Hello everyone. My what a two weeks it has been. Tuesday night, March 30th was a great day. That was the mustache party. Over there on the left are the brave few that made it through the month, Thomas, Lee, Joe Canada, Jonathan, Steve, and me, granted Jonathan had about 7 hairs. The student bar was closed that night because of the first leg of Champions League, Bayern Munich vs Manchester United, so we ended up in a parking garage. I have some battery powered speakers, and we, like Germans, made party. We put a sign on the door and told people where to go. Lots of random people showed up and it was really fun.
Thursday was the real fun though. We left about for Berlin about 2 and got there about 9ish. Our hostel was in a really weird part of town. It was not in a ghetto, but there was part of what looked like a building that was still partially bombed, and it had hobos everywhere. Right up the street was one of the largest indoor stages in the world, if I listened correctly. We were about 2 blocks away from the river Spree,a fairly large one that runs through Berlin.
Friday morning was a really cool city tour given by Klaas, our instructor for our culture course these past six weeks. We also went to the Stasi Museum, the East Germany state security. They were... very intense. One trick they did was make people sit on a special chair that had a removable seat cover. They had to sit on their hands and they would sweat into the cover. They Stasi would then take the seat cover and put it in glass containers, that way they would have scents on file for certain people.
Desa and me with the bug TV tower ---->
Someone knew a few people from Berlin, so we ended up getting on a train and going to a completely different part of town, and its Berlin, so there is a lot of town. We got off at one stop and Joe Omaha and I started walking. We were about a half block out of the train station when we realized everyone was following us and we had no clue where we were going. We realized we were told the wring stop, so had to get back on the train anyway. We finally ended up at a Singaporeeze, Singaporian... a restaurant where they serve food from Singapore. Then we went back to our hostel and went to the Brandenburg Gate around midnight. Its gigantic, and looks even bigger at night all lit up.
Saturday was really cool, for me anyway, as I went to four museums. Brady, Kyle, Desa, and I set off around 10 in the morning and went to Museum Island. The Spree splits in the middle of town, and on that island there are 5 museums that you can go to. We are students, so we payed 7 Euros for a day ticket. The first was the Bode Museum. The building was really cool and inside were a lot of cool statues and figures. The next was awesome. The Pergamon. It was named after an old Greek town in modern day Turkey. The museum has an old temple to the Greek Gods, and there is a huge mural about the gods battling the giants. The temple steps and part of the walls rebuilt in this museum. This also a huge gate from an old town in Turkey and some really cool walls... I could go on for a while.
<----Part of an old market gate moved to Berlin.
The third was the Old National Art Gallery. It had some art even I enjoyed looking at, though I still think Monet is overrated. The last one just Desa and I went to, the New Museum. It had lots of old Egyptian stuff and old Germanic trive stuff. Weapons, tools, and a bust of Nefertiti that most people have probably seen pictures of, as its featured in any presentation on Egyptian stuff. I didn't realize it till I saw it how much its used.
After that we ended up getting to the hostel and just walking past it for 20 minutes or so till we found a Döner shop that looked good. And good it was. It was life-changing. Then we did the only thing I wanted to do that whole day, got on the Ring. Its a train circuit that goes around Berlin. I wanted to see the coty from the ring at night. You can tell in parts where the West and the East parts of the city are different and all kinds of cool stuff.
Sunday I went to a huge flea market about a 20 minute walk from the hostel, and after that went to an old Nazi bunker. The top floor is now a haunted house, the middle floor is an exhibit on some old medical techniques and the bottom floor is about the bunker, including stuff left in it after the soldiers fled. The thing that made me think the most was a large seashell that got left behind.
Our professor looking at comic books, he bought a batman one.---->
Monday was our wonderful bus ride back. We had a huge test on Tuesday, part one of two that determined if we passed the language course and got 6 credits. Some people studied on the bus that weekend or in the hostel. Like normal I told myself I would study on the way there, put it off saying I would study in the hostel. I put that off to study on the bus ride back. I then told myself I would study in my room. After some getting back I decided to wing it. We took the test and had to wait till Friday for results.
Our class had about 18 people, including about half from countries not the US, so when our teacher said we did poorly on the test and 5 failed I was a bit nervous. The first past was three parts... if that makes any sense, and you had to pass each part with above a 50 and average a 60 total. Which sounds easy, but they graded these classes really hard. I ended up passing with a bit over 1 percent to spare. Other people passed with less room. I think the highest was 68%, so I will take me 61 something percent. Then we had the speaking test, which I got 84 on. The teacher said I was terrible at first, but once I forgot I was speaking German, I was excellent.
And finally this weekend. Fritz and I caught a morning train to Frankfurt. After staying up till 3 with Joe Omaha just chillin, that 10 train seemed kinda early. We then caught another train to Fritz's hometown of Kelkheim. We got there and he showed me some of his old places he grew up. We then got Döner (sense a trend? They are really good.) and even got some for his family. They just moved, so there were a lot of boxes, but I met his mom, dad, and brother. While he took a shower, I moved some boxes and talked with his parents. It was fast at first, but I started to get used to it.
We then met my cousin Kandis back in Frankfurt, where she has been living since February. It was nice to see a familiar face, and I think she thought the same. It was not enough time, but it was still good. Then I went with Fritz to Hofheim, a town that Fritz also knows well. We met some friends of his, including the guys house we were staying at. Overall a really good weekend, and an exciting and busy last few weeks.
<------Kandis in Frankfurt
And I even forgot to mention the games. The second leg of the Champions League of Munich vs Man Utd, was on that Wednesday. We watched that at Sudhaus. They were down 3-0 way too quick, and that hurt a lot. But they ended up advancing to the semi-finals and the cheering at the end of the game was crazy, even in a bar in small town Marburg.
As soon as I get the site to work better I will put up more pictures.
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