Die Amerikanerin tanzt Super! Also, yummy potatoes.

Went dancing last night. The scene's a bit different here (at least, at the place I went to). Older, more established, slightly different style (some Lindy, mostly "boogie-woogie"). Rather interesting. Also, open bar (sort of weird to have a bunch of people sipping beers and watching you dance...). And there were more people dressed-up in vintage clothing (always fun).

Today, we tried to go to an outdoor concert on Bebelplatz, but it was way too crowded (a huge square full of people, spilling onto the sidewalk and parking lanes, and extending onto the isle in the middle of the street, and even to the sidewalk on the other side; it took us nearly ten minutes just to walk through it when we realized there was no further place to stand.

Went out to German food tonight. Really good potato noodles in sweet sauce (sort of like a cinnamon roll, only with potato noodles).

Sketchy subways and the songs you shouldn't sing there...also pointy red fruit

Freitag 29. August 2008

Went to Sachsenhausen today. Not ready to write about it. Very depressing.

Needed cheering up in the evening, so Rachel, Kristen, Prano and I all went to the Kreuzburg Carnival. Took the U-Bahn from Kottbusser Tor... some producers songs might have been sung at that time. Anyway, the carnival had lots of ABBA covers and candied fruit (which left our hands and faces red, ala a 3rd rate horror film). Also a band doing Beatles (in English... of one of the two songs they actually did in German). I determined that I suck at bumpercars (since I can't seem to get the thing going forward rather than in reverse and to the side), but still had a good time. Also, we passed no less than 2 pirate-themed bars in the same block while riding the bus home (apparently there's a ninja-themed one around here somewhere too... I'll have to try to get pictures).

Stalin must've really liked his little hooked rugs...

Donnerstag, 28 August 2008

Visited the former Statsi headquarters this morning. I think I've now fulfilled my lifetime quota for 1970s furnishings. The spying exhibit was rather amusing (cameras hidden in everything from birdhouses to gloves; there was even a watering can camera for spying on funerals). They also apparently had trouble finding enough tape to for all this recorders, and had a tendency therefore to steal music tapes out of the incoming international mail to use in voice-recording.

Lunch at Checkpoint Charlie (too many tourists, pretty good ice cream).

Spent the afternoon at the Jewish Museum. It was very informative, and had lots of cool artifacts going back to the Middle Ages. Highlights include illuminated manuscripts written in Hebrew, Moses Strauss's glasses (18th century frames are weird!), beautiful Torah shields, and lots of portraits from the past 3-4 centuries. Really depressing things included the whole first and second floors (post-1900).

Need to do something cheerful; will probably involve Monty Python in some capacity.
In other news, it is much easier to “bake” potatoes in a microwave than in an oven. But the oven does get coolness points for being labeled in Celsius.

Flasche in die Tasche

Ok, the internet is now working (though still frustrating: it dies a lot and only works on the computer that likes to omit "l"s). So, I've posted the entries I've written to date, and will try to post more regularly (no guarantees there, this is a somewhat time-intensive operation). Will try to return e-mails individually. Love you all!

E

A headscarf and two pigeons.

Mittwoch 27 2008

Toured the bunkers in Gesundbruennen Unterbahnhof (and nearby Pankow U.) on Berlin's underground tour. It's a rather like Seattle's, only with more fatalities and fewer opium dens in its history. The "bunkers" were originally transit storage areas, they were retro-fitted (not very well) first by the Nazis as conventional (if ineffective) bunkers, and later by the French West-Berlin representatives as nuclear fallout shelters (these stations are in the formerly French-controlled district of Wedding). Did you know that the GDR put gates in the Berlin sewers and spikes on the subway beds (though the stations were already boarded up and guarded) in order to keep their own citizens in? The sewer-gates had to be cleaned by special teams every week (for over 40 years) or else they'd cause flooding in the streets.

In the afternoon we had a lecture from an immigration lawyer at the alien registration ministry (informative, but less engaging than other pursuits have been).

During lunch, I wandered around the Bebelplatz (the square where the Nazi book burning occurred).

Yesterday we saw the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, the Soviet War Memorial and the remains of the Gestapo Headquarters.

Die "Denkmal fuer die Ermordet Jueden von Europa" wart sehr nett und mächtig. As soon as one gest away from the group/the tourists (and can reflect in relative peace), it goes from being somewhat plain yet to esoteric to being very symbolic and generally moving. It's made of concrete blocks of uniform length and width (maybe 2x7 ft or so), but which vary in height (appearing about .5-1.5 ft above ground level). As you walk towards the center, however, the ground drops below you (like going into a lake), so that you're soon in an aisle lined with 10ft slabs. The regular placement and shape of the blocks makes for a neat grid of walkways, even as the ground itself is rippled and slanted. The effect is intentionally disorienting (and yet so regimented!). On returning from the maze of straight lines, I was struck by how very much the slabs resemble crude coffins... A very effectively thought-provoking monument. There's a museum underneath it (this is all outside at Alexanderplatz, by the way), which I've heard good things about and which I intend to visit later. Probably not this week, though, as I expect the trip to Sachsenhausen on Friday to be very emotionally draining as well.

The war memorial was surprisingly very nice (despite the differing worldviews, ie the ubiquitous Stalin quotes). It was very peaceful and pretty—once one got past the communist propaganda, and viewed it as a memorial to the 5000 people buried there. There's a lot of greenery, and large statues (and a series of carved scenes lining the walkways: the right hand side written in Russian, the left in German). Pictures forthcoming.

Of the Gestapo headquarters (in the old government quarter), all that remains is a partially excavated basement. After the war, the bombed-ruins were demolished; some of the basement of the building was discovered a few years back, so there's now an exhibit there about the various police forces of the 3^rd Reich, and their victims (particularly the political prisoners who were “interrogated” in the basement cells). Before being used by the Gestapo, the building was actually an art school (built in the late 1800s I believe).

Die Mauer (und viele Geschichte)

Montag, 25 August 2008

Started class today: orientation at Humboldt and a luncheon (interesting Kartoffeln, delicious Kuchen). Later a walking tour of our part of Kreutzburg (specfically along the old route of the Wall). Turns out our place was right on the border: Michealkirchstrasse (the next block over) has patches on the pavement from where the wall supports used to be and the church itself is still being repaired from the war (getting stuck in no-mans-land for 40 years will do that to you). The parish was split west-east, and apparently had a bit more trouble reuniting than the rest of the city, so there are two neighboring St. Micheal's Parishes in Kreutzburg. The old canal-turned-no-man's-land is now a pretty park with a large fountain and a cute cafe. That seems to be the pattern in this area: there are lots of small parks on oddly shaped lots that appear to be left-overs from the second world war. Just down the block west of here there's a park with a little petting zoo (ponies right next to high rise apartments).

It's almost a sort of a time warp, really. The buildings are quite new and all*, but 1945 seems a lot closer than in the states. There I tend to think of it as being very much in the past—my grandparents' time (and too old even for some of them!). Here, it's very recent news. I suppose that's more of the cold war legacy speaking, though: the delayed rebuilding owes largely to that (besides the sheer size of rebuilding—some parks have hills made of post-1945 rubble). It's not just St. Micheal's either: we walked by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (sort of hard to miss), and you can still see empty frames from the stained glass windows, portions of the roof gone, and the remaining 'shell' blackened and gouged. Mind you, that was intentionally left thus; but to make things worse, they added a horrible 80s addition (ala the disaster behind Suzallo). Way to make an architectural tragedy even worse.

Also toured Humboldt today. It's pretty cool and historical too—I want to go to a university that's a remodeled Prussian palace (since 1810). Planck worked there; so did Karl Marx. There's also this huge plaque noting the wing were Einstein lectured when he was in the city. Mind you, that whole part has been rebuilt, as it was destroyed during the war (so its floor doesn't match the rest of the building, though they did a great job getting the outside looking right— well, done GDR). During the cold war, actually, Humboldt was the premiere Universitaet of the GDR. Consequently, quotations from their favorite student figure prominently in the décor (which includes marble “recycled” from Hitler's chancery to repair wartime damage). There's also a stained-glass window featuring Newton and Leibniz (I took a picture for Matt). The neighboring library was one of the main victims of the Nazi book-burnings; the Operplatz, right across Unter Den Linden from Humboldt, was the sight of the conflagration, and has since been renamed Bebelplatz and bears a monument (complete with the obligatory Heinrich Heine quote, which was actually a reference to the Inquisition...)

On a completely unrelated note: this country has awesome baked goods. The bread is delicious. Also, chocolate. Yum. I got some peaches today, and they were very tasty too.

Shout-out time: I totally got a picture of a Schulteiss beer sign (or rather, a little corner store devoted to the same), as per Sara's request (will look into securing something more tangible in honor of Dan). Also saw a store named “Eichhornchen” (with stylized squirrel motifs) which made me think of Nori. It was also virtually adjacent to a bar called “Molotov Cocktail”--another 5 points to Sara and her knowledge of Finnish history. And T, the Ipod is awesome. Es gefaellt mir sehr gut! RHS is in Berlin starting on mid-October, so I'm just missing it! Have yet to see anything that screams “Kathy”, though I imagine it's the part of town we're in (though the Baroque palaces come close).

*Well, comparatively. There are still some older facades, but just everything in the inner city was built/rebuilt in the last 60 years, especially in the last 20). That's what we call 90% destruction. It makes things sort of inverted: the oldest extant buildings are at the edges of the city rather than the center. Also centrally-located apartments being fairly cheap: the Wall, when it stood, really drove down property values—which makes sense when there's a frickin' militarized border between the apartment house and its sidewalk.

Apartment Pictures

Here are some pictures, though they don't really do the place justice. The hall is about the since of the common area in my Seattle place; the living room is about 1.5 that size, the kitchen half again as large as its counterpart, and the bedrooms slighty smaller than theirs. There's also a balconey that runs the length of the living room (which has large windows looking out over it).

I'll add more pictures eventually (currently have to upload from the camera to one computer, then transfer via flash drive to the computer with internet access, so it'll take a little while). I promise that they get more interesting, and (now that I fixed the zoom on my camera) more in focus!

I'm going to need some more duct tape...

Samstag, 23 Aug 2008

Arrived yesterday midday local time (3am by my internal clock). The trip went well (minimal airsickness, very yummy food, no awkwardness with teh sercuritaz). Or, at least, for me it went well.

My baggage didn't have quite as nice of a time:

Fortunately, the ladies at the baggage office spoke very good English, and replaced my bag promptly (as the wheels and one of the handles didn't work, this later proved to be a very good thing). Caught the bus and then the underground without trouble.

Turned out that I wrote the address down wrong, however, and spent the next 8 hours hiking through Kreuzburg and Mitte. Note: cobblestones and rolling luggage aren't the world's best combination. Also, should I ever decide to try the whole “backpacking through Europe” thing, I will definitely use a properly framed pack, not a schoolbag. Highlights included getting rained-on and finding a “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”-themed hostel (with relatively cheap internet access, yay!)

Reached the apartments on Adalbertstrasse around 8:30 local time. Used a payphone to track down people as my own cell isn't working (really should have stopped at the T-mobile store when I passed it). Slept alot.

The apartments are really cute—and a lot larger than the one in Seattle. Will post pictures when I can. German linens are a bit odd. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out the fitted sheets. Imagine a mattress-sized pillow sham to start with...

Walked around the neighborhood a little this afternoon. There are a number of parks, and a shopping district a few blocks down (with a lot of bars and a cool-looking 2^nd hand clothing store). Was more amused than I should have been at the sign on one bar declaring that it was a smoking establishment, and thus under-18s weren't allowed. Went grocery-procuring with Kristin and Mary Grace later; we got Doner-kebobs from a cool Turkish food stand and had fun chatting with the guys who worked there (they spoke some English and seemed very amused by our German). Forgot to bring shopping bags to the grocery store—not a mistake I will be repeating. Bought some staples (since stores aren't open on Sundays in general). The apartments are pretty well stocked on cooking implements (though we seem to be lacking in bowls—but we do have an impressive supply of wine glasses). Internet access isn't what we expected: will post this on-line later.

T-1 day

Well, I fly out tommorrow. Am in the process of packing. Have enough granola bars to last through next Christmas. :) (Have read too much Cassie Claire) And have only one question on my mind: what will I forget to pack? Am hoping it is frivolous and/or easily replaced (ie, not my passport).



Further details as events warrant...