So, I probably only know 5 words in German, but one day I am going to learn it, even though I think it's not the most lovely-sounding language (sorry German friends, but it still sounds very "choppy" to me), it is quite poetic, from how my friends here explain it, and it is also quite logical (e.g. if you want to describe a "picture hanging on the wall" you can just combine the words "wall" and "picture" to say the equivalent of "wall-picture").
I decided not to go to Amsterdam, at least not this time around. I felt like with all the traveling that I was doing, that I wanted to stay rooted in one place a bit longer. I am so grateful to my hosts for letting me stay. It has allowed me to experience Berlin at a more ordinary level. Of course I have still done touristy things in the past week, but I have also done "ordinary" things, like go grocery shopping, go to a modern dance class, and take the U-Bahn and S-Bahn a LOT, sometimes to random neighborhoods just to walk around for a half hour, see what they're like, then hop back on.
A few cool things I've done in the past week (that I might have forgotten to mention in previous posts):
*Went to a lecture by a group of Brazilian film makers/techies/musicians, who are famous across Brazil and in other countries for having mobilized music and art collectives in their home country, especially around issues regarding free speech and uncensored media. My friend told me that even the president of Brazil even consulted them!
*Went on a pub crawl with German friends to a few dive bars, played card games and pool, with beer-bellied old men yelling at soccer matches on the TV screen, and pinball machines glowing neon and blinking in the background, the flags of various soccer teams decorating the walls.
*Sat in a park with a guitar-playing American friend and a pair of Berliner teenagers, who were SO adorable when they expressed their frustrations with their lives, their dislike of capitalism and money, how they wanted to simply be happy and spend time with their friends, live in a society where people help each other out. One of them played a song for us that he had written (in German), about a girl he had fallen in love with.
*Gone to the Mauerberg flea market with a German friend and drank beer at noon (not something I usually do, lol), and got a mad cool pair of tight jeans for 5 euros! (Oh the Jew in me, loves cheap deals.)
*Gotten lost in the cigarette smoke swirling around intellectual conversations in German and English (don't worry Mom, I haven't picked up the habit).
*Gone to the German countryside outside Berlin and eaten white asparagus, which is pretty famous in these parts.
Hmm...I'm trying to think of other things I've done this past week, but I can't remember right now...
I've alternated between states of feeling "lost" and feeling "at home." Without a regular schedule, I have all this freedom, but sometimes I don't know what to do with it, and I find myself longing for a routine, actually being jealous of my German friends with their jobs and their studying (I know, most people would say, "What are you talking about?! Take advantage of this time to do nothing, do everything, daydream, TRAVEL - What do you mean you didn't go to Amsterdam?!"
But still, there is a part of me that wants to dive into grad school already, to be situated, rooted - and I know I will, but now I must take the time to explore, to be open to spontaneity, to meet new folks...and part of me was thinking today, "Gosh, what am I still doing in Berlin? I should be in Amsterdam..."
But then I came back to my host's home, and started chatting with one of their roommates, and then two others came home, and we made tomato soup...and I felt so chill, trying to sip my soup and not eat too messily (like I usually do), while the conversation drifted from the situation of refugees in Berlin to shoplifting escapades as teenagers...
Tomorrow I'm going to another city for a day to visit another friend...and I have to keep reminding myself, I might not be in Amsterdam now, but Amsterdam will always be there (unless global warming gets it first - I hate to be morbid but it might be true)...and THIS is what counts...these people I am meeting, that I am exchanging information and experiences and jokes and dreams with...
Because when I am wandering alone, yes, I do enjoy my solitude sometimes (and I think it is necessary), and I know how to be independent, but travel also makes me realize how much of a neutrino I am...and that I only become an electron in the presence of other homo sapiens...because as a mammalian species, we are naturally social creatures (excepting introverts?)...and I need these bonds, however brief...
Like, when I was in Italy returning to Rome after having been on the Amalfi coast for a few days, not really having talked to anyone over the past few days (except for a few brief encounters), I started chatting with this Canadian girl from Montreal on the train, and we both expressed to each other how we had missed human contact in our own language...she told me she was in line at the grocery store and was telling her life story to one person that spoke English (LOL), and the lady at the checkout counter just wanted her to move along...
So as I move along, I hope I can keep exchanging poetry with people, because (warning: about to get cheesy, folks) we are all pieces of poetry, walking around breathing, crying, yawning, having sex, eating, analyzing, rushing, swimming, being still...and I think it is when we connect that we make stories, a plot line of recognition and emotion...and we affect each other...
And that is how it starts.
(Does that ending sound pretentious? Probably. I don't know where it came from, or what might come after. This post has been totally stream-of-consciousness.)
Guten nacht.
(Probably spelled that wrong.) :-P
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