Berlin--The Journal

Nathaniel Ring
Psychology 497
Journal



Thursday/Friday:

Traveling to Berlin was a trip in and of its self. The day started for me at 8:00 AM with a final run down of my packed items. Afterward it was a trip to the bank, then to Holy Cross to meet up with the Van Auken’s. Leaving from South Bend was without any major incident and afforded a good opportunity to discuss a broad spectrum of topics with Dr. Doris Van Auken. O’Hare, on the other hand, was a bit less smooth. The Van Auken family, Greg Wright, and I arrived at the airport a few hours before we picked up our tickets. The other members arrived with one coming at the last minute. When we got through the terminal it occurred to us all that we were both hungry, and we were about to spend 13 hours on a plane. Dr. Hugh took one of his suns and got us pizza to hold us over until we had our in-flight meal. I initially had mixed feelings to flying as I had never flown before, but as soon as we lifted off it was quite thrilling to fly.
The plane ride was as far as I could tell, as typical as one could expect. The food was decent, seat was comfortable, blanket was nice, and company was good all, which made the ride fairly enjoyable even though I didn’t get any real sleep. When we landed in London I was still quite energized just to be heading to Germany. In my excitement to get through the metal detectors I ended up dropping my carry-on bag that contained my laptop sustained quite a deal of damage to a corner. Upon later inspection it was all superficial damage. While at Heathrow one of the Van Auken’s children (Hugh) accompanied me and walked through the duty free shops stopping at various shops to peruse the merchandise. Outside of a Ferrari and the Audi right out of the turn styles the airport was very similar to a high-class mall in America with a couple of differences here and there (mostly the booze). The time at the airport passed quite quickly and before I knew it we were on British Airlines flying to Tegel and I was seated next to a couple of British photographers. I spent almost the entire time talking with the couple enjoying the flight completely.
Up to this point the traveling had been only had minor hiccups, but when we landed one of my fellow students lost her luggage. Apparently, the baggers at Heathrow left her luggage there and she was stuck without the bulk of her clothes. A few tears and a few hours later she arranged to have her lost luggage delivered to the hotel later that evening. At this point I was starting to notice I was a bit tired while waiting for the car rental but not exhausted yet. When we finally got on the road I was overwhelmed with joy to see any and everything Germany. I was especially excited when we passed through Tiergarten heading to Potsdamer Platz. This was so exciting that I actually forgot I was tired until we got to the hotel and started to settle in, then a sheer wave of exhaustion washed over me and it was as though I was dead on my feet. Alas, this was not the end of my day yet I still had dinner with the entire group.
A few hours later we set of on the U-Bahn to Georgbræu to sample some authentic Berlin food. Along the way I was so exhausted I ended up falling asleep on the train standing up. At this point I had not slept since 8:00 the day before and it was about 7:00 PM in Germany. After a quick ride and a quick walk we arrived at the Brauhaus Georgbræu for dinner. Following the meal a number of us decided on the train we would go for a quick walk to the mall after returning to the hotel for the evening. Upon arriving at the mall we realized the mall was closing so we went back to the hotel to swim. Finally exhausted from a very long day, I went to bed.

Saturday:

Awaking quite early Greg and I enjoyed the complementary coffee in the lobby to be followed by the rest of the group as we prepared to head to our first stop—Buchenwald. After a bit of waiting we were on the road and before long on the autobahn. A few hours into the drive we stopped to get lunch at a rest stop. After lunch we were back on the road and moving through the beautiful countryside seeing windmills, hills, sporadic rain, and the occasional sunflower field. It was very exciting for me to see the countryside of Germany as well as ride on the Autobahn.
Arriving at Buchenwald was somewhat abrupt because the surroundings changed from mountainside to camp almost instantly. First passing the train rails, past the barracks, to the gate with the words "Jedem Das Seine" (meaning: to each his own) inscribed with iron bars of the gate. Experiencing first hand the enormity of the concentration/work camp was both terrifying and surreal. I walked the grounds of where the prisoners called home with Greg and Dr. Hugh aghast when we passed a particular barracks where the relatives some of the prisoners left pebbles as small tombstones for their relative. After a few minutes of moving through the camp Greg, Dr. Hugh, and I walked through the crematorium and a new level of terror swept over me. As I walked through the building from the courtyard to the autopsy room, to the crematorium, past the ovens, down to the storage room, then out the back door. Both the intense realization others spent their last moments where I was standing but also this was a place where extreme forms of hatred were aloud to run free.
After that deeply emotional and history saturated environment the three of us walked outside of the gated area and to the left we could see the Zoo built for the SS and their children. We walked down the rocky path toward the depot to meet up with the rest of the group to get ready to go to our next destination. When the two groups met up just outside of the depot we suggested they walk through the crematorium and then go to our next destination. When everyone exited they seemed to look as astonished as I felt while walking through it the first time although the second time through, I noticed more details in the oven rooms (broken slats, ash drawers, ignition systems); and also in the stables. Upon exiting the exhibit Dr. Doris and Dr. Hugh noted we did not see the prison. We made a quick detour to at least see that.
After a few hours at Buchenwald we were on our way to Mittelbau-Dora, which was suppose to be a fairly easy trip, but turned out to be a little bit more complicated than expected. Along the way a road was closed so we had to take a 30 minute jaunt in the opposite direction. In spite of the detour the scenery was amazing! We passed through a number of wooded areas, small villages, beautiful hilly passes, and hops farms. A few hours later we arrived at KZ Mittelbau-Dora just outside of Nordhausen.
Unlike the experience at Buchenwald, this had a feeling of sterility to it initially because it was entirely enclosed in a hilltop. Upon arriving we realize we were a little over an hour late for our appointment so we were unsure if we could get the tour. After a quick conversation at the information building a very funny and informative tour guide agreed to take us. While watching the video that same sterility and benign was quickly swept away and replaced by grim fact this was a place that was another hell on earth. Looking for a photo opportunity I took a couple shots of the hills that the factory was built in although later I discovered they did not turn out very good.
A quick walk down the road, past our cars, and to the entrance of the factory--a hole in the hill--it was somewhat eerie. Our guide explained to us that it was going to be relativity cold in the tunnels, indeed, very chilly. We walked along the dark passage stopping along the way to hear about the construction time, living conditions, formal use, post-war use, and the many attempts to destroy the tunnels. Because of the many attempts to destroy the tunnels and the lack of water pumps a very large portion of the tunnels were inaccessible to the public so we only went to a few of the passages. When comparing the two sites, I enjoyed the tunnels more just because we had a very good tour guide.
Finally done at the tour of concentration camps we were off to Goslar for dinner. Although the trip did not have any detours it did feel the longest. When we finally arrived at Goslar we discovered very quickly that this was a very old city. The roads were barely wide enough for cars and parking was at a premium making it very difficult both find the restaurant and park. After a couple minutes of driving through the streets we found the restaurant (Worthmühle), parked, and seated (a bit late) at our reserved table. Ready to eat we haphazardly picked our meals. Before too long we were presented with our meal. Most of us pleased with our orders except for the meat-gelatin, which turned into the dinner joke. Full we took a stroll around the city and we all concluded we would have loved to arrive there earlier to really engage the city more. We walked around the streets for a couple minutes admiring the architecture and finally found ourselves at the center of town with the very large Glockenspiel. After walking around the town for a couple minutes everyone piled into the cars and we were on our way back to the hotel. Exhausted I started to fall asleep until I noticed we were driving on the train tracks. Dr. Hugh turned a little to sharply and we found ourselves needing to back up on the one-way to get onto the other side of the autobahn. Although, after that drive back seemed to fly past since I fell asleep--neglecting my navigators duties--to wake up at the gas station where Dr. Hugh got more coffee to finish the trip awake. Once we got back to Berlin I went straight to sleep.

Sunday:

Because we had the day off I slept in a slight (e.g., I woke up at 9:00). When I finished a brisk swim I changed and got ready for the day. I headed down to the lobby to meet up with Dr. Hugh and Dr. Doris to see what we had planned if we were all going to meet for lunch at any point. After a bit of confusion we were told we could do what were free to do as we pleased so the other students and I went to the mall to shop. When we arrived other people were walking around, but nothing was open. We stood by a food vendor for a few hours only to realize that all of the shops are closed on Sunday’s. Frustrated, headed back to the hotel to sleep, call our family, or find something to eat, but Dana, Hugh, and I went to Gemäldegalerie to see the art. Along the way we saw a number of the embassies. I was amazed at how easy the city was to navigate and how close things seemed. After we finished at the gallery we decided to head back to the hotel to see if anyone was ready to go out. I met up with Greg, still in the hotel recovering from the long flight, and we ran into everyone in the lobby. After discussing what we want to do for the evening we decided to grab a bite to eat then we would meet up for drinks in a bit.
That evening we went to the Mexican restaurant across the street from the hotel and had a few drinks and a bite to eat. Then we went on a brisk walk around the block and back to the hotel. Not quite tired I went back to my room and got ready for a swim and maybe a brief workout in the gym. Greg and I went down to the pool, after a bit we were tired so we went to bed.



Monday:

Day one of the conference was similar to what I remember APS being like at the very first. It had its ups and downs that I expected for the first day. The ups included: interesting symposiums, posters, and people. The downs included very large venue, initially overwhelming amount of items to pick from, and registering for the conference. In spite of the downs, I still had a very productive day. I missed a symposium at 8:00 because registering on-site was not as easy as it seemed but I made it up by attending ½ of one invited address (PA-001) where I planned out my day. During the invited address I struck a conversation with a German woman and we ended up having a bulk of the same interests in presentations. After leaving the address I saw the name of a guy who I spent a good deal of time with at APS Stewart Madon and found his paper session. He was part of a session regarding psychophysics (FP-012). Next I attempted to see the topic with Philip Zimbardo (S-037) as the lead disscuant, although the room was so full people were sitting 30 feet outside the door. On the way out I ran into the girl I met in the first invited address, Inga Groußmann, we both had a second choice to see “Tolerance for Ambiguity, creativity and personality (IS-008)” and sat through that presentation. Fortunately, that was an interesting session so it seemed my choices were getting better. After a cup of coffee down the road we decided to attend the “Ethic behavior and Trust II (FP-047).” The paper was not quite what I expected and ended up being mostly about I/O psychology and was not very interesting. Halfway through at the break, we both went our way for the day and I went off to attend something that I was hoping would be more informative “Psychological Disorders—starting with Emotional changes and paranoia: an experience sampling study (FP-049).” On the way I saw a few of the posters. Although, the topic sounded quite interesting on paper it was hardly enjoyable. Dredging through that symposium I felt a bit hungry but thought it might be a good idea to get one more symposium through before I grabbed something. Finding each symposium was no easy task. Often I found myself asking where the rooms were. It did not help that the convention hall was also packed with thousands of people each with their own destinations. My final symposium for the day was “Why people care about justice (and why they sometimes don’t) (IS-021).” This was by far the most exciting symposium of the day. I had been looking forward to hearing John Jost speak again since I last saw him at APS.
That was my final topic for the day, and exhausted I headed toward the exit to find something to eat. On the way I ran into Dr. Doris and Hugh and we scheduled a time to grab something to eat. After another enjoyable but highly unique meal—kangaroo steak—relaxing was the only thing on my mind. I went back to the hotel went for a swim and sit in the sauna. After a few hours at the pool I went to bed.

Tuesday:

I woke up nice and early to grab the free coffee at the hotel to get ready for another symposium filled day. Before Dr. Doris, Hugh, and I took the train to Kiserdammstraße, we grabbed a bite to eat at the surprisingly good bagel store by the U-Bahn station. Because Dr. Doris and I were going to the same symposium we walked together to the (FP-075) “Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination” paper sessions. The room was quite uncomfortable stuffy, small, and seemed to be filling with more people as the day continued. After an interesting couple papers (especially Steven Stern) I was stuck in a dilemma of having to choose between two addresses “Environmental Perception and Cognition 1 (FP-097)” or “How to detect lies with statistics (IA-022),” both of which would be very useful for future classes. After a few minutes of walking through the vendors I decided to see (FP-097) because it would bear relevance later in the course with Dr. Verges.
While attending the paper session I thought would be highly interesting, it turned into a highly technical and obscurities topic. Sadly, the only thing I took from the session was a slightly better understanding affect and valance. Excited for my next symposium I grabbed a cup of coffee from the bar and ran up to “Self-regulatory strength and Ego Depletion: a Decade Later (S-094).” I was especially excited to see this symposium since during the summer I had been up on this particular literature and attempting to conceptualize ego depletion with pro-environmental behavior. In addition one of the speakers was someone I met at APS in the summer, Kathleen Vohs, and was highly interested in her research at University of Minnesota. This symposium was much more useful for me than the John Jost presentation in that she had a citation dense and very concise speech. Looking around the room I notice there was a number of faces that was also present in Chicago at APS.
After this symposium I decided it was time to look at the posters and then grab a bite to eat. I went down to the lobby area and picked up a quick bite, sat down with my laptop, and worked on the blog post. After viewing a number of posters on cognition; language, reading, and communication; research methods and statistics; and finally human development, I headed to the controversial debate. Although because the speech had moved, I found myself sitting in on the last half of another address called “The Cultural psychology of globalization (IA-008).” Uninterested in the topic but occasionally listening into the method and results it seemed to bear little relevance to anything until later reflection. After 20 minutes of sitting through the topic, the hall started to fill with people waiting to see the controversial debate. I found Dr. Doris and Dr. Hugh easily and saved a seat for them near the front. After gathering a great volume of citations to use later, we arrived at the discussion. Very quickly I noticed some of the people attending the symposium thought by discussion they were also suppose to include their thoughts in on the matter. After the two members of the audience finished, finally someone asked a question rather than spouting off some tid-bit of “wisdom” to the matter. Interesting as the individuals offering some insight may have been, they were highly irritating at the time because they never asked a question regarding the debate so they seemed to be wasting time others could have been using to ask questions. I noticed very quickly Dr. Hugh felt the same way as he expressed his gratitude for the first individual with a question by a very obvious clapping (quite funny at the time because he was the only one clapping). Finally done for the day I went back with Dr. Hugh and Doris discussing impressions convention, symposiums attended, and finally dinner plans. I forgot to eat during the day so I was quite hungry.
When we got back to the hotel we split up for an hour or so to change and get ready to go out. I called the other rooms to see if anyone else wanted to get dinner, but I couldn’t reach of the other students on their room phones so I ended up eating out with the Van Auken family (minus Chase). After dinner we walked around the city to Check Point Charley along the way seeing the opera house, Fredrickstraße, and a Buggatti Veryon in the VW dealership. We passed a number of historic buildings were you could still see the scars of World War II in the marble and concrete. We also stopped at a number of shops where we found a wonderful selection of souvenirs, but because my pocket was a bit tight I decided to hold off on buying anything. When we arrived back at the hotel we met up with two other conference attendees’ (Rob and Kerri) and we went out again. We went to a part of Berlin that was apparently a 3km stretch of bars, street performers, and prostitutes. After a few hours out we finished our drinks and headed back to the hotel to get ready for the next day.

Wednesday:

I decided to wake up a bit later because I was still a little tired from all of the walking and the two days of non-stop conferencing. At about 9:00 I arrived at the conference center and sat down for the Zimbardo lecture. When I arrived the other students were already there with seats reserved for everyone. While I waited in the auditorium I sat through the “History of applied psychology in different countries (IUSpsyS-007)” which was, needless to say, not remotely entertaining or interesting. About 30 minutes after I arrived people started to pile in to the lecture hall, quickly filling all of the seats. Before long I could see Dr. Zimbardo on the stage getting everything ready talking with a number of people.
Finally, Zimbardo started his lecture and unlike the other presentations thus far, he was very comfortable on stage. He was a very powerful speaker and his presentation was exciting, informative, and engaging. The pictures he showed of the conditions at Abu Graib were incredible. I had seen some of them before in his book, but I have not seen any of them in color or that volume. We were all so impressed he received a sanding ovation from the crowd.
Much like the presentation people were waiting in line hours ahead of time. Waiting in line was quite dull until a gentleman asked me where I was from—he noticed I was not waiting with anyone. After a couple minutes of talking, more of his friends arrived and we ended up talking up to the point when we got our books signed. After the signing my new friends and I decided we were hungry. We walked down to the Italian restaurant I seemed to keep finding myself at and we ordered pizzas. Little did I know, I was about to find myself in a fiasco. When I asked the waiter if they accepted credit cards he said yes on Monday but when I got up to take the bill the same waiter said they do not take credit cards. Frustrated, and without any cash I looked to my new friends baffled at how I would pay for my pizza and coffee. Corrina Horbach stated she would take up my bill, “no problem.” After eating we ended sitting at that restaurant till my next event.
After lunch I went back to the convention hall to see more posters specifically Language, reading and communication; human development; and educational psychology. PS-Wed-am-220 & PS-Wed-am-233 were by far the most interesting. Along the way I ran into the girl from Monday, Inga, again and we both wanted to check out the free massages, African meat, coffee. After spending a bit of time in the vendor’s area the second session of the posters started so I went to see some more posters and work on my blog posts until I was off to “Cognition in the Business world (FP-219)” at 15:00. That particular paper session was actually very interesting. I wanted to use that particular session to see if they would discuss anything regarding decision-making processes of executives, which Tanja Wranik did.
My last symposium of the day was “Innovative psychological interventions for recurrent headache (S-124).” I agreed to see this symposium the night before because Rob Nicholson asked if we would attend his speech. I was surprised by how recent his particular field was developed because it seemed liked a natural thing for psychologists to study. Done for the day I took the train back to the hotel with Kerri, Dana, and Dr. Hugh.


Thursday:

After 4 days of non-stop convention attendance, I decided it was time I could sleep in. Waking up at a comfortable 9:00 I decided to go for a swim, workout, swim, sauna, swim routine. I went to the convention to see more posters to finish out my requirements. I finished my 3:00 symposium I went to the poster sessions focusing on the Attention and perception, cognition, and social psychology posters. There I spent a good deal of time talking with a student in the cognition section about her studies at Stanford and her experience with Albert Bandura.
My final symposium for the day was “Ethics, psychology, torture: conflicts of interest (S-212).” In spite of it being interesting, I was burned out of attending symposiums, so I barely retained consciousness and left halfway through it. I called Connie and discovered they were at the conference center and were planning on doing some well needed shopping. I then hopped on the train and toured Berlin with Connie and Katja, we ended up spending a good deal of the night shopping. I finally found the Birkenstocks I had been looking for since I arrived and lucky me they were on sale! The girls were amazed that a guy would be so excited by shoes and we all got a number of laughs out of it.
While we were out we ran into the rest of my traveling companions as they were out touring Berlin as well. The Van Auken’s were taking them to Check Point Charley while I was heading off to see more of Alexanderplatz. We walked around for a couple hours until the Congress Party. From there we traveled all over Berlin looking for the RAW temple. After three different trains and a 2km walk we arrived at the party but it was nothing like what we expected. The party consisted of a rather small tent in the back of what looked like drug dealers house. We questioned how much fun this place would be and decided it looked skeptical so we left in quest of something to do. After traveling to the other side of Berlin we found ourselves at a small restaurant eating more pizza. We were later joined by a couple other people my friend Connie had made earlier in the week. Once we all had a couple drinks and something to eat we ended up staying out as late as possible but because trains shut down at 01:00 we had to leave at 12:30 to make it on time. When I got home I went to bed straight away.

Friday:
Unlike the previous days, this was a rather uneventful day. I had met my quota for attending the symposium at this point, so I decided I would spend my day trying to see more of the city. I talked with Greg and Ryan about seeing KaDaWe and we all agreed to check that out. We hopped on the U-2 and road down to KaDaWe but we split up there because I wanted to look at a couple small shops to see if they had any more Birkenstocks or decent priced clothes. I also wanted to see the zoo. We scheduled a time to meet but I couldn’t find them so I grabbed a bite to eat and then walked around the city looking at the various shops. After a few hours of shopping I went to the convention center to say farewell to my new friends, exchange email addresses, and other contact information. I then went back to the hotel to meet up with everyone for the last night meal. I got back to the hotel at 7:00 to meet with everyone for dinner and waited in the lobby for 20 minutes but no one was there. I tried calling everyone to see if anyone was back but everyone was still out. So I headed over to the restaurant in the hotel and had a very delightful chicken salad with quite possibly the best check presentation I have ever seen.
I decided to check out the Sony center again, this time walking around and exploring more shops. While I waiting for everyone else to arrive I sat down and had a conversation with a German family and their American cousins. I went back to the hotel to start packing and get everything ready for the flight back since at that point I had destroyed the room with all of my clothes and such. Before long Greg came in the room and we talked about the conference to that point. I decide a last work-out, swim, and sauna would be nice. I ended up working out until about 12:00 trying to exhaust myself so I would sleep.
Saturday:
I woke up at a bright 4:00 to get everything ready and to organize myself for another 13 hours in a plane. This time I decided to not carry my laptop and other excessive luggage as carry-on. Walking downstairs packed, I was ready to head home. Before too long everyone else started to trickle down the elevators into the lobby. When Dr. Hugh came down he went to check out—but he seemed to be lingering there for a good deal of time. After about 20 minutes he walked up to us and explained what had taken him so long. We racked up a massive phone bill. Dumbfounded by this news everyone was silent until we got into the taxies. No one had anything to say but “Holy shit. How did we do that?! I thought the phone cards worked?” I felt highly embarrassed by this mostly because it seemed to make logical sense to me after the fact. I had spent a year working in telecommunications and I have seen charges like this before, but not with calling cards.
We piled into the taxies, and got to the airport. The flight to Berlin seemed to be quite enjoyable in comparison now that we were heading back to the states with a crippling debt to pay off. Sleep did not come at all for the whole trip home.
Sunday:
Drove home, and finally slept again.