Thursday, April 25, 2013

Berlin Continued

I see a lot of churches. As lovely as most are, I admit that I've become a bit more likely to say "Meh. Another church." than "Wow." Berlin's cathedral is one of the "WOW!" churches. My pictures don't do it justice.







 I'm rather wary of being buried in a box one day. I'd much rather be cremated. That said, if I have to be buried in a box, bury me in one like this one, but purple and glittery. :)

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

B to the Erlin. Word.

I went to Berlin. That's in Germany. I speak no German beyond "nien." Luckily, the fabulous Allison and Andrea Schmidt showed me around.

Flying to Berlin from Riga was cheap. I scored a 99 euro ticket through AirBaltic.Berlin is a bit more expensive than Riga, but since I have a student id and since I stayed with friends, it wasn't too pricy, thankfully.

Here are some of the pictures from my trip. I put all of the photos up on Facebook. I'll do a separate post with the graffiti art photos. My internet is slow today and I don't want to overwhelm it. :)


Here is the Brandenburg Gate. We were stopped by two Russian teenagers and asked "Why is it so cold here?" Allison's answer: "It's Berlin?" Like me, they probably thought, "Germany is south of me. Therefore, it is warm." Not true. 

 The Pergemon museum was rad. They rebuilt a Roman (?) sacrificial shrine inside the building. They also have a fabulous Islamic art exhibit. 

 This is the first Latin American restaurant we ate at. The food was mediocre. The music was great. 


                                         

  One day, we went to Potsdam. We ate at a chocolate restaurant. I was too excited about the chocolate to take a photo of the spread before, so here is the after. 





 This palace took forever to walk to. I'm sure in the summer it's a lovely walk. Not so much in the melty spring. 

 Allison and I got a behind the scenes tour of the German government thanks to Franzi, a friend who works for one of the politicians.

 This is the view from the dome in in the Reichstag.
 This was a rad little Mexican restaurant that made my day.

First taco Tuesday since leaving Lawrence!

I'll post on the graffiti and the Cathedral later. I'm tired of waiting for photos to load! This post is brought to you by Ellie Goulding's Explosions, even though I'm sure I've already linked that on here at some point. I love this song so much. :) She's coming to Riga, but I can't afford tickets. And it's in the middle of the week, which is damn inconvenient.






Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Interlude

Four things I like about Rezekne in no particular order:

1. People here are genuinely nice.
2. My rent is cheap and I live near the center of town.
3. I feel like I've gone around the world to end up in my home town.
4. My schools are lovely and my students are smart. 

Four things I don't like about Rezekne:

1. I feel like I've gone around the world to end up in my home town.
2. I miss cafes.
3. Riga is only 4 hours away, but that seems longer than it did when I first arrived.
4. Snow in April. Gah.


I just got back from visiting friends in Berlin and Zagreb. I will update you on that this weekend. It'll be enthralling, I'm sure. I'm a very exciting person.

Here's a picture from Zagreb:

This interlude post is brought to you by Tom Petty's "American Girl" and sunshine.