Berlin

My new favorite city! It liken it to be the New York City of Germany it was wonderful. It was a great city it was busy, but it didn't feel crowded because it was so spacious. There we met our International Studies professor, and he gave us a tour of the city. He was very informative which was nice to learn so much about the city while walking through it.  Around the city there were still chunks of the Berlin Wall, which was interesting to see where the wall stretched, and what it looked like.  Some of the pieces have since become covered in used gum and graffiti of lovers that visited the wall and decided to leave their mark. There were also lines that ran through the city showing where the boundaries of the wall once were.

Next we walked to the Brandenburg Gate and there it stood in all of it's splendor. It was great to be able to witness such a great part of history. At the time there was a protest going on. Dr. Kolkmann told us how there are often protests in front of the gate, to symbolize change.

Next we visited the Reichstag which essentially was my first taste of German Politics. It was such an interesting building. The architecture was truly symbolic of how the German government operates like the 8 cylinders of an engine. Also that there are big windows throughout the entire building to represent transparency in the government. The building itself was very symbolic of what the government stands for in both ideals and morals. Also in the building there was a Jenny Holzer marquee that shows on one side one view of the government, and on the other side the opposing view.  There was cultural memory woven into the building where they had pieces of stone with the Russian graffiti scribbled on it.

Later we went to an opera, "Die Schneekonigin", which turned out to be a children's Opera with some of the damn catchiest songs I've ever heard. Despite the fact that I had little idea what they were saying, the songs were still stuck in my head. It was interesting though, I understood most of what was going on until these storm trooper looking characters came on stage-- then I stopped understanding. But it was still a very cute play.

Later that evening we went on a hunt through Berlin's many districts in search of food. We found an Indian restaurant where we decided to settle in with a Indian sample and some tasty fruity drinks. The food was delicious and the conversation was even better. After that we did a little exploring and stumbled upon an Irish Pub where we sang karaoke and met an adorable Irish waiter.  He greeted us by saying "My apologies," with his strong Irish accent, " My German isn't too good, but my English is great!" And it was a relief because our German wasn't the best either. So we enjoyed good conversation with him.  That's when the karaoke began, and that is one thing I can't resist.  Amber and I took the stage in doing our rendition of "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga, which apparently we were a hit with the crowd! We had a group of guys rooting for us from the back of the pub, egging us on, and we had a woman beside us singing along as well. Another wonderful night.


Day 2:

The next morning we visited the Deutsches Museum, which I like to think held the history of the world.  Every inch was oozing with history and memory seamlessly guiding me through history.  It was astonishing to follow the paths of history through different relics and paintings of the time. I could have stayed in there for hours -- in fact, I did.  I couldn't help but try to see everything I could in this museum, it was entrancing.  For a while I had lost the rest of the group entirely, the museum was so expansive. Following the museum I wandered with Henrieke, Virginia, Molly and Kate, for a bit of shopping before visiting the Berlin Wall Memorial.  It was so eerie how desolate the area was.  Henrieke told us a little about how it was growing up in East Germany while being from West Germany and the struggles she experienced with that.  How the children were sometimes mean to her even through they weren't even born while the wall was up, they would just go off of their parents' prejudices. Then we visited the Holocaust memorial and wandered through pillars. It really did give me the feeling of isolation and being lost in the masses and being separated from everyone, it's a powerful memorial.

Later that night we went on a pub crawl through Berlin, which was quite the adventure as well, we explored a variety of different bars and lo and behold there was even cultural memory in that as well. One of the stops was a GDR themed bar that had different propaganda and items from the time, very interesting. The bars progressed from sit down bars to a disco later on that night, once again -- and overall great night.