Category Archives: Blog Post

A blog post on a travel, cultural or culinary experience in another culture.

Sarajevo Inked

Blog Post

Sarajevo was a welcome change after my summer internship teaching English to teenagers and adults between the ages of 16 to 35 in Tuzla and Doboj, two other Bosnian cities. As I weaved through the Austro-Hungarian quarter, surrounded by people relaxing in cafes, sipping espressos, and munching on croissants and baklava, I, too, relaxed. It was refreshing to just be a tourist. However, while we interns had all come to Sarajevo together, the others were on their way to jump off the Old Bridge in Mostar. I feared breaking bones, so instead I decided to break some skin. Ever since I got my first tattoo three years ago, I’ve wanted another. So why not now?

With that in mind, I headed towards a bakery. Food will ensure I don’t get lightheaded during or after the tattooing process. “Stravo! Jedna mala krompiruša?” I ordered a flaky pastry filled with potatoes, and after thanking the lady at the counter, I continued on my way.

***

Sarajevo is a city with a rich history of religious and cultural diversity, which many people know as where “East meets West” symbolized by the line between the Austro-Hungarian quarter and the Ottoman Old Town. However, the city has also been the site of international conflict. In 1914, the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand is often cited as the spark that ignited WWI. Between 1992 and 1996, Sarajevo suffered through the longest siege of a city in modern warfare (1,425 days) during the Bosnian War. The different ethnocultural groups were pitted against each other and the latent effects of the time can still be felt. Three Presidents from different ethnocultural groups divided the government, with the result that it’s inefficient. Infrastructure is not fully developed and youth unemployment is over 60%.

It’s no wonder many of the students want to leave for opportunities in Western Europe, the US, or Australia. We sometimes chat outside the classroom during breaks, and they’ll share their aspirations and frustrations. When they do, it’s hard not to get attached and wish the system was easier for them to maneuver.

***

Down Obala Kulina bana, I passed the University of Sarajevo where some of the students I taught over the summer were enrolling. Compared to the bullet-hole-ridden apartments I had seen the day before on a city tour, which wore their scars like badges of honor (because the government won’t fix them), it was nice to see edifices that survived. The Siege devastated facilities and equipment at the university, but it continued operations in a show of academic resistance against the surrounding brutality. However, much of the city was reduced to rubble. There are photographs of the remains of the building of the Sarajevo newspaper Oslobođenje, which was kept as a memorial for a few years, and of the cellist Vedran Smailović performing in the half-demolished National Library, among many others images.

Vedran Smailović playing in the partially destroyed National Library in Sarajevo in 1992, courtesy of Mikhail Evstafiev, Wikimedia Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo#/media/File:Evstafiev-bosnia-cello.jpg)

I crossed onto a residential street and eventually found the tattoo studio address after some confusion. When I walked into the neon-lit studio, Dino, the tattooist, greeted me. Dino was a short, sturdy man with deep-set eyes and two small silver hoops in his left earlobe. He looked like your eccentric uncle who secretly might be a pirate or in a rock band.

After a short consultation, we got down to business. The tattoos I wanted were minimalist and shamelessly hipster. Still, I had no regrets. The three Nordic runes for my wrist and the ocean wave for my collarbone simply felt right.

Since social life in this country revolves around coffee, smoke, or alcohol, Dino offered me a drink when we sat down to chat after the tattoo session. Not everyone is willing to speak about the past, but Dino was talkative. He shared his family’s experiences during the Siege. His Bosniak family lived outside Sarajevo, but because his home was destroyed during the war, he moved to start a new life. I asked him if he had hope for the future. He replied, “I can’t speak for other cities, but Sarajevo is multicultural, cosmopolitan, and tolerant. I have many Serbian friends. Would I marry one? Probably not, but I would never bear arms against them. Visitors often ask us about the war, but many people are tired of the past. We remember, but we also want to move on.”

It seemed that Sarajevo and the rest of the country were scarred and healing like my wrist and collarbone. Though marks remain in physical and human memory like bullet holes in apartment buildings and the loss of loved ones, people want to go forward. It will be a slow process. But I thought of my students and hoped that at least some of them will make it far.

Soon, I bid Dino farewell. Then it hit me that I would see my mother in two days. How long would it take her to notice the new lines? On the way back to the hostel, I played out all the possibilities in my head hoping that a chiding was not in store.

The Buzzfeed listicle worthy "hipster" travel tattoos done in Sarajevo, BiH.
The Buzzfeed listicle worthy “hipster” travel tattoos done in Sarajevo, BiH.

Exact Change

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I was the one who wanted to go to Prague. My friend and spring break travel buddy, Mel, had chosen the other locations—she had managed to convince me about Vilnius, and we had agreed on Krakow.  Prague was not high on her list of priorities.  Despite having done hardly any research on the city, I worked hard to convince her that we needed to see it before the end of the semester.  I had a very particular image in my head.  The Prague I expected was small, quiet, and quaintly beautiful.  The Prague I encountered defied expectations:  large, commercial, and crowded:  a tourist city.  At first blush, I was a little disappointed.

But, as one does when abroad, Mel and I adapted.  With a few days of travel already under our belts, we learned a handful of useful Czech expressions and set off to discover the Prague that lay outside our imaginations.  We visited the Museum of Communism, whose small theater looped video footage of 1989 protests in Wenceslas Square, and whose gift shop—particularly the coaster set depicting a fanged, leering matryoshka doll—was a blatant “fuck you” to the former Soviet Union.  We wandered around the elaborate Prague Castle gardens, taking pictures of the noisy resident peacocks.  We escaped an afternoon of freezing rain by holing up in a smoky pub, drinking cheap, enormous pints.

Then there was the Metro.  Mel and I spent ages jammed in with tourists and commuters, riding long, slow-moving escalators down to the train platforms, gawking at indecipherable ads and stark signs naming each stop in Soviet Bloc reds and yellows.

The most important thing to know about the Prague Metro is this:  it operates on an honor system.  There are no turnstiles.  You buy a ticket that’s good for a certain amount of time—twenty minutes, forty minutes, an hour and a half—and timestamp it before entering the platform.  The only way to pay for tickets is with exact change, in coins.

Mel and I were unprepared for this on the morning of our last day in Prague. We had planned to leave our backpacks in a locker for the day, before taking an overnight train to Krakow.  As we descended into the nearest metro station, we realized that neither of us had change.  We stood before the bright yellow ticket dispenser, trying to decide whether we should venture back up to look for an ATM.  Meanwhile, all around us, suit-clad commuters were striding past into the metro, without so much as a glance at the ticket dispenser.  Maybe they all had annual passes.  Then again, maybe they didn’t.

It would be unfair to say Mel and I were equally at fault.  I remember saying something like, “It’ll be fine; don’t worry,” and starting off toward the escalator.  It was mostly fine.  It might have been completely fine if we had gotten off at another stop.  But as we stepped off the train and set foot on the platform, it was clear that we were already caught.  Two stout, stern-looking Metro police officers stood at the bottom of the stairwell, asking for tickets in English.  We probably could have avoided the encounter altogether by jumping back on the train and getting off at the next stop.  But in that moment, something—probably an overactive sense of honesty—propelled me forward.

With our colorful backpacks and ratty sneakers, Mel and I were obvious tourists, and obvious targets.  The officers approached us almost immediately:  “Tickets.  Hey!  Tickets!”  After a few futile moments of pretending I hadn’t heard them, I pulled out what I knew was an old, expired ticket from the other day.  I guess I preferred they think me stupid rather than dishonest.  Mel, more dignified, or maybe just more resigned, admitted freely that she didn’t have one.  The officer examining my ticket—he was barely taller than me, but that made him no less intimidating—asked where we were from.  I owned up to my American-ness, thinking I could easily keep playing the role of Dumb Tourist Who Doesn’t Understand Public Transit.   Immediately after that, the officer asked for our passports.  “This is it,” I thought, “I’m going to Czech prison.”

Taking our passports with them, the officers led us upstairs to a sign near the platform entrance, pointing out—again in English—the price we would be paying for my error in judgment.  In a few embarrassing minutes, Mel and I were each poorer by 800 Czech crowns (about 30€).  As we slunk away to the lockers, the short officer called us back:  “Girls!  Girls!”  We returned—what could he possibly want now?  He gave us a look I couldn’t read; I caught my breath.  Then he handed us each a blank, 90-minute Metro ticket.

The day improved, but only after Mel and I left the train station and took a self-pity break.  We sat in a tiny café with a pastel color scheme, consuming overpriced tea and pastries, trying to shrug off the shame and the blow to our wallets.  We settled on the following line of thought:  every trip needs a mishap budget for things like this; we had just spent ours.  That night on the way to Krakow we had a good laugh about it.  And for the remainder of the trip, neither of us set foot near a train, tram, or bus without a ticket in hand.

Prague is different from what I had I expected.  But it didn’t mess around.  Neither should you.

A Prague Metro Stop

The List

Blog Post

I dug in my purse for a pen and discovered that the ink had frozen. It was six o’clock in the morning on my last day in Moscow and I stood at the door of the Bolshoi Theatre box office. The box office would open in ten hours and sell forty student tickets to the ballet that evening for less than the cost of a small plastic cup of instant coffee from the vending machine in my dormitory. To improve my chances of getting one of the tickets, I needed to sign The List.

I spent much of my childhood either in a ballet studio, or watching grainy youtube videos of the greatest ballet companies in the world. I had dreamed about seeing the Bolshoi live for years, but it was a dream that I never expected would actually come true, like seeing the inside of Willy Wonka’s mythical chocolate factory.

Regular tickets to the Bolshoi had sold out months before I knew I was coming to Moscow and I had been warned over and over again about the enormous demand for the inexpensive student tickets. A tour guide, several of my professors, and a fellow student who was a Moscow native had all attempted explain The List. Convinced I had misunderstood them, I Googled it and confirmed that there was indeed a formal system for getting these tickets that is enforced by the students themselves.

The List is set up to reward those who show a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of Russia’s artistic heritage. If workers at the Hermitage could protect priceless paintings during the siege of Leningrad and ballet students could perform on a diet of turnip soup after the revolution, the least I could do was stand in the cold for a few hours holding The List.

On the day of each performance, the first student who gets to the box office starts The List and guards it until someone else comes along to add a name and take a turn standing outside in the snowy January weather. You can sign The List until thirty minutes before the box office opens, when it is read out loud by the student who began it. Those who sign the list are given the first spots in the ticket line, in the order in which they signed.

At five o’clock in the morning I had hopped out of bed and ridden the still-quiet metro down to Theatre Square to put my name on The List. I waited for an hour but there was no sign of any list, nor anybody to guard a list that I began myself. But I had come this far. Giving up on my frozen pen, I dug deeper into my purse and found a stubby pencil. In large Cyrillic letters, I printed the transliterated version of my Dutch last name.

I stood for a few more minutes, scanning the shadowy predawn cityscape. The red walls of the Kremlin were barely visible across Tverskaya Street and behind an enormous Christmas tree covered in neon flashing lights. The theatre itself was quiet, but already the immense façade was lit expectantly, ready for the big evening ahead. It was snowing softly and although I was standing at one of the busiest crossings in Moscow, there was no sound and only my own footprints led from the metro station into the square itself. I pulled out my phone to check the time, realized that I was already late for my first class and that the temperature was up to a balmy -8C from yesterday’s -20C. I crumpled my list and shoved it into my pocket as I headed back to the metro station, deciding to let someone else begin it and come back later to sign.

I hurried back to Theater Square that afternoon as soon as my classes finished, with a sandwich in my pocket and wearing many layers of socks under my theatre-going boots. There was a crowd on the previously deserted steps, but I had no trouble finding the girl with The List. I wrote down Фликкэма again and then asked her, in halting Russian, when she had begun it. She told me that she had been there since noon. Then she climbed to the top of the steps and began calling names. All the students lined up in an orderly fashion.

At exactly four o’clock two guards came out of the box office. Instead of letting us in as I expected, they had a leisurely smoke and chatted for several minutes about the size of the crowd and the ballet being performed that night. My toes were numb. Eventually one of the guards motioned for the first five people to enter the citadel. A few minutes later, five more. Finally I was hurried through a metal detector and then I pushed my one hundred ruble note through the slot under a ticket window. The ticket was as large as my two hands, printed on cream colored paper with elaborate lettering. I felt as if I had received a golden ticket to my own dream world.

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Je Ne Capisco Nada

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A plane ride from Marseille to Barcelona only takes an hour. I figured a quick weekend trip from France to Spain would be simple; I could get to the city mid-morning and have most of the day to explore and play tourist. I had been abroad for six months already—I guess this gave me an inflated sense of confidence in my travel skills. I assumed that if I followed the right directions, I would be able to navigate seamlessly from airport to bus to city center to Air B n B apartment.

Turns out, things were not so simple.

It all started out smoothly: my partner and I took a Saturday morning EasyJet flight from Marseille to Barcelona. Everything was on time and we got there by 11AM. At the airport, duffel bags in hand, we waited in line to get tickets for a bus ride into the city. This wait didn’t surprise me: this was Spain after all, and based on what I had been told, I expected that everything would be moving a bit slowly. Even compared to the relaxed place I had grown used to in the South of France.

At the airport bus terminal, we were surrounded by tourists speaking English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and various Scandinavian languages; the majority of the people there were young like us, and oh so hip and European. They looked like they had also come to explore one of Spain’s coolest cities and had dreams of sleeping in, seeing Gaudían architecture, experiencing a vivid nightlife, eating tapas, and taking sangria-fueled walks by the water. In hopes of having an original experience in Barcelona, we had rented a cute apartment in Gràcia—supposedly an up-and-coming neighborhood. The place was close to Park Güell, one of the city’s best sights, but was surprisingly one of the least crowded parts of the city. I felt so clever that we would be avoiding the hordes of tourists and staying in a part of Barcelona that felt authentic, but would still have easy access to the city’s major attractions.

We eventually got on the bus from the airport to the city center, and after a 45-minute ride found ourselves in Plaça de Catalunya, Barcelona’s biggest plaza. I recalled reading that the 44 toward Gràcia, the bus we were supposed to take in order to get to the apartment, stopped there. There was a bus at the curb, but when I spoke in Spanish to the driver, he replied impatiently that I had the wrong bus. After this, my partner insisted that we find someone at a nearby tourist booth who spoke English. I hadn’t come to Spain to speak English, but it was getting late, so we inquired. The person at the booth told us that the 44 stopped on the side of the street where we had first gotten off. We crossed back, got on the bus and paid five euros for two tickets. Things were looking good—we were only an hour behind schedule and we were one step closer to experiencing the real Barcelona! (A side note: this was not the first time in my travels where my stubbornness and insistence on speaking English as seldom as possible would get me in trouble—nor would it be the last.)

We were halfway to the top of a very steep hill (which Barcelona has a lot of, it seems) when the bus driver said something incomprehensible. I then realized that Catalàn is a lot further from Spanish than I had previously thought. Fortunately, he repeated the phrase in Spanish—we were supposed to get off the bus and get another one, this one was out of service. Our tickets would be accepted if we showed them to the next driver. So we got off and waited. Then I heard a group of people speaking Italian—thank God! A language that I could actually understand and communicate in, I hoped that they would be able to confirm if we were getting on the right bus. I had written down the name of the stop and the address of the apartment, but had no cell reception or wifi to help me check that we were going the right way. I was far too self-righteous about this, but I had insisted on having an authentic travel experience.

With the Italians, I talked about getting to Park Güell, where they had just been. Unfortunately, it was much too steep to walk there from where we were. Since they were going back into town, where we had just come from, we got on a bus on the opposite side of the street—for which we had to buy new tickets. After fifteen minutes, we got off at a stop that had the same word in it as the name of our stop but, unsurprisingly, was the wrong one: the street names around us were completely different from the ones in the directions on our Air B n B reservation.

Despite these frustrating circumstances, I couldn’t help but notice the way the city looked from the top of that hill, I observed the unique architecture, the elderly people arm-in-arm taking post-siesta walks, and the way the sun was hitting the water down below.

But we could not be distracted—it was already two and a half hours past the time we had told the renter that we would meet her, and I was starting to get nervous that she would leave or cancel the reservation altogether. So I asked an elderly couple that was strolling by if they knew of the street we were staying. In some strange combination of Spanish, French, and Italian, I asked for the address and tried to explain to them that we had just made a series of mistakes and needed to get to this apartment as soon as possible. They nodded, looking concerned and confused—admittedly, I probably looked extremely tired and panicked. They then proceeded to argue with each other for ten minutes, without a glance back at me. I assume the discussion had lots of: “it’s that way!”, “no it’s farther up the hill!”, “no, it’s near so-and-so’s house.” Eventually, they turned back to me to ask me a few questions. I attempted to answer coherently but lot of gesturing was required to really get the point across. In the end, I figured out that they were saying that we were supposed to go up a set of stairs and turn left and then go down that street and turn right again. So we did exactly that, hoping these last few hours of struggling since getting off the plane would finally pay off.

Fifteen minutes later, we were standing in front of Carrer de Pasteur número 25, ringing the doorbell. There was no immediate answer, just a grey cat winding himself around our legs. Had our hostess left? After a few minutes of silently willing her to come to the door, praying in my new mix of Spanish, French, and Italian that I pretended was really Catalàn, unsure of which language I should choose if anyone answered, a young woman in a white sweater finally poked her head out and asked me in perfect English, “are you Alessandra?” At last! Someone, other than my partner and the Italians we had met an hour prior, I could fully understand and talk to! My stubbornness and frustration gave way to relief at finally being able to communicate coherently. I felt proud that I had been able to get us where we needed to be, using all the romance languages in all the combinations I could conjure.

Hearing our hostess’ English at the end of that long day was a huge relief. The very cute, very modern apartment and the freshly baked chocolate cake we found on the table there were not bad rewards either.

Tube Meats

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I never thought I would need to say the phrase “I don’t eat tube meats because I had a bad experience the last time I ate them,” in French. Random? Certainly. Important? Absolutely. I sat in a warm, breezy, sunny backyard garden face to face with Annick, my host mother, whom I had met less than an hour before, wishing more than anything that I knew how to say that one phrase.

A lot had happened in that hour – I arrived in Tours, gathered my bag from the bus and stood waiting to be paired with a roommate for the homestay. The director of my program, Lucy, took me aside after everyone had been paired off and told me that because of an issue with her visa, my roommate couldn’t make it to France. I must have looked panicked to be alone because she offered to host me herself instead of giving me a host family. No, I thought, I did not travel to France to stay with an American woman.

Annick picked me up about ten minutes later. She zipped up in her very European, very compact car, parking half on the sidewalk of the narrow street—a spot I had not thought existed. Our introductions, facilitated by Lucy, were not as awkward as I had expected. Despite my jetlag, not half-bad French flowed from my mouth as I briefly explained my background. Not off to a bad start, I thought, despite being alone.

In the car, Annick asked me to confirm that I was in fact allergic to eggplant as my information sheet said. She then asked if I had any other dietary restrictions – mainly if I was okay with fish. Yes, I said, I love fish and no, there was nothing else to note that came quickly to my jetlagged, confused and overwhelmed mind.

We arrived at her house; she showed me my bedroom and bathroom and left me to unpack while she fixed our dinner in the kitchen. I found my way downstairs and outside to Annick’s impressively tended garden and took the seat across from the one with a full wine glass. I was not sure of the time. Was it dinnertime? I was more tired than anything, but I figured I should eat.

I was watching one of Annick’s cats play in the flowerbeds as Annick appeared at the door, explaining how happy she was to have an American homestay student. She recalled the nationalities of her past students—I think the tally was five Brits and six other Europeans. I did not know what to say to this so I just smiled. I offered to help carry some plates but she said no, so I just sat at the table as she brought each plate out. The first, pieces of baguette. The second, sliced tomatoes that she explained were from her garden and some lettuce as well. On her third trip, Annick emerged holding a bottle of white wine and a half-drunk glass that I realized was hers as she handed the full one to me. Whoops, I thought, I guess I sat in the wrong place. Everything was feeling very French, very fresh and local, down to the Sancerre that was made less than 100 miles from where we sat.

Some baguette with tomatoes seemed like the perfect dinner for my travel-twisted stomach. She sat down, cut the baguette and handed me a piece that was sliced horizontally as if to make a sandwich. A ringing came from the kitchen and she got up again and returned with a plate holding three…were they hot dogs…oh no. I froze. Whatever it was, it was certainly tube meat. I did not know what to say or do. I took my time lining my baguette with slices of tomatoes so that I could watch what she did. She put one of the tube meats into her baguette, folded it and bit it as if it were a hotdog at Fenway Park. She then looked to me for confirmation that she had done it correctly. An American meal with a French twist, she explained, beaming. I couldn’t tell her. I wondered how inappropriate would it be to explain to this stranger that the last time I ate a hotdog I was in first grade and vomited all over the place and that I hadn’t gone near one since… Here goes nothing, I thought, as I loaded one onto my baguette. No no, she said, there were two for me.

 

A corner of Annick’s garden.

Russia in the Winter Season

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Tatyana (Russian through and through,
Herself not certain of the reason)
Loved that cold perfection too,
Loved Russia in the winter season

I messed up reciting, in Russian, the second line of this excerpt from Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin in sixth grade. My tutor looked at me sternly through her wire-rimmed glasses and said, “In Russia, every truck driver can recite it!” My only excuse for such obvious incompetence is that I left Russia when I was seven.

Since immigrating to the US, I’ve often been asked, “Oh, you’re Russian? Do you miss home?” I’ve never known what to answer. Mostly because I am not quite “Russian through and through.” Yes, I was born in Russia and I have the birth certificate to prove it. But if you look closely, the ethnicity section of my birth certificate says “Jewish,” not Russian. Jews in Russia have always been considered foreigners, so my family’s relationship with Russia has always been somewhat complicated.

Strangely, an utter lack of identification with Russia didn’t prevent my parents from hiring a Russian tutor and making me read Eugene Onegin when I was twelve, attending an average American public middle school. As a result, when I imagined a visit to Russia, I pictured beautiful women in ball gowns, with suitors dueling for their honor. More recently, while packing for Russia, drunk armed soldiers eating piroshki and Putin riding on a bear also came to mind.

What I wanted most out of my trip was to see Russia outside of literature and the American press. I was curious to see whether I could fit in. Naturally, my family was not pleased when I decided to visit the country they had made such a great effort to leave.

“Don’t smile on the street! Don’t laugh! Don’t take your phone out! Don’t leave your passport in the hotel! Don’t talk to strangers! If you get arrested…”

“I won’t get arrested!”

“If you get arrested, deny all charges!”

“Ok… I get the p…”

“We’ll miss you! … And don’t keep money in your outer pockets!”

Thus did my parents prepare me for a three-week college course in Moscow. With money and documents stashed in several different suitcases and with only fear in my outer pockets, I set off on my journey.

I spent my free time after classes trying to blend in with the crowds. What my parents told me about not smiling in public turned out to be useful advice. In Russia, a perfect “resting bitch face” must be worn at all times. This does not, however, mean that people are cold and unfeeling. They are simply more honest in expressing their emotions. If a Russian smiles or asks, “How are you?”, they genuinely do want to hear all about how you almost got frostbite on the way to the metro and how your mother has started spring cleaning two months early. Even though I’ve been back in the US for a week, I’m still having a hard time forming a perfect mandatory half smile when I pass people in the dining hall.

Though Russians can seem cold and unfeeling, it’s a facade. What is truly cold and unfeeling is the Russian winter, a source of great national pride. It has been a decisive factor in several military victories, such as the defeat of Napoleon when his troops almost froze to death and were forced to retreat. In frigid weather, Americans tend to stay at home. In Russia everyone is out ice skating, going to the theater, taking walks, and eating ice cream.

On one frigid, windy day, I attempted to go to one of Moscow’s many art museums. As I discovered later, the line outside made the news that day, because those eager art connoisseurs who didn’t pass out from the cold and leave in ambulances managed to break the museum doors in, and many rushed to warm their toes in hot water in the bathroom. I gave up after half an hour in this line, while the group of elderly women around me persevered. Clearly, I was not Russian enough.

Instead, feeling a little defeated, with three pairs of socks on my feet and two sweaters under my coat, I went to an outdoor flea market. I meandered dejectedly through rows of painted Putin matreshkas, Soviet propaganda posters, and fur coats. In a far corner of the market, several rows past the tourists, I spotted the perfect set of hand-painted wooden figures and started to bargain down the price. In my frustration with my inability to fit in, I hadn’t realized that I’d spent most of the day outside, in the coldest weather I’d ever experienced, and navigated my way around the metro without a map. Without really noticing it, I had somehow adopted a flawlessly Russian demeanor, a clashing mix of indifference and fervor: Russian through and through.

On my next trip to Russia, and I’m sure there will be one, I will not be so worried about my identity. I will bring my nicest boots, put on a dispassionate face, and may even be willing to give up my toes for art.

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Braving the cold

English Required – German a Plus

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 “Good morning Berlin; you can be so ugly, so dirty and grey.” The song pumped through my headphones as I sat on the bus and tried to stay awake. “Guten morgen Berlin; du kannst so hässlich sein, so dreckig und grau.“ Ten in the morning on a Sunday is a perfectly reasonable time to schedule an appointment, right? On an average Sunday I might agree; getting from Zehlendorf, a district in southwest Berlin, to Friedrichshain, a district in the east, should take no more than an hour. But Germany was in the midst of yet another Deutsche Bahn strike, which left the buses and trams the only available modes of transit. Great. Now that hour-long trip was going to last two.

Seven a.m. in Germany in mid-February is by any definition awful, but I desperately needed to make that appointment. Since September I had been living in a student apartment in Zehlendorf. It was barely in Berlin (I could have easily walked to the next city over) and I had to share a kitchen and bathroom with five other students. However at 230€ a month the rent was unbeatable, and the building was nicely situated amongst the small garden plots dotting the city outskirts. I had no plans to move until my return to the US in August. Of course that would have been far too simple, and directly before the December holiday everyone living in the building received an email; our contracts couldn’t be renewed for the next semester, and we would all have to vacate the building by the end of February. I was terrified. I had barely learned to cook.

So to the Internet I went, specifically to wg-gesucht, a house-hunting website that’s essentially a German Craigslist. I didn’t think that speaking German in Berlin would be a plus at all; I thought that it would simply be an expectation. Oddly enough the opposite is true. Thanks to its reputation as both a party city and startup hotspot Berlin attracts thousands of young EU citizens. The tech startups, since they recruit talent from all over the world, use English as the language of business. That combined with endless groups of partiers from the UK (a London-Berlin round-trip flight can cost just $35) has created a dual society in the city. Germans who work in tourism or are university graduates can move between both groups with ease but average German shop owners or plumbers now can’t communicate with many of their customers. Berlin is now a city where job advertisements for baristas or bartenders read “English required – German a plus.”

I quickly learned that the rental market in Berlin is brutal. I sent out about two hundred inquiries. I received four responses. One was an instant no. The last three were willing to grant me viewings, more or less group interviews with everyone trying to outdo the other applicants. Two of these didn’t pan out. As I rode the bus to the last one the only thing I could think about was the threat of not having anywhere to live in two weeks. I was running out of time. So after two hours of travel and five flights of stairs I arrived at my last appointment feeling desperate. The landlord met me at the door; when I introduced myself in German his face lit up as he chatted rapidly with me, but switched to slow and broken English when speaking with the other applicants. I thought little of his relief at first. He had agreed to rent me a room in the apartment! I finally had a place to live!

Speaking German, as it turned out, is what got me the room and made life in Berlin much easier. When the water meters in the apartment had to be replaced, my new non-German roommates couldn’t communicate with the guy from the water company, but I could. I could understand conversations that happened in cafes and on traincars. I could understand when the man leading tours of a former Stasi center spoke of his own experiences being imprisoned. The Berlin I got to know wasn’t the Berlin of nightclubs and hipsters. I got to experience a different city, where the water guy cracks jokes about socialist plumbing, where the elderly woman selling the best Apfeltaschen around has lived under three different governments. It wasn’t the Berlin of movies and music videos; it was the Berlin of Berliners.

Petersburger Straße - just around the corner from my apartment
Petersburger Straße – just around the corner from my apartment
Karl-Marx-Allee - The big main avenue in East Berlin
Karl-Marx-Allee – The big main avenue in East Berlin (the TV tower is in the background)

The Breathtaking Island

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I stepped off the plane in Ponta Delgada just as green as the magnificent island around me. I had come for adventure and experience, to live the life of a pre-med student abroad, shadowing doctors in a hospital in the Azores. In the weeks prior to arriving, I was savoring the vision I had conjured in my head. I had just finished my second semester of accelerated Portuguese and was ready to speak with the staff I was scheduled to follow. On top of that, I would be staying on the beautiful island of São Miguel, largest of the nine islands in the archipelago. I was the youngest of my fellowship group and despite my enthusiasm; I still had much to learn. I was there to learn from the medical professionals, but in the end the greatest lessons I learned came from outside the hospital.

The program ensured we were getting the most of our experience by taking us on excursions, not only to see the incredible views, but to also immerse ourselves in the local culture. We went on daytrips to every part of São Miguel. Each beach had its own geological signature: large black volcanic rocks, fine black powder, large gray stones, red rich earth, and yellow-white sand. We ventured up to the highest peak in São Miguel in our vehicle, and walked over to the cellular tower. At this altitude, I could look down and see the blue hydrangeas dividing properties and outlining roadways. I could see the Azorean cows eating the green grass and the rooftops of the cities. I could hear the birds rustling in the thickets around me. I took a deep breath as I took in the surroundings and cough cough. I inhaled a cloud of smoke. Cigarette smoke. It wafts across the entire island. The economy of São Miguel is sustained by eco-tourism, and its inhabitants’ favorite pastime, next to enjoying the scenery, is having a smoke.

No two places we visited looked the same, but no matter where we trekked, the smell lingered. In fact, the smoking culture is so prevalent that the modern hospital in Ponta Delgada, home to several hyperbaric chambers and helicopter-units, and prepared for deep sea and cliff diving accidents, has smoking corridors. The fountains in church courtyards are wet ashtrays. The beautiful forests, lakes, beaches, gardens, footpaths, all smell like something gray.

I had been programmed to be disgusted. No aspiring medical professional in 2014 thinks that cigarettes are good for one’s health. Regardless of career trajectory, most adults in the United States do not like being confronted with the smell of cigarettes. Cigarette smoking has significantly decreased, and its presence in pop culture no longer has that sexy, cool appeal; rather it triggers instant revulsion. How could I love this place and its people if it smells of ash?

My student group had been brought to a particular plaza to watch a local parade that celebrated the island’s heritage. Our tour guide pointed out the best spot along the main road with his yellow-stained fingers. The floats were made by hand; people decorated the backs of their trucks with small scenes illustrating the local color: the fishing industry, tea production, and agriculture. Herds of regally dressed oxen passed us as we sat on the curb. A flatbed truck was converted into a bar and pulled in front of our spot. A dozen nozzles connected to a tap dispensed Azorean beer into clear plastic cups and traditionally dressed men distributed the beer among the spectators. Dancing girls with baskets of sweet bread waltzed by, followed closely by their mothers pouring wine. The food and drink were exceptional. I could feel the locals’ island pride from start to finish.

I had come to São Miguel with an idyllic image of my summer, a balance of adventure in an unspoiled paradise and the academic recognition of an internship. I had framed a picture in my head based on what I had seen online; only to be turned off by the sense I did not see coming, smell. There was so much more though, than just smell. When I opened my assessment to a holistic perspective, taking in all of my sensory input, the locals were generous and loving, proud of their home and their accomplishments. The parade showed me I should pay no attention to what my nose told me, but to open my eyes to the people who lived there and their culture.

 

*Edited Version: 2/29/16

Where Milbank Turns into Whitehall

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London 032

Straight up Milbank until it turns into Whitehall. Pass Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, and then continue right on to Trafalgar Square. I repeated the directions under my breath a few more times before closing the student travel guide I had bought four years earlier when I dreamt of traveling this independently. Straight up Milbank until it turns into Whitehall—I memorized the directions in parts as I moved from one sight to another, hoping to get as far as the National Gallery and British Museum. Straight up Milbank until it turns into—Or not.

As Milbank turned into Whitehall, I came face to face with several police officers directing crowds of tourists around barricades to surrounding streets or narrow stretches of sidewalk. I had heard on the news while leaving my friend’s dorm that morning that Britain had just elected a new Prime Minister. So, as I wound my way around the maze of barricades, I assumed they were there because the PM was about to arrive at 10 Downing Street. Excited to see a bit of British government, a distant idea from high school history classes turned physical reality here in the heart of London, I parked myself between a few reporters and their camera crews and some students who looked just as curious as I surely did. Since I was alone and eager to make new acquaintances, I introduced myself to the other students and we each offered our best guesses at what might be happening—was the Prime Minister coming, would we see the Queen? Luckily, a real Londoner overheard our wild speculations and explained that there was about to be a parade in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of VE Day.

Well that certainly had not crossed my mind. The search results that my memory displayed when I thought “VE Day” included photographs of couples kissing in Times Square. As far as World War II related anniversaries went, Pearl Harbor Day was the closest my American brain could come to understanding what VE Day meant. If I pushed beyond the memory of World War II, I could imagine memorials in honor of 9/11 or Independence Day celebrations, but no kind of recent recognition of a war finally won.

And so, I clung to the barriers as Londoners and tourists crowded together—my plans for the day completely forgotten. As the Royal Guard marched in, I balanced on my toes to take in the scene. Two tall men to my right pointed out members of the royal family and the reporter in front of me announced the arriving members of government. At last, the mass of strangers broke out in a round of applause as World War II veterans joined the scene. Small British flags and parade programs were passed around, and I gladly accepted both—knowing that no one would recognize me to remind me of my own nationality, and wanting very much to look like a Brit in the midst of so much national pride.

Joining in the national anthem, I imagined myself a European of the 1940s—or at least the grandchild of one. I listened in awe as Winston Churchill’s grandson read an excerpt of his grandfather’s original victory speech, and watched as members of the royal family—descendants of the people who had led their country through that dark patch of history—laid wreaths of remembrance. Though they spoke my language, there was something just different enough about these people. A bus had nearly run over my toes earlier that day when I looked the wrong way while crossing the street, and I quickly learned that if I wanted to comprehend what England meant for the English or what World War II meant to Europe, I needed to look right and then left, pretend that Randolph Churchill was just another countryman, suspend my own identity, and wave a flag that was not my own.

Taking in the people around me, I noticed a solitary man a few rows behind me holding a handwritten sign that read, Thank you heroes of WW2 who defeated Nazism. At first glance, his sign reminded me of the pick-up trucks back home that sported yellow “God bless our troops” bumper stickers. But, remembering where I was, I realized that he had probably lived through the Blitz, had maybe even survived a concentration camp or fought in the war himself. Nazis weren’t villains from The Sound of Music here, but actual men who dropped bombs on English homes. As the national anthem came to a close, an elderly couple in the crowd called out to him, thanking him for holding up the sign. The man nodded humbly. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them. If only for just that moment, where Milbank turns into Whitehall, I gave myself over to a different culture and shared in its solidarity.