Lange Nacht der Museen

Saturday night was the Lange Nacht der Museen where many of the museums in Berlin stay open until 2 am and admission to all of them is covered by a single 15 euro ticket. We visited six locations and really enjoyed ourselves. It was a great opportunity to see places that we would (and did) only spend a half hour or so at and would consequently not be worth the usual entrance fee for us to visit. We started at a miniatures museum in the mall across the street. It was basically a giant train set with meticulously designed settings.

This one shows our apartment building on the right (the white, blue, and yellow one):


They even included graffiti on the buildings:

Mason and Natalie's Visit!

Mason and Natalie came to visit two weeks ago for a couple of days. When they got here we went to a fancy chocolate shop, Fassbender & Rausch. They have a bunch of Berlin's monuments carved/molded out of chocolate:

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

The second day, we went up in the Fernsehturm (TV tower) in Alexanderplatz. Very cool, but eating on the rotating floor was perhaps not the greatest idea for me. The third day, we found a really nice place to eat and relax in Friedrichshain. It was really nice to have visitors from the States.

Victory Tower

We went to the Siegessäule (Victory Tower) a couple of weekends ago on our way to go grocery shopping. It's pretty cool. The tower was built in honor of the Prussian victory in the second Schleswig War (against the Danish). Interestingly, it used to be located in the Platz der Republik (Königsplatz then because it was a monarchy and not a republic), but it was moved by the Third Reich to its current location because it messed with their ultimate design of Berlin as the world capital. They also increased the size of the column by a couple of meters.

Since the tower is at the intersection of three streets, there are underground pathways that take you to the tower. Image coming up the stairs:



Sign about grafitti, which is basically omnipresent here:



Within the base of the tower is a museum about German monuments and within the column are many many windy stairs to take you to the top of the tower.





Afterwards we went to a market with tons of incredibly fresh meat and fish (even some that were swimming around in tanks waiting for you to buy them.

Schwedenköpfe

So all over Wismar there were statues that looked like this:

From Drop Box

Apparently, they are statues of Hercules with a lion pelt on his head and they are called Schwedenköpfe (Sweden heads). Why would images of a Greek demigod be referred to as Sweden heads, you ask? It's not clear. However, Wismar was owned by Sweden from 1648 to 1803. The statues are meant to protect the town somehow or perhaps do so by representing its power. There are two on posts in the harbor:



In other news from Wismar, I won the wine tasting contest! Two reds, two whites, two roses, and a German wine and they had to be categorized as 5-8 euros, 12-18 euros, or German (a French man constructed this test and has a low opinion of German wine).

The countryside between Wismar and Berlin looks a lot like central Illinois.

Hopefully everyone on the East Coast is staying safe from the numerous natural disasters!

Chimay

Had a Chimay Premiere (red label) the other night. It was delicious.



After finishing the beer, we noticed some amusing postings on the label:





My favorite is the part about the appropriate glass from which to enjoy the beer.

Bike Locks in Berlin

We have been noticing these bikes all over Berlin, and it is a little heartwarming to see that it is really ok to lock your bike to a 3 foot tall open ended pole, or perhaps to itself, or not at all. The Philadelphian in me wants to move the bike 5-10 feet just to show these people that the bikes really aren't secure. The woman at the bank told us that bike theft is a big problem here, but I don't really believe that.

Wismar

I'm visiting Wismar this week for my department's Summer school (not for people who failed their classes). Everyone presents on their work over the previous year and it's a good opportunity to meet people (for me, especially) and to learn what they do.

Wismar is a smallish harbor town in northern Germany along the Baltic Sea. Last night I saw a beautiful sunset over the harbor as well as an oddly named street.





No false cognates there. It translates to almost precisely what you think it does.

The Leopard Man

Saw a street performer in Alexanderplatz in Berlin on 08/11/2011. He had 3 guys in barechested costumes (picked from the audience) holding his 3m tall chair on a pole. The video starts where he had to put the flaming torch into his pants to light it for the second time (the first lighter from the audience didn't work!)

Quite an enjoyable performance.

Berlin Zoo

So as Amy said, we went to the zoo here and it was rather pretty. I played with my new camera and took some nice video of the gorillas in the enclosure. The one in the video below decided to gather up a bunch of fruit for lunch and go eat in the shade. The elephants and tiny monkeys were all feeling rather playful too, so it seems that we went at a good time!

And just in case we needed a reminder, we are only ~9684 miles from the LA Zoo.

German Kitty

Happy Kitty:


Crazy Kitty:


Explanation of the above picture: We don't have air conditioning (I don't think many homes do here), so when it's warm we open the windows. At night, that results in many bugs in the house. Loki loves stalking tiny flying prey, even (especially) when it involves him jumping on tall things.

What does this sign mean?

To me it looks like "Please throw bottles out the window," but somehow I don't think that's correct.

The Hood

Amusing moment yesterday:
Trying to explain why the hood (fume hood) has the same name as "the place where the gangsters live" (his words, not mine) to someone in my lab.

Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall. There are a number of events and programs tomorrow commemorating the event.

Naturkundemuseum

Two Saturdays ago we went the the natural history museum. They had some cool dinosaurs. Here is me with one of them:



This is a giant prehistoric armadillo-like thing:




It reminded me of King Koopa.

The most interesting thing at the museum, however, was its collection of specimens in ethanol. They had literally thousands of animals preserved in alcohol. Kind of creepy, but really cool at the same time. The collection was recently moved to an area that the public could view. The specimens are in a room within a room, and both are kept at a chilly temperature in keeping with fire code. Some of the specimens had tags that could be read through the glass, and the specimens that we noticed with tags date back to the early 1900s. The specimens are all in excellent condition and without those tags it wasn't possible to discern between new and old specimens. Here are some pictures:





Two security guards were at the door to this exhibit and they would let in a couple of people at a time, but only when people were leaving the exhibit. I assume it had something to do with limiting the amount of cold air lost and/or the number of people in the exhibit at any time so the security guards inside could keep an eye on everyone.

Budweiser

At the recommendation of someone from work, I tried a Budweiser Budvar tonight with dinner. It is so much better than Anheuser-Busch Budweiser. In the US it is labeled as a Czechvar, although in the EU the term "Budweiser" can only be used to describe beer from the Czech city the Germans refer to as Budweis. This is similar to parmesan being only from Parma and champagne coming only from the region of France of the same name.

International Berlin Beer Festival

On Friday we went to the Beer Festival with some people from work. It's apparently the world's longest beer festival, with over a mile of beer stalls along Karl Marx Allee, only a few blocks from our apartment. Fun fact: Karl Marx Allee was Stalinallee 1949-1961. The name was changed to the uncontroversial Karl Marx Allee then as part of de-Stalanization following his death in 1953. Anyway, back to beer. There were hundreds of beer stands set up. Each was offering full glasses of their beers as well as 0.2 L tastings. We both got tasting glasses with a creepy teddy bear on them (http://www.bierfestival-berlin.de/eng.html) so that we could try a bunch of different brews. It was a really good time and it was nice to hang out with people from work outside of the Institute. We had currywurst for the first time and it was delicious! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currywurst)

The festival was very entertaining. Different musical groups were set up along the festival, ranging from accordion to techno to American rock and pop. One of the rock bands had a meter cubed box fan that the guitarist was performing on. Accompanying him on this fan was a woman whose sole purpose was to look hot while the fan blew her hair back. There were also many costumed men walking around (Captain American, a Franciscan monk, a bunny, etc.). I'm not even including the leiderhosen, which were quite popular.

Yesterday we went to the zoo. It's a really beautiful place and the habitats are quite nice. Keith will hopefully post pictures later, but it was astounding the care that went into each of the habitats, both practical and aesthetic. For example, the bison enclosure had a barn in the back painted with Pacific Northwest-style Native American symbols and there was a totem pole near the front. The goats had an awesome mountain and the gorillas had a beautiful area as well. Beyond that, the place had beautiful landscaping with lots of flowers and ornamental plants along the paths and numerous fountains.

My first week of work went fairly well. I did a lot of reading and administrative stuff, but I'm excited to start working in the lab tomorrow. The commute isn't too bad, although the trains have been running a bit late, which has resulted in me missing my bus and having to wait 20 minutes for the next. Construction is supposed to be done, though, so hopefully trains will be running on time again.

Burritos!

We had burritos for dinner! And they were delicious!



Keith agrees:


They even had imported beers to accompany the burritos. I had a Bohemia, but they an Anchor Steam beer and a couple other non-German beers. Very exciting, much like my new phone. It's a Nexus S and it arrived today. It's very light and very pretty and its use is surprisingly intuitive.

First Day

Today was my first day of work and Keith's first day of German lessons.

My first day went well, I think. On Thursday when I went in to meet with my boss I was given this form that I had to get various people (IT, accounting, travel, etc.) to sign, which is how I spent most of my day. That and filling out the accompanying paperwork that asked for my qualifications and such. I also the department director today and he was very friendly. He thought it was crazy that I brought my animals with me. Got my ID picture taken. Forgot my lunch. Went through two computers because the first one was having a heat management problem. Lots of typical first day stuff, but now that it's completed I can do real work tomorrow.

Keith's first day of German went well. The class has 12 people in it and they're all about his age and mostly from Europe, although there's a girl there from Boston. There's a hostel associated with the school, so I think the classes are meant for a younger crowd. The classes are almost entirely in German (lots of people from many different countries, so it's kind of from necessity). Keith says he's learned a lot already.

On my way home, I stopped at a pet store and got some stuff for the animals. It was the logical thing to do, but I felt a bit strange on the s-bahn with a bag of kitty litter...

We were both exhausted when we got home tonight. I guess we're not used to learning and a full day's work any more, but I'm hoping that the re-acclimation period is short.

I saw a guy at the train station today who was wearing a white linen sport coat, khaki pants, and no shoes. Public transit is the last place I would want to be barefoot.