Looking around

Liebe Freunde (Dear Friends),

I've been in Germany for a little over a week now and am starting to get my bearings a little bit. I can now pretty much find my way back to my apartment without pulling out the giant I-am-such-an-American-tourist map and know where to get some pretty awesome Döner, which is like schwarma and definitely the most popular street food in Berlin besides Currywurst (which I will NOT be trying).

As promised, here are some pictures of my German digs! My room is very light and over looks the kindergarten :)

1) Ozzy is hard at work at my desk. Bed in the background

2) Clothes/storage. Interesting, yes?

I guess to pick up where I left off, my first weekend in Berlin was definitely memorable. Friday night, a group of us went to dinner in the Kreuzberg district, which is known for its Leftist politics, its cheap food, and its nightlife. Sounds great, right? After dinner, we made our way to some other hot spots before heading back home some time around 4am. Along the way, I met a number of really nice people including two girls from Israel (typical, right? I would find two Israelis on the street in Germany) and a German girl who loves the television show "Scrubs" and was super interested in being a Sprachpartner (speaking buddy) with me. Saturday, George Will - remember? Famous Stanford alum?- paid for all of the students in the program and the faculty to take a boat tour on the Spree, which looked a little something like this...

It was beautiful the whole weekend, so we really lucked out! Saturday night, I went with some friends to the opening of an art gallery where a Stanford student was doing an internship. The artist, Jagannath Panda, is actually going to have an exhibit at the Asian art museum in San Francisco next fall, so to those of you in the Bay Area, I definitely recommend it! Following the gallery, we consumed the infamous Döner from a little stand called Mustafa's :)

Sunday, a staff member from the Stanford Center took a group of students to Mauerpark ("wall" park), which seemed to me to be a little bit of a mixture between LoveFest and Haight-Ashbury and some other random hipster things all rolled into one. It was super sunny and we walked through the open market and were among about 2,000 people gathered to hear a homeless man lead a giant karaoke party. Awesome! I then proceeded to purposefully take some random buses home and just see the city from the street when a very peculiar thing happened. At the bus stop closest to the Berlin Philharmoniker (the major symphony orchestra), I looked out the window and saw probably 150 replicas of my grandmother. For those of you who need some visual aid with this description, picture a very proper, white-haired, perfectly coiffed German woman who is seemingly petite, but has a will of steel. Literally, the Sunday matinee had just let out and every single person at the bus stop looked like my Oma. Then, the bus doors open and it was pure mayhem. All of these refined, elderly German women were throwing elbows to scramble for the probably 15 seats on this tiny bus. I offered my seat to someone and she rushed past me with the speed of a five-year old hopped up on too much apple juice. It was one of the scariest moments I've experienced in Berlin thus far.

Berlin has a lot of really interesting and beautiful street art and it is everywhere. Here are some examples from just walking near my neighborhood:

Classes began yesterday and I am taking Intermediate German, "Berlin Heute (Berlin Today)," Jewish and Muslim Berlin, The Politics of Memory (basically about how Germans remember and memorialize the Holocaust/WWII), "Berlin vor Ort (Berlin on the town)," and an independent research project. I just found out that I was accepted to travel with the Berlin Center to Cordoba, Spain to present some research at a workshop there in November. All of the European Stanford Centers will be speaking about their host country's take on "Islam in Europe 700-2011." I'm really excited to figure out what I'm going to be working on! Last night, I took my first ballet class in Berlin and it was great! The teacher is British and danced with the Royal Academy of Ballet in London and the studio seems like a good match for me, even though it's quite far away.

So, apologies for the long post, but it's the last for a little bit as the Jewish New Year approaches. To those of you who celebrate it, Shana Tova U'Metuka v'Chag Sameach, wishing you all a sweet and happy New Year and all the best in 5772!

Tschüss!

Doria

Getting Settled

Guten Tag meine Freunde!

As you may have guessed, I have safely arrived in Berlin! I got here on Tuesday and since then, I've been getting to know this amazing city. I haven't had time to upload pictures yet, but they will come soon, I promise.

Here's the rundown of my living situation: All the students in the Stanford-in-Berlin program live in homestays in different parts of the city. Berlin is basically a large conglomeration of different towns, so to speak, and it's a fairly large area geographically (think like Los Angeles big). My home is in the Charlottenburg neighborhood, which is the area directly north of the Stanford Center. Charlottenburg is an awesome district that has a ton of cafes, restaurants, museums and, oh yeah, the Charlottenburg palace (click on it) is about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. Pretty chill is an understatement. I am living with a father and his two children, aged 13 and 11 and they are all very sweet and have been extremely welcoming. They are of Turkish decent (the father was born in Turkey) and I got to sample various lovely pistachioed desserts on Wednesday. The children both study English and French, so hopefully they'll help me with my language homework and I can help them with theirs :) I live right next door to La Maison de Danse (the German equivalent of Capezios), a Kindergarten, a Volkshochschule (vocational school), and a large pedestrian shopping area complete with an H+M, Kaiser (like Trader Joe's-ish), tons of little shops, a gym, and the ubiquitous Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks.

Our orientation began on Wednesday and, despite the fact that the distance from my home to school looks to be only about five U-Bahn stops (U-Bahn = BART, subway, Metro, etc.) away, it is about at 30 minute commute including walking and switching lines. I definitely don't mind the commute - it's so interesting to people watch on the U-Bahn and get to know the city that way, and the walk from the station to school is beautiful. The Stanford Center, otherwise known as "The Villa," is located in the Dahlem district in the southwest of Berlin. It's a beautiful old house that was given to Stanford by some famous alum. Typical. It's terrifically equipped and very modern and German in design on the inside. Pictures to follow in a later post.

Orientation thus far has consisted of learning about the various course offerings, meeting each other and the faculty/staff, getting tours of the house and the IT stuff, a delicious dinner sponsored by the Bing Family (other famous, rich alumni) and getting us registered at the Rathaus/ Buergeramt which is where I officially became a temporary citizen of Berlin! I have the papers to prove it! This was interesting because the building is literally like a giant beautiful church/clock tower and the inside is exactly like the DMV ( SO. MUCH. Waiting.). My friend and I went together to the Rathaus and stood in line to get a number to wait for an hour to get in another line to finally reach the person we needed to stamp our one piece of paper. Oh, German bureaucracy.

So, I've gone grocery shopping, gotten my German cell phone, unpacked, and am getting ready for my first weekend in Berlin. Tomorrow we are doing a boat tour on the river Spree (pronounced Shpree) with the group and on Sunday we're watching part of the Berlin marathon and then seeing a karaoke show in Mauerpark. Classes begin on Monday!

Bis dann, tchüss! Until then, goodbye!

Doria