Last Day

My last day in Berlin is coming to a close. Tomorrow morning Petra will deliver me to the airport bright and early to catch my flight home. I’m almost done packing, I just need to get my shampoo and stuff out of the bathroom and find some place to put them. Unfortunately, I seem to have bought a lot of stuff, and my big duffel bag is currently full to bursting. I have no idea where I’m going to put said toiletries, or the clothes I wore today and the pajamas I’m going to wear tonight. I supposed I’ll be stuffing it in the bag and hoping those zippers hold.

I bought enough chocolate alone to feed a small army. Maybe that should have been a clue that I didn’t need so much stuff. There will be a very happy element at the Air Force Academy next weekend, I think.

I wasn’t able to meet up with my friend this afternoon to get some pictures that actually have me in them (remind me to get a cell phone next time I leave the country), but I still managed to get the occasional passer-by to do it for me. Listening for other English-speaking people really helps things out. I now have proof that I haven’t just been hiding in a hole somewhere and making this all up.

See?

I also headed over to Checkpoint Charlie, and got the picture of the sign that I missed the last time I was there.

There are more pictures on Flickr, although I admit I didn’t reach my 1,000 picture target. Looks like I feel 129 pictures short. Maybe I should go to the zoo again.

This picture has an interesting story. Or sad, I supposed, depending.

The woman in turquoise hangs around tourist attractions, asking “Speak English?” If you say yes, she pushes that card in front of your face, which asks for money. I saw her at the Topography of Terror, Checkpoint Charlie, and the S-Bahn station at Alexanderplatz at least 3 times. She keeps at least one child with her, and one time it was actually an older child who was asking tourists if they speak English. What I find interesting is that she seems to be very well-cared for, and the little girl even more so, even though she spends her whole day begging tourists for spare change. I feel bad for the little girl, really.

On a different note, I still have to figure out how I’m going to fit the rest of this stuff in my bag, so I’m going to make an effort to do that. Oh, and dinner’s ready, so I’m going to eat. Sounds like a plan.

About that whole “Packing” thing…

Yeah, remember how I said I was going to start packing tonight?

Let’s take a minute to think about this.

So Many Stairs

I went to the top of the Siegessäule today. It’s a big tower in the middle of the Tiergarten, and you can see the whole city to the top. The big lesson I took away was that I won’t be complaining about the 6 flights of stairs to get up to Petra’s flat anymore.

Photos Are Up

Click the Flickr link on the right to view all the photos.

I have 805 photos in the Germany section right now. I’m curious to see if I hit 1,000 by the time I leave on Saturday. I’m also really thankful they’re digital, and not film. I’d be pushing 34 rolls of film already. That would cost about $170 to get processed at Target. Wow.

At some point I should go through all those pictures and find the best ones. There’s something I could do during the 12 or so hours I’ll spend flying on Saturday.

A few tips, before I link to some photos:

Coming soon to a browser near you

I’m uploading a couple hundred pictures right now. I have almost 50 tram pictures for Dad, as well as a selection of U- and S-Bahn pictures. I have a whole bunch of pictures from the Musical Instrument Museum, which my fellow music students will probably be more interested in than anyone else. I have pictures of the East Side Gallery, the remaining part of the Berlin Wall that is covered with pictures (and graffiti). I have sunset pictures from Wannsee, the lake west of Berlin. I’ll highlight some good ones later, after they’re all uploaded.

Photo Day

I’m feeling a lot better today, and spent the afternoon taking lots of pictures. I went to the Musical Instrument Museum and saw lots of old instruments that kept making me think of my Music Lit class (not an experience I want to relive, by the way). Fortunately, my music education means that I know what a “fagotti” really is (a bassoon), and I can now contact one of my old TA’s and tell him I’ve seen a krummhorn. He’ll be thrilled. Actually I saw at least 3 krummhorns. And a bunch of “krummers” but I don’t know what those are. I don’t know if that’s a language thing or just an old instrument that no one’s ever heard of. I also know that when the little information card says the instrument is in “B”, that means it’s really in B-flat, and when it says it’s in “H”, that means B. That’s a German thing.

I stalked some trams for my dad and have a bunch of pictures to upload. I also got some of S-Bahns and U-Bahns. I played with the shutter time a little bit with these, so the motion will be really obvious. I’m heading back out to go see if I can find more photo-ops, so I’m not going to worry about uploading them right now. I’ll do that tonight, when I get back.

I’ve also done most of my souvenir shopping. I just need to stop at a supermarket and buy tons of chocolate. I found something for myself too – a bag (of course). I’ll post a picture of that tonight as well.

Be back later!

Ich bin krank

I’ve been sick today. I had plans to go out tram-hunting with the camera for my dad, and to go to the party tonight with friends, but I’ve had a stomachache all day. I slept most of the day, and otherwise relaxed and read a book. Now I’m heading back to bed. I’m tired, which I think I ridiculous considering how much time I spent in bed already today. Either my body is playing tricks on me, and I’m not really tired and won’t sleep at all tonight, or I just desperately need the sleep.

I guess I’ll find out soon.

Berlin Zoo and Aquarium

I spent a few hours at the zoo today – that was a blast. I had so much fun wandering around by myself, taking pictures of anything that moved. I shot 240 pictures, and have pared that down to 155 that are in focus and not basically the same shot of the same animal in the same position. Follow the links to the right of the post to see my pictures on Flickr.

In many situations, the auto-focus insisted on focusing on the bars or glass between me and my target, so I had to switch to manual focus. If any of the shots are slightly blurry, this is why. Most of them are fine, though. Click for more.

What Wonderful Weather!

Most normal people don’t consider this to be great weather. Normal people don’t smile when they look out the window in the morning and see clouds and rain, and the weather forecast on their computer claims the current temperature is 63° right now. Only those of us who see sun 360 days a year get excited about rain. (We’re the same crowd who takes the day off school if it even looks like it might snow, but I digress.)

It is rainy, and dark, and gloomy, and a little cold today. And it’s wonderful. This is the kind of weather I was hoping for in coming to Berlin, not the heat we had my first 2 weeks. I’m going to be changing into a long-sleeved shirt with my jacket for this afternoon, and will carry my umbrella with me everywhere.

Of course, it also seems to keep the bees at bay, which is nice. I was sure that with the number of bees that hang around any place with food service outside (almost every restaurant and café), I was going to get stung eventually. Yesterday afternoon, I was standing outside the school waiting for some friends to decide where they wanted to go for lunch, when I was attacked. I don’t know what this irritating insect decided it suddenly had against me, but it flew directly into the side of my head, right in front of my ear. Naturally, I lifted my hand and batted the dive-bombing creature out of the way. It fell to the ground in front of me, and my friends noticed it was dying. I was a little distracted checking to make sure the thing hadn’t stung my face, and was a little confused. It hadn’t stung my face, but it was definitely dying, so it must have stung something. I slowly came to the conclusion that the pain in my hand was a little too strong to have been caused solely by an impact with a suicidal insect, and while I watched, a small part of my hand began to turn red and swell up. One of my friends apparently has the ultimate cure for bee stings, but I didn’t let her try. I wasn’t about to let her go burning my hand – I don’t care if it neutralizes the venom. Weighing the amount of pain from a bee sting versus the amount of pain from someone intentionally burning my hand…well, the bee sting pain only lasted about an hour. The visual proof of the sting is almost gone now; there’s only a very small red mark where the stinger must have lodged. Now I can tell Hattie “I told you so” – this happened about two hours after she had been telling me the bees are harmless.

So that’s my exciting bee-sting story.

I stopped at a neat little Italian restaurant today after class, and grabbed breakfast. I hadn’t eaten this morning, but even if I had, bread, fruit, a croissant, an egg, and a cappuccino would have been too good to pass up. It was excellent.

My big plans for this afternoon are to go shopping. I’m going to head over to the big department store in Schöneberg, KaDeWe, and see if I can’t spend the last of the money I took out before I left America. Good thing I have my debit card – I’m going to need it next week.

I have a few specific things I’m looking for, and one of them is a souvenir for myself – something to remind me of this trip. I have some ideas, but I keep remembering that I don’t need another backpack or purse.

I doubt that’s going to stop me if I see one I really like.

Later tonight is the pub crawl organized by the school in Kreuzberg. I expect this will be their biggest event – almost all of the students are going. All of the ones I’ve talked to are going, anyway. That’s a good thing, in my opinion, as it means I’ll have someone to hang with. Actually, I’ll have lots of people. I can group-hop. Awesome.

Time to head out and go shopping!

Holocaust Memorial

I went to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe today, or Holocaust Memorial. I got an audio guide in English, and decided it was an excellent investment. It really helps the exhibit to come alive.

Of course, for an exhibit like that to come alive means I heard some pretty heart-wrenching stories.