Viele Feinde viel Ehre!

I learned this phrase at a party in Leipzig, Germany, where Michael and I traveled this past weekend to visit our friend Zane, who's teaching at the University of Leipzig for the semester. The phrase "viele Feinde viel Ehre!" means "More enemies, more honor!" and we learned it in the context of a guy who's friends were angry with him for winning all their card games, which they played, he explained, for honor rather than cash.

Aside from cards, though, I have to say that nothing in the way the Germans acted indicated that they associate enemies with honor. In contrast, everyone was interesting, hospitable and kind. Frank (Zane's friend also teaching at U of L) filled me in on a lot of the 20th century history I seem to have missed during my education. Did you know the last of the allied troops didn't leave Berlin until 1994? That the Stasi (East German Secret Police) preserved people's smells from their clothes and trained dogs to track their presence? That the "Iron Curtain" was so-named because there were lots of ACTUAL walls between communist countries and their Western neighbors?

Where was I? Summer camp, I guess.

And school, but even though I had Texas History for three whole different years of school, but I only spent about three weeks learning about the years from 1930 to 2000, and even those I can sum up in three simple, but grammatically complete, sentences: Hitler was bad. But we are good. And communism is stupid.

But in Germany the story comes alive. We saw Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin (where the West ended at the East began), and saw where the '89 riots began in Leipzig, and spent time at the Stasi museum. My historical imagination was sparked, and I spent most of my time wandering around with a general sense of disbelief at all that's happened there in the past 100 years. That, and how great the people are.

The Stasi museum was some first class spy shit. Little microphones that look like shirt buttons. Long-range photography. Smell preservation. Extraordinarily delicate letter opening machines and stamp forgeries. Disguises. Stuff that makes you think this is a museum for spy films. But no, its actual tools employed during that time. The Stasi museum is home to the few remaining, intact pieces of equipment in Germany. The rest was sold to the Department of Homeland Security during an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime, "everything must go" sale a few years back.

For any readers from the Department of Homeland Security, I kid.

And then, on Sunday, there was the squatters' festival. The municipality of Leipzig owns all these old houses where people can live free of rent and pay what they can amongst themselves for water and electricity. These squatters had a festival, which was actually a stage in back for some hard core punk music and a stage in front for karaoke (hard core pop songs like, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Love is a River"). Lots of people had weird fake blood smeared all over them. Lots of people were incredibly drunk. And some of those drunk, fake-blood-smeared German punks sang the best version of "Barbie World" that I have heard yet to date.

They just don't do punk in the states like they do punk in Germany.

Anyway, I know I'm leaving things out, but I didn't have much of a chance to think. We got in late last night and my mom arrived for a visit early this morning, and she's hungry and we've gotta go eat (foreshadowing for the next blog?...) I only wrote this today because Alan said that blogs are like handjobs and you have to keep them going to get results. Gross, Alan. Gross, but oddly compelling.

So no enemies this trip. And I guess....no honor? I definitely feel I have to return to Germany. This time knowing some actual history. This time for longer. This time with more money to spend in its thrift stores.

Besides, as the Germans also say, "einmal ist keinmal." What happens but once might as well not have happened at all.