BRESLAU: lantern lighting and more lasagna

Und wie war mein Wochenende 345 km und 6 Stunden mit dem Zug von Berlin entfernt?

Schön war's.

Breslau is a big city with a small town feel, which is something that Berlin, for better or for worse, just cannot offer. Going to Breslau for the weekend is a real escape from worries and responsibilities. Of course it helps that I have someone waiting for me at the train station (called Wroclaw Glowny) smiling and with open arms. I left Berlin on Saturday morning, and arrived in Breslau six hours later. Robert and I have repeatedly noticed that as soon as we cross the border back into Poland, the clouds clear and the weather warms up. This weekend was no exception: we had SPRING-like weather in Breslau, 6-degrees celsius and sunny. People don't usually think of Poland as the land of sunshine; if I didn't hear from Robert about the snowstorms resulting in power outages and frozen rivers, I would have a very skewed impression of Polish weather. 

I was very excited to see Robert's new apartment and meet his polish roommates. We spent a bit of time walking around the "Altstadt", the old city, stopping shortly in the medieval part to watch the man lighting the gas lanterns that border the street. 

We did a few grocery-store runs to collect ingredients for our lasagna fest, planned for the next evening. Although everything is obviously in polish, the brand for the lasagna noodles was none other than... GUESS! Of all names, Polish and Italian, the lasagna noodles were from some company named Melissa. A good sign. 

On Sunday we studied (Robert had to answer questions IN POLISH in a final exam yesterday), enjoyed the sunshine a bit, and baked two fabulously cheesy lasagnas for Kasia, Robert's polish-language partner, his roommates Damian, Mischek, and Magda, and the two of us. Vodka and ice cream to go with it. "Lecker schmecker", as they say in German. 

(Kasia and I after lasagna)    

Robert has many more details on his incredibly funny blog (robertinpolen.blogspot.com) for those who can read German. He continues to be astounded by how lucky he was in getting a room in that apartment, as his roommates are pretty awesome people. He is totally shocked by the fact that Damian cleans his dishes in the same day that he ate off of them, and more than that, yesterday he offered to wash everybody's jeans since he had some extra space in the washing machine! Oh the things that one appreciates after living in a dorm...

(Robert drinking tea in his new room)

In the meantime, I am back in Berlin, cozy in my bed on a Wednesday afternoon. I had a wonderful dinner with Jan and Nancy on Monday night. After a long day of classes yesterday (we discussed Hegel for THREE HOURS in my intellectual history class, enough to give anyone a headache), there was small cause for celebration. Diego, my roommate Anna's boyfriend, is finally back in Berlin after seeing just about the entirety of South America in five months. He brought us some Venezuelan cachapas (I think that's what they're called, sort of sweet cornmeal pancakes that are fried and delicious) and was consistently switching from German back into Spanish without even noticing. It's great to have him back. 

These next few days I am going to face the StaBi again, and perhaps finally get permission to take out books: my passport was not enough the last time I went, since it turns out that you need to bring the sheet proving that you're registered with the police at your address and only THEN are you eligible to take books out... they really could have told me that before I made a trip specially to bring them my passport... But I am really really really going to make progress now, since there is far too much going on in Berlin to be stuck in the library in the next couple of weeks. EB is coming on Friday! I already have a few museum stops planned and restaurants picked out. And next week a big film festival, called the Berlinale, will be starting downtown. Much to do, much to read, so I am sending out a big hello to those back home who have not heard from me in a while. I'm sorry that I haven't written and I will answer emails soon!