The Delightful Danes

Living in Berlin, I always knew I would make it to Copenhagen someday. Yet despite a general interest to visit, the prospect never seemed as exciting as planning trips to Croatia, Istanbul, or even Krakow. Maybe it's because it's so close: the flight from one capital to the other takes less than an hour meaning the ride from my apartment to the airport was literally longer than flight time. Or maybe Scandinavia just seems too similar to Germany culturally to feel at all exotic. Either way, it was a no-brainer in my travel to-dos, and my excitement soon kicked in upon arrival.

Excited about the discovery of a library-cafe for our first meal

I'm not usually one for stereotypes, but sometimes I make exceptions when they veer on the positive side. Really, I just want to share a few of my impressions of the Danes which will likely be over-generalized and premature given I only spent three days there and had close contact with all of one actual Dane. Not exactly the stuff of ethnographic studies, but enough to affirm some suspicions as well as shed some light on our friendly neighbor to the north. So I hope you'll indulge me just this once.

Copenhagen is every city. But better. It's a ludicrous statement that is highly linked to my very thematic-prone brain, but I'm going with it anyway. Multiple times a day while in Copenhagen I found myself reminded of other cities. One moment I'm jogging along the water and thinking of Amsterdam, and the next I'm peering up at a couple cafes overflowing with people-watchers assembled in rows of outer-facing chairs and picturing Paris. The language and orderliness kept reminding me of home (both of them), and the cosmopolitanism and water everywhere reminded me of Hamburg... and I haven't been to Hamburg yet! Copenhagen felt like a utopian port city: It has absorbed influences from around the world but the influence feels reciprocal and seamless, not forced. 

Danish is like German. No, English. No... Denglish. Kelly and I were in language heaven in Copenhagen. As soon as we got to the airport we were giggling and pointing out words, excited to find so many connections to our languages. In the airport we immediately spotted Ankomst for arrivals which is clearly related to "to arrive" in German, ankommen. Though the language certainly leaned more toward German, a lot of it reminded us of English, too. This makes sense given that English is a Germanic language (English native speakers: keep that in mind the next time you say German is an ugly language). Denmark, like the rest of Scandinavia, is known for their high English proficiency, so we were free to get by in our native tongue while learning a few words just for fun. The word we ended up using most often? Mange tak which means thank you. Mange: what do you see more? "Many" in English or Menge in German ("amount" or "plenty")? Tak: a shortened version of "thanks" or danke? Oh, the joys of language.  

Look! Language!

May as well be the German "Reichstaggarten"

The Danes are the perfect amount of confident. Their education system may not be as good as the Finnish one and they may get the short end of the stick when it comes to IKEA furniture names, but Denmark is still part of the elite club known as Scandinavia. A certain confidence comes with being a member of this region, but people are educated and open to other cultures and languages, coming off as much more modest than those from another country I know. They're a happy and healthy and secure bunch riding their bikes, earning their overtime salaries, and eating lots of omega 3s and whole grains. They struck me as very balanced, and I am a fan of balance.

Mmmmm herring

Denmark is struggling with their growing multiculturalism. Like many European countries, Denmark is still struggling to see itself as a country of immigration and multiculturalism. Kelly and I were enchanted with a neighborhood in the city called Nørrebro which is full of Arabs, Turks, and many other Middle Eastern and ethnic groups. Our (young) Danish friend of a friend slash tour guide was so surprised at how much time we ended up spending there that he said he would start to bring more future visitors to the neighborhood, not having realized it could be so interesting for tourists. Kelly and I were beyond interested: Nørrebro made both of us wish we could spend a summer in the city, and we began devising a plan for me to propose a Copenhagen project to my bosses and for Kelly to tag along as my devoted assistant. A dog factored into that plan somewhere, too. 

Nørrebro

Nørrebro mutlilingual statue about coexisting... yes please!

The Danes are puuuurty. I wish I had a picture of the barista at that one coffeeshop. Or the waiter at that Nørrebro cocktail bar. Or the waiter at that Nørrebro restaurant. It's rare I ever find a guy on the street attractive, but in Copenhagen I was accosted by good looks multiple times a day. It didn't help that the men I saw were tall with chiseled features, many possessing that mysterious dark hair, light eye combo that makes me a bit weak in the knees. The girls were nice, too, I'm sure, but I was a bit distracted. Mange tak for the eye candy, Copenhagen.

B is for Belated, Bears, and Berlin

Happy belated Valentine's Day, dear readers! I don't know about you, but my V-Day was pretty good. I started off my evening with a Spinach and Cheese Börek from my favorite Turkish stand by work and a homemade cosmopolitan, followed by finally seeing Les Misérables at Berlinale, Berlin's annual film festival. There was a red carpet at the theater which made me feel all sorts of important (minus the celebrities) and there were beers (which we smuggled in). Kelly and I went to Berlinale last year in our unemployed days when we had no sorts of real lives and all sorts of time to go explore the city every day and take cute pictures and wish you a Happy Valentine's Day on time. This year I offer you the following picture, which took 5 tries and still didn't turn out right:

Also, cultural difference alert!! Apparently the Germans found any mention of Jean Valjean "giving away" Cosette to Maurius incredibly funny. I mean, they were cracking up in any scene where it came up. The idea that a man would pass off his daughter like property! Ludicrous! It is pretty silly, but come on, this was the 1800s and Jean did Cosette a real solid with the whole adoption thing.

Got My Berlin Groove Back

Bye, bye Christmas

After 6 days, I feel I have finally gotten my Berlin groove back. Yesterday I described coming back to Berlin after a long trip home a "hangover," because that was the best way I could think to explain it. My head is spinning from everything I did, all the places I visited and family and friends I saw, and then all of a sudden I'm opening the door to my apartment in Berlin and am supposed to resume whatever it is I've got going on over here. It's like flipping a switch, turning on one life and fading out the other.

Solo Sunday trip to the Berlinischer Galerie

The first couple days are never easy. There's the unpacking, of course, the follow up emails and calls to tell everyone at home you've landed and are fine and to stay in touch, etc. Then there was returning to work and reorienting myself to a normal schedule after 3 weeks which is hard enough in itself. And then there was the fact that 3 of my close Berlin friends were still out of town, which meant a somewhat lackluster social calendar. So on Monday and Tuesday it was staying at work late, staring at a computer screen, to come home exhausted and watch movies on another screen. It's not a good pattern, but it's hard to break when you're tired and all you want to do is watch things on a screen. Sure enough though, as always, things turned around in the middle of the week, and a productive day at work coupled with a great jog with my running group last night was all I needed to whip myself back into shape. Now Kelly and Giovanni are also back, and my weekend calendar is filling up quite nicely.

Hope you all had a lovely holiday season, and have fully recovered from your respective hangovers, whatever type they may have been.

Resolving Realistically

Leaving NYC

Hello, 2013! I'm writing from the comfort of my childhood home and am at the tail end of what has been a lovely 2 and 1/2 week vacation home (and in SC, CT, and NYC) for the holidays. Since it's January 1st and all, I thought I would take this opportunity to revisit my resolutions from last year and see how I did. They were the following:

1) Eat less foie gras.

2) Get a full-time job.

Success on both fronts! To be fair, my list was kinda ridiculous. #1 was just silly, and #2 was pretty crucial to becoming a real person in Berlin. But now that #2 is taken care of, I can focus on more "frivolous" resolutions like going to yoga regularly, trying new recipes, or reading the news more. Though I've never been much of a resolution maker. I think it's great to be conscious of your lifestyle and try to make positive changes, but I recognize that these changes take time and believe steadily trucking along toward a goal rather than a drastic overhaul is necessary to make any change sustainable and realistic. For example, I'm happy that I now generally limit myself to one row of Ritter Sport chocolate rather than devouring the whole bar in one sitting, but that took a few years of practice, not one chocolate-less January.

It's kinda fun though, to look back and set goals, so I'll throw out a 2013 list just for kicks:

1) Travel to three places just for fun (outside of trips home to US). You'd think this was an easy one for me but since I've had my job, I've barely traveled outside of work trips. In that vein, I'll count an extension on a work trip that gives me some time to explore. Now that I have a real salary, and real European vacation time, it's time to start taking advantage of the fact that I live in Europe and can jet off to places like Stockholm or Slovenia for a long weekend. 

2) Follow through on a side project outside work that I'm not yet ready to talk about. Sorry for the secrecy, just don't want to get myself excited by sharing before the time is right.

3) Date more. Yes, I said it. Now that I have a job, I'm ready for a guy. Or a "cousin" (that was for my friend JD who is convinced all the guys I like/date look like they're related- don't worry world, I am not actually planning on dating a cousin).

4) Work on my German grammar.  Adjective endings and prepositions, I'm coming for ya.

#1 and #3 seem too fun to be resolutions (well, let's see with #3...) but again, it's all about being realistic. I'm especially interested to see how #2 turns out, and promise to report back. As for #4, well let's just say there was a reason why Mark Twain wrote about "The Awful German Language."

Every Thanks, Everywhere

During my daily ritual of struggling to throw off my warm comforter and pull myself out of bed this morning, I thought about my last few Thanksgiving celebrations. Last year in 2011, I had just moved to Berlin and flew over to London to visit some family and friends. I celebrated Thanksgiving with a couple friends from college and their London crew at a big potluck. I made roasted veggies. In 2010, I was in grad school and traveled to NYC to celebrate with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. My aunt cooked a splendid meal as she always does and we drank loads of wine as we always do. I made the roasted veggies. The last time I was in DC with family for Thanksgiving was 2009 it seems. I'm pretty sure I made roasted veggies.

Veggies pre-roasting 2011, London

Somewhere along the line that is my life, Thanksgiving morphed into my favorite holiday. Christmas is still the big one in our family: it brings us all together without fail and will always remind me of our Oma who planned and executed every Weihnachten of our childhood, from the decorations to the music to the "boxes" to the big meal on the 24th to hiding the cookies from Opa. If I could only have one holiday, it would be Christmas, for these reasons.

Veggies post-roasting in 2010, NYC

But Thanksgiving, in its essence, is my favorite. Christmas certainly revolves around a big meal and loved ones, but it's simpler at Thanksgiving. Food and people are the star of the show. It's why people rush to the store to get the last frozen turkey and can of cranberry sauce, why people fly across the country or take long road trips in awful traffic to get home for just a couple days. I appreciate these rituals and this effort, but I personally don't find it necessary. For me, there is no need for turkey or cranberry sauce: for years my family did nontraditional Thanksgiving meals like surf & turf, quail, duck, and seafood stew. We drank heavy reds instead of Beaujoulais, and we bought our pies at Trader Joe's, when we had them at all. I'm obviously not one to criticize travel, but I am always content to spend Thanksgiving somewhere other than DC. It's comforting to know that Christmas is around the corner and I'll be home then anyway, and it's an opportunity to spend a special day with other people you care about, or maybe have recently met. It's a warm, fuzzy holiday that besides the cooking (and travel), is really relaxing. One could say I already spent my Thanksgiving this year with a group of Poles, Germans, Israelis, and Ukranians in a small town in central Poland a few days ago where we consumed immense amounts of food like schnitzel and pierogi, drank a few rounds of wodka, and sang songs from all our countries. 

Dinner in Poland, 2012

I'm a lucky girl though, and have the good fortune of celebrating again tonight with a group of friends in Berlin. Not only is it Thanksgiving, but it is also Kelly's birthday. I will be making...... garlic mashed potatoes. But you better believe I'll be roasting the crap out of that garlic first.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends celebrating today, wherever you are, whatever you are eating. I am thankful for all of you.

My First Iftar

I don't observe Ramadan but I am always up for a good cultural experience, so I jumped on an invitation to have Iftar dinner with my Tunisian-German friend Hana and some of her family last Monday. After work I met Hana and we drove out to Spandau, just outside of Berlin, where one of her five sisters lives with her family.

Hana and one of her adorable nephews

Iftar is the fast-breaking evening meal during the month of Ramadan when observing Muslims only eat before sunrise and after sunset. The month of Ramadan shifts every year, but in summer months it is especially difficult because the sun rises earlier and sets later. Hana said she had gotten up at 3:30am to eat that morning and it was just after 9pm by the time we sat down to dinner. Thank goodness we're not in Finland.

Hana, her nephew, and I before dinner

I decided to do my part by eating less that day than usual leading up to the meal, meaning I didn't have bread with my lunch salad and stayed away from snacks. Still I felt like the one most eager to eat by the time we sat down with the first course. Hana noted that they tried to eat slowly and deliberately after a long day of fasting because their digestion can act up after many hours of not eating. Apparently she and her younger sister had gorged on pasta the night before and had major stomachaches afterward.

The food was delicious and abundant. We started with a light soup with a bit of lemon which is traditional for the first course. Following the soup came some fried crispy things, and who doesn't like fried crispy things?! Then came the main course: peppers stuffed with meat and sauce, rice, and salad.

My plate

I happily ate everything and then split one last fried crispy thing with Hana before we adjourned to the living room to rub our bellies and prepare for dessert. Hana's friend had brought some yummy baklava-esque concoction filled with a soft creamy mild cheese, a sprinkling of crushed pistachios, and drizzled with sugary syrup. Man was it good. Lots of cookies, chocolates, nougat, and watermelon also graced the table.

Dessert

One interesting last thing to note was the water. I noticed Hana's older sister pour something into the bottle and when I took a sip from my class, I immediately felt like I was drinking cleaning solution. I must have made a face because Hana laughed and asked if the water was too strange for me. Apparently in Tunisia it is an Iftar staple to drink water with orange blossom essence, which to me tasted like Windex. I'm all for trying new things but after a few more brave sips gave up and drank juice.

After-dinner lounging

Not Your Mama's Labor Day

Wow. Yesterday was something. I was really not up to speed on what goes on in Berlin on the Erster Mai, or first of May, or Tag der Arbeit, or Labor Day, or Maifeiertag, or May Holiday, or however else you want to call it, because apparently this holiday deserves multiple names, purposes, and celebrations.

It was a madhouse, to say the least. I met up with friends at 1pm and then we ventured into Kreuzberg, where the bulk of the action takes place- beers in hand, cameras in tow, and sunscreen properly slathered. It is an understatement to say the entire city becomes an outdoor party on this day, and the "dreamy" or "heavenly" weather, as the Germans call it, only egged everyone on. People (and police) were everywhere. Bars and restaurants and random people were blasting music from their establishments or corners. Vendors were on the street, selling everything from Turkish snacks to house-made "mojitos" (with vodka and ginger ale?). The parks and squares were bursting with sunbathers, smokers, dancers, musicians, couples, families, and grillers. A MADHOUSE, I tell you!

Some highlights of my first Erster Mai in Berlin included: making all my friends wear (and reapply) sunscreen, giving and receiving cheek kisses to a very enthusiastic vendor, getting rained on during a boat ride along the Spree, listening to Gangsta's Paradise on the street while enjoying some rot-weiss Pommes (fries with ketchup and mayo), spotting really strange police trucks that looked like they had come out of a museum, getting offered a piece of baklava by a random guy on the subway who told Kelly and I he was training to become an OBGYN, watching a German Volksmusik band perform my karaoke staple: "Believe" by Cher, and singing James Brown on the bank of the river with my gal pals.

I doubt I can do this any more justice with pictures than I can with words, but let's be honest, we all prefer pictures. So I'll leave it at that, and enjoy: 

American girls do Erster Mai!

Bus that was lit on fire

Turkish vendors in Kreuzberg

Polizei on patrol

Bank of the Spree

They're on a boat!

On the way to Treptower Park

Performing "Believe" by Cher

Post-rain shower view from the boat

A German, Italian, and Austrian on a boat!

Rave in the park

Smooch for the "Mojito" Man

I feel guilty being the only one in focus!

Sunset in the Park

Carnage

Nighttime Oranienstrasse parties

Herzliche Grüße zum Valentinstag

Love,
Berlin

Warming the House with Brunch and Glühwein

Shortly before heading back to DC for Christmas, I had some Berlin friends over to the apartment for the first time for a makeshift housewarming party. I hosted a brunch, partly because I think brunch is an easy meal to host and partly because I don't know if I'm ready to risk an evening party in my building where the mean age is 72 and the mean bedtime 8pm.

There were 6 of us in total and we spent a couple hours lounging around, sipping mimosas, and eating entirely too much food since I had decided to cook for an army. Among other things, I made some Algerian felfel and for the next 4 days was hit with the smell of roasted peppers and garlic when I entered the apartment.

After brunch, 3 of us decided to check out the Schloss Charlottenburg Weihnachtsmarkt which is supposed to be one of the nicest in the city. We were not disappointed! The market was beautiful, the lights sparkling, the Glühwein flavors varied. My pictures are unfortunately not of the highest quality because my camera was broken and I had to use my iPad. Which, by the way, is pretty awkward. Whipping out an iPad for a casual picture is not discrete. Still I love my iPad so much, thankyoumomdadjuliazachalexdaniel!

Brunch:

Schloss Charlottenburg Market:

Anna, Kelly, and I enjoying Glühwein of the Bratapfel (baked apple) and Himbeer (raspberry) varieties: