Hectic November

The month of November has been hectic. Not doing much all semester has caught up with most of us as we now have to buckle down with term papers and finals. These past 3 weeks I have been swamped with reading, presentations, and essay writing! Paz and I have also been trying to plan for our trip after school is over. Here is a rough outline of our trip (in order):
Berlin to Barcelona
Madrid
Vienna
Budapest
Pisa
Florence for Christmas Eve
Rome for Christmas
Paris for my birthday
back to Berlin for New years
back to the States Jan 7th.

On the first day back from Poland I went to yoga. The studio was superb and practicing yoga in German was quite interesting. I did not understand all of it, but I can now easily remember all my body parts.

I also saw Lion King 3D in German (or should I say, Der König Der Löwen?)! It was AWESOME! I think 3D is better in Germany, or I may be biased because I love The Lion King so much. After the movie a friend and I then checked out the newly opened Hofbrauhaus. Memories of Oktoberfest came back to me.
I also got my science fill by visiting the Technik Museum. I learned how to say things in German like "carbon, oxygen, and periodic table." The museum also displayed that Germany has kicked ass in technology for a long time.

I miss science!

We had another group excursion to Hohenschönhausen, the old Stasi prison from the DDR era. Our tour guide began very monotone and boring.  However, we walked into the interrogation room and that's when he admits that he was actually a prisoner there. He told us his story: he had tried to escape but before he even left Berlin he was arrested under the charge of  "A suspicion to attempt to escape". He was interrogated and was not released until the prison's closure in 1990. He explained how prisoners were limited to 500 calories a day and many of the prisoners jaws were broken so they could not eat regardless. Once he incorporated his own experience, my time at the prison became so much more fascinating. What influenced me the most was his most recent story about his life in the DDR. He had done a tour several weeks before to a group of Germans not from Berlin. When he mentioned that he had served time at the Stasi prison, one tour member (probably a conservative from the west) asks, "Oh, so did the prison forget to shoot you, and that is why you are still here?" I could not believe that over 20 years has passed since the collapse of the DDR but tensions still exist. 
To lighten the mood after the tour, I tried a few places of infamous Berlin cuisine. I had Moustafa's veggie Döner and went to Curry 36. Currywurst is a brat covered in ketchup and curry powder...drool...I also tried a curry boulette (a german meatball thing).                                                                                

Tour guide and former prisoner telling us his stories

Parts of the wall with bare stakes

I  also visited Bernauer steet, which is a Berlin Wall Memorial Park. Reminents of the wall were still in tact and there was even an area where you could see the "dead zone" that laid between the two walls. Plaques and diagrams told stories of refugees. Houses that once were on the border were now only blocks of foundation. What was most disturbing to me was the movement of a WWII cemetery. The cemetery interrupted the construction of the wall so graves were dug up and misplaced to continue building. Trains that traveled from west to east were not shut down, just limited to passengers. Platforms would be closed off or  trains traveling would not stop at certain stations, also known as "ghost stations."


 Since Halloween was a bust in Poland, the weekend we got back a friend hosted a Halloween party. Being cheap I quickly threw together a French costume. This was also a great opportunity to drink the Polish vodka I had bought! 
I also finally visited an Absinth Bar (during happy hour). The amount of  thujone was not enough to have the famous hallucinogenic effect but nonetheless it was a cool experience. 


I have made a close Fubi friend that goes to Penn State. When Joe Paterno was fired, her heart when out to her campus. She kept me up to date and was not afraid to talk about it, even when I knew it was emotional for her. I did not quite know why until Berkeley came on the news shortly after, as my heart also went to my campus.
 First, the Republican Club having a racist bake sale, then UCPD brutality on Occupy Cal,  then Robert Reich's speech, then shooting and death of a student, then an apartment fire that burned down the infamous Intermezzo Cafe, AND I just received an email yesterday that the former chancellor, Ira Michael Heyman, passed away.  WHAT IS GOING ON WITH MY SCHOOL??? After the speech from Reich, I realized how much I miss Berkeley and how proud I am to be a student and part of the community. 
Not only has Penn and Berkeley made headlines, but let's not forget the pepper spraying at UC Davis... 

Students on Sproul Plaza for Reich's speech

....I wish I could have been there

Last Friday, before our last program excursion, Paz and I visited the Holocaust Memorial. A whole city block is contained with concrete slabs.The slabs are arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field and differ in height. The architect, Peter Eisenmen, designed the slabs in such a way to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, representing a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason. After wondering through the slabs, we went to the underground memorial- Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The underground area had 7 rooms, each with its own purpose. 

Room 1- historical overview of national-socialist terror

Room 2-diary entries, letters, last notes written during the holocaust. This room also had a circumferential row that provided the number of victims for each country

Room 3-room of family stories

Room 4-room of names and brief biographies. Presenting all 6 million victims would take 6 years, 7 months and 27 days. 

Room 5-room of sites. over 220 places of persecution and murder

Room 6-commemoration portal

room 7-video archive

The room that had the greatest effect on me was room 2. One particular entry was from a 12 year old girl. She wrote a good-bye letter to her father, explaining her fear and how much she loved him. My eyes pooled with tears, as they do when I reflect upon this experience, as I imagined ever having to write such a farewell to my father or anyone for that matter. 

Holocaust Memorial

After the memorial we met with our program for the Bundeskanzleramt (Federal Chancellery) tour. This is where the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and other parliament members do political stuff. I guess it would be similar to a tour of the White House. What can I describe? It was a fancy building and our tour members tried to explain German political agendas. 

  The next day I went to my first Opera, Mozart's Magic Flute. Even though we had seats in the highest and furthest section, the view was still decent. The singing was amazing and I could understand bits and pieces of the German. (I read the plot before I went to I knew what the hell would be going on). Some parts were a little boring because there was no movement on stage..just everyone singing. Modern twists were also added with lights, stunts, and dancing. Mozart was a good opera to start on, and now I can say I indulged in German culture. But I won't cry if I never go to an opera again. 

   I also found out that I live in walking distance of Rathaus Schöneberg, where JFK made his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech to West Berlin in 1963. I read the plaque at "Kennedy Platz" and explored the surrounding area. I had just done a presentation on this for history, so the physical application to the research was enhanced my learning experience. 
Also, I just remembered I also accidently saw the Anhalter Bahnhof (old train station). It is still a station but it used to be the center train station until WWII. The platform is redeveloped and cant compare with the traffic of neighboring Potsdamer Platz, but reminents of the old station are still there. 

Anhalter Bahnhof

This week is the week before Thanksgiving. I am traveling with 3 other students to Prague, Czech Republic. I recently found out that many other Fubis are traveling there this weekend as well, so I will do my best to avoid them :p. We have a hostel in the middle of the Old Town Square and more importantly its equipped with a kitchen so we plan to cook our own Thanksgiving dinner!