Mittwoch, Woche 4

Big Soviet Guy

Sony Center (in my opinion "Little America" would be a better name)

Looking down the memorial towards the Big Soviet Guy

(Wednesay, Week 6) This is another prime example of not appreciating what you have until it's gone. Berlin reached 29 degrees Celsius today (84 degrees Fahrenheit) with a ridiculous amount of humidity (the southern kids didn't think it was humid, but us western folk sure did). It was so hot and muggy. All I wanted to do today was sit at the bottom of a pool. I miss the cold. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so hopefully that will help to cool everything down. Yuck. Enough whining. Last night I went and saw the new Transformers movie at the Sony Center (in English). I actually really liked it. I fit the demographic they were targeting. A couple interesting things about movies in Germany: 1) You have assigned seating. No first come, first serve nonesense here. 2) If you want to sit in the middle of the theater you have to pay an extra euro. 3) If the movie is over two hours yoou have to pay an extra euro. 4) If the movie is over two hours there is an intermission in the middle, where they truly stop the movie in the middle of a scene, the screen goes black except for the word "pause," and the curtains close. Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention, they actually have curtains that open and close like a real theater. Interesting... In other news, today was excursion day in German class. We started the by going on a long tour of a old East German prison. It used to house some of the most famous political prisoners back in the DDR days. You could definitely tell by the archicture of the surrounding area that you were firmly in the former East. Lots of big square apartment buildings. I'll stick with west Berlin. It was interesting to see the prison and read the signs. We had a tour guide but it was all in German and he spoke way too fast and usually much too quietly for me to understand any full sentences. So after awhile I stopped trying. Real nice guy, though. For whatever reason, I thought the "tiger cages" were really interesting. These were were certain prisoners were allowed to go 'outside' for exercise. They were built out of four concrete walls with a concrete flor and were maybe 20x20 feet with a chain-link fence over the top. The guards were able to walk around the top and look down at the prisoners. Being in there really did feel like being a tiger and know I understand why they are always pacing back and forth at the zone. I was only in there maybe seven minutes and I already had the urge to. The reason the prisoners were so happy to visit the tiger cages was that sometimes in the cracks between the walls and floor some little weed might start to grow and this was there only opportunity to see something green. There only opportunity to see the sky as well. After the tour we stopped by a mall to grab a quick lunch and I was able to satisfy my doener craving. I don't know if I've told you about doeners yet, but if I haven't, I will, because they're amazing. After that we went ant visited a huge Soviet Memorial for all the soldiers in the Red Army that died in WWII. Very big, very straight lines, very Soviet. After the monument, we all split up to go home, but some of us went over to an area called Rathaus Steglitz to get some ice cream. I guess it was actually gelato. It was nice to have something cold on such a sticky, muggy day. Then, I went home. Did a bit of homework, ate some dinner, and talked to Juergen about mountains in Colorado. He was very impressed that I had climbed a mountain over 4,200 meters. The highest point in Germany, the Zugspitze, doesn't even reach 3,000 meters. It took a while for us to convert feet to meters and get this all straightened out. Now I'm writing this instead of doing homework. The week is flying by. This weekend I'll be in Weimar for the whole weekend. We leave Friday afternoon, so hopefully no incidents like last time and I'll have some clean clothes to take with me. More soon!