Basta Cosi!

Last week I flew Easy Jet for the first time after hearing horror stories about how all their flights get delayed and canceled from almost everybody. My roommate had to take the train the weekend before because his flight from Budapest was canceled by Easy Jet. I was pretty worried that my flight to Sardinia would be canceled, but everything went smoothly. I am happy I flew for the first time, because the landing was fascinating! Instead of coming from the sea, we landed over the Sardinian mountains. The approach was at least 10 minutes long and the whole time it looked like the hills were only 100 meters below us! I thought we were going to crash at the end, but then all of a sudden we landed in a field. It's interesting flying from one European country to another, because within 2 hours you fly into a completely different culture. It was my first time there since learning Italian and I was amazed how much I understood of the conversations around me. The first thing I noticed about Italy was that the ads all over the airport were for cheese, wine and olive oil instead of Apple, Oracle or Toyota. In fact, I don't think I saw a single ad for something other than fashion and food the entire week! Even the business newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore, had full page ads for cheese and prosciutto!

I found my aunt and uncle and we drove along the highway. I had never driven along the highway, but traffic keeps getting worse on the faster route. Instead of expanding a bridge on which only one way of traffic can fit, the Italians waited 40 years and then decided to put a stoplight to allow only one way at a time. Sometimes one has to wonder about the Italian way of fixing things.

It was so nice to be back in Sardinia and I was especially excited to be there with my aunt and uncle. There was a lot of discussion of the financial and Greek debt crises, the future of the EU, US foreign policy, President Obama, the fall of the West and how it relates to the fall of the Roman Empire, immigrant integration, Italian culture/politics and Swiss culture/politics. In other words, everything! I enjoy talking to them about these issues because their attitudes are very positive towards America, so you don't need to overcome a bias. It can be very tedious talking to some other Europeans who enter the discussion with a very anti-American bias. I was also able to talk to some Italians while I was there and practice my Italian. I was even able to get a family recipe for Seadas, a Sardinian dessert, of which I will post a picture. It started when we went to a store of a family we know. I asked for a Pecorino for Seadas and the son gave me a look like I was crazy (you can look up recipes online, they all say use Pecorino!). He told me he would give me his mom's recipe and I bought a different cheese instead, but I don't know the name. It looks like a pear and it might be called la pera.

On Tuesday, we were invited to eat at an agriturismo ristorante. Agriturismo is a restaurant where you only eat food grown at that location and it is extremely popular and delicious! There used to be rules that all food had to come from there, but they have been relaxed, because even the water had to come from a local well in the past! It opened at 8:30 PM and we were one group of three that was there from the beginning. We were all expecting a crowd to come at 10, because that is when Italians generally eat during vacation, but only one more group came. It was similar to Tapas, but you didn't order any food and they just brought it out when it was finished. There were probably 4 courses with 2 or 3 dishes each. Un antipasto with sorted meats like salami and bresaola (which is amazing but expensive!) and another with vegetables. In the next course, there were fried zucchini flowers, which were probably my second favorite part of the meal. The best part was the maialetta (baby pig) at the end! It looks very fatty and chewy with a hard crust, but then you bite into it and the crust is an amazing sweet fat crust and the rest of the meet melts in your mouth and it's impossible to describe just how good it was! The waiter asked us if we wanted anything else after and my uncle and I ordered Seadas and I took un espresso to top it off. I had drunk some wine, so I needed the espresso to wake me up again, haha. One of my favorite parts of Italian culture is that they drink wine during the meal and then drink a quick espresso at the end to wake themselves up. It seems so unhealthy to put both depressants and stimulants in your body at the same time. And then, once the espresso is done, you drink a liqueur to top it off. Usually it is Grappa, but in Sardinia it is Mirto, a very aromatic liqueur made from a Mediterranean bush.

First picture:
Mirto (L), Grappa (C), Wine (R)

Second picture: Maialetta












Seadas





















Espresso Bresaola

The best part of Italy is definitely the food. I ate and ate and ate. Bresaola, Salami, Pecorino, Saltimbocca (calf meat with sage), gnocchi, ravioli, risotto (rice), cappuccino, prosciutto crudo, apricots, plums, peaches, watermelon, etc. When I bought the plums and peaches, I had trouble picking the best plums. I wasn't sure what kind of plum to ask for (let alone that there is more than one kind!). I decided to ask for the Sardinian ones and I was proud of myself for thinking of such a great solution. Not only did I sound like I knew something, I was also supporting the local economy and the Sardinians would be happy. This would have been a great plan, except all three varieties were Sardinian! There was an old lady waiting behind me who realized that I was a foreigner who didn't know anything about fruit and asked, "quali sono dolcissimi?" (which ones are the sweetest?) After the sellers said, "questi" (these ones), she said, "allora" to me, which was kind of a way of saying "there you go".

I don't have much more time to write, allora, basta cosi! (so... enough!)

Time has really been flying here in Berlin and I have been trying to take more advantage of the little time that is left. I don't really have much to say about the last two weeks though. I went to Frankfurt two weekends ago to visit my dad, which was a really fun time, but I didn't really do anything except relax with my dad. We went to Bad Homburg and walked around the city park for a while and went swimming, where we met an old friend. I did see a new building called Myzeil, which has some crazy glass architecture: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-40010.html. It's really only a huge shopping gallery though. I also took a walk along the Main, which is one of the highlights of Frankfurt, because you have a great view of the skyline.

Last Friday I went to a famous Berlin market called the Turkish Market in Neukoelln. I also talked to a friend of mine at work who lived in Turkey for a couple of years before coming to Berlin and he said it is just like a market in Turkey. It was a lot of fun, because there was food everywhere and it was all Turkish. Tons of fruits and vegetables, Baklava, Turkish snacks, Egyptian candy, etc. It was a lot of fun to see so many different types of people too. There were a lot of American university students, young Berliners and about half the people were Turkish. All the vendors were yelling out their prices in Turkish as well. I bought some apricots and grapes and the vendor would be talking to me in German and then switch to a Turkish immigrant and start talking Turkish. I also bought some Baklava and the vendor was there with his son. It was cool to see him teaching his kid math by figuring out how much change he should give me. The atmosphere there is also really cool because it is along one of Berlin's canals, so there is some fresh air and a nice view.

The saturday after that, I helped my co-worker move from Wedding to my neighborhood. He now lives a block away from me, which is a weird coincidence in such a huge city. It was cool to see Wedding, because I haven't been there yet. It doesn't have anything to offer tourist wise, so it wasn't the most interesting, but it has one of the highest immigrant populations in Berlin (20%). All the buildings had Turkish signs and it reminded me a little bit of Neukoelln, but I like the atmosphere better in Neukoelln, because there are more people walking around.

I have also been taking more walks around my neighbourhood now and took some pictures of the Spree.

The symbol of Berlin is a bear and this is on the Moabit-Bruecke, which crosses the Spree near my house.












Here is the Bundesministerium des Innens (Ministry of the Interior). It is three blocks away from my house. I took the picture from the river bank.
















More:














Here is the S-bahn at night with a long shutter time:














I have also been working a lot lately, because the EU-27 Watch has finally been published today. You can check out my awesome editorial work here: www.eu-27watch.org. It has been pretty stressful and I will be happy to stop correcting English reports by non-native speakers. I needed to edit some of these reports four times and some writers would send a revised edition the day after I corrected it (the Czech Republic and Spain). Two countries, Bulgaria and Poland, didn't send a report in which was pretty disappointing. Poland's author was in a car accident, so that is understandable, but Bulgaria's author told us that he sent the report twice by email, but never did. We had some trouble with Spain and Portugal as well, but we were able to nudge them enough to send their reports on time. Spain's full report arrived this morning. I think the German punctuality was a little bit of a hindrance, because we didn't call to remind the authors until this week. It seemed like some of the southern countries needed some more nudging than Germans are used to giving! We still have to do some advertising for the website tomorrow, but after that, I am taking a week-long vacation!!! I will be flying to Sardinia on Saturday and will be visiting my aunt and uncle there. I am extremely excited to practice my Italian as well. After that I only have two weeks left in my internship and I am still not sure what I will be doing during that time. I have to write a 20-page paper on my experience here by the end of summer and I will try to get started on that soon, too.

Kreuzberg/Friedrichshain

I'm sorry that I haven't written any updates in a long time and that I still don't have pictures up for my last post! Hopefully I can cover everything in here!

I'll start with today. My roommate works in a music studio and primarily manages bands, but he is also in one himself. They had a concert tonight in Kreuzberg and I went to go see it. It was a restaurant with a bar/stage in the basement and it was really cool. Music and art are huge parts of Berlin. When you ride in the S- or U-Bahn, you will sometimes have a little band play for you and you can always here some street musicians in Mitte. the band played great and it was a really cool, relaxed scene. Most of the people were friends of the band members, but there were some other music producer types there and they seemed to be fans of it too. They sang in German, which was cool for me, because a lot of German bands sing in English. The best song was Katzenleben, but there were lots of other good ones. New York compares Berlin to New York and they talked about Berlin specifics in a lot of their songs. You can hear all their songs on their webpage, http://www.myspace.com/amkiosk.

Last weekend, I went to Kreuzberg/Friedrichshain to check out some of the Flohmarkten (flea markets). I really wanted to see a Turkish Market on the Maybachufer, which is canal that runs through Berlin. I started out on the S-Bahn, but completely missed my stop (Jannowitzbruecke). I ended up in Ostkreuz, which was at least three stations to far. The area looked really cool, so I decided to follow the tracks and walk to the last station. I took a bunch of pictures along the way. The area is really cool, because the two neighborhoods around there, Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, are really youthful, international and artistic. There is a bunch of really cool grafitti. Here are a couple examples:















I really liked the dinosaur in the first picture and it also shows the pink pipelines that run all over Berlin. I was really confused as to their purpose at first, but I asked my dad. They are actually for construction sites to provide what I assume is water, but maybe natural gas or something. I really love the second picture, which is I weird, because I actually love capitalism. It's cool to see all the different opinions here.

Here is another picture of Friedrichshain grafitti. I actually too this picture when I was with my dad, but it is in the same area. By now, you can probably tell where most Berliners lean politically, haha. I like how they paint these huge murals on buildings along the Spree river. The painting on the left seems to symbolize our slavery to capitalism, but I'm having trouble interpreting the one on the right, so if you have suggestions, let me know! Maybe something to do with how we are robbing each other.



When I got to Warschaurstrasse, where I needed to get back on the S-Bahn, I saw some more cool grafitti. I'm not sure how much you can see of the picture, but in the background is a huge building with "Deutschland Verrecke" written on it. Deutschland Verrecke is probably similar in meaning to "Death to America", only applying to Germany instead of the US. It was a little shocking the first time I saw it, especially because it was right after I had seen a soccer game at a public viewing venue run by 11 Freunde (a soccer magazine). I was with my roommate and at first all we saw was Deutschland. We were so happy to see someone who was so proud of Germany during the World Cup that they would write Deutschland on the their roof. Slowly the rest became visible though and it was a little shocking. It is a left/punk expression against Germany's nationalism, especially during the World Cup, when you see flags everywhere.

After getting on the S-Bahn, I had to switch to the U-Bahn. I got out pretty close to the market, but it is unfortunately closed on Saturdays, so I have to go on a Friday some other day. I was a little disappointed, but I got an ice cream and walked down Kottbuser Damm, which is in a different neighborhood, Neukoelln. Neukoelln has a huge immigrant population and all you heard was either Turkish or English. It was kind of funny, because all the natives speak Turkish and all the signs are in Turkish, but Americans really love this part of Berlin, so you hear it almost as much. I knew a different Flohmarkt to go to and I was able to walk there, but it was a bit long, maybe 4 km. There were some interesting personalities along the way. There was a man - who I assume was homeless and was probably in his 50s - who was walking along a major street with his pants rolled up in his hand and only wearing only underwear and a shirt!

I arrived at the other Flohmarkt, which is close to Mehringdamm U-Bahn station. Most of the stuff was cheap and used, but I was able to find a couple of cool things. I talked to one of the vendors who was from Liberia. He was really cool and he had lived in America for 3 years, in New York City and Flagstaff, Arizona! I really like how international Berlin is and even though most immigrants are from Turkey, you see a lot of Africans, Arabs and East Europeans too, not to mention Americans. It makes for good food as well. I now know where to get the best Currywurst (Curry 36) and the best Doener (near Kleistpark).

My dad was able to come the weekend before and it was a fun, relaxing weekend. We took a boat ride down the Spree and the canal by the Turkish Market. I was able to see a lot of new things that I hadn't seen yet, especially the Friedrichshain/Kreuzberg area. On saturday we went went into Mitte and saw Checkpoint Charlie, Gendarmenmarkt and Potsdammer Platz. I had already seen all those things at least once, but my dad hadn't seen Berlin since 1988 (before the fall of the wall). At that time, Potsdammer Platz was an empty field in East Germany - part of the death strip before the wall. Gendarmenmarkt was in the East and probably not very nice (there are two beautiful churches facing each other with an opera in between them). Check Point Charlie wasn't the biggest crossing point back then, but it's become such a big part of American culture (because it was the American check point) that it's the most popular for tourists. The biggest check point was Friedrichsstrasse, but that's an S-bahn/U-bahn station now. Later that day, we went to a restaurant with amazing Flammkuchen (similar to pizza) and watched the US game, but we were the only people really interested and most Germans seemed to be for Ghana. On Sunday, we went to Potsdam and took a boat tour. It has been extremely hot for the last two weeks and it was almost unbearable on the deck, so we had to go inside. It was cool to see all the castles again, but this time from the Wannsee. Afterwards, we took the S-bahn back to my apartment and watched the Germany-England game. we were worried at first, but Germany quickly scored two goals and it seemed we were unstoppable until a quick England goal. England almost scored again, but the ref didn't notice it passed the line, so we were a bit lucky. The Germans dominated the game though and won 4-1. Everyone was happy, but there wasn't much overconfidence at that time. We knew England was bad and we now had to play Argentina, the best team up to that point other than Germany.

For the Germany-Argentina game, I went to biergarten with my roommate. It was a lot of fun, but extremely hot. We had played beach volleyball before, which was a lot of fun. Germans aren't as good as Americans at volleyball, so I didn't look terrible! Germany won the game 4-0 and nobody could believe it. Every goal was a miracle and at the end everyone was chanting "einer kann noch rein" (one more can go in) and 5 minutes later, Germany scored its 4th goal. Here is a picture of the afterparty at the Biergarten. It seemed impossible to lose after that game! Unfortunately, just as everyone built up hope, our dreams were smashed against Spain and we had to live with third place again. I watched the Spain game at the biergarten again and the third place game at a beach bar, which are really popular here along the rivers. The German team didn't even greet the fans this year and a lot of people were disappointed.

WM 2010!

Hey everybody, sorry that I haven't written in a while! The world cup is in full-swing and I have been busy with all the games. Germany has played three times already, 2 wins and a loss in the group, but they finished first in the group. Now it's on to England in the knock-out phase on Sunday! The first game I really watched was the USA against England, though, in a Biergarten in Schoeneberg/Kreuzberg. It was fun, but it seemed like all the non-Americans were cheering for England, maybe so they wouldn't have to play them in the knock-out round. The next day I watched the German game in a bar across from the Biergarten. Germany won 4-0 against Australia and the next day all of Berlin was in euphoria. Everyone was talking about what the Spanish or English press were saying about Germany's team and it seemed like we were already in the quarter finals. There was even an "Autokurs" were all the cars drive down Kurfuerstendamm and honk their horns. The next game was a disappointment for both the USA and Germany. The USA should have won, but only tied 2-2 because the ref didn't count a fair goal. Germany lost with only 10 men against Serbia's 11, even though Germany was the better team. Klose got a yellow-red, but Podolski missed some great chances, including a penalty kick. The next games were USA vs. Algeria and Germany vs. Ghana in the same day. Both had to win to advance. First was the US, the game wasn't shown in Germany, but I saw England vs. Slovakia. I knew the score of the US game though and just as the England game was over and I had given up hope, I heard "TOOOORRRR" and they switched to the US game. I was terrified that Algeria might have scored, but then I saw the whole US team celebrating. Afterwards, I went to watch the Germany-Ghana game with my roommates. We went to a kids' circus and watched in the tent, it was pretty cool. One of their friends is the coordinator of the circus. We grilled outside before and I ate half a steak, 3 Nuernberger Bratwursts and 2 Rostbratwuerstchen and the best tuna fish salad I've ever had. The game was tough, because Ghana played the same game as Serbia and jammed the middle of the defense. Germany had a tough time passing their way through, but eventually Mesut Oezil had a beautiful goal from just outside the penalty box. The Germans are excited to play England, which kind of surprises me, because the US would be easier, but I'm happy that the only scenario where they play each other is the final!

I also have been doing more sightseeing the past days and I saw the Museum Island, Alexanderplatz and Potsdam. I've seen Alexanderplatz before, but this time I went into the Fernsehturm and saw all of Berlin from the top! The Museum Island was awesome and I saw the Bode Museum, the Altes Museum, the Pergamum Museum and the Altes Nationalgalerie. The Altes Museum had a lot of Greek/Roman things, primarily vases, some of which I recognized from the Latin books from high school! The Bode Museum had a lot of art, the Pergamum Museum had a bunch of huge things from ancient times and was the most amazing muesum I've ever been in. There is the Ishtar Gate, the Pergamum Altar and a bunch of other huge things that look tiny in comparison and are therefore impossible to fully appreciate. The Altes Nationalgalerie had a lot of German art, but I couldn't see much of it, because I only had half an hour left. I was a little disappointed, but I'm happy I was able to see the Pergamum Museum before. Potsdam was really cool as well and I was able to see Schloss Sansoucci, which was kind of like the Versailles of the Prussian kings. It was pretty cool and Potsdam has a lot of other castles too, like Schloss Cecillienhof, where the Allies divided Europe after WW2. Unfortunately I don't have the time right now to upload pcitures, but I'll edit this tomorrow.

My dad is here this weekend and we plan on doing even more things. I took a Spree boat tour today and was able to see a lot of the city from the river. We will probably take a bus tour tomorrow and see the USA-Ghana game. I'm not sure what we'll do on Sunday, but we might watch the Germany-England game in Public Viewing, which has enough room for 500,000 people! It's in Tiergarten in front of the Siegessaeule, which is to commemorate the victory over France in the 7-years war.

Arbeit, Fussball und Chemnitz!

Hallo! Wie geht's euch? Ich werde jetzt nur auf Deutsch schreiben! haha, just kidding! no more German, even though I would like to write in both English and German. Unfortunately it's hard enough to write in one language...

In case you are wondering why I am writing a blog in the first place, other than to brag about how cool I am, I will start now by explaining that. I have an internship in Berlin at the Institut fuer Europaeische Politik in Berlin and I have to write a 20 page paper to get credit for it, so I am writing this to record my best memories :) I will try to include pictures to keep things interesting, but, unfortunately, I don't have any pics for this post. I should probably talk about Germany now though...

I have now moved into my new apartment with two echte Berliners (yes, I realize that is in no way proper German). The neighborhood is awesome and I live right next to the Spree River and Tiergarten! It's pretty central in Berlin and I can go in pretty much any direction easily with the u-bahn or s-bahn. There are a lot of Turks around, so there is a doener kebab shop on every corner and there are some nice cafes and bars. There are also a lot of parks here, Tiergarten is one of the biggest parks in Berlin and there are also some smaller ones, as well as a nice walkway along the river.

I work about 15 minutes away from the apartment and the u-bahn is very reliable, I have never waited more than 3 minutes for the u-bahn on that line during the day (the trains are less regular during the night). I correct English reports for my job, which can get a little tedious at times. Institutes for European politics from every EU member country, as well as the member candidate countries send us reports and we compile them into a publication. I am the English editor... I am a little disappointed, cus correcting English for 8 hours a day doesn't help my German very much, but I do talk to my co-workers in German a lot. I also have to write an introduction to the topic of the Copenhagen climate conference and the European reactions to it. It's interesting to read European reactions to major issues and to see the differences between countries. I am getting a much better perspective on individual issues, like the name dispute between Greece and Macedonia, Iceland's bank bailout dispute with England and Holland, Belgium's language problems and the Union for the Mediterranean. Its also interesting to see the big differences in opinion over the Greek bailout. It's amazing to see how innocent Greece feels and how the rest of Europe only blames them for the problems, especially the northern countries. My coworkers are all very informed on politics, European and German, and its interesting listening to them talk about politics over lunch breaks, although I have trouble contributing to the conversation unless they ask how it compares to the USA. Germans are very informed about politics in general and their conversations are more in-depth. The main topics so far are, in order of importance: how Ballack's injury affects Germany's World Cup chances, the resignation of the Bundespraesident and possible successors, Lena's Eurovision contest victory and the Gulf oil spill.

I should include a little bit about Berlin, because I am supposed to write about the culture and city. Berlin is huge city (900 km2) with 3 million people. there are lots of different neighborhoods: Mitte (Middle), Tiergarten, Moabit, Wedding, Neukoelln, Kreuzberg, Friedichshain, Schoeneberg, Pranzlauer Berg and Charlottenburg to just name the most central ones. Wedding and Neukoelln are the worst neighborhoods in Berlin (Kevin-Prinz Boateng is from Wedding...) from what I've heard and I can't wait to see them, lol. They have huge immigrant populations and large unemployment. I've heard Berlin is unusual for Germany due to the high rate of immigrant unemployment. I'll return to immigration later though. Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain are the trendy parts of Berlin, but can be a little shady at times. I haven't seen much of them, but tomorrow I plan to go to Tempelhof, a huge airport that is now a park. It is three times the size of central park and still has all the empty airport buildings, so you can hang out in an empty hanger. I work in Schoeneberg and it's a pretty nice neighborhood with Ku'damm Strasse, the main shopping street. Mitte is pretty much the main tourist zone and Charlottenburg is known for its palace. Moabit is between Tiergarten and Wedding and as a kinda bad reputation. Prenzlauer Berg is known in Germany for its large population of young families. I haven't made it out there yet, but it is undergoing renovation after the Mauer fell. A lot of areas still need renovation, but Berlin does not have a lot of money. The average salary is loser than the rest of Germany, which is unusual because average salaries are generally much higher in capitals.

I went to Chemnitz over the weekend to go to an ELFK Jugendtreffen and see some old high school friends again. I was surprised to know quite a few people there, because they all went to MLS at some point. I had a good time and I played soccer for the first time in at least a year. I felt pretty bad, but my lack of stamina was the worst part. I did manage to score a goal though, I slid in to redirect a beautiful pass into the open goal. Unforutnately, Chemnitz doesn't have much to do, but there was a Schlossteich (castle pond), which was really nice, and statue of Karl Marx, which I didn't see. I did eat Burger King for the first time this summer though, I'm not sure if that's good or bad... The ELFK church was really nice and made out of stone. I sang in the Jugendchor and the acoustics were awesome. I also enjoyed spending the weekend with Germans, because it has been difficult to practice German and I barely spoke English at all.

I am starting to learn a little Berlin dialect and German slang. Hammer means awesome, Berlin ist der Hammer! Krass means "toll" or awesome in English, das is voll krass! And the last German slang I have learned is "chic". It means "super", like alles chic! and they pronounce it like chick in English. My favorite Berlin dialect transformation of a word so far is from "gut" to "yut". I will probably be using that wehn I get back to America.

Berlin!

Hey Everybody! I'm finally starting my blog! My first week in Germany has been crazy and it's hard to imagine that I've only been here for a week, everything is moving so slowly and quickly at the same time. I'm used to rushing to see everything in two to three days, so I can fit as much into as little time as possible, but now I feel like I'm barely doing anything, but I'm actually busier than ever.

I arrived in Frankfurt a week ago, but it was quite a journey. Val drove me to the airport, but when I arrived, I acted like a complete idiot the whole time! I couldn't figure out how to self-check in, and I almost boarded the wrong plane, I could have ended up in Charlotte instead of Philly! When I got off the plane it was 10 AM in Germany and I had only gotten maybe one and a half hours of sleep. I was kinda tired, but I managed to stay up all day and even ended up staying up to about 11 PM watching How I Met Your Mother (thanks Val!). I didn't do much in Frankfurt, except eat delicious German food! I made my dad bring me to an Apfelwein Kneipe and I had Weisse Spargel and Weiner Schnitzel!

After three days in Frankfurt, I took the ICE to Berlin at 7 AM! The ride was fairly uneventful; however, I did have the misfortune of boarding on the wrong side of the engine and got a couple of death stairs from the attendants when I wandered into first-class looking for my seat with two massive bags, needless to say, I fit the German stereotype of the typical American. I arrived pretty much arrived on time in Berlin (I love German trains!). My hotel, provided by CDS, was near Potsdamer Platz, which is fairly far from Hauptbahnhof, so I decided to take the Taxi to avoid any problems. The CDS orientation started later that day, but I had a little time to get settled in. I took a walk down Ebertsstrasse next to Tiergarten and stumbled across the Brandenburger Tor:
















I didn't have much time, so I decided to head back to the hotel and get my favorite Berlin specialty on the way, Doener! The Doener here are amazingly good and cheap (2,50 Euro)! I haven't tried any of the variants, though; I would love to get one with Knoblauchsosse (garlic sauce) or Falafel! At about 2:30, all the CDS participants gathered in the hotel lobby and we started our orientation at Berlin's US Embassy, which is one of very few American embassies where you can walk up to the building without getting tackled by 20 security guards. We talked to the Debuty Chief of Operations at the Embassy. He told us about the life of a Foreign Services Officer, which sounds like a pretty cool job, except you move every 3 years to whatever country the US wants you in.

Later that night, most of us met up again to go out. We hung out at a random park for a while eeating Doener and drinking beers. It was a fun, relaxed time, but, after a couple hours, we split up into separate groups. I ended up going to Friedrichshain, east of Mitte, and eating even more Doener after getting rejected at the door of a huge Berlin club (1500 people!), it was an interesting night to say the least, but we came back kinda early so we could get up in the morning!

The next day, we got up early at 7 AM to eat breakfast and leave the hotel by 8:30 AM. We went to the Deutsche Bank on Unter den Linden. It's an interesting street that leads up to the Brandenburg Tor and only 20 years ago was part of the Berlin Wall death strip--now they sell Ferraris and Bentleys there! We saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Reichstag, but we didn't get the chance to go in the Reichstag (there's a two hour line). When we got back, I had to move to a different hotel, which ended up being a 20 minute walk with heavy luggage. That night wasn't as exciting, because almost everyone went to their cities, so I just hung out with a couple guys staying in Berlin or who were leaving the next morning. We went to a Mexican Steakhouse, which seem to be quite popular here. It was on Potsdamer Platz:




















I had the day free on Sunday, so I went to an ELFK church in Kleinmachnow, which is near Potsdam (southeastern Berlin). The church was pretty small, but everyone was very nice, and they invited me to Lunch and I had Spaetzle for the first time this summer, although without cheese. That night I went to Alexander Platz and took some pictures of the Fernsehturm, a KFC ad and Graffiti at Gleisdreieck: