New Photos on Picasa, Katherine flies and Køpi

First, let me announce that I've put a ton of new photos up on picasa from the last couple of weeks. Please check them out to see this rainy Berlin June.
So, Katherine's leaving for Berkeley tomorrow morning and its sort of a crazy milestone. I've been here over three months now and it feels pretty weird. Life here continues clipping along, although without a job, days tend to pass slowly sometimes. I'm still going to school at Babylonia most weekdays and I'm still helping out at dropping knowledge up in Prenzlauerberg. There's a chance, however slight that I'll be able to get some kind of paid internship (praktikum) with dk. If that were to happen it would extend my stay probably through the end of september. I'd be helping out on a project involving some university students from Salzburg, Austria. It's some of the same kids that were in Rostock with me, so that would be nice. We'd be documenting social activism in Berlin. Not sure about the structure, but it would be cool to work on something longer term than the G8 madness. Plus I think there's a lot of interesting activism happening in Berlin at the moment that deserves a wider audience.

Speaking of activism: Køpi (sorry for the bad translation) is a legendary autonomous hausprojekt on Koepenicker strasse here in Kreuzberg that's been under threat of eviction for, well, forever. But in the past few months its gotten pretty intense because someone with a lot of money bought the building when it went up for auction. 800.000 Euros may seem like a lot, but its really a bargain for the property. As an occupied building, the people there pay very little rent currrently and don't actually own the property. When first occupied, the value of property in the area was low and the building was in a state of disrepair. But today there's a brand new building going up right next door and Berlin's property values are creeping up.

A short history/description (for those who decided the badly translated wikipedia article wasn't worth reading): Køpi houses around 80 people and has been around since just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's facade is bombed out (scars from WW2) and covered in graffiti and huge banners. It also has 2 or 3 stages for shows, 4 or 5 bars scattered around different rooms, a film screening room in a drippy dank basement, a free foosball machine... Basically its amazing. Its kind of like the old factory that the Foot Clan partied at in first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

I went to Køpi last night with friends at 3am and stayed until perhaps 7, long after the sun had come up. Heaven is a Place on Earth never sounded so good. Cast of characters: Fellippo is my Italian friend from Babylonia who also lives in Kreuzberg. Sadly he's returning to Italy in a few weeks to start a music masters program. His friend Anna (from Venice) who also lives in Berlin came along with her boyfriend Emiliano from Argentina. Its funny, I do in fact know a few Americans, but its rare that I see them. I wonder what it'll be like to return to the Land of the Free and be surrounded by these people once again.

Well, if you're still reading congratulations. I'm sorry if this post is kind of mixed up. So, on to the activism: since there's a real threat to Køpi now of eviction there are regular solidarity protests all around Kreuzberg and greater Berlin. Their slogan? Køpi Bleibt! (Køpi Stays!) No one really knows what will happen. I'm sure there will be appeals and the process will take a while, but for now we can still have fun (in solidarity), TNMT style til 8 in the morning while the rest of Berlin sleeps... Well I suppose that's not true, everyone in Berlin parties until the late (early?), they just don't do it Køpi style.


(this is the view from my roof of the Fernsehertor (TV tower), Lausitzer Platz (where the church is) and the Spreewaldplatz Schwimmbad (lower right))