All My Albums Thus Far:
http://s473.photobucket.com/albums/rr94/lliw2322/Understatement: It's been quite a week.
I've procrastinated blogging until now, so this will be pretty long, but because I like lists and numbers, I'll categorize things:
1. My flight and public transport here
2. My house
3. People, beer, food, TV, consumer stuff
4. IES program thus far, the people
5. View of Americans and election
6. Trip to Potsdam
7. Trip around Berlin, the Reichstag, and the German History Museum
8. Funny things here
1. US airlines blow. It's all about the European airlines that are not broke. Well, except for the fact that I had to buy another bag because my ginormous laptop put me over the weight limit. My flight left at 10 pm and was to arrive at 1 pm, 8 hours later, so I was a little nervous about my sleep schedule, espcially because I didn't get any sleep on the flight. This is not because I wasn't tired or can't sleep on planes. Oh no, it's because the flight was one of the greatest 8 hour periods of my life. It was because they served us a hot roast chicken meal with warm rolls and beer. It was because I could watch Iron Man in German (favorite lines: "Ja, Ich kan fliegen." and "Ich bin Iron Man"). It was because there were two more inflight drinks (I didn't get any more alcohol), a hot breakfast, an SNES in each seat with the controller in the armrest, and a camera on the front of the airplane with constantly updating statistics about the flight to keep nerds like me entertained.
I transferred in Coppenhagen for a short flight to Berlin. Unfortunately, I never got to leave the airport to look around, but from what I saw on the camera on the front of the plane, there were many fields, the towns were tiny, and the runway was black. The flight into Berlin was short, but still better than any US flight. Again they offered me beer, but I declined. I sat next to a guy who's sister happened to go to Carleton, though she's a senior and I don't know her. He was about 26 and rich as hell, something about starting a company that installs high bandwidth internet to appartment buildings. Pretty good idea and relatively little CS knowledge required. I was intrigued. I also sat next to a really cute Polish girl who was actually also on my flight from Chicago. We talked in very simple English for a while and I was so distracted by her... accent, that I think I walked off the plane without my sweatshirt and my jacket.
2. I arrived a day before my host-frau was expecting me, because IES screwed up, so I was a little panicked. I was able to get in touch her, but she was at work, so after the scariest taxi ride of my life with this crazy Turkish driver who spoke no English (from that I learned that horns and screeching tires sound the same here as at home) and a very blurred view of Berlin, I had to wait with all my stuff at a cafe in front of her apartment. Then it started raining heavily and I was cold because the Polish succubus had taken my sweatshirt with her adorably poor pronunciation. Of course, everything worked out and Franka, my host, ran out in the rain to get bockwurst and eggs to make me dinner.
Franka's really nice. She actually got wireless for her house because she heard that I was a CS major. Her appartment is very old East Berlin, which was charming for a while. Now the bare-bones-ness of the apartment shows a bit more. Here are some pictures:
http://s473.photobucket.com/albums/rr94/lliw2322/My%20Place/She mentioned that she and most Berliners don't have the towering fridges that we do. I decided not to tell her that we have 3 at home.
It's a lot like living in the off campus house this summer. The stove needs to be lit by a match and the toilet is really weak. However, everything is clean. Everything. Franka has apparently even gone into my room to close any drawers I've left open or fold any clothes I've put out on the floor, you know, for later. Apparently, Germans are pretty passive aggressive with this sort of thing, so I think I'm in trouble.
The bathroom is the only thing I'll never like or get used to in the house. The bathtub is in the middle of the wall with no curtain and a hand held shower head. I get water everywhere, and they have a term for this: 'walrusing,' apparently Americans do it here all the time. It's cold too, and nothing will wake you up in the morning like having to put down the shower heada in a cold bathroom right next to the window for 2 minutes to soap and shampoo up.
The building and the whole neighborhood is pretty cool though, lots of cafes, bars, and young people and families. The Germans, especially the Easterners, love graffiti. Every building is covered with it. Occasionally you'll see some pre-1989 stuff too about freedom or anti-DDR (the not as fun DDR). Some are here:
http://s473.photobucket.com/albums/rr94/lliw2322/Around%20Berlin/3. For the third fattest country in the world, there are very very few fat people here. We must be very far ahead in first. Everybody walks, bikes, or takes the awesome train system wherever they need to go.
The people are pretty much all better looking than Americans too, except for most of the men my age. They are kinda funny looking with anime/Cloud haircuts and I am one of only two single, straight men on my trip, so I look forward to my chances with the gorgeous German women.
People drink beer here literally anytime, anywhere, in half liter bottles. I see at least two guys on my way to the IES building sipping a beer with another in hand at 9 am every day. They also allow people to drink on the street, in parks (where they are also allowed to be naked), and on all public transportation. Beer is also generally cheaper than water, because they don't give out free water in restaurants, you have to buy bottles.
Several of the stereotypes kind of apply. They love recycling, they love small cars (though there are plenty of sedans and vans), and they love punctuality and order.
They drive and bike like crazy here. They don't really stop for pedestrians, they go for the 'smaller thing should move away from bigger thing' rule.
The food here has been amazing. I have not had a meal I didn't like, although I've eaten out so much more than at home, where the most common meal has been bread with cheese and salami. Milk is fatty and thick as cream, soda is expensive, and Doner is their tasty staple junk food. Doner is to Germany as burger is to the US.
TV is mostly American or shows in English dubbed into German. It's surprising how much you can learn from poorly dubbed South Park and Family Guy when you already know all the jokes in English. I try to watch German Nick a lot, because the language simpler than German news. They actually dubbed Spongebob Squarepants pretty well, or as well as spongebob can be. He's not spongebod here though, he's 'Spongebob Schwammkopf' or 'Swimhead,' and he still laughs the same way.
Dogs are loose and everywhere here, but do not touch them! They will not bite, but their owners will. The dogs are very smart and will only listen to and follow their masters, even when they are 100 feet away from the. Dogs are more companions here than pets, you don't go and feel up someone's companion.
4. So the official reason I am here is to take courses in the IES Metropolitan Studies Program, which is a lot of social science courses about European cities, and stuff. Also, we are taking intensive German courses, which I am much more excited about, even though I'm in a class of 3 and my professor is creepy and asks really vague questions like, 'how does a child make Berlin?' and has us do really weird activities like pretend we are in an art gallery talking about the art (the map of berlin) on the wall while holding invisible champaigne glasses. We lost points if we didn't hold up the glasses.
There are 16 students, all American, and we are an, interesting, bunch. Most know very little German and are primarily not from science backgrounds. It feels a lot like the Real World sometimes. There are some serious party goers, bro-y guys, trendy girls, and varieties of beliefs and lifestyles. I don't agree with everybody, but this blog is public so I wont state anything good or bad about anybody in particular, but suffice it to say that things could get pretty interesting between people in the same group of 16 over the next 13 weeks.
5. People love Obama here. Thank God he warmed the Germans up for us a little while ago because I was actually pretty worried about meeting German people my age. My host likes talking US and world politics, so I've gotten a pretty good idea of what moderate liberal Germans think of us. They mostly think that we need to just keep out of other's business, which is what Germany usually does these days. She told me about the stereotypes she believed about us and they were mostly right: people eat too much, we ruin any foreign political situation we touch, and the politicians rely more on being an appealing person rather than their plans for getting elected. I love the German take on politics. They are confused as to why anyone cares that Sarah Palin has 5 kids and was a good mother with a stick up her ass. They would rather hear about her planned policies and judge her based on them. Personal life is separate from one's ability to govern? Brilliant!
http://i473.photobucket.com/albums/rr94/lliw2322/My%20Place/GermanyTake2032.jpgI experienced the obnoxious America thing here the other day that the Europeans complain about. These realy loud annoying American girls about my age got on the very full subway and wouldn't shut the hell up. The Germans consider train time to be quiet time, so this was pretty rude. They spoke to each other like no one could understand them, which is almost never the case here, almost everyones knows a little English, or at least enough to know when they are being talked about. The girls kept talking about the ice cream these two women right across from them had and how one looked good but the other look terrible. The women definitely knew what they were saying, but the Germans are nonconfrontational nowadays, so they said nothing. They must've thought I was German too because the most obnoxious girl pointed me out to her friends near the end of the trip. When I got up to leave, I very clearly said, 'this is my stop, excuse me.' She turned so red in the face. After that I was actually embarrased to be an American.
Oh, and a saying here is: "if you speak 3 languages, you're trilingual, speak 2, you're bilingual, speak 1 and you're American."
6. The only big trip we've taken so far was to Potsdam, about 45 minutes south west of Berlin, to see the New Palace and surrounding palaces. I put up a bunch of pictures (mostly showcasing my weakness for cool statues) on my photobucket site,
http://s473.photobucket.com/albums/rr94/lliw2322/Trip%20to%20Potsdam/. You can get most of that trip from those, so only a few funny stories: the king built it as a place that his wife was not allowed to go to. She didn't even have a room. Then, a later king let his wife come, and as soon as she arrived she had the entire place modernized and redone. Even 200 years ago, it was a bad idea to let a woman into your (240 room) bachelor pad/man stronghold. Later on in town, a group of Scientologists convinced our resident (very) Minnesotan student to take a stress test to measure his thetan level or whatever. Problem for them was, he was a Minnesotan, so laid back that they couldn't even make their 'readers' go up upon turning up the sensitivity.
7. We took a bus tour around Berlin and saw all the famous sites like the wall, the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Berlin Philharmonic. Pictures are here:
http://s473.photobucket.com/albums/rr94/lliw2322/Berlin%20Bus%20Tour/We then went to the Reichstag where we had an briefing session given by a Binzio del Toro look alike:
http://s473.photobucket.com/albums/rr94/lliw2322/Reichstag%20and%20Brandenburg/?action=view¤t=GermanyTake4023.jpgwho never explicitly said 'Hitler' or 'Nazi' until everybody started asking about the conspicuously absent from his speech years of 1939-45. This actually happened again when we went to the German History museum yesterday. We were short on time convieniently right after WWI, and suddenly jumped to Reunification in 1989-90. Pictures from the tour of the museum here:
http://s473.photobucket.com/albums/rr94/lliw2322/German%20History%20Museum/8. The drinking age here is 16 for beer (though i think that was raised recently) and the driving age is 18. This means that for 2 years, teens have to figure out how to get home drunk or having had a little without cars. I think that this is an amazing system because this means that when they can finally drive, they are less likely to want or need to drive home drunk.
Batman just came out here and I could potentially see it again on IMAX, but it would be in German, with a dubbed Heather Leger, which could murder the film for me; 'Warum so ernst?'
People only eat with fork and knife here. Somebody called me out as an American when I ate a pizza with my hands. Screw that, we invented the greasy pizza, eat it the right way.
Men are supposed to sit when they pee because their toilets don't have enough water to protect from splash-back. I will clean my room OCDly, I will use a for and knife to eat a banana, but hell no Germany, I'm going to 'stand' my ground on this one.
Kids don't have trikes, they have these mini wooden bikes with no pedals that go way too fast.
Ballzac Cafe is huge here. hehehe.
McDonalds are usually pretty empty, which is nice to see.
Apfel-schorle- it's like sparkling applecider in a plastic bottle and it's everywhere, BUY IT
