Last day in Europe - life update!

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry about my sudden halt in blogging while I was on the March.  Our schedule got quite hectic to say the least, after my last post.  Running on about 5 hours of sleep each night, I was in no condition to blog by the time I saw my bed.  But if you'll be so kind as to check my blog next week, I've typed up my posts in word documents and will be posting them once I get to New York City next week.

The March was an incredibly transformative, educational, and inspirational experience.  So I will by all means be posting the remaining entries so that I can share my incredible experience with you!

After The March I flew to Istanbul, Turkey to meet up with Lucy for the week.  It was a nice and very interesting.  However I don't think I was able to fully enjoy what it had to offer for three reasons. First, I was very much still processing all that I'd learned and experienced on The March, and I was feeling a sort of academic withdrawal from it once I felt the impact of the sudden drop from the program and re-entry into un-guided traveling into un-chartered territory.  Second, and probably because of the above reason, I started becoming really anxious to just get the heck home. The fact that Turkey was so different from anyplace I'd ever been made me a want that even more.  Third, I got pretty bad food poisoning or something and was down and out for a couple days cumulatively.  But it was awesome to get a taste of the Middle East with Lucy!

Yesterday I flew back to Berlin - I was (and am) SO happy to be "home"!! This morning I went to school and picked up my luggage and chatted with Ella over tea and chocolate - I'd missed her a lot!  That made my day.  Then I walked around Mitte for a while, ate some food, and got a beginning Hebrew book at Dussmann :)

Now it's my last night in Berlin, and tomorrow morning I will head to the airport and then fly home mid day.  It's crazy.  I feel like the experience has gone by somewhat fast, but at the same time, I don't remember what it's like to be home in the States.  It's my personality to become really immersed in wherever I am (at HWS, on summer break, whatever it may be) at the time and forget about what it's like elsewhere or in real life.  But having been gone for five months, and in such a different place, I feel that more than ever.

It's sad to think that I won't be back in Berlin in the capacity of a (sorta-)carefree undergrad study abroad student.  But I think I've gotten so much out of my experience here (despite my deep-winter-stint of not liking Berlin. To my defense, it was -10 F for three weeks).  I'll definitely hold the city really close to my heart, and it'll be a really interesting and probably difficult adjustment period back into American culture and furthermore into NYC culture. But continuing to blog about The March, Turkey, and other things I haven't yet gotten to but am determined to record here, will help me through it.  That, and a lot of quiet time.  What can I say, I'm easily overwhelmed.

Here's a photo I took on a bridge here near school around 7:45pm while walking back from dinner.  One more thing I'll miss about Northern Europe - 9.20pm sunsets!!!

The River Spree from a bridge on Friedrichstraße

End of the Semester

Greetings from Copenhagen, Denmark!

lis greeted me with this cute flag! 

After a week of final exams, yesterday was the last day of my semester, so we had our closing meeting and farewell dinner, and I said goodbye to my host mom.  This morning I got up at 3:20am and made my way to Copenhagen (only a 45 minute flight from Berlin!).

Leaving Berlin was really difficult.  We spent 1.5 hours at our closing meeting discussing/'learning about' the culture shock that we're going to experience when we return to the states.  I must say - through that, I discovered that the BEST thing I've done for myself was to keep this blog!  Not only did it allow me to think through and document my experiences, but more importantly it told you guys about my experiences, so that you at least have a partial understanding of what has been happening with me and how I have changed in the past 4 months.

BUT!  I could not start thinking about the cultural re-entry process (as they call it) just yet!  First, I am embarking on the trip of a lifetime through Europe for the month.  This past week I had a mixture of feelings of (1) really wanting to be home at the lake spending time with my family, (2) really wanting to stay in my comfortable and awesome life in the great city of Berlin with the awesome support system of IES, a few close friends, and my host mom, aaaand (3) wanting May to start so I can explore Europe!

Luckily, Mom knew just what to say and told me that I'm so silly to want to come home, that I've got a whole continent on my hands and that feeling uneasy about the change is okay.  So!  Feeling a little better about that, I left Berlin - but it wasn't a "goodbye" (thank goodness), but just a "see you later":  Here is my schedule for the month:

April 27 - May 2:             Copenhagen, Denmark
May 3 - 7:                        Munich, Germany and Salzburg, Austria
May 7 - 13:                      Copenhagen, Denmark
May 13 - 16:                    Berlin!
May 15 - 23:                    The March   (Berlin; Krakow, Poland; Warsaw, Poland)
May 23 - 29:                    Istanbul, Turkey
May 29 - 31:                    Berlin!
May 31:                           Fly back to the States

A bit of explanation:

Munich:
       A close friend of Lis' Grandfather lives in Bavaria (Southern Germany) near Munich.  We are going to go visit him for a few days, and see his wonderful area.  Lis, Werner, and I are all really excited!  We're going to make a day trip to Daschau, a concentration camp right outside of Munich, and another to the castle Neuschwanstein.  After that we're going to spend 24 jam-packed hours in Salzburg, Austria and go on a Sound of Music tour!!!

The March:
     This is a Holocaust Studies trip which is run by my Holocaust professor from HWS, his wife, and two survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau.  The trip starts in Berlin on May 15, where we will see where the Wansee Conference took place, and other memorial/historic sights around Berlin.  The following day we take a bus to Krakow, Poland.  We will spend several days there visiting camps and historical sites.  On Friday night we will have a huge Shabbat dinner - a highlight of the trip, which sounds so cool.  For the last segment of the trip we will be in Warsaw, Poland visiting nearby camps and sites as well.  It is truly going to be an incredible and life changing experience, since my professor is endlessly knowledgable and we have two amazing survivors with us.

Istanbul, Turkey
     For my last week in Europe, I will be traveling from Warsaw to Istanbul to spend 6 days there with Lucy! I am so excited to finally see Turkey, since the culture has been SO present in my studies, cultural experiences, food experiences, etc., in Berlin.  I believe Berlin has the largest Turkish diaspora, so going to the actual country, which is something I've always wanted to do, will be absolutely amazing.  Better yet, we have an acquaintance from HWS who is from Istanbul, so he will show us around, too!


But don't think that my blogging is over!  I still have to tell you about many things, among which are my trip to Dresden, the tour of the high-end Volkswagon factory (they're made 96% by HAND!), the Stasi Prison, and more.  Luckily, I'll have lots of time on my hands while Lis and my other friends in Copenhagen are in class, and as I travel.  So stay tuned for what will be more frequent updates on my blog, both about past experiences and about my current travels.

Thanks so much to those of you who are still following along with my experience - it means so much to me that you take the time to read (what are rather lengthy) posts.  You guys are the best :) 

Marzahn, Berlin, Germany

Marzahn is a neighborhood in Northeast Berlin.  If you mention to anyone in the center/main areas of Berlin, they will look at you with an "ooooh, you don't want to go there" look/statement.  Even my host mother said the same.  But this past Friday for one of my classes we took a field trip there and learned that - once again - only actually visiting and learning about a place while there can you truly understand/judge the place appropriately.

Our tour of the neighborhood was led by a community representative - a typical position for communities throughout Berlin (they help gauge residents' opinions on new buildings, community happenings, etc).  He has lived there for over 40 years (so, half the time it was the GDR).   The area is comprised of almost entirely GDR "large scale housing estates".  Those are the massive and efficient prefabricated housing units built by the GDR throughout the country (for their efficiency).

When taking the train (there is only one metro line that goes to Marzahn) it looked like this:

Those taller large scale housing estates are at the inner border of Marzahn, but the rest of the neighborhood (it's more like a town) has long, shorter (6-11 story) ones.

After walking around for a few minutes, we realized (and confirmed this with our professor and our guide) that Marzahn is a totally safe place for anyone to walk around by themselves, even at night.  The streets are cleaner than some of those in Mitte (the [wealthy] city center), I saw no one begging (unlike in Mitte).  There were a lot of families - many of non-German origin - people walking dogs, young students walking home from school, etc.

We asked our guide and our professor several times to explain to us why on earth everyone discourages people from coming here.  They told us that it's simply because this is a lower-class area, so it's seen as "yucky".  Every student in my class agreed that it is the equivalent to a standard middle-class neighborhood in the States.  The outer ugliness of the GDR-style architecture is really the only thing that would turn any of you away from wanting to live there.  If I lived in Berlin and didn't mind riding an extra 20 minutes to get to the city center, I'd totally live in Marzahn, as a single girl.  (Heck, you can get a 2 bedroom apartment for around €400 [that's $530]!

After us repeating the above conversation many times, our professor reminded us that "this is Europe.  Here the lower class usually lives at about where your middle class does".  That could not have been more clear after this field trip.

This man-hole cover really hit me as being a huge reminder of the actuality of this having been a different country, society, etc.  It's amazing.

Although Marzahn is a relatively poor area, they really have their crap together as far as community goes.  As I said, they have community representatives, and accompanied community centers for residents to make use of.  We walked by a bunch of guys spray painting a wall, and our guide stopped and said hello to them.  Surprised, we asked if that was legal.  Our guide replied that yes, since everything in Marzahn was grey (because that's how the GDR built things) many murals are being spray painted on the plethora of concrete slabs around the city to brighten it up.  How cool?

Lastly, we visited a coffe shop, which had a children/teen "club" underneath on the 1st floor, and a hotel on the 11th floor.  The wonderful ladies who ran the coffee shop also ran the kids club (where they'd come after school), and together with these kids, they ran the hotel.  She explained that this was to give them something to do so that they're not unattended at home (schools end around 2pm here; many parents are still working), and to teach them responsibility/give them skills that they could use in life.  Therefore, with guidance from these women, they learn all the aspects of managing and running a business.  (The hotel itself is a stunning 2 bedroom apartment with a balcony, a view out of Marzahn into Brandenburg [see below], etc. And, it's very cheap!).

All in all it was a great field trip, so educational, and I'm so glad that I went and saw the area/how nice it was for myself, versus taking Berliners' word for it.