Allstadt is in full bloom, the cherry trees are blossoming
and the tourists are everywhere. Deanna and I went to see the trees in all
their glory on Tuesday morning, it took us a solid 20 minutes to get there, because
of my hobbling. Pro Tip: When training for a ½ marathon always ALWAYS follow the 10%
mileage rule. I did not and so I visited the doctor later on Tuesday to get an
Xray of my foot. They didn’t find anything wrong, but it has been extremely
painful. The doctor told me "no sports" and to stay off my foot as much as possible. Ha. I hate not being fully mobile but my goal is to rest it up before Berlin. Wednesday, Nicky and I went back to Allstadt to play tourists and take more pictures with the cherry blossoms.
The weather has been amazing this week, we’ve been eating
our dinners outside on the balcony. There are no mosquitos!! I don’t know why
America doesn’t adopt biergartens. They are amazing. Now that the weather is
nice, we frequent one on the Rhine. It is so relaxing to have a beer and a
pretzel and just hang out with friends in the sunshine.
Berlin. Where to begin? We rode the train in on Friday afternoon,
I got a solid 4 hours of uninterrupted studying on the train, because we have
our last phys test first thing Monday. But I have to admit it was extremely
tempting to take advantage of the open container policy on the trip in, there
was a bachelor party taking up one of the cars next to ours and they were doing
it right.
We got in to Berlin and stopped by our hostel to drop off
our stuff. Then we walked through the city to a little pizza place. I think it
was definitely catering towards people tripping, because they were playing the
weirdest music and had some really interesting artwork on the walls… oh and
there was a weird hipster rave happening next door. Nicky and I took an L and
ordered the weirdest pizza I have ever eaten in my life. It had sweet potato, really
gross sun-dried tomatoes (and that’s really saying something because I love sun-dried
tomatoes) that tasted more like dates, vegan cheese and no sauce. After dinner
we went to a really cool club that was in an old train station and danced the
night away!
We woke up bright and early on Saturday morning, made an essential
stop at Backwerk for some brekky and then hopped on the train. We went and saw
Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg gate, the parliament building and the Tiergarten. After that we headed over to Kreuzberg to a little tattoo studio, Schwarz
hande. Artavia and I had researched some places and wanted to get tattoos and
Katie spontaneously decided to get one too! The owner Ivan was super cool and
from Montenegro. He was really friendly and when he found out we were from Texas,
he told me about his time living in Austin for 2 months. He was a guest artist
at a shop during south by southwest and said they would have 600 people through
the door a day and that it was an absolute mad house. He said they would be
screaming to talk to the other artists even though they were only a few meters
away. We also talked about the gentrification of Kreuzberg. Ivan had originally
owned two shops at the same time but he had to sell one because rent had gotten
so high they choked all the small businesses out. He moved all his artists to
the second shop and stayed afloat. All in all, my tattoo took about 30 minutes.
Nicky was the real MVP and held my hand but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I was
expecting. After our tattoos, we got some delicious fruit sorbet popsicles and
headed to our next stop, the East Side Gallery. The Gallery was amazing, it’s
really hard to wrap your head around the idea that the wall used to run through
the whole city. The artwork was spectacular. We also walked by this little park and everyone was out with their friends having little bbqs in the park. Berlin is kind of like mixing Austin and San Francisco together, I want to say Seattle and Portland too but I haven't been yet! Basically Hipster heaven, which I kind of love. The next stop was the espionage
museum. This museum was really interesting and had a whole bunch of spy
gadgets, there were glue stick cameras, bugged frying pans and an umbrella that
shoots poison pellets. They also had an enigma machine from WW2, which was
really cool to see in person after watching Imitation Game. But the most fun
part of the museum was the laser room. You basically get to pretend to be James
Bond and have to make it past all the lasers to get to the other side of the
room. It was a blast, but I would not make a good spy. After the espionage
museum we walked to what I think was a Russian tea restaurant. You had to take
off your shoes and sit on the floor on cushions, the tea was delicious.
Sunday morning Artavia and I went to the Berlin Zoo, while Katie, Nicky and
Austin hit up the paddle boats in the Tiergarten. It was the perfect weather! We
saw your typical animals, some pandas and even a polar bear. Most of the big
cat area was under construction which was a little disappointing, but we also
saw sloth bears and Humboldt penguins!!!!
(Please excuse me while I nerd out a bit)
Humboldt penguins were named after Alexander von Humboldt, a
German polymath and explorer. He explored South America in the 1800s and was
one of the most respected scientists of his time. He influenced Darwin,
Thoreau, Haeckel, Muir and Marsh to name a few. And he is virtually unknown to
Americans today, even though on the centennial of his birth he was celebrated
worldwide, in cities all across the Americas and Europe, even Australia joined
the celebration. He was one of the first
people to comment on the environmental degradation caused by humans, he
encouraged the free exchange of information and communication across
disciplines. Humboldt emphasized a bond between science and emotions and used
the arts to make science appealing to the public, making his publications some
of the most read of his time. This connection of art and knowledge, science and
emotion, his wonder for nature can help us today to realize we will protect
only what we love. (Oh you’re still reading? Thanks!)
***Condensed version: Humboldt is amazing. He is my hero. Seeing
the Humboldt penguins in person: pretty fucking cool.***
Cons: We ended our weekend with a 9 hour bus ride home. There
was no air conditioning. It was hotter inside the bus than it was outside. The allotted
wifi ran out after 15 minutes.
Pros: Being trapped in an oven with no internet
to distract me meant I got a lot of phys studying done on the bus.
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