Sprache and the CIty

Yesterday I met with two conversation partners (#2 and #4). With the first (Alex), we rode bikes down to the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park. It's very impressive, and very soviet. There are huge statues of noble-looking warriors, and the hammer n' sickles and Russian quotes are still all in place and in crisp condition. I should have had my camera with me, but I'll make my way back sometime.

Later in the evening, the other conversation dude (Jens), showed me around the Kunsthaus Tacheles - a former department store that is now covered in graffiti and houses a few bars and lots of small art galleries. Again, I'd forgotten my camera (though I still have that gut-level aversion to looking like a tourist). The majority of the art had the same sort of vibe as the walls - chaotic and bombastic. Not really my thing. But there were a few things that were pretty cool: a sort of cubist-ish gallery, and then the gallery of one painter who did simple but rough charcoal sketches of landscapes and then painting in vivid colors for the sky, leaving the ground just white.

All that came a bit at the expense of German practice, but was certainly worth it.

A completely counter-intuitive word:

• lockern - to loosen or relax

So if you say, "meine Muskeln haben sich endlisch gelockert" (if I've got the grammar right), that means "my muscles have finally relaxed."