viele zu machen, nicht genug zeit!

hallo aus Berlin!

Today we met our professors for our classes. I am signed up for six classes total...including the German class that I have already begun. The classes seem really interesting. I´m taking advanced German language, The Metropolis as an Antagonist in Literature and Film, The Politics of Sexuality: yesterday and today; Sex, Soccer, Drugs and Rock ´n Roll on Modern Culture; Formation of Identity in Modern Europe; The Urban Landscape (not all of these are the exact course titles, they are all so long i can`t remember them all). All of them sound so interesting, and the professors seem very cool. The only thing I am a little hesitant about is my german course. There are only three students in the class including myself, and I am wondering whether my professor is legitimately insane. It is totally a possibility...who knows. He has some strange teaching methods, and we always listen to this really weird old german punk music. He only has it on tape...it is pretty old. probably right before the wall fell.

Speaking of the wall. I have seen it, or at least what is left of it. It is pretty eerie to see. In the US the second world war and the holocaust seem so distant, but here it is uncomfortably obvious. What is so weird is that the German people don´t really talk about it at all. Almost like it never happened. uhhhh...whaaaat? Kind of a huge part of German history and it is always incredibly glossed over or not talked about. Great example: today we went to the German History Museum (Deutsche Historische Museum) and our tout guide knew we only had two hours for a tour of the museum, and she spent an insane amount of time talking to us about random wicked old german and european history and about the painter Albrecht Durer (who she said was a german artist..but i learned in AR112 at Colby that he was actually Dutch, so who knows). Finally it was 10 of 6 (the museum closes at 6) and we were only at the first world war part of the museum. Naturally, we are interested in the second world war and the nazi regime. When she finds out we only have 10 minutes, she goes oh no! well let´s head to the part of German reunification! uhm....what?! She COMPLETELY skipped the part of the museum on the second world war and Hitler, etc. and we were all like, um...seriously? This is pretty much how Germans are about the who 1940s....kind of like everything has always been just peachy. It is a little unsettling to me that they have no desire to talk about what happened, but I guess for them is is recent history and they have to be constantly reminded of how terrible things were. There is grafitti everywhere in Berlin which chronicles it. Out of control. I am also very curious about the time of Hitler and teh Nazis because I feel like we don`t often hear about it anywhere unless you specifically study history. But I have been asking a lot of questions at school, so I am starting to understand things a little bit better.

I am totally missing everyone at home, but it is so amazing here. If you ever have the oportunity to visit Europe, you should definitely opt to go to Berlin. It is beautiful and so much fun. You can pretty much do and wear whatever you want, which is very refreshing. I even see older women on the trains with really modern haircuts with wild unnatural colors. It is wicked cool.

please write me! You can easily email me for my address: jacorriv@colby.edu

viele Grüße!