Arrived, safe and sound

Friday, April 24, 2009
Arrival and Re-acquaintance

I found my seat on the completely full flight to Berlin, and sat next to an obviously German lady about my age. I addressed her in German, and excused myself as I stumbled into my window seat. It wasn't long before I discovered that my impeccable talent for identifying nationalities was flawed, and that the lady was a very American housewife from Minnesota. She and her husband were vacationing, but couldn't get two seats together. He was sitting in business class.

When he came back to visit her before takeoff, I graciously offered to swap seats with him so that he could sit next to his wife. But he declined my offer. Finally, they decided that he would sit in coach and the wife would travel in business class. He was a very interesting travel companion, and the time passed relatively comfortably. I managed to sleep a little more than 2 hours – unusual in my experience.

At the Berlin-Tegel airport, the luggage conveyor wasn't working properly – a real embarrassment for a German organization. But shortly we had our bags and exited through the Zoll/Customs. As far as I could tell, the only official in the customs area was a young fellow talking on the phone, so I walked straight through without even making eye contact, not that I had anything to declare, anyhow. What a lost opportunity!

Martin and Corinna were waiting for me; Martin is my friend from the time that I was an exchange student in West Berlin, and he was a political activist and student in East Berlin. (The stories about going through the border crossing at the Berlin Wall in those days will wait for another time.) We all hugged and made our way to their car. In less than an hour we were at their home on the east side – formerly East Berlin – of the city.

They are extremely gracious hosts. We had a re-orientation of the house and the yard, talked briefly about family, and Corinna brought brunch out onto the patio. Their son had moved to Sweden with his family (including 3 children), and their daughter works for Motorola in Chicago. Corinna would leave on May 7 to attend the daughter's graduation from her master degree program in design management. Martin could not go, as he had taken upon himself to cover for a sick colleague; he now works 4 days a week, about 3½ more than he wants to work, given that he is retired.

We talked a lot about what plants, animals, and birds we have in common and those with which we are, respectively, unfamiliar. For example, their mint plants look completely different; they have no cardinals and no robins; they have no hickory/pecan trees or tall pine trees, but plenty of other types of evergreens. These are, of course, not scientific findings but casual observations.

I was surprised at how warm it is. They are only about 3 weeks behind Atlanta in their spring: Tulips are at their height (and they don't have to plant anew every couple of years); the forsythia is blooming, and the cherries, apples, pears, and plums are all in full blossom. This afternoon it was 21ºC.

As usually, as we sat together, the conversation became more and more political, until I was beginning to have trouble keeping up with the concepts. Nevertheless, they complimented me on how well I was speaking and understanding. It's an advantage for an American studying German to have “east German” friends, because, as school children, they were never taught English, but Russian. It's almost never feasible accidentally to revert to English on the (false) assumption that it would be easier.

Their hospitality went into overdrive in the afternoon. They just happened to have a cell phone SIM card, and all it needed was activation. Corinna got onto the web page and activated it for my phone over my objections. Next thing I knew, an hour later, she presented me 8 fare cards for public transport, and with a BerlinWelcome Card, which gives discounted admission to museums and tourist sites, and two days of unlimited public transportation usage. Public transport here is even better than that in New York.

They had invited their across-the-street neighbors, Sascho and Regina, for dinner. Bela and I had met them on our last trip to Berlin, about five years ago. Sascho is a Bulgarian artist, about my age, and Regina is German. They met in college and stayed in East Berlin.

Sascho always brings Bulgarian wine, and today was no different, although wine is generally plentiful and very reasonably priced. I was in the supermarket and noticed that a Cabernet imported from Chile was about 1.60 Euros (about $2.35 today), including tax. Very few wines were more expensive.

Again we talked about politics over dinner, and we had a great time. It's so much easier to speak and understand German with a few glasses of wine behind me.

In consideration of my condition, we broke up early so that I could get to sleep a little early. But I was already past sleepy and well into my second wind.