Wandering About / Herumziehend

Berlin seems to big and so small at the same time. I've been here for five days now and am starting to get a little bit more oriented, but learning this city is difficult. By learning I don't necessarily mean knowing which streets go where and which subway stops to get off at; I mean understanding how diverse Berlin is and beginning to understand how and why it functions. I will explain this later.

Until yesterday, I'd spent most of my time near my apartment in Kreuzberg (except for the night I went out to dinner with everyone in Mitte). It's not that I didn't want to explore, it was more that everything I could want or need is literally no further than within a three or four block radius. Oranienstraße is known for having lots of independent businesses, great restaurants, amazing cafes, and fantastic night life - what more could I need? I'm so close to Kottbusser Tor (which I've learned is referred to as "Kotti" by locals) and Gölitzer Bahnhof (called "Göli" by locals) that I have easy access to the U-Bahn (subway system), grocery stores, house ware stores, drug stores, everything! Even our Hampshire studio space is on my street, only a block down, and our language school is within walking distance for me.

Yesterday, after Sprachschule, I was planning on finding a book store where I could find an English dictionary and then heading home to have a low-key night in with some good homemade dinner and my Hausaufgaben (homework). When I left my class, though, I met up with some of the other Hampshire students - Jake, Jed, Nigel, and Xiyao - and we decided to go to Mitte for some lunch. We ended up at a really great little Turkish restaurant where we all got falafel, tea, and sat and chatted for a while. (I actually ended up meeting a girl from Canada there who seemed really nice. She's in Berlin alone for a year and has only been here for a few weeks. I invited her to eat with us, but she had gotten her food to go and was bringing it home for her host family. We exchanged email addresses, though, and maybe we'll get in touch and get to hang at some point.)

After lunch, we walked around Mitte a little bit and stopped off at Nigel and Jake's apartments for different reasons, and Xiyao went back to his place for the evening. Nigel, Jake, Jed and I decided that we were going to go to Potsdamer Platz and find the entrance to the Tiergarten (translates literally to "Animal Garden", but is Berlin's major park in the middle of the city). After a few S-Bahn and U-Bahn rides, we were in Potsdamer Plats (where we witnessed people setting up for Berlinale, which is the largest biannual film festival in Europe and begins tonight - link here - Daniel is trying to get us tickets to something for this weekend). We soon found the Tiergarten and headed inside. It was cold, but the park was nice. There are a lot of sculptures and monuments to see there. I'm looking forward to when the weather gets better and I can really walk around it and see everything in bloom.

We walked through the park for quite a while, and just as dusk was settling in we turned onto a path and saw the Siegessäule (Berlin Victory Column) straight ahead of us (if you feel like you've seen it in Wings of Desire, you have). I'd passed it in the car with Daniel on my first day, but now it was right in front of me and I couldn't wait to get closer and snag a better look. We saw it, but it was getting dark and was pretty cold and soggy outside. I decided that on a nicer day, I'd come back and get my touristy pictures of it (including myself in front of it).

The Victory Column from afar with Jake, Jed, and Nigel

The Victory Column from a little closer...

The Victory Column from much closer

I really want to see all that Berlin has to offer, but I also want to do it when I can really enjoy it and am not freezing my "Arsch" off. I've got some time here, I can afford to do that - but it also totally doesn't mean that I don't want to see it all. In fact, I made the poor guys trapse through the cold, wet park one more time so that we could go see the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) because they'd all seen it and I hadn't yet. By then it was getting pretty dark, though, and my toes were frozen. I took a couple of shots just on my phone, but will certainly be back on a warmer, sunnier day to get my fancy touristy shots and really take it in.

The Brandenburg Gate's back side (upon exiting the Tiergarten) 

The front side of the Brandenburg Gate

Now that it was really dark, I was pretty ready to go home and do my homework in the warmth of my room, but we were so close to Peter Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (which is so fascinating - google it and check it out if you're interested) that I had to see it for a second, even if it was so dark that I couldn't really see it at all. I will also go back to this in warmer daylight.

A very dark view out of the center of The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Other things I want to do are go on a tour of the Reichstag (which I looked into and they are booked all the way through March already, so I made a reservation for then), check out Checkpoint Charlie, see Hanz Haacke's Denkzeichen für Rosa Luxemburg, the Volksbühne Theater, the list goes on. For now though, I'm happy having days like this one where we just went out and explored. It's fun running into things unexpectedly and learning about the city bit by bit, Überraschung by Überraschung.

Today, Robert took us on a great tour of Kreuzberg, but I don't want to tell you about that without any photos. I'm going to retrace some of our steps tomorrow so that I can get further in depth about where I'm living, the history here, and (as I mentioned before) how and why it functions.

For now, Gina and her Mitbewohnerin (apartment-mate) Kate are coming here so that I can cook them dinner. I also have homework to do - with the help of my new English/German dictionary! It was on the top shelf - literally 10 ft. up - at the bookstore down the street so I had to go to the desk and say "Tut mir leid, aber ich bin zu kurz. Ich möchte ein Wörterbuch, das auf dem höchsten Rahmen ist. Können Sie bitte mir helfen?" The tall German dude gladly got it down for me and was very nice. He helped me practice my German for a few minutes as we had a conversation about the strangely shaped lightbulb that my housemate had sent me out to find.

Anyway, I'll write tomorrow about Kreuzberg and include photos.

Alles gute.

(R to L) Jake, Jed, and Nigel in Tiergarten
with the Victory Column behind them