Random Berlin

Thursday nights the museums on Museum Island remain open for an additional 4 hours and cease to charge for admission. This is why the only time I have and will ever go to the museums is on a Thursday evening, because who wants to pay when it could be free??
Last Thursday, I went to the Pergamon Museum, which is basically the recreation of a Greek temple: the Germans took the ruins of a temple from Greece and reassembled a decent amount of it within a museum.

*on the stairs of the temple (i'm in orange)*

*view from the top*

*a model of the original temple*

*close-up of the statues on the outer-walls of the temple*

*greek goddess*

*ryan and his "greek twin"*

*intricate floor mosaics-- the tiles were so incredibly small*

Next we went to the National Gallery, which houses paintings from the 17th-19th century, focusing on German artists.

*tom, kujtime and ryan outside of the gallery*

On Friday I went with Kristina and her fiance Jeremy to the Turkish market, which is by far my favorite market in Europe. It's super crowded, the men at the stalls yell out prices and try to get you to taste their fruit, and the smells and sights are from all over the world. Best of all, everything is really affordable, unique and fresh.

*kristina and me at the turkish market*

Then I went to Schloss Bellevue, a palace in the center of Tiergarten, where the Bundespraesident lives. I happened to be there when some diplomatic party was being held, so there were police everywhere and a drum and trumpet corps playing on the front lawn.

*drum and trumpet corps in front of schloss bellevue*

*along der Spree, one of the rivers in Berlin*

We've also been enjoying the Eurocup (although I didn't watch that many games at first). Now it's getting exciting, and my prediction is that Berlin will self-combust Wednesday evening, when Turkey plays Germany. The Turkish population in Berlin is HUGE and the Turkish fans are the rowdiest I've ever seen.

*the UEFA Eurocup!*

*germany's striker, warming up-- i just like that he can jump really high*

Parties!

We've been having a lot of birthdays in our group, therefore we've been having parties. Also, the European Cup is currently going on for soccer (or fussball), so we've been watching games here and there, although I've technically only watched one.... Every night they have games, and you can hear people honking and celebrating the victories of their countries. Naturally when Germany wins (which they've been doing a lot of) you hear the most noise, although the Turkish fans know how to celebrate too!

*kujtime invited us all over for tortillas to celebrate her birthday. They were delicious!*

*rooting for the Dutch team (who won!): Elif, Felipe, Mixaela, Anitha, me*

*anitha, me, mixaela*

*happy friends: weichun, kujtime, cindy*

*somehow we were convinced to dance salsa.. ryan, david and felipe all danced with me. i'm laughing because ryan was shaking his hips a lot to entertain everyone*

*then anitha did some indian dancing for us*

*Later Lars joined in*

*drinks with two of our professors from the netherlands-- Dr. Bol and Dr. Bastiaanse. Dr. Bastiaanse will be my thesis advisor. Sadly, you can't see either of them in the group pic*

*Greek dinner: tom, anitha, yifei, felipe, me, cindy, libei, weichun*

Other than that things in Germany and moving along steadily. We are all planning our thesis time now, meeting with professors and trying to juggle our large work load (10 classes!!). I'll be writing my thesis with my professor from the Netherlands, although I'll be writing it from DC. My thesis will be about African American dialectal speakers of English, and how certain grammatical features might be changed in aphasia, when they have language disorders due to brain damage. Originally I planned on staying in Berlin a bit longer, but today I decided it would be nice to be home to write my thesis, and so I bought a ticket to go home at the end of July. I'll have to come back to Greece for a conference in September, but other than that I'll be back home. I feel a little nervous about the decision, but mainly I feel very excited to see Julian again :)

!Barcelona!

I spent a four day weekend in Barcelona, visiting my Spanish brother Hector. I had a fantastic time -- I loved the city and the company and would go back any day. My Spanish even improved. By the end of the 4 days, I had picked up two often used words: joder and vale. Vale means, ok or alright and is used by everyone. Joder can be translated as a 4 letter word beginning with f, but it doesn't have the same connotation-- you can use it with almost everyone, or at least in casual situations.

Since Hector is a working man, I spent parts of the days on my own in the city, doing the touristy things, and I'm proud to say that (for the most part) I found my way around without any problems, and could do basic things in Spanish. I'll put some of my pictures here, but since there are a lot, here are links to see more:
album 1
album 2

On Thursday, Hector taught me how to make Catalonian sandwiches, called pa amb tomàquet (Barcelona is in the Catalanian district of Spain, so the people speak Catalan in addition to Spanish and most locals have a strong Catalonian heritage), which involves rubbing a juicy tomato on bread, drizzling with olive oil, and then adding the normal toppings. They were delicious!


Then I went to the old downtown, where I saw tons of touristy things, and loved them all.

*in front of casa mila, also known as la pedrera (the quarry) by architect antoni gaudi*

*casa batllo by gaudi*

*la rambla, a famous street now filled mostly with tourists*

*placa reial, the most beautiful square in barcelona. the lamposts are designed by gaudi*

*video of the cathedral*

*inside the cathedral*

*monument to christopher columbus (he's pointing east though...)*

*the arc de triomf*

The next day, my touristy agenda consisted of going to the famous church La Familia Sagrada and the mountain Montjuic, which hosts a castle, museums, the olympic statium and many gardens. The church was gorgeous.

*La Sagrada Familia (the sacred family)-- this side of the church has the birth facade, telling the story of Jesus's birth. The other side of the church features the passion, the death of Christ*

*La Sagrada Familia, the Passion scene*

I couldn't find the proper train entrance to get to Montjuic, so after consulting a map I decided that it wouldn't be too hard to just walk to the mountain. In theory, I was correct, but in practice, I made a very silly decision. I ended up walking a LOT, only to find that the paths I expected to connect did not, and that the paths that would usually exist were under construction. So, I walked about halfway up the mountain, then back down, then to the train station where I finally succeeded in finding the proper train. The main issue was that I had bought new shoes, so my feet were in a ton of pain by the time I found the top of Montjuic, making it difficult to walk around and explore all that it had to offer. But what I saw I really liked, so in the end it was ok.

*view of barcelona on the way to montjuic*


*jardin miramar, on the side of montjuic*

*in the Olympic Stadium*

That night Hector had a small dinner party for his friends, so I got to meet really friendly and interesting Spaniards, who taught me about some helpful Spanish phrases, the history of the Spanish flag, typical Spanish jokes, etc.
Saturday we had lunch with Hector's family, which was one of my favorite things-- they were so lovely! His grandparents cooked delicious food, and even though communication wasn't so easy, I think we all really enjoyed each other's company.

*Hector's family: Hector, Aunt Montser, Mom Puri, Grandma Isabel, Grandpa Rate*

Later, I went to parc guell, which has a beautiful view of the city as well as more works by Gaudi.

*parc guell*

*the gaudi bench in parc guell-- the mosaic is made out of glass bottles, porcelain faces from dolls and other "trash"*


*sitting on the gaudi bench*

At night, we walked around the city, then went to a birthday party for some of his friends at a chinese restaurant. I was surprised and delighted to find out that the restaurant gives little gifts to their customers-- all of the girls got bracelets!

Sunday we woke up late and got breakfast from one of the local bakeries, then ate in the quiet and relaxing streets by the technical school.

*breakfast*

I was sad to leave, having had so much fun exploring the city and spending time with Hector. Barcelona is such a beautiful city, but I didn't find it to be too touristy or "unreal"-- it was just a historical city with some great features and a relaxing atmosphere. Altogether, my trip was the perfect combination of touristy sites and everyday life, with a Spanish brother thrown in :)

Neues Palais

The University of Potsdam has several campuses. I happen to study at the ugly one, in Golm. Golm itself isn't so bad, but the campus is..... a modern ugly construction site. It smells a little bad too. Kristina likes to point out the taunting way that the recorded train voiceover says, "We are now arriving in train station Golm."
Campus in Golm:


BUT I get to take two classes in another campus, in Neues Palais (New Palace). As the name suggests, there is a palace there. It's so beautiful, with gardens, pathways, palaces, statues, fountains, etc. I wish I studied there all the time.
Campus in Neues Palais: