So the weather was a bit oppressively hot and humid, but overall it was a pretty fun day.
Timo is finally back from Norway, so we hung out some today. We met up at my apartment and then headed on the U-bahn in the direction of the lakes in southwest berlin. Halfway there though, Timo thought it might be cook to check out his old schools and the neighborhood he grew up. So we got off the U-bahn and walked around.
The area was really pretty. The roads were two lanes, with a boulevard down the middle, and trees planted along both sides of the roads as well as in the middle, creating a cool canopy effect. We went first to his elementary school (which actually teaches up through the high school level as well), and checked out the building and grounds. It was a rather nice place, with airconditioning (!), and then lots of shaded areas outside (including an herb garden, a pond, several fields, and a playground set for the younger kids). We also checked out the auditorium, which had in it a really nice piano! Needless to say I was quite enthralled at the discovery. The piano itself was an older (built in 1893 according to the serial number) Steinway, concert grand size (a little over 9 feet). It was very well maintained, and the touch was incredible. The keys were oddly shaped (the black keys were a little shorter than I'm used to), but that didn't affect its playability. I played a couple things on it before we headed out.
After that we walked up the road a couple miles, and headed over to the Free University (Freie Universität), which I had never visited before. The campus definitely had a distinct feel to it. It was incredibly green, like Rice, but the buildings had a more modern feel to them. A lot of the buildings were kind of a metal, glass, and concrete mix, which is quite different from Rice.
We had been walking around a couple hours by then, so Timo and I stopped to get something to drink to cool down, and to enjoy a break from the heat and humidity in the dining hall's AC. After resting for a bit, we headed on out and walked a few more miles down the road to get back to the u-bahn station we started at. On the way, we passed a church that actually had the grave of Rudi Dutschke (click here if you don't know who he is). Pretty cool.
Also saw this in someone's front yard (not sure why it was there)...
We took the u-bahn over to the part of berlin where Timo's aunt lives. We met up at her place and grabbed some lite food and had an impromtu picnic over at Rüdesheimerplatz. Overall, a hot, but fun day out.
