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Neckarbrücke in Tübingen, Germany

Last week I introduced a new series to my blog – one that shows you photos of bridges! It’s that time of the week again, and so today I bring to you the second post in that series:

I have written about how the Neckar is not a true river to me because I grew up next to a river that was several miles in width and about to open up into the North Sea. But when I first came to Tübingen, that small university town in Southern Germany not far from Stuttgart where I was going to go to grad school, the bridge that crosses the Neckar was one of the places that I liked at once.

It was in the midst of summer when I first set foot in Tübingen, and it was beautiful weather. If you want to walk downtown from the train station in Tübingen, you have no choice but to cross the Neckar Bridge. Its balustrades were decorated with beautiful flowers on both sides, and it felt like a guard of honor for anyone who wanted to cross into town. Later I would see those same flower decorations everywhere in town – on lamp posts. On the town hall windows. In planters by the university buildings. The same flowers in the same arrangements everywhere. It was endearing and felt a tad bit finicky in a cute way, which captures much of the towns character for me.

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 week. 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!

Instructions for a Bridgekeeper

Januar 21, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 12 Kommentare

As much as I love travelling solo, I am in the process of looking into finding travel buddies for my next adventure. Today I got into thinking what it would actually mean for someone else to travel with me. I am sure that in my time I must have developed a few spleens and weird habits when travelling on my own, and I think everyone deserves a fair warning. So here they are, the instructions on how to deal with the BridgeKeeping Travel Buddy (BKTB).

„Dear customer,

congratulations on obtaining your very own BKTB. Handled with care and maintained properly, you will enjoy this product for a very long time.

When choosing a travel destination, keep in mind that the BKTB must be exposed to travel to Poland at least four to five times a year and to another Eastern European destination of your choice once a year. Also make sure that the BKTB goes on at least one vacation a year that will allow her to return to Germany with a tan that will prompt people to say that she looks like a gypsy.

Make sure that the BKTB has access to coffee in the morning, preferably Espresso or Bosnian / Serbian / Turkish coffee. The BKTB does NOT run on instant coffee. You run the risk of causing severe damage to the BKTB’s system if you try to fuel it with instant coffee. Also, keep in mind that while the BKTB doesn’t need much food during the day when travelling, a feeling of hunger can overcome her within seconds towards evening. When this is uttered, find food as quickly as you can or else run for dear life lest you want to be object to a very moody BKTB.

While the BKTB will help you to just wander a place without orientation and finding incredible places, and while the BKTB has a fairly decent sense of orientation, she will not ask for directions unless she has to. You being there will mean that she doesn’t have to, because it’s your job. She’s weird that way. The BKTB will, however, randomly chat up strangers in coffee places, trains or other ways of public transport, on park benches or in line for a museum. If those strangers are locals, she will have annoyed them with a gazillion questions about the culture, the history and the minority politics of the country you are in before even having asked the stranger’s name. Yeah, she’s weird that way, too.

On the other hand, the BKTB needs her quiet time. Bring her to a religious site or a spectacular place in nature (a beach will always do, but mountains work as well!) frequently during your trip and just shut up for a bit so she can hear her own thoughts. Don’t take it badly if she wants to wander off on her own for a bit. It’ll be for your own good if she does.

Credit for this pic to my friend Steve

If you’re female or gay, the BKTB comes with an option of daily cuddling / hugging. Actually to be honest, she comes with that option if your a straight man, too. Hell, the important question is probably if *you* come with that option!

The BKTB will express the urge to sing out of the blue frequently. The best way to deal with this is to find someone who can play the guitar and an adequate situation for singing, such as bonfires, balconies or terraces, beaches and the likes, or at least a karaoke bar. You do not have to provide lyrics since the BKTB knows almost all of them by heart.

Credit for this pic to my friend Julia

You have now been warned. Enjoy your travels.“

What is there to consider when someone travels with you?

Stari Most in Mostar, Bosnia & Hercegovina

Januar 17, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 6 Kommentare

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. From now on I plan to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog – ideally once a week. 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!

This is the Bridge that made me fall in love with Bridges.

When I first came to Mostar on a bus from Split in Croatia, it wasn’t a great start. The fifty year old bald bus driver made a pass at me, I didn’t find the hostel for an hour, and when I did, I was so relieved I started crying and had an asthma attack. But none of it mattered the minute I set foot into the old town.

I am in love with Mostar, with its complicated history and its cultural and ethnical difficulties, with the color of the Neretva river that is unlike any I had seen before I came there, with its people that have, or so it seems, never lost hope and radiate with the knowledge that it is a great gift to be alive, with its overflowing beauty and sadness and complexity and joy.

The river isn’t the line that divides the city into the Bosniak (muslim) and the Croat (catholic) halves of the city. The old frontline is, and it’s a few hundred meters to the right of this picture. I still feel the Old Bridge, or in Bosnian Stari Most, has the potential to connect the two halves. I learned from the locals that everyone loves the Bridge. It was destroyed by Croat forces in the Balkan wars in the 1990s, and was remodelled and finished in 2004. It is the heart and soul of Mostar, the city carries the Bridge in its name – Mostar means Bridgekeeper. People from all sides and backgrounds identify with the Bridge in this city – through their segregated schooling of Bosniak and Croat kids, through their different football clubs, even now that the Croat side is building their own bus terminal as not to have to use the one on the Bosniak side.

The Bridge brings them together as one.

The River That Started It All – Hamburg’s Elbe

Januar 15, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 6 Kommentare

Dieser Post basiert auf diesem deutschen Originalpost.

Sometimes great happiness isn’t very far away. Sometimes it isn’t necessary to get on a plane or on a train or even on public transport. Sometimes all it takes is my mom’s bike and going downhill, ever downhill from my parents‘ house until I reach the beach. I was born and raised in Hamburg. I’m not sure if there is a place in the world that comforts me more than the Elbe River beach.

When I was a little girl, my parents would make us go for a walk along the river on weekends. I must have been 10 or 11 when for the first time I went down there for a stroll with friends *voluntarily*, and we thought we were the height of cool and very grown up.

I’m not often home in Hamburg, in fact I go there too seldomly. But when I do go, I make it a rule to go down and say hi to the big grey river at least once. When I moved to Tübingen in Southern Germany and was worried that I would miss the water, people told me: „But they have the Neckar River!“ People who have seen both will understand my reaction, which must have been a mixture from a chuckle, an actual laugh and a sniff. The Neckar is gorgeous, but it’s not a river – more like a creek. Playful, cute, harmless. Besides, it’s green. Or brown. It’s got all the wrong colors.

The Elbe at Hamburg’s outskirts is a stream, a powerful monster, wallowing along, taking my thoughts away with it whenever I need to clear my head. It is sometimes blue, but usually it is a thousand different shades of grey (ok, that phrase is basically ruined for me thanks to E.L. James, but if you ever come to my beloved river, you will see that there is more to the expression!). In summer, it’s a glistening mirror…

… and in winter it can be iced over, edgy, harsh. No matter the season – when big container ships come along, there will be waves, and when there’s good wind, there will be sailing boats, showing their pretty and colorful spinnaker sails if you’re lucky. The fact that I even know the word for this specific sail, even though I cannot sail myself, proves that I am from here. This is home, in any weather, under any condition, looking whichever way. As long as I know that this place exists, I will always strive to discover new and different places – because I will know that I can come back here, where everything feels safe and secure even in its instability. Sometimes the river floods and causes horrible damage. Usually it is merciful though, and it gives its all to the city. The port, one of the largest ones in Europe – Hamburg wouldn’t be what it is without it today and all through history.

It started when I was about 13 that every year we would go to see the Easter bonfires down at the river. If you lived in Blankenese, you would meet everyone you knew on that Saturday before Easter. The fires at the beach, the waters throwing back their warm light, the anticipation of it all – it has always been truly special. Four great fires are built up at the beach, and they rival each other for which one burns the longest. On each fire, at the top of the rod that everything is put up around, there will be a straw doll symbolizing the evil spirits of winter. Once it falls into the fire and burns, spring will gracefully come onto us. It is a deeply pagan tradition, and I like the fact that it is honored. Also, to me it was always deeply intertwined with Christianity nonetheless, because while my oldest friend and I would always stay at the Easter bonfires long into the night, we would still go to church at 5 o’clock the next morning – sometimes without sleep, coming directly from the beach.

The latest story I have to tell from the Elbe River is one of particular beauty, because it combines different things I love. Water. Fire. Music. People. In the summer, two of my oldest friends got married and had their reception in a beautiful restaurant right by the river, so close to the places where all of us grew up and had spent so many happy hours of our childhoods and our adolescence. I felt slightly melancholic with the densitiy of reminiscing, but at the same time I was bursting with happiness for my friends and being in awe about the beauty of it all with a childlike wonderment.

And when the time came to present the couple with our gift, I was so much more nervous than I usually am when I’m performing, because it meant so much more. One of my oldest friends stood there in her beautiful wedding gown, holding hands with one of my oldest friends, her groom; and one of my oldest friends was lighting the fires for his game of poi, and I started singing. And I tried to sing for them what I wished their life to be like. Allowing me to wish them well in this way was a gift for me too, and I don’t think I will ever forget it. You can watch it here: Fire spinning and live singing.

Istanbul – A love of my life

Januar 12, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 16 Kommentare

Diesen Post gibt es auch auf Deutsch.

Istanbul and I, that is love for life.

Bayrampaşa

On the night bus from Vargas in Bulgaria, I feel a sudden jolt of fear. I must be out of my mind going to one of the largest cities in the world, all by myself, without even so much as a city map in my purse. I have no idea about Istanbul. I haven’t even read Orhan Pamuk! Slightly panicked, I still think that maybe a bit of awe will do me good. I get off the bus in Bayrampaşa and pair up with a young Swedish couple to find the way downtown. In the next few days, we will explore the city together on occasion.

Eminönü

There is water everywhere. Everything is blue and gold. Mosques oversee the city from the shores, proudly, powerfully. A Western orientalism is surfacing from inside of me, and I might romanticize the beauty of it all, but I cannot help myself: I’m enchanted. We go to have breakfast in the passageway below Galata bridge – the bridge of the Golden Horn, Haliç. The waiter speaks excellent German. He worked in Radolfzell at Lake Constance for five years. As a welcome gift, each of us gets one of the pretty colorful saucers from him. The Turkish yoghurt is dripping with a thick layer of honey and tastes like a summer vacation.

Bosphorus

It is windy and fresh on the boat, the sun is beaming, and so are we. Every look to the shore offers a new, ever-different, ever-constant beautiful sight. I see all those things and I don’t know what they are called or what their function is, I cannot tell if they are palaces, government buildings or sacred places. I have no presuppositions toward Istanbul, I am completely naive and unprejudiced – maybe that is why every new outlook comes crashing not only to my eyes and my brain which is struggling hard to comprehend the beauty; no, all the things I see find their way directly into my heart. A feeling of freedom, of liberation comes upon me there on the green and blue waves of the Bosphorus. Europe and Asia, modernity and antiquity, I find myself at the core of a gigantic metropolis of opposites that tries to merge European lifestyle and middle-eastern joy of life into a unique and wonderful entity.

Sultanahmet

Through Gülhane-Park and along the mighty walls of Topkapı palace, we make our way to Ayasofia. The streets are full of life, tourists are recognized as such at once. Street vendors call after us, „hey lady! lady!“, they’re screaming, trying to sell us anything and everything – kebab, orange juice, jewellery, carpets. We can’t bypass the juice, it is squeezed right at the street stand and is so tasty, so fresh and sweet that I don’t ever want to drink juice from a carton again. We meet a sixty year old gold smith who is drinking his Çay next to us. He shares with us the wisdom of his age, the lessons life has taught him. Some I agree with, some I don’t.

Taksim Meydanı

I’m meeting Emre, my Couchsurfing host, in the evening at Taksim Meydanı. I’m early and give in to my darkest tourist cravings: Venti Iced latte at Starbucks. I haven’t seen a Starbucks on my trip so far anywhere, and God knows I haven’t missed it, but now that I do see one, an Iced Latte seems like heaven, and it is. Chaotic traffic, exclusively young people, an overdimensional Turkish flag, fancy hotels, Dürüm stands. Life in all its richest form at the roundabout around the metro station, fast and energetic, but I cannot find it in myself to feel stressed out by it. Emre and I walk over to his apartment on a cul-de-sac – and suddenly everything goes quiet. Dozens of homeless cats are playing games on the ridiculously steep and narrow street. The life of Taksim is raving just a few blocks away. It feels good being in this place right away. Good and right. Five days later, when I walk from there to my shuttle bus that will take me to Bayrampaşa, I will feel like I have lived here rather than just visited.

Fındıklı

Fındıklı is the metro station that I get to when I keep walking down toward the water from Emre’s place. At the shore of the Bosphorus I have my breakfast every morning – Starbucks coffee and börek. Bosnia may have the Balkan’s most delicious burek, but Turkey is the mother country of börek. The view over the water – indescribable. A playground where kids are yelling right across from me is putting a smile on my face. I don’t lose that smile for the entirety of my stay in Istanbul.

Gülhane Parkı

Rosehouse park, as is the English name, at Topkapı Sarayı is an oasis of peace in this gigantic megalopolis. It is green and colorful and inviting. I’m sitting on one of the benches, behind me two guys are playing guitar. I’m moving to the lawn, waiting for them to play something I know. Here it comes: „Wonderwall“. I’m starting to sing along, they invite me over, we play music. They are from Lebanon. It is very easy to meet people here. All of a sudden it starts to rain. I’m seeking shelter underneath a tree. A baby kitten is hiding underneath my long skirt.

Sultanahmet Camii

It’s loud and busy inside the Blue Mosque. Shoes must be taken off, but there is no need for a head scarf in the visitor’s area. Children run and play on the soft carpet. People are sitting cross-leggedly on the floor, tourists are reading out their guide books to each other, the camera clicking won’t stop. Inspite of this, it’s a deeply spiritual place. People are praying inmidst of life here, not in silent reclusion. I find mosques to be so much more inviting than Christian churches. I consider myself a believing Christian (although actually I believe in many things, but that’s for a different post), but churches are so often intimidating in their unsubtle demonstration of religious power and greatness. Mosques just wrap you in a huge hug when you enter them. I think of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, and I associate: big and impressive. I think of the Blue Mosque. I associate: warm and alive.

Taksim I

Taksim, oh, Taksim. I have lost my heart Taksim. Life is of higher density in this place than it is elsewhere. Emre and I are having dinner in a simple small restaurant. We pick the fish that they will grill for us ourselves in the window. With that comes a salad, and watermelon for desert. All of it is so intense, food has never tasted like this. A Canadian guy in Bulgaria said to me: “I didn’t know that cucumbers had a taste before I came here! I thought they were just water!” I feel like that with everything I eat in Istanbul. Emre and I are exploring the tiny cobblestone streets with their millions of street cafes and bars. We have a beer in a bar where there is never a song playing that I don’t love. I cannot even decide what I want to look at first, and everything is changing all the time, but it doesn’t go unstable or in any way uncomfortable, it is never disconcerting. Glistening colored lights on house walls. Cigarette smoke and the smell of Dürüm in the air. People meeting, on accident, greeting each other with a warmth that touches me, that touches places in my soul I didn’t know existed. The place is full of energy, infectiously so. Happiness is coming over me in waves.

Kadıköy

From Beşkitaş we take the ferry to Kadıköy on the Asian side of Istanbul. At Haydarpaşa train station, the place that Muslims traditionally start their Hajj to Mekka, we’re slowly entering the port. We’re drinking Turkish coffee at the shores of Bosphorus and enjoying the chilled out atmosphere. It doesn’t feel very different on this new continent. It does a little though. I can’t describe why. The clouds above Europe are turning grey with a thunderstorm. A sky of such width as I have never seen is stretching from horizon to horizon. That this city can be so massive and that there is still always so much sky to see!

Ayasofia

Ayasofia, the famous. A place on many Bucket Lists, from what I gather. A historical place. Beautiful. Unintelligible. To me, it makes me sad. Again I think of Rome, this time of the Sistine Chapel. My host mom said about it: „It was like a mall in there.“ Ayasofia is not a spiritual place anymore. It is now only a museum. Only? Maybe that is the one way to protect this incredible site from the claws of history, the ravages of time. It is difficult for me not to see Ayasofia as a holy place, but as a tourist object. I can’t feel it. It remains to me, inspite of its beauty, soulless.

Topkapı Sarayı

I must have landed in the gardens of Alamut. Again I’m thinking that my Western perspective must be romanticizing the oriental style into fairytale magic. I wonder if a Turkish person sees Topkapı the way that I see the Prussian castles around Berlin, like Sanssouci in Potsdam. And if they do, then what would they find Sanssouci to be like? I lose myself in the different palace buildings and the countless gardens. In one room, a young man is singing from the Quran. I stand still for twenty minutes listening to him, tourists passing me by who don’t stop even for a second to turn their heads. Can’t they feel the power, the magic in this music?

Ortaköy

„It has to be night,“ Emre says, when at 8 o’clock we are making our way to Ortaköy. We buy Kumpir and sit at the waterfront. Kumpir is a delicious dish that I know from a few small places in Germany in areas with a large Turkish minority. It is essentially a baked potato, but the flesh is mashed with cheese and filled with different veggies and salads – mine has couscous and olives and goat cheese and is beyond delicious. Boğaziçi Köprüsü, the first bridge of the Bosphorus, is lit up in all colors of the rainbow. A dark blue night sky is shimmering through a lose cover of clouds. Ortaköy Camii, the mosque, sits proudly and quietly behind us. Life is buzzing around us like in a beehive. The waters of the Bosphorus are making quiet, laughing littel waves, but they aren’t so unsteady as for the waters to go dull. Instead they are glistening like distorting mirrors. The shining lights are thrown back into the night air. The city offers everything, but it isn’t asking for it. Its greatest gift to its visitors is that in this place, they can just be. Whatever that means to every one of them.

Taksim II

Taksim is not losing any of its charms during the day. I buy a ring. I want to wear the city on my finger. The long precinct, İstiklâl Caddesi, is packed with street musicians. They play music of such different styles and sounds, the atmosphere changes on every meter with the music. Emre and I are smoking Nargile (shisha), eating Dürüm (kebabs), drinking Ayran (salty fluid yoghurt) and playing Tavla (Backgammon). We’re sitting in a back yard with many people who are having Çay or coffee and where old books are sold. We’re just people watching. I haven’t ever found it so easy to find peace in a big city.

Haliç

The shuttle bus from Taksim to Bayrampaşa is going along the entire Southern shore of the Golden Horn. Once more I look over to Beyoğlu. On the horizon above Istanbul, a red moon is rising. I’m leaving this city ever so wistfully. I couldn’t stand it, if I didn’t know it with all my heart that I will come back – one day.

Back to Wrocław

Januar 5, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 9 Kommentare

Diesen Post gibt es auch auf Deutsch!

The train from Berlin to Wrocław goes through, I don’t need to change. As we are approaching the Polish boarder, we are entering Slavic lands while still in Germany: In a small train station a sign reads „Lübbenau (Spreewald)“, and another one: „Lubnjow (Błota)“ – the first is German, the second is Sorbian. The Sorbians are a Slavic minority in the Lusatia area in the easternmost corner of Germany. The letter ł on the Sorbian sign – it exists in Polish too, and it puts a smile on my face. I note down some of my thoughts in my journal. As soon as we have crossed into Poland, the train tracks are bumpier, I can tell from my own handwriting. It jolts and judders across the paper, not looking like a chain of soft, round little living creatures as it usually does, but edgy like staples or tiny wires.

Outside of the windown I see Lower Silesia pass me by. I entered this part of the world for the first time almost exactly six years ago. I’m trying to remember that day, but I can’t unearth too much from the depths of my memory. Back then I felt homesick for the first, maybe the only time in my life, and that feeling cast a shadow on so many things. It envelopped me in a large black veil that kept excitement and anticipation from coming to me like they usually do when I start a trip to the great unknown. The notion of „cudne manowce“ comes to my mind, an expression from a song by the iconic Polish poet and songwriter Edward Stachura. It means something like „the enchanting astray“. My co-worker Renata says that it can’t really be translated to German, because for the efficient and pragmatic people that we are, the astray can never be enchanting. If that is true, I’m afraid I’m not very German after all.

Now I’m looking at little villages with their Prussian architecture train station buildings and their white town hall towers reaching toward the skies with square-cut pinnacles in Tudor styled architecture. They look just like they do in Ziemia Kłodzka, which is the area I was on my way to back then, and I cannot believe that it is only – or already – six years lying between the person I am today and the person I was then.

When the train arrives at the main station in Wrocław, I can’t at first glance piece together where I am and what I am seeing. Everything is new, everything is different. The station building has been painted bright orange.

Ther concourse is light and spatious. Everything has been renovated for the football Euro Cup last June. My memory paints such a different picture – a dark, manky hellhole with rude and unfriendly elderly ladies in the ticket boxes, and myself feeling panickstricken when one night I almost didn’t get a ticket for the night train to Szczecin and thought I’d have to spend the night on the cold and smelly platform.

In the crossing underneath the platforms there used to be many kiosks and food stands – they are all gone, instead there are high tech lockers and everything is smooth and evenly tiled. I wonder what might have happened to the people who used to work in those little shops?

This is not the same place. Everything is signposted – and what’s more, bilingually so! I wish I had some of the people with me who think of Poland as backwards, grey, ugly and cheap. They would not believe their own eyes.

Two days later my train is leaving the main station in Wrocław. My seat is rear-facing and so I look straight ahead as the large orange building is moving away from me. In this moment I have the paradoxical feeling of looking aback and ahead at the same time – back to the place I am leaving right now, and that I’m missing already in a feeling of reverse homesickness. And ahead to my future that may just be so kind as to gift me with a new Polish adventure, one without feeling homesick for Germany; to a future that may grant me to understand this country better, to explore it, and with any luck even to participate in shaping it in some way.

Why do I love Poland? I have no idea. Isn’t it the purest love that doesn’t require any explanation?

Zurück nach Wrocław

Januar 3, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 5 Kommentare

This post can also be read in English!

Der Zug von Berlin nach Wrocław fährt direkt, ich brauche nicht umzusteigen. Schon im Spreewald beginnt das Land der Slawen – Lübbenau (Spreewald), steht auf dem einen Schild am Bahnhof, und auf dem anderen steht Lubnjow (Błota) – das ł im Sorbischen zaubert mir ein Lächeln aufs Gesicht. Ich notiere mir Gedanken in mein Notizbuch. Kaum sind wir hinter Grenze, schon ist die Strecke unebener, man sieht den Unterschied an meiner Schrift, sie ruckelt und krakelt sich über das Papier nicht wie sonst als weiche runde Tierchen, sondern eckig wie Heftklammern oder kleine Drähte.

Vor dem Fenster zieht die niederschlesische Landschaft vorbei. Vor fast genau sechs Jahren bin ich zum ersten Mal in diesem Winkel der Welt gewesen. Ich versuche mich daran zu erinnern, aber viel kann ich nicht aus den Untiefen meines Gedächtnisses hervorkramen. Ich habe damals das erste, vielleicht das einzige Mal in meinem Leben Heimweh empfunden, und das hat vieles überschattet. Es hat einen schwarzen Schleier um mich gelegt, der die Aufregung und die Vorfreude verhindert hat, die ich sonst auf dem Weg in das große Unbekannte stets empfunden habe. Die „cudne manowce“ kommen mir in den Sinn, aus einem Lied des polnischen Kultdichters Edward Stachura. Das bedeutet so etwas wie „zauberhafte Abwege“. Meine Kollegin Renata sagt, man kann das kaum übersetzen, weil Abwege für die effizienten und pragmatischen Deutschen niemals zauberhaft sind. Wenn das so ist, bin ich wohl wirklich nicht besonders deutsch.
Nun blicke ich auf kleine Dörfer, deren Bahnhofsgebąude so häufig preußisch aussehen und aus denen weiße Rathaustürme hervorragen, die von eckigen Zinnen geziert sind, im Tudor-Stil. Sie sehen genauso aus wie im Glatzer Land, in der Ziemia Kłodzka, wohin ich damals unterwegs war, und ich kann nicht fassen, dass mich nur oder schon sechs Jahre davon trennen sollen, wer ich zu jener Zeit gewesen bin.

Als ich nun zum ersten Mal nach vielen Jahren wieder in den Hauptbahnhof in Wrocław einfahre, bringe ich zuerst gar nicht zusammen, wo ich mich befinde und was ich vor mir sehe. Alles ist neu, alles ist anders. Das Bahnhofsgebäude ist in leuchtendem Orange gestrichen.

Die Bahnhofshalle ist hell und hoch und verglast. Zur Europameisterschaft 2012 ist alles renoviert worden. Ich erinnere mich an eine dunkle, siffige Hölle, an unfreundliche ältere Damen hinter den Schaltern, an meine leichte Panik, als ich einmal beinahe kein Ticket für den Nachtzug nach Stettin mehr bekommen hätte und mich schon eine Nacht allein auf dem zugigen, muffigen Bahnsteig verbringen sah.

In der Unterführung zu den Gleisen hin waren früher zahlreiche kleine Kiosks und Imbissbuden – sie sind alle verschwunden, stattdessen sind Schließfächer angebracht und alles ist glatt und edel gefliest. Was wohl aus den Betreibern der kleinen Lädchen und Büdchen geworden ist?

Es ist nicht mehr der gleiche Ort. Alles ist ausgeschildert, alles ist mehrsprachig. Ich wünschte, ich hätte jetzt einige von den Menschen an meiner Seite, die sich Polen als rückständig, grau, hässlich und billig vorstellen. Ihnen würden die Augen aus dem Kopf fallen.

Ich fahre zwei Tage später rückwärts aus dem Hauptbahnhof in Wrocław hinaus und schaue geradeaus aus dem Fenster dabei zu, wie das große orangefarbene Gebäude sich von mir entfernt. In diesem Moment habe ich das paradoxe Gefühl, gleichzeitig zurück und nach vorn zu schauen – zurück auf den Ort, den ich jetzt gerade verlasse und nach dem ich mich jetzt schon wieder sehne in einem umgekehrten Heimweh. Aber doch auch nach vorn in meine Zukunft, die mir hoffentlich ein neues polnisches Abenteuer schenken wird, eines ohne Heimweh nach Deutschland; die Zukunft, die mir vielleicht erlauben wird, dieses Land weiter zu begreifen, zu erkunden, und mit sehr viel Glück sogar gestattet, es mitzugestalten.

Woher meine Liebe zu Polen rührt? Ich weiß es nicht. Und ist nicht die reinste Liebe die, die keiner Erklärung bedarf?

2012 in pictures

Dezember 29, 2012 / bruecken_schlag / 30 Kommentare

2012 has blessed me with beautiful travel experiences. As I look back on them, I feel very lucky. I haven’t left Europe much for travelling – but going through my pictures I don’t regret that. There is so much to discover in close proximity to my home. Join me on a quick recap of the beauty I have experienced in 2012:

This was Chemnitz in Saxony in March. While everyone always claims it to be rather ugly, I was surprised at how much beauty could be found there. It is much more than just its socialist past.

Istanbul – my Place of Desire, my Sehnsucht, my love. The first words I ever wrote about it were: „Istanbul und ich, das ist die ganz große Liebe“ – Istanbul and I, that is love for life. My trip in March, the second one I took there, will be followed by many more.

Wittenberg – the city of Luther and reformation. The church tower holds writing that says: „Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott“, a famous Luther quote translating to „A mighty fortress is our God„. I went there in April on a volunteer gathering.

At the Elbe river in Hamburg on the Saturday before Easter Sunday, there’s Easter bonfires every year. An old tradition, pagan, driving out the evil spirits of winter. Something I grew up with and that always makes me feel like home. Also I love fire. And I love water. And when the flames are reflected in the river, it is divine beauty.

In Szczytno, Poland, my father was born when it was still called Ortelsburg. This is one of the famous Mazurian lakes in early August summer sun. It had a touch of eternity to it.

This is Olsztyn in Poland. I just adore red brick stone…

… and because I love it, I loved this church in Vilnius, Lithuania!!

But the Baltics had more to offer than city life. This is a castle park in Cesis in Gauja national park in Latvia, named after…

… the river Gauja!!

The Latvian capital Riga was possibly my favorite city in the Baltics. It reminds me a lot of my mother’s home town, Bremen – no wonder, since Riga was founded by monks who came from exactly that German city in the middle ages.

Riga was followed by Estonia’s Tallinn in all its medieval beauty. This is a modern site though – the Song Festival Grounds where music festivals are held and just recently before we got there the Red Hot Chili Peppers had a gig too. Imagine all of this filled with a huge choir singing folk songs… one day I will go to the Tallinn Song Festival. High on my bucket list!

On my birthday we went to see the Estonian National Park Lahemaa. Bogs, swamps, forests and relics of Soviet times, a lovely tour guide who explained to us about cultural and social whatabouts in Estonia as well – it was a lovely start into the new year of my life!!

The trip to the Baltics finished in late August with a three day stay on the Curonian Spit in Lithuania. Endless beaches, deep dark forests and the lovely sounds of the Baltic Sea – my heart grows wide even at the thought of it!

In September I discovered a small part of the deep West of Germany – this is a shot of Hambach castle, an important place for the German national movement in the 19th century and one of the birthplaces of our modern democracy.

My finish is my discovery of the year – Gdańsk! I fell for it long and hard. There is much more to discover about Tricity and the whole Kashubian area in the North of Poland. I am nothing but grateful for the fact that 2012 has given me a place that I could love so deeply. I hope you will follow me as I explore it further!

Tricity’s Waterfronts, or My Happiness

Dezember 23, 2012 / bruecken_schlag / 4 Kommentare

Making me happy is not the hardest thing: Let me travel. Show me something – anything! – that is beautiful. Make me sing. Bring me to one of my Places of Desire. Teach me something about the world. Or get me to anywhere where there is water.

Any of these things will put a smile on my face and love into my heart. Being in Gdańsk, or really in Trójmiasto – that is the Tricity area consisting of Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia – has made it possible for all the things on the list to be given to me at once. It can be really overwhelming.

It is cold this time around in Gdańsk – not that it was exactly warm when I came in November. As I walk from Happy Seven Hostel (easily one of my favorite hostels in Europe!) toward the Long Market, I wrap my scarf around my face to keep the cold from gnawing its frosty teeth through my skin. My own warm breath clings onto my scarf in tiny ice crystals. The pavement on Długie Pobrzeże, the waterfront street, is slippery and wet, frosted with a not so thin layer of ice on top of the snow. The sky is blue and shiny. The air is fresh. It feels like the first day in the world. As carefully as I feel I should tread here, my eyes are as though fixated on the outlook I am facing and that I love so much.

There is the Motława River, glistening in the sun. The sillhouette of the Żuraw, the old and mighty city gate, stands still and black and mighty before the sun. As I approach the water, I see that it is frozen over slightly, and covered with half melted snow, and the tracks of swan and seagull feet paint pretty pictures on the surface. I walk towards the sun, and the light tickles in my eyes – the only party of my face that isn’t covered to be kept warm. Eventually I turn back, and I see this:

Sunlight is suffusing the houses with its wintery morning light. It is not actually a warm light, but when it hits the red brickstone, the houses look like they were shone upon by an August summer sun. It is the red brick stone that savours the warmth of yet brighter and warmer days. I love the material more than words can say.

On a different day, I take the SKM to Sopot. I have been here once before. Almost 20 years ago. My memory of it is very faint, but it exists. It was summer, the August of 1993 to be precise, and I remember the beach to be very white, whiter than any I had ever seen. The sky was misty, and there were lots of white birds I suppose must have been seagulls – „No,“, said my mom when I related this memory to her once, „they were swans. Lots of them. I had never seen swans on the Baltic Sea before.“ I remember the Grand Hotel dimly – grey and big and mirroring in its slightly run-down morbidity many tales of former grandeur.

What will it be like to go there now?

Through Sopot’s downtown, I make my way to the pier. In summer it actually costs money to go there. I find this in tune with the very chic, elegant spa-town feel of the main street. I am not saying that it isn’t beautiful. I just tend to feel a bit displaced when I encounter somewhere like this. Everything and everyone looks so gorgeous and tidy, and it makes me very aware of my jeans being torn and my hair being messy, and I’m practically waiting to slip and make a perfect slapstick fall that passers-by will sniffily pretend to have not seen. I’m missing an edge, because Sopot’s picture-book perfection is making me queasy. And then… then I get to the water.

There are swans and seagulls in the water. Fog is all around, but the horizon still marks a fine line between skies and earth, between eternity and the material world. The Grand hotel in the distance is white and shiny and I cannot believe that it is supposed to be the same place my memory held. I know that soon the look of the majestic and wealthy world class hotel will have replaced my old and faded image from the early 1990s that still exists in my head. I grieve upon that knowledge for a moment. I liked the unrestored Grand Hotel. It told a whole life story. This new one has nothing to do with me in all its phenomenal beauty. Incredible that we, a family of five, could afford to stay there 20 years ago. My mom and I found old bills in a photo album, dinner there for the five of us cost some 140,000 Zloty – in today’s currency rate that would be 35,000 Euros. Times change.

My eyes go back to the water. The ocean is the same in an elegant place like this as in any other. My Baltic. Its waters connect so many places I have seen and loved. Skagen in Denmark, where Baltic and North Sea meet. Greifswald, my German college town. The Curonian Spit in Lithuania with its fir tree forrests and white sandy beaches. Latvia’s Riga and Estonia’s Tallinn, the lively and individual Baltic capitols. It calms me to think of these places.

On this weekend, there is also a quick visit to Gdynia’s beach. It is of beauty that is beyond my capacity to describe but in two words: Olbrzymia Cisza. In Polish that means: Gigantic Silence.

„Making Strange“, or Snow in Berlin

Dezember 12, 2012 / bruecken_schlag / 10 Kommentare

Another post in the seasonal department, I feel compelled to write about the beauty of snow.

There is a really good German film called Jenseits der Stille (English Beyond Silence). Now I love German film in general, but this one is especially great. It tells the story of a girl born to deaf parents who has regular hearing ability herself. She learns how to play the clarinette and her music threatens to alienate her from her family because they cannot understand it. At this point I’d just like to say: Watch it, it’s beautiful. Anyway, in one of the very intimate moments between her and her father, they stand and look at snow falling, and he asks her (signing of course): „What does snow sound like? What does it tell you?“ And she answers: „Honestly, snow doesn’t talk much. They even say snow drowns out all the noise. When snow is falling, everything is very quiet.“

Now, Berlin is never quiet. But it is quieter when it is as snowed in as it is now.

The cars go slower, their motor screams muffled in white thickness, and on the large streets they disperse the dirty greyish substance that’s left on the floor like dust. The tram tracks disappear underneath it too.

The way the snow mixes with granulate on the sidewalk reminds me of little villages in Austria where we used to go skiing, and of walking to a gondola that will take you up the mountain where the sun is crisp and the snow is sparkling.

An untouched glistening surface, so pure, so innocent, is sitting between parking cars on the sidewalk. And once it is broken in, there is a trail, showing a path, leading the way into any new adventure. Both images have their very own beauty inscribed into them. Foothigh, there is snow in my yard, laying all the tiny bushes my neighbor is nurturing with so much care, tiny red blossoms peeking out of the covers. The most bizarre plant there is the cactus reaching out high, with his sad little leaves wilting in the cold, like he was having a bad-hair-day.

Snow is covering the roof of the pretty old church in Bohemian Rixdorf in Berlin Neukölln that still carries substance from the 15^th century, although most of it has been rebuilt after several destructions in wars. It reminds me of the pretty wooden churches I have seen in Slovakia and Ukraine. This being an area that was first settled by protestant refugees from Bohemia in 1737, and with the church having been rebuilt in 1757, it figures, and the visual evidence of the Eastern influence excites me. As the church now overlooks the Rixdorf Christmas Market (one of the more traditional ones), its red roof tiles sugar coated, it looks like it was taken out of a fairy tale.

Streets, cars, yards and churches – it all looks different, it is as though the world was in its entirety a work of art in which the artist had distorted, estranged reality for the on-looker to see it anew, as though laying eyes upon it for the first time. I didn’t come up with this concept of „making strange“ or „defamiliarization„, a guy called Viktor Sklovskij did about a hundred years ago, even before the master of German 20th century theatre, Bertolt Brecht, brought the idea to his drama theory. But it is exactly how snow works. I don’t just recognize things I know, walking past them in an unaware, unconscious manner. Instead I look at them, I see them, and I allow myself to rethink them from a new perspective.

Snow makes me look at the world differently. It allows me to rediscover things I thought I knew and see them in a new light and sound – whiter. Quieter. What a gift.

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