You are now entering the Twilight Zone ...

Yes, that is a USA aisle at the international foods store here. I couldn't stop smiling when I bumped into it the other day. I often wonder what it actually means to be "American," culturally, to an outsider. What is our bratwurst and sauerkraut? Our tea and crumpets? I can't say I can argue with the store's picks: Pop Tarts, Orville Redenbacher's microwave popcorn, yellow mustard, relish, marshmallows, peanut butter, maple syrup, barbecue sauce, Betty Crocker cake mixes. I think that's why it made me smile so much — they were dead on. Everything reminded me of home. It all seemed so normal and ordinary, and seeing it in this context, as a "foreign food," all at once made me feel very far away. Like light years.

Another interesting thing here: Take a look at the prices on these things. Taking into account that $100 equals about 70 Euros, that would make this Betty Crocker brownie mix roughly $7 or $8. But the Pam really blew me away — almost 7 Euros, nearly $10! For Pam Cooking Spray?! Where are we? Mars?



JEM

We do love a good story

Americans, and I include myself here, have a habit of walking into a city that has historically been through a lot (like Dresden), and treating the residents like they'd treat someone with a disability: "You are so brave! Look at how you're taking care of yourself after everything you've been through! Gosh, you are so amazing! What an inspiration you are to the rest of us!" (All said with a quiver in the voice and a tear in the eye for added sincerity.)

Here's the amazing thing about humans. When placed in a difficult situation, they adapt to survive. In most cases they don't think about how difficult it is or how brave they're being. The motivation is survival, not being an inspiration. And when we praise someone for surviving, it's like praising a puppy for peeing on the newspaper in its pen when there's nowhere else for it to go.

A couple of weeks ago a middle-aged American man got up in church and proceeded to ramble for a very long time about how brave and wonderful the people of Dresden are for surviving not only the bombings in World War II, but communism. The general gist seemed to be this: "You have had so many difficulties and struggles, and the fact that you can stand up and walk around, and, for crying out loud, operate this little congregation all by yourselves is just the most amazing thing."

After discussing this painful event with some of the Germans who were there, I have learned that they get this kind of thing regularly from Americans, and it baffles them. For one thing, most of them weren't alive to witness the bombings, so how does that make them brave? And as for communism, sure there were some crappy aspects, but for the most part it was fine. People went to work and paid the bills and had families and very ordinary lives. How does that make us brave? they say.

I guess we Yanks are just suckers for a redemption story.




JEM

Con 1: slugs

I've been meaning to start an ongoing pro and con list of life here in Germany. And since I'm having kind of a crummy day after getting splashed by a big truck while waiting at a bus stop in the rain, we're going to kick it all off with a con: slugs.

When I was little my family moved from Eastern Idaho to Washington state, where we lived for two years before returning to the same Idaho town. During those two years I acquired a phobia of slugs that, I kid you not, borders on clinical. I remember walking with my family down a trail in the woods one foggy day (could've been any day) and spotting a little black slug. Then, like in a horror movie, the camera panned out and I realized they were EVERYWHERE. They were on every tree, every rock, all over the trail. I was completely surrounded. I stood there, frozen, and screamed and screamed. My dad had to carry me out.

This phobia perpetuates. However, I've been able to avoid slugs by living in dry climates. Until now. They're everywhere. And most of them are fat and orange. I had a nightmare a couple of weeks ago that one was wrapped around my wrist. So far I haven't had to be carried anywhere, but don't put it past me.



JEM

Dresden: An Overview

Dresden's rebuilt Frauenkirche was only finished two years ago, 60 years after it was destroyed by the infamous firebombing of Dresden in February 1945.


Dresden is located in former East Germany, halfway between Berlin and Prague. It’s the capital of Saxony, or Sachsen, and the population here is right around 490,000. Most of the city's livelihood today revolves around microchips and biotechnology. But that, of course, isn't the Dresden the world is most familiar with. Against all the city’s best efforts, most people in the world know of Dresden because of its apocalyptic destruction in World War II.

In one night, Feb. 13, 1945, British and American planes pummeled the city, especially the historic and central Old City, which was home to Dresden’s most beloved cathedrals, palaces and museums, with firebombs, also known as incendiaries. Firebombs, which originated in World War II, were used by both sides to destroy urban targets with fire, rather than from blast, as was the case with their bulkier counterparts. From 10 p.m. until noon the next day, the bombs didn’t stop, and the separate fires created by them grew into one massive firestorm that swallowed the entire heart of the city. Historians still don’t know for sure how many people died during those 14 hours, but the estimate now is between 25,000 and 35,000. Bodies were still being recovered as late as the mid-’60s. The death toll was so high that burials for the victims were out of the question. Bodies were piled in city squares and incinerated en masse.

Structurally, the city was gone. Dresden, which had been Germany’s crown jewel, a cultural haven housing celestial-looking Baroque palaces, awe-inspiring churches and priceless works of art, was rubble and ashes. The writer Kurt Vonnegut, an American POW who witnessed the bombing of Dresden and the aftermath, immortalized the whole thing in the novel “Slaughterhouse 5”. “Dresden was like the moon now,” he writes, “nothing but minerals.”

The city has been rebuilding for 62 years. And it’s not finished. The big things are. The Frauenkirche, an angelic, dome-roofed Lutheran cathedral among the final major landmarks to be restored, was only completed two years ago. But there are still scars. Among them is the city's population, which even now at 490,000 lags far behind Dresden's prewar population of 642,000.



JEM

Stink source ascertained: Not manflesh

In a startling turn of events, we have discovered why our entire neighborhood is drenched in stink as often as several times a day. At first I thought it was the bio-waste bins, but it was too sporadic. Then I thought it was neighbors cooking stinky food with the windows open, but then I discovered the stink encompassed blocks — way too big to come from one apartment. Then I suspected the small, tidy factory right behind our apartment building. But what could it be? Their cafeteria waste? The bodies of workers killed on the job left to rot in the sun?

No. Turns out it's a soup factory. We met some people who used to live in this area who clued us in. They said it got to the point they could tell what soup they were making that day.

As long as it's not Soylent Green, I'm cool.


JEM

My home

This is where we live. The apartment in the top left. That tipped window is our bedroom. The building was constructed in the mid-'80s, but it feels much, much older than that. Not because it's crumbling. Our cavernous three-bedroom apartment is in pretty great shape, actually. Especially considering what we pay: 266 Euros a month, somewhere around $320. But it's the details that make it seem old: the radiators, our bathroom sink faucet that swivels to double as our tub faucet, and our washing machine hookup that doesn't include a drain — we instead have to lay the hose in the tub whenever we do a load of wash (heaven bless us that we never forget to do this).

The building style is what is known here as Plattenbau, literally "slab building". They were constructed by the Communists all over East Germany and throughout Eastern Europe. They were cheap and easy to build and provided clean, sturdy, updated homes for those living behind the Iron Curtain. Today their reputation isn't so hot. People widely consider them to be ugly, and because of their extremely low cost, they often attract a somewhat unsavory crowd (you know, the kind of people who drink and chain smoke on a park bench all day long or fight loudly with their significant other in the street). I'll admit I don't always love walking through our neighborhood for this reason, but I do think our home has a certain cyberpunk, commie-cloud-in-the-sky appeal.

I'll give you more of a tour later, and I think, when you see our view, you'll agree that it's not half bad.

JEM

Fearless

Guten Tag, Welt.

We survived packing our lives up, saying goodbye to our friends and families, flying across the U.S., the ocean and most of Europe, living in a rented room under a dance studio for 10 days, apartment hunting with no car, no help and no English during the hottest week of the year, moving into an apartment on the sixth floor of a communist concrete block building, sleeping on an air mattress for two weeks, having no kitchen sink for three weeks, dragging all we could carry from IKEA (an hour away) back to our apartment on trams nearly every day for two weeks, occasionally in the pouring rain, and going 47 days without home Internet access.

Oh yeah, and then there was the culture shock, the jet lag, the horror of standing at the brink of three and a half years here, the homesickness, the language barrier, and I got a pretty rotten cold that lasted for about a week somewhere in there.

But we did it. And we feel fearless.


JEM

P.S. Much much much more to follow. Still trying to figure out the ins and outs of running this thing.