Graffiti in Berlin

Because of the Wall, which once sported the longest graffiti mural in the world, Berlin is probably the only city that bragged about its graffiti. But this Cold War reputation has sinced mutated into an unfortunately nasty blight across much of the city. Some of it is quite artistic, sometimes it's related to political statements, and sometimes it's just senseless vandalism.

Since the authorities appear to have all but given up on fighting graffiti, I tried to embrace the more artful examples of graffiti. Here's a sampling of the pictures I took in Berlin in February. If you need more, check out this one, or do your own Google search.


"Hesht" shows up a lot in many different forms across town.
I've seen this roller skate done in red, blue, and a special rainbow version near an old section of the Wall. This one was on the locking shutters of a hardware store on Schönhauser Allee.

The subway station nearest to my apartment--an example of tagging, graffiti that's neither artistic nor meaningful (to most viewers, anyway).


An almost blasphemous use of the Ampelmännchen for a political statement against U.S. action in Iraq. Note that "American" was later changed to "US and British". Also near Senefelderplatz.

Sweating. A lot.

After the initial high of "Holy Cow, I'm moving to India!" I've been thinking I should maybe learn something about Chennai (and stop saying things like Holy Cow). When I went to India in July 2000, I was in Mumbai (Bombay) and New Delhi in the northwest; Chennai is in the southeast.

From skimming the wikipedia entry, I can now recite with authority that Chennai...

• is one of India's "smaller" cities: a population of just 7 million residents
• is very, very hot: it's all-time low temperature is 60F/16C, and it rarely gets that low: look here for today's weather in Chennai.
• speaks (mostly) Tamil.

Random online postings seem exclusively to be written by people who are bitter that Chennai is not Florida, that it is a hot, humid teaming mass of humanity with no rhyme or reason and is perpetually on the brink of sinking into utter and complete chaos. Or they type things like: TSUNAMI. I'm still not placing my bets,--people who write like that just weren't prepared to live in India. But the prospect of living and working for 24 months under climate conditions that make the steamy Ozark jungles from my childhood summer vacations sound like a cold day, and I start getting a little nervous.

So, I've started soliciting first-hand accounts, not written on the Internet, which seems to bring out the most peeved answers from us all. I've also found the blogs of a number of foreign service officers, even one recently posted to Chennai! And they all make the place sound great: good food, great cultural experiences (temples, festivals, tours, vacations, beaches), hard work but with good colleagues, etc. As if I couldn't have predicted it, there are previous visitors to Chennai coming out of the woodwork--cousins, neighbors, co-workers, family friends. And they use words like "beautiful," "developed," "diverse," and "wonderful" to describe it. Whew.

What it means to work at a consulate

I signed up for the political career track, but every new Foreign Service Officer is required to serve at least one tour as a consular officer. To get the general description of consular duties, click here. Although this description focuses mostly on services for American citizens, the consulate in Chennai issues some of the highest numbers of visas for visitors and immigrants to the U.S.

To get to the official website of the U.S. consulate in Chennai, click here.

Oh, the places I'll go.

If you want to know where I'm going, click here.

Less than 10 hours to go.

We'll know soon enough where I'm going.

Final Countdown

At the flag ceremony next Tues., we all find out where in the world we'll be going.

I was pushing for posts in Asia where I'd have to learn a new language, like Chinese or Russian or Laotian, but I have a pretty solid hunch that I'm going to India with little-to-no training in Hindi or Bengali or [insert language here that you've never heard of but which is spoken by more people than live in the state of California]. There, or somewhere in the Americas, pretty much nothing like India at all. So, I'm not getting too stressed out by this process-- my anxiety ended when I handed in that list. And I'm not trying to out-guess the bidding process either--I have no idea who in my orientation class had the same favorite posts that I did.

I'm just hoping that on Tuesday, during the Flag ceremony, that when they hold up that flag, I'll be able to contain my glee when they call my name and walk, not skip, down the aisle to pick it up. I hope I at least recognize it.