Julian's Esoteric World

I was a little apprehensive about seeing Berlin at first, I'll admit.

In fact, I'll go as far as to say that had the frisbee team not had a game there, I might not have attempted to make a trip there at all. This may come as a shock to some of you, since my love of World War 2 history is about as well documented as sightings of Britney Spears' vagina. However, I was afraid that Germany would not be as...comfortable with their history and would have very little left in terms of World War 2 sites. I figured it would be completely modernized, especially with the many comparisons I heard to London and New York City.

And they couldn't have been more wrong.

Absolutely, it has its modern segments. But I actually felt like I was running through pages of a history textbook (which I'm sure sounds completely drab to most normal people who hated history textbooks) with each step that I took in this magnificent city. This is not a city trying to hide and forget its terrible past; in fact, you can't walk 3 feet without coming across a visually terrifying memorial of some kind. Just seeing the streets I recognized from history books (such as Wilhelmstrasse, which my companion so aptly said "Dude...shit went down here.") sent shivers down my spine. The good kind though; I had to restrain myself from jumping with glee like an unpopular, pimple ridden teenage girl who just got asked to the prom by the star quarterback (which sadly never happened to me in my high school days). I saw the site of the book burnings, which happens to be right across the street from the major university in Berlin and right next to the Deutches Oper Haus (German Opera House), where I would later on see my first opera. I saw the Reichstag, Hitler's bunker (or where it was at least), and the parts of the Berlin Wall that were still standing. According to the few locals I talked too, they actually wish the wall was still up. The East and the West are radically different to this day, and they all hate each other. It's fascinating. Even walking around Berlin, you can tell which sector was the Soviet sector and which was the Allied sector. The dessicated world of East Berlin was something out of a cheap 70's horror movie (terrible color matching schemes included). Houses were covered in graffiti, authored by homeowners as communications to their Government. If houses are monuments to ourselves, these were letters of despair written on the crumbled remains of egos. Bombed buildings reminiscent from their World War 2 heyday are still littered throughout parts of the city, and even classic Berlin monuments, such as the Berlin Dom (that really extravagant and gorgeous cathedral), is almost black, scars from fires and bombings the city received a short 63 years ago.

I also got the privilege of seeing the Pergamon Museum on the last day of its world renowned Babylon exhibit. I spent at least four hours wandering around with my walkman listening to the history of everything I was seeing. It was broken into two segments: the myths of Babylon, housed on the east side of the Museum, and the facts of Babylon, located on the west side. While all of this was interesting, the biggest treat was seeing the Gates of Ishtar. Completely stunning. I wish I could have seen it in its original environment.

In short, Berlin is by and large my favorite city I have encountered, and I highly recommend it to all of you. I was sad to leave, and I can't wait to have the chance to go back again one day.

To my faithful readers,
I believe Richard Nixon said it best: "To those who have stood with me during these past difficult months, to my family, my friends, to many others who joined in supporting my cause because they believed it was right, I will be eternally grateful for your support...I'm sorry."

It's been a long couple of weeks for me. Although I have been able to avoid breaking into the Watergate Hotel for political advantages (which I suppose is one up on our friend Mr. Nixon), I have been faced with a number of my own dilemmas and challenges over here, causing me to spend more time doing other things than writing. I have had to steal time where I can get it, and I now finally have the chance to get back into this whole blog thing.

I am not a crook.

This really all started about three weeks ago. I tried out for what I thought was the school handball team, and I made it, much to my surprise. That wasn't the end of my surprises however; I quickly caught on that this team was not the school handball team, but rather a "minor-league" handball team based out of Hamburg. I suppose the American equivalent would be the Missoula Osprey baseball team or the Spokane Chiefs hockey team. Anyway, this has effectively taken up most of the free time that I have; I have to take a train to Hamburg every day for practice and then go play games on Thursday nights and Saturday nights in front of sold out stadiums. Yeah, it's pretty cool. =) However, this is only a small integral part of this blog.

Insert underlying plot point here: effective today, I am officially coming home for good for Christmas.

This was an extremely difficult decision for me to make. I agonized with this decision for countless days, and in the end decided that it was the right move to make. Not necessarily the move I want, but the one that I think is going to have the best outcome in the end. Between a combination of an uncertain money flow and certain academic reasons, I felt that it was best to play this safe rather than sorry. I'm still grateful for this chance, however. Most people never get to do something like this, and most people don't follow their dreams. I've learned so much from this, and almost none of it came from my classes. As a college student, you’re expected to understand class material. You’re used to analyzing and making sense of things—and being required to do so. Suddenly immersed in a new culture, however, you will come across things you simply don’t understand, and trying to analyze everything will just give you a headache.

Studying abroad will teach you to live with mysteries, and to appreciate the beauty of an unanswered question.

Even the stuff you learn in class doesn't match the learning that takes place in the "real world". Most people probably study abroad at least in part because they want to learn a new language, and that’s wonderful. But you will run across situations where your newly-acquired ability to communicate in the local tongue actually gets in the way of communication—so go with it.

I will never forget trying, along with several of my classmates, to ask research questions of three women who were selling fruit in a village we visited.

We were sure that if we could phrase a grammatical, properly-pronounced question, we could communicate, but they just giggled at our queries. Perhaps we unknowingly touched on culturally inappropriate topics; perhaps they were just shy. Quite possibly German was their second language, too—though we didn’t think of that at the time.

Only when the women offered us each a perfect, tiny peach—when we were standing there slurping and dripping all together—did the tension break. The language of food communicated far more than words could that day. And even though in American terms you "failed", you still learned far more that day than you would have had you been "successful". You learn that these people aren't what you read about in newspapers or hear about on the O'Reilly Factor each night. These people are really just like you, and I think that gets lost somewhere in translation. It's my responsibility to be the translator and show that maybe these people (and I think this is the case for every nationality, not just Germans) don't fit most stereotypes you have heard; it's amazing how similar we all really are.

And that’s key—of course, you’re studying abroad for you. But you’re also taking on a responsibility. This country has taken you in, fed you, taught you, broken your heart, and healed it again.

How will you return the favor?

I just came to the startling realization that I haven't shared this with everyone yet...

Last Sunday when I got home from Munich, I had tryouts for the school ultimate frisbee team. It's amazingly a huge sport over here, second really only to soccer. Therefore, my own expectations on making the team were not very high. But, regardless, I love the sport so I tried out for it. Ten minutes into the practice, the captain pulled me aside and told me that he was really impressed by my speed and ability to catch and told me I was on the team. He then took me to a separate room where the rest of the team was running drills and had me run drills as well. By the end of the practice I had the nickname of "Kleber" (German for glue) bestowed upon me and a starting spot on the team this Saturday in Berlin. The jerseys are pretty neat, I'm not going lie, and everyone one the team is really funny and a lot of fun. So, I am currently finishing my packing and am leaving for Berlin in an hour! Rumor has it we get to play in the huge stadium downtown that the Berlin soccer team plays in and the German national soccer team plays in (if I'm not mistaken), which be one heck of an experience. I've never played in anything bigger than the Kibbie Dome in Moscow...haha. I don't think we'll win; apparently Berlin is one of the best teams in Germany and Luneburg has never beat them...but who knows, stranger things have happened!

It's been a while since I've had a chance to update this, so I'll see if I can't bring everyone up to speed on this entry.

This past weekend, as some of you know, I spent in Munich for Oktoberfest. I think it is safe to say I have never seen so many people in such a condensed area before in my life. The beer was actually really good, and that's saying something for me, as I have come across very few beers that I like. I was able to get some really good pictures, so you can see them here...

http://s483.photobucket.com/albums/rr191/jredman11/Oktoberfest/?action=view&current=f6a5ac06.pbr

Overall, Oktoberfest was a little overrated in my opinion. It was a lot of fun, and the locals were very friendly, but after sitting for an hour with your beer and pretzel, you run out of things to do. I'm glad I went, but it definitely won't be the defining moment of my year, or even really weekend for that matter.

So, after a day and a half at Oktoberfest, I decided I had enough of it and said goodbye to my drunk travel companions and took a short side trip to Dachau. I think we all know that I have an almost unhealthy obsession with World War Two history, particularly with Nazi Germany and the concentration camps. I absolutely had to see a camp while I was over here, and is one of the few places I promised myself to go see. This seemed like the best chance to see Dachau, one of the most famous camps, so I went for it. All I can say is that this beat out Oktoberfest bar none. The guide was very blunt in his stories and everything was very, very graphic. I am still in a state of depressive shock, and if you ever need something to make you feel angry, sad, and astounded at the same time, then a concentration camp is the place for you. Dachau wasn't a "death camp", as all of those are located in Poland, but nonetheless, the average life expectancy of a prisoner was 90 days. The stories they told you couldn't help but grimace and wonder how such a thing could ever be done by humans. The camp was surrounded by an electrical and barbed wire fence, and often times prisoners would throw themselves into the fence, choosing suicide over another day in the camp. The guards would leave the bodies in the fence, where they would essentially rot until there was nothing left of them. The camp is located outside farm fields, and there are stories from the farmers who had to pick their crops while looking at the prisoner entangled in the fence. So many gruesome tales, so little space to document them all here...but it was truly an eye opening experience and is something that will really make you think and value your own life and good fortune more.

And to make things even better, when I got home to Luneburg, my family made me a birthday meal with cupcakes! I was pretty pleased. I also learned that the school has an ultimate frisbee team, so I'll be trying out for that. Sadly, my plans for the model United Nations were shot down, however. Originally, I was hoping to try out and get to go to the competition in New York City with the team, but they don't accept applications from international students, so I don't even get to try out. I was pretty bummed, but then again, I guess you can't have everything...

I think I have also decided on my summer plans. I sat down today and worked out what I could do on my very limited budget. Originally, my plan consisted a complete trek of Europe (something I still intend to do one day) and an African Safari. However, with the ever deteriorating dollar and the fact that Europe is an expensive endeavor to begin with, I simply don't have the funds to see much of anything in Europe. During spring break I'll hit the highlights in Europe for me (Paris, French Rivera, Italy, Greece), and that'll have to be my European experience. So, for summer, I have discovered a somewhat cheap and fascinating option to "kill the time" between the school end date and the start of my three week safari. I would fly from Hamburg to Istanbul (not Constantinople) and spend a few days in Turkey. From there I will take a train from Istanbul to Damascus, Syria and spend a few days exploring the region. For people like my mother reading this, Syria is relatively safe and I promise I'll stay out of neighboring Iraq and Iran. =)
From Syria I'd take a bus to Amman, the capital of Jordan. Jordan has been towards the top of my list of places to see, so I'll spend as much time as I can seeing Petra, the Dead Sea, and the many places mentioned in Lawrence of Arabia. I'll then take a bus from Petra to Tel Aviv, where I'll spend a day or two in Jerusalem, and possibly Bethlehem in Palestine. I will then finally take a train to Cairo and spend a week in Egypt. I plan on seeing Cairo, Luxor, Alexandria, and Aswan. I will then fly from Cairo to Nairobi and start my safari on May 24th. The safari hits Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. I'll get to climb Kilimanjaro and see the Serengeti, Victoria Falls, and many other astounding sights. Once the safari ends in Victoria Falls, I'll fly to Cape Town, South Africa and I'll spend a couple of days there. From there, a plane to Johannesburg for a day, and then finally a short 36 hour plane ride home to the States. This option hits many things that I've dreamed of seeing my entire life, and is all things considered, pretty affordable, or at least much more so than Europe.

Anywho, that's a very brief overview of the past couple of days! Thanks for reading!

I received a rather heavy package today full of German books to help me with my studies. These books are wonderful! The only thing is that I have absolutely no idea who sent it, only that it had to have been from someone that reads the blog because of the way the address was written. Therefore, I thank you, Mr. Person, for the wonderful box of knowledge. And since I took these books of knowledge out of the box, I can now officially think outside the box. =)