Category: Travel

I got the sick this week. It rained, hailed, snowed, and I accidentally left one of my windows open overnight because I don’t understand German windows.

Well, now I do.

After some coughing and sneezing, I went home for a long sleep and picked up the next day back on track. In the past I would have completed some tasks from bed extending my cold. There’s something in the air here keeping me from my natural tendency to overwork. It doesn’t make much logical sense because I have more responsibilities and more free time. I’m leading the design practice in Berlin which means:

1. doing design work on a project
2. managing designers who report to me
3. checking in with visiting Pivotal designers
4. checking in with client and contract designers
5. leading or delegating design talks, workshops, and critiques in the office and in the community
6. recruiting designers (getting to know the design scene)
7. hiring designers
8. staying connected with the Europe offices

In San Francisco I was only doing #1 and #2. Before, I really thought doing all of these activities meant giving up some part of my personal life. I’m learning so much becoming the professional I’ve wanted to be for a long time. For that I’m thrilled.

It’s hard though, also learning German, make friends, go on some dates, eating well, sleeping well, and having some time to just laze around on the couch. And there are days when I want to ask to the sky “does this all really fit? this doesn’t all fit! how is this an example of everything fitting?”

A photo posted by Nina Mehta (@ninamehta) on Feb 21, 2016 at 5:35am PST

That’s usually a signal to go enjoy some music or art and let my mind wander. After that I realize I can cancel some meetings, archive some emails, and remind my project team I haven’t deprioritized the design work. I can’t tell is if this shift came from the natural cycle of career growth or something special in European culture. I dunno man. I’m working hard, having fun, and taking naps on the couch. Sounds good to me!

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I hate talking about money, especially my money. Last night the tech class topic came up and it has a lot this week since I just moved into a nice new flat. My friend thought I should write about it. So, here we go:

I want to share this new apartment with friends but I feel embarrassed by this display of wealth that doesn’t represent me. Or maybe it does and I’m in denial. It seems to disregards the Berlin ethos of taking only what you need and doing more with less. It’s hard to even write about this because it sounds like my problem is having too many nice things: what a horrible thing to complain about. Stay with me and please give me direct feedback if this post comes across sour.

It was so frustrating to be a Silicon Valley person in San Francisco because it seems like having a tech job means you can live comfortably. But even with rent control and mindful budgeting, saving money is hard work. It’s so ridiculous. I can see my tech presence in Berlin creates more jobs which is great. But not more jobs for the artists who built this city into the creative, vibrant, experimental place it is. Maybe it indirectly creates more demand for services and luxury goods but that again is outside of the Berlin ethos as I understand it. In both cases, friends insist gentrification is part of the urban cycle and it’s not my fault or guilt to carry. But Nina in Berlin is a problem if I only take from the city instead of participating in the local and creative economy.

When people see my apartment, I keep wanting to include an asterisk about how hard I’ve been hustling the last fifteen years. I worked at the student newspaper until midnight throughout college and started my passion career in journalism during the recession. After the inevitable layoff (sorry Dad, you were right) I worked three different jobs with a day off once a month to make ends meet. I grudgingly lived in cheap Indiana for nearly a decade and worked intense hours to pay my way graduate school. I did this to create a future where I could continue doing work I love. However, unlike journalism, my new industry came with a good salary and job security.

I want to enjoy my successes, not apologize for them. My company helped with German legal documents, banks, taxes, cultural training, and a nice flat so I can focus my energy on the job that needs done. The German systems can be complex, irrational, and are rarely in English. So, I’m wildly impressed by my artist, freelancer, and food friends who figured this out on their own.  The job to be done is not easy work, either. But who’s job is?

In casual conversations about my move, I want to go on a diatribe about how long and hard I’ve been working to get here. But why bother? Everyone’s hustling for something. So I hold my tongue, say thank you, and acknowledge the privilege I have.

Conversely, I’m finally out of a hotel and have a home. So if you want to come over for a glass of wine and listen to some nice tunes, I’d love to have you.

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I started meditating again. The weeks are going by so fast and the work is challenging. I’m being pushed to practice balancing priorities, managing expectations, asking for help when I need it, direct communication, and in the end still executing good designs. All things I want and need to practice so for that I’m grateful and hungry for these challenges.

But it’s difficult for me to calm down after the work day.  My mind runs all week until I can shake it out at a club. Usually I would do something comfortable and quiet but I’m sleeping in a hotel for another week and am still living mostly out of one backpack. I miss my art supplies and yoga mat!

So I’m dancing which I find to be one of the best meditations. It’s a fairly sober activity for me and I don’t mind going alone if the goal is to hear music. However, staying up until sunrise is not a sustainable (or reliable!) way to relax. So I started sitting down quietly with my breath. Since then I’ve realized how often I’m setting a wrong expectation about how a place, person, or event will be.

Bunny Lunch

Last week a friend and I sat by the Spree for a lunchtime meditation. Halfway through the meal he told me I was eating noodles and “bunny” meat, which usually would have turned me off. I really don’t think I would order rabbit from a casual lunch menu, no not at all. But in this calm state of acceptance I was able to enjoy it. And for the first time properly realize I how little context I have about my own experience here. How many other times did I have bunny for lunch?!

Kegel not Kegels

The next day a friend invited me to join his friends for drinks after work. I assumed we were going to a bar until I found myself in the basement of an old apothecary bowling (kegel) under neon lights. That’s when I really started to pay attention to how different anything can be compared to what’s in my mind.

A photo posted by Nina Mehta (@ninamehta) on Feb 12, 2016 at 10:17am PST

Kater

So I started saying yes to trusted invitations without questions. Because even when I think I know, I don’t. This has been a good thing because on Saturday I ended up at the Berlinale film festival watching an intense movie about two gay lovers and a dead cat. I’m glad I said yes.

Watergate

And finally, I got to turn the tables. I really wanted to listen to Patrice Bäumel DJ this weekend. Unfortunately he was playing at Watergate which is a beautiful club but is known for a horrible, drunk, rowdy, touristy atmosphere among my friends. I love Patrice’s music, I actually love it, so I decided to go regardless of my friends’ plans. Late into the night some friends who always get into Berghain didn’t get into Berghain and decided to join me. For some unknown reason Watergate wasn’t horrible last night and we had a surprisingly, wonderful, joyful, meditative time.

It was a timely reminder that keeping expectations in check has little to do with being new to a city. We could  be eating bunny at any moment.

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After the wall came down, Berlin became a place for experiments. New expressions of electronic music emerged. I first visited Berlin in 2007 and was promptly rejected from Berghain. The club was still coming up and I’m impressed we even knew to try going there. I was getting rejected from Berghain before it was cool to get rejected from Berghain. People love to discuss it, defend it, throw shade. Here are my thoughts.

I don’t really mind. We were drunk american kids on study abroad looking for party. And we heard this place was cool. I like to believe the “vampire with a barbwire tat on his face” is my big techno mamma. He was protecting little me from something I was perhaps were not ready for.

Dance music found its first home in Detroit and Chicago in the late eighties. It came up from gay disco. And for most of techno’s life, it lived in the underground where everyone was welcome and the front door was always open. The world was different then for someone gay or black in America. This music, this art, created a home for the people on the cultural outside and for a long time stayed that way.

I grew up outside Chicago in the 90s listening to C&C Music Factory at the roller rink during birthday parties. I think this primed me in some ways. Later I really got into dance music because of Napster.

After graduate school I moved to San Francisco and found the music scene that welcomed anyone, especially those on the outside who wanted to experiment, try something new, and believed everything was possible. The music is so good. It was, it is, really good. Sounds like Berlin. No?

Dance music in North America recently found its place the mainstream. Festivals replaced concerts, and it’s finally ok, nay, even cool, to listen to music made from a computer. So now lots of drunk college kids on study abroad want to go to Berghain because Claire Danes said to.

At some clubs in Berlin, security ask who I’ve come to hear. They’re checking if I’ll be good guest. But then everyone is all of a sudden everyone is not welcome and getting in becomes about knowing something  of having some cool factor.

However once I’m inside, it means I’m dancing with people who also are there to enjoy the music. So the door has filtered out some people drunk, crass people and the club environment is actually enjoyable. Leaving the front door open works until everyone can’t come in.

When it comes to clubs in Berlin (and immigration for that matter) is everyone is equal? Or are some are more equal than others?

That night almost at Berghain in 2007 ended happily with doner kebab in hand and a nice reminder: it’s about who you’re with, not where you are. And it sure does help if the music is good.

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I got lucky. I’m starting to make friends who live here. The Berliner kindness and generosity is helping me feel comfortable but also makes me quite sad. I’ll illustrate why with my hypothetical friend named Katherine:

Wednesday afternoon Katherine and I decide on Facebook Messenger we should get together. We decide to meet on Saturday night around 11pm. On Friday she or I sends a message to confirm we’re still on.

We exchange phone numbers and she might even call me on Saturday afternoon to talk about our day and why, if, or how it could be possible either of us might be late. Thirty minutes before arriving we text again and make sure we’ll both be on time.

We meet on time and have a fun evening together. Now here’s the part that gets me. Every time, without fail, every time, Katherine sends a follow up message saying something like ‘had fun! goodnight!’. 

All this messaging could sound like overkill or even formulaic but in the moment is an expression of care, respect, and kindness. Some version of this attention takes place with almost every plan I’ve made. It’s wonderful and necessary.

This makes me sad because it reminds me how low my expectations are for people after living in #flakysf.I’m sad that decent human behavior feels over the top, especially since I’m still a second or third connect people I’m meeting. At home we say to take care of yourself first: You do you, gurl. I’m just doin me. YOLO because we could be dead in 5 minutes from being idiots the 5 minutes before! This kind of attitude doesn’t leave much room to care for the people around you.

However, it’s not to say there are no decent people in SF or that every interaction in Berlin will be this good. Some have been less easy. I met an ex-SFer last night who said this kindness appeared for him after people knew him for six months and understood he wasn’t transient. I’ve had the same experience. I notice the body language and tone of conversation improves when people hear how long I’ll be in Berlin and that I’m working with German clients. 

With all this messaging, why isn’t everyone glued to their phones? I’m baffled.

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Living in Berlin is living in two places.

I went to a fashion week party and met people from Venezuela, Korea, India, and probably places in Africa. Don’t worry, there were also tall white modelesque Europeans with long blonde ponytails too. While sipping my mini bottle of champagne from a straw with the sound of techno bleeping through the air I looked around at all the different faces and thought, we could be anywhere in the world right now.

#fashiontech show @bikiniberlin with @elektrocouture #blingbling pic.twitter.com/7skj8oxD3n

— david bizer (@bza) January 20, 2016

But that’s only part of being in this city.

When you move to a new place you must maintain your self or you’ll get lost in being someone else. Your identity, personality, values and ideals. But somehow you as who you are also must also participate, contribute, and accept local way of living.

Half of Berliners are from elsewhere. Morgenpost mapped the census data from last summer to show the thousands of people here born from Buenos Aires, Hanoi, Tehran, New York, Beirut and so on, not even counting the new 1.5 million expected from  Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. So how does each newcomers negotiate maintaining their self and truly living as a Berliner?

And I wonder what assumptions are people make about me? New friends, new clients, new boyfriends, people on the street, police officers, other expats, other immigrants. I have seen more subtle sexism and semi-unprofessional behavior in Berlin than I have anywhere in the world. But actually none it is has been from Germans. I’ll never know if someone is rude or kind to me because of my color, gender, accent, or even social class. Or maybe that’s how they treat everyone. And in these experiences, I am living in a very global community that has the cosmopolitan luxury of these concerns.

But then, there are times I am unmistakably in Germany. When I join longtime Berliners for a Saturday breakfast or a weeknight cocktail I really wish I spoke the language. Not to be included in the conversation, but to feel the subtleties of the discussion. When I make eye contact with a friendly faces on the train I want a smile in return.  I want to find it easy to be remarkably punctual. In small moments like these I really feel like I am in Germany.

Berlin is not fast like New York, bright like Tokyo, loud like San Francisco, nor smokey like New Delhi. Cities that have become themselves through great change.  This city, just like its people, is coming into its own and asking how to maintain its self and adapt to the change.

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A photo posted by @juliettenmd on Jan 11, 2016 at 4:40am PST

I’m here. It’s beautiful! I’m ready to meet some friends. Getting here was rough:

I got food poisoning on Saturday flying from India to Berlin. I vomited in the lavatory bathroom, at my window seat, and almost at baggage claim. During this episode I stepped on my phone shattering the screen locking me out of my the means to the hotel.

German bureaucracy is also holding my shipment of winter clothes at customs. Upon arrival I had to go shopping because stores are closed Sunday. This of course only after vomiting again in my bathtub and realizing my broken phone also locked me out of my work email.

I went to the closest stores nearby and deliriously wandered into a high-end mall and dropped my glass of bottled water all over the floor interrupting a man playing piano in the plaza. The old white-haired people shot me annoyed glares. Bitte! Sorry! ahhh. I dry-heaved my way home, slept til the sun came and went again.

I drew paper maps of how to get to my new office, wiggled my way into my work email, and ate a tiny plate of bruschetta. Still no phone, but a solid meal after 48 hours was my weekend triumph.

Monday morning, drained of energy I fought with the ticket machine and found my train. Everything was hard until I rode over the river blanketed with mini icebergs, gently bobbing on the Spree. It was so pretty, I quietly smiled to my self and though “yes, I’m supposed to be here. and I am.”

Yesterday my client said, “That sucks. But this is what happens when people first who move to Europe. It’s classic.” So either he’s very kind or I’m doing it right. Hopefully both. But either way, I’m ready to have some fun!

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Moving to a new country is exciting, but the logistics are slightly more complicated for temporary-long term moves. Here’s a synthesis of the tips I’m getting from friends who have already done the move.

Banking

In my research I didn’t find one great credit card to rule them all. People seem to love the Capital One for their excellent customer service and kind attention to foreign fees. You may want to consider getting a local bank account and credit card if you want to start building credit abroad. Regardless, the most important factors are

• no international fees
• no annual fees
• points or cash back bonuses
• no atm fees
• credit card has a chip

Phone

Transfer your phone number to Google Voice to keep getting messages from the US while you’re overseas.

1. Start this process by unlocking your phone
2. Once you get to your new city (or a day before departure) transfer your phone number to Google Voice. This will cancel your US phone plan.
3. In your new city, buy a local SIM card for your unlocked phone.
4. If you travel to other nearby cities often, you can buy pre-paid simcards and swap them out so you can text/call local numbers

Some rely mostly on Facebook Messenger and Facetime for text, voice, and messaging communication. This makes sense if you want to avoid giving out your new phone number.

Mail

The US Post Office will forward your mail for one year (in six month chunks) for $1.05. Mail is sent piece by piece. You can also forward your mail to a P.O. Box which is fairly straight forward if a friend will sort your mail. Or you can have the P.O. Box mail forwarded to your new address but according to Quora that’s become slightly more difficult since 9/11.

I’ve had a hard time as an artist in San Francisco. I came here for the creative communities, and I love them. But I haven’t developed this part of myself as much as I wanted or expected.  The options that feel available are to become a programmer, muralist, or some kind of hand-crafted artisan. That’s not me.

What I see in Berlin inspires me. The fashion, installations, form, photography styles, public art, music (of course), and their relationship to politics, identity, and expression. It speaks to me.

I want to use my time in Berlin to connect with artists to see other creative paths. I believe the thing I want to do in the future is already in motion. But right now, it’s too small to see how much it could matter with more attention. Here’s the activity I want to try to unlock some ideas. I hope you’ll try it too. Please tell me how it goes 🙂

The Creative Path Activity

Supplies:

• small stack of paper
• 1 sharpie marker
• timer
• Quiet, happy place

Step 1: The artist high

Set a timer for 8 minutes. Title this piece of paper artist high and write down all the times in the last 3-5 years you felt elevated by doing or making something. That’s the feeling you get while and after you make or do something and everything clicks. Think about the times your mind, body, spirit, and environment were resonating at the same frequency.

You were in the zone and barely thinking, just blissfully doing. Perhaps afterwards you were visibly glowing and feeling charged yet also at peace. List everything from writing music to going on a long drive. Write at least 10 memories. You can do it. I know it. If you come up with more than 10, even better.

Step 2: Top three memories

Re-read the list. Without judgement, circle the three happiest, highest memories. Which ones sent you to the moon? They felt like gifts to yourself, not great heavy efforts.

Step 3: Find common ground

Take out a new piece of paper and title it common ground. Make a new list of what attributes were the same during each of your circled activity. For example: always outdoors, best when in collaboration, seems to only work at night, has a relationship with using colors, doesn’t require much setup, etc. Write at least 10 common attributes.

Step 4: Top three attributes

Re-read the list. Without judgement, circle the three best attributes. Which ones speak to you? Which do you care most about, excite you? They seem like something you could pickup and do tomorrow without much effort.

Now you might know that you like making music and cocktails. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you should become a musician or bartender. It might mean that you like making things for other people to enjoy, or you care about the sensory experience, or maybe you just like doing things at night. This is why the attributes activity is so important. It lets you build on experiences you’ve had but also lets invites you to try something new.

Step 5: New activities

Ok, back to making lists. Take out your third piece of paper and title it creative path and reset the timer for 8 minutes. Start listing new activities that have all three of your attributes in common. List things you haven’t done before. It’s ok to write things you don’t even think you’d want to do. Right now, just write. What activities have all three things you figured out you love in common? Maybe giving city tours and co-writing a book show up because you find out you love collaborating, thinking about your city, and sharing information. Stay open to ideas. Keep writing.

Step 6: New activities

This is the last step. Read over your list. What stands out to you? Which is the one that’s obviously exciting, a little on the edge, somewhat scary, and looks like something you’re surprised you’re not already doing? Circle that activity. On the same sheet of paper, write down one thing you will do this week that puts that activity in motion.

Try it out for a while. If it works, keep it going. If not, lather, rinse, repeat. I’m going to try this. I’m excited to see what comes out!