Berlin in Pictures!

Here are the photos of Berlin I know people have been dying for.

This train and these patterns were my first impressions of Berlin. Chyeahhh.

The East Side Gallery. This is where the wall is covered in murals, you can see it stretching in the distance.

The first part of the East Side Gallery

Probably not the best representation of the graffiti throughout the city, but I thought this was so cute and hilarious!

The turkish market...yummmm!

My lunch on Friday, not exactly sure what it is. Deep friend puffy deliciousness with cheese and spinach. Also yummm.

Warm baby checking out da oranges.

A not so creamy cheesecake as a snack!

Followed with a yummy hot chocolate and some serious journal therapy.

The perks of a smart car. Sorry Kale and Leslie,  I don't think you guys would fit in this car.

I really loved this sign! I felt like it was so appropriate.

The funny little walking man. As I was taking this picture some drunk guy mocked me an told me to take pictures of him.

Brandenburg Gate

Memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe. (That is actually the name)

The site of Hitler's bunker and the place where he committed suicide and was burned. Yes, it is now a parking lot. Apparently it wasn't actually marked until the 80s or 90s.

Checkpoint Charlie.

The sign at Checkpoint Charlie.

War Memorial sculpture by Kathe Kollowitz.

Berlin! The War memorial, a museum, the top of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower

My lunch on Saturday. Currywurst. Also very very yummm.

Hi Berlin!

A pretty square

yes, this is the Reichstag made entirely out of chocolate.

Berlin

I just got back from my weekend in Berlin. It was so great! I arrived very late on Thursday and got lost on the way to my hostel. That was a little scary, but I figured it out. Friday, I went for a walk and ended up walking 12 miles. It wasn't what I had planned but I saw lots of cool places. I actually stumbled upon the East Side Gallery, the part of the Berlin wall that is covered in murals. From there, I walked through Kreuzberg and went to the Turkish Market, where I ate a delicious fried cheese and spinach thing for lunch. Then I stopped for a hot chocolate in this great little cafe, and went and got a sweet treat. From there I walked around some more and then cirlced back to my hostel. It was really nice becuase one of the people at the hostel makes dinner every Friday night for free. So we were able to eat this meatball and potato dish for free! It was delicious.
Saturday we woke up and went on the New Berlin free walkign tour. It was amazing! On Friday it didn't really hit me that I was in a place of such historical significance, but during the tour I was overwhelmed with different emotions and lots of information. The tour went from the Brandemburg Gate-Reichstag-The Jewish Holocaust Museum- the site where Hitler's bunker once stood, and where he committed suicide (now a parking lot)-the military headquarters (now the financial offices)-the wall as it originally stood (ironically enough it was protected by a fence to keep people from stealing pieces of the wall)- Checkpoint Charlie- A delicious chocolate shop-Paris Square- The square whre the book burnings took place- Mitte (museum island). Then we had a currywurst for lunch and went on a pub crawl that night.

It was exhausting, but so full of information. I will post pictures later.
Sunday we went to a flea market, where I bought two little booklets. One is in German and English about nixons visit to Berlin and the other is only in German about JFK's visit. After the Flea Market we went to the Berliner Dome and wakled to the top and got the best panoramic view of Berlin. Well, probably not as good as the TV tower, but it was 7 euro cheaper. After that we went back to teh chocolate shop and bought some goodies, then I went to the C/O Berlin Gallery, where they had an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe's work. It was an amzing gallery! Probably the best gallery space I have ever been in.

Anyways, off to class. A week and a half and then I am in Sctoland. I will update with specific pictures later.

All in all: Berlin is an alternative city and was a really cool and great place to visit. It's not somewehre I think I would ever go with a young family, so I am glad I had the opportunity to go this past weekend.

Barbara Fredrickson

For my positive psychology class we had to read an article by one of the leading researchers in the field, Barbara Fredrickson. She has found that in order for a human being to "flourish", there is a 3:1 ratio of positive:negative things. From what I understand, this can be applied to work settings, mental health, family, really anything. What I don't understand though is that what is positive and what is negative is really dependent upon the person. Regardless, I have had a 3:1 ratio the past 4 mornings. The past three mornings I have woken up to these gorgeous sunrises, today I woke up to snow and loud winds. Grrr... I want my pretty red sunrise back!

I leave for Berlin on Thursday evening, I will be there all day Friday by myself. I am a bit nervous, but I know I will have a great time. I will be sure to upload pictures next week.

Side note: We were eating dinner in this little Italian place by school one night and I fell in love with the CD that they definitely had on repeat. I asked the name and her name is Carla Bruni. Here is a video of her most popular song on her newest album:

Here are the pictures of my 3:1 mornings:

[Sunday morning]

[Monday morning]

 [Tuesday morning]

 

[Sad, snowy Wednesday morning]

Here is a picture of the delicious pizza I made last night. Tomato, red pepper, mozzarella, and basil. Yummmmm.

PICTURES!! and this past week

Okay, so I have uploaded the London pictures to my Flikr as well as  few random pictures from way back when. They can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/57530311@N08/sets/ I will add more pictures from Copenhagen...Kobenhaven soon.

This week I purchased tickets to go to Berlin next weekend! I am very excited. However, I am an idiot and booked my return flight for May 23rd instead of February 21st. Sooooo, that cost me an extra 100$ to change. Live and learn right? I will be there Thursday evening-Monday morning and will make it back just in time for class. I arrive at 8:05 and class is at 8:30. I will probably be a few minutes late. But, hey! Late is better than absent.  I also booked tickets for the first week of my study break in April. I leave Friday morning for Milan with my friends Phil, Ryan, and Steve. We are staying in Milan until early Sunday morning when we fly to Casablanca! I will stay in Casablanca until Wednesday, then I will take a train to Tangier and a ferry to Gibraltar. And by the end of the week will be in Granada! Then Molly and I are goign to head off to Eastern Europe. We don't have a set plan, but we are thinking of getting a week long train pass and just going where we want. Hopefully finishing the trip in Prague so I can see Architecture in Helsinki in concert! they are playing at this music festival in Prague called Sperm, not sure why it has that name but it does. So, I am really hoping we can go to that. It would be a cool experience!

Aside from that not much else is new. I dropped my Human Trafficking class so now I am taking a normal amount of credits. Initially, I was really concerned becuase I felt like I was backing out and then I realized that I am in Europe and I should do what I want. So now I don't have classes on Friday!! Hellllooooo wooooorld, here I come!

ALso for Valentine's Day, Audrey and I are going to pig out on delicious pastries and Toblerone McFlurries. I am so excited. We are hoping to catch a chick flick as well. Luckily, we both convinced our parents how awful it would be to be alone on Valentine's Day so they are giving us money to help with our feasting.

Western Denmark

We just got back from a 3 day long study tour with our core classes to Western Denmark. I left early Thursday morning and got home late Saturday night. Our tour started with a trip to Århus, the largest city in Jutland (the part of Denmark that is not an island, and is connected to Germany). We were there all day Thursday and had two academic visits. The first academic visit was a presentation by two women who were working with the Århus Hospital to test whether or not mindfullness is an appropriate and effective means of treating high stress levels and the resulting physical ailments from high stress levels. Mindfulness is basically being aware of your surroundings whenever you are in them. As I understand it, this CAN include meditation but does not have to. Basically, it means to be present in every moment and to appreciate the moments. We do mindfullness exercises almost everyday through my positive psychology class. Before each class we meditate for 15 minutes and we are supposed to write down three positive things that happened during our day each night. Although I must admit, I have stopped doing that the past week and a half. No worries though, there are plenty of positive things going on in my life, probably too many.

Anyways, they found that it is moderately successful but they are only 1 year out from their studies. Their qualitative data showed that while people don't practice meditation now that they are not in the program, they do still try to be mindful and reflective about themselves and have a positive attitude. After that we went to the KaosPilots (http://www.kaospilot.dk/), an alternative business school that people can go to instead of college or after college. But, unlike other danish insitutions, you do have to pay to go to this school. We met with a graduate who talked to us about the school and took us through a few exercises that they go through each day. It was a really cool bonding experience for our group and I ended up learning a lot about myself. If you are interested, here is something you can try to do at home:

You will make 3 lists of 7 things each. In each list you should write the first things that come to your mind. The lists are: 7 things you are passionate about, 7 things that make you angry, and 7 of your personal strenghts/things you are good at. After making each list, you want to create a theme for each list. For example, connections with other people that lead to lasting and fulfilling relationships. Themes seem difficult at first, but they get easier! Anyways, then we wrote postcards to ourselves that said " I will use my 7 passions and 7 strengths + any verb + 7 things that make you angry". The verb is something like understand, combat, fight, etc.

Then we drove to Vejle, a town in the middle of nowhere, and stayed the night. The next morning we visited The Skills Project, which is in Ejsberg. This is an 8 week program designed to take kids who are neither working or in school and teach them to build self confidence so that they will either get a job or return to school. Most of the kids have dropped out of high school and have had serious drug issues, problems with bullying, eating disorders, etc. A lot of people shared their personal experiences and it was really touching, because after the program they were successful.

Then we went to Ribe, one of the oldest towns in Denmark. It was really charming and quaint. We had a ghost tour at 8pm (aka 20:00), that wasn't scary at all. Then we had free time to explore the towns pubs and night life scene. You could say I explored those pretty thoroughly. Saturday we went on a guided tour through the Viking Museum then had 2 hours of free time. I decided to explore by myself and went to the Ribe Kunst (art) museum. It was in a beautiful old house with a great garden. It was really interesting becuase it focused on Danish artists that I don't think I would have been previously exposed to. I bought a post card and this very dainty bird..thing. Then I walked around town and bought a pastry. We had a great lunch and then got on the bust to come back home.

I am still working on the whole photo thing. I just haven't had the time/energy/focus to sit down and just do it. I promise I will get on that soon.

...That's probably enough for now.

Well, a lot has happened. I take the regional train every day to and from school, lately these trains have sucked. It turns out that they are doing construction on the lines, so they are always late or canceled... it's pretty unreliable. I have started all but one class and they are all really interesting. Copenhagen is an awesome place, even though most people may not think it. I haven't been going out in downtown Copenhagen too much recently because you literally can't get back until 4 in the morning becuase the trains run so infrequently. Luckily I have a pretty good group of friends in my kollegium so we hang out here.
I also made my first bad money mistake. Audrey, Steve, and I wanted to get some drinks on Friday so we decided it was really expensive in downtown Copenhagen, so we would go to Roskilde. We were craving margaritas and there is this mexican restaurant in Roskilde called Gringos. We went to Gringo's and Steve and I got lime margarita's and they were so sick. Audrey had strawberry and it had the textrue of a blended margarita, but ours were almost on the rocks and were so salty. So, we didn't get feel anything after those and we ordered a 1/2 liter pitcher each adn a few appetizers. 1/2 liter pitcher later and we are all still completely sober. We ended up spending almost 200 kroner each for pretty much nothing. We will not be going back there soon.

I am still trying to find a site where I can upload pictures and not be charged. Once I have that figured out I will put up London pictures and pictures from Copenhagen. So far I mostly have pictures of this cool castle, Fredricksborg.

More later.
OH-- and at the suggestion of Amy Wei, when I go for a run my new goal is to try and get lost/explore a new part of the area.

London

Herro alll!
Mom and I arrived safely in Copenhagen last Friday afternoon. The airline lost all four of our checked bags, but we managed to walk around a bit Friday afternoon/evening. I can honestly say I was not prepared for Danish, or really just everything being in a different language. I wish that Grinnell required some sort of language class or offered a Rosetta Stone program before coming abroad so that I would have a basic understanding, or at least know how to pronounce the words.
Anyways, luckily we had one carry on bag that had my clothes for London that made it from the States. On Saturday we left for London and checked that bag. Once again we were the last people at the luggage carousel and had to file a lost luggage claim. The woman assured us it would be in later that night or the next day. We got these assurances every day we called, and still don't have that piece luggage. So, I wore the same clothes every day we were in London because I thought it would be silly to buy new clothes if my bag was coming the next day.... joke's on me!!

Tuesday at 11 pm mom's bag made it to London. Since they couldn't even track her bag she ahd bought some new clothes. Also on Tuesday they delivered the rest of the luggage to DIS in Copenhagen and we just picked those up today, 4/5 ain't that bad!

London was really cool, we did every touristy thing we could: Covent Gardens, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Thames River Tour, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminter Abbey, Evensong at Westminster Abbey, Abbey Road (which they have a 24 hour video log of so my aunt and uncle graciously recorded us walking like fools 3 or 4 times), Tate Modern, Tour of not Shakespeare's Globe, backstage tour of the National Theatre, met up with Sam in Notting Hill, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, and we saw Hamlet at the National Theatre-- it was AWESOME.

Anyways, that's about it. I don't have a favorite, it was all a very cool experience. It was neat to see where Sam is living, I am excited to move in on Sunday.

Lots of loooooove!