Wilkommen in Berlin!

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After waiting a bit at the airport for Michael's sister and then trying to figure out the S-Bahn, we arrived at our hostel sometime before midnight and basically went straight to bed. The hostel is hands down the best I've ever stayed in so that was very exciting after such a long day.

Unfortunately we woke up to nasty weather the next day - it wasn't cold but it was very dreary and rainy. Since we were planning on spending most of the day in East Germany I told myself it was an appropriate reflection of the area's somewhat dark past. Anyway we first had a lovely 5€ breakfast downstairs consisting of eggs, cold cuts, breads, fruit..you name it! We were ghetto and even made sandwiches for later in the evening wrapped in napkins. Once finished our first stop was the East Side gallery - the largest still-remaining stretch of the Berlin wall. The entire thing is now painted over by artists from all over the world and is quite fascinating. Maybe this is morbid, but I kind of wish part of it were preserved as it was during GDR times in that all the bright colors and whatnot don't really capture the essence of what the wall really stood for.

We also managed to catch the shooting of some movie right on the river behind the wall - they were doing a scene in the water followed by a "rescue". Anyway, we continued northward until we hit Karl Marx Allee, the large thoroughfare in East Berlin formerly used for military displays and parades. Apparently there was a competition for the design, but whoever won was really a loser in my books. The buildings are gigantic and done in the Socialist Classicist "wedding-cake style". It reminded me a lot of Bucharest and other post-communist countries that have these hideous waste-of-space buildings everywhere.

Now it was raining quite a bit, so we decided it would be best to just book it to the Park Inn in Aleksanderplatz where the conference was being held to check in. The Aleksanderplatz plaza was entirely under construction and a big mess, and we were pleased that we had chosen to stay in our hostel and save a bit of money. Once checked in we headed toward the river to the area surrounding Nikolaikirche, Berlin's oldest church (1220s). To celebrate the city's 750th anniversary, the area was redesigned in a traditional style to capture what old Berlin was like, with cute little buildings and passageways. We stopped for a round of beer at an adorable little place called "Zum Nußbaum". It was the first time I got to put my embarrassingly feeble knowledge of German to use and successfully got us four Berliner Kindl and later the check.

Back at the Park Inn it was time to depart for our Fulbright-organized "museum tour". What this ended up being was a mere half-hour in the Pergamon museum followed by driving around and seeing a few cultural sights, but it was pleasant enough. The Pergamom museum's collections (or at least those that we saw in our short time) were stunning. Walking in one sees the reconstructed Pergamon altar, which according to Wikipedia is a "monumental construction built during the reign of King Eumenes II in the first half of the second century BC on one of the terraces of the acropolis of the ancient city of Pergamon in Asia Minor". Moving further we saw the Market Gate of Miletus dating from 120 AD. My favorite, however, was the Ishtar gate, the 8th gate to the inner city of Babylon. Dedicated to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, the Gate was constructed of blue glazed tiles "with alternating rows of bas-relief sirrush (dragons) and aurochs." Absolutely incredible.

After this it was a quick run back to the hotel to change into something a little nicer for the dinner and "networking" session with the rest of the Fulbright conference. Dinner was buffet-style, but woooonnnnderful. Just the selection of cheeses and pates and smoked fish were enough to put me in heaven. It is crazy how different central European flavors are from those of Iberia, so it was a nice change of pace. Washed down with many a glass of beer we were very happy and made friends with a whole slew of Germans who are going to the United States for research and study. By 9:30 we were about to explode from the food and drink and were exhausted, so we opted out of checking out the nightlife that evening and went back to the hostel to rest up for another full day.

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