Happy New Year from Berlin!

If you're in America when I post this, hello from 2011!

After a day in which I spent part of my day visiting the Old National Gallery with Olivia, we spent our evening at home, cooking fried rice with leftovers and watching the Bourne Ultimatum with my roommate, Ronny. The Old National Gallery had some fantastic paintings from the 19th century and featured one of my favorites, Caspar David Friedrich.

There were also other great pieces of art that I really enjoyed such as Karl Friedrich Schinkel's art pieces. These Romantic paintings are really quite impressive.

One of the ones I did not know about before was this one painting that reminded me of Harry Potter for some reason. It's called The Island of the Dead (or in German, Die Toteninsel) by Arnold Böcklin in 1883. Pretty neat, no?

I also forgot to mention that we spent yesterday at the Altes Museum and Neues Museum in Berlin. I had only been to the former before but never the latter as it wasn't opened until October 2009—after being closed for 70 years following heavy destruction during WWII. The bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti used to be in the Altes Museum, so I thought it would be good to go there. Turns it out it was no longer there, so it was more or less rather boring.

The Neues Museum, on the other hand, was extraordinary. In fact, the New York Times had a feature on it last year when it opened. The architectural blend of old and new is fantastically done, and the exhibits themselves are extraordinarily impressive, both in terms of the collection and the presentation.

Sadly, the bust of Nefertit is no longer allowed to be photographed (which I was able to do in 2007 and 2008 when I had visited it previously in the Altes Museum). So instead, I took pictures of another great piece—a relief from the Amarna period of Egyptian art featuring Nefertiti and her husband, the pharoah Akhenaten. I had always thought it was a huge piece of work covering an entire wall, but it turns out it's about the size of my computer screen!

We spent a good two to three hours in the museum and then went home to eat leftovers and watch the Bourne Supremacy. That is the film in which Matt Damon—as Jason Bourne—runs through Berlin. Pretty neat to recognize the city sites and also notice inconsistencies in his location from scene to scene (i.e. you can't run from one spot in the eastern part of Berlin to a spot in the western part in 10 seconds during a police chase).

So anyway, back to New Year's Eve. My roommates both went out to a party, and since my friend, Michelle, is stranded back in New York, we didn't end up going to the Brandenburg Gate as previously planned. The more I had heard about it over the past few weeks though, the less excited I was about going. The thought of more than a million (tipsy or drunk) people setting off fireworks in close proximity didn't seem like the wisest idea. Plus I just don't like crowds.

Instead, Olivia and I watched the entire show online. There were some weird music combinations that cracked us up, but otherwise, I enjoyed my New Year's Eve with a Bavarian beer, a Berliner beer, and then a Turkish beer—all very common parts of Berlin/German culture.

After the clock struck midnight, fireworks went off like crazy at the Gate. Looked nice, but it also sounded like an air attack on Berlin outside.

For the past 24 hours, you could hear giant explosions outside. As my friend, Brandon, said, Berlin sounded like a war zone with huge booms and explosions that sound like machine guns. I took plenty of pictures of the people lighting off fireworks directly below.

At least a good handful landed on our balcony or hit the walls next to us. It's now after 2 AM, and there are still firework explosions sounding through the night. In fact, one of the larger explosions of the night just went off outside. Also just heard the first fire truck sirens down the street.

Tomorrow, Olivia is checking out some museums on her own, and then I will join her to see the rest of the Old National Gallery. They closed at 2 PM today, so we only got through half the museum. I have an annual pass now though, and she has a 3-day pass, so we'll be fine getting in without paying again.

Then on Sunday, we fly out way early in the morning to Ireland for a week. Looking forward to checking out Dublin and Galway!

Until then, Happy New Year!

Sam

Overall, A Very Happy Holiday Season

A bit homesick. I guess that's how I would describe the feeling I had this morning.

After a slight road bump because of an alarm that I did not hear, my family and I were able to get to Berlin-Tegel Airport in enough time for them to board their flight to Munich to fly back to Seattle tomorrow.

More than a week after I met them down in Munich to spend our holidays together in Germany, I waved goodbye to my family as they walked through the security at Tegel.

It was really very nice to see my parents and my sisters here in Germany, especially since I had the chance to show them a glimpse of the places where I've been spending my last few summers.

But in our few days in Berlin since arriving on Christmas morning were filled with loads of fun adventures. On the day after Christmas, we headed out to check out some of central Berlin—namely, the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, and Unter den Linden. I'm glad we took so many pictures. I've got lots to choose from on my laptop now.

After pigging out on some currywurst by the Staatsoper, we checked out my university across the street. Still hard to believe I am matriculated at this place. It's so awesome.

We spent our afternoon at the Pergamon Museum, where we had fun checking out some of Berlin's finest collections of ancient artifacts. May and I had a little AP Art History nerd fest, which was also fun.

In the afternoon, we spent some time with some family friends and learned more about German Christmas traditions. Splendid. For dinner, we made a big pot of pasta with bolognese sauce. Delicious.

One of my Dream Project friends, Ben, also happened to be in Berlin for a few days, so we met up for a beer, which we had never been able to do in the States. It was quite fun, and we wore our DP shirts for good measure.

The next day, we trekked around the Topographies of Terror and Checkpoint Charlie before going to the Ritter Sport store. I think they all enjoyed the chocolates Ritter Sport had to offer. I had to duck out early to go pick up my friend, Olivia, from the airport, so my family wandered around the area and made it to the Christmas market at Gendarmenmarkt, which is supposedly the most historical one in Berlin.

There is a 1€ per person entrance fee, so they didn't go in that day. Instead, they went up the Französische Dom (French Cathedral/Dome), which was built for or by French Huguenots who had escaped religious persecution in France in the 16th and 17th centuries. I have actually never been up before (nor even thought it was possible), so that was neat that they were able to see the city from up high.

We all met up back at my apartment for dinner, where my buddy, Brandon, joined us. My mom took us to the Asian Supermarket to help us figure out what to buy. Brandon and I cook together regularly, so it was nice to have my mom show us around the store.

Our menu for the night was a long one—we had eggs with onions, corn with ground pork, ginger chicken, pickled radish with pork strips, and stir fried veggies. We had the whole gang cooking in the kitchen! Good dinner and good company for sure.

Tuesday was my family's last full day in Berlin, so I wanted to make sure to hit up enough of the major spots they had not yet seen. We started off near Pariser Platz though, because Joanna wanted to visit the European Commission office to pick up a little Fundamental Human Rights booklet that you can get in one of the 23 languages spoken in the EU.

After that, we headed toward the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I have to admit: it looks pretty dang nice in the snow.

We then headed to Gendarmenmarkt to visit the Christmas market. The 1€ entrance fee was certainly worth it for the food, I think. A bit of a rip-off, but still. Fun to do.

We ate Thüringer bratwursts with Glühwein (my mom kept the cup too since it was nice and said "WeihnachsZauber Gendarmenmarkt Berlin 2010" which is basically "Christmas Magic Gendarmenmarkt Berlin 2010) and tried other good stuff too—I bought a small packet of Marzipan "potato" balls, we tried a Hungarian dessert called Langos with wild forest berry sauce, and Rahmbrot which is basically a mix of pizza and bread that has a nice cheese sauce, bacon, and green onions on top. All of that was excellent.

Once we had our fill, we headed down Unter den Linden and checked out the Radisson Hotel.

One of the former Fulbrighters had told me about it this summer. There is a huge 1 million liter fish tank/aquarium in the hotel lobby. The coolest part is that you can ride an elevator that goes right through the fish tank!

We finished our afternoon with a short trek through Nikolai Quarter and then an S-Bahn ride to Ku'damm. We saw the Christmas market there and picked up some postcards.

At home, we made a delicious dinner. I cooked Brandon's white wine pasta sauce, but used Fusilli instead of Spaghetti this time. It turned out great! Also, Joanna suggested adding mushrooms which were actually quite good, and Grace suggested sprinkling dried red chili pepper on top, which was also very good. All in all, we had another feast. I have enough leftovers for the rest of this week.

So, that brings us back to this morning. I woke up an hour after my alarm was supposed to go off, and thankfully I had our parents' hotel number. We figured it out, and the taxi came to my place to pick us all up. We made it all just in time.

Their flight made it to Munich just fine, unlike our horrendous trip from Munich to Berlin. Glad to see the planes are moving again. I have a flight to Ireland on Sunday, so I would like to see everything work out as normal.

I am actually going to Ireland with my friend, Olivia, another Dream Project member, who is studying this year in Spain. She came to Berlin a few days early to spend New Year's Eve here, which is supposed to be one of the best in all of Europe.

Today, after I came home and took care of my laundry and caught up on emails, we were quite productive. I sent out some letters, recharged my phone, and Olivia bought new boots. We then spent two and a half hours at the Christmas market at Gendarmenmarkt, where my family and I had been only the day before.

The reason we stayed so much longer this time is that we watched some of the shows on the stage in the middle of the market. Grace had wanted to watch yesterday, but we didn't have as much time. I know it doesn't make up for being there in person, but I took videos today for her. It was fairly entertaining, though I was freezing my head off today. Even had a Glühwein (I kept the cup for myself this time) and bratwurst to try and stay warm.

Midway through the shows, a giant bear costume walked next to Olivia, so I took a picture of it next to Olivia taking a picture. Hilarious really.

After the shows, we walked around, and we both ended up buying Christmas candle carousels, which are a typical German Christmas decoration. It's usually made of wood, but we got little modern metal ones. They were 5€ each instead of the normal 6,90€. I can only assume that, with the Christmas market closing in a day or two, the lady wanted to sell as many as she could.

We also saw a Bavarian woodcarver from the town of Oberamergau, where my family and I had just visited last week on our royal castles tour. Grace bought a small ornament there yesterday, so I took Olivia there to get one too. The woodcarver had been working on a giant elephant yesterday, and today he was back at it. I am still in awe of his mad skills.

Nearby, there was a stand with origami that reminded me of my college roommate, Rob. He always had origami when we roomed together freshman and sophomore year. So I took a picture to show him.

We finished our eating with the Hungarian dessert, which was again so delicious. I wish I could have another.

The cold was starting to get a bit unbearable, so we headed home. The lights were quite pretty against the darkening sky.

At home, we just had leftovers for dinner. Truly delicious. We also watched the Bourne Identity (while I drank tea out of my new cup), since I couldn't remember which of the Bourne movies featured a part shot in Berlin. We walked through the station Matt Damon runs through in the movie today, so we thought we'd just make our way through all three films. First one down tonight, tomorrow the second, and maybe the third later this week. Matt Damon runs through Berlin in the Bourne Supremacy, by the way.

Tomorrow, my family flies back to the U.S., so we won't be in the same country again for another few months. Sad. But I look forward to doing my best on this project and then returning home in the summer. I have my ticket officially booked now, so I'll be home before August, which is earlier than I had originally planned. Turns out, I could only book the round-trip ticket for up to one year, so I could not stay past July 25th without purchasing my own ticket, even though my visa is valid until August 15th. Oh well. Whatever.

Sadly, this will probably be my final blog post for 2010, and it was both a joyous and somewhat bittersweet one. Nevertheless, new adventures will begin in a matter of days as I fly to Ireland for a week of exploring Dublin and Galway with Olivia. Should be a fun trip.

So to my family, safe travels, and to all my patient blog readers, Happy New Year!

Until next year,

Sam

Touring Bavaria with the Family

I must say I have calmed down considerably after another awful round of European weather-induced traffic nightmares. Our flight from Munich to Berlin was canceled yesterday at the last minute because there was too much ice or something in Berlin. Are you kidding me? It's the 21st century! Why haven't we figured out how to deal with this kind of challenge by now? It's not like ice and snow don't happen every year.

Sorry for the rant; but, after being stuck in a car for 12 hours last week, having our train delayed by an hour on Saturday, and then having the entire Berlin airport shut down indefinitely on Monday when I had to fly to Munich, I have a lot of pent up frustration with travel at the moment.

With that said, here are a few more jolly updates on this Christmas Day. Until today, I’ve been relatively internet-less as I spent a bit of time in Munich with my family. It's been very exciting to have my family come visit me in Germany, since outside of my dad, they’ve never visited Germany before.

We split our trip between Munich and Berlin, and after finally taking an overnight train from Munich to Berlin, we’ve finished the Munich leg of our trip. During our few days in Munich, we had a great time exploring some of Bavaria’s highlights.

After my delayed arrival from Berlin on Monday, we simply walked around and visited the main Christmas market at Marienplatz. We took lots of pictures, and my family got to try German bratwursts for the first time. Glad they liked them!

On Tuesday, we slept in, and when we awoke, we took a train to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Center. I had only visited Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin twice before in 2007 and 2008, so it was a good experience to see another concentration camp (as odd as that sounds).

In contrast to Sachsenhausen, Dachau Memorial Center seems to be financed much better due to its state-of-the-art visitor center and well-kept museum on the camp grounds. The museum gave its visitors a broad background of the Nazi’s rise in Germany and the atrocities that took place at Dachau as well as at concentration camps across Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. Overall, I’m glad we had the chance to visit Dachau.

The next day, we woke up early to go on a tour to the most famous royal castles of Bavaria—Linderhof and Neuschwanstein. I had actually done the same tour in the summer of 2007, but with my family in town, I figured it would be a great idea to go back on the tour, especially with a snowy winter.

Turns out, the idea was a more of a romantic one as the castles themselves were a little bit more restricted in the winter than in the summer. At Linderhof, where I had previously taken pictures of a huge gold fountain and walked around gardens with flowers and statues on every corner, the statues were all boarded up and the fountains off with snow covering the entire area. There was even a wooden board across the top of the castle façade.

We were able to tour the inside though, and I was very happy to walk around with my family as I’ve always only been able to tell them about my trips and show them a few pictures or postcards. This time, they could actually experience it too.

After taking a few more pictures outside (since we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside), we headed back on the bus to head to Oberamergau, which is a small Bavarian village that is famous for the Passion Play, a play that takes place every 10 years. It just so happens that it played this year, ending on October 3. One of my fellow Fulbrighters from Marburg actually went to it this year and mentioned that he was probably the youngest person among all the elderly folks who showed up.

We bought a number of gifts there, and we had fun checking out other souvenirs from Bavaria.

After that, we went back on the bus for our last stop at Neuschwanstein. Last time I was there in 2007, we were able to go up to the Marienbrücke, which offers the best view of the castle. However, with all the snow, both the buses that run up to the bridge and the bridge itself were off limits. As such, we simply had to take the 35-minute walk up the hill and into the castle for our tour.

Even without the great views from the Marienbrücke, we were still able to take some great pictures and visit the castle on a tour. Unfortunately, they had our entire tour group of 72 people tour the castle today, which made hearing the tour guide quite difficult. Even so, we had a great time exploring the corners of the castle and taking pictures of the Bavarian landscape where we could (as again, we could not take pictures inside).

After yesterday’s daylong adventure, we took it a bit easier today. We slept in and then took our time getting to the castle of Nymphenburg in Munich, which I had never been to before. It was quite nice though, and we were able to take lots of good pictures. There a number of swans, geese, and other birds on the ponds outside the palace, and we took our time strolling across the gardens.

Once we finished there, we headed back toward the city to take pictures around Marienplatz. We stopped by the Church of St. Michael, which was aptly decorated in the Christmas spirit.

My old friend from high school, Kevin, was also in town with his girlfriend and her family, so we met up briefly for a beer while my sisters went shopping. Very nice to see more familiar faces in Germany.

After that, I met up with my family again, and we headed to dinner at the world-famous Hofbräuhaus, which boasts the largest beer hall on Earth. I was quite worried about possibly not getting a table, since it’s usually completely full. But we managed to find a huge table that was wide open by the door, so we sat down and ordered food soon after. I think the waitress was especially nice ‘cause we spoke in German to her.

We enjoyed both dark and light traditional Hofbräuhaus beer and a range of German delicacies (I’ll only write the German names here, as I can’t exactly translate all of them)—Schweinsbraten, Hendl, Würstplätl, and Wienerschnitzel. Outside of the potato dumplings, I’m glad that my family liked everything. We had a good time listening to the live band too and enjoying the delicious Bavarian beer.

Yesterday morning, we walked around Munich to take a few more pictures around Marienplatz, Odeonsplatz, and the Hofgarten. We also climbed St. Peter's Church for a better view of the city. We headed to the airport after that, but since the flight was canceled after a few hours, we had to wait in line for two hours just to figure out the next step. Our options: wait to fly out at 3:50 PM today or get train vouchers for a train yesterday or today. We found an overnight train that required a reservation, but according to the service center, we could ask the conductor if we could get on. Luckily, it worked, and we were able to make it to Berlin finally around 9 AM this morning.

Today was Christmas, and we did not arrive until 9 AM after the 12-hour overnight train. We're traveling pros now.

Since we were pretty tired though, we just spent the day at my apartment. I made Thai Chili Chicken, Butter Chicken Curry, Tom Yum Soup, and a vegetable dish for my family. It was like everything I've learned to cook in Germany combined into one huge meal. I even made chocolate mousse for dessert. Good stuff. It was nice to cook with my mom.

Tomorrow, I'll show my family around Berlin and then spend some time at the Pergamon Museum. We have plans to meet with some friends for coffee and German snacks in the afternoon. Then at night, I'll be meeting up with a friend from Dream Project, which will be exciting. Looking forward to another day in Germany with the family! After all that ridiculous travel mess, I'm glad to be back for a few days at least. :)

Until next time,

Sam