From the Halfway Point

At this moment, I am as close to exactly halfway with my trip as I'm going to be. I'm torn between being excited to be closer to getting home, and dreading the end of the trip. It's a little hard to believe I've gone through so much already.

I was on a train leaving Amsterdam by around 1230 on Monday, and made it to Cologne by around four. The first hostel I went to was full, even though it was huge, because there was some sort of PC gaming competition being held there and they had booked up the whole place. Weird. So I went to another one, which was cheaper anyway (although it didn't include breakfast) and quickly unpacked. The whole reason for my going to Cologne was because they have this HUGE cathedral, which was free (I wouldn't have gone if it weren't free). It was well worth the trip, as this one was the biggest yet, even bigger than the one in Westminster (London), I believe. My favorite part about this particular cathedral was that it hadn't been commercialized, and was being used regularly (other than just Sunday morning) to worship and pray. There was a corner of the church where the people came to light their candles, since it was a Catholic church, and there were hundreds of them lit. That was cool. I didn't realize how much I was put off by having to pay to go into a church, and have it be surrounded by tourists and have all kinds of memorials to people instead of something religious, until I got there. So that was fun. Afterwards, I walked around Cologne for awhile, and I walked a little outside the city, across the river Rhine, and watched the sunset over the city for a bit.

Yesterday I was on a train to Berlin by ten, and in Berlin by 230. It was all gloomy again, and has been all day today as well, unfortunately. It was a bit of a hike to my hostel, so I wasn't really settled in there until around 430ish. Then I went out and walked around for awhile, came back and read, and went to bed. I find that I end up keeping that pattern in almost every city I go to, because I like having my bearings straight before I go sightseeing.

For being the capital of Germany, there wasn't a whole lot in Germany that I wanted to see. Not to say that there wasn't much to see in general, just not a whole lot that really interested me. I started off at the Kulturforum, which houses Germany's National Gallery, Museum of Modern Art, and Museum of Arts and Crafts (I translated all this because I forget what they were called in German). I just stuck with the National Gallery, which focused entirely on Renaissance art. I've decided that I don't especially care for a lot of Renaissance art. The colors are so dark, and the scenes are so somber. The paintings that aren't depressing are almost always the ones that deal with something religious, which is fine, but I got bored of seeing Jesus' stories painted over and over and over again. There are a few exceptions - I love Rembrandt, and I like watching how a few artists started experimenting with different uses of light and color - but as a whole it's just not my favorite. Anyway I spent about an hour there, and didn't go to the other musuems there. I didn't want to go to the one on Arts and Crafts, and the other one - the Modern Art Museum - didn't really interest me either. While I can appreciate Picasso and his contemporaries, again that's not my favorite. I'll see them at the Louvre.

After that, I took a stroll through the Tiergarten, or Berlin's central park. It was really nice, with all kinds of trees, and I happened upon a little monument to Mozart, Beethoven, and Hadyn. Then I went to the Holocaust memorial, which was powerful, and powerfully depressing. I didn't spend too much time there because I wanted to be in a good mood. After that was the Brandenburg Tor, Germany's big arch (does every city over here have one?). That was cool; it was also where the Berlin Wall started to be torn down. Then I went up to the Reichstag, where German Parliament sits. I waited in line for about a half hour, but it was worth it because there's this sweet glass dome at the top with access to the roof and really good views of the city. It would've been better if I could have actually seen the whole city.... but whatever. Next up was the Unter Linden (I think that's what it's called; it's one of the oldest streets in Germany and used to have a bunch of really old houses before WWII) and Checkpoint Charlie to round out the day. If you don't know, Checkpoint Charlie was the border between the American and Soviet controlled portions of Berlin during the Cold War... it's the setting for more than a few movies, I believe.

I feel more at home here in Germany than I have anywhere since England. The people here dress much more closely to what I am used to, and the facial features and body profiles are also more along the lines of what I'm used to. Probably because there's a large percentage of Germans in Cincinnati. I've found that the French tend to have longer legs and slightly more refined facial features (for instance, their cheekbones are higher, I think) and so I could really tell that I wasn't at home when I passed through France and when I was in French-speaking countries.

I've changed my plans again. I'm not going to go to Lake Constance and chill out, like I was going to. I'll still go to Munich tomorrow (for just a day because there's only a couple of things I want to do) and then head straight to Paris on Friday. I think I'll stay there until Monday, then go to Arles, then to probably Barcelona, head down to the beach in Southern Spain, and then to Italy for the last week. This is also cutting out the stop at Mt.-St.-Michel in France, which isn't a huge deal.

So... now that you've heard what I've done and what I'll be doing, here's another session of what I've learned thus far:
-While people in different cultures may have different religions or political philosphies, people are bascially the same wherever you go. Now, I haven't been to places like Asia or Africa or the Middle-East, but every place I've been to so far you get your rude people, your social people, your small business and shops, groups of young kids laughing and flirting and being oblivious to the world, and a few quirky people. Though we speak different languages, we say the same things.
-I'm learning a fair amount about art. What I like and what I don't, for one, but also about different styles and techniques and what an artist intends as they paint. I like that, and maybe I'll take an art class.
-I really enjoy almost all forms of writing. Writing both here and in my journal have been nothing but pleasure, and I keep coming up with new ideas for where I want my book back home to go.
-On the train to.... either Brussels or Amsterdam, I can't remember which, I had something of a revelation. I was feeling a little down and out of sorts, and kept thinking about my friends and how much I wanted to get back to them. It occurred to me then that perhaps the reason that I was so unhappy last year (if you didn't know this, then now you know... I was in a dark place for most of last year) is not because I wasn't doing what I really wanted to do, but because I missed my circle of friends and didn't have one to replace it. I've been really happy for the last few months or so because I've made some new friends at work, and at the same time my old group has sort of re-formed. So this tells me that, wherever I go, whatever I do, friendship and real human contact is very important to me, and that I need to make sure that, when I'm cut off from my friends, I don't fall victim to depression.

So that's interesting. Also...
Grandma: A Kebap is sorta like an open-faced sandwich. They take a thick piece of break, toast it, and open it so that it's a pouch. Then they have these GIANT rotating skewers of meat, either chicken or beef, and they slice little strips off. Then they put your choice of toppings - lettuce, some other stuff (maybe falafel?), some kind of vinagrette, and something akin to honey-mustard - along with the meat in the bread pouch. It's really messy but really good.
Mom: I couldn't find a paper in English today. I can tell you, however, that most people over here really like Obama. I've seen a lot of magazine covers and newspaper articles covering him with an almost hero angle. And everyone over here is paying attention to the election; the results were all over the news.

Ok, so that's it for now... this one is already too long. I'll post again from Paris, either Saturday or Sunday night. Auf Wiedersehen!

-Swag