Jazz, museums... and the meaning of life

9th August 2010



Today was my first day in the advanced group, and I actually understood some things so it wasn’t quite the disaster I was expecting. Vocab still isn’t coming back to me though which is quite annoying. After language lessons we went to the Badeschiff in Kreuzberg, which is an outdoor pool and beach bar. The pool is on top of the river, which feels rather weird when you’re swimming in the pool. It was nice to have a fairly chilled out afternoon and still feel like I was doing something.


When we got back I grabbed some pizza from the supermarket then went to the internet cafe to write up my article and check my emails, then headed back home for an early night.


10th August 2010


Today was pretty uneventful- after language class we went on a visit to Zitty magazine, one of Berlin’s top magazines, which was quite short but pretty interesting, then briefly went to the shops at Postdamer Platz and got some postcards before heading back to the apartment.


In the evening a few of us went to a couple of bars, one of which was a slightly random punk bar, but it was a fairly nice chilled out evening.


11th August 2010


In the morning we had a journalism workshop, where we read out and critiqued each other’s articles, then we were finished with our organised activities for the day.


Dustin, Andy, Charlotte, Adie and I went to Potsdamer Platz to quickly visit the shops then we separated to do our own thing. I went to the German Resistance Memorial Museum, which is in the buildings where von Stauffenberg planned the failed assassination attempt on Hitler (you know, the guy Tom Cruise played in Valkyrie). The conspirators were shot in the courtyard of the building, and there is now a memorial there. The museum itself was really interesting, as I knew very little about German resistance during World War II, although as nearly all of the exhibits were in German I was at the mercy of the audio guide, which unfortunately skipped nearly half of the rooms. After the museum I went to Tiergarten, a massive park, where I wrote my postcards by the river with a small mouse for company.


In the evening a few of us went to Yorckschlösschen, a small jazz and blues bar, which was amazing. There was a great atmosphere and the band was brilliant, and after the saxophonist jumped on the table for a solo we all vowed to return before we left Berlin.


12th August 2010


I decided to be a bit of a rebel and skip classes in the morning as I was knackered, so after a thoroughly enjoyable lie in I went to our project meeting. This was fairly uneventful apart from the fact I had knelt on the floor in the office, not realising there was a piece of glass there until I noticed a small pool of blood around my knee. It was slightly disgusting, but it was a tiny cut and I was slightly high on Haribo sweets so it didn’t really hurt...


After the meeting a few of us went to Oranienstraβe and had a look at the art around there. It was quite cool, with lots of artists displaying paintings and sculptures, and lots of random creations made of scrap metal scattered around the place.


After going back to the apartment to grab our laptops, we decided to get some dinner before heading to the internet cafe. After what seemed like forever (but was probably about 15 minutes) wandering in the pouring rain we managed to find somewhere with room for the 7 of us. Helpfully, they had an English version of the menu, but the translations were somewhat dodgy, including such classics as ‘glass soup.’ By the time we made it to the internet cafe it was nearly 11, so we didn’t spend that long there before we headed home for bed.


13th August 2010


Friday 13th! Unluckily for me, I seemed to have missed something fairly important in language classes the day before and spent the first ten minutes with absolutely no idea what was going on. Luckily I eventually got it, although the class didn’t get much easier, as we ended up discussing the meaning of life- in German.


Afterwards we went to the Berlin Wall Memorial, which was really interesting, with lots of information and a recreation of the Death Strip between the two sides of the Wall. I then headed off to Museum Island to have a bit of a wander round and formulate a plan for my museum day tomorrow. (Almost everyone is going to Berlin Zoo, which I don’t really fancy.) After about an hour walking at the exterior of the beautiful museums I decided that I was now in love with Berlin and wanted to live there, and sat down in front of Berlin Cathedral to write the last of my postcards.


After I was sat writing for a while a man came up and started talking to me. He introduced himself as Jann and guessed that I was a humanities student, and started talking about how you can tell what people study by looking at them. After telling me had lived in Colchester for a year, I told him that my nan lived near there, but rather than seize upon this piece of common ground he started asking me what I thought of Eastern European art. As I did not feel he was attractive enough for me to pretend I was interested, when he offered to take me to an exhibition of Eastern European art I politely explained I couldn’t as I was meeting my friends shortly. (I was meeting them 3 hours later, but he didn’t need to know that). I then left my spot by the Cathedral and got the tram home. In the evening a few of us girls decided to have a pyjama party, so had a chilled evening chatting and drinking wine.