Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Leipzig anymore

Yes, the culture shock of being in a huge bustling metropolis has been a bit of an adjustment coming directly from quiet little Leipzig. But after our walking tour, exploring, and getting used to the subway system, I think we have gotten a bit more familiar with it all. Our hostel is in the "hip" and "trendy" part of Berlin- the grungy alternative scene reminds me of Seattle. There are a lot of bars and clubs close by. However, we spent most of our day downtown where all the large palaces, monuments, and museums are. We weren't able to visit any museums today, but we plan to check a couple out by the time we leave! Berlin is a very unique and diverse city. There is so much long-standing history here, but most remenants of it were destroyed in the war. Because of this the architecture greatly varies from building to building. Unfortunately the famous opera house is being majorly renovated at the moment so we couldn't see that. But the courtyard in front of it was where a lot of the book burnings were, which was humbling to think about. I really liked the memorial at the location- Underground there was an empty room with empty bookshelves.

Also, there was a giiiiigantic church not too far away that I'm super pumped to check out this week. 

They have renovated and remodeled a lot, so huge majestic buildings still remain- including the concert hall we went to for the Bennewitz String Quartet concert we went to tonight!

The string quartet concert was simply amazing. I've never seen people so in sync before. They all moved together like one organism shifting and working together to create this wonderful performance. This was the concert I reported on before we left for Europe so I was pretty excited to see it live. Especially since one of the composers was so new I couldn't find much information on him at all. It turns out that he was actually attending this concert because the quartet was performing the premier of his piece- "songs of immigrants"!!!! I had a feeling that this concert may have been a premier because the only info I could find on the piece was that it was being performed at this concert. But I hadn't thought of him actually being there! So that was pretty amazing. The piece was verrrrry interesting. It was very 20th century-New new-new-pantonal-weird-ness. But! SO. COOL. The strings did very many extended techniques including playing with the wood part of the bow, manipulating the fingerboard, manipulating the tuning, blowing into the f-hole, and playing below the bridge to create a whisper sound. I was disappointed in some of the reactions of the audience. One old man stood up about 5 minutes in and told his wife they were leaving and slammed the door after him, and another man left in the same manner about 10 minutes later. However, most people really adored the performance. I thought it was just weirdly awesome! And nuts! So cool! The other pieces were also wonderful. We heard Dvorak's Slov quartet which was just so pretty and played as good as I could ever imagine it being played in my head. The phrasing was seamless and themes seemed to just elegantly float from one person to another. The second piece was Schulhoff's five pieces for string quartet. Now this piece I was slightly skeptical about but had a feeling it had potential to be awesome. Listening to it on a recording while I was doing my research simply didn't give it justice. It is a really, really awesome piece and it was played astoundingly well. Overall, this concert was definitely fabulous and the hall was beautiful. Certainly a different vibe than the holy gospel singers, considering all the new music, but variety and uniqueness seem to be a common theme throughout this adventure. Tomorrow we plan to venture out to what remains of the Berlin wall and then see our first opera performance- The Magic Flute!