Week 1: Wir sind jetzt alle zusammen!

Hey y'all. Check in #2. I successfully survived my first full week in Berlin and started class at the Goethe Institut. I got placed in level C1.1A (yeah it didn't mean much to me either). Basically I'm pretty happy with it, 4 of the 12 us are in that level and we're the highest group (kind of wishing I had played dumb or something, our homework has definitely been the hardest ;-) It was fun to finally all meet up as a group. We met at our professor's hotel and then had a nice swanky dinner paid for by the lovely Mac German Dept. Here's a picture of my expensive and super delicious chocolate mousse... The next day we had our first day of class and then all met up afterwards to take a tour of the Reichstag (Congress) an the surrounding area of interesting things. Our tour guide was pretty hilarious and awkward and spoke in a funny dialect (in German) but it was pretty fun. We started out at the Hotel Adlon (most swanky-est hotel in Berlin, also famous because its the place where Micheal Jackson hung his baby out the window), and then went to the Brandenburger Tor and the lobby of this bank next door that had a sweet huge Frank Gehry (did the fish in the sculpture garden greenhouse) sculpture taking up basically the whole first floor.
We then went into their Congress building, saw the assembly room, and a part of the building where they're maintained original graffiti from Russian soldiers when they occupied the building during/after the end of World War 2.
After that we took an elevator up to the cupola (a big glass open air dome on top of the building)

Then our professor Gisela left us the next day and we won't see here till she picks us up at the Vienna train station in March! Left to our devices in Berlin...

Here's a pretty picture I took I the way to school in the morning. It's a gorgeous sunrise, which made it slightly less awful to be up so early (class starts at 8:30am and we have a 40 min commute).

Hannah and I took advantage of the extensive "Kulturprogramm" that the Goethe Institut offers (basically trips, tours, workshops, and lectures) and took a walking tour of Berlin "Mitte" the center of the city, and the oldest section. The history of Berlin is fascinating, it looks like no other European city I've been to. Throughout it's history Berlin has constantly changed and evolved, and the weird mixture of architecture and memorials and near complete lack of old buildings make the history oddly tangible. The complete decimation of the city during the WW2 wiped out most of the historic buildings. So there is very little left of buildings from the Middle Ages, or pretty much anything pre-world wars. Then the rebuilding of the city separated into 2 countries produced interesting divides and completely different aesthetics. The buildings in the former East are most interesting. This is a picture of Marienkirche, the oldest standing church in Mitte, next to the Fernseh Turm (TV Tower). Its an interesting juxtaposition of an old (religious) symbol, next to the secular socialist power symbol (copied from the one in Moscow, but only allowed to be slightly shorter than that one.)

Another stop on our walking tour featured another East German remnant. A giant sculpture of Marx and Engels.

So yeah... I think those were the highlights of Week 1. On the weekend, Erin and Hannah and I met up with Laura to see Berlin am Meer, a fabulous about cool young people doing cool young people things in Berlin (as Erin put it.) We all enjoyed it, but it left us sort of bummer we hadn't found this amazing underground scene in Berlin, and Laura and I were especially jealous of the Liebesgeschichte (love story). But it was definitely fun to watch the movie and say "oh, we're there right now!" While waiting for the movie to start we noticed a nearby H&M, and so returned the next day to do some einkaufen (shopping!) It was very successful. Then we returned for some Skype action, had a yummy soup dinner at home, and then proceeded to Adam and Gavin's apartment (how they scored that, I'm not quite sure.) Somehow pretty much the entire group ended up there one way or another, plus some other Mac kids who were in the city (reunions seem to happen spontaneously and often here.) The next day we slept in and then made a short excursion to Zoologischer Garten. Although we didn't actually make it into the zoo, we scoped out the location, and had fun browsing a book store and the "1 Euro Store" or as Erin called it, the "$1.50 Store." I scored some black duct tape and envelopes and a purple umbrella, and Hannah got hot pink sunglasses, partially to spite Erin, and I was jealous.

Stay tuned... Coming up next time: overdue pictures of my room/house and the Goethe Institut, and trips to the Pergamonmuseum and Sachsenhausen (concentration camp.)

Love you all!!!
(PS Send me mail! I will be very exited and return the favor!)
Alice Gerard
c/o Geothe Institut Berlin
Neue Schoenhauser Str. 20
D-10178 Berlin/Mitte
Germany

Arrival minus one bag

Hello Everyone!

My first blog post to update you all on my first few days in Berlin:
Day 1/Many hours to get to Berlin:
I flew to Chicago and met up with another Macalester girl going on my program, Hannah Kinney, and we flew together to Berlin via Milan. Our plane wasn't necessarily ghetto and old, but definitely didn't have the personal tv screens I've been used to, and entertainment is crucial for a 8+ hour flight. They had one big projection screen at the front of our section and played some random stuff, and episode of the tv show "Numb3rs" and then "Stardust" and then we were hoping for "Ratatouille" because we had overheard a flight attendant mention those were the two movies. But instead some random Italian thing came on with subtitles (we were flying Alitalia) and at first we thought it was a soap opera episode, because we were definitely missing something, but when it got to the end and credits scrolled, we realized they had shown us the last 30 mins of a movie. Weird. Anyways we arrived in Milan, and were herded into a long and grueling mass of people which then narrowed into a single file then to go through security. This made no sense to us. We finally got to our gate, but were then delayed due to snow (we think so, no one actually told us) and then got on the plane and waiting some more. There was lots of waiting. Finally made it to Berlin, were greeting by walking out of the plane down a staircase in the freezing cold and into a bus to drive about 25 ft to the door. We got Hannah's bags... then one of mine came... and then one of mine didn't. So we had to go to the lost people place thingy and fill out a report. Finally we made it to our bus, which took us the the U-Bahn (subway), which we took to our hostel.

Heart of Gold. What a great name. Even more hilarious was the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" theme. After we were checked in by our "pilot" and found out which "cabin" we were staying in, we found out we already had a message from someone who had called for us. So popular I know. It turned out to be from Molly, another Mac girl who is studying in London this year and was visiting a German friend in Berlin for a few days, who we planned to see. Our first order of business was to contact our host, so we sought out to find a place to add more pre-paid minutes to a cell phone I'm borrowing from Catherine, a friend who went on the trip last year. Once we successfully figured that out (I'm still surprised the people at the Vodafone store could understand what I wanted) we called Karin and figured out when to move in the next day. We then went out with Molly to an Indian food restaurant a few blocks away, and then headed back to the hostel and the two other Mac girls also on our program who were already in Berlin, Katie and Tara, met us at the hostel to hang out. (ie LONG DAY)


Day 2:
So the next day we moved out of our hostel and set off on our way to our new home for the next 2 months. We ran into a slight snag at the U-Bahn station trying to decided if we wanted to buy a full price month-long tranist pass, or try and wait till we got our Berlin student IDs and try and swing for a discount. We ended up going for a 2 day tourist past to buy time to decide. Then we got on the train made our way to Tempelhof Station, got out, and dragged our bags down cut cobblestone-y sidewalks (which made me sort of glad I didn't have that other bag). Our house is super cute and so is Karin, our host. She's very sweet and sociable, her and husband have 4 grown kids, and 3 grandkids. She showed us our rooms, and have the 3 floor to ourselves. She told us there's a small room and a big one, and we saw the first room and both assumed it was the big one, then say the next one and realized there's a big room and a huge room. I gave Hannah the bigger one, because I knew whe would both hang out there regardless
and my room seemed to be calling to me with pink sheets and a poster of Klimt's "The Kiss" painting. Other great perks, our own shared bathroom, and wireless internet! (Hence this post is way longer and probably more information then any of you really wanted to know. I promise I'll try and edit in the future). We got a little settled in, and had a nice little talk with Karin. Then we met up with Tara and Katie and went to the DRR Museum (East Germany). It was pretty small, but packed with tons of funny stuff. Including a "Trabbie", pretty much the only car you could get in East Germany, a "potty bench" where kindergarteners would take "collective potty breaks" (oh those communists) and great replicas of nude beaches, because apparently all the East Germans liked to hang out nude (this was never adequately explained). Then we went out to Asian food, super yummy and cheap.
Day 3:
Grocery shopping! Hananh and I woke up and went to Aldi (love it!) and spent a whopping 11 euro (oh Aldi, saving me money on multiple continents). Had a bite to eat and we were on our way out, but had to pause to meet the adorable Enkelkinder (grandkids) Matteo, Louisa, and Phillipe. Way cute. We met up with the girls again and spent a crazy 5+ hours in the Jewish Museum. The building itself is just as much, if not more, of an attraction than the exhibit.

It was very interesting, but we were certainly tired by the end. Headed out to dinner (again, I know) to a Turkish restaurant, as the museum is in the Kreuzberg neighborhood, also known as "Little Instanbul." Then made it home and caught up on the latest Project Runway episode. (Why didn't they send Victorya home?!) And now I'm all caught up! Miss you all and stay tuned for more!