Back to Boston

So I've been back stateside for over a week and I haven't felt a single pang of culture shock. There's really been nothing to re-acclimate to. Maybe it's because my mind's been on this side of the Atlantic Ocean for a good long time. Maybe it's just because America's awesome and nobody should ever leave it. Dunno.

But here's the thing: would I have ever noticed the awesome things about living in this country (and Boston, to a certain extent) if I hadn't left? I doubt I'd be so amazed by complete strangers striking up a conversation on public transportation, by listening to hip-hop on the radio, by the American-ness (according to Dahl) of using wi-fi on a bus, by the lack of smokers (and, on a related note, the easiness of breathing after a late night), by just how critical linguistic familiarity is to grocery shopping/exercise classes/living...these little things, that I downplayed or never even noticed before I went away, just fill me with this inexplicable joy. I feel what I imagine many immigrants must feel--this utter gratefulness for what the United States can offer and an almost adamant insistence that I, and every other person on the earth, deserves every little wonderful bit of this. HGTV for everyone! Huzzah!

I think a lot of this is also due to Boston. As we passed Hopkinton, I saw the skyline on the horizon and felt like I was home again. Whether I'm walking down Newbury or biking late at night back from someone's sublet, I honestly can't imagine ever having wanted to leave. Although that OH MY GOD GET ME OUT OF HERE AND AWAY FROM THESE CRAZY PEOPLE feeling was kind of overtaking my life by the beginning of December. Life here is excellent (and I've been pleasantly surprised with more-than-adequate employment).

Oh, and they put in bike lanes on Comm. Ave. I officially have NO reason to return to the Netherlands.

Home.

Home! Finally! The flights were pleasant, and I had a devastatingly funny rabbinical student as a seatmate on the way across the pond. Upon my arrival in Philly, though, I learned that my bags were left behind in London. Hoping that they'll arrive by tonight, but hey, who knows. It would really be nice to have a cell phone charger and clean underwear. Like, REALLY nice.

The last few days in Nijmegen were brilliant and incredibly sad. In the absence of our actual family, we find family--and the Erasmus kids became my family in the last five and a half months. It hasn't quite hit me that they're so far away, but it won't be fun when it does.

In the absence of having a whole lot to do here, I'm just kicking back with the family and a couple friends, reveling in the joys of a clean house, DSW, and driving. I'm shipping up to Boston on Sunday. It's overwhelming, if you think about it...three homes and two countries within a week. But it's good to be back stateside. It really, really, really is.

There are already things I'm noticing about Americans: how harried we look, how sarcastic we can be, how helpful we are on the phone, how skimpily (is that a word?) we dress. I think I'll continue to update this blog periodically as I re-learn how to live here and try to define that nebulous thing we call American-ness. So stay tuned, kiddos.

Ich bin ein Berliner.

Finals are KAPUT! And so here's the long-awaited recap of my German adventures.

Alice and I awoke at the bright and shiny hour of 2:30 AM to catch a shuttle to the Ryanair airport, waited/pseudo-slept for another couple hours, eventually got on the plane, and finally crawled into our long-awaited hostel beds for a well-deserved nap. We woke refreshed a couple hours later to explore Unter den Linden, the part of the city populated by the most historic buildings and memorials.

This has to be one of my favorite pictures of all time:


We were leaving the Marx and Engels monument and I turned around one last time to find them staring contemplatively at the Fermsehturm--an interesting picture of East Berlin.

As the sky decided whether it wanted to rain or not, we also saw some other stuff, like the Berlin Cathedral...


...and the Brandenburg Tor.


We absolutely had to see the Reichstag, the German parliament building. It's (mostly) survived rounds of bombings, gunfire, and the infamous fire in the 1930s--you can still see the bullet holes in the columns and where they've had to patch it up a bit. It is truly magnificent.


In 1999, construction was completed on the new Bundestag dome. Pre-bombing and general hellfire-osity, it used to have your average, run-of-the-mill government-building dome on top, but they decided to make the new one all fancy and reflective and glassy to give a sense of transparency in government. You take an elevator large enough for a herd of cattle up to the roof, which provides some incredible views of the city.



Climbing up to the top of the dome itself was one of my favorite parts of the trip. See for yourself:




After enjoying our first Berliner Pilsener by the Spree River, we got all kinds of lost on our way to finding the Holocaust memorial and got a pretty good idea of just how awesome Berliner architecture is. The Sony Center is one of the shining stars:



The next day, after some wandering around some neighborhoods and seeing Greek and Roman sculpture at the Pergamonmuseum, we hit the club. We hit the club hard. Those Berliners sure can party.


When traveling, I try to avoid going out at night because then I wake up at 12:30 the next day feeling like an 18-wheeler has driven over my head numerous times. But in order to really experience Berlin, one needs to experience the nightlife. It doesn't start until 1 and it doesn't end until 7. And it is crazy. Hence why I was thankful to be flying home with no major injury and a couple hours of sleep under my belt.

It's probably worth moving away from chronology towards general impressions of the city (if for no other reason than I'm just sick of staring at the computer screen). I get the impression that Germans, Berliners in particular, are seriously invested in repudiating the legacy of the Holocaust. And, I mean, it's kinda true that people are quick to associate Germans, even modern-day Germans, with Nazism. Remember that whole uproar when it was discovered that Pope Benny was in the Nazi Youth as a child?

As a result, there are an abundance of museums and memorials commemorating the German Jewish experience and the Holocaust around the city, including the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe:


...and the architecturally stunning Jewish Museum. I didn't think the museum itself was all that great, but the building is just incredible.


Daniel Liebeskind (interestingly enough, he's also the architect chosen to build the WTC memorial) really just relied on light and angles and how they play out on plain old concrete. And man, it WORKED. There were two really--and I mean really--effective examples, one of which was the Garden of Exiles. It was essentially forty-some concrete columns, all tilted just slightly at the same angle. Walking through made me dizzy, unstable to the point of physical illness, and constantly on my guard to keep from face-planting...just as I imagine a refugee must have felt.

Liebeskind also put intentional unfilled spaces throughout the building. One void, three or four stories high, was filled with 10,000 iron masks. Another had a skylight that filled the void with eerie blue light. The most important void--the Holocaust void--was only reachable by a giant door opened by a museum docent. Once inside, the docent closed the door and you were left alone in the dark, completely unheated room, lit only by a tiny crack of light in the ceiling. I can't quite describe the feeling of seeing that door close on me and seeing all the light evaporate in the same way that I can't quite communicate what it's like to walk into a gas chamber. I mean, wow. That is art.


Another legacy that the city has to contend with is the Wall. It's kind of hilarious when you're just rambling around a pretty well-developed, pleasant, normal-looking city and you step over the line etched in the pavement that represents where the wall once stood. Like, what was the conversation that resulted in its construction? "Hey guys, our best and brightest are defecting to the American side." "I've got an idea! Let's build a giant concrete barrier around it."

As an AP history student, I have to qualify that last statement by saying that yeah, I know it's more complicated than that. But come ON.


But despite the darker sides of Berlin, it is really an incredible city. And if I spoke German, I'd be moving there in a second.

Why? Kreuzberg, the part of Berlin where we stayed, is a more relaxed--and dare I say, European--version of Brooklyn. Its streets are crammed with tiny breakfast cafes and Turkish restaurants. But off the beaten path, you find leafy streets and hippie families playing Frisbee in Görlitzer Park.



And hipsters. Praise Jeeeeesus for hipsters. It's so refreshing to see people with blue hair and bright red lipstick and piercings and tattoos. I thought there was a lot of social pressure at BC to dress a certain way, but the Dutch (minus Amsterdammers) really have no patience for people who dress differently. They even have a saying that essentially means "the middle of the road is the best way".

So when we went out on Saturday afternoon for the Fete de la Musique--live music of every genre and every volume on every street corner--and saw punks and goths and hippies and nonconformists and women with pin curls, it was just a breath of fresh air.

And the graffiti!





(It isn't just a Kreuzberg thing...graffiti is a serious art form in Berlin. We even passed a dentist's office that had graffiti murals of giant pop-art people brushing their teeth and flossing.)

There's a whole lot more I could say about specific things, but this entry is getting all kinds of long. Check out Picasa (did you notice those pretty, pretty links I added on the right?) for the kajillions of pictures. In this case, the images really say it all.



This week has been a big one. Had a vastly mediocre choir concert last night--did you ever think I'd be grateful to Neshaminy for part of my education?--and Iwan and Timo, two lovely friends from Amsterdam, stopped by on Thursday for one last hurrah in Nijmegen.

Today is the day, kids. The day where I start taking things down from my walls and moving clothes from the piles on my floor to neat stacks in my suitcase. That's always a big day for me--it signals the moment where the place where I live changes from a nest to a transitional room. Just four white walls and some bedsheets. It's sad. Really.

P.S. This is what the Dutch pass off as a sense of humor:


(Translation: "Michael Jackson has already been requested. That's soooo 2009.")

Scrawled on a wall at UNDRGRND when we went out on Thursday...literally two hours after his death was announced. You probably can't tell from all the way over there, but I'm shaking my fist at the sky. Not okay, Dutchies. Not okay.

Alive. Barely.

Made it back from Berlin in one piece, thankfully. People have told me in the past that it's insane, and that statement is...true. But it's also got phenomenal architecture and it's just bustling and inventive and awesome.

I'll put up pictures once I get a free moment, because the next couple of days are all about finals, choir rehearsal, and um, starting to pack. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the countdown is officially in single digits. I feel weird about it.

On that note, off to finish a fragmentary (and actually kind of horrible) paper and finish up a box of tea. Have I mentioned how excited I am to see you guys?

Mid-June. Still raining.

In the last week: turned 21, got a new cousin, went to the gym more than once, tried haggis for the first time (don't worry, it was vegetarian), convinced my French teacher to let me go to Berlin. A good couple of days, all in all.

Old age sucks. I laughed too hard on the morning of my birthday and pulled something in my back...I am officially becoming my father.

The goodbye parties are in full swing. They've been fun and heartbreaking at the same time. Sure, we get a lot of school-sponsored alcohol, but they've forced me to think about my own departure. On that account, I'm still torn between chanting U-S-A! U-S-A! and curling up in the fetal position and wailing. The only thing separating me from the end of my tumultuous relationship with Radboud University is 3500 words of essays and an exam. In that respect, let's rip the freakin' Band-Aid off already!

The twelve or fourteen of us around the table at Clare's flat last night were talking about the first thing we're going to do when we get home. Me? Strawberry rhubarb pie on the back porch and then walking around in Target the next morning and just inhaling the bargain-scented canned air. You know, consumerist osmosis.

But then we all got quiet at the same time and someone said "Wow, I'm really going to miss dinners like this."

I don't think I realized it until that very moment, but dinners really have been the anchoring part of this whole experience for me. I've tried everything from haggis to stamppot to tapas. But it's the impromptu rounds of flip cup and the conversations that are so engrossing that suddenly you look at the clock and WHAM! it's already midnight...those are the things that I'm really going to miss. We just don't have time for such things at school. We're too busy guarding our GPAs and saving the world at the same time to sit down with good friends and shoot the bull over chicken curry once in a while.

I don't think that this experience will make me cut down on my extracurriculars (I mean, really?), but it's made me realize my reliance on friends. I don't value my support system nearly enough. I'm so engrossed in my problems and my plays and the things that I think are important that I don't pay attention to the people that have my back. Another thing to work on upon my return.

So, seventeen days left. I'm honestly amazed. Until then, I'll be passing the potatoes and laughing long into the night with some good, good people.

Raining sideways.

It hasn't rained this hard since January. I'm hoping for brighter, warmer, sunnier days in the upcoming weeks--'cause, um, it's June--but for now I'm holing up in Hoogeveldt with Grizzly Bear's latest album, microwaveable falafel, and all the Foucault I can stomach. Exams call, and I must answer. Bleeeeaarrrrggghhhh.

Another brilliant display of incompetence.

Sorry, this one's going to be a rant.

For about four weeks, I've been emailing my French professor and trying to catch her before she scurries out of the classroom to set up a new time to take the final exam. (I'm leaving this godforsaken country--praise Allah and the seventy-two virgins--before it's scheduled to take place on July 9th.)

In the meantime, I've made plans. Like, oh, I don't know, A TRIP TO BERLIN.

I finally get an email back from her this morning going on and on about how we'd already decided (we? where is this we coming from?) to have the exam on June 19th, and it simply can't be changed. All with an undertone of "you just think you are SO entitled that you get to have an exam whenever the hell you want".

So it looks like I'm not going to Berlin. Think she'll reimburse me for my plane tickets?



This is honestly the final straw in my dealings with this university. Everything I have done or have tried to do while I've been here--getting papers signed, faxing things to my advisor at home, registering for classes, checking out books from the library, blah blah blah ad infinitum--has been frought and unnecessarily complicated and nobody wants to take any responsibility for what is, in essence, THEIR JOB.

For instance, some moron in the cogs of the BRILLIANT Dutch bureaucratic machine managed to screw up the date on my €500 residence permit. So I went to the International Office on Friday to see if someone could call the immigration office and triple-check that it'll be okay for me to leave the country in a couple weeks, despite this hopelessly bungled document.

The woman REFUSES to call. And I'm like, um, you know, I would do it myself, except for that little nagging fact that I DON'T SPEAK DUTCH. AND YOU WORK IN THE INTERNATIONAL OFFICE. SO YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT.

But her colleague handles those questions! And said colleague isn't in the office today! SHOCK! AWE!

So...could you call IND? Pretty please? With a cherry on top? No. Of course you couldn't. Because that would be Too. Friggin'. Simple.

So could I have your colleague's email address? Maybe a phone number?

Shock registers on her face. "Oh no, you'll have to come by the office."

Abortion providers may be getting murdered and state courts may be depriving gay men and women of their basic civil rights, but hey...in America, you can get a goddamn phone call made if you need a phone call made. Twenty-five days, ladies and gentlemen.