Out and About: March 2015

March was non-stop.  I was totally kaputt by the time Spring Break rolled around, but it was totally worth it!

First, we celebrated Claire’s birthday by visiting the Mortiz Fiege Brewery in Bochum.  It. Was. Fantastic.  If you ever find yourself in Bochum, definitely check it out.  The tour is entirely in German, but you get lots of samples on the tour, and it is pretty educational.  Best part – at the end, you’re taken to the top of the Mortiz Fiege tower, where you are given FREE CURRYWURST and all the beer you can drink for an hour.  We made some new friends and had a really good time.

Currywurst!

The next weekend we made a trip down the Rhine River to the Drachenfels castle.  They were having a light festival of some sort, so the castle was all lit up and really cool to walk through.  On the hike up the mountain to the castle, we stopped and grabbed the last gluhwein of the year (it was delicious) and were able to take in some breathtaking views.  We also encountered a Nibelungenhalle that someone had built in honor of Richard Wagner.  His famous Ring opera focuses on the Rhine, and I’d taken a class on it in college so it was a fun little thing to see.

Majestic Stag at Drachenfels

March’s main event, however, was the Berlin Seminar!  We went to Berlin the weekend before to get some more sightseeing in.  I love Berlin because no matter how often you go, there’s always something new to see.  Our favorite was the Turkish market, where we ate THE ENTIRE TIME.  We split a lot of plates of flavorful, unbelievable food.  Seriously, it was a major highlight.  When you can go to a Turkish market in Germany, GO!

At this point I’d been tutoring in Herne, and my tutoree’s mom made me some German cheesecake to take with me. Perfect pre-Berlin breakfast!

One of the many Turkish market plates. I had to pay 50 cents extra for all the forks.

We found a Mexican restaurant! Claire can’t believe it!

Y’all remember Angry Chicken in Kreuzberg? We sure did, and you bet we went back, this time for some SUPER ANGRY wings.

This is the best doner I’ve ever had in my whole life. I have 35 pictures of it on my phone. I’m not kidding.  Pro tip: if you go at 3 on Thursday morning, you don’t have to wait in line.

The Seminar itself was really great – there were so many opportunities to see old friends – who I met way back in September before we were flung all over the country, at the Fulbright events in Hamburg and Munich – as well as meet new people (Fulbrighters from all over Europe were invited as well as Germans who would be going to America in the fall).  In addition to educational things where we could exchange ideas about what we’d been researching/teaching, there were several receptions and parties for all of us to cut loose.

After Berlin, instead of coming back to Bochum, I flew to Paris, where I met up with Elise (college friend who came to Germany for Christmas markets).  She had never been before, which meant I got to play tour guide and send her to some of my favorite places.  Highlights: duck and potatoes around the corner from our hostel in Montmartre (still dream of it), Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, the Rodin Museum, and shopping for wine in Rue Cler (the shop owner gave us awesome wine suggestions, and we finally settled on one that was within our price range and described as “amicable”).

I always knew Elise was a thinker

We then took a very interesting car-sharing ride to Arles, where our friend Carissa was staying with her French students.  They were on a Spring Break exchange, and the timing was too perfect.  We spent the night playing Settlers of Catan (we are cool) and catching up.  The next day, we went to Versailles with one of the French teachers and ate dinner (duck again – soooooo good y’all) at a host teacher’s house.  It was so unbelievably lovely, and so great to see them in Europe!  Our hosts in Arles were so welcoming and kind.  Sunday I took the train through Belgium back to Bochum, and had one more week of work before my epic Spring Break adventure.

Looking for Freedom

This year is a big year in Germany for many reasons (Weltmeisters!  Whaddup!), one of the biggest reasons being the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Originally I didn’t really think anything of it as far as celebrating, but then the Tuesday before the anniversary Susanna texted me and was like, would you want to come to Berlin with me and Gabby this weekend?  It was a whirlwind spontaneous trip, but probably one of the most fun and memorable weekends I’ve had so far.

When someone who says this invites you to go to Berlin with them for the weekend (or to do anything with them ever), you don’t say no.

 

We left Dortmund at 8 am on Saturday morning, and due to lots of traffic jams didn’t make it there until 3 pm.  But we were greeted by sunshine and a city filled with really fantastic energy.  We stored our luggage in the Alexanderplatz Bahnhof and off we went.

How we feel about Deutsche Bahn strikes, insane traffic, and questionable music choices

 

After lunch/dinner in Nikolaiviertel we walked down Unter den Linden to the center of the action: the Brandenburg Gate.  The city had giant screens posted along the old border showing scenes from the building of the wall and those from the night of November 9, 1989.  They also set up a “Lichtgrenze” – a huge light-up balloon installation – to show where the Berlin wall used to stand.  At the Brandenburg Gate, different organizations were giving out a ton of free swag, and the west side of the gate had a huge stage with musical acts going.  We walked along the Grenze past the Holocaust memorial toward Checkpoint Charlie.

Source (this page has a couple of nice videos showing different parts of the Lichtgrenze)

Party Time at Brandenburg Gate

Other side of the gate, and our first glimpse at the Lichtgrenze

Holocaust Memorial

First Gluhwein of the season at Potsdamer Platz

Checkpoint Charlie

 

We were insanely lucky that our hostel was only a block away from the East Side Gallery, so day two of our Berlin weekend began at 9 as we cruised along the east side of the wall.  I’d never been there before, and I’d never been particularly keen to see it, but I’m so glad we went!  It’s such a cool art installation, and we were very lucky that we went so early in the day, because there were minimal crowds that we had to navigate through!

One of my favorite murals

It’s famous

These two…

Shenanigans

After the East Side Gallery we had breakfast in the Kreuzberg district (seeing any repeat patterns from my last Berlin trip?).  No longer hangry, we went back to Unter den Linden to visit the Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle’s temporary Contemporary African Art exhibit.  It was a small exhibit that mostly dealt with cultural perceptions and differences that the artist encountered moving from Benin to the Netherlands.   It was relateable and interactive, and I’m glad we were able to catch the exhibit before it left Germany.

Breakfast at Bateau Ivre

The Meschac Gaba exhibit included a library

 

Our last stop was Angry Chicken in Kreuzberg.  Some Aussies we met in the hostel Saturday night recommended it, and they definitely knew what they were talking about.  It’s a tiny little joint on Oranienstrasse but their food is outta this world.  Noms.

By the time we were done eating, it was time to head back west to the Ruhrgebiet.  We spent just a little over 24 hours in Berlin, but it was amazing to see how much the country has changed since reunification.  It was also amazing to see how abrupt and disruptive the wall was (not to mention the oppression it represented).  Usually you’re kind of conscious of where the wall stood, but seeing the lichtgrenze in places like the middle of the road helped to put a few things in perspective.  Not to mention the lichtgrenze was totally fluid; you could just jump from one side of the balloons to the other like people two decades ago could’ve only imagined.

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For further reading, here are a few articles on Germany 25 years after the fall:
Washington Post on the continuing divide between East and West
Time: Germany’s Wall that Didn’t Fall
Washington Post: Walls still standing
Washington Post: Three Generations Reflect on the Wall
Buzzfeed: Germans who love the Hoff (NRW makes an impressive showing, and my own beloved Bochum is represented at number 13!)

Ich bin kein Berliner

I went to Berlin the last week in September.  Again, I apologize for my extreme tardiness and promise to try to get better.

Berlin! Berlin! Berlin!  Woohoo!  Not only was this my first really big Fulbright adventure, it was also special because I was meeting up with my dear college friend Madi, who was finishing up an epic European vacation in Germany.  She’d already been to Dublin, Liverpool, Salzburg, and Munich.  Mad props to her, as she not only planned this trip at whirlwind speed with tour guides in every city but Salzburg and Munich, but she also let me drag her around Berlin with aching feet to see some of the best of what the city has to offer.  I’d been feeling a little overwhelmed as of late, as I was still trying to awaken those parts of my brain that once knew German after being here a month (very frustrating) and to walk into the hostel and see her lovely face was just what I needed!  Not to mention Berlin is a cool, funky, quirky city – and Madi is one of the coolest, funkiest, and quirkiest people I know.  A recipe for fun if I ever heard of one!

Sadly the only picture we took of ourselves on this trip, but I think it accurately captures our excitement

We both got to the hostel around 11 on Friday morning, and after throwing our luggage in the baggage room we immediately set out to explore the city.  We started at Alexanderplatz, where we snacked on currywurst (an original Berliner dish, but rumor has it the best currywurst in Germany is in the Ruhrgebiet.  Let’s be honest, in the search for the best currywurst, everyone wins) and checked out their baby Oktoberfest stalls.  From there, we set out to the Museums Insel, which houses a ton of museums on one little island on the Spree River.  Our object was the Pergamon Museum, but as the line was ridiculously long we decided to book those tickets online and opt for another place.  We went instead to the Neues Museum, which contrary to its name houses very old things.  We spent our early afternoon looking at Egyptian mummies and German artifacts from the Stone and Iron Ages.  Old things are cool.

After that we hopped over to the Nikolaiviertel for lunch (which has quite a few pretty affordable German restaurants) to rest our feet and recharge.  We then checked into our hostel, recharged a little more, and then were back out into the city.  This time we headed further east to the area around Potsdamer Platz to check out the Brandenburger Tor, the Reichstag (if you want a tour, reserve ahead of time!), the Holocaust Memorial, and the memorial just across from the Brandenburg Gate to those who lost their lives trying to cross the wall.   I’d been to the Holocaust Memorial on a previous study abroad excursion, but it was especially haunting being there at night – a great expanse of dark, towering blocks in the middle of the lit-up city.  Unfortunately we were unable to see the exhibit they have underneath the memorial, but it looks very cool and maybe the next time I’m in Berlin I can go.  After seeing the sights, we ate dinner at Potsdamer Platz, and then it was time for bed.

Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial at night with the Reichstag in the background – please excuse the terrible iPhone picture quality

Saturday was super packed with more museums, but they were awesome!  First up was the Topography of Terror museum, which chronicles the history and development of the Nazi police state.  It’s not really a museum, I guess, since it doesn’t actually house artifacts from that time, but rather has a timeline of events accompanied by photos, but they also have great interactive stations where you can listen to testimonials from that time.  The building itself is on the grounds of some of Nazi security headquarters, and right outside is part of the Berlin Wall.  During our visit, part of the Berlin Wall exhibit included information on the siege of Warsaw and Polish resistance against the Nazis.

After the museum we walked the couple of blocks to see Checkpoint Charlie and the buzz that surrounds the entrance point to the former American sector.  On my previous visit to Berlin, I went to the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie Museum – definitely worth the visit if for no other reason than it holds (among other very serious and important artifacts) David Hasselhoff’s light-up “Looking for Freedom” jacket.  He helped tear down the wall, you know.  On this visit we didn’t have time to stop by.  Instead we went to a fabulous Mexican restaurant in the Kreuzberg district.  It. Was. So. Good.  And that is saying something in Germany, as Mexican food here is usually extremely disappointing.  Kreuzberg is also a super cool district; on our way there we passed a ton of cool coffee shops, bars, boutiques, and restaurants.  Kreuzberg definitely lives up to its reputation of being one of the most multicultural, diverse neighborhoods in Berlin.

Fed and rested, we then went to the Jewish Museum, which is not far from our lunch spot.  I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect coming into this experience; I’d heard quite a lot about it just from the German classes I’d taken over the years.  It chronicles the history of Jews in Germany for two millennia.  There were several great exhibits about Jewish women in Germany, and the museum does a great job of focusing on individual and family history in order to describe Jewish life in Germany throughout the centuries, highlighting the tensions as well as the harmonies.  Also, the direction in which you should walk in order to make the most of the experience and take things in chronologically was clearly laid out, which is something that I personally really enjoy in a history museum experience.  Great exhibits are often ruined by my confusion/indecisiveness on where to go next.  This was not one of them!

After the Jewish Museum we scurried back to the Museumsinsel, as we had ordered 6 pm tickets to the Pergamon Museum.  This is probably one of my favorite museums ever, because the Germans have taken many great monuments from the Mediterranean and rebuilt them inside the museum, my personal favorite being the Ishtar Gate.  It’s crazy.  Crazy awesome.  As most of you probably know, I’m a total history geek, and nothing has ever really made me feel the weight of history totally overwhelm me like walking through that thing.  I don’t really know what in particular makes me love it so much.  It’s kind of depressing, too, since most of the rest of the gate is sitting in storage in a museum thousands of miles of away from its original location.  I don’t know.  But it’s still so huge, and just walking under it and thinking about other people who have seen it and walked through it and that that was in like 500 BC.  It’s just amazing.  And I love it.  So there you go.

Ishtar Gate. What dreams are made of.

Pergamon was the last item on our agenda; after that we relaxed at the hostel before going out with some other Fulbrighters who live in Berlin.  And in appropriate Berliner fashion, we grabbed Döner and pommes to cap off our night and our weekend.

Obligatory Brandenburger Tor photo