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 BUT enough about my internet woes, that as evidence of your ability to see this are no longer applicable.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!