Some Basic Berlin Sights

Hello again, this time from Berlin. Tomorrow marks my third whole week since arriving here. I'm quite behind on covering my trip here, but I think I'll manage to catch up because of a little secret I call sleep.

That's right, sleep. At first I had a lot of trouble sleeping here, not because of working too hard, culture shock, or eating something different (which I'm actually doing a lot, more on that in later posts), but because of the sun.

That's right, the sun. It really doesn't go away in Berlin, at least in this time of year. I was shocked when I realized that it was still pretty light out at 10 pm, but even more shocked when I saw some light after leaving a nightclub at 3 am. It isn't bright as day at these times, but it's just bright enough that you really notice it. Needless to say, this is because Berlin is very far north, about the same latitude as St. John's or Calgary in Canada. It also makes a difference that the summer solstice is this weekend...

Anyway, I'm not used to going to bed with the sun, so I've getting to bed at a much later hour and had been tired for the first two weeks as a result. I feel like I've rediscovered sleep this week, though.

And so, we go on to a few pictures from my Berlin experience so far!

Karneval des Kulturen:

I met a few other people in my program at this festival/parade that was going on the first weekend I arrived. The highlight of the parade was definitely seeing a whole crew of people in lederhosen and dirndl dancing to salsa.

And a video below:

The overall highlight is harder to say. Possibly the audacity of this guy to jump into our picture:

The weather that weekend was so nice that I actually burned a little. I can't say the same about the next two weeks or so. It had really been switching every hour or so between raining really hard and just being cloudy and sort of cold (60ish) up until last weekend. I had a great time though!

Despite the weather, I explored the city when it wasnt raining much. My experience here has been quite different from Munich, and I mean that by the way that I've exploring. Berlin being a much larger city, I'd mostly been wandering a bit just to get my bearings and taking interesting pictures along the way. That's not to say there arent sights here! I found a bit of that recently, too. But for now, I'll just show you some random pictures on no particular theme, other than the city of Berlin:

This is the Victory Column (Siegssäule). It's actually really big, but this picture sort of hides that for some reason.^

I think this is where Obama spoke when he was here about a year ago. Here's what he might've been looking at when he looked out (with many many more people, of course)^. You can sort of see the Brandenburg Gate in the distance.

Here's a view that I saw from the above-ground train. You can see the TV Tower in the background. Also some construction cranes. No idea what the sculpture on the left is^

Look it's the Reichstag!^

Here's Humboldt Uni, the institution I work for^

THis is the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral), which looks old, but was only originally built in about 1905 and was rebuilt after WWII. I remember hearing something about how Kaiser Wilhelm II wanted Berlin to have something old looking, just like other European capitals.

Checkpoint Charlie, now a tourist trap^

Here's a closer picture of the Brandenburger Tor. ^ I think just about all of the embassies are around this area. Just to the left is the American embassy and just to the right is the French. The rest are somewhere. I didn't realize how close the gate is to the parliament building (reichstag), literally around the corner.

I would write more and post more pictures, but I have to go. I guess next time I'll post about my trip to Dresden last weekend and maybe Copenhagen, which I'm getting ready to leave for now.

Munich Nutshell

Hey all,

So, I havent been updating this blog as planned...I blame it on all the fun things to do in Munich. Here are some of the highlights captured by my camera:

If you ever hear someone mention the "Residenz" in Munich, if anything comes to mind it should be the word, Geld (money). This building, which was being renovated on the outside, was a site for Bavarian kings to receive guests once upon a time and currently houses much of what remains of their excesses. Some pictures from the inside:

I think it was Thursday two weeks ago that we visited the art gallery, Moderne Pinakotheke (as opposed to the Neue and Alte countemparts), which had opened for the first time a day before. The collection is held on three stories and the kind of paintings that most people dont understand (like me). Here's one that I liked, called "Cattle Market", or something to that effect:

The most amazing thing is that all the pieces come from one family's collection. This family donated their collection under the condition that the moderne pinakotheke should look especially awesome on the outside. This doesnt quite do it justice, but here's how it looks:

Based on the above picture, you would never guess that on that some day I was rained on like never before. As we waited in line to enter the gallery, the rain gradually started to pour on us, and all the roofwater came down on everyone in the line because the line wrapped around the building. This was the kind of rain that will soak you even if you have an umbrella because of the angle the wind blows the water at you. Ganz verruckt.

Speaking of water, the main river of Munich is called the Isar, which a few surfer dudes tricked out to make a sick wave as it runs through the city. Pic below:

Last weekend, I visited Neuschwannstein Schloss, which is a mouthful to say, but also amazing to visit. It's a castle near the Alps and was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria sometime in the mid 1800s. The history on this guy is kind of funny because he basically squandered the family fortune and the city's money on projects like these (why build a castle in the 19th century?). At the same time, most of the tourist sites in and around Munich were built by Ludwig II and tons of income comes in because of their fantastical appeal to tourists.

Here's the castle (which still isnt completed on the inside because Ludwig II was arrested, halting the project):

A view from the top, with what I think is the town of Füssen in the background:

And one the rooms inside, which is dedicated to a particular Wagner piece (the whole castle was meant as a tribute to Wagner and the mythology of his operas. (I told you he was crazy) :

On another note, I visted the Dachau memorial site to what was once the concentration camp. It's absolutely crushing to see this place, and I hear that most other places are even more difficult. As the first camp (opened in 1933), Dachau was used for mostly political prisoners up until around the start of the war, when conditions in the camp turned for the worse and more and more Jews were put insde. Here's an old photo from the American archives upon liberation:

And a picture of what was once the "living" area for prisoners. The stones filling the footprint of each of building is follows the Jewish tradition of laying stones at gravesites. (stones are forever, while flowers perish):

I was expecting a bit more visibility of this period of history in the city of Munich. It was odd how invisible the third reich was in munich, but i guess it was on everyone's mind who visits. I'd rather not be reminded of it everywhere I look, anyway. There's really so much unrelated stuff to enjoy in Munich (which I think you can tell). For instance, I went to the Deutsches Museum a few days ago. The history of engineering, metalworking, technology, and other things science-y is all explained in this place. My favorite was the tiny collection of really old locks:

And TECHNOLOGY THROUGH THE AGES:

Finally, some of the people of all ages the I learned some german with at a biergarten, just before going our separate ways:

Proof that I was there:

Anyways, I'm not actually in Munich anymore, I'm writing this on my first day in Berlin. Rather than going out and exploring, I'm setting up my room and getting some rest. Since this is a long entry as far I'm concerned (my mom is probably the only one still reading), I'll get into first impressions later on.

Here's a statistic that I think is sort of interesting, though - Just before Hitler rose to power in 1933, the fraction of people who voted for the Nazi party in Munich was about one third, while at the same time in Berlin, a plurality was held by the German Communist Party (also about one in three). Hmmm...