Der Anfang der Abschlusskrise

So, in case you don't read German, the title means roughly "the beginning of the end-crisis." Which is the phase that I am going through right now. It's a weird, slow, stressed-out, and sappy phenomenon. Slow because it's been coming for a long time, reminders here and there of my inevitable departure from this fine town. Stressed-out because of both the school things (klausurs, hausarbeits, figuring out my thesis, lolerskates) and general real-human things (taking to my Hausmeister, going to the Bürgeramt to un-become a German resident) that I need to do. And finally sappy because that's how I have been lately. 

The past few days have consisted of trying to study for my klausur (exam) on Tuesday (and not really succeeding), and the reason that I have not really been succeeding is due to my wonderful friends. As you may have noticed (either because you barbecued and lit off a bunch of fireworks or you have a calendar), the fourth of July was on Friday. This, of course, warranted much celebration amongst us crazy Tübingen folks, and not just the Americans. 

A few of my friends and I hosted a day long extravaganza that included an apple pie breakfast, games in the park, grilling, and a bonfire with fireworks in the Französisches Viertel. This was possibly one of my favorites nights here in Tübingen. As you might remember from a post I wrote all the way back in September, I have been to this campsite once before, at the very beginning of my time here with the Tufts kids. Coming back with so many of my friends to grill, hang out, sing songs, and light off fireworks made this whole sappy-things-coming-full-circle-thing kind of go into hyper-drive. That combined with the fact that people are starting to leave early as this week. Yup, that's right, this week, I can't believe it.

But this wasn't the only reason I was feeling sappy and sentimental. This weekend was also the weekend that a bunch of old Deutsch Kompaktlers came back from their disparate parts of Europe. Olav, Olivia, Klara, Anna, and Louise all rejoined for the festivities, and that made this weekend even that much more wonderful. 

Oh, and on top of that, Germany beat France 1-0, and the Neckarbrücke was shut down due to an overwhelming crowd of crazy Fußball fans. Have I mentioned how great it is to be in Europe for these shenanigans? 

But in any case, it is for all these reasons, the crazy wonderful friends that I have here that I am finding this leaving thing so hard. Some of the semester kids say that they are ready to go home. "I'm homesick. I have been away for so long." "I want food with flavor!" "A semester is almost too long for me." When these kids say these things to me, I cannot help but simply give them a blank stare. I cannot imagine not waking up in Tübingen-WG. I cannot imagine leaving and not knowing the next time that I will be back in Tübingen. Or if I will ever be back in Tübingen. 

I'm being overdramatic, I know, but these are the things that keep running through my mind. I have been here 312 days, and they are starting to feel like a dream. A really kick-ass, wonderful, German-filled dream. And if I am being honest, I am not ready to wake up.

'schland und die WM

and also my political musings on America in the context of sports, individualism and Alexis de Tocqueville–have fun everyone.

So I know that it's been more than two weeks since the World Cup (which I shall refer to as the WM–die Weltmeisterschaft–from here on out) started, but I haven't really had much of a chance to blog about it due to traveling and trying to finish presentations during that traveling. First off, let me just say how wild it is being in a country where not liking football (not gonna call it soccer, sorry not sorry) and particularly not caring about the WM is weird. As in you are very much the exception. And may I also say that I absolutely love it. I can't imagine a day where the streets of a place like Boston (or I guess a more appropriated analogy would probably be Urbana-Champaign Illinois) would close simply because the USA won a match in the WM. Emphasis on a. Not the entire thing just simply one match. That's what has been happening in Tübingen, you know when Americans aren't getting stuck in vagina statues. The Neckarbrücke (the main bridge in town) was closed for an hour yesterday simply because people were partying in the streets. A bus was caught in the middle of it, so the bus driver simply pulled out a newspaper and waited for the partying to stop. It's a crazy feeling to be in the middle of all of the hullabaloo. 

For this reason, I am glad that the WM seems to finally be catching on in America. But a friend of mine also posted an article from the Daily Beast entitled Why the Yanks Don't Get Futbol. In case you are too lazy to read the link, here is a brief summary. Essentially, the articles argues that Americans do not understand a sport like football, because football is in every sense of the word a team game. Now you may be saying or thinking, American football is a team game, basketball is a team game, baseball is a team game. What's more American than baseball. Pshaw, Americans don't understand team sports. But think about it, how much emphasis do we put on certain individuals within those teams. We talk far more frequently about Lebron James than we do about the Miami Heat. Or frequently you hear things like, another win for Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. You hear about how many homeruns Ryan Braun scored more than the actual score of the game. And you care, you care deeply about the stats of a certain player, sometimes more than the team overall. As this article puts it, for football, "the only thing that counts is the team: did they win?" The cult of individuality that characterizes many American sports simply does not exist. Thomas Müller scored a hat trick against Portugal, but you didn't hear about that. What you heard was that the Deutsche Nationalmannschaft beat Portugal 4 to 0. And that to me is incredibly refreshing. 

I read Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America as a freshman in college, and despite having written this book in the 1830s (first published in 1835), I think that it still is relevant in analyzing and theorizing as to why the United States of America seems to be so much different than the rest of the western world in so many aspects. This interested freshman year, but reading this Daily Beast article, I kept on thinking about to Tocqueville.  

Some context: Tocqueville traveled to the US during in the 1830s for roughly two years and went around observing and writing about what he saw, which later became Democracy in America. One of the most interesting part for me is his discussion and musings about American Individualism. He writes, "...I see an innumerable multitude of men, alike and equal, constantly circling around in pursuit of the petty and banal pleasures with which they glut their souls. Each of them withdrawn into himself, is almost unaware of the fate of the rest. Mankind, for him, consists in his children and his personal friends. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, they are near enough, but he does not notice them. He touches them but feels nothing. He exists in and for himself, and though he still may have a family, one can at least say that he has not got a fatherland."

This individualism is still alive and well. I have heard so many times "I don't want to pay for another's person XYZ" whether it be healthcare, food stamps, education, you name it. This discussion doesn't exist in Europe. There is little to no controversy over their healthcare system. Hell, even the radical right-wing parties here don't want to touch government programs like that. And I believe the only reason that controversy over these things exists in America is because of this anti-traditionalist individualism that the United States adopted pretty much at its founding. While this individualism is certainly sometimes admirable, I also think it is what is keeping us different from the rest of the western world. It is why we don't have universalized healthcare or government-funded education the way that most European countries do. I guess you can view that favorably or not, but I think that it is largely to our detriment. 

Before I thought that Tocqueville had merely made a cogent point about our political thinking, but clearly that extends far beyond even into the way that we watch sports. To extend what Nico Hines was saying in his article, Americans can't and won't appreciate football in the same way that the rest of the world does until we confront and perhaps change this individualist lenses through which we as Americans see the world. 

A small PS: Sorry if this isn't exactly what you are looking for with this blog post but as an international relations kid with a pretty serious interest in politics and political theory, I kind of like my political musings. 

A short PPS, I had no idea that Ann Coulter had written this lovely little Op-Ed for the Clarion Ledger when I was writing this. 

That time we ate Berlin

Back in the Land of the Currywurst

Hey dudes. So after 5 wonderful days, I am back in Tübingen. A fact which seems rather surreal. Taking the bus home from the Hauptbahnhof, it seemed like I had been away for far longer. Things are strange like that. But in any case, Berlin was beautiful. My kind of city in just about every way that I could imagine, and now I'll tell y'all all about it.

Tuesday
We left for Berlin at the godforsaken hour of 7AM on Tuesday. I had packed hastily, because I had been hanging out with friends in the Neckarmüller biergarten and was slightly disoriented from having stayed up late worrying about potentially oversleeping and missing the train. But that didn't happen, and after 8 some-odd hours, we were in Berlin and after another, at our hostel in Kreuzberg. For reference, Kreuzberg is a neighborhood in the southerwestern part of Berlin, where all sorts of young folks and hipsters hang out. This neighborhood also is home to some pretty awesome currywurst and the best döner probably in existence–but more on that later. Our hotel, the Hotel Transit, was pretty nice with spacious rooms and a (really) kickass breakfast, but other than that nothing much to write home about.


Then commenced the eating. A large theme of this trip was food. (And I am going to talk all about it despite my family making fun of me.) The food diversity in Tübingen–as I have previously explained–is rather limited. And by rather limited I mean schwäbisches Essen and Italian food and the occasional nudelbox, which may or may not give you food poisoning and that's about it. Because of this, we were all on a mission to eat all of the wonderful exotic things that Berlin had to offer. And this started with Thai/Singaporean food in a lovely restaurant called Amrit in Kreuzberg/Friedrichshain. It was wonderful. I mean, just look at it. And we ate all of the things, because Tufts was paying–thanks, Tufts. However, this meant that we also went home and promptly passed out somewhere around 23, like the old folks that we are.

Wednesday
But turning in early was a good decision for all of us, because we had to be up and out of the hostel by 9:30 to go the Deutsch Auswärtige Amt (the German foreign service) to chat with the head of the Transatlantic Desk about various issues in German-US relations. We got to ride in the Paternoster (which he translated to the Elevator of Death), which was awesome and terrifying. We then discussed issues such as TTIP, Ukraine, and climate change, and we'll just suffice it to say that he was very...diplomatic. 

After a sad salad and a bit of rain, we went to the Bundestag and were given a small talk by a sassy German man–who continually kept translating things for Yasmine after finding out that she was American. Afterwards, we got to go up in the dome, which was super neat. Our day continued with currywurst, cheesecake, and other rain time activities that for the sake of surprise I shall not elaborate upon. It ended with kick-ass burgers, Fotoautomat-ing, and some beers. 

Thursday
Thursday was a museum-y type day. It started with the Pergamon museum, which holds treasures from the old Grecian city of Pergamon, which lies in modern-day Greece. This includes a construction of a temple and a pretty incredible gate. We got a tour from a nice little German archaeologist dude who didn't seem like he knew what to do with our lack of questions, and I was kind of falling asleep standing up, and the museum is nonetheless super incredible.

After that little stint, we went to the Hackescher Markt to grab a quick lunch, which ended up being turkish food–nomz and then we met up with Ute back by the Pergamon to go on a short boat tour, which was pretty lovely, and afterwards, I went to the DDR Museum by myself because everyone else was rather pooped from the previous museums. Luckily for me (as I was also rather pooped) the museum was small, but also super interesting, with all sorts of stuff about DDR day-to-day life and the party. 

But then Kevin, Theron, Yasmine, and I went to the Deutsches Geschichtemuseum, which I don't think there are words for how incredible one of their current exhibitions is. It's called Targets by Herlinde Koelbl. This woman (I have no idea how) photographed men and women from more than twenty different armies and the targets that they practice on, and it all comes together as one incredible critical view of wars and armies. And my God, is it chilling. Seriously, if you are in Berlin, go to this exhibit. You won't regret it. 

This wonderful museum experience was followed by some wonderful thai food (where I also happened to run into my Tübingen friends who I didn't know was going to be in Berlin–the world is weird) and then a play called Biedermann und die Brandstifter, which I guess translated into English is called the Fire Raisers, which doesn't really do the German title justice, but oh well. It was quite funny, even if I didn't understand every word. 

Then afterwards, we went to a divey kind of bar by our hostel to watch the first games of the World Cup. Can I say how happy I am in Europe for this? It's so much fun.

Friday
Friday was the day of the Wall. Ute took all of us to the big Mauer Monument by the Nordbahnhof, where original parts of the wall still remain without much on them–unlike in say the Eastside Gallery or something. It's rather cool but also quite eerie. It's also strange for a bunch of kids my age, because we were never alive during a divided Germany and sometimes it seems like straight-up history, but then you go to Berlin and it's not at all. Parts of the Mauer are still up just like they were 30 years ago, and parts of the city still look like they belong in the DDR (Karl-Marx-Allee for example.) It's a wild feeling. 

After the wall tour, all 11 of us kids got lunch at a Vietnamese place on Karl-Marx-Allee called Curcuma, which was both moderately priced and incredible, and then went to the Eastside Gallery. The Eastside Gallery is on the Spree river and also a large part of the remaining wall. However, this wall is quite different from the way it was during the DDR days. This part of the wall has been converted into a monument/art gallery and was on the Eastern side of Berlin, as in facing the DDR. Therefore, the "wrong" side is painted, since the wall was neither painted nor graffitied on the east side. Since the fall of the wall, this part has been kept and painted by various artists, and it looks incredible.

Then afterwards, we had a lovely little Tufts meet-up with some alumni at a bar called Aufsturz, wherein the Tufts Alumni Association provided food and we chatted and stuff it was great. Then, we decided to go out to a club near the Eastside Gallery, and then that was pretty much our day. 

Saturday

We went to a super fancy café on Saturday with a friend of Yasmine from Opera Camp and had pancakes which was a pretty lovely and chill time, and afterwards, Yasmine, Caroline, and I went to the explore the Tiergarten in the middle of the city (but you really can't tell that you are in the center of a city–super neat). Which was a lovely way to spend our last afternoon in Berlin. For me, it finally brought everything together/full circle from the last time I went to Berlin in 2011. I walked by things that I recognized from then, and even found the playground, which I had noticed from the big tour bus, which we had drove around in, but never had gotten to check out or play in. In case you were wondering, it was as cool as it looked in 2011. 

Then afterwards, we went to the Berliner Philharmonic to listen to a Chopin and Beethoven concert, which was pretty cool (but I kind of fell asleep–awkward), and then went to the same dive bar to watch Italy beat England whilst eating our last Mustafa's döner (seriously, it's magical, with all sorts of vegetables and cheese and everything). This time it was even more fun than the first go-around with the Brazil v. Croatia game, because in the bar, there was a series of rowdy Englishmen, Italian, and Germans who were all yelling at the screen when anything happened. It was extremely entertaining.

Sunday
Sunday was leaving day, which pretty much meant packing but also one last slice of cheesecake. Then we got on a train for another 8 hours, and here I am, back in Tübingen and a little angsty that I only have 4 more weeks left of class. But I guess we won't get into that now.

With that, it's late and I am a bit of a grandma, so bis später, dudes.

Berlin: I eated it.