The Definition of "Coincidence"

Coincidence: noun 1. a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.

And remarkable is certainly what it was.  Please allow me to explain. 

Upon returning to Berlin, I knew Fritz would be spending most of the weekdays buried under documents in the archives.  Therefore, I would need to find my own purpose and assume responsibility for filling my own schedule during our 4 months here.  Entertaining myself has never been an issue for me.  Still, I aspire to be very intentional about how I execute each day in this lovely city.  Living life "on purpose" has always been important to me.  While moving to a foreign city can make intentional living a little easier, it still takes a conscious effort to stay fully engaged, especially since I am not allowed to get a job while we are here.  In order to accomplish this purposeful living, I set two priorities for myself.  

1.  Join a pottery studio.

2. Attend yoga classes 2-4 times a week.  

As my third day in Berlin began, Fritz and I initiated the search for a pottery studio.  Actually, I really should say that Fritz initiated the search while I slept off my jet-lag.  We assumed that most of the Berlin studios would have websites in German, but after he had spent over an hour using his German vocabulary and reading skills, he hadn't gotten very far.  At this point, I woke up refreshed and ready, fired up my own computer and entered "Pottery Studios Berlin" into the search bar. 

Feuer Zeug Keramik popped up as the first hit.  The website indicated that they have a pottery shop, they offer classes, they seem to have available studio space for experienced potters, and they speak English.  Conveniently, the studio is located one neighborhood over from our flat.  Well that was easy!  I wasted no time in emailing Cordula, the owner of Feuer Zeug Keramik, explained my desire to join a studio and wondered if I could stop by to meet her.   

I must have refreshed my inbox one hundred times in the 24 hours that followed.  Waiting for a response is always the hardest part.  Fritz had to remind me that if she owns a pottery studio, she probably isn't doing a ton of desk work and checking her email every 10 minutes.  Hands dripping with wet clay don't mix well with electronics.  He had a point.  So I had to be patient. 

The next afternoon, I opened my email and discovered the message I had been waiting for!  Cordula indicated that I was welcome to stop by the shop the next day around noon.  

I woke up that Thursday morning totally jazzed and ready to start my Berlin life.  With the first of my two Berlin priorities in motion, I decided to initiate the second; finding a yoga studio.  With any luck, I thought I might just be able to follow my pottery meeting with a zen-tastic yoga class!

Again, I returned to my laptop and typed in "cheep yoga Berlin English."  I actually even spelled cheap incorrectly.  Luckily Google doesn't discriminate against poor spellers.  I was a little worried that finding yoga in English would be tricky.  I wasn't totally opposed to German yoga, but so much of the experience comes from the meditation and dialogue a good teacher provides in combination with the physical challenge of the class. 

Unsurprisingly, Berlin is LOADED with yoga studios.  My search revealed several blogs where other young yogis had provided lists of studios that had English-speaking instructors, as well as classes that weren't too expensive.  I clicked on one of the top hits.  Yellow Yoga.  The website was inviting and clearly met all of my requirements.  This was going well.  

Now the location.  Berlin is a huge city with more yoga studios than Vietnamese restaurants (which turns out to be quite a lot!).  If this yoga studio was even in the same quadrant of the city, I would have considered myself very lucky.  Looking at the website, I found Yellow Yoga had two locations, one of which was in the very same neighborhood as my pottery studio.  How perfect!  And you won't believe me when I tell you it gets better than that.  

I had already plugged in walking directions from my flat to pottery.  It would take 1 hour and 4 minutes to walk there from my home.  I could also take public transportation and be there in 20 minutes, but it was a beautiful day and I thought the walk would be a great way to get a sense of my neighborhood.  

I switched back to Yellow Yoga's website to identify the address of the studio.  For a moment, I thought my computer was playing tricks on me.  I rubbed my eyes and refocused on the address.  It was EXACTLY the same as the pottery studio.  Was this a mistake?  

Apparently not.  Somehow, my random search for two completely unrelated activities in a huge city was bringing me to the exact same point on the map.  If this isn't the definition of a coincidence, I don't know what is.  

Of course, I still had to seal the deal with Cordula at Feuer Zeug Keramik.  She hadn't accepted me yet.  

Cordula said I could come anytime between 12 and 5pm, so I started my walk at 11am.  

Naturally I took pictures along the way.  The day was perfect for walking and discovering Berlin.  For example, I learned that Berliners love to make pole-warmers as you can see above.  Someone took a lot of care in knitting this multicolored, cozy pole-warmer.  If you look closely, you might even notice that decorative buttons have been added for extra pizazz. 

The bright Berlin buildings looked quite cheery under the blue sky. 

I must have passed 15 playgrounds on my walk today.  Fritz told me that Germany has an aging population, but Berlin seems to be crawling with young families.  And therefore, loaded with playgrounds like the one in front of this church. 

I crossed over a lovely river.  Many of the Berlin sidewalks are made from cobblestones or bricks.  Here the street is also nicely cobbled.    

There were a bunch of people taking pictures on this bridge. 

When I looked over the other side of it, I saw that it was loaded with swans!

For a short time, I was strolling along the canal.  I was impressed by the apartments on the opposite side.  

The street art and murals of Berlin continue to catch my attention.  Some of them are so vibrant!

I was almost sorry to reach my destination after such a  lovely walk, but at last, I had reached Feuer Zeug Keramik.  Cordula was waiting for me inside.  It was a cute shop with lovely pottery on display and two potter's wheels in the middle of the showroom.  Cordula and I talked for a few minutes and I explained that I'd be living in Berlin for the next 4 months.  I was very interested in spending as much time working on the wheel as possible. More than that, I wanted to be a part of a studio where I could help with upkeep; carry out the laborious and often dreaded tasks of recycling clay and mixing chemicals for glazes.  "Sign me up for mopping floors," I told Cordula.  Really, I'd do just about anything to be a part of a studio.  

"I'm not really in a position to pay anyone," she said.  I quickly assured her that I was not looking for a job.  She told me she would think about it seeing as the studio was quite small and the space was limited.  In the meantime, she invited me to check out her other studio space that has a few more wheels.  It's where she teaches her pottery classes.  

"It's only about a 20-minute walk from here.  It's in the back of a wine shop that my brother owns.  He opens at 2 today and will let you see the studio if you want to check it out.  Just tell him I sent you."  Of course I wanted to see it!  She gave me the address and we arranged to meet again later in the week after she had some time to think about whether she might have a place for me in the studio.  

With my pottery goals in motion, I checked the schedule for Yellow Yoga.  An "advanced beginners" class was starting soon so I headed to the back of the building and up the stairwell to yoga.  

Appropriately, an open yellow door with a meditating buddha statue marked the entrance to a bright open room.  The signs on the door and floor indicated that visitors should remove their shoes and put them on the rack before entering the studio. 

That class was perfect.  Equal parts relaxing and refreshing.  If I didn't already have good energy flowing through my body, I did now.  We ended the class with a love meditation, during which we were invited to focus our attention on sending loving energy out into the world.  I try to do this regularly, but it helps to be reminded sometimes and it seems more powerful when I'm doing it with a group.  After the traditional exchange of "Namaste," my fellow yogis and I quietly shuffled out of the studio. 

Time to find the wine shop.  

Here I met Constantine, Cordula's brother.  He was lovely and happy to show me the secret studio in the back.  It was glorious in that it looked exactly like a pottery studio.  Potter's tools were neatly stacked on a shelf, the kiln was nestled in the back corner of the room, and five wheels sat in the middle of the floor, throbbing with potential if only the right potter would sit down and set them spinning.  

I thanked Constantine for the tour and asked if he could recommend a white wine to go with a vegetarian meal.  Conveniently, perhaps even coincidentally, I was planning on cooking a meal when I got home with a recipe that called for 2 tablespoons of white wine.  Funny how the day brought me directly to a wine shop, don't you think?  Will the coincidences never cease?  

Constantine was quick to select a lovely German riesling.  After paying him, I packed the wine away in my bag and started home.  

I'll share a few more photos before closing out this post. 

You might have noticed that in Berlin, bikes are parked almost everywhere.  

Similarly, you don't have to look far to find a little graffiti... or a lot of graffiti.  Here is a Berlin phone booth.  I haven't ever seen anyone using one, but they are still scattered around the city. 

Colorful children's art is also scattered here and there. 

Basically, if there is something to paint, it will be painted.  

Well, that about sums up my start to Berlin life.  I promise there will be more to come soon on how the happenings of this serendipitous day played out in the days that followed. 

Ich bin ein Berliner

After a wonderful Christmas season in the US with our families, Fritz and I are back in Berlin, Germany and it is SWEET!  

We are subletting this super cool flat that looks like it is right off the set of Mad Men.  It's owned by a  very hip couple who is taking a 5-month sabbatical in South America, as one does.  The surrounding neighborhood is incredible with more eateries, coffee shops, markets, bookstores and shopping than anyone could possibly want.  

AND, we actually live 2 blocks from David Bowie's old flat.  

No joke.  The Berliners love Bowie and people are still dropping flowers and lighting candles as they mourn his recent death.  

Normal people live in this building, so every day they have to wade through the wilted, frozen roses in order to exit their apartment.  As a matter of fact, the fellow we are subletting from knows a girl who lives there.  She happens to be dating his son!  

To give you a sense of where we live, here is a map of Berlin.  It's a huge city and is the capital of Germany.   It has a rich history, probably the most notable recent event took place in 1989 when the Berlin Wall separating East Germany and West Germany since 1961 was torn down and with it, communism in Germany was brought to an end.  The country was reunited.  Fritz and I live in Schöneberg (pronounced shoe-nah-berg... sort of), which is in the middle of the city toward the south.  This neighborhood used to be part of West Germany, which was not the part controlled by the communist party.  There is a noticeable difference in architecture, among other things, if you hop over to the old East German neighborhoods.  

Here's a snapshot of our street looking to the right after exiting our front door.  We live on the edge of a quieter residential area and a bustling commercial area.  

The reason we are here in Berlin is because it is the home of the Bundesarchiv- the Federal Archive.  The records inside are extremely important to Fritz's research and since East Germany does not exist anymore, access to the records are not restricted.  Fritz can see it all!  This was one of the challenges he ran into in Frankfurt since private banks and the archives of the current German government are a bit protective of their files.  

There it is.  He is going to be spending A LOT of time in that white building. 

The ornate door handles on the entrance to the Rathaus Schöneberg.

One of the obligatory steps involved in moving to Berlin is registering our home.  We had to do this in Frankfurt too.  It's a magical opportunity to stand in line and experience the German bureaucratic system.  Or not, as the case may be.  Twice we attempted to register at the Rathaus Schöneberg, the city hall of our neighborhood.  It's a beautiful edifice and the historic location where President John F. Kennedy gave the famous speech in which he said, "Ich bin ein Berliner"- I am a Berliner.   In our first attempt to register,  we waited in line for about an hour until Fritz went and asked if we would actually be able to register today.  After he was told they were only taking people with appointments, we left.  For our second attempt, Fritz walked over at 7am in order to be the first in line when the Rathaus opened at 8.  He arrived to find 15 people already waiting.  When the doors opened, a Rathaus administrator told Fritz that, once again, they were already out of numbers for people without an appointment.  You might be wondering why we didn't just make an appointment.  Well we tried that too.  The earliest appointment was not until mid-March and we are technically required to register within 2 weeks of moving.  

So Monday morning, we decided to try our luck at an alternative building 30 minutes away.  We thought maybe there would be shorter lines and better luck getting a number if we tried a small establishment.  

No, the Bürgerbüro is not the place to pick up a quarter-pounder with cheese and a Diet Coke.  It means civil office.  Fritz and I arrived at 7:25am, and this time, we were the first pair in line.  When the doors opened at 8, we had no trouble getting a number.  By 9:30 we had successfully registered our residence!  

We've been doing plenty of fun things too.  It's not all archives and bureaucratic line-standing.  My first weekend there, we went to the Jewish Museum.  

Fallen Leaves is an installation in the "Memory Void."  The artist, Menashe Kadishman, has dedicated his work to all the victims of violence and war.  Visitors are invited to walk on the faces and listen to the clanging and rattling as the metal sheets crash into one another.  

We have also spent time just walking around the city whenever we can.  Sometimes we have a destination, but sometimes we just walk.  

One very obvious characteristic of Berlin is the presence of many many murals painted on buildings all over the city.  

I think I am going to have to dedicate an entire post to some of the murals I find.  Or perhaps I'll just weave them into posts as I go.  

Charmed

In an email exchange, a friend said to me, "You live a charmed life."  And she is right!  Sure, part of the charm comes from my perspective, my outlook, my optimism.  

I passed this window on a walk through neighborhood close by.  It means "optimists".

But part of it really is just that good things happen to me.  Good things happen to me all the time.  Maybe it's coincidence, maybe it's luck, maybe the stars frequently align in my favor, maybe someone somewhere is looking out for me, maybe the energy of the Earth just decided I deserve a good life... I don't know.  

But somehow, I ended up randomly catching the eye of a tall guy in a bar on a cold, snowy night in Ithaca, NY.  And almost exactly 3 years later, he has filled my life with friendship and adventure and wisdom and love as we share our days in Berlin, Germany where we have an incredible flat in a fabulous neighborhood.  Every day, we wake up and make more memories together.  We have our separate projects too, and we each have been building ourselves as individuals while appreciating each other's strengths and growth.  

Two years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night because Fritz was talking in his sleep.  He mumbled a few really random sentences about debt and international trade, but then he said, "All things will come together."  I can't begin to image what he was dreaming about, but I will say that every day, little by little, all things have come together.  Somehow things have just always worked out in a most beautiful way. 

I don't say all this to be boastful.  I say it because I hope with all my heart, I will always have the ability to reflect on my life and be this incredibly grateful for all the "charms" that always seem to fall at my feet.  My friend Irma has a chalkboard in her bathroom.  On it, she has written, "Grateful = Happy."  I hope I always remember that and make the most of all the good fortune that comes my way.  

3 Days in Berlin

There was no time to waste.  3 days in Berlin was going to fly by so we were determined to make the most of it.  Of course our primary mission was to secure a flat for our return in January.  Now seasoned apartment hunters after our run-around in Frankfurt, Fritz had a meeting already lined up with a lovely couple in their rather swanky flat in West Berlin.  I'll save the details on our future apartment for our return since most of our 3-day adventure consisted of seeing the Berlin sights.

Berlin was loaded with Christmas markets.  

One of the more famous markets was right in front of this famous church.  The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was built in the 1890s.  It was badly damaged in a bombing raid during World War II and if you walk around the side of it, you can see gaping holes that were torn through the side of the structure as well as its damaged spire.  Although newer buildings have been built on either side of the church which are used for worship, the original building was not repaired as a reminder of the horrible events of WWII and the futility of war. 

Another lovely Christams Market was right in front of the Charlottenburg Palace. 

We were too busy eating sausages to try the smoked fish, but these fish fires were another neat part of almost every Christmas Market.  

We had lovely weather to hit all the major tourist spots.  Behind me is the Reichstag building, which is the meeting place for the German parliament. 

The Brandenburg Gate was built in 1791 by the Kind of Prussia as a sign of peace.  During the Cold War, the Berlin Wall stood right next to it, and this spot was featured in media coverage from when the Wall was torn down in 1989.  

There are parts of the city that still contain sections of the Berlin Wall. 

Other spots feature a strip embedded in the pavement marking the place where the former wall stood.  

The Holocaust Memorial, also called The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, stretches out over 4 acres with concrete slabs ranging in heights from 8 inches to 15 feet. The ground on which the slabs are placed slopes so when you are standing on the outside of the memorial looking in, they all appear to be of a similar height, but as you walk deeper into the slabs, you find the concrete masses towering over you. 

Peter Eisenman, the designer and architect, intended for the structure to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere.  The whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.  The memorial also bears a resemblance to a cemetery.  The slabs are covered with a graffiti-resistant coating to prevent neo-Nazis from painting swastikas on the sculpture, which happened 5 times in the first year before the special coating was added.  

These two cuties were hanging out by the Brandenburg Gate.

We had to visit Checkpoint Charlie, one of the most iconic spots in Berlin.  This was the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin, the capital of communist East Germany, and West Berlin, part of West Germany, during the Cold War.  The checkpoint was manned by US troops.  It's called Checkpoint "Charlie" because the checkpoints were labeled alphabetically.  There was also a Checkpoint A and B or "Alfa" and "Bravo".  Using the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, C is called "Charlie."  

Today Checkpoint Charlie is pretty much a big old tourist trap.  People take turns standing next to this German guy dressed as an American soldier.  My biggest question is, how long did it take for them to install a McDonalds right behind Checkpoint Charlie after the Berlin Wall fell?

Hello Berlin!

With Christmas just around the corner, Fritz and I packed up our Frankfurt apartment and set out for Berlin where we hoped to secure a flat for our post-Christmas return to Germany.  The character of the capital city was immediately apparent.  It's amazing how cities really do have a "personality".  I don't know enough about Berlin yet to speak to its personality, but I can tell you that the flavor is quite different from that of Frankfurt.  

The subway, which originally opened in 1902 and has undergone 3 major construction phases (1913, 1930, and 1953), is quite colorful with old yellow cars, brightly tiled walls giving the platforms a retro flair, and musicians that pop on and off the train to serenade the passengers in exchange for a few loose coins.  

Fritz and I found ourselves, once again, feeling so thankful for the wonderful people we met while we were in Frankfurt.  Our friend Frederic connected us with his parents who maintain a room in a Berlin flat so they have a place to stay when they want an escape from their home in Venice.  Frederic's father is a journalist for a leading German newspaper as well as a published author of books on Sweedish architecture and decor.  Needless to say, their apartment was lovely and they let us stay in it for our three days in Berlin.  

The room was spacious with a high ceiling, a huge bookshelf well stocked with books in multiple languages, an enormous bed with feather pillows that seemed to eat me up as I dozed, a giant picture window overlooking the quiet street below, a large clean desk, and a cozy sitting area perfect for late night reading. What luxury!  How did we ever get so lucky?

Goethe Champagne Party

Ok, it was technically a Christmas party, but Fritz and I had been calling it "The Champagne Party" for months since that is how it was originally described us.  

Professor Plumpe, Fritz's advisor at Goethe Universität, throws an annual Christmas party at his swanky downtown Frankfurt apartment.  All guests come bearing a bottle of champagne so the merriment and bubbly delights can last the whole night long.  

Here is our host, Professor Plumpe, making sure the champagne flutes stay full.  

Fritz and I had originally planned to leave for Berlin the day before.  We didn't want a repeat of the housing challenges we had when we first came to Frankfurt, so we planned to spend the last week in Germany before heading back to the US securing a place to live in Berlin.  But with talk of a Champagne Party and minimal arm twisting, we altered our plan to spend one more night with our Frankfurt friends. 

Professor Plumpe's apartment was pretty fantastic.  His study was lined with books (and I'm pretty sure he has actually read every one of these).

He is quite an art collector with stunning pieces adorning his walls.  I was treated to a private tour by Professor Plumpe himself where he explained each piece and it's significance.  When decorating his apartment, Professor Plumpe applied the Theory of Colours, a concept explained by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  It's an interesting idea that establishes a kind of "color psychology" where colors can be associated with the components of human cognition.  For this reason, Professor Plumpe's dining room is painted orange, which is associated with the "noble".  His sitting room is a cool blue and his living room is a "useful" green.  

I am no champagne expert, but we drank Veuve Clicquot most of the night, which was quite good.  There was one blinged-out bottle that made an appearance, because after all, what's a champagne party without a little glitz?

It was difficult to see the party end, not knowing when we would next clink glasses and share a toast with our friends.  We feel so lucky to have started our Germany adventure in Frankfurt and to have met the historians of Goethe Universität.  We will look forward to the next time our paths cross.  

Home Recording Studio

Ladies and Gentlemen, we live in a world where anyone can have their very own home recording studio.  As a matter of fact, not only can you have a recording studio, you can even bring it with you all the way to Germany!  

Fritz had a conference in London for three days this week, so while he was presenting his research over there, I stayed in Frankfurt and made my very first music video.  

A few years ago, my friends gave me an awesome USB microphone which I brought with me to Germany.  I found my guitar at a flee market for 35 euros the first weekend we were in Frankfurt.  And computers these days have all the programs neccessary for an amature production. 

So there you have it, all the makings for a home studio!  

The last essential part of a home recording studio, is a perfectly silent room.  This was actually the trickiest part of the whole opporation.  We live one block from the busiest section of railroad in Frankfurt.  Our bedroom window goes right to the street closest to the tracks.  A clattering, squealing background cacophony is not exactly what I was going for, so the bedroom was out for a plausable recording space.  

Monday mornings, the housekeeper is in the building and you can hear her vacuuming from about 9am to 12:30pm.  So that meant no recording on Monday morning.  Then there is a guy who diligently practices the saxaphone from about 10am to 11:30am every single day without fail.  I am completely amazed at his (or her) commitment.  I have played musical instruments almost my entire life starting with the piano at 7 years old, but I have never been as conscientious about maintaining a practice schedule as this person.  Perhaps if I had, I would be a better musician.  Oh well.  Kudos to you Mr. Saxaphone Practicer!  Kudos! 

The last sound that I had to battle with, was the obnoxious and constant buzz of our refrigorator.  I tried angling the mic away from it.  I tried recording in the far opposite corner of the living room.  But our appartment is just too small to escape the off-key drone of the fridge.  So, I unplugged it.  I may or may not have forgotten to plug it back in once or twice during the process... but I think everything is still more or less edible.  

So that's it!  I recorded everything with Garage Band, then used iMovie to edit a few differnt clips of video footage that I took in the apartment.  I learned that it's a lot harder to lipsync than the celebrities make it look at the Super Bowl.  Seriously, I don't know how they do it! 

I recorded the song "Dona Nobis Pacem."  My mom taught it to me when I was little and we would sometimes sing it in rounds during car rides or when we were hiking in the woods as a family.  It's one of my favorite Christmas songs, although I think it's appropriate for any time of year.  There are only three words in the entire song, with three variations on the same melody.  Out of simplicity comes complexity as the three melodies are woven together.  The words mean "Grant Us Peace."  A beautiful wish for the world we are living in today. 

I've posted the finished product on youtube.  You can watch it by clicking here if you'd like.