Life Lessons from the Dorf

We've left Dusseldorf. The flat has been vacated, we're registered at the Burgeramt, and a new chapter of our lives in Berlin is beginning. But, after living in the Dorf for almost five years, it would be hard, even for me, not to have learned a few life lessons there.

 

 

Stay out of the bike lane

 

When I was in Dresden, my local friend kept on telling me to stay out of the bike lane. What bike lane? All I saw was the sidewalk and another sidewalk right beside it with the bricks laid differently. Then a bike shot past us on the other sidewalk. Oh.

 

It's so easy to poke fun at the German love for bureaucracy, rules, and regulations, along with the joy some Germans have for lecturing others to abide by those rules. But, one of the upsides of this strange respect for the rules is that things run very well here. There are line-ups at the government office, but everyone waits their turn. Bridges get built. Cars roll off the assembly line. Civic life and business chug on

 

In fact, things go smoother when you go a bit beyond their rules. When I was applying for my permanent residence, I brought two copies of all my required papers to the government office. The official's expression brightened when she saw my filing cabinet worth of documents, and I got my permanent residence without a hitch.

 

 

You don't have to love Dusseldorf to appreciate it

 

Before we arrived in Dusseldorf, we both lived in Budapest and Kata lived in Berlin, both are exciting, bustling capital cities. Our first impression of the Dorf was a small, dull rich person's village. Of course, first impressions are usually biased, not entirely correct, and never fair. Dusseldorf is a rich town, but it wasn't dull. It's an art city, with some fantastic galleries. Its Altstadt is a big, sloppy party place that a younger, more wild Marshall would've appreciated. It sits on the east side of the Rhine, which makes for some lovely sunsets. It's international, filled with people from all over the world and restaurants serving every type of cuisine to feed them. We didn't love the Dorf, but we liked living there.

None of that exciting stuff really matters

 

Sometimes we craved a solid outdoor drinking spot, like what we loved in Budapest. Sometimes we wanted a great weekend program, like what we had in Berlin. It's easy to look around at any new city, and think: Well, it doesn't have these things...

 

Yet, day to day life in the Dorf is fantastic. You could ride your bike anywhere in the city in a half hour. The transit was mostly reliable. Our son had a great Kita, or daycare, in a park right on a pond. There was always a park nearby. There were forests and hill nearby for hiking. You could walk along the Rhine on a warm summer evening and drink a cold beer. The city was so safe that the city's "bad" neighbourhood looked like a good neighbourhood in Toronto. "Exciting" can be overrated.

 

Never live in the Altstadt

 

Just don't do it. Drink there. Shop there. Don't live there.

 

Don't let the big things become small

 

The first time I saw the Cologne Dom, I gasped in awe. I never got tired of seeing it. When I saw it lit up at night, I snapped photos like a tourist, while a Cologne friend walked by without looking at it. It was something he had grown up with, something he had gotten used to.

 

When I started working at my firm's Cologne office, I would get off at the main station, which is right beside the Dom, and pause to take it in. I felt so fortunate to be able to work near this architectural wonder, and I think my positive disposition about commuting to Cologne came from never taking that exposure to a world wonder for granted.

The Cologne Dom, one dark and foggy night.

Most people appreciate the effort

 

The only people who will laugh at you for trying your piss poor beginner German are the assholes. And who cares what they think? Most people who endured my German were usually happy to see a foreigner make an honest effort and would answer slowly or switch to English if the topic was important. Many Germans understand their language isn't easy for foreigners to learn – something many native English speakers often forget about their own language.

Friends: Quality matters more than quantity

 

Expats in a faraway city are often drawn to each other. There's nothing wrong with this, but some of those friendships are defined by their time and place, so you drift apart when someone moves back home. It happens. Some expats float from one country to another without making meaningful friendships that last. We've managed to maintain some of our friendships from Budapest and Berlin. In our time in the Dorf, many people have come and gone, but we've been lucky to make some quality friends. We don't have many, but the friendships we've formed are strong and meaningful, and that's probably what made Dusseldorf so livable for us.

 

 

Travel in the Time of Covid

A rare sight: No one taking in thr East Side Gallery

When I checked into my Berlin pension, the desk person told me I was the only one staying in there that night. Travel restrictions were still in place, so you could only book a hotel room if you were on business, which meant budget lodgings, like my pension, in the heart of Berlin's touristy shopping district wasn't a a big draw.

Just outside, along the shopping strip in Charlottenburg, shoppers ignored the 1.5 meter of social distancing to line up in front of their favourite brand name stores, which still had to maintain a capacity limit inside. Some shoppers wore masks, but a freakish amount of people didn't bother with masks. For someone who had been locked down for two months, this was disconcerting.

That Saturday was the first day that Berlin loosened its quarantine laws. It was also a warm, sunny spring day. A powerful combination for people cooped up for two months in their flats. So people gathered outside in the parks and patios to walk, drink, flirt, and simply walk around.

Yet, the country was still locked down, even as restrictions were lifing in Berlin. This meant the city belonged to the Berliners. They sat along the Spree and sipped beer in the sun. They shopped, or at least they lined up to shop. The crowded onto patios to eat burgers and kebab. The tourist spots, on the other hand, were deserted.

On my way to an apartment viewing, I walked along the East Side Gallery. Usually there are hoards of people snapping selfies in front of the murals on the old sections of the Berlin Wall. I had the gallery to myself. The Berliners had no time for something they see every day.

Later I came back to my lodgings. The desk clerk had already left for the night, leaving me alone in the dim pension (unlike a hotel, there's no 24/7 staff on-site). 

In the morning, I ate breakfast in the grand old dining room alone - the old hardwood floor creaking loudly underfoot as I refilled my coffee. Through the tall windows, the city was already coming to life. Chairs and tables scrapped pavement as they were being laid out in the cafe below, currywurst stands were opening, and traffic was humming along.

Inside, the pandemic seemed like it still was going on. Outside it seemed like it was over.

Work-Life Balance Comes Home

When the toddler borrows my notebook

I was in a meeting recently, when someone mentioned creating marketing content for potential customers because they're so bored right now. 

Bored, I thought, who are these people with time to be bored? 

Despite being sent home to work remotely, my tasks haven't changed. I was already a remote worker before the lockdown began, so the prospect of staying home and working in isolation didn't seem so hard, until the Kita (that's the German daycare) closed.

Every day of this lockdown might seem like the same, but it's far from boring. The challenges of career and childcare smash into each other constantly. My wife and I must teleconference for work with a toddler climbing up and screaming "HEEEEYYY!" at our screens.

Focus time for writing or conceptual thinking only comes in blocks of an hour or so, when the toddler goes down for a nap. How about composing emails or reviewing word docs? We now do those things with the background noise of a toddler banging a wooden spoon against a toy pot.

I think I speak for many parents balancing a remote job and being their own daycare when I say I am not bored. But you know who is bored? That screaming, laughing, crying, wooden-spoon-wielding maniac. 

Every day he wakes up and we groggily wake up. It's a new day and he's ready to drink his warm milk, watch his cartoons, and ransack his toy shelves (which were carefully tidied the night before). He's so bored that he rarely plays with his toys, he just spreads them out on the floor, appraises them like a indifferent king, and then raids the kitchen cupboards for frying pans, plastic containers, and cheese graters (we take those away from him).

Pre-lockdown, he went to the Kita every day to sing songs, play with other kids, and climb the indoor jungle gym. His current playmates are two tired, sore giants, who won't do anything until they drink their hot black coffee juice, and they spend way too much time looking at their screens for work. I feel for the little guy.

In these strange times with another "Once in a Lifetime" recession looming, it's good to have a job and feel useful, especially when so many others have already been furloughed.

But there are times when I'm banging out copy on the laptop and the bored toddler pulls on my leg with a ball in his hand. He speaks in cute gibberish, but doesn't understand my "I have to work" gibberish. It's moments like that where I wish I was just a little more bored.

All that whole work-life balance handwringing was once an abstraction, something you mentally trained yourself to deal with, like not looking at your work email on the weekend or not talking about work at the dinner table. But the lockdown has made it a real, visceral thing. We have to choose between focusing on the toddler or the job, all day, every work day. 

Like the saying goes: If you trying doing two things at the same time, you won't do either one very well. If I play ball with him while writing the copy, I might hit my son in the face with the ball, which will make him cry, which will make my wife scowl at me. 

It often feels like I'm grinding every day out. Prepare a meal or two, change diapers, be a good colleague, be a good father, be a good husband, take the toddler for a walk, make sure the toddler doesn't find a way to maim or kill himself, shop for groceries, try not to get the covid while shopping for groceries, avoid drinking too much, write the occasional, self-indulgent blog post, get the toddler to sleep, and collapse. And I'm only the father, the mother is doing far more without the whiny blogging.

As Henry Rollins put it on his Cool Quarantine radio show: "These times aren't bad, they're just tough." I'm working from home, while spending a lot of time with my family. I'm watching my son go through an amazing time in his development. Sure, it's tough, but it definitely ain't bad.