Kreuzberg Girl's Open Salon Blog

Loving, losing and re-finding the Green Party

Wed, 27 May 2009 14:05:04 -0400

Betrayal:

Election day, May 26th 2007:

I have returned home from Berlin, Germany(the city where I live) to Dublin, Ireland, the city where I was born specifically to vote in the Irish parliamentary elections. What I am doing is not legal and my parents have even colluded in it – in Ireland only citizens who permanently reside in the state are allowed to vote. My mother graciously lied to the electoral commission when they called at our door wondering if the 5 people on the register still lived there, as did the parents of most of my scattered friends, who left Ireland to go to countries all over Europe, who have returned for this one event.

And most of us know exactly why we’re here. For the most part, we’ve returned to ensure that the moribund party of government is thrown out, the permanent government of Ireland, the Fianna Fail party. I hear the arguments of permanent residents of Ireland that Fianna Fail have done a great job in creating a boom and economic stability and argue with all the conviction I can muster that they did no such thing, that the first portion of the boom was due to factors largely outside of Fianna Fails control and that since then they have been pumping the economy when the should be calming it. But knowing that there is no convincing will ever really be effective, I simply do the most effective thing I can think of and go out the next day and give my first preference vote to my local Green Party representative, Eamon Ryan.

The next day, my father, a life long politically active member of Fianna Fail takes me along to the count centre in the RDS exhibition centre in Dublin 4. He has been observing counts and doing party estimates since before I was born and everyone knows. He introduces me, and notes in a half-joking, half-apologetic manner that I am a very committed Green Party supporter and have been since long before I could even vote. A few minutes later as I am gazing into space the one and only Eamon Ryan sweeps by. He is tall and dark and surprisingly dashing in person.

The Greens do triumph, getting their best results yet and I cheer with friends as we watch the results come in. Later, though, it becomes apparent that neither of the pre-negotiated coalition blocs have enough representatives to be elected to government and that some other unlikely government will have to be formed. Before I even leave there is talk of the Green Party going into government with Fianna Fail. Negotiations follow, and my father rings to tease me through every step of the process….’wouldn’t you know it’ he says ‘we’re going into government together’….
The decision to go into government with this corrupt right wing party rips the Irish Green Party apart. The leader resigns, a nasty split in the party emerges and it is clear that many people see the act of going into government with Fianna Fail as tantamount with going into government with the devil.

April 2009:

Despite my hopes to the contrary the Irish green party has underwhelmed in government. It is not specifically that they are doing anything wrong – every now and then I tune in and hear Eamon Ryan, who is now Minister for Energy talk about windmills. For me it is the fact that they have done so little besides the obvious practical things that needed to be done. They important social and moral force that fuelled the party and drew me to it is lost. There has been no attempt to rid the country of the arcane social legislation and constitutional provisions that govern it. The country slopes downhill, and important Green Party members defend the party that created it, their coalition partners Fianna Fail. It is impossible for me to feel anything other than betrayal. And the next time I hear a Green minister on the radio I find myself compelled to just switch it off….

Rejection

A letter comes from the Borough Electoral Office in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in Berlin inviting me to register to vote in the European Parliament elections on the 7th of June 2009. The letter explains that I may vote in either my own home country or in Germany and directs me to the form. The German electoral authorities, being German, ask me to list the constituency I vote in at home to ensure that I am removed from the electoral register there and do not vote twice. I giggle first at this classic example of German to-the-t bureaucracy, reflecting that I voted in England last European Elections without so much as listing an Irish address. Then the more far-reaching consequences hit me. Won’t informing the electoral authorities in Ireland that I am not resident there result in me being struck off the register for all elections? Will this mean I will never vote in another national election again? Somehow, it no longer matters to me. The Green party betrayed me, I reason, I will never be able to vote for them again with the same pure and hopeful heart I once had. It doesn’t matter if I can never vote in Ireland again. There is no-one left to vote for.

The European election campaign warms up, and posters start appearing all over the city. At Alexanderplatz, waiting for a tram I find myself looking into the kind face of Lothar Bisky, the top candidate for ‘Die Linke’, the most traditionally left wing socialist party there is in Germany. I met him once, and he seemed like a nice man, but that is no reason to vote for a party and I have never been a traditional left wing voter anyway. I have always been green. I find myself squirming in front of Green Party posters, only half aware of why I am squirming, only half questioning my squirm. And then it is through the miracle of Facebook and a conversation with a likeminded friend that it all becomes clear. Where once we shared our joy at the success of the Irish Green Party, now we share our disappointment and disgust. What am I doing now? Am I really intending to punish the entire European Green Party for the actions of its disappointing Irish arm? I pledge to myself that Sunday morning to at least give German Green Party a chance, and head out into the morning sun to yoga. On my way back I find myself sitting in a neighbourhood café reading a newspaper and eating muesli when a small green advert jumps out of the page at me and bounces around. It is advertising a Green Party organised podium discussion on the subject ‘Wie weit reicht Europa’(‘How far does Europe reach’ or ‘How wide is Europe’). And most importantly, the current leader of the German Green Party, Cem Özdemir, will be there. This, I think to myself, is an opportunity I cannot resist. I note down the details and resolve to plan the following day with this event in mind. Pay heed dear greens, for this is your last chance.

The Second Chance.

It is 6.45 when I get on the train at Kotbusser Tor, and I am running a fraction late. I purchase a ticket that is valid for three stops, not the full four that I need to get to my ultimate destination, Café Rix in Karl Marx Straße. Karl-Marx Straße, one of the main thoroughfares in North Neukölln, and area that has been settled by Turkish, Arabic and other immigrant families and so the storefronts are all takeways and cheap clothing stores. At one such store I stop to look at a bag – it is cheap, shiny and tacky, but also strangely appealing. Onwards, onwards, I coax myself, passing the beautiful building that houses the Neues Off cinema. Café Rix is similar in many ways. The complex itself dates from the so called ‘Gründerzeit’, in the second half of the 19th century, and walking into the courtyard an elegance not found in many other places is apparent. I walk past the folk enjoying an evening class of beer or wine into the café proper and find a seat. Before this I spent an hour and a half at my neighbourhood open air swimming pool – somewhat longer that I had intended. My bedraggled hair is only partially dry, I am still in my little red sundress, I am tired, hungry and thirsty. Knowing I cannot afford to buy any kind of substantial food here, I content myself with a small glass of mineral water and the no-doubt stimulating discussion that is to come.

Some time after 7pm the discussers enter the room. They include Cem of course, some guy from the CDU as well as two ladies, one who is blonde and does all of the introducing and another lady, intent, older, who gives the impression of having some kind of strength of character. Someone here is apparently responsible for youth in some respect, but I cannot for the life of me figure out who that could be; nobody here looks a day under 40. The CDU, or Christian Democratic Union are Angela Merkel’s centre right party. On the German political colour spectrum they are always represented as black, a decision that always perplexed me. Right wing(from the left perspective) is traditionally side of evil and black the colour of evil. Did they choose black intentionally? Does it have some other significance other than evil? Or do the CDU just have a really good sense of humour? Whatever, I have failed to catch CDU man’s name and so in honour of his party’s colour have nicknamed him the ‘Prince of Darkness’ in my head. After the introductions are complete it is the prince that talks first…

19.15
The Prince is talking about Turkey. Not just talking, he is veritably heaping praise on Turkey. They really have the most awesome government ever and their leader is the best leader since Atatürk. Better than Atatürk even…but they don’t really need to join the EU. How about a privileged partnership? Any takers for a privileged partnership? No?

19.25
Cem is talking. He’s been talking passionately about why Turkey needs the EU. He’s even quoted Atatürk in Turkish too antiquated for most to understand. I am distracted and thinking about dinner. I’m sure there must be somewhere I can get a good falafel in the neighbourhood. After all, if you can’t get a good falafel in Karl-Marx-Straße where can you.

19.30

Cem is near impossible to photograph. After taking a couple of cell phone photos sitting down, I stand up to try and catch the panel in their entirety in one photo. But Cem swivels his head so much that each time I photograph him he is looking away. Ultimately I give up and retake my seat.

19.40

I still have not decided what I want for dinner and the debate about privileged partnerships is still raging. Cem has at some point alluded to the fact that the EU screwed up the integration process in Romania and Bulgaria, and someone, I think the Prince of Darkness, has argued that it does not matter whether Turkey becomes a privileged partner with trade benefits but without full social benefits or a full EU member with the full social and economic benefits that entails. Whichever option is chosen it will have little impact on the lives of people in this neighbourhood.

Ha! That is just what he thinks! Wait until he realises that the citizens of EU countries that allow Germans to become dual citizens can get dual citizenship of Germany and their home country if they jump through the correct hoops. I remember the horror on the CDU faces of some people I once worked with when I told them that I was not only entitled to dual citizenship of Germany and Ireland but that I fully intended to take it up when the time came. And I’m from a nice EU country. Whatever will happen when the citizens of nasty EU countries are given German passports and set loose! The end is near!!! Run and hide!!

I refrain from mentioning any of this, preferring instead to wait and see where this all goes….

19.53

‘Interesting’ argument from the Prince of Darkness. He’s now arguing that including Turkey is so important that we must not make any decisions at all about EU membership and instead move ahead with a privileged partnership.

19.57

Older Chick has managed to get a word in, and has compared the CDU’s penchant for privileged partnerships with the CDU’s attitude to multiculturalism: nice people, but I wouldn’t want to have them next door. Ooh, is this a veiled accusation of CDU racism? What would make anyone think that CDU voters aren’t fans of the multi-cultural society?
19.59

The Prince has taken umbrage at older chicks comment. He proceeds to explain that the CDU led German contribution to the invasion of Afghanistan proves that the CDU like Muslims. Huh?

20.01

Eureka! I’ve finally figured out what I want for dinner – wholemeal pasta with that amazing walnut pesto I made last week. Finally, the decision has been made…

20.05

A bizarre comparison between not letting Turkey into the EU and Russia not wanting to be in the EU concludes the Prince of Darkness’s statement. He gets some really rather pretty flowers then sweeps out to attend a prior engagement.

20.08

Older Chick compares the CDU’s stance on Turkish membership of the EU with their stance on gay marriage. She is SO sorry he’s still not there to respond.

20.12

Cem tells us a little more about just how little respect the Bulgarians have for the legal changes the EU insisted upon before allowing membership. Bulgarians now mentally place laws in two catagories: Category A being ‘Real Laws’, Category B being ‘Silly laws those people in Brussels want’. Hmm. I as much as suspected this but it is another thing to hear it coming out of his mouth. He does seem to know what he is talking about

20.17

Cem gets no love from the Turkish nationalists! Even with the Turkish blood and parents. Apparently, they really feel comfortable talking with other people who share their ideas more broadly, like the CDU, Nicholas Sarkozy and the Austrians. They just think he’s some bizarre feminist loving eco-weirdo! Poor Cem!

20.29

And we’ve reached the question point of the evening. An older gentleman, who appears slightly irate wants to know what happened at the Bilderberg conference that Cem attended and why Cem did not post it to the Green Party website. In response, Cem gives us his take on Obama: in relation to Turkey Obama is not behaving like previous democratic presidents and going through the EU but rather going straight to the Turks. He realises that on this issue going through Merkel and Sarkozy gets you nowhere. Interesting….

20.31

And about website updates? Cem posted it to his Facebook page!

Cem is on Facebook!

I wonder if accepts friendship requests…..

With that Cem accepts his bunch of flowers and leaves. His route out means that for one brief second he passes within two metres of my table. Comparing him to the only other Green politican that has swept passed me, Eamon Ryan, I admit that Cem is less dashing. He has something, though. All I can hope that he has more substance. Na, mal schauen, that’s all I can do….

I disappear up Karl-Marx-Straße, past the shisha cafes and kebab places to my hinterhof home …..

Eamon Ryan is the Irish Green Party parliamentary representative for Dublin South. He is currently Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources

Cem Özdemir is the leader of the German Green Party. He is many firsts; the first Turkish-German leader of a political party, first ethnic minority leader of a political party and first muslim leader of a political party in Germany.

Kreuzberg Girl is a peniless unemployed translator and sometime writer. Please give generously!

Reflections on 'überall ist es besser,...'

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:02:31 -0500

Last night I found myself stitting in kino 8 at Cinemaxx in Potsdamer Platz, watching a black and white movie made in Potzdamer Platz in the late 1980s, and reminiscing about an evening and morning I spent just down the road in Leipziger Straße at the end of my first year in Berlin in 2002. The evening/morning was that of the love parade and I spent a large part of it in an sitting in an altered state of mind in the garden of the club Tresor. Back then, Tresor was located just at the point where Leipziger Straße turned to wasteland, and as I looked out at the empty space through my altered eyes I was overcome with the beauty of the world in all its broken dimensions. I found poetry in empty space, I understood that these empty spaces were what lent this city its uniqueness. I spent the next month wandering around Berlin finding beauty in places I never expected to find it. I try to carry part of this with me still.

It was a Berlinale retrospective movie that reminded me of all this, ‘Überall ist es besser, wo wir nicht sind’, or ‘The grass is always greener’. The director introduced it and mentioned that he had filmed a large part of it right where we were sitting, before any of those buildings even existed. We sat down to watch. The movie starts in Warsaw, with bleak socialist buildings and a bare café/bar where our hero sits with friends, drinking beer and vodka and flirting with the waitress for a scene before deciding to leave and go to Berlin. He arrives, falls into underworld type employment and lives in some impossibly dank accommodation before running into the waitress again. They live marginally, keeping fragmented, disjointed contact with each other. Both apply for entry visas to the US. They fall out, lose contact, and then she is gone. We close with a few scenes of rundown 1980s New York, where our penniless hero re-finds the waitress, marginally employed, cleaning games machines. The film, black and white, Jarmusch-like was pretty well received by all.

The Q and A, though, was almost as rewarding for me as the film itself. The director was candid, in a way that rare, even in this, the bluntest of cities. Discussing the theme of the film, he noted that he is not so sure any more if the metaphor works. The film, he said, was about the search, about how going west and west and west again had a very different meaning, in those days, before the Berlin wall had even fallen compared with now. Now, he said, if anyone said they were going to the USA in search of hope you would ask them ‘have you lost your mind’. I wondered whether there was anywhere on this earth you could go expecting to find hope these days. What struck me even more strongly, though, was how he talked about Potsdamer Platz before the fall of the wall. He spoke of an empty place, lodged against the wall, but one that was full of makeshift life in the wasteland. Communities of Poles and Russians, and strange events. This is a Potsdamer Platz that I have never known – they had already filled the space with soulless buildings like the Cinemaxx by the time I got here. He stated that he hated the new Potsdamer Platz, people applauded.

I understand, I think- I have the same sense of distain bordering on disgust when I look at what has come to fill Leipziger Platz since that evening I spent in awe in 2002. Honestly, it was more beautiful when it was wasteland with makeshift clubs. I can still see it in my minds eye, a Berlin under Berlin, where those ugly, frantic attempts to make empty space vanish can be wiped away. And I guess I partly wrote this in tribute to that Berlin, The unruly Berlin of empty spaces.

Berlinale by night

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 08:02:20 -0500

It is February in Berlin and outside the sky is filled with fast-moving grey clouds that bring us sometimes-slushy rain. I am unemployed and officially penniless, having spent a substantial part of Monday demonstrating to the state of Berlin that I have no resources whatsoever. Going on a Berlinale film-viewing spree may not seem like the most logical response to my situation. But hey, those who never leave their studio apartments are destined to go insane. And until the weather turns in April, and sitting by the canal with a book becomes feasible, the Berlinale is just about as good a distraction as this city has to offer.

The festival actually started last Thursday, but I personally kicked off my own Berlinale experience last night at the Berlinale Shorts awards ceremony. I discovered it by accident last year, and although I am no hardened movie industry professional, or veteran Berlinale attendee, I rather suspect that this event is one of the secret highlights of the entire festival.

The first hour is taken up with presentations. The presenter, one of these assembly line German presenters, is tall and skinny and thirty something and vaguely cheesy. He speaks with English that almost always hits the mark, but is peppered with German favourite words like ‚crazy’. He repeats over and over again that the event is the “craziest“ of the Berlinale and it is all slightly incongruous. I resist the urge to curl up in my seat in vague embarrassment.

Then comes the jury, and a few stilted interviews later we have the honourable mentions. The honourable mentions last year were extremely memorable for the fact that the recipient of one of these, a shocked, fresh faced Irish animator essentially tried to convince the jury that they couldn’t possibly mean him, that he had just done it for fun, that they had made a mistake. It was very touching. This year provided none of that drama and the German recipients of the special mention observed the German customs of exchanging few words and many handshakes. On to the real prizes.

The first award of the evening is a nomination to, I think, the European Film Awards and a British gentleman shambles on stage to present it. A sheet of paper is stuck to the back of his suit jacket as he walks across the stage, a childish joke of some sort and he refuses the presenter’s attempts to interview him centre stage, choosing instead to stand behind the podium. He proceeds in rambling style to tell us about the 100-year-old director he has just had dinner with. This man, he states, did not go to Hollywood, because back then there was no Hollywood. The message: go European cinema. The subtext: a number of bottles of wine may have been shared over dinner. Whatever, this man is a loose canon.

Mr ‘Crazy’, our presenter, tries to bring order, and attempts to start the interview. He starts asking a question. Mr Loose Canon upends him by completing the question, which he has apparently written out in advance and reading his answer from a page in front of him. He proceeds to ask and answer the next two questions himself, without any assistance from the presenter before turning to him and asking ‘Is that all?’. Floundering , the presenter asks a question he has clearly just pulled together from the fragments of his brain, wonders ‘what can the winner expect’. Loose canon answers simply, with drunken candour, that the winner can expect to go the ceremony in the German city of Essen, have their film shown, make contacts, and that they will have something to add to their CV. And with that, prize is presented to a German woman, who thanks the Jury in stilted English. The Loose Canon then flourishes off the stage.

An unremarkable woman from the DAAD, the German academic exchange service comes to present their prize, which will bring the winner to Berlin and cover 2,200€ worth of living expenses but no money for actual filmmaking. The winner, a young Cuban woman, is quite remarkable. Accepting the prize, she speaks through a translator. I am more or less surrounded by speakers of Spanish, and they clap as she speaks. The rest of us clap 30 seconds or so later and it is somewhat off-putting. I am surprised at one juncture to realise that the clapping I had heard 30 seconds previously was at her statement that she had had a miscarriage during the production and wonder, how do you clap at a miscarriage?

We move on to the silver bear award, the jury prize. It is won by an English man who is inarticulate and seems to be wearing ‘Monday evening down the pub for the quiz’ style clothes. My Italian companion muses under his breath as to why one would dress like that, in pyjamas as he puts it, if one expects to get a prize. He moves off stage, awkwardly posing for a photo before leaving.

We have reached the climax of the evening. It is time for the presentation of the golden bear award, and two men I recognise from last year are about to make another appearance. The first is the head of the Berlinale, Dieter Kosslick, a man seemingly quite at ease with himself, impressively ‘devil may care’. In his approach. Mr ‘Crazy’, our presenter for the evening, introduces him by saying that he is the craziest of them all, and Dieter responds that he is not crazy. ‘Of course not in that way’ responds Mr Crazy. Attempting to redeem the situation, Mr Crazy poses a question. He has heard that this is Dieter’s favourite Berlinale event, why? Dieter responds by relating that he has been to 8 red carpets today alone and has not had an opportunity to go to the toilet. Short films are short, and so afford the time necessary to do this particular bit of business. The presenter seems at a loss for what to say next and Dieter fills the time by giving a shout out of sorts to ‘Loose Canon’. He mentions that he will also be at the European Film Awards to be held in Essen, and that in Essen you can also drink. A lame joke, he admits, only comprehensible if you speak German, but hey, it is this candid approach that makes me warm to Dieter. He then announces the winner to be David O’Reilly for his film ‘Please say something’. O’Reilly is young and thin and Irish and enthusiastic and warm hearted, and states that it is not so much a triumph for him as for animation. He states that he did it out of love, made it for essentially no money, in his bedroom. He rambles and thanks and bounces off to have his photo taken. My heart is warmed, confidence in bedroom enterprises returning, dare I say it, I am inspired. It occurs to me that maybe I have seen him before. Later when I look in my program, I discover that he got a special mention at the Berlinale in 2008 and I realise ‘that was him. The guy who told the jury last year that they must have made a mistake’. Somehow this helps me to understand something about the fragility of creation. It gives me hope.

Dieter leaves the stage and sweeps out of the auditorium to the cry of ‘off to the toilet’. We do not see him again. We settle down to watch the four prize winning films. The golden bear winner is beautiful, touching and innovative. The silver bear winner, Jade, is silent like its creator, and seems to have cost a penny or two to make. There are overhead shots of swimming pools, and an actress with a fantastically expressive face. I am most captured by the Cuban woman’s film, The illusion. Discussing it in retrospect, we are not sure whether it is documentary or pseudo documentary, and my Italian friend finds some questionable political undercurrents I am not sure are there. Whatever the case may be I am gripped by her shots of underground elevators, darkened London landscapes shot from behind bins, Muslim women’s headscarves, the limbs of people holding on to overhead bars in the tube. I photograph things like this myself at times, I like nothing more than riding around and observing people. I find myself gripped by this at every level. The final film, ‘The suffering of Mr Karpf. The birthday’ is an engaging character piece that I will probably not remember this time next year.

Perhaps this is why I write. So that I will not forget.

Going home is an odyssey. It is 12.30 when we get out, I have just missed a bus and another will not be along for 25 minutes. Potsdamer Platz where I am waiting is still open, gusty and cold, so I decide to take a chance and get the subway to Alexanderplatz and hope the U8 is still running. If it is not, I reason, I can always take the night bus that replaces it. I arrive at Alexanderplatz and me and others sprint through the station from the U2 line to the U8 line, hoping to catch the last one. We fail, and I wander around Alexanderplatz for 10 minutes looking for the bus stop before realising that it has been diverted due to building works. I jump on a tram to Hackescher Markt, and through the rain I find the bus stop. A hip-hop boy is already peering at the timetable and I peer also, discovering that I am in for a 15 minute wait. I retreat to hide under the arches of the Hackesche Höfe, position myself under a light and bury my face in the book I have with me ‘The rum diaries’, hoping to avoid hip-hop boy’s attention. The ride is uneventful and I eventually arrive back at Schönleinstraße station at 1:35am. The late night store is still open, so I decide to pick up a beer, go home, relax and start writing. One hour of wrestling with Bluetooth later, I give up and decide to sleep. It is 3am, it is late, and besides, there is always tomorrow.

On driving, or how I got to 30 without

Thu, 5 Feb 2009 14:02:50 -0500

Last summer I turned 30 and agreed to accept a present from/deal with my parents - they would pay for my driving lessons, and I would carry through on the whole thing.

I understand the paying thing is a big deal. I live in Germany and am learning to drive here, and unlike in the atlantic facing european country of my birth and childhood, learning to drive here costs a hell of a lot of money. At least 1,200 euros. Here, there is no such thing as a learners permit or provisional licence. Here you have to attend a certain number of hours of theory classes, pass a theory test. You are also never allowed to drive without your driving instructor, and one hour and a half of driving instruction costs 52 euros. At that rate, I would want to be taking it seriously. And I am.

But still I have my doubts. Committed as I am to passing this damned test so that I can assure my parents that I will be able to drive them when they are old and senile from their nursing home to their favorite ocean walks and parks(my mother recently admitted that this was a motivation in funding my lessons), I find myself holding the convictions that led me to not drive even more strongly now than I ever did....

I got to 30 just fine without driving. Where I grew up, driving was no great rite of passage. Turning 18 and finally being able to get into clubs without having to lie, use fake ID and fake birthdates; being able to carry a passport or student card that contained your actual information and still getting into these holy places. Now that was important! I lived in a city of about 1 million people, and there were several buses that went in from my suburb to the city centre, including night buses that ran til 3am. Taxis were also not extortionate, especially if you shared them with other people. I did not know a single soul that drove.

I went to college at 19 and became politicised about a year later, at 20 when I joined the college environmental organisation. I was also studying sociology at the time, and me and my friends, especially those interested in urban development became quickly infuriated at the stupidity of those who were planning our city, making it more car-friendly and not public transport friendly enough at all. One step forward for public transport(the reconstruction of old transport lines) ten steps forward for the car(new motorways and houses stretching to the middle of the country). I vowed then to devote myself even more strongly to the cause of public transport.

I continued on my path, and happily had my first experiences of independence without any reference to the car. I remember national express buses, and long train journeys, and luggage lockers in Amsterdam central station at 5am. Cars were totally irrelevant to my life. I completed my degree and moved to Berlin, and found in it the city of my dreams, a city where, to my mind, one would almost have to be insane to drive. Public transport worked, and still works, more perfectly here than I could ever imagine. There was nowhere I could imagine going to where a car would be quicker than public transport. My monthly travel tickets were also paid for by work. Perfect!

For some reason that I will explain another time I didn't stay in Berlin at that time, and moved instead to the north of England, to York, to do a Masters degree. Travel in that region was a little different to Berlin, but I still never missed having a car. Getting to the town centre was easily managed by bus every 15 minutes, or 10 minute cycle on dedicated cycle lane. Cross town? Take the bike. Supermarket shopping? In my first year I ordered on tesco supermarket's website and they delivered to my kitchen floor for a 5 pound charge. In my second year I moved to a house a little closer to the store, so me and my flatmate would wander across the town racecourse once a month, hit the store, go crazy buying stuff and take a taxi back home. Worked out at less than 5 pounds, 2.50 each. Local bakery down the end of the street covered us for fresh bread, and I always bought fresh veg at the veg store on my way home. We froze and stored whatever needed to be frozen or stored and went back to our bike and bus lives. My flatmate had a drivers license, and we actually used it once, when we rented a car and took a road trip to the lake district. One more time another friend, an american visitor pried us away for a weekend at Loch Lomond in Scotland, so I chipped in for the rental car and she drove. Apart from those trips, and the occasional taxi ride I pretty much did not use a car for 3 years straight.

The PhD I was doing fell through, so I moved back to Berlin. Times had changed, and my employer would only cover 85% of my monthly travel card. But, on the positive side, I now had to travel nearly 100km to a town on the German/Polish border 2 or 3 times a week. So for about 20 euros a month(my 15%) I could go all the way all the way around Berlin any time. Damn, I could even go 'abroad' if I wanted. I only did once. Poland only really gets interesting about 500km from Berlin. Those place nearby have little more than cheap cigarettes and booze.

In all of that time I never felt like I missed anything by not driving. Driving for me did not mean freedom - in the last months of my job, I remember gazing at the Berlin-Warsaw express train that passed through Alexanderplatz station 5 minutes before my commuter train and thinking: God! I wish I could be on that! Trains always meant freedom. And driving was just not necessary

I first understood freedom without driving. I had all of my important firsts without driving. First relationship, first road(bus and rail) trip, apartments, moves, mistakes, getting away from it all, coming back. Being flightly, facing life down and growing, becoming a little more boring, becoming wiser. All without driving.

I have been driving for 3 months now, and studying theory for 7. It has its moments. And now that I can do it more comfortably and relax, it feels even stranger. I am glad to be able to expect some time in the next few months to pass the test. But it also feels as if I have developed a third arm, I do not know what to do with this skill. Who knows. I got to 30 without driving, and even if I can I'm not sure if I'm about to start now ....

Pieces of Paper, Part I

Tue, 3 Feb 2009 11:02:53 -0500

The last time I wrote, I was reflecting on how I ended up here. This question has many facets.

One could start by asking 'how did any of us end up here'. Here's what I mean. This past weekend I hung out with a mixed group of europeans my own age - late 20s and 30s. We were at the Neues Nationalgalarie for the last weekend of the Koons/Klee exhibition, and this french chick, whose name escapes me commented that her vision was deteriorating and that she was concerned. She mentioned that she didn't want to go to an optician where she would simply be prescribed more powerful glasses, that she wanted to see an eye specialist. 'You have a Krankenkasse, right' (statutory public health insurance). Yep, she did. So she could just book an appointment directly with a specialist. Or go to a family doctor and ask for a referal there. This was not the problem, though. The problem is that as a relatively new arrival, working principally through english and with french as a native language, she just hasn't acquired the level of German that would allow her to comfortably visit a doctors. 'Can't you go in France the next time' enquired my Italian friend. No, she mentioned, she no longer resides in France and therefore has no coverage there. It would be the same for me in my home country. Not having resided there since 2001 means that I no longer have any claim to anything there. So I guess one kind of answer to the above question would be, I ended up here, at this point, finally addressing the fact that I live my life in translation because I like many others did what all those utopian europeans suggested and freely moved across the continent. This may seem like a kind of obvious point, but I'm not sure that I was really clear on how definitive this kind of moving would be when I did it, I was not clear that I was emigrating and I did not realise that by emigrating I would become an imigrant. I thought that I was moving from one part of a quasi superstate to another. I did not really concieve of what I was doing as leaving home territory. What I am getting to grips with now, is that being an EU-Ausländer, an EU foreigner is a condition unto itself. One has to spend time worming ones way into a strange new system and language, wait it out until one acquires new knowledge and benefits while similtaneously losing the comforts of the old, the familiar, home.

I could also look at this question, 'how did I end up here' by looking at the quite personal story of how I ended up here; my parents, the coat, that conversation with a friend in a bar, arrriving, leaving, pining and returning. Perhaps I will get to that story a little later on, or in another post some other time. But now is not the time.

I guess what I was thinking of today is how burocratically I became a part of this system in particular. All the piece of paper that I have picked between 2001 and now. All of the learning that it has taken to know how to work this system. How that system actually works at all. This is my story for today.

I came here in 2001, with a fixed term contract for 9 months to teach english as a foreign language to business people. My main motivation in looking for that kind of job was simply that I did not want to be wandering around in a strange city jobless in a foreign language. I had just finished my degree and teaching certificate, so I was fresh and employable, and I picked up what I realise now was a very well paid job for the sector. Working for a company was nice, at the very least I had people around me to tell me what I should be doing to keep the German state happy. Because, god knows, you sure as hell will not figure it out on your own. I don't remember who told me fist about 'anmeldung'. Maybe the cheery receptionist, who lost her job the following year during the mini-crash of 2002/03. Somebody must have. Anyway I was informed that within 14 days of moving into a property you have to register with the police. I took this to mean that you should actually go to the police, looked on a map and found the nearest station and asked about 'polizeiliche anmeldung', police registration. I remember being looked at through fairly bemused eyes and being told that you should of course do your police registration with a civil servant at the 'Rathaus', the district town hall. Those early interactions with German burocracy continue to amaze me - I had school German, upper beginners level at best. I hardly spoke a word for my first six months at all. And contrary to reports, at the time, in east Berlin where I lived there was hardly a person that spoke even basic English.(in the meantime all service personnel in my old neighbourhood have caught on, and newbies look at me open mouthed when I described literally not being able to say anything to anyone outside of work until I had pushed my german to the intermediate level. About six months after my arrival). So in short I do not remember how I understood those policemen, how I managed to communicate with the official in the town hall, but somehow I did and I walked out with one of the most important pieces of paper anyone living in Germany can possibly possess - a certificate proving where I lived.

At some point in time the nice receptionist at work shoved some more papers in front of me and asked me to select a Krankenkasse, a statutory public health insurer. Not knowing what this was, I asked her whether there was any difference between krankenkassen and what I would base my decision on. I cannot remember how the conversation proceeded, but I think in the end I must have just select her Krankenkasse just to avoid any further confusion. I have since become somthing of an expert on Krankenkassen, but my acquired expertise should perhaps be the subject of another post.

Three weeks in, a couple of pieces of paper down, I was ready for my next ordeal/piece of paper at the Ausländerbehörde, the foreigners office. This time I can remember being told that it was far out of the city centre, involved quite a wait and that I should perhaps bring someone with me to translate if I needed. Armed with beginners German and the exaggerated confidence of the newly graduated I decided to brave it alone. This experience stuck with me: I walked in and missed the entrance for EU foreigners and other nice people like Americans and Canadians, and found two other sections, the first of which seemed to be for people from somewhat suspect countries like Russia and India; the second was for people from extremely undesirable countries, most of which were in Africa. I retracted my steps and returned to the nice country section where I poured over a form with a dictionary, hoping that I would give the right answer. I submitted it, came back when they told me, survived my interactions and recieved my final piece of paper for a while, the Aufenthaltselaubnis, permission to stay. Never mind how bizzare how it seemed to me at the time that an EU citizen who had a right to stay granted under European law had to get a piece of paper confirming it. I just filed my pieces of paper away, and settled into a stint in Friedrichshain, Berlin pondering Germans and their pieces of paper.

More pieces of paper later or tomorrow ......

For now I had errands to run .....