Anyway, now I’m back from Berlin and in the states. Been back for nearly a month, so I’ll give y’all a brief overview of what’s been going on since I got back. First off, I had to finish up my projects from the trip, which I managed to complete in time (but only thanks to a deadline exstention). Then I spent the rest of my time keeping house, since I wouldn’t have had enough time to get a job. Anyway, just a couple days ago me and Jessie got back to school and today is the first day of classes.

We left Sunday morning and drove from our home in Virginia to Memphis, TN. Then we stopped for the night in a hotel and continued to JBU the next morning. We arrived around 3:00PM and got checked into our room, which is on a brand spanking new section of North Hall. Seriously, nobody has lived in these rooms before because they just finished building them this summer. It’s awesome. Unfortunately, the room is set up a LOT like my room in Walker was, which means you have a lot of space, but you can’t use all of it because the doors are freakin’ huge and need a good berth to open and close properly. We made do, though, and managed (after much deliberating) how to set up the room. I’ll post some pictures as soon as we get the last of our crap put away.

Another sad thing about our new living arrangements is that even though JBU put a new hall on North, they failed to add more parking or washers and dryers. That comes across to me as a lack of foresight and planning, and also completely obvious. I mean, really, if you’re gonna double the number of people living in a dorm, you should also double the number of facilities they’ll be needing. I really don’t want to have to go to another hall and wait in line to do my laundry. Not that I even know where the washers are right now…

On the bright side, me and Jessie are sharing a bathroom with two of our good friends, Lora and Deborah. They both are pretty much moved in, even though Lora just got here yesterday. Of course, they live much closer to the school then we do, so they had their parents to help them (plus they don’t have as much crap as we do).

Not much else to report, as I’ve said, I start classes today, so we’ll see how that goes. Will post more later.

Well, this past weekend I went to Rome with Jessie on our free weekend. We saw a lot of different things but I feel like a weekend is not nearly enough to explore Rome, we didn’t even get a chance to buy souvenirs! On Thursday our flight got in alright so we had no trouble there, but then our taxi to the apartment (which Jessie’s parents rented) overcharged us and left us a good distance away from where we wanted to be. So we ended up wandering around for over an hour looking for the street we wanted and we had to ask about four or five different people for directions, but we eventually found it.

We got to the apartment but had to wait outside because the buzzer was broken, but after ten minutes Jessie’s step-dad poked his head out the window and spotted us. Our apartment was on the top floor of the building with a very narrow staircase, and the air conditioning wasn’t too great (it worked better later on, though). Then on Friday we went to see the Vatican, but didn’t go inside cause the line was too long. Still, we got lots of good pictures.

We learned that all of Rome is filled with fountains that supply cool water to tourists and the locals at all times, which is apparently cleaner then the water in our apartment. Since I didn’t get sick the whole time I’d have to agree. Afterwards we went to lunch and had authentic Italian which, needles to say, was very, VERY good. I ordered the four-cheese pizza (which had no tomatoes or tomato sauce!) and ate the whole thing! Afterwards we went back to the apartment to cool down, you wouldn’t believe how hot it is in Rome. For dinner we headed out to a nearby restaurant and most of us had pasta, also very yummy.

Then we stopped to get a look at the Pantheon and took some pictures, but I don’t think it was open because it was late. Finally we headed back for ice cream and some shut eye. Then on Saturday we took a tour of the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill (where the emperors of Rome built their palaces) and I got plenty of pictures. After that we had dinner at a nearby restaurant with a good reputation for it’s pizza, and I ordered the mozzarella and blue cheese pizza. It was interesting, but not as good as the one I’d had the day before.

On Sunday Jessie and I had to get up very early to get to the airport on time for our flight back to Germany. We got back a little before 13:00 (they use military time here) and got lunch from cafes before we got back to the apartments. That night was the final football game between Germany and Spain, so everyone was excited, unfortunately for them, Spain won.

Yesterday (Monday) was a work day so I went out and did some sketching and took some pictures. Today was pretty much the same, except we attended another exhibition, this time with some Andy Warhol pieces. Not as impressive as some of the other exhibitions we’ve been to see, but it was alright. I find I actually like it better when we do things together as a group rather then just going off on our own, it’s not much fun to go out alone, even if it’s for schoolwork.

It’s hard to believe we’ve been in Berlin for over a week, time flies by so fast. We’ve done so many different things here that I can’t even recall… the only thing I’ve regretted so far is missing out on the fan mile last night because I was trying to catch up on my sketchbooking homework. I know, you’re all probably thinking “Mary, fall behind on sketchbooking? Pshaw!”

In my defense I’m not just allowed to draw whatever I want (or there’d be a lot more). It has to relate to the experience of being in Berlin or the culture. We’re allowed to do sketches, include photographs, brochures, tickets, make collages, etc. My strengths play to the actual drawing, but that takes a long time, plus I feel like I’m taking the easy way out by using pictures or things taken from the city. Those are just my feelings, which is why I tend to fall behind in this subject.

Anyway, we’re going to the fan mile again tonight and watching the Germany-Turkey Football (soccer in America) game. I want to get a Germany jersey as well, to help me remember the experience and just how much this sport means to Europeans. It’s been described as bigger then American Football, and I’d believe it, everyone seems to get excited about it. We expect to get some nice photography tonight of the excited fans and possibly some conflict between the Turks who live in the area and the Germans.

On a lighter note, tomorrow me and Jessie are heading to Rome for our free weekend. We’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon by plane and then taking a cab to the apartment her parents rented. I don’t know how much we’ll get to do in Rome tomorrow, but we found out there’s a dress code for when we visit the Vatican. I may actually have to go shopping to get something appropriate… that reminds me, I need to do laundry.

I’ll make a more detailed post later, I’m actually in the middle of Fine Art class right now.

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!

I’ll backtrack for a moment and explain how it went. Jessie (my roommate, both at school and here in our room in Berlin) and her stepmom came to pick me up at my house around 9:00 Thursday morning. We travelled the two hours to the airport and made it through luggage check and security without any problems, and snagged some lunch @ McDonald’s (since neither of us had breakfast) before boarding out plane. Everyone loaded up in time, but that didn’t stop us from being delayed on the runway, thanks to excessive air traffic. Once we got in the air our flight took less then 30 minutes and we arrived early, but of course that didn’t stop us from being delayed for over an hour on the landing strip. Another plane was parked in our hangar undergoing repairs and there was nowhere else for us to park, but they couldn’t bother to move it and there were no other hangar available until this plane was fixed.

ANYWAY, lucky for them we got to our terminal with another hour to spare before our connecting flight departed for Berlin. I woulda’ shat bricks otherwise. While there I picked up a book for the trip, after realizing I’d failed to bring anything to do on the flight. We boarded the second flight on time, but once again were delayed for over an hour thanks to air traffic. Eventually we took off and the pilot informed us it was a 7 hour flight, which was a bit of a relief, since I originally thought it was twice that long. It ended up being a bit of a problem, though, since I thought I’d have more time to sleep on the way over.

Me, Jessie and Kyle lucked out and ended up sitting next to each other on the flight, so we talked for the first hour or so. Afterwards I watched 27 Dresses and then read my book, and for the last four hours I tried to get some sleep. Tried being the key word here. It’s very difficult for me to sleep sitting up in an explosive tube of metal some tens of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Granted, I didn’t think much about the explosive-toilet-paper-roll-over-the-ocean bit very much, but the uncomfortable and cramped seating was enough. Next time I go overseas, I’m traveling first class. At least there wasn’t much turbulence and the landing was smooth, so I had no cause for worry.

We arrived in Berlin at 9:00 AM Friday morning, an hour behind schedule thanks to the original delay. We were met by Professor Pohle and his family, who’d gone ahead of us to make sure the apartments we were staying in would be ready. They got some cabs to take our luggage to the apartment, while we took both a bus and the U-Bahn to get there. For clarification, the S-Bahn is the train that runs on the street through the city, while the U-Bahn is the train that travels underground (like a subway). We had to walk a couple of blocks from the station to the apartments, where we took our luggage to our rooms. The Professors rented three apartments for all of us: the guy’s apartment is in the basement and houses the four male students, then there’s another apartment on the third floor which houses Professor Pohle, his wife and daughter, and seven of us girls, and finally there’s an apartment on the top (fifth) floor which houses Professor Holland, his wife and son, and the two remaining female students. I’m in the middle apartment with the Pohle’s and share a room with Jessie and another girl on the trip, also named Jessica. Why they put two Jessica’s in the same room… I’ll never know.

Anyway, we lugged our luggage up to the room and selected beds, and then were ecstatic to discover that we had an internet connection! Afterwards we got some lunch (sandwiches) and Pohle took us on a quick tour of the city. It was really, really crazy. It was like this odd combination of New York, Williamsburg and some districts of Tokyo (I’ve never been to New York or Tokyo, but I’ve heard of them enough to garner some impression). There were old, traditionally magnificent buildings from back-who-knows-when, brand spanking new architecture and skyscrapers, and such a colorful assortment of peoples and sights. Just walking past the museum island we saw several vendors and street performers, and afterwards we came across bike-cabs and horse drawn carriages. I can’t even remember everything I saw that day, but I’m sure I’ll see it all again at some point and get back to you.

When we came back we had some free time to unpack and relax and ate dinner (Becky and Shannon, the Professors wives, made us spaghetti!), and afterwards the Professors told us the schedule for the next few days. Afterwards we were invited to see some sights, but only the guys ended up going, since the rest of us were too tired to move. I’ll explain that now, you see, Professor Pohle told us the fastest way to get over the jet lag was to stay awake after we’d arrived in Berlin and treat it like a normal day, not going to bed that night until nine or later. It was very difficult to do, especially considering that our flight left around 6 or 7 the evening before and took another seven hours to cross the Atlantic. Most of us weren’t able to get much sleep in this time, so even though it was 9:00 in Berlin, it felt like one or two in the morning when we arrived. It reminded me of all-nighters I pulled my freshmen year (the few times I had enough energy to do so).

Reading my book (Memoirs of a Geisha!) kept me up past 10:30, so I was able to beat the jet lag for the most part. I woke up around 6:00 the next morning, but managed to get back to sleep until eight and was ready in time for breakfast and bible study at 9:30. We’ll be having a bible study for an hour every day except Sunday, when we’ll be going to church. Tomorrow we’re going to a German church…I’m not sure how much good it will do us, since the service will be in a language most of us don’t understand. Anyway, after Bible study we were told we’d have some free time to explore the city and buy lunch. All the girls in our apartment went out together to explore an area we’d seen the day before on our tour, a strip with some of the nicer shops, and get a bite to eat. We agreed that if we separated we’d meet up later at the corner of the street.

From there most of the girls went into the nearby H&M (a clothing store, I’d never heard of it before but I think the others had), but my roommates and I walked down the street to see what else was there. We couldn’t find many restaurants so we stopped in at a souvenir shop to look around and get a feel for what we’d be buying later. I spotted a tattoo parlor at some point and thought I might like to get one to commemorate the trip, especially since I’ve always wanted one and this would be the perfect opportunity to do so. If I decide to do it, I’ll want to get a silhouette of the bear, which in the symbol for Berlin.

Then the two Jessica’s and I settled for having sandwiches at a little bakery next to the souvenir shop. Mine was the most unusual sandwich I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t quite figure out what was on it, since the description was all in German. Even so, I went for it, and even though the cashier didn’t speak a word of English, we managed to make our order successfully. When we sat down to eat it turned out that mine was hard-boiled egg cut into thin slices and topped with lettuce and tomato with some kind of cheese sauce. It was very good, thankfully, so I’d like to return there someday and have it again!

After we browsed a bit more we went back to the meeting place and together our group managed to find it’s way back to our apartment. From there the Professors took us to what was supposed to be a three-hour tour led by one of the apartment owners, but when we met her she told the Professor they would have to reschedule for Sunday at 4:00. That was fine by us, so the Professors gave us the rest of the day off to explore on our own. Jessie, Kyle and I wandered around a magnificent fountain of the God Poseidon (trident and everything) taking pictures for the first hour or so, then met with some of the other girls from our apartment. We found some people our age who were dancing by the fountains and stopped for about half an hour to photograph them, then went to get some ice cream (since it started to rain). The rain had plagued us all of yesterday, but today it sprinkled only now and then. After talking and eating we decided to go shopping, and once again Jessie and I only browsed, though some of the other girls bought things. We lost Kyle at some point but I think we were boring him, plus he made it back to the apartments on his own, so it was okay.

On the way out of one of the stores we saw a couple of girls laughing and obviously drunk, play fighting over a bottle of beer. We laughed after they were gone and were a little upset that nobody had thought to get a picture of it. Lots of people in Berlin regularly carried around a large bottle of wine or beer to drink, it was kinda weird. We also spotted a guy propelling down the side of a skyscraper, and at first I thought he might be up there washing windows, but that wasn’t the case, and nobody outside our group seemed to notice or be bothered by him. Again, weird. The oddest thing we saw today, though, was when we were on our way back to the apartment. Outside the subway station there were a bunch of men in cowboy costumes and fake mustaches, sitting around a hot pot, drinking and making some kind of chili, I think. They approached Amy and tried to sell her some and even spoke to her in English, but she couldn’t get them to leave her alone until she gave them the impression that she was only 18 and babysitting the rest of us, saying we were underage (first she told them she only had a mastercard and couldn’t pay for the alcohol, which is how they figured she was at least 18 in the first place). I don’t know if they bought it, but at least they went away.

Then, a few steps away we encountered an old man on the street making bubbles with giants wands for a group of children. It was the sweetest thing I’d ever seen, even if he was a street performer (he had a hat set out for donations), and we got plenty of good pictures with him making bubbles for the kids. It was a good ending to our first day out on our own, so we came back to apartment to relax before dinner (ham and cheese casserole!) and then came back to our rooms to get ready for bed.

The Professors told us that classes will officially begin Monday and our free days are on Thursdays. This Thursday the Hollands are taking their son to one of the two zoos in Berlin and Shannon said I could come along if I want to. I need to find my schedule soon and figure out what else we’re doing this week.

I love Berlin so much now that I’m not sure I want to leave!  

P.S. If I have time tomorrow (we’ve been told we’re going to be busy) I’ll put up some pictures of the rooms we’re staying in.

This is my new blog, created for my upcoming trip to Berlin (though I may continue using it afterwards).  For those of you who are unaware this is a school related trip and I’ll be taking classes, two are photography (so you’ll get a lot of pictures!) and a sketchbooking class. I’ll be leaving June 12th and returning July 17th, and from June 26th – 29th I’ll be visiting Rome with my roommate, and we’ll be staying with her family in a house they rented(?) in the area. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll have wireless internet in the apartments we’re renting, so I may not have many opportunities to update. However, I will be keeping a journal on my laptop that I’ll copy/paste when I can.

For those of you who are new to the blog or don’t know me very well, here’s a little introduction: My name is Mary, I’m 21 years old, going into my senior year of college, and I can’t wait to go to Germany! Apparently most of my family hails from Germany (on both my mother and father’s side) so I like to say I’m going home. To the Fatherland! :O

The blog looks kinda dull right now, but I’m hoping to spruce it up with pictures and such soon enough. I still have some things to work out before I leave, so I don’t have too much time to deal with it, but rest assured, it will be DEALT WITH. With a club. Or a bat. Or not, whatever.