Höfe und Straße und Eis

I realized yesterday that my dress also tore when I jumped over the gate, but not significantly.  The name of the pub we went to at the end of the Deutschkurs Module I is Kindl Stuben. The name of the second hand store I went to is Kleidermarkt Garage, in Schöneberg. 

Part 2

A week ago I went for a walk and ended up going through a bunch of courtyards, including a network of eight courtyards called Hackesche Höfe, which are really cool but I also got slightly lost because I didn’t realize there were eight or even more than two until I was well into the depths of chic café’s and edgy shops. 

I came back and Katrin offered to show me Prenzlauer Berg, so of course we went. I had already walked around there before, but a) I didn’t really know how Berlin was broken up then and b) I didn’t see that much of it. She showed me the Maur Park Memorial and we walked along the street. We walked for a long time, past the ("a church the name of which I will write in later") which had resisted the Nazi’s really early on, and down the pretty streets but the sun was beating down hard. She headed back to The Convent and I went in the direction of the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum, which is free on Mondays. Trying to not wolf down my overpriced soup-to-go I knew that I wanted to go to the museum but didn’t know if I had the energy for it. When I walked in I looked at the found objects, the simple collages of photos of found objects (100 or so sea washed bottles from NYC and Mexico, transitioning from one color to another, slowly.) It was so soothing. All the people milling around and the heat didn’t bother me then. It was probably the only museum that was perfect for me at that moment.

 

After that I decided to get ice-cream. I was thirsty but I had wanted ice-cream for probably about a month, and I was about to leave. I had bought myself some when I went to Spreewald, but it was a really bad pre-made cone. So I got myself a fruit froyo cup (apples and plums and strawberries and...) cafe that consists of a standard American school-bus, with sand an umbrellas and chairs in front. I felt obligated to get it there because I had been walking past it every single day. Half way through I didn’t think I could finish it. But then I did. 

Music of Tacheles

I am home now. The first time I woke up today I had been dreaming about the German past tense. I am home now, I woke up at 6am and, among other things, have spent some time picking the ants out of a jar of honey someone left open. A multi-part recap of the last days in Berlin:

Part 1

I woke up at 9:30, and could smell the smoke that had sunk into my hair. I lay awhile and then left, Lisa was awake and I told her I would contact her about going to the photography museum, but of course later it turned out that I can't reach her phone, possibly because she has a Maltees number. I came back to The Convent and ate and showered and then went to the Museum fur Fotografie by Zoologiche Garten. There were three exhibits, one of ethnographic photos that had been lost and found, which was okay but the photos, being falsely scientific, were stiff (you should have seen some of the original texts.) And then the other exhibit was of "White Women / Sleepless Nights / Big Nudes” which although I recognized one of the photos and Helmut Newton isn't a no-name photographer, it seemed like an exhibit of the male gaze. The exhibit also flowed into a section called "private property" which made it worse. I went back and napped and then went to by the Bode Museum and briefly met with Bengi, before realizing that the concert I thought was on Saturday was probably on Sunday. (I didn’t stay to hang out because I needed to get my hand disinfected; Sasha, vodka, lack of surprise, appreciated.)

Sunday I decided to stay away from the really large museums, so I went to the Sammlung Sharf-Gesrtenberg in Charlotenberg, especially since the selection of Max Ernst and Buffett appealed to me, even though I couldn’t remember any work by them. I got lost though, and ate and then ended up at the Museum Berggruen, which is free and not very good, but there are blueprints there, and there was one small painting that I liked. I wrote down the name of the artist but threw out the paper. Sammlung Sharf-Gesrtenberg was fantastic, there were really good prints in the lower part of it and it made me want to go back to the zinc plates and acid baths of the print studio. 

Then I napped and after that I actually went to the concert I had attempted to attend the day before, except that I was an hour early. Thursday Katrin had shown me around the area a bit: little hidden courtyards, Tacheles, empty buildings and pretty streets, so  I went back to take pictures of Tacheles, which was an abandoned building that has now been taken over by artists to use as studio space. Some investor wants to kick them out, I don't know why, there are so many buildings in much better shape in just as good areas.

The concert was:

Anna Faber- Violine

Daniella Strasfogel- Viola

Boram Lie- Violoncello

Clemens Hund-Göschel - Klavier

Marc Sabat (*1965) - Claudius Ptolemy für Violine und Cello*

Gabriel Fauré - Klavierquartett Nr. 2 in g-moll, op. 45

Marc Sabat - Jean-Philippe Rameau*

I really recommend it. Free. Open air. Good music. The weather was perfect, and people where drinking the beer and wine being sold on the bridge. 

I was surprised when Bengi called after the concert was over to hang out. I was also relieved, she could have well been annoyed by me for the day before and before that as well. Relived and flattered and happy, becuase it meant I walked around at night with my camera, which I hadn't done much of, with good company.

The Gate

After going to the Altes Museum I met up with people at Tierpark, first with Hannah, her new roommate Merium (Paris), Pierre (Merium's friend from Paris) and Lisa (Malta, German and English.) We climbed on the roof of the apartment and the view was beautiful, you could see the lights far off, you could see the tiny people moving straight below. I unfortunately drank the beer that Hannah's old roommate had left, it was warm, it was not good. We went out looking for something, with the addition of Laura and Bengi (Ankara, Law) and Rita (Athens.)

    Hannah and Pierre had looked up a bunch of clubs and settled on Club Soda, because it was possibly free. When we got there the line was long and the entrance was free for women until one am, and it was eight euro for men; that revolted me. The line was long because it was almost one. Eloosha had recommended to me Suicide Circus, an industrial-site-turned-club, in the Friedrichshain area where a lot of the nightlife is. I figured if it doesn't work out we can easily find somewhere else. We found the club right away but not the entrance. We circled around hearing the music, walking past the gratified walls and broken bottles, the pissing men and chain smoking youths until we finally realized that it was right where it should be; right by the stairs where we came in. By that point we had forgotten that we should split up before trying to enter, hush down our foreignness. The bouncer asked us if we were over twenty-one, only because we had been speaking English. I said yes I am over and gave him my drivers license, which clearly states that I'm not over 21 until 2013. He was okay with this, but no one else showed their i.d.'s so we didn't go.

    Honestly, I just forgot that I was under 21 and was too busy trying to  call Merium and Pierre to figure out where they had disappeared to.

    Not far from there someone groped my butt, and it wasn't someone I knew.
    It was two and we were still just walking around, unsure of where to go. Hannah said that she would go home at three am, she was also unhappy to see and hear men peeing at every corner and tree, and it was cold. Me being me, I felt bad that it hadn't worked out. We passed by a club with a huge line and where approached by some guys trying to convince us to help them get in, since they let in women with ease and groups of men not so much. Honestly I didn't really register this club culture until...well Ben had told me a couple weeks ago that this is how it works but it didn't sink. These guys were not German, maybe Italian.

    It was beautiful walking around at night, and Bengi agreed.

    We kept walking because Pierre knew some place and then it was three am and Hannah and Laura left and we went to a pub called Cake. It was crammed and smokey and we sat next to a large strange women who asked where we where from and why we where here, all the time writing endlessly in even cursive, drinking another glass. I say another because there where already a few glasses standing around here, some strong liquor like whiskey. Lisa convinced me to do shots with her and I was envious of the writing woman, "I wanted to sit here and draw," I thought as a plume of smoke circled out of of a young woman's' mouth and sat suspended, not dissipating because the air was already so dense, and then finally it diffused into the rest of the smog.

    Then Pierre suggested we hop over a fence to get into this club called Chalet (it would be cheaper that way.) He had done it the last time he had gone to Berlin, and he said he had been scared and made a fake stamp on his hand and then realized there was no way of getting caught. We were all game. He jumped over and I held back, because I knew I would be fine getting over a fence, and the other girls seemed a bit less certain. Lisa went over second, but her dress and bag caught and she was left hanging on the spikes, dress bunched up around her waist. The bag was quickly removed but she was suspended on her dress for longer than I expected her to be. Two huge lovely holes in her favorite dress to commemorate the event. Rita went next, Pierre and me telling how to do it and and me saying that yes she can and yes she can. Same with Bengi. And then I came over and jumped from the top but a bit too confidently and fell, twice, because I tried to get up but the momentum of the fall was working against me. A scab on my hand and on my shoulder to commemorate this event. Then I got and up with Lisa went to dance and track down the bathroom (the mens room was cleaner, and emptier, the doors to both bathrooms where wide open.)  An hour later the techno got redundant and we left. We meandered back and watched girls walk barefooted down the stairs, through the glass, the bottoms of their tights black from the dirt. Lisa and I recognized them from when we had gotten off at Washaur Strassa. Going up the escalator at Tierpark, the skirt of the girl in front of me had gone way up, so I could see that she was wearing a thong under her tights. For some reason I didn't think to point this out to her; it didn't look sexual, it just looked silly.  At six I was relived to find that Hannah had left the door to her room (and so access to my sleeping bag) open.

Altes Museum

I had a dream I was back home. But I knew that it didn't make sense that I was back home, because I had made a plan to go to the Altes Museum in the morning, and I couldn't have made that plan in the USA. I said "but I'm in Deutschland!" but I couldn't wake up and someone was singing белая гвардия, so I knew even more that it was a dream, because I had been singing to myself the day before. I was getting upset, I wanted to go back. And then I woke up. I went to the bathroom downstairs because it's more private and examined the freckles on my arms, thinking about how this is the kind of detail that is missed in dreams. I told Hannah my dream and Sasha walked by but didn't see us. Then Hannah and I went to get groceries. But it was really hard to count out the money, and I was upset because the cashier lady was speaking to me in English because she had heard me and Hannah speaking in English. And I thought "I don't remember drinking, why is it so hard to count?" and tried harder. And then I woke up.

After which I did actual go to the Altes Museum, which is Greek and Roman work, and walked around a little in the area.

Not a Ghost

Epilogue (Part 5, the end of this silliness, and yes more stories of not meeting up with people)
I'm a little confused about the order about the last few days, but something like this:

Friday I went to Tierpark with Hannah and Maria stopped by to say goodbye. I spent most of Saturday writing, resulting in this multiple-part text.

I went back to the first flat some point and had tea there again with Christian and Mitya (Sasha's friend who works for the UN in...Slovenia, Slovakia? he said both but they don't even touch, so I must have misremembered, or maybe I'm ill-informed of something important, probably both), and finally relinquished my keys, so I can no longer go sneaking around the flat. Christian and I were both a tiny bit sad at this moment - me mischievously so; I liked being a ghost.

I went over to Hannah's and Caroline stopped by and we watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (yes, a children's movie).

Saturday night I slept over (meaning that we went to bed at 10:30 and then talked for three hours), and Sunday morning on of Hannah's new roommates moved in, she's French. Caroline came over again to say bye, and Nina asked us to come down as well and we all said our farewells. We finished watching Pulp Fiction (one movie I've actually seen before) and then we came over to my place after which we wandered over to the flea market by the Bode Museum, which is mostly antiques. I looked a pocket watch that you had to wind up, but it was forty-five euro and I didn't think I could haggle it down to affordability from there, most things where significantly cheaper, I just happened to pick out something expensive, as usual.

 
Monday wasn't very productive either since all the museums are closed. I got groceries and went to Tierpark because of a day mix-up. Ben was there to do laundry. I talked a lot to Katrin (just finished her masters at Potsdam Universität to be a teacher, subjects Spanish and Poli Sci) during the day and we made couscous salad and pankäse together for lunch. 

Tuesday I went to the Gemäldegalerie in the morning. Ben was supposed to possibly meet me at the East Side Gallery with his family at three, but I ended up wandering it alone, which was nice except for there was a giant cloud that decided to rain right over just that bit of the wall. When I started walking it started to rain, when I finished walking it stopped. I had my camera on me this time though.

For food I decided to explore slightly. I got off at Jannowitzbrücke, because I never had before, and followed the direction where other people seemed to be headed. There was a street with a few Asian-food places, some grocery-stores and barbershops. I got myself a crape und grün Tee, and savored it. I headed to Tierpark since Michael's goodbye dinner was soon, and we went to a Thai place on Friedrichshain. It was good to have a solid goodbye, so many people just up and left.
 

Yesterday I went to the Bode Museum. After that, I was supposed to meet up with Laura and try to crash a class. Module two of the Deutschkurse has started, and there are classes offered in the afternoon. I didn't meet up with Laura but tried to go to the art course anyway, partially because Hannah's new roommate from Malta was there so I knew one person. One of the three professors was the tour guide from the last module, but it was still too awkward and I left.

Karl-Marx-Allee

Part 4
    Thursday night we were going to have a last-hurrah at a pub called (I'll fill it in when I remember) near Karl-Marx-Allee. At half past six we met at Friedrichstraße and went to the pub. The program had started by going there (but I hadn’t attended) during the first week, so it was supposed to bring everything full circle. It was cozy, the walls old and we filled up almost all the space, if not just with our bodies then with our noise.
I ended up having extended debates with a bunch of the Alabama kids. It started with me discussing racism and beauty with one Carolina, a Mexican girl in my class who studies…political science or international relations? She was telling me how to be diplomatic "I respect your opinion, but I disagree" and me "but I don't respect their opinion."

    "They just want their welfare checks. No offense Hannah, you're one of the good ones" and of course Hannah wasn't happy (that was from the first night at the Fritz, when I didn't go.)

And then Chris, who is from Alabama started in two, and another one was hovering and said “I can make you think what I think” and Chris said “oh, she’s a tough one.” I was just curious; these people live in the same country as I am but have a totally different perception of so many things. They would switch off after they got tired of talking to me, get themselves another beer. I rolled with it, seeing where it would take me.

They tried proving to me they were not racist. They also told me Black people in the North are totally different from Black people in the South, and were talking about “good” and “bad” Black people. I can’t even. And this is probably the more open minded, willing-to-travel group of Alabama University kids. It just baffles me. One of them even said that he’s taken a multitude of classes on the subject (the one that was cocky enough to think he make me think what he thinks. I honestly wonder if part of that was because I’m of the more pliable, fairer sex.) They aren’t uneducated, and I didn’t get the impression that they didn’t have any capacity for thought. They are the most foreign people I have met on this trip.


After I had tired them (and my vocal cords) out I finally spoke to the Russian kids in the group. I didn't realize they hadn't known I spoke Russian, I know Nikolaj did, but when he told them they had filtered it out, or thought he meant broken Russian. A girl who goes by Olivia had thought I was French the entire time. I talked a bit to Sasha (the oldest of the group,) who asked me, among other things, if anyone regretted moving to the USA*. And then again later I waited on the platform with them, Ivan had taken a beer glass with him from the pub, Nikolaj and Sasha and an Italian kid who knows Russian and Mario who is also Italian but doesn't know Russian. And others. There was a lot of last-moment-socializing going on.

*Dasha had asked me as well, and then Katrin- one of the people in the part of The Convent I live in now, also asked.

They went back Tierpark, Mario and I headed in the other direction towards where we live. He's one of the older people in the program, about forty, a likable translator and I had talked to him a few times before. I rehashed a lot of what I had been thinking about: language, culture, foreignness, belonging. The silt on that river never settles.

dream of screams and smell the flowers

Part 3
    I woke up before my alarm the next morning, the exhaustion that had been in me that week carried onto the next week as well, the stress and excitement leading my mind to think that sleeping from one am to six am is the ideal schedule, even as, after a week of this, my body reeled against it.

    I think Monday was another day where Tilman saved me from not eating dinner? Yes, eating risotto and talking about the slow food movement which he had presented on for class. After class on Tuesday I moved out of the flat into a different part of The Convent, and then had a farewell tea with Tilman und Sasha. I cleaned the room but left a few things there (laptop, sleeping bag, sandals, and then later I realized I also left all of my shower things in the bathroom.) Minne Fruende said that they were going to watch the Bourne movies at Tierpark but I never came. Instead I slept restlessly for an hour, waking up from a dream in which a girl had hypnotized me, and every time I tried to come out of hypnosis she would flutter from behind me, screaming. The rest of the day consisted of using the key I still had to pick up my shower things, awkwardly trying to speak in German to the new people I now had to meet. I told them people here speak English too well, so now I'm practicing with them, but it's painful for both parties, I think. I'm trying. Wednesday the same thing happened; the lack of sleep, the awkward German, me not coming over the Tierpark to finish the Bourne Series. I had forgotten to eat dinner after a light lunch and couldn't sleep because of it, got up after one am and downed an entire container of kefir. I don't remember doing anything else but getting let out of class after most people had finished lunch and then having lunch with Ben because he was late after skyping with his girlfriend, two days in a row.

    Wednesday night I was determined to get sleep, and fell asleep around eleven, still woke up at six but stayed in bed for a while longer, and felt, compared to the other days, somewhat rested. During the day  Rosie and Laura and I got off at Temeplhof and I got stamps (the clerk responded to my German with French) and then we sat in a cafe talking about culture. I got some flowers* there to leave in the flat, and then on the way home a baguette and plums, as well as some food for myself. The last few things I got at a wine store that has a lot of fruit standing outside, I walk past it every day but because it's not a standard supermarket, and so doesn't feel anonymous, I had avoided going in. The guy working the cashier was nice though, so I guess if I ever feel tempted to buy wine I will go there.

*(They look like lupines. I nearly got a really large set of lily's, but I think that would have been much, and anyway, they remind, at least Christian, of home, and I knew that would happen, somehow. He said that the literal translation of their name into German is finger hat (so I got blau Fingerhuts, but smaller than any pictures I found on the internet.) In Germany you give unwrapped flowers, and I just left them there and they had been debating whether they were for them for a few days, because of the bouquet paper. By Saturday, when I came to pick up the remains of my things, they were standing in a vase, but some residue of the question of their origins still remained.)

insignificant and immense

Part Two

                I woke up at 9:30 in Tierpark. I knew I was actually meeting up with Dasha that day, but when or where was a mystery to me, and I also knew that she was with someone else but I didn't know who. I waited a couple hours for Hannah to wake up, trying to fall back asleep, and around 11 Hannah gave me her laptop and I knew that Dasha and someone else had arrived and where in Friedrichstraße. Except that I was in Tierpark. I said goodbye to Hannah, who said that since I sleep quitly I should come over again. I went straight to Friedrichstraße and bumped into a classmate, looked around for an hour and then gave up and went to The Convent, where I got on the internet and found out that they had been at the Starbucks for most of the time I was searching in the station. A few hours later, after finally showering and brushing my teeth and eating and started to resign to the fact that maybe I won't see her, after not seeing her for three and a half years already (since the last time I went to Moscow.) And then she finally came online. We met up in Kreuzberg. 

"I feel like I know you" she said, and it was the perfect. We shouldn't know each other, but somehow we do, the smoke viciously coming from her lips as her and Natasha, her friend who she came with, lit yet another cigarette and we listened to music and drank beer and felt the tumult of the past present and future riddling our insides with cigarette burns. We talked about the futility of Russian politics, of question of where to live, of literature, and one line thrown in on a friend who neither of us talks to dropped out of University. Suddenly time and space (the three and a half years, the breadth of the Atlantic and then some) became both insignificant and immense; the months of silence across the ocean to soon be once again the reality, instead of the flow of desperate conversation streaming from our lips. "I feel like I have so many questions, but I don't know what they are" I said and that was perfect too, because if we lived closer we would know so much more about each-others day-to-day lives, information that is meaningless when meetings are so infrequent, our lives so different yet in some strange dark corner tangled together. 

We went back to The Convent "you don't look like much of a nun, T" to figure how to get them to Tegel airport at 6am. We searched and finally asked Sasha for help, who of course turned out to be the half-brother of someone she sort of knows. I'm not surprised about these things at this point - well, I am, but also these things happen. Often. There was exhausted giggling and the sparkling apple juice disappearing down her throat and then he showed us up the roof and I saw the stars for the first time in a long time. I'd been thinking about them, and at this point I was so exhausted that that's all I could take in, on the roof of a building filled up fifty percent with theology students, a giant telephone tower tourists mistakenly call Alex hovering somewhere in the distance, an attempted testament to the power of East Berlin. They said something about me extending my stay since Dasha and Natasha are coming to Berlin on the 26th, and the back of my throat was too dry to say thank you for the suggestion. He left and shortly after we did too. Warm sleepily insomniatic hugs exchanged, and they disappeared into the night.  

A little single-serving paper-covered clump of tea that she got on her travels with Natasha to Thailand, is sitting on my desk. It's square and the rice paper is white with a red stamp on it, a sticker on the back keeping the edges together, neat. I don't know if I am ever going to drink it.

Dance Dance Dance

Bitte. This is going to be long. I'll do it in more than one shift; I'll write it all now but post in chunks, to dilute the cruelty. I'm at Hannah's right now postin, borowing internet. 

Part 1

                On the 6th we went to a posh open-air "classic" pop concert called Dance Dance Dance in Gendarmenmarkt. The tickets (paid for by the program) cost a pretty penny, so it wasn't surprising that the people there where dressed up, though some like us were...not so dressed up. I had been expecting classical music, so the showtunes and orchestral renditions of songs everyone has heard over a million time where not really what I had set my heart on. It was a matter of if I had wanted to see Broadway I can go to Broadway, and also the lady who was singing was much better in the one more operatic piece, her training was simply not suitable for the show. The dancing was okay though, modern, break, and ballet from the Болшой Театр.

                The next day I thought I was meeting up with my friend Dasha from Moscow because i had gotten the days confused, but in the evening we (Hannah, Maria, Nina, Mike, Marcel, Ruben, Laura und Rosie) went to a the club "Fritz". I met with them in Tierpark and left my sleeping bag in Hannah's room because I knew I wouldn't want to head back alone. In my head it still sounds like a combination of 'frisky' and 'ritzy' but that's just me. They had gone there the weekend before when we had gone to the open air movie, and Maria had met some guy there that she liked had been obsessing over for the entire week. Last time some of the Alabama kids where there and a couple of them where being really racist and sexist, but this time the company was better and Maria was excited and nervous. We split up because they don't like letting in giant groups of English speakers, showed our id's, paid the 7 euro and went it. There were three dance-floors, one with somewhat slow music, one with standard mostly-American music and one that was more punk. We danced a bit and bobbed around from room to room, the composition of men was strange; we'd take breaks in the outside-room. The guy Maria was looking for was, quite bizarrely, actually there; looking for her too. Some more people from the program came, including one guy who was a previously mentioned sexist racist bastard, and Robin from Alabama who on one hand realizes that what he does isn’t right, but on the other hand excuses him by saying he was drunk, and danced with him. We left around 4am. Nina, Hannah and I walking around the platform away from the, as Nina called them, "monkeys" that followed us around (I was glad I wasn't going home alone.) We finally got to bed by 5am.

Spreewald

Donnerstag my class made up for missing Montag by going to Spreewald for the day. We met up a little after nine on the platform and took the double-decker train out. We walked a little and then rented some bikes and started biking deeper towards the river (or more accurately: series of small canals.) My back wheel popped, so of course I ended up like luggage on the back of a Nathans bike (one of the guys in the class) and none of the lighter girls volunteered to go instead. We ended up behind and our teacher ended up falling trying to wheel back both bikes (that was poorly planned, I felt bad) but in the end we all met up and went canoeing, Li Chen and me in one canoe, Nathan (originally Kansas, now NYC, professor at a CUNY) and Edwina (Ireland, part time student) in another. I walked around barefoot all day, and realized I had missed that.
I had been expecting a turbulent river, but found civilized nature - quaint canals with an unnoticeable current, wooden houses nestled up against the water.
On the train back I talked to Christiana, the teacher. We started out in German but at some point we switched to English, discussing history and society and people. I wish we could have continued in German, but we didn't get much farther than what my parents studied and a little about my reasoning for coming here.

When I came back I met Kristan's mother, who was visiting, four of us cramped around the table, once again listening. It was thundering outside, the crack of a whip against the clouds, the chatter of the rain coming down. 

Pergamon

Montag I had the day off from class so I tried to go the the Gemäldegalerie but I never got to it. I walked down in the wrong direction first (for some reason Potsdamer Platz was very confusing that day) and then wandered into the Deutsche Kinemathek Museum für Film und Fernsehen where the man working at the desk told me it that both museums where closed, but explained how to get to the Gemäldegalerie for next time. I'm always grateful when I bump into nice strangers. Later I met up with Rosie and Laura and wandered around near Alexanderplatz, but we didn't do much. I didn't sleep much at night either so I suppose it was a somewhat meh day.

Dienstag was, therefore, the day I was somewhat sleep deprived. There was a DDR tour after class. The tour guide was the same from all the previous tours (Neue National Galerie, First day, Potsdam) and I had to ask Ben to translate, though sometimes I understood. We ended by the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. After the tour we had a surprised of beer payed for by the program, so we sat around (tour guide and tour-guided) and I mostly listened, but a lot of it was basic enough conversation that I didn't feel totally lost. Ben and I where the last ones to leave. I think that was the longest primarily-in-German conversation that I had been able to participate in, at least by being able to understand the jokes. And then when I came back to the flat there had been another delivery of local foods, including smoked tofu (new for me) and spinach (actually, I think it may have been chard, the stalks where red. the spinach-y thing from last time was chard too, call Mangold here) and potatoes, so Tilman Sasha and I had dinner. I think I may have skipped dinner otherwise, so doubly thankful.

Mittwoch we had an after-class trip to the Pergamon museum, which was great. Ben was really excited to re-visit the Islamic art section, but I liked the Cuneiform-embedded statues and Greek mosaics as well.

Open Air

Saturday I went to play futball again with the people in the convent. I think part of the reason I was so happy when I had just landed was because I had played. I wish I had that at home, the gym simply isn't the same thing. After that I got off at Kottbusser Tor so I was in Kreuzberg and went to an open air cinema, tickets provided by the program, and we watched Barbara with subtitles, and then wandered around with Laura and Rosie. Kreuzberg is really pretty, the part we where at was grungier than where I live, more populated too. I got felafel and we sat around, the candles lit by the river glowing in their red vases. I got back when the thunder had started.
(previous post)

Sunday I just walked around with Rosie and Laura and Ben, and we finally got to the restaurant called Zum Nußbaumthat Ben had tried to take us to near the beginning of the program, since there where just four of us. 


so that was my weekend. and now I have to go meet with people and go to a concert/performance thing/
chuss