One year ago today, we landed in Berlin with 4 suitcases, 2 backpacks, 1 visa, and nowhere to live. Our first night in the city, we got dinner at a beer hall down the street from our hotel. We ordered half liters of beer, pretzels, a cheese plate, and Weißwurst (white sausage). I later learned that Weißwurst is a typical Bavarian breakfast food — no wonder the server gave me a weird look for ordering it at 8pm. What’s changed in the last year? Well, we don’t make as many faux pas when eating German food. As our friend, Ramona, puts it: going to a Bavarian restaurant on your first…
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“Maybe We’ll Spend Christmas in Berlin”
Before E was even offered the job that brought us to Berlin, my mom and I started daydreaming about it. 2018 had just begun and I was experiencing some new year’s melancholy, and my mom commented, “maybe next year we’ll spend Christmas in Berlin!” It was a nice daydream, and I told her not to jinx it. She didn’t. Obviously. But it still felt kind of amazing when the holidays rolled around and we were actually here in Berlin. My mom came to visit for three weeks — starting in mid-December and staying through the New Year. And my brother and his partner arrived two days after Christmas and stayed…
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An Ode to Peanut Butter
At first I thought it was just one badly-branded jar of peanut butter. It was rife with US stereotypes. The Statue of Liberty, an anthropomorphized peanut wearing a cowboy hat, and a color scheme reminiscent of the American flag covered all but a few inches of space. Most damningly, the brand name was “McEnnedy.” I thought it was such a bizarre mash-up of American-sounding name conventions. It reminded me of “Häagen Dazs,” the ice cream brand whose nonsense name is meant to sound Danish, but is a decidedly American invention. Of course, E and I bought a jar of McEnnedy brand peanut butter and ate it all. It tasted… fine.…
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To Make “Local” Friends or “Expat” Friends, That is the Question
People tend to want to make local friends when they live abroad. Spending time only with people you could have met at home creates this bizarre sense of failure. I remember it from when I studied abroad in Barcelona – I hung out mostly with the other Americans in my program, but it was a point of pride for me when I spent Halloween teaching a couple of Catalan women how to play Kings. That was my go-to I-hung-out-with-the-locals anecdote. It was a fun evening and it makes a pretty good soundbite. But “I want to hang out with locals” is kind of an odd, potentially tokenizing way to look…
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Righteous Fury: Thoughts on Politics and Religion
I joined a church in Berlin. I’ve only been three times, but my most recent visit disappointed me. In particular, the sermon, which is usually my favorite part of church, disappointed me. I like sermons because I’ve always found the way preachers contextualize the Bible more interesting than the Bible itself. Growing up my priest was very conversational. She preached without notes and didn’t stand behind a pulpit. She was a good storyteller and shared anecdotes from her life that illustrated the same themes and morals as the week’s readings. A conservative friend of mine came to church with me once and told me afterwards that my priest was not…
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Visiting Home in New England and Returning Home to Berlin
Two weeks ago we were in the United States. It was our first trip home since moving to Berlin 6 months ago. And, surprising no one, I fretted over it quite a bit. My concerns included but were not limited to the following questions: Would it feel weird to be home? Would New England even still feel like home? Would I be sad to come back to Berlin? So as not to bury the lead, the answers to those questions are: A little Yes and no Nah Oh, you’re still reading? I suppose I can go into more detail. JK, you knew I was going to write about my feelings…
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A Whirlwind Summer in Berlin
It’s officially fall, which means it’s time to reflect on summer. Doesn’t everyone do an end of the season reflection and make a short video of what they’ve been up to? Just me? Okay, well… A lot happened during our first summer in Berlin! Our friends Eben and Laura came to visit! It was their first trip to Europe and they were here for 4 weeks using Berlin as a home base. We did a lot of sightseeing around Berlin with them and with our friend, Ramona. Ramona also took us on a day trip to Dresden. And camping on the Ostsee (the Baltic Sea)! We spent a lot of…
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Berlin, Revisited
As you (probably) know, I did a lot of traveling around Europe 6 years ago. Gosh, it pains me to realize that trip was 6 years ago. This feeling is only going to get worse as I get older, isn’t it? Sometimes when I travel, I have to assume I’ll be back again someday. Otherwise I drive myself mad trying to fit in as many experiences as possible and lamenting all the things I don’t have time for. Three years ago, E and I took a vacation to Barcelona and a couple days into the trip, I was in tears because I realized there wasn’t time to show him everything…
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Let’s talk about depression and bicycles
I was biking home from the doctor’s office yesterday when I heard church bells loud and clear in an otherwise secular neighborhood full of restaurants and bars. I turned a corner and saw the church. It was a cathedral with a small courtyard containing a statue and two tall stone bell towers. As I pedaled past, I saw a child, no more than six, back to the street, staring up at the church, entranced. The adult standing beside them waited nonchalantly, eyes on the cell phone in their hands. I continued down the street and a small dog with auburn and white fur and a curled tail turned from the storefront…
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What makes a new city feel like home?
A couple of weeks ago, I said to E, “I don’t miss Boston, not exactly, but I do miss knowing a place well.” It was a weekend evening and we were trying to figure out what to do with ourselves. I ended up saying, “what I really want to do is go to Aeronaut.” Aeronaut is a brewery in Somerville, MA that was a 5-minute walk from our old apartment. Their beer is good, but that’s not what I was missing. What I was missing was knowing where to go. There are plenty of breweries in Berlin, but we don’t have “our place” yet. I had a level of familiarity…
