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Wednesday, 8 March: 11:30 AM
Those of us who were early risers were in a big nineteenth-century room in the Rotes Rathaus (the city hall, whose name we'd just been told twice had nothing to do with the city's current governing coalition). We´d just had a panel discussion on "International perspectives", from Fulbrighters who´d been flown in from other parts of Europe, on what their experiences had been. And now we got the Mayor, who gave us what was actually a pretty cool talk on the current state of Berlin, including its problems (integration of non-Germans, education policy, and of course rebuilding--construction on the Brandenburg Gate is going to stop for the world cup, but then they´ll be putting the scaffolding back up!) And of economic problems since it had stopped being heavily subsidized by both halves of Germany. Since this remains a problem (despite, as she was keen to point out, progress by her government), she jokingly told us that we'd better spend some money before we left.
I, in fact, had already done so. Like an idiot, I'd brought my computer but not my digital camera's download cord, so my camera was out of memory from all the pictures I'd taken--it had been an eventful couple of days. So I'd gone out and bought a cheep-@$$ memory card. But that was on Monday. Like I said, it had been an eventful couple of days. I'll tell the story homerikos:
( Read more... )
( UPDATE )
Those of us who were early risers were in a big nineteenth-century room in the Rotes Rathaus (the city hall, whose name we'd just been told twice had nothing to do with the city's current governing coalition). We´d just had a panel discussion on "International perspectives", from Fulbrighters who´d been flown in from other parts of Europe, on what their experiences had been. And now we got the Mayor, who gave us what was actually a pretty cool talk on the current state of Berlin, including its problems (integration of non-Germans, education policy, and of course rebuilding--construction on the Brandenburg Gate is going to stop for the world cup, but then they´ll be putting the scaffolding back up!) And of economic problems since it had stopped being heavily subsidized by both halves of Germany. Since this remains a problem (despite, as she was keen to point out, progress by her government), she jokingly told us that we'd better spend some money before we left.
I, in fact, had already done so. Like an idiot, I'd brought my computer but not my digital camera's download cord, so my camera was out of memory from all the pictures I'd taken--it had been an eventful couple of days. So I'd gone out and bought a cheep-@$$ memory card. But that was on Monday. Like I said, it had been an eventful couple of days. I'll tell the story homerikos:
( Read more... )( UPDATE )
