What an Amazing Conference (Thur. and Fri.)

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Sorry everyone, this is gonna be a very long one, so if you don't want to read all of it I'll sum it up.... It was a great conference and I had a blast in Berlin! =) Now for the rest of you, here are the details... enjoy =)...... After having finally finished writing about the first two days I've realized it's going to be really long. I don't want to have to cut anything out 'cause I'm so excited about what I wrote, so I decided to break it up into a few journal entries so it doesn't look too overwhelming. Skim it if you want, only read parts or if you have a lot of free time read it all. =) Hope you all enjoy.. there will be more coming. (If you want to know more or have questions on certain things just leave me a comment or send me an e-mail)

links you might like

Map of the U and S-bahn stations
Pictures of Berlin - I highly recommend checking this one out. The pictures are really neat. There's also more information about the different places than I could give. My favorite of all of them was the Panoramic selection. Would really look at those. It's a fun site.
Official Berlin Website(in english)
Americans for Informed Democracy- This is the homepage for the organization that put on the conference

Thur. Night in Berlin: arriving and meeting up with Melissa

I caught the train here in Trier a little after 10. The train ride was uneventful... that's always a good sign though. Got into Berlin, Zoologische Garten, at a little after 6. From there I got out my directions to get to the Youth Hostel, didn't look too complicated. When I got off the train, I followed the signs to the S-bahn station. Of course there was construction. Due to the construction I couldn't catch the s-bahn I needed. So I walked around to see if I could find anyone to ask how I could get to where I needed to be and found a sign instead. I was sooo glad I knew German. I didn't really feel like getting lost in Berlin. Some of the others at the conference said they had ridden around on the s-bahn for a couple hours trying to figure it out. YUCK! Anyway, I made it to Nikolaussee (the s-bahn station) without any trouble. The problem then came in trying to follow the directions on how to find the hostel from there. I ended up walking through this very dimmly lit (it was already dark by this time) pathway through a kind of wooded area. Nobody was around. I then came to the intersection and crossed the street I was supposed to and it said the hostel would be visible to the left. Looked left and what did I see? A deserted street. There weren't even many buildings around. So I walked left and eventually found it. The hostel was nice. There were four of us to a room. When I got there Natalie, from England, was already there. I dropped off my stuff and called Melissa, we had planned to meet up for dinner that night. I invited Natalie to come along. As we were headed out another roomy, Lauren, arrived. Lauren's from California, but is studying in Italy for the year. She came out with us too. We took the s-bahn back to Zoologische Garten and met up with Melissa there. She then led us to this really neat cafe. The bathroom there was crazy. There were mirrors on the wall and then what wasn't were decorated in cool colors. It's a single bathroom, but when I walked in it took me a while to figure out whether there was another door to walk through or where I should go. The mirrors caused me to be very disoriented. It took me a min. or so to finally see the toilet in the corner. It was so weird. I'll get the name of the place from Melissa. If you're ever in Berlin you have to go check out that bathroom. =) After we ate and chilled for a while, Lauren, Natalie and I headed back to the hostel. Our fourth roomate Jenny arrived a little after us. She's also from the States (don't remember where) and is studying in England for the year.

Friday: First day of the conference, evening at the Bundestag and Potsdamer Platz

The conference didn't start til the afternoon, so we just kinda chilled in the morning. The conference started off with an introduction to the organization. I won't write about that here, if you're interested in the organization you can visit the link above. I do want to say though that Seth Green, the founder of the organization is only in his mid-twenties! I was suprised at how young he his. It's neat to see that young people really can do great things. On that note... there were around 140 of us at the conference. The majority of us were Americans who are studying in Europe, but there were also students from England, Scottland, Germany, Taiwan, Greece, and more. The level of school was different too. Some of us were still working on our bachelor degrees and were just studying abroad for a semester or two. Others were completing their master programs in Europe. Some were even working on their Ph.D. And some were in Europe on different kinds of scholarships such as the Fulbright. It was such a diverse group of people.

After the introduction we broke up into small groups to get to know each other. We were divided into groups depending on our first name. You won't believe what happened in my small group... my group had about 15 people in it. We each had to introduce ourselves, where we're from, what we're majoring in, ect. ect. A couple people after me this guy named Rex introduced himself and said he was from Fresno, CA. That took me a little by suprise. I mean from all the different places that we were all from at this conference that two of us in our group were from the same area was already cool. Then more people introduced themselves. I kept thinking though that Rex looked familiar, but I couldn't place him. After the small group broke up I went up to him and asked what high school he had gone too. He graduated from Hoover. I told him I was curious 'cause I was from Kerman. His response, "Oh my gosh, I know your dad!" Took me completely by suprise but I was finally able to place him. It turns out we had met each other 4 1/2 years ago through YFU. Before I went to Germany in 2001 I had a pre-departure orientation in May I think. It was down in the LA area. Rex, who went by a different name at that time, was going to Denmark for the summer and had to go to the orientation too. He didn't have a ride down there, so he carpooled with my dad and me. I hadn't talked with him since that weekend. And here we ended up being at the same conference in Berlin almost 5 years later! Neither of us could believe it. What a small world!! He's studying in Spain this year. We've both decided that we definetely have to keep in touch this time.

We had one panel discussion Fri. It was really really good. The theme of the panel was: Watching Us, Watching You: U.S. and Foreign Media Coverage:How are U.S. domestic and foreign policy issues portrayed by foreign media? How are other countries' foreign and domestic policies viewed in U.S. media? What are the major differences and how do they impact the way that we understand one another? The three speakers where: Malte Lehming (German), foreign editor and former Washington Bureau Chief of the newspaper, Der Tagesspiegel; Daryl Lindsey (American), Editor of Der Speigel Online, English Edition. He's also worked as a journalist for the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" and "Deutsche Welle" (both German newspapers); James Mann (American), former diplomatic correspondent and foreign affairs columnist for the L.A. Times. He worked mainly in China and now writes books. Lots of different things they talked about that I couldn't possibly re-cap all of it. (And you guys would probably shoot me for making this even longer) One of the things they pointed out in the difference between journalism in the US and in Germany was that American newspapers are very good about presenting the facts, but not so great in the commentary and analysis. German papers on the other hand are very good about commentary and analysis but aren't great on follow up. James Mann said, "Europeans don't want to go out and see what the weather is. They want to sit and comment on it." All three speakers agreed too that European news tends to be more emotional than US news. It's all still news but just different ways of approaching it. What was also something I found very interesting.. Mr. Lehming said that the US is in European papers much more than Europe is found in American papers because things that happen in the US affect more directly things going on in Europe than the other way around. However, despite the difference in coverage, he found Americans had the same amount of knowledge of Europe as Europeans have of the US. There's soo much I want to write, but I'm gonna leave it at that. It was such an interesting pannel discussion which led to a great small group debriefing. Some very interesting conversations.

After the Small group debriefing we had a workshop on the U.S. in the World Guide: Talking Global Issues with Americans. It's hard sometimes as a person who's very interested in global issues to find others in the US that are interested too or even willing to listen when we want to talk about the issues. So how do we get people to become interested? The point of the workshop was how you start off the converstation. The beginning sets the mood for the entire discussion. Even single words can decide if a person is going to listen or not. As an example Seth used a "Death Tax" vs. "Property Tax". If you asked a person if they thought we should have a death tax and then gave a definition of it, most people would be against it. However, if you asked them if we should have a property tax and then gave the same definition as for the death tax, a lot more people would be in favor of it. The only difference was one word and yet the reception of it was completely different because the mind-set that words can convey is powerful. So as we all go back home and want to talk to others about experiences we had abroad we should always start the conversation on a positive footing. The conversation will be more constructive. It's also important to begin with a big idea that the audience can relate too. In today's world it's shown that Americans respond better in terms of interdependence. If we can draw speakers into a specific issue or topic by first relating it to the speaker, they'll be much more receptive. All of it is very true, but I had never thought of it. We talked about other dos and don'ts and things that can improve communication of experiences with others. One thing Seth said during the workshop was that when we go home we're going to have an incredible amount of experiences and issues and world views to share with everyone when we get back home that it could be overwhelming for those who haven't shared similar experiences but that we really want to share them with. When things become overwhelming people tend to pull the blinds, it's just to much and they stop listening. It's very very true. It's hard going back and not being able to share my stories and experiences with everyone but I feel that I may be better equipped this time to help keep my listeners from feeling overwhelmed and still be able to convey what I want to. I really hope so. It was a very very useful workshop. (I also met lots of students that will be in the same boat as me, so if it doesn't work we have each other to share our stories with).

After dinner we took the s-bahn to "Unter den Linden" and walked from there to the Bundestag building (the equivalent of the house of congress). I had already been to the Bundestag a couple of times, but it was the first time I had had a chance to walk in the dome. That was pretty cool. I was a little disa ppointed though. The dome is such a big deal partly cause you're supposed to be able to look in on the parliament from above. It's open as a symbol that the parliament is for the people and the people have a right to know what the parliament does. However, you could hardly see into the parliament room cause of the rails. You could kind of lean over and say, "ooohh... there are a couple seats". I was just expecting more. Although when you leave you walk by glass doors that show the parliament room, so I guess in that way you can still look in on them while they're in session. After that the group kinda broke up and people went to do differnt things in the city. Natalie and I stuck together and joined a small group that was headed to Potsdamer Platz. Along the way we stopped by the Monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe that was put in near Potsdamer Platz. It opened June 25th of this year. It was quite contested as the area it's in is the area of Berlin that is really the symbol of moving forward and then to put a memorial there some say holds it back. There is also some debate as to whether the design is really a memorial. It's a fairly large area that the memorial is on. It's a bunch of cement blocks in rows. The blocks are of varying heights. We walked by at night and took some time to walk among the cement blocks. At some points the blocks were towering above me. I didn't walk among them for long. In the dark with them towering over me (and walking alone) it felt quite suffocating (I think even worse than walking in a cemetary). After that we stopped by an s-bahn station on the way to Potsdamer Platz. The walls were made of marble, the marble that had once made up Hitler's office. (I think it was Anhalter bhf, but I'm not positive). Apparently the soviets did that to kind of spite Hitler. His office is now a subway station. After that we finally made it Potsdamer Platz and found a restaurant/cafe to sit in and warm ourselves. It was nice to just hang out and chat. Time flew by and we didn't leave until after 1am. It took us about 30-45 min. to get back to Nikolassee. It turned out to be a late night, but well worth it.

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Photos

Inside the Dome
Picture taken from the inside of the Dome at the Bundestag building