Last Monday Blues/Pre-Dresden Photodump

Hello again you lovely people. Dresden was terrific and exceedingly photogenic. Unfortunately the world has not elected to bless me with perfect blogging conditions; I could probably hammer out Dresden today if I had like a broken leg in dead winter, or maybe if I was quarantined and in exile on some desert island with high speed wireless internet. Instead it is a beautiful day and I have work to do (i.e. mostly aimless bike ride-related tasks), so I will have to content myself with this quick, photo-heavy update on what I did LAST Monday.

First, the end of Sunday. After I spoke with the folks and my Grandma Mona through the technological miracle of Skype, I did my usual Sunday afternoon, food-for-the-week, large-scale cooking project. This week’s selection: potatoes cubed and boiled until tender, then sautéed in olive oil with onions, garlic, and spices; and lemon/black pepper/nutritional yeast chicken breasts, cooked in a skillet. Cheap, filling, not awful for me—what more can I ask for?

Monday began as most Mondays do, with a run, a shower, a cup of coffee, and a bit of blogging. Then I went and embarrassed myself at French class—I did quite a bit of pronunciation practice in Dresden but I still sound like I have my tongue clamped in a clothespin—and rolled through the study abroad center to check my mail. Nothing again, although I know people have sent me things. (I think German postal authorities are conspiring against me.)

Molly was having a little trouble with a loose cover on her front light, so I asked Rolf, the unbelievably nice Student Services Coordinator at IES, where I could buy some strong glue. Rolf’s response was threefold:

1. He asked to see the problem and suggested as simpler solution—a bit of Scotch tape, called Tesafilm in Germany.
2. He grabbed his own roll of Tesafilm and tore me off a hunk. I taped it up and it worked perfectly.
3. He taught me that Tesafilm, like Scotch Tape in America or Sellotape in the UK, is a popular name brand that developed into a generic term for all transparent pressure sensitive tape. Then he taught me this little jingle: In Falle eines Falles/ klebt Tesa wirklich alles. (In case of a case/Tesa will stick anything back together. Yeah, it works better in German.)

Rolf is sweet.

Here is Molly, good as new, posing in front of Bäri, IES’s Berliner Bear statue. Like the statues of Peanuts characters (and very soon JOE MAUER) in Minneapolis, and I suppose all those plaster cows in Brainerd, these bear statues are part of some kind of fundraiser/community beautification drive and can be found all over town. Bäri was painted by some IES kids a few years back and wears a rainbow onesie.

Bicycle repair took up much less of my two hour break between my French and literature classes, so I did the obvious thing and went on a long bike ride in the wrong direction. I cut west through the middle of town and found a quiet, green residential area, presided over by this stately pelican:
This little insulated tangle of apartment buildings and courtyards merged seamlessly into the big pretty grounds of Charité, Humboldt’s 300-year-old medical campus/teaching hospital.
I eventually got my fill of statues of bald, bearded dead guys and moved on, still headed west. Then I sort of stumbled on the heart of the German federal government, so I biked around that for a while. Hey, I can see the Hauptbahnhof from here:
This neat asymmetrical fountain stretched out in front of the Reichstag (capital building). Some fountains were higher and some were lower:And the groups traded off every five seconds or so:
I like these understated streetlamps. I gotta come here at night—I’ll bet they light it up real pretty.
Finally, although I really should have turned around and started back towards campus, I went a little south and then still further west, deep into an unexplored quarter of the Tiergarten, the vast park in the middle of Berlin. Much prettier than it was a few weeks ago, and getting greener all the time:
This yellow fellow seems to be squeezing an endless supply of water out of this tremendous fish:
Otto van Bismarck in monumental bronze. This Bismarck was not quite as architecturally commanding/domineeringly massive as the one I found in Hamburg; that Otto was solid as a tower and anchored on a massive broadsword, while this Otto is taking a kind of elegant stride here and balancing a bit on his slender rapier.

Tiergarten Bismarck also has the better supporting cast of classical figures. These giant metal folks shared sort of a curious theme of pressing or leaning, I guess as some sort of metaphorical expression of all the weighty things Otto accomplished before he died like everybody else.

The female figures on either side seem to be in control of their situations. This woman is reclining on a sphinx while she reads her giant tome:And this chick looks to have this lion under control, i.e. she literally has her heel on its throat:The dudes in front and behind had it much rougher. The blacksmith, banished to the back, is hunched over his anvil (I like how he braces himself with his right foot):And Atlas is having his usual troubles with, uh, the literal weight of the entire world on his shoulders:
Finally, the very last and westernmost thing I found before riding very fast to my class and getting very sweaty and still coming in late and all hot and winded and clambering over people towards an empty chair—this awesome bison!Super great. I miss bison. This guy was looking sort of contemplative and melancholy.OKAY that’s that! All kinds of pretty pictures of and funny stories about the Jewel of the Elbe (Dresden, that is) coming in the next couple of days.

P.S.: An experiement: My camera can take videos, so I took a little video of some cool light playing off the water under a bridge near Schwarzer Kanal. Not the best quality, but you can hear some techno booming out across the water.