Day 43

  

I slept really well last night - around 11 hours - the result of being a full-time tourist since Thursday.  It was really fun having my friends visit...wished they could have stayed longer.

During the day, I took it easy (usual routine: practice, run, read, etc), and then got ready to meet up with Sam and some friends later in the afternoon.

Sam had been chosen for a photo exhibition featuring models covered in oil (actually maple syrup, but looks like oil in the photos), kind of emulating animal-like poses.  Tonight was the opening of the exhibit, and there was an open house that I was going to with her and friends.

I got ready to go, and headed out around 5:15.  On the way there, I had to make a stop at the Sony store at Potsdamer Platz, namely to buy a (smaller) camera.  Essentially my big camera does take great photos, but it's not feasible to take along when I go out with friends and stuff.  I found a good quality "point-and-shoot" for a decent price (about 100 euros), and went ahead and bought it.  I was surprised at how many controls the camera actually had (for those of you who are camera savvy, it gives you exposure, ISO, and white balance, along with an "easy" mode (which I shall never use...tried it and it overexposes everything a whole stop), as well as some cool preset scene modes that I can see myself using time to time).  Nevertheless, with proper control, the camera takes great pictures.  The only annoying thing with it being so small, is that I can't take pictures with an ISO over 400 or so (even though it meters up to 3200), as the rendering of the pixels start making it look like the set from a horror film.  Seriously.

After setting up the camera (which also came with a free 8GB memory card = 2000 pics @ 12 megapixels, about 4 MB per shot) I headed to Alexanderplatz, where I met up with Sam, Pina, and Nathalie.  Since we got to the exhibit about half an hour before opening, we went to a cafe to get something to drink.  Soon after we headed back to the exhibit.

The exhibit itself was really cool.  There were 16 (give or take, I didn't count exactly) photos, all with black backgrounds, black and white.  Sam's pic was on the first wall you see as you come inside the exhibit.

Sam with her picture (on the right)

We stayed at the exhibit for over an hour, talking to some interesting people, including the photographer, and the lady who did most of the editing for the exhibit.  It was overall quite fun.

After the exhibit, we went back to Potsdamer Platz to grab some dinner.  We ended up going to Maredos (a steak house).  We stayed for probably 2 hours or so, having a good time.  After that it was a bit before midnight, and we all needed to leave so we could still catch the U-bahn to our respective homes (they don't run for long after midnight).

   

Day 42

  

Today Valerie and I got up a bit later again, and had breakfast around 10:30.  After that we headed over to Potsdamer Platz so that Valerie could see it again in a bit more detail (yesterday we had to rush off to catch the tour at Brandenburger Tor, and had to skip Potsdamer Platz).

While at Potsdamer Platz, our first stop was at H&M, a clothing store that sells pretty trendy clothing for really cheap - I ended up actually getting two shirts and a pair of jeans, all for under 40 euros.  After H&M we walked around the Arkaden, aka the giant glass mall.  Valerie ended up buying a couple of souvenirs, and as well we stopped at an "american" restaurant (kind of a weird mix of a burger joint, sports bar, and diner) to get burgers...this was more as a tribute to Independence Day (and we couldn't find any good burger places yesterday).

By the time we got back to the apartment, it was time for Valerie to get her stuff packed up, and then take the U-bahn/bus to the airport.  We left around 6:45, and got to the airport by 7:30.  After that, I said goodbye to Valerie and then headed back to the apartment.

The rest of the night I just took it easy, practiced some, watched some tv, and then went to bed a bit earlier.

Day 41

  

After being full time tourist for 2 whole days now, we decided to take it a bit easier today, so that we didn't completely wear ourselves out.

We woke up and had breakfast around 10:30, and then headed out over to east berlin by about 11:30.  We took the U-bahn over to the East Side Gallery area.

On the street in front of the gallery, there was a big street festival going on - mostly painters displaying and selling their works.  Also in the middle of the street, there was a big sheet of paper that everyone could paint on.

After taking a look at the festival, we walked up the mile-long stretch of wall/graffitti that makes up the East Side gallery.  This time we stayed on the opposite side of the street, actually giving a better view than I had last time up close.

After checking out the East Side Gallery, we headed via s-bahn back to Stadtmitte to go to the really amazing chocolate shop there (i.e. the one with the sculptures of the Reichstag et al. inside).  We got a box of 12 truffles (3 each - and they're not as big as american truffles) to enjoy as a dessert in the afternoon.  After leaving the shop, we went back to Gendarmenmarkt and sat in the shade of some trees for a while.

Matt needed to head to the train station before dinner, so we headed back to the apartment around 4:30.  Matt and Nick then went together to the Hauptbahnhof to head back to Karlsruhe and Dortmund respectively.

After they left, Valerie and I got swimstuff on and we went over to Schlachtensee to go to a good-bye party for a friend of mine, who was heading back to Switzerland next week.

We took the subway all the way to the end of the line to Krumme Lanke, and then walked another mile and a half to get to the lake Schlachtensee.  Once we were there, I called my friend to find where they were exactly on the water.  Unfortunately, they took a different route than we did to get there, so they weren't exactly sure where on the lake they were in reference to the cafe we were at.  So, it's not that long to walk all the way around (it's a good hour or so walking at a brisk pace), and we set out walking.  The annoying thing about Schlachtensee is that once you think you're about to get to the end of it and start heading around the other side, it opens up again and goes further on.  After about 45 minutes of walking, we came to a place that sounded like where my friend was describing, but they weren't there.  Also, they weren't answering their phone.  Needless to say, we never found them.

So, we decided to just find a nice place on the shore, and just go for a swim and then head back.  We did just that, swimming for about half an hour, and then walking back to the u-bahn station were we got some dinner.  Valerie had her first Currywurst, and I had my first turkish pizza.  Both were very tasty.

After that we headed back to the apartment and turned in for the night.

   

Day 40

  
Since we stayed up pretty late last night, we ended up sleeping in "late" till about 9:30.  I got a shower and got breakfast ready.  Since it was both matt and valerie staying, it would have been a bit crowded upstairs - instead we ate out on the table in the garden.  Breakfast was the usual: a bunch of different types of really good, fresh bread rolls, butter, 5 types of jam, juice, milk, etc.

The three of us headed up to the Potsdamer Platz area - abbreviated this time though, as we wanted to try and catch a tour of the central city (same tour I did several weeks ago with Sam's friends).  We were running a tiny bit late (hard to get out of bed...), and ended up catching the tour at Brandenburger Tor (only 10 minutes after when it was supposed to start).  After about 15 minutes though, Matt (the one wanting to do the tour) decided he had already heard everything the guide was saying (having already read up on berlin before getting here), and we decided to ditch the tour and do our own thing.  So we showed Valerie the Jewish Memorial (you have to see that while in berlin), and covered a few of the same things that Matt and I hit yesterday (minus the gargantuan history museum).

We walked over to Gendarmenmarkt and went up the French Dom, which has a tower that offers an amazing view of the city (again, no camera...).  We stayed up there for about a half hour, as it was the first shade we had found that actually had a nice breeze (being up a couple hundred feet will do that).  After finally cooling off, we headed back down the long stairwell and out onto the Markt.  We then headed down Friedrichstrasse over to Checkpoint Charlie.  Now I had already been here before, but I hadn't been inside the museum there.  We went in (and paid the really expensive ticket price, 9 euros a piece) and spent about an hour and a half looking around.  The museum itself was set up in this old apartment building, with really bad air-circulation.  It was hot outside to start with, but it was probably a good 20 degrees hotter.  After a while, we realized that there was no way we were going to be able to stand there and read every piece of information (every wall was completely covered from floor to ceiling in stories), and called it quits at around 4:30.

At the same time we were in the museum, the World Cup game between Germany and Argentina was playing.  Typical Germany - there was a tv in every restaurant and bar (i.e. everywhere), and judging by the way people were cheering (which I could here from inside the museum), I accurately predicted that Germany scored 4 times (every time there's a score, the cheers get deafenig).  After getting out of the museum and enjoying the "cool" outside air, we caught the closest U-bahn station and headed back to the Nollendorfplatz area to grab some dinner.

While we were on the u-bahn, Matt's friend Nick called and said he was in the area, and wanted to know if we wanted to meet up for dinner or something.  We said ok, and he met us about half an hour later.  We picked him up from the Nollendorfplatz station and grabbed dinner at a good Döner stand near there.  Dinner for 4 euros is just my style.

Nick, Valerie, and Matt

We then headed over to the Gedächtniskirche for the concert.  They were still selling tickets when we got there, so we asked for 4 tickets at the price Hennig mentioned (15 euros each), and we got our tickets!  The concert was really good.  The only bad thing was that Germany had just clobbered Argentina 4 to 0, and everyone was outside the church celebrating, really loudly (vuvuzelas galore).  The walls of the building the concert was in were pretty thick, so they caught almost all the noize, but the vuvuzela noise always cut through.  At times we'd be listening to the piece played, and wonder why one of the french horns was out of tune...wait a minute, that's not a french horn!  The funniest times where when the vuvuzelas were actually in tune and playing in the right key for the piece (this actually happened in 3 of the pieces!).  The concert lasted about an hour and 15 minutes, after which we headed outside and up to try and get the last tour of the Reichstag before they close at 10 (it was 9:15 at the end of the concert).

The platz at the church was completely swarmed with people.  There was a lot of food vendors, live music, and a swinging chair ride for people to ride on.  It was pretty insane.

After cutting through the mobs, we got to the S-bahn station, and headed up in the direction of the Hauptbahnhof, in order to get a direct connection to the Reichstag.  Everything went well catching the necessary trains, however we got to the Reichstag right as they put up the rope, cutting the line off for the last people to go in.  We were pretty disappointed that we couldn't go in and see the Glass Cupola on top.  But we ended up going out on the massive open lawn in front of the Reichstag, and just chilled there for a few hours.  It had finally cooled off a little, so sitting on the grass felt incredibly refreshing.  While out there we just talked for a while.  Valerie and I tried taking long exposures of stuff with no tripod...needless to say we got some pretty bad pics (some kinda cool though).  A couple came out well.

After that we headed back to the apartment and watched Ghostbusters!  We watched it on my laptop this time though - bigger screen (my tv is tiny) and in color...

   

Day 39

   

This morning, Matt and I had breakfast upstairs at the Thiermeiers pretty early (at least, early for me...) at around 8am.  After that, we headed up to Nollendorfplatz to take the U-Bahn to Potsdamer Platz.  I showed him around there, including the massive mall, Sony Center, and the building of the Berlin Philharmonic.  Unfortunately the Phil is on break right now, and there's absolutely nothing going on in the building for the remainder of my trip.

After that we walked up the road to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, Brandenburger Tor, and then kept walking along Unter den Linden.  I also showed him where Hitler's Bunker was located (where he finally kicked the bucket - ironically is now a parking lot for the Jewish Memorial and Museum).  We walked along the road and gawked at some of the tourist traps (one of which a half-kilo hamburger for only 30 euros!).

We walked then to the German History Museum.  This museum is enormous on the outside, and even bigger on the inside!  They have an entire inner court that should be open-air, but is glassed in.  It's the oddest feeling walking through because it feels like outside (with all the heat and sun), but with absolutely no wind, and an echo.  The museum itself however had some really spectacular collections, including medieval german weapons and castle designs, a hall dedicated to advertisements from the Weimar Republic (1920's), lots of historical art (royal families, etc), among a ton of other things.  The museum seemed to go on and on and on...we left after about 2 and a half hours.

It didn't help that it was incredibly hot.  We went to find a grocery store after the museum to get some cheap drinks (why pay 3 euros for .2 L of something when you can get 1.5 for less than 1 euro at a grocery store).  I knew of one off of Friedrichstrasse.  We headed that way, passing Gendarmenmarkt (where the German and French Cathedrals are, as well as the Concert House), and the Ritter Sport store (see previous post).  Now the last time I found the store, I came across it completely by chance (I just remember the general area where it was, not the address), and we ended up not finding it.  So instead (completely parched by that point), we finished the last of the Apfelschorle that Matt brought, and got half-liter sodas at a cafe.

After that, we went to check out Ku'damm.  Now normally I would have taken the u-bahn to get there (6 stations from potsdamer platz), but I also knew it was possible to get there walking.  Since we were already next to Tiergarten (a massive park in the middle of the city), we just walked along the perimeter until we got there.  It didn't take that long, all in all 40 minutes, but it was all in the shade, with a pleasant breeze.  Plus we got to see everyone coming to go to the Fanmeile (Fan Mile), which is about a mile of street closed off in the middle of the city, with massive screens to watch the World Cup.

Funnily enough (tangent), I've only been talking about the world cup the entire time it's been going in german (with friends/family I'm staying with), so I wasn't sure of what it was even called in english.  Most of the day I just called it "Worrrrld...meisterschaft" (Weltmeisterschaft in German) - I had to ask someone what it was actually called... 

I wanted to check out something on the north side of Tiergarten, but every time we tried to head that direction, it was either closed off for the Fanmeile, or led to a tunnel (part of the autobahn).  We tried walking a ways on the sidewalk into the tunnel, but I remembered that it was a very long ways to the other side, and that we probably needed to turn around.

So we FINALLY made it to Ku'damm.  We checked out the Gedächtniskirche, and found out that there is actually going to be a concert there tomorrow night.  The concert itself is going to feature 17th and 18th century composers with an orchestra all dressed up in baroque court costumes (white curly wigs and all).  The tickets were expensive though, 27 euros a person!  However, with a stroke of luck, I talked to a man about the concert, who turned out to be one of the people in charge.  I explained in german that we'd be interested in going, but that it was just out of our price range.  He said there was a student deal for 19euros, but that he'd give it to us at 15 a piece.  I was pretty happy with the deal.  He said to come back tomorrow and to either buy the tickets from him, or if he's not there to ask one of the people selling tickets to give us the discount, saying the "Hennig" said it was ok.

So looking forward to a good concert tomorrow, we headed to grab something to eat.  By now it was already about 7:30, so we needed to eat and head back to the apartment.

We stopped at an Imbiss and both got Currywurst with french fries.  It was rather tastey (as always), and really hit the spot.  After that, we headed back to the apartment and relaxed a bit (we'd walked quite a few miles already today).  At around 8:45 we went with Mrs. Thiermeier in the car to pick up Valerie from the airport.  The carride was fun...Matt doesn't speak much german, and Mrs. Thiermeier's english only a little better, so I ended up interpreting everything for the first half of the car ride...which I was fine doing, but it was just a bit redundant saying everything twice.  Mrs. Thiermeier then told me it was alright, that she could usually understand enough of what Matt and I were saying in english that I didn't need to interpret everything (she'd tell me if she didn't understand something).  

So we got to the airport after the 25 minute car ride and went in to wait for Valerie.  She was to come in at 9:30.  Her plane touched down on time, and we picked her up and took her back to the apartment.

That night we watched Good Morning Vietnam (a dvd I picked up (legally) for about 3 euros last week) on my TV.  Oddly enough, the dvd player in my room only sends a black and white signal to the TV (the cable is in color, so I know it's not a problem with the TV), so we watched it in black and white.  It actually gave it a cool old-timey feel (suitable to the time period).

We stayed up pretty late watching the movie, but got to bed soon enough.

Day 38

   

Today was fun - it was my parents' 21st anniversary (!!), and also Matt arrived from Karlsruhe!

The early part of the day I spent finishing getting the apartment ready.  Since both Matt and Valerie were staying over the weekend, I would need to use the bed in the extra room as well (which normally Johannes (Apartment owner) just keeps for himself), which entailed changing the bedding on his bed, as well as getting the futon in my room set up with bedding.  I also wiped down the kitchen, swept, vacuumed the carpets, and let the windows stay open all day to get good an aired out.  Luckily it wasn't too hot yet (this weekend is supposed to be brutal!).

Matt came in on the train pretty late, around 11:30 pm.  I met him at the Hauptbahnhof, and then we took the U-Bahn back to the apartment to get settled in.

Day 37

  
Didn't do much today (I'm just taking it easy this week, as this weekend it going to be very busy with both Matt and Valerie here), asides from the usual reading, practicing, watching a movie, and taking a stroll later on in the day (I try to walk some every day).  Also went to the gym and ran as usual.
 

Day 36

   

I had a pretty low key today as well, which involved me reading some more, practicing piano for a while, and then taking a short stroll around downtown.

My stroll was a bit interesting though.  I started out taking the U-bahn from Nollendorfplatz to Potsdamer Platz, and walking from there to the Brandenburger Tor, and on to Unter den Linden.  I made a quick stop at this rather amazing store I discovered.  There is a brand of chocolates in Germany (and as well are available in the US) called Ritter Sport, well, I actually found a Ritter Sport store in berlin.  Needless to say there were a couple of thousand bars of chocolate inside...and I might have bought one or two...the chocolate it really tasty to say the least!

After that I walked down Friedrichstrasse.  I knew that there is a Music Conservatory in the area around Charlottenstrasse (one street over from Friedrichstrasse), but I had been unsuccessful in finding it.  I asked around a few places, and was actually able to find it.  I went inside and looked around.  The building itself is not very wide (the size of an average store in width), but continues up the entire building (around 7 stories) and goes back quite a ways.  

The building was actually kinda grungy on the inside, however once you get inside the offices and practice rooms, it's actually quite lovely.  I was able to see the inside of one professor's office, which featured new wood flooring, several large windows (with a lot of natural light), and clean white walls, with cool looking crown molding on the corners on the ceiling.  The studio had 2 7-foot Steinways in it, both in phenomenal condition (according to professor, all the studios had pianos just as good).  So all in all, it looked like a pretty good school.

After that I headed back to the apartment, and had dinner.  Stayed up a while longer watching TV with the Thiermeiers, and after that went to bed.

    

Day 35

  

Today I confirmed with my friends Matt (from high school) and Valerie (from Rice) are coming to visit over this soming forth of july weekend!  I'm pretty excited about having them here.  Matt is supposed to arrive thursday night via train from Karlsruhe (where he's working this summer), and Valerie is flying in Friday from London.

I spent most of the day cleaning up the apartment a bit, as well as trying to figure out some stuff we could do over the weekend.  Later in the afternoon I headed over to Potsdamer platz and hung out for a while (mostly just chilled enjoying the breeze and shade) and read more of my book.  I'm almost done with Stones into Schools now.  My next book will be The Languages of Japan by one of my professors next semester Matt Shibatani (basically it's my way of getting caught up in a class where I'm supposed to have 2 years of japanese already before taking...).  The professor already told me I'd be fine taking the class - which btw. is called "Structure of Japanese", which covers the grammatical structure and other aspects of modern Japanese, however it's not actually a japanese language class, it just covers aspects of its grammar from a structural point of view - but it might help if I read the textbook over summer before the class starts.  Hence, it's my next book.

  

Day 34

  

After yesterday's long day, I stayed in most of the day taking it easy.  It was nice and cool, so I could let the apartment air out (necessary every 4 or 5 days).  Also practiced piano quite a bit in the afternoon.  Other than that just got a lot of reading done, and enjoyed the day.

Day 33

  

Today was incredibly long.  It started bright and early (about 8:30am) with a quick shower, breakfast, and then out the door.  Why?  I had made plans to meet up with Timo's dad (Detleff) at around 10am to go for a 3.5 hour cruise of Berlin's canals and river.  

We met up at Hansaplatz U-bahn station, walking over into Bellevue area of Tiergarten (all areas within central Berlin), and walked down to a dock next to the Spree (a river that flows through the city).  We ended up having to wait about half an hour for the tour to start.  No problem though - I always prefer to be a bit early and wait than to be late.

While there, we met up with two of Detlef's friends, one of whom was a neighbor.  They both were incredibly nice and provided fun conversation during the cruise.

The cruise took off promptly at 11am, and started driving clockwise around the city.  The driver provided commentary as we went along, a lot of which actually in the local Berlinerisch (berlin dialect of german).  Detlef also speaks this dialect natively, which I got to listen to all day! Surprisingly it had a lot of features that Dutch has, i.e. using "t"s in a lot of places where Hochdeutsch (the "official" dialect of german) uses "s"s (examples: saying "wat" instead of "was" (which means "what"), or "det" instead of "das" (which means "that")).  Needless to say, after the afternoon was over, I had a lot of data I could work on in analyzing differences between different dialects and different languages (moreover, why Berlinerisch is easier for a Hochdeutsch speaker to understand than Dutch).

Anyways, back to the tour...below are some pics:

Berliner Dom (left)

Our Cruiseboat

Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Train Station)

Free loader...

A cool locale on the side of the river

Oberbaumbrücke

Me with Detlef's friends

After the cruise was over, we headed over to Detlef's mother's house for coffee and cake.  Another one of Detlef's friends joined us there as well.  Everything was incredibly delicious.  The cake was a light sponge cake on the bottom layer, topped with sweet cream, fruit sauce (rasberry I think), and sesame seeds - no pics, sorry!  We stayed there for a few hours talking, and then all of us (except for Detlef's mother) walked to the U-bahn to head over to Neukölln to check out a big street festival there.  We went into a few stores and bought some stuff, and then grabbed some dinner at this really great Thai place.  While at dinner, I got a call from some other friends, and made plans to meet them later that night.

After dinner, I said goodbye to the group, and headed back to the apartment.  I showered (was pretty nasty after sitting out in the sun all day!), changed, and went to meet my other friends at Ku'damm.  

We were meeting up to go to the club Maxxim.  There was supposed to be a fashion show that Sam was in, and we wanted to see her.  Unfortunately as we got to the door of the club, the door guys said that it was "ladies night", i.e. no men allowed.  We thought this was odd, as the website said that men could get in, but they just had to pay a little more.  In any case, the guys couldn't get in, so we just hung around for a while until  the show was over.  I heard it was really good, but haven't seen any pics yet.

After that, we hung out for a few more hours, just talking and walking around.  After a while, people were starting to get tired, so we headed our separate ways.

   

Day 32

  

Today Mrs. Thiermeier, Nina and I went out to Wustrau, where Nina keeps her horse.  It was a multi purpose trip - in the morning, there were master classes for the horse riders, and late afternoon there was a public show exhibiting Baroque Horse riding, as well as a couple of other choreographed numbers with horses.

We got there around noon.  I grabbed some lunch (they had a lot of sausages and rolls, as well as some home made cakes, etc) and went over to the lake to go swimming.

Wustrau is right next to a large lake, and features a few nice opened up areas next to the water through the woods next to the town.  I brought a book as well (currently reading Stones into Schools, the sequel to Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortinson).  The water was a bit chilly, but definitely bearable.  I didn't stay in for too long though.  After that I sat down at a picnic table and read for a few hours.

I went to back to the stables for a bit to check up on things.  The master classes were still going on, and I was told that the show wasn't going to start till about 6, so I headed back to the lake and read for a while longer.

While I was out, I stopped at a cafe and saw that they sold fresh apple juice from a local farm.  It was really cheap as well - about a liter for 1 euro.  I drank that was a snack, and was really surprised at the flavor of it.  It wasn't like regular apple juice - it was not quite as sweet, a bit tart (but nowhere near granny-smith-apple-tart), but had a really nice refreshing taste to it as well.  It's not really describable beyond that unfortunately - you'll just have to come here and try it for yourself!

Later I headed back again in time for the show to start.  Unfortunately the light in the room I was in was aweful, so not many of my pics came out (for those who are camera-savvy, it was a bit dim, but also incredibly backlit as the sun was behind everyone.  Also, the lens on my camera is pretty narrow (52mm), and can't take in enough light to take crisp photos in that environment.  Essentially most of my pics came out blurry with proper exposure, or horribly underexposed but crisp.  And this was at 1600 ISO as well as at my lowest f-stop).

A couple of pics came out ok, at least enough to kind of get a feel for what the show was like.

Side Saddle

We stayed at the stables until about 9:30, and then headed back to the apartment.  I practiced piano for a while, and then headed to bed.

   

Day 30

   

This morning was interesting to say the least.  After waking up bright and early at my hotel in Amsterdam, I checked out, grabbed some breakfast (finally caved and had "american" pancakes), and headed to the train station.  I got there about half an hour before my train to Amersfoort was supposed to leave.

All was going well until they announced the first notice that the train would be 10 minutes late leaving.  I knew that I would still get to Amersfoort in time to make my connection.  But then that 10 minutes turned into 25 minutes, and before I knew it, I was being told over the intercom (first in dutch, then heavily accented (and because of the accent unintelligible) german, and then bad english), that I would need to take a train to Utrecht and then connect from there to Amersfoort to make my connection.

So I trusted what I heard and hopped on the train to Utrecht.  The trip wasn't long only about 20 minutes.  Of course I got there, and had no idea where I was supposed to go.  I found an information booth, and the guy there said to go to the "hi-speed train booth" (as they would have info on all the trains going international).  It took about 5 minutes to find where he was talking about, and then to my horror they wanted me to take a number and stand in line.

Apparently I looked pretty confused, as one of the ladys asked me directly from the counter (ignoring the people in front of me) if I was catching the train to Berlin (I'm guessing I wasn't the only connecting passenger they'd had to deal with).  I said yes, and they said I needed to hurry to track 12 to catch my train.  I had been looking at all the information boards about outgoing trains, and sure enough, there was a train on track 12 that had been delayed leaving for 15 minutes (giving me about 2 minutes by that point).  However, it didn't actually say where the train was GOING.  Hence my confusion.

So I hurried onto that track, and hopped onto the train.  I found one of the travel guides, and sure enough, this was my train to Berlin.

Funnily enough, the train I managed to catch in Utrecht (a stop about half an hour before getting to Amersfoort) was the exact same one I needed to catch in Amersfoort.  I'm not exactly sure, but I think one of the trains from that morning (no idea where) had some problem either making it not workable, or working with a delay, so they had to shuffle trains around, and as a result had delays to make sure people could still catch their connections.  By the time I got to Berlin, we had an hour and a half of delays.

Needless to say, I got back to Berlin without any other trouble.

While I was on the train though, Sam called, and said she needed a cover for a babysitting job she had.  She said none of her other friends could make it, and asked if I could do it.  I told her (this was while I was still en route) that I couldn't make any guarantees, but that if I got back to Berlin by 4pm, that I'd do it.  Well, I got back at around 3:30, so I ended up taking the job.

I had to be at the kid's house at around 6pm, and stay till the parents got home around midnightish.  All in all, it was actually pretty fun.  After that, I headed back to my apartment and crashed.

  

Day 29

   

So this morning I got up bright and early at around 5:40am, giving me enough time to re-pack up my suitcase, shower, get a quick breakfast, and down to the train station to make it in time to get the 7:00am train to Amersfoort, and then after to Amsterdam.

The train trips to both cities were pretty uneventful.  I have to say, the seats on Dutch trains are a lot more comfortable than those on german ones (i.e. my butt wasn't sore like after the train from berlin to the netherlands)...

I got to Amsterdam around 9:30 in the morning.  At the train station I put my bags in a locker, to keep them safe until I checked into my hotel.  Walking outside of the train station, I found a tourist information desk and promptly went in to get a city map.  While inside, I saw posters advertising an "I AMsterdam" card, which could be used for 1, 2 or 3 days (for increments of 38 euros).  This card would give the holder free access to all museums and churches (the churches here pretty much are museums), access to one of the canal cruise lines (which act like water-taxis with narration about where you are in the city), as well as free use of the public transportation (busses, trams, and amazingly a subway).

The card was only 38 euros, and seemed like a good deal.  Plus it comes with a free city map.  With that I was sold.

After leaving the tourist office, I went to go see what was around the train station, namely to buy some sunscreen (it was supposed to be in the 80's with a lot of sun) and a recharge for my cell phone minutes.  I found a store for the sun screen soon enough, but no luck on buying minutes.  Instead I just got a 10 euro phone card that I could use from pay phones.

I walked around for about half an hour, and discovered how close the red light discrict is to the train station.  Saw a few interesting stores (not going into details here...), and made my way over to de Nieuwe Kerk (the new church), which was one of the museums I could get into free.  The church itself was incredibly beautiful.  Inside there was a pipe organ that was over 100 feet tall, who's pipes were covered by painted panels.  The panels could be opened by a hydraulic pump when the organist wanted to play.

After that I made my way up to de Oude Kerk (the old church), and checked it out as well.  The inside was equally beautiful, with another impressive organ.  Interestingly, this church hasn't actually been used as a church for centuries, but rather a venue for concerts.

Since it was nearing noon, I decided I should try and find my hotel and see if I could check in.  Theoretically checkin wasn't until 2, but I didn't think it would to try earlier.  It turned out that my hotel wasn't that far away, only a 10 minute walk from de Oude Kerk.  I went to the front desk, and was able to check in and go see the room.  

The room itself is on the top floor of the hotel (5th floor), and located on the very back of the building.  I decided on a hotel instead of a hostel, as I decided now wasn't the time to see how safe hostels in amsterdam were...especially carrying my laptop, camera, as well as passport.  The room was actually nicer than I was expecting, with a very comfortable bed, private tile bathroom, and a window that could open (it was hot!).  I went after that to the train station to get my stuff and take it to the room.

After getting my stuff settled in, I decided to go explore the city.  Over the course of the day, I walked over about half of the city, starting in the north-east part near the train station, and ending up pretty far south west, near to the Rijksmuseum (state museum) and the Concertgebouw (concert hall).  I ended up going to quite a few museums as well, including the Van Gogh Museum, the Rembrandt House, The Old and New Churches, a photography exhibit of amsterdam in the 19th century, the Rijksmuseum, and eventually making it to the Concertgebouw.  Here are some pics of the city as I walked around:

A Market near the Rembrandt House

A display of what Rembrandt's paints would have looked like

A larger canal with a church in the distance

A smaller canal

Near my hotel

The Rijksmuseum.  Basically a good summary of what there is to see in Amsterdam: a lot of very cool old buildings, construction, green areas, and lots of tourists (it's actually packed here - see Market pic).

While walking around the Concertgebouw, I saw a sign for a concert tonight.  I looked at the pieces and saw that one of my favorites, the Beethoven Piano Concerto no. 4 in G Major was going to be played!  I went to the ticket office and asked if they still had any tickets (they did), and how much the cheapest one was.  It turned out that they had 10 euro tickets for the center of the orchestra section, perfect for viewing the pianist's hands.  Also, apparently the Concertgebouw has a deal with the public transportation company, as concert tickets can be used as train/bus/tram tickets for a few hours before and after a concert, ensuring that you can come to the concert and not have to pay extra for the train.

I had about an hour 45 minutes, enough time to go back to the hotel, shower, change, eat dinner, and come back to the Concertgebouw.  Luckily enough, there was a tram that went directly from the concert house to my hotel (at least, the stop was about 100 feet away).  It was about 15 minutes each way, so not bad on the timing either.

After showering, changing and heading back to the concert hall area, I went to find a place to have dinner.  I ended up finding a little cafe-type place, and had some roast beef, a drink, and a bowl of fruit, all for about 4 euros - quite affordable.

I then headed back to the concert hall to find my seat.  Walking through the building, I found an area where they were serving free drinks (namely REALLY good coffee and tea).  I had a cup of coffee with cream and a strawberry tart before sitting down for the concert.

The concert opened with some Berlioz piece (something about a Carnival - not sure the tital), which was pretty good.  Opening pieces are never really that exciting, as they are essentially filler pieces before the more important ones.  Essentially giving later-arriving members of the audience to get there and still not miss the good stuff.  

The second piece was the Beethoven Concerto.  It was absolutely amazing!  The pianist was incredible, and had a really good interpretation of the piece.  Also, they had him playing a German Steinway (made in Hamburg) which has a slightly different key mechanism than the american ones, which was interesting to hear.

There was an intermission after that, where they served complementary red wine, white wine, a rosee, champagne, and of course more coffee.  

After the intermission the orchestra proceeded to play the Tchaikovsky 1st Symphony, a piece I hadn't heard before.  I actually liked it more than I thought I would (early Tchaikovsky isn't always my farovite).  There were some parts of the piece that were absolutely jaw dropping, including a french horn feature in one movement, as well as a few lines in the flute part that required a tone quality on behalf of the flute player that I'd never heard before!  It sounded very edgy, with a lot of overtones pushed into the sound.  The sound itself had a shape to it that reminded me of a stainless-steel triangular prism (which is very different, considering flutes usually sound like round cylinders of butter or velvet (depends on the flute, really)).  

After the concert, I headed back to the hotel, stopping at an internet cafe on the way to check email quickly (no wifi in the hotel). 

Overall the day was really fun, and I got a good taste of some of the things Amsterdam has to offer.  Of course, you can't cover amsterdam in a day, and I didn't even get to a third of the museums/historical/cool things to see.  I also never got around to taking the canal cruise, so I'll have to leave those things for next time.

   

Day 28

  
Today I spent the entire day exploring the city of Groningen, located in the nothern part of Holland.

I got up in the morning relatively early (around 7 or so), and went downstairs to get breakfast.  Breakfast was very good - they had a huge assortment of rolls, cold cuts, cheese, fruit, cereal, and even a few american foods (namely sausage and bacon (!), as well as scrambled eggs).  After breakfast I grabbed my camera and started walking around the city.

I first walked down to the museum next to the train station, and soon after found that it was closed till the winter because of renovations.  No big deal, there are a lot of other museums around.  So I went to another, and saw that it was closed as well, but more that it was closed every monday.  This wasn't looking good for me, and my prediction was proven correct when I saw that the other museums around were all closed.  Oh well, there's always more to a city than its museums.

I walked around for a while and found one of the buildings from the State University of Groningen (one of the largest universities in the netherlands, with over 50,000 students).  The building was incredibly ornate.  It had stained glass even in the main stairwell.

I basically spent the entire day walking around, and saw some pretty cool things.  Enjoy the pics.

View from the Martinikerk

Some ducks from a park on the east side of the city.  They apparently get fed by people a lot, as they have no trouble sleeping in the middle of a foot path (even with people walking by), or following you until you give them food.  Yes, I was actually followed by a duck for about 200 feet until it realized I didn't have food for it!

Some of the tens of thousands of bikes in Groningen

A Cafe next to de Grote Markt (main square in Groningen)

Needless to say, I had a lot of fun checking out the city.  Tomorrow I'm actually going to go to Amsterdam for the day at least.  I'm currently looking into how much it would cost to stay the night there, as I have a feeling that will be an ideal situation for me.  Essentially if I came back to Groningen, that would involve taking a 30 minute train to Amersfoort, and then a 2 hour train from Amersfoort to Groningen.  And then I would have to make the same 2 hour trip south to Amersfoort to go back to Berlin.  It makes more sense for my to stay overnight in amsterdam and just take the 30 minute train to Amersfoort in the morning.  But I still have to find a place before I make up my mind.

  

Day 27

Today was long.  I woke up at 7 to go to the train station.  My train left from the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main train station in berlin) a bit after 8:30.  The seats on the train weren't incredibly comfortable, but they were good enough to get a few hours of sleep.

The train got to my connection in Amersfoort (in the Netherlands) mid afternoon, arriving about 15 minutes before my next train left.  It was plenty of time to figure out where in the station I needed to go, so no stress there.  It was a little less than 2 hours going from Amersfoort to Groningen, where I will be for a couple days.

My train got to Groningen late afternoon.  My uncle Harvey met me at the train station, and we walked about 10 minutes to get to our hotel.  It was pretty cold and cloudy (felt like upper 40s), a bit cooler than I was expecting (especially with it being in the 70s right now in Berlin), but I had my jacket with me, so it wasn't a problem.

The hotel was pretty nice.  I was surprized when I sat on the bed and felt springs!  My bed in the apartment is very comfortable, but it's foam.  I haven't slept on a spring mattress since I got here.

After looking up local restaurants, Harvey and I went to a restaurant called De Gulzige Kater (funnily enough, Kater means the same thing in both german and dutch - a male cat - however, also in both languages it's slang for "hangover".  Gulzige translates to greedy.).  The food was great.  We both ended up getting salads, Harvey's with shrimp and fish, mine with steak.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel, as we were both pretty tired from traveling (Harvey had a 6-hour time change to deal with as well, in addition to jet lag - I was just tired from staying up late last night).

I'm looking forward to exploring the city more tomorrow.

   

Days 25-26

   

Friday and Saturday I didn't really do that much, hence combining them into one entry.  On friday, I helped a friend move into his apartment, and then later went with some other friends to a Biergarten to watch another World Cup match.  

On Saturday, there was a parade (didn't bring my camera...sorry no pics) in the city that I went to with Sam and a few of her friends.  The parade itself was a lot of fun actually - there were like 30-40 floats and music everywhere.  After the parade was over, we headed over to Potsdamer Platz to figure out what we were going to do that night.  We decided to go see a movie, but had an hour and a half to kill before the movie started.  So we ended up going to a hookah bar (two people in the group wanted to smoke hookah, or Shisha as it's called here) and got dinner.  We went to a restaurant that is outside on the side of Oranienstrasse in northeast berlin.  Dinner itself was pretty good, I got a margherita pizza (basil leaves, mozzerella, and tomato sauce).  After dinner, Sam ended up headed out to see another one of her friends, but I went back to potsdamer platz with the rest of the group to see the movie.

We went to see When in Rome.  The movie itself was ok.  I mean, it was cute - a romantic comedy with a lot of american comedians, which resulted in a cute story with a lot of cheesy humor.  Overall, I thought it was fun.  The theater itself was incredibly nice.  The seats felt about as comfortable as lazy-boy recliners.  Also, in theaters here, your seat is preassigned (which has its plusses and minusses) when you buy your ticket.  So, there was no looking around for the "best" seat, but rather just finding the one already assigned.

After the movie, I headed back to the apartment, and got my suitcase together, as tomorrow I head to the Netherlands!

   

Day 24

 

Today I spent a lot of the day out in the city.  I went out early afternoon and checked out a part of north east berlin I hadn't been before, and also met a friend for a mid afternoon drink at a cafe (it was quite warm out, so the drink was quite welcome).  After that I headed back to my apartment (it was already near 5 by that point) to get ready for some friends to come over for dinner.

At around 6:30 Sam and Timo came over to have a dinner get together.  It was quite a blast!  Sam brought stuff to make really tasty sushi, as well as some stuff to drink, timo brought a few authentic german desserts, and I got the appetizer and another thing for dessert.  

Besides the party itself being a lot of fun, I'm glad we did it at my place, as it forced me to finally pick up my room and get everything in order.  You can actually see my desk and couch now!  

But anyways, back to the food.

We ate outside on the terrace next to my apartment.  There is already a table and a couple chairs there, and the weather was so nice today, that we thought it'd be a great place to eat.

Sam made the sushi at the table, which tasted quite excellent.

For an appetizer, we had wine, grapes, and french sausages (one with figs, the other with dried herbs).  The Sushi was two different types of rolls: one was a vegatarian roll, with cucumbers and wasabi; the second was a roll with cucumbers, wasabi, crab, and tuna.  We had two types of wine to drink, one was a spanish Rioja, and the second (more for dessert), a sweet chinese plum wine.  We also had a bit of sake to celebrate Timo going to the states next week.

Then we got to the dessert!

Timo brought the middle column of three pastries, each of which are very typical german sweets. The one on the bottom is a poppyseed pastry, the middle one is made with rasins, and the top one is made with marzipan.  The tart on the right and the three macaroons on the left I bought at a special chocolate/dessert shop on my street.  They were kinda pricy, but incredibly tasty.  If you can't tell by the picture, the tart on the right is a rasberry tart, and the macaroons are flavored (yellow = lemon, purple = rasberry, hot pink = johannesberry).

After that, Sam and Timo wanted to hear me play the piano for a bit, so I played a few of my older pieces (the Chopin Fantasy Impromtu, Brahms Rhapsody in g minor, and the Brahms Intermezzo in A).  After that the two had to go.

It was quite a fun day, with a bit of running around the city in the afternoon, and then such a fun dinner party in the evening.

  

Day 23

   

I didn't go out much today, but nevertheless it was quite an awesome day.

The weather was completely amazing, mid seventies, lowish humidity, so all the doors and windows were open again.

I've been really pulled into practicing more and more these days, and have also been getting urges to practice at really odd hours (like 2 to 4:30 in the morning, as it was today).  Maybe it has to do with having such easy access to really good pianos, which sit in a room with really nice acoustics, which is also pretty sound proof (i.e. late night practicing is no bother for the neighbors).  Music-wise I'm learning a couple of newish things right now.   The newest piece is the Rondo Capriccioso by Mendelssohn (fyi the intro is nice and all, but the fun part starts at 2 mins 24 secs in the recording).  I have it memorized, I just need to clean it up a bit.  I'm also working on (re)learning the op 10 no 4 Etude by Chopin.  I started this piece during the school year, but with my schedule being as hectic as it was, I couldn't even finish learning all the notes (especially the parts from 42 secs to 1 min 1 sec (believe it or not that's an entire page!)...there are so many accidentals in this section it's insane!).  So I'm learning them now, and hopefully will have it up to tempo by the end of the summer.  On top of that I'm trying to finish learning/memorizing the op 119 Rhapsodie in Eb major by Brahms.  This piece isn't so difficult per se, it's just a lot of notes to learn (started this one as well during the semester, but couldn't finish it due to time constraints).

So I practiced piano/clarinet most of the afternoon, went for a run, came back and had dinner. 

  

Day 22

  
Today I decided to finally go to the Pergamon Museum, one of the museums on the famous Museuminsel  (Island of Museums), which is famous for it's greek, roman, and islamic art, sculpture, and remnants of buildings.

I left the apartment mid afternoon, using the early part of the day to practice, and headed towards the Friedrichstrasse U-bahn station (located about half a mile from the museum).

Walking along the road from the U-bahn station was pretty cool.  I found myself in kind of an ally that paralleled the S-bahn track, where there were lots of cool looking shops and restaurants.  It was about as wide as a street, but only for pedestrians.

Soon I got to the entrance of the musem, paid for an entry ticket (5 euros for a student ticket), and headed inside.

The museum was really cool.  The main entrance was built to look like the entry to the Pergamon Altar (a temple built on the acropolis of Pergamon, Greece)

Yeah, so the lens on my camera is not nearly wide-angle enough to actually get the entire entry way to the altar in one frame, but if you can imagine another protrusion (as on the far side of the steps), but on the side closer that is cut out of the shot, you get the whole picture.  Here's a link to a page with some wider-angle shots of this altar.

After seeing the main throne room, I went into one of the large wings, in which there was a large exhibit on islamic art (including lots of calligraphy!), as well as collections of interiors of roman houses.  In another part of the museum (possibly my favorite part), they had lots of statues from early civalizations, including some with cuneiform writing (one of the oldest writing systems on the planet.  One such example was a statue of a kind of monster that was supposed to scare the enemy off (basically lion's body, eagle's wings, and a man's head), and then on the side was lots of cuneiform writing basically saying how awesome and powerful the king was, and how an enemy shouldn't mess with him.

and of course a close up of the writing

After I was done at the museum, I walked around stadtmitte, and discovered a Ritter Sport chocolate shop!  Basically Ritter is a brand of affordable, tasty chocolate, in a few bazillion flavors.  At this particular store, you could even make your own chocolate bar, provided you came back in half an hour (maybe later, didn't have time today).  Needless to say, I bought some chocolate.

After that I headed home, of course while sitting on the U-bahn, I was thinking about something and actually missed the stop for me to get off.  So, I got off at the next exit, got on the next train going in the opposite direction (without paying attention to the number of the train), and found myself after that at Ku'damm...definitely not the stop I intended.  So, finally getting on the right train, I got home in time for dinner with the Thiermeiers.