Great Scott!

Friday, Oct 30

Today's post is sponsored by The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which I am currently reading, and as a direct result you may find in some areas of my writing today a somewhat altered and deliciously British-esque (I am aware that's not a word) quality!

Good heavens, it's been a long time without a post; over a month! I suppose that's due to the fact that I've been, for the most part, quite comfortable here in Berlin, and to be honest, the blog slipped my mind for awhile. Terribly sorry.

Ah, well, there's no use blathering about past negligence; we are in the present after all, and so: Happy Halloween, my dear American friends!! Yes indeed, this is the first notable holiday I'm missing due to my thrilling adventures abroad. Berlin is not primely designed for trick or treating, since most of the people here rather live on top of one another in many-staired apartment buildings instead of in houses in neighborhoods. And because Halloween is primarily an American holiday, I doubt going door to door asking for candy with the underlying threat of a trick would be altogether welcome to most Berliners. Undoubtedly there are probably a good dozen or so public parties going on tomorrow night. After all, it's a fun-loving holiday that happens to fall on a Saturday this year, though it seems that young Berlin is forever finding reasons to party. I think I'll be spending Halloween a quiet evening at home at the apartment with Christian, which to me seems better than being out in that cold at night with disguised strangers in a huge city. :)

The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is fast approaching: November 9th. I fully expect fireworks for the greater part of the evening! I'm excited to see what the city has in store for that day.

(aaaaand, switching back to modern English)

School is, overall, going well. I've had over 10 different teachers since I've started there and that is a drawback. Basically, school goes down like this: 90 minutes with one teacher, half hour break, then 90 more minutes with another teacher. So, when you think about it, it's not as though I only have a single teacher and that teacher has changed 10 times. Nevertheless, it gets tiring to suddenly discover this Lehrerin that you've been learning from for some time suddenly is gone the next week and we all have to adapt to a new form of teaching. On the brighter side, I suppose things stay fresh that way. I do think, however, that I was spoiled in my first to weeks there when I had two really awesome and fresh people to learn from.

More recently, my teacher told me she had talked with my teacher from the second 90 minutes and they agreed I would do better in the next highest level. I agreed to move up, but I am pretty nervous that it could be too advanced for me. I'm currently in the middle of B1, and I'll be moving into a class that's more toward the end of the B1 level (the levels of language skills go: total beginner A0, A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 nearly native). Of course, I was happy that they thought I was making so much progress, but what if I can't take it?! Also, I'll be saying goodbye to the classmates that I've gotten to know over the last weeks. Ah well... I'm here to learn. Wish me telepathic luck on Monday when I join the "big kids"!

Today I'm operating on not nearly as much sleep as I would like to, due to the unfortunate fact that the two radiators in our rooms happened to have been manufactured in Hell! (pardon mein Deutsch) It sounds-- and I don't think I can do it justice --- it sounds like there is something inside the radiators, one in our bedroom and the other in our living room, trying to beat it's way out. But it's not a constant banging, but rather a violent strike quite literally every other second coming from the inside. We woke up at about 2am, and Christian tried fiddling with it but it was useless. The only way to stop the endless noise was to turn the heat ALL the way up for the rest of the night. We were way more than toasty, but it was finally quiet enough to sleep. Our flatmate that mostly handles those kinds of problems is currently in Munich, so we'll have to figure something out for tonight and tomorrow on our own!

(finished on Saturday, Oct. 31)
Christian and I went out with some friends from GLS because one of our old classmates is heading back to England on Sunday. Altogether there were approximately 18 of us, but I only knew about 7 of them. GLS has a lot of students from Switzerland (from the French and Italian speaking parts) who need to learn German for a job or college back home. Anyway, most of the people that were there last night were from Die Schweiz, so they pretty much all knew each other and spoke French and Italian all night at one end of the table, and we got to spend some time with some good friends and have some good conversation on our end of the table. Because it was a Friday night, we had kind of a hard time finding a good restaurant that could accommodate all of us. Finally we ate at a Mexican restaurant. The food was good, but every time I eat Mexicanishes Essen, it really makes me long for Cebollas. I don't know if our Mexican food in the US is more authentic (thought I think it is), but I really miss it sometimes!

Speaking of getting together and food, Christian and I are hosting Thanksgiving at our apartment. If everyone attends who was invited, it will be 10 people altogether! I was a little concerned that I wouldn't be able to find a whole turkey here, but KaDeWe Kaufhaus Des Westens (I think it's the largest department store in Europe) has pretty much every type of food you could want. They sell whole turkeys; granted, they're not as big as you might find back home, but they will most likely get more in as Thanksgiving nears due to the number of Americans living full time in Berlin. You might remember in my previous blog that I said it's hard to come by American brands of food here. I suppose that's not entirely true. The bigger grocery stores usually have an international section and there's usually a little half shelf of American goods. Now, what kinda dampens my spirits (because it further spreads a bad stereotype of America) is that the food there is mostly junk. Candy bars, Oreos, Mike 'n Ike's, liquid marshmallow spread, Crisco, chocolate sauce, cans of Stars and Stripes root beer, buttery microwave popcorn, Cheez Whiz, other liquid-form processed cheeses in hokey bottles, little tubs of cake frosting, boxes of cake, cookie, and brownie mix (5.95 euros a pop! or $8.75), Aunt Jemima's Syrup, pancake mix, pop tarts, and other such things. Come on... I mean, I see all these sections marked from other countries like Sweden, Russia, the Ukraine, Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, Japan, Thailand, Mexico, Australia, and they all contain really cool kinds of sauce, spices, noodles, really exotic stuff and you come to the American section and it's like Chuckee Cheese meets Candy land. The KaDeWe selection of "American food" is much larger than others, and there's even a little Statue of Liberty proudly standing before it all: America! Land of the free and home to the portly! It is somewhat entertaining to see a Reese's 3 pack at 2.72 euro though. Never the less, KaDeWe has a pretty impressive selection of barbecue sauce from the US. There is a German version of barbecue sauce, but I really don't think it compares. Though a 6 oz A1 bottle is gonna cost you close to 10 euros (nearly 15 USD).

Note that these photos from the LINKS below are ones I had to hunt for online since cameras aren't allowed in the KaDeWe, and German authority scares me a little... so I had to find and steal the pictures of people who broke the rules and took photos in the store, lol. I apologize if some of the links don't work (they could be protected).

As for the selection of food in KaDeWe, it can't be matched. Spices from all over the world, sausages of all kinds, meat and not to mention your Christmas-themed meats, more chocolate than I thought existed, plenty of juice (including Sauerkraut Juice! nom nom!) cakes, cookies, cheese, really fresh fish, scary fish, a garden of Eden... and much more.

I'm getting hungry... which reminds me: when my parents were here, we went to a cute little cafe/crepes place and I unknowingly ordered myself a gigantic cup of tea. I must have been about half a liter of tea and it was all in an enormous cup, haha. Then we had some delicious works-of-art made out of crepes with ice cream. Mine was sour cherry with chocolate ice cream.

My parents visit went well. I'm planning on including a description of that along with some pictures of Potsdam in the next blog entry. As I was talking to a friend last night, I realized how lucky Christian and I are to have open-minded parents who have both traveled to the other's country to experience it. I am really grateful for that. From now on, Germany and the US will have a very strong connection in our family, and experiencing each other's countries has lead to a greater understanding between the two. The differences between the two don't seem as big anymore. Anyway, thank you Angelika and Gerd, and Mom and Dad for taking the initiative to experience each other's lives! It really means plenty to me, and I know to Christian as well. :) Miss you Mom and Dad!!!

And finally, I wanted to leave you with a photo of what our apartment building looks like from the front. We live at the top there, the balcony without a roof. It's deceiving because it stretches out behind quite far with two courtyard-like areas. We live in the apartment part of an old cookie factory. Behind the front facade, when you're in the courtyard, you can really tell from the factory-like windows and stone walls that it definitely used to be a manufacturing building. Now, however, it's converted into loft-like apartments and some sort of a blue-collar school in the back.

Well, I hope everyone has a happy Halloween! Be safe and have some fun! ^^