Adapting

This is my new electronic adapter, or ‘Adaptor’ auf Deutsch, as I learned after extensive, embarrassing circumlocution with the guy at the store: “I need a thing, like an electronic thing, that you use to give electricity to electronic devices, that are from the wrong country, and that country is America…”

The stylish mid-80s adaptor I got from my well-traveled Grandma Mona wasn’t compatible with the strange modern outlets here in Germany, and my first purchase—a much sleeker little black number that cost about as much as a beer—wasn’t equipped for the triple-pronged plug on my laptop power supply. This humble, homely little thing—that cost about as much as five beers—may not be much to look at, but it means quite a bit to me. Namely, it represents:
1. My first successful, independent interaction with a mechanism of German society, that mechanism being the “electric grid/chain electronics retailer/electricity consumer” ecosystem.
2. My eventual triumph (by means of increasingly large outlays of cash) over frustrating little pieces of plastic designed by injection-mold engineers at the behest of German government in an effort to prevent me from starting an electric fire, burning down my apartment complex, and limiting the economic productivity of my fellow citizens.
3. New life for the two appliances it was purchased to power, which appliances also happen to be the very foundation of this blog: my camera and my computer.
4. The catalyst for this little reflection:

(This got long and dense and langweilig. I’ve tossed in some pictures w/ captions [in italics] to lighten it up, but still: not an especially fun read. Just sayin’ and apologizin’ is all. Note: it is also lazily structured. Sorry about that.)

Just as an injury to an obscure muscle group greatly enhances one’s appreciation of the ubiquitous, tireless, thankless, heretofore flawless and totally unnoticed work performed by this muscle group; or as a sudden attack by rabid river otters makes you appreciate how great it was to not be under attack by rabid river otters; so did the eventual forced hibernation of my laptop make me realize how important my computer it has become to me, and how attached I get to my computer routines, especially during stressful transitions. No matter where I am on earth, I can play Pet Sounds on my iTunes, check my email over and over again, and type in 12 pt times new roman about whatever strange advertisements or awesome dogs I saw today—unless, of course, if my laptop has the wrong mouthparts and cannot nourish itself off of the local energy grid.

I bought some huge, cheap avocados at the grocery store. I foolishly assumed I would find all the other ingredients for guacamole, but as salsa is apparently a rare and exotic delicacy in Germany and the limes were insanely expensive, I ended up with a couple of v ripe avos and nothing else. Then this very strange dinner scene happened. I needed some evening protein and they would have spoiled the next day. I made it through one entire alligator pear before it just got too gross. I consider that a kind of a victory.

My computer died in the midst of perhaps my most drastic transition to date, and it shook me. I felt truly adrift for the first time in a long time. Things got worse from there. A full inventory of all of the things I found to complain about would be boring and embarrassing, but you can get a pretty good idea of my general state of mind by pacing back and forth in your room for a few hours while chanting the following mantra:

“I can’t buy hair conditioner or salsa or black beans. All of these people are either achingly shallow frat-types who are just here for the party or huge dorks who wouldn’t recognize fun if it fell out of the sky and hit them in the face and wiggled. I’m sick. My blog is awful. These rules are inconsistent and humiliating. Nothing is worth photographing or writing about. I can’t buy hair conditioner or salsa or black beans…”

For a couple of days I felt uninteresting and generally crappy. This city is large and beautiful enough that I was able to distract myself with novel or bizarre things, but my alienated, drifting, angry malaise persisted.

The New Synagoge, just down the street from the study abroad center. It's actually a pretty old building, but over the past couple hundred years synagoges around here have tended to get burned down or blown up a pretty regular basis, so this one still counts as "new."

I was grouchy and I needed to complain about it to the Internet, so I finally went to the major electronics retailer, laid down the euros, and got what I needed to connect my old computer to my new home.

On the train back home, glancing from heavily bundled beauty to beer-toting mustachioed bum to very uncomfortable dog, I got to thinking about, change, translation, and what kind of person I am.

A sweet old Soviet fortress of a building

My first thought: I am an American. I’m into justice, the rights of the individual, and making sure power is actual before I obey it. I love bald eagles and pine trees and the Mississippi River. I love my country, and I miss it.

My second thought: I am an English-speaker. In hard times or awkward situations I always fall back to my Muttersprache. When all else fails (and all else fails all the time), I am someone who can talk good: turn a phrase, pick apart some goofy billboard copy, say something outrageous or disgusting or true enough to earn some attention.

My third thought: if I want to be happy in Germany, I need to let go of both America and English. This one was contrary and scary and challenging, but down as I was it seemed worth pursuing. I stared houndstooth pattern of the empty seat across from me and worked through it.

The best paste-up on that sweet old Soviet fortress of a building

Here’s the thing: for all my wanderlust and malcontent I am at heart a homebody and a creature of habit. America and English have been constants in my life, permanent and all-pervasive routines, and I find routine deeply comforting.

But (BUT), I didn’t come to Germany to be comfortable. I came here to break routines and challenge myself and try another way of life. I’ve been letting homeland baggage drag me down and hold me back—refer back to when my computer died and I pouted rather than dealing with it. I don’t know what I am, but I do know that I am more than an American, and I am more than an English-speaker. This time in Berlin is a golden opportunity to explore my character independent of the overwhelming influence of my country and my language. This is my chance to see what sort of person I am when I give up my dominant external themes and dissolve myself in a new culture.

A statue in the lobby of the pool facility I've been using. After my first swim there I watched a group of little boys swarm out of the locker room and immediately rush over to take turns putting their hands between the butt cheeks of this statue and giggle and laugh. When their docent made his way to the lobby he called them over and gave them a very stern lecture whose dominant theme seemed to be "Butts are not funny." I don't think it will stick.

So: I need to dissolve, embrace change, and adapt. I love America and English, so I will let them go; if it’s meant to be, they’ll come back to me when the time is right.

OOF. Sorry for the sob story/repetitive blabfest of a mediocre philosophical realization. This is just what’s been on my mind lately, and hopefully now that I’ve coughed it up all over the Internet I can get to thinking and blogging about more entertaining things.

One of a whole series of awesome statues that I found just chilling out in a little courtyard between some nondescript buildings. Berlin is super neat.