Try To Not Crap Your Pants

First off, part of this blog is a recreation of a blog that failed to post a couple weeks ago, and whose contents I failed to save. I know the postings have been a little infrequent this month, and that is partly why.

An add for  "Stromberg" the German version of "The Office"
(it is actually very funny, but the humor is much darker)

A good place for an ambush, or a day at the park

Going in reverse order, I noticed for the first time a couple weeks ago that the playground around the corner of our building which we frequent is called Teutoburger Platz. In case your classical history is a little rusty, I will refresh your memory on the fate of the Roman general Varus and the XII, XIII, and XIX Legions in the Teutoburg forest. Having been sent from Rome to pacify the newly (and presumptuously) declared province of Germania in 9 CE, Varus was leading his force of approximately 30,000 men to their Winter camp through the Teutoburg Forest, guided by a German known to the Romans as Arminius and to the Germans as Hermann (the battle is known as Hermannsschlacht or "Hermann's Battle" in German). Hermann had been given up as a hostage to the Romans as a boy, an unforgivable act of submission to the hated Romans whose urban living and proud ways irreparably offended the Germans' Gods and way of life. Now he sought to reclaim his honor by leading the Romans into a trap. Although Varus' legions were veterans, they were used to fighting in the open country of the Mediterranean and were unfamiliar with the Germans' style of battle. Making their way through the forest in a long line instead of in order of battle, the Romans soon found themselves being attacked on all sides by an alliance of German tribes, and began to crap their pants. Fighting their way through the barrage of javelins and sustaining heavy losses through me lee, the remaining Romans made a final stand in a small clearing where they were summarily crushed. With defeat imminent, Varus and the other generals fell on their swords in the Roman equivalent of Seppuku. Years later, another Roman army on a punitive expedition found thousands upon thousands of skulls nailed to trees and neat piles of bones. It was perhaps the greatest military disaster in Roman history, resulting in the famous quote from Emperor Augustus, "Varus, give me back my legions!" The defeat was so devastating, that the Romans never reused the legion numbers, an almost singular event in their history. For the Germans, it is an eternal victory representing resistance to foreign invasion by the mongrel slaves of a corrupt and decadent empire. When this park was built in the late 19th century, the Germans felt it was an appropriate name for a playground for the descendants of Hermann, perhaps because the clearing in the middle of the park is surrounded by wooded, meandering paths, or perhaps because Wagnerian operas were all the rage.


In a more recent example of people crapping in their pants, there has been an outbreak of E. coli here affecting lettuce, cucumbers, and other vegetables. It is a similar outbreak to the one we had in the US a couple of years ago, that I remember affected mostly spinach. Thus is a particularly violent strain which has actually caused some deaths due to dehydration. It is a frustrating episode for Germany, which has some of the highest food quality standards in the world, as well as the oldest food purity laws, dating from the 16th century, for beer, of course. Understandably, there haven't been too many vegetables on the menu at the von Heynitz household this week. 


Now moving on to less fecal topics...


A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of being invited to a BBQ, Grillenparty, for a German girl who I know through a weekly language exchange night I go to at a bar in Kreuzberg. It was a beautiful Saturday in Volkspark, one of the largest in Berlin. I loaded up my back pack with beers and after a short tram ride I was meandering through the crowded park looking for the group. I found Grillenpartys to be pretty much like American BBQ's: lots of meat, beers, dogs, kids, and no one remembered to bring a lighter, although I had the foresight to grab a box of matches from the fireplace before heading out the door. The Americans save the day once again, haha. 


Aside from getting to practice my German for many hours, I got to enjoy some leisure activities. To the right is a common sight on American college campuses, slack-lining. A sport for people who want to practice for joining the circus, just in case they graduate and find their degree makes them about as useful as a one-legged man at an ass-kicking party. The slack line is really just a long ratchet-strap used for tying down loads in trucks and trailers, but at a ridiculously inflated price. 



We situated ourselves right next to the Kletterstein or climbing rock in Volkspark. There were also sand volleyball courts nearby that were thankfully packed, since everyone assumes, because I am from Southern California, that I am remotely competent at volleyball. Anyway, some of the Germans had special climbing shoes and fanny packs with chalk in them, while I just scrambled up the thing with my tennis shoes. As you can see, it is not a difficult task; there is a shirtless German with his shoes and chalk dangling off the side, while two children survey from up top, having already climbed up using the monkey like climbing-skill being very young affords a person. 


As the sun went down we packed up our things to reconvene at a cocktail bar. I went along with the birthday girl and we made a stop at her friend's apartment to drop some things off. We were in the Friedrichschain area of former East Berlin, and she lived in a predictably bland looking commie apartment building that actually was pretty well designed on the inside. There we found her boyfriend and his buddies drinking beer and playing video games on a guys-night-in, again, very much like in the US. After our short stop we headed to the bar, which was oddly owned by Turks, who are mostly Muslim and therefore don't drink. Turks are, however, among the most moderate practitioners of Islam and have even gone so far as to ban traditional Muslim head-coverings for their women as they try to become part of the EU. They did make a pretty good Mai Tai, though certainly it was no Billy's at the Beach.


The weather continues to wax and wane, which is unsual for Berlin where the weather is typically more consistent. In some ways it has reminded me what the Springis like in the Pacific Northwest, where it will change from Sunny and clear to wind and rain several times a day. In other ways it's a bit more like Texas, going from stifling humidity to roaring thunderstorms that leave you soaked to the bone if you get caught out in the rain. It makes deciding what to dress the children (and myself) in before going out a real challenge, and I've had to dash to the U-bahn station with the carriage to avoid a very unpleasant subway ride with two wet and pissed off children. 


Once again, sorry for the patchy blog posts this month and thank you to everyone for your support, I appreciate your feedback.


Tschüss!

Taken By a Stranger

This weekend, from England to Azerbaijan, Europeans tuned in for "Eurovision" as they have done for twenty-some-odd years. Eurovision is kind of like American Idol, except for you have a musical act, usually a soloist or duet, representing each country. I had no idea what a huge deal it was until Friday morning when I saw my shopping list for the party Wolfram and Maeve were hosting Saturday night. It would not have seemed so daunting if I had not been out so late the night before, celebrating the visit of my good friend Peter, who has been teaching English in Austria for the past two years, and who I have only had the pleasure of seeing a handful of times since we got back from Munich. I did not feel hungover until I saw the list. It was a first class spread of wine, beer, hors d'oeuvres, and cheeses; in fact, I ordered so much cheese at the cheese counter, that the cheese lady argued with me about how much cheese I would cheese, I mean, need. Typical know-it-all German, although she ended up being right, as is typical with throwing a good party, you always end up with way too much food. Now I am feasting on left-over Bree and cookies.


The party was complete with a disco ball, projector, and randomly assigned name tags representing every country and their contestant. I had the Ukraine with a harsh looking, blonde, Avril Lavigne type. The music that is sung for Eurovision is, how do you say, awful. They are pop ballads, mostly in English, sung by people in increasingly stranger attire. The Moldavian group, a five piece rock band (I guess you could call it that), all wore extremely tall pointy hats that made them look like gnomes. Twin brothers with hyperbolic Vanilla Ice haircuts and red leather jackets with shoulder pads from the not too distant future (from an 80's science fiction perspective) represented Ireland. Germany, which one last year, was represented by a sultry brunette with dark eye make up who sang a song called "Taken by a Stranger" which sounded suspiciously like it was about being abducted by a sexual predator as sung by someone with Stockholm Syndrome. I did not want to leave the party, but Peter had people to visit and, not knowing when I would see my friend again, I went out with him into the city around eleven. Such was the commotion for Eurovision that bars with TV's had crowds spilling out into the streets to the point that they obstructed traffic. We gave up on trying to watch the results, and settled in to a table outside of a bar that happened to serve beer on tap from Kloster Andechs, a monastery about an hour outside Munich that I visited a couple of times. We had some wonderful conversation and savored the night into the early hours of the morning. All the grownups of the house had quite a night, and were all rather quiet the next day.


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The past couple of weeks I have begun to take language courses to refresh my very rusty German language skills. Two days a week from 8:45-13:00 I exercise my brain. The timing of my arrival was not good for registration, most classes were full and I have to go to Reinickendorf, a suburb on the northern edge of Berlin that is a 30 minute commute (if I time it just right) that involves a subway and a bus. I went out there one day before class started to figure out how long it would take me and to ensure I would not be late on my first day of class. The building was a bit difficult to find because it was not directly on the street, but back behind some other buildings. At first I though I must be in the wrong place because the side of the building closes to the street had a sign that said "American Western Saloon." I did not know there were other types of saloons that required such specification for this particular establishment. I soon figured out that this was sort of a multi-purpose civic center (Bürgeramt) that included the saloon and an adult education center (Volkshochschule), that was my destination. Next to it is an indoor swimming hall full of kids, a commie apartment building, and an old-folks home. My reconnaissance excursion fell on a Saturday, when a miniature Eastern European flea market was bustling in the courtyard outside. Among the quality items featured were designer handbags for 10 Euros, but something tells me that deal was too good to be true.


I have wondered since arriving where all the elderly people in Berlin are, apparently they are in Reinickendorf along with a lot of Poles and South East Asians. My class has an interesting mix of people. There is a thirty-something male teacher from Turkey, a slightly younger Spanish man studying business, a reverend and father of four from Nigeria who looks 25 but is actually nearly twice that age (black truly don't crack, apparently), a young mother from Cameroon preparing for study at a German university, a student from South Korea who speaks in a tone so modest she is barely audible at times, a young Romanian newly-wed whose husband works at a Mercedes factory and talks a mile-a-minute, and an American smart-ass. The course days are split between a couple of really nice German gals, although I did not appreciate one of them telling me not to slouch on the second day--I'm a grown man, I'll slouch if I please, especially during a four-hour-long grammar course. 


During my long expeditions out to Reinickensdorf I have had a chance to amuse myself with the public service announcements that the transit authority of Berlin posts on the subway reminding the residents of their communitarian responsibilities. Some of my favorite slogans include:


"Your cell phone is not a loud-speaker!"


"The subway is not a dining car!"


"Loud music in your head phones: not only is is bad for your hearing, but it is inconsiderate of your neighbors!"


"For those with excess baggage, please do not molest your neighbors!" (with your copious baggage, that is)


I also enjoy when they make announcements in English as well as German, for example, when you reach the end of the line, "This train terminates here" said in a tone that suggests that the train will immediately be driven into a steel smelter and melted down into a new subway car, so you better get off. Considering that they are cleaned multiple times a day, they might as well be melted down and made anew.


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The weather has turned rather sour here the past few days, last week's heat and humidity has given way to cold winds and rain. I have been able to get the kids out to the park a little bit, and I will leave you with a picture of them playing in the sand with some other children's' toys at the famous Teutoburger Platz. I don't feel so bad about borrowing toys from other children after an incident last week. I went to pick up Daire from his day care one day, and found a little backpack hanging on his peg that I had not seen before but that he indicated was his and was excited to put on and bring home. Upon his mother's arrival home later that day, she asked me where the backpack was from, and I discovered that I had stolen the backpack of a small child. I also deduced that this probably resulted in a hysterical fit by this unknown child, making someone's life temporarily very difficult. I could not help but laugh. 


Till next week!

It's a Beautiful Day for a Riot

Most of the world knows May 1st, or May Day, as International Workers Day. Not wanting anything to do with anything remotely communist, this holiday has long been suspended in the USA, transplanted to September 1st so that everyone can milk one last long weekend out of the Summer and at that same time, not giving the appearance of being a Pinko. For the last 20 years in Berlin, May Day has been a day of street festivals, music, and food that turns into a night of broken glass, rock throwing, car burning, night-sticking, and tear-gassing as leftist radicals vent their dissatisfaction with the capitalist course of their now unified homeland, and the gradual gentrification of the city of Berlin. They would prefer Berlin to remain grungy, cheap, and unwelcoming of tourists. May Day is also paired with a German folk-legend, which says that on the night of April 30, the witches dance in the Harz Mountains of Germany, once the site of pan-European pagan celebrations, and is still considered to be the spiritual center of the German people. 


This riotous behavior mostly happens in the districts of Kreuzberg and Neuköln in the southern part of the city. The fun began Saturday, as I walked back to our building, turned a corner, and met approximately 100 police officers dressed in black riot gear in preparation for a march through the once edgy but increasingly gentrified and family-oriented Prenzlauerberg neighborhood of the Pankow district where I live. In fact, the march went directly by our house, prompting Wolfram to take the care to a garage. This march was peaceful, which proved to be an omen of a year of declined violence. I headed to Kreuzberg on Sunday afternoon to meet up at a bar with a group of English-speaking Ex-pats and Germans looking to improve their English whom I've connected with via the internet to watch the madness unfold as night fell. 


It truly was a gorgeous day for a riot. The streets were quiet in my neighborhood as I left and took the subway south. It became increasingly crowded as I drew nearer to my stop, and by the time I arrived we were packed very tight. Transit police eyeballed us as we left the station, occasionally searching bags for Molotov cocktails, and paying special attention to anyone wearing all black, a typical look for Berlin but one people know to avoid on May Day unless they're looking for trouble. I emerged from the subway station to find the streets to be packed but amiable. The air was thick with music and the delicious smoky flavor of grilled meat. I figured that the street vendors must make a killing off of the thousands of hungry police alone, standing by anxiously waiting for some action after a long Winter of pumping iron in preparation for their big day. Most of your German police are sporty young guys fresh out of the army, and while they don't have the ridiculous rights and protections of your typical power-tripping Dirty Harry-wannabe American cops, they are cut from the same cloth; the difference is they remember that they are Peace Officers and public servants, not "Law Enforcement."

The police continuously record everyone's faces.

As night fell a handful of us left the bar looking for the commotion. I was disappointed that the Germans who usual start their riots with characteristic punctuality seemed to be beating around the bush, and it wasn't until 10 or 11 that we came across some contention. No burned cars or rock throwing where we were, but the streets were clogged and a core group of anarchist types starting holding their ground near the Kottbusser Tor subway station with the more half-hearted "reserves" doing their part. The riot police started coming in groups of 20-50 to clear the streets, and I myself was shoved out of the way by a police officer from behind as I took pictures and his unit moved in. Soon tear gas and pepper spray was being deployed, I was not close enough to the center to be effected by either but I could sure smell it in their air and my eyes were fairly read when I got home. After an hour of this back and forth the crowd seemed to lose it's conviction as the police became increasingly aggressive, sometimes surging in and making arrests, but always moving and pushing the crowd to prevent them from congregating anywhere for too long. Not wanting to navigate the packed night buses and conceding that I wouldn't have a picture of a burning car for the blog, I took the subway back around midnight before it stopped running. The first video below shows a pretty white cloud of tear gas as the crowd chants "Ganz Berlin hasst die Polizei!" (All Berlin hates the police!) and the second shows a contingent of police escorting an ambulance out of the area as the man you here in the background sarcastically says, "The police of Germany are the best in all the world, without you there is no country. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much Germany for the best police in the world."

I did feel a bit let down by the less destructive rioting this year, because the idea of yearly riots seems so interesting and enticing to someone from the US, where such a thing would be swiftly crushed and not allowed to happen again. What is also interesting is that the riots are also a spectator sport, and most of the people are out there to watch and only passively participate in the marches and riots, and to make sure the police don't overdo their suppression of them. In a country that has had the Nazi Gestapo and Communist Stasi in the past 70 years, there is a great deal of sensitivity to the abuses of the police. In some ways the May Day riots are like a play, where the Germans find a balance between their law-and-order and anarchist mentalities. Or maybe just get their disorderliness out of the way for a year, blowing off steam built up through the Winter like the witches of the Harz Mountains dancing the snow away and preparing for Spring.

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On a side note, I was very happy today when I found out that after almost ten years, Osama Bin Laden has finally been killed. I drank a toast to the lucky Navy Seal who got to pump that bastard full of lead and could not wipe the smile off my face for an hour or two. While I'm very happy to be in Germany, I wish I could have been teleported back to the USA for a day to celebrate the victory with my fellow citizens. Critics site the fact that it took ten years, but I don't care if it took twenty, what is important is that we showed resolve and patience, a willingness to hunt down those who would threaten our people with death and destruction no matter how long it takes. It is this perceived lack of resolve over the past few decades that has emboldened our enemies to action.   I'm going to snuggle into bed tonight with a warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that murdering, woman-hating, demagogic high-jacker of planes and Islam is fish food.