From Lilli to Berlin (Days 1 to 6)

Monday, June 1st
Arrived around nine, after 30 hours of travel. Sat next to a kooky Swiss Christian on the long flight. Jeez.

Tuesday, June 2nd
Went to Intercultural Learning with Lil at her University. Her school is a handful of buildings, probably comparable in size to Lawrence or Mac but with fewer, huge, ugly buildings. Anyways, in Intercultural Learning we talked about the Turks and prejudice in the Job market and the role of Social Workers (Lil is studying Social Work). Grocery shopped, then sat around most of the rest of the day, worked on my tattoo.

Wednesday, June 3rd
Intended to go to Lil’s class about eating disorders, but I like sleep too much. We spent the afternoon in the city walking around and shopping- I got a cute top and sunglasses! My sunglasses make me look like a total badass and I love them. And, I don’t feel guilty about shopping anymore because I have yet to spend any money in Berlin. Came home, watched Grey’s Anatomy reruns in German on TV.

Thursday, June 4th
Lil and I went to the Bielefeld Art Museum, and saw a heck of a lot of modern art. I commented that its a shame Germany’s art so often has to do with Hitler, Nazis, and the Third Reich- considering that there is a lot of other German history and culture, its getting to be a long time since that period, and other countries (the US) have done things comparably horrific but don’t suffer the same condemnation. Consequently, I really enjoyed one piece, which was an American flag with genocide statistics in the stripes. Guess who’s obliteration of a native population killed more people than the Holocaust? Despite that, there was one collection of paintings with Hitler I found really interesting. The painter had done landscapes around various famous buildings around the world, including the Colosseum, and other natural areas like fields and lakes, and then he had painted a hiel-ing Hitler at each one. I thought it was generally funny- having a Hitler in all these odd spots, somewhat unnerving, and kind of reflected how I felt like Hitler was EVERYWHERE in the museum. There were also photos however, of him hiel-ing at other famous buildings, and I found those kind of tasteless…running around taking pictures pretending to be Hitler seems like a good way to ruin your and everyone around you’s vacation.
In the evening we went out for drinks at a church that was renovated and is now a very chic restaurant. Also had delicious beef- going to fancy restaurants with Greg has turned me into someone who really appreciates exceptionally well-made food. Afterwards we went to a dance at the University- meh. German music is terrible.



Friday, June 5th
Lil and I went to the castle and looked around from up high. Could barely see the Herman Denkmal on the neighboring mountain, which we had visited my first time in Germany!
Made Lil guacamole, which she had never eaten before! But there is Guac in Germany according to my host teacher- its called avocado sauce,

Saturday, June 6th
Train ride- man said Berlin is 20% water, which is actually more than Venice. He also told me there were more old empty buildings in East Germany, and that the Berliner Zoo station had been the Hauptbahnhof when Berlin was divided.
Met Sarah and Peter, who took me to the apartment to unpack. My room is maybe five by fifteen, has a wardrobe, desk, chair, window, and bed (with feather blanket!). Sarah and I went to the welcome party, and then I came home and drew before going to sleep.