Here are some photos from Sunday's half marathon. We started out running with our friend Brett. Michael first dropped back cause his knee hurt, then passed us a few miles later. But as you can see below, we ran through the Brandenburg Gate and by the Siegessäule, also Schloss Charlottenburg and Ku'damm...all the sights! It was really fun. Good atmosphere. I wore my Detroit shirt hoping I would get a few American fans, but not really. Just one guy from Philly :) We're registered to run again in Hamburg in 2 months, so now we have to stay fit!
This week I've been at the National Film Archive in Berlin from 9:00-3:00 every day, watching movies made 1946-1949 in Germany, many of the so-called "rubble films". I had to make myself a schedule of what I can fit into my time there. I know the archive gets really busy with summer researchers, so I wanted to make sure I got in now. (And it's been rainy and gross: good film-watching weather.) I didn't really know what to expect, but I contacted the archive and since I'm a PhD student the use of their materials is free of charge. They just set me up in a little room with a TV and VCR and DVD player and let me watch their materials. Tomorrow I am going to see one movie that is still film, hasn't been transferred to DVD or VHS, so I have to have someone run the projector for me.
"Rubble Films" are the films that were shot in the ruins of Germany, with the rubble as a background. Only a few deal with Nazi past, many deal with contemporary issues (food shortage, black market, housing shortage, war veterans). Some are comedies, some are dramas. These are mostly films that you can't watch many other places. There are only a handful that you can get outside of an archive, in normal video rentals or libraries (Die Mörder sind unter uns is the most famous, from 1946, and is widely available. It was the first post-war film). So it's an amazing resource. It's not as fun as it may sound, though. Some of the films are good, but not all of them. Some are quite boring and the DEFA films can be a little heavy-handed on the socialist optimism. I really enjoyed Kein Platz für Liebe, No Space/Place for Love. It's a comedy about a couple that was married via long-distance during the war (fern getraut), and now that they are reunited they can't find any privacy in postwar Berlin (housing shortage, etc). They go to the Tiergarten to sit on a park bench, and just as they're about to kiss some guy accuses them of stealing vegetables (they turned the Tiergarten into aa veg garden after the war). They tell him that they're married, and he just laughs at the idea that a married couple would be kissing on a park bench. ha! I'm learning lots about 1940s social norms :). Unfortunately, some of the film and sound quality isn't that great, so that also adds a bit of complication. Three more films to go tomorrow, then I get my much-needed vacation. :)
Here is some rare film footage of Berlin after the war:
First, two shop owners who probably should have consulted English-speaking friends before naming their stores:
Above is a pet food store near us, the photo below is a kiosk in the Wedding neighborhood.
And from an Asian restaurant in Friedrichshain, hot beverages "against cold" (in German, gegen Erkältung means to fight a cold, in the sense of medicine you would take for a cold). Also, many Germans are particularly sensitive to garlic, which according to the menu's legend, is a a form of spicy. :) Note how dish #14 warns you that it includes garlic!
And last we have a copy shop with a T-Shirt hanging in the window, "I love Michael Jackson"
Just some of the random amusement you get here every day walking around the streets, whether funny English translations, funny names of stores, or just weirdisms of living in a big city. :)
We also have a new rule not to buy any products that have an American flag on them as a marketing technique (that usually is things like soft bread, hot dogs, peanut butter, marshmallows, etc). This place below is also pretty crazy looking. They deliver "American food". Sketch.
This weekend I got to see two of my former roommates from Saarbrücken! It was so nice to get together again and catch up after four years. Matthias was here for a conference this week anyways, so Johannes took the train up to join us for the weekend.
The photos are from biking around Tempelhof Airport, walking along the canal in Kreuzberg, the Oberbaumbrücke on the former border between East and West Berlin.
"Europe is not the third world..." haha! I came across the above review on "Trip Advisor" while planning a trip on the Rhine for when my mom and grandmother come to visit. (P.S. Also came across this beautiful English on the same page: "We road a choo choo tram that stopped directly in front of our hotel uphill to the castle". Yes: we "ROAD" a train.) Interesting how according to this guy (he seems like a guy to me...) America is in the "future" and Europe is stuck in old ways (even "third world" ways). At least he admits that it's a difference he doesn't understand.
The photo to the left is a restaurant down the street from us. On the blackboard it says: "Dear guests, we do not accept any EC card or Visa cards, Danke." Most smaller restaurants only accept cash, and these are the kinds of places you want to eat at when you're traveling and experiencing Europe! (Also smaller hotels will only accept cash, or sometimes bank transfer. Again: these are probably nicer and have more character than the chains that accept credit cards!)
It's a big cultural difference: Americans like their plastic. We're used to using cards for everything. But sorry, when you come to Europe you need to carry cash. I know it's inconvenient with the currency transfer and everything, but it's a big difference between the US and Germany (I won't speak for the rest of Europe here, but maybe it's valid most places). They have a lot more smaller, local and family-owned businesses and shops, and credit card machines rack up fees. It's also symptomatic of a larger difference between American culture and European culture (I think): In the US everything is consumer-centered, please the customer, and in Europe it's also more centered on the employers and workers (I think having Sundays and holidays off is another example of this). And is it not possibly also a sign of our credit economy? That we are used to using plastic forms bad spending habits...and maybe the German tendency to pay in cash also helps people be more aware of their spending limits? This is speculation...What do you think?
On a side note: Most grocery stores and drugstores will accept cards, but often only the more technologically advanced European cards, that have a computer chip in them. They think American cards are very unsafe and old-fashioned (just with the magnetic strip). If you're traveling in Germany, it's good to know that bigger grocery stores like Kaisers or Rewe will take credit cards. Otherwise, in most stores (and also vending machine-type things) you have to have the chip! For example, buying train tickets from a machine.
Another side note: The review above says that "electronic payments" are the way of the future. In this way, Germany is waaay more advanced than the US! I think I've mentioned before how people use bank transfers here for anything and everything, and it's super super easy to pay bills. You can also pay private persons with online banking. No one writes checks for anything anymore!
This was really cool--for the registration for the Berlin Half Marathon (Sunday), they have the expo/registration at Tempelhof Airport. I had never been inside the building, so it was cool to see. Also amusing because this was the first German race expo I have been to, and some things struck me as particularly German (the big beer area, a little German honey stand). We went and picked up our race packets, t-shirts and got a Wurst. A strange feeling, to be walking around an empty, deserted airport!
One more hilarious thing I just had to add...In our race instructions we have a very explicit warning not to go to the bathroom in people's yards due to incidents from previous years! HA! It also asks you to police other runners...yikes...
I think I have said before that the area we live in--around Chamissoplatz--is one of the best-preserved areas from turn-of-the-century Berlin. Most of Berlin was very badly bombed in the war, so you often have ugly postwar constructions, peppered with a few old treasures here and there (Altbau = pre-war, Neubau = after the war). But our street, and the streets around it, are just gorgeous, and very well-renovated. The upper photo is from a street corner near us (most don't have trees actually), and the black and white pictures are from the entryway to our building.
Wow, how is it the weekend again already? It's been a crazy week: library, half marathon training, theater, library, cooking, archive... I am planning several trips right now (I could make a living doing this, by the way, if grad school doesn't pan out...), and said to Michael, "I am so ready for a vacation." He laughed... and I didn't get it. "Our life is like a vacation," he said. Okay, kinda true. This year we have very few responsibilities, and we're cut off from the real world a bit. But we are really busy! I feel quite exhausted just with my weekly schedule. And as much as I love Berlin, I am getting excited for our Rhine trip in two weeks, and summer trip to the Baltic and North sea coasts. Get out of the metropolis and breathe.
The amazing weather is making me itch to travel I guess. Today we have all the windows open letting in the spring air, and there is not a cloud in the sky. It's 19 C, which is warm. :) But I know it's great in the US right now, too. I just hope it holds for the Rhine trip in two weeks! I actually hope it rains soon, so it's out of the system!
I know that almost every weekend I post about our market...but I can't help it! We have one of the best weekly markets right around the corner. I can't get over it, and I look forward to it every week. :) I ran out and got croissants for breakfast, and then we had a leisurely morning reading and catching up on emails, and I was playing travel agent, and when I went back around noon for produce some of the stands were sold out of stuff (the good spinach...boo). Anyways, I got broccoli, leeks, some eggs and yogurt, a squash, chard, baby spinach. The sun was shining hot, there was live music, and happy little children. I am going to take off for a run at Tempelhof, and then invited to a jam-making party tonight. Michael's playing basketball outside, a repeat of last Saturday, which was also so sunny and warm. It's a good life!
This post comes a day late...but happy spring! There are definitely signs of spring: crocuses, birds singing, trees budding...but no asparagus yet! Last weekend the weather was so nice, all the cafes and restaurants started putting out their outdoor tables. Now it's cooler again, but some brave souls are still anxious to be outside again. The florists have really beautiful displays, too.
Below is a link to the song "Veronika, der Lenz ist da" [Veronika, spring is here] from the "Comedian Harmonists," a singing sextet from the 1930s. They were very popular before WWII but some of the group members were Jewish and the group was prohibited from performing. There is a movie about them (Comedian Harmonists) if you're interested. I put the song text below...it includes one of Michael's favorite words: frohlocken, "to frolic". :)
Veronika, der Lenz ist da, / die Mädchen singen Tralala, / die ganze Welt ist wie verhext, / Veronika, der Spargel wächst, / ach Du Veronika, die Welt ist grün, / drum laß uns in die Wälder ziehn. / Sogar der Großpapa, sagt zu der Großmama: / Veronika, der Lenz ist da.
Mädchen lacht, Jüngling spricht, / Fräulein wolln sie oder nicht, / draußen ist Frühling, / der Poet Otto Licht / hält es jetzt für seine Pflicht, / er schreibt dieses Gedicht:
Veronika, der Lenz ist da, / die Mädchen singen Tralala, / die ganze Welt ist wie verhext, / Veronika, der Spargel wächst, / ach Du Veronika, die Welt ist grün, / drum laß uns in die Wälder ziehn. / Sogar der Großpapa, sagt zu der Großmama: / Veronika, der Lenz ist da.
Sie sollen frohlocken, der Lenz ist da, Veronika / die ganze Welt ist wie verhext, / Veronika, der Spargel wächst, / o Veronika / Veronika, die Welt ist grün, / drum laß uns in die Wälder ziehn.
Sogar der liebe, gute, alte Großpapa, / sagt zu der lieben, guten, alten Großmama: / Veronika, der Lenz ist da.
You probably didn't notice...but yesterday none of the mosque pictures were my own, because I lost my camera. :( I think it must have fallen out of my pocket on the bus on the way there. Anyways, I was super bummed, and had no real hopes of getting it back. But guess what?! Out of the 3.5 million people in Berlin, a NICE one found my camera, and turned it in to the bus driver, who gave it over to the bus company lost-and-found. So when I went to the BVG Fundbüro this morning, it was there!! What luck! I didn't even know the brand of my camera to claim it, but I got really excited when I saw my camera on the desk and said, "Look at the last picture! It's me, I swear!" :) So I paid 7 EUR and got it back. Pretty nifty system. :)
The picture below I took as we were leaving the library...beautiful sky, not so beautiful Potsdamer Platz. Just glad to have my camera back. :)
