Wuppertal

Today I traveled to Wuppertal where I will be spending the rest of my time here in Germany. I went by the ICE train (Inter-City Express) and arrived here at about 1:40 pm. The last day of class I had in Berlin was actually on Thursday. Friday was a holiday. It was the 18th anniversary of the German reunification. There was a huge celebration at the Brandenburg Gate and on into Tiergarten park. It was like fall fest but thousands of times bigger. There was a huge stage with lot's of sound equipment set up right in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Different German groups played there throughout the day. The Street of the 17th of June goes straight back from the Brandenburg Gate into Tiergarten park to the Victory Column. This whole stretch of street was covered with vendors selling food and naturally also beer. Every few hundred meters there would be a giant screen and more sound equipment showing what was happening on the stage.

It was interesting to see this festival sponsored by Coca-Cola, the symbol of western capitalism. Their omnipresent banners seemed to be celebrating the fall of communism with us. But instead of celebrating the reunification of a people, the banners seemed to be celebrating the expansion of markets. It is easy to see why many people, especially those who were once committed to the economics of communism, choose not to celebrate this day.

On Saturday, I did my best to get ready to leave my apartment at 8 am the next morning. Only having our family's somewhat regular rental of a cabin in Colorado as a model for moving out of a rental, I cleaned the place before I left. I also knew that some offers I had seen had a final cleaning fee, which this one didn't. I thought it would be at least common courtesy to clean some.

Then this morning, after packing an an incredibly heavy bag, I left my apartment. I carried the very heavy bag down 5 flights of stairs. The wheels on the bottom of the bag hit every step. It was too heavy for me to lift off off the ground for very long long. I also had a trumpet and a computer strapped around my shoulders. Luckily my landlord carried my 4th piece of luggage (a heavy duty garment bag) down for me. He even helped me carry it down into the subway station. From this point I had to take all my luggage one stop to Alexanderplatz where I could take public transportation to the main train station in Berlin. Luckily from this point on there was an escalator or elevator. But I still had to pull along the very heavy bag, whose wheels are almost kaput (to use an imported word.) When I finally sat down to wait for the train, I tried to lift my right arm. Much to my surprise, this had become a very difficult task, after carrying/pulling a giant bag behind me for so long.

Finally I made it on to the train with all my stuff. Unfortunately I was in the wrong compartment, so I had to push my way through with all my luggage to another compartment to get to my seat. I had the most luggage of anyone I saw on the train. I was jealous of those who just had one small rolling bag, whose wheels worked well. They seemed so mobile.

Tobias Ruhle picked me up then at the Wuppertal train station. He and his brother (I think) took me to my dorm room. Tobi carried my giant bag for me. He asked if I had packed bricks.

Then he got me settled into my room. We then went to Rosie's (the other Bethel student who is here) room to look through the boxes of stuff that the Wuppertal "Friends of Bethel" group has for Bethel exchange students. She was nice to make me some spaghetti. I still hadn't eaten, and today is Sunday, so stores are usually closed.

So, I am supposed to get a roomate sometime. That should be interesting. Kind of scary. Hopefully we will be friends. At least each of our rooms are seperate, we just share a kitchen and bathroom.

We will see.

A rainbow appeared on one of the cloudy days as the sun was setting in clear sky.


A couple pictures of my dorm. It is hard to get a picture of it, because it is pretty small and narrow.



Week of September 28, 2008:

The Bad:
I had to say goodbye to Berlin and a friend that was with me there since the beginning. And forget about the sun. It is raining now, and it has turned cold and cloudy again.

The Good:
I managed to get out of my apartment and to Wuppertal relatively unscathed.

--Austin