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!

Ich habe fotografiert!

Alright! Life is good!

Sorry for all the enthusiasm, but I'm just so excited to be here!! I love Germany so much!!

It's finally Saturday! Woo! Of course, that means I have a lot of homework to do. 7 assignments for this weekend. Well, it's not too bad since I've already done 6 of them haha. A lot of them were very tedious, dictionary-related assignments. But it's ok. I'm here to learn German, so tedious German work is okay. =D

One major bummer - I don't have Microsoft Word anymore. D: It didn't get put back on when I had to get a new hard drive. Since I got my computer back the day before I left, I didn't take the time to mess with it. I also believed I'd have the internet at home, which meant I could much more easily access the things I need. But whatever. I can live without it for a while. I'm downloading a trial version, which should last 30 days? And my dad can probably email me the code anyway, so it should all be fine. =D

Our host - Marion - is finally back! We don't really see her much... she keeps to herself I guess. I don't really know. But the last time she asked us something, it was auf Deutsch! I was afraid she'd use English all the time and I didn't want to have to ask her to stop. It seems rude somehow even though it really isn't. I don't know how to explain that one.

I'm learning a little bit every day. I really like my classes at school. We have them for 4 hours Monday - Thursday and only 3 hours on Friday, which is nice. I think I explained this already... I can't remember. Between this and email updates to my parents, it gets confusing haha. Anyway.

I have pictures to share! There are kind of a lot, but I figure that's a good thing in this instance. So here we go!

I was supposed to meet up with some friends yesterday, but either I was at the wrong place or they just didn't show. Either way, no biggie haha. I hang out with people all the time, so having some alone time was actually pretty fun!

I started out at Alexanderplatz, at the fountain of Poseidon (Neptunbrunnen).

Pretty, isn't it? It's HUGE! I don't have any pictures of people standing next to it, sadly, to give some perspective. Oh well. I think you get the idea anyway. The 4 women around the fountain represent the 4 main rivers of Prussia. I don't know which one this one is though.

While I was waiting, I met little Olivia. Isn't she adorable?!

She was with her mom and her mom's friend, but while she was playing she came up to talk to me. We didn't get very far though. She didn't understand that I'm not German and therefore can't speak German very well. But, then again, she looks to be about 4. Can't expect much global awareness at that age haha.

After that, I started to wander around quite a bit. I had nothing else to do, you know? Haha. I've been to some of these places already with Nathan and some of the other kids, but I didn't have my camera with me so I went back to snap a couple of photos.

The first place I went was the Chapel of Mary (or Marienkirche). I couldn't take pictures inside but here's one of the outside:

They're reconstructing the inside. I don't know why. It's the second oldest church in Berlin (so really in Germany). You can go inside but not very far. There really isn't much to see inside. Hopefully the construction will be done before I leave.

After that, I wandered around some more! See a theme? Haha.

I passed by the big pointy thing... I don't know what it's called! Shame on me. I think it's just the Fernsehturm (TV tower) but I could be wrong.

It's even bigger than it looks here. It's probably close to 2 km high. It's massive! I walked all the way around it, just to see how long it would take. It took close to 15 minutes, but there were also MASSES of people there. I don't know what was going on. It looked like some new music exhibit had opened, but most people weren't even looking at it, so I have no idea.

After that, I walked by the "Berlin Dome." (or just "Dom.")

I didn't go inside there either because I think you have to pay. But let me tell you, even walking by it is amazing. It's one of the tallest churches in the world, even after being heavily damaged during the war. It amazing. I know you can go it at 18:00 for free if you want to go to the service. I've been told it's a very beautiful service. I'm planning on going one of these days, though I won't be able to take pictures then. It would be too disrespectful. But sadly, no pictures will be posted. D: Sorry!

After I left there, I started walking around the older part of town. From there, I want to Nikolaikirche (Nicholas's church). It's the oldest church in Berlin. I couldn't go inside because I would have had to pay for that too and it cost an arm and a leg! And you have to pay extra to take pictures. So lame. But it looked beautiful.

Unfortunately, my computer's batteries are about to die and there seems to be no place to plug it in. I'll have to finish this on Monday I'm afraid. And by then I'm sure I'll have more to share. I hope you're all looking forward to it! More pictures are soon to come.

Berlin is just beautiful, isn't it?

I think I'll love it even more when it isn't quite so cold and rainy haha. But even that taken in to consideration, it's still amazingly beautiful.

Ich liebe Berlin!!

Ok. All for now. Bye everyone!!

Ich bin in Deutschland!!

I really hope that's right. If it isn't, I'm going to feel very stupid later. =)

Anyway. I'm here!! In Berlin! And it's beautiful! Ok well, actually it's cold and rainy, but who cares?! It's awesome!!! I've only been here since Sunday and already I have fallen in love with Germany.

Oh. Before I forget. I'm officially a double major! It's French teaching (with a German teaching minor) and German Studies. I would have just done the straight up teaching double major thing, but it was complicated and would have added another semester, which I couldn't afford. So now it's done and I will graduate in April 2013.

But anyway, back to the point. FREAKING BERLIN!!!!! <3

So I started class at the Goethe-Institut this morning. It goes from 8:30 until 13:00, but we get 3 breaks so it's not as intense as it sounds. Though it's still pretty intense. =D There are quite a few English speakers in my class, but thankfully we don't speak English at all. German all the way! I still speak English with some of the other students outside of class, but that's because my German speaking ability isn't very high. I always understand at least 1/2 of what's said to me (unless whomever is talking really loves talking a kilometer a minute). That's pretty good, I think, considering I've only taken German for one semester, but I still wish I were better at it. At least I can understand at least the general idea of what's going on if not all the details.

Today, a bunch of us from school (and by that I mean the University we go to in the US) went out to eat and then to museums and stuff. The first one was an art museum. I can't remember too many specific things we saw because there were three floors, each one big enough to be its own museum, but I do have one in particular that I remember the name of because it was one of my favorites.

Click here to see it! =D

It's called "Der Zug des Todes" which roughly translates to "The Train of the Dead." I know the image is small, so I'll explain. Death is leading a train or a parade of people, ringing a bell as he/she goes along. Old people, young people, rich and poor, powerful and not are all obediently following death. I liked it because no matter where you are in life, we all end up in the same place. That's how Nathan explained it anyway. Everyone follows death, whether they want to or not. I thought it was cool.

After that we walked around the city for.... 5 hours? That was killer, especially because I had my computer with me and by the end my shoulders were killing me! I'm alright now but I'm very tired. I don't think I'm completely over my jet-lag yet though, which is unfortunate. But it shouldn't take much longer to get over I don't think, since I'm keeping a very regular schedule (22:00-6:00 is when I sleep).

I'm starting to make friends already! Most of them are from my school, but there are a couple who aren't. The most notable is Petter, a boy i met from Sweden. He's very patient with me when I either don't understand what he said or when I have a hard time answering him. I hope I have the chance to get to know him better. He's in the level just above me for classes so I doubt I'll see him often.

Sadly, I don't get the internet at home and sticking around at school to get online isn't a very fun idea. I'm not going to take my computer around anymore in case of more random escapades like the one I had today. My shoulders just can't handle the stress. Plus I didn't have my camera today, which was way sad considering all the awesome stuff we saw. I even touched part of the Berlin wall! And I want to have it with me from now on, but that's heavy too and I can't carry both. I could barely carry one (between my computer and my camera, I mean) so I don't know how often I can update this. Hopefully I won't be to exhausted next time and will be able to add more detail (and pictures!) from my life and sightseeing, but we'll have to see. I'd much rather be out experiencing things than writing about them. So I may have to settle for a bi-weekly or even just weekly update. Like I said, we'll have to see. We're not going to be doing so much the whole trip, so once some of the excitement wears off it might get easier.

In any case, I'll update when I can.

For now, I'm going home - a 45 minute commute by S-Bahn - and eating dinner. Then I will take a shower and very gratefully crawl in to bed.

Well, at least I got my exercise in for the day. =P Not that I have many calories to burn haha. I haven't been eating much. I had cornflakes for breakfast, a half-sandwich thing and some bread for lunch and that was all. Now I think I'll go finish off the soup from a couple days ago from the Vietnamese restaurant Marion ( the woman I'm staying with) took us (me and my room mate Rachel) to our first night - Sunday. Since it's now Tuesday, I figure I better eat it.

We have a grocery store just down the street - maybe two or three blocks? - from our apartment, which is so nice. It's very small, but also fairly cheap. It cost about 10 euros for food for the week, tissues, lots of water, and a notebook for school. So yeah. Very awesome. And since we're in charge of feeding ourselves, I don't explain to gain weight like I did in France. My host mom loved cooking food for 4 sons (which she has) but who, most of the time, were not living there. So Paul - who is 14 - and I had to eat it all. It was so hard and not appreciated. I loved the food, but the 10 pounds I was forced into was not so much fun. Now, when I'm not hungry, I can stop eating. Yay Germany! lol.

Don't get me wrong. I still love France and (for the most part) French culture, but the food thing was awful! Oh well. =) It's all lost again now, so it's all good.

....I don't know why I think you all care. Oh well! =D I shared it anyway.

Now, time to do some homework, go home and do the things I already said I was about to do.

Tschüss!