My week has been a total shitshow.
It started off great; Monday night I got to see Ladytron, my favorite electropop band. They put on an amazing show and the venue was an old warehouse turn club in East Berlin. I met some cool people there and hung out pretty late.
Tuesday morning I met an old friend for breakfast who I haven't seen in over 5 years. The weather is beautiful so I've been making full use of street cafes. I've also been going against all my German instincts and getting American iced coffees at my local Dunkin. We've also started having German class at a beergarten.
Friday is when my week went downhill. Some international hippie friends invited Sam and me to stop by a four day beach party at a lake. Because we have so many papers due we decided not to stay past ten, even though everyone else was sleeping over in the tents. Figures we miss the last tram, so I was stuck in the middle of nowhere wearing only shorts, a Miami Vice tee, and my new Birkenstocks (FYI: not as comfortable as everybody says). By midnight I was freezing and wanted to die, it only got worse when we were squeezing into someones tent, three of us sharing one blanket. I couldn't sleep because I was shivering so badly, the worst part was that the way we were squeezed into the tent I couldn't curl up into a fetal position. I took off around 5 when trams started running again.
When I got home this morning I crashed and didn't wake up till 2:30. My friend Lauren and I then went down to the site where Nazis burnt books 75 yrs ago and they're having commemorative readings of some of the texts. We then went to a street cafe at the famous Gendarmen Markt to work on final papers. I'm writing an epic analysis of Heidi Klum's national identity. I'll be spending the rest of the weekend working on papers and will not be able to party at all.
This week's good news: MADONNA ANNOUNCED TOUR DATES! I'm planning on seeing her twice in New York. For the first show I'll get the best available ticket no matter what the cost, and for the second night I'll settle for nosebleed section.
Here's the teaser for her Amsterdam show:
This ad for the 2004 ReInvention tour is better though:
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
MAY DAY!
May Day in Kreuzberg, the Turkish neighborhood of Berlin that I live in, is a huge holiday with great traditions.
During the afternoon there is a large street fair where they set up stages with bands playing everything from hip-hop to punk and people drinks copious amounts of beer till they get exhausted and retire to one of the many parks to relax.
Late in the evening when everyone is completely out of their mind and on their second wind, the riots starts! Families and go back to their apartments and all that's left is angry locals, gutter punks, journalists, and a few stray NYU students. At this point several hundred cops in full riot gear carrying tear gas super-soakers flood the area. They carry little zip-ties to quickly hand cuff kids.
The rest of the night involves people setting things like trash cans on fire, throwing bottles at cops, and screaming anarchist slogans against the capitalist establishment. The cops rush the crowd, grab a few kids, throwing them to the ground and zip-tying their hands, the crowd retreats and the cops ease up. Rinse, wash, repeat. This all happened a million times throughout the night. My friends and I were way at the front, and one of us even got hurt a little.
Having recovered from Thursday's festivities, I had a delightful lazy Sunday. My friend Sam and a Minnesotan yoga teacher we know both had birthdays recently so we celebrated by going to Mauer Park. The park is in an über-hip neighborhood and everyone looked like they should be in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We drank champagne and wine and smoked hookah, while some kids in our group played guitar.
The slideshow contains pictues from my recent day trip to Dresden.
During the afternoon there is a large street fair where they set up stages with bands playing everything from hip-hop to punk and people drinks copious amounts of beer till they get exhausted and retire to one of the many parks to relax.
Late in the evening when everyone is completely out of their mind and on their second wind, the riots starts! Families and go back to their apartments and all that's left is angry locals, gutter punks, journalists, and a few stray NYU students. At this point several hundred cops in full riot gear carrying tear gas super-soakers flood the area. They carry little zip-ties to quickly hand cuff kids.
The rest of the night involves people setting things like trash cans on fire, throwing bottles at cops, and screaming anarchist slogans against the capitalist establishment. The cops rush the crowd, grab a few kids, throwing them to the ground and zip-tying their hands, the crowd retreats and the cops ease up. Rinse, wash, repeat. This all happened a million times throughout the night. My friends and I were way at the front, and one of us even got hurt a little.
Having recovered from Thursday's festivities, I had a delightful lazy Sunday. My friend Sam and a Minnesotan yoga teacher we know both had birthdays recently so we celebrated by going to Mauer Park. The park is in an über-hip neighborhood and everyone looked like they should be in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We drank champagne and wine and smoked hookah, while some kids in our group played guitar.
The slideshow contains pictues from my recent day trip to Dresden.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Ruhrgebiet: "Industry-Culture-Landscapes"
Last weekend I went to the small town in germany that I grew up in. The area is called the Ruhrgebiet and is known as the blue collar, (de)industrialized part of Germany, but I love calling it home. I got a ride there from a woman I found on a sort of hitchhiking website. I stayed with my elementary school best friend Sarah, who visited me in New York last year, and the 48 short hours were very eventful so I'll give some highlights.
Day 1:
-We went to the dentist's office Sarah works at because they had a photographer come in to take pictures for the website. They had me play patient and messed around in my mouth. Apparently I brush well. I'll post pictures when they go online.
-Then we went to Schloss Burg, an old castle with a great view of rolling hills. I bought a kids shirt there that makes me look like a real live knight.
- After dinner we went to Kleinbeck. The local club where I saw several friends from elementary school and where the Whiskey Cokes, my drink of choice, were only 2 Euro.
Day 2:
-Sarah is on a local women's soccer team and they had a game on Sunday that they let me play in. Even though I've never played on a team I did a god job; I had a bunch of tackles and the girls who didn't know I was only passing through asked me to join the team. Despite my mad skills, we lost 9:0.
-We also walked around my old street, here's the view from my neighbor's house:
-We walked around Hagen, a beautiful, old city where Sarah's boyfriend lives. He treated us to ice cream.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Midnight Train to Poland
This past weekend I went to Krakow, Poland with the entire NYU Berlin group: 41 students, 4 teachers/ staff, 1 tutor. We took a 12 hour night train with compartments that sleep 6. On the way there, I got to share one with all of my best friends here; on the way back the train was overbooked and I volunteered to share a compartment with the teachers, it was fun because I had been doing a lot of bonding with them on the trip anyway.
Our first day we did a tour of Krakow, a city that was founded in the 8th Century and became known for its large Jewish population as early as the 11th Century. The first night our group went to a restaurant in the Jewish quarter where they organized to have a Yiddish band play for us. There were three youngish guys on traditional instruments and this awesome older lady who sang and danced. Afterwards, most of us went to some bars and clubs in the area.
The second day we took a bus to Auschwitz; the concentration camp is about 1.5 hours from the city. It was an appropriately cold and rainy day and hardly anyone spoke or made eye contact the entire time. Being the only German student in the program, which included about 10 Jewish kids, I was extremely uncomfortable in addition to depressed and shocked about all the atrocities that happened on those few square miles so I mostly stuck with the teachers to avoid having to speak to students. I only took one picture, it's of the train tracks at the Birkenau extermination lot where the Reichsbahn brought 1.5 million Jews and Polish elite. I had managed to hold it together for hours but walking the tracks I finally broke down.
After we got back to the hotel that night I sat around with the teachers and we talked about family involvement in the Holocaust, they ended up inviting me to join them for dinner. It felt good to be with a bunch of Germans to sort out discussions of residual guilt and collective consciousness. I also used opportunity to practice having academic and intellectual discussions in German, which I am still not quite comfortable with.
That night was Passover and some kids threw a huge party in their room with tons of wine and the telling of the Passover story. After that we hit the bars and tried to momentarily forget what we saw that day.
On the final day, we got a few hours to explore the city on our own so Sam, Lauren, Elena and I headed for the old castle where they have a statue of a dragon that is the basis of their founding story.
The trip was really successful; I had the chance to bond with kids I had never really talked to. Turns out one girl is from King of Prussia, PA and another girl is totally into Riot Grrrl music, she even has a tattoo of Courtney Love and Kathleen Hannah!
Sorry about the long post, but I just really had a lot to say that seemed important to me.
Our first day we did a tour of Krakow, a city that was founded in the 8th Century and became known for its large Jewish population as early as the 11th Century. The first night our group went to a restaurant in the Jewish quarter where they organized to have a Yiddish band play for us. There were three youngish guys on traditional instruments and this awesome older lady who sang and danced. Afterwards, most of us went to some bars and clubs in the area.
The second day we took a bus to Auschwitz; the concentration camp is about 1.5 hours from the city. It was an appropriately cold and rainy day and hardly anyone spoke or made eye contact the entire time. Being the only German student in the program, which included about 10 Jewish kids, I was extremely uncomfortable in addition to depressed and shocked about all the atrocities that happened on those few square miles so I mostly stuck with the teachers to avoid having to speak to students. I only took one picture, it's of the train tracks at the Birkenau extermination lot where the Reichsbahn brought 1.5 million Jews and Polish elite. I had managed to hold it together for hours but walking the tracks I finally broke down.
After we got back to the hotel that night I sat around with the teachers and we talked about family involvement in the Holocaust, they ended up inviting me to join them for dinner. It felt good to be with a bunch of Germans to sort out discussions of residual guilt and collective consciousness. I also used opportunity to practice having academic and intellectual discussions in German, which I am still not quite comfortable with.
That night was Passover and some kids threw a huge party in their room with tons of wine and the telling of the Passover story. After that we hit the bars and tried to momentarily forget what we saw that day.
On the final day, we got a few hours to explore the city on our own so Sam, Lauren, Elena and I headed for the old castle where they have a statue of a dragon that is the basis of their founding story.
The trip was really successful; I had the chance to bond with kids I had never really talked to. Turns out one girl is from King of Prussia, PA and another girl is totally into Riot Grrrl music, she even has a tattoo of Courtney Love and Kathleen Hannah!
Sorry about the long post, but I just really had a lot to say that seemed important to me.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Enjoy
see more crazy cat pics
see more crazy cat pics
see more crazy cat pics
see more crazy cat pics
see more crazy cat pics
Monday, April 14, 2008
Viva Riga, Lat-Via
I have returned from my 48 hour trip to Riga and I have to say my first visit to Eastern Europe, or "Central Europe," as the Easterners like to call it, was incredible. I only brought a small backpack, filled with my camera, a few extra t-shirts, a sleeping bag strapped to the bottom, and my friend's beat up copy of Kerouac's On The Road (I also brought underwear but that doesn't sound as poetic).
We stayed with a really nice couple in their early twenties who live in this run down communist building on the outskirts of the city.
Our first morning there, Sam and I took a 2 hour walk into the city and got to enjoy the decrepit parts most tourists don't have the chance to see. Visiting a second world country is fascinating, some buildings look like they had been bombed the week before, but really they're just leftovers from over 20 years ago.
Some comments on my trip: 
- Latvians are a very proud people. They refer to the Soviet era as the "time of occupation" and still don't like Russians. Consequently, they now strongly associate with Tibet.
- At the Russian Market I put my valuables in my front pocket so I could keep better track of them. Referencing the stereotype that Easterners steal, Sam said he doesn't like intolerance. I said I rather be prejudice and safe, than p.c. and sorry, but he still thought I was a bigot. Later that day his phone got stolen.
- Latvian is the closest modern language to Sanscrit.
- There's a great art nouveau neighborhood that houses all the embassies. Here's Belgium:
- At the mall they had spacey, blue lighting in the bathroom stalls and I thought it was some gross way to hide the dirt; turns out it's so heroin addicts can't find veins to shoot up.
- To get home from a night out in New York, we sometimes take "gypsy cabs" than run illegally. In Riga they have illegal trams that run at night.
UPDATE: Katie told me there were problems with the facebook gallery so I made a new album on Picasa. Here's the mini-slideshow. Click on it to see the pictures bigger and with captions.
UPDATE: Katie told me there were problems with the facebook gallery so I made a new album on Picasa. Here's the mini-slideshow. Click on it to see the pictures bigger and with captions.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Last Post Before Latvia
Tomorrow I leave for Riga, Latvia. I don't know much about the city, but it was really cheap to fly to. To avoid the cost of a youth hostel, my friend Sam and I found a guy on the couchsurfer website who said we can stay with him, his cat, and his girlfriend.
Here's my travel schedule for the remainder of my time studying abroad. Click the city to see its Wikipedia page.
April 11-13: Riga, Latvia
April 17-21: Krakau, Poland
April 25-27: Wuppertal, Germany
May 15-19: Antwerp Belgium; Maastricht, Netherlands
I'm going to do more traveling when I meet up with my Mom in late May. She wants to go to Italy, I'd love to see Greece. We'll probably settle on Spain.
It rained today so I couldn't photograph my bike, but I recently took good pictures of Berlin:
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