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. :-)