This is a travelogue documenting places and meaning in words and photos.
To begin a journey through Israel, Palestine, and Germany, go to January 2011 in the monthly archives, and start from the first day.
Day 28 & 29: Finding home
A few hours of fitful sleep, an early morning panic as I woke up to the U-Bahn being shut down due to the strike, arguing with various people about how I needed to get to the airport, literally sprinting between five different buses, and one cramped flight later, I was back in Tel Aviv. As soon as I smelled the air… the desert mixed with a tinge of ocean… I felt like I was already home. I took the train from the airport where a stoned hippie tried to convince me to move to Israel. She was very nice but a little odd.
Shoshi met me at the train station, determined to help me make the last few hours of my trip unforgettable. And indeed they were.
First she helped me muddle through the purchasing of all the gifts for everyone back home, which I hadn’t yet done much of. Given her proficiency with languages and being entirely bilingual, I was awestruck and jealous every time she switched between Hebrew and English, a native speaker of both. We walked out to the sea, ridiculous though I looked with my enormous backpack that I had borrowed for the trip.
It was a long walk of several hours along the Mediterranean, punctuated by life stories and an incredible sunset amongst the clouds. We passed a nightclub that had been bombed and a picturesque pier on which waves lazily lapped. The sea was azure and the hours passed too quickly. The sand in my shoes from the beach would linger for weeks. Despite the length of time, our conversation never faltered, and I learned more about her life and her country.
As night fell, we ended up in Jaffa, an Arab village as evidenced by the green-lit mosque. There I had my first taste of shakshuka… eggs poached in a sauce of tomato and spices. It was delicious and came with a side of bread, pickled vegetables, and wonderful hummus (pronounced the proper way: choo-moose… the ch being a “ha” sound that comes from the throat). The place was strange, with various cookware strung from the ceiling and an open-air concept, like all restaurants in the country. The shakshuka was delicious, with the bread dipped into the slightly runny egg, and I knew I had to have it again.
We made our way by bus back to the train station and bid a sad farewell. Though I couldn’t have known it then, we would meet again six months later… this time on Canadian soil. At the time I was sad to leave that connection behind and she handed me a plane letter (which, I neglected to mention, several people gave me plane letters for the way over and they were all amazing… I am grateful to have such fantastic friends) which was sealed with a wax stamp. As every letter I got, I saved it, and am adding it to my slow construction of a tribute to them, and each experience that contextualizes them. I am so lucky to have been cared about, and entertained by, so many. The letters I brought home with me from this trip were varied. Letters of good friends, a letter of a love withdrawn, and a letter containing the first spark of something new.
The flight home across the ocean was long (next to odd creationist doctor bible Texan bible thumpers who had been on some sort of spiritual journey), and the layover in New York was long, and finally from Minneapolis to Winnipeg was the last sunset of my adventure. A brilliant, elegant spear of red seared up from a bloody sun. The plane hung in the balance, the clouds above burned reddish pink and those below stained orange. All the world was a single horizontal strip contained between corrugated sheets of cloud.
It was the last of so many unforgettable sunsets… over the Mediterranean Sea, over the hills of Jerusalem, over the Negev desert, over the forests beyond Heidelberg, over the Red Sea, the dead Sea, the bombed out corpses of Berlin’s towers and their dazzling reincarnations. Over the smiling faces of friends, old and new. All the people who I imagine I will see again someday, though I will not, not all of them.
It closed a chapter in my life. A chapter in my life where I pulled off the ring I had been given quite some time before and put it away for good. Adventures were coming to an end and I had no idea what would come next. What else could I do but continue on and find out? We must leave the things we lost behind.
I intended take all I had learned and go forward, starting anew. Though someday, I knew, I would return to Israel.
Day 27: Germany begets Israel, begets…
My last day in Berlin, I finally found what I was looking for. Standing at the East Side Gallery, painted upon what remains of the Berlin Wall… the wall that brought so much strife. There were so many breathtaking murals, poignant and thought-provoking.
Then I passed one that knit everything together. There quarters of my way down, I encountered a giant mural fusing the flags of Germany and Israel. Despite the cold, I couldn’t help it… I just had to stop and stare. I didn’t move for half an hour. Though other murals had been graffiti-ed over, this one remained untouched. Passerby looked at it confused. One uttered, “I Think that’s the Jewish flag!”, his eyes widening in shock.
In that moment, I began to understand. Without Germany, there is no Israel, though it was a nation born of pain and gas and fire. The Third Reich that led to the Holocaust also led to the creation of Israel and the only Jewish state. Many Jews abroad that don’t live in Israel are comforted by its presence, knowing that they always have a place to go if things get bad. The European-directed carving out of Israel’s borders, though, led to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and subsequent wall, and the tragedies therein. This wall before me and the other much farther south are both scrawled in many places with the slogan “Free Palestine”. The wall in Berlin has lost its imposing aura, but perhaps the terror dissipates with time. Berlin felt like a broken city, weary after so much war. Jerusalem felt tense, like it was waiting for the hammer to fall. These two countries are linked in so many ways, many terrible but some beautiful. Without World War II there was no Berlin Wall and there would be now wall between Israel and Palestine. The pasts of these two peoples are inextricably linked and no matter how much the youth of Germany want to move on, it may never be forgotten. No matter how much the youth of Israel want to move on and not be judged by their government’s doings, it may never be forgotten. Great evil allowed the creation of a beautiful place, a place that despite being ruled by one religion allows all to worship freely. Yet the seed of hate was planted there as well, and conflict will go on as long as it prospers. But if the wall could fall here, it can fall there. And hopefully there will be peace someday soon. The start to peace will be putting a stop to misinformation.
I left the wall behind and crossed a magnificent bridge in the freezing day, my hands stiff and unresponsive. How strange was it that I had picked these three destinations for my trip, unwittingly, previously oblivious of their intertwined nature. I tried to go into a coffee shop but was turned away, being told it was for Turkish men only. I went instead into a place that made baked potatoes filled with potato salad and other things, which was delicious. The food was Backenkartoffel and I sat by the heater, writing, absorbing, and trying to bring movement back into my frozen limbs. I stood over a bridge across dozens of train tracks before returning on the U-Bahn. I would sorely miss the train system. I was also jealous of the bike lines on every street (with their own traffic lights!). If they can do it in Germany, there is absolutely no reason it can’t be done in Canada.
I went with Masha to a small pub that her friends worked at. On the way, we stopped to pick up her friend Andrew (an entomologist!) and climbed to the roof of his building to see Berlin lit in the night. Everyone was friendly this time, and we talked and laughed into the night. It was an amazing time and the perfect send-off, and I wished I had time to get to know everyone there a little better. I met a French Jewish girl, Gaia, whose stories transfixed me. Without knowing why, I found myself telling her she had to visit Israel. She asked what that would accomplish, and I didn’t know how to explain it.
“Just go.” I told her. “You will feel it as soon as you arrive.”
Day 25 & 26: Fruitless search for self in the big city
It was time to buckle down and learn something. The connections between the places I’d been remained so far unexplored, and it was time to unearth them. First to the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor), the main checkpoint between East and West Germany. It was stately and beautiful and thronged with tourists; surely a much different experience than I would’ve had at that spot twenty years before. From what I had pieced together, I knew the history was this: after WWII, East Germany (the German Democratic Republic, or GDR) was in possession of the Soviets, as well as East Be
rlin (which was occupied by the Allies). Due to strikes and poor economic conditions, people began to move to West German through Berlin. As more moved, East German People’s army closed most of the checkpoints. The wall between the two was built in 1961 to halt the movement, with orders to kill anyone trying to cross without permission (sound familiar?). West Germans could obtain some travel permits, but East Germans were essentially trapped.
After decades of hardship, East Germans began to protest en masse, and the government was forced allow movement between the two sides. Two days later, 2.7 million exit visas had been issued at East Berlin checkpoints, and this was hailed as Die Wende, or ‘the change’. In 1989 a non-violent revolution overthrew the communist GDR, and the new government negotiated reunification with West German. The wall came down, the Allies formally ended the occupation, but social differences exist. Unemployment is nearly at 18% in the former East Germany and conditions are poorer. Some older people, though, long for life before the split… when it was simpler, more predictable, and much less technological.
I toured the sights that brought this history to life. The Reichstag, or parliament, with its fusion of old and new. Checkpoint Charlie, an allied-controlled checkpoint, where surely many people but died but was much smaller and more unobtrusive than I anticipated. The Topography of Terrors, which to me just kind of looked like a bunch of brambles in a fenced off area and I never quite figured out what it meant. My journey had been disappointing thus far in the day… until I reached the Holocaust Memorial.
The Holocaust Memorial is strange. Many Berliners want it gone… an eyesore, a waste of prime real estate. It draws you in and you don’t realize how far you’ve gone or how long you’ve been wandering. Concrete rectangles signify unmarked graves, all are of uneven height but as you approach the centre, you get lower and they get higher until you feel as if you are beneath the oppressive weight of the dead. But then, there are no markings. You would only know you were in the Holocaust Memorial if you were told. Children ran around, shouting and laughing, playing hide and go seek. Couples strolled by, hand in hand, making jokes. Teenagers used it as a shortcut on their way home, hip-hop blaring from headphones. You could tell who knew what it was by the somber, reverent faces of those walking alone slowly. I wondered if there was anyone else of Jewish descent in the Memorial. I wondered if anyone right there, right then, had relatives who had been killed in the Holocaust. I wondered if the couple next to me, taking pictures of each other climbing on the stones and making funny faces, would change their behaviour if I told them the connection I had to this place. In the end, it didn’t matter. Like any great art, it was what you made of it.
It was so hard for me to believe that the ancestors of my friends had tried to wipe my ancestors of the face of the earth. But it happened.
Things lightened up after when I found a neat free science museum that had an interactive exhibit about prosthetics technology. Later, I went out with Hermann again to a club called White Trash, where the acceptable attire seemed to consist of at least three facial piercings and sleeve tattoos. It was a three level club, where the bottom was a dance floor and bar, the middle was a grungy greasy diner, and the top was a show venue. Like most of Berlin, everyone looked either punk or gay (the latter must have been a misfiring of my gaydar given the usual 1 in 9 rule, unless the demographics of this place were way off par). On the top floor a band called Eat was playing, fronted by a drag queen and featuring many costume changes and some random burlesque girl who hopped up on stage and danced the rest of the set in only tights and electrical tape over her nipples.
Between sets, Hermann told me the story of how his ancestors were affected by war. Both of his grandfathers were Russian and had fought in the war. After, conditions in the USSR deteriorated. Hermann’s father was a successful shopkeeper who refused to pay fees to the mafia in exchange for “protection”. After refusing, the threats started coming and became more and more serious. I don’t remember the story exactly as I was in my usual German state (aka somewhere between tipsy and drunk), but his parents clandestinely became part of a police sting. As a young boy he remembers being told to wait on the stairs as plainclothes policemen barged into the house and hid in closets and storerooms. The mafia then came in, looking for his father. They had a knife to his mother’s throat when the police jumped out and arrested them. After that, they moved to Germany.
We drank a few more and danced until nearly four AM in the basement of the bar to the likes of Bloc Party, Metric, Goldfrapp, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. We bid our goodbyes at the S-Bahn and I braced myself for a hell of a hangover. I still hadn’t found whatever I was looking for in Germany, and I was starting to doubt that I would.
The next day brought a lazy day, finally.
A day spent getting to know Masha all over again, long lost high school friends that we were. Her apartment was cozy and warm in contrast to the frigid day outside. I had intended to go downtown, but the sn hurtling by the window deterred me. We spent hours catching up (when she really should have been studying). If there’s one thing Germany taught me, it is that with good ones will always remain as such, when you close the gaps of distance. Plus, I after so long, such transient interactions seems pointless.
Door etiquette was different in the apartment. It was a small but surprisingly jarring cultural difference. In Canada, closing the door to one’s room means “don’t come in.” In Germany, doors are always closed but people are still welcome to enter. This was extremely confusing for me and led me to stand awkwardly in hallways surrounded by closed doors, afraid to enter. It also led to me listening with my ear to the bathroom door, trying to determine whether or not someone was actually inside. Masha told me that when she came for exchange to Canada, she was prepared for this as part of her cultural adaptation program, and was given instructions to leave her door open lest she seem anti-social. There were a number of other slight cultural differences, k
I got out a bit in the evening, as we went for amazing Indian food. One last day of rest, because the next, it would all come together.
Day 23 & 24: Marzipan, marzipan, marzipan
Nutella is the food of the gods. There is no question. It is delicious, spreadable, well-suited to just about anything, and the only edible non-meat item in the bachelor pad I was staying in. Not that Sean didn’t feed me; he dutifully brought up croissants every morning. Which I subsequently slathered… no, drowned… in Nutella. The croissants were marzipan, which I absolutely love. Every day in Germany I sought out marzipan. I once walked into a bakery where the owner spoke no English and couldn’t understand my broken German. Eventually I just threw my hands up in the air and yelled, “Marzipan! Marzipan! Ich will Marzipan!” to the confusion and consternation of the line that had formed behind me. The guy behind the counter just kept replying, “Nein! Kein Marzipan!” I really wanted some, so I just kept asking for it until I was thoroughly embarrassed, picked a baked good at random, and slunk out.
Later that day I met Masha, who I hadn’t seen since high school. It was on the east side of Berlin, and concrete open spaces belied burnt out buildings. It was so good to see her and she showed me the museums and the gorgeous old churches and government buildings downtown. In the evening a German couchsurfer named Hermann took me out for dinner and it felt suspiciously like a date. I went over time and literally had to sprint to meet Sean and his fellow grad student friends for the Berlin Film Festival. The festival being as famous and popular as it is, the only thing we could get tickets to was a series of short Swedish films from the 1960s that were really, really strange. We also were in an “American” bar that was made up with American flags and country music. A Jagermeister team barrelled in and plied us with free shots while dancing on tables to blaring techno and filming themselves doing so… a bit strange since the bar was basically empty. Which meant we got more of their free shots and participated in some sort of word game. I won a T-shirt emblazoned with the Jagermeister logo and I always wonder if people think I’m an alcoholic or a party girl when I wear it to the gym.
The night ended as most nights did in Berlin… on the S-Bahn. I would marry those German trains. You can get anywhere on the S-Bahn, or the U-Bahn if you are too lazy to walk fifteen minutes. You can even enjoy a pre-gaming beer on your way to a party on the train. They are clean and casual and I see no reason why every city shouldn’t have public transportation just as good.
The next morning I went with Sean to his university at Potsdam. His research is rather impressive, concerning human-computer interactions and developing ways to use phones or tablet devices without actually touching them. The labs were gorgeous and made the labs I’ve been working in for the past few years look like dingy little boxes. He stayed to work as I ventured into Potsdam itself, stopping to brunch in a café. There weren’t that many people but the chatter felt deafening to my inadvertently hungover brain. All those free shots lingered as a headache that coffee wouldn’t kill. Next to me, a couple that must have been at least sixty held hands and shared kisses over the table.
In Potsdam quaint buildings lined cobblestone streets, this particular street capped on one end by the second Brandonburg Gate and by a beautiful church on the other end. It was quiet and surreal, clean and filled with clean-cut people, in contrast ot nearby Berlin. I felt very out of place, ever reinforced by the German propensity to stare. I ventured into Sansouci park, freezing in the damp cold and trying to write off homeostasis as being overrated. The castles and palaces of the park were gorgeous, and the photos say so much more than I ever could.
That night I left to stay with Masha who was having a birthday party with her friends. It was a fun MYOC (make your own crepe) party and her friends were ncie enough, but didn’t want to talk to me given the language barrier. I was content to sip on a beer and watch from a corner and drink it all in, literally and figuratively.
Day 21 & 22: Where the weird ones are
On the Deutschebahn to Berlin. Well, not exactly. It was to be seven hours and five trains. The first train was grungy, the second pleasant, smooth, and high-speed. Quaint little towns and patches of forest, brown fields and bare trees, hurtled by impossibly fast. I was in a half-empty compartment with a normal-seeming woman reading a magazine and an odd little bald man obsessively clipping his nails on our shared table. The foggy, contented day was flying by and I was glad to have a few hours alone to catch up on my thoughts and journaling. It had been and sad to leave Julia so abruptly after picking up right where we had left off all those years ago, and I wanted some time to think.But given the amazing people I had met while in transit… Daniele, Omar and Amitay, that Ukrainian girl who stopped me from getting on the wrong train earlier that morning whose name I regrettably never got… I probably should have continued to meet people. Especially since the next man who came into the compartment was one of Margaret Atwood’s college professors… a fact I only found out moments before he got off.
Impossibly, the 250km/h Deutschebahn was late and I was going to miss my connection. I had a few moments of moderate panic and running around the train to find someone who spoke English or could at least understand my terrible German. Luckily for me, it turned out that this train was going to Berlin anyway, just a different station. I sat down smugly, having circumvented five of the not-so-nice smaller trains, a headache of fast connections that I probably wouldn’t have made, and having cut nearly three hours off the length of my trip. I spent most of the time staring out at countryside that looked an awful like the Canadian prairies, just with a few more trees and hills. I had already decided since Munich that people stare in Germany, perhaps it is just a cultural eye contact thing, but the entire train trip I felt like I was either a) very attractive or b) the owner of a unibrow.
Sean met me at the U-Bahn station, as he was putting me up for the next few days. It was good to see another displaced Winnipegger and catch up. That night I prepared, figuring out what I wanted out of Berlin and how to get it.
The next day I wandered the neighbourhood and discovered that Berlin was full of freaks. Dyed hair, tattoos, piercings, and strange clothing choices were everywhere. It bore a stark contrast to clean-cut Munich, and I immediately felt much more comfortable than I had in Germany so far. Giant, artful graffiti is smeared across every wall. Punks, hipsters, they were everywhere. The whole place felt like a dystopian, post-apocalyptic society. The city was so chilly, though… despite being above zero it was a damp cold that settled into my bones. I bought a jacket but it didn’t help at all. Sick I wandering, I sought to get out of the cold by ducking into a pub. It turned out to be a collective co-op pub run by Swedes with more tattoo than skin who, like me, spoke little to no German… but they had been living here for years. I stuck around and they fed me soup and chocolate and strange drink concoctions they were making on the fly for free. As we were drinking and chatting, a large group came in called Stich’n’Bitch. They were a queer feminist knitting group led by a guy with the strangest haircut I’ve ever seen. I thought it might be a fun adventure to join them, but it turned out to be BYOYarn.
One of my goals in Berlin was to piece together what had happened with the separation of East and West Germany, having learned little to none of it in school. I asked a lot of questions and people were happy to talk, filling the dark stories with nervous jokes that I didn’t find funny. That night Sean and I went for falafels and my trip truly became an intercontinental falafel sampling adventure. It wasn’t nearly as good as falafel in Israel/Palestine, though. We also walked by the synagogue destroyed during the Kristallnacht, or night of broken glass when Jewish homes and places of worship were ransacked in 1938. Now restored, but guarded behind a wrought iron gate.
We then visited Tacheles, which is one of the most interesting things I have ever seen. Once a department store in Berlin and later a Nazi prison, it is now an artists’ collective. Tacheles means ‘straight-talking’ in Yiddish. East and West German artists disagree about the place due to conflicting views and concepts for the space, an dit is pretty much always under threats of eviction and/or demolition due the fact that the building is definitely derelict and unstable. It seemed to be where the chaotic, dystopian feeling Berlin gave me coalesced… and sprung forth incredible creativity. Every inch of the walls are covered in graffiti, with countless layers upon layers. The four story building is dark and dingy, with multiple pubs tucked away inside, interspersed with galleries. The artists sit, work on their painting or jewelry while live rock music blares from people randomly jamming with others in the building. In the loft, a painter was working on wall-sized pieces of arresting, powerful pieces that seemed to be depicting the assimilation of man by our machines. Artists from all over the world vie for space there, and it changes every few weeks.
In the courtyard outside, giant metal sculptures made of scrap metal loomed like monsters in the night, metallic overlords of the city. A sculptor was welding together his work right there, in a ramshackle shed of corrugated metal, standing next to a giant metal head in whose mouth a wood fire burned. Tacheles felt like a glimpse into a world after civilization has withered and died in a burnt and polluted earth… and the kind of beauty that might remain.
Day 20: Castle dreams come true
I woke in the night to bad news: Maegan was sick. There had been inklings that it was coming, but by morning she was extremely ill and couldn’t leave the house. After breakfast Julia and I bid her a bit of a reluctant and worried farewell. She didn’t want to interfere with my sightseeing excursions but I felt very badly going on without her.
Julia took me to Heidelberger Schloss, the castle overlooking the city. It was my first castle and I couldn’t contain my excitement, grin stretching from ear to ear. My entire childhood had revolved around fantasies of knights and courts, castles and medieval battles, sword-fighting and jousting. Despite having spent years reading about castle architecture and making my own meticulous drawing of them, I had never actually seen one.
It was made of red stone and not as enormous as I had anticipated, but still quite intimidating. Julia told me stories of all the times and her friends had done things that they shouldn’t in and around the castle grounds. We paused at a breathtaking overlook of the city, with its narrow streets of jumbled stone houses and tall, thin row townhouses with clay tiled roofs. We went down and investigated the wine cellar which may have housed the world’s largest functional wine barrel. The castle didn’t quite live up to my overblown expectations… there were no suits of armour or evidence of storming and it didn’t seem like a place that had seen much warfare… but it was incredible nonetheless.
We walked down along the stone streets, threading our way through their narrow, winding jumble. As in Munich, it stuck me how clean-cut everyone was… women often had their hair up, and men always had short hair. There were no freaks or punks or hipsters anywhere that I could see, it was all very prim and proper. And very unlike Israel, drivers stayed between the lines on the roads.
We stopped at a café for coffee, which turned into beer. We then took poor sick Maegan to the train station, then wandered back to Hemingway’s for more beer with Makeeba. I don’t think I had one sober evening in Germany and this was one of the better nights. A few hefeweizens later everything was all at once extremely profound and hilarious. Sitting there, I once again felt overwhelmed by the guilt of my English privilege (well, and bad French I suppose). Due to sheer luck of birthplace, I could speak only one language fluently and get away with it almost anywhere in the world. Although they pointed out that actually, I was handicapped if anything… since much of world had to learn English to get by, they had the advantage of knowing multiple languages and being that much smarter. Touché. I vowed to become fluent in another language upon returning home.
I suppose it was Valentine’s Day, but I had no reason to notice.
Day 18: Beer and cabbage
Time was becoming a bit incomprehensible as we tried in vain to nap on the first train. I dozed fitfully on the frayed, stained upholstery, trying both to sleep and not sleep in fear of missing the stop. The plastic chairs were uncomfortable and I was pulled into an awkward position in an attempt to avoid mysterious dirty smears on the seats and walls. Not exactly how I expected the Deutschebahn to be.
After three hours we stood freezing in the next open air station, trying to hide behind walls to get out of the wind. An annoyed station attendant shooed us towards a heated area, explaining to us in German with a few words of broken English that our train had changed platforms. I was immensely grateful for my ability to count to a hundred in German, which would prove invaluable for the rest of my trip.
Weary and annoyed, we finally boarded our next train… only to be shocked and awed as it outlived our wildest expectations. The interior was comfortable, quiet, and elegant. Overhead LED banners announced the next stop and wished us well on our journey. The high speed train shot through the night and it accelerated so did our excitement. The train was clean and perfectly on time, a stark contrast to the last. I had not slept in days but was learning to function that way. It was a time of night for sad songs and quiet contemplation, but I couldn’t find the melancholy to do anything but grin into the night as it sped past.
Emerging from the station at who knows what time, we were thrilled to find Julia and her boyfriend waiting on the platform for us. I was overjoyed to see her… it had been four years, at least. It was early in the morning, but Heidelberg lay out before us. It seemed a quaint jumble of brown roofs and densely packed townhouses. Julia’s apartment was small but cute, covered in mementos and photos of her trips abroad, including her time in Winnipeg. It looked out over a small courtyard between buildings in which washing hung on the line. Downstairs was her scooter, in a state of repair. It was everything I hoped a small German town would be. We went walking to the river and it became apparent that het town was situated in a valley beneath picturesque hills along a lazy river. Catching up with Julia was amazing… both Maegan and I felt it immediately, as if we were able to pick up exactly where we had left off, all those years ago. Though we had all moved on to different things our commonalities and shared experiences were more than enough to make conversation effortless and unceasing, each of us piling anecdotes and experiences one over top of the other.
We stopped in at Hemingway’s, the pub Julia was working at, for drinks. There I was introduced to hefeweizen, a kind of wheat beer that has changed my experiences of beer forever. It tasted the way I my twelve year-old self had imagined Butterbeer might, and was smooth and light and delicious… rich without being overpowering. It was top-fermented like all wheat beers, with a hint of what seemed like banana but probably wasn’t. I know for a fact I will spend the rest of my life searching for a weizen that tastes half as good as those poured for me at Hemingway’s.
There we met Julia’s good friend Makeeba, with whom I had a very interesting discussion. She was sprightly and full of life, with sparkling eyes glinting from beneath striking short hair. We discussed young people and Germany identity, and the feeling I got from her was that the generation of young adults now were sick and tired of the legacy of the legacy of the Third Reich. It had hung over their heads as they aged, infusing them with shame for heinous crimes they themselves had never committed. They wanted the world to forget, but perceived that the rest of the world still felt they were accountable and guilty. I thought that at least in Canada, that perception was not present… people saw Germany as a cool place, a destination they wanted to visit, a modern country long since divorced from its dark past. I don’t think that Makeeba believed me, though.
Another Bavarian restaurant for dinner. I had more cabbage and potato as Julia and Maegan loaded up on various meats. One man who was Canadian spotted Maegan’s hoodie and stopped by to chat with us about it; a common occurrence on the trip. All three of us fit into Julia’s Queen-sized bed and, thoroughly exhausted, I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Day 17: Hello, Deutscheland
We left Tel Aviv behind. I wish I had had more time to explore the city. Like the rest of the country, it was a place of paradoxes. Gay couples walked hand in hand but you still might see the occasional Orthodox Jew flitting by. The little taste I’d had of Israel was insufficient, but we went onward, taking a red-eye directly to Munich. All of a sudden, one extremely bleary plane ride later, we were on a different continent. In a few hours we had completely swapped out one language I couldn’t speak for another. Upon landing in Munich, the feel of a European culture was already apparent, and familiar yet foreign, all at once. We locked our bags in the bus station after a man kindly sold us his all-day U-bahn tickets for half price and set out on foot. Only when I stepped out of the train station to the perfect rows of elegant buildings with their gray stone facades did I realize I was in Germany.
Munich struck me as austere but magnificent. So much of the architecture reminded me of home, especially in the dark trim and wooden lattice-type decoration. The main square downtown was teeming with people. It was just an ordinary day, but people were walking everywhere, brusquely and in long coats. They didn’t smile and didn’t saunter, but strode with purpose and distinction. Maegan and I walked along the main street and down side streets to find a place for a meal, and ended up in the German equivalent of Salisbury House. We took a slow Saturday in the café, and we weren’t the only ones. Families lingered over meals of hard breads, eggs, and sausages. Old men drank Pelligrino and debated loudly, further wrinkling up their faces for emphasis. We muddled out some of the words on the menu. The waitress spoke no English, and though I know the tiny bit of German that Julia taught me in high school, I ended up ordering myself a whole bunch of bread and butter. Which suited me just fine. Maegan and I discussed basic phrases. Ich spreche kein Deutsche. Ich bin eine Austlander. As if it wasn’t obvious.
We wandered for quite some time. I had spent time at Gal’s trying to commit a map of downtown Munich to memory and I am lucky to have a reliable sense of direction honed by years of navigating by broken compass. We went inside a beautiful church, adorned with gold, many times more ornate than anything I had seen in the Holy Land. It was one of many. We had moved from hills punctuated with regular frequency by mosques, synagogues, and the occasional church to a town dominated by church spires but with few representatives of other places of worship. The church was beautiful and the craftsmanship inspiring, but I couldn’t help but wonder why such effort was not paid to buildings beyond houses of worship… worship of god, worship of government, worship of money. Why craftsmanship and aesthetic beauty couldn’t just be admired on its own.
We stopped in at the Hofbrauhaus, which I had been adamant to get to considering my love of beer. I had a house brew that was somewhat disappointing except for the fact that it came in one litre mugs. I sampled some of Maegan’s pretzel and also found not as delicious as I had expected. Nevertheless, the air of the place was festive in an attempt to historically recreate a pub atmosphere from centuries gone by. It was crowded but seemed to be a mix of locals who genuinely enjoyed it as a drinking establishment mixed in with the tourists taking pictures of the buxom waitresses as they carried upwards of a dozen steins at once.
Ironically enough, at our long wooden table we found ourselves next to Israelis. The couple had been working at the Israeli embassy in the U.S.A. and gotten to know the representatives from the German embassy quite well. Both couples had returned home to their respective countries but stayed friends, and once a year they visited one another, taking turns hosting the other.
Upon arriving in Germany I had intended to explore the relationships between Germany and Israel, and the parallels between East/West Germany and Israel/Palestine. I had expected it to be a cerebral journey that would require a lot of information hunting on my part. And yet, here I was, not five hours into my German adventure, and it was sitting next to me. Two couples laughing, their young children filling out colouring books at their side. This would not have been possible fifty years ago, and seventy years ago they were effectively at war. Characteristics of religion and culture that were now completely irrelevant to their interaction would not so long ago have seen them on opposite sides of the gate of a ghetto.
By the time I had finished my litre of beer I was thoroughly drunk. We set off towards a park which reminded me an awful lot of Assiniboine Park with its elm-like trees, duck pond, and stand-alone buildings meant to represent someplace else. After about forty minutes I really had to pee and set off sprinting, barreling my way into the first tavern I saw and dashing into their bathroom minus the protests of the bartender (it was for patrons only). I came out to find Maegan laughing hysterically at me, because in my desperation I had sprinted right by the park’s public washrooms. We puddled around for the time in the park, and I mostly followed the ducks.
By the time the alcohol wore off we were hungry and I was exhausted. We found a place serving Bavarian food for dinner and as a vegetarian there was really not much for me to eat. The waitress spoke English, and I was reminded yet again of my English privilege, about which I felt thoroughly guilty. The meal was decent enough, and I enjoyed the potato dumplings, but it was very heavy after weeks of hummus, couscous, and cucumber. It settled like a rock in my stomach as we headed back to the station for our overnight trains to Heidelberg. I was anxious… I didn’t like not having a home base. I also had no idea how to go about even reading my ticket, much less getting on a German train… or switching trains three times in the freezing German night.
Day 17: Falafels and refugees
Though Birthright and staying with Israelis gave me a lot of insight into the Zionist perspective and the social problems within Israel itself, it took going to the Palestinian territories to begin to understand the complexity of Israel’s relationship with its neighbours.
Taken in the Territories, and my favourite photo of the trip
I met Miriam and Margot, both of whom had been on Birthright, outside the office of Windows. It was good to briefly catch up/gossip with them, and then we headed into the office where Margot’s cousin Emily worked. Windows aims to foster peace and understanding between Israeli and Palestinian youth by having them jointly write a magazine, and facilitated our trip into the Palestinian territories. Though the West Bank is only a two hour walk or thirty minute bike ride from Tel Aviv, actually getting into the West Bank is much more complicated.
After our pre-trip history lesson (see day 16), we took a sheirut (minibus) from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, then crossed into the Arab quarter on foot. We were already on the other side of the green line, because Jerusalem is a divided city. Even moving from the Jewish part of Jerusalem to the Arab part was like entering int ao different country. The streets were thronged with men, their heads covered, leaving afternoon prayers from the Dome of the Rock, inside the old city. The smell of smoked meat permeated the air. The crowds were louder and denser. It was like walking into a different country. There was an accident on the street and a great horde of people standing around it, blocking off the entire street. I hustled in our disconnected line, trying desperately to keep the shirt of the girl in front of me in focus. With no cell phone and no idea where I was, if I got lost there, I had no idea what I would do. Ambulances pulled up and I could see that the ambulance system was different, so was the bus system, as was garbage pickup (which didn’t seem to run quite so often). We managed to collect our group and find an Arab sheirut to take to the wall, because we couldn’t get to a Palestinian checkpoint we wanted to go to in an Israeli one.
The bus was the same as the Israeli one, but older and dirtier. The people on it were the same as bus riders anywhere… pleasant, indifferent. It was easy to already see the intense social stratification between Arabs and Jews, even in the same city. We bussed to the wall, which is at least five metres high and topped with barbed wire. The Israeli guards would not let us take pictures or get too close to the wall. It was gray and we fully received the sense of intimidation and fear we were meant to. We proceeded through the checkpoint through a series of metal gates. We were not stopped or questioned because we were white, though a Palestinian going through the same checkpoint would have been searched and fingerprinted. On the other side, we made our way down a very long corridor hemmed in by metal bars and gating on all sides, including above. It really felt like a prison might.
As soon as we were on the other side, it truly was like entering a different country. Vendors were everywhere, people lounging, smoking, shouting. Just men. There were no women to be seen. The wall had been painted with beautiful graffiti, though the Israeli army had painted over some of it. Statements of freedom and peace were written all of its surface, often in English, as well as less profound messages like the menu for a restaurant. We met Homdan, a friend of Emily, Homdan is a remarkable man. He is a psychologist who specializes in counselling people with disabilities, as he is disabled himself. He also runs a nonprofit agency attempting to obtain rights for disabled people in the Territories (there currently are no Palestinian Authority programs in place to help people with disabilities). He is opening another branch in Italy, but it is very difficult. There are no airports in the territories, and in order to get to the airport in Tel Aviv, Palestinians spend months applying for a permit to enter Israel. One cannot enter Israel without a permit and it is very difficult to get one. You have to have an invitation from an Israeli, and if you want to travel to a different country, an invitation from the government of that country. Almost all passes given are only for a few hours. If you are late and arrive back at the border past your permitted time, you would likely find yourself among the 8 000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. Palestinians truly are trapped with nowhere to go.
Presently, the Palestinian Territories are divided into zones A, B, and C. We were entering Bethlehem, which is zone A. Israelis are not allowed into A zones, which encompass major cities. The Israeli army jointly enforces law with Palestinian police in B zones, and the Israeli army entirely controls C zones. In the early 2000s, after the second uprising, the wall began to be constructed. It doesn’t actually follow the green line of established territory, but goes further into Palestinian areas than was previously negotiated. The wall is still incomplete, and erratic. I personally had trouble understanding why it is constructed as it is… it is not linear at all, but cuts in and out of neighbourhoods. Also, though it is strictly against the Oslo accord, there are many Jewish settlers in the West Bank. We saw one of these settlements from afar. It literally looked like a fortress, white and vertical like Minas Tirith, protected by many walls and with towering buildings constructed inside. It was a strong statement, and a very obvious affront to the idea of Palestianian sovereignty. Some Israelis support the settlement, but many don’t. It is a hot issue and the country is strongly divided over it. I felt very privileged to have a Canadian passport, which allowed me to enter Bethelem. What I saw is something 99% of Israelis will never see, no matter their political or ideological leanings.
On the other side of the wall, cab drivers fought tooth and nail, vying to be the ones to drive us in. The cab far to the centre of the city worked out to 3 shekels per person, which is less than a dollar. The touristy area of Bethlehem was very nice, and as one might expect, milling with Christians. It looked similar to Jerusalem in the construction of old stone and alleyways. The only things that betrayed a difference were the garbage in the streets and the traditional Muslim garb of locals. Also, the hills around the city were bare sand and scrub brush; a stark difference from the lush pine forests around Jerusalem. This is because many trees are planted on the Israeli side, terraforming the landscape into a more hospitable one, giving literal meaning to the green line. But I will revisit this later…
We had a very nice sit-down mean of falafel, hummus, pita, and salads that was probably the best lunch I had during my time in the Middle East. There was a creamy quality to the hummus that was unlike any I had ever had. Lunch cost about $10 Canadian, but this was a very, very upscale place. We explored Bethlehem and the magnificent church built on the site where Jesus was said to be born. The church was really beautiful. The alleyways around it were filled with tourist shops with gorgeous artwork and the usual trinkets. One store was even filled with flat screen TVs and video games… a sharp contrast to the old and worn looking vegetables being sold in the stall outside. However, we left beautiful things behind and made our way to one of three refugee camps that are part of Bethlehem.
Israel has a slightly lower standard of living than North America and Europe, which is betrayed only by some dirt in the streets (though they are washed at night) and the cracks snaking up relatively new buildings. Many things aren’t quite as nice, but some things are nicer (like the bus system… amazing). Wealthier families don’t have the same material amenities we have, like microwaves and various kitchen gadgets, and the houses are smaller. But the Palestinian territories contrasted Israel like night and day. Even in the city blocks approaching the camp, garbage lined the streets in piles. Dead cats. Rotting food. Graffiti everywhere. Some of it beautiful artwork, but most of it just scrawl. A lot of it dedicated to martyrs (encompassing anyone who had been killed by the IDF, regardless of their involvement or lack thereof in the freedom movement). The camp itself consisted of run down buildings. One apartment complex had stairs going up three stories that were partially collapsed, leaving great piles of cement rubble at their base. People still walked up the intact portion of the stairs, navigating precarious obstacles with ease and familiarity.
There were men everywhere, standing in the streets in packs, smoking. They dressed very well, with nice shoes and slicked back short hair. Most seemed friendly. Some followed us and made faces. I did not feel unsafe, but I certainly felt uneasy. I was glad to have Homdan with us, as well as all the guys who were on our trip. I saw a few women, but all were in groups escorting children and wore headscarves and long coats. They had really nice boots, though. I asked Homdan about the lack of women. He gave me a look as if it should be obvious. He told me, “They are inside, cooking and cleaning. I’m not saying it is a good thing, but it is just the way it is. And this city is the most liberal, modern Palestinian city.”
Though it was certainly disheartening, the refugee camp was not as depressing as I had anticipated. Yes, the buildings were collapsing and it was sad to see such terrible poverty. But I was glad to see that at least the people out in the streets were still enjoying their lives. Teenagers asked us to take pictures of them. Children played in tiny yards of bare earth pockmarked by piles of garbage and rusted metal. It was good to see that even under such terrible hardship, people were still having fun. Yet, I do not believe anyone deserves to live like this. But seeing the cultural differences and the animosity between Israelis and Palestinians gave me little hope that change will come anytime soon.
Going back was more difficult, as the security to re-enter Israel was much more intense. It was like airport security, except in the setting of a jail. We had a debriefing in an office in Jerusalem, where an Israeli doing his PhD, who is a peace activist, came to speak to us. He said the first time he met a Palestinian was looking down the barrel of his gun, and that is how most people of one culture meet the other. He told us about some of the things going on in Jerusalem, where the Israeli government is evicting Muslim families and replacing them with Jewish families based on documents that they lived in those areas in centuries prior. There are protests of these house evictions held every Friday, and many liberal Israelis attend these protests, including friends of mine.
We returned to Tel Aviv late, and I walked back to Gal’s from the Windows office. It was quickly growing dark and I had more questions than answers. Who was good, and who was bad? Who was the aggressor, and who was the victim? What was the solution? I had no answers. I understand the safety fears of giving Palestine sovereignty, but in the meantime, Palestinians are trapped into a cycle of poverty under occupation. Both sides have done unspeakably terrible things to the other. That night, before we got in a cab at 2AM and left (no buses on Shabbat), I was talking to an Israeli I had just met. Not wanting to bother with the mouthful of ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’, I simply mentioned that I had been in Palestine that day. He replied simply, “There is no Palestine.”
