I don’t have the cable to get photos off of my camera so this is what I am sharing for now.
Berlin is really awesome. Our studio is right next to the hostel where we are staying and we have our own backyard/ bbq grill and kitchen and screening room with a projector. We are sharing it with architecture students from Mexico City
Basic recap of my first few days here:
Day 0, Sunday: flew from NYC to Berlin with my TA’s, Erik and Jerome.
-arrive at the hostel and run into our other classmates who got here the day before. we drink beers and do nothing for about 5 hours (berlin is pretty chillon), then rent bicycles for the next 3 weeks.
-the neighborhood that we are stationed in is prenzlauerberg which is basically the williamsburg of berlin (bars/ weird girls/ graffiti/ art scene/ gentrification etc). there are a ton of bars everywhere but we decide to ride around for an hour and a half in the dark to find a bar in another neighborhood to go to. we met this girl laura who moved to berlin from cologne the day before and her australian friend, leah. she gave me a ride on a bicycle to a really awesome bar in the woods by a river and my studio mate and i hung out with them until 7 am.
I come back at 7am with Brian to find Ben drinking with Danny in the lobby, still. Crazy kids. Ben and I find no point to sleeping at this point because class starts at 10 am the next day.
Day 01 Monday: we have our first day of class where upon arrival we are presented with the most amazing fancy gourmet breakfast. Then we went on a four hour boat tour. it was four hours. but pretty awesome. After the boat tour, I buy groceries with Dave and we grill bratwurst and have some german beer in the backyard of the studio. At this point in my trip, there are about 30 different inside jokes among my classmates. They are used liberally, sometimes in inappropriate situations.
Day 02 Tuesday: We meet again for class, which lasts about 6 hours and then watch the Netherlands v. Uruguay game at the hostel. After deciding we weren’t going to drink, we went out drinking at a bar around the corner where Brian and I ended up talking to some girls. I was talking to this girl named Veronique from Austria who is in Berlin traveling around with a band, and Brian was talking to some “mad hot chick”. She ends up being 17.
Day 03 Wednesday: My class rode our bicycles to a local exhibition of the peaceful german revolution of 1989 that is given from an east berliner perspective. Everything is in German but my professor translated for us and it was pretty neat. At midnight, I ride by myself through some shady industrial area of Berlin to go to a small house party that Veronique invited me to. Everyone there was super nice, and speaking english amongst themselves for some reason. Maybe they didnt want me to feel weird. There was some guy who co owns boys noize records there and some prominent boys noize artist there as well. Some other people there worked at Vice. And they read street carnage! Berlin is so hip. I just got back from that party.
More to come.
