Thoughts on the holiday spirit.

It's the end of 2011 and a week or so ago I received an e-mail in my role as an officer of multinational group. I have anonymized the letter, because I don't think anyone needs the identity of the writer or the group to look at the concepts and thoughts behind the writing.

(As a pertinent piece of information, the group is not just multinational and multi-ethnic, the German membership has a hard 20% cap to retain the "multi kulti" aspect—otherwise, in groups of this nature, the standard progression is that foreigners move away, Germans do not, and clubs become increasingly German.-At the moment, we have a several year waiting list of Germans.)

Dear Ladies

After due consideration and having read the following email, I decided to share my thoughts on this matter.

I am a member of X for approximately 18 years and have seen a lot of changes, mostly positive. However, every year when I receive the X newsletters, I find it disturbing, when I read the "Festive Season Dinner" or "December Festive Season Event" instead of "Christmas Dinner/Event". My question is - What are we celebrating? 'Why has the word Christmas been dismissed over the years? I am told it is politically correct to do so. Who are we insulting? Who are we trying to placate? Who feels threatened? I have served on X for a number of years and during my terms as X, my colleagues and I reverted to using the word Christmas, which we felt was correct and proper. I have the greatest respect for other holidays e.g. Hanukkha, Ramadan, Diwali and so on, and wish my friends all the best for the specific holiday and not the general in-term Happy Festive Season as I join them in celebrating. .Likewise, as a Christian, I would like the same respect. I would also like to remind everyone, that although we come from all parts of the world, we are based in Germany.

I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a healthy, successful and exciting 2012.

X

This was my response:

Hi X-
You sent this to me, not to "separate collective e-mail". So let me answer. I'm not Christian. I don't celebrate Christmas. Neither do many members of X. Therefore we have a holiday party.

If you would like to have a club that is open to only Christians or which has a religious basis and underpinning, you are welcome to found one. I don't see any pertinence to the article you included, by the way [a ridiculous "war against Christmas article"]. I also don't have a (pagan) tree in my home and find it strange that Christians have stolen the trappings of the Druidic rituals and slapped a Christian term on it.

Happy holidays,

X

I thought about this before writing my response, before ending it and before starting to write it up in this blog post. The German spouse was more incensed than I, and suggested that I should have stated that in an effort to be more inclusive in future I should have mentioned that we will be using sharia law to adjudicate organizational disputes and signed off with a cheery Merry Kwanzaa.

I could ask, who does this person think she is? But I know who she thinks she is. She thinks she has the right to make me, and others who do not belong to her narrow culture, strangers in our land. To make us invisible and to be offended when we refuse to walk behind her, to step to the side, to be at the back of the bus, and most importantly: to be quiet. The sheer hypocrisy of stating that she allow each person to celebrate their occasion and wants the "right" to celebrate her own (by which she means to force the acknowledgement, supremacy and celebration of her religious beliefs and holidays on others) and then ending her mail by wishing me- a Jew- a merry Christmas, just demonstrates her falseness.

All animals are equal. But some are more equal than others.

Now, this made me laugh.

It was a busy day today, but let's put that aside.

I came home from swimming lessons with T2 at about 18:00, always a difficult time to find parking. We were still in our swim shoes and her hair was sopping wet. There was only 1 open spot close to our apartment, but there was an auto parked across two spots preventing its use. I pulled up next to the spot, because the car was running and there was someone reading, but that person didn't move, although he saw me.

So I went down the block, we put our regular shoes on, and I walked back to our building. After crossing the street and passing the running car, I thought. Then, holding my wet 4 year old's hand, I knocked on the window. He looked up, ignored me, looked down. I knocked again. He rolled his window down. I begged his pardon and asked if he knew that he was blocking two spots (and yes, I was speaking German). He responded in his native German, that he was perfectly aware. I pointed out that it was impolite for him to do so (unhöflich) and he agreed and said he didn't care and rolled his window up. As he was doing so, I thanked him for displaying such perfectly German behaviors.

That's not what made me laugh. What made me laugh was that after I went home, I was still so annoyed at this flaming a****l**h that I grabbed my NikonD50 and went down to take a picture of his car. If he had asked, my response was going to be that I wanted his picture on my wall, so when I wanted to know what a perfect a****l***h looked like, I could look at him. Or I would look for a website that posted pictures of such, like we have for pervs in NYC.

However, for some reason, he was so frightened of my camera that as he saw me approaching he ran away. I'm not certain why, because being an a* is definitely not illegal in Germany (there are many perfectly open and self satisfied such here), but perhaps he felt that parking in a spot marked Artz was (it's not).
Here you see him fleeing.

I chuckled for the next hour.

When I discussed this with the German when he got home from München, he asked me why I felt this was such German behavior, rather than just that of any old a**. Because he stated it right out, I said. In NY, the answer would have been (even if not true): "Oh, sorry, I didn't notice. Have a great day."
After he thought for a second, he agreed: it was indeed a particularly German interaction. Here the rudeness is straight out and direct, as a German would say.

My place, the Speed Trap

We absolutely love our new apartment (since we moved here last February) and we absolutely love our new neighborhood and its location. But what we haven't loved is that the street on which we live is wide enough that car drivers apparently feel that the posted 30 km speed limit is optional rather than mandatory. So much so that twice men (once in a truck, once in a white van) have pulled up on my right side at one of the three lights, gestured at me to roll down my window, then asked why I was going so slowly. When I pointed out the speed limit, in both cases they pulled around me from the right, and crossed in front of me to take a left.

So when we came back from a party (post later) this weekend, I was happy as a clam to see that the Polizei were using our street to decrease Berlin's deficit. (When they did this last month, the German walked over and thanked them). While we watched, they pulled cars (and many taxis) over, generally two at a time, and ticketed them.
What amazed me was how the speeders could miss seeing this.

They did this again on Tuesday, as I saw when I got back from class, and it seemed as if there was an endless supply of speeders. The German and I joke that this street (and Brandenburgische-strasse) could between them put Berlin in the black. They were, both days, taking note of how many cars were speeding even though they pulled over only a small minority of those cars (stopping at two at a time) so I wonder whether they are considering some type of installation to slow traffic: I would e greatly in favor of such.

Wien and Corteo

I spent the weekend in Vienna with a friend. It was a quick trip: I had been able to get tickets to Cirque de Soleil for Corteo this weekend and the German could not join me: he needed to stay home and take care of the children.

We used points and cash for the hotel and I got a great flight through AirBerlin (although I find it crazy that, two months in advance, it was cheaper for me to fly to Vienna than it was to use my Bahn50 card and be willing to spend more than 8 hours in a train!
The start to the trip was a bit bumpy, as the AB plane had a bum engine and after an hour on the tarmac we wound up being rejected by maintenance, deplaning and waiting for another plane. Luckily, Wien is a major hub for AirBerlin and they simply flew another plane over, empty, to carry us back. So, although just under 2 hours late (therefore not requiring compensation), I had the same seat. A high point of the flight was chatting with the very interesting musician sitting next to me: a NYer who is working between Berlin and Wien and who lives in a part of Brooklyn that I know. It was the friendliest conversation I have had with a stranger since I was last in NY and he took the three news magazines I read off my hands, always a plus:-).

I got in, went in to Wien Mitte by Cityline (a direct train from the airport to Mitte), picked myself up a 48 hour metro card from the vending machine, and went on my way. Wien is a small city and it was only two more stops to my destination: Oper.

When I got out of the station, I found myself turned around and stopped to asked a woman at a kiosk which direction to get to the number of the hotel I was aiming at: when she said she had no idea, I had a bit of a flashback to the last time I was in Vienna, in 1997, when I found it and Frankfurt to be the unfriendliest cities in Europe. This time however, I spoke bad German rather than the bad French I spoke then and I shamed her into at least agreeing that I was on the correct street, after her having said she did not know what that street was! A lovely woman at the next shop pointed me one block down and I was there in a second.

The hotel was charming and unusually for a Le Meridien, filled with interesting and cutting edge art, which I found humorous after having just visited the Daimler Contemporary. They had a partnership with the Vienna School of Art and there were student exhibits as well as professional exhibits. One was performance art, with the artist dressed as famous individuals.

After getting in and resting a moment or two while enjoying the direct view of the Opera we had, we went to the Nashmarkt for dinner, where we wound up eating at a Thai/sushi place where we also ate the rest of our meals in Vienna (other than an in room snack and a cup of coffee in a coffee shop not far from the markt). It was a few short blocks from the hotel and on the way we passed some charming landmarks. The food was well spiced and I am always happy to eat Vietnamese: it's nice to have the request for spice responded to with chopped fresh hot peppers.

We ate there before the show as well, after walking through the attached flea market (where I picked up a very nice pashmina for 5€ and only wish I had picked up a few more).

Corteo was a charming show, as different from all the other Cirque de Soleils as I have come to expect. It's quiet and beautiful and a bit contemplative, very different than Varrekai, which we saw in Berlin last year which was loud and chaotic and a bit frightening with its mad scientist them. This had angels and wings and a very Venetian look to it. There were lots of children there, so I assume people had read the description and knew that it was child friendly. We were lucky enough to have seats in the 6th row and it was great: it's really true that these shows are even more fun the closer you are. We were also lucky in that our tickets included entrance to the Tapis Rouge tent. I would not have been decadent enough to pay for it, but I really got a chance to see how the elite side lives. Very nice indeed, with our own tent, extremely nice food, unlimited alcoholic beverages (unfortunately wasted on a light weight drinker such as myself), our own vending and goody bags, and meet and greet sessions with the star performers.

I persuaded my friend to take the U-bahn back to our hotel with me (rather than her preferred travel mode of taxi) and I was amazed at how empty the Viennese subway is: that's a town that rolls its sidewalks up early! We grabbed a drink and watched a movie.

The next day D had an earlier flight back home than I did, so I walked her to the Citytrain and put her on board (it's a personal goal to persuade her that trains are faster and more convenient than taxis) than went back to the room to decide what to do. I considered wandering through the palace grounds or looking around in a city I haven't visited since 1997, but instead I took a shower in the amazing detached shower area with the 5 head vertical shower tower, then made myself a pot of tea and luxuriated in a Victorian style footed tub with what appeared to be an unlimited supply of hot water (and I say that as someone who likes my water really hot). The tub was so big I could have actually taken a few strokes in it. I my have also lolled about on the extremely comfortable bed while enjoying the streaming sunlight through the window.

Then off to the U to the train to the plane and home again.

Customer Service, German Style

Yesterday we met up with a group that I belong to and went out to a restaurant by Savignyplatz,
Cassambalis. It's a restaurant that I had frequently walked by, as one of the places that we have lived in was across Kurfürstendamm from it, but we had never gone there.

We were a relatively large group at 15, but we went relatively early for Berlin on a Friday night, arriving at 19:30. The environment was interesting, with the appearance of a gallery and "modern art" on the walls (with Modern meaning what one might see at the Bergruenn) and an interesting buffet type of display in the center (where one can choose items, but they are plated by staff).

We ordered wine and our meals and started to chat and have a good time. Then our salad arrived and it was the wrong salad. We decided to let it go. But the woman next to me got her fish and it was the wrong one (fillet, not grilled). The waiter exchanged it. Our steak arrived. It was the wrong steak (we had ordered with pepper sauce and one type of potatoes, what arrived was the other one. The one without pepper sauce and with vegetables.

The German pointed this out to the waiter and said it was fine, but could we please just have the pepper sauce? The waiter told him that he was wrong, that he had not ordered that steak. The German just looked at him. He couldn't believe that the waiter told him that he was wrong. There was no price difference, it wasn't as if we were "scamming" our way into a pepper sauce upgrade! After a few seconds of disbelief, the waiter muttered, "But I can get you the sauce anyway."

What the heck was that about? Even if we had ordered the wrong steak (which we had not– and we hadn't even pointed out that we had received the wrong salad!), what type of response was this? And no apology to the woman next to us, as he gave her her correct order, no discussion with the 4 out of 15 whose orders were mysteriously delayed (salads yet, which should have been ready and waiting for the other orders to finish!) and no apology when they finally arrived. And last, when we ordered the creme brulee, to be told it was sold out! Well, when you sell out at the beginning of the dinner seating, I would guess that it had never been available and the waiter should have mentioned that when discussing the menu after seating us.

Oh right- he never mentioned specials or any other items on the menu when seating us.

One of the poorer customer experiences I've had at any real restaurant here in Germany. The service was even worse than at the Biergarten where the waiter charged us for a meal we never ordered– at least there, he actually got us the orders we had requested!

On the very plus side, several of the couples invited us to join them at a bar for live music after dinner and it turns out the venue is around the corner from us! Amazing and amazingly fun: they have live entertainment every day of the week and real cider. I expect we will visit again.

Thoughts on the New Year, general and specific

Pondering on the last year as it moves into the present, I find that I am still amazed at how adults can be childish and can be bullies. I'm grateful every day that I live in a society where the most that people can do is to run their mouths. They can do so more thoroughly, of course, on the Web. But I am protected from the average physical bullying that I would be subjected to in other societies and as an adult myself, I can remove people who aren't reasonable from my world view: another benefit of the web is how easy it is to not look at irrationality.
I hope that every year I learn more completely how to remove such people from my society and so increase my happiness, in much the same way that I do not feel any need to watch FOX to know that it is full of lies.
One of the important new pieces of knowledge that I gained last year is that even individuals that I thought would and should be on the same side of certain issues may not be: that being persecuted doesn't prevent some individuals and groups from feeling an increased sense of power through persecuting and maligning other minority groups. These are things I knew theoretically, but it is always useful to have knowledge reinforced in reality.

For this year, I hope to continue examining my interactions with others, to determine whether it is worth responding to ad hominem attacks from those for whom I have no respect or to note that these attacks have no power to affect me and thus should be ignored. I expect to choose my battles and confining them to general statements of my beliefs and to actual discussions with those I care enough about to attempt to persuade and inform.

On the less global and more specific front, we will consider again this year whether to stay in Berlin, go to München or consider the US, Switzerland and Austria, all of which are current opportunities: sometimes choices can be overwhelming

I'm going to take a break in my German slog and pull back to a grammar class and take the opportunity to enjoy a bit more of Berlin: in that effort I spent the day at a museum today. I'd hate to leave the city without having seen more of it and with having the children by myself in the week I feel like I haven't explored nearly enough.

I've also taken some of that time I have used working through the Integrationskurse and signed up for various one day and two day cooking classes, as well as a Yoga class once a week and a DSLR class in April: all the things that I could have been doing if I hadn't been going every day to language course. I'm feeling a bit guilty but I'm also feeling a huge sensation of relief.

The children are settled in their new Schwimmverein and T1 has expanded to drawing class in addition to ceramics. We will to add ice skating for them since we probably won't get skiing started this year.
I'm also thinking about a Girl Guides or Girl Scouts group for them and I plan on moving the search up my to-do list.
The last activity that we really need is music: I need to follow through with arranging lessons for them this month.

That should give us enough to do through this school year at least!

What I've been doing for the last month: Unbefristete Aufenthaltsgenehmigung

One of the issues I have been pondering since I moved here is how to handle my stay. My husband and children are, of course, German nationals (in the case of the children, dual-nationals). I received a three year visa when I arrived, as one would expect.

Since I came to Germany knowing not even a word of German (darn all those years of French and Latin!), it was an immediate goal for all of us that we learn the language. My children went into a Geman kita as soon as we found a place to live and a kita that we liked, and I went straight into a language class (it took about 6 weeks for the above). I had some ups and some downs, quite a few missed classes due to the children being ill and a few due to my being ill. Then vacations and breaks and travel and more illnesses and so on. But I went on from A1.1 to A1.2 to A2.1. At this point life became even more awkward, as the German started working in a different city and the girls started going to different schools. Still, after another pause and another illness or two, I persevered and went on to A2.2 and finally B1.1.

I stalled out a bit there, as the German's work schedule became busier and the girls' swimming schedule did the same, but I only delayed my last class and finally finished B1.2 this fall. However, my visa ran out before that date and I wasn't certain whether I should take my exam before applying for a permanent visa.

To make it worse, here in Berlin at least, it's just about impossible to get the Auslanderbehorde to either answer the phone or return e-mails and my scheduled appointment was 1. only 4 days before the expiration of my three year visa and 2. my husband (required to be at the appointment) had a meeting that day which was not re-schedulable. So we had to actually take a day to go to the Auslanderbehorde just to see if we could reschedule our appointment.

The Beamterin on duty yelled at us because the German stuck his head behind the door that said it was the correct door: must love that customer service thing. All we could talk about on the way home (after getting a new appointment, after my visa expired, but having been told that was okay) was how ridiculous it was for this woman to put up a hand written sign that resulted in her yelling at every single person she spoke to all day, when a differently worded handwritten sign would have resulted in the outcome that she desired, with no yelling needed....

At the actual appointment, things went more smoothly than one might expect, having had prior experience with German Amts. The German brought every piece of paper that he had brought for the first appointment we had (when I received my first visa). He brought even more pieces of paper- every one that he could think of. I brought official forms from my VHS showing the German classes that I had completed (there are official forms for everything here- when I started to write a not on one the Secretary scolded me for doing so on an official form) and the receipts showing registration for the DfZ and the Orienteerungskurse. It started well: the Beamterin was nice (didn't yell at us and said hello), took all our forms and when she asked for additional forms that we had not been told we needed, we actually had them.

But then she asked for an employment contract. That's something the German doesn't have. That is, he has a contract showing that we are here in Germany for a certain time and he even had an older note from his boss discussing his circumstances. He had pay stubs and tax info and insurance info and a million things. But what he didn't have was a German, currently dated, official form saying that he can't be fired tomorrow.

I kept on saying that this particular type of form doesn't exist in the US, and as was clear in all his information, the German is employed in Germany through the international side of an American firm: on loan, as it were. The Beamterin said other North Americans have brought in such forms and that she could accept a note from a partner written on letterhead. Unfortunately, it was a holiday in the parts of Germany where someone might have been able to help us out and fax such a note over. I asked what would happen without such a note, considering that my visa had already expired, and she said the issue was that she wanted to give me a permanent visa rather than another three years and that there were additional documentation requirements. So we went back out to the waiting room while she looked over the documentation that we had and discussed our lack of the contract with her superior, I assume.

When she called us back, she had already put the permanent visa into my passport. I asked her why I didn't need to finish the Integrationskurs or take the Orienteeringskurs or the DfZ (the German poking me to stop the whole time), saying that I thought they were required, and she looked at me as if I were mad and said that I had (while arguing, I guess) displayed an adequate amount of language knowledge and off we went.

It was an interesting experience and one that I think shows how relatively easy it is for Anglophones to become permanent residents: so many of my classmates from a non-Anglophone background seem to have encountered so many more problems on the way to their permanent residency. The process also explains why all my Anglophone acquaintances seem so surprised that I have actually bothered to take classes— they laugh when I say that I need to know the language and want to take the 45 hour class (why wouldn't I want to have an understanding of the structures and legal basis of the country in which I am living?). Let me point out that even with a theoretical B1 level of language, I am still unemployable, I would guess. I think C1 would be an employable level of language when any conversation ability would be necessary and my written German is even worse. But with this level of language, I can live in this country, I can speak to my children's school teachers and I can make myself understood in any situation at all, even though it might be with an incorrect sentence structure or general rather than specific word choices: this is what integration means. Everything after this is above what is required and will simply make me personally happier.

Priceless...

Getting the pantry up and filled... great.

Unpacking 132 of 140 boxes.... great.

Cleaning out the old apartment.... great.

Having the landlord from the apartment we really loved, who turned us down "because you have children" call to ask if we would like the apartment.... priceless.

Shafted by Deutsche Telekom...

I had heard, of course, that the telephone and cable companies in Germany were fat and lazy and incompetent and I am sad to say that my current experience is bearing that out. We had chosen DT partially in the expectation that they would actually have follow through and wew were willing to pay more for that. But even though we had an appointment for telephone and cable and fast DSL hook-up this past week, the time of our appointment came and passed.

The German had taken the day off specifically to combine moving and this appointment (and this will definitely be the last time we move ourselves--- the work is backbreaking and exhausting) and when they did not arrive he called them. Much discussion later, the problem turned out to be 'a system error'. That means, of course, that DT does not need to make any effort to deal with the result of their error. Oh, excuse me, not their error, the system's error. The German was pretty unhappy with the concept and went up several layers, followed by a trip to the store where he had made the original appointment (which was incorrectly done by an employee) and the manager there assured him that a new appointment would be scheduled as quickly as possible, and certainly not even a week later.

We have a new appointment for two weeks from now. Right now, I am using the German's work computer (and it's quite difficult to use both the German keyboard and the wonky touchstick) and his UMTS card. It is very slow. So I won't be on-line much this week. Maybe I can catch up later...

Driver's License...finally!

So, only 4 months after we set the wheels in motion (ie, jumping through all the required hoops) my new Fuehrerschein is here.

It started with having an American driver's license from a state that has reciprocity with Germany. Then having that translated and 'notarized' and taking that to the ADAC with my passport (and all the other official documents that they said they would not need but did). Then we (the German and I, because they were only in German) filled out forms, paid our fees, and went off, expecting to be notified of the license arrival in 11 weeks. We were told it could not be mailed, which was itself problematic, of course, because we were expecting to leave Berlin before it would arrive. I would then, apparently, need to fly back to Berlin to pick it up.That was mid-November.

In mid-January we received notification that the license would be held up because my motorcycle certification could not be transferred unless I took a written and practical test, so I said that I would take the license without the certification.

We received the letter stating that the license was in March 19th. What with all of our illnesses and the holidays, I went to the correct Landsamt, off Friedrichstrasse, to pick it up Monday. It's located just down the street from Checkpoint Charlie (so now I know the U-Bahn stop for that museum).

After going in the wrong entrance and being sent around, providing my letter, my passport, and my driver's license in one waiting room, I was sent to another. In that room a gentleman asked who I was, handed me my Fuehrerschein and bade me a cheery fare-well, while retaining my US license.

In my oh so pitiful German, I tried to explain to him that I actually needed to keep my US license. After my second sentence, he sent me along to another room. In that room, a woman explained to me, in extremely rapid German, that Germany would allow me to have only 1 license and that I should use my German license when visiting the US.

Once again, in my so slow German, I explained that I needed the license, that the German one did not have my motorcycle certification, that US citizens are not allowed to drive on German license, that although my husband, with a visa, could use a foreign license, I a US citizen was specifically not allowed to.

She offered me the option of paying 100Euros every time I needed my USA license and that they could keep it somewhere that would require my asking for it a week or two in advance, which I said was both exorbitant (zu tueur fur mich) and unbelievable (unglaublich). I asked her what she suggested I do, in a city where the average apartment costs 300Euro a month, and she just shrugged. So I said thank you and left.

I assume that the answer is to get another US license when I am in the States and I assume that is what her shrug was suggesting that I do and I think that's just great: to need to break the law in order to be legal.

Another typical German experience where the letter of the law absolutely is more important than the meaning behind it. Sometime soon I will blog about our experience with German banks and with German American Express.

So, what does it take for an author to get a new reader?

Without the children, I have been taking the opportunity to actually attend panels. I find the British style of science fiction convention very different from the American. In many ways, it is closer to the roots of fandom, and at least as I see it at Eastercon I like it very much.

Some differences:

• The British form is generally smaller. This was apparently the largest since Seacon (a Worldcon) in 1987 at around 1300 people.


• The organizing committee had a great deal of empathy for attendees, arranging a great con rate at the hotel, including a buffet breakfast in the room rate, arranging a prix-fixe buffet dinner.


• British people absolutely drink beer. This is actually a huge diference, which the Brits will probably have trouble understanding: Americans generally don't drink. So American conventions tend to have a general function room, open 24 hours a day, with free munchies, coffee, tea and soda, where fans gather. Here, there was a general atrium where convention priced bheer and cider (and also OJ and water, which my poor tummy appreciated) was sold and where, like the Champs Elysee, the entire convention passed by.


• The tag line was "a convention run by fans for fans" and it really was. This was, even at this size, the coziest and friendliest convention I've been to in years. What with my stomach ailment I spent a lot of time sleeping but even so, I loved the atrium where everyone, from veriest neo to adored pro hung out, drank, and was accessible. I wil definitely go to more British cons.

The title refers to a post a while back that John Scalzi made (and I'm not sure in which of his zillions of posts) where he talked about how an author gets a fan. There was some discussion of hand selling, or through blogs (and Diana Peterfreund had some things to say somewhere in her blog as well, I think) and through personal referral as being the best way. To that I need to add: listening to a good speaker.

The German is not much of a reader, but after listening to Charlie Stross' Guest of Honour speech, he dragged me downstairs to the Dealer's Room and bought two of his books. Stross was so funny, so dry and amusing, so absolutely in control of what he was saying and so erudite with it that it was no wonder that the German was enthralled. I wanted to buy several books as well. And, interestingly enough, it was after hearing Scalzi (different reference here), another funny and intelligent speaker at a panel at a Worldcon some years ago, that I started reading his books and recommending them.

We again braved the frigid environment of the Commonwealth room (the largest meeting room) to hear Neil Gaiman's Guest of Honour speech. Now, interestingly enough, I had liked Gaiman's work back in the Miracleman days, but didn't like his collaboration with Pratchett and had stopped reading him. Here's a link to his journal of Eastercon.
He was so wonderfully amusing and then, later on, so wonderful at reading a chapter from his new book, that I am certain that I will be buying that new book. I had already picked up a copy of Stardust (mainly because I was sad not to be able to see the movie until it comes out on DVD) and I cleverly left it in Berlin rather than bringing it with me to have it signed. But the convention kindly passed out a poster that we could use at the mass GOH signing and I was able to have that signed instead.

We also went to see Tanith Lee (another GOH) speak at two separate panels. She was one of my earliest favorites, back in my salad days, and it was a pleasure to meet others who are great fans of hers and to hear her speak. I actually discovered that she had put out a 'sequel' to one of my favorite of her books: The Silver Metal Lover which is now followed by Metallic Lover 24 years later.

An amusing incident that took place at the con: while the German and I were standing in the (long) line to have our posters signed by all the Guests of Honour, I was reading one of the (few) newsletters and noticed that there had been a case of chickenpox in the childcare facility (another sign that the convention was run well and even though I did not bring the children, a real sign that British fandom is 1. more family friendly and 2. more likely to have membership expand naturally).

I exclaimed aloud at how grateful I was that the girls had been left with the in-laws and how terrible it was that the other children had been exposed when the couple in front of us turned around and said "She's in quarantine with Grandma now, we didn't know." What are the odds that I castigate someone at a convention with 1300+ people and they are standing next to me at the time? Anyway, we all chatted for a bit and I simply said that since Thing2 is too young to have been vaccinated, and the German has not had it, I was truly glad not to have had the girls exposed. Turns out that in the UK they don't vaccinate against Varicella. I'll need to be making certain that the girls are adequately and promptly vaccinated on the CDC schedule here, I can tell.

The other thing was that even with my stomach ailments, I had the best ordinary food that I have had since we left the States. I mean, we don't eat out so much here in Berlin, and we have not been able to find a 'regular'. But just around the corner from the hotel was The Pheasant. We had a meal a day there and the one day that we had the convention buffet dinner we groaned with disappointment that we weren't eating there. We expressed our gratitude to the owner and told him that Berlin was crying out for another restaurant like his and that if he came, we would eat ther 5 times a week. The salads were so wonderful, the masalas, the quiche, the cider, the ploughman's... why isn't there anything like that here?

My class Trip to Dresden

We were scheduled to leave at 7:31 from the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. Because of the U-Bahn strike I was concerned that it might take me a while to get there, so I left home quite early and was bummed to discover that the S-Bahn to the Hbf is quite sppedy: I was there 30 minutes early. That gave me time enough to become concerned when I didn't see anyone else and when the destination notation at the platform we were meeting at was not Dresden. So I called the information line but the gentleman at the other end, when I asked him to speak "Langsam, bitte" send me to the main information booth at the other end of the station, rather than simply telling me, more slowly, that the reason the destination was not Dresden was that we would be switching trains part way. Sigh. Some Germans just can't deal with speaking to non-native speakers slowly and clearly. Luckily, when I ran up the stairs I bumped into a classmate and he was able to get the information gentleman to give him that information.


This is the August the Strong bridge: it's very pretty. I also want to point out the sunshine. the entire day was beautifully sunny: it was almost like being in an entirely different country. I took off my jacket and unzipped my sweater and sat in the sun eating soft ice-cream (as did all the Germans I could see).


I think that this is a cherry tree- all over Dresden trees were blooming, flowers were blooming, and people were basking in the sun. One of my classmates said that there was a Mediterannean feel but I think that she was just drunk on sunshine.




A view of the Schloss across the Elbe. That's the boat next to which we sat and ate our cones.






Statue of August the Strong on a horse on the boulevard leading to the Aldtstadt.






The Frauenkirche. And it really is. All baby blue and baby pink with trompe l'oeuil everything. So pretty and non-threatening. Not a tortured body in sight. Interestingly, this is a Protestant church but my teacher (German Protestant by birth, professed atheist) thought it seemed more Catholic, because of the general ornateness and opulence. I said that to me the absence of the crucifixion was proof of the Protestentness of the building and that the opulence was simply due to the building having been built for the wife of an Emporer (although of course this is completely a recreation, as almost all of Dresden was completely destroyed in February 1945).

Some of my class mates went to the museums in the Schloss (which looked lovely) but Y and N and Y and I instead decided to find a table in the sun and grab a bite to eat: it just didn't seem like there was enough time to make it worthwhile to go to the museums.

We kept on looking but couldn't find an open table so we wound up approaching some older Dresdeners and asking if we could share their table, which they very kindly agreed to.

I had been wanting Linsentopf (I love lentils)and two classmates chose the same. When it arrived, it had meat in it and Y asked if it was Schwein, because she doesn't eat trayfe. I hadn't thought so, because I generally read all descriptions in Germany in re food to be sure that pig is not in the product, but one can never be certain here. So she asked the kellnerin, who, in a very unbehilflich way said yes and then left. Y agonized for a bit and other Y and I were concerned and then Y called over the kellnerin and asked to exchange the soup for another because she could not eat Schweinfleisch. I was amazed at how passive aggressive the waitress was, but she finally agreed and we all ate when the new soup came. Of course, by that time I had reacquired the menu and noted that the Linseltopf did not include swine: it was beef.

Well, that broke the ice and the Dresdeners asked where we came from and we had a lovely chat for the next half hour or so, culminating with the gentleman buying us all a round of a local Dresden white wine. It was so nice, he and his wife and their friend displayed such Gastfreundschaft, that it more than made up for the information man and the waitress and made me realize again how nice some people are here and how appreciative so many Germans are to those of us who try to speak German! We wound up being a few minutes late to meet the others, having to run, and then we had to dash for the Dresden Hbf.

So, I was up at 5:45 and I got home again at 21:00. A long day. I will definitely do it again, but next time I think that we will go and stay for the weekend.

The German and the Things also had a great day, they spent most of it at the Zoo.