Week 1: Germany

Whoo. (Sigh of relief). I finally created my blog. After realizing that not having a catchy name for my blog probably wasn't an adequate excuse for not creating it, I have finally taken the step into this unknown territory where I write about I don't know what in the language I'm not supposed to be using. Hopefully some inspired ideas will stem from the discourse, and for fear of losing contact with all you loved ones back home, I know that this is a necessary step.

Like I said, the name for the blog lacked inspiration. When Brianna was writing her blog in Germany, each day we'd try to come up with some awesome quote that we had heard or said that summarized the day or at least added some fun flavor (like Brianna's elegant: "I want that guys porkchop" (context intentionally excluded) or Berlin's favorite self-description, "Poor but sexy." If I come up with something a little more creative than "Jason in Spain" (but what wouldn't be?), I'll change that.

Anyways.

I have now been in Europe for some 16 days. Half of which was spent in Europe with my sister Brianna and the other half has been here in Spain (also significantly with Brianna). For those of you I've kept less in contact with, I'm here in Madrid for the next 5 months studying at la Universidad de Carlos III de Madrid. It's a very well-respected social sciences university here in Spain with the country's best economic program, so it should be a good time.

A quick run through of Germany (those of you with ties to the family or excellent Facebook stalking skills can see Brianna's much more detailed blog for more of this time). Bri and I arrived in Munich, Germany on Saturday, August 21st. Jet-legged, we did little more that Saturday than fall asleep for a good 5 hour nap in our hotel, wander the city a bit and encounter our first traditionally German meal. My attempt at ordering a hot bratwurst like sausage only obtained an awkward, cold, wet pile of sausage with a random assortment of pickled vegetables. Ambiguous commentary ensued.

The next day we were off to Dachau for an educational and poignant tour of the concentration camp there. They have reconstructed two of the barracks that housed the prisoners and the original main building still stands so we were able to tour all of that as well as the crematorium. They showed us a video that had a lot of footage and pictures from the era and it was completely overwhelming. Lots of shots of piled corpses, desperately thin bodies and atrociously brutal treatment. By the time we made it to the museum at the end of our tour, I wasn't really sure how much more information I was able to process. Overall, I was struck primarily by the sheer brutality of it all, but also by the lack of awareness following the events--what wasn't learned. In the 60s or 70s they created a piece of art that includes representations of the different patches that were placed on the prisoners (colored Stars of David or triangles denoting the reasons for internment). Although the artist had originally included all the persecuted groups, the final piece neglected 2 colors: the pink triangles of the homosexuals and the black triangles of the asocials (people that didn't live with or in society, today the German word refers to homeless people). It's that even then those groups were so heavily stigmatized that their pain wasn't recognized. It's disheartening that even after such tragedy, human rights are slow to grow. I always wanted to envision post-war times as a thoughtful reconciliation instead of simple ceasefire while tensions resume.

I think it was that night that was had our first, mostly uncomfortable German bar experience. Brianna's several translations of "soda water" went completely misunderstood, but once we finally got our drinks, we were left alone in the corner, unable to genuinely start a conversation with anyone (we speak very little German) or did anyone really seem open to that experience. So much for meeting super attractive German lovers.

The following day we were to Neuschwanstein and the surrounding area. It was beautiful (see pictures on Facebook). We learned a ton about the crazy (but actually sane) King Ludwig II who built his dream castles seemingly in an effort to recapture his lost youth. His parents had forbidden that their two sons associate with other children, which certainly helped in leading Ludwig's brother to his eventual home in an insane asylum. Our guide heavily suggested that Ludwig II was the lover of Wagner (the source of all sources, Wikipedia, did not confirm this explicitly) but it's clear that Ludwig was obsessed with the man. More or less each of the finished rooms in Ludwig II's Neuschwanstein is a tribute to a Wagner work. Eventually, after proclaiming that he was going to fire his entire cabinet, Ludwig ended up dead in a lake, very mysteriously. There had been a psychologist that a few days previously had declared Ludwig insane (which he did without meeting the king). The psychologist also was found dead in that same lake. Very fishy. Coming back to modern day history, we took a very nice bike ride around the countryside. I bought a series of magic dvds. Prepare yourselves to be impressed.

After Munich came Berlin, which like it's self-description claims, I found to be surprisingly poor. I always assumed it was some big, bustling European metropolis. It is not. During the Cold War, the world powers were pouring money into Berlin because it was such a significant symbol, and therefore the city prospered then, but once the Wall fell down, they all headed out of town and didn't leave much. The city was conveniently able to construct a new downtown in the former no-man's land of the wall, but unfortunately most of these buildings are somewhat/mostly empty. We did a lot of interesting things, all of which I won't recount here, but here are a couple more tidbits: We climbed (in elevator) to the top of the Soviet-era TV tour (a slightly taller response to the West Berlin version) where we got beautiful views of the city, but I most liked the comparison you could make between West and East Berlin. In East Berlin you have all the communist style concrete buildings, and in West there is much more of the traditional German look. I particularly find this part of German history because the Wall fell mere months before I was born, so I like to think how reunified Germany is really only as old as I am. We went to this really awesome club in East Berlin in an old Soviet warehouse. Aesthetically very cool. However, it turns out that Germans don't dance together. They all face in one direction and face the large speakers blasting techno music and sort of dance a bit. Super different. We were really missing our posse during this time because going out with two is a bit unfortunate.

I'm just realizing now that this entry is probably getting really long, and if you all are anything like me (which I hope you're not) you'd look at this really long entry and feel a bit overwhelmed, maybe skim it a bit, but not really want to take all the time necessary to read it. Thus I am going to pause, publish this German recap, and begin anew with Spain.