Spaltungsirresein

A certain feeling of schizophrenia should be expected by those wishing to live the exciting lifestyle of ‘intern by day, tourist after 17:00.’ Though there are definitely advantages and disadvantages of living this complicated routine, I find it to be very rewarding. One of the hardest parts of being a tourist only at nights and on the weekends is that pretty much everything interesting shuts down at 6:00 – that’s all of the museums, the cool little shops, and even the trains stop running as frequently. So all that is left is stuff that’s outside.. that and the bars, which I try to avoid in general. But because everyone has gone to bed or whatever, there are no crowds at the cool stuff. Take, for example, the Berlin Wall. Normally, there would be no way for me to get a clean shot of the wall without anyone standing in my way.. However, late at night, after the internship is over, it’s the perfect time. And that is why I have lots of pictures of sunsets and other things in the dark.
Anyway, this is one of the last remaining chunks of the Berlin Wall. Assumedly, long-armed entrepreneurs have chipped off all of the painted parts of the wall, and with everyone wanting a piece of the wall, there’s not much left. But it was still pretty impressive.

Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas

So one evening, as I was exploring downtown Berlin, I found the perfect place to play Steal the Flag.. except that it's like a memorial for European Jews, so I figure you shouldn't run around in there, even if you run around quietly. But anyway, an entire block downtown is dedicated to this memorial, and is filled with what appear to be short gravestones. When you start walking toward the middle of the memorial, it becomes apparent that the stones in the middle are really tall, and you can't see anything but more stones. And I was there at 10:00 at night, and there was nobody there.. perfect for Steal the Flag.

Berliner Dom

This is a shot of the Berliner Dom at night. I went to a pretty sweet organ and brass choir concert here. It was cool because it was all big and echoey, and when the organist pulled out all of the stops...
I wasn't sure what time it started, so I got there like an hour early and sat down in one of the benches. Even though there were a lot of tourists going in and out, I must have looked a little conspicuous because an older lady came over and asked me if I wanted to go to the 'banquet' upstairs with free food and drinks. My first reaction was to ask her 'Which way?'. Unfortunately, as I approached the banquet, I realized that it was mostly free drinks, with little skewered.. mice or some other unrecognizable food on a long toothpick. Using my mad math skills I learned in 6th grade, I realized that it would take about 283.29 skewered critters to bring any amount of satisfaction, and that just one would probably make me hungrier. And the drinks.. well, we weren't talking about no BYU Sparkle.. so I went back downstairs and sat in a different spot. Man. There's really nothing wrong with green jello and funeral potatoes. But the concert was really good.

Abendrot

So I may be a little biased, but sunsets are amazing in Germany. Perhaps that's because they are few and far between... The sun obeys different rules on this side of the world..

Ankunft

Ich bin wieder da.
I guess it's been a week now, but things are finally starting to get going. Until yesterday, I was relying on pretty seedy internet cafe establishments, but now I have the internet in my office. I still haven't figured out how to get pictures from my laptop onto this blog, but I should get some stuff up soon.