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.