A Closer Look at Berlin

I have now passed a MAJOR milestone in my life. I have officially finished my classes at Royal Holloway for the year which is neat, but what is really cool is that I have now (hopefully) finished classes as a student for life. It is exciting to think that the next time I return to classes it could be as a teaching assistant or professor rather than a student sitting in a desk. It feels good to have them completed, though I am spending the greater part of the months of April and May in the library typing my essays for them.

On a different note, I have recently returned from an 8 day vacation in Berlin, Germany with my dad. We decided back in the fall to meet each other once my classes finished (as now for the rest of the program I am doing independent study) and since we both share a love of history and seeing new places, I suggested Berlin. Now, I have been to Berlin two other times but both were whirlwind trips and so I really loved the idea of a slower paced visit to the city. My dad had never been to Germany before and so was up for it. 

The thing I love about Berlin, and Germany, is how easy it is to be there. People are friendly and kind, have great English skills, public transportation is phenomenal, and I look like everyone else. Trust me, after living in and visiting places in Europe where I stick out like a sore thumb, it is nice to blend in. Plus, I finally felt like I was in the land of tall people and was thinking if I ever wanted to find a boyfriend in Europe who isn't 5 foot 6 I'd better move to Berlin. 

Our apartment

Schloss Charlottenburg

Outside the Brandenburg Gate

We spent the week doing all of the touristy things and even took a guided bike tour around the city which was one of the best tours I've ever had. We took things slowly though still managed to stay out until about 5pm each day enjoying the museums, beautiful vistas, and memorials that Berlin has to offer. Surprisingly, Berlin has very little to offer in terms of German food or restaurants. Apart from the Currywurst and sausage stands, most of the food in Berlin is of Asian decent. Vietnamese, Indian, Thai, Italian, and vegetarian restaurants are bountifully abundant in the city and we enjoyed eating out as well as cooking in our apartment in Charlottenburg.

Berliner Dom

Painted portions of the Berlin Wall

It is undeniable that an aura of a dark history looms over the city's sites and it is hard to escape some reminder of Berlin's nazi and communist history. Sites such as the Berlin wall fragments, the Holocaust memorial, the communist era TV tower, and even street signs indicate what the city used to be like. While it is interesting to visit and learn about Berlin's sordid past, the city's new generation of citizens breath new life into an increasingly cosmopolitan place. Berlin has much in common with cities like London and New York as multiple languages can be heard on the streets and immigrants from all over the world seek out a better life. It is significantly cheaper place to live than other big American or European cities and as a result is a haven for musicians, artists, and writers. It is a place that is truly up and coming and I would recommend to everyone to put Berlin on your radar as a place to pay attention to in the future.

Holocaust memorial

Division of East and West Berlin

On the bike tour

By the berlin wall

Enjoying flammkuchen at a biergarten

"Tripping stones" reminding us of residential holocaust victims

Inside the Reichstag, the parliament building

The wonderful S-bahn train stop near our apt

Poetic Melancholia

I have been busy reading quite a lot of poetry over the semester and wanted to share some of the poems that I find particularly enchanting. These poems tap into the darkness of love and life, particularly the Arnold poem, and how being aware of feeling intensifies the senses. 

I love these poems not because I have a thing for depressing poetry about loss or anger, but because through the poet's expression of their feelings I am able to temporarily commune with my own. What makes a poem meaningful to me is not just the subject matter, but the way that the language of the poem creates a symbiosis of poet and reader. To feel the love, hurt, or loss of the subject helps me learn about my own ability to feel. John Keats wrote that 

"poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity—it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance".
Anyways, I hope you enjoy a small taste of a very poets that I admire and that you love their beautiful bleakness just as much as I do.

'Prologue'- Arthur Symons, London Nights
MY life is like a music-hall. 
Where, in the impotence of rage, 
Chained by enchantment to my stall, 
I see myself upon the stage 
Dance to amuse a music-hall. 

'Tis I that smoke this cigarette. 

Lounge here, and laugh for vacancy, 

And watch the dancers turn ; and yet 
It is my very self I see 

Across the cloudy cigarette. 

My very self that turns and trips. 

Painted, pathetically gay. 
An empty song upon the lips 

In make-believe of holiday : 
I, I, this thing that turns and trips ! 

The light flares in the music-hall. 
The light, the sound, that weary us ; 

Hour follows hour, I count them all. 
Lagging, and loud, and riotous : 

My life is like a music-hall. 

'Before the Mirror': Part III- Algernon Charles Swinburne

Glad, but not flushed with gladness,

Since joys go by;

Sad, but not bent with sadness,

Since sorrows die;

Deep in the gleaming glass

She sees all past things pass,

And all sweet life that was lie down and lie.

There glowing ghosts of flowers

Draw down, draw nigh;

And wings of swift spent hours

Take flight and fly;

She sees by formless gleams,

She hears across cold streams,

Dead mouths of many dreams that sing and sigh.

Face fallen and white throat lifted,

With sleepless eye

She sees old loves that drifted,

She knew not why,

Old loves and faded fears

Float down a stream that hears

The flowing of all men's tears beneath the sky. Matthew Arnold "Dover Beach"

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

That City That Never Sleeps

 Well, it has now been a week since my big adventure to the other side of the pond and it already feels like it has been months since visiting. For those of you that maybe didn't know, I took a trip during my midterm break to New York City to visit my dad and to have some much needed time in good ol' americana for ten days and the trip could not have gone smoother.
The flight to NYC was actually quite a quick and pleasant (as pleasant as being jammed into a 3 seater side aisle could be) seven and a half hours with no connections. I landed in NY by lunchtime and made my way to our hotel which was located near Central Park in Midtown. We were so close to famous areas like 5th avenue, Rockerfeller center, and Times Square; it was a beautiful thing to be able to have a leisurely stroll in Central Park and then walk just a bit further and arrive at such places. Needless to say, I immediately fell for the Big Apple.

Rockerfeller Center

NY Subway

                                                   

                                                               Empire State

We did all of the touristy things such as go up to the tops of the Rockerfeller and Empire State buildings, see the Statue of Liberty, take a tour of NBC studios, see a taping of David Letterman (I made it on tv!), visit Yankee stadium, experience top-notch art at the MoMA and Metropolitan, and have some ah-mazing meals out. Two definite highlights were seeing both a Broadway play (Anything Goes by Cole Porter- laugh out loud funny and catchy score) and an opera at the Met (Madame Butterfly). I can now say that I've seen theatre in the two best theatre towns in the world, London and New York. I adore theatre and so getting to go to one on Broadway (pricey as it was-theatre is SO much more expensive in NYC than London!) was a dream come true. 

View from the top of the Empire State of Brooklyn Bridge

View of Central Park

Grand Central Station

For all you Seinfeld fans....

In the Yankee's dugout

Degas at the Met; he never fails to inspire me

Central Park in twilight

I was also fortunate to get a chance to spend time with some new people on my trip as well. My dad invited his new girlfriend, Kathy and I had the pleasure of spending half of the trip (she left halfway through) getting acquainted with her. We also got to meet her nephew, John, who is a third year at Columbia University and he was good enough to show us around his neck of the woods and join us for dinner occasionally. I enjoy meeting new faces as I feel different backgrounds and perspectives change one's way of viewing this crazy world and I was, and am, very grateful to spend time with someone who is beginning to factor so significantly in my father's life. Kathy, it was a pleasure, and hopefully we will do it again soon. 

What can I say that hasn't been said so many times before about New York? Probably not much more than the cliched idea that the city feels so alive and dynamic. There is simply something magical about being in a place that contains SO much of one's own history that you can't help but feel connected. I have travelled all over the world and learned about everyone else's history tens of times but this was the first time that I really felt my own history. It made me intensely proud not only to be there but to be from a nation so diverse yet unified under one flag. Walking the streets you would hear every language yet over the top you would still hear plenty of "fogedaboudit's" reminding you of exactly where you were. 

New York is gritty yet beautiful and nostalgic; I thoroughly enjoyed the strikingly different neighborhoods such as Midtown, Brooklyn, or Greenwich as it reminded me of London in ways. It's a good place to be, put simply, and I do hope to visit many more times over my lifetime. It was a breath of fresh air and I felt exhausted yet rejuvenated once I boarded my plane to return to England. The trip put my literary and scholastic goals into focus once again and I realized that if I ever want to land a job in a place like NYC I had better get cracking now. 

Not to steal from Bogie but New York, New York, I have the feeling that it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Brooklyn Bridge

Times Square

Met Opera House

Just Another Day in the Life

Life has returned to normal since school began again at the beginning of January. I am now going into my fourth week of classes in my spring term at Royal Holloway. I get quite a lot of questions about how my program works and so I thought that I would outline it briefly here.

My master's program includes three terms: fall, spring, and summer and each term is 11 weeks long (with a week off for midterms). This means that my terms are incredibly short and thus a lot of material is condensed into a very short amount of time. My spring term will reach the halfway point on February 10th (crazy that it is so soon!) and then I will finish this term at the end of March. Once I have finished in March classes are over for me, hopefully for good. April brings deadlines for all course essay work (4 in total) followed by a summer of dissertation writing, terminating September 10th. At that point (providing I pass) I will have my MA degree. My program is sort of a whirlwind course but I am happy to have avoided having to do two full years of work which is standard in American MA programs.

Two other questions that I commonly get are "when are you coming home" and "what's next?" both of which I have an answer for. To the first question, I plan to come home to Fargo somewhere around the beginning of October or late September. I have visitors coming in September and I plan on probably coming home with them or just after they leave. To the second question, it is slightly more cloudy. I plan on applying for PhD programs next fall, probably in November, and submitting mainly to schools in London and the surrounding area. PhD programs are three full years in the UK so I would be heading back for an even longer stint of time (though again, shorter than American PhDs usually take). I have been told that I can pick my start date to begin my doctorate and I am hoping to start somewhere between March-July of 2013 which gives me a nice little break in Fargo and the US to relax and have my first true break since I've begun college. What I'm hoping for during that break is to spend my time unwinding, taking a mental break, and visiting friends a family around the midwest and country. I guess I hope to do all of the things that I've so missed this year because I am not in America such as watching baseball, football, or basketball games, cross country skiing, snowboarding, driving, playing with my cat, and going to stores like Target and Hornbachers. These may sound like silly things to want to do, but let me tell you, it is the little things in life that one misses when away from her home country. I am hoping to be able to visit each and every one of you at your homes and make up for lost time. I am incredibly thrilled at the prospect and I have a Honda Element sitting in the garage in Fargo rearing to pack the miles on.

I hope that all is well for everyone in America and, if you have a free moment, send me an email updating me with your lives. Blogging is a wonderful way for me to keep in contact with all of you readers but it is, alas, somewhat one sided on my end.

A Visitor From Home

I was lucky enough to host my friend Rachel McLean for the last two weeks and after putting her on a plane for Fargo yesterday, I'm already feeling a bit lost without her. We spent a few days wandering the streets of Paris before returning to London and Egham for the remaining week of her trip. While we were in London we tried to visit places that neither of us had been to during our semesters living in the city and it was nice to get off the well-beaten tourist paths of Westminster, Notting Hill, or the West End.

Palais du Luxembourg- Paris

Parc Butte Chaumont

We visited areas such as Greenwich, Little Venice canals, and Old Street- Rachel's old stomping grounds. The trip was full of gorgeous views of London (and Paris) and we were lucky to have absolutely beautiful and warm weather. It is rare in London or Paris to have completely clear and blue skies but we had day after day of 50 degree weather with nothing but sunshine. After the disastrous weather that the two of us have experienced while travelling together in Dec/Jan in Europe we felt that good karma was finally coming our way. 

Maritime Museum of Greenwich

Gorgeous view of the Skyline from the Eastern Edge of London

Prime Meridian

Little Venice

There is nothing that I love more than strolling the streets of London but we had worked into our busy schedule a few days in Egham and so for the last 6 days of her trip Rachel stayed at my house in Cherrywood to recoup and relax after a hectic week of touring. It is always an adjustment to go from the busy bustle of the capital to the semi-lifeless streets of Egham but I think we both appreciated the down time. I did take her to see some of the local sights such as Egham high street, Windsor, and Staines. I also took her to my favorite local pub, the Happy Man, for a night out. 

We also took a day trip to Canterbury, a town in the south east which neither of us had been to. I always love a trip to Kent so off we went and three train connections later we were there wandering around the Norman and medieval streets. We visited the Canterbury Cathedral which dates all the way back to 597AD when Augustine came to England and established a monastery on the premises. The cathedral then became the last stop on the Canterbury pilgrimage route after the murder of Saint Thomas Becket in 1170, which should be familiar to everyone thanks to Chaucer. The Archbishop of Canterbury is considered the most important position in the Anglican church and he is integral in events such as coronation ceremonies for past and present kings and queens of Great Britain. The city is full of terribly old buildings at every turn and I could really feel the ancientness of the place, primarily because all of the buildings and doorways were built for people who were about 5 foot 5 or shorter; needless to say the past centuries were literally in my face every time I entered a building.

Canterbury high street

Canterbury Cathedral

The doors may be Rachel sized, but definitely not made for me

gorgeous canals in Canterbury

ruins of Canterbury Castle

Rachel and I ended our trip quietly back in Egham and now she is back home safe and sound while I begin my second term of my master's degree. It is really nice to see all of my uni friends again as everyone flocks back to campus but I am feeling the loss of my very best friend. It is funny how something can feel so right and effortless; the two weeks whizzed by and despite sleeping in very cramped quarters in my tiny room, it felt like Rachel was simply just always supposed to have been there. It is rare in life to have someone who has been such an influence in your life for as long as she has been in mine and this trip really opened my eyes as to how much I truly, truly miss her. Maybe someday we will both be in England studying together but for now I suppose visits once a year will have to be enough. The world is increasingly getting smaller and smaller with the advents of skype, facetime, or text messaging but nothing will ever beat one on one time for me. Her visit was perfect and no one got sick this time! I am so looking forward now to my future visitors to the UK and Europe, particularly my upcoming visits from my dad and Heidi; now all I have to do is wait. I so enjoy showing off my area of the world and hope that each and everyone of you will consider a visit; it is so worthwhile and gives me indescribable joy. England is a magical place and there is an air mattress and an extra comforter in Egham calling each and every one of your names.