Premature Celebration

Like a battered woman, I am now grateful for the tiniest crumbs of humanity. I understand that Berlin doesn't want to do it. It has to. Sometimes a yank just needs to be Deutsch-slapped.

What I'm grateful for is that moments ago I got a text message from Vodafone telling me to stay home on Monday between the hours of 8 and 16 because they're going to INSTALL MY INTERNET!

Yay!!!! Three weeks after I signed a contract, a robot at the Vodafone headquarters has seen fit to send me a text to tell me I have the honor of being granted the cable-guy-style unbinding and indefinite all day appointment next week! I'm so lucky!

Of course, something inexplicable is going to happen to prevent me from getting the Internet in the end, as it always does. But for now, I'm pretending them chickens is as good as hatched.

The World Needs a Heroine

I found out at a German dinner party the other week that everyone in the world, regardless of race, age, or creed, knows that Jessica Fletcher was a resident of Cabot Cove, Maine.

Also that Cabot Cove has an astoundingly high murder rate.

Interesting, too, is the number of different titles the show has had in different countries.

My favorite is still the original title, "Murder, She Wrote", which I remember puzzling over even as a child. But some of the titles from other countries are also pretty weird.

There's the failed whimsy of the Spanish title: Se ha escrito un crimen, or "A Crime has Been Written". Then there's Portugal's strangled attempt at a translation: Crime, Disse Ela, or "Crime, She Said".

Perhaps weirdest of all is Quebec's boring literalism: Elle écrit au meurtre, or "She writes about murder".

Bonnet Seeks Bee

Reports of the death of this blog have been greatly exaggerated. Well, mildly exaggerated.

But it is true that the fire in my belly about blogging has cooled a bit.

Remember when every day in Berlin was like breaking in a new pair of shoes? That is, both excruciating and debilitating?

I bet you miss that.

Now every day in Berlin is like...a day...somewhere.

Not so interesting, is it?

Well, my schadenfroh readers, it has happened and I'm not sure what to do about it.

Take today. I figured out how to print stuff at the FU from my laptop. Nothing special. Just googled "Zedat drucken" (it's an FU thing, don't ask), was taken to the FU Web site where I followed the straightforward German instructions.

Of course it took an hour and a half to install the driver, but whatever. I wasn't bothered. Well, I wasn't *that* bothered. I mean, not bothered enough to blog about it.

I mean, I'm blogging about it right now, but not in a ranting, venting, steaming sort of way, like I normally would.

And the thing I was printing out? Oh, nothing. Just a fax I had to send to Sallie Mae to let them know I'm still in grad school so they wouldn't make me start repaying my student loans.

Wait, a fax, you frantically ask? How are you going to send a fax? You don't have a fax machine! You may be forced to *go* somewhere! But where!? And what if they make you speak German?!

OK, folks, chill. No problem. I just walked to the copy shop by the FU and asked, in German, if they'd send a fax to the US for me. It didn't even matter that I didn't know the international access code. "Null, null, eins?" Suggested the friendly copy shop guy. "Why not?" I said. "Let's try it."

And it worked. Of course it cost three and half euros, but I wasn't bothered. Not *that* bothered.

I just don't know what's wrong with me! Nothing bothers me anymore! It's so frustrating!

Another thing is that my German is totally functional. Spoken, written, whatever. Es ist mir egal, as the Germans say. It ain't pretty, and I sound like an idiot, but I'm not afraid of total communication breakdown anymore.

So, look, I'm not saying it's not still *hard*. It can be very tough to keep up with people and to make sure I don't say the *completely* wrong thing. But it just doesn't make me want to go home and blog myself to sleep anymore. What can I say?

I guess you guys could always hope something terrible happens to me. Well, not so terrible that I can't rant humorously about it. You know, just terrible enough that my head almost collapses every time I think about it. I wouldn't hold it against you. After all, what's a bonnet without at least one bee in it?

(Please stop picturing me in a bonnet.)

Notes, coins, disapproval

Ach, this blog. Ever since I saw how few people were viewing my vlogs on Youtube, I've lost the Lust to blog.

The other day I did find out something cool though.

I don't know how many of you know this, but the smallest euro note is a five. Under that, it's all coins. Which means I *always* have a pocket full of coins.

And yet, somehow, I never actually have any change.

I know how this happens--every night I put all my small coins in a piggy bank (actually an old cashew can from Aldi). Of course I've got to keep at least one one euro coin on me at all times so I can get a grocery cart or a locker at the library. And of course there are one- and two- euro coins, which is like, real money, so I've got to keep those with me.

Why do I hate change? Well, I hate the bulge, obviously, and the jangle, and the possibility of them falling out when I sit down, and the endless fishing in my pocket when I want to find something.

But the thing I don't get is why cashiers always ask me for coins. Like, if I hand you a note, just take it and shut up! That's probably considered rude or something, paying with a note. Whatever.

This gets really annoying, especially because when I say "no", the cashier is always able to make change. It's like, so why the hell did you ask me for coins if you weren't out of them?! So I could do you the favor of making your life more convenient? Danke sehr.

One time the cashier *didn't* have enough to make exact change. So she short-changed me.

Would that happen in the US?! I really doubt it. I think in the US, if the cashier (THE CASHIER, for crying out loud, 4/5 of whose job is making change) didn't have exact change, they would either find a way to borrow some from another register, or give you five cents too much.

Not in Berlin, where the customer is always wrong.

So, anyway, my news is that I discovered a way to instruct the Deutsche Bank ATM to give me lower denomination notes!

I'm totally psyched about this, because handing someone a fifty in Berlin feels like asking them to do you this huge favor.

I don't think you can do this in the US, can you?

Words, words, words

I went to a German dinner party last night and I came away with a pair of edifying cultural observations about language.

1. Well meaning people usually respond to foreigners by being either pedantic or patronizing, often both.

Shame on them.

This is just an example of how the best intentions are rarely enough. Being friendly is a skill--for most it requires cultivation. In other words, it doesn't "just come when you cook the meat."

First, pedantry. Talking to a foreigner is not a chance for you to play teacher. If you want to be a teacher you should, I don't know, learn something and get a job teaching it. The teacher-student relationship is hierarchical. So no matter what your intentions are, when you play the teacher you subordinate the person you're talking to.

Being patronizing. The first thing any human being wants from you is respect; being patronizing by complimenting someone's basic language skills is inherently disrespectful. It's like when well educated blacks find themselves being called "articulate". Praising someone for doing something you find easy is tacitly to acknowledge their inferiority. That's something self-respecting people are loath to respond well to.

2. Native speakers abuse and take their language for granted.

What a waste.

Native speakers talk too fast, run their words together, don't speak in complete sentences, and don't make enough use of fun, interesting, or nuanced words and phrases.

It's nauseating. We've got 600,000 crayons in our box and we're scrawling with the nubs of seven of them! It's an embarrassment of riches, and we squander it.

Instead of floating like butterflies and stinging like bees, we merely buzz like flies.

What I wouldn't have given last night for a silver tongue instead of this lingua of lead!

German FAIL

Riding the U-Bahn with my German language partner the other night, I wanted to express to her that I had been so tired when I left her party earlier that week that I almost went to sleep in her doorway.

Here, in excruciating but exact detail, is the thought process I went through in order to find the words I needed.

1. What pronoun do I use? Well, I'm talking about myself, so that's first person singular, i.e., "ich".
2. What is the tense of the verb? Well, I'm talking about the past, so I'll use one of the two past tenses.
3. Which of the two past tenses is best? One is more formal, the other conversational. I should definitely use the latter.
4. What verb do I want? I don't remember how to say 'to fall asleep'. I know how to say 'to sleep'. Is that good enough? Wait, maybe "einschlafen" means to fall asleep. I'll try it.
5. Which helping verb do I need to build the past tense? Let's see, is falling asleep a change of location? No. So I guess I have to use 'haben' instead of 'sein'.
6. What's the past participial form of 'einschlafen'? I think it's a strong verb, which means perhaps it's 'eingeschlafen'. Remember that so you can stick it at the end of your sentence.
7. How do I conjugate the helping verb? First person is 'habe'.
8. What's the German word for 'doorway'? I have no idea. I'll just say 'door' and hope that suffices.
9. What preposition should I use? I don't think one can say 'in the door', I think I have to say 'before the door'. 'Vor' is the German word for before.
10. What case does 'vor' take? I think it's one of the ones that can take either accusative or dative. So, is there motion to or from somewhere? I don't think so. Then I must need the dative.
11. What's the gender of the German word for door? I have no clue. I'll guess masculine.
12. Would a German say 'your door' or 'the door'? They seem to use the definite article a lot. I'll go with the latter.
13. What's the dative form of the masculine definite article, 'der'? RESE, NESE, MRMN. Right, 'dem'.
14. How do you say 'almost' in German? Oh yeah, 'fast'.
15. Where would I put the 'fast' in the sentence in relation to the 'vor dem Tur'? Time, manner, place. OK, almost is manner, so I'll put it before place.

Result:

"Ich habe fast vor dem Tur eingeschlafen."

And my German language partner's response:

"Huh?"

I think the only two of those fifteen steps that I got wrong were a) the requisite helping verb is 'sein', not 'haben', because change of state counts the same as a change of location, and falling asleep is a change of state, and b) 'door' is feminine, not masculine. So "ich bin fast vor der Tur eingeschlafen" should have been sufficient. 13/15 is an 87%, which, in the real world, turns out to be a total failure of communication.

It would be nice if three years of grammar and six months living in the country rendered one capable of speaking a single sentence of the language. Wouldn't it?

Too Close to the Source

One of the great things about living in Berlin, and I imagine Europe in general, is that there are lots of little markets where it's easy to get fresh bread, cheese, and fruits and veggies.

Since I can't avoid eating altogether, Rachel helped convince me to embrace the beast and go more often to buy preservative-free food that actually tastes lecker.

So here's a picture of yesterday's lunch.

Von 2009 March

But sometimes, Germany food can be a little too close to the source.



I really, really don't want to be reminded first thing in the morning about exactly where eggs come from.

La, la, la...I can't hear you!

I'm on the U-Bahn. I'm listening to my iPod. I look up at the middle-aged woman across from me. She has her fingers in her ears.

Passive aggressive Deutsch-slap?

Good...for an American

On Wednesday a man named Wolfgang gave me what I assume was meant to be a compliment.

"Your German is very good", he said, "for an American."

This happened on Wednesday at the karaoke bar that I frequent. And when I say "frequent", I mean when I walk in the Swedish DJ, Nils, comes over to my table to chew the fat. And when the waitress comes over she says to me, "wie immer?" meaning, "the usual?"

OK, so I'm a karaoke junkie. Leave it.

Anyway, I'm sure Wolfgang thought he was being nice. And you know what, that's actually probably the best thing one can say about my German. But it still stung.

The funny thing is, it's *my* low opinion of American German-speakers that makes it such a cringe-inducing remark. Americans, by and large, only speak English. And with justification--there are almost no practical reasons for a native English speaker to learn a foreign language. And when Americans do speak German, most of them sound like they're speaking English, except with all the wrong words.

The truth is, people compliment my German all the time, and they just can't be trusted. It must be the polite thing to do. Last night on the train, for instance, an old couple interrupted my Peruvian friend and me as we rode home from the opera speaking German. They wanted to tell us how funny it was that two foreigners were speaking German to each other.

"Your grammar is so good, too!" the old woman said to me. "Well of all the ridiculous compliments I've ever gotten...", I thought. I just hate being patronized.

Why is there sometimes nothing more embarrassing than being complimented in the wrong way or for the wrong thing?

The Office, German edition

Did you know there is a German version of The Office? It's called Stromberg, and you can watch the first three seasons online.

I haven't seen it yet, but evidently it has been pretty popular in Germany. And having been chewed up and spat out by German Bürokratie a few times, I can understand why.

Evidently there has also been a French, a Canadian, and even a Chilean version of The Office. Ricky and Stephen must be rolling in it!

Knowledge and Shame

I've always thought it was weird that when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil the first thing they did was to get dressed.

I mean, nakedness is generally connected with shame, not guilt. If they became aware of their guilt by eating the fruit, you'd expect them to wash rather than dress. Feeling dirty or stained--like Lady MacBeth's hands--that's feeling guilty. Feeling vulnerable, exposed, naked--that's feeling shame.

I felt shame and humiliation yesterday morning when the Hausmeister yelled something in my face.

He yelled at me because, you know, I can't understand German unless it's REALLY REALLY LOUD. And as the word AUSZIEHEN echoed down the hall, I realized that it must mean, among other things, 'to move out'.

That coincidence of learning and shame made me realize that to learn something is dependent on realizing there was something you didn't know. One can't put on knowledge without also sensing one's own shameful, naked ignorance.

So the Genesis story makes more sense to me now. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree, it must have been gaining knowledge that made them feel ashamed, not gaining the knowledge of good and evil that made them feel guilty.

Incidentally, the word I learned, ausziehen, also means 'to get undressed'.

...like Robert Duvall in the Godfather

Went with Phil to see Carmen at the Deutsche Oper last night. I thought I would like it more. It's got three super-catchy pieces of music that I had in my head all day, and there's the whole femme fatale thing. But it just didn't stab my inner cigarette girl, if you know what I mean.

The Classiccard is such a wonderful thing. For only ten euros we got to sit in the same row as Sir Simon Rattle, the director of the Berlin Philharmonic. You know, the best orchestra in the world?

Plus we sat next to a guy whose mustache curled up in giant waxy circles!

Since it was St. Patrick's Day, we went to a pub called Limerick afterwards where I took this terrible blurry photo.

Von 2009 March

We were promptly kicked out at 11:30 after one pint. I guess there's no Irish-Germans in Berlin.

Pics uploaded

Von 2009 March

See all the other pics from Rachel's visit and the month of March in my Picasa Web album.

Döner Flavored Chips

Rachel and I had Döner three times while she was here. Because it's that good. So why not try to capture the flavor of that mysterious meat in a chip?

Von 2009 March

Better grab them fast, because these chips are "lümütüd edition".

Special Vlogisode!

Rachel's Vlog TEIL 2

The vlog gets extra silly as Rachel returns with a wrap up of our crazy week!

Rachel's Vlog

Chocolate Gedächtniskirche

Rachel's visiting! Stay tuned for a new vlog!

In the meantime, enjoy these pictures of Rachel next to both the real Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche and a chocolate one!

I am same again there

When speaking a foreign language, it's never enough just to know what the words mean. No, that would be too easy.

You also have to know how and when to use the words. That's why one of the best things about having a language partner is her mistakes.

I'm not talking about Schadenfreude, which is, incidentally, the best German word of all time. Well, OK, actually I *do* love to see her suffer. It's really the best revenge for the humiliation she puts me through each week.

But I mean, when she says makes a mistake like saying, "that's in the near of your apartment" or "we meet us at 8 o'clock", it gives me insight into, how do I say this diplomatically, the screwed up an nonsensical way that German is actually spoken.

Like when Anton told me you call it 19:45 o'clock but you would *never* call it a quarter to twenty. What are you, doof? 19:45 o'clock is a quarter to eight.

Anyway, when Claudia says "in the near of", it reminds me that, in German, one says in der Nähe von when one means 'near'. And "we meet us" reminds me that wir treffen uns is how you say 'we'll meet'.

A good example of the difference between knowing what the words mean and knowing how to use them is the phrase ich bin gleich wieder da. Technically, it means "I'll be right back." Literally, it means "i am same again there".

Stay tuned for pics and vids of Rachel's visit!

Mural Building in Kreuzberg

I was walking in Kreuzberg on Saturday when I came across this radically painted building.

Von 2009 February

Von 2009 February

Von 2009 February

Von 2009 February

Von 2009 February