Hannibalism

I feel like so much has happened since my last post! I went out with the group on Friday night to Hannibal, which is a low key bar in Kreuzberg (kroytz-berg), where we met our student assistant leaders. It was a lot of fun, and I met a lot of the people on the program. I opted for cocktails (I KNOW, MOM, I'M LEGALLY ALLOWED TO DRINK HERE) because they were all €3.90. One of the girls I was with, Hannah, ordered a beer with sprite in it. Apparently it's a thing here. She couldn't finish it, so I had that, too. A bunch of people in the group decided that they wanted to go to a dubstep club, just 4 transfers away. Sehr schön. I went because it sounded like a good time, but it ended up being a lot of white boys with dreads awkwardly dancing...suffice it to say, it was not my scene. Hannah and I decided to leave together, and realized that not only did we not know how to get back to the apartments, we actually didn't know where we were. We eventually got back with the help of our deus ex machina.

Yesterday I was schlubby all day. Becca came over and we exchanged battle stories from the night before, and then made dinner together...and I'm still looking at a sink full of dirty dishes. I'll deal with that later. We decided to go back to Hannibal last night, and had a great time! It was a lot easier because we made all of our connections and it wasn't as crowded as the night before. We got home a lot earlier, too. Hannah and I went back to Becca's apartment and we made grilled cheese together. It was perfect.

This morning, getting up at 8AM was rough. I blue baseball capped it, so we know what that means. I went on a walking tour of Berlin with our program director, Dirk. It was chilly, and grey and it drizzled a little bit, but I'm so glad I went. We saw the Reichstag, Brandenburger Tor, and many other famous sites in Berlin. I feel much more acquainted with the city now that I did that. I got some great photos, too!


The thing I noticed about Berlin is how sparse the city center is. There aren't a ton of buildings everywhere like New York. Berlin is absolutely sprawling, too. It's huge! It's 8 times the size of Paris. Nothing is built up, and the tallest buildings I've seen are about 10 stories. Another thing I noticed is that they have a completely different concept of shoveling here. The streets are covered, and I mean covered with ice and snow. The sidewalks are covered in sand, too, which makes for a messy apartment when you come home.

Becca and I tried to go to Ikea on our way home from the tour, because I need a pillow, some towels, and now light bulbs and a new bathroom faucet...whoops. Unfortunately, we didn't even think of this, Ikea isn't open on Sundays! Bummer. We went to Euro McDonalds for the first time today, and they have delicious veggie burgers here! And it was super clean. As Becca put it, "Well, for us, the whole point of McDonalds is that it's disgusting." Untrue here!