Somehow I have lived here for four months without picking up a hint that Christmas Eve is the big family day here. Everything closes down at 2:00, even the Christmas markets (open again Christmas afternoon) and the big retailers (not open again Christmas afternoon). (Imagine Nordstrom or K-Mart missing an extra 10 hours of sales!) Since I had been hoping to make plans to go out for at least one holiday dinner with a friend, I hadn't thought about meals much. But my friend ditched me for the flu and I realized that if I didn't want to eat tuna on Skorpa crackers for Christmas dinner I'd better go to the store. I was lucky to get there before they closed, although the in-house bakery had already shut down. Just as well.
Then the bigger "what now" issues arose - what WOULD I do with the rest of Christmas Eve? What WOULD I do on Christmas Day? Being alone in Berlin was never part of my plan, no, no, no. I was either going to be alone in Crete or Mallorca, where it wouldn't even feel like Christmas, or be amused with a friend here. This had the makings of a major Christmas Fail and I was getting more than a little grumpy at this new scenario. I needed to turn this fiasco into a project.
I went into town on a quick errand before things shut down and while I was there decided I needed a nice candle for the apartment, to cheer me up and add a little holiday touch. Browsing the Christmas market for the right one, I realized this was exactly the project I needed for Christmas Eve, to be Santa for myself since I didn't have the usual Santa-ing for my daughters to do and nobody else was going to be Santa for me. I'd forgotten to rent a video when I went food shopping so I ducked into my favorite large department store to see what they had for sale that Santa could bring home. Aha! First season of 30 Rock! Perfect! Oh, but wait, there's the 12th season of South Park. Better have both. This could be a long week until Hannah gets home again. And getting to the videos, the toys and games section caught my eye and I had another revelation - what I really needed was a good jigsaw puzzle. Yes! Now Santa is in full swing! Christmas Eve with pork tenderloin and Tina Fey, Christmas Day putting together a map of Berlin with Eric Cartman. And let's not forget the sugared nuts from the Christmas market; they're only available for another few days. And a marzipan Santa. Just a little something for my stocking. Except that I don't have a stocking here and had to use my hat.
Got home fully laden, as a good Santa should, and took Maggie for her Christmas Eve walk, which somewhat deflated my spirits as none of my regular dog-park friends were there, and the group of my nodding acquaintances were all drinking hot toddies together out of a thermos, telling their German jokes, laughing their German laughs, breathing their alcohol-spiked breath into the air. I felt - and was - completely left out. Not that I wanted a drink, I wouldn't have accepted even if one had been offered; but a friendly greeting would have been nice. So home we came, greetingless, and a little sad. Well, VERY sad, to tell the truth. But I did have a nice dinner and then a fun Skype chat with Hannah, then some 30 Rock before bed. And I had a plan for Chrismas Day.
I discovered that in fact the museums here ARE open on Christmas and so I decided that for my Christmas project I would go to the Bode Museum, which has a luscious collection of medieval and Gothic art, and photograph as many Baby Jesus statues as I could find. Seemed in keeping with the theme of the day, somehow. So, after spending the morning doing laundry, mopping my floor and cleaning up the dog yard (snow's all gone now...), I went off with my camera and came home three hours later with 122 pictures. Not all of them are the Baby Jesus, mind you; I got a nice one of St. Vitus in his cauldron and one of a head of St. John the Baptist on a plate, a few baby-free Virgins, and some of the mourning Mary 33 years later. I got sidetracked by the notion of Mythic Motherhood and got very annoyed that the wise men (hah!) hadn't thought to bring bath salts, a good moisturizer, and a nice new bathrobe for the new mother. Wise women would have known.
And now I have done it. I have survived Christmas alone, with my faithful dog Maggie, bless her large canine heart. And thanks to the ever-to-be-praised developer of Skype I was able to have video chats with my daughters and both brothers this evening - in Seattle, Indianapolis, and Mexico. I said on my FaceBook page today that having Christmas alone is something either nobody should have to do or everybody should have to, at least once. Like chemotherapy, I hope never to have to do it again, but if I do at least I'll be experienced at it. And now it's time for some more 30 Rock.
Friday, December 25, 2009
A Christmas Tea
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to an 'Adventstee' by a new acquaintance, my so-called Tandem partner who helps me with my German while I help her with her English only we never end up speaking English and it's beginning to dawn on me how little I understand of her help with my German. As Hannah says, Birgit doesn't dumb it down for me. But she's fun and I have enjoyed the couple of outings we have had together. She has three grown daughters and was excited to have me to tea at her home. For my part, I am always intrigued, especially in Europe, to see the insides of others' apartments and what they serve for food.
The tea was set for a Sunday afternoon at 3:30, the day Hannah flew back to Seattle for her 3-week Christmas trip, and a good day for me to have an entertainment planned. It required a tram ride and probably about 20 minutes by subway, so I allowed an hour travel time. First misstep was leaving my apartment 10 minutes late, probably looking for my lipstick. This caused me to just miss the tram and have to wait another 10 minutes for the next one. Got to the subway station, a conglomeration of two separate lines, the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, which don't necessarily go in the same directions, and just missed the U-Bahn train I wanted. I had to wait another 10 minutes for the next one. Once on the train, I realized it had been an S-Bahn train I needed. Fortunately there was another stop coming up where the two lines again converged; however, I managed to miss that S-Bahn train by about 5 seconds while trying to determine if this was the one headed in my direction. Waited another 10 minutes for the next one and THEN had my 20-minute subway ride. I decided that tears really wouldn't help.
By now, of course, I was trying to reach my friend by phone to tell her I was running late but I couldn't connect. At 4:00 I emerged from the subway into the dark, unable to see any street signs. A passer-by kindly directed me to the street I wanted, which was at the intersection with another street of exactly the same name which somewhat confounded me as to which way to turn. At this point my phone rang and it was Birgit wondering what had happened to me. She hadn't had my phone number at home (she usually meets me after work) and had to call her daughter in Frankfurt to get it. My cell couldn't connect with her landline because you have to have an additional prefix for that here, which she had forgotten to give me, and her cell phone was off. The phone system here can be more than a little annoying. And so I arrived.
I was assuming that a daughter or two (English speakers) would be joining us, but nope. It was just Birgit, her introverted husband, and me. I don't think he was too happy that I was a half hour late and I had a hard time explaining what had happened. We spent quite a bit of time examining all the pottery their daughters had made in grade school before Birgit brought out the coffee, which I can't drink at that time of day. I had orange juice instead. Their English isn't much better than my German so conversation was a little jerky, at best, and neither of them seemed inclined to eat which was, oh, just a little awkward, given the poppyseed cake and platter of cookies they kept passing my way. I stayed for what seemed like a polite length of time and then bolted. One more merit badge earned.
I was really glad that I had had the foresight to remember a hostess gift, especially under the circumstances; not that Birgit needed mollifying, but it would have added a layer of boorishness to the all-too-obvious other incompetencies in language and use of train schedules.
The tea was set for a Sunday afternoon at 3:30, the day Hannah flew back to Seattle for her 3-week Christmas trip, and a good day for me to have an entertainment planned. It required a tram ride and probably about 20 minutes by subway, so I allowed an hour travel time. First misstep was leaving my apartment 10 minutes late, probably looking for my lipstick. This caused me to just miss the tram and have to wait another 10 minutes for the next one. Got to the subway station, a conglomeration of two separate lines, the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, which don't necessarily go in the same directions, and just missed the U-Bahn train I wanted. I had to wait another 10 minutes for the next one. Once on the train, I realized it had been an S-Bahn train I needed. Fortunately there was another stop coming up where the two lines again converged; however, I managed to miss that S-Bahn train by about 5 seconds while trying to determine if this was the one headed in my direction. Waited another 10 minutes for the next one and THEN had my 20-minute subway ride. I decided that tears really wouldn't help.
By now, of course, I was trying to reach my friend by phone to tell her I was running late but I couldn't connect. At 4:00 I emerged from the subway into the dark, unable to see any street signs. A passer-by kindly directed me to the street I wanted, which was at the intersection with another street of exactly the same name which somewhat confounded me as to which way to turn. At this point my phone rang and it was Birgit wondering what had happened to me. She hadn't had my phone number at home (she usually meets me after work) and had to call her daughter in Frankfurt to get it. My cell couldn't connect with her landline because you have to have an additional prefix for that here, which she had forgotten to give me, and her cell phone was off. The phone system here can be more than a little annoying. And so I arrived.
I was assuming that a daughter or two (English speakers) would be joining us, but nope. It was just Birgit, her introverted husband, and me. I don't think he was too happy that I was a half hour late and I had a hard time explaining what had happened. We spent quite a bit of time examining all the pottery their daughters had made in grade school before Birgit brought out the coffee, which I can't drink at that time of day. I had orange juice instead. Their English isn't much better than my German so conversation was a little jerky, at best, and neither of them seemed inclined to eat which was, oh, just a little awkward, given the poppyseed cake and platter of cookies they kept passing my way. I stayed for what seemed like a polite length of time and then bolted. One more merit badge earned.
I was really glad that I had had the foresight to remember a hostess gift, especially under the circumstances; not that Birgit needed mollifying, but it would have added a layer of boorishness to the all-too-obvious other incompetencies in language and use of train schedules.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Concert Fail and a Hockey Game
We had a VERY cold week last week, between 7 and 10 degrees most days, with an occasional high of 12. It snowed first so the white has stayed put pretty well until today, when suddenly it has been almost 40 and I don't really need the extra-warm hat and slightly warmer dog-park coat I just bought. There is still a lot of winter to get through, though, so I'm sure I'll get my money's worth by March.
This clearly did not turn out to be the daily disciplined writing I had hoped for, but the days have begun to blend together and move so rapidly it has gotten hard to keep track of what I've done. I have been to a lot of museums: the Pergamon, the Neues Museum, the Altes Museum, the Neue Nationalgalerie, the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Bode, the Guggenheim, the Berlinishe Galerie, the Dali Museum, the Illustrators Forum, the Berggruen, the Bröhan, the Hamburg Banhof, the Kunstgewerbemuseum, some of them multiple times by now. I've also spent a lot of hours at the Volkspark walking Maggie and hanging out at the Hundplatz, getting impromptu German lessons and making acquaintances of dogs and people alike. And then there have been the Christmas markets and concerts I've been attending lately.
The third concert, on Sunday afternoon, was not what I expected. For one thing it wasn't in the Dom itself, but in one of the separate chapels which could have doubled as a meat locker it was so cold. I got a front row seat, but that didn't matter as the choir, the Capella Cantorum Berlin, performed in a loft where nobody could see them. The 300-year-old Italian organ was also in the loft, so nobody could see it either. What I was left looking at were a couple of huge and quite ghastly religious paintings, one of the Pentecost I think, as the altar piece, and one other mumbly composition with lots of rolling eyeballs, gesticulating digits and stiffly floating drapery off to one side. There was a vast quantity of liver-colored marble as well, in the huge columns supporting the ceiling and in the altar itself. Maybe not my favorite stone.
The 17th-century Northern German music would have been lovely if the basic a cappella men's choir had been left alone to do its thing, but someone's misplaced zeal mandated the addition of a boys' choir to the mix. We know that everyone loves the Vienna Choirboys, but these were not they; being shrill and unblended they were a distraction rather than an enhancement. A rather tedious hour, it was, and with nothing else for my visual sense to latch onto besides the paintings, it led me to wish very much for a Pentecostal-like revelation of German as a language I can suddenly speak and understand.
Musical entertainments were punctuated by a hockey game on Friday night, to which I was invited by one of my gracious dog park friends, who is a sports psychologist with the Berlin team. I sat with his parents who were visiting from Frankfurt, his fiancee and a friend of hers, as he, of course, had to sit with the team. There were the usual stadium-pounding loudspeakers spewing rock music before the teams appeared and stupid contests for fans at the intervals, but much less hawking of merchandise and food and very little rambunctious behavior in the stands. One whole end section of the arena is designed just for standing - no seats at all, just rails to lean on. This was filled with the die-hard and well organized fans of the former East German team, who still - and continually - shout out the old cheers to the beat of a couple of drums hammered mercilessly by unrelenting pack leaders. Most of them were dressed in team jerseys, and despite the constant goading by the drums they were very orderly in their enthusiasm. The whole game was surprisingly tame - much more like the college hockey games I've seen, but then the Berlin team - the Eisbären or Polar Bears - is on the first rung of a five-rung league structure and still seem to play by strategy and skill rather than brute force. Not that my take on hockey means a hoot, but hey.
I completed my Christmas music entertainment schedule this evening, back at the Dom for a superb concert by the Rundfunkchor Berlin ( the Berlin Broadcasting Company) - in a very unusual program of newer music, at least mostly 20th-century; a spectacular piece by a young Latvian composer called "Sun Dogs", parts of a Rachmaninoff Vespers liturgy that was as rich and haunting as anything I've heard, a couple of organ solos, ending with the required German carols "Vom Himmel Hoch","Stille Nacht" and "Er ist ein Ros entsprungen", all of which I have heard at the previous concerts in one form or another. And I'm sorry, but nothing can induce me to like organ music.
This clearly did not turn out to be the daily disciplined writing I had hoped for, but the days have begun to blend together and move so rapidly it has gotten hard to keep track of what I've done. I have been to a lot of museums: the Pergamon, the Neues Museum, the Altes Museum, the Neue Nationalgalerie, the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Bode, the Guggenheim, the Berlinishe Galerie, the Dali Museum, the Illustrators Forum, the Berggruen, the Bröhan, the Hamburg Banhof, the Kunstgewerbemuseum, some of them multiple times by now. I've also spent a lot of hours at the Volkspark walking Maggie and hanging out at the Hundplatz, getting impromptu German lessons and making acquaintances of dogs and people alike. And then there have been the Christmas markets and concerts I've been attending lately.
The third concert, on Sunday afternoon, was not what I expected. For one thing it wasn't in the Dom itself, but in one of the separate chapels which could have doubled as a meat locker it was so cold. I got a front row seat, but that didn't matter as the choir, the Capella Cantorum Berlin, performed in a loft where nobody could see them. The 300-year-old Italian organ was also in the loft, so nobody could see it either. What I was left looking at were a couple of huge and quite ghastly religious paintings, one of the Pentecost I think, as the altar piece, and one other mumbly composition with lots of rolling eyeballs, gesticulating digits and stiffly floating drapery off to one side. There was a vast quantity of liver-colored marble as well, in the huge columns supporting the ceiling and in the altar itself. Maybe not my favorite stone.
The 17th-century Northern German music would have been lovely if the basic a cappella men's choir had been left alone to do its thing, but someone's misplaced zeal mandated the addition of a boys' choir to the mix. We know that everyone loves the Vienna Choirboys, but these were not they; being shrill and unblended they were a distraction rather than an enhancement. A rather tedious hour, it was, and with nothing else for my visual sense to latch onto besides the paintings, it led me to wish very much for a Pentecostal-like revelation of German as a language I can suddenly speak and understand.
Musical entertainments were punctuated by a hockey game on Friday night, to which I was invited by one of my gracious dog park friends, who is a sports psychologist with the Berlin team. I sat with his parents who were visiting from Frankfurt, his fiancee and a friend of hers, as he, of course, had to sit with the team. There were the usual stadium-pounding loudspeakers spewing rock music before the teams appeared and stupid contests for fans at the intervals, but much less hawking of merchandise and food and very little rambunctious behavior in the stands. One whole end section of the arena is designed just for standing - no seats at all, just rails to lean on. This was filled with the die-hard and well organized fans of the former East German team, who still - and continually - shout out the old cheers to the beat of a couple of drums hammered mercilessly by unrelenting pack leaders. Most of them were dressed in team jerseys, and despite the constant goading by the drums they were very orderly in their enthusiasm. The whole game was surprisingly tame - much more like the college hockey games I've seen, but then the Berlin team - the Eisbären or Polar Bears - is on the first rung of a five-rung league structure and still seem to play by strategy and skill rather than brute force. Not that my take on hockey means a hoot, but hey.
I completed my Christmas music entertainment schedule this evening, back at the Dom for a superb concert by the Rundfunkchor Berlin ( the Berlin Broadcasting Company) - in a very unusual program of newer music, at least mostly 20th-century; a spectacular piece by a young Latvian composer called "Sun Dogs", parts of a Rachmaninoff Vespers liturgy that was as rich and haunting as anything I've heard, a couple of organ solos, ending with the required German carols "Vom Himmel Hoch","Stille Nacht" and "Er ist ein Ros entsprungen", all of which I have heard at the previous concerts in one form or another. And I'm sorry, but nothing can induce me to like organ music.
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