I failed to mention anything about my first day here, and it truly was an adventure, complete with treasure! I arrived at the airport at about 9:15am Berlin time (approx. 3:15 East coast time-so I was a little tired). I got through customs and got my baggage and everything was going smoothly, but then by 10:30, I still had not seen my host family. I went to the information desk and paged them, but still nothing. Fortunately, one of my professors was there to make sure everything worked out for me. So I went with her and her stepmother to her house so that I could find the number for my host mother and then call her. My first conversation with her on the phone was very fast and I understood so little that I handed over the phone to my professor. We worked out that I would take the S-Bahn (a mostly above-ground train. Here would be a good place to note that German public transport is very efficient, very easy to understand, very clean, and very fast. I highly recommend it.) to the neighborhood where I'm now living and meet her at the house. I had a map with me, but when I exited the train station I didn't know which direction I was facing, so I walked a couple blocks before I decided I was going the wrong direction. A couple wrong turns later, I was finally on the street of my host family's house. I walked all the way to what I thought was the correct address, until a brief conversation with a willing-to-help-but-unable-to (what a german modifier!) man convinced me I had misremembered the address (Gaillardstr. 1a, not 10a). I finally got to the right house and found a note for me from Ulrike, my host mother, saying that she had gone to the train station to pick me up. Some context: by now, it's about 1:30 in the afternoon, and I haven't had anything proper to eat since dinner on the plane the previous day, my stomach is upset because it doesn't like when I don't sleep, and I have long since run out of water. Also, in the middle of Berlin summer I'm wearing jeans, a button-up, and a suitcoat, because I didn't want to pack the suitcoat. Finally, I see Ulrike and her daughter Cassia, and they take me up to the apartment, and feed me a wonderful snack-meal of fresh melon, bread, cheese, and strawberries (strawberries=treasure, naturally).
This map of Middle Earth hangs in my room, because my host brother, Cyrill, put it there. He also likes to play Settlers of Catan. He also owns Magic: the Gathering cards. Yeah, a kid after my own heart.
That night, Cyrill and I walked over to a nearby park and watched the public viewing of the Ghana-USA game. The crowd was basically all for Ghana, but it was still a very exciting game. Ghana had a pretty goal in overtime, so props to them. Besides, with America out of the running, I can wholeheartedly support Germany (I have to reiterate how excited the people here were after Germany beat England--I've never seen such pride for a country before).
As a sort of exchange student, I've been thinking alot recently about how friends of mine who were foreign exchange students in America must have felt. I can appreciate now more than ever how impressive it was that they decided to spend such a long period of time in a foreign country and how good their English really was. And beyond that, there are so many Germans that also speak at least some English here, that I'm just constantly reminded how much more multi-cultural Europe appears to me than America. It may just be that I haven't been to Europe since I was 12 or so, or maybe that this is my first time in a predominantly non-English speaking country, but everything seems new and exciting. I mean, I just ate a yellow watermelon, and it was super exciting!
The view from my bedroom. There are flowers in all the windows of this apartment :)
There are some times that I feel like I'm left out on a giant inside joke, which I find really fascinating. For example, last night when I was at the Waldbuehne for the concert, near the end of the concert all around the audience, people lit sparklers and waved them around in appreciation of the music. And to them, it was probably no surprise--you always bring sparklers to outside concerts. But that's just something I haven't grown up with. And the last song played was some kind of traditional German song, and throughout the song, people would in unison whistle 3 times. I've never heard a concerted whistling effort before, and the effect was very neat. I've never really had to struggle to understand what's going on. I actually find that I'm a much better listener here, because I can't just casually listen. I have to focus completely on whomever I'm having a conversation with in order to understand them. I feel like that's a good thing.
My bedroom! So cool!
I think I'll close out with an amusing story from last night. The Waldbuehne seats approximately 23,000 people, and it was full for the concert last night. That's all great, until everybody has to take the same train-line back to the middle of Berlin. Therefore the train was very full, but after a few stops I transferred to another line and was able to breathe again. I got back to the apartment building where I'm living at about 1am because of the long lines and the packed trains and so forth. I let myself into the building and then climbed up the stairs and got to the apartment door. The hallway was immensely dark, and I had no convenient cell-phone to light my way. So, I was fumbling around for about 5 minutes with the door before I hear a knock from the other side, and an aggressive "Wer ist da?" (Who's there?). "Ich bin's, Zeke!" (It's me, Zeke!), I reply, a little bit confused. The door is opened and I see a youngish couple standing there, now looking as confused as I am. "Ach! Entschulding, entschuldigung, die falsche Wohnung. Es tut mir Leid" (Ach! Pardon, pardon, the wrong apartment. I'm sorry!), I say and quickly exit, as they stare dumbfounded at me, the person I'm sure they thought was trying to break in and rob them silly. Moral of the story: always count the number of flights of stairs you've climbed. Or maybe a better moral: flashlights are really useful.
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