Two Weeks In Berlin

These first weeks of my two months in Berlin as an Arthur F. Burns Fellow have been in a word: surreal.

Surreal to be traveling as the pandemic continues, surreal to be taking a break from the nonstop Georgia politics world.

In fact, I am literally barred from reading many American newspapers with my German IP address because the papers don’t comply with EU privacy regulations, apparently. But there’s much to read and learn about here without all that American news.

The elections are just ahead on September 26 and campaign posters recently went up in Berlin. The major question is who will succeed Angela Merkel, the country’s leader of 16 years. Right now, her party is polling ahead, but not by much. And given Germany’s political structure, a coalition government is extremely likely.

There’s Germany’s vaccination rate, which is at 57%, now outpacing the U.S.’s about 50%. And the government just announced starting in October that rapid COVID tests will cost money—an effort to encourage even more shots. In many indoor places here, you’re required to show either a vaccination card or a recent negative test to enter.

And then there’s just this language. I’ve been taking daily German classes with my colleagues on the fellowship, which have been both humbling and fun. As someone described it to me, this is a “Tetris language,” which means often if you learn smaller words, you can decipher bigger ones.

Exhibit A: the word for dictionary? “Words book” / das Wörterbuch

And finally, in these first weeks, I’ve managed to file my first hard-hitting Berlin dateline…about the nightclubs.

Unlike many American cities, Berlin’s world-renowned clubs have been closed to indoor dancing since last March. In an effort to change that, the Berlin government spent €40,000 on a “Clubculture Reboot” Pilot Project. Basically, it was a state-sponsored club crawl in which 2,000 participants had to get PCR tested before and after, with the goal of gathering data to prove clubs can reopen with this model safely.

So to hear more of my reporting straight from the clubs, listen below and read more here.

Bis bald!