Day Five - The "New Berlin"

This was what I will call our big "we are just a bunch of tourists" day. In the morning we got a tour of Potsdamer Platz which had been a pretty desolate area right along the wall (it may be a little early for this, but most of the places we saw were right on the edge of the wall, for some reason the changes as a result of this very weird period must be interesting) and has since been built up as a "world-class" city - skyscrapers, expensive restaurants, expensive stores and movie theaters. From there, we walked along the Topography of Terror, the remnants of a building that had been used as a major headquarters of the Third Reich that has since been outfitted with a museum type set-up with information about WWII etc. We were going to go through the Brandenburg Gate, but the Dalai Lama was speaking there at the same time (we didn't get there soon enough to hear anything though) so it was a little crowded to really be able to see it. Then we wandered to the Reichstag (which over there were the anti-Tibet protesters, pretty interesting). The Reichstag is the parliament building with the glass dome on top, so you can climb into the glass dome and look into the main hall of the parliament (transparency in government) and get a nice panoramic view of the city. We went to an "authentic" German restaurant for dinner, had a nice discussion and a number of shots, and I finally met the green fairy, which is not worth all the fuss by the way.

Day Four - Meet the class

After searching the neighborhood for anywhere that would serve breakfast before 10:00 a.m. (since check-out for the hostel was at 11) I gathered everything and paid someone to drive me across town. Even though everyone says there is a fantastic public transportation system, I didn't want to figure it out while hauling all my stuff. Unfortunately, check-in at the next hostel was 2:00 p.m. and I had about two hours to kill before everyone else showed up. When they did get in and the first room was available, everyone made a mad dash for a place to sleep, allowing me four more hours to kill. Once everyone had slept for a few hours we trekked across town to meet the students who we were "teamed" with. Basically, we come over here and they help us get a perspective on Berlin and we get lectures from their professors, and in a few months they will come to Denver to do the same type of study. Now this is a pretty accurate reflection of my definition of hell, being in a stuffy room in the middle of an unfamiliar city (so I can't extricate myself from the situation) with twelve people who I don't know even though for all important purposes we are a group and twelve-fourteen people who I don't know, don't know whether I will see again, and randomly throughout the night start speaking a language I don't understand. This is great, fabulous, what the hell have I gotten myself into? When the professors noticed that I was sitting away from the blabbering crowd in a sort of dumbfounded stupor, they suggested that we head back to the hostel. Even better, now I am the anti-social party-pooper...oh, nothing new.

Day Three - Out in the big city

I decided that with only one day left before I had to meet the rest of the group, I had better get out and see the town. I got up at a decent time and wandered Kurfurstendamm, a major commercial street next to the zoo. The zoo was great, very open and just perfect to wander around. After that I went to the city park area behind the zoo. Oh, then I went to a museum detailing the history of Berlin, which seemed like a pretty smart precursor to looking at the politics in the area. A nice relaxing day, good food, nice walk (about 12 hours of walking) even if I did get caught after dark over six blocks away from the hostel in a torrential downpour.

Day Two - More sleep

Uh, I slept some more...most the day. Well, to make excuses, the build up to the trip and getting ready to leave work and everything else had pretty well zapped every bit of energy I didn't have. I did take a couple of hours to wander around the neighborhood, get lunch and figure out streets etc. It was weird staying in a hostel though, I'm so used to hotels that not having my own space was a little uncomfortable. I shared the room with two girls on a tour around Europe who were from...Texas. They were great though, even though we didn't see each other much. As far as hostels go, based on my limited experiance in hostels - twice in high school with that crazy :) group, it was pretty nice, clean and accessible. And, as far as cities go, I was in a great neigborhood, not very many tourist-y things to see, but on the west side of Berlin and I felt very safe. So far a great trip.

First Day - Sleep

I got about two hours of sleep on the 8 hour flight over the "big water" so when I got to the hostel mid-day on Thursday I called N then went straight to sleep for about 8 hours. Then I got up and had the most amazing dinner at some hole in the wall on a nearby side street, already loving the German cusine! And thankfully I had no trouble sleeping at night also.

Flight recap

Everything started well for the trip, until about the time I got to the local airport. Joining me on my flight was a paranoid, crazy ex from about 10 years ago; apparently he has sprung out of prison, yippee. Then, some guy sat in my window seat, the seat that I had specifically selected when I bought my tickets. Otherwise, pretty uneventful trip. Oh, I barely made my flight in Frankfurt, was wandering in big circles around the airport despite having been given instructions a number of times (a dialogue consisting of pointing can be fairly difficult to follow). Oh, and I got about two hours of sleep by the time I got to Berlin the next day early afternoon (local time). I can't handle that kind of sleep schedule anymore.

BTW, I will be posting pictures at: http://berlinlog.site.shutterfly.com/

Now I'm even less ready

Recap of the pre-class in Denver:

First, the drive was long, very long, and I spent almost as much in gas as I would have on an airline ticket. Second, meeting the people in the class and discussing urban politics made me see myself as I really am: old country bumpkin -

Allow me to elaborate, I never really thought that D-town was all that backwoods, particularly with how people in the county complain about it being so "urban." Well, I had a few hours to wander around downtown and become hopelessly lost. After this, I drove around and intentionally become lost and I realized that I feel a lot more vulnerable lost on foot that in a vehicle, this bodes poorly for my prospects in Berlin. Furthermore, the lecture was about the various issues at hand when dealing with urban issues, and everyone was contributing by comparing the various issues with certain areas in Denver, and my embarrassing body of knowledge is pretty well limited to the impacts on small business when Walmart moves in. To top it off, while there are two students who are twice my age, most of the students are younger than me. In fact, there are even one or two who will be able to take advantage of Germany's lower drinking age. I suspect this would not seem all that bad except they were acting like stereo-typical rich, hot, young things, ug.

Now I am developing a high level of terror about this whole thing. Oh why did I sign up for this madness?