Sylvester in Deutschland

As far as 14-hour periods of time go the overnight bus trip was entirely innocuous. Most of the time I felt I could have just as easily been on a bus from New York to Philly. Once in awhile I peeked out my upper-deck window to estimate how far we had traveled based on the ratio of French to German shop signs. My plan to teach myself German did not materialize, but I slept a decent amount, which is all one can really ask of an overnight bus trip I think.

I arrived on the outskirts of Berlin at precisely 9h30 as planned. I hopped on the S-bahn, Berlin’s above ground express-style metro network, and headed to Alexanderplatz station to meet Yvonne. I was immediately struck by the open space around me. In Paris narrow rues lined with immeubles anciens enclose you in a 19th century film set; wide open spaces appear periodically as a generous gift of Haussmann via one of his grand boulevards. Berlin sprawls, and monuments and parks seem to dominate an otherwise unassuming expanse of low-lying residential buildings.

Yvonne, her friend Ise and I spent the bulk of the day lazing around her chic former East Berlin apartment. I speak French to Yvonne and English to Ise; they speak German to each other. Conversations amongst all three of us proceed via periodic summaries to the linguistic odd-man-out of the moment.

Twice we watched an eccentric British comedy sketch called “Dinner for One,” which has somehow become a German New Years tradition. As such, it airs repeatedly on German TV. Further research is required to uncover how this has come to be…

Our evening plans started off at a flat in former West Berlin full of Yvonne’s university friends. My reflex in Paris has been to pronounce my name French-style and quite frankly, I prefer it that way (comparable to pronouncing Target ‘Tarjay’.) This proved immediately confusing for the Germans: “Ah, so you’re French? American? You just flew in from New York? Oh, from Paris, you visited Paris first. Ah, you’re living in Paris, I see.”

Admittedly it is unfair and unscientific to compare 3 months of living in Paris with one day in Berlin, or for that matter to generalize a roomful of people to the national character. Allow me to be unfair and unscientific for a moment. The Germans I met seemed actually much more like Americans than the French, not in the sense that they were more Americanized at all, but in the sense that they looked like “real people” rather than skinny, meticulously groomed and dressed aspiring runway models (that would be the French). The Germans also seemed less immediately interested in or impressed by my New York origins. Not that they should be, but I had gotten used to a moment of mild awe after introducing myself to most French people; the Germans were much more excited to here that Ise was from near their hometown. The French kiss, the Germans hug. There was no cheese.

Yvonne and her friends all study music at university, so there was an appropriately trendy collection of old American LPs playing on a turntable all night. My German sure wasn’t up to par for the evening, but I could belt out “Hang on Sloopy” and “If I Had a Hammer” with the best of ‘em. Johnny Cash and the Ronnettes filled up the last hour before midnight. Then, as amateur fireworks lit up the street outside we counted down. I managed to join in for about every other number: “…neun…seben…funf, fier…zwei, ein!” We made our obligatory rounds of the room, wishing each and every person “Frohes Neues!” and sealing it with a hug.

We continued the party at a nearby club. “Nearby” in Berlin is much further away than “nearby” in Paris, but I was in no position to complain. The club was free and incidentally continued the Anglophone musical repertoire of the evening. It was quite an excellent eclectic mix—The Chili Peppers, The Roots, The Jackson Five, The Beatles—and all English all the time. As much as I personally enjoyed rocking out to some sweet tunes, I found it simultaneously kind of sad for two complimentary reasons. 1) Because German kids don’t have enough native pop music and must rely largely on English imports. 2) Because American kids have so much native pop music we’re largely unfamiliar with imports. I suppose I see some ideal balance between native and foreign cultural production, and the balance seems skewed towards the native in the US and towards the foreign in Europe. One day I’ll flesh this theory out in a more nuanced and arguable form; ‘till then you can take it or leave it.

In any case, we danced our asses off at the club and finally dragged our exhausted selves home by around 5am. I think I fell asleep during every leg of the trip, waking up just long enough to transfer U-bahn lines. As far as New Years go this definitely beat playing Halo at Marc’s house, to say the least…