Feeling hot hot hot!
Wow, this week has passed by in an absolute blur.
I can’t even think what I’ve been up to. Basically I’ve had school every day. Sometimes I know what’s going on, and sometimes I just don’t. No it’s not that. I can understand most of what is being said, because only German is spoken in the classroom, but I can only answer questions half of the time. I’m not very creative at coming up with new story lines, and I suppose I don’t have to be, but it frustrates me when I want to say something in a conversation and just can’t find the words. My usual dilemma. Memory. Or lack thereof.
We did go to the Topography of Terror exhibition on Monday. I have to say, in 28C heat it was the worst thing one could be doing at the peak of the sun. As the original museum is being excavated and rebuilt, the current exhibition is a collection of maybe 40 billboards with information in German and English, as well as many photographs and examples of what they were talking about. Now, I enjoy history, but this was a free exhibition in stifling heat and my eyes begin blurring after a while with text so I think I only read about 15 of the boards. The pictures were really interesting though. It was about all the buildings in the area and how so many decisions were made from them by Hitler and his right-hand men on how to further segregate communities, what to do with the Jews, etc.
On Tuesday we went to Charlottenburg in the far west, where we met two fashion designers for street wear and dance sport wear. Again, something that really wasn’t my cup of tea, but I had an interesting conversation with the marketing girl so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Then Katie, Jay and I rode our bikes all the way through the street of June 17 and Unter den Linden, past Museum Island and Alexander Platz and all the way home in the east, and you know what – it only took us an hour! It was nothing!
Wednesday was just a progress meeting, and Thursday night I met Egil and Rosemary out for dinner. They came up to see Rosemary’s daughter Karin, who lives and works in Berlin, and it was so nice for me to get to see them too. I got a big hug from Egil from Mum – yes, there’s one coming back too! We met at Alexander Platz and went around to the Nikolaikirche where we found somewhere nice to have dinner. I had Berliner Boulette mit grossmutter’s kartofellsalat which was sehr gut. I’ve been waiting to try boulette since Saeeda told us about it in class last week, and I really enjoyed it. It’s just a nicely flavoured mince meat – like a hamburger pattie but fatter and better.
We then went for a walk around Museum Island in order to find Hackescher Hofe, 20th century restored commercial buildings with nine linked courtyards. They are very pretty to walk around, and the cafes and shops are busy night and day. There’s even a grungy courtyard with a beer garden and graffiti of Little Lucy and Knut, a theatre and a cinema.
We went to the Badeshiff on Friday, a swimming pool on the river Spree. It has a huge boardwalk and a sandy bank with a bar. It’s really annoying because you can’t take your own drinks in – they even took my bottle of water off me, and pat down bags. But it was a pretty cool place and we spent a few hours in there – mucking around in the pool taking pictures with Rosanne’s waterproof camera, and chilling out on the decks in the sun. It was perfect weather as it’s been a hot weekend.
Yesterday I went to Potsdam with Rosemary and Egil. We met at Spandau and took a boat trip for two hours to get down to Potsdam, but along the water there was a lot to look at. Big beach area in Wannsee where they ship in tons of sand as if it’s a real beach, the conference centre where Stalin, Churchill and the American president all met to discuss what happens in Germany. It’s said Churchill only made one visit there and then sent his rookie down because each leader had a different entrance and Churchill’s was tainted with a flowerbed of a big red star a la Russian style. Just further down is a bridge where the Russians and Brits would exchange spies, and because it belonged to each side, they’ve painted it slightly different shades of green. You can only really tell up close otherwise it just looks like the sun is making the difference.
Potsdam itself is still being rebuilt. Historically it has been around since AD 993, although it was bombed heavily during World War II. Take the back entrance into Park Sanssouci and walk through Friedenskirche, Church of Peace, where the concrete pillars will make you feel like Alice in Wonderland, looking out into a splash of colour with the lake, trees and flowers in bloom. We saw a choir practicing in the church which was nice.
Schloss Sanssouci, built between 1745 and 1747, is flanked on either side by smaller palaces for paintings and guests. King Friedrick’s summer palace stands above four layers of steps, gardens and greenhouses – these were built into the walls to hide the plants away during winter. They are all fig trees, maybe a personal favourite of Friedrick the Great? Hike over to the Orangerie, a palace built to house foreign royalty and guests, and climb to the top for a view overlooking the whole of Potsdam. There are 700 acres of park to explore.
We cheated and took the train back, because the last boat left too early. The train only took about 20 minutes into central Berlin. I took Egil and Rosemary to my favourite beer garden in the Tiergarten, as if we still needed more walking! And then we took the train to Hauptbahnhof, the main train station for travel around and out of Berlin. It’s huge and there are zigzags of trains – they go north to south on the bottom level, and then two levels up are more trains that go east to west. In between are lots and lots of shops.
Today we had a brunch with the whole group at a little Mexican looking restaurant at Gorlitzer Strasse that wasn’t actually very Mexican. But it was nice, I had enough food to fill me up till late tonight! I set up an interview at the Curry place for tomorrow, and then bumped into some of the others at Warschauer Strasse where there was a big market over the bridge, but mostly for exclusive expensive looking paintings and pictures. They had a huge roll of white butchers paper taped to the ground between the tram tracks, and buckets of paints and brushes – little kids were going wild making pictures and stamping footprints and handprints all over the paper – Dorothy and Jay also did that! We then walked up to Boxhagener Strasse where there was an actual fleamarket and wandered around trying to find our treasures. I found a Diddl mug for 50cents because I’m sick of using these tiny tea cups they gave us for coffee. I like a mug worth!
It got soo hot today I wasn’t sure what to do so I had a shower and decided I just needed to ride for a while, and I needed to go back and research a bit further at Hackesher Markt, so I rode into Alexander Platz and sat reading with my feet in the fountain for a while, until I felt cool enough, and then headed over for my research before heading home. 30C. 30C!!! Love European summer!
Tags: Travel
marzipan_mad
Leave a Reply