From Friday...
> Today was beautiful. It is the day of the general
> meeting, so instead of attending the conference i
> biked to the other side of town for a mojito by a
> canal with Dave. We talked about drugs,
> relationships, transportation, activism in SF, and
> bicycle planning. From the Canal we watched people
sunbathing and fishing -- neither seemed like such a
good idea in an urban canal.
Last night a small group of us
> (Maya, 2 Swiss guys, Eddie and Bennie, who work for
Green Peace in Zurich, and an Aussie, Elliot from
Melbourne, who is a podetrist
> who will be doing bicycle planning in Bogota for the
> next while) walked a ways to a hip neighborhood for
> a beer. This city rocks! It is so pretty and
vibrant and multicultural.
Walk isn't quite the right word for what I did to that
other neighborhood because my feet are useless. A few
days ago I went for a walk with Maya in those shoes
Carolyn gave me and got terrible blisters. Then, of
course, I accidently pummased one of the blisters
making it much worse. Now I am almost handicapped,
but fairing OK. Just a bit of a limp, really. So, I
road Elliot's new Bike Friday that he takes with him
everywhere bc he couldn't get it insured.
This city is much more bicycle friendly than it is
pedestrian friendly. Bicycle paths are likely to be
painted at the expense of sidewalks. Everyone is very
tolerant and nice about it, but there is definitely a
shift in the dynamics between the modes. Drivers
never flip out when you bike right in front of them,
but pedestrians are expected to get out of the way.
We think it is because everyone here rides a bike.
Speaking of speed, social interactions move at a much
slower pace here than I am used to. it takes hours to
come to a consensus or even leave an event. No one
ever just takes off -- they meander about a bit,
talking pleasantly with one another and fiddling. You
can imagine that I find this a strain, but I am trying
to be tolerant. Did you know that someone did a study
about the speed of cities based on social
interactions, travel time, etc? They found that San
Francisco was one of the fastest cities, along with
Zurich, NYC, etc. (it must have been Eddie or Bennie
who told me this). I also learned about a Slow Cities
movement, like Slow Food, slow travel, etc. I guess
it doesn't have to be this fast, but I like to keep
moving myself....
Saturday...
Last night was the conference closing party, but I
just couldn't get in a celebratory mood about it. I
felt more sad. They had a Salsa band and then a Ska
band, lots of lovely space lit up with tea lights, and
medioccre but cheap drinks. I haven't completely
kicked my cold, but I feel basically fine, just not
like partying.
Another thing is that a lot of people here smell bad.
2 reasons: lots of hippies, hard core and a general
difference in personal hygene expectations. I was
hard for me to get into dancing when the dance floor
smelled like stinky unwashed armpits. I am bad.
Actually, that was my first impression of the
conference when I walked into the door. Fortunately,
it faded (the impression or the smell, you decide).
The rooms were rather stuffy.
But I had an excellent conference. I have come away
with several ideas I want to pursue, and a renewed
enthusiasm for my field. I said that at the
conference evaluation this morning.
This afternoon lots of people when to a lake to swim,
but I went to a co-op that used to be a squat for
video training. It was very much geared towards
documenting police brutality at protests, but I
learned a few things about video production in general
-- another thing I am thinking of pursuing in the next
year (my first year of retirement). There certainly
won't be time for it all, darn it!
I walked back (I should say limped) via the wrong
directon with Mel, an Estonian Medical student and
natural ham. Now it is Saturday night I can't find my
friends, which is actually fine because I have hardly
had a moment to myself since I got here.
In other news, I have determined what my next
destination will be: Prague. I will be staying with
one of the conference organizers, Steve. He said I
could stay until Saturday, which sounds good to me.
I'll head over that way sometime on Monday. Tomorrow
a small group of us are going to an area near here
that is only accessible by boat (thus car-free) with
little rivers making up 'roads' to connect the
buildings. We may swim. I am excited.
On the other hand, I am very sad to be leaving Berlin
soon. I could imagine staying here for a long time,
but I can't really imagine learning to speak German.
So, there you have it.
That's probably enough for today.
love,l
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2 comments:
Maya says:
When I arrived in Berlin for the Towards Carfree Conference, my first
discovery was that, while I had prepared very well for my previous 3
days in
London, I had overlooked such preparations for Berlin. I had,
thankfully,
thought to book a bed in a local hostel for the nights I’d be there. I
hadn’t, however, brought the address of the hostel nor did I have any
maps
of Berlin with me. I don’t know any German (except for the word for
swimming, because it’s the same as in English minus the ‘g’).
Considering
this oversight, it was surprisingly easy to get from the airport to the
neighbourhood where the conference and my hostel were. Through my
whole
journey, I was continually astounded by the public transit system that
brought me from the airport to my intended location in only 40 minutes.
That is, if you don’t count the hour and a half I spent walking from
one end
of Invalidenstrasse to the other trying to find the actual place
(remember,
I didn’t have the address). It was a hot day, and just as I was
approaching
what looked like a green oasis in which I could explore and rest, I
discovered a small convenience store where I figured I could get some
water.
The man in the store was not only very nice and spoke English (and,
by the
way, not everyone in Berlin speaks English as I had erroneously
assumed),
but he also had a map of Berlin!!! He helped me find where I was going
and
how to get there (while I stood there literally dripping with sweat).
Back
on the trail, and back the way I had come, I set off in the opposite
direction of that beautiful oasis. After a couple more stops for
directions
(and a search online at another hotel) I found my hostel… across the
street
from the U-Baun station that I had first arrived at!
There I was, flooded with relief, exhaution, hunger and anticipation
for the
beginning of the conference. I knew I could go to the University to
check-in between 4 and 8, and that there would be a screening of The
End of
Suburbia at 8:30pm. I had about 5 hours until the movie started. The
thought of wrestling with the German language in exchange for food was
too
much to contemplate in my current state. So I fell into my narrow bed
and
had a short but very satisfying nap. Awake and alert, I ventured out.
First I went to check-in, and met some of the people who had made it
possible for me to be there… a pleasure to say the least. Next, I went
looking for some food. As I stood looking at a chalkboard menu,
written in
German, outside what looked like a very inviting beer garden, two of
the
conference organizers came closer as they posted flyers. I asked them
if
they know what the menu said, and one of them did. He offered to go in
with
me and help me order before setting off again. When we got into the
garden,
we discovered that two of the conference presenters were already seated
with
plates of food and glasses of beer in front of them. They asked me to
join
them. So, for the next couple of hours I sat with John Adams, James
Kushner
and James’ wife, Jackie, and ate, drank and discussed topics dear to my
heart. (My name dropping is mostly for your sake, Lon, since I’m
pretty
sure that you know who these people are.) Needless to say, what an
experience!!! My first night in Berlin and I’m having an intimate meal
with
two of the most prominent academics in this field (or fields, since
it’s
cross-disciplinary).
My presentation was scheduled for the first official day of the
conference,
as part of the first set of presentations the following afternoon.
Geared
up to take in as much as could for the coming week, I awoke early
(without
help from my alarm clock) and went to see what the morning would bring.
There was a morning meeting, which included general information about
the
facilities, conference theme and some general announcements. This time
was
also used to scope out the range of participants: an interesting
looking
group. Next, we spent a few hours passing the microphone around and
hearing
from everyone, who they were and why they were there. This took some
time,
but I was really glad to that we did it. Near the end of this
exercise, one
person announced his count of 20 countries represented (mostly from the
United States and Europe, with two of us from Canada and one person
from
Bangladesh). With that being over, I had 15 minutes to get my thoughts
in
order before starting my presentation.
I had prepared as well as I could, but there were things I could not
have
known until I was in front of my audience, describing my paper. For
instance, the levels of proficiency in English and in theory were quite
varied. This made for the interesting – and very challenging – task of
not
only articulating the theoretical content clearly, but also
articulating my
words clearly and slowly. I had planned to present for one half hour
and
leave the last half hour for discussion (partly because my theoretical
conclusion had a pragmatic lean to it, so I wanted to practice what I
was
preaching, so to speak). I did not get through the material I wanted
to get
through because I was determined to leave some time for discussion,
which I
was glad I did because a lot of clarity was achieved by way of that
discussion. At the end of the hour, several of us were still in
conversation. In fact, we had to be ushered out so that they could set
the
room up for the next presentation. This continued through the week: I
had
several people engage me in discussion about my project, and actually
had
two people read the paper through and come to me prepared for a
conversation
about it. While I wasn’t completely happy with how my presentation
went,
the follow-up with the other participants made it seem like I had
actually
contributed something to the conference. I ended up feeling, by the
end of
the week, like I did have a place amongst all these great academics,
policy
makers and activists.
The presentations that I saw during the rest of the conference ranged
from
existing and developing carfree projects in Cologne, Berlin, Amsterdam,
Hong
Kong, and several other places in Europe and around the world to
thoughts on
“Hypermobility.” I saw what people in Krakow and Copenhagen were
organizing
for carfree days and mobility weeks, as well as heard about some of the
issues in Africa in regards to gender and mobility. I attended a
lecture
titled, “Carfree or Not: The Subtle Dangers of Designed Spaces” given
by
Sajay Samuel of PUDEL, which was followed by a panel discussion between
him
and three planners. I really enjoyed this lecture and discussion
because it
brought to light many of the ideas I’ve been thinking about for awhile
(in
particular, assumptions related to space and speed). I participated in
a
bike tour that included a greenway along the former Berlin Wall.
However,
it began to pour with rain so I gave up at lunchtime and went for beers
in
the afternoon. I attended the annual general meeting, and got involved
in
the working-group for establishing a carfree institute, initiated by
Joel
Crawford. The general meeting was run by consensus and involved about
50
people, so it was quite a feat to be done on time! There were two
excursions on the weekend, one to a nearby lake (and, yes, I did swim)
and
the other to Spreewald, a car-light community that is riddled with
canals
and is famous for their homemade pickles. The conference food was
wonderful, all vegetarian and tasty. Many of the details of the
conference
presentations can be obtained from www.worldcarfree.net/conference,
though
they haven’t yet put my paper online (I’ll have to follow up on that).
The participants of this conference were all amazing. I made some
special
connections with a few people: one woman from San Francisco who’s a
transportation planner, but who just resigned from her job in order to
re-ground herself and figure out how to incorporate her personal ideals
into
her work, a couple from Barcelona who are involved in “amics de la
bici,” a
bicycle activist group, a man from Melbourne who was to go from the
conference to Bogotá to work on their bicycle network, two men from
Zürich
who came as representatives of Greenpeace and were just plain fun to
hang
out with (one of them often spends his holidays hiking with his
girlfriend
through the Alps, choosing their path as they go by rolling dice), and
a man
from Belgium who bought me pickles and a beer and gave my 10Euro
because my
wallet was stolen on Saturday night. I hope to keep in touch with
these
people, but I find myself feeling sad about the degree of mobility that
will
have to be maintained in order to do so. Just as many of us had to
travel
by airplane (which is just as problematic as the car in some ways, and
more
so in other ways), we will have to be downright hypocritical to remain
in
each others’ lives in any substantial way. Any ideas on how to deal
with
this…?
Aside from having this wonderful experience to add to my inventory, I
also
have a potential internship with Joel Crawford in Lisbon next summer
(May
and June). I’m also feeling quite motivated to continue integrating
this
issue into my own academic work, and initiating and participating in
some
activism that addresses issues related to car use. I’ll be trying to
get a
carfree day included in the Citizen’s Environmental Alliance’s Smogfest
for
next May, as well as help people through the administrative process of
blocking of residential streets for special events. These are exciting
times for me, and I feel the momentum of the carfree network behind me.
If any of you want further information, or want to engage in discussion
about transport issues, I would be thrilled to provide either the
information or a conversation partner.
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