Last Days of Berlin

These were a bittersweet couple of days. We're all ready to get home, but at the same time trying to soak up all the last moments and sites of Berlin life. Monday, we visited an I. M. Pei project and went through the museum inside. The museum covered all of German history. I. M. Pei designed the addition to the old museum. The two buildings were connected underground and appeared to be two separate buildings from the street. There was a lot of information to cover in the museum in a short amount of time, so we kind of breezed through. Then we went to St. Canisius Kirche. This building is a modern church that dealt with bringing in light in different ways, contrast in materiality, and visual connections of symbolic forms. The detailing of this church was not flawless, but the overall feeling of the church was calming. Later this day, we went to a James Stirling Post Modern project. It was a social science research center. I think that since post modernism is seen as so out of style and dated, it is hard to get past aesthetic displeasure and appreciate the conceptual strides for the time.

Tuesday, we went to Museum Island which we had to reschedule from another day. We didn't have enough time to go through all of them, but we hit the most pertinent ones. The first museum contained a ton of ancient artifacts. The building was very neat in that it had survived the war, but still showed its scars (bullet holes). I really enjoyed looking at and photographing the statues. The next museum we went to was the Pergammon Museum. The Germans had stolen a TON of ancient Greek and Roman ruins. This museum reminded me of the British Museum of all the stolen ruins of theirs. The cool thing about it though, was the actual Pergammon Temple. They stole an entire third of the structure!!!! You walk into this room and "holy cow" or phrases of the like is the only thing that comes to mind. The sheer size of these columns, statues, pediments, stairs, etc. are just incredible. To think that they had to transport these pieces all the way to Germany! This was a fun museum. Each room had remnant - huge remnants- of different buildings, one being the gates of Babylon. Its so neat to see actual pieces of Biblical history! After this museum we went back to the Reichstag one last time and got a tour of the inside. The neatest thing about this tour was to see the remnants of some Russian graffiti from when they had occupied the Reichstag. I like the fact that the German government can acknowledge the fact that this point in history did happen and that they've overcome it and moved on. The building itself was able to tell its own story w/o words.

We were able to have our last doners for lunch both days. Doners will definitely be missed. Monday night we caught up on school stuff and just had a quick dinner down the street. Tuesday night we wanted to find a fun place to watch the game. (Netherlands vs Uraguay) We went to a street that Segrin had suggested - Oderberger Strasse if I remember correctly. We ended up finding a good game watching seat at a Thai restaurant. I was a little hesitant of not eating German food for my last meal but one of the things Berlin is known for is its variety of food, so I felt ok about experiencing more of this variety. After dinner we went to another area of town that we'd been hearing about but hadn't been to yet. We went there to check things out and then headed home to just hang out and pack. It was a fun last night in Berlin.

We had a journey to the airport w/ all of our luggage, finally made it, got on the plane, made it to london, had TGIFridays in the airport - with tap water!, got on another plane, watched the plane tracker go right over Hot Springs, and FINALLY landed in Dallas! My first meal was a big green salad - something I was definitely craving! I also got my Dr. Pepper w/ ice fix taken care of at Sonic, and it was wonderful.

This was an awesome month, and I learned alot! Its been great to see so much interesting architecture and historic sites with fun people that are just as interested as I am. What a way to end my education! Now its back to the real world!

Memorial Assignment

With the amount of tragic history the city of Berlin has endured, it is appropriate to memorialize some of these events, people, and days. When such disastrous things take place, it is hard to decide whether to pay tribute to such a thing or not, and if so, how? The Nazi period and era of the Berlin Wall are two points in history in which the city of Berlin has had to struggle with these decisions.

The Nazi period was a dark time in Germany’s history. I think that the German’s have appropriately memorialized the things and people of that time. The Holocaust Memorial by Peter Eisenman pays tribute to those who lost their life during the Holocaust. I think this memorial is important in the fact that it doesn’t just remember the Jewish people that died but everyone including the gypsies, homosexuals, and a-socials. As Americans, for some reason, we focus on the Holocaust in terms of how the Jewish population was affected. It is important to realize and remember that the Holocaust included much more. The Jewish Museum memorializes in a way the entire history of the Jewish people. One particular exhibit focuses on the Jews killed during the Nazi period. This exhibit succeeded in stirring up strong emotions for these people. I didn’t necessarily agree in the way in which the artist evoked these emotions (walking on “faces” of the ones suffering). I don’t believe we as outside parties should have to feel responsible for what happened. The Nazi’s have been recognized and portrayed in an important way in various museums in Berlin. I think by recognizing this past allows people to learn from history and prevent these mistakes from happening in the future. I feel that recognizing the party in museums and not in open public memorials was a smart and appropriate decision. It is evident through the way they have dealt with Nazi memorialization that the German people have learned from this era and are aware of the possibility of Neo-Nazi’s trying to create an uprising.

In more recent history, the era of the Berlin Wall is still affecting the people of Berlin. This period of time is one that people would understandably want to forget. Again, I think it’s important to remember these points in history because it was an important part of what defined Berlin. It also allows people to remember how much progress they have made as a city and a people. The Wall Memorial, I feel, is small enough that residents and tourists can recognize the severity of the time, yet it has been removed enough so that it is not the intrusive object that it once was. I really appreciated how they marked where the entire wall used to be with the two rows of stones through the streets all around the city. It is a subtle thing acting as a scar on the face of the city. It tells a story, and adds to the palimpsestic qualities of the city. Checkpoint Charlie, however, was not much more than a tourist attraction, most tourists being American. I don’t feel like having the checkpoint still up with fake soldiers standing in front adds anything of importance to the Berliners’ dally lives. The Checkpoint Charlie Museum is very informative and allows people to understand how life was for Berliners during this difficult and divided time. This is still a touchy subject for the people of Berlin in many ways, and from an outsiders perspective they are able to work through some of their issues as a city through these memorials.

Reflections of The Wall Jumper

The book The Wall Jumper raises several issues about life in Berlin during the era of the Berlin Wall. The author really begins to shed light on how people went about their daily lives during this time. There were definitely strong attitudes amongst the people of the East and West that were described throughout the different stories. Surprisingly, it seemed that the attitudes of Easterners towards the Westerners and vice versa were very similar in nature. For example, the author accompanied his girlfriend to her family’s house in the East. They would talk about how bad life was on their side of the wall, and the girlfriend would reply with comments about how bad life was in the West. It seems that everyone thought that they were worse off than the others were. As the author jumps around from story to story, one thing that is fairly consistent is the depression among the people. Trying to imagine the people he describes in the airport, train stations, bars, etc., they all seem full of despair. I think the attitudes that the people had and the depression they were experiencing were major parts of why people began to jump the Wall – thinking life must be greener on the other side.

Another interesting point the author touches on is the idea of state versus fatherland and people as a nation versus political boundaries. He basically says that the state in which the Germans belong has not been old enough to call their fatherland, but their fatherland is no longer a state. Stating that you are German is a more of a statement of your people group and language rather than the political boundaries in which you live. I feel like at that time the Germans were at a loss for a national identity. One day you live in the same city and down the street from your family, and the next you live in two different countries. This separation wasn’t a choice for the people - they couldn’t choose whether to be an East German or West German based on their own political view points. In America, if we don’t like the way a city or state is run politically, we have the freedom to pick up and move somewhere else that is better suited (although that is not quite as extreme of a situation as Communism versus Capitalism). I feel that being an American has different connotations that the notion of what language you speak. The US is such a melting pot that you can speak any language and call yourself American. I feel that our nationality has more to do with boundaries and paper work than a people group. This has its advantages and disadvantages. I think this ideal may be the stem of our lack of national unity whereas Germans seem to be more unified as a nation because of their language, people group, and history that they have endured and overcome together.

czechy czechy czechy

PRAGUE

We had a three day weekend this weekend, and we (me, Lindsay, Leah, Trey, and Kyle) headed down to Prague in the Czech Republic. We have all heard so many great things about Prague and how you have to go while you're over here, so we're able

to now check that off the list! Prague is a beautiful city. Its made up of three main districts that we visited - Old Town, New Town, and Lesser Town. Old Town is by far the most touristy part with obviously old buildings, windy narrow streets and lots of shops. The Vtalva River runs through the middle of the town separating old town from lesser town. I think I read somewhere that there are 15 bridges along the river.

That is what they're known for. The oldest one, St. Charles Bridge, was filled with souvenir vendors, street artists, and tons of tourists. Going South from old town was new town. There you'll find the main drag if you will. It was in interesting street. Almost Times Square meets Bourbon Street. Not nearly as lit up or dense as Times Square, but just as marketable, and not nearly as wild as Bourbon Street, but if you were looking, you could probably have some of the same experiences. As pretty as Prague was with its river, bridges, old buildings, etc, we found it to be a very dirty city. We also experienced many different smells as we walked around. That and the amount of tourism was what we didn't expect. We found that people were surprised that we were from America - I think Prague must be a place that more European tourists go than American.

So, this time we booked our hotel ahead of time so that we wouldn't have to walk around aimlessly for hours trying to find one. What we didn't realize was how far out the hotel that we did reserve actually was. We had to walk a good ways to get there and soon realized that this is not the part of Prague people come to see. haha. But the hotel was relatively cheap and was really nice. It even had air conditioning!!!! We finally found a place to eat that would take euro's (the Czech currency is the crown) until we could find an atm to get some crowns out. I had goulash for the first time there. Goulash is a beef dish - chunks of beef sitting in a thick stew like gravy with dumplings. Their dumplings are different than I've seen yet. They are more of a bread-like consistency than a dough-like consistency. This was tasty and very filling. We were pretty exhausted from our travels (5 hr train ride at 6:30 am), so we just walked around town and familiarized ourself with where things were and how the town was set up. We went down to old town, crossed the bridge, and ended up on paddle boats on the river. When it came time for dinner we found a restaurant on the river. I ended up getting a chicken kabob (on a skewer in the traditional sense of kabob unlike the doner kebap of Berlin). It came with some good grilled peppers and vegetables. We spent the rest of the night wandering around old town - it was quite lively. In fact, we wondered upon another World Cup game being shown in the main plaza. Hundreds of people were gathered around the big screen. This was interesting b/c the Czech team wasn't even playing, but the crowd was just as spirited. Uruguay beat Ghana in a shoot out at the end. Any Americans there were cheering for Uruguay b/c Ghana beat out the US, and I was standing by a woman who was a die hard Uruguay fan, but a lot of the crowd was cheering for Ghana.

We set out early to see all the sites on Saturday. Our hotel included free breakfast buffet and kept loaves of bread and meat and cheese out for sandwiches, so we were able to save a little money eat four free meals this weekend! The first thing we did was go to the Prague Castle. Apparently you can't go to Prague w/o seeing the Castle. The most impressive thing was the cathedral within the "castle" - we still aren't sure which part was actually the castle. My favorite thing though was, of course, the stained glass. This was just slightly different in style and craft than other traditional stained glass. This place too was packed full of people so we were getting a little claustrophobic. Everything else besides the church required tickets, so we just moved on. The castle was up on a hill so we were able to see the "best view of Prague" and lots of other good views too. Trey and I gave up the navigating roles to Lindsay this weekend. We ended up on top of another hill in a vineyard not quite sure where we were. haha We were thankful that it was pretty b/c it was really hot this weekend. We stopped several times during the day to just sit for a minute and rehydrate. We went around Lesser Town and stopped by a few of the embassies. They were nothing like the ones we've visited in Berlin. These were very much about blending in instead of standing out. We made it from Lesser Town over to New Town to catch the Germany game on tv. THEY WON 4-0!!!!! It was a great game, but it made us sad that we weren't with the Berliners on the Unter den Linden jumping on buses and what not. The Czech did not get quite as excited about that game as they do here in Berlin (naturally). After the game we found a park to sit in until dinner time. We ended up eating at a place in New Town that was a traditional Czech restaurant. I had such a good meal! It was pork over potatoes and covered w/ mozzarella. Definitely one of the best meals of the trip. We spent the rest of the night wandering around New Town and ended up at a nearby park until we needed to catch the tram back to the hotel.

Sunday we tried to see a little bit more of Old Town including the Astronomical Clock that they are famous for. Really the best parts of Prague are the streets - they just have pretty street scapes there. So, we did a lot of walking around going from one park to another just soaking up the city before we had to leave. It was so hot that we were all craving Icees or some kind of slushy drink. We asked some people on the street and they had no idea what that meant, but we finally spotted a girl with something icy from starbucks. We made a mad dash to starbucks and all enjoyed a fruity drink. We ran into a basketball shoot out in the middle of the plaza in New town. Some of us went into a couple shops in old town - my favorite being the art glass store. These shops were everywhere. The souvenir items that were most popular were bohemian crystal, puppet dolls, and paintings.

Our train ride back was not too exciting. It was an old train and was just plain hot. We had trouble getting seats b/c we didn't have any reserved, but they never marked which seats were reserved. We ended up getting up about 6 times before we found seats that weren't someone else's. The funniest thing from the ride was a class of German high school students dancing and stomping to "cotton eyed Joe" complete with a ripping "yeeehaw". We just found this pretty funny! We were sitting in a room with their teacher who was gracious enough to let some of us sit in their extra seats.

Generally speaking, Czech culture has several differences and plenty of similarities to German culture. The people were always nice and helpful. Prague being a major tourist town that is kind of expected. The currency was kind of fun to deal with. 25 crowns equaled 1 euro and 20 crown equaled a dollar. So, everything seemed really cheap. We could pay some places with euros and get czech crowns back. If you paid 50 euro you would get several hundred crowns back. Their food was pretty similar in the fact that it was a lot of meat and potatoes. They had more dumplings with things though. The language was extremely difficult to be around. We were glad we were in a big city that most people knew English. We didn't even know how to say hello. This made for some good laughs. We had a lot of fun, and I'm glad we went although we are starting to get a little worn out on site-seeing. I like being able to say I've been to the Czech Republic, and I think Prague is definitely one of those places that I might not have gone on my own later.

Thursday

Today was mostly a historic day. We went to Checkpoint Charlie and the museum there and then later went to the Berlin Wall Memorial. In between we passed by several housing developments done famous architects for the IBA.

CHECKPOINT CHARLIE

Most of you probably know that this was the American checkpoint barrier between East and West Berlin during the time that the Wall was up. Interestingly enough "Charlie" comes from the phonetic alphabet and means that this was the third of the checkpoints (meaning there was a Checkpoint Alpha and Checkpoint Bravo too). That was a new fun fact for the day. Going to this museum was weird in a way for me and I think for others of our group as well. The whole area was just crawling w/ American tourists. Even though we are technically American tourists as well, we have been here long enough to feel like we're apart of the city - albeit a very small part of the city. We really haven't run into too many Americans, so just being around that many at once in the middle of Berlin was just a strange thing today. (maybe its a "you just had to be there" kind of thing) Anyway, the museum was very informative with tons of pictures. When I look at historic pictures especially of big events like these, I try to picture myself behind the camera or in the scene to try to understand what it was really like to be there. The explanations that supplemented all of these images made it easier to do that, so that was really interesting. I guess since the happenings of the Berlin Wall are relatively recent, its not old enough to learn about in great detail in our general history classes. I just never realized how horrible all of this really was. People risking their lives to get to the other side; people risking their lives to help other people get across to the other side. People would hide in car engine spaces, the passenger seat of a car, suitcases, tunnels, etc to get across to West Berlin. There were several videos of people escaping - successfully and unsuccessfully. This all not only made me understand the horror and hardship of life in Berlin during this time, but also the courage these people had to escape past the Soviet regime. It makes you wonder how hard life must have been for these people to go to such extreme measures in order to escape. I believe it even took a certain amount of courage to not escape and to just keep living the way they were being forced to in the East.

BERLIN WALL

As you walk through Berlin, you notice every once in a while two rows of cobblestone running through the street. If you see this, you are looking at where the Wall once stood. We've run into this several times throughout the trip, however, today we got to see a segment of the actual wall standing in its original place. They have created a memorial park almost around this part where some of the wall has been replaced w/ rusted conduits the same height of the wall. We were able to climb a tower of sorts across the street to look over into "No Man's Land". This was the area between the actual wall and another barrier. The only thing in between these two walls were vicious dogs and maybe soldiers .... to kill anyone who tried to escape. We also went into a church right next door - "Church of Reconciliation". The original church actually survived the war, but was torn down because it got in the way of No Man's Land. Now it stands as a nice little chapel constructed of wood and concrete. We went in and stumbled upon a group gathered around singing. The tune sounded familiar but I obviously couldn't make out the German lyrics.

CULTURE

After class we went to an area of town that we were told was "cutting edge". We just walked around and looked in a few shops. There were lots of little trendy clothing shops and just random other stores. This was also a part of town where we were probably the only tourists around, so that was nice. Its always fun to walk around and watch the locals going about their daily lives.

This week a few cravings for America have hit. I think you can tell a lot about where you are by what you miss from home. I'll just list a few.

- green vegetables and salad (its all meat and potatoes here), Dr. Pepper, Sonic size drinks with sonic amounts of ice, English tv and restaurant chatter.

As I come to realize that I'm starting to miss those things, I also realize things that I've done/do here that I don't do back home. Some of these things I think have to do w/ the language barrier and the need for simplification. For instance, eating tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, and the like are things I never eat at home, but here I have not found so terrible. I've also been drinking coke when at home I would drink sprite over coke when dr. pepper isn't available. There are more things that I won't bore you with, but I just think its funny the things you'll let yourself do in a situation like this when in the comforts of home, you would do completely differently.

Our weekend crew is headed to Prague this weekend! We leave at 6:30 tomorrow morning.... hopefully not having to sprint across town to the hauptbahnhof. We went ahead and booked a hotel, so now we won't have to search once we get there. This will be a change of pace as far as our weekends go because we're headed to another big city instead of quaint rural town Europa. We're all really excited to see what this city has in store.

Sorry again for not posting tons of pictures... this doesn't mean I'm not taking tons though! I haven't had time to actually go through all my pictures yet, and I'd like to filter through and just make an album of nice edited photos. This is becoming a hobby of mine,and the more I get into it the pickier about it I get... imagine that. Well, I'll be updating after the weekend! After that just two more days! How time flies...

Monday through Wednesday

ARCHITECTURE

Monday morning we set out to go see Le Corbusier's Unite de Habitation. We've studied the one he did in France, and this one was very similar. We were able to go inside and see a few of the different apartment styles, including a woman's apartment who had lived there since the building was built. Most people renovate their space, but she had everything left for the most part from how it was in the 50's. I love getting to meet these local people and hear their stories.

We also got to stop by a Nicolas Grimshaw buildi

ng. This space had lots of really nice details. I really enjoy being places that are rich in details. Grimshaw was able to create interesting forms but still have it make sense tectonically - the best of both worlds. There were some images at one spot in the building that showed pictures of some of his models and then an inspiration image of something in nature. It was interesting to see how these structures in natural things were manifested throughout the building.

My favorite thing we did Monday - and now in my top favorite of the trip (I'll have to compile a numbered list for that later) - was the Kaiser Wilheim Kirche. This is an old church that was hit from bombing. They left the remains of the old church and built a new one next to it. This is one of the icons of Berlin, and a testament to the struggles the city has had in wrestling between what to repair, what to tear down, what to mem

orialize, etc. It is probably the prime example of contrasting between new and old. The exterior of the new church on its own is not that attractive, but when sitting next to the old cathedral, it somehow is very fitting. We've been by this church a couple times on the trip so I wasn't just super energized about the building, but then we got to go inside. As I stepped in the door, I caught a glimpse of the alter through the foyer are

a - I think my exact words were "No way" with jaw drop immediately following. The entire inside of this church was stained glass. And not just any stained glass - BLUE stained glass. And not just any blue - MY blue. If you've been around m

e much in the past couple years, you understand my excitement! Not only do I love stained glass, but this blue glass is one of my favorite things in the world. You can't capture this color and luminescence in paint. It was beautiful! This was three days ago, and I still get excited thinking about it. This was definitely an unexpected treasure of Berlin - for me anyway - I don't know if many other people get so excited by seeing the color blue haha. This is just a quick image from the internet to give you an idea.

Tuesday we hopped on the train to Dresden for the day. This town was interesting in that all of its big historic buildings were all together in one area. A sort of Acropolis of Baroque and Neo-Classical architecture. We took a tour of the Opera house to find out none of it was original. Everything has been rebuilt in the past 20-30 years. It was very interesting to find how much trouble the people went to in order to make these buildings look old and authentic. Instead of using real wood paneling, an artist painted wood grain onto clay; instead of using marble for columns and wall panels, they used a material that took way longer to make and was extremely more expensive but still looked like marble. It was hard for us to understand why they would have spent more money for fake materials.

We had a little bit of free time in this area so I went to an art museum that contained a lot of the "old masters" work. This was the first time since my art history class to go see old art. I enjoyed understanding more about this style and being able to appreciate it rather than passing through to more modern work. We saw Raphael's Sistine Madonna in which everyone recognizes the two cupids. We also saw several Rembrandt's, Rubens, Titians, and a couple from Durer (German), among several others. But, this was alot of fun for me, and a nice break from architecture.

We went by the Volks Wagen Factory. One could watch a car being made from start to finish and even have the chance to screw in a couple of bolts on your own new car. The factory is referred to as the Transparent factory. We didn't get a tour, but we've now completed our circle of German made car factories. We were able to get an impromptu tour of a middle/high school by Behnisch, and we stopped by a movie theater done by Coop Himmelbau.

The major building we saw on Wednesday was the Dutch Embassy by Rem Koolhaas. This was a really interesting building that of course has some pro's and con's. Berlin has strict building codes, as I think I've mentioned before, and it was interesting to see how Koolhaas worked with and around these restrictions. Buildings have to be built on all four corners of a lot, but Koolhaas and the clients from the Embassy wanted the Embassy to stand apart from surrounding buildings and be its own entity. So, the end result was to pull the actual Embassy building apart from the rest leaving an interstitial space through the middle of the site - leaving an L shaped building with an offset cube. The disappointing thing to me was that there wasn't much done to this interstitial space. The actual Embassy was pretty interesting. The circulation sort of spiraled up throughout the building with a series of ramps, corridors, and staircases. Each room had some sort of view to the next. Going through the spaces, you could tell the building had an interesting section by how spaces intersected one another.

After the Embassy, the rest of the day was more history based. We got a taste of some Socialist urban planning by going down Karl-Marx-Allee. It was very evident the idea of power that they were trying to achieve through their architecture. Everything was very stark, monolithic, symmetrical, and cold in a way. Our teachers tell us how our work makes (and should make) political statements in a way. Without going into detail, seeing this area made me realize more of what they mean by that.

The last thing we did was go to a Soviet memorial in Treptower Park. This was an impressive and powerful place. It was interesting to see something from their point of view. The monuments here were giant and telling of how much pain the Soviets felt at the time. There are over 5000 buried here. The main statue of the square was a soldier holding a child while crushing a swastika with his feet. This was to symbolize the Soviets coming into Germany to try to save Humanity. Although my knowledge of these issues is limited in comparison to others, as Americans we focus on the Jewish aspects of WWII and learn to feel great sympathy towards the things that happened to them. But, we are not really exposed to this point of view - feeling sympathy for communists. They've always been the "bad guys" in our stories. This memorial just made me realize that at the end of the day we're all people, and when that many people (red, yellow, black, or white) have endured such devastation, its ok to feel sympathy for them even though political agendas throughout history do not line up.

CULTURE

Food: We've had some intersesting food in the last couple days. Monday, we searched for a while to find a doner kebap. This is going to be the thing I miss about Berlin. Its just an amazing mix of greatness all wrapped up in one tortilla. We've decided that if architecture doesn't work out, we could come back to America and open up a Doner stand and make a killing. I'm really surprised that the doner hasn't made it over there yet. If you haven't had one, add it to your bucket list. mmmm so good! For dinner we went to an African restaurant. I was a little nervous, but actually thoroughly enjoyed my meal. The food had different textures, so that was the hard part, but the flavors made up for it. I had some sort of beef dish w/ spinach mixture. It came w/ plantains which were really good.

Tuesday for lunch we stopped at a schnitzle place. Mine came with a pineapple curry sauce... very good.

Wednesday we had some more currywurst for lunch, and then went to a local pizza place for dinner. Our German contact suggested the place, and it was amazing. Everything was so authentic, and we could tell it was a favorite place for the locals. We got there and the place was packed. After we got our pizzas we understood why. It was fun to be in a part of town that wasn't crawling with tourists.

I finally found a watch! I like it because it will always remind me of Berlin. One cultural thing I picked up on while in the watch store was the fact that people are allowed to bring their dogs into stores and restaurants a lot more freely than in America. I've noticed a few times when we're in a retail/food vending space that dogs just randomly pop in. They are with their owners of course, but a lot of the Berliner dogs are not on leashes. This is the kind of thing that when it happens you don't think much about it, but then you realize you just ordered your food w/ a dog running at your feet - that would never fly in America.

"The Hills are Alive" - Weekend in Austria

This weekend we went to Salzburg and Hallstatt, Austria. We left Thursday night from Berlin and arrived early Friday morning, having to spend the night in the Munich train station during our 5 hour layover. We couldn't sleep very well, so we found ourselves riding the escalators up and down for entertainment. Leah and Trey got woken up by police and asked to move b/c they were not allowed to take up hobo tendencies (aka sleeping on newspapers and pillows handed over by strangers - funny story). So, needless to say, that was a long night. We got to Salzburg and searched for a hotel (which took longer than we would have liked). Upon entering the hotel room, the door hit something on the way in. One might think "Oh no I hit the bed". Well, no. What we found behind the door was the shower.... in the middle of the room..... with a glass door.... across from a mirror. Talk about awkward. Luckily there was another shower down the hall along with the communal toilets. Like I said in an earlier post - its always a surprise what kind of bathroom you will have when traveling. So soon after we set out to see the sights of Salzburg. We saw a few churches, Mozart's home and birthplace, a palace with gardens, and a fortress that overlooked the entire town. After seeing all of these great things, I think the whole group would agree, our favorite thing was a nap on the bank of the beautiful river that ran through town. We've noticed in Berlin that people do this, so we decided to join in on the experience, and it was wonderful. We voted it the best napping spot in the world.

We woke up, walked around some more, found a spot to watch the end of a world cup game, and then found dinner. During dinner we heard music going on in the streets so we went to check it out. It ended up being an annual festival of basically just celebrating Salzburg. There was a band and lots of vendors in the streets. We ended up talking w/ an American man who had lived there for 20 years playing and coaching hockey. While talking to him, a British man came in on our conversation and we talked for quite a while with him too about his travels. He actually goes to Salzburg and Hallstatt every year. He was about 75 and had a lot of fun stories. And, did I mention he's received an award from the Queen?! Such an interesting person to run into.

So, the next morning we hop on the train to get to Hallstatt. This i

s a beautiful little town right on a lake in the valley of some mountains (I'm pretty sure part of the Alps). This was a quaint and charming town full of character. This town we found out later is 5500 years old and the hotel/ b&b we stayed in was 500 years old! pretty incredible. We foun

d some lunch at a nearby cafe - i had an assortment of dumplin

gs with salad. I've never had dumplings like this (filled with different meats). I was surprised at how well I liked them! We were dying to get out on the water as soon as we arrived. (we had to hop a ferry to actually get to the town) So, after lunch we quickly found paddle boats and kayaks. We paddled around for a couple hours soaking in the atmosphere.

Looking back on my pictures now, as beautiful as it looks, still doesn't do the town justice. It is just absolutely breathtaking. For dinner we went to The White Lamb, as suggested by the British man in Salzburg. I had a pork dish with veggies and potatoes and an apple strudel for dessert. Delicious. We ended the night watching the US lose to Ghana in the World Cup. Better luck next time. The next day, we set out trying to go to church but re

alized that we did not have time to go to the church and see what we wanted to see before the train left. A couple people set out to see

one of the oldest salt mines - besides the view, what Hallstatt is known for. The others of us decided to go to the top of the mountain to see what they have been calling "The 5 Fingers". It is basically a lookout point where you walk out on these structures that hang off the mountain.

To get there we had to take a bus to the next village over, two gon

dolas to the top of the mountain, and hike a 20 minute trail. But it was completely worth it. This was the best view I think I've ever seen. God's good isn't He?

CULTURE

We found out that Austrians are a little more laid back than Germans - as is evident through their train system. Our train from Hallstatt to Salzburg was l

ate and very slow on the way, making us miss our connecting train back to Munich and Berlin. We got it fixed, but ended up having to go through Hannover stretching the return trip from 11 hours to 17 hours. Luckily the extra time was spent on the train and not sleeping on benches in a train station or even riding the escalators all night. Monday was a very long day after traveling all night and getting back 1 hour before class.

Another thing we found entertaining was the traditional dress

of the Austrian locals. Some of the people you will find wearing lederhosen (leather shorts) and Dirndl dresses. From little kids to old couples, we found lots of examples - here are just a few. I tried to be somewhat inconspicuous haha.