The past few days have been full of geopolitical a-ha moments.

So the Brandenburg state election results are in, and the AfD (the right-wing fascist party) made huge gains here. Yes, that’s the state in which we are living. Yikes. I mean, Berlin is just a stone’s throw from here through the woods, but we are living in Brandenburg. This is just a reminder of the ways in which the nativist politics of Trump and particularly anti-immigrant sentiments are so resonant in many pockets of the world right now. It is chilling. And the war in the Middle East is ramping up in ways that are all too predictable, with no end in sight. At least I had a bright moment seeing this poster at the Berlin British School last weekend:

At Julian’s soccer tournament (where said poster was seen by the classrooms), I met a lovely mom from Uganda who shed some light on why I haven’t met any Jewish people here yet. She just moved here from Shanghai with her German husband and twin middle schoolers, and they attend the rival international school who Julian’s team played against in the tournament. Incidentally, we were the only two parents who showed up to watch the games. All the other parents just dropped off their kids. How strange! Anyway, I asked her if there were many Jewish families at her school, and she instantly responded that at least 15% of their student body is Jewish. She also said that the school has had a ton of private security 24/7 since the war with Hamas (and now Hezbollah) began. I asked if she knew any of the Jewish moms at her school, and she said that they are mostly Israeli, and she’d be glad to connect me with the ones she knows. Hopefully I can find out about some Rosh Hashanah related events around here. Apparently since October 7th, all of the usual public Jewish festivals and celebrations in Berlin have been cancelled, and the community has been keeping a very low profile. I was hoping the stringent anti-semitism laws here would be a breath of fresh air, but apparently laws are no competition for the geopolitical mess of the moment. Ugh.

At a flea market downtown on Sunday, I met a Russian teenager who was selling old Soviet military ribbons, buttons and other bizarre items like Russian dolls with Trump’s face on them.

But buried in the morass of schlock on the table were a few beautiful Judaica items that I asked about. That led to a fascinating conversation with him about the Jewish community in Berlin, which he said is mostly Russian, and now has around 200,000 people who came here after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. He gave me the name of a website for the Berlin Jewish community and suggested I look up events there. Unfortunately, the website only has information in German and Russian. Clearly the Russian community is the primary target audience. I’ll have some QT with Google Translate later on to see what information I can extract, but it sounds like it is highly unlikely that there will be any communal events for English speakers. But I’ll keep poking around! All of this helps me to understand why the German government is eager to restore citizenship for people like me with German Jewish heritage. Because no one stuck around. Everyone who could get out went to the U.S. or Israel. And now, the Jews who are here seem to be either Israelis fleeing war, or Russians who fled the upheaval of the Soviet Union. Most of the synagogues that were shuttered and/or damaged during WWII were only reinstated in the late 90s or early 2000s, and it seems that most of the restoration was led by Russian Jews. Somehow, I didn’t expect this to be the state of the local Jewish community in Berlin, even though it makes perfect sense. I guess this means that my hope of reuniting with other German Jewish people is actually pretty far-fetched. Like me, they are more likely to now be American Jews.

More broadly, the last couple of weeks have been full of adjustments, with the usual ups and downs of culture shock and navigating expat life here. I had a week of recovering from a cold that coincided with some cooler and moderately rainy weather (not the crazy storms that flooded Austria and Romania, thankfully!), and several days of frustrations with sundry tasks like trying to figuring out how to get cash from our German online bank account (several hours spent biking to multiple locations but still unresolved), and learning the in’s & out’s of recycling here, which has altogether different categories from home, including a huge bin just for “packaging” which is largely soft plastics. Plus the kitchen garbage receptacles are about 1/4 the size of the ones at home, so I’ve been taking out the waste bins nearly every day. I also had a Sunday flop in which 90 minutes of riding public transit to meet another mom at a flea market had me end up 9 miles from my destination. This was due to the fact that, unbeknownst to me, the zip code is a mission critical piece of information to include with every address one inputs into Apple Maps here, as there are so many duplicate street names in Berlin. At least now I know, but it was rather embarrassing to goof up that royally.

I also tried out a local Yoga Schule that is only three blocks from the house, so an easy bike ride, even in the dark. I went to an 8pm Vinyasa class that I had signed up for online, and when I arrived at the house and parked my bike, I was a little surprised to see a shoe rack outside where a small sign indicated we should deposit our shoes before entering the studio. The instructor smiled when I arrived but clearly spoke no English, so I set up my mat and stretched out as I waited for class to begin. None of the other students really smiled or said “halo” or anything, and the overall vibe wasn’t quite as warm (nor was the weather!) as the first studio I had tried out. The class began, again all in German, which fazed me less on this round two. However, the class was a bit bizarre in that most of the poses were done from a seated position rather than standing, which didn’t allow the deep stretches I was hoping for, and was just a little odd. I don’t think I’ll return to that particular teacher. At the end of class, there was again hot tea served, which was much more enjoyable on a night with a cooler temperature. Unfortunately, one of the other students dropped her tea glass, which shattered all over the studio while all of us were barefoot. I really wished my shoes were a bit closer! I tiptoed to the exit, only to find that one of my shoes was not where I had left it on the outdoor shelf. I was so confused and started asking if anyone had seen another shoe like the one I was now holding (thankfully just a sports sandal). One of the women pointed to a small sign on the shoe rack with a cute red icon of a fox on it and a message in German that I didn’t understand. Another woman pointed to my other shoe in the nearby bushes and laughed. So I hopped over to grab my other shoe, grateful that it was at least there since I was biking home, and in the dark. The shoe was a little wet, and one of the straps was slightly torn. Another woman pointed to the sign with the fox icon and made a chewing motion, and I then understood that apparently, a local fox often took shoes from this outdoor rack, and had taken my shoe to chew on and play with before tossing it in the bushes. Gross.

Fortunately, the sun came out the next day and gave us a week of beautiful September weather, and I hopped back onto Forest to resume exploring. I found a fabulous local spot called Lisa’s Cafe that is perfect for sitting to work on a laptop (albeit with my hotspot as it is rare to find free wifi here). There is often evening jazz or an open mic night at Lisa’s Cafe, too. Fun! And at the cafe, there was a flyer for a group called “We Sing Berlin”, which is a weekly gathering for English-speaking expats to come and sing together. That is right up my alley, and I can’t wait to check it out.

I went out on my bike every day last week, generally just riding to & from the train station 15 minutes away to hop into the city, but also navigating my way to various locations for parents’ events for the school. I had an unintentional 50 minute bike ride an event called Berlin 101, which Apple Maps suggested would take me 20 minutes, but it turns out that following navigation on an Apple Watch while riding a bike on a narrow path is not easy, and I missed a bunch of turns, not knowing if they were meant to be actual streets or just random unmarked bike paths into the woods. Fortunately, another mom who lives near us generously offered to toss Forest in the back of her Jeep Cherokee and drive me home from that event. What a gift! It turns out that she is from Ukiah, her husband works at the US Embassy, and she is an actress on the side. She just returned from Chicago where she was in an episode of Chicago PD. This was particularly cool to hear since my brother was in an episode of Chicago PD not too long ago. She ended up being at several other parent events I attended last week– and was just the first of many new connections!

One day, I went to a mom’s gathering the New National Gallery downtown for an Andy Warhol exhibit, followed by a fun lunch afterwards with half a dozen other moms, and an afternoon on my own strolling around the Brooklyn of Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg, which was picture perfect. The next day culminated in an evening book club just around the corner from our house. Before book club, some of the embassy moms from the post-museum lunch had invited me over for pre-book club cocktails, which was a blast. We had Aperol Spritzes and snacks for about an hour before hopping on our bikes for a quick ride to the home of this month’s book club host. When we arrived, there were about 20 moms there, and a much more intellectual crowd than the museum or the other parent forums. What a fun group! Our first book discussion will be next month- I can’t wait!

And it was a potluck– so I had a chance to make a yummy new fall salad recipe with fennel and celery. The cuisine here is basically all carbs… bread, cakes, potatoes, cookies, quiche… so it was nice to have something green on the table! I had so many wonderful conversations with the book club moms, including learning about a two-week volunteer program in Tanzania that I’m looking into for the spring, and hearing all about the American Women’s Club of Berlin, which hosts tons of events every week. Of course I joined right away, and can’t wait to see who I meet through that organization as well. We stayed late into the night, and Julian beat me home after his first invitation to a friend’s house over in Potsdam. He had a blast, and made his way home after dinner there on two buses plus his bike. It’s so great that he can be so independent with his transportation!

My last social event of the week was hosting Mah Jong, which was kind of hilarious since I have never played before and don’t know the rules. But it was exciting to have our first guests over, and I made another salad for our potluck lunch. True to form, everyone else brought either baked goods or other carbs. The small crowd who came was delightful, and they were very patient in teaching me the rules of the simplified Chinese version of the game, which is apparently much easier than the American version. Phew! It was a beautiful day, so we played for several hours at the dining room table with the door open to the backyard. How bizarre to have so much free time during the day– it definitely is a shock to my system!

Julian and I have had several fun outings on the weekends as well. We got tickets to an exhibit downtown called IKONO that was basically a giant playhouse with artsy interactive rooms to take silly photos and generally goof around, which was awesome.

We did get some great photos, and also had a leisurely Italian lunch (where Julian enjoyed a shandy) before checking out a cool sports car exhibit called ICONIC at the downtown VW headquarters.

And this past weekend, we went to a fun park with Thai vendors cooking up local specialties, with seating at shared tables and some flattened cardboard boxes taped to the sidewalk. The food was delish, and it was so exciting to have legit Thai food, since most of the Asian restaurants here are the odd combination of Vietnamese dishes and sushi.

All in all, we are settling into our new lives here, with the usual good days and bumpy days. Jonathan gets back from California in a couple of days, and my dad arrives for a visit tomorrow! Our time will include visits to the city where his mom grew up (Aachen), and the town where his parents fled from the Nazis. Thanks to my cousin Danny, I just learned more details of their escape in 1937 from Dessau, which is only an hour south of here! We’ll head there next weekend to see if we can find any remnants of their residence there.