2 weeks

Hello there American friends!

So it's been two weeks and not one, but on my watch that is pretty much the same thing. So the first weekend in Berlin, I pretty much just chilled with my host dad Gerd, who is one of the most interesting people I've met, but in a good way.  The first Friday, we toured some of the old bunkers from the World War II and Cold War eras in Berlin, which were surprisingly inefficient, but anything to placate the masses I suppose. Anyway, they were really cool and we had this awesome short little Welsh guy as our tour guide. After that we went to a burrito place, which I thought would be exciting seeing as I ate burritos at least twice a week at UGA. Burritos were in fact eaten, but they made Chipotle taste good, which Samantha and I determined this summer was definitely not the case.

 Anyway, so I came home and ate dinner with my host mama and then went to "Sport" with Gerd. What exactly is "Sport"? I honestly had no idea before I went....Gerd described it as gymnastics and kept telling me that if I got tired I should just take a break and sit out....which was fairly harsh coming from a 64 year old man. So I go, expecting to be participating in bars, horse, floor, balance beam etc type activities, which I have not done on the norm since I was about 10 years old. But no worries my friends, "Sport" ended up being some jogging, 80s style dance aerobics and pilates with a large group of older German teachers, who had absolutely no problem stripping and changing in the gym, which may or may not resulted in me awkwardly laughing and people staring at me. However, it was good to bond with my host dad, who thankfully kept all of his clothes on. Afterwards me and Gerd went to an Irish pub in our sweats and had what he likes to call guiness chili, thus making our 2 hours of 80s dance aerobics/pilates absolutely useless. On the plus side, the bar tender there is a sweet Irish lady who wanted to speak English with me, which is nice because my host family sticks to the whole no English thing. She told me to come back with people my own age.

Saturday me and Gerd pretty much toured the city of Berlin, something I would have to do Sunday with FU-Best anyway, but still it was decent and he liked telling me about all the history and showing off what he knew. Then we went to dinner and I had some baller curry chicken soup (btw, there are so many curry-style dishes in Germany and it makes me so happy), some salad, and russische schokolade, which I thought was maybe hot chocolate with Russian chocolate, but in actuality is hot chocolate made with vodka. That in mind, I passed out at 7:30 when we got home and once again slept the whole night. Sleep is fantastic.

Sunday was a tour of the historical district of Berlin and then that night we had a meet and greet at a bar, which was good fun. I left at 10:30-11ish, which was a great decision, which I did not make later in the week.

Monday through Wednesday was pretty much just all school stuff. I placed into intermediate 3 German, which seems like a good place and a ton less stressful than advanced :). My "Themes and Issues in Transatlantic Relations" professor seems legit, he was a former diplomat, so I feel like he'll be a lot more relaxed. "Security, Integration, and Conflict in Europe," seems interesting and the Program Director teaches it, but I literally learned nothing new in our class this past week...so hopefully that will change. My "Islam and Europe," class should be interesting...I hope. I get the feeling it will either be a great or terrible class, and no in between really. Other than the usual, routine shananigans, I managed to get lost for the first time. Count that friends: Jenn is Lost #1. I'm trying to not let that happen more than 5 times. I took the wrong bus one day, got off at a stop I thought sounded about right, had no idea where I was, decided I needed soda, and then wandered for a good 15 minutes, figured out where I was, and walked a half an hour to my s-bahn station. On the plus side, I now know the area of Lankwitz incredibly well.

Thursday we had toured an area of Berlin right off of Friedrichstr with a large Jewish presence. It was really cool and the only synagogue that survived Reichskristallnacht before getting bombed in 1943 in the war was there (an rebuilt). There are a bunch of pictures from the neighborhood on my facebook so check it. Thursday night we had our first Stammtisch, which was good fun. I had a possible Jenn is lost #2 moment, but I was saved by another guy on the program so, win! While the Stammtisch was fun, I didn't leave until like 1:30-1:45 in the morning. After trying to figure out the night bus (the u-bahn closes from 12:30ish-4am and the s-bahn until 6am) right to my house, I decided I was just going to go to this place near our school, where I could easily transfer. After taking the wrong bus with a group of people, then waiting for another bus, then deciding we might as well just wait for the u-bahn to start working, and then trying to hail a cab, I finally got to near the university at 4:30am. I made my first connection, and while walking to the bus stop for my second bus, the bus driver pulled over and told me to get on the bus. He is officially my favorite person.

Friday we went to the Chancellery, which was pretty cool in that we were at the Chancellery, but the tour itself was just so so. Friday night was the welcome dinner with our host families, at which I discovered that nearly everyone else's host parents speak English with them at least 50% of the time. After the initial jealousy wore off, I'm glad my family just speaks German to me.

More typical college weekend shanigans occurred this weekend. Ruth, Laura and I went to a club Friday night with free admission and 3 free drinks for ladies before 1, which as a poor college student I love. Saturday we went to the German History Museum and saw the "Hitler und die Deutschen" exhibit, which was interesting enough. It looked at the Third Reich from more of a societal perspective, but it was still a lot of hard history, which was not what I was expecting. At night, I got to watch the Ravens-Steelers game, which is why I love technology haha. Despite how terribly the Raven's played the entire second half, I was still happy to be able to watch the game. AND I did not punch the Steeler's fan in the face....in fact I didn't even curse at him. If you are not impressed with my civility, you should be :).

Here is to hoping to another good week! (and hopefully not another "Jenn is lost" moment)

Jenn

Ich bin in Berlin!!

So part one of my first Berlin blog is written for you all in New York’s JFK airport and while American Airlines may offer pretty cheap prices, they do not by any means provide the best service…in fact I would say it is fairly bad and their flights are often canceled or delayed.  My flight to London is delayed 2 hours and 15 minutes and when I tried to talk to the lady at the desk to explain to her that I had a connecting flight in London and didn’t want to miss it, she flat out told me that it was likely that I was going to miss my flight to Berlin, but she wasn’t going to change me to a flight that was leaving earlier, because there was a slight chance that I could make my flight and if I didn’t then I could get a flight at 1:00pm, which will make it nearly impossible for me to get to the program by 5pm. I explained this to her and she does not seem to care.  Perhaps this distaste is stemming from my frustration with AA for canceling my flight to Panama last spring bring, putting me on standby for another flight, calling my name for that flight, and then giving someone else my spot on that flight right in front of my face and having me on record as being on the plane, making it a right pain to get a new ticket. So if you fly, don’t fly American Airlines :) .  

Par t two of my first Berlin blog comes to you 2 days later from my comfy cozy German home. The plane didn’t end up leaving New York until 9:30ish, which meant I didn’t get into London until about 9:30am….and my flight was supposed to leave for Berlin at 9:55am, so I had to wait until 1pm to fly out of London. I originally planned on sitting in the London airport listening to the Beatles and reading Harry Potter while I waited for my flight, but I was just so stressed out, I ran around like a chicken with it’s head cut off trying to find a way to contact someone from the program (which, by the way, I didn’t really need to do) and trying to exchange dollars for pounds and spilling my delicious Chai tea latte all over the floor of Heathrow International Airport.

I arrived safely in Berlin at around 4pm, had my passport stamped…didn’t have to go through customs, which I thought was weird. In fact, I found it so strange that I walked around asking what I should do and everyone just ignored me. Then I was taxied to the lovely Brentanostrasse, checked in, and Elke picked me up.  We came home and I have my own room! It’s a great flat and all of the rooms are fairly large and the ceilings are crazy tall. After waiting for Anna, my host-sister, to come, we ate dinner…. I barely made it through dinner I was so tired. By 8pm I was out of it and all by passed out. And I have officially beaten my sleeping record, which had previously stood at 16 hours. I slept from 8pm until 1:30pm the next day. Yes , folks, that is a total of 17 ½ hours. I was personally shocked and impressed with myself.  Afterward we walked around the neighborhood and tried to figure out which buses and S-bahns and U-bahns and regional bahns I need to take to get to school, which was a project in and of itself.  If I do not get lost at least 5 times in Berlin this semester, then all of you who have ever driven with me or suffered me through me being a “co-pilot” will attest that God works miracles.

Today I had the first day of the program, so there was a lot of information being thrown at me and I was meeting a lot of new people so it was kind of overwhelming, but in a good way. I am proud that I made it there using the buses, but tomorrow should be a bigger challenge, as I have to take the S-Bahn. Anyway, I met a lot of cool people, whom I look forward to getting to know better over the next several months and my host family continues to be awesome. My host mother, Elke, walked me through the Bahnhof (train station) a good 3 times, so hopefully I will be ok tomorrow and we had a nice little walk to the grocery store.  We had rice and veggies for dinner, which sounds normal, but top it off with a glass of wine and it’s perfect :) This is why Germany is fantastic.

I’ll keep you updated say, once a week?

Viele Liebe!

Jenn