A first night and a last night

Thanks for tuning into my 30^th post! (Cue applause, I know, what a momentous moment). I will write about a first night and a last night from last week. May 19 was my new friend Shivalik’s first night in Heidelberg. After traveling the whole day from Berlin (as I had done just a week earlier), he was ready to watch the Champions League final between Bayern München and Chelsea. Once he had brought his stuff to his room, Shivalik gave me a call in the afternoon and we met up at Bismarckplatz (Bismarck square) in the center of town. Accompanying him was Anas, a German student who is subletting his room to Shivalik for the summer. Since it was Shivalik’s first time in Heidelberg, we did the mandatory hike up to the Schloss (castle) and explored a bit more of the city before it was time to head over to a bar called Belinni’s to watch the game. Normally, I wouldn’t go into the details of how we got there, but here it’s worth mentioning. Shivalik and Anas came to Bismarckplatz on bikes; I walked. Shivalik and Anas had to pick up some paint on the way to the bar, so they recommended that I take a bus and meet them at the surgical clinic, where my internship is. While I was on the bus, it suddenly started raining cats and dogs and I worried that something might happen to my two friends on their bikes. Once I arrived, I saw that Shivalik and Anas weren’t there yet, so I went inside to use the bathroom (Traveler’s tip: Hospitals are a great place to use the bathroom for free). When I came out, I was shocked to see a giant puddle of white paint on the ground with Anas standing right in the middle of it. They had made it all the way to the clinic, only to drop a can of paint after they arrived. Anas said that there wasn’t really anything we could do and recommended that Shivalik and I simply go to the bar while he found someone in the hospital to clean the paint.

We got to the bar all right and found decently good seats close to the TV where we just had to crane our heads a little to the side to see the screen. The people sitting next to us were celebrating a birthday party. Funnily enough, Shivalik and I ended up talking quite a bit with a student from the group named Niclas. I guess it wasn’t that atypical that we chatted a bit with a stranger at a bar, but what I think what was atypical, especially in Germany, was that he invited us to his friend’s birthday party that was being held nearby in a dorm. Shivalik was interested, so I decided to go too. At the party, we were able to chat with the rest of the group over some beer and surprisingly, everyone, including the birthday boy, were all really welcoming, even though we had only just met! I’m still not sure if it was pure friendliness or the fact that everyone in the birthday group weren’t exactly sober that led to this all happening. Either way, it was definitely a good time!

Okay, on to the last night. May 23 was the last night of Eckhart (I don’t know his first name) being a Fuchs at the fraternity I am living in. Fuchs literally means fox, but in this sense it means freshman. In order to become a fully-fledged member of the Corps Rhenania, one must participate in a Mensur (duel). A Fuchs from each of two different fraternities face-off in what is called “academic fencing” surrounded by the members of their respective fraternities looking on. Each Fuchs is allowed to wear protective gear up to the neck and then only goggles to protect their eyes. Each member also has two people assisting them: one looks on from the side and jumps in to end each round after a certain number of sabre clashes and the second wipes down the sword in between rounds. During the course of the Mensur, there are thirty rounds in which the two Füchse alternate between trying to strike the other on the forehead and blocking. It was frightful, yet fascinating to watch, since at any moment a Fuchs could make an error and end up with a nasty scar on his face as a result. It is fascinating to me that the students here do this voluntarily. There are a lot of benefits if you can survive the thirty rounds while remaining steadfast in place (like Eckhart and his opponent both did, neither sustaining any injuries). You become a rightful Mitglieder of the fraternity, which gives you the right to wear a special colored ribbon from your right shoulder to your left waist and boss all the Füchse around. Also, I guess because of the importance of the duel, all the onlookers (who were also all male) dressed in suits for this event, so I managed to find a cheap suit at C&A for the next Mensur. Also, don’t worry Mom and Dad, I am not a Fuchs, but a Gast (guest) of the fraternity, so I will not have anything more to do with these duels other than watching.    

You can find out more about academic fencing looking around online if you need an excuse to procrastinate. I read that Mark Twain’s book A Tramp Abroad is based in part on his own experience watching student fencing in Heidelberg. Maybe he met some members of the Corps Rhenania back in the day. Anyway, that’s it for now. Danke furs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!

The first week

Hallo alle! It’s hard to believe that a whole week has passed now since I arrived in Heidelberg, but indeed, I got through the first week of my internship. For those of you that are curious about the specifics, I am currently participating in the German American Exchange Service’s RISE program (Research In Science and Engineering). I was fortunate enough to get placed with a medical student here who is working on a project called “Development of a Decision Support System for Minimally Invasive Surgery with a Special Focus on the Retroperitoneum”. What does that mean in simpler terms? After a week of essentially just getting familiar with the German-version of the anatomy of the abdominal space, I’m just as confused as you are, but it’s pretty much an attempt to create a computer program that would assist surgeons as they are removing a kidney, or doing something else in the retroperitoneum (basically the area between your stomach and spine). Then, minimally invasive surgery, or laparoscopic surgery, is just like regular surgery, only with much smaller incisions. The surgeon uses a television monitor to see what he/she is doing with elongated surgical instruments that go through these incisions. It’s definitely been interesting so far, but I already miss the interactions with patients that brought me so much gratification in Berlin. I’ll definitely keep an open mind during my time here, but at the moment, my first week has revealed to me that the clinical side of healthcare really appeals to me more than research.   

Even though I had to start this past Monday, the day after I arrived, Ascension Thursday is actually a holiday down here in southern Catholic Germany, so I used the opportunity to explore the city a bit! After attending Mass at the Jesuit Church, a beautiful Baroque church that was spared with the rest of Heidelberg’s Altstadt (old city) from bombing by the Allies in WWII, I decided to head straight for the Schloss (castle), which might be Heidelberg’s biggest tourist attraction. After tackling a mountain of stairs to get to it, I could definitely see why. Onlookers are rewarded by a spectacular view of the city below cut down the middle by the Neckar River. I even managed to locate the fraternity where I live, but more on that later. Once I had finished enjoying the beautiful panorama, I decided to move on up to two other vantage points further up the mountain. The first called Molkenkur I found without too much trouble, but it wasn’t all that spectacular. I had very high expectations for Königstuhl, however, which in English translates to the “King’s Throne”. What better view could there be than that? Unfortunately, I ended up going the wrong way and ended up somewhere else, but fortunately, I ended up somewhere else! It was the Heidelberg Arboretum! I looked at the map though and when I realized the sheer size of the park, I decided it was time to call it quits and make my way down the mountain. About an hour later, I collapsed on the chair in my room, exhausted yet satisfied.      

I’ll end a little bit about the Corps Rhenania, the fraternity where I live. I never saw myself living in a fraternity, but this is where my supervisor found me a room, so hey, here I am. It’s been a nice experience so far. After seven months in Germany, I have learned that it’s really no use to try to become best friends with the other students that live here, since realistically they have no interest in being my best friend. They already have their own groups of friends and furthermore, Germans tend to be much more reserved than Americans. Something that is refreshing about German culture, however, is that on the rare occasion that a German does strike up a conversation with you, it is out of a legitimate interest and not some selfish idea of how you might be useful to them in the future. My strategy then has just been to spend a couple hours hanging out with the other students here and there without trying to be overly friendly or appear desperate. And who knows, maybe I will make a German friend or two here in Heidelberg before the summer is over.        

All right, I’m off to watch the Champions’ League final between Chelsea and Bayern with another RISE scholar who is arriving today! Right, forget to mention that there will be other Americans doing similar internships in Heidelberg- should create plenty of opportunities to have fun this summer in Europe! Danke fürs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!

Good Bye Berlin

Hallo! As I write this post, I am on the train on my way to Heidelberg- my last stop during my 10-month stay in Germany. After the Wintersemester with the Middlebury School Abroad in Mainz and seven weeks in Berlin, I will now spend my last twelve weeks in Germany doing a research internship with a PhD student at Heidelberg University Hospital. More on that in my next post!

When we last left Jonathan, he was on his way to the Jewish Museum in Berlin. I think I said in a previous post that the Natural History Museum in Berlin was the most technologically advanced museum I had ever visited.  I was wrong! First of all, the museum is architecturally stunning. Visitors begin on the ground floor where they visit the Garden of Exile, built in recognition of Jewish immigrants in Germany and the Holocaust Tower, a dark, towering hollow space with just a crack of daylight that breaks through the ceiling that is meant to give the visitor maybe a small glimpse of what it felt like to be trapped in a concentration camp. As one ascends to the upper levels, one can retrace the steps of the Jews in Germany, starting from the World of Ashkenaz (950-1500 AD) all the way to the present time. I’ll end with two examples of the technology I referred to earlier. The first was an automated 3D movie that gave an overview of the first Jewish settlements in Germany. 3D glasses were not required; instead images that moved back in forth in front of your eyes were projected in the space of a triangular shaped stage used for depth. Much better than the 3D that is being used now in movie theaters! Second, my friend Jim noted that the headphones located throughout the museum were top notch DJ equipment that cost 200 Euros a piece. Doesn’t seem like this museum is having financial issues!

The next day, Thursday, I went with Jim to the Medical History Museum, which is located on the campus of Charite Medical School. I really questioned whether I have what it takes to be a doctor as I walked through the halls of the museum. In the display cases, one can find virtually every organ and body part found in the human body. And they aren’t models, but the real things! The most challenging part of the museum to visit was the pathology room, where one finds the most disturbing examples of what disease and genetic disorders can do to the human body. I won’t go into too much detail, but the part that touched me the most was a section of display cases that had human fetuses with some really terrible disorders that ended their lives before they were even born. The main thing that keeps me optimistic when I think back on this experience, however, is that the vast majority of humans are born healthy. The vast majority of humans do not enter the world with terrible diseases, but instead succumb to them after a life well-lived. I still don’t know if I really have what it takes to be a doctor, but after seeing what’s out there, I’m even more motivated to do my best to become one.

On a lighter note, I went with my friend Conor on Friday to a place called Kunsthaus Tacheles. Danke Michael C. für die Empfehlung und Conor furs Mitkommen! Kunsthaus Tacheles is this abandoned building in the middle of Berlin that artists use now both to sell their works and create new ones while visitors browse around. In addition, the walls and ceilings of the building are all covered with layers of both graffiti and drawings that I’d be willing to concede are art. Conor and I agreed that this place and the people that inhabit it represent the nature of Berlin very well, but visit ASAP! The city government is currently trying to close this place down, which would really be a pity I think. Sure, I have a feeling there are a lot of illegal things surrounding the Kunsthaus, but if it was torn down, Berlin would lose an amazing example of living history in the center of the city.

I think that’s about it. WAIT A SECOND! I haven’t talked about FOOD yet! The past two nights, Jim and I had cheese fondue and hotpot- two really good yet really easy dinners to make. Vielen Dank Jim! I’ll post some new pictures on FB too. Danke fürs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!       

Hamburg and Lübeck

This past Sunday, at 15:27 Deutsche Bahn time, I arrived in Hamburg’s central train station on my way to revisit Joni’s family, who had so graciously hosted me in 2008 as part of GAPP(German American Partnership Program, Joni visited me for 4 weeks in the US, I visited him for 3 weeks in Germany). About an hour later, Joni’s father met me at Poppenbüttel train station and drove me back to their home, where I was also happy to see Joni’s mother again. Almost nothing had changed in the past four years. Sure, the parents and Joni’s younger siblings (who I would meet later at midnight when they arrived back from a trip to Taize) had gotten older and some little things were different around the house. But for the most part, I was in the same comfortable atmosphere that I remember from high school, only this time, we spoke auf Deutsch! It was really a special experience because although I got to know the family the last time by speaking in English, the most intricate parts of the family members’ personalities, or I think really anyone’s personalities, only comes out in their native tongue. At the same time, the family seemed almost honored in a way that I had continued to study German and all of this just made for a really good two days in Hamburg. Sleeping in, attending a talk given by the mother about life in former East Germany, playing Mario Cart- things don’t get much better than that! Vielen Dank Joni’s Familie!

On Tuesday afternoon, I took a small detour on my way back to Berlin to get coffee with a Midd friend named Chris, who is currently doing a Fullbright project in Lübeck. He gave me a tour of the quaint little city and we caught up on things since we had last seen each other in Middlebury. Last spring, Chris gave me a lot of really valuable advice before I embarked on my semester in Mainz, since he spent a year there during his undergraduate years, so part of the reason I wanted to visit was to let him know that everything had turned out well with the Wintersemester. More importantly though, he is just a great guy and I was sad to have to say goodbye to him to make my journey back to Berlin. Danke für einen wunderbaren Nachmittag Chris!

So, now I just have 4 days left in Berlin, INCLUDING TODAY! I’m off to the Jewish Museum now. Danke furs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!

PS- This is really funny! (Thanks for sharing this on FB Talel)

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Pick German as the 'from' language; Press the 'Listen'-button

The operation

Last Monday, I had my last day of work at Charite hospital, and boy, what a last day it was! Everything started out the same as usual. The nurses and I did the morning rounds at 7 AM, entering every room after the team of doctors had finished to care for the patients. At 8 AM, I distributed breakfast to the patients (I am now really good at pouring cups of coffee with any combination of milk, sugar, artificial sweeteners, grape sugar). After I collected the breakfast trays from the rooms, however, the head nurse said that I would finally get to see an operation! She told me to report to the operation station in 15 minutes and that first I could eat some breakfast. In the break room, I sought to find a balance between eating enough that I wouldn’t get hungry during the operation and not so much that I might throw up. I had never seen an operation up to that point and I had not even been told what kind of operation I would be seeing. I decided to head downstairs a little bit early, since I didn’t want to miss the first incision, but it turned out I arrived plenty early. I entered the operation room with a new set of sterile clothes, a mouth covering and a shower cap as the nurses and doctors prepped all the equipment and instruments for the operation. The patient was lying in a bed and raised his hand slightly upward to greet me. “Hallo,” I said in reply. Once everything was ready, the procedure began by sticking a line with a camera down the patient’s throat to check for any new cancerous growths. This was actually the worst part I thought, since the patient was awake and looked like he was in a lot of pain the entire time. It was interesting to see the inside of his throat on the television screen. I only wish there could have been a more comfortable way of performing that first procedure. Next, the anesthesiologist put the patient to sleep and the head surgeon made the first incision. Once I realized that I wasn’t going to faint, I looked on with great interest as the surgeon cut deeper and found the skin tumors less than an inch under the surface of the patient’s left leg and abdomen. After the first surgeon removed a tumor, the second surgeon, who I think was doing the German equivalent of a residency, began sewing the patient back up. I was surprised by how little blood there was. The surgeons used these heated knives and prongs that immediately burned the flesh and prevented most of the bleeding. I also looked on with great interest as the anesthesiologist did his work. He recorded different readings throughout the operation and checked the patient’s pupils every once in a while to make sure that they were not too big. He told me that this was one way of measuring how much pain the patient was in. After about three hours, the surgeons used a staple gun to put the finishing touches on closing up the wounds and the anesthesiologist removed the gas tube. A few minutes later, the patient suddenly woke up and his first reaction after taking a deep breath of air was to try to get up. It took four people to hold him down before he realized what was going on and lay back down calmly. After the team of doctors and nurses used a sliding pad to transfer the patient from the operating table back to his bed, I headed back up to my station. At that point, it was 2 PM, closing time. I said my final goodbyes to the nurses and secretly left a little note for them expressing my gratitude on their bulletin board as I left.

I definitely feel a little sad that the internship is over now. There are many random things that remind me of the different patients and nurses. For example, there was one friendly diabetic patient who would always say “drücken” (push) to me in a very commanding way as I was squeezing blood out of his finger. Now, I always hear his voice in my head whenever I push a door open. I also have been frequently listening to the Berlin radio station 104.6 RTL (check it out online!), since that is the station the nurses would always have on during break. Really though, my journey toward becoming a doctor is just beginning, so I think the main part of me is really looking forward to my next internship in Heidelberg that will begin on May 14 in which I will be helping a PhD student with her project on developing laparoscopic surgery technology that focuses on an anatomical area called the retroperitoneum. Should be fun!      

In other news, there was one weird night where I couldn’t stay in my apartment, since a new person was moving in and I couldn’t begin crashing in my flatmate Frederic’s room (Danke Frederic!) until the next night. So my friend Conor was nice enough to host me for a night (Danke Conor!). We went to this Mexican restautant called Alcatraz that claims to have the best fajitas in Berlin and although I have not had fajitas anywhere else in the city, I would not dispute this claim! Finally, I checked out the Berlin Wall Documentation center one day and that was pretty cool. That’s all for now! I’ll have some traveling to report on next time. Danke furs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!

Having fun

As I write this post, there are only five more days left of my internship! April is certainly flying by faster than any other month I have been Germany. You know what they say about when time flies! Here’s a summary of what I’ve been up to since Wiener Schnitzel night:

Der Zoologische Garten: The Berlin Zoo has more species of animals than any other zoo in the world! Needless to say, it’s a big place! My two flatmates, Jim and Frederic, and I spent four hours there checking out the different exhibits. My favorites were the elephants, black bears, brown bears, polar bears, penguins, sea lions, and hippopotamuses to name a few. Two more are worth mentioning. The first was the leaf cutter ants on the third floor of the aquarium (Yes, there is actually an aquarium at the zoo too! Not very big, but worth the 5 extra euros to check out). There were two display cases on opposite sides of a large room and glass tubes that went along the ceiling connecting them, simulating the long distances the ants will carry leaves back to their colonies. The next brought me back to 1996-97 when my kindergarten class at Hoover School put on a play called The Great Kapok Tree. My friend Michael and I were both ocelots. I have never actually seen a live ocelot until I got to Berlin, so that was pretty cool as well!

Philharmonie: Maybe some of my readers will remember that visiting the Philharmonie (the concert hall of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra) was the subject of my college application essay. I discovered it on my own during the 3-day visit to Berlin with my German exchange group and was very excited to be able to hear the orchestra from the lobby! Jump ahead three years later and I knew that I had to get inside the concert hall this time around. It turns out that all the concerts of the Philharmonic sell out months in advance, plus the tickets are SUPER expensive, so I was happy spending 2 euros (3 euros if you’re a student) to take the guided tour of the building that leaves from the musicians’ entrance every day at 1:30 PM. The musicians’ entrance can be reached by crossing the parking lot located on the side of the concert hall closest to Potsdamer Straße (shameless plug for the guided tour, it’s great!). Anyway, the tour begins by walking to the main lobby that I mentioned earlier. The guide remarked how compared to other concert halls, the lobby of the Philharmonie is unornate. No red carpet, no fancy decorations, instead a wide open space where friends can meet up before the concert and chat or have a drink. (I’ll tell you what I remember about the tour in case you’re not going to be in Berlin any time soon. If I bore you, by all means, skip ahead, or better yet, stop reading all together and google “cat memes” for the next hour or so.) In the lobby, there is this really cool panorama in which a photographer photo-shopped at least a few hundred clones of himself to fill the lobby, concert hall, and stage. It was quite amusing to see what he was doing all over the picture. Next, we headed up to the top level of the concert hall and as we walked in, I heard music! No, it wasn’t the orchestra, but a solo clarinetist was rehearsing on stage, so we got to hear the acoustics of the hall, which were really quite good. The guide went into all of the small details that the architect, Hans Scharoun, used to produce the best possible sound in a hall in which the orchestra is placed in the middle. He got a lot of criticism in the 60s about how it would never work. Many at the time were strong proponents of your standard “shoe box” concert hall, in which the sound bounces directly off the back wall behind the orchestra and into the audience. Scharoun though was a big fan of democracy the tour guide said, and if you look at the seating plan you’ll see that except for a small section right in front of the orchestra, all of the seats are pretty equal in terms out what you see and what you hear. Everyone ends up having a different experience depending on where they sit, but the quality of the experience remains more or less equal. Not to mention that the ascetics of the hall are amazing. We ended the tour by visiting the chamber music hall as well, where a children’s choir was rehearsing. It was pretty much a smaller version of the Philharmonie designed by a protégé of Scharoun’s keeping his democratic ideals in mind. I’ll just end by addressing one issue that might have popped up in your head as you were reading this: how democratic is the Philharmonic today with its super expensive concerts? The good news is that every Tuesday at 1 PM (another shameless plug J), the orchestra has free lunchtime concerts in the lobby that all are welcome to attend.        

Die Charite: I am still really enjoying my internship at Charite hospital, but at the same time, my rose colored glasses have definitely come off during the last week or so. It turns out that Germany’s health care system has its problems too. I had an interesting discussion with some of the nurses the other day during Frühstück (breakfast, for the nurses who do the morning shift it’s around 10 AM since they don’t take lunch) in which we compared nursing in the US and Germany. I think the main point they drove home was even though Germany spends much less on healthcare than the US, less money puts more stress on nurses and doctors to deliver quality health care to patients. For example, a nurse that cares for patients at home often has to visit up to 20 patients in a single day! I don’t know how it is in the US, but I would be very surprised if that was also the case for American nurses. In addition, doctors at the Charite have been threatening to go on strike for quite some time now. I’m not sure about the specifics, but the idea of doctors going on strike in the US is literally unheard of as far as I know. Finally, I have even come to the conclusion that my position as a student intern only exists to help cut costs even further. My only pay is free food at breakfast and lunch that is leftover from serving the patients and there is rarely a moment when I am sitting around with nothing to do. It is clear that the nurses I work with are overwhelmed with work most days and I can only imagine what it is like without a student intern to lend a hand. Probably one of the biggest things I’ll take away from this internship when it’s over is a newfound respect for nurses. I had really no idea beforehand how much they do in an 8-hour shift that tends to actually be 9 hours. In Germany, a three-month nursing internship at the beginning of medical school is actually mandatory and I think it would be good to introduce at the very least a similar option in the US. The result is that every doctor in Germany knows firsthand what it is like to be a nurse and I am sure that does tons in terms of the potential for doctors and nurses to collaborate in providing the best possible care for patients.

Wow, this post turned out to be pretty long, my apologies. I hope it was at least somewhat interesting for you to read. Stay tuned for my next post when Jonathan finishes his internship at the Charite and begins a well-deserved two week break before starting internship #2 in Heidelberg! At least the author thinks the break will be well-deserved J. Danke fürs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!     

An unofficial guide to Berlin Mitte

Hallo alle! (Hello everyone!) I’ve been pretty busy since the last time I wrote, so I’ll do my best to sum up what I’ve been up to without making this post extremely long.

Two Fridays ago, I achieved my childhood dream of seeing the Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum. Ever since I learned about the gate in middle school and found out it was in Berlin, I have really, really wanted to go see it. Since I didn’t get a chance to see it the last time I was in Berlin in 2008, I made sure that on my first day off from my internship (Good Friday) I went and saw it. It was spectacular! I posted a video you can see in the link above, but it is better to just visit it in person if you ever get the chance. The rest of the museum actually wasn’t all that amazing, but the admission cost of 6,50 Euro was worth it just for the gate. After the museum, I wandered around Berlin a bit and managed to get into the Berlin Cathedral for free by going to a Good Friday service there. It really does seem like the best way to see a church is to simply go to a service there, which worked very well for my friend Dylan and I at Notre Dame in Paris. Speaking of Paris, there was a copy of Hammurabi’s code in front of the Ishtar Gate. It felt pretty good to know that I had already seen the original in the Lourve J

Saturday was also a fun night since my friend Emily invited me and several other students from the Middlebury program in Berlin to her place for dinner (Danke Emily!). We made lasagne sandwiches that Paula Deen herself would have been proud of and a veggie lasagne that I think she also would have appreciated after her diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. Oh well, but as one of my biology professors once said “what would life be without bacon?” After dinner, some of us went clubbing until the wee hours of the morning, so that was a good time.         

On Sunday, two new people entered my life. The first is named Jim and he will be my roommate for the remainder of the month. The second is named Ben. Yeah, he’s not exactly a new person in my life as we’ve known each other since childhood, but I had a great time hosting him for a week as he travels around Europe.

I’ll employ a list here (in chronological order) to give an overview of some of the places I visited last week with Ben and/or Jim. Consider it an unofficial guide to Berlin Mitte!

Reichstag: The home of the German parliament. Haven’t found a reason yet to wait in line to go up to the roof

Brandenburg Gate: Commissioned by Friedrich Wilhelm II in the 1730s to represent peace. Perhaps the most iconic image of Berlin (at least on the windows of the U-Bahn)

Holocaust Memorial: The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe covers 4.7 acres with its blocks of concrete that make the visitor feel disoriented while walking through. Whether you like the memorial or not, it does immortalize the remorse Germans feel to this day concerning the atrocities committed during WWII

Potsdamer Platz/Sony Center: I made the mistake of showing Ben and Jim this place during the day. Luckily, we went back in the evening to watch Hunger Games at the Cinestar there and when we got out of the theater, both understood why this is one of my favorite spots in Berlin

Philharmonie: This crazily-shaped yellow building is the home of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra. Also the subject of my college admissions essay, as I managed to locate it during my first trip to Berlin and got to hear the orchestra from the lobby

Checkpoint Charlie: The best known crossing point between the American and Soviet sectors of Berlin during the Cold War. Today you can pay to have your picture taken with the “border guards” there.  

Gedarmenmarkt: A cool square in Berlin that is the site of the Konzerthaus and the French and German cathedrals (actually museums). Bring your camera!

St. Hedwig’s Cathedral: The seat of the Catholic archbishop of Berlin. Father Bernhard Lichtenberg, who helped Jews during the Holocaust, is buried in a crypt here. 

Schinkel Museuem: A small, free museum located in a Neo-Gothic church. Keep walking east past the museum for a nice panorama of the Berlin Cathedral and Alexanderplatz

Book Burning Memorial: Located in front of the German Opera House, this memorial is comprised of a window embedded in the ground that looks down into a library with empty shelves. Accompanying the memorial is the eerie quote from Heinrich Heine, a German poet who lived 100 years before the Holocaust: Wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen. (Where one burns books, one also burns people in the end).  

Neue Wache: A memorial for all victims of war and tyranny. Käthe Kollwitz’s sculpture Mother with her Dead Son is at the center under the oculus, which leaves it exposed to rain and snow.

Berliner Dom: The Berlin Cathedral, a famous Protestant church in Berlin. Pretty cool interior, but as I said earlier, just go to a service and you don’t have to pay for admission.

Alexanderplatz: A cool square in Berlin that is the home of the towering Fernsehturm (TV tower). About a 5 minute walk from my apartment.

Topographie des Terrors: A free museum that documents that Nazis rise to power and atrocities during WWII. Ben and I spent a few hours here last Tuesday.

Restaurant Haus Berlin: A fairly inexpensive restaurant with a pretty good Wiener Schnitzel. More importantly, quality German beer from the tap for 3 Euros.    

East Side Gallery: A 1.3 km stretch of the Berlin Wall that is also the world’s largest open-air art gallery. A bit out of the way, but must-see for visitors to Berlin.

 Kurfürstendamm: Historic shopping area in West Berlin

 Nollendorfplatz: Berlin’s most prominent gay village

Natural History Museum: Jim and I checked out this museum on Saturday. Probably the most technologically advanced museums I have ever been to. Most exhibit descriptions have a hands-on interface that lets you touch certain words and a video or picture will pop up on an imbedded screen. There is also a cool outer space exhibit that has a circular couch that allows visitors to lie down and watch a movie about the formation of the Earth projected on a moving screen up above. Throw in the world’s largest mounted dinosaur and you’ve got a museum more than deserving of its own U-Bahn stop!  

Last night, Jim also taught me how to make Wiener Schnitzel! It was quite lecker (delicious). Now I’ll have a pseudo-German (Wien= Vienna) specialty that I can make for family/friends when I get back to the US! Danke fürs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!