Kids say the darnedest things...

...and my little Kinder at Schule an der Wuhlheide are no different. Here is a compilation, greatest hits if you will, of some of my favorites. Enjoy

-"Good morning Miss Morning!" (This is a common problem. "Morgen" means tomorrow or morning in German and therefore kids are continuously confused by my name. This little guy directly translated my name and has stuck with it. Thus, Miss Morning, I am.)

-Sebastian: "Do you smoke?"

Me: "No, that is very unhealthy."

Sebastian: "Then why are you so short?"

-9-year-old Julian: "Frau Morgan, did you shrink?"

Sarah, also 9: "No silly! She's always been that short."

Are you sensing a theme yet?!?!

-Teacher: "Do you have any questions for Morgan about America?"

5th grader: "Are there as many drugs in Miami as I see on CSI: Miami?"

-Jannick, one of my favorite little 9 year old boys: "Ohhhh Frau Morgan, your purse is so cute!"

And finally, I can't tell you how many times I have been asked this question by little girls:

"Do are you friends with Miley Cyrus?" (All the kids seem to think that simply being American means that I will know movie stars).

Vienna Revisited

This past weekend I returned to Vienna, a city that is very dear to my heart. My love affair with the German language and Germanic culture began there barely three years ago. Thus I spent three wonderfully nostalgic days wandering through Christmas markets, lounging in coffee houses and basking in the wonderfully unique Viennese decadence. Here are some of my favorite moments:

So fun to catch up with old friends!

Brian and I studied in Vienna together three years ago. We enjoyed a nostalgic weekend of sightseeing together.

I finally had my first piece of Sacher torte from Hotel Sacher. Absolutely delicious! 

The dear, sweet Flow House where I lived and studied three years ago.

Unexpected Discovery of the Day

Seizing the opportunity a beautiful, sunny November day presented us, Kelsey and I spent Sunday brunching and wandering somewhat aimlessly through the city. As we meandered down Berlin's most famous boulevard, Unter den Linden, we were stopped in our tracks by an armada of police trucks, fencing and some very intimidating German cops. Something had to be going on.
Naturally, curiosity got the better of us and we joined the queue starring expectantly at the Neue Wache memorial. After eavesdropping on those around us (good practice for our German!) we ascertained that the November 14th is Germany's Volkstrauertag also known as Remembrance Day.
Now I'm going to ask you to bear with me while I digress a bit and put on my German geek hat. It's important to note that Germany doesn't have a Veterans' Day. Volkstrauertag is the closest thing they have and it is officially dedicated to "all victims of war and tyranny". This ambiguity is quite intentionally constructed in an attempt to come to terms with the tragic German history. For that matter, Neue Wache where this ceremony took place, is also dedicated to the victims of war and tyranny and contains the remains of an unidentified World War II soldier and an unidentified Holocaust victim. I think is quite significant that Germany has no memorial to the German soldier or day to remember the service of the German soldier. This speaks to the complicated relationship that Germany has with the military and it's military history.
 

But back to yesterday. Kelsey and I were lucky to stumble upon the ceremony just as it began and were able to catch a glimpse of some of the country's most important politicians. We saw Federal President Christian Wulff, Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, as well as a bunch of other official-looking unidentifiable German political and military big-wigs. I always find the different ways that Germany attempts to come to terms with its difficult past very interesting and it was fascinating to get to personally experience one such instance.

Auf Wiedersehen Herbst

It is finally time to say so long to Fall. Winter has arrived in Berlin in definite, resounding fashion complete with single digit temperatures (Celsius, of course), thick blankets of clouds and a persistent daily wind. While I welcome this season of snuggly scarves, woolly mittens, hot cocoa and, above all, evening strolls through Christmas markets with a steaming mug of Glühwein, I am still sad to see the beautiful foliage fall from the trees. 

Two weekends ago my new friend Kelsey and I took a final stroll through Berlin's equivalent of Central Park, the Tiergarten. We breathed in the crisp fall air, crunched through fallen leaves and reveled in Fall's last precious waining moments. I also use this as a time to reflect on my first two months in Berlin, my experiences thus far and all that I have learned. The time has absolutely flown by and yet at the same time I feel a level of comfort here as though I've been here for ages. 

In any case, here are the last few moments of Berlin's fall as captured by my camera. Time to bundle up and welcome winter!

German Bureaucracy 101

Germany does a lot of things really well but they truly excel in three areas: beer, the Christmas season and bureaucracy. While they can brew beer with the best of them and turn Christmas into a magical landscape of Christkindlmarkts, Germans have turned the creation of bureaucratic red-tape into an art form. Over my two months here I have gotten a crash course education in the implementation of bureaucracy into every aspect of German life and now I'd like to let you in on my own personal Odyssey.
One of the first things I had to do upon arrival was register at the Berlin district office in which I resided. Of course I had yet to find a place a to live (problem number 1) and hadn't opened the necessary German bank account (problem number 2). The catch 22 was that you can't open a bank account without being registered at a district office. Luckily after waiting in line for an hour the Treptow-Köpenick district office official took pity on this poor foreigner and allowed me to register.
Of course I moved a week later and had to re-register at the Charlottenburg district office which meant waiting in line for three and a half hours for Frau Schwarz to look at my form, stamp it twice and tell me I was free to go. Here, I must pause and explain the Germans´absolute obsession with stamps. Every official document (of which there are many) has at least one official stamp, if not two or three. Of course the document is not official without the various stamps and one has to run all over the place to get the appropriate stamps. It´s complete madness and often, for me, chaos as I run all over the place trying to figure out what I need and where I should go all the while trying to decipher the German bureaucratic vocabulary in which inevitably all the words are at least 20 letters long.
But I digress...After assembling an armada of necessary paperwork-proof of earnings, proof of employment, proof of health insurance, proof of district registration, a letter from my employer, special biometric pictures-I went to the Ausländerbehörde today to finally get my visa. I was lucky enough to have an appointment (made three months in advance out of necessity) but there were tons of people waiting in insanely long lines to plead their case to the German government in hopes of remaining in Germany. It truly felt like something out of a Kafka novel. There were waiting rooms all over the place, filled with people endlessly waiting for their number to be called. I walked down endless hall after endless hall in an effort to the exact office. It's a good thing I was twenty minutes early because it took that long to figure out where in this maze of a building I was supposed to be.
I thought I was home free once I found the office but no. Apparently the appointment that was made said I was applying for a student visa but the fact that I have a scholarship instead of a place at a German university was apparently a big problem. I had to wait outside the office for twenty minutes while the official made all sorts of phone calls and repeatedly sighed heavily. Apparently she got the go ahead to simply change my visa from student to scholarship because an hour and a half later I exited with-TA DA-my visa! It feels good to be legal and to be done with this part of the bureaucratic process. However I have a feeling that there will be more hoops for me to jump through at some point before I leave. I anticipate at least a couple more hours of waiting, sitting on hard plastic chairs in some public office waiting room. But when it comes down to it as long as they let me stay in Germany, I'll keeping jumping through their hoops!