Today is the third class in our current four class set. We will begin class with a casual conversation. Our reading this week is about delivery work. Our listening material is about an airport. We will review unit 2 of our grammar worksheets.
Click HERE for the reading
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Berlin's new airport is finally open. Almost a decade late, 4 billion euros over budget - it's Germany's biggest engineering embarrassment. The capital's old airport engenders quite different feelings in the German heart, as Esme Nicholson reports.
ESME NICHOLSON, BYLINE: Airports can be emotional places, where loved ones part ways and families reunite. Now, more than ever, they are the embodiment of what the Germans call fernweh, a painful longing to be somewhere else. But in Berlin, any mention of the city's new airport tends to elicit expletives or laughter. Originally due to open in 2011, the new Berlin Brandenburg has been beset by a succession of technical fiascos, the burden of which its latest chief executive, Engelbert Lutke Daldrup, doesn't try to hide.
ENGELBERT LUTKE DALDRUP: (Through interpreter) The massive delays and construction problems made Berlin and the whole of Germany a laughing stock. As a German engineer, I'm ashamed. So obviously, there's no reason to throw a big opening party.
NICHOLSON: But here at Tegel, Berlin's other airport, the mood is different. While some are pleased that this airport is closing, others are melancholic. Although very few people are flying anywhere at the moment, Berliners are coming to Terminal A simply to walk about, drink an overpriced beer and quietly take their leave. One of them is 66-year-old retired engineer Rolf Schneider.
ROLF SCHNEIDER: (Through interpreter) I've flown from Tegel many times since the wall came down, and it feels like an era is coming to an end.
NICHOLSON: As an East Berliner, Schneider knows all about fernweh. He couldn't fly from the West Berlin airport, or from anywhere, until 1989. Tegel was built in 1948 during the Soviet blockade of West Berlin. While it took only three months to build, its replacement has taken 30 years to come to fruition.
ANDREAS SPAETH: How the hell could this happen to Germans, out of all people, so much known for their precision and good product?
NICHOLSON: Andreas Spaeth is an aviation journalist. He says the new airport's endless construction issues have debunked the myth of German efficiency once and for all - from a roof that's too heavy, to the escalators that were too short, to lights and display screens that couldn't be turned off.
SPAETH: There were about 730 screens. They had been running six years in a row, and now they had to be replaced, all of them, before the airport actually opened.
NICHOLSON: Spaeth says the airport is still losing several million euros a week and faces yet more debt with the airline industry in turmoil.
Back at Tegel, the main terminal is filling up with nostalgic day-trippers. Retirees Mariane and Rainer Dillenberger are among them.
MARIANE DILLENBERGER: (Through interpreter) We came here to say goodbye because over the years, we've experienced a lot at this airport. All those memories - meeting family and friends and going off on vacation. It's moving to be here and a little bit sad, too.
NICHOLSON: Mariane grabs her husband as he edges away from the microphone.
DILLENBERGER: (Through interpreter) You should talk to my husband. He was the one who insisted we come today. Right, darling?
NICHOLSON: But emotions are running high.
DILLENBERGER: (Through interpreter) He can't talk. It hurts too much. He's welling up with tears. Oh, dear.
NICHOLSON: Time for another German word - heimweh, or homesickness, for these are tears for a part of West Berlin that is no more. For NPR News, I'm Esme Nicholson in Berlin.
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