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.