(I wrote this entry as though I wrote it on June 20th, a Sunday)
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This has probably been the MOST ACTION-PACKED WEEK of my life. I don't have the time to do all these things justice but just as a quick update on what i've been up to:
Wednesday me and Jonathan met up to plan the lesson we'll do on Friday. I wasgoing to visit his school, which is supposed to be a lot more diverse and lower income than mine, and on Monday he'll visit mine. We met at Hauptbahnhof, where we encountered about 15 ballerinas doing ballet in the middle of the station! It was so random and fanciful and awesome.
Thursday, ("research day") we saw at least 4 art galleries with Dr. Suhr, spending quite a bit of time at each (I say at least, because that depends on your definition of gallery—we went to several spots that were full of art, but some were more casual settings than others). There were a couple pieces not many of us in the group were able to connect with (including one with live chickens wandering around) but mostly I really loved it. There was this one open-air space with graffiti and murals all over the place, and furniture made out of random things like car seats mounted on springs, or pipes with ironboards...I guess at night it's a bar type thing, so I think we're all planning to go back there soon. After the group broke up Kael, Jonathan and I went in search of a goulash place Kael really wanted to try, and then we wandered around, ate ice cream, etc...it was such a gorgeous sunny day.
That night I really really wanted to go see Steve Aoki perform at Weekend, a club by Alexanderplatz on the roof of an office building. Mallory had been really interested in going, but ended up off on a weeklong school trip, so she couldn't :( and everyone else lived far away and was wary about going out on a school night, especially since they'd have long commutes afterwards. I was getting really depressed as the hour of departure (if i was indeed going to go) drew near, feeling like even though I'd probably enjoy the concert alone, I would also feel nervous/unsafe. Desparate, I turned to facebook...and basically it's a long story, but I ended up meeting with some sweet German girls who just graduated high school and two college boys from Pennsylvania. It was an AMAZING set, omg. I'm so glad I was able to make it happen. Just shows that people are open; someone just needs to take the first step! =) It felt so surreal to be there, in a room full of mostly strangers, all passionate about the same thing: this American hapa's music! <3>
Friday I visited Jonathan's school. It wasn't as different or disadvantaged as he'd made it sound, from what I could see. It was quite different though. The kids were a lot more outgoing than at my school, especially in terms of girls participating more. We did a lesson with an English class just talking about ourselves and our cities, and then assigning each kid an American city to research for a mini powerpoint presentation. A lot of the kids swarmed me at recess, showing off English words, telling me what they knew about America, asking if Jonathan and I were married...lol. After recess we went to a gym class, which was a total flashback to my study abroad in Stuttgart. I swear the gym looked exactly the same. We helped out a bit, they played this game that gets them to run around a lot, and we would count down to the beginning of the game in English :P.
Yesterday we had a fieldtrip to a Stasi prison. It was really chilling. On the way there Renee and I saw two women dressed up all sparkly and rainbow-y; it's the day of their big Pride parade, Christopher Street Day...sigh. We missed the whole thing. The weather was gray, matching our moods. It was pretty neat to see the prison & interrogation rooms, etc. especially having seen Das Leben der Andere, but the timing was really annoying.
After escaping the prison we broke off into groups as usual. Jonathan Renee and I went to a big bookstore near Friedrichstrasse in search of some things, ended up walking around and finding a little art market by the river. We went inside the Berliner Dom, a gorgeous gorgeous evangelical church.
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