Life at Uncle Tom's Cabin

As I’ve mentioned before, I live by the Onkel-Toms-Hütte (literally Uncle Tom's Cabin) subway stop and on Onkel Tom Straße (Street). According to Wikipedia, some guy named Thomas set up a bar in the area in 1885. He put in a number of huts in the beer garden, which became known as "Tom's huts." The name reminded people of the book, and later a movie theater and street were named the same thing. The bar was eventually demolished in the 70's, leaving the namesake to the street and U-Bahn station. Southwest of the city center, it’s a quiet suburb that is substantially different from many of the more happening places in Berlin. We have a few grocery stores, a bakery, two haircut places, and not enough restaurants.

The apartment, like the generic image of cabins I hold in my mind, is quite small. I often find myself negotiating tight turns, stepping over bed corners, and squeezing through doors that don’t open all the way because something is stored on the other side. Most of the tables fold up, and household items seem to fit like jigsaw puzzles on precious horizontal surfaces. Because of such limited spaces, things constantly get moved from one surface to another when a surface is called upon for the activity of the moment.

And I like it.

More than a house that holds your possessions and keeps out the uncomfortable elements, it’s the kind of home that lives and co-exists with you. Frau Scholz-Stahnke’s free flowing water colors cover the walls, jagged pink crystal-like rocks line the top of the living room’s main shelf, and candles of various shapes and sizes litter the house. Books, magazines, and newspapers are everywhere but never seem to remain in the same place. In her kitchen, she has honey from an Argentina beekeeper and jam from South Africa—things that she’s been all too eager to share with me.

Most of all, Frau Scholz-Stahnke is basically the best host mom I could have asked for. Some of my friends have never had a single extended conversation with their host families, and I’m pretty glad that I’ve had the opportunity to get to know mine. Frau Scholz-Stahnke was a teacher for 30 years, like my own grandmother, and her passion for learning is evident in all the books that fill the room I stay in—literature, science, alternative medicine, education, architecture, languages, and too many other titles in German that I can’t decipher. She’s down with an informed political discussion, attends seminars held at local universities, and tells me she’s working on yet another new language.

Even more telling is her attitude towards the future. She’s a grandmother who embraces the rapidly changing world. She once told me that she wants put to her all her “informations” on her laptop, so one day she can go without paper. She Skypes with her daughter in Sevilla regularly, uses email, and is a frequent Internet surfer. Read that again. She’s 65. How many grandmothers do you know who talk about living a paperless life?

She’s probably also fed me more food than any of the other host parents. Just now, she brought me a tray of Salbei tea, miso soup, her homemade cake, and a glass of red wine. She’s always offering me her homemade bread. There is also a brand new, unabridged dictionary-sized, vegetarian cookbook in her kitchen. I’m pretty sure she bought it in preparation of my living here.

When I got sick this past week, she blitzkrieged my cold with two kinds of Vitamin C tablets, gallons of tea with honey, homeopathic drops, warm lemon juice, salt water, soup, blankets, jackets, and socks.

Oh yeah, did I mention that all the host is required to do is provide a room and a place for me to cook? Yeah, Frau Scholz-Stahnke’s cabin pretty much rocks.

Location, location, location

I had plans to go to Oktoberfest in Munich this three-day Reunification weekend, but I started getting sick on Tuesday. I woke up this morning and knew that it would be a total disaster for my health if I went. So, I sat out on the giant party and sat down with my host mom and had breakfast—her homemade rolls with shiitake mushroom spread and tea with honey.

My host mom suggested that I can instead go to Prague, which apparently is 3 hours by train. Or maybe take a short trip to Copenhagen, also a few hours away.

Growing up in Houston, getting in the car for 5 hours meant going to Dallas and 3 hours meant Austin or San Antonio. If we drive for the good part of the day, then we might be in Oklahoma. I’m not hating, but Oklahoma is no Czech Republic. Arriving at Stanford, I thought it was so great that good beaches are within reach and Lake Tahoe is six hours away. At Admit Weekend, we were told that it’s even possible to go to the beach and go skiing in the same day.

Berlin kind of blows all that away.

The fact that countries are within a 5 hour commute is pretty incredible to me. Even if I stay in the city—there’s plenty to see. I grew up in the suburbs, and living in a city like Berlin really makes me wonder if I missed out on some things. Here, I can get anywhere on public transportation, which is always on time. Lakes, nightlife, museums, and new places are all within reach via U-Bahn or S-Bahn. Walking two blocks from my homestay puts me in a forest with two lakes.

In any case, I’ll stop swooning and go book a train ticket or something.

Welcome to Berlin!

I spent the last two weeks as a migrant moving from one place to another: Houston, various rooms at Stanford, and finally to Berlin. After my temporary housing at Stanford expired, my friend Mario was kind enough to let me stay in his single. I tried to be as out of the way as possible and stacked my stuff into one neat but oversized stack everyday.


The flight was long but smooth, but it was a labrynth getting through the Frankfurt airport. I went up elevators, down escalators, through tunnels, past customs, past security checks, through more tunnels, more moving sidewalk deals, then ended up here. waiting for my connecting flight at Frankfurt airport, reading the Financial Times and sipping coffee to stay awake (I had essentially pulled an all nighter).

In any case, I arrived at center and the Stanford in Berlin staff were just amazingly nice. My classmates were generally friendly, and I immediately started talking to some of them beyond names, what they did during the summer, and how their flight was. After the paper work, I waited for the taxi to take me to my homestay, which didn't come for a good 45 minutes even though they said 5-10 minutes. And Germans are punctual too; shame on the taxi driver.

I pulled up to my homestay's house on Onkel-Tom-Str.-you read that right, and their U-Bahn station is called Onkel Toms Hutte-in my taxi and they were waiting for me. I was expecting one person, but I found three people greeting me at the door: my host Monika, her daughter Kathy, and her daughter Elyssa. Kathy doesn't live in this apartment anymore, but instead lives more towards the center of the city. Her daughter Elyssa, 7 years old, is adorable and quiet (in part because she didn't speak much English). Kathy and I immediately started talking at the dinner table while Monika was prepared a delicious dinner. She never really sat down for more than five minutes because she was so busy preparing the courses for the evening: dried olives, pasta with tomato sauce, declious 2005 something wine, freshly brewed coffee made from beans an Austrian man roasted himself, and the "biological" (organic) cake that Monika made. Talk about being spoiled.

During dinner, Kathy (kah-ti) mentioned that it was her friend Patrick's birthday, and he was going to celebrate it at a salsa club. She asked me if i was interested, and of course I saidyes--why would i come this far and sit out on my first chance at cultural immersion?

On the way there, Kathy diligently explained to me how the Berlin public transit system worked, trained me to navigate myself, and in no time we were there. it was around 9:45pm and we walked from the station to the club, which by day is a indoor put-put golf lounge--Capitol City Golf Lounge. She describes it as a retiree-friendly atmosphere, but I didn't see that many old folks. On the way there, we stopped by the Spree River that runs through Berlin. It was nice that I was already seeing some attractions. The air was cool and the river was calming in its size and darkness.

When we arrived at the club, we got in free because Kathy actually teaches salsa. I definitely felt like a badass getting into a retiree-friendly salsa/put-put club for free. Kathy and her friends were welcoming. When they weren't dancing, they would come over to talk to me and buy me drinks and introduce me to new people, who would toast, "Welcome to Berlin!" I had my first beer in Germany, a Beck's, which apparently is the first German beer company to use green bottles. I also busted out some knowledge about Cuban rueda salsa, which definitely impressed her friends. ¡Un fly!

On the way home, Kathy gave me another useful tip about Berlin public transit: if you're catching the U-Bahn at night, you better run. In the evenings, the trains come in intervals of 13-17 minutes, so if you miss it you're in for a long wait. We made all our transfers with seconds to spare, and she dropped me off at U3 for me to return to Uncle Tom's Cabin.