Under the Cover of Night

Thursday, Jan 25th

We started our day by heading back to museum island to visit the Pergamon. Apart from being one of the largest museums in Germany, this was also my favorite one yet, with exhibits of antiquity, Islamic art, and the Middle East. The first thing I saw when I entered the museum was the massive Ishtar Gate of Babylon, or rather an authentic reconstruction of it. Only later did I discover that it was just a portion of the gate when I looked at a scaled down model. Everything in this museum fascinated me and proved to be much more awe-inspiring than any previous exhibits I've seen.

Reconstruction of the Market Gate of Miletus, originally built in the 2nd century.

After we’d gotten our fix of antiquity at the Pergamon, Alex, Matt, and I headed into the city to rent bikes. We decided to give ourselves two hours, which only cost €5 per person. We made our way through the city streets towards the East Side Gallery with our newly acquired wheels. The East Side Gallery is a section of the Berlin Wall which has been completely overtaken by art, much of which expresses ideals of peace and justice. Considering the history behind this wall, the artwork here is especially meaningful. While we could have easily spent hours strolling down the expansive display, we were on a fairly tight schedule, not to mention overtaken by hunger. The hole in the wall at which we ate dinner the night before was not far so we decided to go back for round two. After another delicious meal of sushi and rice cakes, we headed back to return the bikes and rendezvous with the group before our concert at the Gewandhaus, which would feature front-row seats (from behind) to the Berlin Philharmonic!

Matt getting human at the East Side Gallery.

Friday, Jan 26th

Our only scheduled event on this day was the ballet “Jewels” at 7:30, which meant that we got to sleep in and make the most of our free afternoon. I ended up joining Matt and MariHa to go to the Turkish market, the most prominent open-air market in Berlin. After perusing the entirety of the market, I felt comfortable enough to make an informed decision about what to get for lunch. Ironically enough, however, this is not what dictated my lunchtime meal. On our way up and down the aisles I had taken a few free samples of fruit, and so when I saw a basket of bread with chili spread sitting out at one of the stands, I reached out and took a slice. As I was fixing it up with the chili spread, the lady behind the counter said, “You should ask before you take it.” Instantly I felt guilty for taking her bread, but she insisted that it was fine to take and continued to encourage me to ask first in the future. Feeling obligated to give her my patronage, I bought a portion of chicken wings and plaintains, which turned out to be delicious.

Once we were done at the market, the three of us headed for the Berlin Wall memorial, a small free-admission museum about the wall’s construction, development, and eventual end. This took up most of the remaining free time until dinner and the ballet. For dinner I made a detour to get Mustafa’s Gemüse Kebap, Yelp’s first candidate for the best döner kebap in Berlin. Judging by the line in which I had to wait for a good 30 or 40 minutes, it seemed like the real deal. All of this build-up just heightened my expectations, which were met fully after taking the first few bites.

Later that evening we got to see the one and only ballet of the trip. It turned out to be quite a show, with a climactic ending featuring the last movement of Tchaikovsky’s  Symphony No. 3 in D Major. The ballet was set in three acts; each one better than the previous in my opinion, with the Tchaikovsky being my favorite performance of the trip thus far.

Saturday, Jan 27th

With eight hours of train time ahead of us, our group snagged a quick breakfast at the Wombat before beginning our early-morning excursion to the train station. We took two different trains to get to our next destination: Salzburg. Fittingly, we arrived at Mozart's hometown on his birthday! After checking into our hostel, Dr. Powell gave us all a mini tour of the small city set picturesquely among the majestic Alps. This city quickly captivated me and gave Prague a run for its money; ultimately the only reason I rate Prague higher is due to its affordability. Salzburg seems to capitalize on the novelty of being the birthplace of the legendary Mozart and thus is a bit more expensive.

After the majority of our class dispersed to find dinner, Matt and I stuck around for the after-hours tour with Dr. Powell. We followed him to a sausage stand where we ordered the last bratwurst before they sold out. It was so good that Matt and I would continue to return to this stand just about everyday. We then meandered through a massive crowd of people who were congregated around the cake-cutting ceremony for Mozart’s birthday before finding our way into a brewery, Sternbrau, where Dr. Powell treated us to some beers! It was an eventful evening in the new city preceding an amazing concert.

Seeing as it was Mozart's birthday, the concert for the night was something special. We got to see Vienna Philharmonic perform Elgar’s B minor violin concerto followed by a dazzling rendition of Mozart’s Jupiter symphony. The conductor, Robert Ticiatti, had a unique style and I very much enjoyed his take on the famous symphony. He was also incredibly young for a conductor; I wouldn't be surprised if not one member of the orchestra was younger than he. Although the Tchaikovsky symphony from the night before had just made it onto my number one spot for performances on the trip, the Jupiter symphony quickly took its place.

Our front row seats to an amazing concert for Mozart’s birthday.

Bonus: the following content has remained confidential until now. Only upon reading this will the target learn of our pursuit… After the group debriefed post-concert, Dr. Powell mentioned he was headed to the new Augustiner Brauhaus (opened January 2017) for a drink. This was one of the spots I’d researched and decided I’d like to visit during our time in Salzburg, so I thought about tagging along. We had plans to go to a bar with Megan, Aaron, and MariHa, however, and decided the brewery could wait for another day. At the last second, the aforementioned trio said they were going to a restaurant first and that they would meet us at the bar later. Alex, Jeffery, Matt, Carl, and I took this opportunity to scope out Augustiner Brauhaus. We followed Dr. Powell but he had about a ten second lead on us. Instead of catching up to him, we followed from a distance. I speak for myself, but probably also for the others, when I say the idea of stalking a target undetected had always appealed to me in video games and the opportunity in front of us now was too good to pass up. Under the cover of night, the five of us pursued from a safe following distance. There were some close calls here and there, mainly towards the end when the target unexpectedly stopped before crossing the street. Nevertheless we remained undetected for the full 20-minute journey. Finally we arrived at the massive brewery on the outskirts of the city. We arrived at the opposite end of the entrance, and this proved to cause considerable confusion for the target. We stayed back as he approached the building, but quickly had to seek cover after he unexpectedly turned around and walked back towards us. Carl found sanction behind a car in the parking lot. Alex and I continued down the street nonchalantly, only hoping the target hadn't identified us in the distance. After the brief pandemonium, we regrouped and collectively concluded that the target was unable to detect neither us nor the entrance to the brewery. We figured he’d come around eventually, and so made our way inside. The waiter seated us inside a giant beer hall and asked the table, “Beer?” to which we all replied yes. A few seconds later he brought out five liters of beer with foam spilling over the edges and slammed them on the table. We sipped our drinks and waited for the target to make his way through the door but he never did. It's true that, over the course of this trip, we’d had some difficulty with finding entrances, but we gave Dr. Powell the benefit of the doubt and figured he'd find it eventually. When Carl asked him about it the next morning, Dr. Powell told us that he found the place but it was closed! Even then we remained undercover, keeping to ourselves the fact that they were indeed open. Judging by the quality of the beer, I can only hope Dr. Powell made his way back to the brewery at some point with better luck.