I can’t feel my legs

I’m gonna try and remember everything I can from this week.

We woke up Sunday and following breakfast attended a German church. Of course, the service was entirely in German so it didn’t do us much good. Pohle summarized the message as being something along the lines of “not abusing the power we have”. They had an excellent guitar player, though, and we got to listen to her play for about fifteen or twenty minutes (it was a two-hour long service), but it almost put us to sleep. Afterwards we came back and had the “three-hour tour” (Giligan’s Island, lol) that the people renting us the apartments arranged for us. It wasn’t bad, but the tour guide talked faster then most people can think… (but he had a British accent, so it was cool). Afterwards we had dinner and the rest of the evening off. We were a little too tired to go anywhere, though.

Monday was the first day of classes, which was spent explaining our schedules and assignments in depth and then going to a photography exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau. The featured artists were Man Ray and Rodtschenko. I liked a lot of Rodtschenko’s work, he was a graphic designer and photographer back in the early decades of the 1900s. Man Ray was from the same time, but his work was less impressive, though he used a greater variety of mediums. I did see one of his pieces in Art History class before, though, so it was interesting to see it in person.

After the exhibit we split up and a group of us girls (and Kyle) went out to eat in a nearby cafe, where I ordered some kind of weird spaghetti dish which was topped with odd spices and a meat I think was pork. The pork was pretty good, so I ate quite a bit of it. Then the pair who owned the cafe started arguing (loudly), so we left to get dessert elsewhere. We found a bakery nearby that served giant eclairs (which Jessie and i immediately decided to order) and then went in search of legoland.

We found the Legoland nearby, but not before discovering that Will Smith was going to be appearing in person Tuesday night at the local movie theatre for the premier of his film, Hancock. Needless to say, everyone was excited. We decided then to go back to the apartments for dinner (since you had to pay to see Legoland) and tell the others. The professors said we could go if we wanted to, but I had no desire to, since I don’t especially like crowds.

Then yesterday we got up, had breakfast and bible study followed by our first fine art (photography) class. For photography majors that means assignments similar to that of our social documentary class, while for us illustration majors it means we’re taking photos for our morgue, which is a collection of photos we use as reference for pieces. It’s harder then it sounds, because we have to take a lot of pictures of different things from various angles. Then, sometime around the beginning of the fall semester we have to complete a piece using our shots as reference. After class we went to the National Gallery of Art, where we viewed works mostly by Renaissance painters and they had some of Rembrandt’s pieces there as well (squee!)

We tired quickly, however and after a few hours made to depart. A large group went to see the premier arrival of Will Smith while a few of us returned to the apartments. After about an hour I was invited to get some dinner with Hannah and Sue and we stopped at a cafe on the corner of the street where we live. The meals were a bit too expensive, so we ordered dessert instead (Becky had recommended the ice cream). I got a huge, delicious banana split and Sue took a picture of me with it, which I will post later.

Afterwards we went on a walk and then to a park across the street to work on our sketchbooks. Amy came with us and so the four of us sat around a fountain and doodled. For a while I sat back by some bushes and when I looked up to get a better look at some flowers I noticed a pair of eyes staring out at me from the bushes. There was a little German girl there, playing hide-and-go-seek with her mother! She was so cute with her big eyes and blond hair, and she said something to me, but I obviously couldn’t understand a word of it, so I just smiled and went back to drawing.

After a while it started getting chilly and Amy got up and headed back to the apartment, but stopped halfway through the park and came running back to us. She excitedly pointed out some prostitutes standing on the corner. This was hilarious to us because we’d been talking about prostitutes earlier in the week, when some of the group had gone out in the evening and had seen them on practically every corner (both male and female) since they have to a sorta-uniform that people can identify them by. Plus, one of the Professors pointed out that they all try to look alike (blond hair, big boobs, etc), and these two women sorta did. It was also funny because some of us were saying we wanted to see them (out of curiosity) and we didn’t think it was fair that the others saw them without us. I wanted to try sketching them, but they walked off before I finished the drawing I’d been working on. I find it a little weird that prostitution is legal here…

Today we got up and had the usual B&B (breakfast and bible study), then our social documentary class, where we were told we have to have 120 shots by next Tuesday evening. Dangit. Afterwards was lunch and Jessie, Matthew and I had clean up duty (which we had from Monday – Wednesday). Then we all set out to see a private collection of photography by Joakim Eskildsen of people who are basically gypsies (called the “Roma”, I believe). His work was absolutely incredible… there are no words to describe the clarity of his shots and the intensity of the texture and color. I was basically floored, and it turns out that the equipment he uses are the same stuff that we have (JBU has a printer like the one he uses, too). Plus he’s pretty young for such an amazing photographer, he’s only in his thirties!

Afterwards we went to the same building where we saw the Man Ray and Rodtschenko exhibits, and just another story up was another set of exhibits where we saw the work of a Soviet photographer whose name… escapes me. Well, anyway, he took A LOT of famous World War II pictures (such as the picture of when the Russian army invaded Berlin and put their flag on top of one of the government buildings, I believe. Of all the older photographers, his was the work I liked the best. Then, on the other side of the building we saw an exhibit of modern photographers/graphic artists, which consisted of about five or six different artists. I really only cared for one or two of them, though.

Afterwards we were allowed to go and do whatever we wanted, no, excuse me, I mean we’re allowed to go and figured out/work on our social documentary project (even though nobody is really doing it right now). Personally, I’m just having a hard time coming up with an interesting subject and I’m a kind of nervous about having to follow my subject around for an extensive amount of time…pray for me?

A bit of goof news, though: tomorrow (and every Thursday) is our day off! If the weather is good then the Hollands are going to one of the Berlin zoos and Shannon said I could come along if I wanted. Uh, YEAH! Excuse me for being immature and embracing my inner five-year-old, but I love zoos! Zoos and large-scale parades are totally my thing. Call me childish if you want, I don’t really care. Plus I should have a good opportunity to photograph a lot of different, interesting animals. The zoo we’re going to apparently has over 800 species in their aquarium, alone! Plus they have Kunuk, the polar bear!

If the weather is nicht ser gut (not so good) they’re going to Legoland, I’m not totally sure if I want to go along. I don’t mind paying to get into a zoo, and while I wouldn’t mind going to Legoland, the girls here have been talking about going to a bakery that has a whole wall of chocolate products. My face went like this: :O

Plus, knowing them as I do, they may go shopping. So I might tag along, I’m not sure yet. Such a quandry! Holy crap, is it already five? Time goes way too fast around here. I feel like I just got here yesterday, but its almost been a week! Plus I’m not used to having so much to do and worry about (at least, not since school ended). That reminds me, I know I promised pictures but I haven’t been able to figure out how to post them here yet… apparently html won’t cut it. So here’s where I’m keeping them: 
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v296/AthenaAeolus/berlin/

They’re mostly of our apartment and the backyard, but anyway, enjoy!

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