A Less- Exciting Endeavour

As a failed idea at fun, my architecture professor decided to take our class to a brick factory in a bitter-cold outskirt of Berlin. This German brick place had a bunch of stupid bricks. We saw an assembly line of Germans dirtied in mud, man-ishly slapping grey chunks of clay into squares. This is how the brick is shaped (in that monotonous lecture voice). The workers were clad in cute, blue overalls, listening to Mexican-construction-worker's style of German tang. The only difference between these guys was the Germans had health insurance. The only part about the field trip that I enjoyed was the freebie from class, and of course the baking process of the bricks. I got to stand in a furnace where 3,000 bricks can bake. The crisping process takes two weeks and then a brick is born. But who really cares about bricks anyway?

The next day was even more underwhelming. NYU took us on another day trip to Weimar to see the Buchenwald concentration camp. Weimar was a cuddly city with forests and cobblestone. My expectations were way too exotic for this trip. I wanted to see rigor mortis at this concentration camp. I was highly anticipating barbed wire with dried-up Jew flesh and clothing remnants. Heck, I was at least expecting some left over Nazi blood. Turns out, the walls were spick-n-span, the body ovens weren't nary an ash, and the inmate cells had fake mistletoe. There were a few remaining prison houses with antiqued signs of torture, but that's about it. I saw a few half-stimulating photos of body piles and mal-nutritioned corpses. That was sort of expected. I know what you're thinking...I'm inhuman and my heart is made of solid...right? Pardon my writerly use of imagery, but aren't concentration camps supposed to have "things from concentrate?" sheesh. This place was a freaking memorial.

I'm falling in love with this perfect economy. I feel so free - I think this new-found liberation (and massive amount of leisure) encourages me to write more. Go me!