Chris's view

When I started writing this blog, I felt a little bit overwhelmed. Last year, three girls wrote about their experiences and therefore, the dutiful readers had three perspectives to see Heidelberg from. This year, it's me. Only me. I felt like Atlas or something, with the world on my shoulders (suddenly, a vision of Kevin Sorbo as Hercules popped into my head, in the episode where he gives Atlas a break for a bit). I feel like I want to include everyone, at least a little bit of everyone, but a lot of time it's so difficult to do, especially if you don't see them much. This is unforunate, but unavoidable.

However, there is another way you can see Chris McCrowe's p.o.v. He's our photographer, and he's been doing a great job. I really should have posted this link earlier, however, I give it to you now, so that you can see his journey through Berlin und H-Berg.

http://picasaweb.google.com/2009Heidelberg

Check it out!

"I was alone,

I took a ride,

I didn't know what I would find there.

Another road where maybe I could see another kind of mind there."

Got To Get You Into My Life, The Beatles.

First off, to avoid the confusion, I actually posted this blog on Monday evening (August 3rd). However, I started writing some of it on Friday evening, before Karen and I lost our internet. Therefore, the date above says FRIDAY, but it's actually Monday that I have written this. (And it is Tuesday that I am editing.)

We started classes on Monday morning. It was strange to have to get up at 7 am to go to school for 9:15 after having spent the last week or so just bumming around Germany (yeah, I say that so nonchalantly). I'm been taking courses all summer, but none of the required me to go into school until at least 7 pm, if at all.

My class is Grundstufe III D, which, along with C, is the highest in Grundstufe III. I really like my class. It's so international. There are students from Serbia, Russia, Spain, Israel, the US, the Netherlands, France, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Italy, Brazil, and of course, Canada.

The first couple of days in my class were mostly awkward. No one really wants to embarrass themselves in front of people they don't know. I'm like that, especially with German. I hate having to speak without having to write things down first. Also, I have a huge problem with retention, and it's been four months since I've had to sit in a classroom and SPEAK German with anyone. I definitely felt shy.

Monday afternoon, Karen, Curtis and I went down die Hauptstraße and explored the many stores they have there. I was surprised to see popular North American stores, like American Apparel.

I think for the first part of the week, things definitely took a downturn in terms of my feelings toward the class. I really liked the people in my class, and my teacher, but perhaps it was moreso the actual work. The teachers speak solely in German for the entire class, which is unusual for MUN students. If you don't understand a word, they try to explain it differently, in German, instead of telling you the meaning auf Englisch. It's a harder way to learn, but it could be better.

Tuesday evening, there was a showing of Die Welle (The Wave) at the Universität. I remembered Dr. Buffinga mentoning Die Welle during class when I took German 3001: German post – war, pre-re-unification film 1945 – 1989. He saw it at the Berlin Film Festival sometime in the spring and he gave us a brief synopsis of the film. Since then, I’ve really wanted to see it because, frankly, it sounded fascinating. Basically, it tells the story of a high school teacher who must teach his class about autocracy, and he decides to demonstrate how easy it was for people to submit to Fascism during the Third Reich. He transforms his class from a laid back place of discussion to a highly organized, uniformed collective who develop a mob mentality after they named themselves “Die Welle”.

It’s a super powerful film, and something about it really kind of unnerves you. My minor is European Studies, and practically all the courses I have taken have related to Germany and German culture and history and politics. I can objectively look at the situation in Germany in the thirties and understand why so many followed National Socialism. But this film is set today (it’s based on a true events from California in the late 60s), and it involved teenagers, and demonstrates how easily you can manipulate the situation of almost any group and it can get out of control. It’s spooky.

Wicked Videos, Latest Virals | | SPIKE.com

I think Wednesday was the low point for me, in terms of classes. I felt awkward, knowing that others were having a great time in class, and I was secretly hating it. Not meaning to sound too girly, but I kind of wanted to cry every time I was called on and forced to answer a question that I was unsure of. I knew a lot of what I was saying, but I think I was still trying to adjust to a setting where you spoke solely German, and if you didn’t know how to express yourself in German, you just didn’t. Or I started to sound like a child who was learning to tell her mother what she wanted, not really knowing how to say it, but throwing out keywords and hoping that they would figure it out somehow. There was a boat trip down the Neckar on Wednesday afternoon, and after a grueling day in class, I decided it was in my best interest to take advantage. The band, Blue Jeans, played a load of rock songs, in English. It lifted my spirits so much. I managed to get a brutal sunburn out of it, but it was a beautiful afternoon, exploring the area from afar for two hours. Perhaps I just needed a large and overwhelming dose of sun and Vitamin D, but the boat trip was a turning point for me. I think it was then that I realized that everyone here is unsure of themselves and their skills. The boat trip allowed me to see everyone outside the classroom setting; drinking, dancing, laughing, and enjoying being in a foreign country. I was reminded of Modest Mouse’s Float On.

Modest Mouse - Float On | Music Videos | SPIKE.com

The next night, a lot of the classes got together and had their own class party. In class, my tutor, Anja, said we would be going out for drinks. When we met up at 6:15, “drinks” turned into a lengthy walk up the Philosophen Weg (I think I would describe it as a steeper, straighter version of Signal Hill, but much longer. At one point, we came to a flat part and I felt that I should run on ahead of our group a bit, lest I fall to the end again), before we descended and came upon a boat café, for food and drinks. After our teacher, Barbara, left us, we all decided to go to another bar on a street off of the Hauptstraße, with cheesy nineties music and arguable taste in dance music. Most of my class showed up for this, and then on Friday morning, we actually were able to talk to each other about how they enjoyed themselves the night before. Also, our teacher decided to wait until after we had a small test to take us out. Many of the other classes went out Thursday evening, while a test awaited them in the morning.

Friday night, the Ferienkurs hosted a “Disko-Night!” at the Deutsch-Amerikanisches- Institut (DAI). Which means a dance. I didn’t really know what to expect in terms of people showing up. There are people who hate dancing. But then again, there was also a bar, and even those who simply don’t dance will do so with a few drinks in them. We showed up as soon as it started, at nine. Karen, Adam, Megan and I went. It seemed pretty dead at first, but it seemed everyone showed up half an hour or an hour after we did. I almost think there were more people congregated outside at some points than there were actually inside with the music.

I met a number of people, most of whom are actually friends with Dylan, Although, I think it would be difficult to meet anyone at the Ferienkurs who has not met Dylan, honestly. One of the guys, Roman from Paris, is practically a doppleganger of Julian Lennon. I felt like I kept seeing the son of a Beatle. As lame or embarrassing as people sometimes think organized dances like that are, they are actually an amazing way to meet people that you would otherwise not have anything to do with. It’s especially wonderful if you have had a drink or two and everyone becomes a potential new friend. We were trying to make friends with one particular person from Spain, because of his super-cool sideburns. However, this failed terribly.

Saturday, Peter came to Heidelberg to bring us to Mannheim, where he, Sandra and Marc live. It was warm and hadn’t ate much on Friday, so Saturday morning, we went to the bottom of the Kaufhof to buy breakfast – Powerade, and blueberries seemed to be the breakfast of champions, at least for Adam and I, who consumed an entire container each. The tram takes three quarters of a hour to get to Mannheim. I find we do so much walking and wandering around that sitting is always a nice change.

Mannheim, evidently, is a wonderful place to do really cheap shopping. I don’t want to downplay Mannheim as a place where one only goes to shop, but they have pretty much everything. I immediately went to a giant, German Best Buy type store that sold music and DVDs. My original plan was to purchase some Xavier Naidoo Cds (he does a sort of German R&B style, and he’s from Mannheim) and a copy of “Die Welle” and also “Krabat”. Krabat is a really popular novel in Germany apparently, about a young boy and dark magic. Like Harry Potter, before Harry Potter, one might say, without the school and – nevermind. I could find neither, so I made my way to the bookstore across the street. Karen actually found a really interesting CD by a group called 2raum wohnung (2 Room Apartment in English). She says they are quite good, so I might have to borrow the CD from her.

We found Krabat, on DVD and in book form at the bookstore. I decided that it would be a good investment to purchase both, as they are both only in German (the DVD is German with German subtitles, but only play in Region 2 DVD players). I’m pretty excited at the idea that I might be able to read a real German novel.

There were a few museums in Mannheim to choose from. Of course one cannot live on shopping alone, and must also indulge in cultural aspects whilst one is there. Adam, Chris and I went to this art museum called Kunsthalle (literally Art Hall) with an exhibition featuring an artist called Anton Henning. His works are pretty rad, a bit wonky though. He does this thing where he incorporates swirls into every painting. In one, he recreates the most famous painting of Shakespeare and then takes a brush and makes a bunch of swirls on it so that you have to stand back a few feet to actually see what you are looking at.

http://www.kunsthalle-mannheim.eu/cms/front_content.php?idart=129

We watched the film today in Megan’s awesome room (however, I could probably go on forever about how much I belong in that room, with the large collection of classic novels and poetry, but I digress). Surprisingly, we managed to understand most of the plot without the help of English language, or even the German subtitles. Four people were unable to work one German DVD player so that we could have subtitles. What we didn't understand, we made up, and our translation amounted to something along this lines of "Krabat Potter and the Seven Maggots", with a lot of Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings references. There's an introduction by the evil sorcerer - we decided that his narration was actually, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." I was really pleased with the quality of work, though it probably had a lot to do with the two main stars, Daniel Brühl (Goodbye Lenin!) and David Kross (The Reader), who have managed to make somewhat of a transition to English cinema.

Last night, as I wrote this, we experienced our fourth or fifth thunderstorm since arriving in Heidelberg. We have been here about ten days. I definitely look forward to these storms. They take away some of the unbearable heat that I am unable to adjust to. Today was nice after this rain. I think it is a decent trade off – warm days and rainy evenings, for the most part. I’m definitely not complaining.

Heidelberg

Friday morning.

Karen and I met Adam at the University Platz in the late morning. We didn't have any specific plans, which was a pretty big change from the past few days spent in Berlin. It felt so nice to sleep in and hang out. I've been reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and it's about 518 pages long, so having time to sit down and actually get into it has been so nice.

When we arrived at the university, Dylan and Adam were sitting with a random guy (not Canadian. I think we might be the only Canadians here, because all the people we've met seem to know that we're all in a group and wir kommen aus Kanada). The random guy turned out to be named Shawn (Sean?) and we spent most of the afternoon with him. We ate at the Mensa across the street from the university. I really like that one. There's plenty of room inside. The other one has more of a buffet style, hot food selection, but as soon as you walk in you feel like you've volunteered to boil yourself to death.

I found it really queer that we're in Germany, taking a German language course, with hundreds of students here, and the first person we meet who is not Canadian, is British. Sean (I'm not really sure how to spell his name, but this way seems more British, so I choose this one) is actually from Bishop's Stortford, which is about a 16 pound cab ride from the Harlow Campus in MUN. I once took a cab from the Maltings residence to a club in Bishop's Stortford.

We spent our afternoon in search of a grocery store, so that Karen and I could buy fruit, and Sean could buy tea.

Our oral tests were between 1 o'clock and 5 o'clock. I'm not sure that anyone felt too confident about those. I'm pretty sure I felt the least confident. A bunch of us had signed up for Mittelstufe, which is the middle level, assuming that we would be fine because we had taken either Intermediate German or Advanced German at MUN. I walked up to the door where our interviews were supposed to take place, and I knew automatically I was in the wrong place. The woman who greeted me spoke so fast that I couldn't even begin to wrap my head around what she was saying. I'm pretty sure she asked if I was here for the Mittelstufe oral test. My response was "Ja, aber (Yes, but) ..." and then I moved my hand from side (the international symbol for indecision) to side, and screwed up my face at her. She smiled and brought me down to the Grundstufe interviews. That one was still kind of embarrassing. I got the feeling that a lot of people had a weird time with it.

We met with Peter and Sebastian for dinner. Peter and Sebastian are Dr. Warkentin's co-conspirators in his ongoing attempt to show us the culture of Germany. Peter regaled with us a tale of the origins of FANTA (which is Adam's new favourite drink.) Peter explained how FANTA was a creation of the Third Reich in 1939, after international sanctions limited the supply of Coca Cola syrup. He also told us that Fanta is short for Fantastisch. (We were skeptics, and had to snopes this - evidently, it's mostly true, except that the German who created it wasn't a Nazi, and Fanta is actually short for Fantasie.)

Friday evening, a free concert was held in Peterkirche (Peter's church). It was all small "c" classical music. The concert lasted about an hour, and besides the wonky violin in some parts, and the never-ending faux climaxes in the last piece, it was a nice way to spend the evening.

Saturday morning, we all took our written test. Because generally oral exams alone give a very poor idea of what one is capable of. I'm more hesitant to speak than to write. The test took place at 11, and there were a few questions that I had absolutely no idea about. Overall, I must have done reasonably well (though it doesn't matter really, it was simply a placement test.) I ended up in Grundstufe III D.

Karen is in Grundstufe IV, Linda and Dylan in Grundstufe II, and Chris, Chris, Megan, Curtis, Adam, Jackie are also in Grundstufe III.

Immediately after the test, Sebastian and Dr. W took most of us to Ladenburg by bus/ tram, while Chris and Dylan ducked out of this excursion (although we did get to see Chris's sick new tattoo after). It's a little more than half an hour to get there. We met with Peter, his wife Sandra, and their eleven month old son Marc (Mark?).

(On a side note, as I sit here typing this, we are indulging in champagne, cherries and brie. I feel more French than I ever have in my entire life.)

Mark is my new best friend. I won him over when I made a funny face at him. We all had lunch, and were consequently attacked by wasps, who rolled in Megan's Bruschetta, drank from Adam's Fanta, and swam in Jackie's gravy. As a note to anyone who encounters this problem in the future, coasters are the best way to keep wasps (or anything, really) out of your drinks. I am terrified by them, and I made very loud growling noises whenever one came near. I call this "The Dance of the Ladenburg Diners". This amused Marc to no end.

We strolled leisurely throughout Ladenburg, noting churches, and Roman architecture, as well as a set of five brass stones along a side street as a memorial to a Jewish family killed in Auschwitz. We also passed on of Germany's oldest restaurants.

The group split up to visit two different museums: Automuseum Dr. Carl Benz, and the Lobdengau Museum. I chose the Lobdengau Museum, with its collections representing 2000 years of Ladenburg's history. Also, I am not much of a fan of cars, except when they appear on Top Gear. The Lobdengau Museum does not look like a typical museum. It looks more like an historical house than anything.

We went for ice cream after the museums. Ladenburg has the best ice cream in the world. Not even exaggerating at all.

Sunday, we all did our own thing. I went to St. Bonifatius church which is just down the street from where I'm staying. I went inside the church for 10:30 mass, only no one else came in. Then I realized that everyone was across the street in a little platz, having mass outside. It was super weird because I'm pretty sure that Catholics don't ever have mass outside ... ever. But not in Germany, apparently! It was definitely komisch.
Later, Adam, Karen and I went to a theatre workshop, but it was way over our heads. We had no idea what was going on, really. We decided not to go back because performing Monty Python skits in German is not fun when you can barely understand what you are supposed to be saying.

Berlin - Day 2

The second full day in Berlin got off to a weird start. For one, we all overslept, with the exception of Dr. Warkentin. Linda was the first person to get up in the females room, and she woke up 15 minutes after we were meant to be downstairs for breakfast. We still managed to be ready with loads of time.

We took a train to Potsdam and visited the palace Sanssouci (translated from french it means "without worries". You may be thinking "why is a german Palace named in french?" Other that the fact that sans souci sounds better than "ohne angst" as Karen pointed out, Friedrich Wilhelm the Great was all about french. He and Voltaire spoke in pretty french about how great liberty was. I kind of have to disagree with you there, Friedrich II - I think German is plenty pretty.)

(Back Row: Dylan, Megan, Meghan, Adam, Chris McCrowe, Jaclyn, Chris Ryan

Front Row: Linda, Karen, Curtis)

Sanssouci and the grounds are huge. It takes a super long time to walk around it. Of course, royalty had horses and carriages that could take them from one place to another - they didn't really have to walk. It has numerous other large houses, a Chinese Tea House, as well as statues and fountains galore. The Chinese Tea House looks more like the typical eighteenth century European's idea of the East, with peculiar looking golden men and women with pointy hats.

The day was as beautiful as all the days we have spent in Germany, but it's far hotter than it has been in St. John's. The heat had definitely take its toll on many of us. After we left Potsdam, six of us tiredly went to the Pergamon Museum on Museuminsel (Museum Island), which was pretty much just around the corner from hostel. Pergamon Museum had a lot of Roman and Greek art, and sculptures. Megan, Adam, Curtis and I stuck to a little group, determined to see as much of the museum as possible in as little time as possible. You can imagine how unbearable the heat became once we were surrounded by thousands of other museum visitors, also using their entrance tickets as fans. The three things I found most interesting:

The Pergamon Altar. It's definitely different to see a large set of steps in a museum that is actually part of the exhibition. But the columns on top, and carvings make it pop, because it is the first thing you see as you walk in.

Left:

A statue of Athena Parthenos. Karen's rough translation of the card next to the statue is

"a hellenistic copy of the golden ivory statue in the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens.
Found in the north hall of the Temple of Athena in Pergamon." I really like Athena.

The other statue I thought was really cool was of the
hermaphrodite. I thought it was a little bit weird that
it was in a museum, although you really can't be surprised
by the Greeks. I've never seen a form of a hermaphrodite
in art work before and I made Adam take a picture so I
could show everyone.

The museum was followed by brief souvenir shopping. I bought
this shirt with the Leonard Cohen lyrics, "First we take Manhattan,
then we take Berlin."

Curtis, Karen, Megan, Adam and I went to see Harry Potter and
the Half Blood Prince in IMAX. We wanted to see Harry Potter
und der halbblut Prinz, the german version in German, but the
woman who gave us tickets knew that we were English and
automatically gave us tickets for the English one. I think a lot
might have gotten lost in translation anyhow. I'd seen it before,
but no one else had.

We turned our walk home into a photoshoot as we passed the
Canadian Embassy in Berlin.

And again when we found a Berlin bear.

We also found a street called "Georgenstraße" -
George Street, though there didn't seem to be any
resemblance to the Newfoundland George Street.

The next day was our train to Heidelberg. I have to be honest -
I did like Berlin, but I was not sorry to leave for Heidelberg. For me, there's no
comparison between the two. Berlin is gogogo! and everything was fast paced.
It is difficult to be on the go so much in a setting that's unfamiliar to you.

Heidelberg, on the other hand, is not completely new to me. I was there before
in 2006, albeit for only a few days, but it always stuck with me.

Our ride to Heidelberg took about 5 hours. It was pretty relaxing - some much
needed downtime to sleep or read or listen to music. Just to relax, really.

We arrived when it was nearing four o'clock. We took the bus to Bismarck
Platz, and from there, to Heidelberg Neue Universität.

Karen and I went in first to register. We were then told to go out into the foyer
to wait until our names were called so someone could bring us to our
accommodations. Everyone else came in one by one after us, but somehow,
everyone else's name was called before ours. There also seemed to be some
sort of mishap with Karen's room reservation. She didn't seem to exist in their
file. I joked with her that if need be, she could always sleep on my floor.

Eventually we did go in and ask what was going on with our rooms, because
the number of students left began to dwindle until there seemed to be only a
few others left. We were told that we were actually staying in the same building,
however, it seemed our hostess/ landlady would not be home until 7 o'clock.

I think that was when the panic set in. We were supposed to
meet Dr. Warkentin and the others at 7:30 and we doubted
that we would make it there at all. Luckily, we got to her home
at 7 and she was home, so we were able to make our meeting.
We strolled around the Hauptstraße and went to dinner at
Kulturbrauerei Heidelberg. While we waited for our food,
a thunder and lightning storm began. It lasted probably about
twenties minutes, but it was definitely entertaining. I love lightning
and thunder storms. Despite the potential harm they cause if you
actually get hit by it, I felt it was incredibly soothing.

Wilkommen!

We finally have a Heidelblog for the Memorial University students attending Internationaler Ferienkurs 2009! (I have been very anxious to get this thing going). 

I suppose beginning at the very beginning would be a good start. 

We arrived in Berlin on Monday (July 20th). I travelled separately from the rest of the group (thank you, Aeroplan!), and my flight was supposed to fly out of St. John's to Montreal at 6 am on Sunday. I was somewhat looking forward to the thought of a 12 hour layover in Montreal. The rest of the group was supposed to fly later in the afternoon, and we would fly to Frankfurt and then to Berlin together from there.

Sunday morning came, and St. John's was covered in fog. Despite this, neither my parents nor I considered that my flight might not make it out. At the airport, we learned that all flights until at least mid afternoon to Montreal (and probably everywhere else) were either delayed substantially or cancelled. My flight was rebooked to Toronto, and then from Toronto to Frankfurt and Berlin. I was torn between being disappointed at not being able to meet up with the others (most of whom I had at least met briefly) in Montreal, and being very, very pleased that my cancelled flight afforded me six extra hours rest. 

At noon (after about forty five minutes of stressing out), I phoned Dr. Warkentin to tell him that I would no longer be meeting with them, and that I would see them in Berlin.

Cut to:

Hotel BaxPax, Berlin, July 20th.

I arrived safely in Berlin (although that flight from Frankfurt did have me worried for a little bit), and managed to get a taxi from Tegel to BaxPax. I did procrastinate this for about half an hour due to the fact that by the time I actually got through customs and got my bag, it began to pour heavily outside. By the time we got to BaxPax, it was clear skies and beautiful sun once again. At the desk, the girl told me that the group had not come in yet. I silently started to freak out, thinking that perhaps their flight had also got delayed or cancelled and I would be stuck in Berlin by myself. Then she told me that they should be back soon and I began to relax.

We met downstairs in the evening for official welcome drinks and I met two of the people who I had not met yet (Dylan and Megan). I ate in the bar downstairs (it's a pretty swanky place in the evening), and watched some of the Wolfsburg/ Bremen game. A guy from California came over and we chatted for a bit - the generic "Hey, where are you from? Where have you been? What are you doing in Berlin?" type small talk. Then I settled in to our room. (Some of the group went out later that night to explore some of the more interesting sides of Berlin's nightlife, apparently which included hanging out on the roof of a building which should have been condemned, and drinking, and meeting some colourful characters.)

July 21st, 2009.

The first full day, we spent walking around Berlin. We ate breakfast at 8, and then made our way to Sachsenhausen, the concentration camp, in Oranienburg. I was pretty tired. It was kind of a rough night, and sleep threatened to overtake me on the train. I'd been to Dachau a few years ago, so when we got to Sachsenhausen, I didn't suffer the same overwhelming emotional experience as I did before. I knew what to expect, relatively. There were a few things that I didn't recall seeing at Dachau: the first being a pile of stones laid upon the markers for each of the barracks that no longer stand. There are stone markers (almost like headstones) that stand in front of where the barracks would have been. On these markers are stones. Dr. Warkentin explained that many Jewish people often lay stones if they knew someone who lived in a particular barracks. Secondly, the records of all the prisoners are kept in what used to be the kitchen, and are available to read in, I think, three different languages or so. Outside of Sachsenhausen, just outside the bookshop/ entrance, there is a large miniature model of the entire camp. All the barracks look exactly like Monopoly pieces. 

From Saschenhausen, we meant to go to the Berlin Zoo. However, we went one too many stops from our destination, and discovered that certain trains were cut off, so we improvised and found a new route. By the time we got to the Zoo, it was two hours from closing and it was decided that it wasn't worth our time or money to go if we couldn't spend sufficient time there. By that time it was about four o'clock, and my body was threatening to shut down if I refused to feed it. I really only wanted to see Knut, the polar bear at the zoo, and I hear he's a bit of a jerk now anyways (as jerky-ness of the polar bear variety goes, I guess).

Instead, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe and ate instead. I ordered a Hurricane sized Sex on the Beach (purely for the souvenir glass), and Linda did the same with two beer. There seems something especially fitting about buying a beer glasses in Berlin. We made our way back to the hostel (Megan, Adam, Karen, Curtis, Dylan and I), navigating our way through the Berlin underground system (it's pretty easy). On the way, we saw the Berlin Skillz Showteam doing tricks on skateboards. One had four skateboards, and piled three on top of one another and laid the fourth on top of that, on its side and then did a hand stand holding onto the skateboard on its side. He went around in a circle, and it was really cool, and looked super complicated. Adam took a video:

Also, on the bus home, there were two buskers (I guess that is the best term for them) on our train, performing Adam Green's song "Novotel". Their English was really quite good, and we decided that we preferred their version to the original. 

Our first full day in Berlin was definitely memorable, but I find with the larger cities, it's pretty tiring after walking around all day. It's a little bit draining, and I definitely wanted to relax and chill out after a pretty long day. We had seen ice cream on a stand somewhere and Megan, Adam, Karen, Curtis and I went on a mad hunt for a place that sold ice cream. It was about 9:30 or so at night, so most places were in the process of closing up. We got back to Friedrichstraße, and saw a sign that proclaimed EIS (which is ice cream in German). It was right next to our hostel. However, we discovered that at this place (Bombay, on the corner of Friendrichstraße and Ziegelstraße) Eis actually meant iced coffee, not ice cream. We got some soft drinks though (and Curtis, a shot of Absolut) and some garlic naan bread and spent an hour and a half there, undisturbed. No one (read: the wait staff) paid much attention to us, and around 11:30, we got a bit antsy and decided to leave. 

That's really only the first day in Berlin, but it's 12:30 in the morning now, and later today we all have to write our placement test. We had the oral portion today and I think most people feel that they are in the place they should be. A few of us accidentally signed up for the intermediate level, which is quite different from the MUN Intermediate level, apparently. I did so, and when I went for my interview, I was so confused before we even started that I told the woman doing the interview, in English, that I was definitely not in the right place. She seemed really understanding about it, actually. I supposed that probably happens with a lot of people. 

There's still quite a bit of catch-up to do, but that will have to wait until another time.

Tschüss!

(photos courtesy of Adam Stevenson and Karen Tucker, videos by Adam Stevenson. :) )

Berlin

Hello from Berlin


Meghan's edit: This is Dr. Warkentin's test of the blog.