Last night I went out with a bunch of people from my class on a walking tour of Potdamer Platz. This is a part of a square in Berlin that had been completely demolished in WWII and rebuilt by an architect named Piano. I forget his first name, but he's Italian. Julia? Do you know his full name? He designed most of the new buildings for the Platz. Then the Berlin Wall went directly through its middle. After the tour, almost my entire class went out for dinner and we all had a very good time. We all exchanged phone numbers and emails. :D So I am making lots of friends, don't worry! All of us are here by ourselves, so everyone wants to make new friends!
Tonight I met up with the Lycoming Berlin May Term people! Yay! They arrived yesterday. We went out to Porter Bier Garten for our Stammtisch! For those of you who don't know, a Stammtisch is a table (tisch) that is always the same one (Stamm) at a specific bar or something. So, our good ol' Lyco Stammtisch group went to this amazing Bier Garten (Beer garden) that was priced nicely within everyone's budgets and still quite delicious. I had a Rostbrotwurst (roasted brotwurst) and a nice tasty black beer (schwartzbier) and a Gurke (pickle)! Quite nice. Dr. Cagle and Heather and Kristina Altoff were there along with a few other acquaintances I know. So not only am I making good friends in my class, I now have some good ol' Lyco buddies to catch up with if I'm feeling ultra lonely.
But tomorrow my class made plans to go on Goethe Institut's Bode-Museum tour. Bode-Museum is an art museum in the Berlin museuminsel (museum island). It is quite literally an island full of museums. During the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century, the Kaiser of Germany wanted to make Germany "the new Rome", so he had a bunch of museums built on a large island in the middle of the river through Berlin and brought in tons of artworks and artifacts from all over the world, and especially the Middle East and Greece. After this Goethe Institut has another tour set up, but the Brazilian (Saulo) wanted to take us all to see Check Point Charlie at the Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall), so we're going out for lunch and heading out there.
After that, I'm going to meet my Stuart at the airport! Yay! He's coming to visit until Monday, well...his plane leaves Tuesday morning. Then hopefully soon I'm going to a Russendisko (Russian discotheque/dance club) with the Berlin May Term!
Ok, well, that was a long update, so I'm only going to add a few pictures. I have to get up sort of early for the museum tour tomorrow, so I want to get to bed at a reasonable time (before 12:30? haha). Ok, just a few pictures. So, I had just gotten to the Temple of Debod in Madrid!
The lovely view from the Temple. That in the background is the Royal Theatre and the Palace!
And we could see this awesome looking amusement park! We didn't go to it, though...
I don't thinks this was a street performer, but it was still cool. I think there was a professional photographer there taking the picture. It was super funny. He stood stone still (haha, nifty alliteration) in that pose for a good long time with all kinds of people walking past and looking and taking pictures. Including myself and Stuart. haha.
Then we noticed a HUGE crowd of people just flooding the streets so that cars couldn't get through. So we decided to follow them to see what was up.
Like I said before, it was Madrid's 200 anniversary. There was some kind of celebration in the middle of the city. We didn't stay for the event because we had planned to meet his friend Markus at this club:
Yes, the name is exactly what you think it is. But according to Stuart it's a really hip jazz club. Unfortunately, the plans got mixed up and Markus didn't realize we actually were going to meet. Oh wells.But now it's getting late and I think I accidentally might've got a virus, so I'm going to reset everything on my computer now before I go to bed. Ok, goodnight!
2 comments:
I did not realize that Madrid was only 200 years old?? I thought it was established much earlier.
I imagine you will hear some 80's disco music at the Russian disco. That should be a lot of fun!
Renzo Piano. hahaha, I'm reading this before work, and I don't have time to read the rest after that sentence. But there you go. love you!
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