Sprachenzentrum

Today was my first day of work at Humboldt-Uni and I honestly think I'm going to like this internship.  I was a bit nervous to start my internship because I've heard a lot of horror stories thus far from some of the other interns in this program.  Needless to say a lot of students here are not fans of CDS.  One of the best things I'd have to say about my job is that I start everyday around 10 am and the hours are very flexible.  My boss was always telling me to take breaks when I wanted or to go to lunch whenever and that I don't need to be reporting to her all the time.  There are also two other German interns there who I'll be working with during the Summer University session.  Basically what we do is help the international students coming to Humboldt for a 4 week class in either German Language, Germanistik, Art, and Area Studies (whatever that is).  Some of the courses are offered in English and German and the others are only offered in German, so I guess I'm considered as the English specialist; I'm pretty sure that's the terminology that was used.  The students are not here yet but they'll be coming on the 16th and 17th of July so we are tasked with creating a "welcome package" of information for them.  Not only will we be an informational resource for them but throughout the course of the program we have a series of trips and activities planned as well.   Like one weekend we'll be going to Potsdam, then there's a weekend where we'll be having a barbecue (which they refer to as "grillen"), and there is also a boat tour of Berlin.   Today was a little slow though which was good.  I got a tour of all the buildings where classes will be held and the international student cafe where we'll be hanging out some days with the students. I have to say it was also a little overwhelming to, remembering all the rooms, where to get keys, who to talk to for help, and on top of that everything was in German.  It's great though because rather than just sit in a classroom and learn German all day, I'm actually out practicing my German in a job, applying everything.  It felt a little discouraging, knowing that I couldn't speak as quickly or understand everything they were saying all the time but this is definitely one of the best ways to learn and practice.

KaDeWe und Karneval der Kulturen

Again I haven't been keeping up with the blogging and for that I apologize.  Apparently more people read this than I thought so it's good motivation to keep updating it.  I can't remember the exact dates but last week was pretty eventful with some of the highlights were, as the title of this post, Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) and Karneval der Kulturen.  As I mentioned before we have a pretty dope teacher for our German class and last Friday we took a field trip to KaDeWe.  KaDeWe is essentially a gigantic, 7-story Macy's with everything you can imagine.  If you have the means, I highly suggest you visit it.  Everything was far more expensive than anything worth buying while here in Europe for 3 months so I settled for a bratwurst and looked around for a while.  If  you come to Berlin it's definitely something you should see but I wouldn't spend a whole day there.  So instead of taking the S-Bahn which would have only been about a 30 minute ride, we walked through Tiergarten, which I'm actually glad we did.  Tiergarten is the equivalent of NYC's Central Park and is apparently home to many rabbits, birds, and wild boars.  Berlin actually has a significant amount of wild boars plaguing the foliage and gardens of many Berliners.  It was great we walked because we ended up stopping in a Biergarten on the way and some people ended up going on boats through Tiergarten.  I'm not exactly sure if there was any significant educational value to our trip to KaDeWe but I'm sure there was some somewhere.

This past weekend was also a big festival here in Berlin called Karneval der Kulturen (Carnival of Cultures).  It's similar to the giant parade called "Karneval" and lasted from about 12:30 in the afternoon until about 9 or 10 at night.  It was interesting to see all of the different cultures here that Berliners associate themselves with.  All of the people in the parade were dressed in some type of costume and everyone had a float or some kind of performance.  The parade was only one part of the festival because Friday & Saturday there were also performance from bands all over the world.  The food was also great because there was a mix of African, Asian, and some German food everywhere.  Not exactly sure what I ate that night but it was good I'm sure.

We also had Monday off because once again the Germans are a very religious people and find it appropriate to take Pentecost off.  I wish we had these holidays in America.

Next week will be our last week of class and I'm pretty sure I'll have been here a full month at that point.  Some days go by faster than others but I really can't believe it's been a month already.  I'm excited to start my internship at Humboldt and I have another meeting with my boss next week Wednesday.  I think I'm also going to start looking for places to travel so if you have any recommendations, let me know.

Bis dann

Long time, no update

I've been sucking at keeping this blog updated so this one will probably be pretty lengthy (sorry Ty & Remi).  I'm now going on my second week of classes and it's been great.  Like I mentioned before, our teacher is absolutely hilarious, not only in the fact that shes always cracking jokes (German jokes which aren't usually very funny), or playing Tabu with us, but the fact that she likes to go outside during our breaks and enjoy a cigarette with the other students in our class.  Normal.  I know it will be a sad day when we "graduate" but I'm looking forward to the Muckefuck party we have scheduled.  The class is not the most challenging but it is a nice refresher course in certain things I've learned ages ago and that seem pretty relevant to what would be useful in everyday situations.  All in all, "school" is great but I'm really looking forward to starting my internship.

If you haven't heard by now, and if you haven't then you've been living under a rock for the past 3 weeks, there is an e. coli outbreak here in Europe mostly concentrated in Northern Germany.  Perfect.  The German Health authorities have not quite pinpointed the source, but there have been quite a few accusations as to its point of origin which has actually started to piss a number of people off.  Considering I'm not a huge green vegetable eater this hasn't affected me as much but I'm still very cautious about what I'm eating.  My host mom says it's a bunch of crap and that the media is just trying to influence the public with their endless propaganda for the government, so I'm having a hard time either 1) buying into this e. coli thing or 2) thinking she's a crazy liberal, vowing to prove the corruption of government and influence through media.  Either way this shits kind of scary but I've survived it in America so I should have no problem here.

The weekends have been by far the most exciting times here in Germany and no I'm not saying that just because we go out and drink 95.5% of the time.   There are actually a billion things, sights to see, and people to meet here in Berlin and I feel like I won't have the opportunity to see everything but I'm going to damn well try.  The crew from State and I have gotten into this habit of going to local "Fests" and I've got to say they've been some of the more fun things we've done while in Germany.  Not to mention they serve as great pre-game events before heading out to the clubs.  One fest in particular that we went to was called Havelfest which was kind of like a street fair where you could buy local arts & craft?,  and naturally beer and brats.  I'm not sure if I'll ever tire from the brats and at 2 euro a piece it makes them hard to resist, especially when you need something to complement the mug of beer you just bought.  My house mom keeps making jokes that I'm  always trying to eat German food and why I wouldn't seems somewhat rhetorical.  At Havelfest I'd say we experienced our first instance of anti-Americanism from the Germans which was a lot more frustrating then I thought it would be.  The looks that we got from some of them were like we had just landed a space shuttle in the middle of their damn Biergarten and we were going to snatch all the wurst and run.  Then another gentleman proceeded to show us his freshly done tattoo (hopefully it was fake) of a blue cross with a German flag in the middle, saying 'we are german' blah blah blah.  Typical anti-american behavior.  It got better though because we actually did run into some courteous, polite people and now I regret not recycling that glass bottle   I threw away in my fit of rage.  I also witnessed my first German sporting event of watching the qualifying match against Germany v. Austria on TV and man do they get fired up.  It's interesting being in a country that likes watching soccer just as much as I do and it's unfortunate that their season ended right before we got here.  Thankfully Germany ended up winning in the last minute or I don't know what would have happened.

I won't bore you with every little single detail of what we did over the weekend but I am having a blast here in Germany.  It's only been about 3 weeks so I'm excited to see what else there is to do here in Berlin and I'm also thinking about scheduling something outside of Germany, but we'll see.  Thank you for everyones support with my Grandmother passing and supporting me in general.  Miss everyone like crazy back in the States and hopefully everyones' summer is going as great as mine.

Bis dann,

Picasa Web Albums

I've been uploading some of my pictures as I go but these aren't all of them.  Anyway here's the link to my Picasa Web Albums, let me know if you can see them or not...

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos