Berlin, in words

Meine Damen und Herrn-

Unfortunately enough, due to a technical difficulty involving batteries, I will not be able to post pictures of my trip to Berlin tonight. I will, however, post them as soon as I get my camera opperational again, wether or not it is a Thursday. On the bright side, I can tell you about my trip in exruciating detail so that pictures will not be necissary. Moritz and I arrived in Berlin on the ICE (a really fast, really comfortable train) at about five in the afternoon on Friday. About twenty minutes thereafter, we took another, slower train to a suburb about a half hour out of Berlin. We then met with Moritz's uncle and aunt, with who we would be staying for the weekend. They were a nice couple, very proper and, surpisingly enough, vegitarian. After dropping off our luggage and having a quick cup of tea, we again departed to the heart of Berlin, to see the Government quarter and meet up with Moritz's brother Philip.

An interesting fact about Berlin is that, for the most part, it is an unfinished city. This is because of the split during WWII. Everywhere you go you see renovation and restoration begin done to the still war-torn buildings. Another interesting side effect of the split is that, while the buildings that made it through the war are preserved and restored to their former mideval/gothic-style glory, all of the new construction is done in an extremly modern style. Unfortunately, you loose some of the effect without pictures... Anyway, we met up with Philip and had a couple beers at the pub atop which Philip lives. The next day, we went the more Religious route and saw three of Berlin's major churches: The Französische Dom, The Deutsch Dom, and of course, The Berliner Dom. We had to wait until the next day to see the inside of the Berliner Dom, but man, that is possibly one of the fanciest churches I've ever seen. I think the fact that we, even in our fallen state, could build something like that by God's will, truly expresses the vastness of His power...

The 'main event' of the trip, the AFS Deutschland 60th Anniversary, turned out to be a total bust. It was pretty much just a huge meeting of something Moritz and I have come to refer to as the 'AFS Cult'. Moritz was never that into AFS, and I don't think I will be either. The people are fine, its just that since AFS is run primarily by volunteer workers, they have a way of making zealots out of people... Well, we got back from Berlin at about eight in the evening on Sunday. It was a good trip, although I would have liked to see more of the night life... Speaking of 'night life' (not really, I just needed a segway...) I went to another party at Philip's house last night (not Moritz's brother Philip, another Philip) and we hung out most of the day today. Just walked around Stade and talked about nothing all day. It was pretty cool.

School starts up again on Monday... Ugh. Same old, same old. By the way, Ben, you brought up a good point in your last comment. A lot of people who SHOULD know about my blog DON'T. Get the word out! I want people to know that I'm still alive over here. And don't be afraid to comment. Even if its nothing important or profound, I still love hearing from you guys. I'll have pictures up as soon as I can get my hands on them. I'm gonna go eat something and go to bed. Judo tonight was killer.

Bis bald!
-Elliot P.