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