BERLIN AND RIGA!!

Hello!

I’ve had a fabulous couple of days in Berlin and Riga. Each city was so different, and we were incredibly busy both places. Personally, I like Riga much much more. It was less congested and was generally more relaxed. Since I can think of no other simple way, I’m going to give a brief run-down of what I did each day.

Day One: Freiberg to Berlin

We met at the haupbanhoff at 6:30am. Unfortunately I was pretty sick that morning, and I have a feeling that the memory of throwing up into a garbage can will last a long time. Fortunately, I slept 4 hours on the Train to Berlin and made a swift recovery. Upon arriving in Berlin we went to the Bundesrat, the Federal Council of Germany, for a meeting- that turned out to only be an informative tour. It was mildly disappointing. Afterwards we wandered around the main street in Berlin. It was so beautiful! The picture of the Brandenburg Gate I previously posted was from that night. The Hotel we stayed in was pretty nice- and the beds were amazing. I slept really well!

Day Two: Berlin

We had three meetings at the Bundeverbard der Deutchen Industrie (Federation of German Industries- a group that lobbies for German industry), Auswartigues (German Ministry of Exterior), and the Paul-Lobe-Haus (which houses the offices of the Bundestag). The speakers were interesting but not too great. The first speaker dodged our questions, the second speaker felt attacked (though she did help me realize that I don’t want to be a foreign services officer abroad), and the third speaker from the Bundestag was painfully dull. However, we had the opportunity to tour the entire Reichstag. Apparently that’s rare, so I felt pretty lucky. It was a cool building that’s existed for quite a while- there’s graffiti that’s visible from when Germany was liberated. We went in a stunning boat cruise at sunset that was so much fun. I tried a Berlin classic: currywurst. Yum! Oh! And then I had my first underground train experience! It was a very busy day.

Day Three: Berlin and Riga

This morning we got up and went to the German Ministry of Defense and had two speakers. This was the most beneficial session I attended. Both speakers spoke perfect English, had engaging presentations and were genuine in their answers. The second speaker, who works with German NATO relations, addressed Afghanistan with us. He particularly impressed me. He talked about how, the real people portrayed in Valkarye (sp?) knew that they would fail in their attempt to assassinate Hitler, but wanted it to be remembered that not all Germans accepted German rule. I liked it. I did my German project at the Holocaust Memorial. It was pretty amazing, and there was SO much symbolism. There was a room where a speaker read the biographies of those killed, disappeared, and persecuted during the Nazi Regime. The whole memorial was amazing, and very sobering. I sometimes forget how terrible it was- don’t misunderstand. I know that it was awful but it’s different when you see letters prisoners wrote. It makes it seem so much more real that simply seeing facts and figures. Then we left for the airport and due to some unbelievably poor planning we arrived and were checked in at precisely the time the plane was supposed to take off. As we were at least half the flight, they held it for us. We arrived in Riga and it was an immediate respite from Berlin. Hard to explain the feeling but I was much more at ease. We wandered around for a while admiring the city and found a late dinner and I got to try Latvian Cuisine. They love potatoes as much as me! The hotel was so nice. The only thing that was not so great was tap water being undrinkable.

Day Four: Riga

We had a lecture by the head of the Department of political science at the University of Latvia. It was pretty interesting- I enjoyed it. Then we did this horrible thing called “Riga as Text.” It’s supposed to be a self-guided tour- like what we did in Freiburg. So we were excited and chose tourism, hoping that we would get to see the sights. Our only directive was to ‘ask locals what you have to do while in Riga.’ DUMB! There are two problems with this. 1. We don’t speak Latvian or Russian, and 2. Lativans are closed off and would rather not help even if they did speak English. We ended up just wandering around, which was fine. We went up to the 26^th floor of a hotel for drinks that had a spectacular view of Riga’s Old Town. I had my first cocktail, which was completely overrated. We had dinner at a random Russian restaurant which was delicious, but a tiny but sketchy. We did walk past the Russian Embassy (which was by FAR the nicest. The US one was a little rundown looking) and this GIGANTIC house which had TWO Ferraris in front of it.

Day Five: Riga

This day we met with an Economics professor who addressed the Economic Crisis in Latvia. He was interesting, but I didn’t like him. He said that they should have done something to stop the bubble before it burst, but no one did. So I wanted to know if economists were aware that it was a bubble, or if they only retrospectively know it now, and he didn’t answer. He just made a graph and made my question a statement. Rude. Then we went to the Occupations Museum, which was interesting. It was certainly a different perspective that I never learned about it school. We wandered around and I bought some handmade wool mittens from a stand. I met the old woman who made them, and she made me happy. We had some nice tea and disappointing cake at a teahouse in the late afternoon. Fun. And then that evening we went to an outdoor restaurant with live music and on the way home ended up in a TGI Fridays? So random. I didn’t even know existed outside of the US! Someone convinced all of us to do Absinthe, which was ridiculous. It didn’t have the hallucinogenic stuff in it- so I missed out on the green faerie. Although… I DID have weird dreams. But seriously. It was ridiculous. In trying to drink them we broke 2 glasses (through no fault of our own), and set the actual bar on fire. We left quick and went back to the hotel. Ridiculous. We didn’t go clubbing because a TON of bars and clubs have been blacklisted by the US embassy. Sketchy much?!

Day Five: Riga (to Frankfurt) to Freiburg

The Riga airport is absolutely disorganized. Their system sucked. We waited at least an hour and a half in line to check our baggage and to go through security. It didn’t help that people were desperately cutting and being rude. Anyway, it’s my first RyanAir experience, It’s different- but not in a bad way. However, I definitely prefer NWA. After we arrive in Frankfurt we’ll take a 5 hour bus ride to Frieburg. I’m going to be glad to be back where I speak some of the language and have my bearings.

So I’m on the plane now, and am going to post this tonight. I’ve clearly procrastinated a great deal and need to start on my Fieldtrip Reflections Paper!