Sun 6.1.13: Today we took a bus tour of Berlin, driving through the center then on to Kreuzberg and then the East Side Galleries. Our first stop was at the memorial for Russian soldiers who died in WWII. The memorial consisted of a pair of soldiers kneeling in duty, a wide open area with planted shrubs flanked by pillars with quotes by Stalin, and a large individual soldier looking out over the entire memorial (pics).
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| The kneeling soldier |
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| Up close |
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| The group by this first statue |
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| View of the memorial |
Next, we drove along the Tauentzienstraße and saw a whole slew of really fancy stores, culminating with the famous KaDeWe, or Kaufhaus des Westens, which is the second-largest department store in Europe. Most stores in Germany are closed on Sundays (we're convinced that allows everyone to party as long as they want without worrying about work) so we decided we'll have to come back sometime during the week or on a Saturday to check the stores out - and probably just to window shop since most stores are likely well out of our student budget! Next we passed through Kreuzberg (not much narration here, although the subway here was built above ground because this area was predominantly poor when the subway was constructed, and so the city planners didn't bother to build the subway underground. I guess they figured that only the rich areas deserve an underground subway that is out of sight and relatively quiet) on our way to the East Side Galleries along the river, which is where part of the wall remains as a memorial, painted over by over 100 different artists.
Our penultimate stop before lunch was at a panoramic reconstruction of the Berlin Wall, replete with images of guards on the eastern side and people peering over from the west to the desolate regions across the wall. The gallery also included a voice-over of quotes relating to the Wall (we all recognized JFK's 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech) and a wall for signatures where we could sign our names (I added the Stanford block S and tree). Our guide Dr. Jander and our Resident Fellows (RF's) Rob and Brigid provided even more context to us young 'uns about what conditions were like in Berlin during the Cold War - how even though it was West Berlin that was enclosed, East Berlin suffered more; how the Berlin Airlift operation by the West flew thousands of flights per day (I'd known the importance of the airlift, but I thought it was on the order of a few flights per day, certainly not thousands!); how difficult working conditions were for East Berliners at the time; and how difficult it was for the East Berliners to find work after the Wall came down, as the GDR economy collapsed and a huge number of East Berlin workers were blacklisted in the West. We also learned that, despite the initial celebrations upon the destruction of the Wall, many Berliners retained their distrust of the other side, further complicating the reunification for years to come.
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| Our dessert at Brecht's |
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| One of the bridges next to the East Side Galleries |
We broke for lunch at Brecht's, where we indulged in a sedate three-course meal (very European!) of tomato soup, chicken with vegetables in a pear sauce, and this lovely berry dessert. Fortified once more, Molly, Susan, and I returned to the East Side Galleries for a closer look - here are a few of my favorite illustrations. I met Zixiang for dinner at a Moroccan place, where we both got substantial servings of falafel, hummus, tabouleh, and other sides for just 4-6€ - definitely going back!
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| Great artwork |
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| A dragon and a giraffe! |
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| Through the window you can see the river |
Mon 7.1.13: After a long, boring orientation, several of us went to Aldi's (a grocery store down the block that's owned by the same people who own Trader Joe's!) to get stuff for lunch. Germans are big on recycling, and charge for plastic bags, so I used my many coat pockets to carry back some jam, bread, salami, cheese, and vegetables. At 4:30 we had our German Economy in the Age of Globalization class (M/Th 4:30-6:15); the professor, Ingo Klein, is very entertaining and interesting so I think I'll enjoy the class despite very little prior experience. Also, he made a wonderful sweet tea for all of us during the mid-class break, further enamoring us of him :) Immediately following Econ, at 6:15, I have E40 (electronics and circuits), which should be productive with just 9 of us in the class. Timur, our course assistant (he leads our discussion sections; we also have videos to the Stanford campus lectures from a year or so ago), is very direct but is hilarious in a dry, German sense (he told us, "Bring stones to class, and if I make mistake, throw them at me. Bring stones because I don't like tomatoes"), and all nine of us will certainly be working together, so we should manage well.
Since today was the first class, our CA let us go at 7:15 (the class is officially M/Th from 6:15 until 'unspecified' aka however long it takes us to finish material… bleh. Usually we should end around 8 or 9, he said), so Lulu, Esther, Tina, Shane, Tyler, Kennan, and I decided to grab dinner at a sushi place that had a 50% off promotion, and we swapped stories of our travels, interests, and plans for the upcoming weekends. By the time we finished, we were pretty tired so we just headed home and slept.
Tu 8.1.13: On Tuesdays I only have German class from 11 to 1, so I plan to use future Tuesdays to keep exploring the city and adventuring! This time we had to stick around for a few more logistical tasks like setting up our Deutsch bank account, and I used the remainder of the afternoon to crank out most of my German homework (Jochen asked us to turn in our daily journals, new vocab, and review from class by Wednesday) before dinner. Over Italian pizzas and sangria, Adrienne, Kayo, Mia, Susan, Molly, Nish, Kennan, and I played Two Truths One Lie (favorite moment: during Nish's turn, one of whose clues was "I met one of the people at this table by drawing their face," Mia asked, "Won't that person know whether that's true?" and Nish responded, to Mia's embarrassment and general hilarity, "Well, that person was you…" - it had been two years ago, in an art class) and generally having a good time. Finally we took our leave (we've begun noticing our loudness marks us as distinctly American haha) and dispersed to our own houses, where I finished the remainder of my homework and slept.
We continued onward as Dr. Jander informed us of the German schooling system - apparently in 4th grade the teachers sit down with each kid's parents and decide whether the kid will continue towards university education or a more vocational schooling route, with something like only 40% entering the university path (I think? Anyway, such an early decision seemed quite strange to us used to the American system, but I'm sure each has its pros and cons). Our tour ended at the Marheinekeplatz indoor market, featuring several baked goods, fruits and vegetables, meats and cheeses, and other delicacies - I'll have to come back, especially since it's nearby.
Some of the other E40ers wanted to start our homework so we went back to the center, finished most of it, and then decided to grab dinner by getting off at a random station and wandering until we found a restaurant haha. It took us a while to find a restaurant, but eventually Lulu Kayo Adrienne Esther Susan Nish Shane and I found - yup, another - Turkish place. We ordered and shared several types of German beer, and I was delighted with my goat cheese-filled cutlet of beef as well. We also learned just how quotable Kayo is - she told Adrienne, "You're like my dog!" which even in context didn't make much sense - so we're starting to write down this trip's best quotes :)
Th 10.1.13:
Exhaustion is already catching up with me - I slept until 10:15 today, which is usually when I catch the train to school! I hurriedly gathered my stuff and bolted to the station, arriving just a few minutes late to German but otherwise fine. Over lunch, I sorted out a few Running Club tasks and finished my homework before Econ/E40, which were both interesting but got tiring by the end. For dinner, a big group of us went to Burgermeister (though I opted for Turkish food instead), a small stand under the U1 (the above-ground subway, same one that runs by my house), with a positive verdict for both price and taste. A few people adventured around afterward, but I was pretty tired, and woke up kind of sick today, so I just headed home. I hung out with Hanna for a while, speaking some German as best I could and English when I couldn't while she showed me some popular German music videos. Then around midnight I finally finished and submitted my Co-Term application to the MS&E department (hooray!) and then crashed, exhausted.
Fri 11.1.13:
WHEW! WHAT A WEEK!
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