Semester in Potsdam

Pff, what is time moving fast. I'm only now writing a blog post about Potsdam, but the semester already ended in Februar!

Neues Palais

Potsdam is the capital city of the German state Brandenburg and is located next to Berlin. A funny fact: Berlin is located in Brandenburg but doesn't belong to Brandenburg since 1920. So, Berlin is like a small island lying in another territory (also known as an enclave).

Potsdam is a huge cultural and historical city, and the city was very popular with the Prussian kings. There are many castles and palaces to visit, and there is a very large and beautiful park (Sancoussi Park) where you can see many things. Wilhelmina of Prussia, the wife of the first king of the Netherlands, Willem I of Oranje-Nassau, was born in Potsdam.

Park Sancoussi

Chinese house in the park

Dutch mill in the park

Nice place near the mill

Brandenburger Tor in Potsdam

In the background, Sancoussi Castle

Orangerieschloss in park Sansoucci

The Prussians ensured that the city became a bit international. Potsdam has a Dutch quarter (Holländisches Viertel) with houses that were built for Dutch migrants (by architect Jan Bouman). Nowadays, you will mainly find boutiques and restaurants. Personally, I think that the houses are not very much like the well-known Dutch houses, but they are somewhat similar. In the Dutch quarter, there is also a Dutch café named Poffertjes and Pannekoeken (a pancake café). Every year in December, Sinterklaas is celebrated (a Dutch children fest) in which Dutch people are dressed as Sinterklaas and Pete. Craftsmen from the Netherlands are also invited to present old crafts, for example, the old way of making so-called Dutch kniepertjes (kind of waffles that are originated from the region where I was born). Very nice!

Holländisches Viertel

Sinterklaas

As I mentioned before, there are many palaces in Potsdam and the New Palace or Neues Palais is one of the well-known palaces. It is a very large and beautiful palace and you can get a tour inside the palace. The king often organized parties inside the palace. That's why the palace also has a ballroom which is entirely made out of marble. The ballroom has already been reinforced a few times because of the danger of collapse because the ballroom is not on the ground floor and marble is very heavy.

Grottensaal Neues Palais

Marble room in Neues Palais

Right next to the Neues Palais, you can find the main campus of the University of Potsdam. The university is therefore also located inside a few historic buildings. I think the most iconic building is the Communs, an annex of the Neues Palais.

Communs; University of Potsdam

Presentation at eemagine

My lessons were not on campus Neues Palais but on a different campus, named Golm. I usually went by train to Golm, which took about 4 minutes. I took the following courses: Neurolinguistics (about language in the brain and aphasia, an acquired language disorder), First Language Acquisition (methods for investigating language acquisition in children and theories), Second Language Acquisition (theories about how people acquire a second language), and statistics. We had these lessons with people from other studies. Other lectures and excursions were also organized for our EMCL + group. We went to Eemagine, a company where they develop software for medical applications (such as EEG). We also had a three-day lecture series at the P.A.N. rehabilitation center in Berlin. We were taught by a neurologist Prof. Stephan Bamborschke about the brain after stroke, infection, or head trauma. We also got a tour of the center which I found very impressive. They really try to make the center a comfortable and pleasant environment for the people who are rehabilitating. There is, for example, a sleeping room for relaxing and also workplaces where patients learn to, for example, work with wood or sew. Patients with brain damage can sometimes no longer use an arm and often there are other problems that are not visible, such as concentration problems, that they have to learn to live/work with. 

During our semester in Potsdam, we also had a few guest lectures by Prof. David Copland on the neurobiology of language. He told about Parkinson's disease and Aphasia. Super interesting!

P.A.N. Rehabilitation center

Presentation of Prof. Dr. Stephan Bamborschke

Sistine Madonna by Raphael

I also went to Dresden at the end of this semester. Dresden is famous because of its history. The city was almost completely bombed in 1945, but most buildings have already been renovated! In the old city center, for example, you can find the Frauenkirche, which also had to be rebuilt. If you look closely, you will see that the church is not only made out of old stones but there are also a lot of newer (lighter) stones. I also went to the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, where the famous painting of Raphael, Sistine Madonna, is on display.

Rebuilt Frauenkirche Dresden

The Zwinger Dresden

Meanwhile, it already became March and I already left Germany. Even better, I flew to Moscow last Sunday for the last 5 or 6 months of my studies. I am doing my internship and thesis at the Center for Language and Brain under the supervision of Prof. dr. Olga Dragoy. I also did an internship at this lab two years ago. I am very happy to be back and I look forward to the coming months! In a few weeks, I hope to tell you more about my stay in Moscow and living in a dormitory, where you share a room with someone. So .... stay tuned :)

And finally, some photos of Berlin:

Reichstag Berlin

Checkpoint Charlie

Holocaust Monument

Where the Berlin wall stood

Brandenburger Tor in Berlin