Setmana Santa / Spring Break: Berlin

Stop two for my vacation was the Fulbright conference in Berlin. This conference invited grantees from all over Europe, and this year they also overlapped with the German grantees scheduled to study in the US this coming fall.

.

This was my first experience in Germany, and I had mixed impressions at first. Though I was on the same flight as the other Andorrans, we stayed at different places, so we parted ways at the airport. I was a little nervous travelling to my hostel on the train, surrounded by giants, drinking beer (on the train!), and speaking a language I couldn’t understand. That was the worst of it, though, because I soon reached my African-themed hostel, got some recommendations of places to visit, and went to sleep. The next morning I didn’t have to check-in at the hotel until after 12, so I spent the morning at a flea market shopping and having coffee with a random French man who wanted to practice English and tell me about how messed up his life was because he was culturally confused and didn’t know his father (who I assume was an American soldier), whose invitation for coffee I accepted to get away from the Chilean man selling jewelry who I was speaking to in Spanish (sometimes you talk to people just because you miss the language) but who didn’t understand why I wouldn’t give him my phone number to hang out later. Oh dear. Anyway, I like a good flea market (and this one was much better than the one I saw in Vienna that sold garage-sale junk), that is, until it starts raining.

.

The conference included some boring sessions as well with lots of official welcomes, but it also had some good musical performances by Fulbright musicians. They also included a bus tour on the first day and some workshops with other ETAs. I also went on my own excursions: a bike tour around the city, museums, and wandering around. On the bike tour we stopped at a beer garden for lunch where some of us tried the Berliner Kindl Weisse (childrens’ beer). It’s mixed with red (sweet) or green (sour) syrup. It was weird, but I liked it. Berlin isn’t the most charming city; it’s big and made of concrete. However, it is full of history. I visited a lot of DDR and WWII historical sights such as the Eastside Gallery and Checkpoint Charlie, as well as the Jewish museum, memorials, churches, and the big glass dome on top of the Reichstag (the German parliament).

.

I have learned so much history through travelling this year, it's incredible, but I think I've learned the most here in Berlin. Before I left, I remember talking to some members of the choir, and one woman, Halina from Denmark, told me about how she visited Berlin while the wall was still up and how crossing the checkpoint was like entering a different world. Hearing stories like that and visiting the scenes where historical events took place makes it so much more real (and so much more interesting). Of course, it isn't ancient history yet, as many of the ETAs in former Eastern German schools would point out. There is still a cultural difference. And in Berlin, there is even an architectural difference (our bike tour guide said he lives in a flat in former East Berlin, which is heated by a stove).

.

Like in Santander, though, one of my favorite parts was hanging out with people my own age who shared a lot of my own experiences (though in other European countries). I spent a lot of time hanging out with the German students set to go to the states and with my roommate in the hotel, a biologist studying lizard hormones in the Czech Republic (part of this due to the fact that the other Andorrans mysteriously, or not so mysteriously, disappeared after the first day of the conference…)

.

And of course, my week ended with a bang… maybe that’s not the right word for it. At about four in the morning everybody in my hostel was awakened to a drunk or sleepwalking guy stumbling into our room and peeing next to another guest’s bed. Once guided back into the hallway and locked out of the room, the nervous tension of the surprised residents was broken with laughter as we heard him continue to pee in the hallway. Some people…

.

I liked Berlin. It took a little while to get used to it, but it was nice to be able to wander around a big city for awhile.