Weekend 4: BERLIN

So, Thursday was a Feiertag (holiday) at my language school, so I elected to skip Friday and leave for Berlin Thursday morning. My hostel was amazing, as I posted. The first night, I met up with Beth, who went with me to Paris, and we saw the outside of Checkpoint Charlie.

I hit the hay early and woke up the next morning to activate my three-day museum pass (9.5 euros) for free entry to most museums. I headed to the Natural History Museum, one of the best in the world. I got to see a dodo, the tallest dinosaur on display in the world, and perhaps the most famous fossil in the world (see pics, and you'll see me with it). I didn't even know it was there, until I saw a picture of it in the gift shop and asked about it. I would have kicked myself if I had missed it. I get to see another one in Munich this weekend.

After that, we aimed to grab lunch somewhere, but it began hailing, so we took cover in the café at the museum. Once it cleared, we went south to the site of the former SS and Gestapo headquarters, now a huge, free museum called the Topography of Terror. You can ID it in the War Museum pictures by the outside of the building: it consists of glass exhibits in front of a long, solid piece of the Berlin Wall (which are everywhere in the city, by the way).

Around 5 pm we met up with some other classmates at the Museum Island in the middle of the city and checked out the Neues Museum (under Misc. Museums). Afterwards, we ate some pretty German-y German food (my ice cream sundae is in the General pictures).

The next day, I headed out by myself to the Berlin Museum of Technology (under Misc. Museums). It covered mainly the history of transportation (ships to planes and cars), which doesn't interest me that much, but I got to see some neat things, nonetheless. After that, I wound up in the CSD Parade (short for Christopher Street Day - that's what the Germans call Gay Pride - after the Stonewall Riots). I stayed there to check that out for a while, then got very lost and wound up with a German Lion King VHS in my backpack that I spent my last euro on. ATMs were scarce, and so were metro stations, so I ended up walking for 2 hours in the middle of the city. Took a break at my hostel and then I headed back out for German comic books. Later that night, I checked out the inside of the Checkpoint Charlie museum, and snuck a picture or two, although I was not supposed to.

The last day, I rushed to see the Berlin Ethnological Museum, which is the biggest in Europe. This was easily the best museum I have been to in Europe. The place itself was in the beautiful middle of nowhere, so I got some pictures of that. Inside was amazing as well. I was pressed for time and my camera was dying, so I documented all I could and grabbed a nice guidebook on the way out to read later. Grabbed pizza with Beth and visited the Medical History Museum at this medical school. Saw some crazy specimens that I couldn't take pictures of, like hydrocephalic babies in glass, spines with scoliosis, and huge tumors. The whole thing was very unsettling, but very interesting.

Got my train and now I'm back.

Here are the photos:

General Berlin
Ethnologisches Museum
Misc. Museums
War Museums
Natural History Museum
Berlin CSD (Gay Pride) Parade (SFW except for one guy's butt)

Next on the agenda:

This weekend, Munich.

8-10, Amsterdam (again).

15-17, Madrid.

Also, I'm celebrating the 4th here by cooking Amerikanisch Food for my host family.

Grocery Shopping

Today, I went grocery shopping. Today's exchange rate is ~1 euro to 1.5 dollars.

Bullit Energy Drink: .59 euro

Pineapples: .59 euro each

Sample chocolates: 1.29 euro for nine

Nutella: 1.11 euro a jar

0.7 Liters Jäger: 8.88 euro

6 of these pizzas (they were prettier before they were smooshed): 1.89 euro

I've been busy all week, and I haven't had time to post pictures... :(

Wrote this yesterday before Trivia Night at O'Reilly's. The one on the bottom with the Japanese on each side is the new one. Above it is one from two weeks ago.

How many languages does it take to eat Italian food?

Confidence building exercise:

Sit at the end of a table with 15 international students in a foreign country, making sure that no one around you has the same mother tongue as you. See how many languages you can speak a few sentences of and make a complete fool of yourself in every language but your own.

Done. French, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, German accounted for.

Berlin First Thoughts

While I wait on my classmates to get into town and situated, I have some initial thoughts on Berlin. First, the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) is HUGE. Easily five stories and more like a mall than a transportation hub. It had a glass ceiling, and combined with the prettiest day Germany's had in a week, this was easily the most beautiful train station/airport I've been to thus far in Europe.

Second, it may be the fact that I know a bit of the language, at least enough to recognize words I'm looking for, but this town just seems more inviting. It definitely seems bigger (protip: 50% more people than Paris). My hostel is far nicer as well. Like, it's got pinball machines, a nightclub, co-ed dorms, private rooms, no charge for lockers, and it just looks a lot prettier than the one I had in Amsterdam.

EDIT: Spoke too soon. Pouring rain.

Berlin Morgen

I'm off to Berlin tomorrow morning. I had a great day today, touring an old prison for students (!) at the University of Heidelberg, browsing for used books, and eating some pretty delicious sushi with my classmates, many of whom I saw for the last time. ;-;

Got in around midnight, and I have a 7 am train to catch to Mannheim then to Berlin for a four-day weekend. By coincidence, four of my classmates will be in the city, and we're planning on trekking to the museums together. When I get time, I'll post some pictures of this week, and of course, of Berlin. Now, I've got to pack.

I am aware that Flickr is being a pain and not showing some of my pictures. I'm working on fixing this problem.

Messplatz Revisited

Found another section of Messplatz yesterday, with what looks like a permanent mural.

Been Stormy Here...

Second Week Mural

Thoughts on the Germans

1. Germans don't get in line. If you stand behind someone who is waiting to be attended to, you are likely to have someone slowly stand beside you and slide their way in front of you. They think nothing of it. I'm starting to think this is why I wait so long in McDonald's. It's not that the service is slow (although it is, because they don't put you to the side to wait for your food, you just stand in front of the register and no one else can order), it's that I constantly have people cutting in front of me, and they do it in a way that make you question whether or not you really were there first.

2. Books. Books everywhere. People with their noses in books walking on the sidewalk. Bookstores lining the streets. Bookshelves in the alleys where one can donate a book and take one in return.

3. Travel agencies (Reisebüros) are so common, I couldn't find my way to school without passing four if I tried. Hell, there's one on my street, and there isn't a single other non-residential building for blocks. I don't know if they just haven't caught on to William Shatner's Priceline Negotiations yet, or what. Maybe if Shatner was replaced with Hasselhoff?

4. Cash only. Everywhere. It's killing me, because ATMs aren't as common as Reisebüros, and when you find one, they don't charge 2 euros, they charge 5, minimum, and a percentage of the withdrawal after a certain amount. Grocery stores are usually cash only. Many restaurants/pubs are cash only, and they give you your change right there at the table. They bring a bag of money with you and go around the table taking the cash for the bills, just as if you were ordering. This doesn't make sense to me, with regards to tips, because I would think people would be more inclined to tip better if they can't see the physically money (i.e. they are writing a number on a credit card receipt). At least, I think that way.

5. Germans like their Nutella. Actually, Europeans like their Nutella. And why shouldn't they? It's delicious. I can be bought in gallon jars here, or whatever a gallon is in their wacky system.

6. If you attempt to talk to a German three-year-old and butcher the language, he will cock his head like a puppy and go "was?" It's so damn cute... And no matter how much you say "I don't speak German very well, you must talk slower", he will chat on with you endlessly, like a radio announcer or something.

BOOKS

I went to a used bookstore today. America: please use all of Europe as an example and fill your towns with bookstores. I live in a city over four times larger than Heidelberg, and I have to drive 30 minutes to visit a bookstore, which is a major chain. In the Hauptstraße (main street) here, there are bookstores, new and used, independent and large chains, on every block. The used bookstores sell books ranging from 1 euro, to hundreds, and they often sell second-hand DVDs as well.

Here's what I got (the Princess and the Frog DVD was new from another store, but it was ON SALE):



That, TV fans, is a German copy of The X-Files Season 6, Episodes 13 to 16. Everyone knows that Episode 20 of that season, The Unnatural, is the best hour of television ever produced, and will never be rivaled, but they didn't have it. :( And beside it is an animal encyclopedia.

Wallpapers

Pictures that would fit elsewhere but are sized of wallpaper size and quality.

Germany Wallpapers. On-going.

Amsterdam Wallpapers.

Paris Wallpapers.

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Inside the Rijksmuseum, photos were prohibited. Here's what I saw and liked, with clickable

pictures for further information. (The first one is Dutch language only).

Read the page on this one (there's a drop-down menu) because it's really interesting. Same for the one above.

Weekend 2: Amsterdam

Amsterdam Slideshows:

The main one tells most of the story of what I did and what I saw. If you don't see the descriptions in the top right, go to the top right and hit options to change that. If you still can't see them, click the picture once.

Amsterdam Main Slideshow.

Amsterdam Graffiti and Ads.

Amsterdam Red Light District WARNING: very NSFW. These are photos from an erotic museum and the actual RLD.

A view of the Amsterdam from the canals.

Untitled a video by Abiogenic on Flickr.

This video was taken on a canal tour. There are 2,500 houseboats in Amsterdam, and they vary greatly in size, style, and appearance.

My Graffiti

I talked earlier about the graffiti street in Kirchheim, where I am staying. I've since learned that it can be referred to as Messplatz and it is a legal wall, meaning it is acceptable for graffiti writers, as they are called, to tag there. Graffiti has always interested me; I don't just appreciated it and photograph it, I have wanted to write it for sometime. Enter yesterday, when I went to the street for the second time in a week to once again document the ever-changing walls and talked to someone about the rules regarding spray-painting in the area. During class this morning, I couldn't get the idea out of my head, so after school let out, I headed to the local department store and bought a few spray cans and a small bucket of yellow to wash over an old mess of practice tags. This was the result.



I later went back after designing another tag, and this happened.



I think I'll take on the name "Buró", short for "la Tiburón," a feminization of the Spanish word for shark. It's easy to write, aesthetically pleasing, and, I think, represents me well.

Here's some other tags that have appeared since my last post (not to say there weren't amazing murals painted and covered over since then): Slideshow.

I'll post on Amsterdam later this week, as I'm still getting got up on organizing and studying, and I think I'm staying in Heidelberg this weekend.

Weekend 2: Amsterdam

I had a fabulous three-day weekend in Amsterdam, this time alone. I got in late last night, and had school this morning, and homework tonight, so I'll do a nice pretty update when I can.

Ready for Weekend 2

I'm about to start packing for weekend two. Getting ready with some Lonely Island's Jack Sparrow (feat. Michael Bolton). Just bought groceries, did laundry. Train leaves at 8 in the morning, tomorrow. Monday is a holiday here, so I get a three day weekend to explore my destination city. If you don't know where it is, you'll have to wait to find out! :D

Das Schoolhaus

My Schoolhaus.

Today's schedule was:

08:30 - 10:00: - Classes split up, meet.
10:00 - 10:30: - Break, all students chat in lounge.
10:30 - 12:00: - Class.
12:00 - 12:30: - Break.
12:30 - 13:00: - My class played that game where everyone has a person's name on their forehead and they ask questions to figure out who it is. In German. Because, as I think I mentioned, not all of my classmates speak English, so our textbooks and questions are German only.

Weekend 1: PARIS (TL;DR)

So, this past weekend I was stranded in Paris. Well, I had a way out, but it was a day later than I had planned. See, I'm not the best planner. I have this train pass good for 15 days of travel to most European countries within a 2 month period. On Friday, a friend named Beth and I reserved seats on a train to Paris for Saturday morning, planning to stay one night in a hostel and travel back Sunday night. We were to get off in Paris and plan our trip back, then find a bed for the night and see the Louvre. Be warned: June 4-6 is a French holiday, and it will not say so in any travel books. Yeah, so the soonest train we could get back with our passes and not pay anything out of pocket was on Thursday, June 9, and even if we paid we could only get back on Monday. Everything else was sold out. And of course, the hostels were all booked. So, an extra night + actual hotel + train fare. Sucked. Lesson learned. Of course, I could have used common sense, but I left most of that in Memphis.

Heidelberg HBF train station

bicycle parking outside of the HBF

double-decker high-speed train

So, we found our way through the daunting Parisian subway system before we ever breathed fresh French air. We made it to the hotel before 17:00 and trekked to the 3rd (read "4th") floor. For the price, there was a lot to be desired. We had running water.

The first night, a Saturday, Beth went to mass at the Notre Dame and I walked her most of the way, then detoured for a drink at a notorious gay-friendly restaurant named, heh, the "Banana Club." I had a good enough time, as the drinks were cheaper than most of the others I saw on the way. I saw a guy I thought might know where I could find a club for the night, and asked him in broken French. He pointed me to someone who knew, and sure enough I got an answer. While I was gesturing to him my message, an eruption occurred at the entrance of the bar. The waiter pushed me aside and I was tempted to find cover as five or six waiters made a blockade to prevent a shouting man from entering the bar. It appeared to be a anti-gay tirade, and it lasted a good few minutes, but I didn't ask what had happened, as it really seemed (justifiably) to disturb the staff.

first meal in Paris, on a sidewalk

my table at the Banana Club

crêpe dinner, with gas station beer and Lindt white chocolate

a vegetable quiche from a street vendor

Tired, I didn't go out that night. Beth and I grabbed groceries and that night I ate what would become my staple meal: crêpes and Nutella. The next morning we walked to the Louvre and encountered a line. A line that lasted a quarter mile at least and was moving with the speed of a sick tortoise. My guidebook mentioned a Metro entrance, so we paid for a ticket to the subway but the door was locked. Later, by chance, we found the third entrance, one I had heard about. See, under the glass pyramids that greet visitors to the museum is a high-priced shopping mall with a food court, an Apple store, several souvenir and book stores, a Swatch shop, and a Swarovski. There was no line to get in, and we discovered that it was free (because it was the first Sunday of the month), but I bet the crowds are that bad on most days anyway. I saw all the great works of art. I flipped off the Code of Hammurabi (don't read anything artistic or meaningful in that; I just felt like it).

That night, I grabbed dinner by myself at a Japanese restaurant (there are a LOT in Paris) and I unintentionally sat next to an older couple from Spain. We talked for a while, and I brushed up on my Spanish. The conversation somehow turned toward the Basque people and their language, and they were, I feel, a little biased in their assumptions that the language has no more native speakers, and that my teacher at the U of M was a liar. They were nice people, but they were a little misguided.

After that, Beth convinced me to visit the Eiffel Tower at night and we ventured there by Metro. When we emerged from underground, the sky looked pretty ready to torrent. We ran in the storm, and we were soaked to the point of being see-through. We saw the tower close to midnight and relished in our bravery.

ominous clouds

downpour

LIGHTNING!

Monday, we checked-out of the hotel, and headed for the Bastille prison, which it turns out is no longer standing, only marked by a tall tower in the center of a roundabout. We walked from there to the Père Lachaise Cemetery. There we visited the graves of Chopan and Jim Morrison, but didn't have time to see Oscar Wilde's before our train left.

We got back around 17:00 on Monday, and I arrived to find my laundry done and hanging in my room. <3 Thanks, Janine!

Slideshow: Sightseeing

Slideshow: Parisian ADs

Slideshow: Parisian Graffiti

Slideshow: Stuff for Sale

Slideshow: Other Stuff I Liked

Ride to Town

I've mentioned several times now that I live about 20 minutes away from school on bike. I think it might be shorter than that, but I like to take it slow and enjoy the scenery. As far as commutes to town go, mine's pretty sweet, with a healthy mix of urban, suburban, and rural sights in a short ride.

My host family's house.

Houses on my street.

Badass gas station logo.

Roses and wildflowers line the streets in Kirscheim.

And small, family-sized fields surround the houses.

"Fruits and Vegetables"

I love this colorful house. <3

The fountain right beside my schoolhouse (pics of that next week).