Mein Versteck

There it is, the most beautiful spot in Berlin, a place where you can sit in the center of a grove, shielded from the sun, wind, and rain and contemplate the intricacies of life as you take in the sweet smell of the geometric fields of intensely colored flowers (the pictures I have do NOT do them justice) and listen to the gentle roar of traffic in the roundabout and the sounds of Berlin carrying on around you. A place where you feel safe: your own little bubble set off from the hustle and bustle of the big city by a ring of flags declaring the boundary between this tiny paradise and Berlin. This is the type of place where I could spend many an afternoon just sitting and writing.

At least, that's what I was thinking to myself as I dashed across 4 lanes of traffic to get there, Janet's disembodied voice in the back of my head chiding, "Don't EVER do this!"

Once I got there, I was greeted with everything I expected and more. Unfortunately, since I was expecting utopia, this was not a good thing. I saw the beautiful flowers and smelled their sweet scent. I stood at the fountain and listened to the pacifying sound of water splashing. I sat in the grove, collapsed the umbrella that the foliage rendered unnecessary, and took it all in. But, upon closer inspection, I noticed that this paradise was not what I had hoped for. It was not untainted by the touch of man.

 In the midst of the fields of flowers, plastic bags, newspapers, and take-out containers lay strewn about. Graffiti marred the otherwise pristine (if somewhat wet) benches. Floating in the fountain with the ducks were bottles, magazines, more take-out containers. One corner of the park reeked of raw sewage. Litter in the grass all over, most of it invisible from a distance.

I was outraged. I had fallen in love with this little park, only to come and find it under attack by the hands of man. Feeling defensive of what had become my Versteck, my own little bubble of nature and tranquility, I immediately set about getting all of the trash picked up. After an hour of work and the realization that I had only finished about a sixth of the park's recyclables, I decided that perhaps this was a task for a day when I had more time. Below are all the bottles collected from the grass, which I managed to stuff into my backpack and lug across the city to recycle back at our apartment.

This experience reminded me a lot of the Art of Travel. I had this great conception of this park before I came to it, and, when I arrived, was greeted with much more than I had bargained for. Instead of swearing off travel because it didn't meet my expectations, though, I did what I could to make the experience better. Humankind may have polluted my little paradise, but it was also humankind that created the spot, and humankind that could just as easily make everything right again.

"If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest––in all its ardour and paradoxes––than our travels."

The title quote is from a reading we all did: an excerpt from "The Art of Travel" by Alain de Botton. I think it's fair to say that our whole group has been thinking about this trip almost constantly since even the beginning of the past semester. As de Botton wrote about, anticipation is, to say the least, high. It's always hard to know what one is anticipating. Simply speaking, I can't wait to see the trees in Berlin, the bookstores, and to be in a town where essentially no one knows me, and I don't know anyone. Past that, I don't know exactly what this trip will be like, and that is exciting.

Because my anticipation and excitement for this trip started months ago, I have spent a lot of time (probably too much) thinking about what it means to actually travel. I really loved reading what de Botton wrote about anticipation. This phase of traveling is just that: a part of the process. I think, for me anyway, this period of time beforehand lets my imagination get perhaps the best of me, resulting in not quite what I expect when arriving to my destination (in this case Berlin). De Botton, who writes about Duc des Esseintes, a character from a novel by J.K. Huysman. Des Esseintes plans a trip to London and, after a fair amount of thought, doesn't go as to prevent disappointment from the inevitable discrepancy between London's reality and the London he came to expect in his head.

Des Esseintes never traveled past that experience (which did not include travel), and seldom did before it. Poor guy. With anxiety that would today probably be diagnosed as some disorder, he stayed in his home for the rest of his life, creating visions of various places around the world without ever going to them, and perhaps without a true desire to ever actually visit them.

I think disappointment, or what might better be described as deflating confusion, when arriving and living in the experience of traveling is a key part in understanding what it means to visit a place that is not home to us, but to other people. We seem to idealize other places that are really no different than our homes. Looking past culture and its preceding history, cities, towns, villages, etc., are all homes. It may be simple, but to me that realization has helped me make a lot of connections that seem simple and obvious, but it's taken me about 18 years to even think about this. The resistance that people like des Essenties exhibit towards the disconnect between reality and imagination in the world of traveling feel, to me, like an alienation of other cultures and a perhaps unintentional way of removing the humanity from other places in the world (though he is a fictional character, I imagine there are quite a few people like him in the world).

So, I guess I'm off to Berlin to see the actualization of the what my imagination has been brewing up throughout the past couple of months. Having been to Berlin just over a year ago, I have a small idea of what to expect. I can't wait to be in such a wonderful city with amazing friends, and a knowledgable and adventurous professor.

I will try not to make all of my posts this long! I don't know if having access to a place wherein I can publicly write about Berlin and all of its excitement is a great idea.... ;) only joking.

Bis bald...

Kerry

Here, Have Some of My Pre-Trip Anxiety

Well I have officially lost the ability to make a decision. Two or three pairs of pants? Video camera or digital? Purse or drawstring bag? I spent all day yesterday trying on different pants and crossing out and rewriting items on my what-to-pack list. By the time dinner rolled around, my mom found me lying defeated on my bedroom floor, a different pair of pants on each leg, tearing up about which notebook to bring (or something just as ridiculous). She asked me to decide on a restaurant and I almost had a conniption.
I'm excited for this trip, I really am. But I am so glad I was able to read the Art of Travel, because De Botton untangled the ball of anxiety in my chest and reminded me exactly what I was afraid of. Traveling will not change who I am-I will still be the anxiety-ridden, sarcastically terrified, novice-German-speaker Molly, just on a different continent. And what this reading assured me was that that is ok. Being in Berlin will not change the fact that sometimes I get sad or scared or nervous, and yeah, Berlin is going to be amazing and wonderful and beautiful, but I can't go in expecting paradise. De Botton sums it up perfectly when he describes how no one ever thinks about "the journey through the afternoon." The one filled with plane tickets limp from the sweat of your palms, not entering the correct compartment and dragging your suitcase through the hallway of the now-moving train, not knowing if you're being ripped off by a taxi driver, staring out the window of a car and hoping to god this is not the neighborhood you'll be living in. It's almost-missed flights and miscommunications and awkward back sweat and sleep deprivation.
Have I got everyone excited yet??
But really, this is the reality of travel that I am nervous about it-just the traveling in between places. Once we set our bags down in our apartment, I will be stress free. But until then, the constipated look on my face is called anxiety, and I'd appreciate it if it didn't get caught on camera, thanks guys.
Now I feel like I should talk about something other than my fears (I'll pause a moment here to allow time for Kerry to psychoanalyze those first couple paragraphs)
All of that aside, I really am beyond excited. We've spent a whole semester reading and learning about these different facets of Berlin-Das Kunstseidene Mädchen, Traudl Junge, Micha Kuppisch-all these complex and amazingly different stories, all set in front of the same backdrop. Berlin is basically a confused teenager, just like us, still finding its identity (#salemberlin), and I can't wait to be immersed in it, seeing first-hand all of it's history and growth.
And of course, the theater. I keep telling people that I will be seeing theater almost every night on this trip, and they keep grimacing at me as if to say, "and you're happy about that?" But I really am, and I can't think of a better sherpa to german theater than our very own Janet Hegman-Shier. Reading these plays out loud in Theaterkreis was interesting, but I can't even imagine seeing some of them live. I've been practicing my clapping skills for those long German applauses and everything.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go empty my packed suitcase onto the floor of my room and just completely start over. I've still got, what, twenty five hours until I have to be at the airport? All the time in the world.
I'll see y'all in Deutschland!