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