Acclimating to the German landscape, in pictures.

On Wednesday, my first full day in Germany, Stephan and I visited the Paläontologisches Museum München at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität. We came on a whim after hearing there is an archaeopteryx on display. The museum is cute and small and housed in the lobby and hallways a building, just like the Pacific Museum of the Earth in the EOAS building at UBC.

The museum is in the far right foreground, running behind it are houses on the Richard-Wagner Strasse. I like the pink house because it is modest and waves only a tiny flag to you as you walk past.

Behold the mighty skull of the Dreihornsaurier! A triceratops by any name is awesome to see. I think this one looks surprised. I would be too, if my body had turned into a puny pole.  

The skull of a Neanderthal. I used all my German skills to translate the label. This specimen earned $50,000 a year, was in a gang called the “Intelligenz” and one day hoped to see Anaheim. I wonder if they ever did...

Upon closer inspection, this is not archaeopteryx. Es ist eine Horndinosaurier, von Kanada.

In the end, we couldn’t see Archaeopteryx because it was in the shower or at a birthday party—the person spoke at lightening speed—but a nice consolation was getting the meet Fossil Of The Year 2013, the wooly mammoth.

What better way to follow-up the museum than with a sunny afternoon stroll along the Isar river in Munich. Even the trees need to hit the beach in this gorgeous weather.

Stephan waits in line with young and old alike to buy Radlers (a beer–lemonade concoction) from a curbside kiosk. As an uptight Canadian, I wasn’t thrilled to see these children drinking and cycling, but they assured me they can handle their liquor.

 

Berlin bound

I am sitting on the 7:50am IC train from Munich as it snakes its way north through Germany. I arrived three days ago for a holiday; Stephan came a couple weeks before to visit his friends and family. We’re off now to spend four days poking around Berlin, a brand-new city for me and one that Stephan hasn’t visited in six years.

I’m trading my nightly pen-and-paper journal for blog posts on this trip as a way to both share what we’re doing and alleviate my guilt from neglecting my stupid blog. Publishing a journal entry makes me anxious as I write this, but I think it’s a good experience if I’m serious about improving my writing.

We’re currently in the third hour of our six-hour trip and I have no idea where we are. I see more trees than expected, maples and pines and linden with its little fragrant flowers, and in all the ditches fireweed or, much more common, a tall plant I don’t recognize with pale yellow flowers. The landscape began wide and flat, mostly crop fields, pale green or yellow, dotted with buildings and small forests. The houses were almost all white-walled and unadorned, with red-tiled roofs. We’re now passing through steep, low hills covered in trees or the occasional field. Clusters of houses or a single large industrial building are in every seam or pocket of flat land between the hills and everything feels more closed-in and crowded. Not all of the houses are white here, some are mint green or yellow or light brown, many are gray or cream or beige.

Contrary to my normal vacations—my operating mode in general, really—I have not prepared at all for our stay in Berlin...or for this trip in general. Other than a vague notion that Berlin has many museums and distinct neighbourhoods I know next to nothing about the city. I am curious to visit what was East and West Berlin during the Cold War and see remnants of the Wall. And art. I want to stare at pictures on a wall and feel feelings. I’m ready to get me some culture; I hear there’s a lot more of that in Europe than Canada…though I’m skeptical that culture is ubiquitous judging by the number of fanny packs wandering the streets.