Mark visited and then we went to Berlin

Here are the photos!



And now... I think I'll just post Mark's blog from the visit (haha). He's got an interesting blogging style. But it's funny, and thorough... and I need to be working on a project :)

Russia NOT RUSSIA PRAGUE 75.5,76

11/11/08 (Mark arrives)
That evening we took the "metro" to some cathedral with a neo gothic exterior and an art neuveau interior and toured the graveyard. The whole yard was paved, the graves were stuck so close together that there was no grass or bare ground, and the entire place took on the look of a statue park.

On the way back we passed through a childrens' lantern festivil. little kids running aroun waving sharp sticks at eye level, it was adorable.

12/11/08
2:32 pm

spent the morning walking around west Prague. I went through the big castle. Then I met up with Angela and we went up the Eiffel tower (small version) and saw the city.

Shower, Big Metronome and then I get to go to a class for 500 of these Czech dollars.

9:31 PM

I almost didn't make it to the meet up point in time because I got lost another four times and went in circles at least twice on my way back from the metronome. It doesn't help that it seems to get dark here earlier than it does in Russia. Also I was startled when a little child jumped out from behind a car and barked at me.

I then sat in the best class I have been in in over 2 years. It was a lecture class about the rise and fall of sovietism in eastern European countries throughout the cold war. It was a great perspective to get because I've heard little about it in America and the Russians don't talk about it at all when they talk about the period.

Russians have never ever mentioned their eastern European occupations in any exhibit on the soviet union or Russian history that I have seen in Russia.

Every country has their own information biases.

Tonight I'm going to try clubbing for the first time ever.

Russia NOT RUSSIA PRAGUE BERLIN 75,76,77,78

13/11/08 7:00 PM

Angela and I saw a CG Czech movie (feature length, cartoon comedy, had it's own plot and love story and things) about the construction of the astronomical clock. It was strange, I'm not sure where I can begin with it. Of course it doesn't help that we can't speak Czech but that probably wouldn't have helped that much anyway.

I'll just list things that the movie had:

Talking goat
romantic interest who steals nails from coffins to make money? maybe to help her gigantic preacher father?
a young man who owns the goat and loves the romantic interest and who is a great wood carver.

I'm still a bit unwell from last night, but lets continue.

So the great wood carver comes with his talking goat(male voice and character but female goat, he milked it at many times in the movie) to find work in Prague...

No, I'm not even going to try. It's too weird.

Tomorrow we leave at 5:40 to go to Berlin, 2 days, what will we do to fill our time?

***

14/11/08

Berlin

We arrived at around 2 and found that our hostel is not at all like how a hostel is supposed to be. The lobby is amazing and is decorated with fountains, pianos, and lounging space. Angela booked beds in a 6 dorm but we ended up in a 4 bed room which looked exactly like a hotel room; it even had a TV. Thanks to Angela the room only cost us the price of the 6 room which was 12 euros a night.

After buying food at the grocery store, we licked the Brandenburg Gate, we saw some guy dressing manikins up in costumes for posing in pictures. We passed the decorated British Embassy and a wall which had a relief of Lenin on it on our way to Checkpoint Charley. We visited the Wall museum which was very very big for what we were willing to do (and extremely crowded, that is there was exhibits and translations smashed 30 or so to a wall of a room, it was very exhausting).

Relaxed for hot chocolate, went to the bob store (an independent design store, featuring only artists from Berlin) where Angela bought several surprisingly good presents for other peoples, we found what I thought was the "topography of terror" but was really an empty lot (it was dark already so it was herd to tell what was what).

I'm pretty sure that at this point we visited one of the most amazing chocolate stores I've ever visited. They had Chocolate monuments, a titanic, and a volcano (all of which 4 feet by 4 feet by 3 feet). I walked around with my mouth open the whole time I was there.

Relaxing some more, we meandered around the area and saw some pretty cool stores and monuments (churches, opera houses, theaters and such).

We headed over to the Sony center to see if any movies were playing, on the way there we passed some sort of weekend winder festival which included a sledding hill. The Sony center looked alright but most of the area (large buildings) were vacant of stores and things and the sony center's choice for cobblestones was awful (think slippery cheese graters on the ground). Both the new bond movie and "Burn After Reading" were playing but, because we missed the 8:15 show, they were playing at 10:30.

To make the most of the night we wandered past the Brandenburg gate again and through the amazing Jewish memorial to the capital building.

The jewish memorial is a field of square columns which don't look that impressive from the outside (maybe like a graveyard) but the varied columns hide what the ground does and the memorial actually goes something like 18 feet below street level. The effect is that one goes in and gets lost in a haunting dark forest of Grey walls. (Grey is a proper noun? What?)

Anyway we went up in the capital building and saw the city from the glass dome.

The movie theater was amazing, the seats were the most clean and comfortable that I have ever sat in in a theater. We were shown commercials first, there was a jeans commercial, a few feel good beer commercials and an ice cream commercial with an actress from desperate housewives, at the end of which, the curtains closed and the lights turned on to reveal a man selling the advertised ice cream. In our state of mind, that was quite funny. we saw was "burn after reading" and it was quite crazy. Very enjoyable but "holy cow what the...!". It was an interesting movie to say the least.

***
15/11/08

Berlin

We started this day by going to the wall memorial which showcases a complete wall system (the wall, the killing field and the back fence), The memorial also included a rebuilt and re-excavated church that was demolished for the wall. (the church is a round stone building under a wooden fence cage which gives it a fuzzy appearance)

Walking from the memorial we passed a redecorated and pretty attractive (beautiful? mearly interesting?) Jewish synagogue. Because of the Neo-Nazi problem jewish memorials and monuments have permanent security forces guarding them (this one had two uniformed officers walking back and forth across the front, the cemetary has a plane cloths policeman)

Form there we visited a series of markets ("hackers market" is the incorrect name I remember) where we lunched and looked at German crafts (by the way, Germans are very very nice).

we then visited the "East Side Gallery" which is a 600 meter section of the wall which is used for murals (many about the wall and the division of Berlin, they seem caught up on this wall thing).

At this point we visited the bombed out church and it's style-shattering modern bell tower (Germans seem to like sharp juxtapositions of style).

We were getting pretty tired, so after quickly visiting the victory column we returned to the coffee shop at checkpoint Charley and I had an orange chocolate hot chocolate (Belgium orange chocolate).

Bought souvenirs for my host family, wandered a book store for a few minutes, kicked a church, ate curry wurst, rode the double Decker city buses (sitting at the very front) from one end of the line to the other and back again. It was a joy.

Back to the Hostel to celibrate Angela's 21st birthday with lift (a mineral water apple juice mix) and marshmallow-cream filled chocolates and "The Office" "30 rock" "The Daily Show" and "the Colbert Report". Hooray!