Budak in Berlin

Finale-whoa-ohh

2006-08-16T23:17:00.000+02:00

Now that I'm back in the US after an incredible time in Berlin, I just want to thank everyone for reading the blog. I created it just to share some stories and photos with friends back home, but when all was said and done 14,000+ people visited my blog -- from all over the world -- in just a few weeks. It was amazing to hear from all of you who left comments -- and if you didn't, please do! These were 6 of the best weeks of my life, and I'm glad you could come along for the ride.

Happy Trails --

East Siiiiiiide

2006-08-06T06:26:00.000+02:00

Here are some photos from the East-Side Gallery, which is the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall, in all of its graffiti-filled glory.

Potsdamer Platz

2006-08-03T01:09:00.000+02:00

Potsdamer Platz was a central hub of Berlin nightlife in the 1920’s and 1930’s, but was heavily damaged during WWII. It was further destroyed in 1961 as the area straddled East and West Berlin, and any remaining buildings were leveled to build the wall and the no-man’s land. Beginning in the 1990’s, the Potsdamer Platz area became the biggest construction site in Europe as new buildings and plazas were constructed. Today it is once again a central area of Berlin. What really appeals to me about the place is how well designed it is: it is a great example of mixed-use planning where there is a combination of residential, commercial, restaurants, entertainment, and transportation facilities all intermingled. Further, there’s a great interplay between private and public space. The Sony Center, for example is both public in that it is unbounded and allows free movement and public activity, yet it is private in that it is somewhat confined and contains private industry – restaurants, cinemas, and business offices. This interplay is, I think, representative of the best of urban design. In the rest of the Platz, I like that they have reserved some space for a grassy park, as well as for a man-made lake – areas that surely could have been quite profitable had another commercial building been built. Some Pictures:

The roof of the Sony Center during the day, and then lit up at night:

Berlin at dusk

2006-07-27T01:25:00.000+02:00

The follow-up to the “Praha at Dusk” photos, here are some pictures from Berlin at dusk (and into the night). Thanks for all the comments, it’s really fun reading what everyone has to say, and seeing that people literally from all over the world are reading the blog. I really appreciate it.

The Alexander Platz S-bahnhof:

The Brandenburg Gate:

Postcards on sale all along Unter Den Linden:

Berlin City Opera:

Berliner Dom:

Deutsches Historiches Museum:

Unter Den Linden:

“Enjoying the view”:

There is a God...and his name is Hasselhoff

2006-07-22T20:34:00.000+02:00

Germans, it seems to me, are known for three things: their beer, their efficiency and their inexplicable love for all things David Hasselhoff. Throughout my weeks in Berlin I have enjoyed the beer very much, been impressed with the efficiency of all things Deutsch, but only now, after a trip to the record store inside the Galleria Kaufhaus, can I truly say “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

I went to buy some CD’s of the German artists I always heard about in German class – Die Artzin, Nina Hagen, Fanta Vier, etc. – but spent a good amount of time wandering around until I found my little slice of heaven: a David Hasselhoff 2-CD set (with bonus DVD!) all for under 20 Euros. This piece of musical-gold features Hasselhoff performing – nay, improving – such classics as “Rhinestone Cowboy,” “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head,” and “New York, New York.” I would write more, but I have a date with musical brilliance, so if you’ll excuse me, it’s Hasselhoff time. (Yes, I really did buy it).

Berliner Baere

2006-07-20T20:52:00.000+02:00

The symbol of Berlin, the bear, can be seen throughout the city: on seals, on flags, and, most significantly this summer, in the form of 8 foot tall painted statues throughout the city. The main collection of these painted bears is headquartered at the famous Humboldt Universitaet, the university where Einstein, Marx, and Engels, among others studied. The courtyard at Humboldt holds so much history; it’s the spot where the infamous book burning occurred under Hitler (for which there is a wonderfully poignant memorial: a sheet of clear glass built into the cobblestones where one can look down below ground and see empty book shelves, alongside a quote from Heinrich Heine which says when you destroy books, you destroy humanity – though it sounds much more poetic auf Deutsch) where books written by Jews, Communists, and others were forever destroyed. There, in that very courtyard is a ring of painted bears – about 150 in all – each decorated by the different countries of the world. The bears range from humorous – the Cuban bear with a cigar in its mouth – to sublime – the Japanese bear in all white, except for a red circle on its paw – to the strangely abstract – Canada’s broken pottery covered bear. Initially organized for the World Cup, but still standing now, it is as much a fascinating cultural-political installment in which one can observe the differences in how countries around the world choose to represent themselves, as it is visually stunning. It also serves as yet another example of the layers of meaning that permeate all throughout Berlin; in just the last century, that square has been host to some of the world’s greatest thinkers, suffered one of the world’s worst attacks on academia and social thought, has been held hostage during the Cold War as Berlin lay divided, and now, represents a celebration of the world cup, the countries of the world, and truly of the city of Berlin.

On a side note, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this blog has been named a “blog of note” by blogger, and I am thrilled to be receiving comments from people reading the blog from all around the world. I started this blog just to share stories with family and friends back home, but I am really excited to be able to share stories and pictures of perhaps my favorite city in the world, Berlin, with all of you. It’s been great reading everyone’s comments; please continue to do so…thank you!

Now, onto the bears!

DingDongDing...Praaahaaa

2006-07-11T23:52:00.000+02:00

One of the things I remembered from my last visit to Prague – besides how to do a great impression of the metro voice announcing stops – is how difficult it is to leave the train station. In order to get to our hostel we needed to buy a 90 minute pass for the tram; the problem, however, is that in order to buy it you need small change or coins, and when you convert or withdraw Czech Krones, you only get big (500-1000) bills, when you only need about 20CZK to buy tickets. To make matters worse, no one in the train station wants to give change, so it is consistently difficult to get the right Krone denomination to leave. Add to that the difficulty of communicating, especially to the Metro help kiosk, which has only a tiny hole to see through to the inside which is located right at stomach height, forcing the questioner to bend over awkwardly all while stumbling to ask someone who doesn’t speak much English for directions. We went to purchase a drink at a convenience store – a drink that turned out to be licorice cola – in order to break the big bills and get tram tickets. Finally we got our tickets and were on our way.

Prague has a fantastic public transportation system, consisting of an underground metro with wonderfully long and speedy escalators, as well as a tram system. We had directions to the hostel which told us to take Tram #5 towards Lipanska. We found the stop, but were unsure of which direction to take the tram since it was unclear which stop was next. We hopped on the first #5, and took it two stops, until the conductor told us it was the end of the line and we had to get off. We got off, walked across the street to catch the tram going the other direction, only to see the conductor get out of the tram, take a cigarette break, and then come pick us up, on the very same tram, just a few minutes later.

The place where we stayed, Hostel Olet, was fantastic. It is a school nine months of the year, but converts to a hostel for the summer months. We slept in a classroom decorated with pictures drawn by elementary school aged kids, and got free breakfast in the morning and a free “welcome beer.” My first sign as to how gorgeous Prague is was when I looked out the window in the men’s room, where I saw steeples, spires, and red tiled roves covering buildings, the colors of which represented the entire pastel spectrum. If the bathroom view is that impressive, you know the city from ground level has to be even more so.

Friday evening we took the Metro to the old town and walked around, taking in the sights. Following dinner at a nice outdoor café, we walked to the Vltava River and then decided to journey alongside it. After just a couple hundred meters of traversing the river’s curves, we saw a number of people lined up outside a boat -- “Jazz Boat,” read the signs around the ship. After a bit of negotiation as to whether or not the boat trip would be worth 590 Krones, we decided to go for it, and grabbed ourselves seats on the top so that our view wouldn’t be obstructed. Performing that night was a jazz combo (piano, bass, drums) featuring a Czech woman who was a scat singer. Intrigued by the prospect of scat in Czech, we were pretty excited to see what the music would entail. In the end the music was only okay – occasionally the woman with bright red hair would get a bit out of control in her singing, pumping her fist in the air, once or twice actually hitting lights dangling above her, and even squeaking her voice – but the sights of sailing the river during dusk, sunset, twilight, and finally darkness was incredible. Already a beautiful city, when the sun is beginning to set, and the lights on buildings begin to turn on, Prague lights up both literally and figuratively and its beauty is shown off well from our view along the river.

On Saturday we wake up and head out to explore – what else? – a castle. After enjoying the panoramic views afforded us by the castle’s elevated stature in the city, we moved across the river to the “new town” – new by Prague standards means around the 1500’s – and looked for a place for lunch. We decided we wanted to try a real Czech place, as the city is truly overrun by tourists in the summer, and we wanted to get away from the crowds a bit. We found a menu at a small local pub where the writing was only in Czech – not one of these menus in four or five different languages. We figured out what chicken meant, so three of us ordered the dish where we recognized that word. The other two took random stabs at the menu. Our first dish came out, a large disk obviously deep-fried, served with pomme frittes. Jayne cut the mysterious disk, only to find that the mystery fried item was a wheel of cheese – probably brie. The second dish came out, featuring deep fried mushrooms again with a side of pomme frittes. Finally our chicken dishes came out, and to no one’s surprise, it was fried chicken with a side of pomme frittes. Despite the homogeneity of fried foods, we were pretty happy that we managed to order Czech food from a waitress who only spoke Czech – no English or German – and that we had experienced a real Czech dining experience – even if the menu only consisted of “choose your favorite food and we’ll fry it for you.”

That evening we wandered back to the Old Town for dinner, stopping at El Mojito Café, a place whose menu featured 11 pages of mixed drinks, and one page of food, all of which were pasta dishes. Regardless, the drinks we had – ranging from cheap Pilsner, to grapefruit juice, to the requisite mojito – were all fantastic, as were the big bowls of pasta which were fresh and very garlicky. The waiter/chef/bartender was a guy from Slovakia, running the family establishment, and had named some of the drinks after his family members, some of whom lived in the Czech Republic, while others were in Italy.

After a leisurely dinner we went to the old town hall, where an astronomical clock that dates back to the 1300’s resides prominently. Every hour, on the hour, it is supposed to feature a show where the apostles more around the clock. Surely every guidebook to Prague must mention it, as when we went out minutes before 10PM, the square was packed with tourists. Lasting no more than 45 seconds, the clock rang and then a series of movements – which surely must have been impressive 500 years ago, but today is nothing a middle school industrial tech class couldn’t do – has to be the greatest joke on tourists out there. It’s one of those “must see” sights, but I don’t think many of us walked away too impressed.

As if providing a fitting bookend to our Prague experience, transportation issues plagued us on the way back from the hostel to the train station. Leaving on a Sunday, the tram schedule runs far less frequently than Monday through Saturday. As such, we just missed one tram, meaning that we had to wait 15 minutes to catch the next tram – all with just 45 minutes before our train to Berlin left. Luckily, a whole number of trams run throughout the city, so making use of the various other trams, we shadowed the path that the 5 tram would take, getting on and off a different tram for just a stop or two, inching ever closer to the “Ndrazi.” Finally, about 25 minutes left before our train left, we faced a dilemna: wait another few minutes for the tram to come take us another few stops and hope we get to the train station in time, or run to the nearby Metro and take the faster mode of transportation. We chose the latter, jogging through a small square, and down the speedy escalators, and finally jumping on the B-line which dropped us off right in the train station where we made it to our train-track with a good 15 minutes to spare.

On the train ride back I had the opportunity to converse in German with the woman sitting next to me. Immediately thrust into German mode when she asked me a question “auf Deutsch,” we ended up talking for a good while on many different topics – places to see in Germany, the renovation of Berlin airports, the country of Denmark, just to name a few. More important than the topics, however, was that the conversation was all in German, and I was able to understand most of what she was saying, and she seemed to always understand me, even if I had to explain things in a roundabout way with my limited vocabulary. Regardless, it was a great Deutschland experience, where I actually felt like a German, as this woman allowed me to speak German with her – even if my German was “nicht so gut.”

Some more photos from Prague:

Jayne, Katherine, Lauren, Dave and Me on the Jazz Boat

In the metro:

Inside Prague Castle:

A rainbow across the Charles Bridge:

The end of Charles Bridge:

Beware of Pickpockets!

Praha at Dusk

2006-07-09T19:08:00.000+02:00

I spent this weekend in the amazing city of Prague with some friends. There's lots to say but not enough time right now to say it all, so some pictures will have to suffice. In the collection are shots from a Jazz-boat cruise we took, as well as from wandering the Old Town on Saturday night. The big crowd of people in one of the pictures are people watching the Germany-Portugal game on a big-screen.

Ein Besuch nach Dresden

2006-07-02T20:42:00.000+02:00

While Berlin is perhaps my favorite city in the world, it doesn’t have that classic beauty that most famous European towns are known for. On Saturday we took a trip to see Dresden, a city almost completely rebuilt after damage in World War II, but reconstructed to keep the European traditions of cobblestone streets, medieval urban form, and stone buildings alive. It reminded me a lot of Gdansk, Poland, a city I visited last summer that also had been completely reconstructed following WWII, and did so true to its original form. While Dresden doesn’t have the energy, diversity, or excitement that I love about Berlin, it is truly a picturesque city. Our bus came to pick us up at 6:15 AM, and despite only a couple of hours of sleep from the night before, I really enjoyed exploring Dresden. Here are some photos from the day:

Frauenkirche:

A reubuilt, modernist Synagogue:

Dresden, like most great European cities, is built along a river:

City Center:

Luckily this wasn’t our bus:

Finale whoa´-ohhhhh

2006-07-02T20:23:00.000+02:00

“You are for Germany, yes?” the crazy Deutschland fan asked us as the game against Argentina went into penalty kicks. We told him that we were, and he responded, “good, then we link our arms together.” So there we stood, three Americans, arms around passionate German Fussball fans, jumping for joy as Argentina missed kicks and Germany made theirs. When the clinching goal was made, the nearly one-million fans at the fan mile went crazy as they screamed, hugged, threw their pilsners in the air, and rejoiced at advancing to the semi-finals.

Luckily at UCLA I’m used to waiting a long time for sporting events – hours at the Rose Bowl, and full days at Pauley Pavillion – so the fan mile experience wasn’t quite as tiring for me, as we left at 1:30 for a 5:00 start. After another thorough pat down, we were in the fan mile, which even 3 hours before the game was already full. After stopping for beer and the biggest sandwich I’ve ever seen – gyros stuffed in Turkish bread – and a stop at the porta-potties that cost us 50 Euro cents to use (although it did include use of a gemutlich makeshift washbasin and towels). As I was standing waiting for my friends to finish, a woman came up to me trying to give me her coins in order to use the bathroom. “Nicht fur mich” I told her, as she laughed embarrassedly for mistaking me for the bathroom attendant.

We grabbed pretty good seats that were only maybe 200 meters from the Brandenberg Gate (trust me, compared to the length of the fan mile, this is really close up). We ended up sitting behind an African drumming circle which was really cool for the first few minutes, but became a bit much after a couple of hours of incessant beats.

Finally the game was underway, and we had a pretty good view that included all of the Germans with their flags of various sizes waving in the air underneath the big screen. In the course of the afternoon we learned the German chants – my favorite of which are “Finale…whoa-ohh…Finale…Whoa---ohh-ohhh,” and “Schiess ein Tor…schiess ein tooo-oooo-ooor…Schiess ein Tor,” which means “score a goal,” but sounds much cooler auf Deutsch.

Following the game we eschewed the great public transportation system in Berlin and decided to walk back. Still light out, and quite warm despite overcast skies, we walked the length of the famous Unter den Linden boulevard, while a cacophony of honks from cars driving by – with both Germans and their flags hanging out of windows – filled the air and cheers of “Deutschland!” and “Finale!” were the greeting of choice for anyone dressed in “Schwarz” “Rot” or “Gelb.”

I’ve included some photos from the day, and also uploaded a video from Germany’s game tying goal. It’s shaky at the beginning since I’m jumping up and down, but after that you can see the celebrations going on at fan mile.

The washing center that almost made up for a 50 cent pee break.

Look at the size of my friends’ sandwiches

The view’s pretty good when the flags aren’t waving

More flags

Crowded celebration

The celebration continues on Unter den Linden.

German fans celebrate

Click above for a video of German fans celebrating the game tying goal against Argentina

Class im Biergarten

2006-07-02T20:15:00.000+02:00

My German prose and poetry course took a field trip Thursday – not to a museum or an important historical sight like many classes, but rather, because it was my friend Troy’s birthday, we took a group outing to a Biergarten, nestled away in the Zoologischergarten.

The Zoologischergarten – the former hunting grounds for German royalty – is a beautiful natural preserve in the middle of a bustling metropolis. Much like Central park in New York, when you get into the middle of it, you almost forget you are in such an urban place.

The Biergarten is right along the water, featuring long white benches and two separate stations – one for beverages and one for food. We stayed for a couple of hours drinking our Bier and eating our oversized German pretzels, enjoying the respite both from busy city life, and from working away at German texts.

Die Berliner Mauer

2006-06-28T17:49:00.000+02:00

East and West Berlin as seen through remains of the Berlin Wall:

Fotos Des Tages

2006-06-27T18:33:00.000+02:00

A couple of shots from the postmodern Potsdamer Platz built after the fall of the Berlin wall.

Half a Brecht

2006-06-27T18:29:00.000+02:00

Brecht is hard to understand when translated to English. It’s even harder in German. It’s a lot harder when it’s performed for you so that you can’t read the text. It’s harder still when you completely miss the first act, are jet-lagged, hungry, and tired. But I somehow made it through my first German play – Brecht’s Mutter Courage – and lived to tell about it.

One of the Professors in the program managed to get a few tickets for those interested to see one of Brecht’s classic works. My friend Emily met up with me – we were the only two students willing to try such a tough play – and we set off for the U-bahn. After a quick glance at my ticket, I saw that the play was to start at 8:00. We gave ourselves a good 45 minutes to get there, since the U-bahn – despite its German efficiency – is hard to time plan for. After taking the right train the wrong direction for a couple of stops – too much time chatting, not enough focus on U-bahning – we turned around and headed the right way. On the way to our night in high class entertainment, we were surrounded by German fans just coming back from the fan mile – despite their game against Sweden ending a few hours ago – chanting, singing and swinging their beers in delight.

We finally got to the Ernst Reuter stop – named for the Berlin mayor – and found the theater only to see the concourse surrounding it completely empty. Confused, I looked at my ticket again only to see that the Professor had actually given me a ticket to a completely different play scheduled for next week, not Brecht. Emily had the right ticket, which clearly stated the time of the play as 7 PM. So, there we sat, outside of the theater waiting for intermission to begin, formulating our excuses for when we inevitably ran into the faculty joining us at the play. Luckily before I could even explain the mix up – how I had looked at the time on my ticket without noticing it was for a completely different show – the Professor was incredibly apologetic to me, rather than the other way around. He truly felt bad that by giving me the wrong ticket he had cheated me out of an entire act of Brecht. I tried to tell him it was fine, that he needn’t apologize, but then again I couldn’t let on to the fact that a missed hour of Brecht isn’t exactly an hour I will dwell on in the future over missing.

As we found our seats for the second half, my Professor did a great job explaining some of the plot to me, but regardless by a few lines in I was already lost. The problem is not necessarily the language – if I really focused on individual lines I could usually get the meaning. The problem was that in the time it took me to convert German Brecht to English Brecht, three or four more sentences have been spoken, and I have no chance of catching up to those.

As the play came to a dramatic end, the cast came back on stage for the longest curtain call I’ve ever seen at a play. It wasn’t necessarily as a result of the acting – it was good but not earth shattering – but rather it was the audience continuing to clap until the actors finally stayed off stage. Every single combination of characters came running out, hands locked together, to take a bow at the front of the stage, only to run off again as a new combination came out to replace them. After probably five minutes of mix-and-match actors running on stage, and Pavlovian clapping from the audience, they ran off stage for good, and we – our hands red and sore – headed out of the theater.

Though I hardly understood the play – the words, the plot, the characters, you name it – I’m very glad I stuck it out. After all there aren’t many Americans who can say they’ve seen an entire Brecht play in German (okay, fine, half a Brecht).

Fotos of the day

2006-06-24T16:20:00.000+02:00

A couple of pictures from wandering around Berlin on Saturday, June 24.

Fussball in Berlin

2006-06-24T16:07:00.000+02:00

I still think soccer (football) is boring…but I love the world cup.

On Friday, friends and I went to an area called “fan mile” – a strip more than a mile long stretching from the Tiergarten near “Berlin Mittle” all the way to the Brandenburg Gate – to watch the Ukraine versus Tunisia match.

Before entering the fan mile, every fan is subjected to an extremely thorough pat-down, mostly to check for knives and other soccer-hooligan paraphernalia. My buddy and I made a couple of teenage girls’ day when we lined up in what turned out to be the female line; they told us “boy’s go over there,” pointing and giggling. Following an inspection (in the correct line, I’m happy to say) that included a bit of an un-requested and un-appreciated squeeze on the backside, we were officially in soccer heaven.

The first thing one sees upon entering is a huge inflated Duracell bunny – no, not the standard Energizer bunny, but apparently a rival, pink, battery powered creature. The closed off mile long strip is filled with at least a dozen jumbotron sized screens showing the game, a ferris wheel, a fake beach complete with sand castles, and numerous stands lining the way. The stands are filled with merchants selling eclectic food – I saw Thai noodles, beer, candy, currywurst, and donut stands among others – and numerous stands selling souvenirs in the colors of all thirty-two “Welt Meisterschaft” countries. When Germany took on Ecuador a couple of days ago, 700,000 people turned out to the small area to watch; while not nearly as crowded today (understandably so), there was still a sizeable crowd. Luckily for us, the “anti konflict team” was in place in neon yellow vests to quell any possible “Konflicts” that might arise with such a large, passionate crowd.

Initially greeted by a surprisingly laid-back crowd at the front, which featured more relaxed fans sitting on benches enjoying a “Bier und fussball,” we made our way down the entire mile towards the front where we knew the crazy fans would be. There, connected to the Brandenburg gate, was an even larger jumbotron, where the game was being shown before a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd made up almost exclusively of Ukrainian fans.

The area at the front near the Brandenburg gate was crazy. Chants of “Oooooh-kran-eee-aaah” followed by six claps dominated the area, sometimes following a good play by the team, other times seemingly at random. Flags small and large waved in the foreground, and noisemakers – horns and drums – played the usual refrains of “let’s go” and “Ole.” Ukraine won a close match 1-0, with a goal coming early in the 2nd half.

Coming back from the game, my roommate and I decided to pick up a German necessity: a case of beer. Germany has a fantastic economic incentive system to encourage recycling: bottled beverages cost more than market value nationwide; however, the rewards for returning empty bottles back to the place of purchase are far larger here than in the US, creating a significant incentive to recycle. Our case of beer, for example, cost 17 Euros, but 3.5 Euros will be given to us upon retuning the bottles. The amount is significant enough – as opposed to a nickel in the US – that we will go out of our way to make sure the bottles and even the case itself are recycled. Upon receiving the recycling refund, consumers are no worse off for the temporary tax, while the environment is, in fact, improved thanks to increased recycling. Sounds like German efficiency to me!

While carrying the case back, a group of German girls hanging out near the window of their apartment yelled down to us that they wanted some of our Beer. I yelled back that we didn’t have any beer, that it was just a case of milk. They giggled (the second group of girls we made giggle today), and we went on our way, though now that I think back, perhaps we should have lingered longer outside their window, where we could have shared a beverage and a talk on their remarkable environmental economic incentive system. Maybe next time.

The view of fanmile from the communist TV tower (more on this later)

Hallo Berlin

2006-06-22T20:07:00.000+02:00

I made it to Berlin, and, thankfully, the journey was far less harrowing than my expedition to Halifax, Canada last summer before my Semester at Sea experience (read about it here:
The first thing that struck me about Berlin’s Tegel airport is how small it is, considering Berlin’s prominent place in world affairs. When I arrived at Munich’s airport two winters ago, it struck me as a modern, chrome and glass dominated monstrosity that screamed German efficiency. Berlin’s airport by contrast had a luggage carousel smaller than any airport I had seen before, and a laid back demeanor evidenced by the lackadaisical effort put forth by the customs and security officials. By the time I was cleared, my bag – unlike last summer – was waiting for me. I met up with four other Duke students on my flight and once all of our stuff was collected we looked for a taxi big enough for all five of us and our six-weeks worth of packed items. In my first “you’re really in Germany, now” moment, I asked in the taxi driver – “Herr Taxitreiber” as Frau Helbing would have wanted me to address him – if he could take all of us and all of our stuff. He told me he could, but once the mini-van cab was filled with our stuff there was only one row of seats left. So three of us took the mini-van, the others, baggage free, went in a regular cab and we met up at the apartments.
From the outside, the apartments were not especially welcoming. Across the street, buildings were tagged with graffiti and sayings, in English, like “take back the streets.” However, once we received our keys and found our way inside, the accommodations were much nicer than I expected. There are two bedrooms for two students, a quaint kitchen, a decent sized living room, and a fairly expansive balcony with a nice view. Additionally, waiting for us on our table were German snack foods, including the quite poorly named “Wiener blatter” cookies. While you get your English speaking minds out of the gutter, I will translate it for you: Viennese leaves – referring to the city of influence, and shape of the cookies, respectively.
Trying to fight the jet-lag as much as possible, I refused a nap (despite a 17-hour travel day that began at 4AM west coast time), and instead went wandering with my fellow Berliners, visiting the Potsdamer platz – an area in the former East Berlin that is experiencing incredible growth and transformation, which features an amalgam of beautifully fashioned buildings designed by some of the greats, including Pei and Gehry, that while disharmonious on some level come together thanks to the notorious diversity and contrasts that make Berlin the city it is.
Following our trip east, my roommate and I explored the Kreuzberg district where our apartment is located. I find many similarities between Berlin and San Francisco; if you believe that analogy, then Kreuzberg is to San Francisco as Berkeley is to the city by the bay. There are funky clothing shops, lots of, shall we say, “interesting people” out on the streets, and lots of hole-in-the-wall restaurants or “Imbisstubes.” We went into a small Turkish-run snack place (the area has a high level of immigrants, especially Turks), and had chicken pita’s. While we ordered the same thing, we got vastly different dishes – mine featuring diced potatoes, his fries, mine loaded with lettuce and tomato, and his with pickled radishes and chili paste. Regardless, the restaurateur seemed to appreciate our business, as he brought out complimentary chai tea for us to enjoy. A hot beverage, to go along with a hot meal (especially my roommate’s with the chili paste), on a very hot Berlin day wasn’t quite what the “Doktor” ordered, but it was a very nice gesture.
Thanks for checking in on my blog. Even though I don’t have access to the Internet in the apartment, I hope to share my experiences with you frequently. I was going to upload a bunch of pictures from my first day, but it's taking forever. I'll resize them and post them soon.

Potsdamer Platz:

24 Days 'til Berlin

2006-05-29T08:31:00.000+02:00

As I am counting down the days until I depart for Berlin, via scenic Newark, New Jersey, I figured I would share a few pictures of this incredible city with you, from my previous visit. Two of my best friends and I spent our 2004 winter break backpacking through Central Europe, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Berlin. Here are some photos from Berlin '04:

Unter Den Linden, Unter the night sky.

Part of the wall still stands.

Brandeburg Tur at night

A beautiful church with the forboding communist tower in the background

I think we enjoyed Berlin.