Berlin!!

So, this week I was lucky enough to get to go to a math conference in Berlin. It was great, but I sure wish that Mike could have come with me. Although, I don't think he would have fit in my room: I got to Berlin on Monday morning at about 11 am, and I was exhausted, but everyone told me that the key to getting over jet lag is to force yourself to stay awake during your first day there until the evening. I was super tired, so I decided to go walk around the city to keep myself awake. I took a bazillion pictures of buildings and things while I walked, and a long string of them will follow this rambling paragraph, but I just want to write down why these pictures make me laugh when I see them. First of all, I was so tired, I was more or less delirious. And also there was a travel warning for American tourists in Germany while I was there-- so that made me all paranoid about looking like a tourist. So everytime I took a picture, I think I was trying to be all sneaky about it. Like, I wouldn't stop walking, and I'd, like, casually look the other way. Now that I'm lucid, I realize that that looked even weirder than just a normal person taking a picture. Plus, most of my pictures are blurry. I should not be allowed to travel by myself.

	Checkpoint Charlie
	AlexanderPlatz
	Berliner Dom
	Along Unter den Linden
	Some Humboldt dudes in front of Humboldt University
Reichstag	Brandenburger Tor
	West Berlin
	"Erotik Museum"???

So, for the rest of the week, I had to travel about 45 minutes by train to the Schrodinger Zentrum of Humboldt University in South East Berlin to attend the math conference. The Schrodinger Zentrum: Here are some pictures taken from one of my transfer points: Ostkreus Two interesting facts about Humboldt University (or maybe just universities in Europe?). There are no erasers for the chalkboards, rather, they have a sink at one end of the board with a large sponge and a squeegee. Lecturers actually wash the blackboard mid-lecture when they need more space. Weird, right? Also, when a lecturer has finished his or her presentation, (and this kind of scared me the first time it happened) everybody knocks on their desks really loud. Fun trivia. Here is some food that I ate. Notice that the cup next to the fruit tart is actually room temperature Sprite. No ice. Ever. Places I would have visited if I had more sightseeing stamina:

Potsdamer Platz	Memorial to the Murdered Jews

In a few minutes I will be on my last leg of the trip home. Fun trip, but SO nice to be back home. (Where we have ice)