Day 14- Jewish Museum and sick :(

Day 14 May 16, 2012

Today was  a bad day. I woke up 10 minutes before class just got dressed and went. I didn’t sleep during class and I actually participated which was an attempt to make up for snoring in class yesterday. After class got out at 9:50 I ate a bowl of cereal and took a nap. I woke up again at 12:00 and I felt like crap. We went to the Jewish Museum first today and it was actually really interesting and I was glad that  I went. It looks funny from the outside. The entrance was really classical and in the baroque style to the right of it there was this huge gray super modern building. It was a weird shape and was tall and shiny. The building was really disorienting. We when we first got inside we went down some stairs and the building almost had an A shape but not really. There were intersecting hallways at slants and with inclines. The first floor had an Axis of Exile, Axis of the Holocaust, and Axis of Continuity. There were few exhibits but it was a very interesting first floor. At the end of the Axis of the Holocaust they had the Holocaust tower. When you entered the tower it was tall and dark with only a little slit of natural light coming from the top. It was cold and put you in a different frame of mind. At the end of the Axis of Exile they had the Garden of Exile, which had 49 pillars that towered above you each with an olive tree at the top. The ground was uneven and it was mean to confuse you and make you feel uncomfortable, like the Jews did as they were being forced from their homes.

The Axis of Continuity lead down a long hallway with stairs at the end. A third of the way up the stairs there was a entrance to another exhibit which had 167 black and white pictures of Jewish people who emigrated from Russia and other countries to Germany. There was also the Memory Void which was probably one of my favorite places in the museum. The Memory Voice was back in a corner and it was a empty room that was 3 stories high and all over the floor there were metal faces. Over 10,000 of them. The room was silent except for the sound of you walking over the faces and taking it all in. It’s hard to explain but it was really cool and interesting. After the Memory Void I headed back up the stairs. The stairs signified the continuance of Jewish communities so it continued up even after the entrance to the final exhibit which was about ¾ of the way up the stair case. Here was the exhibit for Jews from 950-present. By the time I got this far we didn’t have much time left so Ryne and I kind of rushed through it. But there was still some interesting stuff. After the Jewish Museum we headed to Checkpoint Charlie which I opted out of because I didn’t feel good all day and people kept telling me I was pale and didn’t look every well. I was switching from hot to cold and my tummy was upset. So I got myself back to the apartment and took a nap. I slept until Kristin and Travis got back around 6:15 or so. Then I made a pizza and we just talked and hung out. We started working on our homework assignments for this week because we have one due tomorrow which is a essay quiz over the book we were supposed to read for this class…oops. And Friday we have an assignment due over a museum or memorial. I have started both of them and neither is very good but it will have to do because I have no motivation to do homework. Let’s be honest here, this is basically a vacation, no one wants to write papers on vacation. I helped Kristin catch up on her video  blog which took forever because she was a week behind but now that that is done hopefully she keeps up a bit better. Tomorrow we have class which shouldn’t take to long and then we have lots planned for in the afternoon. We are supposed to go to Memorial for Murdered Jews of Europe and the Tiergarten and in the evening Museum Island and Nikolaiviertel. I doubt all that will happen but I am assuming that we will be going to dinner with McInnis. I can’t believe my second week of class is almost over. Its going by so fast. I am looking forward to this weekend and our pub crawl and going to Dresden.