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St Paul’s Cathedral the Non-Touristy Way

Dieser Post basiert auf diesem deutschen Originalpost.

Sometimes the reasons that make me want to see a place are not the most rational. The reason I wanted to see Prague, for example, was a Donald Duck pocket book that had an adaption of Franz Kafka’s „The Metamorphosis“. It started by the words: „Prague – the golden city by Vltava river…“ I read it when I was 9 years old, and I imagined golden rooftops and a golden river and golden sunshine, and I heard in my head the sound of Smetana’s Vltava, a piece I had already learned to love back then, and I wanted to see this magical place more than anything. When I went there 12 years later, it was every bit as golden as I had always pictured it to be, and the music played in my head and heart all the while I was there.

I had a similar reason I had wanted to see London for a long time. Not because of Big Ben, or the London Eye, or the Houses of Parliament, or Westminster Abbey. Not because of Oliver Twist or Peter Pan. I was always just drawn to one place – St Paul’s Cathedral. And again the reason was musical: Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins and her song about the little old bird woman selling breadcrumbs to feed the birds with.

Originally I had wanted to visit a service at Westminster Abbey that morning – but there was security and a lot of people in uniforms moving about in a concerted way that struck me as rather funny and not as awe-inspiring as it maybe was supposed to. At any rate the service could only be visited if you held a ticket. Sometimes fast decisions have to be made. I ran to catch a tube, and another, running up the streets, and I reached St Paul’s having to catch my breath.

The service hadn’t started yet, but it was high time, and so my first impression of the building was very different from what I had envisioned. I had seen myself carefully approach the church and slowly take in all the details, I had pictured myself walking about, barely being able to keep myself from humming the song about the old bird woman. Instead I ran and rushed up the stairs, „To the service?“ someone asked, I nodded, had a leaflet stuck into my hand, the sound of the ringing bells in my ears, and only found it in myself to calm down when I had already crossed through half of the nave. Finally slowly, I took step upon step forward to finally reach the dome, lift my head and let my eyes wander across it. Instantaneously, tears were running down my cheeks. I never even noticed the moment when I started crying. The beauty, the sublimity of it was completely out of this world. An usher approached me and asked: „Alright?“ I stammered: „It’s so beautiful!“

I sat down in one of the benches rather shyly. I love going to church in foreign countries, because every service in a different language or of a different confession that I have seen has only made my belief stronger that faith is universal, and spirituality transgresses the ideas of different religions. In this place of such great festivity, however, I was a little uneasy at the thought of someone realizing that I was somehow different, somehow not part of this. After all I had – and, as I shamefully must admit, still have – practically no idea about the Church of England and their principles.

As soon as the service started, however, all of this went away. There was a men’s choir all dressed in frocks. Their singing was unearthly, the sounds resonated with something deep inside my soul, and the melodies stretched out into the church dome and felt eternal. They were more solemn, more mighty than I knew church music at home to be, and they seemed to dissolve barriers inside of me and allowed me to fully give in to the entire emotional range that was at my disposition.

The sermon on the other hand was a graceful combination of philosophical depths and true-to-life happiness. It was about equality, and there was one sentence that has never left me since, and that said: „We are all one in Jesus Christ, whether we are male or female, black or white, straight or gay.“ I had never heard someone speak about matters of sexual orientation equality in a church, and I was equally impressed and touched. I do not think the sentiment of that sentence only holds valid for those who believe in Jesus. Equality is a value that is rooted in humanity, not in Christianity. This phrase is just a specifically Christian way of saying something that is bigger than any specific confession.

I left the service happier than I had gone in. I think that is what I like about religious services. They keep me from becoming cynic and restore my idealism somewhat – however much religious institutions may also have the power to destroy that same idealism when I look at other actions they take every day. Is it phony of me to concentrate mainly on those parts of it that go with my own belief system? I don’t know – what harm can it do if it may help me to be a better person?

Karlshöhe in Stuttgart, Germany

März 17, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 7 Kommentare

The bridge I am showing you today may not be spectacular, but I absolutely love how the picture turned out. This weekend, I met up in Stuttgart with my girlfriends from grad school. Even though I used to live very close, I never saw much of Stuttgart before. My friend lives here now, and being shown around by her I got a whole new perspective on the city. As if it hadn’t been enough to be around wonderful people and feel that great sensation when you haven’t seen someone in a while, but it still all feels as though you had seen each other yesterday, we were also really lucky with the weather. Spring was definitely coming about yesterday as we strolled through Stuttgart’s fairer corners.

After we had taken a beautiful walk through a forrest that was still wintery, we came back down into the residential areas of Stuttgart’s South. Beautiful houses lined the steep streets, and the sun was bright and warm to a degree that it really felt like winter was over. We decided to get a drink on Karlshöhe, another small hill that had a cute little restaurant. In search of the place, we came across a dent on the hilltop. The bridge in the picture led over that dent, and as my friends crossed it and I took this picture, I had so many associations once again that dealt with transgression. Me and these girls, together we’ve crossed over from being students to having jobs. Maybe also from being girls to being women. Now together we were crossing from winter to spring. And I really hope they’ll be around for more crossings into the next stages of my life.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

What is Bravery?

März 14, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 14 Kommentare

As some will know by now, I am drawing most of my writing inspiration from my 5 month trip around South Eastern Europe that took me to twelve different countries.

The beauty of Bulgaria… this was taken at Rila Monastery

I have written about the surprised, if not shocked reactions to this plan. Common questions and their answers went like this:

„All on your own???“
– „Yes. I’m gonna love it!“
„Wow… you’re so brave!“

„But – is it safe?“
– „Come on, it’s Europe, what’s gonna happen, really?“
„Wow… you’re so brave!“

„So – do you have everything booked, like, flights and hostels?“
– „No. I have a list of countries I will go to. That is the extent of my plan.“
„Wow… you’re so brave!“

„Wasn’t there a war there recently?“
– „That was 15 years ago. I really don’t think that should be a huge issue.“
„Wow… you’re so brave!“

„Uhm, but aren’t there Muslim countries down there?“
– „So?“
„Wow… you’re so brave!“

I’m going to spare you more because all these talks went pretty much the same way and after a while it was really neither interesting to be confronted with so many ridiculous stereotypes nor flattering to be called brave. However, at some point it struck me as remarkable that „You’re so brave“ was a reaction so versatile, and I was wondering what people actually meant by that. Obviously they thought there were fears to be overcome. Now I am going to say this straight away: I never felt brave. Because I was never scared of any of the things people proposed to me to be scary.

Not being particularly brave on the ferry back to the mainland from Vis island in Croatia

In the five examples I have given, the things that my conversation partners thought to be scary about my endeavour were loneliness, safety, (lack of) planning, history or the political situation that would be met and the issue of religion. And here is why those things didn’t scare me:

1. Loneliness

Lots of articles have been written about the issue of solo travel, and surely I will write one too before long. The essence of what I have to say on the topic is: being alone is very different from being lonely. I was hardly ever lonely, even though I was alone a lot. I think a lot of people are afraid of being alone, but they have never really tried it. If they did, they might find that it is the best way to come to terms with yourself and the people around you.

Not being particularly brave – or particularly lonely for that matter!! – in Albania

2. Safety

Granted, I may have been naive when I left for the trip, but I really never felt unsafe in any of the countries I went to. People hear Albania and they go „unsafe“. Often it seems that „poor“ equals „unsafe“. I find that dangerous. Again, people are scared of something they haven’t seen or tried. The best thing to promote your own saftey, I have found, is what Sarah of Yes and Yes calls the Don’t Mess With Me Walk. I’ve got that down and I think it saved me from many unpleasant experiences.

3. Planning

I did not even know how right I was not to plan when I didn’t plan. But once I was out, I noticed quickly that plans never stick anyway. So being flexible and trying to make up your mind as you go is really the best way. Plans don’t give you control over things. It is more likely that they will fall through, which will be much scarier. Not having a plan was very liberating.

Granted, Studenica monastery in Serbia would actually have been easier to find with better planning…

4. History and Politics

I think if you’re curious and sensitive to the cultural specifics of a new country, there isn’t much that could go wrong in this department. Be at least a little bit informed and try to just find out more. As a foreigner in the company of open, well-travelled locals, you can also get away with some stuff. Today I think back with slight discomfort at the few times that I bluntly asked people in Serbia what the big deal with Kosovo was. That could have gone very wrong, but I was lucky.

Even with barbed wire and KFOR signs, Prizren in Kosovo was beyond peaceful, and the locals told me that all the precautions do more harm than good.

5. Religion

It is a bit of a pet peeve of mine that people will be scared by Islam as such, and I never was scared or extra careful about going to Muslim countries. I think nearly every religion has the potential to be really beautiful and enriching while also possibly turning radical and then becoming scary and restrictive. When equalizing Muslims with islamists, people forget that certain Christian sects have equally radical and, from the standpoint of humanity, inacceptable opinions. I learned so much about Islam in Bosnia, Albania and Turkey and I think it is a lovely concept.

So since I wasn’t scared of any of the mentioned things, I never had the feeling that I was generally being very brave. However, there were numerous occasions on the trip when I was scared of something. Sometimes I overcame my fear, and then I did feel brave. Like when I jumped that 14 meter cliff in Greece. Sometimes I backed out. Like when I did not jump the much lower cliff in Macedonia, because the water looked shallow. And then I did not feel like I wasn’t brave, but that I was being reasonable.

Not being particularly brave with this tandem paragliding either. I felt completely safe in the hands of my friend who took me.

Some fears are to be overcome. Others aren’t. Sometimes it’s all in the moment. And sometimes, when you look closely, there is no fear to master, but there is just something you don’t know yet, and that someone or something else has suggested to be scary. Ask yourself if there is an actual reason to fear it. Will it threaten you? Does it have the potential to harm you? If the answer is yes, your fear is there to protect you. Respect it. Surprisingly often, however, the answer is no. And then you don’t have to be brave, but just a bit faithful. I have found that to be the most rewarding feeling in the world.

Matters of Life and Death – European Cemeteries

März 12, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 21 Kommentare

Most people don’t exactly think of seeing a cemetery when they go to a foreign city. I used to be one of these people. I also used to be one of those people who could never even remember the orthography of the darn word. I swear I had to look up the spelling before I started writing this post. However, certain encounters with cemeteries have changed my indifference toward them, and I would like to share them with you. These are a few impressions from my travels through Europe:

1.Bystrzyca Kłodzka, Poland (2007)

When I went to Poland for six months as a volunteer, my beforehand instructions for the train journey to my tiny town were as follows: „About twenty minutes after Kłodzko station, you should see a cemetery to your right. The next stop after that is yours.“ So I was standing at the carriage door on a cold January night, approaching my destination, my nervousness growing at every stop since Kłodzko, asking myself how in the world I could spot a cemetery when it was pitch black outside.

But all of a sudden there was light in the utter darkness. What seemed to me to be hundreds of votive candles were glowing through the night and I was caught by the devout and solemn beauty of it with such force that I forgot to be nervous anymore. It was not an image of death. It was one of the afterlife and of eternity. I got off the train at the next stop and started my Polish adventure with the lights of hope in my heart.

2. Lviv, Ukraine: Lychakiv Cemetery (2009)

In Lviv, there is a street along which all the hospitals are lined up, and it connects the city center with Lychakiv Cemetery. The way into town used to be called the axis of life. The way to the cemetery – the axis of death. As morbid as this may be, I loved the symbolism behind it. It was so easy, so clear-cut and so utterly understandable: Life – or death. City – or cemetery. No shades of grey. Just definite answers.

Maria Konopnicka was a 19th century Polish writer and contemporary of…

… Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko.

Lychakiv is very old, it has been around since 1787. It has been used by different Christian confessions and different social classes, and it holds the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów – a war memorial for those who died here between 1918 and 1920 fighting for the city to become Polish again after Habsburg reign and World War One’s Soviet occupation. It holds graves of famous Poles and Ukranians alike. It was here that I noticed for the first time the specific aesthetics and beauty of tombstones, mausoleums and arcades in a cemetery. In the older parts of the cemetery, a lot of the stones are moss covered, and I couldn’t help but feel at peace with that image of nature reclaiming our manmade memorials for itself. I found the idea of all of us returning to nature eventually extremely comforting in that moment.

3. Sarajevo, Bosnia: Kovači Cemetery (2010)

The Sarajevo cemeteries are of particular sadness, because they are so large and such a big part of the graves are war graves. I learned here that in Islam, the graves that have pointed pyramid stale on one side and a round-tipped one that looks a bit like a bullet shell on the other are always war graves.

Passing through this scene having a view of a mosque, the orthodox and the catholic cathedral gave me chills. So much transcending of different cultures in this place – and that is exactly what brought about the war. All the tombstones have dying dates between 1991 and 1995. There is such a lot of unfulfilled potential buried here, so much unlived life. The gravity of it sunk down on me with force, and I cried liberating tears. And I was so grateful that there is peace today in my home country and in this country.

4. Zagreb, Croatia: Mirogoj Cemetery (2010)

Funnily, I only went to Mirogoj because I had told my Couchsurfing host that I had loved Lychakiv in Ukraine. It was a bright and sunny day in Zagreb, and going to the cemetery felt a bit off, but as soon as I got there and saw the entrance gate in all its splendor, I didn’t regret it. I roamed the cool alleyways for a while, wondering about the lives that had preceeded the deaths now shielded by the cold stone. It was by no means a sad wondering – just curiosity, really.

Then I heard someone sobbing. I looked around and it took me a while to discover an elderly woman, crouching down on a tomb slab, weeping bitter tears. The sight of it broke my heart. I circled her for a few minutes. Then I picked up my courage, approached her, put my arm around her shoulder, and she leaned against me and cried. After a while I told her in German: „Unfortunately I do not speak Croatian, but I am really very sorry for your loss.“ She looked at me with eyes so clear that they didn’t seem to fit her advanced age, and replied in the same language: „Me bit German.“ She told me how she was mourning her son. I held her, and I listened to her broken sentences. I don’t think that there was any other moment in my life when I felt more intensely what the notion of humanity means, and never before had I understood compassion as truly as I did then.I haven’t really felt these places to be very gloomy or scary. In fact I think that cemeteries allow us to reflect on death and life equally, and that they are places where emotions are maybe more dense than elsewhere if you let yourself feel them. They invite us to think about impermanence, about finiteness. I have always found things to be of the greatest beauty when I knew that they wouldn’t stick, and travel has taught me not to regret or fret about this, but to turn the knowledge of it into an immense gratitude for being there to witness the beauty of the moment. That is what cemeteries do for me. They make me grateful.

What do you think about cemeteries? Gloomy or peacful? Scary or hopeful? Do you have a favorite cemetery?

Guest Post: Triple Bridge in Ljubljana, Slovenia

März 10, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 5 Kommentare

This week’s Bridges on Sundays brings you the first guest post ever on my blog. I have the great honor to present to you my friend Sarah from Wake up Mona, a blog you should most definitely check out. Sarah is an art teacher in the US currently planning her six month RTW which will start this summer. She blogs about her previous travels in stunning photo essays and shares her thoughts on the power of travel in a strong and genuine voice. She and I share a deep love for Eastern Europe. Please follow Sarah on twitter, like her facebook page and keep up to date as she embarks on her journey through Central America, the former Yugoslavia, Greece and Egypt.

Today, Sarah brings to you a bridge that is unique, yet threefold.

Ljubljana is a city of bridges, each with its own story to tell. A river of the same name (Ljubljanica) flows through the city, making bridge-crossing a necessary and eventually a very natural occurrence. One of my favorites was the Tromostovje, or Triple Bridge, located at the entrance to old town. There are three individual pedestrian bridges to choose from, but I found myself always venturing to the sides; I’ve always hated being in the middle. The middle bridge is the oldest, built in 1842. It stood as a lonely single bridge for nearly 90 years until the two side ones were added in 1931. It’s impossible to know that by looking at it today, all three bridges unify as one.

But it’s easy to overlook its architectural uniqueness. Perfectly situated, connecting old and new, Ljubljana castle on one side and lively Preseren’s square on the other, Triple Bridge is the heart of Ljubljana. No visit to this lovely city would be complete without crossing it at least once, preferably three times. 🙂

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you also have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Being German and the Issue of Patriotism

März 7, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 80 Kommentare

Last week I wrote a post on cultural identity in this globalized world and in my own travel-filled life. The reactions were immediate and plentiful, and it seems that this is a subject that interests a lot of us. I am sure that this is because in travel, we always try to find ourselves. We confront ourselves with the other, the great unknown, the „cudne manowce“, as I like to call it, which is Polish for „the magical astray“. And we enjoy this because we perceive it as different only by comparison with what we are, and in this process we notice and understand our own inner workings better than before.

Along these lines, I have a few stories to tell about being German when you travel. I never noticed that I was German until I left Germany – that makes a lot of sense, because obviously most people I had known until then were German too, and this trait didn’t serve as a distinguishing attribute that would shape anyone’s individual personality. But then I went to other places. And I noticed that I was ridiculously punctual (by comparison with Mexican Americans). And well organized (by comparison with the French). And much more used to beer than vodka (by comparison with the Polish). And uptight (by comparison with Serbians). Even prude (I am SO looking at Sweden here!!). So there were moments when I felt very German, and I couldn’t believe I had never seen it before.

What I said about vodka goes for rakija as well – man, those Croatians can drink…

In becoming aware of my Germanness, I lost some of it, and that is what I wrote about last week. Other things I will most likely never get rid of, and the one thing that comes to mind fastest and that I have most been confronted with when travelling is the awareness of history and its direct link to patriotism. Let me explain with a little help of German singer-songwriter Reinhard Mey. The quotes below are translations of the lyrics to this song called Mein Land, „My Country“:

My dark country of victims and perpetrators,
I carry part of your guilt.
Country of betrayed ones and of traitors,
With you I practice humility and patience.

It all started when I was 16 and lived in Texas for a year. Kids would come up to me on the school bus and ask me questions such as: „So, are your parents Nazis?“ or „So, is Hitler still alive?“ or „So, have your family killed any Jews back then?“ Being 16 and a foreigner, I found it difficult to deal with this at first.

There was one particularly hard situation: We were talking about Auschwitz in my Sociology class. The guy behind me muttered to his friend: „What’s the big deal, it’s just a couple of people that died.“ I gasped, turned around, and gave him a huge speech after which I left the classroom in tears. Quite the drama queen, eh? But I don’t think he ever forgot it. In time, I learned that these things didn’t happen out of cruelty, but out of ignorance and I resorted to teaching people about the Third Reich instead of starting to cry.

I can’t sing to you hand to heart,
With eyes on the flag, and a word such as „pride“
won’t cross my lips even with an effort –
stupidity and pride are cut from the same cloth!

This is where patriotism comes in. I learned that while I may not identify with what happened in my country throughout history, other people will identify me with it. Whether I want it to be or not, Germany is part of me – and that includes its dark past. But with this dark past being such a dominant association with Germany, being proud of being German is something that doesn’t feel quite right. Add in the very important factor that an extremist form of patriotism is exactly what national socialism was all about, and you may understand why Germans are usually very very careful to express pride in their national identity.

I cling to you and even through your disruptions,
I am your kin in sickness and in health,
I am your child through all your contradictions,
my motherland, my fatherland, my country.

The more I have travelled, the more people I have met who never brought up the topic of collective German guilt. In fact it is often the other way around: People tell me how much they love Germany and I get all flustered and weird because it sounds strange and wonderful to me when someone has such love for the country I am from and no fear of expressing it. And then I have to explain that I am not used to that. Of course there was the soccer World Cup in 2006 that changed things for a lot of us and allowed us to wave Germany’s flag proudly for once. Things have relaxed since then, and I am happy about that. But at the same time I am not entirely sure about it. What if we forget? What if we lose awareness of the responsibility we have? What if things got out of hand?

World Cup Public Viewing, Greifswald, Germany

This was me at a public viewing for the World Cup in 2006. Over the top, you think? You should have seen some of the other people…

I have learned not to think of patriotism as an innocent emotion. I have learned that it has led to evil, and I have learned that there are no grounds to be proud of something you have no power over, such as your nationality. You can be grateful for it, happy about it, and identify with it, but as long as it is not your accomplishment, „pride“ is not the appropriate emotion to me. I think that feeling so strongly about this is very German. And it is something that I really want to hang on to.

I love Germany. But being proud to be German is something I don’t even want to feel. I would be scared that it might mean that I had forgotten my country’s past.

[EDIT JULY 2014] I recently closed comments on this post because I felt its time had come. It is important to me to stress once more that all my observations are highly subjective and personal. People in the comments have largely taken offense to the fact that I generalized a German attitude. I do think that I am not an exception in my views, but I am well aware that there are many other perspectives on the issue. In fact, patriotism is not at all problematic for many people anymore, especially for younger generations. I stand by this post and its importance because this one individual perspective I have, my very own approach to the topic, still holds valid and may grant some insights to the whole interplay of nationalism, patriotism, pride and history.

Failures and Successes – History Alive in Berlin

März 5, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 8 Kommentare

Surely you’ve noticed by now that I have a thing for history. I think countries are the same as individual people: It is easier to understand them if you know their personal past; their experiences, their baggage, their most wonderful successes and their greatest failures. Germany has a lot to offer in that department, and not only in the 20th century – although that is usually what everyone focusses on, understandably. And German history of the 20th century can’t be seen better anywhere in the country than in Berlin. Some of the places around allow you to truly understand Germany’s past – if you let them.

Standing freely between Humboldt University’s splendid main building and the German Museum of History, across from the State Opera at Unter den Linden boulevard, there is this fairly small and maybe unspectacular building.

Neue Wache (New Guard House)

In 18th century Prussia, the city castle of the Prussian kings was not at all far from here, and this was the armory. Today it is the „Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny“ – yes, that is its official name. Very long and technical, very German. Most of us just refer to it as Neue Wache (New Guard House), but the long version should begin to tell you about its function which is much more important.

There are specific memorials that commemorate the Jews killed in the Holocaust, the Roma and Sinti, and the homosexuals. There is a memorial that reminds of the burning of undesired books during the Third Reich, and there are living relics of Nazi architecture such as the Olympic Stadium or the airport in Tempelhof. Neue Wache is much less specific, and instead more inclusive. Here, we commemorate everyone who suffered from National Socialism and any form of tyranny and dictatorship before and after. We try to make amends for what this country has done and for what others have done. We include the victims and the resistance, the well-known heroes and every single footman, all countries, nations and ethnicities in our prayers, whatever that means to every single one of us. Personally I have always found this place to be deeply spiritual.

Käthe Kollwitz‘ „Mutter mit totem Sohn“ („Mother with her dead son“)

When you enter the building, it is but one big and almost empty room. In the middle there is a replica of a work by expressionist artist Käthe Kollwitz whose work I love deeply. She was considered a degenerate artist herself under the Nazis. The sculpture is called „Mother with her dead son“, and the intensity of it drives tears to my eyes whenever I go there and take a few minutes to think about what this place means. Buried here are also the remains of an unknown soldier and of an unknown concentration camp victim. The writing next to the sculpture says: „To the victims of war and tyranny“. The memorial is very plain, but it does invite you to linger and think about what it is there to remind you of. Take that moment. Calm yourself. And find in yourself the urge to make this world a place where cruelties like these will never happen again. You will go out a changed person if you allow it to happen.

And then there is a second dark chapter in recent German history – and while I feel that the history of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), or „Eastern Germany“, is a very complex matter that is quite usually immensely simplified, there is not much to argue about the end of this „other“ German State which began by the fall of the Berlin Wall. This event may be the greatest triumph, the most joyful moment in modern German history, and it means the world to me personally. If you’ve got time, I highly recommend a visit to te former secret police prison in Hohenschönhausen or to Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (Memorial Berlin Wall) at Bernauer Straße. But if you want the immediate experience, if you want to touch and feel history and find a place where you could imagine what it must have been like, you should go to the East Side Gallery.

East Side Gallery Demonstration, Berlin Germany

There has recently been a fight over the East Side Gallery because investors are threatening to take parts of it down. This is the first part that construction workers moved a few days ago. I took this at the demonstration to save the East Side Gallery on Sunday, March 3, 2013.

The East Side Gallery is the longest preserved piece of the Berlin Wall. It starts between U-Bahn stations Warschauer Straße and Schlesisches Tor, line U1, right on the Friedrichshain side of Oberbaumbrücke. The wall was built in 1961 when more and more people started to leave the GDR. Only two months prior to that, the Secretary of the Socialist Party, Walter Ullbricht, had uttered the famous sentence: „Nobody has the intention of building a wall!“ The utter mockery of it…

The official state boarder at this point was actually on the Kreuzberg side of the river, meaning that the Spree river belonged to the GDR, even though the wall excluded it from Eastern Berlin territory – it was part of the so-called death strip. I read that children would sometimes drown on the Western shore because authorities weren’t allowed to help them once they had fallen into the water.

This is the former Death Strip, imagine the Wall behind you as you have this gorgeous view of Oberbaumbrücke and the Spree River.

The East Side Gallery is famous because artists from all over the world have contributed to its design. The side of it that faces Friedrichshain district holds incredible artwork that usually has immense political power, the way only street art can. I have recently noticed that it feels a lot like the Zaspa District in Gdansk, Poland with its famous murals. This is why most people come here, and it’s well worth a good look. However, I also recommend you pass through to the river side of the wall and into the death strip and think about the fact that this was no man’s land only 25 years back, that you would have been shot immediately, had you been found on this side of the wall coming from where you just now actually came from – the other side.

For many more great pictures of the East Side Gallery, I recommend this post by my friend Sarah at Wake Up Mona.

Oberbaumbrücke in Berlin, Germany

März 3, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 8 Kommentare

In honor of ITB, Berlin’s International Tourism Fair, I decided to feature posts about Berlin and Germany as a whole on the blog this week. This Bridge has been one of my favorite places in Berlin ever since I first saw it.

Oberbaumbrücke is located between the U-Bahn stations Schlesisches Tor and Warschauer Straße. When one of the post-box-colored U1-trains passes over it on a sunny day and the red brick stone and yellow wagons stand before a bright blue sky, those colors are of such intensity that the image is among the most vivid and dominant associations I have with Berlin. I have mentioned before that I love red brick stone more than anything, and Oberbaumbrücke is no exception.

When Berlin was a divided city, the river Spree marked the border at this point – the bridge connected Western Berlin Kreuzberg and Eastern Berlin Friedrichshain until 1961 when the Berlin Wall was built. Now the bridge was no longer connecting the two sides of the river, it was no longer connecting the two cities and countries. In the 1970s the so called „Kleiner Grenzverkehr“ (literally: Small Border Traffic) commenced, and pedestrians could cross again. After 1989 the bridge was renovated thoroughly and today once more connects two sides of the river that no longer belong to different states.

On the Friedrichshain side of it you will find the East Side Gallery, the longest part of the Wall that is still standing in one piece exactly where it used to stand. It is canvas for street artists today and shows some terrific artwork, largely on topics of mutual understanding between people and cultures and of overcoming the dark parts of history. Actually the East Side Gallery is in danger of being partially torn down right now, so you should go there quick before Berlin, horribly, may lose one of its most important historical landmarks. You can read more on it in this post I wrote.

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März 1, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / Kommentare deaktiviert

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What’s one more Identity?

Februar 28, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 25 Kommentare

A couple of weeks back I was having drinks in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district with Adam of Travels of Adam – if you haven’t yet stumbled upon his great blog you should make up this oversight as quickly as you can. We had a great evening of drinking wine and chatting about travel, life in Berlin and blogging. We finally left the bar to walk to the tram stop together, and when we had just one more pedestrians’ traffic light to cross, we saw the tram get in to the stop. The traffic light was red. It was obvious that we’d miss the tram if we waited for it to turn green. Adam asked: “Wait or run?” I said: “Run!”, and so we did. As we got on the tram, Adam said: “You are so unlike any other German I know, I love it!”

This got me thinking back on all the times my German identity has been questioned – even if in jest.

In Bristol, England, I walked into a coffee shop to buy a latte. After taking my order, the barista asked: “So how are you today?” I replied: “Really grand! Enjoying being away from home for a bit.” He asked: “Where’s home?” I said: “Germany.” He looked up puzzled: “I thought you were Canadian! You don’t have a foreign accent in your English!”

In Mostar, Bosnia, hostel owner Bata gave me advice on how to get into one of my favorite sights, Blagaj’s Tekkija, without having to pay an entrance fee. He said: “You’re almost local, you just tell them ‘Gdje si, legendo!’ [which roughly translated to ‘What’s up, my man!’] and pass right through.”

Tekija, Blagaj, Blagaj, Bosnia and Hercegovina

The Tekija of Blagaj, one of my favorite places in the world

In Rijeka, Croatia, we were having a lovely night in someone’s back yard singing, dancing and, again, drinking the night away. I sang songs in Croatian and was totally in my happy place. My friend Nina said: “You have strange hobbies for a German girl, Maki. Shouldn’t you be working in a Hypo Bank and have a boyfriend that you see just once a week?”

In Nis, Serbia, I was hanging with hostel people in the smokers’ lounge when the phone rang. The hostel owner, Vlad, ran to get it, leaving his cigarette in the ashtray. When he didn’t come back after a while, I took it and said: “Vlad won’t finish this, eh, I might as well.” His co-worker by the same name looked at me in awe and said: “When you try to get back into Germany, they won’t let you. They will think you’re Serbian.”

In Novi Sad, Serbia, we were singing, drinking and eating Ajvar in my friend Lazar’s kitchen well into the night. Ajvar is a delicious paste made from egg plant, tomatoes and peppers. There was a large jar of it and one spoon, and it circled. When the jar was almost empty and Lazar was scratching remains from the ground, I advised him to do it with the spoon’s narrow end to get even the last bits out. His face split into a grin. “You blend in very well here.”

In Gdansk, Poland, I was visiting a conference, but hanging out nights with my friends who use a lot of swear words, especially the infamous “kurwa”, an approximate equivalent to the English f-word. Finally one night I told them: “Guys, you gotta stop it with the swearing. I almost said ‘kurwa’ at the conference today!” They all broke into laughter, and my friend Karol said: “Marielka, I think you may have deserved the right to Polish citizenship now.”

This is me at the Sejm, Polish parliament, in 2007. I wouldn’t have thought back then that anyone would ever attest me a Polish identity…

It looks like I’m not your prototype German. I’m not sure what that would be, but apparently not someone who crosses red traffic lights, speaks foreign languages, tries not to let food go to waste, sings Balkan songs, finishes a stranger’s cigarette, or swears (in Polish at that!). When writing about this, I noticed how many of these stories involve people in foreign countries that I consider friends. It also brought to mind that I have a Croatian nickname, Maki, and a Polish one, Marielka. I realized how integrated, how much at home I feel in so many different places.

When I posted this photo of my Australian friend Steve and I, taken at Lake Shkodra in Montenegro, on facebook, my German friend Stefan (who speaks approximately every language in Europe) commented it in Bosnian by the words: “Ti ces nam vratit kao prava Bosanka” – “You will come back to us like a true Bosnian girl”.

When someone attests me a new cultural identity, it is the ultimate step from being a traveller to being a part of the culture in some small way. It makes me very happy to think that I am a little Canadian, a little Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian and Polish, and of course also a little German. I like to think that I have been drawn to Middle Eastern and Eastern Europe because part of my soul has always been there, because there is something inside of me that has always been Slavic – while that doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate and identify with my German heritage. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never want to get rid of that! I throw on black, red, gold colors when we play international soccer tournaments just like any other German, and I am ready to sell Germany as a lovely travel destination to anyone who wants to hear it. I am most certainly German, and as difficult as it sometimes feels to say this: I love my country.

The beauty of all these little anecdotes, however, is that I don’t have to be exclusive on this one. This isn’t a monogamous relationship. In a globalized, fast paced, cosmopolitan world that asks of young people to be flexible, variable, willing to adapt and open to new things, I seem to have taken on multiple identities already – and with every new one that is added to that, the only question that comes to mind is: “What’s one more?” I have a beautiful summer love affair with Croatia. I have a strange fascination, an infatuation if you will, with Serbia. I have a difficult, but serious relationship with Bosnia. The US are like an ex-boyfriend who I still think very fondly of – in other words, yes, we’re still friends. Poland is something like the love of my life. I well think I could get married to Poland. And Germany – Germany is my parent and my sibling. Germany is family.

What do you think? How many identities do you have? How do they show? And do you strive for more?

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