Deutschland...Part I in Series (I miss Berlin!)
So I haven't updated in over a month. This is because the battle against the german computer viruses rendered me incapable of trusting my computer long enough to make an epic post. Now that I have that mostly under control, I'm just lazy. Using the magic of lj-cut, I will give both highlights and in depth analysis, so you can be as involved (or uninvolved) with the chronology of my life as you like. It's like a Choose Your Own Adventure! In the form of a series of posts. In other words, the next few days, you'll have to sort through things.
I. Last Days In Berlin
-Spent time with a french man named Alexandre. Enjoyable times. That I enjoyed. He likes Sufjan Stevens and says the name with a french accent and it just kills me.
-Had the most intense last night in a town ever, consisting of Kultur Brauerei, dancing, a pretentious New York lawyer, a professional cellist, and knowing when eating while drinking is a good idea
-Museum day of amazingness with Jen and Annie: Schloss Charlottenburg, Pergamon Museum, Water Tour...and later visits to Fernsehturm and Checkpoint Charlie. I'm a real tourist!
-Catching the Berliner Plague
-Train trips do not always equal a Schones Wochenende. I suggest sleeping before travelling 7.5 hours, and I suggest never ever stopping at the Magdeburg Hauptbahnhof
My last days in Berlin were amazing, and bittersweet. Over the course of the month, I really had developed a love for the city and a link to it like no other city I've been in. I suppose I can see now why years of New York can make New Yorkers hardened to the idea of any other city being worthwhile. To me, Berlin is a city so alive with culture and history and interesting things and diverse activities. My 30 minute commute never became a hassle, but rather the perfect chance to experience my new city with wide-eyed glee, even with creepy men hitting on at every corner and the parade of prostitute in corsets, jeans, heels, and bomber jackets that is my beloved Oranienburger Strasse.
I saw amazing things that I don't have the time or energy to go into detail about. Rather, I will say a few words about each of them:
Schlacten See: The perfect quaint little getaway from the city, near Wannsee, it's accessible with Berlin transport and small enough to walk around. There is a little nearby biergarten and its just a beautiful little lake. It felt nice to be in nature, feel dirt beneath my feet. Appeased some of my Colorado sickness.
Schloss Charlottenburg: A mere five blocks from the house I was at in Berlin, it's everything you'd expect a castle to be. Extravagant, intricate, beautiful. I was in a room that Napoleon slept in. And they have a guided tour included with the tour where a British man talks to you about all sorts of things. Apparently the king had a collection of decorated snuffboxes that are gorgeous and you're encouraged to "take a few moments to examine the snuffboxes at your leisure."
Pergamon Museum: The only of the museums on Museum Insel I got to because I'm bad at being a tourist, it was well worth my time. The Ishtar Tur and the Pergamon Altar were definitely highlights. These are things so old that it blows my mind to even be in the same room as them, and their sheer size just takes you aback. Plus, lots of naked statues.
Fernsehturm: Tallest building in Europe, I was able to find the street my Berlin house was on using a viewfinder thingy. We had alcoholic ice cream in the revolving restaurant. So now I can say I've been in a revolving restaurant 200m up AND I've had alcoholic ice cream.
Checkpoint Charlie: One of the more moving museums I've ever been to, I think I would have been even more taken aback if I had gone at a time where there were less than five million field trip students there. In any event, I didn't find my professor, Wolfgang Mueller, who is in the museum. But I did find a lot of amazing things about the struggle surrounding the Berlin wall. Definitely worth a visit.
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp: While having an incredibly boring tour guide diffused some of the weight of this, I believe everyone who has the oppurtunity to tour a concentration camp. It's a bit painful, but I think the scary part is that its not that terrible at all. You dont visit and think "wow, this looks like a place of terror"...you think that it looks like a crappy summer camp, and I think for me that was the eeriest thing, that it could have been just any old place. I believe that what they say is true...those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. And at first sight, Hitler really was just a charismatic leader...
It's impossible to live in Berlin and not develop this keen sense of how the wall truly divided a people, the culture of a city divided, really. It doesn't hit you immediately upon being in Berlin, but rather over the course of time, when you think about how this city you love was once partially under such a strict communist regime. You can see how much freedom means to the people, how much their city means to them. I think it is that spirit that makes Berlin such an amazing place to be. My heart yearns to go back, like my soul drains the longer I spend away from it.
I did enjoy spending time with Alexandre though. I had met him at one Stammtisch (the regular gathering of Goethe students Wednesday nights at a place called Cafe Zosch) and the next week at Stammtisch, I saw him again. I found out he lived in the same neighborhood and that night he offered to be my bodyguard and travel home with me, even going as far as to walk me to my door even though it was several blocks out of his way. We ended up going out again later that week and getting some coffee, where we discussed such amazing things as Sufjan Stevens, the hardcoreness of Elliott Smith's suicide in relation to the disputed hardcoreness of Kurt Cobain's, his favorite american television shows and his deep love of Ben Stiller, especially Zoolander, his life in France (in Toulouse and Paris...I know, a dream), and his love of working with kids at the summer camp where he is a counselor. Needless to say, I had more than a little crush on him, and I believe he quite liked me as well. My hope is that on further trips to Berlin, I will have another chance to speak with him. He was not fluent in English or German, so we had to use both to communicate. This led to such amazing exchanges as the following:
Lacey: "Well, I'm about as American as Apple Pie"
Alexandre: "No no, you are too cute to be just a pie!"
Lacey: "I'm glad we could engage in a conversation about this"
Alexandre: "No, I don't think I want to marry you."
Other than that, there are such a multitude of personalities at Goethe that I'm going to miss, I can do no more than give a list of names that mean nothing to anyone but me: Eivind, Julie, Eirik, Eleni, Peter, Roisin (Rosie), Jean-Phillippe, Vegard, American Mike, British Mike, Andrew, Simon...the list goes on. It's always weird being in these situations where you make great friends with people and you just know that the chances of ever seeing any of them again are just so completely slim. It's frustrating really. At least I'll see some of them, and that pleases me.
I did get incredibly sick at one point in Berlin. I kept trying to stay in class but I was blacking out and dizzy. I remember being simply too sick to get myself out of bed and cook for myself. I was all delirious and I kept having crazy psychadelic dreams. Intense, a bit unpleasant, but luckily short-lived.
I spent too much money in Berlin, but it's hard not to when there are so many amazing things to do and such a limited amount of time in which to do them. I wanted to absorb every experience in the city I possibly could, because when was I really going to have the oppurtunity to experience Berlin like that again? I hope I will, but you never knew. That could have been my one shot, I didn't want to look back on it and have regrets because I stayed home all the time.
The last night was an especially good one. We all got together for drinks in the Prenzlauer Berg section of Berlin at a little bar we found on the street. We sat outside drinking and talking, getting hit on by the same guy if you were me and Annie (though I believe he is partial to Annie)...someone who openly admits the only things he is bad at are "modesty and math". Oh, Peter. We all gravated to a place known as the KulturBrauerei, which I wish I would have known about before. Dancing and drinking a little too much without eating enough led to me spilling a mustard covered bratwurst down the front of my shirt. But it was an amazing final night.
The five of us travelled to Bremen from Berlin on September 30th for a mere 6,40 Euros each. It took 7 and a half hours, as opposed to the direct two, on a ticket called a Schones Wochenende ticket, a magical german thing which Stelth and Rene would later use to get themselves across Germany for dirt cheap. However, we got all messed up in Magdeburg, which has no elevators. Lots of luggage plus stairs = I am mad buff now. But in all it was quite the experience, and getting Bremen was bittersweet. I missed Berlin, but I was so excited to lay down some roots...
More on Bremen to come in Part II.
I. Last Days In Berlin
-Spent time with a french man named Alexandre. Enjoyable times. That I enjoyed. He likes Sufjan Stevens and says the name with a french accent and it just kills me.
-Had the most intense last night in a town ever, consisting of Kultur Brauerei, dancing, a pretentious New York lawyer, a professional cellist, and knowing when eating while drinking is a good idea
-Museum day of amazingness with Jen and Annie: Schloss Charlottenburg, Pergamon Museum, Water Tour...and later visits to Fernsehturm and Checkpoint Charlie. I'm a real tourist!
-Catching the Berliner Plague
-Train trips do not always equal a Schones Wochenende. I suggest sleeping before travelling 7.5 hours, and I suggest never ever stopping at the Magdeburg Hauptbahnhof
My last days in Berlin were amazing, and bittersweet. Over the course of the month, I really had developed a love for the city and a link to it like no other city I've been in. I suppose I can see now why years of New York can make New Yorkers hardened to the idea of any other city being worthwhile. To me, Berlin is a city so alive with culture and history and interesting things and diverse activities. My 30 minute commute never became a hassle, but rather the perfect chance to experience my new city with wide-eyed glee, even with creepy men hitting on at every corner and the parade of prostitute in corsets, jeans, heels, and bomber jackets that is my beloved Oranienburger Strasse.
I saw amazing things that I don't have the time or energy to go into detail about. Rather, I will say a few words about each of them:
Schlacten See: The perfect quaint little getaway from the city, near Wannsee, it's accessible with Berlin transport and small enough to walk around. There is a little nearby biergarten and its just a beautiful little lake. It felt nice to be in nature, feel dirt beneath my feet. Appeased some of my Colorado sickness.
Schloss Charlottenburg: A mere five blocks from the house I was at in Berlin, it's everything you'd expect a castle to be. Extravagant, intricate, beautiful. I was in a room that Napoleon slept in. And they have a guided tour included with the tour where a British man talks to you about all sorts of things. Apparently the king had a collection of decorated snuffboxes that are gorgeous and you're encouraged to "take a few moments to examine the snuffboxes at your leisure."
Pergamon Museum: The only of the museums on Museum Insel I got to because I'm bad at being a tourist, it was well worth my time. The Ishtar Tur and the Pergamon Altar were definitely highlights. These are things so old that it blows my mind to even be in the same room as them, and their sheer size just takes you aback. Plus, lots of naked statues.
Fernsehturm: Tallest building in Europe, I was able to find the street my Berlin house was on using a viewfinder thingy. We had alcoholic ice cream in the revolving restaurant. So now I can say I've been in a revolving restaurant 200m up AND I've had alcoholic ice cream.
Checkpoint Charlie: One of the more moving museums I've ever been to, I think I would have been even more taken aback if I had gone at a time where there were less than five million field trip students there. In any event, I didn't find my professor, Wolfgang Mueller, who is in the museum. But I did find a lot of amazing things about the struggle surrounding the Berlin wall. Definitely worth a visit.
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp: While having an incredibly boring tour guide diffused some of the weight of this, I believe everyone who has the oppurtunity to tour a concentration camp. It's a bit painful, but I think the scary part is that its not that terrible at all. You dont visit and think "wow, this looks like a place of terror"...you think that it looks like a crappy summer camp, and I think for me that was the eeriest thing, that it could have been just any old place. I believe that what they say is true...those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. And at first sight, Hitler really was just a charismatic leader...
It's impossible to live in Berlin and not develop this keen sense of how the wall truly divided a people, the culture of a city divided, really. It doesn't hit you immediately upon being in Berlin, but rather over the course of time, when you think about how this city you love was once partially under such a strict communist regime. You can see how much freedom means to the people, how much their city means to them. I think it is that spirit that makes Berlin such an amazing place to be. My heart yearns to go back, like my soul drains the longer I spend away from it.
I did enjoy spending time with Alexandre though. I had met him at one Stammtisch (the regular gathering of Goethe students Wednesday nights at a place called Cafe Zosch) and the next week at Stammtisch, I saw him again. I found out he lived in the same neighborhood and that night he offered to be my bodyguard and travel home with me, even going as far as to walk me to my door even though it was several blocks out of his way. We ended up going out again later that week and getting some coffee, where we discussed such amazing things as Sufjan Stevens, the hardcoreness of Elliott Smith's suicide in relation to the disputed hardcoreness of Kurt Cobain's, his favorite american television shows and his deep love of Ben Stiller, especially Zoolander, his life in France (in Toulouse and Paris...I know, a dream), and his love of working with kids at the summer camp where he is a counselor. Needless to say, I had more than a little crush on him, and I believe he quite liked me as well. My hope is that on further trips to Berlin, I will have another chance to speak with him. He was not fluent in English or German, so we had to use both to communicate. This led to such amazing exchanges as the following:
Lacey: "Well, I'm about as American as Apple Pie"
Alexandre: "No no, you are too cute to be just a pie!"
Lacey: "I'm glad we could engage in a conversation about this"
Alexandre: "No, I don't think I want to marry you."
Other than that, there are such a multitude of personalities at Goethe that I'm going to miss, I can do no more than give a list of names that mean nothing to anyone but me: Eivind, Julie, Eirik, Eleni, Peter, Roisin (Rosie), Jean-Phillippe, Vegard, American Mike, British Mike, Andrew, Simon...the list goes on. It's always weird being in these situations where you make great friends with people and you just know that the chances of ever seeing any of them again are just so completely slim. It's frustrating really. At least I'll see some of them, and that pleases me.
I did get incredibly sick at one point in Berlin. I kept trying to stay in class but I was blacking out and dizzy. I remember being simply too sick to get myself out of bed and cook for myself. I was all delirious and I kept having crazy psychadelic dreams. Intense, a bit unpleasant, but luckily short-lived.
I spent too much money in Berlin, but it's hard not to when there are so many amazing things to do and such a limited amount of time in which to do them. I wanted to absorb every experience in the city I possibly could, because when was I really going to have the oppurtunity to experience Berlin like that again? I hope I will, but you never knew. That could have been my one shot, I didn't want to look back on it and have regrets because I stayed home all the time.
The last night was an especially good one. We all got together for drinks in the Prenzlauer Berg section of Berlin at a little bar we found on the street. We sat outside drinking and talking, getting hit on by the same guy if you were me and Annie (though I believe he is partial to Annie)...someone who openly admits the only things he is bad at are "modesty and math". Oh, Peter. We all gravated to a place known as the KulturBrauerei, which I wish I would have known about before. Dancing and drinking a little too much without eating enough led to me spilling a mustard covered bratwurst down the front of my shirt. But it was an amazing final night.
The five of us travelled to Bremen from Berlin on September 30th for a mere 6,40 Euros each. It took 7 and a half hours, as opposed to the direct two, on a ticket called a Schones Wochenende ticket, a magical german thing which Stelth and Rene would later use to get themselves across Germany for dirt cheap. However, we got all messed up in Magdeburg, which has no elevators. Lots of luggage plus stairs = I am mad buff now. But in all it was quite the experience, and getting Bremen was bittersweet. I missed Berlin, but I was so excited to lay down some roots...
More on Bremen to come in Part II.