Note: I apologize in advance if my wording is weird at all. I've read straight through the Eragon books (or will have soon since I'm more than 2/3 of the way done with Brisingr). I haven't stopped reading it since I started, so I think the Lord-of-the-Rings-esque form of speech has influenced my wording a bit :P Lol.

Well, another week is gone. We only have 8 more days of school. I, personally, only have 7 because of Brigitte's and my trip to Paris this upcoming Friday. Can't say I'm not totally stoked. I thought going to Paris (AGAIN) would be somewhat tiresome and it may yet prove to be so, but I doubt it. For one thing, I get to miss a day of school without being sick. WOO! And for another thing, it means I have 3 whole wonderful days without my room mate.

Don't get me wrong. She's nice enough I guess. Were we not room mates, I would probably have no issue with her. However, being around someone on a nearly continuous basis is enough to drive me insane. Well, if we're friends it's not a problem. She and I are not, so the little things that irk me are made worse by the fact that I can never seem to get away from her. We even share a room, so no respite comes at home either.

But it's alright. We leave Berlin 2 weeks from tomorrow. I can deal with it until then.

My job in the fall is confirmed, which is awesome. :D I can't even begin to explain how stoked I am.

Germany isn't what I expected. I don't know what I WAS expecting, but I like this better. The people are amazingly friendly (albeit somewhat unhelpful when I try to practice my German. They want to help me and so generally switch to English when they hear my American (and sometimes French) accent when I speak. I know they're trying to help, but it's just frustrating. I LOVE the people that either can't or don't speak English with me. It's not why I'm here, you know? Anyway, moving on).

Living in Germany is much more natural to me than living in France, though to be fair I think it has a lot to do with having friends and not being alone all the time. Things with the group in France were...difficult. A clash of personalities, I think, is the best way to describe it. They were in to drinking and clubbing and what have you and I was...not. It was just the way it was. Now that I'm with kids from my own school, who share my religious beliefs and general values, it's much easier. I'm not nearly as tense as I was last year and I don't feel judged by the others for anything other than my personality and not my religion or life choices. It's a good feeling.

But in any case.

I'm rather frustrated with my teacher. She doesn't assign us any homework, so I have nothing to do. Sure, there are things I could study, but I can't just study. I need worksheets or exercises or assignments of some kind to guide me. Just studying in and of itself is tedious and generally proves pointless to me.

But still. My German continues to improve, which is really all that matters in the end. I'm hoping it will improve even more when I stay with Tobi in a few weeks. Living with Alexane and her family last summer did more for me than the rest of my stay in France, and it was only about a 10-day stay (as my stay with Tobi will also be).

I'm still pretty happy, though the more time passes the more I'm glad my stay won't be longer. I hate feeling like a traveler or living out of a suitcase - both of which apply now. I want to be able to do my own laundry. I WANT TO COOK ON A STOVE!!! Living off of the same food over and over again is insanely tiresome. And I think it's also (at least in part) the cause of my problems. But seeing as there's not much of anything I can do about it, I'll really just have to wait it out.

I get to talk to my brother today. =3 In about an hour and a half from now. Yay! I wish the time would go faster. I miss him. Plus there's little I can do between now and then since I have limited amounts of time. I've been reading most of the day, but I can only do that for so long at a time, you know?

Sorry I've been so bad at updating. Now that I have access to the internet at least most of the time, I find myself using it less. Haha. Oh well. I also haven't been taking as many pictures, but that's also because I've been going out less because I need to rest more. Being perpetually sick is not the best thing ever, but I think I'm dealing with it pretty well.

One last thought before I go: Disney films and the Gilmore Girls in German are REALLY awesome. :D Watching TV/movies and listening to German music has been REALLY helpful. It's something I need to try to keep up when I get back to the states, though it'll be more difficult then when it's not as readily available. However, reading will be easier because I'll need to do it for my classes. As it stands, we don't read much of anything at all in class. I wish we would. I can hardly read in German at all.

Oh well. It will come with time and study.

I hope all of you are well.

Watch the World Cup! And root for Deutschland!!! ;) (Or America if you choose to actually be patriotic... Weird...)

Tchüss.

P.S. One last thing (seriously this time). I'm compiling a list of horror movies I need to see once I get back (or in general. Whatever). Anyone have any suggestions? Here is the list so far:

1. Poltergeist

2. The Cube

3. Nightmare on Elm Street

4. Friday the 13th

5. The Blair Witch Project (and sequel?)

6. The Brood

7. The Fly

8. Saw

9. Janghwa, Hongryeon (A tale of two sisters)

10. Texas Chainsaw Massacre

11. The Orphanage

12. The Changeling

13. The Exorcist

14. The Shining

15. Rec (2007)

16. Scream

17. IT

18. The Eye (original)

19. Frailty

20. May

Things have been ridiculous lately. I feel like I either have no time or far too much of it. We have SO many assignments for our culture class that sometimes just looking at the list of them all makes my head spin.

I finally have the internet at home. Our land lady finally consenting to sharing the ethernet cord (which is at least 60 feet long BTW) with us. I finally get to call my family on a regular basis!

It's been really hard to be away from them for so long, especially when I couldn't call them whenever I wanted. I especially miss my brother. I got so used to being around him that I think I took it for granted a little. And I know he's dealing with a lot right now (as is all of my family but I don't normally live with them) and I wish I could be there. But I know I need to be here, so I'm doing my best to make the most of my time here.

I've been getting sick a lot lately. I have IBS and I'm having a lot more flares than I've had in a long time. Today I had to leave school nearly an hour early (GAH!) and just lay down for several hours. I went to the store to buy something for dinner and that was SO exhausting. I didn't even go to dinner meet-up our group had all together at an apparently amazing, very German restaurant that our professor was generous enough to pay for. I really wanted to go, but it's very far from here and I didn't have the strength. It was sad, but I watched Hercules is German instead and relaxed. I needed it, sadly. Hopefully I'll be fine tomorrow.

I've begun watching Disney films auf Deutsch on youtube. Very fun. :P The Emperor's New Groove and Hercules are the only one's I've watched so far, but Tarzan is next. Yay! Then whatever else I can find. I want to see Finding Nemo, but I can only find scenes, not the whole film. But I'll keep working on it.

My German is really coming along! I'm still ahead of basically everyone in the class, so sometimes it's boring, but I have a LOT more to learn and our teacher - Christine - is more than willing to answer all of my random and nearly endless questions. Nearly none of them have to do with the lesson we're on, so I wait to ask them until the breaks or after class, leaving me very little to do during class. We're given entirely too much time (in my opinion) for each activity and work-sheet, so often I have plenty of time left over in which I can do other things.

I've taken to trying to formulate lesson plans for my future students (though I won't be a certified teacher until almost 3 years from now) but I think it's a very good use of my time. I only started learning German 6 months ago (as opposed to French, which I started in 7th grade) so I still remember a lot of what we did in the beginning and I remember what helped with the basics and what didn't. Of course, I need to be adaptable to my students, but remembering how I learned it can't hurt. I'm doing all that I can to figure out the best way to teach German (and also French since I can apply many things from my German lessons to it as well) in the future. If that's not being productive (working 3 years in advance) I don't know what is! Haha.

I had a really awesome idea earlier of something I could do with my students, but now I can't remember what it was! I hate when that happens!

Let's see... What else?

I've had a couple people tell me they couldn't believe I'd only studied German for 6 months. My accent is apparently coming along (and I was right - it did set back my French accent a bit. The "R"s are much better, according to Alexane, though that's probably on account of me trying to imitate the German one as well, which is very similar to it. My vowels, however, are absolutely horrible. Hopefully it will come back with minimal effort...)

I've even had one or two people not believe me when I said I was American, but the conversations were very simple and very short. And for the most part it was with solicitors, and I'm sure people have tried that excuse to get away form them before, but even so. It was still encouraging. :)

I've made many friends since I got here and I'm, in general, very happy.

My dad and I talked once (and briefly at that) about my moving to Europe for a year and either studying, working, or doing an internship of sorts. I'd probably do 6 months in Germany and 6 in France, or I would go somewhere (like Strasbourg) where they speak both commonly, but I don't know about that. I've never been out of my comfort zone (my own country) for so long and I don't know if I could handle it at this point in my life. Maybe once I graduate, I can go abroad for a while before I start teaching? I have no idea. But I have another year before I can even conceive of going (since I'm already signed up for school, have an apartment, etc) so I'm not too worried about it now. Just something to keep in mind I guess.

I got up kinda late this morning (I stayed up too late reading "Eldest" haha - good book by the way; I'd never read it before). I made it to class on time, but barely. I need to get more sleep so hopefully everything will be good tomorrow. Plus, the earlier I leave, the fewer people there will be on the S-Bahn. Normally they don't bother me, but I'm really sick of high school boys hitting on me. The backpack I have for school makes me look young to them (they're only used by high school aged kids and younger) but whatever. If I leave earlier I can avoid them. (They're there the same time every day).

Anyway sorry this post was so short. I have so much to catch up on! Like my trip to Strasbourg and our group's amazing trek to Schwerin! I only have pictures for the second though. I'll explain everything later, now that I can actually assure that there will BE a "later."

Well, that's all for now then. Night all.

Tschüss!

P.S. The sun now sets around 10pm and rises before 4 sometime. I'm not sure exactly when but very early.

P.P.S. We only have 2.5 weeks of school left. Then we go on our tour of Germany, then I got to Bonn for 10 days. After that, it's back to the states, possibly to Georgia, to Canada, who knows what for a month, and then back to school!! Life moves so quickly when it's awesome... And very slowly when it's not. -sigh- So be happy! Then life will... be over? Weird.

I'm tired. Ignore me. Bye!!

Potsdam (VERY picture-heavy!)

Today we went to Potsdam, where Friedrich der Große (Fredrick the great) had his castle. The grounds were pretty cool... They reminded me a lot of Versailles. We didn't go inside anything, just stayed in the gardens. Which were MASSIVE, by the way.

So basically, this is another photo post. Yay! We didn't even really leave Berlin, so there's not a ton to say. Basically, the pictures speak for themselves haha.

This was the first of many "boy band" pictures we took. I don't actually have many of them... I don't have the best ones either, sadly. However, this was really fun to do, since we did it multiple times and in multiple places throughout the day.

Left to right: Michele, Lauren, me, Emily.

I like this one a lot. It amuses me. Emily makes me laugh.

This is one of me! Behind me is the Castle of Potsdam itself.

Typical flower shot! Yay!!

Everyone being... ninjas? (Emily, Haley, Michele, Lauren). :D

Clint (sp??) had a very epic pose with his umbrella. I couldn't help but take a picture. :P

Michele, Haley, and Richard all decided to crawl through the hedges. They went through the hedge garden and there was no exit where we were, so they crawled through a hole...

...and through stinging nettle. Obviously not the best plan. Haley got the worst of it. T.T Poor Haley!!! The swelling went down after a while, but yeah.... ick.

After that, we went tree climbing!

Lauren had some trouble ^^;; haha. Though, to be fair, I did too. Not there, but on a different part of the tree. I almost lost my balance twice and the second time I got out of the tree, Richard had to help me down haha. We were lucky he was there to spot us! It was kinda scary since we had to climb a tree-root to get up there. The first time I had no trouble at all, but the second time I did. Oh well :P

We couldn't all go up at once, so we went in groups.

Left to right: Jennifer, Rachel, Richard

It's Michele, the tree-conqueror!!

This one is the best of the three of us. Sadly, I wasn't smiling. The others look cute though! (Michele, Haley, me)

The tree of thinkers :P (Richard, Rachel, Jennifer)

I really love this one of Michele and Haley! :D

I feel like this is a Loriel Hair Product Ad or something haha. Lauren is so pretty!

This one amused me. Richard asked me what I was doing and I told him I was posing for Michele, who had my camera while I was climbing down. She took that opportunity to snap another candid photo haha. She loves doing that :P

Lauren had some issues coming out of the tree ^^;;

Jennifer looked so comfortable! Sleeping in the tree... haha. None of us really wanted to leave, but we did.

Just before we left to return home to Berlin (the city, I mean), we took one more "boy band" posed photo. I really enjoyed this one. :P (Michele, Haley, me, Lauren, Rachel)

Once I get the others we took (though I think there may have only been one more, perhaps two), I'll post it. Sadly, the ones I don't have are my favorites. Oh well. We're working on sharing photos through flickr. It takes FOREVER to upload through there though.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my pictures! Life is continuing as usual. My German is vastly improving, particularly my understanding of it. I've also gotten to the point where I can comfortably speak it with my friends and Dr. Kelling even though I mess up a lot or don't know words. We're all in the same boat pretty much, so it's just good practice.

And guess what! A week from Tuesday? I'll have been here for a whole month!! How crazy is that?! Oh wait!! Tuesday is tomorrow! Whoa!!! Haha.

I love Germany. I think this may be my last study abroad, but I certainly hope it isn't my last time here. I absolutely love it.

Sorry I haven't said much about my life here or my German improvement. Life is basically your every day college student's daily life. I go to school, then museums and historical places for my culture and history class. Then I have the history class in the evening on Thursday as well as religion class. I go shopping, eat, hang out... things I do in the states. So I don't really know what else to say. I hope the pictures are good enough for now. :) There are a lot of them!!

Well, I need to shower and do some homework, then get to bed. So I'll get going for now.

Thanks for reading my blog everyone!

Tschüss! =D

Lübeck

Yesterday, a bunch of us went to Lübeck! It was really fun, and the weather was MUCH better than in Poland. :D It was gorgeous! (Oh yeah... still need to update about Poland sometime haha. Maybe after this.) It rained a little in the morning, but after that it was amazing!

We met up at the Hoptbahnhof at 7 am. Gross, right? I got up at a quarter to 6. Not my favorite thing ever, but it wasn't all that bad. We had 3.5 hours of train ride between here and there, so it wasn't a big deal. I don't think I slept, but it was still relaxing more or less haha. Everyone was so loud! Americans are like that I've discovered hahaha. But it's all good.

We walked around town, looked at historical stuff and then we were let loose to wander on our own. I was with a group of 4 other girls (myself not included). Michele, Emily, Lauren, and my room mate Rachel. It was pretty fun. :D

We went shopping (though I didn't get anything. I just looked around, but it was fun too!), went to the original Marzipan store (where it was invented!!), and just sort of hung out taking pictures. So without further ado, here are some pictures!

This is the gate into the city. There used to be a wall just inside the river, but it's since been torn down. The gateway was built between 1464 and 1478. So it's old! Haha. It's been up for so long that it's starting to curve and bend inward. I suspect it's because the wall is no longer there to help hold it up. I don't know how well you can tell it's bending from this picture, but it is. Severely. Not so much that it's unsafe though.

We started walking through the streets and we passed the "Theater Figuren Museum." I don't think I need to translate that. :P The whole time I was looking at the dolls in the windows, all I could think of was "Chucky." Fun huh? XD

We went to St. Jacob's church, but didn't go in because we didn't want to pay. It looked just like the churches we saw in Poland (you'll see pictures of it when I get to Poland haha).

After that, we walked back through the smaller, older streets that are pretty much residential now. That was mostly when it was raining so I didn't get many pictures. Here are the two that I did get though!

After that we were set loose to wreck havoc on the city. >:3 Not that we did, but we could have.

One of the best things I saw was this:

Not because of WHAT it was, but just WHERE. I really got a kick out of it. :P

We went to the Marzipan store, but it was WAY crowded and very small, so no pictures. :( Sorry! I bought an assorted box of Marzipan and have yet to try it. Need to save it, you know? Then we got ice cream! I got dunkle shokolade (I think I spelled that right?) Eis, which means dark chocolate. So yummy! Michele got Marzipan flavored o.O She said it was weird but very good.

When we went down by the river and took a bunch of pictures. There was this little play-ground-like thing with spring-loaded benches and things. We jumped off of them >:3 Here are a couple pictures:

This one is of Emily, Michele, and Lauren. I just think it's way cute! Haha. If you click on it you can see their expressions better. :P (Which you can do with all pictures BTW... make bigger, I mean).

Here's one with me in it! I think Rachel took it. Sorry our heads are cut off... As far as timing went, this was the best of them ^^;; Sorry it's not better, but I only had so many to work with.

After that we took some pretty pictures actually down at the river, but my camera battery died so I didn't get as many as I wanted. Oh well. Some of them turned out really well! Here's my favorite:

So left to right: Rachel (my room mate), Lauren, Michele, and Emily. I love that they were all laughing when I took this! It makes their smiles completely legitimate. I don't like forced smiles in pictures, so laughing pictures are my favorites. :3

And just for the fun of it, have a picture of some ducks!

This trip was really fun! We're going out again tomorrow, so more pictures will probably come. Sorry for so many long posts, but there just so much to say! I really love Germany.

So, Bis Morgan I guess. Tschüss!!

I don't know why, but no matter what I try to do I can't get my pictures uploaded on here. I've tried two different computers and 3 different photo hosting sites but it just says "processing" or "uploading" and never finishes. Waiting for half an hour is more than enough time but it still didn't finish. And I was only uploading two - sometimes even one - photo at a time.

I'm REALLY annoyed and really hungry. I hate to do it, but more updates are on hold until tomorrow. So Tiergarten, my apartment, and Poland will all happen at once.

Sorry. I'm just way too annoyed to continue right now. I've been on the computer working (as well as having done my homework) since 2. 2 hours of frustration is really quite enough for me. Sorry :(

Also, apparently the file on my jump drive can't be read on this computer. Oh the frustration!

Hopefully I'll have better luck tomorrow.

Bis Morgan.

13 Mai 2010

Well! Today I had something of an adventure.

This morning, I was supposed to meet up with Michelle and some other kids to go to the zoo and the aquarium. I headed out a little before 9:30 since I was supposed to meet them at 10. I got to Zooligischer Garten at about a quarter till and I was supposed to meet them at the Bushaltstelle, line 100. I found the bus station just fine, but I was having trouble finding the exact place. Since it was rather early I didn't think anyone would be there yet. Michelle told me the best way to get there would be to go to Alexanderplatz and take the 100 Bus from there and it would be the end of the line. Well, I couldn't find any place for it to arrive. I still don't know why I did this, but I decided to get on the bus to Alexanderplatz.

I was thinking about it, and thought I could go there and take the 100 bus to the right place, but then it occurred to me that I had BEEN in the right place and the bus I was on (the 100 going the opposite direction) was not really where I wanted to be haha.

It's all very complicated. She's not very good at giving directions. The last time I tried to meet up with her somewhere, she said to meet at the fountain at Alexanderplatz. I went there and went to the fountain in the square - the one of Poseidon. However, she had meant the smaller fountain by the U-BAHN STOP "Alexanderplatz." She tends to explain things in terms of what she associates with something rather than where things really are haha.

Our phones (or at least mine) started working this morning, but I have no one's numbers. Nathan sent out an email to everyone with the phone numbers on it, but since I can't get the internet here it was of no help this morning.

Instead of getting off the bus, I decided to stay on it. I didn't really care about going to the zoo. I mean, I need to go eventually for the culture class and it would have been fun to hang out with people today, especially since most places are closed (it's a national holiday today), but I didn't mind not seeing them to be completely honest.

So anyway, I stayed on the bus until I heard an interesting stop name - Brandenburger Tor. I had been there already with Nathan and the others, but I hadn't had my camera with me so I decided to go there and take a few. Always need to have pictures, right? :D

I got there and started taking pictures, though there were a lot of people around. Most of my photos have random people in them, which is cool haha.

Usually, they have a guy in an American military uniform and a guy in Soviet Russian uniform with the flags standing side by side and you can take a picture with them for a couple Euros. They were there today as well as two girl "soldiers," some men dressed as STATUES of soldiers, guys dressed as bears (for Berlin) and, believe it or not, a Storm Trooper. It was so awesome. (I have a picture of the Storm Trooper, but it's not a very good one, so I'm uploading one of his "friend" instead! =D haha)

After that, I didn't really know where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I knew Tiergarten (animal garden) was pretty close, so I decided to walk around and see if I could find it. It's pretty massive (several kilometers long) so I figured it wouldn't be hard.

On the way, I got side tracked and found the Reichstag. Written on it is: "Dem Deutschen Volke," which translates roughly to "To the German People."

It was originally built in 1871 and was meant to house the German Parliament. It wasn't restored after the war until 1957 and wasn't finished until much later. It was used as a symbol of the German people, both in positive and negative ways. I'd go on about that, but I don't want to turn this into a history lesson haha. Here's one interesting thing though:

In 1933, a fire destroyed the main hall inside the building. Communists were blamed and the Nazi's used this to further their witch hunt and then subsequently came to power. Later in the war, a Soviet flag was hung from this building to symbolize the defeat of the German people as a whole.

I didn't stay there very long but it was pretty cool. It's surprising sometimes, how much historical significance one building can have. And I haven't even STARTED to cover it all.

Once I left there, I kept wandering and ended up at a memorial of some sort. I could tell it was a memorial from the war because there were cannons or weapons of some kind (or something, I really don't know what to call them) on either side of the way in and a soldier on top of a very large pillar. I figured it was a tribute to the fallen German soldiers or something, but it wasn't.

When I got closer, I found out the place is called "Sowjetisches Ehrenmal." It's a memorial for the fallen Soviet soldiers.

Here's what the plaque outside of it said:

"Traces of War in Berlin

Burial and Memorial Site in Tiergarten

Gravesite for more than 2,000 Soviet soldiers who were killed in April and May of 1945 in the Battle of Berlin, and a memorial of the Soviet army for the victory over National Socialism. Erected on November 11, 1945. Handed over to Germany by the Soviet army in December 1990. The memorial is cared for and maintained by the federal state of Berlin."

At the base of the pillar were HUNDREDS of flowers from people from different countries all around the world. A lot of Russians had come and laid flowers there with ribbons with Russian writing on them. I saw some from Canada, the US, France, and many other places, all honoring the fallen soldiers.

Back behind the grand statues and plaques and things, there were hung photos and a history written on the walls. I didn't read it all, since it was quite a lot, but one thing I read really struck me. The grave site, I read, is constructed at the intersection of the east/west axis and the north/south axis. When it was opened, soldiers from the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and the US all stood together to honor the fallen soldiers.

It really is a beautiful memorial.

After that, I finally found my way into the center of Tiergarten.

It's gorgeous there! It seriously rivaled the gardens I went to in Kyoto, Japan, and I thought nothing would ever come close to those. I really think Tiergarten might be the most beautiful place I've ever been. It's hard to say since all the places I've been (and I've been a lot of places) are all so very different from one another. But I don't know… something about that place was almost magical.

Here are just a couple of the pictures I took there:

I know there are a lot, but believe me, I was holding back! I want to show ALL of them to you, but it's just not practical to do here. I'll upload them all somewhere else if I have the time. If/when that happens, I'll post a link so you can see all my pictures if you like. :D I'm pretty photo-happy though haha. So there are a LOT of them.

I really wish I could emulate the feeling I had there. It was so peaceful but at the same time so… ALIVE. There were birds singing everywhere and people scattered all over the place. But it was so quiet at the same time… peaceful, really. And I guess peace is something of a quietness from within, so noise on the outside but calm on the inside… If you have ever felt that, then you know how hard it is to describe and how completely impossible it is to duplicate outside of places like that. But I wish I could duplicate it. If I could, I'd share that feeling with the whole world! It was absolutely beautiful.

An older woman stopped to talk to me and was telling me how beautiful she thought the gardens were. I completely agree with here. And she went on to say (this was all in German by the way) that she loved how the flowers were all around the paths and you could walk right between them. She said it was her favorite place to go after a long, hard day of work. Then she said I, being young, probably didn't know what that was really like or that I couldn't fully appreciate it or something like that, but she didn't mean it in an unkind way. She was just saying (I think) that my generation (2 or so after hers) don't have to work nearly as hard now as her generation did - and she's completely right on that. She was a very sweet old lady. :) She made me smile.

It took me a long time to get out of Tiergarten. I really didn't want to leave, to be honest, but it was REALLY cold. I tried to write something down so I could look it up later (there isn't room for a camera AND a dictionary in my bag haha) and I had a hard time holding the pen. It surprised me how cold it really was.

I walked around, trying to find my way. I went by the "Großer Stern," walked the wrong way down "Straße des 17. Juli," (back toward Brand. Tor) and then followed a sign pointing toward an S-Bahn stop. About 15-20 minutes later, I ended up at the Sony Center! I didn't do much there. I snapped a couple of photos (it's HUGE…. and really cool looking haha) but I didn't stay. By this time I was REALLY cold and just wanted to go inside.

I found the station, bought some Chinese noodles and came home. After writing all this up, it's only 15:15! And I have almost nothing left to do in the day. Boo! But that's ok. I'll figure it out. I just don't want to go out again… it's too cold haha.

We're finally getting laundry done today… or we WILL once Marion gets home, but who knows when that will be? Haha. Oh well.

All in all, a very successful day has been had so far. I think so anyway. I even made a short video! Well, a blog-video of sorts. One for my family and one for this blog, which I'll put up later if I don't think it's completely awful. The main purpose of it was to get me to speak German since I've been alone most of the day and I really need to practice. So we'll see.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this. Thanks for reading!

Tschüss!!

Progress

Well, I was going to finish putting up my photos today, but the school computer won't recognize my hard drive, so it's going to have to wait until tomorrow. Sorry!! I really wanted to get them up today, but even if I went home to get my computer and then came back, it's still dead. I neglected to charge it since Saturday haha. (Something that would not happen to me in the states, I might add haha).

I don't have a ton of time today since I need to buy more groceries (I feel like I'm eating a ton! But I also buy in very small amounts haha) and I need to be somewhere at 7 and it's about 5 now. Plus it takes a long time to get there. So yeah. Very little time.

Basically, I'm going to copy/paste what I already emailed to my parents and then I need to book it back to Charlottenburg so I'm not late. Sorry... I want to put more time into this blog, but it's really hard when I have so many time limits, you know? It's going to be a lot more informal than I generally like to have, but as I said, very little time and regular updates are important to me. (Sorry mom and dad! I don't have to read this twice haha).

Life in Berlin has been nothing but amazing. I really REALLY love being here and all the students are so nice. We really have avoided cliques well, just like our professor asked.

So much has been going on! And since I can't really update online very much, I bought a journal to keep track of everything in. Well, that, and I've been taking lots of pictures. Not as many as I would like, because carrying too much around all the time really hurts my shoulders, so I often accidently leave my camera at home when I go out places spontaneously after school. But still. I'm getting quite a bit. :)

The German is really coming along! I mean, if someone speaks slowly and clearly enough, which most of them do really, I can catch quite a bit. More than I thought I'd be able to. And I can carry on conversations with other students. I even talked to Marion for a little while last night. She's very nice, but she's either always out or busy so I really don't see her much, but I sought her out because I need to talk more. Yay me! lol

Oh man... I have so much to do.

We still don't have German phones. Everyone is rather annoyed by this. We were supposed to get them last Thursday... then today... now hopefully by Wednesday. I'm completely cut off from EVERYTHING most of the time and it drives me completely nuts! Haha. Oh well. I'm a tech-junkie, what can I say? But even so. I hang out with other kids all the time, though making plans is hard when everything has to be done in person and there are nearly 30 of us. Oh well.

I got to practice my French a little today. Not speaking, but there was a group of French trourists at the museum where I was and I listened to the tour guide's explanations. It was pretty cool. It's a museum entirely on the history of Germany and we have to go... 7 times? for Dr. Kelling's class. He's such a sweet old man. We all love him so much!

Anyway I have other things to do and more food to buy. I go through fruit like none other! I eat cereal for breakfast, I generally eat out for lunch with other kids and eat a sandwich or something for dinner, but I eat fruit all the time! And run out very quickly. I don't buy too much at a time though because there's not a ton of room in the fridge. Rachel and I each get our own shelves though! Very nice.

Also, I've taken to watching German TV. It's so helpful! Constantly listening is a very good thing and watching gives it context so I can better understand what's going on. Most of the authentic German stuff (as in not dubbed-over American stuff) is soap-opera like. But hey, I do what I can haha.

And I bought the original Brothers Grimm's fairy tale books! Not that I can read them yet haha. But hopefully soon I can.

I'm so tired all the time. I drink lots of water, eat lots of fruit (I need more veggies though) and get enough sleep. I have trouble with waking up in the night. I get back to sleep quickly enough, but it proably really doesn't help... I don't know. At least I don't get tired during school. I really like school. I can't believe I've been here over a week already!

I freaking LOVE Germany. Can I even say that enough? Haha. It's amazing here.

It makes me want to go back to France to have a better experience there, because now I know it wasn't just because of my own faults or whatever that it wasn't entirely awesome. Maybe I can go again sometime before I graduate (and I mean more than just a weekend to visit Alex, you know?) But we'll see. All this travel is expensive haha.

I'm starting to make a couple friends outside of the school group. Claire is a very nice girl in my class. She's from New Zealand. And Edit is from... Bulgaria? Hungary? I can't remember which right now. One of those haha. I don't see them outside of class, really, since all the kids from our group generally do stuff together and most of the others that are studying here have jobs and things that keep them from hanging out, you know? Plus most of them study a lot more than I do... I feel like I should do more, but at the same time I'm not having difficulty keeping up. Most of the others don't seem to have a lot of experience with German, though nearly all of the non-English natives speak English at least a little (most of them do very well). I don't know. It's strange sometimes. Maybe I'm just hard-wired to understand German grammar haha. :D I love it.

Anyway now I'm running kind of late. I think the German and French blogs just aren't going to happen... it's very sad for me. :( I really wanted to do them, but I was also planning on having the internet at home like I was told I would. Oh well. I'll keep them up anyway and I'll work on them when I can. They're rather time consuming though, and in case you couldn't tell, I'm a little short on time.

More pictures will come soon! I know it makes it all more interesting. Only reading text isn't very fun on someone else's blog.

Anyway, I need to run. I'll update again when I can.

Tschüss!