My second to last week here. This week was punctuated by moments of absolute sorrow at having to leave so soon. Berlin is home now, and I just don’t want to leave. I spent most of this week working on my final papers and trying to get the website up to snuff.
I was annoyed at the sound of something constantly rolling down the street for almost 20 minutes straight. Then I realized it was thunder.
The countdown begins. The final 15 days. I will miss so much about Berlin. Right now, I will miss Deliveroo, the food delivery service. Especially since they are delivering burgers and beer to my house at 11pm. I will miss the fascinating people I meet here. Today I had a beer with the drummer for some big metal band here in Berlin. He works with refugee children and wants to be a social worker someday. I will miss the rumble of the trams, the parks, the food, the birds, the crazy rainstorms, everything. I wish I didn’t have to write my papers now, I want to spend my last few days here just basking in the city and soaking it in for one last time. It’s like my boyfriend is dumping me and I just want one last look at his face before he goes.
Muggy summer midnight in Berlin. Windows are open, sounds of the cafes outside our courtyard and the rumble of the trams. That strange, indescribable smell that this city has, like limes, rhododendrons, and linden flowers. Drinking a radler and working on my paper about the forest. I think this song is now the official soundtrack of this trip for me.
I have been intrigued by the German response to Trump. They all want to talk about him, and they all tell me how funny they think it is with this smirky smile. I keep telling them it’s not funny, and the more I tell them this the harder they laugh. I was confused by this response, how a culture that knows better than anyone the horror of watching the rise of a hate-fueled fascist regime within your own nation could find this at all amusing. Then a guy I met last night at the cafe finally said, “Haha! Everybody likes Germany now! We had Hitler, you get Trump! Haha!”
And then I got it.
Schadenfreude. Germans invented it, after all. German humor is pitch black in the corners.
Touché, Deutschland. Touché.
I have actually met people I hope to keep in touch with. I was texting my friend Jan the Bavarian last night. The language barrier is not too bad, but he insists on speaking in English no matter how hard I try. At one point, things got confusing and we were struggling to figure out what the other one was talking about. (Note that it helps if you can hear this in his deadpan Bavarian accent.)
Jan: I don’t know what to say.
Me: Well then, you say SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS!!!
*long pause. I can feel him pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance*
Jan: I am not Mary Poppings.
Me: No, but you would look good in the hat. See, we have long words in English too! Like “antidisestablishmentarianism”!
Jan: How cute…
Me: …says the completely unimpressed German
Berlin, 7am. I walk across the street with my Rewe grocery bag to the Spätkauf to get some fizzy water and beer because we are out. I decide to go to the bakery on the corner to get some Brötchen for breakfast. The Fernsehturm glitters in the sunny, damp, and hazey morning. The only people on the street are me, some straggling Eurotrash on holiday who are still up, and the cafe owners who are cleaning up bottles from last night’s typical “Saturday night in Mitte” debauching. As I walk past the tram stop I hear someone blaring music. When I realize the song is “Jack and Diane”by John Cougar Mellencamp I almost bust a gut laughing. One of these things is not like the others….