All In All It Was Just Bricks In The Wall (Berlin)

I have now been in Lübeck for a full two weeks, and I'm starting to become settled, or at least about as settled as I expect to be before leaving again. I'll briefly talk about last week from where I left off before talking about my weekend trip to Berlin.


Last week in lab I continued working on my flex sensing glove, finishing it on Friday. It's definitely a prototype, which is fragile and I didn't even test it enough to see if it really works that well (it likely doesn't, the smaller sensors might not bend with the small joints), but at least I verified it was able to control the mechanical hand (which Stephen hasn't finished anyway, only one finger can be independently controlled right now), although perhaps not too accurately. Regardless, I do not wish to continue this project and perfect it, because I want to get experience with the BCI, which I will start working with tomorrow morning.


Coming home from work during the week can sometimes be boring, but for a while I kept having things go wrong at night, which I guess kept me occupied. Early last week I attempted to make canned ravioli as a quick dinner, only to find the can opener in the kitchen was broken, and it took me well over half-an-hour to remove the ravioli from the can. Then, the next night I discovered washing machines are very different here. I tried to wash my clothes, only to discover the machine tried to wash my clothes for several hours, which I later learned is normal here. I eventually cancelled the cycle instead of waiting, only to end up with soaking wet clothes which required 4 dry cycles to dry. Luckily laundry is free here, but next time I'll need to plan ahead now that I know laundry takes much longer here.


Later in the week things went more smoothly and I was also more social after work. On Wednesday I went downtown with Akshay and Rui and we explored some more of downtown that we hadn't all seen before. As I've said, downtown is pretty small and you can explore most of it in a few hours (or less), but nevertheless we still found places to explore. I have since added more pictures to my Lübeck album here. On Thursday night I didn't go out, but I watched a movie with Akshay here in the guesthouse.


On Friday I planned to meet up with Sam to watch the soccer game downtown, but earlier in the day I ran into Bruno, another guesthouse resident (from Brazil), in the kitchen, and he invited me to watch with him too. I ended up hanging out with him, Max (another guy, from Russia, who lives here but is leaving soon), and Bruno's German friend (I think his name was Stephan) in Bruno's room for a while, drinking beer and taking turns playing a soccer game on Bruno's PS3 (he's probably the only person who has a TV in the guesthouse). Thursday was the first time I cooked enough to have leftovers, which were handy as I quickly ate them before leaving with the group to go downtown and meet up with Sam. The 5 of us then headed to a public viewing in a warehouse by the port. When we entered, the security guards stamped our hands "DON'T FORGET TO GO HOME," (in English) which was definitely funny to see when I woke up early the next morning. After the game (which Germany won), the guys convinced me to stay out and we went to a couple more bars (leaving the first after the German pop music annoyed them). Since Lübeck is a smaller city, you can't catch a bus here past 12:30 AM, so the three of us heading back to the guesthouse had to share a taxi. Of course in Germany the taxis are mostly all Mercedes (the main exception being VW vans).


After staying out late, I somehow managed to get myself up early and to the train station to catch a 9:10 train to Berlin. I didn't get any more sleep on the train, but I did spend my time on the train (there and back on Sunday) listening to the Radiolab podcast, which I would highly recommend. Once I arrived at the train station in Berlin, I met up with Andrew, a RISE intern from Scotland who is interning in Karlsruhe. While I didn't get much sleep the night before, he didn't either, because he had to get up at 4 AM to get to Berlin by 11:30 AM from Karlsruhe (in Southwestern Germany). Regardless, we decided not to waste time, and head out into the city. Luckily he brought a guidebook and map, because I came completely unprepared, and Berlin is a huge city!


We were both hungry, but instead of eating the station we walked around the city a bit looking for places to eat. We ended up finding a Chinese restaurant, and I ordered Gong-Bao chicken, which is an alternate spelling of Kung-Pao, but it was a bit different than the Kung-Pao I order at home. There were no peanuts and the sauce was different, but the other ingredients were similar.


After lunch, we walked toward the Reichstag. On the way I called my friend Tommy, a RISE intern in Berlin who also goes to Pitt, but he ended up leaving the city for the afternoon. So Andrew and I spent the weekend exploring by ourselves. We got to the Reichstag, the German parliament building, but we we found out you needed a reservation to get inside. After sitting in the field in front of the Reichstag to rest, we kept walking (toward the Brandenburg Gate) and ended up at an outdoor festival. There were many food and beer vendors, as well as big jumbotrons. I later learned they usually have outdoor viewings of the soccer games there, but there was another big event this day that we discovered a little later. We saw that they were setting up for concerts, which we missed, but I did get to hear a drummer and bassist doing a soundcheck, and they were funky! The bassist was playing an Esperanza Spalding lick that I liked. We found a large foosball table and a guy asked us if we wanted to play. I expected him to want money, but it ended up just being a free game of foosball. We played for a little while, and I scored once but also failed to stop a lot more goals on my side. Still, playing foosball with some strangers in Berlin was some unexpected and fun.


Next we found the Brandenburg Gate, where there were many tourists taking pictures with various people in costume. Some of them were wearing American and Russian military uniforms, while others were in more bizarre costumes such as Darth Vader. There was even a guy in a bear costume, although a bear is on Berlin's flag/coat of arms. By this tourist area, we also saw a really cool break dance group perform. They were actually really talented, and when they finished by playing the ABBA song "Money Money Money" I didn't mind giving them a little.


After seeing the Brandenburg gate, I was determined to find Hansa Tonstudio, a recording studio where in 1977 David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Iggy Pop recorded the albums Low, "Heroes," The Idiot, and Lust for Life. The studio used to be right by the wall as well. We walked through part of the tiergarten on the way there, and ran into a friendly German man who gave us directions and alerted us about the gay pride parade up ahead. Sure enough, after leaving the tiergarten and returning to the city streets, we found that the gay pride parade had just begun, and we ended up in the middle of the crowd. The studio was right by the parade route, and we had to cross the parade to get there. After shoving through the crowd, we ended up with stickers on us, but we soon found the studio. Satisfied that I found the building where a couple of my favorite albums were recorded, we then watched a little more of the parade before continuing on.


Next we decided to walk towards Checkpoint Charlie, which was the checkpoint between the American and Soviet quarters of Berlin, and a critical location during the Cold War. On the way there, we saw a section of the Berlin Wall that was preserved by an outdoor museum called the Topography of Terror. The museum was about Germany under Hitler's Nazi regime, and under the wall stood remains of the basement of the Gestapo headquarters. Next we found Checkpoint Charlie, where we arrived just in time to hear a tour guide discussing the checkpoint, and saw another tour group drive by in loud Trabants, a small car made for decades in East Germany with a two-stroke engine that sounds like a chainsaw. We also saw another tour group go by on a bierbike, which is essentially a mobile bar in which everyone helps pedal, while drinking beer.


Now it was getting later, and Andrew and I were both tired of carrying around our backpacks all day. Tommy, who I was staying with, was on his way back to the city, and Andrew decided to drop his stuff off at his hostel. We were near a u-bahn (subway) station, but the lines didn't go where I needed to go. After a stop or two, Andrew suggested I get off, but now I was alone, without a map, and still had no idea where to go. I studied the transit map in the station, but the map was confusing (Berlin has a lot of trains (u-bahns, s-bahns, plus regional, and there might have even been additional trams)), and I ended up just walking to the main train station, even though I knew the train I needed didn't go there. I tried to call Tommy hoping he could meet me there, but he didn't pick up. When I got to the train station, I ended up getting help from the information desk, caught a train that went through the station I was originally at, to another station where I could transfer to the right line. I finally got in touch with Tommy, who tried to give me directions to his place from the nearest station, but the directions to his place were also very confusing, and he soon met me near the station. Finally I dropped off my bag, and we headed out to meet some of his friends for dinner.


We met one of his friends at another u-bahn station, and expecting his other friends to take a while, we walked to a grocery store to grab some beer to drink while we waited (you can tell that I really like being able to drink beer on the street here). Soon we met up with Tommy's friends, and attempted to find a German restaurant he had been to once before, but the address he looked up was for another restaurant: a rib house. After searching for a while, we realized we were hungry (it was rather late for dinner), and a rib house sounded really good. Andrew met up with us again at the restaurant, and we all enjoyed ribs with potatoes, sauerkraut (which I didn't like at home, but I guess it's better here), and of course beer.


After dinner (which we didn't finish until around 11), we decided to head towards the brandenburg gate, where I saw a concert being set up earlier. However, when we got there we saw everyone leaving because we were too late. Regardless, the gate looked pretty lit up at night, and we stood around and talked while one of Tommy's friends went off to find a friend, and Andrew went with her. We thought they were coming back, but they never did. We didn't mind, because we were having a good time, and met another American, who was trying to meet up with a friend-of-a-friend-of-a....of-a-friend without a working phone (they never met up either), but ended up hanging out with us instead. He was a bit crazy, he told us how he was tackled earlier while trying to cross train tracks near a train station, and accused of terrorism, but he played the ignorant American card. Finally we left, and I Tommy and I headed back to his place.


Saturday night was rough, because Tommy had a very small apartment, and I had to sleep on the wooden floor next to his bed. I packed a towel to lay down over the floor, and a small pillow. He let me use one of his sweatshirts as a blanket (although I eventually just wore it as it got colder later in the night). I didn't get much sleep, but at least I was able to stay in Berlin overnight despite the fact that I waited too long to book a hostel, and hey, it was free.


The next day, I hung out with Tommy and some of his friends, and I didn't end up meeting up with Andrew again. We went to another outdoor museum, which had a border fence and information about the wall, and people escaping from East Berlin. We then went to a large flea market, which was more like an enormous yard sale. A lot of random old junk was being sold, and Tommy said much of it, the bikes in particular, was probably stolen. There was also food being sold there (we originally were planning to grab lunch there), and one guy was smelling spices that smelled amazing even from several feet away. Outside the flea market we briefly watched a band play, but then we left to find somewhere else to grab lunch. We found a döner place, and since I was hungry and knew I'd be on a train during dinner time, I pigged out and had both a döner and currywurst with fries. Tommy and his friends then grabbed ice cream that looked really good at a subway station, but I was too full to have any. I was hoping they'd have the same ice cream at the central train station later, but I didn't find any.


After eating, we headed to the East Side Gallery, which was probably my favorite site in Berlin. This was a stretch of the Berlin wall, probably about a mile long, which had been painted over on one side with various murals. Many of the murals were very interesting, and I took a lot of pictures here. One mural even featured artwork from Pink Floyd's The Wall. Another mural superimposed the Israeli flag onto the German flag. Some of the art was defaced with graffiti, but much of it was very beautiful.


Next we headed back to the Reichstag, because Tommy planned to meet up with more people there and play soccer. I was too physically exhausted to play soccer, but I did throw around a frisbee for a few minutes before leaving to quickly see some more sights with another one of Tommy's friends, who was visiting Berlin for the second weekend in a row from Dresden, before we both had to catch our trains. I briefly visited the Holocaust memorial, an area with a collection of large blocks symbolizing tombs, and then briefly saw parts of the French Quarter and the Berlin State Library. Outside the library is a glass floor, where you can look down to see a room empty (except for empty shelves), symbolizing the missing books destroyed in a book burning by the Nazis. I also saw the location of Hitler's bunker (where he committed suicide). After this final quick tour, I headed back to the Reichstag to meet up with Tommy again, and found him just as he was leaving and it was starting to run. I still had time before my train, and we tried to hang out at a Starbucks, but it was too crowded, so we headed to the train station, where Tommy was able to go grocery shopping (most stores are closed on Sundays, except in the train station, which also functions much like a mall). After he finished shopping, I said bye to Tommy, and waited for my train. I was exhausted after a weekend of little sleep, but I had a great time!


Despite observing that Berlin is probably the dirtiest place in Germany (broken bottles and litter were all over the place), I found much beauty in the city, even in the preserved sections of the wall covered in graffiti. The city is Germany's largest, and I'm sure there was much I didn't get a chance to see. If I have time I'll definitely try to go back before I leave the country. You can see my pictures from the trip here.


After I finally got home, I was exhausted, but I still had to get up in the morning for work, which meant I was tired at work all day (and not too productive, I just spend the day reading articles and a refresher text on C++). I finally caught up on sleep by this morning, but I had to get up early again for an appointment downtown at the immigration office. I had to make this appointment when I registered two weeks ago, but I wasn't sure why, and I found out the other interns did not have to do this. I was asked to bring several documents, including €100, which I planned to ask why I had to pay. When my appointment started, I was first asked for my passport and a passport-sized photo. I had cut out my picture from a printed out copy of my passport, which the woman said was unacceptable, and I had to pay €6 to use a photo booth. After I did this, I gave the woman the rest of my paperwork, and when she realized I was only in Germany for 2 months, she realized she didn't need any of this, and the entire appointment was a mistake. The guy I talked to two months ago apparently thought I was staying for 9 months, not 9 weeks, and scheduled me an appointment for a visa (without telling me what the appointment was for). While I was glad I didn't have to pay €100 to the government (especially since my stipend, from the government, is small to begin with), it was annoying that I wasted my time, plus money on the photos and bus fare. I again didn't do much in lab after returning back to campus, but tomorrow I'll finally start working with the brain-computer interface!


Finally, tonight I felt like I'm finally starting to get the hang of cooking, as I improvised a recipe that actually tasted pretty good, and even had leftovers! I just fried up some sliced potatoes (they came sliced in a box...) and ground beef(/mystery meat?), added it to pasta, with the remainder of my tomato sauce, and then added some random spices/seasonings that were in the kitchen (oregano, thyme, curry, something I couldn't translate that I think was a mix.. I just threw everything in there). It tasted good, and I've learned it's more fun to cook while listening to music and enjoying a beer (yeah I know, you can tell I've been drinking plenty of it here), and a little seasoning can greatly improve the taste of anything. I'm trying to get the other interns to meet after work to shop, cook, and eat together, and perhaps make it a weekly event. We might do that tomorrow night. On Thursday I'll go out to see the soccer game (Germany vs. Italy in the Eurocup semi-finals), and another Pitt student who's interning in Hamburg mentioned he might visit Lübeck on Friday. While yesterday I was figuring I would just relax next weekend (all this travelling is exhausting!), it already looks like I might be visiting Hannover. Clearly, I'm getting better at occupying my time, and hopefully I'll have less boring nights after working in lab all day. While not knowing German still makes living here difficult, I'm definitely starting to become more comfortable here, and it's really great meeting people and travelling around the country every weekend.