Opera Singing in Germany and other adventures....

We got a late start considering our late night the evening before, and by the time we got out of bed, showered and out of the hotel it was close to 11:00am. The plan for the day was to see Berlin historical/tourist sites that we both hadn't seen before. Therefore, the two things on the list were the man-made waterfalls in Kreuzberg in Victoria Park, or the Oberbaumbruecke which is located near the Warschauerstrasse S-Bahn stop heading east from Alexanderplatz. Because it was such a damp and windy winter day out, and also because our sneakers were still soaked from the adventurous romp through puddle-filled streets the night before, we opted for the bridge instead of the park. The bridge is a really interesting piece of Berlin architecture that is something which is very unlike the majority of architecture in the rest of Berlin (that I have seen thus far, anyway). I am not very sure about the history, so I am providing this link to the wikipedia article HERE . Our trip ...

A ‘Kulturhauptstadt’ is a special t itle given by the European Union each year to two different cities in Europe. Anyway, this year the Ruhr Area was chosen, and in particular, the city of Essen (w hich is about an hour east of Duesseldorf. And, to g o along with the honor of being a cultural capital in 2010, Essen and the Ruhr Area have organized many different festivals and special cultural attractions to take place during this year in Essen and the wider Ruhr Area (encompassing the cities of Dortmund, Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen, and Bochum). I had the luck of attending one of these special events that took place just last weekend on Friday (July 3 rd ) in Essen. It was called 'The Flying Grass Carpet' and it was a celebration of art (in that all the events that took place happened on this AstroTurf oriental rug with a variety of different colors and textures and which was the size of an entire 'platz' (or market square) in Essen. The opening ceremony...

I want to provide you all with something entertaining and interesting at the same time (I'm a total sucker for educational things, I admit it!) so that reading this blog doesn't become a drag, and I thought that maybe something interactive would be neat. So, I have decided to include a listing of the cool things I've seen and done since being here (primarily things that have website links so that you too can check them out and kind of experience them with me): 1. I went to Transit restaurant in Berlin for dinner (check out their menu--it was as good as Thai in NYC--I was delighted!!): Transit Restaurant 2. I participated in something in Dortmund (a festival of sorts) called 'Extra Schicht' which is actually one night where all the cultural points of interest in the entire 'Ruhr' Area stay open until the wee hours of the morning allowing everyone to visit multiple sites with public transit(buses, trains, streetcars) under one single entry price (it c...