Long, but I'd say interesting.

I don’t have much food now because I either ate it ALL before I left to go to Marburg or I froze my milk and cream so it wouldn’t be all gross when I got back. But it won’t defrost and I don’t have a microwave to do so. So I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to have any breakfast without getting out of my pyjamas and going out to buy some food. This means I will, inevitably, actually have to embark on the bigger part of today’s to-do-list.

However, a lot of things have happened since Tuesday. I scuttled out of school at lunchtime, hoping nobody would ask me where I was going – I had done the hours I was scheduled to but because it was their big party Festwoche I really ought to have been at more (so my conscience told me) but in fact I was there for the correct amount of time so it’s fine. Anyway, I got on the ICE (Inter-City-Express) train from Berlin to Kassel which properly zoomed through the countryside, it was amazing. On that train I got talking to this guy in my compartment (any chance to practise German … I might be slightly more British about it soon) who ended up inviting me to stay and giving me all his contact details. I still don’t have a German mobile, which I told him, and then my English one beeped with a text. How rude. I explained it would be silly to give him that number. I hope he understood. I think he was fine about it because he then went and got us both pepsi paper cups from the on-board restaurant and then proceeded to fill them with his 27th birthday wine (it was his birthday the day before – the wine was gooooood). I felt a bit bad that only 15 minutes later I had to get off the train, but to be honest quite relieved, because I hadn’t yet got to the point where I was going to have to give him any of my contact details in return, but the awkward moment would have come. Phew.

So I arrive in Marburg without a clue where to go, nobody comes to pick me up, I end up getting a bus and arriving just as it got dark. It was quite scary. The team had been there for a couple of nights so knew their way around a bit more, but as soon as I explained a bit about me it seemed that most people had been expecting me and the welcome I got was unbelievably warm. The evening prayer meeting was wonderful – so far I have only heard Claudia pray in German but praying alongside all these people I had only just met somehow deepened the relationship we all had with each other really quickly and led to some fantastic exciting conversations.

The conference was organised by the SMD (Studentenmission in Deutschland) and was for the leaders of all the SMD groups (pretty much the Christian Unions) across Germany to come together, share ideas, pray and be taught from the Bible. There were about 70 people there and they were great! It’s wonderful to see how faithful people are even when there are only a few people in their group and they face great opposition. And it was also great to see in conversation and prayer how they grew in confidence and knowledge over the week. My small group in particular was a wonderful experience: they were so honest and caring, and I was very sad to say goodbye to them.

Louisa then left us to stay with a friend in Marburg and so Phil, Kendrick and I stayed on for the SMD “HeKo” (Herbstkonferenz) which brought together all the graudates, schoolchildren, families and students who have been or are a part of the SMD work (which is broader than similar works in England). The teaching was LONG and hardcore, and it was a real struggle to keep concentrating, but when I did I was really rewarded not only with better German the other side but also a deeper knowledge of God in a funny way – somehow hearing about him in another language shifts my perspective. For example I had always subconsciously assumed we would speak English in heaven. Why on earth would that be the case?

And then we came home on the Autobahn (wow!)

The journey was most interesting. I fell in love with Germany more and more as we paced it down the roads – the autumn colours were highlighted by the golden sunlight and it was all very poetic and beautiful – you could see little farms and half-timbered houses and villages over the rolling hills and it really was the Germany I think I have been missing in Berlin.

And then we crossed the border. And suddenly, genuinely, as suddenly as that, everything was totally different. No longer was it the romantic sunwashed autumnal beautiful landscape I had been admiring, but suddenly it changed and it was total wasteland. What I find really interesting about this experience is whether this was actually how it was, or was it a product of my mindset? Once we crossed the former border into East Germany did my expectations of the country change, and therefore my perceptions with it? Or was it indeed a stark contrast?

The most disturbing aspect of this was our stop-off: the journey was about 5 hours and so we decided to take a loo break at one of the former border checkpoints. It was very odd. And the history it was commemorating is history that is younger than me. One of the worst bits was a room where they checked cars: there was a kind of pit where someone would stand under cars as they rolled over him to make sure there was no evidence of people hiding visible from underneath. A picture showed a family with two children and a pregnant wife who were caught because a ribbon from one of the girl’s dress was peeping out of the bottom of the boot. Freedom was then not as it is now.

It got me thinking (again) about how messed up Germany is – the burger joint in the middle of all of this served as a poignant summary of what has been going on in the last twenty years. The day of national unity was celebrated a couple of weeks ago, and the more I think about it, the more I realise this day exists to propagate a feeling of national identity rather than celebrate one that already exists. It happens in other ‘newer’ nations too – Australia, America for example – and was started when those nations were very young in order to collect people under the flag of national pride. Obviously the whole concept of national pride is something the Germans flinch at when it’s stated so baldly, but this deserted wasteland of a former communist checkpoint serves as another reminder to me that the nation is walking a flimsy tightrope. How can a café in Marburg, for example, recreate the 1930s era when in the 1930s you did not hear Beethoven and drink out of old china, but instead saw swastikas and talked in terms of the Third Reich? Does leaving these checkpoints show that the Germans are dealing with their history, or should they demolish them? Does demolishing them remove the possibility that they might be seen as condoning what went on, or does it erase the fact that they ever existed?

And then I realised that my joy at the “German-ness” of Marburg was both a false and dangerous perception. There is no such thing as typical German in the way I was thinking there was. Berlin is proof of that. The nation was sawn in two for nearly half a century, the communist versus the capitalist – one half was allowed to deal with the past as much as it could – the other hid under the blanket of its economic and social system. Which half is which depends on the German you talk to.