Happy Easter! Except You, Overzealous Post Office Employee

This week I was reminded of just how much more seriously your average German takes their job than the average American. Wolfram and I went to register me at the post office and send in the paper work for a bank account here. The snafu came when the post worker saw that there was no place of origin for where my passport was issued from, it just says U.S. State Department. This irregularity proved too difficult for her to handle. I informed her that the State Dept. is located in Washington D.C. and she could just put that as the place of origin, but apparently this varied too far from the rules, which say she has to physically see on the passport where the place of origin is. So she and Wolfram proceeded to argue in German for a few minutes, which I actually found quite entertaining; she making the "this is the rule" argument, and he making the "the reality is that their passports are not made in this way and there is nothing you can do about it" argument. It reminded me of my departing flight from Munich, when I dealt with a similarly rule crazy German when checking my bags. I had read online that it cost, let's say 40 Euros, to check a second bag, he said it would cost 150, cash only. He didn't care what it said on the website, what mattered was what it said in his red rule book which he proceeded to hold up, and must have been 500 pages long. Partly because I had some of that money ear-marked for the duty-free shop, partly because I knew this would probably be my last extended conversation in German, and partly because I was at the height of my linguistic skill, I proceeded to argue with him against all hope. I like to say that arguing rules with a German is like arguing ice with an Eskimo. After I had sufficiently voiced my anger and wasted  some of his time, I coughed up the cash, which thank God I had, otherwise I would have had to get out of line, go to an ATM, and get back in line. So Wolfram, after having similarly voiced his objections, snatched my paperwork out of her hands and we headed out. He then sent me on my own into another post office, where I played up the "I'm just a poor, dumb American" card and had my paperwork accepted without question for the sake of keeping the line moving as it was almost time to close up shop. The most important rule in Germany is the 5 O'clock rule. The first woman's counterpart at your local US Post Office would not have given two shits about such a trivial matter, but this is land of Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmares.


 This is a picture of the building I live in; we entirely occupy the 6th floor and our windows can't really be seen from the street, save at the corner. It may be a little tough to tell from the picture but the building is painted sort of a light pink/lavender color. There is a pattern in the color of my dwellings.
Running along the stree to the right is a beautiful row of cherry trees that have been in bloom since I arrived and are absolute hell on everyone's allergies.

 Here is the view from my room. On the left you can see the iconic TV Tower that was built by the East Germans in the 1960's as a symbol of the power of the proletariat, as well as a means of jamming western radio and television transmissions from infecting the minds of the people. Moving right across the picture, you can see the clock tower of the Berlin Rathaus (city hall). The long uniform building running still further to the right is a typical example of the kind of modular apartment complexes built by the communists. Getting lost in some East Berlin neighborhoods can be very easy considering that all the buildings look the same. While they are not aesthetically pleasing, they tend to have better heating and insulation than old buildings which were restored. On the right side of the picture, slightly obscured by one of the many cranes that fill the Berlin sky, is the Berliner Dome (Berlin Catherdral). It is built in a pseudo-Byzantine Style, much like the Zionskirche (Below, Left) that is only a few blocks away. It is currently being renovated after the communists only half-heartedly repaired the symbol of the opiate of the masses. As the Kaiser sought to make the capitol of his new empire more grand at the end of the 19th C. he seemed to favor the Byzantine style, probably because of it exudes strength and efficacy. 


I had the chance to enjoy a beautiful Easter Sunday here, capping a week of beautiful sunshine and apparently the highest pollen levels in three years. I normally don't get allergies but having already had a sinus infection I couldn't help but be affected. My Hay Fever was so bad that for a day or two I thought I had conjunctivitis, but now it seems to have cleared up so false alarm. I was pretty distressed because I haven't had pink eye in years and remembered it as being very unpleasant and contagious. I seem to remember being sick a lot when I first came to Munich, I guess my immune system just has to adjust to the new strains of cold and pollen here.

Weinberger Park, a favorite place of mine to read.

It seems that a lot of our Easter traditions, like Christmas, come from Germany. We had an egg hunt, which Maeve said was not tradition in Ireland, they just spend a long weekend feeling guilty like good Irish Catholics. The chocolate eggs with cream filling are an Irish treat though. Although it makes is a bit harder for the children to understand my comparatively John Wayne-esque accent, I love listening to Maeve's charming Irish accent. I look forward to getting to know her better. The egg hunt was followed by the two year old eating so much chocolate it made me feel a little sick, then he ran around for a couple hours and crashed into a nice insulin coma, just like in the States. We had a traditional German Easter luncheon of ham, new potatoes, and white asparagus, called Spargel, and Champagne. It is essentially the same thing as green asparagus but it's harvested while it's still in the ground. And everything get's a little home-made Hollandaise sauce. One of Maeve's colleagues from the Irish Embassy who lives in the neighborhood joined us and it was good to feel so tan, something I rarely get to enjoy. We had some lovely, intellectually stimulating conversation, hearing stories about working in various countries and at the U.N.

"Yuppies OUT!"

I live in the southern edge of a neighborhood known as Pinzlauerber, once a part of East Berlin, it became a haven for young artists, intellectuals, and alternative types after David Hasselhoff single handed brought down the Berlin wall with his electric shirt. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, just search his name and the words "Berlin Wall" and you should get a fantastic video on YouTube.) Since then, it has gone through some gentrification, as is all of Berlin, and is becoming more of a place for young families that still boasts a fun night life. In fact, in a country with a declining populace, this neighborhood has one of the highest birthrates in Europe, and the place is covered with parks and rotten with kids-- I mean that in the best of ways. This does not sit well with many of the citizens of Berlin who like their city to be grungy and cheap. Just recently, the last building of squatters that were created after the exodus of people from East Berlin following reunification was cleared out. It turned into a full on riot, with supporters, mostly anarchists, punks, and other far leftists, destroying shops and burning cars. The inhabitants of the building created barriers and booby traps to slow police coming to physically evict them from the property. Eventually, the special police had to be called inside and out, clad in black body armor from head to toe, working in squads that aren't afraid to charge into the crowds, moving quickly, cracking skulls, and dragging people off into custody. That recent event has made people more wary of the approaching May Day holiday, something we changed to Sept. 1st in America because of the tendency of Soviets to parade new weaponry in front of the world. For the last 20 years, May 1st has been an occasion for the same people protesting the eviction of the squatters, to riot, primarily in the neighborhoods of Kreuzberg and Friedrichschain. Leftists, anarchists, Turkish guest workers, Neo-Nazi's, and frustrated youth with a thirst for destruction from across Germany come to take part (essentially a sampling of the disgruntled disenfranchised), and many locals watch from a nearby-hill. Like the squatter riots, it involves an intoxicated crowd smashing store fronts, burning cars, and maybe even hurling a few Molotov Cocktails at the police. The police in the past tried taking on a more defensive position to contain the upheaval, but in more recent years have formed the special squads mentioned above to take the rioters head-on. Neither strategy seems to be working. 

It is all a reminder that while Germany has been firmly reunited, it has a population with a diverse range of opinions on the current state of the German nation and the world. There is a debate amongst leftists whether it is okay to use violence, these groups do not think that democratic participation is sufficiently empowered to make a difference, and that the problems of the world are so severe and so pressing, that an 'any means necessary' approach has to be adopted. Also, there are just people out there who like to break stuff and mix it up with the cops; they do it because they can. There is more graffiti in my neighborhood and other parts of Berlin than many would find savory or acceptable, but they are usually not gang tags, but either an expression of some political or social agenda, or the work of someone trying to be an urban artist with the city as his canvas. It doesn't bother me, sometimes I even get a kick out of it, I saw some graffiti the other day that said "Go Red Socks." It's just part of living in one of the most dynamic cities in the world, a city coming to terms with it's own changing identity.

I am a Jelly Donut

During his historic visit to West Berlin, President Kennedy, in an act of solidarity with the inhabitants of the capitalist enclave, declared, "ich bin ein Berliner," meaning "I am a jelly donut." What he meant to say was "ich bin Berliner," but the crowd still understood what he was trying to say, just as the Berliners seem to understand my rusty language skills. I am now a registered resident of the city, and am officially a jelly donut. 

It's been only five days since my arrival and everything is still very new. Time is constantly speeding up and slowing down as it tends to do in times of transition, it seems slow in the moment because you are paying attention to all the details, but when the moment is over it's gone in a blur. It took me a couple of days to adjust to the time change and recover from jet lag, and have caught a little sinus infection from their two year old son, Dairhe. His daycare is not only a great place to learn social skills but also for the transmission of germs and I'm sure this is only the first of many little colds I'll catch as a result. I hope you can forgive me for a relatively short post today, as the cold makes it a bit difficult to be creative. Dairhe is a blond little sprite who understands both English and German but only responds in the latter. I am supposed to speak English with the children but sometimes have to clarify in German as I can tell that he does not always understand me because of my American accent as he is used to hearing English from his mother, Maeve, who is Irish. Caoihme is their wide-eyed daughter of not quite a year and is starting to become pretty chatty. The children are sweet and well behaved, but like many young children they are slow to trust new people so it wasn't until the last couple of days that they really took to me. It also did not help that my arrival coincided with their mother having to go to Ireland on official business for the first four days I was here, and the kids couldn't help but associate my coming with her going. She is now back from the longest time spent apart from them and they are beginning to forgive her for her absence.

Both Maeve and her husband Wolfram von Heynitz work for the diplomatic corps of their respective countries. She works at the Irish embassy here in Berlin, while Wolfram works on foreign policy planning, continuing his family's tradition of public service that goes back to the days of Prussia. They have a beautiful apartment decorated with a mixture of modern art and a portrait or two of Wolfram's aristocratic ancestors. I am lucky to have a view of the dome of the national cathedral, the city hall, and the iconic TV tower constructed by the East Berliners in years past as a sign of the superiority of the communist system. I'm sure the children mostly like the fact that their flat is only block away from a park and playground. No picture of my room's view this blog post, it's been a bit hazy the last few days and I'm waiting for a clearer day to take a picture. Next time I'll have some pictures of the neighborhood.

My training continues next week and the week after is when I get into the full swing of the gig. It's been quite a few years since I have taken care of children this young, and I forgot the propensity with which they can defecate, but changing diapers is like riding a bicycle. I also forgot how truly miraculous and touching it is to be around tiny human beings that have yet to be corrupted by the world, who are so sweet and utterly sincere, whose smiles and laughter are the stuff heaven must surely be made of--they are utterly inspiring, one cannot help but love them.

Again, sorry for the short entry but this head cold is making it difficult to write and I promise to have more good stuff next week, thanks for tuning in.

Less Than a Week to Go!

The period of time between München and Berlin was a very difficult one almost from the start. Instead of a quiet senior year in which I could play senior statesman in my fraternity, my chapter was nearly destroyed. More than half of the chapter was thrown out by our nationals, and not without good reason. I had tried to be an arbiter of progress and reconciliation between the two parties that had emerged within the house, but it was too little too late, the divisions were fatal, and chapter operations and member responsibility went down the tubes. Soon I found myself holding more positions at once than ever before, all while trying to write an ambitious senior thesis paper, and struggling to defend my reputation while literally in the middle of a university hazing investigation that was maliciously blown out of proportion by persons with an anti-Greek agenda in the administration of the University of Puget Sound—an investigation that ended up coming to naught. 

Were it not for the support of my fraternity brothers, a sweet and loving girlfriend at the time, and friends of the house, I may not have graduated. Instead, I managed to graduate with a 3.25 overall GPA and a solid senior thesis. I am proud to say that my chapter, and the Greek system and UPS, continues to survive and seems to be rebounding from the assaults of the past few years.

          

After not being awarded the English-Teaching Fulbright Scholarship that I had hoped would take me to Austria and spare me the horrors of the Great Recession, I bounced around between short-term jobs that punctuated expanses of frustrating and humiliating unemployment, first in Tacoma, and then in Portland. It was a time when everyone had the same dime-store advice to offer but no jobs. The best times I had during those two years, were the months of June and July, which I would spend working for Red Devil Fireworks in the state of Washington. Long sticky Summer days  selling Chinese fireworks wholesale to ornery Indian stand-owners who rarely spoke and were often openly hostile to the white boys, though only on principle, nothing personal. A common T-shirt to see on the reservations I visited on my truck route said HOMELAND SECURITY SINCE 1492. That job taught me some humility, because when you’re on their sovereign land, you’ve got to mind your P’s and Q’s while accepting all their shit-talking and little tests with a smile. Still, that was the best job I've had in the last couple of years. I managed to get jerked around a few times by low-lifes, schemers, and even a bonafied psycho-asshole and often found myself wondering what in the hell I’d worked so hard all those years for. I looked into going back to school for my M.A. in Germany because the tuition is so much less, but couldn’t get any financial aid that wasn’t a variable interest loan from the same scheister-bankers that helped get us all into this mess. My last job as a professional tutor for elementary school children K-4 fell out in December 2010 because I worked for a charlatan who resented the fact that I stood up and asked questions about us never being paid on time or in the right amount. With my lease in Portland nearing an end I decided to register with an Au Pair agency and moved back home (something I swore I would never do).

After almost two years of pathetic job searching, the Goddess Germania has smiled upon me, offering respite from my tribulation and redemption for my sins. A diplomatic family in Berlin found me and thought I would make a good addition to their family as an Au Pair and English tutor. It took me a long time to accept that something good had finally happened to me. I had slipped into a serious depression that I had begun warp my world view. I was possessed by anger and avoided snapping and beating the living shit out of the many jerks who crossed my path in that time only because the fates were saving me for another purpose. The incentive for the position is not monetary; it is an opportunity, a foot in the door that will open up avenues to the future for me, and allow me to make further connections overseas. I have decided that after my own study abroad experience proved so moving and meaningful to me, that I would like to become the director of my own program, creating the opportunity for more young Americans to gain exposure to other cultures, and that education is where my passion lies. I may have a lot of living (and some more education) to do before this can become a reality, but ten years from now, assuming the world doesn’t completely go down the toilet, who knows?

This time next week, I'll be in Berlin, albeit probably exhausted.


Please let me know what you think of the format for the new blog!


I will get posting about my adventures in the skies and international terminals of  LAX, Heathrow, and Tegel as soon as I can. In the meantime, I will leave you a picture of my beloved Tipper enjoying a recent Spring snow storm.


Bis bald!