What a Month...Not

Dear forlorn blog readers,


I apologize for the month-long drought without my wit and insight, the last two weeks I have been on vacation and frankly there hasn't been much to talk about. The news this past month has also been so depressing that it has been hard not to be affected by it. It is pretty incredible that we are simultaneously witnessing our political system lose whatever pathetic shreds of credibility it once held on to while manufacturing a second economic crisis. This ugly episode just confirms that most Republicans seem to have no soul while most Democrats seem to have no balls. Who would have thought a day would come when the Baby-boomers pined for the reincarnation of LBJ to get Congress to work again. All the while we have created with China the economic equivalent of Mutually Assured Destruction, and are waging four wars. Please, Ron Paul, save us from ourselves. European leadership is proving to be similarly ineffective in solving it's own debt crisis, but should we be surprised that a continent which has been in a near-constant state of war for most of its existence isn't able to work as a single functioning political/economic entity?


While you all have been enduring one of the hottest and most grueling Summers on record, Germany has been having one of it's wettest and crappiest Summers ever. It has rained most of the days since I last wrote, even an escape to Munich for the past week offered no respite, even though normally if the weather is bad in the North of the country it's good in the South and vice-versa. This Summer, however, is so bad that it has trumped this adage. 


The day I left for Munich was actually one of the only sunny days we've had so far, but it was terribly humid. My old housemates in Munich are most hospitable, one guy who is dating a girl in the house was so kind as to let me stay in his room for the week and even provided clean bedding and a towel, a luxury for college students. It is also tough to get them to let me pay for anything as they still treat me as a guest. In exchange for their kindness I agreed to pick up a used espresso machine from someone living not far from me in Berlin, originally a 500 Euro piece of equipment they got for 80. The machine ended up weighing 25 pounds and by the time I got to the subway station lugging the machine and my backpack. I was moving quickly and running late, sweating profusely in the Sun and humidity. As I looked down the long flight of stairs at the subway I caught a glimpse of a taxi parked nearby and decided to not take the chance of running late. The Turkish cab driver gave me a funny look then popped the trunk, it turned out to be a very well spent 10 Euros. I arrived in time to catch my train, but didn't have time to eat before the 6 hour train ride as I planned. No problem I thought, I'll grab something to eat in the dining car. 


I thought wrong, the food service crew's train into Berlin was late and the normal train workers are not licensed to serve food. After some negotiating I was able to procure a Snicker's bar and a bottle of beer for an extortionate price. I successfully napped for most of the train ride to unconsciously avoid my hunger and ate the first thing I saw when I arrived in the Munich train station, which was the German equivalent of a meatloaf sandwich in a dinner roll. I thought I had arrived in the sunny wonderland of alpine foothills but the next morning woke to rain, and it continued to rain for at least half the day, everyday but one, for the rest of my visit. Our one rain-less day (I hesitate to use the word "sunny") we grilled outside of our building and indulged our colons in a variety of flame-kissed meat. We were even so lucky as to be joined by one of the Chinese students in the building, who normally do not mix readily with the round-eyed devils. After about a beer and a half he was drunk and pretty entertaining, reveling in the ability to be openly intoxicated which is very looked down upon in their society. That is not to say there aren't drunks on the streets of China. I have friends who studied abroad in China and said people would get wasted on Baijiu, which is essentially the liquor of the proletariat, a Chinese firewater costing a dollar or two for a bottle. 


Our mobility being impeded by the weather, we focused on feasting, trying to prepare dishes that took as much time as possible while joking around in the kitchen and common room, and playing foosball (table soccer, which they call "kicker") in the basement. One night I made a big pot of my great-grandmother's beef stew which my old housemates remembered fondly, and was appropriate for a chilly and rainy August evening. I also helped with the painting of an old tandem bike that was being reconstructed for a trip to the Czech Republic. It was to be painted with tiger stripes in an allusion to a German children's book. I took it to be a more uplifting story than a Brothers Grimm fairy-tale, which usually involve children who don't listen to their mothers being brutally maimed or killed. The American versions are considerably watered down. 


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It is not possible for me at the moment to deliver the wedding pictures I promised from last time, so instead I will include a short piece about the Christopher Street Day Parade (Gay Pride Parade) in Berlin a few weeks ago.

It doesn't need to be a festival day in Berlin to see Peter Rabbit and whatever the hell the other guy is supposed to be playing for change on the street. In fact, you can be exposed to a wide variety of music just by riding the subway here, from Spanish guitar to Ukulele to some young kid who thinks he's a hippie. I've heard some pretty good blues guitar being played in the subway station and jazz saxophone being played on a street corner. At the subway stop I get off at every day to pick up the kids there is a young guy who plays everything on the accordion from Beethoven to Rock n' Roll, and a woman in the square I cross who is obviously an accomplished violinist. Unfortunately for them musicians, like graphic artists and English teachers, are a dime a dozen in the this town, but from what I hear people playing music on the subway can do as well as 20 or 30 Euro's an hour, while occasionally having to run away from the subway police for performing without a license.  

Look! A real American Indian! Standing as still as a cigar store statue...

There are tons of party buses during the parade blasting music. On the back of this one are posters saying "Save the Sausages" in an advertisement for condom use. It is interesting to watch a gay pride parade on the same boulevard where my grandfather witnessed the armies of Nazi Germany marching out of the city to invade Poland seventy years earlier.  

Here we see the homosexuals of ancient Rome brought back to life for a day. I wonder where this guy keeps his chariot stashed all year, perhaps he owns a bike rental service and uses it for advertising.

 In an unprecedented reversal of opinion, even the Holy See has sent representatives to partake in this day of good will and friendliness. Benedict XVI looks much better in person, I guess Popes aren't elected for how photogenic they are. 


Well, that's all folks! 

The Marriage Figaro, I mean Maeve and Wolfram

Hello patient followers of my strange musings. I just recently got the main theme to the Marriage of Figaro out of my head after hearing the rehearsal for an outdoor concert at Gendarmenmarkt over the weekend. It has been an unbelievably busy couple of weeks for all of us in the von Heynitz household. Although Maeve and Wolfram were already married last Fall in a small private ceremony in Berlin with their two children present, they publicly confirmed their nuptials the first weekend of July in a ceremony at the Schloss von Heynitz. Located in the village of, you guessed it, Heynitz (about 45 minutes outside of Dresden), the castle was originally a fortified tower, which was eventually added onto and transformed into a more comfortable residence. This is true of most castles; and the image of a fortification with high stone walls, a portcullis, and a moat, is representative of only the most formidable of fortifications from that time and would have been prohibitively expensive for anyone save kings and the wealthiest of nobles. Most were essentially stone houses with a heavy door, windows that could be secured, and a fortified tower which could be used as a refuge in case of sudden attack by another noble, or disgruntled villagers. When we were going over the order of events for the wedding, I couldn't help but joke, asking at what point the villagers would come on bent knee to pledge their everlasting loyalty to Wolfram and his progeny, which he thankfully found to be amusing--at least I was not thrown in the dungeon. 

Schloss von Heynitz, you can still make out what was once
a tower on the right hand side of the building.

Monday of the big week, I had the pleasure of meeting much of Maeve's family, as we had her mother as well as ten aunts and uncles over for dinner. Her family is originally from Limerick, in SW Ireland, but are now spread across the Emerald Isle. They are a wonderful group of people who reminded me of my own family--joking and teasing one another in a loving and playful manner. They toasted my mother for raising me well, and when I revealed that my father's mother was from Ireland, they let out a resounding cheer saying things like, "we knew you were alright." I also think I heard the word "grand" more times that night than I have collectively before in my life, it seems to be a favorite word of the Irish. That first night I found them to be difficult to understand at times, and they would occasionally drop a Gaelic word into conversation that would throw me for a loop, but by the time the weekend came I could understand them all quite well, and found even I was dropping into an Irish accent at times. I now have many places to stay for free in Ireland "when and not if" I come. Wolfram also seemed to really enjoy their company; the big family experience is somewhat foreign to him because he does not have much extended family due to the devastating effects of The War.

After going to Heynitz to ensure that everything was prepared for the big day, we spent Friday night in a 5 star hotel in Dresden, Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski. It is a beautiful building in the heart of the city, located across from the Dresden castle and Zwinger, famous for their elegant architecture. Rainy weather prevented me from getting any good pictures of the buildings, but they can be easily Googled. Oddly enough, it had a bar tastefully decorated in the theme of the Old West, named after 19th-century German author Karl May, who wrote adventure stories mostly set in the American West that inspired the German's fascination with the subject. In fact, many Western films were made in both West and East Germany during the 60' and 70's, enjoying great popularity. Europeans seem to interpret these stories through a medieval lens, equating cowboys to knights, which is not entirely inaccurate as the Middle Ages were also a time of migration and settlement across Europe. 

Saturday we headed to Heynitz on an unfortunately dreary day, especially considering that the weekend was flanked by warm and sunny weather, but rain is supposed to be a good omen, is it not? Or at least that's what they've been telling disappointed brides for centuries. Everyone gathered in the chapel of Schloss von Heynitz while we were preparing in an upper room. It was my job to dress the children, keep them clean, and to try to ensure they were in the best of moods to avoid any meltdowns during the ceremony. Caiomhe was in a little white dress with flowers and Daire in a pair of lederhosen belonging to his father. When wearing them Daire is almost indistinguishable from pictures of his father as a child. I also found myself inadvertently responsible for tending to the nervous bride in the time before her big moment, ensuring her all would go well and that everyone would marvel at how beautiful she was. Maeve handled everything with grace and composure. "Wedding" in German is "die Hochzeit" which literally translates to "the high time" which to me has the ring of a western-style showdown at high noon. 

I even had a role to play in the ceremony, as my entrance before the hundred or so attendees was the signal for the music to change and the ceremony to begin..no pressure. Wolfram first entered carrying Caoimhe, and then handed her off to me. Then Maeve entered being escorted by Daire in his little lederhosen. He seemed to grasp the situation, and conducted himself in a serious manner with as resolute an expression on his face as a two year old is capable of. He then sat down next to me in the front and maintained his composure throughout the ceremony, holding his little bouquet and sitting still. Caiomhe was slightly more animated, tearing into her bouquet like a hungry little rabbit who I was not able to prevent from eating some of the rose pedals. A few minutes later, she vomited just a little bit on my leg. It happened so quickly that at first I did not realize what had occurred, and then was in such disbelief that I pretended it did not happen. Many of the guests did notice, and told me at the reception how impressed they were by my handling of the children, and the "incident." The ceremony included reading in both English and German, and the telling of a story centered around a song. As a teenager, Maeve spent a few years in Vienna. One night after being out at a bar with some friends, she took a cab home and a song that played on the radio struck a chord with her. The next day, the only line she could clearly remember was "At the age of 37, she realized she would never ride through the streets of Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair." For years, she asked friends if they had heard of the song but no one could help her. More years went by, and while working at the Irish embassy in Tel Aviv, she met Wolfram. On their third date, she commented on how she had never been to Paris, to which Wolfram responded, "didn't you ever want to ride in a sports car with the warm wind in your hair?"

Doors are a good way to determine how old
a building is. Daire is only 2 and he is nearly
half as tall as this door in an upper room of
Schloss von Heynitz.

After a short champagne reception, most of the guests went back to Dresden to change into their clothing for the main reception, while we headed to Reichstädt, to a Schloss that belongs to the cousins of Wolfram where the party would be and where we and those with children would be staying. The attire for the ceremony had been more casual, sport coats and ties for the men, dresses for the ladies. Wolfram and many of the men had on tuxedos for the reception, and more formal gowns for the ladies, Maeve's being a flowing white dress that evoked Marilyn Monroe. I myself wore a black suit, a white shirt with a button down collar, and a pink paisley tie to match Caoimhe's little pink dress. Daire had a little black suit with a white shirt, but was stylishly dressed down with no tie and a new pair of little black Chuck Taylor low-tops. Although I got a big-boy meal, I was responsible for controlling the kids table in the "hunting room" that adjoined the main ballroom. It was similar to what I imagine the barbarians' feast following the sack of Rome must have been like. I thankfully had the help of Wolfram's 13 year old niece in keeping the little bastards, I mean darlings, from killing each other or tearing the centuries old hunting trophies off the walls. Thankfully, my two little angels were the best behaved children in attendance, and did their Kurt proud. Of course, just minutes before my main course of good Irish lamb arrived, Daire pooped himself and Caiomhe was just plain pooped, so I had to bring them to bed, and tell the servers to put my plate in the oven. Equipped with a walky-talky in my coat pocket, I returned 30 minutes later to eat my dinner and watch the first dance, a Waltz. This was followed by a Ceilidh, a traditional Irish dance that appears to be the predecessor of an American hoe-down or do-si-do, which I did get a chance to take part in. The reception was great fun, they had a multinational band from Berlin that does covers of songs in a sort of bluegrass interpretation, and they did a wonderful job. The party went late into the night with people dancing and clapping. At a couple of points during the night, some of Maeve's aunts told me, "if I were forty years younger I'd just run away with yea." They sure know how to make a guy feel special. 

The next day Maeve and Wolfram hosted a brunch in Dresden where they had the chance to say goodbye to everyone, but by this time the children had had enough of parties and such, and were both very cranky, which negatively  affected the disposition of their slightly hungover and majorly exhausted Au Pair. We returned to Berlin that afternoon and Maeve and Wolfram prepared for a short honeymoon in Paris, where Maeve would finally get to ride through the streets in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair. I had the help of Maeve's wonderful mother and her partner for three of the four days, and was treated to some good home-cooking and the kind of embarrassing story telling that mothers are so adept at. The children got along much better in the absence of their parents than any of us expected, but we were all very glad when Mommy and Daddy came home, and life returned to normal. 


I am sorry that I do not have more pictures of the ceremony and reception, but I was simply too busy to take as many pictures as I would have liked, and more I will put up a few more in the next blog once we get the pictures back from the photographer. Thank you all for tuning in and again sorry for the long break since the last blog.

The Blogs Collide: Visit To Munich and Caiomhe's Birthday

It's been quite a week for me. This past weekend I caught the train down to Munich to visit with my old house mates. Most of them are doing at least a master if not a doctorate so I was pleased to hear that they would all be there for at least another year, and some for a few more. It was an especially surreal visit. I got in very late on Friday night when most had gone to bed, so I did likewise and on Saturday morning it was Déjà vu all over again. As I saw everyone again for the first time in three years it suddenly felt like I had just left a week ago. Yes things have changed a bit, the kitchen had been remodeled with new cabinets, stoves, and refrigerators; the house looked better as my friends had gained more clout over the years to enforce stricter rules on the upkeep of the building, and the common room was spruced up with some new paint, as well as a donated TV and couches. Nonetheless, it seemed like I was suddenly re-immersed into the past as though with a time machine, because most importantly of all, the people hadn't changed a bit. I had forgotten how much of a family Haus 5A in the Studentenstadt is, and they hadn't forgotten me. My requests to pay for anything or wash a dish were summarily and routinely denied. I was reminded continually about how every year another American came and went, but none had been as fun or involved as myself, although this year a worthy heir to my throne had finally come, a lad named Tom from a small town outside of Chicago who I got a chance to make friends with. Going into my old room, where I had lived for a year that was perhaps the best in my life, was surreal. In this room I had struggled over grammar till I wanted to pull my hair out, laughed over beers with friends so hard that I cried, grieved for my father in the most lonesome moments I ever knew, and found even greater strength and independence than I thought I possessed. In this room I learned that I could hack it living in a foreign land and a foreign tongue. 


Unfortunately it rained the whole time I was in Munich, which couldn't have been more than 36 hours. That just meant more quality time cooped up in the house with my friends, preparing for the celebration I coincidentally was in town for. "Neueinzügleressen" roughly translates to "newcomer's meal" and is something done every year in our house that is supposed to get new people in the house more socially involved; it is essentially a potluck dinner of dishes from all the countries represented in the house. When I was there I made my great-grandmother's beef stew, "Rindertopf" in German, which people still remembered when I went back this year. It is truly a feast, and the huge amounts of food people eat is only made possible by the equally large portions of alcohol consumed. The Germans even have certain varieties of schnapps called "Digestiv" that are specifically distilled to aid in digestion to help one not feel quite so full after a heavy meal, also allowing one to make more room for seconds and thirds. But in general, alcohol helps break down fat, and there was a whole lot of fat to be broken down. We even had some homemade schnapps, the equivalent of German moonshine, smooth to drink but you could light your breathe on fire after taking a shot of it. The women kept complaining about how all the dishes people chose to make ended up being either starch or meat, while the men celebrated this same fact. Perhaps that is why most of the people affected by the recent EHEC scare (E Coli in vegetables as mentioned in previous posts) were female. Once the drinks got flowing, I was able to get our resident Bavarians to break out the accordion and harmonica and play some of the tunes that were the background music to my year in München. The whole experience was so heartwarming that on the long train ride back, I began to seriously consider going back there for my master's. 

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This week we had the pleasure of celebrating Caiomhe's 1st birthday! We had a wonderful little party with about a half dozen kids and their parents in attendance. I will say that I was nearly blinded when a balloon exploded half way through inflation; in that split second, I pictured myself in a dive-bar sitting next to a one legged man with a patch over my eye. 
"How did you lose your leg?"
"Rocket propelled grenade, Fallujah." 
"How did you lose your eye?"
"Blowing up a balloon for a little girl's birthday party, Berlin."

If you're going to lose a major appendage, you better damn well have a good story, is the point I guess I'm trying to make, if there is a point to be made at all from that tangent. Anyway, we broke out the streamers, balloons and cake for the little one. She and her baby friends got to "play," which at that age often consists of crawling all over one another sticking their hands in each others' mouths, in a most adorable way, transmitting various childhood illnesses that I will invariably contract because the cold strains here are slightly different from the ones I've already built up an immunity to in the States. Nonetheless, I was pleasantly surprised by how civilly everyone played, from the babies to the toddlers that were her brother's friends. One of them in attendance was Tilly/ie, a very cute little girl from around the corner who occasionally steals kisses from Daire at the park, and I was lucky enough to get them to pose for a picture. 

Nobody Intends To Put Up A Wall!

Two months before the Berlin Wall was constructed, Walter Ulbricht, leader of East Germany, said, "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten!" Now, on the 50th anniversary of the wall's construction, it is a phrase Germans, especially Berliners, use when they intend to do something. It has been a big month for Germany so far. The EHEC outbreak has left Germany with a bit of a black eye after they blamed the outbreak on Spanish cucumbers, leading to losses of hundreds of millions of Euros for Spanish farmers. The wall's construction fifty years ago is not the only painful anniversary this month, it is also the 70th anniversary of nearly three and a half million men being launched in an offensive against the Soviet Union known as Operation Barbarossa. This began some of the most barbaric and ruthless warfare ever waged on a nearly incomprehensible industrial scale. Needless to say, the two events are linked. To put it in perspective: in seven years of war in Iraq, 3,500 American soldiers have died in combat, during the most intense fighting at Stalingrad, the Red Army had that many combat deaths per day, for weeks on end, with the Wehrmacht losing 1,000 per day. 


Aside from some unpleasant anniversaries and e coli, it is a lovely time in Germany; their economy is booming, and the summer festival season has begun. I have been able to get out and about to a few of these events. 


The first happens every Sunday afternoon in a large park next to an old communist sports arena a few subway stops north of where I live. There are vendors selling food, drink, plants, and trinkets, but the main attraction is in the amphitheater dug into the hill on the outside of the stadium. There, in front of a crowd I'd estimate at 2,000, karaoke is being sung. Most of the people brave enough to go out are actually quite good, a few are just quite drunk. When David Langley is ready for his big break, he needs to come to Mauerpark in Prenzlauerberg and meet his public. I attended the event with a group of Au Pair girls, which is actually the term in German. I was the only male in the group, of course, continuing my noble fight against the sexist, heteronormative attitudes of society. 

Another event was held on the southern edge of Berlin, called Kulturlustgarten. It was sort of a cross between a music festival and a carnival. There were several music stages, some rides for the kids, and lots of good food. I had a Hungarian dish that was essentially fry-bread topped with sour cream and cheese. They were serving "Erdbeerbowle," meaning "strawberry bowl," essentially a strawberry punch that deceptively doesn't taste like alcohol and is traditionally served at the beginning of the season when there is an abundance of the fruit. There was even a medieval themed section of the festival, with archery and ax-throwing booths, and a stage where folksy music was performed with strange and archaic instruments. The main stage performed the kind of pop-rock that makes Europeans go nuts. An unusual feature of this festival was that I witnessed three fights, the Germans are typically very orderly and don't tolerate that sort of thing. The first was between two women, I don't know how it started, I just heard a crack and turned around and saw one woman standing over another, the victor was probably 6'4" and 235 lbs. One of the people I was there with said they were fighting over who got to take me home...shudder. A few hours later, a Euro-trash muscle head in a tank top with some Mike "the Situation" sunglasses popped a very thick farmer-looking type while in line for one of the beer sellers, I assume the fight was over cutting in line. The farmer was with a group in matching shirts and a brawl nearly broke out but thankfully about a dozen police quickly infiltrated the crowd before anyone caused me to spill my beer. Shortly after another fight broke out just out of my line of sight so it would be dishonest of me as a writer to make comical observations about the appearance of the antagonists. I again stress how unusual such a thing is here, in all the time I spent at Oktoberfest I never saw a punch thrown, although the bouncers and security there look like retired offensive linemen from the NFL. That and the excessive cleavage produced by dirndls at Oktoberfest tends to calm and quiet the men-folk. 


This past weekend in Kreuzerg was the Carnival of Cultures which draws crowds of hundreds of thousands of people. Again there is food, drink, and trinkets to be bought, but also a parade of floats and people in ethnic dress, if you can get close enough to the street to see it. There is a surprising amount of South East Asians in Berlin and I have had some pretty good Thai food here. During the Cold War, there was an international exchange of workers within the communist world. Since Germany was recovering from depopulation during the war and low birth rates afterward (and still is), East Germany welcomed their comrades from Vietnam and Cambodia to come and take up some crappy jobs. Not to be outdone, West Germany welcomed refugees from the conflicts in SE Asia in the 1970's. Unfortunately, the streets were so clogged with people that all the food lines were extremely long, and becoming impatient, I left the area where the festival was in search of food, and found some pretty tasty Käsespätzle, one of my favorite dishes from Southern Germany. The best way to describe Käsespätzle is if dumplings and macaroni and cheese had a baby, with fried onions. As you can imagine, it has a similar effect to eating pancakes or biscuits, with the food reforming in your stomach as a brick that induces sleep. I'm getting hungry and tired just thinking about it.


I will leave you with a funny picture of a couch I saw on the street near my building. The people who put it out there were kind enough to post a warning, "Do not take, has been marked by the cat." I then wondered if the lost cat on the sign above was the same as the one that marked the couch.

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.