MR Martin Beth

Why is it that in the past few weeks, Germany has cracked down on my gender? Apparently I am now an incompetent male who doesn’t know better and subsequently continually enters my name backwards. Last name? First name? All the same really aren’t they??

Last night as I tried to check into my hotel in Munich, I was told that I had booked incorrectly and that they couldn’t accommodate me as they were waiting for a MR Beth, first name- Martin. I pulled out the booking to prove that I had, in fact, entered my details correctly and that they must have changed them in the belief that I was a man... I was begrudgingly given a room.

As I tried checking into my flight back to Berlin a few minutes ago, I was told they had no record of me.. again even though I had my printed flight confirmation on me... No, they were expecting a Mr Beth also. Indeed, thereafter followed an embarrassing conversation for the woman at the checkin counter as she tried to politely tell the main checkin centre that passenger Martin Beth was standing there in front of her; “no SHE is standing here. No, No SHE is standing in front of me. Yes SHE.” Etc. Etc.

I need a decidedly more German name - any suggestions?

Absturz

A recent fall saw me admitted into the German hospital system. Firstly I was taken down the many flights of stairs from my apartment not on a stretcher, but rather on a chair strapped to the back of the paramedics. Arriving at the Emergency Department of the hospital, we were greeted by a sleepy nurse, and told we could wait for the doctor... yes, in the whole hospital there was only one doctor. Visions of the many Australian ER's I visited full of bright lights and people running around made this tiny cubicle with devices I swear haven't been used since the second world war, seem more alien than ever to me. After not checking me for concussion, not attending to my nose (which was freely trying to bleed as much as it could), not really listening at all, I was taken to a ward... and left there. for a day and a half before any tests were done. It seems that the nursing staff were not amused with their jobs, sometimes coming past as little as twice a day and, if called, were extremely put out that we had "torn them from their card games" and "coulnd't you come to the nursing station if you had a question next time?" (yes I will get myself in my wheelchair, and drag my drip along behind me... nothing better for the circulation than a late night drip stroll.. .) At times I listened to the bell from others calling the nurses for up to 20 minutes, before they attended the patients... The photo is as I tried to get let out of the hospital, and had to wait for half an hour before a nurse was available to sign me out.

German humour

So with nothing better to do than to fight over whether or not Tempelhof Airport should stay or be torn down (and let's face it, choosing between yes and no can get a little old...), it seems that the German baggage handlers developed a sense of humour between unloading and sending out the cello that Dave bought me from Italy... At least the cello was bestowed with German sobriety... no smiles for that poor thing!

gegen Nazis in der Mitte

As the U-Bahn was striking, my feet had to take me towards Alexander Platz and I stumbled across this:

reminiscent of the pre-war signage throughout Germany.. but instead of Kauf nicht bei Juden (don't buy from Jews), this time it's Kauft nicht bei Nazis (don't buy from Nazis)

(no Nazis in our street - in Berlin - in Germany)

(We're against Nazis in the 'mitte' - area of Berlin)
and then found this telling me finally what it was all about - so a clothing store opened with brands that neo nazis like wearing and the whole people of Berlin are against it. Whole cinemas have stopped advertising their movies and instead have 'No Nazis in our street' plastered across their banners. Again this belongs to Berlin's fighting nature. The present and the past are so inextricably integrated.

three strikes...

Walking Jakob home from Kumon the other day, we were forced to wait for 20 minutes before we could get to our U-Bahn station - reason? The police and fire services were striking. (A little ironic that the striking policemen had to be ordered around by.. well, policeman, who were working at crowd control). Thursday night I had to go underground to get to the shops I needed to for carnival costumes because of, you guessed it, a strike in Alexander Platz. Yesterday's strike ,however, beat them all as, without any warning (at least the DB let's you know in advance when they are about to cut all train connections), the BVG, Berlin's public transport system, entirely shut down. No busses, no trams, no U-Bahn. The city couldn't function and my feet are now very sore! I guess it is this fighting spirit that tore down walls and reunified countries, but sometimes I wish they would just go to mediation and talk it out..

As four year old Paulina put it: "Die wollen mehr Geld für wenige Stunden? Donnerwetter sind die Faul!"
("They want more money and less hours work? Man are they lazy!")

getting political

"Where in the world has one ever seen a nation that erects memorials to immortalize its own shame?" said Avi Primor, the former Israeli ambassador to Germany, at an event commemorating the Holocaust and the liberation of Auschwitz on Friday in Erfurt. "Only the Germans had the bravery and the humility."

And as you look around Berlin and see entire city blocks devoted to striking, thought and discussion provoking pieces, memorials to a past designed by its future, you can only admire the honesty in their recognition of all that has gone before. Is admiration enough, though, to wash away truth and replace it with feel-good-warmth? Can tonnes of concrete and stone, arranged artistically by talented artists truly depict forgiveness and not just glorify, beautify, make more interesting, something so utterly horrific? Do these monuments just become some form of a symbolic Mecca: once reached, forgiveness is granted for all sins gone before.

I watch Jakob as we take the tram from the Berlin Wall museum (school) back to our apartment block, as his eyes follow the TV tower, as we ride through the death strip, as we see the stones dedicated to escapees from the East who were shot, and I wonder whether any of this will strike him at all, or will he just see them for their aesthetic beauty and nor place any weight on their symbolic meaning?

oh no... :(

I was just listening to the australian news online:

"I am still trying to get in touch with an official interpretater". Yes. Interpre-ta-ter. I guess this is indicative then of the studies about only 1 out of every ten Australian primary school teachers being able to correctly spell 10 consecutive words.