Topography of Terror & the Cold War

July 10, 2016:

I slept in until the bells started ringing. I don't remember what time it was, I just remember thinking that the bells hadn't gone off the day before, and then realizing it must be Sunday.

I didn't have a clear plan for the day either. I considered some of the other tours that I could do, and some of the museums, but I wasn't enthusiastic about anything. I'd received some comments on Facebook about Berlin being the greatest city in the world, and that I should make the most of it, and on the outside I knew that that was true. On the inside I was struggling with something, and I wasn't really sure what. I just knew I needed to start moving. I bought the hostel buffet breakfast and then took the U-bahn to Alexanderplatz. The day before I had purchased a tourist pass for the transit system because it seemed like every time I tried to use the machines to get a ticket, the machine froze and then everyone behind me in line thought I was really stupid (this was probably true). Of course, I forgot the tourist ticket in my locker at the hostel - at the time, I thought I had just lost it or thrown it out by mistake, or it would have been an easy fix to walk back to the hostel. I wasn't "all there", and I scraped together my coins with just enough for a one-way ticket.

I had a banana Nutella crepe in the market and then wandered around the square in Alexanderplatz for a while. A man approached me, talking a mile a minute in German, and I had the impression he was selling something or wanted to conduct a survey. I gave him my most helpless "tourist in the wild" expression, and asked "Sprachen zie Englisch ?" He answered, "Yes, but it has to be done in German," and he left. I continued to try to sort out my map. I was interested in the Jüdisches Museum Berlin and remembered that it would be near the Holocaust Memorial, so I began walking in that direction. For good measure, I thought I would at least walk around Museum Island to see what it was about, and was rewarded with an artisan's market where I found a magnet to add to the collection on my fridge, and a lot of interesting art that I wish I could afford (in terms of space in my luggage and financially). I was in no rush.

My walking took me back to Checkpoint Charlie. We hadn't had a lot of time to explore the area the day before, and I had heard that it was extremely kitsch, so it wasn't at the top of my list. The men dressed as American soldiers having their pictures taken with tourists was certainly kitsch, but the walls surrounding one of the paid exhibits included a timeline of the history of the wall. I started by reading one of them, and then couldn't stop reading them. Before I'd finished, I was thoroughly sunburned, but had a much greater understanding of the Cold War, and a greater understanding of the foundation of WWIII that we are currently living through. American occupation of Afghanistan was a response to the threat of the Communists in the USSR, and the weaponry and training that was provided to the Afghani (including Osama Bin Laden) was used against the Americans at the outbreak of this war. Western occupation of the Middle East is the source of most of the conflict happening now. Imagine if the Americans and Soviets had decided to negotiate a peaceful solution to their conflict after the destruction of WWII instead!

The obsessive need to read every panel despite the threat to my safety (in the form of burning skin cells) should have indicated to me that there was a problem, but I still did not clue in that this was part of the bigger picture of staying in and reading every night, and not feeling like I had enough energy or courage to make new friends at the hostel.

Down the road, the Topography of Terror museum had been recommended as something worth seeing if you were interested in WWII and the Holocaust. I read a lot of historical fiction, and there is so much that is set in WWII. I recently finished reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, and it was rewarding as a reader to see panels dedicated to the role of the radio in both propaganda and warfare. There were panels about every aspect of the war, and everything that led up to it. The museum is free. I must have spent several hours there, and many times I felt sick.

Overall, most of my new learning was about the conditions in Germany as the Nazi party rose to power, and then how that power was wielded before the outbreak of the war, building on what I had learned through fictional anecdote in All the Light We Cannot See. Some of my learning was about the conditions in the different occupied/collaborating countries during the war. I have a lot of knowledge about what happened in France because of books like Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, and even about what happened during Kristallnacht because of books like The Far Side of the Sky by Daniel Kalla, but I did not have much knowledge about what had happened in Belgium or Norway during the war.

And I read panels about the resistances happening in various countries. Another book I'd recently read was A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead about the role of women in the French resistance who were sent to Auschwitz. Many of those involved in the resistance against fascism were members of the Communist party. Of course there was information about the concentration camps.

I took a break to have a Coke in their cafeteria. What was most striking to me was the treatment of survivors of the Holocaust and the citizens of Berlin after the war.

Women were harassed and raped by the "Red Army" when the Soviets arrived in Germany.

Each side of the war dealt differently with denazification. Many Nazis were absorbed back into the system and most of the blame was placed on higher ups in the party who had committed suicide or escaped to other countries. I had watched Labyrinth of Lies on Netflix before leaving, which deals with the exposure of Nazis continuing to work in the public service even though they had been directly involved in the SS and Auschwitz.

On either side of Germany, survivors were denied reparations if they had been politically involved on behalf of the Communists (in West Germany) or the Fascists (in East Germany). In West German, a law was passed in 1950 that could retroactively revoke or simply deny restitution to politically active communists.

After the war, every woman aged 15-60 had to register to clear the rubble in the city. They cleaned and stockpiled bricks for rebuilding.

I was emotionally depleted. I had no more energy to go to the Jüdisches Museum Berlin, but after reading this review, I don't feel so badly that I missed it. I returned to the U-bahn where a man was playing beautiful violin music (balm for my soul), but I was short 20 cents for the ticket I needed. This transit system was the bane of my existence for the three days I had to deal with it. I climbed back up the stairs, each step taking energy I didn't have, and saw the Balzac Coffee shop and opted to break my 20 Euro bill with some cheesecake. It was the first time I had an entire interaction in German.

And it totally paid off.

Back at the hostel, I had my second halloumi burger, and stayed in the lobby to watch France and Portugal in the Eurocup 2016 finals. I was still feeling a heaviness that I couldn't explain. The first half was so boring, and I was trying my best to be excited about soccer because it's so popular in Europe, but I couldn't feign interest any longer and I knew I had to be up extremely early to catch my train so I packed my things and went to bed.

Berliner Fat Tire Bike Tour: Siegessäule/Victory Tower, Reichstag, Museum Island and the Brandenburg Gate

Third installment of the Berliner Fat Tire Bike Tour posts (post 1) (post 2).

July 9, 2016:

We tempered our disappointment about the lack of naked people and continued our ride through the park. I love public parks and this one is enormous and leafy and beautiful. Our next stop was the Siegessäule, or Berlin Victory Tower.

When Otto von Bismarck wanted to unify Germany, he thought the best way to do so would be to go to war with surrounding nations. Each layer of the victory tower is representative of a victory against a different nation - first the Danish, then the Austrians, and the phallic tower in the middle was to represent their victory against the French. The bronze statue of Victoria at the top is facing in the direction of Paris. Each of the cannons was seized in France, dragged across Germany to Berlin where it was painted gold and set up in rings around the tower. Apparently, the top of the tower is one of the best views of Berlin, and you can only get to it through tunnels that cross the roundabout underground. Each of the four entrances was also the site of a guard tower during the Nazi regime, and those towers are still there, pockmarked with bullet holes, representing the last of the Albert Speer's architecture (that well-known Nazi haha).

Hitler was an amateur architect, and his vision for the city, if the war had succeeded was to mimic the Champs-Élysées in France. The Siegessäule was at the centre of the Tiergarten, and the street leading from it to the Brandenburg Gate, the Straße de 17. Juni, is large and tree-lined. It was closed while we were there so that Berliners could watch the EuroCup on large screens along the street.

The Brandenberger Toris one of the most well-known landmarks in Germany. Originally, it was built as a symbol of peace. During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon liked the Quadriga (chariot) featuring Eirene (the goddess of Peace) on the top so much that he dragged it across Europe to the Louvre as part of his victory procession. When the Germans defeated France during the Franco-Prussian war, Otto von Bismarck brought it back and Eirene was replaced with Victoria, goddess of Victory, and added the symbol of Germany, the eagle. They renamed the square to Pariserplatz, literally "Paris Place" so that Germany could always look down on Paris in victory.

The head of Victoria is turned to face the French Embassy which is still located in the square. The Germans certainly have a sense of humour when it comes to France. During WWII, the gate was heavily bombed and has been restored, and during the Cold War, it was located in the No Man's Land between the two sides of the Berlin Wall. When the Wall was taken down, the gate became a symbol of reunification and freedom.

The gate is located one block from the Reichstag - German parliament. Neil explained that when Hitler rose to power, there was a fire in the Reichstag building that was blamed on a young man, recently arrived to Germany, who was a Dutch council communist. He was arrested near the scene of the fire. The Nazis used this as an opportunity to demonstrate that Communists were plotting against the government, and Hitler, as Chancellor, was able to convince the "President Paul von Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree to suspend civil liberties in order to counter the ruthless confrontation of the Communist Party of Germany" (Wikipedia). This resulted in the mass arrests of communists including all of the Communist party delegates in Parliament. "With their bitter rival communists gone and their seats empty, the Nazi Party went from being a plurality party to the majority, thus enabling Hitler to consolidate his power." Some historians, including our tour guide, believe that the Nazi party planned and executed the fires in order to increase their power. More than one fire was set at the same time and could not have been done by one man. It's also said that this man had a history of confessing to crimes he did not commit and was mentally unstable. Hitler never set foot in the Reichstag building after his election as Chancellor.

The current German Parliament has been reconstructed with a theme of transparency. Many of the buildings are made mostly of glass, and the articles of the Constitution are displayed as you pass them.

The last part of our tour was to pass Museum Island, which is, SURPRISE!, an island with most of the city's museums (#GermansNameThings). The Altes Museum, or "Old Museum", is the museum with the oldest artifacts from Ancient Greece and Rome. Neues Museum, or "New Museum", is the museum with artifacts from Egypt, including the bust of Nefertiti. There is also a coin collection museum which sounds like fun.

Right next to Museum Island is the Royal Cathedral, which is a classic example of the restoration efforts to make buildings look older than they are.

The sides of the building was burned after it was restored. The only original pieces on the Cathedral, as usual, are the statues which look mostly black.

As a result of WWI, the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires no longer exist, and so in 1918, "the German empire was abolished and replaced by the Weimar Republic. After the outbreak of the German revolution in 1918, both Emperor Wilhelm II and Crown Prince Wilhelm signed the document of abdication." (Wikipedia)

Neil told us that although Germany no longer has a Royal family, German taxpayers are currently footing the bill for the reconstruction of the Royal Palace with a price tag of 1 billion Euro. Originally, it was going to be funded by investors, all of whom have since backed out. It is a little baffling that, at a time when many countries in the EU are struggling with austerity measures, riots, protests, and the influx of Syrian refugees, the German Parliament approved a 1 billion Euro palace for which the purpose is unclear.

At the end of the tour, I returned to the hostel in search of something to eat, and came across momos, an organic vegetarian dumpling restaurant. All I can hope is that one day, they will expand as a franchise to Hamilton.

As days go, this one was satisfying, educational, and exhausting. I considered going out to listen to some jazz music to spite Hitler, or to try to find a swing dancing scene in Berlin, but the thought of going out at night on my own was daunting after my experiences walking back to my hostel in Munich, and I opted to read a little before tucking myself in for a well-deserved rest.

Berliner Fat Tire Bike Tour: The Cold War, Nazi Architecture, the Holocaust Memorial & Tiergarten

Part 2 of this post.

July 9, 2016:
 
At our next stop, Neil explained to us some of the history of the Cold War.

I had no idea that at the end of the war, the Allied forces divided up Germany and Berlin amongst themselves. As the Soviets had arrived in Berlin first, they got first pick and they chose the Eastern side which had all the highlights. The rest of Berlin was divided by the UK, the USA, and the French. The same happened with the rest of Germany, and the result was that portions of Berlin that belonged to the non-Soviet Allies were surrounded by Eastern Germany. The US and the Soviets had agreed to work together for the sake of winning WWII, but as soon as it was over, the clash of communism and "democracy" resumed and tensions resumed between the two groups.

Allied efforts to create a federal state without Soviet approval resulted in the Berlin Blockade of West Berlin. The Soviets hoped to gain control of the whole of Berlin. The blockade lasted for a year, and during this time, the Allied air forces delivered food and supplies by airlift. They told us that during the air lift, there was a plane landing approximately once a minute. 

For many people living in East Germany, they wanted to escape the conditions and at first, all they had to do was go to West Berlin and request to become West German. This was a problem for the Soviets who were trying to prove that communism was feasible. The result was the Berlin Wall. On August 13, 1961, the Soviets constructed the first phase of the Wall which consisted of barbed wire pulled around the East section of Berlin, and the Iron Curtain of the Soviet era also began to fall along the borders of East Germany.  The Wall was built with no warning. Some people who had spent the night in East Germany or who commuted to work in another section of Berlin were now trapped or separated from their families.

Checkpoint Charlie was the third checkpoint between East Germany and West Germany, named for the NATO Alphabet (Alfa, Bravo, Charlie).

The wall went through four stages of construction and many people were killed trying to escape from East Berlin over the wall. Soviet soldiers were placed in watch towers like this one:

They were only informed of their assignment a short time before their assignment, and there were always two guards so that they couldn't assist their own families' escape. Checkpoint Charlie was nearly the site of WWIII, and the Cold War was certainly a stepping stone to the war we find ourselves in currently.

Our tour passed the most hated building in Germany. The windows on the first floor of the building are at about head height and the doorways are built extra large to intimidate those that enter it. This building was site of the Luftwaffe headquarters. During the Soviet era, they made use of the building, followed by the Communists. Now, Germans, with their dark sense of humour, say its current occupants are the worst of the three - it's occupied by the finance ministry, responsible for collecting taxes. It's a surviving example of Nazi architecture on what was one the most dangerous street in the country. It was the only Nazi building left standing by the Soviets after the denazification of Germany.

Our last stop before lunch was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Originally, the artist, Peter Eisenman wanted to create a labyrinth, but this idea was turned down. Instead, the site consists of 19 000 sq metres covered with 2 711 concrete slabs in a grid pattern.

Neil gave us a few minutes to explore the memorial on our own. This was the most intense interactive art experience I've had. It didn't look like much but once you walk in and start turning corners or looking down between the stones, it is extremely disconcerting. The moment that will stay with me was looking down a corridor and seeing two sets of hands reaching towards each other across one of the passages.

The timing for lunch was perfect. We all needed a pick me up after a somewhat depressing series of stops. The Tiergarten had a lovely restaurant, called Schleusenkrug, where we abandoned our bikes, placed our orders for drinks, the kitchen, or the barbecue, and settled into shaded outdoor seating. My pumpkin seed-crusted beet salad was divine, and I met some lovely people from England, including a mother and daughter who were also vegetarian and an older couple on a weekend getaway in Germany.

Each of our bikes had its own name. Initially, they told us that they were named after famous German places or people.

When I asked who or what Shaq was, Neil looked at me strangely as he said, "He's a basketball player..."I responded, "Like the one in the US?" When we finally understood each other, he explained that they had so many bikes that they couldn't all have names of German places and people, so they started assigning random names, including names of the tour guides' friends and family. I was slightly disappointed because I had been really hoping that Shaq had a German counterpart, but I still liked my choice of bike.

We were unlucky on the next leg of our tour through Tiergarten - the weather wasn't nice enough to tempt any naked people out to the naked section of the park. Neil consoled us by telling us that most of the regulars were old men.

Berliner Fat Tire Bike Tour: Alexanderplatz, Bebelplatz and Gendarmenmarkt

July 8, 2016:

This was a boring travel day. The most interesting thing that happened was that I thought I had screwed up my train reservation, but it turns out I had just mixed it up with a previous train reservation I had used, and the proper one was hiding in my bag. I spent the day reading the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman on my tablet. It was absorbing and I moved on from The Golden Compass (Book 1) to The Subtle Knife (Book 2), but I occasionally took breaks to window watch.

During my fifth hour of travel, I saw the first lake I had seen in days! There was so much farmland it reminded me of driving through south-western Ontario, except for the rows of crops planted on the sides of hills so steep that a combine would surely tip over during harvest. I think now that these might have been hops plants. The forests were incredibly and uniquely beautiful and if it weren't for them, and the architecture in villages we passed, you would hardly know you were outside of Canada.

Once I arrived in Berlin, I managed to ask someone "Vor ist die S-bahn?" (Where is the S-bahn?") which I nicknamed the SkyWay in my head, and managed to book myself a ticket.

The Hauptbanhof (Central Station) was impressive, and so was the view from the SkyTrain to Alexanderplatz. It criss-crossed the river, which was boarded on either side by impressive buildings in various architectural styles, and kept up a neat pace as it weaved in and out of those buildings to our destination. Here, I also managed to find the right U-bahn (Untergrund-bahn, which is pretty self-exlanatory) train and found my way to the hostel without much effort. The Pfefferbett hostel was on the site of a former brewery, tucked into the corner of a chic mini-neighbourhood consisting of restaurants and music stages.

I checked in and noticed that the bar offered halloumi burgers, so I dined alone and retreated to my room to shower and keep reading. My one roommate was a friendly gentleman from Colombia who was in Berlin for vacation and was visiting several other major cities in Europe during his stay, but we didn't make plans to go out, and after I was saturated by the novel I went to sleep.

July 9, 2016:

One of my travel brochures recommended Fat Tire Tours and after feeling like I'd wasted a perfectly good night out, I convinced myself to do something. Someone had done a bike tour in Munich and said it was fantastic, so I thought this would be a good way to get an overview of the city. I also relished the opportunity to get some exercise that wasn't walking.

The tour met at Alexanderplatz, where the TV Tower looms about a beautiful square with fountains, a marketplace, St. Mary's Church, and the Red Town Hall. As a whole group, we were given a brief history of how Berlin came to be a major city in Germany.

It used to be all swampland, and the first people to settle it were the pagans in the 12th century, who called it "berl" which meant "swamp". The Romans hadn't really been interested in the area, and ignored it until Albert the Bear decided the pagans should be converted to Christianity in 1157. The emblem of modern day Berlin is the bear, given to them by Albert the Bear. Eventually, Berlin became part of the Kingdom of Prussia. Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian chancellor, is considered by some to be the father of Germany may have provoked an attack by the French in order to unite the Northern German Federation (including the Kingdom of Prussia) with the southern states in Germany, like Bavaria. The Franco-Prussian war in 1870 succeeded in doing this. I learned that Germany is a younger country than the United States.

Our tour guide, Neil, was awesome. He explained to us that during the Cold War the Soviets had built the TV Tower as a way to show Western Europe that they were capable of technological feats, but they had to quietly sneak two Swedish engineers across the Berlin Wall to help the finish the tower because they couldn't get it to work. He also made the first joke of the day about German creativity. The Red Town Hall is literally a red Town Hall building. The TV Tower is literally a TV Tower. Mentally, I started a game of "#GermansNameThings" after the Twitter hashtag inspired by BoatyMcBoatface, and the "#InternetNamesAnimals" phenomenon.

The red and blue pipes that come out of the ground are there because of Berlin's origin as a swampland. Every time new construction takes place, these pipes are installed to drain the land beneath the new construction. They are meant to be temporary, but apparently they often remain.

One of our first stops was Bebelplatz which is framed by St. Hedwig's Cathedral, Humboldt University (one of the best respected universities in Europe), and the Opera House. Next to St. Hedwig's Cathedral is notable because it is a Catholic cathedral is a predominantly protestant city. Next to it is an alley called "Hinter der Katholischen Kirche" which literally means Behind the Catholic Church #GermansNameThings.

In the centre of the square is a glass panel, and when you look down into it, there are empty bookshelves that seem to be extending into the ground. This is the Book Burning Memorial. Apparently, the shelves would hold the 20 000 books that were burned by students when they were called to do so by the Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels. "The books targeted for burning were those viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism. These included books written by Jewish, [homosexual,] pacifist, classical liberal, anarchist, socialist, and communist authors, among others." These included the works of Heinrich Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein and many other authors. Our guide told us that German scientists were banned from using any of the theories of these authors in their own research, which may have saved the world from the nuclear warfare. The Nazis attempting to develop nuclear weapons were not allowed to use Albert Einstein's theories. Einstein had been a professor at Humboldt University a year prior to the book burnings, but he left Germany when the Nazis started to rise to power.

Micha Ullman describes his memorial as representing the presence of absence: "It begins with the void that exists in every pit and will not disappear. You could say that emptiness is a state, a situation formed by the sides of the pit: The deeper it is, the more sky there will be and the greater the void. In the library containing the missing books, that void is more palpable. We expect [the books] but they are not there."^[2]
In the square, there is also a plaque with a quote written in 1820 by one of the persecuted authors, Heinrich Heine, which reads: "“Where books are burned in the end people will burn.”^[4] He wrote it about the Spanish Inquisition in his play Almansor. The Spanish burned Jewish writings, and Heine was noticing similar nationalistic, antisemitic attitudes in his peers following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. He may as well have predicted the Nazi Final Solution.

We also learned that Hitler was a huge fan of opera, especially Wagner, and that when the Opera House was bombed early on in WWII, it was repaired immediately so that Hitler could continue to attend. He abhorred jazz music, which is his loss.

We passed through the French quarter, which Neil explained to us was the result of Frederick William (the "Great Elector")'s policy of promoting immigration and religious tolerance. In 1685, he invited persecuted French Protestants (the Calvinist Huguenots) when they were exiled from France by Louis XIV and 6000 of the 15 000 who came to Germany settled in Berlin.

He had a French Cathedral, the Französischer Dom (#GermansNameThings), built in the Gendarmenmarkt to entice them, which caused some consternation from the Germans Protestants who still didn't have their own place of worship, so the German Cathedral, or Deutscher Dom (#GermansNameThings), was built directly across the square and was slightly nicer.

These buildings were reconstructed from their plans by the Soviets after the end of WWII, and the walls were burned to make them look older. One of the only original things about buildings in Berlin are the statues which Hitler had removed prior to the war. They were sunk in lakes or hidden in parks under camouflage. On the Konzerthaus (#GermansNameThings), you can see bullet holes in some of the columns that survived the Allied bombings.

We continued our tour toward Checkpoint Charlie.

Single Woman Traveling Alone

The last time I was catcalled street harassed in Canada, I was out for a run with my sister and a car full of men shouted at us as they drove by. In my head, when I'm running, I motivate myself by getting angry at potential perpetrators of street harassment and imagining how I would respond to them if I have to. Not quite the strategy that Mindy Kaling uses, but I think we are kindred spirits anyway.

But often, when street harassment happens, you don't have time to think of a witty comeback, or to consider what the best option is for responding to it. The reason that that anger is enough to motivate me is because I wasn't able to stand up for my right to be woman in public.

Normally, I might not have included these stories in my blog, but I recently read Sex Object: A Memoir by Jessica Valenti and it unlocked something in me that I have been struggling to understand for most of my adult life...

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B015CYFEX6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Mainly, that I would be a different person, and my life would be much different, if I hadn't had to contend with sexism on a daily basis since I was a child. Her memoir explores the relentless presence of everyday sexism and misogyny (as well as the extreme) and the impact it has had on her cumulatively. I've chosen to explore the incidences of street harassment that I experienced over the course of three days on my trip, because they influenced decisions I made throughout the rest of my time in Europe. None of them were benign. The purpose of each incident was to remind me that as a woman I only exist to be evaluated by men, and that the public domain does not belong to me.

July 5, 2016: 8am Paris

Taking the metro to the train station, I noticed many glances directed at my chest while I sat on a bench. Women are not decoration. I don't want that kind of attention while I attempt to go about my day. On another metro train during the same trip, there was a man that seemed to purposely get as close to me as possible, always in my personal space, even though it wasn't nearly as crowded as the first metro train. I was reminded of Valenti's experiences on the NYC subway, when a man rubbed against her inconspicuously so many times that he ejaculated on the back of her jeans. She was 13 years old. There are websites dedicated to men who do this as a fetish. And although nothing like this happened to me, I was concerned about these possibilities during my entire trip to the train station, and that is important. I have witnessed men becoming violent to women who reject their advances in enclosed spaces where there is nowhere to escape. Women are at the mercy of bystanders in those situations. I avoided eye contact as much as possible, not wanting to "invite" someone to make comments to me. Do these men believe that propositioning women in public by saying sexually suggestive things is going to be appealing to them? Have they ever experienced a woman responding positively to these advances? No. The purpose is not to find a partner or to make a date with someone. The purpose is to assert dominance, to intimidate women.

July 5, 2016: 10am Paris

I was walking in the area around the train station, passing the time between my arrival at the train station and my departure two and half hours later. I was looking for a place where I could set down my backpack and read for a while. A man said "Bonjour" to me as he passed and when I responded with "Bonjour", he started walking in the same direction as me, slightly ahead, but frequently looking back to make sure I was still walking in that direction. What was the appropriate response from me? Should I have ignored a potentially benign "hello" and risked being called a bitch or something worse? I didn't know what to do. The other men on the sidewalk around us were potentially his friends. I was mentally calculating escape routes. He asked me, in French, why he hadn't met me before, considering I was so beautiful. There is no right answer to that question, except to get into a long conversation about where I am from and the fact that I am touring Paris (all of this is dangerous information to share, and was already obvious due to the proximity of the train station, my massive backpack and my distinctly North American running shoes). Thankfully, when my expression went stony and I didn't answer, he left. I felt terrified of interacting with anyone during the rest of my time in that quartier. I was grateful that nothing worse had happened.

July 5, 2016: 9pm Munich

After arriving at my hostel and showering, I put on one of my favourite dresses and some makeup, anticipating that after dinner I might want to go out or to meet people. I went to the train station across the street to see if I could find somewhere to eat. My first stop was a small variety store that had some meals in one corner of the store. As I was looking through the options to see if there was anything vegetarian, an older man came up and began looking at the yogurts and cheeses a few paces to my right. Effectively, he was blocking my way out of the corner, but at that moment I wasn't aware of this. When I looked up to leave because I hadn't found anything, he told me something in German. I looked it up with my best phonetic spelling and my best guess is that he told me I looked beautiful. I awkwardly looked perplexed and sidled away. For all I know he was commenting on the sandwiches, but I felt uncomfortable about the exchange. It is interesting to me that women get harassed for not accepting compliments the way the harasser wanted them to, but if a woman has enough self-confidence to tell them "I know" in response, there is something wrong with that, too.

July 6, 2016: 12am-5am Munich

I know I am an excellent dancer. This was the night I overheard someone refer to me as Vanilla Ice. I like getting attention from my friends while I dance. While I was dancing, an older man in the club took my hands before I had time to process what was happening and starting dancing with me. The girls I was with promptly pulled me out of his grasp while I looked directly at him and said "nein". But he questioned me and I had to repeat myself. No means no. Not asking me means I have no opportunity to consent to dancing with you. Someone I did consent to dance with kept putting his arms over mine to try to pin them to my side. He seemed to want me to only pay attention to him, and not to dance, as if dancing is something I do for other people instead of myself. After all, women only exist for men's pleasure, nein?

July 8, 2016: 1:30am Munich

After our excursion to Tollwood, I shared a cab back to my hostel. I can't help but wonder at the fact that on July 7, I chose to stay in a hotel room with two men I had recently met to avoid walking 20 minutes in the city after dark, which all three of us deemed too unsafe, but these same two men had no reservations about doing just that the following night. Aziz Ansari's Master of None captures this male privilege pretty perfectly:

I got out of the cab directly across the street from the small side street where my hostel was located. I had to cross the street and walk down that street to get to my hostel. I don't like crossing the street where there are no crosswalks unless it is a very low traffic area, so I walked toward the train station where there was a crosswalk. A man on the sidewalk put himself in my path, said something angrily to me in German (German doesn't always sound angry), and aggressively slammed into my shoulder with his. He was with a group who said nothing to him and did not interfere. Ten metres later, another man started speaking to me in German as well, less aggressively, and I shook my head and kept going. He was with a group as well. Standing up for myself could have resulted in real violence. I felt humiliated and like crying. I made it back to my hostel safely, but with a quiet terror and adrenaline and cortisol pumping through my body. People on the internet claim that these types of incidents are not representative of all men  (#NotAllMen) but none of their friends told the harassers to leave me alone.

All of these experiences combined to have a huge impact on my time in Berlin, in particular. I didn't go out at night. I didn't make an effort to make friends. I unconsciously tried to make myself smaller in public. And I didn't realize that the two were related until I retold my stories to my friend several days later.

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If you are interested in more stories of women traveling alone, I read this book on my trip to Newfoundland last summer and it was just as it's described by the publisher: "sometimes tragic, sometimes uproariously funny". I would highly recommend it.

http://caitlin-press.com/our-books/this-place-a-stranger/