Busted

We were three for three going through RDU airport security today. The culprits that got our carry-ons searched and swiped:

1. E's calculator. "Oops, I forgot to take it out of my backpack," he said. "You don't need to remove calculators," I said. He clarified: "I mean, I don't need a calculator in Germany."

2. Two "coq-au-vin" handmade chicken-rattle topped bottle stoppers. OK, I can see that those might be hard to decipher by X-ray, and each chicken--well, to quote Shakespeare, "though she be but little she is fierce!"

3. An at-the-time unopened 200g bar of Swiss dark chocolate with 30% whole hazelnuts. E has been working on making sure that one doesn't get us stopped again.

Be vigilant!

Berlin photo dump, Days 2-4

DAY 2

On our second day in Berlin, Stefan headed off to the Technical University to give a talk, and Elias and I walked through the Tiergarten to the Siegessäule.

The bottom part of the column is covered with detailed mosaics.

It's 285 steps to the top (295 if you count the steps on the outside). Can you see Alexanderplatz in the distance?

We continued through the Tiergarten, pausing at a robust German playground (built for lots of climbing, jumping, and what Americans might call "death trap" opportunities). Then on to the Spree, past government buildings, all the way to the Hauptbahnhof. The Hauptbahnhof is an arabesque of glass and steel. Note the Ritter Sport chocolate add running up the staircase.

We took a train to the Dahlem-Dorf stop, with Hanna and two dogs expertly joining us en route on the train. We left Elias with friends and went for a walk in the Grunewald, a huge wooded park on the southwest side of Berlin. There, polite dogs walk off-leash alongside their look-alike humans. The dogs nod their heads to one another as they pass, with very little barking or disorderly conduct. Along the lake, they neatly line up to chase sticks. As this often involves running into the lake, most of the polite off-leash dogs are wet.

Candace belongs to Hanna's roommate.

Ninja belongs to Hanna.

These two dogs dressed very much like their human, except their human was not wet.

Hanna and I met up with Stefan for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant (Seerose) near the Südstern U-Bahn station. Afterward, we took a walk through the neighborhood, which provided fodder for blog posts on puns and Berlinerisch.

DAY 3

Stefan headed back to Steinebach in the morning. I took the subway to Friederichsstrasse. Heading to the Museumsinsel, I passed a store that had lined all of its windows with antique sewing machines. Unfortunately, the store was still closed, so I could only take a photo from the outside. Liebe Schwester, this photo is for you.

A view of the Pergamon Museum...

And the Dom...

I met up with Elias and friends at the Pergamon. Among other items, the Pergamon houses the ca. 575 BCE Ischtar Tor, the 8th gate to the inner city of Bablyon. It remains one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I couldn't get very good photos of it, but the Wikipedia link has some good images.

Some of the pieces in the Pergamon are ~2600-2700 years old.

2600-year-old glaze. Looks like some test tiles I've seen...

If you ever feel sad, like you've got a hole in your heart, know that people and deities have been feeling the same way for millennia.

Pile o' tired boys.

Our group of seven (two moms, 5 kids) had lunch together near the New Synagogue.

After lunch, we all took a hot hot train to Potsdam. Have I mentioned yet that Europe was dealing with a crop-destroying heat wave while we were there? No AC, no ceiling fans, no window screens, and millions of gleeful mosquitoes. (The mosquitoes weren't bad in Berlin, but they were awful in Steinebach and environs). There's a killing to be made in Germany with ceiling fans and screens. 

The real attraction in Potsdam is Sanssouci, Frederick the Great's summer palace, but we didn't make it that far, opting instead for a boat tour that left from near the old market square. The square is in the process of being renovated. It was remarkably dead the day we were there. Note the mix of stately classical architecture and depressing Soviet-era utilitarian buildings.

DAY 4

Elias and I had most of Saturday to spend in Berlin before catching our train back to Steinebach. We started off by checking out a flea market near our Tiergarten hotel, then walking a few km to Schloss Charlottenburg (17th & 18th c.) to see the gardens. Charlottenburg and the abundant country residences we had seen from the boat the day before in Potsdam made us wonder whether governing was mainly a recreational activity to keep monarchs occupied between building projects.

By the 18th century, the monarchs had figured out that expansive grounds required an expansive tea house, so they added Belvedere beyond the carp pond.

After leaving the gardens, we walked to the Jungfernheide U-Bahn station. Each station has its own distinctive art.

Elias had nobly put up with a lot of boring grown-up touristy stuff, so he got to choose our last stop in Berlin. Thus we went to the Legoland Discovery Center in the Sony Zentrum at Potsdamer Platz. There, he discovered that he has outgrown Lego Discovery Centers.

Here is the fall of the Berlin wall, dramatically depicted in Legos. Watch all the way to the end for the full effect.

The Sony Center has a dramatic glass ceiling. It is the place to go if you want to be surrounded by American tourists.

With a little time left post-Legos, we took the U-Bahn to Friederischsstrasse and walked back toward the Hauptbahnhof.

Snazzy windows at the Pharmakologisches Institut.

Saving the whales.

The Reichstag. Government happens here.

A flock is born

Photo: Two American delegates (left) greet the newly hatched flock of the Freiburg Huehnergesellschaft fuer Kunst, Kultur, und Vegetarismus.

Warning: Do not lick the German chickens. Six of them are coated in a toxic glaze, chock full of copper and barium. I chose the glaze because I saw it adorning various bowls and mugs on a shelf at the Keramik Werkstatt, and it looked like it had character. Someone In Charge probably should have told students that lining bowls and mugs with heavy-metal laden glazes is not a good idea. Since the chickens are not food surfaces, I think they're reasonably safe to Hendl.

And then there were chickens

Everyone we know in Germany is getting a chicken for the holidays, because there's something comforting about creating a flock of cheerful chickens when you're living an ocean away from your well-equipped community pottery studio back home. In case you're wondering, the photos demonstrate that to make a chicken, you have to start with an egg.

The recycled clay this evening had clumps of unidentifiable black leathery crud in it, and there were many casualties among the eggs on the ancient 33 rpm Shimpo wheel as a result. From a bad egg comes a contaminated chicken, and who wants a chicken with a hole blasted through it due to exploding organic crud? No one, that's who.

Clay class at the Fabrik

Knowing pretty much nothing about the layout of Freiburg before we committed to renting our apartment sight-unseen, we somehow managed to end up living within walking distance to most of the things that are important to us. Thus this evening I was able to trot over to the cooperative collective, Die Fabrik fuer Handwerk, Kultur, und Oekologie (The Factory for Handicraft, Culture, and Ecology), for the first of a five-week long session of pottery classes. As far as I can tell, the Fabrik is the only place in town to offer wheel-throwing classes, and they offer a grand total of...one. I'm taking "Drehen ohne durchzudrehen" ("Turning without blowing a gasket," i.e. beginning and continuing wheel) in the hopes of acquiring some pottery vocabulary and keeping my hands in contact with mud.

Located in the back of the Fabrik on the third floor, the cheerful Keramik Werkstatt (pottery studio) has all of the basic wheel-throwing necessities, such as mostly functioning wheels, relatively uncontaminated recycled clay, and a sink. For better or for worse, it also obeys the German pack-maximum-stuff-into-minimum-space principle.* All you potters at home: know that you've got it good!

*I've written a lot about this principle already, but have failed to point out that of course it applies only to us plebes. Royalty traditionally has had no shortage of square footage or high ceilings (not that the Habsburgs or Bavarian nobility would have had kick wheels in their Schloesser).