able to afford something like this in any city but Berlin. We've had the neighbors over for a drink and Hannes's cousins over for dinner, both times when the place was an even gianter mess than it is now. I think it's finally time to have some real dinner parties and start filling the apartment with friends on a regular basis! I'd like to have a housewarming party too, but we have a few neighbors who are super sensitive about noise so we'll have to butter them up a bit first. |