Allow me to illustrate my joy thusly:
For once the weather was impossible to complain about - "too hot" doesn't count when the summer has so far been non-existent - so we sat in an assortment of parks, river banks and lake sides drinking what the Germans call 'water', and what the rest of the world calls 'beer'. If alcohol at 2pm is not your thing, the ever-efficient Germans have a golden compromise: radler! A mix of beer and lemonade, it is the perfect beverage on a hot afternoon. Well, I think so, and that is whose opinion we're following here, so there.
And so, armed with my radler, friend M. and a few of her awesome mates who overcame their shyness and spoke English to me as my German is not yet up to snuff, I explored some places in East-Berlin that I hadn't visited before. I've been in Berlin once before on a school trip in the prehistoric past that I call high school, and we did all the touristy bits then. So this time, I was mostly interested in visiting the Berlin that its regular inhabitants experience. I don't know how far I succeeded, as Berlin is absolutely huge and as I said, we spent most of our time lounging about, drinking beer and talking, but I do think I got a bit of a feel for the city.
While Berlin, and Kreuzberg - the district where we spent most of our time - is very busy and crowded, you don't get the hasty, unfriendly feeling you get in other cities like London and Tokyo. In East-Berlin I had a real 'holiday' feeling (helped, of course, by the gorgeous weather), and felt that you were free to do, wear and say whatever you wanted without being judged. As long as everyone minds their own business, no one cares what you look like. As you might think, this results in some outlandish styles, lots of tattoos and piercings, and some congregations of homeless people. But while my small-town self would feel insecure and even scared in other cities, here I felt fine - but maybe that was also due to the fact that I had some Berlin veterans with me. But even so, I never felt unsafe and thoroughly enjoyed myself looking at all the interesting people, and admiring the graffiti that decorates almost every single building.
This experience, along with conversations with M. and her friends, taught me a valuable lesson about tolerance and preconceptions. Like so many people, I pride myself on being open-minded and accepting of people's differences. Yet I was very surprised at the following discovery:
one of M.'s friends, T., looks like your run-of-the-mill, twenty-something metal fan with a facial piercing and gauges in his ears. But he reads philosophy books, is soft-spoken and thoughtful, and is a kindergarten teacher for Arabic and Turkish kids living in Kreuzberg. That just blew my mind, because not in a million years would I have attached that profession to him, and my first impulse was to be surprised that he even got hired for that job, in the current climate of people being suspicious of men spending time with children.
And then I wondered why I was so surprised.
And I felt ashamed, because I had apparently subconsciously already judged him and placed him in a certain box in society before even talking to him, which is not something I was aware of that I did. So many thanks to T., for showing me an uncomfortable truth about myself, and making me reconsider the way I judge people who are different from what I'm used to. Especially, when he, M. and their other metal-head, tattoo-y and piercing-ed friends made me feel welcome and took the time to get to know me while they absolutely didn't have to. I am humbled, and I will try to remember this for the future, and strive not to judge a book by its cover ever again. Because obviously, I know fuck-all about the difference between stereotypes and real people.
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