Berlin Day 1

Day 1 (Dienstag, 16. Sept., 2008)

My first authentic German interaction was with a man seated behind me on the plane to Frankfurt. I was trying for the second time and rather unsubtly to turn on the reading light over my head. The whole plane could see me reaching up and pushing, twisting, and pulling on the light, and everyone probably knew I was an idiot, because the control for the light is on the arm of the seat. I felt a tap on my left shoulder and when I turned around the guy across the aisle was talking to me.

I pulled out my headphones (pop music!) and just heard the end of what he was saying, which was in some weird phlegmy language that sounded something like I had imagined real German would sound. I had no idea what he wanted, or why he was bothering me with it. I stared at him as though he were a magic eye drawing. I’m still not sure what he said, but fortunately pointing and nodding are universal, so I got the idea. I turned on my light and said vielen Dank. He said something else I didn’t understand, to which I said danke.

I’ve noticed that guten Tag and its variants, guten Morgen and guten Abend, along with danke and aufwiedersehen are pretty much the only words required for 75% of social interactions. Which is good because that’s usually all I can say.

Then the guy said something about how he made the same mistake about the light the first time he flew on one of these planes, to which I replied weakly, ich verstehe, “I understand”.

My second German experience was filled with animosity, loathing, and ire, at least from my side. Some German woman kept coming from the back of the plane to talk to her mother, who was seated in front of me. I know that doesn’t sound so bad now, but at the time I was hoping when we got to Frankfurt I could push her into the intake of the plane’s turbine. Now, you probably think the lack of sleep was the real source of irritation. Wrong. She would just stand there over me, tapping on the back of her mother’s seat, having what I’m sure was pointless and unoriginal conversation. I mean she did it like five times. And even when I launched a death-to-you-your-mother-and-your-whole-family stare at her, all she did was ignore me. *Ignore* me! Some people have no shame. And should be shot.

Everything else is kind a blur until this morning, two days later.

I don’t remember getting off the plane in Frankfurt, but I’m pretty sure I did. I remember I had to check in at the Air Berlin counter and the guy told me my two carry-ons weighed 12 kilos, which is not something I knew a carry-on could weigh, and that that was too many. He said one of them would have to be checked. “OK, how do I do that?” He obliged me making one of my bags disappear through a trap door and then gently suggested I leave “now” for gate E23, since my flight to Berlin had already begun boarding. I remember that seemed like good advice.

The first time I felt like I was in Germany was when I was waiting to board my flight Air Berlin flight from Frankfurt. Gate E23 was packed full of German business men and looked something like Magritte’s Golconde.



German business men look like American business men except they’re taller, thinner, they all have rectangular black plastic glasses, and they look like they have keine Ahnung what casual Friday is. When we crammed ourselves into the bus outside the gate to take us to our plane, I felt like a goat in a herd of very well-dressed, well-behaved sheep.

I remember the Air Berlin flight very well, either that or I had a vivid dream about flying on a plane in the 1960’s. The seats were roomy, the flight attendants were friendly and well-groomed, there were complementary newspapers, pretzels, chocolates shaped like hearts (as we exited), and, of course, coffee. Also, the drop-down screens displayed our flight plan, ETA, and the external temperature.

At some point I guess we landed. And then somehow I got my 107 pounds and 12 kilos of bags and found myself in line to get a taxi. That looked something like this.



My taxi driver was Turkish, and I forced myself to have a conversation with him about things I didn’t care about, specifically him and his family. I wanted to set a precedent of having inane conversations with strangers, because I assume that will help my German eventually. We spoke in German because the only English he knew was numbers. When I got to my apartment, I asked him to take this picture.



Next I met a couple of working class German guys who proved false once again the oft-repeated factoid that all Berliners speak English. One of them was the Hausmeister of my apartment. He made me sign something and then gave me a dizzying tour of the apartment building. All I really remember is that I have to buy tokens for the washing machine from him. Which is rubbish.

By 11:06 am local time (5:06 am Bloomington time) I was in my new apartment alone. I was tired. My suitcases were in bad shape after the long haul. The duffel bag had a broken handle. The logo had popped off my rolling suitcase. In order to fight jet lag I decided to do something. I unpacked. It took an hour and 14 minutes. I was totally disorganized about it, and I kept looking for things in my suitcases that I had already unpacked.

I think I took a shower next. That was nice, even though the shower is so narrow that I bumped into the lever twice and quickly discovered that the water here gets extremely hot.



It certainly helped wake me up. After my invigorating shower I noticed to my dismay that the S-Bahn runs about 50 feet from my balcony (I’m on the ground floor, but I’m still about 3 feet off the ground). Gott sei dank there is a sound wall that muffles the train noise significantly. The train passes with a soft whoosh. It’s actually a very quiet residential neighborhood.

Next I got dressed and explored the neighborhood. I worried in my jet lagged state I would get lost and never be heard from again, so I decided to keep to my block. It turns out it’s a really big block. There was a foot path leading under the train tracks. That’s where I took this picture.



There’s just something about graffiti that makes me think of Berlin. Notice I’m trying to blend in by wearing a scarf and my rectangular glasses. Unfortunately, it worked a little too well and led to my first Berlin humiliation. But first, here’s a sign on someone’s fence.



It says “Caution! BATTLE CAT!”

Anyway, so I found an Aldi within walking distance, which was nice. I’ve already been there twice. They’ve got lots of cheap food. While at the Aldi I was accosted by a middle-aged Berlinerin who spoke in tongues. Whenever anyone talks to me the first thing I say is “Wie, bitte?” which means, roughly, “What the hell are you saying to me and why? Do I look like I speak your crazy coughing/spitting/hissing language?” Unfazed, she repeated, “Wissen Sie, was das heutige Datum ist?” Of course, at the time, all I could hear was “blech, shblech, hach, phooey“, so I took the safe route. I responded with my own question: “Nein?” It was kind of like answering, “If I say ‘nein’ will that get you to leave me alone?” She did leave me alone and went and asked someone else.

It was only as I replayed the event in my oxygen-starved head obsessively for the next 12 hours that I realized what she meant was ‘do you know what today’s date is?’ Why didn’t she just say that?! And what kind of a locution is das heutige Datum, which literally translates ‘the today-ish date’? Being in Berlin is kind of like taking a German oral exam that *never ends*. I managed to make it out of there with some cheese, appels, and bread, but I left my dignity on the shelf between the sauerkraut and the gherkins. Jedenfalls, this is the scene of my humiliation.



On the way back from Aldi I noticed a payphone right outside the front door of my apartment building. After I got home, I went back and tried to use it. Since I have no Internet in my apartment yet, and no land line either, I thought this phone gave me the best chance of being able to let people back in the US know that I was not lying on the tarmac in Frankfurt after losing a fight with a shameless Frau who stood over me one too many times. The phone took my funny little Euro-coins without a hassle, but it gave nonsensical German instructions on how to make an international call. I’ve listened to these instructions so many times in the last few days that I’ve almost memorized them. The went something like this: “Bitte geben Sie die gewünschtes Landeskennzahl ein, und folgen Sie Ihren Eingabe mit der Rautetaste.“ Again, I know what you’re thinking. Just put in the country code for the US and then push the pound button! What’s so hard about that? But first of all, it’s a lot harder to understand spoken German than it is to read it, like you just did. Is she saying “känzeil” or “kenntsall” or “känceil” oder was?! I simply had to guess. Kenn as in kennen, to know/be familiar with seemed like a real German prefix, and zahl as in der Zahl, number, seemed to be the most probably interpretation. But what is included in the Kennzahl? Is it the whole phone number, or just the country code? And is it the country code for Germany or for the US? And does she want the country code, or the international access code?

Fortunately, because I had my Pocket Ref (thanks, Savannah!) I knew all these numbers. I just didn’t know which one to use. What I think I understand now is that 00 is the international access code for Germany, so if one wants to dial a foreign country one must enter ’00’. And 1 is the country code for the US, so one has to put that in at some point too.

Of course, I was completely stymied in all this by the Rautetaste. It wasn’t in my dictionary either. Taste is in there, and it means button. Raute is in there too, but it means rhombus. Now, there are two buttons on the phone that are not numbers and are not ones I’m used to seeing. This is what the phone keypad looks like.



Which one would you think is the ‘rhombus-button’? Well, I guessed the one with nothing on it. Was I wrong? I don’t know. I have still never gotten this phone to do anything for me besides give me rubbish, nonsense instructions on how to use it. Days later, when I finally had access to the Internet for the first time, I queried an online dictionary that told me Rautetaste means POUND SIGN. So now I know. But at any rate, and I’d like to stress this, THIS PHONE HAS NO POUND SIGN. Maybe you can blame me, Liebe Leute, for not figuring out what the Kennzahl for the US was, and that ‘RHOMBUS BUTTON’ meant pound sign. But what could I do about the fact that THE PHONE HAS NO POUND SIGN? Ich bitte Sie, sag mir das! THAT is why no one knew if I was alive for three days. It is all Deutsche Telecom’s fault.

Now, I know when I tell you what happened next you’re all going to tell me I shouldn’t have done it, and maybe you’re right, but I’m not going to make excuses. I did it. And it felt good. And I would do it again in an Augenblick. I was back in my Wohnung watching German TV, which is WEIRD and will be covered in a whole series of subsequent posts, don’t worry. I tried very hard for two hours to stay awake. I walked around. I stood. I stretched. I kept telling myself I had to make it until it got dark. Then I told myself I had to wait until 19:00. Then I told myself I had to make it until 17:00. I got in bed at 16:20 and fell instantly into a deep, wonderful coma.

Now, I don’t regret doing that and I will defend myself if necessary to those of you who don’t understand the special justificatory mechanisms at work in a jet-lagged mind, but the problem with going to bed at 4:00 in the afternoon, is that eight hours later, it’s only midnight. So I got a good night’s rest. And then I woke up. And the clock read 00:12, which, let’s face it, is not really a time, but whatever. I got out of bed and watched late night German TV, which is REALLY WEIRD and will be covered in a whole series of subsequent posts, don’t worry. As it turns out, I got tired in another two hours and slept until morning. So there! Take that, you self-proclaimed jet lag experts!