My last day in Berlin was wonderful. I really got to walk around a lot. First, I took the Bahn to Potsdam and walked all the way down to southwestern part of Berlin to visit KaWeDe, the fancy German department store that had an entire floor devoted to gourmet food, including a huge chocolate section. I took the S-Bahn back up to Potsdam Plaza and walked around its Christmas marketplace where I had bratwurst and saw Europe's "largest man-made sledding hill." It looked liked a lot of fun! But I had no one to watch my stuff and I didn't trust anyone. Then I wanted to see Reichstag or the Soviet Memorial.... I couldn't find the Soviet Memorial and I figured that I had already seen Reichstag there was no need... Berlin is really very walking friendly actually. I just hopped on the Bahn just to cut some time so I went from Potsdam down to near Checkpoint Charlie. By the way, remains of the Berlin Wall still exist around the city and often there'll be some German "soldier" giving a brief history of the Wall for tourist attraction. They even will stamp your passport with the old stamp but I didn't take up the offer... I didn't want to make the US immigration officials question my passport. From Checkpoint Charlie, I walked another 10ish minutes to the Jewish Museum where I could run into Lena and anyone else tagging along with her (I was supposed to meet back at the hotel but I had no time).
What struck me when I saw the Jewish Museum was two buildings standing next to or attached to each other, very different in architectural styles. One was a beautiful yellow colonial Victorian style mansion and the other was extremely modern black thing. I went inside. I was struck by the interior architecture of the "new" part of the Museum with its 3 axis- Holocaust, Diaspora, and one other that I forgot... that connect Jews together in modern Jewish history. The rest of the museum was solely focused on educating the public the important contributions that Jews made to the national German history starting back in 1600s with a brief overview of the ancient times. I recognized a lot of names and events from my Early Modern Jewish history (thanks Prof. Schwartz!) and felt a bit like an idiot for not appreciating these characters more when I took the class. I gave 5 eurocent to a machine that converted it to a Moses Mendelssohn coin. He's the most famous German-Jewish philosopher who questioned Judaism and advocated for assimilation but discussed the issue of the loss of Jewish identity. Many historians see him as the "father of Modern Jewish history" or the "Father of Reform Judaism." To me, he did hold some responsibility for encouraging assimilation instead of striving to balance Judaism and the national identity. Anyway, the exhibitions bored me a little because I knew so much of the stuff in general but thought it was a terrific resource for anyone wanting to know more about German Jewish history. They barely covered the Holocaust.
Afterward, those who I met up with the Museum and I took a bus out to Dr. Pruin's apartment for a reception of tea and some German sweets. Note to Mom and Dad: she made all of us take off our shoes in the hallway!!! It was the first and last time that we congregated as a group to discuss our opinions and feelings about the trip. (I was kind of wondering if Dr. Pruin picked up some kind of cue from Lena that we Americans like to talk about our feelings and give opinions.) Everyone certainly had something to add. My friend, Hilary, made a point about why I just felt so content when I visited Terezin last year. She mentioned that her visit to Poland and Auschwitz last spring made her feel uncomfortable with the Holocaust and coming to Germany allowed her to reconcile her feelings towards the Holocaust. For me, I came to terms with the Holocaust long time ago- when I worked for the USHMM, not because I wanted to but because my job demanded it. I shared my opinions how it would've been a bit easier to explore Berlin on the first day because it's not easy for American Jews to come to Germany and it wasn't really until our free time on Wednesday night did I start to feel at home in Germany because I had the opportunity to see Berlin up close in person, not some face out of the window on a bus. Other than that, I highly recommend this trip for any American Jew as a "must-do" trip along with birthright Israel because coming to Germany really allowed many of us to confront with the impact of Jews in Germany, how much Germany needs Jews, and the Jewish issues in larger perspective such as the Russian Jews in the Diaspora and how can American Jews use its power to restore Jewish communities in Germany. There was a sense of purpose there to promote Germany as the home of modern Jewish history and the privilege of being there and given the chance to revive Germany's great Jewish culture.
I really came to terms with the German language. For a long time, I knew that I needed to study German but I went towards Russian because I wasn't emotionally ready to deal with German. After my internships at the USHMM and watching the Nazi films, I just couldn't do it. I also didn't have enough time in school to take German. I was going to do it last summer but again, I wasn't ready for German. I thought about it for this fall after Professor Bankier told me that it would be very hard to get a job with a Holocaust museum without German but with senior thesis and grad school applications, I wouldn't be able to put 100% effort in German. All still, I wasn't emotionally ready. I was too uncomfortable to hear "harsh" German and I trembled seeing the German text. Berlin gave me a whole new perspective on German- it seemed like maybe I can handle German. It's not that difficult.... but being around the language 24/7 was encouraging because German is not really spoken all that harsh- it's actually very soft (which is why German accents are hot!). I'll think about it.
After reception, we went to an amazing Greek restaurant where I had my first taste of lamb in FOREVER- probably since Spain last January! It was SOOOOOO cold out that I couldn't wait to head home!
My flight back to Rochester was horrendous. We had a 5 hour delay in Berlin to London because of very heavy fog. Half of the passengers had connections in London so naturally we were all concerned. British Airways did a wonderful job of handling us. Fortunately there was wireless in the Berlin airport (which by the way there is no central security area, each gate has its own passport control, security, waiting area, cafe, WCs, and duty-free store) so I got on the Internet and talked with my dad (7:30 AM in EST!). When we boarded the plane, British Airways gave us a nice snack bag with water bottles. I was SO exhausted that I just clunked out when I sat down and remained so for the next 3ish hours. When we took off for London, British Airways gave us dinner of sandwiches- sweet! I was tired still so I fell asleep for another hour.... Then once I got off the plane in London, I jogged through the security, had to wait for the stupid terminal transfer buses (45 minutes connection. good god!), and ran up through Terminal 3. A lot of flights had been delayed or cancelled and I just mostly wanted to find a JFK flight. Dad had mentioned that the 8 PM US Airways flight was the last one so I ran over to look for its gate. After talking with the people, I was placed on a lonnnnnggggg stand-by list of like 15ish people. The woman had doubts on whether I'd even get on or not. Once I got the stand-by ticket, I decided to use the bathroom. Not thinking there was one already in the gate waiting area, I went out the main hall and one of the guys from the gate stopped me and ask to hold my passport while I used the bathroom. Sheesh, some security! Fortunately, a lot of us on the stand-by got on the flight because so many flights were delayed. Yay!!! Then I realized that I needed to know what time my Jetblue would leave. So I asked a person near me in the plane- turned out that this plane would land 5 minutes after Jetblue's scheduled departure time. I quickly formulated a Plan B- just call Dad and ask for Amtrak schedule figuring if there was a train at 1 AM or 2 AM, I'd still get home sooner than if I waited until the morning at JFK. On the way over Atlantic, I spent a lot of time sleeping.... I was THAT exhausted from that trip! Once I landed at JFK, Dad called me to tell me that Jetblue had been delayed. I said fine and see what time. JFK was experiencing so much air traffic (thanks to some weather troubles in Chicago) that a lot of Jetblue flights were delayed at least 4 hours. So I barely missed the 8:25 PM flight that'd take off ar 12:48 AM. So I stuck around in the terminal, away from the furnace in the middle area. I found such an amusing sight- a family of four was sound asleep between rows of chairs! My cell was low on battery so I couldn't turn on its alarm clock so I could snooze. My flight was to be delayed until 3 AM but we actually didn't take off until 3:30 AM. I had originally told my parents to forget trying to pick me up because to pick me up at 3:30, 4 AM was not a good idea. Once I heard that we'd land at 4:30ish, I thought that it'd be more humane hour for my mom who gets up at 5:30 for her spin class. I met her in Rochester a little after 5 AM after sleeping on the plane all the way over there. First thing when she and I went into my room that I wanted to do was to shower! I was so wide-awake, having gained full night's sleep in intervals since Berlin. Mom thought I was crazy and I should go to sleep. I showered anyway... and went to bed because there was nothing better to do for another 2 or 3 hours.
For the next 3 days, my brain felt so fried that I couldn't absorb anything, not even meaningless tv shows or cartoons. I had never felt so strange in my life and even when I saw my final grades, I felt nothing (except happiness that I had passed Stats with a C!). I just ..... didn't want to do anything.
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