Die klugste Nacht des Jahres

Saturday night was "die klugste Nacht des Jahres", which means "smartest night of the year". This meant that there were events relating to science and academia scattered all thoughout Berlin from 5pm to 1am. There were lots of events at the Free University, so I went with my Korean studies major friends and my Philosophy major friends to attend the events at their respective institutes. My Korean studies major friends were performing in a Korean play at their institute as part of their language learning. It was hilarious.  Jina dressed up like a man, Vincent had a skinny beard hanging from his chin, they sang, played Korean drums, and threw candy to the children in the audience. I got to meet some of my friend's parents, eat Korean food, and listen to Jan give a lecture about online- gaming in South Korea. The best part about the night was that I felt like these friends were my family in Berlin. I felt honored that they invited me to share that night with them. After spending time in the world of Korean studies I went to a party at the Philosophy Studies Institute to spend time with my Philosophy studies friends. It was a 1920s themed party, so I tried to teach some of my friends some swing dance. Overall, it was an amazing night spent with my favorite people in this city!

On Sunday, I spent time with my future roommates Stephan, Katharina, and Carina! I went over to their apartment (my future apartment) and they gave me a little walking tour of the area. Before we left to explore the neighborhood they were telling me about this bear in a park near-by. I thought they were kidding that it was a real bear, or that I wasn't understanding their German. But when we arrived at the park, I was shocked to see a real live bear! It's just chilling in this enclosed area of the park. Totally strange.  Anyways, the neighborhood seems great. I can walk to the river, three different super markets, and they are really close to Oranienstrasse, which is a really awesome street with tons of restaurants, bars, and clubs. This summer is going to be awesome, I can feel it in my bones! :-)

Photo of the day is of me in the opera house in Dresden. Funny story about these columns -- they are fake marble! Not only are they fake marble, but they are a special kind of fake marble in which the process to create it takes hundreds of hours of labor for each column. Thus, the fake marble is significantly more expensive than real marble. Then why didn't they just use real marble you might ask? The original opera house that was destroyed during the war used fake marble and used this exact technique. Now the question is why did the original opera house use fake marble... that I don't know.

German word of the day today is die Schublade, which means drawer. In this case, I'm pretty sure that German wins the cooler word contest.

Dresden, Friends, Theater

Since I last posted I have been to three plays, the philharmonic, a friend's voice recital, the a club rated "best in the world", celebrated Jina's birthday with BBQ and Karaoke, met with my old boss from the State Department, went to a conference on international development, spent time at the Krumme Lanke beach, went to synagogue, and found summer housing!! Whew! 

Let's start first with my trip to Dresden, which was really fascinating.  Dresden was completely destroyed during the war, and then completely rebuilt to look exactly the way it used to look (kind of a strange phenomenon if you think about it). They took such care to rebuild the city as exactly accurate as possible, it was amazing! My friends and I walked around the city, led by my Rick Steve's book, and students gave presentations about different sites throughout the city. The presentations for the trip were supposed to be the midterm for the advanced German class (I'm not in advanced German, I was just tagging along because the alumnus who funded the trip offered to pay for all advanced speakers regardless of whether you are in the class... Yay Stanford!) but the professor was sick and couldn't come so the presentations were given mostly in English. This is a picture of the group of us inside the famous Semper Opera House in Dresden, and the next picture is of the Catholic Church in Dresden and some of the town.

Now for the plays! I saw two more plays (Bieberpelz and Nora oder ein Puppenhaus) at the Berliner Festspiele and Woyzech at the Deutsches Theater. Bieberpelz was unusual to say the least. The photo below shows the actors speaking the stage directions in unison. Interesting idea. I thought it kind of worked in a quirky sort of way, but the Germans hated it! Several stormed out right in the middle of the production! 

Two days later I saw the play Nora oder ein Puppenhaus, known in English as A Doll's House. This play was done by the same director as Bieberpelz and was equally strange. The director was attempting to criticize modern gender rolls and their relation to sexuality, by turning all of the male characters into really old men representing a patriarchal society and having them treat the women as passive sex objects. Interesting idea, but in my opinion it totally failed. I was shocked and intrigued for about the first ten minutes, but then the point had been made and there was nothing left of the play. In my opinion, the concept itself was even flawed. By portraying the men as extremely old it was as if to say, gender rolls were once a problem with that old generation, but they are not anymore. Thus undermining his own argument.

The third play I saw was Woyzeck at the Deutsches Theater. It was brilliant to say the least, and may be my favorite play I've seen in Berlin. The use of props, the set, the costumes, the casting decisions, and the use of music was creative, cohesive, and coherent -- a combination rarely achieved in the other two plays. The picture below is of Woyzeck sitting next to his wife after he kills her. The stage is covered in water and confetti and is physically slanted up all around the couple. It is a beautifully tragic yet simple scene. 

Last Friday, after attending a magnificent concert at the Philharmonic, I went to Berghain, which is a nightclub rated the number one club in the world. What I thought was most interesting was the bouncer. I googled him, his name is Sven, and people call him the scariest bouncer in the world. He's like a legend. 

I have a friend who tried to get into Berghain four times and never got in. Anyways, this big scary bouncer stands at the door and decides whether or not you have the right vibe to enter. The people in front of us where turned away, but we walked right in. I was there with my friends Katharina (who will be my roommate this summer!!!) and Patricia, so don't worry mom and dad, they kept me safe. :-)

Yesterday I finally went to synagogue in Berlin! I went to this beautiful synagogue in Prenzlauerberg that was destroyed during WWII and beautifully renovated. The service was very hard to follow as it was entirely in Hebrew with a few German phrases thrown in. But I did sit next to this girl who is also interning at the Bundestag this summer! So I went out for drinks after the service with her and her friends (she had a glass of read wine, I had a raspberry milkshake... I'm super classy, I know)  and she told me all about the Bundestag. Yay new friends!  Here is a picture of inside the synagogue: 

The German word of the day today is das Nickerchen, which means nap. I have been using this word a lot recently. 

Time with Friends

My weekends this quarter start on Thursday because I have no Friday class! On Thursday I spent the day exploring bookstores and paper stores on Schlossstraße with my friend Andy. Sounds boring I know, but I love exploring German bookstores! I have never seen so many German books in my life! Favorite book I saw "Bieber Fieber" all about Justin Bieber. I loved it because Bieber fever actually rhymes in German. After finishing up an essay, I met up with my awesome international friends from England and France at Hackescher Markt. I brought along a few Americans and we had a great time.

Friday night I went to a party next to the river with my new Austrian and German friends, and then afterward I met up with some other German friends to ride around the "ring". The "ring" is a giant public transit ring that the Berlin subway system makes around the city. There were about ten of us who decided to ride around the entire ring just for fun, and it was a great time. Unfortunately, I had to leave early because I was leaving early in the morning for Dresden.

I think I'll dedicate an entire post to my saturday and sunday adventures, so you will have to wait to hear about Dresden!

German word of the day today is Sabrina total verhext, which is the German translation for everyone's favorite 90s TV show, Sabrina the Teenage Witch! :-)

The photo of the day today is of three of my German friends: Jan, Vincent, and Daniel.

Let me briefly tell you the story of how I met these friends and also my friends Jina and San Ja:

I was in the cafeteria of the Freie Universität my first week in Germany, and I was all alone. After I got my food I didn't know where or with whom I should sit. So, I walked around the cafeteria searching out the perfect friendly looking table. I was checking to see that they were not too old, not too young, not too many men or too many women, that there was an extra seat at the table, not too cool or too dorky, and friendly looking. (I felt a little bit like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls. lol) After about five minutes of wandering around the cafeteria, I saw my future friends sitting at a table. I went up to them and said in German "Hi can I sit with you? My name is Amy and I have no friends". They gave me this strange look but let me sit down, and then I explained that I was new in this country, had only been here a few days, and knew no one. They then immediately invited me to come to a bar with them. I thought they were joking, but they were serious. So I met them at a bar later that night and we have been friends ever since. I love them so much, and I am already sad at the thought of leaving them behind in Germany come September.

Mauerpark, Der Kirschgarten, International Boat Trip!

This week has been nuts! It started at Mauerpark in Prenzlauerberg. On Sundays there is a flee market and karaoke. Now when I say karaoke, it is not what you are thinking (drunk people singing background music at a bar). No, it is a full on performance in front of hundreds of people. Some performances were good, some were bad, but all were entertaining. Here are some pictures of Mauerpark:

 Here is a picture of some of the crowd watching karaoke. It was hilarious. At one point this middle-aged woman just got up and ran on stage to be a background dancer. Everyone cheered her on like crazy. I was amazed at how the crowd was so supportive of every performer. People were clapping along and dancing to even the worst singers, it was great.

This is a picture of one of the funny little things being sold in the flee market.  kinda freaky yet cute, no?

Mauerpark means wall park, so of course I had to take a picture of the Mauerpark wall and some young Berlin wanna-be thugs.

On Monday night I explored Nollendorf Platz with Angela. I could not believe that I've been here over a month and have never actually left the U-Bahn station to explore that part of Berlin. If you've ever played the game Civilization, I felt a little bit like the dark parts of my world were now becoming light. Anyways, Nollendorf platz was filled with bars and restaurants and a giant supermarket that made me feel like I was in America again.

On Tuesday, I saw "der Kirschgarten" (the Cherry Orchard) with my theater class. It was so absurd and intelligent at the same time, I loved it! Here is a picture:

The stage was coved in black sand, which I thought was brilliant. The entire production was just absurd with its use of old Russian music, cabaret lighting, costumes from all different time periods, and characters like puppets. Someday, I would actually love to direct the Cherry Orchard, but do it as a sort of critique of the human relationship to nature.

Wednesday, I went on a boat with a group of international people living in Berlin. It was kind of an IR major's dream to be on one boat with so many people from all over the world. I met people from Finnland, Sweden, Turkey, Israel, Switzerland, India, Mexico, Columbia, Ireland, england, Australia, Spain, Peru, Russia, and probably even more countries I can't even remember. I even ran into a Stanford alumnus. 

That is the first half of my week last week, I'll post part two tomorrow.

German word of the day today: großartig, which means amazing. My new Austrian friend Stephan taught me this word today. :-)

Wir essen in Essen!

The German word Essen translates to "eating" in English. I find this to be a rather odd name for a town, so I decided to see if there are any towns in the U.S. called "eating". I quickly realized that this is an impossible thing to google for obvious reasons. What I did find is a list of the worst U.S. city names, and I thought I'd share it with you. http://www.toptenz.net/10-worst-named-cities.php

Anyways, my trip to Essen last week was amazing. The Krupp Foundation treated us like kings. We toured the old Krupp factory which is now a museum, toured and ate a delicious lunch at the Villa Hügel which is basically like the Hearst Castle of the Krupp family, went to the art museum in Essen, went to the Philharmonic in Essen, and toured the new Krupp campus. Here are some of my favorite pictures:

The first is of the Villa Hügel, which is basically a giant mansion where the Krupp family once lived. If you click on the picture you can see that the table in the back room is nicely set. That is where we ate lunch. no big deal.








The second picture is of the room where we ate lunch, the yummy dessert, and one of the higher up Krupp Foundation people (though I don't remember his name or title). Also, notice the card on the table... that was our menu, specially printed for us!










This photo shows the awesome Krupp elevator with two elevator cars on one elevator shaft! woah! It's apparently the only one like this in Europe.

This is a view of the Krupp campus from inside one of their main buildings. Notice the footpaths through the lake!










German word of the day is: die Stiftung, which means foundation. I learned this word on the tour of Villa Hügel. The tour was in German and everyone kept talking about the Krupp Stiftung and I had no idea what it was. I finally raised my hand to ask what the Krupp Stiftung was, and discovered that the Krupp Stiftung is what is paying me 3000 euros this summer... oops. I guess I should have known that one. :-/

Midterm week while traveling through Germany!

My week has been crazy, crazy meaning stressful but awesome! Hence I haven't posted all week. This post would be far too long if I told you every story, but to give you an idea, here is a list of what I did:

-Trip to Nürnberg (the photo is of me in front of the Nürnberg skyline)

-Celebrated Angela's birthday by swimming in the Weißensee with my German and American friends

-Saw the German musical “Linie 1” with my theater class

-Krupp Internship Trip to Essen

-Midterms: two essays (one in German, one in English), an in-class midterm, and a book to read in German.

Let me start with my trip to Nürnberg with my ethics and medicine class. As I already said, I love this class. It’s my favorite, mostly because Dr. Regina Casper is amazing! While in Nürnberg we saw the Nazi Party rally grounds, went to an interesting museum about Nazi Germany, saw the sight of the Nürnberg trials, went on a tour of historical Nürnberg, and ate Nürnberg Lebkücken. YUM! 

After spending the entire day learning about Nazi Germany here are some of my reactions:

In my class we watched part of the Nazi propaganda film, the Triumph of the Willing. This 1936 film shows thousands of Germans cheering on Hitler. I had never seen real footage of such overwhelming support of Hitler, and it frightened me. How could an entire community be so wrong in the way they viewed the world? Of course we all know the history and the events that led to WWII, but it really never ceases to amaze me how so many people were so wrong. People have, of course, been wrong throughout history through racism, sexism, faulty scientific and religious beliefs, strange distribution of wealth, and firm beliefs in faulty political systems. The next question of course is what beliefs do I have that are wrong, and what values do we have as a society that are also wrong? I’m not talking about the things we as a society know are wrong or flawed but continue to do, I’m talking about the things we don’t know. There must be things we think are right but in one hundred years society will realize that in 2011 we were completely wrong. The Germans did not know that their faith in Hitler was so wrong, but now they do. To explain this phenomenon I decided that society is kind of like a child, growing, developing, and learning from past mistakes. I suppose this means that, like Woodrow Wilson, I believe in progress.

After the trip to Nürnberg was Angela's birthday. A group of Germans and Americans all went to Weißensee to swim and celebrate Angela coming into this world. Apparently it is a Berlin tradition to go swimming on May Day. This is a picture of most of the group in Tiergarten having a picnic lunch before heading to the lake for a swim.

On Tuesday I saw Germany's longest running play "Linie 1" (we saw the 1499th performance!). It is a musical about the U-Bahn Linie 1 (Subway route line 1). Overall, I loved it, but I, of course, am biased towards musicals. It was a fun show, and the audience was mostly children. There was even a big group of Bavarian school children who showed up wearing dirndls and lederhosen. Though I loved the show, for the first time in a Berlin theater I was disappointed by the performance of the leading actress. She showed a lack of awareness and continuity of her facial expressions and body language. Though this was disappointing, she had a great voice and there were a number of other excellent performers. Because the show was all about Berlin, the various districts, the Berlin stereotypes, the Berlin dialect, and the split city, I loved watching the show and knowing that I understood many of their references. This definitely would not have been true a month ago, so I was proud to feel like an insider watching the show about my city. Here is a video of some clips of the show:

The next day we left for Essen, paid for by the Krupp Foundation. Krupp treated us so well, but I think I'll blog about this tomorrow once I've gone through all of my pictures.

This weekend I was going to go to Amsterdam (most Stanford students traveled there this weekend) or to Bremen to visit my friend Holger, but both plans fell through. Oh well, I guess I will just have to spend my weekend in Berlin… life is hard. What ever shall I do? Opera? Ballet? Berlin Philharmonic? Jazz club? Go to the nightclub rated number one in the world? Swimming in one of Berlin’s many lakes? German History Museum? Natural History Museum? Art museum? Any number of other museums? the Zoo? Decisions decisions… I’ll let you know. 

German word of the day today is unterhaltsam, which means entertaining. I learned this word from Cemilie when trying to write my essay for theater class.

In other news, Osama Bin Laden was killed this week 66 years to the day after Hitler committed suicide.