Wednesday I met a Norwegian girl, Maria, for a coffee near the CBS campus. Neither of us knew of any particular place, but eventually found a place that was both open and served coffee. The coffee was terrible, right out of the pot that had probably been warming since the morning. All was not lost. This place may not boast great cup of joe, but the ambiance, and more importantly, the draft beer selection, is outstanding. The dark wood walls are lined with Zappa posters and old tourism posters. I made a mental note to return..for a beer.
Wednesday night CBS hosted a film viewing for the international students. I'm personally a huge fan of Danish film, and they were showing After the Wedding, an award winner I hadn't yet seen. It's a very heavy story about a family split for years, the brevity of life and the importance of family. It also made about half the audience cry, and was a terrible precursor to a night on the town. A large group of us headed out to find a jazz bar, somewhere we could sit and chat and listen to the tail-end of the Jazz festival performances. We followed Troy, who claimed to know the perfect place. I was surprised to find myself sitting at the same bar I had choked down a coffee earlier in the day. At 45 kroner a pop, I sipped my beer and most everyone called it an early night.
Thursday, after a full day of class, I searched out a place to have some film developed. We found a disposable camera at Roskilde, unused, and I filled it up over the weekend. I eventually found a place, and was surprised, even proud, to find something that the States outperforms Denmark in. Nay, destroys. Embarrasses. Annihilates. I handed in my camera, asked for two sets of prints, and was told they would be ready Tirsdag (Tuesday), and it would run me 80 kroner. For those of you paying attention, I was paying at least three times as much to wait 168 times as long for my photos. Score one for America!
Thursday night is a big night out for the internationals, and we gathered in the common room to pre-party a bit. Pete and I found these obnoxiously long straws (70cm) at Netto the previous week, and were testing them out on a few Guld øl. About half the crowd was headed to a place called K3, where one pays 200 kroner cover for unlimited drinks and dancing for the evening, and the place closes at 5am. The rest of us were headed to Kulørbar, where we paid 60 kroner for unlimited beer and champagne from 23:00 to 1:00. Speed v. Endurance. We met up with one of the Danes we camped near at Roskilde (Denmark is a small country) and Thomas made an appearance as well. Everyone drank too much, and almost everyone was due at the bus stop at 7:30 the following morning.
Thank god I left my door ajar. I was woken by some guardian angels at 7:14, not yet having packed. I did so with great speed and little concern for what I was stuffing in my bag. Once satisfied that my bag was full enough that I must have everything I need, I hopped up the stairs to see if Pete was ready to go. His door was open, and he was dead asleep, equally unprepared. I told him what he needed to know: We were leaving immediately, and we were going to be late..for Berlin! He moved five times as quickly as he ever will again.
The bus ride to Berlin was long, but was broken up by an almost two hour ferry from the southeast Danish coast to Germany. We finally arrived in Berlin around 16:00, and checked into the massive Generator Hostel, located east of the center. The hostel was more like a hotel, and its highlight was the Generator Bar, which boasted an impressive happy hour. I think all of us who have been living in Copenhagen these past weeks were blown away by how cheap it was to eat and drink in Berlin. Two half liters of Berliner and two glasses of scotch = 5 euro 90.
Some of you know that Berlin is home to the greatest döner kebab in the entire world - excluding Turkey. Last year, when I was in Berlin with Utrecht pals Barry and Mike, we found this little gem off the metro station at Rosenthaler Platz. I had no trouble finding it again, and brought along a few people to enjoy the delicacy. Maybe it was a mistake to eat one of these monsters before starting a pub crawl, but I didn't care, nor do I regret it. The pub crawl started off with a bang, and the massive (close to 200 people) group moved like some giant flock of tipsy sheep from one bar to another, in and out of clubs. We broke off from the crawl at some point and headed back via the S and U trains, eventually making our way back to the Generator and crawling into the waiting bunk beds.
There was a generous free breakfast, which was available until 11, but our whip-cracking facilitators had us meeting for a tour at 8:15, so after a quick shower I shoveled down as much meat, cheese, and mystery cereal as I could handle in ten minutes. The tour was great. I visited a lot of the same sights I had seen previously, but a tour is really made by the quality of the tour guide, and ours was top-notch. Berlin is a city overflowing with controversial history, and the US is so intertwined with much of it. We checked out the remains of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, and passed other relevant DDR and Nazi sites. The Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag wrapped up the tour. Crew in tow, we made a second pilgrimage to the döner stand and stopped for gelato on the way back to the center. A sort of visual history of the Berlin Wall was set-up near Checkpoint Charlie, and we spent time browsing through the public exhibit. Pete purchased a gas mask, and by using his newly-acquired cross-cultural negotiation skills, managed to get the price down to 10 euros from the unreasonable 25. What a steal. We stopped back at the Memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, the eerie field of blocks east of the center.
Making it back to the Generator in time for happy hour was a struggle, but we made efficient use of our hour before dinner, and I'm confident everyone was doing well when we filed into the restaurant at Alexanderplatz. The dinner was first-rate, and afterwards we found a cool Irish pub to enjoy a Guinness. By chance, we found the Ampelman bar, which our tour guide had suggested. The Ampelman is a sort of mascot for East German nostalgia, and is the figure on traffic signals for pedestrians. The bar had a big lawn with great lawn chairs, and reasonable beer. We made it back to the Generator in time for a round, and before I knew it the clock had struck 4:00 and it was time for sleep. Like 3 hours of it. Because once again, we were checking out by 8:15.
We boarded the bus and headed outside the city to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. I had been once before, and so I spent my time seeking out those corners I hadn't the time or energy to see the time before. It's such a powerful place, and undeniably puts the sanctity of life into perspective. The bus ride home was long. And when I walked into the parking lot at CBS and headed in the direction of Kathrine, I felt pretty drained. Still, a great weekend in a very cool city, a place I'd like to stay for an extended time someday.
What's going on this week? Tonight we're having a BBQ at Kathrine, and tomorrow I'm heading to Lund, Sweden to have dinner with friends I studied with in Utrecht. Still not sure what's up for the upcoming open weekend, but I'm sure that'll shake itself out in the next few days..
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