A Night At The Museum(s)

Last night we were privy to anmazing and wonderful experience unique to (as far as I know) Berlin. Every museum in the city, all 98 of them, were not only open late (2 am) but for one price of a ticket, you could see them all! Needless to say, I and my roommate took advantage of this, starting our epic crusade at the interesting meld of the Automobil Forum. On the lobby floor, we were treated to a number of delicious new models from German auto companies, of which Volkswagen persuaded us that we needed the sexy new Scirocco and fully loaded VW vans. Another side note is that Bentley and Bugatti decided to crash the party, the latter with its impossibly fast/expensive "yeah-its-that-close-to-sex-on-wheels" Veyron. After that, we walked back to the Museums Island, only after pausing for a few minutes of thrall as the State Opera performed a free opera in the adjoining plaza. Beautiful strains of Beethoven's Fidelio, though unfamiliar, transfixed the sidewalk in its beauty. Sadly, we had to pull ourselves away and meet our friends underneath the brilliantly lit Berliner Dom. From there, we proceeded to the German History Museum, a collection of material and artifacts I've yet to see everywhere and in presentation so completely unvarnished and plainspoken. Amazing. After an adventure of wedging the six of us into a totally full accordion bus, we made it to the equally amazing New National Gallery (rough translation) with exhibitions by Hiroshi Sugimoto (awesome photographer) and a centenarian artist whose name escapes me sadly.
Regrettably, we ran out of gas after the National Gallery (mind you it was like 1 am) and proceeded home, but with a greater appreciation of the amazing wealth of knowledge that Berlin has to offer. This year is going to be amazing without a doubt! On a side note, I really appreciate any and all of you guys who are reading me blather on about my experiences here. It's really good to my experiences in written form, and I hope that you enjoy reading as much as I do writing.

FU Berlin...or Deutschland 1, Will 0

So today was the first day of my language study course before I start my actual studies in Germany. Being the amazingly wise guy/student that I am, I decided to enroll in the the absolute farthest University in the area, requiring some 3 train transfers. Of course this course starts at 8 am, so I roll out of bed at 7 with my roommate Adam, whose disturbing insistence on near Nazi-like hygiene regimens ensured that we hit the S-bahn at 730. One must give the Berlin transit system credit; when one is in a hurry, rest assured that it is not, but it is committed to the most confusing and unintelligble schedules and stations. So, having navigated this particular tribulation with typical style and aplomb (read: barely contained fury) we flew out of the Thielplatz station only to examine the most convoluted and senseless directions given to me by my language program. After wandering around the Dahlem area in search of this mystical Free University (intellectually, not financially), we finally found some semblance of the directions given. Finally, we arrived at the "main building" with no signs posted, no listings, no directions to the exam whatsoever. We asked the information desk, who helpfully pointed us to a map and implied we were stupid.
Alright here it is: You WIN Germany. Apparently poor stupid Americans like myself have no business wandering your hallowed and quite frankly enormous halls of academia.Utterly defeated, we slunk off to Henry-Ford Bau, realized it was worthless too, and got some breakfast at a cafe. We then retreated to our favorite hangout (it has free Wi-Fi and occasionally good drinks) Espresso Ambulanz and I proceed to check my email...
My course starts on Monday. Oh yeah. I'm pretty much amazing.

Berlin Baby!

Here at last! Berlin is by far one of the most amazing cities on the planet! We've only been here two days and already our list of things to do and see is the length of my arm.

Had a bit of an adventure trying to get to our hostel in trying to navigate the airport, taking the massive transit system, wandering the streets of Mitte (downtown) for two hours until finally arriving. Upon hurling our massive bags on our bunks, we proceeded to make some awesome friends and get spectacularly drunk. Poor Adam (my traveling companion) got a little green about 2, but managed to feel better to have our first Doener Kebap! Kind of weird, but absolutely ubiquitous to Berlin. Today we went to see our prospective apartment, and found one of our friends and his wife not two blocks from the hostel! Good times all around.

It hit me on the way to the U-bahn again that I'm actually in another country! It just feels so natural and familiar that I feel right at home. It still feels a little scary to interact with everything so new and well, foreign but we're trying our best. The only regret/complaint thus far is that everyone we've met speaks English! We've been told this will change, especially in where we want to live and at Uni, and we expect it to, but still its hard to fully integrate into Germany as of yet. I hope to include some photos in this here blog soon as I figure out how, so stay tuned.

Prelude to Panic

Hey there everyone (well all three of you anyway),


I wanted to really capture the experience and wonder of what should be an amazing year-long trip to Berlin for me and everyone back home. While a blog might seem a bit passe, I think it would be the best way to keep in touch with everyone and not have to tell the same stories 19 times (Thanks Brad for the words of encouragement). Plus, twitter just sounds dumb. I can't imagine myself honestly investing time and energy into something so named.


Anyway, I realize this is kind of cheating, as I haven't actually left yet, but I just wanted to capture some thoughts I've been having before leaving. It just refuses to set in that in a week, everything I know will be 7,000 miles behind me. As I've been driving around my old Sacto haunts, I just can't seem to get my mind ready for this. Equal parts terrified, excited beyond compare, and melancholy. I hope that if you're reading this, I've made plans to either see you or at the very least talked to you. And if I haven't, I'm of course a terrible person and will hopefully rectify such a glaring oversight and get back to you.

But yeah, tune in as often as you like; I hope to post a couple times a week, with pictures and commentary on Berlin, Germany, my roommate, or whatever else should happen to happen while on adventure. -W