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…