Back again! It’s your friendly, neighborhood Turnip! I’m stoked to revisit this site and get it back up and going.
the nature of reality
Current song: The Nature of Reality – Oasis
Current location: Friedrichshain, Berlin
We need proof of life photos/entries. I feel this adequatly sums up my level of liveliness.
Harsh spaces. Empty freedom.
Current tunes: Pigeon Flying Over Berlin Zoo – Ian Anderson
Current location: Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt
6.4.16 – City Office of Development
THE morning started out as well as could have been expected, and by that I mean multiple people having trouble with transit. It’s something that is normal when changing places, feeling excited, and when transit just. does. not. work. But for our second outing we all managed to make it.
Upon arrival to Jannowitzbrücke, the station which nearly kills me every time I go there (seriously the way from the U-Bahn to the S-Bahn IS NOT FLUFFY PERSON FRIENDLY); I slugged my way up from the U8 to the S-Bahn tracks above to meet everyone who was there with a… well, not a smile, more of a sweaty grimace. We waited for the Berlin transit system to deliver our other members to us, no more than 15 minutes, before we trekked downstairs and across the river to our destination.
(At this point I would like to make a quick aside that GOING UP ALL THOSE STAIRS ONLY TO GO BACK DOWN, was -eugh.)
We walked along the Chinese embassy, turned the corner, and came to a door that I would not have looked twice at had I been passing it. This is something that seems to happen a lot in Berlin. Curiosities and wonderful tidbits of information hidden in the most nondescript places. It’s a unintentional treasure hunt every day. But there we were, at the City Office of Development, staring at several huge displays of Berlin, in a room (converted courtyard), probably bigger than one of Evergreen’s normal classrooms.
Our tour guide was a lovely older lady whose name escapes me at the moment, but she was obviously knowledgeable about the Urban Development, Berlin, and was eager to share. We were slowly lead around the room, all of us looking curiously at the models and amazed at the sheer size of them. Our guide talked to us and a discussed things with us for nearly 2 hours, so I can’t even begin to give you anything close to enough information.
(The above is not the main model, it did take up a whole wall though.)
The blue and brown and green and white of the immense city model that dominated the room would have kept my attention if it were not for the smaller, more colorful (to me at least) model, pushed to the side under a less lit area to the main model’s right. A relic of Soviet ideals, the “Stadtplan” for the GDR’s Berlin, the future that could have been. I don’t know why I liked it so much, it was showing less than half of Berlin, and in that less than half there was more space that I would have thought the GDR wanted. It also had more modern looking buildings in it’s design. I just really liked it for some reason.
Looking at these maps made me realize that Berlin is city I know I can never see all of and that saddens me a bit. But, because of it’s dynamic nature, I’m sure this city will keep me coming back for more.
I do have one important note for you all though:
DO NOT TRUST BERLIN PALM TREES.
And I scream from the top of my lungs What’s going on?
the Cheat is not dead!
Current tunes: Moonlight Serenade – Glenn Miller (not by my choosing this time, it’s on the cafe’s radio)
Current location: Cafe Katulki
German word of the day: Kuchen – cake
“Ich möchte ein Stück Kuchen bitte.”
Dearest Readers,
It’s been too long, far too long! At least that’s what a select few of you have been, very pointedly, telling me. I apologize, but I’ve been a bit busy of late, and school takes precedence over you I’m afraid (even those of you who are funding my education).
To start: I have arrived safely and have been in Berlin for 3 weeks now. My time has been filled with fun, confusion, stress, merriment, and homework. Primarily homework. Pretty much what one expects to encounter on a study abroad. I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world. My Spain trip? Eh… that was primarily memorable for the people and some interesting experiences; this trip, this trip will stick with me for the rest of my days.
Because I am so late in writing this up, I will be breaking my “Previously on Turnip’s Travels” into a couple of posts. If you are only here for pictures and don’t want to read about my exciting life and journeys, the check out the “Pics or it didn’t happen (it happened)” tab. That is where you’ll find the visual aids to the journey. I’ll be including some photos in posts as well, for ‘emphasis,’ but not a lot.
Willst du mit mir Musik hören?
Dearest Klassenkameraden, my PsychicCity is simple. I would like you to pick a German song YOU DON’T ALREADY KNOW and write about it.
It must be in German.
and at once i knew, i was not magnificent
Current tunes: Holocene -Bon Iver
I’m on my flight, somewhere over the Atlantic, caught between clocks that read 22:50 and 4:50, unable to sleep and so happy that I am.
I like to use some word loosely, like most of my peers, and the word that probably gets the most abuse from me is “awesome.” Most of the time I don’t care, but every once in a great while I’ll get the chance to have my inner Inigo Montoya go “you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” This is one of those times.
At 37,291ft (11369m) in the air, having taken my usual 2 hour nap, with my usual travel go to music flowing into my ear, thank you Bon Iver, and with nothing else to entertain I had the chance to look out my window at the sky. No longer above, parallel. Well, not technically but you get the idea. And what a sight it is to behold.
The sky has never been an inky black to me, and even now that holds true. With the plane’s rapid advance East the colors are getting infinitesimally lighter, and that is beautiful in and of itself, however the real show stealers are the stars.
At home the polluted sky gives splashes of warm color whenever the sun sets, but the stars are mostly impossible to see from light pollution unless you get very lucky. In Olympia, the sky is visible, and it always gives me a bit of joy. This summer’s meteor shower that my friends and I watched on the library roof is evidence of that. That was pleasant, maybe I said that it was “awesome,” but again, I missed used a word, took away it’s true potential. No, no- I’m talking about true, unadulted awe.
That is what these stars are giving me now. Hundred upon hundreds of speck of light, blinking through a veil of almost black-midnight blue. The likes of which I haven’t seen in YEARS, not since standing at the base of the Grand Tetons, soft grass underfoot, family around me, and a child’s easy wonderment; the Milky Way bright and winding above, stretching far as my eyes could see, past the tips of the mountains in the foreground, into the great unknown.
That humans have come this far, to fly in the sky, between the Earth and the Heavens like it is nothing-to be this much much closer to the unknown world above! It’s mind boggling to think about sometimes.
I’ll readily admit that there is probably an excitement factor coming into play here and a little of that childlike wonderment that I don’t think I’ll ever let go of. That’s okay. And even if you, dearest reader, don’t agree that this is awesome, that’s fine too. For now, I’m going to leave you, and lean back into seat 46K and enjoy the view and stew in my excitement for my upcoming adventure.
Til then,
Turnip
(Sleep deprived posts are sleep deprived posts.)
Here is where the blog title applies
In other news: I will be using a hastag to describe myself on these travels! #travelingturnipqueen
I think it fits, don’t you?
Many thanks to Expert, Bestie Boo, and Freudian Wet Dream!
scheint nicht widerrufbar.
alles das Hiesige braucht, dieses Schwindende, das
seltsam uns angeht.
DIE NEUNTE ELEGIE
WARUM, wenn es angeht, also die Frist des Daseins
hinzubringen, als Lorbeer, ein wenig dunkler als alles
andere Grün, mit kleinen Wellen an jedem
Blattrand (wie eines Windes Lächeln) –: warum dann
Menschliches müssen – und, Schicksal vermeidend,
sich sehnen nach Schicksal?. . .
Oh, nicht, weil Glück ist,
dieser voreilige Vorteil eines nahen Verlusts.
Nicht aus Neugier, oder zur Übung des Herzens,
das auch im Lorbeer wäre . . . . .
Aber weil Hiersein viel ist, und weil uns scheinbar
alles das Hiesige braucht, dieses Schwindende, das
seltsam uns angeht. Uns, die Schwindendsten. Ein Mal
jedes, nur ein Mal. Ein Mal und nichtmehr. Und wir auch
ein Mal. Nie wieder. Aber dieses
ein Mal gewesen zu sein, wenn auch nur ein Mal:
irdisch gewesen zu sein, scheint nicht widerrufbar.
Aus Philadelphia.
“Ich komme aus der Stadt, wo der Käse herkommt.” “Aus Philadelphia.”