Mosque Visit

On Thursday, April 12, my class about European Identity took a trip to a mosque in Kreuzberg - the neighborhood of Berlin that has a large population of immigrants (and 40% of Germany's migrant population is Turkish - I'll spare you the lengthy historical reasoning).  Thus, there is a large Muslim community in the city, and particularly in Berlin.

Okay - I'm a cultural person, I can't spare you allll of the details.  There's actually an urban phenomenon happening in many cities throughout the world, where the younger (my) generation is re-aligning themselves and beginning to identify themselves primarily with their religion.  For them, it's becoming their main identity.  Although this is happening in Judaism too, this is mostly a Muslim - and urban - phenomenon. In Germany (or more specifically, Berlin), people with migratory backgrounds are poorly integrated into the society (that should ring a bell - America) because of a long series of policy and infrastructural flaws that France has perfected but Germany lacks - despite the fact that these people were probably born here and so were their parents and grandparents.  So, already a bit - not excluded, but not exactly included - from society, they often take one piece of their identity - in this instance - their religion, and then put it at the forefront of their lives, to have something to define themselves with.

If this is hard to imagine, think of yourself.  For instance, I am an American, a student, a Christian, a sister, a daughter, an athlete, a photography enthusiast.  The only things that society really pays attention to are the first three.  So if they exclude me for the first one, clearly I'd have to chose one of the other two to hold tight to, to affirm my identity, place of belonging, and place in society.

Moving on to the mosque.  This was a recently built mosque, so it's very modern.  Prior to this, from the time the largest influx of Turkish people came to Germany (1960s), mosques were generally one room and a garden in the back of an apartment building.  Now, with financial help from private investors, the denomination back in Turkey (or other places), and others, they can build these awesome ones.

You can see more photos of the intricacies of the mosque in my Flickr album.

In the main room of the mosque, where prayer and talks (like sermons take place), instead of an alter there is a Mihrab.  This is a small recession in the wall, pointing in the direction to pray to.  It is from this same area where the imam (like a priest or pastor) sits on during one of his talks.

Our guide was so wonderful and taught us SO much about his religion.  It was fascinating.  One thing I really really admire about Muslims is their dedication to their religion.  They literally drop everything and pray five times a day.  They stop serving you food, stop doing their work, and just pray.  It's beautiful.  Additionally, they carefully wash themselves to purify themselves before approaching God.  It's such a humbling act!

The room where the men wash themselves.  The women have a similar room upstairs, since they have to remove their  hijab.

By the end the session I felt bad about the persecution that everyone, without giving it thought, treats Muslims with.  Not necessarily forthrightly, but subconsciously.  They emphasize the message of peace in their religion, and it's something that should not be overlooked by us.

After the trip we went out to an excellent Turkish restaurant nearby, and had a delicious meal of bulgar and this stew-like meal (I had an eggplant stuffed with other veggies), and it was SO delicious that I brought Mom and Artie back the next week!

Note: the green thing on the right is NOT an asparagus, but a jalepeño, so DON'T eat half of it in one bite as I did! 

An interpretation of Russia

"How was Russia?!"

"Russia was... different"

"Yes, some corners of the earth is so different.  Isn't that great, though?  Live would be so boring if everyplace was the same!" 

The above was a conversation between myself (middle line) and Ella, our program director (the inquirer).  She often talks to me about my experiences here because she feels I'm more organized (and thus observant?) than others, and when she responded to my answer, I felt so... stupid.  Of course it was different!  Of course I wanted it to be different!  How could I say in a quasi-complaining tone that the far-off place I had the amazing opportunity to go to was (almost unfortunately, I was implying,) just "different"?!  

Well, because it was different.  And that's really the only way I can explain it without going into great detail.  As frustrated as I made myself with this answer and Ella's innocently brilliant response, I still come back to describing it as such.  So hopefully through this blog post - which I am forcing myself to write now before I forget things, though at the same time I am still trying to digest what I experienced - you will have a comprehensive understanding of my interpretation of Russia.

(Give yourself some time to read this, as I'm sure it'll be long, but I'd really appreciate if you do read it, since for many it'll be the closest insight to the culture you'll have seen).

   Memories of the distant past; Palaces
I did not expect this, but Saint Petersburg (SPB) was filled with tons of palaces.  They were from the eras of the Czars, Catherine the Great, etc.  Take for example, the Winter Palace, one of the city's icons which is today the Hermitage (the world's largest art museum - if you spent 1 minute at each piece it'd take you 5 years and 7 months to get through).  The Russian State Museum, which is the museum for Russian art (as the Hermitage only holds the finest European art because it was a museum Catherine the Great started as her private collection because of her affinity for European art).  This Russian museum is a former palace as well.  In fact, one bank of the Neva River, SPB's main river, is ENTIRELY lined in former palaces.  And don't think that they're old and decrepit inside - most are either museums or are used as nice office spaces for companies.   Outside of nuclear SPB we visited the suburb of Pushkin which is where Catherine the Great had her summer palace.  I can only speak for the summer palace, Hermitage/Winter Palace, and the Russian Museum, but these were by far the three most opulent and extravagant places I'd ever seen.  Even individually they far outdid Versailles, and my classmates agreed.  (for photos of these and a much better understanding, see my Flickr. I will post just a few here because it takes forever to upload them).

Interesting side note: during the Leningrad Blockade (I'll get to that later), the Nazis controlled Saint Petersburg and Pushkin, and stole most of the valuables from all of these palaces.  In the case of Catherine's summer palace, they stole an entire room which had been made completely of amber.  It took ages to rebuild, and now photography is banned in that room for fear that someone will heist the room again.

this is the staircase you use to enter the Winter Palace/Hermitage.  It is completely gilded.

  Churches and Cathedrals 
The churches and cathedrals of SPB were equally as opulent.  Each one was really breathtaking, in their own special ways.  It was clear that a great deal of time, energy, and money had been spent to restore these buildings, if not in the Soviet era then in the past 20 years.  Second to Notre Dame, my next favorite church in the world is now the Church on Spilled Blood in SPB.  It is a cathedral that was bult solely on the donations from the Russian people after the assassination of their beloved Czar, Alexander II.

myself and the Church on Spilled Blood

This is a small view of the inside of this church.  See these murals? They are made COMPLETELY of tiny mosaic pieces smaller than the size of a dime. They were about a 1cm x .5cm.  Absolutely breathtaking.
St. Isaac's Cathedral is another famous church in SPB, it's a Russian Orthodox church and the interior is also completely made of mosaic, but this mosaic is made solely of precious and semi-precious stones.  And as usual, the rest of the Church including the entire outside of the dome, was gilded.


   Russian opulence meets Russian culture, or does it?
This is something that many of us found rather troubling about our experience in SPB.  From what I described to you, if you had no US-education-system-engraved-preconceived-notions on Russia, you would think that much of the culture, or at least SPB culture, is very extravagant.  And indeed, when being a tourist and just visiting these places, one can easily convince themselves that this is so.
However I had the opportunity to be not just a tourist but a student in this country, and interact and discuss with professors, Russian students, and my American classmates quite a bit.  We were really troubled by how everything I just described to you cannot be ANY farther from the actual reality of daily life in Russia.  
I'm not sure how to describe this "reality" in a cohesive manner because, well, it's anything but cohesive to begin with.  So here are some examples.

- Traffic
    Traffic jams are SPB's middle name.  Driving anywhere is completely unreliable, because trafic is usually at a complete stop.  The only time I really saw what you'd call a normal amount of traffic is out my window past 10:30pm.  So, why not take public transport, you my ask?


- A completely inefficient public transport system.
     The metro system has few stops in the city center is mainly for suburban commuters.  That leaves us with the bus system.  There are no bus schedules, so one must wait at the stop with complete unawareness of when a bus will come - it could be up to 40 minutes because of, yes, the traffic.  We could take Bus #3 to school, but were advised to walk the 2 miles daily because it could take even longer to take the bus.  When one boards the bus, you must have exactly 21 rubles ready to give the bus man/woman whose job is to remember who gets on where, and collect money from them - on this bus with not even room to breathe - between stops.  (Our theory is that this was ridiculous a job created by the Soviets in order to achieve full employment, which just stuck).


- Filth
     Next to New York (2) and Berlin (3), SPB takes the crown for the dirtiest city I've ever been to.  Litter, broken bottles, endless cigarette butts, etc., make the already depressing landscape even sadder.  


- Mortality rate
      Primarily because of the healthcare system's disruption after the transition from the USSR, Russia's mortality rate is lagging.  The male life expectancy is only 64, which is lower than that of India!  Other large contributors are smoking and alcohol-related diseases.


- Poverty 
     Poverty in Russia is really bad.  Since the collapse of the USSR, the socio-economic inequality has gone crazy, leading to (what I saw as) 10 poor women re-selling goods in the market for every 1 Land Rover or Lexus I saw on Ligovsky Prospekt.  


- "You can drive a Lexus, but can't even drink the water?"
    This was a common mind-boggling issue brought forth by many. It's an excellent example of my previous point. 


- Shopping in the Galleria
     The city's main shopping forum was located near our hotel.  It contained 4 floors of some of the best brands on the market - companies from all over Europe and even the States were represented.  Curiously, despite the financial troubles of the country, everything in the mall - even at H&M - was so expensive few of us bought things.  I just wonder how the average Russian shops?

the large scale housing estates, similar to ones you've seen in my photos from the former GDR

old soviet-loking tram car (sorry for the unintentional watermark)

   Historical and cultural understanding of this:
So, what I'm trying to say here is that there seemed to be two Russias that I felt I was experiencing simultaneously.  On one hand there was the opulent palaces, churches, and historical sites that the state had visibly put a pretty penny into maintaining and showing off.  But on the other side, there is visibly a suffering infrastructure, high poverty rate, low mortality rate, and rampant inefficiency in all interpretations of the word.

A classmate shared his interpretation of this that I found enlightening.
When you go to a third world country, you're prepared for the lack, the structural inefficiencies, etc., that you'll see.  If someone told me I'd need to brush my teeth with water, I wouldn't think it's bizarre at all.  It's because that's what we've psychologically established as the norm for such a place.

With Russia, we don't expect the same thing.  As students of history, we recognize that the land (albiet the USSR) was a competing superpower with the US for decades, and the political power it still holds in the world.  I wouldn't say we're mentally placing it at the same capability level as the US and West, but at least putting it on the same playing field.  However we have to remember that from 1918 to 1990, the country was on a completely different playing field - completely incomparable.  With no private property, no differentiation in wealth or income, etc., it was thrown into a capitalist world when the USSR collapsed, with its citizens never having known how to partake in a capitalist and democratic society.

As a result, as almost every Russian pointed out to us, they are still learning about how to and trying to make capitalism work in their society.  It's been 20 years, and many of the old kommunalkas (multi-family apartments in the inner city) are still inhabited by the same 15 or so people that lived there in 1980, with no infrastructrual changes.  Private companies are still getting the hang of efficiently renovating and selling to the few wealthy people who can afford to buy.

Therefore, I - we - have to stop looking at Russia in a way that places it on a level playing field as other Western European countries (and the US).  Unlike the fall of the GDR, it did not have the FRG to pick up all the pieces and absorb it into its system.  If there's one thing that Russians said to me the most, it was emphasizing how recent the change was and how people are still adjusting because of how drastic the change was.  In the words of our guide, who said this with a smile "We're getting better and better each year" 

   To conclude...
So yes, Russia is different.  I still find that the easiest way to describe it to people who don't care to hear about it in this detail.  But I hope that through this lengthy post I've been able to show you how and why this is so, and that much of what I saw as "negative" parts of the society are really just results of circumstance that the Russian people, who so love their country, are trying to slowly but surely turn around.

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.

Awesome Tuesday

Today started off with me being the only person to show up to my 5-person German class.  So, my super awesome professor, Kerstin, took me to Dussmann (if I haven't mentioned it before, it's like the Bloomingdales of books. It's 7 stories, and has everything you could possibly imagine).  We went and looked through children's books that would be appropriate for me to buy for myself :) It was so much fun, and I got to have a lot of conversational German with her.  It is SO fun learning languages from people who you feel comfortable speaking (read: making mistakes) around.

After that, I went to lunch at the Mensa with two board professors who are reviewing our IES program, the dean of some of the IES programs, and 3 other students.  One professor was from William & Mary (sigh...) and the other was from another good US uni but now teaches at Humboldt (fun fact: he went to HWS, how cool!).  They were both fascinating individuals, and were SO interesting to talk to over lunch.  I dread the day I leave academia and have far fewer conversations that are as mentally stimulating as today's.  Both professors have incorporated German/Germany into their fields of study and are fluent (or, as we at IES re-named it, "gefluent" [it's a conjugation joke]).

I left that feeling much more inspired about my life in Germany and my progressing language skills, which is a boost that I've really been needing.  Then, two hours later, one of my program directors, Ella, in conjunction with our student assistant who will be leaving after this semester, told me that I would make a great student assistant after graduation.  I thought she was just being kind and being the "mom" she is to us, but she was serious, and told me why I would be fitting for the position, etc.  I was so surprised... I can't think of a more appealing and fun job to help me get more gefluent.

So after all of those things, I was pretty excited about life and the future and the opportunities God seems to be constantly opening up for me (despite my annoyingly pessimistic outlook on the future).

After, I went to the gym, and on my way back came within approximately 6 inches of getting hit by a smart car who was turning left on red as I was crossing the street legally.   I think the driver was more affected by the situation (sorry, that isn't the right phrase, but my English is really suffering) than I was.  Perhaps I shouldn't wear a dark coat at night.  But perhaps we should also abide by driving laws.

In other news:
Rest in peace Jar #1 of Wegmans peanut butter (and thanks Lauren for this awesome shirt!!)  :)

Speaking of languages...

Our student assistant Ryan told us about a huge French department store called Galleries a Lafayette that is here in Berlin! The top three floors are high fashion clothes, makeup, and bags.  The bottom floor has a french restaurant, french cheese shop, french coffee and tea shop, french grocery store with all imported products (ranging from meat to yogurt to microwave meals to frozen deserts...and *drum roll* I FINALLY FOUND HUMMUS IN THERE!).  When we were in France I spent $6 on a container of hummus and flew it home, and have been savoring it since.  But now I know where I can get more hehe!
They also have macaroons, fine wines, etc.  Basically, it's a pretty awesome place.

Most importantly, they have a whole bookstore of French books, and the people that work there even speak French.  I was in heaven.  It was like being back in Paris... which, I still haven't told you guys about, sorry! It's been a busy week of internship applications and homework.  I've been editing my photos today, though, so I'll have some updates on that end soon.

In the French bookstore I got myself one of my favorite books in French, and then stopped at Dussmann for what I think is my first actual purchase of classic literature.  I'm going to try reading some fiction... we'll see how it goes!

On Language

I've been meaning to write this post for about a month, but an experience I had last night illustrates the whole subject quite well, so I'm glad I waited.


When I moved here two months ago, I obviously wasn't the German language expert.  But nonetheless I felt I needed to have all of my social interactions in German because, after all, this is Germany, and I shouldn't be that arrogant American who thinks that everyone should know her language.


Over the course of the first month, I tried my best to order food, check out at the grocery store, etc., in German.  But when I would lose a word for a moment, or accidentally spit out a "thanks", the person on the other end would automatically switch to English, which I found extremely frustrating.  I interpreted the interaction as me failing and them being annoyed with me, and it really wore on me.


However about a month ago I realized that not all of these interactions are like that.  Often times these people I interact with want to practice their English, and see interacting with people like myself as a great chance to do so.


When I got to Prague a few weeks ago, I realized that it was my first time being to a country where I did not speak ANY of the language.  And no, it's not like Spanish or French where you can sort of figure things out: here's one example of a phrase... it means "I'm fine, thanks" - "Mám se dobře, děkuji".  So anyway, I was reliant on Lucy's 2 weeks of learning Czech, and my broken english I've perfected since being here, to communicate with people.  The most fascinating thing with me, as a linguaphile, was the interactions I had there with people whose first language was neither Czech nor English.  For example, we ran into a group of Argentinians on the way home one night and they asked us in English how to get somewhere, so we (trying to use our Spanish) explained it to them in mostly English, throwing in the Spanish we remembered from high school.  Another example was on the bus on the way back from Prague.  As we boarded the bus, all the people who didn't speak Czech, the bus people speak to them in English.  I was probably the only native English speaker of the group, but it's really interesting how the Chinese, Russian, French, German, and Spanish people all have to communicate in English while in the Czech Republic.  

As much as I did not want to believe it, but now do after living here for 2 months, English truly has become an international language.  I'm not sure how I feel about it - I have mixed feelings - but it should really make you feel blessed to have it as your first language.

The next week I spent in Paris, and had all of these experiences again.  Thankfully I can communicate in French, so things were easier for me than for my classmates, who had some interesting language stories.  I found French people to be, like many Germans, eager to practice their English.  However there, instead of switching languages and maintaining their annoyed look as Berliners do, they thanked my friends with a smile and nod for their "je voudrais..." and kindly offered the food names in English. 

On a side note, flying back from Paris to Berlin was one of the most linguistically confusing experiences I've ever had.  By that point it'd been 1.5 weeks since I'd been in Germany, 2.5 weeks since my last German class, and for the past few days I'd begun thinking in French.  Which to speak, French, German, or English?  After a week of being back here in Berlin I've finally gotten back into the routine.  But in one week we leave for Russia, and the day after I get back I'll be leaving for Barcelona..... so, we'll see how that goes.

So back to my experience last night.  My friend from HWS was in town and I was taking her to meet up with some IES friends.  We got to one of the train stations and there was an announcement in German that I didn't understand, but I knew it was something along the lines of the train not working because the route had been changed [and because whenever there is a train problem, it's the only announcement that is not translated into English].  Hearing us speaking English, a woman desperately approached us and asked us what the announcement said.  I apologized and told her my German isn't good enough to translate it.  She was disappointed and said "I only speak English and French", and later we found out Greek, as she's from Greece and was in Berlin for a tourism convention (which, is conducted in.. you guessed it.. English).  I took her to where she needed to go, because few metro workers speak English.  She kept expressing her deep frustration in the fact that these German transportation workers don't speak much English; she said that in Greece "all the transportation workers and waiters have to speak English".  Amazed, I asked "really?".  She explained that when she was growing up she chose French in secondary school and then later learned English, but that in public schools in Greece today, English instruction is mandatory beginning in middle school, and that students can then chose from a romance language in high school.  Talk about having some life advantages!

Anyway, this was a long post, but I don't apologize because it's all really pertinent and I find all of these interactions to be fascinating, and hopefully you found them mildly interesting as well.  


If you're interested in this topic, you can read this recent NYT article that Deanna sent me about polyglots; it's quite interesting!

Thursday

Today started off with my German midterm, which went really well!

Devon and I treated ourselves to a lunch in the Mensa because we hadn't been there in a while, they have great cheap food, and the people watching is superb :)

After some essay writing, we had our meeting for the details of our trip to Paris! As you can imagine, I'm more excited now.  Apparently if you order a drink with dinner it's about €15 (which is about $20).... so, water it is!! I knew it'd be expensive but oh my goodness.. that one drink is about half of my (attempted) grocery budget for a week in Berlin.

At 8 tonight one of the student workers brought me to get registered at McFit.  He was really interesting - he was raised bilingual (chinese and english), studied German through school, studied abroad in Austria, did Fulbright in Berlin, now is a Humboldt masters program, and studied abroad in that in Paris.  So now he's quadrilingual and will get a job anywhere.  It was really nice to have a conversation with another person my age who has a broader and more knowledgable view on how it is living in Berlin as an American.  It gave the whole thing a lot better of a perspective than the one through which I've been viewing it.

When we're in Paris, I'm in the other student worker's group, and he doesn't speak French (so he says.  In europe "not speaking _______" seems to mean that you can still hold a conversation in said langauge, because seemingly everyone educated in the undergrad level or above can do so in several languages). So they've assigned me the job of helping him translate when our group is out to dinner each night.  As my director joked, "einmal in Französisch und einmal in Deutsch" (joking that I have to say everything once in French and then once in German - no English).  I think by May I'll be able to do that better.

Well, I should get back to searching for a summer internship.  Lis comes tomorrow, and we'll need to explore the city as much as possible during her limited time here, so you probably won't hear from me for a couple days.
Have a great weekend!

A random assortment of information

Today I got my itinerary for the trip to Paris, and people on the train must have though I was crazy because the whole time I was reading it I had the biggest grin on my face.  I cannot wait!  I'll need to stock up on sleep before I go so that I can spend the maximum amount of hours of the day exploring.  I also plan to eat crêpes and lots of cheese every day, which will do wonders for my frame.  Which brings me to my next point:

I'm going to join the gym on Thursday which I'm really excited about.  I originally thought it was a dumb idea because that was precious time that could be spent exploring Berlin.  But, on second thought, for my physical health (thanks, German eating habits) and mental sanity (physical exercise is mental is also mental exercise. I miss it!), I've changed my mind.  I just have to wait for Ryan to take me to register on Thursday since I can't communicate with the German public.
The gym is called "McFit" which we found really interesting, because a name like that would never fly in the states (because of McDonalds).  Even though there are McDonalds here (...a lot of them). 

Last week I mentioned to my German professor and John, one of the directors of my program, that I was going to make banana bread muffins.  One of them asked me to describe the difference between a cupcake and a muffin.  I started in German, and got confused.  So I switched to English and was still stumped.  I've never thought about it before.  I challenge you to take a good 60 seconds and try to verbalize the difference between the two, without using any America-specific references such as brand names, etc.  You may think "well that's easy, one's desert and one's breakfast".  But that's cultural - why is one for breakfast?  Because our society decided that it'd be an acceptable breakfast food, even though it'd be fine for desert, too.  Tricky!  (Or maybe that's just amusing to my sociologically trained brain - sorry if I've bored you with that paragraph). 

On another note, it's great having Lucy and Lis over here on the same continent/time zone as me.  It's so helpful to share our experiences with each other and be there for some good emotional support.  By seeing everyone's photos from being abroad, we all kind of build up an idea of all of the fun it will be, but never really think about the really difficult and frustrating aspects that we encounter almost daily (nor would we listen to anyone who told us there will be hard times.  Let's be honest, it's even taken me 1 month to admit this on my blog!).  But luckily we're all going through it at the same time, so we don't feel like we're the only person struggling with aspects of life-in-a-culture-you-haven't-studied-for-years.

Mom told me that I should treat myself to one of the (very precious) peppermint patties she sent me, so happy valentines day to me!  

yum yum yum yum yummmm 

Tomorrow I get to have my first experience with the German healthcare system (eeks!) so I'll report back if anything culturally noteworthy occurs! 

Wittenberg, Germany

Friday our German language professors took us to Wittenberg for what turned out to be the most culturing day of my life.  It was so full of history and so great that my friends and I couldn't stop talking about it for hours!

Brief and necessary history of Martin Luther:  In the early 1500's, there in Wittenberg, he was part of the Catholic church's clergy.  He got frustrated that the church only preached about a God who was full of wrath, and he felt that since God sent Jesus to die for our sins, he no longer has wrath for us; just grace and love.  He was also frustrated that the Catholic church told parishioners that in order to be forgiven for their sins they had to buy slips of paper that said they were forgiven (aka, give their money to the church).  Fast forward.  In 1517, Martin Luther nailed to the door of the Schloßkirche (the church in Wittenberg) his 95 Theses, which stated his ideology and criticisms of the Catholic church.  He was then excommunicated from the Catholic church, but thanks to the invention of the printing press, the Theses was spread all over.  Luther then translated the Bible into German so that the poor could read it too (they didn't know Latin).  Overall, an awesome guy.

The town of Wittenberg is 115 km south of Berlin, so we took a speedy and comfortable regional train there.  I finally had the opportunity to see the beautiful German countryside!! But unfortunately I've been having some health issues and got a terrible migrane right before we got on the train, so I spent the entire ride with my eyes closed/head covered.

When we first arrived we went to Martin Luther's house which had been turned into an extremely well-done museum, definitely the best one I've ever seen.  They'd even preserved his living room from the early 1500's!! It was incredible.

Martin Luther's livng room.

The first translation of Luther's Bible, written in High German in 1534.

After, we went to lunch at the most traditional of German restaurants, and had a delicious meal.  Drinks were paid for by our school, so I figured it was the best opportunity to try German beer.  It was disgusting!! I took one sip and gave it to my friend. I'm glad I got that experience over with, so I can stop being harassed by everyone to try it.

Delicous

Next, we went to the Schloßkirche (Castle Church), which is where all this history took place!  We saw the door on which Luther posted his 95 Theses, and then went inside the church, which was so incredibly beautiful!!!

Inside the Schloßkirche

After this, we traveled by foot all the way to the other side of Germany (well that's what it felt like, but it was just the other side of Wittenberg) to see a public school/piece of art that the architect Hundertwasser redid in 1996.  It was.... quite a piece of art!  Definitely not my taste, but interesting to see.  We were taken on a tour of it by two of its students, so they did the tour in German and English and I was pleasantly surprised with how much German I understood! #progress. The architect even donated an observatory (as in, for astronomy)- could you imagine your high school having an observatory?!

The school was renovated in the '90s because they wanted to get rid of the classic (ugly and depressing) DDR (GDR) architecture, as this was part of Eastern Germany.  The architect basically put a facade over the old DDR walls, inside and out.  Now the school is a colorful glimpse of the present among endless depressing DDR-style apartment buildings.  It was definitely shocking to see.  I could never live in the former east, that's for sure! 

Hundertwasser's 'masterpiece'. 800 students go here.

Yeah, I know! 

After this we boarded the regional train to return to Berlin, and the sun had long since set, so I still couldn't see the countryside.  I tried to read a German version of trash magazine all the way home.  When I got back to my apartment I was making dinner when my host mom (who decided then that she'd mostly just speak to me in German, which is great and should be really helpful!) invited me and my flatmate to go to her Verein party!  Verein is really untranslatable.  It's essentially a club.  They have them for everything - chess, any sport, theater, music, hiking, etc.  You can really only be in one because they're a very big commitment; you have to pay dues, attend regularly, help plan events, etc. They're also for all ages.  Instead of having school sports, children join local Verein for their specific interest.  My host mom is in a dance-exercise verein.  

I wolfed down my dinner, changed, and we went to the party.  We chatted with her for a bit, and then started dancing!  Everyone danced for a while, and then her verein's teacher led some dances - it was like Zumba, in how it's led, but it was obviously not latin dancing.  It was so much fun, and such a great cultural experience. I'm so happy I went!

It was a long Friday (and thus a long post... my apologies), but I don't think I've ever had a day with more culture than that!