I spent quite a bit of time this week managing pictures, so this post will be brief. Last week I hang out with friends, ate lots of French cooking, and fed them some Waldorf salad. I also took a bike tour to historic spots along the old Berlin Wall and visited a sculpture museum. On Sunday I walked from the Alexanderplatz down the street Unter den Linden all the way to the Brandenburg Gate. On the way there was lots of stuff set up for the 50th Birthday celebration of the EU. Since I was on my own I got to stop and read almost all of the info columns describing the history of the EU.
Now for the future: I'll be taking the ZOP on Thursday and Friday, the hardest German test the institute offers. I don't have an apartment in Freiburg yet but I do have arrangements for the trip there and accommodations for my arrival. Life is hectic but good.
26 March 2007
21 March 2007
Another Week’s events
Other than that, the only big event I’ve had since then was my visit to
Yeah, so that’s the update. I’m still looking for a place to live in Freiburg, but from talking to people here it sounds like the norm in searching for apartments is to visit them before making a contract, so I may not really have a choice but to wait and find something when I’m in
13 March 2007
First week in Berlin
I was placed a week ago into the course C1.1, which is the highest level they decided to offer this month. The people in the course are pretty diverse: outside of we three Americans, there are three from France, two from Japan, one from London, one from Ireland, one from Norway, one from Singapore, one from Russia, one from the Ukraine, and one from China. It's been really cool to get to know so many different people from so many different places. The course work is mostly review in terms of grammar, but we are learning some stylistic points as well that I've never had from an American teacher, so it's definitely worth it.
I've been keeping quite busy with the cultural program that the Goethe-Institut runs alongside the classes. I have been on several walking tours - the first a more general walk through central Berlin, then one focused on the Alexanderplatz, and today an excellent tour with the theme of "August '89", which focused on the events leading up to the opening of the GDR's borders on November 9, 1989. The tour guide himself lived in East Berlin at the time and took part in some of the demonstrations and protests. Interesting tidbit: I never before knew this, but churches played a huge role in the revolution in East Germany. In addition to simply being a place where dissidents could meet, they hosted prayer and fasting services in the tumultuous month before the fall of the wall and they sheltered people from being mistreated by the police.
There is of course a lot that I could write about the various things that I have done. I visited a city museum that had models of Berlin circa 1400, 1600, and 1800. I ate a meal with Eisbein (leg of pork). I went to a church service in the St. Marienkirche - the oldest church in Berlin that still functions as a church. I visited the ITB, a global tourism expo. Rather than ending with insignificant details about these things, however, I thought I might finish by describing Berlin itself.
Berlin is a fairly large city, with about 3.5 million inhabitants, but is spread over such a large area that I have never seen any part of it more crowded than Pittsburgh. It is a poor city, with high unemployment and an astonishing lack of investors, but there is excellent public transportation and little crime. Berlin is a disfigured city, with almost none of the middle-ages old city visible and with plenty of damage around from the last world war, and yet it harbors a thriving artistic and cultural community.
The things I named above are of course mostly things that I have heard from guides and such. My experience thus far has if anything confirmed these things, but I can't claim to have found them out myself. My biggest impression is that Berlin is the center of a wound. One sees here some of the freshest new growth and ideas in Germany growing over, under, and around the scabs left over from a long war against fascism and an even longer division due to communism. This is especially evident when I see an art gallery set up in a bombed-out factory, or slogans of peace and freedom painted on a remaining section of the Wall. I am really enjoying myself here, not because it's a beautiful city (at first glance, it most certainly isn't), but because every little detail that I see or hear is meaningful.
I've been keeping quite busy with the cultural program that the Goethe-Institut runs alongside the classes. I have been on several walking tours - the first a more general walk through central Berlin, then one focused on the Alexanderplatz, and today an excellent tour with the theme of "August '89", which focused on the events leading up to the opening of the GDR's borders on November 9, 1989. The tour guide himself lived in East Berlin at the time and took part in some of the demonstrations and protests. Interesting tidbit: I never before knew this, but churches played a huge role in the revolution in East Germany. In addition to simply being a place where dissidents could meet, they hosted prayer and fasting services in the tumultuous month before the fall of the wall and they sheltered people from being mistreated by the police.
There is of course a lot that I could write about the various things that I have done. I visited a city museum that had models of Berlin circa 1400, 1600, and 1800. I ate a meal with Eisbein (leg of pork). I went to a church service in the St. Marienkirche - the oldest church in Berlin that still functions as a church. I visited the ITB, a global tourism expo. Rather than ending with insignificant details about these things, however, I thought I might finish by describing Berlin itself.
Berlin is a fairly large city, with about 3.5 million inhabitants, but is spread over such a large area that I have never seen any part of it more crowded than Pittsburgh. It is a poor city, with high unemployment and an astonishing lack of investors, but there is excellent public transportation and little crime. Berlin is a disfigured city, with almost none of the middle-ages old city visible and with plenty of damage around from the last world war, and yet it harbors a thriving artistic and cultural community.
The things I named above are of course mostly things that I have heard from guides and such. My experience thus far has if anything confirmed these things, but I can't claim to have found them out myself. My biggest impression is that Berlin is the center of a wound. One sees here some of the freshest new growth and ideas in Germany growing over, under, and around the scabs left over from a long war against fascism and an even longer division due to communism. This is especially evident when I see an art gallery set up in a bombed-out factory, or slogans of peace and freedom painted on a remaining section of the Wall. I am really enjoying myself here, not because it's a beautiful city (at first glance, it most certainly isn't), but because every little detail that I see or hear is meaningful.
07 March 2007
Living Accomodations
My hostess lives in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin, on the fifth floor of an apartment building which is in a courtyard set back from the main street. She lives alone and has two extra bedrooms, which she rents from time to time to students from the Goethe Institut. My room is quite large and a bit sparsely decorated, with a desk, a couple of shelves, and a couple of paintings, mostly by Picasso. The bed is a double twin I think, with a duvet cover. All in all the room is comfortable with plenty of space, so I’m happy.
I have use of the kitchen and a shelf in the refrigerator, so I can save money by making meals on my own. I and the other student I will be sharing with have to clean our own toilet, but the hostess has offered to do all of our laundry so that she can sort clothing by color and still cycle through loads quicker. The only downside to the whole deal is that there is no shower, only a tub. I’m still trying to figure out how to wash off quickly and effectively. Really, though, that and the thirty minute commute to the Goethe Institute are the only possible negatives, and I don’t mind them.
I have use of the kitchen and a shelf in the refrigerator, so I can save money by making meals on my own. I and the other student I will be sharing with have to clean our own toilet, but the hostess has offered to do all of our laundry so that she can sort clothing by color and still cycle through loads quicker. The only downside to the whole deal is that there is no shower, only a tub. I’m still trying to figure out how to wash off quickly and effectively. Really, though, that and the thirty minute commute to the Goethe Institute are the only possible negatives, and I don’t mind them.
05 March 2007
Arrival in Berlin
I arrived yesterday in Berlin at right about noon. After landing at the airport, I headed to the Ostbahnhof (East train station) because I knew there would be lockers there. I had agreed to meet my hostess between 7:30 and 8:30 at night, so I had some time to kill and I didn't want to carry around my luggage all day.
Because I had so much stuff I decided it would be easiest to take a cab rather than navigate public transit. This turned out to be a very good decision as my cabbie was the best ever. The drive from Airport Tegel to the Ostbahnhof took us directly across town, so he drove slowly through the town center and pointed out the different parts of town as we went. We even went right up to and turned in front of the Brandenburg Gate, while he was all the while pointing out the old line of the Berlin Wall and whose Embassies were where and all security measures that have been set up around the American and British Embassies since the Iraq war started. When we were getting close to the Ostbahnhof he described the neighborhoods on either side of the river Spree (say shpray), which in that part of town used to be the border between East and West Berlin. Kreuzberg is on the west side and has a very young and very international population. Friedrichshain is on the east side and is very nearly pure German. That two neighborhoods so close could have so different makeups shows you the kind of effect that the different governments of East and West Berlin had. (By the way - the place where I am living is in Kreuzberg about two blocks from the river.)
When he dropped me off at the Ostbahnhof he pointed out one end of the famous "East Side Gallery", a stretch of the Berlin Wall that was painted with various modern and abstract depictions of the former state and the people's dream of freedom. After I stowed my stuff in a locker I walked up and down the entire East Side Gallery. I would guess that it's more than a kilometer long, and there's painting on both sides. It was a pretty awesome look into the history and heart of Berlin. Click here to see the pictures I took.
Add up an awesome tour, great tips for how to spend my afternoon, and a reasonable price, and I think this taxi driver deserves an award or something. And I even forgot to tell you how he said, "You really need a good city map if you're going to be a month in Berlin" and then fished around in his glove box and handed me one. It was definitely a great way to be welcomed into the city.
Because I had so much stuff I decided it would be easiest to take a cab rather than navigate public transit. This turned out to be a very good decision as my cabbie was the best ever. The drive from Airport Tegel to the Ostbahnhof took us directly across town, so he drove slowly through the town center and pointed out the different parts of town as we went. We even went right up to and turned in front of the Brandenburg Gate, while he was all the while pointing out the old line of the Berlin Wall and whose Embassies were where and all security measures that have been set up around the American and British Embassies since the Iraq war started. When we were getting close to the Ostbahnhof he described the neighborhoods on either side of the river Spree (say shpray), which in that part of town used to be the border between East and West Berlin. Kreuzberg is on the west side and has a very young and very international population. Friedrichshain is on the east side and is very nearly pure German. That two neighborhoods so close could have so different makeups shows you the kind of effect that the different governments of East and West Berlin had. (By the way - the place where I am living is in Kreuzberg about two blocks from the river.)
When he dropped me off at the Ostbahnhof he pointed out one end of the famous "East Side Gallery", a stretch of the Berlin Wall that was painted with various modern and abstract depictions of the former state and the people's dream of freedom. After I stowed my stuff in a locker I walked up and down the entire East Side Gallery. I would guess that it's more than a kilometer long, and there's painting on both sides. It was a pretty awesome look into the history and heart of Berlin. Click here to see the pictures I took.
Add up an awesome tour, great tips for how to spend my afternoon, and a reasonable price, and I think this taxi driver deserves an award or something. And I even forgot to tell you how he said, "You really need a good city map if you're going to be a month in Berlin" and then fished around in his glove box and handed me one. It was definitely a great way to be welcomed into the city.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
