adam

yesterday nick and i explored kastanienallee in prenzlauer berg. it felt like nolita or soho--sort of like the east village but overly gentrified with designer boutiques. it's a really pretty neighborhood, and it's filled with really pretty people. we did a little window shopping, and then some real shopping. we stopped at a record store and talked to the clerk for almost an hour about german history, german-american relations, the second world war, the cold war, the EU, and whatever else fit into that hour. i think he was a little crazy, but he was really nice. i bought five records and nick bought a dvd of madonna's immaculate collection music videos.

german television is a trip.

german television shows and commercials like to use a wide variety of music clips to infuse its entertainment. it reminds me of mtv's use of music--short, teaser clips of well known songs that draw in viewers. to be honest, i'd have to compare it side by side to some american mtv shows to know exactly what it is that is so different, but there is definitely something unsettling in the airwaves of this country when i'm hearing limp bizkit songclips on soccer commercials. even bavarian polka-folk songs for ham commercials become a little much after a while. and if i hear a two second clip of fatboy slim's "praise you" one more time, i will buy an immediate lufthansa return ticket.

nick and i just finished watching an episode of "frauentausch," which translates to "wifeswap." it was pleasantly just like our version at home. one of the moms had terrible hair and wore an ecko hoodie, and the other was constantly crying and had an "energy stone." ahh, just like home.

speaking of terrible hair, i have one more complaint about germany that i just need to get out: any concept of german style or fashion is totally wrong and perhaps too far gone to help. their clothing consists of soccer-influenced track jackets that say "brasil" or even "deutschland," blue jeans that have any number of problems (of which i should make a separate paragraph), and those ugly armani exchange tshirts that the store in soho puts in the display windows but that nobody actually buys. it's such a shame. i thought europe was fashion forward!

personal body style is an additional warzone. young girls put on just as much makeup as the american teenage hos do, so there's nothing in that arena i can really point out specifically about that... but the men's hair styles have GTG. you know those guidos who line up outside sahara east? the ones with hair that can only be described as a combination of:



yeah, there's too much of those. please please please don't get me wrong--i love being in berlin. this city is so cool, and i'm really excited for my program to start and to hang out with the other people in my program. let's just say i'm still going through a sort of culture shock.





bis später,

adam

the rain is really getting to me. this city is pretty depressing, and it doesn't help that since my program hasn't started, nobody is here. a friend who is also in the program flew in today, but is leaving early tomorrow for a mini trip around europe until orientation starts on february 1. being here with nick is nice, but i need something to do, you know?

yesterday we ate at a bougie café by the gendarmenmarkt. what's really strange, and at the same time impressive, about this city is that much of the historical sites have been rebuilt after the war. the structures in the gendarmenmarkt were originally erected in the 18th and 19th centuries, but because of massive destruction, they're all partially or fully renovated.

another example is potsdamer platz. the area dates back to the 17th century, but it's seen its share of changes. hitler's chancellery was basically a block away, and so potsdamer platz had no way of escaping total destruction. it lay in rubble even as the construction of the berlin wall went up in the early '60s.

potsdamer platz during the cold war was featured in wim wenders' der himmel über berlin, released in america as wings of desire. in the late '90s, a movie entitled city of angels starring meg ryan and nicolas cage was made. it was based on wim wenders' classic. you also may remember the goo goo dolls' hit "iris" that was written for the movie.



anyway, this is what potsdamer platz looks like now. it features the european sony center headquarters, a number of nice restaurants, movie theaters, and lots of architecturally impressive buildings. germany is on top of things.




today, though, nick and i went to a flea market on die strasse des 17. juni, a major thoroughfare that cuts east-west through the city and is named after the east berlin 1953 uprising against the soviet government. the market was a bunch of junk (which is why it's called a trödelmarkt, come to think of it). it was cool junk, though. everything was too expensive, but we've heard that one can find cheaper items at different flea markets on sunday morning, so that's a tentative plan for tomorrow morning.

afterwards, we made our way to friedrichshain. we stopped at an imbiss/bar full of east berlin-types with overalls and wrinkly skin. they played hideous techno pop. we had falafels, as is the usual in berlin. we took the train to ostbahnhof, which was apparently featured in the bourne supremacy. some parts of berlin you just don't want to go back to. some parts of friedrichshain are supposed to be pretty cool, sort of like brooklyn is for new york. we shall see.

bis meine nächste update,

adam

the weather here is crazy right now! it's affecting basically all of northern europe, but specifically great britain and the countries on the north sea coast. here's a map of a few hours ago, when it was 7:30 a.m. on the east coast of america.

if you spot germany on that map, right in the middle of europe, here's another map to help you find where berlin is located.



so right now it's 54ºF/13ºC and pouring rain. there's lightning striking outside the window, and BBC world news is snapping in and out of service. nick and i spent a while at balzac. apparently they started in germany before starbucks, and i enjoy it more than starbucks. i'm not one of those anti-corporate coffee businesses, but i've just never liked starbucks much. balzac is much more comfortable for some reason.

there's talk between me and nick of going to vienna. i'm not sure if i really want to leave berlin like i wanted to originally. i love it here, and i'm not too keen on packing up and traveling again, especially since i haven't even had a chance to unpack here. all my clothing and possessions are lying in piles around the room.

i forgot to mention i went to the jewish museum the other day! it's quite a place. read about it in that link. i also want to go to the denkmal für die ermordeten juden europas. the memorial itself just looks really cool.

last night i watched "deutschland sucht den superstar," which translates roughly as, "germany searches for its super star." this is the german version of what in america is "american idol." it was FANTASTIC. you don't even understand the extent of how great "american idol" can be until you have seen DSDS. the judges are more interesting, to me, than simon, paula, and randy, especially because the simon counterpart is a trashy over-tanned german homo who judges male contestants based on their looks, saying things like, "you're voice isn't so good but as a guy you're hot."

i'm pretty hungry, and a little embarrassing that this latest entry is more lackluster in comparison to my older ones. i'm still angry that my camera isn't working. what should i do? i'm afraid having to deal with getting it fixed abroad would be a huge bother, and i really need a camera this semester. any suggestions?

tschüss bis später,

adam

p.s holla at lindsey, joanna, and chrissy who are updating about being abroad too!

unfortunately my camera is not working. this sucks. i just bought a new phone too, so i don't wanna shell out more money.



yesterday i did nothing. i left the apartment only once, and that was to get sushi at a little place around the corner with nick. it sounds lame, but the smallest things remind you that you're not in the united states. for example, the owner and waiter at the sushi restaurant (who was chinese and not;lseruioghsgh OMG I JUST SAW AN AD ON TV FOR DEUTSCHLAND SUCHT DEN SUPER STAR WHICH MEANS GERMAN (AMERICAN) IDOL. oh yeah, we bought a cable for the television, so now i'm all about it.

anyway, i was saying that the chinese owner of the japanese sushi restaurant spoke german, and it was one of those strange triggers that reminds me that i'm no longer in new york.

today was more productive. nick and i were up and out of bed by 14:00, which is impressive. although i did read in lindsey's livejournal that it takes as many days to acclimate from jet lag as as many hours you lost. or something. time confuses me, but anyway, it's the sixth or seventh day that i'm here, so it's ok that sometimes i don't wake up until 15:00.

we live a block away from the s-bahn, so we bought an all day pass (€5,40) and took it to potsdamer platz, a glitzy west berlin hub. i'm ashamed to say that we ate again at a dunkin' donuts. whatever.

nick and i went to saturn, germany's response to best buy. we bought a tv cable and he got an adapter for his printer.

then i got my phone in the sony store. it's so hot. i'm excited to use it back in new york, too. yeah, it was a bit of money, but i'm grumpy and needed to do it.

we saw an imax film in the kino. it was cheap, still cheaper than an american movie ticket, but it was only fifty minutes long. it was about animals in the ocean. it was in 3D. annoying eight year old girls were talking behind us the whole time.

wow, ich habe eine schlechte laune.

maybe tomorrow i can show you some pictures and get a relaxing, normal night's sleep.

tschüss, alle

adam

yesterday was a little colder than it's been here. we got a late start again since we have the really bad habit of sleeping in until 3 p.m. or so. in addition, anna had very little food in her apartment, so in order to even eat we needed to get out into the city. it was dark, so we decided to head to somewhere lit up and pretty. we went to the brandenburger tor. along the way i texted lindsey for the first time. she's loving dublin. nick and i walked along luisestrasse, past the beautiful reichstag and all the various government buildings. we admired the brandenburger tor and then headed into a dunkin' donuts, because that's how touristy we felt like being. a sign in the restaurant even said "american bakery." pshh.

for those of you guys who don't know, i like to hang out a lot at the dunkin' on second avenue (in new york) with my boyfriend and roommates and friends. i like their coffee, their donuts, and the free wireless internet. so when we saw that even berlin had dunkin' donuts, it was somewhat funny. but let me tell you, the donuts they had there were nothing to laugh about. the coffee roll i had was spectacular. nick got an apple fritter that was plump and savory and a kiba (kirsch-banane a.k.a cherry-banana) that sent shivers down my trans-fatty spine. i also had something a bit more filling: a tomato and mozzarella bagel sandwich with pesto sauce and black pepper. oh my god.

anyway, we walked around a bit to work that stuff off and head to hackescher markt to catch another movie. we took a path that led us by humboldt university (sort of like the NYU of new york city: there are buildings and campuses all over the city, and it's the site where my studies will be this semester) and over the museumsinsel. berlin's mitte is absolutely spectacular at night. i don't know if it can beat new york, but what can? berlin has a totally different feel than new york.

we got to hackescher markt and bought tickets to see gus van sant's last days. it came out a while ago, but we both hadn't seen it. i've seen elephant and my own private idaho, and i liked the former but did not enjoy the latter, whereas nick is the opposite. the theater was hip, swanky, and german, and it had a cool vibe... except the woman behind the bar was a bitch. movie theaters in berlin are strange in little ways. first, you can smoke in them. second, they don't let you go into your theater until a minute before the movie starts. third, after a series of previews and advertisements, the lights in the theater go back on for a minute, then off again for the main feature. the movie was subtitled in german, so i got to appreciate two hours of spoken english. unfortunately, i realized that i hate gus van sant and this movie. it was two hours of michael pitt playing kurt cobain by unintelligibly and offensively muttering and preparing several meals while drugged out of his mind (although we see no drugs in the entire film). but this journal is about germany, not about gus van can't-tell-the-difference-between-making-actual-art-and-simply-trying-to-be-artsy.

here are a few pictures i took last night. my camera is seriously starting to piss me off. oh, and be sure to click the links i put in here and read about what i'm doing and seeing! it'll make your reading experience here much more rich, i assure you.

yesterday wasn't so long, but nick and i walked around so much that we filled it in only three hours. we didn't end up getting out of the apartment until 4 in the afternoon. we took the u-bahn down to where my dorm is, on the other side of mitte in kreuzberg. it's a somewhat industrial neighborhood that reminds me a lot of the north end of avenue C in new york. the dormitory is a squat concrete soviet brick (with balconies), but a few blocks south the neighborhood turns into macdougal street welcome week of freshman year. there are hip boutiques, bars (both for roughnecks and kids), and lots of delis and restaurants. i'm excited to move in in february.

we then walked back to our apartment in mitte along oranienstrasse, and then up friedrichstrasse, which reminded me at times of 5th or madison avenues (sorry, i tend to make a lot of analogies when i'm describing cities). when we approached the intersection of friedrich and zimmerstrasse, we recognized the museum checkpoint charlie.

at the intersections of friedrich and leipziger strasse is the u-bahn station "stadtmitte," translated to "city center," and it was a lot like herald square. we stopped at a starbucks here and peered into several other competing coffee bars around the intersection. i used the restroom here and, i have to say, i've been amazed at the conditions of toilets and bathrooms in germany. they are immaculate each and every time. if america could only learn one thing from germany, i would vote it should be restroom cleanliness.

at französischestrasse ("french street"), i almost vomited from the boug factor. gucci, prada, bocca di bacco, bentley... plus two h&m stores. nick heard someone actually say in a pouty voice, "hermès ist leider zu!" ("unfortunately hermès is closed!") there were lots of tacky rich homos.

the intersection of friedrichstrasse and unter den linden is basically the intersection in downtown berlin. looking left, i saw the brandenburg gate.

we soon crossed over the spree river on the weidendammer brücke and headed home, our feet very tired.

below are some pictures, but please excuse the quality. they're a bit blurry and not ideal. my camera is being really bad and deciding on its own when it wants to work or not, so i missed some good opportunities due to its caprice.






na ja, bis später!

adam

we got cell phones (handys) yesterday. contracts here are minimum two years, so we had to choose one of three phones that come with pay-as-you-go plans. we each picked a phone and put €50 on it. nick got a motorola and i got a samsung, and mine ended up being a piece of shit while his has screensavers and top 40 hit ringtones (klingeltöne). i'm going to try and find a place that sells unlocked phones without contracts to replace this €40 hunk of plastic, and i want to be able to use it back home.

my camera is really seeing its last days, but i took a few pictures when we were walking around mitte.




after getting cellphones, we headed over to the movie theater to see a showing of the new german film mein führer. this comedy by dani levy has the distinction of being the first major comedy release about the third reich since charlie chaplin's the great dictator in 1940.




the movie was such a weird experience. i didn't have much trouble understanding the dialogue or plot; not because i can understand german, but because it wasn't too complicated a movie. the year is 1944, and ulrich mühe's character adolf grünbaum is a jewish drama professor taken out of the sachsenhausen concentration camp by hitler's henchmen in order to prepare hitler himself for a mass rally in bombed out berlin. hitler and grünbaum develop a close camaraderie, except that grünbaum attempts several times to kill the führer. anyway, the movie goes on like this for a while until eventually hitler loses his voice somehow and grünbaum is forced at gunpoint to stand under the stage at the rally and give the speech, as the führer mouths the words. then the little jewish professor chants "heil mich selbst!" ("hail myself!"), forcing the citizens of berlin to break away from the hypnotic, worker bee-like delusions of the third reich's rule, or something. anyway, what i found the most interesting was not the movie but some snippets levy included in the closing credits. they had interviewed a few seemingly random people from off the street: kids, teenagers, adults. the question was "what do you know about adolf hitler?" and a majority of the youngest kids had no idea who he was. the teenagers responded with statements like "oh, he was the old ruler" or "he was like, 'total war!'" the adults answered mostly to the tune of "i'd rather not think about him." i'm thinking of doing some sort of independent study on vergangenheitsbewältigung, and i think this last segment of the movie would be instrumental, since i'm not about to ask berliners on the street myself what they think of adolf hitler.

the theater itself was an experience. the movies playing were die nacht ins museums, das streben nach glück, mein führer, casino royale, and one or two others. we went up to the ticket desk and got two tickets for mein führer and were asked if we wanted back or front seats. in germany, movie theater seats are assigned! this sucked when we walked in, saw that there were literally only two other people in the entire room, and then had to sit directly behind somebody. but before that, we had to wait half an hour since both of our cell phones were totally wrong (mine said it was october 2006, for example) and nick thought it was closer to our 5:00 p.m. showing than it actually was. i had a cigarette in the lobby because you can do that in germany. then i used the restroom and had to put €.25 in a little ceramic dish. we got popcorn and sodas, but unfortunately they were "out of ice," so our cola lites (diet cokes) were warm.

anyway, now more pictures!



ok tschüss,

adam

if you've never been to germany, or europe for that matter, it's really hard to explain the subtle cultural differences. you can just look out the window and know you're not in the united states. maybe it's the tile they use on their roofs, or maybe it's the skylights in those roofs. besides the architecture, there are smaller disparities that hit home harder. there's no "chapstick": instead, you get "labello." the consistency of the product, the flavor, and the color are the same, but the packaging is different. it's the same for a number of things here. the toothpaste is actually two different pastes. one is used in the morning, and one in the evening. cow's milk comes in rectangular cartons. doorhandles are situated a bit higher from the ground. light switches are big pads instead of small levers. there are no trash cans here in the same sense as in america; instead, there are trash drawers. germans seem overall to be less wasteful. at schlecker, which is like duane reade or CVS, you have to pay for any plastic bags bigger than the tiny slip covers that you can have for free. at a restaurant called panasia last night, no water was served without requests. "i think i'm going to go buy some big cups, if i can find some," nick confesses. "you notice how little they drink here? it's like a shot of orange juice."

but past the tangible oddities and humorous differences is something curious. there's something here that i can't write in a livejournal entry. the city has an attitude that's very different from anywhere else i've ever been, and definitely not much like new york at all. it's not an attitude that you can find in some american city and then easily compare and contrast it to new york or l.a. or chicago. there's a heavier feeling here, the same tension in tree branches when they're weighed down with pounds of compacted snow. i think it's about age. twenty years ago, this city was split down the middle, and an ugly wall zigzagged through it like a flesh wound. sixty five years ago, nazi parades were passing through these streets. i need to start taking some pictures.

nick's making the bed and i just had buttermilch brot mit marmalade, honig, und zimt for breakfast. today we're walking to alexanderplatz to see what there is to see and to find cellphones (which are called "handys" in german).

bis später,

adam

the flight from JFK to frankfurt was not so bad! it ended up being a bit more than six hours, which is less than i remember having taken in previous years. i've arrived at frankfurt airport twice before: once with my parents when i was 13, and once with the NYU scholars group freshman year when we spent a week in florence.

frankfurt airport is a mess. it's a monstrous construction that is yet to be completed. most of the space is empty hallway or fluorescent lighting. it's a giant warehouse filled with unfriendly employees. i had to stand in multiple idiotic lines and get put through security yet again (we did this take-off-your-belt routine at JFK at the beginning of our trip).

i've been a bit apprehensive to use my german. most germans speak english, and so if i let them know that we should communicate in that language, it's usually easier. but i'm also pretty good at german, and it's a rush to try it out. but then i usually ask a lot of "wie, bitte?" because i can't understand when they speak so quickly.

around 9 a.m. local time, nick and i arrived in berlin's tegel airport. i changed some of my money to euros and we hailed a cab. the ride to nick's friend anna's apartment took about twenty minutes or so, and then we were here! her apartment is a three bedroom in south prenzlauer berg/mitte with two balconies and a really nice kitchen. i think they pay a total equivalent to $1200. this is crazy.

so it's now 4:51 p.m. local time, and nick and i slept for about six hours straight. this is bad, because anna gets home shortly and then wants to take us out to dinner, but we haven't eaten anything since... how long has it been now? and it was a crappy vegan meal on a lufthansa flight.

anyway i need to buy a few things in these first few days:

1. a bag. my messenger bag broke!
2. a cell phone.
3. toothpaste, deodorant, etc.

ok, bis später,

adam


p.s. pictures soon!

after 70º weather and strange city-wide gas odors, i'm ready to leave for berlin.

the past few weeks have been truly bizarre. i've shuttled back and forth between maryland and new york several times, moving out/packing up/overexperiencing the new jersey turnpike. i saw a good portion of my family over the holiday, and my cousin todd even came up to the city once; it was his first time!

i bought a love glove (try searching that on google...) for pnutt the other day in an attempt to reconnect with him. i will miss him these next five months. i'll also miss my roommates. gen and pauline are the jump off. shout out.

my digital camera is acting up. the viewfinder flickers and a strange orange light that never showed up before is now blinding all my subjects. in addition, i frequently get memory card errors that render my camera useless for a day or two. but to balance that out, i have three new cameras! my friends pooled together and got me a supersampler, nick's dad and his stepmom got me a holga, and i bought myself a new polaroid camera. luckily, nick and i will be bringing the scanner to berlin.

anyway, the next two days are packing and relaxing, and my flight takes off at 4:25 p.m. on wednesday the 10th.

bis dann,

adam.