Today I want to talk about 'efterårsferie', or the week-long holiday in october that most danes have. Students get off from school, many adults get off from work. It's pretty common to go on vacation or trips during this time, and, fortunately for me-- my host family went to Berlin! Now, I know that talking about Germany isn't *exactly* about my life in Denmark, but knowing about other cultures, experiencing other ways of life, and being open about lifestyle is a very danish thing-- so this is still relevant, never fear!
I was in Berlin for about 5 days, and I had an AMAZING time! I don't personally have too much experience with big cities(I've been to Chicago, Budapest, Minneapolis....but never for long, and not too frequently), so the whole 'always alive' thing still gets me pretty excited. Many different aesthetics, different ways of living, different food, different stuff, different places....ah! I think the 'muchness' of it all is kind of overwhelming... and really good to experience.
Berlin has a reputation for being an top-dog art city(especially within Europe), and the amount and quality of the art that I saw while there definitely lived up to that.
I could write for hours about the art that I saw and the impressions that I gained, but this isn't really the place for that-- so I'll just try to summarize what we did.
First night: (as a note: Berlin is beautiful at night.) We arrived, and found our way to the apartment we stayed in over the week. After putting our stuff down, we decided to explore the part of the city a bit, and eventually made our way to the mauer(wall)'s east side gallery. The gallery is parts of the wall that are still left, and on one side there are photo projects; the other, striking graffiti/murals. (put picture here)
Then we just roamed around some more, enjoying just being in the place. But, seeing as we are people-- hunger came into play eventually, and after attempting(and failing) to find some really 'tysk'(german) cuisine, we settled for italian.
Next four days:
For one of the days, we biked through berlin-- and I think this might've been my favorite day, just because cycling is a very person and hands-on way to explore a place. Not too much to report from this day, but we did see the DDR museum(REALLY good!) and a lot of the more tourist-y must-sees.
Some other highlights from the trip:
-checkpoint charlie museum
-nues museum
-Hamburger Bahnhof gallerie
-berlinische gallerie
Basically I had a really great time seeing the city, and it was my first time in deutschland, so that was pretty exciting too! My mom was actually an exchange student in Germany when she was in highschool, so getting to see some of the places she was like, 25 years ago was really cool.
Okay, I'll write soon about more danish-ish adventures, but for now, vi ses!
-Rowen
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