You know how I had said I was going to go to Dresden and Leipzig after Berlin? Yeah, totally didn't happen. After three days at the Meeting, the only part of Berlin I had really succeeded in seeing was the World Clock at Alexanderplatz (one of my favorite places), the Wall at the Southside Gallery (pretty damn cool), and the monuments along Unter den Linden, which basically boils down to the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) and the Siegessäule (Column of Victory) with a couple really cool things stuck between. You see, for some reason, I went to Berlin with a friend of mine from Lübeck under the impression that I could "see the city" in three days and then move on to a general tour of former East Germany. Nope. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Why? Because it's huge. Seriously. The city only has about 3.3 million people in it, making it Germany's largest, but there are very few skyscrapers, and most of them are at Potsdamer Platz, the cool, sleek movie/art district of glass and steel. If you ever want to go see a movie in a HUGE theater while feeling like one of the coolest people on earth simply because you're there, Potsdamer Platz has what you need. And behind it all, there's the unsettling knowledge that every building you see is about 30 to 40 years old, 50 at the most. That's pretty much what the whole city feels like actually, an odd yet satisfying place that screams "God, I'm so damn cool" and "War is so freaking stupid" at the same time. And all of it in your face.

Berlin is made mostly of low buildings of about five stories or so, which gives it the feel of several villages and small towns shoved together, while still maintaining the impressive and monolithic "oh, my God" undertone that seems to make it what it is: Cool. It's about 20 times the size of Manhattan, so trying to "see" it ís impossible. Instead, what you need is a kind of Buddhist outlook toward the whole thing, a kind of stoic acceptance of the fact that you haven't, don't, and never will know it, and that's OK. Admitting your problem is the first step to conquering it. It's OK, we're all behind you.

But it's not what you would call a pretty city. Well, unless you like the color gray and the subtle neon hues of graffiti, then you're cool. And I have to say, Berlin graffiti really does stand in a league of its own. Sure, there's the lazy half-assed scribbles on the walls and ceilings of the U Bahn stations, but generally speaking, the graffiti in the capital city is done with a frightening amount of love and devotion. The Wall has the best stuff, of course. I tried to take a few pictures of it, but it was just too huge, so they're a little less than what you could call "good," but let's face it: ambiguous markers of artistic quality is my stamp of production. Lengthy, over-stretched methaphors and tired literary ticks like "so" and "anyway?" That must be a Brandon post. OK, enough of that.

The truth is, Berlin is an amazingly dynamic city, and however poor it might be, you don't sense it: instead you're impressed by how much it's managed to do just in the last 15 years without virtually any outside aid. And despite the fact it's made up of the remains of two countries that were on the verge of war on and off for 40 years, you really get the feeling of being in a city that represents Germany, the good parts and bad. Munich, Cologne, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen, on the other hand, are very much places on their own as far as identity is concerned; they're either nothern, Hasiatic, or Free cities. But Berlin IS Germany, and the whole weight of a place and country that old, that's been through so much, sits heavy on your shoulders when you get there.

I guess if you had to think of a sentence to really capture what the city is like, the Mayor has it right when he calls Berlin "Poor, but Sexy." Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much it.

Oh, and one more thing: A lot of Germans I've met tend to, I don't know, be scared shitless of Berlin because it's teeming with foreigners (gasp). Not that! "Honey, lock the door and but the Kinder in the basement! I think I hear some kind of ETHNIC language outside! I'm not sure, but I think they plan to rob us." Before I left for the city, one of my students told me to watch out for the foreigners, especially the Turks and Russians, because if you insult them, they'll show back up with a gang and beat you up. "And don't underestimate the little ones," he told me, "because they have big brothers." Really?! Dammit! There goes my itinerary of randomly insulting people throughout the city. Fiiiiiine, I guess I'll just have to NOT insult someone just because they aren't German. Later, after I had gotten back, a couple students asked me if I had met any Turks while I was there. Here's how the basic conversation went:

STUDENT I: We didn't see you last week, where were you?

ME: Oh, I was in Berlin.

STUDENT I: Oh, really? What did you think?

ME: It was great. A lot bigger than Fehmarn, so it was a little hard to get used to at first, but it was pretty cool.

STUDENT I (looking over shoulder): Did you meet any Turks while you were there?

ME: Yeah, a couple.

STUDENT I: What did you think of them?

ME: I don't know. They were pretty cool, I guess. I mean, they're people, just like everybody else. They were nice.

STUDENT I: Yeah, but they're pretty stupid.

ME: Ummmmm....Yeah, well everybody can be stupid. Sometimes I can be pretty stupid, you know, so I really don't think that means anything.

STUDENT I: You're not stupid.

STUDENT II: At least they aren't as bad as the Poles.

STUDENT I: Oh, yes they are. They're worse. Believe me, I know.

That's basically it. The conversation ended pretty much there, which is good, because I really didn't have much to say to any of that, or at least nothing that didn't involve calling them stupid. I am new to this whole "professional conduct" thing, but I'm pretty sure that would be bad. And, everyone should be happy to know that I made it through seven days in Berlin without getting beat up by a gang.

Well, OK: there was that incident with the eight year old and the snow ball, but that doesn't really count. Other than being incredibly obnoxious, the moment provided me an opportunity to descend to their level and abandon any maturity I might have managed to collect by accident over the sixteen years that seperated us.

See, it went like this: My friend and I were walking down the street, when I little kid threw a snow ball at her. In one of those moments of divine comedic justice, the snow ball plunged impatently right into the middle of an intersection, its slushy remains disappearing quickly under the wheels of a passing car. We never would have known if we hadn't seen it, but the little gremlins weren't through yet.

They showed up again as we were walking down a dirt path through a park, loosing a projectile that rebounding off a jacket with the force of an asthmatic's spit wad and fell pathetically to the dirt. The main assailant's pig-eyed, chubby companion reached to the ground to reload as my friend pointed and yelled: "Nein! Ich sehe dich! (No! I see you!)," which he answered with an "innocent" "Was (what)?" Thinking they were done, we turned to leave. A snow ball hit me in the ass, followed by the same self-satisfied cackling that had accompanied the first two attacks. Now, at this point, I had two basic choices: 1) Walk Away, and 2) Say/Do Something.

I flipped him off.

I'm not proud of it, and I didn't enjoy it....OK, so I did enjoy it....but the point remains that he was an eight year old kid. A chubby punk, but an eight year old nonetheless. I probably would have been better off giving him a good public "Schimpf (Scolding)," a time-honored and well-wore practice in Germany, but my form isn't as good as die Deutschen, so I wasn't up to it.

Chubby Punk: 1, Brandon: 0.