August 2, 2006 18.02 and the various church bells are still ringing beautifully Neuköln, Berlin Berlin's Biggest Problem You might be thinking I just wanted to complain about the cold weather here one more time before we leave next week. Nope. Actually the weather has been very hot and very sunny for most of July, so hot in fact that I've actually been thinking that maybe the cold weather in Berlin was not so bad, if you can believe that. In fact, it was the hottest month they've had in 150 years!!! It's been near or over 100F /36C for much of the days. Wow can you feel it inside a city with lots of tall buildings that is totally unprepared for such weather! There are virtually no places to go with air conditioning (except for the banks, gas stations and department stores). I actually had to resort to taking a student out of class where we were backing to go sit in the department store (men's department) across the street one day! If you know that the city of Berlin is basically bankrupt, you might think this is what I'm getting to. Nope. Somehow, Berlin manages to pull off an amazing amount of arts, activities, political demonstrations (that the city must pay to clean up) and still manage to maintain the city pretty well keeping its parks, streets etc. fairly clean. So then you might guess that what I consider the biggest problem here in this city is that it's such a big stressed city. Nope. Sure, a city is a city, and you can't avoid being around lots of fast walking, stressed people running around during their work day. Joel and I are both ready to slow down and be in nature more again, true. However, Berlin is so green, has so many lakes, forests, parks and canals…and it is such a great city in the summer! People come out by the thousands to enjoy the great sidewalk cafés (of really well priced food from like every country in the world!) and the abundance of wonderful things there are to do here during the summer. One can choice from rowing a boat, roller bladeing, open air movie theaters, outside concerts of every possible type of music, thousands of clubs/bars/etc., street festivals, parades, museums - you name it! You might be thinking that I am referring to the lack of welcoming the German government (especially the foreign people's office) offers to their immigrants. (They are however wonderful to tourist!) Despite the fact that Germany has a declining birth rate and really needs to have well educated & skilled labor move to their "land of ideas", they have not yet to come up with a system for integrating the non-German speaking children into their system (i.e. the Turks), let alone done something to encourage the kind of educated people they need to stay. Yet, can I really say that it would be easier to migrate to the states? Nope, so I won't complain about that either. So if its not all that, then is it the fact that much of Berlin has dog shit all over the streets? Nope, wrong again. Although there seems to be no law or propaganda against people using the city as a large doggy shit box (I've never actually seen anyone pick up after their dog, they just walk out of the apartment, let their dog shit, and walk away as it its totally normal, after India, I can't really say that its such a big problem for me, although it is disgusting. I think Berlin's biggest problem is actually their incessant tobacco smoking. You can hardly go anywhere in this city without being subjected to what I consider to be ridiculously toxic levels of tobacco smoke. It's everywhere. If you walk or ride your bike down the street, you may be fine most of the time, but you never know when you're going to inhale a big breath of someone's smoke cloud as you wiz by. In theory one is forbidden to smoke in public transport waiting areas. Yeah right. It's probably the one rule that rule loving Germans love to break. (You gotta wait for the red man to tell you when you can walk across the empty street, or they can actually take away your driver's license on the first offense, but screw the no smoking signs!) The concept here of a smoking area is almost as foreign as it was to Spain ten years ago. If they actually have one, it's this pathetic little corner within a larger smoking area. I think this larger smoking section is actually named, 'Berlin'. During the winter they might not even have the windows open, and there are never any walls or doors to stop the smoke from engulfing you while you eat. Whatever rules I thought were the social norms of being polite in terms of smoking around others are totally non applicable here. Although someone actually eating with you might well ask if they can smoke while you eat (and not normally otherwise), the person sitting 18 inches to you on some other side certainly will not. I guess they have a different system of physics over here where smoke doesn't actually bother anyone not sitting at your table? If you ask some people to move their cigarette, or god forbid not to smoke, a common reaction would be to look at you as if you were being rude and letting you retched toxic fresh air leach into their personal space. Some people are aware enough to tune into how much it bothers Joel and me, normally after some effort on my part to help them understand how uncomfortable I feel in the middle of so much smoke. Some people will actually go outside or to the window in order to help us poor bothered people who just don't understand how unfair we are being to the smokers when we want to breathe oxygen. My favorite are the people that think they are being sooo considerate as they stand next to a window or on a porch as 95% of the smoke trail flows directly back into the room. So, I came up with the theory that one of the only smoke free places in Berlin was at home. Wrong again. With a bar underneath us, and workers that actually smoke inside our apartment building stairway, just opening the door or window could easily open yourself up to breathing in more smoke. Even one school I teach at is so smoky that it leaks under the classroom doors when I teach. Can you imagine such blatant disrespect for the rights of non smokers in other countries? Even southern and eastern Europe are amazingly ahead of where Germany is now. Much of the E.U. now have non=smoking regulations, that is, ones that actually mean something. Germany is such a progressive and conscious country in so many ways; I am really shocked that they have allowed themselves to be surpassed by countries like Spain and the Check Republic! How embarrassing. So, you may wonder, if many Germans don't smoke, why is the situation so extreme? Berliners seem to believe strongly that it is their right as a German citizen to not be told what to do. They like to come to their own conclusions out of understanding the facts and making a choice about what they think is correct; they like to be convinced, not forced. So, I have found many non-smokers here who still stick up for the rights of smokers even if they themselves don't really like the smoke. The concept of rights for non-smokers seems to be virtually non-existent. (I'm sure it doesn't help that the government taxes cigarettes heavily and doesn't know how it would balance its budget if people quit smoking.) Berliners defend their right to smoke adamantly, and I have to say, in most cases I think it's a good thing. At least with such a culture they are not as likely to end up with another dictatorial leader who creates reasons to take away their freedom. If only all citizens were so alert about the rapid decay of democracy. So, I conclude in saying that Germany is a great country, and Berlin is a great city despite whatever drawbacks I've mentioned here. After all, we wouldn't have stayed so long if it just sucked. There are so many positive things they have going for them, I just hope that soon they learn to value the rights of non-tobacco users at least as much as they do for tobacco users.