Sorry, Mom.
The new quarter is now in its second week. Last period, a lot of the material was included in my undergraduate coursework, but not in the programs over here, so I had a fair bit of review. And a lot of hours. This period, I only have 14 credits (rather than 18), and the classes are, for me at least, much more interesting. And, while they are still very demanding, I actually have some time to do the reading, watch the lecture videos, and all of that fun stuff. Oh, and the RA thing, too. There will never be enough hours in the day.
In short, it's still early enough in the quarter that I'm feeling on top of things.
Last weekend Ev and I went to Berlin to visit the Stocks, family friends and family of our German exchange student. We were ready to get out of the Netherlands again (it seems like we need a trip every couple weeks to keep us out of our respective school/work/being in a foreign country funks), and seeing people who treat us like family sounded really, really nice. I should probably note that these particular tickets were obtained around a month ago.
Saturday morning we took the dogs for a walk and Wolfgang showed us around the trails behind the house. The Stock's house is located on the boarder of east Berlin, and there used to be a munition storage facility behind them. There is still some barbed wire and various footings, foundations, and old access roads where the facilities used to be. After our enlightening and educational walk, Ev indulged me as I fussed around in the Stock's kitchen. Our kitchen here has an oven (which, as I have mentioned before, is kind of a miracle), but there's very little counter space, which makes it hard to cook fancy food since you hit your head on various water heaters and stove hoods in the small space. So I was thrilled to take advantage of the open, well-stocked kitchen and cook dinner for everyone. Oh, and play with the animals.
I really miss my animals... enough that we've been talking about getting a cat. I tend to forget how allergic I am to cats. This weekend reminded me of this fact, and we are no longer thinking about getting a fuzzy kitty. I like to breathe.
But their cats are pretty fun...
After my day of pretending to be domestic, Burchard, our exchange student from bloody ages ago, took us on a tour of Berlin.
The week before our visit was the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down, and it seemed that it was at the forefront of everyone's minds.
Some of the art on the Wall is pretty amazing. And very, very political.
You can follow the location of the Wall all the way through Berlin. The Germans have obviously gone to great lengths to memorialize their past, both good and bad. We saw monuments to the Romas and Jews killed during WWII, as well as tributes to the people who died, escaped, or were arrested during the Soviet occupation of East Berlin.
One of the most powerful stops on our mini-tour of Berlin was the section of the Wall still intact, providing a view from both the east (below) and west side of the wall.
I can only imagine how hard it must have been to see this separating your entire city. Burchard mentioned that there is still a perceived difference between east and west Berliners, which didn't exist prior to the construction of the Wall.
Naturally, Burchard lightened the mood a little bit.
Other notable stops included the parliament building (which I failed to get a picture of), the "gate" built by Napoleon way back when, Burchard's brewery, and a couple nifty buildings of engineering interest.
The beer was excellent. DiMo's face.... well, that's for you to decide.
Before we headed back to the Stock's house, Burchard showed us this clock near one of the (many) train stations. Even from Berlin, you can keep an eye on Alaska (at least to some extent).
Is it sad that a world clock made me feel a tiny bit homesick?
It was fun being able to have discussions about the current political environment, differences between US and European governments and healthcare, engineering, medical research ... Wolfgang and Oriana are very up to date with the state of things and it's always interesting to hear other people's viewpoints and experiences. We had some excellent discussions that I (and Ev, I'm pretty sure) enjoyed immensely.
Now I'm back in Rotterdam doing the whole school thing. Ev, Deva and I are going to Freyr in Belgium this weekend for some late-season climbing on real rocks!
You have no idea how excited that makes me.
Soooooooo hopefully I'll get another update out Sunday night and be back on this whole "once a week" thing.
Maybe.
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