Out Here On My Own

 Tue Sept 26

Okay, so that title is cheesy.

I’ve had a couple of days mostly to myself while Ezra and Katharina have been at work. Today, I ventured out not so much because I wanted to go anywhere but because I wanted to test myself.

Step 1: Get to the S-Bahn station. Success. I've walked there many times before.

note: Berlin has two metro train systems, the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn. If you put those terms into a translator, you’ll get “train” and “underground,” but the S-Bahn also goes underground and the U-Bahn also goes above ground. The two systems use the same tickets, just different lines, and usually different stations, though they sometimes share a station just like different lines will share a station in cities like Paris. Sometimes the U-Bahn will be the more direct route for where you want to go, or sometimes the S-Bahn. There is also a bus system, if you’d like to see more of the streets along your way. And there are trams in some areas.

Step 2: Purchase a ticket. I looked this up, and it was going to be easy, because the machines are labelled in German and English, according to online instructions. Except that when I got to the machine, there was no English. But hey, I’ve been "studying" German on Duolingo for months, so it was no problem. I knew that vierfahrkarte meant four tickets, which is what I wanted. But I didn’t know the words on the buttons that lit up after I fed my €10 note to the machine, so I stared motionless rather than make a mistake and, you know, summon the S-Bahn police. After a few moments, when I figured I’d just donated €10 to the train gods, it spat my note back at me. When I started again, somehow things made sense. I got my four tickets, validated one of them, hopped the next train. So, success!

note: I have learned that you can’t expect to learn a language from Duolingo. This doesn’t come as a surprise, since it's really just a glorified video game where you level up, like any video game. I had realized long ago that fluency only comes to someone living in the language and the culture. But man, I didn’t know it would be this bad. The other day a friend of Katharina’s asked me a question, not realizing I was a Canadian kein-Deutsche, and not only did I not understand a word, I wasn’t sure she was even speaking German! Today, alone in the grocery store, a few words came through for me, though, just like “vierfahrkarte” at the S-Bahn station.

Step 3: Step out at the Brandenburg Gate and try to summon up the awe I felt the first time I saw it. Unsuccessful. Too many tourists, and none of the demonstrations that tend to colour the square.

Step 4: Walk to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, to sink into that history for a bit. Fairly successful. It’s an impressive monument, and you can’t help but be moved, despite the tourists.

Step 5 & 6: Stroll in a loop that might be interesting, and back to the same station I’d come up from. Take the S-Bahn back home, in the right direction, getting off at the right stop. First part. not so successful — I made the loop, but it wasn’t interesting. Second part, ooh I could become a pro at this! Success!

Step 7: Pick up a few things in the supermarket. Success! I like that I know my way around the neighbourhood and can do ordinary things just like ordinary people going about their lives.

Today Berlin, as always, offers up a special blend of grandeur and grunge. Some photos will illustrate. But what I noticed on my walk today that wasn’t the case on previous visits is the ever-presence of cellphones. More than half the people walking in the historic core were glued to them. This is not true in the Schoneberg neighbourhood I’m staying in, where people are hustling about their business. 

Right in our neighbourhood, a small monument listing Nazi concentration camps

Some old woman photo-bombed my shot of the Brandenburger Tor

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Everything is intentionally akimbo in the memorial -- the paths, the stelae. 

You are being watched. Feels a bit Stazi

There are several rentable systems of bikes and scooters, and no stations for dropping them. Pick up anywhere, drop anywhere.

The Ampelmann, a holdover from East Germany. After the wall fell, the city began replacing them with Euro-man, the kind you see elsewhere, but there were protests, so the Ampelmann lives on

Graffiti on every surface, everywhere

And lots of bikes