Last Post from Berlin

Last time I'll walk home from Hackescher Markt.

Last time I'll go to the grocery store to return my empty bottles.

Last time I'll say goodnight to my host family.

Last time I'll have to sit on my suitcase to make everything fit (here's hoping).

Last time I can use the present tense and say "I live in Berlin".

Last time I'll sleep in my bed here.

Last time I'll close the blinds.

Lots of "lasts", but it all comes back to time.  There's simultaneously too much of it and too little.

This may be a time of "lasts" but it's not goodbye forever.  I'll be back, Berlin - you can count on it!

Lasts and Goodbyes

The past week or so I've been thinking primarily in terms of "lasts"

Today was my last Friday in Berlin.

Today was (most likely) the last sunny day that I'll spend in Berlin.

Yesterday was the last time I'll have to present an art project in German (well, hopefully in any language).

Today was the last day that I'll go to IES.

Yesterday was the last day that I'll see most of the friends that I've made this term.

Wednesday was the last day that I'll do laundry at my host-family's apartment.



I leave Berlin to go to Stuttgart in 41 hours.  41 hours.  I can't even accurately describe how I'm feeling right now.  It's some combination of sadness, thankfulness, joy, accomplishment, and some more sadness. I'm sad because I'm leaving Berlin and I really don't want to.  I could honestly see myself living here for the rest of my life (or at least for a while).  I'm thankful for all of the wonderful people that I've met and for the fact that I've survived this term.  I'm joyful/happy because I'll be spending Christmas and New Years with my mom, stepdad, brother, and step-grandma in the south of Germany.  I just can't believe that my time here is over already.  I can't wait to see my friends and family at home, but I'm also not ready to leave yet...

I'll maybe post tomorrow, but I think I'll continue posting in this blog until I'm back in the states so you can read about my adventures over Christmas and New Years!

Finals Week/Hamburg Trip

So this is going to be a two post kind of night since I've been so neglectful in blogging lately!

I can't even remember when I posted last, but the last two weeks have gone by so quickly!

My finals went pretty well I think.  I'm not really sure about my grades, since all of my classes had at least 50% of the grade due in the last week.  But the most important thing is that I'm done!

I had two finals on Monday, one on Tuesday, none on Wednesday, and three on Thursday.  Since I didn't have any on Wednesday, I decided to meet up with my friends in Hamburg! (They are doing a nomadic trip through Europe for three weeks)  They took the train from Copenhagen to Hamburg on Wednesday, stayed one night in Hamburg, and then came to Berlin on Thursday!

I got to Hamburg about 4 hours before they did, so I spent the time walking around the harbor and the Passagenviertel (basically the main shopping area where there is a lot of foot traffic).  I had a map with me just in case, but I decided to walk around without using it so that I could experience Hamburg and not worry about where I was.  It actually worked out really well for me and I only got slightly lost twice...but I always knew where the Hauptbahnhof was, so everything worked out just fine!

After I picked up my friends from the train station we went to their hostel so that they could check in.  After they dropped off their stuff, we walked around for a bit, saw some more Christmas markets, and ate some dinner.  Neither of them speak any German, so I taught them a little bit - and they did pretty well!  You don't really need to know German to get around in Berlin/Hamburg, but it definitely does make things easier!  After we walked around for a bit more, it was time for me to catch my train back to Berlin.

I'm really glad I went - it was nice to see Hamburg for the first time!

I did all three of my finals on Thursday (well, one test and two presentations) and then went to our farewell dinner with all the IES people.  It was pretty nice, but it was kind of sad! Then I ended up going out to a bar with a few of them (although I was home around midnight), but it was fun!  I had to say goodbye to a bunch of people and that was pretty sad!

I leave on Sunday...that's LESS THAN TWO DAYS. I can't even believe it.  But more on that in my next post.

It's Christmas Time!

Hi, my name is Stephanie, and I am addicted to Christmas Markets.

But actually, it's becoming an issue (mostly monetarily)

The Christmas Markets opened on Monday, and my plan is to go to a different Christmas Market every day for 7 days.  It's been three days so far, and the plan is still on!

The Gendarmenmarkt Christmas Market (Probably the most well known one in Berlin)

Christmastime is my favorite time of year.  I just love the festivities and the decorations and everything about it!  The States doesn't celebrate Christmas anywhere close to how the Germans celebrate it...it's SO much better here!  I can't even explain how much I love Christmas here!

Marienkirche Christmas Market...out of the three I've been to so far, this one was my favorite.

My host mom actually has a stand at a Christmas Market near our house, which I'll be going to tomorrow!  It seems like a pretty hard job, she has to get there by noon and she gets home around 10 at night...not to mention that it's getting colder and colder!  In fact, speaking of the cold, it really is starting to get arschkalt here... I put in the liner of my winter jacket in today for the first time, because I'm pretty stubborn and didn't want to put it in earlier.  I'll probably wear a sweatshirt tomorrow so I might take the liner out again.  After all, I'm a Wisconsin girl - I can handle the cold pretty well!

As far as classes and such, I'll be ridiculously busy from now until I'm done with finals.  I have (I think) a total of 5 papers, 2 presentations, and 3 finals, all due before December 13th.  So, sorry in advance if I don't update for a while.  Besides going to Christmas Markets and doing homework, I really haven't been doing much of anything exciting lately.

Ahhh sorry I really haven't given up on you I promise!  It's just been crazy busy here!  I'll probably post this update in two posts so it doesn't get too long.

So I honestly don't even remember when I last posted...that's bad!  So last weekend my mom came and visited!  She arrived on Thursday night and left on Sunday night.  On Thursday I made my way to the airport to pick her up and then we headed to Friedrichstraße and had dinner before heading to my apartment.  She stayed with me this weekend and slept in my bed and I slept on the sofa couch in my room.  Once we got back to my apartment she met my host parents and then we sat around chatting a bit while watching the BAMBI awards that were actually taking place in Berlin that night!

The next day we got up bright and early and headed to my practicum.  My mom said she had a great time there and the kids really seemed to like her too!  We stayed there for a few hours and then headed on a "little" tour of part of Berlin! I honestly don't even remember everything that we saw, but it was a pretty long walk!  We saw the Brandenburger Tor, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Monument to the Roma and Sinti, the Reichstag, Potsdamer Platz, the Gendarmenmarkt, and so on!  We actually ended early from what I had planned because we were so tired!  We went out to dinner and then came home so I could do some homework and she hung out with my host family (all three children were over on Friday night).

On Saturday we got up early-ish and did another "little" tour.  We saw an art market and went around Museum Island and we also saw the Humboldt University and the monument to the book burning and so on and so forth!  We also went to the Nikolaiviertel (the oldest part of Berlin) and went to a museum inside of the church.  We were going to go to a movie this night, but we were both tired enough that we didn't feel like we needed to.  We did go to a huge bookstore though!

On Sunday we didn't do too much, since we had done a lot of the stuff on our list already!  We did head to the impressive Hauptbahnhof and we went to the Ku'damm and saw the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis Kirche!  Then we headed back to my apartment, hung out for a little while, and then headed to the airport!  I had to go to another play that night, so I dropped her off where she got on a bus.

It was a really great weekend, and it was silmiltaneously perfect timing and bad timing.  It was perfect timing because I actually didn't have any homework that was due on Monday or Tuesday, which meant I didn't have to spend much time doing homework at all.  However, it was also bad timing because it was pretty chilly and cloudy (I don't think we saw the sun at all) and it was the weekend before the Christmas markets open, which is one of my favorite things to do!  But we still had a great time and I'm really glad she got to come see me!

I'll post an update in the next day or two on classes and this past week!

Look, a Beth in Berlin!

Cute little boy iceskating near Potsdamer Platz with his penguin helper!

This was our view of the Fernsehturm all weekend

Productivity is great!

I HAVE CONQUERED THE PAPER OF ANGUISH AND DESPAIR! And it only took a total of 14ish hours, my entire library playlist (which is 120 songs), and 2,097 words.  It's more like 5.5 pages instead of 6, but it's done and anything else I add will either not help my point or will just be me repeating myself.

Also: WHY DO GERMANS HATE DOUBLE-SPACING???  Double-spacing is a beautiful beautiful thing.  It takes a 3 page paper and makes it into an almost 6 page paper - with one click of a button!  However, in all of my classes here, the professors want papers with 1.5 spacing.  Which means that instead of writing a little over three pages single spaced, I had to write closer to 4.5.  ...mind you, this is all in German.

Anyways, I thought I'd give you a little update on all of my classes:

Berlin in Literature: This paper that I wrote is for this class, and the topic was Bertolt Brecht.  There were three options that we could write about: a biography of Brecht, an analysis of his poetry, or an analysis of his play "die Dreigroschenoper" (The Threepenny Opera).  I chose to do an analysis of the play, and I think I like where I went with the paper - hopefully I made some good arguments and it makes sense in German!

Other than the paper, we've just been reading excerpts of books and poetry that either take place in Berlin or were written while the author was living in Berlin.  We haven't read a full book yet, although I'm pretty sure since now that it's after midterms, that we'll read at least one entire book.  I think my midterm went okay in this class.  It certainly wasn't perfect, but I know I didn't do horribly!

Theater in Berlin: This is the class that's probably the most work intensive, since we read (and see) one play every week.  I'm actually enjoying this class possibly more than my other ones.  We've read 3 plays and seen 4 (we didn't read the first one), and I've liked all of them except one.  This class has offered many opportunities for cultural experiences, so that's good!  We have to read another play by Wednesday, which is another Brecht play.  It seems relatively interesting, but Brecht is kind of a weird guy - so hopefully it's okay!

My midterm in this class went pretty well (I think)! I was able to answer all of the questions without having to make anything up, which is always good!

German: Honestly, I am not enjoying my German class.  I'm also not doing spectacularly in it, because I'm not interested in what we're learning about.  We've had to write a few essays, which I've actually done pretty well on (she really liked my last one!).  But we've taken two tests, which I haven't done too well on (and by that, I mean I didn't get A's).  Our midterm for this class was a presentation and a paper and I'm not too worried about it, because I think it went pretty well.

Art and Architecture: This class is...interesting.  The teacher is super nice and passionate about art, but he tends to ramble on and on, which makes him really hard to follow.  We also tend to just look at paintings and talk a little bit about them, without really learning about the artistic movement that the painting belongs to.  (and naturally all the midterm questions had to do with the artistic movements that we "learned" about)

The midterm for this class didn't go spectacularly, but I think I only made up one answer to one question - so that's okay.

Internship Seminar:  This class only meets once a week so that we have time to go to our internships, which is really nice!  We've been learning about the social market economy and other stuff to do with the economy, so it's been kind of interesting because I don't usually take classes like this!  Our midterms are a presentation on a topic that we got to choose (mine is on people with disabilities and their integration into society).  My presentation isn't until the end of this month, so I have plenty of time to work on it.

My practicum has been going well - I'm really getting to know each of the kids individually and I'm still able to understand them! :)

That's all for now - I have to read an entire play and do my German homework!

Food and Grocery Shopping

So, as you all know, I live with a host family.  IES Berlin says that the host families aren't required to feed you, but they may invite you to eat with them occasionally.  That's definitely true with my family! Pretty much every time they cook something, they invite me to eat with them, which is super nice!  However, (and this isn't really a complaint so much as an observation) I'm relatively sure that they don't know that vegetables other than potatoes exist!  Potatoes are a big staple of the German diet - but it's getting really boring to be eating potatoes almost every night!

One thing that I love about German grocery stores is the amazing fresh produce that they have!  Maybe it's because I come from a small town, but I've seen fresh fruit and vegetables here that I've never seen at home.  I honestly don't think I've ever seen a full head of cauliflower or leeks in Fond du Lac, but I bought one of each and cooked them the other day and it was great!  I love cooking fresh vegetables!  The grocery store that's in my building is pretty small, so sometimes I have to go to a different store to find exactly what I want.  But usually I just go to my grocery store and see what they have, and then make a plan from that!  (which is very weird for me, because usually I need a recipe!)  But the problem with using recipes here, is that all my recipes are in American measurements, and they don't always convert perfectly.

Speaking of food that I've never heard of/seen, do any of you know what this is? 

Apparently, it's Celery Root... from what I understand, it's usually used to make soup.  I saw it in the grocery store and asked my host mom what it was.

When I first got here, I didn't cook much - mostly because I felt like it was weird to cook when my host family was home. (I actually still kind of feel like that)  But now that I've been here for a while, I know when my family will be gone, so I usually cook then.  Mostly I've just been cooking enormous amounts of vegetables and then putting the extra in the fridge for later!

Another major difference in terms of food between America and Germany is "food safety". In America, after we're done eating, we immediately put the leftovers in containers in the fridge.  However, (and this could be just my host family, but I'm pretty sure it's a general thing) in Germany it's not uncommon to leave the leftovers in the pot on the stove until the next day's dinner.  At first I was really concerned about that, but then I thought about it... None of the stuff that they leave out is cream or dairy based.  It's usually potatoes (maybe some meat) with a sauce.  Then they heat it up and eat it again.  Now, I wouldn't do that personally, I would definitely put it right into the fridge! But I kind of maybe understand why they do?

Well I'm off to study for midterms!  I'm only really worried about 2 of them, so that's not too bad!