01/02/2007
It's 8:25 PM, December 21st. A dark, but not stormy night. Funny how all nights are dark like that. I'm just stepping out of the apartment, strapped up with my hiking pack, setting out to catch my 8:46 train to Berlin. 8:25? 8:25?? Wait a minute! I takes 20 minutes to get to Gare de Nord. AHHH!
So there I am running, pack and all, through the metro knocking down little old ladies and any bystander not paying attention. Wham one down. Boom.. oops sorry! To clear my name, I didn't truly knock anyone down, but worried and panting I arrived at the Gare du Nord platform with about 2 mintues to spare until departure and hopped on my train. My first overnight train. Whew. Made it. Remind me to pay more attention and leave the house earlier next time.
BERLIN-
22nd - Lisa and I met up around 11:15 AM in Hauptbanhoff, a sprawling edifice of glass and
steel also known as Berlin's main station.
First stop, the grocery store. We were staying at the dorm room of friend of Lisa's in the
suburb Potsdam, and contrary to common belief, breakfast does not often appear of its own
volition. So we had to pick up a few days of morning provisions. Our most exciting purchase (though not breakfast related) was Mini Dickmann's, a sort of cookie. A cookie with such a name, however, it doesn't look like other cookies. (One of these things is not like the other...) No, Mini Dickmann's are special and fittingly shaped - about 1 inch high, cylindrical with a rounded top, chocolate on the outside, and yes, that's right marshmellow, white marshellow inside. ha. I'll let you make the blatantly obvious connections here.
After dropping off our gear in Potsdam, it was back to Berlin along the graffiti lined train tracks. The walls and buildings skirting Berlin's main digs are plastered in graffiti - more plastered than an alcoholic at an open bar.
Wandering around the dimly lit city streets as night fell, we came across a rambling, large building that looked nearly abandoned. A sign pointed in through the gaping dark hole of a door that lead into the complex. Ominous, yet titillating. Inside were cold, gray concrete floors and the sole decoration was the, yes, graffiti washing the walls with dim colors. Water dripped from the ceilings, forming moldy rivulets on the walls.. Taking refuge in this abandoned factory, artists cornered themselves into little rooms, selling their wares. The smell of pot wafted thickly through the air as we sifted through paintings, photos, clothes, posters, and more that were unusual and often countercultural. The exhibition in the top-floor 'gallery' was impressive. Alexandr Rodin. He does massive scale paintings that are bizarre enough from far away - sort of sci fi looking - not to mention that when you get close you see that he's hidden thousands of little objects in the details of the work: two lovers, a bird, an axe, you name it.
23rd - Up early early without the sun. Where was it? I don't know. Apparently, someone stole it the near whole of the trip. Cruel. After walking about 40 mintues in the wrong direction and finally hopping on a bus back the right way, we made it to the Charlottenberg castle. We took a tour. The palace tour guide, much to our dismay, gave us a tour faster than a cheetah on speed. Unfortunate. The room I found most impressive was mosiaced with whole pieces of blue and white porcelain. Look, there's a cup in my wall! Want tea? Oh no problem. Let me just grab my chisel and take a china mug off the wall for you.
Break.... OKAY. So this update will be way too long if I keep on so I'm from here on out going to
write paragraphs without any sort of segue.
We tried 3 times to go to the Neue Synagogue in Berlin, now a museum. We got no further than admiring the outside of it's gold-ribbed cupola. It was closed Saturday the 23rd for Shabbat and the 24th and 25th for Christmas. Go figure.
One night we went to a club. A night club. Thus why we went at night. This massive three-roomed club is housed in an old power plant. 'Twas electric... hahaha. A random German started talking to us. He had a very funny, abrupt way of speaking English and said a lot of inane, yet amusing things. Such as:"Yes. I know everything. I have special powers I know what you did today. You have not even been home since the morning. You were sightseeing. Yes I know it all. You are transparent." At which point I looked down to assure myself the I couldn't see any beer wielding partiers through my stomach. No, I decided, I hadn't been overly exposed to ex-powerplant radiation just yet. Still solid as far as I could tell.
Christmas day on our way to a museum we stumbled across a group tour in English. After our attempts to sneak a listen were foiled by the fact that the tour was free, we jumped right on the tour 'boat' quicker than you can say schwartzwurtzelcremesuppe (which is a soup I ate later on). The guide was fantisic - even funnier than updates, can you believe it!? It's almost a sin. I learned that although all the 'old' buildings in Berlin are reconstructions (at the end of the war, they were all jagged shells obliterated by bombs), the statues are original. This is because the statues are from the future and hence had pre-orchestrated missile defense systems. They came back in time with Bill and Tell on their excellent adventure. Okay... you want to know the truth?... You see Hitler knew that there would be plenty of damage and that while buildings are easy to reconstruct, statues are not. Fire grilled asparagus. Are you paying attention? Good. So that he could have a beautiful new republic come his (so he thought would occur) "victory," he ordered all the statues to be taken off the buildings and sunk in the river. After the war came the fun part: diving for statues! It's almost better than pirate booty on a sunken ship. Look, I found Nietzsche! It wasn't, however, so easy. Then they ran into problems because of the whole East/West Berlin thing so they had to do prisoner of war exchanges with the statues. Many weighty discussions ensued. "I'll give you Athena if you give me that one that belongs atop the Berliner Dome... I'll throw in some brotwurst... It's a deal!"
We went to mass at the Berliner Dome Cathedral on Christmas Eve. I haven't ever been of the religion of everybody's favorite homeboy Jesus, but it was sure to be a good experience. Oh the mass... There was a choir of little kinder that sang as talented little kinder do. Then, I had a wonderful nap during the German-language sermon. Evidently sleeping gives me magic powers because as I drifted off into the wishy-washy world of semi-consciousness, I swear to you that I began to understood what the priest was saying! Moral of the story: sleep through your language
classes at school.
We also went to the Jewish museum, a really well organized and interactive set of exhibition. At the Hanukkah market, we bought latkes. Oh, how I've been craving those shreaded potatoes and onions fried in oil! Sadly, I was left unsated as the little fritters were incredibly disappointing. Ain't no grandma's home cooking. To ad insult to injury (using a dramatic expression), the Hanukkah market was decorated in Christmas lights, fir tree garlands and holly. They even sold Christmas ornaments there. Well I guess that's capitalizing on capitalism for you. It was a nice healthy dose of irony (which good for curing amnemia you know).
There are really neat walk/don't walk lights in Germany. Gaiers and Staiers. The look 'super cool' and I took a picture of one. The gaiers resemble crossing guards with policemen hats in the middle a power walking race. As I learned these wee light-bright men were originally denizens of East Berlin. After the fall, the government wanted to obliterate these Gaiers/staiers as they were communist residual. The people , however, loved their gaiers and staiers though and said "YOU CAN'T DO THAT! No gaier staier genocide!" The people won, and the gaiers ans staiers have lived happily ever after in their traffic signals boxes.
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I will write about part two of the trip (aka Prague or Praha) later, but first I'll update you about normal life:
New Years I passed with two of my good friends from Brandeis who are in Paris (Stephanie and Laura) as well as Steph's sister and Molly from my program. After a lovely session of wine and dine, we let ourselves loose on the lively streets of Paris like a group of crazies escaped from the asylum. We walked down to Place de la Concord and placed ourselves among the crush of the crowd. With the sparkling of the Eiffel Tour at midnight came a wave of cheers accompanied by champagne, dancing, singing and illegal fireworks. We tried unsuccessfully to crash a party on a boat on the Seine before I got a call from Nicholas, a French guy I'd met about 2 weeks prior. He is the friend of the son of the old girlfriend of my uncle. Go figure that one. Though we had met, I had NO memory of who he was besides that I knew our 6 degrees of separation and I remember meeting a lot of people when I met him. Anyhow, he invited us to a party at a friend's house. After my fill of revelry, I metroed home and fell into bed a bit after 6 AM, just after the majority of you (due to the time change) where yelling "Happy New Year!"
Bonne annee to you all. Let me know what happening over the ocean. I mean it or I'll
tell your mommy on you.
Love,
Hannah
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