Berlin and things.

At the request of my Amy McGuirk, I fondly write this new post. :) So I went to Berlin this weekend! I survived the carpool with the driver Melanie, who had the most extreme case of music ADHD I have ever had to endure... I know we all have it sometimes, but I kid you not - she held her hand on the radio buttons the entire 4 hour drive. The station changed from varying techo rhythms and remixes ever 5 seconds. Once in a great while, she would pause and listen to song for approximately 15 seconds, and oh how my hopes would soar!! But it was always short lived, and I fortunately brought along my iPod (with its ever dying charge left from KS... I can´t download iTunes on this computer, for some reason...). On similar notes, this computer will not let me load new photos. I don´t understand the deal - my fear is that the problem might not be the computer after all, but my ancient camera and USB cord... I know, Mom and Dad, I should have bought a new camera before coming... but at the same time, it works okay, and I´ve been spending far too much money here already. It makes me a bit nervous. We´ll see what happens. I´ll keep trying. If nothing else, I can probably take the memory card to a photo shop and make some CDs or something. Also, along the broken electronics line - I think my old external hard drive is officially dead forever. Let us pause for a moment to mourn the losses...

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Berlin! It was amazing. Austin is fantastic, and we had a grand time. Friday night some of his friends were leaving to go back home to Spain, so we went to a disco with them. They were wonderful and hilarious. Saturday we did some fabulous touristy things - you know, the dom, the gate, Holocaust memorial, etc. It was mostly nice to just wander around and observe things. There is so much to do and see in Berlin! You hardly even have to try to entertain yourself. We tried lots of new restaurants - Greek, Italian, even Mexican! And of course the occasional döner for a euro or two. :) Saturday night we had quite the excursion trying to find the place where Miriam and Heidi used to live, near Humannplatz (I will now never forget the name of that place!! We asked so many people to help us find it!!). Our mission was to find a restaurant with "the best Greek food" Miriam had ever tried last year. When we finally arrived, we pulled aside some overgrown ivy and found the remains of a once-revered Greek restaurant... so sad. But luckily we walked a couple more blocks and found another restaurant - with very wonderful food! Sorry Mir - we tried!!

Sunday I arranged a new carpool that left around 2:00. We followed directions to a woman named Simone´s house in a beautiful part of the city. When I arrived, I was greeted by a very excitable woman with a tiny frame, donning bright red pants and the most ridiculously fuzzy pink sweater I have ever seen. We were still waiting for two more carpoolers to arrive, so she kept running back to her house and bringing down boxes and boxes to put in her trunk. Then after the other passengers arrived, she instructed us on which seats to take and where to place our luggage (mine ended up on my lap - Philipp, the guy sharing the backseat, had a massive backpack that we somehow wedged between us. To top it off, Simone rushed back again with a huge flower arrangement - I mean HUGE - the size of a small person, wrapped in paper. She balanced it precariously between Philipp, myself, and our luggage. So for nearly an hour we sat in small caves in the back, trying to keep the flower vase balanced and listening to the rustling of paper at every little bump! It was bizarre and entertaining. After she dropped the flowers off at a mysterious location, Philipp and I could finally have a conversation. Turns out he is also an artist who lives in Kiel. We talked painting for a bit, and then he asked some very challenging questions about art theory, philosophy, and what I think about the abundance and monotony of modern art - and how we can justify ourselves as artist within that structure. It was so fun to talk again about these things that are so important to me. I haven´t really had any of that yet since arriving - not even with Harry. Philipp gave me his blog so I could check out some of his art work. He works a lot with making his own pigment and creating grey-scaled spectrums to find ideal greys, and so forth. Also does a lot with color experimentation in landscapes. He really likes to simplify as much as possible to provoke the same emotions that people try to convey with loud pieces of modern art. Perhaps if he has a show or something in Kiel, I´ll go see it in person. Who knows? But hooray for random carpools!! And for saving over 150 euro in the process.... :)

Now I need to go start making lunch. I´ll update more soon - I promise! Keep in touch!! I´m out of the loop now, after the weekend away.