What I Won't Miss

Now that's it's been a few months since I returned from Berlin and I've finally settled down somewhat after many, many travels, I'm finally getting around to wrapping up this blog with the finished versions of all the half-written posts I promised! To get the negativity out of the way first, I'll start with the things I will not miss about life in Berlin, then move on to greener pastures.
1. Shelf Toilets

I first saw these little gems on a British TV show called "You Are What You Eat" in which the dictator-like healthy eating expert examines the show participant's poo to assess the healthiness of their diets. She explains that they have to use her bathroom with her "German toilet" which has a convenient little shelf that the...um...expulsions fall on so that they can be more easily examined. I figured this was pretty much made up for the show or at least extremely rare so imagine my surprise when there actually was one in my Berlin office. It's pretty embarrassing to go to the bathroom in the office and have everyone know you just did number 2 because the toilet is engineered to leave the poo out in the air until it is flushed away, thus causing a widespread and strong odor to suffuse the bathroom. It's even more embarrassing to have this occur when you are a guest in someone else's home, as happened with the friend I stayed with for a few days in Vienna. Now I have seen many theories as to why these toilets were ever invented, including: wanting to examine one's feces (what?!? surely not. except in the case of the British health expert) or some kind of sick desire for Schadenfreude (a German word meaning pleasure derived from the misfortune of others--I think this explanation is really more of an expat joke than anything plausible). The most widely accepted, however, is the prevention of "splashback." I ask you, is that really worth the (sizeable) discomforts that this toilet brings?!? I'm pretty glad that I won't be finding these in my next place of employment in the US.

2. Cigarettes EVERYWHERE
While many people complained when smoking was banned from inside bars and restaurants in New York City, as a non-smoker and someone who absolutely abhors the smell of smoke, I pretty quickly got used to going out without having to spend the evening breathing in other people's cancer sticks. So you can imagine how much I enjoyed the smokehouse that is every bar or club in Berlin. Sometimes it was so bad that I had trouble breathing and/or developed a headache. But most of the time it didn't bother me too much until I woke up the next morning and realized that everything I had been wearing, and my hair, completely stank stank stank of cigarette smoke. Every time I went out. Even just to a friend's house. Yuck.

3. Closed on Sundays
I was shocked to find that all supermarkets, and most other shops, are closed in Germany on Sundays. Berlin is not some small provincial town, it's the freakin capital city for goodness' sake, but even so there is only one supermarket in the whole city that is a) open on Sundays b) open on public holidays and c) open 24 hours. Coming from a city where I can get diner food, fresh-baked bagels and yes, groceries at all hours of the day or night, no matter the day of the week (and that's within walking distance of my house in Brooklyn, never mind the 24hr playground that is Manhattan), this was kind of jarring. It was absolutely the pits to wake up on a Sunday and realize that unless you wanted to go all the way to Friedrichstrasse, you had no groceries until Monday. This threw a wrench in my eating plans many a time, especially the one memorable occasion when we invited all our friends to a balcony barbecue only to realize we had no means of getting the supplies. Thus we ended up carrying all the groceries and a case of beer home from Friedrichstrasse. Good times. Anyway, for a civilized nation to dictate supermarket opening times based on one religion's traditions is to my mind absurd. Wake up and smell the coffee on this one, Deutschland.

4. Rampant Public Nudity
Ok, perhaps 'rampant' is a strong word, and I hate to admit to my discomfort with naked strangers, but there it is. My country was founded by Puritans, etc. So I was a bit taken aback the first time I went into the changing room at my gym and found butt-naked people acting like it weren't no thang. This also occurred at the public pool, where there were no partitions in the showers, so I just had to suck it up and join in the party--but at least I wrapped a towel around myself when I left the shower area. Now I'm fine with seeing someone's tatas or booty when they're quickly changing or whatever, but to have full-frontal assault for the entirety of my changing room experience (please don't bend over please don't bend over aaaaaah did not need to see that!!!) was a bit much. You know that awkward moment when you open a door and someone else is on the other side, trying to open it from that side? Imagine how much this is magnified when the someone on the other side is a grinning, toothless, extremely old women with her large, liver-spotted breasts and other attributes just hangin out for all to see. Wow. Try to get that image out of your head. I know I can't.

5. Bureaucracy and Rules and Feeling Paranoid
There's a lot of freakin rules in Germany. I have problems enough with authority figures as it is, and when they're barking at me in German, and acting like I'm an idiot because I maybe don't understand every single word they say in a language to which I am not native, it really rubs me the wrong way. You all read my post about the police breaking into our party and acting like total assholes. I don't recall if I wrote about the time I got "caught" riding the U-Bahn without a valid ticket (it's called schwarzfahren, or 'riding black'), but I'll recap: I got caught, not without a ticket, but with the wrong kind of ticket, and when I tried to explain that I'm a foreigner and misunderstood they would have none of it. I had to go in to the BVG office. So I woke up early the next morning to tramp through the snow to do so. On the way I figured I had better buy a single ride ticket. Haha, how silly would it be to get caught on the way to paying a fine? But since I was used to my monthly ticket, which doesn't require validation, I forgot to validate my single ticket. Bam! Nailed, by the same bitch-tastic woman who got me the first time. I immediately burst into tears (it was freakin early and cold and this was ridiculous), but she wouldn't even look at me. I waved the ticket from the day before at her. "Don't you remember me? You gave this to me yesterday. I'm on my way to pay it. I have a clearly newly printed single ticket that I simply forgot to validate. Do you really think I would be so stupid as to not have a valid ticket on the same train at the same time as when I got caught yesterday?!?" Her response was to hold out her hand and ask for my ID again. Can we say BITCH? So I had to go in again the next day and talk myself out of the second fine. The result of encounters of this kind was that even though I was doing my absolute best to be legal in Germany (for instance, I actually registered and de-registered like I was supposed to, unlike many of the expats I knew), I still felt extremely paranoid every time I saw a cop or cop car. I would immediately check over what I was doing to make sure nothing could be construed as illegal, but still felt extremely nervous. Cops don't make me react that way in the States. Something about German rules and bureaucracy was just really kind of scary for a foreigner.

6. Lack of Spice
But for something more lighthearted. I've written about this before, but it had to be on this list: there is patently NO spice to be found in German restaurants. Even Asian places make their food to German taste, meaning no spicy for you. Additionally it is near-impossible to find acceptable Mexican food, even in Berlin. Note to Northern Europe: creme fraiche is NOT an ingredient in guacamole. Having said this, I've realized in the months since my departure that I actually miss one of the two Mexican restaurants I found in Berlin. At first I thought of Dolores as a Chipotle substitute, but I ended up liking it sooo much better than Chipotle. Their mole tofu and spicy-hot habañero sauce was far superior. How's that for irony?

Stay tuned for the more positive aspects of Berlin life!

Letzte Woche

I need to post more than once a week so I can avoid these "week in review" posts...I'll work on that.
In the meantime, last week in review:
Tuesday was our fourth supper club! You can read all about it here. We had a Meditteranean-themed menu and were at full capacity again with 12 people! It was a good group and we had a lot of fun. Plus the food was delicious, if I do say so myself.
On Wednesday our friend Linda, who works at a gallery in Mitte, had invited us to their latest opening. I have been meaning to make it to the gallery for ages, and finally I went! The show was interesting and some other friends also showed up. New friends were made--in fact, I met a guy who participated in the same Halloween costume contest as I did! He had been dressed as the joker...I of course was a zebra. We had a good laugh when we realized. Small world...
Afterwards some of us tumbled down into Kreuzberg to go to the music quiz at Madame Claude's, where Charlie was quizmaster. We were at the back of the bar and couldn't hear too well, prompting half our team to give up. I wouldn't let the competitive flame go out, however, and moved to the front, squatting on the floor in front of the DJ booth. Another teammate joined me, and based solely on our efforts we ended up tying for second! So we weren't too embarassed.
The walk to the bus station through snowy Görlitzer Park in the near-darkness was gorgeous.
Thursday I went to morning yoga and in the afternoon Josh and I caught two movies in a row. Where the Wild Things Are, which I'd wanted to see for months, was a slowboiler of a movie, plodding along through gorgeous scenery without much actually happening. After that we saw Sherlock Holmes. The verdict? Certifiably badass.
Friday night we had a party at the apartment! After sleeping in (the first time in ages!) and going to the gym, I spent the rest of the day laying in supplies and cleaning the apartment. We had to shovel the snow on the balcony into piles so that people would be able to go out there to smoke. It also made a convenient outdoor fridge.

Soon enough people started showing up...then more people...then more people.
The cops came. They did not come into the apartment. They simply told us, with a smile, to turn down the music. We did, and told people to keep a little quieter. Josh knew, from previous party experience, that it was a three strike system, so we figured the first warning was not a big deal.
Twenty minutes later and some arriving guests tell us there are four cop cars in the street. Then suddenly 8 policemen are charging up the stairs and chomping at the bit to come into the apartment. We argued with them up and down but they insisted on shutting the party down, right there and then. No third warning. No respect.
We told them to stay on the landing, that we would handle it, but as soon as we turned to do so they swarmed into the apartment. Many Germans in attendance corroborated our belief that this was illegal.
They started turning on lights and kicking people out. Meanwhile I was standing in the hallway telling them to get the EFF out of my apartment, that I did not invite them in, that they had no right.
Able to tell that I was not a native German speaker, they spoke condescendingly, saying the police always have the right to come in to someone's apartment if someone else has made a complaint. This, I was told afterward, is patently false, but I started backing off because it occurred to me that I really don't know the law here, and I didn't want to cause too much trouble.
Until I noticed one pudgy old cop, who'd been particularly rude to me, standing defiantly in the middle of my bedroom, even though no one was left in there.
I told him to get out. He refused. This is my bedroom, I said calmly, you need to leave. No one else is in here. Get out. He refused. Tipsy enough to get bellig, I then started yelling at him to get out, and even attempted to push his arm. It was then that he asked for my passport. I refused. No. No. Why?!? No. But then all the other cops got in on it, saying to refuse was a crime, that it would be a 1000eur fine if I didn't comply, etc. Again, I would have fought more if I felt like I knew the law. But I didn't. And they insisted that it wasn't just a noise complaint, that someone in our neighborhood wanted to make a formal complaint, and that they were obliged, for this reason, to take down my information.
I kinda think that they were just bullying me because they could tell I was a foreigner and that they got pissed when I started fighting back so they pretended it was more serious than it was. Either way they acted really disrespectfully and all the locals who witnessed their behavior swore up and down that it was illegal and a few even took the officers' badge numbers and promised to report them.
The party was over of course but it was good while it lasted and most people ended up in the same bar downstairs so it was ok. Besides...now we are legends.
If and when I get something in the mail from the cops, I think we have plenty of reason to fight the charges.
Anyway.
Last night was considerably more tame. It was the Lange Nacht der Museen (long night of the museums), when many museums in Berlin are open from 6pm-2am and one ticket will get you into all of them. I had been excited for this for a while and headed out to start with the Hamburger Bahnhof, the contemporary art museum.

Only to find it...closed? Turns out it wasn't participating in the long night. Neither were any of the Museuminsel museums except the Bodes, which I'd already seen. When I finally got my hands on a pamphlet with actual information, turns out most of the participating museums were small and not too noteworthy.
But I had already bought my kombiticket so I decided to make the most of it.
I saw the George Grosz exhibit at the Akademie der Künste and it was a good excuse to pop into that cool building for the first time. Pariser Platz looked lovely dusted with snow:

I saw "Utopia Matters!" at the Deutsche Guggenheim, which was an interesting mish-mash of an exhibition with works from Pre-Raphaelites as well as Russian Constructivists and others. They had a cool gift shop, and it was also a cool building with a glassed-in courtyard.
I stopped in to the Berliner Dom because I'd never actually been inside and it was absolutely gorgeous. Plus they were having a choir service and it was lovely, lovely, lovely.

I walked over to the Nikolaiviertel, the oldest neighborhood in Berlin (we're talking medieval) to a small historical house museum, the Knoblauchhaus, and a Rococo palace, the Ephraim Palais, which is a museum of Berlin history and art, currently with exhibits on artworks dealing with the Berlin wall. They're two museums I probably never would have gone to on my own time, so that was really worth it.
I then decided I was too tired to make it to the Jewish museum, and got home around 12:30.
I wish they did this nighttime museum thing more often...it was awesome.
I'm excited to head to England next week!
Bis bald,
D.