Krumme Lanke

Since the weather has been unusually warm (around 32 degrees Celsius), there is no better way to cool down than to go to the lakes that are around Berlin. On the edge of the Grunewald, there are a series of lakes, where some of the more well-known include Krumme Lanke, Schlachtensee, and Wannsee. On the weekends, the city Berliners go about as far into the country as they dare to go for a swim.


[Krumme Lanke]

With Paula, who just got back from a two-week school trip to Greece, and Mary, a new guest student living with them, I went to the Krumme Lanke. Although we had our bathing suits on, I didn't expect to go swimming. Since Annie lived around Krumme Lanke, I had been there before and didn't remember seeing any swimming areas. When we got there, it became apparent that the whole lake is open to swim in. Any part of the bank that isn't taken or closed off can be your own little personal beach, without the sand, and you are allowed to swim, paddle, or float around in the lake as much as you want.


[Paula in the water]

Although I wanted to sit in the sun, those spots were in the premium, so we took a sort-of shady spot where it was easy to get in the water. Paula jumped right in and threw Charly (her Beagle) right in with her. He didn't really appreciate it and kept trying desperately to swim to shore. Once there, he rolled around in the dirt... I guess to try and get dry.




[Charly rolling in the dirt... which ended up landing him strait back into the water, since then he had to get clean again...]

Eventually I got in too, but it was pretty cold with a gooey bottom.


[Paula and I in the water with two kids we met. Basically every time we are out with Charly, kids come up and want to play with him. I guess they just know that he is a really friendly dog and can do basically anything to him and he will never bark or bite]


[And Charly splashing us all trying to escape again]

There were really a lot of people there; basically every spot that you could lie on around the lake was taken, and the lake was full of adults swimming from one side to the other, kids splashing around, and people on rafts enjoying the sun. It would have been amazing to just have a raft to sit on out in the middle without disturbances...


[Paula and her new guest, Mary]


[Paula and me]

Teufelsberg

Literally translating to "The Devil's Mountain," Teufelsberg is the tallest hill in Berlin, man-made by the Allies with the rubble of Berlin after World War Two. Since it lies in the Western part of the city, in the Grunewald, it makes the top of it a nice place for picnic-ers to fly kits and have a view of Berlin.


[Side view of the tallest building on Teufelsberg]

It is also particularly interesting because it used to be the sight of an old National Security Agency Complex, where the Americans could spy on the Russians from. Today, that complex remains, leaving creepy abandoned buildings at the top of Teufelsberg.


[The cafeteria... the only building in the complex that had windows]

About a month ago, we went exploring around Teufelsberg to find out way in. For a while, we just had to walk around the Grunewald until we got to the top. Once there, we had to climb in through a hole in the fence. Although it is technically closed, there were no guards there and about another 20 people wondering around inside as well.


[View of the Grunewald, a pretty big forest for being inside Berlin's city limits]


[View of Berlin, a pretty cloudy day]

After we walked around some of the buildings, we walked up an extremely dark staircase to the top radar tower. The dome still in tact, it makes an awesome echo chamber; makes you wonder if the NSA workers ever went up there on breaks to have some fun.


[Annie looking out the little window at the top]

It was so bizarre to explore the different effects the dome had on your voice, standing in different spots and hearing where you hear your voice come from, making different sounds to see the different effects. This is definitely one of the coolest non-tourist things to see in Berlin if you have the time.

Plattenbau

If I were going to move into East Berlin, I guess it would be best to do it right. For that reason, I now live in the DDR. Well, not really, but almost. My apartment building is one of many in a two block radius that are basically exactly the same. The German name for these buildings is "Plattenbau," referring to the fact that they are made of pre-fabricated concrete slabs.


[Two Plattenbau buildings that look exactly like mine]

In the 1960s in East Germany, there was a housing shortage and one of the best ways to create homes was to throw up Planntenbau buildings all over the East. Being pre-fab, they were easy to build. I personally think they also created the uniformity that the communist East German state was looking for.


[The front of my house, that faces Otto-Braun-Strasse]


[The back of my house, which is actually where the entrance is, but faces a pseudo-courtyard formed by all the Plattenbaus, where there is also a school]

Today, all over East Berlin, these Plattenbau still exist, although they are not 'desirable' housing. But I like my Plattenbau. I mean, sometimes it is fun to go to the German History Museum here in Berlin and realize that a Plattenbau model on display looks exactly like the apartment you live in!

Here are some pictures of where I now live!


[The door to my room]


[My makeshift closet/really a bookcase]


[The foyer]


[The living room]


[The kitchen]


[The view from the balcony; lots of other East German buildings and construction, of course]

A whole new city...

Apparently this past winter was a particularly odd and cold one, according to Berliners I have talked to. When we arrived in January, it wasn't too cold, but often rainy and cloudy. Towards March, it began to get colder, rainier and even snowed. Finally, the last two weeks of the FU BEST program, it actually started to get sunny and a little warm. The later half of April was actually graced by the sun on a daily basis. As we have moved into May, shorts, t-shirts, and skirts can actually be worn; there are green trees, flowers and the city-pools have opened.

Not only does this make the city more beautiful, but it has almost completely changed the atmosphere of the city. All of sudden, there were people in the city. On some nice days earlier in the spring, when walking around the Grunewald (a large forest in the south-west section of Berlin), Tiergarten (a park in the center of the city), the canal where I used to live, etc, there would be Germans out for their Sunday walks. My guess is that when nothing is open on Sundays, this is one of the best ways to pass time.

Now that there is good weather almost everyday, there always people in the parks. On weekends, there is hardly a patch of grass that isn't taken up by someone's blanket. In the Fredrichshain Volkspark, close to where I live now, there is the distinct smell of grilling all over the park, with the noise of kids and adults alike playing in the grass. Walking around the university on school days, there are always students sitting around any green space they can find, reading, playing games, or just hanging out. As the sun came out, the population of Berlin crept out of their apartments after a long winter and may actually be becoming friendly.

I have no empirical evidence that it is because of the weather, but the previously cold and distant Berliners seem to be warming up. In the past week, I have one person start a conversation with me on the S-Bahn train and one person wish me a good weekend as I was getting of the U-Bahn metro. Both of these incidents totally shocked me, since I believed talking to strangers to be something completely un-German.

No matter what the reason, I appreciate a more friendly attitude from the Berliners, and love the great weather we have been having. It opens up so many opportunities to be outside, go for walks or bike rides, go running in the park, have barbecues, etc, etc, etc. I would venture to say that there is no better time to be in Berlin than the summer.

Rugby

So probably against my mother's wishes, I have started playing rugby here in Berlin. Via the internet, I found a team that practices pretty close to where my university is. Like the team in Chile and unlike my team in the US, they play 7s rugby. However, they do team up with another 7s team that plays in East Berlin to play 15s. Unfortunately, the season finished up in April and doesn't start again until September, but we still have practice twice a week.

There are some things that I find really interesting about this team. First, that they have such good relations with a team that I would expect to be rivals that they can come together and play. Although it is a really new development, all the girls seem excited about it and want to continue it.

I guess since the season is so recently over, there are a lot of girls who are taking the time off and not coming to practice so regularly. While this is unfortunate, the girls who do come are really dedicated and serious. They have also arranged to have joint practices with the men's team. This is also surprising, since when I left UMBC, the men's and women's teams were just getting onto better terms. However, I would never imagine a practice together. But, the BSV Rugby seems to be cohesive. Playing with the men is also great because they run such a higher-paced game. Men's practices are fast-paced and serious, working on conditioning and skills at the same time - something that I haven't experienced as much playing with girls. I'm hoping this really gets me in shape for the fall season back at UMBC...

Another surprising element is the way in which the players act as soon as they get off the field. In general, everyone seems to be in good shape and giving their all. But what was waiting for us after last Tuesday's practice but a case of beer. Then, some of the players headed up to the "Casino" (Restaurant/Bar) for more drinks. Whatever calories they just burned off were immediately put back on. And another European phenomenon is the smoking. There were lots of men's players, who right after practice, lit up cigarettes. Surely they realize the damage that they are doing to their performance... It is something you hardly ever see in the US.

Finally, I just have to say that I am so happy I started playing rugby in the first place. This may just be my own theory but, I believe where ever you are in the world, you will always be able to find a rugby team somewhere close by, and immediately meet nice, friendly people, who want you as part of their team. I say this not only because of my experience in Chile and Germany, but because on the women's team here there are an assortment of nationalities including American, Australian, and English and on the men's team Irish, French, American, etc.

So far, it has been a lot of fun and I expect it to just get better. I'll promise not to get hurt this time. :)

Fußball

As in most other parts of the world, and especially Europe, soccer (futbol, fussball, football, fotboll, etc) is by far the most popular sport.

To get part of this European experience, we went to a Hertha BSC home game here in Berlin. Hertha is the Berlin team, and brings out every type of Berliner in support for them. We were lucky enough to get tickets to the Hertha/Hamburg game, which was extremely popular since Hamburg is such a good team, and known for their rowdy fans.


[Annie and Sean on the way to the game]

After class, since the game was on a Tuesday, we all headed to Rathaus Stegliz, got dinner for the road and headed to the stadium, which lies at the north-west part of the city. Another cool fact about Hertha is that they play in the Olympia Stadion, or the Olympic Stadium that was built under Hitler's commission for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Since then, it has obviously been redone and was used for the final game of the last World Cup.


[The Stadium]

When we got there, there were already lots of fans coming on the train, as well as kiosks and tailgaters in the parking lot. If you imagine Germans, European cars, and tailgating mixed, you get exactly what we saw: Germans eating bratwursts and drinking beer from the trunk of their SmartCar or equally tiny vehicle waiting for a soccer game to start.

Although we were there with our Hertha Scarves and great attitudes, we were nothing in comparison to the real Berliners, who had probably been drinking since the late afternoon, had scarves tied around their waists to look like skirts and sat in the real fan section.


[Where all the crazy Hertha fans sit]


[Inside the stadium... the field is not covered so that real grass can grow, but all the fan seating is under a roof]

We had pretty good seats anyway, a little further up, but in the middle of the field so we could see all the action. Just like any US sporting event, there was overpriced drinks and food. A liter of beer was 8 Euro, about 12 dollars, including the cost of the cup, which you can return for 2 Euro if you want.


[Sal, Hans and I being spirited]

The game ended up being rather slow, ending in a 0-0 tie. But the fact that more than 40 people from our program were there made it a lot of fun to just being hanging out in a big group one last time before the end of the semester.


[Jessica, Aaron, Annie and Tim with some face paint... I tried to write Hertha on Casey's face, but lets just say problems arose when I realized i forgot about the silent h...]

I wish that I had gotten to experience the awesomeness of Hertha games before this, since they are already done with their home season. If I were ever to go to another game, I would definitely sit in the fan section. Although they are rowdy and the police are surrounding the section to make sure no fights break out, it was so much fun to see them so into the game, waving flags and singing songs.


[The pool at Olympia Stadion. When Hertha wins, apparently everyone jumps into the pool, no matter what time of year. Also well known for Leni Riefenstahl's underwater scenes of divers from the 1936 Olympics.]

Sommersemester Part 2

As you all may know from my previous blog posts, I have decided to stay in Berlin for the Freie Universitat's regular Sommersemester. In Germany, they have a rather bizarre semester schedule, that is divided into two semesters - the summer and the winter. The winter semester goes from around October to around February and the summer semester goes from around April to around August. However, most classes only last for three and a half to four months, giving students a month (or until the beginning of the next semester) to complete exams and papers.

The students from FU BEST that chose to stay for the Sommersemester are just like any other international students. This means that we all had to take a language placement exam, and enroll for a German class based on that level. We also have the option to take classes with only foreign students (Erasmus classes) in German, classes with German students in German, and classes with German students in English.

Since I don't actually need any of these credits and am just staying to improve my German, I have decided to take two American History classes at the J.F. Kennedy Institute of American Studies, which are both in German.

One class is about American foreign relations during the 20th century and the rise of the US as a world power. With about 30 or 35 students, this class is basically only a lecture that meets once a week for two hours, with no reading, and an essay exam at the end of the course. It is really interesting to see how the teacher, a German, presents events in American History in comparison to how I have learned them and how the German students react to what is being taught.

The other history class I am taking is about the relationship between the Americas and Europe in the Age of Discovery. I am one of only 6 students in the class, with only one other foreign student. The relationship between the colonies and Europe, and seeing a European perspective on this relationship is something that in all the times I have studied colonial history has not really been a topic of discussion. It is good to have such a small class to be able to discuss and take part in the class. I also have to write a 5-15 page paper as our final, which comically enough isn't due until September.

My German class is much less interesting. Meeting only once a week for three hours, we don't seem to be learning or accomplishing that much. But I'm already in too deep to leave, and it isn't so bad.

The last class I am taking is purely for fun. Since the FU is so large (claims 40,000 students), there are a lot of classes that could never be offered at UMBC. One of which is introductory Turkish. Turkish has a gaining importance in Europe, with the number of immigrants in various European nations and the debate about whether they will be able to join the European Union. In Berlin, there is very large Turkish population, and so it really is no surprise that they would offer it. I have been wanting to learn Turkish for a while, for no other reason than that I like languages and it is so different, and am really excited to be taking it.

So those are the classes that I am taking, which aren't taking up a lot of my time at all. But I figure that it is still my summer vacation, and I should be enjoying it too!

Goodbyes

These last couple of weeks have been sad as well, since all of my close friends from Berlin have gone home or are traveling. In my experience, most of the time we try to find people going through the same things that we are to reflect, grow and mainly have someone to talk to. For that reason, during study abroad you can get to know people incredibly well after only a couple of months. The best friends that I made here in Berlin it seems like I have known a lot longer than just four months.

Since I am staying, I have had to say goodbye basically one by one to all my friends here. But not without some fun in between. In the last weeks it was a mad dash to do everything that we wanted, see everything that needed to be seen, and have some last good times with friends before the end.

The big event was the going-away party that Luis and Verena planned for us. They rented out a basement in an art-house, got some volunteer DJs and invited all of the FU-BESTers, plus our host-siblings, tandem partners, and anyone else we knew in Berlin.

Two of the volunteer DJs happened to be none other than Annie and myself.


[DJs have to have cute outfits]

At the time when we volunteered, we thought it would be fun and cool. The night of the party, we were stressing to try to make our play list just right, get the best parts of the songs down, and make the DJ programs we downloaded from the internet work. This stress basically lasted until right before we started DJing.


[Paula, my host sister, came for a little bit too!]

In the end, there was a mixer there, and Annie and I each had a computer with, which solved all our problems. We used each of our computers as a turntable and mixed some pretty sweet beats, and I'd like to think that everyone had a good time dancing while we were mixing. In the end, it was cool and fun, but we had no idea what we actually were getting into when we volunteered.

Other fun things that we did before people headed out were: having last-night drinks basically every night before someone left; going to the top of the Reichstag dome; doing various fun activities in parks due to the beautiful weather; and visiting the zoo [which there are unfortunately no pictures from since as I was taking a picture of a baboon, my camera stopped working!] Here are some other pictures though!


[Relaxing, trying to look for stars at the top of the Reichstag]


[A big group after the Farewell Dinner]


[Jessica's last night in Berlin]


[An American college tradition brought to Berlin]

WG Gesucht

In Germany and with most German universities, there are not real "dorms." Sometimes "Studentwohnheims" can be found, which can be kind of like dorms. They are reserved only for students, and sometimes they are three or four room apartments, and sometimes they are just rooms on a corridor with a kitchen for everyone's use. However, they don't belong to a particular university, and there are not nearly enough for the number of students that go to larger Universities. For example, the Freie Universitaet alone has over 40,000 students and the Studentenwerk, which runs the Studentwohnheims, only administers 10,500 residences. While some students live at home, others have to find a place to live.

This is exactly the category that I was put into when I chose to stay for the Sommersemester. Although I could have stayed with my host-family, I wanted something new and began to look for a "WG." WG stands for Wohngemeinschaft, which can be translated to commune, but more commonly refers to people sharing an apartment. Since there are so many students in Berlin and such cheap housing, there are a lot of these around. However, the picture that was painted to us about how we would have to search for and get a WG in Berlin was very ominous.

Right after we decided to stay for the Sommersemester, our student advisors Luis and Verena gave us the low-down on how to search for an apartment in Berlin. They recommended using WG Gesucht, a website where people can list how big the room they are offering is, how much it will cost a month, where it is located, and a little bit about the people that are living there. Although that seemed easy enough, the next process was not.

For the WGs that we liked, we would have to call, since it was better to get in contact with people as soon as possible rather than via email. Then they told us we would have to set up an interview with the roommates, go to the apartment and talk to them, and then they might even have a "call-back" interview. I assumed that it would be like a regular apartment search, where the person searching goes to the apartment and it more depends on their liking the apartment than the apartment-mates liking them. Not so, apparently even if you are only staying for 3 months, they really want someone compatible with the WG.

The week before we left for our long trip to Hamburg and Copenhagen, I had to begin my search. I called probably 10 people in one day, got interviews with three, and actually only ended up going to two (since I called one about an hour and a half before to get directions, and they told me it was already taken, but hadn't bothered to call me).

The first interview I went to was at a Studentwohnheim in the far east - really far away from night life, the center of the city and my university. The two girls were very nice, but it was also very bizarre because they didn't actually have the apartment yet, they were waiting for it to become available. So, we they just knocked on two random doors to be able to show me the apartment. Although we got along well, the fact that I was only staying for three months was not so appealing. But, I didn't really want to live there anyway. They said they would call me in a couple of days with a decision, but they never did...

The second interview was at an old Soviet-style apartment right by Alexanderplatz, in the heart of the city. There was only one other guy living there and was looking to take the room of his roommate that was leaving. When I explained that I would only be staying to the end of July, it was actually to my advantage. It turns out that he has a friend who wants to come live in the apartment in August, and me living in between then would be perfect.

While we were on the trip, I got the "Yes" from Tobias that I would be able to live there, and that we would talk about it more when I returned.

In the end, my WG search was a lot easier than it sounded like it was going to be, but also a lot easier than most people had. So now, I live with Tobias in an East German building, that has an elevator that only goes to floors 1,3,6, and 9, among other quirky things. My host-sister Paula asks, "Why did you move from our house (a beautiful, old apartment in Bohemian Kreuzberg, that is right next to the canal with lots of greenery) here?" But the answer is simple, that this is Berlin too, and I simply wanted to try something new!


[And I would have pictures if my camera hadn't broken while at the zoo...]

Dublin

The last possible weekend of travel together, Sean, Annie and I decided to travel to Dublin to meet up with my friend Pete, who was coming over from Portugal.


[Sean and Annie over the River Liffey]

Sean, Annie and I left early early Thursday morning from Berlin and got into Dublin pretty early. We took the airport bus into town and began to just walk around. The deal was that we were going to be staying with someone that Pete had met on Couch Surfing. Couch Surfing is a great network, where people set up profiles and offer couches for backpackers/ tourists to sleep on instead of paying for a hostel. In an expensive city like Dublin, this sounded like a great opportunity. But, we couldn't go to our "couch" until Pete got in, in the afternoon. Until then, we decided to walk around, get lunch, and begin to see some sights.


[Trinity College]

We first went and saw Trinity College, the Republic of Ireland's oldest University. Carrying around our small bags around campus, we definitely fit in with all the students. The campus is very beautiful and clearly a popular tourist spot in Dublin. From there we walked to the Dublin Castle.


[Dublin Castle]

After walking around some more, meeting up with Pete, and dropping our stuff off in the lobby of the apartment building we would be staying in, we headed back to the Dublin Castle. The day stated to clear up, and the Green Isle really is incredibly green!


[Garden behind the Dublin Castle]


[Annie, Sean and I sitting in the garden]


[There was also a particular snake theme in the garden. Here is a snake sculpture with the Castle in the background]

We walked around town a bit more, and as Dublin might be known for fickle weather, it rained and cleared up all in a couple hours time.


[River Liffey]

Since we had heard that Indian food is some of the cheapest in the city, we decided to get Indian for dinner. Although it was relatively cheap to what other restaurants were offering, it was still pretty expensive for our student budget.


[The Irish Flag reflected in the water of the Liffey]

After dinner we walked back to the apartment, where someone was finally there to let us in. The deal was that it was actually Rory's apartment, a guy who has hosted probably the most people on couch surfing, with 4 or 5 couch surfers every night. However, Rory wasn't there, because he was visiting Pete's co-worker in Porto, Portugal. When we got there, Rory's roommate was there who was leaving the next day, his girlfriend, and his girlfriends family. At least, thats what I think the relation was. But they were all leaving early in the morning to various places, and the only one who would be staying was Jerome. Jerome is technically a couch surfer but studies at Trinity College and has been staying Rory for a couple of weeks, after running into roommate problems at his apartment. Anyways, Sean and I went to bed since we had been up since about 4, and Annie, Pete and Jerome went out to a pub that was close by.


The next morning, we slept in a little bit, and went to the grocery store to buy some food for breakfast. One of the benefits of couch surfing is actually staying in someone's house, so we could use Rory's kitchen things, of course cleaning them when we were done.

The first stop for us on Friday was the the Guinness Brewery at St. James's Gate - a site that can't be passed up when visiting Dublin.


[The Gate]

The tour is not actually of the Brewery, but rather like the Carlsberg brewery, a museum of the making of the beer and the history of Guinness in various aspects from Arthur Guinness himself to advertising of the beer to new technologies of Guinness in a can.


[One of the more famous Guinness Slogans]

Sean was lucky enough to get to start his own brew. Each hour on the hour while the Brewery is open, one visitor gets to release the hops to start the brewing process of a whole new batch a beer. Sean is now responsible for a lot of Guinness Beer.


[Sean starting his own brew]


[There is his name!]

The best part of the tour comes at the end of course! At the very top of the brewery, they have what they call the "Gravity Bar" where everyone gets a free pint of Guinness after the tour and great views of Dublin.


[Sean and I with our Guinness!]

After we enjoyed our Guinness's and views of Dublin, we headed to St. Stephen's Green, a park that is pretty close to Trinity College, where we were supposed to meeting Jerome later. The Green really reminded me a lot of Boston Common, and was spectacularly green and flourishing in the Spring weather.


[Annie and I on the Green]


[The center of the Green]

After that, Pete really wanted a Pub lunch, but by this time, it was Friday after work and every single Pub was packed with Dubliners just getting off working and hanging out at the pub. After walking into six or seven different pubs, we just gave up, got some (expensive) fast food and went to meet Jerome at Trinity. That night, Jerome invited us to the bar that is actually on Trinity's campus, where the students were running amok. The bar was more like a party, with students all over, their school bags and sports bags all over. What Annie and I found surprising was how dressed up all the girls were for such a function. We realized later that this was just the first stop before most people went out to real clubs and bars. We ended up having a good time hanging out with Jerome and his French friends at one of those clubs.


The next day, we all slept in, except Pete, who had to leave early to get back to Porto. Annie, Sean, and I decided to go to Phoenix Park, a huge park located a little bit outside the city center, and have a picnic lunch. Since the weather wasn't perfect and we didn't have a blanket, we had to find better ground to have out picnic on. We decided the huge statue would be a good place.


[Annie climbing up the statue to have our lunch on top]

Although the rain would come and go rather strongly, we had to visit the touristy area of Temple Bar in central Dublin. A famous and touristy area, the most famous bar is probably The Temple Bar. To get out of the rain, we went in for some drinks.


[The Temple Bar]


[Annie and Sean in the Temple Bar]

The Temple Bar is known for its huge selection of Whiskey's, both from Ireland, Scotland and the US.


[Me, Sean, Jerome and another surfer Pedro eating out delicious meal!]

The perfect end to our weekend was Jerome's suggestion that we make dinner together. Annie and I decided that soup after such a cold and rainy day would be delicious. We cut up lots of veggies and made a minestrone-like pasta vegetable soup, and Jerome made delicious French crepes that we had before and after the soup. Putting blue cheese in the before the soup made a great appetizer and putting sugar, lemon, jam, chocolate, and whatever else sweet we could find (not all at the same time though) made a delicious dessert!

I really like the time we spent in Dublin, not only because I have wanted to go to Ireland to a while, but because in general everything went really well. We got to see the sights that we wanted, we had a great place to stay without having to pay for it, we got to meet Jerome (an awesome couch surfer), and in general just had a lot of fun. The couch surfing experience definitely made me a believer, and I plan on doing it in the future!