American Views Abroad

 
A couple of days before Christmas we spent 24 hours in Berlin. You could, if you wanted, just spend a day in Berlin since the high speed trains need an hour and 33 minutes from Hamburg, a relief from the over three hours it took when the Wall fell. Berlin used to tug my imagination and has a frontier quality Hamburg never had. I remember being blindly lost in the east side of the city in 1969 not knowing where the exit was for non-Germans nor understanding the Saxon accent of the East German border guard. I remember being there in August 1989 and being forced to wait in a cramped room at Checkpoint Charly and being rudely treated in Brecht's house in what was then a grubby neighborhood. My first time back in Berlin after unification found me back at his house, which overlooks a cemetery where many famous artists and writers including him are buried. On that occasion the guides were polite and friendly. About three years ago I decided to show a friend his house, but I was hard put to recognize the neighborhood, his house had very limited opening times and the cemetery appeared lost with all that was going on around it. The allure Berlin had on me was beginning to wane.

The weather was miserable on December 20 and 21 -- rain, sleet, snow, high winds.
Since it was a business trip, we stayed at a hotel at Gendarmenmarkt which was convenient and offered a rather good price. In short we managed to take in the lovely Christmas market right across the street which is situated between two French churches, a decidedly good meal at a French restaurant, two museums the next day plus getting wind lashed and wetter than usual in Europe. Yet Berlin seemed empty. Little was going on at the market, less in the shops on Friedrichstrasse. The prices for some things were a delightful surprise compared to Hamburg. Returning home the next evening, I was taken aback with the lightness of Hamburg even though driving through rain and fog. A strange turn of events for me.

In Not Heaven, but Not Hell Either: Berlin's KaDeWe, Roger Boyes, a journalist with The Times, goes looking for the true German Christmas at
www.signandsight.com/features/523.html. This article first appeared in Die Zeit on December 15th and includes some interesting facts. There are, for example, 560,000 Berliners registered as unemployed or on social welfare programs. A very high number compared to the 9% registered as unemployed here out of 1.7 million. Boyes does a good job explaining what's changed and what hasn't over the years. There is a lot of emphasis on food and rightly so when describing KaDeWe. Irregardless of how fond I am of my hometown, NYC, nothing compares to the top food floor at this Berlin department store. It's a marvel that has to be seen to be believed. Of course, out-of-towners have the option of being unfazed by the prices. He rightly points out how Germans today want real food, nothing frozen or preserved, and information on exactly where the animal lived and how. This trend can be seen at most farmers' markets here and our Christmas dinner was a turkey (organic) which would hardly have been recognized as one in the US. It was rather small but it tasted different than those over 20 lbs with more than double breasts. The bread in the stuffing likewise was organic and hand cubed at home as was most of the vegetables and the obligatory Christmas cookies. He also remarks at how you have to look hard to find a military toy at KaDeWe. Ditto for most toy shops in Germany. I'm trying to recall a child ever pointing fingers at me and saying Bang, Bang, You're Dead. War just isn't played here.

Last, but not least for all the talk of Christmas or Holidays and political correctness, the article ends on the note that there is an understanding in northern central Europe of the pre-Christian roots of Christmas and its creation and celebration of light.
- posted by Gloria @ 12:23 PM