Hallo! It's been over 2 weeks since I first arrived in Berlin and I have TONS to blog about. =p I'll try to be better about blogging regularly so not all of my entries will be giant chunks of text like this one. =p
So here is a super fast rundown of the past week!:
Day 1, January 6, 2009
When the plane was landing in Frankfurt for my connecting flight to Berlin, I finally got what I was waiting for: the realization that I was going to be thousands of miles from home for 4 months was finally sinking in. And with only about 4 hours of sleep, I was a little crazy and felt really scared. But inside the airport I ran into Tino, another Cal student heading to the program! When he asked if I wanted to split a cab when we got there I actually hesitated because of the movie, Taken, and that was exactly the way I thought it could happen to me if I wasn't careful. =p But then I realized, hey! I do know this guy. We then ran into THREE more students and from there everything was going steadily upwards! I love meeting new people and I remembered that a lot of that was about to happen over the next four months.
This is a picture I took during the cab ride to the apartments. The cab driver was very friendly and talked a lot.
Got to the apartment and we all went our separate ways to our rooms. Once I got inside I felt overwhelmingly aware of the fact that this empty, impersonal apartment would be my home for the next four months. I tried to unpack my things and put them all over the place but still felt crazy and lonely. Jet lag was really screwing with my emotions like nuts and I was not feeling like myself at all! But I forced myself to go out and find a grocery store even though I had no appetite and just wanted to fall into bed and sleep like a rock. It was actually not a very bright idea to go out in the dark when I had no clue where the store was and if there was even one nearby =p Luckily I ran into Sara, another Cal student in the program, and we found it together!
I bought a few things and went home and forced down some canned soup because I knew I hadn't really eaten in almost 20+ hours =p I tried to stay up til a reasonable hour so I could try to begin regulating my sleep schedule, but went to bed at 9 and woke up several times in the middle of the night.
Day 2, January 7:
Woke up feeling tonnnns better because I at least got some sleep. Took a really nice shower, ate a tangerine and headed out to school.
There was a big group of the other students already downstairs and I just followed the crowd and somehow got to the school building where we would go on to have a big fat meeting to fill out paperwork for our residency permits and learn about the conditions of living in the homestay or apartments. We also got set up for the wireless internet at school and I was sooo happy to "finally" get internet (although I realize we got set up as soon as it was possible to be set up, the first lonely night in the apartment with no internet to communicate with family and friends really sucked. I felt like it stretched on forever!) We had lunch at the Mensa, the student cafeteria. I was looking around at all the different things because I wanted to try something unique to this place, but we were kind of in a hurry to get back to the apartment so I quickly decided on this one plate of spaghetti with some stir-fried vegetables and chicken.
After we were done with the meeting I used the internet like nuts for like 10 minutes before we all headed to the mall to buy Internet Surfsticks and phones. Later that night I had Tino and Amanda over for egg sandwiches and we set up our internet. Wahoo! =) I forgot to take a picture of that meal.
Day 3, January 8
We had a guided tour of the Freie Universitat campus (we don't have our classes there, our program is just a part of the University). We walked around for about an hour and a half (not really seeing all that much… =p) before stopping for a lunch break at the Mensa. This time I tried something more foreign looking… =p some kind of fried fish filet and mushroom gravy. I tried getting water from the soda fountain… it was label TaffelWasser so I thought it meant tap water. But it was all carbonated (almost everything they drink here is carbonated!) and I poured it out and got carbonated apple juice instead. =p I felt bad for pouring it out though…
Next we went on a tour of Bunkers that date back to WWII and the Cold War. The tour was super interesting but I felt so sad all through it while the guide was explaining how it would all go down if a bomb was dropped. People would have had to survive down in those bunkers for at least 2 weeks. He also just talked about what a sad time it was to live in because people just felt that a nuclear war was inevitable. No one wanted it to happen but they felt like it was bound to. I think it's just about one of the worse feelings in the world: helplessness. (Being ultra sensitive because of jet lag/lack of sleep is a common theme for the first few days that I was here =p)After the tour we realized that we had been left all the way on the other side of the city and the Student Assistants were gone. But thankfully the maps are pretty easy to read and we got back! I went to some people to the mall and thought I'd be okay for going to the social they had planned for us later that night, but I got back to the apartment so so tired and it was only 7pm. Omid, another guy that was in my group to go, persuaded me to go and I thought I shouldn't let being jetlagged get in the way of me taking in the city! So we went. The social was just a hang out at a bar and I met a lot more people from the program (they're from all over the US) and it was really cool. I was glad I went. =D But I still left with another girl, Carolyn, that I met there by like 12 because I was so tired. But I had my first German beer that night! =p
Day 4, January 9
We had to meet at the train stop for the Brandenburg Gate for an audio walking tour led by Dirk, our director. I don't know why I thought the stop was only like 10 minutes away so Colleen and I took our time leaving, met up with Kirk at the station… and ended up being like 20 minutes late! Heading to find everyone, I almost got suckered! There was a lady holding a piece of paper and saying "English? English?" And I thought she needed help with an address or something, so I stopped to see what I could do. Her note said something about her having three children and asking if I could help her out. Kirk and Colleen had come back for me and were telling me to ignore her and move on. She was actually one of the gypsies who are known for hanging around the Brandenberg gate and picks pockets of unsuspecting tourists like me! Good thing nothing of mine was missing.
But we met up with the group and Dirk, the director, gave us an audio tour along Unter Den Linden (a street with a lot of historic sites) starting at the Brandenberg Gate. I really wanted to pay attention and listen to what he had to say but it was really windy so there was just a lot of noise in my headphones and it hurt so I took it off. I'm planning on going back another day when it's not crazy windy and snowing and I'll bring my guide book so I can read everything that I missed. =p
So this tour lasted about 3 and a half hours and I was wearing sneakers, not realizing the snow would be piled so high. So by the time the tour was over my feet were wet and freezing! A few of us went to a mall to get some things and I looked around every shoe store to find a pair of shoes that would be pretty cheap and keep me dry. I found nothing! My friend Wesley was on a Europe trip and staying with me for a couple of nights so I went to the S-banh station near the apartments to meet him. I dropped him off in my room and then went back to the mall to continue my shoe hunt. I was unsuccessful and went home =( I was planning to take a nap but remembered I invited Eric over to come hang out with us and we ended up sitting around with a bottle of wine and some egg sandwiches. Then a few of us went out to some bars.
There was one bar we went to that was in this building that was covered in graffiti and looked old and abandoned but it was actually pretty neat. The owner of the bar was talking to us and insisted on treating us to shots because we were guests in his country. At first I was kind of paranoid so I wanted to watch and make sure I saw him pouring it. He was giving us Cuban rum because we can't get it in America =p He was actually just a really friendly guy. After that we just walked around a little bit more and they got fries from an imbiss stand. They're these snack stands that are open pretty much all the time with Turkish foods. It's kind of like taco shops on every corner in San Diego. The thing that I thought was interesting was that one of the student assistants was talking to us about how the general view of the Turkish people in Germany is kind of the same as Mexicans in America. A lot of the Turks came to Germany as guest workers after the fall of the wall and a lot of them stayed. Many more are still immigrating.
Day 5, January 10
Our first free day! We woke up in the afternoon and decided to head out to the Film Museum at Potsdamer Platz (this is the area where there's this giant Sony Center with shops and a movie theatre…) There was an exhibit in the museum about gazes. They were talking about how before special effects and dramatic music in movies, looks and gazes were really important to a story. This room had a million mirrors everywhere and there were big screens showing clips of very meaningful looks/gazes/glances/stares from old movies. At this museum I learned that film is a pretty big deal in Berlin! It used to be the Hollywood until Hollywood. =p I learned about how a lot of talented movie makers left the country and moved to Hollywood because they suffered until the Nazi regime. There were also exhibits about how films were one of the biggest sources of propaganda for the Nazis and there were clips of many propaganda films. It was probably one of the coolest museums I've ever been to in my life.
After the museum I went back with Wesley to find some food. In Germany everything is supposed to be closed on Sunday so I couldn't buy any groceries. Wesley and I went to McDonald's near the apartment and a lot of the food was very expensive. We were both being really cheap so just got a cheeseburger for 1 euro and I also got some potato wedges that they serve with sour cream dip. It's pretty interesting! It just kind of tasted like ranch dip. Day 6, January 11
The first day of school! I started the day with German from 9-12 and had a lunch break from 12 to 1:30. Then I had Modern German History in a European Context from 1:30-4 and European Business Cultures from 4-7:30. Pretty full day! Good thing we get 15-30 min breaks in the middle of each class. They didn't post up which room our classes were in and since there are only two going on at a time, we just have to guess and check. I was peeking into a room to see if it was the right one when my German history teacher walked right into me with a hot cup of coffee because he wasn't looking =( He spilled on my backpack and down my leg and just as a reflex I said, "I'm sorry!" and wanted to take it back right away. =p He just looked at me with his mouth open and said "I'm sorry, too". So I just went to the bathroom and tried to wipe myself off… but the rest mostly dried off while I was just sitting in class =p
Okay this is an insanely long blog entry. I'm going to end it here and just continue later and maybe just start blogging about the present day!
Quick summary of things I've done so far:
-Ate a doner kebap
-Made a German friend at a really cute coffee shop
-Shopped at the Turkish Market (it's kind of like a flea market/farmer's market)
-Had currywurst
-Booked bus tickets to Amsterdam for a long weekend!
-Gone Salsa dancing!
-Visited several museums
-Had a short-lived snowball fight
The sun is kind of shining today and I'm ready for the weekend!! =) Sara and I are going to go to Ikea and look around for a bit. Then rest up for lots of exploring this weekend!
Plans: Go to a restaurant/bar called White Trash, check out the Flea Market, go to the Russian War Museum, study/plan trips in some cafe, and try to bake nutella cookies!
More to come soon! =)
Sending love love love love, crazy love from Berlin,
Cary Mo'fckin Luu!
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