My flight from Berlin left at 6:00 AM Berlin Time Sunday. I figured I should be there by about three, just to be really safe. So, I figured it didn't make sense to sleep, and went to a friend's host's apartment to watch a movie (he's still in Berlin because he's going to Spain for awhile with a friend). After a showing of Pan's Labyrinth, I went back to my host's apartment at 2:00, ate some food, and finished packing. Uwe was nice enough to wake up to see me go, and offered to drive me to my first Ubahn stop, because my bags were heavy. I really appreciated that, especially after carrying my bags while transferring trains.
Uwe's son Paul was around Saturday, which was also the day that I learned that Paul liked me, even though I never had a ton of interaction with him. I hung around with Uwe and Paul pretty much all Saturday afternoon. That night, Paul made signs with sayings in German like "Stehen bleiben! Ich wil nicht, dass du gest!" and "Halt" and "Stop" and "Du darfst nicht gehn! Du soltst nicht gehen!" and pasted them on the front door. They each mean "You may not go!" or "I don't want you to leave!" or "You shouldn't go!", except in little kid handwriting and with little kid spelling errors. It was super cute. In fact, Paul in general is a super cute 8 year old, in the way he acts and talks. Anyways, it was genuinely heart-warming to know that Paul cared enough about me going to make little kid signs. I kept them, and I think I'll hang them in my dorm room back at school.
At Kottbusser Tor Ubahnstation, I said final goodbyes to Uwe. It was a little strange waiting for trains at 2:30 a.m. with two large luggage bags and a backpack full of valuable things and the 2:30 AM types who hang around Ubahnstations, plus minimum 10 minute waits for trains. Also, Kottbusser Tor is notoriously a hangout for various unsavory types. But I made it fine. At about 3:30 I made it to Kurt-Schumacher-Platz, where there's a bus to the airport, but in the middle of the night it only comes rarely. It would've come in 45 minutes, and I didn't want to stand there with bags for that long, so I was forced to take my first ever taxi. All in all, I made it to the airport way early. I was the first one there, and they didn't even open the check-in until 4:30. The flight to Amsterdam was about an hour and a half, during which I slept. After a three hour layover, I got on the flight back to America. It lasted eight and a half hours, during which I watched Transformers (The Movie, which is possibly the worst I've ever seen, and a true disgrace to former Transformers fans, which I can't call myself, but if I were to pretend that I'm one of them and then watch that movie, I would cry or punch something, because it decides to be a bad action movie with constant slapstick and cheap jokes that completely ruin any authenticity the action would have and instead just make it a bad comedy with some high tech animated robots that fight and spout cliches), and Casablanca, which was just good, and didn't try to insert awful jokes into every line, which was essentially the equivalent effect in Transformers. I got to eat cool airplane food, and was subject to this conversation just after we took off, and I had just fallen asleep while reading a German book.:
Flight Attendant: Is he a U.S. citizen?
Lady next to me: I don't know...he must be pretty smart or something, because that book there is a foreign language, I think.
I heard those while waking up, after which I had a sleepy, confused conversation with the flight attendant about a customs form. After learning I was a U.S. citizen, she said "Yeah, I thought you were reading a foreign language" as if to say "how silly of me!" The lesson here is that absolutely everyone who doesn't speak English is smart, and no Americans, by rule, can speak foreign languages.
After a 90 minute wait in Minneapolis, I took a 20 minute flight to Rochester, because the entire flight package cost less if I flew to Rochester than if I had just ended in Minneapolis. There, I met my parents. It's good to be home. Today, I called Kohl's to talk about my impending re-employment in the soul-eating line of clothing folding. Luckily though, my life is more than Kohl's. It's truly good to be home.
Monday, November 19
Sunday, November 11
One Week Left
Last Monday we took a day trip to Wittenberg, the town where Martin Luther lived. It was kind of cold and foggy, but the town was pretty, and I had a good bratwurst, so it was all right. We also saw the two churches in the town, one of which was the one where Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door, starting the Reformation.
We've also finished reading Faust and then yesterday saw it performed in the Deutsches Theater. The book was hard, and really above the level of someone who had just completed 103, but the other 103ers and I got through it. It's still a really good piece, and really pretty writing.
Also yesterday five of us saw another Hertha BSC soccer game, this time against Hannover 96. When I left my host's apartment, it was partly cloudy, and looked like it would be a nice day for a game, but by the time we got to the Ubahn station Olympia Stadion, it had entirely clouded up, and then snowed for the first time in Berlin. Strange, pellety snow. There was also one booming thunderclap, in the middle of a snowstorm, the first time I had ever heard that. The whole game it snowed on and off, which was really beautiful, and made for an interesting game. It was a better soccer game this time. Evenly matched, but still no score until the 86th minute, when Hertha scored and then held on to win 1:0. Of course, more rowdies in the stadium again, who went nuts when Hertha scored, and on the packed SBahn back home, too. The whole Sbahn ride back, the Hertha fans sang drunken chants and beat on the walls and doors of the Sbahn. It was really entertaining.
I also saw the Jüdisches Museum in Berlin, a museum dedicated to 2000 years of Jewish history. It's a really cool museum in a really cool building. Given the clearly hampered Jewish-German relationship over the years, there were a lot of interesting things over the historical relationship of Germans and Jews, especially the parts on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, they had readings from original documents on debates from the 19th century like "should Jews be full citizens" or "can a Jew be a German", in which even the "yes" debaters were awful. the part from WWI on was really well done, with a wall documenting the lost rights of Jews over two years spans after 1933, and emigration attempts, and pictures of Allied soldiers making horrified German citizens walk through the concentration camps directly after the Allied forces had found the camps, and then films over the Auschwitz trials later. It was a really cool museum.
In exactly one week at this time I'll be on my flight over the Atlantic, coming back home. My flight leaves at 6:00 AM local time, which may have been a mistake, but might be kind of fun, too. I probably won't have trouble sleeping on the plane.
We've also finished reading Faust and then yesterday saw it performed in the Deutsches Theater. The book was hard, and really above the level of someone who had just completed 103, but the other 103ers and I got through it. It's still a really good piece, and really pretty writing.
Also yesterday five of us saw another Hertha BSC soccer game, this time against Hannover 96. When I left my host's apartment, it was partly cloudy, and looked like it would be a nice day for a game, but by the time we got to the Ubahn station Olympia Stadion, it had entirely clouded up, and then snowed for the first time in Berlin. Strange, pellety snow. There was also one booming thunderclap, in the middle of a snowstorm, the first time I had ever heard that. The whole game it snowed on and off, which was really beautiful, and made for an interesting game. It was a better soccer game this time. Evenly matched, but still no score until the 86th minute, when Hertha scored and then held on to win 1:0. Of course, more rowdies in the stadium again, who went nuts when Hertha scored, and on the packed SBahn back home, too. The whole Sbahn ride back, the Hertha fans sang drunken chants and beat on the walls and doors of the Sbahn. It was really entertaining.
I also saw the Jüdisches Museum in Berlin, a museum dedicated to 2000 years of Jewish history. It's a really cool museum in a really cool building. Given the clearly hampered Jewish-German relationship over the years, there were a lot of interesting things over the historical relationship of Germans and Jews, especially the parts on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, they had readings from original documents on debates from the 19th century like "should Jews be full citizens" or "can a Jew be a German", in which even the "yes" debaters were awful. the part from WWI on was really well done, with a wall documenting the lost rights of Jews over two years spans after 1933, and emigration attempts, and pictures of Allied soldiers making horrified German citizens walk through the concentration camps directly after the Allied forces had found the camps, and then films over the Auschwitz trials later. It was a really cool museum.
In exactly one week at this time I'll be on my flight over the Atlantic, coming back home. My flight leaves at 6:00 AM local time, which may have been a mistake, but might be kind of fun, too. I probably won't have trouble sleeping on the plane.
Friday, November 2
Dresden
Dresden has a ton of pretty architecture. All of it was destroyed in WWII and then rebuilt beautifully. The best was Frauenkirche, a church that was only completed two years ago, because it took time to collect the 130€ million or so that it took to build. It's really a beautiful building. Everywhere you turn in Dresden there's some pretty building. It's called "the Florence on the Elbe". Also in Dresden is the new big glass Volkswagen factory, which a few of us toured. It was the most hoity-toity schicki-micki factory in the world. Everything was glass and artfully designed, and they had smooth jazz playing, with wood panelled floors. It seemed kind of like a show factory. You could try out (meaning sit in) a really expensive car, and see on some screens just how high-tech the assembly is (they have self-guided robots that zip around the factory, and other cool stuff). It was all right. Then they kicked us out, because they had a big fancy dinner party coming up in the factory. On the way out, I could have bought a 170€ umbrella.
I also finally got to the Berlin Zoo, where they have the superstar baby polar bear Knut, who was at one time the cutest zoo animal on Earth. Now he's a little bigger, but still cute. He knows he's a star. While the other bears just pace, Knut plays cutely with a toy. Then, he'll walk right in front of the big crowd (and it's overly large), stand up on his hind legs, and strike a pose, which elicits a collected "Ohhhhhh!!!" from the crowd. You can tell he knows that people adore him. Knut is a ridiculous bear. He's also captivated Germany. You can buy an array of Knut books, Knut calendars, Knut dolls, etc. I've even seen a Knut-themed credit card. Otherwise, they had some cool primates, and giraffes, and hippos, and the like. It was a good zoo.
We had a cool Halloween party on the 31st. I dressed as Dan Lojovich, a true character from our group. Halloween exists in Germany, as does trick or treating, but they're not quite as big, and it's hard to trick or treat in Berlin. "Süß oder Sauer" is what the kids say, which means "sweet or sour".
On Monday, we go to Wittenburg for a day, which is where Martin Luther lived. Right now we're reading Faust, Der Tragödie Erster Teil, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It is the German literature. Also really hard. But really good.
I also finally got to the Berlin Zoo, where they have the superstar baby polar bear Knut, who was at one time the cutest zoo animal on Earth. Now he's a little bigger, but still cute. He knows he's a star. While the other bears just pace, Knut plays cutely with a toy. Then, he'll walk right in front of the big crowd (and it's overly large), stand up on his hind legs, and strike a pose, which elicits a collected "Ohhhhhh!!!" from the crowd. You can tell he knows that people adore him. Knut is a ridiculous bear. He's also captivated Germany. You can buy an array of Knut books, Knut calendars, Knut dolls, etc. I've even seen a Knut-themed credit card. Otherwise, they had some cool primates, and giraffes, and hippos, and the like. It was a good zoo.
We had a cool Halloween party on the 31st. I dressed as Dan Lojovich, a true character from our group. Halloween exists in Germany, as does trick or treating, but they're not quite as big, and it's hard to trick or treat in Berlin. "Süß oder Sauer" is what the kids say, which means "sweet or sour".
On Monday, we go to Wittenburg for a day, which is where Martin Luther lived. Right now we're reading Faust, Der Tragödie Erster Teil, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It is the German literature. Also really hard. But really good.
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