International Faith Day

International Faith Day is a greatly anticipated event celebrated worldwide by approximately 10- 20 people (up to 40 on good years) on July 21st. It was founded on July 21, 1951 when Saint Robert of Cleveland and Saint Virginia of Cornwall herded the faithless geese to the holiest of holy Bethesda, where the geese were cleansed of their avian sins with the help of the glorious purple sponge.

Every year since this glorious date 10s and 20s of people have celebrated this day with much pomp and circumstance. The Parade of Violets with floats of geese made of purple flowers and other purple vegetation is held in Pittsburgh where the holiday is most heavily celebrated.

The traditional garb of the day is a leisure suit in any shade of purple, E.g. Violet, Lavender, Lilac, Amethyst, Aubergine, Royal, Eggplant, Wisteria, Mauve, Biloba, Lotus, Cabbage, Heliotrope and many more! Combining patterns which are made of these shades on a silk shirt with the holy leisure suit has become a popular addition for its most dedicated of celebrators.

In 2011 the chairwoman of the event (AKA the Glaube) moved the main celebration to San Francisco, where revelers have congregated for the past week in order to prepare for the celebration.

This will be the first time San Francisco will have hosted the event and the organizers say they will wow the Berkley and Haight-Ashbury crowds.

This year's event will cost upwards of 100 million MDN , half paid through taxes (at national, regional and local level) and half by private entities, mainly K.Andrews Bank, Yoj of America (based in Arlington, VA, however it is currently starting up a new West Coast branch in the San Francisco Area) and Bobbykins National.

Ups!

So until just now I have not thought about the possiblilty of a Blogger app. I'm going to try to post some shorter blogs using this before I leave. Which by the way is 10 days... As much as I miss all of you back home, I don't want to leave. It will be super depressing when I have to drive everywhere vs. walking to the closest S-,U-Bahn or Bus to get where I need to go. I have not missed driving in traffic.

The first pic is me waiting on my class to start lol. Lol I'm a little bored... The second picture is of my classroom that is empty except for this kid named Johannes.

Montag, Montag, Alle warten auf den Montag!

SOOO Last night I had a lot of fun with Heather again. My plan had been to walk home, but then she said she was going get dinner at the best döner place in the city (which is Mustafa's Gemüse Döner off the Mehringdamm U6 &U and I had to join. The döner was AMAZING! I have never liked the chicken döner as much as the dönerfleisch (lamb and other meats) döners, but this was AMAZING. The chicken was really well seasoned and they not only gave me the shaved meat, but Heather said I also got a full grilled chicken breast!!! I was just devouring it so I didn't even notice. The salat (<--- german spelling) was good lettuce with carrots and chives, red onions and and other veggies, The onions had some sort of great sauce on them, and CILANTRO! The sauces were the best sauces I've ever tasted on a döner and the FETA... OMG the feta had DILL in it! It was AWESOME! The cucumbers and tomatoes were also fantastic quality. THEN they put grilled peppers, onions and potato slices on it! BEST DÖNER EVER!!!!

Since heather had never seen Prenzlauerberg and I have been dying to go back ever since our excursion there in my second week, we headed in that direction after eat our döners. It took me a while to get my bearings though. The last time I had been in Prenzlauerberg I was doing a scavenger hunt type of excursion in a down pour, so I had spent most of that walk looking at my feet and not learning my surroundings. HOWEVER we did find Anna Blume, which is where I wanted to bring Heather. We got some amazing crepe and had another very long conversation. Anna Blume is a really cool cafe' in Prenzlauerberg, which my professor had sent my group to on our scavenger hunt. We were to go and ask the people inside what Anna Blume meant, and it was a poem. I think I have the poem somewhere in my facebook album. They have amazing crepes there and during the downpour we were in during our scavenger hunt, it was a fantastic stop out of the rain.

Unfortunately we had forgotten we had gotten out of class at 6 so our sense of time was off. I still am not used to the sun going down so late, So it felt more like 9 when we realized it was 20 to midnight and the U & S-bahns would be closing soon. We sped walked to the U-bahn we had taken there, and it was closed. So we were freaking out a little bit, because our homes were VERY far from where we were and walking that wasn't really an option. So we decided to try the S-bahn at Alexanderplatz. However on the way, we saw the Rosa-Luxembourg U was still open and we took that to the S1 and went home.

It was a crazy night and I had a lot of fun, but I def need to spend the rest of the week in studying. Heather and I have completely different schedules EXCEPT on Mondays and Fridays. We have decided we will be putting alarms on our phones from now on, so that we get home at a reasonable hour lol.


btw the title was inpspired by Rebecca Black's having a new song out... (seriously???? why does she have ANOTHER song???)

Kathleen ♥

Auf Wiedersehen und Hallo!

Last Friday everyone left as I told you it was the end of the program last week, and most of my good friends are now back home in their respective home countries. We had a Creative Project and Farewell day with FubiS that day as well. This is why I have had that video posted all over my FB profile. It took us a week to put together (quite an intense week of editing for me) and SOOO worth it! All of the groups had really great projects. Ours (Anna Band, Hillary, Rory and I) was of course the video which is meant to be a day in the life in each of the types of accommodations offered, but with a humorous twist. Rory really put the humor into it lol. Nicole, Autumn and Ham did a really cute children’s book of a bear wandering through Berlin (the bear is the city “mascot”). Holly and Chris did short movies showing what things were important to them and how they had spent the past 6 weeks. And last but not least, Arly, Davis, Derek, Matt and Jacob did Bahnopoly which was a trivia game for Berlin where we had to answer questions about Berlin and German vocab in order move forward spaces toward the Hauptbahnhof to win. All were really nice projects.

OUR project however was however shown to the entire FUBiS program at the Farewell ceremony (It was the only student project shown from ALL of the classes in the program!!!) where Rory performed it live! Not only did our class LOVE our video and Rory’s performance, but the program and its directors and CEO’s loved it! It was an absolute hit!

Rory's Performance

The final scene in the video is my personal favorite. After the exam on the last day of class, I stayed in the classroom to work on our video. Claudia our Professor also stayed. It was a really nice day though and Claudia decided she wanted to go out onto the Balcony outside our window. Our classroom doesn’t have a door that lead out to it, but just our window. SO Claudia decided to climb out the window! I thought this was hysterical and as she was preparing and putting her things out there, I prepared Anna’s flip cam and got the wonderful shot of her climbing out the window. SO at the end of our film as the students are walking in it looks like Claudia is trying to escape! She had NO idea I had taken this video and nearly collapsed she was laughing so hard, when she saw it! It was great! After the presentation, we had a free luncheon and I said SOO many goodbyes. I did NOT like that at all! I am going to miss all of them so much! I already do!

After the lunch I went with Nicole out to Friedrichshain and got a few drinks. Watermelon man cocktails are REALLY good btw! Nicole had never been to this area and so I showed her the graffiti and Simon-Dach-Straße. We then went and walked the East-Side-Gallery and took lots of pictures and signed the wall! It was a REALLY great way to end my time with her here in Berlin. We took the train back and she had to leave. That was the first time I REALLY felt upset about everyone leaving. I know I whined the week before, but that is when it really hit me. When she walked off the train, I was SOO upset! Thankfully she lives in Pittsburgh and I’m going to go visit her when I get home! After leaving Nicole, I went back to my dorm and saw people still around and felt a little better. I cleaned my room packed up my things and said a few more goodbyes. The next day I moved into my new place.

This week felt a little weird. Through Monday I had FUBiS friends still kicking around and my friend Rory even stayed with me 2 nights. I’m pretty glad he did, because it would have been a bit lonely and pretty awkward those first few nights had I been alone with my crazy landlady. He and I spent last Sunday walking around Mitte. We started at Friedrichsstraße and then made a big circle to the Museen Insel (museum island) ran into a flohmarkt (which because it was on the Museen Insel was super expensive), wandered through the Insel, down to Gendarmenmarkt and saw the German and French Churches there. We then headed toward the Tiergarten and walked through it on a path parallel to Straße des 17. Juni . It was a super hot day, so the shade on the path was MUCH appreciated. It was a really nice walk though, because the Tiergarten is just beautiful. Then we got to the Siegessäule and paid our €2,50 student fee and climbed to the top. It was super hot and in the stairway it was super stuffy, but at the top it was totally worth it! You can see the whole city from up there! Absolutely Gorgeous! The top was pretty crowded and the side with the shade was even more crowded lol. We stayed in the shaded are for a while and then headed back down.

We then headed through the Tiergarten to my favorite place in all of Berlin, Café am Neuen See! I have visited this café EVERY time I have been to Berlin. The first time was with my cousin Julia, when we met the very flirtatious eastern European men and had fun learning how to row a boat. The second time was with Marybeth and Anna. It took us FOREVER to find the café again! I remember us walking by the zoo thinking we had run into a Jurassic park type park; because the sounds we were hearing were not anything any of us had ever heard before. We finally found it and had beer and pizza and took a rowboat out as well. We got stuck again as I had with Julia in the low hanging vines and tree roots. It was awesome. We went there several times actually and got Pizza and bier, except I always got fresh peppermint tea. With Rory I had a new experience; we ate at the cafeteria style portion of the café and got pizza there. We sat at the long picnic style tables and sat with an old German couple. They were very nice! Possibly the funniest moment with them was when the man was trying to explain to us the type of people that live in Neu Köln. We had just been on an excursion there the week before and knew it has a high Turkish population, and the immigration issue is a big deal in Germany as well. SO when the man told us that Juppys lived there Rory and I just looked at one another thinking, “OMG what have we gotten ourselves into here!?!?!” We thought that this was some sort of derogatory term for the Turkish in the area. Thankfully the man was trying to explain the term to us and then we realized he meant YUPPIES!!!! I guess there is a part of NeuKöln (which is a Bezirk aka borough in Berlin) that is filled with young rich yuppies. We were SOOO relieved when we realized what he meant. He and his wife were very nice. His wife and I teased Rory and the man about the amount of smoking they do.

After a wonderful chat in German with this couple we headed off toward Ku-damm to see the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche. It normally looks like this:

However they are renovating it right now and it looks more like this a big aluminum box... lame. I had seen it a few times before with Julia and on an excursion last time with FUBiS, but Rory had not. We did get to look inside though. Then after that we headed back to my apartment. I asked my landlady if Rory could stay another night, because his plans changed suddenly. Once I had the OK from her (we had a backup plan of him sleeping on the floor of another friend in our Goerzallee dorm, but my couch was far comfier), he and I headed out to see the House of 100 beers restaurant in Charlottenburg (another Bezirk). OMG it was SOOO good! I got a Wahrsteiner and potato salad and both were delicious. Rory got himself a Guinness (something from home lol) and knackers, which are long skinny sausages. We went back to my apartment again and then went straight to sleep. I had class in the morning and we wanted to get him out early so he could start planning a new trip for himself. I saw him again that night and met a new friend, whom he had met in his hostel, named Alleigh! She is super sweet and was spending just a few nights in Berlin. She headed to Amsterdam and Rory ended up following her there. I’m excited we met her, because I now have another new friend in Cali and she has a beach house I am welcome to visit!!! YAY BEACH!!!

It was sad when Rory left because he was one of my closest friends here. He and Nicole were probably the hardest to say goodbye to. I love you all, but I spent most of my time with them.

Once Rory left and Matt dropped off his things (Matt also was headed to Amsterdam with his brother and dropped off his huge luggage since he is staying for term 3. He didn’t want to carry that around Amsterdam, so I let him leave his things in my room under my bed), just about all of my friends had left the city. I had my classes during the day and I wandered around the city a bit after my classes, but for the most part this week I have been in my beautiful new apartment reading or studying. I watched several movies on my TV in German and OF COURSE watched the World Cup games. My landlady found me fairly hysterical. She and my roommate hadn’t been around the apartment when Rory and I watched the US beat Brazil so they were not prepared for my sport hysterics, Lol. For those of you who have seen me during a game I really care about, you know what I’m talking about. I curse the opposing team to the netherworld, and rejoice like a child given an insane amount of sugar and do everything short of a cartwheel when my team does something good! In between these fits of anger and joy, I pace the room, bite my cheeks, and play with my hands (Lacrosse girls remember the pacing room I needed on the sideline? I need that for every sport! lol).

Outside of the soccer games I have met, just a few new friends at my new school D.I.D. Their names are Heather and Callie. Heather is a PHD candidate at Vanderbilt and got her undergrad at GW, SO ANOTHER DC LOVER!!!! She is from Chicago, but looooves DC. She is getting her PhD in German history (early modern). Her thesis is pretty cool, but a little difficult to explain. Callie just moved here from Dallas, TX to live with her Berliner BF and will be working as a pre-school teacher at the Berlin Metropolitan School. She told me they are looking for another teacher for the pre-school. I’m considering this possibility, although since I don’t have my certification yet, it would be a long shot. I met her on Friday and then after class Heather and I went out to Friedrichshain, one of my favorite parts of Berlin. We went to a café/bar on Simon-Dach- Straße (this is the 3^rd week in a row I have brought someone who had never been to Simon-Dach- Straße to this street/area after my Friday classes!) It was just supposed to be for a drink, but we ended up sitting at the café from 4pm until 1am! I don’t know that I have ever sat for 8 hours and talked with someone I just met before! It was a great conversation. We talked about German history and the ridiculous things that happened in our classes this week, we reminisced about DC, talked about our families, our past and current relationships, PhD programs that are good for German History, and SOOO much more. I don’t remember most of the details of our conversation, but it was really fun!

This Weekend I have basically been a lump on a log. I have sat and studied and read. I did have one annoying thing happen though. I need to buy groceries yesterday (Saturday), because all of the grocery stores are closed on Sunday. I also needed to pull out money at the bank, because I was down to my last €2. I took the train ride down to Rathaus Steglitz, because that was the closest grocery area and ATM I know of. It is about 4 stops on the S-bahn from my apartment. I got to the bank and then realized I had left my wallet with my public transportation pass and my debit card back in my room! I was FREAKING OUT! Had I had my pass with me it would have just been frustrating, but I since I didn’t that meant I would have to ride the train without a pass back to my apartment! The way the metro system works here is based on the honor system. They expect you to have your pass on you. On the busses you must show it, but the trains no one checks. HOWEVER there is control. It is super rare, but they are plain clothes officers who periodically check the trains, and if you are checked and don’t have a pass it is €50 on the spot or a trip to the police station! I not only didn’t have the pass, but no little amount of money to even buy a one way ticket to be safe. My only hope was that I didn’t have the awful luck that my first time seeing the control this Berlin trip would be on this short ride home. Thankfully it wasn’t and I went back got my wallet. I Went BACK to Rathaus Steglitz, got myself some more quarkcreme and jam and headed home. I bought some strawberries at the stand by my apartment and made the best dessert EVER! A small spoonful of jam, quarkcreme and 5 large strawberries cut up. It was divine. If I can’t find the quarkcreme I need to make this when I get home I will be SERIOUSLY sad. Quark btw is a fresh cheese that has the consistency of sour cream and cream cheese mixed together. The flavor is kind of like that as well. That may sound awful to some of you, but I swear it is awesome! Quark is also naturally SUPER low in fat, so it as an awesome lowfat healthy dessert!

Ok well I am having a hard time paying attention to the US vs Japan game while writing this and I have been looking forward to this all week so I’m going to end this here. I don’t know why I can’t make these things shorter! I ramble too much lol. 4 ½ to 5 pages per post is a little crazy. OK well Love you all! See you soon!

Kathleen ♥

OK people I have read through this several times and every time I find awful grammar errors. It sounds almost as if i can't make proper sentences! But I'm going to chalk this up to being here.... It happened last time I was here too. AND I was writing this during the US vs Japan game! SO don't judge me too harshly ;)

Hoppla!

So I’ve missed telling you about 4 weeks of my program and have once again only made 2 posts to my blog during that 6 week period. My class with Fubis is ending in the morning (I’m writing this at midnight Wednesday night/Thursday morning). I have my final exam in the morning and then my creative project is due Friday. Then I am done with FUBiS... as an enrolled student this summer anyway. I am moving out of my prisoner-like living conditions at Goerzalle Student Wohnheim (this is a running joke with those at our dorm, we visited an actual Stasi/Nazi/Russian torture prison and in the Stasi portion of the prison it actually seemed as nice if not a tiny bit nicer than our dorms. The main difference being we were not forced there, we can sleep on a mattress and in any position we choose, and have quite a bit more fun and human contact… Although, our communication outside of school prior to people getting handys (cell phones) was almost as bad as the prisoner’s knocking communication system.) on Saturday at around 1ish and into my knew and unknown apartment in Shöneberg. The new apartment is on the same street Marlene Dietrich was born and Albert Einstein lived in Shöneberg when he lived in Berlin.

It has quite an awesome history, which you all know is my favorite part of Berlin. I’m not far from a lot of really amazing historical sites in my new apartment and as my prof. Claudia showed us on one of our excursions (which I will blog about later I swear) there are tons of signs all over Shöneberg that depicted laws against the Jewish community, which was quite a large part of the population in Shöneberg. The signs are absolutely ridiculous and truly horrifying when you think of how many there are and all the small things that were prohibited that added up to a horrendous life in the ghettos and then deportation. People just let these laws occur to their neighbors and friends. It is really hard to comprehend that thought process. Anyway there is a LOT of history in this area and well in Berlin in general.

I love this city so much, because it has such a deep and fascinating history. Although I’m already just a bit homesick and DESPERATELY wish to see my friends, family and MY RUBY, I don’t know how I’m going to get myself to leave this city. I really love it. It works like it should, it makes sense, it has a ridiculous counter culture attitude that fits perfectly within the main culture. That sounds like it doesn’t make sense, but I promise you here it does. The main culture of the city is so open and accepting that counter culture becomes a celebrated norm. Of course even with this open attitude, a good deal of these Germans have a stick up their butt. I was actually told to shut up on the bus ride home last week, and I was VERY cognizant of the fact that the bus was quite quiet and kept my tone low. The crazy man who sat in front of me just was ridiculous. Others on the bus were on my side and told me he was an idiot, but he still is not alone in his curmudgeoniness (btw this man was in his late 30s not an old dude!). My friend Hillary has been accosted by 2 older Germans while trying to get off the bus. The first of which stood in front of her as her stop came up and told her she wasn’t going anywhere “Sheißkind”! What you should know about Hillary is that she is possibly the shiest, quietest and most polite girl you could ever meet. She is small and blond and wears almost exclusively black. There could be nothing that she had done to offend this man except for existing. HA I started this paragraph looking to praise the wonders of Berlin and all the things I love about it, but instead I talk about the curmudgeons! Alles in Ordnung!!! Typisch Deutsch! They say Germans don’t have normal small talk they just complain and talk about their wars. I don’t think this is really accurate since I don’t believe I have ever heard my uncle Marco talk about the wars, but it’s kind of funny.

I really do love the city. It’s kind of dirty and backwards, but it is truly amazing to behold. When you think of what the city was less than a century ago, it really is quite amazing to see what is here now. There are literally 2 mountains of left over rubble from the war in the city limits! I think what I love most about this city is that everything has a purpose and meaning. I feel like that is something missing in my life. There is no “meaning” in sterling and as much as I say it to anyone outside the city I’m not actually from DC so any meaning that city has prior to my birth doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to me. My parents aren’t from the city. My dad grew up around it just like I did, but his family was in the city quite a bit more than ours is. Still I don’t feel like there are parts of the city that are mine and what belongs to me in sterling I have quite literally outgrown, my schools in particular. My friends have mostly moved away, (minus the awesome new ones I have acquired through Justin & Katie J) and I pretty desperately want to move out of my parents house and begin my life. I really would like to hang with my rubes (poppy I don’t care what that word means, I am going to call her that anyway!) forever and ever, but unfortunately as a new to the adult world and an entry level position worker, I don’t think a dog would work well in that environment. Anyway I love that this city has so much that means something! There is just about nothing here that isn’t the ghost or relic of something from their past. I’m living in this dorm and I’m quite sure this must have been US army barracks during our Berlin occupation. If I was offered a job here tomorrow I would take it and just not come back. That is how much I love this city and its history and color, and nature, and art!

Schöner Tag!

Wow that ended up being a little sad.... I'm not depressed I swear. I was a bit delirious, because I had spent the entire night editing video... but other than that I am ok. Today was a bit of an odd day. It was the the last day of real class and we took our final. I'm going to miss everyone in my class so much! We just are getting to know one another and there is no real drama, which is refreshing to say the least. B2 Class kicked major butt! Hopefully I will see some of you again! Ok well I must go work on my creative project again! Tchüssi!!

Ach So!

Week 1 - Ach So!

So it’s the end of the first week, and so much has occurred in the last 7 days! I have made LOTS of new friends and experienced Berlin in a very different way than I did last time. As many of my friends know I have decided to move up to the B2 class. I’m still not sure this was definitely the best choice for what it is I need to accomplish here, but I’m definitely going to become more fluent. We (my friends and I) are trying to speak German as often as possible. At times we just decide to go with English, but more than I spoke outside of class last time. OK So let’s recap on this week. Tuesday ummm I can’t remember anything in particular other than moving up in classes that happened on Tuesday. Actually wait maybe that was the day Rory, Chloe (a swiss girl in C1), Olivia, Derek another person although I can’t remember who right now and I all went out to Friedrichshain again. They had all gone on the Spree boat tour that the program set up for us. I was supposed to have gone as well but had transportation issues. Lol I seem to be having quite a few of those this trip. I am not remembering how the U and S-bahns connect very well and so I had decided to just take a bus…. BAD IDEA. As bad of an idea as trying to take a bus in DC during rush hour and attempting to get to your desired destination on time…. Mostly it was bad, because it was definitely Berlin rush hour when I took the bus. It took me an hour and a half to get somewhere that should never take more than 30-40 minutes to reach. GAHHH! Well I figured at that point the boat tour would be getting back to the pier when I arrived, and I might as well see if they wanted to do something in the city. So I sat with Olivia and her friend (who is the person I couldn’t remember before… but still can’t remember her name :/) and waited on the boat to get back. Olivia and her friend had been on the earlier of the 2 tours FUBiS had set up for us. When Rory, Derek, and Chloe got back we all went to a Mexican place. It was basically chipotle. Olivia and her friend have been here longer so they are a little tired of German food and missing home food apparently. From there we went to hackeschermarkt and sat at a restaurant couldn’t believe the drink prices and then left the table. Some of the group thought it was a little rude, but the rest of us refused to pay €8 for a drink just to be polite. SOOO from there we went to Friedrichsheim. By this point we had been wandering around for quite a while and some members of our group DESPERATELY needed to use the WC. So we just chose a restaurant that looked like it would be cheaper and had a few drinks there. We just had a beer or two at a restaurant and went home. We had spent so much time looking around for places to go most of the night was already gone, and we all had class in the morning. This was my first night actually staying up later than about 4 in the afternoon so I was beat.

Now onto Wednesday… Wednesday was another epic day in Berlin. I went to class had some fun there and learned that June 1^st is ascension day (which I already knew),that Germans get that day off, and that it is also Father’s day in Germany. The way Germans celebrate Fathers’ Day is getting a large case of beer and hiking and/or just walking around town, drinking and singing. Then at night the fathers take their sons out and buy them their first beer…. And then their 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th beers soon follow. In a nutshell German men drink and sing all day long in big groups and then get their sons at night and get them drunk. I think it is a pretty fantastic way to spend that holiday lol. SO after class Matt, Jacob and I (Jacob is one of the Jacobs I described last week. He is super tall and is as he describes a Medievalist.) went to the tiergarten to witness the holiday festivities. Matt is a little bit more adventurous than Jacob and I and he decided we were going to just walk up to a few groups and see if we could get invited to the festivities. The first group was nice enough; they talked with Matt for a while and explained the day to us again. We then moved on and found another group of guys playing a game with wooden blocks and batons (batons as in the batons used in a relay race, but made of wood). We watched for a while and then Matt again struck up a conversation. They invited us to play and told us it was called Wikingerschach which translates to Viking Chess (immediately thought of you Big Steve!). I have some video footage of it I will try to put up later, but basically there are 2 teams standing about 20 feet from one another. Each teach has about 6 wooden blocks in a line in front of them and one tall block in the middle that has a red crown. In addition to the wooden blocks on the ground there are 6 batons. There is only one set of these batons, because each team uses these to try and knock over the other team’s wooden blocks. When a block is knocked over, the team whom the block belonged to, on their next turn, throws that block before throwing their batons as close to the other team’s blocks as they can. Wherever this block lands is the new line from which the other team is allowed to throw from, which is always just a bit closer. Whoever knocks over all of the other teams blocks first then gets to try to win by knocking over the king block in the center. However to knock this block over you have throw it facing backward between your legs granny style. My team lost, but it was SERIOUSLY fun… although I’m sure that my long description was not nearly as fun as my experience playing lol. ANYWAY after we played a game we went with the Germans we had just met (who were all college students as well) to a sixties restaurant. It was American and the Germans had already planned to go there prior to our joining the game and they invited us to join them. We spent the evening just having fun talking to the Germans drinking beer ( I actually didn’t drink I was already quite tired from the night before) and sharing stories. We got their contact info and we’re FB friends with one of them now so we may meet up with them again.

I honestly just can’t remember what I did Thursday. Not that I drank so much I don’t remember or anything like that. It has just been a crazy week and I don’t remember Thursday. I feel like I did something, but oh well I’m sure I had fun lol.

Friday I had planned to go to the Goerzallee Welcome party… but I fell asleep. I met one of my flatmates though and he and I had a tea and got to know one another pretty well. He’s an Indian guy named Abul and he is just a cool guy. He’s promised to take me to watch a cricket match while I’m here! After my tea with Abul I crashed and slept until about 2 am. I had a lot of missed calls and texts from friends and then finalized my Saturday plans with Rory to go to Potsdam. THEN I went back to bed.

SO Saturday… all I can say about Saturday is that it was awesome. At about 11:30 Rory Jacob and I headed out to Potsdam to see the city. We walked through the main streets of the city grabbed some lunch and then saw the Nauentor (which we thought was a fake installation at first), the Jaegertor, and the original Brandenburger Tor. All three were nice to look at and interesting. Then we headed off to Sanssouci! I just LOVE sanssouci! We didn’t pay to go in but we wandered all around the parks and gardens. It was an absolutely GORGEOUS day! We watched these absolutely adorable little kids playing with their parents in the shade of the Neu Palais (I’m definitely not sure of this name) and rested a while there. It was a crazy hot day and we all needed a rest from the long walks in the city and gardens. On our way back to the Potsdam Hbf, Rory taught us a word game. Each person in the group has to give a letter trying to not be the person who ends the word. The words can’t be less than 4 letters long, no proper names or nouns, and the person who ends the word loses the round and has to start the next round with a new letter. If at any point you believe the person before you is not actually spelling a word and is instead just giving a random letter, you can call challenge. If they have a word in mind and the letter they gave would once the word was completed be part of a correctly spelled word, then the challenger loses. If the person challenged has no word or the letter given would create a misspelling of that word, they lose. It sounds a little boring, but it is super addictive. We added some more rules as went, just to make it competitive, but they are essential to the play of the game so I will leave them out. SOOOO after we got home we went our separate ways and got some work done and rested. After about an hour or so I went and hung out with some other FUBiS people at a bench outside and we decided to get some dinner. We went to an Italian place not far from our dorms and omgosh was it delicious. I had already made a sandwich and eaten before I knew the dinner plans so I got something small and inexpensive. I can’t remember what I thought I was ordering, but what I got was snails in hot gooey mozzarella. HOLY CRAP WAS THAT GOOD! Chloe and I left a little early from the table, where a nasty political argument had broken out between some of the FUBiSers and german guy who is a flatmate of one of the people in the group. We paid for our food and made plans with other people mainly Rory, Jacob, and Matt to go out into the city. We went into the city with the people from dinner and the boys previously listed and had a great time at a happy hour in Kreuzberg. Chloe and I were the only girls in the group lol except Derek ;) who we met up with on the way and we all just had some nice girl talk, and had fun talking with the boys and watching Matt and Rory see which could finish a tall beer faster (Matt totally won btw under 5 seconds!). Rory and Chloe then struck up their own little romance lol and we began to head back to Goerzallee. Derek and I had fun chatting on the way home. Then when I got home I went straight to bed. I woke up around 2 in the afternoon Sunday morning, went to the silberlaube after a shower and much needed absorbent breakfast and chatted with my mom and Kelly. I SOOOO needed some girl talk with a friend from home. I miss all of you sooo much! Not having internet at the dorm is really very hard for me and I am definitely not a fan. Abul said he may be getting internet soon, since the person he was sharing with recently changed the password on him, So I might go in on it with him. We’ll see what happens. OK well that was my week! I hope it was entertaining and informative : )

LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL!

Kathleen

First Few Days in Berlin

Hello everyone! I’ve been so disconnected and it is really off-putting. I tried to get onto the internet today, but my passwords weren’t letting me on. I’ll have to talk to the Fubis Admin people tomorrow. BUT enough about my internet woes, that as evidence of your ability to see this are no longer applicable. I’m writing this blog on Monday the 30^th. SOOO much has occurred since I last spoke with anyone. Let’s start with the plane ride.

So on Friday I got to the airport super early for my 1:55 flight. I got to the terminal and it actually said it would be leaving at 1:30, which seemed odd. Flights aren’t supposed to leave before the time the passengers are given. Well not one passenger had an issue with an early departure, because our plane was stuck in Cleveland until 4pm. When we finally got on the plane, it was just that a PLANE! It had 2 propellers and everything! I fell asleep almost instantly after takeoff, so I don’t know how the flying was in between takeoff and landing, but other passengers gave me the impression it had been somewhat of a living nightmare. I have to say if the landing was in anyway indicative of the rest of the flight, I’m inclined to believe them. I woke up minutes before it was time to touch down and the plane was wobbling. Then the actual landing just about gave me a heart attack! I had never hit the ground so hard during a landing. I feel like the pilot was either not used to this kind of plane or was just generally awful. Well after that terrifying experience I had to run to catch my next flight. We had landed at 5:40 and my connecting flight to Berlin was scheduled to leave at 5:55. Of course continental’s flights and attendants make no effort to communicate with one another and even though I ran the fastest I have run since I was 15, I missed my plane by ONE MINUTE! GAHHHH! So now, not only have I just woken up 15 minutes earlier and waited hours for my first flight, but I was going to have to rebook a flight at the help desk very groggy and disgruntled.

The people at the continental help desk in Newark are the most silent and rude customer service agents I have ever met! Having worked at Kohl’s and dealt with awful customers, I make an effort to be a good customer anywhere I go, but the woman that helped me was just ridiculous. I walked up explained the situation and she asked for my boarding pass. That was it for our conversation for about 10 minutes! I asked twice if there were any available flights that she could see for Berlin that night and she didn’t even acknowledge me! THIS IS AT THE CUSTOMER SERVICE DESK! I get customer service sucks, but really? A huge part of your job is to help reassure me that something is being done to help my situation. I know she heard me, because she would roll her eyes when I asked about the availability. Whatever… after about 20 minutes of standing at the desk in almost silence she finally spoke and told me I had two options I could either take a flight that went through London or through Munich. The Munich flight was later, and I was going to have to go through security again so I decided that was my safest bet. WOW was that a lucky choice! Due to the Volcano eruption most flights through London were severely delayed. It was an even luckier choice, because of how AWESOME my flight with Luftansa to Munich and Berlin were.

The flight from Newark to Munich was AMAZING! I was in the second center row of coach which is one of the best rows on the flight. The first row only has 3 seats and the 2^nd has 4, and I was on the end of the row, so I had SOOO much leg room! There was only one other person in my row and he was on the other end of the row with an aisle seat as well. I had a few glasses of the complimentary wine and after watching No Strings Attached (Kelly I totally chose that movie, because of you), I slept for 4 and a half hours. It was fantastic! In the last two hours of the flight I finally went to stretch and use the restroom. OMGOSH the bathroom was sooo cool! The bathrooms were DOWNSTAIRS! I had never been on a flight before that had multiple levels! There were 4 super well lit bathrooms that were super cleans as well. They were also the biggest on flight lavatories I have ever seen. I didn’t feel like I was in a tiny pee filled box at all! There was never a wait for the restroom and it was just fantastic in general. The food for both dinner and breakfast was delicious. I had roasted chicken on rice with cream sauce for dinner and a roll with jelly and butter, a chewy bar, and fresh berries for breakfast. I loved that flight. Luftansa gets 2 thumbs up from me! Continental… well I don’t think what I wish to say about continental is quite appropriate for this blog. Let’s just say continental and I are no longer friends.

So after an 8 hour flight to Munich and a one hour flight to Berlin, I had finally arrived! Now my greatest concern after exiting the plane in Berlin, was getting my luggage. After all of the ridiculousness of my flight situation I was worried that my luggage might have been lost in the confusion. Well my first piece of luggage (that had been checked by luftansa, but I had intended to keep as a carryon) was the LAST piece of luggage to come onto the carousel. I was LIVID! I went to the luggage lost and found desk and despite my boiling anger, I was again a good customer to the lady behind the desk. She found my luggage almost instantly… however it was only a digital find. For some reason my luggage had taken the very flight to London I had turned down and had been delayed in its arrival to London, which caused my luggage to miss ITS connecting flight. They told me it would be arriving at the airport at 7 pm and since I was in a dorm and not a hotel, my luggage would be delivered to me on Sunday. However I had no phone and they said I needed a phone number or to reply to an e-mail in order to schedule a drop off time. …. Really. I was so close to just being done with this traveling thing and having no phone number and no access to internet was going to keep me from it???? Well after taking the 90 minute trip to my dorm by bus, I went with some friends I made when I was waiting to check in (Nancy from the New School in New York and Matt for UD… btw aren’t they a CAA school and we destroy them in football every year?) to go get a sim card so I could call and give luftansa that information and finally get my luggage. It’s nice to actually know my way around this time! I am honestly shocked at my ability to retain that kind of knowledge. I have not gotten lost yet and have in fact been leading people around to get groceries and other necessities… and getting home from nights out ;).

Anyway I finally got my luggage at noon on Sunday an hour before I needed to meet with our guide to get us to the main campus for our orientation meeting. I FINALLY had soap and a towel and was able to shower. Oh glorious shower! It was sooo nice to get the awful plane grossness off of me after having been on the ground for 24 hours… So I went to the orientation and met a lot of really nice people there. Rory Mclearny (sp) who I found out lives on the floor just beneath mine, a Norwegian girl named Pauline and several others whom I will talk about at another time. Rory, Pauline and I sat together for the meeting which wasn’t too bad.

ACTUALLY when they showed the slide show at the end I saw SOOO many of my friends in the pictures! Stephanie Poucher I saw you in a picture on the Spree boat tour… you were actually in a few pictures. Mouna and Fiona, I saw both of you in a picture that has been at least one of your profile pictures. It’s the one where you and a lot of other FUBiS people are standing in a hallway together laughing and smiling. And Parker! I saw you in a picture as well. I’m not sure where it was taken, but you looked cute in it J

Back to the orientation. After our meeting in the Horsaal, we went and had ate at our welcome buffet. Last time the food was not that great, but wow the food this go round was fantastic! They made us chicken and vegetables in curry sauce on rice and a vegetarian lasagna. Both were absolutely delicious! Not at all typish deutsch, but a good hot meal all the same. I ate my meal with Rory and after finishing we went in search of an open grocery store. On a Sunday this really is a mission of sorts. All but, VERY few stores are closed all day on Sundays. We tried at Rathaus Steglitz, but as I had feared it was closed. Well as I always say, C’est la vie! He and I then trekked home, which I think could have been a lot quicker, had I really been thinking clearly (the jet lag has been getting to me); however it was nice to just walk and get to know the area again with Rory. OH btw although some of you may already understand this, I feel I should clarify. Rory is a boy. My Gilmore Girl loving friends out there, were I’m sure assuming the opposite ;) He’s from the UK, really all over the UK it seems. He was born in London grew up there, and lives and goes to school in Edinburgh, but is of Irish Nationality. Although to get back on track with the story, He and I walked and took a few trains and walked back to our dorm. It was a decent walk so he and I got to know one another a little better.

When we got back to the dorms we found my friend Matt from Delaware, drinking some beers with 2 other guys who are both named Jacob (I’m meeting a lot of Jacobs this year!) out front of Matt’s building. We hung out with them there for a while and made plans to go and get some drinks and food. Rory and I had originally hoped to just go to a bistro we had passed on our way back to the dorms and just chill, but the other 3 really wanted to go into the city. Rory had been here for a few days already and knew a few great places to eat and party. I am drawing a blank on where we went, but it was one of the areas I had not yet been, so I was excited. When we got off the train there was a kiosk selling beer and whisky and coke pre-mixed in cans. The boys all got a few beers and I got my typical Jack and coke…. And we drank those on the way to finding food. Yes, you can just walk around Berlin drinking beer and liquor and no one thinks anything of it. We got some AWESOME currywurst for dinner and the boys got a few more beers with dinner.

After a great dinner of good conversation and amazing food, we headed off to, as Rory calls it, the bottle shop. It’s just the liquor store, but I like the British way of saying it better. After the guys grabbed a few more beers and wine, we headed to this SUPER sketchy looking area, but it was totally fine. It was an abandoned warehouse district turned awesome gratified club scene. The clubs hadn’t opened yet, but we sat and drank a beer and looked at the awesome graffiti. Oh and we made a few buddies who were sitting on the platform near us who were listening to American rappers and doing awesome stunts. I had run out of euros, because I forgot all of the money that I had exchanged before leaving the states at my house. I also have been afraid to pull out more from my account, because I hadn’t been able to check my balance. Rory was really nice and offered me one of his beers and OMG I found a beer I like! I think it was called Farsteiner? I’ll have to ask Rory later. It is one of his favorites too. He gave to me after I found out how much I liked it and we just chilled talking and admiring the graffiti. We headed home after a while and got to bed so we would get up in time for our interviews.

Now we are caught up to today Monday May 30, 2011. Today was the day for our placement interviews. The professors talk with you for a few minutes and based on how well you speak German they place you in the appropriate level. I did ok in my interview. I walked out thinking it went really well, and then as I analyzed it on my way to Rathaus Steglitz to change some cash I had from home to Euros, I realized I had messed up a lot of my grammar. Ugh… Well my placement was B1, but the professor came up to me after our first class intro meeting and told me that if I wanted to move up to B2 after observing our class for a few days I could do so. It is a totally different book than I used last time and a different professor, So I’m sure I’ll learn new things, but I am tempted to move up. The people in my class seem to be a little umm…, well they just don’t know German very well. They all are also about 2-3 years younger than me, whereas all of my friends I have met thus far are in B2 and most are either upperclassmen or grad students like me. We’ll have to see.

I skipped one portion of the day though, after our interviews Matt and I went on the campus tour to familiarize ourselves with the layout of the main building. We then went to the Mensa and grabbed some lunch. Wow I had forgotten how good the big Mensa was!!! I didn’t get anything all that special, but sooo typish deutsch. Matt and I both got a bockwurst, Sautéed spicy onions, and potato salad with a half liter of chocolate milk. OMG SOOOO amazing! We only had to pay €3,30 (in Germany they use commas and not periods, so in the US that would read $3.30) and we absolutely stuffed ourselves. I could not finish more than about half of what was on my plate and I felt a little sick lol. Matt wished he had stopped sooner, because we were both completely stuffed and had to walk back to the Brentanostrasse classrooms by 2pm to get our placements. After we ate we met up with Rory and a tall red headed guy from texas (kinda the build of a FB player, tall and beefy lol) and another guy who goes to emery college… I unfortunately don’t remember either of their names. We walked the whole way back, and It seems Rory and I were the only 2 that didn’t wimp out and take the bus lol. Matt and the Red headed guy got on and then realized the very next stop is where they needed to get off.

Anyway so we got our placements and had our intro day and then went to use the computer lab for a bit. I had foolishly not brought my laptop so I had only a few minutes to check my FB on Rory’s computer. Some of the 16 notifications and E-mails were nice to see, others were a bit devastating. As many of you know my dog Ruby has been sick for the past week or so, and had multiple seizures in the week leading up to my departure. I found out from my sister’s status and a message from my mom that Ruby my beautiful and wonderful little sister of a coonhound has pancreatic cancer. My dad has her on a diet that keeps her blood sugar up so she won’t seize, but pancreatic cancer for a dog is a death sentence. I’m hoping I’ll be able to see her again when I get home, but I have not heard from my mom yet what the next steps we are taking will be. I got this news and was really just heartbroken and decided to go home and just get away from all of the chaos of FUBiS. I took a long way home, which allowed me to walk with my thoughts for a bit.

When I did finally arrive home I changed out of my jeans, scarf, and cardigan into shorts and a T and slept. I woke up at around 10 pm my time, got redressed and went to see if the boys were out at the bench. They weren’t, so I came back up to my room and began writing the blog. It is definitely therapeutic to write all of this, and I think having come with no friends from home I will have more time to write these blogs. None of my friends have made the decision to get a phone or sim card yet, so unless we make plans before we separate there is no chance we will see each other again until the next class day. I don’t really mind that, but when you are looking for someone, it become a bit frustrating. How did we function before cell phones??? I mean really I can’t figure out how people got together! Did they all just sit at home waiting by the phone to figure out what was going down? Mind boggling. Anyway so that is a brief (hahahahahahaha this is 5 freaking pages in my word doc here) synopsis of my first 3 days. I think in the future I should be little less specific. I basically gave you all complete play by play. I only excluded the conversations and a few of the walks home and to shopping. Btw I would like to point out that I have been making a TON of guy friends this year. The majority of the people I hang out with at home and abroad are guys…. Definitely a different trend for me, but I like it J OOOOH and Pav I see signs constantly for Bitburger and it makes me think of you. Miss you all sooo much!!!

Tchüssi!!!

Kathleen

It is now Tuesday May 31^st and I am adding to this post before I update it. We do not know if ruby has pancreatic cancer that is just what my sister understood from what she had been told. She is apparently doing much better. I also am very heavily debating moving up a class. OOHH and the place Rory took us was Friedrichsheim. Ok well Tchüss!