the estonia and berlin trip

Oh my goodness I have a lot to post.

ESTONIA

We left on a bus for the Frankfurt airport at around 7 am. Daria had to stay behind because she was experiencing some major pain. (Turns out it was her kidney, and she didn't come on this trip at all.) We quickly check in and discover that there is surprisingly little food in the Frankfurt airport. I have an overpriced panini at some sort of cafe. We board a rather large plane (three seats, aisle, three seats) and take off for Estonia.

The Estonian airport is rather small. For those of you who will get this reference, it's about as big as the Williamsburg airport, maybe a little bigger. It's like the first building at Dulles that houses security. So we get in and have a charter bus take us through Tallinn to our hotel.


Estonia is very clearly formerly Soviet. It's drab with big blocky buildings. Before we go out to eat that night, we go to the ATM to get kroons, the Estonian currency. It exchanges at about a rate of one dollar equals 12 kroons and one euro equals 15 kroons. It's very funny getting 1000 kroons for a two-day stay.


After getting money from the ATM, we go out to eat at what is essentially an expensive tourist trap in the center of "Old Tallinn." It's faux-medieval and included with it is a staged swordfight. I get the curry chicken salad (and, btw, I think there's more curry dried into the spatula in my house at school) and the cream cheese soup. For the record, the cream cheese soup does not taste at all like cream cheese but it is in fact both creamy and cheesy.


We return to our hotel and I have a room (and bathroom) to myself. This is because Daria was going to be my roommate and she had to stay in Freiburg. It turns out that I have a really big room compared to other people: I have two single beds and a couch all to myself. This was also the only time all semester (and honestly, the first time in my life) that I have had or will have my own bathroom.


The next morning, we wake up and have an early breakfast downstairs. There is the standard lunchmeat, cheese, and bread, but there is also potato wedges, scrambled egg casserole, sausages, and porridge. The porridge basically tastes like cream of wheat, so I eat that and the potato wedges. The Estonian cheese is also not bad.

We then take public transportation to the university. Our IES leader puts us on the wrong bus so we have to walk a couple of blocks to reach the other group, and then we have to run so that all of us can make it on the tram. Oh, the organization of IES.

We get to the university and go up three flights of stairs, through a corridor to another building, down a flight of stairs, through another corridor to another building, and then down one more flight of stairs until we reach our final destination of the lecture hall. We then listen to a pretty boring lecture about the domestic politics of Estonia, during which I almost fall asleep. The highlight of the talk is that the lecturer's name is Leif.

We break for coffee and pastries. After this we return for our assignments for "Tallinn as Text." This is basically an exercise for us to explore the city and learn about all different aspects of it. I go with Andrew, Matt, Rachel, Aparna, and Alison to go to Kadriorg Palace, which was one of the palaces of Peter the Great. Following the directions that IES gives us, we turn right out of the university and end up on the other side of town. We get to see the Old Town gate and buy souvenirs, but we're completely lost. Between asking 3 different Estonians and calling a staff member, we figure out where to go and end up on the right side of town.

We visit the palace (which was pretty underwhelming, honestly), ice sculptures of the 12 Chinese zodiac symbols, the KUMU art museum (we don't go inside but at least we see it), the presidential palace, and we touch the Baltic sea! That was pretty cool.

After we return to the university to learn about the adventures of all the other groups, we set out into Tallinn once more to explore the city. Andrew has made it his quest to find a ushanka hat (search for it on Google images and you'll see what I mean) and Matt's getting a soccer scarf from each country we visit, so we set off on a quest to find these items. Matt finds his scarf, but no luck with the hat. We end up at a restaurant where we get a nacho plate to start, three of us get burgers, and Andrew gets tacos. Conclusion: No, really, there's no good Mexican food in all of Europe.

The next morning we pack up our stuff and leave it in the hotel's luggage room for the day. We go to a conference room in the hotel and listen to another Estonian speaker. Conclusion: Estonia loves the US. It's really cute, because Estonia has a force of like 50 in Iraq (which is like 1% of their total army) and so Estonia hopes that if they ever need help, the US will reciprocate proportionately. Good luck with that.

Afterwards Andrew, Rachel, and I go to the Occupation Museum and learn about the period that Estonia was occupied by the Germans and the Soviets. I have to post those pictures on facebook and I'll be sure to link to them. After that we basically walk around and return to the hotel.

We aren't flying directly to Berlin--we have to stop over in Frankfurt first. For those of you without a rather detailed map of Europe in your head, that's really out of the way. At least we've flown Lufthansa for all of our flights. Our flights are uneventful, except for that our plane from Frankfurt to Berlin is huge. It's a 2-4-2 arrangement, which was even bigger than the plane I flew over in. It's also almost empty. It's a little weird.

BERLIN

We arrive in Berlin and take a public bus to Alexanderplatz where we catch the tram to our hotel. The hotel is cheerfully located in East Berlin and looks like a converted townhouse, basically. I'm in an apartment with Shanna and Ranjani, and they share the larger room and I get the smaller room to myself since Daria's in Freiburg. I basically haul my stuff upstairs and collapse into bed, since by this point it's midnight. PS: no elevators. There are hardly any elevators anywhere.

The next day is Sunday, the day of the Super Bowl. We leave rather early that morning to begin our tour of the city. We see lots of stuff, including the outside of the Bundestag (Parliament building), the Brandenberg Gate, and a remnant of the wall. After the tour we have time for lunch and then we have to do a project with our German class. I go with several members of my German class to a faux-American place, where I eat a cheeseburger and have a .5 L beverage. This is important because I'm so used to TINY BEVERAGES that I finish my meal before I finish my drink. This is only like 16 ounces of liquid. Those of you who have ever gone out to eat with me (ie, all of you) know I get like five free refills normally.

Anyway, we somehow meet up with our entire German class (except Danny) in this restaurant, so we set out together to find our project. We are supposed to go to the Berlin Wall museum and then to a large stretch of the wall that was left up. It's an adventure in public transportation. Long story short, we get on a total of six different trams/trains, including running from the correct tram to the wrong tram. Go figure. AND, go figure, I forgot my camera battery that day. I plan to steal people's pictures.

That evening I plan to get a light dinner and then stay up late watching the Super Bowl at a pub. As it turns out, I get crepes from the train station (which also has fish and chips, McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC) and fall asleep by 11:30. I think I'm glad that the Steelers won but I'm also glad I didn't have to watch it, because I couldn't have been cheering for them. For those of you about to disown me for being glad the Steelers won, let me explain. Mike Tomlin went to William and Mary, and it's very rare that we do anything of note in sports. So a Super Bowl win for him is a Super Bowl win for WM.

Monday is another rather busy day. We start by going to the German Department of Defense. It's pretty interesting, except Dena (as she ALWAYS DOES) basically attacks the speaker to find out his view on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Basically, she's always really inappropriate and embarassing. She's great one-on-one, but she doesn't really get boundaries for that issue. It was so bad that IES might not be invited back to a lecture there in the future. (Dena's Egyptian and the president of her school's Muslim Student Association.)

After that, we get a (boring) tour of the Bundestag. Not much to report there--there are pictures. Finally, that evening I go to the Pergamon with Kris (a girl), Shanna, and Caleb? I can't remember who the third person was. The Pergamon is a museum of Greek history and Islamic art. It's really cool--no pictures allowed, really, but I have a few that I'll upload.

Tuesday is free unless you have a class meeting, which only two classes do, so Matt, Alison, Dena, and I walk through Berlin on a quest to find the New Synagogue and the English-language bookstore. The synagogue is actually a museum, so we pay the two euros and check it out. It's actually the first time I've ever been in a synagogue. Alison is Jewish, so I get everything explained to me. Dena is surprisingly ok in the synagogue.

After that we find the bookstore (or, rather, the section of the really big bookstore) that we were looking for and I buy two books (one I think I actually own at home but have never read.) After this we walk back to the hotel with our purchases in tow. As we walk back I almost get pickpocketed but luckily I am not. At this point I'm ready to be back in a smaller city.

We take the train back to Freiburg. It's a really long train ride, but it's manageable. I read a book I brought with me from home and we play cards pretty much the whole way there.