Field Trip

Welcome

Your wishes have been fulfilled. After hours of staring at your computer screen pressing your web browser's "refresh" button, you are finally being treated to more ultra-insightful thoughts and observations from Jeff's mind. So put on your favorite music (preferably Balkan Beat Box's new album, "Nu Med"), grab some shitty American beer, and absorb every little nugget of witty, well thought-out prose.

Thursday - Strassenbiering

Parking Ticket

On Thursday evening, I got the first parking ticket of my life. On our way to the Elbe, Emily and I stopped at the hauptbahnhof to purchase a train ticket for our weekend field trip. When it comes to finding a place to lock up my bike, my only criteria is that it be an immobile object to which a cable lock can be successfully threated through. Unfortunately our friends at the Deutsche Bahn seemed to disagree. After being aided in an exhilarating fight with the ticket automat by some good old Saxon hospitality, we walked outside to get our bikes and found a notice placed on my frame underneath of my rear brake cable. Assuming it was just some sort of advertisement, I put it in my pocket and began to unlock my bike. I put my key in the first lock and unlocked it as normal. Unfortunately, I did not have a key to either of the second locks detaining both my and Emily's bikes. After playing Language Barrier Taboo with several employees of the DB, we finally got our bikes unlocked free of charge. All in all, this made for a fun adventure and a good story.

Strassenbiering

On Thursday night I discovered my new favorite activity: strassenbiering. (Linguistic background: "Strasse" is the German word for street. It is adjetivised by adding an "n", and concatenated with the word "beer" made into a gerund, to form my new word for the act of drinking beer on the streets). The original plan was to go Elbenbiering, but when we crossed the river we couldn't resist the temptation to visit our favorite Neustadt doener haus. After being entertained by our colorful Turkish friends, we stepped out onto the street (one of my favorites in the city) and decided that instead of going back to the Elbe, we would just sit on a concrete wall on the street and drink like the Neustadt punks that we are. In reality, this particular concrete wall really is in the middle of a massive punk gathering place. On a weekend, you can expect the number of punks gathered about this area well into the hundreds. I enjoy hanging out with punks under the condition that I have a guide (Alex) and they are speaking my language. Luckily, this scene does not seem to be present during the week, so it was just people like Emily and I who wanted to enjoy a beer on the street. We even met a group of people who were living in Dresden but originally hail from other parts of the world. They were all quite drunk, to varying degrees. The most coherent of the group that I spoke to was Daniel, who is originally from Russia. He gave me his phone number with the intention of trying to meet up on Friday night, but unfortunately Friday rolled around and I realized that I don't have a phone with which to call it. Too bad.

Strassenbiering may very well be one of my favorite activities of all time. I'm not surprised, though, as it is such a perfect combination of my favorite things in life: cities, beer, people watching, conversation, etc. I suppose it is a more social version of sitting on a street bench, drinking coffee, and reading a book.

Friday - Skankin' It Up in the Park

On Friday, I had the pleasure of attending what I assume to be the coolest festival this city has to offer: Bunten Republik Neustadt. It was quite unlike anything I have ever seen. The streets were literally packed to the point that it was impossible to move in some places. There were bands, DJs, beer and food stands, etc. packed amongst the crowd on the street. Most clubs had a free line up of live music for the night. I went over with Teri, Jess, someone with whom Teri works, and our newest new arrival, Sameer. We began by walking through the crowded street while enjoying some beer, and eventually ended up in the park into which the street terminates. The park was more or less filled with punks (this is Dresden Neustadt we're talking about here) and there was a stage at the front. When we first got there, it was just some angry metal band playing, so we sat in the grass at a safe distance from the stage and just took in our surroundings. As soon as the metal band finished their set, a new band started to set up. A trumpet, that's interesting. Wait a minute, is that a saxophone? A trombone? If I didn't know any better, I would say I am going to be treated to a ska band!!!

And right I was. The band was amazing. It's too bad I never learned their name, so I will be unable to explore their studio recorded music. I had the time of my life up in the pit, skanking like I have never skanked before. Halfway through the set, the band was talking to the audience in German so I was more or less standing still. Teri came up and said that everyone else wanted to leave. Perhaps it was the adrenaline talking, but I just didn't care. I told them that they could just leave without me. Unfortunately, this ended up with me being left completely alone. I stuck around to see what the next band was going to be, but unfortunately it was another metal band that I had no interest in seeing. I ended up taking the tram home much earlier than I would have liked to on an occasion like this. Long story short, I traded the last several hours of my evening for fifteen more minutes of ska show. Was it worth it? Hell yes!

Saturday and Sunday - Field Trip

The Itinerary

On Saturday at 04:00, we met one of our two teachers (Emily and Julie) at the school (Hauptbahnhof) to board the school bus (DB train) to go to Washington, DC (Berlin). We had plans to visit the Smithsonian museums (Checkpoint Charlie museum and German Jewish History museum) and to take a guided tour of the city. Like any good field trip, our carefully planned activities were supplemented with a bit of leisure time.

I can understand why my teachers (Emily and Julie) and classmates (Teri, Sameer, and Jess) wanted to take such an early train in order to maximize our time in the city, but it ended up killing any possibility of exploring Berlin's night life. It seemed that most of us, including myself, did not manage to get more than an hour's worth of fragmented sleep on the train. After we got home from a nice, long, drunken dinner at a Tapas bar, we sat around and literally fell asleep during the process of planning our night of going out.

I Have a Bad Attitude

I'm not really a museum type of person. That's right; I said it. I would not say that I was necessarily bored at the museums the same way a small child would be. In fact, I felt that I gained a lot of knowledge from them, and am eager to learn more on the topics they presented. I just don't understand why everyone automatically thinks that museums are the best way to spend time in a city. In my opinion, I would have been better off sitting right here in Dresden reading books about the history of the Berlin wall and the Jewish people in Germany. Then, I would have spent the time I would have otherwise spent in the museums really experiencing the city of Berlin. To me, this means spending the day walking the streets, hanging out in the parks and leisure areas, aimlessly exploring the public transportation system, etc. Then come night time I would meet some people in the hostel and go out and have a good time. The trip that I took to Montreal about half a year ago was absolutely perfect. In the short time I was there, I really got a feel for the city itself, met some cool people in the hostel, and never set foot inside of a museum. Whether or not there are museums in Montreal I do not know. If there are, I will go to my local library and check out books on their topics and read them at my leisure.

Me and Berlin: A Strong Feeling of Neutrality

My opinion of the city of Berlin has not changed from what it was before this field trip: It is some big city in Germany. Of course I can't say that I didn't like Berlin. It's freaking Berlin, it's supposed to be freaking awesome, right? My answer is yes, it probably is freaking awesome. For whatever reason I just didn't get that feeling. I failed to mention that we didn't spend all of our time locked up in museums. On Sunday we took a very nice cycling tour of the city, so this was perhaps my best chance to see Berlin itself. As far as architectural beauty goes, I really didn't find much. Granted, I believe that most of our time was spent in East Berlin, so concrete socialist architecture is expected. But even the famous touristy stuff did not do anything for me.

Berlin's number one flaw is the simple fact that it is not located on the Elbe. Furthermore, the street signs are white, whereas ours are blue. Blue is obviously a better color than white. Their main park is called the Tiergarten, whereas ours is the Grosser Garten. Grosser Garten is a better name because it is an alliteration, thus Dresden is a better city. In all seriousness, though, I find myself forced to compare Berlin to Dresden in order to explain why the famous touristy stuff in Berlin was completely lost on me. The comparison to Dresden is strictly for architectural purposes. Everyone tells me that Berlin is a better city, so I will just have to take their word for it. My emotional attachment to Dresden makes my opinion on the matter completely invalid. I basically get attached to any city I live in or spend a lot of time in, even if from an outsider's point of view it really isn't a nice place at all (see Blacksburg and Roanoke).

Let us begin with the Brandenburg Gate as an example, which is all the rage according to the post card industry. Yes, the gate itself is a fine example of architecture and is most pleasing to the eye. But it is one structure. It stands alone and does not do anything to interact with the structures around it. The same is true for all of the pretty buildings in Berlin--they are more or less on their own. Even if there are multiple pretty buildings in a given area, it is more or less just by chance. I invite you to take a scroll through my earlier blog entries. What do you notice as a general theme of my photographic coverage of Dresden's Innere Altstadt? For the most part, no picture contains just one single building. This is because I can't get too excited about a building on its own. I am more interested in how multiple buildings come together to form a pleasing scene. To be honest, I don't even know what most of those buildings in Innere Altstadt even are. I'm not too sure I really care, either (actually I do care, but just to enhance my knowledge of the history of the city). You may have noted that one exception is the palace in the park. To me, this is not an exception. No, it does not play with any buildings around it, as it is quite alone. It does, however, create a center focal point for the park. This type of "interaction", whether it be with other buildings, streets, a park, etc., is what gets me excited about architecture. I can't get too excited about a building on its own.

Maybe I should go back to Berlin, slow things down a bit, and see if I can actually get a feel for what the city is all about. I had a very fun weekend spending time with my friends, whether or not I am the number one fan of museums. I think that one of these weekends I am going to try and recreate the style of traveling which allowed me to experience Montreal so well. This will, of course, require a stay of longer than one or two nights, so this will most likely exclude my friends, all of which have a better work ethic than myself. I will choose between Amsterdam and Munich to see in this more laid back way, even if it has to be by myself.

Conclusions and Farewell

Although it all started due to a comment that I found to be inappropriate, I now find the back-and-forth interactions in our little "blogosphere" to be extremely fun. I still think we should keep the comments on this blog relatively clean, but for those of you who are enjoying this battle of immaturity, the main grounds can be found on Dan's new blog, and my new wiki. Links to both of these sites can be found on the left-hand side of this page. Note that the content on these two sites is exactly the kind of stuff I am trying to keep out of the comments here. You have been warned. You will be offended.

Frank and Greg, see you soon! Emily absolutely cannot wait to meet you.