Steph in Berlin
Berlin Wall
Autonomenviertel Viertel Berlin
Oma
Bruxelles
Bike Tour I
Bike Tour II
Niels
Museumsdorf Cloppenburg
Steve McCurry Exhibition
Museumsdorf Cloppenburg
Bruxelles
Sunday, August 6, 2017
Thursday, August 3, 2017
Oma
Bruxelles --> Cloppenburg--> Berlin: July 4 - July 7
11 hour train rides are never fun. Really, Bruxelles is very close to my grandma’s (Oma’s) hometown, but the connections are terrible and indirect. Anyway, I left a rainy Bruxelles and sat in four trains, ate my first German bread roll, and finally arrived at Oma’s house. I have been listening almost exclusively to French music. I really don’t want to let go quite yet. I should have stayed for a bit longer. I miss the Bretagne already, even with the he amazing adventures that lie ahead.
Oma’s house is a place of rest. It is so much a part of me I never realized how rooted I feel here. After all it is the one place together with the lake house that I have been coming to since my childhood. Oma was very happy to see me. Of course she had made dinner for me, it was very delicious.
Cloppenburg is such a calm, tranquil place. Yes, Oma is now older and in that respect it is not quite the same anymore as it was when I was a child, but that is normal and expected…aging is a part of life.
Moments of Joy:
Eating homemade strawberry cake with Oma
Eating bread rolls. I’ve been waiting so long.
Buying a cheese knife at a cheese stand at the market.
Lying in the sun in Oma’s garden, smelling the grass, feeling very comforted by the moss cushion underneath the blanket.
Making Reibeplaetzchen (potato pancakes)
Eating Reibeplaetzchen with apple sauce
Going to the Museumsdorf and smelling the very peculiar smell of the old farms, feeling the brick stones, and all of a sudden feeling a very deep pain very deep down in my chest because I know that this is a place that belongs to me and that I will never be able to stay. It hurt to feel so connected because it is a connection that only exists within me. It’s a connection that maybe runs through the connection of family. This is my mother’s home and I feel like I belong because the stones and the smells and the grass, the rooms and the stairs hold memories of my childhood.
Saying goodbye to Oma was hard. She was stressed and I was sad to leave, especially because I could tell that she was so overwhelmed and that it was time for me to go. I was sad because I don’t know when I will be back. For me it is no longer a given to come back to this place of my childhood where I spent so many summers, so many lazy days. There are so many factors that influence when I will be back that it is impossible to predict. All I can say is that I hope to be back soon.
*Memory of a hot summer day*
I must have been eight or nine, maybe, my cousins were at Oma’s with me and we had bought a sort of water slide for the yard, a long plastic tarp that we poured water over. We ran over the grass and then jumped to slide on the plastic tarp. I remember that we had so much fun, we lined up to run across the yard, and even my uncles lined up with us because it was such fun. I imagine that Oma was rather concerned about the state of her lawn, after all we children were running around quite a bit, and there was so much water… Anyway, we had such a great time with the water slide.
The train ride from Cloppenburg to Berlin was only a fraction of the train ride from Bruxelles to Cloppenburg. Originally, I only had to change trains three times to get to my uncle’s house in Berlin. I used the train ride to wind down and reflect, not only on the past few days, but also on my time in France and conflicts in my life, on the difficulties of the past half year. I especially came back to the question what it means to me to be at home, what it means to me to be German, what it means to. Me to be back in the country that I call home, and where I yet do not fit in one hundred percent. So, what does it mean to belong but not belong at the same time because there will always be fractions of me that are different, that have seen and felt part of other cultures? I think on the good days I take pride in the many little pieces that make up my life and the different cultures that I have partially internalized. But this pride also contains a note of sadness because while there is a beauty to multiculturalism, it also means that I am never just part of one culture and I lack the ability to trace my roots to just one place. On the bad days this side wins, and I feel lost and out of touch, I feel home-less, or maybe rootless is the better way to put it. Uprooted?
I also realized, though, while I reflected, that I feel so much more like I belong here, to Germany, to Europe, than I have in the US for the past year at least. This for me is a very new discovery. And it is grounded in the deep connectedness that I feel in the little towns, in the relationships with my family, in the culture that does shine through in Germany (the consciousness for the environment, for example). I know that Europe – Germany – is not perfect and that is by now means what I am trying to express. Just that I feel more connected here.
That is part of what I was reflecting on when I heard an announcement that all inter-city train traffic through Berlin was stopped due to some sort of blockage and we would have to get out at a train station outside of Berlin and take the city trains (U- and S-Bahn) to get to our final destinations and the main station. I smiled to myself because while I had not been to Berlin in a while and really didn’t know my way around I knew that it would be no problem to figure out where to go, such a contrast to my frustrated quest for transportation in Paris. Furthermore I was in no rush to get anywhere, and just generally in such a great mood because I hadn’t seen my uncle in a very long time, and my amazing friend Stephanie would arrive in the evening to explore Berlin with me. What a gift. Good people, friends, family, make life worth living.
11 hour train rides are never fun. Really, Bruxelles is very close to my grandma’s (Oma’s) hometown, but the connections are terrible and indirect. Anyway, I left a rainy Bruxelles and sat in four trains, ate my first German bread roll, and finally arrived at Oma’s house. I have been listening almost exclusively to French music. I really don’t want to let go quite yet. I should have stayed for a bit longer. I miss the Bretagne already, even with the he amazing adventures that lie ahead.
Oma’s house is a place of rest. It is so much a part of me I never realized how rooted I feel here. After all it is the one place together with the lake house that I have been coming to since my childhood. Oma was very happy to see me. Of course she had made dinner for me, it was very delicious.
Cloppenburg is such a calm, tranquil place. Yes, Oma is now older and in that respect it is not quite the same anymore as it was when I was a child, but that is normal and expected…aging is a part of life.
Moments of Joy:
Eating homemade strawberry cake with Oma
Eating bread rolls. I’ve been waiting so long.
Buying a cheese knife at a cheese stand at the market.
Lying in the sun in Oma’s garden, smelling the grass, feeling very comforted by the moss cushion underneath the blanket.
Making Reibeplaetzchen (potato pancakes)
Eating Reibeplaetzchen with apple sauce
Going to the Museumsdorf and smelling the very peculiar smell of the old farms, feeling the brick stones, and all of a sudden feeling a very deep pain very deep down in my chest because I know that this is a place that belongs to me and that I will never be able to stay. It hurt to feel so connected because it is a connection that only exists within me. It’s a connection that maybe runs through the connection of family. This is my mother’s home and I feel like I belong because the stones and the smells and the grass, the rooms and the stairs hold memories of my childhood.
Saying goodbye to Oma was hard. She was stressed and I was sad to leave, especially because I could tell that she was so overwhelmed and that it was time for me to go. I was sad because I don’t know when I will be back. For me it is no longer a given to come back to this place of my childhood where I spent so many summers, so many lazy days. There are so many factors that influence when I will be back that it is impossible to predict. All I can say is that I hope to be back soon.
*Memory of a hot summer day*
I must have been eight or nine, maybe, my cousins were at Oma’s with me and we had bought a sort of water slide for the yard, a long plastic tarp that we poured water over. We ran over the grass and then jumped to slide on the plastic tarp. I remember that we had so much fun, we lined up to run across the yard, and even my uncles lined up with us because it was such fun. I imagine that Oma was rather concerned about the state of her lawn, after all we children were running around quite a bit, and there was so much water… Anyway, we had such a great time with the water slide.
The train ride from Cloppenburg to Berlin was only a fraction of the train ride from Bruxelles to Cloppenburg. Originally, I only had to change trains three times to get to my uncle’s house in Berlin. I used the train ride to wind down and reflect, not only on the past few days, but also on my time in France and conflicts in my life, on the difficulties of the past half year. I especially came back to the question what it means to me to be at home, what it means to me to be German, what it means to. Me to be back in the country that I call home, and where I yet do not fit in one hundred percent. So, what does it mean to belong but not belong at the same time because there will always be fractions of me that are different, that have seen and felt part of other cultures? I think on the good days I take pride in the many little pieces that make up my life and the different cultures that I have partially internalized. But this pride also contains a note of sadness because while there is a beauty to multiculturalism, it also means that I am never just part of one culture and I lack the ability to trace my roots to just one place. On the bad days this side wins, and I feel lost and out of touch, I feel home-less, or maybe rootless is the better way to put it. Uprooted?
I also realized, though, while I reflected, that I feel so much more like I belong here, to Germany, to Europe, than I have in the US for the past year at least. This for me is a very new discovery. And it is grounded in the deep connectedness that I feel in the little towns, in the relationships with my family, in the culture that does shine through in Germany (the consciousness for the environment, for example). I know that Europe – Germany – is not perfect and that is by now means what I am trying to express. Just that I feel more connected here.
That is part of what I was reflecting on when I heard an announcement that all inter-city train traffic through Berlin was stopped due to some sort of blockage and we would have to get out at a train station outside of Berlin and take the city trains (U- and S-Bahn) to get to our final destinations and the main station. I smiled to myself because while I had not been to Berlin in a while and really didn’t know my way around I knew that it would be no problem to figure out where to go, such a contrast to my frustrated quest for transportation in Paris. Furthermore I was in no rush to get anywhere, and just generally in such a great mood because I hadn’t seen my uncle in a very long time, and my amazing friend Stephanie would arrive in the evening to explore Berlin with me. What a gift. Good people, friends, family, make life worth living.
Bruxelles
Memories from Belgium, July 2 – July 4:
*I am sitting by the open window looking out at the Bodensee, cold wind coming in, it looks like another storm will come in any minute. It is here where I feel most connected in Germany – after all I have been coming to this place since before I can remember. I have countless memories of lying on the grass, eating dinner under the birch tree overlooking the lake. I have countless memories of Sumer days filled with building stone sculptures or collecting flowers to sell them for a few cents at one of our road-side “shops”. I remember rowing the boat ever since I was little, first with the help of my dad. I remember spending my birthdays here, sometimes with family, later with my best friend, too. This is a place of tranquility and yet of chaos, because the more people the merrier the daily life. Since I am here with my grandma at the moment, it is indeed a place of peace and living each day as it comes.*
The past few weeks ever since I have left Paris have been much more slow-paced, much less filled with adventures. While I seek excitement and adventure, the calm of being with family, being at home, has been a blessing.
Belgium
My first night in Belgium – in Bruxelles – I had the privilege to eat the typical mules avec frites (mussels and fries). One of my mother’s friends was so kind to let me stay with her for a night, and I had such a beautiful time getting to know her and her family. From what she told me, I gathered that people in Belgium, in Bruxelles especially, are very kind and open. This was exactly my experience, and I could not have hoped for a nicer time in Bruxelles. The reason for visiting Belgium in the first place was to see my very dear friend Niels. We worked together in Bolivia and had not seen each other for three years. After that first night, he picked me up in the city center and showed me some of his favorite places. It was incredible to see him again. While we had kept in touch a little bit, we had so much to catch up on. It was just like we had seen each other a week ago and a lot had happened in that week. I look up to his so much, for his wisdom and kindness, for his passion.
Because the weather was terrible, we went to see the exhibition of Steve McCurry’s photographs. It was an awe-inspiring exhibition. There was no connection between the pieces, it was a combination of his work, and yet each piece reflected humanity and life (and in some cases, like the picture of a soldier’s burned body and the explosion of a gas tank, humanity and death/destruction). Seeing these pictures from around the world and hearing McCurry’s audio-commentary filled me with inspiration and a sense of humility: as a photographer, I still have long ways to go and much to learn. One of the things that struck me the most, was how much time McCurry spent on pictures. He went back to the same place over and over again to capture the perfect moment. I realized that you have to study a place, get a feeling for it, before you can take that one picture that then expresses that knowledge. This type of photography is very different from street photography (which is also important and can bring about beautiful pictures). It is the process that, in the end, makes a picture. I have not yet learned to take the time, maybe not learned to be patient and stay to explore just one fraction of a destination because new places hold so much excitement, so many new opportunities that I fear I would miss out on. I would love to take the time to come back to places various times to explore the whole first, ride along the wave of excitement, to then find the details.
…
Niels later took me to his home town, Bilzen, I met his family, and we ate Belgian fries.
The next day we took our time in the morning, sleeping much and eating breakfast around noon. Once we had gotten everything figured out – what to do and where to go – we packed some water and raincoats and took off on bikes. A bike tour really was the perfect way to spend the day, it had been raining so much but cleared up and was sunny that day. It was actually so warm that I wore my dress and no jacket! Such a nice change to wearing three layers… we biked along a scenic rout to several castles, through fields and little towns. It really really was a beautiful way to spend a warm, sunny day. We talked a lot and the most important conclusion that we drew from our conversation was to give everything another chance and take risks even if it’s scary.
At a the end of our tour we ate delicious ice cream in Bilzen. Back at the house we took some time to rest. We’d biked for about four or five hours after all. I sat in the sun for a while – it was much needed after so many days of cold rainy weather. We got Turkish food for dinner, another thing that I had been waiting for for a year (even though I have been eating SO much).
We stayed up talking and drinking wine. It was good to talk about Bolivia, to remember the old times, the fun times, to hear how the children have changed, and that the moms at Plataforma are still the same. It was funny to compare our impressions of our friends, it was good to remember the good times. I’m so grateful for the time we had. Please come visit me sometime, Niels :)
*I am sitting by the open window looking out at the Bodensee, cold wind coming in, it looks like another storm will come in any minute. It is here where I feel most connected in Germany – after all I have been coming to this place since before I can remember. I have countless memories of lying on the grass, eating dinner under the birch tree overlooking the lake. I have countless memories of Sumer days filled with building stone sculptures or collecting flowers to sell them for a few cents at one of our road-side “shops”. I remember rowing the boat ever since I was little, first with the help of my dad. I remember spending my birthdays here, sometimes with family, later with my best friend, too. This is a place of tranquility and yet of chaos, because the more people the merrier the daily life. Since I am here with my grandma at the moment, it is indeed a place of peace and living each day as it comes.*
The past few weeks ever since I have left Paris have been much more slow-paced, much less filled with adventures. While I seek excitement and adventure, the calm of being with family, being at home, has been a blessing.
Belgium
My first night in Belgium – in Bruxelles – I had the privilege to eat the typical mules avec frites (mussels and fries). One of my mother’s friends was so kind to let me stay with her for a night, and I had such a beautiful time getting to know her and her family. From what she told me, I gathered that people in Belgium, in Bruxelles especially, are very kind and open. This was exactly my experience, and I could not have hoped for a nicer time in Bruxelles. The reason for visiting Belgium in the first place was to see my very dear friend Niels. We worked together in Bolivia and had not seen each other for three years. After that first night, he picked me up in the city center and showed me some of his favorite places. It was incredible to see him again. While we had kept in touch a little bit, we had so much to catch up on. It was just like we had seen each other a week ago and a lot had happened in that week. I look up to his so much, for his wisdom and kindness, for his passion.
Because the weather was terrible, we went to see the exhibition of Steve McCurry’s photographs. It was an awe-inspiring exhibition. There was no connection between the pieces, it was a combination of his work, and yet each piece reflected humanity and life (and in some cases, like the picture of a soldier’s burned body and the explosion of a gas tank, humanity and death/destruction). Seeing these pictures from around the world and hearing McCurry’s audio-commentary filled me with inspiration and a sense of humility: as a photographer, I still have long ways to go and much to learn. One of the things that struck me the most, was how much time McCurry spent on pictures. He went back to the same place over and over again to capture the perfect moment. I realized that you have to study a place, get a feeling for it, before you can take that one picture that then expresses that knowledge. This type of photography is very different from street photography (which is also important and can bring about beautiful pictures). It is the process that, in the end, makes a picture. I have not yet learned to take the time, maybe not learned to be patient and stay to explore just one fraction of a destination because new places hold so much excitement, so many new opportunities that I fear I would miss out on. I would love to take the time to come back to places various times to explore the whole first, ride along the wave of excitement, to then find the details.
…
Niels later took me to his home town, Bilzen, I met his family, and we ate Belgian fries.
The next day we took our time in the morning, sleeping much and eating breakfast around noon. Once we had gotten everything figured out – what to do and where to go – we packed some water and raincoats and took off on bikes. A bike tour really was the perfect way to spend the day, it had been raining so much but cleared up and was sunny that day. It was actually so warm that I wore my dress and no jacket! Such a nice change to wearing three layers… we biked along a scenic rout to several castles, through fields and little towns. It really really was a beautiful way to spend a warm, sunny day. We talked a lot and the most important conclusion that we drew from our conversation was to give everything another chance and take risks even if it’s scary.
At a the end of our tour we ate delicious ice cream in Bilzen. Back at the house we took some time to rest. We’d biked for about four or five hours after all. I sat in the sun for a while – it was much needed after so many days of cold rainy weather. We got Turkish food for dinner, another thing that I had been waiting for for a year (even though I have been eating SO much).
We stayed up talking and drinking wine. It was good to talk about Bolivia, to remember the old times, the fun times, to hear how the children have changed, and that the moms at Plataforma are still the same. It was funny to compare our impressions of our friends, it was good to remember the good times. I’m so grateful for the time we had. Please come visit me sometime, Niels :)
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