Sometimes I’m so diabolical I scare myself
September 8, 2009
Dear Friends,
Welcome back to real life. Personally, I am thrilled that summer is over because I live in Florida and this is ground zero for heat and humidity in North America. Barring a hurricane, it can only be uphill from here.
Meanwhile, I’m just back from vacation in Berlin and Prague, a vacation that almost didn’t happen. As I was enjoying the mandatory pre-vacation mani-pedi, Mark called to inform me that my passport had expired. Urgent calls were made to the travel agent who referred us to the Passport Office website where we learned I could get an emergency passport issued but needed an appointment to do so. The next appointment available was six days into my planned vacation. Drat! Foiled – or so I believed.
Thinking I may be able to charm my way into the Passport Office, I showed up the next morning and sat in the appointment line. It soon became obvious that the large guard with the gun was checking for appointment numbers and anyone without one was relegated to the non-appointment line (where, I’m told, the situation was hopeless). Double drat! Lucky for me I am a charming person and my fellow line-sitters took pity on me and my story. They showed me the numbers they had been given when they made their appointments. All started with 399 and were followed by 5 other random digits. Desperate, I made up my own appointment number and prayed that the guard wouldn’t see through my ruse and send me to a God-forsaken prison because, as you know, the government takes passport related capers pretty seriously these days (I refuse to call what I did a crime). Luckily, my diabolical ploy worked and by 3:00 p.m. I had my new passport, too late to make my plane but only one day of vacation lost. Who thinks about their passport expiring? From now on I will and you should too.
We were going to Berlin to see the World Track and Field Championship with our good friends. I mainly went for the sightseeing, but I have to admit that it was very cool to see Usain Bolt break the world record for the 100 and 200 meter races.
Berlin is an amazing city and I recommend that you go if you ever have a chance. Between the Nazis and the Berlin Wall, there is so much historical significance to the place. Everywhere you look, you see something incredible, from the tracks where Jews were taken to Concentration Camps to the site of Hitler’s bunker to pieces of the Berlin Wall to the Holocaust Museum and that’s just the beginning. Of course, now every tour includes a visit to the hotel from which Michael Jackson dangled his baby (there’s a plaque at the window) and the hospital that Farrah Fawcett came to for her cancer treatments.
One of the strangest things about Berlin is that people are allowed to sunbathe nude in all the city parks and they do. Let me tell you, it’s disconcerting to walk through a bustling city park dotted with naked people. On the beach, I can see it, but in the city? That’s just weird. There was also a first and second class citizen thing going on between the West and East Berliners. I saw a woman changing her bra right on the street and my taxi driver just rolled his eyes and muttered, “East Berliner.”
For me, the most moving moments came when we visited the Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Berlin. This is something I’ve heard about all my life but to see it with my own eyes is a whole different experience. This particular camp was located right in the middle of a neighborhood, surrounded by homes that people lived in while it was used. Did these people know what was going on and do nothing? Ironically, it was in this camp that the imprisoned Pastor Martin Niemoller wrote: “First they came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.” To all those people who lived outside that concentration camp and didn’t speak up, I hope your property values plummeted. Seeing the bleak living conditions at the camp, the kitchen where inmates peeled potatoes, the showers where many met their demise, the crematorium – everything was eerily brought to life. I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest the entire time.
Speaking of Nazi Germany…I went to see Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds yesterday and I highly recommend it. If you love Nazi revenge movies and seeing dead Nazis being scalped (and who doesn’t!), walk, don’t run to your local theater. But back to my story. When we got to Prague there was another concentration camp that I really wanted to see. Mark was reluctant because the first one had been so depressing. “What more can there be?” He asked. “Maybe they have a better crematorium,” I suggested. “You know, the one we saw was half falling apart. And the showers, the showers at this other camp still have the original shower heads. At Sachsenhausen, they were all gone. Aren’t you curious to see the real shower heads?” Don’t ask me why but I really wanted to see the real shower heads and the more intact crematorium. Mark disagreed so we decided to see another (yawn!) palace instead. European palaces are as common as Korean delis in NYC.
If you ever go to Prague, my advice is to only stay two days. That’s all you need. The Palace we visited in place of the concentration camp was the Lobkowicz Palace. The Lobkowicz family goes all the way back to the 12th Century and they were one of the richest families in Prague. During WWII, the Nazis seized the palace and all the treasures inside (boo!). After the war, the family got it back (yay!), only to have it seized again by the communists (boo!). When the Wall fell and communist rule ended, the family (which had lost their money and moved to America) had one year to find everything that had been theirs and reclaim it (yay!). They did and have spent the last 20 years restoring the palace, its contents and creating a private museum. I have to admit that it’s definitely worth the visit if your husband doesn’t want to see another concentration camp.
Thanks to all of you who bought my new book, The Sister Diaries. I’m excited to say that it has sold really well in the UK this summer. I also appreciate those of you who wrote and told me if was your favorite of mine so far (awww, gee, heck). If you haven’t read it yet and want to, just click right here and you can order a copy. If you’re in the US, you won’t believe how fast it comes. And they send it by ROYAL Mail! Isn’t that cool?
Meanwhile, I spent the summer completing a non-fiction book that will be out next summer. It’s called Testing for Kindergarten and it’s about what parents can easily and naturally do at home so that their young children who are given intelligence tests for admission to private kindergarten or gifted programs will do really well. Even if your child is going to public kindergarten, she’ll be tested for placement in ability groups from the get-go and this book teaches you what to do so your child gets placed in higher ability group (which really makes a long-term difference). As parents, we are expert in keeping our children’s bodies healthy, but most of us don’t understand intellectual development enough to know how to nourish their brains. This book teaches you how to do this. Anyway, it will be out next summer so if you have a young child, I hope you’ll get a copy. I promise it’s not one of those boring how-to books. It has lots of humor in it (I know, you’re surprised).
Well, it is the day after labor day so I guess it’s back to the grind for me. I’m getting ready to visit Schuyler in NYC next week. She just got her own apartment there and is about to start an acting conservatory. I’m going for the pre-college-Mom-takes-freshman-child-to-Bed-Bath-and-Beyond-shopping-expedition. After that, my mom and I are taking our annual trip to Canyon Ranch in Tucson. Okay, I guess it’s not really back to the grind for me, at least not yet. But I just wanted to say hello and touch base with you all. Drop me a line and let me know what you’re up to if you have the time.
Love,
Karen
P.S. If you wish to befriend me on facebook (and why wouldn’t you), I can be found at Karen Nedler Quinn. I promise to say yes.
P.P.S. In case you’re wondering about the statues below, they’re of two men who are peeing (yes, that’s where the water comes out). They’re from the Franz Kafka Museum in Prague. The very idea of peeing statues is surreal but I guess that was the point.
