JEF Belgium

For the moment I’m sitting in the Sanatorium 23 bar with some locals. It wasn’t easy today, but now I’m chillin so let me tell you more about my day.

I got up at 8h30 to leave at 9 am for our first informational seminar session in Berlin, the JEF World café session. It’s a lot like the Speeddating Europe activity in Ghent, but with bigger groups, longer discussions and a bit more anarchy. We were free to choose at which table we wanted to join until all chairs are taken. What I really missed was of course the little ‘change seats’ tune, so did the moderator I guess. After four group discussions and two hours later we were invited to a soup buffet for lunch, paid for by a German insurance company, thanks!

After lunch we made our way to the Bundestag in the Reichstag. Big difference here! For clarity the Reichstag is the building, which dates back to the rule of the German Emperor, the Bundestag is the actual parliament. We kicked off with a fish bowl discussion, a novel discussion concept that let’s room for participants to join a small permanent panel up front. Everybody was invited to make a couple of statements if they felt like it. Since it was pretty late yesterday and the speakers weren’t that interesting, participants had a bit of trouble filling in the empty seats of the panel. But hey, it was international evening yesterday, living on a seminar can be hard.

We finished our seminar responsibilities with a visit to the dome of the Reichstag. A disorienting structure of steel and glass, that moves, ventilates, shines,… well very important for Germans and very pretty to look at. The tour on the dome was even funnier, real German stuff here. They gave us an audio guide that told you when to stop while climbing the dome and at which buildings to look. I lost the track quite early. International evening hangover maybe? Or just me wondering over the large skyline of Berlin. Breathtaking anyway.

So now I’m in the company of some lovely locals. Their’s Martin, Merete, Manja (the pirate girl) and Uwe from the seminar, joined by Andreas, Sascha, Mattias and Maja. They’re a nice bunch of hardcore hamburger fans. They took me to a small place called the “frituurhause” and let me get a taste of my first real Berlin Hamburger. I can assure you, definitely better then my German Bradwurst yesterday, and very enjoyable. The frituurhause looks actually like a real frituur, but don’t come looking here for a bickyburger. Only ‘real’ meat my German friends assure me, and no deepfrying. Although I miss my bicky I left satisfied and happy, guess they made a new fan. This brings me to where I’m right now the Sanatorium 23 bar, a lounge bar, with stylish seats/beds, arty pictures on the wall, ambient beats and a fine gin tonic. Prizes are about the same as in Ghent so no panic here. Time for me to go again though, cause my Berliner friends are starting to think I’m a real computerfreak.

Maybe a little, but not that much. Let’s enjoy our drinks, but get to bed early tonight, because tomorrow the workshops start (Blogging or Streetart for me) and off course their will be the official party. Good night and see you soon again.

Gaute

In support of our pages on the internet and to give new Jeffers or symphatizers a chance to get to know more about JEF seminars, I’ll be posting a couple articles here about the JEF Berlin Seminar. Not an easy job I guess, certainly not because there’s not much time and so much happens. So I ‘ll be brief and focus on the highlights.

My first impression of Berlin wasn’t very exciting. I landed in Schönefeld airport, which is on the outskirts of Berlin. In the train station I found a first coparticipant, the lovely Iohanna, who got me on the right train through the grey and lonesome suburbs. However as soon as I passed my fist S-Bahn stop, Berlin was calling. Like in the song of Paul Kalkbrenner, with the little S-Bahn music, the German experience really hit me in earnest. On arrival I was confronted with a lot of German Gründlichheid and hospitality. Not an easy combination to fill in different forms while hugging, but a very nice beginning may I say so.

Besides some unpacking we didn’t do a lot of important things the first day. I made a little trip to Alexanderplatz which is in a real nice nostalgic sovjetstyle square. Just like our hostel, “das DDR Ostel”! In the evening the seminar took off for real with the traditional International Evening. First we all got introduced to the big German delegetation, with numerous promises of the vice-president of JEF Germany we soon would get drunk as tradition demands. Although the German contribution was on the small side, the Austrians (Super Merete), Belgians and Greek certainly saved the evening with a handsome  catch of booze. Although Greece and Austria had the strongest drinks, the Belgian chocolate and vanilla jenever we’re very much appreciated.

After all the booze and food was happily consumed some off us went for a small late night exploring trip. Our little tour brought us to the last pieces of the famous Berlin Wall, or so I was told by our gracious guide, Martin. With a little help of my friends I successfully climbed the wall to escape to West-Berlin, alas on the other side of the wall there was a big river. To compensate for our failed breakout we drank some last beers in a bar and made new plans to escape East-Berlin….

Gaute