one more time…

so it’s almost 1 in the morning, i haven’t so much as looked at my homework yet, and i have class at 9am. perfect time to start a blog post.

so a couple of my program-mates have just informed me that they saw my blog. this made me happy, because i honestly believed that the only person who read this was my mother. and i don’t need to impress my mother with my awesome german adventures, because she already loves me. so it’s nice to know that i have more readers.

without further ado, to prevent the hoards of excited fans from going insane out of anticipation, here’s my newest blog post.

life is good. i no longer feel like a complete noob in berlin. i take the wrong train in the wrong direction less than 50% of the time, when i order something at the restaurant, the waiters no longer answer with “would this be easier in english?,” and i suspect that my guest family is beginning to break with the first impression they got of me, namely that i am a complete idiot. what more could i realistically ask for?

today was the last day of the easter vacation, and class starts back up tomorrow. right now, i’m only taking the one german course. it’s 4 hours a day 4 days a week, which although painful at times, actually leaves a good deal of free time. i manage to fill 90% of that free time with utterly useless activities, but the other 10% is actually enriching, fun, or just something i can honestly say was “worth doing” afterwards.

among these are the ongoing excursions we have on fridays. some have certainly been more fun than others, but all in all it’s been a good experience. for example, the week before last, we went to the reichstag, where we toured the building, watched a debate over extending social benefits, and spoke with some german political dude. here are some pics.

the reichstag

die kuppel der reichstags

awesome elevator with mirrors on all 4 sides

view from the top

brandenburger tor (right around the corner)

Aeroflot –WTF?

but as i said, there is definitely a range in how fun these activities are. the tour of prenzlauerberg, while interesting was a bit on the dull side, for example. there is an extreme outlier however, and sadly it’s in the negative direction.  i like to think i’m pretty open to culturally enriching activities. i certainly enjoy most museums, i like to just sightsee, and pay pretty close attention during tours of historic sites. where i went wrong here, however, is assuming that because i mildly enjoyed “hairspray” on broadway, i would be able to appreciate the wonder that is german opera.

we were 5 minutes late to the show, and only a half hour later i wished we had never showed up. i don’t mean to knock on opera in general, maybe it was just this one, maybe i was tired, maybe it was the fact that i have a hard enough time understanding spoken german, let alone sung german. i don’t know, but when it ended, 3 hours later, i was certainly of the impression that it was at least 2 and a half hours too long. i tried pretty hard to pay attention, but couldn’t help nodding off at least a dozen times. the worst part came, when, 2 hours into the show, the lights went on and everyone was getting up from their seats. in my still dazed state, i grabbed my jacket and breathed a sigh of relief, only to be informed that it was the intermission and we had over an hour left.

i felt kind of like a jerk complaining about the opera, because some people obviously were enjoying it, but at that moment, i just could not believe that. i guess i’m not cultured enough. oh well.

the dreadful place itself

this is me before i fell asleep

that’s all for now. i’m kind of tired, and this homework isn’t going to do itself. so, until i muster enough motivation to post again, keep it real.