Bin ich Berlinerin?

Both yesterday and today, I was able to give two different people directions (one in German and one in English)!  I had originally said that one of my goals was to be able to give someone directions, because that means two things:

1. I don't look like a tourist and I look comfortable enough in Berlin that someone thinks I live here (which I do!) :)

and 2. That I know Berlin well enough to be able to give directions (Thus, meaning I *probably* won't get lost as much! - although in reality I rarely get lost because of the awesome public transport system!)

I also said that would mean that I'm truly a Berliner.... But am I?

What does it mean to be a Berliner?  It can't be just living in Berlin, in my mind it has to be something more than that.  Am I a Berliner because when I accidentally ran into the "Oktoberfest" on Alexanderplatz I was annoyed at all of the tourists and "kitschig*"-ness?

I don't really have an answer right now, but maybe towards the end of my journey I will.  Maybe being a Berliner doesn't necessarily require you to live there; maybe being a Berliner has to do with where in your heart you feel the most "at home".  I love Berlin, and in a lot of ways I do feel at home, in a weird on-my-own kind of way.  I think that's why I feel at home at Lawrence as well; because I'm on my own.
Home is a weird concept.  My mom's house in Fond du Lac was definitely home, but was it the house or was it because it was where my mom lived?  Maybe it was both.  Although I feel at home at my mom's house here in Germany, it's not *my* home.  Is my dad's house in Fond du Lac my home, even though I technically haven't lived there since Sophomore year of high school?  Again, I don't really have answers here.  I will say that I use the word "home" interchangeably: When I'm at Lawrence and I'm going to my dad's house for the weekend I say "I'm going home". However when I'm leaving my dad's house to go back to school, I say "I'm going home".  Maybe you can have multiple places you call home - at this point I certainly don't have one specific "home".  Right now my home is in Germany, but come December that won't be the case.

Well...this was not actually a post about what I'm doing in Berlin, but it'll do! Classes started today (I only had one class) so I'm just trying to get used to another new schedule!  I need to read a play before one of my classes next week, so I need to get cracking on that! (It's "Die Jungfrau von Orleans" by Schiller for anyone who cares)

*there really isn't a good translation for kitschig, and I'm pretty sure in Wisconsin we use the German word.  I guess the closest translation would be "corny, tacky, and cheesy"

Visit to Swabia!

So, since Saturday (the 21st), I've been visiting my mom in Southern Germany.  We have a week break from school before "real" classes start, and while a lot of my classmates are traveling around Europe, I decided that it would be better (and cheaper!) to come visit my mom and step dad!

I arrived on Saturday afternoon in Stuttgart, where Mom and Martin picked me up.  Then Martin drove us to Bildechingen (where they live - it's a tiny town in Baden-Württemberg).  That night we had Schnitzel with fries, which is my favorite!  We had a relaxing day on Sunday - we went to Mom and Martin's favorite restaurant for brunch, which was delicious!  Then Mom dragged me to a Biergarten - which is a 45ish minute walk away.  It was okay - the view was beautiful!

On Monday night, Martin's mom Pauline arrived.  She came to join Mom and me on a couple of day trips that we had planned!  On Tuesday, the three of us went to Tübingen - which is a beautiful town! I took a ton of pictures, and between Mom and Pauline, I learned a lot!  We walked up to the castle, which is now used as a university building (and overlooks all of Tübingen) and then walked around the rest of the city and saw some churches as well.  I took a ton of pictures! (It was pretty foggy in the morning, but it cleared up after a while)

On Wednesday, Pauline and I went to Konstanz, which is on the Bodensee (Lake Constance, in English).  Mom couldn't go with us because she has started teaching an English extra-curricular at a local school during the lunch hour, but we had a great time!  Again, it was quite foggy in the morning, so unfortunately we couldn't see the Swiss Alps.  We walked along the lake for a bit, and then went and walked around the old part of Konstanz.  The buildings were all beautiful!  We also went into the most ornately decorated church that I've ever been in!  

 I don't know why the spacing is so weird with these pictures...blogger hates me, I guess.

Konstanz is RIGHT on the boarder to Switzerland, but unfortunately I didn't bring my passport with me, so we couldn't go in!  We might come back in December, though.  And if we do, I'll definitely bring my passport! :)

Today we had a relaxing morning, and then went shopping in a nearby town - where I bought a couple of warm sweaters!

I leave to go back to Berlin on Saturday, which is good in some ways and bad in others!  I'll be back here in December, though - and hopefully Mom (and maybe Martin) will come visit me in Berlin!

Busy Week!

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted!  I had a really busy week!  So to catch you up:

Sunday, we went to the Reichstag.  I didn't know what to do beforehand, so I went to the Tiergarten (which is right near the Reichstag) and walked around for about an hour and a half.  It still amazes me that I live in this massive city, yet I can still find peaceful, green places like this!

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

I was there last December as well, but this time we actually got a tour of the inside of the Reichstag!  The tour itself was a little boring, but it was cool seeing the inside.

The Room where the German parliament votes

Russian graffiti from when the Russians had
control of the Reichstag

All in all, I'm glad I went, since I hadn't seen the inside of the Reichstag before!

On Tuesday, we went to an art museum for our German class.  It was actually the same museum that I went to last December, so I was thoroughly bored - not to mention that I don't like art museums much.  I didn't take any pictures...so just imagine a lot of boring paintings picturing Mary and the baby Jesus (I'm not even kidding - that's what most of this museum was).

On Wednesday, Tyler and I took a tour through a bunker used during WW2 and the Cold War.  The bunker that we went to is actually in an U-Bahn Station, which is pretty cool!  The tour itself was very interesting and informative - but we weren't allowed to take pictures inside :( 

Tomorrow we have another German test, which will determine which German class we will be in for the rest of the semester.  I'm not worried about it - I don't really care what class I get in to!

Other than that, I fly down to my mom on Saturday, and will stay there for a week!  So my posts will come from Southern Germany for a week!  We're planning on doing a couple of day trips as well as some relaxing days!

Deutsches Historisches Museum

So on Thursday, we went to the Deutsches Historisches Museum.  We were in groups of 2 or 3 and were assigned a specific time period.  We had to take pictures of some of the important artifacts and then on Friday we had to present on the period!

My group had The Reformation and the 30 Year War.  We picked that time period, because that's the time period that we knew the least about... Actually, every group picked earlier time periods (all before WWII), because we have learned about WWII and the aftermath basically every year in school.

So the museum was actually pretty interesting! I like history museums a lot (definitely more than art museums!), but I'm always exhausted afterwards because there is so much information!  We saw the Bible that Martin Luther translated from Latin to German (above), and a bunch of other really cool things!

During the plague, doctors would wear this
(with chemicals and smelling salts in the "beak") in order to not get sick.

After we finished looking around our section, we looked around some of the other areas.

After that, Tyler and I went out to eat at a cute and pretty reasonably priced restaurant!  I had Geschnetzeltes with Spätzle and Tyler had Putenschnitzel with Salzkartoffeln. It was delicious!

Potsdam and the Weekend

Ooops...sorry it's been a few days!  I was a little busy, but for the most part I was just lazy! :)

The end of last week wasn't all that exciting.  I had a meeting about possibly doing a practicum with kids that have autism, but I won't know much until I have a one-on-one meeting with the person in charge on Wednesday.  Even then, I probably won't be able to start until October, but that's okay.

Anyways, on Saturday we went to Potsdam!  It was a really long day - and it was sort of worth it.

I was in Potsdam last December and saw the whole area around Sanssouci (A palace in Potsdam - it means "No Worries"), which is what we did in the afternoon, so that was pretty repetitive.  In fact, I could pretty much guess what the tour guide was going to tell us next.

The morning was pretty informative, though!  We walked all around the city of Potsdam and saw some churches and other cool sights.  Our "tour guide" for the morning was actually one of the IES professors.  He was a pretty cool tour guide, although he did talk a lot.

The Brandenburger Tor in Potsdam (It's acually older than the
Brandenburger Tor in Berlin - and much smaller!)

This building used to be a horse barn!

After our tour through the city, we had lunch and then went to the Sanssouci Park.  The weather on Saturday was absolutely perfect - but that meant that the park was full of people!  The last time I was at Sanssouci it had snowed the night before and was super cold - so this was definitely a nice change of pace!  

Like I said, I didn't learn much of anything, but it was still nice to walk around and take some pretty pictures! :)

Other than that, I really didn't do that much this weekend.  Tyler and I went to a flea market in the Mauerpark, and even though I didn't buy anything, it was pretty fun!  

I'm not really liking my German class, because right now it's focusing a lot on grammar that I mostly know...oh well, I guess practice can't hurt!

Hopefully I'll do something exciting this week so I have something to write about!

     

Deutsch Unterricht

Well, the biggest news is that I made it into the highest German class!  I'm pretty happy about it, especially since it focuses a lot on speaking and not so much on grammar.  We are also learning about things like politics and crimes, which is cool and is expanding my vocab!

I haven't done much in the way of sightseeing so far this week...I have a little cold so I've been going to bed pretty early.  I've taken a couple of walks around the area that I live in and I've gone grocery shopping as well.  (I had mango-vanilla yogurt today and it was the best thing ever!)

I did find out that it's possible for me to do a practicum working with children that have autism!! I was talking to the lady in charge of practicums/internships and she said that the best Autistic school in Europe is located in Berlin and that they have had students do practicums there before! We're having a meeting about it tomorrow and I'm super excited! I hope it works out!

Other than that, not much has been going on... we're going to Potsdam on Saturday, so that should be fun - even though I've already been there.

Weekend Fun

This weekend was crazy busy and fun, which is why I haven't written!

Friday we took our placement test for German. I think it went pretty well, but we'll find out tomorrow!

After the placement test we had one short meeting and then we didn't have much to do.  Tyler and I met up with Amber - the friend from Lawrence who's in Berlin for a couple of days - to go do a little sightseeing.  We went to Brandenburger Tor and walked around in that area for a while! We also went to the Memorial to the murdered Roma and Sinti Gypsies, which I've seen before.  After that we went to a cafe next to the Berliner Dom to relax for a little bit.

The next day, I met up with Tyler and we cooked lunch in his apartment.  After that, we hung out with another girl from our program and then meet up with a larger group for dinner at a Thai restaurant.  That night was "Lange Nacht der Museen", where a bunch of museums (I think 95) are open from 6pm - 2am and you buy one ticket for 12 Euro and you can visit any museums you want to!  The ticket also covers transportation between museums.  We started pretty late, so we didn't get to go to as many as we wanted to.  We planned on going to museums that we weren't SUPER interested in, because those are ones that we want to see in more detail.  We ended up seeing the Museum for Film and Television, the Ethnological Museum, and the Museum for European Culture.  It was pretty fun - although I wished we had seen a few more!

Today we went on a Bus Tour around Berlin.  I had seen almost all of the sights before, so it was kind of boring...  Although I guess I did learn a little bit  more about some of the history.  (In all honesty, I read my book for part of the ride)

After the tour, Tyler and I went out for a "typical German" dinner.  I had schnitzel with Bratkartoffeln and vegetables! It was delicious (although not as good as when Martin makes it!)! :)