The week before classes started, I went to Kyiv (not Kiev, which is the Russian spelling). My friend Jared is a journalist I know from our Minneapolis days, and he’s been living there for the last two years. Twice last year he came to visit Berlin when the frequent air raids started to fray his Read more

In seventh grade, I was cast as the Reverend Mother in my middle school production of The Sound of Music. I was also in Bel Canto Singers, the premiere girls’ choir in Minneapolis. On a grey Sunday afternoon the weekend after the cast list had been posted for The Sound of Music, while my parents Read more

This is the fourth apartment I have lived in since moving to Berlin in September. It might not be my last before I leave for the summer on June 21st. You will recall that I had two more apartments to my name before I even landed in Berlin. You will recall that in December I Read more

It’s a chilly-grey Saturday morning in Berlin. Still early—just before 10—and I’m watching the shops open, and the carnation-sellers in their approximate uniforms of white shirts and black pants arrange and rearrange their cute little cart and buckets of flowers, clumsily deciding on the best spot to promote whatever unneeded brand they are here to Read more

Merry Fourth Day of Christmas, vom der staat Nordrhein-Westfalen im Deutschland! I am sitting on the sofa at Inge and Karl Heinz’s house, watching the unhurried turning of the huge windmill’s unbelievable sails as the setting sun sets jet trails a blazing orange above the deep blue silhouettes of the mittelgebirge, themselves hunching shadows behind Read more

Despite its cozy appearance (and ‘cozy’ may be an understatement), this little French pub is freezing. Paris is the worst kind of cold tonight: windy, hovering just above freezing, and throwing biting little raindrops every which way. But this tiny corner bar is staffed by a young woman wearing cat-eyed liquid liner and a hoodie. Read more

A classmate was out of the country at a conference last week, so I sent them daily updates about what we did in class. I thought you might enjoy this insider view the first week of the Poetic Embodiment module. MONDAY Today Instructor M brought in a bunch of different objects for us to play Read more

It’s my first Saturday evening in Berlin out from under the cloud of jet lag. I’ve found a gorgeous little spot called Rhinoceros, a small, dark, candle-lit cocktail bar spinning jazz on vinyl. It’s one of a handful of English-forward places I’ve found—anywhere that calls itself a cocktail bar is liable to be, I think—and Read more