I’m also going to create a list of things I’ve learned about
Berlin/Germany/Germans and will put them sporadically throughout my posts. Just
a heads up.
Things I’ve learned about Berlin #1:
U-Bahns are great but sketchy places—especially at night.
Becca and I saw a drug deal go down on our U-Bahn.
The weather here has been beautiful! It rained this weekend,
but it was still nice. Okay, REVERSE!
Wednesday: First day of my 4.5 hour long German class at the
Goethe Institute. It was way too easy, so I’ve since then moved up to the next
level, but the Goethe Institute is really an international university. I’ve met
people from France, Poland, South Africa, Egypt, Brazil, Venezuela,
Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, England, Sweden, and Israel to name a few. I’ve only
met one other American who wasn’t with our BYU group. So that was pretty cool!
It’s really neat to hear others speak German with their accents (even though
it’s really hard to understand them sometimes). Becca, Kristen, Katelyn, and I
after class stumbled upon this beautiful graveyard.
And then we found
this old church and sat in the rafters. It was gorgeous!
Thursday: My new German class is much better. Still not
difficult, but much better. I think that us as BYU students who have had German
instruction for a while have the grammar (pretty much) nailed down. I mean, I’m
not even close to perfect, but I’ve pretty much learned all the grammar
concepts. My struggle is with vocabulary and being able to speak and discuss
(not small talk). So maybe that’s why the class feels a little slow sometimes
when we’re reviewing grammar concepts. But I do learn lots of vocabulary, which
is good. After our German class, we had our Art and Architecture of Berlin
class. We went to the Neues Museum. It's on a Museum Island! Here are some of the neighboring buildings.
Post-modern architecture (my
favorite—Hundertwasserhaus in Wien, anyone?! Look it up)! The whole city of
Berlin’s very post-modern, too. The Neues Museum has the bust of Nefertiti!
There’s security guarding it all the time, you can’t talk in that room, and you
most definitely cannot take pictures. So no pictures of that L
The museum also has a bunch of Egyptian art and artifacts and sarcophaguses!
Someone had fun in the gift shop :)
If
I were Egypt, I’d be like, “Hey! Give us all our stuff back!” We had institute
as well. I stayed in the class taught in German—Isaiah. I can’t even understand
Isaiah in English, so that was fun! (But really, it was). We got dinner for 1
Euro! Bargain!
Things I’ve learned about Berlin #2:
I’m always hungry, always thirsty, and always have to use
the bathroom. Also, Apfelschorle might be my favorite drink ever.
Friday: Each day feels like a week long! But a good
week-long day J
In my class, we listened to this “rap,” but it was quite possibly the most
horrid thing I’ve ever heard in my life. “Hey, du, wie war dein Hamburg-Trip?”
(Hey, you, how was your Hamburg trip?) and the guy starts talking about his
trip, but he doesn’t know the past tense, so he needs help. He says a verb like
“ankommen” and the girl responds with the past participle “angekommen” and then
the guy says “an, an, an, an, angekommen!” Basically, the guy went to Hamburg,
got wasted at a bar, passed out, woke up, and all his money was gone. Great
song, right? Haha Anyway. For lunch, Becca, Kristen, Katelyn, Colter, and I all
went and got Currywurst and Pommes! J We all went home for
some “me time” as I dubbed it, so that was enjoyable. But we discovered that in
our shower, there’s a window that you can TOTALLY see in and out of. The
Germans really need a word for “awkward” because “peinlich” and “komisch” just
don’t mean the same thing. So showering is quite the adventure. Everything’s an
adventure! We were going to go to an opera—Die Zauberfloete—but even with the
student discount, it was still 50 Euros, so we temporarily postponed that
excursion. So instead, Colter, Katelyn, Kristen, Becca, and I (The Fantastic 5
is how I’ll refer to us from now on) went to this salsa dancing party under a
bridge! It was “sup totes” fun in the words of Becca.
Kristen and
Colter received life points for running through the fountain.
Saturday: Berlin Zoo! I was here 17 years ago (wow, that’s
weird to say) but I obviously don’t really remember that too well. Becca
started tearing up (with happiness) when she saw the elephants just because she
loves them so much! I brought tissues, so we’re all good. As far as
life points go, this elephant is winning:
He’s got talent. So here are
some pictures from the zoo:
Now, we really want to go to the AquaDom
because Erdtiere (if that’s even a word? haha) land animals are cool but sea
life is even cooler! I had to cave and pay to use the bathroom, so that goal
failed. But it was 30 cents, so whatever. Becca and I came home for a little
while, had lunch, napped, did homework, and went to leave, but alas, we were
locked in. Yes, locked INSIDE our apartment. It’s happened once before,
actually. I just didn’t write about it. So I called our host mom, Petra, and
got to use one of the words I learned on Friday—“eingeschlossen” (locked in).
Colter and Kristen said we’d get life points if we kicked down the door or
jumped out the window…sadly, as we are on the 3rd floor (according
to American standards, not German) we didn’t want to take our chances and jump
off our balcony…after we were rescued by our host mom, the Fantastic 5 went out
to dinner and had Schnitzel and Bratkartoffeln! Oh, I also bought a
Ritter Sport bar the other day—Karamell Nuss. It turned out to be INCREDIBLY
delicious. J
Adventure that’s going to occur sometime soon: Ritter Sport chocolate factory.
YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN CHOCOLATE BAR! Colter made one that had banana and
cornflakes and something else, and he was kind enough to let us try it:
HEAVENLY! So I’m excited to do that :)
Things I’ve learned about Berlin #3:
Beer is an acceptable drink at any time of the day. Even
Breakfast.
Sunday (today): Becca and I left for church. We have to take
the U-Bahn and the bus to get there. You’d think from the looks that people
gave us that they’ve never seen two girls wearing dresses on a Sunday. So many
stares! Maybe they were just jealous of our vibrant youth J
So we got off the U-Bahn, and I saw all these words on the screen that usually
lists the buses and the times. Feeling at that moment: dread. I saw the words
“außer Betrieb” meaning out of order. There was some sporting event. So we took
another U-Bahn line to get as close as we could. I’m horrible at reading maps
and sometimes I forget that some people can actually read them (aka Becca) and
get frustrated with people (aka me) that always doubt and second-guess the
direction the map reader (aka Becca) leads the lost (aka me). But we got there
by ourselves (10 life points). Along the way, we ran into Colter and Brett and
crossed (well…jaywalked) this big street to get to the church building (10 more
life points). The elephant’s still winning.
Also, we gave (finally) our host family the gifts we brought
them. They left a little note for us on the table that I just love:
They’re so cute!
Okay, sorry for so many words! If you made it to the end of
this post, 2 life points for you! (If you’re curious about life points, Becca’s
going to author a philosophical book about them one day, mainly addressing the
question, “If I’m about to die, can I exchange 1,000 life points in order to
stay alive?” Coming soon to bookstores near you).
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