Berlin Stories Vo. 3

Look at me, back after only 2 days. I know, that is like 45 years in Internet-time, I am like an old analog fogey over here, sniffin’ his newsprint, restin’ on his laurels.

I went to a new part of town last Saturday (I think it was Saturday) and took some pretty pictures that I am contracturally obligated to show you all.

Having exercised, napped, and done a bunch of work, the one big item on my Friday to-do list was “for the love of God, interact with another human being.” At the IES cookout the day before Johanna and I had sworn various oaths to hang out at some point over the weekend, and as we just happened to be on a certain omnipresent social networking website simultaneously we made plans to meet on the campus of the Technische Universität (Technical University, usually shortened to TU), where Johanna had a meeting, probably to talk about German with some Germans. TU lies just past the Tiergarten, Berin’s massive central park, in a western region I was wholly unfamiliar with and eager to explore.

Right down the middle of the Tiergarten runs 17th of June Street (named after a 1953 uprising in the DDR that got just completely and brutally crushed), home to the very crowded, insane, heavily regulated Fanmeile (Fan Mile) where thousands of people gather to drink overpriced beer and watch World Cup soccer. In what is probably actually a very necessary effort to keep thousands more from slipping past the no-booze checkpoints and starting a riot, about 2/3 of the Tiergarten is fenced off for the duration of the tournament. I rode along the southern edge, skirting phalanxes of Italians on bike tours and checking out the increasingly new, clean, and boring architecture as I left the east behind. At one point I stopped and looked at my phone, ostensibly to check the time but really because I wanted to listen to a woman on a bike scream at a couple of thick-necked fence security guards. I don’t know if they had disrespected her or if she was just THAT furious about not being allowed into the park, but she absolutely tore into them in a breathless, full-volume tirade with a pitch and intensity similar to that of a screaming baby. It was very impressive, and those tattoo-strewn rent-a-thugs on the fence probably deserved it.

Also common in this fashionable, up-and-coming-and-it-knows-it district: pompus embassies. Here’s a little piece of soverign Saudia Arabia:The façade says, “Why yes, we DO have too much money!”

Eventually I made it back to the funny little corner with a bison statue where I’d had to turn around last time. Outside of the awesome bison I found the spot fairly unremarkable, just another pleasant little stand of trees in the big ol’ Tiergarten, but just 100 meters further west I broke out of the woods and found this big, broad, totally unexpected canal.I took a picture of it from a nifty little footbridge. Neat.

In the OTHER direction there was another footbridge with some nasty-looking star-spikes on the fence, some bored lookin’ Germans, and, dead center, look closer, yes, that is an antelope:I had stumbled upon the long border between the Tiergarten and the Zoological Garden. My access to the zoo was limited, seeing as I wasn’t actually in the zoo and all, but I did see a couple more critters, including this stately llama:And these goofy birds that I first took for ostriches, before I realized they were emus:I was a bit peckish by this time and those emu legs looked a bit like giant drumsticks, but I resisted the urge to kill and eat one. I probably would have gotten kicked in the face, then arrested.

I eventually stopped salivating over the wildlife and made it over the TU campus, where, through a series of increasingly hilarious technical mishaps, Johanna and I repeatedly failed to find one another and eventually gave up on trying to meet. It was super dumb. BUT it was also a new place on a nice day, so I rolled around and took some pictures.

TU was fairly small and kind of dumpy, and even on a totally beautiful summer day it was not that pleasant of a place. Yes, okay, so I was hungry, and hot, and tired, and my meeting had not worked out, so I was not in a place to give glamorous reviews, but look at this crappy sidewalk I had to ride my bike over:Ridiculous! It’s like it was designed to rattle my teeth and rough up my keister.

I found this poster noteworthy, obviously for the top-notch copyright violation, but also bcause it nicely sums up the attitude of the groups opposing the reform of the German higher education system.
The text reads “No Learning Factory! Without Free Education, No Free Society!”

Brief background I promise not to bore you: German higher education is underfunded, overcrowded, and wildly inefficient. Students spend years and years pursuing degrees of dubious value in crumbling lecture halls. The system is almost 100% government-run, and totally free up until a couple of years ago. Recently the state has undertaken a massive reform of the universities, trying to model them on their generally much more successful American counterparts, i.e. a bachelor/masters/Ph.D. system, with limits on how long you can take to complete your degree and, heresy of heresies, small fees for students (about 500 euros a semester, i.e. about 1% of my tuition at Northwestern).

The backlash has been massive and, in my humble opinion, pretty childish and counterproductive. You can make just a real basic argument in favor of the reforms—i.e. “Higher education is incredibly valuable and very expensive, and I think it’s perfectly reasonable to expect students to pay what they can afford and finish their degrees in a timely manner”—and the only response is “No, I don’t wanna pay or work, make it free and perfect instead.” Those opposed to the reforms don’t really present any solutions—outside of the “totally free absolutely perfect education for everyone” fantasy plan—and spend most of their time whining, pouting, and participating in big drunken protest marches. Hence, this scowling, obstinate, copyright-violatin’ Calvin strikes me as a pretty good symbol for the whole stupid close-minded self-centered tenor of this particular protest movement.

I’m not saying the reforms are perfect, or that the American model is any kind of ideal. I just think German higher education hurting now and changing in the right direction, and if these idiots think otherwise they should quit pouting come up with a better solution.

This sign on the sidewalk reads “Summerfest.” It pointed to another, identical sign a little further down the sidewalk, which pointed towards an empty field.

it is short for "summer festering"

I don’t think the Germans have a very firm grasp on the concept of "Summerfest."

I eventually got too hungry and had to high-tail it home. I found some cooler stuff on the way out. For example, here are some columns and stuff:
Also, here is an incredibly huge tube:This picture does not capture the scale of this tube. It is like three stories in diameter. I think it is part of some kind of defunct water laboratory that is presumably now crawling with supervillains and/or hobos and/or spiders.

Here is an old man dressed in yellow, enjoying his view of the tube:
I pedaled my way northeast through the non-fenced off portion of the Tiergarten, stopping to photograph this scummed-over pond:Uh oh, junior rangers! It looks like this pond has gone through the process of eutrophication! Fertilizer runoff from the perfect, professionally manicured lawns of a bunch of brand-new yupscale condominiums has encouraged the runaway reproduction of algae, disrupting the pond’s delicate ecosystem and choking out all other forms of life. AWESOME GREAT JOB WEST BERLIN.

In other news, this man is fishing with four fishing rods at once. I think he was also drinking a cocktail and talking on his cell phone. It is nice to know that at least one person has finally solved the riddle of life.

An unexpected church! The Germans love to hide churches in their parks. I took a picture of this one because I liked the spiral staircase in the bell tower.

This is the Siegessäule (victory pillar—I guess it is named after one of the victories they are okay with having won), the perpetually under-construction centerpiece of the Tiergarten. The scaffolding, which was about halfway up when I arrived in Berlin, has now consumed the entire structure.How wonderfully ugly!

Finaly, to end on a positive note, here is a picture of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of the Cultures of the World) in full summer bloom: The HKW is looking much nicer now than it did in May, don’t you think?

Then I went home and ate a huge meal, the end! More stuff tomorrow if I am good, including a long-overdue update on my World Cup experience thus far. Take care!

P.S.: For those who care my translation final went well today and I'm done with my final lit paper. 3 classes down, 2 to go!

P.P.S: I forgot to write about these photos but they are awesome so here you go. First, this old school white moped in front of Phil's apartment:
And then, more importantly, the ridiculous sticker slapped on the front of it:
Awwwwww yeah. Not only is he a skeleton with wraparound shades and cartoonish Elvis-hair, he is standing in flames and drinkin' gasoline. Regardless of who they are or what they stand for, I don't think the Leningrad Cowboys could have picked a better logo.