Adventures and Settling Down

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Well, I have finally found a good place for internetting here at the University. The connection at my host family's house, while better than many of my friends', is still pretty ghetto slow and costs a lot more than in the states. So I should be able to update this much more often. Just for the record, I also very much appreciate emails.

So, lets see. The last blog was from the first day that I moved in with my host family. They are still an interesting bunch. My host dad, particularly is quite a character. He is a history buff and the whole wall of his office is covered with history books and diaries and pictures that he has collected over the years. He is an amazing treasure-trove of information and history. My german is improving so I can speak to him much more now (he does not speak particularly good English as my host mom does) I am very lucky with them as there are no family problems and I am quite independent and yet also a welcomed guest into the family. I also live in a really nice area of town that is right near two U-Bahn Stations (subways - Berlin has AMAZING subways). Also, I learned this week that two other students with the program live withing walking distance of me (or perhaps one Ubahn stop). That is really good, because as nice as my host family is, I do want to do things in the evening besides homework and sleeping.

The last few days since monday have been fairly quiet as far as touring and sightseeing. I have mainly been figuring out the best ways to get to my classes and where to eat and whatnot like that. The classes look very good. The german class looks amazing. The prof is very dynamic and knowledgeable and strikes a good balance between learning vokab and grammar as well as practicing speech and more fun activites. The econ class also looks very good. I'm quite excited about my art history class. We spent yesterdays class studying the history of Berlin and how its history has affected its layout. It is relatively young (about only 700 years old) and even then, it did not really become an important city until about 400 years ago. Unfortunatelly, there is not a great deal left here that is older than 60 years old since about 80% of the city was bombed out in the war. About half the city is a giant construction zone too. The DDR didnt really have much sense for architecture and so East Berlin is being like entirely rebuilt.

Ive learned a bit about Berlin life here too. Alcohol and fresh bread can be found just about anywhere. About every third or fourth store along the road sells one or both of those. There are even backeries in the subway! Its also amazing that one can buy alcohol almost anywhere. I have seen it sold at bookstores, quickmarts, pharmacys, and even from newsstands in the subway. The germans dont seem to drink soft drinks. Its intersting that there is so much alcohol here, and yet almost no wild public drunkenness or partying like is seen, particular at colleges in the states. They also have a much better view of Americans than I expected. I think this is particularly due to things like the Berlin Airlift and all the aid and help that the U.S. has given here since WWII. I think mainly they just dont like Bush. The papers are still covering Katrina and criticising him for not doing more. I'll be interested to know what the U.S. papers are making of it all.

I do have a few pictures here and a few more on my disposable camera that I can show. Things are going quickly and well here. I cant believe that it has been a week already.

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Photos

View from my room
This is looking North over towards the central part of the city. You can see a few of Berlin's very few tall buildings. Most of the city is like you see in front with apartment buildings of about 6 stories with little shops along the ground level.

View from my room II
This is looking South I think that the buildings are mostly low becuase the city is built essentially on a swamp and its really hard to build anything of any significant size.

Checkpoint Charlie
This is the real Checkpoint Charlie. For such an important place in 20th Century history, it is remarkably small and unimposing. I guess that is part of the irony.

Checkpoint Charlie II
Here is the sign too that goes with Checkpoint Charlie. Ive heard rumors that some people want to take down the sight as it has rather unpleasant memories associated with it. I dont know if this will happen though, the forces of capitalism are already at work around it and it seems that quite a bit of money is being made off of tourism there. There are museums and cafes and even actors dressed as U.S. soldiers that you can pose with.

Interesting Advertising
I am not really sure what this is, but there is a man sitting in a little booth in the center where all the arrows are pointing.

Cool Fountain
This is a really cool fountain relatively near our hotel. I am pretty sure that it was a gift from the Americans after the war. It is supposed to be symobolic of the world. It is pretty cool. I dont know if I could even come close to taking enough pictures of it.

Cool Fountain II
Here is another part of the fountain. There are little animals near the pyramaid.

Cool Fountain III
For some reason, the artist thought that H2SO4 was really important and needed its own little part of the fountain.

Kaiser Dom
This used to be a huge cathecral, built by the Kaiser before the first World War. It was mostly destroyed in teh war but left standing in memoory of its former greatness. There is a little museum in the front with stuff about it. Interestingly enough, the clock still works. That certainly doesnt do anything to dispel stereotypes of German punctuality.

Inside the Kaiser Dom
This is the ceiling of the museum inside the Kaiser Dom. It is where the entryway to the sanctuary used to be. You can see that the Kaiser was significant enough to the church to get his name (Wilhelm)written in gold above the door.