Thursday, February 10, 2011

Copenhagen



This week has been pretty straightforward as far as classes and the new home-life go. Myself and the other students found another grocery store that has a lot of different types of food (including American brands!) that can satisfy anyone’s taste buds. The only downfall is that it is slightly more expensive. Speaking of grocery stores, peanut butter is not at all as popular in Germany as it is in the states. The only container I can get is a tiny jar which only lasts for a few days (assuming you eat PB&J everyday). It’s definitely one thing that’s going on my wishlist from home.
The highlight of my week has been going to Copenhagen, Denmark. It was originally only a few students going but the group quickly grew to 16 in total. We woke up at 4:00 in the morning so we could get to the airport in time for our flight. It only took an hour to get there and we had sunny weather all weekend (something that appears to be a luxury in Eastern Europe until spring officially arrives).

Copenhagen must be one of the nicest cities in Europe. Everyone there was extremely nice and helpful. On a few separate occasions a Danish would walk up to us and ask if we needed help with directions while we were on our way to the Carlsberg brewery, which houses the largest beer bottle collection in the world!


We also managed to check out the royal palace and the oldest working observatory in Europe (which also gives you a 360-birds eye view of the entire city). The most notable place in Copenhagen was Christiania, an anarchists commune that officially separated in 1989 when supervision of the area was passed on from the state of Copenhagen. Christiania has many different laws and a much different way of life than what is normally expected. My friends and I arrived early in the morning when things were just opening up on the main street. We walked all around into the back of the community where things are more residential. The mornings are peaceful here because there are no cars or loud machinery to ruin the silence.





Back to Berlin!
Ciao,
Evan

Getting into the groove...

Things have finally slowed down enough so that I can start making my apartment feel more homey. Its amazing how much better your room works with a clean kitchen.

There is so much to do in Berlin it makes it easy to go out every night and find a new place to go. We found an Australian bar/hostel that has virtually any sport you want to watch on at least one of their many TV’s. Practically everyone there speaks English, which can be extremely convenient and makes it easy to meet other travelers. It is however bittersweet that my favorite watering-hole hinders me from learning better German.

Speaking of German… we started classes this week. Each class meets once a week for 3 hours, and then we have various “field trips” in which we get to see something in Berlin that is related to our respective topics. It’s definitely a good way to make seeing all of the city mandatory. My German class is very challenging. My teacher makes class a lot of fun, but the one part that makes everything so challenging is that class is taught in German. Granted it is to help us recognized the different sounds of the language, it makes it hard to understand what is going on a lot.

This week we also got to know a little know more about our surrounding. Potsdamer plotz is popularly known for the Sony center. A massaive center for business, restaurants and entertainment… think Patriot Place minus the football stadium. Over all of this was a tent that gets lit up at night with various colors.

Another area is closer to the center of Berlin and very easy to get to. There are a lot of expensive American-style bars, as well as some very original artwork. There is an artists’ squat in which artists historically used for free a long time ago, but now only pay one euro a month to the current landlord. Here I saw original works of art of any kind, you name it. My favorite works of art was in a dark room with blacklights, and the artist painted with neon paint and used twisted metal wires.



Our program tour took us up a house that was half gone from the war. It was never repaired just renovated where the building was open to the rest of the artist squat. There we met a former-lawyer/now-artist who has done various projects from children’s books to a powerful and meaningful drawing about the Bielski brothers (from the movie Defiance). It was great to hear about how he connected their story into his artwork.




Next weekend is Copenhagen!
Guten nacht,
Evan

Finally There

The first few days of arriving were both fun and chaotic. The first day consisted of stuffing students’ suitcases into a mercedez-benz taxi (which is the norm here) and heading off to the hotel. Not being used to the ice, we shuffled across the street into our hotel for the night.

The next few days could only be described as “control chaos”. With moving into our apartments, unpacking and buying German groceries. The first day of school was equally as hectic as we all scrambled around in one giant big loud group trying to figure out the bus system to school and how to get to the cafĂ©. The Freie Univeristy was not your average campus back in the states. It was much more spread out and more integrated into the surrounding area. It would take me a few extra days to figure out how to navigate my way around.

On the weekend we hopped around a few bars and checked out a club. The music scene is unbelievable in this city. There are hundreds and hundreds of clubs and that are very into the DJ culture. Its definitely good to be in the know of music here because it usually dictates which club will be the most popular on the weekends.