Spring Break

Okay, so this is a little late, but I’ve been busy! So sue me!

I embarked on my spring break on a bleak Friday morning, with the Berlin winterscape ahead of me. I met Becca and Hannah on the train on the way to the airport, and we waited in the terminal, eagerly anticipating our trip to Barcelona and Mallorca.

We got our seats on the plane, and right as the safety instructions began, the whole plane quivered, the electricity went down, so all we heard was, “In case of emergency…”. We all held hands and accepted that this 50 euro flight could possibly be our downfall. I guess kind of literally.

We arrived in Barcelona after an easy flight, walked out of the terminal and gasped at how beautifully warm it was. In reality, it was probably in the neighborhood of 55 degrees, but we didn’t care. 55 was paradise. And there were palm trees! Quite the sight for sore eyes. It was the evening, probably about 7 o’clock, and we decided to just take a cab to our hostel. Between the three of us, it ended up being inexpensive. We walked into our hostel and it smelled clean. That was all I cared about (aside from being robbed).

We settled in, bought locks for our lockers, which ended up being a good investment, and decided that the next order of business would be to get dinner. We ended up going to a nearby restaurant, where we were introduced to Spanish culture in a not-so-kind way. The waiter sat us down and Hannah said, “You guys, don’t look to your left.” Naturally, what did we do? We looked up. It was there taht we learned that the Spanish aren’t shy about hanging cured meats EVERYWHERE. There was an entire pig’s leg (hoof and all) and part of its guts, just chilling. After our meal, we were talking and we saw our friends Matt and Jason on the street. They had just gotten off the bus, 2 hours after departing from the airport. They braved public transportation.

We all decided that we wanted to go out and have a look around the city once Matt and Jason were settled into the hostel. We took the metro all the way down to the beach. We walked around just soaking up the city, and then we saw the Mediterranean.  It was thrilling just to see a beach, let alone the Mediterranean! It was the first time I had ever seen it, and it was lit up by the moon on a beautiful beach. It was great. I was beginning to wonder why I had chosen Berlin…

On Fridays the Barcelona metro doesn’t run all night (like it does in Berlin) and we decided it would just be best after a long day of traveling to just get some rest. The metro in Barcelona is very nice and prompt, but it’s definitely not the S-Bahn. The best way I can describe it is that in Berlin, the train doors will open before the train has stopped moving. In Barcelona, sometimes the train doors don’t open at all.

The next day we headed out to Las Ramblas, the main street for tourists in Barcelona. We were told that we should keep an eye out for pickpockets and keep our valuables within view, because Barcelona has a theft problem. We went to the covered market on Las Ramblas, which was another rude awakening to the whole meat culture there. The longer I choose to be a vegetarian, the more validated I am in my choice. Seeing a sheep’s head with the eye still in it really is an appetite killer.

After that, the five of us rented some orange bikes and set off to Tibidabo, a castle at the top of a very high hill (mountain, really) in Barcelona. I’m not going to lie, it was probably not the safest thing to do, but man did we have fun! We rode all around the city and saw so much of it. Then the climb upwards almost got too much to handle. There were times when we thought that we didn’t want to go any further. It was hot. It was frustrating, but we did it. And man was the view worth it! We went all the way to the top, by my calculation (using GoogleMaps) about a 10 mile ride, most of that uphill.

We then decided to go get Pizza in the popular neighborhood called Born. The pizza was delicious and a well deserved reward for a 20-mile roundtrip bike ride. That was a definite highlight. We then decided to go back to our hostel and we got ready to go out and meet up with some other FU-Besters. After some deliberation as to where the bar actually was, we made it. It was packed! And I mean packed. We couldn’t even get a drink. We decided eventually to just call it a night after having such long day. I slept really well that night.

The next day was Sunday and I had wanted to visit the Picasso museum while I was in Barcelona, and as an added incentive, it was free after 3 o’clock. It was a great museum! There was a ton of work that you never would have guessed was done by Picasso. He was classically trained, so his work starts off as very representational and extremely composed. The museum had all of his works set up chronologically so you could see the progression of his work over time. It starts out with his early sketches of people, and portraits of a first communion, and ends with his Las Meninas series, after Velazquez’s seminal “Las Meninas.”

Brian and I walked around the city and it was so beautiful! I never wanted to leave the warm sunshine. The architecture in the city was so…European. But European with a very Mediterranean flavor. It was sophisticated, but still relaxed. The funniest part of that day was walking down Diagonál and seeing Cillian Murphy strolling down the street. That was my first celebrity sighting in Europe. I almost wish I asked him for his picture. Brian didn’t even know who he was!

We decided to part ways at about 7 o’clock. I was exhausted and hungry, and since it was Sunday, not many places were open to eat. I walked back to my hostel and then tried to get some pizza. After I ordered it, and started to cut into it, I discovered that there was a layer of ham under the cheese. I was not happy about that. I just gave it back to the girl at the counter, and went back to the place we first ate. I had a really delicious Spanish omelet with potato on a baguette. Delicious!

The next day I met up with some other FU-Best friends, Conor, Vika and Kristin. We went to La Sagrada Familia, which is the cathedral designed by Gaudí. It was breathtaking! I loved it. Then we went to the sculpture park designed by Gaudi. What a day to forget my camera at my hostel! The colors alone were breathtaking. Seeing such beautiful, bright, cheerful colors was so uplifting. Berlin has a lot of things, but it’s not big on color. Things tend to get a little grey and monotonous here. We went out to dinner, and had some great Tapas and grilled vegetables and wine. Everything was perfect. We then went to Las Ramblas because they hadn’t seen it yet, and got some gelato. We met some really nice women from the Netherlands and ended up talking with them for about an hour and a half. It was a blast! It was Monday night, and I didn’t want to stay out too late, so just before midnight I went home to pack my stuff up and get ready for the flight to Mallorca the next day.

I’ll skip over the more mundane flight stories, but after being aloft for just 30 minutes I arrived in paradise. I can honestly say that Mallorca was the most beautiful place I have ever been. It was warmer there than it had been in Barcelona, and the sun shone brightly every single day we were there.

I was exhausted on Tuesday evening, so I fell asleep at 11 PM and then Brian and I didn’t wake up until 11 the next morning. We walked around the beautiful city of Palma, and just marveled at how beautiful it was. Our hostel had a prime location at the foot of the Cathedral (a beautiful Gothic cathedral, refurbished by none other than Gaudi). We walked around there for a while, and we just took in the island. We headed over to the Contemporary Art museum, which was great. There was a huge collection of Picasso pottery and they had a bunch of Jean Míro paintings, which was a treat. We just lounged around the courtyard of the museum for a while before deciding to go back to the hostel. We had a rooftop terrace where we watched the sunset go behind a castle up on a hill. It was mind blowing.

We then went all around the island at night, walking around the harbor. We eventually landed at a bar where we went for the next couple of nights, because we made friends with the bartender, Eva, who was a native Mallorcan.

We went home, and got up the next morning with the intention of taking a bus tour of the island, but decided that renting bikes would be a better way to see the island. It was so amazing! We saw so many beautiful parts of the towns along the coast. We went to a secluded beach where there was (gasp) a nude sunbather. But that didn’t deter me, I wanted to go down and put my feet in the water. That small cove was where we had that photosession on the rock (see my facebook profile picture). When we got tired of going in that direction, we headed back in the other direction and rode along the water on a bike path. It was great!

Our last day in Palma we decided we just wanted to hang out on the beach. I the trashiest book that I could find and headed down to the beach. It was absolute the quintessence of what I wanted to do on my vacation. I just wanted to lie on some beach, somewhere, and read a stupid book. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

So there you have it! My spring break in Barcelona and Mallorca. By the end of it, I was sick of not knowing the language, and how expensive everything was. I was ready to come home to Berlin.

The past week has been okay. I’ve been really tired because I have a pretty bad case of tonsillitis, but now I have antibiotics for it, so I’m feeling better. We had a trip to Sachsenhausen, the concentration camp in Orienburg, a town just north of Berlin. That deserves its own post, so I’ll leave it at that.

Until then-

Mom says I'm not updating enough

So instead of doing my German homework, I think I’ll blog instead.

This past school week has been good, low key as always. We’re staring to learn some really useful things in German, such as how to order in a restaurant. Soon we’ll learn adjectives so we can finally describe things, which I guess would have been useful for the oral presentation I had to make about German classical music.

I was SO excited about the two new episodes of Glee this week that I watched courtesy of Kristin Kasubinski (shout out, gurl). They were my two favorite episodes of the season so far.

This weekend was far more interesting than my school week, so I’ll skip ahead to that. I went back to the market that my class went to a few weeks back and bought some spinach because supermarkets here only sell fresh spinach when it’s in season. I bought some hummus and cheddar, which I figured was a safe choice after the “aromatisch käse” incident, which stunk up my whole apartment.

My program offers us three cultural event tickets as part of the cost of attendance, so Thursday I went to the Deutscher Oper Ballet, which was incredible. The performance was entitled “Malakov and Friends.” The performance was selections from many different ballets, and I would love to have known which selections they were, but alas, programs were 10 euro a pop. Oh well! The group I went with had a stellar time dressing up and then going out to Thursday night Stammtisch.

Stammtisch was in a really cool neighborhood this week, and it reminded me a lot of the Village, because there were lot of bars and people walking around. I finally found where all the students and people my own age live and hang out! I couldn’t get enough of it. We went to a hookah bar which was good, because it was cheap, but impossible to get a drink. We ended up leaving and we went to the less crowded bar across the street.

From there, we had a decision to make. It was 12:30 and we could have gotten the last train back home, or we could make the commitment to stay out until 4 when the trains start to run again. After some vacillation I decided to stay out and go to a club. We went to a nearby club where there was a cover band playing. This was another occasion of a fun German club being swarmed by about 10 Americans and being made into an awesome club. The cover band was playing a lot of American songs, so we were dancing and singing along, and then all of the sudden our friend Iris decides to get up on stage and dance around! Before I knew it, we were all up on stage dancing with the cover band. Unbelievable.  

As all good nights end with döner, we made the obligatory stop. We got home at 5 and crashed. I woke up at 11:45 to a knock at my door, and it was Vika asking if I wanted to go ice skating with her and a couple other friends. I put on my blue hat (and we all know what that means), popped 3 advil, chugged a glass of water and walked right out the door in time to catch the 11:55 train. We had a great time skating at the outdoor rink because it was so beautiful. It was sunny and perfect! We had a great lunch at a restaurant which, as Vika put it, looked like an 80’s prom. We came home and cooked an amazing dinner!

I hadn’t planned on going out that night, but a bunch of FU Besters were going out to a bar where the beer prices work like the stock market. You can watch the price of beer fluctuate on screens all around the bar and then sometimes it crashes and everyone rushes the bar to get a cheap beer. It was fun, and we finally found somewhere well lit and clean which I was personally excited about. I didn’t stay out too late because I was exhausted so I decided to call it a night early.

Yesterday a bunch of people said that they knew of a really good, authentic Mexican food place, so we decided to go there for dinner. We got there just in time for 2-for-1 margaritas, which made my day. We got a 6 salsa sampler with great chips and then I got a burrito for dinner. I called it another early night and went and hung out with Becca and Hannah at home and subsequently skyped with Becca’s entire family.

Today was pretty low key, Becca, Jacqueline, Hannah and I went to Starbucks to study for our midterms next week. I bought myself some chocolates for Valentine’s day (which I already dug into. They’re delicious). I called my parents and I’m going to skype with Sam a little later! 

In other news, my trips to Barcelona, Mallorca, and Paris are all booked! So excited! 

I might want to get some Deutsch Hausaufgaben done before class starts tomorrow, so I’mma call it now. Aufwiederschon!

This past week has been jam-packed! I’ll start with last weekend because I never updated. Thursday night was Stammtisch at a local brewery in Kreuzberg, which was really nice. It was a low key place with great beer. There was even a piano that I was bold enough to start playing. We nearly missed the last train, but thanks to some quick thinking and crafty maneuvering, we didn’t have to take a cab. One of the great things in Berlin is the public transit system. As students at Freie University, we can take any public transit for free. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday the buses and trains run all night, but that doesn’t exactly help us on Thursday night Stammtisch.

Friday was a bit of a downer. We had a mandatory field trip to the Stasi Prison, which is a former Soviet special camp and remand prison. This is the prison that the movie “The Lives of Others” is based on. It was absolutely frigid on the day we went, and completely overcast (essentially, it was just another day in Berlin). The prison is in the former East Berlin, and apparently there is even still a Neo-Nazi population hanging around. The whole thing was just a little too creepy for me. Many of the people who are guides at the prison are former prisoners, but our tour guide was a local historian. Our tour was extremely interesting, but ultimately left me feeling terribly uncomfortable.

That night I went out with a few friends, and ended up riding the S-Bahn and U-Bahn all night looking for a place to go. My friend Hannah and I had a great time doing this, but the rest of our group really wanted to find a place to settle into. After hours of searching for somewhere, and getting a little lost, we decided to cut our losses and head home. We stopped for a 2 AM snack along the way, and ended up having a great time at a restaurant in Potsdamer Platz. Saturday night everyone was really tired but I decided that I wanted to go out for a little bit, and I went to Kreuzberg and went to what all the guide books call the best döner stand in the city.

I don’t know if I’ve explained döner, and even if I have, it’s worth another explanation. Döner is a traditional Turkish food with lamb, tomato, cucumber, lettuce and cabbage all on a toasted pita. I usually get mine with falafel. I find it a little revolting that there is a giant (and I mean giant) hunk of roasting lamb on a spit in every stand that is warmed with what looks like a giant hairdryer. Nevertheless, they’re inexpensive, delicious, and make for some great noms after a long night. I want to open up a döner stand when I get back to school as the “healthy alternative” to the fat sandwich.

Sunday I decided to go to Starbucks in a nearby neighborhood and take advantage of their free wi-fi. I ended up getting more work done than I anticipated! Uninterrupted internet (I suppose the antithesis of jenkityass) is truly a joy. I also had good hot chocolate with real whipped cream for the first time since I’ve been here and that was perfect.

School has been good for the most part. Not having to juggle 5 classes makes my workload a lot less stressful, though I am taking 15 credits (German counts as 8 credits!).

I didn’t have class on Thursday, so Becca and I decided to have a wine and cheese night, which turned into a delicious dinner! I finally found veggie burgers when I was in the supermarket, and I bought some cheese and crackers and some wine, and then Becca said that she had some frozen fries, and we had a decadent Amurrcan cuisine night of cheeseburgers and fries with wine and cheese. It was exactly what I was craving and didn’t know it. Thursday my German class met in the evening to go to a café and we ordered food and read a fairy tale together. Our class has been focusing on fairy tales, and we went to a performance of Grimm Brother fairy tales for adults.

I finally broke down and bought a cell phone, which has proven really useful. So there’s that.

There’s a German word “gemütlich” (ge-MOOT-lish) which really has no direct translation. It’s a really important word to the culture. A dictionary would tell you that it means “cozy or comfortable,” but it is more than that. It’s the feeling you get when you go into a log cabin and have hot, spiced wine and watch a performance with friends. And that is exactly what we did. Our teacher suggested we get Gluwine (I think that’s how it’s spelled) which sounds gnarly, but is really delicious. It’s a hot, spiced red wine that people typically drink in the winter here. It was fantastic. The performance was hysterical! I even picked up on some of the jokes, which was exciting for me.

I then went from the performance to pick up Mary from the airport. It was so exciting to see her! We came back to my apartment and were both pretty exhausted so we decided not to go out, but conserve our energy for the coming weekend. We slept in pretty late on Friday morning, but got the ball rolling at the crack of 1. We got döner, and then I told Mary that she could not leave Berlin without going to the Jewish museum.

I had already been to the Jewish Museum earlier in the week with my Art and Dictatorship course, and it had left such an impression on me that not only did I feel I had to go back, but that Mary needed to experience it, too. It was opened in 2001, and the architecture is absolutely phenomenal. It’s beautiful. The museum is very emphatic that it is not a Holocaust museum, but a museum about the history of Jews in Germany. We spent a couple hours there, and it was mind blowing.

We then went to Unter den Linden, which is the touristy part of Berlin where the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag are. We went to the German für Anfanger (German for Beginners) Museum, and looked around the exhibit. We palled around in the area for a couple of hours taking pictures. Then we walked down to the Holocaust Memorial and then to Potsdamer Platz. We took the train back home to eat dinner and to get ready to go out. We dined on some veggie burgers and went out with Becca, Jason and Clayton. We wanted to go out dancing to Zapata, but there was a band playing there and it wasn’t a DJ (and there was a 10 euro cover…) so we decided to go back to Sliberfisch which was a dive bar we had been to a few weeks before. We made it home and passed out, to get up at 11 the next morning.

We decided that we had to go to the Pergamon museum because we had studied it in our Later Greek art class, and took a picture at the alter of Zeus Soter. We then went to the Museum of Islamic art. We then met up with Becca and went to the ONLY existing cupcakery in all of Berlin. It was fanstastic! I had a cookies and crème cupcake and some delicious hot chocolate. We came back to my apartment and got ready to go out, and met up with our friends Vika and Conor and went to a few bars in Kreuzberg, and ended the night with some delicious döner.

I saw Mary off to her cab this morning at 6 AM. I was proud that I called the cab company and asked  if they could come to my apartment all in German. Today has been low key. It’s been raining all weekend, and today is no exception. I’m going to make dinner with Becca tonight and then write my German essay. It’s gonna be a busy week with midterms looming ever closer.

BUT! I’ve booked my Spring break, and Becca, Jacqueline, Hannah and I are going to Barcelona and Mallorca. I’m going to stay in a hostel in Barcelona (or maybe a hotel if it’s cheap for a night) and then we’re going to stay in Jacqueline’s friend’s guest home on Mallorca. I’m so excited! I’m going to the ballet on Thursday, too! So many things are coming up.

Alright, after that epic post I’m gonna go chow on some noms. Tonight is the Super Bowl? I don’t even know who’s playing. I’m fine with that. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow!

Jenkityass Internet

So, as my one fan has noted, I have not updated my blog in a week. This is mainly due to the fact that the internet here is just one step below dial up. A lot of people here used the word "jenkity" to mean something along the lines of "ghetto." I could pay more to have a better provider, but this is already 24 Euro a month!

Anyway, last weekend was, yet again, a blast. We went to Stammtisch (where everyone on the program meets up at a local bar) which was at an Irish pub. It was right by our favorite street, Oranienburgerstraße so we were excited at the prospect of döner at the end of our night. The bar was pretty okay, we all had a good time, but the drinks weren't very strong, and the vibe was a little weird.

I'll skip over Friday night because it ended up being a bust. Oh well! But Saturday night we went to a dance club called Havanah. It has three levels. The first level was salsa dancing and the second one was the same, but the basement level had "black music." That's what they call American R&B and Pop music. We danced the whole night and had a great time! My friends Hannah, Becca, Jacqueline, David, Jason, Matt, Starr and I tend to make a scene at every club we go to, and Havanah was no exception: Hannah was whipping her neck so hard that she still can't move it, two Germans pointed and laughed at us the whole night, and I was eventually barred from entering the VIP section, but I got my revenge.

This week at school has been good, but a little stressful. I made a presentation in my architecture course last night, and proceeded to get ripped apart in front of my class by my professor. I felt bad for myself so I took myself out to a Mexican restaurant. They had real sour cream! It's really difficult to get American sour cream here, because the ones they have in the supermarket all have yogurt in them. It's gross. The restaurant even had live music, which was nice.

Today my German class took an excursion to a markethall where they have tons of different kinds of food. I had begged my professor to take us to a supermarket because I can't find anything I like to eat, and things that I buy keep being slightly off from what I really want. For instance, when I bought oranges the other day, I brought them home and they were dark red on the inside. What? And frozen vegetables all have weird things in them! I thought I was buying frozen broccoli with potatoes, but apparently the "potatoes" were butter! So effectively I boiled butter...It didn't really come out very well.

The markethall has all different kinds of food! They even had spinach, which is a rare find here. I've been to 5 different supermarkets, too. They had a Greek food stand, where I bought hummus and goat cheese, as well as tuna and Greek yogurt. Those are 4 of my favorite items I have not been able to find here! The market also had lots of bakeries, so I got a cinnamon bun. A few of my classmates decided to walk around Kreutzberg (kroyts-burg) after our excursion. Kreutzberg is one of the most beautiful parts of the city, with lots of different shops and beautiful architecture. I even saw caryated figures!

I'm looking forward to this weekend. I'm a diva, and schedule a massage for later today, and then we're going out to a brewery with my program. Tomorrow we're going to a jail as part of a program excursion, and then the rest of the weekend is free! Who knows what I'll do!

I feel like my German is really starting to improve. People can understand me when I walk into a store, and have a conversation. It's really satisfying progress. Part of me now wishes a little bit that I had done the homestay, just for language purposes. But I'm so glad I have my apartment!

Kunstgeschichte

This week has been really nothing special in the way of doing things. I get up and go to class, I come home and try to make dinner, the usual. 

On Monday, since I finished class at noon, I decided to have a look around Schöneberg (shown-e-berg), a popular neighborhood in Berlin. You can really see a part of the old city there, because a lot of older buildings still stand. It's amazing to see beautiful nineteenth century façades next to completely modern and contemporary buildings. Schöneberg is quite beautiful, and full of cafes and restaurants (among outrageous fetish shops...). I stopped at a cafe for an eclair and it was delicious! 

Other than that, things have been pretty low key. I'm really looking forward to this weekend, though. Tonight we're having a potluck (because all of our kitchens were supplied with one pot, making it a little difficult to cook a real meal). Then we're going out to our favorite street, Oranienburgerßtrasse (or-an-ee-en-burger-strasse) to the Oscar Wilde pub; an outing organized by our Student Assistants.

Then tomorrow I have plans to go to Museum Island to putz around, and maybe see the Pergamon Museum (@latergreekartnerds). As students at Freie Universität, we have free access to over 100 museums in Berlin, as well as free public transportation, so going anywhere costs me nothing! I'm going to take advantage of this.

Speaking of Art Nerds, I had a total art history nerd moment in my Architecture of Berlin class on Wednesday. My professor put up a photo of a building by the famous architect Schinkel, and he asked us if it reminded anyone of another building. I raised my hand and said that it reminded me of the Palazzo D'Medici. The next slide? The Palazzo D'Medici, FTW.

Hopefully I'll have more to say after this weekend!

So I left off on Thursday evening, right? Bronchitis? Well let me tell you. After two doses of my antibiotic, I felt like a new person.

Thursday evening was a little boring, I just stayed in and watched American television on my laptop. But I had a big day on Friday, when we had a program wide field trip to the office of the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel. It is a beautiful complex completed in 2007 where many government offices are. It's also right next to the Reichstag. The complex lays east/west as a symbol of a unified Berlin, and also contrary to north/south, which was favored by Hitler. We had a guided tour, though we couldn't see much of the building because it was under construction (already!?).

After that I went home and crashed before our official welcome dinner. We had a great time! Becca's friend Starr from school came for a visit and she came to the dinner, too. We had an outrageous meal with Hannah, Tyler, Becca, Starr and I. Essentially every dinner rule ever set forth was broken (and not to mention the glass Starr shattered...). We then came back to the apartments to get ready to go out.

We went to the bar/club Zapata and danced literally until 3AM. We had so much fun and all of us agreed that so far that was our favorite night in Berlin. They played all this American music from the 90's. We got a lot of looks because not only were we the most dressed up, we shouted every word to every song. The highlight of the night was when Cee Lo's "Fuck You" came on, because all 5 Americans in the club went nuts. The Berliners tried to keep up, but just couldn't. It was all very touristtrashchic.

We spent yesterday recovering, and then Becca, Starr and I went out to dinner and got Thai. It was delicious! Just the right amount of spice. Then we decided to have a low key night and go back to the same street Zapata was on, but try to find a more low key bar. We ended up at Silverfish which was similar to a basement dive bar. We were having a very low key night until a EuroTour pub crawl walked in. They were mostly British and Australian people, and two of them had no fear and came right up to our table and chatted us up. Around 1 we decided to call it a night and headed back home.

I guess school is happening again tomorrow, so I'm going to go do some homework. Also, the sun is shining for the first time since...Tuesday? So I might go take a walk while I still can. The sun sets here at like 4 o'clock and by 4:30 it's night. I'm going to go enjoy that!

Bronchitis in Berlin

So I’m sitting here in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, wondering what to do with myself while the doctor comes to see me. I’m trying to think about what I did today, and all that comes to me is that I’m so stuffed up! I certainly have an upper repertory infection, because this morning I coughed something up which must have been remnants of my Christmas tree. The color was a solid hunter green. Hence, I am here, sitting in the doctors office.

There are a lot of things that I’ve noticed that are different here than at home. For one thing, so many doors open out! You have no idea how many doors you push in order to get out of them. At home, you pull to get out, and push to get in. Here you push to get in and then pull to get out. It gets confusing. Another thing that’s hard to remember is that the right cabinet door is the one that you have to open first. The left ones all have rubber strips on them so that they don’t make noise when you shut them. However, I always go to the left cabinet first.

Another, less mundane difference is that nobody picks up their dog poop! Seriously. There’s dog poop everywhere. And there are some pretty big dogs here, and thus, some very big poop. Nobody uses a leash, either! The dogs just walk right beside their owners! They have a saying here in Berlin, “The dogs are well behaved but their owners are not.” Certainly this rings true. But our classroom building does have a certain odor from 110 people walking in and out every day…

Today we took an excursion to a museum by the Brandenburger Tor. We went with my German class to the Willy ____ something museum and it was an exhibit on German culture for beginners. It was in Deutsch, English and Turkish. We had a good time walking around! There was a small exhibit for every letter in the alphabet and it was very hands on. I think the most interesting one was about the accents all around Germany and you could push a button on a map and listen to each one of the regional accents. They were so funny! The one I could understand best was the Berlin accent, which is pretty typical for foreigners. Apparently they have the most neutral accent in Germany.

Finally, a similarity between our two fair nations. Doctors office receptionists here are just as rude and dismissive as they are in the states. It’s nice to feel home.

UPDATE: The verdict? Bronchitis. Antibiotics for the next seven days. There goes my weekend…