Froehlische Thanksgiving!

If one is a vegetarian, Thanksgiving is bound to be pretty non-traditional. So since I was headed for an unusual holiday anyway, I decided to go for broke and spend Thanksgiving in a different country this year. Ed and I went to Berlin for a very quick 4-day trip to celebrate with Anthony and Jane. Ed had never been to Germany before, and I had a great time showing him around. Highlights included:

A Herta Berlin soccer game at the old Olympic stadium, the one where Jesse Owens embarrassed all the German athletes back in 1936. The stadium, as you can see, is beautiful inside, though outside it looks appropriately old and crumbly. The game ended in a tie - Herta's specialty, I hear - though we all enjoyed watching it, particularly the parts that involved watching diehard fans doing organized cheers and waving big flags, and drinking beer and eating pretzels. I sported a blue and white Herta scarf that I got as a belated birthday gift from my brother and Jane.


A trip to a bizarre gallery called Techles, that is actually an abandoned building which has been taken over by "artists." The place is dank and barren in some ways, with concrete floors and bare light bulbs (where there are light bulbs). Every inch of the walls has been thoroughly decorated by the artists, though, and the really prosperous ones have taken over individual rooms where they sell their work. Ed was nervous to go into the abandoned-looking building until we saw some relatively normal girls walking out, seemingly unscathed. We remained unscathed, too, though the urine smell that hung over the whole place was not to our liking. We toured another dark, dank part of Berlin when we took a Berlin Underground tour of the bunkers used by civilians during World War II. It was fascinating and I highly recommend this tour company to anyone who visits the city. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures, so I can't show you the cool glow-in-the-dark paint, interesting, pro-Nazi propaganda, or other artifacts we saw.

The view from our hotel, of Humbolt University and cranes.

I loved our hotel. We stayed near Unter den Linden, a tree-lined street at the very center of Berlin, in the Hotel de Rome. It was both classic and modern at the same time. Our room was spacious and the bathroom won my heart immediately when I learned that it was possible to heat the floor with a little dial on the wall. Each evening, we'd return to our room to find a roaring fire playing on the TV; not quite as nice as the real thing, but still impressive.




Although I've spent a fair amount of time in Germany, I've never been there in winter. I was delighted to be able to visit the famous Christmas markets at last - there were three within walking distance of our hotel! - and to sample the warm mulled wine sold there. Ed ordered his with a shot of amaretto, a decision I envied as soon as I tasted his. Jane and Anthony have shared their Gluehwein recipe with me, and I can't wait to try making a batch of my own. When we weren't knocking back mugs of the stuff, Ed and I enjoyed browsing the stalls, where all sorts of festive foods and wares were being sold. Germans definitely get into the holiday spirit at these things, and we saw a lot of people doing a lot of swaying. The soundtrack to this experience was a pleasing blend of Christmas carols, modern German music (which is sort of a mix between polka and techno), and classics like "It's Raining Men."

Ed and I took a walk along what is left of the Berlin Wall (while Anthony and Jane cowered in a warm coffee shop nearby). It is called the East Gallery now, because artists were each invited to decorate a panel of it after the communists fell. To go along with the theme, we also visited the Stasi Museum, were we learned a bit about the police force that used to keep civilians in check in East Germany. Unfortunately, most of the panels in the museum were in German, seriously testing my deteriorating language skills, but we still enjoyed seeing the hidden cameras and microphones used by secret agents to spy on people. At the time, they must have seemed tiny, and the height of technology, but it was hard to be impressed from a modern perspective. I saw a simple microphone that was the size of a deck of cards and had to be attached by a wire to a battery device that was even bigger.



Our meals were some of my favorite parts of the trip, though I have no pictures of them. Jane and Anthony made Thanksgiving dinner for us, which, aside from a debacle with some biscuits (tasty, but somewhat diminutive in stature), was delicious. At least, I think it was. They plied with with so much tasty German beer, wine, and Gluehwein that it's hard to say whether it was great, or whether I just thought it was great. Ed treated us all to dinner at a classy Japanese restaurant, we had an unforgettable brunch at a seemingly endless buffet, we investigated the German take on Indian food (which is very similar to the American take on Indian food), and we gorged on a decadent, lengthy meal at a cozy, French restaurant. All this great food was accompanied by even greater conversation and lots of laughs.

Proest mit Gluehwein!

The trip was over all too soon, and it's rather hard to believe I'm already back in New York, at work, as though nothing happened. Still, I'm thankful to have such great people in my life, and for opportunities, however limited, to toast them with steaming mugs of heavenly Gluehwein.