So Friday during the day our class went to Berlin to meet with Prof. Omar Akbar and tour the city. Prof. Akbar is our Architecture and Society professor and he wanted to show us the different urban developments in Berlin. It was a good trip, and my third time in Berlin since we have been here. The UK group hopped on a train at 4 headed for Munich. It was a six hour train ride, but the dining car and comfy seats made it pretty tolerable (I had always wanted to eat dinner on a train riding through a countryside). The scenery was amazing, like something out of a movie (Sound of Music maybe..). We passed numerous castles and small villages, it was so relaxing after a hectic bike ride through Berlin that morning.
We got to Munich around 10:30 and made it to the hostel at 11:00. Lauren Davis and Lauren Early (arch. students from UK that are studying in Florence, Italy) were waiting for our group in the lobby of the hostel and we all rushed over to say hello. We checked into our room and then headed out for a late bite to eat and to catch up with our fellow travelers. We shared stories from Germany as they told us about visiting Rome and Pisa; what a great opportunity we have all been blessed with!
Saturday morning we all got up kind of early and hit the city. We walked around for a total of 6 hours and got to see a lot. My favorite part of the day was when we stumbled upon a little festival in one of the courtyards of the city. There were children of all different ages performing traditional German dances and groups of people watching and clapping, it was just a really good time. It made me feel like I had really arrived in the heart of German culture!
Afterwards we went to and architecture and design museum, which was fantastic. The Pinakothek Musuem housed exhibitions of architecture, art, design, and works on paper.
It was nice to walk through a museum and really get a glimpse into the minds of designers around the world, but even better to know that I was part of the same conversation.
One of the coolest displays showed soccer stadiums from around the world and had tiny models of each. This is a picture of one of my favorites.
Saturday evening we went to the world famous Hofbrauhaus beer-garden. The site dates back to 1589 and over 4 million people visit each year. This is also where we watched the USA-England soccer match, which was a lot of fun.
There was a huge group of people out on the patio and the restaurant had set up a large projector and screen for people to watch the game on. Surprisingly, there was a significant American presence on the patio, which made the atmosphere that much better. We tied, which for us seemed like a win, and everyone was really excited.
The trip back on Sunday was a little longer...like 8 hours. Luckily I slept for a majority of the time, only waking up to change trains. Between Sunday and Thursday, studio week took up most of my time. Thursday evening a large group of us met up with some German students that have graciously befriended us and had a cookout. It was a nice way to wrap up a hard week of work.
In about 45 minutes we are going to watch Germany's second world cup game, which is conveniently followed by USA's second game...so I have a full day of watching soccer ahead of me!
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