Why you don't stay out all night...

On our way to the airport for our Spring Break vacation, Annie and I decided to stay out all night, since we had to be at the airport very early and we wanted to go to Stammtisch. We took all our stuff with us, since we figured that it would ensure that we were not pressed for time to go back to my place, then go to the airport, and not miss our flight. I had conflicted feelings about it, simply because I have had experiences and heard stories about staying out all night leading to bad things before traveling. But we still felt like it was the safest way to ensure we would make it to the airport on time, with all of our stuff.

When we got to the bar, we put our stuff down next to some friends, and went around, talked to people, I felt like at least keeping a slight eye on our stuff. Around midnight, our stuff was still there, because I put a shirt I was wearing into my purse. At 12:15, when we checked our stuff again, it was gone. My purse (which had my passports, my cell phone, my ids, my money, my bankcards, my address book, my keys, etc), Annie's traveling backpack with all her clothes, and her other bag with her travel documents, were all gone. Luckily, Annie had her wallet and her cell phone on her.

As soon as it happened, we searched the bar, thinking that it may have been moved. Then we called the police, went to the police station and filed the police report. After that, Sean and I walked around the neighborhood, thinking that maybe after they took the valuables, they just ditched the rest. But we found nothing.

The fact is that we did leave our stuff unattended, and being told over and over how safe a city Berlin is, combined with the fact that it was a small bar where we knew half the people there, I never expected this to happen. It is something that I would have never, ever, and never ever did do in Chile, and I probably would never do it at home either. But, I guess I've learned that it doesn't matter where you are, how safe you think a place is, or what you assume about the people, there are bad people out there.

Now, we are waiting to hear from the police (which I am not so confident that we will), go to the consulate and get new travel papers (I have no desire in remaining in Berlin for the rest of Spring Break), check the "Lost and Found" of the city (perhaps maybe some good, law abiding German turned something in), and try to book a flight to Portugal (since we still have our return flights) or just go somewhere else.

Sommersemester

Although I had been seriously thinking about it, and basically planning it, it is now official that I will be staying for the Freie Universitaet's "Sommersemester." In Germany, they have two semesters that don't work at all the same as the U.S. semester system. The "Wintersemester" goes from about October to March, and the "Sommersemester" goes from April to July.

Since the FU BEST program is designed to only go from January till April, those students who are at the intermediate and advanced levels have the option of staying and attending the "Sommersemester." I have officially signed my enrollment form, saying that I will be staying for this as well!

In the coming weeks and months, I will choose courses and find a place to live. As for courses, one of them will probably be a German class for foreign students, and then I will probably take a content courses completely in German, with German students. I hope to check all over the internet to find a place to live in a "Wohngemeinschaft" (a WG for short). It is basically a shared apartment that is usually more of a community living feel, where students live together, but also cook meals and have fun together. Hopefully it will be a good way to get closer to the slightly cold Germans and practice speaking.

On the down side, it will mean that I have less than a month of summer vacation when I return to the US in late July.

Midterms?

Is it the middle of the term already? I find it hard to believe, but this week I have two tests (both on Monday) in my "content courses" (History and Cinema), a short essay, a presentation and a test in German. This week is official Midterm Week, and it is a lot of work. But, at the end of it comes a long needed vacation to Portugal with Annie for a week!

We'll see if I survive tomorrow first though...

Pictures!

Check out some full albums from Berlin!

Bunker tour, East Side Gallery, and wandering around.

Gruene Woche.

Bundeskanzleramt and Stasi Tours.

BVG

Die BVG, or Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe, is the system of public transportation in Berlin, and includes the U-bahn (metro), the different kinds of buses, the Strassenbahn (or streetcars), and even a boat that crosses the Wannsee. [Although the S-bahn (a faster, more far-reaching train transit in Berlin), is also part of the public transportation, it is actually run by the Deutsche Bahn, which runs all the trains in Germany.]


[a map of the different nets of the BVG and S-bahn; click to make it bigger]

The BVG is how you get anywhere and everywhere in greater Berlin. I am convinced that you can be placed anywhere in the city and without walking very far at all, you can get exactly where you are going in a reasonable amount of time. Every kind of stop that you could get to (bus, Strassenbahn, S-bahn, U-bahn, etc) not only has the map above, it also has a detailed street map of the area that you are in. Plus, every stop has a time table, and the Germans are very serious about running on time.

If you have the internet when you need to find out where you are going, you simply check out bvg.de, available in English and German, and enter your starting and ending points, and they will tell you about how far you have to walk, what kind of transport you have to take, where you have to change, and exactly how long it will take you. You can even enter when you have to be there and it will tell you when you have to leave.

Another crazy element of the the public transportation is that no one checks your tickets on the way in, except sometimes bus drivers. You simply get on and off the trains as you want, and they assume that you have the proper ticket. Randomly, checkers will board the train and ask to see everyone's ID. If at that time, you don't have your ticket, you get a hefty fine of 60 Euros. Of course, for some Schwatzfahrer (illegal riders), it is worth it to take the risk, since getting checked is a seldom occasion in most areas.

This system amazes me. First of all, it can't even be compared to the public transportation in Washington, D.C., where you can barely get where you are going with public transportation, unless you are willing to take all day to get there.

Last semester I wrote about the "micros" that get you where you need to go in Chile. And although they were very effective, the differences between these systems show the differences between German and Chile culture very clearly. In Chile, there was no map or timetable that told you when your bus was going to come, but it came and got you where you wanted to go pretty quick. Here, there is a map and a timetable, and the bus (or other transport) will always follow the timetable and the exact route it is supposed to take. Perhaps because Valparaiso is built on hills, the only good method of transport is the buses, but there was also a metro (just one line) that ran, as well as Trolleybuses, but I never even needed to ride them. Berlin, on the other hand, tries to use as many different types of transport as necessary to get people where they need to go, including the boat that takes you across the Wannsee in south-west Berlin. Finally, all the public transportation in Berlin is free with your student ID. It doesn't have to be that you are a student and need to get another BVG ID that is free or something complicated. You simply show that you are a student (using your student 'Ausweis,' ID) if anyone checks, and you are good to go. In Chile, the micro drivers were ever-so-serious about paying exactly the amount you needed to (even if it was only 25 cents)and definitely wouldn't let you get away with paying less, although they sometimes wouldn't give you the proper change.

Berlinale

This year is the 58th annual Berlin International Film Festival, also known as the Berlinale. As a part of the cinema class that I am taking, we were required to go to two specific films that were being shown. The fact that we got to take part in such a large international film festival was really cool, but the fact that the movies we had to see were at 9 oclock on a Sunday morning was not.

The first film we saw was entitled 'Nach vor Augen' (Night Before Eyes) by Birgitte Bertele. Based on a book, the story follows a German soldier, David, returning home from his service in Afganistan. He returns home to his extatic girlfriend, his worried mother, and his admiring little brother. But his time in battle was not without grief; he sufferes from severe post-traumatic stress disorder after having shot a little boy in the head. He sees the child sitting on his bed everynight, he wets the bed, and has flashbacks of the incident. When David returns, his little brother wants nothing more than to be just like him. The psycologically damaged David takes this opporunity to deal with his grief in a sick way. David ends up making his little brother physically hurt David, kill his pet rabbit, and almost shoot David. Finally David's actions go to far and become too irrational that he has to go to a psyciatric hospital. The movie ends as David returns once again, with the question still looming of whether he is 'better.'

This film was a very hard, real subject, but very well done on both the part of the actors and the director. Having the director and the main actors speak after the showing gave insight into what they were trying to accomplish and how they felt about making this moving.

The second film we saw, Josef Fares' 'Leo,' was a stark contrast to this. Initially I was excited about seeing a film by Fares, since he is a Swedish director and has made good movies in the past. However, the film had almost no value in my mind, and having Fares speak after the showing of the film only made it worse.

The film begins with Leo coming home from his 30th birthday party with his girlfriend, when they get attacked by two men on the street. Leo's girlfriend ends up dying, and he cannot deal with teh grief. He decides that the only way he will ever feel any better is with revenge. From there it sprials into a hainous situation of revenge, violence, and psychotic decisions that only lead Leo and his friends into a darker hole.

Although perhaps something can be said for this movie talking about the randomness of violence and how revenge can never be the solution, the movie was far too violent and if this was the meaning, it was lost. However, from what Fares said after the movie, I'm not even sure this was his intention. When I asked why he chose to go from the comedies that he has made to this movie, he gave no meaningful answer. When others asked him about the making of this film, he kind of laughed and said that him and his friends just had fun with it. It was really unimaginable that they could have been having 'fun' while shooting something so serious, depressing, and dark. On my sundae of disliking this movie, that was really the cherry on top. I do not recommend the film.

After a dark Sunday morning spent inside a theater, the first movie was a pleasant suprise from European cinema, about a subject that seems better fitting of the United States, and the second an utter disappointment of Fares' work as a director.

A Romantic Weekend

As part of the FUBEST Program, we get tickets to four "cultural events" around the city. This includes concerts, opera and ballet performances, and for the less cultured, soccer games. Two of the performances that I chose to attend were both this past weekend, and unknowingly, were in the Romantic style.

The first was on Saturday night, when I went to the Berliner Philharmoniker to see the Berlin Symphony Orchestra perform three separate pieces, all by Romantic composers. My first impression of the Philharmoniker is the building that it is in. A block away from Potsdamer Platz, the building actually has two concert halls that are both rather large. The small one, where the concert was held, was in a circular room that had the stage in the middle. Not only were the acoustics great, it was also interesting to be able to see the whole orchestra.

The first piece, by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, was Herbrides Overture, the shortest piece, and very well done. It was followed by Frederic Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-minor, with Ayakp Fukutomi playing the piano. Although she did an extremely amazing job playing the piece (entirely from memory), it was my least favorite piece of the night. However, I'm not a fan of Chopin in general. The last piece was by far my favorite, for many reasons. To go out with a bang, the orchestra played Antonin Dvorak's Symphonie No. 9 in E-minor, more commonly known as his "New World Symphony." First of all, Dvorak is my favorite Romantic composer, probably because his Romantic style is the most down to earth, in my opinion, with his use of folk themes. I also particularly enjoy the New World Symphony because I have played it at least once in orchestra in high school. The Berlin Symphony did a fabulous job playing this piece and it was a perfect end to a very good concert.


Last night, I went to see Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg at the Deutscher Oper. Another modern musical venue, it is not as pompous as the old Staatsoper, and almost ever seat in the hall is a good one. I was very impressed that they stayed so true and classical to the Opera, not trying to change it and set it in another time or any other crazy ideas that they might have to try to improve the original. The orchestra was also very good, and must be given a lot of credit, since the opera is one of the longest in history, and they play the entire time.

As for the opera itself, I found it OK. Part of it may have been that it is in German, and although they had surtitles in German, it was old German, and I had no dictionary. And again, I am not the biggest fan of Romantic music; I finally realized five to six hours of Wagner is not especially the type of opera that I wanted to see. I knew that Die Meistersinger is one of the longest operas, but I didn't realize that it would start at four and be over at ten. This all being said, plus the fact that I had a German test to study for, made it so that I felt I had to leave the performance during the second intermission. I felt bad, and had it been under different circumstances, I would have stayed, but it just wasn't the day for it.

The Lives of Others

On Friday, we had a mandatory field trip with a theme of "The Stasi Legacy." The Stasi is the common name for the Ministry of State Security (Secret Police) that existed in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1950 to 1989. If you have seen the movie, "Das Leben der Anderen" ("The Lives of Others") you already know some about the organization.

Splitting our huge group into two smaller ones, my half headed to the old Stasi headquarters, where they had their offices. A once pretty huge compound, now holds the Stasi Museum. We had a guided tour with Stefan, who gave us a good overview of the Stasi and what they did, as well as a highlighted tour of the museum.

The museum is in the main building of the complex, where the minister had his office. Two floors of the museum are filled with information about the Stasi, as well as some of the techniques that they used to spy on citizens. The Stasi was huge, having 91,000 employees and 300,000 informants for a country of only 16 million people. Stefan explained that they basically spied on everyone at some point, and made very extensive files of some people. Some of the technology that they had was pretty cool and probably very effective. But they didn't just have to use technology, they also blackmailed and bribed a lot of people to be informants, making them reports on the activities of their friends, neighbors, family members, clients, etc.

The second part of the museum includes the offices of the minister and others, that have been preserved to their conditions during the GDR. The coolest thing about these rooms was that they were used to film scenes from "Das Leben der Anderen," and I definitely recognized them.

After our two hour tout there, we had lunch and then headed to the Stasi prison. This extremely secret prison was first used by the Russians during their occupation of East Germany, where they used the basement and physical torture to get confessions from prisoners. The Stasi then took the building over, and built a whole new prison. It was only a temporary prison, where they took suspected political "criminals" to get confessions out of them. Instead of using physical violence, they took a more mental approach. The prisoners were always in complete isolation, never got to even see any other prisoners, and only got to speak to their interrogators. Our guide explained that this would make it so that they felt a bond and relationship to their interrogator, hopefully making confessions easier.

Overall what the Stasi did was insane for such a time, but it did remind me a lot a similar field trip we took in Chile to Villa Grimaldi. Although what Pinochet did to his political prisoners was physically much worse, the dictator violating free speech and thought by taking in political dissenters and trying to get them to confess was very familiar. Our guide reminded us that even though there is a lot of Ostalgie (nostalgia of East Germany), there was a dark side to it that severely effected the lives of many people.

A little bit of politics...

Berlin being the capital of Germany, you can't avoid seeing the politics of the town - from the gleaming new government office buildings to motorcades rolling through the streets. The FUBEST program wouldn't let us get away with being in Berlin and not getting more intimate with the political side of the city. So this week, not only did we have a planned excursion to Bundeskanzleramt (like the White House), but we also took a class field trip to the Auswaertiges Amt (Foreign Ministry).


[The Bundeskanzleramt]

On Tuesday, we took a field trip to the Bundeskanzleramt, where the Chancellor, currently Angela Merkel, has her offices and staff. After going through airport-equivalent security, we met with out tour guide, who was going to give us a guided tour of the building. He not only gave us information about the functions that go on inside the building, but also the architecture and it's relevance to Germany.


[Giving my press talk...]

Honestly, it was a pretty dry tour, but it did have some good moments. Especially interesting was all the modern art that was in the building (which reminded me of all the art that they have in the Reichstag, which is basically representative of the fact that the Germany government supports art), and the presents that have been given to Chancellors from other Heads of State.


[One of the murals]

The best gift was probably the one from our very own George W. Bush. Our guide explained to us that all the gifts that are given in "official" situations to a German Chancellor become property of the German people and simply go on display in the Bundeskanzleramt. I don't think Georgie got the message. Here is what he gave his pal Angie:


[From George, with love]

What is that, you might ask. Well, it's his own home-made box set of musical DVDs and CDs. I guess I don't really know if George and Angela had bonded over that at some point, but even if they had, Angie can't watch the movies or listen to the CDs - they just have to sit in the case for silly tourists to take pictures of.


[Me on the balcony of the Bundeskanzleramt, looking over other government offices, the TV Tower, and the Reichstag]

On Thursday, instead of having German class, my class and the Advanced kids went to the Foreign Ministry, to get a better idea of what their role in German politics is.

First, we got to watch a video about the Ministry, which showed a couple of examples of what they do. This included how the ministers work with the EU, how they use cultural events (like performances by the Berlin Symphony) to make connections with other nations, and how their office in Cairo (as an example) helps Germans living and visiting there.

Then our guide, who couldn't have been more than 25, gave us a short Power Point Presentation and gave specifics of what each division of the ministry worked with. During this part, we had the opportunity to ask questions of their work. One thing that I was surprised by was that there is a section of the ministry that deals with foreign affairs planning for the 20-30 years in the future. First of all, it was amazing to be to think about foreign affairs plans 20 years in the future, when everything in Washington can change in 4, but moreover, how do they have any idea what will be important in 20 years? Although I asked how they determine what will be a focus in 20 years, I didn't really get a good answer. He basically explained that things of national and international interest will most likely be the most important...

All-in-all, it was more informative than the Bundeskanzleramt, and more exciting - but only because they gave us free coffee, pens, a writing pad, and a tote bag.

Leipzig

Our adventure to Leipzig (an old town in Saxony, about three hours south-east of Berlin) began for me the night before, when I had to spend the night at Annie's house in order to be able to make it to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) in the morning. I prob live about 20 minutes away (walking) from an S-Bahn (faster city trains) station, which were the only trains running during the strike.

In the morning, we decided to get up early, since the S-Bahns were likely to be packed with people trying to get around in the city without all the other public transportation. We got to the Hauptbahnhof around 11:30 and met up with Sean, John and Jessica, who were also coming on the adventure.

From Berlin to Leipzig, we took two trains and bought two five-person tickets. The Deutsche Bahn has tickets for each region of Germany that cost about 25 - 30 euros, on which up to five people can ride. On the way back, we used a similar five-person ticket that can be used anywhere in Germany, but only on Saturdays or Sundays. The round-trip train ride cost us 88 euros for everyone. The only down side of these tickets is that we could only use regional trains and not the express trains, so it takes a little bit longer.

Once we got into Leipzig, we found out 'hostel,' which Sean found on hostel world. It turned out to be an apartment that would be just for the five of us, with a complete kitchen for only $12.75 a night per person.


[Jessica sitting in one of the bedrooms of our apartment]

After we unpacked, we headed to the grocery store to buy some dinner and breakfasts for the weekend. We decided to make a pasta sauce with tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, onions and fresh basil. A joint effort between Annie, Jessica and I yielded quite a delicious meal on a very cheap budget.


[Me, John and Sean eating our delicious meal]

The next day, we headed into the city center to see the older part of town. We started at the Nickolaikirche, which is known for having been a center of anti-DDR (East German) movement during the division of Germany. The history that we got on the church, from a pamphlet written by the priests of the church, was as interesting as the architecture inside. Instead of being a dark church with little light, it was a bright interior with light pink and green walls.


[the Nikolaikirche from the square outside]


[the inside, where the ceiling was a pretty pink and green, with columns that look like palm trees]

From there, we walked around the center some more, coming across the old stock market building as well as a statue of Goethe, the famous author/playwright.


[the old stock market building; now a hall that you can rent out]


["The Man" of German Lit; Goethe!]

On the other side of the old part of town is the Thomaskirche, the church where Bach was a cantor. The church offers concerts with his pieces every Saturday. Although we weren't able to hear a concert, there was a quintet playing while we were in the church. Bach's grave was also moved to the church in more recent years.


[Thomaskirche]


[A statue of Bach... the people in front were part of a wedding party...]

Sean and I, being in the theater class and having just read Faust, thought it necessary to go to Auerbach's Keller, where a scene from Faust takes place.


[Auerbach's Keller, where a scene of Faust is set]


[Mephistopheles leading Sean into sin..]

From the center, we headed to the Voelkerschlachtdenkmal, a little outside the center.


[View of the Denkmal]

The largest man-made war memorial in Europe, this Wilhelmine memorial is surprisingly unknown. The 91-meter-tall structure was erected as a memorial to the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of the Nations, and is clearly a very nationalistic symbol. As such, it has been used and misused by leaders of Germany since it was built in 1913, one of which is Hitler. But no where my guide book was it mentioned, nor did my host mom or my German teacher know about it. For such a huge memorial, we found this very surprising. However, since it is so nationalistic and that is something that Germany has been trying to move away from, we could kind of understand why it is not so advertised or well-known. The advice from the hostel owner to go there was great though, because it was really amazing once we were there.


[Huge statue at the entrance]


[In the elevator on the way to the first platform... the other 500 stairs we had to walk up]


[The inside chamber of the memorial, with various representations of the battle. Sean also told me that it was mainly built by Freemasons, so there is a lot of allegory to their organization in the building of the memorial]


[The group at the top!]


[Me with a view of Leipzig. This memorial is a must-see during a visit to Leipzig]

We headed back into town, and relaxed, cooked dinner, and played some cards until we decided to look into the night life of Leipzig. Since it is a university town, we expected there to be some excitement. There was, but not too much when compared with Berlin. The next morning, we cleaned up the apartment and headed back to Berlin with enough time to do homework and sleep before the busy week started again.