What can make a train full of stoic Germans sing and dance?

Answer: The Beatles.
Now let me give you the back story. Take a ride on any Berlin S-Bahn or U-Bahn and you'll immediately notice that it is not a very social experience. People sit silently, listen to music, read books and don't make eye contact. When people do talk it's normally in quiet whispers. Often young musicians will get on a play their accordion or violin for a few minutes in hopes of making a few Euros but mostly they are ignored (for good reason, too, because a lot really aren't that talented).
Therefore, when three young guys whipped out guitars as I was riding the train home last night I barely gave them a glance before going back to my book. But then something remarkable happened. They started playing the opening bars to The Beatles "All My Loving" and the energy in the train car completely changed. People perked up, turned around, smiled and started tapping their toes along to the music. The stoney-faced man sitting next to be broke into a wide grin and started tapping out the beat on his leg. A woman across started dancing in her seat and the whole train car of fifty or so people all simultaneously broke into song. .
I absolutely couldn't believe my eyes, or my ears, but a whole car on the 10:35 train towards Potsdam were smiling, dancing, laughing and singing together. Those five minutes in the train are one of my favorite experiences in Berlin thus far. It was one of those moments when you feel completely familiar with a group of complete strangers, all connected by the simple enjoyment of a song. How fortuitous and serendipitous that I happened to step onto that car of that very train. Once the song was over, we all paid our fifty cents of gratitude and then returned to our silent journey but I think that we all went home a little happier, quietly humming The Beatles to ourselves.

Happy National Coffee Day!

Ok, I know that I am a day late but seeing how coffee plays a central role in my life I wanted to wish everyone a belated happy National Coffee Day. I marked this auspicious day with the above latte macchiato at my favorite neighborhood cafe and I hope you celebrated in a similarly delicious manner. Cheers!

Daily Discoveries

As Mondays are my weekly day off, I've decided that I will spend every Monday exploring a new neighborhood of Berlin. Today's district was the trendy, hip eastern neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg. I did a little research beforehand but mostly just oriented myself and started wandering. It only took me about ten minutes and three blocks to decide that Prenzlauer Berg is my new favorite Berlin district. As one of my favorite authors, Bill Bryson, aptly puts it, I spent the afternoon "wandering around in my own private astonishment". P-berg as it is affectionately known is a vibrant collection of tree lined streets jam packed with fun little cafes and interesting boutiques. I of course stopped for my daily cappuccino at a placed called Bonanza Coffee Heroes.

Not only was I rewarded with a beautiful cappuccino but I also finally found a shop that sells good coffee beans, a rarity in a city that prefers really acidic coffee. I therefore carried with me the perfume of newly ground coffee beans for the rest of day and this coffee-addicted Seattlite couldn't have been happier!

After hitting up a bunch of fun boutiques that I vowed to return to once I actually have money, I stumbled across the Mauer Park. It is a park centered around a preserved section of the Berlin wall. 

Even though I've been in Berlin almost a month now, I am still amazed when I come across remnants of the wall.  How amazing that within my lifetime this very city was actually divided in two completely separate entities. 

This stone line runs the path of the former wall through the city as a reminded of the previous division.

I try to imagine what it was like to wake up on August 13th, 1961 and find that your city had a wall running through it. One of my co-workers at school told me that her aunt and uncle lived on the west side of Berlin and suddenly she went from seeing them weekly to not being able to see them for over ten years. Subjects that I studied at university are now literally standing before me and my inner history geek is pretty darn enthralled!

Finally, the last stop on my exploration of Prenzlauer Berg was a hummus restaurant. I have been absolutely craving it and the Germans simply haven't caught on yet so none of the groceries stores carry it. There were rumors on Berlin food blogs of a restaurant completely devoted to hummus in Prenzlauer Berg which I was determined to find....and HOORAY, I am happy to report that I found Zula Hommus Restaurant! It is an adorable little restaurant run by two Israeli brothers who told me over my pita and hummus sandwich that they were literally one of couple places in Berlin to buy hummus. Anyone who comes to visit Berlin has an obligatory visit to Zula in store for them. No if's, and's or but's!

Germans tailgate too!

As I got off the train from work today I was greeted with hundreds of lively Germans bedecked in blue and white. Apparently there is a match between Berlin Hertha and local team Cottbus this afternoon. At first I was confused as to why they were all hanging around the rather unremarkable station but it soon became clear that this was a German form of tailgating. Instead of packing up mountains of food and driving their RVs to the stadium parking lot, Germans congregate at their local train station and, to put it simply, they drink. This scene definitely lived up to the stereotype that German drink a lot of beer. There were bottles of beer absolutely carpeting the station's floor!
All of this was conducted under the watchful eye of twenty or so German police officers in full riot gear. The scene was lively and a little rowdy but I certainly didn't feel unsafe and the police seemed to be relaxed. Nonetheless, German police have a way of looking incredibly intense in their dark green uniforms that always makes me a little nervous.
Before the season is over, Kiersten and I plan on attending a fuβball match. Perhaps we will partake in the local custom and drink a couples of beers at the train station before cheering on the home team!

 

Adventure to Ikea

Kiersten was pretty excited about our successful trip.

Today fellow Berlin Fulbrighter Kiersten and I decided to trek out to Ikea in hopes of making our respective rooms more homey. Ok, now I've got to admit that I have been looking forward to this trip all week. I absolutely LOVE Ikea! There are so many colorful and whimsical possibilities and I always leave with dreams of decorating my first apartment swirling in my head. Restraining myself from buying a happily floral and fluffy chair, I left Ikea pleased with my new purchases. A new coffee press, blanket, tupperwear, candles, picture frames and pillows now happily reside on the fifth floor of Friedbergstrasse 12. 

There are parking spots out front for customer's dogs. Germans think of everything!

Introducing Anneliese!

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to my newest project. As my lovely former roommate, Katie, can attest to, I've had some difficulty keeping plants alive. Germans, on the other hand, seem to have a culture-wide green thumb. Almost every balcony is festooned with flower boxes and there are flower shops on virtually every street corner.
After walking past about a thousand shops, I got up the courage to go in and subsequently came out with a new roommate. It's high time I learned to keep a plant alive for more than a couple of weeks! Therefore, in an effort to personify my new little friend, I've named her Anneliese after a famous Berliner.
Anneliese Bödecker was a Berlin socialite and famous once said, "Die Berliner sind unfreundlich und rücksichtlos, ruppig und rechthaberisch, Berlin ist abstoβend, laut, dreckig und grau. Baustellen und verstopfte Straβen wo man geht und steht - aber mir tun alle Menschen leid, die hier nicht leben können!" According to my translation Anneliese's quote states, "The Berliners are unfriendly and inconsiderate, gruff and bossy, Berlin is repugnant, loud, dirty and gray. The streets where one lives and works are always under construction and congested but I feel very for everyone who never has the chance to live here!" I love this quote as it pokes fun at many of the Berlin stereotypes (which are comically grounded in reality). Thus, I christen my little Berlin plant Anneliese. I'll keep you posted on her status and please keep your fingers crossed that I can keep her alive!

Willkommen in Charlottenburg

Hello my dear family and friends! I am writing you on from an absolutely beautiful afternoon in Berlin. When the weather cooperates and the sun comes out, this city absolutely vibrantly glows. The side walk cafes brim with happy patrons each relishing in the sunshine and each other's company. The flowers, so carefully tended on each porch and balcony, seem to become even more brilliantly colored. When the sun shines, Berlin, the city that never sleeps, truly comes to life. 

In the name of enjoying the sun and getting to know my new neighborhood, I have luxuriously spent the past two afternoons after work sitting at a side walk cafe, reading and savoring a wonderfully foamy latte macchiato. 

Sidewalk cafes and espresso are truly one of my favorite of Europe's many traditions. It embodies what I find to be one of the best characteristics of the continent. Germans, if not all Europeans, have an almost reverent respect for relaxation and deem that leisurely sipping a cappuccino and perusing a newspaper at midday on a weekday to be completely reasonable, if not vital.

While I am getting acquainted with Charlottenburg via its many beautiful cafes, I am also getting to know it in a more robust manner by running its streets. While out on one of my runs yesterday, I decided to try to find the royal summer palace, Schloss Charlottenburg, which I heard was somewhere nearby. I pointed myself in the general direction and took off running. After fifteen minutes of running this is what I came across...

While there is an entrance fee to the castle, the acres and acres of palace grounds are a city park open for everyone to enjoy. As I ran down gorgeous gardens paths, across bridges spanning happily bubbling brooks and across wonderfully wild heaths, I was hit with an overwhelming feeling of how truly lucky I am to here. I am getting paid to live in a place where I can go for my afternoon run through the magnificent gardens of a eighteenth century palace. Pretty darn cool, or as my German students would say, "Geil!"

Finally, I want to introduce you all to my new home at Friedbergstraße 12 in Berlin's Charlottenburg district. 

I moved into my new room this past weekend and have so far been really happy with my new surroundings. Here is the front door of my building:

You can see my balcony all the way up on the fifth floor. Since the apartment is a fifth floor walk-up, I'm hoping that the many, many stairs that I climb daily will help me keep the schnitzel and sausage from sticking around!

I am renting a room from a woman named Sylvia who lives with her daughter and had an extra room after her son went to college. Sylvia and her boyfriend, John, from New Zealand have been incredibly welcoming towards me, serving me dinner on several occasions and patiently helping me improve my German. Here is a picture of my bright, sunny room taken from the bed:

I am also lucky enough to have a balcony, although I don't know how long much longer I will be able to use it with Berlin's winter just around the corner. Here is the view down Friedbergstr. from the balcony:

Now I am going to say auf weidersehen as the sun is shining and Schloss Charlottenburg is calling my name. Time to strap on my running shoes and uncover the new hidden treasures waiting on Charlottenburg's streets. I promise to keep you posted on my findings. xoxo

Schönes Wochenende!

While leaving school on Friday, I received of chorus of "Schönes Wochenende!", wishing me a wonderful weekend. Luckily the Berlin weather, which has decided to be as rainy as Seattle of late, complied and I was treated to two 70 degree days. On Saturday I met up with another Fulbrighter in Berlin, Kiersten, and we began exploring our new city.

Here are a view images from our tour--or Umlauf.

The German parliament or Reichstag with the Holocaust memorial in the foreground.

The Holocaust memorial was designed to make the visitor feel the impending sense of doom and disorientation that the Holocaust victims felt.

Next I found the Tiergarten which is an urban oasis much like Central Park in New York. Absolutely beautiful and serene. 

Located in the Tiergarten, the Berlin Kulturforum is an example of the prevalent modern architecture in the city and the site of many art exhibits and concerts.

The Soviet Memorial is located next to the Kulturforum and memorializes the Soviet soldiers who died during WWII. It was built by the Soviets and is surround by over 1,500 soldiers' unmarked graves.

The Kanzleramt, or Chancellor's office is located on the banks of the Spree River. While I find it beautiful, Berliners are more skeptical and call it the Chancellor's washing machine.

The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche was badly damaged by Allied bombing during WWII. Instead of rebuilding, Berliners voted to leave it damaged as a testament to the destruction of war. It's located on the Kurfürstendamm, Berlin's trendy shopping street.

This plaque on a bridge says "Built 1886-91 Destroyed 1945 Rebuilt 1947" This is a theme of many historic buildings around Berlin. Most of the historic buildings in Berlin are replicas or renovations of the originals which were badly bombed during the war.

On Sunday, Kiersten and I went to the Berlin Zoo and spent a wonderful afternoon with the animals. The Zoo is world famous as one of the oldest continually operating zoos in the world.

The beautiful Elefanttor entrance.

Feed me!

Knut was a sensation when he was born in 2006 as he was the first polar bear cub born at the zoo in over 30 years. Even though he has grown up, he is still cute!

He'd make a good wide receiver...if the football were made of meat.

Die Pinguin!

waddle, waddle, waddle

All in all, it was definitely a schönes Wochenende!

Stolperstein

While wandering around Berlin this weekend I literally stumbled across a Stolperstein. I had heard about these little memorials, which literally translated means "stumbling stone" or "obstacle", and yet had never seen one in person. A creation of German artist Gunter Demnig, these small plaques are placed at the doorstep of  houses and apartments across Germany where a victim of the Holocaust once lived. The inscription simply bears the individual's name, their birthday, date of deportation and place of death. They are quite simple and unassuming, yet I find them to be quite poignant. The Stolpersteine above are from the entrance to Humboldt University and state that Max Bayer and Alice Markiewic studied there before being deported and murdered in Auschwitz. Today Berlin is a vibrant, beautiful city and yet these small memorials serve as an enduring reminder of the city's dark past. Demnig's work is a beautiful acknowledgment of those who once walked these very streets and whose lives were cruelly turned upside down. Therefore, every time I come across one of these miniature memorials, I like to take a minute to recognize the individual and acknowledge their loss.

New City, New Job, New Experiences!

Guten Tag aus Berlin! This post is long overdue and I have much to report but this is literally the first time I have gotten a chance to sit down and compose my thoughts since I arrived in Berlin a week ago. In order to catch you all up, let me give you a quick run down.

I arrived at the airport, physically and emotionally drained, and was met by my school's principle, his wife and my Betreuungslehrerin (also known as a mentor teacher to you non-German speaking folk). They couldn't have been more friendly and were even nice enough to present me with a bag of goodies since they figured I was going to be hungry. In typical German fashion the bag contained cheese, salami, bread, chocolate cookies and a personal-sized bottle of wine. 

I didn't even have time to drink the wine before I set off for Altenberg, a small town outside Cologne, for the Fulbright Orientation Seminar. I must admit, this meeting at first felt a little like freshmen year of college. 140 people are thrown together, assigned to dorm style rooms and given a cafeteria to eat meals in. We also played the name game whenever we encountered someone from an area that we knew someone else. Funnily enough, I met a couple of people who were friends at college with one of my high school friends and even roomed with a girl who was friends from high school with one of my good college friends. I had to come all the way to a small German town six thousand miles from home to realize just how small the world is.

Through the tedious paperwork and teach seminars, I have left Altenberg having met some wonderful people who I believe will become great friends. Tara and Marie are both teaching Cologne, Meredith is in a town on the Danish border where the locals enjoy "flounder kicking" in their free time (I'm not kidding!), Ben is in the town where the 2011 World Ski Jumping Championships will take place and Emily is in the middle of nowhere, also known as Blommburg. We've already made plans to go to Oktoberfest soon and celebrate an American Thanksgiving in Cologne. I can't wait to experience Germany and Europe with some of my new friends!

Finally, today was my first day of school. I will be working in the 5th and 6th level classes at the Schule an der Wuhlheide under the direction of my wonderful Betreuungslehrerin, Frau Artner. 

Schule an der Wuhlheide

"Watch out for children"

Just as they treated me well at the airport, my German hosts treated me very well at school. However, no one showed more excitement for my arrival than my students. I have never seen a classroom of ten year olds more excited than when Frau Artner introduced me as "a real American who will be staying with us all year." Class had to be paused so that they could pepper me with questions ranging from what my favorite color was to if I meet many movie stars in my everyday life. They were all really disappointed when I had to admit that I don't know Miley Cyrus personally but were wowed by the fact that it took me thirteen hours to fly to Germany. At the end of class Frau Artner physically had to separate me from the kids as they kept tugging on my sweater, asking what my favorite food is and if there are as many drugs in Miami as they've seen on CSI: Miami. Finally, they were most confused by the fact that my name, Morgan, is very similar to their word for morning and tomorrow, Morgen. They all found it quite funny that this American girl was named Tomorrow. I hope you have all noticed my clever reference to this in the name of my blog, "Guten Morgan". :)

Now I must depart the blogosphere to continue my apartment hunt which is proving quite difficult. Apparently I am fighting all the German university students for rooms and it's hard to compete against 15,000 strong and  hardy Germans. Good night from Deutschland. I miss you all very much! xoxo

The Adventure Begins!

Hello my dear friends and family! Welcome to my first foray into the world of blogging. This past week, I was lucky enough to spend my time before heading over to Germany visit David in New York. As I write this, I am sitting in a bustling Manhattan coffee shop, watching busy New Yorkers fly by. David has been a wonderful tour guide and I've gotten to see and experience new aspects and areas of New York. This truly is an amazing city in which one could live a lifetime and still experience daily astonishment at discovering something new.

On Saturday we we walked to Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bridge and went to the Brooklyn Flea Market. Named one of the best flea markets in the world in the company of Paris and Istanbul, Brooklyn did not disappoint. We spent hours wandering among the various stalls, selling everything from vintage t-shirts to antique maps to groovy 70s furniture. One of the favorite things we found was a pop-up photo booth which for a small price you could get picture taken dressed up from their huge costume box. 

After the market we walked to Brooklyn's Prospect Park and spent a wonderful afternoon pedal boating on the lake. Prospect Park rivals Central Park in it's size and beauty but just happens to be less notorious than it's Manhattan neighbor. Below is the beautiful lake boat house.

I had some fun playing around with my new camera on the lake...

...and then got the camera turned on myself.

After a wonderful brunch on Sunday we took to the water again. The ferry runs for free from Lower Manhattan to Governor's Island and David took me out there for a wonderfully leisurely afternoon. Governor's Island was used as a Coast Guard base into the 1990s and was just recently turned into a public park. The views of Manhattan from island are stunning and it was a unique and cheap way to see a different side of the city. Below is a picture of David and I on the island with downtown Manhattan behind us.

On our way home from Governor's Island we stopped at the Magnolia Bakery in the West Village for a couple of their famous and heavenly cupcakes. It was so popular that there was a bouncer at the bakery door, keeping the peace. I think that's the first and last time I will ever see a cupcake bouncer! David and I devoured our amazing red velvet cupcakes at Highline Park which was definitely a highlight of the trip. First of all, the cupcakes were to die for (!) and secondly, the park was unique and unexpected. It is built on a now defunct section of high rise railroad tracks and runs along the west side of the city. It is a wild and wonderful addition to city and definitely worth a visit and a walk!

Highline Park

One of my favorite parts of the trip is getting to see where David works and lives. I got to walk with him to work on several occasions from his financial district apartment to his over office near the World Trade Center and let me tell you, nothing immerses you in New York culture like walking through the financial district at 8am on a weekday. It is a fast paced, fend for yourself experience where you will get run over if you are deemed to be walking too slow. Crossing the street can at times mean that you are taking your life in your hands. Right of way between taxis and pedestrians is definitely in the eye of the beholder and I was witness to many close calls and even open confrontations between walkers and drivers who didn't quite see eye to eye. I found my sea legs after white-knuckling it through a couple of walks and now can proudly hold my own.


Today is my last day in the city as I take off for my new adventure in Germany tonight. I had a wonderful week here and am sad that it is coming to a close. I got to see some wonderful new sights, meet up with my good friends Mike and Kate on a couple of days and share some lovely dinners and evenings with David. I'm already making a list of all the things that I want to see on my next visit but now it is time for me to leave. My own new city is awaiting me in Berlin. I promise to keep you all updated as I find my new apartment and begin teaching. Love to you all and goodbye for now!