Thursday, December 11, 2008

Post-Berlin through Czech fina

Alritey, just a very quick update because I feel bad for not doing so in a while but am a little lazy.
Germany was fun, and I have no real desire to return - unless its Christmas time again. For one, Christmas in Berlin is aweseme, even though its Berlin. The wall was pretty strange, especially how there is literally just bricks in the middle of concrete to show you where it was and how it has no non-historical role anymore. From what I remember of about 24 hours in Munich but not at Oktoberfest, Munich was much more modern than Berlin. Although East and West are very integrated, a few areas still display socialist realism [Soviet architecture] and make you feel cold inside. The city has a ton of really high end shopping, something like multiple areas that are like Chicago's mag mile. One experience:
We walked into the Longchamps leather store, and I told the girls I was with that I loved it because they had free cookies on a table. As they laughed at me, a lady walked out and offered me champagne. She came around 15 minutes later with finger food. Not pigs in a blanket finger food, but high end, 5 star catering. Little brioches and miniature fruits/veggies stuffed with cheese. Fantastic. Truly. I then went to the Lacoste store, and then they repeated it. That is why I love Berlin shopping.
I also had Hoffbrau beer again - my favorite from Oktoberfest - the greatest beer in all the world. In Berlin they mix beer and juice to be an interesting but tasty afternoon drink. I had the mango, it was good. I also had a lot of hot wine at the x-mas markets, which is amazing and much better than Czech hot wine. I also had bratwurst, currywurst, and every other imaginable fantastic food, primarily meat. They were all delicious, as were the beers.
As far as social life, my program had a lot of party poopers - as in everyone wanted to stay in on Friday and many people wanteed to on Saturday. We went out friday and met a german pop/rock band named suboptimal who were cool, but weren't performing until we left. We even saw their advertisements in our hotel. Pretty cool.
Friday I had also bought homemade grappa at an x-mas market. This stuff was only 38% and was cherry-enough to be drunk straight. That is until you forget everything that happened. Oops.
Saturday we went to a bar at 4am. There was a 30 minute line, and it turned out to also be a techno rave. There were many stylish boys and a lot of crazy people, 2 things I would have known had it not been my first rave. I ended up sobering up by sitting at a bar and drinking jack, then water, then a lot more jack. When we left at 6am, the line was about 45 minutes long. This club is known to have people party all day Sunday too, as the schedule had DJs playing from midnight through 730pm. Also I learned how hard they party in Berlin via a British girl who told us she had a different agenda than us Americans as she wasn't expecting to go home before 9. Nuts.
I got 2hours of sleep, got woken in my boxers by our tourguide alerting us I had 2 minutes to make the bus, then walked around more. Went to the Holocaust memorial and museum which were both really meaningful and nice. Berlin absolutely despises Nazis, and goth people you would see in other places wearing Nazi swastikas actually wear anti-Nazi stuff in Berlin. WW2 isn't really mentioned in Berlin from what I understood, nor is the H word or N word (and not a black person). We also stopped in Dresden on the way home which is a sick city with crazy mixed architectural styles and another sweet market.
Since then, I had my czech final today which I rocked, partially because the hobbitt checked over my test before I turned it in to make sure I didn't have any real mistakes. I'm also trying to cook as little as possible and have thus not purchased any groceries in over a week. Laundry has turned into the same situation and is pretty bad, especially since I'm working out in a gym now. I hadn't realized how much I miss lifting until here, where I go to a gym run by the ex-Mr. Europe and 6th place Mr. World. I'll see them in about an hour, and most of the people reading this in under 2 weeks.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i love the hobbit! good luck on the remainder. xoxoxxo