hi and hi!

its a VERY sunny day here in Berlin.... around 32 degrees celcius with a stroooong sun. Its actually a very nice change ... and it makes it feel like summer is finally coming.

So I had a very adeventerous day yesterday. I explored very northern Berlin...so northern that one of my destinations was a whimsical village green. Its called Alt-Luebars ... and it took a looong time to get there. To see a picture go to this website . I found out about it through a website about Berlin hidden places .. and it was indeed hidden! It was basically a village green with old taverns, an old church, and lots of horses. I took a long peaceful walk on sandy roads through horse fields...if thats what you call them. I even talked to a nice man ...dressed in tall leather boots and farm clothes ... who was walking his horse for some a-grazin'. It was really nice ... and made me smile for seriously 10 minutes ... nothing makes me happier than making friendly small talk with strangers. I think what brought us together was the boiling heat ... to which we both said "hoo!" as we shook our heads .... Anyway ..

After that I went up a few subway stops to Frohnau ... and from there I visited a buddhist house. if you want, here is their website ...you can click on english, then on photo album for photos. I loved it there....the three main parts are the library, temple, and garden. I spent most of my time in the library...and some in the garden. I was gonna maaaybe meditate .. but something didnt feel right.....iiiiii don't know. There were tons of pine trees there and many pine cones were on the ground .... the smell of all the pine reminded me of something but I couldn't put my finger on it. I think it was Viriginia ..

So that day of exploring was very sunny and hot ... and as a result I got a little sunburn. And then today, the crazy that I am .. I walked around more in the sun and now Im more so (Sorry Mom!). But do not fret .. I read extensively about what to do now that the sunburn has occured ... so the healing process is on its way.

Not much else to report ... oh, I attended a Stanford function last night. It was a reception with lots of yummy food ... like curry chicken, tomatoes and mozarella, pasta salad with tuna .... and for dessert there was this red berry jelly thing with vanilla sauce. it was all really tasty ... and really free. good and good!

alright, thats it for now. tschuss!

Deb

hey hey hey

its 1029 am on wednesday. not too much is new ... the weather is beautiful here in Berlin and I have been enjoying it. Jesse and I saw some movies 2 nights ago....one of which was a movie featured in the Berlinale. It was a Forum film, the forum meaning a forum for young new film makers, and I saw a lot of forum films during the festival. Basically a lot of them are super artsy .. with no words and jsut picture collages with wierd sounds. So this film was called Ice/Sea and it was 37 minutes of footage of peopel at the beach w/o words and with weird music....... it wasn't very enjoyable. Just sort of boring I guess. And then after that we saw "The Jazz Singer"....a 1927 film with Al Jolson. It was very entertaining ... about a jewish family, the father of which is a cantor. He is the 5th generation of cantors, and is upset when his son wants to be a jazz singer and sing ragtime songs instead of prayers. The crazy thing about the film is that Al Jolson black faces at the end (to see a picture go here http://www.musicals101.com/News/jolson.jpg). Obviously its very racist, and I dont agree with black facing, but I think its historically significant and Im glad I saw it.

Some things I plan to do: go on a walking tour with a Stanford class, meet some old Lexia people and an old teacher to have coffee, meet with an old language school friend, and have brunch with a lexia pal. There is a globalization conference going on with Stanford starting tonight and going until saturday noon .... all of the other sites (beijing, santiago de chile, kyoto) are flying here to Berlin, getting put up in nice hotels, basicalyl getthing the treatment. So to be nice they are also putting the Berlin students in a hotel, so Jesse will be staying there at least tonight...maybe tommorow, maybe even the day after that. I'm jealous! It should be nice for him, though. It will definitely be luxurious ... and the entire conference is sponsored by lufthansa and siemens so they are allowed to order tons of room service!

Well ok, this has been a boring blog. Sorry!

Oh ... I am taking a trip soon, between the 1st and 7th of June to Aix-en-Provence ..Southern France .. to see my great Wellesley friend Caitlin. Im super excited!!!! From what I know Aix is pretty small and quaint and beautiful, so I think it will be a lot of relaxing/quality time spending/good food eating fun (as opposed to the fast paced, hop on the subway, see a million things fun). I have never been to France, let along Southern France, so it should be good and great.

Ok =)

Until next time,
Deb

Hello everyone out there!

I’m doing well. Sitting and surfing the net like never before….

So Jesse and I had some unusual encounters with the Berlin wildlife last night. Well, at first you must know that we live in a basement, and the two windows of our room are pretty high up and open into a pretty lush garden. Basically right up to the window are tons of vines and plants, etcetc. So….the bed is pressed under one of the windows and last night I heard some rustling above our heads….and I told Jess “ahh! Something’s coming in!” so we jumped up and Jesse closed the window right as a hedgehob was creeping into our room. Gah, it was kinda scary! It stayed near the window for maybe an hour …. And eventually left. But we decided to keep the windows closed for the night … and maybe forever. Its rather unfortunate, though, since having fresh air is nice.

The second run in was more unfortunate. I guess a bee had entered our room pre-hedgehog incident ...so at around 3 or 4 am Jesse got stung on his eye-lid….while he was sleeping! =( He says he was dreaming about a bug flying around him…and we figured it landed on his eye … so he smacked it and that led to the sting. It hurt a lot last night, but its almost all better now.

To say the least, we were shook up. Its not that big of a deal, but I just researched hedgehogs and found that they are slightly endangered (?) and that their favorite habitats are edges of forests, gardens and parks…exactly the situation where we are. Also, we might be getting some hoglets … hehe. It’s actually sort of cool that they are there … there is just nothing keeping them out of our room, so it makes the situation cumbersome. But if there were a fence or a thick screen….oh what heaven that would be! (sorry for the histrionics, its just a really nice garden that seems to be sleeping out of my life)

Ok…what else …. I have officially moved houses, 100 percent. Jess and I went to my old place and got the rest of my things. We thought they would not be there, but they all were, Mom, Dad, kid (with newly died red hair) and mother-in-law. My host dad is Turkish, so his Mom was visiting from Turkey. She can’t speak German or English so I heard her words translated through her son. I think she motioned that I should cover her my head …and was perhaps indecent because I was exposed .. and then she was had me kiss her hand and give her some cheek pecks. It was all really awkward, to tell you the truth, because I had no idea what she was saying as she lunged her face towards mine. We did, however, get to eat some fresh home made borek … which is sort of like bread made of many layers of dough. The one we had had sheep’s cheese and spinach inside. Sehr lecker!

Hmmm…that’s about it. I have a sneaking feeling that I will be around the Stanford Center often in the next few weeks, so I’m sure more blogs will be coming.

Alrighty, hasta entonces,
Deb

I'm DONE!!!!! I turned in my final paper today to my Resident Director at 230 pm. Its an odd feeling ... and I love it. So now I am here in Berlin with 3 weeks of free time panning out in front of me. I was going to get an internship here with a group that designs exhibitions (or something like that), but it ended up falling through. I called the office again and again and I sent 3 emails and when she FINALLY got back to me it was in the negative. Im not too dissapointed, it just would have given my weeks some structure. Jesse still has a month of school left, so I will see him a lot but not always. I plan on exploring Berlin, hanging out with people I have met, reading, learning German, relaxing. I think my time will be pleasant.

So I finally figured out my plans for the summer. I was originally going to work a 40 hour unpaid internship with a landscape architecture firm, one i had been persuing, so to speak, for two years. I then realized I was not going to get funding from Wellesley ...aka 3000 dollar summer stipend ... so when I told them things got weird. I asked if I could have fewer hours and they were like "mehh...it doesnt work like that"...and after saying he would get back to me in one or two days I waited 2 weeks to no avail.

SO - i contacted the place I worked last summer, CPC, and asked if they needed any help, and they do! So within literally 1 day I has secured a job with less stringent hours (maybe i will do 2 or 3 days a week) and I'm pretty sure a paycheck. They are so nice there..it was really great, and Im excited to be going back.

AND, this is the big finale, one of my best friends Caitlin from Wellesley, will be volunteering with the a division of AmeriCorp that is in association with the NYC Parks Department ...... and she will be working in the SAME buidling as me! Its crazy, its called Arsenal North and its on 104th street waaaaaaaaaaay uptown.....So this means we can eat lunch on the regular! And lunch there is great, becasue you can walk into the conservatory garden to eat lunch ..check out the website(http://eev.liu.edu/eev01/Taller/gardens.htm)

So yes, that is about all for now. I turned in a 20 page paper today and Jesse turned in a 25 page movie script he wrote....so we are both excited and are going to celebrate with some food. Dont know where yet, but Im sure it will be yummy.

Hope everyone is maintaining!

I miss you all..

Deb

guten tag. im in amsterdam now with jesse and its amazing. the houses are really pretty and there are tosn of caanls ... so its sort of looks like greenwich village on water. its our second day here and were actually pretty exhausted ... there are trams and things but walking is both cheapr ad mroe fun....so at this point our feet are feeling the burn. so far we have seen some museums, had some great pancakes and some stroppwaffles ... mm and some great chocolate! were staying at a hostel in a dorm ... so we share a room with people we dot know. its actually the first time i have stayed in a dorm situation at a hostel without a group (like my study abroad group or a bunch of people). its not too ba but a private room is definitely nicer. the weather has been great, and the sun has been shining =)

ok, gotta run

deb

hihi

whats up!? Im at the Stanford Center (sweet glory) and tommorow is a big day for me. I need to do two big presetnations, both on final projects. One is the one on Mehringplatz (previously mentioned, investigation of public space, yadda yadda(, and the other is one a paper I wrote about a movie. So I will turn in my movie paper and do my presentation, and Ill be done with that. Sadly, I wont be done with my Mehringplatz paper on time ..... so after school is over I will go Amsterdam for 4 days and then come back and have to finish in two days! Its nice we get leeway after the program was over but meh, i wish i were done.

i have to move out of my host families house in two days. it makes me sad :-(. They are really really nice and we keep out of each others buisness but enjoy each others company when together. A few days ago my Dad Erkan gave me his external hard drive so I hooked my computer up and got 625 songs ....so that was awesome. And then I left him a thank you note, and when I come home later that night the note was turned over with my name on it ... and the note was sitting on top of delicious pasta left overs! So after I thanked him, he continued to be super nice. Ohhh man. AND Ill miss my house. Oh my lord .... its sooooooooo nice. They aren't they too often so I have a huge modern kitchen and a huge living room with a big tv and everything at my disposal. I will soon move into Jesse\s room, which is also very nice, but not as comfortable. And we won\t really have a kitcvhen in his house, but we will use the Stanford Center and that is cool. I don't know, I am just going to miss having my family aroun, so hopefully I can stop by or we can see each other in the month I will be staying in Berlin.

Ok .. gotta go home now.

Tootley toots guys!

deb

Guten tag! Im at the Stanford Center wasting lovely moments surfing the internet. Its Monday evening and its my last week of real hardcore work time on my projects. Basically now I have a 10 to 12 page paper on Las von Trier's movie The Idiots .... its a crazy movie, I recommend it. And then I have a photo project (on emptiness ... its proving pretty difficult) and then my final project which is like a 20 page paper.

But back to the Idiots .. its a movie wherein a group of maybe 10 people live in a sort of commune. And what they do is they "spass"or act like idiots, metally degenrates, whatever you want to call it, in puiblic. And they always have one person who takes care of them when they are out doing their stunts. So they go to restaurants, from door to door selling things, etc..and make everyone uncomfotable ... just to, as they say, break these people out of their middle class bourgeois shells. So yes ... I an going to write about that and how their little group forms the ultimate heterotopia (in the words of Michel Foucault)...ok, enough of that stuff.

Jesse and I went to go see the Jungle Book in the theatres last Sunday. It was so great!!! The original 1967 film, on the big screen, in English. All the songs and the dancin and Baloo and Mowgli and King Louis ... oh man, it was so great. There is this theatre here in Berlin called Kino Arsenal...and they show lots of art house movies, many in English or subtitled in English. So Jesse and I saw 39 Steps on the big screen, F W Murnau's movie Sunrise ... a silent movie which we saw with live piano accompaniment (!!!) ... etcetc. The month of May has a lot of great movies coming up .. so for that I have much excitement and anticipation.

From Wednesday morning until Sunday morning Jesse will be in Amsterdam ..hes super duper excited. That will also hopefully give me the chance to get toooooons of work done. Becaue lately I have been doing a lot of procrastinating, as witnessed by this here blog.

Ok...I'm going to try and read. And hey ... send me an e-mail if you are reading this and enjoying hearing about my life, but I am unfortunately in the dark about yours. I haven't heard from a lot of you in a while, so send me an email! I'll definitely respond. drichman@wellesley.edu

ok. until then,

I remain,

Sincerely Yours,

Debbie