Weekend with Lis

The post about the Stasi prison will have to wait until after Paris because I'll be too busy to blog too much until then.

Lis arrived at 9:30 Friday night, and we started off having fun right away by meeting up with some of my friends in Kreuzberg.  It was a fun night, but unfortunately the BVG (the company that owns all the public transit in Berlin) had scheduled a strike for Saturday until 7pm.  So we ended the night with a long walk home - good thing I knew the way!

Saturday morning, as the U-bahn was down, we did a great deal of walking.  There are 4 methods of BVG transport in Berin: U-bahn, S-bahn, tram, and bus.  Out of those, only half o the S-bahn was running.  In addition to that, there was a footbal match.  And the world's second largest film festival was still going on.  (I guess they planned their strike at a good time to draw attention!)  So, the city of Berlin plus a few bajillion tourists were crammed into very infrequent S-bahn cars.  Much to my surprise, I'd never had more positive and hygge encounters with Berliners before!  Everyone (well, a quarter of them were drunk footbal fans) was so friendly, and just laughing at the audacity of the train situation.

TWO people offered (without us asking) to take our photo Saturday.  All the Bavarian citizens must have come up for the weekend or something.

Lis jumping off of the art museum! 

Anyway, after a long day of exploring, we finally got home and our feet were throbbing so we had some down time before starting to cook our big feast!  We made a big italian dinner, and four of my friends came over and each brought a dish to share.  We ended up with a 3 course, and extremely stuffing meal!

Sunday we did a lot more exploring.  It was 40 degrees, so people were jogging outside en masse, and playing catch in t-shirts, etc (you know, typical 40 degree weather activities).  We visited the Topography of Terror museum, it's one of the city's free museums and is at the site where the Gestapo (the secret police of Nazi Germany) had their headquarters.  It was pretty much a summary of German history from 1933-45, during the Nazi Regime, but I did learn some interesting facts I hadn't learned of before.  It was a pretty good museum, and I would recommend it, especially if you're less familiar with the specifics of the Nazi era.

After this, we went to Curry 36, one of the two original/most famous currywurst places in Berlin.  It was absolutely delicious (and the people were even friendly!) - you could definitely tell the difference between that and any ol' currywurst.  Delish!

Lis's photo skills, my editing skills

We finished off the night by making our favorite German dish - Käsespätzle - all by ourselves!  We aren't known to be the best cooks around, but it turned out to be absolutely delectable.

That's what a face should look like if it tastes Käsespätzle as good as this.

This morning I took Lis back to the airport.  It was so sad to part ways again :( But it was such an awesome weekend, and so refreshing to have my best friend around again!  We finally got to fulfill part of our long-time dream of exploring Europe together.  Taking it one city at a time :)

Speaking of best friends - I will be a bit inactive on the blog this week, because on Wednesday morning I'm leaving to go visit Lucy!  Yes, I know she was just here, but that's just the way our schedules work out because we're so busy the next few months. She's got an awesome place and cool friends in Prague, so I'm super excited to see her, them, and the city!  I will be getting back Saturday night, and will hopefully have time to blog before leaving for Paris on Sunday afternoon with my school for our first study tour.

Sunday

Tonight was an interesting one.  A girl I know from HWS, Emma, is studying in Germany on the Blocker Fellowship as well, and she is currently doing a 4-week language-intensive course in Dresden (only 2 hours from Berlin) before her semester starts.  So she came up to Berlin for the day to see the sites, and we met up for coffee this evening.  I hadn't gotten a chance to talk to her extensively at school, but we do have a lot in common.  Next thing we knew we'd been chatting over coffee for 2 hours!  We reflected on the american products (mainly food...) we miss, and she enjoyed finally having a conversation with someone in english (I do have to say, my English has gotten much better this past week, having Lucy here to talk to all the time).

As we got ready to leave the coffee shop, Emma noticed her wallet was missing, and it had been sitting on our small coffee table right between us the whole time... and neither one of us had left the table!  To her great advantage, Emma was raised bilingual, and has stellar German skills which were able to navigate her through this situation quite well.  Because of that, the people around us willingly looked through/around all of their things and helped us search high and low for the wallet (they definitely would not have done so if it were just non-German speakers with american accents).  Unfortunately, it was nowhere.  Crime/theft is exceedingly rare in Germany and Berlin, so it's very surprising that someone (most likely the child who came by asking us to sign a petition) stole it.

I felt so bad for her, but luckily she'd noticed this before we'd parted ways, so I was able to get her dinner, another train ticket back to Dresden, and give her some money to get her by the next few days.  Replacing things such as metro passes and house keys in Germany is really expensive, and she only got here a week ago.

It was a frustrating experience, and definitely reminded me of the need to keep watch of my things carefully(...especially if I'm sitting around speaking english). But as Emma said, "Nothing is lost in the Kingdom of God... everything has it's place!"  Even if our small and finite minds don't understand where that place is.

This week

This week was so cold.  I know I said it was cold before, but this time I mean it was you-will-be-numb-if-you-only-have-one-pair-of-pants-on cold.  The wind chill this week averaged at about 10 degrees - which is tolerable if you're in upstate new york with your heat on 70 degrees and you don't need to walk outside/take the u bahn (stations aren't heated at all).  As you've probably heard, 220 people have now died in Eastern Europe due to these conditions.
My point in saying this, is that I did not do much out of doors this week!

Exploring Berlin with Lucy 


For one of my classes we made a visit to the DDR Museum, which was... a museum of what life was like in the DDR (or, GDR.  The East).  It was fairly underwhelming, small, and difficult to decipher between which products were from the East and which were from the West.  At this point, to people my age they all just look "old", so it's hard to dedifferentiate between which "old" they were.

After that museum I met up with Lucy and we went to the Berliner Dom.  Now that was the opposite of underwhelming!  This church, which you may recall me posting an outdoors photo of before, which was built between 1894-1905.  A few decades later, at the end of WWII, the cathedral was severely damaged and (since it was subsequently in East Berlin and the GDR left everything from pre-1945 completely untouched) was not fully repaired until 2006!  Can you imagine?  This beautiful building was left damaged and decaying from 1945 until the early 2000's.  They did a wonderful job renovating it, as you will see in the photos below (which I don't think fully capture the beauty).

looking up at the big (main) dome

It kind of reminded me of the one inside the Capitol building

the sunlight shining through 

part of the altar

the dome right above the altar 

Then afterwards we went downstairs into the crypts, where tons of kings (and their wives & children) are in their caskets.  Frederick the Great was even down there! (that's whose big castle I saw in Potsdam on my first weekend here).

Dinner Party 


Then on Wednesday, I went to my young adult group's (from church) first dinner party.  It was at one of the girls' really homey/adorable apartment just a couple stops from mine.  Devon and I tried to help prepare the food with them, and I was assigned to make the coffee.  Here, most of the time people don't have coffee machines but instead use french presses.  Well, since I don't drink coffee or live in Berlin, I'd never used one before and totally messed it up - I didn't know that was even possible! The coffee grounds spilled all over the inside of the sink (remember, no food can go down the drains here), and I was so frustrated with myself.  Our host is super nice and didn't care at all - and was a bit amused that I did not know how to make french pressed coffee - and helped me successfully make it afterwards.  At least I know now, I suppose.   I forget that not everyone eats like me, so at the dinner I had to kindly eat a lot of pasta and bread, and went home feeling quite sick.

At the dinner there were about 12 of us, and everyone was really nice.  However since Devon and I were the only ones who didn't speak German (even though all of them knew english), we felt like our presence was kind of forcing some of them to speak english, which made us feel really awkward.  I had some good conversations about life in Germany with the two people sitting next to me, though.  For example, I mentioned to one girl that I am familiar with many German foods because I'd worked at a German restaurant for a couple years.  She then described now what the rest of the world considers "German food" is really just Bavarian food (Bavaria is the region of Southern Germany - ie Munich).  She said that here in Berlin, aside from the famous Currywurst, people eat a lot of pasta, light meats as well as dark meats, turkish food, french fries, vegetables, fruits, sushi, burgers, fresh sandwiches on baguettes, etc.  I then realized (1) why it took me so long to find what I'd thought of as "german food" in Berlin, and (2) that the Berlin diet is very much like the American diet in that it's really a hodge podge of foods from around the world.... just multitudes healthier.

All in all, Devon and I left both feeling like it was a nice experience, with nice people, and that we learned a bit about German culture.  But the language barrier that the two of us had made us feel so awkward about being there that we're not sure if we'll return for the next dinner.

Saturday 


Friday night Lucy and I did some American things on her last night here, such as eat what germans call "ice cream", and watch some of our favorite american tv online.  This morning we saw a few more things around the city, had a nice lunch, and then I saw her off for the start of her adventure in Prague!! It's sad that she had to leave, but I'd run out of things to show her in Berlin anyway, so I suppose it was good timing :)  I'll be going to Prague with Mom for Easter and then again in May to hang out with Lucy and volunteer at a church, so it won't be too long until I see her again!
I finished the day off by buying some ingredients for g-f banana bread - hopefully I can make it successfully!  All of my IES friends are (ironically) in Copenhagen this weekend, so I'm getting in some quality alone time which is turning into time in the kitchen.

The weekend

Lucy arrived on Saturday morning, and we started our adventures on Saturday afternoon!  The weather was freezing, about 10 degrees with the wind chill, and when you're walking around outside all day that is truly frigid!!! But we learned our lesson on Saturday, and on Sunday we wore under armour leggings under our jeans!

Our first stop Saturday was the East Side Gallery.  That's a 1.3km section of the east side of the Wall, and in the 1990s the German government had artists from around the world paint murals on it (because the east side of the wall was completely empty, as they weren't allowed to go up to the wall, unlike the West - that's how you can tell what side is which; the west always has graffiti/writing on it and the East is [was] empty).  It was really cool to see all of the famous murals, but I look forward to going back in the spring, because we walked really fast since we were so cold!

I am in Berlin

this is on the bottom of the quebec license plate - it says "I remember" - very fitting

Lucy and I found an Invisible Children sticker - it's one of our favorite organizations, and it's in front of my favorite mural! 

After that frigid walk, we took a short ride around the city to see all of the main sights.

me and the Reichstag

the brandenburger tor in the sunlight, and an obnoxious tourist who, despite my staring at him, insisted on ruining my photo.

After all this cold exploring, we met up with Devon and Elizabeth and all had the most delicious and hygge (if you'll allow me to use some Danish) traditional German dinner! Yes, I have been in Germany for 3 weeks and had not had German food yet.  That's what happens when you're a college student on a budget! Obviously I got my favorite dish - Käsespätzle!!

spätzle is pasta dumplings, and käsespätzle is those with cheese and caramelized onions in it.  the most delicious and unhealthy dish ever.

On Sunday, since there isn't much to do in Berlin, we explored in the cold some more and then went to the Prenzlauer Berg flee market.  Flee markets are huge here, and sell all kinds of things from food to crafts to old crap that you don't need.  Unfortunately this one was mostly old crap that we didn't need.  But it was in Mauerpark, which is a park in the middle of the city that has the Wall running through it.  That park will be really cool to see in the spring (I feel like I'm saying that about everything...)

Frozen, we decided to look for a place to get lunch.  Obviously since we're in Germany, we decided to go to an Indian restaurant!  It was inexpensive and delicious.  Unfortunately since you have to pay for glasses of water, we had to ration our beverages while we ate this spicy food, and it was a true test to my taste buds - holy smokes!!!

After this delicious meal, I met up with Elizabeth and Devon and we went to church, and the service was really great.  We are joining a young adults community group, and this Wednesday night is our first meeting (dinner party)!  I'm so excited!  It'll be awesome to connect with people our age from around the world.  I didn't come to Germany to hang out with Americans all the time!