The snow seems to be following us everywhere, as we've now hit the lowest temperature of our entire stay in Berlin. At about -10 degrees Celsius (14 Fahrenheit) - it's even cold for regular Berliners. Lucky us!!!
Anyway, I know I never followed up on our third ball experience. It was again a very different experience from the first two. The Vienna Philharmonic Ball is one of the most famous balls to attend, but it is held in the Musikverein, which compared to the Hofburg or the Rathaus is a very, very small space. It was just plain crammed full of people. There is one dancing area in the main room, where the orchestra and Helmut Steubl's big band switch turns playing music, rather than the multiple salons and rooms dedicated to other dancing. (Apparently, we did find out later that there was a DJ spinning in the basement, but it wasn't obvious he was there.)
But there were a lot of special attendees, including various ministers of the country and, of course, Seiji Ozawa who literally bumped into us during the first waltz of the night. It's possible that other famous people bumped into us as well, as the dance floor was unbelievably packed. I'm still amazed that Toli and I had the nerve to get out there and try dancing in all that traffic.
What we didn't dare, though, and probably should have tried, was the midnight and 2am quadrilles. All the instruction is in German, which is intimidating, and the quadrilles at this ball moved along very quickly. At one point, another Austrian couple invited us to join their quadrille (the quadrille is a dance where two couples dance together, exchanging partner, places, etc. much like square dancing), but by that time, the dance room was so full that we couldn't find the space to do it. Maybe another time?
The next day we barely made it in time to catch our train to Berlin, but luckily we did and spent most of the day riding the rails. There was a funny moment in the onboard restaurant when Toli and I ordered a baked potato (with lox) and a shishkebab. What we got back was scrambled eggs (with lox) and goulash. Is my German really that bad?
We met up in Berlin with Uschi, the woman who hosted me when I was an exchange student here so long ago. She's still as cool as ever, and she so very nicely let us shack up in her apartment during our stay here. It's in Charlottenburg, which is very close to the center of the West Berlin downtown.
Despite the weather, we've gotten to see and do a lot of my favorite things here. Had falafel at Winterfeldplatz, toured the grocery section of KaDeWe (quite possibly the largest department store I've ever been to, and same for Toli provided his memories of Gallerie Laffayette in Paris were not enlarged in his 11-year old mind), gaped at all the new buildings in Potsdamer Platz (which was really just a large construction site when I was here), and saw the glitz and the glamour of the Ku'damm and Friedrichstrasse (the main shopping avenues of the West and East). Even the museum at Checkpoint Charlie has grown and expanded, and now they have a little reproduction of the white hut in the street where the border check used to run. We also had the chance to visit Haus Cramer, the center for Stanford-in-Berlin and caught a poetry reading yesterday evening.
While talking with Wolf, the internship coordinator at the program (responsible for pairing me up with the ministry in Dusseldorf), he spoke about how the program in Berlin is less popular among students nowadays. The fall of the wall happened comparatively long ago for them (yow, I'm old!) and there are sexier places to go nowadays like Asia or Australia. It's a little sad to think that students wouldn't find a city with such a vibrant life and history interesting enough to study here, but then I remember how as a student, I still wasn't as interested in the history and economic change of the area as I am now. So maybe he has a point. Regardless, I feel blessed to have had the chance to study here and even more so to have the opportunity to come back, reconnect with old friends, and see all the changes that have taken place.
(Two days to go before we're back in the USA!)