Berlin & Dresden

Fulbright pays

I spent ten days out of Bielefeld earlier this month traveling to a Fulbright conference in Berlin, which was wonderful, so I wanted to make sure I blogged about it. First I spent the weekend with my friend Anna (the daughter of my host teacher) in Berlin, where she goes to college. We wandered the streets and saw some great art at the Hamburg Bahnhof, a contemporary art museum I would recommend to all for their next visit to Berlin if even just to enjoy the architectural space. We also got some wonderful (and cheap!) Vietnamese Pho and summer rolls, which were MUCH appreciated since I don’t get much good international cuisine here. By the time the weekend was over I had already reconfirmed that Berlin is an awesome city and decided that if I was going to continue living in Germany, or come back in the future to live here, I would have to do it there.

Anna (foreground) and the Reichstag (background).

Above-ground pipe system along Unter den Linden: a testament to the extensive, ongoing, and never-ending construction Berlin has undertaken since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

On Sunday I trekked across town to check-in to the Fulbright conference. They put us up in probably the tallest hotel in Berlin, which is directly located on Alexanderplatz. When I told Anna and her roommates we would be staying at Park Inn Hotel their mouths dropped. There are 37 stories, and my room’s windows looked directly out onto the Fernseherturm (TV tower—major site of former East Berlin and can be seen from almost everywhere in the city).
Lauren and I were roommates and we took total advantage of the hotel atmosphere, our great view, and the free breakfast and dinner buffets (I also took breakfast fixings to make free lunches everyday and I made a point of using the hotel gym). Having Fulbright pay for all of this was exceptional, but the quality of the conference beyond just being wined & dined (and we were—endless food and alcohol almost everywhere we turned) was really excellent. They even rented out a nightclub for our closing night party.

My hotel on Alexanderplatz.

I woke up to this view of the Fernseherturm out of my hotel window!

View of Berlin from our room. We could see the Berliner Dom (Cathedral), Reichstag, and many other major sites.

Our first night of being wined & dined was accompanied by this large chocolate bear as a buffet table centerpiece.

Attending were all the German Fulbrighters (which is the largest Fulbright Commission in the world) along with Fulbrighters from 18 other countries. We had multiple panel discussions, which were always followed by an extensive Q&A period. It was interesting to hear about the research projects being conducted throughout Europe. Our other two keynote panels dealt with the question of whether Germany is a global player and how the US elections present challenges and opportunities for Germany. Another highlight was meeting the governor/mayor of Berlin, who is one of the first openly gay politician in such a powerful position.

American English Teaching Assistants working in Ostwestfalen--the crew of people I hang out with the most. (Shawn, Dan, Lauren, and myself.)

Fulbright ETAs and the Brandenburger Tor at night.

My favorite part of the weekend (besides meeting all these interesting, fun, smart Fulbrighters and catching up with my teaching assistant friend’s who are scattered around Germany) was the Music Gala we had one evening. Many of the Fulbrighters who had been awarded grants to do music in Europe performed for us. The performances were incredible and also really diverse. There were classical piano pieces, opera singers, a tuba solo, a harp solo, and the oddest piece of the night was a graphic score created for unidentified low instruments and performed by a pianist, a contrabassoonist, percussionist, and a harp and tuba player.

Oh, and the food highlight of the week (besides the excessive dessert trays) was a burrito from the California-style burrito place, Dolores, which was right near our hotel and that I had fallen in love with last time I was in Berlin (see earlier post).

Rebuilding Dresden—literally and in my memory

Since Fulbright was paying for my train travel and I was already in eastern Germany, I figured there was no reason to rush back to Bielefeld for just an average weekend when I could travel a bit. My parents tell me I spent a day in Dresden once in 2002, but since I don’t remember it I thought the trip would still be worth it, so I spent the weekend following the conference in Dresden with two other teaching assistants from Nordrhein-Westfalen. The weather was great—most of the time—which was a treat. We saw endless museums and really got to fit most of the city’s major sites into our 3 days. Dresden is a city filled with Baroque buildings and large art collections gathered at the time of August the Strong’s rule over Saxony and Poland in the 1700s. Dresden also suffered a severe bombing attack during WWII. I think it had always been a cultural center of Germany and the damage done to this city, which had no military targets, was regarded as especially tragic. So, they decided to rebuild it all. Immediately after the war much of the reconstruction, renovation, and restoration began on the famous buildings of Dresden: the Zwinger and the Residenzschloss. Following the end of the Cold War, construction on other buildings, such as the Semper Opera House and the Frauenkirche, began. For the most part, walking around is still an experience of being awe-struck by the magnificence of the Baroque architecture. However, the fact that much of it is actually relatively new left me confused as to whether I was just seeing a faux-Dresden or whether the reconstruction made all the structures even more impressive.

Dresden silhouette.

Me and Dresden from above.

Rebuilt Semper Opera House by day.

Frauenkirche, Kunsthalle, and....blue skies!

Semper Opera House by night.

There were many highlights of this trip since all the museums we saw were fantastic. I never knew I could appreciate porcelain until I spent 2 hours looking at displays of August the Strong’s extensive porcelain collection. I have a newly piqued interest in China after seeing a photography exhibit, which was originally displayed in Shanghai, titled “Humanism in China” (a feat that hadn’t even been accomplished by talks with close friends and family who have spent much time being fascinated by China). August the Strong’s crown jewels were priceless, of course, and by going at the end of the day we had the chance to stand with our mouths gaping wide open at rooms filled with amber, ivory, gold, red gold, silver, crystal, and every jewel and precious stone you could imagine. Wandering around the Old Master’s Gallery was memorable for the great conversations I had with Lena, another teaching assistant here, about everything ranging from religious symbols and religion as a force of power and control in the world to capitalism to a recent relationship break-up to the negative aspects of this year and the positive effects our Fulbright time in Germany has had on us. Although every moment wasn’t art analysis, I would say these masters effectively inspired us. The Frauenkirche has always been an important symbol for Dresden—even when it was simply an enormous pile of rubble left standing by the Russian’s as a reminder of the war. It’s reconstruction was finally completed in 2004, and although the building is a beautiful part of the skyline, we all found the interior to be a generally uninspiring space with it’s toothachingly sweet pastel color pallet.

One view of the Zwinger, which houses many of Dresden's great museums including the Porcelain Gallery and the Old Master's Gallery.

The Zwinger from above.

The impressive, grandiose Frauenkirche.

Frauenkirche's pastel interior.

Dresden Boys' Choir. We were all about the 2 Euro concert!

Me and my Dresden traveling companions, Karin & Lena, out to an excellent Indian dinner (a very rare find here in Germany).

Now & Next

Now I’m back in Bielefeld. I have a million travel plans running through my head, which are all very exciting. The good side is that wanting to spend all my money on travel means that I’m being as frugal as possible with the small things I tend to buy daily here in Germany (often calorie-ridden sweets) and taking major advantage of my overpriced gym membership. I swam laps for an hour yesterday—I’m not a very strong swimmer and that was an awesome accomplishment for me! This very moment I’m on a train to Düsseldorf, where I am hoping to get a visa to travel to Moscow in May where my Pomona friend, Zeke, is living. That would be sweet. My family has also decided to meet up in Morocco in late June and early July for 10 days, and afterwards Max will stay over here and we’ll spend some time seeing Spain together—can’t wait! Overall I’m very excited about future travel plans and that’s helping me keep my mind off the fact that school continues to be relatively uninteresting and the weather continues to be relatively cold.

I can’t believe it was almost a year ago when I graduated from Pomona. I’m thinking a bunch about my friends who I met through college. I’m interested to hear what all the current seniors have planned for post-May and I’m hoping to see some of my friends sometime soon in the next year. I still don’t have post-Germany plans…too busy planning more urgent travel. Will keep you updated.

I hope you are having a pleasant early spring—wherever you are—and, as always, I’d love to hear from you.

xoxoxo, alex