Busy Saturday in Berlin 2 - River Walk and Second Movie

We had time to kill before the second movie so we walked along a small river, a canal almost.  There were lots of people there, lots of beer. 

Now we're in Görlitzer Park where lots of people were taking advantage of a warmish (it was one of those days where it seems warm in the sun and chilly in the shade) Saturday.  This group brought along their water pipes.

This was on the back of the building above.

This is the Görlitzer Subway station.

The movie was being shown in a building that had been taken over by squatters in the early 90s.  This is in the old East Berlin.  It had been rotting inside and was vacant, and unowned, I was told.  The squatters totally redid the insides and eventually gained title to the building.  Today, I was told, there are 22 people living here including 7 children.  This is where M's friend lives.

Here's a hallway I took to get to a restroom.

Here's the huge communal kitchen.  It reminded me of the kitchen in the Russian movie Hipsters that showed in the Anchorage [NOT Alaska] International Film Festival in December. 

And here's the room we saw the movie in.  It was video of a river in Jakarta, totally polluted with garbage.  As the scene moves along the river, the narrator reads from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.  Then we got the U-Bahn and S-Bahn home.

Busy Saturday in Berlin - Football, Protests (Scientology and Munzur Dam), Food

We were invited (through my daughter) to two movie showings today.  A world premiere partly made by the son of someone we know at a theater that has operated since silent movies and a showing of another short film made by the boyfriend of M's friend. In between we walked around. Here are some pictures that will give you a little look at the city we experienced today.

 There were lots of people with blue and white towels headed for a football game. 

They obviously take this seriously and despite the fact that their team is not doing well, they made lots of noise at a number of the U-Bahn stations.

Random shot from the S-Bahn (train that tends to be above ground)

Here we are outside the Bablylon Kino (Movie) where our friend's son's movie was being shown.  I didn't write down the name.  It was a 45 minute short and I didn't understand a lot of what they said.  It was an experimental/art film according to the person who introduced it. [Later: Wait, I do have it, "Alles an mir". But don't wait for it to come to a theater near you. It's 40 minutes and rather dark.]

This is inside the theater which is quite elegant.  The seats were not only comfortable, but there was plenty of room for someone to walk by.

After the crew and cast who were there went  up front.

If I've kept things straight, we are now at Potsdamer Platz to meet M's frined.

This man is warning people about Scientology.  You can see another man on the same mission below along with the redshirted scientologists in the background.  He said he wears the mask because the scientologists otherwise would track him donw and harass him as they did to someone several years ago. 

Someone was passing out green fliers about stopping the Turkish government from building a dam that would destroy the Munzur National Park. 

We had dinner in a Turkish restaurant.  Prices are in Euros

Here's the bread that came with dinner.

I'll post another one, but this is long enough for now.

Arrived in Sunny, Cool Berlin

It was only seven hours once we actually got off the ground.  We idled over an hour waiting to take off.  The plane was full, though I did see one empty seat.  The man sitting behind us was on the plane last week when it turned around after an hour. The attendant announced it was the first flight to Berlin, which I assumed meant Delta's first flight after the volcano. 

We left, finally, at about 8pm.  Seven hours isn't a lot of time to settle in, eat, sleep, eat and get out.  I woke up with Holland below.

Germany.

Germany, with windmills.

Coming into Berlin.

Landed at Tegel Airport in Berlin.

Our daughter met us as we came out of Customs.  We took a short bus ride to the subway.

On the subway (U-Bahn).

M's stop has a familiar name.  I don't think you need to know German to get it.

Wie Es Euch Gefällt = As You Like it.

M's room in the apartment.

The view from her room.

Leaving's Looking Good

Long delay for a 45 minute flight in DC.  Things not well organized,  but we made it into JFK in New York just before a storm hit.  It began raining on the tarmac.  We were in a CRJ 900 which didn't connect to the terminal.  Then they said they had closed the airport terminals until the thunderstorm ended, so we sat longer. 

We walked along this makeshift terminal until we finally got to a back door of the real terminal. 

We wandered around until we found our gate passing the various shops, including this duty free shop.

Planes are leaving for all over from here.

And I'm posting this courtesy of Healthy Gourmet which has free wifi in the Delta terminal near gate 14.  

Maybe We're Going Tomorrow, Maybe Not

We had a lazy day doing things like laundry.  I got a run in.  It rained somewhat.  And Delta said most flights made it in and out of Berlin today.  We've got boarding passes, so we're assuming we're on.  We change planes in NYC. 

Don't have much more to say.  I have noticed that Louisiana Gov. Jindal's mocking of money on volcano monitoring has been remembered by some this week.

And Ropi put up an EU profiler which is of interest to me on our (fingers crossed) way there.  It let's you see what parties you might be aligned with in various countries.  Just the questions are interesting to read. 

B said tonight that this has been a really bad pollen season in DC, which might explain why my eyes have been red and itchy.  Not something that usually bothers me. 

If I don't post anything for a day or two, just go find an old post you haven't read.  You could check out April 2007 when I only did 27 short posts.

Or check out the Story of Stuff post  and then the follow up post on Victor Lebow which by far has the most comments of any post. 

Or better yet, you could go outside and take a walk. 

US Senate Floor Has One Senator as Begich Presides

We took the Metro to Union Station today, then walked to the Russell Senate Building.
(#1 on the map below.)

We passed through lovely, tree filled park, for the three or four blocks from the station.

Security at the Russell Senate Office Building was like at the Federal Building in Anchorage.  Bothersome, but not that big a deal.  And then we were free to roam the halls of the building.

Senator Begich's office was where all those people were.  We were there to get tickets to get into the Senate Chambers.  It turned out we needed someone to take us there and that person turned out to be an intern from the University of Alaska Fairbanks named Adrian.   And they suggested we get him to take us on a tour, that he was the best guide.  So we did.

This the outer office in Senator Begich's office with some other Alaskans there talking to the staff.

Here's Adrian on the train from the Senate Office Building to the Senate itself.  I'd read already that you had to check in your cameras before going into the Senate Gallery.  We also had go through security again.  We'd seen on a C-Span screen that Sen. Begich was presiding in the Senate.  It turns out this was not despite his low rank in the Senate, but because of it.

There was only one Senator on the floor - Sen Sessions of Alabama - giving a speech about a new Judge candidate who he accused of taking her liberal agenda to the bench and making decisions based on politics not the law.  Sen. Begich checked his blackberry and read documents while Sen. Sessions talked to an empty chamber - except for those of us in the Gallery.  Then Sen. Sessions departed and Sen. Dodd of Connecticut began a similar speech about the Republicans forcing all 41 of their members to block a vote on the upcoming financial reform bill.  During this speech, another young Senator came to replace Sen. Begich on the podium.

I'd heard that this went on, but watching it brought home the absurdity of it all. People get to stand up and give their speeches to the C-Span audiences (which aren't shown the empty chambers) and get their words into the Congressional Record. On the bright side, not all the other Senators have to waste their time listening. For the record, I did not see this happen in Juneau. Since I couldn't take pictures in the Senate chambers, here's a picture of the OLD Senate Chambers we saw later.


Adrian and the other interns were meeting with Sen. Murkowski, but he had two other people to show around an hour later, so we went to lunch and rejoined them later on for the rest of the tour.

There were lots of domed ceilings and chandeliers.  I'm not sure what this one was.

Here's a bit of floor tile.

This is Albert Caswell, the Poet of the Senate.  You can read about him in this  Politico post.

Here's a brief excerpt from a poem posted in the Congressional Record April 27, 2009:

He cries .....
As half his face is gone, has died .....
In this face of courage we see .....
The true definition of beauty .....
Countless operations, courage's full measure .....
All in faith's affirmation .....
Both Beauty and The Beast .....
As his shot is heard around the world .....
As his courage is unfurled ..... beyond belief .....
A Beautiful Man .....
With every step, reloading .....
With the Height of Courage exploding .....
He takes command!

I'll let you make your own assessment of his poetry. 

This is the Senate Capitol Rotunda dome.

Our group in the Rotunda.

High on the Rotunda wall is a frieze depicting the history of the US from Columbus to the Forty Niners digging for gold in California.  

When we rode the underground train back to the Russell Senate Building, we shared the ride with Sen. McCain.

Then we got our Metro ride back to J1's place, walked Kona, then went out for dinner at Bombay Bistro in Rockville with an old friend and his family.  It's late so that's it.