Blind Dinner, Christopher St. Day Parade, and R.I.P. Michael Jackson

So much has happened since my last (and only) Berlin post.

First: Michael Jackson died this week. What a travesty. The entire American team was so upset, and the Germans didn't understand until we explained that Michael Jackson is for America sort of like the Beatles were for the UK. Then they got it. The day after he passed away, we went to a German house party, stole a room and all the Americans (plus one German and one Bosnian) played hella MJ songs and danced the night away.

Now, to the other stuff :)

I'm feeling Berlin a lot. I've been through some ups and downs here, mostly because the program is not what I expected it to be. I've adapted, though. I think I was expecting to be more emotionally challenged, and instead I've been learning tons of information and having to reconsider the way that I approach situations and theories, since in Germany the approaches are often totally different.

Yesterday I went to a speech by Thomas Laqueur, who is a very well-known American historian and probably gonna be the next American Historical Society president. His latest book was "Solitary Sex: A cultural history of masturbation." His entire talk was in German, though, so I couldn't understand a word. Lizzie and I went, and counted the number of times the words "taboo," "orgasmus," and "masturbasion" were said, as well as the number of jokes made in German (he was on a roll!), and the technical difficulties. Good times. Then we went on a tour of the Reichstag, the main parliament building.

A few nights ago, our entire group (minus Casey, who went MIA for the weekend) went out to eat at this restaurant called "Dunkel." The restaurant servers are all blind, and the entire dining room is pitch black, so you literally can not see a thing. We broke up into groups of six to eat, and I was sitting with Jelena (who's from Bosnia), Frithjov and Julie (German fellows), Anton (one of our German staff), and Eleanor (one of the American fellow's friends, who was visiting). Eleanor joined us after we had already been seated, and none of us had met her before, so I went through this experience of getting to know someone by her voice in the complete darkness, which was really cool. When we got out into the light and I saw her, she looked nothing like what I had imagined. We all made a mess at dinner, but I successfully transferred my dessert bananas to Frithjov without spilling, and none of us ended up with stains on our clothes, so we were quite proud :).

Saturday was the Transgenial/Alternative Christopher Street Day Celebration in Berlin (basically Berlin's Gay Pride). The Transgenial Parade was created as a response to the more mainstream parade, which many people feel has gotten too capitalistic and has lost all of its political messages. The mainstream one is full of corporate sponsors and is not super inclusive of lesbians, transgender folks, gender queer folks, etc. (At least this is the message I've been getting.) I know a fair amount more about this issue now because we finally picked research topics about a week ago, and Leon (a German guy in our program who is from Colon, Germany, but goes to school in Amsterdam) and I are working on the use of the "LGBT" label on the organizational landscape in Berlin. The parade was really cool, and full of colors and signs and glitter, and made me miss Pride in San Francisco. It's also really cool to talk to people who are actively working agianst the idea that there is one normative way to be "gay." Leon and I spent time there, met up with some of the people we've been interviewing, people-watched, danced, and ate some deliciously cheap pizza, before heading to Treptower Park for a late-night picnic party with the other fellows.

Fashion in Berlin is really fun. It's pretty laid back for the most part, and everyone wears whatever they want, so everyone looks kinda funky and unique. Sometimes it just looks sloppy, but I never, ever feel like I'm being judged based on my clothing, which is so so different from New York City. Love it!!!

I've rediscovered my passion for reading novels here, but at the expense of my journal writing. I found a bookstore by Friedrichstrase that has a floor devoted to foreign language books. They have a pretty extensive English section, so I bought Girls of Riyadh, which is like a Saudi Arabian Gossip Girl and is FABULOUS (I'm almost done with it. I highly recommend it!!), and Into the Wild. Reading has now become my favorite pasttime on the S-Bahn or U-Bahn, since I typically have a 45 minute trainride into the Berlin center. This means, though, that I haven't been writing as much, which is sad. It also happens a lot in my life that I go on mental overload and can't seem to pen down my thoughts when I'm busy diving into my book/another world. I'm trying to strike a balance. I'm also having a dilemma with picture-taking. Of course I want to preserve my memories here and capture the gorgeous grafitti and museums and whatnot, but I also can't help feeling that snapping pictures from behind a camera all the time prevents me from experiencing what's in front of me. I have neglected my picture-taking duties a lot, 'cause the more time I spend here, the less I want to be a visible tourist. Silly, I know, but the important thing is that I'm enjoying my time here, which I definitely am.

I'm sitting in a Cafe right now that Leon took me to, called St. Oberholz. It is two stories and has tons of open space and millions (I know, Dad, I'm exagerating, my guess is they have maybe 3o) of windows, funky shaped lights and great music playing. Not to mention good coffee, sandwiches, and soups. This is one of the only places in Berlin where I've found free wireless and iced coffee that is actually coffee on ice-- the normal German "iced coffee" is coffee with vanilla icecream in it. A happy surprise, but not what I want usually! I told a lot of the other fellows about it, and so today 8 out of 21 of us showed up here for some paper-writing fun. We are currently in our "research-writing" period, so we're all split up into teams trying to crank out these masterpieces of sociological research that we only had two weeks to slap together. It's cool, though, 'cause we've all got super interesting topics.

To sum it up, I am currently: Listening to Michael Jackson on repeat and getting so juiced to come home to the Bay, typing a ton about LGBT and Queer Identities in Berlin, sippin' iced coffee and playing with my new beaded ring that I bought, fighting off my allergies that are buggin' out since the sun has emerged, and love love loving my new friends here.

Love and positive vibrations (Leon's expectation for the program was "positive vibrations," a hope that he shared with us the first day in Berlin. We are in hippie heaven writing this paper together) coming to you express from this Berlingirl,

Lilly