Berlinale!!

The first words out of my host mom's mouth this morning while at breakfast, "Whitney Houston ist tot."  WHAT?!  I asked her to repeat what she said, thinking that I had misunderstood her.  She repeated it, "Whitney Houston ist tot."  I said, "Nein... echt?"  She then told me that she had been found in her hotel room.  The rest of breakfast was pretty quiet.  We usually have a huge breakfast on Sundays and no lunch really.  Tonight we had chicken with cooked potatoes and carrots.  Delicious.  My host mom even took out the Dorothy Lynch and set it next to me.  "I know how much you love your dressing when we have chicken!"  She's exactly right.  It's delicious!


It's Berlinale!  It's also very cold and not fun to stand outside at all.  I'm going to tough it out and wait in line for tickets for some films tomorrow and also hope to see some celebrities that I know are in town.


Well the highlight of this last week was probably getting vertigo for the first time while here.  I thought I had been doing a good job to avoid it, but apparently not.  The weather here hasn't helped my health at all, so I ended up getting a sinus infection.  Whenever I get a sinus infection, it causes my left ear to plug horribly.  My left ear is always the one that gets plugged, never my right one.  Odd.  Anyway, during class on Wednesday I got dizzy all of a sudden and froze. I mumbled medicine and immediately grabbed my purse.  Emily who sits next to me in class looked at me strange for a minute.  I told her I needed medicine and that I'd be fine.  I took my meds for vertigo and thought "yes! Crisis averted!"  Little did I know that vertigo would come back to haunt me later that night.


Our UNL class went to the dome like I mentioned in my previous post.  Before we went, I went into another classroom with Kelleen and Emily.  Kelleen knows about my vertigo since we had two classes together last semester and would be absent due to vertigo.  She gives wonderful massages and was nice enough to give me one before we went to the dome.  She also bought be gummy bears.  Thank you Kelleen! =)  The dome was cool and incredibly beautiful.  Afterwards Kelleen and I needed to meet with Olivia about our upcoming trip to Hamburg.  Olivia had plans after the trip to the dome, so we had to wait until later to meet up with her.  Kelleen and I wandered around and stumbled upon one of my favorite places... the Ampelmann store!!  Oh how I love the Ampelmann.  The little green and red man on the street lights that tells you when you can and cannot cross the street.  He's all over Berlin, but not every crosswalk has him.  It varies, especially with where you're at in Berlin.  We then went to Dunkin Donuts and hung out until Olivia could meet up with us.  We met, chatted, came up with a rough plan for a plan and all headed home.


I had dinner like usual, did some facebook creeping (creeping is caring!), and homework.  I went to bed at a decent hour.  The next thing I knew I was waking up really confused where I was and everything was spinning.  Crap.  Vertigo was back.  I immediately shut my eyes and forced myself back to sleep. I told myself not to look at the clock and just sleep.  I woke up again, but this time nauseas.  Great.  I waited and stayed very still in bed hoping I wouldn't have to run to the bathroom.  I forced myself back to sleep.  This happened about 3 more times.  The next morning I woke up to every single one of my alarms and fell directly back asleep.  I hadn't gotten much sleep and had already decided I wasn't going to school.  Birgit (my host mom) came knocking on my door to wake me up for breakfast.  Ah, I was late to breakfast too?!  I stumbled out of my room and into the kitchen.  I sat down and she immediately asked me "Alles gut? ohh nein.  Alles ist nicht gut... was ist los?"  (Everything good?  Oh no, everything is not good... what's wrong?"  I told her I had woken up multiple times with vertigo and didn't sleep well at all.  She asked me what happened and told me that I should've woken her up.  Any time I don't feel well, I'm supposed to wake her up, no matter what time it is. She wanted to know what had happened exactly during the night and I apologized and told her it would be "auf englisch".  She told me that was fine and I then began to explain what vertigo is exactly and why I get it.  She had been notified by school saying that I had an "illness" to be aware of.  After I was done explaining, she told me she had a doctor appointment for her eye later that morning and that I would go along and see the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist.  Birgit asked for my teacher's number, who is here with our UNL group, so she could call her.  She called her and explained that I had woken up with vertigo and wanted me to see a doctor before the weekend.  Priscilla handed me the phone and we spoke English.  She told me she wouldn't be able to make it to the doctor with me in time and asked if I'd be ok with going and able to handle the situation.  I told her I felt I was capable to do so.  She asked if my hostmom spoke some English and I told her she did.  "Oh good!  That pleases me!"  I told Professor Hayden-Roy I would keep her updated on how I was doing.


German doctor offices are one of the scariest places I have ever been to.  Metal instruments everywhere!  The doctor was nice and spoke English.  Thank goodness.  She took a sonogram of my sinuses to prove I had an infection and used about 4 different tools to look at my throat, nose, and ears.  It was by far the most expensive doctor visit of my life.  I knew I had a sinus infection and only needed the medicine to clear it up.  I'm not taking antibiotics and an allergy spray to help keep my sinuses clear.  Hopefully I'll be feeling healthy again soon!