I Like to Ride My Bike

28.03.10

You know what I did today? I rode my bike for an extremely long time, and went very far. I rode my bike along the Havel River, then across it, where I found a marathon in my way. So followed the marathon throughout Berlin, and suddenly found myself on the shopping street called Kurfürstendamm; basically I was pretty much in the middle of Berlin. Then I was going in circles around Potsdamer Platz, before going to Alexander Platz, after which I sort of just... went east. I almost left the city boundaries before a little voice in my head told me to go home. So I went north to go home (not sure why, to be honest), and well... I was all over the place. I also visited a Jewish cemetery. But, I planned on riding my bike the whole way home too (I was over 20 miles from home), but then my host mom called me, and told me to take the subway home. So I did. And I got all the way to the Olympic Stadium, where the Olympic Games were held during Hitler's reign. I liked how one of the streets around the stadium was named after Jesse Owens, a black person who had been a competitor in the Games, and won some shiny metals despite his "racial inferiority". But, back to the bike riding, I rode my bike over 30 miles through Berlin. Here is a map of an estimate of where I was (I know where I went, just not how I got there). The thin red line is my trip through Berlin, the blue is after I got on the subway to go home.



(Thanks Google Maps for the map.)

Afterwards, my host family and I ate out at a Mexican restaurant. It didn't taste as well as Buckeye...

29.03.10

Dude, I took a break from doing anything.

30.03.10

I cooked with the neighbors and ate leaks for the first time. It was actually a lot of fun. We made this meat thing with leaks, a pepper purée, a potato purée, and a weird thing. The weird thing was dessert, had caramel at the bottom, was in a small bowl, but the rest of it was like Jell-O-pudding. It all tasted pretty good. I was surprised by how much I like leeks, and also by how nasty it is to clean them. They actually have sand between their leaves. I am just so used to not expecting food from a store to have ANYTHING resembling dirt, much less actual dirt, in it. So, my host brother, the neighbors and I all enjoyed the meal, and then I helped them more with making bread dough. It's amazing what the Germans all make.

31.03.10

I visited my host mom's work. She happens to work in a library at an institute (Max Planck Institute) where English is the main language, because scientists from all over the world go there to exchange ideas, and basically work on finding out new things about the fundamentals of science. I ended up getting one talk about latex, and one tour of the place. It was actually pretty nice. And well... there was too much there to talk about. But it was really interesting that the scientists there were basically just working on any random thing they wanted. A lot of research was being done on teeth, and on natural structures (how your bones are structured, or bark, or ... anything you can think of).

That evening I watched a film about Scientology, called "bis nichts mehr bleibt" (Until Nothing Remains). It was... kind of creepy, what the Scientologists were doing... and then there was a debate after the film, about whether or not it was an accurate portrayal... it was kind of creepy.

01.04.10

I looked at the Scientology Church that's here in Berlin. From the other side of the street of course. I didn't want them to see me taking pictures and try to talk to me. But look. This looks more like a bunch of office buildings than a church, and the first floor looks like a storefront... it actually is, to be honest. They're trying to get people to come in and take a personality test, and also are trying to sell their books...



Also, the church is six stories tall, and the whole building belongs to the church...

02.04.10

I went with my host parents to Potsdam, a city close to Berlin, with our bikes. We also took a Water Taxi. Basically, a boat that works more like a bus than a taxi... it has its own route, and you pay to use it, but you don't say, "take me to that really pretty rock there", and well, you're using it with other people too. Then, we were in Potsdam. And what can I saw, Potsdam has an evil amount of hills. And guess what? We went to the top of the biggest one! We visited a castle that was basically just built so that the royal people could kick back, relax, and see around for miles.



After that my host mom and I went to this little Russian village within Potsdam, and then a Dutch part of Potsdam. Then she showed me a way through the forest to get home faster.

04.04.10

I rode my bike to this tiny little town called Fahrland. But before that, I went with my host family to church, and then I got presents. I got this little gadget for my bike, that calculates how fast I'm going, how far, how many calories I burn, the temperature... just about everything. In case you're wondering, I traveled 23 kilometers today, my max speed was 38 kilometers per hour, average speed was 15.9, my time was 1:27:20, it's 20.5 C° in my room right now, and I burned 372 calories. Beat that.