elch-im-ausland

[elch-im-ausland]

Tuesday Feb. 20 2024

Got up around 9:30 am and took a shower. The bathroom at my host's apartment is so cute, there are big plants in there and a little pink lamp above the mirror and Simpsons figurines on the shelves and 2 very cool posters. My only gripe is that the shower head doesn't attach to the wall so I have to wash my hair upside down which is a good thing if you are worried about your hairline and your big forehead because my grandma told me that always wearing your hair back and washing your hair normally can make your hair line recede and also washing it upside down can give your hair more volume. But it also makes my back hurt so idk.

Anyway and then I had my leftover wontons for breakfast and I made coffee which I'm not very good at but I'm starting to drink it more. And then we reshot my host's video project and experimented with the lighting and it turned out great! She had to go buy a dvd player and convert the movie to a dvd format so I went to the Hamburger Bahnhof which was actually renovated into an art gallery.

I got to the gallery and immediately knew I wasn't going to have a good time because the coat check lady was mean and then I started to get frustrated by the layout of the gallery and the map is NOT clear at all about entrances and such so I was not a happy camper.

The first exhibit was a retrospective for Lee Ufan. He is a minimalist artist who also led the Mono-ha art movement and he mostly worked with big stones, sheets of metal, glass as well as painting on canvas. I especially liked his repetitions of patterns and also the fluorescent geometric spray paintings at the start of the exhibit and the gradient paintings at the end. What I liked best about his sculptures was how big they were, especially the pane of glass shattered by a rock.

The next exhibit was art that was inspired by Berlin. It was multi-media, with sculptures and paintings and photographs and readymades and videos, so it's a bit hard to describe the whole exhibit without describing every piece. I will say I was getting more and more frustrated by the fact that the info signs were difficult to locate for some artworks because of where they were placed and also because they blended in with the partitions. Maybe I will leave a Yelp review. But some of my favorite pieces were: Car frames by Selma Selman, a text-video piece of a woman being interrogated by police about the murder of her husband with techno music in the background (I can't remember the artist's name), Mountain of cocaine, and this metal structure (with a palm leaf hanging off of it) on top of a sheet of gold paper with a green vase and behind it is a half covered Greek pottery painting.

Finally I went to Nadia Kaabi-Linke's Seeing Without Light exhibition. There was supposed to be an audio element to it but the museum headphones didn't work on one side (the penultimate straw that would break the camel's back so to speak... I was getting close to having to leave early atp) so I skipped that part and went in. The first section has tactile paintings that guests are allowed to touch which was cool until I thought about the germs :( but the rest of the exhibition was interesting. A lot of the exhibition was relating to Kaabi-Linke's personal identity as Ukranian and Tunisian, as well as to the fact that Hamburger Bahnhof was used during WW2 to transport people to concentration camps. I liked the series of ink prints of Kaabi-Linke's hair that was about 20 pages long, as well as the scales that held sand on one side and salt on the other. Initially they were each balanced but the salt absorbs moisture so it became heavier over time, and also the video project Bud'mo, which was filmed in Ukraine, of these trees being filmed from the ground up and they sway in the wind and you can walk on top the of the projected video through a tunnel. Very cool.

Anyway my feet started to hurt so I decided to leave. I was going to go to the Wall Museum but the google reviews didn't seem promising so I decided to look for some black pants since I don't have any after the garage sale I had in August. Plus it's Berlin so surely they will have interesting clothes? (Dear Reader, they do have cool clothes, just not if you are kind of fat and above average height. I did go fuck myself thanks for asking. le sigh)

The first store I went to was VEB Orange. It's more of an antique store and not very much clothing but a lot of the stuff was from the DDR so I stuck around and I was not disappointed. Lots of little knick knacks and records, tapes, strips of film, pins, jewelry, decor, telephones, fiber arts supplies and sewing patterns, as well as a sweet little kitty napping on a pile of blankets. But my favorite part was the kitchen room. The cupbords and counters were solid orange and all of the VERY vintage kitchen tools were organized by color, and of course most of the stuff was orange. In the end I bought a little pack of buttons for 6 euro. I also went to another thrift store and although it was all clothing it was more like name-brand stuff like Levi's and Adidas and i can get that shit in the US so I went home. On the way home I bought some beers and chocolate because Ritter Sport is soooo cheap here. Fuck Mak's mini mart fr

I answered some emails and was able to download a game I used to play in middle school that got deleted off the Scholastic website when they did their accursed update and then I called my mother about my flight home and then I had my Tom Kha Gai soup with buttered bread and my beers and then I went to bed!

[elch-im-ausland]

Monday Feb. 19 2024

I woke up a bit late around 10am. My host was also at home working on her art project that is going to be part of an exhibition in Karlsruhe next week so we had breakfast together (coffee and bread with butter, tomatoes, salt) and I ended up helping her film the video she was working on until 13. It's a bit complicated because she wants to film herself watching a short film (that she also made) and then film herself watching herself watch the film and then film herself watching herself watching herself watch the film and so on so we filmed a clip and then airdropped it to the Mac and the WeTransfered it to the old laptop that was connected to the TV and then put the new video on the TV screen. And she didn't even end up using the Monday footage because the lighting wasn't very good but she's fun to talk to so it was still fun. We also had this yummy but unusual tea that was Vanilla and Krauter (herbs? I think) flavor and she made pasta for lunch.

Then I went to the German Spy Museum, which my dad told me to check out and it was pretty cool, there are lots of interactive activities like a lie detector test and a laser maze and puzzles to solve. I think it would have been more fun as a kid (indeed there were lots of families with kids) but even with one other person to go with I would have been able to do the partner activities and maybe done the laser maze which seemed cool but I would have felt weird doing it by myself so idk. But there were also spy tools on display like mini radios, bags and lipstick with hidden cameras, a microphone hidden in a pen, and tiny audio recorders so it was really cool to see those. And everything was in English and German <3

After that I went to the Berlinische Galerie. I was a bit behind schedule so I only had about 90 minutes there. Never rush an art student at an art gallery cuz I love to examine every single piece and then read the little info card, think about the info card, look at the piece again, look at all the pieces on display in the same room, think about the connection between them all that the curator wanted to highlight, think about the information about the artist that was given at the start of the exhibit, think about what information may have been left out, think about what was happening in the world when the piece was made, how it makes me feel, how the artist achieved certain textures, relate the art to my own art, feel inadequate, get depressed, etc etc so I take a really long time and 90 minutes is not enough time even if the gallery is on the smaller side. But there were some cool exhibits.

The first installation by Nasan Tur was in a big room with taxidermied animals on the ground made to look like they were shot along with big paintings? of hands making shadow puppets and a video installation of a female hunter being interviewed.

Then there was a retrospective on Hans Uhlmann in the man section of the gallery. He was an engineer originally but then he became an artist and mostly made abstract, geometric metal sculptures and sketches, as well as abstract drawings with chalk. He has a few sculptures around Berlin. I had never heard of him before so it was really informative and beyond art he led an interesting life too.

There was also a room about urban planning I think, this part was all in German so I didn't fully get it. And another room about building structures with fungi, wood, and mud. In the center of the room was a little house the artists had constructed out of wood and fungi panels they grew themselves that you could sit inside on benches with pink and yellow pillows dyed with fungi dyes and there were guest book to sign as well it was really cute.

The second floor of the gallery is the permanent exhibition with classical, historical art. This is where I started to run out of time but I did see the impressionism and expressionism sections, as well as the Dada section (that one's always obvious because there's always some funky random shit happening, for instance in this room there was a figure of a pig suspended from the ceiling) but there were some Hannah Hoch pieces! Very cool to see in person. What was especially interesting about this section was that in almost every room there was a sensory version of a select painting. For example there was a Eugene Spiro painting titled Tänzerin Baladine Klossowska. It's of the painter's younger sister in a black ruffled dress with gold trim and in front of the painting is a 3-D relief version with a real fabric dress that people can touch if they can't see the painting. I'm not doing a good job explaining it so here's a picture but I'd never seen that before and I thought it was cool so there

Well after the gallery I was really tired from walking around and standing all day so I decided to go home and on the way I realized I was really hungry so I stopped at a restaurant and got wontons, Tom Kah Gai soup, and crispy chicken with green curry to go and had dinner at home. I met my host's other roommate who is the closest to my age. She is studying something computer science-adjacent, it include mechanics in some way and on Tuesday she has her final semester project (building a rocket from scratch, predicting the trajectory, launching the rocket and hoping that the parachute opens and the rocket survives the landing). She was also very nice. Sadly I ordered too much food so I had to save some for Tuesday but it was actually quite tasty and spicy which I could never say about Asian food in Stuttgart.

After dinner my host and I talked about art. I showed her the photobook I made for my photography class and she showed me the photographs she had taken for her classes and was trying to decide which ones to take with her to the exhibition. She's a really good artist, I felt a bit silly showing her my stuff and then she pulls out these innovative and abstract photos that look really cool. I seriously think she's amazing but idk I tried not to be weird about it since we just met.

Then I went to bed because my feets and my legs hurt

[elch-im-ausland]

Sunday Feb. 18 2024

I woke up a bit late but that's okay cuz it's Sunday! And nothing happens on Sundays in Germany... except for the Flohmarkt at the Mauerpark in Berlin. I took the tram just a couple stops away from where I'm staying and arrived at the market. Then I got a dirty chai latte and a currywurst for breakfast (very tasty with hot sauce and different kinds of mayo it was D-Lux!) and I walked around for a few hours.

There were lots of vendors selling coats and I wish I didn't live so far away because I have been dying to have a long fur-lined coat (of which there were many) but I really don't have any space so I ended up buying a leather bomber-style jacket to replace my really ratty denim coat I wear all the time.

As much as I love love love my denim coat and I've had it for a few years it's not very warm and the cuffs are so stringy and it's just not the best coat so I'm going to remove my patches and pins and leave it in Germany where it can have a new life hopefully and I will try not to think about how inanimate objects have feelings and how sad my coat will be that I am leaving it behind.

But I'm excited about the leather jacket. I think it will mark a new chapter in my life and although I am a bit saddened by the fact that leather is not really a pin-friendly material I have so many (some (my mother) might say too many) other jackets to redistribute my pins and patches onto, and I will continue the hunt for the long fur-trimmed coat of my dreams.

Back at the flea market I also bought a silver ring with a face on it for 6 euro, a record of Nena's Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Irgendwann 12" dance mix for 10 euro, and a button down t shirt for 2 euro. Then I got a cup of Sahlab and another currywurst and went home because I had to pee and there were no public restrooms.

I met one of my host's roommates, he was really friendly and somehow spoke the exact German that I understand like he didn't use big words idk it felt like talking to a german teacher who understands your level of german. So that was nice.

That night I went to the Berlin Independent Film Festival (not to be confused with the Berlin International Film Festival aka the Berlinale, however I recently bought tickets to 2 films that are being shown at the Berlinale so yay! but it's really annoying that they both take place at the same time and have similar names cuz I keep getting them mixed up).

The movie I saw was Lichtenberg by Carl Bessai. It was at the Babylon Theater and it was very good! It is about 5 different time periods during the last century in an apartment building in the Berlin neighborhood Lichtenberg. The eras where 1920s, 1940s, 1980s, 1990s and 2010s. The cast was small and they played different characters in each time period. And then at the end of the movie there was a short Q&A panel at the front of the theater with the cast and director which was a bit awkward since I had a front-row seat so everyone was standing like 4 feet away from me eep! Apparently the director (who is from Canada) wrote the script and then the cast (all German) decided that it was a bit dry so they improvised every scene so it felt more organic and personal so it was a bit like a stage play in that respect. It's not on Letterboxd yet so I haven't been able to add it to my list rip

Then I came home and went to bed because I was sleepy.

[elch-im-ausland]

well I feel bad for neglecting this account so I'm going to keep a little log of my trip to berlin just for fun

Saturday Feb. 17 2024

I wake up in Tübingen in Helia's dorm room because Fiona wanted the Deutsch Kompakt Kurs to hang out again at the end of the semester on Friday and Helia still had to return my book (Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata) to me and the party was in the common area of her building. So anyway I spent the night in her room since she has an extra mattress and when I woke up she made breakfast (hot milk and muesli... don't ask) and then I took the bus to the Tübingen Hauptbahnhof and from there I got to the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof at 11:30 am. I should mention that I'm a chronic overpacker and my bag was so fucking heavy but I made it.

Then I went to Yorma's and bought a Butterbrezel (I wanted the thick one with the green onions but apparently I didn't order the right one so I got the tiny Brezel with a measly swipe of butter so that was fun) and also a mozzarella and tomato sandwich (also not the one I wanted and also all the lettuce fell to the bottom of the bag 🥲). But if you were me at a busy train station and there was a long line behind you, you would also just take what you were given without complaint. I also bought an apfelschorle and Haribo gummies cuz I like to get a little silly with it.

So anyway then I check my email and find out that my train to Berlin got switched so my seat got rebooked so instead of sitting in front of the luggage rack (to make sure no one stole my stuff) I sat in a normal seat like a normal person. Luckily though the guy from Mannheim who was supposed to sit next to me decided to sit somewhere else :D yay!

Train ride was about 5.5 hours long with stops in Mannheim and Frankfurt. Free WLAN and I got some solid knitting done. the sky was very pretty.

Arrive at 19 Uhr and the woman who is hosting me sends me very long directions on how to find her place. She is a friend of a friend of a friend of my parents. As it turns out. I get stopped by a guy doing a survey? I think? outside of the Berlin Hauptbahnhof but I slithered out of that interaction by answering all of his questions and being very unassertive.

I arrive at the apartment building my host lives in which is covered in very cool graffiti and is just so German idk, she rings me up and I get to discover just how many flights of stairs my poor body can handle. Remember how I overpacked? I do always regret it in the end, yet I never learn. The apartment is on the top floor and it's covered in very cool art and vintage posters and maps and things and full of very luscious plants it's so rad.

My host is really nice, she is also studying art (I think her Master's program?) and she invites me to this party she's going to tonight that's a 50th birthday party for a woman she knows. So I take a shower and go there and it's also on like the 5th floor (my asthma is loving this). There is music, live experimental jazz and EVERYONE is smoking inside and it is also decorated in a really cool cluttered artsy way. The music was really good, but there were a lot of people there and my german isn't exactly at the conversational level so I only stayed a couple hours until 1 am and then took the train back to the apartment because I was also really tired.

Overall it was a nice day, I wish I could have left for Berlin when my last class ended on the 14th so I could go to clubs but that can wait until next time and I was happy to see my Tübingen buddies again.

My room here is sort of small but there's a really cool lamp and the window looks out onto the courtyard of the apartment building which is very sexy.

[elch-im-ausland]

hallo liebe Leute! here I am at the Jugendhergerge in Stuttgart. My exchange program spent 2 days in Stuttgart for the rest of orientation which was quite fun and nice to be introduced to downtown Suttgart before moving into my dorm. we got Eis again and my roommate and I walked to the DM in town which was okay until we had to walk back up all the fucking stairs 😓 but we saw a cricket, a cat, and a toad on the way!

bis später!

[elch-im-ausland]

hallo liebe Leute! here I am on my final day in Tübingen on the Neckar River along with a picture of me with my roommates at the hostel after buying books at Osiander (I bought Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, Desire and another books I forget the name). Tübingen was a very pretty town and im glad I got to stay there for a couple days. nowadays I'm in Stuttgart and commuting every morning to Tübingen for my language course.

bis später!

[elch-im-ausland]

hallo liebe Leute! here I am on my final day in Tübingen on the Neckar River along with a picture of me with my roommates at the hostel after buying books at Osiander (I bought Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, Desire and another books I forget the name). Tübingen was a very pretty town and im glad I got to stay there for a couple days. nowadays I'm in Stuttgart and commuting every morning to Tübingen for my language course.

bis später!

[elch-im-ausland]

Hallo liebe Leute! here I am after going on a ride on the Neckar river in a Stocherkahn, which is a narrow punting boat. I may have fallen asleep cuz it was very hot and sunny and the boat was rocking and I was like a babe in a cradle or something idk anyway it was very peaceful, other than the fact that you have to lean against a narrow piece of wood and it is a bit unsteady if the weight isn't evenly distributed. slay!

bis später!

[elch-im-ausland]

Hallo liebe Leute! here I am after going on a ride on the Neckar river in a Stocherkahn, which is a narrow punting boat. I may have fallen asleep cuz it was very hot and sunny and the boat was rocking and I was like a babe in a cradle or something idk anyway it was very peaceful, other than the fact that you have to lean against a narrow piece of wood and it is a bit unsteady if the weight isn't evenly distributed. slay!

bis später!

[elch-im-ausland]

hallo liebe Leute! here I am at the Stiftskirche in Tübingen I got Eis with my roommates at the hostel and luckily there was a large selection of dairy-free Eis and it was so tasty! I got Banane und Zitrone. then there was a big group of Italian students there and then we went on a walk and then went back to the hostel. and then me and 3 other classmates went back out to this church and got beers, had a cheeky cigarette and hung out and then i went home.

bis später!

[elch-im-ausland]

hallo liebe Leute! here I am at the youth hostel with a view of the Neckar River! met most of the other participants of the program and im looking forward to exploring the town

bis später!

[elch-im-ausland]

hallo liebe Leute! i am now at the orientation and I went to the little shopping mall to buy soap and lotion and I didn't hold up the line or anything, suck-sess! walked thru the park (pictured here) and for the 4 day orientation I'll be at the University of Tübingen and staying in a youth hostel #youth my suitcase is so heavy im getting calluses on my cloven hoofs :(

bis später!

[elch-im-ausland]

hallo liebe Leute! first post I'm at a very nice hotel in Tübingen for one night cuz I got here a day early. slept okay since I didn't sleep on the plane and I still haven't eaten an actual meal but soon I will be at the orientation! got some elk jerky from my classmate (is that cannibalism?) and apfelschorle at the stuttgart train station. the trip from the frankfurt flughafen was insane we took 3 trains, a shuttle, and a taxi to the hotel but I made it and thats what counts. fell asleep to the rain and so far jet lag hasn't been too bad.

bis später!