Berlin Stories Vo. I

First class today! Twas a seminar for German Political Thought, my only course through IES (my study abroad service) and not at Humboldt University. I was told these IES courses would be quite easy for someone with my German ability, and today’s lecture did nothing to convince me otherwise; the instructor was very enthusiastic, and he obviously knows his stuff, but he just can’t run class at a level that challenges me without leaving a lot of my classmates up the creek. Sooooo as much as I hate easy As, I will have to settle for one in this class and look for academic frustration elsewhere.

Here is my class lineup in toto. I included the days and times mostly for my own benefit—please feel free to convert them to your own time zone and make up a chart for your wall if that helps you feel closer to me:
Tu 8-10, Do 4-6: German Political Thought
MW 12-14: French 1
Th 8-12: Translation in an academic context
Mo 16-20: The Großstadt (big city) in the Weimar Republic
Tu 12-16: Deutsch als Fremdsprache (German as a foreign language)

My French instructor’s name is Helga Troll. There is nothing funny about that.

University courses do not start until next week, so outside of a trip to the Deutsches Historisches Museum with my Political Thought class on Thursday, I essentially have another week off. I plan to spend my time riding my bike, finding cheap yoga in Berlin, riding my bike, getting another wave of postcards written and in the mail (give me your address please!), riding my bike, finding all of my university classrooms, riding my bike, finishing my German novel for young adults, and taking a train out to some big body of water on the outskirts of Berlin and riding my bike around it.

But enough about the future—I have an eventful week of the past to tell you about! Also to show you, through the magic of photographs.

Got back from Hamburg, went swimming at the Stadtbad (Public pool) Mitte (middle, my Bezirk [neighborhood]), headed down the street to the discount supermarket to buy a banana and a bottle of sparkling water. This crowd of dogs waiting outside was very pathetic. They all looked up expectedly and whined when someone came out, but no owners appeared while I was lining up this shot. I wonder if they're still there, waiting...

Inside I found their canine mood opposite in the form of this cartoon dog looking insanely happy over the prospect of some beef-flavored Cheerio-shaped FROLIC-brand dog food.
Later on I went on a big ol bike ride to the Tiergarten, the large park in the middle of Berlin. Once a hunting ground for Prussian royals, it is now a very well-maintained natural space with all kinds of cool statues and pug dogs running around in it. Unfortunately it is also very, very ugly at the moment due to forces beyond the Park Department’s control, i.e. Nature. All of my photos ended up with a sort of post-apocalyptic feel to them so I will just include the most depressing one. It is the House of the Cultures of the World, and the hideous blight out front is a drained reflecting pool, and yes that sweeping concrete roof did once collapse, and yeah it killed a dude. Downer times in the Tiergarten, everybody.

Luckily I found an automatic depression cure a few minutes later as I rolled past the tourist crap behind the Brandenburger Tor. In addition to the horse drawn carriages and overpriced bratwurst there are always some dudes dressed up as Soviet and American soldiers posing for photographs with tourists. Aaaaaaand then there was this guy:
Yessssssssssssssssss.

Also the Neptune Fountain was finally running. It had felt wrong to watch the god of the sea sitting there all high and dry, you know?Ol Neptune’s got four water nymph babes pouring water around the basin and four creatures shootings jets of the stuff up to the top level. There is a pretty cool sea snake but this seal wins the Best Fountain Animal prize because he is spurting 20 foot streams of water from BOTH NOSTRILS.
Sunset over the Plattenbau (the German term for my sort of ludicrously standardized pre-fabricated soviet-built housing).
The next day: guests! Fellow wildcats Lucas and Diana, on spring break, came to Berlin for a couple days.

I met up with Lucas and Diana at my local park and led them to their hostel, The Heart of Gold. It is literally right across the street from the IES study abroad center, and up until this day I had always just sort of vaguely assumed it to be Neil Young themed. Yes, that is kind of crazy, but the truth was only slightly less crazy: as it turns out, The Heart of Gold Hostel is actually named after the ship in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the whole hostel is Hitchhiker’s Guide themed. Look, on the wall, it’s the sperm whale and the bowl of tulips!
Wacky!

I ended up spending a couple days with one of those bizarre international groups Berlin seems to create out of nothing. Consider this: my friend Diana, who is studying in London, had spring break at the same time as her friend Lucas, who is studying in Barcelona, so they went on a European tour that included a stay in Berlin, where Lucas’ friend Noah, who is studying in Tübingen*, had come to meet him, and Noah brought with his Danish friend and fellow Tübingen student Jacob, and Noah’s former roommates in Vienna, a Frenchwoman and another Dane, were also in Berlin for some reason so they hung out with us too. If that sounds confusing it is because it is.

*A small college town in southern Germany that I had to fight tooth and nail to not study in.

It was a fun group but I was also glad to get a little alone time with Diana, who I hadn’t seen since September. We spent an afternoon in Treptower Park, home to Berlin’s most amazingly unbelievable Soviet Memorial.

I am not even going to try to describe it, because it is just too big. Like ludicrously massive, and to the absolute glory of an invading totalitarian army famous for raping hundreds of thousands of German women. The Soviets built this thing almost immediately after the war, and when they granted independence to East Germany they included a clause in the treaty that obligated Berlin to maintain this monument. Again, impossible to describe. I’ve got some photos but they don’t do it justice. Just come and see it, okay?

Here’s me looking tiny next to one small bit of memorial. Bottle of wine included for scale.Here’s Diana (seated, foreground, tiny) looking even tinier compared to the outlandish centerpiece of the whole shebang, a towering soldier with a sword holding a child and stepping on a broken swastika. Here is a man who looked amazingly like David Bowie, explaining to a girl that the swastika is actually an ancient Indian symbol for the sun. Really, click on this image to see it larger and try to convince me that this guy is not David Bowie.

Also included in the memorial are the remains of over 7000 Soviet soldiers, entombed in about two dozen these massive white urns with friezes of Soviet sacrifice and glory on the sides, and QUOTES FROM STALIN on the ends.
Yes, every single quote is from Stalin.

I liked this frieze the best because it looks like the dude is blowing his nose on the flag.
All the other soldiers are like “Duuuuuuuuuude.”

So: crazy. But there was more to the park than that. Take this tree, for example, with Diana just sitting in it and not posing at all.
Then we took the U-Bahn,And met up with the Multi-Kulti Krew at what I’m told was an American-style bar. Outside of the dusty troubadour walking around with a guitar and singing Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash it did not strike me as especially American-style, but it was cozy enough and the beer was cheap. Here I am explaining something (probably about America) to a Dane in German.
The next day we went to the Jewish Memorial in the middle of town. Diana stole my camera and took this pretty good photo of Lucas and me walking away from the Reichstag.
Most of the group, mostly with backs turned. Diana on the left, Noah to her right w/ the backpack, Lucas in green, and a very hung over Jacob leaning on the right. Jacob was a very large man with a blond mustache and high standards. He turned 25 this day. The Jewish Memorial is visible across the street. I found it eerie and alienating, which I suppose was the idea.

Then we went to KaDeWe, Berlin’s famously posh department store, where I photographed Diana looking tired and skeptical in front of these $69 bottles of water—the ones in the glass case. Entitled “bling,” this water is from Beverly Hills and comes in a custom-made bottle with the word “bling” written on it in genuine Swarovski crystal. In conclusion, some people have too much money.

Diana and Lucas had to catch flights early the next morning, so after a deliciously cheap Indian dinner that I barely spilled all over myself they headed back to the Heart of Gold and I headed out to meet up with some friends.

On my way there, this happened: I was cold and bored and had been waiting at the tram station for about 10 minutes when a tram rounded the corner, rolled up to me, and…breezed right on by. That would have been bad enough, but as the tram slooooowly eased past me I could clearly see that it was some sort of special party tram, full of gussied up Germans sipping fancy cocktails at special tables. I was too slowed by shock and jealousy to get a picture of it, but I did find this advertisement a bit later, which confirms almost conclusively that I did not hallucinate this. Also confirmed: the slogan really is DRINK N’ DRIVE!

Eventually a regular, non-party tram showed up and I got to my friends and we drank some vodka and got on a train. Here is Beau Box, Texan, Tulane undergrad, all around outrageous individual and a truly sweet guy, being embarrassed in the station.
AND THEN I STAYED UP ALL NIGHT DANCING. Yep. Had lotsa fun, too. I will only get so many Saturday nights in Berlin in my 20s, you know?

Then I got home and ran (I always find it strange+great to exercise before sleep after pulling an all-nighter. It has happened twice and is probably not good for my heart.) and showered and slept for a few hours, and got up no worse for the wear early that evening. See?All in one piece. I even shaved.

Consider yourselves updated! Back again soon!