"Beer Can" with a british accent

Time for another update!  Things are starting to get busy again with more school trips to interesting places planned.  Only a few more weeks left here.  That's just crazy!  Here's how my last week went:


Last Saturday, the trip for the day was to Potsdam to see Sanssouci and the garden.  I had already been there previously with Jessica, Regan, and Tim.  This time was completely different!  The sun was shining and it was fairly warm!  Spring had definitely made its appearance and we were welcoming it with open arms!  My nice pale skin even got a bit sunburnt, but that went away within the next day.  

Timothy and I in front of Sanssouci

Our group toured the Sanssouci palace.  Of course, since we're all here to continue our German, the tour was in German.  Unfortunately, the tour guide hadn't mastered the art of speaking loud enough for all to hear and at a nice speed.  She spoke incredibly fast, so most of us in the group simply looked at what all the other Germans were looking at and made "awe" and "oh" reactions along with them.  Overall, it was a pleasant day!

Käthe Kollwitz Museum

The group of UNL students here for our Deutsch in Deutschland program visited a museum on Monday.  It was required of us for our class with our professor from home.  A few people were out of the country, so they missed out on depressing artwork.  Oh darn!  The museum was the Kaethe Kollwitz Museum.  Her artwork was really impressive and made you think about what life and times were like back then in Germany.  Our tour guide for the museum was someone we had had previously for one of our other museum visits.  She spoke loud, clearly, and explained things really well.  It's nice when I understand everything that's going on, especially since we would be quizzed over the artist a few days later.  One of her famous pieces of work is the "Mother with her dead Soldier son".  This is what it looks like.  Our class had ventured around Berlin to see buildings designed by a famous German architect, so we had visited this sculpture.  This wasn't made by Kaethe Kollwitz.  It's actually an enlargement of the one she made by a different artist.  It's also quite moving. 

"Mother with her dead son" in the Neue Wache

Turm der Mütter

I really liked this piece by her.   It's a small sculpture.  It's of women encircling a bunch of children.  The facial expressions are of sadness, desperation, and despair.  They didn't want to sacrifice their children to the Nazis or the war.  It's one thing to try and even describe this piece of work and another to really see it.  I really enjoyed the museum and the others in our UNL group did also.   The museum is in the area of Berlin I live in, so I was able to walk home afterwards instead of having to take the train home like everyone else.











Tuesday was small panic day.  My class would have our test to pass into the next level of classes on Wednesday.  Both of my teachers at my language school had already told me that I wasn't a good test taker and that I needed to start meditating.  Instead of doing that, I simply began studying earlier and not worrying about the test so much.  A giant group of Italians had arrived two weeks ago and have been making school miserable.  Since there are so many and they need to really improve their German, they've ruined the school schedule.  There are so many of them that they required more attention of the teachers and smaller classes, so everyone had to have their schedule changed to having class later in the afternoon from 2:45-6PM.  No one wants to be at school then!  I don't love having school at 9AM every day, but I definitely prefer it over class at 2:45 in the afternoon!  We all just want to sleep and not do anything else!  I had late class scheduled that Monday, but that conflicted with our UNL class and the trip to the museum.  My professor talked with the director of our school and they both agreed that those of us taking the test on Wednesday should go to the museum instead of class that afternoon.  "It would be a good listening practice for you all."  It actually was!  Some people were concerned with missing class this close to our test, but if both our professor and the director of our school was telling us to go to the museum instead, I wasn't going to have a problem with it!


Wednesday arrived and my nerves hadn't set it in.  I left the apartment to go meet Emily to head to school.  I stood waiting for almost 10 minutes before calling her.  Normally, we meet at 8:15AM and head to school.  We'll get there 15 minutes early if we're lucky.  I stood waiting at 8:25AM.  She hadn't left her apartment yet and would be hurrying.  My nerves quickly set in.  I started panicking if I would be late for the test.  What would happen then?  Would I miss an important part?  Would the wait for me?  Emily arrived, after some time later, and I walked my fastest pace possible to catch the train.  I was basically sprinting to make it to school and my test on time.  I lost view of Emily behind me at one point when we were close to school.  I wasn't stopping!  This test was important and I absolutely hate being late for important things.  I walked into the classroom just as Angelika, my teacher, started giving instructions.  Pure luck that she hadn't started the actual test!  I rushed to a seat and took out my Kugelschreiber!  (That's pen in German.)  You aren't allowed to use pencil at all. I used to hate writing in pen for things, but that is completely opposite now!  It does help that my notes are multicolored with a different color for each day.  Anyway!  I was feeling pretty good about the test.  No panic attack, no burst of tears, no hyperventilating. I placed my water bottle in front of me along with 2 packets of tissues.  I knew I was going to be that annoying sick kid during testing, but I couldn't avoid it.  I told myself "beer can" with a British accent multiple times throughout the morning to help calm my nerves - just for you, Allison!  Hours later, we finished the first day of testing!  It was only the writing portion of the test and the next day would be the speaking part.


I absolutely hate speaking in front of people.  I'm not quite sure where that dislike comes from, but I've never really felt comfortable doing it.  I've always dreaded speeches and especially in a foreign language.  We would have to describe a picture for 5 to 10 minutes and then a spontaneous situation that would be picked by the test proctors.  My partner for the speaking portion was a girl named Ciindy.  Yes, she spells it with two 'i's in her name.  She's from the french part of Switzerland.  Luckily, she's one of the Swiss kids that I can understand quite well!  A couple of the other girls have extremely thick french accents that are difficult to understand German through, but I was lucky!  My picture description went well as I then led it into a story, which they loved.  I also compared it to the United States, which was something they enjoyed as well and looked for as we spoke.  The situation wasn't bad either!  I wasn't jittery at all while speaking, which is very rare for me when speaking in those kinds of situations.  Ciindy and I had to debate on whether or not children should have a strict relationship with their parents and if rules were good.  I, of course, had to take the "rules are good!  Strictness is wonderful!" approach.  We debated for 10-15 minutes without any real gap in between!  The proctors were laughing and nodding their heads as we spoke.  One of them made a comment that everything was simply a situation and clearly Ciindy and I would never raise children together since we never found a solution.  Both proctors looked at each other and told us we did "sehr gut" and "es war sehr schoen!"  That means we did very well and it was very nice!  We'll get our diplomas either tomorrow or Friday with our actual grades in the various areas.  There was a bit riding on this test for me.  I tried to not let that get to me and to do my very best.


Tomorrow is another day of school and the Italians' last day!  YES!  Saturday I'll go with a group from DiD to Stettin, Poland.  It will be cold, since winter is making a brief visit at the moment.  It'll be neat to see!  I'm a bit sad that they had changed it from Hamburg to Stettin for the trip.  I was planning on seeing my friend Max one last time before heading home in a few weeks.  Instead, Max will just have to visit Berlin!


Next week is already Easter and that means Munich!  My host mom and I are going to dye Easter eggs on either Tuesday or Wednesday.  I'm excited for that!  I only have 1 more weekend here in Berlin, which happens to be the weekend before I leave!  This Saturday is Poland, next weekend is Munich, then Berlin, and then AMERICA!  This semester has flown by!  I really feel like my German has improved in multiple ways and am extremely thankful I was accepted into this program and decided to take part.  It will only be me and one other UNL student flying home together on the 21st and we're both ready to be back!  Don't be surprised if I'm speaking Denglish when I come home, as I do it every day with my host mom here!  Hey, you'll get to learn some German then, right?


I'll update next week before heading to Munich!  Bis bald! (See you soon!)

Kung Fu Panda ist auf der anderer Seite!

Hello again!  I know, I know.  I'm falling behind on the blog again!  I'm getting slightly better at it though so no worries!


I've had a few adventures the past week and they've been pretty fun!  Our group from DiD, my school, went to Rostock last weekend for the Freizeitprogramm.  Rostock is up by the Baltic Sea (Ostsee in German).  It was a three hour train ride there and back to Berlin, so a good chunk of our day was spent on the train.  We had a new group leader who actually created a tour of Rostock for us and wore a little name tag.  None of our other group leaders for the activities have done that.  She's new and is probably one of my favorite leaders along with Anja.  Rostock was pretty and we saw a lot of things.  We then went to Warnamuende to see the Baltic Sea and wander around.  I took a few pictures, but not a lot.


Speaking of pictures... iPhoto is being difficult and not wanting to transfer the pictures from my phone to the computer.  This means that I probably won't get most of my pictures uploaded until after I return to the states.  Sorry about that!  I can upload them via Facebook when I have internet, but that will take a lot longer than I'd like.  I'll see what I can do.


This past week at school was alright.  I was supposed to have my test on the 21st and 22nd, but one of my teachers talked to the director of our school and asked to have it pushed back a week.  She plead the case of us not being ready and wanting us to succeed and do really well on the test, so Herr Schenk (Mr. Schenk) agreed to moving it to a week later.  Woo hoo!  Now I have an extra week to stress out and worry about doing well on it!


Today was wonderful.  The weather was 20 degrees Celsius here!  That's 70F!  Finally, the temperature was above 8C.  I decided to take advantage of the weather and went to one of my favorite places... the zoo!!  A couple of friends came along and it was great!  Gwyneth and Olivia came with me and we ventured to the west Berlin zoo.  It's absolutely huge and there are so many animals!  We saw a panda today and it was great!  We also arrived at the sea lions just in time for one of the zookeepers to put on a show!  I got some great pics of it and also a couple of videos!  I'll have to upload them to Facebook this weekend sometime.  I took over 240 pictures at the zoo!  All of the animals are so close to you!  The cats exhibit is similar to Henry Doorly's, but instead of there being glass inbetween you and the animals, there's only bars!  I loved it!  There were signs warning you that the lions could/will urinate through the bars.  A bunch of little kids were hissing at the lion and we were just waiting for the lion to make a move.  Olivia had to leave around 4PM, so we made sure that we saw what we really wanted to see before leaving.  I wandered around for a bit after leaving them to enjoy the weather a bit. 


Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day and our UNL group is planning to celebrate it!  The Germans don't really celebrate it or even know what the holiday is.  I found that interesting as I had to explain to my host mom what it was.  I've brought green shirts with me so I'm ready to celebrate and hopefully find a green beer somewhere!  It should be a busy day in Berlin as well.  Hertha, Berlin's soccer team, plays Bayern-Munich tomorrow.  Hertha has only won 1 game out of their 12 or 13 and Bayern-Munich is doing great in the league.  We'll have to see how it turns out tomorrow!  

Fussball!!

If you thought Americans were crazy about their football, you've never seen Europeans and their soccer.  I was somewhat prepared, but my mind was still blown.


Our professor from UNL got our group tickets to one of Berlin's soccer games!  It was Hertha BSC vs. Werder Bremen.  My host mom had told me that I had to cheer for Hertha ever since I arrived in Berlin.  They had lost every single game thus far in the season, so I wasn't too hopeful for a win today.  I decided to be a rebel and cheer for Werder Bremen.  While the rest of our UNL group at the game wore their blue and white Hertha scarves, I wore a green Bremen one.


The game was exciting and fun.  I had told my host mom where we sat and she couldn't believe what I had told her.  I repeated that we sat in the east end of the stadium and she looked at me like I was crazy!  The east end is the hardcore fan section and hooligans!  She said it was dangerous for us to be sitting in that section, but was glad nothing had happened.  I told her our professor had actually gotten them for us and all she said was, "What?!  She should have talked to me!"  My hostmom thinks she should be planning our group's activities and that I'm not truly seeing Berlin properly.  I've been given a "To Do" list and will be starting on that this week!


I spent a good 6 hours or so at Starbucks today doing homework and studying.  It's become my hang out spot on the weekends so I'm not in the way of my host mom.  It's also nice to have free wifi on my computer and phone! =)


One of the girls in our UNL group got sent back home to America.  I guess UNL thought she was a liability and so she left yesterday.  I didn't know until we were at the soccer game and asked where she was!  I know my professor thinks me being here with my vertigo is a huge risk, but I'm glad UNL hasn't sent me home because of it!  


Olivia, Kelleen, and I will be going to Munich for Easter!  We get a break from school, which also happens to be the only break we get from school.  I took it as my chance to travel, so we'll be going to Munich for our Easter break.  The BMW museum and plant are on our list of what we'll visit, so I'm excited!  Michael will be jealous!


Michael texted me earlier that Michelle, his sister, is in the hospital since her water broke!  I'm excited that she'll have the baby and there will be another little niece or nephew!  They decided to not find out what they're having, so it'll be a surprise!  I told Michael to keep me updated, so his job is to text me updates as he gets them!


This week will be another busy one with a day trip to Rostock on Saturday with my school.  It's up north by the Baltic Sea, so I'll have seen the Baltic Sea two times shortly after one another!  


I'm off to write a paper about Goethe and his Sorrows of Young Werther.  Yay me.  Bis spaeter!