the reason i've not been writing is...

... simply...

berlin.

it sucked something out of me. it wasn't a bad place to be, but it felt so empty and it filled me with emptiness. it hit me when we were on a walking tour (that we managed to sneak on to for free) and the tour guide showed us a monument where all the students burned books in the 1940's. the monument was invisible because it was under a tarp behind a fence because they were doing construction. we were near another old building that we couldn't see behind fences and tarps. the tour guide said that the monument, which was basically a depression in the ground with books in it, was a symbol of the void left by the destruction of the books. void. berlin is a void.

when i'm in prague i feel like i'm full of life and emotion. sometimes i'm happy, sometimes i'm depressed, but i'm always looking around in awe, picturing who was here before me and why. when i am in prague i want to write blogs just to get everything that gets into me here (the history, the impressions, etc.) out of me and turn it all into something. berlin had the opposite effect.

i had fun there, i don't want to give the wrong impression. i'll get to the fun later. but i need to continue with the walking tour.

we went to this gray little plot of dead grass and stood on the sidewalk beside it. the tour guide said "beneath us is hitler's bunker. it is where he committed suicide with his wife at the end of world war ii." i looked down and i saw my feet, and below my feet i saw the sidewalk, and below the sidewalk i saw nothing. we may as well have been inside a classroom, for all i felt standing there.

when zdenek takes us on walks and he shows us, for instance, the cafe that mozart frequented, i see mozart walking in, or pounding on the door early in the morning drunkenly demanding entrance. i see it.

in berlin, we walked all around the east and west side. (now i'm on the east side of the wall. now i'm on the west side... unintentionally making a mockery of all the people who were trapped for so many decades.) we walked around the street where hitler lived and worked. i thought 'i, as a jewish person, could not have walked here six decades ago,' but all i felt was 'cold, gray, empty.' the ghosts of my people swarmed around us in berlin, but i couldn't feel them like i do here. they've all come here to prague, maybe. it's so much nicer here.

i think part of the reason berlin felt so empty is because it was so badly damaged in the war and all the buildings are new. but it really went beyond the aesthetics. and it wasn't that empty, people-wise. i don't know how to explain it. i've never not felt as much as i didn't feel there.

i'll move on.

what was fun about berlin. well, i learned a lot, of course, about the history of berlin. it really made me want to learn more. i think it sparked rhys's interest even more than mine.

the people of berlin were the friendliest people i've met here. germans would see us looking confused on the s-bahn (that's the metro) and would just come up to us and take us where we needed to go. one girl, lina, heard kelli and darling talking and came up to them and very animatedly declared her love for americans. she had lived a while in ohio and thought that it was absolutely the cutest thing ever how americans tried to party and tried to say that gutteral ch sound and failed to do both. she was on her way to a date she didn't want to go on, so she agreed to meet us later by the metro and take us to a club. boy did she take us to a club. it was the biggest club i'd ever seen and it was jam-packed with germans. germans dancing to reggae, germans dancing to salsa, germans dancing to 80's music, germans pole dancing in leotards (this one woman was so strong! i couldn't take my eyes off of her!). turns out ronen (our new york friend here) is a terrific dancer, so i danced with him all night. then schuyler lost 300 euros. he handled it pretty well though, and the trip was fun.

we also went on a pub crawl (earlier in the evening) because they said we'd get free alcohol and we had no idea what else to do. it was crazy. they weren't joking about the free alcohol. that's probably all i should say about the pub crawl. i managed to find some greasy french fries with sriracha sauce. yum.

my favorite part of the whole trip was probably the stanley kubrick museum. my face was about a foot away from alex's costume from a clockwork orange, the 'born to kill' helmet from full metal jacket, the final picture w/ jack nicholson from 'the shining,' more costumes from 2001 and barry lyndon and spartacus. dude! i was in heaven. for those of you who don't know, i've always had a series of obsessions in my life starting with alice in wonderland, then piers anthony (the fantasy writer), then the beatles, then stanley kubrick, then evolution, then videogames, then playing guitar, then lord of the rings. if i talk about kubrick i will become so sad at my inability to express the intensity of my passion for his films that i'll have to end this blog, so i'll move on.

the train on the way back was another adventure. we had to sit on the ground by the wc for a few hours. schyler fell asleep on my arm and rhys ate a banana. ben showed us his chest hair and likened himself to don juan demarco. i stared at my journal and tried to write, but was too full of the emptiness to get out anything more than "berlin is a void."

i feel like i'm healing now, though, because prague is the magic land. eddie from austin is visiting, and he's just such a delight to have around. rhys made the best pasta sauce i've ever consumed. i ate a whole jar of nutella. we have no hot water so i didn't shower for almost a week and then i finally just took a cold shower. the ghosts upstairs have quieted down a little.

we just went on another walking tour with zdenek, who is like our mr. miyagi. we crossed the charles bridge and saw where st. nepomuco (i have no idea how you spell that) was thrown off. we saw a statue of the saint who became sainted because he killed his son and then was murdered in a monastary. we saw where the heads of 27 rebels were put on display for years. we saw the statue of the man sticking his hand up a girl's skirt (to represent human sinning). we saw the john lennon wall. but the highlight of it all was the church with the crazy baby jesus who owns more gowns than scarlet o'hara. there was an exhibit of his collection of bejeweled gowns. it was insane. there's no other word. then the priest at the church noticed our group and wanted to give us gifts. what he gave us! each of us received an original piece of african artwork made of butterfly wings glued to look like tropical birds. it is one of the most beautiful things i now own, and a gift from a kind priest in a crazy church in prague.

things are going pretty alright right now. rhys seems to be really getting into living here in prague. i think berlin was good for both of us in this way. even though we had a good weekend, we were happy to get home! eddie is fun to have around. i've received some pretty valentine's day gifts from will, which made me blush terribly. i think i am not going to be able to find a job. but maybe that'll be fine. i am happy to be here.

okay. over and out.