Hallo aus Berlin!

hi from the backyard!

So I can (almost) successfully talk at a 4 year old's level. My little friend who's playing "fussball" out here in the apartments' courtyard just had to go inside. Amazing that it's not much better than that, but at the same time, so rewarding to be in the country of the language i've been learning for so long. seeing plays, listening to lectures, and ..

interview holocaust survivors in german. so incredibly rewarding. today we (katherine and i) interviewed an 81 year old woman, Gisela Miessner. She was born in 1927, and protested at Rosenstrasse in 1943- it is a very famous protest during the Holocaust. As I've been learning, Jews in Germany/Europe have been horribly discriminated against since the 1700s. Her father was jewish, her mother was not. Her father was put in jail along with many others in 1943. Mothers and daughters (who were not jewish, and therefore not also put in jail) protested outside the jail for over 12 days. Amazingly, all the men were released (of course, that doesn't end discrimmination. her father was shot by the SS the next year). but the men were not taken to aushwitz, as was the plan. She is a very special woman, and gives very few interviews any more, but 2 days ago katherine and i had the priveledge of talking with someone else prominent in Berlin/Jewish history. We talked with the president of the group responsible for the 1988 rebuilding of the Neue Synagogue in central berlin, which was saved during Krystalnacht (1938), but bombed later. We had lunch with him, discussed his thoughts on the Jewish population/issues in berlin. He set us up with Gisela. Incredible.

Prague- the adventure that was last weekend. A <48 hr whirlwind tour with katherine and three other friends in the program (alex, david, lauren). Realized how intimidating it is to be in a country where you don't know any of th elanguage. if someone knew german, it was such a relief! Stayed in an elementary school turned hostel in the summer. Got "Welcome beers". Katherine was so thirsty that she asked to trade it for water, but the woman laughed at her. pretty comical. The first evening we took a Jazzboat Tour on the Vltava River that runs through the city. 2.5 hrs and while the sun went down. The live entertainment was a Czek scat singer! Saturday we took our map from the hostel and walked most of the main parts of the city by foot. Some highlights: many really old churches (mostly catholic, huge, really gold on the inside), the Prague Castle (which also has another really humongous cathedral), the Old Town, and the Vsehrad Castle. We also ordered lunch in a bar in which the menu was in czek. interestingly, my meal turned out to be fried cheese (amazing) and the others were chicken fingers.

posted by Jayne @ 11:50 AM