Last night we took advantage of the "Long Night of the Museums" - an event that happens a couple of times a year here. For 8 Euros you get to visit any of 80 museums, from 5pm til 2am. Most have special performances and food as well. We went with a group of fellow Goethe-Institut students. First stop was this strange Greenpeace exhibition, where someone had brought a clever "fire & water" sculpture. Our friend Betina tried it - and it was a bit hot, so we hear! 

Here's the group we were with - Jennifer and Barry (both from Berkeley, though he's Croatian and grew up in Switzerland), and ... 

From the left - Fernanda, Angela, Betina (all from Brazil), and Lisa (from Norway). They are all very sweet and lots of fun. 

The planetarium is really big and combines the laser-show-type things we have at the Pacific Science Center with a very nice star map. It was craziest when they rotated it and we all felt like the seats were moving! 

Next stop was the Deutsche Guggenheim - a relatively small space in the Deutsche Bank building. It is hosting a collection of Jackson Pollack's works on paper, which was really cool to see, not only because many were very bueatiful, but also because you could really see his development from more concrete subjects in the 30's to total abstraction in the 50's.  

This work actually belongs to the Washington State Arts Consortium, which includes UW! We thought that was kind of neat...  

Our last stop (before thwarted attempts to find some live music -- we did end up catching the last 30 seconds of an Afro-Jazz group at the German Historical Museum around 1am) was the aquarium! We had to fight our way to the windows because of the crowds, but it was still beautiful. They have quite the tropical fish collection. 

They were small sharks, but they were still scary! 

Ooooo ... barracuda! 

These jellyfish looked really cosmic, what with the oily stuff floating on the water above... we had fun on our 'Long Night,' especially because it was nice to be with friends. :)  

I had lots of fun with Photoshop and our pics from the museum visit last Friday. I think this looks pretty cool, don't you? 

Those of you who are visiting, you might think about a visit to this gallery - it's all art that's been made in Berlin, hence its name - the "Berlinische Galerie." There are some really famous pieces (DADA stuff, for instance) and some really nice new pieces. It was very pleasant.

It snowed, finally! It's strange though, very unlike Seattle, no one has fun here when it snows! Everyone just goes around hunched against the wind and scowling. I don't understand - everything is very white and beautiful, though now after 24 hours the sidewalks are getting that icky brown color ... still, it's been very wintry and fun.

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It was snowing hard, very large, wet flakes. Chance was less than pleased. (Also because of the cold.) 

Here's the gate to a graveyard in the Berlin district of Steglitz. It's a really pretty and quite upscale, suburban area.

Here is Chance's tiny silhouette at the U-Bahn station ... I just liked this picture. There is no interesting story to go with it. :) 

Yesterday we visited Hamburger Bahnhof, the "Museum for the Present" here in Berlin. Normally it houses a really large and great collection of mostly German modern art, plus rotating exhibitions. Right now though, it's home to the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection. Maybe you've read about it - Flick is the grandson of Nazi arms producer Friedrich Flick, and the money Flick Jr. used to buy all this art is inherited, some call it "blood money." The question of responsibility and ownership is quite interesting - rather than donate to the reparations funds, Flick Jr. funded the creation of an anti-racist research institute. He has loaned his massive modern art collection (1000 works, mostly of conceptual art) to the Berlin museum for 7 years, and also built an extension to the museum which makes it twice as big, and it was already huge! We strolled briskly through it all, and it took 3 hours. We have to go back now when we have a whole day to really scrutinize the high points. I didn't understand much of it - it's the kind of thing that takes a little background reading, I think. But it was interesting nonetheless.

This Very Green Room had really funny entrances that you had to squeeze through. I think some people just plain wouldn't fit, because there was just about a foot-wide opening. I didn't color-correct these photos at all - it was really really green, flourescent light. Very interesting, though I have absolutely NO clue why or what it means.

Last night we went out to celebrate the birthday of our classmate Laure (on the left, turning to talk to the waiter, who, in true German style, was absolutely horrid). On the right is her husband Emanuel. They are from Paris, and he is a diplomat here at the French Embassy! They are extremely nice and interesting people. We ate Singaporian food, which was basically Asian fusion. It was okay, but we still think somehow Berliners have not figured out how to use spices and coconut milk correctly. Hm.

Here is classmate Jennifer, an American from Berkeley. Her boyfriend Beri is to the left, and another American who is not in our class to the right. We had fun being very naughty and speaking English for a while. It's such a relief after all that German.

This picture is really dark, but if you squint you can make out our classmates Enma (from Ecuador but lives in Switzerland), Fabien (French Swiss), Vasilena (Bulgarian but studies in the U.S.) and Laure again. Friendly people, and a lovely evening.

and the rest of the house...

Okay, so I realized that the other day I promised you a "tour" of our current digs, and I only really showed you the kitchen and the dangerous stairs. (Those being, of course, the key parts of the house anyway...) But the reason I didn't show you more is because most of it looks like this. We like to called it the "lived-in" look. Some other people choose to call it other things like "messy," but we're optimists here. That said, the (lack of) quality of German building materials (in this house, the lightswitches, in the last one, everything) is starting to get to us. You can't turn on a light in this place with out the darn thing coming off in your hand! Land of Bauhaus? Hm...

Here's the living & dining room. The furniture might look a little outdated or 70's, but I assure you in person it's very much a *stylish* retro look.

This is the view out the office window. If I turn my head when I'm typing to you, this is what I see!

Yesterday we hung out in our new neighborhood! (It's not actually new, because we already live right nearby, but our new place, which we move into next month, will be even closer.) This street, Bergmannstrasse, reminded us of New York. It's definitely one of the coolest places we've discovered in Berlin so far - tons of ethnic food, cafes, and funky shops. We are obviously extremely excited for our new place! The weather was great too - except that it was below freezing...

Early mornings ... we crawled out of bed at around 7 this morning to make coffee, finish homework, and schlepp ourselves off to Monday morning class at 8:30. But the sky was really gorgeous. Cause for great rejoicing: the sky is finally staying light until around 5pm. Wunderbar!

Hello! We are enjoying our favorite things here in Berlin this week - reading the newspaper, riding the U-Bahn (both illustrated here), and, oh yeah - plays, operas, museums ... we're definitely getting to be culture-buffs. We're living in a relatively quiet neighborhood in a sub-letted apartment. Our renter, Sybilla, is a creative and capable person who renovated it herself. It's a very comfy spot ... too bad we have to leave in February! But, we found another place not far from here which is just as wonderful. Anyway, a tour of our current digs -

Here's the kitchen. It's really super comfortable to work in and Sybilla obviously loves cooking, because she has all the equipment. And a dishwasher, yay!

So, the only slightly uncool thing about this apartment is the stairs. She had them put in because originally this and the upstairs were two separate apartments. But I don't understand why there couldn't have been a little wider opening! They are slippery and a bit daunting!