Flat Stanley

I have recently received a letter in the mail from a school class near Bloomington, IL about Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley is the main character in a children's book, who is squished down to be as "flat as a pancake" when a bulletin board falls over on him. However, he begins to enjoy some of the advantages of being flat, such as being thin enough to fit in an envelope so that he can be mailed around the U.S. and around the world.

http://www.flatstanleybooks.com/

Flat Stanley even visited former president George W. Bush at one point.

http://petri.house.gov/press/flatstanley.htm

And the latest person Flat Stanley came to visit was me. What follows below is a chronicle of his visit for the students back in Illinois.


It was just before Christmas that I received an unexpected visitor to my apartment in Berlin, Germany. Flat Stanley was his name and he was able to slip in through the mail slot in my door while I was at work.


Berlin is a large city of 3.4 million inhabitants located in the northeast portion of the country of Germany. Germany, of course, is located on the European continent, across the Atlantic Ocean from the United States. Berlin is so far away (it is 4415 miles from Chicago to Berlin) that the time in Berlin is seven hours ahead of the time in Illinois. For instance, if you are eating lunch at noon in Illinois, it is already 7pm and time for dinner in Berlin. The official language in Germany is German, although many people here know more than one language, and can also speak English. At this time of year, around Christmas, the weather is below freezing, and there is a lot of snow around. One of the things that Berlin is best known for is the Berlin Wall, which divided the city in half, until it was torn down 21 years ago.


Stanley had arrived at an interesting time, because I was just about to fly back home to Kansas City, Missouri to visit my family for Christmas. However, because the snow and the weather conditions were so severe, my flight to go back home was delayed for three days. Of course this was at first a little disappointing, but then, it gave me some extra time to hang out with Stanley in Berlin and show him a few of the sites. The first thing I needed to do with my unexpected free time was to fix my computer, and Stanley was nice enough to help out.

Then, we went outside to get some fresh air and see something of the city. Since I didn't yet have any proper winter clothes for him, I tucked him into my jacket so that he would stay warm.


Once outside, despite the cold, Stanley wanted to play in the snow, just a little. Here is Stanley in his snow fort that he had built.


After playing in the snow, we went to look for some of the important tourist sites in Berlin. To get there, we took the train. Many people take the train to get from place to place in Berlin, rather than driving cars. This particular train is called the "u-bahn", where the "u" stands for underground, because most of the tracks for this train are located below the ground level.



After a time, we arrived at the Brandenburg Gate. This used to be the city gate of Berlin, in former times, and it sits very closely to where the Berlin wall used to run to separate East and West Berlin. It has a lot of historical significance and is today one of the most important symbols of Berlin.


Then, we saw the television tower. On top of the tower, it has a large antenna for transmitting radio and television signals through the air. As you can see, during this time of year the weather can be very foggy... During the summer, the view of the tower is much clearer. This particular television tower in Berlin (there are others throughout Germany) is quite large, and it is actually the tallest man-made structure in Europe.


After the television tower, Stanley and I went to a Christmas Market. This type of outdoor market is very traditional in Germany during the Christmas season. There, you can eat Christmas foods, go to shops, and sometimes hear live Christmas music being played.


After three days of waiting, it was finally time to get on the plane and fly to Kansas City to visit my family for Christmas. This particular flight was routed through a different city than originally planned, in order to avoid the bad weather. Thankfully, this one was not canceled, and I was able to board the plane and begin the journey. Here, Stanley and I are buckled in as the first plane took off from Berlin.


Approximately 17 hours and three flights later, Stanley and I arrived safely at my parents' house in Kansas City. There, I was able to finally get Stanley some proper clothes, in order to get into the Christmas spirit. Here is Stanley with the Christmas tree.



With the nativity scene.


And with Santa and Mrs. Claus...



I got one last picture of Stanley and I together as well, with his seasonal Christmas clothes.


Then, at last, the rest of my family and I traveled to Bloomington, Illinois to visit my sister, Ms. Anna. I dropped Stanley off with her, since he was already so near to home, and she promised to accompany him on a safe return trip back to the classroom. Thanks for letting me borrow him and I hope you enjoy hearing of his adventures in Berlin. I hope all of you have had a Merry Christmas and I wish you a Happy New Year!

Böse Mädchen

I have heard on a number of occasions that watching German television, even passively, can help a lot with German language. In fact, an instructor of mine in a previous German course also highly recommended doing this, so I'm even starting to believe it. Even still, to this point I haven't watched too much German television, partly because I'm rarely home to sit down and take something in. However, recently I have caught a couple of episodes of the show "Karen in Action". This show is about a woman named Karen who goes to have a new, unique experience in a new place for every episode (by way of example, a recent episode saw her in a boxing camp for juvenile delinquents). Pretty entertaining, and the song at the beginning is also rather catchy:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ij4IwTtNT0

The next show I caught was a prank show with hidden cameras of the same ilk as "Candid Camera". The particular show is called "Böse Mädchen," which basically means "evil girls". I found it really interesting how this show differed from what I was used to for a similar type of show in the U.S. Probably 3/4 of the pranks involve being loud or similarly out of order (which irritates Germans), or in some way creating an inconvenience which would delay someone or make them late (which also annoys Germans). Then, after this annoyance is achieved, the targeted German usually furrows his or her brow and shakes their head, showing their annoyance. Here is an example clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3UwFEsnqN0

It doesn't take much to get under a German's skin. In contrast, the American equivalent of such a show usually involves a much more creative prank and the targets usually take it much more good-naturedly, and often even crack a smile. I'm not sure that the following link is strictly American, but it gives a taste of the difference in style that I am referring to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSjRjaq6PuQ&playnext=1&list=PL826F1CBBC689BDBE&index=10

This seems to be a symptom of some of the general cultural differences between Germany and the U.S. Actually, the German sense of humor can also be quite different as well. Here is a poster I saw recently for a comedy club in Berlin.



The title essentially means "I make nonsense" and he is obviously holding some of the instruments that would normally be used to clean toilets. Hilarious! Perhaps, in a way that I don't really understand....

Summer...?

Hello, hello, is this thing on....? It seems that time has been flying without my getting a post up this summer. I'm working on it! Actually, we haven't had much summery weather here in Berlin at all, but I guess that's neither here nor there. In June, I spent several weeks back again at the BESSY synchrotron doing unnatural shifts of (worthwhile?) scientific work there. Now, I have been enduring an avalanche of visitors for the rest of the summer up until now. Mom and Dad and Anna and Casey came through Germany in mid-summer and I met my parents in Rome for the better part of a week as well. Uncle John, Aunt Barbara, and John John came through Germany, passing through Berlin in early August. Then, Karen came for a visit until just a couple of days ago, and we traveled a bit through Germany and visited Paris, as well as spending some time in Berlin. I have also had a number of friends and acquaintances passing through town. I did miss one who e-mailed me one morning to ask if I was available for breakfast that same morning as he was passing through Berlin (maybe next time?). Good to see everyone who made it! But, I'm happy to have maybe a tiny break from visitors for a few days....

In a couple of days I will have to go down to a castle in Bavaria for almost a week for our department's annual meeting (speaking of, I should probably be practicing my presentation...). Then afterward, I hope I will be spending a little more time in Berlin for a bit and I'll also be able to get a blog entry or two up. So, get excited! ;)

Spring?!

So, first of all, sometime in the last two days (or perhaps today? I've lost track...) is the marker of one year in Berlin for me. I have officially experienced all the days in Berlin, minus a few scattered ones when I've been out of town. I'm not sure if I have a favorite. Perhaps any day when I don't have to work. Currently, I am back at BESSY (see a few posts below, if you've forgotten) doing more long shifts of synchrotron work. Two weeks more and then it's finished. This week is the night shift for me and next week should be days. Did I mention before that I don't particularly like putting in long shifts at the synchrotron? I think I must have. In any case, two more weeks... Then, back to getting a second try at experiencing all of the days in Berlin. Still lots that I haven't done, so I shouldn't be lacking in new things to experience.


Ok, so when I work at my normal institute (and not at BESSY) I am down in an area of the Berlin that is normally referred to as Dahlem. This is no longer recognized as the name of one of the official districts of Berlin (it has now been consolidated into a larger district called Zehlendorf). But, Dahlem still sticks for the most part when people are describing the area. It is generally considered a boring area where rich people live and nothing exciting happens. That's of course a big part of why I chose not to live there near my institute. But, one of the cool things about the area is that there are so many flowers and flowering trees around. Though Berlin in general really has quite a bit of park land, this is still a big change from the stinky alleyways covered with graffiti in a lot of other parts of the city. I've been enjoying the flowers as they've bloomed in spring and taken some photos along the way.
Here's a pink one before it had fully bloomed.

And after.

And there were purple flowers.


And flowers with little fingers.


And spiky ones.


Some were green...


And subsequently turned white.


Some dropped their petals so that you felt like royalty as you walked over them.

And some even looked like miniature bananas...


These are just a few of the pictures which I took on the way back and forth to eat lunch at work. Springtime is here! Kind of. The weather has been quite cool. I, for one, blame the volcano ;).

Speaking of the walk to lunch from work, there is one other interesting site on that route. Often on the way, you'll start hearing some faint crowing noise of some sort. Then, as you get closer, you can discern the noise as "cockadoodledoo" or as the Germans would say "kikeriki". I'm not kidding. The Germans have quite a few different phonetic equivalents for animal noises. Perhaps a German rooster and an American rooster wouldn't even understand each other ;). In any case, this is not just one rooster. It's a whole pack of them. Some guy has them running around in his front yard just 3 minutes walk from my institute. At least I think they're all roosters... Anyway, it's always quite interesting to go peek at them through a hole in the fence. One of them usually comes over to investigate and peeks right back at you, through the hole in the other direction. Somehow, they're just as curious what's going on outside, as I am on the inside.

Winter

*the message in the snow is literally "I want summer". In the same blunt way that a child might say "I want candy" for instance.

Winter in Berlin is gross. The end of winter in Berlin is even grosser. Not to mention a bit depressing. Mostly because of the lack of sun. We have definitely gone weeks without seeing it at all on a couple of occasions. This makes the moments during the winter when the sun does peek out a bit quite a surreal experience. But, it's also the ice. Berlin doesn't get much snow typically. Most of the reason behind this is that the wind in the winter comes from Siberia in the northeast. This is usually quite a cold wind, but it is also usually dry, so not much snow. Well, something changed this winter, whether it was the wind or the moisture or some combination because we got quite a bit more snow than usual. Since they are not used to getting snow here, they also don't seem to have much experience cleaning it up. Sooooo, the snow on the sidewalks tended to get compressed more and more by people walking on it (and the temperature fluctuations over time) until it was solid ice. And basically, it stayed in that treacherous state all winter. I've slipped and fallen down quite a few times. The most noteworthy one that comes to mind was when I happened to be carrying a banana. In my attempt to catch myself when I fell, the banana burst out of its peel leaving smooshed banana mush all over me. It was to the point where people would walk next to the sidewalks, in the streets, or wherever. Just to make sure to avoid walking on the actual sidwalk. Not worth the risk.

Also, Berlin has a reputation for not necessarily being the cleanest city. And this is particularly true in Kreuzberg, where I specifically live. Here is what I would say is a fitting Berlin Christmas tree.


God bless us, everyone. On top is an overturned shopping cart along with some pieces of Christmas trees and other assorted trash. Those Germans are always recycling :).

Speaking of cleanliness, the people in Berlin absolutely do not know how to clean up after their dogs. And A LOT of Berliners own dogs. Again, this is particularly true in my neighborhood. Generally, they just walk their dogs on the sidewalk and let them poop and run. This creates a mine field of dog poop that you have to navigate, even under the best of circumstances. I wish I could say that I had a 100% success rate in avoiding these booby traps. But, I've gotten much better the longer I've been living here. You've got to keep your head on a swivel. This is what poop looks like, in case you were curious.


A photo like this could be taken simply by pointing your camera in any random direction on the sidewalk in front of my apartment building. But, this leads me to another phenomenon that happens at the end of winter. There was an article in one of the newspapers here a little while back with the following picture. The headline read roughly, "Trash from New Year's Eve arises again."


Here is a link to the article in case you're interested in reading (in German).

http://www.bz-berlin.de/aktuell/berlin/der-silvester-muell-taucht-wieder-auf-article744144.html

So, this is what happens at the end of winter. All of the trash that has accumulated since the fall, starts turning up again. And particularly in my neighborhood, this goes double for frozen dog poops that have been preserved in the icebox since the end of Autumn. And this brings me to the reason that the end of winter in Berlin is even grosser than the beginning. Hundreds of poops will do that. But, of course winter must come to and end and I am thankful for that end. Here was the last tiny little piece of snow left in my neighborhood. It's mostly covered with the dirt and sand that they threw on the snow in lieu of shoveling it.


And with the end of Winter comes the beginning of Spring. It's still a bit cool here, especially at night, but the sun is coming out more often, and the temperature is definitely trending upwards. Here is photo I might entitle "Spring". Perhaps I have just done so. In any case, this is at the canal in Kreuzberg not far from my apartment. The surface is half melted and the geese and ducks have gotten together for a party to celebrate by leaping off the ledge into the frigid water.

Incidentally, if you look closely, you might notice a couple of additional details in this photo. One is that, at the point where the ice ends along the shoreline, there is a mattress that someone has apparently discarded into the water (I guess this is still Berlin...). The second is that in the lower left corner, there is an all black goose. I was trying to remember if I had seen one of those before and I am still not sure. In any case, Happy Spring!

Back to the U.S.

Over Christmas and New Years, I was able to make to the U.S. to spend the holidays. Ok, so I'm a bit behind on posting... My trip ended up having a really inauspicious start. Perhaps most of you know the details at this point, but I'll give a little recap anyway. I had been stuck at BESSY (two posts below) for the previous weeks doing synchrotron measurements during the days and nights. Then, initial flight in the string that eventually should lead back to the U.S. departed early the next morning. I packed up in a daze the previous night and made it in plenty of time for the flight. I boarded the plane on time without problems. But, that was the end of the grace period without problems for this trip. We ended up getting stuck on the runway for several hours, just sitting there. Apparently the problem was ice. First, they de-iced the plane. Then, they said that the runway needed to be de-iced and that that would take another hour. During that time, apparently ice developed once again on the surface of the plane, so it needed to be de-iced again. And so on.... Eventually, we got off the ground to Paris (the trip was to be Berlin-Paris-Detroit-KC) but of course I had missed my connecting flight before we event left Berlin, so I knew that there would have to be some adjustments.

I was able to get a flight out of Paris for early the next morning to try again. I made an ill-fated attempt to take the train into Paris and see something for an hour or two, and then got a couple of hours sleep before departing again. Wearing, of course, exactly the same clothes as the previous day because they suggested I keep my bag checked in order to avoid problems. Strangely, they flew me back to Frankfurt before heading on to Detroit and KC. But, the cool part was that they didn't have any regular seats available, since it was the holiday rush, and so they upgraded me to 1st class. This is a HUGE difference for a transatlantic flight like this. It would be in general. But, especially for someone who is significantly taller than average. In order to illustrate, here is a photo from my business class flight to the U.S.


And here is a picture from my return flight back to Berlin at the end of the trip. Even this picture doesn't do justice to the discomfort and knee-bruising which was this flight.


In any case, I eventually, arrived in the U.S. after a marathon couple of days of traveling. But, of course the airline had lost my bag. There were a few things that I wanted in there. Clothes and things for me were one. Christmas presents for my family were another. They later found my bag a few days after Christmas, but by then, Christmas was already over, so it was a little less than ideal. I also got the impression that they didn't treat my bag with absolute gentleness. For instance, here is the ship in a bottle that I had brought back as a gift.


Anyway, enough of this travel nonsense.

I did make it back, though the moments after arrival may have possibly been the most exhausted moments of my life. The first few days we were basically snowed in with record snowfalls. We even skipped midnight mass for Christmas because the roads were not navigatable. But, I was eventually able to pack in quite a lot, and see quite a few people in a short period of time. Got to eat KC barbecue. Multiple times. Went to Houston for New Years and to catch the Mizzou bowl game. Actually, that is an interesting story in and of itself. A friend of a friend happens to work with a senator from the state of Texas. So, he managed to get us tickets in what I think was the best luxury suite in the stadium, right on the 50-yard-line. I think it may have been the best seat I have had at any sporting event (and I have had some good ones, so it's a debatable point). The result of the game, I don't really want to talk about... But, the seats were amazing. All you can eat and drink of course and pretty much all of your needs being catered to. Here is a picture of the commentators for the game, who were sitting right next to us.

I got to compare beards with my dad. This was just after a trim, so you are spared the pictures of the grizzly beasts at their most bushy.

In short, here is a list those who I was able to see. Some briefly, and some for a longer time.

Mom, Dad, Anna, Karen, Casey, Rooster, McGillicutty, Anita, Love, Paul, Lori, Kristine, David, Grandma Rose, Agatha, John, Barb, John-John, John R., Racheal, Mike, Amelia, Mary, James, David, Ernie, Pat, Homer, Kendall, Adam, J-Brown, Megan, Jeff, Bill, Kim, Rosemary, Dennis, Diane, Denise, and I hope I haven't missed anyone.

Good to see you all. And to those I missed, hope to see you soon either in Germany or back in the U.S. soon!

Pumpkin Pie

One of the things I missed the most about Thanksgiving was pumpkin pie. Along with everything else, of course, since they don't celebrate here. I just worked like normal. But, I REALLY missed pumkin pie. It may possibly be my favorite food on earth. So, in the weeks that followed Thanksgiving, that absence remained and just kind of festered. I had been denied my rightful portion of pumkin pie. And on pumkin pie day, no less. So, sometime in December I had decided to make a pumpkin pie, better late than never. Turns out that is more difficult in Germany than in the U.S.... First of all, there is no canned pumpkin. Doesn't exist. And Germans don't even know what pumkin pie is. As an aside, my experience with Germans in the U.S. is that they don't even like it. It's somehow not to their taste. I had also noticed over time that Germans seem to dislike root beer. So, I'm deducing that this may be due to a general aversion to ginger, as a spice. It's just not what their used to. Except for in gingerbread, which is common here around Christmast time. (As a double aside, the root beer part might also be due to the name, which has the word "beer" in it, but definitely does not hold the properties of a typical beer. If I were expecting a beer and I ended up with that instead, I would probably be disappointed too).

Ok, back to the post. So, I needed to make this pie, but there was no pumpkin pie filling to be had. Of course the only solution was to find a real pumpkin and start from scratch. So began the adventure. Another added piece of motivation was that I was invited to an early holiday-type party, and I wanted to bring something to contribute. After a bit of searching, I was able to find pumpkins of the right sort for pie-making (some are not, I've found out) at an outdoor fruit and vegetable stand. Here is the whole pumpkin and then the pumpkin sliced in half to begin processing (I actually bought two, just in case).

I cut it ultimately into quarters and scooped out all of the seeds and stringy stuff from the center. Then, the cleaned quarters went directly (with the skin still on) into a pot with a couple of inches of water to simmer for an hour or so.

I could then use the simmering time to go ahead and make the crust and the pumkin pie filling, minus the pumkin. Actually, they both were a little more difficult to make than normal because of a few mitigating factors. First of all, it was difficult to find all of the ingredients, and in the forms I expected them. I couldn't for the life of me find shortening anywhere, so I just used butter in the crust instead, which was a little different. Interestingly, I figured out what they call shortening here and I used it for a second pumpkin pie later, but the crust behaved even stranger. There must be some subtle difference. Or possibly I'm not a very good baker, you be the judge. In addition, my kitchen is not very well-equipped. For instance I had no measuring spoons. Germans generally don't measure anything by volume. Not even liquids. Instead, they use a balance and the ingredients are measured by mass. Of course that is not how my recipe was, so I found myself trying to figure out how many grams of flour are in a cup and other such conversions. I ended up adding the spices to taste anyway. It turned out also that I had no big mixing spoon. So, I resorted to mixing with my hands. I think this picture makes me look like a sloth or some other strange creature with an unconventional foot-hand. But, whatever, I was in the mixing zone.

Now it was time to get back to that simmering pumpkin. Once it cooks, it softens up a lot, kind of like with potatoes. And then it separates very easily from the peel so you can take only the good part to go into the pie.

Then, in it goes.

And this is the end result after baking.

I put it in the refrigerator after cooling and then brought it directly to the holiday party the next day. But, by then, I was starting to get a little nervous, thinking what if this pie hadn't turned out so well after all. Hmmm. So, I set it down when I got in and then quickly cut myself a piece. Of course it had to be tested, to make sure I wouldn't be subjecting unsuspecting party-goers to a pie that tasted like potting soil, for instance.

Turned out that it tasted pretty good. Definitely a passable pumpkin pie. And it's a good thing that I got my piece right away, because news of the pie spread fast, seemingly through an elaborate set of hand signals. Definitely among the Americans and Canadians in attendance. I saw one American signal from across the room that he was to be saved two pieces, as he made his way across the crowded apartment. Then, quite soon the pie was gone. Here is the empty pie pan, with what appears to be a half-eaten piece of bread in there. It must have been discarded by someone in their haste to get a piece of the pie.

So, turned out well. I saved the second pumpkin until after Christmas and used it to make a second pie, of which I was able to eat several pieces myself and then introduce the dessert to a German colleague and his wife. Perhaps if enough Germans get to taste it, canned pumpkin will start appearing on the supermarket shelves here as well.