Apologies

This blog has fallen by the wayside. 3 days until I'm home.... I'll tell you stories then. With hand motions and exasperating inflection.

The Countdown Begins

Numbers are the name of the game today. I've got:
1 final left
2 days until K getting here
3-4 days of excessive partying in celebration of finishing finals (I'll be posting about that, never fear)
5 days until I have to deal with the Hausmeister, resulting in...
30-40 Euros to pay for the spare key that I lost (it fell on my carpet, crept under and disappeared about 3 months ago)
3 Christmas presents left to buy
5 days until I really need to think about packing
6 days until my apartment needs to be cleaned
and 7 days until I board the plane back home.

In the words of every high school kid on That 70's Show: What a long, strange trip it's been. (or something to that effect)

Dead Week and Schnee!

(I'm going to apologize ahead of time for how boring this post is. But don't worry, come Thursday, once finals are over I've got some really fun things lined up, so it will start being more worth while to read this!)

What a crazy week. From term papers, to finals, to crazy weather, to Christmas markets, it's been one hell of a busy week! Monday started out wonderfully because I didn't have Deutsch. About 6 of the 10 people in my class were on an expedition for their other classes, so Deutsch was canceled! However, the day did not maintain this level of awesomeness. History was surprisingly good.  We didn't even discuss the reading, or do a wrap up the history lecture or anything, just dove straight into a movie. The name of it completely escapes me at the moment, but I'm sure I could ask someone in the class and find out if you're really interested! It focused on the issues migrants, specifically Turkish migrants, face as second-generation migrants. Unlike in the US, a 2nd generation migrant in Germany is still considered a migrant, not a citizen. The movie was incredibly dark... definitely not something I would suggest my mum watch! It also had a love story, but in a dark sort of way, in which you don't want anyone to tell you if they end up together or not, because it doesn't really matter either way. I don't know if that makes sense, but it works for me!

Film, aka the bane of my existence, was again long... Though we did get out 4 minutes "early." Meaning 19:41, not 19:45. We did a little lecture, heard a presentation, then watched the film and had a guest lecturer. He was incredible! I literally learned more, and was better engaged in the 30 minutes he spoke than I have been all semester in that class! It was painfully obvious to all those involved that my professor was trying to prove himself or impress the guest; it was like watching a puppy begging to come inside. Then we got to fill out evaluations. I am always happiest to fill out an evaluation when I actually have something critical or exemplary to say about the professor. In the nicest way possible, I definitely gave that evaluation a piece of my mind.

Tuesday morning was my Deutsch Sprechen final. It went pretty well. J (a completely different J from the previous one) was my partner, and he's a little better than me, so he was able to pick up if I started stumbling. We had three parts: W-frage (i.e. where are you from? What's your name, etc), Past tense (had to ask each other what we did last summer, last week, etc) and then Treffen (making plans, we had to choose a slip of paper and ask the person if they wanted to come with us to do whatever was on the paper, and then make plans to do it). It was all over within 20 minutes, and I feel pretty good about it! After that, I was exhausted from waking up early all weekend, so I went home and napped for a while.

Wednesday was the actual Deutsch final. It was also the coldest December 1st Berlin has seen in years. Absolutely, completely, utterly freaking freezing. It was barely even snowing too. Just cold. Anyway, armed with my 4 layers of clothes, I set out to take my final. It went pretty well. I felt far more prepared that I did for the midterm, though I'm sure there were still a bunch of little mistakes. In any case, I'm feeling pretty good about that class, and just my over all German speaking ability :) After that, I grabbed some lunch with C and P, and then headed back to school to nap before my next class. The next class wasn't really that interesting, so I'm going to skip that.

And that leads us to today! Well, probably a few days ago once I actually post this. I woke up early, yet again, to have Frühstück with my German teacher. She had our whole class over to her apartment, and we made an amazing Frühstück! Bagels, croissants, eggs, muffins, coffee, mimosas - a great way to start the day! It also helped that it snowed about 4-6 inches the night before, so everything was white and beautiful! The temperature had gone up from -10 Celsius to about -7, which was a surprising difference. Breakfast was so much fun, and Tanja was such an incredible German teacher, it was honestly a little sad when we had to leave. But, J (a different one again) was waiting for me, so I headed out to H&M to meet up with her!

J and I headed to Schloss Charlottenberg to check out the Weihnachtsmarkt there. Neither of us actually knew how to get there, and yet we managed to find our way quite easily. Once we got to the Charlottenberg S-Bahnhof, I went to check out the bus directions, while J ventured to ask the driver. Apparently after she asked him, he very seriously took a drag of his cigarette and told her "Kommst mit mir" (come with me). Haha... creeepy. But, he was right, and we were supposed to take that bus. It was absolutely gorgeous when we got to the Weihnachtsmarkt! The Schloss (castle) was so beautiful, especially with all of the snow, and the market was shockingly bigger than we had expected.

We wandered around for a while, checking out all of the random booths, me continuing my search for the perfect gift for about a million people (so far Alexanderplatz is my best bet for gifts) and J just wandering around with me. We got some drinks - I got Hot Bailey's (amazing!) and J got Eierpünsch (we're assuming since it translates to "eggs punch" it's a german version of eggnog...?) which was actually quite tasty, and tasted nothing like egg nog. I bought a pair of earrings that I have been searching for for years! They're normally about $30 for a pair back home, minimum, and these were only 8 euro for a pair! Such a great deal!  We also made friends with an American girl who was working at one of the booths. She was fascinating. She was born in Bergen, moved to Texas, speaks 5 languages, summer's in Norway, spent a year in Madrid, moved to Germany to find a job, just got accepted into the peace crops, and has a semi-boyfriend who is only semi- because why would she want to date a Spaniard when she's in Germany? Shouldn't she be dating a German? Absolutely fascinating. And made J and I feel dreadful about the fact that we only speak English and a little German (and a tiny bit of French and Spanish). After standing there for 20 minutes, the cold finally got to our toes and we headed home! We went around the corner to grab some dinner at the new Italian place that just opened up on our street. It was delicious, and B and D joined us which was delightful!

Now I'm off to bed. Once again, I've got to get up early tomorrow for some kind of mandatory FU-BEST meeting. I am going to get so much sleep on Friday night... and if I don't... well I probably won't be functional enough to competently take, let alone pass, my finals. So, here's hoping that I get to sleep in soon!

Never see what you expect to see, rather expect the unexpected.

This title is far more existential sounding that the following post will be.
Oh, also sorry for posting this a week late... I've been having some internet issues lately!

On a Note completely unrelated to the rest of this post, the reverse culture shock has begun, and I think it's going to be much worse than the culture shock was (because I didn't really have any). I'm making mac n cheese for dinner tonight, acquired from a friend who received it in the mail. While looking at the directions, I fully prepared myself for the struggle of trying to comprehend Deutsch directions, as well as figuring out how much 250 ml is. Google translate on the ready, I prepared to make my dinner, and wouldn't you know it? The directions were in English (obviously)! That was a major shock. I'm not used to being able to understand things. My life for the last 4 months has had a relatively constant level of confusion, and I kind of like it that way! It makes things more fun :) Guess I'm going to have to prepare myself for reading menus in English, actually being able to understand waitresses and cashiers, and being able to read everything around me. I don't think I can possibly explain to excitement that follows understanding a waitress, ordering coherently, or reading a poster completely auf Deutsch. It's going to be a little disappointing not having to put the effort into every day things.

Anyway, more on that later, I'm sure. Today wasn't as much of a tourist success as the last few days, but it was still pretty freaking incredible :) I again woke up early to work on my history term paper. It's all finished and turned in now, thankfully! No more term papers! Now, only finals... Okay, back to the interestingness! So, after I finished my paper, J and I headed to the Pergamon. A bunch of other people were thinking of coming, but were either too tired from the night before, or had already been, or just weren't even up yet. It was pretty freaking cold, and for some reason we made the executive decisions to trek all the way to the museum from Freidrichstrasse. You can switch trains and take the s-bahn one stop further, but it seemed to make more sense to just walk. Absolutely freezing.

We did, however, happen upon the museum island flea market, that I completely forgot was going on! Because we didn't get there until around 3, there wasn't much to be seen, but it was still a pretty fun stroll looking at all the old books and jewelry. I almost bought Freud's psychanalysis book, in the original German, but 1)Mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut, at least not good enough to read that! and 2)It was a relatively new version, and not an awesome, antique looking book. Oh and 3) It would just be extra weighted in my already weighted town bags for flying back home!

We finally got to use our museum cards, which was extremely exciting, especially because it meant not having to spend any money that day! We seriously had no idea what to expect. We're both history majors, so you'd think we would realize that "Pergamon" implied ancient Greek and Roman stuff, but we really didn't think about that until a friend told us about it. So we walked into this place with absolutely no expectations. And here, I'm going to let the pictures do the talking of what we walked directly into after turning the left corner of the entrance:

This was absolutely amazing. It actually felt like
we were in an ancient city! And the lighting
on the ceilings made it seems like natural
sunlight. It was incredible!

After climbing the stairs, we decided to veer to the left, and check out the super duper ancient stuff. This was again, not at all what we expected. Here are pictures of the next two rooms we walked through:

As we walked further back, we moved further back in history. It was really cool, and there were so many interesting things to look at. We didn't know where to start. There were rooms on either side of the hall, and these rooms led to other rooms, and these rooms led back to the hall, and it was very easy to get turned around! I think we covered everything, though we never did venture down the stairs in one room.... perhaps we missed something awesome.

On our way back to the Grand Alter, we passed by a staircase leading to an exhibit on Islamic art and history. I was so down to check it out, but J was being lame and didn't want to go... so we cut across the Grand Alter, and checked out the right side of the museum (the right and left here are being judged from being at the top of the stairs in the Grand Alter, for those of you who have been). As we walked into the next room, it was surprisingly less extravagant than the last few big rooms we'd walked into. There were a bunch of people looking at us as we walked in, so I turned to J and said "I bet we just walked through something awesome."

And we had.

However, as we ventured into the next room, and apparently the rest of the museum, you know, with all the Greek and Roman stuff, we were stopped by a sign informing us that some artifacts were being moved to the Altes Museum, and so the display was closed. Seriously? I mean, I know we knew nothing about it until 4 days before, but I definitely wanted to see some Greek and Roman stuff!! We did find another exhibit about "The Silver Horse." After trekking up tons of stairs, we discovered the strangest exhibit of our lives. We had no idea when or where in history the artifacts had come from, and since the entire exhibit was aud Deutsch, it was a little difficult to decipher anything. From what I could tell, the Silver Horse was belt buckle. What a disappointment!

Anyway, now that we were a little disappointed, we decided to check out the Islamic art stuff, because we didn't fell like we'd spent enough time in the museum at all. Such a good idea. The exhibit was beautiful! There were so many amazing jewelry and pots and boxes and corner decorations (<-- that is seriously the best description I can give them). And, similarly with Versailles, there was also some modern art interspersed with the ancient artifacts. Unlike Versailles, this art work was inspired by the ancient artifacts, and actually flowed with the exhibition. Again, these damn rooms leading into other rooms had us completely turned around, and we got lost trying to find the stairs back down stairs! What a hoot!

After that we decided to head back to the apartments because it was a little too early to get dinner, plus then we'd have to spend money :) I, of course, was drawn in by the allure of the Crobag directly on our S-Bahn station and got myself a wurstcroissant, aka the most delicious thing in the world, ever.

That was pretty much it for touristy stuff this weekend. Today I studied for my Deutsch final at Balzac for a while, and then me, J and B rented a movie and watched that. B has become increasingly frustrated with J and mine's love affair with German TV, specifically with terrible romantic comedies and Spongebob. So, instead of seeing what the number one Spongebob episode of all time was (they'd been counting down from 100 all day), or watched Patrick Dempsey in yet another incredibly terrible romantic comedy, he made us watch a movie with some culture to it.... not cool. haha, Though we did almost rent Cold Prey (the English translation of Fritt Vill, the terrible Norwegian movie we saw in Oslo).