Travel agents and mullets

I want to tell you about an institution in Germany that has held on since the early 90's.  It's not the fanny pack, and it's not in-line skates, though those are both good guesses. And no, it's not the mullet either.

Tangent: Mullets also not too hard to find here, especially as you head further to the east. In German it's called a Vokuhila, which is short for Vorne kurz Hinten lang (short front, long back). German language is nothing if not practical.

The business I'm talking about is the travel agency. Shortly after moving here, I discovered that just past every bakery and hair salon, there seems to be a travel agent's office. I can think of four within a 5 minute walk from my apartment. I figured that travel agents went out of business shortly after Al Gore invented the internet.

Then I learned about Germans' affection for the package holiday. Go to any all-inclusive resort in Spain or Italy or Egypt or the Turkish coast and you'll find towels covering all the beach chairs at impossible hours of the morning, but no people on the sand. Ambitious German guests have gotten up at 6, claimed a chair for the day, and then gone back to bed.

I've gathered that Germans often have an ongoing relationship with a  travel agent, like they have with a cleaning lady or a dentist or a hair stylist to trim that Vokuhila. Sink is clogged? Call your plumber. Dreaming of Mallorca? Call your travel agent. You won't have trouble finding one. There are about 10,000 travel agents in Germany, which is like one for every 8,500 people. The only country in Europe with more travel agents (and fewer people) is Italy.

In junior high, my class went on a field trip to some kind of job training center. One of the jobs that I chose to look at was travel agent. It actually was the early 90s, and there were lots of travel agencies in places other than Germany. I liked the idea of planning trips, and loved the glossy catalogs with pictures of palm tress.  I did not like the idea of staring at a small black monitor with orange letters all day, but did think it was cool to wear a headset and talk on the phone. Looking back, I probably would have made a good travel agent.  I probably would have made a good hotel concierge too, and a decent bike taxi driver. Maybe that whole liberal arts college degree thing wasn't so important.

But since my bike taxi career was over before it began, I guess I won't plunge into the travel agent market either. I'd get too jealous of my customers for taking cool trips that I'd planned for them, while I sat in the office with a headset, an Apple computer and some floppy disks.

Ghost of Jesse Owens (or maybe Tom Joad)

 There are moments that are timeless, and then there are people that are timeless. Last Sunday, Brian and I got to have a little bit of both.

We went to see Bruce Springsteen at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. As I knew he would be, Bruce was awesome. He played for three hours and seemed to feed off the energy in the crowd. He played songs that made us sing and songs that sent us a message.

The other reason I was excited for this concert was the venue. This was the stadium built for the 1936 Olympics, with a special viewing box for Adolf Hitler. These were the games meant to show off the success of Nazi Germany and the prowess of the Aryan race. But in track & field, a Black American stole the show. Jesse Owens took four gold medals in a performance that no one could top for the next 48 years.

The legend is that Hitler, furious at Owens' victories, Hitler stormed out of the stadium. That may not actually be true.


It's possible that Owens actually did shake the Führer's hand, and apparently carried a photo of the moment in his wallet for years to come. He claimed that it was his own president, FDR, who snubbed Owens by not acknowledging his achievement.

The story, whether it's true or not, is timeless. Even to people who are not track nerds like me.

Several of the songs that Bruce chose to play were about immigration, about inclusion and hope and though he didn't say it outright, probably about accepting refugees. Timely and fitting to play at Berlin's Olympic Stadium. I think Jesse Owens would have approved.

Bruce may be timeless, but I certainly am not. I felt pretty old when we finally got home at 4am. As Brian reminded me a few times, Bruce was definitely in bed by then.

Foreigners' office, again

I just re-read a post I wrote in 2011 about going to the foreigners' office, the Auslanderamt. And though it has been nearly five years, not much has changed. Brian and I had to go again yesterday to get our visas renewed.

As the time for the appointment comes and goes, and the stuffy corridor smells increasingly like body odor, we knock on the office door. Then a grumpy bureaucrat in stretchy pants tells me to go back to the hallway and wait until I am called. I obey.

Eventually, a woman in leopard-print pants emerges to call us in. She wears a t-shirt with some metal studs on it. The dress code at the Auslanderamt is beyond business casual. It's more like roll-out-of-bed casual. As we sit down I notice she has a big tattoo of a bear face on her forearm.  I would love to know the story of that tattoo; maybe the bear is her spirit animal.

I hand over the paperwork, sign on the line and turn in my mug shot. It's called a biometric photo but it really just looks like a mug shot. This one especially does, since I had just gotten over pink eye and looked like I'd taken a punch or two. I am thinking this over as I get fingerprinted.
Welcome to Germany.

If I sound a little bitter, it's probably just because I am about due to get out of Germany for the summer. Even after living here for years, my tolerance for feeling foreign has its limits. When I get fed up with Germany, or with Germans, I rebel in public by crossing the street while the little red 'don't walk' man is still lit. Old women scold me under their breath, or sometimes out loud. Young men shake their heads. Everyone else pretends not to notice but I know they are astonished.
Take that, you law-abiding people.

My visits to the Auslanderamt are not over yet. I will have to go back in July to pick up the ID cards. Another appointment in another corridor, with different paperwork. And, if I'm lucky, maybe a different spirit animal tattoo.

Hiatus

No, I haven't forgotten about you, my readers.
I'll get back to posting again soon, I promise!

Welcome to Hannover, Mr. President

It has never been cooler to be an American in Hannover. Or, actually, to be one particular American in Hannover.
No, sorry, it's not me.
President Obama has come to visit our humble city for two days, and he is all the rage.
He's here for the opening of the trade fair for industrial technology. Every year there's a partner country, and it's customary for that country's leader to open the fair along with Angela Merkel. Previous famous guests for this expo have been Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin (occasion of the famous topless protest). This year, the partner country is the USA and O-bams came to town.

Hannover is all abuzz about the visit. News blogs have up to the minute coverage of what Obama is eating, where he is sleeping, what his shoes look like. Police are everywhere, blocking off streets. Sections of the city were closed off so that the motorcade could drive through, with Obama's special armored limo shipped from the USA called 'The Beast'. Anyone who wanted to come or go from the neighborhood surrounding Hannover's conference center had to pre-register with the police. If you were planning to stand at your window give The Beast a wave, forget it. Waving through windows is prohibited. Keep your hands to yourself.

The Beast

Side note:

It's not the first time that I've hung around in the same obscure town as Obama.  Air Force One was parked (is that the word? do planes park?) in Hilo, Hawaii when Brian and I were there in 2009. We drove out to the airport to see, and guards waved us on when we tried to stop. Obama flew out on the same night we did. All the air space surrounding Honolulu was closed and we almost missed our plane to Minneapolis due to the delay. It was the only time I have run full speed through a near-empty airport just like in the movies, to find the wonderful flight attendants holding the plane for us. Thank you, Hawaiian Airlines.

Our international school was not to be left out of the excitement. The fourth graders wrote letters asking Obama to visit (he didn't, sorry kids), and we hired two security guards to stand by the school gate and protect us against those crazy America-haters that would surely be attacking. I saw the guards on Monday afternoon, looking chilly and watching over a handful of German and Japanese kids on the playground. Rumor has it there were several policemen in the male teachers' bathroom as well. Maybe they were scoping it out in case The Beast had to pull over somewhere so the president could pee.

Obama left Hannover last night, and our town's star-struck brush with the world's most powerful man is over. After all the security in Hannover, I can see how Europeans might think of the USA as a violent police state. They must imagine Washington DC as a city in a state of permanent lock-down. I hope they know that one of our freedoms, as Americans, is to wave whenever we like.

Up to the church

The main attraction in Kazbegi is the 14th century Holy Trinity church. Perched on a mountain in the shadow of Mount Kazbegi (which is 5,000m or 16,000 ft high), getting up to the church is the highlight. Some take four wheel drive vehicles up the muddy, snowy track and others, like us, walk. The hiking trail is not as clear as you'd think. But thanks to an old woman in a black headscarf, who pointed us in the right direction as she sat on her front steps in the sun, we found our way. The church itself is small and stout to withstand centuries of mountain winters. It was a tourist destination in Soviet times as well, as you can see from the abandoned Intourist hotel. Intourist was the USSR's state-run travel company.

the Intourist hotel, Kazbegi

Even though all religious services were prohibited, Soviet-era tourists still visited Holy Trinity and the government built a cable car up to the church in 1988. The locals, protective of their sacred place and angry at the Russians, promptly destroyed it.

Holy Trinity is still a working church. We saw a couple of long-bearded priests up there - one reading the Bible inside the church and another sitting outside, gazing at the mountains. To enter this or any other Georgian church, women have to wear long skirts and head scarves. Not planning to hike up a mountain in an ankle-length skirt? No problem. They have loaners, which wrap around and look great with hiking boots.

This was the last highlight of our Caucasus trip and the rest of our time in Kazbegi/Stepantsminda/Gergeti was spent hanging around with Wendy and Ketino and eating too much of Ketino's food ("what? you no eat eggs?" "No, I already had some, really.") She sent us off with a few recipes, a bottle of wine and a hug.

To the mountains, Kazbegi

After another day in Tbilisi, we headed toward the Russian border. Our destination was a mountain town with two names. Its original name is Stepantsminda, after the first monk who settled there. It's also called Kazbegi, for its first Russian ruler and his grandson, a famous writer. After independence, the town officially shed the name Kazbegi, but somehow it sticks around.

We were headed toward Kazbegi, also known as Stepantsminda, also known as you're almost in Russia now. Georgians do not like Russia. The man driving us to Kazbegi (I was getting used to having a private driver) did not speak much English, but he pointed out a pipeline near the highway and said, "Gazprom". He explained that the gas goes through to Armenia and Azerbaijan, but Georgia doesn't buy any gas from the Russians. "They are not good people," he said. He also pointed out some Middle Eastern tourists who had pulled over to take pictures of the river and to dip their toes in it. "Arab people," he said, "ooh water, ooh snow, wow!" Ten minutes later, we saw another group doing the same thing. It's funny what we find exotic - just as I would get excited for a camel in the desert, they were overjoyed with bodies of water. Our driver also pointed toward Chechnya, South Ossetia, Daghestan... all the small and disputed regions that make this a very complicated part of the world. There are so many identities, ethnicities, allies, enemies. Humans have lived in the Caucasus for thousands of years.  Do the divisions between people multiply the older their civilization becomes?

Ananuri fortress

Mountain pass on the way to Kazbegi

Kazbegi (altitude 1,740m or a little over a mile)

We arrived to find out that we were not actually staying in Kazbegi but in the village of Gergeti, on the other side of the river. As one of Georgia's top tourist destinations, Kazbegi has two hotels and several guest houses. A guest house is sort of a bed and breakfast, a room for rent in a private house. I had chosen Ketino's guest house mostly at random and as we arrived I thanked the internet for bringing her to us. Ketino was like my Georgian mom. She's not old enough to actually be my mom, but she kept calling me 'my lovely', telling me to eat more, and it didn't take long for her to ask when I'm having babies.  Ketino offered to show me how to cook Georgian food. An hour later I was sitting at a big kitchen table in a house in a Georgian mountain village and slicing tomatoes according to Ketino's specifications while her elderly mother sat across from me, squeezing spices into ground meat with her thick fingers. It was one of my happiest moments of the trip.

The other guests were Julia and Lisa from Moscow and an American named Wendy. Wendy works for the U.S. government and had just finished two months of interviewing Syrian refugees in Jordan. Over dinner, which included Ketino's home made cheese, home made wine, and home made everything else, she imparted some Ketino wisdom to all of us in her heavily accented English.

Ketino summed up her attitude toward Russia by saying, "I don't like Vladimir Putin, but I like these girls," she gestured toward the sweet and sunburned Julia and Lisa. "Have all the Georgians treated you good here?" she asked them. Julia nodded enthusiastically. Ketino talked about how she makes her wine, and about how each family has its own cherished recipe. "Wine makes relax. It's like part of your soul. When I drink my wine (this part she had to say in Russian because she couldn't quite find the words in English. Julia helped to translate.) it's like I am not even drinking, because it's already a part of me."

Dinner at Ketino's (there are more dishes coming)

Ketino's house