(no subject)
July 6, Potsdam (actually on the plane)
This trip has been so frustrating. (Warning: I am sleep-deprived and cranky. Things are better than I will make them seem.) Representative anecdote: I change pants upon arrival in Potsdam and am informed that I must carry my shorts (which were covered in Coke) around in my bag because the chaperones are unwilling to open the luggage trailer twice. I didn't really mind carrying the shorts, I just hate bureaucracy. I think I just zoned out on the road to Leipzig, talked to Jessie, moped about food-I'm finally realizing how negatively this goddamn eating disorder impacts my life (I had lots of sugary crap, plus lunch). Clara was feeling better, at least.
Potsdam is cute but I spent the entire time on the verge of an anxiety attack-I can't decide whether Clara makes me more or less anxious. I need a new drug or some better coping skills, dammit.
The Potsdam orchestra is very good-the winds occasionally play an off note, but the string players are amazing. I totally have an almost-crush on the principal cellist, who is gorgeous and good in the same way George is (very musical). The Dvorak sounds awesome. At dinner I got into a social anxiety funk and wouldn't talk to the Germans near me (and the only American near me was Jack, who didn't help)> To be fair, they were all speaking entirely in German.
I love my host parents. The daughter is a normal 13-year-old-insecure, shy, silent-but her parents are great. The mother is skilled at making conversation-interesting conversation as well as small talk-and we talked a little about how the world views communism (at this point, I'm just completely confused, sort of. More on that later.) The dad shares my sense of humor (he laughed at Min Seon's comments the entire drive back to the Nikolaisalle), and kind of reminds me of my dad in a way. I had a couple of glasses of Spanish wine, which was really good, and I decided that Min's alcohol tolerance really is as low as she says it is. The French exchange student was there talking with us too, and we ended up having an awesome trilingual conversation (I don't speak German, but can almost grasp the subject of discussion). I'm going to learn German. I've completely reversed my opinion of French and German-I always thought German sounded like you were trying to expel a hairball and that French was very smooth, but that's completely untrue. The family also had a record player going the entire time (the dad likes vinyls more than CDs!), and I played Arrau playing Debussy and I am in love with the piano. The only awkward part of the evening was when Min Seon started talking about Korea's absurd beauty standards (i.e. emaciation=beauty). But oh my god, I understand her so much better now. She says that since she grew up in a Korean (-American) household, most/all of what she knows about American culture is from her private Catholic girls' school. No wonder she seems fake and immature! Also, her mom is living here only so that Min Seon can go to school, and will then move back to Korea with Min's father. Min obviously feels guilty but says she thinks her parents' separation actually saved their marriage ("distance makes the heart grow fonder" and whatnot). I'm not sure if she's convincing herself or not. Poor thing.
Berlin the next day. Oh my god. I want to live there. Prague seems like a place I'd be comfortable living in; Berlin seems like a place that would keep me just uncomfortable enough to keep questioning things, which I must continue to do. There are just so many reminders of all the history there-everywhere you turn there's another monument, or vestige of totalitarianism, or controversial message in graffiti. More than that, everything about the city is infused with the concept of rebuilding. We hear about all the complete shit the city has been through, but what's just as moving is the way they keep going-rebuilding homes, building monuments, creating art (so much public art!), everything. Right after the war, all the men of Berlin were POWs, so a whole neighborhood was rebuilt entirely by women. That's fucking awesome. There's also a lot of graffiti in other languages, more so than in other cities. The tour guide (who was amazing) said that until Germany joined the EU, Berlin was a very (almost completely) open city, in deference to the needs of the refugees needing to seek asylum outside Nazi Germany. Now they just use EU policies, but there's still a huge international community.
We only made two stops (i.e. getting out of the bus)--one at Checkpoint Charlie, which wasn't spectacular (mostly recreations, little original material, but lots of information on signs), and one at the Holocaust memorial. Question: have the teenagers (kids my age and possibly older) chasing eachother around the memorial and screaming actually forgotten it's commemorating a MASS GENOCIDE?! I spent my time there trying not to hate them/looking for the "deeper meaning" behind their actions. Now I just think they're dumb, I guess. The closest I can come to justifying there actions is to assume that they were just rebelling against everything that their authority figures presented them with (the tour buses indicated these trips were probably structured as bureaucratically as ours was), including stops at national monuments. It's still fucking stupid. I remember thinking over and over, as we pulled up in front of the memorial and our tour guide talked about it, we are so stupid, we are so fucking stupid, how could we have let this happen, god we are so fucking stupid. I thought about the same thing coming away from the memorial, just for a few additional reasons.
I still have no idea what life in Communist Germany must have been like-or life in any of Berlin. Oh, another rebuilding anecdote: in the Berlin Airlift, an entire power plant was transported into the city because the Soviets had cut off electricity to all of West Berlin.
HOW THE HELL DID WE LET THIS HAPPEN? I know, I know, the Cold War, weapons crises, saving face, etc. God. I guess I understand America's point of view a bit better. I had never given us enough credit, I think-if we deserve credit-for fighting Soviet rule. I assumed Americans hated it as an idea, as some huge Jungian shadow we could pin all evils to (which, to be fair, we did), but I guess we probably saw the legitimate evils in Stalin's actions, too. Shit, though. How did we let this happen? How can we still be fighting wars? How can we let history repeat itself so many times? I want to do something. I'm going to do something, someday, attempt to give humanity back its panhandling cup as capitalism pins it to the wall. (Or something.)
Well. On a more frivolous note, Jessie and I spent the afternoon free time (two hours is not enough for much of anything) speedwalking around Alexanderplatz, then stopped for coffee and apple strudel (me) and hot cocoa with rum (her, but I tried some and it was pretty good). Strudel is scrumptious. Two elderly German ladies spoke to us a little, laughing good-naturedly at the language barrier, and we attempted to respond with gesticulation and "Wir sprechen kein Deutch." It was a lot of fun. Then we saw pro-communist graffiti in French on some statue. It blows my mind how so much communist and anti-communist (well, anti-Soviet Communism) sentiment can exist in such proximity (and without serious shit going down).
We went back to Potsdam right after that. Rehearsal was fine; Schubert is boring, The Syncopated Clock is nauseous and cutesy, and Dvorak is still a genius. Clara found a pubic hair in her pasta salad at dinner. By some twist of fate, Janet did my makeup for the concert (I had never even considered wearing makeup for an orchestra concert before. I never cared enough about my appearance. Maybe that's why I've put up with the obnoxious pomp and circumstance of classical music so long-on a personal level, it's less about appearance than anything else in my life, and it's based completely on my merit as a musician). Waiting backstage, Dennis pointed out it was our last PACO concert, which led to only about ten seconds of sappiness (impressive, no?), and then told me about "his" idea/theory/metaphor that everyone is born with only half a heart, and that one's soulmate has the other half. I tried to form a bond over shared knowledge of Plato, and he didn't know what I was talking about (he thought the idea was his). It's a compelling enough image that I believe him. The concert ended up sucking-we played our pieces badly and out of tune. Everyone was exhausted. The Dvorak was still great and lots of fun, though.
Afterwards, Min and I went with Clara's host Victoria (Viktoria?) to a bar where I ordered a beer that was really good and talked to the German kids about cultural differences (school, etc) and travelling to foreign countries. Then we played random big-group-of-people games (a hand slapping game, modified Simon Says, cards, etc.) for a while. I decided Peter, the concertmaster, was really cute in a very odd, quirky way. Can't remember if I was right. I wished I could bring him back with me.
Clara had told me Victoria could drive me home, which was completely untrue. (Wait, notes on Victoria: really sweet, likes talking about boys, very insightful about emotional and social situations, very cute.) Sometimes Clara bothers me like that-I can't depend on her to have the right information. Anyway, Louisa and some other girl helped Min and I find a taxi to take us home (I was falling asleep on my feet at this point) with its spiffy GPS system. When Min and I couldn't find the house (she was drunk, I was tired), the driver came back and drove us right up to the gate. That made my day, sort of. Then I listened to that one Chopin nocturne I've been listening to constantly (Claudio Arrau, of course) and went to sleep.
This morning I woke up totally dehydrated and exhausted but managed to make conversation over breakfast anyway. I talked to Ragna's father (Ragna was the thirteen-year-old I stayed with) about my thoughs on Berlin (Min interjected "Yeah, the people I was with really just wanted to go shopping, so my impression of Berlin was lots of jewelry!" The father snorted) and about the renaming of streets and towns under Soviet control. I think that's suck a blatantly pervasive move-but then, most of what they did fits that description. Goddammit.
I realized the last night in Leipzig (when I started getting homesick, I think) that the phrase "going home" makes up most of the lyrics to the African-American spiritual that inspired the second movement of Dvorak's New World symphony (the one we're playing the fourth movement of). That, coupled with the fact that I think I've finally found people I can call home (and am gradually letting my mother become part of that group) is a nice kitchy motif for the trip, I think.
Other things:
Vicki (Victoria) brought up how great it would be if their whole orchestra just bought a house and lived together, because they were such "different people" but a great group. (I agree for my orchestra, I think-sometimes.)
So, everything I said about the Czechs' mentality towards cathedrals? Yeah...the Soviets tore down cathedrals and made them into museums in Berlin. I have no idea what I think now. I would adopt a completely live-and-let-live mentality, except then I'd feel as though I had to apologize for being inside cathedrals and I can't. I think. Maybe the way I feel about cathedrals is just kitsch, too. (And Raymond Carver's genius. Read his story "Cathedral.")
I love Jack Kerouac. I've been trying not to let the definite American-ness of On the Road leak into the trip, while still implementing Sal and Dean's I-love-the-world-and-the-world-loves-me philosophy (well, mostly Dean's). But it doesn't matter now because I'm GOING HOME to people who understand what I say and other stupid Americans like me and possibilities and tofu and everything else that I've used to define home.