"To travel and see all other cultures is to see and live twice as much" - Me For the next few entries I want to recount my Study abroad adventures through pictures and words. Since I was too busy for blogging and actually did not know much about it until recently I will title the entries with the round about date of what transpired.
This was a huge step in my academic career and life in general. I saw different societies and ultimately grew as a person.
Soon after settling in our apartments and forcing ourselves to stay up so our jet lag does not continue, we were onto our first classes. Of course, studio where we went on a site visit to the project we would be working on all year and then we had our special topics class. Ruth Geiger was our professor, a notable journalist among other things.
Going through the German History Museum we learned about how they lived before during and after WWII. After the museum tour we walked through an actual nuclear fallout bunker, although it would save you from two weeks of contamination after the bomb hit there would be hundreds of thousands of sweaty coughing etc. people down there I think I'll take my chances with the nuclear fallout!
To cheers off to our new 3 month adventure my friends and I only found it fitting to toast with irish car bombs, the only shot worthy to start our great adventure!
Adalbertstraße 64 Berlin, Germany
These housing complexes were the has been communist housing of Soviet Russian when they controlled East Germany.
I know I know that sounds terrible but they were actually very nice. They are larger then most freshman dorms and had a very nice front deck. The decor looked as if some 70's pimp had selected it. There are two rooms a single and a double, a small kitchen, bathroom, and a living room. Everything was laid out to fit exactly what we needed.
German windows and doors are one of the most fascinating doors I have ever seen. They are not all that different then American ones but their subtle differences work well. The doors have different turns for each locking selection. If you only shut the door the door locks because the outer knob is stationary, which is sufficient to keep a door closed and secure. When the key is turned once the initial lock sound signifies that the initial lock is engaged this is similar to locking the knob in America. The second locking sound is comparable to a bolt lock in america.
The windows have two operable motions: to swing open like a normal window and they can also tip out from the top allowing a small amount of air to be ventilated in. This is very efficient when you want fresh air but don't want to be blasted by cold wind.
The paintings in the rooms are framed prints of paintings, one appeared to be St. Marco in Venice flooded, with water coming out of the Dodge's Palace.
That pretty much sums up the details of the room, it was an efficient living area (which makes sense for the communist design) that was oddly decorated. This room was decidedly sufficient for the average college student, alumni housing, or a small family.
Rolf Backmann M.S. in Arch. and Urban Design, Columbia University Dipl.-Ing.Architekt, Technische Universität Berlin
On our flight to Germany we flew Lufthansa, they are known as a reliable airline but like any airline things happen.
We land in Frankfurt, Germany and we find that our flight to Berlin has been canceled. So a friend and I go to the service counter and eventually get everyone to switch their tickets to a later flight. No Problem.
Finally we land in Berlin, gather our luggage and head towards the exit. Ahead of us we see a tall thin man in a long black coat, appropriate for the frigid weather of Berlin at this time. "You're late," the man states with his German accent and a smug smirk on his face. As we were answering, "the flight was canceled", he had already whirled around, his coat flowing around him like a cape, and was off! We would soon discover that this was "Rolf Speed"
Rolf Speed: Verb
So as we all speed walked after him, in order not to get lost in a new city in a new country on a new continent, we dragged our luggage along to reach our bus. On our way to our destination we were given a tour of various sites along the route.
And then we arrive at our apartments Adalbertstrasse 64 and then our architecture studios farther down town.