John Leszczynski

Someone doesn’t like public surveillance. I’ve seen similar eyes in graffiti across Berlin.

The eyes from across the street.

We were walking through the Tiergarten, and heard the soft rumble of a large crowd.

So we turned down one of the offshoots of the path we were walking on, and stumbled across this Biergarten:

The beer’s not necessarily the best or the cheapest at the Biergartens, but they are nice places to relax. I’ve been to a couple so far. There were a few kids running around:

Many Berliners have dogs, and they like to take them along wherever they go. I’ve seen quite a few dogs on the trains, but this was my first dog in a basket:

This is the glass roof of the Sony Center, the most architecturally dramatic building in Potsdamer Platz.

One of these vehicles is common in Berlin, and the other is not. Can you tell which is which?

I saw this Grey Heron fly into the Tiergarten, Berlin’s equivalent to Central Park.  Grey Heron’s are very closely related to the Great Blue Heron of North America. Apparently they are just as common as our GBHs, but I never expected to see one in the middle of a city!

There were a number of other interesting birds in the Tiergarten, and because I’m more interested in birds than the average person, I kept getting left behind to take closeups like this:

Me standing in front of a section of the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz.   Many small sections of the wall are left standing throughout the city as memorials.

I’m studying in Berlin this summer with Samuel Adler, and I have now been here for a week. Berlin is already my favorite city (that I’ve visited), and I’m looking forward to seeing as much of the city as I can in the next few weeks.

Here’s a quick video of the U-Bahn, the inner city trains of Berlin’s excellent transportation system. It’s about a 30 minute commute from my dorm to the school, and about 30 minutes to go farther into the city from there — so I spend about two hours commuting every day.

I’m taking a lot of photos and video so I hope to post more as I have time and internet!

A poster I made for the Wind Ensemble concert next Tuesday:

And this was for the Concert Band and Symphonic Band concert last Tuesday:

Thanks to the band department for asking me to make these!

My Senior Saxophone Recital is February 28th. If you’re in Bloomington that day, I hope you can make it!

I had our two golden retrievers for the weekend. They had a great time at Griffy Lake as you will see in my latest ridiculous animal video.

near Griffy Lake, Bloomington