What follows is a portion of a rather half-assed journal of my summer trip through Europe.
Berlin. Friday. 2 p.m.
The weather in Berlin is no more Berlin’s fault than being made of glass is a window’s fault, but that didn’t stop a cold rain from kicking off a bearish turn for my opinion of a city that I’d thought, only a day before, was becoming one of my favorites.
It was easy to think of Berlin as my new favorite city when it was sunny and 80. It was just as easy to see how miserable Berlin might be during the winter when it was 55 and drizzling, especially when one considers my location as I fought that drizzle: East Berlin. Specifically, right next to the Berlin Wall.
I had come to take in the East Side Gallery which, according to the brochure I picked up in the airport, is the longest remaining section of the Wall. Soon after the “fall” of said wall, artists from all over the world (but mostly from Germany) painted sections of the wall. The result is a breathtaking display of massive, colorful paintings on a massive, gray wall.
As I walked down the wall, gazing at the sometimes-gorgeous, sometimes-bizarre paintings, I was in the old East Berlin. And the thing about East Berlin is that it’s a lot like West Berlin, even though people will say things like, “isn’t the contrast between the two stark?” It’s not stark; it probably was 10 years ago, but not now. The similarity between the two is even more obvious when, thanks to heavy cloud cover, everything looks like those pictures from 1961 I’d been seeing all day. That is, in black and white. This similarity is important only because it reflects this fact: when one isn’t traipsing through the Tiergarten, and when the weather isn’t perfect, all of Berlin is pretty damned foreboding; it’s not just the Eastern part.
After splitting picture-taking duties with an Australian girl who was fighting a nasty hangover, I got on the train at whichever Platz was nearby. My train-riding experiences had been mostly positive; I’d sprung for the 72-hour pass when I arrived at Tegel airport and had enjoyed my unlimited access to public transport, mostly because of Berlin’s size (big) and no real desire to develop a case of shin splints.
But, whilst zipping between Uhlandstrasse and Potsdam Platz, I’d wondered how many people actually paid for their train rides. In Berlin, as in Copenhagen, there is no gate; the rider is supposed to punch his own ticket in one of the semi-hidden consoles that are near each station’s entrance. I hadn’t seen any sign of how often passengers’ cards were checked, and I was curious about how that checking happened.
I found out on the ride to Zoo Station. Four young men, each of them dressed as Average German Youth in jeans, a training jacket, and a shoulder bag (one was Adidas, another Puma) jumped onto our train car and whipped out tiny credentials to show to passengers while asking to see those passengers’ tickets.
It was terrifying.
As it went down, I couldn’t help but think of the Stasi and World Wars and how scary the German language always seemed to me.
I know that, now, we’re supposed to see Germany as a tame, normalized country – the modern engine that keeps Europe going. I think that way, too, when I’m in my living room and I’m reading about German politics in the Economist. But, just like the band from LA, I was once a Cold War Kid. I was raised thinking of Germany as more Eastern than Western and, if my reaction to the Metro Card Inspectors is any indication (and I think it is), when it comes to Germany, suspicion appears to be my default setting.
As one of the Youths asked for my card, I felt a lot like I did in Russia, where, at all times, 15% of my brain was occupied by a systems op that was analyzing what I was going to do if the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan.
I believe the specific thought that raced through my brain this time was, IF THIS ASSHOLE TRIES TO PUT ME IN A BOXCAR I’M GOING TO FUCK HIM UP.
But he only looked at my card, said “Danke”, and moved on to hassling his next victim. It was over almost before it started. And perfectly harmless, except that I was in Germany.
It is worth noting that I am particularly neurotic; I don’t claim to think that everyone born when I was would have a similar reaction. I know that that reaction wasn’t reasonable. Or so I will say, to be self-deprecating. Because a large part of me thinks that my reaction was reasonable. I presume that, if I lived in Berlin for a year or more, some of my paranoia would melt away.
But I doubt that all of it would go. We learn a lot in those first years, they say. It seems that part of what I learned is that Berlin is a little scary. And will probably stay that way, at least to this anxiety-prone American. Especially when it’s cold outside, the Berlin Wall is nearby, and some undercover cop is yelling things in German.
To read the previous Euro Bits entry, click here.
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