Stumbling upon Adventure

It’s sad to think that I only have two more weeks left in Berlin! There’s still so much that I want to do—2 months isn’t nearly enough time. That sounds crazy, but it’s true.

So this weekend, I went TO the Opera (I’ve started mixing up my prepositions and say things like, “I’m going in the Opera” or “We hope to stay by one of her friends when we’re in London,” etc). I saw Die Hochzeit des Figaro—The Marriage of Figaro. It was really enjoyable! The characters were cast well, they were engaging and hilarious, and the music was wonderful! After seeing and listening to the pit orchestra play, I really missed playing the violin in BYU’s orchestra.

I’ve decided that my favorite days here have been the ones where we wander around and end up stumbling upon something neat—because that’s what always happens. We had planned to go to some magic/psychology show (we were supposedly given free tickets), but that ended up being a bust, and we looked across the way, and there was this brightly painted wall. Lo and behold, it was the East Side Gallery! After the Berlin Wall fell, artists painted thought-provoking pictures and sayings on the East Side of the wall (it was blank because the DDR wouldn’t let anyone “deface” the “anti-fascism protection rampart” and would regularly white-wash it). It was really neat to walk along the wall. 

There were some local Germans doing a photo scavenger hunt, and Orfeas and Andy ended up being in one of their pictures: 

We ended up walking around all night and stumbled across this really cool looking bridge:

Sometimes, bridges play rock, paper, scissors.

Here are some other pictures from our little walking adventure:

I have no idea what this is, but needless to say, we climbed all over it.

Walking around Unter den Linden.

 Looking thoughtful AND urban.

The river was gorgeous at night!

Oh, we also ended up at the Brandenburger Tor yet again. I love going there—it was one of the first places I went to, so it feels kind of like a home. :)

We took a “fun ride” around the square in front of the Brandenburger Tor—it was a crazy ride, as my ridiculous hair is proof of that!

 

It’s been rather cloudy, overcast, and kind of rainy the past few days, and it will be again this week. I like this kind of weather, but not all the time. This better mean that when I go to London in a few weeks, that I should have incredibly nice weather, right? So after our course finishes up in Berlin at the Goethe Institute, we have about 5-6 days to travel before we go to Vienna. Katelyn, Kristen, and I have booked our flights to London, so it’s official! England, here we come! I love German, but I won’t deny that I’m a little excited for a short hiatus where I’ll get to understand everything that’s going on again, haha :)

Learning a new language is hard work, but it also is really funny. One girl told her host family that she was going to go see a sacrifice (Opfer) instead of an opera (Oper) and another student told his host family that he was going to go running naked (nackt) instead of at night (Nacht). It makes for great stories :)

I and 5 other students were responsible for making dinner for our whole group yesterday. We had an Italian recipe and had to German-ify it, so that was a fun adventure. Thankfully, it turned out really well—especially our strawberry shortcake for dessert. And now, our group can relax and enjoy the other weeks when other students are responsible for cooking! 

Oh, life, you are so good to me. Except when we miss the U-Bahn by 3 seconds and have to wait 12 minutes for the next train because it's a weekend. Becca's face captures it all:

The sign then proceeded to say that our train was delayed. But no worries, they tacked on a "Bitte Geduld," (Please have patience) so that makes it all better, right? :)