The end...of my Berlin study abroad

Woo-hoo, my project is done! Check out my photo story on Stefan Kraul, a fashion photographer in Berlin. I also wrote a short profile on him, but I don't think it's posted to the Web site yet. Enjoy the slideshow!



Sorry I haven't written in a while. The past few days have been very busy, but not with anything particularly picture-worthy. I've spent waaayyy too much time in the hotel lately, but that's what happens when your hotel is also your classroom. Our project was due at noon yesterday, so I was working on it all day Monday. I literally did not leave the hotel except for 15 minutes to get some food to bring back for lunch. Later Monday night we ordered a pizza, which was an interesting experience in Berlin. The good news: it was delivered right to our hotel room. The bad news: it wasn't cut...weird.

After our projects were due yesterday, we ventured out for a relaxed late lunch at a biergarten in southeast Berlin on Lake Mugglesee. It was one of the most beautiful places I've been in Berlin. The biergarten was right next to the lake so there was a beautiful breeze. Even though it is technically within the city boundaries of Berlin, the woods all around made it feel very rural. Lot's of people were out sailing and windsurfing, and there were even swans in the lake!




After stuffing ourselves with the best German food I've had so far - bratwurst, sauerkraut, German potato salad and, of course, beer - we walked through a tunnel that went under the lake to relax in a beautiful nature area full of bike and hiking trails. A stop to get ice cream before getting back on the U-bahn nicely rounded out our day.

A colorful Sunday

A trip today to a giant outdoor flea market at Mauerpark exposed me to the vibrancy of Berlin. Although I didn't buy anything (except for a 2-Euro Bratwurst for lunch), I enjoyed walking through the market. People were selling everything from doorknobs and cassette tapes to screen-printed shirts and jewlery. In the open area of the park, people sat on the grass enjoying the warm day while children were entertained by inflatable jump houses, a balloon artist, a clown and a face painter. I also had fun experimenting with Hannah's 200mm zoom lens!

Members of the fire department helped children use fire hoses to knock over stacks of tin cans.

A man and woman sing as children look on during a free performance of drum and tribal music.

A boy stands near two people ordering at a food stand.

We're so legit

Having our first day completely free of responsibilities, Hannah and I made the most of it. We started the day by shopping around Hackescher Market where we also got lunch at a cafe. We found some good stores to look in, but nothing we could really afford. We both tried on some silly dresses at an upscale vintage store, but didn't buy anything.

After lunch we headed back through the Brandenburg Gate to the Reichstag Building, which is the home to Germany's governing body, the Bundestag. We had to wait about 50 minutes just to get in to take the elevators up to the Reichstag dome, but it was absolutely worth it. The views of the city were top-notch, and we also got a glimpse of members of parliament through the partially transparent dome.

Hannah and I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Tiergarten, where we saw people bike riding, out with their dogs, jogging and playing with their children. It also seemed quite the romantic location - we saw several couples very 'involved' with each other as we walked through the park!

Hannah and I were talking on the way home about how we feel like we're really comfortable in Berlin now. Although there obviously can still be language barriers, we feel very confident walking around, finding places and using the public transportation. As she likes to put it, "We're so legit."

A man rides his bike through the Tiergarten with his son sitting in front.

A man waits outside of the Reichstag building. Although the building is open daily, visitors sometimes wait more than an hour to enter and take an elevator to the Reichstag dome.

Visitors to the Reichstag building climb the spiral ramps to get panoramic views of the city from the Reichstag dome.

People take a break after climbing the ramp to the top of the Reichstag dome.

A fantastiche day

Thursday was another solid day in Berlin. In the morning we got to meet with Andrew Purvis, an international correspondent and bureau chief for TIME Magazine. In addition to giving us advice about breaking into international journalism, he also touched on ethics, safety and the future of journalism. His intern, Laura, was also there to talk with us.


Afterwards we went to check out Mercedes World, the largest Mercedes dealership in the world. It's a massive 4-story indoor dealership, complete with a cafe, fancy childrens play area and a towering waterfall flanked by two rock climbing walls. Dad, can I get one of these?



Then I went with a few people back to the gigantic KaDeVa department store. Instead of shopping, we went to the top floor and ate decadent desserts sitting next to a window overlooking the street. I got a whipped berry mouse dessert cup. There were champagne grapes in the mouse, and it was topped with various exotic fruits. It was delicious!


Later I went with a couple of people to the "Old Museum" (I know, they're very descriptive with their names) to see the Eygyptian collection, which included the famous bust of Nefertiti. Then back to the hotel for some laundry, blogging and bed!

Berlin unraveled

Here are some random tidbits about Berlin I've experienced, noticed, thought or wondered about:

Dogs
Berliners seem to love their dogs; they're everywhere here! I see all kinds running around: big and small, sitting in restaurants and bars, riding the subway, walking in stores. The dogs are so well behaved that most aren't even on leashes. They loyally follow their owners throughout the city, stopping at crosswalks, not running in the street, not barking at other dogs and not chasing anything. It's amazing.

I mentioned it to Sarah, our guide from the walking tour, and she had a theory that the dogs here are so well behaved here because of cultural reasons. She said that while Americans consider dogs part of their families – they have birthdays, sleep in the bed, get Christmas presents – Germans consider their dogs as just pets. While they love their pets, they also don't mollycoddle them and so the dogs are more submissive to their owners. It was an interesting insight.

Ticket Police
There's a lot of trust in Berlin. Pet owners let their dogs walk off-leash, parents let their kids take public transportation by themselves and there aren't any ticket takers or turnstiles to get onto the trams, trains and subway. The way the city enforces that people actually pay for public transportation is by doing random ticket checks.

Hannah and I got stopped on Tuesday when we were returning from David and Stefan's apartment. We both had our tickets and were fine, but one woman wasn't so lucky. The ticket police, as I call them, wear plain clothes and work in pairs. One gets on each end of a car and as it is moving between stops, they work their way in from the outside to the middle checking that you have an unexpired ticket. If you don't, you're in trouble!

My intro to high fashion

Hello!

So the past couple days I've been gloriously busy, mostly working on my photo story. The person who I'm focusing on is Stefan Kraul, a fashion photographer. I met him through his roommate, fashion design student David Ubl, who is the person my friend Hannah is doing her project on.

On Tuesday Hannah and I went to meet them for the first time. The day started off successfully as we managed to navigate the public transportation on our own. It was also the first time we got to ride the S-bahn (the above-ground train). We took the M4 to the S5 to the U1 to Neiderlandstrasse, and then we were there!

When we arrived at the Esmod International Fashion School, we were instantly transported into the world of high fashion. We got to see beautiful couture dresses, student clothing collections and luxury fashion costumes that were simply amazing.




After Hannah finished taking pictures at the design school, we went with David back to his apartment, a real swanky place just off of fashionable KuDam Strasse(similar to New York City's 5th Avenue). There I got to meet Stefan. I saw his photo studio, and on his computer he showed me some of the pictures he'd taken.


The next day, Wednesday, Hannah and I went to one of Stefan's photo shoots. It was in an empty, under-construction store and was of a fashion student's new clothing collection. I had so much fun being 'on set' at the shoot! I also got some amazing shots for my project. I'm meeting Stefan at least one more time this Saturday, because he's holding another photo shoot at his apartment.



In terms of group activities, we went Tuesday night to see the musical Glanzlichtera, really fun show that didn't seem to really have a plot. Instead it just ran through singing and dancing styles from different time periods. There was lots of crazy tap dancing, cool acrobatic acts and Vegas-style show girl numbers. It was very entertaining and a lot of fun! It seemed like it was senior citizen night though – the audience was packed with old folks.

After the show we went to a cool, completely graffitied place called Tachales, an eclectic building that houses artist galleries and work space, practice areas for bands and bars. It was originally a Nazi building, then a department store during the cold war, and then in the 1990s artists and squatters moved in. The city was going to reclaim the building, but its inhabitants protested and ended up staying there.

And last night, Wednesday, we walked to a super-cool bar. I don't even know the name of it, but it's nothing special to look at. You enter through a small, sliding, graffiti-covered door, and when you walk in, the walls are just bare concrete. There's one small bar and one big fluorescent light. The cool part is what you do there. Under the single, hanging fluorescent light is a ping pong table. For 5 euros, you can borrow a ping pong paddle and everyone plays at once. You all go around the table hitting the ball back and forth until it's down to two people and then they play one-on-one. The winner taps the paddle on the table, which is the signal to everyone that the game is going to start again. Simply incredible.

The daily life

I just wanted to post a few pictures of where I'm staying so those of you who are interested can see where I'm living for two weeks. My bed's the one next to the mirror in the second picture down; it's the one covered in stuff of course :-)

Delayed sunday update

Let me catch you up on yesterday (Sunday). It was such a long day that I didn't get a chance to post anything. We did a walking tour for most of the day through historic areas of downtown East Berlin. Lots of museums, famous buildings, communist and Nazi historical sights and lunch at the infamous Checkpoint Charlie between the East and West were on the agenda.


Following, we met with Isabelle and Stine Knispel at a Dunkin' Donuts in Potsdamer Platz. The two sisters were interested in our project, and we talked to them for over an hour about potential story ideas. They also told us about what it's like living in Berlin. The most interesting and profound thing they said was how they've had to grow up dealing with the guilt of the Holocaust. They expressed their fear that non-Germans will judge them for what past generations were responsible for, but kept reiterating that they knew it was only they who could change the future. It was very meaningful to me that they took the time to be with us and were so honest and open.


A memorial for the books burned during Hitler's rule

A photographer shoots a low-angle shot at a memorial for the prisoners of concentration camps

Tulips outside of international embassies next to the Brandenburg Gate

The historical buildings of Berlin are juxtaposed by constant growth and reconstruction

A low-angle shot from the memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe

Gypsy watch

Today has been fairly relaxed. We headed out from the hotel at 11 a.m. and took a bus to the center of the former West. Along the way we passed the Tiergarten, Berlin's version of NYC's Central Park, a beautiful place where Berliners are rumored to sunbath topless or naked. There's also a zoo there that I hope to go to before I leave.

In the city center we saw an incredible 14th-century church that had been bombed out in WWII but hasn't been restored to show the destruction of war. It was juxtaposed nicely with a modern church built right next too it.

While downtown we also checked out the massive and exceptionally nice KaDeWe department store and watched some street performers break dance.


Something you have to watch out for in the touristy areas is the gypsies. The women will walk up to you holding a baby or with their children and ask you if you speak English. You have to look right at them and forcefully say "nein!" (German for no) so they leave you alone. They are just trying to get money from you and/or have their children pickpocket you! We had to deal with a lot of them today and yesterday.

From there we headed to the former American sector and walked through a neighborhood where Freeman had lived with his family while his father was stationed at the air force base. We also went to a small museum on the allied forces that occupied Berlin.

In Alexanderplatz on the way back to the hotel I saw my first grillmaster! I've been excited to see one of these since Freeman told us about them. They're basically the mobile, one-man band of fast food



I'm just back at the hotel now, relaxing before searching for dinner and going to a see a band. Talk to you later!

Wonderwall

Ahh, our first full day in Berlin. Today we biked about 20 kilometers (7 miles) with Fat Tire Bike Tours as part of our crash-course introduction to Berlin. And there were a few near-miss crashes today between bike and curb, bike and person, bike and pole, and bike and car. Luckily we all made it through the 5-hour tour in one piece and got to experience some genuinely 'real' parts of Berlin with our wonderful tour guide Marielle.



Of course one of the highlights was visiting parts of the original Berlin Wall, which was virtually completely covered with graffiti.



We covered a lot of ground today, visiting everywhere from busy, commercial Alexanderplatzt to the eccentric and somewhat seedy Gorlitzer Park, which was full of Turkish immigrant families barbecuing and Rastafarians smoking weed.



For lunch we had delicious Durum Kabobs - sort of similar to a gyro, but wrapped like a burrito - at a little restaurant in the former West.



Later that evening (it stays light here till about 9 p.m.), Professor Freeman took us to an outdoor carnival he had found out about online. After walking through another questionable park, we found the fair in all of its muddy glory.



Boasting the typical mix of spinning rides, midway games and various fried foods, the carnival was a photo-op gold mine. Or at least it was until the sky decided to open up and give us a good dousing.





We all basically sacrificed keeping ourselves dry for the sake of protecting our precious camera equipment; always a must. But a hot shower and delicious meal at the Chinese restaurant around the corner from our hotel ended the night nicely for us.

The longest day ever

I'm in Berlin, and man am I tired!

My three flights - Orlando to Philadelphia, Philly to Brussels, Brussels to Berlin - were all on time and essentially uneventful, but still ended up totaling 24 straight hours of traveling. Wow. And that only includes about two or three hours of sleep on the planes. Surprisingly, the overseas leg of the trip was on a pretty small plane. There was only one aisle with three narrow seats on each side. Every other overseas flight I've taken has been in a wide-body plane with two aisles. But at least I was sitting in the aisle seat next to two nice, slim women so I wasn't too squashed. The women spoke some other language, but I wasn't exactly sure what it was. It sounded like a cross between French and German. Finnish maybe?

After arriving in Brussels, I had a 6-hour layover until my flight to Germany. I spent some of my time taking pictures in the Brussels airport.

The international terminal had some interesting, industrial-looking architecture


Travelers heading to customs


Part of a Lego display at the airport


After an incredibly long, though successful, 24 hours I'm at the Transit-Loft Hotel in Berlin. The hotel is in a renovated factory on a quiet street near Alexanderplatz, which is a large plaza that was the center of the former East. Although I took a cab from the airport (hey, I was tired, and my bags were really heavy!), the hotel is right near the above-ground tram that takes you right to Alexanderplatz.

When I got to the hotel around 6 p.m. Berlin time (noon Florida time), the group had already gone to dinner at the famous, outdoor Prater Biergarten so I went to find the place by myself.

The walk was really nice even though I didn't know where I was going. I passed beautiful tree-lined streets with cute restaurants, shops, outdoor markets and parks. There were also a ton of dogs walking around. They all seemed to be with an owner, but barely any had leashes. They were very well behaved!

I was so relieved to finally arrive at the beer garden; about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. The place was really nice and relaxing - it literally was a huge outdoor space in the middle of the city with picnic tables, trees strung with white lights, a playground for kids and an outdoor amphitheater. Around the perimeter of the gravel covered Biergarten you could buy food and beer, and by 7:15 I was enjoying my first German brat and beer, mmmm!

After taking the scenic way home (read: we got lost) and showering, everyone is ready to pass out, and I plan to join them.

Goodnight!